A/N

Hello there! CopperInk here. Just thought to give you a few warnings about this fic:
(First of all, it's pretty much my first fic...) Okay, so there will be some blood and some swearing. Nothing too bad, though.
And there will be OCs. They won't be paired up with anyone, so no worries! They won't be having their POVs included either.
And since I'm doing pretty much myth twisting in this fic, I'll try to explain things as they come, okay? Okay.
And there won't be any pairings on this story, like, at all. No Black Ice, though there will be some fatherly Pitch...
That's it, I guess, on with the story now!

PROLOGUE

It was cold. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. Scared brown eyes ghosted in my memory. I had to get up! But I was suffocating. My lungs were burning. Silvery light wiped away the image of the small girl and everything faded to black.

It was cold. Not the numbing, suffocating cold, but the comforting kind. At least it was for the boy with snow white hair, who was slowly rising to the frozen surface from the depths of a lake. The ice cracked and brushed against him as he floated through it as if lifted by the moonlight. Then he opened his eyes. Light flooded in his sparkling ice blue eyes. He was floating slightly in the air, but as soon as he realized it, he was lowered to the ice. He slowly raised his hands to brush his fingers through his snow white locks as he tried to blink away the blinding light. Flakes of snow fell from the touch. Same happened with his tunic and shirt. For few seconds, he was mesmerized by the falling flakes. Then he finally lifted his gaze and looked around.

The ice of the lake reflected the moonlight making it almost unbearably bright for his eyes. But where the lake ended and trees started, were unnaturally dark shadows. He looked up at the moon as it shone brightly like a sun, except the light was silver instead of golden. A strange feeling filled him then. Something mixed in the amazement he felt, something sad, something overly confusing. He didn't want to think about it, so he pushed it from his mind.

And that was when he heard it. A whisper. The light danced as it spoke out, like an echo. The Moon spoke. "Jack Frost", it whispered and the boy knew that was him. Jack Frost, spirit of winter. The boy let out a light laugh. Once the laughter died, he took a breath as he closed his eyes, momentarily overwhelmed. He could feel the ice under his bare feet and hear it cracking softly against the rocks that stuck out from the frozen water.

Opening his eyes again, he took a step on the ice almost falling as he stepped on something round. He glanced down to see a silvery stick lying by his feet. A staff. He would've corrected. Again he pushed away the sad, sad confusion that came with the thought. The boy warily picked up the staff and laughed joyfully as it frosted over from where he touched it, lighting up as it reflected the moonlight. By now, his instincts were telling him that something was wrong with his vision, the shadows were too dark and evident, while everything touched by moonlight were too bright. But he pushed it from his mind in his childlike excitement as he did with the sadness and confusion.

He poked at some trees with his staff before taking off to the ice, forming frost patterns where ever his staff slid over the ice. All the time he was laughing from joy. He was still laughing when the wind came to greet him, picking him off the ground. A startled yelp escaped his lips as he was lifted high above the ground. When he realized he was flying he let out a nervous chuckle. Just before the wind let go and he fell through the trees, grasping at the branch he fell on. Relief filled him when he found himself uninjured. Then the boy's gaze wondered over the tree tops, pausing as something glinted among the trees. He stood up on the branch, narrowing his eyes in effort to recognize what he was looking at. A fragment of memory ghosted in his mind, too distant to grasp. A village, he then realized. How? He wasn't sure, it was too tied up with the sadness, but he knew what those sloping spaces were. Rooftops.

He let the wind pick him up again, assuring himself that he had control over it. It was proved wrong when he stumbled to the ground, his tunic flying over his head. He could have sworn he heard the wind laugh at his attempted try to hide his stumbling. He wanted to do it again, but the figures formed by reflected silvery light and deep shadows stole his full attention. Humans, his distant memory told him. People. A smile broke to his face as he greeted the people passing by him. It wasn't until a child passed through him, that the smile left his face, replaced by confusion.

