Side A – Yasgrid
Yasgrid wondered if every time she gave into the temptation to do something magical, she was going to cause hitherto unheard of levels of chaos.
She also wondered if that was likely to stop her for a whole minute or if it would be more of a one or two second pause.
“No one is hurting the drums but…” Grash said.
He’d meant to say more but Nia placed her forefinger on his lips, cutting him off in a move that would have gotten anyone else slugged in the jaw before they could blink.
“No one is hurting those drums.” It was less a confirmation of Grash’s words and more an implicit threat. “I’m going to play them. And Margrada is too.”
“And we’re supposed to sit back and let you?” Horgi said, far more restrained than any Roadie in history would have been.
Because there was something about Nia.
A witchlight in her eyes, a thrum in her step, and a granite certainty in her voice.
Yasgrid had noticed how intentionally quiet Nia had been during most of the conversation. Without even tapping into their bond or the magics around them, Yasgrid had felt the tremendous struggle Nia had waged towards becoming the grown woman she wanted to be. In place of giving in to the temptation of the moment, she’d held herself back and listened, tuning up her sensitivity to the Roadies needs and the emotional currents of the room.
And then the drums had spoken.
Softly.
Maybe softly enough that Nia had been the only one beside Yasgrid herself who’d fully heard them? Yasgrid couldn’t be sure of that at all. Osdora and Gossma were frighteningly good at understanding the drums but they were being uncharacteristically quiet, which could have been guilt, or wisely suppressed defiance, or amusement. The only thing Yasgrid knew was that they were far more complex people than she’d ever considered Osdora to be when she’d only seen Osdora as “Mom”.
“You’re not going to let anything happen,” Nia said, turning to Horgi. “You’re going to be a part of it.”
“Roadies. Don’t. Play,” Grash said, to which the other drummers unconsciously nodded in agreement.
“But you listen,” Nia said, her voice different somehow? “You’re there. Always. Listening. You know these drums, even though you’ve never touched them.”
“We don’t know anything about them. We’d have to do a proper inspection, and probably a cleansing, and…” Horgi looked ready to enumerate the entire preparation process the Roadies went through to ensure Shatter Drums were fully inspected, but Nia once again cut him off.
“You know them.” And she reached out and touched him.
Eight simple taps on his chest.
Eight beats.
Eight increments of the Roadie’s expression changing from confusion to an admixture of elemental dread and overwhelming awe.
“We can’t…” Grash started to say, but it was Horgi who cut him off.
“We’ll get them setup. Give us ten minutes.” Horgi rose as he spoke, pulling Grash up with him.
“Ten minutes? We can’t even do a full inspection…” Grash tried to say.
“She’s right,” Horgi interrupted. “They need us.”
Side B – Nia
Nia knew she could cut herself off from the madness that had gripped her. ‘Could’ and ‘should’ however were far from the same thing.
The song she’d heard, that she could still hear, echoing from the drums was driving her more than she was driving herself, and the words she spoke weren’t entirely her own. To say she was possessed would have been more accurate than not, but it was a strange, gossamer sort of possession, where even the choice to embrace the force that was guiding her wasn’t quite sufficient to ensure it remained with her.
“Ten minutes will be okay,” she said, closing her eyes since she was speaking primarily to herself and seeing her mother’s reaction, or anyone else’s, could easily have knocked the song beyond her grasp.
If a miracle occurred, ten minutes would be okay. Probably. Maybe. She could already hear the drum’s song growing fainter and the more she reached out to it, the more she tried to surrender herself to it, the more distant it seemed to become.
“Are you up for this?” It was her own voice which asked the question, and her own hand which was laid on her knee. Her’s once upon a time that is.
Nia opened her eyes to see Yasgrid had hopped off the chair she’d been sharing with Kyra and was standing beside her.
There was an electricity to being so close together.
But then they’d never really been apart had they?
“Alone? Never,” Nia said and drew a long, steadying breath.
Why had she been worried about a miracle, when she already had one.
Had a dozen of them in fact, sitting right there in the room with her!
“Good thing you’re not then,” Margrada said, and gave her a one-armed hug and a kiss on her forehead.
Affection like that, in front of her mother? That would have made Nia lose the capacity to form words before the turn of the year. Before the turn of the year though, it wouldn’t have been Margrada hugging her, and Nia would have been someone else. In Margrada’s embrace, and Yasgrid’s calming presence, Nia found the music that had been fading.
Horgi and Grash were carrying the drums out.
Taking them to the auditorium the Battle of the Bands had been held at.
There hadn’t been a need to discuss that. It was the most central place for a concert in the city. It was where the drums had to be.
As they went away though, their song remained.
Inside Nia.
Inside Yasgrid.
Inside everyone in the room.
Because it wasn’t the drum’s song.
It was theirs.
That was what Nia had heard and what she needed to play. What she and Yasgrid had found wasn’t unique to them. The changes they’d been through were ones everyone who could hear her was a part of too.