Ice Carving

Riel seemed to doubt Therasia’s ability to turn the ice block into anything substantial. That was alright — Therasia doubted her own ability to make anything substantial out of ice too. But she’d be damned if she gave up now, especially after she’d dragged Riel all the way there. Or he’d dragged her, maybe, she wasn’t sure. Somebody had to make a suggestion first, but somebody also had to be bold enough to follow through. If she had to bet on it, she’d bet on herself being the bold one. Not that Riel wasn’t — that was how they’d met, after all — but she had a little more adventurous spirit.

“It’s not that hard,” she claimed easily. “You take a chisel, you strike the ice, you get the shape.”

“Strike too hard and you lose everything,” Riel shrugged off. His attempts with the ice were small. It seemed like he was only making chinks in the ice, trying to see whether it’d yield or not, and he didn’t do try to remove any big chunks to make any shape. Therasia was bored just watching him. Next to him, Pirr seemed equally bored, and Pirr only had one eye so that was saying something. Pirr was Riel’s eygel, he had claimed, much to Therasia’s horror at the time. However, since then, they’d interacted a handful of times, Therasia and Pirr, and she’d learned that the little creature was quite docile and adorable, once she’d gotten over her initial shock. And really, she wasn’t sure why she had been shocked at all. She’d seen these things before. Maybe it was because they’d never been so close to her.

“Riel,” she said, “You need to be a little more confident with this.”

With that, she struck her chisel into the ice slab in front of her. Her eyes widened in shock and her jaw dropped in a Nononono oh shit— as the ice cracked in the middle and fell to the snowy ground.

“Oh shit!” She exclaimed just as Riel let out a ridiculously loud laugh before chortling as he cut himself off. “Shut up, Riel!”

“I didn’t say anything!” He claimed, but he didn’t have to say anything. His shoulders were still shaking with mirth and around him, Pirr fluttered amusedly, as though it found everything that happened hilarious.

Therasia took a look at her ruined ice, then at Riel’s barely scratched chunk.

“We should switch,” she said resolutely without a hint of hesitation. Riel laughed a little and then attempted to sober up. It was a valiant effort, but he didn’t really do a good job at all. Therasia just eyed him with faked distaste.

“Oh, no, no, no, we’re not doing that,” Riel said. “You ruined your own ice, now watch me make a masterpiece.”

“What, with one eye?” Therasia shot back. For a second, she was afraid of going too far, but a second was all Riel needed to scoff at her well-placed jab.

“You have two and you still managed to half your chances of making anything,” he said.

“Listen, you…” Now Therasia gripped her chisel, determined to prove him wrong even though he hadn’t challenged her at all. “Just watch me.”

She got to work then. So the ice had been cut in half — so what? It was irregular, so that could’ve been a problem, but Therasia was hardly an artist anyway. She just had to make something simple, yet impressive. She started chiselling strips of ice away, trying to see if anything could come to her, but the more she did it, the more she was certain that she was just eating it away. At least the temperature was so low that the ice couldn’t melt even if it wanted to.

“What is it that you do, anyway? I don’t think I ever asked you that,” she said conversationally after a while of silence, without lifting her head at all. Then she thought she should probably clarify: “As a Lopilu, I mean. Don’t you all have some sort of weird magical powers and such?”

Riel hummed in contemplation. Still, for the next few moments, the only thing she could hear was the scrape of ice falling off.

“I’d say yes, all of us. Then again, I’m no expert. I suppose not all of us choose to actually put time and effort into it,” he said in the end, diplomatically, and Therasia knew when someone was avoiding the topic. She’d let it go, of course, but she needed to prod him a little first.

“And you?” She asked, still set on needling him.

“I put in the time and the effort,” he said, and when she turned towards him, finally lifting her head off her work, he winked at her. Still, it seemed a little fake. Like he was a little worried, or even shy, and she’d never seen Riel either shy or worried so far.

“Well,” she said, “I’m a thief. I mean I do have another job, but I’m also a thief. I thought you should know.” She was pretty sure he’d already known, anyway.

“Therasia!” He shouted, then looked around to check if anybody else had heard it. “I know. Stop saying it aloud so easily! Someone could hear!” He was whisper-shouting by the end, and Therasia laughed at her normal volume.

“I’m just saying,” she shrugged as she rounded off her ice with the chisel. It was a ball — a pretty bad one at that — but it was something. “Yours can’t be much worse, can it? Are you like an assassin or something? Riel the Sneaky? Riel the Phantom?”

“Oh, shut up,” Riel groaned. “I’m not an assassin. I was Nightglade-born, not Nightglade-trained.”

“Fine, keep your secrets,” she said as she shook the splinters of ice and snow off her gloves and jacket. She’d seen the sceptre he carried around. Something had to be up with it, but she’d also never seen him use it except as a staff — to swat at her, or something around them, or even to make way through the forest with its bottom end. It seemed a little disrespectful, but he was also too attached to it for it to be just a staff. But sure, she meant what she said. Riel could keep his secrets if they made him uncomfortable. “Let me see what you made.”

Or maybe he thought the secrets would make her uncomfortable? Maybe it wasn’t really a secret, but rather something kept from only her. The thought didn’t sit too well with her. She approached her with two irregularly shaped balls in her hands (hey, she could put them in a cup, like fancy ice or something!) and her eye was drawn to the looming sceptre. Stuck into the icy ground and snow, it loomed like a tiny monolith, mysterious with its grey crystals and red core. It did remind her of Riel, she had to admit that.

Therasia wasn’t sure how to communicate that she was curious and not afraid. Riel seemed to be pretty sure of his (wrong) opinion.

“Riel,” she said as her eyes moved from the sceptre onto the little ice sculpture he made. “Oh, that’s horrible. What is that?!”

He had made… something?

“It was a human,” Riel said, visibly disappointed. “It was, uh. Well, I thought I could make you. I was pretty sure I’d be so much better at this…”

Therasia laughed so far she had to drop her miserable… ice balls? Ice cubes? Riel had made something similar, except that hers were separate. His were stacked, resembling a shambling snowman and most certainly not resembling any human at all, especially not Therasia herself.

“Oh, we’re terrible at this,” she said once she’d calmed down. In the cold weather, the small tears that had sprung to her eyes had stuck to her eyelashes. “This is terrible. Let’s find some more ice, okay?”

“Okay,” Riel said, and his previous discomfort seemed to have all but disappeared. Therasia sighed, then took his hand as she led him off. He grabbed onto the sceptre and Pirr grabbed onto Riel’s shoulder, and they were off. To Therasia, it seemed right, even with the small secrets still present between them.