Fifty Shades of Prey: VI

It was a shambling structure, barely more than three guard towers strung together, and ugly, but he told me it had the high, rocky ground and good visibility for miles across the naked plains, so it’d make me a more decent seat than some “sunlight-dappled, rustic Elven tree somewhere prettier.”

He cloaked himself in shadows, drawing darkness to himself as a traveling magician might draw doves. Soon he appeared a shadow himself, and I felt his wink more than saw it. My task was to breach the top of the eastern tower and dispatch the guards.

As I took the top of the rampart, I heard voices. I pressed myself to the stone; flat as a riverfish, the rock cool on my breasts and thighs. Some kind of argument. Over a female. I listened carefully, waiting for the voices to turn away from my position. When they did, I vaulted over the top of the tower and took one, then the other, from behind with knife across the throat. My knife is silver. They died instantly.

It’s “eat or be eaten” as he told me. No second thoughts, no regrets. Or, if you have them, keep them for your most private dark moments in the night. He was going to give me all I needed to live my new life as a Vampire chieftan, and I would need to fight for it.

So I spilled their blood on the dark stone and pushed aside any doubt.

I descended the stairs, my heart pounding in my temples. Another guard I fought on the first landing; he was very young, and I was too quick for him.

When I reached the main floor of the tower I heard a voice. Mocking, dominant, deep, as it always was. I slid behind a ratty tapestry and waited.

“Bow to me and be spared. All I ask is you accept the chieftan that is my chosen,” the stranger’s voice rolled across the stone.

“We spit in the face of the ‘dread’ Mortifier!” said one brazen Ghet. “You have done nothing but sold our kind into slavery and used the blood of others to fuel your selfishness, your abnormality, your abomination.” The eloquence of this one inspired me to peek from behind the curtain. She was a matriarch, so old as to be going gray. She carried herself without fear. I looked at my stranger. His mouth twitched, and I could not say if it was regret or cold amusement.

“So be it,” he said. And that was that. The pride of these was no match for the magnitude of his black spells. He sucked their life from them as they stood, weakened them, and slaughtered them with his great sword. There were many, however, and as he covered his hands in blood, a demonlike figure materialized from an arcane doorway behind him. I put my hands to my throwing stars—the creature was horrible, and reeked of dark power. The stranger turned. The demon was black smoke and fire. I darted from my hiding place. I leapt, flinging my body between the demon and my stranger.

I felt the demon’s breath of flame begin to scorch my skin. I let fly my throwing stars. Then I felt the stranger’s cool hands on me, strong and sure. He threw me brutally to the side—I hit the wall and fell to the ground. The stranger breathed horrible words, dispatching the demon in a howl of rage. I shook my head, dazed.

When I rose, he smiled at me.

“Well done, Apprentice. But why martyr yourself to a demon’s hunger on account of me?” he said, his golden eyes flashing with irritation.

“My duty, nothing more. Shall we move on to the second tower, Master?”

“No regrets?” he stared past me, absently dabbing at his palms.  The blood turned the kerchief to a froth of pink gore. I wondered if it was the same one from the night before.

“None, my Lord,” I answered. He nodded once, slowly, then tossed the fouled handkerchief on the ground as we advanced toward our next conquest.

_____

The towers were mine, and they did have an excellent view. Zendikar stretched before me for miles and miles; red, gold, blue, deep green, stormy and black, dusty, swirling, ever-changing. The sun charged down upon us with hot whiteness. I had my seat, and he was free to go. The rest of the day was full of work and technicalities—auditing the prison block, the pantry, the armory. The fighting turned out to be the easy part.

“It is always that way,” the stranger said, throwing a rusty mace on top of the rusty pile already groaning in my arms. I staggered to keep my balance. “Fighting is easier than upkeep that is easier than remembering,” he muttered. “All of which is easier than sleeping.” A misshapen bludgeon clanked down onto the pile. “Take it all to the smithy. And get a smith in your ranks soon.”

“As you say, Master,” I gasped and stumbled off beneath my burden, cursing him and every last lace hankie under my breath.

That night we stood atop the middle tower. The ragged mountains of Akoum were a cold red in the distance. He hadn’t said a word all evening.

“Tell me why I cannot stay.” It was a command.

“Master. I asked you to save me,” I said. “You have.” I paused. The wind had changed and brought the scent of lavender and oiled leather to me. He said nothing, searching the horizon. I should have felt sorry for myself then, but I did not. I felt only sorrow for him. “I cannot follow you, my Lord, and you cannot stay. I understand.”

He turned to me, his eyes glowing.

“There is a dark time coming here,” he said, “You’ll prepare and will endure. You’ll prepare for the end of the world, or you are a fool. Do you understand?”

His eyes were bright, terrible, frigid gold. I backed away from him and bowed slightly.

“As you command,” I turned to go to down the stairs to my new home. I looked back over my shoulder. “I am no fool, as you know very well—Sorin.” It was the only time I ever called him by his name. I smiled at him, before descending into darkness.

