Side A – Yasgrid
Yasgrid could feel the moment when Endings conflict resolved. It apparently was not fond of testing the limits the Elvish gods had placed on it – a fact which gave Yasgrid a steadily more unfavorable view of said gods – but her argument had been convincing enough that it was willing to take the risk.
“Elshira created a Trouble when she was a young woman, just shy of her majority,” Endings said. “She was not the one from whom the Trouble emerged however.”
Yasgrid blinked. And paused. She was sure she’d heard Endings’ words correctly. It didn’t form sounds. It simply put the words directly into her head. There wasn’t any hearing involved, or chance at confusion.
And yet, she was confused.
“She found a method of artificially creating…” Yasgrid started to ask and cut herself short.
This was Elshira.
There hadn’t been anything artificial about the Trouble she created.
“Who was it?” Yasgrid asked instead. “Who did she torment to the point where they spawned a Trouble?”
“A girl who thought she was Elshira’s best friend,” Endings said.
“Elshira doesn’t have best friends,” Yasgrid said. “But she would let a useful tool believe anything the person wanted to. Why did she want to destroy the Trouble?”
“It was not useful to her.”
Yasgrid paused again at that. She’d known Elshira had planned to make use of the hearts of Troubles and had “died” when one of her efforts at such went horribly awry. When she’d learned that, she’d thought that it had been Elshira’s first attempt at harnessing a Trouble’s power which had overwhelmed her.
Yasgrid cast her gaze around the ruined building she was in.
This was the first place she’d been able to bring Endings power against a Trouble. What had she already known at that point? What had she been trying to learn still?
“Was this the only Trouble she found? Was it the one she’d been searching for when she took you up?” Yasgrid asked, not sure if that would be public information which Endings was allowed to share or not.
“This was only the first of many Troubles Elshira defeated in her time as my Bearer,” Endings said. “But it was not the one she sought. None of them were.”
“What was she looking for in them? Did she find it?” Yasgrid mumbled the words, questioning only herself with them, since Elshira’s exact plans and motives would certainly not have been public knowledge.
“She sought to become one herself,” Endings said. “Or a being such as they are but unbound by the limitations their existence places on them.”
Yasgrid was too busy nodding in understanding of Endings claim to notice at first that it had offered the explanation where none was expected.
“Wait, she wanted to become a Trouble, and you knew about it?” Yasgrid asked, unsettled by where that idea was leading her.
“Yes. It was why I chose her to act as my Bearer,” Endings said.
“Why give her that power?” Yasgrid asked.
“So that if she succeeded, I could end her.”
Side B – Nia
Nia knew several people named “Elgi”, but even so she was reasonably certain she’d never met this particular Elf named Elgi before.
“Now that you have my name, will I need to get another?” Elgi asked.
“Another?” Nia was perplexed for a moment before she parsed what Elgi had said. “Oh, no, I’m not taking your name away. I need it to weave into the song that’s binding you here.”
“Weaving is normally done with thread, isn’t it?” Elgi asked.
“This is not a normal world,” Nia said and sat down on the ground which wasn’t there to collect herself.
The music was there.
Waiting for her.
It was hers.
It bore the imprint of her soul as clearly as it did the imprints from the dozens of souls of her drummers.
And at the center of it, dancing with undiminished glee, two hearts spun in unison.
She thought of calling out to them. It would have been the simplest method of getting them to stop.
But she didn’t want them to stop.
Not abruptly.
And maybe not at all.
If the Hearts let the song fall apart, Nia wasn’t sure what would happen to the people and things which had been touched by it, except that it wasn’t likely to be anything good.
What she needed was to steer them to a new refrain, or even a gentle ending, and that was going to require delicacy.
She slammed her hand against the ground.
Delicacy was not her strong suit.
So she was substituting what she was good at.
Volume.
She’d never imagined that she could whisper the Hearts into doing what she needed. That was Margrada’s skill, or one of Margrada’s skills, and Margrada had her back.
What Nia planned to do was to find a spot in with the Hearts song, her spot, the one at the forefront of the song. She’d been able to steer the song when her drummers were behind her, being able to at least budge the song when only two Hearts were beating behind it had to be within her grasp even with as much of a neophyte as she was.
Of course she didn’t have a Shatter Drum to work with.
But Pelegar said she hadn’t used one the last time she been in this odd realm.
And she’d worked Shatter Drum magic without a drum before.
As her fist hit the ground a boom filled the universe.
The magic was hers.
The universe was hers.
The song was hers.
And she belonged to the song.
And she belonged to the universe.
And she belonged to the magic.
Without the drum, she stood at the center point of creation, and she was such a tiny, insignificant part of it.
A tiny, insignificant but LOUD part of it.
Nia had fought this battle with her magic before.
This time though her magic had an advantage.
The song Nia had woven was as loud as she was.
She wasn’t going to be able to shout herself down.
She was going to be lost in the music, unable to even be pulled free now that she’d touched it and let it touch her soul again.