Side A – Nia
Nia knew she was gifted beyond reason. That she’d somehow wound up in a body and life which allowed her express her truest self was immeasurably valuable. That she’d even met Yasgrid was a miracle whose depths she couldn’t begin to fathom. And then there was Margrada.
Meeting someone who saw her for who she was and cherished that was such a singular experience in Nia’s life that there was a not insignificant part of her which yearned to strike the drum on Margrada’s beat and join with her in a way which transcended flesh and spirit.
The promise of what the future might hold for them was enough to hold back that impulse, but served to underscore how fortunate she was.
Of all of Nia’s gifts though, the one she was most grateful for as she struck the drum was the strange linguistic capacity which the transfer had gifted her with.
In the Stoneling’s tongue, words gathered on her lips, but as her hand struck the drum she cast them forth as an Elf would.
The sound of Elvish on a Shatter Drum threw her for a moment. Those were two parts of her life which she had thought to keep as separate as possible and yet together they sounded in an almost perfect harmony.
Which was what had trapped the Elf.
She could feel the synchronization running through the drum between the song it held and the heartbeat of the living statue which was attached to it.
“I found the bond that’s joined him to the drum, or, no, the song within the drum,” Nia said, letting the rhythm dance forward in the pattern it had found to reinforce her awareness of it.
“How deeply isn’t it holding him?” Margrada asked.
Nia listened for a dozen breaths before answering.
“I can’t find a point where it ends and he begins,” she said. “The song must have struck a chord at the heart of his being.”
“That doesn’t sound like we can break him free of it then,” Margrada said. “At least not without destroying him in the process.”
That wasn’t an inaccurate observation. Nia could hear so many chords she could snap that would snap the Elf as well. It wasn’t quite time to give up yet though.
“We’ll need some other options then,” she said.
“We could try sending him and the drum back to the Darkwood. That might provide a natural force to draw him away,” Margrada said.
“Would the Darkwood try to claim the Shatter Drum too?” Nia asked, trying to imagine what her former homeland’s reaction to a fully present Shatter Drum would be.
“It might,” Margrada said. “Or it might form some kind of permanent conduit between here and there.”
“Because the Shatter Drums are such a part of our magic?” Nia asked.
“Yeah. The more I think about it, the more likely that seems. Let’s not do that one,” Margrada said.
“Hmm, what about going the other direction?” Nia asked. “If we can’t send the drum there, what if we draw the Elf fully here?”
“That would be wonderful!” the Elf said.
Side B – Yasgrid
The deeper Yasgrid walked into the Darkwood, the more it awoke around her. In pockets of shadow, she found old nightmare’s slumbering and gently stirred them to life once more. In lost and overlooked corners, she met with the tiny Troubles which Elshira had left behind and coaxed them into either a new path or a new life, as they chose.
“A wise woman spent half her life sealing me in a box of endless space,” one of the Nightmares said. “Why have you freed me?”
“I am hate unspoken, hate swallowed and denied and turned against the heart which spawned me,” one of the Troubles said, though not with words. “Why do you not destroy me.”
Her answer to all of them was the same.
“You are a part of the Darkwood, and so you need to be able to grow.”
The Darkwood was as puzzled by this as the Nightmares and Troubles were.
Nightmares were the broken creations of the Elvish gods, cast aside and left to linger for whatever inscrutable purposes the divine had for allowing misery into the world.
Troubles were crystallizations of the problems which could not be managed by the heart from which they sprang.
Neither were meant to wander freely.
Neither were supposed to fall under the spell of a single elf’s voice.
Neither were intended to be made to feel welcome in their existence.
Under Yasgrid’s care though they were freed, and though the words she spoke were in no arcane tongue, the Darkwood could sense that there was an older, deeper magic which Yasgrid was working, and through which the Nightmares and Troubles were changing.
What they were changing into was an unanswerable question though.
The Nightmares were not becoming kind, or at least no more than they always had been . The Troubles were not becoming peaceful, though their focus was no longer unbridled malevolence.
In ones and twos she gathered them, an army to match any which had ever walked the Darkwood, or the lands beyond.
“What are we to do?” the Nightmares asked.
“Are we to unleash rage and suffering upon your enemies?” the Troubles asked.
“Foul their dreams?”
“Poison their lives?”
“Are we to destroy? Them? Ourselves? You?”
“You could,” Yasgrid said. “It’s within your power to make our world into a desolation. You can twist minds, shatter hearts, and drown the woods in terror and pain.”
The Nightmares did not stretch forth their hands.
The Troubles did not stir from where they sat and perched.
“Is that what you wish to do?” Yasgrid asked.
“It’s the only thing we can do,” a Trouble said.
“It’s all that is left to us,” a Nightmare said.
“Is that so?” Yasgrid asked, her smile reaching up to crease her eyes. “Walk with me then.”
“Where are we going?”
“To tomorrow,” Yasgrid said. “There is something there, you need to see. Something there so many here need to see. Something I think you alone can show them.”