[Ash]: 102.Jack Frost.18

Gareth woke to her the sound of the most beautiful voice singing and found a woman with pale skin and pointed ears above him. She wasn’t an elf though, for when he opened his eyes completely, she had large gold wings. She wore a thin silver circlet with leaves on it and several diamonds hanging down.

“My queen, is he awake?” Yelled a boisterous voice from outside the door. A man with the same skin and same wings came down and sat besides him. “Hello son.”

“Oberon, would you mind if I stepped outside while you discuss things?” The woman asked.

“Please, do as you will Tatiana,” he said smiling sweetly at her. He then turned back to Gareth. “You know me and Tatiana were not as happy as this.”

“I know…” Gareth said weakly. He was breathing heavy and was to hurt to even turn his head.

“I can’t heal you, but I can help you. Do you enjoy your life as a Dryad?”

“Sometimes…” He said and coughed a bit.

Oberon placed his hand on Gareth and the congestion went away. “Would you like to be human?”

“No.”

Oberon looked puzzled at this and stared at him, “well, what do you want then?”

“To live forever with her.” Gareth passed out of consciousness and Oberon scratched his head.


“What?” Marylin said and looked over at Cassandra, “Mother.”

“Please, all you need to do is read the incantation and use all the magic you can.” Cassandra said in response. “It’s not like were asking you to kill yourself, we just need you to seal her with some of your magic.”

“How much?” Marylin asked.

“Not really that much, it’s mainly just the amount that would be in one of your fingers.” Jack said softly, not trying to argue with her.

“Why should I listen to you?” Marylin folded her arms across her chest and stared down at the ice. “If I remember correctly you froze the entire village we’re now standing above.”

“You made it sound like I wanted to do it.”

“You did!” Marylin yelled, “You slaughtered all the people in it and then froze over it so no one would learn what a horrible monster you are.” Marylin launched a large fireball at Jack, it burned into his stomach. Cassandra tried to help him but Jack clenched his teeth and pushed her off.

He stood up and let the indent heal itself. “You want to know the truth?” Jack had the floor fall through under the two of them; Marylin looked up at him as he dissolved into snow. She landed on a mound of snow and quickly got up on all fours and saw one of the frozen wooden crosses and began to scream.

“That’s only one.” Jack’s voice said in the wind. He opened up holes in the surface to let light in and she saw the others and just began crying. “The one you were screaming at belongs to my best friend, he was a drunk,” Jack said materializing behind it, “but a good man none the less.”

Jack walked over and gave her a hand up. “You see that cross over there by that pub.” He pointed to it and she saw it and nodded. “That belonged to the woman who raised me when my mother died, and helped raise my daughter when her mother died. This town burned her at the stake because of what I did.”

Jack walked down and kept picking out crosses and explaining who the people were to her. “That was a doctor; he ran the store down there and kept a medical office above it. He was another really good friend. That cross belongs to my fiancée Elizabeth’s brother, he was caring, but didn’t take it so well we he saw Elizabeth’s tomb.”

“Did you kill her?” Marylin asked solemnly.

Jack shook his head and they kept walking. “That house over there belonged to a kindly old woman, she died three weeks before all these people did, we discovered her body the day before and buried it.”

The came upon a large monument of an ice angel. There was a woman with brown hair inside wearing an old fashioned red dress. “I know her from somewhere.” Marylin whispered.

Jack didn’t hear and began to talk. “This was my fiancée Elizabeth. Shyna killed my wife, then she killed me, Elizabeth, then she tried to kill my daughter.”

Marylin couldn’t believe this and began to cry a bit. Jack turned right and headed down an old road which the ice and snow didn’t cover. They came to an old farm house which, like everything else, was now white. Jack moved through the snow on the ground out to a spot where it was just dirt and a large stone.

Marylin approached it slowly then read it to herself.

Jack sighed. “Here lies Rose Frost, beloved daughter, sister, wife and mother.” He placed a hand on it and looked down at the ground. He stayed there for a second and began to move into the house. “Follow me.”

Marylin snapped out of her trance and ran to catch up. He held the door open for a second then she came in. “This place, it seems so familiar.”

She ran through the frost covered hallways until she reached a room. The door was white. Engraved in gold lettering was her name Marylin. She scratched with her names to reviel the rest of the door. Jack hung back and watched her carefully so she didn’t accidentally destroy her door. She reviled Rose and stopped digging. “Did I used to live in this house?”

“Keep going.” Jack said and leaned against the wall. He watched her as she turned back to the door and kept scratching. She stepped back and covered her mouth with her hands as she fell to the floor gasping for air. “Is it really that big of a shock to you?”

“What happened to your daughter?” Marylin asked.

“When she was seven, she came down with the sickness we now know as the Silent Death. It slowly eats away at you heart making you weaker and weaker. One day I realized that she was going to die and collapsed. My friend, the one whom you screamed at, though being drunk would help.

“I don’t drink so everyone at the pub picked a fight with me. They threw me into a freezeing pond near where Shyna lived. She purposely froze the lake over to give me my powers. She sent me to the woods to find Heartwood.”

Marylin drifted off to having a lunch with Elizabeth and ending up crying when she couldn’t find her father.

“I had to trade my daughter’s mortality for it, so when Cassandra proposed that on the way back to the village, I had no choice but to agree. So she was cured, but would never remember having me as a father, only Cassandra as a mother.”

Marylin completely crashed to the floor crying and Jack could do nothing more for her then stand there and watch. Marylin tried to stand up. A pulse came through the village and Marylin screamed out in agony.

“I will win, Jack Frost.” Said a familiar voice from Marylin’s throat. Marylin started coughing, “help me!” Marylin cried out in her own voice. Jack grabbed her and tried to carry her body to the opening in the castle. He got there and had an ice pillar begin to raise them to the castle. Marylin passed out and began coughing.

“Oh God no, not again…”