I used to engage in a habit of re-writing Magic the Gathering stories, the ones they would put out on the mothership as short web fiction, as what I called "goblinizations," the notion being to make them more honest by making them more ridiculous. It has been long enough since the last time I read them that I was able to laugh at my own jokes. I decided to put some of them here, with annotations explaining what must be to non-Magic people what must make me sound like a maniac. Well, more of a maniac, anyway. I thought about making them into footnotes but settled on hover text because that is the way I would want to read it.
Nahiri hitched the hilt ring of her trusty machete into one of her belt hooks, having hacked the last fern that stood between her and the final climb to one of Akoum's sickeningly spiraling precipices. On any other plane, gravity would be an absolute thing, but on Zendikar, up and down were relative and random, but to Nahiri—herself both a trained climber and born optimist—every direction was up. The vista revealed a long buried ruin of the ancient kor people, Nahiri's people. Though the struggle for survival across millenia had changed much about them, Nahiri, being of the ancients herself, still remembered this particular ruin as just another place. Despite the fatigue from a long journey, the imposing impossibility of the coming one, and a dizzying sense of vertigo and isolation mixed, Nahiri couldn't suppress a grin that accompanied a flutter of hope in her chest. It was here. This will work.
Her optimism failed to keep her afloat as the Roil that pernicious and violent constant of Zendikar that upheaved the land seemingly at random but with frustrating regularity decided to manifest itself just then as the slab of rock Nahiri was standing upon losing its airborn property. Nahiri plummeted in some direction that despite her attitude was not up, and the suddenness of it prevented her from appreciating the visual metaphor of her gorgeous view spiraling out of her reach. Instead, she merely said, "urk!"
No sooner had the Roil's manifestation of physical irony began than it ended, and Nahiri found herself laying down in soil and foliage in some other cursed undergrowth akin to the kind she had trailblazed once already that day. Her head stopped spinning sufficient for her to remember softening the stone to break her fall. "Still a genius, even in a crisis. You've really outdone yourself, girl." Nahiri addressed herself, adding a pat on the back that turned tentative as she discovered a sore spot there. She attempted to crane her neck around to inspect the damage before coming to her senses and manifesting two mirrors out of the nearby stone using her powers of lithomancy. Her shoulderblade sported an unsightly bruise upon her alabaster skin. She wiggled out of the strap to uncover it and reduce the pressure, trusting the strap on the other side and trusting her own full figure to keep her utility bodice in place for the time being. Though her various paramours over the years thought her body built for something else entirely, today she reaffirmed that it was indeed built for climbing and this setback was nothing compared to the prize at the end.
"It would help to have help," she thought to herself, and then, as if summoned to the battlefield, Nissa Revane appeared in front of her, adorned in a kelly green body wrap interlocked stylishly across and across her torso. She sported a modestly designed but immodestly hiked skirt, which framed and freed her substantial thighs. Her face, arms, and legs were bare but for the slashes of paint in the style of her tribe. She carried her favorite stick and an air of confidence. "You look more...buff, than I remember," Nahiri said, sizing up the elven planeswalker. "Yes, I'm up to five mana now. I'm rather difficult to fight down," Nissa replied, extending a hand. Nahiri took it, and let Nissa lift her up. The flutter of hope returned to Nahiri's chest with added heat. She had first noticed Nissa during the Battle for the Plaza but had been too preoccupied with combat to strike up a personal conversation. Nicol Bolas had really put on a lightshow that afternoon but Nahiri had been off settling a score with a particularly repugnant and entitled vampire prince, the pretext for which had long ago escaped her. Something about him not liking rocks or something. Nissa held her eyes patiently upon Nahiri as the cool sobriety of blood finally filled her limbs and head; she had stood up too quickly. Why did seeing Nissa remind her of past paramours? She set to work preparing a proper welcome for the elf.
Nissa, meanwhile, set in to one of her favorite pasttimes: explaining herself in detail. "I presume you will want to know why I am here. As the Zendikar contact of the Gatewatch, so named for the gate we did sadly fail to defend on this very plane, well, really it was Gideon who chose the name and no one else cared enough to change it really so it stuck, I do miss him though I try not to occupy my thoughts with thinking what he might have wanted in all circumstances. Nevertheless, following Bolas's Big Blast, what with how we came to learn there are so many new faces, Jace "Guildpact" Beleren, charming fellow, figured we would need to establish a network to build back our reputation and respond to multiverse dangers. The somewhat, perhaps, a little bit invasive part is that he worked a little bit of mental mischief on all of us so that we could be psychicly notified of dangers happening throughout the multiverse and travel to whatever plane the new set is in. Now the clever part is how he used some of Bolas's lazotep to craft the device that does it, which I'm sure you would be delighted to see. Which brings us to you, you're looking very handsome by the way, no no, the dirt lends you an earthy, rugged quality I quite like, well see when you experienced dire peril a moment ago that notified us and I was able to 'walk here right away, albeit just over there and not quite in time to rescue you but you seem none the worse for wear, except, oh dear, one of your straps has, uh, just over your, um, bosom, there...oh what is this?"
