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There is a fire.
The flames build higher and higher and higher, and this is the first time that she can remember ever feeling afraid.
The smoke swirls overhead and she is trembling, small hands calloused and wide eyes switching back and forth from the home she once knew to the street behind her. Her face is matted in soot, and her fingers ache and bleed from pressing into broken glass, from heaving herself out the window. But she is safe, and she has to wait for what feels like an eternity for help.
She is tired.
She is desperate.
The flames devour themselves, and all that is left of the home is her. She is the lone survivor – everything else is reduced to ash, in which they leave with the winds the same night. She is brought gently to a safer place – a place that she relies in for years, piecing together the fragments of a broken mind, a mind left alone for too long.
--
There is a fire.
The flames build higher and higher and higher, and this is the first time that she can remember ever feeling empowered.
The orphanage is everything to her, and now her room spirals downward as the monster eats away at the walls. Her arms wrap around herself and they scream her name, begging her to come and she only stares ahead with wide, blank eyes that mimic the flames themselves. They dance around her, threatening and yet gentle – a reminder of her past, where she should have died with them.
She is strong.
She is steadfast.
And eventually, she peels herself from her spot, shakes herself from her stubborn disposition, lunging through the ring. She pushes past the other children, through the adults, and determination echoes through her soul,
When she breaks out to the streets, she presses herself back against an alleyway until her name is lost in the winds. She makes a living for herself – she finds herself entranced by a blade abandoned by a soldier, lodged in between two stones – a broadsword, hardly her height. She picks it up, tests it, finds her swings short and perfect. Her strength reverberates through it. And she raises her head toward the poster beside her, scarred fingers tracing along it, eyes lighting up.
She discovers her resolve as it shines through the blade. Her choice is made.
--
There is a fire.
The flames build higher and higher and higher, and this is the first time that she can remember ever feeling proud.
The armor that weighs down her shoulder is heavy, but the new blade she has since been bestowed is heavier. The runes glow brightly in accordance to her touch, and the bonfire illuminates it. Footsteps echo behind her and the commander settles a hand on her shoulder, causing her to turn her head. Her strength has brought her here, he tells her, and her heart swells. A bow of her head out of respect and he squeezes down before leaving her alone to revel in her newfound glory.
She is calm.
She is collected.
This is what she has been training for, she thinks. Her eyes flicker back to the embers as they crackle near her feet. A smile lines along her lips and she grips her blade firmly before she rises, swinging her cloak over her form before she convenes with the rest of her regiment.
--
There is a fire.
The flames build higher and higher and higher, and this is the first time that she can remember ever feeling bitter.
The mission failed. All of the expressions of those that are in the vicinity – the survivors – are grim, painted across with frustration. Some lean back against excess piles of wood, others against pine trees that soar high into the sky. Oranges and yellows splash across everyone’s face, and she takes a few steps back, solemnity etched into her features – underneath her eyes, namely, in their ashen manner.
She is pressured.
She is at fault.
When her back turns to the pyre, all of her men turn their heads and they’re poised to leave alongside her – leave behind their comrades that had fallen per foolish mistakes. Her hands are stained with soot, and she brushes them off idly when she begins walking along. There is no time for this type of melancholic lingering. That is the Noxian way – strength over all. They must move on, and she must not let their deaths haunt her.
--
There is a fire.
The flames build higher and higher and higher, and this is the first time that she can remember ever feeling removed.
The embers flicker back and forth and behind her, soldiers cheer, clinking glasses together and celebrating over a temporary victory. Her eyes lower to the blood that glistens on her blade, twinkling with the stars overhead and the flare ahead. It doesn’t feel real. What does is her same blade twisting inside of her stomach, in which she feels sick. Wrong.
This is not what she fights for. This is exactly what she fights to prevent – the overpowering of those that cannot protect themselves. Peaceful people that want nothing to do with the reigning supreme of Noxus suddenly have to surrender or suffer by their blades.
They were just orders. Nothing more. Corrupted ideals. Forgotten purposes.
She is sickened.
She is lost.
She wants to relinquish her blade to the pyre with this kind of discomfort. She’s killed innocents. She’s fulfilled the decrees of her leaders, and wears the Commander title proudly, but the pride howls at a blood moon that’s fading into the fog.
The pieces snap together in her mind. But she wants to fight for her country. She wants to fight for everything that she believes in, everything that she will continue to believe in because Noxus is who she is. It runs in her veins; it thrives in her soul.
Her men pull at her armor, tugging her back, shoving a mug into her hands and nudging her with wide-set grins. They want her to celebrate. But she wants to mourn the loss of innocent lives, of proper ideals.
Her fingers curve along the handle, and she only drinks to fulfill the wishes of her fellowship. Maybe to fill the void in her stomach, too.
--
There is a fire.
The flames build higher and higher and higher, and this is the first time that she can remember ever feeling hopeless.
Death and decay rot the air – they’re rampant, coupled with chemicals that burn into the ground, searing into her skin. She is numb to the pain – all that is left in place is fear that slithers through her entire being, squeezing her throat, lungs filling up with the toxic gases that permeate the battlegrounds.
The spark is a chartreuse sludge, and the embers crackle and disintegrate anything in their path. Metal fizzles away; skin dissipates in a flurry, followed by muscle and bone until there’s nothing left. Names disappear with the bodies, and some are indiscernible – lost to the mixed acids, in the Zaunite rampage that takes Noxian and Ionian alike.
