Side A – Nia
Nia didn’t have Yasgrid’s sorcery to drawn on. She didn’t even have a full understanding of the magics she worked with the Shatter drum she was playing either. Between those two facts she should have felt helpless to either verify or do anything about King’s claim. That she didn’t was as much as testament to those around her and any inherent talent for drumming she felt.
“He’s right,” Yasgrid said, but Nia already knew that and, under her hands, her Shatter was already sounding out the depths of the dream they’d wrapped everyone in.
“Silence would end this state, but it would come at a cost you might find disagreeable,” King said without any particular care or concern.
A stray thought left Nia wondering if she should turn the drum’s attention on the not-cat monarch, but was instantly banished. King had decided to present himself to them as a cat, and that was King’s prerogative. If King wanted to share his secrets, he would share them, any other prying would be rude, and King was not the sort of entity Nia, or any even vaguely sane person, ever wanted to be rude to.
“Thank you for the warning, I think I understand why that would be,” Nia instead said, genuinely grateful King had pointed out both that particular path out of their current dilemma and hinted that it wasn’t one they should take.
“The drums don’t want to be silenced do they?” Yasgrid asked.
“Not at all. The singers don’t either,” Nia said, feeling more than hearing or seeing the finality that would accompany that silence.
It was one thing to destroy a drum fighting with the Stoneling gods. That hadn’t been her fault since it was the gods who’d cracked her drum in the first place. She’d honored the drum by playing it even after the damage the gods had done to it, and that act of defiance had been very much in line with the soul of the Shatter Drums.
Shatter Drums had souls?
Should that have been a surprise?
Did she already know that?
Had she always known that?
Nia shook her head, whatever those thoughts were, they were definitely not what she needed to be focused on.
But her heart’s longing was hard to deny. The drums had called to her from the moment she’d touched one. Standing at the precipice of understanding and being called to cross that threshold was irresistible.
Almost.
“It’s okay,” she said. “We’re not going to silence you. Not any of you.”
Was that a promise she could keep? If they couldn’t find any other means to free the people who’d been ensnared in their music, would she really protect both the drums and the singers?
Yes. They would find another way. She would find another way.
And if there wasn’t another way? If the dream couldn’t be broken?
Then they would become something new. Not Elves, Not Stonelines, but something else.
Except, that was already what they were becoming, wasn’t it?
Side B – Yasgrid
Yasgrid could feel Nia delving deeper into the dream that had ensorcelled players and audience alike. Was that a good thing? Better question; was it a necessary thing?
Yasgrid didn’t have the answer to either of those questions, but she did have faith in Nia. If the drums were leading Nia deeper into the dream, then there was something worth finding there and Nia would be back with it. Yasgrid just needed to buy her some time.
In theory, that should have been easy. Quite a lot of the ‘dream’ had been spun from Yasgrid’s magic. The funny thing about spells like the one Yasgrid had woven to carry the song outwards though? They tended to collect a lot of other people’s magics in them too.
Which made sense.
There were a lot of other players and singers giving form and depth to the song than Yagrid had originally planned on.
“I feel like this is something Aunt Unzola could have warned me about,” Yasgrid grumbled silently to herself.
“Some warnings can be counterproductive,” King offered, stretching both front legs out.
Yasgrid was tempted to grumble about that. What was the purpose of trying experiences if not to teach how to avoid them in the future?
A few dozen answers presented themselves, but the simplest one lay in the question itself.
She was so new to being who she’d become, was this potential calamity a gentle bit of instruction to help her find the soft limits of what she can, or perhaps should, do that she needed to respect?
No. Or rather, the dream that had enwrapped had been engineered by Unzola, or Nia, or even Yasgrid herself. No one had set this as a trial for her to pass and grow from.
If it was going to be a trial, then it would be because Yasgrid embraced it as such.
The extent to which she would grow from it remained to be seen, but Yasgrid suspected that too would depend on how much focus and attention she chose to invest.
The real question though was, did she want to invest her attention in dismantling the dream at all?
There was something so welcoming and cozy about the communion the song had brought the players and the singers and the audience.
The gods had created them as separate peoples. Had placed them so far apart that the harmony of the forest and the beat of the mountains could never have melded together.
But she and Nia had overcome that.
They’d made a connection where none should have been possible, and the world was better for it.
Was this new level of correspondence between their peoples something to shy away from or was this how they should be?
Should it even be her choice as to whether it continued or not? Her magic had initiated the dream, but those bound up in it were there because they’d chosen to embrace the message it carried.
Should she take that away from them?
Could she?
“Is it a choice if its costs are hidden?” King asked and Yasgrid felt one of the dream fibers fall away from her eyes.
Had that been her? Had she been thinking of bringing everyone to embrace the dream?
“No. That was something else,” King informed her.