Archive of Our Own ^beta

The rapid pit-patter of the rain on the roof was the perfect white noise for Li-Ming to fully concentrate on her observations. Her quill scratched gently on the pages of her diary, as the wizard took careful notes and drew a simplified sketch of the curious blade her companions and her had found inside the den of the khazra, a mere few hours ago. Li-Ming herself would have preferred to keep on moving even after dark, fueled by her insatiable curiosity about the mystery of the amnesiac stranger's blade, but every other member of her little party of adventurers had insisted on stopping and resting for the night, to which she had to begrudgingly agree. They had requisitioned, for the lack of a better term, an abandoned household located onto the northern border of the fields surrounding New Tristram, most likely the previous home of a family of farmers who were either long gone or long dead. Li-Ming had immediately secluded herself inside the master bedroom, leaving Leah, Kormac and Lyndon to their own devices while she tried to sate her thirst for knowledge and thoroughly examined the artifact they had recovered. It was the blade of an enchanted weapon the like of which the wizard had never even heard of before, let alone seen with her own eyes, which was saying something considering that her former academy, the Yshari Sanctum, had been filled to the brim with magical artifacts of any sort.

Li-Ming's musings were quite rudely interrupted by three soft knocks on the door. Frowning to herself, the wizard let her quill rest into her inkwell, turning back a few pages on her diary to check on a section of her notes dubbed 'knocks'. Three noises, soft, short paced, most likely executed with an index finger: that had to be Leah. Kormac had the habit of knocking twice and with two fingers, if the double-layered sound he made was of any indication, Deckard was not present and Lyndon- she didn't have anything recorded about him. Reasonable, since he was the newest addition to her band of adventurers, but ultimately of no use. Recovering her quill from the inkwell, she marked down his name, taking a mental note of asking him to knock on something so that she could observe and memorize his patterns, as well. It was possible, although extremely unlikely, that he had the habit of knocking on doors exactly as Leah did, but if Li-Ming had to place an imaginary bet on the person behind the door her money would have been on the girl.

"Ming, can I come in?" A feminine voice asked, and the wizard smirked to herself with wicked satisfaction. To think that her teachers had called her mad, when she had started jotting down other people's habits, the fools. Well, who held the superior knowledge, now? Mages were only as powerful as they were knowledgeable, and power was all Li-Ming ever longed for. She was honestly surprised no other apprentice had ever thought about it.

"Yes, of course. Come in."

Li-Ming was only halfway through her first sentence, but Leah had already fully opened the door and walked in, quickly closing it behind herself. Frowning once again, the wizard wrote a small observation beside her friend's name, namely her tendency to wait only for the first sign of confirmation before following through with her actions. One could never know when it may come in handy.

"What are you writing about?"

Suddenly feeling like she had just been caught red-handed, Li-Ming hastily turned the pages back to her half-completed drawing of the mysterious blade before Leah could actually read from her diary. Better safe than sorry, as they said. Leah's friendly demeanor towards her had been quite the surprise, especially considering that the wizard was on the weird side of the spectrum to begin with.

"Nothing, just trying to make sense of this artifact. I have never quite seen anything like it."

Leah seemed to accept her explanation, quickly crossing the room and stopping at Li-Ming's table, the wizard noticing only then the plate her friend had been carrying with one hand.

"I knew you'd forget about dinnerꟷ" explained Leah, sitting beside her "ꟷso I brought you some stew. If you're hungry, that is."

Li-Ming blinked in genuine surprise, her gaze shifting for a moment to the darkened sky outside the window, the dots immediately connecting into her mind. As if on cue, her stomach grumbled audibly, the delicious smell of the stew prompting the wizard to reassert her priorities in favor of the growing hunger into her belly.

"Oh, yes, thank you very much."

In a rare show of genuine gratitude, the wizard offered Leah one of her most delicate smiles, touched by the notion that her friend held her wellbeing in such a high regard. She took the plate from Leah's hands with a nod, her gaze immediately noticing the flush growing onto her friend's cheeks and ears as soon as she ate a generous spoonful of her dinner, a most appreciative sound freeing itself from the back of her throat. "This is amazing. Did you cook it yourself?"

The flush on Leah's cheeks intensified. Peculiar reaction for something as ordinary as dinner, especially considering that the girl shook her head in response.

"No. I mean, most of it, yeah, but Lyndon also helped a bit. He's a surprisingly good cook."

Li-Ming hummed in response, letting her friend fill the silence while she ate with the story of how the stew came to be, which apparently had involved Lyndon's talent for lock picking and some creative usage of cinnamon and garlic. The wizard left the plate on a corner of the table once she was done, using her napkin to dab at her lips before carefully folding the piece of cloth and putting it back into her bag, so that she wouldn't forget about it. High Heavens only knew how many unimportant, mundane items she had already lost.

"You can't function only on arcane energy, you know? Try to remember to eat like a common mortal, once in a while. I swear, you are just like Uncle Deckard, sometimes."

The jab was well deserved, considering that it was already the fourth time Leah had to bring Li-Ming food because, for one reason or another, she had lost track of time. The wizard, however, was not one to admit defeat so easily. She smirked, a witty retort already forming on the tip of her tongue.

"Give me a few years and maybe I will. You just watch me."

"I guess I'll just have to cook for you for just a few years, then, no big."

They laughed like the silly girls they were, even though Li-Ming's mind had already been stimulated once more. Lately there had been an increase in comments of a similar nature as the last one coming from her dear friend, more often than not alluding at a possibility of a future where they shared adventurers, living quarters or, generally speaking, each other's company. The wizard had initially reasoned that Leah wanted to show an appropriate amount of gratitude for the timely rescue of her uncle, but the number and frequency of those interactions had only increased in time, instead of diminishing. Now, if there was an aspect where Li-Ming's vast knowledge was sorely lacking, that would be her sphere of social interactions. The wizard observed and catalogued because that was the only way she could clearly understand the world she lived in, but she had immediately found out that such an approach simply didn't work with human beings. No amount of arcane lore, logic, mathematics and probability had ever given Li-Ming even an approximate prediction of a person's behavior, and she strongly suspected they never would. She had resigned herself to the fact that she would never know, even if not knowing was the thing she hated most.

"So, what can you tell me about this?" Said Leah, her voice refocusing Li-Ming on the present, where she was very well alive and seemingly still having a conversation. A quick glance at her friend's features denoted a slightly worried expression, but to be honest the wizard was most grateful for the shift in their topic of discussion. Magical artifacts were optimal to talk about, those she could understand exceptionally well.

"This? This is a real mystery, my friend, " replied Li-Ming with a smile, "one of which you will rarely see more of, if ever." She pointed with a finger to a small passage on her diary, happy to see the other girl interested in her work. She observed Leah's lips mimic her own expression almost immediately and the wizard mentally patted herself on her back, glad that her enthusiasm had been able to put her friend at ease once more.

"You would not believe it, but I think this blade has been forged in the High Heavens." Li-Ming held her blade sideways, letting the light of the candle on the desk reflect upon the metal. "Do you see these markings? These runes are not like anything you could ever find on Sanctuary. The language is ancient, oh so very ancient. Like, we are talking about 'creation of the world' ancient."

The look of pure wonder on Leah's face was something Li-Ming loved to see in other people, especially if they were listening to her, in particular. Yes, maybe she was a little odd around the edges, maybe she didn't mingle well with other people, but her passion for the mysteries of the world, her love for the innumerable possibilities of the unknown, those were her pride and joy. As long as there would have been a single question still left unanswered in the world, Li-Ming felt she could have lived forever.

"Luckily for you lot I am a true prodigy, and I think that with a little help from your uncle and the right book I can translate what it says. So far, I believe this rune over here means 'EL', but to be certain I need a book on ancient dialects predating the era of the Nephalem."

Unbeknownst to the wizard, Leah and Li-Ming had moved increasingly closer and closer during her enthusiastic explanation, their faces now merely a breath away. Li-Ming had also failed to notice the way her friend's eyes had wandered from the object of her impromptu lesson to her lips for several times in the span of a minute or so, not that she would have ever actually understood what the implication would have meant, anyway. Unluckily for Leah, however, the moment the girl decided to commit to her desire was also the moment when Li-Ming leaned forward into her chair, missing completely the romantic cue in favor of moving the blade closer to them.

