Murat, Danae and I think we’re going to head out around noon. However, when Mu comes back, we discuss how travel will work, and conclude that he’ll do better with a horse. Three hours later, we have a horse for him, along with all it’s gear, and we get ready to leave again. The second stop is for directions. We all knew that I had been by Rocco’s place before, and were planning to head that way, but no one is really ever prepared for just how bad I am at directions.

We hunt around town looking for Miguel, who was there with me, until I remember that Priya had been there too. Then we just have to find the hospital. Mu knows where that is, and we get there, then have to wait a couple hours before Priya actually has time. When she has time, she gives directions to Mu. He seems like he gets a clear understanding, but writes it down anyway, just in case. After that, he suggests we see if we can find a map. Finding a cartographer takes another couple hours, and then we purchase a map for cheap by selling him information. Danae adds useful information from her wandering, and I add useless information about who I’ve seen but not where or even in what direction.

By then it’s dark, and we spend another night at the hotel before setting out in the morning. We go slowly away from town, with Danae and Mu both occupied as she teaches him how to ride a horse.

“Hey, Mu, do you play an instrument or anything?” I ask.

“I had fifteen years of violin lessons,” he says, “But I don’t have one here.”

I convince Danae that she should practice riding around the town with him, before we get anywhere we can be ambushed. She agrees, and I zip back into town. It takes me an hour to find a xylomancer and pay them to craft three violins and six bows. While they’re working, I find a metallomancer, and buy a couple dozen metal strings. When I get those, I head back to the stables, am redirected to the yarn shop, and leave with several hanks of horse tail hairs.

I get back outside after three hours of shopping and it takes me another two minutes to find D. and Mu.

“I thought you were fast, Fool,” taunts Danae.

“I am fast, D. The craftsmen were slow.”

“I turn to Mu. Welcome to Dame Danae’s Magical Minstrels.” I hand him a violin, two bows, and half the strings and horsehair. “This evening, we can play.”

He looks at me funny and puts it all in his magic pockets.

Danae says, “He’s not too likely to fall off, if we’re not surprised.”

Great. Let’s go. I get about 20 steps forward before turning around. “Which way are we going?”

Murat points in a completely different direction than I was heading.

“Right.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The first day of travel is boring. We walk, them on horses, and me on foot. Of course, I’m playing a march, and running my normal sonar.

We camp for the night, Mu gets his violin put together, I help with getting it tuned, then he starts in on the bow. Danae interrupts, plays with the horsehair a little, and then donates some of her own hair, which straightens and softens into a darker colored bow.

Once things get set up, we only have a few options to play along and make it work with original arrangements. Clocks & Clouds is pretty solid as a violins and drum group, or we can do bluegrass modified with drums: roots or americana. Vince Gill’s High Lonesome Sound album will do as well. We don’t have a banjo though. Black Violin might be the best play here. There’s not a voice part for most of the songs, but Danae doesn’t much feel like singing.

We spend some time getting used to each other playing. He’s a bit stiff, but technically proficient. We spend the night playing, and getting used to one another. Fifteen years of lessons doesn’t make him a pro, but it’s a lot better than none.

In the morning, we continue on. A couple hippogriffs decide they would like to have a nibble of some horseflesh. I’m pretty sure we should’ve brought some extra horses.

I try to get Mu to do something fancy with portals, but when they start heading our way, he doesn’t think he can open or close portals fast enough to crash them into the ground or anything. Fine. It’s my job to crash them. Mu sets up a portal behind us to take the horses through, facing perpendicular from the direction that the fliers are coming in from. He makes sure the horses are able to see through, and ready to move. When the critters get close, I sound-bomb them, and they take a tumble in the dirt with their concentration broken for a moment. Mu gets the horses through the portal, and closes it. Now Mu and the horses are 200 yards away, behind the beasts. Then the rope queen gets to work.

Step one in Danae’s dastardly plan is to tie the beasts together. Somehow, she builds a lasso, loops it over the first neck, and tightens enough to stick. Then she takes the other side of the same rope, and loops the second. By the time they’re charging us half-airborne, they’re running hooked together.

Birdbrains though they are, they do notice that the horses are no longer with us. As they turn to find their intended meal, D’s next rope cracks on the flank of the one on the right. It turns, while its friend tries to go the other way. After the first jerk, and failed attempt to bite through the rope, they pull against one another, going nowhere for a moment, while Danae spins up her next trick.

Another, more whiplike rope lashes out and strikes the hippogriff trying to chase the horses in the butt, leaving an actual gash in his skin. Griffy turns around and takes a couple whips to the face, and then a whip to the eye, which pops. It turns to flee, as the other has gotten close enough to fight. Danae’s solution is to throw a weird manacles-looking contraption near the close one while still egging the other away from us with a whip. The manacles land nicely on its grasping front talons, then tighten, and pull the claws together.

“Tree,” D. yells, and since I have time to think in combat, I figure out what she means and forward the message that she wants a tree to loop around to Mu. He opens a six inch diameter portal to a tree, and she loops another rope around the magical beast while the other end crawls around the tree, tying itself there.

The next few minutes isn’t pretty, as the creatures fight the rope and each other, while Danae’s whip dismantles them, taking out the rest of their eyes before eventually ripping into their throats and letting them bleed out. I cheer.

When they’re dead, D undoes her rope, and Mu heads back over with the horses.

“Just make the black girl do all the work, and then you take all the credit.” Danae has her hands on her hips, scowling at us. “I ain’t no slave."

To her credit, she manages three seconds before cracking a smile. “Y’all really suck at fighting. Let’s go.”