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Poppy’s journey to find Demacia's hero had been a long one, and one that brought her to countless places— backwater towns, noblemen’s jousting contests, even into the wilds, sprinting on the heels of monster hunters. She had been searching for years now, meeting all types of people along the way, but this was the first time Poppy had elected to venture outside of Demacia.
There were rumors. Rumors of a scoundrel villain tormenting a town in the far highlands just outside Demacian borders. Boleham, it was called. Villains attract heroes, Poppy had thought to herself, her hopes reigniting anew. And so, she hoisted up the straps of her pack and traveled there with the stubborn determination of an ox. Into the vast wilderness, along bumpy, dirt paths, through dense forest that was almost too quiet. All at once, that forest opened up to vast plains of half-dead grass, characteristic of the in-between lands of Demacia and the Freljord. And off in the distance, small as children’s blocks, were the clustered buildings that made up the town of Boleham. Just beyond it, an ominous, pointed tower pushed out from the treetops.
Poppy had prepared herself for the worst. But what she found was… peculiar. And charming. Where she expected terror she found calm, despite the tower that cast a dark shadow over the town. Happy, welcoming townspeople. When she ventured to ask about the villain, she was only met with knowing smiles, and helpfully given directions to Boleham Tower.
The tower was intimidating. Its lord had been overjoyed at her arrival. Poppy had climbed its steps ready to demand answers, and anticipating a fight. But she was coming to realize that few things were as expected in Boleham. Lord Veigar was no warlord that loomed tall over her, no cruel human dressed in pointed armor and swathed in shadow. Instead, she found a… Yordle.
He mistook her for a hero, as a concerning number of people do. Once she finally managed to get a word in to clarify, the warlord she now knew as Lord Veigar wilted with disappointment. She felt a bit bad, but it was for the best. She would not have liked to clobber Lord Veigar, when he was as well liked as he was by his townspeople.
Boleham itself was a novel place. It was not like Demacia proper, where people didn’t like to mingle much, and few travelers settled. Here, Noxians and Demacians and even Targonians came together, people from every walk of life. Deserters, farmers, explorers, magicians… even one or two vastaya or spiritblessed. The small town was woven together in such a close way, yet everyone was so different. Perhaps that is why Poppy decided to pause her journey, and stay a while.
After all, notorious villains attracted heroes. And perhaps the hero could even be here, right beneath her nose, in Boleham. She would have to make sure that wasn’t the case before she left.
Poppy quickly discovered that Lord Veigar was strange. And funny— even when he was not intending to be. She had taken to accompanying him, for lack of anything else to do, and maybe because he was the only other Yordle around. (Although, he denied being one.) Poppy was familiar in passing with a few of the townspeople, but somehow Lord Veigar made the most sense to her. He did not seem to mind her presence and seemed almost flattered by how she insisted on following him around, but he had taken to calling her all kinds of childish names.
“I have immensely important things to address today, Demacian Clod.”
“Oh?” Poppy said, gracefully choosing to ignore his insult. “Can I help, somehow? Or is this your way of saying you’re going it on your own?”
Lord Veigar blinked, as if he had not considered recruiting her, and then rubbed his chin with a gauntleted hand. He stalked around her suddenly, and Poppy swiveled her head to follow him with a confused look. “If you insist!” he cackled ominously. “You will do nicely.”
An inkling of doubt started to creep up on her. “Er… I don’t know what that—”
“Silence, miscreant!” he cried. “We are expected.” And with that, Lord Veigar hurried off with surprising speed, leaving Poppy to scurry on his heels.
The important thing that they needed to address was… a tea party, to Poppy’s bafflement. And not even a proper one. A play-pretend one, with one of the village children. Poppy seemed to have been abandoned at the table with poor little Gracie while Lord Veigar sorted out some things with her mother, the two flitting around busily in the other room. Poppy only caught glimpses of them as they went and snippets of their conversation, trying not to let the child catch onto her distractedness.
“More tea, Lady Poppy?”
