Hi. This has returned. Fun times we live in. Fun times indeed.
There's no jokes here because it's the week-end and i have better things to do. Also I'm not a funny person so writing puns would take too much effort.
Begin the chapter!
Chapter 21: The legend of Crit-Gar
My eyes blinked open like usual and scanned the area around me. I was surprised and saddened to not see Ahri anywhere so I got up out of bed to look around. The moment I did that the bed disappeared from reality. When I looked back at where it had been there was nothing. There was not even colour. Just eternal blackness.
I stood in stunned silence at the strange display in front of me. The silence continued when the room itself started to melt away until the same eternal blackness surrounded me completely.
For a few seconds I was alone until a figure appeared through the darkness. I tried to move away but for some reason I could not. Through the black fog I made out that the figure was wearing armour similar to mine so for a moment I feared the worst. However when it got about a metre from me I realised that the person wearing the armour was an older version of me.
"Put some clothes on!" He demanded. Immediately after he hit me in the side with his walking cane and suddenly I was fully clothed.
"Thank god. Much better."
"I'm sorry but, who are you and why do you look like me but… older?"
"Isn't it obvious? You're much stupider than I remember. If you really don't know I'm you but about thirty years older."
"Where are we?"
"Oh come on must I explain everything to you? We're in your dreams for god's sake!"
"Okay so how are you here? And why?"
"Dear god I thought this would be enjoyable but clearly not… When you went through the worm-hole to get here you lost the ability to age. Well, that was not the only effect. I was also created to live here in your subconscious for god knows how long. To be honest I have no idea why I'm fifty but that doesn't matter."
"That… sort of makes sense. Tell me again, why are you here?"
"I didn't tell you in the first place so this isn't again! Ugh. I'm here to point out one of the other things you have got so terribly wrong that I worked out in a day. Remember how our dear mother went missing and how you didn't check the planets which were not so friendly?"
"Yes of course I do. Why do you ask?"
"I assume you remember the names of these planets. The main one of note being Zulu-Delta-Oscar-115. Or, as it's known among the indigenous population, Runettera. Ringing any bells yet?"
"You mean she could be here?"
"Finally he gets it! God damn you took your time but eventually we got there!"
"But we still have to search an entire planet. How do you plan on us finding her?"
"There's no we or us in this. I'm stuck in here and can only appear in your dreams so it's on you. Good luck with that. I'll be off now."
"Wait I still have so many questions!"
"Why would you want to talk to me when the woman you love is sleeping right next to you?"
He hit me once again with his walking cane and I shot awake. I realised I was sitting up straight and that the room was pitch black. It was quite dark but there was enough light for me to see Ahri next to me. She woke up slowly and stared at me.
"Why are you awake? Not leaving me in the middle of the night are you?"
"Of course not. I just had a really weird dream."
She pulled me back down then held her head up with her hand.
"Tell me about it."
"Well I was having a conversation with a fifty year old me. He said that there was a chance my mother could be on this planet."
"That's… great."
"You don't seem too excited about this."
"Well, if we find her I'm worried you might… I don't know… stop giving attention to me."
"Ahri no matter what happens I will never stop giving attention to you."
"You say that now but it's your mother. Who knows what could happen?"
"I love my mother like any son but I love you more than that. I never have and never will love anything more than you. If you still think there is any chance that my attention could be taken off of you then there's something wrong with your head."
"Maybe I'm just over-reacting. Now how about you show me a bit of that love?"
I kissed Ahri happily and hugged her. When I pulled away she raised an eyebrow to me and laughed.
"No, no, no. I'm going to need more than that."
She grabbed me by then head and pulled me into another kiss. This time she wouldn't let me go for quite some time. When, eventually, she did let me go I just stared at her.
"Enjoying the view?"
"You could put it that way."
"While I would love to let this spiral into sex I want sleep more."
She turned to face away from me and curled up slightly. I shuffled forward and wrapped one arm over her.
Later (8th May 10:00):
I sat at the table with my arms crossed on its surface and my head cushioned in-between them. To amuse myself I followed the lines on the wooden table from start to finish. Just as I was following a rather short one I heard the sound of a plate being put down in front of me. I looked up from the table to see two pieces of perfectly done toast in front of me.
"I don't know why you were moaning about this yesterday. It's really easy."
"It's not easy at all."
"Personally I think you're just bad at everything that isn't scientific or sexual."
"Now you're just being mean."
