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“I don’t know what to do for him, Vivien,” Jirina Kudro said with a sigh, gently swirling the coffee in her cup. “It seems like he wakes up screaming every night.”
“Lukka’s compleation was horrific. And his un-compleation, too. I can’t imagine Vadrok’s flames were especially gentle,” Vivien Reid remarked over her own cup of grass seed soup.
The planeswalker had stuck around Ikoria far longer than Jirina had expected, even after Lukka helped calm the monsters and get them out of the ruins of Drannith. Rebuilding was going a bit faster than Jirina had hoped. And her fiance – her wonderful, unbelievable, deeply hurt fiance – was in as poor a state as their city.
“We’re planeswalkers. He’ll recover,” Vivien said, sounding far more certain than Jirina felt. “After all, he has you.”
Jirina looked up at the planeswalking woman, who was instead staring out past the ruined walls and towards the crystalline wilds. Her free hand held her magical bow, with her thumb worrying the edges.
“Does that really make the difference...?” Jirina dared to ask.
“Every time.” Jirina could see Vivien go back and forth in her mind for a moment. “When my plane was destroyed, I had no one left. I was caught up in a bid for vengeance. If I still had someone after that, like Lukka has you and you have him, then I suppose I would have settled in to post-Bolas life a lot better.”
“I suppose that’s why you’re still here,” Jirina ventured.
“I owe Lukka. Were it not for me, he wouldn’t have been on New Phyrexia to begin with.” Vivien set down her coffee, still staring out towards the wilds.
“Well,” Jirina said, leaving her cup of coffee on the edge of the balcony and looping her arm through Vivien’s, “we’re both happy to have you here.”
Vivien finally looked at Jirina and smiled. Jirina returned the smile with ease.
---
Jirina’s break was spent with Lukka leaning against her, trying not to doze off as his bonding magic worked to get the stronger monsters to help haul building materials.
Jirina smiled a little and wrapped an arm around Lukka’s waist. “You alright, love?”
“Yep,” was his instant and obviously false answer. His eyes betrayed how exhausted he was. He still had lines up and down his body from where the metal was crudely grown from him. At least his hairline was growing back in.
“Want to head outside and watch?” Jirina offered. “Being closer may make using your magic easier.” She wasn’t sure about that, but Vivien had once mentioned something to that effect when talking about how she uses her Arkbow.
Lukka hesitated. Jirina couldn’t begin to imagine what he had gone through on New Phyrexia. What had happened that had twisted him into the monster that ruined his own city. But he relented. “Sure.”
The lack of resistance scared Jirina. Sure, they hadn’t butt heads in the past, but neither had Lukka been so quiet and...submissive. Malleable.
If Jirina ever saw another Phyrexian, she would make them pay for what they had done to Lukka.
---
“General Kudro!” a scout shouted, all but sprinting through the gates and into Drannith. Lukka flinched at Jirina’s new title, and Jirina carefully placed herself between the scout and her fiance. “I- I found some planeswalkers!”
“‘Planeswalker’ might be stretching it right now,” a woman muttered. Jirina looked past the scout and saw a woman with pointed ears and dark hair alongside a woman with bright red hair and a smile that lit up the plane.
The redhead grinned. “Hey there, are you in charge?”
“Chandra, the scout just called her ‘General Kudro’...” her pointed-eared companion began to admonish before she saw Lukka and trailed off. “...Lukka?”
“Nissa. Chandra.” Lukka was now at Jirina’s side, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I’m glad you two are okay.”
Chandra crossed the gap a lot faster than Jirina thought she would. She grinned and gently punched Lukka’s free arm. “Hey, you’re looking good, man! This your plane?”
Lukka smiled a bit. He nodded to Jirina. “I’d say it’s Jirina’s more than it is mine. But welcome to Drannith. Jirina, these two are Nissa Revane and Chandra Nalaar.”
Nissa hooked her arm in Chandra’s and smiled at Jirina. Jirina, to her own surprise, felt completely at ease. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Kudro.”
“Just ‘Jirina’ is fine. It’s nice to meet both of you as well. Coffee?” Jirina offered.
“Oh man, I’d love a cup of joe right about now!” Chandra laughed. She started walking, taking a surprised Nissa with her.
“What does a person named Joe have to do with coffee?” Jirina asked Lukka, keeping her voice at a whisper.
“I have no idea,” Lukka whispered back, deadpan. “I think we should catch up before she goes the wrong way.”
