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Side A – Yasgrid

The song was indeed winding down but the first thing Yasgrid was aware of as her senses focused back in on the world around her instead of the one inside her was a warm body leaning against her and a head propped onto her shoulder.

“Oh, sorry there.” Kyra’s yawn held not a hint of sorrow in it. “Just didn’t want you to miss out on the Roadies’ revelation.”

“I feel like I’ve already missed out on something,” Yasgrid said, blinking and shaking her head to ground herself in the familiar mountain air once more.

“You had important things of your own to take care of,” Kyra said, unable to resist a wide stretch which just-so-happened to finish with her hugging Yasgrid to her side.

“Do we have time to get into how you knew about any of that?” Yasgrid wasn’t really asking a question there. She already knew the answer. She just wanted to put the idea out into the world that it was something she would appreciate talking about at some point.

Kyra didn’t choose to answer, instead pointing at where Nia and their mothers were some kind of standoff with a dangerously large pack of Roadies.

“Ah. Yeah, let’s go take of that shall we.” The idea of two elven women being a sufficient deterrent for a pack of Roadies would have been laughable if there wasn’t already a single elven woman opposing the Roadies who could almost certainly have defused any problematic situation which might arise.

“Indeed we shall,” Kyra said, hopping down off the Stoneling sized chair they shared.

Had Kyra been with her when she started singing? Yasgrid didn’t think so and couldn’t quite remember when that had changed. Something to be aware of the next time she went delving into her magic and the strange thing she might encounter there she decided.

 In terms of strange things though, the Roadies wound up in serious contention with the nascent godling Yasgrid had just been speaking with.

“We’re not sure if we’ll be taking any of these drums back,” Grash said.

Yasgrid froze in her tracks. The Roadies not recovering the Shatter drums after a performance was not only unheard of, it challenged her fundamental notions of reality. They could have said they were going to smash them with spiked hammers and Yasgrid would have been less surprised.

Roadies did not abandon Shatter drums. There were stories of drums being caught in building fires and the Roadies who’d died retrieving them. Far from being honored for their sacrifice, the less-than-dearly departed had received accolades like “eh,they were adequate” and “what else would they do”?

Yasgrid turned to see if anyone else understood what was going on, but Osdora and Gossma were as stunned as she was. If anything, this had to be even more shocking for them given their longer and richer history with the Roadies.

What truly shocked Yasgrid though was the Naosha was speechless as well. Neither Naosha nor Marianne had the cultural context to understand how profoundly out of kilter the world had to be to admit the entrance of those words from the Roadies, and yet they were both aware enough to sense the psychic shockwave which had crashed into the Stonelings around them.

Yeah, I…I don’t know what’s happening here either, Nia said over their bond.

“It’s new to me too,” Kyra said. “Isn’t that exciting!”

Side B – Nia

Nia heard Kyra’s words, but wasn’t able to fathom the Elvish woman’s glee.

Granted the prospect of being gifted her own concert quality drum to have and to hold until death did them part was intoxicating, but much like intoxication Nia could sense the a raft of crushing headaches awaiting her if she dared to even take a sip of the future Horgi and Grash were offering.

And then she understood.

It had to be that.

Had to be.

She drew in a deep breath, happy to understand what her part was.

“I know,” she began. “I know that I have not made things particularly easy on you. I have been a pain to you personally, and I have taken…well let’s call them liberties that I should clearly not have with more than one Shatter Drum. Without your permission or approval. We can all acknowledge these things.”

She was pacing in a circle as a she spoke. She wasn’t sure why, her heart was calm thanks to the revelation she’d had. Pacing felt right though.

“I believe, having acknowledged those shortcomings, which I must plead were never driven by malice or apathy, but having acknowledged them and bearing my most solemn of pledges to not repeat those mistakes, I believe that we can all agree that your joke was and is beyond the pale, far beyond, and that it would be perfectly reasonable for me to punch all of you, in the face, repeatedly, should you not make your own amends for even suggesting what you just suggested.”

There. 

It was out in the open.

Everyone would laugh.

She’d hit some people.

They’d hit her.

It’d be a good time for everyone.

Smiles all around.

Nia stopped pacing.

She turned to the Roadies.

Who weren’t smiling.

Where were the smiles?

Why weren’t they smiling?

“They’re not joking,” Margrada said, hushed reverence in her voice. “I don’t…how could you leave them…?”

“They’re not leaving them,” Naosha said, a similar reverence in her voice though with understanding in place of the awe that held Nia’s imagination captive.

“They’re not ours to leave, or take,” Horgi said.

“Since when?” Osdora asked, a harder edge to her voice than any Shatter drummer had ever shown in response to getting to keep a drum.

“Since…oh,”  Margrada said and added no further clarification which left Nia wanted to squeeze an answer out of her.

“Since the drums spoke for themselves,” Marianne said. 

And the real answer clicked for Nia at last.

“The drums have spoken before haven’t they?” She wasn’t asking or guessing. “And you’ve never told anyone because the drums asked you not to.”

But for her, the drums had spoken openly.

To everyone.

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