24If I owned RotG, there probably would be a lot more Jack plushies in the world
Chapter 11
Charlie was the first to greet the little man with a hug and whispered slyly into his ear, "Nice surprise attack." He smirked back at her as the other two ran up to him.
"Hey, you stole my snowball thing!" Jack protested, feigning a glare. Sandy just shrugged and gave a little wink.
Finally, Bunny was able to fit his comment in: "Good to see ya didn't freeze to death." They grinned at each other good-naturedly.
Sandy made a dreamsand picture of a candy cane and a tooth with a question mark by it. Jack shook his head in reply. "No, we were hoping they were with you."
"You know," the mortal started, "we shouldn't be too far away from them, because the sleigh couldn't have tipped us too far apart, right? And speaking of the sleigh, where the heck is it?" She looked around for any sign of wreckage, but found none. "Honestly, where does a giant red magical sleigh go with eight huge reindeer?!"
"I can get an aerial view," Jack offered, and took off without letting anyone protest. Above the snowy tundra and his friends, he rose up as high as he could go while breathing properly. The Guardians plus one were mere splotches when he stopped. Looking around, he spotted an arctic fox mother and her cubs playing around in the snow about a quarter of a mile away. On the first glance, he couldn't spot anything. Then his blue eyes flicked to a bit of movement to his left. Turning, his gaze fell on a single reindeer making it's way towards him. Without a second thought, the wind shot him towards it like a dart.
"JACK!" Charlie screamed after the boy who had just zoomed off. That idiot! Where did he think he was going?!
Bunny put a furry paw on her shoulder. "I think he's found somethin', sheila."
She crossed her arms. "Yeah, but he shouldn't just go off like that with no warning. Who knows, maybe Henry and Ella can control his flying power and we don't even know?" she fumed quietly. However, a moment later he returned with a new friend.
A giant, six-foot tall deer touched down next to the boy, with huge antlers and a brilliant chestnut pelt. Snorting slightly, it scanned them all with intelligent, fierce brown eyes. Apparently, they passed his test, because the buck lowered his head and bent on leg in a bow. Smiling slightly, Charlie bowed back while thinking, 'I'm bowing to a deer.'
When she rose, the buck was looking at the other Guardians in a calculating way, like, "Well? Aren't you going to bow too?" Obviously, this deer was used to respect. When none of them did, it turned its head back to the teen girl.
Charlie was unsure what to do for a moment, then blinked and said, "Right, so, as you know, the sleigh kinda bucked us off and may have crashed. We got separated from the others, can you track North's or Tooth's scent?"
He gave her a curt nod before sniffing the air, warm breath coming out in wisps of smoke. Then he crouched down on his knees and looked at her again.
Green eyes brightening, Charlie limped forward and swung a leg across his back, quickly lunging forward and gripping onto his neck as the great reindeer stood. "Um, North is this way." she said as he began walking. A look of pure joy was on her face. 'I'm riding one of Santa's reindeer. I'm riding one of Santa's reindeer. I'm riding one of freaking Santa's reindeer.'
Jack pouted as the wind lifted him to their side and matched the animal's stride. "Why don't I get to ride the reindeer?"
Charlie grinned at him and said playfully, "Because you have the wind, my ankle is sprained, and you didn't bow to one of the majestic creatures of joy." The animal snorted in agreement to that.
"Fair enough." He sighed. "How's your finger and ankle, by the way?"
She held up her hand with the broken appendage. It looked crooked at the first knuckle of the pinkie, which was most likely where the break was. Wincing, she muttered, "Well, now it hurts since I have my attention on it." Setting her hand back on the reindeer's warm, furry neck and studied her ankle which was still encased in Jack's ice. The swelling had gone now reasonably, but it still hurt like heck.
The winter spirit gently took her hand in his own and studied the break as Charlie's eyes widened and a light blush settled over her cheeks. 'Stupid hormones. Knock it off. Digest those butterflies.'
"-probably going to have to make you a splint out of something as soon as we can." Jack was saying, then looked up at her. "You're pink." He remarked with a smirk.
"I… We're in the North Pole in the middle of winter! Of course my face is pink!"
"Ooh, now it's red!"
"Shut up."
"Make me."
"Damn you're cocky."
"Thank you. I take great pride in it."
"That wasn't a compliment!"
"No, but I take it as one."
Charlie groaned and slumped on the reindeer's neck. "You're impossible to argue with."
"I know." he said cheerfully, grinning widely and trailing his staff on the ground to make frost patterns.
She suddenly broke into a soft smile and mused, "I wonder how you would deal with Elizabeth."
Jack glanced at her. "Is she your friend?" he asked curiously.
"Yeah," she replied, nodding. "Liz is the freaking queen of winning arguments, even if she makes her logic so confusing that it usually doesn't even make sense." She chuckled slightly and looked away. "I miss her. And Gran and Tobey…"
The winter spirit frowned and reached up to touch her arm lightly. "Hey. We'll get them back, don't worry. After all, the good guys always win in the end, right?"
'Good and evil is only a concept in our minds; something that we make up ourselves.' And yet Charlie still turned to her new friend with a playful scowl on her face, all signs of sadness forgotten. "The world is so flippin' cliche!"
'No,' Jack decided. 'Not forgotten. Just bottled up with the rest of her feelings.'
He had a feeling that the bottle was getting too full.
And there you have it! Frickity, I got pretty deep at the end, huh? Well, this chapter has a total of 1,056 words. Yay.
I AM SO SORRY THAT MY MUSE REFUSED TO FUNCTION PROPERLY FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF MONTHS! Gosh, I feel so bad... But I've recently been obsessed with drawing, and I got a sketchbook for Christmas, so I've been practicing and haven't been writing at all, so I'm sorry if I'm kind of rusty! Also, I apologize FantasyInfinity (AKA an awesome anon) for not putting your ideas in here, this was more of a filler to get me back on track, but submitting your chapter really helped me start writing again, so thank you so much!
I hope you all enjoyed this long-awaited chapter, and now it's time for review replies!
an awesome anon (guest): Thank you so much :D I appreciate your support! Yep, if you remember back to the first two chapters, Elizabeth is the one that took Charlie back to her house then had to leave for work! Hmm, you'll just have to find out if it's a spirit or not! I probably would too!
Beccag7: Thank you! I tried to hurry as fast as I could, but writer's block demons are terrible things... There will be more about Charlie's fire in future chapters, so stay tuned!
FantasyInfinity: Well, here it is! I hope it satisfied your wishes XD It's not much, but enough to get me started again hopefully!