Side A – Yasgrid
Yasgrid had spoken to many different sorts of peoples and things while in the Darkwood. From commoner Elves to the psychic embodiment of the Fear of Death By Exposure. None of them were quite like speaking to the Darkwood itself though.
“Hello,” she said, wanting to feel out where the conversation might go.
Or even how it might go. Being noticed by what was effectively a godly domain was intriguing but with no idea what the Darkwood’s motivations might be or what its capabilities were, Yasgrid felt that treading lightly might be the best approach.
Why? the Darkwood asked, its voice the rustle of old fallen leaves crumbling into decay and nourishing the forest floor for the tiny lives which lay within, waiting their turn to bloom.
As questions went it wasn’t a lot to go on.
Except Yasgrid suspected she could tease out the meaning behind.
Why was she here? Why was she speaking to it? Why did she want to change it? Why had she done the things she’d done already.
Or perhaps it was even simpler than that.
Sometimes ‘why’ is a statement rather than a question. ‘I don’t understand this, and I don’t know how to understand it.’ As Yasgrid let herself sink deeper into the dream, and slow down for the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt the beat of her heart matching the rhythm of the forest around her.
There is pain, she said, choosing something fundamental as a beginning in the hope that the Darkwood would be able to understand at least that much a mortal’s life was like.
There is always pain, the Darkwood acknowledged. Pain is needed. It completes the design. It serves a purpose.
Yes. It creates boundaries. It shows what not to do and it teaches when there are costs to be paid.
Yasgrid knew there was a lot more to pain than that, but there were some limitations in speaking to a place rather than a person.
Pain cannot be lost, the Darkwood was still confused, in part Yasgrid saw because it wasn’t able to perceive certain aspects of itself.
Yes. We need to retain the ability to feel. Pleasure and pain. Joy and sorrow. What I follow, what I seek, what I will change is Eternal Pain.
Nothing is Eternal. All will find its Ending.
Yasgrid did not miss the fact that to the Darkwood, Ending was a proper noun.
Endings was designed to be wielded by mortal hands. It is a tool given to the fallible to make right what they had put wrong.
Yes!
No.Yasgrid wasn’t even slightly uncertain about that. Endings isn’t a tool. And it should never have been part of the divine plan for your creation.
Do Not.
Yasgrid hadn’t been expecting Endings to speak. She hadn’t even been sure it could. Since it had decided to join the discussion though, she drew it forth.
Do not end us, the Darkwood said.
That’s not why Endings is here and not why it’s speaking, Yasgrid reassured the forest she had always been a part of, before turning to address the gleaming blade in her hands.
“You know my words are true,” she said, her voice a whisper which filled the Darkwood.
And that is why you must not speak them.
Side B – Nia
Given that Nia had already burst aflame in front of them, it was a little surprising that the Stonelings assembled around her reacted when she was wreathed in fire once more. Part of her, the tiny little part that wasn’t struggling to hold her end of the song together, was chuckling at her response.
“What in the God’s Burning Hells is she doing?” Horgi swore.
“Uh, burning it looks like,” Grash said.
“But not the drum, huh, ain’t that a thing,” Jurdi said, which was reassuring to Nia. Nia had known she wasn’t harming the drum – she would have felt that instantly if she had been – but it was rather important that the Roadies knew that too. If Horgi or Grash tried to tear her away from the drum, she wasn’t sure what would happen, but she knew it would be pretty bad.
“Let me try something,” Jury said and Nia braced for what she was afraid might be a new and even more disruptive influence as someone else tried to meddle with her and Margrada’s song.
Except that wasn’t what Jurdy did.
She started drumming, Nia could hear that easily enough, but it wasn’t a part of her song. Jurdy’s beats were entirely background, interfering with nothing that Nia was doing. Playing on, in fact, Nia felt the burden against her piece of the song lessening.
There’s less noise, her companion said.
And there was. Jurdy’s song was blocking out the clutter of sound around them, leaving Nia and Margrada free to focus entirely on what awaited them on the far end of their song.
Shall we make the most of it then? Nia said, a thrill at the new opportunity racing through her.
Yes. Let’s, her companion said
Where Nia’s end of the song had been waning as she stumbled along with numbed fingers, her next beat brought it surging back to life.
“WOAH!” Horgi was leaping backwards as he shouted that and Nia could tell the others were too.
That wasn’t a bad idea.
She felt like a star. Specifically the blazing sun of midday.
In the Darkwood, she heard a scream of pure rage as a tidal wave of shadows, a thousand layers or more crashed over the people she was searching for.
Nia was more than the song though.
She was fire.
She was life.
She was an Ending all unto herself and before her the shadows burned.
“Kill them. Quickly.”
Nia heard her companion’s former master give the order and that was simply not something she was going to allow.
With one step she moved from the Stoneling mountains to the Darkwood.
It wasn’t like it was far away after all.
Her mother had always been close to her heart.