Its residents argued over which of its features was most striking, from the breathtaking waterfall behind the city hall to the jade and ivory cliffs sidling its beaches, but they could all agree on one thing: Xiuguan was safe.
Not only did its geographical location atop one of the mountains of Navori, located in southern Ionia, prove advantageous so the moonlight could decorate its streets with its lustrous glow in the summer evenings, but its local patrol force was lauded as one of the region's top-notch organizations, a highly efficient team whose model of law enforcement structure was adopted by Caitlyn Marshall, who some may know as the up-and-coming new sheriff of the City of Progress. The sheriff's admiration of the Ionian justice programs was a little-known tidbit about her, formed during one of her visits to the island nation as a young adolescent when her father had taken her for a short vacation during a short diplomatic meeting between the elder Marshall and a few Ionian statesmen.
Yet for all the lauds and praises people had given Xiuguan and its supposedly secure environment, a teenage girl still found herself running as fast she could, willing her legs not to slow down as she continued her frantic run, not daring to slow down lest her pursuers gain another inch of ground on her.
The clouds denied any lighting the moon could have given her on that night, the engulfing darkness the only thing the path in front of her could offer along with the uncertainty of solid ground which could easily pass away with every step she took. And the threat of losing her footing and slipping onto the rocky earth drummed itself into her mind as quickly as the beat of her heart throbbed alongside the adrenaline which continued to flow through her veins and urge her onwards, always running, never slowing down.
She could barely trace the outline of geographical features in front of her, and only at a certain distance in front of her. Abruptly switching course to her right in order to avoid the trunk of a fallen tree, she nimbly vaulted over a fallen log and strafed back to her left to bypass a low-hanging branch as she continued her escapade deeper into the forest, where the sounds of wild animals performing their cacophony of the night masked the sound of her pursuers hot on her trail.
With her lack of information, she had decided to turn a corner and catch her breath behind the trunk of a large oak, resting her back against the bark and slowly sinking down between two thick roots as her chest rose and fell as her breathing began to slow down to its regular pace. She closed her eyes, raising a hand to wipe the sweat off her brow and opened her senses to listen closely to her surroundings, wondering if she had finally outrun the brigands tailing her.
Nothing but the occasional hoot of an owl amidst the ubiquitous chirping of the crickets. Perhaps they had finally given -
"Gotcha, girlie!"
A firm hand grasped her wrist, pinning it to the tree's root, as another clamped over her mouth tightly to prohibit her from crying out or making any noticeable noise. She tried to use her feet to possibly trip the attackers, but the painful blunt force of a steel-tipped boot locked her legs in place. When she felt the cold steel of a knife pressed to her throat, she realized that both of the men had caught up to her, which had resulted in her worst-cases scenario: if it had come down to it, she might have been able to overpower one of them with the martial arts training her father had drilled into her, but the strength and numbers advantage of two men, especially if they were armed, proved too much for her to overcome.
"You gave us quite a bit of trouble, you know?" another voice, a little higher pitched than the first one, said. The knife had moved away from its precipitous location next to her throat, but had only lowered itself slightly to cut the chain of her necklace as the piece of jewelry fell into the free hand of her captor, who quickly snapped it up and brought it to his eyes, squinting at it with some difficulty in the absence of any clear light.
"Give me some light, will you?" he asked of his companion, who moved a hand away from her to fish into his pocket for a lighter, handing it over to the other man in exchange for the knife which was once again pressed to her throat while the latter held the necklace in one hand to the light of the fire produced by the lighter in the other.
"Real Placidium gold, huh?" the man with the lighter declared, cackling to himself as he stowed away the necklace in one of its coat pockets. "We got ourselves the daughter of a swordsman, it looks like. Ain't no one else besides the blade masters of the Placidium and their families who get to walk around and flaunt valuable jewels like those."
"Heh, I wonder what'll be worth more," his companion agreed, laughing boisterously, "the girl or the goods."
"Speaking of goods," the first man spoke up, his voice taking on a much more sinister tone, "I bet we can have some fun with her before we give her over to the market." He bent down, bringing the lighter dangerously close to her face as his facial features came into view on the other side of the flame: a rugged, barbaric face weathered by the dirt and grime characteristic of the life of a vagabond wandering the vast forests between each city in Ionia. The eyes had had the color drained out of them a long time ago, it seemed, yet the satisfaction hidden in that devilish smile contained all the pent-up frustration which had accumulated for years in his body, just waiting to unleash all of it out on her.
