Dense clouds rolled across a backdrop of lapis blue; like crimson smoke, they flowed from the chest of a carved knight, blown through an aphotic sky by the dying winds of his weary heart.

I didn't get to admire the sight for long.

"You're strong," the commander snarled, a hulking man in shimmering ebony armor patterned with wispy typhoons of cream and oxblood. The swirls bore an uncanny resemblance to the slain knight emptying himself into the silty shore. "But this is my home, and I'll not die here like some flame you'd snuff out with a shovel of dirt."

He peered at me through two clusters of holes in a solid iron headpiece, describable only as a perforated bucket, and grunted. The rest of his battalion had fallen to my sword, littering the wood-lined meadow like smashed tin cans. They'd made quite a morbid medium for my art, shades of death tainting the lush, fertile forest around us, painting fern and flower slick with a contrasting crimson. In the holy glow of spring's sun, amidst a field paint-brushed with trampled fuschia tulips and peonies that dribbled out of the treeline, the bloodied plants almost looked at home. Almost.

The mammoth of a man charged at me, and I backpedaled toward the lake's muddy shore while keeping my sword raised overhead. Anywhere but the forest--they are, after all, nothing more than a natural obstacle course.

His footwork was perfectly placed with excellent tempo; he had the speed of a fox despite swelling with brutish strength, bowing the boundaries of human limits as if they physically couldn't contain his mass. Each swing of his weapon left my own feeling heavier and heavier in hand, every metallic crack a seismic spasm that rung my soul like a church bell. I ducked and weaved through his razing, slowly backstepping to dodge; parrying had become too taxing on my aching palms. With each lurch forward, he churned huge piles of mud, flinging it around us. Though he was slowed, the length of his broadsword kept me from making a clean retreat.

Not only was I reduced to defense, but the stout cascade of steel he donned had virtually no openings, aside from under the armpits and a small gap beneath his helmet--one just big enough to slip a thin, thirsty blade into.

Another swing, another step, retreating further and further until I could avoid parrying no more and our swords locked with spark and screech. He grabbed me with a single hand that touched its fingers together at the nape of my neck, feet desperately reaching for the ground as I was lifted into the air. I must've looked to pedal myself airborne.

Perfect.

"A fire smothers even quicker under mud than dirt." I'd tried to put grit in my voice, delivering the line as though on stage, but the words and melodrama were choked.

With our weight combined, he sank past his ankles into the soft, dense mud that lined the lake's western shore. By the time he felt his predicament and dropped me, his boots had been swallowed by an insatiable coast. He yanked at them fruitlessly; an alligator has strength on the close, not open.

Unfortunately, he did not take time to muse on his misfortune as I'd hoped he would.

His sword slammed into mine with a heaving grunt and sent it flying further into the forest than reality should allow, nesting into the canopy with a grating buzz like a silver beetle. A pained screech and flurry of wings rang out, followed by a distant, wooden thunk. Before I could look back in disdain, his blade was thrusting straight at my heart. I ducked, twisting, and just barely managed to get low enough for it to deflect off my mail, then grabbed his wrists and pushed forward with all my weight to outstretch his arms.

I only had a second to think before he'd find a way to break free of me, but that was all I needed. A small dagger, its polished gold hilt adorned with rubies, was partially hidden at his hip under a small flap of fraying linen. I let go of his off-hand, dropped even lower and grabbed it, then released his sword hand and pushed forward. In a blur of motion, I jammed the dagger into the thin gap between his helmet and breastplate just as his massive python of a left arm snapped at me again.

A weary stumble backward was not enough to escape his wingspan, and with just his meaty index finger and thumb, he pinched my trachea. Those two iron sausages dug deep into the cavity behind my Adam's Apple, pinching off my airway as easily as a mother pinches her son's nose to dam a nosebleed. He made a grotesque gurgling sound at me, incomprehensible but brimming with venom nonetheless, as his own life's spirit entwined with the patterns decorating his breastplate.

Just as I prepared to see my own windpipe, his grip relaxed as he plummeted headfirst into the coast, sinking into it just a bit, and I was free again to breath ragged, choppy breaths. After a fit of coughing and rubbing at my throat, I looted his body, a vulture hungry for the treasure I could smell on him. Out of a compartment at his right hip, I pulled out a golden scroll with reverence, cupping it in my hands and lightly brushing my thumbs across its complex network of embossed vines. It was the first one I'd ever stolen, and it was mesmerizing, glowing as though the sun itself had been laid out in my still aching palms. I knelt there for some time, drinking its glow, and aches melted to memory with each moment. Eventually, I found it within myself to forfeit worship and tuck it into a satchel at my hip.

My fugitive beetle-sword was stuck in a tree nearly twenty meters away, with traces of blood on and around it. Splintered branches and shredded leaves littered the area, but there were no signs of life--or death--anywhere. I yanked it out, apologized to anything I may have harmed in Dominaria Forest, and ran back to the lake's edge.

That was one hell of a fight, but now his castle is mine. It'll need a little. . . cleanup, to say the least, but I just know this place is where my soul will anchor.

A wellspring for my dreams.

As I approached the castle, stepping over bodies like they were nothing more than fallen branches after a storm, a light, playful voice caught me off-guard.

"Aww, I wanted to kill him."

I spun, reflexively unsheathing my sword to flare wary steel. A woman emerged from behind bark, crossing her arms and leaning lazily against the tree she'd been using for cover. Her weapon was unattended, dangling at her hip with a similar laxness as her.

"I was rooting for you to lose, but your fighting skills are impressive. You're not like the others I’ve run into around here," she continued, her gaze sharper than a blade fresh off the whetstone.

My lips twitched as a cool breeze slid through thick trees. "Yeah. You seem. . . different, somehow.

“You seem real."