"Truth hurts, doesn't it?"
I grumbled a response then started eating the toast.
"Come back into the living room when you're less grumpy." She replied as she to the button and pressed it.
After mere seconds of peace I heard a crashing sound. Immediately after the old me dropped through the ceiling and hit the ground with a thumping sound. He was still in the armour with the helmet removed and the walking cane in his right hand, just as he was in my dream.
He got up and dusted himself off before looking around and spotting me.
"You're asleep again already?"
"No I'm awake."
"Well… this is odd. I was just having a conversation with thirty year old you when this happened."
"How many versions of me are there?"
"Seventy or so. There's one for every year you would have lived."
"I was going to live to ninety?"
"Yes. Although you did almost get hit by a fridge that got flung from a tornado at age forty six."
"That would be one hell of a way to die. Imagine that on my tombstone."
"Yes of course. Very amusing. We both seem to have forgotten the problem of I should be inside your head yet I'm not. I really don't want to be out here. It's cold. And windy."
"We're inside. How is it windy?"
"I'm old cut me a break!"
"Okay don't get mad. Let's think this through…"
I looked up at where he fell to see the hole was still there and seemed to lead to a place of total blackness.
"How about you just jump back up there?"
"You think I can do that? Maybe if I was twenty years younger. Maybe."
"Fine I'll give you a lift."
I got up from the table and put my armour on. As I walked over he decided to compliment me for the first time so far:
"I'm beginning to see why Ahri chose to keep you alive. You are a handsome bugger."
"Finally we find something to agree on."
I clasped my hands together and he put his foot on them. With some effort I pushed him up and he clambered into my mind again. Just before the hole closed he poked his head back down to speak:
"I'll try to find out how this happened. Maybe I will find out how to control this."
"Good. I'll stay here and have fun with Ahri."
"It feels like I'm getting the arse-end of this deal."
"Oh trust me, you are."
He shook his head at me and disappeared into the darkness. It closed up soon after so I just shrugged it off and went back to my toast, removing my armour as I did that.
"I must be going insane."
"Definitely." Rengar's voice joked from behind me.
"Haven't seen you in a while. Not still mad about me being an idiot are you?"
"No I've killed enough to forget about it. I came here to say I'm going to destroy you in the game later but now I'm wondering about who the old guy was."
"Long story short it's a fifty year old me."
"Hmm… Can I kill him?"
"No! Why would you do that?"
"I've always wanted to kill you but I didn't because I'm nice."
"Why would you want to kill me?"
"Same reason I want to kill everything else."
"You aren't a very nice person are you?"
"I'm not a person. I don't have to be nice."
"Whatever. So you were saying about how you were going to destroy me in the game?"
"Yes. Oh you are in for a treat. I've been paired with a summoner who uses a very weird build that is deceptively painful for all involved but me."
"I can't wait to see it. However, I am still considered over-powered so I feel quite safe."
"They all say that. Now if I were you I would go find Ahri. You look so incredibly bored without her. Not even talking to another you could get rid of that dull face of yours."
"I haven't even finished my toast…"
"Ha! Like I give a damn!" He laughed while picking me up from the shoulders. Before I could react I was flying through the air towards the button. My back hit it, sending a jolt of pain up my spine. I appeared in the living room and fell on my back, adding to the pain. Ahri looked at me from the sofa and looked quite confused.
"Any reason you're on the floor?"
"I got thrown at the button."
"By who?"
"Rengar. Also he is apparently going to destroy me in the game later."
"He is. I'll be watching from the mid lane though. So take some comfort in that."
"Ah great. Can you help me up?"
"Nope. You're supposed to be the strong, manly man. Get yourself up."
"But my back hurts."
"I could go over there but then you would owe me something. So basically more sex."
"Fine. I guess the concept of generosity is alien to you." I grumbled as I pushed myself up from the floor.
"Once again it's probably something I can learn eventually. But right now I have no concept of it what-so-ever." She replied, smiling at me.
I walked over and sat down next to her. Despite my best efforts I couldn't stay grumpy for longer than a few seconds. I looked away to try to regain my grumpiness but Ahri pushed my chin up with a finger to look me in the eyes. As I stared back my expression got quickly better until I was smiling joyfully.
"You definitely aren't lying when you say you love me."
"Neither are you. I hope."
"I'm not. I don't know why I feel the way I do but I know you're the only one for me. I'm reminded of that every time we do certain things."
