'She's part Noxian?' Xin asked incredulously, gaping at the Exemplar in astonishment at his revelation. 'And part Demacian?'
'I know it's hard to believe,' Jarvan confirmed gently, tucking one hand into a thick glove as the other curved around the wrist, 'but yes, she is both. Also an eighth Vastayan, I believe.'
'How does that even work?' the Seneschal asked curiously, drawing his gaze away from the prince as he poked at their crackling fire, the two men tucked into the outskirts of the Mogron Pass. 'The Noxians banned interracial relations some time ago, didn't they?'
'Precisely,' Jarvan replied meaningfully. 'Quinn wasn't born to any old Demacian and Noxian who had a wayward encounter and could sweep it under the rug. She was born to Florian Crownguard - a noted descendant of the legendary Fossian, naturally - and his Noxian archmagi wife, Beatrice Swain. The only daughter and child of General Jericho Swain.'
'I…I don't even know where to start,' the breathless Xin admitted, staring up at the sombre prince with his wide, dark eyes. 'Crownguard? Swain? Her bloodline is insanely powerful.'
'You've no idea the strings I had to pull to keep that girl in our country once I became Father's advisor,' Jarvan muttered darkly, sleeking his long, tangled hair into a sketchy ponytail. 'She'd've been shunned from all corners of Valoran if they knew of her heritage.'
'Wow,' was all the stoic Xin could muster. 'Florian Crownguard? So she's related to Garen, as she's the daughter of Florian? That would make them…first cousins?'
'Yes,' Jarvan confirmed, though a sliver of humour now glittered in his steel-grey eyes as he recalled a past conversation with the blustering Captain. 'A fact I was perfectly happy to play up in public if he didn't admit her to the Vanguard once she'd passed her assessments.'
'That explains…so much,' his henchman sighed, rocking on his crossed legs as he warmed himself next to the fire. 'I knew I was shunned because the Demacians feared me. I was a product of your grandfather's uncharacteristic impulsiveness, and they knew I had seen the rotten core of Noxian brutality. But Quinn…I just assumed it was her marshland background that kept all those court snobs peering down their bony noses at her.'
'It was,' Jarvan shrugged, well-acquainted with their judgement of all matters that did not concern them. 'But that cover story was preferable to the truth. And it wasn't entirely untrue.'
'She's a marsh rat and proud of it,' Xin confirmed, a rare smile tickling his rounded cheeks.
'I'm glad she's proud of where she's from,' Jarvan commented after a brief pause. 'Though I wonder how she would react if she knew that her Demacian blood is more noble than most of the aspirational parasites that leech off the Lightshields.'
'Probably not well,' Xin admitted, roasting his speared rabbit over the fire. 'Snobbery makes her blood boil. I lost track of the amount of work dos where we'd play 'Spot the Toff'.'
Instead of being offended, Jarvan gave a deep, belly laugh and took a sip of wine, propping up his head with one folded arm. 'She goes on about being judged herself for her background, but then proceeds to single out any of the nobility. Little hypocrite.'
Xin chuckled briefly and then dropped his head towards his dinner, but Jarvan's next words made his next bite freeze in mid-air.
'You know her so well. I'm envious of that.'
The Seneschal swallowed and looked up at Jarvan, his grey eyes unfathomable but mouth tilted in a genuine smile. He wiped his greasy fingers on his breeches and sighed, unsure of how to look at the prince when he knew they both radiated with love for the same woman.
'I know her well, but it doesn't mean I know her intimately,' Xin explained slowly, lifting his embarrassed gaze up to the starry night. 'I don't think she's interested in me, Sir.'
'You don't know that,' Jarvan protested lightly. 'You have a much closer relationship than her than I do. I can't get close to her for – oh, so many reasons. There'd be uproar if Vastayan blood made its way into the Lightshield dynasty, given the Demacians' suspicion of such tribal magic and our alliance with the Ionians. She and I are worlds apart in all senses of the social sphere, and I fear I've caused her too much pain to turn back. But she is so very fond of you, Xin. You are always there for her when she needs you. You'd make a good husband.'
