Chapter Text
It was a cold and rainy day in Thraben, the capital city of the plane of Innistrad and the stronghold for humanity here. With its high and complex system of walls and angelic protectors from the wickedness beyond, people can have hope here and a relatively normal life, outside of usual city corruption and crime. The real dangers lie beyond the safety of the city. Where the vampires rule supreme, and the werewolves are on the hunt, among other supernatural beings. Lilah is very well aware of these dangers, being the one the city dwellers call upon for help and remedies from their unfortunate encounters with what lies beyond. Being one of the only Alchemists and Apothecaries in the city willing to go outside to gather much-needed medical resources, it keeps her very busy but very happy and dedicated to helping the people here.
"I'll have these ready for you as soon as I can! Keep that dressing changed in the meantime!" Lilah calls out to the people behind her as she steps out of the home and shuts the door, sighing. "Another one done," she thinks to herself, writing down in her journal the client's name, their issue, and what she needs to help them. After writing down the information, she tucks it into her basket and grabs her list, making sure she's visited everyone she had written down today. Giving the list a satisfied nod, she puts it away and heads towards the city gates. She heads down the familiar path outside the walls, pulling her shawl closed more to keep her warm, making the journey back to her wooded home.
While walking home, she pulls her list back out to make sure she has everything written down and reads back over the people's issues and is too distracted to notice a convoy coming towards her, getting pushed aside by one of the guards, causing her to drop her basket and the medical requests, to which she calls out in frustration. "Hey! What's the reason for that, you ass?!" Inside the carriage sits the elusive Lord of Innistrad, Sorin Markov, being escorted back to his manor due to the increased attacks by vampires on humans and humans on vampires. His grandfather, Edgar Markov, had ordered him to travel more safely for now, much to his dismay, as he would rather fly home or simply teleport there. Inside, Sorin hears the commotion and looks out, seeing a woman on the ground with her things strewn about on the ground and the guard and her yelling back and forth and goes to get out of the carriage, as soon as he starts out, the guard starts to raise his spear to strike this woman, but Sorin grabs the spear before he can.
“I don’t see the need for this kind of brutality for someone simply walking by.” Sorin speaks in a calm and collected voice, letting go of the spear. The guard then steps back with a bow, “Of course not, my lord, please excuse me, she was speaking impolitely towards us."
Sorin looks back at the woman getting up and picking up her papers and basket in the meantime, mumbling curses at the mud that now stains one side of her dress and lamenting the fact that she will need to dry out the lists she was given now, pushing back her deadlines for these items. She turns to look at Sorin and his convoy with an annoyed look, “ Oh yes, of course, where are my manners to the Lord who isn’t ever here. I’m afraid you have to be around more for the common people to remember you,” She snarkily replies to the guard's statement as she puts her remaining things back in the basket.
“You disrespectful wretch, do not address Lord Sorin with such talk; we will have your tongue.” Another guard steps forward, motioning for the other guards to come with him towards her.
“Then do it, you cowards, does it take 3 of you to restrain one woman?” She starts backing up as they come closer. Sorin then holds his hand up to them, and they stop.
He walks up to her and looks her over with his calm, golden eyes. Her eyes not leaving his, mind racing on if he’s going to kill her right now for running her mouth to him and his lapdogs, if he does she thinks about all the poor people who have looked to her for years for their medicines and herbal supplies, what they will do without her, there isn’t many alchemists or apothecaries around because no one likes to venture outside of the safety of the walls. Sorin, grabbing her hand gently and placing a book into it snaps her out of her thoughts. “You almost forgot this, forgive my men, there have just been increased attacks as of late, and they’re high-strung.” he pulls his hand back as she takes the book and places it with her things.”I also haven’t properly made your acquaintance. My name is Sorin Markov. May I ask what your name is? ”
“My name is Lilah. Of course, I already knew who you were, but it’s a pleasure to meet you in person and thank you for picking this up and…also saving me from getting stabbed as well.” She smiles at him, doing a small bow. “Excuse my rudeness earlier, but you really ought to be around more often, Sorin. It’s getting rather dangerous here, more than usual and it must be why you’re being escorted like you are.”
