Guardian of Funny Tasting Eggnog
...
Jack was pretty sure eggnog wasn't the only thing in the... well, the eggnog by the time he left the Guardian meeting that day. But he shrugged off the strange feeling building up inside him and made his steady (steady probably wasn't the right word, considering he was swerving and dropping all over the place) way back towards Antarctica (why he hadn't just stayed at the North Pole was irrelevant and unimportant).
He'd only gotten about halfway there when he suddenly switched trajectory, a fantastic idea coming to mind. He barely even noticed the increasing fluctuation of his flying pattern as he made his unsteady way to where he knew Ceres to be.
"There's my favourite autumn seasonal spirit!" he cried as he dropped down before her, stumbling upon landing. And then he started laughing. "Heh, it's funny cause you're the only autumn seasonal spirit."
Ceres looked less than thrilled to see him and opened her mouth to tell him just that, but her irritation turned to confusion as she got a good look at him.
"Are... Are you drunk?" she asked.
"I drunk eggnog," he said brightly, and Ceres was so bemused she didn't even notice the poor grammar.
"Are you sure it was eggnog?"
"It tasted funny."
Ceres resisted the urge to bang her head against a tree. "You noticed it had a funny taste but you kept drinking?"
"I'm the Guardian of Fun. Funny is what I do."
Ceres opened her mouth, paused, closed it, and took a deep, calming breath. "Why did you come here?" she forced herself to ask.
"Cause..." he cut himself off, looking to be in deep thought before his smile increased tenfold. "I don't even know," he laughed.
The added chill to the air brought about by the winter spirit's presence caused some leaves from a nearby tree to let go of their branch; an occurrence that did not go unnoticed by the season's herald.
"Okay," she said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him into the air. "Let's go find May."
Jack looked ecstatic at the development. "Yay~ She's my favourite spring seasonal spirit!" and then started laughing again.
"You can go mess up her season," Ceres muttered darkly.
...
...
May was not as happy to see Jack and Ceres as Jack was to see her.
"Maaaaay~" he beamed, forcing her into an embrace that could rival North's on the bone-cracking meter.
May looked over his shoulder at the older woman. "What are you two doing here? And Jack if you could let me go it would be appreciated."
"I wasn't sure what to do with him so I brought him to you," Ceres shrugged as Jack set the brunette back on the ground.
"That's not true," Jack said knowingly, ignoring the glare he was receiving and shaking his finger at her. "She said 'you can go mess up her season'."
May blinked and turned her hardened gaze on Ceres. "Ceres..."
"He's drunk!" the autumn spirit groaned. "That sorry excuse of a Guardian let a fourteen year old drink alcohol!"
"Noooo," Jack protested. "I'm not fourteen! I'm three hundred and fourteen. Duh."
"I should skin North alive," Ceres seethed, ignoring the younger spirit.
"I think I might help you with that," May said, glancing at youngest person there. "So what do you expect me to do with him?"
"I don't know, I just didn't want him turning the season too quickly."
"So you thought it would be a good idea to bring him here?!"
"What do you want from me?!"
"Stooooop! Don't fight!" Jack intervened, pushing them apart. "Fighting's not good. It hurts people's feelings. You should be happy to talk to each other."
The two women said nothing.
"You know what we should do?!" Jack gasped.
Ceres and May were pretty sure they didn't want to know.
"We should swap seasons!"
...
...
"LLEU!"
Lleu lazily opened one eye at the twin cry of her name. The voices sounded awfully familiar but what would those two be doing all the way out here?
"We know you're in there! Get out here right now or we'll force our way in!"
Lleu sighed, pushing herself up from the hammock she'd been lying in and walked around the side of her beach house until she could see three spirits standing in her doorway. She really didn't want to have to get a new door.
"Are you guys looking for me?" she asked with a raised brow.