'I've seen the way she looks at you, though,' the Seneschal responded quietly, turning back to his glowing skewer. 'It's not the same way she looks at me. And I've accepted that.'
Jarvan was disgusted at the private, illicit thrill that ran through his veins at Xin's words, but he focussed on his overwhelming, altruistic urge to make Quinn happy. 'But we never do notice how someone looks at us, do we? I mean, she never knew how you felt, did she?'
'I-I don't think so,' Xin admitted, taking another hungry bite of the rabbit. 'I was always careful not to freak her out with how strong my feelings were. I didn't think I was one for love, but…well, you know her appeal as well as I do. She's one of a kind.'
Jarvan nodded mutely, his eyes roving down to the crimson liquid slopping around in his goblet. The two men fell silent for a few minutes, focussing on sustaining themselves for the task ahead. After having ridden out close to the Shurima desert to avoid catching the attention of Noxian forces at the Ironspike Mountains, they knew that kicking up a public fuss would be the way to go in securing Quinn. The problem was biding their time to voice Demacia's distaste of Swain's prisoners to the Institute of War. The sudden release of Sona was surprising but a pleasure nevertheless; yet the sharp change in the Noxians' mind unsettled Jarvan slightly. He closed his eyes, exhaling deeply through his thin nose, and rocked himself to the sound of krugs clicking in the night. The Exemplar heard a sharp inhalation from Xin, as if he were about to speak, but only the soft smack of his lips closing sounded as he thought better of it. 'No, please. Tell me what's on your mind, Seneschal.'
'What happened to her parents?' he blurted out, a rounded cheek flinching awkwardly as his dark brown eyes swivelled down to the last of his fare.
'If it you were anyone else, Xin, I'd say that isn't my secret to tell,' Jarvan breathed slowly, leaning back on his palms and straightening out his legs.
'Well, I mean, you don't have t-'
'It's important that you know,' the Prince dismissed, his long eyelashes sweeping heavily as he peered up again to the glittering darkness. 'They were both allegedly murdered on the orders of General Du Couteau. It was never proved beyond doubt, though.'
'Du Couteau?' Xin asked incredulously, staring dumbfounded at his superior. 'The father of Katarina, Cassiopeia and that adopted one? Is that why he's disappeared? I saw the reward for his safe return all over the streets of Noxus when I was still a gladiator there.'
'That's not a reward, that's a bounty,' Jarvan explained, yawning and plumping up his satchel into a makeshift pillow before resting on his side. 'Swain would never admit publicly that one of his most senior commanders had betrayed him. News of his daughter being murdered would have spread like wildfire and made the Swain dictatorship appear weak at the core.'
'But…why?' the Seneschal asked in confusion, his tanned brow furrowing. 'What was to be gained from killing the daughter of the Noxian General Chief-of-Staff?'
'Not much,' Jarvan admitted, shrugging his shoulders. 'It was more out of conviction rather than logic. General Du Couteau was highly in favour of the blood line laws passed in Noxus over twenty years ago now - a law which considers mixed-race relationships to be treason.'
'Ahhh…' Xin rumbled as everything clunk into place, though the brutal thought process of the missing General sickeningly trouble him as much as he thought it would; he had seen enough Noxian barbarity to last him a lifetime. 'But Beatrice and Florian-'
'It was a secret relationship at first,' Jarvan elaborated, pulling his jacket across his knees as he watched the last embers dying out among the wood. 'I was only about five or so, but I remember Garen's father going ballistic when he found out that Florian had secret children with a Noxian woman. My father tried to shut me out of the office, and I did not quite understand fully what was happening at the time. But once I grew up and inherited the family archives, I looked up Quinn's past – I know it's bad,' he added, putting up a hand as Xin looked shocked, 'but I had to find out about her. Whispers of her heritage were starting to swirl, and I could see her heart, her talent and drive as a recruit. I wanted to see if I could dispel the rumours, but I found more than I was bargaining for.'