"Is this one of those things…?" I asked just before kissing her. We both backed away at the same time and instantly I knew my guess was correct.
"Yeah, that's one of them."
"The other ones aren't something we have time to do are they?"
"Nope. Those would take too much time and effort on your part."
"Let's go find Nocturne. He's on our team I think."
Hours later (12:00):
While the summoner bought items I stared at the armour I was wearing. It was literally made of cooled lava and thus made me look strangely evil. Even my axe was made of it but the edge was still red-hot. The weirdest part about it was my new-found lack of facial features. My eyes were the only thing that people could see but they were pure red. Instead of my usual banner I had a few spires of the cooled lava. All in all it made me feel much more sinister but the thought that this was what people expected me to be like didn't make me feel great. If I could have I would have been smiling because I was the only one in the game who was not their normal selves.
I took a glance at my team to remind myself who I was with. Ahri was in the mid lane while Jinx and Thresh were bot. Our jungler was Nocturne who was already looking irritated at his summoner.
Moments later I was jogging to my lane while the rest of my team went to theirs. I passed the blue inhibitor and asked my summoner the usual questions, though my voice was much deeper than usual and had a strange ambience to it.
"Who are on the enemy team?"
"Rengar is top, Kha'Zix is jungle, Kassadin is mid, Miss Fortune and Taric are bot."
"How good are the other summoners on our team?"
"Mostly gold ones and twos. Same for enemy team."
"What about you?"
"Highest here. Diamond three."
"Have we met before?"
"Yeah I stopped you from chopping Ahri in half."
"… Thanks for that. I can't stress how much I owe you for it."
"Is it true you and her are… you know…?"
"Yep. Strange as it may seem."
"You must be really good with women to get to any kind of positive relationship with her after that."
"It's a long story. To give you an idea what I had to do, I have to do whatever she says no matter what."
I jogged past the outer tower and entered the first bush. The summoners silence said more than he could have ever hoped to with words.
"… I don't… why would… what the hell was going through your head?"
"Well I really wanted to sort things out with her and didn't want to put much work into it so… yeah… To my credit it has been worth it."
"That goes against every rule men have lived by on this planet for generations. No-one has ever given their woman that much power, and there is a damn good reason for it. How could it possibly be worth it?"
"Because she has barely ever used it for something negative. Most of the time she's used it for sex, which I am fine with."
"Nothing about this makes any sense to me. If I gave my girlfriend that kind of power I would never stop doing housework yet you get sex. Lucky bastard."
"I am quite lucky aren't I? You can tell that much just by looking at her."
"True. Although I'll be honest the tails kind of creep me out. Also are they annoying? Seems like they would get in the way."
"They do sometimes. It's almost like they have minds of their own which is quite irritating. Especially when I was giving her a massage yesterday."
"That's the kind of stuff normal men avoid doing."
"I quite liked it actually. It's nice to see her enjoying herself."
"Did you at least get a reward for it?"
"Why would I want a reward? Her being happy is enough for me."
"So you got nothing from it? Nothing at all."
"When she's happy so am I. That's something."
"Are you just dating this woman or is there something else going on?"
"Why do you care?"
"Just tell me. The minions aren't even at the second tier turret yet. We need something to do."
"Okay if you really must know I have fallen in love with her. She feels the same way for me."
"You're twenty and you're in love. Talk about blocking off options."
"I knew I shouldn't have told you."
"No you should have. Throughout this game I will attempt to convince you to let her go for a while and enjoy some freedom."
"That's the last thing I want to do. I already have enough women problems with Miss Fortune and my would-be fiancée Lita, both of whom want to have sex with me for god-knows what reason."
"So you could go out and have sex with those two but instead you restrict yourself to Ahri who is not even fully human?"
"I'm going to punch you in the face when this game is over."
"I don't get you. How do you even get in situations like these?"
The minions arrived and so I started farming, as did Rengar.
"I think it's the beard."
"Oh I've just realised you were the guy with Ahri at the awards show. Yeah I'd say it's the beard."
"It took you this long to work that out?"
"How long have you and her been going out?"
"Honestly couldn't tell you. For a few days I insisted we were friends while she did everything possible to change that. I think it was around the time she began her singing tour when we started dating in the traditional sense."
"To be honest I expected better from someone that looks like you right now."
"Just focus on the damn game."
