Chapter 6: Flames of the past
A.N. Sorry for the long wait. There's been a lot of stress and illness and family angst in the past few weeks. A little warning that this chapter functions mainly to give some backstory to Aidan. Therefore there is lots of dialogue and angsty conversation. Just to let you lovelies know.
The first rays of the sun haven't crept over the trees yet when I hear Aidan softly walk around the camp. He feeds the fire until it crackles and shoots sparks up to the lightening sky, then walks around the fire to the spot where I am resting.
"I'm awake," I state simply as I feel him crouch near me and stretch out his hand to wake me. He freezes and slowly retracts his hand, nodding slowly at me as I turn around and look at him. There is a tension in his jaw and an unwillingness in his eyes. He doesn't want to train me. He doesn't want to hasten me.
There is no other choice, though.
I sit up and rise from the ground, gently beating the dust off my cloak and clothes. I then face Aidan again, whose eyes stand ever reluctant.
"I'm ready. We can start right away." My voice is so determined, but I can feel doubt creeping up my spine.
Aidan shakes his head though. "You have to eat something first."
"I'm not hungry."
Aidan narrows his eyes and the tension in his jaw increases as he forces himself not to spill a variety of curses at me.
"Don't be a fool, Elsa. I am not teaching you without something in your stomach."
"Why are we arguing when we are losing precious time?!" I explode. "Two weeks! Two weeks, Aidan! We have two weeks to get to the Southern Isles and teach me some kind of control."
Aidan stubbornly shakes his head. "Two weeks is too short. You are risking everything the slim chance that Anna doesn't hurt Kristoff in that time, if she hasn't already! If you would just.. If we could just take some more time.."
"You know we cannot afford more time. Two weeks is already pushing it! Kristoff is in danger because of me, and we need to thaw Anna's heart before she gets too used to her powers." I cross my arms and stubbornly glare back at Aidan. "Besides. You promised."
"I did not promise anything, although I did agree." Aidan's glare grows in intensity as he strides towards me with his long legs and towers slightly over me. "But don't test me, Elsa. You are a beautiful, young woman, a queen, even, but don't think I won't fight you just because of that. I can be way more stubborn than you ever will be, believe me."
I maintain my glare for a little while longer before rewarding him with wide smile. "You think I'm beautiful? That's sweet!"
An awkward smile forms on Aidan's face, but he quickly shakes it away, gaining that serious expression once more.
We quickly consume a meagre breakfast in silence and avoid each other's gaze as much as we can. After that, Aidan lets the fire die out and gestures for me to follow him. He leads me to a larger clearing in the woods, snow covering the level floor. We both take our cloaks off and safely put them away from the clearing, away from any dangerous fire and/or ice.
After our cloaks have been secured, my mouth falls open in surprise as Aidan begins to take off his shirt. I can feel my cheeks redden and quickly turn around before I see too much of his pale skin and clench my fists at my sides.
"WHAT are you doing?!" I growl with my back turned to Aidan.
"Oh don't work yourself up. It's just for training purposes," Aidan grumbles at me.
"Are you kidding? I am not fighting you while you're half naked!"
"Who said I would be HALF naked?" Aidan snickers, and the red hue my cheeks have taken intensifies. I want to turn around and throw things at him, but then I realise that he is joking. Surely, he is joking. Surely.
"You people from Arendelle are too reserved. There's nothing wrong with showing a little skin. Besides, we are literally going to play with fire, and it would be a shame if your pretty, precious clothes got burned, now would it?"
"I don't care about the clothes! I am not.. I won't!" I say firmly, crossing my arms stubbornly while I am desperately trying to think of things that will remove the red colour from my cheeks.
"You are acting like a child that doesn't want to do their chores!" Aidan genuinely sounds annoyed now. "I mean, sure. Have it your way. Let's just return to Arendelle and hope that Anna doesn't desire world domination next. Let's leave Kristoff at her mercy while you can get nice and comfortable in your little castle. Maybe you could order some new dresses that completely cover every inch of your body while you are at it." Aidan's voice nearly drips with all the sarcasm he puts into his words.
