Sigarda's Solar, Kessig, Innistrad

[deathsmajesty]

A storm is coming, Sigarda thought. Lightning flashed in the dark gray sky, but no thunder ever came. It was unusual to see a storm in the middle of the cold winter, the season dominated by the hunter's moon. The air had hung heavy for days, the gray clouds unmoving, and now there was lightning without thunder, a storm without rain. Sigarda looked out over large swaths of the forest and was uneasy.

She hovered in her personal solar, the bare stone walls and four thick buttresses in sharp contrast to the open vistas of dark green forests sprinkled with patches of white snow. Sigarda could see for miles in every direction and often spent long stretches here when seeking quiet contemplation. The solar was at the top of a long-abandoned tower in a Kessig forest, a tower built centuries ago when humans had been more ambitious.

They had become ambitious again. Avacyn's return had ushered in a new era of peace and tranquility. Humans had been spreading out across the land again, building new homes and farms and towns. But in the last several weeks, troubling reports had sprung up across the land. Uprisings and disappearances and slaughters. A shadow had risen over the world, and Sigarda wanted to know why.

A lightning flash lit the dark sky, and another, and in between the flashes of lightning she felt her sisters' approach, and moments later they landed in her sanctuary.

Slight Bruna, dressed in blue and white light armor with a flowing silk cloak trimmed in red lace. She wielded her staff, and its tip was already glowing with power, as if to strike down an enemy. Tall Gisela, cloaked in the red and white of her Goldnight flight, her twin blades already out of their sheaths. They are prepared for battle, Sigarda thought. She thought then of their other sister, the one who had died a thousand years ago, and she shivered.

"Hello, my sister," Bruna said, an odd lilt in her voice.

"You did not respond to our summons," Gisela said.

Sigarda had not regarded it as a summons. An angel from the Goldnight had requested that she visit Gisela a week past, but Sigarda had been busy helping the communities of inner Kessig rebuild.



"I was occupied with other duties, sister. I did not realize there was an urgent matter. How may I help?" Sigarda wondered if there had been an attack on the angels. It could explain why Bruna and Gisela seemed on edge.

"It is no matter, now," Gisela said.

"We are here," Bruna said.

When the two angels had landed in her solar, they had stood very close together, almost shoulder to shoulder. But now they spread out in the room, each to a different side of her. And the way Bruna held her staff, and Gisela her two swords, made Sigarda keenly feel the lack of her scythe, resting in a room just downstairs. What is happening here?

"We have just come..." Bruna began.

"To talk. We have not seen you in a long while. Sister," Gisela finished.

The two angels continued to move to her sides, each one on the edge of her peripheral vision. Sigarda could not believe her sisters would attack her, but the only rational explanation for their tactics was in preparation for an attack. Sigarda had never fought either of her two sisters, but she was confident she could handle Bruna as long as she could get to her scythe. Bruna was not especially skilled in direct combat. Her strengths lay in other areas. Gisela, on the other hand...Gisela would be a problem.

More lightning crackled outside, and there was a loud burst of thunder. As the thunder subsided, Avacyn landed in the solar.

Sigarda had not sensed Avacyn, not in the way she had her sisters' approach. She had never been able to sense Avacyn. Avacyn led them, but was not of them. As she had demonstrated so long ago. Sigarda could not deny the power of Avacyn, her ability to both fight the horrors of Innistrad and inspire the humans to continue their fight.

Now both Bruna and Gisela were behind her, and Avacyn hovered in front of her. Tall, taller even than Gisela, with perfect alabaster skin and striking silver-white hair. Her moonsilver spear glowed, though Avacyn did not need a weapon to be effective in combat. If it came to battle, Sigarda would not go down easy, even against both Bruna and Gisela. But if Avacyn had come to fight...

If Avacyn had come to fight, then Sigarda was dead.

"Sigarda. The great work is soon to be underway." Avacyn's voice had a weird slur to it. Almost a slight hiss or buzz to her speech. At first, Avacyn had appeared as she always had, but Sigarda now noticed oddities. The metal points of Avacyn's spear were twisted. Even now the metal seemed to flow as Sigarda watched. She wondered what kind of power Avacyn was channeling through the spear. Even more disquieting were Avacyn's eyes. Normally pure white, there were odd flashes of black in her irises, a momentary opacity swallowing light.

