Tick for Her, Laugh for Her
He woke up. Where was he? Ruins. Buildings collapsed, destroyed. An uncomfortable feeling of lightness. He was missing something. A part of his body, maybe? He had been damaged. An uncomfortable feeling of unwholeness. Someone was missing. ... where was she? He could feel it. She wasn't too far. She was always too far. It was a faint feeling, little more than an hunch. That was enough. He started moving. The ground was close, as if he was crawling. The damage had to be worse than he thought. He couldn't remember.
Buildings made of stone. Of wood. Of something else. There were barely any left standing. Amidst the ruins, he could see them. Corpses. Of soldiers, wearing different kind of armors. Probably from different armies. Of creatures. Clearly of different kinds Some were small. Some were not. One carcass was as big as an house. They were all mostly purple. Somewhat resembling insects.
He had nothing to do with that. She had nothing to do with that. He remembered. A war not theirs. A battle not theirs. Clicking sounds. Rustling sounds. Where from? Right, that was him. He was still working, so it was normal for him to make those sounds. He kept going. At one point he found someone still alive. An human, lying against a wall. He was missing two limbs, and there was something large stuck in his chest. A teeth, maybe. He didn't care. He didn't know how to. The soldier looked at him. Apparently, the sight surprised him. He coughed up blood, before saying something. What did he say? He didn't care. They had nothing in common. Maybe he hadn't chosen to fight there, just like him. But that was it. Not enough to distract him. He kept going. She was somewhere there. He could feel her. That soldier wasn't her, so he wasn't important. He would have died soon. He could do nothing to help him anyway.
He kept going. The sky was dark. Was that thing in the sky the sun? It was setting. It didn't matter. He could still see things without the aid of light sources. Something hit him. What was that? Rain. It was starting to rain.
A sound. A weak, shrieking sound. From somewhere close. He approached it. What he found was a somewhat small, purple creature. Not much bigger than himself. The debris had partially buried him. Most of its limbs were gone. His eyes too. It was dying.
Empathy. That probably was what he felt. He knew that small creature belonged to someone. And now it was dying alone. They have never been enemies. They simply happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time. That creature wasn't her too. And so it wasn't important, just like the soldier. But they were somewhat similar. He tried to push a few debris away with his whole body, but failed to. Buzzling sounds. He told the small creature he was sorry. Was he really? She used to say things like that, in those situations. At least, sometimes. He had killed many like it. But that one wasn't a threat. No longer. Shortly, the purple creature stopped breathing.
He moved on. Blood was everywhere. Entrails too. War machines. Magic was still floating in the air, as a left over of the battle. He crossed the ruins of a rather large building. He wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings. She was close. Close. Always too far away.
She was close. Then, why did he stop? He had fallen, hitting the ground. Was the injury worse than he had thought? Injury? No, damage. That was the term. Buzzling sounds. Clicking sounds. Something moving inside of him. Eventually, he started moving again. He was even closer to the ground than before. Where was she?
Where was she?
"This is what I get for my stupidity" he said as he walked atop the ruins.
It had been two days since that battle ended. The only people left were probably those who ended up trapped in the shelters underground. Unless those had been destroyed too. The others who survived -if there were any- had left already. The souls of the deceased were wandering around, crying. That would have been a nice sight, for him. But not that day. He hadn't found her yet. Was she still alive?
... was she alive enough to die, in the first place? His work was still not done. He couldn't lose her. Not like that.
He kept walking, the chains clinging with his every stride, the lantern harvesting those souls on its own, spectral chains erupting from it and hunting down the spirits of the deceased. He had no interest in them, but the lantern was hungry. So very hungry. Like always. It didn't bother him. It never did. Eventually, he met someone. He stopped.
"This place is far from the battlefront. What happened?" Thresh asked.
"Someone decided to take his swarm and wander around on his own. A rare occurrence, I'd say. Most of us aren't stupid enough to do something like that. Too many losses for a city with no real value. But why are you here? The Isles have little to do with with conflict"
"What we usually do. Hunt. Play. Harvest. Until Mordekaiser called all of the undeads to the Isles. I have never followed his so-called orders, but given the current situation, I decided to at least listen to what he had to say"
"I feel like I should be interested in what that revenant is doing"
"That is none of my concern. Where you here when it happened?"
"No. I am looking for the leader of the swarm. We have our laws, and he broke them. We are hunting him down"
"I do not care about that. If you were not here, then I have no reason to keep talking with you" he said as he started walking again.
"Why are you here, specter? You are not harvesting these souls"
"That is none of your business, Cho'Gath"
"She was here, wasn't she?"
