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Closed In - Chapter Four: The Spinning Top

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Closed In</u>

By Shinku

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Chapter Four: The Spinning Top

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Tooth was tired.

Centuries of doing her job, ensuring that the children’s memories were kept safe and cared for, and all for what? To sit back and watch as bad memories, memories that she had kept safe, slowly killed her dearest friend?

No!

That wasn’t her purpose!

….But… with all good things… bad things inevitably followed, and she had to be honest enough with herself to acknowledge that not all the memories she collected from the children were happy ones. Some Tooth Boxes, she knew, scarcely held any good memories, but…

…But why did it have to be Jack?

Tooth ran a worried finger over the Tooth Box in her hand, remembering.

When Jack had come to her a few weeks after accepting his Guardianship with the question of how she had earned her title she hadn’t been surprised. It was only logical that the Winter Spirit would want to get to know all of them now that he was officially one of them, and… maybe she had wanted to make up to him a little for not trusting him when she should have during Easter.

So, when he asked her, she had told him everything, from her parents’ meeting and marriage, to her birth and childhood, to the surprise of her later sprouting wings and feathers. She didn’t leave a single thing out. She told him the whole story all the way up to her parents’ death and her then constant struggles with the Monkey King. He had been so attentive and kind and just so… Jack… throughout the whole story. She hadn’t expected him to unintentionally sucker punch her with the question he did once the tale was over.

“So you didn’t die?”

…Such an innocent, simple question.

She had wanted to be sick at its implications.

That was when she had found out, when he had haltingly confided in her how he had been made a spirit, that some of his childhood memories were, “doing bad things” with his last memories as a human and his first memories as a spirit.

Worried, she had quickly gotten his permission to view his collected memories in the hopes of helping him.

…Sometimes, when she felt really selfish, she wished that she had never asked to view them.

Jack’s father had not been a good man. He was a shepherd by trade, she learned, but he was also a drunk. When he felt that his children were “acting up” he would lock them without food or drink in the family’s cellar for a day or two until they “calmed down”.

The cellar was very small and dark and because it was so deep in the ground it remained fairly chilly all year round.  

Jack had been a very rambunctious child; his poor mother, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t keep up with him. She couldn’t protect him.

Without fail his disciplining had almost always fallen to his father.

Tooth shuddered as her hands tightened around the Tooth Box in her hands, Jack’s Tooth Box.

He would spend days in that small dank place, cold, alone, and hungry, always waiting for someone to let him back out.

The Winter Spirit couldn’t tolerate small spaces now, could barely keep his wits together in North’s spacious office workshop when the man wanted to talk ice sculptures with him.

Between his father’s idea of a proper punishment and his death by drowning, it had all come together to form a phobia so potent as to leave him severely anxious to be in any enclosed space that didn’t have more than one possible exit.

Teaching him coping techniques had been her first step to helping him deal with the issue. Once he had seemed to have a fair grasp of what needed to be done in case of an impending panic attack, she had gently started talking with him about his childhood. Over the year they had made progress, speaking about his father and his persistent fears of the man despite both of his parents being dead for over three centuries. He was skittish during their talks but at the same time determined. He didn’t want to be held back by his bad memories.  

And he was getting better.

His lack of barely contained paranoia at their monthly meetings had proven that to her.

But in no way, shape, or form was Jack Frost ready to face his fears head on, the risks to himself and to others was still too high.

Spirits, after all, weren’t like humans.

When humans were constantly exposed to a traumatizing fear their physical bodies tended to trip ancient survival protocols within themselves. In most cases one of two things happened. Either the brain “switch itself off” to try to protect and preserve the individuals sanity, or the constant stress to the individual’s mind and body eventually fostered illness within the vessel in question, and in some rare cases even death.

For spirits, on the other hand, there were no “rare cases”.

If their center, their core, was put under any undo emotional stress for a prolonged period of time by a traumatizing fear then that fundamental part of them began to erode and fracture. Once a spirit’s core fully destabilized that near limitless well of power inside of them sort of… exploded. But it didn’t destroy what surrounded it. Instead it kind of rapidly took over the area that it was exposed to it, turning it into a living embodiment of what it represented.

For a spirit like Jack, that would mean his magic would turn wherever he had been spirited away into a Winter Wonderland, and it wouldn’t be the kind of winter the boy usually brought.

It would be his magic at it’s most raw and untamed, subarctic conditions that would take centuries if not thousands of years to put to rights once it fully took root.

…And Jack, without his magic to anchor him to the physical world, would Fade away. His spirit would be pulled into the afterlife, and they would be left without even a proper body to mourn.        

Maybe that was why today had hurt so much, why even the possibility that one of their own could…

The Fairy Queen took in a deep trembling breath, trying to dispel the heavy weight that had settled across her shoulders.

She didn’t want to think it, didn’t want to harbor the suspicions she did, but after what she had saw today…

She wouldn’t deny her own instincts twice.
 
Not when Jack’s life was possibly on the line.

