Chapter 6
In their rush to get to Jamie's house, they had forgotten to discuss what to do once they got there. So now there were and invisible teen and an adult man in a sleeping child's room. There was a dark feeling to the air as nightmare sand dusted the room. Jamie laid tossing in his bed, likely having a nightmare.
Loki looked over at Jack, hoping the teen had a plan. Jack just shrugged helplessly. "I didn't think we'd get this far. Kid can't see me but he can see you. Do something!"
Loki face palmed, questioning himself and the decision to join on this quest. He looked around in the room, spotting a drawing of the boy sledding. Raising a brow, he looked at Jack and jabbed his thumb at the picture. Jack laughed sheepishly and rubbed his neck. "Yeah...That was an accident. He lost his tooth afterwards when the sofa crashed into him."
Loki fought the urge to face palm again, opting to just roll his eyes. His gaze fell on a stuffed bunny that had fallen to the ground. He smirked as he picked it up and threw it on Jamie with a little bit more force than would have been necessary. Jack glared at Loki as the man raised his shoulders nonchalantly.
Jamie groaned awake and shot up as he saw Loki leaning against his desk. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. "Is this still a nightmare or is Loki actually sitting at my desk?" He asked to nobody in particular.
Loki crossed his arms and scoffed slightly. "I'm flattered but no, I am here." Jamie looked at him in disbelief, and spotted the bunny on his bed. "Did you throw this at me?" He asked as he lifted up the stuffed animal. The trickster smirked proudly and nodded.
Jamie side eyed the god of mischief as he set the bunny back down next to his pillow. "Okay so you are real and here. But why? Are you going to control my mind like you did with he people in New York? Are you going to take me prisoner? Feed me to Fenrir? Send me to Muspelheim? Or maybe Jöten-"
"Stop your blabbering child. How do you know of the other realms, or the beast Fenrir?" Loki interrupted. This child knew more than some of the children on Asgard. Maybe that is why Jack had taken a liking to the boy.
Jack was getting a little frustrated at the change of topic. He needs Jamie to believe in the guardians, not discuss the ways Loki could torture him. Jack looked on to the window and got an idea. He started to freeze the glass, frost growing ever to intricately.
Jamie pointed at his freezing window and stared at Loki. "Are you doing that?" He asked. Loki looked at Jack who was entraining himself by drawing on the frosted windows. He couldn't do much without looking like he lost him mind. "Of course not, foolish boy. I am the god of Mischief, not of frozen windows." He scoffed.
Jamie looked at the window, it had fully frosted over and the frost was spreading to the other panels. "Hey, you could still do it with that frost giant magic of yours. Don't you have some ice magic?" Loki froze. How did this human child know so much of him, more than he had known a few years prior. Was he a mage who could see into the past? A witch perhaps? He turned to Jamie, anger slightly showing in his expressions. "How do you know of that, child?! Who has told you of this?" He really had to hold in from yelling to the child, Jack would surely freeze him if he went too far.
Jamie just shrugged his shoulders and pulled out a book from underneath his bed. "It was in this book. It's all about the legends from different ages. You are in the one of Norse Mythology. Thor too, as well as other people."
As Jamie kept explaining it, and Loki having to silently deal with the identity crisis this book had brought upon him, Jack angrily cleared his throat. "Loki, come on. He needs to believe in the guardians. You can read the stories later. Fate of the world at stake here."
Loki snapped out of his daze and focused back on Jamie. "So you believe in these tales?" Jamie jumped up a bit in excitement, barely believing he gets to talk to an actual god. "Of course I do, living proof standing right here in my bedroom! How could I possibly not believe in you?" Loki nodded as he took the book and looked for a section about the guardians. "What about the other tales in this book? Do you believe in these as well?" He sneaked a wink at Jack, who understood where Loki was going.
Jamie frowned as he looked at the pages about the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. "I don't know," he sighed, "I mean, I not sure but I had this dream where I saw them? It could have been real, but I'm not so sure. And I really believed in them, I swear! My Sister even said she was with the Easter Bunny and painted eggs with him and a fairy! But then Easter came, and nothing happened. My friend, he lost a tooth, and the tooth fairy never showed up to take it. And then the nightmares started. First my friends and then me. I really thought they would be real, but now I really don't know what to believe..." Jamie trailed off as he finished, looking down at his hands.
