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seanan_mcguire_feed) wrote2025-12-15 08:27 pmHogswatch 2025 winners!
Our winners have been chosen, and are…
Day one: Paul C, comment #67, has won a set of purple and teal dice!
Day two: Kaiden Price, comment #82, has won a copy of Silver and Lead.
Day three: Malcom, comment #86, has won a copy of Letters to the Pumpkin King.
Day four: Jonathan Beall, comment #61, has won a copy of Overgrowth.
Day five: Jonathan, comment #20, has won a copy of Sleep No More.
Day six: Julio Capa, comment #26, has won a copy of Backpacking Through Bedlam.
Day seven: Bonooru, comment #14, has won a copy of Laughter at the Academy.
Day eight: Erica, comment #51, has won a copy of The Proper Thing.
Day nine: L, comment #16, has won a copy of Middlegame.
Day ten: Jon, comment #29, has won a copy of The Innocent Sleep.
Day eleven: Leah, comment #45, has won a copy of Square3.
Day twelve: Jes, comment #31, has won a copy of Installment Immortality.
And finally for this year:
Day thirteen: Noneofyourbusiness, comment #9, has won a copy of What if Peter Parker and Wanda Maximoff Were Siblings?
If you’ve won, please email through the website contact form by Saturday, December 20th at noon Pacific. Please include your physical mailing address, the name you entered under, and the name of the prize you won. If you won a book, please specify whether you want it personalized or just signed. Be aware that all Subterranean Press books are already signed, and cannot be un-signed.
As always, this is your only notification. I will not be emailing people, or contacting them directly in any way. If you don’t claim your prize by December 20th, I will draw a new winner on December 21st, and you will not get anything.
All 2025 giveaway posts are now officially closed.
Congrats to all the winners, and Happy Hogswatch!
seanan_mcguire_feed) wrote2025-12-15 06:31 pmFull of Hateful Fantasies, the DVD extras.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Only one episode left after this. Like most of us, my only real recurring complaint about Magic Story is that there isn’t enough of it: I could happily have done twice as many episodes, but at that point what we have is a short novel, and that’s another beast altogether. Hopefully Omens of Chaos will perform well enough for short novels to become a possibility. We shall see. Anyway…
The time is come for me to dissect Lorwyn Eclipsed for your amusement. Because this is time-consuming, I only know people are enjoying it if they comment, and that means I really am holding future DVD extras hostage against comments. Sorry about that.
Welcome to the “DVD extras” for the sixth main story installment for Lorwyn Eclipsed, “Full of Hateful Fantasies.” This story is copyright Wizards of the Coast, although it was written by me, and can be found in its entirety here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/lorwyn-eclipsed-episode-6-full-of-hateful-fantasies
It feels important to call out that this is not the complete story; this is an unauthorized Pop-Up Video version. Go to the link above for the full story, please. Give them some clicks. Convince them that you love me and I should get to keep writing things. Seriously, though, please click the link, even if the story isn’t relevant to you. Click-throughs are how Wizards knows that Story matters.
So what is this? This is little excerpts of the story, with my thoughts on them, because, IDK, I thought it was funny. I’ve also tried to include context for people new to Magic Story, to help you understand what the hell is going on. If people continue to like it, I will probably continue. If you don’t care about Magic Story, skip on over, although I’d still like it if you clicked.
And here we go!
As always, from this point on, plain text is bits from the story, italic text is my commentary on the same.
Inevitable as the dawn,
I think the thing I will miss the most about leaving Lorwyn is all the time-based metaphorical language. Just like I still miss the architectural language from Duskmourn. I am always, always, ready to go home…
“See how they stand?” asked Ashling, voice low and aimed toward Tam. “On the lee side of the night, fear of the unusual serves them well. They move as one, because they treat the outside world as a single enemy. Kithkin are always community-oriented but never so well-united by day.”
I really appreciated getting the chance to articulate how the Lorwyn and Shadowmoor aspects of the Kithkin actively serve the same base goals.
Tam swallowed, eyes flicking to the line of torches coming ever closer. “Is this really the right time to lecture me about night and day?” she asked.
A fair question.
“Any time the world provides a clear example is the right time to point it out,” said Ashling. “The night falls, the kithkin unite. The day dawns, the elves believe only they can see clearly in the sunlight. Our changes reveal other parts of who we are, but those parts are merely different, not greater or lesser.”
Preachy? Yeah, a little. In-character for Ashling, and a way to introduce coherent philosophy to Tam, who clearly needs it? Also yeah. I like it when things serve multiple purposes.
Isilu stalked closer, the trailing tangle of its wings dragging on the ground and cutting a furrow in the soil, which filled at once with glowing moonflowers and sparkling starlight buttons in a rainbow array of colors. The faerie left off circling the beast’s head to flit down and fly a wide loop around Maralen’s. She laughed, a tight, half-choked sound, and held her hands out toward the tiny figure. Not even the approaching danger could dim her joy in the moment.
“Brother!” she cried. “You came home!”
Maralen is so incredibly happy to see her brother. Amusingly, this story dropped on the same day that Girl Genius, a long-running comic by two early Magic the Gathering artists, Phil and Kaja Foglio, finally reunited its own long-separated twins. It’s a family day, I guess.
Ashling blazed even brighter as Isilu raised his head and looked back at the advancing legion of elves, then began circling the small group formed by the kithkin, Maralen, and her allies. Fog rose up from the flower-filled furrows its tail was leaving in its wake, curling in the air, and he snarled, attention on the elves. Sanar squeaked, moving to stand behind Tam.
Isilu has chosen sides.
“It’s protecting us,” said Tam, awed and confused. “It wants to keep us safe. But we’re not from here. It shouldn’t care about us.”
Tam is not intentionally misgendering Isilu, whose pronouns have not been given by anyone speaking to her: the night elemental is a beast, and Magic traditionally gives beasts it/its pronouns.
“Night is flawed,” said Ashling, picking up a spear dropped by one of the circling kithkin. “So is day. Both can care for things outside their normal boundaries.”
Ashling is very chill after everything she went through in the original block. Walking can be a form of therapy, and she just never stops.
Maralen, meanwhile, seemed to have almost forgotten about the danger they were all in; she had eyes only for the little gold-flecked green faerie. “Brother!” she called. “Come down! Come back to me!”
She wants family so badly.
Sanar frowned. “How can your brother be the size of my hand?”
A valid question.
“My brother was made to be a shapeshifter like Oona herself. The blue faerie that accompanied us was his Lorwyn self, and unfamiliar to me. Now we stand within Shadowmoor, and I can see the truth of him through his skin. I know him. He must know me. I just don’t understand why he’s staying so far away.”
Maralen got to be an elf all the time instead of a shapeshifter. Maralen got lightly screwed.
“Maybe this isn’t the time?” said Sanar, voice tight. “They’re coming.”
Sanar is pro-family, but also pro-not being caught by the angry elves with sharp sticks. I appreciate you, Sanar.
“Sunlight elementals,” she said. “Chained and captive and carried into night. They’re meant to be free, not kept as trinkets to defend against the dark. This is … It’s indecent. How dare they?”
By carrying captive sunlight elementals, the elves of Lorwyn can cross into Shadowmoor without transforming. They’re already perfect. Why would they want to give that up for, ugh, Shadowmoor? Jerks.
“Have you ever known the elves of Lorwyn to be guided by the needs of anyone else?” asked Maralen. “Oona cast me as one of their number for a reason. Maralen of the Mornsong was as selfish and shortsighted as the rest of them. She would have been a perfect mask for her maker.”
Maralen is still Maralen–she kept the name for a reason, and has a lot of the personality. She’s just also more than Maralen, and has learned how to grow beyond what she was when she was made.
“Too bad for Oona that you learned to be your own person.”
And thus we summarize the whole original Lorwyn block into a sentence.
“That happens with goblin babies, too,” said Sanar. “I mean, we don’t normally turn into elves or anything, but we get bigger as we age.”
Thank you, Sanar.
“Can we argue about this later?” she asked. “Try not to get stabbed.”
Tam squeaked.
Ashling is the only one really focused on the part where they’re all about to die. Her life is a trial sometimes.
The elves seemed to draw back for a long moment like a held breath, their spears and swords bristling. Then, with a peal of silvered bells, they surged forward and joined the battle.
ASSHOLE AVENGERS…ATTACK!
The elves struck as individuals, and the kithkin moved as one.
This is why going up against the kithkin is never a good idea, night or day. Their loose hivemind lets them coordinate too well.
Those who carried bows pulled back their bowstrings, drawing them tight, and loosed arrows on the arms and shoulders of the elves who carried the captive-sunlight reliquaries. Not every missile struck home, but enough did, causing their targets to flinch, recoil, and drop what they were holding. The falling reliquaries didn’t ignite the grass around them: Instead, the captive figures in their flames uncurled and sprang into the air, laughing. They bowed to Isilu in obvious deference, then shot off toward the demarcation between day and night, returning themselves to the sunlit lands.
When your ability to retain your sense of self is externalized, your enemies know what they can shoot for. The kithkin are showing good tactical sense releasing the sunlight elementals, and while Shadowmoor elves aren’t their friends or anything, every Lorwyn elf who switches over is an enemy removed from the field without the need to clean up a corpse later.
The elves who had been separated from their reliquaries gasped and changed, flesh and bone melting smoothly into their Shadowmoor selves. They straightened, horns grown longer and covered in tiny thorns, looking in horror at the battle around them. Some turned to flee, only to find their former allies turning against them.
The Shadowmoor elves did not agree to do any of this bullshit, and they would like to remove themselves from the narrative now, k thx bye.
The faerie that Maralen claimed was her brother flew abruptly down and yanked her hair, hard enough that she yelped and tried to pull her head away. The motion caused her to turn enough to see the small detachment of elves that had circled around the field and now approached them from behind. She shrieked a warning as the faerie darted away again, releasing her hair.
It’s the “I am in the right putting hands on you without permission if I’m doing it to push you out of the way of a bus, or remove a bee from your person” theory of pulling your sister’s hair.
One of the elves drew back his bowstring, arrow already notched and ready to fly. Before he could release, a fist-sized rock smacked into his temple, and the arrow flew skyward, hitting no one. The other elves turned, eyes narrowed as they searched for the source of the stone. What they found was Sanar, standing in front of Maralen and Tam, hands balled into fists by his sides, shoulders hunched, breathing hard as he glared at them.
Sanar is good at throwing rocks.
“Back off,” he snarled. “I don’t understand what’s going on here, or why it’s happening, and maybe you’re the good guys, but you’re pointing arrows at me and at my friends and so I don’t really care who the good guys are, because we’re not the bad guys. Leave us alone. We’re not a part of all this. We just want to go home.”
Thank you, sweetie.
He picked up another rock, slinging it hard at the elf next to the one with the bow. His aim was remarkably good. This rock slammed into the elf’s wrist, causing her hand to spasm open. The reliquary she’d been holding fell to the ground.
Sanar would do great at a sport that involved a lot of throwing things. Sadly, he isn’t really looking at a career in Mage Tower any time soon, but he’s got an uncanny eye for hitting his targets.
Sanar kept throwing rocks while Ashling flung balls of blue-rimed flame, hands smoking with the heat of her assault. Tam whipped around, eyes flashing yellow as she stunned an archer.
Look, Sanar, you have something in common with the pretty fire lady! And Tam reminds us all that she’s a gorgon, even if she mostly prefers to use her probability manipulation.
Tam shrieked and fell silent. Sanar slung two more stones, throwing them with all the force he had to spare, before glancing over his shoulder to find her crumpled and unmoving on the ground, an arrow protruding from her abdomen. Even her tendrilled hair was motionless, hanging limp around her head. He wailed and ran for her, tripping over a fallen elf in the process. He grabbed the elf’s sword, swinging it wildly as he spun back toward his fallen classmate.
They hurt Tam, and now Sanar is going to stab them all.
There was no way Maralen could have heard him coming, his footfalls swallowed by the battle. The faerie stopped circling overhead, turning to watch as Rhys approached her. The elven hunter had a wickedly curved dagger in one hand, the silvery metal gleaming a sickly green with the poison he had spread across it.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Rhys!
When he was too close for her to run, he raised his voice. “Oona,” he said. “I made your heir a promise. I made my friend a promise. This ends now. The cycle is more important than my care for Maralen.”
In Rhys’s eyes, Maralen is already gone. He’s keeping his final promise to her and freeing her from the burden of being trapped inside Oona as her mother-maker destroys their world.
It wasn’t until he was close enough to strike that she spoke, whispering, “Rhys, please. It isn’t what you think.”
In his ears, this is just another lie from the woman who told so many lies she built a world on them.
He didn’t cut deeply—just a narrow slice across her arm—but that was enough. She sighed, a sound like all the winds of the world running out, and sagged as the wound bled petals in place of blood, her knees going weak and dropping her to the bloodied ground. Rhys stepped back as she fell, blinking rapidly, like a veil had been removed from his eyes.
