Water and Its Effects

"Winter Frost," Spring called, and their little Jack's sparkling blue eyes grew colder (or maybe it was just the snow reflecting off his eyes because the scrawny sprite wasn't capable of feeling such hard emotions). The light snowfall that had been so playfully catching in his hair was turned aside with an icy, whipping airstream.

"Spring Butterfly," he acknowledged in the deep, commanding voice of Winter. Jack was forgotten as something older and more powerful was remembered, something that spoke in the slow, halting tenor of glacial movement with emotion buried but still visible through the cracks in the thick icy layers covering it. Where Spring was ageless, Winter was older than living memory.

When Spring reached out from the snowy veil, form wavering as the warmth of emerging life contested with the frigid polar air, Winter grasped the proffered hand even as Jack internally flinched away. Jack's small, mildly-chilled form was suddenly no longer weighing down on Aster's shoulders, an unexpectedly unwelcome warmth creeping back into his fur in his absence.

Spring and Winter's forms blurred momentarily as lightning crackled across a rapidly darkening Northern sky, towering storm clouds building with frightening tenacity. Above them, a twister was beginning to spin steadily, gaining form as it drew in neighboring clouds. Further below the winds picked up speed before abruptly dissolving along with the dark clouds, thrown out of existence as fast as they had been brought to life. All that remained in their wake were two figures, one with the snow melted away in a circle around her bare feet and the other's gleaming, black dress shoes walking atop the precipitation without leaving prints in the snow.

Spring was a slender woman, and no more than six feet tall barefoot. Her blonde hair shone almost gold when the sun caught ahold of it. Strips of it twisted lazily around her waist like ivy, but the majority was caught up in the careful arrangement of blossoming flowers decorating her hair with red, orange, yellow and vibrant pink. Where the petals fell at her feet, young grass emerged from the frozen terrain. If a river could be condensed into fine Egyptian cotton, it would have wrapped itself around her like a Greek toga. The clarity and depth of the sun-touched river were not lost in her dress, the ripples and waves captured in motion and ever changing in the fabric. Her skin had a healthy pink flush, and when the Guardians looked at her in disbelief, she warmly smiled through lips matching the roses in her hair.

"This past day has weighed heavily on all of the Guardians," she stated, the words leaving her mouth like a pleasant stream gently weaving through a grassy field, wind just skimming the water to leave small ripples in its wake. Her voice had a soft echo, as if she was speaking across a great distance. "As the Seasons, we apologize. Our personal matters should not become the burden of our fellow immortals, and yet they have caused much distress. We are in your debt."

"But we're getting everything fixed, so don't concern yourselves too deeply," her companion remarked coolly, each consonant ringing as if he were tapping hollow ice at just the right point.

Between his hat and dress shoes, it was difficult to tell his height. He was at least a full head taller than Spring but just as lanky despite the grey hairs becoming evident in the lush black waves. Unlike Spring, he had kept up with the times. His Fedora was classic by mortal standards, and his midnight black suit had been carefully tailored to accentuate his figure. The shine of the sun off the snow was also evident in the threads of his apparel as he moved, capturing and reflecting back the same crystalline iridescence. The dark, sapphire tie emblazoned with pale snowflakes served to offset and brighten his brilliant eyes, his starched white dress shirt paling in comparison. Everything was in its place—the collar pressed neatly beneath the lapels of his suit, the impossible lack of wrinkles in anything (including his lightly tanned skin), not a single hair askew—yet his overall look was that of nonchalance. His dark jacket was artfully pushed aside by the hands on his hips. The Fedora appeared to be glued to his scalp, because despite the cocky toss of his chin at Spring's apology, the hat steadfastly refused to move even when his hair dramatically swished to the side. Winter was the picture of cool, elegant nonchalance.

Spring shook her head, sending a small shower of colorful petals to the exposed earth at her feet. "Winter is impertinent, as usual, but we have little time for explanations." She nodded to her companion and he obliged.

"Be seated, children," Winter intoned melodramatically. With an almost teenage flip of his hand, three chairs formed themselves from the snow and ice, sculpting to the size of the Guardian standing before it. "It's story time."

