Chapter Text
Bleeding out in the middle of a different world wasn't the plan, but one could argue that there wasn't even a plan in the first place.
They would be correct.
But now Jack lay, in the middle of a dense woods with trees so tall he could barely see the sky above him. If you told him there was no sky, not in this world, he might've believed you. But perhaps he was just delirious.
He laid there for quite a bit, maybe hours, maybe only a few minutes, trying to catch his breath. The wind here was wild, untamed, and there was magic behind every corner, he could feel it. It was beneath his finger tips, filling his bones and trying to keep the light of life still inside him.
If this world was so kind to put the effort into keeping him alive, what did it say about to him to just...sit there? It was disrespectful, surely, and it would bite him in the ass later.
Jack rolled over, swallowing his spit and maybe a tad bit of his blood, trying to fight his shattered breath into his lungs. He practically dragged himself across the forest floor, snatching up the first large, fallen stick he could. It was spruce, he thought, hooked like a shepherd's staff. Frost bloomed from his finger tips as soon as he caught it.
He leaned against the staff, hunched over and prowling like a wild, wounded animal. He felt weak, like the damage of simply being was more than his father could ever wish to achieve. It was bone rattling and skin aching, it was like if he stopped moving he wouldn't be able to find the energy in him to move again. So, Jack pushed forward in a random direction, even if it hurt. Even if his body was screaming for him to stop, he kept moving.
It was hours before he saw the sun again.
He might've been going in a large circle, he might've been stumbling over and over again until he reached where he started. He was sure he saw the same rock nearly three times, but his vision wasn't the best at the moment. Black dots dances everywhere he looked, and he even if he tried he could never shake them. His long hair was in his eyes, obscuring his vision and nanking it even harder to determine where he was.
Jack almost cheered in unfiltered joy when he finally found water.
It wasn't anything spectacular, a freshwater creek surrounded by trees. The sun – finally, sunlight – made it sparkle like stars. It looked...fucking delicious.
He dropped to his knees, cupping the clear, sweet spring water with his hands and drinking it desperately. Greedily. The hoarseness of his throat disappeared, and he nearly bawled his eyes out at the feeling.
He did bawl his eyes out when he saw his reflection in the water.
Jack looked exhausted, broken, and beaten. His ears, a part of himself he used to admire so lovingly, were gone. Reduced to rigged edges. They had stopped bleeding now, almost, but the sides of his face were covered with blue blood. His nose was still gushing, too, making him realize how lightheaded he actually was.
But his hair...shit his hair.
No, no, no, no, no-
From the roots going down on one side chunks of what would've been white locks turned mousy brown. Most winter Fae had white hair, black if you were unlucky like his father, but never brown. Brown was reserved for autumn Faeries and mortals.
Mortals.
Jack fumbled with his hands, choking down tears. It was desperate and stupid, reaching out for magic like this, when it always came as second nature. He was even surprised when he heard for the first time most Fae had to think about magic before actually doing it. Jack, usually at least, acted before he thought.
It took some effort – well, not exactly effort. Just focus maybe – but finally a small, sparkling snowflake appeared in his hands, almost out of this air. Jack sighed with relief, resting his head in his open palms.
He gave himself five seconds, five measly seconds to collect himself.
And he was almost sad when those five seconds were over, but he stood anyways, and faced the world.
–––
The blood staining Jacks cloak wasn't the problem, as it was already nearly the same type of blue anyways, his other clothes on the other hand...
His shirt was white, with translucent sleeves puffed out way to much for his liking. He bled onto it, which stained the front haphazardly. He had tried washing it in the river with his cloak, but it stayed apparent, and never actually faded. In the end, Jack just ended up folding it messily and leaving it to dry on a rock.
The cold never really bothered him, so his chest being bare didn't really annoy, but he shivered.
It wasn't from the cold. It was never from the cold.
Someone was watching him.
Jack whipped his head around frantically, almost breaking his neck, searching between every bramble cluster with his eyes. Behind every tree, until he saw them.
Two large eyes, a bright icy blue they were almost white. The same colour as the water. They hid in the foliage of a bush, and they definitely weren't human.
But as fast as the feeling came, it was gone, and so we're the eyes.
It was jarring, and Jack sat ridged for longer than he would've wished, just staring at the bushes that – seemingly – were now empty. After a few moments, he shook his head, and went back to washing his filthy garbs.
–––
Jack decided, against his restless nature, that the stream would be the safest place to stay while healing from his wounds.
So for the time being he set up a small, makeshift camp made from the materials around him. A bed hanging in between two branches of trees, built from vines and leaves, and a camp fire a little ways into the forest, secluding him in the trees.
And while he waited, day and night, for his hearing to become relatively back to normal and for his pounding headache to leave, Jack thought he might die of boredom.
He tried to experiment with his powers to pass the time, but soon stopped after an accident with freezing the river causing him to loose a night of food. He tried to talk to the spirits around him, the nymphs in the trees and the souls of the tweeting birds, but nothing responded. Not even the moon above – who he had seen his father speaking to at such a young age, when the shirts the handmaiden made for him went past his hands with the excuse that he would grow into them – hadn't said a word.
Jack was essentially shunned from the spirit world, all because of his lying and conniving father.
Father.