"The carvings, over here, can you sense the magic coming from them? You should be able."

The wizard watched with no small amount of puzzlement as her friend seemed to blink herself out of a stupor, her eyes focusing on the item she was being shown only after several seconds.

"Theꟷ what? Magic?"

Completely oblivious, the wizard nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, the magic! Come on, let me show you."

Li-Ming gently took hold of one of Leah's hands and placed her palm on the back of Leah's own, delicately spreading her friend's fingers and then intertwining them with hers, involuntarily setting off all kinds of butterflies and fireworks into Leah's stomach.

"Here, just like this. Focus on what you can feel."

Still holding onto Leah's hand, Li-Ming waved the girl's palm a few centimeters above the blade, fully intent on letting the sensation linger as much as possible. She had complete faith into Leah's abilities, the girl was much stronger than what she gave herself credit for. Of course, the wizard didn't expect her friend to be able to physically see the tendrils of magical energy that from the blade coiled into the air like she could, since as far as Li-Ming was aware she was the only one who had ever been able to see magic in its true form, but she expected Leah to have at least a basic awareness of the power permeating the room. The girl didn't let her down: after a few seconds, her friend gasped in amazement.

"Yeah, I can feel it!"

Taken by an overwhelming surge of happiness, Li-Ming smiled, her eyes locked with Leah's own. Time seemed to stretch into infinity when Leah refused to advert her gaze from Li-Ming's hazel irises, the wizard's incessant thoughts coming to a screeching halt when she realized her friend's face was slowly, ever so slowly inching closer to her own, their hands still delicately intertwined. A jolt of panic jumpstarted her mind, but all she had time to think was a simple wait, what? before two loud and obnoxious knocks at the door made both girls jump. Leah immediately retreated, only to stare in the direction of the offending noise with a glare that could have killed a demon on the spot.

"Leah, there is a first watch with your name on it. You coming or what?"

It was Lyndon, of course, the only knock that Li-Ming was still missing from her notes. With a grave, disappointed sigh, Leah disentangled her fingers from the wizard's own, reaching around the table and picking up the empty plate that used to house Li-Ming's dinner.

"I'd better get going. Let me know if you find out anything interesting, I'd love to talk about it with you."

Offering her friend only a curt nod in response, Li-Ming watched while the girl retreated from the room, closing the door behind herself once she left. Silence stretched into the small bedroom, the soft pit-patter of the rain on the roof the only company for the wizard's thoughts.

"That wasꟷ unusual." She muttered out loud, her eyes darting from her hand to the magical blade still resting on the table. Was it the influence of the artifact that had made Leah act as she did? Admittedly, Li-Ming had known her friend only for a short period of time, but even after double checking her notes, the wizard couldn't find anything recorded that resembled even from afar the erratic behavior Leah had just been showing. For her to act so... well, whatever that was, there had to be something wrong. Li-Ming frowned, her quill once again running onto paper where she wrote a reminder to keep an eye out for Leah and any kind of magical influences that may be affecting her. Before returning to the study of the blade, she quickly jotted down a single word beside Lyndon's name, under the section dubbed 'knocks'.

Annoying.

Rare where the times when words eluded Li-Ming, and yet there she was. Her quill had been hovering a few centimeters above a new page of her diary for a while, but so far, no words had been able to come through and materialize on the page. Only a single drop of ink had bloated the otherwise immaculate parchment, a blob of blackness where the wizard's gaze had been lost for quite some time. In truth, the reality of the matter was quite simple: Deckard Cain was dead, and there was nothing else to say about it.

There was, however, time to doubt, and with doubt soon after came blame. To say that Leah had been devastated by what had happened would have been a monumental euphemism. The old man was all the family the girl had left, and now he was gone forever. Li-Ming's thoughts had been in a jumble ever since, scouring and tangling and twisting into her brain searching for an answer to a single, extremely important question.

Could have I saved him?

She had been played like a fool by the coven, the wizard was well aware of the fact, and it wasn't fair that Leah had to be the one to pay such a tremendous price for Li-Ming's arrogance.  A second stain on the page convinced the wizard to let her quill rest into the inkwell, for the time being. She softly blew on the ink to let it dry, so that it wouldn't ruin other pages, but instead of putting her diary back in her bag she decided to flip through the most recent pages, reading with a pang of longing all the small passages she had annotated on Deckard Cain. The way his old eyes crinkled when he read from an ancient piece of parchment, the way the timber of his voice pitched on the first vowel when he called for Leah, the receipt of the salve Li-Ming had concocted to ease the pain into his right knee, which one of the quilts hanging by the fireplace he seemed to regard as the warmest.

Her personal favorite, however, was a passage highlighted and boxed in thick handwriting, so that it would always catch the wizard's attention every time her gaze fell upon that particular page. It was something Deckard had said to her, one evening after the two of them had discussed for hours about... something Li-Ming couldn't even remember. She hadn't bothered to mark it down at the time, the topic hadn't seemed so relevant.

'Of all the heroes I've met, you are by far my favorite one.'

The wizard felt a lump of emotion stick into her throat, her traitorous eyes burning even if she had promised herself she wasn't going to cry over a man she had known for so little. It was possible that Deckard used to just say that to every hero he met, but the warmth in his eyes and sincerity in his tone had told Li-Ming a very different story, one that she desperately wanted to believe. From a logical point of view, Deckard Cain and she had known each other only for a short period of time, so the fact that his passing had hit her so hard was quite unexpected, to say the very least. Li-Ming hadn't felt so emotional since the period shortly after- shortly after Isendra.

The wizard closed her eyes, the memories she had tried so hard to bury under layers upon layers of different thoughts and extravagant ideas hitting her like a knife in her guts. She slammed her diary shut with a soft thump, her chair scratching horribly onto the floor as she abruptly stood up, her feet setting on autopilot and making her walk a few laps around the table on the old kitchen inside Deckard's home. Li-Ming had rarely ever felt so restless, so anxious, her need to think and occupy her mind contrasting sharply with the notion that what her mind wanted to think about and metabolize was a chapter of her life she wasn't emotionally prepared to face. With her train of thought at a metaphorical impasse, the wizard's mind looped back to Leah, the only other living occupant of the household, and how miserable she must have been feeling at the moment, all alone inside what used to be her uncle's home. Determined to not let her friend be as lonely and inconsolable as Li-Ming herself had been after Isendra's death, the wizard quickly walked the distance that separated her from the girl's room, her fingers delicately knocking twice on the frame of the closed entrance.

"Leah? Are you alright?"

No answer came forth. Li-Ming waited patiently for several moments before deciding to place her palm on the wooden door, her eyebrows raising in surprise when she noticed that the door had been left ajar. Silently it opened, revealing to the wizard the sight of her best friend sitting on the side of her bed, her shoulders hunched, her head bowed, one hand reverently caressing the leather cover of Deckard's book, the one Li-Ming had never seen the old man part from. The scene pulled at the wizard's heartstrings, her mind immediately conjuring one very much similar to what she was witnessing, with a devastated and heartbroken Li-Ming clutching Isendra's grimoire in her trembling hands while she sobbed uncontrollably on the floor of what used to be her room, in the Yshari Sanctum.

Leah didn't seem to acknowledge her presence, not when she opened the door nor when Li-Ming crossed the distance between them, sitting on Leah's left on the soft mattress of the girl's bed, and a single glance at her friend's face revealed the reason why. The girl had her gaze lost into the void, her cheeks wet, her eyes red and puffy from the innumerable tears she must have shed all alone. That was no way of facing grief, Li-Ming knew that from personal experience. Leah needed her, now more than ever.

The wizard raised one hand, her open palm ghosting above Leah's shoulder before she abruptly stopped right in her tracks, her ever so helpful mind reminding her that she had no clue on how to better offer comfort to her friend. Li-Ming's thoughts immediately zeroed in onto her diary, but she quickly discarded the notion when she considered that she held no relatable information into her notes on the matter.

