#Krokt too

[interplanaranathema]

Fan Character Friday- little narrative writing

This is a little thing thats been in my brain for DAYS now (shortstory in notes, possibly badly written but someone has to write it down)

His hands softly grasps the rail around the pool. Bioluminescent flowers shown a shimmering a light blue over head, making him cast a shadow to the surface of the undersea. Cyrin traced the grown patters of the rail deep in contemplation while his eyes followed the trail of the fish that swam beneath his feet. It was distressing at all of it. Just this day alone, having to get interrupted by multiple mind mages that Ivan had to drive off. The fact of the Dimir activity sky rocketing made him more uneasy, especially when Prime Speaker Vannifar asked for the guild to strengthen their defenses and keep secrets close. Something is gonna happen, and it didn't sit right with biomancer. He looked around the room to see it mostly empty. Getting out a notebook and pen from his satchel, Cyrin cracked it open and whispered. "Ivan... do you know what has happened? Why is the Dimir acting up?" With a practiced hand, he pretended to jot down notes.

The reassuring grasp of his left shoulder sent an uncomfortable tingling wave down his spine, causing Cyrin to shift. He had always hated when Ivan caused that sensation as he subconciously look that way to see the usual empty space next to him. That gravelly but measured voice spoke afterwards. "It concerns me too. But, talking to those colleagues gave me an inkling of what they're after: Planeswalkers." "Iz-zet really that again?" His raised annoyed voice shook him a bit as he saw one of the other raising a brow at him. "Like I said previously, there being alternate universes than just Ravnica is particularly insane." "Trust me, Cy, I still hold that belief strongly, but that operative had her own research on the new Orzhov Guildmaster." Ivan's voice echoed out as he dripped fed the biomancer one of the key aspects from a traded thought strand. A vivid memory of over hearing Teysa Karlov and this new comer, Kaya, within the halls of the basilica washing over his senses causing Cyrin to place his head in his hand and to block out the outer stimulus. Much like before, this use of telepathy caused a massive headache to pang out. The information that was made was a deep talk about an entity by the name of "Bolas" and the deal the two Orzhov made. "So, essentially, the Dimir are looking for every evidence of this mystical Bolas guy?" He could feel a mental nod from the mind mage. "Great, absolutely great. Krokt." Cyrin pinched his nose, growling a bit in frustation. How would they supposed to deter mind mages from his mind. Of course, he knew that Ivan did his part well, after all it was beneficial for the both of them if he prevents it. The innate naphil essence with his mindscape was always wanting to ensnare those unfortunate telepaths. He had never enjoyed this situation his yore ancestors placed their family, let alone the entire fact of the nephilim's existence. This mysterious Bolas and his machinations is only going to turn this situation into something truly horrific.

[xantchaslegacy]

Even the Swine

The dragon reminded Domri of the boar-god.

It was a stupid comparison, obviously. They looked nothing like each other, and Domri knew for a fact that Ilharg was somewhere else in the city, finally let loose to smash the Azorius and the Orzhov and all the bastards who spat on him and his.

But the power the dragon had about him. The same power Domri had felt the night Ilharg entered his dreams, speaking a language Domri didn’t know, but that he understood perfectly. The language that made sense of slaughter. The language that let Domri bring all the lost beasts of Ravnica to his side and finally set the Gruul clans on the right path.

Power. The other guilds wielded false power gained through lies and tricks. The pathetic guildless had no power, and would never amount to anything. Even among the Gruul, there was too much fear to wield power. Only power could smash this rotten place. Only real power.

So why not follow real power?

Domri splashed through a puddle that was probably more blood than water. At his back the most loyal of the clans stomped along with him. A small group, but some of the best and strongest of the Gruul. Strong enough to see that Domri would lead them to a better life.

Even so, many of them couldn’t keep their eyes off the fools running around them, fleeing from the eternals instead of joining them. Idiots who couldn’t see that the blue men were here to remove the boot of guild oppression.

“We should help ‘em,” Revka grunted at Domri’s side. The big-shouldered berserker was looking toward the storefronts, at a bunch of eternals trying to get at a clutch of guildless workers. Two Golgari trolls and a spike-clad bloodwitch were fending them off with improvised weapons.

“Why?” Domri turned away. “They want to protect the weak, then they can die with the weak.”

