Cold. Bitter. No warmth even this high up on the mountain top where the sun’s rays should be providing some comfort. The snowcapped valley was behind him and he marveled at how far he had come. How far he had traveled to find his brother. But it was an appropriate place for Jack Frost to hide.

He lifted his hood and exposed his face to sun and accepted the sun’s energy. His head, sparked with fading sparks of the sun, flickered like a dying match. Most humans claimed he resembled a sun emblem or the flower he was named after, but he agreed, being the sun sprite of the might God Helios.

Sunflower trudged through the deep snow, thinking of his father and how things became so dire. Jack Frost had always been a trickster but ever since humanity abandoned their beliefs of the elementals, he became bitter and cold, retreating to the ice mountains where he supped off the chilly energy of the environment. Pylon had been a noble king but his son, who supplanted him, implanted fears of the elementals into his people and made them forget about the balance that Jack Frost, Sunflower, and the other sprites offered to the world.

It seemed there were even darker forces at work that turned Jack away from humanity and the changing seasons but Sunflower refused to believe it. Jack had a way of looking at the world and blaming life’s sorrows on inanimate forces. Sunflower did not. He knew Jack would be out here, sunken into the ice and his solitude, drinking the corrupted ice that melted. At the point Jack would be corrupted himself by the ice melts and maybe even frozen himself, sickly, grotesque, deformed into an ice goblin.

Luckily Sunflower spotted a cave not far from his current position. It shimmered in the sun’s rays. The sun had already become to melt the snow around the mountain. Jack would likely have been partaking in the ice melts for some time, sucking up bacteria and ancient long-dead creatures, injecting his body with terrible poisons for an unknown amount of time, as Jack would put it: “until hell froze over.”

It had been centuries since Sunflower started on this quest for his brother. They had been at odds ever since mankind abandoned religion and embraced their warring disposition. Jack believed that they should be at odds, that they were created to oppose each other but Sunflower refused this philosophy. They were meant to be united and stand together to prevent the world from falling into extreme temperatures. Sworn enemies. He scoffed at the idea as he entered the dripping ice cave. Brothers. Thats what they were. Always, until hell froze over.

The opening slanted downward and expanded into a small chamber where Jack’s crumbled body lay. An icicle was sticking out of his mouth. His tattered wool cloak was the only thing he could see. He was skinny. Unwell.

“It’s been a long time but I’ve finally found you. The world needs us…together.”

Jack shuffled and slid his back across the ice to turn his head towards the intruder. His face had a sheen of solid ice and his nose dripped with toxic frozen ice. There was a malevolence about his continence. A snake disturbed from its slumber. His sunken eyes drifted sharply around the small blue cave. He growled venomously and turned over, keeping his body low. Bony arms reached up towards an icicle and broke it off. This was not the brother he remembered.

“Has our father sent you, to retrieve me for some cataclysmic event?” Jack snarled, his blue veins clearly visible.

Sunflower’s flame head flickered, “I sent myself. The world needs us. I can’t stave off the changing seasons without your help. We were to guide them…”

“The world is full of pain and misery. Why should I go back when there is nothing left but a few months of joy, where I can walk among the snow-covered landscape and watch as the world becomes dormant and frozen?” His ragged teeth cracked the icicle in half. Saliva dripped from his gaping maw. “Humans are born evil and the only thing they achieve is bloodshed and hatred.”

“You know that to be untrue. Your life is what you make it. If you see monsters all around you and you shelter yourself away all you will know is monsters and dark places.”

“Bah!” Jack rotated his body in a horribly disfigured motion, twisting his back and falling backwards, the crunching of ice in his mouth was deafening. “This hole…was made for me, made by me. I am vermin. I am nothing to nobody. What does it matter if I jostle off, never to return? Ha! When we were young, I remember you telling me to watch out for me nipping at your nose, now you come nipping at mine.”

Sunflower watched as the sickly Jack rolled around and supped leisurely from the drops of ancient ice water. A drug, sinister and hypnotic, was spreading through his veins and there was nothing Sunflower could do to convince him of beneficence because any sense of goodness had been stripped from him.

“You are not helpless. Although it may feel that way. You dug yourself into this hole now you must dig yourself out if you are to find peace.”

“No, no!” Jacked growled, rolled, and slid around the ice like a squirrel that lost its footing. “They trapped me in the woods and burned my ice cottage with green flame. The villagers! The filth! I should return and freeze them all to death. Everyone is against me! There is no one worse off than me.”

“Based on your dependency and toxic corruption I’m not sure you can do much. Your powers have dwindled. Besides you are not the only one suffering. Because of the global weather changes there are people starving, people homeless, mothers who cannot feed their children and sell them into slavery. While you sit here self-medicating there are bodies lying in open streets with no one who cares enough to bury them. Entire towns are suffering from the scorching sun where in other villages there are people who suffered the harshness of constant winter and snow storms. And yet you are here, burying your own thoughts and emotions, depriving yourself a happier existence. Only we can bring balance back to the seasons.”

Jack started to shiver but it was impossible that he would be cold. The convulsions had to be from the ancient bacteria that he was injecting into his body. He looked more like a cold homeless person that an ancient elemental sprite. It brought shame to Sunflower.

“You are so deluded.” Said Jack. “Truth has eluded you. These people do not wish to be saved.” Twitching and convulsing even more he approached. “Perhaps I should end it here, end it for the both of us.”

Jack put his hands together and tried to form a cluster of icicles but the ice particles only swirled into a ball. He was too weak for even such a simple task. “How about I give you the help you so very much need.” Sunflower stepped back into the sun’s light and soaked up the energy. He spread his arms out and felt his body grow with elemental power. Light flooded the small cave, exploding with radiance. He hadn’t used this power in so long but he knew this needed to be done. The heat intensified but Sunflower could handle it. So could Jack who shield his face as the cave melted around him. “We are immortal. We are eternal. Therefore, we must make the best of things.” Sunflower spoke through the brilliant heat and light. The cave flooded with water. “We have to change our minds, the way we think, the way we act, if we want to make the world a better place.”

The sun surged through his veins as an explosion blasted through the mountain and cracked through the hard ice and rock, opening it up into the sky. As the mist cleared the cave was gone, replaced by a crater where Jack stood awestruck. He fell to his knees seeing that the ancient ice that he supped on was gone. Sunflower floated down. There was only one option left for Jack Frost and that was unity and brotherhood. A single tear fell across his cheek.