Jaak can feel his eyes widen in shock. "So when I left, it worked? It kept everyone safe?"

"Yes, but Jaak, was it better for you? To be away?"

Jaak hesitates, frowning. "I missed home every day for so long and even at the end of it, I missed Norge so much. But I love Russia too. It's my home now, just as much as Norge is."

Skadi smiles sadly. "What was Russia like?"

"I lived in the woods, a forest in the far north. I'd made my home inside a hill that opens with a touch of my staff."

Skadi beams. "You still have it?"

"Of course, you gave it to me."

Jaak reaches back to pull his staff from its harness, wrapping his fingers around the familiar contours in the wood. He lays the staff on his palms and extends the staff to his mother. She touches it gently, trailing her fingers from the base of the staff to the stone sphere at the very tip.

"You've taken good care of it."

Hi'ilani frowns at the staff, her head tilted in curiosity. "What does it do?"

"It helps me hone my powers, to focus them. Or at least that was what it did when I was young. Now, it helps me to amplify them while still keeping that same focus, I can use it as an extension of myself. Would you like to look at it?"

Hi'ilani nods slightly and reaches out to touch the staff. There is a glow at the point where her fingers touch the wood and she snatches back her hand, staring at the spot in the wood. Golden tendrils are spreading from it, weaving their way down the wood of the staff.

Jaak can feel a sense of cold spreading in their wake and he catches the sight of silver tendrils spreading towards those of gold. He follows the silver tendrils back the way they came to see their origin is beneath his own hand. Hi'ilani gasps and Skadi frowns at the staff.

"What is happening?"

Hi'ilani reaches to touch the wood again. "It's like what happened with my fire stick, but I don't feel anything from it."

Jaak frowns. "I do, it's cold."

Skadi frowns at the two of them. "This has happened before?"

Hi'ilani reaches for the bag at her side and pulls out a wooden stick, just a few centimeters longer than her forearm. It has the same pattern of glowing metallic lines as his staff does now. Hi'ilani is right, whatever happened to her fire stick is the same thing happening to his staff. The girl's eyes flicker between the stick in her hands and Jaak's staff. Jaak looks up to see Skadi staring at the two items.

"What is this?"

Hi'ilani and Jaak exchange glances and Jaak frowns. "Could it have to do with the icefire?"

"It's the only thing that makes an inkling of sense."

Skadi's eyes narrow. "What is that stick?"

Hi'ilani's mouth twitches. "It's a pa'oa. A fire stick. I can use it to call up fire from the ground."

"Could you show me?"

"Where?"

Skadi raises an eyebrow. "Here, of course."

"Do you want a pool of liquid fire in your floor?"

Skadi pauses and clicks her tongue, a wisp of door hair falling into her eyes. She pushes it back. "I suppose not. Outside?"

"That would be most agreeable."

Hi'ilani stands from her chair and walks outside, carrying her fire stick with her. Jaak follows a step behind her, feeling the wind sweep around Hi'ilani to buffet against his face. A storm is moving in. He loved these, a storm in winter meant a blizzard. For a snow-loving young god, a blizzard was the most exciting thing he could possibly experience.

Jaak frowns at the feel of the stormfront moving in, the heaviness to the snow inside it is familiar. It seems to be the same blizzard he found Hi'ilani in, it has moved over the continent. As he follows her out, he does his best to push the snow back, to form a barrier of it between the brunt of the storm and the cave.

Hi'ilani shouldn't be exposed to it again, not so soon after this very same storm almost killed her. As Jaak focuses on controlling the snow, he notices the set of Hi'ilani's shoulders changes, pulling back. She senses it too, consciously or not. Jaak can see the heat beginning to ripple off of her, an unconscious form of protection.

He pulls a few flakes of snow towards him and sends them spinning around Hi'ilani, moving in such a way that they'll ward off anything of the rest of the storm that might sneak through his barrier. Hi'ilani disappears through the opening and when Jaak slips through a moment later, he finds the poor girl pressed against the stone by the wind, trying to fight against it.

Jaak maintains his footing just a bit better, managing to not be entirely pushed back. He would block the wind if he could, but he only controls snow and ice, not the wind. Jaak's mother follows him out and shakes her head, laughing under her breath. She flicks her hand and the wind eases, Hi'ilani quickly taking the chance to kneel in the middle of the stone ledge.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tricat' dva = thirty

Bad storm. Bad!

What do you think of this? Why are the pa'oa and staff acting like this? What does it mean? Tell me your thoughts!

Happy reading and I'll see you next chapter!

~ Goddess of Fate, signing out