And Light be the Path to Home

by Aloice

Large character cast (a few OC), main ship Ezreal/Lux. A very unlikely love story between two people that never wanted to trust each other, a very complicated epic that explores the relationship between individual, country, humanity and faith, and a very dedicated chronicle of Valoran that seeks to capture everyone on the brink of the greatest crisis of their time.

7. Ignite

A/N

vOceanic's wheel, the Soulweavers of Dragonfable, Madoka Magica, Homestuck, Final Fantasy X, Sailor Moon, Digimon, Two Steps From Hell, Jay Chou, Toast (askfrostedezreal) from Tumblr, the real life cities of Europe and Philadelphia, and my very own Aria and Kiah. This is not a League fic anymore. This is a fic of everything, my soulsearching journey in the second half of summer 2014.

On the content itself: I PROMISE THIS IS GOING TO BE THE LAST EXTREMELY DEPRESSING CHAPTER FOR QUITE A WHILE. Geez. You might not believe this, but even I cannot handle more than 40 pages of straight up angst (OH A SECOND PROMISE – I'M NOT GOING TO BE WRITING ANOTHER 20K+ CHAPTER ANYTIME SOON. GOD WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THIS CHAPTER AND WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME. ALOICE OUT.)

Be careful about actually reading this chapter, because it's like 23k words all by itself, I'm not even kidding. Look out for references to other fandoms as well as references to parts of this fic itself (especially chapter 6 due to POV retelling) because jfc they are everywhere (looking at you, Annie, in particular. Remember when I said I'll ban you from reading forever if you can't spot the vOceanic references? Yeah. I'm serious.)

And one last thing – this chapter is supposed to be a love story. Yes, you heard me right. I am the worst love story writer NA, but after around 50k words, we're finally here.

I love you.

Link to Shinaa's comic (msg me if you can't access it): private/108059570832/tumblr_ni5nr9ZGv41u488oy on jayceofpiltover on tumblr

---

"You know, Ezreal, I wouldn't be surprised if you're actually some kind of god. You've got the looks, the knowledge, and the passion. If I sacrifice a chunk of uranium on your altar, could you get me out of this goddamned lobby room?"

-Jayce of Piltover (24), at A Journey Through Time: A Lecture Series on the Gods of Freljord

"And finally. There will be a lady, a goddess of the sun. She will be more beautiful than the moon and stars, her wings ethereal like filaments of the nebulae. She will burn bright enough to annihilate even diamonds, and oh, she will stand between the dead and the living, and bring warmth and love back to this world. She glows – she'll banish the shadows – Aria, I'm so glad, so, so glad, that you'll be able to see her…"

-Kiah of Shurima (36), dying, as he speaks to his wife Aria about his final vision

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."

-Ezreal of Piltover (20), reciting a poem to his uncle Lyte, edge of Howling Abyss, Freljord

"My heart is not a kaleidoscope. It is a sun, radiant, warm and enduring."

-Lux Crownguard (19), kneeling before King Jarvan III, Hall of Mirrors, Demacia

ASTRIFEROUS

[adjective]

bearing stars; made of stars.

---

The Great Library v.2, Shurima, seven years ago

Amumu creeps closer to Ezreal's bed, his expression blank but kind. The human boy flinches and shrinks back under the covers, his eyes wide with fear and guilt.

"Don't act like that, Ezreal. I'm not here to yell at you." A glance up at a scroll hanging by the bed. A relieved smile. "Doing better, I see."

"Nasus was right, though. You have all the right to yell at me." Amumu isn't like the other mummies the Piltoverian has encountered – for one, the yordle is conscious and benign, and for another, he smells like clean linen and an eternity of sadness, not indulgence and decomposed resin. Although Amumu couldn't have been more than Ezreal's age when he died, the yordle is far stronger than the Piltoverian, stronger than perhaps even Jayce or Darius – he had carried the unconscious Ezreal to the library through fifty miles of Shuriman sandstorms, a feat unheard of even by the Curator of the Sands himself.

"You're young. Be glad that you made it. I wasn't sure you were going to be okay when you started mumbling about Katarina's dagger designs." Although the mummy seemed to want to laugh, two immense drops of tears fell onto the bed sheets. "I trust that you're smart enough to learn your lesson."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I – " He can't help but hug his knees; the fetal position allows him to pretend, for just one second, that some part of him isn't falling apart. I need this. Need to feel whole, and safe, and alive. Need that sensation of one part of me still being able to touch another. A hint of tears has entered his voice, and although the Ezreal of a week ago would never have allowed this kind of humiliation, the Ezreal of today is too defeated to care. "I – I was an idiot. What kind of explorer would walk into the Shurima desert without any detailed research on the oases of the region?"

"You are young," Amumu replies carefully. "Talented, and inexperienced –"

"I was stupid." He knows it's true, and it stings. He has never felt or been called stupid his entire life – has always been the prodigy, the pride of Piltover, the expert in all things history and nature and anything he puts his mind to, but he has truly failed this time, and two Shurimans he has immense respect for are here to witness it. I should have died, a part of him thinks despite himself. That would have been a great punishment.

You wouldn't be this crushed if you weren't an arrogant, privileged little shit, another part of him lashes out mercilessly. The boy trembles, and tries to hide from himself by curling up further into a ball, to no effect. Just the fact that you're so depressed is fucking pathetic.

"You lived," Amumu says evenly. If he has seen tears in the explorer's eyes, he has chosen to ignore them. "You can grow wiser with age – in this life, at least."

"Why me?" The words leave Ezreal's mouth before he has had the time to think them over. "Why not people like the first Solari, the first modern Shurimans, even Kassadin? I get to just get out of this unscathed – if I were past me, I wouldn't even remember – and so many good, worthy people just. So many admirable people have paid their lives for mistakes so much more minor than this. I'm a disgrace to my profession – I've brought shame upon all explorers and pioneers."

"No one has to know this. Your reputation in Piltover and the rest of Valoran is not going to be affected." The yordle looks positively disturbed. He tries to reach out to the boy, but only sees a violent head shake.

"– God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I – I know you and Nasus are kind enough to keep it a secret, but that's not what I'm upset about. I don't care if this will utterly destroy my reputation. I deserve it, if it does. I just – I'm flabbergasted at myself. Coming close to death has opened my eyes to a lot of things. I can't believe how much of an idiot I was and am – announced to all of Bandle City just over a month ago that I'm the best explorer of this century, wow – and – and – " He chokes on his words as Amumu opens the closet for the tissue box. By all the things that are holy, this is beyond pitiful.

"And?" Tissues in the yordle's hands, white as swan down. Ezreal hesitates, then bites down on his lips and takes them.

"This world. It feels like I just woke up from a dream. Jolted awake when I fell from the sky and crashed onto hard, real sands." Stop saying that. You were never an angel. You can't fall when you've never had wings. No god would have anointed you as their champion.

Sympathy glimmers in the void of Amumu's eyes. The mummy out of everyone on Valoran would know how it feels to wake up alone from a dream. "What kind of dream was it?"

