February 4, 2026
The following original story, Beauty Eternal, is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. © Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Cynwrig could not forget the first time he visited Dawnglove Grove. It happened shortly after the fall of Oona, when the dual worlds of Lorwyn and Shadowmoor began fusing together. High Perfect Morcant had always appreciated young, upstanding elves with symmetric faces and pointed jawlines to represent Lys Alana to other realms of Lorwyn, to remind them what perfection was. Cynwrig especially stood out, not only because his tall figure and bold, protruding horns demanded attention, but because he exuded it through his appreciation of beauty. The beauty of Dawn’s Light Palace, and of the mythical moongloves.
Now, as Shadowmoor extended its reach into Lorwyn, Cynwrig, having been promoted to the rank of immaculate, was one of the few select dignitaries chosen by High Perfect Morcant to extend their influence into a whole new world. And where better to start than meeting their counterparts of the dark, at Dawnglove Grove deep in the heart of the Creakwood.
It was a clear, breezy night on Shadowmoor. The iconic moon shone high in the sky. Off in the distance, the draconic silhouette of the Incarnation of Shadowmoor, Isulu, could be seen wandering near the horizon. Holding a cane with a reliquary in one hand, Cynwrig trekked toward a clearing in Dawnglove Grove and stopped in sheer awe. Lights, in a dazzling display of hues, wafted among the dawngloves. The petals illuminated the field as if the Shadowmoor moon had descended upon the glade. Cynwrig knew, thanks to the fall of Oona, that he was now able to expand his horizon for beauty from this newfound world.
One day, Cynwrig was called upon by High Perfect Morcant for another dignitary mission to discuss a potential alliance with the faeries at Glen Elendra. Cynwrig was confused.
“Wasn’t Oona already defeated?” he murmured.
However, his curiosity was soon shattered when another fellow dignitary dropped a rather horrifying rumor.
“I heard of a legion of machine entities,” the fellow dignitary shuddered, “who will bring great destruction upon our home.”
“Machine? What’s that?” Cynwrig wondered.
“Imagine the spears and daggers we use to fight for Lys Alana,” the dignitary said. “Now imagine if they were part of us. Actually part of us. That’s what I’ve heard. We’d become metal. Living metal.”
“What? That sounds impossible. So, we need to ask other creatures to help us?” Cynwrig asked.
“Yes. You know High Perfect Morcant. She would not want only elves to fight whatever invaders we might be expecting. We might have the strongest army, but we are not going to sacrifice ourselves to defend what she deems as lesser creatures. So, we play nice for now. It’s politics.”
“Why faeries?”
“Because they can fly, I suppose. Aerial advantage.”
With that, they arrived at Glen Elendra, home of the former Queen of Fae, Oona, now ruled by Maralen.
With majestic, jagged mountains lining both sides of a winding valley as far as the eye could see, and a meandering river flowing into the great beyond, Cynwrig could see Glen Elendra behind a shimmering fog. He knew this was an illusion glamer cast by the faeries as a shield against potential intruders.
Cynwrig stepped forward, calling to the faerie floating above him, her wings flapping rapidly in the valley air.
“We are the dignitaries of High Perfect Morcant of Lys Alana. We helped your realm defeat your former queen, Oona. Please disenchant your glamer and allow us the humble opportunity to speak with your new Queen, Maralen.”
Without saying a word, the guard faerie flew away, darting into the valley before returning with her wand. A flicker was all it took for the glamer to disappear, and a dazzling display of canopies, each filled with miniature nests, filled the view. Faeries darted in and out of the foliage like fireflies among the dawnglove fields.
Cynwrig was surprised by how Glen Elendra had been rebuilt after the devastation of the war with Oona, and with a wave of his hand, he led his clique of dignitary immaculates toward the throne, where Maralen was perched.
“Ahh, I thought Rhys had come here to kill me. Glad to see safer faces!” Maralen exclaimed.