"Fine! I get it." My frustration gets the best of my discomfort and I turn around, glaring sharply at Aidan, who is standing nonchalantly in the middle of the clearing. His shirt is tossed to the side and Aidan has removed his boots as well. I risk a glance at his bared chest and am rewarded with a muscled, but lean chest, and a slight patch of black hair indicating a path to his groin. Somehow that makes me even more flustered and I turn around yet again.
It takes a while for Aidan to explain to me that showing skin is perfectly normal in the area around the Ashen Mountains where he hails from, mostly because of the many volcanoes that occupy that area and thus the high average temperature in the areas directly adjacent to these volcanoes. After a while he convinces me that it is more beneficial to at least shed my top shirt, leaving me in a simple undershirt and my pants. He also convinces me to remove my shoes, which I simply shrug at, because, believe it or not, the cold of the snow on the ground never bothered me anyway.
When we are both in position, with Aidan bare-chested and my arms bared, Aidan orders me to freeze him.
"Excuse me?" I stare at him.
"I'm serious. Freeze me."
"I'm not going to freeze you."
"You'd rather keep ogling at me and blushing?" Aidan snickers.
"I changed my mind," I growl. "I will gladly freeze you."
Without hesitation I form a large ball of ice above my palm and throw it at Aidan with as much power as I can muster. Aidan simply steps aside and slowly shakes his head. "You are acting on a whim! Improvisation is not the most important thing in battle! Use your head!"
I growl again in frustration and change my ice balls to large icicles, making them sharper with each throw.
"You are letting your frustration and anger get the best of you. Focus!" Aidan growls back, dodging and twisting out of the way of my icy spears.
This continues for a little while, until my arms are too fatigued and my knees are shaking. While I try to catch my breath, a sudden wall of fire appears in between Aidan and me and rushes towards me. I throw my arms up in front of my face, expecting to feel the heat sizzling my flesh, but other than unbearable warmth, nothing follows.
The wall of fire has dissipated, and Aidan is gazing at me with his arms crossed. "Never give into fatigue," he simply states.
"That's easy for you to say! I can barely stand!"
"I don't care! If you give in whenever you get a little tired, you are done for! You don't give into fatigue. Ever!" Aidan extends his hand to me and I reluctantly grab it.
"Now do it again," says Aidan as he pulls me up.
I begrudgingly comply, and for the next four hours he pushes me far beyond the limits I thought I had. When Aidan finally announces lunch, I am too sore to sit, stand or move. Instead, I awkwardly lay on my side, slightly curled up and nibble a little on a piece of dried meat.
The worst, however, is yet to come. Despite teaching me some kind of control, Aidan also pushes me when we travel towards the Southern isles. It's a long way, without horses, and until we can get some somewhere, we are bound by our own feet.
Aidan doesn't encourage me or tell me that it's almost time for a break. He simply walks in front of me, climbing hills, crossing rivers and scrambling down steep hillsides. Because he moves swiftly in pretty much all landscapes we encounter, he is quick to create distance between us, as I am not used to travelling on foot so much. That and my aching muscles from our earlier sparring session make me a lot slower than Aidan, but since he does not adjust his pace for me, I have to force myself forward in order to keep him in my vision.
When the sun has disappeared and the last golden glow vanishes from the sky, I finally stumble into an open clearing on the side of a cliff, protected from the cold wind by surrounding rocks. Aidan has already started a fire, and is cooking what seems to be a rabbit. With a sharp huff, I fall to my knees, exhausted and sore, near the fire and take some time to catch my breath.
Every breath I take makes my muscles cringe, but after a while, I clamp my teeth together and drag myself over to the fire. Aidan silently offers me a rabbit's leg and I chomp it down, determined not to complain and be the spoiled princess.
"It's okay to express your frustration, Elsa. If you don't, it will only build up inside you and you will never gain control over it," says Aidan as he places strips of meat in between the hot stones around the fire to cook them.
I shake my head stubbornly. "Queens don't complain. They find a way to deal with their problems without expressing that they were in fact problems."
Aidan smiles kindly. "But your powers are not a problem, Elsa. They are a gift. Some call it a curse, thus the term 'Curselings', but you should always view your powers as a gift."
