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Side A – Nia

The auditorium looked nothing like Nia remembered from the Battle of the Bands. She’d expected it to be dark since no one had been warned to prepare it for them. Light however was not a problem, not with the living crystal vines which had taken over most of the auditorium’s structure and were channeling in sunlight as though the roof was a window meant for shattered white light into a kaleidoscope of illumination.

“We need another minute,” Grash said, still looking faintly perplexed at what he and Horgi were doing.

Horgi had no such hesitation though. He had half a dozen tools in his hand and was running through the standard battery of tests for the Shatter Drums in front of him with a speed and intensity that Nia was certain consumed every sense he had.

“We’ll be ready.” Nia’s promise asked neither asked the Roadies to hurry their actions, nor denied the urgency which drove them.

“You’ll play first,” Margrada said. “We can join in when you reach a point where it makes sense for us to start speaking.”

Belhelen and Gossma nodded in agreement. Osdora? Nia could see the hunger in her eyes to be a part of the song from the start. It was her drum (from a drummer’s point of view, however much the Roadies might disagree with the sentiment) the performance would start with, so, of course she wanted to be a part of the song.

In fact, she had to be.

“I can’t,” Nia said. “Not first. The story doesn’t start with me.”

Everyone, saving only Horgi was too distracted, looked Nia like she’d been replaced by someone else entirely.

“We need the beat of the drums and the voice of the woods,” Nia said. “Our story starts not with Yasgrid and me, but with where we came from.”

“With the world people knew.” That Kayelle understood Nia’s words before anyone else spoke to how much she’d always watched her sister and how much the gap between them had closed in the Resonance they’d shared.

“With our mothers,” Yasgrid said, because she knew her sisters better than they knew themselves in some cases.

“With us?” Naosha asked.

“You want your mother to play a Shatter Drum?” Osdora asked.

“Only if you can sing the song of the Darkwood?” Nia’s teasing smile betrayed the joke she’d intended her words to be. As she heard the words though, they seemed less ridiculous with each passing moment.

If there was every going to be an elf, in an elven body, who could play the Shatter Drums, it would be Naosha M’Kellin. 

It was possible Nia was still overestimating her mother’s capabilities but experience hadn’t ever shown that to be a possible thing.

In this case however, even if Naosha was entirely capable of drumming (a thought which grew more terrifying the longer Nia considered it), the song Nia could hear building within her needed a more grounded start.

A master drummer and a master of the Darkwood’s song.

A chorus of what had been.

A call to those who still defined themselves by what once was.

That was the stage she needed to set, the call she needed to send out.

Nia turned to her mother to find surprise and joy on Naosha’s face, almost comparable to the beaming smile on Osdora’s.

Side B – Yasgrid

Yasgrid hadn’t considered including their mothers in the song they would weave. It probably never would have occurred to her. The moment she heard the suggestion though it struck so true a cord that she couldn’t imagine beginning with anyone else.

“We’re not going to be able to get any more drums without leaving here,” Horgi said without looking away from his work.

“You’re not leaving,” Nia said. “We need you. Both of you.”

“But why?” Grash asked, finishing up the preparations for the immediate playing area.

“You know the drums,” Nia said. “More than we do.” She looked at Osdora who was about to object. “More than any drummer does.”

“You’re worried something might happen to them?” Grash asked. “Something we’re the only ones who could notice?”

“The drums are going to be fine,” Nia said. “This is as much for them as it is for us.”

“Yeah,” Horgi said, the single syllable carrying an unreserved stamp of approval with the force to a punch to the face.

“Then why us?”

“People will hear me, but there are a lot who will listen to you,” Nia said. “I’m a drummer, and after this performance, people are going to know I’m a weird one. It’s easy to say things, it’s easy to show people things, but to get them to listen? To understand? To believe?”

“We not that good at talking to people,” Grash said.

“You don’t enjoy it,” Nia said. “You’re damn good at it though. And you’re even better at being yourselves, and that’s what people will look for.”

“She’s not wrong,” Marianne said. “You hold a special place in your community. I’ve been here a day and I can already see that. Just like there are elves who will listen to Kayelle more than any of the rest of us for the position she holds, there are Stonelings who will understand Nia’s message only when they hear it in your words.”

“That will likely be true of Elves and Stonelings,” Kyra said. “My former people, the Fate Dancers? We’re taught to mistrust others. Those outside our circle are too unaware of the dangers of the world. The Fate Dancers believe they hold a sacred trust to watch over and be vigilant for problems which others would miss as they blunder about their daily lives.”

“Why would one of these Fate Dancers talk to us though?” Horgi asked, packing away his tools as he inspected the drums one final time.

“Because I will ask them to,” Naosha said. “The purpose the Fate Dancers pledged themselves to has changed. In you, in your community, I believe they will find voices who understand the struggles they have faced, and perhaps together you will can a new path forward for them.”

“That’s why we’re doing this,” Nia said. “Not just for them, but for everyone.”

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