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Sunset was setting in the town of Navar, lanterns lit up the narrow streets, giving the space an orange tinted hue, their glow spilling onto the alleys, bathing it in a warm glow. Navar was neither rich nor poor, not big enough to compete with the tumult of Ionia city or rich enough to have the tall tree houses that adorned the wealthier parts of Navori province.
His ever so solemn master, hid his face in a red veil. He'd been part of their group for long enough to know they weren’t particularly welcome by the locals. As for the child; he stuck out like a sore thumb with the bright colors his master had put him in. A harsh contrast to the modest robes of most passerbys, he wasn’t used to the loose fabric or the wooden teeth that sat below his sandals, forcing him to maintain his balance and digging onto the sand of the roads.
Kayn followed him as if he were Master Zed’s own little shadow, he rarely strayed far from the man’s hip and did not dare make conversation with the other acolytes.
Through the brightly colored streets Kayn stopped to look in one of the alleyways to see a small crowd of people gathering around a small stage and a small board of wood that folded twice to form an arc.
“Gather ‘round children, come, come, the show is about to begin” a man beckoned. His face obscured by a colorful mask of an azakana, something Kayn had only learned from Zed.
Pillows had been strung over the floor and lanterns hung on the narrow space of the alley, many of the children looked to be orphans, their parents had left them for the war But those who stayed, kept them close, in their shoulders or by their hips.
He had not said a word for his master to understand that the small theater that had been set up had caught the small boy’s eye.
“You can go” his master nudged him. His voice betrayed nothing of his true thoughts, it was neither gentle or harsh.
He nodded as solemnly as a soldier, he would only move once given a command. Kayn pushed his way through the crowd, gently shoving a few of the children till he could sit on one of the cushions in the middle, getting a good view of the color backdrop that had been painted on the wooden board.
Looking behind him his master had settled himself on one of the far corners by the shadow, quietly observing.
“It all begins as all great stories do,” the masked man announced, his hands moving deftly over the wooden frame “With a song”
The man inserted a colorful painting onto the small wooden stage, a depiction of forest, rendered in soft colors and strokes of ink.
“Once there was a daughter of a hunter, she had the voice of a hummingbird and the aim of a hawk” the man puppeteered the figure of a girl with blue hair with pink and white robes.
“But she was very lonely, only the forest animals seeked her company for she was the only one who could understand them,
Once whilst sitting in her village’s graveyard came a small mouse crying for help, it jumped right onto her lap
‘Little girl help me! The fox wants to eat me!’
‘Why do you want to eat him, little fox?’ the girl asked
‘I am very hungry and it is in my nature to eat the mice’ the fox responded
The girl pulled out her pocket the remains of her lunch. "If I feed you will you stop eating the mice?” the girl asked
‘I cannot eat from you for I will become tamed’
‘Tamed? Would that be so terrible? I am terribly lonely and could use your company’
The fox at the thought of no longer needing to hunt considered the girl’s proposal
'First you will sit far away from me, but you may sit a little closer the next day’
The next day the girl returned with food in her hand and the fox sat just a little closer
The days passed and the fox sat closer and closer till they were only mere feet apart, but this day the girl caught him with a mouse in its teeth
‘You said if I fed you, you would no longer hunt the mice!’ she said betrayed
‘But you are a huntress little girl, do you not hunt the foxes amongst these woods? Such is the way of things
‘I do not want to hunt you dear fox’
‘Such is the way of things’
The story ended not in blood, but in understanding. The girl and the fox accepted one another’s nature, neither forcing change upon the other. They hunted together, no longer predator and prey, but partners, inseparable, bound by something greater than hunger or fear.
Yet, as the final painting was slid into place, it later became clear this was not any story, this was the story of the Kindred, but it was all wrong. He felt as if something was tugging underneath of him, as if he had been dealt a great offense. Was it wrong? This was his god, statues and shrines of the wolf had been erected all over the city of his birth since Noxus was even a concept. These Ionians had it all wrong.
He was so used to keeping quiet but his master had taught him to stand up when wronged, so a surge of courage flowed of him when he spoke:
“The lamb is not a little girl” he said “she is the decider of all battles, the mother of strife” he’d stood up with excitement at the thought of correcting these foolish villagers. “Her arrow pierces deeper than bone marrow, she and the wolf hunt for the thrill! She would not just feed the wolf” his accent could be heard woven beneath his words.