"A happy dream. A dream in which the world is a beautiful place." This time, Ezreal meets Amumu's gaze squarely, his shivery breaths too quick in his own throat. I was a terrible person, but a dreamer and an idealist, all the same. "A dream in which the world is not fragile. A world in which everyone could be me, with my friends, my achievements, my luck, and all the things I've seen." The world that the people of Valoran deserve. I had thought we had it – or were very close to having it – but now I know it had never been more than a ghostly mirage. "A world in which everything always turns out all right in the end, and nobody ever dies."

Silence. The boy sniffles. The yordle sighs.

"Everybody dies, Ezreal."

"I know. I – trust me, I know. I just – I always only saw the sun. I was enticed by glory and splendor, and I wanted a piece of everything within my reach. Even at those Piltoverian funerals above the meadow, I was always more into the prose of the eulogies than the loss of life. I thought – I thought every death was worth a story. I loved reading about the fall of heroes and the final words of defeated warlords, but I never… I never thought about the pain, the fear, the despair at sensing the closeness of death." The yordle reaches out again, solemn and sincere; the boy takes it this time, and the two pull each other in for a close hug, the explorer clinging onto a wanderer who is yet to understand his own death millennia ago. "We don't own Runeterra. It owns us. Pain – loneliness – death – the world could rain those down upon us in any instant, and we're defenseless against it. That pain… I've never had to fall, Amumu. I've always been in my dream world, adored and cared for, creating world records and not even breaking a sweat - so nothing prepared me for the moment when I watched the sun disappear beneath the sky and finally accepted that I was never going to see it rise again." The despair. The dizziness. The moment when I finally stopped screaming at the sky and felt my brain start to crack. Jayce's head - and only his head – floating above the sand dune like a mirage, and me trying to reach for it despite vaguely realizing how insane it all was. "That primal sense of fear - the real fear - it hit harder than anything I could ever have imagined. I lost my knowledge, my magic, my cool, everything. I wasn't myself, but that was as me as it could possibly be, clinging onto my last breaths, struggling to make them last."

"Dehydration is one of the worst ways to die, Ezreal. You do know most people have more peaceful – tolerable – deaths, right?"

"That's true, but it still showed me suffering, and just how much I don't understand the suffering in this world." He hisses through clenched teeth, the memories still dancing in his brain like a pair of winged venomous snakes. "It exposed me for what I really am, an over-confident privileged lucky Piltover kid who doesn't really know anything about the world. I would be dead if you didn't find me. I… I thought I knew Runeterra and its people, but how could I, when I didn't even know the fear I was capable of feeling? How could I, when I've never felt - and will probably never feel - all the emotions that so many people go through? I'll never look at Shurima the same. The Noxian beggars, the Demacian knights. Nothing is ever going to be the same. And me…"

Bloodshot sky blue eyes meet ancient, empty ones. Neither smile.

"I don't know my place in this world anymore. I - I wanted to see, to explore, to know. But I don't feel like I'm ever going to. Hell, I don't even feel like I deserve to. Maybe I should just retire and become a monk in Ionia. They say they know the secrets to enlightenment."

"Would that help all the people who are dying unfortunate deaths?" Amumu inquires, a strange light twinkling in his eyes.

"…No." Ezreal closes his eyes, and exhales deeply, the passion going out of his voice. "Fuck."

"Running away is never the answer," the yordle murmurs, as more teardrops make their way onto the explorer's bed. "The world is mysterious and cruel, yes, but it has always been that way. Remember your history. People have always died horrible deaths, but we have thrived over time and built magnificent civilizations. I only remember glimmers of my past life, but I've been blessed enough to be able to meet people like you, Nasus and Annie, and I still have faith that I'll find out about my past someday."

"You've walked so far," Ezreal's voice is nearly inaudible. "I'd be a liar if I say I don't have an immense amount of respect for that."

"I do that for hope," Amumu shrugs as a small piece of bandage falls off from his shoulder. "Maybe I was a thief. Maybe I was a priest. Maybe I'm the gods' chosen, like Leona and Diana. But I'll find out. Be brave, and don't feel guilty. You can't decide your life any more than I can mine, but we can decide what we want to do with the lives we have. Try asking Nasus! He has had quite a life. He says he might want to take you to visit a friend – a seer in one of the villages."

"A seer, huh? I've heard Malzahar is also originally from Shurima. The desert sure loves its stargazing eyes."

"Nasus says you'll like him. The guy – he said he was what? Eccentric, powerful, and really idealistic. Said he reminds him of you. Oh, he also said you're both idiots." Besides the yordle, the explorer lets out a halfhearted groan. "Now, cheer up. Give me a smile. You're going to see a great sunrise tomorrow, and great people the day after."

"Do you think I can eventually become a good explorer? A good naturalist or historian?" Ezreal begs. Oh, to think of how confidence can evaporate overnight. These are usually the kinds of questions Piltoverian kids would line up to ask me.

"Do you think I can stop crying?" Amumu replies, wiping away the last tearstains from the boy's face. "You're a knowledgeable archaeologist with a conscience. I've started to smile. There's hope for the two of us yet."

That actually cracks a smile from the human. "Yeah – yeah. You're right. I can always hope. I think I can do that. I'll become great at that, just you watch."

"Really. Don't get down on yourself." Amumu's eyes seem to be staring past the boy and into a world that has long been forgotten. "You're a child of light, and that is fine. Who wouldn't want to have been so dazzled by light that they never knew what darkness looked like? Just show it to us. Show us your light. Make everyone around you want to hope – and hope as gorgeously as you do."

---

Howling Abyss, Freljord, one year ago

He has always had a lot of reservations about Lyte.

It started many, many years ago, when he was a little boy barely able to walk. Back then, the road from the apartment to the city gates wasn't yet paved, and he would often fall several times on the way to those shiny doors. His body memorized every dent on the road with blood and tears; it was always an adventure, though, a difficult challenge with the promise of a reward he couldn't resist.

Lyte was cool, period.

An explorer who knew all the folktales and had a hearty laugh. The only person in town who shared his exact shade of sky blue eyes. Lyte always had those baskets he called 'reward baskets': small Avarosan pendants with swirly symbols, tiny ragged fragments of true ice, letters from the headstrong young heiress Sejuani and papers written by the most famous Freljordian scholars and priests. Hell, even his air was cool. Not everyone could always smell like a faraway foreign land.

He just wished Lyte had the time to be with him, too.

After his parents' deaths – Ezreal only has a few pictures of them, had to try to search for hints of their lives and deaths during long, dreary nights in the libraries – Lyte had enrolled him in the Academy, insisting that the boy start going to boarding school at the age of four. Janitors and maids had taught the boy how to tie his shoes and brush his hair; whenever Ezreal was sick, the only family visitors he ever had were the imagined ghosts of his parents and grandparents. Lyte had things to dig. Lyte had conferences to attend. Lyte had to stay behind to fix his fucking robot.

And Ezreal was lonely.

Small colorful souvenirs did inspire in him a desire to explore, but they never inspired security and love.

When I grow up, I'll be a different kind of explorer, he had told himself stubbornly on his eighth birthday, waiting futilely by the gates for Lyte to come home and celebrate the occasion with him. Caitlyn had had to walk him home at midnight, grimacing at the little boy's tears. I won't just focus on the artifacts, the timelines, and the geography; I want to celebrate our passions and humanity. I want to find out everything in history that had made children cry. I want to write stories about the times when warring tribes came together for one shared dream. Lyte's stuff leaves me curious, but cold; I want exclamations when people flip through my pages, laughter and tears in tow.

