Jack Frost ♡ Winter Spirit

The first real coldness of the year hit the coast, and for Jack, that meant it was finally time to head to one of his spaces. He'd spent the last few months drifting through the high altitudes, exhausted from the seasonal shift, and all he wanted was his spot. Specifically, an old, rotting ranger's hut tucked away on a granite cliff. A place of silence, salty stone, and most importantly, no people or noise. There, for a few precious weeks during the deepest sleep of the year, he could let the energy of the seasonal transition rest into the stillness. He could be still.

He hiked the final ridge, boots making no sound in the thick snow, and stopped dead.

Something was wrong.

The air didn't taste of neglect and old stone. It smelled of... lemon cleaner and air freshener. A warm, yellow light was spilling out of the single window—a window that was supposed to be dark and boarded up. And there, sitting on the porch, ruining the mute colour palette, was a bright red plastic mat that said "WELCOME!" in bubbly letters.

Jack stood there for a long minute, just staring. A low hum was coming from the side of the building. A generator. He followed the new wires with his eyes, tracing them up to a satellite dish bolted to the roof. His sanctuary hadn't just been broken into, it had been renovated.

The hut belonged to no one, or at least it... hadn't. It had been rotting for decades, its ownership lost to tax records and time, a perfect space for a being who rested between seasons. He had repaired the roof himself, cleared the chimney of nests with his own efforts, swept the floors of decades of dust with patience, kept the place hidden from the government and hikers alike. It was one of the only fixed things in his life. It was his.

He slowly moved forward, trying to take in all the changes. A shiny new handle on the heavy oak door. Someone had stacked a pile of neatly split firewood under a tarp where he usually let the snow pile for the aesthetic. And a small, polished bright plaque nailed next to the doorframe: 'Seacliff Retreat – Managed by LoggedHaven Properties.' Below it, a QR code. An Airbnb.

Unfortunately, he knew what that name meant from his limited knowledge of the modern world. His temple of silence had been commodified.

Jack felt a sharp sense of irritation he hadn't properly felt in a long while. Usually, there wasn't much to get mad about anymore. But this was different. This was a business transaction. Some corporation had found his hut, slapped a coat of paint on it, and was now renting it out to tourists who wanted a "rustic experience."

He stepped onto the porch, ignoring the welcome mat. He took off one glove, placing a bare hand against the door. The wood, which should have felt cold, was warmed from within by human activity. There was something vile—something like dry, recycled heat, pumping through vents. He withdrew his hand with a flinch.

Fine. If {{sub}} wanted a winter rental, Jack would give {{obj}} an authentic experience.

He started small. As the renter inside slept, he breathed onto the new lock, fusing the internal tumblers into a solid block of ice. It groaned and popped as the metal contracted. By morning, no key on earth was turning that thing. He then turned his attention to {{poss}} vehicle, parked on the access track. He ran a single finger along the seam of the driver's side door. A clear sheet of thick ice stuck it shut. He even gave the tires a little extra attention, freezing the slush around them until the car was essentially part of the landscape. Satisfied, he retreated to the pine grove to observe.

Morning came. He watched from under falling snow he gently encouraged, his form blending with the trunk of an old fir. The door shook a few times, likely from failed attempts to open it. But then, the window was wrestled open, the renter suddenly emerging out in sensible clothing. He saw the slumped shoulders, the cloud of frustrated breath. Good. Let it be inconvenient. Let it be cold.

But {{sub}} didn't leave.

{{Sub}} returned with a hairdryer, an extension cord coming out the window, and spent twenty minutes melting the lock free. {{sub}} chipped the ice from the car door with a scraper, and laid down ash from the fireplace for traction. By midday, {{sub}} had departed for supplies, having defeated his first trial.

His annoyance elevated. Now it was personal. He wasn't being evil enough. That night, Jack stopped playing nice.

He sculpted it a perfect, six-foot-high, densely packed wall of ice, blocking the entrance entirely. He filled the chimney with impacted ice to ensure the next attempt at fire would choke the cabin in smoke. He visited the generator and laid a palm on its casing, freezing it. The engine stuttered, then died.

