Tsukiyo comes into her own

“I am not sure how things are done on Kamigawa, but here we try to ensure our guests do not starve themselves.”

Tsukiyo turned to face Lysandra, who had come to find her carrying a plate of cheeses and fruits with a flask of water. After taking a moment to see to her appearance, Tsukiyo quietly accepted the graciousness of her host without question.

“You have been training almost nonstop since this time yesterday,” the angel observed. “Have you made any progress?”

“I am still here, am I not?” Tsukiyo replied, taking a seat on a bench in the garden where she had been moments ago so intently focused on drilling her own self-taught martial forms for what must have been the millionth time since arriving on Innistrad. For her part Lysandra had been following her orders diligently as well, checking in at least twice a day to see how the “planes-walker” was coping with her situation.

“For the life of me I cannot seem to repeat this technique your mistress seemed certain I could perform.”

“If only that Markov man were here,” Lysandra sighed, seating herself on a bench across from the soratami as she ate. It was always a marvel how little meat this stranger ate, especially compared to a typical human with her sort of martial inclination... she just seemed to have little stomach for it.

“He would be able to explain this concept much more clearly.”

Tsukiyo gave an uncharacteristic snort of laughter at the idea. “I am already an unwelcome guest in his home. If he is anything like what Lady Sigarda told me I doubt our relationship would be so amiable as to share 'trade secrets' so casually.”

“You may be right,” Lysandra admitted. “I have avoided asking you about it, out of respect for a guest, but might it help if you tried to recall the first time you did it?”

“I remember that short-neck councilman sent assassins after me,” Tsukiyo frowned.

“Short-neck?”

“An term my people adopted from the humans of Kamigawa,” Tsukiyo clarified, seeking no doubt to reassure her host that she meant no insult. “The phrase 'like a soratami with a short neck' meant someone comically inept or graceless... as our children are expected to be graceless compared to adults we use that phrase affectionately with them, but for adults it becomes an insult.”

“One who is 'short-necked' never grew out of their childish incompetence. That is what the phrase implies.”

“I see,” Lysandra nodded thoughtfully. “You were saying something about assassins?”

“I leapt from the edge of the city, and fell through the clouds,” Tsukiyo recounted. “My mind was rushing, all my focus was on frantically trying to recall any spell I knew which could save me. I refused to believe that this would be my end... and then I was here, on Innistrad.”

“You say you were falling?” Lysandra persisted. “In fear for your life? When I use my magic I focus on strong memories or an object associated with what I wish to achieve. Perhaps this technique is no different?”

The duo exchanged a look as realization dawned.

*

“Are you certain this is a good idea?” Lysandra asked of her soratami charge, held carefully in front of her with her legs dangling freely as they ascended.

“It was your idea!” Tsukiyo countered. “And besides, if it goes wrong I have you here to catch me, do I not?”

“I suppose that is true,” the angel admitted. “If this is what you think will work...”

Tsukiyo then did what many humans she had heard of on her own home plane insisted to each other they should never do: she looked down. Where others might have seen a dizzying view of tiny houses and even smaller people, all going about their daily lives far below, Tsukiyo saw only opportunity.

“Drop me.”

*

Years later, Tsukiyo stands silently on a barren hillside... barren, except for a silver spear thrust into the dusty ground in front of her.

“I see she has a visitor today,” a voice comments quietly from behind her. “Take some heart, Tsukiyo, what is lost on Innistrad often lingers in some form. I believe a trace of her will still resides in that spear she carried into her final battle, and that spear now wishes you to carry it.”

“I did not get it right the first time she dropped me, or even the second,” Tsukiyo recounts, grasping the spear by its haft and prying it from the earth. “She was a good and true friend to me for many years, one to whom I owe my life several times over, and I was not here to repay that debt to her. So tell me, Sigarda...”

The soratami turns to face the leader of Innistrad's last Flight of angels, rage burning like embers in her eyes.

“... who did this?”