'But when were they killed?'
'Caleb, her brother, was about five, Quinn just a toddler. I found out who she was when I came across a document that decreed Beatrice's change in citizenship from Noxian to Demacian. Her and Florian fled to Demacia when she was still pregnant with Quinn and settled there.'
'Who protected them?' Xin asked curiously. 'Which Demacian would sign that off?'
'My grandfather,' Jarvan smiled, enjoying the grateful shimmer in Xin's eyes. 'Yes, your very own saviour, Xin! Grandpa was very fond of Florian – thought of him as the son he never had, considering how badly himself and my father got on. Some things never change.'
'So…' Xin breathed out with a slight whistle, ruffling Valor's indigo feathers to a soft caw of surprise. 'Wow. This is a lot to take in. So, Beatrice and Florian fled to Demacia because of the shame associated with having halfling children. Du Couteau had them hunted down and murdered as traitors to Noxus, and now he's either in hiding or dead because Swain would have him slain on the spot if he ever caught him.'
'Correct. Although it wasn't out of shame that they fled - it was for their own safety.'
The Seneschal took a moment to reflect upon the complicated story, amazed at the twists and turns that led to Quinn's life. Taking the hint of Jarvan's sleepy response, he began to bed down himself and ignored the quivering of his heart at the prospect of tomorrow. Noxus. He had not stepped foot in the country since he won his freedom. He was proud of who he was now, Xin Zhao, Demacian royal guard and honorary Vanguard warrior. He could never be proud of Viscero, the battered boy that slit young throats and scrapped for survival. Part of him wondered whether he would flee as soon as his boot crossed the boundary, but he knew he owed it to that little boy to conquer the territory he had once been subjugated in.
II
'You still don't believe me, do you?' the General frowned, glaring at the chunk of chicken his granddaughter was barely picking at for the third day in a row. 'I've unchained you from your imprisonment, let your dear maven go free and secured a safe place for your warrior. Do you think I'd do that for anyone else but my own flesh and blood?'
'You'd do that for anyone you're trying to recruit,' Quinn answered curtly, not shifting her reproachful gaze from her tattered dinner. 'There's a difference.'
'Quinn…' he sighed, dropping his jagged steak knife as he wiped his prune mouth with a napkin. 'The truth is staring you in the face, my girl. I am your grandfather, whether you approve or not. You are simply delaying the inevitable by upholding this stony silence; we've much to catch up on.'
'I'm a Demacian, Swain,' she growled, stabbing her chicken in frustration. 'And even if I were a Noxian, why the hell would I join such a blood-thirsty, non-compassionate nation? I know how you treat people here. It's kill or be killed.'
'But you are a soldier, Quinn,' Swain interrupted, a crusty smile enveloping his wizened face. 'Is that not what you do? In fact, you chose that path. How are you different to us?'
'Any killings I undertake are legally required by my superiors and in the name of defence!' she responded fiercely, clenching the solid edge of the oak dinner table. 'Yours are unnecessary murders, either for entertainment or personal gain.'
'War is not so black and white as you paint it, my child,' Swain responded carefully, his beady red eyes fixating on the ranger's flushed face. 'Did you know that it is in fact the Demacians who have declared war on our great nation nearly thrice the amount of times we have called it upon them? Or that it was the Demacians that forced the harsh sanctions against us before the last war, leaving our malnourished young ones to die in the streets?'
'I understand that war is not necessarily one-sided,' Quinn began slowly, mentally dismissing this unpleasant information, 'but I am sure that you were not restricted without good reason.'
'Your countrymen do not care about anything but themselves,' Swain snapped back, dabbing at his severe mouth with a creased napkin. 'You should know that – you grew up there.'
'That's not true,' she protested feebly, though deceit licked at her innards as she defied his opinion out of spite rather than truth. 'They wouldn't let kids starve if they could help it.'
