“The fog is increasing!” Onna called.
Swearing underneath my breath, I noticed the thickness of the fog double. “I can’t protect you and clear the fog at the same time.”
“Then don’t protect me! Just clear the – “
The Mistling blindsided her. Sharp claws raked down the side of her face as she let out a furious cry. Hands appeared from within the fog, latching to her ankles. I swore.
“Onna!”
The hands dragged her further into the fog and I took off in pursuit. Nothing was going as I anticipated. However, it was fine. I was still calm. In another timeline, Onna was still safe, waiting impatiently with me while I ran this timeline. If she died here, I’d abandon this timeline and resume from the other one.
“Get your hands off me you pathetic maag!”
A pillar of ice rose from the ground, forming into a sharp blade. Onna emerged from it. Blue blood dripped down the side of her face. She kept her guard up in the fog, cautious and watching for Mistlings.
“You…” I pressed my lips together as I made out the pillar of ice through the fog. I’d seen her create blades. Create swords. Create a snowflake-shaped shuriken. “…don't have a lot of imagination.”
“Excuse me?”
“You can freely shape your ice. Are knives, blades and jagged icicles really the only things you can think of making?”
“What else is there?”
“A shield. A chain that instantly freezes what it comes in contact with. A bow and arrow. Platforms that you can stand on or use to deflect attacks. A staircase, to elevate yourself to higher ground. Perhaps even, puppets of ice to use as distractions.”
She blanched at me. “What…” Her nose furrowed. Her lips opened, ready to give some sort of rebuttal, but then closed shortly after.
“Staircase,” I said. “Now.”
For once, Onna did not complain. A freezing staircase of ice rose from beneath our feet, taking us higher and higher, up and above the Mistlings at the ground. Onna, let out a cackle as we continued to ascend, leaving me crossing my arms.
“Your problem is a lack of imagination.”
“I’m not a minstrel, bard or poet. I was never raised to be able to conjure things from empty air. I grew being taught to serve above all else. What use would a toy have for imagination?”
“…touché.”
“What?”
“It’s a… Marién expression. It means I concede.”
The staircase of ice rose further, and I began to focus on clearing the fog once more. The more I thought it over, the more I understood. Onna and I were worlds apart in terms of the level of education. She had been a poor commoner from the streets as a human, educated for the ultimate purpose of being a servant. I highly doubted they would give her novels and books to read and broaden her horizons.
Her power let her control ice. Create, shape and form ice. Unlike me, who could instantly think of using that power to create a thousand things in a thousand ways, Onna’s mind couldn’t extrapolate outward. She couldn’t envision creating an escalator of ice because she didn’t know what an escalator was. She couldn’t consider creating ice grenades because she’d never seen a grenade in action and did not know how it would work.
I possessed a repertoire of knowledge from fiction about individuals with cryokinesis who used it to do all manner of things from creating talking snowmen with carrot-noses to summoning their abominable counterparts or making clones of ice as traps, but Onna had no such frame of references to draw inspiration.
Not only Onna. Most nightmares – perhaps even Arol and Wunder.
“Onna,” I began. The fog was clearing up quickly. “Do you know what a tray is?”
“In Takum, such a thing clearly does not exist. Even the kings and queens must hold their hot meals in hand as custom demands.”
“Sarcasm. Excellent. Had we not been deep in enemy territory, I would almost appreciate it.” I said dryly. “Use your powers to create a tray, but circular. Make the front end and the back end sharp, like a blade.”
She molded the object, muttering underneath her breath. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Stand on it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you want to lose more fingers? Stand on it.”
She did, wobbly standing on the board of ice, but immediately locking into place. “How…?”
“I noticed you don’t lose your balance when standing on ice. That’s good. Now, create a constant stream of ice from below the board using your feet. Imagine the board is a flame, and the ice you create is a trail of smoke.”
The fog cleared up, as did the Mistlings vanish, and I found myself standing on a frozen staircase several dozen feet in the air, helping Onna gain her balance as she stood on a board of ice.
“Now accelerate.”
With some trial and error, some, which took her getting used to creating a layer of ice as she moved, standing on the board. She was a quick study if nothing else, and in a matter of minutes, I had taught Onna the basics of a skill that would immediately skyrocket her aerial maneuverability.
The Yuki-Onna laughed as she shot through the air on her board, ice trailing behind her. “What… what do you call this activity?”
“Surfing,” I said. “Normally you’d need a large body of water and a wave, but we’re cheating with ice, so you can surf anywhere at any time.”
Though, this is less of surfing and more of you using an ice-powered hoverboard… Explaining exactly what a hoverboard was supposed to be would be too bothersome. For now, surfing was simpler.
The Yuki-Onna had a brilliant smile on her face as she zipped back and forth across the air, propelled by a disc of ice, laughing all the while. Without my input, she
