a week on ravnica

-- Selesnya --

“But why focus on the betterment of the self when you could spend that time bettering the community? The voice of Mat’Selesnya calls for peace and harmony between all living things. The Worldsoul has a place for everyone, what do you believe is your place with your improvement of yourself?” The wurmcaller asked her, with genuine curiosity.

“The Conclave’s intentions are good, I’ll give you that. But to me it’s a two-step process, making the community better.” She answered.

“Two step…?”

“I focus on bettering myself, honing my skill, learning my magic, writing my music, so that I can take it and use it to make my country a better place for my people. That was the way of my home.”

“I see.”

The two of them walked away from that encounter on the street with the strange sense that they had learned something new.


-- Golgari --

This place was called Deadbridge Chasm.

She wasn’t sure how she got here, but then, she wasn’t sure how she got most places. You try finding a map in this damn city. Flying was way too conspicuous but she was beginning to think it would save her a lot more trouble.

The smell of rot, detritus and must burned at her sensitive nose. She couldn’t help but feel like she was being watched by a dozen or more eyes from the inside of that cavernous hole, past the hanging moss and the mushroom-covered stairs.

When she turned around to find her way back home instead of braving the descent, she walked face-first into an elf. When she backed away from the dark-skinned, fluffy woman, she sneezed because of the spores that came away with her.

“Oh, er… sorry.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Trying to find my way home. I’m not here to bother anything, sorry. Do you live here? Lovely place. I love the mushrooms. I’ll get out of your way now sorry.”

Before the elf could reply further, she trotted off. She was left stunned. What an odd mushroom. She wasn’t that scary, was she?


-- Orzhov --

She didn’t understand why the bank had to look like a cathedral.

With its tall spires and buttresses and ominous stained glass windows, it reminded her of Invictus in all the worst ways. Out of the corners of her eyes she swore she saw the flickering of spirits, chained to the walls, but when she looked there was nothing.

Worst of all, she felt like she was going to get kneecapped at any moment.

The bank teller in front of her was an honest to the Guildpact angel, with dark hair and powerful jet black wings. A terrifying sight, but one that somehow brought comfort to her. At least this one didn’t look soulless like the ones at home. Oh, how she hated those things.

No, this one looked… bored. This one held a mug of coffee in one hand, whose side read ‘Not today, Rakdos’.

This one looked at her as if she were crazy.

“Are you here to make a deposit, or what.”


-- Rakdos --

On the outset, a show sounded wonderful.

What played through her head when she first heard about it was what shows were like in her capitol city. Bright, vibrant displays of talent to be shared with the world. She loved that passion. It made her proud to rule it despite herself.

She wondered why it was talked about in whispers, out of the earshot of any nearby officers, but she figured it was mostly because the Azorius were, overall, killjoys.

When she arrived that night, she was unpleasantly surprised by the tinge of blood hanging in the air, the men and women in the barbed iron and leather, and even demons frolicking about freely. One man, whose chest bindings looked as if they were going to cut off the circulation of his nipples, asked her what kind of pain she preferred.

She was struck by the realization that she had paid money to see a murder circus.

When she left, she went to her apartment, planeswalked to her palace, and screamed into the side of her royal advisor.

She didn’t sleep for a few nights after that.


-- Azorius --

Sitting at a cafe that morning with her guitar, she witnessed an arrester patrolling the streets.

A human woman, who looked as if she had seen more peaceful days, with an owl at her shoulder. Brown hair barely peeked out from beneath the armored hood she wore. If anyone looked like they could bench-press Z’arith easily, this woman would be the one.

A part of her wondered why this tough-looking woman wasn’t with another guild, but she decided it wasn’t her place to assume anyone’s story.

She had a certain respect for the guards who upheld the law on other planes. But even she had a tough time trusting the Azorius, because every day there was some new piece of legislature aimed to restrict. She knew that it was directed toward people other than buskers on the street, but she couldn’t help but worry.

The arrester looked her over, quirking a brow, then went on her way.

As she left, Z’arith coughed a bit. She might have lowkey wanted that woman to step on her.


-- Boros --

The Boros Legion reminded her of how the last king of Darastrith, her predecessor, had ruled. He had been passionate about justice, nearly to the point of zealotry, and had only come to realize that justice wasn’t about upholding the law to the letter later in life.

To Z’arith’s understanding, the Legion was the same way.

She watched the platoon pass down the street, in their gleaming armor, with their weapons and shields. It reminded her of life at the palace. It reminded her that she still had paperwork to look over. She wondered why they were here, before she saw the club of a freshly-arrived rioter barreling toward her face.

She dove out of the way just in time for a fairly sizeable human man to block her with a shield as big as she was.

Oh. That’s why they were here.


-- Izzet --

The emblem on the ground outside the workshop reminded Z’arith of the emblem dyed into her clothes. Both of them depicted dragons, but she knew that there were few dragons on Ravnica, unlike her home. This one, she knew, was the leader of a guild of scientists.

The mana charge in the air made her think of her sister’s kingdom, before the flux of black. And after the flux of black, but with less morality and slightly more experiments on the undead. And getting almost stabbed.

Her train of thought was broken by the surging of electricity sending her supple fur into absolute chaos.

