Warning: mental/emotional pain ahead

The day that he receives the news, Jack disappears from North's workshop, where not even the wind will tell the others where he has gone off to. It took them months by the time that Bunny found the winter sprite, sitting on the top of Mt. Everest, howling at the moon to bring the boy back. Frozen tears streaked his face, creating a beard of icicles that seemed out of place on his face and made the boy seem so much older than he was. Saying nothing, for what could he say, Bunny gathered up the child and sat with him, ignoring the bite of frozen winds along his furred spine. He knew the pain of loss all too well, and that there was nothing he could say, to do, that would make things better. All he could do was to be there when he broke, and pray that he could glue the pieces back together in some semblance of working order. He knew that it was impossible to glue oneself back together, though one can try, and try, and try until there was nothing but a mess and even smaller pieces than what one started out with. Whether it was the lost of one true friend or an entire species, the pain was the same, and the pain was great.

"Jack." Was all that was said, for there could be nothing more to be said through the howling winds that carried the boy's mournful tune across the world. His ruff was spiked and glistened with ice crystals that fell from the child's face, but he didn't care. He would be the glue that he himself never had. The glue to hold the cracks together before they became whole shards, ready to rip and tear at any that was foolish to step on them. He had seen the shards at work before, seen how they created more pain and sorrow than healing and new life.

As the boy eventually passed from the living into the dream world, he murmured things, wishes, that the rabbit prayed would never come true. The boy dreampt of times that would never come to be, times that were as beautiful as one of the boy's billion upon billion miniscule ice sculptures that fell from his workshop in the sky each winter. It would hurt at first, but these dreams would also heal his cracked heart, home to the boy's one true friend and believer for the end of eternity. It was only in dreams where the two would be eternally young in a field of snow, able to be the center of all that mattered. Such as the dreams where the fields were filled with rabbits as numerous as the flowers they were named after. Daffodil and Iris and Magnolia, all beautiful as they were in life, they would be in death's memories.

"I…" The boy mumbled, asleep or awake, it didn't matter, "I miss him." And all the rabbit could do was nod and hold on tighter, squeezing the ice shards together, holding the ice child in one piece for as long as he could.

"Yeah, mate, I know." And he did, all too well. Eventually, the queen and star joined them, wrapped around the child that they had failed to protect for much, much too long. And not long after, the bandit joined as well, standing at the top of the mountain and over the others. He had never had such loss, he knew their pain not, but he knew that would they ask, he would be there as well as he could be.

Eventually, the cold caught up with them, as it does with all eventually, and the bandit simply picked up the snowflake and the queen, moving them through the brief portal of colors to where many precious memories were, and would be made for a long time to come, and sat by the fire. Warmth of which was not all from the flames, but surrounded the very spirits in an embrace that could not be replicated by any other. In the twilight of that day, there were no others that mattered, none that could replace what once was, but would continue into what could be. Humans come and go, as mortals tend to do, but so do immortals when their time comes, though it is always a long time coming, with centuries, millennia, between the Beginning and End. It is best to think of the Now, for that way the hurts of the Past and the Uncertainty of the Future cannot damage a soul that is already so fragile.

The night comes and is promptly ignored, for there is warmth and family and fond memories, as painful as they can be at times, to keep them company. Huddled together, they can stave off the pain for another night, for come morning is another day, another chance that can be taken and held and made precious as only immortals know how to do.

I wrote this nearly a year ago. Like Choir of Winter, it was going somewhere... and that train of thought got derailed at a good place. Just to head off questions: Is Jack mourning Jamie? Yes. No. Likely. Your decision ultimately. We'll just leave it at that.