Side A – Yasgrid
There comes a time in every meandering journey where the meandering needs to stop. Yasgrid had reached that point two days prior and she was still meandering.
“Fascinating little shrub you’ve got there,” Ilia said, appearing at Yasgrid’s elbow not by magic but simply by walking up while Yasgrid’s attention was entirely displaced from her surroundings.
The funny thing was that Yasgrid had been capable of projecting her awareness across thousands of miles for months, and even when she did that she usually remained at least lightly aware of what was happening around her in the Darkwood.
Which was the problem.
“It is,” she said. “Do you know why?”
“Because we’ve walked past it roughly a dozen times in the last two days?” Ilia said.
“Fifteen,” Yasgrid didn’t look away from the shrub, but she could feel Ilia rolling her eyes. “Fifteen times in the last two days and I’m pretty sure we passed it four times before then.”
“Planning to keep going for twenty or twenty four?” Ilia leaned over to try to catch Yasgrid’s eye. “People seem to like round numbers for some reason.”
“I’d sound like an idiot if I said that was exactly my plan wouldn’t I?”
“And that would stop you?” Ilia wasn’t succeeding in catching Yasgrid’s attention largely because Yasgrid refused to even blink as she inspected the seemingly innocuous shrub.
“Probably not. If I had a good reason. Or something I thought was a good reason. But in this case I don’t.”
“So you’re going to stare at it instead? I suppose that’s a little easier than walking. Shall we setup camp here then? There’s a nice little space on the back side of the Cyvault tree over there.”
Because of course there was. Wherever they traveled there was always a comfortable little spot that just happened to be nice and secluded. Exactly what people trying to avoid a small army of Fate Dancers and large army of Troubles might be looking for.
Yasgrid wondered if the hidden refuges had existed prior to their arrival and were simply cloaked from all perception or if the Darkwood was somehow manufacturing them on the fly. Either seemed possible even if Yasgrid was at a loss for why she and her companions were being allowed to stumble on them.
“I’m not staring, I’m watching,” Yasgrid said, as though there was a deep and meaningful difference between the two.
“And what might you be watching a shrub for?” Ilia asked, sitting down beside the shrub so that Yasgrid couldn’t help but see her.
“I want to see when it moves,” Yasgrid.
“Shrubs tend to do that when the wind blows. See. Look. It’s moving a bit now.”
“That’s not the sort of movement I’m looking for.” Not that Yasgrid was certain exactly what she was looking for, she could simply feel the shape of it.
There was a fluidity and flexibility to the Darkwood that she wasn’t sure anyone else saw. The Elves didn’t seem to be aware of it, or talk about it. Even the Fate Dancers seemed to think that the tricks they pulled with distance required traveling through lands which were stitched onto the Darkwood in odd, unknowable ways.
What Yasgrid was looking for wasn’t supernatural though, at least not insofar as it was an intrinsic part of the Darkwood and so therefor as natural as it was possible to be under the circumstances.
“I don’t think it will…” Ilia began to say but was cut off when the shrub flickered, rippled and was gone.
In its wake a patch of ground was left scalloped from the landscape in its bowl lay a pillow of mushroom caps and a spider silk blanket.
Side B – Nia
The magic Nia had been holding in flowed out of her, directed by the single word she’d spoked.
“MINE.”
The Trouble that she’d drawn into her heart was a problem.
Not a shocking concept. That was the whole purpose of Troubles after all.
There were various methods by which Nia could have addressed that problem
Nearly all of them were horrible.
Destroying the Trouble. Casting it back to the Darkwood. Turning into a weapon to wield against the one who had sent it against her. Any of those approaches would have been effective.
And all of them would have denied the truth that lay within the Trouble.
Yasgrid had shown Nia that a “Trouble” wasn’t simply a monster. Their behavior was monstrous and their purpose was worse, but the only monsters were the gods who’d shackled them into being what they were.
Within the depths of a “Trouble” lay something wrapped in chains of agony and anguish. Something that had done nothing to deserve its torment than be in the wrong place and possess the capability of being molded into a useful tool.
The Heart of a Trouble could be unburdened though. It could be shorn from the divine bonds of suffering and servitude that defined is existence.
With time those Hearts could find peace and a path forward which led them back to the celestial realms.
Caught in the middle of her song, Nia’s options for granting the Trouble which was burning her up that sort of peace were limited, so she fixed the problem in the most direct manner she could.
The magic of the Shatter Drum ripped forth from her and seized the Trouble, divine magics and Trouble Heart both.
Against the aeons old working of the Elven Gods, Nia cast one spare beat from her drum and her fury over what they had done.
With unyielding hands she wrenched the bonds around the Trouble not to break them but to pull them free from the ties to their dominion.
The divine will inscribed in those bonds fought back against her, claiming the Trouble and all of its malice as the property of the bond’s creators.
Nia shattered that claim.
She’d fought gods her first day behind a Shatter Drum and she’d grown so much stronger since then.
The Trouble was no longer trying to destroy her, could no longer destroy her. And no longer did it suffer in fire and despair.
It was hers, and all Nia wished for the Trouble was for it to be free at last.