Hey everyone.

First off, let me start by apologizing for my long delay of hiatus. University is really picking up the pressure and I simply didn't have enough energy for writing. I tried to squeeze in as much as I could. But I didn't have much motivation to write this since I was being drained so much.

I've gone through a lot in my life in the recent months. Mostly I realized how much I loved drowning myself in alcohol and apathy. I also saved a couple of lives. I learned to live through more emotional pain than a normal person should never have to face. Depression hits like a freight truck and Schizophrenia loves to be the kick-while-you're-down. Also, a lot of financial issues. The term "Starving artist" has never been clearer. I've had a row with my parents and decided not to accept anything from them anymore, which has left me in quite the dirt. But hey, I'll live.

Anyways, enough yapping. Enjoy the chapter. Sorry it's short, but I wanted to give you guys an update asap.

~ Wings.

In Her Icy Embrace

Chapter 17

The void didn't make sense, which was to be expected from a place like the void. Alan walked in a straight line yet he was coming back in a circle to where he started from over and over again. He turned around and began walking the other way and this time he didn't come back to that location. The world was twisted, the ground jagged and haphazardly raised and lowered in places, jutting out as mile high shards of obsidian or diving in to bottomless chasm.

He walked and walked until he came onto what looked like staircases leading down. He began walking down the staircase. He could only see 8 steps ahead, afterwhich it was simply blurred out to invisibility. Each step he took made another visible. He kept walking down and down and down, yet the stairs didn't seem to end. After maybe 3 more minutes of walking, Alan stopped and looked behind. He saw that he had climbed down maybe 3 steps, because 3 steps away was the opening which led into the staircase. Alan frowned, turning around and climbing back up to see that he was not where he had come from. Instead, he was in a very large room. The cavernous room looked to be the interior of some kind of temple. It was built with dark blue stones similar to dark ice, and lit up by purple flames on the torches that were placed periodically on the walls and pillars. It was a long room, with perhaps 50 ft infront of him, at the end of which he could see a door. Alan looked back to see a wall behind him, and no opening through which he had come from.

He shook his head and stepped forward. As soon as he did, a resounding thump came from his heart, which seemed to travel all over his body and completely freeze him. Everything around him suddenly darkened. Everything turned black and once again, Alan felt as if he was floating. And then, a flash of purple light filled his vision. A huge purple eye opened up infront of him, a horrendous black pupil fixating itself on him as it narrowed.

"Alan Frost." A deep, resounding voice echoed through him, vibrating through his bones. "You are a fool to have come here." The voice said again.

"Vel'koz." Alan said with anger and hatred boiling beneath his voice. His fists clenched as he stared up at the eye that was much, much bigger than he was. It felt like he was in space and was staring up at a planet.

"You will die in the Void, Alan Frost." The voice said again.

"I cannot die, Watcher." Alan retorted, saying the last word like a venomous insult. "Not anymore."

"You think the Champion's bond will protect you here?" Vel'koz said, his deep voice holding the smallest amounts of mocking. And then, a kind of weird noise that sounded like… laughing. "Alan Frost, you know nothing." Vel'koz said as his eye suddenly widened and the purple light filled everything around Alan. For a moment, his weightlessness persisted in the purple illumination. And then, it faded and he was back on his feet, back in the room he had entered.

"Damn, these visions are getting worse and worse…" Alan said as he ran his hand up through his white hair. Alan took another look around to make sure he was in the same place before beginning to walk forward. However, he had not gone 3 steps before he heard something… A strange kind of clicking noise.

Clackklikklikklik… Zzrrr….

The noise that followed occasionally was similar to something akin to a mixture of a hiss and a growl. It sounded… wrong. Alan looked around, looking at the shadows behind the pillars that could've hit anything. He saw a distortion in the air as it moved through the shadow, but he had been scanning the area and when his eyes shot back to the location, it was still again.

He was not alone.

Alan turned around as the air shimmered behind him. The air suddenly glowed purple and red as a bug-like creature appeared out of thin air, his skin dimming from the glow as his cloak deactivated.

"You sssseem ssssstrong." The creature said, his voice high pitched and like a snake's. He looked unlike anything Alan had ever seen, as tall as him even though it was crouched in a predatory way. It was purple in color and like a large bug, it was covered in an exoskeleton. It had great, veined transparent wings and a wicked visage, with a lipless mouth exposed great fangs in an eerie, permanent grin. Its eyes glowed green.

Without warning, the creature jumped at him, with blinding speed. Alan instantly moved as a pair of great scythes, glowing and humming with energy, slashed down into the ground where he had been standing at. Electricity… No, plasma. Plasma arcs of pure energy snapped outwards from the impact, the energy coating the claws. The creature was fast, wrenching his claws out and swiping sideways at Alan. Alan brought Frig Ascutis up to take the hit. The purple energy coating the claws seemed to explode when it impacted with his sword.

Alan skidded backwards on the floor, as his sword vibrated in his grip, giving off a hissing sound. Alan was about to ready himself for another assault but he frowned when he saw the creature tilting it's head, regarding him curiously.

