When Riven awoke from her dream she was relieved to find that her body was wet from sweating profusely, and not from being bathed in blood. Carefully, she peeled the sticky sheets from her body, and dumped them down her laundry chute. A housekeeper would replace the sheets by evening.
The moon was still high in the sky, but Riven did not think she would be able to go back to sleep. When she turned on her shower taps, she stared at her hands, still trembling from her nightmare, daring blood to seep through her skin. She stood under the freezing cold spray, not bothering to rinse, punishing herself under the teeth-gritting pain until it became so unbearably cold that it felt like her skin was on fire.
By the time she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, Riven was shaking violently from head-to-toe. Satisfied that she could not distinguish her shivering from nightmare-induced tremors, she shook herself off like a dog, and pulled on some clothes.
Riven never parted from her sword, and carried it over her shoulder as she greeted the brisk night air. It was a little chilly, but after her shower, the night felt warm.
In the distance, she could see a lone figure sitting on top of the highest tower of the institute. It was probably Diana, enjoying the full moon that was abnormally large that night.
As Riven watched, a second figure joined Diana, and sat snuggly next to her. Unlike Diana who had her face upturned to the sky, the second person seemed to be more interested in the moon-gazer herself. Riven wondered whom it was, but since she was not very interested in scandalous relationships, she continued on to her destination.
She entered the indoor training arena and pressed her palm against a glowing spot on the wall, activating the magical fires that sprang from the ceiling, illuminating the room. Riven had the whole room to herself, as few individuals were active during the night, and even those who did enjoy the night were not as strict about their training as Riven was.
This time, Riven's training session was going to be slightly different. She uncharacteristically settled her sword down on a bench, and approached a ring of training dummies made out of thick hardwood. Without bothering to wrap her hands in her usual bandaging, she brought hard, well-practised strikes against the dummies.
Her hands were covered in calluses from a lifetime of training, but even Riven's knuckles could not stand the hard abuse that she was putting them through this time.
Each powerful hit splintered a training dummy, and had enough force to shatter human bone if Riven did not position her punches perfectly. Though she did not damage her bone, after several hours of hard hitting, her skin tore, and she could feel the mild prickling as blood trickled down her fingers. The stinging comforted her, and the knowledge that her hands were covered in her own blood relieved her.
Riven only stopped once she had destroyed all of the several hundred training dummies in the training arena. It was then that she noticed that she had been at it for so long that natural sunlight was streaming through the windows.
Reaching up to flick off a drop of sweat the hung precariously off a long eyelash, Riven turned to retrieve her sword, only to find it missing from the bench she laid it on.
Confused, she spun around, and saw a human-sized monkey testing the balance of her broken sword with a steady hand.
"This is a good sword", said Wukong. "If I had to give up my staff for another weapon, I'd choose something like this."
Riven was not in the mood for talking, but she did not feel like wrestling her sword from the Monkey King either. So instead, she let him take a few practice swings with her weapon.
When he spoke again, he relaxed his grip on the sword, and paused to fully address Riven.
"Would you like to duel? You seem to be very skilled."
Riven shook her head.
"No? Well, we can make it a little bit more interesting. We can swap weapons. That would be fun."
This time, he didn't wait for a response, and he picked up his nearby staff and tossed it at Riven. The impact of the throw was harder than Riven expected; the staff was surprisingly heavy. It was twice as heavy as her original, unbroken sword, but since it was meant to be a two-handed weapon, it was no problem for her to hold onto. Given her taste for heavy weapons, she had to agree that if she had to choose a second weapon to master, it would be Wukong's staff.
Now that she was interested, Riven nodded her head. The practice dummies automatically reset themselves after all of them were destroyed. Riven closed both her hands around the staff near the bottom. Raising it high above her head, she brought down one end directly over a dummy. To her surprise, the staff smashed the dummy all the way to the base, with very little effort on her part; the mass of the staff was sufficient for performing the task all on its own.
Feeling significantly better since she woke up, Riven grinned, and took a wide stance, gripping the staff below hip level, as if she were holding a spear. She had never used a staff before, but based on the way that Wukong held her sword, it did not seem like he had much experience with swords either.
It was a challenging, but entertaining experience for both of them. Riven treated the staff like a double-handed sword, and Wukong held the sword like a shorter staff. He clumsily made several strong jabs at Riven's face, all of which she easily dodged. Riven swung the staff diagonally, starting at shoulder level and attempting to finish with it back at her side. However, not only did Wukong side-step the blow, but she miscalculated the length of the staff, and it smashed against the wooden floor, sending wood splinters flying, and getting the tip of the staff lodged in the ground.
Reacting quickly, she brought up the rest of the staff vertically to block Wukong's incoming side slash. Freeing the staff from the damaged floor, she slid her hands up the staff to use it as a fulcrum, swinging the staff around overhead in a swift strike the hit Wukong in the shoulder. The blow would have crushed Wukong's scapula, if he did not sink downwards immediately upon contact to absorb the blow.
Before the staff could pin him to the floor under its weight, Wukong dropped the sword to quickly move out of place, leaving behind a decoy and reappearing behind Riven in a cloud of smoke.
