A flame scraped the edges of the clouds before imploding. Ash drizzled down like rain. The black, shriveled pieces sparked a brilliant red as they kissed the ground. The crisp air smelled of firewood and smoke. When the last piece of cinder landed, the sky grew bright again. It felt like a weight had been lifted from everyone's chests.

Yet, Elijah's chest still weighed heavy. He hoped it was merely from the crowd. People writhed against each other like the coils of a serpent. He had already done his fair share of shoving and pushing, and was now resting with a good seven feet put between him and the nearest guest. Sticking his hands in his loose pockets, he distracted himself from the uncomfortable tightness in his chest by letting his gaze wander.

There were people from all over. He watched an ogre lumber by, her long, white hair pulled back into a semi-manageable ponytail. She was hunched to better argue with a pale faced vampire whose hands were currently tied up in fixing their jacket, which seemed to be three sizes too big. Between the feet of a vedalken that stood at the edge of the crowd, a familiar flash of bones scamppered. A small burst of green sparks shot into the air somewhere to Eli's left, and an angel with purple tipped wings hurriedly swooped down to interrupt anything before a fight could break out. The familiar reminder sent his eyes to his side for a moment before flickering back out to the crowd.

Eli had no clue where Mikaela had gone off too. His fingers curled a little tighter at the thought. Rolling his eyes at his own reaction, he flexed them back out til they scrapped the bottom of his pockets. She was most certainly fine, probably just off paying her respects. Admittedly, he planned to skip that point of the agenda completely. It wasn't personal, which was his exact problem. He barely would've spoken two words at his closest friend's funeral, assuming in this case that he did have one. There simply was nothing he felt worthy to mention for the former Guildpact.

The word former ran an unusual shiver up Elijah's back. His eyes truly focused on the people before him, and he swallowed a dry feeling that entered his mouth. The whole thing had never seemed a big deal... until now. The thought gnawed at his gut somewhat- that one day it would be one of them laying in the coffin. Would as many people show up then as they had now?

A heavy breath blew through Eli's lips as he stubbed the edge of his foot in the grass to distract himself. A clump of sod loosened, coating the top of his shoe in loose dirt. He kicked it back off lazily, staring out at the field. This time, the faces blurred together. He caught ahold of anger and sorrow and unease, but each expression disappeared with the shuffling of feet. His eyes lingered when they caught ahold of a clueless face, the amber eyes overshadowed. Elijah blinked, and the details flooded back again. Worry bid adieu to relief, and the left corner of his mouth tilted towards the sky.

"Mikaela, over here."

The angel turned in surprise, her ash brown hair following her movement. It no longer cascaded choppily in tangled waves, but fell gently upon her shoulders, neatly combed. Her hair, while fairly shiny, was no match for the armor she wore. It seemed to wink back at the sun, the metal hardly touched. The chest plate hugged her body gently, stopping with the sleeves just past her elbows. Elijah wanted to called her beautiful, but he couldn't. No matter how well she may have been dressed, what mattered more was her mood, and right then it had landed something worrying behind her fiery eyes and caused her teeth to rake the bottom half of her lips.

Still, she ducked around a grudge match between two elves and broke free of the swarming masses. The tips of her mouth curved, and an easy sigh passed her lips. "Hey, Elijah."

"You know we're not getting penalized for not dressing up, right?" he asked with a cocked eyebrow, hoping to be a welcome distraction.

Mikaela scrunched her nose, "As you've so helpful demonstrated."

Elijah rolled his eyes, however, he noted the slight improvement in her smile. "I'll pretend that's a compliment. You been inside yet?" He referred to the looming shape of the Orzhova church with a tilt of his shoulder.

She nodded slowly, her eyes distancing themselves as she stared at the structure.

"You see anything interesting?"

"Like what?" Mikaela questioned, shooting him a brief glance.

"Oh, I don't know-" he shrugged lazily "-maybe a corpse got back up on its own."