She had seen people grieving their loved ones along the streets of New Tristram, yes, but the wizard had never given them more than a passing glance before moving on with her business and, to be completely honest, she had never cared much for them. The loss of someone dear was indeed a tragedy, that she could quite understand, but Li-Ming had always thought of them as 'those over there'. She would have never imaginedꟷ could have never expected that one day Leah could have been among one of those people, the nobodies which lives had been changed forever by the wizard's own meddling into the affairs of the world. To be so engrossed into her notes and mysteries to become so detached from the lives of those few people surrounding herꟷ

Li-Ming felt ashamed of herself. Isendra had taught her better. Isendra had taught her to be better.

Tentatively the wizard reached with her arm around her friend's shoulders, gently pulling her into her side in a sort of one-armed, one-sided hug. A small jolt coming from Leah's back made her wonder if, perhaps, she had overstepped her boundaries, but her worry immediately dissipated when her friend buried herself as deep as she could into her side, one arm sneaking around her lower back and squeezing the living daylights out of her.

"Dear Gods, where have you been all this time?" Demanded Leah almost immediately, leaving Li-Ming quite confused at the question since she imagined the girl was quite aware of the fact that she had invited the wizard into her home, herself. Nevertheless, the tone of her voice suggested to Li-Ming that Leah was expecting an apology from her, even though she had no real clue about what exactly she should be apologizing for.

"Iꟷ uh, I am sorry."

That proved to be the right course of action, because, despite the fact that Leah lightly shook her head, her tone switched to something far softer and less accusatory.

"It's okay. You're here now."

They sat together in silence for a long, long time. So long, in fact, that Li-Ming's arm began to fall asleep, uncomfortable tingles running up and down her muscles every time Leah's shoulders shifted even a little bit underneath her limb. The girl was awake, that much the wizard could deduce from the cadence of her breaths and the subtle adjustments in her pose, and very much in need of company, but beyond noticing the obvious Li-Ming didn't possess the slightest clue about what to do or say in a situation like the one she was currently into, or even if she was supposed to do or say anything at all.

In all honestly, if the situation wouldn't have been so troubled to begin with, the wizard would have gladly asked for feedback. Was rubbing Leah's arm good or bad? Should she just go back and forth or maybe draw shapes? If so, what shapes exactly? Surely not triangles, sharp angles were not the best at comforting a person, and there was simply no way Li-Ming could draw squares consistently onto the irregular surface of Leah's arm. Circles, then? Perhaps, it was a shape commonly associated with soothing pains and discomforts, so maybeꟷ

"What are you doing?"

Leah's voice put all of Li-Ming's careful considerations to a halt. Nervousness bubbled into her stomach when she realized she had been subconsciously tracing the shapes she had been thinking about onto the girl's arm, but to be fair Leah didn't sound particularly annoyed. The wizard racked her now useless brain for an excuse of some sort for a few moments, before deciding that the truth was the best explanation she was ever going to come up with, no matter how odd it might sound.

"I was evaluating various shapes to find the most soothing one for you. I know, I know, shouldn't have started with triangles, that was foolish."

Li-Ming watched with no small amount of trepidation as Leah detached herself from her side during her careful explanation, only to stare back at the wizard as if she had grown a second head. The girl stood perfectly still for a total of six point seven seconds, not that Li-Ming was anxiously counting or anything, before slowly blinking her eyelashes in what the wizard assumed was incredulity.

"You wereꟷ evaluating. Shapes."

Based on the tone and inflection of Leah's voice alone, the wizard deduced that she was in trouble. A diversion of some sort was needed without delay, and quick thinking on her feet brought Li-Ming to a single answer: enthusiasm. Previous evidence suggested that Leah had always responded positively when the wizard had shown excessive enthusiasm, so Li-Ming nodded eagerly and with a beaming smile, her ponytail swinging up and down behind her head.

"Yes, of course."

For a long moment, nothing happened. Of all the reactions Li-Ming was expecting, however, being crushed by a rib-breaking hug was probably one of the last on her admittedly long and thoroughly detailed list. Leah rested her forehead on her shoulder, her voice cracking and her chest heaving with sobs.

"Gosh, I love you so much."

Alright, definitely the last one on her list, then. The wizard gently patted Leah's shoulders, hoping the action wasn't as awkward as she was currently feeling on the inside. Despite her best efforts, comforting people was not one of Li-Ming's strongest suits. On the contrary, every time she tried, she seemed to only make the situation worse. She had no idea what she had done incorrectly but, apparently, she had managed to upset the girl in her arms even more than how she was already feeling. This was exactly what Li-Ming meant when she said that people were completely unpredictable: she had intended for Leah to calm down, not to become even more emotional, but apparently none of the parameters that had worked fine until five minutes before suddenly didn't make any sense whatsoever. It was beyond frustrating, it was maddening! Li-Ming was completely hopeless.

She slowly disentangled herself from their embrace once the pain in her ribs was becoming a little too much for her to bear, her eyes missing completely the expectant and slightly panicked look into her friend's green irises.

"You should rest. It is getting quite late."

"Butꟷ"

"Worry not. I shall keep watch over you and keep you unharmed. I promise."

Li-Ming had no idea why Leah was getting so agitated all of the sudden, nor why her last choice of words seemed to be what her friend needed to hear in order to finally calm down and relax. She tucked Leah into her bed, the girl falling asleep almost the instant her head laid onto her pillow. With the kind of day she had just had, Li-Ming couldn't blame her. The wizard watched her sleep with an affectionate smile, one hand reaching out to fix her covers so she wouldn't feel cold during the night.

She was not going to let Leah down again ever again: that she swore on her own life.

After ten days of travelling by caravan, Li-Ming and company had reached the marvelous city of Lut Gholein, where they had embarked on a mercantile ship that would have taken them across the Twin Seas and into Kehjistan, Li-Ming's adoptive homeland.

The wizard's over eagerness and excitement over the sea voyage had quickly waned, however, when she had realized she was going to be stuck on the aforementioned mean of transportation for the totality of one hundred and sixty eight hours, give or take a few minutes, which were far more than what she had ever spent sitting in the same, confined place and bored out of her mind.

Not one to be deterred by adversity, Li-Ming had set out on a quest to entertain herself: she had inspected every nook and cranny of the ship they were sailing onto, even managing to repair a few small leaks here and there whenever she could. She had mapped the entirety of the vessel, drawing an extremely detailed model of the ship onto her diary complete with stinking sailors ꟷnever be said she wasn't accurateꟷ and everything else on board. She had taken a peek at the captain's navigational charts, too, even if the man himself had threatened to throw her overboard if she ever came up again with a course correction of point eighty-seven degrees, so they could save thirty-two minutes on their voyage. Honestly, the captain was just plain rude. She had even resorted to gaze longingly onto the sea, the notion that there was only so much entertainment a girl could find on a ship, before drowning in boredom, sitting heavy into her heart.

Lyndon would have surely disagreed with her last statement. His exact words when they had sailed off had been 'Two girls, traveling by sea for an entire week, with a crew of strong and handsome sailors all for their enjoyment. You are gonna get all the fun!', she quoted from her diary. So far, none of the crewmembers had shown any interest into actually helping her with her calculations, though to be fair Li-Ming doubted any of them even knew what linear algebra actually was. All she had heard and seen had been a lot of unnecessary swearing and unashamed gawking at her figure whenever she walked by, both of which didn't sit well with her. Not that she thought ill of them, they were all capable sailors, and she was sure they had respectable qualities she simply wasn't aware of. Most likely. The wizard had the distinct feeling that these men were definitely not in the spectrum of crowd someone like her would, or should, mingle with.

Leah would have made for much more pleasant company, especially as of late after the two of them had grown exceedingly close, but the girl had retired early into the small cabin they shared ꟷbeing the only two females onboard the shipꟷ for a much-needed nap, and Li-Ming didn't possess the heart to disturb her only because she was bored. The wizard had been keeping a careful record of her friend's sleeping schedule on her diary, which had worsened considerably after the murder of Deckard Cain. Leah would oftentimes wake up several times per night, with only a few hours of rest that she could actually catch, and spending most of her time awake, tossing and turning into her bed until she was either too exhausted to move or she had cried herself to sleep.

