Side A – Yasgrid
Yasgrid had anticipated being called on to play tour guide, but with the excitement of the fire fading away as quickly as the rising smoke from it dispersed, she’d found her current schedule to be marvelously open.
“Although, maybe we should stop by the Roadie’s encampment to check when they’ll be heading back to Frost Harbor?” She was still aware of the promise she’d made to help them with Nia’s drum which hadn’t been honored properly for the role it played in the last Calling.
“Horgi said he’d let us know a few days ahead of time before they left,” Kyra said. “Today we can just relax, assuming no one else sets any inexplicably supernatural fires.”
“I’m going to guess Mrs. M’Kellin will have that under control if so,” Yasgrid said, not surprised but still impressed by the speed with which Naosha had managed to assemble two full teams of fire fighters.
Of course both Gray Falls and Gray Rift had their own fire teams, but with the chaos of the recent battles, and performances, and parties more than a few members had been sleeping in. Rousing hung over Stonelings was no mean feat in and of itself, and getting to them to response with a quickness to a problem that seemed to be self contained was at least a minor miracle in Yasgrid’s estimation.
Which might, just might, mean that Kyra could be correct.
Yasgrid flinched at the thought, hoping she hadn’t jinxed herself.
But no explosions erupted, and no evil Sorcerer Liches sprang at her.
There weren’t even any Fate Dancers showing up to tear Kyra away from her.
“Waiting for Elshira’s next plot to spring on us?” Kyra asked pressing her shoulder to Yasgrid’s as they wandered down the main road from Gray Falls to Gray Rift, all but reading Yasgrid’s mind.
Or was she?
“Elshira feels like a problem that’s found a fitting resolution,” Yasgrid said. “Even if she could finagle a means of coming back, I don’t think she’d want to.”
“I like that idea,” Kyra said, and threaded her fingers through Yasgrid’s.
“How many of the futures that you saw had her returning?” Yasgrid asked, guessing at the heart of the unease Kyra was hiding away.
“A few, but the roads to them were well and truly demolished,” Kyra said. “Have I mentioned that you do some good work when set your mind to it?”
“It took a lot longer than I wanted though,” Yasgrid said, a flash of the weeks and months she’d spent hunting for Elshira rippling through her. She felt a squeeze of silent reassurance on her hand.
Kyra had been a captive that whole time and even with being able to escape into visions of the future, and the lack of obvious harm Elshira had inflicted her, being imprisoned and at the mercy of a monster had left marks that would perhaps never fadeaway completely.
The bad days they’d had though didn’t mean they couldn’t still have good ones though, so Yasgrid breathed in, looked around and found the nearest and most Stoneling point of interest she could find.
“Hey, did any of your visions have us visiting the Gray Falls Zoo and Aviary?”
Side B – Nia
Since splitting off from the others to wander “somewhere they won’t get mistaken as the cause for whatever trouble’s going on”, Nia had been wrestling with a question that she already knew the answer to.
“So about last night…” Margrada began to ask and then paused, waiting either for a sign to continue or to find the words she needed to do so.
“Yeah. I have something I need to tell you,” Nia said. As she spoke the words she could hear and feel in her soul how they were going to be instantly mistaken so she rushed to throw more out and smother the misunderstanding before it could grow “Wait, no, I mean show you. You won’t believe me if I just tell you. Also, you might want to burn me at a stake or something, which to be honest, I would not blame you for.”
Had she said too much? Yeah. Probably, but the instant chill that had passed through Margrada had thawed into wary confusion which was much less painful to see.
“Show me?” She turned to Nia, pulling them back out of sparse flow of traffic on the residential row they were walking down. “What could you show me that I would stake you for?”
“I can drum,” Nia said, her wit apparently having decided today was a good choice for a vacation. “On anything.”
“Yeah. Everyone can. That’s the point of drumming. Everything can be part of a rhythm,” Margrada said, but her expression was shifting away from confusion and Nia knew she had to get ahead of it if she was to make a proper confession.
“Shatter drum. I can shatter drum on anything,” she said.
It was a ridiculous claim and the obvious interpretation of it was to assume Nia was referring to playing the Shatter Drum beats on another surface to practice.
But Margrada was able to follow Nia’s expression and the context well enough to see that Nia wasn’t building up to some other revelation.
“Show me,” she said and then shook her head. “No. Not here. Where did you find you could do this? On the peak?”
“That’s where I confirmed it,” Nia said a moment before Margrada took off, pulling Nia in her wake. “I don’t think I need to be there to do it again though.”
“Maybe not,” Margrada said. “But being out of town for that seems like a good idea doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. It does. I’m not sure I should try it at all, but I wanted to show you at least.” Nia said, twining her arm around Margrada’s.
“Me? Why? Wouldn’t Pelegar or Osdora be able to understand it better?” Margrada asked.
“They might understand drumming better than you – might – but you understand me better than anyone else.”