"She still is"
And so he started searching amidst the ruins again, leaving the towering Voidborn behind, to his own occupation. It had been a few hours since he had arrived, and he still hadn't found her. Where was she?
Then, he found it. Lying on the ground. Was it broken? A good part of it had been bitten away, not to mention the claw marks all over it. The inner circuits were in plain sight. No, it was still working. It was emitting its usual, mechanical sounds. Its eye was still on its stall. He kneeled down and picked it up. The eye turned to him. Clicking sounds. He could feel something in those sounds. Emotions. Concern. Pain. Hate? The latter addressed to him.
"Sometimes I forget you are kind of alive too" Thresh said.
Its link with her hadn't been broken. It was weak, but he could still see it.
"Let us go find her, shall we?"
And so, carrying it around, he started walking once again. A reaper of soul, walking in the aftermath of war, ignoring all the wandering spirits surrounding him. The sun set, and the moon took its place. Finally, they found her.
Broken. Shattered. In pieces. Scattered all over.
Once again, sounds. Clicking sounds. Then a buzzling one. He found her head. A good part of her chest was still attached to it. The rest apparently had been torn apart. He kneeled down next to her.
"... hey, Orianna. Wake up"
No response.
"I am here. The Ball is here too"
Clicking sounds. The Ball left his hand and hovered a few inches above the ground, near Orianna's closed eyes. An ethereal chain came out of the lantern and started to move towards the mechanical girl. But before it could reach her, Thresh grabbed the lantern and threw it away, with as much strength as he could. The cursed object, eternal companion of his nightmarish hunts, landed far away. That was not the end he had planned for her. The lantern would have come back anyway, it wasn't like throwing it away like that could recide the bond he had with it. But he wouldn't have let it have her soul.
Thresh sat down. Orianna's spirit was still there, he could see it. He wondered if the fact that her link with the Ball was still present meant she was still alive. No, that was not it.
"You would love this scenery. So many soft, broken things. So many interrupted tickings"
The Ball poked Orianna's head with its eye.
"I think it is about time for you to come out. Orianna. Let us laugh at this"
And so, she did. Slowly, somewhat awkwardly, her soul left her broken body. In a certain way, that was a delightful sight for him. It meant he had almost managed to develop that little seed he had once seen within her in an complete soul. He had almost turned a thing into a being. Only to lose it before he was done. Granted, he would have ended her life sooner or later. But he was supposed to do so himself. It wasn't meant to happen like that.
"You look prettier like this"
Orianna looked at herself, and then at her body, shattered over the ruins. She was half transparent, and she was dyed a light shade of green, but aside from that she didn't look that much different from her physical body. Though she did seem a bit more... a bit less mechanical. That, and she was cracked.
"Is tHIs HoW iT fEeLS? IS ThIs hoW yOu aLwAYs Feel?"
"I think not. I am not a pure soul, unlike you are right now. ... well, as pure as someone like you can be" he joked.
Orianna tried to take the Ball in her hands, but the passed right through it. She looked at her fingers.
"Do you think it will survive?"
"YeS, He WiLl. He IS a sTrONg BaLl. He CaN FIx hiMselF. He IS noT tHiNkiNG AboUt it At thE mOmEnt, ThAt iS aLL"
She kneeled down -in her usual, completely unnatural way- and looked at the Ball, which in return fixed his eye on her. It could see her.
"I WilL Be GonE ShoRtLy, BaLl. Don't ACT bAD bECausE I'M not ArOUnd"
The Ball replied. Thresh had never managed to fully understand what his noises meant, but it didn't take a genius to understand what it was saying to Orianna right now. "Don't go"
She tried to pet it, but once again failed to touch it. Then she stood up, and looked at the scenery.
"THEy're ALl BrOkEN?"
"Most likely. I will go look for survivors once we are done here"
"THaT sOundS FUn"
She started walking around. The Ball tried to follow her, but since it couldn't float anymore in its current state Thresh took it and followed Orianna. She would stop here and there to take a good look at an half eaten soldier, at an eviscerated Voidborn, at a squashed corpse, laughing softly.
"There were your toys, I guess" Thresh said. He wasn't sure, since the Ball cleary got almost destroyed before Orianna, which meant she had fought alone for the last part. And he had almost never seen her fight without the Ball.
"I brOkE TOO, iN The enD. WAs I ThEiR TOy aS WeLl?"
Thresh walked up to her and grabbed her uncorporeal head.
