Another Chapter, hooray! And I got one whole review for the last one… I can actually live with that, although more would always be welcome.
Chapter two: Poke it with a stick
S&DS&DS&DS&D
Nissa followed Chandra's path through the Blind Eternities with an ease that surprised her. The pyromancer's passage left great fiery streaks in the swirling Æther that served as an excellent guideline for travel, something she was very grateful for; Nissa never felt at ease in the eternities, the vast emptiness between the planes was too deep, too easy to lose oneself in.
And, of course, it wasn't empty, was it? if you got lost here, who knew what things you might meet?
The Eldrazi, for example.
Nissa shuddered.
The sooner they left this place, the better; she hurried after Chandra's wake a little faster and popped back into existence on a grassy hill overlooking a rolling plain of tall grass. The sun overhead was bright, but not harsh. A cool breeze rustled the grass and tugged playfully at her hair.
"Oh good, you made it." Nissa blinked and turned, Chandra was standing a few feet from her. The pyromancer nodded. "I was worried you'd wind up somewhere else on the plane and I'd have to go looking for you. That would have sucked." she paused for a moment, then swept her arm out to gesture at the world around. "Anyway, welcome to Lorywn."
"Thank you." Nissa tilted her head to one side as she examined the world. It felt different from Zendikar—very different. She could see a forest in the distance, feel it too, but rather than the savage and defiant song of life she was used to, it sung in her mind like a gentle celebration. It didn't just look peaceful—plenty of places in Zendikar looked positively tranquil, right up until a mountain stood up and stepped on you. It was that the plane felt peaceful. The hillside was more than pretty, it was picturesque.
"Yeah, it's a pretty nice place." Chandra agreed, clearly reading her expression. "At the moment, anyway. When night falls we should probably think about leaving."
Nissa raised an eyebrow. "What happens at night?"
"The natives turn nasty," Chandra answered. "It's just something that happens on this plane, like when the mountains on Zendikar try to step on you. During the day, everything is all pretty like this, even most of the locals are friendly provided you don't do something stupid. You'll probably see what I mean soon enough. But when night falls, the plane and people…" Chandra paused for a moment, groping for the words, "change. It's like a switch flips on in their heads or something; mischief becomes malice, suspicion becomes paranoia, that sort of thing." she shrugged. "You kinda have to see it to believe it."
Nissa frowned. It sounded somewhat preposterous, but she had no reason to believe Chandra would lie to her—not to mention, there were far stranger things in the multiverse. Maybe she could see if she could find the world's soul to investigate.
"What kind of races live here?" she asked. The multiverse was a wondrous place full of unique worlds and people, but there did tend to be some patterns in the worlds. Elves, goblins, merfolk, humans; while there was often some physical differences plane to plane, the same original blueprints were oft repeated across the multiverse.
"Pretty much anything you can think of." Chandra answered. "Except humans, though, so I might stick out. But there's so many weird things living on this plane, I don't think anyone will take notice."
"I see." Nissa nodded. "Any races in particular to look out for."
"Uh…" Chandra thought for a moment. "Keep an eye out for Giants. They are a lot bigger here than on Zendikar and one almost stepped on me once."
Nissa raised an eyebrow. "And what did you do?"
"I threw a fireball at it. I don't think it noticed, though."
Nissa stared. "Didn't notice?"
"When I said really big, I meant really big."
"Hmm…noted." Nissa nodded thoughtfully. "Anything else?
"Uh, yeah, the elves here are—" Chandra paused, staring open-mouthed at something over Nissa's shoulder. The elf turned at once; ready to defend herself and stopped. Her own jaw went slack.
Crossing the field of grass was… Nissa couldn't say what it was. It looked like a menagerie of animals stampeding together. But as she watched, the individual creatures shimmered, blurring together like watercolors. She watched the orange fox drat around the legs of a giant bear, leaving wisps of color behind. The animals shifted from one moment to the next; an otter, a rabbit, a dear, a tiger, and countless more flowing as one across the land.
But how it looked was nothing compared to how it felt. Its presence played upon Nissa's mind in a cacophonous spoke of mystery, whispering of secrets and wonder. It made her long to know more, to search for the truth behind its existence for no other reason than to simply bask in the joy of knowing.
