Frozen, Rise of the Guardians 1. Chapter 1

Her tears froze on her cheeks. She did not want them to. She hadn't wanted this, any of it, but now everything was out of hand and all she wanted to do was cry. But still, the tears froze on her eyelashes and on her frozen cheeks when they had the audacity to escape even that far. The very air around her crackled with the cold, forming clouds with each breath she took. The frost climbed up the wall as she felt her control slipping once again. She shivered, though she was not cold. How could she be, with the cold inside of her, stemming from her very soul? Still, she was cold. Deep in the pit of her chest she could feel her heart freezing even as she knew Anna's heart would freeze. And unlike Anna, there was no cure for her frozen heart. Anna had Hans. Anna had the possibility of love. She did not. For so long she had pushed people away that even Anna, her sister and best friend, no longer knew her. It was the fear that froze her, fear that had governed her most of her life. Now that fear had been realized, and it hurt to her very soul, fueling the eternal winter that she had created.

Thinking back on it, the giant snowman might have been a tad bit out of hand. But she stood there, frozen by fear, afraid that she would hurt Anna more than she already had, and the panic had manifested itself as a giant talking snowman. When he dragged her sister and the blonde man-child away she had started to weep, knowing that the one thing she had feared more than anything since that night in the hall had come true. She had hurt the one person she loved more than anything else in the world. And if Anna died from her frozen heart, it would be all her fault for freezing it. She was always so full of life, full of love. It was she who had first frozen her sister's heart, long ago when they first shut the door. But it had thawed. It always thawed because it was Anna, and what Anna wanted more than anything was love, wherever she could get it. But a heart frozen by magic was not so easily thawed as a heart frozen by rejection. Anna might die, and it was all her fault. She could not face it. She locked the door and sat down on the floor, clutching her knees tightly and holding herself so that the cold inside her heart would not chill her soul.

She did not know how long she sat there, rocking herself as if she were a child and crying frozen tears. The next thing she knew it was dark. The palace looked magnificent in the pale light of the moon, the ice glistening in soft shimmers that reflected into a million patterns. The ice shifted from blue to purple and back again as she lifted herself up off the floor and smoothed out the frozen puddle of tears she had created. Each footfall made a tiny clicking sound as the heels of her glass shoes padded the ground. She walked around the room, studying the way the light bounced off the different layers of ice. This was her paradise, her home now, and yet without Anna it did not feel like a home. It was a gilded, ice cage. She could not melt it and escape. Although Anna had begged her, she didn't know how to melt it, and so she was trapped her, suffocated by her own beautiful creation.

The door banged open in unexpectedly in the upstairs room she had commandeered as her main room. She heard the rush of the wind as it entered her ice palace and shifted the chandelier ever so slightly. She sighed. It would be her doing, of course. The wind was the precursor to the storm; without it the destruction of Arendell would not have been possible. She did not know if she controlled the wind or if it simply had aided her in her out of control spiral, but it didn't seem to matter now. The wind had not been her friend in this, when she had no control over anything.

She ascended the stairs, wondering as she had before at the perfectly clear steps as she placed each delicate foot upon the ice. She could see straight through to the floor below, and the vision made her uneasy. How delicate the ice was, when a breath of heat carried on the wind could melt her creation to the ground. She tread lightly, wary, but as it had before, it held. Once she was sure it was safe she flew up the stairs, her hands slick against the smooth ice of the railings. Here on her own, she could almost pretend she was still free. As she walked into the chamber, surrounded by the sparkling of the ice, she could almost pretend that she was safe from the rules that had limited her. But she knew she would have to exchange her freedom for the safety of the realm. She didn't know how to stop the winter, but she had to try, before she destroyed everything. And she had to try before the fear in her heart destroyed her.

As she walked into the room her eyes were drawn to the chandelier. It was moving slowly, creaking in its ice socket as the icy wind blew in from the window. She sighed and moved towards the window, making to close it. It shouldn't have opened in the first place, but next time she would ice it shut to be safe. As her hand wrapped around the intricate door handle, however, something caught her eye.

