#shadowofdarkin

Avica ambushed them. Her feathers descended from the flora above and disintegrated into blinding fog. The Noxians tried to form a defensive ring, those who weren’t fast enough to join had perished quickly. Sounds of severed flesh accompanied death cries. Five remained of the patrol when the smoke cleared up, they stood in shock at the clean cut bodies of their comrades. Their heavy armor protected like butter against a hot knife it seemed.

A lhotlan girl stood before them. “Come.” She said. The Noxians did so in unison, charging. She threw a feather at them, it dug into one’s armor and exploded, breaking their formation. She lunged, the Ragedrinker trusted into a man before beheading the other. Before her, the last two got up and cried out with fury. They slashed, she moved. Dodged again, then cut the man’s sword in half and threw a feather clean through him, his chest imploded and he dropped dead. The other, now last, bashed with off-hand. She hit the ground. As he swung down, she rolled sideways, her crimson blade cut through the man’s armor, severing his forearms. He screamed before he was ended.

At her bloodshed, she stared then. Hasty breaths slowing into deep ones. Most would clean their blades now. The Ragedrinkers needed not that treatment, hers, as all others, drank in the victims’ blood. Avica calmed herself from the fray, and sheathed her blade. Her eyes closed. Breath still shaking a bit. Then, a spark of awareness. Blade slightly drawn. She though she heard something.

Vana had been shocked to find Aatrox once more. What shocked her more is that he seemed to be trying to enter some sort of tomb... or temple? The healer wasn’t entirely sure from where she was. What she was sure of though was the mechanism that would allow entry into the tomb. It was one that required two people. She had seen such a mechanism before. 

Powerful runes that kept the temple safe could also tell if there was any cheating going on. The mechanism required two people and for those two people to sync up their motions. If they failed... well Vana wasn’t entirely sure what would happen, but she had heard there were consequences. 

Pity plucked at Vana’s heartstrings. Whatever Aatrox wanted it was unlikely he would ever get it. As always Aatrox seemed to be perpetually alone. She frowned - frown turning into a determined look as she moved from her hiding space towards the mechanism... and Aatrox.

He observed for a while , how strange for him it was to find a darkin away from war.

- Are you waiting for the drums?, you will not hear them in these lands …- Cereniphes said watching from the heights.

Several long seconds of silence followed, and it seemed as though nothing would happen. Perhaps, expecting A Darkin to simply appear because one spoke to a bunch of relics, was rather foolish. Just as it seemed that nobody would respond, however, the voice of Aatrox spoke from behind her. “What exactly is it that you want to hear?”

His voice snapped her back to attention, her eyes drawn away from the relics. It was a surprise the Darkin even showed up. She doubted trying to summon a Darkin was even possible, but it was her only option. At least he showed up.

Their last encounter left too many questions for Iris, and it gnawed at the back of her mind.

“Perhaps,” Iris started, “I want to hear that you were wrong about the people of my country not being warriors. Though, I doubt I’d get something like you to even admit being wrong. Is that right?” she grit her teeth before finally turning to Aatrox.

He towered over her more so than she remembered last he approached her. His presence was intimidating, but he was surely aware she wouldn’t falter based on his size alone. Though she was confident he wouldn’t attack, she was fully donned in armor and she stood tall and proud against the Darkin.

The moon reflected on the surface on the pond, so quiet and crystalline that it almost seemed an enclosed night-sky on its own, a window to another world. Zed was on the shore, knelt down and head lowered, the arch of his shoulders forming a straight line. 

That pond in the forests surrounding the former Kinkou Monastery had been a place where Zed was able to find peace since his youth, even if it was momentarily. It was one of his shelters when the shadows of the Temple were too stagnant, when rage was so hot in his head that he could not see clear.

Kill the mind, build the mind, free the mind. Those were not teachings of the Order of the Shadows by mere chance. 

But that was not the reason that lead him there that night. It was the dark presence he had felt, getting close the the Monastery, subtly, but not indiscernible. After all those months with the demon scythe under his roof, it was impossible for Zed to not recognise an equal force.

And so he went out and waited, until the darkin presented itself from the shadows. A mistake, for darkness was the Master of Shadows’ domain. 

“So you know who I am”, Zed spoke when addressed, lifting his gaze, and his crimson eyes pierced the shadows of the night. “That is more than could be said from the rest of your brethren”.

As soon as the darkin spoke, the ninja knew he was not in front of an ordinary creature. He was sure that, would that been Rhaast, he would not have approached him with such willingness to talk. Zed stood up, solemn, without showing an open hostility, not yet. 

“Tell me what you are doing in my domains, creature, and why should I tolerate your presence any longer”.

Wrath could not look into fiery eyes of the Darkin’s Blade as it was obvious what would she see: annoyance, maybe dissappointment too.. At that moment it was nothing comparable to worry she was experiencing.

“It’s.. even worse.”