Another ran through him and left him catching his breath. Getting run through, he decided, wasn't fun. He ran to next person he noticed, trying to catch her attention, and another one's after that, and another's. No one showed any signs of seeing him. Nor hearing, or even getting a vague feeling of his presence there. Feeling confused and hurt, he backed off from the village before taking off with the wind again, as far he could get, before the sun rose. New kind of sadness and a horrible lost feeling were creeping on his mind. He would've liked to keep flying, inspect the world, let the curiosity push aside the emotions he didn't want to focus on. But, as the sun rose, he was forced down by fear. He watched as his world was wiped away as the sunlight ran over the moonlight and left him in the dark. Blind and scared.

CHAPTER 1 Guardian of a Hole

Jack let a smile slip on his lips as he sent the wind away with a small cloud of snow. People of the small village would wake up with fresh cover of snow covering their yards. The children would start a snowball fight and make snowmen as he'd managed to make up from the laughing and screaming that followed by thumping and rustling sounds. Once or twice, he'd caught a glimpse of their games as they had kept going even after the sun had set, much to their mothers' displeasure. The snowmen and animals he'd seen himself, left alone in the moonlight once the children went back to their houses. Jack still yearned to take part in their games, but even a year after being born, he still couldn't be seen by anyone. So he settled on preparing their playground and if they wondered close to the tree line, he would prepare them some ammunition. He never dared to wonder too far from the treeline on day time. Trees offered him cover and he would hear people approaching him long before they were close enough to walk through him, giving him some enough time to lift himself up on the wind. There was no reason for him to leave the forests, everything he needed to do could be done from there. Except for the towns in south that were far from trees, but he could take care of those at nighttime.

To the sea he hadn't wondered at all. Yet at least. But he didn't think it mattered, as it seemed that he could reach the other side by flying over the Antarctica, as he'd heard it being called. A nice cold place with lots of snow and ice, with taking only short cuts over the water. He still didn't trust the wind enough to take longer routes. It still had the habit of dropping him, if he took a pause. He'd need to work on that too. But for now, Jack pushed the wind and Antarctica from his mind as he lowered himself to the ice of the lake, where he had taken his first steps on. He didn't know what pulled him back to the lake. He always came back after few weeks, even in summer he had come back to stand on the edge of the water just watching the water lap over the rocks and sand until the daylight took his vision and he would settle on some branch to catch few hours of sleep.

-O-

Today… was different. Jack had arrived at the lake earlier, about an hour before the sun would rise. He didn't know why, he just felt like it, and if he felt like it, who was there to say him no? Not the moon anyway. It hadn't spoken to him even once after he'd gotten his name. Not when he'd plead it to tell him what to do, if he really was alone and why he was there. Not even a whisper. So it wasn't a surprise that the boy almost fell from the branch he was crouching on when he heard its voice. The fading moonlight glittered as the whispers echoed through Jack's head.

Immediately, Jack took off to where the moon told him to, setting back to ground not too far from his lake. The trees blocked most of the moonlight, leaving him nervously on his toes. Ready to take off in moment's notice. The moon washed away his nervousness though, as it offered him a deal. Jack was all too eager to comply in his confusion and loneliness. He'd spent a year alone, trying everything to get noticed, he'd played it good though, waiting. And now the Moon gave him a chance. There was a hole on the ground, filled with darkness even though the trees' didn't cast a shadow over it. He was supposed to guard it. Or rather, the one inside it. No words were needed after that as Jack could feel the change and how it worked. He felt the bind form. Binding him, this place and the one inside the hole. He stumbled back as a wave of pure rage rose from the hole. The shadows shifted and surged out of the hole. Just then, though, the sun rose from behind the trees and chased the shadows back to the hole. The last beams of moonlight disappeared and Jack was left in his personal darkness. For once, Jack was glad of the warmth and dark taking over his world. This darkness was just darkness, blindness, he realized. Not like the moving shadows in the hole. After that night, the moon fell silent. Jack never heard its voice again.

Jack took off as soon as he got over his stiffness. He let the wind guide him wherever it wanted to take him, all the time whispering words that Jack had yet to come understand. The one from the hole wouldn't leave it while the sun was up, he was sure. But as the night fell, he would have to get back there to fill his duty. With that thought a surge of energy passed him and he let the wind speed up, making excited whoops as he soared through the air.