Maralen isn’t an elf, for all that she looks like one, and the substance of her body is petals and dreams more than flesh and blood. She’s not going to bleed normally.
“You didn’t fight,” he whispered. “You didn’t fight, or try to control me, or promise me riches beyond counting. You didn’t—you weren’t—”
Yeah, she tried to tell you, bud.
“Oona is dead. Maralen was my sister,” snarled the faerie that had hovered above, dropping out of the air fast and hard and landing between Rhys and the fallen Maralen. He changed as he descended, growing larger, taller than any elf of Lorwyn or Shadowmoor, taller than the still-flickering Ashling. His wings vanished as he landed, leaving him grounded and glaring at Rhys, fury coming off him in waves.
And now our missing prince makes his appearance. Buddy, if you’d dropped in when she was calling you to do so, you might have prevented this. You might have stopped it.
His height would have made him imposing even without his broad shoulders and sharp features. His ears were pointed, and at first he seemed to be an elf, though the horns atop his head were in fact some sort of twisted antler-crown. Perhaps most striking of all, his forearms were the blue of a frozen winter lake, as was the top half of his face.
Yeah, we know this guy.
“Do you know me?” he demanded, and his voice was judgment.
Okay, that’s terrifying.
“Maralen has no brother,” said Rhys coolly, falling into a defensive stance. He was clearly ready to fight and die if that was what came next.
“Except she does, and I know him,” said Sanar.
Sanar to the rescue.
Both men turned. Sanar was crouching next to Tam, one arm suddenly bare. He had ripped the sleeve off his jumpsuit and packed it around her wound, careful not to jostle the arrow too much. He hadn’t removed it. Keeping it in place meant it could serve as a cork, keeping most of her blood safely trapped inside her body. The kithkin and elves were still fighting around him, but he seemed to have shut them out in his rush to save his friend. Only the small pile of rocks in front of him betrayed how worried he still was.
Sanar is ready to keep fighting for Tam, but he knows that right now she needs medical care substantially more.
“How?” asked the man.
“I don’t know your name, I mean, but I know who you are, because nothing else makes any sense,” said Sanar. “You’re Maralen’s brother, the one who left before she was Maralen. The one the bad queen made and threw away. Now can we stop talking and do something? Tam’s hurt, real bad. I’m not in Witherbloom. I don’t know how to fix her …”
Witherbloom is the green/black college of essence arts at Strixhaven. They heal and harm in roughly equal measure. We don’t have a Witherbloom representative in this group.
The man smiled a thin, terrible smile, attention returning to Rhys. “Yes, I am that wretched wanderer of the night.
Shakespeare reference woo!
“Um, Tam—” began Sanar.
“Quiet, student,” snapped the returned prince, eyes still on Rhys. “I, who had never known my sister, saw through her masks and realized she was not Oona returned. You, who claimed to be her friend, couldn’t see half as much. You creatures of Lorwyn are so prone to being blinded by the light.”
Oh he is pissed.
“Tam is dying,” said Sanar loudly.
Sanar is also pissed.
“My sister—my family—dies more swiftly.” This time the word “family” was gentler, more puzzled. “If I talk to ease her passing, I will be forgiven. Your friend has venom in her veins and hours yet before her own aurora comes. He,” and he gestured sharply to Rhys, “needs to listen. He owes me this. He owes us both.”
Oko is monologing to comfort Maralen, at least a little, as she dies.
“So save Maralen!”
“I can’t,” said the prince wearily. “His knife was coated in moonglow. The deadliest poison known to the daylight paths of Lorwyn. He’s sealed her fate.”
The opposite of the dawnglove that Kirol was sent to collect by the Lorwyn elves. Everything in Lorwyn-Shadowmoor has an opposite.
“We were both mistaken,” said the prince. “I thought she was Oona, so I taunted and tormented her, and when that didn’t work, I brought outsiders to sow chaos. And you know what she did? She ran. She fled for her world’s sake, for the cycle’s sake, and she proved herself to have never been our mother at all.”
Okay, so that’s why he went and got the students. Nice job breaking it, asshole.
As he did, the light of his sunlight-fueled reliquary fell across the prince, who rippled and changed once more, cold blue face and hands turning the bright blue of a summer sky. His face grew more pointed and his lips thinner, the weight of old sorrows falling across his shoulders.
Ordinary Oko.
When he spoke, his voice was higher in timbre and richer in cruelty. “You have no part in this anymore,” he informed the elf and reached out to take the reliquary with one hand while he flicked the fingers of the other. The elf was gone. The elk that stood in his place looked bewildered—or as bewildered as a prey animal can look—then turned and ran away, hooves churning at the night-soaked ground.
Ordinary Oko is more of a dick than Shadowmoor Oko, although neither of them is particularly nice.
“There’s not much difference between an elf of this land and an elk,” said the black-haired man who was not a prince at all, turning his attention back to Rhys.
Oko is prince of nothing, only Oko, entire in himself. He’s also not wrong.
On the ground, Maralen was still breathing, but only shallowly; the rootlike, bruise-purple marks of moonglow snaked out from her injury, marking the path of the poison through her veins. Sanar shrieked something unintelligible and chucked another rock at an encroaching elf, who responded by backing up and firing an arrow at him.
Sanar is still throwing rocks.
Abruptly, the Lorwyn-draped prince of Shadowmoor was there, standing between the goblin and the elves. “No,” he said sharply, voice less forgiving than it had been when he wore the night on his sleeve. The remaining elves of this detachment were gone, replaced by puzzled rabbits who twitched their ears and shook their heads before they turned and ran off into the meadows.
Oko can do more than just elk. See? He can do rabbits, too.
The man tossed the reliquary aside as he reached out to rest a hand against Isilu’s flank, sighing in evident relief as the darkness flowed over him. He was Shadowmoor’s prince, not Lorwyn’s exile, when he turned back toward Rhys. “Night and day are two halves of the same whole, as my sister and I are meant to be,” he said. “She serves Lorwyn, and I serve Shadowmoor. By raising arms against the day, you raise them against the night.”
Oko really is happier being Shadowmoor than Lorwyn, which explains part of why he’s usually so pissy.
Maralen and Tam continued to die.
A passive but essential action.
Then a loud roar split the night, echoing off the hills and trees alike. All of them who were capable of movement turned toward the sound, even Sanar and the night elemental. As they watched, a large white figure vaulted over the line of elves, a smaller, darker figure cradled close to it, and ran toward them across the field.
Ajani Goldmane has joined your party.
The vampire sat up as the leonin stopped running, a wide grin splitting their face and showing the tips of their pointed cuspid teeth. “Sanar!” they cried. “Oh, I never expected to be this glad to see you.”
Trauma bonding!
“Kirol?” Sanar stood. “Is that you?”
I mean, when your missing classmate comes back being toted by the biggest piece of felinoid beefcake you’ve ever seen, there may be some questions.
“It’s me,” said Kirol. “This is Ajani. He’s a friend of Professor Vess’s.” They patted the white leonin on the arm, not seeming to notice his wince at being called Professor Vess’s friend. “You can put me down now,” they added.
Ajani has been upgraded to Liliana’s “friend.” Oh, he is not thrilled by this news.
Ajani nodded and lowered them to their feet. Kirol stretched, then hurried over to Sanar, seeming to notice the fallen Tam for the first time.
“Seeming” is probably a wasted word here. They haven’t been around to see her.
“Tam?” they asked. “Sanar, what happened? And where’s Abigale?”
Oh, yeah, we had another student at one point, didn’t we?
“She-she fell in the river,” said Sanar. “She’s gone. And an elf shot Tam with an arrow. I remembered enough from my first aid classes not to take it out, but she needs medical care or she’s not going to be all right. Kirol, I’m afraid she might … I think she’s going to …” He stopped then, ear-tips quivering with the fear he was trying so hard to contain. Below him, Tam muttered incoherently. Kirol thought she might be counting. Were those—prime numbers?
Self-soothing with prime numbers. Tam is so relatable!
“Shadowmoor’s prince?” asked Ajani. He looked toward Rhys and the prince. Ajani squinted at him. “I don’t know you, but you look familiar.”
Ajani knows Oko by Lorwyn, and isn’t quite certain this is the same dude.
“The young vampire mentioned a ‘Professor Vess’?” said the prince. “Would that be Liliana, by any chance?”
“Yes,” said Ajani, sounding surprised. “How do you …?”
Not making things any better here, Oko.
“Moonglove,” said Kirol, voice going speculative. “Is that like dawnglove?”
“Yes,” said Rhys with surprise. “Moonglove grows only in Lorwyn. It makes the deadliest poison known. Dawnglove grows only in Shadowmoor. It can be used as a poison, but it has curative properties as well and can be used to mend what’s been broken. The elves of Shadowmoor guard it jealously. How do you know of it?”
I mean, fair confusion, since this kid clearly just got here.
“I was abducted by a hunter Lluwen who took me to see someone named Morcant who went by the title of ‘high perfect,’ despite being a massive jerk. They took me to pick dawnglove for them so they could use it to make a poison that would kill the big guy here.” They gestured toward Isilu, who snorted and pawed at the ground in evident disgust. “It’s supposed to destroy night stuff. Shadowmoor stuff, I guess? But during Introduction to Magibotanical Environments back at school, they taught that most magical poisons have equal and opposite counters that can be used to neutralize their effects. Non-magical poisons don’t always work that way, but I saw the dawnglove, and let me tell you, that plant is magical.”
Thank you, Kirol.
Oko’s head whipped around, eyes narrowing as he focused on Rhys. “Is the vampire right?” he asked.
Oko would really like to have not orchestrated the death of his sister if he can possibly fix the situation.
“My name is Kirol, and yes, I’m right,” said Kirol.
Kirol has pretty good self-esteem.
“In a grove the elves led me to,” they said. “I picked it and gave it to Perfect Morcant before Ajani got me out of there. I’m assuming she’s behind this fight. She’ll want to use it as cover for her attack on the night elemental.”
Kirol is not the Perfect’s biggest fan.
Ajani watched him go, then moved to kneel next to Tam, pressing a hand above the wound in her abdomen. His fingers glowed white as he eased the arrow out of her flesh, and the injury began to knit up under his touch.
Ajani is a healer, white-aligned, with none of the complexity of a Witherbloom mage. He’s also a planeswalker, which is a level of power that means he doesn’t need a lot of tools to do his thing.
Kirol caught Sanar’s eye and gestured for him to come closer. Sanar staggered to his feet and crept closer.
“What?” he asked, voice low.
“We need to find that dawnglove, or the lady’s going to die, and I think we’ll be in real trouble if that happens.”
Kirol is ready for a heist.
Sanar gave them a flat look. “What, we’re not in trouble now?”
Sanar is a realist.
“We’re in so much trouble. But if Maralen and Tam live, we might get out of it. Ajani’s got Tam; we need to help Maralen. Come on.” Kirol moved closer to Isilu. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
I wrote that line, and even I can’t believe they just said that.
It was no true surprise when they got there to find Perfect Morcant, sword in one hand and gleaming purple-gold vial in the other. The liquid inside glimmered like starlight wine, and Kirol hissed sharply through their teeth.
I wanna know more about this starlight wine stuff now.
“The dawnglow,” they said. “We have to get it away from her.”
“Okay,” Sanar said and threw a rock.
Sanar has a primary answer to many problems, and it is “rock.” If “rock” doesn’t work, go to “explosion.”
“Little runaway,” she snarled. “Found an eyeblight to do your fighting for you? I’ll have you both to feed my garden, and this beast will die before the morning comes.” She slashed at Kirol, who flinched away—only to freeze as a hand grabbed her wrist and stopped the swing. Morcant turned to blink at her assailant.
“Eyeblight” is Lorwyn-elf for “anything we don’t want to look at, anything we find unattractive or unwanted.” They consider Shadowmoor elves to be eyeblights. So she’s insulting Sanar, but not in a special kind of way, just general bigotry.
Lluwen, brow now crowned with thorn-peppered horns and asserting his Shadowmoor self, slammed his forehead into hers, hard enough that Kirol and Sanar heard bone crack. Morcant staggered back as far as she could while Lluwen held her wrist. He leaned over to pluck the vial from her hand.
Lulu is here! And while he doesn’t get full continuity of memory, he’s clearly held on to at least enough of himself to know that Kirol = friend and Morcant = not friend.
“Catch,” he said and threw the vial to Sanar.
Sanar is also good at catching. Really, he’s the whole package.
Still not releasing Morcant, Lluwen leaned down and snatched something from her belt. She gasped, clearly disoriented, and tried to grab what he’d taken back. Lluwen released her, holding up what looked like a gourd attached to a leather cord.
Morcant didn’t have a chained elemental, but a more powerful artifact to keep her moored to Lorwyn.