The children gasped around him, trying to pull him down or shrinking away as if he’s said some forbidden thing.
“Is that a noxian?” both children and parents whispered spread over the alley.
“Mom says bad children are taken by the Zakana”
“Liar!” one cried out, tears falling down his cheeks
Kayn was confused, shame crawled up his face, their stares pierced through him. Kayn knew he didn’t really fit in in this strange land of earth worshippers, but these were children his age but never before had he felt so…alien and foreign.
“It’s not a lie!” he snapped, desperation creeping into his voice “I’ve met her before!”
“You’d be dead dumbass”
A force pulled him beneath his arms, plucking him out of the crowd of wailing children. He thrashed for a moment before realizing it was his master.
“Sorry—Excuse me” his master muttered, trying not to trample over anyone.
“Teach that child a lesson” hissed a woman clutching her child.
More reprimands followed, but Kayn barely heard them. Shame burned up his neck as Zed carried him away, past the murmur of disapproval, past the whispering crowd.
Only when they reached an empty plaza, far from prying eyes, did Zed finally set him down.
Kayn clenched his fists, still seething, still burning with the unfairness of it all.
“You made a scene” Said his master, his monotone voice laced with restrained anger.
“But they lie! You told me to stand up when I see something I don’t believe”
“Sometimes we must learn to keep our mouths shut Kayn”
“But-” The words barely left his lips when he felt the sting in his eyes. Tears ran down his face at the thought of having done something wrong, much less having angered his master, the man who’d offered him nothing but food and protection.
“No buts!” Zed snapped.
His master stopped himself when he saw the state of his student, usually so quiet and composed by reduced to sobbing mess.
Zed ran a hand through his hair in frustration, exhaling through his nose, he really was not used to dealing with children. They could be so fragile, so easily prone to being swayed by emotion, he’d grown accustomed to Kayn’s complacency. He sat near a stone that marked the edge of a pathway and picked up the child to sit next to him, holding him close and rubbing his small shoulder.
“You didn’t do anything wrong Shieda—It’s just… we see things see things differently here, we do not worship the same gods
“But that was the lamb and the wolf wasn’t it?” he croaked out through his tears.
“In a way I suppose”
“Do you not believe in them master?” asked the young acolyte.
“I think of the lives I’ve taken” his voice was solemn “Those were my deeds, not some wolf’s teeth” he huffed at the accidental rhyme.
They sat there in silence, with only the light of the moonlight and the distant lanterns.
The sobbing slowed down now only reduced to an occasional hiccup as master Zed gently rubbed the child’s back.
But there was something that nudged Zed in all the wrong ways “What did you mean by saying you’ve met the Kindred?” He remembered those words Kayn had said that had been lost in the cacophony of reprimands
Kayn blinked up at him looking up at him with his big yellow eyes as he rubbed the final tears from his eyes.
He lifted his shirt to show the scar he had in his rib, slightly half circular, the skin soft with its mending, it was right onto the lower half of his lung, a fatal blow for sure. Zed wasn’t sure why he’d never noticed it before.
“At Epool” Zed knew when he started those words it was nothing good, Kayn rarely if ever mentioned what happened to him at the river bank “I closed my eyes…I thought I would never open them again”
A gust flew past them, Kayn had a tendency to say odd things for a child his age, even in this tongue that was foreign to him he had a way of expressing himself that was not common amongst children his age
“That’s when I saw them—no I smelt them first” Kayn recalled the memory, something that had marked him not just figuratively “A wolf’s teeth over my face, I could smell roadkill on his mouth” his eyes flared with fear, he clutched his hands over his body “I couldn’t even move master, so I just laid there and waited for it to eat me”
Zed looked at the noxian child beside him with something akin to pity or was it worry? “What happened then?” he asked.
“I heard a voice, she was as the stories say, wool like snow and—and armored like a wolf!”
“But you are here aren’t you? She did not carry you to the spirits” The spirits still confused Kayn, in Ionia the dead returned for the Spirit Blossoms as his master had told him, but in Noxus only the best of warriors were granted eternal life.
