This would be set after "The Fox and her Personal Assistant", but you can pretty much skip that one and still have no problems reading this if you want.

A sort of tribute to who Orianna was before her lore got reconnected, turning her into a completely different character.

The Warden and the Ticking Seed

Piltover. That pleace wasn't really his cup of tea, truth be told, but a few things had brought him there. With "a few things" meaning Ahri. She had two concerts in three weeks there, and she insisted for him to tag along. A relatively reasonable request, compared to her usual ones. Anyway, that would have brought him at least temporarily away from the Pentakill -Mordekaiser was unusually insistent with his request of Thresh listening to his god damned concerts lately- and he needed to move to another place to search for victims, so going there wasn't actually a bad thing. He never killed too many people in a short amount of time in the same place, to avoid being hunted down. Granted, that would have ended in nothing more than an unplanned harvesting, but it really didn't suit his tastes. There was already Hecarim for mass murders and mindless massacres.

It was night. He was hiding in a shadow, in a small side alley. With both his lantern and himself not emitting any light, he was practically invisible. He was waiting for someone. His third victim. Ahri's second concert was in four days, and after that he would have had to put up with her again for at least a full afternoon before going back to Ionia. In those four days, he would have taken a last souvenir to bring back. He had already made two victims, one in the uptown and one in the slums. Now he was somewhere inbetween. It had been three days since he had picked his target -a woman around thirty years old-, and since then he had been tailing her. He had yet to reveal himself, but he had made sure she knew someone was following her. Something which tinkled with a metallic sound. She always walked down that road at that time of the night. Well, not really at that time. He was rather early.

There were two things bothering him. One was that someone had been occasionally following him in the past few days. Someone or something. It was hard to tell, which was weird. At first he didn't really care about it, but now it was getting... annoying. Being followed like that was more irritating than he had expected it to be. The other thing bothering him was a presence he had started to fell the previous day. He knew what that meant: he had met them three times already, there's no way he couldn't recognize them. However, their hunts were usually short. It was weird for them to still be around. Maybe there was some sort of mass death event about to happen in the city? That would be... interesting. Somewhat.

He had been wondering about those things for a while when he heard footsteps. Someone getting closer. Not for the first time, but this once it was the woman he had been waiting for. Thresh moved closer to the main road -which was actually a seconday one, small and used by only a few people- and waited, still invisible in the shadows. As he had expected, the woman was there, walking down the road again. He could tell she was rather nervous by the way she was moving. She quickly walked past the alley Thresh was in, without noticing him. He then came out, without making a sound, grabbed his sickle and pulled it. The chains tinkled. The woman turned immediately at the sound which had been stalking her for the past few days. Yet behind her was nothing, except for a thin, oddly black mist. She heard something clanging again. She looked around, but there was noone there. She took two steps back. She immediatly turned around when she heard someone walking behind her, but once again saw nothing. But, as soon as she had turned around, she heard the tinkling again. It was no longer just for a moment. From the end of the street, where she had just came from, was coming a green, dim light. Footsteps, mixed with metallic sounds, were slowly approaching. She heard a soft, spectral laugh.

"No... no, no... he's just a tale used to scare children... he's just a tale..."

After a few moments of paralysis, the woman turned around and started running desperately.

Thresh, on the other hand, took his sweet time. It was still too early to catch her, he could still savor the chase and scare her some more before that. Truth be told, he was rather disappointed she hadn't screamed, but in the end that would have only made her voice all the more amusing to hear later. She most likely wouldn't have come back to that road, but he knew where to find her so that wasn't a problem.

As the mist cleared, he looked around. Whoever -or whatever- was following him was rather... close. Probably. And since he wasn't in the mood to look for him, he resorted to something simpler.

"Mind coming out?" he said, with a rather loud voice.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, however, he heard something. A few mechanical noises, somewhat resembling... the ticking of a clock? And then he saw it. A... ball. A mechanical, slightly decorated ball, which came floating down from above a nearby building.