“They’re fellow chaos-guilders,” Revka said. Domri could hear the frown on her face.

“Eh. Let the Raze take ‘em. We’ve got bigger rats to fry.”

“Should we bash them?” Another companion, a big-bellied ogre called Chokki, pointed a thumb over his shoulder. A bunch of gateless folk were huddled in a half-collapsed archway off the square, trying not to catch the attention of the metal skeletons that were wandering every inch of the district.

“If we’re not gonna help them, that is.”

Domri scowled. They shouldn’t even have been there, weak things. Idiots who licked the boots of merchants and the guilds of order, no doubt. They should have joined the clans when they had the chance. They should have joined the power that would have helped them.

He sneered. “Leave ‘em. This is happening for their good too. Either they’ll get to live in the dragon’s new world or they’ll die, either way it’s better than living in this stinking city as it is.”

“New world.” Thom, a long-legged viashino, looked around the street. Fires reflected in his wide eyes. “What kinda world do you suppose he wants?”

Domri scratched his chin. “It’ll be a world for the powerful. The right kind of powerful, this time.”

“Sure, Dom.” Chokki frowned at the eternals, still grappling with the Golgari. “Are we the right kind of powerful?” That got the others muttering. A few even stopped, and it looked like they might be itching to help with the fight.

On the wrong side.

Domri stomped. “That’s the world of laws back there. Laws that protect the weak and spit on us. It’s got nothing to offer any of you.” He thrust his axe toward the plaza. “That’s where the new power is. That’s what the Gruul have got to adopt to survive.”

The others exchanged looks. Most shrugged and followed Domri, but a few cowards slunk off to help fight the eternals.

Domri spat after them, and stomped away. Too frightened to follow power to freedom? Fine. He knew there were weaklings like that in the clans. He’d lived with them all his life.

Old Borborygmos had seemed powerful, once. He was big. Strong. But he lacked the power of will. The power to use power to do what had to be done in the world.

He’d seemed powerful when Domri first challenged him. When the fire of the Raze-boar filled Domri’s heart and the wild beasts of Ravnica had flocked to him, throwing the suppressed rage of every member of the clans at the cyclops’ dragging feet. Borborygmos had knocked aside the first few easily. Easily enough that Domri had felt the old fear of his own smallness again. Easily enough that Domri had almost begun to doubt.

But then the first boar had made it past Borborygmos’ axe and struck his heel. Then the great coward had stumbled, and all the clans saw it. They saw him fall to one knee, then to another, and numbers overcame him. Tusks tore new scars into his legs. Heavy bodies rammed him. He beat at them still, killing a few, but unable to overcome the mighty rhythm of the wild. He’d dragged himself away like a dog, and even the swine had jeered his weakness.

...

The sky was clear by the time they reached the plaza, though the streets were anything but. Ravnicans, Eternals, and people in strange clothes who could only have been other planeswalkers were fighting, running, hiding. Some of Domri’s boars had found their way to the plaza, and charged through the screaming crowds, bowling aside outsiders and city natives in their rage. There were enough idiots fighting the eternals to keep them busy, but still the odd skeleton had made a run at Domri’s group, and gotten carved up for their trouble.

They were almost dangerous, as distracted as Domri and his companions were by the titans that loomed over the Plaza.

Every child knew that there had been ten stone titans long ago, that those pompous Boros had called on when they wanted to stamp down on anyone who dared want to be free. These new creatures might have been them, if they hadn’t looked so much like the eternals. If they didn’t also stomp wojeks and ledevs alongside the guildless beneath their metal-sandaled feet.

“Do you feel that?” Domri whispered. “The power of gods. They feel the same as Ilharg.”

The others looked at him like he was out of his head. The words did sound wild, it was true. But he felt in them the same raw power as he felt in the Raze-boar. The same power to topple the world.

The power the dragon radiated by the ton.

“Dragon!” He shouted, channeling the violence of the wilds into his voice. “I’m Domri Rade! Champion and leader of the Gruul clans!” He waved at his companions. “We’re here to help you bring this place to the ground!”

The dragon didn’t even flinch. He was looking somewhere else in the chaos of the plaza.

