Side A – Nia
Had Nia been expecting Yasgrid to bodily transport Nia’s whole party somewhere? No. Was she surprised that Yasgrid could do something like that? Also no. Could Nia have guessed where Yasgrid would bring them, or who would be waiting for them? Absolutely not.
“Are we interrupted anything?” she asked as she peered around the room of dumbstruck faces.
Osdora wore her surprise openly and plainly. It was comforting in a sense, though the delight Yasgrid took at her mother’s expression was certain to invite some form of clever retribution.
Kayelle appeared far less surprised, largely because she’d been with Yasgrid and Nia and probably had the best idea out of all of the others as to what Yasgrid could do.
Well, perhaps second best based on Kyra’s calm and knowing expression, but that wasn’t entirely surprising either.
What did strike Nia as interesting was that she could see the surprise in her mother’s eyes. It was so clearly there, though it was also doubtful anyone else except Kayelle could have picked up on it. Naosha looked as calm and unperturbed as Kyra, but there was a tiny wrinkle at the corner of her eyes that gave her away.
It was something Nia was sure she wouldn’t have recognized before. Naosha’s face had always just seemed like Naosha’s face. Calm. Controlled. Reliable and unchanging.
Nia let her gaze linger there a moment longer, grasping more fundamentally that she was looking at her mother through new eyes. Quite literally given that her Stoneling eyes had different visual acuity than her Elven ones had, but the change was deeper than that. Seeing Naosha through the lens of the experiences Nia had accumulated revealed details and depths she’d been far too close to see previously.
Naosha noticed the attention and offered her daughter the hint of a smile which was practically a radiant beam of joy in Nia’s new vision.
“What…” Horgi started to asked and fell silent trying to take in the interior of the house and the company they were standing around.
“…just happened?” Grash finished for him, equally shocked and clutching the drum they’d had Nia play protectively in case anything else unexpected occurred.
“She did,” Marianne said, nodding towards Yasgrid.
“She did what?” Osdora asked, finding her voice partially to fight back against the delighted mischief sparkling in Yasgrid’s eyes.
“Our apologies,” Margrada said. “We needed to ask Yasgrid if she would be able to provide our Roadie friends here with some assistance.”
“And we had a question for Nia,” Kyra said. “This was clearly the most economically means of resolving both issues?”
She phrased it as a question, but Nia could tell the only question was how much of a hard time people were going to give Yasgrid for so blatant a show of her magic.
“Well now I for one am curious to hear what this new problem is,” Gossma said. “Could be that they’re related?”
“It’s with one of the drums,” Horgi said.
“One of the broken drums,” Grash added, “From the Calling.”
“We will be bound by silence and will play the beat you call,” Osdora said in High Quand.
Nia felt the words fall like blows upon a drum the size of the world.
It was a ritual response and one that Osdora had made with an intent serious enough to bind them in a magic Nia didn’t think even Yasgrid could break.
Side B – Yasgrid
Yasgrid had only rarely heard her mother speak in High Quand. There simply wasn’t a call for that level of severity under normal circumstances. Normal circumstances which could include things like births, deaths, and declarations of war. Low Quand was fine for any of that. The drums were different though.
The rest of the room seemed to sense the gravity of Osdora’s words even if some of them were unfamiliar with the language.
“The drum Nia played,” Horgi began. “It wasn’t honored properly.”
“It has been given to the mountain?” Naosha asked, in High Quand.
Horgi and Grash hung their heads, shame weighing them down and forcing them to avert their eyes from the others who were present. The others who were largely shocked to hear an Elven woman speaking in the tones of the Stoneling’s oldest language.
“It hasn’t been a year yet, is it lost?” Osdora asked, also in High Quand.
Yasgrid wasn’t sure what they were talking about. She’d never been initiated into any of the Roadies mysteries or rituals. She tried reaching out to the Roadies before her with her magic, but the drums were so central to their beliefs that the whole of Horgi and Grash’s beings were wrapped around them. Yasgrid could feel the rhythm and hum beating within each of them, but to invade that space would be to cross a line she was certain she had no interest in stepping beyond.
“We don’t know,” Horgi said switching to Low Quand.
“We should be going back now though. We need to report this,” Grash said.
“Before you do that,” Yasgrid asked and switched to High Quand. “I will be bound in silence as well on this, if that will let you share anymore, or make any requests, please do.”
“We don’t know what you can do,” Horgi said in Low Quand.
“We’re not sure what anyone can do,” Grash said.
“I can save you travel time at the very least,” Yasgrid said, returning to Low Quand as well. “The drum shattered in Frost Harbor. I grew up there, so I can take you back as quickly as I brought you here. Would that help?”
“It would,” Horgi said.
“Before you go,” Naosha asked. “You have a collection of people here with skills and perspectives which are not commonly accessible. If you would speak of what you can, there may be options and possibilities which are beyond those normally open to you. Better to collect them now, especially since after half a year you are unlikely to miss an opportunity by minutes or hours.”
“Also, if you try to leave now, I’m going to box your ears in,” Nia said.
“You and what army, Kaersbean,” Grash said, forgetting for a moment that Nia’s last name probably wasn’t the one he was used to.
More importantly though, he was smiling at the implied threat, since it was also a ready made excuse which it seemed he and Horgi both desperately needed.
“Uh, this one,” Belhelen said, rising as Margrada, Osdora, and Gossma got up to join her.