Disclaimer: I own neither Frozen nor Rise of the Guardians.

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Frozen in Time

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Chapter 3

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Jack had to question the Wind's wisdom in bringing him to the ice castle. He had first been accosted by a barrage of little snowballs that could apparently sense he was Jack Frost, or some other European denomination of his name… then had a gross misunderstanding with an adult who could somehow see him and thought he was some insane teen… she also had ice powers… and then a talking…snowman. That also belatedly sensed he was Jack Frost.

What had the Wind been thinking when it had brought him to this place?

A small voice asked, "So… exactly how old are you?"

Well, it seemed the anomaly of an adult seemed to believe that he Jack Frost, at least.

"I've been 18 years old for three centuries. And a year."

Her shyness was short-lived as she deadpanned, "A simple 'three-hundred-nineteen' would have sufficed."

"Yeah, but I like others to know that my biological age is forever a teen." Jack replied cheekily. Olaf the talking snowman had called the young woman Elsa. "So, Elsa, I hazard a guess that you're in college? Majoring in 19th century architecture, perhaps?"

After he voiced his educated guess, Elsa stared. Then to his great surprise, she burst out in laughter. It was a charming sound, but due to her lack of laugh lines, he guessed it wasn't a common occurrence.

Minutes later, when she was still laughing, Jack wondered out loud, "Wow, was I that off mark?"

Making what looked like an enormous effort to stifle her giggling, Elsa made out, "No. Not at all." His face expression was apparently still very confused, as she broke out into a fresh fit of giggles. "I mean, yes, you were off mark. Very much so."

Jack waited for the giggles to abate before he slowly encouraged, "…So, what do you actually do?"

The last of her giggles disappeared and Elsa replied in a very put-together way that Jack found he didn't like quite as much as her giggly self, "I run Arendelle Orphanage."

Eyebrows shooting up, Jack looked at Elsa in a new light. So young and running an orphanage? "Seems like a very… responsible thing to do."

She shrugged. "It's what I have been doing for a while now."

While most of his questions had been in English, Jack noticed she replied in Norwegian. It wasn't that he minded, but there were so many dialects to keep track of…

"Say, why do you mostly answer in Norwegian when you spoke English at first?"

"Shouldn't you know the languages of the countries that believe in you by now, Jack Frost, an existence for over 'three centuries. And a year?'" He heard the mocking tone in her voice as she threw his words back in his face.

"Well, I have been a bit busy going around the world and making snow days for kids to have fun and relax." Jack shrugged. "Not much time to learn languages." Elsa raised an eyebrow and Jack rolled his eyes, regretting at his face slip at the appearance of the live snowman. "I just prefer to speak the language I'm most comfortable with, okay?"

Tilting her head, the platinum blonde stated rather than asked, "From your accent, I assume you're from the United States."

Cheerfully, Jack affirmed, "Yup!" But he raised a finger, "But now we're talking too much about Jack Frost and too little about Elsa… What did you say your last name was?" He knew she hadn't said her last name. In fact, she hadn't mentioned her name to him once all the time when she'd been demanding his. Talk about unfair.

"My surname is Snow."

If Jack hadn't lived an extra three hundred and one years, he wouldn't have noticed that she'd answered a bit too quickly. "Elsa Snow." But as it happened to be, he had, and he did notice. So not only was she hiding something, she was lying as well. Ah well, he'd ferret the truth out somehow. Starting now. "Well, Miss Snow, how'd you come by your icy powers?"

Tersely, she answered, "I was born with them."

For what seemed to be the nth time that day, Jack was surprised. Powers granted by the Man in Moon, okay, understood. But born with powers? That was a first, since she was a human, unlike Sandy or Bunnymund. He'd ask North at the next Guardian meeting whether anything like this had ever happened before. A human born with powers…

But back to the matter at hand.

"So, if you aren't majoring in 19th century architecture, how are you so familiar with the structure and design? And aren't you a little young to be working already? Much less run an orphanage? You're what, twenty? Twenty-one?"

At the mention of her age, Elsa crossed her arms. A defensive posture. Ah, it seemed that age was a touchy subject for her. Jack guessed that she'd gone through the 'too young' thing more than she'd wanted to.

"I'm old enough, thank you very much. Besides, it's not a matter of age; I was an orphan too, if you must know. My sister and I –" She stopped, and pressed her lips tightly shut.

Okay, there was a taboo in those sentences as well. So, it was either being an orphan, which wasn't likely – she'd easily admitted that she ran an orphanage, so that left age – again – and a sister… whom she'd failed to extrapolate on. Probably the sister.

This Elsa 'Snow' was an interesting human. An idea occurred to Jack. "Hey, you wanna go for a ride?"

"Go for a ride?" She echoed, as if it were an alien phrase to her.

Jack smiled slyly, "You asked how I got into the castle, and I'm offering to show you."

She seemed more hesitant than mistrusting. Sometimes, what worked on children also worked on adults, so Jack goaded her, "You don't want to see Jack Frost's chosen form of transport? What, you scared?"

That seemed to have done the trick, as Elsa squared her shoulders. "Alright, let's see how great your mode of transportation really is."

Then Jack nabbed her and slung her over his shoulder and jumped onto his staff, whooping as he did so, smugness increasing with every surprised squeak Elsa let out. But her struggles did impede with his balance.

"You'd better stop wriggling there, miss, or I'll accidentally drop you." Immediately, Elsa became as stiff as a board. Jack was enjoying riding the wind, but the wind wasn't taking him any further than a hundred feet from the castle, so eventually, after a few loop-de-loops that elicited a few screams, he set a significantly more disheveled Elsa down on the ice floor.