He's sitting at the edge of the Howling Abyss, watching pieces of the bridge break off and disappear into oblivion with a nonchalant face. Lyte shifted his weight in his stationary chair, uneasy.

"Ez, you'd probably want to find somewhere safer to sit."

"I'll be fine. I can arcane shift."

"We don't know what's actually down there."

"Isn't that what we want, though? More of the unknown?" He doesn't try to conceal the bitterness and sarcasm in his voice. "You taught me to prize uncharted lands. You were the one who invented the phrase 'who needs a map'."

Lyte sighs heavily. "Are you okay, Ezreal? I'm really sorry they had to open a new arena here and force you to get summoned even more often than usual. If you want anything – "

A poro runs onto his lap. In the bleak world of white and grey, its small, rounded figure is strangely warm and affectionate. I want to go home. I'm an explorer, but a home is all that I've ever wanted. It doesn't make sense, but I ache for it, and ache for everything that has made it impossible. "No, it's okay. Sorry about what I just said. That wasn't nice."

"I'm sorry, Ezreal," Lyte's voice floats to him behind the snow, soft and genuine. "I wasn't a good guardian to you."

"It's okay. You had faith that I would be alright on my own, and I think I was." And Jayce. Cait. The Piltoverians. They took good care of me. And a part of me is actually glad there's an arena here now, so I can steal a glance at you every now and then. You are getting old. I don't want you to die here. "I'll get you some parts for Geeves the next time I go home."

"Thank you so much." He wonders if the old man is also having a sad moment. I've never asked, but I've heard that he felt responsible for my father's death in an accident. Maybe that's why he left, came all the way over here on his own. Not because of curiosity – but because of guilt and grief. Who would have thought that stubbornness and regret runs in my family just as easily as wanderlust and magical talent?

"Could you point me in the general direction of the Aurora statue? I've wanted to see that for a while."

---

The Aurora.

The Aurora's statue – her temple (grave?) – lies far out on the edge of the Freljord, on a small hill a good twenty miles outside of the nearest Avarosan settlement. It's getting late when he pulls the hood over his head and braces himself for the cold; he has drunk an entire bowl of hot soup before stepping out into the snow, but the heat from food can only last for five or ten minutes, and after that, his only solace will come from the magic running in his veins.

Even now scholarship debates whether or not she was a goddess, he thinks, watching his breath turn into smoke in the silent air. But at the end of it, does it even matter?

He is alone. Ashe and Tryndamere had sent their regards earlier, and all around him there is only a pure white world, his boots leaving a deep imprint trail on the field. Fire burns in him, despite his slender frame; a determination to pay homage sustains him even when the cold strips the world bare of foliage and human habitation, and he thrives, picking up speed.

She'd approve of this, as a fighter. A difficult road, a journey seemingly without a destination, with the only company being your faith that you will not fall off the edge of the world.

But; all the better. The cold bites onto the small exposed parts of his skin, making his eyes smart and his face tingle; he breathes in and out evenly, crossing his gloved fingers to mark a prayer for the sky. A part of me is glad that it will be just between the two of us, goddess and believer.

The Aurora is a strange figure, not a part of any pantheon, more an extraordinary woman than a descendant of heaven. She was said to have lived millennia ago, back when the skies were dark and the people of Freljord were first becoming the Iceborn. She walked among them, a daughter of the tribes, strong and beautiful; she became Iceborn together with the three sisters of the tribes, but resisted the Watchers more than any of the Queens, and made it her goal in life to preserve the humanity of her people. When the long night fell and the harsh blizzards drained all warmth from the Iceborn, she lit the hearth fires to help her people get back up onto their feet; when the Watchers whispered in the dark that no one cared about the Freljord and everyone would die without love and the promise of a future, she brought the Aurora into the world, fierce and unfaltering clouds of light that whispered dreams of spring even when all mortal voices had fallen silent.

And that's a goddess to me. The lone light at the end of the world, courage that stands its ground and refuses, against all odds, to give out.

Some say that the Aurora died on the Howling Abyss on that fateful day, holding hands with her Iceborn brothers and sisters to the very end; others say that she became the aurora, or she ascended into the sky, never to return. One thing remains true, no matter what: the Freljordians created a statue of her, and pilgrims have been visiting the site ever since, their prayers and wishes sustaining an eternal fire under a shining, multicolored sky.

"It sure is beautiful tonight," he murmurs, gazing up. Numerous bands of ice blue and leaf green encircle and embrace each other affectionately, the light luminous and pensive on the pitch-black backdrop. Compared to the northern lights, the Avarosan village is only a small dot of radiance on the edge of his vision, dim but cozy like a firefly.

Ezreal, Lyte had said many, many years ago. Was it the night of his sixth birthday? They were standing on the balcony of the Piltover Progress Hotel, marveling at the first aurora to grace the city in almost a century. You should come with me to the Freljord.

Why? Do they have something like this every night?

They do, Lyte had patted his head then, smiling benevolently like a grandfather. And your eyes are just like the most brilliant cerulean flares. Absolutely breathtaking in the dead of winter.

The Ezreal of the present lets out a hearty nostalgic chuckle, although he subconsciously tilts his head for the tiniest of head shakes. No, no. I'm just human. Even my most breathtaking features cannot possibly match the creation of a goddess – or, as they say it in Piltover, the magnificent wonder that is this world. Being human defines me…

An uneasiness builds in his stomach, uneasiness in layers, uneasiness at the fact that he is uneasy at all.

…Or does it?

He shakes his head again, more vigorously this time. I'm not a god. I wish I am one – wish I can just turn this land into a forest with a wave of my hand, or drink to my heart's content high above the pyrocumulus clouds – but I'm just human. I have to be.

The sense of relief nearly drowns him as he skids to a halt before the statue. No more insane thoughts.

According to legend, the Aurora was a stunning woman with long flowing golden hair and eyes as bright blue as her celestial azure streaks; here she stands proud and loving in obsidian, a patroness of the sheerest lights cast out of the rock of raw flames. She's clad in an ancient Iceborn style dress, a crystal brooch over her heart, the fabric adorned with both her characteristic swirls and tiny blossoming snowflakes; one hand is held softly over her heart and another is uplifted, the pose of yearning to unite with her essence in the sky. Her eyes are wistful but serene, looking out into the snow and the lands of the Freljord that now belong to the descendants of her brothers and sisters; ice rimmed the tips of her thin angelic wings, giving the whole statue an otherworldly – divine? – aura.

She's always reminded me of someone. I can't recall exactly who it is, though. Must be one of Ashe's Avarosan maidens…

The fire at her feet feels like a candle; it possesses that poetic air, that association with wishes and prayers in a moment of vulnerability. He gets down to his knees to stare into it on eye level, shivers running down the length of his spine.

Icy wings. Eternal flames. A night with a promise. Thank you, goddess, for giving us all of these. You've been my favorite deity since I first laid eyes on your story two years ago, and by everything I've ever seen or read about, you are beautiful.

