Chapter 6: Wait for me
[Name] stood in the empty clearing, her fingertips still sitting on her bottom lip. She still couldn't believe it. A spirit loving a mortal.
[Name] shook her head. He might be a spirit, but she knew how she felt about him, too. [Name] pulled her trench coat tighter around herself before beginning to run the direction that Jack had flown off to.
After a couple minutes of running, she realized she was back in the forest that Jack had rescued her from. [Name] could feel the hairs on the back of her neck beginning to lift up in fear as she watched fast-paced flakes of snow fall from the sky. What if another blizzard happens? She shook the thought away and continued walking.
[Name] looked down at the silver watch wrapped around her wrist; she's been searching for Jack for over two hours. She sighed and turned around to head home, "I'll probably never find him."
[Name] looked up to watch the snow fall again, when she noticed a branch with a gnarled tip and a frosty-ribbon wrapping around it on one tree. [Name] blinked a few times, was it Jack? She had to find out.
She searched along the bottom of the tree until she found a sturdy branch, and then began to climb it, branch by branch.
[Name] finally got to where she saw the gnarled branch and began to scale the side of the wide tree. Sure enough, Jack was sitting there, staring up at the sky.
"Jack?"
Jack jumped, and turned his head slowly to face [Name], his face full of shock.
"[N-name]?! What are you doing up here? You might fall and get hurt!"
[Name] scaled the tree again to where she was on the branch beside him, and then sat down. "I wanted to see you again; I don't see what's wrong with us seeing each other."
"I'm a spirit, you're a mortal."
"So we can't be friends?"
Jack looked away from her, tapping the end of the branch she was sitting on with his staff, causing twisting leaf patterns of frost to appear. "We'll become attached, and then you'll get old and die. And I won't know what to do then, especially with how I feel about you now."
[Name] just stared at Jack, "I feel the same way about you, Jack. And I know we can't be together, but that doesn't mean I want our friendship to end." [Name] crawled across her branch to sit on Jack's branch, so that their shoulders were touching. "We can make it last until I die, right?"
"S-sure." Jack felt like he was about to choke, he didn't want to think about the day [Name] died and had to leave him. It would make his world colder than it already was. He felt a pressure on his shoulder and looked over to notice that [Name] had laid her head on it.
Jack cleared his throat nervously and looked away before she noticed how red his face was getting "I—I should take you home."
[Name] looked up and nodded, standing up getting ready to climb back down.
Jack looked over at her in surprise, "What are you doing?"
"Going down to go home, why?"
Jack just shook his head and chuckled, "It'd be faster to fly, wouldn't it?" He turned around and bent down, inviting her to climb onto his back. [Name] blinked a few times before climbing on, and let out a surprised gasp when they lifted into the air, and pelted up over the treetops towards her home.
"Th—this is amazing!"
Jack looked back to smile at [Name] and landed in front of her house. Air travel was definitely faster than land travel.
[Name] climbed off his back and turned to face him, "Thanks for bringing me home," she shyly brushed her hair behind her ear as Jack smiled at her.
"No problem, snowflake."
[Name] smiled and walked up to him and gave him a small peck on the cheek before walking into her house, closing the door behind her.
Jack stared at the door, and then raised his hand to touch his cheek. He looked down at the ground, chuckling a bit, before turning around and walking towards the forest again.