She had always been musically-inclined. Too bad her dog of a father didn't consider the drums music.

That was why he had been so… surprised, when a third-grade Bernadette had toddled home one day, waving her slip of paper in the air as triumphantly as if it had been a banner of victory, grinning her cheekiest grin from cheek to shining cheek.

And not just surprised—upset, almost. Angry, even.

"Why did you choose the drums, sweetie?" asked Mr. Reynolds after he had coaxed his daughter away from the cherished form long enough to scan its contents. His voice faltered. He had been hoping for… for… something dainty, something sweet, for his little princess, something comprised of the same syllables as the words "clarinet" or "flute".

This was his first disappointment. It wouldn't be his last.

Bernadette shrugged nervously. Being a typical eight-year-old, she could easily fit inside her an amount of joy whose fuel equivalent could sustain a jet plane—but stopped dead in her tracks when it came to determining where it had all come from.

She grinned a roguish, gap-toothed smile as she let burble forth the first string of words that presented itself.

"'Cause they're the easiest!"

And ten years later, Bernadette Reynolds still believed that.

But now she knew that drums weren't easy just because they involved hitting things. Drums weren't easy just because they lacked high notes to hit. Drums weren't easy just because they didn't make you force air from your lungs until your head spun.

No, drums were easy because they had become Bernadette's way of life.

She flicked her tongue over her lip ring mindlessly, tapping out a frantic beat against the back of her math binder.

That was the thing about studying; no matter how hard she tried to do it, every session ended the same way.

She had good intentions, she really did. But of course her dog of a father couldn't ever muster up the energy to understand that.

For that matter, her dog of a father couldn't ever muster up the energy to understand anything.

"'Burny'?" he'd ask, his skeptical annunciation of his daughter's preferred moniker seeming to imply that it literally did scald his tongue. "Where did my beautiful, happy little girl go? Why can't you stop it with all of this darkness?"

"Well actually, fires produce light," Bernadette would snap back.

"That smart mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble someday," Mr. Reynolds always bitterly spat (conveniently ignoring, of course, the fact that his own had been the leading factor towards his life's success).

"What, you don't think I could find enough on my own?"

It was a vicious cycle, jibe for jibe, again and again, and no one was ever on top for long. Eventually, when they both realized that they had come to yet another verbal logjam, it would be time to head off in their opposite directions. Bernadette would make a beeline for her stick bag; and for her father, it was straight back to the parenting books that no other adult with a child over the age of four would ever be caught dead reading.

Mr. Reynolds used to try. But somewhere along the road, it had become easier just to not. He had learned to feel comfortable only when wrapped amid the silken skins of his pigheaded conviction, refusing to let them adapt no matter how hard time and circumstance pushed. Mr. Reynolds was permanently stuck in the old way, while his daughter changed more and more every day. That was their problem—or rather, one of them.

She loved her drumline with all of her heart. They weren't the only friends she had, but they were the best.

And of course they were. That went without saying.

Bernadette could do anything, be anything with them, for them, to them.

They had helped her learn to laugh again. They had helped her remember how to smile. They had let her know that it was okay to take pride in some battle scars; and that it was also okay to let others fade into the past.

With their help, she had finally discovered that the past was gone now. That she was safe now, and nothing would come back to break her, because it couldn't, not anymore.

They wondered if they had helped her find herself, sometimes, but she told them that they had helped her make herself.

She didn't lack purpose; to lack purpose was her purpose.

She was an artist, painting beats against the face of the drum, and an artist has to find her own way.

An artist can't be held back by her dog of a father, not for long.

And Bernadette was a warrior, too. Her drumsticks were her paintbrushes, but she also liked to think of them as a pair of twin blades, helping her mow down whatever stood in her way.

Anger, loneliness, boredom, fear, it all fell to pieces under the amazing power that she held in her tiny tools.

But Bernadette had never sworn to use her powers for good. She had done the exact opposite; she had sworn to use her powers for herself.

After all she had been through, she deserved them.

She had never had a boyfriend, because she had never had a reason.

Bernadette was in love with her drums and her drummers, and it was so much more pure, so much better that way.

She had stolen a kiss or two, because all warriors have their soft side. But they had been joyful, grateful, wonderful little games, superficial morsels of delight, as light and meaningless as a butterfly's soft descent through the summer breeze—she saved her passion and her desire and her fire for the more important things.

And, say what you might about Burny Reynolds, but she knew what the important things were.

She flicked her tongue over her lip ring mindlessly, tapping out a frantic beat against the back of her math binder.

The cycle never ended.

It couldn't, not until she'd decided where she would take it next.