There was a tale told once of Scottish warriors.

Their pipes and drums would be heard for miles and miles before a single warrior was seen, a warning to their enemies. The two together, so terrifying a sound, they were considered a weapon of war. The drums called clans together, beating and spiritual as loyalty and love were tested for battle. Drums were a rhythm, a reminder of being alive: a heartbeat, a tempo of the cosmos. 

We had survived. We were the lucky ones. We had clutched what was left from the blackened charred remnants and painted over the ugliness. Some of us paid more than others, but we all bled over the pieces of who we once were. We had made a life behind fortified walls, protecting from the depthless sorrow, and containing the glimmer of hope within. What was worth fighting for was buried in our bones, a cry from our souls, and it was louder and clearer every day. The fight to survive was always that, to claim and conquer needs before, or in spite of, someone else.  The enemy to come was more than any monster, the human kind far more nefarious. The battle on the horizon was for the type of world we wanted to rise up from the ruins, for the type of world we wanted our children to inherit. For Freedom. For Peace. 

There was something visceral, even elemental, about the sound made before going into battle, awakening that primal animal that lived in all of us. The drums were always there, beating ceaselessly against fate and time, warning us that we ought to prepare. 

They had always been there, but we had just been deaf to them.