Hildegard is ratcheting up her crossbow. Given the cold she doesn’t mind the labor, which is keeping her warm. Getting her missile out of the target disk was annoying, but it reminded her of training sessions in the courtyard of her family’s castle. More specifically it was reminding her of her earlier training sessions. Her aim has been better than this for years.


    Not hitting the first few times with a weapon you don’t know is normal. The first few times. She suggests something to the last bolt she is freeing from the target that would have gotten her a challenge to a holmgang if made to any man. She closes her eyes for the duration of half a dozen breaths, pockets the quarrel with slow, deliberate movements and heads for the facilities.


    Her father’s sergeant would have scolded her. Only a rested soldier is a soldier at his best. You can command courage. You cannot command rest or luck, though there is magic for luck, if you can afford a wizard.


    She rechecks the crossbow. All seems well. She aims and pulls the trigger. The missile goes high and veers off to a side tumbling through the air. A sharp crack does not bide well for the shaft of the quarrel.


    Hildegard says something that woud have made even her father blush. She takes a calming breath and quotes the family moto. And then quotes it again. She hunches her shoulders against the snowy wind and heads for the rocky outcrop closest to the target disk. Yes, the missile is no longer usable. The shaft has snapped. The head is a bit blunted. There is no point in delaying the inevitable. She goes looking for Peregrinus.


    She finds him right away still in the kitchen. He is not acting very wizardly. Unless wizards are prone to standing one-legged on an oblong piece of wood floating above the floor. His hands are stretched out to the sides, while his left leg is still and sligtly bent. His right leg is stretched out and gently pushing against the floor.


    He sees her, fights to keep his balance and falls off the board. The board shoots off to the other side, giving of a noise oddly similar to a fart, followed by a bump as it hits the wall. She cannot help it. She bursts out laughing. She has seen that facial expression on her brother’s face. He had slid down a barrister on a slick piece of leather, failed to stop at the end, hurled through the air and smashed into their great-uncle’s suit of armor. They both knew their mother would be furious. Though neither understood it. It was armor. If a boy smashing into it would break it, what use was it on a battlefield? The idea that mothers may be identical across the boundaries of universes hits her. It doesn’t bide well for her future.


    She hears him say something short that is not in his native tongue. And then he utters the classic words ?I can explain.“. That is too much. She bursts out laughing again. He looks defeated and says ?Yes. In hindsight …“. He stands up and heads for his beaker standing on the table.


    He points to two wooden disks linked with a thick strand of silk on the table. ?I was working on those, when I hit an obstacle and got tired of them. Then I thought about the stuff we need to carry out of my bedroom and the sleds you made. So I thought I could improve them and I ended up with that board.“. Hildegard needs to respond to that ?But why did you not just tie a cord to it and drag it around with a cargo on it?“ He hesitates, but eventually answers ?There is a … recreational device in my home world. I used to own one when I was much younger. But they run on wheels. That means they do not go left or right as easily as my contraption. It runs on a layer of air. Hence it just slips away.“. She cannot help herself. Barely surpressing a full giggle, she says ?You made a toy.“. He hangs his head ?Yes“. That look is too much. Hildegard laughs until she runs out of air.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    She has put the broken missile on the table. He is fixing it mechanically. Hildegard takes a pity on him and asks ?Do you first want to hear how my testing worked out or do you want to explain how your toy works?“. He jumps at his chance. She manages to control herself, as he starts to explain ?It draws in air through tiny holes and hinders it from moving sideways for a few centimeters under the board. While the board senses the floor too close to the board, it draws in more air. The board sort of rests on a cushion of air.“ That demands an answer. In a perplexed voice she asks ?What’s wrong with wheels?“. He seems to enjoy the challenge ?If you are on a good, cleared road, wheels are fine. I would not have the control issues I am seeing with wheels and brakes would be easy to make. But they need that road. If they run on a rough or soft surface, they work badly. You could make them wider and softer, but then they get heavier and roll worse. A cushion of air distributes the weight it bears on the whole ground it is resting on. If you can get there with snow shoes, my board will work.“. She responds ?That is useful. When will you replace the sleds with them?“ He sighs ?When I’ll have found out, how to stand on it without falling off it all the time.“ Sometimes she does not understand wizards. ?So sit down, take a pole and punt it.“. The way his mouth is opening and closing without saying a word makes her laugh again.


    ?The aim kept shifting on me. With a new type of ammunition this is normal at first. But once you find out how to adjust your aim, you are good. It just kept shifting.“ she complains. ?So the breaking was a side effect. Your aim was spoiled so much that you happened to hit a rock.“ he responds. She nods.


    He stares at the thing. It is odd to her to consider that somebody sees things that are not visible. That being odd also strikes her as odd. You get used to somebody doing laundry by magic but him staring into unknowable distances is disturbing. ?The spell was not affected“ he murmurs. He looks up and his eyes focus again ?I need to see this in action“ he states.


    They have gone outside. She fires. He groans ?Of course. It operates on ambient mana. That is not a problem because as it moves it cannot exhaust one place. But it induces a flow in the mana and the quality of the enchantment’s effect depends on local conditions. I’ll have to add a battery and a regulator.“. She asks ?Will you fix it?“. He sighs ?Eventually. A working version will be more complex. That has consequences if I want to make a usable number of quarrels. I won’t get that done before the elves arrive and we need to move stuff before that.“. She knows him by now. Hence she asks ?You seem sad. You have found an error. You are making progess. You are getting your memories back. It could be much worse.“. He shakes his head hard and says in a defiant voice ?The question is whether it is good enough. Whether I am good enough. I like to operate in a systematic manner. I want to first make plans and then execute them. Instead I keep reacting to events. Yet I don’t know what I am doing wrong.“. He looks down. She has no good answer. Hence her answer has to be a bland quote ?Sometimes you do what you have to do. You need to be prepared for a total collapse of plans.“