How had Li-Ming taken notice of all of that? Because the wizard herself had suffered from insomnia for as long as she could remember. For the life of her she had never understood how people could simply lie down into their bed and fall asleep, just like that, it was as if she was the only one who had a brain that could never shut up and kept chattering inside her head in a perpetual cacophony of noise. Leah was probably going through something similar, and Li-Ming had been growing increasingly more concerned for her friend's wellbeing after each passing night.

With a renewed purpose in her mind, namely checking up on Leah, the wizard stood up from the perch she had claimed as her own on the bridge, completely ignoring the rude glances the crew threw her way and descending the steps that would take her below deck. She immediately spotted the cabin Leah and her shared, turning the handle and opening the door just an inch, to peek inside. To her utmost surprise, the girl was still sleeping soundly into her bed, which was also her own bed since the cabin only had a single bed available, but that was beside the point because Leah was still sleeping. Li-Ming crept inside, closing the door behind herself and silently walking to the chair near the small, wobbly table resting opposite to the bed inside the room. She sat down, quietly, taking her diary and inkpot out of her bag and settling them on the surface of the table without making a single sound, graceful as a deadly feline stalking into the night.

The wizard let a small, genuine smile curl her lips as she watched Leah sleep, a peaceful look onto her features that had been missing for far too long on her friend's young and beautiful face. If her calculations were correct, and they were, they had been travelling for seven and a half hours by then, which meant that Leah had been sleeping for a good estimate of five hours and fifty minutes straight, given or take ten minutes, two more hours more than her best for the entire last week. Li-Ming had to wait for her to wake up from her nap before marking down her progress, but this was an astounding step forward for her friend, one the wizard was genuinely proud of. The tired look Leah had been sporting for the last few days had no place on her endearing features.

Hit by a sudden impulse, Li-Ming reached once again into her satchel. After silently rummaging through the contents, she removed a smaller book from the bag, placing it on the table and opening it to the first, blank page. She delicately grasped her quill between her fingers, dripping the tip into the inkpot before she was able to stop herself. She glanced at Leah, peaceful in her slumber, the light of the sun setting over the horizon hitting her just right, and then back at the blank page. Only then, Li-Ming stilled.

She knew she really shouldn't even entertain the thought, never mind following through as much as she had, but the temptation was strong. The way Leah looked right now, sleeping soundly with only her head peeking out from under the covers and bathed in the fading light of the sunset, was something that deserved to be immortalized forever, even if only into the personal sketchbook of a silly wizard with too much time on her hands.

Li-Ming's quill danced gracefully on paper, nearly soundless as if somehow respectful of Leah's well-deserved rest, the portrait of the girl's sleeping face quickly materializing onto the page of her book, more than half an hour spent on the details of her face alone. From her unruly shoulder-length hair to the impressively long and thin braid on the left side of her head, passing through her delicate eyelashes, the almost imperceptible few freckles dotting the side of her nose, her lips slightly parted in her sleep, her chin partially tucked under her sheets, her eyesꟷ wait. Leah's eyes were not supposed to be open.

"What are you up to, now?"

Li-Ming blinked. Since when had Leah been awake and watching her draw? Why hadn't she said anything? Frowning, the wizard tried to sweep through her most recent memories in order to find the moment when Leah had woken up, but to her utmost dismay her focus had been completely onto the drawing she had been perfecting. A sudden wave of embarrassment hit her, her body growing warm under her dress. Her grip on her quill wavered for a moment and she hurriedly placed it back in the ink pot, so that no stray blotches of ink would stain the drawing she was so embarrassed and yet so weirdly proud of.

"So?" Asked Leah again, her voice warm and playful, and Li-Ming found herself unable to deny the girl a straight answer, drawn in by her friend's cheeky charm.

"Just a drawing."

"Of?"

"You, naturally."

There was no way for the wizard to miss the sudden widening of Leah's pupils into her green eyes, or the way the girl's cheeks and ears both flushed almost instantly after her admission, pronounced so casually. She noticed her friend's fidgeting under the sheets, one hand peeking from under the linen to grasp at the edge of the covers.

"Me? Really?" Leah asked, her voice cracked by timid interest. Li-Ming nodded eagerly, a smile gracing her lips that she hoped would put her friend at ease.

"Yes, of course. Would you like to see it?"

After Leah gave her a shy nod in response, the wizard collected the small book in her hands. She blew lightly over the page she had been drawing onto, twice, offering the notebook to her friend only after she was sure the ink had sufficiently dried off. It was then Li-Ming's turn to fidget anxiously on the spot, her focus solely on her friend's face while she watched her take a good look, for an agonizingly long moment, at the portrait of her the wizard had just completed. She felt so silly, scrutinizing with such critical intent every inch of Leah's face so that she could determine her most likely reaction to her drawing, and yet, for some reason Li-Ming couldn't quite put her finger on, she wanted her work to truly impress her best friend.

"This isꟷ" the wizard held her breath "ꟷbeautiful." Only to release it in a relieved puff of hair. She beamed at her friend, watching as Leah sat up onto the mattress with the open book in her lap and got herself comfortable, her eyes shining with emotion.

Li-Ming felt her heart skip a beat when she truly looked at the girl, with that mess of a bed hair on her head, her flushed skin, her unruly nightshirt showing off the skin of her left shoulder, the sheets pooled at her waist and finally with her green eyes, those irises so impossibly warm and soft, gazing straight into hers.

"I love it."

Not for the first time, in the company of Leah at least, Li-Ming felt she was missing a social cue or something related. In this particular scenario, her mind was suggesting her that the tone and inflection on those three, simple words indicated she was supposed to catch onto an underlying meaning and answer accordingly, but for the life of her the wizard had no idea of what the signs from her friend truly meant. Thinking quickly, she hurriedly analyzed the data at her disposal, from Leah's warm and affectionate tone to the subject of their discussion, concluding that showing gratitude with a touch of modesty was the kind of response that would mask her ignorance on the matter. Oh, how Li-Ming hated not knowing things.

"It is nothing, really, but I am happy that you appreciate it so much."

The answer seemed to do the trick, even though it probably wasn't what Leah was expecting from her. The girl bit her lower lip, drawing the wizard's eyes to the action before she could help herself, remembering only too late that a bite on the lip was Leah's telltale sign of an idea she was unsure about.

"We couldꟷ I should model for you some more."

"E-Excuse me?"

"Yeah, I meanꟷ you drew this by accident, imagine if I actually sit still and model for you. You have incredible talent, why did you never tell me you have an artistic side?"

For a total of eleven seconds the wizard stood still as a statue, wondering how in the world was it possible for Leah to always act so utterly unpredictable. To be honest, the idea of Leah modeling for her left Li-Ming a bit uncomfortable, but also quite intrigued. It wasn't like the two girls had anything better to do on the ship, considering they still had one hundred and fifty-eight hours left on their journey by sea, by Li-Ming's estimate at least. What better way for the wizard to explore her newfound artistic side, as her friend had put it, than with Leah's lovely company? There was no one she would rather spend her time with these days, anyway, and time was something Li-Ming valued more than anything else in the world aside from power and knowledge.

Give a man fire, and you shall warm him for a day. Set a man on fire, and you shall warm him for the rest of his life.

Li-Ming was not so sure that was the correct version of the saying she had in mind, but to be fair those words weren't, in fact, inaccurate. Fire had given life to mankind just as much as it was the most effective among the means of destruction ever known to humanity, one that Li-Ming knew all too well. The fact that the wizard was planning on setting on fire all those that would oppose her from claiming righteous vengeance on the witch Maghda, in Leah's name of course, was purely an innocent coincidence. Her companions had nothing to fear from the small bonfire she had magically lit in the center of their small encampment, thought the same couldn't be said for any unfortunate soul that would have been foolish enough to ambush their little camp.

