THE SOUND OF MY VOICE

Genres: Drama, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Fantasy, Horror

Rated: M for violence and mature themes.

Author's Note: A bit more backstory just so that we actually know what happened in the time between the past and the present. I won't spoil it for you, so go on! Enjoy the chapter yourself! Also, I'm still debating whether to use Romance as one of the genres, but I don't think it would be a major part of character development. Even if I include a bit of Romance in this story, it will be most likely only be hinted upon or made obvious only in the later stages of the plot.

Just a heads up –– this story has a plot line that is extremely AU so I'll only be using a little material that is from the canon lore.

I know that the first chapter was done from third-person, but that was more of an introductory device. For the remainder of the story, I'll be using POV to write from the main character's (introduced below) perspective.


"Some have described the perfect abstract that is her harmony to be Kinetic. Others prefer to use the word Concussive. But those most devoted to her music insist that the only worthy description of her music is Ethereal." – Chief Librarian of Ionian Archives


CHAPTER 2: CONCERTO OF HOPE

My name is Sona. Born of Ionia, age of fifteen. I can speak five different languages—but what use is that when I can't say them out loud? I lost my voice when I was nine years old after a terrible incident destroyed my family and took my parents away from me. I suppose I'll tell the story to those who want to hear it—I'll have Etwahl help me. I promise I'll be brief.

On the night of December 28th, six years ago, was when it happened. My father, Orpheus, was busy composing a new piece our piano in the living room. He was a modest man, claiming to be nothing more than another common civilian, but when his fingers touched the piano, the sound that graced anyone lucky enough to be around was enlightening. He was a brilliant musician. And that night, while my mother was cooking dinner in the kitchen, I was watching my father's fingers fly across the black and white keys creating shades of gray that blossomed into warm tones conveying spring. Despite the setting of the sun, I could almost hear the birds chirping cheerfully in the background, greeting the soft, caressing wind that coaxed the beautiful pink petals of the Sakura to drift down and play with the quick-witted squirrels. Even now I can hear the faint voice of the piano, singing to me, telling me of a season of growth and prosperity to come.

Even now, I can hear my father's delicate fingers gently thumping on each key—until he suddenly missed a note. And another one. And then another one. And then he fell forward, his head slamming into the black ledge of the instrument, causing a small spray of red spreading from where his forehead collided with the piano. Shocked, I sat unmoving and confused as to how the long knife sticking out of my father's back had got there. He fell from his chair, groaning as he hit the ground.

Time start flowing again.

"Dad!" I cried. "Dad, what happened?"

My father gave me a look I had never seen before: the look of a cornered animal.

"Run—" he gasped as if even the one word were a heavy burden.

I tried to call for my mother but my voice would not cooperate. Where had that knife—

A dark figure stepped out of the shadows. Initially, he had no legs and instead, the bottom half of his body consisted of a murky, black mist, but as he got closer, two thin appendages grew out of the empty space under his waist. He walked straight past me as if I didn't exist at all and then, when he was a step away from my wounded father, he bent down and pulled the knife out. My father inhaled sharply.

"R-run—" he repeated, but I could not. I was frozen in place, as if the shadow of my father's attacker held me down. I watched helplessly.

The figure straddled my father, raising the sleek, silver weapon high above his head. Anyone would've known what was to follow. The figure, shrouded in a dark smoke of some sort, brought the knife down. When my father cried out in agony, the figure arched his back and made a strange, low moan. At that moment, my mother appeared around the corner, alerted by the sound of my father's cries of pain. Her eyes widening at the sight of the demonic entity, my mother shouted defiantly before rushing at it, attempting to catch it off guard. The figure simply thrust one hand at my mother and dark, claw-like tendrils shot from his fingers, piercing her limbs and stopping her in her tracks. When they retracted, blood splurted from the holes they had created and my mother collapsed.

Turning his attention back to my father, he spoke from his formless, shapeless oral orifice.

"Doesn't it feel wonderful to have steel tear into your soft flesh? I even came from the thought of it."

He slipped the blade out from my father's back, and then back down again with more force, and then out, and in again, cutting open my father's body. He roared with each strike like a savage beast in endless ecstasy.

"DO—YOU—FEEL—THE—PAIN?! SAVOR IT! TREASURE IT! WANT MORE OF IT! And I will give you more, as you wish."

Just before climaxed a second time, the figure threw the blade to one side and used his own hand, plunging it into my father's ravaged flesh. When he pulled it out again, he held a small, pulsating object dripping with a thick, sanguine fluid. My father's screams had stopped.

"O-orpheus—!" My mother had regained consciousness.

The figure glanced at her and cackled, holding my father's heart up like a trophy.

"No! Please—why—?!" my mother sobbed.

"Oh don't worry. You'll have your fair share too. I have so much seed left and nowhere to store it." The figure rasped. "How would you feel if I bestowed upon you the honor of giving birth to my child of darkness?"

"No . . ." my mother's voice shook. "What are you planning on doing? No! You—let go of me!"

