Cold and alone ✔️

Is he okay? - 27

Mother Nature is known for her kind nature but she is also very smart. So, as she returned home with Jack still asleep in her arms, she hatched up a plan. She knew how her children had treated him and regretted it, but she wanted to teach them a lesson. She had always taught them to protect their youngest siblings from harm and yet instead they caused the harm. She wanted them to feel what he had gone through in a way. She wasn't going to physically hurt them but she would break their hearts. Only for a short bit though, she didn't want to truly hurt any of her children, no matter how much they messed up!

She knew her eyes were still red from crying and would use that to her advantage. She let more tears fall as she saw her home in the distance. She had designed it herself and it was a ginormous tree. The top, center of the tree was hollow where she and her children could all reside and small tree houses were scattered throughout the tree of all of her seven children to stay. As more tears fell, she dramatically entered her home, letting the door bang loudly to announce her arrival. Her and her children always came together to celebrate Christmas together but Jack had always avoided it claiming he had to make it be a white Christmas in one place or another. She held Jack in her arms and continued to cry as she walked through the house to her bedroom and listened as her children grew quiet at the sight of the two.

Jack had not moved once and due to his winter gift, it left his skin looking extremely pale while the rest of her children had rosey cheeks or tanned skin. He looked dead and Mother Nature made no move to tell them he wasn't. She closed the door to her bedroom quickly and heard the worried whispers grow. She felt only a little bad knowing how much they regretted their past actions but they needed to learn their lesson. Jack didn't take too long afterwards to wake up and she told him her plan. He agreed with a small smirk and gave her a huge hug saying how much he had missed her.

They hugged a minute more before a knock was heard on the door. "Mother? Is Jack okay? Why were you crying?" The concern heard in Jack's oldest sibling's voice made Jack smile. "No Vulcan, you're baby brother is not okay. Pitch got to him."  Jack quickly laid down on the bed and pretended to asleep again. Mother Nature opened the door to let her children in before continuing, "He's not dead but when the Guardians found him he was seriously injured. He still hasn't woken up and we don't know when or if he will..." At this point all six of her children were crying and surrounded Jack.

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|From oldest to youngest :                                     |
|Vulcan - summer spirit - controls heat              |
|Cherry - spring spirit - makes flowers bloom   |
|Perseus - spring spirit - controls rain.               |
|Arty - fall spirit - controls leaf color changes   |
|Blaize - summer spirit - controls fire                 |
|Harley - fall spirit - watches over the harvest  |
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Vulcan and Blaize had been the main tormentors towards Jack but none of the other four had ever done anything to stop them. Jack was smaller than all of them and it looked as if he had grown smaller since they had last seen him. Food wise, Harley was the only one who would give him a piece of food from his cornucopia every once in a blue moon and never hurt him physically. Cherry, Perseus, and Arty mainly stuck to ignoring him, but had helped Blaize and Vulcan on occasion. They all began to weep and as much as they hurt Jack, he could not help but feel bad. He still loved them regardless, they were his big brothers and sisters after all.

The final straw for him was when he felt Cherry tuck his hair behind his ear and tears fall on him as she kissed his forehead. He felt himself smile and heard Arty gasp. "He smiled! He's waking up!" Not wanting his siblings realize it was a trick and then get mad at him, he scrunched up his nose and slowing blinked himself awake. All his siblings pulled into a hug and he groaned in pain for effect. They softened the hug to linger a bit longer and many apologies were passed around the room.

   The rest of the day was filled with laughter and to his surprise his siblings had fixed up his room in hopes he would one day return. It was quite similar to the one he had at North's place but it meant a lot to him regardless. Once night came around, more hugs were exchanged and his mom jokingly chewed him out to remind him to pick up his winter spirit duties next year once fully recovered.

Edited October 22, 2022