Hey all, Eb here. Just a quick note to say hi. I only found out about the RotBTD fandom a week or two ago, but I fell in love with it straight away and just had to write something. I thought I'd start with a multi-chap (I'm writing this as I go so updates might not be too regular, but I'll try to keep it at at least once a month) and although it's probably a plot that's been done to death, I wanted to do the cliche. Hopefully I can put my own little twist to this, but we'll just have to wait and see. If you spot any errors (aside from North's occasionally bad English) don't hesitate to let me know.

Also, I'm usually very poor with writing accents, so for now you'll have to imagine North's Russian accent and Bunny's Australian accent. However I hope to be able to write them properly by the time I bring some other characters in, who will have very thick accents of their own.

Hope you enjoy what's bound to be a bit of a wacky ride!

Eb x


Gaia stared worriedly into her oracle, a glass orb filled with swirling mists and light. Something was wrong. Terribly, horribly wrong. Darkness was seeping into the light. The balance was shifting, but what could be causing it?

She bit her lip, pondering the question. Could it be the humans? True, many didn't believe in her any more, which was why her power was weaker than it once was. But enough of the mortals knew her name and her stories that she still had power, was still known. And it was impossible not to see mother nature even in these days. She considered the idea some more. They were destroying the world around them, true enough, but she was almost certain that this new shift wasn't anything to do with them. At least, not directly.

"Still blind to everything but your precious plants and animals, Gaia?"

The voice, though softly spoken, instilled a tremor of fear. "Black." she whispered.

"Of course, who else could I be? The Goblin King?" he chuckled, a sardonic chuckle, and when she turned around he was suddenly there, black as pitch and calm as night.

"What are you doing here, Pitch?" she spat, her hands fisted at her sides. She was a goddess, damn him. She deserved some respect.

"Still trying to figure out what is going on? You always were detached." her grinned. "That's why this is so easy." The growing confusion in her eyes caused him to suddenly bark out a laugh. "You're kidding, right? You honestly have no idea what is happening under your very nose? Within your own realm? Have you noticed nothing?"

Looking around, at first she saw nothing but her garden. But then it struck her, painfully, and she gasped as she flew to the first thing she noticed. "My garden!"

A single flower, among all the other white and yellow blossoms, was wilting.

"And that's not all." Pitch whispered from behind her, sweeping his arm out before them to cover the expanse of her natural garden. "Look closer, Mother Nature."

More dying flowers. Some were already dead, dried and brown. But Autumn never touched this part of her garden!

"What blight have you brought with you, shade?" she demanded.

He chuckled again. "I have been at this a long time now. Since that pesky child of yours defeated me. It has taken time, oh yes. But my strength returns, and as I grow stronger, your powers grow weaker."

Winter. He had to be talking about Winter; the only one of the four the Guardians had managed to find.

Over Pitch's shoulder she saw one of her nymphs, a tiny pixie-like thing with dragonfly wings clothed in leaves and petals and light. It was watching, hiding behind a tulip, and she hoped it would stay hidden.

"What do you want, Pitch?" she repeated, her anger strong behind her words.

He laughed and threw out his arms. "I want to throw this world into chaos and darkness. I want your children, Gaia. The four you created with the help of the Sun and the Moon. But first," his grin grew sickening. She head a rustling, rushing sound behind her, but didn't dare to turn and look; the shade before her was treacherous enough without giving him such a clear opening as a turned back.

"I'll have you."

Black sand exploded upwards on all sides, surrounding her. Through the swirling vortex she could see his grinning face. She tried to summon her powers, but could only produce a glimmer of light from her fingertips. With dawning horror, she realised he had been draining her powers steadily for a long time, and she hadn't even noticed.

"It is too late, Gaia. I have you. And soon your children will join you in the darkness!"

Frantic, she sent out one last thought, a message to be carried by her nymph, if it survived. If not then Time would likely carry it to the one she wanted.

North!

Pitch Black felt no small amount of satisfaction as the last grain of black sand faded away, leaving nothing in its wake but a patch of dead plants. It had taken a long time, a very long time, and he had needed to be ever cautious; Gaia was a goddess, and one did not challenge a goddess lightly. But finally, he had managed it. Draining her powers had been nothing short of pleasure.