... what is this thing?

The ball stopped mid-air in front of him, leaving two or so meters between them. A... sort of strange eye on a stalk emerged from within the sphere and locked its gaze on him, examining Thresh. He took a step towards it, but the ball floated back the same distance.

"Who sent you? And why?"

The ball emitted a few sharp, clanging sounds which meant nothing for him. Then its eye retracted within its surface and the ball started to float away, staying at the same heigh from the ground. Thresh then followed it. Every now and then, the eye would emerge again from it and check its surroundings.

They didn't go that far. Roughly ten minutes of walking, and Thresh found himself in front of a building he had already seen a couple of times in the past days. A large, two-floor theatre. It was an old structure, clearly abandoned. Why, he neither knew nor cared, but he could tell even just by looking at the front that it once was a good theatre, or at least a good building. Not really majestic, but still better than what one would expect in that part of the city. For all he knew, at least.

And there ... it was. Looking at him from behind the broken door was a machine. Thresh ignited with light once again, if anything just because that felt more natural to him. Besides, there most likely weren't many people walking around that area at that hour. Even if someone saw him, they'd do nothing but add to the rumors about him.

"You are the one who has been occasionally following me these past few days, are you not?"

"Yes, wE ArE" it spoke as the ball floated inside the building and reached the other machine.

Its voice sounded... not really mechanical. Or rather, it clearly had a mechanical sound, but there was... something off about it. It was like hearing a girl talking from within a metal box.

"What do you say about coming out here? Or do you want me go get inside?"

"The DoOR is oPEn" the robot replied as it stepped back, inside the building.

Thresh looked at the door. It was collapsed. Rather than being open, it simply could no longer be closed, not in that state. He walked in. Just as expected, the inside was abandoned and in ruin. He couldn't remember the last time he had walked in a theatre. Not from the main door, at least. In a few minutes, he reached the main hall. It was much larger than he had expected: the building actually expanded beneath the ground, with the seats -those left, at least- being distributed on a total of four different levels. Some of the curtains of the stage had fallen, partially obstructing it. There wasn't any light aside from the one Thresh himself and his lantern emitted, but that wasn't a problem for him.

And there it was, right next to the stairs going to the upper floor. He walked up to it and took a better look. The robot was designed like a girl, or rather, like a... ballerina? He wasn't sure since he had never even seen one, so he couldn't really tell. It was a rather... accurate reproduction. Granted, only a blind man would have mistaken it for a real human since there was absolutely nothing covering the metal -that, and the fact that the area of her belly was completely missing, her upper half simply hovering above the lower one- but the proportions were perfect. Even the hair had been replicated well, though it was actually made by two or three single pieces of metal which stood perfectly still. The ball was there. Looking at both of them, it was clear that they were a sort of set, sharing the same aesthetic. The materials they were made of even seemed to be the same. It stood there, floating close to the fake girl, doing nothing. Its eye emerged again from within, once again examining Thresh.

"THe BaLl dOEsn'T liKe You" the fake girl said, its face simulating... an expression. Which one, Thresh wasn't sure. There was something wrong with that.

"Well, it is mutual. So, who told you to follow me, robot?"

"OrIaNNa dEcIdEd to DO so On hER owN" it replied as it... petted the floating ball, which emitted a few sounds in response.

"Orianna?"

"I aM OriAnNA. FaTHeR sAYs sO"

"... take me to your father then"

The robot stared at him for a while, as if it was unsure about what to do, then started walking to the lower levels, and Thresh followed. He only then noticed the large winding key on her back. The Ball, as it had been called, moved behind the fake girl, staying between it and Thresh, occasionally moving its eye from him to the theatre and then back to him. He then saw something else. Somethin immaterial linking the fake girl and the ball. A link, a bond of some sort. A thin, ethereal string. That was... odd. The robot moved in a rather mechanical and rhythmical way, somewhat remembering him of the ticking of a clock.