-O-

By the time the sun set, the boy was back at the hole, crouching at some lower branch of a pine tree. The moonlight was thinner that night, but Jack had already accustomed to the lunar month, as he believed it was called. First time that the moon had faded to a crescent, he'd pretty much panicked. Not that he'd ever admit it. The familiar nervousness crept up his spine as he made the observation of being blind for the next few nights. And days. In a year, rather than getting used to his blindness he'd come to cherish nights illuminated by moonlight and look at the day time in fright.

After an hour of crouching on the branch, he finally caught a glimpse of the shadows movement. A figure formed next to the hole, but moved from the beam of light too soon for him to have a good look. So he settled on listening, something he was getting pretty good at. The silent crunching of snow beneath the figure's feet was the only clue he had to its whereabouts. Slowly, it approached the tree before stopping couple of meters in front of it. Jack tilted his head slightly to locate the man's breathing, in vain, though, it seemed to be just out of Jack's hearing range. Only then did it occur to him, that it might actually be able to see him as it had stopped right in front of the tree he was sitting on. He knew it could be just false hope that was growing in his chest, but still he fixed his unseeing eyes on the spot he assumed it to be standing, not intending to let it know about his… condition.

"And who might you be? His new guard dog?" it asked and Jack realized it had to be a man with a voice like that. Then he realized that he had talked to Jack, which meant he could see him! Jack would've liked to laugh and run and hug the man, but then the words the man had spoken sunk in. Blue eyes narrowed at the arrogant, mocking tone the man had used and Jack decided he didn't need to hang around any longer that night. The man seemed weary and somehow… tired. He wouldn't be leaving anywhere that night. Some night, though, Jack would have to figure out a way he could leave the hole and not let the man free as it wouldn't be like this forever. For now though, Jack just stepped off from his branch and hoped the wind would catch him in time, since it wouldn't always follow his wishes. It did catch him, just before his feet reached the ground, so he took a flight to spread some snow to that weird town in the east, a place called Japan, if he remembered right. By sunrise he would be back at the continent though and he would return to the hole the next sundown.

-O-

The following night, Jack settled on the same branch he had the night before. The man came out again, this time only few minutes after the boy had arrived. Again, the man asked for the winter spirit's name and again he was left there without an answer since Jack didn't appreciate his mocking words and tone. He didn't grieve for company that bad. Not yet anyway. But in his mind, Jack had a nagging feeling, that if this kept going on, he would be feeling very lonely in few years. And he'd still have no idea who it was that he was guarding nor why. And he'd have no way of figuring out if there were more of them. Creatures and people like him.

Unfortunately for Jack, the man had too much pride to address his new guard with any sort of respect. Years passed and almost every night, Jack would return to the hole and leave soon after the man rose from the hole. Some nights, Jack could feel the man wonder from the hole, never too far though, tied to the place as long as Jack kept visiting. It wouldn't hold on like that for too long though, as Jack could feel the man grow stronger, soon Jack would have to make visits every single night, maybe even at day time to make sure the man would have to stay at his hole.

-O-

It took thirty years for the man stop trying to acquire Jack's name among mockery. Twenty years they spent in silence. Fifty one years after being born, Jack got desperate. If it wasn't for the children skating at the lake, who knows, maybe it would've gone down differently. Maybe they wouldn't have gotten to know each other's' names until much, much later. Maybe they would've continued their forced silent and simple relationship. Maybe they would've simply been the one to be guarded at the hole and the one to guard him. But the children had indeed decided to go skating at the lake that day.

Jack had taken a habit of rounding over his lake every week at day time to drop off some snow for the children to play in, freeze some hillsides for them to sled at. Never before, though, had he heard or seen children go skating to his lake. He had heard it being talked about of course, as the families settled to sit by their fireplaces and tell stories. There was this one story about two children drowning at the lake where they went to skate. It varied at different houses, one says they both drowned, other says only the one of them drowned, but all of the stories told how at least one ghost stayed at the lake, maybe making sure no one would share their fate or in anger drown everyone who came near to their resting place. Whatever the story was though, it was the reason no children would skate at the lake. At least, it had been until that day. Jack guessed it wasn't taken seriously anymore, as it had become mostly the old people's talk. However it was, that day, there were five children skating at the lake, but only four ran back home.

