The Pole stood in silence for a second, North and Sandy slowly turned around, and Tooth rushed back to them, hovering over Bunnymund's shoulder to watch as the two girls stared into each other's eyes in silent appraisal. Jack looked over the new comers too.
The chocolate coloured eyes belonged to a girl of medium height, completely dwarfed by Pan, though she looked to be older by two or three years, around nineteen. Solely clad in a bright, white bikini, her warm brown skin stood out all the brighter. The middle of the three, it was her that had been shot at, and her that wore a lazy smile, full pink lips spreading and dimples appearing under freckled cheeks. Jack stared at the ridiculously beautiful woman, eyes wide. The first thought that entered his mind was that she was so out of his league. And by the way she held herself, relaxed, with one hand on a wide hip, she knew it was the thought most people had upon meeting her. "Well, Pandorea, don't you have anything to say?"
"Please don't call me that."
"Uh huh. I'll just speak to somebody who's in charge here then." There was a perfect frangipani tucked behind one ear, as white as the few grains of sand sticking to her smooth, bare legs.... Jack had the odd sensation that he was melting? Was it just him? The other Guardians seemed unconcerned, and he forced himself to pull himself up from where he was slowly falling off the shelf and put on his best attempt at a business like expression. "North, would that be you, then?"
"It would," North affirmed, moving forwards warily, but still acting polite. "Why have you come here, Miss...?"
"Fran." Fran tossed back her sun bleached hair with a white smile. There was definitely Polynesian about her... Hawaiian? Fiji? They weren't the places Jack normal spent his time at, but if they all looked like that he might have to find an excuse to visit. "And this is my brother Poppy, and sister, Elle."
"Fran and Pan!" North announced, laughing as he relaxed at the introductions. "Welcome to Pole, Fran, Poppy and Elle. You are Mother Nature's children, no?"
Fran's eyes had narrowed at her name being mentioned with Pan's, but Poppy and Elle brightened up. The boy brushed a strand of his vibrant red hair out of his eyes and smiled. His hands were tucked into jeans that were barely recognisable as being black under all the splashes of paint. In contrast to their elder sister, he and the youngest were both white as snow. "That's us."
The boy was grinning around the Pole with wide eyes, trying to take in every detail, reminding Jack of his first arrival there. In fact, they looked to be around the same age and height, if only opposites, with Poppy's bright red, but equally painted shirt. He looked likeable enough, with a thin but happy face that grinned easily around.
"That's kind of why we're here, actually," Fran continued, the air smelling sweeter with every second she spent within the room. She still seemed unconcerned with the arrow Pan had aimed straight at her face, from a distance of less than twenty yards. "Our mother has a message for you."
"And what would that be?" Bunny asked.
Jack noticed Pan had been awfully silent ever since they had arrived, and when he tore his gaze back away from Fran, he saw her face was scrunched up in a look between hate and sadness, but still she held her fire.
"You're making a mistake." Fran looked each Guardian, lastly staring at Pan, whose expression immediately stilled. Her eyes shone as she stared into the big green eyes of the huntress, watching them for any reaction to her words. Without looking away, she gestured to the moon as it slowly faded from view up above. "What ever he said, whatever SHE told you, she should not be a Guardian. Ever. She's too dangerous. Too wild."
"I told them I did not want this. I'm leaving as soon as I can," Pan snapped, but Fran ignored her, turning to North as he spoke.
"Why did Mother Nature not come tell us this herself, eh?"
The three sprites all hesitated, but once again it was Fran who answered. "She can't at the moment. But that's what she said. You should definitely listen to her."
"Wait- how does she know about that?!" Jack finally spoke. "I only just told Pan an hour ago!"
"Were you in a forest, you know, around NATURE, when you told her this?" Fran asked in a bored voice, speaking like she would to a child.
"Uh, yeah..." Jack muttered quietly, put down by her tone.
"Well, there you go, then."
"Why was she watching me?" Pan asked, the dingo at her heels, copying her mistrustful look towards Fran.
"Think of it, like a prisoner that gets out of jail, Pan. Somebody needs to keep an eye on you, make sure you don't continue with your crimes. Make sure you're not endangering the public." Fran looked like she was hiding something close to amusement under her serious expression.
"Wait, a PRISONER?" Jack exclaimed, clutching staff a little tighter and staring at Pan in a new light. What on earth had she done to become a criminal?
"Not literally," Poppy interjected.
"I have never been to jail," Pan told him, not taking her eyes off Fran. It was a mystery to him how she was holding her bow so steady for so long. "Mother Nature said she never wanted anything more to do with me."
"She doesn't." Fran said. "It's not you she's doing this for. It's about the real Guardians and the children. Because funnily enough she values lives. If she's not here it's because she doesn't want to see you."