In the intervening minutes, Nahiri had called one of her favorite well-appointed wet bars from the stone beneath and mixed a chilled drink with the floral aromas of juniper and cherry. She interrupted Nissa's introduction to offer her the beverage, with an edible flower floating on top.
"This, my sweet, is your new favorite drink: the Aviation"
"It smells lovely but I couldn't—did you make this from a stone?"
"Partially. Swords are amongst the very least interesting things to be able to pull out of a rock. But, Oh! You are too right: someone like you should never drink alone."
"I say, this is quite a bit forward."
Nahiri withdrew a bottle of scotch from the second coolest fridge of the bar and poured a dram over a perfectly smooth and clear sphere of ice. Nissa watched as smoky peat-smelling liquor rippled and gripped the perfect orb to pool below. The viscosity and aroma mezmerizing. And yet the one she held in her own hand would be her favorite?
"A toast to my rescuer!" Nahiri invoked.
"You seem to be in fine spirits and certainly look well put together, if a bit in need of sartorial repair, I must say I haven't the foggiest idea what I should be rescuing you from."
Nahiri half closed her eyes as a small grin alighted upon her face. She tilted her face toward her glass and her glass toward her face, fixing in her mind the image of Nissa flummoxed as she was together with the smell and taste of the scotch, the cool temperature of it on her lips, the private answer she held in mind to Nissa's question of what from.
"Come now," Nahiri answered aloud, "you know as well as I that there is always more danger to be had on Zendikar. Why not have your drink and fortify yourself for our expedition?"
"They haven't printed any expeditions this time around."
"Nissa, sweeting, the toast?"
"Oh very well, let us see what I think of my new favorite drink."
Whereupon they sipped. The floral brightness of the juniper berries and tart sweetness of the cherries gave Nissa the impression of biting into a quite large and quite ripe fruit, but going on and on. It was more spirit-forward than she had expected and compounded with the strenuous exertions of the planeswalking she had just completed, went right to her head, then exploded into a pulsing warmth in her chest. She drained the glass and ate the flower for good measure, sopping up the last of the gin along with it. It was everything she could have wanted in a beverage.
When she opened her eyes again the expression she saw on Nahiri's face made her second-guess what had put the warmth in her chest. Nahiri had drained some of her drink for certain, but much remained. Her aspect, on the other hand, bespoke a thirst of another sort, and Nissa audibly gulped as she suddenly considered the wildest of possibilities this venture could hold in store. She made to put breath to Nahiri's salacious expression but found it came out as a cough she attempted to no success to stifle with grace.
Nahiri laughed, a sound as rich and resonant as the midday sun in the thin air atop the heights of Akoum cascading off her satin pearl skin. She took another small sip of her scotch and patted Nissa on the back with gusto to help with the cough.
Nissa thanked the elementals that she hadn't lost her lunch in front of the most attractive kor she had ever laid eyes on, thinking little of how well Nahiri might like to know just how many slugs she had had for lunch. The coughing subsided as Nahiri's laughter stilled to quiet tittering and she finished her own drink, took Nissa's glass, and retired the whole wet bar to the apparent nowhere it had been but moments before.
"You are right, that drink was delicious, and thank you. Easily my new favorite, but I have never had its like, so how did you-"
"How did I know you would like it?"
"Just so."
"I spent many a year breaking bread with the folk of Zendikar, and this drink was always a favorite of the elves. I was playing the odds that you, being a strapping example of their number, would be the same."
Nissa ignored the steady blush upon her face, now given the ready excuse of the cocktail, and composed herself sufficiently to say,
"W-Well then, my thanks for the drink and the compliment, consider me watered. Shall we away?"
They set out together, Nahiri leading the way back to the fallen city, the pair catching each other up on what they had been doing in the sets leading up to War of the Spark in extremely sparing detail that served neither to genuinely catch anyone up to speed nor provide any insight whatsoever into their characteristics, and so is best left unelaborated. When the foliage thickened, Nahiri withdrew her trusty machete again and began a lazy backswing. Nissa gently stayed her hand.
"Hold on," Nissa said quickly, "there's no need for that." She held her trademark staff aloft and the boughs and ferns parted to allow their passage.
"See? No need for all the hacking and chopping, just direct me." Nahiri put her equipment away and gave a little shrug with her good shoulder,
"Suits me. I rather like the sound of directing you." At that Nissa quickly busied herself with the task of gently turning aside the local flora, and so the pair made good time back to Nahiri's destination: those ruins newly emerged from Akoum some called the Skyclave. The vista, once again in view, did not fail to impress again. Nissa, seeing it for the first time, stopped in place to appreciate the land in front of her with its hidden city.
"Nahiri, how could a stone city of this size survive for so long subjected to the Roil?"
"You mean Goat Harbor
"What?"
"This was my hometown, Goat Harbor."
"I thought it was called The Skyclave."
"That's a silly thing to call it. We didn't build it in the sky in the hopes it would be swallowed up by a continent someday. It was a harbor town where I first studied lithomancy. Those I apprenticed to were masters of the art, and built the harbor further and further out to sea. It had to stay together against the raging sea, and the architects managed to do it for years, decades, and now millenia later it still stands."
"But still, how? No structure can survive that long even in calmer places, no matter how strong it is built."
