*insert unpopular opinion here* I honestly can't see Taric being gay :O Yes, even with the pink skin (coughwhich actually reminds of some armor from wow but that's another storycoughcough). I can see literally many other champions being gay, but just not him idk why :O D:
Anyway, hope you enjoy this :3
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For Taric, Runeterra was filled with wonders.
Some were bad. One of them was the bile, spewed at everyone, by everyone.
But then, there were good things. Things worth staying for.
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She caught his eye the first time he played against her.
They were on opposing teams. She was bright, confident and beautiful. Her hair billowed behind her, her eyes glittered with the joy fighting must bring to the most seasoned warriors, and she had the most badass walk ever. She zoned the hell out of his carry.
Taric had been hiding in the bush most of the time during the laning phase and hadn't taken his eyes off her. Although a stranger to this world, he was already used to women outrageously showing off their bodies. However, this woman was the epitome of "outrageous". And it's not like she did anything differently. It was rather her behavior that created this effect. She acted like could kill you in the blink of an eye and still be as sexy as to arouse you. And she quite managed to pull it off. Last but not least, the sapphires she wore stole all of his attention and kept it glued on her.
Taric stared at her and felt his otherworldly heart flutter.
They lost the game and everyone blamed the jungler.
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The Prodigal Explorer was a nice guy and a powerful champion with whom Taric had had a few quite successful matches. After the first few matches he thought they were on a friendly enough stage to greet him and make small talk whenever the situation allowed. Just like he did with all other "colleagues" of his.
Having been thrown in a world he didn't know anything about, he had to other way to socialize. And he had made some friends too, albeit a bit weird ones: Skarner, the crystalline creature, still one of his kind, who was thrown in a whole new world too (and who had this amazing connection to earth as well), and Sona, who, for all of her muteness, communicated well enough for them two to become close. Or at least Taric thought so. He was on friendly terms with all the carries in the game.
Ezreal was different in that aspect. He appraised him with disgust on his face every time he tried to strike up a conversation. The Gem Knight tried once, twice before giving up totally.
It was much later than he learned of the rumours.
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They weren't that popular picks so it took him quite some time to meet Sivir as his ally on the battlefield again.
They were on the blue team and as they hid in the tribush, protecting the red buff which was probably not going to get stolen, he made a comment about her gems. Implying nothing. Not at all. He was genuinely interested in how she acquired them.
Her eyes widened in an outrage, which quickly settled, when she realized he hadn't meant that in any other way other than the literal.
After that she just started chattering away about gems, in way that assured him that she knew what she was talking about. He responded enthusiastically to that and a heated discussion was born.
Then they got first blood.
Then they won.
Then she mentioned they should see each other sometime to finish their conversation. He tried to sound not as excited as he felt when he agrees and invited her over.
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Taric decided to make their first little meeting his way. He invited her to dinner in his home in Demacia, prepared an amazing two-course meal (apparently dough didn't need as much pressure as coal did to become a masterpiece and cakes weren't his forte) and did his best to make the atmosphere homely and inviting.
She arrived what he later learned to be fashionably late, dressed impeccably and smiling only lightly. Actually it was more of a smirk, as her pearly teeth weren't showing and there was a small undertone of mockery in her expression, but most probably he was seeing things and being way too nervous. For what really? It was just a meeting of two allies, seasoned fighters who would get to know each other and get closer as they would fight together many, many times.
Of course.
He let her in his modest home and over the evening inquired about what she did and listened intently to what she had to say.
And she definitely had a lot of things to say, due to her being a nomad and a tomb-raider. Her tales reminded him of his own adventures as a knight back in his mother-realm. He shared them with her and watched as she got excited over each one and the façade she had put up in the beginning slowly crumbled away.
Their differences, however, shone through their stories. She was an agent, a killer, a bounty hunter – someone who destroyed – whereas he was a protector of weak, of strong, of people like her. He would love to protect her in a match again some time. Soon. Like tomorrow.
"So this was a date?" right before leaving, she asked him, almost incredulous.
He knew that was how they called it on Runeterra so he simply nodded.
At that she kissed him.
"Never had such a date before," she smirked at his frozen expression.
And then she was gone.
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On subsequent days, a glitch in Taric was reported on the Fields of Justice.
He would repeat "Sapphire for divinity.".
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As time went on, she developed the habit of stealing kisses from him before matches, during matches and after matches. Each of those stolen kisses was a reason behind the dreamy smiles he became known for.
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One day, the powerful sorceress Lux he held much respect for approached him and gently implied that he should get his pedophiliac hands off her boyfriend or otherwise she would have to resort to quite drastic measures which would involve the shoving of something somewhere in his body farther up than he had ever felt and "although he would surely like it, she would not hesitate to do so". That gentle implication was, of course, gently paraphrased and censored by Taric.
He knew Lux; apart from being a magic prodigy, she was skilled at communicating and knew when to sweet talk and when to use threats.
By that time, Sivir had worked some sweet magic Taric was weak against and he had long forgotten about the rumours about him and Ezreal. Forgetting them didn't erase them, however.
He eyed the tiny mage in front of him with a dose of sympathy. She must have it bad, he reasoned; everyone thinking her boyfriend was gay wasn't something one would desire.
