Side A – Nia
The town of Gray Rift was no more. In its place something new and wondrous stood.
But that wasn’t much comfort to the people who needed a roof over their heads and food on their table.
“Quite the interesting location you’ve brought us to,” Elgi said.
“The statue is talking now?” Margrada asked. “I thought we were trying to bring an elf across to this side.”
“I did,” Nia said, “This is Elgi. They were the one who was trapped inside the song.”
“Why are they still made out of stone then?” Pelegar asked.
“I am? Oh, yes, I seem to be quite rocky in complexion now,” Elgi said.
“They’re moving though,” Margrada said. “How are they moving?”
“Rocks don’t move here?” Elgi asked. “I had thought they might if you all are called Stonelings? But I see you’re not literally stone. Unless you are a very odd form of stone?”
“We’re not made of rocks,” Pelegar said. “Nia, what did you do?”
“Fixed things,” Nia said, keenly aware that things were far from fixed.
“Come again?” Pelegar expected better answers than that but Nia wasn’t sure she had those to give.
“You were in there a while,” Margrada said.
“Sorry. I tried a bunch of things but nothing was working,” Nia said.
“What did you do?” Pelegar asked again.
“She showed me how to play a drum,” Elgi said.
“I’m sorry, what? Did you say she had you start drumming? Have you ever touched a Shatter Drum before?” Pelegar asked.
“What’s a Shatter Drum?” Elgi asked.
“It’s not what you think,” Nia said, answering Pelegar’s question rather than Elgi’s. “We weren’t working with the Shatter Drum. I was playing, uh, the universe? Or myself? I don’t have the words to really describe it.”
“Look for them,” Pelegar said.
“I think I can help her,” Margrada said. “I could hear her, after a while anyways. Her body was out here but I think she was inside the song’s magic. She didn’t have to play to touch the drum because she was already a part of the music. If she hit anything she would have been adding a beat to the song’s flow.”
“She would have been slipping back and forth with every beat if that was true,” Pelegar said. “Her senses would have been shaken to pieces. She would have been shaken to pieces.”
“I wasn’t going back and forth between the song and here,” Nia said. “I was in the song, full time. Lost there. It took a long time until I could pick out even the faintest echoes of the beats you and Margrada were laying down. And even then, I couldn’t budge the song at all. It was too big.”
“So what did you do?” Pelegar asked, her gaze burrowing into Nia searching for some kind of confession.
“I couldn’t change the song, so I went with it,” Nia said. “It’s a living thing, created from the joy we all felt at bridging the gap between here and the Darkwood. I rode that back here by offering the song a look at the memories I have of both places.”
“And now it wants even more of them,” Margrada said, gesturing to the edge of the strange melding effect they were at the center of. The strange melding effect which was creeping outwards inch by transformative inch.
Side B – Yasgrid
Yasgrid was surrounded. And outnumbered. And things were not going to go well for anyone if she didn’t change that.
“I really scared you didn’t I?” she asked Elshira, pointedly ignoring the small army of Fate Dancers who were backing the ghost up.
“Your perversion has forced our hand in this,” a middle aged elf said.
Yasgrid tagged him as the leader of the strike team of Fate Dancers, though not their ultimate masters.
“It’s surprising,” Yasgrid said. “I hadn’t thought you would be willing to bend your knee to anyone. Not when you have so many cards left to play.”
The Fate Dancers wouldn’t care about the hostages which Elshira held, so Yasgrid didn’t bother to name them directly.
Also, it occurred to Yasgrid, Elshira might not have control of them anymore?
“If you come quietly, you will be given a chance to speak at your trial,” the strike force leader said.
“This is an excellent trap,” Yasgrid said, her admiration of Elshira’s work open and honest. “There aren’t many good options open to me at all are there?”
Elshira remained silent, clearly savoring the moment.
If Yasgrid struck back against the Fate Dancers, she would be confirmed as a monster in the eyes of all within the Darkwood. If she didn’t, they would capture her and put her on trial before a jury who had decided her fate the moment she took up Endings and become a Bearer.
And then there was the crone to think about.
Whatever Elshira had taught the Fate Dancers, it was sure to be enough to let them do horrible things to a Trouble like the crone.
Which meant the only option was to flee.
Except the Fate Dancers were faster than her.
And they could run along unseen paths and get ahead of her no matter where she ran.
Nothing was ever simple.
A part of Yasgrid, a dark and tired and angry part, offered her another path forward.
Elshira feared her for a reason.
The Fate Dancers were afraid of her too, but not for the right reasons. What they imagined she had done to the Troubles was so much less than what she had actually dared to do.
And the Troubles weren’t the only allies she’d made.
She didn’t need to run at all.
All she had to do was make one simple choice and it would be the Fate Dancers turns to run.
And none of them would escape.
That’s not who we’re going to be, she whispered in voiceless words to the terrible things which had hoped for a different resolution.
Instead she turned to the crone.
The crone who very definitely did not want to be here and who had no interest in experiencing whatever the Fate Dancers had in store for them.
“I’ll remember this one,” Yasgrid said, speaking to Elshira without looking at her. “I’ll remember how low you were willing to stoop.”
“You will remember nothing. You will be nothing when they are through with you,” Elshira said, her confidence wavering at the last.
“Save those words for when next we meet,” Yasgrid said and turned to point at the ghost. “Because I am still coming for you.”
Dropping her hand, she took the crone’s hand in her own and pulled away all but one of the constraints which bound the Trouble.
And the old woman changed.
On wings of black fire, the two soared into the sky and were gone before the Fate Dancers could so much as blink.