'Even kids who they know will grow up to be a threat to their own?' the Master Tactician smirked, twirling his napkin into a paper flute and placing it back down on the table. 'Oh, Quinn. You won't survive a day in Noxus if you don't drop that sweet naivety.'
'I don't want to survive here,' she added icily, glaring at the dark panelled walls as she smacked her cutlery down onto the table. 'I'd rather be dead than serve under you.'
'Enough of this!' Swain interrupted sharply, surprising Quinn given his relatively even temper up to now. He swept up to his feet, his smoke-blue robes billowing out like a raging river, and spreading his gnarly hands apart. 'I didn't want to do this, Quinn. I wanted to get to know you of your own accord; I hoped that the pieces would click into place within that childlike brain of yours and you'd at least accept who you are.'
'What are you going to do to me if they don't?' she responded coolly, though she cursed the fact that her hands were trembling underneath the heavy table. 'Isolate me? Torture m-'
Before she could mentally debate the next horrifying possibility, her thought deadened and wilted in her head. Mouth gaping open, she tried to retrieve her train of thought, but was confused as her conscious flexed against her will. Quinn looked up at Swain, whose eyes had narrowed into avian slits and were now fixed intensely on her wan face.
'Don't you DARE-!'
It was too late. The master occultist permeated her head in the same way Valor did, his dark subconscious bleeding into the confused squiggles of her brain. She gasped, buckling in her chair, her rounded nails digging into the velvet arms as she tried to fight against the invasion. Swain grunted, delving through her violated mind with his probing thoughts as he tried to get through to her. Talk to me, Quinn.
Get the hell out of my head.
I didn't want to resort to this, but you've left me no choice.
You had every choice. Let me go. You're insane. You're sick in the head.
Stop this nonsense. Listen to me! You're in denial, Quinn. We are of the same blood!
I'm tired. I'm hurt. I'm over this. Please, Swain. I just want to go home. Let me go. I'm a Demacian. We're not yet at war. Please, look into your heart and release me.
Swain relented slightly, pulling back to gaze with an unreadable expression at his granddaughter. She pulled a sharp breath into her lungs, pushing back her chair to stand behind it. 'Stop it. You've got the wrong person. I'm sorry about your daughter, but I'm not related to you. Please, let's stop this right now. Mind games aren't the way to handle this.'
But she bristled as he penetrated her thoughts again, tiring already from the unfamiliar conversation burning within her brain. No! Stop messing up my head, you freak!
I fear this is the only way for you to find out who you are. And what you are.
Before she tried to snap back at Swain in her head, she was nearly floored by the image that immediately flooded her brain. Rather than hearing her barbed retort, an unfamiliar scene was unfolding in her very mind; yet she felt too compelled by the vision to block it out. She found herself staring down at Swain's desks, looking less shabby and scratched, and sucked in a shaken breath as tiny, clammy starfish hands pressed against her cheeks with a giggle. As she involuntarily looked down, she noticed neatly-trimmed nails were nestled calmly in her lap. No, not her lap – these sinewy hands were too large to be her own, as were the bony legs underneath, but the blue robes told her that she was viewing this memory from Swain's perspective. The breathy giggle brushed once more against her right ear, and suddenly she came face-to-face with a rosy-cheeked, vivacious little girl who had wrapped her tiny arms around the younger Swain's neck like a wriggling hood. She had sandy-blonde ringlets bouncing around her soft chin and shining, golden almond eyes that pierced Quinn's heart in the sickliest of ways. She could not figure out why they unsettled her so until, after a few second, the reason dawned painfully upon her: they looked so much like her own.