“Oh, er, yes please. Super parched, and all that.” Poppy held out her empty teacup, and the girl giggled and pretended to fill her cup. Then, Gracie’s smile dimmed a bit and she sighed, turning with annoyance to the empty doorframe. “Lady Veigar, your tea is getting cold!” the child yelled.
“Then warm it with magic or some such!” he called from the other room, just as snippy.
Poppy winced. “Er, Lord Veigar is—”
“Lady,” Gracie corrected.
Poppy relented. “Lady Veigar and your mother are busy with something. They’ll be done soon,” Poppy assured, not exactly knowing whether her words were actually true.
The girl pouted moodily. “I know. They’re doing stuff for the moon party.”
This was news to Poppy. But Lord Veigar never really told her anything until it was already actively happening. “Moon party?”
“They’re throwing a moon party, and all the ladies of Boleham will be there, and I can’t go because it’s past my bedtime which isn’t fair,” the girl rattled off all at once. “And Lady Veigar said she would have a tea party with me to apologize but she is not even at the table!” the girl loudly complained, making sure that Veigar could hear her.
“Alright! Fine!” Lord Veigar (Lady Veigar?) cried from the other room, and slinked back to the tea table. His dark, inky form sat down in his seat, lambent eyes narrowed. “I am in attendance now."
The girl tried to hide a sly smile, having gotten her way. “Good. Which kind of tea suits you, My Lady?”
The tea party was fun. Gracie and Lord Veigar discussed assorted topics with such exaggerated pomp and poise that Poppy had to muffle her laugh a few times. It was a fitting parody of the Demacian nobles that she knew so well. And once they were finished, Gracie and her mother saw them off at the door with a curtsy.
“Lady Veigar, Lady Poppy,” Gracie addressed them in farewell.
Veigar simply tipped his hat; Poppy offered an out of practice curtsy and a smile in return. The girl giggled and rushed back inside looking pleased, leaving her mother and the other two standing at the door.
“I will be seeing you later tonight, My Lady,” Gracie’s mother said kindly. Poppy stared up at her, confused a moment, before realizing she was not the one being spoken to. The woman bent to humbly offer Lord Veigar a parcel, supposedly what they had been hurriedly working on. Poppy noted something glittery and metallic left behind under the lady’s delicate fingernails. She wondered what could possibly be in the parcel, but maybe it wasn’t her business.
“Indeed!” he answered, accepting the offering, and then reluctantly added, “Your efforts were sufficient, I suppose.”
She laughed. “Of course, M’Lady. Farewell.”
With that, they turned and left, walking through the town.
Poppy could not help but steal uncertain glances at Lord Veigar as they walked. To play pretend at a tea table was one thing, but Gracie’s mother had been serious in calling Lord Veigar ‘Lady.’ A smidge of confusion swirled around Poppy’s mind.
It wasn’t odd for Yordles, as unpredictable and free as they were, to express themselves with genders and identities less common in the physical plane. Their appearances often even expressed it– the way fur and pattern appeared on their bodies, or did not, was all part of a complicated yet beautiful tapestry that mortals had trouble deciphering without a little bit of help. But Lord Veigar confused even Poppy. Where she expected thick fur, or maybe sleek skin, there was a deep and nondescript darkness. Even his glowing eyes had no pupils! She could not pick out the notoriously cateyed masculinity, doelike femininity, nor any other shape in between.
“Can I ask?” Poppy blurted suddenly, forgetting all her tact in the wake of her confusion. “Which are you?”
“Hm?” Lord Veigar hummed, barely paying her any mind, already busy untying the tie on the parcel to check its contents.
“Are you a Lord, or a Lady?”
Lord Veigar finally paused at that, Poppy stopping a step later. “Oh, that.” His eyeshape suggested that he lifted a quizzical eyebrow at her. “Well, which is more intimidating, in your opinion?” he asked.
A memory of Tianna Crownguard towering over her came to mind unbidden, and Poppy winced. “Lady. Definitely.”
Veigar tucked the parcel underarm and pressed a gauntletted hand to his chest, tipping up his chin. “Then obviously, I am Lady Veigar, Villainess,” he, or perhaps she, said, letting out a sinister laugh.