Finally he shut up, much to my personal joy. Just as I was about to relax both I and Rengar hit level three so I had to stay alert instead. He got all of his passive stacks and ran into the bush, forcing me to move away from it. I was not fast enough so he managed to jump me with his Q ready. He would have hit me like a ton of bricks but I used my Q to avoid the damage for a moment. When I appeared over Rengar I used my W to stun when I slammed down. This took down a decent chunk of his health and gave me time to land an auto attack. Before the stun ended I used my E to avoid even more damage for a second or so. By that point he was on a quarter of his health so I considered it a won fight. Unfortunately the moment the E ended he double Q'ed me, both of which counted as critical strikes. This took my health from full to barely a hundred instantly so I hit him with the second two parts of my W and ran away. He ran back to his turret as did I and we both backed to base.
When I returned to base I appeared next to Nocturne who stared at the massive holes that Rengar had put in my armour.
"What the hell happened to you?"
"Rengar critical hit me on both his Q's."
"Oh god we're against that guy."
"Who is he?"
"Imagine a summoner that refuses to do anything normal ever. That's him. Full AP Hecarim is my personal favourite invention of his."
"So he's doing full critical strike Rengar? That's… really weird. Does it even work?"
"Clearly it does. Wait until about twenty minutes in. That's when it becomes really entertaining."
He hovered away towards bot lane and soon after I was going back top. For some reason the summoner bought a giants belt for me which basically meant I was not going to be having fun that game.
After a while I arrived back at the lane to find Rengar and Kha'Zix pushing down my tower to the best of their abilities, which was faster than I was comfortable with.
When I arrived at the turret they pulled back behind the minions and seemed to be toying with the idea of diving me. Thankfully Kha'Zix left without making an attempt, leaving me and Rengar in the same situation as before. For a few minutes we continued on without any real action until my team decided to attempt to secure dragon. Rengar went back giving me a chance to run down to the mid lane. I started swearing under my breath when the enemy team engaged mine. Their Miss Fortune was shredding through my team and Taric was doing a good job keeping her safe. I thanked my luck when Taric went into my team to help Kassadin who had just jumped in. Within moments I had obliterated Miss Fortune's health but had no cool-downs save for my ultimate left. I used it and laughed as she attacked my clone with everything she had. Seconds later I was dropping down on her with more force than I was used to with my ultimate. When I landed there was an explosion of blood and gore. Chunks of what I assumed used to be Miss Fortune flew in every direction, one even hitting me in the face. My armour was covered in a layer of blood that I didn't have time to wipe off.
"That was kind of over-kill wasn't it?" My summoner questioned while directing me towards the team-fight that my team was now winning.
"Nope. I rather enjoyed it."
"I'm sure she will still fuck you if you ask nicely."
"Shut up." I demanded while cleaving Taric into many pieces.
"You're giving up so much for a single woman. There must be something wrong with you."
"How the hell did you get a girlfriend?"
"Simple. Be nice for a few weeks then leave them and move on."
"I hate everything about you."
I muted my own summoner because he was really getting on my nerves. Since I told him about me and Ahri he hadn't shut up about letting her go. It aggravated me so much that I started hacking Kha'Zix to pieces despite having already killed him while talking to the summoner. Ahri started killing the enemy blue buff near to me so she noticed what I was doing.
"You realise he's already dead right?"
"Yeah I'm just taking out my anger."
"Why are you angry? We won that fight and you got to kill stuff."
"My summoner won't stop trying to convince me to leave you."
"Why would he want that?"
"Because apparently I'm missing out on a lot by being with you and you alone."
"I doubt that's the real reason. Ask him again and demand the actual reason for it."
"Fine."
I un-muted the summoner and began before he could say a word:
"What is the real reason you want me to leave Ahri?"
"I told you it's-"
"No, the real reason."
"Again I have-"
"Tell me or I hurt you."
"Okay fine! Look, if people hear about how you treat Ahri every woman is going to expect it. Considering how you two seem to get more famous by the day it's only a matter of time before it's impossible to act like I do."
"That's a good thing. And you're an arse-hole."
I muted him again and spoke to Ahri as we both ran to the middle lane to take down the tower:
"Turns out he doesn't want me to be with you because other women will notice how I treat you and expect the same."
"That's not a bad thing."
"I know. He doesn't."
"What an arse-hole."
"That's what I said."
"Sounds like you got really un-lucky. I've been having a lovely conversation with mine about how to most easily take advantage of men's inability to stay focused on anything but women's chests. My summoner is female by the way."