As he ran to Kirol and Sanar, his horns returned to their daylight form, while Morcant’s twisted and grew thorns. She dropped her sword, looking horrified, and turned to bow to Isilu, beginning to murmur apologies.
And now Lulu is in Lorwyn, and Morcant is having the night she deserves.
“I have no idea what just happened,” said Sanar.
“We’ll discuss it later,” Kirol said and grabbed Lluwen’s free hand in their own. “Come on, Lulu.”
Kirol actually followed that, and is happy to explain when they’re in a better position for staying alive.
“Where are we going? Wait, what did you just call me?” asked Lluwen.
Oh, Lulu, you just got a nickname, and it’s gonna stick like glue.
Kirol grinned, almost manic. “We’re going to see the queen,” they said and ran back the way they had come, pulling Lluwen along, Sanar following the pair of them, all moving deeper into the night.
And with that, we exit Lorwyn Eclipsed episode six and head toward the misty shores of episode seven, with which we will end our story. I’m not ready to let it go!
nightvale_feed) wrote2025-12-15 05:00 am280 - The Story of Hanukkah
What is more comforting than a familiar story?
Weather: "Ezewa" by Kate Odulukwe
The voice of Deb is Meg Bashwiner
Original episode art by Jessica Hayworth
2025-26 TOUR DATES Tix on sale now!
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seanan_mcguire_feed) wrote2025-12-14 07:59 pmOn the thirteenth day of Hogswatch, your Seanan gave away…
…a copy of What If: Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were Siblings!
Hello, readers, writers, and terrifying couch gremlins, and welcome to the Thirteen Days of Hogswatch, the game where the points are made up but the rules really do matter. This is our final giveaway for 2025! I hope you’re all excited! Here are a few things you should know:
1. Every post will have its own prize, and its own rules. This is to filter out people linked here from the “hey, free stuff!” blogs, who are less interested in our prizes than they are in the fact that they don’t cost anything.
2. There will be one redistribution draw for unclaimed prizes. Any remaining after that will be returned to my office to think about what they did. If you fail to claim a prize, you cannot win another.
3. I cannot afford international postage. If you are outside the US/Canada, you must state so in your entry. Someone else has volunteered to cover these costs, but I still need to know.
4. All posts automatically mirror to Dreamwidth. For RNG reasons, comments left on Dreamwidth do not count as entries; you must enter via the root post on my blog (seananmcguire.com/blog) if you want to be eligible to win.
5. If you haven’t commented here before, your first comment will go into moderation, and be approved as soon as I see it. So if your comment does not appear, please don’t comment again. It still won’t work, until I manually approve you. I promise to approve before prizes are drawn.
So here. We. GO!
Our final prize this year is a copy of What If: Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were Siblings. To enter…
1. Comment on this post.
2. What is your favorite fictional witch?
3. If you are outside the US/Canada, tell me so.
All winners will be selected at 12PT on December 15th. So now, as the sages say…
…GAME ON!
seanan_mcguire_feed) wrote2025-12-13 06:30 amOn the twelfth day of Hogswatch, your Seanan gave away…
…a copy of Installment Immortality!
Hello, readers, writers, and terrifying couch gremlins, and welcome to the Thirteen Days of Hogswatch, the game where the points are made up but the rules really do matter. This is our twelfth giveaway for 2025! I hope you’re all excited! Here are a few things you should know:
1. Every post will have its own prize, and its own rules. This is to filter out people linked here from the “hey, free stuff!” blogs, who are less interested in our prizes than they are in the fact that they don’t cost anything.
2. There will be one redistribution draw for unclaimed prizes. Any remaining after that will be returned to my office to think about what they did. If you fail to claim a prize, you cannot win another.
3. I cannot afford international postage. If you are outside the US/Canada, you must state so in your entry. Someone else has volunteered to cover these costs, but I still need to know.
4. All posts automatically mirror to Dreamwidth. For RNG reasons, comments left on Dreamwidth do not count as entries; you must enter via the root post on my blog (seananmcguire.com/blog) if you want to be eligible to win.
5. If you haven’t commented here before, your first comment will go into moderation, and be approved as soon as I see it. So if your comment does not appear, please don’t comment again. It still won’t work, until I manually approve you. I promise to approve before prizes are drawn.
So here. We. GO!
Our twelfth prize this year is a copy of Installment Immortality. To enter…
1. Comment on this post.
2. What is your favorite ghost story?
3. If you are outside the US/Canada, tell me so.
All winners will be selected at 12PT on December 15th. So now, as the sages say…
…GAME ON!
seanan_mcguire_feed) wrote2025-12-13 06:26 amOn the eleventh day of Hogswatch, your Seanan gave away…
…a copy of Square3, written under the name Mira Grant!
Hello, readers, writers, and terrifying couch gremlins, and welcome to the Thirteen Days of Hogswatch, the game where the points are made up but the rules really do matter. This is our eleventh giveaway for 2025! I hope you’re all excited! Here are a few things you should know:
1. Every post will have its own prize, and its own rules. This is to filter out people linked here from the “hey, free stuff!” blogs, who are less interested in our prizes than they are in the fact that they don’t cost anything.
2. There will be one redistribution draw for unclaimed prizes. Any remaining after that will be returned to my office to think about what they did. If you fail to claim a prize, you cannot win another.
3. I cannot afford international postage. If you are outside the US/Canada, you must state so in your entry. Someone else has volunteered to cover these costs, but I still need to know.
4. All posts automatically mirror to Dreamwidth. For RNG reasons, comments left on Dreamwidth do not count as entries; you must enter via the root post on my blog (seananmcguire.com/blog) if you want to be eligible to win.
5. If you haven’t commented here before, your first comment will go into moderation, and be approved as soon as I see it. So if your comment does not appear, please don’t comment again. It still won’t work, until I manually approve you. I promise to approve before prizes are drawn.
So here. We. GO!
Our eleventh prize this year is a copy of Square3. This limited-edition novella was published under the name Mira Grant. To enter…
1. Comment on this post.
2. What is your favorite kaiju?
3. If you are outside the US/Canada, tell me so.
All winners will be selected at 12PT on December 15th. So now, as the sages say…
…GAME ON!
thebloggess_feed) wrote2025-12-13 03:30 amWhere am I?
seanan_mcguire_feed) wrote2025-12-12 06:32 pmIf We Shadows, the DVD extras.
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
Probably our longest Shakespeare quote, and our most famous to date. I simply cannot bring myself to truncate one of my favorite speeches ever. So you get the whole thing.
The time is come for me to dissect Lorwyn Eclipsed for your amusement. Because this is time-consuming, I only know people are enjoying it if they comment, and that means I really am holding future DVD extras hostage against comments. Sorry about that.
Welcome to the “DVD extras” for the fifth main story installment for Lorwyn Eclipsed, “If We Shadows.” This story is copyright Wizards of the Coast, although it was written by me, and can be found in its entirety here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/lorwyn-eclipsed-episode-5-if-we-shadows
It feels important to call out that this is not the complete story; this is an unauthorized Pop-Up Video version. Go to the link above for the full story, please. Give them some clicks. Convince them that you love me and I should get to keep writing things. Seriously, though, please click the link, even if the story isn’t relevant to you. Click-throughs are how Wizards knows that Story matters.
So what is this? This is little excerpts of the story, with my thoughts on them, because, IDK, I thought it was funny. I’ve also tried to include context for people new to Magic Story, to help you understand what the hell is going on. If people continue to like it, I will probably continue. If you don’t care about Magic Story, skip on over, although I’d still like it if you clicked.
And here we go!
As always, from this point on, plain text is bits from the story, italic text is my commentary on the same.
Following Maralen, Sanar and Tam ran to the edge of the palace grounds, where a potentially deadly fall to the ground awaited them. Maralen glanced over the edge, then led the students to a long, curving stem with a bud at the top, big around as an ox. “Does either of you have a sword?” she asked.
Living in a palace that is basically a giant flower lifted into the air by its stem is complicated when you don’t have wings.
Sanar and Tam stared at her. “We’re students on a field trip,” said Tam. “We’re not armed.”
Thus proving that it was not a field trip on Innistrad or Fiora.
“Well, I can’t call a faerie swarm to help us, or Rhys will follow them!” snapped Maralen. The faerie on her shoulder giggled like he was having the time of his life.
Oh, hey, the asshole faerie got pronouns.
“Do we just need to cut the bud off?” asked Sanar. Maralen nodded, and he started dredging things up from the depths of his pockets, bits of mud and flattened leaf, crushed snarlflowers and a flier for Mage Tower tryouts. He smashed them all together, mashing the mud and vegetation until the paper was saturated. With this accomplished, he packed it around the bud’s base and backed away.
“What are you doing?” asked Maralen.
“Prismari study track,” said Sanar.
This is, quite simply, one of my favorite exchanges of the entire story. I would have put up with so much more pushing characters from point A to point B if it meant that I got the calm “Prismari study track” as an explanation for mashing incomprehensible objects into explosive goo. Thank you, Sanar. Thank you.
That was enough information for Tam, who covered her ears and ducked, while Maralen stood there looking bewildered. Sanar planted two fingers in his mouth, whistling.
Tam pays attention.
Nothing happened.
Maralen frowned. “I don’t understand what—”
The bud exploded, sending sticky chunks flying in all directions. Sap splattered across the trio, and Maralen cried out in bewildered disgust.
“Did you have to blow it up?” asked Tam.
“Yup,” said Sanar.
He is gonna do great in Prismari.
Sanar followed enthusiastically. Tam looked back, hesitant, before jumping after the others.
Sanar likes new experiences. Give him something totally new and he’ll pretty much always do it enthusiastically. Tam is more aware that all flesh can die.
“You’ve been ready to run for a while,” said Tam, observing. “It’s like you created a world you knew you couldn’t live in. That’s why you asked Rhys to do you a favor and ran when he tried.”
A coracle boat like the one they’re using is a traditional type of boat used in Ireland and Wales. They’re curved, and seem sort of like the shell of a very large nut, or the cap of an even larger acorn, when you view them as a child views them.
“I needed—Oona was my creator, and I needed to know I wouldn’t become her if I had the same power she did. I needed to know that Lorwyn-Shadowmoor would be safe from her return. But I’m still myself. Even if parts of her live on in me, I’m not her, and I need to make Rhys see that.” She climbed into the coracle. “Come along. We need to find someplace safe to hole up until I know what to do next.”
Maralen is having a little identity crisis, and she’s pretty freaked out about it, and she rarely has anyone to talk to that isn’t either a giant day elemental or working for her.
“So why don’t you just release him from his promise?” asked Tam.
Tam has effectively just asked Maralen “so why don’t you kill your friend?”
“The only way I had of keeping someone beside me who’d known Maralen of the Mornsong when she was an elf and not a faerie’s dream.” Maralen looked levelly at Tam, not blinking.
Maralen is complicated by her own origins. She’s telling the truth both when she says that Oona made her from a petal, and when she says that she was born Maralen of the Mornsong, an elf who grew to strength and authority within her people. The original Maralen did exist, and was replaced by Oona’s creation, who truly believed she was that Maralen. Her memories tell her she was an elf first, even as she knows she was a faerie first.
Tam found herself wondering whether they had gorgons in Lorwyn, because Maralen didn’t flinch before meeting her eyes. Neither did most of the students she knew from Arcavios. They didn’t know to be afraid of a gorgon’s gaze, and so they weren’t. It was strange. At home, even her teacher would sometimes flinch, and she couldn’t have hurt him if she wanted.
I do appreciate that Tam doesn’t think less of people because they’re willing to meet her eyes.
“This was our destination all along,” she said. “I have friends in this bog. This is the home of the Stinkdrinker Warren of boggarts, and unless she’s moved along since last she sent word, we’ll find Ashling here.”
More characters and locations from the original Lorwyn story. We didn’t want to be married to it–we couldn’t be, really, since they had three full novels worth of word count, and we had 35,000 words plus a few side stories by other authors; everything we did had to be intentional, and even when it seemed meandering, like the Wanderwine, it had to flow straight toward its destination. But we wanted to call back as much as we could, since it’s beloved for a reason.
“She’s another I’ve known almost as long as I’ve been myself. She’s one of the flamekin of Mount Tanufel, from which the Wanderwine River springs. We’ve been enemies as often as we’ve been friends, and she knows what it is to have people assume that you’re a villain even when you’re not. The only reason I don’t see her more often in Glen Elendra is that she thinks me a fool for keeping Rhys so close when his purpose is to end me. If anyone knows anything of your friends or the path that brought you here, it’s Ashling. She runs the length of the river and back again, carrying stories and secrets to the mountain. The pilgrim’s path, once walked, is not so easily set aside.”
Maralen and Ashling met shortly after the original version of Maralen was replaced by Oona’s creation. So Ashling really has known this Maralen almost as long as she’s existed to be known.
