Side A – Nia
Following the marching Troubles to their destination wasn’t a long trip. As a squirrel, Nia had expected the distances to seem as vast as the increased scale of everything else, but she found keeping up with the Troubles even more effortless than it would have been in her Elven body. One thing bothered her though.
“You know, I’m not hearing any other wildlife around us,” she said, speaking in the whispers that only Yasgrid could hear.
“The air seems wrong here too,” Yasgrid said, alighting on a branch beside Nia. “I don’t think it’s a smell thing. It’s like it’s gummy or sticky here?”
“Elshira’s magic?” Having run past the limits of what her Shatter Drumming magic could, or perhaps should, do, Nia was more than a little worried that something could arise that she simply wouldn’t have the answer for.
To an extent of course, that was already true, as witness by the squirrel and wren bodies she and Yasgrid seemed to be trapped in, but given where they’d wound up, Nia wasn’t entirely sure that was an unintentional side effect of the song she’d been weaving.
“I don’t know if it’s hers,” Yasgrid said. “Or if it’s even magic. This place feels distorted? Or thin? I don’t know. My senses are wild in this body and I’m not sure how to interpret it yet.”
“Should we go back?” Nia asked, the hairs on her tail growing ever more aware of the danger which surrounded them.
“I don’t feel like that would be any safer,” Yasgrid said. She was watching all around them, but Nia could feel her attention being directed towards the back of the small clearing they’d followed the Troubles too.
Against one of the great trees a pile of withered and broken branches had been lumped into an empty throne. There were no signs of embers or any licks of flame on the throne but an ash wind blew ruffling Nia’s hairs and filling them with with the miasma of death.
Nia was about to suggest that leaving had to be safer than staying since they would at least have a headstart on running away. Her words and breath were taken away though by the green fire that burst from the sides of the throne.
“She’s almost here,” Yasgrid said and the hard, cold edges to her words left no doubt about who ‘she’ might be.
From the throne, the green flames leapt to branches and leaves around the clearing, turning each into a torch which did more to obscure than illuminate the area.
The Troubles who’d marched to the clearing dropped to whatever approximation of their knees they possessed and began to hum a discordant and baleful series of ululations.
“Should we stop them?” Nia asked. She had no idea how they would stop several dozen Troubles from doing anything, but the longer the she heard their song building the more certain she became that doing so would be the right thing no matter the cost.
The stomach wrenching feeling only intensified when the flames were extinguished in the blink of an eye and the throne was no longer empty.
Side B – Yasgrid
The urge to fly down and peck Elshira’s eyes out filled Yasgrid’s hollow bones the moment Elshira took the the throne. The only thing that prevented Yasgrid from acting on her anger was the fact that Elshira didn’t have any eyes in her current form.
“She’s not looking even a little bit alive,” Nia said. “I thought when you met her she was more…”
“I don’t think this is what she really looks like,” Yasgrid said, positioning herself onto the same branch as Nia. “I don’t think how I saw her before is her real appearance either.”
“She’s playing to her audience?” Nia asked.
“It seems like it, but if she can command the Troubles, I’m not sure why she would need to?”
Elshira rose before Nia could offer any guesses but the Troubles remained down on one knee.
“Witherheart, test them,” Elshira said, speaking to one of the two Trouble’s who’d moved to stand beside her throne. “One of them must have found her by now.”
The Trouble named Witherheart rose from his kneeling posture, straightening into a form which resembled a nine foot tall unwrapped, mummified Elf.
Without asking for any clarification of Elshira’s order, Witherheart began to walk among the bowing assembly. As he passed each of the cultists, he sank a taproot of shadows in whatever passed for their heads.
“No memories,” he said for the first one. “No memories,” he said for the second. “A memory but too old.”
Yasgrid tried to recall if she’d seen any of the Troubles in her travels, under the assumption that they were looking for her.
It wasn’t perhaps a good assumption. Yasgrid knew that Elshira could be searching for a wide number of different people. In fact, Yasgrid was likely not in the Top 5 of the people Elshira most needed to be keeping an eye out for. If Elshira was as brilliant as she’d wanted people to think she was, the hunt would be on for Naosha M’Kellin, who Yasgrid was fairly sure was already sabotaging the web that Elshira was trying to weave. That would be a much smarter play than wasting time on a Bearer who’d left Endings behind and wandered around in the Darkwood until she’d collapsed of exhaustion.
“A memory,” Witherheart said and Yasgrid’s attention was riveted on the Trouble he was standing near. “But it is of the wrong Bearer.”
Yasgrid saw Elshira squeeze her fists in frustration.
Because of course she was hunting for Yasgrid.
And thanks to Nia’s Shatter Drumming, Yasgrid was beyond her reach. Possibly. There was no telling if the Shatter Drum song’s protections persisted after the song stopped, or if their current odd incarnations were enough to confuse Elshira’s scrying and tracking capabilities.
“Bring that one here,” Elshira commanded.
Witherheart heart helped the Trouble rise – it hadn’t been built for kneeling – and escorted it to the base of the throne.
“You saw the Bearer?” Elshira asked.
The Trouble turned its face to her, twisting its head beyond what any human could have managed before rocking it back and forth in its version of ‘speaking’.
“And what brought you near Kayelle?” Elshira asked but amended herself before the Trouble could answer. “No, I need to be specific. What brought you near Kayelle when I explicitly ordered you to stay at least a day distant from her?”
The Trouble responded wordlessly again.
“Oh. There was a child? An unguarded child? No. Not a child. A young woman? A young woman with knives? Yes I know the knives couldn’t hurt you. Oh? They could? How curious. And the Bearer found you while you were fighting this young woman? No, I see. She laid a trap for you? And you came back here after you escaped her? But it’s okay because you crossed over the Night River? Yes. Yes. I see.”
Elshira buried her face in her hands for a moment.
Without any warning or explanation, she stretched forth her hand and the Trouble’s body was torn to shred leaving a tongue of fire beating in the air.
“Let this be an example,” Elshira said. “When I give an order I expect it to be followed, no matter how it may conflict with your nature or desires.”
And then she drew the tongue of flame to her mouth and devoured it.