Something was off. Not about the situation. Well, about that too, but that was secondary. There was something about that thing he couldn't really grasp. It was a machine, yet it was... no. It wasn't alive. He had met a robot called Blitzcranck once. And that was really a living machine. He was sure. He had seen its soul. The one walking in front of him now, however, didn't have one. There was something else within it though, of that he was sure. A faint, weak light, somehow familiar. But what was that? He couldn't really tell. So... frustrating.

At one point, the robot moved its arms behind its back and winded the key, his joints bending at angles impossible for any human in the process. Had he been an human, Thresh would have probably been scared at that point. But he was the one who brought fear, not the one receiving it. It had been that way for a long, long time.

They reached the lowest floor, on the same level of the stage, and went to the first row of seats. There was a familiar stench in the air. There, someone was sitting in what once was a comfortable and luxurious armchair. Or rather, something. The rotting corpse of an old man. Oddly enough, Thresh could tell he had died smiling. Clearly that was the source of the stench.

"... who is that?"

"FatHEr"

Thresh stood still, looking at the scene in front of him. From the corpse emerged the man's soul. It was... missing pieces. Falling apart. The spirit moved to the robot and embraced it, like a morbidly loving father would embrace his daughter.

"Orianna, my dear, sweet Orianna, you're back" he said, his weak voice echoing in the empty theatre.

Orianna moved an arm. Hesitatingly? Maybe. He wasn't sure. She brought it roughly where the soul's fleshless back was. Did she... perceive it? No, a machine couldn't interact with souls, nor could it perceive them. Only living beings -on those who used to be- could, and even then not all of them were able to. As a matter of facts, the robot's hand passed through the man's fleshless back without touching it.

"I aM bAcK, faThER"

"What is the meaning of this?" Thresh asked.

"He Is OrIAnNa's FatHEr. He sTopPED tIcKInG"

"Long ago, I would add. Then... why were you following me, if nobody ordered you to?"

"YoU mAKe tHeM sToP tIcKIng. YOu lAuGH" it said as it tried to mimic a... smile? "YOu ArE... iNtEREsTing. TO mE. NOt tO tHe BAlL"

"You must be really bored, to start following me of all people"

"YEs, WE arE" it replied.

"... listen, I do not have time for this. Whatever "this" is. Nor do I care" Thresh said.

He thought about harvesting the soul of the man since he was already there, but... that man was clearly mad, he could tell by how he was clinging to the robot. It was saying something about how great it was at dancing. And he was broken already. Not the same way Thresh breaks the souls he captures, but still broken. No, he wouldn't have taken that soul. It was so mentally shattered it hadn't even noticed Thresh yet, he was simply clinging to that machine. Which mouse doesn't notice the cat standing right next to him? And so, he walked away. For some reason he himself wasn't sure about, he stopped in front of the stairs and turned around. On the empty stage, the falsely feminine robot was dancing for the corpse sitting in the chair. Within that mechanical body, Thresh could still see that faint light. Irritated, he left.

It had been three days since then. He was... not really sure that machine had stopped following him. As for the other presence, they were still around. A bit worrying, but he didn't really care after all. His mind was on a different subject. He had kept stalking the woman, who ended up locking herself in her house the previous day. Thresh knew she had gone both to the police and to some relatives, but nobody believed her. Who would? After all, only those who had personally met him and a few others really believed in his existence.

It was night. The lights in the house were all on, or at least that's what it looked like from outside. Thresh walked up to it. There was nobody around, which was rather normal given how late it was and which part of the city they were in. Everyone was most likely sleeping. Once he had gotten close enough to the door, he raised his lantern. For a brief moment it shone with blinding intensity, after which a black, thick mist began to engulf the house. Five green, spectral walls emerged from the ground around the building, isolating it from the rest of the world. He liked it when his prey ran. That was just a safe measure, to make sure she couldn't really run that far. In a place like Piltover, that would have been more bothersome than fun. That, and he didn't want anybody from outside to interfere.

