[OPEN] All a settlement of snow...

[wintershepherd]

Characters: Jack Frost & OPEN
Date: Catch-all for December threads
Location: Keeliai and Landfall at Bresilyk
Situation: General prompts are in the post, prior discussed starters to be set up shortly! Message me if you want me to add a specific starter for your character or just tag in with any scene.
Special Note: Jack will have Baby Tooth with him unless noted otherwise and her visibility follows the UPDATED!! belief guidelines as Jack's do.
Warnings/Rating: TBA in threads if needed.


[ A. LANDFALL LINKS ]
→ Snow Glitter Shenanigans
→ Chilling on the pier with bitty at Aihsohlow

[ B. WELCOME CENTER ]
As officially announced at the beginning of the month, Jack's commenced running a small welcome center located in central Keeliai for Foreigners arriving into the city. Today he can be found sitting cross-legged on the floor, sorting a pile of donated books from various vendors around the city. They're in various languages and the ones that are in kedanese are of a beginner level so that the basics of the language can be attempted. Baby Tooth is flitting nearby, checking a list of supplies that they'd compiled, thinking they'd need.

"I'm glad we got so many volunteers," Jack was in the middle of saying to the faerie. "Between here and the fishing store, it's going to be really busy." Baby Tooth fixed him with a dry, droll look as though to remind him which of the two of them was used to working 24/7 and he laughed. "Right, right... can you imagine if Tooth were here?"

[ C. DOWNTIME ]
When he does manage to find some free time, he surprisingly spends it... doing nothing. Or rather, soundly sleeping in a snowy bough of a park tree, feet propped up against the trunk, staff balanced lightly across his stomach, seemingly without a care in the world and utterly unbothered by the cold.

Comments

[wintershepherd]

"Auroras are great," Jack agreed. "Some times I'd take a fly across Alaska just to see them, Borealis in the northern hemisphere and Australis in the southern."

His expression turned wistful when she mentioned her sister, though it was a touch of restrained nostalgia there as well. "You've got a sister? Older or younger?"

He watches her cross the snowy grass into the park, still smiling. "Last year in March I snowed over the whole city but the things I enjoyed making the most were the sculptures. Tried to make one for all the places people came from, so they'd have a little bit of home while they were here. They weren't huge or anything though."

[snedronningen]

"Younger," She turns and turns, surveying the landscape,"Her name is Anna, she's..."

Give her a moment to think on that. How does she describe Anna?

"She's amazing," Elsa will settle on that word. "Loyal, accepting, energetic; I think in some ways she would make a better queen than myself."

She still doesn't see how her sister could still love her despite all she had put her through. And yet she did. Her heart aches knowing that Anna isn't here, but she was safer back home. That keeps Elsa sane.

Once she's got a good look around she'll give a glance over her shoulder to Jack, a playful smile tugging at her lips, "Stand back."

She slams her foot into the ground, magic bursting forth from the balls of her foot. An icy snowflake grows larger and large until she creates what she feels is a sufficiently large base.

Yup. When she said big, she meant big.

[wintershepherd]

Hearing her sister described like that warmed Jack, no pun intended. But his grin turned mischievous as she warned him to keep his distance and when the snowflake blooms wide and expansive from her foot he can't keep the delight from showing in his expression.

"Bring it on, your majesty."

[snedronningen]

She'll just smirk as the ice forms beneath her. This is one thing she could do with out much though-- just pure will power alone. She drags her hands up in the air, pillars taking root, snow swirling around her, she's careful to make sure that the entire thing is higher than the trees on the ground, raised and elevated. Ice and frost spire high above her, forming intricate and delicate shapes and patterns.

She doesn't have to move much from her spot, but it just felt better to swirl around and watch the progress-- even if she did have to deal with that cape she had now.


Also don't mind the fact that she's humming softly to herself-- she's not at the level of comfort of actually singing freely in front of other people, but she couldn't resist that little indulgence.

When she's done what's standing is a close replica of her ice palace she created on the North Mountain. Not exact, a few things changed, and accomadated for the fact that she definitely wasn't on that cold lonely rock-- but just as grand and sparkling.

When she's done she'll saunter out on to her balcony, looking around for Jack. She wants to know what he thought of her creation.

[wintershepherd]

"Wow," the spirit said, in not his most eloquent moment, raising his gaze to take in the full scope of the ice palace before lifting into the air on a breeze and angled upwards when he saw her emerge from an upper balcony.

"That is... amazing," he called to her.

[snedronningen]

"Thank you," she's breathlessly excited-- it felt good to just release. "I made one bigger back home."

She's scaled it down since, uh, palaces as big as mountains aren't exactly something she'd think a giant turtle would be cool with.

"It feels a bit lonely without Marshmallow."

