Frozen Flame

Chapter 53: Past Teachings

Fire Temple

"So..." Thorn smiled. "I know it's impossible for us to use our abilities in here, but I think we should try and work on bettering them."

He stood in the centre of the room, hands on his hips, evaluating his children's fighting stances. His eyes ran over each of their movements as they stared back at him, correcting small details constantly.

Ever since Elena had walked in when Thorn was in the room, she'd been setting points of time to come when he was there, every few days. Whenever they were both together, they spent their time catching up, talking about the children, how life had been, relatively general conversations, but the children had quickly noticed Elena's changing demeanour. Her whole composure had become more relaxed – her shoulders had dropped from their uptight position, a soft smile had settled on her face, bright eyes greeted them each time, and it appeared like she hadn't cried in days. She was happier. And that changed her complexion, made her quite beautiful – the children had to admit, she could perhaps even rival their mother.

Their father, however, had only seemed to change for the worst. It was difficult to see as he hid it very well, but occasionally when his mask would slip, they could see worry, frustration, agitation. With each passing day, he seemed to grow more and more jittery, jumpy, he seemed to become increasingly nervous and perhaps even scared at the future prospects. At least once every time he visited, he brought up ideas of escape which the children had to quickly shut down due to the agreements they'd made with the wall-travelling fire. When they were all together, the only thing he seemed to want them to do was practice fighting, fighting stances, self-defence situations, anything to do with battle. And it only served to increase the anxiety rippling through the children.

Ebb relaxed, placing her hands on her hips with a look of complete confusion. "How on earth are we supposed to better our abilities if we can't use them?"

Alec turned to her, a placative smile lifting his lips. "Sometimes we need to learn patience so that people can explain to us what they mean." He turned back to his father. "Go on dad, Ebb may have learnt to listen now."

An annoyed growl followed his movements. "Hey, I was listening. It's a genuine question. Don't ridicule me for asking a question any intelligent human being would have asked!"

He crossed his arms, muttering under his breath. "I wasn't ridiculing you for starters, I was bringing insight on your useless commentary; and secondly, I'm probably the smartest one here."

Spite ripped through her voice as she vehemently threw back at him, "With your massive ego, it's a wonder there's any room to fit even an ant's brain."

Rav stepped forward, rolled his eyes with annoyance. "Stop it. Dad's trying to tell us something." Thorn smiled at him, thankful that he'd calmed his siblings down enough for him to speak. However, when he opened his mouth to speak, his son jumped back in. "But Ebb's right, we can't use our abilities in here, so there's no point in trying."

A sigh. "I want to run through a few tricks with you and talk you all through ways to better use your abilities in battle."

Doubtful eyes met around the room before the children looked back at Thorn and raised a confused eyebrow. The brothers crossed their arms, imitating their father's power stance, as the sister placed her hands on her hips, staring her opposite down with all the intense surety of her mother.

Alec spoke up. "Nope, I'm sorry, you lost me. I'm not feelin' it."

"What's the point?" Rav scratched the side of his head, before cracking his back and moving away. "I mean, our ability's pretty strong and with our fighting and everything it's not like we're going to be in deep trouble anytime soon. We can improve it once we get back to Ice."