"You wield a weapon... It gives off the energy of Sssseeker... Yet it isn't part of the Ssssseeker's raiment." The creature said as Alan took a step forward, his hand tightening on the handle of his sword.

"What do you know of the Seeker's raiment?" he asked as the void beast clicked his tongue, before making a series of violent wheezing sounds. It took Alan a few seconds to realize that that was actually a laugh and not a cough.

"I sssee. You are not some wanderer lost in our domain now are you?" He said as Alan stayed still for a second more before shaking his head. "Ah... Interessssssssting..." It said, seeming to contemplate him. And then it shook its head. "Well then... Guesssss I will not be eating you after all." It said.

"What do you mean?" He said, narrowing his eyes, expecting deception.

The beast seemed to grin at him, although because it had no lips, it was difficult to tell if it wasn't just staring at him. "Oh mainly because I am highly... curioussssss... to ssssee how this goessss." He said, cackling once more before he shimmered momentarily, disappearing completely from sight. Alan looked around, expecting another surprise assault. A minute passed. Two minutes passed. When Alan was sure he was not going to get attaked again, he finally allowed his guard to drop, though not completely, as he turned around and continued to walk towards his destination.

Pushing through the doors, he saw only blackness beyond. When he stepped through, the doors behind him suddenly shut on their own, plunging him into darkness. He raised Frig Ascutis, the sapphire glow from his dark ice blade giving him some form of illumination. But he realized he didn't need it, since at the end of another long hallway, was a large raised dais. And ontop, was a set of armor set up upon a throne, as if whoever wearing it had died while sitting on the thrown. The entire room, however, felt wrong. A sense of foreboding came upon him as Alan hesitated. His blade hummed in his hands, as if trying to tell him something. And then, Alan took the first step towards the throne.

The air seemed to explode around him. Pain suddenly covered every inch of his skin, glass shards ripping through flesh and bone, his very soul igniting into a fire hotter than the sun. Alan screamed, falling down to his knees, the black sand under him crunching as his hands followed, Alan doubling over in pain. More pain shot up his hands as Alan realized that the black sand coating the entirety of the floor in this room was not sand, rather, it was razor sharp obsidian shards. His hands were shredded up from their contact with it as Alan screamed again. Through his pain dulled mind, he realized only his hands hurt. The pain covering him seemed to be... only in his mind. Though he felt like he was burning, melting, being torn apart, his body was fine. He couldn't see anything hurting him. The pain in his hands, the actual pain, was sharper by contrast.

Still, Alan felt like vomitting from the pain he was in. He slowly stood up, taking another step forward.

He screamed again as the pain covering him seemed to double. It felt like he was being turned inside out, like his very essence was being unraveled thread by thread. Steeling himself and gritting his teeth, Alan decided he would try to storm through it. He ran forward.

That was the worst decision he had ever made.

Three steps in, his legs gave way as he screamed in pain again, crashing into the black glass, feeling the right side of his face being cut and sliced by the sand as he fell. His armor was already scratched up by the glass, and he could feel the shards slowly wearing through the steel and sole of his armored boots. But the pain was good, in a way. The pure agony of actually cutting himself up was breaking through the immobilizing shrod of fake pain that seemed to weigh him down. He pushed himself up, shouting in both anger and pain as his palms dug into the sharp shards, until he got to his feet. The blanket of pain began to cover him once more, but Alan closed his hands into fists, hissing in pain as he dug the shards embedded into his hands deeper. Clarity came to him along with the shooting pain as Alan began to trudge forward.

He was still far away from the dai when he felt the shards poking through his shoes and cutting his feet. Soon, he began leaving bloody footprints in his wake. He was a modest distance away when droplets of rain began falling around him. But it wasn't just rain, no. He realized that when a drop landed on his gauntlet. The drop sizzled as it burned through the silver and platinum armor like it was nothing, burning into his arm beneath and turning his skin red where it landed.

Still, he continued walking. He was half blinded, his right eye closed in pain. Keeping it open hurt the cut up right side of his face, and the blood pouring from the wounds kept blinding him. Wiping it away hurt him more every time so he simply kept it closed.

He was getting closer to the Dais when he suddenly fell to his knees and began coughing violently. Three coughs in, blood erupted from his mouth, spewing onto the black obsidian sand, which seemed to greedily absorb it. Alan grimly stood back up as he didn't even bother to wipe the blood on his mouth.

So this was the void. Where the ground was razor sharp, the air was toxic and the sky rained fire. He was loving it so far, maybe he'd even take a vacation here once he was done with the whole Watcher business.

Alan realized he might be going insane from the amount of pain he was enduring, because of how sarcastic thoughts were in his head. Or perhaps it was a sign he was still sane, as he held onto that part of his personality.