"Ah! You said it: it wasn't very strong at all."
"I don't understand."
"We didn't make it strong, we made it flexible and resiliant. The whole city is chambered like my hedrons, with built-in hinge points, and what's more, an artifact that passively draws in power and subtly repairs the flagstones and bricks. It's almost a living thing, you'll like it."
"That is clever I admit. But why have you come here?"
"To steal a heart."
Nissa blushed down to her chest, thanking the elementals that Nahiri was leading the way at that time and so did not notice this. She chastized herself for fantasizing that Nahiri was flirting with her. She was representing the Gatewatch, after all, and it simply would not do for her to be the reason they grew a reputation for being a carnival of libertines. Perhaps Chandra or Ajani, but not her.
Only upon truly approaching the structure did Nissa begin to appreciate the colossal scale of the thing. Between a changing relative gravity and the subtle geometric patterns of the outermost turrets, Goat Harbor's main approach had a trick of perspective that made it look closer than it was in truth, perhaps yet another clever trick of the ancient kor stoneworkers to make the city-fortress more difficult to see and thus more difficult to assail. They entered a tall archway into a main central building, and the dizzying scale of everything once again filled Nissa with wonder, but newly worry.
"Nahiri, how shall we find what you are looking for, I mean this is an entire city; we should hire some adventuring parties and lay down roots of a formal excavation campaign. Just the two of us together—"
"Oh! I like the sound of that. 'The two of us together,' maybe this is me feeling homey now that I've finally returned to the site of my appreticeship, but I like it. As to the question: we look for graffiti."
"You can't be serious, I-I mean about the graffiti, surely there are ancient texts or frescoes, a mosaic or scroll."
"All junk. Who would have made ancient texts? Conquerors bragging about how many great battles they waged. Scholars parroting them, or cataloging their discoveries that were the basis of something we just take for granted nowadays. Frescoes are just a more artful and abstract retelling of the same, and the scrolls crumbled long ago. These are pretentious things: whoever made them could feel the importance of it, the permanence of it."
"But that's just it, they knew the importance and so were very careful about it."
"No, they felt important things that actually weren't, at least, not to us. Think of it this way: you just met the most amazing person. The two of you had known of each other before but never got to know each other, you feel the connection and want to know if they feel the same. Now, you can either wait patiently, going over and over again what you should say because of how important it is, or, you can vandalize their house."
"I-I don't think you're making a good case for your side."
"My point is this: ancient texts are pretentious, graffiti is honest. I don't want to read some stogy prose tortured out around its own notion of importance. I just want to hear the simple words of an honest voice. Here, let me show you: Nissa, I like you, tell me where your house is so I can vandalize it."
"I think I understand," Nissa's expression brightened into an enthusiastic grin, "thank you for that example, let's find your graffiti!"
Nahiri winced as Nissa skipped ahead, promising to herself to recalibrate her approach for someone who was much more dense than her comportment up to that point had demonstrated. A cold bolt of a notion split her frustration and attraction down the middle, leaving a knot in her stomach: Nissa might be plenty bright but just not that into her and was gently deflecting all of Nahiri's advances out of politeness. She jogged to catch up to Nissa, darkly wishing Zendikar's Roil would manifest to provide her with some pretext for physical exertions that might quell the roil she felt within.
As Nahiri had given her demonstration, Nissa felt her nerve endings tingle. An ache burned within her breast, as if she were the temple Nahiri was exploring, diving into, daring to unlock the secrets of. The contemplation hung in the air amidst so many stray motes of dust between them as they marched, Nahiri had that look on her face while she had spoken, did she mean Nissa to speak those 'simple words'? Nissa did not let herself dare, but had leapt at the chance to press on with the task at hand, maybe if she proved how competent and useful she was, Nahiri would favor her in return?
"I-I could summon an elemental from this fern to guide us," Nissa said, feeling inwardly ashamed at how she sounded.
Nahiri wore an arch expression. "Refreshing Zendikari pragmatism. Go right ahead, my sweet, what does the land have to say?"
Nissa, true to her untrue words rested her hand upon a nearby fern, and coaxed it into a mighty 3/3 haste vigilance land creature, which she then addressed.
"Ok Fernard, can you sense the beating heart within the citadel?"
The formless mass of fauna gently extended a limb of limbs and brushed Nissa across the side, the softest gesture available to a gestalt being of variegated vegetation.
"So the sweet one has a heart, too! Good to know," Nahiri gibed.
Nissa turned to face Nahiri with a disapproving frown, and Nahiri felt a pang of regret and something else as she once over again came to appreciate just how broad Nissa's shoulders were. Nahiri herself was no waif, a lifetime of climbing and combat saw to that, but next to Nissa she felt positively dainty. Green mana was quite something. Nissa addressed the elemental again.
"Ahem, Fernard, you have lived here amongst the weeds for some time, surely someone grew in proximity to the heart of this place?"
This time it brushed Nahiri, who then shook her head to rid her tousled hair of stray fronds.
Nissa cleared her throat, "Perhaps they will know it when they see it?"
Nahiri smiled cautiously, "It's always good to take a frond with you."
