Chapter Text
It’s spring downunder. Aster can feel it sprinting through his veins and gathering in his lean chest before his eyes open for the day. It warms him, has him snuggling deeper into his nest of blankets as his nose twitches between nuzzles to his only plush pillow. He snuffles at the worn fabric, takes in the smell of the lavender he’s stuffed inside of it, finds himself sighing as he slowly stretches and pulls his knees up towards his chin.
Usually Aster wakes abruptly. As soon as his body tells him ‘up’, he shrugs sleep off, flings himself up and carefully smooths out his fur. Habit and his flowers’ waking songs have trained him well, after all and he’s usually up with the sun. By this time of the morning he’d normally be half way to his family room, brush in hand as he carelessly groomed himself for the first time that morning.
But today, on the first day of Spring, he’s quite glad to stay in bed for a while longer. He hasn’t had a proper lie-in in well over – well. He can’t really remember now. The Pooka rolls onto his back, legs and arms akimbo as he stretches against his nest, pulling crocheted wool and lovingly sewed cotton of various colours and patterns this way and that. He can’t help the small smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth, making his most distinguished front teeth peek out. Aster’s content – completely and unconditionally comfy – and he acknowledges it with a lazy roll around his nest as he blinks himself awake.
It’s not long after the first slivers of consciousness make their way into him when th inner warmth, one much like when you eat warm, freshly made pudding on a cold day, is accompanied by the feel of tingles. They’re little pin-pricks of energy that make him want to run and bound and flip and hop until his legs quake from the effort. It’s a song echoing in his generous ears, a dance held tight in his feet, though not acted upon (yet), and a gentle easing off his shoulders as The Warren draws the warmth and energy from the earth encasing it.
Aster can’t hold back a tremendous yawn that has him baring all his white chompers, as he rolls out of his nest and onto his long feet. He takes a moment to steady himself and scratch his tail, before he’s loping towards his bedroom door and the dark hallway outside with a confidence born from practice. His bedroom’s completely dark, built deep beneath the ground. It was a necessity, especially after the humans showed him just how fond of fireworks they were. Project: Relocate My Nest had filled in three months of his year and had seen him sleep soundly for the first time on New Years since he’d set up shop under the mangy bastards. But he knows every crevice of the room and the hallway leading to it and he’s glad for it because his eyes refuse to open for more than a few seconds at a time.
But as he travels, past muted, painted murals and unlit, candle laps, the warmth grows. The tingling becomes all out zaps of lightning that want him to take off. Green eyes are quickly becoming more alert, brightening and widening as Aster nears his kitchen and the sunlight brightens his burrow.
By the time he reaches the kitchen, Aster’s about ready to play pinball with the sentinels, with him playing as the ball. The feelings of utter weightlessness and of hyperactivity aren’t strange or the first time he’s felt them. They hardly worry Aster as he twists and turns and stretches as he swaggers into the kitchen and throws a pot of water over a hastily made, small fire.
He turns to look out into The Warren.
Winter isn’t as torrid an affair in Australia when compared to what they cop up north. There’s snow to the south, sweltering heat to the north, but it rarely drops below 10 in the centre, where Aster’s set up. But it saps energy from him regardless, having to keep his warren warm. His garden doesn’t do well when the temperature starts to drop (he supposes it’s partially his fault; he’s spoilt them, sheltering them as he does from altogether natural climate changes. They’re his bubs though, and he doesn’t think of it often). His flowers aren’t eternal despite it; their life spans are much, much smaller than his. He only hopes to prolong them for as long as possible. He enjoys their company. The tunes of the daffodils and the whispers of the pansies, and the gossip of the regal roses…
So he supports her. Gives her a little uplift, like he’s seen those smelly guava drinks he’s seen Sophie drink when he’s checked in on her and she’d been studying. But it’s more permanent, a continuous source of magical feed for his little ones.
He’d once described it to North, when they were both tipsy and grinning like loons under the northern sky one night, pressed tight to one another. The wind’s bite had been sharp as Aster and North regaled the other with stories and gossip, the stars twinkling, seemingly laughing along with them, as Aster found his nose had somehow buried itself in North’s coat once more.