“Maralen,” replied Ashling. Her face was a mask of the same black glass as her body, crowned with a shock of blazing bonfire. More flames leaked out along the line of her throat and from the creases of her joints, making her look like a barely contained inferno. She turned toward Tam and Sanar, burning.
Flamekin are a species of sapient fire-people pretty much unique to Lorwyn (I say “pretty much” because WotC could decide tomorrow that they’re also found on Aranzhur, and I really don’t want anyone going “AH-HA Seanan lied to us!” when I only spoke from a position of “what we know now.”
“Whoa,” said Sanar, scrambling out of the coracle and staring at Ashling. “You’re beautiful.”
“Sanar,” hissed Tam.
“What? She is. Fire is always pretty, but letting fire decide to be a person is a special sort of pretty.”
Sanar really, really likes things that burn, and things that explode, and natural disasters. Ashling may be his perfect woman.
“Boggarts” turned out to be the Lorwyn equivalent of goblins—friendly, curious people of Sanar’s height, whose skins came in a dazzling variety of colors, like a patch of verbose, sometimes oddly scented wildflowers. One of them had hauled Sanar off to learn how to fish for eels as soon as it was established that the three would be in the warren for a few hours—although not much longer, as Maralen didn’t want to give Rhys time to catch up if she could help it.
Sanar is having a very enriching day! Maybe Ashling would like a bouquet of eels?
Now, she sat at a table made from a section of petrified wood, caught between tinder and stone, with Ashling on the other side, her story having flowed out of her like so much poisoned honey. It covered the table between them, viscous, sticky, and almost visible, while Tam watched from the corner.
I just like the imagery here.
“The elves and their high perfect Morcant are also aware that the night beast is walking,” said Ashling. “They’re concocting a plan to kill the creature. They’re seeking poisons that might allow them to complete the task.”
Ashling is sort of the gossip broker of the area, not because she’s being catty, but because she hears things and passes them along, inevitable as the tide.
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” asked Tam. “Forgive me, but it seems like your world is better in the daylight. Our allies turned against us when night fell. If we can stop the night forever, we can perfect your world. Wouldn’t that be better?”
Congrats on finding Oona’s arguments, Tam.
“Not in the least,” said Maralen. “Lorwyn isn’t meant to exist unchallenged. We need the balance Shadowmoor provides—the true, transforming night. Isilu and Eirdu are balanced forces, equal in all things, and we’ve seen what happens when we have one without the other. I don’t want to die. If I were to agree to ending the night forever, I would deserve the death Rhys promised me. Eternal day is Oona’s way, not my own.”
Lorwyn-Shadowmoor is a dual-natured plane for very good reasons, and needs to be allowed to exist in balance within itself. Anything else is doing the plane a disservice.
“Isilu would regenerate; the balance would be restored over time,” said Ashling. “Oona destroyed both the great elementals when she created her aurora, and they found a new balance between themselves after the aurora fell.”
Hence why they’re new to this set.
“That doesn’t mean I can condone an attack on the natural order of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor, not when we’ve just gotten it back,” snapped Maralen.
Also fair.
“Then I suppose we’ll have to stop the elves,” said Ashling, sounding deeply put-on. “I’ll find that boat you need, and I’ll be coming with you.” She rose, heading for the door.
Okay, fine, I’ll help you prevent the destruction of the world as we know it, I guess. If I don’t have any other choice…
Ajani frowned, then started toward the dolmen gate. As he moved, a creature like a serpent with the tiny, jointed legs of a millipede loomed up behind him, mouth gaping to show venom-coated fangs.
Ajani has helpfully agreed to demonstrate the fauna of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor further, since there’s been a shameful lack of terrible beasts in the story thus far. Say thank you, Ajani.
Breathing hard but uninjured, Ajani finished his walk to the dolmen gate. It was unmarred: no blood or damage. He crouched, scanning the ground until he found the distinctive prints left by hard-tooled Strixhaven shoes, unlike anything that normally occurred on this plane. They were pointed away from the gate, the students clearly fleeing from something.
Kirol may be mad about their shoes, but those same shoes are going to help rescue find them.
Beasts of Shadowmoor and beasts of Lorwyn, both driven to attack by the sudden change of day into night. This wasn’t how things were meant to be. Even as Ajani fought off the boar, he could tell how out of sync with itself the plane was—and how unhappy.
Remember that continuity of memory isn’t guaranteed between planes. The change is disorienting, and creatures that weren’t expecting it are lashing out.
The boat supplied by the boggarts was large and luxurious, at least compared to the coracle; it had an upper and a lower deck, and an actual wheel, allowing it to be steered by someone who understood boats. That wasn’t Maralen. It wasn’t Tam or Sanar, either, and although Ashling was accompanying them, she didn’t know how to steer. In the end, several boggarts agreed to take them down the Wanderwine, allowing them to return the boat to the warren once their passengers had been dropped off near Goldmeadow.
Bonus goblins!
“Friends are important,” said Tam. “But they can leave you vulnerable, too.” She looked back at where Sanar looked over the railing, dangling one blue hand in the water.
Tam has never made a lot of friends, and unlike the others, she is not completely thrilled to be trauma bonding with her classmates. The more people you care about, the more people who can hurt you.
Tam frowned. “You’re running from this Rhys because he wants to keep his word. Please forgive me for not putting too much stock in your promises.”
“I meant it when I asked for his word,” said Maralen. “It’s … You weren’t here. Things were different then. I didn’t know how much the world would recover from what she’d done.”
Tam has fallen into the middle of an ongoing story and is not entirely handling it well.
“She tells that truthfully,” said Ashling, moving to stand beside them. “The old fae queen, Oona, she managed to capture the auroras that naturally flare between night and day and braid them into a single great aurora that kept the whole plane locked in one state or the other for centuries at a time. Night never fell. Day never rose. We’re meant to be creatures of balance, shifting between night and day as Eirdu and Isilu command, and she stopped us where we were to stagnate. Lorwyn doesn’t remember Shadowmoor, nor does Shadowmoor remember Lorwyn, but a creature knows when it’s only half of what it’s meant to be.”
Recapping the original Lorwyn block with Ashling!
“Oona broke the world,” said Maralen.
Maralen is a lot more succinct.
“She made me,” said Maralen.
“And? Just because she’s your mother—”
“She’s not my mother,” said Maralen. “She made me. She pinched off a piece of herself, like plucking a petal from a flower, and she made me.”
Maralen often calls Oona her mother, because it’s easier: we have a word for mother, we don’t have a word for “pulled off her own toe and modeled it into a person.” Maybe Sedna, who is an Inuit goddess who did something similar, but that would be inappropriate on a Celtic-inspired plane. Maralen’s doing the best she can.
“Never heard of such a thing, little stranger? Did you think all lives began with a loving embrace and a family to welcome you? Mine began in Oona’s bower, petal-born and larval, distinct from the faeries around me in that I was half-finished, waiting to be put through my instars by Oona herself. I was to be her avatar, a part of her, carrying her consciousness ahead of my own. She fed me nectar, royal jelly for a queen, and she plucked the wings from my shoulders when they began to form. She kept me as a weapon, not a child. She could see the restiveness spreading through the world, the cycle struggling to reassert itself, and I was meant to become her when the world inevitably rose against her. She made only two mistakes, my maker-mother, and I was one of them.”
“Instars” are stages of insect life. When an insect molts, it’s passing from one instar into the next. Lorwyn faeries are closer to insects than anything else. Maralen was made in a very real, very intentional sense.
“What was the other?” asked Ashling with sudden interest.
Maralen turned to blink at her. “What?”
“You said she made two mistakes. You’re the only avatar of Oona I know. What was her other mistake?”
We found a part of the story that Ashling doesn’t know. Huh…
“Ah.” Maralen shivered. “She made and molded me, and when the time was right, she slipped me into the shed skin of Maralen of the Mornsong, who had no more need of it. She made an elf of me, to rule Lorwyn, and she didn’t consider what the heart and hopes of an elf might do to her careful plans. She made me someone else when she married me to my mask.”
If Oona had let Maralen be a faerie princess, a little clone of Oona, she might have won in the original Lorwyn. Or they might both have died. Hindsight doesn’t always tell you what would have happened, just what you might want to have happened.
“No.” Maralen looked at the water. “My creation was her second mistake. The first was my brother.
The idea of her having a brother is new information.
I was meant to rule Lorwyn when Oona could no longer carry the crown, but I wasn’t her first choice. She wasn’t sure any piece of her could remember itself as she did when subjected to Shadowmoor’s light, and so she made another before me, intended to be Shadowmoor’s prince in waiting.
So the brother didn’t get personality-melded with a convenient dead elf, he was allowed to be himself, if hollowed out in a way, not fully made to fit the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor model of dual people. Oona wanted to be sure that if her Aurora fell, she’d have an avatar to keep the dark side of the plane under control.
She already knew he was flawed when she chose to make me, from the other half of the same petal; he fought her, he defied her, and he demanded to be left to rule Shadowmoor according to the natural cycle of things.
Maralen’s brother was a more complete person than she was at that age, for all Oona’s efforts.
What memories I have from before I was Maralen came originally from Oona, and they’re colored by her experience of them. I remember my older brother fighting her so hard I thought the palace might fall. He wanted to be himself and his own, not hers. He befriended a giant, a sage who carried stories of Eirdu and Isilu, who were legends then, not parts of our living world. He called the man ‘father,’ pledged to be a good son to him, and Oona was infuriated. She ordered the giant killed where we could watch and told my brother the only lesson he should take from fathers was this: That fathers will always leave you. Fathers always fall. My brother was … He was shattered, and he swore he would never forgive her, or any part of her, however half-formed. I didn’t see him after that.”
Family trauma!
Sitting on the edge of the table, the faerie that had been accompanying them frowned up at Maralen, wings at half-mantle. It opened its mouth, looking for a moment like it was going to speak, only to flinch as the boat jerked to a sudden stop, running hard against the bank. Ashling and Maralen rushed to shout up at the boggarts who were steering them along the river, demanding to know what was happening.
That whole story was new to our little troublemaker, too.
At the helm, the old boggart let their shouting wash over him, then leaned forward and yelled, “Look to the river! All the new experiences there are don’t mean a thing if I can’t carry them home.”
Lorwyn boggarts are all about having new experiences and then sharing them with the warren. That’s why
“We walk,” said Ashling. “My memory is as unbroken as yours.”
Ashling’s memory isn’t disrupted when she moves between night and day.
“People don’t change between night and day where we come from,” said Sanar.
“Even better,” said Ashling. She bowed to the boggart at the helm, then led the others to the side, where they descended the ladder to the aurora-rainbowed bank below.
Sanar doesn’t realize he just passed up a chance to insist on holding hands with the pretty fire lady as they walked. That’s probably for the best, all things considered.
“Silence,” said Morcant sharply.
Not a nice lady, no.
“You make it sound so easy,” grumbled Kirol.
“It is. You just have to pick some flowers.”
For a Lorwyn elf who fears transitioning to Shadowmoor, getting the flowers is impossibly hard. Lluwen would change, forget what he was doing, and wander away. For someone who doesn’t change, it really is as easy as enter a glade, pick a flower.
“Picking flowers is what got me into this situation in the first place!”
Kirol is going to wind up with a fear of florists.
Lluwen prodded Kirol in the back with his spear, and they shot the hunter a wounded look. Lluwen jerked his head toward Morcant, a pleading expression on his face. Kirol sighed and kept their mouth shut. If they’d done that sooner, Morcant might not have figured out they could pass between night and day without losing their memory or getting distracted by transforming into their “Shadowmoor self.”
Lulu is trying to help.
“They don’t understand what—”
“Are you contradicting me?” Her voice was poisonously pleasant. “What a fascinating choice.”
Lulu could be in real trouble if they force the issue.
The dawnglove flowers grew in small patches, glowing pink, purple, and blueish white, like dawn distilled into something so beautiful it seemed impossible. Their bound hands shook as they reached out to pluck a sprig, and they found themself wishing, desperately, for their school-issued shears, designed to prevent bruising a single petal.
Kirol appreciates beautiful things.
A branch snapped behind them. Kirol tensed, and their vampirically sharp ears heard the crackle of distant, hard-banked fires creeping closer. They turned and saw dark outlines, humanoid shapes crackling with barely contained heat, like banked charcoals. It was easy to miss them in the dark, their presence betrayed only by the dim embers in their eyes. Leaping back to their feet, they ran, and the cinders gave chase.
Rimekin are the Shadowmoor equivalent of flamekin. They’ll burn you just as badly.
“Kirol did it!” said Lluwen, taking the dawnglove reverently from Kirol’s hand and holding it up for Morcant to see. “But the cinders …” He looked uneasily at the figures on the night side of the veil, unwilling to pursue further, burning in the dark.
Lulu is like, “we have enough, we can stop now.”
“The stranger evaded them once; he can do so again,” said Morcant. “Send him back.”
Morcant does not agree.
