The afternoon came quickly for the Children of Light and Winter as they practiced what Elsa could do. Despite his overall caring nature, Luminous was a serious instructor. At first it had just been ice constructs that he ordered her to make; then it came to some serious magic, countering his own assaults,
"Again!" Luminous barked as he flung a beam of golden light at Elsa. She quickly raised a wall of ice to deflect it like she did with the others that Luminous sent her way. This time it seemed that Luminous sent more heat than light because the wall was partly melted after the beam reflected off her barrier.
"Make your ice stronger Sister Winter!" Luminous shouted at her as he prepared another blast from his side of Elsa's chamber high in her newly constructed ice castle.
"Please Luminous! I got to take a break!" Elsa pled.
"You are strong Winter! You can handle this!"
The Son of Light fired his attack at the same time Elsa lashed in frustration. Hunks of ice were caught up in a cold wind and were hurtled at Luminous. Luminous' attack was misdirected by bouncing off the strong blocks of ice. The icy wind continued to hurtle itself toward Luminous,
"No!" Elsa shouted in panic, but her panic only seemed to strengthen the incoming attack. Elsa could see a terrible scene with Luminous frozen in a block of ice and having to explain to the other Children of Nature why their leader was now dead.
Through the blizzard she suddenly saw a shaft of light break through and her heart leaped for joy. The blizzard was dispelled in a pulse wave of Luminous' light and there stood the man himself, winded but otherwise all right.
"Luminous!" Elsa called as she ran to his side. He began to stagger and nearly fell over, "Are you-?"
"I will be fine Sister Winter. That last move took more out of me than anticipated, that is all. I will be fine once I get a chance to replenish what I have lost."
"I am so sorry Luminous. I got angry, and then I was scared that I was going to hurt you, and that-" Luminous put his finger up and a small strand of light left it and touched Elsa's lips. The sudden touch made Elsa stop speaking,
"Sister Winter, we all understand about losing control. It is very common that one emotion leads to another and causes us to lose complete control of whatever it is we are doing. You will learn to control your powers better once you are able to embrace all your emotions." The stream of light faded and the Daughter of Winter frowned,
"You make it sound so easy."
Luminous looked away in guilt,
"I suppose I had an easier time of learning how to embrace my emotions from my upkeep. Remember I grew up with monks as my teachers. They were all about self-control, piety, humility, and etcetera. But once I got out of that and discovered the joys of the world," Luminous looked up at the hole in the ceiling that they had inadvertently made in their training session and to the sky, "I wanted it all. I took it all in and appreciated it so much that I never let it go."
Elsa conjured up a set of low back chairs of them to sit in while they talked. A few moments after Luminous stopped Elsa spoke up,
"Luminous, may I ask you a question?"
"You most certainly may ask me another question." Elsa was confused for a minute but then realized that she had just asked one,
"Why does Fauna have a hard time speaking?"
Luminous sighed,
"I suppose if you are going to focus better on the situation on hand you will need to know that wouldn't you?"
"Well, I-"
"I will tell you. Normally you should ask one of your Brothers or Sisters personally about their backstory, but Fauna would have a hard time communicating it all to you." Luminous stood and went to the balcony, "We met sister Fauna almost two years ago. When we first met her she was actually in the form of a bear."
"What happened?" Elsa asked.
"She tried to maul Umbra and myself." Luminous said with a small grin of fondness, "At first we thought that she was just a bear. That is until we managed to knock her out. Funny thing about Fauna's powers, she can sleep in an animal form but she reverts back to human when rendered unconscious. So imagine our surprise when we knock out the bear and it turns into a young woman. It was only after a bit of digging in the Book of Luminous that we found that in years past there has been a Daughter of the Wilds. Her position among the Children of Nature doesn't always come up every new generation.
"After we got her back to our hide out Umbra and I began searching her mind. We didn't come up with much, other than she had a distaste for humans. I don't think at the time she was fully aware that she was human by birth. We have been working with her, teaching her how to speak. Our overall plan is to give her a decent education. The problem is her numbers; she has a hard time with numbers and math."