______

It was like any other night, except it was the last. As we fell asleep, each to our own shadowed dreams, he gave me a lazy, peaceful wink. That is my last memory of him.

When I woke before dawn, I was alone. As was he.

A very fine dress of black silk lay folded next to my pillow. I cannot fathom where he got it from, but I think he enjoys that mystique. When I put my fingers to the dark fabric, it seemed alive—an invitation to a different time or place. I keep it in my pack, but have never worn it. The heat of the jungle and the dry air of the mountains mean there is no better attire than that of my new skin. Perhaps one day…I will have a use for the trappings of silk.

Some time after he departed, the Ancients were released by the idiocy of a female Elf. There were rumors of a white-haired dark stranger accompanying her. If it was he, I gather that his efforts in his obligation must have failed. It was­­—is—the darkest time in Zendikar’s recent history. The brood menace and the Ancients consume at a rate unprecedented and their hunger, unlike ours, can never be slaked, not even for a moment.

My name is Isoldreyn. It means “night’s palest bloom” in the ancient language of a plane called Innistrad. Where that is or what it’s like, I do not know. But I feel it must be full of its own terrible darkness, perhaps even more sinister and insidious than what we have seen here, for I saw it haunt the waking steps of my stranger and often felt it chill his restless sleep.

I have a small tribe now, made up of only those of our kind who will swear fealty to an ideal. I rule them through fairness and compassion as best I know how. But it is still a cruel and wild plane that we exist upon. Survival is paramount. In his honor we wear no paint or tribal markings, and we carry swords instead of double-blades. I am still called “pretty” though I bear many battle scars and there are dark shadows around my eyes from watching, waiting up at night for the next strike of the Eldrazi.

We do honor to every kill, seeking the old or the willing first and of course, the villains—murderers, madmen, rapists. We feed to sustain, not gorge. And I believe our Master will return one day, because he is sustained by what we stand for. Thus we survive for him, for our kind, and for all of Zendikar. I will face down Death here, as she deigns to come for me. I was never innocent, and I was never a fool. There is so much beauty in the interplay between light and shadow on the jungle floor.

We must tend our love now

Better chance to stop time first

As we tend the blood and earth

Than to slake the heart’s thirst

–Barony folk song

Fifty Shades of Prey : V

The next morning I opened my eyes and there was a stack of clothes in front of my face. Not only that, there was a wooden comb, a small silver mirror and a velvet bag. I sat up and opened it. It contained three silver throwing stars. I dug through the pile of clothes. Fine leather. A skirt slit high so I could have full range of motion. Boots. I tore off my rags and put it all on, excited beyond all measure, and started combing my hair, propping the mirror in the crook of a tree and relishing my reflection. A branch cracked behind me and I startled, dropping the comb. I spun around.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how long I’ve been here?” the stranger said, his white hair soft in the early light, his eyes shadowed and amber, darker than usual. I swallowed, unsure of his tone.

“How long have you been there?” I asked.

“Too long, apparently, since now you’re fully dressed.” He looked me up and down. He seemed to suppress a smile. “Good,” he said, finally.

“Thank you…Master,” I said awkwardly, then bowed lightly in the manner of our kind as he had taught me. He waved his hand and looked away.

“Shall we get started?” I offered, packing up my things.

“Nothing today,” he looked distractedly toward the mountains, towards Akoum. I noticed he was only wearing his white undershirt and not his tunic nor leathers. I felt stronger than ever, and somehow, much older.

“Master,” I said, “You are leaving soon. I can feel it. Will you not teach me today?”

“Do not call me Master today,” he said.

“Is that an order?” I replied.

“Yes.”

“And you refuse to train me today?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, miscreant, follow me.”

So the sixth day we were not master and apprentice. The sixth day, we returned to my village. I showed him Aklua’s and my secret waterfall, and how to hang and swing from the strongest vines. We climbed to the tops of the fruit trees and ate something other than blood for the first time all week. I stood at the door of my family’s hut, he looked into my eyes for the first time that day, and then we burned it, throwing lotus blossoms into the fire. I cooked seedcakes, and we caught fish and then I cooked those too, wrapped in tea leaves. I showed him how to weave vines into nets like a true man of my tribe, and I mended a tear in his cloak. He balked when I asked if I might braid his hair.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Just do not.”

“You must give me a better reason than that.” There was a very long silence before he replied.

“I do not like my ears.”

“Pardon?”

“They are too small.”

“Small ears in my village signified very great men,” I lied.

“They also stick out.”

“Ears that stuck out meant you were touched by God in my tribe,” I lied again.

“For All Damnation, braid—braid away, then!” he said in exasperation. When it was done I showed him the results in the mirror he’d given me.

“Ridiculous.” He turned his head to see both sides.

“Lovely,” I said, and kissed him.

Several hours later we lay in the same place, in a makeshift lookout tower in one of the tallest trees around my old village. It had been hastily constructed to deter the raids that were becoming more and more aggressive. The sun was setting and shone down onto the reed floor and warmed our cool skins.