But Poppy was quick to cut that laugh off. “Hold on— it’s not about me,” she sputtered. “Which do you prefer to be called?” she prompted. “Surely you have some kind of preference.”
“A preference…?” Lord Veigar drawled, their intense, yellow eyes pinning her. Poppy unconsciously held her breath. “...You are correct,” they finally admitted, to Poppy’s relief. But then the charge of Boleham said, “What I prefer is that one’s voice trembles when addressing me. That their teeth rattle, and their knees shake!” Lord Veigar let out a dark cackle. “I prefer that they fear to speak of me at all! And when they must, they shower my name in flattery and praise and titles befitting of one as great as me.”
“Such as ‘Lady?’” Poppy ventured.
Lord Veigar harrumphed, and made a noncommittal gesture with his, or her, hand. “Ideally, titles more creative and metaphorical than that, but yes.”
Poppy let out a small snort at that answer. “I suppose that I just always thought of you as more masculine, so I was a bit surprised to hear those two calling you ‘Lady.’”
“None of you buffoons are correct in your assumptions,” Lord Veigar said, “not that I especially care! I see no point in wasting breath on such corrections...” The self-proclaimed villain aloofly checked the claws of their gauntlet. “Masculine. Feminine. What does it matter? As long as I am acknowledged as the most supreme evil to walk Runeterra, I am satisfied. And if I am seen as something incomprehensible instead, all the better! That is much more terrifying.”
Poppy blinked. “Oh. Well. That’s probably true.” People already argued animatedly over what exactly resided in Boleham. It’s why she had heard about the tiny town in the first place. “Not a lady, or a lord, so you’re a…”
“Force of unquestionable peril,” Veigar supplied. “...But you may still call me Lord Veigar.”
“Noted.”
Lord Veigar looked at her. “And you?”
“Huh?” Poppy asked, brain stalling.
The wizard gestured to her. “Your expression is not exactly straightforward, yourself.”
Poppy blinked, and then beamed. So they could read Yordle cues, after all. She did have some masculine features scattered among the feminine— catseye pupils and a snaggletooth fang, contrasted with short peachfuzz fur and fine, long hair. “It felt nice being a Lady today,” she admitted. “Very regal.”
Lord Veigar nodded primply in agreement.
“But… I like a lot of the masculine things, too. I think I’d miss out, if I was only a lady.”
“I see… A full moon child,” they say, inexplicably.
“Huh?”
“It is a concept in early celestial magic,” Lord Veigar explained. “The phases of the moon symbolize the expressions of the soul. Some believed that the phase you gravitated toward also determined your innate talents.” They gestured with a hand. “The waning half: masculinity; the waxing half: femininity; the full moon: combination of both; and the new moon: absence of either.”
“That makes you… a new moon?” Poppy guessed.
“You are correct!” they said. “For now.”
“For now?” Poppy echoed.
“It is not as if it cannot change,” Lord Veigar scoffed. Then, they scratched their chin. “Although, sometimes I do tend to get stuck in things...”
“Exactly!” Poppy said emphatically. “Some things just… feel so right that they settle.” And those things feel so comfortable and safe that they never bother to change again. Poppy could relate to that. There was no real reason for it, and not all Yordles were like her— in fact, few were, in that regard. “Are you settled?”
He snorted, as if she had patronized him with her question. “Of course.”
“Really?” Poppy looked them over again, as if she would notice something else after having been in their company for so many days. The Lord of Boleham did not look settled. They looked incomprehensible, a deep and ungraspable inkwell, like waters you couldn’t tell the depth of by looking. “But you don’t seem settled. No offense.”
They harrumphed. “And what is the absence of expression supposed to look like, praytell?” they asked, with a cheeky smile sounding in their voice.
“I… Ohhh,” Poppy said, finally realizing. Lord Veigar’s appearance was very straightforward, all this time. Poppy just hadn’t known how to read it. “But…” Veigar’s eyeshape shifted, as if lifting a quizzical brow. Waiting for her to say something. “It’s just… I always saw that sort of thing as a journey with a destination, is all,” Poppy mulled. “That destination being discovery. Where the reward is eventually finding out the answer. But you’re saying that you’ll change again, eventually.”