"Makes sense. You have a lot of experience in the subject after all."
"Whoa hold it." She whispered while holding her arm out to block me from walking any further forward.
"What?"
"Do you hear that?"
"What?"
"I think it's… Rengar."
Immediately after she finished I witnessed three of my team-mates get shredded by Rengar. It happened so fast that I didn't even think to try and save them. He didn't see me or Ahri so we both retreated back into the jungle. We circled around to defend our middle tower but didn't catch sight of Rengar again. In the team chat all I could hear was Nocturne laughing as Jinx shouted at Rengar to go kill himself.
The game went on as normal again for a few minutes with only minor fights to break up the minion-farming. Some good Thresh hooks meant that Ahri and Jinx got very fed while I and Nocturne got more and more tanky. The enemy team were all in a pretty bad way with the exception of Rengar who could fight and kill any of us but me, mostly because of some good plays by my summoner.
At the forty minute mark I hit full build, along with most of my team. To my irritation I was fully tanky with a Warmog's, a Sunfire cape, armour boots, a Guardian angel, a Frozen mallet and a Randuin's omen. This meant almost all of my damage relied on my ultimate and the rest were all for utility.
I was farming in the top lane for no real reason when Jinx shot her ultimate at baron and hit the enemy Kassadin, revealing that they were trying to kill it. Everyone on my team ran there and engaged. I jumped Rengar with my ultimate and prayed that he would attack my clone. He used both his Q's on it which was basically game over for him. Seconds later I was running into the rest of the enemies with Rengar splatted behind me.
Only when I was already fighting another enemy did I realise he also had a Guardian angel. The scattered pieces of him glued themselves back together and within milliseconds he was annihilating our back line. Ahri had her ultimate to get some distance but Jinx was not so lucky. Thresh followed in Jinx's footsteps soon after so our only major damage dealer was Ahri, who was forced to go well out of range to escape Rengar. They still had Miss Fortune and Rengar so the fight was no longer win-able. Luckily for me I was way too tanky for either to even bother trying to kill me. Instead they went to push down our mid lane so Nocturne went back to defend it. I got half way through my recall when my summoner saw that the enemy nexus was open. My summoner made me make a b-line to it as stealthily as I could. When I got to it I started beating it down, causing Miss Fortune and Rengar to try and recall to defend it. Nocturne did everything he could to stop them and managed to keep them back just long enough for me to kill it. With one final strike the purple nexus exploded in what I considered a rather small explosion. The announcer declared our victory and I was teleported back to the summoning room.
Upon arrival the first thing I did was run over to Nocturne and high-five him.
"Good job man. That really shouldn't have worked."
"No Zoh. After how boring the rest of that game was we deserved a fun ending."
"Good point."
Rengar walked up next to us with a smile on his face.
"Why are you smiling after you lost?"
"Have you seen the scoreboard?"
I and Nocturne looked up to the newly installed scoreboard. My eyes scanned it until I saw Rengar's name. Looking along it everything seemed normal until I saw his kill-count. Nocturne saw it as well and we both stood there speechless for a moment.
"That's why I'm smiling."
"When did you get fifty kills?"
"I just camped out in your jungle for a while. Killed Jinx and Thresh a bunch of times."
"You better be on my team next time this summoner picks you."
Nocturne remained speechless and left without another word. I said my goodbye to Rengar then went to find Ahri. She was no-where to be seen so I removed my armour and went back to the room. The second I arrived I was being pushed back onto my bed by Ahri. I had many questions to ask but she gave my mouth something else to do before I could. She started exploring my mouth with her tongue while I moved us further onto the bed so that my legs weren't hanging off the edge. A second later she stopped and pulled back, although only a few centimetres.
"This is quite a pleasant surprise."
"I really need some fun after that game."
"Why?"
"Did you see my score? I messed up massively and almost cost us the game."
"You didn't do anything wrong. Your summoner did."
"Actually it was my fault. I was telling her about when you died and that distracted her long enough for Rengar jump me."
"Oh well it's completely your fault and you should feel ashamed of yourself."
"Supportive as ever I see."
"I never claimed to be supportive."
"Yes but you did claim to love me and being supportive is a part of that."
"Depends how you define it-"
"Shut up until I say you can speak again."
"Don't I have a human right to free speech?"
"Normally you would. Right now, you don't. Pretty simple really."
"Okay then."
"Did I say you could talk?"
