Having pitched up for the night whilst escorting the ranger and maven to Piltover, the Heart of the Frejyord had been concerned about his guests' welfare in the bitter elements of his homeland. The northern section of the Ironspike Mountains lay adjacent to the Gelid Vortex – a relentless blizzard that sealed eyes shut and chipped off fingernails with its chill – and even with the cosy luxury of the royal tent, he was incredibly attentive to any cough or shiver they displayed. After securing a belly full of poached boar, a crackling fire pit and gratuitous measures of Gragas' best Freyjordian honey-ale, however, there lay no signs of disgruntlement from the merry Demacians. Braum chuckled as Sona tucked her tipsy head into his shoulder and pleaded for him to croon another Frejyordian folksong. 'Haven't you had enough to drink, young 'un?'
Sona hiccupped and looked down into her ivory tankard, swirling the remaining contents around idly with one hand as the alcohol slowed her fingers on the etwahl strings. It amused Quinn that her intoxication caused her magically projected voice to slur, and she settled back drowsily against Braum's shield to watch their gentle banter with a huge dopey grin.
'I'll s-stop drinking when you sing me another song, sir,' the musician countered, clanking her tankard with Quinn's and winking one twinkling eye at her friend. 'It makes a nice change not having to be the performing monkey for once.'
Braum chuckled at her childlike demeanour, his moustache tickling his rosy cheeks before his deep bass voice strummed out another traditional tune for their benefit. His captive audience clapped haphazardly as he picked up speed, delighting in the smooth words washing over their ears. 'Höhugt eth göndimk sile ni watin, eth historesöd liwl nöji gaain; ethir marw löbod si chitker hant cei, dan eth Frejyördain Qeeun liwl eb cetedanöreo certhi.'
'Yay!' Sona cheered as their makeshift metronome faded into applause. 'Okay, I won't touch another drop.'
'You have a lovely voice, Braum,' Quinn remarked thoughtfully, gazing fondly at their entertainer. 'How have you not got a lady in your life? You'd be swimming in women back home in Demacia.'
'Frejyord is my lady,' he responded simply, before looking up to the heavens and tracing a shooting star with one large finger, the sky's diamonds dotted in his pupils. 'Ah, haha! Perfect timing. Make a wish, my friends!'
'I wish for another song,' Sona giggled, edging closer to the fire-pit and rubbing her hands near its golden glow to keep her extremities from freezing in the Frejyordian weather.
'Not so fast, maven,' Braum rumbled warmly, waggling a mocking finger at her. 'I think it's time for you to share your talent with this old man again. It's been far too long.'
'I want to see this as well,' Quinn chipped in, chugging the last of the bittersweet honey-ale and slapping her thighs in anticipation as she grinned at the blushing maven. Sona looked between them both for any sign of mercy, before one elegant eyebrow arched and she settled down to her etwahl.
'Hmphh, okay. But do bear in mind that I'm not as good as I would be if I hadn't consumed any of Gragas' grog. It's not the ideal drink to bring out my d-dextereo- umm, dexteriuous…good side!'
Quinn snorted as the maven tripped over her words and remarked that she was expecting a jazz scat with this kind of self-control. Sona swiped at her and, after she stuck out her little pink cat's tongue at the twinkle in Braum's flint-grey eyes, her slender fingers intricately stroked the etwahl's taut strings until it trilled a soft classical piece. Quinn closed her eyes, her smile tickling her ears as she absorbed the invigorating combination of rising heat from the amber fire and the ethereal chill of Freyjord. She found herself humming gently with the Demacian lullaby she was playing, the sweet vibrations of Sona's music caressing her ear drums and spiking goose bumps across her body. After a few minutes, her heartbeat lulled into a slow, relaxing rhythm and she was beginning to block out the whipping winds stinging her flesh. For once, her hyperactive psyche was soothed and she momentarily dropped into a thoughtless state, her muscles clenching and relinquishing tension as she got lost in Sona's notes.
