A Frosty Christmas

100 years earlier

“Whoo-hoo!” Jack Frost’s dark blue cape whipped behind him as he slid his pale, bare feet across the frozen lake. The Arctic Circle had never looked so miraculous and cold at the same time. Rays of sunshine sparkled on the ice Frost created in merely two days: hundreds of glaciers, frozen lakes, ponds, and caves that even made the penguins cold.

Jack’s white pants stuck to his skin, as well as the wraps he wore around his lower legs. He shook a few icicles out of his slightly spiky, white hair and leaped off the lake onto an icy slide that a few penguins followed to the Arctic Ocean.

The birds on the slide screeched at the sight of him and quickly moved out of his way.

“Oops, sorry,” spoke the winter spirit, who had a teenage appearance to him, maybe around sixteen or seventeen years old. He kicked up some ice, and it covered the penguins in white cloaks. The base of his blue tunic shot up with a gust of wind, but Jack quickly slapped it down.

He finished his ride at a massive glacier that stuck out of the frozen ocean. Instantly, his blueberry-colored eyes landed on a pack of polar bears. A mother, father, and their two cubs rested against another glacier.

Jack rubbed snow and ice off his tunic before he hurried to them. “Hi, guys! How are you doing today?” he asked them.

The polar bears wanted nothing to do with him, even though Jack had a tight connection with the animals.

The adult bears protected their cubs and turned their backsides to Jack. Now, instead of looking at a wet nose, he only saw the bears’ short tails.

Jack held up his pale hands. “Well, excuse me.” He started to walk away, but gulped when the papa bear stood and snarled at him.

“Wow, you have lovely teeth,” Jack admitted in a slightly nervous voice.

The bear switched from a growl to an all-out roar.

“Oh, um…” Jack quickly created an icy pole. He stuck it in the bear’s mouth before it could eat him. He gave him a thumbs-up. “Touché.” He then took off again.

A blanket of snow trailed behind him like fairy dust while he ran and continued to freeze things. He took in the scent of the cold, fresh air. Ah, that smell never grew old.

“Jack, what have you done?” a voice suddenly asked in his head. To his surprise, the ice on the frozen pond he stumbled onto cracked. He tumbled backward and landed with a plop on the snow.

An ice spirit, made entirely out of crystals, snow, and cold, emerged from the pond.

“Seasonal? What are you doing here?” Jack smirked and rose to his feet.

“What am I doing?” Seasonal angrily asked. “Don’t you see what you’ve done?” She pointed her icy hand at another pack of polar bears, all of whom suffered from starvation. “Your stupid pranks have gotten out of control. You’ve created an ice age, for Pete’s Sake! These animals have nothing to eat!”

“Whoa, don’t look at me.” Jack backed away from her. “I’m Old Man Winter, remember? Freezing things is who I am.”

“I understand, but when you signed the Seasonal Spirit Contract, you promised that you would never misuse your powers,” Seasonal snapped. She leaped into Jack’s face, causing him to jump and fall again.

The starving polar bears saw the action unfolding. Curious, they exchanged glances with one another.

Jack rudely waved his hand at Seasonal. “Oh, come on! How is an ice age misusing my powers?”

“You’re killing innocent animals!” Seasonal yelled. “I’m sorry, Old Man Winter, but I have to punish you.”

“What?” Jack did not like those words. No one punished the greatest winter spirit in all of mythology! That was blasphemy! He pointed at himself. “I am Jack Frost! I don’t get punished!”

“We’ll see about that.” Without warning, Seasonal changed her form from a spirit to an ice dragon with bone-shaped wings. She grabbed Jack between her front paws and took him into the frozen, cloud-filled sky. The further up they flew, the colder it became.

Down below, the bewildered polar bears tilted up their heads.

A young one tried to trot through its mother’s front legs, but she stopped him.

For once, Jack felt nervous. It was not every day that an ice dragon kidnapped him.

“Snow!” he called. At his command, a ring of snow left his cotton cape and pushed him out of Seasonal’s paws. It circled him up and down, keeping him afloat. That was good. Jack most certainly did not want to fall from the stratosphere.

He examined the ice cap under him. There was no blue—only white, meaning that he had totally cut off the animals’ only supply of water. He could tell that the tiny, white figures of the polar bears below him were angry, but maybe not as much as Seasonal.

“You misused your powers, and for that, I banish you to this snowflake!”

“Snowflake?” Jack gulped when an enormous snowflake left the dragon’s paws. The closer it approached, the more gravity it gave off. It was like an icy black hole.

Jack tried to fly out of its path, but could not overcome the magic, not even with his wintry powers. “Okay! Okay!” he shouted. “I’m sorry!”

“Sorry won’t cut it!” said Seasonal. “You should have said that when you realized your mistake. Unless we absolutely need you, enjoy your time in your new home.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack tried again, in a bit of a softer tone that time.

No response from Seasonal. She sucked Jack and his swirling snow into the snowflake’s center. The second he vanished, it grew ten times its size and pulsed a bright blue color. Then, just like that, the snowflake shrank and changed to a pendant attached to a leather necklace loop. There was no more Jack Frost.

Seasonal changed her form back to the ice spirit. With the necklace clutched tightly in her hand, she floated down to the group of polar bears who witnessed the “Punishing Old Man Winter” show. She landed before the pack’s alpha—a majestic bear who was much bigger than the other males and had a nasty-looking scar across his eye. His fur stood on end at the sight of the spirit.

Seasonal tossed the necklace over his perfectly rounded nose. She patted his ears. “You know what you need to do. Take this necklace to Santa Claus. Tell him that I sent you and that Jack Frost has been punished for his mischievous acts.”

Understanding her, the alpha nodded. Seasonal and his pack watched as he tossed the necklace into his mouth. It dangled over his lower fangs.

The alpha looked across the frozen landscape. He sniffed loudly before he took off at a full sprint, across the Circle, and to the North Pole.