4.26 Stone Pillar

"Yeah, so this is it. The thing that gave me wings and markings, and made me boiling hot." Kaity felt strangely powerful standing back in the spot where it had all happened, all those years ago. She stared at the blue sapphire 'eyes' of the carved face, and she could swear she saw a spark of life in them. That was impossible, though, it was just an ancient stone pillar that had popped out of the ground a decade or so ago. "Have you seen one before?" Kaity spoke after the couple had been silent for a while, breaking the uneasy tension in the air.

"No." Winter stated. He looked lost in thought, just staring at the pillar.
"Do you want me to show you how I touched it? Would that help?"
"No, Kaity. If it did this to you, I'm not letting you touch it again. Who knows what it'd do this time. I'll need to do some research before we can work out what it is and how it works."

Winter stroked his chin as he re-scanned the pillar's markings with his eyes.
"What you thinking?" Kaity asked, unable to tear her eyes from the pillar to look at him. She was starting to get a headache.

 "I was wondering." He stopped, took a deep breath and turned to face Kaity slightly. "I was wondering if you could sense its power source?"
"Its power source? Like, as in that thing you told me about my power source with the markings? The water, air, earth, fire thingy thing?"
"Elements, yes, sort of. More like what..." He sighed, trying to ponder his wording.

"More like how you knew Autumn got his magic from me. What breed of magic, if you will."
"Oh. Uhm..." Kaity tried to focus on the pillar, but she couldn't get any kind of reading. With Autumn it had been automatic, he'd felt foreign, and at first she thought she'd somehow bought the wrong baby home. "I don't know. It just feels like nothing. Maybe it's just a normal stone and the magic was just stored in there somehow-" Kaity abruptly stopped herself as she started to form an idea. Winter didn't notice, and stepped forward for a closer look.

"Winter, if I can't go any closer-"
"I'm not going to touch it. You might be right, you know. It just looks like a hunk of stone. Like a stoneage totem pole, or something."
"With creepy eyes." Kaity mumbled, barely loud enough for Winter to hear.
"Yes, the eyes are a bit... strange..."

Kaity joined Winter a few paces closer. "I don't like it. It feels like it's watching us."
"I don't feel it." Winter said, glancing at Kaity and seeing she was staring, mesmerised into the sapphires. "Do you feel like it's telling you to do something?"
"Yes. It feels like it's a part of me, and I'm scared." Kaity finally broke her gaze from the stone face, and turned to leave. "We should go before it succeeds in drawing me in."

 Winter grabbed her arm and spun her back round to face the pillar, pulling her to him. "Call me stupid, but maybe you should do whatever it's telling you to. At least I'm here this time, and while I know nothing about it, I should be able to feel anything bad before it gets to the stage anywhere near what it did before."

"Winter, it wants me to connect. Like you do with wifi on your phone, not actually touch it, but form a connection. What if I can't disconnect from it? What if it drains my power and uses it to destroy the world?" Winter breathed a laugh.

"You don't have enough power to destroy the world, but I know where you're coming from. Lets go."

 "I don't feel like leaving. I feel... peaceful. I'm scared to hell, but I feel safe too. Does that make sense?"

"Not at all." Winter kissed her temple, before pulling her to a nearby bench which faced away from the stone pillar.

"You need to stop looking at it for a bit. I think it's influencing you some how, and hopefully not looking at it will clear that up." Kaity smiled at him, already starting to feel a little more clearheaded, even though she hadn't realised she'd felt any different before.

"Thank you. How are you so clever?"

Winter laughed and scooted over.

"You're clever too, just in different areas."

"Yeah, in stuff I don't care about, or that doesn't affect me. I don't even understand my psychicism and I do that for a job!" Winter smiled at her new word.

"You know more than you realise." He replied cryptically, leaning in to kiss her.

"Oi, you! Don't you know I've been drugged by a stone pillar? You're taking advantage of a lady in my situation?" Kaity grinned.

"I'm sorry, m'lady." Winter winked, playing along with her silly game. "That was my plan all along. I thought I could drag you out to the top of this hill, and then if the views didn't work I knew the pillar would."

"Shuttup and kiss me you idiot." Kaity demanded.

And so they kissed for a while, enjoying the warm air and peace and quiet of the countryside. They didn't really care if the paparazo saw them up here. Something had changed in Kaity when they started officially going steady, and while she'd rather be left in peace, she just didn't care what the papers said anymore.

"I'll do it." She said, pulling back quickly and surprising herself.

"You'll do what?" Winter asked, confused.

"What the stone wants me to. I want to. I want to help you understand it better."

"Kaity, I was going to take a small scraping of the stone or something, I don't want you to do anything that dangerous."

"It won't be dangerous. The worst it can do at this stage is drain my powers, and that wouldn't be so bad..."

"Except it might kill you. I'm not letting you do it."

"You're not my boss, though, so I don't care what you're going to 'let' me do. I'm doing it." She protested, throwing his arm off her shoulder and storming over to the stone pillar again. Winter sighed, and stood what he deemed a safe distance away, but close enough to rush over if he needed to.

 "Kaity, I really don't think you should-"
"I don't care what you think I should do." She retorted, inside she was battling with herself, trying to fight the impulsive urges to say things that would make Winter leave for good. She was shocked he'd stuck her out this long...
"Kaity, it's watching you." Winter's firm voice broke her thoughts.

Kaity wasn't really sure what to do, so she raised her arms the way Rose had tried to show her to use her witch magic. She'd never got the hang of witchcraft, and could barely summon an apple with her wand, let alone cast some kind of spell with her bare hands.

She was shocked when bolts of blue and purple magic flowed from her hands and into the stone. It was as if the pillar was sucking her magic out, though she felt strangely energised.

Winter watched as the pillar began to shake, its deep blue sapphire eyes glowing green and an odd blue mist began to engulf it.

"Kaity! Stop!" He shouted, worried that it might fall and crush her.

"I can't! I don't know how!" She shouted back, as a loud clap of thunder echoed off the mountains, the once cloudless sky filling with dark, omimous clouds.

Winter was suddenly at her side, pulling her into his arms as luminous green rain began to fall, the colour of the drops matching the new colour of the pillars eyes.

"I didn't know how." She whispered, terrified.

"It's ok, it's over now."

 "What does this mean?" She aked, pulling back a little.

"I don't know." He replied. "How do you feel?"

"I feel fine, I don't feel any different. While it was happening I felt powerful, but I couldn't stop myself." She was shaking, and Winter started to lead her back to the car as the green rain subsided and the dark clouds disintergrated.

"It's ok. It's over now." He whispered soothingly, pulling her close.

Yeah, that isn't a pose clipping badly in that last pic, it's EA not accounting for the muscle sliders on the shoulders... Official sliders that came with the actual game, I might add.

I don't know what's going on in the bench scene with Winter's torso (and the trousers... Lets remind ourselves this is PG...).