I shook my head in response. She leaned in close enough that I could see the intricate design of her eyes in vivid detail.
"I love being in charge."
She pressed her lips against mine and held me close. A few of her tails pulled my hands to the back of her dress. Just as I began loosening it I heard something heavy falling to the ground behind us. Ahri pulled away and sat to the side of me. Turning to look at the source of the noise her anger was evident.
"For god's sake what now?"
For a moment she looked between me and the old me with an increasingly confused expression.
"Wait… what?"
"Hello I'm Zoh. You must be Ahri."
"Zoh… my Zoh… how about you explain this to me?"
"It appears my friend here has once again fallen out of my head and into this world."
"I'm more confused now than I was before you started talking. So, is this the guy you talked to in your dream?"
"Yes I am. Now listen to me Zoh, I only came back here to remind you that you're supposed to be searching for our mother. Not making love to her. How do you expect to make any head-way if you get distracted so very easily?"
"If you would be so kind as to enlighten me on how you think I should find her I'm all ears. It's easy to search planets where I can just scan for life-forms. It's much harder when the planet is inhabited by god-knows how many people and animals."
"How about you do some good with the position you are in and ask a summoner to use their magic to search for her? Or maybe release a public statement announcing to the world who you are so that our mother knows of your presence? Right now all she will have heard of you is that you're some mass-murdering freak with armour and an axe!"
"Yeah sure the summoners are definitely going to let me debunk the entire story they created."
He threw his walking cane at me which I just barely managed to avoid.
"God damn it man! Since the moment you step foot on this planet all you have achieved is to dig an ever-deepening hole for yourself! I wouldn't be surprised if you end up never seeing her again because of your own incompetence!"
"The chances of me seeing her are so small it's hard to even care anymore! First off there's the fifty, fifty that she survived the teleportation process. Then there's the one in eight chance she landed on this planet and not one of the others. Finally there's the one in god-knows how many chance that she survived on this planet for so long. There is a reason it was marked as extremely hostile!"
"What would that reason be? I have been watching since you arrived and from what I can tell the thing that has been the greatest threat is sitting right next to you!"
At that point my anger got the better of me and I jumped up from the bed and got my axe ready.
"I'm about to become the biggest threat if you don't leave her out of this!"
"What are you going to do? Murder me?"
"It's not murder. It's technically suicide."
"You know what? I've had enough of arguing with you. I'll leave it to you. We'll see if your 'do nothing' tactic works."
He pulled out his axe and hooked it into the portal, proceeding to hoist himself up with it. The portal closed so I got rid of my axe. To me it was strange talking to a version of myself that didn't think too highly of Ahri. It was a genuinely un-comfortable feeling.
"Despite everything, seeing a man argue with an older version of himself is quite entertaining."
"Good to know some good came out of that." I replied before sitting back down on the bed. Ahri shuffled over and hugged me from the side.
"Hey Zoh."
"What?"
"Your arm is the only thing holding my clothes up right now."
"Am I right to guess that is something you want me to fix?"
"Maybe."
I moved my arm ever so slightly, causing her clothes to fall to her waist. She slid them off then threw them away. I stared at her body for longer than I would like to admit. It was obvious she noticed where I was looking but for a while she just enjoyed the attention. When, eventually, Ahri decided she'd had enough I was released from her grasp. Soon after I was pinned to the bed with her on top of me.
"While I do love your inability to look away from me I'm getting a bit cold so you better do something to change that."
"I can think up a few ways…"
A few hours later (21:00):
"I'd call that a success!" I proclaimed while throwing my hands in the air and jumping for joy.
"And I'm inclined to agree." Nocturne added.
"Considering the amount of work we have put in I would say it's been a failure." Ahri grumbled.
"Oh you're just grumpy."
I looked back at the house which was finally done. At some point Nocturne had completed the second floor and the interior of the bottom floor, so all we had to do was the interior of the top floor. This had, of course, been too much for Ahri so she lounged about in the bottom floor while I and Nocturne finished the house.
We were all sat a few metres from the cliff, taking a rest and gazing at what we had finally finished. Ahri's head was resting on my lap and Nocturne was holding himself up by his blades on my right. Apparently it was only going to take Morgana a few minutes to finish her game and come see it but that time had passed some time ago.
Ahri was almost to sleep so I was really starting to consider just leaving when finally the distinctive flash of a teleport came from next to Nocturne. I looked over to see an astonished Morgana staring at the house.
