Side A – Yasgrid
Yasgrid had a fair idea what she was going to find well before she burst through the treeline around the village she had no name for. From the scents on the air and the glare of the still leaping firelight, there wasn’t much doubt what sort of tragedy Elshira had wrought. Even bearing that knowledge though, Yasgrid wasn’t prepared for the sight of what the fire had done.
“You can’t go in there,” King said. “Not without being burned yourself.”
That seemed self-evident from how the ring of houses at the village’s edge were equally engulfed into flames which jumped ten feet above the tops of their roofs.
“That’s not natural fire,” Yasgrid said, feeling the Troubles within her begin to stir, not from any impulse of hers but in resonance with the Troubles who were taking shape within the survivors.
Yasgrid cursed.
Of course there were survivors.
Elshira hadn’t know Yasgrid was near. This was at best an opportunistic trap in terms of its ability to capture Yasgrid. The true aim had to be the creation of new Troubles to fill Elshira’s rapidly dwindling ranks.
How did Yasgrid know Elshira was losing Troubles were like a sieve losing sea water? Because Yasgrid was still sharing Endings with Kayelle and Kayelle hadn’t forsaken her vow yet. If anything, Yasgrid’s sense was that Kayelle was more intent on it than ever, likely as fallout from whatever she’d learned at Elshira’s tomb or from the Fate Dancer conclave which was held near it.
Yasgrid had been terribly tempted to reunite with the others after enough time had passed for them to deal with those unknowns. There were risks involved in doing so, but many of them could have been mitigated by using indirect channels of communication, such as King or even Nia perhaps.
To do that however would have revealed herself to Elshira, and with each step she’d taken, Yasgrid had grown more sure that when she struck, she wanted it to be a surprise bordering on terror for Elshira. Part of that was for the personal enjoyment of the act but Yasgrid also suspected that so long as the former-Bearer retained her rock solid core of self-certainty, defeating her permanently might actually be impossible.
Yasgrid sighed as she looked at the burning village.
There were survivors inside.
She could feel their terror echoing against the pain in the hearts of the Troubles she carried.
The villagers weren’t going to die though.
Elshira wasn’t going to be that merciful to them.
So, maybe even most, would live.
But none would be unscarred.
And the ones who did die? They would be the horrifying examples and the unbearable losses which would act as the catalysts for the Troubles to come.
Yasgrid could pass them by.
Should pass them by.
A few more Troubles under Elshira’s banner weren’t going to change the course of the war against her.
Conversely if Elshira was able to place where Yasgrid had been, Elshira would throw Troubles beyond count into Yasgrid’s path.
Worse, Elshira’s confidence that she could manipulate Yasgrid would reclaim the ground which had been crumbling away as Yasgrid stalked Elshira through the shadows.
That’s why it was the correct play to pass the village by.
Covering her face with her arms, Yasgrid leapt to the top of a burning building and jumped onwards as the flames caught on the fringers of her clothes.
Landing in the village center like a burning star, she looked around to find the three Troubles of Blood, Flame, and Ruin waiting for her.
Side B – Nia
There was supposed to be a brief warm-up period before the proper battle began. Each side was, according to the official rules, given five minutes to play on their own to be sure that each of their drums was in good order and to give the other side a taste of what their opponents were going to bring to the battle. It was a nice, civilized approach to conflict, at least as far as Stoneling culture was concerned. To Nia’s sensibilities it was well into the realm of barbarism and she loved it all the more for being so.
That might have been why, when it came Nia’s turn to check out her drum and one of the fledgling drummers on the other side decided to launch into an attack rhythm, Nia was entirely unsurprised.
In Shale Shard, she’d been jumped by three people at once. That hadn’t been a fair fight, and she’d only been able to piece herself back together through a highly inadvisable miracle. This time it was four people who piled in uninvited after the first, their drums sending blow after blow at her as though by pulverizing Nia before the match began they would enjoy a meaningfully greater advantage than their overwhelming numbers already granted them.
It was a horribly unfair battle again, and Nia did her absolute best not to let the wild grin which was bubbling up inside her show through.
Part of her glee stemmed from the ease with which she was able to ride out the attacks and bend their force towards where she wished it to be. She was only a fledgling drummer too, so there shouldn’t have been that great a gap between their relative skills, but Nia had trained with Pelegar and Margrada and the one and only Osdora Kaersbean and, if she let it, that training would show through all too clearly.
The other part of her glee, maybe even the greater part of it, came from the fact that none of the rest of the Shatter Band pitched in to help her when it became obvious that the other side was flagrantly violating the rules.
They would have, she knew. If she’d needed them. If they were worried about her. If she was showing any signs that she was in trouble.
Or any real signs.
The Frost Harbor Shatter Band had heard her play. They weren’t fooled by her performance, but, deliciously, the same was not true of their foes.
With an overly dramatic spasm of her shoulders, Nia reenacted one of the many, many, many times Margrada had knocked her on her butt and her foes ate it up. As she climbed back onto her seat, they were practically jumping all over themselves in glee at getting to be the ones to take the lead and score a win once the battle really began.
Their glee was contagious and soon a dozen or so eager pairs of hands were held at the ready, determined to be the one who took down Frost Harbor’s ‘weak link’ no matter who they had to step over to do so.
Margrada glanced at Nia and rolled her eyes. There was such a thing as making a battle too easy but Nia had moved past wanting to win. She had her eyes on an even bigger prize!