She stepped out onto the balcony, hoping to rid herself of the suspicions that had entered her mind. It was just a flash against the white snow, or the northern lights had decided to wake up early this night. It couldn't have been what she thought she had seen. It was impossible, to think that someone had gotten past her snowman, climbed up her ice castle, and was now waiting on her balcony. But when she turned to the place where the flash of color had been, she saw a young boy sitting precariously on the rim.

His posture was that of complete ease, though he hung dangerously close to a fall that would kill any man. _Nonchalance_, she thought as she studied him. That was the word to describe his demeanor. He wore a strange shirt, dark blue with long sleeves and a hood like that made for a riding cloak. His pants were torn near the bottom and his feet were bare, but as one rested on the ledge and the other one hung over she saw no sign of cold in his posture. In his hands he held a long staff, taller than she was, balancing it on his knees. His hair was a startling white, not too far from her own blonde locks. She hated to disturb him and risk him falling, but she needed to know who he was and how he had infiltrated her castle.

"Turn around," she demanded, and her voice was much higher than she wanted it to be. She didn't sound like a queen, she sounded like a scared little girl. She swallowed and tried again. This time her voice came out more commanding and regal, more befitting of the queen she knew she had to be. "Who are you and what are you doing here? I demand you turn around this instant."

He moved then, standing up and walking the ridge like a tightrope until he came in line with her. He jumped down nimbly from his perch so that he and she stood face to face. His eyes, she noticed, were a startling blue, like the ice crystals with which she had decorated the palace. They studied her, looking her up and down with an emotion that was not quite contempt. Then he smiled, and his mischievous grin lit a fire in a part of her she had forgotten existed, so long had it been numbed by the cold. She shivered as she looked into those icy blue eyes.

"My name is Jack Frost. And I'm here to help you."


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't need any help."

"Oh, I think you do. I don't know if you've noticed, but your entire country is buried under 20 feet of snow. And that might be acceptable, normal even if it were the middle of January, but if you haven't noticed, it's July!"

He smiled and she knew he was making fun of her. Elsa was always put off when people made jokes at her expense, so instead of deigning to reply she changed the subject.

"How did you get here anyways? My snowman should've killed you, or at least badly maimed you. Why do I even have an evil giant gatekeeper if he's just going to go and let everyone in?"

"Lucky for me I didn't pass your giant snowman. Though I'm sure that would have been quite a sight. Actually, the wind popped me down right where you found me."

"The wind?" She'd thought she'd misheard him, but he grinned again and nodded, laughing at the perplexed look that graced her face.

"Yes the wind. Are you deaf or something? Look, I'm a guardian. Very long story for another day. But the long and short of it is, the man in the moon chose me. He gave me my powers so that I could do good with them. He watches over me. And it appears as if he watches over you too, because when this whole shenanigan started he told me that I had to stop the winter. At first he thought it was me that started it. Could you imagine me getting this out of control? I mean I like to have my fun, but this? It's a little bit crazy, even for me."

She just stared at him, the words he said registering but not making any sense. He talked so fast and so contemptuously that she had trouble following exactly what they were talking about. And all this talk of men in the moon and guardians and wind had her head spinning.

"Whoa, slow down there. Start from the beginning. What is a guardian?"

"I was chosen… well, I was chosen to protect children. My sister… I loved her more than anything in the world. One day we were skating on a pond near my house, and the ice started to melt. I saved her but sacrificed myself in her place, and the man in the moon rewarded my sacrifice with my powers. "

_Well_, Elsa thought, _that's one thing we have in common_. She loved Anna more than anything in the world. She had come here to save Anna, only that plan had backfired, and her sister was in even more trouble than before.

"I got here by riding the wind," Jack continued. "It's part of my power. The wind carries me wherever I need to go. It can take me anywhere in the world. It's even taken me back to see my sister a few times. I haven't been able to see her grow up as I should have, but at least I didn't loose her entirely."

When he smiled this time it was a different kind of smile, a smile she knew he reserved for his little sister. It was a soft, tender smile, and it softened his icy blue eyes. He did not look nearly so arrogant or intimidating when he spoke about her. He looked more like a boy than a man, the spark of innocence and mischief lighting up his face.

