Side A – Yasgrid
Yasgrid was not drinking her tea. Yasgrid was not moving. Yasgrid was not breathing. Instead of anything as unnecessary as all that, Yasgrid’s full attention was focused on listening. Naosha, for her part, however was content to sip a bit more of her tea before continuing.
“You never mentioned that you had killed someone before,” Kayelle said, curiously calm and unaffected by the revelation.
No.
Yasgrid blinked and cleared that perception away. She was thinking like a Stoneling, even as she was struggling not to act like one. Kayelle’s quite, calm acceptance of Naosha’s statement wasn’t a sign that she was either calm or accepting of it. She was simply quiet, as Naosha was, because that was how she processed strong emotions. Usually.
Yasgrid reflected that their honest conversation outside of town had been a rare moment of openness for Kayelle. One that she might not see again unless she played her cards well.
“It was not something I wished either you or your sister to emulate,” Naosha said.
“It seems we may need to anyways,” Kayelle said. “Or perhaps this is more a matter of completing a work which has already been started?”
“That is the part that concerns me,” Naosha said. “I had believed my original arrangements were both thorough and effective, and I’m afraid I’m uncertain how to improve on the design.”
“Can…can you explain what the situation was?” Yasgrid asked, forcing her thoughts into the rough semblance of a coherent order.
“Yes, though I would ask that you summon my daughter Nia as well,” Naosha said. “She deserves to know of this too, and I would prefer to make only a single accounting of affair.”
Yasgrid blinked in surprise. She hadn’t mentioned the drumming miracle she and Nia had worked and couldn’t guess how Naosha had learned of it.
“I’m afraid I don’t have a Shatter Drum to work with and Nia is currently removed from the Band,” she said.
Naosha cast a puzzled glance at Yasgrid as though Yasgrid had answered a question which was completely off topic from the one which had been asked.
Which, Yasgrid saw, she had.
“I believe you mentioned that you could project your awarenesses to each other’s location at will? Is this ‘Shatter Drum’ a new requirement?” Naosha asked.
“Apologies. There has been a new development recently. Nia and I discovered a method of manifesting more fully in the other’s presence. It requires a form of magic native to my people. A form which Nia has grown startlingly proficient with,” Yasgrid said feeling a distant pride for Nia’s accomplishments. “We are still able to observe the other without magical assistance as we were before, though at the moment I believe Nia is somewhat distracted by an issue that’s arisen there.”
“An issue?” Naosha asked. “Is she in any danger?”
“No. Or at least no more so than at any other time on the road, and from nothing specific in this case,” Yasgrid said. “At the moment she is trying to retrieve someone who has gone missing.”
“And this presents no danger to her?” Naosha asked. Where Kayelle had been calm, Naosha was serene.
But outward serenity was a shield Naosha wielded.
For just an instant, Yasgrid caught sight of the maelstrom that churned within Naosha M’Kellin and understood just how terrible the worry that was tearing her apart was.
Side B – Nia
Nia felt her worry for Osdora rapidly sliding into the same frustration that Yasgrid had been laboring under.
“Wings?” Margrada asked, no happier with the claim than Nia had been.
“Yeah. Wings.” the tavern keeper said.
“You’re saying, she came here, wrecked the place, and then grew wings and flew away?” Margrada’s tone suggested that a more likely explanation would be the tavern keeper had gone on an all-night bender and hallucinated the whole thing, which Nia had to admit seemed to be more plausible.
“Grow? No, don’t be stupid. She called ‘em.”
“Called wings?” Nia asked, still perplexed at what the tavern keeper was saying.
His response was a grunt of irritation followed by pointing at the ground behind Nia and Margrada.
“What?” Margrada asked, turning to glance behind them. “I don’t see any wings there?”
But Nia did.
Or not wings exactly, but the indication of their presence.
Feathers.
Feathers that were unfortunately familiar.
Nia had seen quite a few of them before when she’d been cleaning up the remains of the Cloud Divers she’d exploded with her illicit drum playing.
“When you say ‘she summoned them’, how many did she call?” Nia asked.
“I don’t know, a lot. All of them? I wasn’t exactly trying to count ‘em up. Had better things to do trying to keep myself and all the other people from getting torn apart by those damn things,” the tavern keeper said.
“What damn things?” Margrada asked, switching her gaze between the tavern keeper and Mia.
“Cloud Divers. I think Osdora called a bunch of them to carry her away,” Nia said. “It would save a lot of time to be able to fly from peak to peak here and not bother with following the roads.”
“I’m sure that’s very nice and pretty for her. Crazy madwoman was laughing with glee when they took her away. Doesn’t explain why she needed to ransack my kitchen for half the fresh steaks I had in stock, or why she stole five of my ale barrels and gave ‘em to those damn birds.”
“Oh, huh, I suppose that makes sense,” Margrada said.
“You know how she did it?” Nia asked.
“I mean, not exactly, but the general shape of it makes sense. She didn’t create them from Shatter Drumming magic or anything. She just used the drum to get their attention and bring them to a spot where she could make a deal with them. It’s…well, okay it’s a tricky thing to play but I can see how Osdora could manage it.”
“Could you manage it?” Nia asked. “Because I think that’s the only chance we have to catch up to her.”
Margrada favored her with a wicked smile.
“Well there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”