[wintershepherd]

Jack alighted on the railing of the balcony, bare toes splaying over the crystalline surface as though it weren't slippery at all.

"Oh yeah? Who's Marshmallow?"

Spoiler warning for anyone readin along

[snedronningen]

Elsa watches him fly and balance and walk among her ice with ease-- and she can't describe the emotion she feels in the pit of her stomach more than a sense of belonging. Here she didn't have to hide or shut doors. It made her heart ache for home, where she was just starting to feel this same sense of security.

"He's my body guard, he looks like a giant ogre," she glides over to where Jack has planted himself, grazing fingers along the ice next to him."I made him-- well when I was trying to protect my sister... From me."

She hasn't really told anyone the story yet. She knows how powerful she is, she knows how everything that had happened to her revealed her greatest weaknesses. If someone here were to exploit her like Hans had-- it could end up in disaster.

Re: Spoiler warning for anyone readin along

[wintershepherd]

Jack turns at that, seeming to read into the words and settled into a crouch so he was at her eye level.

"Protect your sister from this," he corrects, laying a hand on the ice railing and his touch causing a fresh burst of patterning frost to skate over its surface. While he didn't know what had happened, there were some things he could infer from the way she'd spoken in her introduction post and how she'd sounded when talking about her sister.

"The ice, not from you. Just because this is something you can do doesn't make it the whole of who you are."

[snedronningen]

She watches as his ice unfurls over hers, listens to his explanation, and offers him up a smile, "Thank you, Jack."

She meant that with her entire being; but she doesn't quite believe it yet, what he said. Two people had told her she didn't amount to just her powers before, her sister and Hans. And she'd rather not think about the implications behind that.

"I'm trying to learn that." trusting herself? It seemed almost impossible. Especially after what had happened to her sister.

But Anna had always trusted her, and just maybe she could begin to believe in that trust herself.

"I've just been charged with watching over her for so long, old habits are hard to break."

At least Anna wasn't here. She didn't have to worry about that. yet.

[wintershepherd]

"It takes a while," he agreed. "Especially when you don't have anyone else to ask." Though speaking of his own situation, he had no idea how appropriately that applied to Elsa as well. "I've been doing this for a lot of years and I'm still learning what I can do. Found out just last year I could make coldfire."

He eased down into a sitting position on the railing, watching her. "You care about her a lot."

[snedronningen]

"She's all I have left," and that was the truth. She had felt distant from most people these past few years with mounting anxieties not only about becoming queen, but her growing powers. So many people had expectations and wants from her, Anna was truly one of the only people who didn't hold her to any standard beyond being a sister. Even after she had nearly disappeared.

She shakes her head, slightly, to change the thought. "Coldfire? What's that?"

[wintershepherd]

Jack nods, silently accepting the unspoken request to change the topic. At her question he grinned, lifted lightly into the air again. He spun midair, bringing his staff up and channeling his power through it, causing a bright lance of lightning-like frost to streak upward where it exploded like a firework, raining shining specks of ice down. He repeated a few times, letting the trailing edges of the falling ice to overlap each other.

[snedronningen]

She watches in awe at his abilities, she may be able manipulate ice-- but she's never managed anything close to that. Jack was a force of nature, she had always just thought of herself as a girl gifted with magic... Even after turning summer to winter.

She gives Jack a smile, watching him flit around the sky with such ease, "I don't think I could ever manage anything quite that impressive."

She says on the balcony of an ice palace she created in just a few minutes, after discussing how she's created sentient beings.

[wintershepherd]

He alighted again on the ice balcony, shoulders rolling in a lighthearted shrug that matched his smile. "I don't know about that, current accommodations say otherwise. You could always learn something new, and sometimes you just discover things. Like the coldfire for me. But uh, maybe without the same circumstances."

[snedronningen]

She tilts her head towards him in question, "Circumstances? May I ask what those were?"

[wintershepherd]

"Not very good ones," Jack said, unwilling to go into the full story especially to someone new; it seemed unnecessarily heavy to place on someone who still had everything else to cope with that came with arrival here.

"I thought someone very important was gone for good." Then hurriedly Jack assured, "He's fine, he came back but... yeah. Wasn't a good couple of days."

[snedronningen]

She understands the hesitance. She certainly hadn't been too keen on revealing her own story... not the entirety of it.

"The important thing is that it's resolved now, and you're okay."

Really, maybe she shouldn't put so much faith in a person-- spirit, legend she just met, but it was nice to just have a normal conversation. No politics, no hiding, being herself. No ulterior motives.

Normalcy felt like the greatest thing that could have happened to her.

[wintershepherd]

Jack gestured around at the ice palace. "So... is this gonna be a permanent fixture? Once you're better settled in... I'll show you some places outside of the city, if you want. You can really cut loose out there-- I might even join you for the next construction site."