Her eyes narrowed and Eli verbally backtracked. "That was too soon," he admitted breathily.

"A little bit, idiot."

Yet, even as she said it, her expression cleared a little.

A ripping sound drowned out all noise. The abruptness sent Eli's eyes wide. His attention snapped to the left, and he watched a leaf peak out above the crowd. It was followed by another and another and another until the leaves grew into branches and the branches grew into limbs. The ripping silenced itself as the tree trunk finally fit its way through the ground. The tree towered above everyone's heads, casting a shadow upon those closest to the base. Its wood was a deep brown, but it was drowned out by the sheer number of golden leaves and white flower blossoms that clung to the branches above.

Elijah tore his gaze from the spectacle to find Mikaela looking at him with an amused expression. "You weren't listening to the speaker, were you?" she asked, her eyes dancing with light laughter.

"No," he admitted begrudgingly.

There had been a person standing up at the podium for the past two hours. Whether it had been someone from Orzhova or the dryad that was currently speaking, the yammering had barely had a moment to die down. The words had become a steady hum of background noise, as important to him as seafoam lapping at his ankles. Although, when he did bother to dip his foat in farther, he found nothing interesting. It was the same words that had been repeated a thousand times that day. The same repetitiveness that came with the ocean lapping at the shore.

In this case, it was another dedication to Beleren. The same speech repeated itself for the 327th time. They called him "knowledgeable," "powerful," "gifted," all of which were surely true in their own right. Regardless, there was something about listening to it 327 times that made Jace out to seem like a cardboard cutout. Preplaaned and packaged, as if he had never done anything wrong. The word "hero" crossed over his ears, and Eli felt a spot on his back begin to itch. It wasn't like he didn't agree. Jace had been a good Guildpact- it was the idea of the responsibility that was suddenly manifesting into fear.

Desperate to quell the feeling, he let his eyes roam again. They met almost instantly with a pair of stone cold ones. The vedalken huffed, giving the distance between Eli and Mikaela a short glance before moving on. On instinct, Elijah quirked an eyebrow. He wasn't sure he had expected more of a reaction necessarily, but none had certainly be a surprise. Then, it hit him. There were people from every part of Ravnica, and there were far more important people attending, for the first time he and Mikaela could speak without receiving so much as annoyed glance. Unable to help himself, the man grinned a little.

"Something funny?" Mikaela asked, her gaze still half attached to the gleaming stepel that loomed over the grounds.

Eli smiled wider, "Not particularly."

"Uh-huh," she responded, unconvinced. "Is this just how you always are at funerals?"

"Oh, absolutely, personally I prefer when there are cobwebs and a-"

The rumble of thunder interrupted.

A droplet landed on Eli's nose. He scrunched it on instinct, feeling the liquid slide down to his cheek before he bothered to wipe it off. A second splattered on his hand. Surprised, Elijah tilted his head to find grey, swirling strips of cloud layering the sky, which had dipped to an unappealing ash color. His eyes flickered to the stage, where a new character had taken the stage. Then, it began to pour.

His vision blurred briefly, before he could wipe his eyes free of the rain. The fabric of his jacket clung to his skin, turning it as cold as ice as water soaked through the thin cloth. He clamped his jaw down to keep it from clattering, his body still trying to adjust from the sudden shock of being soaked. Heaving his fridges fingers through the now soaked mess his hair had become, he shoved his bangs from his line of sight. Before him, stood the rest of the soaked crowd. Well, some of them were soaked, others had shielded themselves from the pelting and many of those who hadn't were enjoying the downpour.

Elijah glanced over to find Mikaela staring straight ahead. She was off in whatever funk the funeral had put her in, and the glow from her skin was fast fading. Frowning, he watched the water bead on her armor, collecting before spilling and leaving trails of water streaking down the plating. Eli looked past her to find a dry patch of land, a slim area to their left luckily covered by the church's roof.