"Who knew we'd end up with such a pretty face?" he mocked, grazing over her cheek with two patronizing fingers. She twitched at the contact, the corner of her mouth writhing out of disgust which caused him to lean back and bark out a hearty laugh.
"Haven't been touched by a man like that, have you? You needn't worry. I'll be sure your first time isn't lacking in anything," he promised ominously as the gluttonous hands of a sinner worked their malicious ways all over her body, pulling at her collar, completely bypassing the buttons and furiously breaking open her blouse, hungrily tugging at the hems of her skirt…
They're just going to take everything from me? My belongings, my clothes, my maidenhood, my honor…
"Make sure you save some for me, boss," the other man demanded as his ravenous eyes glanced over every inch of her skin revealed to his perverted mind.
An unceremonious thwack ended the brigand's defamation as he crumpled to the ground halfway through the process of forcing her legs open while his partner tore away his hand from her mouth as he looked at his unconscious body in confusion.
"What the - "
A second strike, a crushing blow to the back of the head, felled the second man as he lay in a crumpled heap alongside the first bandit. Back in control of her limbs and mouth, she glanced upwards to her saviour, a man draped in a dark purple cloak who looked like he was brandishing an Ionian greatsword. His hood was lowered, although she couldn't make out anything significant in his facial features apart from a pair of haunting blue eyes.
Realizing her indecency, she turned away from him, one hand covering her half-exposed chest while another furiously pushed down her skirt as she tried not to show any more of her in her vulnerable state. The swordsman ignored her frantic movements of concealment and reached down into the pocket of the first man, turning him over with some effort before his hand came out with the object he was looking for.
"This belong to you?" he asked, the broken golden necklace in hand.
Her eyes gleamed with recognition as she timidly held out a hand to receive it. "Y-yes. I… can't thank you enough for saving me, sir."
He dismissed her gratitude with a shrug of the shoulder. "I thought this was Xiuguan, was it not?"
She was confused at his question. "The town a quarter mile away from here is."
"Then what is the alleged crime-less village doing, letting a girl get robbed during the autumn festival?"
She looked away, unable to give an adequate response. "It's not exactly completely devoid of thieves and robbers… So long as there is imbalance in the world, there will always be the wicked who seek to abuse the tipped scales."
He gave her answer some thought before putting forth another question. "And you Ionians are looking to end that?"
She nodded. "We seek to purify the imperfections we find in the world, first within ourselves, and then within others. I… I don't know much about achieving perfect harmony, as that is a discipline more left to the monks than someone like me, but I believe that each person can work to improve humanity's path towards equilibrium, even if it is a little bit at a time."
A brief silence. "I hate to break it to you, but you won't be going anywhere with that silly fairytale notion of yours. The Noxians have it right, even if the way they go about their ideology is a bit off. Strength is what dictates this world. You were just fortunate that I chose to use mine to compensate for your lack of it." With a jab of his own, he was about to leave her with the wounds still fresh, but if he wanted to impart upon her some self-serving philosophical dogma nonsense, she would make sure she got another piece of information that she wanted as well.
"Wait," she called. "I have to at least know the name of my savior."
He turned back sideways, revealing the slightest hint of his facial features.
"Jax."
A/N: I'm getting all these weird short little ideas lately. This literally came to me as I was walking back to my apartment late last night and after reading a couple of some more serious fics I decided to try my hand at some more mature fanfiction starring none other than my two favorite League characters.
I'm working on Trinity's next chapter, I swear, it's just tiresome to write a huge plot. It seems that putting in a lot of detail onto a small fixed event in time is much easier to work with, but has less fleshing out in a linear time frame, so any updates to this would be set in different snapshots in time.
You could think of this as a prequel of sorts to Trinity? Or rather, an alternate timeline since I didn't have this previous interaction set up between Jax and Irelia when Trinity first started. Either way, it's some expanded history between them, and this chapter is set a few years before the Noxian invasion of Ionia so they're a bit younger than they are now, with Jax a few years older.
on another note FINALLY HIT GOLD and quite fittingly it was on an Irelia game where i had to singlehandedly carry my team from being behind like 6k gold at the 20 min mark or so, but now I don't have to play ranked that much and can work on projects like this :
please leave reviews, this is a work I'd particularly like feedback on.