Theo was sitting near the docks trying to make a new ice sculpture while he waited.

The past few months had been hectic, and they had given him such incredible artistic vision. He had seen so many things that he just had to try and create out of ice.

The project he was working on currently was a tough one. He was trying to create a likeness of the woman from the Frozen Continent that had nearly killed him, Joy, and Lillian. The one who had been able to create spears of fire and control them with immense dexterity.

Theo wanted to capture her grace and elegance, as well as the dynamic elements of the flames she used.

It was all horribly difficult, and he was on attempt seventeen by this point.

He could never quite capture her essence. She was a vanquished foe to him, and yet he needed to try and show her in a magnificent way. This piece would not be about defeat and weakness, it was one of triumph and hardship.

Or at least that was what he was telling himself.

The reason he was sitting on the docks and staring his ice sculpture into existence instead of in his artistry studio was because he had received word from a seer that his sister would be coming back today. The seer was not Sam, because they were incredibly busy and did not take to cold calls wells.

Theo and his sister did not get along well when they were younger. But that had changed as they both grew up and realized the ‘issues’ with their parents’ decisions in their upbringing.

Theo’s family was wealthy, so wealthy in fact that they had been given a noble title and a villa in the second layer of Vena Cava. The problem with his parents was that they were ‘new gold.’ They were not part of these expansive families that had been holding covert political meetings for ages.

To make up for their lack of political acumen, they decided to never pick sides. The couple purposely had two children, and then raised them to be the closest advisors to each of the royal candidates.

Theo had not been particularly successful at getting into the prince’s inner circle. The prince had a superb lineup of individuals with incredible talents and gifts.

Theo’s sister, on the other hand, became Princess Dahlia’s greatest confidante, which only irked Theo a little bit.

Since their parents wanted their children to work separately for each of the royal heirs, they enforced a lot of competition and distance between them. As children, they had despised each other since their parents had molded them that way.

It took years before they realized that they didn’t have to hate each other. And with a shared bond of having shitty parents, they found they actually quite enjoyed spending time with each other. With his lack of renown in the prince’s retinue it wasn’t even a political catastrophe for them to be seen together.

Theo was close to finding the perfect form for this sculpture. He already knew that this particular one was going to be a bust, but he was close to truly giving the fiery woman a shape.

She was going to move much like the fire that consumed her. She would be flickering in a beautiful passionate dance; she was free in some abstract sense of the word.

As Theo came to this conclusion and started trying to truly plan out how to create this effect in the ice, a seagull alighted upon his shoulder. It inquisitively cocked its head at the statue, seemingly perplexed.

“Yes, this is my current project. While I was in the Frozen Continent I had to face this woman in a terrible battle. I can’t tell you all the specifics, but it was not a fun fight. And it all felt so meaningless in the end, the two battling sides eventually came to some sort of agreement and her death felt so preventable. I just wanted to see if I could save this piece of her.”

“Squah.” The bird screamed directly into Theo’s face, took a shit on his jacket, and flew off.

Theo watched as a second bird flew over to him, this time it was a raven. Moments before it would’ve flown directly into Theo the bird shifted into the form of a young woman. She was a bit younger than Theo, putting her at seventeen.

She had the same blonde hair as Theo, except she did not have the piercing blue eyes. Instead, she had warm, brown eyes with flecks of green in them. People would not say they looked like siblings, but that wasn’t what mattered between them.

“Did you really think I would ever take the form of something as banal as a seagull?” Theo’s sister, Julia, looked like she wanted to go in for a hug, but thought better of it as she observed the massive stain of bird poop on his jacket.

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Julia had a fun gift. Theo had always felt that his gift was too ‘cut and dry’ for his taste. His sister was the one who got something fun.

Her gift allowed her to shapeshift into the form of any animal that she had ever touched. So, he felt that his response towards a bird that alighted upon his shoulder was a reasonable one.

Theo ended up having to give the entire spiel about his work and what he wanted it to represent again. He was a tad annoyed, but there was no use crying over spilt milk.

The two siblings ended up chatting for most of the day as Princess Dahlia’s ship pulled into the harbor and everyone started disembarking. Neither one revealed any secrets that were of any importance to the other. But they shared all sorts of experiences that had been eventful.

Julia loved the stories that Theo told of his two friends’ escapades. Stories of Lillian and Joy were always hits with Julia. He shared the story of how Joy was unable to get to the spa/resort part of the prince’s personal abode in the Frozen Continent, and how increasingly unlikely occurrences kept him from ever truly entering the area.