So, instead of getting angry at her, he stared directly in her eyes and tried to explain to her that he was in no way interested in the Prodigal Explorer, except maybe to protect him when they were on the same team and make sure he died fast when they were enemies on the Summoner's Rift.
She just stood there, silent while he was talking, her face an unimpressed study of attentiveness. When he got to the part that he already had a partner who satisfied each of his needs (and he hoped he did the same for her) and incidentally that partner's gender was female, she snorted.
"Yeah right…"
"I am not gay," he was tired of saying this, over and over again, until the words had already become meaningless and he wondered why everyone assumed such things.
"Well, you're already labeled as one."
Her words stung harder than they should have.
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Sivir, he found out, was incredibly materialistic.
She believed that everything could be sold, that even what is lost can be found and sold, that what is broken can be reforged and sold. She loved all that was shiny and pricey.
Even if her ideology was far from what Taric believed in, it meant that she was knowledgeable of gems.
And straight up obsessed with them.
She didn't care what each gem signified, but she knew all about the amount of facets an emerald needed so that its beauty would be best seen and what a well-cut diamond looked like. And sometimes he wondered if she was really the right person for him that he thought she was. Uncertainty clouded his mind.
But he liked the fact that she wore sapphires.
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Things went too far when some random summoner asked him about all this. After patiently explaining yet again that no, he was not interested in anyone from the male gender in that way, Taric decided to limit communication with people/creatures of questionable origin who started, fed and believed outrageous rumours. It worked but for a limited period of time. Taric was no loner though and he hated those arrangements.
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Sivir was one of the people he let close. She had never cared about his assumed homosexuality (she never cared about anything; how did she do that?). However, even if her small warm body laid, right next to his, and the full moon shone romantically from the window, making her skin porcelain perfect and her hair liquid diamond (even if liquid diamond would turn to graphite and graphite was not a word he'd describe her hair with), he still couldn't stop thinking about that.
"You're awake."
Not trusting his voice at the moment, he simply nodded, hoping that she would feel it. She did.
"What'sh up?"
"Everyone thinks that I am a homosexual…" he paused for a second, wondering what to say, but then he decided he'd had kept everything inside for way too long and the words came rushing out, like a waterfall, tumbling over each other, begging to be said, begging to be heard, "Not that I'm against that, but I'm not one of them and all these jokes are offensive and outrageous―"
"Shh," she silenced him with a slender finger on his mouth, "can you keep it a bit slow? I'm too tired to think straight… Anyway, from what I just saw, you ain't the slightest bit gay…" she stopped in a sleepy stupor and for a moment he thought she had fallen asleep, but then she murmured something to herself.
"Yes, but everyone else thinks that and for I don't know what reason!"
"And why do you care what everyone else thinks?"
"Well, it's the general opinion…"
"Well, the general opinion is that I'm a heartless bitch who would sell her soul for the right amount."
He glanced at her quizzically. Even in her state, she didn't fail to notice it.
"Heyy~! Just because I'm a soldier for hire doesn't mean I don't have a limit!" she lifted a lean-muscled arm and hit him lightly, earning an emotionless chuckle from him.
Just as he directed his stare to the ceiling, he heard a clumsy shuffling on his right. She had pulled herself up, resting on one arm and staring directly at him. He tried not to be distracted by the perfect dip of her waist. Pesky peripheral sight.
"But my point is, you shouldn't give a damn about what others say. They are always going to think stuff that's wrong," she sounded much more awake than a second ago; funny, "You just have to stand up, make them fuck off and do what you want."
The words sounded cliché, he admitted, but knowing the way she had lived her life and knowing that she had said that just for him made them shut him up and shoo the bad thoughts away. A tiny smile wriggled its way on his face and only widened when she yawned and let out a loud cat-like sound. His little otherworldly heart swelled and almost stopped.
"Now, c'mere," with that she lied down next to him again and cuddled up on his side.
Nights must have been cold in Shurima and she and her people must have had to keep close to each other to keep warm, so he didn't pull away but adjusted his arm so that he wouldn't lose all feeling in it too fast and so that he could lightly caress her well-defined triceps. It was interesting how this battle-hardened body was also one of the most feminine ones he had ever seen.
His eyes landed her little briolette-cut sapphire earrings on the nightstand from her side and an idea was born.
Maybe it was time for a change.
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Emerald for insight.
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After the most recent grand changes on the Summoner's Rift both of them enjoyed a rise of the times they were picked for matches.
And when summoners found they were actually a pretty amazing combination, they started working with each other almost on a daily basis.
Whenever they were together on the same lane, things would proceed in a set but deadly combination.
He would hurl his dazzling prism to stun the enemy. The prism would immediately be followed by a giant fast-moving boomerang blade and she would appear right next to him, attacking the unfortunate soul relentlessly until, worst case scenario, take one kill. In the meantime, he'd exhaust the carry and try to keep her out of harm's way.
That just happened.
As he moved out to execute minions and share the gold with her, her summoner started pulling her back to the base. Just before she teleported back, he changed his mind and left her on the lane to farm.
Not under her summoner's order at that moment, she glanced at him for a second, not breaking her farming even once and giggled, before breaking into a full, toothy, feral grin. On her new armour shone emeralds, perfectly cut by him.