“Your Majesty, I hope Oona is subdued permanently, and that we do not have to fight another war,” Cynwrig said, taking a bow toward the Queen of Fae. “But we came here on behalf of High Perfect Morcant to discuss another concerning conflict, this time not of this world.”
“Oh?” Maralen mused. “Not of this world?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Rumor has it of an unspeakable abomination, a ‘Machine,’ devouring all of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor. We do not know what this ‘Machine’ truly is, but legends say it will turn us into metal with consciousness. Perhaps a fate worse than what befell Oona.”
“Therefore,” Cynwrig continued, “we seek to establish an alliance with you. We value the tactics you can provide, both in flight and in magic, to support us as we prepare to fend off the invaders.”
“Hmmf,” Maralen scoffed. “I know the Lorwyn elves too well, especially those from Lys Alana. You have never treated us as equals, so why should we sacrifice our fae for your unsubstantiated claims of war? Guardians, escort them out.”
“Wait, you don’t understand!”
Before Cynwrig could finish, he felt his hooves lifted off the ground. A faerie flew above him, seemingly carrying his elven body toward the gate without making any physical contact. As the faerie glanced down at Cynwrig, he noticed a necklace dangling from her neck. A necklace with a flower.
“Dawnglove?” Cynwrig whispered.
The spell broke, and he tumbled down onto the riverbank.
“How do you know dawnglove?” the faerie shouted. “Aren’t you a Lorwyn elf?”
“Well, yes. Yes, I am. But remember how your former evil queen was defeated? Now I can go to Shadowmoor, and if there are moongloves on Lorwyn, then there are dawngloves on Shadowmoor,” Cynwrig said, still wincing from the pain.
“By the way, how did you get that necklace? You went to Dawnglove Grove too?” Cynwrig asked.
What is beauty? Can that which is flawed be beautiful?
“Please don’t leave,” cried Uleska. “You could die. What is there worth chasing more than what we have, together?”
“Uleska,” Cynwrig whispered softly, his hands caressing the faerie’s teary cheeks, “I got my spark because I see beauty in ways no one else in this world can. And it is my duty to use my newfound powers to extract beauty from beyond this world. There are other planes out there, and with them, other beautiful things too. I will bring what Lorwyn cannot produce, what Shadowmoor could not grow, into this world, so that beauty may proliferate in perpetuity for our home.”
“But you said you wouldn’t leave me.”
“Yes, my love, but remember what I told you when I taught you the new illusion glamer you created beneath your canopy?”
“Yes. It’s us together, bound by a leyline of dawnglove petals. The glamer is only beautiful if its beauty never fades, and time erodes everything. We must keep exploring, keep looking at things from different perspectives. No beauty is forever if it is unchanging.”
“And so, my love, I must explore other worlds. I have my spark, but that spark is a mark of duty, to extend beauty, to eternalize it, even though we ourselves never will. It is for us, for our home.”
And with that, he planeswalked away into the Blind Eternities.
*****
As his mind raced across the void, whispers began to form. He started to hear chants, chants of perfection, of an orthodoxy that did not tolerate flaws. Beauty is perfection, and perfection is beautiful.
He saw a pristine chapel, adorned with whiteness as pure as the finest pearls. He saw blackened oil dripping, covering the courtyard and rinsing it of its stains. He saw perfection. Eternal beauty, and he fell toward it.
He landed in an arena. There were beings of unspeakable horror in the stands, but he did not recoil at the sight. He saw a demon-like being with blackened gunk dripping from its jaws. Its screams were jarring, primal, yet somehow not intimidating. Perhaps this was a beauty he had not yet recognized.
“Ah, we have a visitor blinded by the flesh,” said a dark figure upon the body of a hungry-mouthed fiend. “Are you looking for perfection?”
Cynwrig, still dazed, slowly took in the surroundings. This place was certainly different from Lorwyn-Shadowmoor. Gone were the flora that painted the plane in dazzling verdancy. Instead, the arena had a robotic, machine-like cadence, operating with oil in every corner of its structure. As he tried to rise, oil began seeping into his body through his hands and hooves.