A quiet chirrup followed by the distinct humming of a small flock of mini-fairy had Tooth turning to smile expectantly up at her daughters.

“Are these the others that play with you and Jack?” She asked Baby Tooth.

The little fairy nodded sharply, motioning her sisters forward as they flew forward to form a rigid line in front of their mother.

There were twelve in total, Baby Tooth included, each wearing the same identical expression of stubborn determination.

They wanted their friend back.

They were going to get their friend back.

Nothing would be allowed to stop them.

Tooth felt an unexpected surge of pride at her daughters’ loyalty and resolve.

A Tooth Fairy never forgot a friend.

“Alright guys, listen up! We’re all going to be on the search for Jack, but you twelve are going to have an extra special mission.” She informed them candidly, and as she meticulously defined the mission’s parameters to them her smile began to take on a distinctly darker edge.

He may have tried to hide it, but Tooth saw what the Pooka didn’t want them to see.

Bunny knew something about what had happened to Jack.

He knew, and he had lied to them about it.

The Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies did not care for liars.

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Jack came awake with a jerk, pale eyes skittering around the small room nervously as he sat up.

Something had changed.

He wasn’t sure what it was, but he could taste it in the air around him, like a lightning strike in the middle of a thunder snow. The atmosphere was charged and vigilant, waiting.

What was happening now? Was Bunny still angry with him? Was he going to do something else to him? Had he decided that forcing him into this prison wasn’t enough? Did he think that Jack deserved worse?

The Winter Spirit shuddered and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as the possibilities danced across his mind’s eye. Would he flood the room, banking on Jack’s powers to freeze the liquid solid as he struggled to find a way out? Would he collapse the walls and ceiling, letting him be buried alive with no hope of ever digging his way back out? Or would he just permanently seal the room off, leave him to rot in the dark, never to see the sky or the Wind again?

It took several moments and a sharp gasp for Jack to realize that his fingers and toes were tingling, and that his vision was beginning to gray out at the edges.

He wasn’t in the room. He wasn’t in the dark. He was in the trees. He was surrounded by leaves. There was nothing to be afraid of. The world still existed outside his space…

Slowly, bit by bit Jack’s breathing returned to something resembling manageable, each little gasping breath a small victory unto itself as the darkness left his sight. But no matter what he did he couldn’t stop his body from shaking; couldn’t stop the bone deep tremors that threatened to tear him apart.

What was Bunny going to do to him, now?

Did the Pooka really think he deserved this?

Abruptly a pulse of pure power bore down on the room, slamming Jack back down onto the floor with a force that left him breathless.

Rapidly the energy began to build in intensity and strength, the air becoming thick and electric as the weight of the magic bore down on him harder and harder...

...And then, as if an invisible damn broke, it dissipated.

Jack took in a deep shaking breath, gasping as he tried to make heads or tails of what had just happened.

Had Bunny done something to the room?

Unexpectedly a rabbit hole opened up in the middle of the ceiling, and before the Winter Spirit could so much as muster the will to be afraid a body fell from the void and landed with a solid thump in the middle of the room as the ceiling closed over again.

Jack stared at the familiar form with wide, disbelieving eyes.

It couldn’t be…

With a low groan and a weak flop, the sprite watched as Pitch Black barely managed to push himself off his back and onto his stomach, pained golden eyes opening to stare at him incredulously.

The Winter Spirit’s mouth opened and closed uselessly.

Just how had the Boogeyman manage to land himself in Jack’s prison?

Staring at the tall, lanky form of his new cellmate, the sprite unexpectedly felt his chest begin to tighten as he realized just how much space the older spirit took up.

Jack’s anxiety quickly turned to panic as he began to hyperventilate, his breath coming in short quick pants as the walls around him seemed to subtly close in.  

Heart pounding in his ears as the darkness once again began to take over his field of vision, Jack could only watch as the Nightmare King’s eyes widen in stunned surprise before his mouth opened to a word he couldn’t hear.

It was the last thing Jack saw before the darkness completely closed in around him and carried him away.

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“Frost…?” Pitch asked as he felt the younger spirit’s fear abruptly fade as he fell unconscious.

It couldn’t be… Jack Frost was the source of fear?

…but… why?

When he had first seen the Winter Spirit in the room he had thought that he had been lured into a trap, a way for the Guardians to finally gain the upper hand and permanently put an end to him. But the sharp spike of terror from the smaller spirit had disabused him of that notion quickly.

His fear had been too potent, too raw and unfettered to be the cursory fear of an accomplished actor.

This was… all very unexpectedly strange…

Just what had he landed in the middle of?

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Bunny sensed the change as soon as he entered the Warren.

There was a certain stillness to the place, a bite to the air that screamed of Winter.

Glancing around the various underground hills and glades that made up his home, Aster realized that production had managed to finish early while he was away. All the little egglets were colored and tightly grouped together as they waited for him, the large Sentinel Eggs waiting just as closely together by the Continental Exits… almost as if… as if they were trying to conserve warmth.