I propped myself up on one elbow. In the warm light, he almost looked like a regular man…just a very pale one, a little tired, well-built but no longer in his youth, and vulnerable.

“You never told me why you were in Bala Ged,” I said.

“I was looking for someone. Something.” He waved his hand vaguely, staring out at the sunset.

“Did you find it?”

“No.” Again he looked away to the mountains. I hesitated. Then, unable to restrain myself, I blurted my question.

“Why were you there, when…Worgon…” I stumbled over the words, faltered, remembering. He replied with silence, and finally, a tired sigh.

“Isoldreyn. I have been to Zendikar off and on for…I can’t even recall how long. One loses hope.” He rubbed his temple with his long, pale fingers. “There is no point in this telling,” he said softly.

Impulsively I reached out and put my hand over his. He stared at my hand for a long time, like it was foreign to him, or an opponent to be assessed. Finally a lazy grin spread across his features. He raised an eyebrow at me.

“I was passing through that day. I had stopped for water...at a pool surrounded by crystals and hanging gardens. I believe you know this place.” I was silent, in shock. The crystal cavern was where my tribe’s rituals took place, and represented a union between God and mortal, and were incredibly sacred. He ignored my reaction.

“I had just killed a man,” he continued. “Not to feed. An old vendetta. I needed to wash up. I came across this ‘secret’ pool, which is not too hard to find for someone of my—of our—kind, given our superior sense of smell.” I tried to say something but he shook his head and put his finger to my lips. “You asked,” he glowered.

“I crawled through those bloody small holes, tearing my cloak in the process, and finally when I’m inside the cavern and dying for a drink, what do I see at the other edge of the pool, but a human girl, doing some kind of awful thing with pig intestine and bat guano. She’s completely naked, of course. Why not?” Now he gave me an evil grin, and winked, removing his finger from my lips.

“You saw my sacred ritual,” I stammered.

“Didn’t look very sacred to me,” he returned. I moved to strike him but he caught my wrist easily, his fingers like iron. His eyes glittered. “Why don’t you finish the story? After all, you were there,” he chuckled. My cheeks burned.

“I…went swimming in the sacred pool,” I said finally.

“Good. Yes you did. You got very wet,” he said, and deftly caught my other wrist in the same hand when I tried to slap him again. “Please, continue,” he smirked. I sighed.

“I threw the sacred tablet into the pool over and over again so I could dive after it,” I said, remembering the loveliness of the clear water, the drowned crystals at the bottom. “It was so beautiful. Even more so under the water than above,” I looked at him. “You would like it.”

“I’m sure I would have,” he said quietly. “What else did you do?”

“I sang. Then I danced.” I could barely look at him, but he tilted his head back, closed his eyes as if in a reverie of remembrance, and then started laughing. I grimaced.

“The ritual is so long!” I burst out. “It is supposed to take all morning, but I was done reading the sacred tablet in half an hour and had already done the incantations,” I explained, to no avail. He rolled over onto his back, freeing my wrists, draped his arm across his face, and laughed harder.

“It was the dancing,” he said. “Is that part of your tribe’s illustrious history?”

“No—I made it up as I went along!”

“And the song?”

I paused.

“It was my mother’s,” I said softly. “She used to sing it in the mornings, while she bathed in the river. She didn’t know I was awake. I was very small. And I’d follow her down and hide in the ferns…then run back ahead of her and climb back into my bed. Her voice was just so lovely…I loved listening…she was so full of joy, especially when she sang the funny songs she made up…”

My stranger’s mirth had died, and he sat up. He lifted a hand toward me but I flinched. I tried to look at him but could not. My eyes betrayed me. I looked away into the painful burning light of the sunset.

The little crickets sing

They carry you my ring

You must put it on

Hurry, put it on!

The little crickets dance

They jump into our pants

We must not keep them on

Hurry, take them off!

The little crickets laugh

And watch us from above

We must tend our love

And never scare it off!

“Keep those memories close,” the stranger said, softer than I’d ever heard him speak. Then he handed me one of his handkerchiefs. It was so out of place, so gratuitously luxurious with its ornate lace border and its blinding whiteness, that I suddenly giggled.

“Isoldreyn,” he began, without raising his eyes. “As I said. One loses hope. When you are like me…a traveler, a rogue, with no true home left to which you can retreat and find warmth and comfort…you learn quickly that solitude is unending. The burdens grow heavier, but you are never less alone. You become dire, stuffed full of your own rotten, accumulated ‘wisdom.’” He glanced up at me.

“I watched you impose your will on your tribe’s sacred place. You were joy, and freedom, and passion incarnate,” he said softly. “I felt that way once, as a very young boy.”

“I spent the night in the cavern. But I did not think to dive into the water,” he finished.

We looked at one another. I nodded. I understood.

“You were near when the village was attacked,” I said.

“Near, but not close enough.”

“It is forgiven,” I said. “You need not have even come for me.”

 “I wanted to,” he said. I could see the blood red peaks of Akoum and the deep purple clouds of the twilight in his eyes. I picked up his handkerchief and let it float down on top of his head.