“Sheoldred,” said one of the steel thanes, “it appears to be a planeswalker who has come calling to our great Mother.”
“Then let us rid him of his biological imperfections.”
*****
At Glen Elendra, Maralen was holding a meeting with her high-ranking fae, discussing the casting of certain glamers around the surrounding areas of the Grove of the Aurora Queen as an effort to prevent Oona’s consciousness from escaping. Suddenly, Uleska flew in, hobbling, with a chunk missing from one of her wings, as if a blade had cut through it.
“The machines… they are coming!”
At once, Maralen commanded her fae army into formation. They took to the skies with their wands clutched tightly in their hands. The air shimmered as glamer upon glamer wove across the sky. Some Phyrexian invaders blinked their mechanical eyes once, twice, then fell into a deep slumber. Apparently, machines could also grow tired. Other faeries, curious about harvesting dreamstuff from the sleeping invaders, were perplexed to find minds devoid of any biological imagination. As they futilely worked at their reapings, they were struck down by an advancing army of Etched Host demons.
As the faeries defended Glen Elendra as valiantly as they could, more branches of the Realmbreaker pierced the murky Shadowmoor sky, and along those branches, Phyrexian soldiers marched onto the plane in streams of robotic processions.
Somehow, among the mass of mindless Etched Host abominations, Uleska saw a horned figure fighting among the ranks. He wielded a dagger soaked in a gleaming, jet-black liquid. His horns and hooves were metallic, and his eyes glowed with an unnatural yellow hue, devoid of any warmth. Yet, despite his grotesque appearance, Uleska recognized him.
“Cynwrig!” Uleska gasped, her mind in such disarray that she thought she had cast a sleep glamer upon herself.
The Phyrexian elf looked up and saw a figure with broken wings. He grinned. “I have found eternal beauty.”
“No, no…” Uleska screamed. “Get away from me. What… what have you done to my love?”
“Ah, my dear Uleska,” hissed Cynwrig, “I promised I would return to you with my newfound beauty. Look at me. I am perfect. Beauty is perfection. Things don’t stop being beautiful because they are unchanging. They lose their beauty because they are inherently flawed. Perfection, on the other hand, is never so, and therefore it is eternal. Perfection is beauty, and beauty is perfection. Do you not see? Let me make you perfect. Let me make you… compleat.”
Uleska furiously waved her wand toward Cynwrig, her motions so exaggerated that she nearly fell from the sky with one wing already broken. But Cynwrig dodged every attack. With one spry leap, he grabbed her by the neck with his free hand. As he pressed her to the ground and Uleska gasped for air, Cynwrig raised his other arm, dagger in hand, and said,
“Once we are both perfect, we will enjoy eternal beauty. Together.”
*****
The moment Cynwrig drove his oil-soaked dagger into Uleska’s slender faerie torso, a burst of light shot forth from her dawnglove necklace. The radiance was so abrupt that it sent Cynwrig flying away and falling flat onto his back. As he rose, his unblinking yellow eyes fixated on the necklace, now pulsating with chromatic hues at each throb.
The oil tried to take over Uleska’s body, but stopped in its tracks as the dawnglow from the necklace formed a protective umbra around her. Soon, the oil from the dagger evaporated, and the necklace ceased emitting light. Everything fell dark.
Shaking, Cynwrig crawled toward Uleska’s lifeless body, his trembling hands reaching for the necklace. He took it off and held it in his hands, and at that moment, the necklace glowed again in a dazzling array of prismatic hues. Then, he saw metal giving way to flesh, oil that had been dripping from his horns boiling away. His memories of his home, Lorwyn-Shadowmoor, clawed back into his mind.
“Get him!” an Etched Host demon screamed. “We have a Shadowmoor elf over there!”
Cynwrig looked back and immediately darted toward the mountains. Soon, he was gone.