They had been chasing crazed cultists along the desert for a few days in a row, by then, and Li-Ming had found herself growing more and more comfortable with slaughtering fellow human beings like cattle with frightening ease. Yes, their fate was a long time reckoning and was well deserved, but they were still human. The wizard had read firsthand a few pages out of a diary belonging to a cultist she had recently fought and killed, where the man had confessed the terror he felt at the prospect of facing her in battle. He had described her like a monster, and she would be lying if she said that reading those stolen thoughts hadn't left her deeply unsettled, but that was the path she had to walk. For these lands to know peace once more, all the servants of evil needed to be put down.

Li-Ming's escape from her cruel and harsh reality were the few moments she spent alone during her turn on watch, her focus not on the gruesome task at hand but instead on her treasured sketchbook. It wasn't like she was skirting her duty, she always prepared an adequate number of wards and repelling spells beforehand, both to keep the local fauna at bay and to warn her in advance in case something else approached the camp, but with everyone else sound asleep she felt comfortable enough to indulge her mind and entertain more pleasant thoughts.

Her small notebook was now the home of more than a dozen lovely portraits of Leah, fourteen to be exact, and Li-Ming treasured them just as much as her old diary, if not even more so. Each page had been magically enchanted to give the impression of a three-dimensional drawing, and she loved to spend the few moments of time she had for herself simply gazing with fondness and adoration at her precious handiwork. A soft blush dusted her cheeks when she came across one particular drawing, one she was especially proud of. Unable to help herself, she delicately traced one finger on the crisp parchment, a weird and yet pleasant feeling of magic filling her stomach and lower belly while her eyes traced the lines of Leah's drawing on the page. Li-Ming's blush intensified when she recalled the circumstances that had led to that particular portrait to take form, a pang of loneliness and longing for the presence of her best friend coiling around her heart.

"Good book?"

What transpired next was something Li-Ming would have sworn to death had never happened, even if the other party involved would have told quite a different tale. The wizard absolutely didn't squeal in fright, her entire body didn't jump a good inch off the ground and her hands didn't immediately press her treasured notebook protectively to her chest, her heart absolutely not trying to burst out of her thoracic cavity.

"Lyndon, you motherfꟷ are you actually trying to kill me?"

The scoundrel offered her only his trademark cheeky grin in apology, Li-Ming's protests flying right over his head as the man nodded briefly to the book she was still clutching into her hands, the mischievous look into his dark eyes annoying the wizard to no end.

"You know, it's good to see that while we sleep soundly into our tents there's someone who instead of watching over us spends her time reading erotica."

Li-Ming felt her entire upper body flush in embarrassment, the young man's insinuation filling her with seething rage. How could he dare to assume she would habitually read such lecherous literature!

"I do not know what you are talking about," she spat back at him, "I am not reading whatever you are insinuating I am!"

He unceremoniously plopped down opposite to her at the bonfire, one arm gesturing vaguely in her direction. "Well, people usually don't react like that when they are found reading about taxes, do they?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, but that unbearable man kept smirking without a single care in the world. There were times, like for instance in this particular case, during which Li-Ming had to keep firmly in mind that the insufferable rat of a man she had in front of her had proven time and time again to be an useful ally, because by the High Heavens above sometimes she was so tempted to blast him into another plane of existence and just be done with him for good.

"Your argument is preposterous and illogical. What I enjoy reading is perfectly adequate for a person of my standing."

Lyndon had the gall to snort at her answer, one of his feet kicking a misplaced log back into the fire. "There's no need to be so embarrassed about it. Everyone reads some from time to time."

"I have most certainly nothing to be embarrassed about."

"You're pulling out all your big words, sweetie."

The wizard's retort died on her lips, her jaw clicking shut audibly. She remembered a joke Leah had made at her expense, about Li-Ming using a richer vocabulary when she wanted people to feel inferior to her, especially when she was flustered, but the wizard had written off the comment as simple friendly teasing, not as an actual habit of hers. Wishing to deny Lyndon the satisfaction of getting under her skin, Li-Ming resorted to silently brood in her corner, her gaze fixated on the crackling flames in front of her. After a few moments, Lyndon broke the silence with a soft laugh.

"Oh, come on, sweetie, don't be like that. I was just messing with you."

"Well, I just happen to not enjoy being messed with, as it were."

He gave her an odd look, the same expression Lyndon always had when she was too slow on catching on a joke or some innuendo, but he seemed to let go of the matter after a few seconds.

"Sorry for startling youꟷ" he wasn't sorry in the slightest, the cheeky bastard "ꟷbut I couldn't help it. You were so into it I just had to, you know. What are you reading, anyway?"

Li-Ming looked down to her chest, where she was still keeping the notebook clutched to. She pulled it back, just a little, and subtly turn to different page, before Lyndon could notice, once she realized exactly at which sketch she had been so rudely interrupted. It wasn't like she was ashamed or embarrassed of what was represented on that piece of parchment, she could never shy away from the tight bond she had developed with Leah. Truly, it was nothing short of astounding how close and comfortable they had grown with each other in such a limited amount of time. For some unknown reason, however, the subject felt somewhat private to her, surely nothing she felt comfortable sharing with Lyndon, of all people.

"I was not reading," she emphasized, "I was merely looking at some drawings I made, nothing special."

Li-Ming realized her colossal mistake only a second too late. She had a diary full of careful observations about her companions, where she had remarked time and time again that Lyndon possessed a dangerously high amount of innate curiosity, completed with several anecdotes where his spirit of inquiry had led their party to unexpected treasure. She had highlighted several times that under no circumstances she was ever to mention important or private details about information she wouldn't have wanted to be divulged, and yet what had she just done?

"Drawings? Come on, let me see!" He extended a hand expectantly, throwing in a grin and a wink for good measure, as if she was letting him in on some kind of conspiracy.

Wishing only to be done with the conversation in the shortest amount of time possible, the wizard relented her sketchbook, her arms circling tightly around her knees when a sudden wave of self-consciousness hit her in her guts. He lazily flipped through the pages with mild interest, Li-Ming's eyes focusing with narrow precision on the minuscule shifts in the man's expression whenever he let his gaze wander over any of her sketches. When he turned to the final page, the same Li-Ming had been staring at before being so rudely interrupted, the girl felt her skin boil in embarrassment under her clothes, but still she tried her best to ignore it in favor of gauging the man's reaction.

"AhꟷHA! I knew she liked you."

The wizard tilted her head sideways, the meaning of the words registering into her mind but not actually connecting logically. The fact that Leah liked her as a person should have been a given, by that point, considering the large amount of time the two girls had been spending amicably in each other's company. Surely, there was no need for Lyndon to react so strongly about the notion, yes?

"Of course she likes me. We are good friends, is that so weird?" Now, Li-Ming would have been the first to admit that she could miss a lot of subtexts during conversations, but with the incredulous look Lyndon was giving her, right now, she was absolutely certain she had just let something quite important fly over her head.

"You're joking, right? You can't be that dense."

The wizard blinked slowly, her eyes shifting to the side. She quickly ran through her approximate weight, height and volume into her mind, but the result of her calculation showed that her density was in no way off when compared to a standard human female. When she looked back at Lyndon in confusion, the man huffed incredulously, his head shaking lightly.

"Apparently you can. Here, look at this." He turned the sketchbook towards her, his fingers holding it open. "Look closely."

Li-Ming complied. The sketch in question was the one she had drawn during the last evening Leah and her had spent on board the ship, when the girl had told her that she had, and she quoted, 'something different in mind for tonight'. Not knowing what to expect, Li-Ming had diligently followed her best friend into their cabin, but it became soon clear that Leah's idea wasn't on the more orthodox side of things when the girl had started stripping off of most of her clothes, right in front of a bewildered Li-Ming who could only watch with a reddening face and a confused expression. Leah had stopped only after she was only left with her underwear and nightshirt on, and then she had lowered herself onto the mattress in a half-sitting position, crossed her legs one over the other and asked the wizard to immortalize her.