With all her might and no knowledge as to how she could block out the vision, the ranger stumbled over a chair as she tried to run away. The Master Tactician, however, was too quick for her, and he caught her up in his talon bind before she could hobble towards the door. Yelping, she thrashed against the magic until Swain caught hold of her with his own hand. Shrinking against his vice-like grip, she lamented her loss of vision as the visions mercilessly re-emerged. The smiling toddler had dissolved into a blossoming teenage girl of about fifteen with a determined scowl on her face, her shimmering curls now grazing her slim back as she clashed with an adversary. She parried their clumsy lunge and felled her opponent with a shocking pink flash to their chest, sighing with relief as he crumped to the ground. She looked up towards Quinn's perspective, grinning as two large hands clapped their approval, an approving whistle escaping from where the ranger felt her lips were. The crowded round in which she was located also roared their approval, with Swain striding towards her on the bloodied pitch and raising his victorious fighter's hand to the sky. Quinn became aware of Swain's firm grip again and tried to shrug out of it, but he failed to relinquish his hand.
'Forgive me,' he whispered softly, almost whimpering in pain. 'I can't help but linger.'
The young girl's flushed face rippled and now she was a fully-grown woman, the puppy fat having melted off her to reveal the defined lines of her cheekbones and bridge of her nose. It was now crumpled in pain as streams of rage emitted uncontrollably from the direction of Quinn's mouth, jagged arms cutting aggressively through the air as the ranger's eyes drifted to the young woman's companion. Her slender hand was being fiercely gripped by a larger one attached to the lean, muscular arm of a soldier. Quinn's quivering heart skipped a beat as she recognised the emblem on the man's breastplate; the gold piping; the royal blue field jacket studded with polished buttons. He was a Demacian. An archer for the Vanguard at that, going by the arrows sticking out from his back pouch and insignia hugging his strong arm. Her shock nearly prevented her from taking in his handsome features, which stood out proud and aquiline on his face, a messy scrawl of chocolate brown hair unravelling over his high brow and a creeping stubble dousing his cheeks. She would have been able to identify him as Demacian - even if it were not betrayed by his uniform - with his sapphire eyes and fair skin. He had all the hallmarks of a Crownguard: the same pride, the same affluence and luxury swirling over his powerful form, and the same power which oozed from that family's offspring. Wait, Swain had called her half-Swain, half-Crownguard three days ago…
Before she could conciliate this connection, red, broken lines framed the scene and she felt anger pulsating through the memory that was unavoidable: this must have been Swain's personal recollection of how he had felt when it was created. Yet she noticed where his eyes had kept flickering between each ugly phrase being hurled at the crestfallen pair: a curved, softened bump gently swelling under the woman's dress. Alarmed at the blooming life, she finally tuned in to the near-incoherent ranting tumbling out from Swain's lips.
'All I've done – all I've DONE – respect – trust – I trusted you – I told you, Beatrice – I told you! STUPID. What an embarrassment. You're no- no daughter of mine – and you – you're lucky I didn't – scum! You fucking scumbag! How dare you - my daughter – no, actually, get out, now. Out! Out you go, both of you! GO! Get out of my sight!'
Twinges of pain now upset Quinn's heart, and the ranger signalled weakly to the Master Tactician. He restored her sight momentarily, and she nearly collapsed from the strong leader looking so defeated, his slack jaw now taut in pain. 'Beatrice? Who is-'
He did not answer and simply took over her head once more, pressing on through his distress as her eyes settled on a newborn child in his arms. She felt a bizarre pulling at her chest as his baby-blue eyes looked up into hers, his fat little hand grasping a man's finger, and she recognised the warm wave of motion that engulfed her heart. It was love.
'What's his name?' she heard Swain ask softly, and for a moment she was confused as to why the arch-mage was asking her questions whilst he was trying to show her something. The tinkling voice that responded to the question, however, made her realise that it was not her who was being asked. The golden-haired mage, her eyes drifting open and closed, sleepily responded to his question as she turned over to smile at her father.
'Caleb Jericho Foss Crownguard. Florian and I had a bit of a debate over the name to hide his identity, but as we are not going to parade him around in public anyway, it didn't really matter what we called him.' She smiled at Swain before lounging back on the crisp hospital bed as she closed her eyes. 'I had to fight a bit to get Jericho put in there, but Flo relented eventually. If he knew what was good for him. He appreciates what you're doing for us.'