He had been making his normal round and had just landed on the ice of his lake when he heard them approaching. Swiftly, he had run to the trees, settling to sit on one's branch. It hadn't occurred to him that winter had come late that year and the ice would be thin. It hadn't occurred to him he could have frozen it, made sure it would hold the weight of five laughing children. But no, he was mesmerized by their laughter and delighted screams. When he heard the ice crack he panicked. He fell from the branch and instead of getting up, he listened with horror as the ice cracked again. Then he had scrambled up and screamed, made a small flurry of snow to get the children off the ice, he'd even tried to drag them off only to have the painful experience of being walked through.

He was too panicked to actually think. To realize that he could just send a wave of ice to strengthen the surface, that he could have asked the wind to bring a flurry of snow to chase the children from the ice. Then he'd heard the laughing stop as the ice kept cracking and it had been too late. There was a splash and screaming. The child was quickly dragged underwater by the weight of wet winter clothing. Jack had frozen stiff. Too scared to move as an image of brown eyed girl came to his vision. He had no idea why or how, since he couldn't see the children nor their horror stricken faces. He had just stood there, heard as the adults come running, but ended up just trying to comfort the children and the hysteric woman that had arrived only moments later. He'd just stood there, lost in the depths of brown eyes filled with fear.

The sun had already set when Jack forced himself to move. He made his way to the village, stumbling blindly through the forest as the moon did not shine that night, cutting his face and arms in process. He scribbled messages, probably full of grammars, on the snow, drew pictures with frost and made the snow fall in different patterns. No one took a notice. Sure, they admired the frost pictures and watched the snow fall in amazement, but no one noticed the message. The words were swept away by wind, frost covered by snow. He screamed his name in people's ears, but no one heard him. He didn't even notice days passing by as he went from village to village. Finally, he came back to the village close his lake. Settling to sit by a tree covered in snow. Leaning his head on the trunk, he just sat and listened to the everyday routines of people, how they laughed and talked, even if it was all weary sounding, the village still mourning for the child. He listened until he finally shut himself from the world. He didn't even notice the wind growing stronger and the snow that gathered in the clouds. For three days, the sky was covered and people spent the days huddled together in their houses to stay warm as snow piled up on their windows and door steps.

-O-

It had been a week since Jack had visited the hole, a week and the man from the hole was finally able to make enough distance between the hole and himself. Enough for what? One might ask. The man wondered it himself too. For the past week he'd been able to wander further and further, but always a voice was nagging in his head. Not enough. Not enough. So he'd waited. And each night he'd made it further. Then the snowstorm started and he'd found himself to make more progress in each night and even at day time as the sun didn't cast its burning light on the ground. And now, finally the nagging voice had stopped as he stood by a village tormented by the seemingly endless snowfall.

Yes, the nagging voice had shut up, but the man's conscious voice told him to flee as far as he could so he could never be imprisoned to that hole again. Then he could make up a plan and get back at the Guardians for making him such a pathetic mess. Yes, every sane part of his mind told him to do just that. But instead, he'd found himself making his way to where he could feel the fading presence of the boy with snow white hair and blue eyes glinting with mischief. Just a new pawn the "Man in the Moon" had made for himself, the man knew, but he remembered how lost the boy had seemed when he'd first set his eyes on him. And scared. While it had been amusing to find a spirit so scared of darkness, it had gotten confusing, when the boy showed such fear towards daylight as well. It caused a major migraine to dwell on the boy's fears, so the man had decided to keep his distance from that particular spot on the boy's box of horror's, but even with fifty years of poking, he couldn't shake the boy, and finally the all too familiar fear of remaining unseen by people had nestled on the boy's mind. The man had decided to leave the boy's fears alone.

And now that he'd been given a change to leave the boy and his confusing, head ache causing fears, he found himself wondering just what had happened to make the boy leave his post that he had ever so faithfully filled almost every night for fifty years. And so, though he'd rather been anywhere else, he approached the figure in brown tunic and trousers. He approached him from behind and mentally cursed for not learning the boy's name. He warily reached for the boy's shoulder and when he earned no response he turned the boy around. He would've liked to let go immediately after seeing the lifeless blue eyes that held no recognition. He braced himself before rising his hand and…

-O-

Jack flinched and blinked as something struck his left cheek. Hard. He was sure it would leave a bruise. He blinked again. Then the hand struck him again this time accompanied by someone calling out for him. Or maybe he just imagined the voice calling out, but the stinging on his cheek was definitely real.

