Side A – Nia
Most of the Gray Rift drummers didn’t notice when Nia started playing with them. To be fair to them, the cacophony they were belting out made it impossible for most of the new players to make out any more than the notes they were hitting on their own drums and maybe those of the one or two drums nearest to them.
Nia hadn’t planned on that. If she’d known just how out of their depth the fledgling Gray Rift players would be she might have scrapped her plans entirely. When she’d started playing, she’d been operating under the assumptions that they’d target her first (which she’d been correct about) and that she’d be able to weave their own songs back against them if she could make following her rhythm alluring enough.
The problem, she quickly discovered, was that she wasn’t faced with an opposing rhythm which she could subvert. Facing off against her simple drumming there were at least two dozen different songs.
Which was fine.
She’d known she wasn’t going to be able to fight them directly, so it wasn’t like she was looking to struggle against more songs than she had fingers and toes.
The trick, and it cost her taking several legitimately hard hits to work it out, was to find the songs which were strong enough to be worth rallying around. That, in turn, led to her identifying the Shatter Drummers who were strong enough for her hang her rapidly revised plan on.
“This beat is strong,” she said with her drumming, calling out the solid patterns and clear notes the drummer was offering.
With her amplification, that beat was heard by a trio of new drummers who dropped what they’d been doing and attempted to mimic it.
One of them succeeded, but the other two lost the rhythm almost immediately.
“It goes like this,” Nia drummed, pairing down the rhythm to its most basic components and hitting them hard, so they’d carry across the gap between the two bands and sound like they’d originated somewhere on the Gray Rift side.
The barrier of conflicting sound which was keeping her largely safe from direct attacks worked against her there though, as it drowned out her beats as well.
“It goes like This,” Nia drummed, carrying on despite the chaos she was playing into.
Her opposite number, the drummer who’d originated the song she’d chosen to copy, rose to help her out. He could hear people were picking up his song and understood the value of unifying around it. She guessed it hadn’t even crossed his mind that his supporter might be the enemy he was struggling against, in fact she was counting on that.
“You don’t have to play it all,” she drummed to her enemies. “Just pick up the pieces you can manage well. Even one beat out of every ten still makes the song stronger. You’re part of a band. All you need to do to win this play together. “
And, one by one, the drummers began to get the message, Nia’s simple touchpoint rhythm leading them into the greater structure of the song which would lead them to victory.
Side B – Yasgrid
While all around her burned, Yasgrid held a very different sort of fire in her hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered to the Kindled Heart which had stirred from its slumber in answer to her call.
It flickered under her breath, gentle and warm to her touch.
What was needed of it?
It could no longer destroy.
It was no longer what it had been.
Did she need it to return to what it was before?
“All I ask of you is to shine,” Yasgrid said and waited for the Heart to flicker its agreement.
Around her the Troubles Blood, Flame, and Ruin had stopped, frozen dead in their tracks by the hints of illumination which were escaping around Yasgrid’s fingers.
They’d been stalking into the proper position to assault her.
As Yasgrid held the Kindled Heart aloft though all traces of aggression vanished from their postures.
The Troubles wanted to leave.
They wanted to run.
“Good,” Yasgrid said. “You understand what you’re seeing. This is what your going to become.”
She advanced on Ruin, because Ruin had the misfortune of being in front of her rather than off to one side.
Troubles are not supposed to whimper, but it turned out that they were in fact capable of doing so.
“You know what you’ll have to give up to become this though, don’t you?” Yasgrid asked, stalking closer. “It will destroy you. You will lose all the things which keep the world at bay. You will be naked, and exposed, but not alone. There won’t be anywhere to hide from what you are or what you’ve done. It will just be you, and me, and the whole world beyond.”
Ruin started to retreat at that, and Blood and Flame joined suit.
“No,” Yasgrid whispered and the word bound them. “You may not run. You will not flee. You are no longer hers. You are mine now, and I will allow you to stay as you are for so long as you are useful to me. And then, when your use runs out?”
She opened her hand and released the Kindled Heart, allowing it to soar upwards, a new star ascending into the smoke darkened skies.
It would return to her. If it chose. It had need of her or desire for her company.
For her part, her need for it had passed. She could see the spark it had left burning in the eyes of the Troubles before her.
They’d seen it and they couldn’t forget it.
“Go now,” Yasgrid said. “Your new master bids you seek out your kin. Spread the spark that is burning you up. Bring them all under my dominion.”
Consorting with Troubles was a catastrophic enough sin in Elven culture, but commanding them had been fatal misstep Elshira had taken. Yasgrid had needed something Elshira could not ignore though, something she would have to focus on solely and at the expense of all other things, and if that meant becoming just as much a pariah as Elshira had been, then that was the cost Yasgrid was willing to pay.