Chokki coughed. “I don’t think he hears ya, Dom’”

Domri swore. “Yeah, I can see that!” He looked around the plaza. The Dragon’s new gods were killing people by the handful. The eternals were killing people by the handful. If the dragon couldn’t hear him, then he’d show his allegiance by example. “Krokt, just start killing the strange-looking ones. It’s their own damn fault for coming here anyways.”

The others hesitated. Domri snarled and charged a tall human with red face paint who hovered off the ground like a ghost. Another planeswalker, sure, but he defied the dragon-

Domri swung his axe. The strange man folded around it and lay still on the ground.

-and the dragon was the only power now.

Something collided with his axe on the back-swing. An older guildless man. He fell to the ground, at the feet of other ragged-clothed guildless. Family? Friends?

Domri didn’t have a lot of time to consider the group before they all pressed toward him, as if they didn’t care how dangerous he was. A line of eternals followed right behind them, weapons drawn. Behind Domri it was the same. His clan-mates pressed together, suddenly surrounded by a wall of blue and shiny bronze.

“P-please!” The guildless man scrambled up, clutching at Domri. “You have to protect us. You have to get us out of here.”

“Get off!” Domri shoved the man away, and he stumbled at the feet of the eternals. Two of his fellow guildless rushed after him, grabbing at his cloak to pull him away from the eternals. They got him halfway to his feet before eternal blades stuck them in a dozen places. The last one, a boy a little younger than Domri, tried to flee on his hands and knees, but a blue foot stomped down on his back, cracking his spine.

“Shoulda stayed in your home,” Domri muttered at the corpses. His heart was hammering. The other’s boy’s limp hand was inches from Domri’s own foot. “Shoulda just stood aside and let us bring the old ways back.”

Rade. I see you had brains enough to challenge Borborygmos at the right time.

The voice of power boomed like a battle-cry in Domri’s skull. The magical fires around the dragon’s feet flared up. Domri’s heart rose up. He’d been right. Power was on the side of nature. On the side of the Gruul.

I hope you’re grateful. I lost my best contact in the Simic procuring a contagion to make the cyclops weak enough to best without him realizing.

Domri blinked. Simic? What did they have to do with anything?

What brings you here? What can you offer me, little walker?

“I-I’ve brought you the clans!” Domri thumped his chest. “We’re all ready. Ready to tear down the stones and make Ravnica a paradise for the strong.”

The laugh that filled Domri’s head was unexpected. Unexpected and chilling.

An amusing fantasy, but I have all the dumb muscle I need. Your spark is worth much more to me now than you are.

A spear plunged through Chokki’s chest. The tips poked out of his back like tiny golden zits popping with blood. The ogre fell to his knees, grabbing uselessly at the wound.

Actually, I suppose it always was.

Domri barely had the time to get his weapon up to block a gob of acid-magic flung at his face. Revka’s scream cut short as an eternal’s tail ripped a hole in her throat. Thom managed to block a sword-strike, only to have the wind and the life bashed out of him by another eternal’s savage headbutt.

Two eternals came at Domri from the left and the right. One he smashed through with his axe. The other actually threw down its sword and reached out for him with its bare hands. It was almost fast enough to grab him, except that Chokki’s body came down on it, smashing it to the stone.

Domri swung his axe again in a wide arc, smashing apart two eternals whose weapons were still in his friends. He realized he was shouting. With a jolt and a bit of shame, he realized there were tears in his eyes.

“Bloody shits! We were here to help!” He scooped up a chunk of rubble and hurled it at another eternal. The bull-thing caught the stone in the head and stumbled a step, which was all Domri needed to get his axe up in the air and crack the thing’s chest apart. “We just meant to-”

He paused. The other eternals had stepped back. A single skeleton, all in fancy garb, was walking at him, holding a staff of gold out in front of them.

Domri spread his arms. “L-look. I’m strong enough, right? I’m strong enough to fight.” He backed away a step, nearly tripping over Chokki’s arm. “I’m not like them. I can-”

The skeleton lashed out with its staff, knocking Domri’s axe out of his hands. Domri looked dumbfounded at where the weapon had fallen. A second later cold metal fingers clamped down on his jaw and jerked his face back around to face the skeleton.

Domri cried in surprise. A quick but pathetic sound that he was, for the briefest second, glad his comrades weren’t alive to hear.

“Let me go, you-”

The hands were cold

The hands were cold, and the cold seeped into Domri’s throat. His chest. His stomach.

