The dome of light and the vision of her predecessor faded to reveal Luminous holding the glowing book in front of him,
"So, how was the message?"
"What… what was that?" Elsa asked with the words of Stella echoing in her mind.
"It is traditional that at some point a Child of Nature leaves a message for the next generation. What you saw was the Winter before you giving advice from beyond the years."
"She called herself the Snow Queen…" Luminous held up his hand,
"Winter, that message was for you and you alone. Yes, I know about the Snow Queen. I know about each of our predecessors, each of their names and their histories are recorded in the Book." As if to emphasize the point the pages pulsed with brighter light than they had before,
"The important thing is to know that we are not alone. I remember growing up felling isolated from everyone because of my abilities over light. Not just being able to make a room brighter or darker but being able to do things with the light, I even hurt a bunch of people."
This comment surprised Elsa,
"What? How could you hurt someone?"
Luminous hung his head in shame,
"When I was christened under my former name I began glowing, that was the first show of my powers. According to the Book the Son of Light's powers always appear a few days after birth. The perish priest believed it to be a sign that I was some sort of angel and requested that I be raised in the local monastery. My parents thought it would be for the best and so they sent me away. I was given a good education mind you, but when people looked at you either as something to be worshiped or to be feared you start to feel all alone. Finally, I gave into the one emotion that I had never allowed myself to feel."
Understanding, Elsa commented,
"You gave into your anger."
Luminous' light dimmed as his countenance fell in sadness,
"All my pent up frustration, my unanswered questions, loneliness, all that built up inside me to the point where I can no longer contain it; and finally someone, perhaps one of my teachers I do not remember anymore, said something that drove me past the brink. I am not sure what exactly happened; everything got so bright and I felt very hot for a brief moment, and when I came to everything was burned. People around me were moaning in pain. I panicked and ran away. Through some grace I was lead to the Luminous before me and he showed me that I was not alone in the world, and for some reason that made me feel stronger."
The glow returned to Luminous' face, as did his warm smile. He closed the Book reverently before he turned his attention to the steep clime ahead of them,
"Now, let us get to your training. Lesson one: burn off the excess power that you have." With a snap of his fingers a white currier bag appeared in Luminous' grip. After stowing the tome inside and securing the bag over his shoulder, Luminous held his right hand out, rolled back the sleeve of his shirt, and grasped the forearm with his left.
"No Child of Nature is immune to the fact that we produce immense amounts of energy over the course of our lives. As we develop our abilities we learn how to regulate the flow of the power and how much we create at any given time. Like this,"
Glowing specks of energy started popping into existence on Luminous' exposed skin in the area past where his hand gripped his forearm,
"The more I fight to keep it in it keeps building inside of me until it lashes out and causes devastation to the people around me. Or in your case cause a massive freeze over."
The specks of light grew to cover the whole of the arm that was sectioned off,
"As a general rule you should use your powers often so you don't bleed off the energy uncontrollably."
"Question,"
"Answer," Elsa chuckled at the quip,
"How do we produce energy?"
"As far as the other Luminous' have been able to tell the process of creating our power deals with emotion and will power. We can do certain things with particular emotions combined with our desire to make them happen. When we will something to happen we seem to have enough energy to do it. Although the generation of our powers is constant we can exhaust ourselves from using our powers too much. I suppose it has something to do with something the saying: 'The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.'"
At this point the blotches of light on Luminous' arm had connected, making it seem that the sectioned limb was made of the power of light.
"Now, a good exercise in not only generating power but also building your reserves and control is what I am doing now. By sectioning off the arm I can…"
Luminous then launched into his explanation but Elsa lost focus,
'Can I really wait and hear all of this when a curse is freezing the kingdom?' She asked herself, 'What about Anna? Will she be all right? What if Luminous is wrong? What if I can't learn to control my powers? If I can't undo the curse then…'
CRACK!
The loud and sudden noise snapped Elsa's attention back to her 'Brother.' The energy trapped within his arm had leapt from his limb in the form of a bolt of lightning, shattering a nearby boulder,
"But we will get to that another time." Luminous said, completely unaware that Elsa's mind had been elsewhere during his little lecture,
"For now I want you to go ahead and just cut loose."
"Cut loose?" Elsa asked,
"Yep, just go ahead and have a field day. Minus an uncontrollable curse you haven't purposefully used your powers in a long time. So go ahead and get a feel for them. Let out as much power as you can. Once you are done we will begin your more serious training." Luminous motioned for Elsa to go ahead and start. The runaway queen was hesitant at first as the words of her parents came back to her,
"Conceal, don't feel; don't let it show."
Looking back she wondered why her parent's hadn't let her use her powers,
'Where they afraid of me? Why did they never encourage me to learn how to control the forces within me?' Then she turned her attention to the sky above her,
'Well Mother, Father, I have found my way. I am going to learn all that I can so no one will ever be afraid of me anymore. Today, I am letting go!'
At this mental declaration she felt a little tingle run through her arm, it was like meeting a friend that you haven't seen for a very long time. She looked down and saw some small snowflakes come from her hand. The sight of this made her laugh, just a small bit. She tried the other hand, the same bundle of energy flowed out and made the air sparkle with snow. Then a thought ran through her head. Acting on it she thought about that snowman that Anna and she had made that night in the ballroom,
'Hi, I'm Olaf! And I like warm hugs.'
