Side A – Yasgrid
Surprising a group of people who have an intuitive sense of the near future is not a fantastic method of making friends but is quite effective at influencing them, providing that the influence you seek to exert is to convince several of them to rush to their fallen comrade’s aid and proceed to pummel you mercilessly.
Yasgrid had considered simply putting up her guard and enduring the beating, especially since the Fate Dancers were only doing what she wanted them to. The problem with that was that she was rather angry with them, for a number of reasons.
The other guard was the first to leap into the fray, but that was entirely predictable.
As were the knives that appeared in Marianne’s confused hands.
“No. Mine. Just tell Naosha,” Yasgrid said, warning Marianne away and dodging out of the second guard’s grapple. Stonelings fought differently than Elves, which gave Yasgrid the advantage of unpredictability, not so much because the Fate Dancers couldn’t read what she was going to do but because her actions didn’t make as much sense as they should have.
Stoneling fighting techniques only got her so far though. For one thing she lacked the mass to properly hit like a Stoneling would and, for another, she’d never really been trained as a fighter. Everything she knew came from rough housing with Belhelen and some the other kids in Frost Harbor. Lastly there was the problem that even Stonelings found five-on-one to be bad odds, and the second guard’s call for help brought four other Fate Dancers leaping over the wall around their encampment all too quickly.
If she’s been willing to be brutal with the blows she was throwing, Yasgrid could possibly have handled two or three of them, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She’d provoked the fight as part of what was almost certainly a fairly addled plan to alert Kyra to the danger Elshira posed Continuing the fight though was about working out some of her pent up anger and frustration rather than anything particularly noble and even sensible.
The Fate Dancers must have sensed that on some fundamental level because while they grappled and punched and kicked at her, none of them drew their knives.
That was good for all concerned. Had the Fate Dancers decided to opt-in on murder, the fight would have gone a lot worse for them. Yasgrid had guessed that they were used to fighting Troubles who looked as far from being Elven as anything could, so the prospect of intentionally stabbing someone who looked they did was one where their natural reservations were still in play.
It still wasn’t pleasant however.
After Yasgrid managed to throw off a couple more of the crowd that came to the guards’ aid, she managed to get in an uppercut in exchange for the punch to her side that knocked half the wind out of her. She kicked an overeager Fate Dancer square in the chest, launching him back into the barricade and then took a solid hit to the side of her head. Dizzy, but still up she threw a punch that completely missed its target, followed by an elbow that didn’t and then there were too many people dragging her down for her to swing anymore.
Side B – Nia
Osdora wasn’t used to her daughter stepping directly up to her and glaring her in the eyes, even if the woman who was doing so wasn’t exactly her daughter and wasn’t physically present enough to menace a fly.
“You’re doing what?” she asked, taking an uncharacteristic half step back.
“We know where you’re going,” Nia said. “And I know how exactly how unwelcome people there are going to make you feel if you set food inside the Darkwood.”
“We also spoke to Yasgrid,” Margrada said. “She doesn’t want you to make this trip for her either.”
Osdora stared at them both, looking from one to the other as though unsure which to address first.
Gossma solved that for her.
“You don’t need to worry about that last point,” she said. “The rockhead promised she wasn’t going to mess up her daughter’s jam there.”
“Now, I didn’t promise that,” Osdora said. “I just not going to force her to come back with us.”
“If you need to talk to her, we can make that happen,” Nia said. “You don’t need to risk your life traveling to the Darkwood for that.”
“I don’t…” Osdora started to object but at Nia’s glare backtracked her statement. “Okay, talking to Yasgrid is something I need to do. Apparently something I’ve needed to do for a long time. I’m an idiot not to see the distance I put between us by being on the road all the time.”
“Oh you were plenty good at putting distance between yourself and everyone else even when you were in the same room,” Gossma said.
“Hey, whose side are you on?” Osdora frowned.
“Yours. Obviously,” Gossma said.
“Eh, fair enough,” Osdora said with a shrug. “I’ve got work to do with Yasgrid, but I also know that she’s got work to do too. Not with me. She doesn’t owe me anything. That’s not how being a parent works. It’s on me to make this right, but not when she’s got more important things she’s working on. So, yeah, if we happen to run into her, I’ll be there if she needs me. And if not, I’ll stay out of her hair.”
It was Nia’s turn to be puzzled.
“You can’t be crossing all those miles just for that,” she said. “Not when you’re needed here too.”
“I’m not. We’re not,” Osdora said, glancing over to Gossma before any objections could be raised. “This journey is about more than just us.”
“It’s about the music of the Darkwood,” Margrada said, her guess less uncertain than a question but still grasping at something indistinct.
Osdora glanced over to her, “you could hear it too, couldn’t you?”
Margrada shook her head. “No. Not clearly enough. Not the first time. I don’t know what you’re searching for but I know there’s something there.”
“There is,” Osdora said. “It’s the other side of Shatter Drumming.”