Side A – Nia
With the chaotic explosion of sound that buffeted her, it was more or less all Nia could do to keep track of the rhythm she’d chosen to join. Dimly though, some part of knew what was happening with the rest of the Battle of the Bands.
Right beside her, Margrada was weaving something far more complicated than Nia could follow. Even without being able to place what Margrada was trying to accomplish though, Nia could feel the raw power that was building through Margrada’s drum. It was exhilarating to brush up against the edge of that song and Nia’s soul yearned to fall into it the same as she yearned to fall into Margrada’s arms. As it was no more the proper time to tackle her girlfriend for a make-out session than it was to join her in playing the lovely piece she was putting together, Nia tuned out Margrada’s performance least it tempt her into the same mistake the Gray Rift drummers were making.
Under her hands, Nia’s drum sang with the Gray Rift song, spinning around it in ever more confident beats and leading a score of unsure drummers along in her wake. They were her enemy, many of them quite intent on bludgeoning her into unconsciousness with the raw power of their music, but she was growing so proud of them nonetheless.
In their mistimed and under committed beats, she heard the echo of so many of her own training sessions. Each mistake them made, each stumble in following the rhythm, the sheer confusion that rang out through their song, it was terribly, painfully familiar.
But they rallied.
Sometimes they needed her to drop back and given them a simple rhythm to catch up with. Other times they struggled, and messed up more, and then found their place all on their own.
As they played, she heard the fledglings learning and growing with each beat they struck, and she felt like she’d come home.
The Frost Harbor Band was hers. She’d taken Yasgrid’s life over, but she’d made the band her own through their travels. Through the meals they’d shared, and the miles they’d ridden. She’d partied with them and she’d been cared for by them and she would have their backs no matter what.
But the enemies she was playing against? The little fledgling drummers who had all unknowing started looking to her for guidance and support? They were her people. She knew their struggle, and felt their pains.
If she’d been any more advanced as a drummer, she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to connect with them like she’d managed to. It was too easy to lose sight of just how hard some of the ‘easy’ parts of Shatter Drumming were, but for her it was all fresh in her memory. Her fingers could still feel each foible and fumble her followers were making and the tricks and confidence she’d learned, she drummed to them.
They were building a song to destroy her – or at least that was what they’d believed. With the last of them having picked up the beat and joined in the effort, Nia smile and decided it was time to show them what they’d really been building towards.
Side B – Yasgrid
In the burning village, Yasgrid stood alone, breathing in the scent of the fires which still raged and the desperation which drove her newest minions.
Blood, Flame, and Ruin were racing away from her, mad with the need to escape the hold she had over them. There was no escape though because it wasn’t Yasgrid’s will which bound them to her. It was a promise.
In the light of the Kindled Heart, the Troubles had seen what they could become and it had filled their world with two uncontestable realities.
Firstly they knew that to change into what they’d beheld would cost them everything they were and unmake them at a fundamental level. They would be weak and vulnerable and lack all of the power they’d accumulated over the years they’d spent spreading terror and pain.
Secondly though, and this was what truly drove them to flee, was the soul deep knowledge that they would make that change willingly. That they would crave the destruction they saw, and that no matter where they ran, something in them would drag them back to Yasgrid, and plead for her to end them as she’d ended the Trouble from which the Kindled Heart had sprung.
It was not within a Trouble to desire to be other than what they were. They were made to be complete unto themselves.
Or so they’d thought.
She’d planted something in them though. Some seed of corruption which gave them hope and desire which should never have been theirs. They weren’t supposed to be beings. They were monsters, and problems, and mobile disasters. Not things which experienced the world and had feelings and could choose.
In her command to seek out the others of their kind, Yasgrid had given them the chance to stave off the compulsion to return to her and accept the death she offered. They could spread the vision she’d shared with them. They could take refuge in the hate and pain and suffering of those like themselves. If they could find enough other Troubles maybe they could even drown the spark which she’d lit inside them?
That had to be the answer. They had to be able to expunge the alien taint that had been inflicted on them.
Right?
It couldn’t be that they were more than arcane machines, that in maturing into creatures with thoughts, they’d crossed the line into becoming people as well?
The spark that was lit within them had to be something that had been inflicted, not a part of them which had been hidden away and only been revealed by the Kindled Heart’s light?
Yasgrid knew Blood, Flame, and Ruin were not kindly creatures. She knew no one else in the Darkwood would say they deserved mercy or compassion. She knew she was probably alone in the belief that they could be more something more than the monsters a divine will had crafted them to be.
That was ok though.
After all, she’d seen the Kindled Heart too and there is very little that’s stronger than faith rewarded.