Nissa snorted at the joke, then caught her face with a hand, freshly embarrassed to have made the involuntary noise. Nahiri's bodice bounced in time with her silent laughter at Nissa's expense. "Come on," Nahiri said, "it helps to have help. I'm sure Fernard will prove themselves handy."
As the party of now three but technically also zero continued down a corridor, Nahiri suddenly placed her hand across Nissa's chest, holding her back while peering around a corner. Nahiri caught sight of an adult bull Felidar napping head-on-paws in the chamber. She got the layout of the chamber, counted steps to the beast and exits, and planned her takedown: she would summon between six and eight swords from the nearby stones and strike with initiative. Nissa meanwhile blushed down to where Nahiri's hand still rested on her chest, she had stopped moving forward, so why was her hand still there?
"Nahiri?"
"Shh"
"Nahiri," Nissa whispered, "what are we doing?"
"That's a bull Felidar, I've worked out our plan of attack. When I start into the chamber, you send Fernard at it and I'll aim swords at it's weak spots while it tangles with the weeds."
"Why do we need to kill it?"
"Nahiri blinked, realizing she handn't let her hand drop the whole time, then attempted to casually withdraw it to brush her hair back and consider the question.
"Uh, well it could be guarding something."
"Not the heart, surely."
"I mean, maybe."
"Come now, you were the one who told me about these ruins. That is a living creature and these ruins are ancient. Do you mean to tell me some trapmaker devised a living ecosystem sufficient to support a beast of that size and also somehow instill training in it to protect an objective, that would also pass down through generations of beasts? I grant you that kor ingenuity, yours especially, is impressive but that simply cannot be the case."
"I, uh, I wasn't thinking of that."
"So, we can leave the innocent beast alone, surely?"
By this point the Felidar had yawned itself awake and was watching the elf and kor argue, half closing its eyes from time to time. Finally annoyed with the noise, it made a lowing chirp in their direction.
The noise caused Nahiri and Nissa to freeze and look at the bored beast. Once it blinked at them again, Nissa grabbed Nahiri's elbow with her free hand and led them gradually away from the chamber and further into the labyrinthine passages of Goat Harbor.
After several minutes, Nahiri bounced ahead into another chamber and knelt before a statue. Nissa caught up and, to her surpise, saw Nahiri stretch her hands out to the base of the pedastal on a side that bore no inscription. The inscription on the front had stood the test of time, the glyphs still sharp and crisp. Nahiri was examining an apparently blank surface. The statue was of an adult male kor, holding an orb in one hand close to his chest, the other hand outstretched to the future.
"Nahiri, I think this is a clue."
"Do you have two mana to crack it?"
"I could do that with one forest."
"Well go ahead, then."
"Stop being silly, I mean it, it looks like this man is holding a facsimile of the orb we're looking for."
Nahiri continued her task, "That's not a man, and I already know she made the last orb of it's kind in existence."
"How do you know this orb is the last one in existence?"
"Because I haven't bothered to make another one yet. It's a complicated and time-consuming task even with full access to the master workshops of old uninterrupted by the Roil."
Nissa looked up to examine the statue once again, it looked nothing like Nahiri. Nor anything like any kor she had known in her life, at that. It made no sense to her factually, but she trusted Nahiri automatically and instinctively, though she became curious about just what Nahiri was doing.
"What are you doing?"
"Like I said, looking for graffiti."
"There's hardly a mark there."
"Now there isn't, but long ago, ah!"
Nahiri finally let her hands down and began examining the glyphs that had re-etched themselves into the side of the podium.
Nahiri gave a small whoop of triumph, "Excellent, excellent, the stone remembers...now who are you and what do you have to say?"
"Something pointless and lurid, no doubt."
"Lurid is only pointless if you're a prude."
"I'm no prude!"
"Glad to hear it, my sweet, but I'm afraid this message is no limerick."
"What is it?"
"Just the very best thing we could have hoped for: a burglar's cant."
"Which is?"
"Have you ever been part of a heist?"
Nissa hadn't, but she thought back on all the times Chandra had bragged about her thefts and escapades, none of which had ever been planned to sufficiently call them heists. Nissa's thoughts drifted to the more intimate moments they had shared, leaving her wistful as to what else the spitfire had stolen only to return broken.
"Not as such."
"Here, then, is a lesson in how some do it. Thieves leave each other coded messages, often in plain sight, like this one. If you're in the know then it's good information, and if you aren't then it's just a stylish tag. This happens to be detailed instructions about how and when to rob this place of my orb."
"It says all that?"
"Nissa, darling, from this perspective you are functionally illiterate, so please trust me when I tell you what the thing says."
Nissa looked away from Nahiri as she felt a sting in her guts, the rebuke more painful than she felt comfortable admitting. When she looked back at Nahiri it was through water. Nahiri's stomach dropped as she met Nissa's wet gaze, instantaneous, potent regret lashing at her heart like so much overcosted equipment. She walked up to Nissa and placed her hands on her shoulders.
"I'm sorry, that must have hit a sore spot. I did not mean to call you illiterate or stupid or anything else."
"It's a sore spot from when s-somebody else called me that. Y-you couldn't have known. I overreacted, it's stupid."