Jirina chuckled and kissed Lukka’s cheek, promptly flustering the man. “Well, come on then.”
---
It was strange, sitting with planeswalkers and former planeswalkers when you’ve barely been out of your city, much less off of your plane. Jirina and Lukka were sitting on what remained of a couch, with Lukka occasionally casting a distrusting look at the exposed wood off to his left. Chandra and Nissa were sharing a single-seater, with the elf sitting practically on her girlfriend’s lap. Vivien was leaning against the wall instead of sitting, which was Vivien’s natural state of being from what Jirina knew of her.
“And that’s how I lost my spark,” Nissa finished. “But we used one of those...Omenpaths to get here. They’re popping up all over the place now, so don’t be surprised if things from other planes slip through.”
“Then we’ll handle it like we handle everything else here: On a case-by-case basis with the safety of people in mind,” Jirina decided.
“Well said,” Lukka muttered to her, quiet enough that only she could hear.
Nissa smiled. “I believe that. Lukka, I’m surprised you didn’t mention this lovely lady before, she’s incredible.”
“In my defense,” Lukka began, holding up his hands in mock surrender, “I was fairly certain she was gonna kill me herself.”
“Which is part of the appeal,” Chandra added, nodding sagely.
“I mean...you’re not wrong,” Lukka admitted.
Jirina grew flustered, especially when she heard Vivien snickering. Was that also an agreement?
T he conversation took a few more turns after that, until night began to fall. Vivien excused herself and went to whatever nook or cranny she favored as a resting place that Jirina hadn’t found yet. Chandra and Nissa exchanged a short look, and Chandra excused herself to do something. Jirina got the feeling there was about to be a private conversation, so she began to stand too. Lukka’s hand on her arm – not harsh, not demanding, but pleading – made her pause.
“You don’t have to go,” he said, evidently trying to keep his voice soft.
“Are you sure?” she double-checked. Her gaze wandered to Nissa as well.
Both former planeswalkers nodded. She settled back down on the couch.
“I’m sorry,” Lukka began quietly. “I don’t know if they’d have gotten you if I wasn’t compleated too.”
“You were using the tools you had, including your magic. You couldn’t have expected the hulk to react like that.” Nissa sighed. “We were as careful as we could be. It just...wasn’t careful enough.”
“I still can’t believe they sent us in there with kids,” Lukka whispered. “That boy, Kaito, how old was he?”
“Twenty-five, if the Wanderer was telling me the truth. She’s around the same age.” Nissa was quiet for a moment. “Chandra’s the same age, I think.”
“Kids. All of them.” Lukka gestured around him to mean Drannith. “They’re not even old enough to be enlisted into Drannith’s defenses. They’d still be going through academy and basic training, only pulled into a fight in times of...desperation... Which this was...”
The two went quiet again. Jirina’s hand found Lukka’s. She gave it a gentle squeeze. He returned the gesture, but gentler, as if worried that he’d hurt her.
“The Tangle was beautiful, in a way, wasn’t it?” Nissa softly asked.
“...Yeah. Yeah, it was.” Lukka chuckled quietly. “Maybe I should lead you to the Ketria triome. You might feel right at home there.”
“If your partner has no problems with it. I know your ability to lead the beasts here is important to your city’s reconstruction efforts.”
“We can manage,” Jirina said carefully. “We appreciate the help of the monsters, but Lukka’s got a point. You two – and even Vivien – are guests to our plane. And if he believes it can help you all in any way, I think you should go. Our plane is...quite beautiful, when things aren’t trying to bite your head off. Though some monsters manage to be both at once.”
Lukka glanced at her, surprised . She met his gaze and smiled . He smiled back.
---
Lukka returned to Drannith in four days’ time. Jirina and Vivien were waiting for him, welcoming him back into the city. Jirina’s heart soared when she realized Lukka had regained some pep in his step (to quote Vivien). Rebuilding continued for weeks, but by the time two months had passed since the invasion, Drannith could be fully lived in and protected again.
Jirina stood on the balcony of the spire, staring down at the city. Lukka stood to her left, and Vivien was on her right. It felt...natural. Perfect, even, having them both with her.
She smiled. “We did it.” Survived. Rebuilt. And were working through recovery.
Lukka was smiling too. “We sure did.” His hand slipped into hers.
After a moment, Vivien took her other hand. Jirina gently squeezed it.
They’d make it. The three of them, together.