So you make it true

“So let me get this straight, there are ten guilds, and each one is based around a different color pairing, is that right? And that’s what all these color combinations are named after- Dimir, Golgari, Orzhov, Rakdos…”

“Right, right, right!” Morgana bobbed her head up and down excitedly, thrilled to be sharing what was, in her opinion, some of the best lore she knew. “It’s such a cool idea, don’t you agree? Everyone can pick the guild they identify with most, based on the themes and their favorite color combinations, it’s so much fun!”

Nick could see from the excited look on her face just how much this clearly meant to Morgana. And he kind of understood. From her description this sounded a lot like the “Harry Potter” craze from when he was a kid, where everyone would be talking about what “house” they belonged to and whatnot. Only, you know, all of these apparently had an equal amount of time and energy put into them because they were written by people who were actually competent.

Not that he was bitter at the success of other subpar writers or anything.

…But there were TEN guilds on this plane, apparently, compared to only FOUR wizarding houses, and yet-

…No, he needed to focus.

“I had no idea this game had so much lore and backstory,” Nick said, shaking his head. “It’s really kind of impressive when you think about it…”

“Oh, this is nothing!” Morgana shook her head rapidly. “That’s just on one plane! There are loads more of really exciting planes to talk about!”

Nick paused for a moment. “…Wait, yeah, you said something about that I think, right? That each set has a different plane it takes place on, or something?”

Morgana nodded. “Yeah, they’re basically like a bunch of different worlds,” she explained. “And as the players, we’re planeswalkers, traveling through the different worlds and summoning different creatures from them and casting different spells, and… …Well, anyway, those guilds are on the plane Ravnica, and they’re all really cool! Ravnica is a really popular plane, and so it’s kind of become the default term for the color pairs, right? But just because a card is blue and black, that doesn’t automatically make it a Dimir card, you get me? That’s just the name of that color combination on Ravnica.”

She was looking at him like she was explaining very obvious facts, and assuming he would understand as a matter of course.

And to be fair, he kind of did? A little bit?

“…So… if a blue-black card is from a different plane, then it would be called something different, is that right?” Nick asked slowly. “It wouldn’t be Dimir?”

“The color combination would be Dimir, but the card itself wouldn’t be,” Morgana said, nodding. “Since it’s not from the Dimir guild!”

“…But you would still call it a Dimir card.” Nick was getting lost again.

Morgana sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yes, Nick, it would still be called a Dimir card, even though it’s not from the Dimir guild, because that’s easier for the players to wrap their head around, the shared terminology! It’s first grade, Nick!”

Nick decided not to fight her on this.

“…Okay.”

“For the record, my favorite guild is Golgari,” Morgana said, smiling sweetly.

“That’s… the green-black one, right?” Nick asked, thinking he remembered that one.

And yet, Morgana shook her head. “It’s not green-black, it’s black-green!” She insisted, crossing her arms over her chest with a huff.

…

…

…

Right, yeah, sure, whatever.

“…Golgari is really, really cool!” Morgana gushed. “They’re all about living in harmony with the natural world and stuff, it’s so totally witchy!”

“Wait, I thought that the ones who cared about nature and stuff were the, uh, what were they called again?” Nick was trying to follow along with what Morgana was talking about, but he wasn’t exactly prepared to add an entire glossary of new words to his mental dictionary today.

“The Selesnya?” Morgana made a face. At the mere MENTION of the green-white (NOT white-green) guild. “Ew, no. Like, sure, they’re also about living in harmony with nature and stuff, but they’re all so boring and structured and stuff! They hardly have any fun! Plus, they use white magic.”

Nick shook his head. “No, not that one, the… I think you said they were called the Gruul?”

“Oh!” Morgana understood what he was talking about now. “Yeah, those guys, the red-green color combination. …They’re okay, I guess, but they’re really violent. I much prefer the way the Golgari live in harmony with nature! They’re all about the cycle of life and ****, so there’s a lot of graveyard interaction. That’s what black brings to the table! It’s a really fun deck to play, because the longer the game goes on, the more advantage you accrue, and- wait, am I talking too much!?”