"Hey hey hey, Nissa, don't call yourself that, never call yourself that."
Nahiri slid her hands up Nissa's shoulders to her neck and then cheeks to frame her face. Nissa shut her eyes and leaned into the caress. Trying to not cry and failing far harder than she was trying.
"Yes I am I'm an idiot and a mess and I'm breaking down over nothing right in front of you and I feel ashamed and stupid and small and the only thing keeping me from openly sobbing right this second is the fact that I naturally ramble when I'm upset and I don't want to look at your gorgeous face with its perfect smoked-out eyeliner or I will absolutely lose it and my embarrassment will be as fully grown as Vitu-Ghazi."
"Hey hey, shh shh, it's okay. If anyone has a head full of rocks it's me, I mean I should know."
Nissa's sobs became laughter and then quiet sniffs as she settled a little, finally able to look at Nahiri again.
"And another thing, my sweet," Nahiri intoned gently, "it's not eyeliner. It's natural."
"You're joking! Now I'm just envious."
"I'll take that over sad and hurt any day."
"How about nervous?"
Nahiri leaned in closer, "Now why should you be nervous?"
"U-u-uh."
"Is it the constant danger? It's the constant danger, isn't it?"
"S-s-something like that."
Nahiri moved her hands to around Nissa's back and drew her into a hug. Nissa returned it gladly.
"It's ok, it's ok, we're safer together. I'll look after you and you look after me, deal?"
Nahiri felt Nissa nod her head.
"Deal."
"Great, are you feeling ok?"
"Much better, thank you," Nissa lied.
"Good," Nahiri replied, "now let me tell you more about this vandal tag."
Nissa nodded, watching Nahiri's backside as she walked back across the room to the statue, renewing her sense of just how much danger she was in.
"As I was saying, this was a scouted and planned heist, it even has a map to the orb."
"That's good, so that's where it is now?"
"Well no, it wouldn't be there now if they succeeded. It would be lost somewhere, exchanged again and again between fences and the fleeced, completely in the Roil."
"Then we're no further than we started."
"Not quite, see I know they didn't succeed."
"You were there?"
"No this was years after I left, I know they didn't succeed because the orb is still here. They got caught and it got moved to a more secure chamber."
"How do you know that?"
"Because this whole city is still intact. That couldn't have happened unless the orb is still here and has been for a long time. This is good! We just have to get a look at where the orb was, then find somewhere much more dangerous!"
"That sounds like a terrible plan!"
"I know!" Nahiri chirped, her expression near manic with glee.
She took Nissa's free hand and led her further still into the massive city-ruin, sure of the path she blazed until they came upon the first chamber of the orb, now lifeless but for mosses, the place of honor absent of their objective. Nahiri pointed upward to indicate the chains holding a geopede carapace: the monster trap long since robbed of the vital potency of the creature.
"They really didn't print any traps this time around, huh," Nissa remarked.
"I guess not. But this is good, let me examine this chamber to evaluate its deadliness and then I can calibrate my perilhedron."
"Your I beg your pardon?"
Nahiri withdrew a small hedron which floated above her palm on its own, blue light moving over its surface in lazy square patterns.
"One of my inventions, the perilhedron. It will tell you how much danger you're in. I can calibrate it to this room and then we'll use it as a beacon to triangulate the location of the orb."
"May I?" Nissa upturned a palm.
"Oh you want to try it? Sure, here."
Floating above Nissa's palm, she examined the thing with curiosity, letting slip from her mind an unspoken question about her attraction to Nahiri. The blue lights turned to red and began skating faster across the surface in their pre-fabricated paths. The device vibrated and spun erratically.
"Ah, tch," Nahiri said, "must be on the fritz. Here, I'll reset it and then set to work, ok?"
Nissa returned the device, certain it was working properly as she appreciated Nahiri's dangerous curves. While Nahiri calibrated the device, Nissa leaned against the wall, crossed her arms, and took long sips of Nahiri's form with her eyes. Maybe she could actually get a statue that resembled her someday and beautify whatever place it got put in. Maybe in Nissa's room. That would be quite nice. A thought occurred to her.
"Nahiri, I hope I'm not interrupting but something just occurred to me about that statue of you, you did say it was you, yes, yes the one from before. I must say again it did not resemble you in the least, and while I, I trust you, no I don't believe you were lying it's just I cannot imagine someone looking at you and then carving that I mean if an act of artistry can be a crime in itself I think that ought be, did they even have you pose for it?"
Nahiri patiently continued her work and responded, "I'll take that as a compliment, I guess it must look hideous if one was expecting realism, so I suppose a bit of ancient art history is called for, if you don't mind?"
"I'm all ears, if you'll pardon the expression."
"Something you should know about the ancient kor: we sorta liked to pass the buck, if you will, it was an extension of our natural ability to share pain with one another."
"Anyone who can express emotion can share pain."
"I mean physical pain, wounds. As a collective we could divide our wounds, which made us truly frightening as an army, you can imagine."
"Fascinating, I had never heard of such a thing."
