Chapter Text
Once, the plane of Alara was split into five demiplanes that each lacked two of the five colors of mana. Without white or blue mana, Jund became a harsh volcanic jungle ruled over by voracious dragons. It is no less dangerous as a region in a unified Alara, but the nomadic clans who call it home wouldn't have it any other way.
Akko was on the hunt.
Her clan had made their fires for the night, watching the sky for dragons, the ground for venomous bugs, and the teeming jungle for anything in between. It had been a long, brutal day – they all were – but Akko was still restless. She didn’t have to ask before grabbing her spear and setting out for a late-night snack.
She stalked through the brush with the tense, quivering caution of a mouse, wide red eyes leaping to every sound. Akko was small and skinny, but even the mightiest warriors of her clan were tiny before the jungle’s predators. They could only be swift, silent, and above all, alert.
So, of course, she immediately found a distraction. A cocoon dangled on a low branch ahead, stirring as a sleek lizard crept along towards it. Akko’s breath caught when the lizard’s tongue tapped at the cocoon, but the vividly red moth was already unfurling its wings to glide away. She let her breath out and smiled, then spear thudded into wood as the lizard scurried back to cover.
Still a successful hunt. She’d missed the lizard, but she’d caught a story.
Holding these little moments felt like gathering up nuts and berries as a side for the clan’s next meal or knapping a good axe. They were important, somehow, these sparkling bits that filled her head and kept her company through the tense nights and harsh days. Useless, but pretty.
And maybe that was her! But she didn’t believe it. The stories had a purpose. She wanted to explain her world, even though any Jundite would already know. There was a part of her that didn’t belong to Jund – or maybe she was a bit of Jund that belonged to something else? Sometimes, her thoughts felt too big for her head.
In fact, her head was so thoroughly clogged that she almost blundered into the last story of her life.
Akko had come to the Worldheart Chalice, a valley with no canopy, letting a few dim stars peek through the volcanic smog. In the evenings, thick, cool mist would roll down its walls, letting an odd little ecosystem spring up under its cover.
Akko felt drawn to the Chalice whenever her clan was near, despite the danger from flying dragons. It felt like home, somehow, and the fat weasels that lived there were tasty. Easy hunting, too, complacent in their cloak of mist. Tonight, she took a single confident step into the open, then squeaked and darted back into cover.
Two bands of hunters faced off in the knee-deep mist. One was a thrash of burly viashino, crocodile people native to Jund. They hunted in the deepest valleys, far from the dragons’ sight, and killed anyone they caught intruding. The intruders this time were a pride of leonin – towering cat people from far-off Naya, muscular bodies striped in bold patterns and swathed in wildly-colored wraps.
The bands spread out and chose opponents as their leaders bellowed and postured. Could they even understand each other? It didn’t matter. The viashino wanted bloodshed, and the leonin, their lordly egos stung, were glad to oblige.
Akko didn’t want to see what was coming, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. This was a story, too.
And she never could have called how it ended.
It started with a dart of violet light out of nowhere, striking down between the leaders. They dodged back as it flared and swirled, first a torch, then a purple cyclone, and finally congealed into a human shape. With an almost comical pop, the light vanished to reveal a woman in a long white cloak. She confidently turned and spread her arms wide.
“Hello, everyone!” she called. Beneath the cloak, her outfit was form-fitting white, with bright red slashes to make her motions visible at a distance. Akko didn’t know what a stage performer was, but she caught on to the idea quickly. “Welcome to the show!”
“Shiny…” Akko murmured, transfixed.
Like magic, great stone walls rumbled up out of the mist between the two bands, with only a narrow gap for Shiny to stand. No, it was magic! It could only be!
And who dressed like that? Not even the rare traders visiting from Bant, bartering metal axes and strong nets, were so flamboyant! Akko should have found that getup ridiculous, but she just couldn’t – what else should an impossible woman wear?
“There’s lots of room for both of you to hunt, so why not—HA!”
The leonin chief had lunged, but she smoothly stepped from the arc of his axe, then spun to the side as the viashino alpha thrust with his spear. The leaders glanced at each other and then focused on her, spreading to either side. The alpha snarled a command to his pack, and the leonin warriors drew back to watch their chief, letting him have this fight. Shiny’s back was pressed to her own wall, and her foes were closing in.
“Oh no!” Akko whispered.
And then Shiny sank into the wall. Before either band could react, it collapsed into fog and rolled over them in a wave.