The figure easily lifted up my mother, who could only struggle feebly.

"Mom!" I cried, trying my hardest to move but it wasn't that I didn't have the energy to do so—it was the figure's doing. When I looked closely, I could see faint black tendrils strapping my legs to the ground.

"Help me, mom! I can't move!"

The figure flung my mother's body towards the wall as if she were a doll and strode towards me.

"I'll help you move," he hissed, and drove his foot into my stomach. I flew back from the blunt force, crashing into the bookshelf across the room and coughing out blood. Lying limp on the ground, I was once again watching helplessly, as the figure walked calmly back to my mother's body and lifted her up once more. He found an empty space on the wall and carried my mother there, pushing her up against it when he was close enough. In a single, swift motion, he ripped my mother's dress cleanly off, leaving not a single strip of clothing on her body.

What happened next was, to me, as a child at the time, incomprehensible.

A new, mysterious, black appendage grew out from where the figure's groin was and curved up from its base, rigid like an unripe banana. With my mother's hands on the wall, he lifted her legs up and thrust the thing into the junction between her thighs. My mother screamed as blood cascaded down her legs. He pulled back and thrust it in with equal force, repeating the action over and over again. She cried out every time he entered her, but with each stroke, her cries sounded less miserable. The figure's formless mouth morphed into a black, vile grin. He gripped my mother's bosom in each hand and massaged the dark tip at the end of each mound while slamming into her from behind, making her moan erotically.

It was all wrong. Why did my mother sound so . . . happy? It was a mad, insane kind of joy. I am still plagued by that thought today, six years later.

"See? I knew you'd love it." The figure had jeered.

In what felt like hours later, when the figure was finished with my mother, both had orgasmed a countless amount of times. My mother's gates of fertility were defiled with a stream of thick, white fluid that continued to flow out of her endlessly. The figure's erect black appendage was covered in maroon swirls tinged with a viscous grey substance.

And I sat there, staring off into the distance, waiting to confront my fate. That night, the figure, the demon, the man—whatever he may seem to be—took me to the dark alleys of Zaun where he hurt me, violated me, and in turn, he paid dearly for his sins. The wolf-man made sure of it.

I call him Mercurius. It means 'merciful saviour' in the Ionian language. He seems to have accepted the name and answers to it whenever Etwahl and I call to him. After that night, he treated my wounds and tended to me until I could walk by myself again. I have never seen or met a monster so kind. Perhaps he is the perfect embodiment of what people mean when they say 'don't judge a book by its cover'. When three months had passed and I had fully recovered, Mercurius brought me back to Ionia and intended to leave me in the care of my village but I refused to leave his side.

I mean—how could I?

I grew attached to his comforting embrace, the feeling of his soft fur brushing up against my cool skin, the warmth of his body when he let me curl up next to him on cold nights. I grew attached to how he held my frail hand in his large, paw-like hands whenever we travelled from place to place, though he mostly took me around to areas with abundant forestry, where he could conceal his monstrous body from the world.

If I stayed in Ionia, there would be no one to care for me the way he did. Don't get me wrong—he was nothing like a father to me. Or a brother. Or a guardian of sorts. He was not forceful; he was compelling. He was not violent; he was protective of the weak. He was simply my friend, regardless of when I least needed him, or when I most needed him. My best friend.

When he realized I was defiantly insistent on following him, he let me accompany him to Valoria City, the ruling capital of Runeterra. It was situated at the epicenter of all the surrounding nations, existing almost as if it was its own state.

Mercurius helped me register for a school there, and it wasn't until the first day that I discovered he had entered me into the most prestigious school for youths: Valoran Academy for the Exceptionally Gifted. How he did so, I still have absolutely no clue to this day, but regardless, I was overwhelmed with gratefulness. However, when I entered, I was ten years old, and still a naïve girl at best—a blissfully ignorant one at that. I didn't realize that society treated people like me with contempt and spite, offering no pity to the weak and in no time, I became the target of every scheme and practical joke there was to be played. I would walk home every day, with a bruise on my cheek or a swollen bump on my shin.

The worst were the cuts. Some of the students harbored intensely malicious notions towards me for no apparent reason and when witnesses were lacking, they used sharp objects, be it rocks, branches, or even broken glass. They threw them at me. They swung them at me. They even tried to stab me when I wasn't looking. Maybe it was because I was a foreigner to them. Maybe it was because I seemed weak and undeserving of a position at the Academy.

But it was most likely because I never made a sound. Well—I couldn't even cry for help if I wanted to. When they hurt me, I let them. I didn't shed a single tear, didn't struggle, and didn't show any sign of pain. After all, these attacks were all petty compared to the horror I had experienced that fateful night. Those students hated me for it. They could push me around, kick me around, and cut me all up, but they could never even scratch what was deeper within.

I hid my scars well.

Being the incredibly sensitive beast he was though, Mercurius eventually found out that I was being physically assaulted by the students and became furious, but I managed to convince him to endure it with me. I convinced him to caress me as gently as he always would and dress my wounds as softly as he always would, instead of seeking vengeance—and he complied.

