shank me? shank YOU!

A solid crash frozen Armando in his tracks. He peeked over the edge of the branch that still swayed despite his stillness. Below him in a neat row like so many perfect teeth hung icicles. One of the 'teeth' was missing; Armando's weight as he jumped down having knocked it loose. It lay scattered on the ground; a mark of white powder surrounded by sharp fragments. Whoops. He was going to pretend that had to do with his clumsiness and not his weight. Something odd tickled at the back of his brain while he considered where he'd gone wrong in sneaking. After dismissing his weight as the cause, the odd thing jumped to the forefront of his mind. Armando peeked over the edge again. He looked at the scattered shards. One in particular, the odd one, was standing straight up, its point stuck firmly in the ground. It was like a little knife. Even from the tree Armando could see how sharp the point was; how the sheered edge along one side gleamed wickedly.

The ice knife sparked an idea so Armando reached over the branch and pried one of the remaining icicles loose. He rolled it over in his paws and speculated about its uses. He could use it as a knife, that much was obvious. But would it be a good knife? Armando gripped the now slippery piece of ice with both paws and made a stabbing motion with it. It was light and stabby, sure, but very cold and very slick. If push came to shove Armando wasn't too sure it wouldn't squirt out of his paws when he needed it most. But, maybe in a pinch it would do?

Armando let the icicle slide from his paws and then quickly leaned down over the branch to watch it fall. The icicle flipped once, twice, and then shattered on the frozen mud below sending shards in all directions. He reached over and shook another icicle free. This one broke from the branch and fell straight down. Instead of shattering into a million pieces like its predecessors this one sliced right through the mud and embedded itself upright. The top and sides sheered off in the impact leaving - as far as he could tell - just the point and a ragged looking nub intact.

Intrigued, Armando began to climb down. Ice was a terrible weapon; no amount of dreaming would fix that ever. But, that didn't mean it wasn't worth messing with. The little panda had made a weapon a time or two and he knew a bit about knapping. Of course he'd never tried ice but now was as good a time as any. The pieces were right there. Now, what would he use against the ice? That was the first hurdle that needed to be addressed. The second would be figuring out how much oomph to put into the strikes to shape the ice without busting it.

He pried loose the icicle that hadn't shattered and then one of the bigger pieces that had sheered off it. In inspecting the pieces he wasn't surprised to find the point had shattered leaving just a raggedy nub. The other piece, however, was roughly dagger shaped and sized already. One edge, though warped and jagged, was quite sharp and it led to a neat little point that looked like it could do some damage. Armando dropped the broken point and focused on the dagger-shaped shard. Maybe if he was really, really careful he coul-

A crackle behind him alerted Armando to the presence of another. He spun and instinctively lit for the tree. It looked like he was going to make it, just one little leap separated him from safety, and then a fox leaped from the shadows and snatched him out of the air. The pair tumbled to the ground; Armando a shrieking flailing mess as he tried to fight through the snowy white fur for a glimpse of the sun or something. He could feel the fox's teeth on the top of his head as it searched for purchase. To escape it, Armando wriggled backwards; using his claws and the fox's belly to drag himself further under his attacker but away from its teeth. One back foot struck open air and he wrenched around to get his feet under him. The fox continued to smother his movements; biting at the top of his head and pinning him with its paws while he tried to hold its face away. He lay under it half on his back, half upright as he tried to pull himself free.

Where were those icicles? Armando let go of the fox's cheek with one paw to dig around for anything he could use as a weapon. He'd lost his bearings but those ice pieces were around here somewhere, they had to be!

His claw scraped something and out of desperation Armando lunged for it. He was taking a chance, he knew that, but he didn't want to die by fox, that was so undignified! And he still had so much to do; so much life to live! He was only 8 years young. At some point he was going to have to head home and show all those good for nothing homebody pandas just what they could do. By touch Armando recognized the shape of the ice dagger. The moment his claws were around it he brought it up and set to work stabbing the fox. The fox screamed, he screamed, and then he was covered in hot sticky blood. Armando kept stabbing. Somewhere along the way his screams turned into expletives. At some point the fox died. Armando didn't notice. Stuck in stabby terror mode, he could do nothing but stab and swear. Had he been able to stop and think he would have been forced to admit that yes, he had been wrong. Ice could be an effective weapon. And it could hold up to...shall we say, vigorous testing.