When she looked up from the emblem she saw a man with gray through his hair stride out of the laboratory. She had seen this man before. For some reason he had come to investigate during the time when she was trying to find her way home. He looked more concerned than even last time she’d seen him, fiddling about with an apparatus he wore.

For some reason, she felt like she should probably leave and buy a hairbrush before this place exploded.


-- Simic --

What an interesting man.

He looked as if you took a beanpole and stapled a few David Bowies to him to serve as limbs. He gangled, more than any one man should gangle. He was human, with pasty, pale skin and slicked back black hair and a sallow, exhausted face, but it was as if you took half of it and replaced it with shark. When one hand reached out to pay the barista for his espresso, it was webbed and clawed and covered in rough scales.

Z’arith had heard of the Simic Combine and their hybrids. She had seen one or two, and each and every one of them looked more smoothly integrated than this. She wondered what had happened for the fish skin to be so blotchy, like scarring. She wondered why the man constantly glanced over his shoulder like he expected disaster. Or to be mugged.

When he caught eyes with her, he stared more than anyone should stare, then gangled right over to where she was sitting.

“How fascinating! I’ve never before seen a colleague so seamlessly integrate herself with ancient dragon genetics before! How did you do it?”

… It was going to be another long day.


-- Dimir --

Ah yes, a library. If she was going to learn about Ravnican culture, this would be the place to do it.

At first, the man running the library paid her no mind. He was a pale, gaunt man, with glasses and a sweatervest to match. But he also somehow gave her the feeling that he carried knives on every inch of his person that he could get away with. Possibly even strapped to his cock.

Not that she had any room to judge. As far as she was concerned, that was the kind of person her sister had become, too. Not that she knew. She hadn’t seen her since the flux. She didn’t even make it to the capitol when she sparked.

When she next looked up again, the man was staring at her with some strange sense of wonderment. She had to stop and remind herself that most planes didn’t have foxfolk or half dragons at all. Everyone here thought she was a Simic experiment of some kind, and it made easy cover until other Simic asked her how she did it and she had to stammer out that she didn’t know a damn thing about biomancy.

Why did she feel like she was going to get cornered in an alley later?


-- Gruul --

Why did she keep coming home this way, she wondered, surrounded by brutes and giants and ogres?

One big tough monster man was no problem for her. She was just trying to protect the cafe she decided to try today on her way back from her usual busking spot. Two of them? Okay, sure. Bring it on. Three? Getting a little dicey, but she held her own. But when they cottoned on that she was a threat, they mobbed her, and now she was thrown to the ground by a club larger than she was.

One of them raised a boulder to crush the ‘little furry mouse’, but the ground rumbled in response, toppling them and sending the boulder clattering to the ground harmlessly. She lay there, playing dead, until the commotion stopped, then felt herself lifted onto the back of something. It felt somewhat like a horse.

Being moved reminded her just how much her everything hurt.

“Come on, dear. You need to see a healer.”

“Ow.”

“I know. These kids and their riots. Nature will retake society, but not if they keep burning it down and salting the earth.”

“……. Ow.”

“Yes, yes. Healer first.”


-- Guildless --

Returning to her tiny apartment after a heated argument was a breath of fresh air to Z’arith. Her councilmen couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to deal with the situation in Kaldraixen, how nobody had seen its leader for more than a few minutes at a time lately.

Typical that the scale-biter would abandon her people just like she abandoned her own sister.

Tonight, she decided she needed a walk.

The streets in this precinct were quiet enough, although that was because most people were occupied at restaurants and Rakdos clubs to be on the streets making trouble. A showman outside a repurposed warehouse tried to draw her in, but she ignored him and continued on.

For some reason, she found herself drifting down an alleyway. The dreams she’d been having had warned her away from them, but still she went, looking over her shoulder the whole time.

As luck would have it, when she began to relax would be the time somebody would try to assail her, or so she thought.

When she felt the cold hand touch her shoulder, she whipped around defensively, fists raised, only to see the tiniest woman she had ever seen standing there, trembling. Z’arith knew there were vampires on Ravnica, and she could see the fangs on this one clear as day, but for some reason she couldn’t equate this plush doll with ‘vampire’.

“Are… you okay?”


-- Guildpact --

It wasn't too terribly often that Z'arith's walks took her into the First Precinct. The people here were well-to-do and looked upon someone with not many zibs to her name with pity. If only they knew about her opulent palace and draconic attendants on her home plane. But they couldn't. It'd just make things more complicated than it had to be.

From a distance, she could see the Hall of the Guildpact.

She had done research on the history here. The Guildpact was signed to end a great and terrible war, and from it, the ten guilds and Ravnica's infrastructure were both formed. Long before she was born, though, it was broken in an event that woke up terrible monsters. The guilds either dissolved and reformed, or drew together an uneasy peace for the sake of the people. Then the signs of a vast, city-spanning maze began to appear, and a man named Jace solved it. He became the Living Guildpact, the embodiment of law.

But now he was missing, and, in fact, he went missing frequently, as far as she could understand.

She remembered coming home to the panic and distress that she had disappeared. She wondered if this Jace was the same. She knew she might never meet such an important person, but she couldn't say she didn't know what it was like to have that kind of responsibility and then end up sparking.

How interesting, she thought, as she continued on her walk.