Side A – Yasgrid
Lunacy wasn’t a Trouble any longer, but spending centuries causing problems hadn’t exactly failed to leave a mark on her personality.
“You think my leaving with her is a good idea?” Yasgrid’s divine reflection asked.
“Yep,” Yasgrid said, her smile not completely kind or sweet.
“Is this a punishment?” the reflection asked.
“Noooo,” Yasgrid said.
And it wasn’t but why admit something like that when Lunacy would appreciate the teasing far more?
“We definitely need to get you away from this one,” Lunacy said. “Ex-Bearers are the second worst people for corrupting others.”
“Second worst? Whose the first?” the reflection asked.
“Sorcerers,” Lunacy said.
“But she is…you two are making fun of me, aren’t you?” the reflection asked and Yasgrid could hear the pout in her voice.
“Not you,” Yasgrid said. “But we could speak more plainly.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Lunacy said. “And why should we deprive our new friend of a lesson like this?”
“A lesson? What am I supposed to be learning?”
“Not to trust what people say.” Lunacy was back to being mildly delighted, which confirmed for Yasgrid that she’d made the right choice in who to call in for help. “What you really want to listen for is why people are saying whatever they are.”
“But I have no idea why you’ve said most of the things you have.”
“That’s also something to learn,” Lunacy said.
“What? Not understanding people?”
“Exactly!” Lunacy said, again delighted, which drew a growl of frustration from the reflection. “Yes, see, there! That annoyance? That’s life. That’s real.”
“No it’s not. That’s not all life is. It’s not just being aggravating and annoying!”
“It’s not,” Yasgrid said. “But dealing with aggravations is a part of life.”
“One Yasgrid would unwittingly shield you from,” Lunacy said.
“Unwittingly?” Yasgrid objected.
“Okay, wittingly and willfully and wrongly.”
“She wouldn’t have! She would have tried to help me. I know that!”
“I would have, and I will,” Yasgrid said, “but I think what Lunacy is getting at is that my instincts are to shield you from as much of life’s negativity as I could, and that between the two of us, you and I, we might be a little too good at that.”
“Too good how?” the reflection asked.
“So good that when you eventually did get aggravated you’d have no frame of reference to judge it against. So used to people saying what they mean plainly that when someone spoke words that they didn’t believe, or didn’t want to believe, their hidden meanings would be invisible to you. So good at acting good that you wouldn’t be able to see how others could be good if they weren’t acting as you were used to.” Lunacy had danced around the two of them as she spoke, and when she was done she came to rest completely in front of the reflection.
“You want me to be bad then?” the reflection asked.
“Not at all. That’s my job. I want you to be better. Yasgrid would shelter you. I want you to be free.”
Side B – Nia
Nia wasn’t sure which surprised her more, that Margrada knew about the god which had taken form within the song, that Margrada did not seem to care about the god which had taken form within the song, or that Margrada considered something else about the song vastly more important.
“There was a what?” Gossma asked, displaying the wariness of deities any proper Stoneling should possess.
“A god, but Yasgrid’s handling that isn’t she?” Margrada asked, impatient to discuss what she’d heard.
“Yes. She is, but how did you…?” Nia started to ask.
“I was listening for both of you. I knew if you started doing something we hadn’t planned for, she’d be right there behind you.” Margrada’s statement drew a chorus of knowing nods from Nia’s family.
“To be fair…” Nia raised a hand in defense of what she wasn’t entirely sure. “That song was already more than we’d been prepared for well before I joined in.”
“Aye, seems like you come by your musical talents honestly,” Gossma said.
“Sure, we all heard that. I think that’s why the song got so big. Even when Ms. Kaersbean and Ms. M’Kellin were performing there was a magic there that drew people in. Everyone wanted to be a part of what they were creating.”
“Thank you, but I suspect most of the credit on that score belongs Osdora.” Naosha was often modest to a fault, but in this case Nia had to wonder if her mother understood just how much the magic they’d created had been a shared effort. It wasn’t common for an Elf to express themselves through anything as boisterous as drumming, and for Naosha it was virtually unheard of.
“I was about to say the same about you. Without the harmony you brought our song could never have been what it was,” Osdora said. “But I want to hear what Margrada thinks she heard.”
“The drums,” Margrada said, as though that explained everything.
For a moment everyone waited for more explanation except Margrada who glanced around looking to see if anyone else would intuit what she was saying.
Nia’s first impulse was to irreverently point out that, yes, of course they’d all heard the drums. Half the song had been drums.
But Margrada knew that.
And Margrada was very smart.
Not to mention being as, or even more, in tune with the Shatter drums than Nia was.
So Nia didn’t go from her flippant impulse.
She spent the silent moment and thought about.
What had she heard in the song?
The unity and communion was a given.
The nascent god was many things but chief among them was ‘not her problem’.
So what had Margrada heard that affected her so much?
Nia played the song back over in her heard.
The rhythms were right, the harmonies were expressive. Technically it had been a fantastic song, even more so because its impromptu creation.
But all it had been, in the end, was voices mixed with the drums.
The drums.
Voices.
Nia could hear it in her replay.
The song hadn’t just been voices and drums.
It had held the voices of the drums themselves!