Now There Are Five... Wait... Six?

Chapter 1

"Has it been two-hundred years already?" Katherine mused as she lay on her back, holding the open book over her face as she tried to read. Again.

Jack turned his head from where he lay next to her, smirking as she failed to block the sunlight shining in her face, "Could have fooled me. You haven't changed at all. You still can't read outside."

Katherine slammed her book shut, sitting up with a glare. In mock anger, she raised her book to bludgeon the offending snow spirit to death.

Jack let out a laugh as he raised his hands in surrender, "Okay, okay! Nerds are cool now!"

This comment only earned him a book being slammed into the stomach, winding him.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Katherine huffed as she heartlessly looked away from Jack's expression of pain, "You're still as rude as when we first met."

Jack ruefully rubbed his stomach, looking a little deflated, "I wasn't that bad!"

"You snowballed me in the face," Katherine shot back, sounding like an older sister scolding he little brother, "After I was so magnanimous enough to welcome you."

"If you ask me, you were just waiting for a good excuse to touch grass," Jack teased.

He dodged another book slam, rolling away just in time.

"Don't talk like that," Katherine raised her book threateningly, "Or I'll make you 'eat leather.'"

Jack sat up, grinning mischievously at his closest friend of hundreds of years, "Talk like what? Grandma does not understand modern language?"

The book was raised a tiny bit higher, causing him to laugh.

Katherine blew out a half-hearted sigh, lowering her weapon. The wind picked up, blowing through her auburn hair, causing her to grumble and try to keep it out of her face.

Jack's smile faded slightly into a melancholic expression as he watched her. It was all too true that time didn't change much for either of them during the last couple of centuries. They both looked the same, remaining at the physical age of (presumably) eighteen.

The most change for them had honestly been their clothes. Jack had long exchanged his original cloak for a more modern blue hoodie. Katherine had... gone in a different direction from her white muslin frock he'd first seen her in. Jack had endlessly teased her about how her newer outfit was precisely like the librarian from Star Wars, despite Katherine's eternal denial of the fact.

A simple white robe with a geometric pattern scarf tied with a wide sash of a similar pattern. Katherine claimed that since the rest of the world couldn't decide on a single fashion for more than five minutes, she'd just wear what they would wear in another hundred years and not bother with a new outfit until then.

She refused to listen to Jack's point on how that wasn't how it worked.

It was little things like this, bickering over small things, laughing together, reading (Katherine reading aloud since Jack never had the patience to read himself), and just enjoying the other's company that had made all his lonely years bearable. He was there when she wanted to talk about the latest story she had collected. She was there when he wanted to share the latest prank he'd committed. He was there to bear her up when her self-isolation bore down on her. She was there to lift his spirits when he grew depressed over his invisible existence.

Two spirits living immortal lives for eternity. With all the time knowing each other, it was only natural that they were close and shared everything with each other.

Well... not everything...

"Something wrong?" Jack's thoughts were shaken as he realized that Katherine was looking at him in concern, "Yeah..." he lied, rubbing the back of his head, "Just a little tired of late."