“It’s ‘them,'” said Kirol, getting back to their feet. “And no. I won’t go. I’m not dying for you people.”
“You’re dying for whatever I say you are,” said Morcant. “We need more dawnglove. Go. Lluwen, make him go.”
Morcant doesn’t believe in being corrected by anyone not as perfect as she is. Her repeated use of the wrong pronouns for Kirol here is intentional.
“I won’t,” said Lluwen. “They don’t deserve to die that way.”
“Lluwen—”
“No.”
For a Lorwyn elf to defy a perfect is unthinkable, and could see him branded an eyeblight, something flawed and thus deserving of destruction. Lulu’s taking a big risk here.
Morcant was glaring, clearly prepared to push the issue, when a white blur burst out of the trees and landed between them, a massive two-headed axe in his hands, fur on his shoulders bristling. He snarled at the aurora-line, and the cinders retreated. He snarled at Morcant, and she snarled back, less bestial, more arrogant.
Thank you, Ajani.
Then he rounded on Kirol, who moved in front of Lluwen ready to defend the elven hunter from the massive lion-man. Instead, the lion spoke. “Are you one of Professor Vess’s missing students?” he asked.
Kirol is willing to take risks for someone who just took a risk for them.
“And we shall,” said the lion. “My name is Ajani, and we are leaving.” He turned his glare on Perfect Morcant, who tried, and failed, to match it. One hand on the small of Kirol’s back, he began guiding the student away.
High Perfect Morcant is scary, but she’s got nothing on Ajani Goldmane in a bad mood.
Lluwen had an instant to make up his mind. Looking between Kirol and Ajani and the furious Morcant, he moved, darting after them before she could stop him. Her face contorted in anger as the forest took them.
Lulu has chosen a side, and it’s not High Perfect Morcant’s.
Ashling stepped into Shadowmoor, blue light racing along her skin and her deeply banked inner fires melting into something frozen and shimmering, like the magnetic lights that sometimes danced in the sky above the Furygale back on campus. Sanar gasped. Tam stopped walking and stared. Ashling turned to face the pair of them, a small smile on her transformed face.
Pretty fire lady is basically the living embodiment of the Prismari campus. Sanar is now officially and hopelessly crushing on her.
They were less than halfway there when arrows began thudding into the ground around them, herding them closer together. Ashling blazed blue-bright and ominous. Maralen cried out in confusion. And the moon-eyed Shadowmoor residents of the city emerged from the brush and bushes all around them, spears and knives in their hands, the transformed Brigid at the front of their pack.
Shadowmoor does not mean “evil,” but Shadowmoor kithkin are severely xenophobic, and don’t want outsiders near their homes. Amusingly, this attribute of the Shadowmoor kithkin was part of what allowed them to beat back Phyrexia.
“We can’t fight them, or we will hurt them,” said Ashling, still blazing. “What do we do?”
“We find out where they’re taking us,” said Sanar.
The kithkin are acting as antagonists here, but they aren’t villains, and neither Ashling nor Maralen wants to punish them for following their natures.
“It just … It feels like hot tea on cold nights,” she said. “Like when you know the frost is coming, but you have a good book and a hot fire. Why does it feel like that?”
“It felt like that in the cave,” said Sanar.
Isilu is all the best things about the night, no matter who or what you are. To a frightened Shadowmoor kithkin, being in the presence of Isilu probably feels like deep shadows and safe burrows, no one unknown for miles. You can learn a lot about yourself by lingering near the night elemental.
They turned, all of them, even the kithkin, and saw Isilu walking serenely toward them, a small green speck flitting in front of the beast’s moon-crowned head. Maralen gasped, clapping her hands over her mouth.
Okay, so the faerie went and fetched the night elemental. Thanks. Good job!
“What?” asked Ashling.
“That’s … I know that faerie,” she said. “That’s—”
Well this is a total shock to all of us who’ve been paying any degree of attention. But she really hadn’t seen him in Shadowmoor-mode before this.
“—My brother,” finished Maralen. “I-I only know him in his Shadowmoor form, from Oona’s memories, but I know him.”
She just didn’t recognize him as a Lorwyn.
“Shadowmoor tells lies,” said Ashling warningly. “He may not be who you believe he is.”
This may be the most openly negative sentiment any of our characters have expressed toward Shadowmoor.
On the horizon, where the edge of the forest met the fields, a line of torches appeared.
“The elves,” said Maralen.
“Elves?” demanded Brigid. “In our fields? You strangers are bad enough. We won’t allow it.”
Time for a big brawl! West Side Story dance fight time? Please?
The kithkin began to cluster together, shaking their spears and notching their bows as they eyed the torch-line. And all the while, Isilu came closer, the living night descending on the drowning dregs of day.
I know it’s bad form to be pleased by my own prose, but “the drowning dregs of day” is just nice to my ear. It’s a fun phrase to chew on.
See you Monday!
thebloggess_feed) wrote2025-12-11 04:47 pmWant a chaotically signed book?
seanan_mcguire_feed) wrote2025-12-11 05:37 pmFetch Me That Flower, the DVD extras.
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew’d thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
The time is come for me to dissect Lorwyn Eclipsed for your amusement. Because this is time-consuming, I only know people are enjoying it if they comment, and that means I really am holding future DVD extras hostage against comments. Sorry about that.
Welcome to the “DVD extras” for the fourth main story installment for Lorwyn Eclipsed, “Fetch Me That Flower.” This story is copyright Wizards of the Coast, although it was written by me, and can be found in its entirety here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/lorwyn-eclipsed-episode-4-fetch-me-that-flower
It feels important to call out that this is not the complete story; this is an unauthorized Pop-Up Video version. Go to the link above for the full story, please. Give them some clicks. Convince them that you love me and I should get to keep writing things. Seriously, though, please click the link, even if the story isn’t relevant to you. Click-throughs are how Wizards knows that Story matters.
So what is this? This is little excerpts of the story, with my thoughts on them, because, IDK, I thought it was funny. I’ve also tried to include context for people new to Magic Story, to help you understand what the hell is going on. If people continue to like it, I will probably continue. If you don’t care about Magic Story, skip on over, although I’d still like it if you clicked.
And here we go!
As always, from this point on, plain text is bits from the story, italic text is my commentary on the same.
“I’m still not wearing hiking shoes,” grumbled Kirol as Lluwen continued urging them deeper and deeper into the trees.
Poor Kirol is having some serious footwear-related regrets. They’re arguably the toughest member of our group, but as an athlete, they also have a profound appreciation for appropriate footwear.
The elf responded by pushing them between the shoulders. “What are ‘hiking shoes’?” Kirol looked at their captor’s hooved feet and swallowed. It was one thing to be on another plane of existence. It was something else to have the time to slow down and realize what that meant.
As a Lorwyn elf, Lulu is entirely outside Kirol’s experience, and his existence is forcing our genial jock vampire to confront the fact that no, really, this is not Arcavios; they are somewhere else entirely, and they may or may not be able to go home from here.
“See my feet?” they asked. “How they’re sealed inside leather boxes?”
“I know what foot covers are,” said Lluwen, sounding insulted. “Kithkin wear them all the time because their feet are soft and delicate.”
I play a hooved tiefling in one of my D&D games, and was able to stop the entire table dead one day by asking if she had feet. The feet/hooves divide is both more and less complicated than we make it out to be.
“Kithkin?” asked Kirol, then they shook their head. “No, we don’t want to get distracted. All right, so we call these foot covers ‘shoes.’ Or ‘boots,’ sometimes. Or sandals I guess—you know what, never mind. Hiking shoes are meant to be worn on soft, delicate feet when you’re going to be walking for a long time. They absorb more of the impact, and they help to keep your feet from hurting.”
Behold as Kirol, our historian, tries to explain the functionality of shoes as if they were historical cultural artifacts. Which they really kind of are.
“Do your feet hurt?”
“More than I would ever have believed possible,” said Kirol mournfully. “I play Mage Tower at school—that’s a sport. Actually, it’s the sport, as in the best one—and I run laps and all, to stay in shape, but I’m usually wearing the right shoes when I do that sort of thing. These are class shoes. They’re soft and thin and meant for wearing when you’re going to sit around for hours listening to people talk. They aren’t meant for walking miles and miles through forests full of roots and rocks and uneven ground.”
Poor Kirol. So much could have been avoided if Dina had sent out a memo about proper footwear.
“My feet don’t hurt at all,” said Lluwen.
“That’s because you don’t have feet,” said Kirol. “You have hooves.”
“I walk on them, so they’re feet.”
“Anatomically speaking, they’re not. If we dropped you in a dissection lab, the doctor who took them apart would say they weren’t.”
Who’s on first? What’s on second?
Lluwen prodded them with the tip of his spear again. “No one’s taking me apart,” he said, voice low and dangerous.
“I didn’t say I was going to—oh, come on. It’s hypothetical.”
“Hypothetically, keep walking. We’re almost to Lys Alana.”
I love these two as a comedy team.
“Only the most beautiful city in the world, in the most beautiful forest in the world,” said Lluwen, voice turning reverent and almost wistful. “You’re so lucky to see Lys Alana for the very first time. I wish I could see it for the first time again. The way the sun shines through the trees, the way the whole world gleams golden—oh, it’ll take your breath away.”
Lorwyn elves basically deify beauty. Lys Alana is very much a manifestation of this fact.
The bark of the trees was broken up, almost like a pattern of scales, and the space between the “scales” was covered in a thin layer of smooth, gleaming sap that blazed gold when the sunlight struck it, giving the whole forest a delicately gilded air. Kirol stared at it as Lluwen continued urging them onward, until they stepped between two trees and Lys Alana appeared before them.
Getting through descriptions of Lys Alana without reaching somatic satiation on the word “gold” was difficult as hell.
“No,” said Lluwen, sounding confused. He turned to look at Kirol. “If you don’t know right from wrong, or insult from flattery, you can make mistakes, but you can’t give insult. That’s very important.”
“What happens if I insult the high perfect?”
“She has you killed.” Lluwen shrugged. “So this is better. Follow me.”
As a method of protecting children, “you can’t break the rules if you don’t know them” makes a lot of sense. As a way of protecting strangers, it gets a little squishier, since people will be offended by a strange adult saying weird shit way faster than they will be a kid doing the same thing.
“What? Have they never seen a vampire before?” grumbled Kirol.
Kirol, buddy, you’ve never seen an elf with hooves before. Maybe chill about the judging people by your home standards.
“Not many elves get to see the high perfect,” he said. “This is an honor.”
“An honor you won’t tell me anything about!”
Hard to be honored in the total absence of clear disclosures, buddy.
“I am Lluwen the faultless, hunter of the Nightshade pack,” replied Lluwen, looking nervous for the first time since they’d arrived in Lys Alana. “I’ve found a stranger in the forest who knows something of Isilu and why he walks out of sync with his promised time. Their knowledge nests inside them like a bird’s egg, and I have not cracked it, for my ears are not yet worthy of truth’s perfection.”
“Lluwen the faultless” is a very Lorwyn elf sort of title–since they prize beauty and perfection above all else, having a name like that sort of broadcasts “hey I have passed the baseline beauty exams and can now be allowed out of my room.” As I have said before, Lorwyn elves are not very nice people.
Kirol took several steps into the chamber without intending it, eyes fixed on the woman. She was tall and beautifully rounded, with a symmetrical build that they could have admired all day. Her hooves were larger and sharper than Lluwen’s, polished and gilded in gold, and her horns were breathtaking, so large that it seemed they must be too much for her long, elegant neck to support, their tips bending out and then spiraling inward, like the emulation of a crown. They, too, were tipped in gold, and as the sunlight through the window struck her, she gleamed.
Meet High Perfect Morcant. She’s a very pretty lady, and a very shitty person.
She looked at Kirol, and the weight and beauty of her gaze was such that, for a moment, they thought they might collapse beneath it.
High Perfect Morcant has basically turned beauty into a cudgel, and poor Kirol was not prepared to be repeatedly smacked with it.
“My name is Kirol, ma’am,” they said. Should they bow? They bowed. That felt wrong, but there was no way to take it back, so they worried their lower lip between their teeth and offered, “I’m a student from Strixhaven. I’m not supposed to be here. Lluwen found me in the woods, and he stole me so I could come and talk to you.”
Kirol needs a bucket of cold water and maybe some better shoes so they can go run a few laps.
“I was, but now I’m not,” said Kirol. “If he hadn’t stolen me, I wouldn’t get to look at you now. You are … perfect.”
I’ve seen new herpetologists have this reaction when confronted with their first in-person king cobra or Komodo dragon. I was so dazzled by the beauty of the moment that I started crying when I saw my first tuatara.
“Our world is defined by day and night,” said Morcant. “Perfect, beautiful, faultless day, and wicked, twisted, bitter night.
Morcant is a little bit biased here.
