"Interesting choice of meeting spots."
Chandra had gotten an email – the subject line in all caps which normally meant someone wanted to help her get it up, but this was a desperate need to get her attention. Jace was coming home and apparently needed to 'see her right away.'
It was not a good sign.
The situation felt as strange as it did dire. Jace had asked her to come out to the middle of nowhere that was also very specifically close to somewhere so here they were, standing in an empty field with nothing in sight but Vraska and Gideon just out of earshot.
Jace spoke as if the circumstances were natural which also seemed problematic. "I figured you were probably tired of being in the planar station and I needed the walk." Whatever stretch of nothingness they were standing in was about a 45 minute hike from where Jace's party had just entered Dominaria from.
In contrast, Chandra responded with her nervous heart on her sleeve. "You're not wrong." She couldn't help but ask the natural question that she knew had an obvious answer, "But why aren't we at your place?"
"I have to go right back." Whatever Jace needed to say, it was obviously not something you could say in a message, and there was no chance that was a good sign.
Chandra heard the have in Jace's words so that ruled out the idea that Vraska was luring him away. She was certainly charismatic and beautiful enough to possess a siren's skills, but the Golgari woman didn't seem the type that would force Jace to do anything. He must just need more treatment, but why would he need to tell me that in person?
"Just get to the point," Chandra's voice was cracking like cheap glass. "Are you..."
"Dying?" Chandra hated having serious conversations with Jace while his hood covered his eyes and his pockets covered his hands. It always made everything a solemn joke. "It seems like maybe not."
Jace carried on, not waiting for a response from his silent friend. "Apparently, the reason why the treatments seem to be working are the same reason why things get worse anytime I leave Ravnica. It's not just the medicine treating me, but the plane itself."
Chandra pushed away the urge to either pat her friends head or smack the back of it. "Jace, what kind of holistic shit has someone sold you on?"
"I'm serious. It's the craziest thing." One of Jace's hands left his hoodie, leaving Chandra cautiously intrigued. "All the universes we've found, they all follow the same laws of physics even though their makeup is different, right?"
"Yeah, I remember some of high school physics."
Jace ignored her and carried on, picking up pace. "Other than size, orbits and rotations being slightly different, all our planets have pretty much the same properties."
If Chandra wasn't becoming increasingly agitated at how long this was taking, she might have noticed the car pulling up behind them
"But everything outside of our solar systems-"
"Is unrecognizable when compared to each other." Chandra needed to cut Jace's excited puppy energy off, as entertaining as it was. "I get all that. Can you please get to the part about you not dying!?" That brief outburst caught Vraska's attention and she stepped closer to the chaotic conversation.
"So this star exploded and there's this crazy scientist on Ravnica. He's a meteorologist or something and he managed to take some of the explosion and he...He did something." Jace was deflating as quickly as he perked up and was out of steam by the time Vraska had her hand on his shoulder.
Looking at neither her boyfriend or Chandra, Vraska said sweetly, "maybe you should let her explain it, babe."
Obviously Vraska wasn't referring to Chandra – she could figure that much out instantly but her quick brain was still half a second behind realizing that Jace's girlfriend must have been referring to someone else, so Chandra nearly keeled over in shock when Narset's sharp voice appeared behind her.
"It's actually simple enough." Calm as always, Narset gave no clarification on her sudden appearance and if it weren't for the Nissa hanging off her waving hello to everyone, Chandra would have wondered if Narset hadn't been there the whole time.
"In Ravnica's universe, a star exploded roughly 1200 light years away from their planet. No other known world has been that close to a supernova for at least 10,000 years."
Pridefully, Chandra cut in with her first year physics knowledge. "Just far enough away to avoid a disaster." She felt the need to say something since it was clear from Narset's confidence that her understanding of the conversation wasn't going to last long and she needed to look smart while she still could.
"Correct," Narset said, sounding somewhere between indifferent and unimpressed. "Close enough, however, for a wave of solar rays to reach the planet. Normally they would be harvested for energy, but that much coming into the atmosphere all at once would create an unprecedented amount of lightning which drew the attention of one of the university researchers."
Chandra had predicted correctly and had quickly become lost. She understood her friend's words but couldn't even calculate how much studying would be needed to find the connection between lightning and cancer.
Unfortunately, she still tried and in that wasted time, missed most of the explanation.
"...They call it the Thousand-Year Storm." Chandra noticed Nissa grinning at her. She could always recognize an unfocused Chandra. "Which doesn't make sense. I did the math and it's technically an 18,333 year storm given the time between-"
Stroking her hand, Nissa lovingly interrupted her partner. "I don't think that's important right now." Chandra still found her dopey best friend behaving tenderly to be a sight, but not as odd as Narset becoming very subtlety flustered.
