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Tis the week before Christmas, and all through the town, not at all silent, folks are bustling around. The paths overflowing and the streets are full of sound. Everyone is busy… Well, not all per say.
One Jack Frost finds himself rather bored this day.
Kicking his heels, the young guardian watches his first believer through the window. A troubled teen now, but no less bright eyed for the holidays.
Jamie is helping his sister place a new ornament on the tree, a clear bulb full of glitter and folded paper strips she'd held out proudly all the way home from school. Apparently she's decided it simply must be hung off the top of the star.
Jack would love to call them out to play, but with their mother and all sorts of other relatives flowing in and out of every room, it's clearly a day for family.
He pondered filling his boredom and… other feelings- by going to the North Pole. Sure, he could visit any of his fellow guardians!
Though, last time he was at the Pole, it was utter chaos. More so than any year he'd seen prior. Of course the season would be expectedly hectic, but ordinarily it was full of light, warm humming, laughter, groaning at the elves' antics, and just an overall feeling of excitement. Last time, however, it might as well have been a war zone. The place was only half decorated! Santa probably hadn't even noticed Jack was there, just gently but swiftly picked him up and placed him out of the way, not even pausing in his orders. ‘More of these, enough of those, more colors, get the pastel paints- why do we have no pastels!?’ It kinda just went over his head, ears far too full of the cacophony of chaotic noise around him.
Maybe there were more believers this year to make toys for? Though that wouldn't account for the tension and stress in the air.
Santa hadn't called a meeting of the guardians yet.
…“You’d tell us if something was wrong, right?” He looks to the moon, dim and low in the early afternoon, but as present as ever even as just little more than a crescent is waxing.
Manny didn't reply, ever the stoic, but the wind did.
Leaves remaining from the bulk that fell in autumn mix with light surface powder and swirl through his hair. The wind is a constant companion, if an erratic one. She comes and goes, dances and settles, carries and moves on. As the winter spirit of frost and snow, Jack has known her since the day he awoke, his body light as a leaf and his magic adding to her own.
It's through this that he knows this isn't just a hello, as she sends him tumbling down into the frosted bushes.
“What was that for?” He laughs, shaking the loose brambles from his hair.
He doesn't have much time to fuss over his appearance though, and the wind once more pushes him down, now onto the neighbors unshoveled driveway. ‘Must be out of town’ he thinks vaguely, noting the unlit lights along the roof. Another shove.
“Alright, alright!” Jack throws his hands in surrender, “Where to?”
The wind swirls and scoops him up.
“You could have done that to begin with!”
She rustles the rest of the leaves and twigs from his hair.
Now Jack finds himself in the overcrowded shopping district. Folks exchange passing pardons as they shuffle shoulder to shoulder.
The wind had settled and departed, so this must be where she wants him.
“Can't give me more of a hint?” He mumbles, scanning the crowd.
The wind hasn't asked for help before, so it must be something awfully special.
His eyes trace the children in the crowd; holding parents hands, ducking down and around the crowds with their small statures, holding all the shopping bags their pudgy little hands can carry for their caretakers. Nothing seems of note…
“Maybe I just have to wait?” He'd rather not get shoved off another roof.
Jack plops his butt down on the lamp post, stretching out his toes that had started to cramp up from his previous crouch.
Bored once again, he simply watches people.
A group of old ladies waiting their turn in the bakery line, pointing to everything and anything in the case that catches their eyes. A young mother running after her child, yelling admonishments whilst waving their abandoned coat in her fist. A pair of men swinging a young girl between them. A father absolutely struggling with the amount of boxes and bags he has around a double stroller and the baby strapped to his chest. A dog walker immediately deciding to take their pack a different route as they see the crowd. A mailman jogging in place like he really has to pee.
“Poor guy.” Jack laughs. The post office is practically just a hop and a skip away, but the fella is just at the edge of the major crowd, red in the face and looking about ready to have a fit. Why the guy can't just shove his way through like everyone else? Who knows.
But Jack's still bored. So why not.
He hopps down and the wind joins him, he takes it as her seal of approval for the side mission.
“Special express route, coming right up!” He announces. For his own amusement of course, the grown man wouldn't be able to hear. He slopes an ice path right over people's heads straight into the post office door and helps the good lady give the postman a hearty shove to send him sailing.
The guy shrieks like a little girl, clutching his satchel in utter terror. “Better get those letters to Santa ASAP.” Jack salutes the man, joking. He's pretty sure the letters are just delivered via magic. Or maybe the post does reach north, ‘always deliver’ and all that jazz.
BANG
The door is not a push then, huh.
The mailman groans, rubbing his head, owch. Well, time to go back to looking for the Wind’s quest.
“Thank you!” A voice rings out above the others, strangely clear above the white noise of chatter. Jack turns- the mailman is staring right at him. He tips his hat to him and walks right into the post office.
He could see him.
He wasn't surprised.
And come to think of it, his uniform is centuries out of date.
“Well that's interesting…”
The wind rustles his hair, warmer than before.