“S-stop!” He grabbed the eternal’s arm to yank it off. These things were flimsy, right? He’d watched Revka rip half a dozen limbs out today, and he beat her at arm-wrestling all the time.

The cold flooded his fingers. His palms. His arms. They went numb.

Domri tried to shout. Someone would hear. Someone had to hear and come help him. The eternal squeezed, and only a gasp came out.

Walk. He had to planeswalk away. He could escape, and find more of his friends.

Domri’s knees gave out. He dipped down an inch, but the eternal held him upright.

He could fix this. He could make this right. Hadn’t he done right?

Pain was building in Domri’s chest. A crushing pain. A boot pressing the breath out of his lungs and into the eternal. His body sagged further, and his head lolled to the side. He saw the street. Bodies. His clan and the ones in tattered cloaks and hoods. Boars rooted around the corpses, snuffling and chewing.

Domri reached out to the rubble. To the dirt. The mana wouldn’t come to him. He tried to think of Ilharg, but in his mind the boar-god twisted into a shadow with horns and wings who just laughed.

Then the dragon was gone, and his head was full of light. Light that sang and hushed and went dark, dark, darker, darker, darker and quiet.

It was alright. It was alright. Just another burying, wasn’t it? Just another trial He would be fine. He would see the jungle again. He would see what he could turn Ravnica into. A good place. A green place. He just had to

    “Even the Swine” is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan  Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the  materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the  Coast LLC.

[adashofstarshine]

Day In, Day Out - A Niki Story

Usually I post Niki stories to AO3, but I thought this one was short enough for tumblr!

Get up, shower, get dressed and have breakfast. Go to work, have lunch and dinner between shifts, go home, shower, and then get some rest. Repeat the next day. And the next. And the next. Until it was Thursday. Gods, he hated Thursdays. But Fridays were the same, and Saturdays, rinse and repeat until the following damnable Thursday.

It wasn’t a bad routine. Most importantly, it was his routine. One he’d become so used to over the last twenty years that he went through the motions like clockwork. He no longer needed to weigh how many porridge oats he needed for his breakfast. He no longer hurried along the pavement, worried he might be running late for an early rehearsal.  The seller at Been’s Beans knew his order and had it ready every Saturday before afternoon matinee. The only part of his day that could go unscripted was when a repeat client dropped by for an unscheduled appointment. Then again, he’d been doing this so long, he took surprises like that in his stride.

Except on Thursdays. Most of the other performers worked four or five days a week, depending on family commitments. With no such things holding him back, and an abundance of energy to spare, Niki would have happily have worked every day. However, Madame Director wouldn’t let him. She insisted he needed at least one day to ‘get his head away from it all’ – whatever that meant. So, Niki worked six. Two days as lead, two days as chorus, and two days on compulsory wait duty (boo.) It worked out neatly really, and the timing of the shifts only changed from season to season. Six days a week he was occupied. Six days a week he could use all his boundless energy and talent to wow his audience and woo his admirers.  If he was lucky, a client would whisk him away from wait duty, or see him after a show, to give him even more work to fill his time. But not on Thursdays. Thursdays just left him feeling kind of…lost.

He could get up and get ready for the day, but what was he preparing for? His home was so tiny, three box rooms and a hallway, that it was almost impossible to entertain himself there. He didn’t even have a proper kitchen, unless you counted a hob and a fridge the total sum of a kitchen. He could lie on his bed and read whatever novella he’d last taken out from the library. But that left him feeling incredibly restless.

He’d explored every part of the neighbourhood that wouldn’t get him stabbed, and a few places that would. He liked the bathhouse two streets along, but there was a limit to how long you could stay in there. He liked shopping, but once again, space was at a premium in his shoebox of a flat. If there was a fair nearby, he’d go there, happy to travel further afield if the posters led him that way. An hour away was Rough Rita’s All Day Carnival – a warehouse turned into a permanent indoor fairground. But entry added up and there was only so much of Rough Rita’s décor he could stomach.

He had friends; Niki liked to remind himself. One had moved to District Three to work at some fancy elves-only clinic and the other… the other was kind of prickly after she’d learned her brother was paying Niki for sex.  They were still on speaking terms but…well, she lived in the next precinct now anyway. It occurred to Niki, it had occurred to him so many times, that most people had more than two friends. He had Beth as well but, well, anything he told her would certainly go back to Madame D and well…

He didn’t want Madame D knowing why he truly hated days off.