'She's thinking of her lover,' Sona giggled quietly to Braum, sustaining her music with one hand and pointing at the slumped ranger with the other. The Heart of the Frejyord guffawed and waggled his eyebrows flirtatiously as Quinn snapped one eye open to look at the teasing pair. 'Hmm?'
'Nothing, sweet ranger,' the maven sang in tune with the music, making the ranger's heart splutter into an anxious gallop. She opened both eyes and analysed Sona's smile for one tense moment, her blood coagulating as she saw the ghost of a knowing smirk on the maven's lips. She prayed that her friend would not sense her unease at the topic. 'I have a lover now?'
'Well, duh!' Sona laughed, her velvet fingertips now plucking out a romantic ballad as her gentle smile tightened with smugness. 'It's so obvious, Quinn. Subtlety isn't either your forte, much as you try to disguise it.' The music faded from her fingers as she elucidated for Braum. 'Our Quinn is not the natural romantic, bless her.'
Her mortified face stained red with embarrassment, she turned to the chuckling Braum to defend herself from these salacious allegations. 'Braum, please, don't listen to her. My heart belongs to the military. I have no lover!'
He shrugged his shoulders, grinning at the ranger. 'Eh, doesn't bother me. After living as long as I have, you learn to not worry too much about the folly of man. Or woman,' he corrected himself with a wink. 'Whatever floats your Demacian boat, Quinn.'
Quinn huffed and turned to the tiddly Sona, who was bent over her etwahl laughing and wiping away her intoxicated tears at Braum's playfulness. 'Sona, stop laughing! What are you on about? What lover?'
'Really?' she choked as she tried to halt her giggling, now focussing on her friend's beetroot cheeks. 'Are you telling me that you don't actually see it?'
'See what?' Quinn whined in frustration, leaping to her feet and desperately trying to ignore how her mind and stomach lurched at this swift transition from sitting to standing. 'You're beginning to bug me now. What have you heard? Or seen?'
'Oh, well…if you don't know…then maybe I can't say,' she teased, evoking an irritated scowl from Quinn that forced her to change tack. 'Okay, okay! I don't know why you're making such a big deal of this. You and I both know who I'm talking about, Quinn. Surely you can see that he's crazy about you? That he makes every excuse to be as close to you as society will allow, that he is always looking past us to stare at you?'
Quinn could not rip her eyes away from the omnipotent maven. Damn, she truly was magic. 'Wait…he does that?'
'Of course he does!' she giggled, getting up and gently knocking on the ranger's forehead. 'Hello, Runeterra to Quinn? It's no wonder you're still single if you can't see how he looks at you. You've spent too much time in the military that it's drowned out your womanly instincts. He's clearly in love with you, you silly poro.'
'Oh my God…' the ranger fretted, catching sight of the Heart of the Frejyord enjoying the jaunty exchange. 'Sorry, Braum, but we'll be right back,' she apologised as she dragged Sona into the pitched tent to unleash her panic.
'Sona, what do I do?' she whimpered, clutching her hair in clumps between her cold fingers as the alcohol sloshed around her stunned brain that began to sober up in her agitation. 'I've tried to fight this feeling for so long…this…. this pull I have towards him. I just can't seem to get him out of my head - no matter how much I try to shake him from my heart, there's just something that clinging on that just won't stop me from blindly stumbling down that path in the hope that someday, any day, there's a fork in the road and we finally pick the same one.'
'It's that bad?' Sona asked sympathetically, rubbing one delicate hand up Quinn's arm. 'I don't even know why you're being so mean to yourself. You're both so suited for each other, and he has made it clear to me in the past that…well…he loves you, Quinn. He has ever since he met you, it just took a lot of figuring out after the brutality he's seen in his life. But seriously, why would the Council object to this in any way? Go for it, I say.'
Quinn's chin snapped up for her to stare at the maven. 'What wouldn't they object to, Sona? I do not fit the criteria in any way.'