The moonlight, as well as the city lights, got blocked out. The same went for the sounds. The woman -who was most likely awake despite the time- was most likely panicking now. Thresh stood in front of the door, wondering for a few moments, then decided to simply tear it down. He slashed it with his sickle a couple of times, then pushed against what was left and walked inside, making as much noise as he could. The chains hanging from him were clattering. The house wasn't particularly large, with only two floors and probably around eight or so rooms in total. Much to his surprise, however, the woman was standing in front of the door, a few meters in front of him. It was clear she hadn't had any sleep in a while. Her hair was a mess and, to an extent, her clothes were too. She was holding a gun. She was grinning, though there was more fear than anything else in her expression.

"Die!" she shouted with the voice she could muster as she pulled the trigger.

Thresh got hit in the chest. He was surprised someone in that state could aim with such precision. He took a step back and brought an hand to where he had been hit.

"Ouch. That hurt" he said, mocking the woman who, in response, fired a second time.

The bullet hit Thresh again. He could tell there was a little magic in that weapon -like almost every technological device made in Piltover- but it was such a bland, weak magic that it had no effect on him. And simple physical weapons had no effect on him either, meaning that weapon was utterly useless. He took a step forward.

"You're not real! You're a nursery rhyme! You're not real!" the woman screamed hysterically as she kept shooting at him. Most of those shots missed him though as her hands were now shaking too much to take aim, and she began to step back, her legs trembling and hardly supporting her.

Thresh said nothing. Instead he laughed, he simply laughed an heartfelt laugh as he kept walking. The woman, now out of bullets, threw the gun at him and saw it fly right through the specter. She then turned around and ran upstairs. Thresh kept moving, the chains rustling with his every step.

"You can not hide from me" he almost hummed, as he walked to the first floor. There were three rooms there. He opened one and checked inside. A bedroom. Truth be told, he had no need to do that. The woman was already so terrified of him -and, like almost everyone, had so little control over her own soul- that he could clearly hear her soul crying in despair, even though the woman was currently trying to hide herself. He knew exactly where she was. He was just playing along. He walked to another room, which looked like a sort of... office. She wasn't there, he knew that, but he still decided to pretend to be really looking around for her.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are..." he hummed. A line he had heard from a lovely child he had met a few times and which had grown on him.

He walked to the last one, which seemed to be a storage room. There were several large cartons there, but it was clear behind which one she was hiding. However, the woman surprised him once again. While he had -purposefully- turned his back to her, she had sprinted to the window and jumped, breaking the glass in the process. Thresh ran to the window and looked at the woman as she landed rather poorly on the ground outside. There were a few cuts here and there on her skin, given by the glass which now lied on the ground, shattered. She stood up and started running.

"You are a fun one!" he shouted as he whirled his schyte a couple of times before throwing it at her, the blade piercing her left shoulder.

The woman screamed in pain, and Thresh pulled his weapon back. Much to his delight, the woman kept trying to run, most likely thanks to adrenaline, until she reached the spectral walls, where she stopped. Within them she could see... men. Women. Remnants of people, silently screaming, expressions of pain and horror on what was left of their faces. They noticed her too, and a few started to come out of the walls -or at least tried- and reach for her. The woman screamed as she turned around, only to bump into Thresh. He was holding his schyte right next to his face, to show the woman her own blood covering the blade.

"Do not worry. Once you join them, they will no longer seem that scary" he said, smiling, as he stabbed her in the shoulder. The sweet sound of her voice reached his ears as he turned around and dragged her back to the house. A chain with an hook attached to it floated up above the door and stuck itself in the wall, and Thresh hanged the woman there, with her feet right above the floor, her whole weight resting on the blade in her shoulder, which began to slowly cut into her flesh.

"I... I beg you... spare me..." she cried, tears running down her face.