“I tried asking nicely!” The cry came from deep in the valley, and Akko could just make out Shiny’s far-off silhouette, wreathed in a strange violet flicker. (Later, she would wonder if the woman had ever truly stood between them.) Shiny drew back a great bow, violet light flaring with its tension.
The blazing arrow drove a furrow through the mist, the edges cresting like waves and then growing into monstrous figures. Some were familiar – a rockslide elemental, a leaping thrinax, a great, thrashing wurm – but most were like nothing she’d ever seen before.
Akko didn’t scream – even so young, she had a hunter’s discipline. She dropped to the ground and watched through her fingers as the nightmare menagerie raced out through the mist. Warriors bellowed and swung, finding only air. When the creatures struck back, purple flashes and cries of pain followed. With each flash, a monster puffed back into mist, but Akko could only see it happening from outside of the chaos.
The leonin had vanished into the fog, and the viashino beat an orderly retreat past Akko. She didn’t love them – no Jundite who lived under their scaly thumbs could – but she admired the way they fell back in waves, with each retreating warrior covered by at least two standing firm, trading off meter by meter. (The image would return again and again, another of the gems rattling in her skull. Maybe it would be useful someday…)
Shiny was left standing alone in placid, knee-deep mist, fists on her hips, looking around in satisfaction. Nothing remained of her army. If Akko were smart, she would have slipped away before this strange person noticed her.
“That was amazing!” she cried, leaping from cover.
Shiny drew reflexively, aiming a cyclone of violet fire right into Akko’s face. She grinned back, unfazed. To a Jundite, terror and wonder were the same thing.
“A kid,” Shiny said blankly, lowering her bow and slowly releasing its tension. As she did, the light faded and flickered out. “Um, are you lost?”
“Nope! But how did you do that? I saw the whole thing! It was thrilling! My heart was pounding!”
Akko didn’t realize it at the time, but this was the first time she’d seen a show. She’d come in with a head full of gems, but now her heart was full, too. Suddenly, she knew what to do with all those sparkling images, and it was a drive she’d never lose.
“Oh, that,” Shiny said, embarrassed. “Just a little mistmancy. Illusion magic. None of the monsters were real – the wall wasn’t, either. It’s startling when you’ve never seen it before, isn’t it?” She offered her hand. “I’m Chariot, by the way. Pleased to meet you.”
Akko had also never seen a handshake before, so she just clasped the hand with feeling. “I’m Akko! Can I learn to do that?”
“You’d need a teacher,” Chariot replied, retrieving her hand and discretely wringing it. “And I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to stay long. I just needed those guys out of the valley so I could…” she glanced up uneasily. Something rippled in the air over the Worldheart Chalice for just a split second, reflecting the mist below before wafting apart. “…ah, check on something. Will you be able to get back to your clan alone?”
Akko considered lying to hold on to this fascinating stranger longer, but her pride won out. “No problem! But… wait, if the monsters you made were fake, how were they actually hurting those guys?”
Chariot hefted her bow between them. “A friend made this for me. It gives my illusions teeth.”
“Wow…” Akko looked it up and down with wide eyes. “How did they make it?”
“Why, you want one?” Chariot laughed warmly and the bow vanished with a whirl of her arm. “I’m afraid Croix doesn’t do commissions. Honestly, it’s best if you just forget about seeing me, okay?”
“I could never!” Akko cried. “I wanna do stuff like that, too!” She wasn’t sure if she meant the magic, or the showmanship, or breaking up a potential bloodbath with no casualties. It was all true.
“Like this?” Chariot looked around the battlefield uneasily, then snapped her fingers. “Well—you don’t need magic to inspire people, right? You just have to believe in them… and, I guess, be ready for when they don’t live up to it. You can put on a show without magic. Maybe a believing heart can be your magic?”
Akko stared with starry eyes, then burst out laughing.
“Okay, sure,” Chariot sighed. “I’m serious, though. Just believe in yourself, first, and everything that can follow, will. And don’t go jumping in between armies! That was very stupid of me!”
“Right!” Akko said. She would absolutely jump in between a couple of armies if it gave her a chance to put on a show like that. “No armies, I promise!”
“Alright, then. Good luck, Akko!”
Chariot became a dart of light streaking skyward, piercing the nebulous thing above and vanishing into the distance within it.
Akko reached after the fading purple star and closed her fist with a determined smile.
Next Time:
