[Ash]: 102.Jack Frost.22

There was a simple nervous tension between husband and wife as Jack crossed his arms and looked at her. “Hi…”

“Hello.” She said in return and crossed her arms taking on his mood setting and looked up at him. His dominate expression had melted away to the look of a worried tired man. “Jack are you alright?”

“Would you mind if we talked for a bit, just the two of us?” Solemnly he walked in as Cassandra stepped a side. He looked up and saw Klaus. “And where have you been?”

“I order him to stay with me just in case something happened and I needed you to come rescue me.” Cassandra said and closed the door behind him. She pointed to Klaus and motioned him out the window. Bowing to both of them the owl made his way outside and shut the pane behind him. “So, what do you want to talk about?”

She walked over to the large pot and kept stirring the ingredients. A vine grew up behind her and grabbed a small bottle of shaved Bloodroot. Handing to over to Cassandra the vine began to stir and she opened the bottle dumping half of it in. They traded back and the vine put it on the table where Klaus was working. It picked up a new bottle of rose petals. “What’s that you’re making?”

“The love potion for the Dryads, their main potions maker was killed in the battle. I’ve volunteered my services, almost done with it, would you mind helping me bottle it and delivering them? It’d be a great deal of help.” She said and stirred the last time and pulled her giant spoon out tapping it on the side.

“I’ll help.” Jack said getting himself somewhat distracted. Cassandra began pulling large green bottles off the shelves and lowering them down into the vat to fill them. One by one all the jars were filled and corked then handed over to Jack so he could set them down on the floor. Finishing Cassandra set the last bottle down, twenty-three in total. “So, this will get them twenty-three men?”

“No, probably 230 men, if not more, it very potent to humans.” She said and picked up two or three. She began staring at them. “They can come get them, there’s just too much.” Cassandra turned and looked down into the pot, “and there’s still some left, too.”

“About that talk…” Jack said as she turned around. Cassandra stopped and starred at him waiting for him to go on. “Why did you marry me?”

Cassandra shook her head and moved past him to the smaller viles and continued to put the contents of the cauldron away. She threw her palm on the edge of the pot and stopped to look at him. “Are you really that blind Jack?”

“Sometimes, and sometimes I’m not. You act like this wasn’t what you asked for.” He said and summoned himself a small ice stool and sat down on it. “You act like this isn’t what you want. You’re avoiding me...”

“I am not avoiding you. I am trying to get things done. My Dryad clan was just cut down to a third, the woods are crawling with wolves, and not the friendly type either.” She said defensively. “I come down here and help my people when they’re in danger, you have no clue what it’s like to see the people you help raise die in a blood bath. All the people you have are made of snow and can be rebuilt and replaced, you can’t do that with Dryads. You can’t do that with trees, or wildflowers, or the vines.”

Jack sighed, “then what do you call Marylin? I raised her and she’s dying.”

“Marylin’s a completely different case, we simply have to kill off Shyna’s power supply and give her heartwood. She’ll be saved.”

“If only she had read from the book when I told her too. It contains the spell to seal Shyna away and I can’t use it right.” Jack said and frowned. He leaned his head onto his hand and began thinking slowly. Cassandra popped right up excitedly. “Are you alright?”

“The book! That has to be it; we burned everything else of Shyna’s! She sealed herself away in her book, the one that has the spell to get rid of her! It’s ingenious!” Cassandra said stunned.

“The book… She was near it before she was possessed. I’ll go off and destroy it.” Jack said and began his way out of the cabin but stopped and turned his head to look at her. “So, well talk later right?”

“Yes, I think that would be best.” Cassandra said and watched as her husband uneasily closed the door. Cassandra sighed and opened the window after a minute letting Klaus inside. “Kluas, we have to finish this potion, tonight!”

“Tonight, oh dear, that’s a lot of work.” The owl said and pulled the satchel onto the table and began pulling things out. Cassandra summoned a hole and dumped the cauldron out and began to toss the other ingredients inside the pot. “So, what’s the potion going to do again?”

Cassandra simply smiled.


Jack wasn’t thinking that much. He didn’t think about how faster he could go if he had his sleigh and his ice bears. He didn’t think about turning into snowflakes and causing a gust to carry him there. He just ran.

It took him ten minutes alone to break free from the forest and when he did he started full speed towards the castle. Since Jack was no longer human, his muscles did not tire, he was not out of breath, and he was not distracted by the freezing cold.

Jack stared up at the castle, he wanted to be their quicker and pressed harder and harder until he was at the steps. Jumping up he slammed the doors opened and rushed past the fawn Tiffin, Gareth who was up in the tree, and Cassandra’s three girls: Kristin, Gina and Regina.

He stopped in front of his doors and opened them carefully and walked inside. At the end of the room across from his bed was the large icy mirror, Jack dissolved it and reached in to grab the book. He took it and held it out to the girls. “Can one of you toss fire?”

Regina and Gina shook their heads. Kristin blurted out, “Regina can!”

“Kristin!” Regina cried and slapped her on the head. Jack set the book down in front of her. “Here,” he pointed to it, “burn this book.”

“That’s Marylin’s book! She’d kill us!” Gina cried.

“Destroy the damn book or I’ll kill all of you.” Jack whispered quietly. The girls all gasped and without looking Regina lit up her hand and cast a small amount of fire onto the book. The book began burning as a normal book would, the smell was awful. It was then that the smoke turned purple and began billowing out of the fire.

“What’d you do?” Kristin asked hitting Regina on the arm. Jack picked up the book and tossed it towards the wall which opened up to allow outside.

“What Marylin.” Jack said quickly and exited through the large hole in the wall. The book was still smoking terribly, the smoke soon turned black and then the fire went out into the ashes. Jack summoned up a gale and the ashes were scattered all around into the wind.

Jack slowly moved back into his castle and closed the wall up. Walking inside the girls stood around Marylin. Jack dissolved the case around her and left her lying on an icy bed. “She’s still frozen, but when she wakes up she’ll be herself… Hopefully. Dryad!”

Gareth grabbed the limb with one hand and swung himself down and bowed to Jack. “Yes?”

“I need you to go get Heartwood. If we don’t Marylin will never be cured and will eventually die.” Jack said slowly. The girls clung together and stared at their frozen teacher. “Get it as fast as you can. I’ll send Frosty with you.”

“He’ll just slow me down, I’ll have it in a couple of days.” Gareth said and began running from the building. The girls stood their, somewhat terrified of Jack after he threatened them.

Jack raised an eyebrow and looked at them, “what?” The girls shook their head and ran off into Cassandra’s bedroom and closed the door. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Maybe it was the part where you threatened to kill them, o King.” Tiffin said and licked the apple core. He picked it up and began eating it. Jack shrugged and went to sit on his throne and think about Cassandra. ‘Maybe I should do something nice for her. She likes flowers and wood floors, maybe I can have the girls redo the house.’ “Tiffin, can you fetch the girls?”

“Going to threaten them more?” The deer asked smartly. He walked over to the door and made an awkward noise. “Come on out, he wants to have a word with you.”

Shyly the girls answered the door and stepped out into the throne room. They slid to a stop in a huddle before the throne. “Do you think you can make wood floors? I want to remake the castle for Cassandra. And maybe some flowers in places.”

The girls looked at each other and rolled their eyes simultaneously. “Okay, leave the decorating to us.”