#shadowspath

The question ripples off a fold of the Demon’s sleeve. It’s not that it’s unworthy, or even that he finds it bothersome-- instead he sits on the long edge of a toppled fence, glancing from between the slits of his golden claws. 

“Am I?” He tilted his head. “That’s not something you ask without confidence.”

He chuckled. “In my opinion, that is.”

His fingers returned to rest atop his lap, nonplussed either for Kayn or the enormous scythe that followed him. Certainly he was the Golden Demon, and certainly he had almost a reputation to keep, but what of it? Would it have mattered if Kayn crawled back to his master mystified that the supposed specter haunting Zed and Shen alike struck not a blade, but conversation?

Hmm. Maybe it was better if he did.

                The Captain turns to the boy before him, his stance low and held taught with power and determination. Just as always, Garen’s expression remains impassive with hard lines, a deeply set brow with his lips a straight line. He stands always as the great statues of his homeland; an unwavering mountain in the body of a man. His thoughts are impossible to read behind his cold, unchanging exterior as he regards the raging youth before him. 

                The sycthe that extends behind him is the imagery of a reaper, a deathly power soaking the air around him in fury and bloodlust. The same weapon reminds Garen of a beast or a parasite waiting to devour its prey; makeshift armor that matches the hard edges of the syche has crawed over this boy’s body ( it is the beast’s claws, waiting to devour ). His eyes finally turn to the weapon, the same one that clings to this child, hiding in his shadow. 

                 When Kayn finally speaks, his words are like thunder that commands his attention, a war cry that sounds not only for this moment, but as a testiment to his will to survive ( survive this war, this life, this beast who waits to take hold of him ). Garen believes in his resolve. 

／人◕‿‿◕人＼

                Her hands continue to weave the fibers of the basket she is making, a pastime she learned in order to understand humans and their lives. It’s relaxing work, rhythmic in practice. Soraka had taken it upon herself to learn as much about them as she could, to grow with them, as her home was now Runeterra and she could not return to the grove. 

                The Starchild hums quietly, resting on her knees while her fingers move in and out. Her calm is not disturbed by the dissonance that breathes within her senses. The hum of the earth underneath her feels as if ripples move through it, a spirit who was not supposed to be among them within. She knows that there is a body that lurks behind her, as if it breathes the very shadows. 

Out of any of Zed’s to plumb out of the trees as the Captain traipsed through the northern forest’s underbelly, this one Irelia expected the least.

It’s announced through less a noise or a look but more a presence, cut thick and drenched in the unpleasant. It stitched a claw up her hackles, pined goosebumps on her skin-- Irelia stared ahead, and soon she met him, scythe and all. Her throat would have dried a tad if it weren’t that she hadn’t at all flinched or even wavered.

“One of Zed’s,” she said, though he needed no introduction. Anyone that stepped into the heart of the Immortal Bastion and walked out with their life wasn’t exactly abdicated from hearsay and whispers.