"I could help with that. I use to… help others with their numbers." Elsa had almost said that she would help Anna with her numbers, back before the accident.
"Would you really? I think that she would like that. She has probably grown tired of having me as a mentor so you would probably come as a welcome break."
Their conversation was interrupted an unexpected cawing. The two looked out the balcony door and saw a crow fly in. The bird flapped around before flying up to Luminous. The Son of Light held his hand out and the bird landed on his fingers.
"What is it Umbra?"
"Brother Luminous, there is something down in the city that you need to see." The voice of Umbra came from the crow.
"Alright, I will be down there as soon as I can."
The crow burst into black smoke and Luminous turned to face Elsa,
"I am sorry but Umbra needs me down in Arendelle. Keep practicing your abilities. Let out as much as you can, rebuild your energy, then release it again. Repeat this process for the entire time I am gone. It will help you build up your reserves. I will return as soon as I am able."
Luminous retreated from Elsa's presence and headed down the mountain. He would have to cross into the purview of the curse before he could teleport down to the city. When Luminous got into the curse's range a thought struck his mind. Looking back up the mountain he scratched his head,
"I could have sworn that there was a snow man there before." Shrugging off the thought Luminous thought of the city and teleported.
Kristoff finally made it to the trading post. His clothing was completely frozen from the icy winds that he rode through. The ice man took the liberty of untethering the reindeer. As he was doing so Sven got really excited. He was letting out some blares that almost sounded like a cat call.
"What has gotten into you Sven?"
Kristoff looked behind him and his jaw dropped in disbelief at the sight. There was a very fit female reindeer coming towards them. From the animal noises being exchanged between the two, it sounded like there was a conversation going on between the two.
Deciding he had heard enough Kristoff shooed the female away,
"Sven, remember what we agreed to? Never talk to strange women, and they don't come much stranger than that."
Kristoff headed inside leaving Sven on his own. After a moment the female returned. Sven expected to pick up the conversation right where they had left off. That was when the reindeer turned into a human. With a confused look on her face she asked,
"Was it somdem I said?"
The reindeer's jaw dropped to the ground and his eyes bugged out. With a snicker Fauna hurried off into the woods.
Down in the city Umbra waited for Luminous. Umbra knew that it would take a bit for his bird to reach his brother but that didn't keep the Son of Shadows from being nervous. What he found was enough to make him worried for everyone, especially if he or Aqua were discovered. Umbra's thoughts were interrupted when Luminous shimmered into existence next to him,
"What is it Umbra?"
"I made an interesting discovery while searching through the castle."
"What were you doing inside the castle?"
"Scouting, you told me to explore and keep an eye on the situation down here." Then with a slightly guilty face, "And they were offering free food."
"I knew it."
"Anyways, one of the guests is our old friend from Weselton."
Luminous became very serious,
"The Duke?"
"Who else would it be? Apparently his country is trade partners with Arendelle,"
"This could pose a problem. He says he hates sorcery but what he made Sister Aqua do… It makes me shudder."
"So what do we do brother?"
"The same as we have always done. We keep silent and wait for the trouble to pass. If our presence is discovered then we may have to move again."
"Everyone just got settled, not to mention Sister Winter may not be ready to leave yet."
"We can hope that Winter will learn how to undo the curse, and that we will not be detected by our enemy. But, if that is not possible," Luminous sighed as he turned to leave, "Then I am afraid that I may have to put the Children first. This curse is only going to get worse. Either Sister Winter finds the countermeasure before the final stage comes to pass or we will have to leave Arendelle to its icy fate."
A/N Sorry everyone that this took so long to get to you. My computer decided to be dumb and not let me operate word. Then I also have classes going on so that is a pain. Again, sorry to make you wait and I promise the next update will be sooner than this.
So now we have come to a cross roads and I would like your input. I could keep with the Frozen story where all ends well for Arendelle or as Luminous said it could fall prey to Elsa's curse of endless winter. I have ideas for both but would like to see what you all would like to see. The final decision is mine but I would like to see what you all think. PM or leave your thought in the reviews.
-Noxraa Torgan