"Nocturne is this why you haven't let me come here for so long?"
"Yep. Do you like it?"
"Like it? I love it! I can't believe you would do this for me!"
Nocturne got up and instantly Morgana had wrapped her arms around him.
"I can't take all the credit though. Zoh and Ahri here helped a lot. Ahri a bit less so."
She let go of him and looked at us.
"Thank you both. Can someone give me a tour?"
"I'll take that responsibility. You two can join us if you want." Nocturne announced while taking Morgana's hand in his.
"No I think we'll go for a walk. I did say we would take a trip to Ionia ages ago." I replied while getting up, bringing Ahri with me.
"Okay then. A moonlight walk is always a good way to get some." Nocturne joked.
"I've had enough of that for today actually."
"Really? Good man."
Me and Ahri said our goodbyes then walked off towards a path that went through the forest. The half-moon above us was visible through the foliage and provided a surprising amount of light. She grabbed my hand and held it as we walked.
After a while the path got closer to the cliff until it ran parallel to the cliff-face with the forest on our left side and the ocean to our right. It was when we got there that Ahri decided to spark a conversation:
"This place is beautiful. Maybe we should make a house here when the League lets us go."
"It'll be damn hard to find a good place to settle down with you."
"Why?" She muttered while stopping and turning to look at me. I was going to reply with something jokey but her expression stopped me in my tracks. Once again all it took to make me serious was to see her sad, even if she was only slightly disappointed.
"It's always been my dream to settle down somewhere that has scenery which is the most beautiful thing. I can't do that with you around. You make everything else look dull."
"So I take it we're never going to live like normal people."
"Who said that? To be honest I don't care where I am, as long as you are there with me."
"Does that mean we can make a life together?"
"Yes. If it's what you want."
Ahri smiled and embraced me. I hugged back and gave her a kiss on the neck.
"I know it's what I want. What about you? Do you really think you can spend the rest of your life with someone like me?"
"Someone like you? I couldn't settle down with anyone except you."
She let go of me then pressed her lips against mine. A few seconds later she pulled away and gazed at me with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face.
"When I first became human and saw myself I thought I would never get to spend my life with someone. I haven't been this happy since you said you loved me for the first time."
"Neither have I. The future with you in it is much better than the other one I thought up years ago."
I wiped a tear off her cheek then held onto her hand again. We continued onwards along the path with smiles on our faces. I couldn't deny that the amount she cared about our future surprised me but I also couldn't say that the fact didn't make me quite happy.
After walking for a while along the path we reached the end of the forest. It opened up into a clear space which was surrounded by the forest. On one side the sea was visible through a thin layer of trees but everywhere else it was too dense to see anything. In the middle of the clearing was a small lake with lily-pads floating on the surface. On the other side of the lake was a small hut with none of the lights on. We walked up to the lake and looked over it for a few seconds.
"I guess this is as good a time as any to go back." I declared while getting my armour on to use the in-built ear-piece.
"We could go say hi to Morgana's neighbours."
"No they are probably asleep it would be rude."
"Zoh watch out!"
I turned around to have my helmet covered in some sort of thick dust. It happened so fast that I flinched massively and fell to my hands and knees.
"Ah what the hell?"
From above me I heard an oddly familiar female voice shout at me:
"I've heard of you Zoh! How dare you kill all those people while bearing the name of a good man?"
"I didn't do those things it was just made up to make my back-story more interesting! I'm really a nice guy."
"Why would I believe that?"
"Well, uh… give me a second to think of something."
The woman smacked me on the head with something hard but thanks to my armour it didn't hurt.
"Stop doing that he's telling the truth!" Ahri protested from behind me.
"I hadn't even noticed you. It does make sense though, two evil people hanging out together."
"Neither of us is evil! Look I'll even take my armour off!"
I got up and removed my armour. When I turned to look at the woman my jaw dropped.
"Zoh… is it really you?"
"Yeah mum… it's me."
I didn't plan on this episode happening near mother's day but random luck is one hell of a thing.
First things first Azzuk you have found a way to make me love you a little less. Chocolate ice-cream is amazing and there's nothing anyone can say that will change my opinion on the subject.
On an un-related note I noticed on Sunday that the number of views goes up slightly compared to Saturday. It amuses me that you lot actually expect this stuff to be on time.
By the way if anyone wants a shout-out just ask and I'll think up a new compliment to give you and put it here.
End of chapter and notes!
Bye.