Everyone who appreciates a story knows the feeling: sometimes a random tale would just click. Everyone appreciates a good story like the creation of the Willow-Doves of Noxus or the downfall of the Kinkou Order, but for everyone there's a unique legend out there that just provides that extra tug on the heartstrings. He has studied more than a hundred gods; they are gods of Valoran, gods of the Void, gods who seduced each other and cried sin as well as gods who provided fire to mankind and helped them with their first harvest. He knows which gods are important to which peoples and why. Yet he still dotes on her, despite his numerous attempts to stay emotionally neutral towards the subjects of his studies.

She's just an unforgettable symbol of beauty and faith in a bleak land.

Despite himself – that part of him that trembles with excitement and holy fervor whenever he walks into a splendid church or the ruins of a place of worship – Piltover has taught him to not love gods religiously. The gods are given power by humanity. So instead he searches for deeper meanings, symbolism and mortal cravings behind immortal smiles. Gods from the angels and saints of Demacia have unraveled at his feet (order, nobility, a need to feel superior to their Noxian competitors, a wish to escape and fly in a severe and uncompromising land); the Aurora, of course, would be no exception.

In Freljord there are far more statues of the three sisters; in Ashe's Court alone there has to be more than a dozen casts of her famed ancestress Avarosa, and many families keep smaller statues of their princesses at home as an amulet of protection and good luck. The Aurora does not belong to any particular tribe; she is herself, apolitical and almost deceptively unimportant, content to just exist as an afterthought in many Freljordians' daily prayers. But the princesses live and die, and the Aurora is eternal. Food, shelter, community: the princesses provide those to their people – they are the ones who have always spoken out for the tribes' survival, even now bruising and bleeding on the Fields of Justice for that very same ancient purpose – however, as admired as they might be, survival in the end is mortal: beauty and faith, on the other hand, persist through death into the worlds beyond. We make gods of things we never want to lose, and she's the guardian of perseverance.

It's like that Ionian saying. No matter where a person is, no matter what age in history it is, anyone can find love and peace under a full autumn moon.

He carefully laid his right hand on the base of the statue, feeling the wear on the obsidian despite the magical protection. Magic flew from him into the eternal fire, keeping it alive for pilgrims for years to come. It's that belief that warmth and light are good. The conviction that we should always build a fire and wait for a new dawn instead of resigning ourselves to the cold embrace of the tundra. Trusting that even if it seems as though we have nothing to gain by gravitating towards the sun, it would always be worth it.

His heart is fluttering too fast in his chest. Oh, and that, too. She said that a warm pulse – being alive when all else might have already frozen solid – is the best thing in the entire world. What was that, on the third volume of the Freljordian chronicle? "Being warm and weak is always better than being invincible but cold. Those with light in their hearts will never die."

"Thank you, goddess," he says to himself, leaving a bouquet of Freljordian flowers behind the fire and the statue. I guess that's as close to my religion as it can get. It's how I stop myself from disintegrating under the weight of my guilt and bewilderment. The beauty, the stalwart belief in light in an age of darkness – it soothes me, reminds me why I find exploring and living so addictive. Everything is supposed to be carpe diem – it's been a while since Amumu and nearly dying, but I don't know how far I've actually come. "May your light continue to grace us for all the years to come."

A dreamy inner voice, the wide-eyed boy who just isn't quite Piltoverian: What if I can get up there, live in the sky with the Aurora? The bright northern lights would be my apartment curtains, and I can view all the constellations that have been recorded since Ancient Shurima. The North Pole star isn't the same now, and the Swan used to look like a Scorpion. How hard can it be? According to the Academy, we might all be made up of stardust.

An exasperated voice, snapping right back without hesitation: But then you'd be a god. I thought you said you'd hate being a god.

"I wish the voices in my head would shut up," he complains, stealing one last longing glance at the statue before walking away. "Especially the irrationally academic one. Just because it works for papers doesn't mean I actually want to apply mythology and etymology to my own life."

Gods are just forces of nature with free humane will. Humans are...? What? Aren't we a force of nature, already, with our wills, and our actions? In Piltover, with an application for a grant, you can make a new museum basically appear out of thin air. All around Valoran, you can just step away from any suffering you don't want to see or deal with, and leave people to die. Admit it, Ezreal. You are already half a god, but you are nowhere near responsible enough to be a true god. The world would be very unfortunate if you happen to become one.

"I'll feed you sleeping pills to shut you up," he mutters, trying not to swallow an entire mouthful of frigid air. His hands – even behind the gloves – are still slightly tingling from the warmth of the Aurora's fire. They glow golden now, warm rays wrapping around his fingers like lines of falling stars. "Please, Aurora, make it make sense. Just let me go home."

Wherever home is.

---

Shurima, the Present

He has seen this coming, kind of, somehow. Recurring bad dreams, nearly falling over on the way to the village, spending too much time together with Luxanna Crownguard – the song of his life has been off-tune for quite a while, and he's been bracing for impact, closing off his heart in the hope that when the storm hits, the damage will only be temporary.

I don't know why I thought – even for a second – that I wouldn't fail miserably.

It's in Aria and Kiah's yard that he falls apart, sprawled out haphazardly all over the dusty grounds, his tears soaking through the wilted purple and golden flower petals.

"This isn't fair," he shouts to the sky, lying on the ground panting, both too exhausted and too scared to get up and leave. "They tell me to pray to the gods, but how can I believe in any gods, if they allow these acts of unspeakable cruelty? Are you going to tell me that the gods have a plan, that a rift had opened up and they have to take human souls for stars?"

The horizons are devoid of all stars and clouds, the sandy yellow and bloody crimson smog continuous with the color palette of the village, now a pitiful hell overflowing with the dying and the dead. He has read tales of gods smiting and cursing a group of people – given lectures on them, even – but this is something different. You don't simply live history. You don't simply become hunted by the gods.

"Where is the Aurora, now? An Aurora for Shurima just like one for the Freljord, some kind of desert rainbow? Is she protecting me, keeping me here? Just leave me alone. There are worthier people out there." He has just run away from Janna and Aria – after talking to the boy pleading to become his grandfather's planet and his girlfriend wishing to become her soulmate's moon, seeing the ageless Janna heavily lined and convulsing in pain on Kiah's deathbed was just too much. "Don't take my friends. Don't take the innocent. What had they done? Don't we believe in gods because they empathize with humans? What is the justification for this? Tell me. TELL ME!"

A scream goes up into the air somewhere at the northern edge of the village. He bolts up, and then slowly collapses again, covering his face with his hands. The amulet on the gauntlet flickers, raining a ray of golden light into his eyes; he smashes his arm violently, and then shudders as large grains of sand cut through the fabric into his flesh, tainting the ground crimson with blood.

"Fuck off," he whispers desperately, wishing for the first time in his life that the amulet would just break, because although the stone is lovely and beyond useful – probably one of the things that defines him the most, at this point – he can't help but wish it can simply vanish off the face of the earth. It's just like me – untouched through all of this – still shining and breathing – they call me the inspirational one, a child of passion and love, but what is a child of love but unnatural and helpless in the center of a realm of death?