Hesitantly, he reached down for Mikaela's hand. It hung half clenched at her side and with delicate fingers, he worked at loosening her grip. After a moment, her fingers relaxed, and he slipped his palm against hers. Even in the pouring rain, her skin was warm to the touch. Eli could only imagine how cold his blood was compared to hers. A small part of him expected her to pull away, but when she didn't, he finally leveled his gaze. His eyes met her, a different kind of confusion clouding them. He held back a smile.

"Come on-" he intertwined their fingers further "-Let's get you out of the rain."

Elijah gently pulled Mikaela under the roof, the damp grass soaking his feet. When the rain had retreated to nothing more than the beat of droplets bouncing off the shingles above, he released her hand. Her palm lingered against his until she realized he had let go, and then she pulled away too.

"Thank you," Mikaela muttered, brushing her dampened hair aside.

He nodded quietly, staring out at the field as the rain cascaded down. Not a full minute later, the shower ended. It left the grass shining with fresh dew and had given the tree a whole new layer of color. The golden leaves were speckled with blue, the white petals with pink. He hadn't known a tree could shine so brilliantly. In front of it, a new speaker took the podium. She began with a warm smile and a vague welcome, before letting the name Beleren touch her lips. Her speech was honey dipped in pesticide, kind until you got too close. She used the words "talented," "one-of-a-kind."

The other speeches came back from before. They lapped dangerously at his mind, no longer seafoam, but a rising tide. Running a hand through his still sopping hair, he glanced down at Mikaela.

"I'm going to go..." he trailed off, his tongue struggling for an excuse. "I'm going to go pay my respects, I'll catch up with you in a bit."

"Alright, try not to get lost," Mikaela joked back lightly.

Eli gave her comment a brief acknowledgement and urged himself to walk. His thumbs hooked outside of his pockets, while the feeling of his wet sleeves brushed his arm hair backwards. Trying to ignore the wetness of his shoes, he traipsed around the edge of the building until he came to a wide set of double doors. They rose at least ten feet, the windows on them made from yellow stained glass. Reluctantly, he wrapped his hand around one of the carved, metal handles and tugged. It swung open and he dipped inside, his eyes landing immediately on a sign that pointed left toward the room where the coffin was being held. Elijah, however, turned right.

He didn't want to go see a dead body or wind up in another crowded space. He just... needed time to think. His mind was in a bit of a jumble, the echoing of his shoes taking over his focus as one column passed and then another. He wound up in a small room off of a corridor. A few stone pews lined the thin walkway, the small stage all but forgotten. Light issued from the wide windows that cast over the room, spilling into it greens and reds and purples. There was no story in the stained artwork, just abstract shapes that flowed like pieces of the puzzle, fitting together even when they didn't quite seem they should.

Elijah's hand trailed against a pew, the bumps in the stone scraping his skin. Silence echoed in time with his foot falls, the room feeling empty. It was a breath of fresh air. He wandered to the far edge of the space, until he was face to face with one of the windows. His eyes grazed over his own features and his lips pulled thin. It had been a long time since he had really looked himself face to face. Cautiously double check over his shoulder that he was still alone within the room, Elijah pulled his other hand from his pocket, and tugged off the ember ring that rested on his middle finger.

It slipped into his palm, the metal suddenly feeling much more worn. He ran a thumb absently along its side, and gazed at the deep red ring marks it had caused. Hesitantly, he faced his reflection in the glass again. Even with the red tint, he could still see what laid beneath- shaggy, black hair, grey, boring eyes, a crooked nose, and an identical pair of scars that trailed down either side of his neck. He thumbed one of the scars gently, craning his neck to see the partial outline of a hand. The fresh scars no longer hurt, the marks now just two more to add to the list.