Looking a little more closely, Bunny felt a disturbing sense of horror as he realized that it wasn’t just the air and atmosphere of the Warren that had changed. A fine almost unnoticeable dusting of frost covered not only his sentinels but his entire Warren as well.

The Pooka’s ears went flat against his head in fear as he realized just how far everything was spiraling out of his control.

This was… not what he had expected to happen when he had started all of this.

Was this… Did Jack do this intentionally?

Crouching down, the Pooka carefully reached out and poked gently at one of the rime covered leaves at his feet, waiting for the familiar blue spark of Jack’s Joy magic to flare.

But nothing came, no Joy, no Hope, no anything. The hoarfrost was as dead and bitter as the deepest arctic tundra.  

That was… a very bad sign.

Jack’s Joy and Winter magic were as intricately entwined as Bunny’s own Hope and Spring magic were, for one to be seen without the other meant that the Winter Spirit’s core was already starting to slowly fracture. But… that couldn’t be right… It had only been a day and half, it shouldn’t be progressing this quickly.

Turning his head to glance at the small, half hidden entrance that he knew would take him down into the secondary maintenance tunnels Aster felt his heart sink.

The frost was thick there, so thick that the normally discreet opening had been lit up like a beacon in the Warren’s dim lighting.

There was no mistaking what such a thing meant.

Jack himself might not be able to get out of the room, but some facet of his magic was most assuredly not about to sit idle, seeking a way to attract help to its host.  

What should he do?

Morality and honor said that he should let Jack out now; confess everything to the others before the kid got any worse but… then what would happen to Easter? They had gotten lucky last year with Sandy coming back at the same time that the Tooth Fairies had released the children’s memories. But while the others counted the near loss as a victory, Bunny knew the truth of the matter.

If they hadn’t pulled through when they had, Bunny wouldn’t have made it out the night before Fading.

Aster turned his attention back to the dead rime at his feet, conflicted.

As much as he liked to poke fun at North about Easter being better than Christmas the truth was that the little tykes really did look forward to Christmas more than Easter.

Centuries back, when chocolate and maybe a small prize hidden in a handful of very special eggs had been the height of gift giving Christmas and Easter had been neck and neck for Believers.

But in recent decades things had changed.    

He still had Believers, still had more power than most of the spirits in the world knew what to do with, but the decline from what it used to be was glaringly obvious to him. Things that used to take barely a flicker of his magic and attention where now forcing him to bring out foci and channels just to get the same jobs done; if things kept up the way they were… well, Pitch and his schemes would be the least of his problems in a couple more centuries.

To keep things consistent he needed this Easter to pull through, he needed the Belief and time to build a new Belief Base before his old one crumbled beneath him.

But he didn’t want to sacrifice Jack in the process.

Maybe… maybe there was a way he could do both.

He only needed twenty-four hours to hide all of his eggs, and Jack’s condition had taken a little over thirty-six hours to reach the point it had. If he headed out now and really pushed it he could shave off a good four hours, and if things progressed roughly the same way as they had then he would have a good sixteen hours or more before Jack became critical. He would have plenty of time to get Jack out, explain everything to the others, and get the kid stable again. It wouldn’t make what he had done right but… he would take what he could get.

What else could he do?


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Sandy frowned as he monitored the dreams of the children, hoping for some hint of Jack.

The best he had been able to come up with so far was a memory inspired dream involving Jack and a small girl in Russia playing in the snow a little over a day and a half ago.

For a young spirit like Jack, that was just starting to build his belief base, it was an unusually large gap in interaction.

The Wishing Star didn’t like it.

As much as he didn’t want to consider Tooth’s suspicions, the evidence, or lack of, was starting to look quite damning.

Jack, as a Winter Spirit, fell under Mother Nature’s purview.

No one with any common sense would withhold the child from doing his job without risking the Lunarian’s wrath, not even Pitch Black. But Bunny had always pushed the limits of what the woman was willing to allow, and now Sandy was beginning to think that Mother Nature’s lack of severe censure might have just cost their newest Winter Spirit his second life.

Whether he liked it not, as soon as Tooth’s mini-fairies arrived he would send off his Sands to help them discretely search through Bunny’s tunnels for Jack.

At this point, he could only hope that they came up empty handed, and that Jack was found safe elsewhere.

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Don't mess with Big Sister Tooth, she gets mean. :devilish:
© 2014 - 2024 Reborn-Chan
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kidsis5of5's avatar
Ok, ok so I just had to go on and read chapter four. It was niggling around in the back of my head and wouldn't allow me to get back into the Star Trek fic you sent me. Oh this is bad, very, very bad. Poor Jack!!!!! You actually had me tearing up as I was reading about his awful past. Little Girl, I know our life has been no bed of roses but where do you get these ideas??? You actually had your own Mama crying for a child that isn't even real! Kudos, lovey!!! Phenomenal work!!! If you can get me this interested in a story I have no real knowledge of, you deserve one of the bestest cookies that you cook for me!!!
Your Mama is hooked and don't think I'll be listening to you too much before the finished product because I really want the enjoyment and surprise of it all.