Compulsory thankyou to the readers, who I live for, tumblr, and to the other authors on this site, where I get all of my ideas. Some of them are more blatantly obvious than others.
Also in case you haven't guessed this isn't actually a hurt/comfort anymore, because I am allergic to the entire genre.
So have some fluff and the leadup to the next chapter, in which stuff actually happens.
-BBO
Reading had always been one of Diana's favourite hobbies. It hadn't been any help to her as a child, and had turned out to be more of a hindrance than anything else, but it had become so ingrained in her mind it was impossible to tell if she was enjoying it or not. And no-one had punished her for reading in the Institute yet, which was a nice change. The unfortunate downside to that apparently, was that other people used the library as well.
I leave for just a couple of minutes, and someone takes the book I was reading and walks off with it. And if I find them I'm going to pretend they're part of the Solari and just…
Midway through trying to decide who should suffer more, Diana suddenly realised there was a blonde lady sitting and reading just a few tables across from her, that hadn't actually been there a few seconds ago. The woman's name completely escaped her, but she knew she was a champion. A champion that right now appeared to be reading her book.
Oh joy.
"Are you reading my book?"
The woman looked up at her and gave a pleasant smile which only made Diana uneasy. Demacians.
"Forbidden Romance of the Kinkou?"
I'm not going to be able to live with this.
"Yes,…I was reading that a few minutes ago. Could you…"
"You're reading the series too?!"
Somebody heard that. Someone definitely has to have heard that.
"Yes. Back to the…"
"Whatdidyouthinkoftheendofthelastbook? Wheretheyrealisethattheycanonlyovercometheirissuesiftheworktogetgerandtheirloveonly
makesthemstronger?"
Well I actually thought it was well written but there's no way I'm going to mention that in public.
"Honestly I thought that…."
Apparently the woman wasn't actually going to let her answer the question because she started talking about a new chapter immediately as Diana went to speak.
"I'm trying to…"
" .Andimeanthatotherloveinterest…."
Oh for fucks sake.
Irritated to the point of being enraged, Diana magically pulled everything nearby towards her in the hope it would distract the damn woman so she could speak.
The woman stopped talking.
Diana opened her mouth.
"OHMYGOD. This is just like that chapter where…."
Storming off, Diana was too furious to hear Lux talking to herself as she left.
Watching Diana leave, Lux smiled mischievously before leaving the library and taking the romance novel with her.
Some people are way to easy to fool.
After leaving the library, Diana wondered if this day could get any worse, only to have a bespectacled woman nearly walk straight into her as soon as she left.
"C-champion Diana?"
Apparently it could.
"Hmph."
The institute probably wonders why I'm not doing anything. Well they're getting exactly what they deserve.
"I'm one of your biggest fans…"
Oh look, another misguided fool.
"Good for you."
"And I was just wondering if you wanted to join in some team matches?!"
"Well I don't."
After a brief pause as if the woman couldn't quite believe what she had just heard, she started slowly walking away with Diana tailing her from behind. Then Diana broke the silence.
"What'-s your name."
The woman stared at her in complete confusion.
"Jasmine…..why?"
"I should know my summoners name for these matches at the very least."
Another awkward silence, followed by Jasmine blushing furiously.
"You can call me what everyone else calls me if you want…"
"What is it?"
"….moonmoon…"
"Is that supposed to be embarrassing?"
"It's not the name that's embarrassing! It's because I did something…."
Diana stared at her before simply grunting. "I'm not going to ask about it."
Suddenly they stopped and Diana found herself outside a meeting hall with Jasmine fidgeting next to her.
"...I have to go talk to the other summoners now. Are you coming with me or…"
"I didn't think I had a choice."
And before Jasmine could answer, Diana walked straight into the meeting hall.
Syndra was bored. Why she was bored she wasn't entirely sure, but if she forced herself to practice her magic any longer she felt she was going to break something out of frustration.
Which meant she was now randomly walking through the centre of the city. Looking around, a store randomly caught her eye, and she impulsively entered, only to find customer service bordering on non-existent..
"Hi."
"…"
"I said. HI."
As Syndra looked around the inside of the store, the woman managed to remove herself from the desk she was hiding under.
"You're…her right?"
"Who?"
"Syndra. The lady with the dark magic."
"Well obviously."
"Can…can I help you?"
"Well if you could stay upright long enough for me to purchase some swimwear that would probably be quite useful. Now if you'll excuse me…."
Well this isn't half as bad as I thought it would be.
Diana wasn't entirely sure whose idea it was to get this team together or how many games they had actually played with each other before, but the fact that no-one else on the team could socialise to save themselves helped. That, and they all hated the Institute.
"Alright guys, you know the plan. Diana, leave mid start ganking bot at 6. Malphite, do the same. Their team is all from one region so this should be pretty straightforward. Let's do this!"