“I lied about the ears when I braided your hair,” I admitted. He laughed a real laugh, light and merry, ripping the kerchief off his face and tossing it to the floor.

“I know. For I am no great man, and certainly not touched by god.” He took my face in his hands. I could feel his pulse through the cool skin of his palms.

Then the sun set. It was like any other night, only we were equals.

_______________________

On the seventh day, we sacked a Ghet stronghold. We also resumed our Master-Apprentice formalities. It was an unspoken agreement; this would make parting the easier.

“You will need a seat here from which to rule your clan, and I will help you secure that today. My last act before I depart,” he said, scrupulously combing his hair as he did not look at me. That had been at dawn. I recalled the way the sun had lit his profile in his vain routine while I waited.

It was an easy thing to take the fortress.

The Ghet are angry, passionate, and proud of their individualism and independence. This makes them poor soldiers and belligerent subjects. My dark stranger and I took full advantage of these characteristics.

Fifty Shades of Prey : IV

And kill we did. We found them camped sloppily around a drake nest they had wrecked and rebuilt to suit themselves. They’d thrown the eggs over the cliff for sport, and had eaten the sire and dam drake, of course. To this day I have never felt more hate for others of my kind than I did at that moment.

I was shocked to see the thin Vampire that had tried to first claim me—the night my village was taken—standing in the center of the camp.

“He lives!” I hissed, feeling sweat drop down my neck.

“Yes. He fought Bandra outside your hut, and was wounded. He fled the scene. Then Worgon came for you.” The stranger’s voice was impassive.

“Bandra? The female, with the purple eyes?”

“Yes.”

“I think she wanted to keep me from that skarkrix’s touch,” I said, spitting the expletive and getting ready to charge the Vampire called Norwion. A firm hand restrained me.

“Bandra died in that fight. She was very skilled, but Norwion has made deals that allow him access to powerful dark magic. Bandra would be very sorry to see you waste your new life on an idiotic and amateur battle maneuver.”

I paused, noticing a new tone in his voice.

“You knew her, Bandra?”

“Like I said. Your intuition is very strong.”

I felt a pang of jealousy rise high in my breast. It was the way he said her name. I wondered if he had turned her, too, had made her, as he made me. I wondered if he thought she was more beautiful. She was certainly more womanly, more experienced. I recalled her quick kill of Aklua, and raged at her in my mind. Then I recalled her raspy, throaty voice challenging Norwion as he sought to violate me, and felt as though I should do honor to her.

“It is right to be confused,” he said, his voice rich and warm in my ear.

“You know nothing of what I feel,” I whispered hotly in the darkness, hating him again.

“If only that were true,” he replied. Something cold and star-shaped was pressed into my palm. I looked down to see it glint softly in the moonlight.

“If you can just aim a bit better than in practice, you can avenge Bandra as well as punish Norwion for his ugly opportunism and bloated desires.”

I aimed a bit better than in practice. Then I watched as my dark stranger dispatched twenty or so rebel vampires with a single spell. His words echoed across the cliffs, dark and guttural and melodic at the same time, and they fell. Some to dust, some to blood, some to piles of rotting flesh. Some he just cut down with the sword, or his dagger. My job was to stay hidden behind the rocks and to watch for any intruders ambushing our ambush. I was ecstatic at my kill, and still ambivalent about the Bandra issue, and my thoughts wandered for a moment.

Suddenly I realized that five new vampires had entered the fray from behind him and that the fatigue of casting several spells now showed on his face. The lead Vampire had all kinds of bright paint and bones and shell in his hair and was incredibly large. The other four were smaller, darker, and clad in colored leather. I watched as the stranger turned, his white hair whipping around in the moonlight like quicksilver. He caught the leader across the abdomen with the dark sword, and the magic in the blade caused the painted Vampire’s skin to start to disintegrate. But the Vampire spat out some words, and the disintegration slowed enough for him to lunge forward and connect with a blow from a double-bladed weapon. The other Vampires moved to flank the stranger, who was circling back towards a boulder with a superficial cut across his chest and eyes glowing molten gold. I knew it was my duty and time to act.

Springing from behind the rocks, I ran lightly across the uneven terrain whooping at the top of my lungs. As the Vampires startled and turned, I flung my own daggers at two of their throats. One missed by a mile, but the other struck home. Silver glinted in a spurt of blood as a blue-leather-clad vampire fell to the ground. The other, clad in red, growled and charged me. From the corner of my eye I saw the stranger move like shadowed smoke to the left, appearing next to a Vampire in black leather. The stranger’s dagger found a home in that rebel’s temple, the point protruding form the opposite side. The stranger yanked it back out as the body fell to the ground.

The red Vampire was not inexperienced. One of the important lessons I had learned was to assess an enemy thoroughly and well. This rebel moved like liquid and used the rocks and shadows to her advantage. I was terrified. I did not want to draw my sword as we were about to be fighting in close, awkward quarters and I wasn’t very skilled with the longer blade yet. But my dagger seemed woefully inadequate against her long claws, bared fangs, and painful-looking many-bladed gauntlets. I backed away, seeing in the distance the stranger take down the last leather-clad Vampire with a sword through the ribs, while dodging a lethal blow from the huge painted leader.

