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Side A – Yasgrid

Yasgrid tried to picture the paths of fate which would have led to her never meeting Kyra again.

“No offense meant to the Darkwood, but I think I would have burned it down if that had happened,” she said and gave Kyra’s hand a squeeze.

“You’ll want to be careful of thoughts like that,” Naosha said. “Disproportionate responses can become reality rather easily when Sorcery is in play.”

“That’s something I wanted to learn about,” Yasgrid said. “I didn’t so much learn to be a Sorcerer as stumbled into it and that ran screaming around the Darkwood figuring things out more or less accidentally as the need arose.”

“She’s not being at all honest there,” Kyra said. “There was almost no screaming involved.”

“Maybe not, but I gather the Darkwood did learn a pretty comprehensive catalog of our more ‘colorful’ Low Quand curses,” Osdora said.

“Wait, you’ve spoken with the Darkwood too?” Yasgrid asked. She wasn’t sure why that surprising, except that speaking with the embodiment of a realm had felt like a profoundly unique experience at the time.

“Not face to face,” Osdora said. “When we started drumming within it though I was primarily looking for you and, well let’s say that some of your more vehement invectives echoed for quite a while.”

Yasgrid grimaced, imagining Elven magic users being familiar with her primarily through all the swears they’d learned. There were worse reputations to have but that one didn’t feel like it fit her at all.

“The Darkwood’s sense of humor tends to run in that direction,” Naosha said. “It is likely part of why it has taken the liking to you that it has.”

“Is that some she can fix with her sorcery?” Gossma asked.

“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Yasgrid said.

“More important is where you would end up.” Naosha took a less than delicate pull from the mug of winter ale Osdora had provided.

“I thought the Darkwood wasn’t violent like our gods are?” Gossma said.

“Violent? Perhaps not in the same manner as the volcano gods, but it is quite capable of violence. It wasn’t home to Troubles since its creation because it is made of kindness and compassion.”

“But Yasgrid could burn it down?” Osdora asked.

“It’s not clear where the limits of Sorcery lie except that they are different for each Sorcerer,” Naosha said. “There are many pitfalls which stem not from the lack of power though but rather from its presence.”

“Ah, yeah, I see,” Yasgrid said and noticed Osdora’s questioning look. “Let’s say I could ensorcell the Darkwood to make it like me without all the swearing. If I could figure out how to magic away a problem with how the Darkwood perceived me, how hard would it be to ensorcell other things? The Nightmares? The Troubles? People?”

The danger and allure of that was not a test Yasgrid wanted to face. The penalty for failure would be subtle, and far reaching, and terrible beyond words.

Side B – Nia

There’s nothing quite as infuriating as someone who knows they are completely right about something they’re not supposed to know at all.

“Wha…?” Nia managed to croak out, her feeble store of eloquence chased away by the smirk on Margrada’s face.

“Note how she’s not denying it,” Marianne fake whispered to Belhelen.

“I’m…no, I…” Nia’s brain was still shocked out of its ability to form coherent sentences by how Margrada could have possibly been privy to a conversation that happened within a moment of frozen time.

“Can you really do that?” Grash asked, clearly enraptured by the idea.

“Has it happened before?” Horgi asked, just as clearly horrified by possibility that his precious drums had been endangered by forces beyond his ken.

“Uh, I…?” Nia wasn’t sure of the answer to one of the questions and wasn’t eager to share the answer she did know to the other one.

“Resonances are always tricky,” Belhelen said, taking pity on her friend. “If she managed it once, she’d definitely be our go to drummer if it happened to an elf, but it’s not the kind of thing anyone builds up a lot of experience with.”

The explanation rocketed Belhelen to the status of Bestest Friend Forever, especially since Grash and Horgi accepted it with a shrug and a few understanding nods.

“I can help the Elves you’ve got lined up in other ways too.” Nia hadn’t felt called to teach anything as much as she felt the call to teach Shatter Drumming in that moment. Couple with that was the overwhelming understanding of how very little formal education she’d had in Shatter Drumming. “But, I should work with someone who knows the right ways to play.”

“You’ve got two accomplished drummers here do you not?” Marianne said. “Take your pick.”

“Oh, well that’s easy,” Nia said, glancing between Margrada and Belhelen. “I pick both. All evidence to the contrary, I was not dropped on my head repeatedly.”

Marianne smirked but offered no further comment.

“You think we would want to join you in another round of your madness?” Margrada asked, an evil glint in her eyes which might have been a long deserved payback for the nonsense Nia had put her through.

“Margrada’s right,” Belhelen said. “You know this is going to a complete disaster don’t you?” That she also had an evil glint in her eye was almost enough to convince Nia that the two drummers were being serious with her.

“Complete and total,” Marianne agreed, which pushed the joke just far enough that Nia spied the smiles hiding at the corners of her friends mouths.

“Maybe this is a bad idea?” Grash said, falling for the decent-at-best acting from the women teasing Nia.

“We could just turn them away,” Horgi said.

Nia smiled her own evil grin. Turn about was far play after all.

“Nah. You don’t need to do that,” she said, positively delighted at the expressions her grin produced. “They’ll definitely help me teach your Elven drummers. I mean, can you just imagine the kind of fun I’d get up to if I didn’t have some serious teaching to keep myself busy?”

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