Thinking she had him, Riven sent a swift kick to the underside of the decoy's chin, controlling her strike so that it was strong enough to send the head snapping back, but weak enough so that it would not kill him. Such a blow would have forced her opponent out of consciousness, but the real Wukong delivered his own powerful kick into Riven's lower back, surprising her into losing her grip on the staff, and sending her flying a couple of metres.
Upon contact to the ground, Riven immediately leapt to her feet into a bare-fisted stance, ready for a follow-up attack. When she saw Wukong standing over the weapons with his arms down, she followed suite and lowered her fists.
"Well done. I apologize for the tricks, you beat me once you unarmed me. I just acted reflexively."
They had not agreed on sparring terms, and unarming someone definitely did not mean certain death in battle. And since Wukong was the first to land a significant blow, Riven could not accept a victory.
"No, you got the better of me", Riven responded. "That was pretty fun, I am surprised I have never faced you in the fields of justice".
Wukong scratched his head. "You're right, it must be the luck of the draw. I came here to prove that I'm the best, but I can't quite read your human language, so I don't know what I'm in for when I sign up for fights".
Wukong picked up his staff, and noticed Riven's blood on it. As he wiped it off, he looked at Riven's bloodied knuckles, damaged from brute-forcing her way through all the practice dummies.
"Why don't I help you clean up?" he offered.
"No, thanks", said Riven. "This really isn't anything, I've been through a lot worse".
With that, she picked up her sword, and started to leave the arena, with Wukong on her heels.
"Hey, hey, let's do this again sometime. I want to beat you convincingly".
Riven considered this. The closest thing she had to a friend was Rumble, and she did not have a sparring partner at the institute. Since Wukong might be beneficial in her training, Riven thought she might agree to another individual's request for once. When Riven nodded, Wukong clapped his hands together, did a back flip, and disappeared into a puff of smoke.
Ahri first met Wukong on her first day at the Institute of War. Ahri was overwhelmed with the size and magnitude of the institute. When the Institute was founded, it started out as a very large building. Basic needs were attended to free of charge. But as more champions joined the League, some individuals, especially those coming from positions of high power, were accustomed to higher standards of living.
That was when the institute implemented its payment policies, providing gold to all champions who participated in League matches, quantity depending on how long the matches were. This opened a whole market at the institute, and merchants began selling their products at the Institute. This resulted in the construction of temporary living quarters surrounding the Institute, which then became permanent residences, attracting even more people from across Valoran, eventually resulting in a massive expansion of the society until the Institute became a small city.
For a fox like Ahri who spent most of her human life living in and between the rural villages of Ionia, the Institute was a place of new rules to accommodate different levels of organization, more opportunities to get lost, and a harder time connecting to the individualistic civilians.
In her first period of free time, Ahri wandered the halls of the institute, greeting every summoner, champion, official, and anything that moved. But summoners were often too busy to stop and chat, all the champions she came across preferred to keep to themselves, and the civilians just did not seem to want to talk to her.
The first instance of attention she received without initiating conversation herself occurred in an unfortunate incident. Ahri needed the use the washroom, and found not one, but two public ones. The adjacent washrooms were marked with one of two figures: one was a picture of a human, and the second one had the same human, but wearing some sort of cape.
Ahri figured that there had to be a reason why there were two separate rooms, so she decided to wait to see who went in and out.
The first person she saw was Morgana, who entered the second washroom. Since Morgana was not wearing a cape, Ahri decided that perhaps the picture was of a human with a skirt instead of a cape. She waited for a second person to choose a room to confirm this idea. Shortly after Morgana walked in, Ahri saw Ezreal enter the first room. To Ahri, this confirmed her suspicion: individuals wearing a skirt used the second washroom, and individuals who did not used the first. Since Ahri was clad in a shirt and pants that day, she entered the first.
As she walked towards the toilets, she saw Ezreal and Rumble using the urinals that lined the walls. Their backs were facing her, so she walked up behind them, and greeted them, in typical Ionian fashion.
"Heart and mind as one". The greeting was used as often as "hello" in Ionia, but lines like these had probably made the people she tried to interact with earlier think she was some sort of religious zealot. For Rumble and Ezreal, it was less the statement, but more the fact that it was delivered with a female voice that surprised them.
Rumble was especially unnerved. Due to her height advantage over him, Ahri had a complete view of Rumble's front side, and he valued his privacy.
"Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! She saw my willy willy!" he screamed.
Ahri did not know what a willy willy was, but knew that the yordle was clearly upset. She tried to assess the situation, thinking about what she might have done wrong so she could apologize appropriately, but Rumble did not give her time to think.
Rumble pulled up his pants, and roughly shoved a confused Ahri out of the washroom. When they were outside, Rumble pointed an accusatory finger at Ahri and yelled, "Pervert! We should have her arrested!"
Unfortunately for Ahri, a huge crowd of minions were just passing by, and heard Rumble's exclamation. They clamoured around the scene, surrounding the two in a circle, and mindlessly began yelling at the fox.
