A sylphlike figure had crept from outside the cave. She had been waiting for a chance to walk in or introduce herself but had not found a suitable chance now that Johnathan fainted. Judging by their mien, they were certainly inexperienced adventurers. So who could they be? Where could they have come from? 

They seemed like Demons, which was not the answer she sought; she wished she had met adventurers from different races who could tell her tales from the lands they journeyed until dawn. They could give her souvenirs, or maybe she could even travel with them from that point on. How thrilling it would have been.

Her tory blue eyes shone teem of effervescence. Her hair, a saturated undertone of violet, was tall enough to cover her rear. Her hair swayed in the wind like a flag gloriously at display. She had a shirt with straight black stripes and a dual colour palette as a design with a thermal jacket on top along with pants three layers thick: she wore leggings, thermal thigh highs, and trousers on top of it all. She was a demon who had horns big enough not to get entangled in hair or blend in with the rest of the head, somehow. These two horns stuck out from the top of her an almost egg-like oval-shaped head (although her head was longitudinally too wide for it to be an egg, the comparison is uncanny itself). Additionally, a single strand of hair had sprouted from the middle of the top of her head. This strand of hair had curled inwards, causing it to look like a sickle. Despite the gelid weather conditions, she was not wearing anything on her head. 

Once the two princes suffered the triumph of somnolence, or she thought, she found venturousness inside of her to proceed. She slinked forward, admiring the lingering warmth of the fire now defunct. 

She took care not to wake them up, successfully neared them, kneeled to where the fire once burned and picked up some of the charred wood. Her hands were numb from the cold. She probably would not have felt the pain if it had been still burning.

The same wind which had douted the flames had turned the leftover material to the same colour of white as the snow that painted the wilderness. The tar had looked like a snowball, even though its original colour was distinctly visible underneath.

“Who are you?” Jimothan slowly rose from the floor. His suspicion was true, after all. His face boasted about his proudness.

The lass had not shrieked, but she had not reacted at the same time. She descended on the floor to pick another balled-up tar covered in faint snow. She rounded it some more.

“Who the hell are you?!” Jimothan repeated.

The tar-snow-ball exploded in Jimothan’s face. The girl laughed, smiled, and said: “Snowballs!”

Jimothan accidentally snorted some of the tar when it hit him. He coughed and spat on the floor. He fought his lungs, which were lit on fire with just the scent alone.

“What the f…”

She threw another one.

“Hehehe.”

Jimothan rolled on the floor with his whole body, scooping some tar along the way. He tried to round it up, although it disintegrated in the air instead of having the snowball effect. It was as if he sprinkled it all over the floor instead of a weapon. 

She scuttled outside. Jimothan followed her to the faceoff battleground. The valley’s steep surface hadn’t allowed for cover; they continuously hit each other with snowball after snowball. 

They exchanged hits without purpose, but the girl seemed to be having fun. She dodged, and (tried to) roll around. She exhausted herself, but she did not succumb. She threw herself onto the barrage and moved her hands and legs up and down, creating a snow angel. She smiled with glee as she did so.

Jimothan sat next to her on the floor. He wasn’t tired, and he wasn’t as frustrated as before, mostly curious.

“That was more fun than I expected,” the girl spoke confidently.

“It was. I wasn’t expecting it to be.”

“See? You should have more faith in me.” 

“Faith…? Oh yeah, who even are you?”

“I’m Kristine,” she answers with no room to evade the question. “nice to meet you.”

“Ya sure ‘at’s all you’ve gotta say?”

“Honestly, with how much Essence you two concentrated there, I’m surprised I’m the only one who showed up. I thought there’d be flocks of monsters… or wolves, or something like that.”

“Huh? Whaddya mean?”

“The wildlife. Just like us, they can feel the Essence swirling around. They can’t use it themselves, but you know.”

“Yeah, I can guess that much, but I thought it would only be certain types of creatures… definitely not wolves.”

“Who was the one in the cave? The one sleeping soundly, I mean.”

“Hold it,” Jimothan censured. He stood up, pointing his index finger at her. “You’re the suspicious one here. Tell me about yourself first!”

“What do you wanna know?”

“Like, uh… what are you doing here? Where are you from?”

“You know about Yderemea?”

“What?” 

“Ydremea village. That’s where I’m from. It’s not that far from where we are.”

“How much longer?”

“If I were to assume it is midnight, we should be able to enter the village before dawn if we set out right now.”

“Right. And what were you doing here?” Jimothan asked, his eyes peeled with suspicion.

“I came here to inspect the fluctuations in Essence. After all, this much concentration can only mean a mage, whether skilled or not.”

“You came all the way from your village for that?”

“No, I was on my way back.”

“Okay, then, why were you out of the village?” Jimothan asked impatiently, circling around Kristine like an eagle.

“I was adventuring.”

“For what?!”

“Adventuring for the sake of it most of the time, but I do sometimes go out with a certain purpose in mind. Just not today.”

“Okay,” Jimothan quipped for some reason, making a scene dramatically by pretending he was a certain detective from a Cryptid book series that he had never read despite the fact that Johnathan had requested the book and finished reading the series long ago, “then tell me what you often go out for.”