The mental image became reality as a snowman with an oval head weaved together, Elsa's powers also pulled in a set of sticks to make the arms of the snowman. She proceeded up the slope of the mountain, shooting off her powers left and right. The feeling of this freedom was absolutely intoxicating to her. She hadn't felt this feeling in forever. This revelry in freedom carried her to a gap in her path, but she didn't let this obstacle stop her. She imagined a set of stairs and shot her snow forward. A very rough section of stairs appeared, setting foot on them they became smooth, shedding off the excess ice and snow to make icy blue stairs and elegant railings. With a smirk on her face she rushed forward, creating stairs and making them beautiful as she ran to the ledge before her.
Reaching the other side she had another fun idea. Stomping her foot her powers formed an enormous snowflake on the ground below her. She then commanded it to rise. Her mind began crafting the shapes and sizes the ice she commanded to take. In a short time a palace of pure ice had risen from the ground.
Deciding to try something that she saw Luminous do she turned her attention on the clothes she wore. They were transformed into a stunning dress of ice blue and a thin cape of small threads of ice that trailed behind her. She felt truly a successor to the name of Winter, daughter of the ice and snow, now.
From behind her a voice caught her by surprise,
"I must say sister Winter, I did not expect you to go this far," Elsa spun around and saw Luminous standing there with a grin on his face, "But you far exceed the expectation of a new Child of Nature."
"Thank you Luminous."
Unbeknownst to the two Children of Nature their activity up on the mountain had not gone unnoticed. Having a winter curse descend on the land was not good for the business of one Kristoff, iceman by trade. Deflated by the sudden lack of demand for ice in all the land of Arendelle he turned his sights on perhaps visiting his adopted family the rock trolls, they could always cheer him up, even if they did weird him out every now and then.
With his faithful companion Sven the reindeer pulling his sleigh Kristoff had been passing by the base of the North Mountain when a flash of lightning caught his eye. At least he thought it was lightning, but for one who had grown up around creatures that used magic that sudden flash of light was laced with power. Then there were the smaller pulls in the air, like the power of the curse was being drawn toward something in small bursts. Looking up the mountain Kristoff asked Sven,
"What do you think is going on up there?" Kristoff read the looks upon his friend's face and spoke the words that the reindeer could not,
"I don't know. Perhaps we should check it out?"
"You know what? I think we had better."
"But aren't we running low on supplies?"
Kristoff checked the bag beside him and found indeed they were running low on supplies,
"Alright Sven, we will go and get what we need. Then we will go see what kind of magic is going on up there."
Thinking of a trading post that he knew of Kristoff turned his course and buttoned up his mask. On the course of his travels he noticed the wind picking up and soon it was blowing right into his face.
"This storm is getting worse!"
What Kristoff didn't know was that only a short distance away in a concealed orchard of sorts, Flora and Aeros were at work. Aeros was blowing the snow and frost of a tree so Flora could get a connection to it. However something was not right,
"Can't you stop this wind?!" Flora yelled as she shielded her face from the blizzard that had erupted from Aeros' attempt at conjuring the needed wind.
"I am trying! The curse seems to be absorbing my wind and making it part of itself!" Aeros yelled as she tried to quell the gale around them. Putting a lot of will behind her command she yelled,
"Be still!" A ripple of clear energy escaped the Daughter of Air and the wind suddenly ceased, although there was still a cold breeze in the air and the woman fell to her knees in the snow,
"I think I need to rest a while Flora."
"Do not worry sister, I will do my work while you rest." Flora said putting a hand on the shoulder of her adopted sister. She then proceeded to the tree that had been blown clean. Placing both hands on the tree Flora began speaking in a very hushed tone that could have been mistaken for the rustling of branch and leaf in the wind. From under the snow green lines of light appeared, marking the placement of the tree's roots as they spread out underground. The lines began growing outward from the tree and connected to its neighbors spreading the magic influence of Flora to it. The process continued as tree by tree came under the influence of Flora's spell. Soon the smaller plant life came und the influence and not too much longer all the growth in Arendelle was under the influence of the Daughter of the Forest. As Flora finished her speech to the plants the light in her tree died out and the forest fell dark, no longer glowing green from tree to tree. Flora slumped forward against her medium to the growth of Arendelle with no energy left.
By this point Aeros had recovered from her exhaustion and went to assist her Sister,
"You think that worked?" The response was very weak,
"Normally, I use that to wake up a forest from the slumber of winter, not to put asleep."
"Anyway, our work is done for now and we are spent. Let's head back to the cave and warm you up. This cold can't be good for you."
"I will live sister," Flora said accepting the help to rise from Aeros.
"You will live yes but it doesn't do you much good to be cold."
"You don't need to treat me like a child Aeros." The countenance of Aeros fell at the mention of being treated like a child. Flora realized that she made a mistake and started apologizing,
"Aeros I am so, so sorry I didn't mean to…"
"I will move on Flora, that is the way of the wind. Wind moves always, otherwise the air becomes foul." Aeros offered, giving one of the ideals that the Daughter of Air should have.
"Still, I should never have said something relating to your past. I am sorry."
"You are forgiven Sister Flora. Now, I think there should still be some stew left from earlier."
"You know Aeros? with the arrival of Winter we have an added bonus to our living space."
"What do you mean?"
A mischievous grin appeared on Flora's face,
"We now have an all year round source of ice! Self making at that!"
Aeros shook her head in comedic dismay,
"Of course you would focus on that."
A/N Sorry everyone that this took so long to get to you. The computer I use decided to give up the ghost on me so I had to wait a few weeks before I got it back. I was blessed though that it came back before I had to go back to school and that my files were still intact. I appreciate you all waiting on this update. I would like to thank those of you who have left comments in the review section. I have a question for ya. You now know the back story of Luminous, and a hint at Aeros' story. If you got to pick which of the Children of Nature to learn about in full who would you like? Please either PM me (I like interaction) or leave in comments section.