'Of course you do! You're both soldiers, you're both common-born and you're so close…if anything, wouldn't that strengthen the Vanguard-'
'Wait, what?' Quinn interrupted, scanning her words through her frantic mind. 'He's not common-born…?'
'Well, we don't know exactly where he comes from. But we can determine that he's not royalty at least, else we would have knowledge of his roots,' Sona explained. 'But that's not the point. You certainly don't have to worry about being rejected, and you've made it clear how you feel about this.'
'Huh. I didn't even realise you were close enough for him to confide all this in you,' Quinn noted curiously. 'He only trusts the words of a few select individuals.'
'Oh, yes. Xin and I often catch up when I visit the palace. He told me he was going to tell you how he felt at the Prince and Princess' engagement party, but he lost his nerve and then the assassination happened, so he didn't get a chance…'
Quinn's innards dropped sickeningly as Sona's confession rang in her ears, her heart freezing as quickly as a Frejyordian river. Hold on…did she hear her friend right? Xin? It was Xin that was in love with her?
'What's wrong, Quinn?' the maven asked suddenly, startled by the abrupt hardening of the ranger's face. 'Surely you'd be happy about this? Now you know how he feels about you. Please tell me I did you a favour here?'
Quinn stared dumbfounded at the musician, her hazel eyes betraying her shock at this remarkable unravelling of the truth. 'Umm, oh…I mean, yes, you did. I certainly learnt something, that's for sure. Anyway, it's getting late. We should be heading to bed.'
She walked unsteadily past Sona, her limbs shaking with exhaustion, confusion and inebriation as one solitary tear scarred her flushed cheek. She swore that Braum caught sight of the gleaming teardrop, but apart from a momentary crease of sympathy around his eyes, his lips were sealed and she nodded her thanks.
'We shall be bedding down for the night, Braum. I'll take over the watch in a couple of hours, if that's alright with you.'
'Queen Ashe requested for you both to receive a thoroughly rejuvenating rest, ranger. I will remain vigilant outside of the tent until sunrise,' he replied firmly, plonking his shield into the powdery ground once more and sitting down upon it as he chugged another drop of ale. 'Sweet dreams, my friends.'
Quinn felt a twinge of guilt towards Braum as the two Demacians were embraced by the cosy royal tent on loan from the King and Queen, though it did not rival the weight of worry about Xin that was now painfully crushing her lungs. How could she have missed this? She had always been under the impression that the relationship the seneschal and ranger shared was strictly platonic. In all the years that she had worked with Xin, night after night, sweating and bleeding under the stars the way she once had with Jarvan, he had never once betrayed any hint of romantic intentions. She squirmed internally when she suddenly remembered telling Xin that she loved him before she left for Ionia…he knew she meant it as a friend, right?
Of course, she had never told Xin of her feelings for Jarvan for fear that someone may overhear: aside from Jarvan, only Lux was aware of how she felt about him. Memories of her past interactions with Xin flooded her mind incessantly as she hastily stripped off and sank into a fleecy pyjama suit, tucking herself under the covers as she watched Sona plaiting her luscious locks for the night. She propped up her neck under the Queen's velvety turquoise cushions and dug out a book to read in order to ease her fractious mind into a sleepy haven, though her healing wrist was playing her up as she turned each page.
'It's not Xin, is it?'
Quinn's heart sank as the maven asked her the question she had been dreading. 'No, Sona, it's not. What gave it away?' she asked sarcastically, though she smiled to take some of the sting out of her words. It wasn't fair for her to take out her frustration on her friend, who simply had her best interests at heart.
'I know you, Quinn. I saw your face change instantly when I mentioned Xin. Oh, sweetheart...I'm sorry, but he is genuinely besotted with you.'
The ranger marked her place in the reading book with trembling fingers, bent over its creased pages as her voice cracked with emotion. 'Oh, God. I don't feel for him that way, Sona. Are you sure he doesn't just have a bit of a crush that will go away soon?'
'Doubt it,' Sona sighed, shuffling next to the downtrodden Quinn and wrapping a comforting arm around her. 'Do you want to know what he said to me once after a performance?'
