The air was cold through the nearly empty streets of Ravnica. Normally, the streets harbored chaos and anarchy, twisted duels and bouts getting in the way of the denizens of the endless city.

But for once, the world was quiet.

A lone vedalken child stood, leaning against a building, exhausted. He had been running. Running so long and so hard.

He didn’t know if he could keep going. He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know why he was alone.

He didn’t even know what his name was.

And he never had.

He rested in head in his hands, taking careful note of the six fingers…

For as long as he could remember, his life was terror. Running. Fear. Would it ever stop?

The boy with no name sighed, as he heard orders being barked. They had found him again. The boy took two haphazard steps, before breaking off into a run.

He ruefully wished that the officers would leave him alone, that the world could be fixed.

The boy was combing through books. The Ismeria Library kept him safer — maybe not safe, but safer. He had looked through thousands of documents, seeking an answer. A father or a mother, with six fingers, or with born blindness, or with no ability to speak.

But despite the hundreds of thousands of documents he had combed through, he never found him, or his mom, or his dad.

He sighed.

And he cried. He cried, for so long, it felt like forever.

He knew he was never going to see them again.

So he looked elsewhere.

He pulled out dictionaries, and combed for some specific words.

Sem, to create or use something. Imerc, to be restrained or held back. Smi, to be unlucky or alone. Imi, to be disabled , a freak, unwanted, an acciden—

No… no… he wouldn’t get mad…

He shook his head.

Sem, smi, imerc, imi … Words that described him. And they were similar enough…

He had no name. Or, if he did, no one made it known to him…

Semic. Smic. Simic.

Simic.

Makes due.

He gave a soft laugh. A silent laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

It sounded perfect.

He could help but he feel he fixed a part of his identity.

Biomancy, the art of altering the body, to fix injuries, birth defects, or improve one's self.

Simic read the words multiple times, trying to mouth the word. Biomancy.

He kept reading.

Considered a dark art. Illegal to experiment on other people, highly dangerous. See subscript 704.f.

Other people.

Simic ran his hands together. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

He assumed no one would ever perform such a volatile experiment on themselves. After all, everyone else had no reason to.

Simic grabbed the letter opener beside him, gripped in in a fist of iron.

But he did.

He raised the letter opener high. This was going to hurt…

Then he dropped it. It rattled on the floor behind him.

No.

He had to know what he was doing. He wanted the right amount of fingers, not less.

Not less.

Simic rose from the table.

And he searched for more books.

The world was quiet, because it was just him and his dreams, his hopes… His passion.

Just him and his future. One he could fix himself.

Simic couldn't believe it. Around him, he held so much. Blades and needles and grafts, he could do it goddamn it.

He had read the procedures so many times. So, so many times.

He had them memorized.

He raised one hand to cover his left eye, but it made no impact on his vision. His vision.

A fault. He just wanted to be accepted.

He had come to the conclusion long ago. He knew why he had even dumped on the streets in Precinct Ten.

Because who would want a freak?

Simic smiled. If only he knew who his mom and dad were now.

Proud of me? Simic thought. I’m not a mistake anymore.

Simic moved his hand away. He could see again if he did this right.

He knew he would. What would he forget?

He smirked, holding up the needle.

Time to fix this.

He cradled himself, in silence. Not that he could tell.

He had forgotten nothing. He had moved with grace, with elegance.

And things still went wrong. So, so, wrong.

No slip. No falter. It should have fucking worked!

Simic swiped his arm over the table.

The silent librarian looked at Simic and his outrage. They had long gotten used to it. Every day, early in the morning, he would arrive, study. And it was at the final shift in the final seconds when he would leave.

The librarians were used to Simic’s outrages — when he learned something truly could not be done, when he had found laws against biomancy. When he lost his hearing, his sense of touch.

He was deaf in his left ear, unable to feel in his right side of his body.

He screamed, but no sound came out.

Imi .

To be disabled.

A freak.

A mistake.

An accident.

A failure.

A reject.

A disgrace to science.

A problem.

Simic looked at his hands. Still six fingers. But now one hand held no sense, the other held no license. That sphinx Azor and his stupid bureaucrats forbid him from experiments. Tinkering.

He screamed once more, and a choked sob came out. The first sound he ever uttered.

Maybe some things couldn’t be fixed.

He laughed. A silent, joyous laugh.

And he thrust the scalpel through his right palm.

He reveled in the pain. It hurt, oh, it hurt.

And that was the beauty in it.

He had done it. He restored his hearing. His feeling.

His hope.

Not that it could be known. He still wasn’t allowed to tinker on his life’s work. But he did regardless.

Life’s work.

That was fitting.

