Side A – Nia
The Gray Rift Shatter Drummers did not, as it turned out, have the newly transformed performance center named after Nia. The idea had a lot of support, but the Drummers didn’t have final say on the naming of civic buildings, and with as drunk as everyone was no one was in the proper state to fill out the required paperwork.
There was an unfortunate amount of daylight shining over the horizon by the time Nia and Margrada found there wagon and crawled into bed, collapsing into each other’s arms with the hunger for nothing more than warmth and blissful unconsciousness.
Nia had expected to slip down into the gentle oblivion of dreamless sleep, but as the daylight fell away into the shadows to slumber, she found herself resting with her back to a tree of living stone and across from her sat trouble.
Which tugged an amused smile from Nia’s lips.
This was a Trouble she knew.
One she loved.
“You look like you’ve had a fun night,” she said, nodding in Yasgrid’s direction as Yasgrid stirred in the dreamspace.
In place of either of their bodies, Yasgrid was wearing a new one. Though sized and shaped to Elven proportions, Yasgrid’s skin was clearly shaped from polished basalt, lit from within by a warming fire which shown from her eyes like stars.
“I could say the same to you,” Yasgrid replied, gentle amusement in her tone as well.
Looking down at herself, Nia saw she was resting in a Stoneling’s body, but down her arms there were wound flowering vines. Reaching up, she felt a soft crown of flowers atop her head as well.
“I guess tonight was kind of a thing,” she said, feeling at a loss for words that could encapsulate what she’d been through, never mind what she could see Yasgrid had done.
“It feels right though doesn’t it?” Yasgrid asked.
“I’m still having a hard time believing it all,” Nia said. “I feel like none of that should have worked, but when I play it back in mind, I can see how anything else would have made sense. I mean it wasn’t easy but…”
“But it was what made sense,” Yasgrid said and Nia nodded vigorously in agreement.
Around them the stone forest loomed tall but through the canopy above the light of stars which were far from distant twinkled and danced like their own private cheering squad.
Only one thing felt off in the whole scene, one thing which Nia promptly fixed by rising and crossing over to plop down beside Yasgrid.
Though one of them was sized like an Elf and the other like a Stoneling, they fit together, shoulder to shoulder without a problem in the dreamspace.
“We are left with a question I guess,” Yasgrid said offering her stone hand to Nia who took it and threaded their fingers together.
They were left with many questions, but one stood out above the rest.
“Where do we go from here?”
Side B – Yasgrid
Yasgrid knew the answer to Nia’s question in general terms. It was the specifics which continued to elude her.
“My road leads to a wayward soul,” she said. “Eventually.”
“Does it?” Nia asked. “Or is Elshira just a stop along the way?”
A silent wind ruffled the stone trees, gifting them with the motion which stones never had.
“I don’t know,” Yasgrid said. “I’ve gotten so wrapped up in her and Kyra that I…huh, there’d have to be something beyond all that though wouldn’t there.”
“Yep. Win or lose.”
“If I lose, I don’t expect there to be much road left for me,” Yasgrid said, chuckling at the idea.
“Why? Elshira’s still walking around isn’t she?”
“Yes but she…”
“Broke the rules? Made herself into something more than what the Elven gods envisioned for the citizens of their realm?”
“Became an abomination,” Yasgrid said, feeling a keen chill at how easily the term could be applied to herself as well.
“I don’t think so,” Nia said. “Oh, she’s definitely an abomination. She was willing to burn a village specifically to create enough suffering to produce a fresh army of Troubles. That’s pretty wretched. It’s not coming back from the dead that made her like that though. And it wasn’t becoming Ending’s Bearer either.”
Yasgrid paused, recalling earlier conversations about her foe.
“Naosha said something about that I think. She talked about Elshira being hungry for power and adoration even before she took up Endings.”
“She had ambition, which isn’t a bad thing – it’s probably why Endings picked her. Unfortunately, she lacked both compassion and any concern for the consequences others would endure from her actions.”
“Compassion and concern have their limits,” Yasgrid said. “If those are all that separate Elshira and I, she may be right about us not being all so different.”
“Well of course,” Nia said. “Why wouldn’t you be similar? But she will never be you, and you will never be her. Neither of you could manage it.”
“I could be worse,” Yasgrid said, not entirely seriously, though she knew there was a blade of truth in her words.
“Sure,” Nia agreed. “You won’t be though. Because you don’t want to be. That’s what matters. Not what you are, but what you choose to be.”
“I chose to be this,” Yasgrid said, holding out their clasped hands to constraint the stoney exterior she wore in the dream with Nia’s flesh and blood one.
“It’s lovely,” Nia said. “Very you.”
Yasgrid turned, regarding Nia with a questioning look. “How so?”
“Hard on the outside but shining with light from within? How is that not you?” Nia asked.
A short laugh escaped from Yasgrid.
“I was also the one who was too soft,” she said. “I couldn’t play the drums right because I don’t have your fire.”
“You wear your strength under a soft exterior because you don’t want to bruise anyone,” Nia said. “You are so gentle but all this time you haven’t stopped caring, and that’s a light that can guide anyone home.”