Side A – Nia
Gray Rift hadn’t yet officially been renamed to the Crystal Bower but from the discussions that Nia heard as she and Margrada walked through the makeshift camp setup outside the city’s borders it was starting to sound like it was a foregone conclusion that it would be.
“It feels weird that people aren’t more upset about losing their homes,” she said in a low voice. Reminding the hundreds of people around her that she was responsible, in part, for their current plight didn’t seem like it even approached being a wise move.
“I’m not sure they have,” Margrada said, pointing to a workgroup of a half dozen Stonelings were were carrying the wall of a house to a freshly laid set of foundation stones.
“But that’s just…” Nia started to say before seeing a half dozen other similar work crews toiling away at similar tasks. “But what is the zone keeps expanding?”
Margrada laughed.
“Elf,” was all she said, though she punched Nia in the shoulder as punctuation.
“What? We’ve seen the effect moving,” Nia said. “It’s not fast but it’s growing.”
“Exactly,” Margrada said and offered no more, clearly delighted to be teasing her girlfriend.
“Is this some Stoneling thing were you like manual labor so much that having a perpetual excuse to drag you town ten feet farther away every day is seen as a good thing?” Nia asked, puzzled because Stonelings seemed no more fond of needless labor than the Elves she’d known where.
Margrada chuffed a disbelieving laugh again.
“Nobody likes doing this kind of stuff,” she said, but turned to let a work crew pass who were all singing a song so badly off key that it could only have been one they truly loved. “Okay, almost nobody,” she amended. “It’s a slow problem though.”
Margrada paused and looked over at Nia for confirmation that her explanation had made sense. Nia offered her the blankest of stares in exchange and debated calling on Yasgrid to explain this oddity of Stoneling psychology.
It seemed like an age since she’d needed to do that. Long enough that she’d managed to fool herself into thinking that she’d more or less become a Stoneling too, which in retrospect was a trifle silly. Less than half a year was not a long enough time span to absorb the entirety of a culture, or, if her guess was right, even all of the core fundamentals of one.
Seeing her confusion, Margrada relented at last.
“This is a slow problem,” she said. “Slow problems are ones that can be fixed. You can stop them, or change them, or adapt to them. People don’t worry about them, especially when a Shatter Band is involved because they know we can work it out.”
“Can we though?” Nia asked, the sting of being helpless in the face of the song within the drums still shaking her confidence.
“Alone? No. Never. But you bridged the gap between here and the Darkwood to save an entire town,” Margrada said. “And that was with a bunch of untrained drum slammers. Just imagine what we can do with some real players to work with. Imagine what happens if we’re on one end of things and Osdora on the other?”
Side B – Yasgrid
The first Fate Dancer caught Yasgrid in a place she wasn’t supposed to be. That, as it turned out, was more the Fate Dancer’s problem than Yasgrid’s though.
“There are no paths which lead to the Shadowed Glens,” the woman with gleaming metal blades for fingers and eyes of an endless moon-touched abyss said. “And yet, here in my webs I find not one but two visitors.”
She trailed a long blade so gently along Yasgrid’s cheek that not a single drop of blood was drawn.
“Neither of whom are welcome here,” Ilia said, turning to the Fate Dancer and cradling with the five blades of her left hand encasing his head.
“Neither of us expected to be welcomed,” Yasgrid said. “And unless I’m mistaken, the last thing he will do is plead his case with you.”
“Of course not,” Ilia said. “I am anathema to all. None are so mad as to treat with me.”
“Is that what you see?” Yasgrid asked.
She was bound in stands of moonlight which clung to every joint and bend in her body. The trap had been expertly crafted, invisible even to Endings’ eyes and so instantaneous in deployment that avoiding it had been impossible.
Yasgrid was inordinately pleased with that. If she’d guessed wrong about the Shadowed Glen’s defenses, the Fate Dancers would have caught up with her en masse and that would have been a most unfortunate turn of events.
“I have seen more winters than have fallen,” Ilia said. “I know what you are and I know what I am.”
“How does Denar fare?” Yasgrid asked, both as a subtle rejoinder against the idea that no one would deal with Ilia and because she was genuinely curious as to how the boy was doing.
“He is well,” Ilia said, her gaze narrowing in mild annoyance at losing a point in their unacknowledged debate.
“Thank you,” Yasgrid said.
“For what?” Ilia asked, releasing her hold on the Fate Dancer and stalking across the glen to loom over Yasgrid’s bound form.
“You’ve taken better care of him than I could have,” Yasgrid said. “I was wrong to try to win him back to the side of the Fate Dancers. They’re the ones who’ve changed, not him.”
“And how would you know that they are not as they were intended to be?” Ilia asked.
“You know who and what they have fallen in league with,” Yasgrid said. “You know that she wishes to change the Darkwood.”
“As do you,” Ilia said.
“My change has already begun,” Yasgrid said. “The difference is, I will not leave anyone behind.”
“Those are noble words, but there are always those who are left behind,” Ilia said. “It’s intrinsic in the design of who you the Elves are.”
“You had no hand in designing me,” Yasgrid said, playing a hunch for all it was worth.
“You suppose you know what I am?” Ilia asked.
“I suppose I know what you were, Divine One, what I propose however is that none one knows what you might yet be.”