Her legs are trembling, and she scatters backward, stumbling over sunken armor and dismembered limbs. Her blade is heavier than she remembers. Her screams fall on deaf ears, overpowered by the blasts, by the marching on of the machinations. Her throat is raw by the end of it, and her ears are ringing; her body burns with the necessity to escape, and she is swallowed by herself, tripping over her own two feet as she runs.
She is disheveled.
She is spiraling downward.
She loses track of time. Hours pass until she stops – until she cannot run anymore. She clambers against a rock, allows herself to rest only temporarily. There is hardly any clarity, but there’s an understanding of what has been lost.
An understanding that is a double-edged sword which cuts so deep that all she sees is the blood of the fallen when she escapes into oblivion.
--
There is a fire.
The flames build higher and higher and higher, and this is the first time that she can remember ever feeling detached.
A single rock strikes against the blade, over and over. Gloved fingers tighten around it as sparks fly. She softens the edges in the pyre, pulls it out, remolds it with each stroke against the hardened surface. The metal becomes fragile, and certain strikes shatter different parts. The runes glow idly, and she discards the pieces that have no use to her. The broken blade is significantly smaller – a jagged, off-center v-shaped shard settled upon the hilt.
It’s lighter, but it holds all the significance it had when she first received it. More so now, glossed with the souls of the fallen that she keeps in the recesses of her mind. They crawl to prevalence time and time again, whispering nothings in her ear. The runes pulsate, as if reflecting a dimmed resolve that was once so clear.
She is alone.
She is renewed.
But there is a replacement kindling within her – a desire for the past… To change. To rediscover. Her eyes close, and she places her blade down carefully beside the rock, moving to splay herself out against the cloth beside the pyre. Her muscles are tense, but they ease as exhaustion dances along her eyelids, lulling them shut.
The fire dwindles and the stars consume the smoke, swelling and twinkling above. They manage to keep her safe while war splatters in her mind.
--
There is a fire.
The flames build higher and higher and higher, and this is the first time that she can ever remember feeling righteous.
The blade swings in an arc, jagged point jabbing into flesh. Pulling it from the victim, she flicks it so the blood smatters against the grass, soaking in. She pushes on, panting and staring ahead of herself. A girl with a bloodied garb sways in front of her, sadness glazed in her eyes. Trembling fingers reach and she attempts to grab at her, clutching onto worn cloth as she stumbles forward.
She needs help.
She scoops the girl up, sets her blade away. She carries her elsewhere – to a safehouse of the Noxian military on the edge of the forest. Her cloak masks her face, and the girl turns to look at her once she’s put down on the ground. She clings to a soldier’s leg, who is staring inquisitively toward her. She says nothing – whisks her cloak, turns, grips her blade underneath.
She is peaceful.
She is understanding.
She swallows down the demons of her past by the time that she pulls her hood back down and sees nothing changed. The image of the Noxian outskirts blurs away; it did not happen and she is still here, fighting on the Rift, attempting to find a lost purpose in midst of the opponents she encounters.
None of them hold any answers. They laugh in their deaths as she holds jagged shards to their throats, and when she asks them in the Institute, they tell her that answers don’t exist. They’re myths, fairytales – there is a piece of her heart reflecting the ghosts that were stitched onto her heels on the day that she abandoned her sole purpose in life to start anew. She’s seeing shadows of her past, they tell her, but after numerous consistencies she stops asking.
She pulls herself away from the lies spoon-fed to her, and when she stares into the pyre in midst of her forested camp, she sees the girl’s half-smile pressed into the pant leg of the soldier, and her heart is consoled.
--
There is a fire.
The flames build higher and higher and higher, and this is the first time that she can ever remember feeling reinforced.
Her face is smeared crimson, and the taste of rusted iron sloshes in her mouth. She sputters, spewing droplets onto the ground as she drags herself through the forest. Her head is spinning as grass below soaks scarlet. A fire built from a pile of stones flickers beside her, crackling in silence, and she is reminded of her life – how it fades, in and out like the flames, licking back and forth along the rocks.
She can’t close her eyes. The darkness edges along her vision and beckons her into oblivion. Her mind circles around where she’s gone, what she’s lost, where she is – and she realizes that her vitality is among the richest. Her veins contain the blood of the fallen and the strength of a lost nation. She remembers this, but when she comes to, she is pulling herself from the abyss upon a platform overshadowed by a stalwart guardian.
Distantly, crystal shatters and an explosion ripples across the entirety of the Rift. She garnishes her blade, propped on one knee. The Rift dissipates but the blood remains seeped into the cloth that she dons. The Institute materializes and she whisks her cloak after reviewing the final scoreboard.
She is considerate.
She is refined.
The purpose that she lives with is heavy in her blade. Runic energy pulses through the runes when she settles within her forested camp once more. She wraps herself in the seclusion, stares into the pyre she’s forged – she sees herself as the prominent soldier who saved the girl, smiling as a beacon of Noxian spirit.
When she blinks, orange consumes gold, the picture blinks -- and it simmers her heart, the image permanently burned into her scope of mind. What could have been, what still can be… Where her answers lie, where her allegiances have risen and fallen… The blood on her hands, the lives on her conscience…
Restore the balance.
Atone for her sins.
Find a meaning lost in war.
This is her resolve.
This is what she fights for.
She confirms this in her slumber, when the fire sizzles into the subsequent morning silence.