Fortunately, I made a friend in my first year of high-school at the Academy—that is, last year. It was the day before the first day of school—the last day of our summer break. When I'm not studying at the Academy, Mercurius and I live in the outskirts of Navori, a region located in the southern Ionian mainland. I spend most of my free days playing Etwahl, plucking at the magical strings of the ancient instrument and attracting a myriad of small animals to the bench where I usually sit. An old dirt path lies nearby, though people rarely use it due to its remote location.

That day, I sat there, legs crossed with Etwahl resting on my lap, and fingers dancing across the strings that sang of the end of summer, when she appeared out of nowhere. One moment, I was alone with the squirrels, rabbits, and birds, and the next moment, she materialized out of thin air. She and her long, silky black hair flowing behind her, with two isolated tails in front of each shoulder both tied at the end with a cute red ribbon, was suddenly walking towards me. She was wearing a dark sleeveless mini dress with a black collar and a red bowtie, along with crimson gauntlets, black gloves, long black socks, and black shoes. Startled, I stopped playing and rested my hands on Etwahl to stop its resonating melody.

I recognized her. She was from class 2-A, and had everything any student could ever wish for. She was extremely athletic, academically proficient to the degree of achieving the top score in almost every subject, and ranked 2nd overall in the Academy, losing only to the hottest guy in the school—a blond student named Ezreal. There was no doubt that she was one of the most popular students in the entire Academy.

Of course, at the time, I was quite nervous. I still remember that day quite clearly.

What's a model student like her doing in a remote place like this? I had thought to myself. Wasn't she supposed to be spending her summer training with the Academy's most accomplished professors and alumni, along with the other top 10 students?

The part of her I was most surprised about though was the fact that she chose not to conceal her face. In class, she always wore a tight blue undershirt with long sleeved, layered white garments overtop, white pants, and a white ninja's mask covering her hair and face, leaving only her light-blue eyes visible. During combat drills, she always wore her classic red garments with silver-grey armor overtop, covering her face with a steel mask and her hair with the red hood attached to her garments. Never once did she show her face in public and rarely did she ever speak.

But here she was, nonchalantly striding towards me, smiling at me with a relaxed, carefree expression. I didn't really understand. She had such a beautiful face, and yet, she chose to hide it and hence, deceive others of her true gender. It was no surprise that, with her proficiency in combat, many automatically assumed she was a boy.

"Hey!" she waved at me enthusiastically. "S-sona, right? Your name is Sona, right?"

I nodded and tried to smile back as naturally as I could.

"You . . . uh . . . you're the girl who can't really talk right?" She was trying to be nice. I appreciated it, nevertheless, it stung at my heart. "I-I mean, but you're amazing at music, right?"

I nodded again, shyly this time, and gestured at Etwahl.

"Hmm, I didn't expect to anyone I knew from the Academy to actually find me out here though—without my masks and all . . . so this complicates things." She ran her hands through her hair.

Oh no. I had thought. Here it comes. Here comes the part where she tries to hurt and threaten me to keep her secret.

"I know! Why don't you keep it a secret for me, Sona?" she smiled good-naturedly. "After all, that's what friends do for one another, right?"

I was comforted, to say the least. Not because of her kind, friendly words, but because I could confirm for myself that there was indeed, a smile behind the mask. That there was kindness hiding behind the various facades and doors of opportunities waiting to be opened. The key to those doors, I discovered, was my music. I was then determined—if truly necessary—to sway the world with my music, plucking heartstrings and breaking the chains of social imposition.

That day, she became my first companion at the Academy. She would go on to protect me from the countless attempts to hurt me and help me improve in both my studies and in combat. She would play with me and listen to me and Etwahl create harmonies of spring, summer, autumn and winter. She became the first girl my age that I could trust without holding back.

But most importantly, that day, I became the first person to discover that Zed was in fact, a girl.

Of course, as promised I kept my lips shut. I consider myself to be quite the loyal friend.

Besides—I couldn't even say anything if I wanted to.


I forgot to mention in the A/N above that because I'm writing from a girl's POV, I enlisted the help of a fellow writer I know in real life. For privacy purposes, she has created her own pen name. Here she is!


Hey everyone! I'm Miria and I've agreed to help Nightrous with this story. He's explained to me most of the plot line so I know the general direction of where it's heading, but I'm mostly here to help with the character interaction and provide some female insight into the creation and development of the MC. I hope you enjoy this new project that he and I are working on (and of course, give me more credit than him :P)!

Since Nightrous is too lazy to end this chapter off — he literally dropped the laptop on my lap and said "you finish it" before running off to get food — I'll do it for him (smh). If you're liking what you're reading so far, FOLLOW us! If you're loving what you're reading so far, don't hesitate to FAVORITE us! Leave a comment in the Comments/Review section below to let us know what you think of the story!

Signing out,

Miria (and Nightrous)