I sit up, grind my teeth a little as my muscles surely complain, and take another bite from the rabbit leg. "Surely you didn't think your powers were a gift in the beginning?"
Loss and agony flash across his face until he hides them once again behind a mask of calm.
After a long silence, Aidan says: "You're right. I didn't think it a gift or a blessing." He lays himself down and rests his hands behind his head, avoiding my gaze. "I thought it a sadistic way to bring an end to my family."
"What happened?" I ask in a small voice, not sure if I am willing to find out.
"It was a long time ago," Aidan dodges around my question, but I persevere.
"Aidan, whatever happened to you can happen to me. Please."
"Ice is not as terrible as fire. What happened to me will not happen to you."
"Are you seriously comparing one destructive thing to another? Both can be terrible and both can bring destruction. What happened to you can surely happen to me," I reply stubbornly.
"Fine!" He complies with a slight break in his voice. "You stubborn woman.."
I glare a little at his remark, but remain silent. After a long while Aidan stops staring into the fire and softly starts to talk.
"As you know the Ashen Mountains are part of the Eastern Kingdoms. The village that I originate from was a tiny one, set near the roots of the biggest Mountain. Ironically, it was actually called Hamlet.." He allows himself a slight chuckle, yet it does not fully reach his eyes.
"My father and mother where simple, but proud. Most people from the Ashen area are proud, but they were proud of their simplistic way of living. They were farmers, and abided by selling crops in the village. They were perfectly fine until I came along."
Aidan still refuses to look at me and I feel the need to comfort him. To tell him that it is not necessary for me to know his obviously painful past. But I know that I have to know the dangers that he experienced, if I am to become stronger in my own control. I also fear that any physical closeness might throw him off and interrupt his story.
"I was their first child, and their world sort of crumbled when I started to set things on fire before I could even walk. I once set fire to the roof, but father was close enough to hide the whole matter from the neighbours. 'God save us from the day the neighbours find out' my mother used to say." Aidan's words take on a bitter, sharp edge.
"In the coming years I worked hard to keep my powers under control. I sought solitude, just like you did," he finally meets my gaze, and there is understanding in his golden eyes.
"It was wrong, though, to seek solitude. From my loneliness, my powers got out of control. If you don't feed an undying fire, it will find things to feed on itself. No matter how hard I tried, fire sprouted from my hands with the simplest of emotions. My father and mother were about to send me away because I was so out of control, until my sister was born."
A small smile appears on Aidan's face, one of long lost adoration. "She was the cutest little thing. She had the whole big eyes thing going on that some babies have. She had the same golden eyes as I had, which greatly worried my parents. They were both brown-eyed, so they feared that perhaps my sister was Cursed as well. Their worries were unnecessary.. Ayla was the sweetest, most innocent thing I have ever known."
"Why are you using past tense?" I ask hesitantly, fearing that I already know the answer.
"Do not fret. She still lives, last time I checked.." Aidan admits with a thin smile. "Yet she is not living the life I would have wanted for her.."
He stares another long moment into the flames, lost in thought, or so I believe.
"It was right after her fifth birthday that things went all wrong. My parents had reluctantly allowed me to stay since I gained more control the moment my sister was born, but they were still on edge. There was a carnival in town. I wanted to take Ayla to the carnival for her birthday, but my parents did not trust me with her alone. They were deadly afraid that I would do something to their only normal child."
Aidan snickers shortly. "They were right of course. I was dangerous, way too dangerous to be allowed alone with her, yet my sister was entranced with the idea of the carnival, and she begged my parents to allow it. They themselves were occupied with the farm, and reluctantly they complied with her request."
"Now, the night before we were supposed to go, I stayed up late with Ayla.. She knew about my power to conjure fire.. little kids have a knack of finding out things you don't want them to know. She asked me if I could juggle fire like the jugglers in the carnival, or spew like the fire breather. She was so entranced, so excited.." Aidan suddenly shakes his head, grabbing it with both his hands.
"I just conjured a little flame in the palm of my hand.. She.. she came too close.. I got scared that she would burn herself." Aidan's story now comes reluctantly, in pieces and his voice sounds agonized. My fingers itch to sit near him and wrap my arms around him.