“The journey is the destination,” Lord Veigar corrected, raising a single clawed finger. “And it is also the reward.”
Poppy mulled over that, considering her journey throughout Demacia looking for The Hammer’s rightful Keeper. Those memories were all precious to her, even though her travels were proving to be long.
“You might find an answer that satisfies you, yes. But there will always be something else left to discover.” Lord Veigar looked upward, glancing at the evening sky. “Even the stars will drift out of the constellations we have arranged eventually, and create new constellations that the world can only define once that happens. And that in itself is fine.”
Poppy pondered that thoughtfully. “I… suppose you’re right.”
“Not especially,” Lord Veigar said. “Everyone comes to their own conclusion on the matter. What do I know?” Before Poppy could even think to voice her confusion, Lord Veigar cried, “Enough dallying, now! This dark ritual won’t cast itself. Against all odds I have a task for you, full moon child.”
“I can’t do magic,” Poppy blurted.
“You do not need to,” Lord Veigar said. “You only need to bring yourself as you are.”
Coincidentally, that night’s moon was a waxing half.
The ladies of Boleham gathered under the stars in the warm summer air. It was not really like any ritual that Poppy had imagined— closer to a small feast, and not everyone had attended, yet a good portion of the town did; presumably those who did not have to wake up at the break of dawn to do farmwork. (Or, alternatively, did not have a bedtime.)
The only man in attendance was a modestly dressed young man in flowing fabric, looking a bit trepidatious but determined. He watched attentively as Lord Veigar unwrapped the parcel Gracie’s mother had given them, and sat where the villain directed him to. Lord Veigar stood on a stone platform to paint silver, Targonian markings onto the man’s face with a smoky finger. For once, the wizard had gone without their ridiculous, oversized gauntlets.
“Minion Poppy,” Lord Veigar prompted once the last silver line was placed. “The full moon sigil, if you will…” With a light roll of her eyes she took Veigar’s place on the platform, pulling off her glove and dipping her fingers into the sister dish of golden, metallic paint. Poppy chewed on her lip, carefully painting a passable gold circle, as well as a few other embellishments, on the man’s forehead.
“Finished.”
“Hmph… Good enough,” Lord Veigar allowed. With that, they turned back to the others, beckoning the man to stand at the center of the gathering with them. The pair stood in front of a menhir carved with a similar Targonian pattern, which looked to display the phases of the moon among other things Poppy didn’t recognize. “Tonight is a special night indeed. Tonight we gather to meet someone new. We witness a naming ceremony.” Lord Veigar turned to the man, but Poppy was starting to realize that perhaps they were not a man at all, but a new woman born under the night sky. “You have chosen your name. Speak it now under the light of the waxing moon.”
“It’s Lira,” she said, voice firm as she looked out with courage to the other townspeople.
“Ooh… I can feel the darkness within it,” Lord Veigar mused, rubbing their hands together craftily. “A most villainous and tenacious name. It shall serve you very well.”
The chatter that followed was just as approving.
“A nice choice!” one woman commented.
“My great auntie was named Lira.”
“I almost gave my daughter that name,” Gracie’s mother fawned excitedly. “I love it.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Lira,” Poppy said, smiling up at her. The woman blushed at all the praises, joy and gratitude clear on her face.
“You are welcomed as you are, Lira. As you always were meant to be,” Lord Veigar announced. Then, they lifted a hand and the menhir’s patterns glowed softly. “This rite, done under the waxing moon, flows with energy of the feminine kind, now at its peak! Its influence was always within you, Lira, but may it continue to guide you towards the answer you seek.”
Lira bowed her head in understanding and respect, and the moonlight showering the clearing seemed to brighten in a beautiful glow.
Veigar looked at Lira with a kind glee in their eyes that Poppy had only seen on rare occasion. “Don't forget to enjoy the journey, just as much as the destination.”