She gasped and covered her mouth, her face turning red. The last thing she wanted was for her Sotto Voce to start triggering again!

But actually the reason why Nick looked so entranced by what she was saying had nothing to do with her transformation. He was just stunned, because he wasn’t used to Morgana being this expressive and sharing so much about what she liked! He knew that the shy girl was used to being soft-spoken nowadays, but it was like he’d gotten a peek at her previous self; back when she was flouncing around calling herself the ‘Witch of the Ebony-Whatever’ or something, and not caring about the feelings of other people.

He didn’t want that side of her to surface again, but he was glad to see that her passionate flame still burned in her chest. It was a great relief.

“…Uh-um… m-maybe… maybe YOU should do some talking now,” Morgana said shyly, sinking back into her seat. Even if today was supposed to be about Nick getting to know her, she realized now how much she was dominating the conversation… and it was starting to get really embarrassing.

Of course, Nick had no idea what to comment on here. Ask her more about the game, apparently?

“So… if you like Golgari the most, why did you play that Dimir deck against me?” He asked, immediately giving himself a mental slap for asking her a question when she wanted to hear him talk.

Morgana shrugged and glanced away. “Um… because… I wanted to win, and you were playing a lifegain deck, so…”

Ah. Yeah, he could see where she was coming from with that one.

Scumbag tactics. Nick could support that.

Unfortunately, the conversation died a little bit after that, along with Morgana’s moral standards. The goth shifted uncomfortably in her seat, wishing that they could keep talking about her absolute favorite card game but too afraid to actually say anything because if she did then she would just dominate the conversation again.

That was the last thing she wanted to do.

Nick, sensing the awkwardness in the air, tried to offer his own perspective a little bit, hoping that would help coax her back out of her shell. Maybe if he showed his interest in the game, he could get Morgana to perk up again.

And by “maybe” he meant “almost certainly that would work” which was why he did it.

“Well, going off of what you described, I think that my favorite guild is the Gruul,” Nick said, curious to hear her response to that.

Morgana nearly fell out of her chair. Her eyes widened with giddiness at this unsolicited statement and a gleeful smile broke out across her face.

“R-really? You like the Gruul, huh… well, that’s… awesome!” She giggled. “Why do you like them so much?”

Nick didn’t really have a response to that question ready to go, because, well… he hadn’t been entirely honest with her. The reason he said that the Gruul Clans was his favorite guild was because he’d seen the antipathy on her face when she said the word “Selesnya” and he didn’t want it to be a big thing.

“Well… the way you described the plane, as this big city, but then there’s these guys on the outskirts trying to fight against that and preserve nature, I just think that’s pretty cool,” he tried to explain. He wasn’t entirely lying when he said he liked the guild, just that it wasn’t his favorite.

Morgana nodded intently. “Yeah, the Gruul is a good fit for you, I think. They’re always rushing in headfirst and being all ‘blaargh!’ but they don’t, like, actually think things through all that much, it’s a very straightforward playstyle!”

Nick scowled. “…Are you saying I’m an idiot?”

Morgana gasped. “N-n-no! Was that what it sounded like…? No, I-I meant purely from a gameplay perspective!” She said frantically, waving her hands as her face turned scarlet. “Gruul combines the hastiness of red with the big, punchy creatures of green, so the play patterns are really simple, just ramp out a bunch of mana and then start pounding face with your fatties! S-so… since you’re just starting out, I thought it would be a good color combination… since it’s not… super complicated… or anything…”

Her voice was getting tinier and tinier as she sank down into her seat with shame. And yet, even though it sounded like she was just trying to backtrack on what she’d said before and make excuses, Nick actually appreciated her perspective on this.

“…Honestly, that makes sense,” he conceded. “But, well… Gruul isn’t actually my favorite color combination. It was just the first one that came to mind. I think based on your descriptions, Dimir and Selesnya actually sound pretty cool. Like, the Dimir are a bunch of spies and they also run libraries? That sounds really badass, and the Selesnya-”

“Ugh,” Morgana couldn’t help but grunt, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “The brainwashing nature cult, you mean?”

