Side A – Nia
The next morning saw a miracle; despite being awake for the sunrise, Nia was able to greet it without a crushing hangover or even a noticeable amount of fatigue.
“I’m surprised you’re not cuddled up with your fiance?” Yasgrid said, hopping up onto one of bigger treelimbs beside where Nia was sitting.
“She needed to sleep, all of them did,” Nia said, nodding back towards the town far below them.
“Yeah, I had the sense the Roadies’ party was a bit more intense than usual last night?” Yasgrid asked. She’d never been a fan of staring at her own face in the mirror, but despite the curves and boney bits being the same, Nia wore it differently enough that admiring how she used to look didn’t feel overly narcissistic.
“Intense is definitely a word for it. I think I almost died.” That wasn’t what Nia was reflecting on, but saying the words made her wonder if she should have been.
“And it wasn’t one of the Roadies that tried to kill you.” Yasgrid didn’t have to guess there, she could feel the general shape of Nia’s thoughts and animosity towards the Roadies was entirely absent.
“Nope – that was all me. Being foolish like usual.” Nia kicked a stone and watched it tumble down the side of the peak she’s climbed. She’d thought she was climbing it for the view but a part of her wondered if she was simply putting distance between herself and any Shatter drums she might have used to follow all the foolish urges that were knocking around in her head still.
“I don’t think you were,” Yasgrid said. “Tell me what you found, and how you found it?”
“You could magic up the answer couldn’t you? Or just find it in our bond?” Nia turned to glance up to where Yasgrid was sitting.
She’d never been a fan of mirror gazing either. In her experience, mirrors were for finding and eliminating any flaws in your presentation before anyone else noticed them, which was very much not Nia’s favorite pastime. Much like Yasgrid had though, she found gazing on the face that had been hers was less an exercise in critique and predicting the harshest judgments she could foresee. Instead she felt like she was watching an old friend who’d finally discovered how to be comfortable.
“Probably, but it’s better to hear it from you,” Yasgrid said. “I think that’s a lot of what my magic is – just listening to people and things.”
“I don’t know if I have the words yet for most of it,” Nia said. “I think I was hoping to find them up here, where everything is clearer. All I have so far is that there’s a world beyond our own, and people there who want to bridge the gap to us, but that gap might be beyond the span of any mortal life. I think maybe the only thing that can carry from us to them is our Shatter drumming.”
“There might be one other thing,” Yasgrid said.
Side B – Yasgrid
Yasgrid knew that meddling with magic carried tremendous risks. Ones that she had no driving need to undertake.
On the other hand though, why should Nia get to have all the fun?
“You’ve found something new about what your magic can do?” Nia asked, unsurprised and still contemplative in the early morning light.
“In this case it’s not what I can do, but what you can,” Yasgrid said, feeling the ghost of smile dance across her lips before she could hide it.
“I can apparently stop my own heart, temporarily, I think,” Nia said. “Without a Shatter drum…”
“You’ve done a lot without a Shatter drum,” Yasgrid said.
“That was all with other people, mostly you and your magics,” Nia said.
“Me, my magics, and yours.” Yasgrid felt like she gently nudging a cat towards a door it was uncertain it had any interests in, and yet would be delighted once it passed through.
“I’m not a Sorceress though, I just play the drums,” Nia said.
“Do you?” Yasgrid asked.
“Well, I’m not that good at it, but, yes, yes I do. I passed Drum Master Pelagar’s tests, hell I passed your mother’s tests!”
“Sure. Because they were listening to hear if you could play the drums,” Yasgrid said.
“And I can. Mostly.”
“More than mostly,” Yasgrid said. “And you do far more than ‘just’ play them.”
“It’s a Shatter drum. No one ‘just plays’ them if that’s what you mean,” Nia said.
“True, but I don’t think there’s anyone who plays them like you do. In fact, I don’t think there’s anyone who can do what you do.”
“Untrue. Margrada’s done everything I have and with better beats and tighter rhythms.”
“Margrada is talented, I agree. Probably the most talented and skilled player of her whole generation. Give her a few years and she and my mom will be battling it out on equal footings. But ask her if she’s ever Shatter drummed on anything but an actual Shatter Drum?”
“I’m sure she has. It’s not…”
“It’s not hard? That’s what you were going to say isn’t it?”
“It’s not, but, yeah, okay, I can see how that’s probably not common. Have I ever done that for real though?”
“I’m not sure any of your drumming could have been anything but real,” Yasgrid said.
“The times I’ve drummed without a Shatter Drum though? Those have been when we were stuck in a dream, or some other strange and malleable place.”
“Which is why I didn’t think to question it like I probably should have,” Yasgrid said. “The things is, it makes almost too much sense now that I’m looking back at it.”
“That I have magic too?”
“Oh, you definitely have magic, we all do. You’ve found something deeper than that. Your side of my Sorcery maybe?”
“I can’t have anything as big as that. If I did I’d be able to drum just by tapping on whatever was around,” Nia said and proved her point by rapping out a quick beat on the stone she was leaning back against.
Both women went still and silent. There was a ripple of Shatter drum magic and it clearly echoed out from the rock.