“I’ve read about human reproduction,” He’d started, speech slightly slurred from the drink pressed to North’s lip. He can’t remember how the subject had come up (they’d had a lot to drink that night), but he felt that that was the most accurate way to start his explanation. “Y’see, The Warren is like me bub. Y’know… like when they’re inside their mum all curled up and defenseless - y’can lay there chortlin’ all y’like, it’s the bloody truth! I keep her healthy! I keep her fed! If anything’s wrong with me, there’ll be something off in my garden.”
He’d delighted in the heat radiating from the man as he’d curled in closer, his annoyance flowing away, despite his continued grumbles, as he enjoyed the feeling of North’s body reverberating with his chuckles. And Nick had a real nice laugh; rough, booming, coming from deep in his gut. It was always pleasant listening to it, especially when Aster hadn’t been made a total tit of himself getting it.
He found he was still talking, the words slipping off his tongue in a messy tangle, the alcohol making them nearly impossible to hold onto, “Need to stay healthy, keep m’powers strong. The kids believin’ in me is one source, as y’know, but I’m careful not to work m’self too hard when winter’s on upstairs. Look after what I eat, how much I sleep. Keeps me strong, healthy. S’why I don’t let you drag me around in the snow; can’t risk it. Can’t get sick. Anything I put into me will find its way to The Warren.” He’d chuckled despite himself, absently nuzzling into North’s beard, “Heh. S’probably wonderin’ why I’m tastin’ like cheap liquor.”
The memory makes his smile, as he steps up to the small basin he uses as a sink and the window it’s parked in front of. He swaggers around the low table, brushes a loving caress down one of the leaves of the rhododendron he’s been nursing back to health after finding him tucked away between two garbage cans, on his last run-about with Frost. Aster scratches absently at his neck, rubbing at the juncture between thick neck and strong shoulder with strong paws, massaging as he finds himself totally immersed in the absolute lightness he feels there. Everything feels relieved this morning. Aster doesn’t feel any stress at all.
His round, vine covered front door creaks open. The Pooka stretches, raising his arms and twisting this way and that, as he makes his way out of his burrow. Aster’s yawn morphs into a huge grin as he steps out into the bright sunlight. It’s delicious. Hot, enriching, energising and exciting. Aster’s fur stands on end as he basks, lowering himself so he’s kneeling, knees splayed with his white paws resting on top of them, head tilted back and his glimmering eyes closed.
He loves his season. Loves it so much, he can feel his heart pump the adoration through him. It’s like a drug, making his nerve endings fire off signals that make him feel as though he’s floating. That doesn’t last long though. Aster is a creature of the Earth. He lives in the ground, grows much of what he means and what he represents in it. It sings to him; a beautiful melody, both soothing and exhilarating.
He can’t help but act on it.
Quick as lightning, he bursts into a sprint. Flinging himself around budding bushes, shrubs and over his slowly awakening flower patches. He lets Spring wash over him, lets it seep into his muscles and send him bounding into somersaults and back flips and his own special brand of cartwheel. He’s that giant, furry pinball as he ricochets off sentinels, off solid rock structures, the wall surrounding The Warren and off his strongest trees. His laugh bounces with him, swimming amongst his little ones’ songs as they awaken with his play and the morning’s sunlight . They giggle and titter along with him as he calls out a good morning, sings out that Spring is upon them.
Aster bounds to the farthest corners, doesn’t leave a single stem or leaf without a glance as he flops to the ground beside his sparkling river of colour and finds himself chortling, “Finally! Spring! Oh, can you feel that sunlight, it’s felt like an age, oh…” He rolls around shamelessly in the grass, digging the claws on his paws and feet in so it catches beneath them.
But something changes.
He can feel it as clear as a someone poking him in the ribs.
There’s something icy-cold here, in his warren.
Aster glances up at the sun and is surprised to see he’s been carrying on for well over an hour, but whatever it is he’s feeling, it had most definitely not been there when he’d left. He follows the feeling. It’s like a needle pressed up to his skin, digging in deeper the more he concentrates on it. It worries him that it isn’t disappearing. Jack often ices over his parts of The Warren, but they’re like a cold breeze blowing through sweat soaked fur in a blistering hot room, horrendously unpleasant during, but gone within a moment’s breath.
