#willoftheblades

x | accepting

   “Always.”

   The answer is whispered with hardly a thought, and not a second to consider it.

   “They are in everything,” Varus continues, and it is a wonder that his voice is morose and not grateful; he should be glad to cling to their memory, and yet…

   He waves a hand at Irelia, at the grass beneath her feet and the sun over her shoulder. It makes his heart heavy to see the bit of Pallas that swarms his fingers, like before he’d made the gesture he had forgotten it was even there.

   “Would it make me a monster… more than I am already,” he murmurs, “to wish that they were not?”

   Because there were beautiful things that evoked their memory, but Varus had long since been seeing the world in grey; he felt Kleio on spring breezes that smelled of ash, saw Theshan in sunsets that were a colorless smear on the horizon. And when Pallas and he hunted, when red briefly colored his world, he saw them there too - their faces pinched and agonized, and too far away for him to save. And endlessly in his dreams, where he could not hope to banish them - Pallas would never allow it.

   It was torture, and it was forever.

   “They do not belong here, where the world has turned to death and ruin,” he tells her, and he wonders ( for a moment ) if Irelia has thought the same thing - if she has ever felt as though she was dragging the memory of someone she loved through the blood that painted their every footstep.

   A heaved sigh, the grotesque rustle of Pallas, and the lament of a man who will not let go.

“ Somewhere up above my heart a tiny little seed is sown, a government is overthrown..”

x | accepting

   Irelia and her elders were singing a rather tired tune.

   “Hardly,” she counters, not bothering to bite back the edge in her voice. She begins to launch into what feels like an age-old argument, though the war is fresh; exhaustion washes over Akali before she gets the chance, and she surrenders to the dragging current of it instead of fighting back.

   “What would you have me do, Irelia? The Kinkou have our own wars. Two more blades in Ionia’s arsenal will be of little use.”

   Perhaps this is not the usual accusation of Akali’s idleness, but the fact that war seems to follow in her quiet footsteps; first Ionia is laid siege to, and then her own order. Maybe chaos clings to her like she does to shadows and silence.

   “War may follow me, but it will never consume me like you and your fellow soldiers. It’s an insignificant thing to those who are above such petty conflicts.”

   That’s unusually cruel of Akali, but she’s grown weary of the fighting and the guilt and the worry and everything. She’d been ignoring her mother’s warnings against involvements outside of her duty, and was suffering for it. She would not be so lax in the future.

It’s a bit of a secret that I ship Deadeye/high noon Jhin with Cowgirl Missfortune ( @celindrea and I have various hcs for it), but I’ve never really come out and said it. It’s a ship that hurts me to the BONE.

SPEAKING OF BONE. There’s so much love for Kalista / Thresh, but where’s the love for Hecarim/Thresh?? those two could be SUCH DICKWADS. I also want me some Blood Moon Thresh and Blood Moon Jhin??? 

                She was not used to the pain of this mortal body; flesh was so much more tender, so much softer, than the blaze of stardust and cold of clouds. Such sensitive creatures humans were, with their hearts and their blood; no wonder they suffered so much, and so deeply as well. Their suffering pained her more than any wounds she could endure, though ( there was still starlight in her body, after all; it was more durable than the children of earth ). There would be time to lament her half-existence later, for now Soraka swallows her own turmoil; the aftermath of war would not wait for her. 

GIMME THOSE SWEET, SWEET HC PROMPTS.   ➵  accepting !

                 I  actually ???  Really love the dynamic between Ashe & Try.n in the new lore. It essentially gives me the same vibe, but its presentation gives much more detail & characterization in my opinion, even in its simplicity. She’s not just entangling herself  in some sort of political marriage that wasn’t even necessary, it’s not bolstered & buffered by popularity within an Institute which no longer exists --- Ashe specifically  chose him  as her King to oversee the future of the entire Freljord. It doesn’t even read as inherently romantic aside from the traditional meaning of King & Queen --- to me, it holds more weight than that. It’s inherently political, an attempt to unite two different tribal societies ( ma.triarchal & pa.triarchal ) with the intent to proceed with a blended, equal society. She seeks him out specifically, makes the choice, & he accepts. 

    Irelia nearly throws her blades at the Crow, with the suddenness in his arrival. He doesn’t even employ skulk around on purpose! How can he appear so quietly?

    She sets aside a pile of papers, pulling herself towards her desk and straightening up. “Right. We were beginning to expect you, Renzus, so you’ve come at a good time.”

    The reports from the area they had agreed for him to investigate had revealed action, though the details were too scarce for Irelia to make out anything definite. Whether that accounted as a result of the councilor’s meticulous defense or Renzus’ expertise at covering his tracks, she would soon find out.

    “So let’s chat. What were you able to find?”

There was a small measure of amusement that Renzus took in surprising Irelia, even if it was a harmless one. He wasn’t exactly purposefully being stealthy, merely his usual gait that had been honed for subtlety after a long career of operating in Valoran’s underworld.

He takes his seat across the Captain, folding his fingers upon his lap. Settling into a comfortable position, the First Crow began his tale, for it was indeed a tale to tell.

“Councilor Yang is involved in no nefarious activities. No plotting against the Council, no conspiring with outside powers...if anything, it is the assistant that Yang employed to handle his affairs that is somewhat shady, cutting corners in his work, pressing questionable taxes and hiring thugs to intimidate citizens, none of which are with the Councilor’s sanction.”

“I could learn very little until I was able to infiltrate his household one day, when the Councilor was pressed into personally attending business.” His expression softened, and he gave a slow, heartfelt sigh. “The reason for his sustained absence is his daughter. She is a girl no older than five, but stricken with some kind of severe illness. She is comatose for most of the day, and her waking hours are plagued with chronic pain. Yang has scoured the land for a remedy, but no physician or healer can help.”

“I refrained from taking a look at the girl myself, at least not without consent. From what little I could gather from a distant glimpse, her symptoms are not unlike a disease I have seen ravage some of the citizens of Zaun, but how she contracted it, I cannot say, nor can I confirm if it is even the same ailment.”