Side A – Yasgrid
Elshira departed just as she’d arrived, shadows melting back into nothingness, which left Yasgrid balanced between amusement and disappointment.
“Interesting that she should choose to face you at this juncture,” King said
“She didn’t,” Yasgrid said, picking up the sack of food she’d gathered and her water skin. “That was a projection into my mind’s eye. She has no idea where I am, and less then no interest in my discovering where she is.”
“What contact you at all then?” King asked, hopping onto the lowest branch of a tree along the path out of the clearing.
“To take stock of my condition? To search for any weaknesses she could play on? Maybe just to reassure herself that she could still manipulate me?” Yasgrid shrugged.
“You are unconcerned by this?” King wasn’t asking a question but did seem to be intrigued by the topic in general.
“It’s not a great sign. If she can show up at will to bother me, my life won’t be too pleasant from now to the solstice.”
“Need she be concerned you might strike back if she pursued such a course?” King asked.
“Yes and no,” Yasgrid said heading down an ever darkening path as the canopy of the Darkwood turned ancient and overgrown. “I have every reason to retaliate against her and she’s well aware of that. I don’t currently possess the ability to but she’s smart enough to know that can change if she presses me. On the other hand, it’s not like she can choose to avoid a conflict with me at this point, and for all that she’s still clinging to the rhetoric that I’m going to turn to her side, it’s clear that she’s starting to understand who I really am rather than who she was imagining me to be.”
“And this is helpful to your cause?” King asked.
“No. Not to my cause,” Yasgrid said, climbing easily over a fallen tree.
“A smile graces your visage in spite of that?” King asked.
“It doesn’t help me that Elshira is beginning to understand who I really am. It’s even a hindrance in the sense that it means her plans will start to be more predictive of my true reactions. I’m smiling though because the more she knows who I am, the more afraid she’s going to become. I’m smiling because, bit by bit, as she sees herself reflected in me, she’s going to lose the ability to deny what she really is.”
Yasgrid took advantage of the downward slope of the trail to build up speed and begin leaping from tree to tree, King easily keeping pace with her.
“And what is she?” he asked.
“She’s someone who justified everything she did by the successes she reaped,” Yasgrid said. “And then she lost. Everything. All of this, all that she’s doing with the Troubles and her whole plan to reclaim Endings? It’s for nothing more than to prove that she wasn’t wrong. That she didn’t really lose. That the horrors she perpetrated can still be excused, can be celebrated even. When she was alive, her ego was built on the pillar of her own greatness. Now though? Now that lie is all she has to sustain her entire existence and little by little it’s starting to crumble away.”
Side B – Nia
Nia had to laugh. It wasn’t a good laugh, or even a healthy laugh, but it was still a bit fun. The source of her mad giggling was the opposing team, the Shatter Band of Gray Rift. All eleven bajillion of them.
“This was not what we agreed to Helda,” Pelegar said, standing in front of the assembled Frost Harbor Shatter Band as though she could shield them all from the tidal wave of opposing drummers when the inevitable brawl began.
“Sure it is,” a woman about half Pelegar’s stature said. “You offered to come and get flattened in a Battle of the Bands and we agreed to provide you the beating you’ve deserved for years now.”
As Helda said that, she was scanning the small crowd of Shatter Drummers behind Pelegar and apparently not finding whatever she was looking for.
“I know we laid you out pretty bad last time, but you do remember how Battles go still right?” Pelegar asked. “Same number of drummers on each side? We can’t have knocked something that simple out of your head can we?”
“Oh I know how you like to do things, but here’s the counterpoint; too bad,” Helda said. “You came here for a Battle, and you’re getting a battle, and afterwards, while you’re picking up your teeth, you’re going to thank us for it.”
“And why, and I mean why exactly, would I do that?” Pelegar asked, her hand drifting suspiciously close to her Shatter Drum.
“You’ve already had plenty of wins – we’ve been keeping up – you know what you haven’t done though?”
“Put you in a full body cast again?” Pelegar asked.
“First, that wasn’t you, and second, shut up!” Helda said. “And third, and most importantly, you haven’t convinced anyone that you can handle your gods next year.”
“Like hell we haven’t!” Pelegar said. “We stuffed them back in the box this year and we’ll do it every year to come.”
“Maybe you will, and maybe you won’t,” Helda said. “The important thing is, we can see how many drummers you have. And we’ve heard about how many of them are still little fledglings. You know as well as I do that Frost Harbor would be lucky if another town annexed it and replenished your ragtag little band there.”
“I know no such thing, and if you’d like to setup a fair Battle, we’d be happy to prove it,” Pelegar said.
Helda laughed at that.
“A fair Battle? That’s the biggest sign you need to be annexed ever,” Helda said. “Battles aren’t fair. Life isn’t fair. If you think it is, then you’re definitely not ready to play at another Calling.”
“Does she think those infants she has could do any better?” Nia asked. “What is this? Bring your babies to work day?”
She could have asked the question softly to Margrada who was standing right beside her. She could have let Pelegar conduct whatever negotiations she had in mind still to try. She could have, but she most definitely did not and eleven bajillion heads all seemed to hear her just fine as the collective ire of the Gray Rift Shatter Band turned and focused on her.