“…Jett,” Emma said, voice smooth and calm but clear in the open cold. “Could you create another fish?”

  Her tone held no urgency, no haste, just a calm and asking tone.

  Jett blinked once, as if the request nudged her from drifting thoughts. “Another fish?” she echoed, sitting upright a little. Emma nodded once, her eyes steady.

  “Not for eating,” Emma added quickly, her fingers flexing slightly against her skirt. “I would like to test something. If that’s okay with you.”

  Jett was still for a moment, her pale gray eyes watching Emma carefully. Then a small, knowing smile curled across her lips, not smug, not amused, but soft. Quietly approving.

  “No problem,” she answered simply.

  In that instant, soft pink light shimmered into being around Jett’s right hand. The particles gathered slowly at first, gentle motes of glowing dust swirling like miniature fireflies, then pulsed and folded inward. The coalescence was smooth, patient, like mist forming shape. In seconds, the glow solidified, lines refining, surface becoming clear, until a fresh fish shimmered into existence, delicate, untouched, and sleek. Its scales gleamed faintly under the soft firelight, reflecting the surrounding hues like a mirror dipped in calm water.

  Emma watched the process quietly, blinking less of the time until it finished.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice almost carried away by the snowy air in the cave.

  Emma's goal for asking Jett to create a fish wasn't for anything else. But for an experiment she wanted to try...

  She had always been manifesting powers, ever since. But what if it could be more? She wanted to know, to find out, to try something different.

  Emma inhaled slowly, her breath visible as a chilling air before her face. The fish remained in Jett’s hand, its body still and sleek, just as perfect as a fresh fish will be.

  Emma didn’t close her eyes like before, she wanted to try and manifest something differently from the way she had always been doing by putting too much focus into it and having a need for protection when she concentrates too deeply.

  She wanted to try and not put too much focus in it and at the same time still focusing, but mostly admiring it....

  Her breathing slowed. The Icy wind brushed against her cheek calmly, grounding her to the was present. Reminding her that this moment was real.

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  She imagined the same fish, its shape, its weight, its shimmering surface. She didn’t force the image into her mind. She let it flow, gently, like water from a tilted jar. She let it be. Admired it, not as a thing to conquer, but as a thing worth bringing into existence.

  Something changed in her chest, like a subtle warmth beneath her ribs, like a heartbeat syncing to something outside herself. Her fingers twitched. Not with power, but with sensation.

  Slowly, deliberately, she lifted her right hand.

  Her arm rose without hesitation, each movement of her shoulder and elbow fluid and controlled. Her fingers opened, just slightly, as if offering or receiving.

  She could hear nothing else now. No blowing of the wind. No breathing from the others. Just the stillness that settled around moments of birth.

  Then.

  Click!

  It wasn’t a loud sound. It was soft, almost like a distant lock turning. But it echoed in her bones

  A shift.

  It came slowly, no dramatic pulse of energy or blinding flash. Just a quiet… change. Subtle. Like a breath held in the lungs for too long and then released without notice. Within Emma’s mind, it was as if an unseen latch had turned, softly unlocking something buried, something that had always been waiting.

  Flick!

  The sound echoed, not through the air, but somewhere deeper. It wasn’t a real sound, not something anyone else would hear. It was internal. Felt rather than heard. A flick! like pages of a book turning by themselves.

  Flick… Flick!

  Emma's gaze lingered on the glint of the fish’s scales, the surface reflecting faint pinks and soft silvers. It looked real, alive, existing. And in that admiration, in that quiet awe, Emma imagined it.

  She didn’t command. She didn’t force. She admired and reached.

  And then…

  The air in front of her hand shimmered, barely visible, like heat rising from stone at dawn. The shimmer coalesced, particles soft as silk and gentle in motion.

  A second fish formed, identical to Jett’s. Perfectly smooth. Perfectly still. Reflecting the same pale light like liquid silver.

  Emma’s lips parted and a small smile calmly crept onto her face. She didn’t say anything aloud. But within, her voice rang like a distant chime:

  Success.

  She didn’t know if it was joy or relief, but something inside her steadied. The doubt, the quiet uncertainty she hadn’t let show began to melt, little by little, like ice warmed by a calm fire.

  “Wow…” Jett’s voice broke the quiet.

  Her pale gray eyes wide with a kind of reverence. The fish in her right hand shifted slightly as she moved, the scales gleaming.

  She switched her fish to her left hand carefully, and extended her now-free right palm toward Emma’s.

  “Can I…?” she asked softly, inching closer, gaze locked onto the newly manifested fish Emma held.

  Emma didn’t hesitate. She gave a short, single nod and gently placed the fish into Jett’s awaiting palm. Her fingers briefly brushed Jett’s as she received it.

  Jett now held both fishes, one in each hand. She held them up, side by side, adjusting her grip slightly so the tails aligned and the fins mirrored one another. Liz, who had been watching silently from nearby, approached too, her red twin buns bouncing slightly with each step, her deep emerald eyes locked onto the objects.

  Ron followed close behind, his boots crunching softly over the icy cave ground. He stayed a little behind his sister Jett, as he was also curious.

  “They’re the same,” Jett murmured, tilting both fish, examining every detail. “Perfectly.”

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