The amulet goes out. His mouth drops open before a weak smile appears on those lips and an attempt is made to regain his composure. It has never gone out. Never. Ever. It shouldn't. It draws its power from me, or other magical things in the vicinity…

"I guess I might end up dying too, good riddance." His hands are trembling hard and he can't stop crying. Focus. Focus. "I guess I'll have to go pray at the temple now, before I start showing any symptoms. Lux's going to be there. I'll give the plague to her, too. Let's all die in this fucking nightmare together."

The bitterness in his words only makes his injured arm burn harder.

Ten minutes later, Ezreal of Piltover has dragged himself out of Aria and Kiah's house, past Janna throwing up in the bedroom and Aria coughing commands behind the well. There's blood on the streets, dead villagers in the open surrounded by their own filth; the children are staring at him, half longing and half envious-hateful, but for once he doesn't look back, or even attempt to smile and say hello. The fresh cuts on his arm are dripping blood; his heart, though, is the real victim, long battered raw. I have to go. I have to do something. Regardless of whether I'm going to live or die, I have to stop running away.

Amumu's words, again. Clear and kind as a bell. Running away is never the answer.

Two arcane shifts out of the yard. Three arcane shifts through the temple. Sweat pours down his brows, the salt mixing with the anguish in the tears. Hope calls. Love sobs.

This isn't the fields, where I can kite.

Here I must fight.

---

Luxanna Crownguard isn't the same person he once knew.

Aquelis had blown off half her face: her crystal blue eyes are gone, her gracefully-curved nose is in tatters, and he had caught a faint glimpse of her skull bones earlier that morning. Aria had grimaced when she tended to the Demacian girl, asking repeatedly if the mage wanted anesthetics during the procedures; Lux had shaken her head, the head movement slow as a seventy-year-old in a Piltover hospice, and hidden herself under piles of blankets, refusing to acknowledge anyone.

I wonder how I would feel if I could never explore again, Ezreal had thought, risking a mortified glance at the girl as he bit into a piece of half-cooked falafel. I – no. I can't even imagine the possibility. Some musicians have been able to obtain a moderate amount of success with severe hearing loss, but people like Lux and me… these things are our lives.

It could only be worse in Demacia, too.

She wouldn't even have anywhere to go. Demacia would never let a disfigured champion represent them in the League.

Ezreal leans against one of the pillars in the temple, a good distance away from the two girls. A basket of desert flowers lies at his feet, the last living things of the village he could scavenge from Kiah and Aria's garden and call a divine sacrifice with some impunity. I hope this temple has actually been an immune island.

Leonor is braiding Lux's hair. She's a talented little girl, that one: the last time he visited, she had demanded that he teach her how to fold papyrus paper cranes, youth and ambition sparkling in lonely eyes. If I hang a chain of them above my bed as I sleep, surely I'll fly in my dreams. Lux's hair is still glittering like the dawn, the one redeeming feature of her face; she's clutching onto her baton, holding onto a mirage of a breathtaking rainbow in the air.

Ow.

"Can I live with you?" Lux breathed urgently, her eyes following Leonor's lithe movements although she couldn't possibly see the child. "I'm good at learning and adapting. I can learn how to cook, how to worship your gods… I'm sure I can find a way to earn my keep."

A clear voice. No coughing. No obvious physical pain. I hope she's like me, as cursed as I am. But ow, again. Is this you, with all the shackles and shields fallen away at last, breaking down freely just like all the rest of us? Why do none of us have a real home? You wouldn't want to stay here. Not when chances are the plague will just eat everyone from the inside out, and the only one left at the end will be me.

… Lux and Ezreal and the dead. He grimaces, stretching to hear the two figures better. I'm sure some sadist sitting in a council somewhere in Piltover would think that's a great story.

I've never been a fan of the afterlife stories. Death is just so impossibly final, while life is full of opportunities.

Leonor is washing away Lux's bloodstains. There's no haughtiness and pride in Lux's movements, not anymore; she's no longer trying to show off to anyone, and if anything, her movements are clingy now, her face full of anxiety and the same kind of fear he remembers from his own days with Amumu at Nasus' new library. The fear of death. The fear of being a failure, unworthy, forgotten. Sympathy rises in his throat, a wish to comfort her and tell her that it's going to be okay, and he has to fight himself to stay quiet, for the tearstains on his own face has yet to dry. I can't show a crying face to a child. Not now. Not when she's going to be counting on us adults to know what to do.

"Your rainbows are beyond lovely, svet-kara. You can probably make a fortune showing my people those alone."

Don't cough, don't cough, don't cough please don't cough. Don't we all wish more light magic are used for rainbows and auroras instead of death lasers and light bindings? Svet-kara, though. Ouch. I don't think Leonor understands how much losing her sight meant to Lux, and I don't think Lux would appreciate learning the true meaning of the word.

"Svet-kara – I'm sorry, what does that mean again?"

"Kara is a honorific for a young adult." Those little telltale coughs, too cute, too innocently awful. There's no way he can be wrong – he has had to endure through hours of it in the morning, trying to help the little girl who wanted to become the moon. Fuck. She's coughing. Fuck this. I can't say I didn't expect it – me and Lux being the only ones still healthy is the gods' joke on us – but no, not Leonor too. She's a little angel yet to spread her wings. She has so much to live for – so much time to fly. "Eh-kara is the passionate one, the one who brings love. Svet-kara is the bright one, the one who brings light – "

Goddammit. I don't deserve the Eh-kara title. Never have, never will. What love have I brought to the people here? Just more mistrust and discord, isn't it? If I never came, the tension between Kiah and Aquelis might have never come to a boiling point. Kiah would have lived. He would have told us about his vision. We could have avoided all this suffering, all these deaths, everything –

"I don't deserve that."

A mental short circuit. He's almost sure that was Lux. Surely, we didn't just both decide to denounce our titles at the same time.

"Isn't the eh-kara your friend? I'm sure he'd offer to take you back with him."

"Oh, they'll ditch me, dear. They will lose too much by taking me back with them. I won't blame them when they leave me behind."

A lump suddenly forms in his throat. He almost runs out from behind the pillar, but thinks better of it, using all his remaining mental strength to instead root himself firmly in place. There's a tear lingering somewhere on his eyelid, nostalgia for family and affection searing through his veins.

Lux.

Lux, that's not how it works.

Lux, I know how it feels to be left behind, all my birthdays during my childhood when I waited through rain and sun for Lyte –

"But eh-kara won't. I have the Statue of the Goddess of Andromeda right here with me. She's the patron goddess of promises. And I promise you eh-kara is a nice person."

He can't stand this anymore. He speedwalks in, avoids eye contact with both Lux and Leonor, and speaks up. "Dina, can I talk to Lady Luxanna for a moment?"

Lux throws him the most venomous look this side of Valoran. Leonor pales, but nods, her hands only now starting to become unsteady. You must think Aria would be able to get us through this just like she'd gotten us through everything else, but it's not true. I wish it is true. I wish Aria is the Shuriman Aurora. She's only human, though,and now a sick one at that. That's the good but sad thing about Aria – I don't ever need to lie when I say she needs help.

"I'll come back when I can, svet-kara. Don't forget what I said to you. Feel better!".