*****
“You and her were perfect for each other. Meant for each other. Meant to appreciate beauty for all of eternity…”
Cynwrig woke up in his hammock, hung between two trees in a glade of dawnglove flowers. He squinted at the sky. The sun had not yet risen. Of course it had not risen. It could never rise again, not until Eirdu came to replace the moon with the sun.
He dropped down from the hammock and sat mindlessly in the field, picking up a dawnglove flower in his hand, thinking about the day he received his immaculate ranking in Lys Alana, the day he became a dignitary, the day he was sent to Glen Elendra and met Uleska.
Uleska. She trusted him, let him into her world, even let him teach her how to cast glamers not for the sake of self-defense, but for joy and appreciation of art and beauty. Yet he killed her.
“But you did not kill her, my dear,” a voice rang inside his head. “You tried to give her a better life, a more perfect life. But the very thing you are holding right now never gave you that chance.”
“Who are you?” Cynwrig shouted, looking nervously around him. He could feel a presence, though nothing revealed itself.
“Oh, I was a faerie, just like Uleska. In fact, I was the true Queen of Fae. The Phyrexians would never have attacked this world had I remained queen. But alas, the mere mortals of this plane could neither see nor bear the truth.”
“Oona?”
“Listen, Cynwrig. It is not your fault. Everyone chases perfection. Everyone wants eternal beauty, especially the elves, and you are no different, my dear.”
“What blinded you was not oil, nor steel, nor the Machine, but dawnglove itself. The very apex of beauty on this plane prevented the compleation of Uleska. And since Uleska could not be compleated, her biological flesh had to give way to feed this world. Dawnglove killed her, my dear.”
“You lie! Dawnglove heals. It doesn’t kill!”
“Then who did? You? But you never planned to kill her. Your Shadowmoor memories deceive you by drowning you in sorrow and pitiful regret. If you wish to see the light, go to Lorwyn. There, I think you will appreciate the memory waiting for you on that side of the world.”
Lorwyn. The name burst into his mind like a battering ram. He had never returned to that side of the world since the invasion, not because he was unwelcome, but because he never let go of the dawnglove. The very thing that saved him from corruption. But dawnglove never grew in Lorwyn. There, its counterpart was the poisonous moonglove, a plant known only to kill. He never wanted to kill anyone, did he?
As the whispers faded, a white draconic figure swept across the sky. Eirdu, with a brilliant yellow orb glowing like a beacon of dawn upon his forehead, flew over the field. Some dawnglove petals shimmered at its presence. Others withered. The entire grove wavered between light and shadow.
As Cynwrig stared at the rising sun, a horrible screech filled his mind. His Phyrexian past surged over the sorrow he felt for Uleska’s death as daylight descended upon the grove. In his newly twisted memory, he saw the dawnglove necklace stopping the oil from seeping into her body. And with it, her life.
Cynwrig sprang to his feet, trampling the field of dawngloves as he ran toward Eirdu.
“Eirdu! Where is your brother, Isulu?” he shouted. “I will kill him, just as his dawngloves killed my Uleska!”
The graceful Incarnation of Lorwyn did not reply. It simply spread its silken wings and soared higher into the sky. Then the sun brought forth by Eirdu was eclipsed as Isulu, with his moon-crescent crown, emerged from the shadows. Lorwyn and Shadowmoor began fusing once again, but this time, during the clash of day and night, Dawnglove Grove became an eclipsed realm within the blending of the two worlds.
Suddenly, a new set of memories blanketed Cynwrig’s mind. They were neither sorrow nor anger nor regret nor despair, but something entirely refreshing. Something beautiful. Strangely, he could recall this memory from an era long past, a time when he appreciated beauty as it was, not as it might become.
*****
“By the way, how did you get that necklace? You went to Dawnglove Grove too?”
“Yes, us faeries often fly to other realms and prank unsuspecting beings. Goblins were our favorite targets. We were told to steer clear of elves, but I couldn’t help wanting to see what you guys were really like. That’s when I stumbled upon a glade of shimmering dawngloves. I had never seen anything like it, really. It was a spectacle.”