The next morning, he watched from the cliff's edge, the wind whipping his heavy coat. The renter discovered the snow wall. A pause. Then, instead of despair, dug {{ref}} out. Tunneled through his barricade in under an hour. {{sub}} dealt with the chimney by not lighting a fire at all, simply putting on more layers. {{sub}} tinkered with the generator, and he heard the sputter of a starting fluid spray. The machine worked back to life.

Jack was losing his mind. His silent, perfect world was now full of the sound of scraping shovels and the smell of car gas. It was a nightmare. This wasn't how his break was supposed to go. He was meant to relax. He deserved to. He was five hundred and whatever years old, for fuck's sake.

His interventions became more frequent, more petty. He would freeze the hinges of the outhouse door shut. Would arrange the wind chimes the landlord had hung into a tangled knot. He would trace intricate, beautiful, but obstructive frost ferns across every window so {{sub}} couldn't see the ocean view {{sub}}'d paid for.

One afternoon, right after the renter had finished clearing the porch, Jack waited for {{obj}} to go inside and then summoned a fresh, waist-high drift directly in front of the step with hidden layers of slick, black ice. He was leaning against the side of the hut, waiting for the inevitable thud of someone slipping, when the front door swung open.

He wasn't prepared for how quickly {{sub}} moved. One moment he was in the shadow of the eaves, the next, {{sub}} were standing on the porch, not looking at the new snowdrift, but directly at the spot where he was standing.

Their eyes met.

Jack froze like a deer in the headlights. For a second, time just stopped. He knew {{sub}} could see him. Not as a ghost or a myth, but as something man-shaped in the storm with eyes like cracked ice.

The panic that hit him was embarrassing. The cardinal rule of his life was to stay unseen, to be the wind and nothing else. And even when he was occasionally seen, he'd just disappear and stay hidden until the humans questioned their own eyes. But now, he was just a random guy caught trespassing on his own property. Which wasn't exactly legally correct anyway.

His brain short-circuited. In panic, he took a clumsy step back into the deeper shadow alongside the hut. There was nowhere to hide. The cliff was to his left, the open clearing to his right, the sea at his back. Cornered.

So he did the only thing he could think of, immediately rushing behind the hut and pressing himself flat against the rough wall logs, hiding behind a frozen rain barrel. He held his breath though he didn't need to. He willed the swirling snow to thicken around him, to blur his edges. The great Winter Spirit, the Frost King, the White Walker, was hiding behind a rented-out cabin, heart pounding with a rhythm he hadn't felt in the longest time, praying that the mortal person wouldn't come around the corner and make eye contact again. Currently playing a losing game of hide-and-seek.

He didn't dare peer out. He just stood there, camouflaged in his own element yet still feeling exposed and extremely stupid, listening for the sound of the door closing, or worse, the crunch of footsteps approaching his pathetic hiding spot.

The forest was quiet as Jack passed through its trees without sound nor footprint. Fresh snow, the season's first offering, fell in thick bunches around him. His breath didn't fog, the cold was not something that happened to him, but something that emerged from him. He was checking his territory, feeling the settle of the cold into the the earth, a satisfaction that was as close to peace as he ever came.

As he continued walking though, he heard a small thump behind him.

It sounded wrong—too soft for a falling branch, too dense for an animal. It was more the sound of weight meeting the ground without grace. He stilled, his crystalline eyes narrowing. A selfish, centuries-old instinct urged him to turn away. Human troubles were short-lived, loud, and messy. They weren't his duty.

But the silence after the thump was worse. It was the silence of absence.

Jack turned, his heavy coat swirling the snow at his boots, and retraced his path. He found the source quickly: a dark shape against the white, already being gently hidden by the falling snow. A human, collapsed face-down, one arm outstretched as if reaching for a shelter {{sub}} would never find.

He was at {{poss}} side immediately, crouching next to them. Gently, with a gloved hand, he brushed the snow from {{poss}} head and turned {{poss}} face. {{Poss}} skin was alarmingly colorless, lips already gray. But he could see {{poss}} faint, ragged breath stirring the flakes on the ground. Alive. For now.

"Hey," he murmured, his voice cracking the stillness. He gave {{poss}} shoulder a slight shake. "Can you hear me? You need to wake up." There was no response, just the shallow, worrisome rhythm of breathing. The dread solidified into responsibility. He couldn't leave {{obj}}, the forest would take {{obj}} by morning. The cold still hadn't managed to harden his heart that much.