“It’s My Lord to you, wretch, again watch your tongue to address him so casual-” One guard starts speaking up but it cut off by Sorin’s cold stare back at him, “That is enough out of all of you, if any of you speak one more word, it will be your last, is this clear?”
They all bow and step back. “Yes, my lord,” comes from one of the guards. Almost as soon as the words were spoken, Sorin drew his sword and cut the guard’s throat with one swift motion and returned the sword to its sheath in a matter of seconds. The guard turning to dust in just a few seconds,” I said, not another word, now go back to the carriage and wait for my orders to leave.” Sorin coldly ordered them. The other guards watched in shock and quickly returned to the carriage to wait. Sorin then turned back to Lilah, expecting her to be cowering in fear, but there she stood, just looking at him.
“See? You can get things done when you’re around to take care of them,” She says playfully.
Sorin raised an eyebrow at this, a small smile forming, “You’re interesting to say the least, but you must be getting back to your home, as you said before, it’s rather dangerous around here, especially at nightfall.” He gently takes her hand and places a kiss on top of it. “Until next time, Lilah, be safe.” He turns and walks back towards the carriage and gets in, and with a wave of his hand, they take off towards the manor.
She rubs over her hand where he had kissed it and starts walking towards her home, mind racing, taking a deep breath, she hadn’t realized she was practically holding her breath this whole time in fear of being struck down for being an idiot and speaking so brazenly to someone who could probably turn her to dust by looking at her for long enough. She shakes her head and hurries home. Her home is pretty well hidden; she made sure of it to stay safe out here alone in the middle of the woods. Using a variety of herbs she had found, it kept the vampires and werewolves at bay, which were the biggest threats to her in the area. She stepped quickly through the gate of her fence and into the house, letting out a big sigh of relief and dropping her basket of things to the floor, removing her shoes.
She picked up the wet and muddy list she had made of requests from the people in the city and gently cleaned off what mud she could, laying them down on the table and going over to the fireplace and lighting a fire. Once the fire was going like she wanted, she carefully picked the papers up and laid them on the stone close to the fireplace to dry out. After making sure everything was laid out, she sat down and closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep.
~~~~~~~
Sorin had settled back into his seat and was looking out the window as the carriage trudged on through the muddy, winding roads to Markov Manor. He looked over to the one person who was allowed into his personal carriage, his assistant, Kilian, dressed in his black and red suit, his jet black hair pulled back into a low ponytail, his red eyes focused under his round glasses that had moved down his nose from looking down at what he’s been writing the whole time and who had been his trusted assistant for many many years, after the blissful silence was interrupted by the scribblings of a quill on the dry parchment. “I’m surprised you didn’t get out to see what was going on, Kilian, you usually want to know everything going on,” Sorin says, looking back out the window.
“You certainly seemed like you had it covered, Sorin, no need for me getting out into this disgusting mud for a peasant girl.” Kilian says, not looking up from his parchments he was furiously writing on.
“Lilah was her name, and she may have shown herself to be rather useful to me in knowing what’s going on here while I’m gone… which brings me to a very important request of you, Kilian.” Sorin looks back over, quickly snatching the quill from him to stop the incessant scribbling. “Stop this damned writing for one moment,I want you to go and find out where this woman lives in the woods and report back to me. Once you do, I will visit her and hopefully learn what is going on without someone cowering at my feet when I show up.”
Kilian takes his quill back with a huff, shutting the journal he was writing in and looking over at Sorin with a puzzled look,” You can’t be serious, Sorin, you really think this peasant woman who lives gods know where in the woods is really going to have any valuable information? More so than someone in the city or our own watch patrols?”
“I am absolutely serious, she doesn’t cower at my feet and beg for mercy like I'm going to strike her down as the people of the city do, and our own patrols don’t have a people’s view of what’s going on. They only know what they are told about by townsfolk. Plus, she’s an alchemist or apothecary, I could tell from the items in her basket and she also had a list of medical requests from the city.” Sorin explains.