Even before Winter was done, both were stepping back and to the side to put space between themselves. A small trickle of water emerged where Spring dug her bare toes into the warmed dirt and soil. It emerged in a small valley, and as the water rose rapidly to touch Winter's soles, the surface was invaded by a sheen of thick ice. Moments later, there was a smooth, frozen and roughly circular pond about five feet in diameter.

Tooth had already perched herself up on the edge of her seat to watch the proceedings. Her wings fluttered quickly behind her. North watched, but from the corner of his eye, he was running his fingers delicately over the chair's embellishments, admiring the almost invisible handiwork. Aster was more irritable at being called a child. When he sat, he was pleased that the chair was not cold as he had expected.

"The Seasons were formed as Mother Nature found that one person could not keep accurate control over the entire planet, especially when she also had to rein in and teach the youngest immortals." As Spring spoke, scenes played out in the frozen water. "She spun three immortal bodies one by one as their times came. The first flower poked out from the muddy ground on the banks of the Oceana coast, and when it bloomed, she gave it form and consciousness as well as a name."

"Spring," Winter said, the syllable ringing out as if a snowflake had alighted upon the ground, "the fairest."

"But the sun grew hotter and all flowers have their time. So where the sun pushes the wind through the fresh grassy blades the fastest on the African savannah, she gave it a voice."

"Summer, the wildest."

"And when the sun began to wane, a chill swept the air. When the leaves of the New World shed their green foliage to let loose the most brilliant colors, she gave that color a hand to paint with."

"Autumn, the cleverest."

"Mother Nature is by no means perfect, but in the beginning there was no need for the warmth of life to cease. An icy hand gripped the planet as she turned her eye to other matters. Her three children knew not how to deal with the cold and bitterness that fell over the land. She assumed that the emptiness of space had consumed the Earth, and sought to drive out the invasion.

"That was when the Man in the Moon stepped in to stop her. Mother Nature knew life, but she did not understand death. Things must grow, but so must they have control. Where once life could thrive unchecked, so it must now mature and know its bounds. Man in the Moon put his hand into the cold and dark, where she would not walk, and removed a single snowflake. Together with Mother Nature, they taught the new form humility and understanding so that the cold could also know control. They gave the cold sight to see through the darkness."

"Winter, the youngest," he sighed, as if the Season had heard the story enough times to make his ears rupture and fall off.

"But Jack is Winter, right?" Toothiana interjected. "Then how does he have memories of a mortal life if he was born immortal?"

"When the Seasons were first created, they were missing something crucial that Mother Nature didn't know how to teach or create. That was humanity. We, that is to say, the first three of us, were born before humans existed, so she wasn't quite certain what was amiss. As mankind began to thrive, she realized that we had been born from nature alone. We were simple and understood only in the natural form that drives seedlings up, that moves leaves to find sunlight, that tells birds how to fly."

"So Mother granted us the forms of dying children who were still pure of heart and knew no malice," Winter explained. "They share with us their personalities and lives, while we delay their deaths and grant them control over our given season. Since each child is different, the Season manifests in different ways."

North held up a hand. "Delay? Seasons are not immortal? Jack is not immortal?"

"The Seasons are immortal but the children we share it with are not. Unlike the Guardians, we are not sustained by belief. If Jack Frost had been hit by Pitch's bolt of fear, it is likely that Winter would have simply taken a new child under his wing."

"And Jack would no longer have been a Guardian," Winter added softly. "I'm a great guy and all, but it is Jack who has a soft spot for kids and snowball fights. Jack is Winter, but I am not Jack Frost."

He may as well have blown a cold gust of wind their way, because a chill went through all three of the Guardians. Aster felt acutely where there had been a cold spot on his shoulder, and once more he suddenly felt a few degrees too warm.

"That doesn't happen too often, though. We live with the same personalities at least for a good millennium or two until a brawl breaks out or Mother or Father grab a personality too strong for the power." He shrugged.

"Father?" Aster was fairly certain that in the very, very long memory of the Pookas, there had been no mention of a Father Nature. Was that where the image of Zeus come from?

"Father Moon." Winter explained. "Because I got two parents, Father occasionally takes pity on a dying child and kicks out my old personality to make room for another one." He rolled his eyes. "Ah the family drama. As a little snowflake, I could never have hoped to be adopted into such an irritating little group."

