Side A – Nia
The song had gone on long enough. Nia wasn’t sure how she knew that. It was a feeling that seeped out of her bones and slipped into her veins with a wordless warning.
“We won’t be anywhere near the Darkwood for a good long while,” Osdora said, playing along with a vigor that was rapidly leaving Nia’s fingers.
Glancing over, Nia saw that Margrada was starting to droop from the fatigue of playing a song that was far beyond the both of them too.
“We can get in touch later then,” Nia said. “I think we need to drop this connection. Like, right now.”
“But…” Osdora said and then she was gone.
Nia had a fleeting glimpse of Gossma taking hold of Osdora’s hands and stopping her from playing another note, but for Margrada such an abrupt ending wasn’t an option.
The song still held a tremendous amount of energy and finding the right fade out for it looked to be asking more of Margrada than she had left to give.
Which was fine. Endings can be simple, and Nia could manage simple. Through sheer volume she took hold of the song from Margrada and played it down, down, and down to a whisper.
There wasn’t any reason for that to feel like she was also running away from something. There weren’t any other Shatter drums playing and nothing was stalking her.
There wasn’t anything stalking her at all.
She wound the song down a little quicker than she should have and felt some of the energy in it bleed back into her and leave her hands numb and tingling.
She hadn’t gotten away because nothing was stalking her.
She knew that.
So why was she so relieved when the music finally stopped?
“Are you…” she started to ask, planning to finish the phrase with ‘ok’ before she was buried in an embrace that knocked the breath from her.
Being more or less surround by Margrada wasn’t a position Nia found unappealing but it did strike her that the gesture was a reaction to extreme fright rather than one of simple affection.
“I’m fine,” Margrada said. “And so are you. You’re fine. And you’re here. I know.”
She lingered a moment longer, as though needing to absorb Nia’s solidity for reassurance. That a small shudder still clung to Margrada’s breath as they parted did not escape Nia’s notice either.
“Well that was a delight,” Pelegar said.
“What part?” Margrada asked, her voice still ragged from fatigue but with traces of life returning to it.
“The part where you gave Kaersbean a new and even more irritating reason to be insufferable,” Pelegar said.
For a moment Nia thought she was being serious but the broad smile that broke out across Pelegar’s face gave away that she was only teasing them.
“Honestly, that was exceptionally good playing,” Pelegar said. “From the both of you.”
“It was almost entirely her,” Nia said, nodding towards Margrada. “I didn’t do much more than stay out of her way.”
“That you don’t seem to understand what an accomplishment that is tells me how much we need to get you some real lessons,” Pelegar said. “So let’s get back to the Band and see about setting those up. We may not have Osdora, but after what I just heard, I’m not worried about that at all anymore.”
Side B – Yasgrid
Troubles are born from the unbearable and the inescapable. When no one can help or understand they become something so much worse that they should ever be able to be.
Alone, in the dark, hidden behind one of the trees of the Darkwood, Yasgrid understood how they could be a relief.
An Elf’s heart could only twist in on itself so far before a monster sprang from it and made the Elf’s problem the world’s problem.
The unspeakable could scream.
The unseen could become unavoidable.
Misery suffered in solitude became agony shared by all.
There was a twisted sort of comfort there.
But Yasgrid wasn’t an Elf.
In the darkness of the wood, she was reasonably sure she could spawn a new Trouble is she so desired, but even without Endings influence, that wasn’t what she wanted.
There was no point in burning the world down. Her world wasn’t made for burning. Its roots were stone and its breath was the song of the drums.
That world hadn’t been for her. The mountains and the seas. The music ringing in the streets and the quiet solitude of the empty valleys.
She’d been born there, but had never fit in, had never understood why the quiet appealed to her so much more than the joyous laughter and boastful shouts. It wasn’t until she walked in the Darkwood that she understood what she’d been missing, what she needed the most.
Yasgrid wasn’t an Elf, but she had the soul of one.
Mostly.
Down deep within herself though, she carried with her the gifts of her birth, the elements she inherited from the mountains that she’d held onto and made a foundation from.
When she rose from behind the tree and set forth out into the wood, she didn’t leave behind any of the pain or uncertainty, any of the worries or dreadful misgivings that she’d been carrying.
Elshira was still a terrifying foe. Kyra was still in terrible peril, and still somewhere between too far away and eternally far away. Yasgrid was still petrified at the idea that she and Kayelle might be set so far in opposition that they would have to come to blows. None of any of that was better or easier to deal with.
So she didn’t deal with it.
And she didn’t have to.
All she needed to do was keep going on.
Her future held nightmares but nightmares don’t go on forever and Yasgrid clung to the belief that, if she faced them, she could make the day that waited beyond them into something worth the price of reaching it.