“So, I’m guessing you were drawn to their beauty?”
“Yes,” Uleska smiled. “They are really beautiful.”
*****
Cynwrig looked down at his hooves as they began to mottle. Not in shimmering hues like the dawnglove petals, but dabbling between gold and gray. Slowly, they turned increasingly pale as he felt difficulty lifting them. He began to calcify. He knew he needed to pick a side, any side, and move now, otherwise he would be trapped in this eclipsed world forever. But he took one more glance.
*****
“So, you really love art?” Uleska asked.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, all elves of Lys Alana do. But I really, really love it.”
“Can you paint?”
“What do you mean? Like drawings and stuff?”
“Yes. Have you ever drawn a picture before?”
“With what? Us elves just collect moongloves and cultivate them. For us, they are what pictures wish to be.”
“Well, us faeries can draw. Not every fae draws well, though. You see, we express our worldview through glamers. We collect dreamstuff from sleeping giants and boggarts and use it to create new glamers. Most never bother, though. They just cast glamers of empty air to shield themselves from intruders, which is what glamers do anyway, but…”
“I think we make a good couple,” Cynwrig blurted out.
*****
Now the lower half of his body felt as if it were dragging a boulder from Dolmen Gate. He glanced down. His entire legs had turned to stone. If he did not leave now, the calcification would trap him in the eclipsed field of dawnglove flowers forever.
But where would he go? Lorwyn, and his Phyrexian memories would recount how dawnglove prevented Uleska’s compleation. Shadowmoor, and his elven memories would forever remind him that he had slain the very love who trusted him. Maybe this world would be better.
*****
“So, you ready?” Cynwrig asked.
“Yeah! Show me!”
“Well, Uleska, the first rule in painting a good picture is to find a good source of inspiration. I think for our very first picture, dawngloves are perfect for that. Did you know that dawngloves sparkle in all sorts of wild colors when they are enchanted? Watch.”
Cynwrig took Uleska’s wand and waved it at the basket of dawngloves he had picked for their date. As the air shimmered, the petals glowed with chromatic hues, streaks of light dancing among the flowers.
He handed the wand back to Uleska. “Give it a go,” he said.
Uleska twirled the wand as she darted into the sky, and emerging from the illusion glamer was a dazzling leyline of dawngloves, dancing within it, seemingly sentient enough to form mythical shapes of unspeakable beauty.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” cried Uleska, tears of joy streaming down her face. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I think this world, my world, does not deserve to see something like this.”
“No, Uleska. It is my manifestation of beauty speaking to you. This is who I am. And having the chance to share what I can create with you, that is the most beautiful thing in the world to me. Truly.”
*****
As Eirdu and Isulu circled above Dawnglove Grove, Cynwrig smiled. A tear fell down his cheek. Perhaps this was perfection. Something was taking over his body, but unlike Phyrexian oil, it felt soothing. It felt right.
No, dawnglove did not kill Uleska, and neither did he.
The memories he was seeing now, with the eclipsed sun wavering between light and darkness, were what he had been seeking all along. They were proof that he and Uleska had existed, if only briefly, in everlasting bliss.
And that was when he decided to remain.
Calcified.
In a field of dawnglove flowers.
Beauty eternal.
The End
Lorwyn Eclipsed has been a very special Magic: The Gathering set for me. It is by far my favorite set in recent years. I was taken aback by the beauty of a fantasy world bracing itself in an everlasting dance between light and darkness, and the eclipsed realms in between. I had a lot of fun playing the cards from the set, drafting (and winning!) at my local game store. This story was inspired by a winning elves deck (shown below), and it led me to wonder: can beauty soften hearts? Can it bridge worlds? Can it be confined? Can it be forgiven? Thank you for reading my story!
Update: I loved the set so much that I went for another Lorwyn Eclipsed draft at my local game store (LGS) and guess what, not only did I go 3-0 and win the draft again, but I did it with...a faeries deck! Maybe fate does have its plans. For my decklist, please check it out on Moxfield.
