Mirana (Mirana of Nightsilver) and Marci

Why Mirana loves Marci

Mirana of Nightsilver has thirteen lines for Marci. Marci answers her with not a single word, because Marci does not speak at all. And yet she is the one the princess tells: «Thank you, Marci… You always know exactly what to say.» +18 on one side and +17 on the other: one loves in words, the other in deeds.

It all began in the sunlit palace of the Helio Imperium. A little servant girl saw other servant children stealing from the royal table and told her mother. She was overheard. The thieves caught the small, weak girl and beat her so badly that she never spoke again. Little Princess Mirana went to her father the emperor: the throne must not abide thieves or cruelty. That same evening the same girl stood by her bed, now in a handmaid's uniform. Viceroy Kashurra explained that those who hurt her had been punished, because everything has its cost. When the grown-ups left, the new handmaid silently brought the princess her stuffed mouse. Propriety demanded that a servant be called simply girl or handmaid, but Mirana said she wanted to call her by her name. And so the mute girl got a name that someone said out loud: Marci.

Later the palace went up in flames in a coup, and the princess's parents were killed. Two thirteen-year-old girls had to flee the city together. Mirana found refuge in the Nightsilver Woods, where the goddess Selemene took her in, and Marci stayed by her side: bodyguard, sister, shadow. Dota 2's lore says little about them: the roots of their friendship are entwined in secrets neither would ever needlessly reveal. It adds that Marci learned at a young age that the best asset in a scrap is a steady companion. It is Marci who insists on pulling a wounded stranger, the knight Davion, out of trouble. It is also Marci who, together with Sagan, saves Mirana in the snowy mountains when the dead have already surrounded her. Where a girl so small gets such strength is a mystery, and Marci simply rebuffs every attempt to find out.

In the Helio Imperium everything has its cost, and the bill came from the very one who had once given Mirana her friend. Kashurra turned out to be a Void dragon who for years had worshipped the princess as the Eye of the Worldwyrm. To awaken that power in her, he needed the most painful loss of all. He killed Marci before Mirana's eyes. The power did awaken: Mirana destroyed Kashurra and became God-Empress of the Sun. The throne she had once fled came to her at the price of the life of someone who never asked anything for herself.

Later Invoker reshaped the world, and in the new reality Marci is alive again. Silent again, at her side again, serving her princess again. But that world rested on a lie. To save the real one, Mirana returned to the old world, and together with the new world Marci vanished once more.

Perhaps that is why every line of the Mirana of Nightsilver persona in Dota 2 sounds as if it is spoken across the border between worlds. On meeting her: «Gods I missed you, Marci.» and «I love you Marci, I won't let anything happen to you.» Facing her in battle, Mirana pleads: «Don't make me do this, Marci!», and after the kill she can only apologize: «Forgive me, Marci…» and «This will haunt me the rest of my days…» Marci answers with no word at all. Her answer is her fists between the princess and anyone who threatens her, and the loyalty Dota 2's lore promises to everyone who earns her favor: for life. Mirana knows it, which is why she tells her the simplest thing: «If you need me, just whistle.»