Jack wasn't real. At least, not to others he wasn't.

Over the three hundred years the boy had been the spirit of winter, Jack had found very few believers. Hell, he had no believers. Not even one. Not one mischievous child, not one kiddy-ish teenager, not even a single young-minded adult.

And Jack was fine with that! Okay, yeah, maybe he wasn't fine with it, but he could live with it— he'd done it for three hundred years, and he could do it for three hundred more, as much as he wouldn't like to. He could live (immortaly) with the fact that he was invisible to everyone, despite how gut-wrenchingly, condescendingly, and sorrowful it might be.

Plus, it totally gave Bunnymund another chance to make fun of him. And, dammit, calling the Guardian a kangaroo was starting to become less degrading as an insult. Still degrading, just not as.

And those Guardians— all of them had believers. North, Tooth, Bunny, Sandy— they all had people who had hope that the spirits were, in fact, real. And even other spirits or seasonal beings were believed in— it just wasn't really fair. But life never seemed to be fair on Jack, so, he got over it, even if it still broke his icy heart every time a child walked through him, as if he didn't even exist.

“'Whaddya think, then?” The white-haired boy muses from his spot, tracing his bare feet over the frozen lake, right on the outskirts of Burgess, the lake he seemed drawn back to every time. Maybe it was because his first every memory was being pulled from the icy depths by what he could only assume was the man in the moon, or maybe it was because he had no other memories before that.

Jack continues moving across the ice with flawless skills, years of practice etched into his effortless movements. “Should we pay little 'ol Bunny a visit?” He mutters, eyes trained on the bright moon in the sky, before sighing softly, a visible breath of air escaping his lips as he does so.

“Y'know how much he likes my visits.” The winter spirit lifts his staff to create a beutifually crafted ice pattern across the lake, the design reflecting the boys exquisitely elegant powers. “'Specially on Easter Sundays.” He was fairly certain he wasn't even speaking to the man in the moon anymore, simply staring down at the frozen patterns littering the lake, frosty blue irises glancing around the wintery landscape.

For a moment, Jack could've sworn he felt a pair of eyes on him, causing him to turn around, only to see what he could presume was a little girl and her mother walking in the night. Maybe they saw him? No, the pair simply made their way past, the mother telling the young girl about Santa Claus or some other winter-related topic— but not Jack. No, never Jack.

His glassy blue eyes narrow slightly, before Jack looks away, the scene too frustrating and shameful to watch. He was about to leave, probably let the wind take him to some other place he could throw snowballs or conjure pretty snow-flakes. The only thing that stopped Jack was another pair of eyes on him. It'd pass, it always did— but not this time.

His head turns once more to catch you're gaze, standing with a certain calming yet vibrant demeanour beside a tree covered in snow; you were looking through him, obviously. Except you weren't. You're eyes were locked dead on the boy, flickering over his hoodie covered in icy snowflakes and worn-out brown trousers that were frayed at the cuffs and pale fingers clutching his staff loosely at his side.

You weren't a human, either— Jack wasn't sure how he knew, he could just tell that you were like him.

That you were a spirit, that you were the keeper of some season or holiday, and maybe, just maybe, you were also someone who longed to have another place belief in them.