"Family history out of way," North quickly interrupted, "what happened to Jack?"

Winter threw his hands up into the air, a small drizzle of snowflakes falling from the cloudy sky above them. "I have no idea. That's what Spring is here to explain. One minute I'm happy and content with pulling a Northern front down from Scandinavia to blow some sprinkles into Holland while Jack started up another flurry, and the next it's too warm to think straight, much less get anything done!"

'Weren't you the one who said things were being handled?' Aster just narrowly resisted voicing.

There was a brief hesitation as all eyes went to Spring. "There was an…incident…with Mother."

The Guardians exchanged glances at the embarrassment openly obvious on Spring's face, her cheeks blazing a bright red. Unlike Winter, who was clearly absorbed in Jack's happy-go-lucky personality, Spring had always appeared to be composed to the extreme.

Winter facepalmed with a long suffering sigh. "What did you do now?"

"It wasn't me!" she cried plaintively. "Well, it wasn't all my fault at any rate. Seb was being all gloomy again and reminding me—well, not me, but Hana—about the prospects for global warming and what these scientists were saying about climate change." She paused for a moment. "So I might have been talking to Mother about how Seb was affecting Autumn and complaining that kids these days are too grown up for their age." She sniffed. "Of course, I forget that Mother is getting old and that she sometimes doesn't completely think these things through… Anyway, she might've tried to make Hana and Seb into kids again. And I don't mean kids, like where Hana and Seb are now, I mean little kids."

"You have got to be kidding me. Hana must be getting to your head."

"And she might have forgotten how affecting our bodies affects our powers and…ah…temperaments."

Winter's face was going to be bruised if he kept hitting it so loudly. The Guardians still appeared to be somewhat confused, so he clarified, "Mother dearest turned us into kids. Literally. Unfortunately, thanks to Spring, this means that our children don't have the mental strength to control maintaining their seasonal abilities or their forms in climates that they aren't acclimated to. In someplace too warm, Jack would melt."

"And if Hana takes back control now, she'll freeze."

"I imagine that Seb's much more adorable now," Winter considered with a small smirk.

"And Cande's an absolute nightmare child."

They both shook their heads to rid themselves of the mental picture that immediately hit both Seasons.

"How d'ya get things back ta normal?" Aster demanded. "Mother Nature did this, so she has to be able to change all of you back. Why don'tcha, I dunno, call her up or something?"

Winter attained a thoughtful expression. "Oh, so that's why you're here. Spring needs you guys to talk to Mother Nature for us, and babysit the rest of the kiddies until then."

"Ya've gotta be pullin' my leg! Do it yerselves."

"Aster!" Tooth exclaimed.

"We would," Spring said apologetically, "but we can only keep these forms for a short time. Maybe an hour or two at most. Our powers are limited to the trivial activites we demonstrated. Travelling long distances is more than we have to expend."

"The North Wind is a friend of Jack's, not mine," Winter admitted. "And as much as the Wind would like to carry Jack back to Mother, he can't take passengers."

"So ya came ta hooch off us when the bunch of ya have some kinda family fight?" Aster asked with an indignant scoff. "All this after there's not a breath outta the lot of ya for the last couple million years?"

"Not that we mind, of course," Tooth quickly added. "Jack is our friend, and I guess you're the closest thing to family he has."

"Yeah, an' they've got the family bit down good, ignoring 'im for his entire life. Why're ya comin' ta outsiders fer 'elp when clearly ya don' want anythin' ta do with us?"

"We would never isolate one of our own children on purpose," Winter scowled. "The Summer and Winter children cannot come in contact with each other, Spring or Autumn for too long."

"Though we are family," Spring explained, "our gifted elements are turbulent at best. The Autumn children and my own have milder natures, ones that are the most synchronized of the four Seasons. However, they each sit on a precarious balance between Winter and Summer. In the presence of either, Spring and Autumn would lean more towards the season they personally favored. That is not a risk that we or Mother Nature can take."

"In each other's presence, Summer's child and mine would destroy each other, taking us out with them. At the price of two children's loneliness, we protect the life and balance of the Earth." In an oddly contemplative tone as he perched his chin sideways on the knuckles of his fingers, Winter said, "It's the same choice Jack would make if given the chance, don't you think?"