After she'd recovered, Elsa glared daggers at Jack, seething. "Jokul Frosti, how DARE you! If you'd flown into my castle, you could have just said so, instead of claiming to show me with every intention of barbarically throwing me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes!"

Surprisingly, she was just as attractive when she was angry as when she was laughing. One would think that laughter would have been much more preferable, but Elsa's anger simply amused the spirit. This one was a spitfire, she was, despite her elegantly icy powers.

Chuckling, Jack asked rhetorically, "But where's the fun in that? I may be a winter spirit, but I'm also a Guardian of fun, you know."

When Elsa stared at him incredulously, he elaborated slowly, as if he were talking to a kindergartner, "Fun and snow. They go hand in hand. It's my job."

She looked at him with a funny face. Not funny as in amusing, but odd. She looked as if she were about to spill the beans on something.

Eager for more information on this mysterious girl, Jack waited. In the three hundred years after he'd died, he'd learnt that silence was unnerving – the hard way (like being ignored for three centuries). People tended to speak after a minute or two, and often they unintentionally revealed things in an effort to fill the void.

But the silence extended for longer than that. Five minutes, give or take. This was a girl wiser than most her age, Jack would give her that. Or just really stubborn.

That, or she'd learnt in a class that silence could be used as a negotiating tactic.

But eventually, she caved. The only indication of her struggle though, was the decrease in temperature. It was funny, because he got the distinct impression that she could have gone on for longer. Perhaps she'd taken politics, business, or some other cutthroat industry and had been disenchanted, and then gone on to run the orphanage?

"You claim to be a guardian of fun, but hadn't it occurred to you that your idea of fun might be fatal for others?" Her dangerously quiet voice reinforced Jack's current theory. She didn't even bother asking what a Guardian was. It was like she didn't care about his job – except for finding flaws in it. Perhaps she'd been in court law. "People have frozen to death in snowstorms. Do you know how many children I've rescued from the cold over the years?" Her voice was rising. Yikes, one would think that the silence had never been there. Even if she didn't show it, he could feel her anger rising through the inversely dropping temperature.

Looked like somebody was working herself into a temper.

And Jack, like anybody else who had just been accused of unintentionally murdering people, did what anybody else would do: defend himself. "Hey now, I make sure I don't cause fatal ice storms. Those storms are from Mother Nature, and even I can't control those." Jack winced; sure, he'd meant to defend himself, but he hadn't meant to blame Mother Nature. Having been forced into that blunder, he felt his temper began to rise as well, resulting in a mightily low temperature between the two of them. "Besides, you should've seen this freak blizzard back two centuries ago! It was near here, come to think of it." Toss it, he had already blamed Mother Nature once, might as well blame her again. "I remember wondering if Mother Nature had finally lost it; it was supposed to be the middle of summer."

But then Jack caught Elsa stiffening ever so slightly and another theory rose to his inquisitive and occasionally active mind. "Are your powers hereditary?"

Elsa looked taken aback at this question. "What?"

"Are your powers are hereditary?" Jack repeated.

Looking honestly bewildered, Elsa answered, "…No, I don't think so."

"Neither one of your parents had them?" He pressed.

Elsa gave him a glare. "No, my parents did not have them. And it's not exactly polite to bring up parents in a conversation with somebody you know is an orphan."

But still Jack persisted. "Grandparents, then?"

She snorted. "Let's just say that I pulled the short straw when it came to meeting my predecessors." Predecessors? That was a strange way to refer to one's grandparents. After a pause, she changed the subject. "Don't you have work to do? Cause snow days, and 'protect' fun or whatever your job description is?"

Hm. She had deflected. Then completely derailed the conversation by not so subtly hinting that he should leave.

Jack vowed he would get to the bottom of this enigmatic girl's secret, but she seemed like a skittish deer. She had shown that she could be regal and even feisty at times, but still skittish over subjects she was uncomfortable with.

Swinging back up onto his staff in one smooth motion, Jack said, "Well, then, as you've said, I should go. Places to blizzard, kids to see, noses to nip. Winter hasn't hit the southern hemisphere yet."

He would leave for now, but he would be back. "See ya."

And the Wind took him.

…

Elsa almost sagged once the winter spirit had left.

He hadn't realized that she was immortal.

He hadn't realized that two centuries ago, she had been the one to freeze Arendelle over.

Leaning against the railing, Elsa groaned, every fiber of her being filled with a mix of relief, regret, and resentment. Why hadn't she taken the chance and told him the truth? That she was immortal? Why hadn't he recognized that she was immortal? He was Jokul Frosti! Jack Frost!

Speaking of which, this sent her into another wave of despair.

First, she had thought that Jack Frost would get frostbite…

Second, she had basically accused him of indirectly killing people with winter…!

But his careless, playful nature that appeared after he'd recovered from his shock somehow just rubbed her the wrong way.

Which just made her angry all over again. Guardian of fun indeed. Arendelle Orphanage had started out as a shelter for children who were abandoned and freezing in blizzards, basically!

A voice in the back of her mind, which sounded suspiciously like Anna, asked, 'Can you blame the winter spirit for having fun doing his job?'

The more cynical voice at the forefront of Elsa's mind whispered, 'I think you're just jealous that he's able to be carefree with his powers.'

Elsa shoved both thoughts out of her mind, and deeming her 'vacation' a complete loss, snowboarded back down the mountain to Arendelle Orphanage, where one of the older orphans gave her a bemused greeting.

"Hey Elsa. Weren't you going to take the day off?"

Unwinding a scarf from her neck she wore purely for appearance's sake Elsa said glumly, "I changed my mind."

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A/N: Don't worry Elsa, you'll have more chances. They'll just get harder and harder the more time passes.