It didn't seem right, calling the monster that anymore. Jack, perhaps once or twice (or more), had picked up the book he looted from the library to learn more about the world he'd been sent to, what that man had done to it. Terrible things.
Frozen villages. People permanently stuck in dark, un-melting ice. Long winters, where almost less to none mortals survived. A war, and entire war, just to gain foolish power.
So, no, it felt unjust to call that man, that beast, his father.
Jack was no longer that prince, that son of snow he had once been.
He stared at his reflection in the crystal water, just as the sun began to set beyond the tall pines and oaks.
By cutting off his ears his fa- The king, he corrected himself. By cutting his ears off the king banished them from the court, and a Fae with cut ears brought bad luck, or at least that's was the trees whispered about. But, he also gave Jack a choice by not also cutting off his hair.
To a Fae, one's hair was their pride and joy. Hair was to be well kept, and grown out to signify how long you lived, to show where you belonged. The texture, the colour, nearly everything could show one's lineage. It connected you to your family, and the ancestor before you. It tied you to your people.
If you were to cut off your hair, either willingly or unwillingly, it would mean disownment. What mortals called Wyldfae, no longer bound to courts of even families of their own. Travellers, wanderers, thieves.
The ears were for banishment, you didn't get a choice. The hair was for disownment, and in Jacks situation, it was a hard decision to make.
He snarled at himself, before undoing the tie of his hair and letting it flow down his shoulders. It didn't reach far, only just above the middle of his back. He hadn't lived for long.
Before the sun sank beyond the mountains, Jack conjured a large chunk of blue ice in his hand, the size of a long dagger and just as sharp.
He took a chunk of his hair, and before he began to cry, he started to cut.
–––
The river was filled with a plentiful amount of upstream salmon, and Jack easily caught them either by capturing them with the crook of his new found staff, or by hand if he grew restless enough to venture into the shallow water, pants rolled up to his knees.
By the end of most days, he would have two fish to cook over a make shift fire made of fallen sticks that he would thank the wood nymphs for – though he was sure they weren't listening, because nothing ever responded – and small stones he found appealing that he would dig up from the bottom of the small stream.
But by tonight, one that fell quickly with the swift changing weather of spring to autumn, Jack found himself with much more fish than he required that night. At least a dozen, ready to be wrapped in leaves and preserved for his journey.
Jack had easily recovered from his injuries. (Perhaps easily wasn't the right word. It took much more time than it should've if he wasn't...well if his hair wasn't turning brown. It seemed to have slowed, stopped even, but he didn't know what the change of colour entailed) And now, that his senses were sharp, he could set out away from the stream and out into the world that awaited him.
The wind aided him lighting the fire, blowing warm breezes that let the sparks grow into a flame. At least the wind was kind to him. At least.
He set a fish over the fire, punctured with a stick long enough for him to keep a safe distance. Jack didn't melt in warm climates, but it's not like he wasn't allowed in the Summer Court for no reason, either.
Jack felt a shiver down his spine. A very familiar shiver.
He tensed, but didn't say anything, though he could feel the eyes of the beast behind him. He wasn't afraid, he refused to be, instead he spoke.
"You don't have to hide, you know." He shifted, making room for someone, anyone, to sit next to him. "I won't hurt you."
’I’m not one of them.’ went unsaid.
The forest went silent, like it was holding its breath, before the shuffling came. Something hesitantly sitting next to Jack. Something big.
He glanced to the spot beside him, and tried not to shit himself.
There, sitting nearly shoulder to shoulder with him, was a large white dragon. It sat like a dog would, hind legs under it and front ones between them. It's tail was wrapped around itself, flicking nervously every few seconds, and it's wings were enveloped into itself. It's scales were almost iridescent, mirror like and seemed to reflect the flare of the fire. It's eyes were just as glassy, and the exact same bright blue Jack had seen only days before.
He tried to steady his breathing, turning over the fish to its other side, as not to burn.
"I'm Jack," he said, expecting no answer. None came, except for a small huff from the dragon.
The dragon shifted, and the only sound around them was the crickets in the woods and the fire crackling. The stream was still.
Slowly – as to not alert the creature of sudden movements and get his head affectively bitten off – Jack reached into his satchel with one hand, taking out a fish and undoing its leaf cover. He tossed it towards the dragon without even a glance.
Taking the fish out of the fire, he blew on it with an icy breath, and bit into it. The dragon soon followed, devouring the raw salmon greedily after some hesitation.
Once he was finished, Jack stood and started to rid of the evidence that he was ever there in the first place. He stomped down the fire with the butt end of his staff before casting it all into the stream. He ripped down his make shift bed in the tree, and packed up the very little things he had on him into his bag.
He turned to the dragon, gripping the strap of his satchel close.
"Do you have a name?" Jack inquired, rubbing his hands together.
The creature – though Jacks was sure it understood nothing he said, especially in the Alfheim tongue – shook its head.
He tapped his chin with his thumb, thinking. "How about..." His eyes trailed up to the night sky, looking at all its stars. When it came to him, he grinned at the beast. "Khione?"
The dragons face didn't change, but it did walk closer, and Jack tensed.
They were a mere foot apart when the dragon closed its eyes, almost in a welcoming gesture.
Jack, hesitantly, did the only thing he could think of that the dragon wanted him do, and placed a hand on its snout. It felt like it was purring, and he smiled wide.
"Khione it is."