Something brief.


"She was a beautiful home, wasn't she?"

Riven stood at the top of one of the many foothills leading to Noxus proper. Her gaze was turned upwards towards the capital, towards the skull formed of mountain and the lights of the city that worked their way up from its base. The sun was setting, entrenched behind the foreboding mountain, and it seemed to set the air around the skull ablaze in an aura of burning hellfire. More lights were coming on in the city itself as natural light took its leave from the world.

"She still can be."

The city wouldn't sleep with the advent of nightfall; many Noxians preferred to operate under the veil of darkness when the shadows were available in abundance. Assassination, thievery, and other unsavoury forms of politics always reached their prime after sunset, and really the only thing worth doing in the daytime was shopping at the market, if only because one was somewhat less likely to have their purse cut under the light of the sun than the moon.

"Will she though?"

Riven felt her gaze turn west, as if guided by rails, until the distant shape of towering buildings stuck up on the horizon. The clear sky clouded ominously around it, a layer of smog composed of gods know what chemicals and arcana drowning the cityscape in toxins and mana. A trail of specks embarked from the city, kicking up dust as what could only be a trade convoy power on eastward. Her gaze drifted back to Noxus, and the open city gates that waited expectantly.

Riven let out a harsh sigh. "Not as she is." She looked towards her companion, whose shoulders sagged as he turned his own gaze away from their once-homeland.

"Not as she is," he agreed. "So what are you going to do."

Riven looked away.

"We didn't die for you, Riven. You were just stronger."

"You never called me by name before."

The man laughed. "What can I say? Ranks don't seem so important once you're dead. You're not my commander anymore. You're somebody else, the last of us. Make something of it. Kill some fuckers."

A grin teased at Riven's features, but when she looked back towards her companion she was alone on the hill. The Zaunite convoy pulled into Noxus and the main gates ground to a close. Riven looked on past Noxus and pas the ocean. She looked into the woods that sat atop mountains that stabbed out from the ocean floor and pierced the ocean and reached for the heavens. She looked at the makeshift camp and at the flickering fire and the woman that kept the blaze burning despite the vicious wind, and the other woman well-bundled up beside it. She looked at herself and woke up.

And then Riven woke up.


More is still coming.