Life’s work…

Simic paused. Other people could use help. He wasn’t the only person who had been injured or born awkwardly. He just pulled all the short straws.

He already lived and worked in the alley. Might as well share his secrets. His gifts.

He pondered. He wasn’t even doing it for money.

It would be free, he decided.

No one should pay for happiness.

He would fulfill the childhood dream.

He would fix the world.

Guilty.

Guilty of peace? Of balance?

Guilty of giving people a reason to keep living in this tormenting world, to not end their life as they knew it?

Simic gave a silent scoff. And he was being outrageous.

Of course, Azor and his newly found Senate didn't care.

Simic raised his hands, signing something in Ravnican sign language. I have earned it. This is my right.

Ravnica needs someone who can save them. It needs a doctor who can do anything.

It needs me.

He could have corrected his eyesight this time. He had fixed the eyesight of others. He could have fixed his hands. His voice.

But he had lived so long without them. They weren't going to change it now.

Simic knew he was the best. No one else had trained.

No one.

It was fact, not a brag. Fact.

He was the best, simply by default.

...other people should know this.

Maybe he could fix that.

Simic could help but admire his handy work. His own personal location, out of in the heart of the endless city.

He felt proud.

Rejected, unwanted. All he could remember was fighting for fairness.

And now no one else would have to fight as hard.

He was considered the best biomancer in Ravnica, he was taking apprentices, he was able to share his gift.

He wasn’t doing it for the fame, although he didn’t turn it down. The fame made him more known, more able to help.

He was just doing what was right.

He thought the world was fixed.

A magically binding contract. Giving this world form and logic.

Divide and conquer, split these ‘guilds’ into sections, and together they run Ravnica smoothly.

There was many leaders already.

Azor, who proposed law and order. Szadek, who proposed secrets and knowledge. Rakdos, who proposed entertainment. Cisarzim, who proposed wildlife. Mat'Selesnya, proposing unity. The ghost council, all proposing gold and finances. Niv-Mizzet, proposing science. Razia, proposing enforcement. Svogthir, proposing keeping the underground safe and thriving.

Simic stepped in, seeing all the leaders. They were on the verge of signing.

They already knew why he was here.

He had been very vocal — okay, he was vocal, but the point stood — about his stance. He wanted to bring evolution and biomancy to Ravnica. So others could choose their fate.

To propose evolution. To allow one to fix what couldn’t be fixed.

Simic Combine. It was a clever pun.

Simic had gone back to wordplay for his guild, when they were formed.

Combine meant a group of people.

It could also meaning combining limbs, skin.

It fit biomancy well.

He had done it. He was taking on students, scholars. People from the bounds of the endless city’s known land were coming to him for training.

He had done it.

He pondered his life.

He had been harmed in every way. Born as an enigma, abandoned as a child, hunted as a fugitive.

Yet he kept going.

And because of it, he prospered.

He had founded the Simic Combine, and people could achieve their dreams.

Simic had never spoken. He couldn’t. But regardless, he tried.

I fixed it.

Simic gave a resounding cough. He sighed.

His time was here.

Simic held the pen in his hand. He had one more wish.

His power had given him everything he had ever wanted.

And now, his power would do one more thing.

Simic didn’t feel like the hero he was praised to be. He had been ill-content with his own existence and then shared his secrets.

He was only doing the right thing, and sadly, not everyone understood that he wasn’t doing it for fame.

Don't remember me. He wrote out, his handwriting swirling and curling, like ornate designs on metal forms.

Purge me from history. If the only way he lived on was through his name in the Simic Combine, that was enough. He felt that was more than he needed.

I only did the right thing, I am not a hero. Everyone disagreed, saying he was a ‘hero’, ‘savior’, ‘miracle’. One person had outright called him a ‘gift from the gods’.

Just let the guild I founded survive, thrive. It was his life’s work in the end. The Simic Combine was his child, the only child he had ever needed or had. He was married to his work, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

If I did my job right, no one needs me anymore. Simic wrote down, the curl at the bottom of the E twisting and turning into the overly complex signature he was known for.

He smiled. And closed his eyes.

The world around him still had flaws. Wars being fought. Arguments.

But to him? It was safe. It was fixed.

And fixed was enough.

So, it was done. Szadek, who had always respected Simic for his ambition and dedication, followed his dying wish. Simic's name and story was purged, and he felt into shadow. House Dimir kept no copy, a first and last time, out of respect.



And his guild prospered. And thrived.



He gave others the gift he could never have. The gift of perfection. Of choice.



And the reason no one remembers him is because he didn't feel they should.

Because he wouldn’t admit he really was a hero.

The hero who fixed Ravnica.