I stumbled, moving backwards from the red Vampire, caught myself through discipline and switched my dagger to the other hand. Another lesson had been don’t over or underestimate yourself. I tried to meditate on the fact that I had just killed Norwion, a powerful magic-user, with a borrowed throwing star. I felt the empty air of the ravine behind me and knew I was close to the edge of the cliff. I had lost sight of the stranger behind the boulder, and the red Vampire leapt up on top of the last outcropping that separated us.

The moonlight shone on her garish outfit and I saw she had lots of jewels adorning her person, likely from raids on human caravans.

“You!” I called out, “I had not expected to see you again,” I let my dagger arm fall as though relaxing. The red Vampire hesitated, sinking lower into her crouch instead of leaping for my throat. I smiled a huge, innocent smile.

“What is your name?” she said quickly.

“You don’t remember me! But how could I forget you—everyone talks of your beauty. I told Norwion I wanted to grow up to be just like you.”

“Norwion is a fool.”

“Yes he is,” I said, “He told me you were past your prime.” The red Vampire’s mouth dropped and her skin paled.

“Now he’s dead,” I continued, “Good riddance, I say.” Her eyes narrowed. I felt sweat rolling down my back, it seemed icy cold. I strained to hear the stranger’s fight, but couldn’t focus.

“You are a pretty little liar. You attacked with that abomination in black,” the red Vampire hissed.

“I did, but he forced me. He’s a rogue. He wanted me for himself, and so he hoped Bandra would win in that fight with Norwion.” I cast around in my head for threads of a story to weave into a distraction for the red vampire. She looked as though she might speak, so I charged ahead in my lie.

“It was good for you though, because he told me Norwion secretly loved Bandra. Norwion only tried to bed me because the rogue loves me and they hate each other but Norwion really loved Bandra but Bandra loved the rogue and Norwion was jealous because the rogue was bigger and handsomer than he but also because he saw you look at the rogue once very lustfully, he said, and the rogue told me himself you were prettiest of you and Bandra but that Bandra and Norwion had a love-hate union so it was no use so after all you ended up being third choice and Bandra was killed by Norwion who loved her in secret and Bandra died loving the rogue and the rogue loves only me and I definitely did not love Norwion, but I do admire your jewelry.”

I had spoken all of this in about thirty seconds.

“Pretty little liar, in light of your story, then, it will not matter if I slay you.”

“I had hoped you would not conclude that,” I said. The red Vampire smiled, almost apologetically, and in that moment I nearly liked her. Then a sword ran her heart through from behind, and she did not even have time to blink. She died instantly, her sneering smile still on her face.

The stranger rolled her body under the boulder and began cleaning his sword with another lacey handkerchief. I wondered how many he had, squirreled away in various places. He didn’t seem to have even broken a sweat. His breathing was even, calm and normal. I, on the other hand, was disheveled and damp. I looked down and was aghast to find out my loincloth had twisted during the fight. I furiously yanked it back and hoped my discomfort didn’t show. To no avail.

“It is beyond ridiculous to have the pretense of modesty when we lie together every night,” he said flatly.

My cheeks burned hotter than my battle rage, and I was glad it was the middle of the night and that moonlight made everything look pale and composed.

“How long were you there, waiting to kill her?” I demanded.

“Long enough,” he said, sheathing his sword and looking up at me. His hair was out of place and blew across his forehead in the dry wind. His eyes were silvery-gold in the cool light. I wiped my dagger on the scrap of fabric that was my tunic, even though it had not seen any action. I stuck it in my thigh scabbard with emphasis.

“Long enough to what, comb your hair into place before dispatching her?” I goaded him.

“Long enough to hear you prattle lies and nonsense like an Azorius schoolgirl instead of doing the honorable and attempting to win a fair fight.”

I had no idea what an Azorius was but I did know that my rage burned white hot at his words, and I wanted to strangle him with my naked fingers.

“Stabbing someone in the back is certainly very honorable, Master. Like Master like Apprentice, I suppose.”

I turned away. I rearranged my hair as best I could with my hands and pressed my fingertips to my temples to blot the sweat, then discreetly to the corners of my eyes to check my tears. I started walking towards our camp, refusing to think about what he’d said or the look on his face when I said what I’d said.

I listened for his footsteps to tell me he was following me, but they didn’t come. I walked all the way back alone, to our pitiful makeshift home, and went to sleep starving, under my misery of a cloak that I had taken from the poor cloth of an enemy, and clutching my dagger, because it was all I had.

Sometime after that but still hours before dawn I awoke to the scent of fresh kill, and my thirst had to be slaked. There was a goblin corpse lying in front of me. I lunged eagerly for it, then hesitated.