Loki watched as Jack drew on the frosted windows. Thor's hammer, Loki's helmet, and currently drawing an egg. He went to sit on the foot end of the bed and laid back, leaning on his elbows. "What if I told you they were real?" Peaking Jamie's interest, he nodded to the windows where he watched in fascination as a decorated egg appeared drawn on his window. He looked back at Loki and pointed threateningly at him. "You swear you're not pulling some trick?"
Loki smirked but kept watching as Jack started to draw a bunny. "Feisty, but no, I have no doing in this. A friend of mine is the mastermind behind this." Jamie looked back at the window just in time to see Jack finish the bunny and pull it out of the frosting. The ice bunny jumped around Jamie's room as he tried to chase it from his bed. The little bunny jumped up in circles and exploded into a puff of snow as it reached the ceiling.
As the snowflakes fell down, Jamie caught one on the tip of his nose. "Snow?" He wondered out loud. Realization hit him as Loki's words repeated in his mind.
What if they are real
A friend of his did this
A legend that makes snow?
"Jack Frost."
Jack was marveling at his own creation when Jamie threw him off guard. He looked over at Loki, hoping he would confirm if he head it wrong or not. "Did he just say..." He trailed off as Loki smirked at him.
"Jack Frost?" Jamie repeated as he started to look around his room.
Jack was starting to freak out. "He just said it again. He said-" Jack's breathing started to speed up as he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Loki was all but laughing at the reaction of his young friend. "Yuuuup." He chuckled, very much enjoying the tiny crisis Jack found himself in.
Jack looked straight at Jamie as the child had almost turned fully to him. "You said.." He breathed as Jamie's eyes finally laid upon him, mouth agape. "Jack Frost." He repeated a third time as he finally started at the winter spirit.
"That's right," Jack grabbed his head, still barely believing what was happening, "B-but that's me! Jack Frost!" He stepped back a bit, almost like he was telling himself who he was. "That's my name! You said my name!" He walked back closer to Jamie's shocked figure.
Loki had conjured up some popcorn and was very much enjoying this little crisis as Jack only just realized that Jamie can actually see and hear him. His bark of laughter went unnoticed by the youngest two.
Jack laughed in joyous disbelief as Jamie acknowledged to hearing and seeing him. "He sees me," he said to nobody in particular, "he-he sees me!" He cried out in joy as he backflipped onto Jamie's desk.
Jamie jumped over Loki's laughing figure to be closer to the newly revealed spirit in his room.
"You just make it snow!"
"I know."
"In my room!"
"I know!"
"You're re real?!" Jamie asked in confirmation as Jack jumped off the desk and ran to the window. "Yeah! Who do you think brings you all the blizzards and the snow days?" Jack asked the child, freaking out that he finally has a child who believes in him, a child who can see him. He caught eye of the drawing again, and in his excitement he kept on rambling. "And you remember ow you went flying on the sled the other day?" He felt elevated knowing he could finally talk with a child, his first believer!
"That was you?!" Jamie halfway shrieked in shock. Jack had been there all his life and he had never known! Did that mean the others were real too?
"That was me!" He cried out again. It felt impossible for him to stand still, walking around the entire time.
Jamie jumped on his bed, narrowly missing landing on Loki who spilled some of his popcorn as he oved out of the danger zone. "What about the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy? I mean, what about-"
"Didn't I already tell you-" Loki too was interrupted, still ignored by the hyperactive younglings.
"Real, real, real! All of us are real!"
Jamie jumped up on hid bed even more excited than before. "I knew it!" He exclaimed before quickly calming down as his mother called him. "Jamie, who are you talking to?"
Jamie panicked a little and looked at Jack, who casually shrugged and nodded at the door. "Um, Jack Frost?" He called back, unsure if it would work. He relaxed as he heard his mother chuckle an 'okay'. The youngsters in the room laughed off their nerves, happy she didn't walk in to see Loki chilling in her child's bed.
