Not Quite Real

"Found?" Her scavenging curiosity had been aroused. "You found this? You did not make it, as you made the bread and tool?"

"I found the materials, Xantcha, and I shaped them to my needs. To make a dragon like this, to make it as I made your bread . . . even for me it would be exhausting, and in the end-" Urza lowered his voice-"not quite real."

Xantcha cocked her head.

"That bread filled your stomach and was nutritious. It would keep you alive, but you wouldn't thrive on it-at least, I don't think you would. When I was a man, I could not have thrived on it. Things that are made, whether they are made from nothing or something else, no matter how well made they are, aren't quite real. It's easier-better-to start with something similar to what you want to have at the end and change it, little by little."

***

Planeswalker, Chapter 9