Frost at Birth (RotG)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

*Abigail's POV*

Dad went out, so I took the chance to go outside. He hardly let me leave the house anymore, always worried I'd get hurt or something. I didn't even know what caused it. All I know is that I was never allowed to go have fun, even in the season that he made himself.

I didn't get cold unless it was in the negatives, a perk to having Old Man Winter as a father, so it was easy for me to just slip out and sit by the side of a frozen pond to put on my ice skates.

Ice skating was something I'd loved for as long as I could remember, I'd come out here as often as I could and just skate and sing. I knew other kids couldn't see me, but that was okay. It was fun to start snowball fights at the pond and no one knew where it'd come from. It didn't take long before everyone would start throwing snow at each other.

Abigail means "a father's joy", so I assumed he had named me accordingly. It made me smile whenever I thought of it. I was his joy. He knew that when he named me, he'd told me he did.

Now, I put my skates on and skated out to the middle. What song today? I'd heard quite a few in the past weeks I'd been stuck inside.

Choosing one quickly, I started singing and skating around, not caring about the number of people I went through or how my voice sounded. No one could hear me anyway. But there he was. There was that boy, he looked about sixteen, who would always be standing there. It looked like he could see me, but since that was impossible, I just continued on every time I saw him.

I stopped when I saw a boy younger than me sitting behind a tree crying. He had his head on his knees, his arms wrapped around his legs.

My heart went out to him and I got on my knees in front of him, just putting a hand on his shoulder. A pretty yellow color swirled onto his shirt a few inches from my hand and disappeared. I gasped as he looked up and slowly stopped his crying. "They do love me, don't they?" He mumbled to himself before wiping his eyes and walking off.

I smiled and got up, about to get back on the ice, when the temperature dropped and it started snowing. My eyes widened and I tugged my skates off, running back inside before he could see me. I couldn't get caught out, he'd keep me inside forever. I opened the door.

"Abigail?" I heard from inside. Holy muffins. Dad was already inside. I hit myself on the head and slipped in, closing the door quietly. "Abigail, where are you?"

I set my skates down in the closet, hoping they wouldn't make a sound. But of course they did. The loudest sound I'd heard in my life. Mentally wincing, I hurried into the closet and shut the door. This wasn't the first time I'd nearly been caught.

"Abigail? Was that you?" He sounded worried, so I opened the door a peep and looked out. Not seeing him, I stepped out.

"Dad? What are you yelling for?" I asked, walking down to my bedroom to find him. "I just opened the back window to get some fresh air. It gets stuffy in here with all the stagnant air."

"I've been yelling for you, why didn't you answer?" I sat on my bed, a green spread over it, and leaned back against my pillows, looking at my blue frosted walls. Almost everything in my room was frosted. My beside lamp, walls, pillow shams, the upholstered chair sitting in the corner, everything. The only thing that wasn't was my sheets and quilt. Though I didn't get cold often, I did enjoy being toasty warm.

"Abigail, did you go outside? What did you do?" I shrugged, looking at my hands. "Answer me."

"What do you want me to say? I love sitting indoors, never being able to enjoy the snow or sun? That I hate fresh air and all I want to do is customize my room and change it over and over again? I'm sick of being inside, Dad, you try doing it for six plus years. Why don't you want me to go out?"

He sighed and sat at the foot of my bed. "Look, Abigail, I just want to protect you. When you were eight or so, you saw a Nightmare, Pitch Black's main form of attack. You freaked out, and I didn't want you to be hurt or scared when I wasn't around."

I rolled my eyes. "That was six years ago. I can understand keeping me inside for a few months, maybe a year. But six? What makes you so sure I can't handle myself now?"

"I need to go talk to North. Stay inside."

I rolled my eyes again. "Whatever."

He stood up and went to walk out, but stopped. "You know what, why don't you come with me?"

I smiled and stood. "Let's go." I inherited my dad's immortality, I'd stop aging soon, and apparently his gift of having some kind of power, but I couldn't fly well. It was spotty, and I would never trust that I'd be able to get away using it. Sometimes it worked, other times not so much.

"Ready?" Dad asked, seeing that I could fly this time.

I nodded with a smile and began zooming around, trying to stretch some. "This is so much better than inside."

He chuckled and led me north, up to the Workshop. I'd never been up there, and when I saw it, it made me pause. "Whoa." It looked great, magnificent.

We flew inside and one of the yetis started freaking out, but when he saw me he stopped dead in his gibberish and looked between me and Dad before ushering us on.

"Come on." Dad chuckled.

I kept walking, but it was almost blindly. There were planes flying around, yetis painting or building, and little elves thinking that they were doing good work. I laughed when they lit another up with Christmas lights.

Dad knocked on a big door. "Enter!" A Russian accent boomed from the other side, making me jump.

As Dad opened the door, I hid behind him. How big was this guy? He sounded scary. Once I saw him, I took a breath of relief. He wasn't that scary. Big, yes, but not scary.

"Jack! It has been a while!"

Dad laughed. "It has." I watched them share what I think I'd heard Dad call a "manly hug", but I couldn't tell the difference between that and a normal hug.

"Who is this?" He asked. Dad stepped back and stood by me and he looked between us confusedly.

"You didn't tell them about me?" I asked in shock. "I thought I was your pride and joy."

"North, Abigail. Abigail, North." Recognition flashed in his eyes and he smiled.

"Your daughter. Well, fourteen years it's been, so I'd assume you are about that age. What ever happened to Marisa?" Marisa? Where had I heard that name before?

Dad looked sad immediately and I remembered. "She passed away eleven years ago." Marisa was my mom's name.

North looked upset immediately. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

Dad wasn't paying attention to anything anymore, so I cleared my throat. "Uh, so, what's this?" I gestured to the ice sculptures sitting on his desk.