I have had just crazy fun playing with everyone in game. Shout outs to AerithRayne, Mr Ratz, Cerubois, and Grand Viper for some awesome 3v3s and 5v5s. Also thank you to my Guest for correcting my mistake with Warwick and Blueberry Absinthe for telling me I'm awesome :D
There is explanation of several of the chakras within the chapter, so I shan't list which ones are here. You all should thank Blue for telling me to stop making you look this stuff up.
I'm also excited to announce that Grand Viper will be writing some of Part Two and Three with me for his champion, Gelid Wolfrik, whose champion concept you should read in the League of Legends Fan Fiction and Champion Concept forums.
With that out of the way, enjoy!
Chapter 3: Sangfroid
Choosing a meal required a great deal of thought and planning at the Institute. Because of the huge variety of champions, there were truly spectacular spreads laid out for breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner.
There were three distinct areas.
The first, for those who had lost their humanity entirely or who never had it to begin with, was at the very back of the room, in the shadow of a snarling gargoyle. One bar was filled with slimy chunks of green meat, fresh spider eggs, and grave dirt steamed with human blood. Next to it was simply a long basin of violently glowing purple liquid that occasionally sprouted eyes on long tentacles to survey the room. On a small table to the side was a selection of brightly colored vials, each containing a different type of toxin.
The second, situated just in front of the first, catered to those with the most esoteric tastes. A selection of broiled gears in fine oil was side by side with a book of every genre. Flasks of blood with delicate necks were scattered around deep bowls of fresh snow and smoking ashes. Young, freshly caught birds flapped feebly in cages to purvey to Cassiopeia. There were several trays of gemstones and more common rocks. A huge indent contained fresh soil from Demacian forests. Two wells flanked the section, one of pure, roiling darkness, and the other of searing, dripping light. Behind it was a medium sized Nexus crystal for those that fed on magic alone.
The third and the largest area, at the front of the dining hall, was for those with more normal human tastes. There were three tables for meat, fish, and fowl. Ionian grains nestled with Freljord's winter wheat in huge bowls. Loaves of wheat and rye bread walled in a bar with dishes of peppers, pasta, salad, rice, and soup. A steaming array of breakfast pastries, strudels, muffins, and bagels formed a fragrant mountain near the dining hall door, surrounded by bananas, strawberries, cherries, and apples.
There were discrete odor-blocking runes on the floor around the first two sections, but not around the third, and the warm scents that drifted from the third area had made many new champions stop in their battle-hardened tracks.
Karma always paused, a smile in her eyes if not on her mouth, when she walked through the door.
There was very little happiness she allowed in her life. Her friends were not exactly normal. Her family had died with her childhood. For the last ten years of her life, she had been fighting, preparing, protecting, negotiating. For many of those years, she had endured the exhausting path to awakening her chakras…
Sahasrara, the Crown Chakra, representative of inner wisdom and the freedom of the soul from the body. She felt it, pulsing a brilliant, blinding white, pounding at the very top of her skull. With agonizing slowness, she had been painting, for seven nights and seven days, a lotus flower with a thousand perfect petals—the symbol of Sahasrara. Karma felt like she was floating above her body, forcing her fingers to move the brush by will alone. She was connected to the earth by the slimmest thread.
She had not eaten or drunk or slept in all that time.
While she painted, she sent her soul sense out, watching over Ionia as the rebuilding efforts began in the southern provinces. She watched Lee Sin, speaking with the master of his monastery. She watched Irelia, weeping softly beneath a cherry tree. She flew over Udyr as he dragged carcass after carcass back to hungry workers raising a new shrine at a lakeside. She was her land and she felt its life beat within her, quickening as her heart slowed and slowed…
She had never pushed it out so far from her body before and hope quickened in her as she raced towards the furthest shore of Ionia. The flow of her chakra down from Sahasrara began to quicken and the light grew brighter and brighter…
Her fingers stilled halfway through the last petal as her heart stopped beating, but she still had her powers, and with a wisp of energy she drew a delicate curve and completed the lotus.
And the chakra burned silver and she cried out as magic shot down her spine and restarted her heart…
Ajna, the Brow Chakra, who held power over intuition, fought against her as she fought against Lee Sin, a bandage over her eyes but her breathing one, two, three steady. He was so quick and she could only stumble backwards to avoid his blows, though they were so light when they touched her that they felt more like a caress than an attack.
"Extend your senses!" he cried, and the sole of his foot brushed her cheek as she covered her fists in energy and struck at him with a knife hand. She could find only air.
But she was listening, learning, her soul sense filling the room. She felt the air in his lungs like it was in her own. She could feel the warmth of his skin like the heat of an open fire. His heart was a steady drum. And slowly…slowly she saw him, a dancing golden flame. She could peer into his soul and see it, beautiful, noble, but twisted and writhing within him, tormented by wicked, biting creatures of guilt, the spawn of Vitala, the negative chakra of anger and resentment in the leg. She wanted, with a fierceness that surprised her, to drive them out, to use her powers to force on him peace of mind. But it would not be right. So, instead, the next time he leapt at her, she surrounded the index finger of her right hand in her will and stopped his fist with the lightest touch.
Then she looked within herself and saw Ajna relax from tense violet to a warm, welcoming indigo, and smiled.