“And what about any of that screams that she knows more than anyone else?” Kilian questions, going back to his writing.
“She treats these people’s ailments and injuries, she sees what they are, what happened to these people, they give her the story on how it happened and where, she can see how frequently some injuries or ailments appear.” Sorin says, looking back out the window and up at the stately manor as they approach, light glowing from the windows. “This is the end of the discussion, tomorrow you will head back out and find her.”
Kilian rolls his eyes and sighs, “As you wish, my lord.”
The carriage comes to a halt outside of the manor’s large staircase leading up to the large front doors, Sorin and Kilian step out and start walking up the stairs.
“Your grandfather will want to see you Sorin, he’s been questioning where you have been all this time, it’s probably best you go see him first before settling back in, he is more than likely in his study, and I will start on your little project you gave me in the meantime.” Kilian sighs, walking into the manor and heading off towards his room..
Sorin nods and walks up to his grandfather’s study, knocking on the door. “Enter!” comes from the other side of the door and he proceeds in. Sorin takes a knee and bows his head down to his grandfather, who is sitting at his desk,writing. He stays bowed until his grandfather finally looks up from his desk, “Sorin!,” He gets up and walks over to him, grabbing his arm to pull him up into a hug,” my beloved grandson, I'm so very glad to see you back home.” Edgar exclaims, Sorin returns the hug with a faint smile.
“It’s good to return home, grandfather, forgive me for not letting you know what was going on or where I had vanished. It was of great importance that I left when I did. I plan to be home for the time being.” Sorin explains. Edgar pulls away from the hug and looks him over, “Tell me about it,Sorin, come have a seat with me and I’ll get us some wine.”
Sorin nods and sits down in one of the chairs in front of the desk, Edgar goes into the next room and returns momentarily with two glasses and a bottle of wine and sits in his chair, pouring wine into both glasses and handing one to Sorin.
“Thank you.” Sorin takes a drink of the wine, “I had to return to Zendikar at the request of Nahiri, making sure the Eldrazi do not escape their prison, she had concerns because of other planeswalkers arriving and unintentionally freeing some of the lesser Eldrazi beings. She wanted me to make sure the seals were still in place, they are for the time being.” Sorin explains his disappearance,taking another drink.
Edgar listened intently, “I see, it is good news that the seals are still in place, I have little understanding of the Eldrazi but I know enough that they do not need to be freed, or we and all other planes are in a dire situation. Enough about this, now that I know where you’ve been and that you have returned to me safely, we have Innistrad business to speak of.”
“What has happened while I've been gone?” Sorin questions, setting his glass down.
“It’s good that you said you will be home for the time being because I have a job for you to help me with the growing unrest around here. Innistrad has always had its tensions between the inhabitants but it seems to have gotten worse in recent times; more vampire and werewolf attacks on the human populations, even in the cities. The humans have actually taken to retaliating against them, traveling out to hunt them down, not that they haven’t done that before but it’s more frequent and violent.” Edgar explains, finishing his wine and setting it down, “I would like for you to find out what’s causing this and try to put an end to it, or at the very least, cut down on the frequency. We can’t have everyone killing each other.”
“Kilian gave me somewhat of a run down on things going on while we were traveling back here, I believe I have just the thing to help with this issue, I’m having him go out tomorrow to find them.” Sorin says, standing up to take his leave. “If you’ll excuse me grandfather, I would like to settle in from my travels. Thank you for the wine and the conversation” He bows and heads towards the door.
“Anytime Sorin, I’m glad you’re home safely once again, please rest well.” Edgar smiles at him and goes back to his writing.
Sorin heads towards his room, passing servants giving head bows on the way by, he arrives at his door and heads in. He pulls his coat off and sits on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face. He looks out the window close to the bed that faces towards the capital city, watching the faint flickering light of the homes in the distance. He pulls his shoes off and lays back in his bed, slowly dozing off.