Frosted Dreams (NaNoWriMo2020)

Iwakālua kūmāhā

Hika stares at the basin of pink water, painted with her blood. Her hands are still streaked with it, Jaak took her coat to clean the sleeves before it sets too far into the hides. The blood has already dried to the skin of her hands. It has frozen too, and the cold water doesn't help much. Hika curses, reaching for her flame. It stays curled up against the heat of her heart, recuperating. Hika groans, rubbing at the frozen blood. Jaak pokes his head into the room at the sound coming from her throat.

"You alright?"

"I can't get this blood off, it's frozen to my skin."

She yanks at one of icy rivulets and it tears away from her arm, taking some of the skin with it. A few beads of blood well to the surface, quickly washing off beneath the stream of the water. Jaak makes a low sound in his throat.

"Don't do that!"

"Then what do I do? Leave bloody marks on my skin?"

"No, but maybe ask for help."

Jaak reaches out a hand and after a moment, Hika places her hand in it. He frowns at her arm, gently poking one of the streaks of frozen blood. Tiny specks of frost lift from the streak and Jaak moves Hika's hand beneath the water. The blood slides off easily, a flow of red-tinted water. He smiles at Hika, the expression warm.

"See? That wasn't so bad."

Hika feels her cheeks warm slightly, she's not sure that it's in embarrassment. "Thank you."

Jaak snorts. "It's the least I can do, after what happened. If I had known-"

His gaze flickers to her throat and Hika frowns. "It's not your fault."

"But it is."

Hika pulls her arm away, now clean. "No, it's not. This-" She gestures to the line in her throat, still coated in ice. "You aren't to blame for this. Don't you dare think otherwise."

Jaak sighs and looks down for a heartbeat, his voice quiet. "How are you feeling?"

Hika raises a hand to touch the slick surface of the ice coating her throat. "Not that bad, I don't think I lost too much blood. Although, I don't think leaving this ice here indefinitely is a good idea."

Jaak smiles slightly. "No, that was an emergency patch. I can get you something better now."

He reaches beneath the basin for a strip of fabric, easily long enough to use as a bandage. Hika stares at the white material apprehensively, acutely feeling the cold ice at her throat. Jaak reaches up to touch it with shaky fingers, just as nervous for this as Hika is herself. The ice melts away and he quickly presses the strip of cloth to her neck.

Hika reaches up to help hold the cloth in place but stops at the expression on Jaak's face. He lowers the cloth, frowning at it. Hika can see only the slightest strip of blood on the material, far less than there should be even with the ice holding her wound together while it begins to heal.

"Wasn't it worse than this?"

"There was certainly enough blood to indicate that. How bad does it look to you?"

"Like just a scratch."

"Hmm. Maybe we just panicked and thought it was worse? Maybe the blood mixed with water to make it seem like there was more of it?"

Jaak shrugs. "Maybe."

He pauses for a moment, frowning, and darts out of the room. When he returns a minute later, he is carrying Loki's dagger in his hands. The blade is smeared with blood. Hika shudders at the sight of it.

"That definitely did more than a scratch."

"Which means you're healing faster than you should."

"Only immortals heal this fast, right?"

Jaak nods. "Yes. Has this ever happened before? With a severe injury especially?"

Hika shakes her head. "No. Whenever I got injured I would heal at a normal pace. Faster than humans, perhaps, but nowhere near as fast as immortals."

"Yet another mystery. Phoenix flowers and too-quick healing. What next?"

"Something off-topic?"

Jaak snorts. "Like what?"

"Like how your dad is Loki. I thought you were Russian?"

"No, I'm not. I moved to Russia to escape him, to protect others from him. Anyone who comes near me, he thinks they're going to kill me. This has been happening for centuries." Jaak shakes his head. "I am Norse as well, my mother is Skadi, Goddess of the Wilderness. When I was young, just around the time I gained my immortality - before it even - my father went to search for something. When he came back, he was different. Paranoid. My mother took me to the mountains but he came after us. When he attacked her a few decades later, I left. It was the final straw for me. I came here to keep everyone else safe and so the legend of the Morozco came to be."

"Jaak-"

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

Iwakālua kūmāhā = twenty-four, when counting

What do you think happened to Loki that made him like this? What do you think about Skadi being Jaak's mother? Why do you think Hika is healing so quickly? What's going to happen next? Tell me your thoughts!

Happy reading and I'll see you next chapter!

~ Goddess of Fate, signing out