Ask Jhin

"For art,” Jhin said, his single exposed eye distant and dreamy behind his mask. “I could see what they should be. How beautiful they could be, if only they were carved free of the skin and bones that kept them trapped. I looked at them and I saw their inner beauty. I heard the music of their souls, the symphony longing to be set free.”One arm swept out in a grandiose gesture, as if Jhin were conducting an invisible orchestra.“And so I freed them. I perfected them.”

“Ah, the little feathered fiasco. You dart around so eagerly, dashing and swooping as if you believe yourself to be a falcon instead of some unfortunate mishmash of human and avian. Have you heard of the practice of Blood Eagles, featherling? It’s a way that humans give each other the appearance of wings.You, however, have that lovely feathered cloak. I’d sew it to your arms and your back, give you wings in truth, and pierce through you with skewers and fishing wire. Fishing wire is all but invisible; when I hang you from the tree, you will look as if you are finally flying.Of course, birds can only fly because their bones are hollow. I would need to scoop all that marrow out - perhaps take the flesh as well? Yes. Stretch the skin back over your skeleton, inflate it with air or perhaps helium so it’ll float better.What a lovely piece of art you would be and what a perfect warning to all the other vastaya who think they can imitate Nature’s art.”

“The instructions were clearly to compliment the mun. If I were allowed to insult the mun, you would find yourself reading an endless list of faults that I have not yet been able to correct.”

“The mun has some talent at writing and drawing. Their creative efforts are not without merit.”

“If only indeed. Such a pity that the Eye of Twilight had to die. I would have relished the chance to ask him if he still believed that he had made the right choice.” Behind his mask, Jhin’s thin lips curled into a scornful smirk as he imagined Kusho confronted with all the deaths that Jhin had caused after his capture.Each of those deaths, he could have laid at Kusho’s feet. He could have told the man, ‘They would yet live if you had let me die’ and seen if that would have cracked the mask of the Eye of Twilight.“His despair would have made the composition a masterpiece.”

“What an interesting question. Gender does not matter when it comes to beauty; my ideal female would be no different from my ideal male. They would have a wealth of colors, a veritable rainbow of them - multitudinous hues wrapped around their form and rising outwards and upwards in all directions. They would be sweetly musical as well, agony singing through their screams and hissing in their blood. I would hear music when I approached them, the clear, pure tones of woodwind over the deep thrum of a percussive heartbeat.The raw aroma of their blood and the singular scent of their soul would waft through the air, beckoning me closer, enthralling me as I take that first deep breath and suffuse myself with their being. Their skin would part readily to reveal their inner mysteries and their wet, tender insides would welcome my exploration as I grow acquainted with my subject.I cannot say the details of what I would do. Inspiration always strikes me differently. To try to imagine a person down to each last particular detail is futile; no imagination could ever capture the glorious complexity that makes up a person.”

"It is beautiful to watch the shamed flush rise on an opponent’s face, is it not? All those delicate veins, carrying blood up to the face, and the way their aura changes. Sometimes it darkens, rage snaking around the bright pink of embarrassment, and other times it develops a chartreuse tint of nausea. Such a fascinating interplay, all in response to a simple sound.”

“Artist? What sort of tasteless plebian are you to apply such a word to her?She is no artist. She wields a barrage of guns but they lack both meaning and artistry. A centipede with a brush tied to each of its hundred feet, skittering across the floor, would make truer works of art.Like a joyous child throwing around buckets of paint at random, she does nothing but waste the potential of her subjects and setting. Do not call her an artist; to do so is to insult true artists like myself.”

“There is no such thing as a lost cause, only causes that have been abandoned and forgotten. Everything has its own beauty; all I do is bring that beauty to the surface.Yasuo still holds Ionia in him. His brother’s blood stains his hands; I would cleanse them, flay the skin off them and delicately carve away the flesh until there is only clean, white bone left to tenderly hold his flute.Riven, destroyer of Ionia, is still a child of Noxus for all her white hair and bright smile. She is a poster child for her armies and within her dwells all the darkness of that foul city. I would cleanse her, slit her from her throat to her navel so that the darkness may escape and her true light shine through. She would glow like her blade with that mindless nationalism.Empires fall but beauty is eternal. They will see.”

“True agony,” Jhin told Zed as he packed rose petals against the open wounds, “Is a thing of the soul.” Red and black rose from Zed, tendrils of crimson smoke that caressed the black shadows which reached for Jhin, and the beauty of them made Jhin’s eyes half-lidded behind his mask. What a rotten, corrupted, lovely thing Zed was. In the lines of Zed’s unmasked face, Jhin saw himself as no other had ever reflected him. They were both Ionians. They were both killers. But Zed was lovely as Jhin had never been (as Jhin had always wanted to be). “You will know true agony before I am done with you,” Zed snarled through a mouthful of blood. His teeth had not been white enough for Jhin’s tastes so Jhin had wrenched them out and pressed pearls into the gaps. Now they shone, blood-slicked and beautiful, whenever Zed spoke. “Yes, yes,” Jhin said, indulgent of his creation’s whims. He examined Zed’s tongue and decided it could stay. The garish red muscle looked well against those new white teeth - but Zed’s lips were too pale now. Jhin would have to redden them. He reached for his favorite filleting knife and told himself he took no pleasure in how Zed’s breath hitched as Jhin’s fingers closed around the hilt.  He was an artist. This was his art. It was certainly nothing personal.