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Side A – Yasgrid

It wasn’t that Osdora Kaersbean didn’t bother with plans or make any attempt think things through before hand. Yasgrid had watched her craft a narrative flow for an entire concert with adjustments based on the the skills of the individual Band members and contingencies around exactly which sections of the audience were responding to each movement of the pieces she had lined up. It was her ability to extend that to other aspects of her life which Yasgrid found, for a change, to be humorously lacking.

“Mom,” Yasgrid said, reaching up to take Osdora’s hand. “We both know you don’t need my approval or my blessing. I always wondered why you two never looked each other up after you split up. What am I going to do now? Say ‘no, you gotta get a divorce and go marry my father instead’? We still have some active volcanoes right? I’d rather pitch myself into one or all of them. Also, Gossma seems lovely, and I’m looking forward to getting to know her. Perhaps over some drumming?”

“You can still play?” Osdora asked, zeroing in on exactly what Yasgrid had expected her to zero in on.

“I can do a lot of things,” Yasgrid said. “In this case though I was thinking of listening to her play. If I was playing myself I’d be too conscious of all the mistakes I was making.”

“Pfff, you never made half the mistakes you thought you did,” Osdora said.

“I had a good teacher,” Yasgrid said. “Halfhid made me practice every day after all.”

Osdora’s smile turned into a frown at Yasgrid’s teasing.

“He taught you everything he knows and less half what you do,” Osdora said. 

“I would love to play for you,” Gossma said. “Just not on the same drum.”

“Hey, I learned my lesson,” Osdora said. “And I managed to save more than a few other knuckleheads from making the same mistake.”

“Nia and Margrada thank you for that, in case they haven’t had a chance to mention it yet,” Yasgrid said.

“They’re smarter than I am,” Osdora said. “For one, they actually listened to me.”

“You can be very persuasive,” Gossma said.

“And very stupid,” Osdora said. “So, listen,” she turned to Yasgrid. “Even if you can’t get me your blessing, you’ve still got mine, for whatever it’s worth. I just hope it’s not more of a curse than anything else.”

Yasgrid spiraled her left index finger in the air, drawing in the words as Osdora spoke them. With each circle of her finger, the words echoed in miniature, growing somehow more present rather than less with each echo.

She hadn’t meant to show off in front of the people gathered with her, but Osdora’s official blessing of Yasgrid’s courtship of Kyra felt too important to let pass into silence.

Circle by circle, she turned each of the words into a glyph into Low Quand, the language Osdora spoke in her heart. The glyphs followed her moving finger spinning into matching circles, each echoing the other, growing more solid with each turn until Yasgrid held a pair of rings of living wood, etched with Stoneling writing on them.

“Your blessings are never curses,” she said. “And for that blessing let me return one of my own.”

With outstretched hands she offered the rings to Osdora and Gossma as her blessing on their long delayed union.

Side B – Nia

Nia had been prepared for a lot of counterarguments to her reasons for asking for a drum. An open license to play however she wished though? Or, even more, the requirement to play how she wanted to, and not anyone else? It felt too good to be true.

Which meant is was too good to be true.

“You want me to play alone?” she asked.

“No, no,” Horgi said. “It doesn’t need to be alone. We just need to hear more of how you play, so we need you to be the one to lead it. And we sort of need it soon.”

“Like this morning,” Grash said.

“Or now, if now’s good?” Horgi asked.

“Wait, hold up, since when do Roadies want drummers messing with the concert drums outside of scheduled concerts? I thought you all had these elaborate rituals you needed to do to prepare the drums before we could use them?”

“Yeah, we did all that,” Horgi said. “This one’s good to go.”

“And did you have any others that are good to go too?” Nia asked.

“Uh, we could get another one ready,” Horgi said. “Or more. How many would you need?”

“How many can you get ready?” Nia asked, thinking she absolutely needed at least two more, one for Margrada and one for Yasgrid. A third for Belhelen seemed polite, and Osdora and Gossma might be interested/insist on joining them too.

“And why do you need her to play so soon?” Marianne asked. “You’d expected to find her exhausted from her last session, hadn’t you?”

“Well, we weren’t sure how she would be doing,” Grash said.

“But it’s good to see that she’s up and about,” Horgi said.

“I believe we all agree on that. We remain curious as to what use you were hoping to put her present state to?” Marianne said. She wasn’t annoyed enough to start stabbing anyone. Yet. Nonetheless Nia felt the need to step in and help her Roadie friends arrive at the answer which would keep them unperforated the longest.

“If you don’t care what I play, then you just need to hear me play anything? Even just the practice beats Pelegar has me working on?” Nia asked.

“No, we need to hear what it sounds like when you play as you. Not part of the band, and not a song someone else made up. Something from you. The real you,” Horgi said.

The real her.

Because they hadn’t met the ‘real Nia’ yet. In a sense the only ones who had were the people she was sharing the table with and Osdora.

“That’s part of what Yasgrid and I are planning to show people,” Nia said. “But how will that help you?”

“Not us,” Grash said. “The Elves.”

“There’s a bunch of people from the wood who heard the drumming,” Horgi said.

“And now they want to be drummers now too,” Grash said.

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