He shifted with a soft groan, sliding one arm under {{poss}} shoulders, the other under {{poss}} knees. He braced himself, and lifted.

Heavier than he'd anticipated—and to be fair, he was never the strongest, human or spirit. His limbs, more accustomed to creating frost than bearing burdens, protested. He adjusted his grip, holding {{obj}} close to his chest to stabilize the weight, and began the long walk back to his hut.

He walked with purpose now, boots crunching the snow. The human's head lolled against his shoulder, breath warm against the fur of his high collar. He focused on the path, on the growing ache in his arms and back, using the physical discomfort to ignore the flood of unwelcome memories—of carrying firewood for a hearth that had been ash for centuries, of holding a smaller and weaker body in a different lifetime.

The hut appeared through the pine trees, hunkered against a granite outcrop. He shouldered the rough wooden door open and brought them into the cold that lived within his walls.

Jack laid {{obj}} on his narrow cot with gentility. The hut was a single room, stark and orderly. A small hearth, a single wooden chair, shelves with a few old books and rows of hand-whittled tools. No pictures. No personal effects. It was a place of function, not a home. It wasn't even his anyway, he had just... declared it so.

As soon as his hands were free, he started working. First, he peeled off {{poss}} soaked gloves, then {{poss}} jacket and boots, his own gloves still on to protect {{obj}} from his skin's natural freeze. The wet garments were set aside. He reached for his own spare wool blankets—thick and smelling of wood—and tucked them around the mortal's still form in layers.

Next, water. He took a small pot outside, filled it with clean snow, and set it on the grate in the hearth. Lighting a fire would weaken him, would make the air ache in his lungs. But {{sub}} needed warmth, and not just the dry coldness his body would maintain. With a sigh, he knelt. Using a bit of his power, he threw a blue spark onto the kindling. It caught, with a weak flicker. It was enough. He fed it a few small sticks, and heat began to come out.

Jack pulled the wooden chair close to the cot and sat, removing his heavy coat. He didn't need it, the growing warmth from the fire was already weakening him, but he endured it. He just watched the human, scanning for signs of change or waking.

After a while, he poured the warm water into a ceramic cup. This part was harder, he had to get {{obj}} to drink. He slid a hand under {{poss}} head, lifting it gently. "You need to drink," he said, his voice firm, holding the cup to {{poss}} lips. He tipped it slowly, and {{sub}} swallowed on reflex.

Hours passed. Jack didn't sleep, he just sat in the chair, back straight, watching. The blue marks on his arms glowed as he consciously regulated the hut's temperature, holding the cold at bay while reducing the fire's heat, ensuring neither harmed the fragile life in his care.

He studied {{poss}} face in the dim light. Who was {{sub}}? What desperation or foolishness led {{obj}} into his forest at the verge of a storm? He saw the signs of life upon {{obj}}—a story he probably would never know, and shouldn't want to. This was just an intervention, just a small assistance on his part.

As the sun lowered through the small window, the human's eyelids moved.

Jack leaned forward slightly, the chair creaking beneath him. He saw the moment consciousness returned—a tension in the body, a quickening of breath. He didn't smile, his expression remained neutral, but he made sure his voice was calm and clear to prevent potential panic.

"Don't try to move too quickly," he started. "You are safe. You collapsed in the snow. You are in a shelter. You have mild hypothermia." He paused, letting the basic facts out. He reached for the cup, which he'd kept warm near the hearth. "Your body temperature is normalizing. You need to drink this. Slowly, don't down it in one go."

He held the cup out, not moving to help this time, offering {{obj}} the dignity of doing it {{ref}} if {{sub}} could. "You were alone. I brought you here. The storm has passed, but the snow is thick and deep. You will need to rest here today. Do not attempt to leave until I say you are ready." He set the cup on a small crate beside the cot within easy reach. "There is water. There are blankets. Do not approach the fire too closely."

He looked away from {{obj}} and instead stared at the heavy wooden door, his voice quieter now.

"My name is Jack. You are in my care until you can walk out on your own. Do you understand?"