'Good,' Swain replied roughly, before looking down again at the happily squirming baby. 'You can't let your grandpa be cut out of your name by your silly father, can you, Caleb? Eh? No, you can't, my darling. No you can't!' The Master Tactician's cooing was alien to the ranger's ears, but the softening in his body language made her know that he was being genuine; that he adored this little boy he was cradling in his arms.
'I hear General Du Couteau has started to believe the rumours,' Beatrice frowned, opening her eyes to stare at the dingy walls of the unknown hospital. 'We need to move quickly, I know. But I can't leave, Dad. Not yet. I'm so tired.'
'You won't need to, Beatie,' he responded gruffly, bouncing Caleb's matchstick fingers against his own. 'Another day won't hurt. The King of Demacia has found a place for you both to lay low for a while, out in the marshes - the ceasefire should hold long enough for you to pass into hiding. One day, you might be able to return here.'
'Oh, Dad,' Beatrice said sadly, her golden eyes dulled with pain. 'I'm so sorry. I never meant to put you in this position. I wish Caleb could grow up with his grandpop nearby.'
'What's done is done,' the Master Tactician shrugged, standing up to regretfully drape the sleeping babe into his mother's arms. 'His safety will be the ultimate mark of my love.'
'Thank you,' Beatrice muttered gently, catching hold of her father's hand. Quinn felt the smarting of Swain's pain as his little girl clung onto him, bewildering him as she now held an infant of her own. The ranger had become so absorbed into the vision that she did not even know how she felt. 'I love you, Dad.'
Quinn had long fallen silent except for the occasional moan of anguish as she watched the scene unfold. With prismed tears clinging to her eyelashes, she peered fearfully at Swain. His crinkled, sneering face had ironed out into a blank mask, red eyes swirling with darkness as he loosened his grip on the ranger and stepped away. Stunned to the spot, Quinn did not even bother to move as she sensed that he was not finished, and the arch-mage spoke again.
'One more, Quinn,' he implored croakily, emotion croaking in his voice as he gazed painfully at her. 'I have one more to share with you. But I can't look you in the eye while I do it.'
She tensed, eyes blurring with the culminating tears, and this time she did not resist as Swain's brain wandered into her mind. She sat down as her vision melted away once more, but a traumatising howl like a wounded animal shredded her bones.
'WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? What are you telling me, boy?! What? What?! That they're all dead? Both of them?'
'I-I'm sorry, Sir,' his aide spluttered, eyes straining into bloodshot orbs with the stress of delivering the fatal news. 'Yes. I can confirm…B-Beatrice Crownguard and her husband – they were found dead at their Demacian address yesterday morning. Murdered, the authorities believe.'
A deafening silence followed his jumbled reply, pierced only by Swain's incidental sobs as Quinn felt the hot, searing tears tumble onto his face. 'Beatie…Beatie…oh, sweetheart….'
'We have information on the potential killer,' the aide added with a slight upturn to his voice, as if it would spare his life. 'He left some evidence behind that we think could confirm it.'
'He? Tell,' Swain growled, his voice cracking on the one syllable as he stared down at his own clenched, purple fist.
'This was found at the scene,' his aide responded quickly, slipping a circular spinning blade onto Swain's worn desk. Quinn saw his hands scramble to pick up the stained weapon, wincing at his broken sob as he examined the edges. Suddenly, a worm of a vein convulsed in his palm and the ranger felt him sink limply into his desk in disbelief.
'Du Couteau,' he murmured in a deadly, smooth voice. He grasped the blade so hard that his own blood began to shed, despite the weak protests from his aide. 'These are his initials. This is his blade. That is the blood of my family on this murderer's weapon.'
Then he made the aide nearly tumble out of his own skin as he flung it with all its might until it buried itself deep into the adjacent wall, accompanied by his anguish cry of exertion.
'Their children got away though, Sire,' the aide added quietly, his heart still thumping under his armour as he eyed the sheathed blade. 'Mr. and Mrs. Crownguard were able to hide them away from the assassin. It appears they knew a killer was after them.'
