eachdraidh | ✈ fifth snowy flight ❄

[The locket seems to be set up on a counter in a bedroom in the Station. To the side of the screen, there appears to be a small miniature ice sculpture of a pine tree, sparkling from the glow of the fireplace in the far background. Jack makes final adjustments in angling the locket just right to show off his crystal art project as well as his own smirking face.]

Alright, there's a whole ton of you out there that are either old and ancient or from some weird world that never got to know the cool Earth holidays, so lucky you — I'm here to provide you with a little Q&A on what Christmas is.

It doesn’t make any sense. It’s Father Christmas’s birthday but … not his birthday, too? Why is he giving out gifts for some other guy? [ OH, LOOK, one confused Viking is sitting on the bed. Hiccup gestures animatedly. ] Jack, your gods aren’t making any sense, even Loki’s more organised than this.

[The winter spirit rolls his eyes, waving a hand to hush the man behind him, keeping his attention on the locket instead of addressing him.]

The point is: you set up a ton of colorful lights around, you toss up a big tree to get sap all over your fingers, and then you find presents underneath it on the morning of the 25th. [That’s about the gist of it, right?] Look, I’m not big on bribing kids with gifts, but it does get people slacking off from all that serious crap so they can run outside and make a snowman or something. Gotta give it props for that.

So, basically, it’s Snoggletog without Thor. [ Flatly voiced from the peanut gallery. ] Boy, does that sound like a hoot.

No, no. [He finally turns his back to face Hiccup, shaking a pointed finger at him.] Don’t compare it to your aggressive “missing toes” Viking catastrophe of a holiday. [Turning back to the locket:] Just to be clear — mistletoe, that little plant that’s hung up everywhere on ceilings during the month, means you kiss the person you’re caught under it with — it’s not for punching them, as some people believe.

[ Wow, Hiccup’s just going to fold his arms right now. So rude. ]

I could always dredge up the will to punch you, if you’re getting tired of hanging out under mistletoe and suffering the other option.

[ No, he couldn’t. But he can say he might!! ]

Uh huh, sure. [With a momentary deadpan expression, Jack finally just shrugs with a sigh.] Anyway, I know the guy who hands out the presents, been in his secret lair in the North Pole and everything, so if you want to know more about elves — the small critter-like ones who don’t actually wrap the presents — or yetis, caroling and eggnog, whatever, I can fill in all the blanks for you.

[A pause before he adds:] Just do me a favor, be a pal, and run out to play in the snow for a bit, got it?

Excuse you, I am known for my incredibly artistic Snow Furies, Jack. Just because I don’t go prancing around yelling about how great winter is doesn’t mean I don’t know how to have fun.

First of all, I was talking to them, not you. Second, winter is great and I don’t think you understand how—

I’m Jack Frost, I can’t help kissing aaaall the snowflakes because I’m in love with them—

[The bickering continues for however long. Interruptions for questions would be more than welcome at this point.]

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You're welcome. [Smug? Him? Surely you jest.]

That's definitely a scarier threat than what my real teachers use against me. You show up late, you're subjected to 100 pliés and that's if you're lucky. But at least I'd still have legs. [Easter Bunny too? What even.] So you've hung out in San--North's factory, you know the Easter Bunny…anybody else from my childhood you'd like to tell us all about?

[How dare you. No one is as smug as the smug ice man himself.]

Plea-what? [Dancing might not be one of Jack's areas of expertise.

He taps his chin, considering where to even start, having seen a good number of spirits over time.] Hmm, well there's the Sandman. He's probably one of my favorites. Not a talkative guy, but he's loads of fun with a crazy imagination. [He laughs a bit in thought. Sandy's dreamsand was probably the thing he most looked forward to during nights.]

Tooth Fairy, too, of course. She's the opposite of Sandy — total chatterbox. And if you floss well, she'll be all over you.

[You just haven't been around Ryan enough, Frosty. He will outsmug your smug. He just laughs though.]

Plié. It's ballet...I'm actually on a scholarship at the most prestigious performing arts school in the country. [Dance is important business...but not nearly as important as what Jack's saying because they're all real? Everything he ever imagined. Or grew up hearing about. They're real. He's not going to mention he stopped believing in most of them when he hit junior high but...]

