Jackson Overland Frost (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
frostedoverland) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thelegion2016-11-28 09:05 pm
frostedoverland) wrote in thelegion2016-11-28 09:05 pm
Entry tags:
Video
[Jack Frost comes on the feed, looking only slightly confused as he tries to make sure it's working. It's been awhile and he generally doesn't handle electronics, shhh.]
O-kay, hopefully, this is working. Didn't really use this much last I was here--
[He had his staff held under his arm but now that the comm seems to be working, he holds it with one hand so he could let his staff rest naturally on his shoulder.]
Hey, everyone. Guess I'm back. [He shrugs, not totally okay with it but clearly going to roll with it since he already had his initial shock from before.] Been a few months but I guess I'm still needed and, assuming I still get to be seen by everyone, here I am.
Uh, if anyone doesn't know who I am or are new, I'm Jack Frost. Yes, that Jack Frost, and I was here once before for a few weeks. Got sent back home though and now I'm here. Again.
So, uh, yeah. Hi. Did I miss anything?
[A beat.]
No one gets to call dibs on me this time. [He still doesn't really know what that means.]
O-kay, hopefully, this is working. Didn't really use this much last I was here--
[He had his staff held under his arm but now that the comm seems to be working, he holds it with one hand so he could let his staff rest naturally on his shoulder.]
Hey, everyone. Guess I'm back. [He shrugs, not totally okay with it but clearly going to roll with it since he already had his initial shock from before.] Been a few months but I guess I'm still needed and, assuming I still get to be seen by everyone, here I am.
Uh, if anyone doesn't know who I am or are new, I'm Jack Frost. Yes, that Jack Frost, and I was here once before for a few weeks. Got sent back home though and now I'm here. Again.
So, uh, yeah. Hi. Did I miss anything?
[A beat.]
No one gets to call dibs on me this time. [He still doesn't really know what that means.]
no subject
[He stood up and walked over to a nearby tree, he tapped the crook of his staff to the bark and a fern-like frost blossomed forth, weaving and crackling around the trunk.]
I think it can be downright beautiful.
[He walked over to the meadow then and he stepped easily on the water, because it frosted and froze beneath his feet, his magic keeping it alive and not breaking apart just yet. He couldn't fly and do what he normally did, but jumping and giving himself a running start, his staff was creating more beautiful frost in the water, he splashed the water where he could, to freeze the particles as they fell before eventually, hitting the frozen waves with the butt of his staff. It crackled and exploded, his hands waving upward to lift it in the air and let it fall like snow.]
And also, a whole lot of fun. Snow days and snowball fights are my specialty.
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It is beautiful! Do you decide what shape it's going to be? Or does it have a mind of its own? Can you make the ice stay frozen even when it's warm?
[With a million more questions ready to spill out, Kubo followed Jack to the water, his grin enormous, smiling with delight as he tested the ice's strength with the tip of his sandaled foot.]
It mostly rained in the winter where I lived.
[He held out his hands to gather the snowflakes. He listened to Jack, mistaking 'snowball fights' for a combat style.]
How do you fight with snowballs?
no subject
I freeze the waves all the time at beaches, keeping it frozen isn't very hard, but I tend to let it break up on its own eventually.
[Jack swung his staff low to the ground, producing a few snowballs. He picked one up and, as Kubo was enamored with the snowflakes, Jack tossed it at the kid. The snowball was made from fresh powder, so it broke upon impact and may knock him over, although Jack tried not to throw very hard.]
That's how.
no subject
Oh - like a game?
FINALLY, IT'S NOT DRUNK
[He didn't throw any more, letting Kubo try out the frozen water and make sure none of it broke. The meadow wasn't very deep, but getting wet probably wasn't the best right now.]
It's kind of my thing. Having fun, that is. A lot of people think winter can't be fun, because of how cold it can get. But I've been trying to make it fun since I made by the Man in the Moon. I'd like to think I've succeeded.
HECK YES
He backed carefully off the ice, but he also backed off fast. Only one solid earth was under his feet did he speak.]
The Moon King made you?
[His voice was ... Confused. But in with the confusion was the sort of fear that anticipated a fight. Kubo's fingers danced with tension on the neck of his shamisen, his stance wide, ready to fight or run.]
no subject
No. [He said it carefully, releasing his hold on the ice to let it break away naturally.] The Man in the Moon. Different worlds, different people residing on the moon, I guess? But he's not a king where I'm from and he's really nice, although he doesn't say much.
[That was the understatement of the year and Jack tried not to let his bitterness show because he didn't want to give Kubo the wrong impression about him. He was a Guardian, but he was still snowballs and fun time.]
He made me because I died saving my sister. Made me a Guardian to protect the children of the world. So I'm not... I'm not going to hurt you, Kubo. I'd never do such a thing.
no subject
His heart was beating too fast. Even if Jack were not his grandfather's creation, even if Jack were not an enemy at all, that was stupid - stupid and innocent and dangerous and too trusting by far.
But Jack's story spoke of someone who, despite that, was not untrustworthy, not the sort of moon creation that would have drowned him in a frozen pond. He saw the hurt that flashed through Jack's expression at his backing away, and took a deep breath to steady his heart.]
The Moon King was my grandfather.
[It was not an apology. Kubo could not apologize for reacting to a person made by the moon with an instantaneous fear. He could not apologize for remembering that he should even here be more careful. But maybe this would make Jack understand why.
He pushed back the hair that covered his eyepatch, drawing attention to his missing left eye.]
This is the least of what he took from me.
no subject
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up bad memories.
