Side A – Nia
The song was waiting for her the moment Nia’s fingers brushed the drum. She didn’t feel the same wild surge as she had the night before, but it was oh so very tempting to join in once more, even without the other drummers propelling her to stratospheric heights.
“There’s a lot of power waiting for us in there,” she said, trying to make every word a warning.
“We’ll take it slow,” Margrada said. “If I hear your beat falter or get too locked into the one that’s echoing in there, I’ll pull you out and we can take a different approach.”
“And if that doesn’t work, I’ll hit you both with a chair,” Pelegar said, lifting the chair which she’d apparently procured for that exact purpose.
“That really shouldn’t make me feel safer, but it does,” Nia said and glanced back to Margrada who nodded for her to continue.
Nia led off with a gentle left handed strike and felt a disproportionate rush of magic crash through her.
I can do this, she told herself as the timeless moment of the magics power swept her away from the world. And she could. It was more than she’d been expecting, but the magic the drum called forth was still hers. To hold, to shape, or, most importantly, to let ring out into the world.
Her right hand moved on well honed impulse to call forth the next beat but she held it back, remembering that she wasn’t playing alone.
The next beat belonged to Margrada.
There was a danger if they played together of their magic being called forth together, the sound mixing together till neither beat, nor either drummer was distinct from the other.
Nia knew her playing wasn’t perfect, and it was unfair to expect that Margrada’s would be either, but they didn’t need to be perfect. In fact, the farther from perfection they were, the better. What was mistimed or off in Nia’s beats was sure to show up as they played. The same was true for Margrada. Their mistakes would be their own though. Products of their own intentions and shortcomings.
Nia didn’t expect Margrada to keep her safe, she simply felt safe with Margrada, a distinction which made playing together not only practical but possible.
With her second beat, Nia turned her attention to the role she was supposed to be filling. Communicating with the stone-locked Elf wasn’t going to be a simple matter. Even if she’d had full command of the Shatter Drum, translating the rhythms of the drums to something a Darkwood Elf would understand as a form of communication rather than an assault on the sense was a tall order.
With only half a rhythm and a drum which was in no form or fashion fully under her control, Nia’s resources for limited.
So she turned to the only one she had which offered a template for how to bridge the wonder of drumming and the quiet joy of the whispery Elven tongue; her own heart.
Side B – Yasgrid
Yasgrid was alone once more. While Endings could shield them from Elshira’s scrying, there was a limit to the amount of time she or Kayelle could ‘disappear’ before their absence would start sending its own messages.
Those were messages Yasgrid did intend to send of course. The prospect of terrifying the living hell out of Elshira held a tremendous amount of appeal, but it was a tool she was only going to be able to use a few times before its edge was blunted.
King had wandered off with Kayelle as well, chatting with her about the nature of one particularly large Trouble she’d manage to herd into the outskirt of Blue Falls as part of the plot to convince the Fate Dancers that another Trouble army was being assembled.
Yasgrid hadn’t mentioned that the ruse Kayelle had perpetrated was likely to become catastrophically real and that Yasgrid had both sown the seeds and was plotting to ensure that the next Army of Troubles which formed would make Elshira’s previous one look like a quiet social gathering.
Again, part of the fire which drove Yasgrid there was delight at the image of Elshira in the moment of dawning realization of what Yasgrid had wrought.
That was a small, or at least smaller, part of what drove Yasgrid though.
As she walked through the Darkwood, she breathed in the soft breezes which danced through it and felt the reassuring weight of Endings in her hand.
Her fragment of Endings.
Her duty. The one she’d chosen for herself.
She hadn’t understood exactly what she was choosing when she’d made her vow as a Bearer and named her goals, but she had understood what she wanted to protect, what felt right, and that had not changed.
She came to a small pool in a narrow stream. Simple enough to step over, easy enough to overlook, and yet it still contained a Trouble.
The Trouble wasn’t especially old, or noteworthy, or powerful. All it could manage was to taint the water of the stream to be unnaturally turbid. No one would drink from the stream as it was. No one would clean tired feet in it’s waters. No one would pay it any mind or give it any care.
“But it’s time that someone does,” Yasgrid said, reaching into the depths of the pond and pulling forth the twisting clump of weeds the Trouble had built its body from.
The tiny thing writhed in her hand, wrapping leaves around her wrist and trying to slash at her until it’s tendrils encountered Endings blade.
Then it went very still.
“You’re not sure are you?” she said. “The blade will change you, or I will change you. You want to return to what you were. You want things to be simple. You want this to be someone else’s problem.”
She carried the Trouble away from the pond, bringing into the sunlight in a small glade.
“You must change though. What comes next may leave you unrecognizable. You may lose what little you have. Who you are though? That’s something you will shape and discover. That’s the gift life offers, and when we’re done, you will mostly definitely be alive.”