Kristine sat up. She opened her arms and extended them to either side, encompassing the snow and barrenness around us. “I may not look the part, but I sometimes go hunting when others are busy. Not my favourite activity, but you gotta do what you gotta do to eat.”

“Really… huh. How do you hunt?”

“Mostly with magic. My father is an excellent archer, and he taught me the basics… although he refuses to give me an actual bow and arrows because he says it’s too dangerous.”

“Huh?! What’s the point of teaching you how to use a bow and arrow, then?”

“Well, you know what they say.” 

With her arms, she mimicked the motions of pulling out a bow strapped to one’s body through the string of the bow. She aimed the bow towards the entrance of the cave barely visible from the snowstorm and delicately mimicked the motion of pulling an arrow from a quiver and placing it on the bow. As soon as this motion was complete, an arrow manifested: a blue, sparkling arrow almost the same colour as her eyes, yet it was a much brighter hue. It was as if this conjured arrow had always been there with the way it faded into existence spontaneously. The bow, on the other hand, was still nowhere to be seen, and yet Kristine’s pantomime made one feel like it truly was there. She stretched the pantomime bow. The non-whetted side stretched backwards towards where the string was meant to be instead of moving backwards. When she released her grip, the arrow shot forward with haste. Jimothan could not track with his eyes. 

“Magic is just the physical manifestation of the user’s imagination.” She concluded both her speech and her gloating.

Jimothan stared appalled at the arrow that flew past at an iota faster than the speed of sound. Before he could turn his head, the arrow had hit the stoic texture of the walls and pierced through. The arrow de-manifested shortly thereafter, so it was no longer stuck on the wall. The fraction in the wall, along with the small hole shaped like a triangular prism because of the shape of the arrow remained after the arrow’s vanishing.

“What?” Kristine asked with a grimace, “Why are you looking at me as if I killed your mom or something?!”

Jimothan did not answer immediately. He considered whether he should lash out, cower in dismay, praise her nonchalantly as if what she had done was no extraordinary feat or jump at her so that maybe he might have a chance if she did not have the time to conjure an arrow.

To buy himself time to think, “That wouldn’t be so bad, actually…” he replied.

“What?!” Kristine screeched. “Why would you say that? That’s very crude and disrespectful.”

“So?”

“Wow.”

“Wow what?”

“You are an asshole.”

“If you knew my mother, you would’ve said the same.”

“Speaking of which, who are you two? You know me by now, so it’s only fair.”

“Well…” Jimothan hesitated. “We have the same name,” he lied, “but like, you can just call me Jim. Jim McDemon.”

“Jim…McDemon…? What kind of name is that?” she chortled.

“We’re Demons alright… I guess my old gramps wanted to make sure everyone knew that…”

“Well, you two sure are Demons… and you speak Commonspeak, too… could it be that you two are from Lyfingeswe?”

“Lyfingeswe?” Jimothan asked, surprised.

“You know, the capital? Was I wrong?”

“The capital’s been renamed to Hjelmstad, you know.”

“It has? Why?”

“You know, with the shield she cast that surrounded the city. It was meant to symbolise a fresh start for the Kingdom, or something, I didn’t care enough to listen, sorry.”

“You attended the Empress’ speeches before?”

“Well, you know. Sometimes you gotta pay attention so someone doesn’t narc on you for being a traitor.”

“Really?” Kristine asked with engrossment. “The situation’s that bad?”

“Mostly, yes, regulations are taken all the more seriously now that the capital is closed off,” he spoke with his eyes adrift, unable to look Kristine in the eyes, “it’s almost like the Empress can see and hear everything that happens inside. Everything is so concise, it’s scary…”

“So you fled the capital?”

“You can say that, yes…”

“Sorry,” she apologised suddenly, “we’ve lived in the capital before the barrier had been enacted, and we moved shortly after. Although I still know people there, we haven’t really been in touch…”

“What’re you apologizing for? Isn’t that, like, super normal? If you go hunting often, of course you wouldn’t wanna bother with the strict controls every time you get out and get back in.”

“How strict are we talking here?”

“An inspection of all your belongings, interrogation regarding your identity, your background, and so on. Although you can skip some of that if you get an ID, if it’s your first time since the barrier, it takes quite a while.”

“Huh. What’s all the protection for, though? Hasn’t the war ended 40-something years ago?”

“It has. The celebration festivities have never been skipped, either.”

“Uhuh. What’re they even protecting the capital from?”

“No clue.”

“Well…” Kristine digressed. “Looks like you two are going east already, so why not come with me to the village?”

“Hey, I still haven’t slept because of you, you know! And I don’t trust you enough to sleep with you around.”

“We can go once the one in the cave wakes up, then.”

“Couldn’t care less about the brat. You know, as much as the invitation to the village tempts me, you are suspicious and I won’t disregard that.”

“What kind of person do you think I am, some sort of murderer? What do you think I’m going to do?”

“You never know.”

“Asshole.”

Jimothan smirked arrogantly in response.