'Children?' Swain asked in confusion, though the news that Caleb had at least been spared the massacre offered a tiny drop of hope in an endless sea of agony. 'You mean child?'
'No, children, Mr. Swain,' the aide corrected him, watching the unpredictable tactician with flitting eyes. 'Their young son and daughter. They have now been taken into care.'
'Where are they?' he asked desperately, overwhelmed by the mass of information his broken mind was trying to take in at once. 'They must come here at once. What's the girl's name?'
'I-I am not authorised to inform you, sire,' the aide responded nervously. 'Demacian law dictates that information on minor persons involved in a murder case cannot be divulged outside of a court of law. They simply looked upon it as a Noxian-caused problem.'
Swain let out a hot, angry sigh and waved the anxious lad away, his mind breaking down with the assault it had just received. Beatie was dead. Her husband was dead. Du Couteau, one of his closest advisors, was most likely behind it. Yet her babies had lived: one, his precious Caleb, and the other a potential granddaughter he never knew had existed. He acknowledged that he was Noxian, that he had felt hatred before. But this…this was a whole new cesspit of toxicity brewing in his weakened chest. He clutched at his throbbing, shell-shocked heart as love for his daughter became corrupted with loathing of that sly, cowardly, disgusting piece of faeces Du Couteau. What was the point in loosening the laws on intermarriage now that its main benefactor was dead? Beatie. Jericho's heart shattered into a million pieces, each one getting lost in dark corners of his mind he did not care to venture into. He had promised her he would keep her safe – the gratitude shining in her weary, post-labour eyes now came to haunt him on top of the murder scene his mind could not help but construct over and over. The Demacians had given their word to protect both that spoilt brat of a son-in-law and his dear daughter, and they, too, had failed. It was for Beatie that he had tolerated the ice-cold relations between the two nations – now, what was the point in that? What was the point in anything now?
Quinn quaked back to the present as she found she could not cry any more tears: her throat was swollen with emotion and her golden eyes burning with revelations as her vision swerved up to connect with Swain's scarlet irises. She could see her own tortured expression in the bloodied mirrors, her brown hair tumbling into her eyes and over her ashen skin. The true scale of her secret identity finally hit home as she gazed at Swain in horror and pity.
'My daughter risked her life by taking the time to hide yourself and your brother,' the Master Tactician rasped, darkened tears spilling from his ancient ducts. 'Why would I spit on her sacrifice by killing you, Quinn? I spent months and months trying to have you tracked down in Demacia, but there was not enough information to go by with you both being protected.'
She could not muster an answer as she simply stared dumbstruck at the trembling Noxian, the roaring of her pulsating blood ticking in her ears becoming unbearable. Sharply inhaling, Swain took a hesitant step towards her with one gnarled, outstretched hand. This time, she did not shrink away, but neither did she melt into it; she remained as still as a statue, blinking like a faltering light bulb.
'I know we Noxians are not the most compassionate, or the most kind, or even as proud as our Demacian rivals,' he began slowly, content with letting his withered hand close on thin air, 'but we are not the monsters you think we are. There's a heart beneath it all, in so many of us. You have to believe me, Quinn, when I say I almost fainted when I saw you. I can't just let you go, you see? I can't let go of my long-lost granddaughter. You're too precious. Your mother was too precious, too. I can't let Beatie's little girl come to harm. Not again.'
The ranger's head spun as she felt the first reversals of her hardened feelings begin to manifest in her confused soul, her earlier revulsion of the Master Tactician having fallen to the ground along with any notion of sanity she had once wielded. She had to grip the dining table forcefully, closing her eyes as a bead of sweat trickled down her clammy forehead with the effort of keeping her skimpy dinner down. Swain hobbled towards her, his arms ready to catch her as a wave of paleness flashed across her sallow cheeks. 'Are you okay?'
'I don't know,' she mumbled quietly, finally catching his line of sight as she sagged over the upholstered chair. 'When you think no one else is out there, it's quite a shock to find that your grandfather was looking for you the whole time.'