“Don’t worry, he was very old. He wished to pass,” said a deep voice from the shadows. My hunger trumped my anger and shame and I fed. I drank until I was satiated and realized the corpse was entirely drained.

“Did you feed yet?” I asked the darkness.

“No. But I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry—I think I ate it all.”

“Don’t be sorry. Eat what you can, when you can.” His voice was a gloomy, matter-of-fact monotone. I sighed without realizing I was, and turned to go back to sleep. The ground seemed lumpy and uninviting. I shifted, trying to get comfortable. Finally I sat up.

“Did you sleep yet?” I said to the same patch of darkness.

“No. I’m fine.”

“What are you doing?” A soft warm breeze, full of the scent of spicy earth characteristic of Zendikar, carried my words across to him, into the shadows.

“Combing my hair. What else would I be doing?” he snapped.

I hesitated, then giggled. I couldn’t stop giggling. I put my head down in the moss and snorted into the mass of vines that was serving as my pillow. I had to hold my stomach to keep from bellowing with laughter. I shook until my eyes watered. Finally I fell asleep, and for the first time had no nightmares of the events leading up to the end of my human days.

In the Presence of Greatness

This is my contribution to (pffff) Selesnya Week. As a bona fide Rakdos madcap on the battlefield, and a devoted member of Schmazzgordios Guild (check Gathering Magic during Azorius Week for the scoop on this upstart!) in all other aspects of life, there is no love lost between myself and the Populators. If you haven't seen it yet, check out Inkwell Looter's RtR hip-hop jam "Going back to Ravni."

Mike Flores put up a great article on the Best Selesnyan decks of all time this week, though, and the fact that one of these decklists featured Yosei, the Morning Star, reminded me of some important aspects of community.

Back at SCG Seattle 2011, a really sweet guy, some kind of brown, good sized, and soft-spoken, approached me about doing a sketch on a playmat. Not an entire playmat, but just to add Yosei, the Morning Star to a playmat that was already 3/4 of the way decorated.

I stalled. In fact, I declined at first. I wasn't sure how to price this kind of work, and frankly, I was terrified. Why? Well, look at the rest of the playmat:

Pete Venters? Real artists? This fan had gotten his mat totally pimped with seriously  nice sketches by lifetime professionals. There is a huge difference between people who are pretty good & talented "adepts" like myself, and the Archmages of art who've been doing it seriously for years.

There was no way in hell I wanted to touch this playmat with my pens.

But, this guy was relentless. He came back after considering my price, and told me he really, really wanted me to do it because it just wouldn't be "done" without Yosei. I couldn't only blink with a deer-in-headlights look in the face of his faith. He thought I could do it. How could I deny him?

That feeling of terror is what also kept me from saying "hi" to these people that I like and admire, folks I communicate with via electronic media but whom I basically ignored in person because I got super anxious.

Luckily, some of these people were not as lame as I was and came up to introduce themselves. I was so grateful and it was really exciting and memorable.

In the end, I put that damn dragon on that playmat and it looked awesome. The support from those who buy my art and read my articles has been incredible and unshakable. It really keeps me inspired. And next time I see MtG celebs I know from the e-world, I am going to force myself to stop by, say hi, and shake hands. And probably get a screaming fangirl pic while I'm at it - Cedric hey!!!

Because if we're part of this, we're each equally responsible for reaching out and making the community even stronger.

Fifty Shades of Prey : 3

I would have gasped and run if I could move, because his eyes were the color of molten gold. Our tribe’s stories said only Demons and Devils had such eyes. They glowed with what once might have been a firey passion that had cooled to something else—arrogance? Hate? Ambition? Defiance? I couldn’t quite tell, but that something drove this stranger was very apparent. His white brows were shaped as Sphinx wings, framing the golden eyes and a straight, stubborn nose. His skin was as white as the marble of Emeria’s Temple. His cheeks were a bit sunken, as though he could use a good meal of sugar potatoes stuffed with hartebeest fat, but his bone structure was fine and strong. His pale lips twitched slightly as he saw how I stared, and he came toward me.

I felt no pain, but sensed that my wound must be terrible and that I had lost too much blood. I should just close my eyes and go to join Aklua and my mother, and my father, likely all of my brothers…I thought, but could not look away from the stranger’s face. He was very close now, and the scent of lavender and oiled leather filled my nose. What a strange man, I thought.

“You look as though you would speak,” he said, his voice still rich but soft, now. He lowered his gaze and it lingered on my mouth. I could only blink in response. The stranger whispered something foreign and made a quick gesture of dismissal. Sensation leapt back to my body in full force. Weakly, I tried to move my hands, but he held my wrists firmly in a cool grasp.

“Don’t. You will only make it worse.” He sighed. “Have you nothing to say? The spell was to make it painless for you. But you seemed…unsatisfied.”

The pain from my wound was dizzying, but I knew if I passed out…I looked up to the stars and tried to bring my consciousness forward to meet them, to give me just a little more time.

“Nothing?” he said, his voice low.

“Stay,” I finally hissed. It came out a feverish command.

“As you wish,” he said. “If I had planned to leave, I would have.”