"I was so stupid. I tried to get the flame away from her, but it blazed up, fed by my fear, and the house caught fire.. Before I knew it, the entire roof was on fire, and everything was falling apart around us. Ayla was crying. She was trying to crawl away from me." There is now disgust in his voice, disgust, I realize, direct primarily at himself.
"The roof was collapsing, and I had to get her out, so I simply grabbed her and carried her out. She was thrashing and screaming in my arms, but I just held on to her to get her out. Little did I know that I was severely injuring her.."
Aidan is shivering and the fire in the centre of our camping spot flickers, blazing up and down with each breath he takes.
"Aidan.." I mutter silently, swiftly stepping over to him and grabbing both his hands in my own. He immediately pulls them away though, and gazes at me with fear and guilt.
"Aidan, it's okay.. you were trying to help her.."
"It's not okay, Elsa! I sat her down when we finally got outside and went back for my parents, but at that moment the roof collapsed. There was no way of saving them. And when I turned to Ayla.. her face.."
He buries his face in his hands, shocking and shaking at the intensity of the memories. I try to shush him, to tell him that he doesn't have to continue, but he once again shakes off my arms.
"I then noticed that there was blood on my hand.. I had tried to cover her face from the fire with it.. but that side of her face.. It was raw and bloody. How her flesh must have sizzled.." Aidan growls at himself, his eyes wild with pain and guilt. He raises himself up and starts pacing.
"She had been so sweet.. But then all she could do was cry in pain and gaze at me with deathly fear.. It paralyzed me.."
With a frustrated grunt I grab his arm and pull him back to the ground, making him sit next to me near the fire. "Aidan.. You were, what? Ten years old? It was an accident."
"And I could have prevented it if I had been more cautious!" Aidan growls back at me. He takes a long moment to close his eyes and regain a regular breathing pattern. When he opens his eyes there is a controlled calmness there.
"This is why you I beg you to reconsider, Elsa. When under too much pressure, you could lose control, forever. I've seen people burn themselves to a crisp or let themselves be swallowed by earth or water because they thought they could push themselves. This is why you trying to learn control in a mere two weeks is a death wish," Aidan eyes me with strong urgency.
"Please, will you not reconsider?"
I shake my head. "I have made up my mind, Aidan."
Aidan shakes his head at me and gazes at me with a dooming look, as if my fate is already sealed.
"What happened after..?" I ask softly.
Aidan gazes at me regretfully. "I ran. I ran away as far as I could. And I vowed that I would never hurt anyone ever again. So I practiced day and night, for many years, and slowly control became a second nature. I never dared return to the village of Hamlet, for fear of my sister recognizing me. There was much talk, however, about Curselings throughout the lands, and I figured that perhaps I could save some of those Curselings of a fate that befell me."
He gently grasps my hands. "When I heard about Arendelle being covered with snow and ice, I figured someone had lost control, so I came as fast as I could."
"You should not have come," I reply sadly. "There is nothing but ice on our way."
"I wouldn't have missed it.." Aidan mutters softly and absent-mindedly plays with the tip of my braid. He raises his gaze to meet mine, and if ever there was a moment of connection, that was it.
Alas, it was rudely interrupted by a large crackle from the fire, sending a great deal of sparks into the night sky. Suddenly I was stumbling to the other side, and Aidan was mumbling excuses and we were just one big awkward mess. Aidan insisted on getting more firewood, while there was still a reasonable pile of wood at the edge of our little camp.
He soon disappears into the darkness, his cloak swivelling and his steps hasty. I groan slightly and shake my head. I feel mentally exhausted, and it doesn't help that I am no longer distracted from the aching pain in my muscles.
I think about Aidan's sister, Ayla, and about Anna. We both hurt our younger sisters, marking them forever, and breaking our souls in the process. Ayla is somewhere in the village of Hamlet, hiding her burnt side of her face from all, while Anna is at the Southern Isles, asserting her dominance over whoever she wishes.
I sigh, and though I now know Aidan's story, for some reason it's making me feel more alone than ever.
YAY MOre angsty conversation yay. Please let me know if I should tweak some things here and there. (Though Aidan is already growing quite dear to my little heart)