Though the Guardians—even sweet Tooth—glared the Season down, they knew already in their hearts that he was right. Jack was a guardian because he had unknowingly devoted himself to the children even before taking his oath. If it meant he had to be friendless and invisible until the end of time, he still would not do anything that might harm them. His selflessness was what made him a Guardian in the first place.

"What must we do?" North demanded in his booming tenor, the one that frequently sent elves and yeti alike into a flurry to get out of his path. "We do this for Jack, not Seasons." His mind was filled with the image of a small Jack tugging on the hat of one of his elves with a small, pure smile. Whatever their grudge against the winter sprite's so-called family, they would protect their youngest with their lives.

"Of course," they answered in eerie concurrence, though their voices each carried different messages. Spring smiled warmly in gratitude, while Winter's was frosty and much more sarcastic.

Spring waved a hand over the icy pond beside her, lighting the surface up once more. A map of the Earth spread out across the ice, small colored dots of all colors appearing in small clusters in nearly every conceivable location. "Just as you keep an eye on your children, so we watch over ours. However, the only ones affected by Mother's recent…episode…are the four Seasons. Winter and I are both here with you." She knelt down to point to the Northern most dots, one white and one green. "Summer's child, Cande Ardor, rarely leaves the African continent, and it appears that she is in Kenya at the moment." A red dot blazed brightly in the middle of the country, moving rapidly north.

"When she is active, wildfires tend to follow in her wake. Follow the smoke and look for the bright red hair," Winter said. "She's pretty difficult to miss. Autumn's child is Sebastian Regen. He's a bit more difficult to spot, especially since he likes to dress the same as the other children. Looks like he's sticking to Germany for the foreseeable future." Autumn was a sober blue-grey dot sedately keeping to southwestern Germany.

"You should know from personal experience how hard it is for the children to leave their hometowns," Spring scolded lightly, to which her companion turned his head with an indignant huff, muttering something about 'sentimental brats' under his breath. "Hana will be able to point you to Seb, since they often keep each other company when the temperatures are agreeable. Once you have all the children, one of us will appear for a short time to lead you to Mother. She's constantly on the move, and it's difficult to predict where she'll be at any given time."

Tooth shifted nervously around on her perch. "You said that certain Seasons can't be near each other? Won't this put the children in danger?"

"Nah, not really," Winter said, waving off her concern. "I'd bring a coat for Summer and some ice for Jack and I, as a precaution. This is a unique situation because they are not as closely bound to their abilities and can't affect each other as strongly. The longer they stay in this form, the more disconnected they will be from their Season and the more human they become. Being in the right temperature range slows down the degradation."

Leaning forward in his seat, North laid his forearm across his knee. His forehead wrinkled as his concern grew. "Then the reason Jack has fever…?"

"That's right." The Season casually removed his Fedora to brush off the snowflakes that had begun to accumulate on the rim. "He's dying."

A/N: PLEASE READ! It won't take too long!

Clarification moment. English is being used as a universal language, but all the seasons are speaking in the native tongues of the child whose personality they have. So Spring/Hana speaks in Japanese, Summer/Cande in Spanish, Autumn/Sebastian in German and Winter/Jack in English. Additionally, we have North, who probably speaks Russian most of the time, Aster, who speaks whatever the Pookas speak, and Tooth who speaks something else entirely.

I could have written with everyone speaking in their native tongue, but then you all would have killed me (or at the very least, sent me angry flames). Since we know that everyone understands each other, think of this as the English subtitles, 'kay? Thank you.

Let me repeat the Seasons' names to clarify:

Spring = Hana Cho (or Hana Butterfly)

Summer = Cande Ardor (or Cande Burning)

Autumn = Sebastian Regen (or Sebastian Rain)

Winter = Jack Frost

Their last names are translated into the language native to where the season's child was born and raised, since that would be their native language. This means they would change accordingly with each new personality. The first name is the child's. So if Jack had been Japanese (and for some reason been named Jack by his parents), he would be Jack Shimo, but when addressed as a seasonal, he would still be called Winter Frost since everyone is speaking in English for the sake of the readers. Sorry for the complexity.