He takes a few steps closer to Lux as Leonor disappears into the village. I'm such a fucking coward. I can't even tell her the truth. What kind of a monster am I to force Aria – already weakened enough as she is – to tell her about the horrible truths of the world? "Svet-kara, huh? I never thought she would be that insensitive."

"If anyone is ever insensitive, it's you." Lux retorts, her voice layered with – for once, he notes to himself – genuine doses of both anger and fear.

The door closes behind the two of them, securely locked. Her crystal is shimmering softly under her bed, the shape of it not unlike the crystal on the Freljordian Aurora's dress. She's glaring at him from empty sockets, the rainbow slowly fading from view.

Oh.

Seems like we have to start all over again.

---

Sirius. Spica. Procyon. Rigel.

He bows before every statue of the temple, a subdued warmth on his fingertips as he leaves a small pile of flowers before each star. He can't remember the exact words that Aria used to chant – can't remember much of anything but dead hollowness, now – but he makes up phrases and holy sayings, preferring possible blasphemy to silence. There's a pressure near the top of his throat, and he is afraid that he would lose the power to speak if he doesn't just keep talking.

I know Antares is several thousand times the size of the sun and several million times hotter than the moon, but the stars are distant. Even the Shurimans admit that they're the people that they have lost. The stars glimmer and form beautiful constellations, but they don't bring warmth and life, not anymore. Even the brightest star in the sky can be completely blocked out just by the thinnest of clouds.

Help them, he pleads, leaning in so close that he could feel Betelguese's flames, although in his heart of hearts he knows he doesn't believe, not really. You can do whatever you want with me as a heretic, but these are your children, your starseeds. They haven't even been here for that long – it's too early for them to become stars. Let them grow. Let them mature. Give them a chance to marvel at the aurora before starting to radiate light themselves.

There's a muteness to the temple, muteness that Lux reinforces, watching him with her blind eyes all the way from her bed. She's immune, just like him: they are the only two people in the village who have not voiced even the hint of a cough, but he doesn't know if he wants to hold her hand as everything withers and dies.

I'd rather have loneliness if she's just going to push me away.

"Why do you hate me, Lux?"

"What do you want from me, Ezreal?"

Is that what you're still going to ask me, now? I just want a friend. I want someone to stop scowling at me, even in blindness. I don't want to be alone now, not when it feels like the end of the world and I'm going insane. I want someone to sit beside me as I cry over everyone I cannot save.

"Why would I always want something from soneone?"

"You always want something from everything you touch, don't you?"

I want them not to hate me. I want them to find me worth staying with when they can't find anyone else to turn to. I want you to let me touch you, even just to wipe away the blood on your brow. I want to mean something good to you, if by the time the sun rises again, I can only ever mean anything to you.

His mouth opens, and then closes again. Oh, Lux. I'm an explorer. I'm curious. It's in my nature to want to investigate, to want to uncover secrets, to want to get the most out of every single clue I come across. With all of that said, though, I still don't give a single fuck about magic, power, or anything about me you'd report to your king.

I just don't want you to dwell in the darkness on your own.

Because that isn't fair.

"Not people. Never people."

"So answer my first question. Why are you here?"

I should just run away, he thinks dimly. Run away before she dismantles me, too. There isn't enough sanity left in me for this interrogation. "I'm here to talk to you and to pray for the impossible."

"Why isn't Aria praying for it, then?"

I don't want to deal with this. By all the stars and all the angels, I don't want to deal with this. Why couldn't I have gotten stuck with Sona? Caitlyn, even, or Soraka? He sees himself burying the Shuriman's half-decomposed body – Aria would never let him tend to her first – in front of what is left of Kiah's funeral pyre, and has to resist the urge to throw up. She'd never meet him again. That's not what she deserves. That's what not any of them deserves. Janna still needs to see the new orphanage that has been built and make peace with Zaun, and I still need to teach the kids to read and write. "You really have been completely blind, haven't you? The entire village has contracted a plague, Luxanna Crownguard. Five elderly people have died, and the air's so terrible that I can't even light a fire to send them off."

As the last syllable tumbles out of his lips, a lot of things happen all at once.

Lux's crystal goes out without warning, leaving the temple to become enshrouded in the same dark smog that has infiltrated the village.

A crack vibrates the ground of the temple, and once again there's that sickening sound of blood flowing, a small stream of it splashing onto Lux's blankets.

Something flashes through his mind: the image of a child, a little girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen. She's crying – why was she crying? – running away from her parents, shooting small lasers behind her and ignoring the well-dressed adults' curses and cries of pain. Her long, dull blond hair seems to have gone unwashed for a week, and scars litter her bare back, seemingly remnants of long beating sessions. Nothing could match the expression on her face, however; it's the face of a middle-aged refugee, a veteran tired of fighting, a shellshocked set of features that just want to freeze and sleep, perferably forever.

Please don't send me away, father, a young Luxanna Crownguard fell to her knees and begged behind Ezreal's sky blue irises, a fresh welt angry and crimson just above her hairline. Don't doom me to die miserable and alone.

"Why the hell," The Luxanna Crownguard of the present – with all her wounds, anger and fear – screams, the intensity of her voice making him wince. "Did you send her away, then? She was fine. Are you so cruel, Ezreal of Piltover, that you just doomed a child to die, too?"

Is that – was that – what did I just –

Luxanna Crownguard, the child prodigy of Demacia –

Lyte telling me he isn't coming back, even when I cried and threw a fit and refused to eat my birthday cake, following him to the Gates – I thought that was bad, that I had all the justification to be bitter, but this – I –

Lux, Svet-kara, Leonor, all the children that were sent away –

"I've been listening to your conversation outside the temple for a while, Crownguard. She has been coughing the entire time. All the kids – that's what it starts with. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, but I don't think she was fine. Janna says it's the air, so I gave her a mask like everyone else – we can't save her, though. She's better off going back to Aria and helping out with the patients. I know her, she would want to be there if Aria doesn't –" Do I know anything about Lux's childhood? Does anyone in Demacia even know? She's just always been so proud. Luxanna Crownguard, the light of Demacia, shining, perfect, optimistic and generous, courteous in Court and courageous in battle, respected by Noxians and Piltoverians alike for her abilities and beauty… the only thing everyone in the Fields complained about has always been her laugh. The laugh from hell, they call it. But what if that laugh – what if Lux – what if –

And – his heart ventricles tightens – Lux and Leonor. The way she stood over the child and let the girl call her Svet-kara, the way she just broke down now. The last time I've seen a woman be that kind and strong of a guardian –

The Aurora –

"Tell me," she interrupts, all blazing and battleborn and ready-to-strike, except everything is wrong, more wrong than Darius swinging Garen's sword or Caitlyn letting a criminal away. This is the most honest Lux Crownguard he has ever seen, but also the most unhinged Lux anyone in the League has probably ever encountered. To arms. With all her heart. Releasing the final spark. All of them and more, with everything on the line, but for exactly all the things I never thought she cared about. "Is there anything I can do?"

He doesn't know what to say, for a little while. I don't know what I want you to do. I don't know what you are capable of. I don't know who you are, Lux, not anymore.

I'm scared out of my wits, and I don't even know if I want to guess the extent of your sorrow. I do know, though, that I don't want to see you crying again, in front of me or otherwise, as a child or as you are now.