The other women of the group looked beyond relieved and a little bit manic upon seeing her and hurriedly grabbed their younger brother and shoved him forwards. Jack looked a little disorientated at the sudden movement but his eyes lit up when they caught sight of the summer spirit.
"It's Lleu!" he cried, happily staggering his way towards her with his arms open like he was going to hug her.
Lleu hastily dodged the 'attack', moving over to the two other seasonals while Jack looked around as though he had absolutely no idea where his target had gone.
"Does someone want to explain to me what, exactly, is going on? Why in Mother's name did you think bringing a winter spirit to Hawaii would be a good idea? And what the heck is wrong with him?" she pointed to Jack with concern in her voice, who was currently having a very animated conversation with a tree.
"He told me he drank some funny tasting eggnog," Ceres deadpanned.
"In other words he's drunk."
"You're so smart," Lleu jumped as Jack suddenly threw an arm around her shoulders. His awed face swiftly morphed into a frown and he looked for all the world like he was thinking very hard. "Can you smell something burning?"
Lleu's eyes widened. "It's your arm, St. Bernard!" she cried, forcefully removing the winter spirit from her person. "Are you crazy? Do you want to fry like a steak on a barbeque?!"
Jack gasped. "We should have a barbeque! We could invite Bunny! And she'd say 'throw another shrimp on the barbie, mate'," his attempt at an Australian accent was terrible but what was more horrifying was the fact that he didn't even notice that he'd just done the equivalent of touching the stove.
"You know, maybe we should take him to Bunny," Ceres pondered.
"Ceres!" May snapped, although from the look on her face she'd been thinking the same thing.
"Ugh, what are we going to do with him?" Lleu groaned.
"I love you guys," Jack suddenly said, his voice dead serious. The other three stared at him. "No, really. I don't know what I'd do without you. Your the best older sisters any spirit could ask for, For you to have accepted me like you have means more than you can know."
The three older girls looked at him with a small bit of guilt for not accepting him earlier but still cooed at his kind words.
Several seconds of intense silence followed. Just when Lleu was going to ask if he was actually drunk at all, Jack practically pounced on May.
"Your hair is so pretty~" he told her. "And the flowers are pretty~ I wish I could put flowers in my hair~"
May, face completely blank of expression, carefully extracted a blossom from her braid and tucked it behind Jack's ear. The effect was immediate. They couldn't tell what the effect was, but it was definitely immediate. He smiled at her hugely with watery eyes and they all hurriedly dug for something to say before Jack could start crying. That was one thing they really didn't know how to deal with.
"So really, what do we do?" Ceres spared them all.
"I guess we'll just have to keep an eye on him until it leaves his system," Lleu sighed. "I'd say we dump him on North - it is his fault, after all - but we can't get there without freezing our butts off. And we can't just leave Jack on his own, either. Who knows what kind of trouble he could get himself into."
"How long do you think it'll take?" May eyed Jack who by this point had sat down and was drawing in the sand with his staff.
"I don't know, I can't say I've ever had to deal with a situation like this."
"I don't feel so good," Jack declared, gaining all their attentions. It was only then that they noticed the thin layer of sweat beading on his forehead.
"For now I say we get him somewhere low temperature. Maybe it'll help."
There were no arguments, so Ceres marched forwards and threw the younger boy over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes before they headed back to autumn, Ceres grumbling and threatening Jack not to screw up her season the whole way.
...
...
"Maybe we should go get one of the Guardians," May suggested. They were settled around Jack's lake, the spirit in question sitting by the shore and freezing ripples on the surface.
At the sound of her suggestion, Jack's head shot in her direction, a horrified look on his face.
"You're not going to leave, are you?" he asked, crawling over to her and grabbing her arm. "Please don't leave! I don't want to be alone again."
"Relax, Snow Cone," Lleu reassured him. "We're not going anywhere."
"You promise?"
"Promise."
Jack's body sagged in relief.
Ceres suddenly smiled maliciously. Lleu and May exchanged uneasy glances. "Hey, Jack?" she began with a falsely sweet voice.
