𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐈𝐂𝐄 》 JACK FROST

XXIX. Fearlings

FEARLINGS

2007 AD
16th March, 09:00 PM
Ancient Library of Wonders

Within the last few hours, Jack was seriously considering himself as a lecturer. He'd even add it to his CV, or resumé - if he was ever somehow converted back to being mortal. Agatha would have to disagree. Whilst she admired Jack's patience with her and liked to watch the smile that spread on his face when she pretended to understand, once he had taught her all of the letters, symbols and letters, she had to read a few books to teach herself what he was bad at.

Sweet Jack was kept out of this loop, Agatha figuring it would upset him slightly.

''You finished another one?'' Jack asked, eyebrows raised as Agatha carefully shut a book and placed it in a second pile, that was only growing taller every minute. She hummed and Jack smiled, nodding proudly as he leant back in his chair, hands folding behind his head smugly. ''Well, what can I say? Genius learns from genius.''

Agatha bit her tongue, letting him have his moment.

''You found anything interesting?'' She asked, leaning over to look at his book. Whilst his annotations wasn't the best, it was legible and she liked the way he drew snowflakes instead of dotting his 'i's, (when Agatha had tried that, Jack had asked if she was inventing letters - she didn't try again after that), it was a lot better than Agatha's, as she couldn't control her stroke movements yet, some letters bigger than others and with two lines from where she had got confused and drawn an 'o' with two loops on top of each other, there was also a lot of scribbles.

Jack sighed, leaning forward again as he pointed out a passage. ''It says here that fearlings - y'know, those horse things? - can imitate voices, which makes sense considering our past encounter with him. I can't believe I didn't piece that together earlier.''

''Guess you can take the whole 'genius' thing back then,'' Agatha smiled, nudging him with her elbow. ''But, yeah, I got almost the same thing. Turns out fearlings can turn children into other fearlings and sometimes even possess adults.''

''Really?'' Jack asked, gently moving his hand to her face to push her out the way as he looked at her book, eyebrows furrowing as he tried to decipher what was written. ''Man, I don't envy the next people that have to use these books.''

''Oh, shut it,'' Agatha groaned, pushing him away as she swatted her arms at where he was, causing him to laugh and hold his hands up in mock surrender. ''I'm trying to make it neat, it just isn't co-operating.''

''Your own hand, isn't cooperating?'' Jack raised an eyebrow before quickly reaching out to grab her hand, making monstrous noises as he waved it about, moving it to look like it was trying to grab his face. ''Maybe you've been possessed! Agh!''

Agatha laughed, moving her other hand to grab his shoulders, playing along. ''Oh, no! Jack, look out! Can't - control - my - self - ack!'' She shook his shoulders violently and Jack's head wobbled around uncontrollably.

He cackled, shaking his head as he took his turn to swat her instead, trying to escape. ''Okay, okay!''

Agatha hummed, watching him as he tried to figure out how his head was meant to be held. She turned around, picking her quill up again.

''Hey, Agatha?'' Jack asked. She lifted her head slightly to show she was listening, but otherwise her concentration didn't waver. ''What hand do you hold your scythe in?''

Agatha stopped, pausing. She tried to summon it but remembered that that didn't work in the woods. Instead she held her hands out as if she was a weighing scale, head tilting to each side as she considered it. ''This one,'' she said, turning to see Jack's amused face as she held out her left hand.

''Why don't you try writing with that one, then?''

''But I've already gotten used to using my right hand,'' She frowned.

Jack shrugged, ''So? Look at how you're holding it, that can't be comfortable.'' She nodded, passing the quill into her other hand and Jack smiled, eyes darting to her free hand as he reached over to pry underneath, as he laid it facing upwards, so that their palms were meeting. Agatha turned to watch what he was doing. He wiggled his fingers, intertwining them with hers as he lifted them and placed them back down on the desk in achievement. Agatha looked at him, blinking as she tried to understand. Jack tried not to flush in colour as he shrugged. ''So you don't accidentally use your right hand.''

She nodded, getting it as she turned to what she was doing, giving his hand a quick squeeze. Jack squeezed back, trying not to smile too obviously.

Agatha moved her book away again, getting bored of it as she put it on a third pile to come back to. ''Okay, so, I don't think we're getting anywhere with the whole 'Pitch' thing, so maybe we should just concentrate on getting out, regroup with the others.''

Jack frowned slightly. ''You wanna go back to them?'' He still wasn't over it, in his eyes they had betrayed her.

She shrugged, smiling at Jack. ''It was scary, and I was alone, but I understand why they prioritized the entire world over me.''

''Ags, you thought I was a hallucination,'' he gently reached over to lift her chin, needing to look her in the eyes to figure out what she was really feeling.

They were slightly teary, but her smile was trying to tell him that she was okay. ''But you stayed anyway.''

Jack squeezed her hand, tightly this time, and turned to look back at the words on pages so that she couldn't see what he was really feeling. He blinked a few times, willing the tears away. ''I'd never leave you.''

Agatha smiled, debating something before she darted forwards as quickly as she could. It hurt, slightly, as she went a little too fast and her nose hit his cheek bone, but that didn't matter to Jack. His head shot up, hand dropping his own pen to caress his cheek, eyes wide as he stared at her red face, his own heating up in retaliation. Had she just kissed his...?

''Thank you. For everything,'' she said, a little too fast, ''I gotta go find that spider, I'll be back.''

By the time Jack had registered what she had done and what she had said, she was already on the other side of the room, leaving him to his thoughts. Well, she would've been had his mind not gone blank, rendering him speechless and thoughtless as he watched her speak to the spider.

shout out to the person who commented 'foreshadowing' on the first mention of aggie being left handed; i just wanted them to hold hands and be cute lol