The last thing I can do for someone who jumps to the defense of a doomed child in a state like yours is to protect you.

"Yes," he replies simply, although the thought of what he is saying has caused his hands to start shaking. If she wants to save them just as much as I do, I'll do everything I can to… be brave. "Stay with me."

"How do I stay with you? Should I kiss you? Seduce you? Talk about how wonderful you are, like the rest of them who have not seen your true colors – "

Your back is against a wall, and my hands are tied behind my back. If we are to save anyone, we have to anchor each other. You have all the right to walk away from me – I don't even know how many old scars I had reopened without being aware of their existence – but please, please just stay. I want to find out a way. "That's fine. Scream at me. Curse me. Tell me I'll go to hell, spit saliva and blood on me. You can still talk and frown and scream and remind me of how much of a failure I am – I need that, all of that, tonight, if I can be so selfish. There's several centuries' worth of records in this temple, records of their history, stories of their past plagues and recipes of their healing formulas and – I need to look through them all. I need to understand why you and I are fine, and the rest of everyone are not."

She's moving before he even finishes the sentence. "Where are the books?"

Lux. Lux. There's hurt and determination in her walk, the same walk he remembers from his Freljordian books. No. This isn't real. It can't be real. "You really don't need to help me. Not after what I said to you, and your injury – "

"I'm not going to die. Not tonight, anyway. I'll keep breathing, if just to spite your ugly ass. Now, where's the books? You can use my bed as a table, and I can provide you with some light. You better work all night, or I'll take everything with me and slit my own throat with a small laser."

An Aurora that wants to spite my ugly ass. Amen. He takes a deep breath and presses her wrists together, ignoring her cry of surprise. Her eyes. They are getting too painful for my eyes. "You need a cold water eye massage."

---

Baptism, he thinks to himself, and then laughs at himself at the ridiculousness of the analogy. No Demacian angel would ever let a self-respecting Demacian be baptized by anyone but another Demacian. No. Just me making a fool out of myself because I want to distract myself. Need something to reassure me that I can still be useful to other people.

She sits before him, hesitant, her crude braids framing a ruined face that has somehow retained its heart shape. He thinks she's still beautiful.

How did she keep it to herself? I guess I knew the Demacians were quite… severe with their military personnel, but I never knew just how brutal it was. And the way she looks haunted, now, there must be more that I haven't seen.

"Have you ever seen someone die?"

Definitely things that I have not seen. That courage and preserverence, though, that passion… deaths just make me tired. They don't make me march onto the fields ready to fight. Lux, on the other hand – she must have carried this with her for many, many years.

"Three today, remember? Please relax. The whole point of this is to help the blood vessels around your eyes to heal. I'm scared of losing some of my best friends, and I want to be able to help someone, anyone. Let me do this for you, Lux. It will make your head feel better, I promise."

Her lips are trembling, as if she wants to cry. He stops, afraid that he has said something to hurt her; she grabs a towel and traces the outer contours of the craters of her face, her fingers moving slowly as if attending a funeral.

He dimly remembers that she used her crystal blue eyes to intimidate, for even the most experienced of league champions often became unsettled when bright eyes changed from laughing to merciless within a half of a second.

Neither of those expressions are real, a thought floats in his head, utterly without evidence but utterly true. Facades run deep.

"Talk to me," Lux whispers, huddled in her blankets, looking more an impoverished Piltoverian flowergirl than an esteemed Demacian general. Her voice is wistful, light, soft; a kind of voice that can never make it into Court or onto a stage of war, but a voice that people fall back to when they are walking home alone in the rain. "Play make-believe with me. Stop me from shivering when you put the towel on top of my skull. Remind me of the lights, the flowers, all those thriving living things. Make me feel like someone – someone worth loving."

Rain. Petrichor. Memories flood back into him, images of children crying and running under the downpour. Often he walked through the slums of Bandle City and Noxus, some coins in his pockets and some Ionian oil-paper umbrellas in his hands, buying children sweets and dry skin whenever the kids were not prideful enough to turn him away. Blue-skinned young yordles and olive-skinned Noxian children often all shared one desolate look at the street corners, a wistful disappointment that cloaked entire faces in shadow; Lux wears the same look now, slightly curling up into a ball, the emotions spilling out of her even though her face has become nearly unrecognizable.

I bet her life has had a lot of rain.

He shrugs out of his jacket, grimacing slightly as a cool breeze collides with the newly exposed parts of his skin. She looks up when he drapes them over her, feebly tries to push him away but without her heart in it; as he pulls on a sleeve, she runs her fingers over the fabric, seemingly pleasantly surprised by its softness and warmth. God, it's almost as if I was Caitlyn, putting a raincoat over me as I waited for Lyte in the rain… but I asked for my rain, while she doesn't look like she has seen a roof for years. "But you are worth loving. You are beautiful. Intelligent. Talented. And on top of that, you care about these people. You can't lie about that to me – not every Demacian general will throw a fit over the fate of a random Shuriman girl or volunteer to stay up all night."

She shakes her head slightly in denial. "That's never made me worth loving."

His towel smells like poppies and desert stars. The flowers Aria gave Kiah, the offerings I made to Regulus and Aldebaran… if she was a Piltoverian flowergirl, she'd sell carnations. Blue roses. But here we have to make do, just like we have to make do with pain in a sea of death. I'm sure these desert stars smell just as well as the most expensive lily in Piltover. Slowly, patiently, he brings it across her face, starting from her left temple. The cold in it numbs his fingertips and chills her being; he makes a hasty wish that the sweetness and healing power in the herbs will make up for the cold before reaching out and squeezing her hand, silently willing the gauntlet to start glowing again and provide her with some solace.

It does, a small golden glow not unreminiscient of the light it gave off all those years ago on the Freljordian tundra.

Her breathing slows. His picks up. He turns the towel towards her right temple, making sure all the bloodstains would be gently wiped off. Her wounds are like waves, layered and deep, beautifully patterned signs of danger that give but the most experienced healers pause; he forces himself to look away from them, to think only about how they must hurt her, deep imprints that will now declare her unworthiness to the world.

"See? It's not bad. Don't pass out; if you have to, pass out on me."

She relaxes slowly, the unwillingness instinctive from years of training against torture. He wonders if she'd ever been caught in Noxus, and banishes the thought from his mind nearly immediately, not wanting to think about her being slowly cooked to death. She leans closer and closer in until he can feel her breath on his face, the yearning for love and warmth in her heart pounding inches next to his chest; he holds his breath and holds her hand still, ready to catch her if she is to fall, suppressing the part of him that just wants to embrace her and sob into the night.

Dying alone is terrifying, but this world is shitty when even the survivors are lonely.

Lux –

"I won't pass out on your ugly ass. I'll admit you're probably good enough that it won't matter, but I'm still better than that."

Ugly ass. A Lux that feels good enough to swear at me, Amen. These words sound like Jayce and home. Her hands are not shaking anymore, and she's backing away a little, her face regaining some color."Many people would find your stubbornness adorable, too. Jayce's always like that with me. By the Gods of this temple, I really miss him."