As the rift emerged into Diana's view she immediately started moving towards the mid lane.
"Who am I against?"
"Mordekaiser. "
"Who?"
"The knight guy. With no face."
"That's really helpful. Why is your nickname moonmoon of all things anyway?"
"Oh it's….mostly because I'm really interested in space, all that sort of stuff. And because I'm from Demacia and not Piltover or Zaun, people…they make fun of me."
Their brief conversation was suddenly interrupted by another summoners voice.
"Earth to moonmoon. Maokai needs a leash."
"On it!"
"Jasmine."
"Yes?"
"If people are making fun of you…don't do what I did."
"What did you do?"
"…"
"GUYS, WATCH OUT!"
As Diana turned to fade the enemy jungle a hook flew past, grabbing her around one leg.
"What's dead and has 12 legs?! The SHADOW ISLES COUNTERJUNGLING SQUAD!"
As an undead horse and a completely insane thing charged towards her Diana turned around and grunted in pain.
Bring it.
Then she pulled the two towards her and light started blasting in all directions.
The main problem with being Captain of the guard was that people expected you to solve everything. And if the problems weren't painful, as they often were, things could get somewhat unusual. But not usually this unusual.
"When you told me the lake was acting unusual, I assumed that was a problem with the lake. Not the water."
"And…."
"Come on Udyr, I'm not a mage, what do you expect me to do? Ask it to stop being 3 dimensional? It's not even hurting anyone, it's just sitting there being square."
"I guess you're right. But it is a lot of water though."
"What's the worst thing that could happen?"
Then the bubble fell on top of Irelia and disintegrated.
Udyr, who the bubble had missed completely, simply stood there and stared at the resulting mess.
"So….someone doesn't like you very much?"
Ok.
All I have to do is defend the nexus and inhibitors from the enemy team. Nothing to worry about at all.
"Moonm-Jasmine. I need to know who's alive on the enemy team. "
"Just their mid laner."
"Oh boy."
Walking towards nearest inhibitor, Mordekaiser paused as Diana raised her blade.
"How does it feel to want to kill every Solari you can find, but instead to be trapped inside the Institute of War?"
Suddenly swinging his mace, Mordekaiser began to slowly shred the inhibitors health.
"I don't want to kill them. They just keep getting in the way."
"Liar."
Another swing.
Despite his unnerving accuracy, Diana honestly didn't feel like agreeing with a living suit of armor, saying out loud the first thing that came to mind.
"Don't you have anything else you could be concerned with?"
"Well now my flash is off cool down….BEHOLD MY CHILDREN OF THE GRAVE!"
There was a flash of light, and suddenly a mace was flying towards her face, which she quickly deflected with her blade before reacting with a crescent of moonlight.
"We can do this slowly...
As Diana shielded herself, Mordekaiser did the same thing with shreds of flying metal and siphoned everything in front of him.
Yeah that sounds about right.
Charging at him, Diana suddenly teleported twice in the space of a few seconds and slammed her blade directly into him.
Then he laughed.
"You can't even try to damage me. And now you die!"
As another siphon slammed into her, Diana realised how close to dying she actually was just as she suddenly became ignited. Then something flew past her. She looked up. Another far larger object flew past her and straight into Mordekaiser before knocking him into the air.
"Diana, move!"
As she made her way back to the shop she saw the rest of the team respawning behind her. And less than 3 minutes later, the game was theirs.
Completely exhausted, Diana went to throw herself through the door to her apartment, only to find someone standing in front of the doorway.
Why can't people just leave me ALONE!
"Is there a reason you're here? Because I've had just had a league match, I'm tired and if you don't move out of the way I might have to…"
At the sound of her voice the woman turned around and Diana barely stopped herself from coughing.
"Syndra? Have you been…."
Trying not to say something rude she though up the most inoffensive thing she could.
"…..letting yourself go?"
This only gathered a blank stare from Syndra, who then shoved a bag towards her.
"Are you going you explain this or…."
"Why would it need explaining?"
Because it looks like you've lost your mind?
Although Diana was honestly wondering how Syndra had managed to look so damn attractive, the fact Syndra was wearing a dress of all things was setting off enormous alarm bells no matter how long and violet it happened to be.
"Because I've never seen you wearing a dress. Ever."
"It's summer and I thought I'd wear a dress. Like everyone else does when it's summer."
As Syndra finished the sentence the window on the opposite end of the hallway began to rattle.
"Is that a problem?"
"No. It's just…"
"Good. Put these on."
Diana looked in the bag, looked up at Syndra, then looked in the bag again.
"You're not fucking serious."
"I am. I bought it for you today."
"There's no fucking way I'm being seen dead in this."
"Put it on."
"No."
"Why not?"
If anyone catches me in this I'll fucking never live me down!
"It's worshipping the sun!"
"Wearing a bikini is worshipping the sun?"
"Yes!"
