A Magic: The Gathering TF Story

(Woman to Squirrel)




“Together. We can do this together.” The words rang hollow to Liliana even as she spoke them, but the necromancer continued nonetheless.

Gideon didn’t reply, too shell-shocked to come to words. Chandra was already long-gone, having departed for some pyromantic mentor of hers. Nissa was the only one to give voice to a response, and it was singularly unexpected from the typically emotionless elf.

“No.” It was a simple response, and all the more powerful for it.

“No?” Liliana had to repeat it, she was so stunned. The woman had lived for centuries, and yet her vast experience wasn’t ready for this, for a complete loss of hope. “I’m hardly the sort to motivate you lot, but you need to realize. With me, with the Chain Veil, we can defeat Bolas.”

“Then why didn’t you use it on Amonkhet?” Gideon spoke at length, and Liliana’s heart actually ached at the pitiable look in his eyes. He looked like a lost puppy without his sural, the weapon now long-lost to their archnemesis.

“It’s… It’s complicated. My soul is contracted to demons-was contracted to demons. But one remains, and if we can slay him, then we can use my power to its fullest.” Liliana stroked the cursed veil at her side, sparing it an idle, uneasy glance.

She could feel its power thrumming to the beat of her heart, a constant reminder that she was damned. Yet the woman didn’t let down, she knew how important this was for the fate of the Multiverse. “Please, I know you don’t trust me. You need to trust me now. I can’t explain it better than that, not with so little time.”

“No.” Again, the elf spoke quietly, and this time her eyes burned blue, fueled by loss. Nissa’s time on Amonkhet had changed her, and Liliana could see she’d need to work hard to get through to the pointy-eared woman.

“On Zendikar, you destroyed titans. On Innistrad, we bound their greatest monstrosity to the plane’s moon. You’ve made the impossible a possibility twice, and I’ve helped that once. Let me help again, let” Liliana began.

“No.” Nissa’s eyes burned brighter, a scowl curling her upper lip. “Zendikar died through my actions. Innistrad has suffered as well, at my hands. Amonkhet… The plane might have been dead before we arrived, but its people were alive until we meddled. No. I have seen too many planes die, and I will not add more blood to my hands. No.”

“You’re awfully fond of that word, to the point where nothing else can seem to get through those pointed ears.” Liliana began to lose her temper. It wasn’t like her to do so, but it also wasn’t like the elf to simply surrender.

“And you are awfully fond of hopeless rhetoric. We cannot win. I am returning to Zendikar to rebuild. The spirit of the world calls to me even now, and I can genuinely help the people we’ve injured.” Nissa spoke adamantly, though her gaze faltered slightly. “But… Good luck.”

The elf turned to leave, only for a scorching wind of death to come from behind her. It wilted the grass in a ring around her delicate feet, and she turned towards Liliana. In that moment, Liliana knew she’d made a mistake. The elf’s face was twisted into an emotion that Liliana had never seen on her visage: rage.

“I will make you come with me, whether I need convince you or drag you by those ears of yours.” Liliana put on a brave face, but in truth she was worried. Liliana was spent from their recent battle, and though Nissa was as exhausted, the elf could pull energy from the plane itself.

“No.” Nissa growled, verdant force flowing from her body. Mana began to visibly coalesce around her form, restoring the grass that Liliana had wilted and causing a wealth of vines to sprout from the loamy soil.

The earth split as trees blossomed into existence, vast oaks born from Nissa’s imagination. Gideon had enough time to yelp before he was separated from the women by a ring of bark and leaf, and Liliana had enough time to spit an oath.

“I refuse to show this aspect of myself to my friends, but you are no friend of mine.” Nissa growled. “You dare to tell me what to do, you dare to allow others to suffer in hopes you can achieve the impossible? I am truly enraged, and I will suffer no more of those barbs and jabs of yours.”

Liliana’s hand flew to the Chain Veil, only to meet bark. She looked down and glowered at a vine wrapped about her waist, one that had lifted her artifact from her body. Then she met Nissa’s eyes. “Stop this. Return the Veil. I don’t want to have to hurt you.” They were the only things that came to her mind, and they sounded hollow even to her own ears.

“You won’t.” Nissa simply replied, then unleashed a wave of arcane energy onto Liliana’s body.