"Thank you, Lee," she said, removing the bandage delicately, and reaching out to grasp his hands…
She stood on the Placidium and cried out to the people, "Ionia accepts the offer of the Noxians! If we win, they shall leave Galrin, Navori, and Shon-Xan forever, and our island shall be at peace once more. But should we lose, then the southern provinces will be theirs, and a representative from their ranks will join the Elders in this sacred meeting place."
She felt the fear roll off them, and the turquoise light of Vishuddha the Throat Chakra, who gives clarity to the spoken word, filled her.
"Now we prove our courage!" she shouted, holding her hands up to the crowd. "There will be peace, no matter what the cost!"
And behind her an iridescent light began to grow, until it covered her shoulders arms in sparkling fire.
"Look upon the fires of my belief!" she commanded. "Watch them burn! The flames may flicker, they may weaken, but they will never go out, because I will never give up! The Noxians may think they will have the victory again, but they are wrong. We will free our people, and none shall dare question our resolve! Do you see me now, people of Ionia? I am but a woman and a mortal, but my skin is iron and my will is steel, and I WILL NEVER BREAK OR BEND UNTIL IONIA IS FREE ONCE MORE!"
Her voice echoed from the mountains and from the valleys and there was silence for a breath until the roar of the crowd broke over her, and she paid no heed to the tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Thank you, thank you," she chanted, folding her hands over her chest, feeling the warmth of verdant Anahata, the Heart Chakra, and the love of her people wash over her like the tide…
…and the first four of the seven were still the strongest chakras within her. Still, despite the grief and the pain and the relentless scouring of weakness from her very soul, she still indulged in a few pleasures, and one of those was food.
She swept forwards in a swirl of white and black robes and cut neatly between Caitlyn and Vi, who were arguing over the last apple strudel. She selected two fresh rolls and a saucer of strawberry jam , grabbing a plate from the neat stand at the end of the line to put them on, and wove around the other champions getting breakfast to secure a light lettuce salad sprinkled liberally with sweet red peppers. With a gentle nudge, she snuck around Volibear, who was monopolizing the meat table, and chopped off a few slices of tuna with the knife on the board beside it to go on top of her salad. Then she made a break for the tables, muttering as she realized the size of the crowd around the utensils.
"If I may assist you, my Duchess," Lee Sin murmured, and she flinched when she noticed him standing in Volibear's shadow, holding a fork in one hand and a knife in the other. He flitted to her side and placed them both gently on her plate.
"Lee," she said softly. He touched her shoulder lightly and wove through the morning crowd to a table in the light of one of the great windows looking out on the Institute's gradens.
She followed silently, smoothing away the distress on her face. Lee Sin pulled out a chair for her and she thanked him graciously and sat in it in a smooth, elegant movement.
He sat across from her, leaning on the table with his elbows and seemingly regarding her.
Karma raised an eyebrow and cut of her rolls in half.
"I know you don't like to show weakness, my Duchess," he said quietly.
Her gaze sharpened slightly and she took knife and jam to the bread with vigor.
"I think we are friends, my Duchess, and if you were troubled by the judgment of Irelia and the Elders, you should have spoken to her about it. We were only worried about your health," he continued, "and wanted you to have a chance to relax and enjoy the peace you have brought us."
"Do you think I am incapable of assessing risk to myself?" Karma asked coldly, taking a precise bite of her roll with a snap of her teeth.
"Of course not, my Duchess," Lee Sin said, bowing his head respectfully. "But we care about you."
Karma sighed quietly before gathering some of her salad up with her fork and placing it in her mouth. Karma chewed silently for a moment, evaluating the shifts in her chakra, then swallowed.
"I apologize for my harshness with you, my friend," she said quietly. "I should not have linked our spirits, even in jest. I hope you will keep this revelation to yourself and allow me to deal with it myself."
"Of course, my Duchess," he said instantly, his scarred face creasing in a brilliant smile.
"And I will not tell dear Father Hisoka that his student has a very deeply buried desire for a wife," she finished, a slightly wicked light glinting in her eyes.
A red flush crept up the monk's neck for a moment before he busied himself with his own dish of rice and red beans.
"I am certain my Duchess is all the female companionship a monk could desire," Lee Sin muttered accusingly.
Karma smiled serenely and finished off her roll.
She had returned to her room and changed into a light orange sun dress for the day when frenzied knocking interrupted her as she was brushing out her short red hair. Karma set aside her metal bands and rose, smoothing down her dress and gathering her composure. She opened the door to see a young man, his eyes wild.
"Are you quite well?" she asked, drawing her will in around herself in case this turned out to be one of her more ardent fans.
"D-duchess!" the boy stammered. "Irelia needs your help!"
"Irelia?" she asked, her eyes flashing. With a sharp mental command her Mantle of Decorum flew from her dresser to hover behind her head.
"S-she's at the Pit of Pallas," he continued. "Varus has kidnapped at least a dozen children of Noxian and Ionian couples. He's got them trapped in th-that horrible place and Irelia can't get in. She needs you, Duchess."
"I am on my way," Karma said, reaching down to grasp his hands firmly. "Do not fear, child. He cannot keep them away from me."
Green fire blazed up around her body and her light dress was gone. In its place was her sturdy overcoat of black and white, with dark grey leggings and tunic beneath it and silver clasps with gems the color of Ionian cherry blossoms. The metal bands floated over from where she'd left them and settled into her hair.
"I am ready," she said, the red teardrops beneath her eyes beginning to glow with inner light, and she followed after the boy into the hallway, shutting the door firmly behind her.