True Fae Tales: Jack Frost

Picture from Rise of the Guardians

“Everyone who’s anyone knows the tale of Jack Frost though few people believe it’s anymore than a cautionary tale about the dangers of High Wyrd and playing around with lost artefacts.  It’s said that Jack Frost was initially a sweet kid.  A regular Changeling, just like you and me.  People differ on what kith he was, which makes sense, as categorising kiths is hardly a science and this happened so long ago.  Most assume he was a Snowskin Truefriend though he was certainly a Fairest rather than Beast though kiths don’t always match the seemings they’re most often connected with.”

“Anyhow, that’s a dissertation for an Autumn Court gathering.  I was trying to tell you the story.  Jack Frost was a playful kid thought to have survived the Ice Queen’s attentions before escaping from that awful wasteland with a pair of previously cannibalistic ogres whom he’d somehow befriended.  The ogres were brothers, once upon a time, and loyal to a core.  Between the three of them, Jack Frost managed to become quite an important figure in the Spring Court, becoming prince than king, though he was always a Sylvan Emissary at heart.”

“Despite his position, he was always quick to get involved and lend a hand.  He would infiltrate the mansions of the very rich as servants in order to whisk away information needed by the other courts and he kept every Changeling tightly together, arranging references and other details needed in order to establish themselves in the world.”

“If he had a dark side, it was quite the Fairest issue.  It’s said that he liked to play games and he wasn’t always aware of the heartfelt consequences of those games for other people.  He fancied himself a helpful fae fellow and thought that Changelings must be the source of legends of good fae – as opposed to the evil and sociopathic True Fae.”

“In his travels, he was enspelled by a vampiress, bullied by werewolves, and stole the heart of a mage, though perhaps those are just stories.  The Golden Era of the 1600s – golden for Lost society, at least – are full of such stories.  In the end, he met the Stranger.  A figure that has cropped up on several occasions throughout our court history, such as it stretches back to perhaps around that time, who is said to have been a shy and timid woman newly discovering that she was, in fact, an immortal.”

“The two became inseparable.  Jack Frost took to her as a maternal figure, though some tales tell of eroticism, most paint a clearly chaste picture.  Considering the Spring Court and Jack’s considerable reputation otherwise, this may even be true.”

“Anyway, the rest of the details get a bit murky.  Jack became obsessed with something they had found which he would tell no one about.  He started neglecting his duties yet still the Spring Crown remained.  He stated that there was a method to not only bleed of wyrd but to regain some of that which was lost.  It’s said he’d found away to collect shards of his own soul from the thorns of the hedge and have romanced his fetch back into himself, though that is bound to be rumour.”

“One night, however, Jack Frost was whisked away in the dead of night leaving nothing but a red rose in his place.  He had been taken by the Red Queen, who had always fancied Changeling nobility.  Some say that she finished his changes herself.  Others say that he won the hand of the Ice Queen by trading the last of his own soul.  No one is quite sure.”

“But one night a True Fae began to stalk the city who had the face of dear Jack Frost, though with that greater beauty and sense of eerie unreality that marks all True Fae.  He spun through households and lured children out to play in the dark cold depths of winter.  They say that as a True Fae he despises the Winter Court the most for connecting his domain with sorrow and loss rather than joy and laughter.  But what True Fae can truly feel such things?”

“Now we hide from the thing that looks like our former King and we pray.  We pray the old tales were wrong.  We pray he only holds the King’s old face.  For if the old tales are true, then what may become of us?”

Want to read more tales of the True Fae?  You can read about them over in this article.