Side A – Yasgrid
Yasgrid reached out to stop Kayelle but the light radiating from Endings pushed her back.
Because she was unworthy?
No.
The touch of the prismatic light Endings bathed her in wasn’t angry or burning or hurtful at all. It’s touch was warm. And familiar.
And right.
Endings wasn’t broken.
Kayelle had split it in two, but she hadn’t shattered the blade.
She’d given Yasgrid something Yasgrid had been missing.
“What…what is this?” Yasgrid asked, marveling at her left hand as rainbow light swirled around it.
“You already know. You knew before I did,” Kayelle said. “I take comfort in the fact that I did figure it out eventually – and probably before Nia would have – but you knew almost from the beginning, didn’t you?”
“This feels…it feels new?” Yasgrid said. Beneath the glow of Endings light, her hand took on the stoney cast she’d seen in her dreams, only to shift to the softer Elvan skin of her natural body.
“It’s that too,” Kayelle said, balancing Ending’s crystal blade on her folded legs.
Yasgrid narrowed her eyes and looked for the teasing she was sure lay under Kayelle’s words. “This is revenge for my not telling you who I was right away isn’t it?”
“Oh! I didn’t even think of that. But no. I understand why you did that, and have to agree that it was probably for the best. If I hadn’t come to it on my own, I would have thought that Endings split your mind or something,” Kayelle said, sweeping a finger down Endings length as proof that it was as solid as it had ever been. “This isn’t about us. Or, maybe it is? We’re not bound by blood – or, well, that’s confusing – but we are bound together.”
“By Endings,” Yasgrid said.
“By duty,” Kayelle said. “You saw early on that neither of us was the sole Bearer, and you understood what that meant.”
“We could each call on its power,” Yasgrid said. “I left that with you though. I didn’t want to risk Elshira capturing it. And I thought she’d approach me if I wasn’t carrying it.”
“If she wanted to take it, wouldn’t she have been more likely to approach you if you were carrying it?” Kayelle asked.
“Well, yes, but…” Yasgrid struggled to remember what her reasoning had been. Going off on her own, unarmed, had made sense at the time. In retrospect though? She’d been pretty agitated. Could she be sure of her own motivations?
“You were focused on saving Kyra when you left. That’s fair to say isn’t it?”
Yasgrid nodded, not quite able to form the words directly.
“Entirely focused.”
“I was also contemplating the horrible things I was going to do to Elshira. And the Fate Dancers if I’m being honest.”
“And what had your vow to Endings been?” Kayelle asked.
Yasgrid only had to reflect on that for a moment.
“Oh.” She’d sworn to save Kayelle, and Naosha, and Nia.
She hadn’t walked away from Endings as a tool.
She’d walked away from the duty she’d sworn herself to!
Side B – Nia
Nia jerked her hand back. The echo of her song felt powerful enough to pull her back to the Darkwood and she was not ready to make that trip again.
“What is this?” Margrada asked, keeping her hands similarly removed from the drum in front of her.
“Was hoping you’d be able to tell me since you two are the geniuses who set it up,” Pelegar said.
Nia wanted to object that she definitely was not capable to creating what seemed to be a living song within a Shatter Drum, but the evidence that she, or she and Margrada, had was sitting there, right in front of her.
“We’d need to play the song again to hear what happened with it,” Margrada said.
Nia narrowly succeeded in grasping Margrada’s hand before she could strike the drum. From Pelegars choked gasp, Nia was fairly certain it had been the right reflex to exercise.
“Wait. We need to know more about this before we dive in it,” Nia said.
Margrada gave her the most bewildered of looks.
“Caution? From you?”
Pelegar’s chuckle was not a terribly kind one.
“The world really is turned upside down,” she said. “Wait you two didn’t swap brains or anything did you?”
“No! I’m not being cautious for me,” Nia said. “I’m being cautious for them.”
“Them?” Pelegar asked.
“Oh.” Margrada said, and Nia saw understanding dawning in her eyes.
“We had more help with the song last night than just the Gray Falls drummers,” Nia said. “The Untroubled Hearts were there too, and I think they decided they liked the song.”
“So they’re still singing it?” Margrada asked.
“Or they’re trapped in it,” Nia said.
“Isn’t that all the more reason we should try to get them out?” Margrada asked.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about with Hearts, but if this is something that trapped creatures powerful enough to do all this,” she gestured to the transformed hall, “taking your time figuring it out is probably a good idea.”
“We don’t know that they’re trapped,” Margrada said.
“We don’t,” Nia agreed. “They could just be having a good time. They might even stop any minute now.”
“Except if that was true, they probably would have stopped already,” Margrada said.
“Yeah. That was my thought.”
“So what do we do for them?”
“Maybe we can find some other drums to play to try to communicate with them through?” Nia said. “If we could play something sort of adjacent to the song we made last night, that might let us reach across and ask them what’s going on without getting swept into it ourselves.”
Pelegar laughed again.
And again, it wasn’t a happy laugh.
“I’ve got some bad news for you there,” she said. “But it’s the kind of news you should see I think.”
With a gesture she bid for them to stand and follow her.
It was only a short walk to reach what had been the “backstage” area for the Gray Falls band.
A drum which had not been part of the performance was resting there.
And behind it, quite dwarfed by the Shatter Drum, stood an Elf of the Darkwood, his hand on the drum, his eyes closed and his body colored the clean gray of stone.