"Yeah?" Jack snapped to attention like a puppy who'd just gotten called for food.
"Do you think you could do us a little favour?"
"What is it? What can I do?!"
"Could you somehow manage to get us one of North's magical snow globes?"
Realising where this was going, Lleu and May's expressions slowly changed to match their elder's.
"Um, I guess so," Jack tilted his head.
"Wonderful. But he can't know you've taken it. Got it?"
"Got it!" Jack saluted, pulling himself to his feet where he stumbled and leaned on his staff for support.
May grabbed his arm before he could take off. "Not right now," she said. "Wait until you're less... intoxicated."
"Okay!" Jack agreed, plonking himself back down and smiling to himself like he was the happiest guy in the world. "Hey, have I ever told you guys how much I love you?"
"Multiple times," Ceres said dryly.
"Oh. ...Did you know we can't die?" Apparently immune to the somewhat horrified looks on their faces (not because they hadn't known (because they did) but because Jack had felt the need to bring it up at all), he continued, "It's true. I found that out in the denial stage."
"I have a feeling I'm going to regret this," Lleu murmured. "What do you mean 'denial stage'?"
Jack looked at her like she was stupid. "There are three stages when it comes to death, but I figure they work just as well for immortality," he told them. "First there's denial, then there's fear, and then there's acceptance. It took a while to reach the acceptance stage. But it was worth it. I was still lonely but it wasn't quite so bad anymore, you know?"
"...Man I wish I could hug you without burning you alive." Lleu said looking at him with tears in her eyes for her little brother.
"Here, I'll do it for you," May whispered, wrapping her arms around the winter spirit and pulling his head into the crook of her neck and cooing at him and whispering comforts to him, who had started crying and was looking confused as to why.
...
...
By the time Jack had finally worn himself out, the other three seasonals had reached the end of their seemingly limitless patience. The thought of giving North a piece of their mind was really the only thing keeping them sane.
"By the end of this I'm going to need a drink," Ceres groaned, running a hand down her tired face.
"If you come to me intoxicated I will take you to some uninhabited island and leave you there," May threatened.
"At least he's asleep now," Lleu pointed out.
Ceres, who was currently being leaned on by said sleeping winter spirit, did not completely agree. "If he drools on me there'll be hell to pay."
"Save it for North."
When Jack awoke it was to a pounding headache and a greatly protesting stomach. And three older seasonal sisters who looked far from happy to see him.
"Ugh," he groaned, sitting upright (and realising with absolute horror who he'd been sleeping on). "What happened?"
"You were drunk," Lleu told him.
"...I was? That would explain why I feel like throwing up, I guess."
"Well, now that you're clearly back to your senses, it's time to make good on your promise," Ceres said.
"What promise?"
...
...
They followed him as far as the northernmost parts of Russia, making sure he was actually able to fly without falling out of the sky before they were comfortable with letting him cover the last remaining distance alone. Jack had been rather confused as to why they'd wanted him to sneak them a snow globe, but after clearly having taken care of him in his less than sane state, he shrugged it off as being a small price to pay. (He hadn't even wanted to know the details.)
Sneaking into the Workshop now that he was actually allowed there was far less of a challenge than he'd anticipated and it was almost disappointing how easily he'd managed to get in, grab a snow globe and get out again without being noticed by anyone at all.
He swiftly delivered the goods, firmly told them he didn't want to know what they were planning and threatened to bury them all in snow if they told anyone they'd gotten it from him, before flying off for Antarctica with the sole intention of burying himself in a snowdrift for a week.
...
...
North whistled merrily to himself as he took another swig of his vodka-laced eggnog and chipped off a bit of ice from his current project.
He nearly dropped his cup when a portal opened up in front of him and three rather angry looking seasonal spirits stepped out. It was funny how intimidating they could be when they made those expressions despite the fact that they were almost half his size.
"Nicholas St. North," one of them said sternly, "we need to talk."