"Next question."

There was so much she wanted to know, so much in the few words he had said that intrigued her, but she was still curious about his sister. From the dreamy way he talked about her, it was clear that he loved her very much, but also that they had been separated for a long time.

"How long has it been? Since you became a guardian and had to give up your family, I mean?"

He thought a moment. "About, I'd say… maybe 300 years?"

"You're lying!" she shrieked. It was an interesting sound, a sound that she hadn't heard herself make since she was little. She tried it out on her tongue, finding that she liked the way it felt to shriek. It was exciting.

"Chill, I'd only be about 100 years old by this time, give or take 50."

"What do you mean? You just said you were 300."

"It's all very confusing, and I'm not quite sure of the details myself. All I know is that one day I really missed my sister, and when I hopped on the wind that night it took me back to her."

She still could not tell if he was telling the truth or not, so she though it best to come up with another question before her brain spent too much time trying to fathom 300 years. What would it be like to live for 300 years, to give up your family?_ Lonely_, she thought. _Very lonely. _She understood loneliness, she had lived with it for most of her life now, ever since she had shut out Anna. But to be separated from your family by time? That was much worse than a wooden door between them.

"What about the man in the moon? Why did you say he was watching me?"

"All I know is that I was spinning around London, bringing a snow flurry to some little kids when the man in the moon told me he had a job for me. He told me that some nitwit had unleashed the next ice age, and I had to stop it if I could or help her control the powers if I couldn't."

"He did not call me a nitwit!"

"Perhaps not in so many words, but he was thinking it. Anyways, I though why not? I mean, its summer in all the good parts back at home, and I deserve a break. The children are all safe for the moment, so there's no need to hurry back. And Bunny was getting on my nerves anyways."

Elsa chose to ignore that statement too, deeming that she could understand next to nothing of what this mysterious boy was talking about. In fact, she half thought about ignoring him altogether, though she supposed she couldn't really ignore an intruder to her solace. Still, he filled the air with a sort of lightness and the ice palace with noise, and she didn't entirely know how she felt about that. This was supposed to be her freedom and her prison, and he was making it rather hard to sort out why she wanted either. He had a way of confusing her thoughts, muddling them until all she saw was that contemptuous grin.

Her eyes traced the patterns of the ice floor, noting the care and precision with which she had decorated them. She had no more questions for him. She could think of nothing else to say. That smile rendered her speechless, thoughtless. She had never felt this before, and the feelings coursing inside of her made her uncomfortable. She was supposed to conceal, to not feel, and that smile was making it very difficult.

Suddenly a layer of frost appeared, covering her patterns on the floor. She stepped back, alarmed, afraid that she was loosing control again. But when Jack laughed she turned her eyes on him and saw that it was not her magic but his that controlled the frost. His staff was planted firmly into the glass-like floor and from it spiraled the tendrils of snow that spread through her hall.

She looked up at him and her eyes met his. The contact sent shivers down her spine and a tendril of warmth through her core. She shook off the feeling, knowing that she couldn't lose control again, and knowing that the more she felt the more likely she was to forget herself.

Jack lifted his staff and the frost was gone. He walked towards the balcony and leaned his weight on it, looking out over the land that was covered with snow. She watched him, marveling at the way his demeanor seemed to hang around him like a cloud. As she watched, his attention was drawn to something on his left, and his eyes scanned the area intently. With a grin, he leaped up onto the balcony.

"You have guests," he said cheerily, winking at her. "But don't worry, I'll be back."

He jumped off the balcony. She ran forward, expecting to see him somewhere in the snow below, but he was gone, waving at her from the wings of the wind. She watched him go, wondering if perhaps the whole encounter had been a figment of her imagination induced by stress. But no, she remembered the way she had felt looking at that crooked grin, staring into those icy eyes. He was real. And something of what he had said was real as well. She watched the wind carry him away until he was out of sight. Then she sighed and sank against the ice pillar, letting out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

Then, somewhere below, her snowman roared, and she heard the door creak open.


End file.