There was a pause in the creature's movement, a moment where every pair of eyes turned and locked on hers. Then it moved away, pouring across the grass into the distant forest and out of sight. Both planeswalkers remained silent, staring at the trees where the thing had vanished.
"Chandra?" Nissa murmured.
"Yeah?"
"What was that?" The elf could still feel the wonder of the thing's presence tingling across her mind like a firework display.
"Specifically, I have no idea." The fire mage answered. "But If I had to guess, it was probably an elemental. That's why I wanted to come to Lorwyn for this; the elementals here aren't just living rock or fire or whatever. They're, uh, ideas?" Chandra hesitated. "I met a flamekin shaman once who explained it to me, but I didn't really get most of the technical stuff. She said something about the elementals here being concepts given form. The place is loaded with them.
"I believe I understand." Nissa assured her, still gazing at the distant trees.
"Okay, uh… so, communicating with them?" Chandra asked, waving a hand to catch the elf's attention. "You're the expert here, what do we do?"
The elf glanced around. She could sense nothing that suggested this location was a leyline of the plane's soul to tap into. Still, it would likely suffice for teaching her companion the basics. While Chandra was attempting to hear a voice, she could search for such a nexus of mana.
Nissa sat herself down cross-legged upon the grass and beckoned for the Chandra to do the same. "Communing with the spirits of the land is difficult." Nissa began, "Even those who have a natural affinity for it need to spend years of practice to convey anything meaningful, let alone request their assistance."
"Years?" Chandra echoed, looking uncertain.
Nissa arched an eyebrow and Chandra flushed. "Did you think it would be easy?"
"I mean, not exactly. But..." The pyromancer looked away sheepishly.
Nissa lips quirked into a faint smile. "Don't worry, I think you'll find that you can do this. A large part of the process is developing the strength to commune. You're already a powerful mage, Chandra. I can't imagine you'll have any trouble getting the attention of anything you please."
"Oh." Chandra blinked, the color of her cheeks inching towards matching her hair. "Uh, thanks? So, I just need to call out to something? send up a sort of magic signal flare."
Nissa shook her head. "Just because you can poke a sleeping baloth with a stick doesn't mean it's a good idea. You must understand that elementals are alien to us. It can be difficult to tell what will upset them. Which is why it is so important to listen to them before you attempt to communicate. Lest you risk giving offense and rousing something bigger than you can control."
"I guess that makes sense." Chandra nodded. "So how do I go about listening for them?"
"You said you grew up in a monastery. Did you ever have to meditate?"
Chandra sighed. "Yeah, somehow I thought that's where this was going."
Nissa had to suppress the urge to grin at the pyromancer's glum expression. Chandra was a lot of things, but calm and contemplative weren't among them. Nissa could sympathize, she'd hadn't liked sitting still and listening to trees when she was younger either. It wasn't until she'd truly made her first connection with an embodiment of Zendikar's soul that she had truly understood.
"So once I get all zen, then what do I do?" Chandra asked.
Nissa shrugged. "It varies from mage to mage and there's no single way to do it." she thought for a moment. "You said you've conjured fire elementals before. Start with that. Reach out to wherever you call them from, but instead of actually summoning them to you, listen to what they have to say."
"Uh… okay." Chandra said doubtfully, shifting herself against the ground. She put her hand on her knees and took a deep breath. Her red locks flickered in time with the breathing, as though they were embers being stoked by a blacksmith's bellows.
Nissa watched her companion breathe for a time before letting her own eyes close. She turned her mind back to the entity she had seen a short time ago and let her mind expand.
There was a rock jabbing into her butt.
It had been there since she sat down, but the longer she tried to meditate the more noticeable and more irritating it became. Chandra fidgeted. Trying to surreptitiously get the stone out from under her, but it remained stubbornly in place. Nissa didn't seem to notice, her eyes were closed and her breathing was serene. She was probably having a chat with, like, ten different elementals right now, wondering why Chandra wasn't joining in.
Whereas all she could focus on was how annoying this rock was. Giving up, she lifted herself up and plopped back down three inches to the right on a more pebble-free area. She glanced downed at the offending pebble and flicked it away.
Now she could focus. If she told herself that enough, maybe it would actually happen.