They all shot up as the windows flew open, an unnatural looking storm brewing outside. Jack ran to the window as the jingles of sleigh bells filled the air and jumped out. Loki and Jaimie ran outside, luckily unseen by Jamie's mother, to see a banged up sleigh crash down and break apart on touchdown. The reindeer ran off as North called after them. "Ah, moi deti! Come back!" The weakened Cossack tried to pull himself up as next to him, Tooth flew up. She looked to have lost quite some feathers and shrunk a little in size, wings laying flat to her back. She did her best to support North but could barely hold his weight. "North, are you okay?"
North fell back slightly as he tried to balance himself in the unstable sleigh. He looked like he had aged a few decades since Jack had last seen the man. "Iz official. My powers are kaput." Right as he finished, the sleigh confirmed his statement by promptly breaking through the bearings. Tooth let North fall as she caught sight of Jack. "Look! Jack!" She pointed as she tried to fly over to him, emphasis on tried. The weakened fairy fell as her wings didn't have the power to support her flight anymore.
Jack walked over to help her get up as she dusted herself off. "You okay?" Tooth backed off a little, trying to fix what was left of her crown feathers as North approached. In his weakened state, he relied on his sword as a crutch. "Vat are you doing here?" North questioned with a raised brown.
Jack smiled as he looked behind him to see Jamie rush out of the house while Loki approached at a much slower pace. "Same as you."
"The last light." North tried to stand tall as he laid eyes on Jamie.
Jamie rushed over to North and stared up at him in awe. "Woa, it is you. I mean it is you!" He said as he looked over North and Tooth, North even let him touch his hand without any question. Excitedly he turned back to Jack and the approaching Loki. "I knew it wasn't a dream!" Only Jack picked up on Loki's sarcastic chuckle. "Sure, child."
North and Tooth looked up in wonder and excitement to Jack as Jamie has spoken directly to him. "Jack. He sees you." Jack put a protective hand on Jamie's shoulder as Loki finally decided to join up with the others. Before any could question his presence, Jack interjected. "Wait, where is Bunny?"
North looked solemnly at the ground as he turned to his sleigh, sparing a glance at Tooth as he did so. "Losing Easter took its toll on all of us. Bunny most of all." As if on cue, a small bunny jumped on the railing of the sleigh. Loki snorted as Jack breathed out. "Oh no."
Jamie chuckled freely as he walked over to Bunny. "That's the Easter Bunny?" He asked almost mockingly, thinking Loki was pulling a trick on him. Aster, however, didn't take kindly to the slight mockery. "Now somebody sees me! I mean, whe-where were you about an hour ago, mate?" He said grumpily as he raised to his hind legs, not making much difference in his height. North and Jack shared a look at his antics. Same old Bunny, just a smaller size.
"What happened to him?" Jamie asked the group. "He used to be huge and cool, and now he's...cute." Jamie started to scratch Bunny's cheek, much to the enjoyment of Aster. Once he noticed he started tapping his foot, he pawed away Jamie's hand. In his frustration, he turned to Jack. "Did you tell him to say that?" He charged to Jack, scratched his leg and got ready to fight the now towering spirit. "That's it. Let's go. Me and you. Come on!" Before Jack even had a chance to react, Loki finally burst out laughing.
For the first time, the guardians actually noticed his presence and got into fighting positions. This, however only made him laugh even more. "Oh this is good! They always said you were supposed to bring fear to evil and protect the children! Now look at you, just a poor bunch of weaklings!" Loki only laughed a bit less eccentric after getting an elbow in the robs from Jack. "Loki, that isn't nice." He scolded. Loki only mock bowed in half hearted forgiveness. "Sorry Snowflake, but it is rather entertaining that these people are held to higher regards than me."
Bunny turned his aggression to Loki as he pointed his fluffy paw in an attempt to look threatening. "Aren't you the bloke that tried to destroy New York?" Loki laughed as he bend down and pet between Bunny's ears. "Aren't you supposed to be a warrior, rabbit?" Bunny scratched at Loki's hands as he tried to claw at the man's face. "Come a little closer, ya show pony! I'll show you what a warrior I am before I let you take the child!"
Jamie stepped in to defuse the situation. "No actually, Jack and him told me you were real. Just when I started thinking that maybe you weren't." Bunny looked incredulously at the god. "This guy? This one, right here, made you believe? In me?" Bunny was shocked at the information he had to process.
It almost seemed like Bunny was going to thank them before a loud clap of thunder and lightning scared them.
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top