For all Madame Director knew, he was a completely normal and healthy employee, who maybe had some self-endangering trauma, but was overall the best she had and she should give him all the best parts in all the plays ever. What she didn’t know, wasn’t going to endanger his chance at being the theatre’s darling. Or continuing to be so. Or something like that. He was ok! He was fine! So perfectly fine, he was finest anyone had ever been! So, so, so, so very…

Krokt, he was such a mess.

Niki was lonely. He hated Thursdays because they reminded him that he was nothing without work. Nothing to achieve, no one to really talk to, he was just one figure in the uncaring bustle that was Ravnica. If he died, Roxy and Kay would be sad for a little while, but then they’d acknowledge that Niki had known the risks of the life he’d chosen and simply move on. He hadn’t made enough of an impression of anyone to have them want to meet up with him. To ask after his health, to want to do fun activities or go to interesting places. He was in desperate need of friends.

But how? How did anyone just find friends? Was there a set way to do it? Was there a guide he could follow? How did people just connect seemingly by nature? How did you just meet people and know friendship had occurred? This line of thought made Niki’s head spin, worried that it had condemned him to a life of loneliness. No one had ever taught him how to make friends. It sounded like the sort of thing he should’ve learned when he was younger rather than how to pirouette or dance on an empty stomach. His parents had kept him purposefully apart from other elves his age, and as a teen, his interaction had mostly been performances of some kind or another. How did you tear down the invisible wall between you and someone else? How did you step from ‘acquaintance’ to ‘friend’? Niki wasn’t shy. He was an actor! He danced and sung for hundreds! He was the opposite of shy. Yet, he just couldn’t. He didn’t know how and he hated it.

If he couldn’t make friends, how was he ever going to fall in love?  He was taking things one step at a time. Friends first, but he spent his evenings nose-first in novels detailing the most fantastic of relationships. Young protagonists, feeling alienated in their everyday lives, would catch the eyes of handsome men and find their life partners, not without a degree of dramatic strife. Some of the sex scenes were a bit meh, but otherwise… Oh to be a swooning romantic hero in a billowing white shirt, in the muscular arms of his gorgeous and devoted boyfriend. They would leave the pressures of society behind and run away to an enormous (possibly-haunted) manor and make love until the sun rose through the stained glass. There they would restore the place to its former glory and hold lavish parties for all their many many friends.

Niki knew the novels were unrealistic, but couldn’t an elf dream?

He’d just settle for mattering. Meaning something to someone. Anything really. Just enough of an attachment that they’d look forward to seeing each other and miss each other when apart. Was that too much to ask? He just wanted to be something to somebody. He had so much love to give but… These thoughts always came to him when there wasn’t any work to distract him. When he couldn’t lose himself to the glamour of being on stage, or the admiration he received when off it. Even waiting was preferable to this. He could secretly rate customers, angle for tips, it was as much a show as anything else, just with a different costume. Yet on Thursdays, there was no hiding behind a painted smile and a bubbly attitude. There were no clients to please and no colleagues to laugh with. He just had himself and… being himself was clearly insufficient.  

What could he do? He didn’t know and that led him back into the same routine, week in week out. Six days of work, one day of sadness, six days of work, one day of being alone. It was very easy to follow a schedule when you knew it like the back of your hand. So the cycle continued and Niki continued to hate it when Thursday came, just like all the other Thursdays came before it.

[elspethsunschampion]

Rest for the Weary

Jace stared up at the sky.  It was blue, mostly.  There was a little cloud in one corner of it.  It looked like a squirrel. 

“Hey, shove over, that’s prime rubble you’re sprawled out on.”  Jace blinked slowly and turned his head to the side to see Ral Zarek, gentle wafts of smoke still wafting up from his head, looming over him.  He was holding a lazotep arm loosely in one hand.

“Umph,” Jace said.  He considered trying to ask why Ral would care about the rubble, decided he was too tired, and simply scooted over.

“Thanks.”  Ral flopped down next to him with a groan.  “Next time I tell you I need your help, do not leave for months and months.  I don’t want to have to put out another fire like this one again.”