Once, the Great Aurora kept the night contained and the day protected so that we were shielded from one another. But the aurora fell, and in its place, two beasts arose, one glorious and good, one embittered and evil. Eirdu and Isilu. Lorwyn and Shadowmoor.
As a Lorwyn elf, Morcant believes all things coming from Shadowmoor are evil. She is not a very nice person. And her delivering this philosophy is part of why it was so important to highlight that night is not evil earlier in the story.
Kirol blinked. “That isn’t quite what Brigid said …” they said, carefully. “I think maybe I’m getting multiple historical accounts of the same thing.”
Kirol is uniquely equipped to seek the reality between conflicting narratives.
“There are always many sides to the same story,” said Morcant. “You speak of Brigid, the hero of Kinsbaile, do you not? Kithkin are a simple, uncultured folk, close to the land, concerned with their community, not with the needs of the wider world. She would only see what was before her, not its implications or the possibilities it presented.”
Yeah, because Brigid’s not an opportunistic jerk.
Her voice dropped, turning thoughtful. “Isilu is out of cycle—vulnerable, perhaps. And what an opportunity, if someone could seize upon that vulnerability. If they could end the night forever, and welcome endless day in its place. We would no longer work to undo in the moonlight all we had accomplished in the sunlight. The Gilt-Leaf Empire could rise again!”
This is…bad. The Gilt-Leaf Empire is worse than the Kor when it comes to treating people like they’re people, and not just inconveniences. I do not recommend restarting it if it can be avoided.
“Um,” said Kirol. “I’m not from around here, and I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to be involved with anything that begins with an empire rising again. I’d like to go now, if that’s okay by you.”
Pretty can get you a long way, but it will run up against reality, and Kirol is having doubts.
“I’d really like to go now,” said Kirol, taking a step back. “I need to find my friends.”
“Oh, no,” said Morcant, and she smiled a terrible, perfect smile. “We need you. You’re not going anywhere.”
Kirol’s in trouble.
Tam looked conflicted. “We need to get back to school so we can finish our project,” she said. “It’s not safe here.”
Tam is definitely more focused on her studies than is necessarily a good thing in a friend.
Abigale narrowed her eyes, puffing her feathers out even farther. Kirol is our friend, she signed. I’m going to go find them. You can wait here if you like.
Abigale is a worse study partner, but a better friend.
“I’ll go. You wait here,” said Sanar. He bounced onto the balls of his feet and ran after the unhappy owlin.
We have well and truly split the party.
He hadn’t quite managed to catch up before everything went wrong. Abigale, focused as she was on looking for Kirol—something she was trying to achieve with broad turns of her head, sometimes rotating it almost all the way around—didn’t notice when the brush to one side began to rustle and shift. Sanar, who heard the branches scraping, froze immediately. Abigale did not and was taken purely by surprise when the massive, gnarled head of some unfamiliar beast, crowned with antlers made of tangled, grasping branches, rose out of the brush. The head was attached to some equally massive creature based on the sounds now coming from the trees.
Abigale hears intentional speech, not environmental disruptions. She was caught completely unaware by one of Lorwyn’s many, many exciting monsters, of which there are plenty. Lucky Abigale.
Sounds Abigale couldn’t hear. Horrified, Sanar watched her begin to backpedal away from the creature into the brush on the other side of the trail. He grabbed a branch and rushed forward, intending to defend her from the advancing beast.
Sanar is impulsive and chaotic and a very, very good friend.
Abigale made an unhappy hooting noise and rushed the beast, which bellowed loudly enough to trigger the function of her hearing aid meant to alert her to alarms and explosions. She clapped her hands over her ears. The ringing was enough to make her dizzy, and she staggered deeper into the brush, away from both Sanar and the beast.
A fire alarm just went off in Abigale’s ears. But when you attend a university with the Prismari College of Blowing Shit the Hell Up, you need to be able to hear the really, really loud sounds for your own safety.
She didn’t even see the edge of the tributary Brigid had told them to watch for. As she stumbled, her foot hit the top of the sloping bank that led down to the water, and she fell.
Birds can absolutely fall, if the distance is short enough and you surprise them sufficiently.
She had time to think Kirol would tease her for forgetting how to fly, again, before she hit the water. It saturated her feathers almost immediately, dragging her to the middle of the deceptively deep stream where the current was at its strongest. It caught her, keeping her suspended below the surface and above the bottom as it pulled her rapidly toward the Wanderwine.
Unless their feathers are designed for water, wet birds don’t fly very well. Once Abigale is waterlogged, going airborne is not really in the cards for her.
Clinging tightly to her forced calm, she began moving her hands in quick, restrained arcs.
A mage who needed breath to work their magic would have been in terrible danger in the depths, but all Abigale needed were her hands, and the gestures that told the whisper of her internal winds where to go.
You can’t necessarily speak underwater, but you can absolutely sign, and so–while most of her magic has a linguistic component of some sort–Abigale can access all her skills even in a sound-muffling environment.
Her hands moved, and bubbles began to form around them, answering her call. When both Abigale’s hands were full of air, she raised them to her face and pressed them over her beak, creating a mask of sorts. Gratefully, she took a deep breath, then pulled her face away from the bubble long enough to spit out the water she had swallowed.
So she’s made herself a diving helmet, sort of. Good job, Abigale!
As she grew closer, the forms resolved into fish-finned bipeds with long arms and elegant, scaled tails, clutching spears and tridents. They pointed to her and swam forward, menacing her with their weapons.
Lorwyn merfolk were one of the original typal groups in the card game, and are very well-beloved by the player base. They had to get at least some of the focus.
Desperate to remain calm, Abigale did what she had done since she was a small child trying to avoid getting into trouble with her parents: she held her hands in front of herself and started to babble, fingers flashing. I’m sorry is this your river I didn’t know this was your river but I guess it might be your river anyway if you can just help me out of the water I’ll go away and nobody needs to get hurt I really didn’t mean to bother anyone I’m so sorry—
I love that Abigale manages to be a motormouth without making a sound. It just delights me as a character note.
Her hearing aid was intended to help her communicate and had been designed by a Silverquill upperclassman with a flexible definition of the concept of “hearing.” It took a moment for it to interpret the stranger’s signing, then the words began appearing in her mind, clear and comprehensible:
Abigale didn’t need the hearing aid when she was home with the owlin, all of whom had learned to communicate with her. The period between arriving at Strixhaven and being fitted with the device must have been very isolating. But yes, it also handles sign. I don’t know whether it would handle written material; I assume not.
Sanar came running back to where Tam waited, breathing heavily and covered with little scratches from where he’d blundered into a thorn hedge.
Sanar isn’t having his best day ever.
“Drowned?” asked Tam, even more alarmed.
Tam is pretty sure that letting another student die will impact her grade.
“I don’t think so. Her feathers just got soaked and she couldn’t fly out of the water. The current was sweeping her back toward the river last I saw.”
Sanar at least has a good reason not to have jumped in after Abigale. He knows she’s not dead, and didn’t want to leave Tam entirely alone.
What would her teacher want her to do? Tam didn’t talk about him much—didn’t even like to think about him much, to prevent the mind-mages in her theory classes from catching a glimpse of him in her thoughts and starting to ask questions—but she knew he would have wanted her to choose the option that would protect herself and save the most people at the same time.
Tam must have a really close relationship to her advisor.
“You say she found the tributary?” she asked. Sanar nodded. “Good. Take me there. We need to reach the waterfall.”
Sanar frowned, looking unhappy, but didn’t argue; he could see the logic as clearly as she could. “This way,” he said and turned, slouching back the way he’d come.
Sanar would rather follow Abigale downstream, but as it says, he can see the logic in continuing on even as Lorwyn Wonka factories them one by one.
“All right,” said Sanar. He ran forward, plunging into the shimmering wall of water. He didn’t reappear. Tam gasped.
Impulse control? Never heard of her.
Following more slowly, she reached out with one unsteady hand to touch the cascade. Her fingertips slid smoothly into the water, which was cool and smelled so sweet. She had never wanted to drink something so badly in her life. She took a deep breath.
That’s how you get exciting new diseases, Tam. Please don’t, or Jay Annelli and I will have to set up an interplanar disease response unit and wait I really want to do that. Please drink, Tam.
Her classmates needed her.
Where was this compassion two pages ago?
Maralen dropped to her knees on the floor of her chamber, clutching at her hair with both hands as she moaned. “No, no, no,” she snarled. “I refuse.”
Maralen shares the fear of becoming her mother with many others. Sadly, in her case, becoming her mother would probably be an entirely literal transformation, complete with memories and personality overwrite.
The drift of flower petals covering her dressing table and the floor around it remained as they were, unchanging and accusing. They were small and fragrant, and they came from no flower that bloomed in Lorwyn or in Shadowmoor. But Maralen knew them. Oh, how well she knew them. She had been born of them, once, when she was made by Oona, before she had taken on the shape and memory of Maralen of the Mornsong, whose name she still carried.
Lorwyn-Shadowmoor faeries have a very odd life cycle.
Unless the twist of magic that had allowed one of her creations to become independent and alive without her consent was somehow coming unmade. It shouldn’t have been possible for Maralen to be her own person. She should have been a part of Oona even to the end—and maybe, under it all, she still was.
Maralen became her own person due to the events of the original Lorwyn block. She was originally meant to be a vessel for Oona, and her being Maralen was a little upsetting for everyone involved.
Eirdu had left her, and whispers were reaching the court that Isilu walked, and day and night were clashing. They would go to war. After the war would come a new aurora, the binding and breaking of the cycle. It would seem so reasonable, so rational, the best way to preserve their world.
It would make her into Oona reborn, and Maralen would be washed away.
Death of the individual sucks.
She pushed herself to her feet and swept the petals from her dressing table with a motion of her arm, then sat and stared at her mirror. Instead of her own slowly transforming eyes, she met the terrible gaze of Oona and pushed herself away from the mirror so hard that she hit the floor again, this time on her backside.
I think she’s seeing things here, her mind starting to eat itself out of pure panic.
Maralen was on her feet in an instant, her reflexes not softened by her royal life. A group of faeries swept in, surrounding a small blue creature who looked something like a boggart, and a tall, humanoid elemental with red-striped green skin and tendrils that faded from white into red in place of hair. Maralen gasped.
One of the defining attributes of Lorwyn is its lack of humans. Elementals are common, however, and most of them blend attributes of multiple species. Assuming Tam is a snake-elf elemental is not unreasonable. Especially if you’re not looking at her feet.
“The one appears to be an elemental,” said Maralen. “Elementals are weapons.”
She’s not wrong.
“Who, me?” asked the tall stranger. “I’m not an elemental. I’m a gorgon. My name is Tam—Brigid sent us. We’re not supposed to be here, anyway. We’re from a place called Strixhaven, on the plane of Arcavios, and we just want to get back to school.”
Tam is very tired.
“Whoa,” said Sanar.
“What?” asked Tam.
“I’ve never heard you talk that much.”
Tam is also not super loquacious most of the time.
Maralen winced as another peal of laughter rang in her ears. “Do any of you hear that?” she demanded.
Tam, Sanar, and the faeries looked confused. Maralen turned a sharp look on her faeries. “Leave us,” she said.
Oh, dear.
“Now,” she said. “This is Lorwyn-Shadowmoor, and you are very far from your Arcavios. What happened? How did you come here?”
Maralen doesn’t know what an Arcavios is. She just knows she’s never heard of it, which must mean it’s very far away.
“There are flower petals everywhere, and the cycle is out of true,” said Maralen. “Oona is returning, and this time, I don’t know if I can stop her.”
“Wow. I don’t know what any of that means,” said Sanar.
Sanar is a joy and a delight, because he won’t “yes, and?” things he doesn’t understand, like, at all. He just sort of smashes his way through them like a small blue wrecking ball.
The door of her chamber slammed open then, and there was Rhys, a small blue faerie sitting on his shoulder and pointing at Maralen. Sanar yelped and pointed to the faerie.
The faerie who’s been making all the trouble has found some more trouble to make.
Rhys had eyes only for Maralen, his expression cold as the dead of a winter night, a strange, terrible relief in his eyes. “You weren’t going to tell me. You were keeping it secret, weren’t you?”
Rhys has been alive too long. He’s pretty done by this point.
“Rhys, you don’t understand,” said Maralen desperately.
“Could it already be too late?” He closed his eyes as if in great pain. “Maralen. I made a promise to you long ago.”
“We don’t know—”
He didn’t wait for her to finish. The elf drew a dagger from his belt and lunged.
Well this is fun.
Now thoroughly out of control, Rhys took two wild, stumbling steps and tumbled out of a nearby window. The faerie on his shoulder leapt into the air, scolding like a startled magpie. Everyone watched in stunned silence—except for Tam, who was doing something geometric and glowing with her hands.
“What was that?” asked Sanar, stunned.
“Probability magic. Who was that?”
Go team Quandrix.
Maralen lowered her arms, giving the faerie a betrayed look. “You’re supposed to serve me, not betray me,” she said. “Why don’t I know you?”