After perhaps an eternity, Alan finally reached the steps. The pain suddenly stopped... Or rather, the blanket of fake pain stopped. It was like stepping out of water. He was still, however, in agony, as his broken, torn up body slowly climbed the steps. He realized his entire armor, once a proud white and light blue coloration, had been coated completely in red, riddled with holes burnt by the acid rain, covered in scratches, with some of them cutting right through the armor. He climbed up to the top of dais and approached the throne. The Seeker's raiment sat there, mocking him as he reached out to it.

And then, he was suddenly back in the temple. Raziel blinked, surprised to see him as Alan fell to his knees, gasping in the cold, fresh air.

"What happened?" Raziel said, looking Alan up and down. "Did you find it?"

"I... Don't know..." Alan said, gasping as pain wracked his body, although it was slowly numbing down. As if being back in the real world caused his Champion's bond to start working again, the pain slowly disappeared, although Alan could still feel his wounds, still feel the blood slowly seeping out, still feel the pieces of obsidian shrapnel embedded deep in his flesh. "I found... a set of armor upon a raised platform, seated upon a throne... I touched it and here I am."

Silence.

Alan raised his one open eye to look at Raziel, who was looking at Alan, curiousity and awe in his eyes. "Did I do it?" Alan asked.

"You... did something... And it is enough. I believe it shall grant you the protection you need to face Vel'koz." Raziel said as he turned around. "You were gone for a few hours. I take it you wish to return to your Queen as soon as possible?" Raziel asked.

"Yes." Alan said, feeling no more pain as he opened his right eye tentatively.

"Alright..." Raziel said as he raised his weapon, Frig Secerator. He held it in front of him as another portal, this one a whirling vortex of blue and white, opened in front of him.

"After this... I believe I've had enough of portals." Alan said in a low voice as Raziel did not do anything except simply look at Alan with that same expression he always seemed to have. "This will take us close to your camp. But we will still have to walk." He said as he stepped into the portal. Alan sighed and followed, feeling the portal shoot him through time and space.

...

Reinhart sat beside Analia's bed, staring at her. Analia was long asleep, her golden hair spread out around her head like a halo, her back turned towards Reinhart as she slept on her side. He had entered her tent a few minutes ago, only to find her asleep. He didn't know what to say or what to do.

All his life, after the loss of his family, his entire world had revolved around Lissandra. Serving her. Protecting her. Being her sword and shield. And now... Analia had come into his life and everything had turned upside down. Gods, she was pregnant with his child... No, not his. Theirs.

Reinhart didn't have any idea of what to do. How to be a father, how to be a husband. Nothing. He knew only about warfare, training and the arts of the sword and shield. The thought of settling down with a family never crossed his mind. But now that it had, he couldn't help but feel a certain kind of longing for it.

"I'm sorry."

Her voice roused him out of his thoughts as he perked up. She was still lying on her side with her back to him, but she had definitely spoken. "I over reacted, I know... You didn't deserve that kind of response from me. I'm sorry." Analia said as she seemed to curl in on herself. "I'm just... scared. I don't have any idea about this... I've never thought about this before so I'm just... I don't know, I reacted badly to you... I'm sorry..." Her voice cracked up near the end as tears feel from her eyes, unseen by Reinhart, although he could realize that she was crying.

"Analia..." He said gently as Analia curled up further, hugging herself as she wrapped her arms around herself, and then pulling her knees up. "You must... hate me now... for that... For putting you in t-this situation... And then... screaming at you... I don't blame you... I'm such a horrible.. person..." She said, inbetween the harsh sobs that wracked her body. Through her crying, however, Analia felt the bed move as a weight seemed to settle behind her. Before she could react, she felt strong arms come around her waist and pull her into a hard wall of muscle.

"I don't hate you Analia..." He whispered. "I could never hate you."

Analia simply nodded as her crying started up again with more fervor. Reinhart simply held her close through the night until her sobs dimmed down and she fell asleep. At some point in the night, he closed his eyes to rest and he too fell into the blissful abyss of slumber. Together, the two slept, held together like they were made to fit.

By the way guys, I finished the sequel to my Zed x Akali story. Those two stories are definitely the best stories I've ever written, even better than Darkness Rising or this one. I don't care if you ship Akali with Shen or Zed with Syndra, I ask- No, I URGE you to please go and read them. Read them like a story if you want instead of a fanfiction, so you don't need to mess up with your OTPs if you don't want to. Replace the character names in your head, I don't care. Just read them. Trust me, you will like them. Just in my regular fashion, the startings are sloppy but the endings are masterful. I'm so proud of those two stories, it's stupid how I feel about them.

But yeah, that's all. Please take some time to leave a review, guys, it helps a lot for motivation as well as to better the story. As always, you don't need an account to review for my stories. So feel free.

Also, I take commissions. Either for art or story writing, if you want me to do something for you, I'll do it for cheap ^^
No dear readers, I'm not selling out. I'm not saying "pay or no story fgts". I'll still keep writing whatever I feel like, but I'm just trying to make a living, y'know? :P

I'm not dead, and neither is this story. So don't leave me out for the cold winter, aye?

~ Wings