It’s outside his burrow, Aster realises and quickly slows until he’s barely walking. Whatever it is could be dangerous (had Pitch come back?), whoever it was could still be there (if they were they were bloody boofheads; surely they realised Aster could feel everything that happened in his warren? They couldn’t be that daft), and Aster didn’t want to risk them turning on him when he wasn’t prepared for an assault.
With skills honed through centuries of practice, Aster crouches low to the ground, using the shrubs and tall blooms as cover as he crept closer to the burrow. He sniffs delicately, finding the only oddity being the smell of ice, clean and crisp. Kind of reminds him of Frost’s scent, now that he thought of it…
Aster frowns, whiskers drooping as his ears swung up to attention.
“Frost, that had better not be you tinkering with my warren!” He bellows as he stands to attention, towering over the dahlias he’d stopped behind, paws clenched by his sides, “I’ve told you before, my flowers are delicate, they need to be carefully taken care of – who knows what damage you’d cause if you went and changed anything!”
Eyes darting left and right, ears perked, Aster feels his fur begin to stand up again as The Warren remains dutifully silent. This is definitely not Jack. Jack, despite being as annoying as a grain of sand lodged between your toes, always took responsibility for his actions. If whatever it was stabbing at him and his warren was the work of Jack Frost, it’d have been announced by now.
Once again sinking low to the ground again, Aster continues. His nose twitches continuously as he hops cautiously closer, alert for the faintest sign of trouble. His frown deepens, as something blinks back at him. He sneers, eyes narrowing as he drew one giant foot up and pounds it against he ground, sounding like a distant roll of thunder. The object, person – whatever it is, doesn’t react. Aster repeats the pounding, squinting when all he got was glare.
He huffs, but gathers his gall and creeps closer.
It isn’t until he was a few veggie patches away that he realises it isn’t anything lethal (so far. He can’t rule out anything until he’d had a closer look). It’s pale blue and shines bright white in the sunlight. It’s sitting a few feet outside his front door, and seems to sparkle as he comes closer.
Aster’s face can’t decide if it should frown or look quizzical; it’s an artificially made ice flower.
Aster gazes at it with wonder, eyes big as he takes in the detail on the little bugger, circling it.
This isn’t a practical joke, he realises abruptly. No one would go to so much trouble for a practical joke. It’s magical; it’s planted. It is… It isn’t a flower, but a carefully sculpted work of art that doesn’t seem to so much thrive as survive where it is in the sunlight and dirt. Now that he’s practically standing on top of it, Aster can smell the magic keeping it intact.
This is a gift.
And it’s thrown Aster for a loop.
The workmanship on it is flawless. The magic is steady, strong, making it shine faintly with its own light; green, yellow and an icy blue like those of the icicle Chrissy lights that have become so popular shooting through it’s stem and darting up and down the wafer thin leaves. It’s extremely impressive. Beautiful. Aster can’t see a dribble forming anywhere on it, despite the thin, lovingly carved ice petals, thin and numerous like that of an -
Aster’s feet stick to the ground, his joints locking up from where he is crouched down, eyes as big as his sunflowers and his neck stretched forward from his inquisitive sniffing: It’s an Aster.
Aster rocks himself back, so he’s sitting beside the bloom. The pooka can’t make himself move more than that, enormous green eyes glued to the little bloom in front of him. It can’t be more than his paw tall. From the tip of his longest claw to the base of his palm.
He is stunned. He can barely force a thought to form, let alone answer, or even ask the questions he knows he wants to. It isn’t often he gets such sincere expressions of love (which is all this could mean, because Aster doubts with every fibre in his six foot one being that it’s sharing his name is the only reason his mystery artist had chosen such a bloom. Not with the thoughtful and honest care given to it’s creation). Certainly none he can think of since he’d arrived on Earth and taken up his duties as the Easter Bunny…
Aster spends most of the morning in front of the little thing. Regarding it with a careful reverence he usually keeps for his rarest and most worked for buds.
Until his pot rattles to the floor and the smell of melted metal and charred wood assault his nose, and he has to clamber to keep his kitchen table from being set alight.