The Bargain

Jack Frost opened one eye, surveyed the inverted scene above him, and snarled.  The wrecked toboggan lay upon him like a heavyweight wrestler; below him was frozen ground.  He was trapped and could not move.

His breath was the only sound in the snowy copse.  Moments earlier, there had been guttural shrieks and lashings of branches as the demon crashed headlong into a tree.

Somehow, he was able to contort one arm to scratch an itch upon a bony growth that passed for his collarbone.  As Jack Frost's face knotted into a caricature of concentration, there was a sound.  A scurrying right beside one of the demon's livid ears, inches from the ground.  Suddenly a furry creature moved into the demon's eyesight.  The sight of the warm, vital body before his eyes was maddening.  But the beady-eyed rodent stood still.

"Free my brothers and sisters from this chill, and you will live," it squeaked.

"Hah!  Go back to your burrow, four-legs!  Or I'll seal you in ice forever!"

But the tiny creature did not move, except to look to one side.  "But I couldn't chew through what's keeping you stuck if you did that," it proclaimed with a nonchalant twitch of its nose.  "These little teeth will save you, but only if we have a deal."

Jack Frost's face twisted into a new grimace.  "Then what?" he growled.  "You live happily ever after like lazy pigs in the sunshine, and I melt.  It's not FAIR!"  As the demon's voice rose in volume like an old engine, the itch came again.  No, more than an itch now - tiny claws working their way up his neck!  And now teeth upon his flesh! 

The screams of terror and hatred poured from the ruined toboggan as the sun began to rise.

(298 words)