“Believe me, I won’t,” Jace said earnestly.  “I never want to leave Ravnica again.”

“Should’ve thought of that before,” Ral growled, but to Jace’s surprise, he curled up against Jace’s side and rested his head on Jace’s shoulder.  “I hate you,” he murmured.

“Um?” Jace tried.

“Really.  Swear to Baal,” Ral muttered.  “Thought you were dead, asshole.”

“Sorry?”

Ral hit him, but not terribly hard.  Jace suspected they were both too tired for anything more.  “You walked out on me during our date.  That’s incredibly rude, you know.”

“I was trying to save—that was a date?”

Another groan.  Ral hid his face in Jace’s shoulder.  “Krokt, you’re thick.  Yeah, it was supposed to be a date.  Or do you think I just take everyone to Rakdos shows when I want to ask them something?”

“I…sort of thought it was…neutral territory or something?” Jace hazarded.  

“Grmph,” was the only response he got.

For a few minutes, he stared up at the clouds again.  If he hadn’t been so utterly bone-weary, he might have felt guilty or angry at himself.  Or he might have spent a while trying to decide how he did feel.  Instead, he watching a tiny fish join the squirrel, and then he put a hand in Ral’s sweaty hair.  “Sorry I didn’t realize.  I’d like to have a proper date with you.  One where we don’t get interrupted for months on end.”

“Yeah, well—” Ral groaned wearily into his neck.  “What the hell.  Me, too.”

“Mmm.”  Jace hummed in pleasure and pulled him closer.  Ral’s angry warmth was nice.  The clouds skidded by overhead. 

Jace drowsed; Jace dreamt.  Ral slept wearily beside him, mana spent.  Somewhere, Lavinia lay curled and safe in white feathers.  Vraska was surrounded by green, growing things, grass tickling her cheek.  She smiled in response to the gentle brush of Jace’s mental tendrils.  Gideon was drinking tea, the sharp taste on his tongue calming him.  Chandra and Nissa were entwined on a bed of soft moss, limbs so tangled up it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.  Everywhere beneath the blue sky, beneath the squirrel and the fish chasing one another, Ravnica lay safe.  Ravnica slept.

Jace smiled again, and then he slept as well.

[cur10uscr0w]

@bace-jeleren

Whoops, I accidentally wrote a little one shot for this ^^;

[ Archive of our Own • Commissions • Art ]

”I just don’t know how to live here… In the tenth…” Nissa was nervous. Speaking about something that was personal and uncomfortable felt unnatural. She forced down a sip of tea to take her mind off of what she was doing.

Regardless her feelings of Liliana, the advice the older planeswalker had dispensed was proving to be invaluable. It was hard, but she forced herself to talk about things she felt inclined to bottle up with people she trusted. Emmara had become one of those people.

They’d met on a chance encounter when Nissa had been searching for nature desperately in Ravnica’s cold cityscape. She’d happened upon a Grove of the Conclave, where a certain elf had been devoutly tending to the Garden of Life. That sat in that very grove now, and Nissa felt the need to push herself to grow much like the plants around her. She more confidently stated,“ I can’t understand life here, how others live.”

“There’s more to life than just living,” Emmara responded sagely.

Nissa gave Emmara a puzzled look and pulled away slightly. That she was pulling away at all was odd. She had become so close Emmara in such a short time, she found herself able to curl up beside her, in the midst of elementals they called to tidy the grove. The closeness was strange—but it also reminded her of Ashaya.

Emmara too was wise and silently powerful. Her shoulders often squared with pride, not aggression, and yet Nissa could see the strength the waif form held. When she spoke, Nissa could hear the wisdom her words held and the experience they were burdened with and exalted by.

“You need to find what gives your life meaning. For me, it’s order. By growing the plants I look after in a row, I provide each one equal nutrients and care. Order brings peace to the living.”

Nissa listened to all Emmara had to say before considering her own response. She mulled over for the perfect words, which usually caused her anxiety since people tended to get impatient with her. Emmara didn’t though, she was happy to wait and hear Nissa’s completed thought. Maybe it was an elf thing; she hung out with mostly humans these days.

“Sometimes I can’t see the order around me—it makes me uncomfortable because I don’t understand. I want to… To understand, that is. Perhaps if I did, I could be comfortable even when I’m not the same. I wouldn’t be afraid if I understood.”

