Side A – Yasgrid
In her hands Yasgrid had gathered the fires from the nearest ten buildings. They were old structures but well maintained and well loved. They’d served as shelter for their families through the turning of uncounted years and at the last still held off the worst of the damage that Flame and Ruin had inflicted on the village. Doing so had cost them though.
Timbers which had supported walls lay on the verge of collapse, struggling to buy the time needed for the trapped people within their structure to be freed.
And their struggle wasn’t in vain.
Yasgrid was there to make sure of that.
And as her strength fell short of holding up the whole village by herself a miracle arrived to lift everyone up.
No peel of thunder ever crashed so loud as the arrival of the Shatter Drummer’s song into the Darkwood. This wasn’t the hopeful experimentation of two people trying to bridge the gap and show those around them the wonders of the Darkwood. This was a battle chorus, played as loudly as the many hands which slammed it out could manage.
Yasgrid knew it was coming, could feel the song shaking the heavens as it descended and even so, she was blown off her feet by its arrival.
The buildings, which had been rendered fragile by the devastation wrought upon them crumbled under the onslaught of the song, burned wood cracking and tumbling at last to crush those sheltered within.
But no walls fell.
And no ceiling’s collapsed.
Not when there were giants aplenty to hold them up.
As solid as mist and sparkling with the light of the stars they’d touched, it wasn’t just the Drummers who appeared by the memories of those they carried with them as well.
The Stonelings who played the drums and those who’d inspired and gone before them, an army of them strode beneath the canopy of trees where no army had ever walked before.
Under the pounding beat of the song, the remaining fire were blown out like candle flames.
With hands of hope and music, the Stonelings grasped the crumbling buildings and spoke to them of strength and stability.
A cold wind roared through the tree, bringing a frost which numbed burns and swept the air clear of the choking ash and dust which had fouled it.
And from above, pure moonlight began to stream down as the fallen village rose again.
Where Stoneling Shatter Drumming touched the fabric of the Darkwood though a change began to occur.
The homes which the giants spoke to of endurance and strength grew tall once again, but abandoned the living wood they’d once been for something more durable. Something which would have the strength to resist the next flames which came for them.
Where the Stonelings walked the fallen Darkwood rose again with the might of the earth imbued within it, stone spires soaring to the sky far above the treetop canopy, far above the Troubles which had come for them once and never would again.
Side B – Nia
Nia felt the magic of the song she was riding surge into the Darkwood. She felt the change it wrought, and she knew how wrong it was.
The Darkwood was never meant to have spires of rock soaring from it. The ecology of the region would be warped and changed by the song she’d brought to it. The magic which echoed in the stones would clash with the magic of the Darkwood and Nia couldn’t begin to guess which one would be the victor.
But it was worth it.
In the newborn Village of Rising Stones, people were emerging from their transformed homes alive and bewildered. What could have become a graveyard was instead something wondrous and new. To be sure, ‘new’ included new perils and difficulties, none of which the villagers had asked for, but the fact that they could make any requests at all was good enough for Nia. Fixing their new problems was a far better task for the future than mourning their loss would have been.
Also, whatever problems arose, the villagers would be the ones best able to decide how to address them. While the magic of the song she was riding could do more, Nia certain she’d already pushed well past the limits of what she should have done with it.
The questions before her, therefor, were both how she could halt the changes which were unfolding around her and how she could get her drummers back where they belonged.
She reached into the music to find answer, to ask her drummers for one, and found them all mesmerized by the beauty of the Darkwood. In their playing, a new thread had appeared. One of longing for the green and growing land around them. One of fascination with the frail small people who looked up to them with awe and wonder. One of connection with that which had been impossibly beyond them until the music led them to it.
And that was going to be a problem.
Nia had drummed them here, she’d called them down to where Yasgrid stood, out of her love for her former home and in support of Yasgrid’s need. Those passions were broad and universal enough to sweep the other drummers up with her, where the ones which could call her back, the desire to see Margrada’s hands again, and to hear Horgi’s stupid laugh, and to stand in a body that felt so right to wear, those were all so personal she couldn’t imagine reaching anyone else with them, much less all of the drummers she’d taken under her wing.
Before the first note of despair could rise within her though, she heard a far different note.
It sounded out from far away. From beyond the horizon where her body called forth the music she was still channeling.
Alone, she couldn’t have brought the drummers back, but Nia wasn’t alone.
At first she only heard Margrada’s drumming, calling out to her. Calling her to come back. Then Pelegar’s joined in. Then the rest of the band. The rest of both bands!
Joined all together, they gave the song the one thing it was missing; an ending.