Wow. [Oops, that wasn't supposed to be out loud.] Well thank you for completely blowing my mind. But I guess the stories had to come from somewhere. It's incredible, Jack. You know it's incredible don't you?

Oh. Ballet. Ehh. Never cared for ballet much. So many damn rules and you get smacked if your leg is off by, like, an inch. It's the worst. [Don't mind him criticizing your hobbies or anything.

But he chuckles at the following fascination. He does like it when he finds people who believe like this. Especially the older kids.]

Mm, yeah, I would say I'm incredible. [It's incredible. Not you, Jack. Gosh.] But I told you, there's tons of them out there. Those are kind of the big wigs, though. The Guardians, who make it their deal to protect the children. I'm ... actually one of them now, I guess.

[Even if he only had the title for a little while before he got kidnapped again.]

Trust me, it's not really my favorite either but it's part of the deal. [But that is a skeptical look because yeah, excuse you. But it's fine. Really. Jack can probably get away with a lot more now that Ryan knows what he knows about him and the fact that he's utterly enchanted by the whole thing.

Sometimes it's still hard to wrap his head around the concept of his life basically being a giant fairytale now.]

The Guardians. ["Of what?" He thinks he gets it though so he doesn't comment, keeping his mouth shut even if he just lifts an eyebrow. That had to have been fairly recent, what with the addition of "now."] Oh yeah? Well look at you moving up in the world. How'd you land something like that?

You realize how popular I was back home? [Err. Well, not really. More like infamous for being a little shit, but same difference.] They were pretty much begging me to join, but I'm such a busy guy, it took a lot of convincing on their part to snatch me up.

[It's ... NOT ENTIRELY A LIE. Not entirely.]

[Don't say it. Don't stroke his ego, Ryan, stop it.] Well I can't think of a song for the tooth fairy so I guess so. [Everybody else has songs and maybe there is one for Tooth and he just doesn't know it. But he can kind of fill in the word infamous for himself based on Jack's behavior. There's also the fact that Jack has his own stop-motion animation picture, and his name is the title of a movie starring the guy who used to be Batman.

...yeah let's not mention any of that.]

Busy throwing snowballs at everybody? [Sigh.] So what finally changed your mind?

See? Exactly. [A song and not just an expression. It makes him really wonder why it really did take so long for someone to believe he was real. It might still bug him a bit that other spirits got attention because they left presents and money. All that bribery.]

I guess I just — I realized they needed me.

[It's a simple statement but there's actually a bit more honesty in this answer. He was needed, for the first time in all that he's known. He had a purpose, to actually protect something important in children. In the end, it was an honor to become a Guardian, after all.]

[…and just like that? He gets it. It clicks exactly what Jack's saying and he just sort of hums in thought.]

Kinda nice to be needed, isn't it? [He enjoys it, anyway.] Not that everybody needs validation to prove they're amazing but it's nice when other people recognize that fact. Kinda like it's nice to have people to rely on and people that rely on you. It's a balance.

And apparently they still need you here, too. Is it better or is it worse to be here instead?

[Jack chuckles lightly, but he listens and takes in the comments and question earnestly.]

I've been asked before if I'd prefer to go back, and yeah, I miss them over there, and I mean, I don't know if I'd go into better or worse, but ... there's certain things I have here that I didn't over there. So to sum up — I'm happy I'm here.

[As vague as he is, he shrugs with a smirk.]

Then I guess that's all that really matters here. If you're happy then maybe you can start a new chapter of the Guardians here or something. I dunno how well that'd work but it's an idea.

...and it probably doesn't mean a lot coming from me, but pretty sure a lot of us are happy you're here, too.

New Guardians? [Not the worst idea, but still something he has to wonder all the same.] Don't really think I'm leadership material to get that together. Besides, it was the Moon that kind of headed all that stuff up. But hey, it's a thought.

[He shrugs, but does peek a smile.]

And it does mean a lot. Thanks. Really.

✈ fifth snowy flight ❄ — video (both courts)

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