"Probably way before your time. So anyway, when life settled down and war was no longer an ever present threat, the physical nature of our ability sublimated into a sort of social attitude about other things, organizational structure, farming, child raising, collective bargaining, and sure enough, art. During the era in which that statue was made, the prevailing attitude among artists was that the kor form was an abstracted ideal, and each of us fully realized when we grew to resemble that. Hence no work of portraiture from the era actually resembles us in detail of the body, but was meant to evoke our spirits with details of our lives."
"The 'ideal kor form' was a man?"
"Thank the patriarchy for that one. I'd like to hope that my people have become egalitarian in the intervening years, it still beggars belief that people like us should ever have not been, but the reasons behind that are a much longer history lesson and I like you too much to want to bore you with that."
"You what?"
"I said I'm finished."
"O-oh."
Nahiri led the way, holding her invention aloft, systematically scouring corridors, climbing up and down stairways and ladderways, making marks upon a slab as she went. After hours of crisscrossing through the bowels of the fortress, she sat and considered her markings upon the slab, then pointed to a spot upon it and said, "There, it must be in this chamber."
Nissa bent over to look at the markings, struck by how detailed Nahiri's etchings were, she was truly an impressive artist. She examined the map and said, "If I'm reading this right that means we still have a long way to go."
"We should rest for the night."
"Night? Oh I suppose I haven't seen outside for a long time, how do you know the time?"
Nahiri withdrew another stonework device. Nissa simply said, "oh."
"Here, let's choose a nearby room that only has one access point and take turns on watch."
"Fernard can take watch, actually, they have vigilance."
"Oh, even better."
Whereupon the pair retired into just such a chamber, Fernard diligently taking up the entryway, sufficiently tough to ward off almost any threat at common rarities.
The two made themselves as comfortable as possible on opposite sides of the ancient stone room, which is to say, not very. Nissa stilled her heart enough to let sleep take over, such a trial as it had undergone that day, only to awaken an apparent moment later to Nahiri standing over her, rubbing her arms.
"Hey, hey, Nissa, um, are you awake?"
"Mmm, I suppose I am now."
"Oh, sorry, hey. U-uh, um, could I impose on you a little."
Nissa sat up, "Nahiri you're shivering, what's the matter."
"It got a lot colder in here than I expected and I, uh, I can't sleep."
Nissa stood up and wrapped her arms around Nahiri, who was still shivering. Her skin felt quite cold and Nissa suddenly worried.
"Goodness you're freezing are you ok? We should light a fire."
"Too dangerous, we could alert predators, goblins, I don't know if there's ventilation for the smoke, too dangerous-s."
"Then come here."
Nissa brought them down together, arms intertwined. After a few minutes, Nahiri no longer felt cold and Nissa was relieved for it.
"Nissa?" Nahiri leaned her head back to look at Nissa's face.
"Yes?"
"I like you."
"Oh!"
Nissa's heart beat faster and the stone beneath them no longer felt cool enough.
Nahiri repositioned herself to place a kiss upon Nissa's lips, gentle, willing, the tenderness of it fit to drive Nissa mad for the more that she dared not then take. Though she knew her heart well enough to know her feelings for Nahiri were real, she was experienced enough with others to know the cold light of day could make liars of lovers in the hot darkness. Lovers! The very idea ensured Nissa at least would not be cold tonight, but how sleep might overtake her with this new excitement she did not know. It did, eventually, do so, with the pair nuzzled as neatly as they could within the ancient stone chamber, and Fernard standing silent vigil over them the whole night through, Nissa's dreams a spectacle of all the ways in which Chandra and others had kept her warm.
Nissa awoke abruptly. Nahiri was awake and busy packing up everything she could into her utility bodice, which sent Nissa's sleep-addled brain to work trying to imagine how everything fit neatly within it but still kept Nahiri's profile so slim. That got her thinking about Nahiri's gorgeous body, pressed up against hers and
Oh no.
The shock of the recollection made Nissa gasp and sit bolt upright.
"Something the matter?" Nahiri asked.
"I uh, oh oh oh my. I'm so sorry."
"Sorry? What for, my sweet?"
"Y-you kissed me, we kissed! W-we, I, my-"
"Nissa, whoa whoa, ok, it's okay, slow down. There she is."
"B-but you kissed me, I thought-"
"I'll do it again if you want."
"But why?"
"Why would I kiss you?"
"Yes I thought you were being polite, you know, friendly."
"We can be friends if that's what you want."
"No! I mean, yes of course but-"
"You're right you know, that was more of a polite kiss. Before we get going, do you want a rude one?"
The idea was unthinkable, impossible. Nissa felt positively ashamed of herself for thinking they shared a connection other than the quest for the orb and being native to the plane. Nahiri was a goddess chiseled from marble with natural eyeliner and Nissa was just a somewhat plain elf with a deep connection to the land. She could never ask Nahiri to condescend so, but the offer made her heart pound painfully against her ribs and made heat pool in her secret places. Her darkest desire was that rude kiss on offer, all the way.
"Yes!" Nissa nearly shouted.
"Yes what?" Nahiri quizzed, in every aspect the coy minx.
"Yes I want you to kiss me, a real kiss, a rude kiss, and then again and again a hundred times, a thousand! I am yours if you will have me and I know I can be dense about this sort of thing so if this isn't what you want I will go crawl in a hole and die with all apologies that I thought you might have been flirting with me or I was imagining it because you're so hot and-"
"Stop talking."