“Huh!? I thought you said they were all about helping others and looking out for their community, what’s this about brainwashing!?” Nick exclaimed.

“It’s like this whole collective hivemind thing, they brainwash their members to worship nature, totally bleck,” Morgana huffed. Okay, maybe there were a few details she was leaving out, like how the Selesnya didn’t brainwash people anymore, and about how they were characterized by their consideration for each other and worked to make things better for everyone in their group, but, like…

They were boring! Totally boring. And they used white mana. Instead of the far superior black mana.

Yes, the Golgari, in charge of corpse disposal and food production, was a far superior and cool guild. Except for, like, the gross stuff. But Morgana chose not to think about that.

Sensing bias in Morgana’s perspective, Nick still decided it was probably best not to argue this point. After all, he didn’t actually care that much about any of this; it was cool and all, and the way Morgana was so passionate about the lore really made the game come to life for him, but at the end of the day, it was still just a game.

He’d had fun, but he wasn’t going to get caught up in it the way she clearly was.

Still… he couldn’t help but smile.

“You really know a lot about this stuff,” he said, laughing. “And this is all just one plane? Wow, I never would have thought that there would be so much time and energy invested into the lore of a card game.”

Morgana puffed up her chest with pride. “Well, there is!” She boasted, as if she was personally taking credit for the game’s intricate background. “And while Ravnica is super-popular, like you said, it’s only just one plane! My favorite plane is actually Innistrad! That one’s so cool, there’s all sorts of horror stuff going around, like zombies, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, witches, it’s just, like, so totally amazing! I mean, minus the giant Eldrazi sealed into the moon.”

“…Eldrazi?”

Morgana waved her hand vaguely and looked away. “It was like, this whole big thing,” she sniffed, being intentionally hazy on the subject. “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, Ravnica’s just one of the planes, I haven’t even started telling you about the ones with three-color combinations!”

“Huh?” Nick should have expected that. If there were two-color combinations then obviously there would be three-color combinations, right? And he suspected there were four-color combinations too.

Morgana, seeing his expression, turned a little red with sheepishness and shook her head. “It’s, um… …Never mind. That’s a little much, don’t you think? We can… talk about that later, if you want to.”

She was only just now remembering (again) that this was supposed to be a date, and while yes, she could spend hours telling Nick all about the different planes and color combinations and mountains and mountains of lore that had accumulated for three decades…

…That wouldn’t exactly be the best date, would it?

…Still. There was one more thing that she had to do.

“…One last thing I wanted to talk about, promise,” Morgana said, shooting him a pleading look.

Nick was surprised by her restraint. But honestly, she didn’t need to go this far. Even though Nick wasn’t that invested in all this lore stuff, he was genuinely enjoying himself listening to Morgana talk about it, even if she occasionally slipped back into a tonal range that triggered Sotto Voce every now and then. She was getting better about that!

Morgana scratched her cheek and smiled sheepishly. “So, um… the… the reason that Golgari is my favorite color, it, um, it’s isn’t because of the Golgari. …The guild, I mean! It’s because of this other set, Strixhaven.”

Nick blinked. “That’s… another plane?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s a school, ON a plane.”

Right, of course, how could he have made such an obvious mistake?

“So anyway, um, Strixhaven is like, this magic school, right? And there are five, um, majors in the school, I should say, or more like… well, do you know Harry Potter? I know that the author is kind of… you know, but…”

Gee. What a coincidence. Nick had just been thinking about that himself. He slowly nodded.

“Well, I used to really like those books as a kid,” Morgana said, blushing. “I mean, I’m still a kid, but, well…”

She didn’t have to worry, Nick understood what she meant. And he wasn’t exactly stunned by this shocking revelation, either.

“…Then after all that… crazy stuff came out, well… I felt really depressed,” Morgana admitted, scratching her cheek. “Then, while I was online… I found an ad for the Strixhaven set. This was a couple years ago, back in 2021… it had just come out. And it was like… I was completely blown away! I didn’t know anything about Magic: the Gathering before that, so… it was kind of my on-ramp to the game, I guess you could say.”

