Chapter Text
The cold polar winds whistled past Jack’s ears as he rode on the air currents, their strong gusts almost reminding him of hands holding him aloft as he flew through the night. In a way, the winds had been Jack’s first friends and comfort since he’d first awoken from the ice those centuries ago. The only older one was the moon himself, which even now continued to shine down on him and light his way, his plans no less mysterious as they had been that first night, but now a little more comforting.
Jack was shaken from his thoughts by the pulse of the northern lights. It was almost ironic that such a beautiful sight was a sign of such danger. Tucking his arms into his sides, he hastened his pace towards the North Pole and North’s workshop.
The workshop was just as busy as it had been the first time he had arrived, though it was nice that his arrival was more willing and the fanfare non-existent. Yetis hurried to-and-fro between toy and workstations while elves scurried around beneath their feet. At the center of the room, and past the hustle of production, sat the globe. North himself stood before the suspended ball, arms crossed and eyes squinted in contemplation while he stroked his beard. To his sides stood the other Guardians, Tooth, Bunny, and Sandy, echoing North’s body language as they whispered amongst each other.
“I got here as fast as I could.” The Guardians’ attention turned to Jack as he entered the circle. “What’s happened? Is Pitch back?”
“We’re… we’re not sure,” Tooth spoke up, tearing her eyes from the globe while her fairies flitted around her. “We haven’t seen anything like this before.”
“What do you-” Jack’s words died on his lips as he got a closer look at what had captured everyone’s attention. A small section of the globe around Scandinavia, the size of a small country, had turned completely black. “How…”
North let out a deep sigh as he finally looked over to Jack. “We are not sure. The darkness just… appeared overnight.” Shifting his stance, North began to pace in front of the group. “I have tried to talk to man in moon, but his answers are… vague, limited. All we know is that the kingdom of Arendelle is in danger.”
“The kingdom of Arendelle? I’ve never heard of that place before. And I flew over Europe to get here and never saw any giant black mass… cloud… thing, so what is that? How could I miss a giant mass of literal nightmare fuel, let alone an entire kingdom I had somehow never seen or heard of before?”
“Well, it’s not exactly in our world,” Bunny answered as if it was a well known fact.
“Whoa, what do you mean ‘not exactly in our world’? There are other worlds besides this one that I’ve never heard of? How do you know this? Is this something you all knew and didn’t bother to tell me?”
Bunny rolled his eyes half-heartedly. “I’ve been around a bit longer than you, sometimes I forget what would and wouldn’t be common knowledge for you by now. But, yes, there are a few other worlds aside from this one. It’s not easy to get to them, but they do exist beside this one. In our defense they don’t often come up, since it’s this one we’re usually focused on protecting.” Sandy stepped forward next to him and created the image of overlapping layers of circles as if to help illustrate Bunny’s point. A small blemish suddenly appeared in the series of circles, leading to small amounts of sand being able to flow between the different layers. “Yeah, like he said,” Bunny confirmed Sandy.
The sudden flood of new, reality-changing information made Jack’s head spin for a moment, but now was not the time for that. Now, he needed answers. A plan. He would have time to come to terms with the shattering of his world view after they knew what was going on in the first place. Snapping himself from his spiraling thoughts, Jack spoke up again. “Wait, you said the man in the moon actually answered you. What did he say?”
“All I was told was that there is a woman who is an important part of this somehow. She is called Elsa of Arendelle, I believe,” North answered. “Some kind of human spirit existing in other world. Somehow, she and this darkness may be connected. How and why we don’t know, but I have feeling that answers may lie with her.”
“Wait, that’s it?” Bunny spoke up annoyed. “That’s all we have to go off of? That some kingdom called Arendelle in another world is in danger, and somehow this Elsa girl may have some kind of connection to it?”
“We will learn more when we go there,” North answered almost nonchalantly, his mood seeming to have picked up a bit at Manny’s communication.
Bunny pinched the bridge of his nose, “Of course we will. Fine, but you’re cutting it close mate. It’s almost spring, which means I need to start preparing for Easter soon. If this takes too long it’ll start cutting into my preparation time.” Bunny huffed to himself as he began to turn away from the gathered group. “Next time Pitch comes back, or some weird evil force threatens the world, it better be during the summer or something, because I am tired of it cutting close to my holiday.”
“How are we even supposed to get there?” Jack asked as the group began to seemingly disband, a plan he was not privy to set in motion. “Does one of your magic globes take you to alternate worlds or something?”
“Don’t be silly,” North chuckled as he put an arm around Jack’s shoulders and began to guide him towards the door, “sleigh will take us there. Globe will just help open rift where the magic is strongest.”
“Is this something else that all of you know about but failed to tell me?”
“Probably, but I will explain on way.”
“Ok, but you’re gonna need to start going slower when you start dropping the heavy information on me,” Jack ran a hand through his hair as he followed along with North towards the direction of the slay and stables. “My entire concept of reality was shattered just five minutes ago, and all this new information is starting to give me a headache.”
North chuckled before turning back to the rest of the Guardians, “Are you coming with?”
“Oh no, mate,” Bunny quickly interjected. “I’m never riding in that thing again. I’ll take my burrows, thank you very much. I’ll meet you on the other side.” He quickly emphasized his statement with a tap of his foot, a hole forming in the floor beside him. Without another word he jumped in feet-first, the hole quickly closing up behind him, leaving a single spring flower as the only sign it had even opened.
“Ok, Tooth, Sandy?” North continued.
“I need to take care of some things at the Tooth Palace,” Tooth spoke up, her attention having turned from the globe to her fairies as it became clear that the group was about to disband. “I can’t leave my duties unattended to, but I’ll come and find you on the other side as soon as I can.” Her attention now firmly on tying up any loose ends from her absence, Tooth quickly flitted away, her fairies in tow as they darted off to carry out their matriarch’s orders. When the attention turned solely to Sandy, he echoed a similar sentiment, signaling a need to make sure the children in this world were safe and fit with dreams before he could risk facing a potential threat like this again.
“Well, I guess that just leaves us, Jack!” With the beginnings of a plan now in motion, North’s mood seemed to have fully lifted. Jack had a feeling his headache wasn’t going to go away any time soon.