The window rattled a bit more then stopped, as Syndra decided that was a reasonable excuse and stared at her in contempt.
"Well I'll just go back to my apartment, get changed and go down there myself."
"You can use mine if you want."
Syndra was still staring, although now in confusion rather than anything else.
"Why?"
"Because I'm going with you. But as soon as you mention the bikini again…."
As a door slammed Diana turned around only to find Syndra had already shut herself in Diana's apartment.
"Don't touch anything! It might be valuable!"
No response.
Diana facepalmed.
As Diana made her way onto the small island the League used for leisure visits, she realised that just looking at Syndra made her feel embarrassed, although mostly for everyone else involved. Syndra had ditched the dress for an identically coloured bikini long ago, and apparently without the headdress, the floating above the ground and the massive ego, people actually thought she was attractive.
I'm not sure who I feel sorry for more. The men who haven't realised who she is yet, or Syndra. Come to think of it….
"Syndra, why are we here?"
"Do I need a reason?"
Diana launched her next comment nearly without thinking and instantly regretted it.
"There are a lot of men staring at you."
There was an awkward silence.
Syndra instantly turned a shade of beet red and slapped Diana in the face.
"I'm not a slut!"
As she stormed off, Diana turned around to offer some sort of apology, only to find a woman staring at them through a pair of binoculars.
If there was one thing that had learned to fear over months of being a fugitive, it was being watched. During the first few months the fear of the Rakkor catching her and bringing her back to the Solari had been very very real, and from that a very deep paranoia had developed. Which probably explained why she was attempting to intimidate a fully armed woman, who was trying to intimidate her back.
"So what's this about then? Or do I have to break your limbs to get a useful answer?"
"I was spying on Syndra, not you."
"And why were you spying on her then? Or is this now the League of Lesbians?"
"As the Captain of the Ionian guard it's my duty to investigate threats to Ionia. And Syndra has recently been…..unstable."
Compared to what?
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"She tried to drown me with an entire lakes worth of water."
That seems perfectly acceptable behaviour to…wait a minute.
"You're telling me…she can control water."
"She didn't tell...Now do you see why I was spying on her?"
"Well did you see where she went?"
"I probably would have if you hadn't attempted to throttle me!"
"Oh for fucks sake. You go to one side of the island, I'll go to the other. If she's here to kill someone…"
She has a lot of water to do it with.
I put all this effort into making friends with her and she turns around and accuses me of being a slut!?
How dare Diana insult me like that!?
How dare she?!
"I would have killed her a thousand times over if I wasn't so embarrassed…"
"Embarrassed about what?"
Surprised, Syndra turned around, only to grunt in disgust at the figure behind her.
"Fuck off."
"Why?"
"Because I don't feel like talking to a mutated fish thing,"
Picking up her pace she continued walking down the otherwise completely deserted beach, only to find the fish walking behind her.
"I said stop following me!"
"I'm not following you! I'm just heading in the direction of the other fish!"
"What other fish?"
"The ones underwater!".
Maybe if I threaten him he might actually leave me in peace.
"If you follow me, I'm just going to have to kill you. You get that?"
"Try me."
Without even looking Syndra angrily threw a sphere in his direction.
"Missed."
Turning around she saw Fizz standing there with a smile on his face and a sphere directly behind him and yelled at him in exasperation.
"How many times do I have to tell you to JUST. FUCK OFF!"
"10 times or so usually does it."
"THEN FUCK OFF!"
And without even hesitating she threw all the spheres she could manage straight at him.
And then water engulfed everything around her.
After wandering around aimlessly along the beach for what seemed like hours, Diana just wanted to abandon the search and believe Syndra had just disappeared off the face of the planet. Syndra wasn't anywhere near the restaurants or the volleyball courts or any of the other champions, or on the beach, and the entire idea of finding a floating mage was beginning to seem ridiculous. As she was just about to give up, another champion entered her view.
This is completely absurd, but I'll try it anyway.
"Excuse me um….fish, but have you seen Syndra anywhere? She's a mage, controls water, dark spheres?"
I knew this would be a stupid idea.
"You're following her as well? I was following her and then she got mad at me and there was this enormous wave and it was just like BOOM, and it was so cool! I've never seen anything like it!"
"Do you know where she went? Or what she's doing?"
"I told her that wave was really cool and she got this strange look in her eyes and went to talk to Nami about something!"
"Well where's Nami then?"
"Out at the jetty, of course! Is Syndra up to something? Can I wa-"
But Diana was already sprinting towards the jetty.
As Syndra approached the jetty she began to realise how energetic she was actually feeling. The sheer energy of channeling water had sent chills through her spine and she knew instinctively she needed more. Much more. And if she needed to convince a few people to help her, then so be it. But she was going to create a storm so large it would dwarf the entire island, and leave mages talking about it for years to come.
The perfect storm.