“Why did you…”

“Worgon? Because I despise ugliness.”

“This is not…”

“No. It is a tragedy.” His voice was heavy. Forming words was becoming difficult, but the fact that he kept interrupting did not escape me.

“You…enjoy tragedy,” I whispered. His mouth twisted before he could control it.

“I live with tragedy. Appreciating the meaningfulness of tragedy is very different than enjoying it.”

“Then why…stare?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he said after a moment, his gaze dropping again to my lips. It was my turn to react. A fragment of a laugh came out as a hopeless, choked gasp. I realized with astonishment that he was bantering with me. As I died.

I could see myself in his eyes. I was the color of a Shade and my gaze was intensely sienna in its feverishness. My dark hair was fanned around my shoulders, caressing my face like the grasping branches of the willow. There were long shadows at the edge of my vision.

“Death’s ‘round you. But coming…for me.”

“You speak truly,” he murmured, looking away. His profile was quite handsome. I recalled how he’d made such fools of the Vampires that destroyed the only life I’d known, and then I knew what I wanted.

“Stop it.” A whispered command.

“What do you mean?” he said sharply.

“I…I…I know…what you are,” I forced the words out, my eyes burning into him, forcing him to look into my face. He did, and an expression of repulsion overcame him.

“Foolish—” Now it was my turn to interrupt. I desperately forced what little breath I had into words.

“You do not care for me. I am…a stranger. But you care for what I am, what I stand for,” I couldn’t see his face anymore, as all was black. “Youth. Beauty. Hope,” my voice sounded small and foreign.

“Letting you die, now, would be to save you,” he sounded angry. “Youth and beauty,” his words echoed down to me. “But not innocence.”

“I…was…never innocent,” I tried to say, but it could be I merely thought it. I fought to tell him more, but my words fled away from me down a long, dark canyon into deep, endless, starless night.

_______________________________

The pain of being fed upon was nothing to the pain of being reborn. I screamed and screamed in my head but heard nothing emanate in the darkness. I couldn’t move, for he was holding me tightly in his arms. His mouth burned against my neck, but I clung to him instead of pushing him away as the pain demanded.

I felt my fingers become strong again and I clutched his silken hair, his cool skin. My senses returned tenfold and his scent of lavender and leather engulfed me. I writhed in agony to be rewarded by my muscles responding to me as never before. I wrapped my legs around the stranger and yanked his face free from my neck. A bit of liquid ran down my throat and the sting was no longer debilitating, but gratifying.

I slipped my tongue over my teeth and, satisfied at what I found, smiled at him in the dark. I pulled him down to me and put my lips gently to his forehead, to his cheek, to his lips. He took hold of both my wrists again and pushed me back down into the earth. But this was very, very different.

For hours that first night, we lay together. I don’t know why more of the rebel Vampires didn’t come after us. Perhaps it was his magic. I lay under his fur cloak (I think it was wolf, but a kind foreign to Zendikar) that appeared from nowhere. At one point he left me for an hour and returned with a freshly killed corpse. He told me I needed to feed, and the remnants of my human awareness argued so with my new hunger that I retched again.

“You must be sick to death of vomiting by now,” he chuckled, and I could have struck him. He took out a small flask, ornately dressed in embossed leather and made of some kind of dark but silvery metal. “You know, this is the only item I have had made indestructible,” he mused aloud as he unscrewed the cap, which was set with a gorgeous iridescent white stone, “that must tell you a lot about me.”

He handed me the flask and bid me take a long drink. I did, though it tasted like poison. I coughed, bewildered.

“Again,” he ordered. I obeyed, and at the end of the second sip I found the amber liquid didn’t taste so bad and in fact had a faint scent of sea and smoke and the tang of conifer trees.

“Now,” he said, taking the flask and pushing my head toward the corpse, “feed. Feed, or you will perish and all of this will have been a waste. In that case, I might as well have let the filthy raper Vampires take you, and not added to the burden of my aeons of guilt.”

I raised my eyes to him, aflame with rage and indignation. He smiled. My head felt hot and my tongue was coated with the burn of the flask contents. I looked at the body before me and found it not so repulsive. I blocked out my humanity, and accessed the instincts of my new self. I lowered my mouth, and fed.

“Good,” was all he said.

____________________________

He stayed only seven more days in Bala Ged. For the first day, we did nothing other than eat and sleep. Or at least, I ate and slept. I do not know what he did except that I feared nothing while I rested and awoke stronger and sharper with each nap and meal. He asked me questions while I was awake, I would answer, and he seemed to store the information away for later. They were all very…militaristic, as opposed to intimate, questions, such as, “How many times have you nearly drowned?” and “In your human life, how many leagues could you run before shortness of breath or muscle failure forced you to stop?” He would pester me with his inquisition until I grew restless, and then I would pester him in my way until he relented.

Those days after my turning were the most exhilarating time of my life. I discovered I had a strong intuition, and he advised me to leverage it whenever and however I could to my advantage.

