Awareness suddenly flooded into her.

For one terrifying second, her mind was utterly blank. Nothing made the slightest bit of sense. Then, slowly, she began to register her surroundings, to understand them.

Dark.

Cold.

Her limbs weren't responding the way she wanted them to, her movements jerky and sluggish. Panic began mounting, made all the worse when she realized she was surrounded by water, rather than air. That's not right, something in her mind insisted. How had she gotten there? Where had she come from?

Who was she?

She had no idea.

She had no idea!

Just when she began working her way up to what might have been an appropriately hysterical state, she caught sight of something above her. Something big, and bright. She couldn't get a good look at it, though, as there seemed to be something between them, distorting her view of it. She rose upward, though it was impossible to tell if the thing was drawing her toward it, or she was actually doing so under her own power, somehow.

It didn't matter.

She easily broke through the ice - the term finally surfacing from the depths of her seemingly blank memory - and gasped in wonder at what she was seeing.

The Moon.

Another name that came from nowhere. That didn't matter, either. All that did was that it made her feel... safe. Like there was nothing for her to be afraid of.

Not even the fact that she was floating unassisted in the air. Or that she still had no idea who she was.

You are Jacqueline Frost.

Her eyes widened in wonder as she stared up at the Moon. Or... Was there someone up there? In the Moon? She barely noticed as she was set down upon the ice. She didn't slip as she moved across it, and some dim, distant thought said that wasn't right, either. She didn't care. Looking down at her (strangely dry) self, Jacqueline discovered she was wearing a drab, tannish-colored dress, and a simple brown cloak. Her hair, hanging well past her shoulders, was a solid white. There was also nothing covering her feet. Was that right?

Maybe it didn't matter. The ice didn't feel cold to her - or, more accurately, the cold of it didn't bother her in the slightest - so what did she need shoes for?

She partially answered her own question as she stepped on a lengthy stick laying on the ice.

It didn't hurt - not exactly, anyway - but it was by no means a pleasant experience. She bent down to pick it up, if only to prevent any further not-quite-pain, and almost dropped it when it seemed to light up from within. One end hit the ice, and patterns of frost began curling across the frozen surface of the lake.

She blinked, then jerked it away from the ice. Holding it in front of her, she studied it carefully. It was fairly solid, yet thin enough to wrap her hands around. Almost as tall as she was, it was about as straight as a branch could be, with a fair-sized crook at the top. It felt... familiar, in her hands. Right. Like it belonged there.

And she could feel the energy, now that she was looking. In the staff, but coming from her. Like it was a channel for something within her.

You are Jacqueline Frost.

Yes... Yes, she was. Slowly, she made her way to shore, then hesitantly tapped the crook end of her staff against a tree.

Frost began forming twisting patterns there, too.

Grinning, she tried it on more trees, laughing when that produced the same result. Whooping with delight, she raced across the frozen lake, dragging the bottom of the staff across the ice. Oh, this was... This was just...

Fun.

She didn't even notice at first when the wind picked her up. Then it seemed like a great game, and when she hovered well above the lake, looking down at her beautiful handiwork, she felt a simple joy unlike anything she could remember.

Which was not hard, given that her memory only extended to when she first awoke under the ice.

She shook her head, deciding she wanted to go down, now. The wind obliged - she dropped like a rock.

The next few seconds were a jumble of grunts, smacks, and crashes as she tumbled through the branches of the tree she'd been hovering over, tearing off a number of twigs on her way down. She eventually wound up in a snowbank, mildly sore but ultimately unharmed.

Should that have hurt? Spitting out a mouthful of snow, she decided not to question it. Maybe flying people who could make ice could all survive such falls without consequence. And speaking of people...

She willed herself upward again, being more careful this time, and saw that, sure enough, she'd been right: she had seen lights in the distance. And now that she was looking, she could see structures there, as well. Houses? Was that a town?

Maybe someone there could tell her where she was.

With that hopeful thought in mind, she made her way toward the town as best she was able. And while neither her flight nor her landing were terribly graceful, they were fun. Besides, no one seemed to notice.

Did a lot of people come flying into this town on the winter wind? She'd have to ask. First things first, though. "Excuse me," she said to the first person she saw, a man dressed in the same sort of drab, functional clothing she was. "Could you tell me where I am?"

He ignored her.

She huffed. Well, that was rude. She turned to a nearby woman and repeated the question. And was once again ignored.

"I cannot say I appreciate the manners of this town," she told the woman, who didn't even blink, or do anything to acknowledge that she'd said anything.

Okay, then, try someone else. Maybe one of the kids? Kids couldn't not talk to people, or so she believed. Looking around, she spotted a young boy chasing a dog near the large bonfire in the center of town. "Excuse me," she began as she moved into their path, "I was wondering if-"

The boy and dog went through her.

She gasped in shock at the intensely strange feeling. There were no words for how uncomfortable, nearly painful, that was. And...

How...?

How had they...?

Someone else - maybe the woman she'd tried talking to before, she couldn't tell - walked through her, and she hunched over. "Stop it!" she yelled uselessly, then took to the air before she got in someone else's way.

As quickly as she could, she flew back toward the lake. It was all she knew, and she needed some familiarity. "I don't understand," she whispered to herself as she settled onto one of the more solid branches of the first tree she came to. "What am I?" Was she a ghost? She'd woken up underwater, after all. Yet... Ghosts had memories. Lives. Her memory, before waking up, was a blank slate.

She stared up at the moon, which wasn't bringing her much comfort anymore. "Please," she begged. "Just... tell me what I am. Why am I here? Anything!"

The Moon didn't speak to her.

For the next 300 years.