Side A – Yasgrid
Is giving in to the lure of the flames a good idea? Ever? Yasgrid was reasonably certain the answer was no, but she had to admit that an urge which had persisted in both her an Nia’s species since, apparently, their creation, had to come from somewhere.
For Stonelings, that was probably the fault of their gods, the ones the Stonelings had bound up in volcanoes from the dawn of the world, which was more than enough evidence that the urge to jump into the flames was one not to be followed.
But they were pretty though.
“Should we try to get people to move back a bit?” Belhelen asked and Yasgrid noticed that several members of the crowd had been drifting closer to the burning house.
People gathering around a fire was nothing new, and crowds pressing close to something wasn’t either, but typically the heat from a fire served to create a reasonable boundary to how close the crowd would approach it and that was not happening.
“Yes. See if you can get them to make room for the bucket line. Or better still join one,” Naosha said, standing beside one of Gray Falls council women who was leading a series of Stonelings and Elves arranged into two lines.
The Stonelings made sense to Yasgrid. This was their town and they were capable of transporting far greater quantities of water than the Elves were.
At least physically.
With Belhelen’s help, Nia and Margrada herded the onlookers away from the street which lead to the nearest Great Well, allowing the line of Stonelings Naosha had assembled to begin hurling bucketfuls of water onto the blazing building. The Elves, meanwhile, began their casting and called a steady hose of water from the Great Well which the four Elves at the head of the line directed into the building towards the burning dancers.
Yasgrid tensed for the meeting between fire and water. The fire wasn’t in any sense natural, and her instincts told her not to expect the flames to react to being doused in any natural manner either.
Which, technically, was exactly what happened.
At first, the water from the Elven water hose and the Stoneling buckets burst into steam before coming within an arm’s length of the flames. When the Stonelings and Elves continued however, the flames simply went out like a candle. One moment there was a bright roar throughout the building and the next every last lick of fire had been extinguished.
It took a minute for that to be communicated down the water line – in part because no one seemed to believe that the fire had really been doused so easily. It wasn’t until the people who’d been dancing inside the house stumbled out, bleary eyed and confused (and been thoroughly doused by the Stonelings and the Elves) that the residual fascination from the flames broke and the crowd started to wander on to the tasks the day held for them.
Yasgrid was tempted to stay and discover just what had happened, but Kyra grabbed her hand and tugged her away as well.
“This was a drumming problem, we should probably let the drummers handle it don’t you think?”
Side B – Nia
Nia couldn’t help but agree with Kyra, even though that left her squarely in the middle of figuring out exactly what had just happened.
Or did it? Margrada, apparently inspired by Kyra, had latched onto Nia’s hand and was dragging her away too, something Nia felt just a touch guilty about accepting.
“Pelegar and Osdora can handle questioning the drummers. If we stay, we’re just going to attract a new crowd,” Margrada said, dragging the weakly resisting Nia in the opposite direction most of the crowd was dispersing. “And we’ve got our own preparations to make.”
“We do?” Nia asked, her imagination still tangled up in the mystery the fire represented.
“You have some Fate Dancers to go help, right?” Margrada asked. “And I need to get back to Frost Harbor so I can tell my grandmother about our engagement. And pick out an engagement gift for you.”
“Oh, wait, engagement gift?” Nia asked, her mind slamming back with joyful ease to the idea that she was going to be marrying the woman who was walking beside her.
“Does your family not do that? Fiances give each other something of their own to wear to show they’re joining together to make a new house?” Margrada asked.
“Oh, uh, sorta?” Nia said. “Different towns do different things. I like your idea though!”
The obvious problem of what she could give Margrada jumped immediately to mind, given that any clothing Nia had which would hit Margrada was really more Yasgrid’s clothing since Nia hadn’t exactly chosen a new wardrobe for herself given how long she’d spent trying to pretend to be Yasgrid.
She was going back to the Darkwood though, so pilfering from her old clothes to look for something to give Margrada was a possibility. In theory at least. In practice Nia’s old clothes wouldn’t even work as extremely revealing nightwear for Margrada.
That was a problem Nia could find a solution to though.
A nice, normal problem.
One that neither needed, nor called, for Sorcery or Shatter Drumming.
Unlike the Fate Dancers.
Probably?
Nia thought back to the fire and wondered if anyone had tried simply dumping a bucket of water over the heads of the sleeping Fate Dancers? Whether it worked or not, it certainly seemed like something that was worth trying. A few times in fact.
“Your thinking something mean aren’t you?” Margrada asked.
“No.” Nia’s objection lacked even the slightest bit of sincerity. “You just reminded me about the Fate Dancers.”
“Oh. Carry on then, from what Kyra was saying you can think whatever mean thoughts you want to about them.”
“You two have been talking?” Nia asked, trying to picture what the two would have had to talk about aside from herself.
“We had an early breakfast after you two abandoned us today,” Margrada said. “She had all kinds of interesting things to tell me about you in fact.”
Nia was pretty certain she’d changed her own future to their point where a Fate Dancer couldn’t have read it. Her past on the other hand though? Every memory of every embarrassing moment rose at once clamouring for her attention and claiming they must have been a prime topic for morning tea and scones talk.