[If nothing else, he felt rather awkward right now. Torn between wanting to prove to Kubo that he wasn't going to hurt him, that he wasn't a bad spirit no matter who made him and flying away.
It still hurt sometimes. The others seemed to care for him, but had so quickly assumed the worst about him over a misunderstanding. One he had no chance to explain. Kubo was doing something similar, only his was born out of fear. Jack understood that, but it didn't stop the hurt.]
I won't try to convince you otherwise about Manny but... I hope I can earn your trust.
no subject
You didn't know.
[Now he felt the need to apologize, but couldn't think of the right way to say it. Because he SHOULD have been more careful. Shouldn't have walked so willingly into a stranger's power that now he was too temporarily full of horror to explain in a kind way why someone made by the moon would set him on edge.
Jack had seemed like nothing but a fun, friendly person, and if he was, then the Moon King's crimes had left him with a need to be suspicious of a kind, friendly person, someone who, it seemed, could be hurt by suspicion, who tried to take something that could be cold and unwelcome and make it fun and kind -
It wasn't guilt that came over him, but sadness that even now that his grandfather had become a kind mortal, the wounds he'd left in Kubo still ran deeper than just his missing eye.]
I am sorry. To be treating you now like . . . like you could be one of my Grandfather's creations, and not . . . not who you actually are. Please understand. The people of my grandfather's kingdom, the ones I met . . . didn't have compassion, or warmth within them, unless . . . unless love opened their hearts. If it didn't, they acted as though they had no hearts at all. Two years ago, my grandfather sent my aunts to take my eye and make me cold and cruel like them -
[And now he was having a panic attack, coming down from it slowly, but without the words to really recognize what it was.]
I didn't think you were like that, and I don't think that now, and I'm sorry to have treated you like you might have been, but -
[But even though his aunts were dead, the fear they'd wounded him with might never totally go away.
Kubo sat down on the grass, better to breathe through the anxiety, the sadness that something like this - a kind meeting between strangers - should have been so marred.]
Would you please tell me your story? So that I can understand you as you are, and not as I understand people of the Moon.
no subject
When Kubo sat down, Jack joined him. He tried to refrain from pulling up his frosted hood over his head as he was wont to do when feeling like this. Hiding away wouldn't do anything for Kubo and he nodded.]
My story is kind of a long one but it started back in the early 1700s in America. Well, the country wasn't really known as America yet but it's probably a time that's similar to yours. So I get your confusion from all this futuristic stuff, I just have the benefit of living long enough to see it evolve.
Anyway, when I was a human, my name was Jackson Overland. It was me and my mom and my little sister and I loved playing games and tricks with the other kids of the village. Helped us get through the rough times, things were hard because it was a new land and we were new settlers. Still, I tried. [He smiled softly, raising his hand to form a snowflake, letting it float off to dance about them as he continued. His smile gradually fell.] Then, one day, my sister really wanted to go ice skating on the lake near our house. So I went with her, like I always do. The lake wasn't as frozen over as we thought and it'd begun to break beneath her feet.
It was all I could do to calm her down. I took off my own skates and told her to simply take a few steps towards me, like hopscotch. [He chuckled lightly.] She didn't believe me at first. She was a pretty gullible girl so she fell for my tricks a lot, but I told her to keep looking at me as I showed her how to do it. I hopped to a firmer side of the lake and grabbed my staff and told her to do the same. On her third step, I used the crook to grab her and pull her toward me, but I didn't anticipate the momentum and ended up switching places with her.
[He paused here and pursed his lips, but then he looked into Kubo's eye and looked very resolved.]
I was so relieved. She was safe and- then the ice broke and I fell. Next thing I knew, everything was very cold and very dark and I was scared. I didn't remember anything. Not my name, who I was, nothing. But then... I saw the Moon. It was so big and so bright that night, I was pulled out of the lake and back onto frozen ice. He told me my name was Jack Frost and that was it. That's all he ever told me. At first, I didn't care. I found my staff, found out the things I could do and then... [He paused again, bright blue eyes looking incredibly hurt.] I realized no one could see me. No one knew who Jack Frost was yet so no one believed I existed and the fact that I'm a winter spirit is was kept me from fading away upon arrival. But I'd learned to like being on my own, at least, to have fun with winter and snow, help the kids see the fun in it even if they couldn't see me.
The Man in the Moon never really told me what my purpose was, what I was there for. It took awhile but... I figured it out on my own. [There was a whole other story there but that would be for another day, he felt.] I'll never know why he didn't at least talk to me in the interim but I'm glad I know now what my purpose was and I'd made the discovery on my own. I probably wouldn't have if I'd remembered who I was prior, worrying about my family not seeing me and all. But that's my story, that's how I became Jack Frost.
no subject
That someone in his grandfather's position in another world could look for such kindness and selflessness and reward it with eternal life and one-ness with a beautiful part of nature was as strange and wonderful as Jack himself.
He could hear in his mind the music that would bring this story to life, the kinder, gentler tune that invoked this very different Moon King, and the blessings he gave to a boy who thought of others before himself.
By the end of the story, Kubo was looking Jack in the eye again, mouth open with wonder, feeling much more in common with the winter spirit than merely a connection to the moon.]
And then what happened?
[This was hardly enough detail, for a story about such loss and loneliness and finding life after death in becoming a part of something bigger than oneself.
Kubo strummed a few notes from the tune that invoked the sort of Moon King that would make Jack. His paper fluttered up into snowflake shapes, and one blue paper folded itself into a boy, crooked paper staff in hand, zooming to the notes through the snowflakes and paper trees.]
My story's long, too. I have time for the rest.