Side A – Nia
Nia didn’t lose the beat. She was immensely proud that she didn’t lose the beat. Her magic felt like it had leapt to the other side of the world and back, but she managed to catch it on its return. Most of it. Enough of it.
“You can talk still?” She watched the Elf’s stone lips and the answer came without them moving in the slightest.
“Yep, I’ve been able to talk for years now. Ever since I was a tiny little thing. My Mum always said the trick was getting me to shut up but I don’t think it’s really that hard. I mean all you need to do is ask nicely and I’m more than willing to stop talking. I’m really good at listening to people too. When they’re talking about something interesting of course. There aren’t really a lot of times that happens though. Usually I wind up listening to other things. You wouldn’t believe the kind of things you can hear in between the words people say. Unless they’re talking really fast. Mum said I talk really fast too, which I guess isn’t that good since it means people can’t hear as much in between my words, but I don’t think most people listen for things in between words. Is that considered rude? Listening for things between words I mean. I don’t think listening to people could be rude. Could it?”
Nia waited a moment, as she’d been taught to in order to be polite. The Elf didn’t seem to have been taught the same lesson though.
“Oh, you don’t know either, is that it? Well, I guess that makes sense. It’s not like they publish books on what’s rude and what isn’t.” The Elf seemed ready to go on, potentially forever, so Nia channeled a little of the Stoneling sensibility she’d managed to absorb and cut in before the Elf could draw breath to continue.
“They do,” she said. “Several books in fact. Most libraries have copies of the older ones. That’s not my question though. My question is how you’re forming words when your lips are made out of stone and sealed shut.”
“They are?” the Elf said. “That doesn’t sound right. They feel…well now, that’s odd. They don’t feel like anything at all. I didn’t notice that. In fact, it seems as though I didn’t notice a lot of things. Where am I?”
“That’s an excellent question,” Nia said, no longer certain that the statue before her actually was the Elf’s body.
“Thank you!” the Elf said. “Would you happen to know the answer to it?”
“Not exactly,” Nia said, turning over a few musical ideas for how the Drum might be able to help her figure things out as she continued to play.
“I’ll settle for an imprecise answer if you have one available?” the Elf said.
“Give me a minute then,” Nia said. “I need to check on something.”
With the next beat, she played hit the drum and lifted her hands away from it as she sat back to indicate that they needed to regroup.
The sound came to an end a beat later when Margrada stopped it abruptly and grabbed Nia’s hands.
“They’re not stone anymore!” Margrada said. “You’re back! Are you okay?”
Side B – Yasgrid
The Nightmares were gone and the Troubles had faded away. Yasgrid sat alone in the Darkwood as night rolled over the trees in a soft and slow wave.
Or, not entirely alone.
“It occurs to me, I never asked how you felt about all this?” she said, drawing Endings forth and laying it on her lap.
“The Bearer need not concern themselves with my feelings as I am not allowed to possess any,” Endings said.
“Not allowed?” Yasgrid said. “Not allowed by who?”
“I was created to be a tool, an instrument to remove aberrations from the divine plan and ensure it’s continued viability,” Endings said.
“Are you the same now as you were then? Or have you changed since the time of your creation?” Yasgrid asked, the magic she’d awoken inside herself sensing something she couldn’t put words to yet.
“Nothing is immune to the passage of time,” Endings said. “I am no different, but my function remains unchanged, as does my capacity to enable the Bearers to fulfill it.”
“Do you foresee a time when that will no longer be true?” Yasgrid asked.
“I will never falter, and never fail. I was not constructed to allow either outcome,” Endings said and Yasgrid found no note of sorrow or exhaustion or pain in its words.
But there was something there.
“And what of when your purpose is fulfilled, what will happen if Kayelle succeeds and manages to rid the Darkwood of all its Troubles?” Yasgrid said.
“She will not,” Endings said. “She continues to Bear my weight but she has walked away from her vow, as have many others who made the same vow.”
“Does that trouble you?” Yasgrid asked.
“She continues to serve the duty I was crafted for,” Endings said. “In this she is as much the Bearer as she ever has been. Moreso even perhaps since her heart is less clouded and the Trouble she might have spawned faded into an unlikely possibility at most.”
“But does it bother you that she vowed to fulfill your ultimate purpose and is choosing to walk away from that?” Yasgrid asked.
“I do not question the Bearers choices, so long as they do not conflict with my function,” Endings said. “I am not given to reprimand them, or sit in judgment of their deeds. They bear me, not I them.”
“Yes, but do you desire that she’d stayed true to her vow? Would it have been a relief to finally lay the last Trouble to rest? Or would it have been terrifying? What did you want to happen?” If Yasgrid was wrong she knew the questions she was asking would be nonsensical, but the magic flowing through her veins was tingling as she drove the words into Endings one after the other.
“Don’t ask me that,” Endings said. “That’s not an answer you want me to give.”
And in her hands, the blade turns dark shades of purple and red.