The faerie turned toward her, still scolding, still not forming actual words.
Okay, well, that’s weird and kind of annoying.
“What’s going on?” asked Tam, urgently now.
“We have to go,” said Maralen. “That was Rhys, my adviser and oldest friend, and he’ll kill me if he thinks Oona is coming back.”
“Why?” asked Sanar.
“I made him swear that he would.”
“You just said—” began Tam.
So Maralen makes people make bad promises. Check.
“I know what I said!” snapped Maralen. “But I’m not ready to die, and if we can settle Isilu and restore the cycle, I may not have to. Now, we have to run, before he comes back.” She eyed the little faerie. “You, with us, now.”
Looking deeply amused, the faerie flitted to Maralen’s shoulder. She turned toward the door and ran. Tam and Sanar, not seeing much choice in the matter, followed close behind.
And possibly keeps bad company. I suppose we shall see…
And I’ll see all of you tomorrow.
seanan_mcguire_feed) wrote2025-12-11 04:02 pmOn the tenth day of Hogswatch, your Seanan gave away…
…a copy of The Innocent Sleep!
Hello, readers, writers, and terrifying couch gremlins, and welcome to the Thirteen Days of Hogswatch, the game where the points are made up but the rules really do matter. This is our tenth giveaway for 2025! I hope you’re all excited! Here are a few things you should know:
1. Every post will have its own prize, and its own rules. This is to filter out people linked here from the “hey, free stuff!” blogs, who are less interested in our prizes than they are in the fact that they don’t cost anything.
2. There will be one redistribution draw for unclaimed prizes. Any remaining after that will be returned to my office to think about what they did. If you fail to claim a prize, you cannot win another.
3. I cannot afford international postage. If you are outside the US/Canada, you must state so in your entry. Someone else has volunteered to cover these costs, but I still need to know.
4. All posts automatically mirror to Dreamwidth. For RNG reasons, comments left on Dreamwidth do not count as entries; you must enter via the root post on my blog (seananmcguire.com/blog) if you want to be eligible to win.
5. If you haven’t commented here before, your first comment will go into moderation, and be approved as soon as I see it. So if your comment does not appear, please don’t comment again. It still won’t work, until I manually approve you. I promise to approve before prizes are drawn.
So here. We. GO!
Our tenth prize this year is a copy of The Innocent Sleep. Will it be hardback or paperback? Your guess is as good as mine. To enter…
1. Comment on this post.
2. What is your favorite Shakespeare adaptation?
3. If you are outside the US/Canada, tell me so.
All winners will be selected at 12PT on December 15th. So now, as the sages say…
…GAME ON!
seanan_mcguire_feed) wrote2025-12-10 06:19 pmAweary of this Moon, the DVD extras.
I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!
(Hey, they’re all Shakespeare quotes, and hence bangers. Doesn’t mean they’re all long bangers.)
The time is come for me to dissect Lorwyn Eclipsed for your amusement. Because this is time-consuming, I only know people are enjoying it if they comment, and that means I really am holding future DVD extras hostage against comments. Sorry about that.
Welcome to the “DVD extras” for the third main story installment for Lorwyn Eclipsed, “Aweary of this Moon.” This story is copyright Wizards of the Coast, although it was written by me, and can be found in its entirety here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/lorwyn-eclipsed-episode-3-aweary-of-this-moon
It feels important to call out that this is not the complete story; this is an unauthorized Pop-Up Video version. Go to the link above for the full story, please. Give them some clicks. Convince them that you love me and I should get to keep writing things. Seriously, though, please click the link, even if the story isn’t relevant to you. Click-throughs are how Wizards knows that Story matters.
So what is this? This is little excerpts of the story, with my thoughts on them, because, IDK, I thought it was funny. I’ve also tried to include context for people new to Magic Story, to help you understand what the hell is going on. If people continue to like it, I will probably continue. If you don’t care about Magic Story, skip on over, although I’d still like it if you clicked.
And here we go!
As always, from this point on, plain text is bits from the story, italic text is my commentary on the same.
If Dina was unsettled by having the large lion-man give her commands, she was too relieved at being able to hand the responsibility for the missing students off to a responsible member of the faculty to care. She nodded at Ajani’s declaration and, after waiting for Liliana to clean up her broken teacup, led the two out of the building where Liliana’s office was located and across the fields toward the Harrier’s Wood.
Ajani is a leonin, originally from a plane called Alara. Leonin aren’t common on Arcavios, where Dina was sprouted and has lived for her entire life. Not knowing what he is isn’t rude or ignorant, it’s “no one knows everything,” and there was no place in this scene for her to politely go “cool, cool, what are you, actually?” And knowing Ajani, he would have said “healer, friend, Planeswalker,” before he got around to “leonin.”
Not to mention the students themselves. She liked Abigale—the owlin had been clearly bound for Silverquill since orientation, and Killian was going to be furious when he found out Dina had misplaced her.
Killian is the Silverquill student from our original trip to Strixhaven. He and Dina have an understanding, and have been seeing each other for some time now. Like all good girlfriends, Dina tries to not do things she knows will make him angry. (Please note that I extend “let’s not piss off our significant others” to “all good boyfriends” and “all good friends, period.” It’s not a gender thing.)
She didn’t know the other three as well, although she had just enough overlap with Tam in her theory classes to worry about her, too. There were doubtless people on campus who would worry themselves sick about Sanar and Kirol. This was terribly bad, no matter how she wanted to look at it.
Dina is pretty much done with her part in the story, but no one is friends with everybody, and it seemed important to acknowledge that at least a little. Even our Misfit Toys now lost in Lorwyn weren’t all friends before this started. Harder to trauma bond when you were all friends to begin with!
She tried to hold tight to that thought as Liliana stepped into the wood and raised her hands, calling a black fog from the ground. She cocked her head, seeming to listen as it eddied and swirled around her, then lowered her hands and turned to the lion-man. “Like Jace, they aren’t dead,” she said. “Lots of little things died here today—bugs, rodents, pests—but nothing as large and complicated as a student.”
I love little applications of necromancy. You know that if you had that power, you’d figure out every way to use it in your daily life–and daily life doesn’t always have a major need for a zombie army. Sometimes you just need to ask the land what died there recently. Because this is Arcavios, “pests” isn’t a generic term; she’s talking about the Witherbloom mascots.
“Thank you for that incredibly compassionate update,” said Ajani.
Liliana lifted an eyebrow. “My, you’ve learned sarcasm in our time apart, kitty-cat. It suits you.”
Ajani is a white-aligned mage, and practices healing and soul magic. He finds Liliana’s necromancy somewhat unpleasant.
He held his hand out to her, showing her the slim blue flower petal resting in his palm. The edges were bruised, but there were stitches at the end where it had been attached to something larger.
In case it wasn’t clear, Lorwyn faeries were clothing made of stitched-together flower petals.
“I’ve smelled this type of flower before. There’s a plane where they grow plentiful and wild. A plane where some of the denizens use flowers in their tailoring.”
Liliana gets it, of course.
Dina frowned, looking between the two of them. “Don’t play guessing games. Just say it.”
Dina, on the other hand, is here to be a reader stand-in, and ask the questions neither of them would ask on their own. She can go “uh, what the hell?” when you can’t. Thank you, Dina!
Liliana sighed, sounding oddly put-on. “You’re hinting at Lorwyn,” she said. “You think one of their faeries led my students astray? It’s as good a place to start as any, but I don’t see any sign of an Omenpath.”
Ajani and Liliana were both introduced with the original Lorwyn block, as part of the “Lorwyn Five.” The other three were Jace, Chandra, and Garruck.
“They don’t always stick around,” said Ajani.
“They’re like Planeswalkers that way,” said Liliana.
Oh, burn.
Ajani closed his hand on the petal. “Which do you want right now: your students, or your pride?”
“My students,” said Liliana without hesitation.
Liliana was a Planeswalker before the great desparking that followed the Phyrexian Invasion. Now she’s not, and hence cannot just go to Lorwyn on her own. Ajani is pointing out that maybe taunting him isn’t going to get her the outcome she wants.
“Then I’m sorry, Liliana, but I can’t take you with me. There’s a stable Omenpath between Lorwyn and Shandalar, as far as I know, and if I can get them to Shandalar, I can bring them back here.”
“Tam is from Shandalar,” said Liliana. “Shandalar will be fine.”
Gorgons, like leonin, are not found on Arcavios. So this explains how Tam can be attending school. She’s part of the cross-planar student initiative–just like the students you’re going to meet in Omens of Chaos! Pick up the book and learn more than you ever wanted about how that program works, and how their dorms replicate the conditions on their home planes.
On the first step, he started to glow.
On the second step, he was gone.
Every planeswalker has their own “special effects” when planeswalking. Nahiri turns to stone and crumbles away, Chandra sort of self-immolates, and so on. Ajani lights up like a firefly’s ass.
Lilana sighed. “Are we all that inclined to showing off?” she asked and turned to Dina. “It was a hypothetical question, dear: don’t answer. Let’s get back to campus. Ajani will find them.”
Liliana is a joy to write.
“You’re lucky to have run across me,” said Brigid as they walked through the sun-dappled forest. She seemed utterly relaxed now that they were away from the spreading dark, although it was clear that she heard everything around her; her head was constantly moving as she swiveled toward one noise or another, and her hand was always on her bow.
Brigid has seen some shit, and she doesn’t really relax when danger is in the area. She’s a survivor like that.
“Well, most anyone with a lick of sense could have gotten you clear of Isilu, and anyone of Lorwyn who saw you would have felt moved to help. We try not to let people get swallowed down by night when they don’t want to be. But not just anyone could get you to Goldmeadow, and that’s probably the best spot for you to rest up while you figure out what sort of pretty lies you’re going to use to tell me why you went into Isilu’s den in the middle of the day.”
Brigid is still acting under the impression that our students knew at least a little of what the hell they thought they were doing, rather than falling into the wrong genre of adventure when they just wanted to get a passing grade in flowers. She’s in for a rude awakening.
“Goldmeadow,” Brigid confirmed warmly. She beckoned them to stay close as she approached the gate where two more of the stout humanoids waved to them as they cranked it open. Neither of them blinked at the fact that Brigid had gone out alone and come back with a motley assortment of strangers. In fact, if anything, they looked pleased that she’d found someone to walk with.
Goldmeadow is a major kithkin city, and probably the best place the students could have ended up at the start of things. The architecture is important, and like all environments, can tell you a lot about the people who live there: easy, open, and community-minded.
Literally. He looked like he could go through any door and be perfectly in scale with the room on the other side. Kirol blinked, considering for the first time how disconcerting it must have been for the diminutive goblin to be constantly surrounded by taller people.
There’s a concept in furry communities called “furgonomics,” which is literally how do people with extremely variable body plans fit into your world. In the human world, we have an average adult height distribution of about a foot, and about two feet in extreme cases, assuming a range of four and a half to six and a half feet for adults. That means you can build adult spaces on a relatively narrow scale. What happens when you add in kithkin, goblins, or halflings? Goliaths, loxodon, or firbolgs? And that doesn’t even go into people like Abigale, who have wings. I spend way too much time on furgonomic design.
“Oh, I don’t live here,” said Brigid. “I make the locals a bit nervous, what with my connection to the thoughtweft all mangled up and half-severed. They don’t like it when I stay for too long.”
Brigid is very casual about this, but it’s a major issue for her. Her connection to the thoughtweft was damaged during the original Lorwyn block, and it’s not something that heals over time. She isn’t an outcast, but the other kithkin don’t like to have her around for long periods. And that makes them feel bad, which makes her feel bad, and really, she’s happier just staying away.
“There was a little buzzing thing in the woods where we come from and it was flying around and so we chased it and then there was this big hole and we fell down the big hole and landed in the middle of this big meadow and there were spirals everywhere, which was really, really cool only when the landscape starts making symbols everywhere sometimes that means evil robots will come out of rifts in the sky and kill your friends,” said Sanar without pausing to take a breath.
Brigid looked at him blankly.
Air is for people who don’t have as much to say as Sanar does. And he is not happy with the spirals everywhere. Poor kid is half-expecting evil robots to come crashing in at any moment.
“What did this creature look like?” asked Brigid.
“It was small and humanoid, with hard-looking blueish-gray skin and a tunic made of flower petals,” said Kirol.
It had wings like a beetle, signed Abigale.
Brigid frowned but didn’t comment again on the telepathic contact. “That sounds like a faerie,” she said. Then she brightened. “Fortunately for the lot of you, I’m sort of a close friend of their queen.”
Brigid, naturally, recognizes the description of a Lorwyn faerie without much trouble. She’s also a good friend of Maralen’s, again, thanks to the original Lorwyn block. Wow did I spend a lot of time cross-checking the original Lorwyn block to write this set story.
