In which Vayne's head tricks her.
Shauna Vayne and the raptor flew the rest of the day until they reached Mogron Pass. The sun set over the western horizon. The sky purpled with night-time.
To make sure the bird didn't come after her in mid-air, she fired a silver bolt through the sunset and dismounted in the opposite direction.
She dropped like a pencil feet-first. Her crimson cape flared up. It consumed a pillow of air and formed an enormous velvety pocket that slowed her descent to the feet of Mogron Pass. While floating, she craned her neck upward and spotted the raptor. It chased the silver streak out of sight behind a craggly charcoal hill. She heard a starving howl on the other side.
Her feet thudded on the ground picking up clouds of dirt. Half of her body was covered in grit already. The cloud settled on her and sank into her skin where it filled her with mucky weight.
Her weak knees wobbled as she trudged to the feet of a staircase leading up.
The steps were hewn inaccurately out of the mountain-side. Some of them were as short as her ankle. Others were as tall as her knee. Half of them tilted to one side or the other. The uncertain incline led straight up where Mogron Pass paved her only way south. She had never been through it. She never needed to. Of all regions in Runeterra to have a dark magic scab, Mogron Pass had been spotless.
That didn't mean it was safe. Evil lurked around every corner.
As she climbed, the scent of parched dirt gradually dried out her senses. Her lips cracked. Her eyes reddened and squinted. She approached an arid region that foreshadowed a bitter wasteland, waterless, hungry, inhospitable. It radiated heat making the air haze and distort.
The staircase widened into a bridge made of tan sandstone and red bricks interlocked like a checkerboard. The bridge had been carved in the bottom of a ravine at least a kilometer long. On her left and right, the Great Barrier towered. The mountain chain grinded against the sky's belly.
This was a well-traveled route once upon a time. Dozens of people went through this canyon. The ghosts of caravans and traders whispered into her ear as she walked between hundreds of imaginary people. Her boots echoed back at her. Her clothing rustled. Something about this silence raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She felt tiny. Abandoned between stone giants. She was a nervous child with no cupboard in which to hide. She swiveled side to side searching for a better route. A path with a height advantage that overlooked the Pass. Anything that didn't have her in the middle of an arena surrounded by a hundred nightmares. She took out the crossbow from her back and loaded it. Her left hand clutched three more bolts.
The ghosts in her head whispered louder. She didn't make out what they were saying. All she heard were snippets of conversation. A word came out here and there. "Come." "Mummy." "Last chance." "Awful!" Dozens of people spoke at once. All of them converged on her. These were the people who used to take Mogron Pass. They told her things. They warned her. The louder they spoke, the more urgent they sounded. Their voices hurried. They fumbled over their words. She searched left and right for an origin. Up in the violet sky she scanned for people. She narrowed her focus down the road. She turned on the spot, searched behind her, found nothing. Just a trail of her own footsteps coming from the bridge's edge.
They culminated behind her neck. She felt their breath on her spine. They shouted at her!
Silence fell. The pressure in her head escaped like a ribbon of sand twirling out of her ear. The figment caught a tailwind and carried itself away majestically. In the fading light it almost glowed silver as it reached up, up, and away.
One final voice boomed in the back of her head, a girl's, she sounded tiny. "Don't be a scaredy cat!" An infant giggle followed. A chilly finger dragged down her spine.
The grip on her crossbow tightened, creaking her gloves and the wood of her weapon. "Who is there?" Her voice shot like an arrow. It filled the Pass with enunciated glory from the very center. She stood alone, dirty, and injured, but hey, at least both feet were on the ground.
No answer.
She cleared her throat and spoke sharper. "I heard the innocent cry out. Where are they? Speak!"
All she heard was her labored breathing. An arid breeze sailed her. A bird cawed far away.
She wondered if her nerves had summoned her inner child. The voice sounded almost like her when she was six. She remembered being that young. Those were better times when she didn't fear every corner. When she didn't hunt down darkness. When she didn't worry herself to death. The voice was right. There was nothing here to fear. She was alone. Her inner child repeated its advice in a six-year-old voice. She gulped, unloaded and put away her crossbow, and hid the bolts. Her hands felt empty without them but that was okay. She took the hand of her inner child and went safely through Mogron Pass.