"The great work? I am unfamiliar with it. Enlighten me." Sigarda slowed her speech, her breathing. She fought best when calm. She could not see Gisela and Bruna at all, but she could feel them behind her. The air was stale and heavy, and a rotting smell emanated from somewhere, unable to be masked by the sharp, tangy odor of the approaching storm.

"For so long the truth has been in front of us, but we have been blind, Sigarda," Avacyn said, her words almost slithering with that strange slur. "We fight monsters. The vampires, the werewolves, the zombies and witches and necromancers and devils. Why? Because they destroy. They pillage and consume. They commit violence against the land with the sole intent of sowing chaos." Avacyn paused, staring at Sigarda, her eyes once more flashing to black, and Sigarda felt the room was shrinking, closing in on her.

"For their crimes we have sought to punish and kill. But the humans' crimes are the same." Avacyn smiled then, and Sigarda realized that in a thousand years of knowing Avacyn, she had never seen her smile. It was not a pretty smile. It was entirely disconnected from the rest of her face, her eyes. It was as though some involuntary reaction made the corners of her lips turn up without experiencing happiness or joy.

Avacyn's voice rose as she continued, and her words became more punctuated, clear, the slurring fading. "They breed in their filth, creating new minions to destroy forests, pollute the water, lie and cheat and murder amongst themselves. What have they ever done that is worthy? What have they ever accomplished that is great? We could kill every single last supposed 'monster' of this world, every vampire and werewolf, and what would happen? Would there be peace? Would there be lasting light?"

Avacyn saw the confusion on Sigarda's face, and the disgust. She laughed, a harsh laugh that almost cackled. "You know the answer, Sigarda. You know the truth."

And Sigarda did know the truth. The humans were prone to awful acts, acts of intentional evil and unintentional neglect, and both were devastating. They did lie, and cheat, and murder. But they also did wonderful things. They loved and they built. They sacrificed and they served. They were free to commit good or evil, create order or sow chaos, and that freedom made every good act precious, a shining diamond glittering in the dark night.

And besides, none of it mattered. Regardless whether Avacyn's argument was persuasive or interesting, betraying humans was not what angels did. It was as if Avacyn argued the sun should rise in the west, or the tides should no longer wax or wane.

Sigarda did not respond. She did not see the point of a response. Avacyn was not interested in this being a conversation. In her silence, Avacyn continued. "I understand, Sigarda. These are hard truths, difficult. It took Bruna and Gisela some time to understand as well. But eventually they saw light."



At the mention of their names, her two sisters spoke.

"Now we believe..." said one.

"Sister. The great work shall begin," said the other. When she couldn't see their faces, Sigarda realized she could no longer recognize which voice belonged to whom.

"We will be back. Soon," Avacyn said. "We will need your help. The impure must be cleared, be punished. We will make way for true light. For ourselves and others like ourselves, who can create and maintain peace. Imagine it, Sigarda. No more violence, no more war, no more darkness."

"Everlasting light," said a voice behind her, though she could not tell which angel said it. Or perhaps both said it at the same time.

Avacyn held aloft her spear and pointed it at the stone roof. A surge of power leapt from the spear, and the roof...vanished. Obliterated by the force of Avacyn's power. Only a fine dust fell to the ground below, covering the angels in a sooty ash.

"Soon," Avacyn said, and flew off into the dark gray skies. "Soon," Gisela and Bruna said from behind her, and did the same.

Sigarda stood in her ruined solar, watching the lightning dance amongst the gray skies, though still no rain fell. Tears dropped from her eyes, splashing onto the dusty stone floor. She thought about her fourth sister, the dark sister, a thousand years dead by Avacyn's command, and wondered why she hadn't fought for her, had not even tried.

The storm is coming. She considered the angels in her flight, wondering if any of them had gone over to Avacyn yet. She considered humans that could possibly help stand against Avacyn. There were few, so few. But Sigarda knew it didn't matter, even if no one joined her cause. The storm is here. This time I fight.

[Taken and slightly edited from "A Gaze Blank and Pitiless" by Ken Troop. NFI, NFB. Listen, everything is fine, nothing is terrible. Sigarda first seen here.]