“Her name is Maralen, and she’s queen of the faeries of both Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, not only on one side or the other. If I send her a message, she can tell us why one of her faeries was at your school. And then maybe we can find out why it led you to the hole, and how we can get you back where you belong.”
Brigid is acting under the assumption that the faerie was acting under Maralen’s orders for some reason. Not a bad assumption. Not an accurate one, but not bad, either.
“That would be wonderful,” said Tam.
“Can faeries talk?” asked Sanar.
“Yes, of course,” said Brigid.
“Why don’t we ask the faerie, then?”
“What?” asked Brigid.
“What?” asked the others in unison.
Sanar is intentionally written as behaving like a person with ADHD. (I have ADHD.) He pays attention to his surroundings even when he should be paying attention to something else, and small creatures will almost always catch his attention, even when everyone else has yet to notice them.
In the meadow outside the city walls, Isilu was walking. The great beast took long, intentional steps, legs moving with an elegant grace which would have been easier to appreciate if not for the darkness that poured off of it in never-ending waves. Where the darkness fell, the night descended. The students rushed to the window to join her and watched as the sudden night began to overtake the city.
This does not seem like a good thing.
Everywhere the darkness touched, the city was transformed. The wall grew higher, topped with long spikes pointing both inward and outward. The ladders vanished, making the territory impassable. The buildings nearest the wall remained the same shape but sprouted spikes and bars along their windows, the spirals worked into their architecture growing more tangled and defensive. Even the doors grew narrower, making it easier to shut them against the world.
Like I said before, the architecture is important. The kithkin of Shadowmoor have just as much right to be comfortable in their homes as the kithkin of Lorwyn do, and they are a lot less open, welcoming, and inviting when it comes to outsiders. Really, they don’t like guests.
“Shadowmoor,” said Brigid, tone cold. “The night side of the plane. It’s not supposed to be here. The sun sets, the moon rises, the dark reveals what day disguises. But not here. Goldmeadow has been on the Lorwyn side of the border for years. A shift like this is unheard of. There are nomads inside the city walls.”
“The dark reveals what day disguises” is one of our throughlines, and this tells us a lot more about how the plane has adjusted to the fall of the Great Aurora. They have night zones and day zones now, places that don’t change. Since memory isn’t contiguous across the planar borders, it’s important that people be able to choose where they live.
“Who you are at night and who you are in the day are two different people,” said Brigid almost desperately. “I have to help the city. The locals welcome the nomads in the day, but Shadowmoor locals aren’t nearly so friendly. You’ll need to locate Maralen on your own.”
Kithkin nomads aren’t part of the community. They’re in danger from the residents of the city if they get caught out during a Shadowmoor expansion–and the residents of the city are in danger from them.
“What,” said Tam. It wasn’t actually a question. She pronounced the word like a small, hard stone, throwing it into the well that had suddenly opened between them.
Tam gives me so many opportunities to use stone metaphors.
“The night’s spreading when it’s not supposed to be,” said Brigid, grabbing her bow. “Lorwyn and Shadowmoor both exist, side by side, always, but they don’t overtake each other without warning. The borders respect the lives people have chosen, and they have since we broke the aurora. I wish I could stay with you. I promised I’d stay with you. But you have to go.”
They found an equilibrium, and now it’s breaking down.
Where can we find this “Maralen”? We’re strangers in this land. We don’t know where we’re going.
Abigale is being a lot less careful about the thoughtweft given the whole “we could die” aspect of the situation.
Brigid started for the door, tightening the string on her bow as she walked. Someone outside the meeting room screamed. “Maralen lives in Glen Elendra. It’s meant to be impossible for outsiders to find. When you leave here, go dead east until you reach the Wanderwine River. Cross the river and walk until you see a great wood, with boughs like woven branches. That is the Gilt-Leaf Wood. Cut through the edges until you find a tributary that flows to the Wanderwine, then follow it back to the waterfall. Beyond and behind the waterfall, you’ll find another stream. Follow this one to its source, and you’ll come to Glen Elendra. Maralen is there, in the twilight palace.”
Oh, gosh, did I have to go back and forth on these directions. The geography of planes isn’t generally nailed down enough to allow for narrow, specific instructions, but in this case, it had to be. Maps were drawn. Dry-erase markers were thrown across the room. Chaos!
The students stared at her as Brigid turned toward the door and said, “When I step through this door, you run, you understand me? Run for where the darkness ends, and do not look back, no matter what you hear. The person who begs you to turn around—that person isn’t me.”
She opened the door and rushed outside, bow raised.
Brigid is doing something truly heroic here, even if the Strixhaven students will never fully understand that.
The students followed her, moving as quickly as they could. Abigale caught Sanar by the forearms and, upon his nod, threw them both into the sky, while Kirol and Tam ran along the street, which was half sunlight and half shadow, impossible, impassable.
Sanar is small enough that Abigale can carry him and still fly. Kirol, on the other hand, is a beefy buddy, and would weigh them both down. Tam is somewhere in the middle–Abigale could probably do it, but might hurt herself in the process.
Everywhere they looked, stout humanoids fought. Those who stood their ground in sunlight and those who stood their ground in shadow were virtually indistinguishable. As Tam looked, she saw that those who attacked from the dark were hunched forward, not out of physical need, but from apparent suspicion for everything around them. Some of those humanoids spotted the students and barked commands to attack, throwing rocks and releasing arrows. None of them stepped into the sun. Their eyes glowed yellow like those of a hunting cat, no pupils, no whites.
The transition from Lorwyn to Shadowmoor comes with physical changes. They’re minor for the kithkin. The elves and merfolk get it a little harder.
Once they were solidly behind her, they reached out and grabbed her shoulders, pulling her into the darkness. She struggled and wailed, then stilled, and when she opened her eyes again, they were full moon-bright, filled with a light that had nothing to do with the day.
The eyes are the easiest difference to see between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor kithkin. That, and the Lorwyn kithkin is baking you a pie while the Shadowmoor kithkin threatens to stab you.
“Again,” said Tam.
Obligingly, Abigale began signing. The figures in the dark didn’t seem to be evil so much as they seemed scared, like pests that think they’ve been cornered by some larger predator. They were attacking to protect themselves. I’m almost sure of it. Brigid was a threat, and so they stopped her.
Abigale is taking a very even-handed view of Shadowmoor for someone who’s just encountered it for the first time. Nice job, Abigale!
“And when they pulled her into their shadows, she became who she is at night,” said Tam. “Scared, like them. So she started fighting on their side.”
Yes, signed Abigale. I don’t think the night is bad here, just different, and the people on the night side don’t always want the same things they wanted in the day.
This was another seemingly inconsequential but very important exchange. It can be easy to look at Lorwyn-Shadowmoor and go “good plane, evil plane.” But the day isn’t good, and the night isn’t evil. They’re both mixed bags, and have their own traditions and basic desires. Lorwyn elves are, largely, assholes.
“I want to go home,” said Sanar. “I want to finish my term project. This place makes me want to do homework, and I hate it.”
I get you, Sanar.
“Brigid told us which way to go while she was in the daylight; we’ll get to this Maralen she talked about, and Maralen will be able to send us back to Strixhaven,” said Tam. “I’m sure of it.”
Tam is having a lot of faith here. Tam is also near the end of her rope.
Sanar craned his neck, looking toward the horizon. “Are we going the right way?” he asked.
“Due east,” said Tam, tone implacable. “Don’t you know how to tell the direction?”
“Never needed to,” he said. “Goblins don’t count on directions, as long as we know the way we’re going is the right one.”
Warring personal philosophies can sneak up and surprise us sometimes.
They stopped when they reached the water’s edge, staring out across the widest river they had ever seen. Fish danced at the surface, scales flashing in the sun, and the water itself was fast, clear, and obviously deep.
It has to be deep. This is where the freshwater merfolk live.
Abigale lifted her ear tufts in amusement, signing, You were the one who told me to fly. She moved to stand behind Kirol. Do you mind?
“No,” they said after momentarily absorbing the offer. They spread their arms, and Abigale grasped them, taking to the air.
As noted before, Kirol is pretty heavy compared to what Abigale would normally try to carry. But the Wanderwine is only about forty feet across, and she doesn’t have to go very high, so it’s within her capabilities to at least try.
“Some really powerful vampires can fly, and my mother says maybe someday I can, too, but my dad says no one in our family has ever had that power, so I don’t know which of them is right,” they said, keeping their arms spread to fully enjoy the feeling of flight. “I really hope it’s Mom. Flying is awesome.”
Kirol is a vampire from a family of vampires. On Arcavios, vampirism is a species, not a curse.
She jumped back into the air and flew back to the others, leaving Kirol alone. They looked around thoughtfully. It was obvious that this side of the river played host to a large forest somewhere nearby: Kirol was in the Introduction to Magibotanical Environments, not due to a secret interest in Witherbloom but due to a not-at-all-secret interest in everything an environment could tell you about what was nearby. The grass on this side of the river was coarser, and the flowers had the flat, smooth leaves they associated with growing in shade. It was still a beautiful environment. It just spoke to more nearby trees than the ones that stood outside Goldmeadow.
Kirol is on a Lorehold study track, and Lorehold includes archeology and geology as well as history. Kirol wants to know everything about the environments they study. They’ll make an amazing paleontologist someday.
The walk to the wood took the better part of an hour, during which time the sun overhead moved not an inch. Days were apparently longer here, when Isilu didn’t walk the land. As they had left the spirit of night on the other side of the river, it wasn’t threatening them here.
When you’re on the Lorwyn side, the length of the days is “yes.”
Kirol had been the fastest of them in the beginning, and so it wasn’t much of a surprise when they began to lag. Sanar walked loudly, distracting Tam, and Abigale heard nothing that wasn’t speech. It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise when a silent hunter rose out of the bushes behind Kirol and grabbed them, pulling them out of sight before they could make a sound.
Kirol got tired and fell behind the group. That makes you vulnerable to larger predators. But again, we’re pointing out the limits of Abigale’s hearing aid to make sure it doesn’t cross the line into “magical cure,” since that was never the intent behind giving her a way to communicate with the rest of the group.
Joke’s on you, they thought, as they struggled silently. Vampires had to breathe, but not as often as humans or elves. They could choke them for long as they wanted.
This is one of the few places were pronouns get a little confusing. “They–their captor–could choke them–Kirol–for as long as they–captor–wanted.” This will get easier when we know who the captor is.
After they’d been dragged some distance, the arm around their neck withdrew, replaced by the sharp edge of a knife pressed hard against the soft spot where their jaw met their throat. A pleasant, almost friendly voice said, “Struggle or scream, and we’ll see how well your blood can water the flowers here, outsider. Do you understand me?”
Vampires don’t breathe much–SCUBA vampires, coming soon to a Duskmourn cineplex near you–but they can still bleed out, and Kirol would really prefer to keep their blood on the inside.
“Not wanting to slit my own throat, I’m not sure how much I can,” said Kirol. “What do you want from me? I haven’t got any dragons on me. No snarls or pests either.”
“Dragons” are a unit of currency. “Snarls” and “pests” are both objects that someone on Arcavios might be willing to mug someone over.
The knife withdrew, and its wielder stepped around Kirol into view. It was an elf in hunter’s leathers, green and brown and sturdy. He wore no shoes and, in fact, had no feet; instead, dainty hooves pressed against the loam. More confusing were his horns, long and curved and growing from his temples. He looked at Kirol as if they were the strange one, not him, and perhaps here, that was so.
An elf with cervine aspects is odd enough from Kirol’s perspective to be notable. Really, we should have taken a little longer before they figured out what their captor was. My bad.
“Well, first, my name is Kirol, and I know my friends are going to be worried about me.”
The elf blinked. “What?”
“You said you wanted to know what I know, and those are the most important things I know. Can you tell me your name?”
Kirol is being a smart-ass, but they’re not wrong.
“Lluwen,” said the elf, “and I know nothing of your friends. You were just the first to fall enough behind that I could catch you.”
Hello, Lulu.
“No,” snapped Lluwen, drawing the spear that was strapped across his back and aiming it at Kirol. “You come with me. High Perfect Morcant will want to see you. You’re my prisoner now, and that means you have to do as I say.”
“Is that what it means?” asked Kirol. “I don’t think the rules are that clear-cut.”
Kirol, sweetie, maybe now is when we stop with the smart-ass.
“I’ll come. I’ll come,” they said. “But you’re making a mistake, Lluwen. I’m not a good prisoner.”
“Some people say I’m not a very good hunter, so I guess mistakes are to be expected,” said Lluwen. He prodded Kirol again. “Get moving.”
I mean, fair.
They had to.
The forest seemed to swallow Kirol and Lluwen as they walked, leaving no sign of them behind.
Again, this group was not BFFs before the omenpath. Kirol is being a little optimistic about when their absence will be noticed. But they’ve just been taken prisoner on a strange plane, and I think they’re allowed to be hopeful. Poor kid.
See you tomorrow!
