Side A – Yasgrid
In theory all Yasgrid had to do was let go. Containing Endings unfettered power was a monumental effort for her mortal dream world, one which she could simply lay down.
Except letting go was the last thing she wanted to do.
She was familiar with the contradiction in that from her time as a Shatter Drummer.
She could see if Nia how to balance between the two diametrically opposed poles of control and chaos. For Yasgrid though it was more complicated. She was going to have trouble with letting go.
Or Troubles.
Not to mention Nightmares.
And love.
In the months she’d been in the Darkwood, she’d formed a wide variety of connections which bound her fast to it.
“Are you ready for this?” Nia asked.
“Of course she isn’t,” Kayelle answered for her. “But we’re going to do it anyways, aren’t we?”
“We?” Yasgrid asked.
“Endings didn’t choose two Bearers this year, it chose three,” Kayelle said. “If we’re going to open it’s power to everyone, we all need to be a part of this.”
“I thought we’d use you as our anchor,” Yasgrid said, the storm around her howling against the existence of any limit on it that wasn’t the divine mandate it had been created to fill.
“You don’t need me for that,” Kayelle said. “Both of you have more than enough anchors.”
“What about you though? This will be all new to you,” Nia asked.
“Have I ever let you out perform me before?” Kayelle said with a teasing grin on her face.
“Oh, is that how it’s going be?” Even in her Stoneling form within the dream, Nia was somehow shorter than her sister, but she jutted her chin up to attempt to rise to her sister’s stature.
“Yes. That is exactly how it will be,” Kayelle said, her grin turning to far kinder one than the sisters had shared before. “Should we have the other’s clear out?”
“Probably,” Yasgrid said. “If you could all await us in the waking world, we’ll see you shortly or not at all.”
“It’ll be shortly,” Nia said.
“And if someone can have a towel ready, I’d appreciate it,” Kayelle added, since she was likely still drowning outside the dream world.
“We will await your return,” the Darkwood said.
“And be ready to render what aid we can,” Ilia said.
“Remember that you’re not alone,” the Gardener said before taking Ilia’s hand and carrying them both away.
“I can’t be part of this,” the soul which had been Endings said. “I would become the Blade again if I was, but know that I am only refusing the fate because I know you and what you are capable of. No matter how impossible it may seem, no matter what may go wrong, or what you discover, I know you can do this, and I trust the choices you will make.”
Yasgrid wasn’t in a position to give the soul a hug, but she very much wanted to nonetheless.
“Can you take care of them?” she asked the Darkwood instead.
“Nuture a soul within me? That’s rather what I was designed for,” the Darkwood said, before fading away from the dream along with the wayward soul.
Leaving only three strange sisters within the howling end of all things.
Side B – Nia
What they were doing was not Shatter Drumming. Nia was especially certain of that because she was also, at the moment, Shatter Drumming.
Far away in the Sky Reach mountain, in the increasingly strange city of Gray Rift, she was sitting before a Shatter Drum and she was playing part of the greatest song which she could have ever imagined.
And yet her focus was almost entirely on the two women with her.
We’re about to do something really foolish, Margrada played to her, weaving the words into the counterpoints of her own drumming to Nia’s.
Wow, that is supposed to be my line, Nia said.
Hold onto me, okay? Margrada said.
Always! Though, I might need to ask the same of you.
If you think I’m letting you get away from me after all this, you are a madwoman Nia M’Kellin.
I probably am a madwoman, but I am most definitely your madwoman. I love you beyond words or drumming Margrada Naswuf.
Nia felt the Shatter Drumming song take on a new depths and richness and nearly burst with glee over the thought of spending her life with the woman responsible.
So what madness are you attempting? Margra asked.
We’re going to use something like a Shatter Drumming Resonance state to harness Endings power, within the three of us temporarily, until we can share it with everyone in the Darkwood.
Wouldn’t everyone include Yasgrid’s enemies there?
Yep. That’s the genius of it. What they’ll get is the power to end what they’ve become so that they can change into something new.
And if they don’t use the power for that?
Then the rest of us will have the power to end them in other ways.
I like it, Margrada said. And I know you can do it.
What will you be doing? I can’t even begin to tell where this song is going?
Oh? That? We’re rebuilding the seals on all of the volcanoes the gods are hiding in.
Wait. What? Why!?
They, well, they broke.
When did this happen!?
A few minutes after we started playing.
Why are we playing then? I thought we were trying to fix the rift I’d opened?
We are. Also, we broke the seals.
Nia frowned. She could feel Margrada’s amusement at the turnabout in their usual position of madwoman to sensible one.
And we did this why? I seem to remember things getting sort of unpleasant at the Calling when the gods didn’t even come close to being unsealed.
It was Osdora’s idea. And your mothers.
Did…did we break them?
Probably?
Did they offer any reason for this particular avenue of self destruction they’re walking us down?
Believe it or not they did. And they were almost the same while being the exact opposite of each other.
You’re having fun with this, aren’t you?
Tormenting you? My girlfriend who has never given me cause for worry or concern, who always behaves in the most sensible of all possible manners, who is not, AT THIS VERY MOMENT, about to do something ill-conceived and likely to end all life as we know? No, no, why would I enjoy tormenting you?
Sleeping Gods, I love you woman.
Hold onto that thought until we get to celebrate all this.
I’m going to hold you to that.
Oh, you’re going to do a lot more than hold me.