Previous – Next

Side A – Yasgrid

Time was about to move on, but Yasgrid needed it to pause, just for one moment longer. Or perhaps two. Or perhaps a lifetime.

“There’s a lot we don’t know about each other,” she said, each word a plate of armor around her heart barricading her from what she’d been longing for since it couldn’t be real.

“There’s a lot we don’t know about ourselves,” Kyra said. “Or did you think that this whole endeavor has left you unchanged?”

“I’m still just me,” Yasgrid said. “I could have been more, in the Resonance, with Endings power, I could have been something too big to fit in the world, in this life, but I cast that all aside. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be me.”

“And on the day we met, did you know that?” Kyra asked. “Did you know who you were then as much as you do now?”

Yasgrid thought back. She’d been masquerading as Nia then, and with many people probably still was – the Fate Dancers didn’t know her by her real name for example.

But Kyra did?

“I knew who I was, even if the name I gave you wasn’t mine,” Yasgrid said.

“You are Yasgrid Kaersbean, daughter of Osdora Kaersbean, Shatter Drummer by training, but so many other things by choice,” Kyra said.

Yasgrid gawped at her.

“How?” 

“I had very little to do while Elshira held me in her cages than to review my life,” Kyra said. “I saw the inflection points in it over and over again, the ones I’d lived through. The ones that were on the horizon. The ones I’d lost and which could never be.”

“You saw the future?”

“I followed the threads of my fate,” Kyra said. “Usually our fates are so knotted and change so much based on even observing them that it’s a waste of time to look much beyond a few moments to come. For me though, my fates ran clear together and unchanging until the Summer Solstice.”

“But we haven’t gotten to that yet. It’s still a few weeks away. Oh, or do the elves mark it at a different date?”

“The same sun shines on the wood as on the mountains,” Kyra said. “And yes, this isn’t part of any of the fates I saw. I saw you, so many days with you, but I never saw this.”

“Is that what you meant by me breaking your fate?” Yasgrid asked, uncertain if it was a good or bad thing, though Kyra’s demeanor seemed to pleased with the result?

“Yes. In breaking Endings, you split the fate of so many of us. Where our futures lead is all unwoven strands that we are picking up and weaving anew with each breath.”

“But I still feel like me,” Yasgrid said.

“And you always will, but you are less bound by the choices you’ve made in the past than ever before. Our futures are normally written by the world around us and the past that brings us to them. For you, and for me, the choices that matter are the ones we make here and now. So the question is, who do you want to be?”

Side B – Nia

Finding Margrada wasn’t hard. When Nia had come out of the Resonance, Margrada had been right beside her, playing the song down to the end of its crescendo. When the song had finished, they’d reached for each other, only for a crowd of senior drummers and an unexpected army of elves to whisk Margrada away both in celebration and, Nia guessed, for some detailed interrogation over the miracle that Margrada had been the primary drummer on.

Nia would have battled them all to get Margrada back but she’d met Margrada’s eyes to see if the attention was overwhelming and been greeted with a smile and a shoulder shrug. It was too easy to see how much the leaders of the two people needed help understanding what had happened, even if the echoes of the song were still there to tell them all they needed to know.

In time, Nia knew, the leaders and the generally curious would seek her out, but she’d only been the conduit for the song. It’s true power had come from all the drummers involved, and the beat which had guided it all had come from Margrada’s drum.

“You know, I’m surprised you two didn’t sneak off for some celebrating of your own,” Belhelen said. 

“I think this one’s too happy for the other one to spoil her time in the limelight,” Marianne said, entirely accurately.

“I’ll be here for her,” Nia said. “When they’ve celebrated her, and after everyone else has sung her name, I’ll be here for her.”

“You sure you don’t need to be with her?” Marianne asked. “If you were with her, you could be sure she was having a good time, and was protected from anyone who would spoil that.”

“Oh brambles, was that what I was like with you?” Nia asked, wincing.

“It was sweet,” Marianne said, the statement purely intended to moderate the blow to Nia’s pride.

“But not for you,” Belhelen observed with a note of intrigue in her voice.

“Cruelly, no,” Marianne said.

“Cruelly?” Belhelen asked.

“Nia could have been a wonderful girlfriend, as Miss Naswuf can likely attest,” Marianne said.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Nia said. “I don’t think I could be the person I am with Margrada if I hadn’t tried to be with you.”

“So I didn’t break your heart?” Marianne asked.

“Nope. I did. Smashed it all to pieces,” Nia said. “But looking at the pieces showed me a lot. I didn’t want to believe we wouldn’t work out, but once I let myself accept that I saw all the things we’d actually had, and what I was really looking for.”

“And you think you’ve found it now?” Marianne asked.

“Nope,” Nia said. “Because what I was looking for was only what I could imagine, and what I’ve found is a whole lot better than that.”

Previous – Next