Nahiri made good on her admonishment with her full lips pressed against Nissa's, this time with pressure and hunger. She continued from Nissa's lips to her cheek, ear, and neck, leaving gentle nibbles as she mapped out Nissa's skin with her mouth, every inch the seasoned explorer thus. Nissa found each pleasurable sensation only spurned on her thirst for the next, steadily holding Nahiri tighter and tighter to her until Nahiri withdrew her wonderful mouth from somewhere close to Nissa's nape and curled backward with delight.
"AAaaah, that pressure. It's so wonderful Nissa, I love how you squeeze me so.
"Oh, not too much I trust? I don't want to squeeze too hard."
"You can't, I mean maybe you could but I love the pressure, the surety of it. Oh, come here!"
Until then Nissa hadn't realized that Nahiri had partially climbed her, and in another moment she no longer realized even that as Nahiri pressed her lips to hers again, hungrily, eagerly, driving Nissa wild with sensation and casting aside like so many countered spells all of Nissa's doubts about just what Nahiri had been on about for this whole foray into the fortress. She returned Nahiri's passionate ministrations as best she could, feeling utterly inadequate to her superior grace, and for the moment suspending any cares about that disparity.
Eventually Nahiri subsided to merely rubbing Nissa's back and planting soft smooches on Nissa's neck and beneath her ear, sweetly, rythmically, the coolness of the act only further brightening the burn in Nissa's chest that had lit as soon as Nahiri had mounted her in the first place.
After not nearly long enough for Nissa's liking, Nahiri cooed with pleasure and then addressed her, "We should get going. That orb isn't going to steal itself."
"Oh, very well."
"Uh, Nissa, that means you should put me down."
"I know."
With a final little extra squeeze Nissa released Nahiri and the two left the chamber hand-in-hand, Fernard now their chaperone. It wasn't too long before they made it to the chamber of the heart, which spread before them vast and open, a gentle thrum rippling throughout the empty air promising all menace real and imagined. Nahiri squeezed Nissa's hand a little tighter as she held the perilhedron up, which began spinning so quickly it blurred.
Nahiri sighed, "I guess I should be thankful. Whatever deadly device is in here kept my orb safe all these years."
"We have to do the action scene now?"
"I'm afraid so."
Nahiri leaned in to kiss Nissa again, opening her mouth to let her wicked tongue play at forming breathless syllables of lust between them. Nissa moaned with pleasure, returning Nahiri's affections as best she could as her plane momentarily shrank down to just her contact with Nahiri, the wet electric heat of it blasting away all other sensations.
Nahiri finally withdrew and said, "That was for luck."
"Liar," Nissa smiled back.
"Ok, fine, this one is for luck," Nahiri replied, and then gently taking Nissa's free hand in hers, she turned up her palm and placed a tender smooch on Nissa's wrist, causing a shockwave of delight that made her tingle all over.
"Alright my sweet, it's time to rock!"
Nahiri leapt into a run, Nissa and Fernard close behind. Sensing the intrusion, the ancient devices spun to life. Cracks radiating throughout the chamber divided the floor, half of which fell away completely into a sheer drop beneath, the free air suddenly blasting the threat of cool death into the chamber. Stonework automatons filled the room, their soulless hedron heads focusing on the party.
Nahiri shifted stone planks from various source materials to cover the gaps in the floor as they attacked the guardians. Somewhere between six and eight stone swords burst from the nearby rock as Nahiri directed their white hot blades at one construct, demolishing it instantly.
"Those swords looked hot," Nissa shouted in the melee, while she placed a +1/+1 counter on a plant, granting it the power, toughness, and willingness to fight.
"Thanks. They're not very creative but they get the job done."
"No, I mean they're white hot! You could have kept yourself warm last night without me."
"Yeah, well. You got me." Nahiri punctuated her admission with a supercilious shrug and a bow that caused a perfectly square extrusion of stone from the chamber ceiling to smash an automaton to rubble.
The fighting went on just a phase longer, the two powerful planeswalkers easily and stylishly battling aside their opponents. With the last trap sprung and the last construct cast into the open air below, Nahiri brushed her hair back with her hand and heaved a sigh of relief, her breath heavy from exertion and her heart light with their fresh victory.
"Are you hurt, my sweet?"
"Not at all."
"Then, without further delay, come to mama!"
Nahiri extracted the orb from its resting place, her broad grin becoming cheerful laughter as she held it aloft.
"At last," she crooned with glee, "one step closer to turning back the Roil."
"How does it work?" Nissa asked.
"Just watch."
Nahiri placed both hands on the orb, one above, one below, and intoned the activation words she still remembered from back when she had written them. The orb hummed and crackled, blue bolts of light striking out at random from the spinning stillness of it. Fernard suddenly collapsed into a pile of mulch.
"What! Fernard! No!" Nissa shrieked.
Nahiri looked up from her completed ritual and at Nissa, who was crouched over the weed pile left behind by the departed elemental. That familiar instantaneous regret shot through her heart when Nissa looked up at her with a face full of tears. The orb was hers. It did work.