"It's a university," she said scathingly as Jace smirked with the confidence of someone that had heard this story at least once already. "I just don't get why they would chose something incorrect."
With the steady patience of someone that had heard this story at least three times already, Nissa reached up and pat her partner's head. "You're gonna have to let this one go."
Jace reentered the conversation to save Narset. "It's created a steady stream of low dose radiation in the surrounding area of the storm which is keeping the cancer in remission."
"Okay..." Chandra paused to make it seem like she was contemplating the entire explanation. "I only understood about 10% of that." She figured that would have been the case even if she hadn't lost concentration. "But isn't a constant dose of radiation what got you here in the first place?"
Jace peered over at the flustered Narset to see if she was going to jump back in and explain; when she failed to do so, he shrugged. "One is worse than the other, I think. Something about the factories back home and" he turned to Vraska to ask her, "something about radon?" But his partner would only role her eyes at the cavalier approach to his own illness.
"Either way, it is a concern but no one in the Ravnican government wants to propose removing the thing treating cancer." The first hint of gloom finally flashed on Jace's face, "and right now, my memory is back, the headaches are better and I'm not dying"
When she wasn't pretending the problem didn't exist, Chandra usually assumed the worst outcome would happen in any situation but it seemed that, for now, that wasn't the case. This was joyous news, but it still left her with a sense of loss spawned by her own neurosis. How long will he be gone for, she mused to herself. How long until he forgets that I'm a part of his life?
Chandra figured the answer to those questions were too long and not long at all respectively. It felt all too possible that enough time apart would cause Chandra and Jace to die. These concerns would haunt the back and/or front of her mind for a long time, but in the moment, they were pushed aside easily because her dying friend would live so she said nothing and pulled him into a tight hug.
Small conversations went around while people jumped in and out of them and Chandra and Vraska found themselves gazing about the emerging moon as Nissa was bidding her farewell to her oft antagonist but it sounded like that was coming to an end and Vraska needed to get her piece in.
"He's really going to miss you."
Chandra couldn't scoff loud enough. "I think I spend more time pissing him off than than anything else."
With charming arrogance that was in no short supply Vraska responded, "I knew you would say that. He may have his cute little will they/won't they thing with Gideon, but you're very special to him." Chandra looked over to scan those apple coloured eyes for sarcasm; there was none visible but that could easily be explained by the darkening sky.
"He's never had much in the way of family. His parents really did try, but they were too sick and poor to really be there for him." Vraska cited this fact with the confidence of someone that understood it all too well but the solemn tell of her own past didn't distract her. "His foster dad gave him a safe home, but he was never around."
Chandra was seconds away from forgetting what the hell they were talking about.
"You're probably the first person that has ever expressed love for him by telling him he could be better than he already was." An interesting way of saying tough love. "You're the big sister he's always and will always need."
The moon, it seemed, got brighter for just a moment – perhaps to illuminate that Vraska was on to something but she interrupted Chandra before she could give it enough thought.
Vraska asked candidly, "that's not some kind of fetish for you, is it?" Chandra's eyes widened, staring down the gun of embarrassment but Vraska continued pulling back the hammer. "I can ask Jace if that's his cup of tea too. I'll give anything a go once." Chandra's neck twisted so tightly and her teeth grinded so painfully that it must have been audible as Vraska seemed to grin on hearing it.
"Liliana's not actually your sister, right?"
Chandra, angry at the fact that Vraska must have had a pair of eyes on each of her dreads, whispered to encourage Jace's girlfriend to do the same, "No, and if you could not..."
"Very cool," Vraska barely lowered her tone. "Then are you hittin' that yet?"
"I'm...I'm" I guess this conversation is happening. "No one is hitting anything right now."
"Interesting phrasing. So you must at least be together then." Chandra rolled her eyes at Vraska's earned smugness. "It won't be long though. Liliana's eyes – even her breath made it clear that she wants you bad." A nervous lump prevented Chandra from responding to that, though she had no idea what she would say.
"You try on that little present I got you yet?" Chandra answered Vraska's question with a week shake of her head. She had thought several times about the black lingerie. It was an appealing concept but the tension she felt even looking at it was a testament to how embarrassed someone can be while completely alone.
"You'll feel like an idiot putting it on," Vraska said with a surprising amount of understanding. "You'll feel like an even bigger idiot once it's on, but when Liliana is done with you, you'll feel like a fucking genius."
A tiny, massive part of Chandra suddenly found herself wishing Vraska would keep talking. This was her moment to say goodbye to her friend – there were no two ways about that, but the phrasing of that gave her body a rush of vulnerability and power that she didn't want to lose. It was a moot point; behind them, Jace called out, 'shit we gotta go' as Vraska's grin became entirely mischievous.
Chandra suddenly became very aware of her breathing.