lost

Dear diary,

It was nice of those guys at that academy to give me you. I think they think I’m going to use you for studying, but I really, really need something to write in. Somewhere I can collect my thoughts.

I’ve tried a couple of times now to get home. I keep missing and ending up in places I don’t recognize. It’s easier for me to get back here, to the plane they call Dominaria than it is for me to get home. I recognize it, I guess. Every time, I reappear in the academy halls and scare the wizard nerds who live there.

I’ve ended up in some scary places.

The first time I tried to get home, I think I got lost following a thread that felt like Anya. I knew better than to follow it, but I did anyway. I landed on a plane that reeked horribly of death, littered with bodies, both shambling and not. The sky thundered horribly, and teeth rained down like hail. What I assume to be a necromancer found me, and tried to skin me on the spot. Killing him only made him rise again, so I did the only thing I could do. I left back to Dominaria, because it was the only place I knew how to get to.

But now I knew not to follow that trail, so I tried another one. I remembered the clear leylines of home, so I followed threads that were methodical in nature. I landed on a ruined plane that smelled of oil and machinery, surrounded by chittering, porcelain things. It looked filthy here, and I dared not touch anything. I stuck out like a sore thumb here, and immediately they were after me, so I took to the skies above them. A number of them took off after me, including what I knew to be a violated drake. I knew that would be me if I didn’t get out of here, so I took off back to the Academy. Based on the way I smelled, I was given a wide berth until they had verified that I hadn’t touched any of the oil I had smelled there. I still don’t understand.

That, too, was another trail I made a note never to follow. I’m still terribly lost out here. I want to go home.

Just the other day, I tried to hone in on a plane that felt even a little like home. I followed a rainbow of colors circling around each other and I ended up in a vast cityscape, with spires as far as I could see. It was a good plane, a civilized plane. It felt like neither death nor sickness and oil.

But just like Dominaria, no one looked like me. Not even a little.

I bought a cloak in a place nearby the Academy, and it was sufficient to hide my wings and tail if I really tucked them in underneath while I was on that plane, but I couldn’t hide my horns. I got strange looks from the population. I didn’t know what to do, so I ducked into the ruins of what looked like one of the laboratories in my sister’s cities. It was familiar to me. Comforting, in a strange way. A little taste of home in a place I didn’t know.

I’ve kept trying, and every time, the same thing. I’ve come to understand something about my home that I never knew before. I’m lucky to rule the dragons that are civilized, and even somewhat friendly, if very martial. I haven’t found a plane yet that’s like that. I’ve found a plane where the people are subjugated by them, and one tried to eat me. I found a plane destroyed by one, a planeswalker like me, who spent a thousand years moulding it in his image before absolutely destroying it.

In all the multiverse, I might be alone.

In a way, that’s freeing to know. I’m the only one like me out there, and my sister is the only one like her. But in other ways, that’s scary. Knowing what I do now, I know I’ll draw disdain from someone. Maybe even a lot of people. People who will judge me before they ever know me, decide I’m just like the monsters and subjugators. I don’t want that. If I could have been there to face down the monster that destroyed that plane, I would have thrown my life on the line in an instant.

The multiverse is hurting.

I had a realization after I landed on Dominaria for the first time. Everyone’s problems don’t have to be my problem. I don’t have to throw my life and reputation on the line every time there’s trouble.

But a part of me wants to anyway. Maybe if only to prove the hypothetical judges wrong. Maybe all I want is to prove that I’m not as bad as them. That I’m not bad at all. I don’t know.

I still miss home, though.