Side A – Yasgrid
Yasgrid has known about the people who’d been resurrected. More than known about it. It had been her idea to bring them back, and her magic which had done so.
That was probably something she was going to have to come to terms with.
She’d put it out of her mind as something potentially too big to be dealt, something that could be dealt with tomorrow.
The sun was creeping higher into the sky, and Kayelle was here, and she couldn’t run away any more.
Tomorrow had come.
“They weren’t supposed to die there or then,” Yasgrid said, looking down in search of more, or better, words.
“Apparently not,” Kayelle said and waited for Yasgrid to continue.
“What does Endings think of that?” Yasgrid wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Not if the answer was what she feared it might be.
“You don’t have to ask me,” Kayelle said, calling the crystal blade to her hand and offering it to Yasgrid.
“I think I do,” Yasgrid said. “What I did…I know I look like I did before – like Nia did – but I’m not what I was.”
“We figured as much,” Kayelle said. “It’s good to hear you confirm it though.”
“We both know it’s not the kind of thing I’ll be able to hide,” Yasgrid said. “If the Fate Dancers thought they hated me before, they’ll be vomiting Troubles when they see me as I am now.”
“The Fate Dancers or one Fate Dancer in particular?” Kayelle asked.
“I…I don’t know,” Yasgrid said. “I don’t think I should hope in any direction there. Every outcome is…perilous.”
At that, Kayelle laughed. A loud, clear laugh that painted the Darkwood in silver.
“Gods, you and Nia really are a pair aren’t you?” she said when she recovered herself.
“Nia had the good sense to avoid becoming this,” Yasgrid said gesturing to herself as though displaying something obviously odd.
“Oh, do you regret it then?” Kayelle asked.
“I should,” Yasgrid said. “I’m supposed to.”
“Supposed to? Who determines that?”
“The gods who planted the Darkwood did not plan for me. I’ve taken they’re domain and twisted it into something else. The Fate Dancers will call me an abomination and they won’t be wholly incorrect.”
“They will be idiots,” Kayelle said. “We’ve both met abominations. One particularly noteworthy stalks the Darkwood even now. But you’re not her and she’s not you. What the Fate Dancers may see as deviation from our creator’s intent is nothing more that hubris on their part. They cling to a narrow view of how things must be because it keeps their vision of the paths the future can take more clear, and because it let’s those in control stay in control. They had always failed to acknowledge the simplest of truths about the Darkwood though.”
“That other people exist in it?” Yasgrid guessed, without a surplus of kindness in her tone.
“That we grow,” Kayelle said. “And in growing, change.”
Grasping Ending’s hilt with both hands she pulled, and before Yasgrid’s eyes an fracture formed down the length of the blade.
Side B – Nia
Nia wasn’t quite up for running back to the Band Hall, not even with the Roadies’ Breakfast ameliorating the worst of the effects from the previous night. Together with Margrada though, she was able to walk in a mostly straight line through Gray Falls and didn’t have to squint all that much to see where they were going.
“Was wondering when you two might turn up,” Pelegar said, her voice loud enough to punch through the respite the Roadies’ Breakfast had provided.
“We were told we’re needed here?” Margrada said, being circumspect about the fears they’d discussed on the walk into town.
“Where are the drums? Are they okay? What did we do to them?” Nia asked, not being circumspect.
“Oh the drums are right where you left them,” Pelegar said, her smile neither comforting, nor forgiving.
“Are they okay?” Nia asked again, suspecting that the answer could not be an affirmative.
“See for yourself,” Pelegar said, and stepped aside to let Nia and Margrada pass into the transformed building.
Nia hurtled over a blooming hedge which had previous been a stone bench, and swung around a wide oak which stood where one of the supporting columns for the roof had been.
At her seat she found her drum waiting for her.
Intact.
Seemingly.
“It looks okay?” she said, glancing over at Margrada for confirmation.
“Mine does too,” Margrada said, standing, like Nia, several paces away from the drum lest their proximity triggered some pending catastrophe.
“That they do,” Pelegar said, catching up to them. “Look close though.”
Nia steeled herself to take a few steps forward. If there were hairline fractures in either the body or the top, the drum would be as good as ruined and the Roadies would be, justifiably, out for her blood.
But there were no fractures.
Nia walked around the drum three times to confirm that.
She had Margrada walk around the drum too while she went and walked around Margrada’s drum.
They were both in fine shape.
Visually at least.
“Can’t tell why we called you here?” Pelegar asked.
“Is it because of the vines?” Nia asked, gesturing to the flowering vines which had grown around the base of the two drums over night.
“Indirectly,” Pelegar said.
“Those aren’t unique to our drums though,” Margrada said and pointed to the other drums which were still set out and around the transformed hall.
“Yeah. They’re the same as these,” Pelegar said.
“How?” Nia asked. Given the variation in size and design, Nia couldn’t imagine how any of the Shatter Drums could be considered ‘the same’.
“Put your hand on your drum, you’ll see,” Pelegar said and added, “Don’t strike it. Just make contact.”
Nia glanced over at Margrada who shrugged in agreement and reached out her hand in unison with Nia.
Nia’s touch was greeted with the last thing in the world she’d expected.
The song, her song, was still playing.