Side A – Yasgrid
Birds were not meant to fly alongside cats, but Yasgrid didn’t even pause to consider the danger she might be in.
“You have adopted a new guise?” King asked as he bounded effortlessly from branch to branch, matching pace with the fleeing Nia-squirrel and the Trouble who pursued her.
“You know who we are?” Yasgrid asked, speaking to King as silently as she spoke to Nia.
“How would I not?” King asked. “You may be wearing a different form, but you are no different than you have ever been.”
Yasgrid wasn’t sure that was true. Not at all. She knew who she’d been. Though her present body was the smallest she’d ever inhabited, she couldn’t help but feel she’d been growing larger every day since the New Year. Looking back she could barely recognize the girl who’d been so concerned about playing in the Calling that she’d lost days of sleep over it.
“Can you help us here?” she asked, trying to practice the recent lesson she’d learned about not taking everything on herself.
“With what?” King asked.
“The Trouble we’re following, it knows that we’re not the animals we appear to be. If it tells Elshira that, she’ll know to start looking out for us as a wren and a squirrel.”
“Hmm, yes, I believe I can grant you that boon,” King said and with less leisurely leap, bounded forward so fast the image of him faded away mid-leap. “Come meet me on the bridge ahead.” His words sounded like a distant echo despite being purely mental.
“Did you hear that?” Yasgrid asked Nia.
“Yep. Meet him on the bridge.”
“Do you see a bridge ahead?”
“Nope.”
“That’s not promising.”
“At least the Trouble’s still chasing me,” Nia said. “If it loses interest we’re going to have a problem.”
“If I see it veer off, I’m going for it’s eyes,” Yasgrid said.
“I’m not sure it even knows you’re following us,” Nia said. “Whenever I glance behind, I’m not seeing you at all.”
“I’m maybe twenty feet behind the Trouble,” Yasgrid said, winging tightly around a tree.
“I can’t spend too long looking over my shoulder,” Nia said. “I don’t know these trees and everything looks really weird at this size.”
“You’re doing a good job dodging it. I’ve lost sight of you five times so far when you zigged around a trunk.”
“Really? I was hoping that would make me look more like a normal squirrel. I didn’t think I was even managing to break line of sight with you two though. Not with how fast the Trouble makes it around the tree after I have.”
“You’re out of sight for at least two seconds and its taking me a lot longer than that to spot you. The Trouble doesn’t seem to be having that problem though,” Yasgrid said as a suspicion began to form in her mind. “Can I ask you to try something dangerous?”
“You probably shouldn’t,” Nia said, a mischievous mirth in her mental voice, “because you know I’m going to say yes.”
Side B – Nia
Nia was ready for Yasgrid to ask her to turn and fight the Trouble. She was more than ready for that. Running away was all well and good but squirrel bodies were not built for long distance marathons and no matter how far she ran, the Trouble was going to remain the same problem as it already was.
“I want you to stop running,” Yasgrid said. “Stop and close your eyes and think of Gaeldon’s Third Drumming Patterns Set.”
Nia almost fell off the branch she’d just landed on.
“You want me to practice Shattering Drumming warmups in my head with my eyes closed? Instead of staying out of the Trouble’s reach?” she asked, because that was too ridiculous of a request not to get clarification on.
“Yes. Exactly that. Imagine my Mom and Pelegar are both there,” Yasgrid said.
“They’re grading me?” Nia asked.
“Oh no. They just want to hear you play,” Yasgrid said.
“Ugh. That’s worse.”
“Yeah. Can you do it?”
“For you?” It wasn’t really a question.
Nia started the first of Gaeldorn’s set before she landed. By the time her claws had dug into the bark of the tree she’d targeted, she had her eyes closed and could feel her heart starting to match the rhythm of the practice set she was imagining.
She didn’t think about the Trouble. Not about its claws, or it’s ratty fangs, or its ripped and oozing bulk. She couldn’t. Even imagining Osdora and Pelegar standing beside her left Nia painfully aware of the standards they’d be judging her by. If she couldn’t conjure the beats perfectly from memory after the hundreds of time Pelegar had drilled her on them, she’d never be able to truly claim mastery of the drums.
Of course her mastery of the drums of the drums also could have been cut short by a Trouble tearing her limb from limb, but that didn’t happen.
Nia barely felt the Trouble’s passing, she was so deeply sunk into sounding out the practice sets in her head the outside world was almost entirely separate from her.
“Okay, wow, that actually worked! You can open your eyes, the Trouble’s lost your trail” Yasgrid said.
Nia finished up the set she was on first, the lingering imaginations of Osdora and Pelegar demanding she do at least that much.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“Nothing. That was all you.”
“All me how? I don’t get it?”
“The Trouble knew what we were feeling. It was in tune with what we really are, at least to some degree. That made me think it wasn’t following your body. I think it was following your mind instead.”
“How did you know the practice sets would throw it off the scent.”
“I remember training on Gaeldorn,” Yasgrid said. “If you need something to quiet your other thoughts, and something a Trouble won’t recognize, that seemed like an excellent choice.”
“That still leaves us with a Trouble that knows a wren and a squirrel are not what they seem to be though,” Nia said.
“King said he could help with that,” Yasgrid said, “and checkout what’s over there.”
With a wing she pointed towards a badly aged and weather bridge running over a brackish little river.
They bounded and flew to it, landing on its center point, only to notice a distinct lack of cats-made-of-shadow.
Nia turned to ask Yasgrid if she had any idea where King might be when the world went dark and claws stabbed through her in what was a decidedly fatal manner.