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Side A – Nia

Nia needed to talk to the Roadies. She was going to talk to the Roadies. Really. Eventually. She just needed to do something first.

Maybe everything.

Putting her affairs in order, filling out a last will and testament, receive a benediction from the sacred forest springs, meditating until she achieved harmony with the birds and spiders, it wasn’t unreasonable to get those taken care of before facing the wrath of the Shatter Drum keepers, right?

“I’m betting they’re not even going to be surprised to see us at this point,” Margrada said as she popped a strip of crispy bacon into her mouth.

Breakfast, at least, had been an easy diversion to argue for. 

And, really, it didn’t feel like a Last Meal for the convicted.

Not at all.

“Horgi and Garsh were there for almost everything you’ve done,” Margrada said, watching Nia picking at her food. “If they were sharpening their axes, I think you’d have noticed already.”

“You’re right, but, I mean, they’ve got to have a breaking point, right?” Nia asked. She didn’t actually expect either of her friends to break out the melee weapons, but she knew they would eventually have to slam a wall down in front of her ideas, and she’d grown fond enough of them that the prospect of that wall slamming down between them wasn’t all that palatable.

“Are we still breaking stuff?” Belhelen asked, taking a seat to Nia’s right at the mess hall table where an ever-open meal service had been setup by Elven and Stoneling cart vendors to cater to the throng of people who had been partying non-stop for days.

“You’d better let your sister know if so,” Marianne said, dragging one of the Elf-adapted high chairs over to Margrada’s left side before hopping up to it in a single bound.

“Your mother too,” Belhelen said. “Both of them. Osdora will want to be part of it, and Mrs. M’Kellin will want to be ready to pick up the pieces.”

“We’re not going to break anything,” Nia said.

“Really?” Marianne’s suspicion was, perhaps, well founded and eminently reasonable, but Nia huffed anyways. 

When had she ever really broken anything after all?

As though reading her thoughts, Marianne’s eyes narrowed further and dared Nia to voice that sentiment. 

Since Marianne had loads of receipts to counter any of Nia’s protestations with Nia instead opted for a conciliatory approach.

“There’s an idea Yasgrid and I spoke about last night,” she said, hoping that by invoking the more sensible half of the equation their idea might meet with less resistance.

“Any reason she’s not here then?” Belhelen asked.

Which for a moment Nia took as a request to manifest Yasgrid before them, which seemed even more fraught than what she’d had in mind.

But why did it have to be?

Marianne was sitting right across the table from her.

Naosha was somewhere in Gray Rift too.

What was stopping Nia and Yasgrid from meeting in person?

More importantly, what was stopping Nia from foisting the duty of talking to the Roadies off on Yasgrid!

Side B – Yasgrid

Yasgrid was drowning. She could come up for air at any time of course, but drowning into Kyra was so much better than air.

She’d been startled by the kiss for all of the blink of an eye.

Then her eyes had closed and she’d sagged into the relief and thrill of feeling Kyra’s lips on her own.

Beyond that everything had become both a blur and exceedingly clear.

She’d wrapped her arms around Kyra but Kyra had been faster and drew their bodies in close before Yasgrid was able to.

When they finally did part for air, neither allowed the other to draw away at all.

“Dreaming about you does not measure up to the real thing,” Kyra said.

“I don’t think I ever even dared to dream,” Yasgrid said.

Her emotions were far, far too big for her and words seemed both too insufficient and too dangerously big to use.

This. This was all she needed. Not words. Not anything else. Just this moment. This could be her eternity.

Terrible Shatter Drum ideas occurred to her.

Even more terrible Sorcery ideas occurred to her.

Time could be frozen. Moments could be stretched to the horizons of ones life.

She didn’t want Shatter Drumming or Sorcery though.

She just wanted the woman in her arms.

She hugged Kyra close, and buried her head on Kyra’s shoulder.

“I didn’t break the world to be with you, but I think I would have,” Yasgrid said.

“That should be disturbing, but it’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me I think.”

“Would it be weird if I asked to be able to court you?” It was weird, Yasgrid knew, but it was also something she needed.

It wasn’t that she had doubts about being with Kyra

Or that she thought Kyra had doubts about her.

There was a beauty to the slow dance of getting to know each other.

The anticipation of a commitment founded on a bedrock of bone deep knowledge of each other.

Yasgrid felt an odd smile bubbling up inside her.

Was she her mother’s daughter? Did the answer depend on which mother she was considering for that role? Osdora had always been footloose and fancy free in her relationships, never truly tied to any of her paramours. Possibly as a result of his misadventure with Gossma? 

Naosha, on the other hand, had found the kind of love which settled so deeply into her soul that it left her with no room for other paramours. It should have been a lonely state, and Yasgrid could see hints of that, but there was strength in it, even still. For all that her partner was lost, Naosha could still stand on the love they’d had and draw strength from the memories of her time with him.

And that was the kind of love Yasgrid found she yearned for.

The kind, perhaps, Kyra might be looking for as well?

“I expect Stoneling and Elven customs of courting do not entirely overlap,” Kyra said. “But I would like nothing more than discover those differences. And to build our own customs, and our own futures.”

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