#editing to bump this in the queue bc with what's in there this wouldn't have come out til september

[redhandedsuggestions]

Everything but her heart aches.

It is a sweet and fierce kind of satisfaction, the aftermath of long battle. Limbs shaking from adrenaline and exertion all at once, her brain and body still both wired from hours of fighting and unable to let go of the rush quite yet. The thick, sticky scent of blood all around her only serves to intensify it, vampire instincts driven into frenzied energy.

An entire clan obliterated. The Reveler wasn't joking when he said they would submit or fall. If any of Burning-Tree survive, it will not be enough of them to constitute a clan any longer. Most likely they'll try to find each other, try to hold onto their identity and pride, but this is not the first time a clan has risen and fallen. The survivors will either perish in time or be absorbed into the other clans.

A Gruul with no clan never lasts long.

The new Guildmaster’s mana still burns brightly, and she turns to congratulate him when she senses his approach, her teeth still bared as the Rage and battlefire slowly fade away.

The axe is already falling toward her by the time her exhausted brain registers the attack.

And for once in her life, she won't be able to dodge it.

Time slows to a crawl.

Something bursts at that moment-- perhaps it is her pride, her trust, her confidence in herself. Perhaps it is the bubble she so valiantly tried to reinforce around her anxieties. She always knew the Reveler would betray her, but damn it, she had almost fooled herself into thinking she had finally proven herself to him. A worthy ally, a tolerable presence, even if they grated on each other far too much to ever be friends.

But the pressure feels different, not the anger and fear she should be feeling, not the righteous fury at being ambushed like some haughty Legionnaire. This does not rise from that place deep within her where Tavrik taught her to rein in her wild emotions. It does not boil up as anger does, nor burn through her as hate, nor freeze her limbs as terror engulfs her.

Instead, she feels a unique and unsettling clarity as the vampire under her skin opens its eyes.

As time breaks free of its standstill, as the axe meets the crown of her head, she closes her eyes.

And awakens.

--------

Ravnica feels a specific way to her. It always has, even with the differences between the City and the Wastes, the wilds and the metropolis. The energy of an Izzet lab crackles and sparks along her senses, but still it complements the hum of the earth's own mana, pulsing beneath all their feet. Azorian mana seeks to exert its will over everything, but even they cannot quiet the planet's beating heart.

Death, too, has its own unique energy, something she has always been able to sense and yet never put into words when asked. She could always tell before Rath and even Tavrik when a field of corpses was still alive, was merely a trap set for opportunistic looters who would find such a place as easy pickings. Even in slumber, when her subconscious runs rampant with her imagination, she can tell the difference between life and death. After all, it is life she feeds on.

So before her eyes even open, she innately knows two things.

One, she is still alive.

Two, she is no longer on Ravnica.

This world feels wilder, darker. There is a feral quality to everything she senses, even the ferns surrounding her. The earth's heartbeat feels more like a roar beneath her hands, and the air tastes heavier, fuller, like Ravnica might have been in its youth before the city began to spread. Her mouth waters as her fingertips dig into the rich soil beneath her palms, as she feels that pulse pull her deeper, as her own tries to align with it. The land, the trees, the underbrush-- if all of this feels so alive, what do the animals feel like? The people? A single feeding here might keep her sated for days!

But there are other concerns, things she should be focusing on if she wants to make it long enough to feed.

She's heard the word Planeswalker before, knows in theory what they can do, knows that the Reveler calls himself one, but knowing a word and understanding what it means are two different things. Sure, she could be told that there are other planes, other worlds, but the concept was so far outside of what she knew that she couldn't truly wrap her head around the idea.

As a chorus of howls rises in the distance, she starts to wonder if that lack of understanding may have put her in the way of harm.

More than that, she wonders if that harm will find her before she finds her way home.