He glanced at the oracle and the pedestal on which it sat. A white marble column about as high as his waist inscribed with vines and flowers, and on the one side, a circle divided into four quarters, each engraved with a different image.

A sun and a flower. A dagger and a bow. A dragon and a tree. A snowflake and a lake.

This last symbol, in particular, he glared at. But then his expression softened into a twisted pardoy of a soft smile, and in his soft voice he recited;

"Four to rise or all to fall.

Two of Sun and Two of Moon.

One at life's start, one near it's end,

One awake and one in slumber.

All to live,"

With a vicious back hand, he knocked the crystal orb to the floor, shattering it beyond repair.

"Or all to die."

o.O.o

North!

The voice echoed, high pitched and terrified within his head. A man with a white beard shot up from where he had been resting at the work bench, a nearby sword pulled suddenly from nowhere as he scanned his surroundings.

He knew that voice.

"North!" this voice, while still feminine, was not in his head. But it was no less panicked.

Rubbing a hand over his face, trying to tell himself that the voice had just been his imagination and that the feeling in his belly was just those two dozen cookies he knew he shouldn't have eaten, the man most knew as Santa Claus walked out into the main workshop.

"Toothy?" he stared at her, surprised; rarely was this being so distressed. "What is the matter?"

She was flitting about nervously, this way and that, and were those tears on her cheek?

"It's Jack. Oh North, Baby Tooth just arrived in my palace, terrified. Jack's collapsed!"

The bad feeling in his belly intensified, four-fold. "Where is he?" he asked, reaching for his hat and coat and digging into a pocket for a snow globe.

"England. He was frosting a lake when he . . . when he . . ." she made a pained sort of wail as he tossed the snowball at the floor. "Oh North, he fell in!"

"Is he alone?"

"No, my fairies stayed with him, Bunnymund showed up, and Baby Tooth keeps trying to . . . North I don't understand what's happening. He's a spirit, he shouldn't be like this. He's believed in now!"

North said nothing as he ambled through the portal as quickly as he could, the Tooth Fairy not far behind. The old man had a feeling he knew what had happened. All too well.

Bunny was still there when they arrived next to the pretty winter lake, with Sandy. Bunny's wet fur was a testament to his getting Jack out of the water. Sandy was trying to see what was going through the boy's head; the lad was moaning in his sleep, a grimace of pain clear on his pale face, but all that Sandy's sand could project was vague shapes that disappeared too fast to be interpreted.

"Stay clear." North warned them, kneeling beside the boy and tilting his head. All the while Baby Tooth was twittering in his ear.

"Is he . . ?" Tooth was hovering nearby.

With a sigh, North offered a grim smile. "He's alive. A bond backlashed on him, that's all. He will wake up soon."

"A bond? What bond?" Bunny hopped around to the other side of the boy. "You know something, mate."

It wasn't a question, and North didn't pretend. "I think I do, but I wish to all that is good that I am wrong. You do know who he is, of course."

The others froze. Bunny twitched nervously, not looking at his burly Russian friend. "I err . . . I may have had my suspicions."

A moan interrupted the seriousness of their conversation, and Jack's blue eyes opened to see five concerned face hovering over him.

"You feeling ok mate?"

"I feel like I've been caught in a heatwave." he admitted. It was true; his senses were reeling, unsure whether he was hot or cold, wet or dry. All he knew was that he was dizzy, and his heart and head hurt.

"Don't worry Jack, we'll get you back to the workshop to rest. And then we'll find out what has gone wrong."

It was only hours later, when Jack had been forced to sleep off the worst by Sandy, that North even considered finishing that conversation from earlier. They were seated around the main room, waiting patiently as night fell, and Jack was looking both curious and worried, but at least his colour had returned to normal.

"You all know, of course, that Jack Frost is a winter spirit." North began, gazing up at the moon outside. The room was silent. "But that is not all that he is." with a weary sigh, North turned to a bookshelf nearby and pulled down a thick, heavy tome. "Jack," he paused heavily, he saddened gaze resting on the youngest of them, "you are Winter."

"What?" Jack blinked, first in shock, then in suspicion. "There's no way . . . How is that even . . . I'm only three hundred years old." He finally managed. The expression on his face clearly said that he thought this a prank, and that he was waiting for someone to shout gotcha and start laughing.

"I wish it were true." North sighed heavily, turning pages. "But I know the one who created you, who you served. Your mother. She asked Man in Moon for help, and he gave her you, long ago. Right now, you are three hundred years. But your spirit, Jack. Your soul is far older."

"This makes no sense." Jack repeated stubbornly. They had found out before that he didn't take well to change; his was a stubborn season that only reluctantly loosened it's grip each year.

"Originally, there were four of you." North continued, as though he hadn't heard him. "Children of Gaia, the Mother Nature, the protectors and keepers of the four seasons, charged with keeping the balance of nature in Gaia's absence. But you were scattered long ago, lost to time."

"But this is crazy," the spirit tried again. "I finally know who I am, who I was, and now your telling me that I'm not-"

"You are who you are, mate." Bunny interrupted, "but that's not all you are. You are the Guardian of Fun true enough, but you are also Winter, one of Gaia's four children. And we need to find out why you collapsed so suddenly."

Tooth had been silent all this time, watching Jack with sad eyes. She should have known; he was too special to simply be a winter spirit. He had too much power.

"The second born in fire and the fourth in ice,

The third from the forest and the first of the sun.

Four joined in hand to make the cycle of one."

North's sudden speech caught them all off guard, and they stared at him. The words echoed within Jack Frost's head, stirring something long forgotten, like an ache he had only just been made aware of.

"Four to rise or all to fall.

Two of Sun and Two of Moon.

One at life's start, one near it's end,

One awake and one in slumber.

All to live, or all to die."

"The four seasons." Tooth whispered slowly. "North, is that . . ."

"The Book of Seasons." Bunny stared at the heavy tome in awe. "Mate, how did you . . ."

"It was entrusted to me long ago, by Gaia herself when she asked of me to watch out for her children."

"So, one of us is asleep?" Jack asked uncertainly, watching the book like it might attack him.

Silence, and then Bunny spoke with a blunt tone as though stating the obvious. "Mate, that's you."

"What?" this was nuts. He laughed. "OK, now I know you're all crazy. I'm not asleep."

"Think about it, Jack." Tooth implored suddenly. "Nothing truly dies in winter, the earth only sleeps until spring."

When Spring woke it up again. Jack found himself wondering at that; he had always found the end of winter a bitter-sweet thing, but had attributed it to the end of his fun. Now he wasn't so sure.

"When we found you it was only by accident." North continued. "I only realised you were who you are, when you faced Pitch. Then, I knew. And I knew that the other three would appear soon after." He placed one hand on the pages of the book, and the other over his heart. "Something has happened to Gaia. Before you collapsed, I heard her voice. She is goddess, Jack. Goddesses do not need help, but she does. Now." he ran a hand through his hair, dishevelling it. "Something has happened to her, I feel it. You felt it too." he looked beseechingly at Jack.

"She needs you." Bunny added.

Sandy chose this moment to use his picture-talk. In rapid succession he formed a sun, a dagger and a dragon, and then made a beautiful flower that bloomed and grew.

"Quite right, Sandy." North stated cheerfully. "We start with Gaia herself."

"Whoa, whoa, hold on a moment!" Jack yelled into the flurry of activity that sprung up with those words. By his shoulder, Baby Tooth started twittering anxiously. "Even if I am this Winter, which I'm not, what makes you think I even want anything to do with this? What makes you think we didn't all run away?"

There was a pregnant pause. "We don't mate." Bunny said at last, sounding tired. "We only know you disappeared. That's one of the things we need to find out."

"We can't do this without you, Jack. We need you." Toothy added.

"I'll help you," Jack gave in, but his voice was determined. "But just until you find the real Winter."

Sandy smiled at him, and North chuckled. "Good enough for me."

Bunny kept to himself, his mind ticking over things he had seen and heard in the last few centuries.

Jack walked through the conjured portal first - "What? No sleigh?" "Ahhh, sleigh is a bit much, where we are going." - and the others shared wry grins before following.

"Same old Winter, stubborn as glacier." North chuckled.

Bunny offered a small smile. "I can't wait for Spring to thaw him out a bit." he was the last to walk through, but his smile fell uneasily before he entered.

He knew for certain that this would not be easy.