'Probably not, but go ahead.'
'That every time I play, he thinks of you. I teased him at first and said he was just love-struck, but whenever your name is brought up or he sees you, he gets this heavy-lidded look on his face and he looks so…so alive, Quinn. Like you're his reason for having gone through everything he did. I-' she broke off guiltily as the ranger began to cry softly, pulling her friend close. 'I'm so, so sorry, but I feel like you needed to know how intensely he feels about this before you confront it.'
'I just don't g-get,' Quinn choked out quietly through her stream of tears, 'how true love even ha-happens in this world. It seems like a million to one chance of two compatible people being in the same place, at the same time, ready to love and be loved.'
'I know,' Sona whispered, perching her chin on top of Quinn's matted brunette locks and rubbing her soothingly across her back. 'So, do I get to know who it is? I hope it's not Captain Crownguard, though I wouldn't blame you. He could stand ready for me any day…mmm…'
Quinn snorted out of her teary state, laughing at the vulgarity of the usually demure maven. 'Eww, Sona. That's my boss you're talking about. I would never think of Garen in that way.'
'Then…' The musician's duck-egg eyes widened as the last feasible possibility sank in. 'Oh, no, it can't be…'
Quinn waited patiently for the epiphany inside Sona to explode: sure enough, her hand clapped to her mouth as the truth dawned upon her. 'The Prince?'
The ranger gave a painful nod as she gave Sona's hand a squeeze and she settled back down into her sleeping bag, turning her embarrassed face away from the maven. 'But you absolutely have to promise that this does not get out, Sona. My place in the Vanguard could depend on it, especially if any rumours start circulating that I can't control. But I can't keep this completely to myself any more. If I can tell anyone, it's you.'
Sona sucked in a long, deep breath as she wrapped this stunning information around her mind. 'Got it. I won't tell a soul.'
Quinn turned to smile gratefully at her friend, before wiping the tears from her face. 'God, I'm so weak. Throw me in a battle and I thrive, but ask me to talk about my feelings and I'm a complete wreck.'
'Hey, you're my wreck,' Sona joked softly, before her amiable expression shifted to a more serious one. 'So…on the Jarvan front...has anything ever happened between you? Or is it more a case of what-if?'
'Hmm…it's both,' Quinn explained, her brow furrowed with the complexity of the situation.
'Okay, so let's start with the first one. What's happened?'
The ranger seized the maven's hand, her hazel eyes staring pleadingly into her blue ones. 'Please don't judge me.'
'Quinn-' the maven began in a strangled voice, before she was swiftly interrupted.
'What? No! Not that!' she laughed, though she felt her flesh hotten at the thought of being so intimate with the Prince. 'No…but, he's kissed me before.'
Sona's eyes flashed angrily. 'Whilst he was with the Princess?'
'No, way back,' Quinn explained hurriedly, unreasonably resenting the protectiveness towards Lux that had seized the maven. 'Before they were even linked in any way, during my trials with the Vanguard a few years ago. Don't worry, I'm not a sovereign stealer.'
'Ohhh…' Sona breathed in relief, before her eyes softened and she resumed her curious tone. 'Did he start it?'
'Yes,' Quinn responded quietly as she turned away from the maven, hoping that she could drift off to sleep before Sona could interrogate her much further.
'Wow…so what happened after that?'
'Garen caught us...' Quinn sighed, burrowing her face into the thick pillows. 'Perhaps just as well, but I'm convinced it's why he's always had a downer on me since I joined. He saw me as a threat to the dynasty and to the Lightshield bloodline…that's how Jarvan and Lux came about.'
'And does he know how you feel now?'
'Yes,' she replied again, her heart heavy with sadness. 'We had a fight when I found he'd been sleeping with Lux before marriage. Psychotic of me, I know, considering that I could never be his wife, but I just felt so…so protective, almost as if he'd been violated. She was his fiancée, yet for some reason I felt as if he was mine. That she'd taken something that wasn't hers.'
'What did he say when you told him you loved him?'