Kayn seemed frustrated at this “I know you don’t believe me master… no one does” he turned his head away from him “I—I don’t remember much but she told the wolf to stop and she pulled the arrow that shot me and when I woke up I had this” he pointed to the scar in his chest.
His breath hitched, and before he could stop himself, the tears returned. Zed sighed, shifting his hand to the boy’s head, his fingers threading briefly through his dark hair. "Shh." he said, burying his head into the child’s messy hair. It was not everyday one came face to face with death, for once he understood the severity of what his ward was telling him.
“Where I’m from… we don’t think much about the lamb, just the wolf. There used to be a massive statue of him near where I lived, but master… I think she saved me that day" said Kayn, a hint of a smile creeping up on his lips, a gentle reminder he’d been granted another chance at life.
Zed recalled as most of the stories went “Most people only meet one or the other, but you met both” Zed pulled from a sheath in his waist a dagger of bone and placed it onto his hands “The lamb is the gentle and quick death while the wolf is the brutal one, it only comes to those who do not want to go”
“In practice we must always be the lamb, quick, painless, do you understand now why Noxus only sees the wolf?
“So we keep fighting even in death” he answered sternly as a warrior. Kayn’s brows furrowed. He thought of home, of the towering shrines where warriors knelt in prayer, not for peace, but for a death worthy of song. The Wolf was always there, waiting, always chasing.
Zed nodded. He knew a lot about Noxus despite being an islander, sometimes Kayn would come to appreciate that.
For Kayn, the answer had once been simple. There was only the Wolf. To run, to struggle, to cut down anyone in his path before they cut him down first. But now, that certainty wavered. He traced the scar on his chest absentmindedly, feeling its ridges beneath his fingertips.
The Lamb had saved him. He was sure of it.
And if she had, what did that mean?
“Master,” Kayn started, a note of uncertainty in his voice, “when we return home… do you think I could have a shrine for the Lamb in my room?”
Zed turned his head slightly, studying him.
"You wish to honor her? Not many want to have death over their bed frames"
Kayn hesitated before nodding. "I think... I think I want to remember her."
The words felt strange on his tongue. He wasn’t sure if they were entirely true. He wasn’t sure if the Lamb wanted to be remembered. But something deep inside him told him that she had not come for him that day, not to take, but to give. Not many worshipped death for themselves, but for it to take others. The day before he landed on the shores of Bahrl he’d prayed for his enemy's death to be brutal and worthy.
For a moment, his master said nothing, only listening to the distant chatter of the town readying themselves to finish for the day.
“Do as you wish”
Kayn smiled, it was a rare sight.
As Zed stood, Kayn followed, his steps lighter than before.
And as they left the quiet plaza behind, he let himself hope, just for a moment, that when his time came, he would have the choice.
Zed thought of the old myths about how the Kindred would mark their prey so the chase would be more thrilling; those came from the continent instead of the gentle little girl she was in Ionia. The Shadow Order always dabbled in death; he didn't know if the mark Kayn carried in his chest was a curse or a blessing.
Incense burned as it coated the room with the smell of sandalwood. Light entered through narrow windows at the top edges of the wall, an indication it was early morning. Kayn flicked the burning stick flicking the excess ash and placed it beneath the centerpiece; an intricately carved visage of a lamb. The figure was small, but crafted with care, only the dust bothered him. The wood had been painted to a pale white save for the face, where it was dark and watchful. She sat with one leg crossed and the other one hanged over the small frame, a bow balanced gently in her legs and a hand raised.
Kayn clasped his hands over his face and bowed, whispering a quick prayer, the voice was quiet, rougher than it used to be. It had been years since he’d first started praying over it; now it was a rare occurrence, once only on important missions. He wasn’t sure why he still kept it. He wasn’t sure if he was praying, remembering, or just grasping at something beyond himself.
But things were uncertain now, as he lifted his head, he placed his hand on his lap, dark red and purple coated his finger and palms, it stung like hell, he could see his nails becoming harder, more metallic, longer, like claws.
Do you bow in reverence, or do you beg to be spared?
Kayn snapped at the rough and deep voice, but when he turned, there was nothing there. Only the flickers of dust in the air and the gentle incense burning.