"Ouch", he muttered then, wondering what or who could have struck him while raising his hand to rub his cheek. He heard a frustrated sigh, before an impatient voice spoke out.

"Finally", it muttered and Jack wondered if he imagined the relief in that voice that remembered mocking him for so many years. A frown formed on his face.

"It's you", he said accusingly. Just to make sure though, he lifted his arms and reached out to touch something, anything, to prove there was something in his world even if he couldn't see it. Relief washed over him as his hands brushed against silky fabric. Without any conscious thought his fingers gripped tightly on the fabric.

"Yes, it's me, or do you know any other spirits with golden eyes and gray skin?" the man asked while rolling his eyes at the boy. Not that Jack could see it.

"You have golden eyes?" Jack asked. Everything looked gray or silver to him, so it would be nice change to imagine golden eyes. Then he wondered how he even knew what golden looked like as he'd never seen it, but shook it from his mind as the sadness crept up in his mind again, even after so long.

"Yes, I believe it is called golden. Are you just stupid or are you bli-", the voice trailed off and Jack tensed as he waited for the reaction while trying to focus his unseeing eyes on something so it wouldn't be so obvious. He could feel the air shift and brush against his face.

"You… You are, aren't you?" the man asked then, the ever present arrogant edge gone from his voice. Jack assumed he had just waved his had in front of his face then.

"No, of course I'm not", he denied. He let go of the man's robe as he searched for his staff and gripped it once he found it from beneath the snow.

"Where are we anyway?" he asked then, in an attempt to divert the man's attention.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" the voice asked instead and Jack frowned.

"Three?" he guessed. The angry growl that followed suggested that he had guessed wrong.

"How long has it been like this?" The man asked after breathing in deeply. Jack pushed himself to sit straighter.

"No way, you just asked a question and I answered. It's my turn now. So, where are we?" It felt weird to talk to someone who actually talked back, but again, Jack brushed it off as he waited for an answer. He could practically feel the glare the man shot at him.

"By some village, I don't know. You're the one who collapsed here, you tell me", the man said. Finally the pieces clicked together in his mind and he remembered how he had ended up there. Followed by the realization of who he was conversing with. He shot up straight, pushing the man from his crouch. The man swore as he fell backwards on the snow.

"What? How long have I been here? How long have you been here?" Jack asked frantically. He'd been given a simple task to guard this man and he'd only had to get there once a night and now he'd screwed it up.

"Stop fretting! I would be long gone, had I been planning on running. It's been a week or so, hard to say with this constant snowfall, which, I believe, I have you to thank for. Now, you answer me, how long have you been blind?" the man answered impatiently, but Jack was far too gone to take part in twenty questions. He rose to his feet, pulling the man with him and started to lead them back to where the hole was. The man let him, much to their both surprise. Only briefly guiding the boy from running into trees, even though Jack did well, using his staff to detect any obstacles.

It didn't take them too long to reach the hole and Jack could feel the change. They were once again tightly bound. Only then did he become aware of the raging snowstorm and he quickly set to calming it down. The wind greeted him and Jack could have sworn he heard worry and relief in its whispers. It took him hours to calm the wind down and stop the snow fall. It was late night when he returned to the hole where the man stood waiting. They didn't speak as Jack took his place on the branch and the man settled to sit beneath him at the base of the tree. The man seemed distant, but Jack didn't mind. He was exhausted and he knew what the man would want to converse about if he tried to start one. So he made himself comfortable, gripping his staff as he laid it across his chest. He was just about to fall asleep when he heard the man move beneath him.

"I'm Jack Frost", he mumbled sleepily without a moment's thought. He heard a snort before a voice answered: "Kozmotis Pitchiner." A smile made its way on the snow haired youth's lips.

"G'night… Pitch", he greeted before falling asleep.