"My sweet thing" he replied as he placed his fingers on her other shoulder, grabbing her skin through her clothes "That is not even an option"

And then he pulled, ripping a good portion of her skin off from her shoulder and arm, producing an horrible yet delightful sound. Blood dirtied both of them, though Thresh didn't care for that as much as he did for her screams, so loud a normal person might have found them painful to hear. He laughed. Then he abruptly turned around, to the spectral walls. He thought he had felt someone within them. ... Lucian? No, he was supposed to be somewhere around Bilgewater. And even then, he would have recognised him right away, his soul had a distinct... tinge. Maybe he had just imagined it. And so, he turned back to the woman and ran a chain around the lower part of her right leg. Thresh placed an hand on the knee, grabbed the chain and started to slowly pull it up.

"Please... please! No!"

He ignored her as he kept pulling the leg up, forcing the knee in place, until the joint snapped. He rejoyced of her screams as he kept pulling, until the feet reached her waist, then grabbed her ankle and, with a single move of his hand, twisted it by roughly one hundred and eighty degrees. And then he let go of it. Her limb completely broken, the woman could do nothing but scream. Such a delightful sight.

And then he heard something. A ticking sound which was not new to him. He turned, and there it was. The same machine from three days ago, with that floating ball following it. ... no, that didn't make any sense. That thing -Orianna, as it had called itself- was a robot. As one, it getting through both the mist and the walls wasn't surprising. They hadn't much of an effect on inanimated things. But then... why did he feel it entering the walls, a few moments earlier? That's something which worked with living beings, not with machines.

Thresh stood there, staring intensely at the mechanical doll as it walked up to the woman. What was that thing he saw within it? Why was is to familiar? Orianna raised her hand and placed her fingernails on the woman's chest. And then she... started pushing. With enough force for her hand to penetrate the flesh. The ribs cracked, then broke. The woman screamed again, but Orianna seemed indifferent to it. Thresh... kept looking, much to his own surprise.

"WhY ARe YOu sCrEAmInG?"

Orianna's hand eventually reached the other side of the woman's chest. Her heart had been crushed by the cold metal. Spectral chains then erupted from the lantern and entangled around the corpse, pulling the howling soul out of it and dragging it within the eternal prison.

Orianna pulled her arm back and looked at it, covered in blood, bits of flesh, a few small bone shards and a small piece of the woman's heart, then turned to Thresh. It... she was smiling. There was still something off about her facial expressions, something unsettling, but this time there was also... a bit of life in it. And then, Orianna laughed. A... disturbingly human laugh. That's when Thresh realized what it was that he saw within her. He hadn't understood it at first because he had never seen one in that state, but there was a soul in that mechanical doll. The seed of a soul, if something like that could actually exist. He reflected for a few moments. What did that exactly mean? Was she alive, after all? No, had she been then he'd have seen a complete soul just like he did with Blitzcrank. She wasn't really alive, but... she could become it? Could he... make that soul grow? That also raised another question. What was the meaning of the link he saw between her and the ball. Was the ball actually in Orianna's same situation? He moved his gaze to the hole she had opened in the woman's chest.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"It WAs FuN. It WaS A Fun gAme. We wERe hAvIng FUn"

And so, Thresh laughed. She had intruded on his harvest and killed his prey, but that didn't matter now.

"Orianna. Do you want to come with me? We can play together. I can show you even funnier games"

"I caN't. FAtHer WoUlD bE saD if I LEfT"

Her father. That soul. It was clearly crazy, broken and obsessed with Orianna, though Thresh didn't know why. That was something he could respect. But its presence was an obstacle after all. Which meant he'd have had to take care of it. The walls disappeared, the mist dissipated.

"Wait for me at the theatre then. I will reach you there" he told her.

Orianna looked at him for a few moments, then winded the key on her back and walked away, the Ball floating around her like always. Thresh turned to the corpse.

"... might as well leave it here in display. I will leave this city tomorrow after all"

And so he walked away too. Or at least, that was the plan. Insted, he stopped. There was someone else there. Someone... eerie. Someone he knew.