She snuck another glance at her companion, but, of course, Nissa hadn't noticed. She made this look so easy; like she'd been doing it for centuries. Actually, come to think of it, how old was Nissa. Chandra assumed they were close to the same age, but who could tell with elves? Nissa could be old enough to be her grandma for all she knew. Would it be rude to ask an elf their age? did it make a difference how old she actually was?
Chandra growled to herself. She was getting distracted, again.
Chandra closed her eyes and tried to think back to what Mother Luti had told her about meditating.
'What part of quiet contemplation did you interpret as blowing things up, Chandra?'
'Or burning things. Starting fires when you are bored is the opposite of self-control.'
'Chandra, no.'
Chandra sighed, and tried to think back a little farther.
'You are a wildfire, Chandra, and there is nothing wrong with that. But if you could tame yourself, rein yourself down to the flame of a mere candle; how brightly you would shine! Try it. Just for a little while. You can always set something on fire later.'
She closed her eyes and took an aggressively deep breath. Then another. And another. It took awhile but eventually she felt some of her tension loosen a bit as the flame of her irritation cooled.
Alight, she was calm. A single candle lighting up the night. Now she could... what? Listen to the rocks until it started talking? This metaphysical stuff sucked. It had sounded so simple when Nissa had laid it out.
She made an effort, straining her ears and any other senses she could think of, but...nothing.
What else had Nissa said, something about reaching out for wherever she conjured elementals from. That didn't exactly translate well. When she conjured a phoenix, it was more like she was calling them into existence from raw Æther, from the primordial soup of the Blind Eternities. They weren't like natural elementals that just existed.
But… it wasn't a useless comparison either. She pulled the mana to call for such creatures from the land around her. Maybe she could just reach out to the land and instead of calling something she could just sort of poke around until she found something? She cracked an eye open and spotted a mountain on the horizon. She'd always felt a little more at home in such places, drawing strength from the land where lava churned beneath the earth.
Chandra took another breath and reached out, pausing to listen every couple of moments.
And recoiled almost immediately when she felt something. It was emanating from the direction of nearby mountain, a kind of presence tingling against her mind. Was that an elemental? She sent the mental line of fire arcing toward the mountain, trying to get a feel for the whatever-it-was.
She got the impression of rainbow fire.
That seemed kind of promising.
So she'd found something. Now what? She was just supposed to listen to it, right?
But it was responding to her presence. It seemed to pull back from her, but only slightly, as if unsure what to make of her. Chandra hesitated. She wanted to speak with an elemental, not just find one. To do that, surely she was supposed to say hello? But she didn't think this entity was likely to understand words. What would a quintessential being respond to? Emotions? Images?
She gave a mental shrug. When in doubt, stick to what you know.
Chandra thought of fire. She imagined the boom and whoosh of an expanding fireball, the wondrous feeling of release, of freedom. The crackle of warmth and dancing light. She gathered those feelings into a metaphorical package and presented them to the creature before drawing back. She felt the presence stare at her message, edge towards it, and open it.
Then it exploded.
Chandra's eyes snapped opened, angry fireworks going off behind her eyes. Nissa was staring at her, green eyes wide.
"Chandra?" she asked quietly. "What, exactly, did you just do?"
Chandra hunched her shoulders guiltily. "I think I… poked the baloth with the stick."
Nissa opened her mouth, then closed it and turned to face the distant mountain, smoke began to rise from its peak. Then fire blossomed from the stone. A ball of fire rose into the air, silhouetting itself against the sky. It began to swell and they could see limbs forming as the fire churned, burning a rainbow of colors as it formed a pair of heads formed and wings stretched outward.
The pair of heads swiveled and even from this distance Chandra could tell it was looking straight at her.
"Maybe it will be friendly?" Chandra said, smiling weakly.
Fire scorched the sky as the creature shot towards them, screaming bloody murder.
S&DS&DS&DS&D
So here's chapter two. In case any of you are wondering, I'm basing the creatures in this story of those I see on Magic cards. In Ao3 it actually lets me post the image of the card in the story, which is pretty cool. But I can't do that here.
The bunch of animals that transfixed Nissa was the card Horde of Notions.
The thing Chandra woke up is the card Hostility.