The dark-haired necromancer gasped as the wind was driven from her chest, then she fell to the ground. The torrent of green mana felt much as she imagined a killing wave of her own black mana would feel, only instead of death she was left with a feeling of growth.

Her body tingled from head to toe, and she itched at herself, eyes widening as she saw dark brown fur begin to sprout from her clean-shaven alabaster skin. Liliana’s heart pounded in her chest, and she gasped.

Opening her mouth allowed her front teeth room to grow, and they began to stretch further and further away from the top of her jaw with every passing second. She played her tongue along them, shuddering as she felt how large her incisors had become.

“What are you doing to me?” She squeaked, her throat hoarse. Her back, hips, and shoulders all wrenched at the same time, and Liliana’s attempt to rise to her feet was met with failure. She was locked on all fours, and watched as her arms and legs began to swell, losing their feminine allure.

Nissa didn’t reply, eyes cold. Instead, the elf wove a symbol in the air, and an azure light enveloped Liliana. The green mana had felt like falling through an infinite number of thorns. This new blue mana felt like she was being wrapped in an ever-shrinking body of water.

A loud squeak slipped from Liliana’s lips as she began to dwindle in her clothing, diminishing in height more and more with every passing second. She whimpered plaintively, arching her back more, lifting her shrinking backside in the air as a long, furred tail sprouted from her.

“I c-c-can feel it in my chik-mind…” Liliana’s voice hitched, and she scrabbled at her head with hands that now resembled paws. A clenching wave of dread flooded herself, and she looked up to Nissa helplessly. “What-chik-chik doing?”

She was getting dumber, a stupefying effect having been woven into the spell. Liliana knew that much, as surely as she knew that she no longer had the means to recall an appropriate counterspell. The woman shivered, feeling more and more of her centuries of intellect dripping from her perking ears.

Her hair fell from her head as her face began to extend into a muzzle, a slow change that she could hear in her skull, the sound of bone on bone grating deep within her inner ears. Tears dewed at her darkening eyes as her tiara finally slipped from her head, letting her catch her diminutive reflection in its polished surface.

She looked like a common squirrel now, a furred tree rat. It was a realization that crushed her heart, and Liliana let out a chittering sob. “Chirrirrrurr! P-chik-please! Nirrirr a squirrrirrurrrchik-chik!” Her words were lost to a babbling chatter as she lost the ability to speak English, though she could still comprehend it.

“There it is. That despair you feel now? I have felt it every night since unleashing the Eldrazi onto my home. We slew them, but at an irreconcilable cost. We banished another, but again, the price was too great. Feel that despair, understand it, and in your parting moments try to understand my reasoning behind doing this.” Nissa spoke quietly, but firmly.

Liliana’s response was a babbling, mad squeak. She scrabbled for the Chain Veil, but her rodent’s body was no longer able to bear its power, her diminished mind was no longer able to recall its secrets. She scrabbled at the shiny object, dreading the fact that she no longer recalled whether she was doing so to restore herself or because she was reaching for something that glinted in the light.

Then she realized the full implications of Nissa saying the words ‘parting moments’. The squirrel looked up, watching as Nissa vanished. Her old mind would have known it to be planeswalking. Her new mind simply saw it as a frightening flash, and one that required she seek shelter.

By the time the squirrel came to her senses, she was halfway up a tree. Her tiny heart beat faster and faster as she realized she couldn’t remember her name, much less the purpose of having one. Desperately, she chittered and chattered, the last of her mind forever fading.

Slowly, her squirrel chatter drawled to a quiet, consistent set of ‘chik’s. She needed to nest. Needed to mate. Needed to forage. She had no wants, no dreams, no concerns. Her mind was just that of an animal’s, driven by impulse, instinct, and animal urges.

The squirrel darted deeper into the newly-made forest, her nose picking up the scent of other squirrels. They weren’t here though, she’d need to leave, need to hurry-scurry far away.

She darted past a human who struggled to reach the section of forest where she’d once been, not even sparing the man a second glance, not recognizing him as the only person on this plane that could recognize the squirrel as ever having been a necromancer named Liliana.

She was a squirrel now, and would find a mate, build a home with him together. She needed company, needed a male squirrel-and she would find one.