"No." Pan growled. "You're lying. She's not here because she CAN'T come, can she? Because that's what happens when she saves lives. That's all I was trying to show her. It was more than anybody else ever did! How bad is she?!"
"That's none of your business," Fran began, at the exact same time as Poppy replied.
"Bad."
Pan hid whatever emotions she was feeling, so Jack was left even more confused, as clearly all the other Guardians were. Bunnymund coughed awkwardly, and Toothiana averted her gaze from the family argument.
"Would you like private chat?" North offered, preparing to leave them all, but Fran shook her head.
"Sorry for that, North. Hopefully Pan won't bring that back up." Jack watched Pan's head tilt to the side as Fran spoke, eyes narrowed, and felt, perhaps, that she wasn't the one at the top of the foodchain here. "No, we came to give you the message, and find out just why the Man in the Moon wants HER to be a Guardian."
North was glancing between the family cautikously, and took a moment to reply. "We don't know that yet. But perhaps... If you come with me, we talk about it upstairs?"
"Sounds great," Fran replied in a voice that said she'd heard a lot of better ideas, but she turned and followed him, Bunny as well. Jack had to use every ounce of self control not to watch her leave, the wide hips, the brushing of her brown thighs- what was it with these Nature Sprites and not wearing clothes?!
"Hi!" A tiny voice squeaked beside him, tearing Jack's mind away out of its happy place.
Jack jumped, looking down, startled by the third little Nature Sprite, whom he hadn't entirely paid much attention to, nor seen her approach. She was tiny. A girl who couldn't have been older than twelve, with wide, lilac eyes. And she was cold... so cold. Frost coated her eyelashes and snowflakes clung to her long silver hair. Her dress was blue, like many blue flower petals had been frozen together. Even her feet looked blue with cold. He hesitated, thrown off by her bright, chirpy smile. "Hey there."
"You're Jack Frost," she squeaked, as though she couldn't quite believe it.
"I know," Jack replied, smiling cheekily, and she blushed a deep purple, covering her cheeks with her hands. Jack shared a look with Tooth, who was look highly amused, if not a little sympathetic.
"This is Elle, though you probably realised that by now, us being introduced and all." Jack looked up to see Poppy walking over, smiling amiably. He patted his sister on the shoulder, leaning her against him to give her support.
"I did," Jack replied, before looking back to the little girl. "How are you doing there, Elle? You look almost as frosty as me. How long were you standing there?"
"I was- uh, I mean..." Elle stuttered over her words as Jack looked at her. "I've always been like this... I'm a winter flower! That's because... Because in the winter, I dust everything with frost, to keep it all crisp and sparkly!"
Jack frowned. "Hey, I thought that was my job. I am Jack FROST after all."
Elle seemed a little bit lost for words, so her brother spoke up soothingly. "Well..."
"Well," Elle continued from Poppy, still not taking those huge eyes off Jack, who was beginning to become just a little uncomfortable from all the attention. "Mum says that you could do it... But you're not- you're not reliable, because sometimes you frost nature and sometimes you don't. BUt somebody has to do it always, and that's me!"
"I see-" Jack began.
"-No offence!" She added quickly. "You're much more frostier than me... and your snowflakes are so beautiful, just like you a- just like your snow. And you can always fly everywhere, and that's really cool, and the wind likes you. And I think you're really really awesome and your hair is really pretty and your smile and-" she seemed unable to stop, breathing deeply, staring up at Jack with adoration. Her voice was getting squeakier and squeakier.
"Elle, have you seen the reindeer yet? North's reindeer?" Poppy asked calmly, snapping the small girl out of it.
"I, uh- I'm gonna go see the reindeer now..." She murmured, playing with her hair. She glanced back up at Jack, but he was a little too thrown off to respond.
"Okay, you take care, Elle," Poppy murmured, kissing her lightly on the head. "Bunnymund will show you where."
"I don't need him!" Elle managed, biting her lip as she looked at Jack. "I'm old enough."
"Of course, I was just saying that for Bunny's sake," he amended.
"Bye, Jack Frost," The tiny little sprite murmured, turning around to skip down the hall.
Poppy sighed deeply, looking up at Jack with eyes that he now realised were a deep, dark red, swirls in his irises like petals. "Sorry about that. She can get a little over excited."
"We can all get that way, Poppy" Tooth assured him.
"I guess so," Poppy murmured. He smiled at Jack. "Plus she's had a crush on you for years, so I hope can forgive her if she gets that way. Meeting her hero and all that. But don't tell her I told you."
"Hero?" Jack asked, bemused. "I've never met her before."
Poppy grinned, then. "I have thirty three sisters and I swear every single one of them has had a crush on you and or stalked you over the years, Jack. I don't know how you've missed all of them."
"What?!" Jack stared at him, before looking at Tooth. "Did you know about this?!"