She was blushing up a storm now, and only partially because Nick was paying so much attention to her. A bit of it was from embarrassment, revealing this much personal stuff about herself.

“It felt so wrong, to still like those books, you know, given… the author,” Morgana confessed. “But I couldn’t help it… I love the series! But… I can’t support it…” She let out a long sigh and then raised her head, gazing pleadingly into Nick’s eyes.

This was part of sharing herself, she realized. Showing Nick something real. Something… serious. Sensitive.

“…Seeing the set, the advertisements, talking about how it was this magical school for learning how to be a wizard… it struck a chord in me, you know?” She murmured wistfully, her eyes watering. “It was like… I lost something important, but I found something even better.”

“Yeah, I understand what you mean,” Nick said, nodding. The hole that had opened up in Morgana’s heart due to losing her feelings for her favorite book series, it had been filled by this game.

“So… I learned a lot about the game after that, and I wanted to play,” she explained, “but… well… …It was hard. I couldn’t… I just… I didn’t have the courage to come to a place like this, you know?” She looked around sadly. “So I just collected the cards in person and played online. But I really, really love it, so… I’m glad you played with me today.”

She finished her awkward confession with an equally awkward smile.

Nick gave her a smile in return.

“I had fun too,” he assured her, shaking his head. “You don’t need to worry about that. In fact, just hearing you talk about something you like so much, that’s a lot of fun itself, Morgana. Okay?”

“Really?” Morgana sighed and gave him a relieved smile. “Thank you for saying that… it really means a lot to me.”

Nick couldn’t be happier to help her if he tried.

“So you were talking about this set, right? How there are five different schools, or houses, or something?” Nick silently noted that was one more than Harry Potter had.

Morgana bobbed her head up and down, her passion reignited. “Witherbloom!” She blurted out.

Like that was supposed to mean something to Nick. He just stared blankly at her until she clarified things.

“It, uh, it’s one of the schools,” she stammered, turning red. “Witherbloom. It’s the school for the black-green combination. It’s all about the natural sciences… but since this is Magic: the Gathering, that means studying stuff related to lifegain and draining magic from living beings… they’re a bunch of really cool outsiders, they hang around swamps and in the forest, and, like, brew potions and stuff… …They’re goths!” She finally managed to get out. “They’re cool, witchy goths who brew potions and practice magic, and I-I really thought they were cool, since I had just started learning about how awesome goths and magic are, and, I-I guess…”

“It became your favorite school,” Nick laughed. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He guessed that if he knew anything about this stuff, that he would have pegged her for that school right off the bat given its description.

It sounded like the perfect fit for her.

“…So that’s why I like the color combination so much,” Morgana awkwardly finished, sinking down into her seat. “Is that… okay?”

Why was she asking his approval? Of course it was okay!

“That sounds like a really cool setting for a card game,” Nick said. “You said the schools were based around the color combinations, right? So what’s the Selesnya school about? How are they different from the guild?”

Morgana gave him a look. “…There isn’t a green-white school,” she said bluntly, shaking her head. She almost seemed pleased by that fact. “Sorry, Nick, but there are only five schools at Strixhaven; they don’t have one for each color combination.”

Nick frowned. “Oh. Well… what about Dimir, then, blue-black?”

A sheepish look slowly crept across Morgana’s face. “Um… not them, either, sorry.”

Nick almost found that laughable. “Well, then the Gruul? Wait, let me guess.”

Morgana’s awkward, sheepish smile widened and she slowly shook her head. “Sorry, okay? It’s just, well, the schools of Strixhaven are based around the enemy color pairs! And- it sounds like all your favorite guilds are the ally color pairs, so…”

Not sure how to finish that sentence, she just gave him an awkward shrug.

Nick stared blankly at the goth girl. “…Enemy color pairs? Ally color pairs? What does that mean?”

Morgana’s jaw dropped. “Wait, I didn’t explain the philosophy behind the colors of Magic?! Oh gosh, I’m sorry! So to start…”

Nick realized far too late that perhaps he had just made a grave mistake.