"What is that vile thing in truth? What will it do?" Nissa said through sobs.
"It's a component of a device that can finally still the Roil. I can heal the whole plane, Nissa."
"But at what cost? This living land speaks to me, Nahiri. That thing made it cry out in pain all over, I felt like I was dying and now Fernard is gone."
Nahiri's tone drew dire, the cool flagstones of her resolve closing in on her heart, "The living land is beyond overgrown. Gravity is random. Stones fill the skies. Only the most violent flora and fauna survive. It is too much! Zendikar needs to be put down and I will be the one to do the putting."
"So, what, you can return the plane to some imagined ideal at the cost of the lives of the elementals?"
"I was there! I am _of_ this place! We had a regular ecology, Nissa, like you've seen in countless other places. You know this place is dire, Nissa. You've been to Innistrad! Folks can still have abilities that activate when a land enters the battlefield without specifically saying Landfall. Please, Nissa. It's for the best that I do this, but I need you."
Nahiri held the orb close to her chest, pulsing steadily as if it were Nissa's own heart, freshly ripped out.
Nissa stood and stared, her body language neutral to Nahiri's outstretched hand. She let her tears fall freely as she turned to leave the room, unable to put words to the cataclysm of emotion that threatened to overcome her completely. With a gesture, Nahiri erected an obelisk between Nissa and the exit.
"Please don't go. I need you."
"I can't fight you, Nahiri, but for the sake of the Zendikar, I have to stop you."
The sussurating chaos of the Blind Eternities snapped over Nissa's body as she planeswalked away, the mind-maddening crackle of it a morbid relief from her last sight of Nahiri, doubled over ugly-crying with her deucetaken orb clutched to her chest.
The rancid smell of the plane-that-was-a-city filled Nissa's lungs as she realized into Ravnica, giving her a cover story for all the crying should she need it. Determination and fresh heartache motivated Nissa's steps to the doorway of the manse of Jace Beleren, Nissa's longtime comrade for whom mind palaces were more real than the regular kind of palace. The nerd was bent over a table looking at some disused scroll, wafts of vapor from his coffee curling out from underneath the hood he perennially pulled over his face. Nissa clucked her tongue at the shame of it. She was not alone in oft telling Jace he shouldn't hide that face under a hood.
"Who approaches?" Jace intoned neutrally, not bothering to look up from his studies. He took another long draught of his coffee, patiently awaiting the response from his visitor, uncaring as to who it might be.
Irritation momentarily overriding Nissa's ailing heart, she gave Jace her best "Ahem."
"And just who is 'Ahem,' I know no such person. If you wish an audience please make yourself comfortable in the sitting room and I shall be with you in a moment."
"Dammit, Jace."
Nissa walked over and hugged Jace from behind, appreciating how he had filled out a little during his arc as a castaway mariner.
"Oh, Garruk, I didn't see you in the Battle for the Plaza so I thought you were dead. How did you come to be here?"
This earned Jace a punch on the shoulder, even if Nissa enjoyed a private pleasure at the comparison to that other green planeswalker and walking meat-miracle.
"For a mind mage you sure can be thoughtless," Nissa rejoined as Jace stood up to survey her. As someone raised by a sphinx, an expression of puzzlement never truly left Jace's face completely, though his attempt at a smile darkened into worry as he came to face Nissa head on. Being suddenly quite seen in her mid-breakdown state caused Nissa's tears to return with gusto. She collapsed into Jace's arms, nearly knocking him over. He returned the embrace automatically, and began gently patting her back. No amount of cold reason could hush Jace's concern for her then. She sobbed freely and thoroughly enough to bring a matching blue mana symbol to Jace's own eye.
After a minute, Jace asked, "What happened?"
"It's Nahiri, we were back home, and there was an orb, I...I can't."
"Nissa, we both took the oath; I'm here for you. It must have been too painful for words. I can have a look myself if you don't mind?"
Honored at the request given Jace's track record with just taking a peek into minds whenever he pleased, and thankful to be able to give him the full story without having to bear the pain of reciting it herself, Nissa assented with a nod. Jace's magical eyes clouded over with the blue glow that always accompanied his flexing his mind muscles. The gentle touch on either side of her face reminded her of Nahiri, which was more than enough to center Jace in the middle of the memory. In but a moment he was up to speed as if having read the totality of the above. When the contact ended, Nissa knew Jace understood completely what had happened. He pulled her in for an embrace, which she gladly returned. With Gideon gone, the Gatewatch was down one himbo, and damned if Jace wasn't doing proud by his memory right then.
"What should we do?" Jace reverted to sphinxian rhetoric.
"I don't know, but we have to stop her," Nissa vowed.
"She'll probably hate you for it."
"I know."
"You thought-said there was another orb?"
"There's always another orb."
Finally somewhat composed though still raw with heartbreak, Nissa allowed herself to dread with every breath Jace's and her shared resolution, even as Nissa's treasonous heart leapt with the sudden imagination of two orbs in particular she would likely never again get her hands on. The Blind Eternities welcomed the pair once again with their cacophony of silence. They made for Zendikar once more, and the quest for the orb began, and also ended."