It was midday, and it was colder than Raiha remembered it being last year, even with the sun shining overhead, dancing off of the snow. Chores were done, she had collected Tasival and Shayru from Kavala, bundling the child up in as many clothes as necessary to make sure he stayed warm, and put him in the sling. He was getting a bit big for it, but she needed her hands, even as she waded through the deep snow that had come drifting down through the season. The courtyard arena was completely useless in this weather for the horses, or anything else, for that matter, so that meant that she could occupy it. “So,” Kanikra told Tasival, “this is important. You’ll hear this from a dozen teachers in your life, but I wanted to tell you first.” Well, that and Kanikra was itching to make an utterly impregnable snow fort, and it seemed like a good a day as any to do it with Kavala’s little boy. Even now, it was beginning to snow again, though the skies overhead were blue, not grey, and Syna shone in the sky, making everything seem crystalline and beautiful.
She’d already worked out the plan. She wanted a round fort, if only because this gave the enemy... well... everyone else... no corners to use to their advantage, and because the walls could be stronger and built in as opposed to square, because with the squares, there were weak spots in the places where the walls met. “War is an important event. It is presided over by the Goddess Myri. War, and battles, are not something to be taken lightly,” Kanikra began as she shoveled snow into place with her leather-mitted hands, grinning down at Tasival as her braids were well within his grasp if he wanted them. Her hair was long enough, and thick enough, that it didn’t bother her if the child gave it a good yank. He didn’t have the strength to really hurt her yet. “This is a practical demonstration.” She stuck her head out and about, looking to see if anyone was watching as the fort was slowly growing through diligent scooping so that it the better part of seven feet in diameter. She wanted to be able to lay flat in it, after all, just in case they did get an ambush. Now that she had a foot of walls surrounding them, she began to pack them in and down, scooping up more and more, packing and pressing.
“It is costly, both in terms of resources and in terms of life. They say that picking your battles is winning your battles, and they are right. Numbers, of fighters, resources, whatever, are not everything. What matters, what really matters, is right here,” she peeled a glove off and touched a warm finger to the toddler’s covered forehead. “It’s all up here. A smaller number can defeat a bigger army just as easily as the bigger army could crush a smaller one. The first part of war is the laying of plans. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Her glove had gone back on, and now she set the little boy down in the packed-down bunker, letting him sit up, and giving him a snowball. “This will be ammunition later, when we get to the part of ‘picking our targets’. That folds into the thing about picking your battles that I mentioned earlier.” She sat down on her leather-covered butt in the snow and surveyed the battleground. “You need to know the area you’re planning to fight in. You need to know about the weather, because the seasons will help determine the winner in terms of preparation and resources. There’s a story, you know,” she gathered Shayru into her lap, “about the grasshopper and the ant. The grasshopper sang all spring, summer, and fall, and watched as the ant worked hard every day to gather what it needed in its hills for the winter. And when the winter came, the grasshopper died because it wasn’t prepared,” she said solemnly.
Raiha, for her part, was just sitting back and enjoying this, for once. There was no harm in letting Kanikra pull stunts like this. She’d just make sure she didn’t put ice into the snowballs, or worse, rocks, and just let her sister-soul have some fun. Gods know, she could use it. Kanikra was a good teacher when she had a mind to be, and when it came to Tasival and Shayru, she took that duty very, very seriously. But she needed some fun, and if attacking everyone with snowballs was going to be that outlet today - she had already built the monstrous snow-slide off of the mews a few days ago - then so be it. Kanikra used her long limbs to climb up and over, gathering and packing snowballs by the armload and bringing them back in to the boy, who clapped his hands and began to climb on them, rolling and shoving them around as she brought in a mountain of them, filling half of the fort with snowballs. You’ve got this? We should soak the walls, too. Make them really hard.
I’ve always got this, Kanikra reminded her. Listen and learn.
I have been, Raiha admitted.
“The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer. And miracles come by appointment only,” she told the boy. “But those appointments can be made often, if you only look for the opportunity.” By now, they had been outside in the snow for over a bell, and the walls were getting taller and thicker with each passing chime, and break time was over. The walls were blocking out the wind, which helped. The whole fort was up past her head when she sat on her knees, and that worked for her. “Leadership is important,” she told the boy, as she slowly began to empty her mind out, her voice quiet, even as he sat in her lap again, her arms folded around him. “A good leader can oversee everything. And they should. They need to control and encourage their troops, to inspire them and earn their loyalty. I think, though my sister would disagree with me, that it is better to be feared than loved. Ideally, you can have both.” She paused for a moment, becoming quiet, having taken her gloves off. The next part was going to take a little bit, as she became quiet, letting the Makath around her in the shadows of the fencing perimeter, in the snow fort, become a soft chatter in the background as she pushed it outside of her mind. Her arms went from cradling the little boy to sitting on her legs in a resting, meditative posture.
In that moment, she remembered where Raiha had gone to produce Res deep inside, and found that glowing core. She sunk both hands in it, and drew it out in great quantities, opening her eyes to see the thick, white res beginning to pour out of her skin, her blue hands steaming in the cold. More, more, more. They needed so much more to really fortify this place, and the Akontak had very deep reserves. She began to smooth the ethereal substance over the walls, staying mostly in place, using her long arms to guide the res, sometimes just throwing it on the walls before beginning to move and shape it, returning her hands to her knees as the smaller Akontak poked and prodded at more and more Res as she continued to produce more before finally pulling her hands from that core and looked at her handiwork. “One more thing,” she told the unsure little boy once she had everything smoothed in. “This is fortifications. Water, when introduced to the cold, will freeze. Undoubtedly, it will freeze. And when it does, it becomes hard. And just like that... we have some very, very powerful walls,” she grinned down at him, putting her gloves on before wrapping her arms around him, and drawing her knees up, so that he was cradled there, and exhaled, turning the Res bit by bit to water.
She breathed again, and reached into an inner pocket, and unwrapped some cookies, passing Shayru one of the proffered cookies. His mother had been prodding Raiha to eat healthier, and in in a lot of ways it was working, but Raiha would eat most anything she got her hands on in bits and pieces, and now was no exception. “Enjoy,” she handed one to Shayru, taking one for herself, and beginning to devour it hungrily. One cookie became two, three, and four. “I’m going to get fat,” she told the boy as she bugged her eyes at him and sucked in her cheeks, making fishlips at him. “Or, rather, Raiha will,” she gave him a second one, feeling better. “Now, we’ll wait. We have laid the trap, and now they can just walk into it. It’s not always how long you can draw it out and wear the others down. Doing that costs you too. What you want is to end it quickly with very decisive action. Limit their resources and movement, and victory shall be ours.”
The first person that crossed that courtyard was in for a sudden surprise as a snowball came flying out of nowhere with deadly accuracy.
