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Side A – Yasgrid

Yasgrid had thought she was the only sorceress in the Darkwood, and to an extent she was correct. Nia after all hadn’t been in the Darkwood. And, technically at least, Nia wasn’t a sorceress.

“What sort of magics do you think she’s been using if not Elven or Stoneling?” Marianne asked.

“It’s not Fate Magic, I can assure you of that,” Kyra said.

“I agree,” Yasgrid said. “Mostly. I’m…hmm, I’m not sure it’s even fair to call it a theory. I’m working on building an observation. I might be able to turn that into a theory, but I don’t know if we’d ever be able to test it, even with two of us to compare results against.”

“You think she’s a sorceress too?” Kyra asked.

“No, and yes, and that’s sort of the wrong question, I think?” Yasgrid said. She’d started pacing as she spoke, and while it wasn’t necessarily helping sort of her thoughts out, it was letting her flee from some of the less useful ones.

“Wrong because the things she can do, she doesn’t do as you would do them?” Marianne asked.

“Possibly? From what Aunt Unzola said, I think each Sorceress approaches their magic in a highly idiosyncratic manner. If Nia and I did things the same, it would suggest we were less two people than two sides of the same person, and that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.” 

It was a question Yasgrid had wondered about several times, but apart from the philosophical angle of where one person’s identity ended and another’s began, there never seemed to be much worth considering there. Nia had hopes and fears and perspectives which were wholly unique from Yasgrid’s. In every functional sense they were two people, just not quite as separate as most people are.

“Why wouldn’t ‘Sorceress’ apply to her then if she’s not actually Shatter Drumming?” Marianne asked.

“That’s the thing. She is Shatter Drumming. It’s not the best Shatter Drumming, and she knows that, but she feels all of it. I’ve mentioned Resonance moments, and it’s fair to say she has more experience with them than any five other Shatter Drummers combined, my mother included, at this point. There’s an aspect to her drumming that goes beyond that though. She makes the music as best as she can and then let’s herself become the music, if that makes sense?”

“Keep explaining it,” Marianne said.

“Yes, tell us how that doesn’t make her a sorceress,” Kyra said, her gaze sharp and searching as she met Yasgrid’s eyes.

“Sorcery, at least as I understand it, involves listening and speaking. It’s…when I was searching for the Nightmares of the Darkwood to turn against Elshira, I didn’t go to them with a rolling beat under my fingertips and a thunderstorm of song at my back, but the journey wasn’t wholly natural either. I had to…no, not had to, I chose. I chose to let go of the world and sink my focus down below it. I became a part of their world. Yes! That’s it! That’s what my Sorcery is! I am part of each world I touch.”

“And Nia?” Kyra asked, leaning on Yasgrid’s every word.

“Nia…oh…I see…every world she touches becomes a part of her.”

Side B – Nia

Nia felt herself melting into bliss. She was a bit drunk, she was tettering on the edge of some profound understanding, and she was surrounded by the people her soul needed to be around. Best of all though? She was aware of none of that.

Thinking?

What were thoughts?

That moment, long and warm and soft and perfect, was everything.

There should have been a voice in the back of her head screaming at her to pay attention to the party’s beat, the deep magic which was so close to the surface that she could almost taste it.

There was no voice though.

No words of exaltation or self-consciousness.

She could feel Margrada’s hands clutching around her back and holding her head and she didn’t have to think to draw Margrada in just as close.

She didn’t have to think and she didn’t.

All there was between them was the beat of their hearts.

Two strong, steady, rhythms, just a wee bit faster than normal.

Beat. Beat. Echo.

Beat. Beat. Echo.

Echo?

There was an echo?

There was an echo!

Margrada was a genius. The echo was beyond subtle, but together they’d found it.

The echoing beat resounded stronger.

It wanted to be found!

Nia felt the joy beating in her heart reach out across a gulf wider than any ocean.

And it was answered.

But the answer was so soft, so distant.

How could it be so far away though? If she could hear it, the echo had to be from somewhere close enough to reach.

Nia still wasn’t thinking. She’d blame her actions on that later, but even she wouldn’t really buy the excuse, after all casting herself off from her own heartbeat? Who would do that? Apart from her of course?

Without the weight of herself holding her back, Nia felt unimaginable distance flowing past and through her.

And the echo grew stronger.

And hopeful.

And vast.

And incomprehensible.

And yet…terribly, terribly familiar?

And then air was rushing back into her lungs.

Her body was rather delighted with the last bit there, but it was decidedly unhappy with the rest of her.

Her lips were first in line with the obvious complaint that they weren’t kissing Margrada anymore. Her lungs stepped up next registering their complaints in the form of wracking coughs which managed to expel air that had grown dangerously stale. Her heart was certainly not last in line but made it’s displeasure known by only restarting slowly, with in turn left her head swimming and far too dizzy to manage anything as foolish as what she’d been attempting.

It took her a long moment to piece together the fact that she was sprawled out on the street and had probably been somewhat nonresponsive for what was likely a rather frightening period of time.

“Nia, my dearest love,” Margrada said in the sweet, soothing voice which made it clear exactly how much trouble Nia was in,  “did you try to kill yourself to follow the beat we heard?”

Nia had no problem answering that with a smile though.

“Of course not,” she said and kissed Margrada’s nose, “You had me and I know I’m safe in your arms.”

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