The result was the drawing that was staring back at Li-Ming, right now: Leah's toned legs were on full display, the enticing curves of her hips stopping only at the thin line of her underwear. Her shirt was left wide open, showing off her abs and stomach ─while still very much feminine, Leah was an archer and, Li-Ming had to admit, her body was quite fit for the job─ with only a single button left closed at the line of her breasts to protect her modesty. Her smile was soft and warm, not a grin or a smirk like the wizard would have expected, and so were her eyes, that Li-Ming had taken extraordinary care into drawing with absolute perfection. The wizard remembered with extreme accuracy the way her belly had been filled with a weird, uncomfortable tingling for the entirety of their modeling session, or how an unprecedented sensation of magical vertigo coiled into her loins the more she gazed at the half-naked form of her best friend, laying relaxed and comfortable in front of her to scrutinize to her heart's desire.

"She let you draw this? Really?"

At Lyndon's question, Li-Ming nodded. "It was her idea, not mine."

"And you still don't get it?"

The wizard remained silent. Her mind started to work a mile a minute, analyzing all the data at her disposal while Lyndon was left gaping at her like a lacuni in front of an abacus. The fact that Leah showed such an astounding level of confidence and comfort around Li-Ming was the best indicator of the closeness of their bond, wasn't it? They hadn't known each other for a long time, that was true, but during that short time they had shared adventures that many people would never even dare to dream of. They had shared joy, pain, wonder and grief, their regrets about the past and their hopes for the future: they were truly inseparable. Just what was she missing of so obvious and yet so important? Lyndon was driving her insane with his elusiveness, why couldn't he just give her a straight answer? What wasꟷ

"Oh, for the love ofꟷ she fancies you, you stupid moron!"

Everything inside Li-Ming's laborious mind screeched to a collective halt.

"W-What?" An incredulous laugh escaped her lips, but halfway through her throat it turned into a stream of scratching coughs.

"See this?ꟷ" cried out the man while waving the sketch in front of her face "ꟷShe's willing to let you do this with her. This! I don't know why she puts up with you, butꟷ"

Li-Ming had enough of his meddling into her affairs. She reached over the fire and rudely snatched the book from his fingers, slamming it shut with a loud thump.

"ENOUGH!"

The wizard was beyond livid, she was downright furious. She stood up from where she had been sitting in front of the bonfire, towering over the scoundrel and pinning him to the ground with a single index finger pointed at him.

"I will not stand here and let you disrespect Leah, or I for that matter, in such a way. Stay on watch and keep you damn mouth shut unless the world is about to end, am I clear?"

She left immediately after, dropping all her wards and barriers around the camp only to spite him and make his job even more difficult, but it was a petty victory. Still seething with rage, she laid down into her tent without even changing for the night, but as it oftentimes happened sleep eluded her, mocking her just out of reach into her vast and laborious subconscious.

Li-Ming felt her hands tremble and she closedher fists, her eyes burning with unshed tears of both shame and humiliation. At one point her curiosity had been genuinely piqued by what Lyndon had to say about Leah and her, at least right until he had decided to get a good laugh at her expense and simply mock her, without any ulterior motive other than his personal enjoyment. She had been played like a fool, again, only because she didn't know how to deal with people the same way she understood the rest of the world. If that was the response to her attempts at socialize with her companions then her initial assumption had been right: Li-Ming was better off on her own, and to Hell with everyone else.

To say that Leah always found a way to exceed Li-Ming's expectations would have been a monumental euphemism. The wizard had pages upon pages filled to the brim with notes and observations about the girl, accompanied by several examples and anecdotes about her sometimes odd and apparently unexplainable quirks in behavior, especially whenever Li-Ming herself seemed to be involved. She had resorted to draw several diagrams and graphs, organizing all her information into a proper scheme that had helped the wizard correctly analyze Leah's mood and predict the girl's behavior with an accuracy of four point five percent. Not her best work, admittedly, but still it was better than nothing if one considered the sheer amount of variables included in her field study.

Life, however, had decided to throw the wizard a curveball she wouldn't have seen coming even from a league away, because a few hours ago Leah had kissed her out of the blue, and Li-Ming had no idea how she felt about that.

No, that was a lie. Contrary to popular belief, Li-Ming wasn't as dense as people seemed to claim about matters regarding relationships when they metaphorically slapped her into the face. Lips. Whatever. The wizard knew she cared a lot about Leah. She wouldn't deny she had been worried sick about her the moment Tyrael had told her the girl had been captured by the imperial guard of Caldeum, especially considering that those men were nothing other than serpentine demons in disguise. If she had rushed into the city to save her, endangering her own life as well as the ones of all of their companions, it was only because she couldn't bear the thought of her best friend being eaten alive by Belial's minions. Li-Ming had sworn, in front of Deckard Cain's funeral pyre, no less, that she would have taken care of Leah in his stead, and she wasn't willing to let her die without trying even the impossible in order to save her. That was not the level of devotion someone would have for any of their friends, not even the friend they cherished most, in fact, but for someone they couldn't conceive being separated from.

The real question wasꟷ what now?

Li-Ming had never truly believed that anyone would ever show a genuine interest in her. She had always been the odd one out, the quiet girl sitting by herself in a corner while all the other apprentices mingled with one another, the weird student who preferred the company of books and artifacts and interacted almost exclusively with enchantress Isendra only. She lacked tact, she was rude, she had a terrible temper, she had trouble connecting emotionally with other people, she forgot to eat and sleep regularly, she was generally disinterested about other people's lives, she had a superiority complex over the common peasantsꟷ the list could go on and on and on. She wasn't good partner material, period. Why her, then?

"Hey."

At the sound of Leah's voice, Li-Ming turned around. The wizard had chosen to sit in a fairly secluded spot over the hill that directly faced Caldeum in order to sort through her thoughts, hoping the view would have helped her relax and hide from whoever would have wanted to talk to her. It was only natural, however, that Leah would have been able to find her so easily. The girl seemed to have picked up on most of Li-Ming's moods quite effectively, at least if recent events were anything to go by.

"Can I sit with you?"

After the wizard nodded, Leah sat down to her right, her head immediately moving to rest on Li-Ming's shoulder, who subconsciously shifted a bit so that her friend ꟷwas Leah still just a friend?ꟷ could lie more comfortably. She heard Leah inhale deeply, which could have indicated stress, but both her posture and expression seemed at peace, so Li-Ming wasn't really sure. The wizard was suddenly reminded by her helpful mind that she was in dire need of a good bath, had been for several days in fact, considering that her last week had included only trekking through the desert and fighting hordes of cultists and demons, more often than not staining her clothes and skin with blood and guts. It couldn't have been worse than having her first kiss within the bowels of Caldeum's sewers, alright, but the notion still made her body flush in embarrassment and her heart quicken.

"What's gotten you so moody? Are you alright?"

And that over there was the million gold pieces question: was Li-Ming really alright? Now that Leah was here with her, actually, the wizard realized that yes, she was, simple as that. Li-Ming risked a sideways glance at the girl's face, noting her green eyes fixated on the spectacle of lights coming from Caldeum right after sundown, when the last speck of light still lingered over the horizon and the city lit up like a beacon into the night, but the wizard was sure that all her senses were as keen and attentive as ever. Leah cared for her in a way no one else had ever done, not even Isendra, and that alone gave Li-Ming hope that, one day, the world could be a better place. Not many people could have accomplished that, but one of them was sitting right there beside her, and in that precise moment the wizard decided she wasn't going to let her go.

"I am now."

The wizard finally replied, braving herself to turn her head and leave a quick, innocent peck on the girl's temple. She had no idea how to be someone's lover, of even if she would have shown herself to be an adequate one or not, but for Leah she was willing try, no matter how terrifying the prospect seemed to be. She let her cheek rest on top of Leah's head, the girl's chestnut air tickling her nose. Li-Ming didn't exactly know what it was that she was feeling into her chest, the sensation of warmth and belonging that only Leah was able to bring out of her, but she was certain of one thing. She wasn't going to let it go anytime soon.

Li-Ming's diary remained closed for a long, long time, after the brief Fall of Heaven. After Adria's cruel betrayal, after Leah had been used as living sacrifice by her own mother, after the Prime Evil's assault on the High Heavens that almost ended the Eternal Conflict then and there, the wizard felt there was little point in holding onto a journal that contained so many wonderful, painful memories.