Elijah didn't look special. He didn't like powerful or gifted or smart. He looked like a massive screwup. It wasn't a wrong description either. Every scar, every broken bone, was the reminderer of a mistake. A mistake never to make again, but one that he had still been dumb enough to make in the first place. Elijah shrugged off the edge of his coat, his eyes catching on a particularly wide one that ran from back of his shoulder blade to the edge of his elbow. He didn't need other people to see his mistakes, didn't want them too, but sometimes they were a necessary reminder. Tugging his coat back on, he placed a hand on the stone pew to steady himself.

What had he been thinking? That it was all going to be cake walks and long days on the beach? No, he had never been an idiot. Eli let out a sigh. He was letting his brain run off on a tangent without him, and why? Because he was letting the idea of responsibility stress him out. He could barely be responsible for himself lately, let alone ten- fifteen- he let the number fall from his fingers without even bothering to estimate. He wasn't anything like Beleren. He never would be.

"Hello?"

The voice nearly shocked Elijah dead. He jammed his nail into his palm, shoving his ring back on. Turning around, he saw a tall man staring at him. He had dark blue eyes and a slim figure. There was a certainty about the way he held himself that rubbed Eli the wrong way, still, he held his tongue as the man took a few short steps into the room.

"Elijah Karsur?"he asked, his voice rather high.

Eli attempted to offer a smile but it felt tiring upon his lips and he let it falter. "Yes?"

"Cogex, Orzhov representative," he introduced himself efficiently, clutching a stack of folders to his chest. "I was hoping to speak to you briefly."

"Hoping to?" Elijah asked incredulously, misdirecting his venom with himself into his tone.

"Needing to, if you wish to continue, technically," he admitted, fixing his glasses as the pressed smile he was wearing grew a little wider.

The young man nodded, his right fist clenching desperately to keep his ring on the wrong finger. He could already feel it trying to slip off.

"What is it this time? I can't imagine you'd want us to battle a dragon in the middle of a funeral," he shot, losing the fight to watch his own tongue. He felt to tired to care.

"No, no, nothing like that," Cogex chuckled, but it was merely the polite response. "All you have to do is sign a contract."

The ball of dread that had been pressing against Eli's chest all morning grew an ounce heavier. He heaved out a narrow breath. "I'm assuming, if I do, I get the signet."

The older man nodded, reaching into his pocket and briefly displaying a case. He flicked it open to reveal the gem for less than a second before stashing it away again. "That is correct. Now-"

"Hand it over then."

"No need to be so eager," Eli bristled at the words, but let the man continue. "It wouldn't be fair if we didn't offer options."

Elijah ground his teeth dangerously, but managed to hold back. "What are they then?"

Cogex nodded primarily to himself and pulled out two documents. Thankfully, they were each a very short version. Elijah skimmed them, his heels rocking beneath him. When he saw what each contained, he set to rubbing his temple with the few fingers he could spare. He closed his eyes, sighed and handed one back.

"Do you have a pen?"

"You can take more time if-"

"There's no need."

He snatched the pen from the representatives hand a scrawled out a rushed signature. A flash of gold ran through the paper and he handed it back. There hadn't really been a choice the moment he had seen the options. Maybe for someone else, who was heroic or brave or smart or whatever a Guildpact should've been, maybe then there would have been a choice. Yet Elijah had never been any of those things. What he had been was selfish. And when it came between the world and himself, he would always pick himself. Well, almost.

That thought made him realize he wasn't the only one signing, and he grabbed the box the representative had set on the pew, Quickly backing up.

"Thanks for this," he called over his shoulder, his feet have walking half running as he hurried back out through the crush.

He burst through the double doors, sped down the steps and ran back under the small roof. Mikaela stood with her arms crossed, her lips pressed and her eyes down cast.

Out of breath, he grabbed onto he r shoulder. "Please tell me you haven't signed anything yet."

She shook her head slowly. Before he could help himself, Elijah threw his arms over her shoulders and pulled her close.

"Good," he muttered, "Promise me you'll consider yourself when doing this."

He felt her nod again against his heaving chest and his shoulders relaxed. Maybe there was one other person in the world he would risk signing his life away for.