"How could I know?" Tooth asked, holding her hands up innocently. She was laughing a little, patting him on the shoulder. "Don't hurt her feelings, though, Jack- I mean, if you weren't going to-"
"Well, I, uh didn't-" Jack interrupted, trying to find the words to tell her what he wanted to. He didn't even know Elle... But he knew Tooth.
"Because you can do what you want. I mean, if you'd already found someone else..."
"I guess I don't know... um, well-"
"But you probably didn't. I mean, all those other girls who-"
"Actually, I always thought that, well, maybe-" Jack was stummbling over his words even more than Toothiana was, the both of them looking at their feet, glancing up when the other wasn't. The air still smelt nice, this time like poppies, but Jack didn't think of anything other than how pretty the Tooth Fairy's feathers were until there was a small cough.
"Shall I go somewhere else, or...?" Poppy asked, watching them. He played with a small red flower between his fingers.
"Oh, no, it's fine!" Tooth and Jack said in unison, before glancing at each other and shutting up. There was a long moment of awkwardness filled in only with the general clankings and clamour of the North Pole as the yetis made the toys and the elves invariably found some way to misuse them. A dog wandered past, trailing after an elf, and suddenly Jack looked up, startled.
"Where did Pan go?!"
"Pan and people? Those two don't mix, Jack," Poppy explained. "She probably wandered off somewhere. It's fine. She used to do it all the time, even when she was a part of the family."
"Okay," Jack murmured, still looking around for the wild girl. All at one he saw her curled on the ground by the doors, hugging the small dingo tightly, the rest of the dogs curled up next to her. Her eyes were open as she waited, despite the sleeping dogs. Jack smiled just a little as the dingo licked at her cheek and she smiled warmly down at it, the first kind expression he had seen on her. A reminder of a question he had been meaning to ask struck him as her dark skin stood out against the dingo's light fur. "Can we clear this up: are you and Pan siblings or not?"
"We were. But some things came up... She and mum fought and it was kind of like a disowning. Nothing you need to worry about. So no, she's not considered family any more. I haven't seen her in two centuries anyway."
A part of Jack wanted to ask what "things" came up, but he dismissed it for an even more pressing matter. "But you, Fran and Elle are siblings."
"Yup."
"Who's your father, then?"
Poppy shrugged. "No idea. I never met him."
"So your mum, thirty times-"
Poppy deadpanned. "We're adopted."
"Well that explains a lot, thanks," Jack nudged Tooth as she giggled at him. "Because, you know, you, Fran and Pan don't exactly look like siblings."
"What gave it away?" Poppy asked, smiling.
"The fangs, the bikini body, the frost and the hair."
"Mmmm," Poppy murmured in agreement, smiling jokingly. "I do have nice hair, don't I?"
"Just be careful Bunny doesn't mistake you for a carrot-"
"Are you kidding me, Frost? I'm surprised you haven't ended up in someone's drink-"
"Aren't poppies used in opium, Carrot-top?" Jack grinned.
"Poppies are the essence of opium. And they're used in medicene, too. I prefer to be of medicinal use. Not the other kind. I don't like being abused as a drug." His pale face had taken on a sad look, one that managed to shut even Jack up.
In the silence that followed, Jack glanced down at his feet, tracing frosty swirls on the floor with his toes. "So... Fran..."
"Is single, yeah," Poppy cut him off with a sigh.
"What? No! I meant... She didn't get hit with Pan's arrow. That's just... surprising, is all."
"They were sisters for a long time, Jack. Even if Fran isn't the most... appreciative of siblings, our whole family depends on each other. We love each other. Plus, to kill Fran, she'd have our mother to deal with again. When mum makes a point, you learn your lesson and you never repeat the crime."
"And what was her lesson?" Jack asked, trying to to pry too obviously, but fascinated by the family he'd never even heard of before.
"That hunting humans is off limits."
((AN// Yes, I know this chapter was pretty much just dialogue, like the last, but I promise there'll be plenty of action in the next one, I was just attempting to be subtle as I threw information at you all.
And since I am trying to get this story back on the track it was on before I kind of dropped off on the updates, I can't possibly explain how much comments and votes matter right now to me. I know it's kinda greedy or whatever, but it lets people know about this story. So, now I'm offering a REWARD for comments. It's a limited time offer, that's right ladies and gentlemen, I'm only joking it's not limited at all. If you're an author and you comment either telling me what you liked about the chapeter and characters, and/or what you didn't, I'll check out and comment on your fanfictions. If I'm already an avid reader of your stuff.... A dedication? Shout outs? Piggyback across the Sahara desert? You choose.
So, what do you think of Fran, Poppy and Elle? Of the chapter in general? Of my fancy hat? Comment now and win! :D
Oh, and when you're reading this I'm probably at 20000 ft, so don't expect a lightening fast reply.))