Side A – Nia
Hitting the drum she was carrying told Nia two things. First, the song she felt ringing in her bones was all too eager to ring out through her touch on the drum and, second, while the music seemed to know what it wanted to do, she had absolutely no idea how she was going to join the song that Margrada and Osdora were sending roaring through her like an river.
“I don’t think that’s it,” Osdora said, nodding towards Nia’s hands which were gripping the edge of the drum after she’d struck, and survived, the first beat she played.
“Just follow me, like you did before,” Margrada urged her as Nia felt the beat of the song start to wobble around her.
That wasn’t possible, mostly because Nia hadn’t been successfully following Margrada the last time. Margrada’s playing was too advanced for Nia, and Osdora’s was a hundred times worse.
The answer came back to her as she struck the Shatter drum again on one of the pillars of the song. The trip had almost washed it away but she remembered the essence of what she’d done and let that flow into her hands.
She wasn’t following Margrada, or Osdora. She couldn’t play like them. Not yet and maybe not ever.
Instead she listened and found the one of the simple structures in the song. It wasn’t much, just a few beats repeated across the span of a dozen breaths at a regular rhythm. On their own, they wouldn’t even qualify as a song at all.
But songs are made of many pieces and Nia didn’t have to play everything piece of the song to be a part of it, she just had to put herself into the places where she could fit.
Through the timeless moments at the heart of the beats she played, Nia felt herself washing away, her mind turning into a fluid consciousness that filled the pools of sound the Shatter drums made.
Drop by drop, she flowed through the music, moving just as she had before but feeling it more clearly than she’d been able to the last time.
“I think…” Osdora said, and hesitated as Nia opened her eyes again.
Nia had kept playing this time, was still playing, and felt more solid and grounded in the song than ever before. She wasn’t shaping it, but she was adding to it and giving it depth and dimension as she drew it in and let it fill all the hollow corners of her awareness.
“I think she’s settled,” Osdora said and quickly added, “Don’t stop playing though!”
“Is she in danger?” Margrada asked.
“No, she’s fine,” Osdora said and Nia nodded in agreement. She felt significantly better than fine all things considered. “We need to make some plans though and as long as we have this connection, we might as well make use of it.”
“You’re not coming back, are you?” Nia said, seeing the point and purpose of Osdora’s demonstration right away.
“Oh I will eventually,” Osdora said. “Probably. But only after we get to the Darkwood.”
“And that’s when you’ll do this again,” Margrada said. “Pull Nia away so that the elves don’t kill you on sight?”
It wasn’t a plan Nia was happy with, but, begrudgingly, she was starting to think that it was one they might be able to make work.
Side B – Yasgrid
Yasgrid made it just outside Bluefall’s eastern gate before the inevitable wave of self doubt came crashing down on her.
As long as she’d had forward momentum pushing her onward, she’d been okay following the wild leaps of logic and intuition that her stressed out mind had thrown at her. Walking down the empty highway of carefully tended grasses though, she found her inner critic laying in wait for her.
So many of her efforts at living up to her mother’s Shatter drumming legacy had failed as the critics voice of “what about…” or “are you really sure that…” leeched the certainty she needed to truly commit to almost any action.
Without meaning to, she felt her pace slacken.
Was she really sure that marching off to meet Elshira was the right idea? Was she even sure that all of their guesses about Elshira’s grand plans bore any resemblance to reality? If Elshira was such a genius, why did Yasgrid imagine that out guessing Elshira was a viable option?
Did she think she was a genius too? No. Of course not. A saga of memories assaulted her. Each time she’d made a stupid mistake. Each mote of shame and embarrassment she’d ever felt.
No, she wasn’t that smart. She couldn’t rely on out thinking Elshira anymore than she could rely on out playing her competition to be in the Shatter Band.
In her heart, the sleeping Troubles stirred and shifted, Yasgrid’s painful memories teasing away at them like a distant hunting horn calling them to action.
She stepped off the highway, after a glance back to make sure she’d left Blue Falls far enough behind that no one would see her.
Leaning back against one of the great trees, with its girth blocking her from the road, Yasgrid slumped down into a seating position and wrapped her arms around herself.
Maybe going off alone was a bad idea. Maybe she should have relied on the others more. Maybe she wasn’t a match for an undead Elf sorcerer, or whatever Elshira was.
But that wasn’t what was bothering her.
Elshira was a threat. A terrifying one if Yasgrid looked at her from the wrong angles and a formidable one from any vantage point. There wasn’t an obvious solution to defeating her and it was possible that there wasn’t a non-obvious one either.
Yasgrid drew in a long breath and felt the tremor of fear she’d been suppressing spread through her. The Troubles grumbled at that, but Yasgrid’s exhalation quieted them down.
She was afraid. She could admit that. Accept it even.
She’d been afraid before and she knew it for the warning sign it was. Her intuition was right to be screaming caution at her. She was in danger but she was handling it. With another breath she tucked a bit of the fear that was flowing through her away for a rainy day and let the rest drift away..
There was going to come a time when she might need to call on quite a bit of anger and nothing was as good kindling for a bonfire of rage as the scraps of old fear.
Elshira wasn’t the deepest fear in her heart though.
That placed belonged to Kyra.