The truth was simply that Li-Ming didn't know how to deal with loss, and after losing Leah the issue had hit her hard. It was extremely difficult for her to create solid bonds of friendship, affection and trust, but for the few, rare people that were able to see beyond her shell of arrogance and superiority she couldn't help but care with all of her foolish, hardened heart. Isendra had been the mother Li-Ming had always longed to have, Deckard Cain the mentor she had always wanted to be inspired from, and Leah the lover Li-Ming had always believed someone like her would have never deserved. Now they were gone, all gone, all taken from her, and after the final blow the nephalem had simply stopped to care about mankind in its entirety.

More than six months passed before a new world-ending threat emerged in the form of a band of renegade angels, guided by none other than the former aspect of wisdom, Malthael, turned by madness into the embodiment of death. They slaughtered innocents with an efficiency and a brutality that Li-Ming almost admired in them, but those alone wouldn't have warranted a mention into her diary, no matter how formidable of an opponent each of them was. In order to stop that new threat, however, the wizard had been forced to confront and kill Adria, and what the woman had revealed to her had shocked Li-Ming to her very core.

The witch had been expecting her. She had willingly revealed all the information the wizard needed in order to stop Malthael at seemingly no cost at all, but the price had become crystal clear when the woman had demanded Li-Ming to keep on listening.

The reason why Leah had fallen in love so hard with her had been because the Prime Evil had pushed her subconscious in that specific direction, since the very first day. Leah was, after all, Diablo's daughter, and a part of the Lord of Terror had always been present inside the head of his future host. Who better than Li-Ming herself could safeguard his vessel, so that he could have risen as all evil united? The bond they had created, the strength they had drawn from one another, even all the love and happiness they had shared, those had existed only because Diablo had willed it and accomplished nothing but to serve a single purpose. Leah had been his most successful gamble, one that Li-Ming had been too blinded by circumstance to recognize, and one that Adria was absolutely certain would pay off one more time, before the end. Leah' soul still lingered in the world of the living, trapped inside the Black Soulstone together with the Prime Evil, and all the wizard had to do to get her beloved Leah back was to break the stone and free what was held within. She would get her lover back, at the cost of Diablo's return to the Burning Hells.

After Li-Ming had killed the witch, her party had decided to spend the rest of the evening and the following night inside the ruins of Corvus, the only place that hadn't been flooded by the putrid waters of the Blood Marsh and offered shelter from the torrential downpour that had been falling on Westmarch for three days straight. She wandered along the empty corridors of the underground city for a while, the need to be alone heavy into her heart, before sitting under one of the glowing crystals left by the ancient nephalem and pulling out her diary for the first time in almost three seasons. Reading through her own memories, forever immortalized on those pages filled with joyful anecdotes and lovely drawings of her beloved Leah, Li-Ming could scarcely believe that there had been a time when she could have been so naïve. Of course, Leah couldn't have actually loved her, it had been merely a fabrication, a lie. No one could have ever cared so strongly for someone like her, after all, so unapproachable and edging on the border of insanity as she was. To think otherwise had been a dreadful mistake, the whimsical dream of a foolish girl whose price for her brilliant mind was to be never understood and accepted for who she truly was.

And yet.

For her it had been real, all of it. Li-Ming had genuinely loved Leah, and it was because she wanted to honor those feelings that the wizard was going to take her chances and play right into Adria's plan. Was she going to doom the world? Probably. Did she care? Not at all. She had already given so much to the people of Sanctuary without ever asking for anything else in return, and Li-Ming firmly believed the time for her to be selfish and think about her own future was long overdue. She was tired of being just Tyrael's pawn into the Eternal Conflict, tired of being pushed and pulled around from one battle to the next, tired of not being able to determine her own fate. She was the most powerful being in existence to ever walk the entirety of creation since the legendary nephalem Uldyssian, not some glorified walking weapon that others could aim at their problems. She was going to save Leah, no matter what, and whenever or not the girl still wanted to have anything to do with her afterwards she would accept and respect her decision, even if it would break her heart once more. It was the least Li-Ming could do for the sweet girl who had taught her to hope and shown her that, despite all the darkness in the world, a new dawn could come even for those with an unstable mind as the wizard had always been.

In the end, the decision fell outside of Li-Ming's hands. Malthael shattered the stone in a desperate attempt at defeating her, hoping he could use the power of the Prime Evil and of the souls he had collected for himself, but the dark essence held within would have been too much for any entity to contain and control, especially for an Archangel. Malthael died alone and scared, screaming in anguish while his body disintegrated and the mocking laughter of Diablo resonated inside the heart of the Pandemonium Fortress, rejoicing on the suffering he had inflicted on both Li-Ming and the Angel for one last time. As the darkness of his soul left for the Burning Hells it left behind a speck of blinding light, which materialized on the ground after a moment in the form of a naked, human body.

For an impossibly long moment, Li-Ming held her breath, scarcely believing that Adria could have actually been truthful about the chance of saving her daughter. Maybe, deep inside her black and corrupted heart, the woman had felt an ounce of regret for what she had done to her own daughter, in some sort of twisted way only the witch herself would have been privy of.

Whatever the case, as soon as the glow around Leah's body faded away, Li-Ming's brain rebooted and sprung her into action. She hastily teleported at the girl's side, her eyes immediately zeroing on the brutal scar on Leah's left cheek. The wizard knelt beside the motionless girl, gaze sweeping on her lover's body and seeing firsthand the consequences of her own battle against the Prime Evil. Somehow, someway, all the wounds both Imperius and Li-Ming had inflicted on Diablo's body had been impressed onto Leah's skin, creating a canvas of scars and cuts that would have never healed and never faded, always a reminder of what the girl had to go through and the pain she had to endure. The wizard felt her eyes sting and burn when, with one hand, she cupped her lover's cheek, her thumb grazing over the rough skin barely holding together, as if stitched by an amateurish doctor who clearly had no idea on how to mend broken flesh. A loud sob escaped her, and Li-Ming closed her eyes, the awareness of the fact that she had been the one butchering the body of her beloved Leah breaking what little composure she had left.

"Is thatꟷ" Tyrael's voice. He had been close when Li-Ming had descended to the heart of the fortress to face Malthael, so it should have been no surprise that he would have reached her so quickly after his brother had been defeated.

"Yes. Your cape, give it to me."

The wizard's command was immediately executed, the former Archangel now turned man removing the thick mantle covering his golden armor and giving it to Li-Ming, who used it to wrap snugly Leah's naked body into it before she could get too cold. Emotional as she was, she missed completely the weak groan that escaped the girl's lips, or the way her eyes fluttered behind her closed eyelids. Her entire focus was devolved on taking her lover away from the fortress, before Imperius had the chance toꟷ

"NEPHALEM!"

Li-Ming inhaled sharply through her nose. She had feared that one final confrontation with the Aspect of Valor would have occurred, but she wasn't going to surrender Leah to Imperius for execution no matter the cost. Even if she had to fight both the Aspects of Justice and Valor together, even if they were going to kill her for defending Leah, Li-Ming had no intention of standing down.

"Stand aside." His booming voice thundered in the empty room, golden wings fluttering imperiously behind him where he landed. "That abomination cannot be allowed to live."

The wizard turned around, her hand immediately reaching for her wand. "She has a name!" She shouted back, anger boiling her blood and sharpening her senses. Oh, how she hated Imperius and all he stood for. He was nothing but a hypocrite, preaching about valor and then ruling with rage.

"I don't care what you call it." He scoffed, summoning a golden spear in his hand. "Do you expect me to thank you for killing my brother? All of this has happened because you have allowed that thing to exist when you should have put her down! I will not make the same mistake again."

The angel lowered his spear and angled his wings, ready to dash forward and attack. Li-Ming did the same with her wand, arcane power charging into the tip of the crystal right on top of the weapon. Time itself slowed to a crawl all around her as the concentration of magical energy grew stronger and stronger and stronger, gravity bending to her will and causing the slightest falter into the Archangel's otherwise impeccable battle pose.

"If you want herꟷ" whispered Li-Ming, her words charged of the same arcane power that swirled all around her "ꟷthen come try and take her."