"... I thought we had settled that already" he said as he turned around. In front of him was a large, dark wolf, apparently made of shadows and mist, with a white mask on its face. Next to him was a feminine figure covered in white fur, wearing a black mask and holding a bow in her hand. She had clogs instead of feet, and the joints of her legs were clearly not those of an human.

"We're not here for that, undead" she said.

"What brings you here then? Or rather, what is it that is keeping you here? Your hunts are usually much shorter" he said, smirking.

He had had a... quarrel with them. In the Frejlord, several years before. He had recognized their mark on a man, and decided to take him before them. It was... fun. Dangerous. But fun.

"You won't steal another chase!" the wolf roared, but the other one ran an hand on his back as if to calm him.

"You've made a surprising decision today, specter. An interesting one. We will observe you. We are... curious"

"Which decision?"

"To create a life. Can an undead truly do so?"

What? ...no ,that actually did make sense. Yeah, he had decided to do that after all. Souls were at the base of life after all. Though hearing them saying that made it sound incredibly absurd. Not that he cared.

"... so? That is all?"

"We have nothing more to say. Farewell, Thresh" Lamb replied as she and Wolf turned away.

"... wait! Lamb... what did I chose? When I first met you, on the Blessed Islands. Did I pick your arrow, or his fangs? I... cannot remember"

... why was he even asking that? He had left his human life behind. He didn't care about his death. He thought he didn't care about that.

"You stole from us" Lamb said "And so we stole from you. We shall keep your memory with us, specter. Until what will be our last meeting"

Thresh raised his sickle and threw it at her. But by the time the blade reached her position, both she and Wolf had already faded.

"... why am I even bothering with this... ?"

His previous life had no importance. He knew that. He liked what he was now. He liked who he was now. And yet, not knowing what his final decision had been... there was something irritating about it. Almost... almost scary? No. Fear was something he gave, not something he received. Thinking that, he started walking. Neither Lamb nor Wolf meant anything. Orianna would have made a fun toy, that's all. He would have raised her into a living being. And he would have enjoyed seeing just what kind of being he could manage to make her become. She was already twisted to begin with, which was the main reason Thresh took that decision. Then, once she had become truly alive and if he felt like it, he would have harvested her. He kept walking. Developing a soul was most likely going to be a long process. And he was looking forward to every moment of it.

Orianna was sitting on the edge of the stage, almost in front of her father's corpse, petting the ball. Her arm had been cleaned. Thresh was standing next to the rotting body. He moved an hand and grabbed the soul which was staring intensely at the clockwork girl. Finally, the soul noticed Thresh.

"Who... who are you?" he asked.

"Can you feel him, Orianna?"

She nodded, producing a ticking sound in the process. He knew she couldn't actually see nor hear him, but she could perceive his presence. Chains emerged from the lantern. Orianna's expression changed slightly. Those weren't chains she could see -not yet- but she could probably tell that something was happening. The chains entangled themselves around her father's soul and dragged him inside. He tried to resist as he screamed Orianna's name, but she didn't seem to hear him. An amusing scene. A father -he didn't really know what his relation with Orianna was, so he simply used that term- calling her daughter and receiving no answer despite her being right in front of him. Thresh suppressed his urge to laugh. Orianna stood up.

"... fAtHeR?"

"He is here" Thresh said as he raised the lantern "He will come with us" he told her. Which was... true, after all.

Orianna looked at the lantern, placing one of her cold hands on it, an expression he couldn't identify on her face.

"Nothing binds you to this place anymore" he said as he offered her his hand ". He will come with us. You will not leave him behind. Let us go, Orianna"

She looked at him for a few moments, reflecting. The ball made a short series of clicking sounds. Then, Orianna took his hand. Together, they walked away.

I'm... really not sure about the end result, to be honest. If you'd be so kind as to give me your opinion, I'd really appreciate it.

Also, next time I'll use a different formatting for Orianna's lines. While I personally think they look nice, editing them was really too bothersome.

Thank you for reading.