Side A – Nia
Shatter drums were not made to play the harmonies of the winds and waters. The song of the Darkwood was entirely apart from them. Nia knew that, but there had been a bridge between the two. The Darkwood and the drums had moved together to produce something far greater than either could have managed alone. It was foolish to think that either could capture the other’s nature, and Nia knew that too.
But she still couldn’t help but try.
The crowd around her wasn’t a large one and hadn’t been overly invested in the song she was playing. She’d allowed too many fumbles and flubs in it to command much respect, though some people seemed to grasp why they’d been there. As she moved into a new section of the song though, confusion spread among those who were still paying attention.
In place of good solid beats, Nia struck the drums and slide her hands over the top, drawing the sound out far too little for the seamless flow she wanted but enough to make it clear she was playing something new.
As techniques went, she hadn’t invented anything revolutionary, Shatter drummers called forth beats of all sorts, but stylistically her efforts bent the beats towards a new aim.
In her imagination she conjured the sound of her favorite stream, swollen with spring rains and splashing over rocks and branches. The drums were a poor medium for reproducing the sound so Nia focused on capturing its essence instead.
Within her the magic stretched and wobbled, threatening to cast her into a weird, rippling Resonance state, but she held on. She could let the magic pass beyond her. She wanted to let the magic pass out into the world and touch the ones who were listening to it.
It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t enough, which was frustrating and made her hit a beat far too hard. The sharp bang disrupted her feeble attempt at evoking the burble of the stream but Nia understood her mistake and took a deep breath as she played on.
What she was playing wasn’t going to be good enough. It couldn’t be. She wanted to celebrate the Darkwood. She wanted to thank it for all it had done for her, and give it the love she still held for it. She wanted to do that and more but a drum wasn’t designed for that and she wasn’t a good enough drummer yet.
Which was why she played.
Her offering to the Darkwood wasn’t perfect, but it was sincere, and it was something she would get better at.
By failing.
Each beat that was wrong grated on her nerves, but she played on.
She didn’t have to be perfect in how she said thank you. Her love for the Darkwood wasn’t fake simply because she lack the skill to convey it.
And with each beat she got closer to finding the ones which did work.
Right up until she tried to pull a beat out farther than ever before and tumbled down into a Resonance state that left her spinning and disoriented and smelling pine of all things?
Side B – Yasgrid
That Osdora wanted to perform dangerous experiments with Resonances came as precisely no surprise whatsoever to Yasgrid.
“I’m not sure you would be able to hit the same Resonance that Nia and I did,” she said, hoping to console her mother. “Having mind inside and outside the Resonance is, I think, what let her navigate them like she did.”
“Hmm, that could be,” Gossma said. “You could have been an anchor for her. Also her Elven upbringing would have given her a different perspective on them.”
“I expect that may have made it more challenging rather than less,” Naosha said.
“You’re thinking the music might have filled her like festival music and carried her away more easily than it would someone raised as a Stoneling?” Kyra asked.
“That and the flowing nature of many Elven magics may not have inclined Nia to beat back against the Shatter drums magic, especially not if the magic came from within her,” Naosha said.
“It does, and that all makes sense,” Osdora said and shook her head. “I wish I hadn’t been so blind early on though. That was something I should have seen in how she was playing.”
“We did let you believe she was me,” Yasgrid said. “You had years of watching me play and not winding up stuck in a Resonance, so I think it’s fair that it didn’t occur to you what was happening with her.”
“It was more than that,” Osdora said. “I don’t know when I first really saw her. Probably before she came clean about what had happened, but the ‘Fugue state’ just explained things too neatly. I saw my daughter playing the Shatter drums like she never had before and I thought ‘oh how wonderful, she’s found something new inside, some new connection to the drums’.”
“Well, you weren’t exactly wrong about that. Nia did find something new about herself, and she was playing like I never had.”
“Exactly. I’ve listened to drummers play since before I could form words. I can tell you exactly who’s playing in a band on the other side of a mountain. I listen to her play now and I can’t help but hear who she is. I think it says terrible things about me that I didn’t pick up on it sooner.”
“Terrible things?” Naosha said. “Perhaps you imagine that you weren’t hearing Nia for who she was because you saw her as a daughter who shared your love of drumming? Is that so terrible?”
“Yeah. It’s unfair to this one. A girl deserves someone who loves them for more than what they can do.”
“If you’ve fallen short then the remedy is readily at hand,” Naosha said. “Yasgrid no doubt has requests, pick one and show your love through it.”
“As delightful as it would be to extort my mother for the rest of my life, there’s the tiny detail that you never made me feel like drumming was a requirement to be your daughter,” Yasgrid said. “I think what you did with Nia proves something I’ve known for years – no matter how I’ve changed you’ve always been willing to accept me.”