Side A – Nia
Nia knew better than to scoff at the idea that magic could carry her outside the the bounds of the world she knew. She’d started off the year by being carried beyond the bounds of the Darkwood and into a body that felt entirely too natural, after which she’d regularly cast her awareness back and forth across the thousands of miles that separated her from Yasgrid. Then there were other encounters she’d managed to have in the mini-lifetime of days she’d lived since the New Year.
At night she’d dreamt herself onto a strange shore and met her father, more than once, and on her most ‘out there’ trip she’d met King and been extremely lucky to able to make it back.
And she wasn’t alone in that. Yasgrid had taken a similarly perilous journey from the sounds of things too, though at least in her case Kyra had been there as an experienced guide.
All of that should have served as a clear warning, sign posts that real danger awaited them.
And it did.
“Let’s do this,” she said, her spirit soaring past the warning signs as the memories brought her something other than the terror they should perhaps have inspired.
Experience with disaster was also experience with surviving disasters, and after hearing Pelegar’s claims about Osdora, Nia knew she had to speak Yasgrid’s mother again.
Pelegar smirked and rolled her eyes. Teaching sometimes involved letting the little fledglings flutter and fail, but Nia could feel the early echoes of the song Margrada wanted her to play beating a rhythm in her blood.
“Can we borrow Gossma’s drum again?” Margrada asked, glancing towards the elderly Stonelings who were still watching from the sidelines.
Paxdar and Magwin shared a smile as well for reasons Nia couldn’t begin to guess before nodding in unison.
“Thank you,” Nia said, taking Gossma’s drum and sitting opposite Margrada.
“Decide which one of you is going to lead now,” Pelegar said. “You don’t want to be playing any of the beats at cross purposes if you want to stand a chance of pulling it off.”
“It should be Nia, the rhythm is hers,” Margrada said.
“Nope. It’s got to be you,” Nia said, certain of that to the core of her being. “I can show you where to go, but you’re the one who’s really got the skill for this.”
“But I’ve never done this before. And you’ve managed it twice now,” Margrada said. “You’re the one with experience here.”
“Not with this. We can’t play the same rhythm Yasgrid and I played. She’s not here. We need to play something that draws from us, and from Osdora.” Nia laid her hand on the top of the Shatter Drum, not striking it, just connecting to it. The magic was there, waiting for her. She would need to shape it into something it had never been before. Her heart knew she could, but the heart was good for fire and passion, for the force needed to carry something as large as the world, but that wasn’t going to be enough here. They needed wit and insight and the deep understanding that comes at the cost of years of practice.
They needed Margrada.
“We could try to play together?” Margrada suggested.
Nia was confused by Margrada’s reticence until she took in the whole scene before her.
Margrada wasn’t hesitant about playing. Her hands hovered over her drum, ready to begin. The concern in her eyes was all outward facing.
Because she was worried Nia might take offense at being relegated to second place on one of the few exceptional things she’d done so far?
No. It wasn’t that.
It was so much simpler.
She’d played a difficult piece to prove Nia’s skill, and Nia had predictably come up short. The piece they were about to perform was going to be far harder than the practice one, and Nia couldn’t afford to be anything less than an equal partner in it.
“Don’t worry,” Nia said, a fond smile lighting on her lips. “You’re not going to lose me.”
Side B – Yasgrid
Marianne did not seem pleased by Yasgrid’s explanation, and Yasgrid could guess why.
“It would seem that Elshira is faced with two options,” Marianne said, “and has chosen to pursue them both.”
Yasgrid nodded. She wasn’t happy with that conclusion, but she couldn’t discount it either.
“If she can turn me to her cause, then I would, in all likelihood be willing to share Endings with her as Kayelle and I share it now,” Yasgrid said.
“And, since Kayelle has not received a similar offer it stands to reason that Elshira has chosen the other route for securing the use of Endings from Kayelle,” Marianne said.
Meaning Elshira was going to kill Kayelle, who would lack whatever trick Elshira had used to return from death and therefor be as incapable of bearing Endings as any of the others who died on their quests.
“Is it strange that Elshira wouldn’t think that might sour any camaraderie that I would feel towards her?” Yasgrid asked, picking at what seemed like an obvious whole in Elshira’s plan.
“Not at all,” Marianne said. “Given that you’ll be the one to kill Kayelle, Elshira has every reason to think that the ‘other Bearer’s’ death will represent the final seal on the pact between you two.”
Yasgrid wanted to protest that they were sisters and sororicide was a rather unlikely bet to gamble on, but then she considered how fractured Nia and Kayelle’s relationship had been at the turn of the year.
Could being the Bearers together have helped heal the rift between them? Or would it have widened it further? It wasn’t hard to imagine Elshira counting on the latter, especially if she believed she could talk ‘Nia’ into joining her side. From an external perspective, Nia was easily mistaken as the flightier of the two sisters and Kayelle the more constrained one. Where Nia might be open to rebelling against the social latticework which had hemmed her in her whole life, Kayelle would stand like iron, inflexible, unthinking, and unforgiving.
Or at least that was the impression Elshira has almost certainly gotten from observing them. Without interacting with them, she would have easily missed how far from the truth those assumptions were.
“I suppose that’s good news then,” Yasgrid said. “If Elshira’s plan depends on me killing Kayelle then she won’t be sending any particularly bothersome Troubles to do the job or, worse, attending to it herself.”
“She’ll still be moving Troubles against you both,” Marianne said.
“That seems wasteful,” Yasgrid said. “Unless part of her plan is to thin the population of Troubles for some reason?”
“Oh, interesting idea,” Marianne said. “Yes, she might be trying to do that too.”
“But her primary reason would be?”
“Convincing you to kill Kayelle would be challenging,” Marianne said and a deadly chill accompanied her words. “Unless it was in self defense, or the defense of loved one.”