Emmara nodded then said softly,“ Order acknowledges that we’re all the same, but that personal experiences are unique. All life should be cherished, even if we could not live as another does. I think you understand more than you believe you do.”

“There was a time I definitely did not,” Nissa said, a bit of regret curling her lips. She pressed back against Emmara once more and took a sip of her tea. She was embarrassed admitting it, her cheeks and ears burning slightly, but she pulled through and said,“ I think I was very close minded. Even before… I traveled alone for a very long time… I kept to myself. I listened to what my people told me to believe, and felt shame for being different, thought less of people who were even more different than myself.

"It wasn’t until great strife afflicted us all that I began to realize I’m not so different from humans, merfolk, ko—” Nissa’s tongue tripped as her brain frantically began to search for another race Zendikar and Ravnica shared. “Krokt-damned vampires even.”

Nissa’s mouth was certainly never as foul as Chandra’s and she didn’t like to take names in vain, but she was pretty sure she’d heard Jace and Gideon throw that name around and it covered her slip up.

She bit her lip as she played back her words to herself. She was grateful Emmara gave her the time to do this, to figure out what she liked and didn’t like about how she spoke and presented herself. Having time to analyze what she said helped her reflect on how she could improve in the future. Talking this much made her throat sore as it was, thus the tea Emmara always offered.

“Still, I am judgemental,” she lamented.

“Breaking habits comes with time,” Emmara said with a small smile. “It’s a daily struggle, in fact. And it will be for life.”

“I’m starting to see that,” Nissa sighed, her ear drooping slightly.

“But I think you’re on a beautiful journey. One of self discovery. Follow it, let it take you new places.”

Nissa regarded Emmara ruefully, thinking wryly if only Emmara knew Nissa’s secret and how right she was. Nissa had been to new places already on this journey, and she was sure she would be going new places very soon again. It pulled at her heart oddly as she thought how Emmara was another she would have to leave behind as she lived her life. Like Ashaya, who could not be replaced by the elementals she rose here.

“Thank you, Emmara. These chats… they help me find peace, discover…” Nissa shook her head, feeling silly. She wasn’t sure if ‘chats’ was the right word—it felt more important than that, but Chandra had jokingly told Nissa her use of the word 'dialogues’ was too… stiff… the other day, and Nissa didn’t want to come off as distant to Emmara—and she couldn’t find a way to properly convey, you help me discover how I feel, how I want to feel, and how to find the balance in between.

“I’m glad you discovered this grove,” Emmara said graciously, covering Nissa’s awkward trailing off that only made the planeswalker more nervous as the awkward silence threatened to spread.

“M-me too,” Nissa said, in a rare moment of speaking faster than she could think and tripping over her words.

“And I am glad anytime you come to talk with me.” Emmara suddenly seemed a little more demure than she had so far into the evening. “When you’re not here, I think of you. I really enjoy your company, especially on quiet nights like these. Whether we talk or merely meditate… I want you to know it helps me find peace as well.”

Emmara spoke clearly for Nissa’s benefit, striving not to beat around the bush and cause confusion. She also spoke for her own benefit though. The thought that Nissa may come around more often excited her, made her feel a sense of stability and warmth she missed.

She still grieved Calomir’s death, as she could only assume she always would, and once she would have been able to rely on her friend, Jace, for support, but he had become distant. She saw him at Guildmeets, but it was on official business only. Emmara was so lonely these days, and after how she was abandoned by her guild during the Implicit maze, it was hard to rely on them for support.

Nissa stared into Emmara’s milky eyes, deciphering the expression of pain that slowly took residence. “You… are as lonely as I am,” Nissa concluded, frowning as Emmara nodded as confirmation. Handing off her her cup of tea to a nearby vine, Nissa hesitantly placed a hand on Emmara’s knee like she’d seen the others in the Gatewatch reassuringly grab each other’s shoulders and hands.

“You needn’t be any longer,” Nissa boldly decided, then continued,“ I may have to leave for my work occasionally, but I will always come back, if you would have me.”

Emmara’s gaze dropped to the hand on her knee as she readjusted her grip on her tea. Her own hand, warm from gripping the mug of tea, gently alighted on Nissa’s. Squeezing softly, Emmara earnestly said,“ You’re always welcome here. I would like that very much.”