“Politics are as important, if not more, than raw power,” he intoned in that way he had of being elegantly dour.

“I presume you apply this concept in your own pursuits quite often?” I said. It was the second morning after he turned me, and I was more interested in staring at my new reflection than listening to his constantly patronizing statements. He sensed the irritation in my voice and glowered down at me. We were camped on the bank of a small lagoon, and I was mostly naked, on all fours, and looking over the edge of the water at my new face. He was standing, combing his hair with a gilt implement that I also had no idea he had on his person until he produced it from thin air.

“Perhaps,” was all he said, parting his hair on the right and combing it down the sides. I looked back down at myself. My eyes, formerly rather orange-brown, had turned white. White on white made my new eyes look huge. My hair, brown before, had darkened to a shiny, obsidian black. My skin had only whitened a few shades as I was so pale already from my Kor heritage, and the rest of my features were the same: smallish straight nose, full lips, oval face with a large forehead. I did notice that the aftermath of feedings left my lips stained rosy and that my physique had become somewhat less soft and girlish and more sinewy, mostly in my hands, feet and forearms.

“If you’re done preening, we shall start training,” he said dryly. I sat back and glared, furious with the tone he’d taken ever since we’d…done what had been done.

“If you’re done preening, I am ready for whatever it is you would like to do to me next,” I snapped. He stopped in the middle of buckling on his sword. Then he was on me in a flash, pulling back my head with an iron grip on my hair.

“First thing you need to learn, little Vampire, is that the race you are now affiliated with has a long and rich history.” He bent my head back further. I gasped in pain and struggled to rise from my knees. “You will call me Master,” he said, leveraging his hold on me so that I couldn’t get up. He jerked my head again and I whimpered.

“The second thing is…do not…” he paused and flung me away from him, throwing me down into the mud as he released my hair. “Do not look a gift horse in the mouth,” he finished lamely, before turning and stalking into the jungle. I took a handful of mud and threw it at his retreating shoulders, hoping to splatter it all over his fine embroidered tunic, but I missed wildly, not used to my new arm. I waited for him to come back, but he did not. So I washed myself off in the lagoon, and followed him.

_____________________________

That day’s lessons turned out to be all about physical combat. In a clearing there in the jungle, he told me about choosing weapons—assessing them for appropriateness for my size and strength—and had me try them. A whip made of vines, a simple wooden club, a dagger he pulled from only-God-knows-where, and his own baleful dark-steeled sword—which he would not let me even hold until I swore up and down that I understood not to touch the blade. I sweat, I cursed, and stumbled around wearing scraps of fabric he tore from his own shirt when I complained about indecency. I swung clumsily till my muscles ached and after that, he made me practice for two more hours. When the dagger was finally being thrown within a few feet of the target, and I could execute the most brutish of strokes with the club and sword, he said we were finished for the day.

That night was like all the others. Except that I was sorry I had accused him of taking advantage of me, and tried to show him such. He must have felt poorly after the lagoon scene as well, for in the morning there was a lotus blossom tucked behind my ear, and I certainly hadn’t put such foolishness there myself.

Days three and four were similar in that we trained from dawn till dusk as I attempted to learn how to use my new form, and he endeavored to observe my inherent potential and continue to educate me about it. After some tests that involved meditation and spells, he proclaimed I could sense mana but not use it, and he said that would be useful as well. After timed tree-climbing, sprinting, and several rounds of grappling, he stated that my strength and resilience were good, but nowhere close to amazing for our kind. He had a great many opinions on everything.

“I will lead through honor and intelligence instead,” I smiled at him, cleaning my sword. I had claimed it from a caravan we had raided in the night, and kept it because it looked like his. It was simply steel, though, and had none of the dark powers that his did—powers that could turn the most fearsome creatures to dust. Powers that caused the blade to pulse with burning cold and ripples of black mana.

“The worst leaders lead from behind,” he said, with a tug on the hem of my makeshift loincloth. “Given the placement of your particular assets, you’re going to be an awful commander,” he winked. It was a terrible joke. I laughed, and he acknowledged it with a shrug. It was one of those odd moments where he was very informal, and very human in his interaction with me, if it is accurate to say coarseness, affection, attempts at comedy, and warmth are human traits.

The fifth day he was completely formal, and cold. Dawn was still hours away when I woke and saw him standing in the moonlight at the edge of our camp.

"We are going to kill the rest of the rebel group that sacked your village," he said without any particular emphasis as he shined the buttons on his leather overcoat. I sucked in a deep breath.

“That is what you desire, is it not?” he said, eyeing me harshly. I felt dizzy. I remembered Aklua’s last desperate gasp, crushed in his throat…my mother’s cry, the defilement of our home, of my dignity. I nodded slowly.

“Tell me what you would like to do today, then, Apprentice,” he said, looking at me with his radiant eyes the color of a setting sun.

“I would like to kill those who murdered my family, Master,” I replied without hesitation.

“Good,” was all he said, and walked off towards the west. I followed, my heart thumping in my chest and my head hot with vengeance and bloodlust.