'Well…I didn't say I loved him. I did tell him that if he truly loved me, though, it would have never been too late to turn back time and explore what could have been.'
'Do you, though?'
Quinn sighed, picking at a loose end on her nightclothes as she carefully considered her answer. 'I-I don't know. For a long time, I just thought I was obsessed. Here he stood, the handsome prince, the most eligible bachelor in Demacia, the legendary warrior, saying he wanted me. I just dismissed it as mutual teenage lust, maybe the forbidden element doing it for the both of us. But, now…I want to know every side to him, from the heartbroken little boy to the wounded soldier. I want to know what makes him tick, and I know he wanted to know the same about me.'
'So that's the what-if…' Sona trailed off sombrely. 'That, in a different country where common and blue blood could mix freely, you'd be with him.'
Quinn huffed a tense breath, chuckling weakly as she did so. 'That was the plan. Who knows if it would have worked? Yet, how would we know if we hadn't tried? This is perhaps the only time in my whole life where I'll say that I wish we were Noxian.'
Hello everyone! This is the first time I have actually written something within the story that is not the actual dialogue itself, but I've placed it at the end of this chapter so that it does not interrupt the flow of the story. This was a main reason as to why I had not written anything before, but I figured that after now having more timing to write after my university assessments ended, I can take the time to write a proper response to the wonderful people who have read, left reviews, likes and follows of this story. There's quite a lot to cram in, but as I am halfway through the story (I am envisioning about 24 chapters with one epilogue), this seemed like a good place to interject with my reactions to the time and effort you have put into appreciating my first fan-fiction story.
Any opinion is very much appreciated and it has helped me to either resolve my control over certain elements in the story or alter others in order to suit what people want to read, so thank you for helping to shape this story. I've noticed that the early criticisms stemmed from either the fact that it was not Jarvan/Shyvana and also how nasty Lux was, though others welcomed the alternative portrayal of the characters. It's been really fascinating to see how people have been reacting to this shipping, which is based off certain elements of Quinn's lore/journals and also little hints dropped by Riot that she has a crush on him. I also just thought, as one of my followers expressed to me, that Jarvan and Shyvana just don't necessarily make much sense except for them having a strong respect for each other - there is, as far as I can tell, no real hint that they are in a relationship. So I am sorry if you are a Jarvana shipper, but this is simply what made the most sense to me!
With regards to Lux's character, however, I have bent under a certain amount of peer pressure and have incorporated elements that start to explain why acts how she does towards Quinn. It does have to be kept in mind that this story is written predominantly from Quinn's perspective, and so she will appear to be nastier given that she is being offended by her. If the dialogue was flipped the other way, Quinn would look horrible for preying on Lux's insecurities about her relationship with Jarvan. It's very much a case of bearing in mind that Quinn is an unreliable narrator and that both ladies have their flaws - Lux's are just emphasised because of the viewpoint that the story centres around. So, again, sorry to anyone who loves the sweet Lux!
I noticed much of the support has come for Quinn's portrayal, which I'm thrilled with as she is one of my favourite champions in League and I am glad that she is coming across so well. I genuinely love her mechanics, her look and her fascinating lore, but I also really do see the similaries between her and Jarvan, and I hope you do too! I don't plan for the story to be completely doom and gloom, but it is meant to be a romance/drama and so there will be darker elements within it that just cannot be avoided. I hope that no one is getting too bogged down in the dramatic narrative! Finally, in terms of updating, it will be fairly sporadic as my timetable varies a lot and there may not be much in August as I am going away for three weeks, but I will try to chug something out once a month at the very latest (hopefully more frequentl!). Once again, thank you for all your amazing support and I hope you enjoy the second half of the 'Wings of Change!'. If you want to chat about League or FanFiction personally, either catch me on Vine (SpitfireFilly, where I post League-related content), League Amino (DarkVixxen, my old name), or on LoL itself at SpitfiréFilly (be warned, I'm a noob!). Thank you. 3
~ SpitfiréFilly