Ahri did not understand what was happening, but the public shaming made Ahri turn a bright red. The minions only got angrier over time, and the yelling became more aggressive. Minions started pelting Ahri with bits of half-eaten crackers, booing at her the whole time. It was then that Ahri's bladder decided to explode, and hot urine streamed down trembling legs, fueling Ahri's embarrassment further.
Wukong was drawn to the commotion. He correctly guessed what had happened, and spun around in circles, swinging his staff about, knocking a path out of minions to get at Ahri in the centre.
When he reached her, Wukong grabbed Ahri's arm and pulled her roughly, forcing her to run or risk being dragged along. Together, they fled the scene, sprinting past puzzled onlookers, until they got to an empty garden.
When they stopped, both were slightly winded, and Ahri's face still steamed. Wukong put a hand on Ahri's shoulder.
"Did you go into the men's washroom?" he asked.
Ahri felt stupid, finally understanding her mistake. She nodded her head.
"Don't feel too bad, I made the same mistake".
Ahri tried to calm down, but her voice seemed to have taken a walk and gotten lost along the way.
"Look here", he said, and pointed as the lower part of his armour. "It kinda looks like a skirt, right? When I had to use the washroom, I thought I had to use the one women's washroom because I looked like that picture the most."
Ahri sniffled.
"I had it pretty bad. Syndra was the one who caught me, and boy was she angry! She threw things at me. Dirty things. Humans get upset with monkeys throw their feces at them, but at least monkey poop isn't moist".
Ahri giggled, feeling a little better.
Ahri still had time before she needed to fight again. But having spent the best part of the previous day sleeping, Ahri woke up that morning feeling well-rested, and in particular, bored.
As her eyelids fluttered open, she wondered what she felt like doing. If she could find Wukong, she might have been able to convince him to play or discuss what being human might be like. But for all she knew, he was probably off meditating under a waterfall again. Wukong had a spirit that could not be regulated by normal schedules.
She could go out to eat again, but she really did not need to, and lately Ahri had been worried that her clothes felt tighter than usual. Ahri liked to make sure she was clean, but her appearance did not matter very much to her as much as it used to. During her lazy days at the institute, Ahri was more concerned about having to buy new clothes due to an expanding girth than seducing men.
So, after Ahri got dressed, she ended up wandering the institute. Despite the large amount of time she had been at the institute, she did not have any friends apart from Wukong. She had several admirers, but Ahri was tired of having people hang on her every word, gazing up, enchanted by her face and body. It was all well when she thought she could gain something from putting herself of display, but possibly due to her solitary forest life as a fox, she preferred her own company.
Taking her time, Ahri trod through the crowded marketplace.
Somebody had enchanted a megaphone to repeat "mango! Fresh off the boat, just 5 gold a kilogram!"
A squat, dumpling-shaped woman was scuttling between five grills, sheltered only by a bright green tarp overhead. The heavy scent of street meat filled the air, and Ahri walked over to investigate, repeating to herself that she was just curious, and had no intention of buying anything.
She was faced with an assortment of meat, from the standard beef and pork, to capybara that lived in the far south, to the more magical tuy, small rodent-like creatures whose eyeballs were tart and popped on the tongue like tiny fireworks.
Mouth watering, Ahri told assured herself that she was not going to buy anything, but when the woman's young children looked at her with hopeful eyes, she ended up walking away with a roasted guinea pig on a stick, and a few coins lighter. "I'm only doing it for the children", she argued against the protesting voice in the back of her head. "Yeah, for the children..." she continued as she sank her fangs into a juicy flank, the children's faces already faded from her memory.
Working on the guinea pig like a lollipop, Ahri walked deeper into the institute. The sky was a perfect blue, without a cloud in sight. On the highest tower, Ahri expected to see Leona's room lit up like a second sun, but was surprised to see a room taking in more light than giving out. Leona rarely slept in past sunrise. Perhaps she had been up late last night.
Ahri took a final large bite off of the stick, and crunched away at the last of the guinea pig skeleton, tongue working hard to scrape off any bone marrow. She spit out shards of bone, much as she would watermelons seeds on the clean streets as she walked. A small blue minion grumbled angrily at Ahri, shaking his tiny fist before sweeping up the mess. The minion was on street-cleaning duties, and if he worked hard enough, might be promoted to take place in the endless slaughter on the fields of justice.
Throwing the bare stick over her shoulder, Ahri entered a large building leading to the centre of the Institute. There, she found wandered into the quaint library where champions could sign up for battles.
Settled in a comfortable armchair next to a large window, Kayle was reading up on the many conflicts between Noxus and Ionia.
Kayle watched Ahri from the corner of her eye. Many times, she had pestered the fox to choose her battles more wisely, but knew better now. Ahri was uninterested in Ionia's politics, and fought purely for her own sake.
Ahri could not say what motivated her to do it. It was probably boredom. Or maybe she wanted to work off the calories from the guinea pig. But for the first time since her arrival at the institute, Ahri signed up for a match that evening, well before needing to collect more souls to stay human.