Strangely enough, the wizard felt no tiredness into her bones, no doubt into her mind, no fear into her chest. Her heartbeat was slow, deliberate, a calm and determined thumping against her sternum that grounded her into reality and sharpened her focus to an impossible degree. She was going to defend Leah with her life, against all that would attempt to harm her.

"YOU DARE STAND AGAINST ME!" Howled the Archangel in outrage, but for all his bark and bite he hesitated. The nephalem wasn't an opponent to be taken lightly, and Li-Ming knew Imperius was well aware of that fact. His uncontrollable bursts of wrath may have been more frequent than his acts of valor, but he was the Commander of the Angelic Host. He was no fool, even while seething with rage. "Why would you risk your life for such filthꟷ"

She didn't leave him enough time to finish his question.

"Because I love her." The wizard blinked, the words she had just pronounced sounding so foreign and yet so natural on her lips that she wanted to say them again. Therefore, she did. "I love her. I do not expect you to understand, but know this: while I draw breath, you will not touch her."

Li-Ming felt her chest fill with a sort of weird excitement she had rarely ever experienced before. To her it had all been real, every moment of it, and Li-Ming was going to prove it then and there that she was in love and willing to die for the girl who had stolen her heart, even if those feelings were now unrequited. Right before the situation could degenerate, however, the wizard saw Tyrael step in between her and Imperius.

"Brother."

The Aspect of Valor didn't answer, but somehow Li-Ming could tell he was listening. Perhaps, Tyrael could talk some sense into him before he would regret trying to attack her.

"The nephalem has done what we couldn't, today, and deserves to be rewarded for her deeds. If she wants this mortal as her prize, let her have it. She will watch over this girl. You have my word."

The nephalem held her tongue, even though her first instinct was to loudly point out that Leah absolutely wasn't a prize to be won but a real, breathing person. She kept herself in check, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice, but fortunately for her Imperius relaxed his pose, spinning his spear once before letting it dematerialize into the light of Heaven.

"So be it." After a blinding flash of his golden wings, he was gone.

Li-Ming's shoulders sagged in relief, a deep sigh emptying her lungs of the breath she hadn't even realized she had been holding. He was gone. Leah was safe.

"You love me?" A small, feminine voice asked, and the wizard felt her body freeze into place, a suffocating feeling of dread churning into her stomach. Leah's questioning tone had brought to the forefront of her mind the topic Li-Ming had so desperately wished to avoid for as long as humanly possible, the one she wasn't emotionally ready to face, not even remotely. The one the circumstances had decided she would have been forced to address, however, for the better or worse.

Swallowing hard against the lump in her throat, the wizard braved herself to calmly turn around, her eyes immediately falling on the girl sitting on the crude ground and completely cocooned inside Tyrael's warm cape. Leah refused to meet her gaze, however, staring instead at Li-Ming's boots and leaving her eyes hidden behind her air. All of the sudden, the words that had come so naturally only moments before now seemed stuck into her vocal chords, a wave of bashfulness overtaking her. Why was it so hard to say it, now that it mattered most? She had just defeated the aspect of Death, she could man ꟷor woman, more accuratelyꟷ up and say to Leah that she loved her, for Akarat' sake!

"Iꟷ err, yes. Of course I love you." How peculiar, that all the bravado she could muster in front of beings able to shatter the world would suddenly flee her when confronted with the person she had fallen for. She instinctively knelt in front of the other girl, so that they could talk at the same eye level, but Leah still refused to meet her gaze.

"You never said it, before."

The comment caught Li-Ming by surprise. Quickly analyzing through her memories, she discovered that yes, Leah was right, but to be completely honest she didn't understand why it would be so important all of the sudden. Leah had awoken naked, in an unfamiliar place and threatened by an Archangel, and her most pressing concern was what the wizard used to say or not? Li-Ming found the situation incredibly odd, not to mention the fact that she was getting extremely flustered. She never knew what to expect with Leah, one of the many reasons why she loved her so dearly, but thisꟷ this was so unbelievably illogical to the point of being utterly ridiculous.

"Well, yes, butꟷ I mean, I thought you knew that already? We were a couple, we spent nights together, that is something you only do with someone you love."

“You never change, do you?” Huffed Leah, seemingly amused, leaving the wizard quite confused as to what exactly of her last sentence was so funny. "Don't you like it when I say I love you out loud to you?"

No, it hurt. Those three words hurt so much that Li-Ming felt herself tearing up at the mere mention of them, to the point where she desperately wished she could find a way to permanently erase them from her own existence. No other words had ever been able to bring her to such a dangerously low point of her existence, where she would have gladly fallen in battle so that the pangs of loss clawing at her chest could just stop hurting so much, and yet no pain had ever felt so good when it was Leah's living voice uttering those three, accursed words. They hurt like a raging fire, one that the nephalem wanted nothing more than to jump into and let the flames consume her for all eternity, an unbearable pain that gave meaning and purpose to her troubled existence.

"Yes. Yes, I do like it."

When their gazes finally met, however, it took every ounce of Li-Ming's willpower to not flinch back in horror. Gone forever were those forest green irises the wizard had adored so much, instead replaced by eyes of a bright and sickening yellow, shining inside two endless pools of eternal blackness, with two reptilian slits in the place where human pupils were supposed to be. They gave Leah a downright demonic look, yet another reminder for a heartbroken Li-Ming of how much she had utterly failed to uphold the solemn promise she had made to Deckard Cain's pyre, and of how much the girl had to suffer by the hands of those that should have loved her unconditionally. Those unnatural eyes were the permanent scar of a stolen innocence, one taken too soon and from a young woman that didn't deserve the terrible fate bestowed upon her shoulders by the Eternal Conflict.

The wizard reached out to her lover, cupping with utmost tenderness the same scarred cheek as before and enraptured by the way Leah's eyelids fluttered shut in response, the girl nuzzling gently into the feathery contact.

"You are right." Said Li-Ming "I love you, and I will never stop saying it, now and forever. If you will still want me, that is."

When Leah's eyes shot back open in response, the wizard simply couldn't fight the jolt of fear and shock that crossed her veins at the sight of her lover's unnatural eyes. She sighed, resigned to the fact that, while she still loved the girl with all her heart, her new eyes were going to take a while to get used to.

"Of course! I still love you, too! What kind of question is that?"

There were so many answers Li-Ming could have given to such a question, but in the end, she kept her mouth shut. Not because of cowardice, not because of a desire to keep those matters secret from her lover, but simply because she was forced to silence by one of Leah's arms, which wriggled out of her warm cocoon and wrapped around the wizard's neck, pulling her to the ground with a surprising bout of strength Li-Ming didn't remember the girl possessing. Leah immediately buried her face into Li-Ming's air, inhaling deeply before tenderly nuzzling the wizard's cheek with her nose, a pair of lips ghosting over Li-Ming's jawline. The nephalem embraced her lover back just as fiercely, the contact finally freeing warm tears that began streaming down from her eyes with no restraint, no shame and no doubt into her mind that she had been able to bring her beloved Leah back into the world of the living. Neither of them wished for the other to let go first, so they spent several minutes into the soft embrace of each other's arms, uncaring of the presence of Tyrael by their side as he patiently stood as a careful vigil over the two reunited lovers.

Only after Li-Ming's quiet sobs had subsided the two girls parted from each other, only by the short amount of space needed to look at one another in the eyes. The wizard saw the brief expression of confusion that shifted onto her lover's face and prepared herself, her mind already running through different scenarios in order to better answer the queryLeah was just about to pronounce, undoubtedly concerning her current location and whereabouts.

"So, uhm. Can I as a quick question?" Without waiting for confirmation, Leah leaned into her to whisper. "Was I that drunk last night? What in the Burning Hells did I doooo?"

Li-Ming couldn't help herself. A bubbling laugh burst from her chest, and she leaned forward to plant a sloppy kiss on her lover's lips, because of course, of course Leah's first thought would be something Li-Ming would have never, ever considered, not even in her first one hundred hypothesis.

Oh, how she loved that silly girl.