"You were supposed to be my toy. Not theirs"
That was also the reason why he had left her there. He didn't want her to meet Mordekaiser, and so he had gone to the Isles on his own while she waited for him there. That revenant was one of the most manipulative beings on Runeterra. Had he knew about the existence of Orianna -of such an efficent killing machine- he would have tried to use her for his own schemes. But Orianna already had her place in Thresh's plan. Not that it mattered anymore.
"MaYbe ThAt wOuLD HAve beeN fun tOo"
The lantern was coming back. It wanted her soul for itself. Just like every other soul. Thresh knew that. Orianna knew that too. She could have gone away, somewhere. Thresh wouldn't have followed her, and the lantern wouldn't have taken her soul. Simple as that. But then again, what for?
"WhAT WILl hAPPEn tO Me now?"
"I do not know for sure. But your soul... it seems to not be fully developed yet. By the look of it, it can not keep itself together without a physical host. A working one, that is. If I had to take a guess, I would say you would end up fading away in a short time. I am not sure. You were... you are the only one of your kind"
He had failed then? That was... hard to believe. To him, Orianna felt far more alive than most humans. The soul was the source of setient life. Why wasn't her soul strong enough to survive without an host? It didn't matter anymore.
"TheN i WilL eNd herE"
"I just have one question, Orianna. You knew I would have killed you myself eventually. Why did you still stay with me?"
After hearing that, Orianna laughed. An heartfelt laugh. A creepy laugh. A mad laugh. An innocent laugh. A fascinating laugh.
"YoU wERE FUn. YOu ShoWEd me HOw to hAve EvEn MOrE Fun. YOu pLAyEd wItH mE. YoU werE... liKE a FathEr. A FaThEr WHo dIDN'T see Me As SOmEOnE ELsE. AS soMEOne I waSN't. ANd... maYbE I wanTED TO TOy With yoU TOo, iN thE eNd"
This time, the one to laugh was Thresh.
"I really brought you up well, Orianna! So well I might just be proud of myself now!"
And then, they laughed together. The lantern was getting closer. They laughed together. In the dark of the night, amidst the ruins of the city, illuminated only by the moon, their voices echoed. And were someone to hear them, his blood would have frozen in fear, for those were laughters of madness and malice. And, perhaps, regret.
"Let us end it, then"
Thresh placed down the Ball and walked up to Orianna. That... was not how he usually did it. But that was a special occasion. He grabbed her shoulders, and then he bit her. Hard. He ripped a part of her away, and swallowed her. He didn't ask her how that felt. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. Orianna remained silent. He bit her again. And again. And again. The Ball watched, in silence. One way or another, that was the end she had chosen. It felt its link with her grow even weaker. He kept eating her. That way, the lantern wouldn't have taken her. She would have been his and his alone, forever. Just like it was supposed to be. Orianna remained silent. He bit again. The Ball felt its bond shatter. Together with it, he felt something else. Was that sadness? It didn't know. It had never felt it, so he had no way to identify it as such. Even after that, Thresh kept eating.
"It wAs FuN" she said.
In the end, nothing of her soul was left. For the second time in his whole unlife, he had eaten a soul directly, without the aid -or hindrance- of the lantern. There was something linking Thresh and the Ball now. Was that a remnant of his link with Orianna? It didn't matter. Not at that time.
Thresh took the Ball and walked back to Orianna's shattered chest. Her winding key was still there. It was damaged, and there were cracks all over it, but it was still in one piece. He took it, and fixed it to his belt. Then he took the lantern, which had finally returned to his side. The Ball had started to repair itself. It would have taken a while before it could fly again, and at least two days before it could recover its full functions. That is, if it found enough materials to fix itself. Which wasn't a given. He had a rough idea where to find the best spare parts though.
"We have a funeral to organize, Ball. Let us go"
If there were still survivors admist the ruins of that city, they would have found them. And offered their screams and their pain to Orianna.
The Ball emitted a single sound. And, for once, that was a sound of approval. Accompanied by another sound. A new one, which it had never emitted before. A regular one. A ticking. A familiar ticking. One it had no need to emit. A funeral praise. A commemorative praise. An imitation. It could no longer protect her. So it would tick for her.
He walked away, carrying the Ball with him. With a feeling he thought he had lost burdening his chest, he walked away. Looking for survivors. Looking for toys. He could no longer laugh together with Orianna. But he could still laugh for her. And so he laughed.
Thank you for reading.
As usual, this is based on Orianna's old lore.
This is something I wrote kind of on a whim. If you don't mind, drop a comment. Feedback is always appreciated.
Side note: the first part was written from the Ball's point of view. And yes, there is a sort of Void invasion going on in the background, but that wasn't the point of this story.