It was a genuinely fun time, and one that had been sorely missed in the past few months. Joy and Lillian were wonderful friends and all, but they couldn’t understand him as well as his sister could; it was truly the blessing and curse of family.

Theo made sure he gave his respects to the princess and bid his sister adieu after their long conversations had finished. They both felt lighter after this moment, a weight that had settled over Theo had finally left and he was free.

Theo took this newfound sense of lightness and freedom and went to a little room that he had cordoned off in the prince’s castle. Once he had found a passion in creating ice sculptures, he had realized that he needed a room to store his favorites in.

The hardest part about his art was that it was so fleeting. Weather was a truly merciless god that kept Theo from living in a climate where his sculptures could truly stand the test of Time.

They would always melt because that was the nature of ice. It was a fleeting moment, unable to stay beyond its time.

But he wanted to fight against the nature of ice and keep some of his favorite sculptures. Even though it was a new hobby he had already lost too many of his favorite sculptures due to the heat.

So, Theo had bargained with the prince about what his reward from the adventure to the Frozen Continent should be. The prince had promised some truly extravagant things to all people who participated, but Theo did not want most of those.

Mountains of gold did not appeal to him. He already worked for the prince. And he was in line to inherit his family’s wealth and titles. So, he was doing alright for himself.

The one thing he could think of asking the prince for was a large room to store his ice sculptures. And the prince had been a little baffled, but still provided.

So, Theo now had a studio where he could work on his art undisturbed by the elements or other people.

Theo sat in the room and took a deep breath in.

The beginning of any piece of art was the most important, he had to create the heart and soul of his art within a single breath.

Theo’s eyes glazed over, and he reached into his soul space to touch upon the powers gifted to him by the gods.

Sheets of ice formed in erratic patterns as his eyes randomly focused and unfocused around the room. Everywhere he looked ice formed in unique and aggressive patterns, creating the image of the fiery woman’s soul. Or at least what Theo felt it was.

The woman had been such a powerful person. Her powers had probably given her an amount of respect from the other members of her tribe, but the difference in skin color would have set her apart, made her other.

Theo tried to capture that aloofness. The separation between herself and the people she died for, as well as the absolute power that she wielded, the shield between her and the rest of her people.

He didn’t know this woman. He didn’t know her name, her story, or any of her character. All he knew of her were the fireballs she chucked at him and his friends. But Theo had created this person, this character, to serve in her stead.

The art would never be a replacement for her, but he hoped to capture the feelings he had seen from her in their heated battle.

After Theo created the soul of this piece, he started shaping her body. He had not seen in her incredible detail; a fluke in the way that his gift worked. He couldn’t look at the person while he was trying to stare walls into existence.

So, while creating her body, he didn’t go for a realistic depiction, instead she was all movement and fire. A wisp in the air as she twirled in her element.

Hours passed and Theo continued to work in a frenzied craze. Layer upon layer of ice slowly formed an incredible piece of art. The lines were still amateurish, but there were emotions imbedded into the art, people who looked at it would feel sorrow and power in equal measure.

Theo stared at his masterpiece and breathed heavily. An utter exhaustion filled him to the brim, the weakness of putting all of yourself into something. He felt spent, as if he was a husk of a man and the art contained more of him than his measly human form ever could.

Slowly but surely, Theo wandered out of his studio in a fugue state. He swayed back and forth hoping to make it back to his room, or anywhere with a bed. He had no idea what time it was, but he could feel his eyes burning from being open too long and his eyelids felt like anvils.

He walked past the prince and Sam who were in a heated debate; the debate abruptly stopped as Theo walked by. He didn’t notice the prince speaking to him and just blearily walked right by.

The prince and Sam were oddly intrigued by the odd behavior from the normally too uptight Theo and decided to go and see where he had been. Sam tried to dissuade the prince from leaving his far more important duties, since his sister had just arrived back on the mainland there was much to be done, but he said that they could wait until he had gotten to the bottom of this mystery.

The two of them eventually wandered into Theo’s studio after a few questions asked to passersby.

As soon as they walked into the room and beheld Theo’s art they spoke simultaneously.

Sam scoffed and said, “the workmanship is so shoddy, it’s ugly.”

The prince sighed and said, “it’s beautiful.”

They both looked at each other and laughed, neither one touching on the other’s views, before continuing their important discussions about budgets and troops.