He lets go of her hand, expecting no resistance. To his surprise, she fumbles, attempting to catch his hand again in the dark. Oh, 's not a hand you want to hold onto for any decent period of time. "Sorry, Luxanna. You can lie back down now, if you want. I just might need my hands for the research. If you want my gloves, though – or my gauntlet as some kind of heater – feel free to ask."

"Both. Now." That's the pride that he remembers, acrid at his rejection. "You Pilts have been hiding these fabrics from us."

I keep forgetting. She can't possibly go back to Demacia now, and I doubt she'd want to go to Piltover. The Pilts have an unfortunate tendency to view the foreign-borns as second class citizens, sometimes behaving rudely even towards Heimer and Ziggs. God, fuck this world, and fuck me. "About that. I'm terribly, terribly sorry that you got injured out with me – "

"Drop it. That was my fault entirely. I was arrogant, and I wanted glory. I may be stuck in a terrible spot now, but I still have enough honor. Gloves?" Curt and dry now. She doesn't want to discuss it. He doesn't blame her, but he has to try.

"Can you seriously not return to Demacia, though? I can – "

"Don't." And it's raining again, him staring down at a young orphaned boy in a sewer under Falin Street. You can't take away the rain from me, the boy had said bitterly, running into the tunnels. You may be able to block the rain for a day, but you can't blow away the clouds. Don't act like you understand how it feels to be hopelessly soaked, even if you get lost on one of your adventures.

He backs off, frowning in frustration as he slowly takes off his gloves and hands them to her. "If you're sure, then. If we live through all of this, you'll always be able to find me."

"Why don't we talk about something happier with the little time we have? Since you wanted me to sound alive. Or that's what I thought you said."

Books. Only books now. I'm running out of time. The weight of history nearly crushes him – he staggers backwards, only barely avoiding a fall. "I'm sorry. Oof…"

Her crystal flares into light. It's a rainbow sheen again, iridescent, brighter than anything Kiah and Aria had ever used to illustrate the temple. He takes another step back, breathing heavily, mesmerized by the sight; something's starting to build in his heart, a mixture of an explorer's most primal sense of excitement and a mortal boy's most primal sense of fear.

"I've called light to the crystal on my bed. Feel free to start working anytime." Lux says, oblivious, the only tone in her voice a tint of her usual smugness.

Oh. I don't know why I never noticed it before now, but it's painfully obvious this time. If I'm actually losing my mind, this is a nice way to go crazy. He shakes his head, almost falling to his knees in awe; an ancient chronology from old Shurima falls soundlessly onto the ground, the page opening up to a description of the very Far North.

Her crystal is the exact same shape as the crystal of the Aurora.

---

He's growing afraid of a world without her.

It makes no sense: he's always been alright on his own, more than alright, even. Ever since he was old enough to walk, he has roamed all corners of Valoran with only the wind on his back and the sun on his cheeks, and although he desired a true home, he was okay with the idea that a true home is in his future, not his present. Nothing bothered him when he had to hug Jayce goodbye at the Gate or walk away from Lyte; he thought he was independent, strong, capable of taking care of himself when he was not blinded by hubris.

He thinks he's just scared of losing his only light in the darkness.

She makes tea using what's left of the flower basket after the prayers and the massage, and it tastes as wonderful as the food she made in the previous village. He drinks it in gulps and greedily inhales the aroma, desperately trying to wash away the smell of vomit and blood that has been clinging onto his nostrils and throat; she takes the last cup away from him, telling him that Leonor's life is the only reason why she's not letting him choke to his death.

If the Aurora did die on the Howling Abyss, I guess she could have been born through time over and over again, immortal through reincarnation. But… gah, why am I even thinking about this? Lux will be fine. I'll be fine. She obviously can't just fix all of this as a goddess, and I just need to keep looking for a cure.

"Tian, 340 years ago: an epidemic struck in the middle of winter. Rash, fever, spots breaking out – ugh, that wasn't it."

"Do you want the 15th century volume?" Lux asks, pale fingers reaching out for the braille on the spines of the books.

"I've gone over that one. Could you hand me the one from the century before?"

Tomix of Edelia, chief, swan moon, 1364. My people have been suffering from a terrible ailment. They say it came from the Void, some world outside of our own, and had a completely magical origin – some entity wanted to kill us so they could harvest our souls and weave with them, growing stronger in the process, becoming more and more terrifying until they could break through the wall –

If the Aurora is supposed to fix this, he wonders to himself, searching for more notes left by the mysterious Tomix, she should have, right? She doesn't strike me as the kind of deity that would just let something like this go on, if she could do anything about it. The Aurora lived with her people, and always sought to make them happy…

He forces himself not to look at Lux. Unless she doesn't actually exist.

Tomix, rose moon, 1364. The air is foul and full of death. I suspect that's the cause of our suffering, but we can only be free of air when we have become stars in the sky. The gods are not with us this day – if only some of us can find the strength inside of them to become gods themselves… the air is being spread by an angry spirit. He must be stopped.

These accounts would never be accepted by any historical coucil in Piltover, but I can't find anything else that remotely fits what we have on our hands. He snaps the book shut, frustrated. If plagues can be laid down through the air, what could Aquelis possibly have done to gain the power to drain life from an entire village?

"Any progress?" Lux asks, standing on her tiptoes. He imagines her wearing a Freljordian dress, and has to internally slap himself. This is not about her. This is about Shurima. Do you want to light a match on Aria or Janna?

"I'm increasingly convinced that this isn't natural. Someone's behind this. Well, someone, or something. Janna's probably right, someone's laying down the disease through the air, and I'd hate for it to be Aquelis…"

Tomix, rose moon, 1364. I believe the spirit is an old personal nemesis, granted power by a wish for revenge. I must fight him, even if I might die. This is a wrong that I must right.

Lux absolutely crumbles, her thin figure turning into a fragmenting meteor. Light sprouts out of her, red light pouring from empty eye sockets, blue light that swirls and blinds, green streaks that envelop her skin and give her a cursed appearance. A twisted rainbow. An aurora of the nightmares. She's free falling, drawn by the gravity of her own grief.

He reaches out to her before she hits the ground, a falling star on his arms. Her tears are wet on his shoulders, her heart beating too fast against his; a sharp pain slices through him, rendering him almost paralyzed. He has held onto fallen people before, but not like this; everyone who has fallen into him has found the ground in him, a safe haven in which they could simply stop their descent, but she has fallen right through him, fallen past the temple floor, fallen from her place high above the clouds into an abyss thousands of miles below.

He caught her, but she is gone, drifting into a darkness that he can't follow.

It's as if he has never even tried to save her.

"…Aquelis?" she asks, strangled.

"Yes, that man. Lux, what's wrong?" She is gone like a flash, a meteorite disappearing into the night too far away from where he's standing, but the fire that has ripped through the sky still hurts, the rays from her skin still hot enough to sear his skin. He digs his nails deep into her arms, pulls on her hair, prays to everything he has ever known that she can still hear him; she stares back from a world away, the expression on her lips as blank as the empty sockets of her eyes.

"Oh, Ezreal," she calls back to him and not-calls, her voice distant beyond her event horizon of despair. It's just an echo, an afterthought, a note you find next to a cold body, and he has to resist an urge to scream. No. Not her. I've long lost track of what is going on, but I can feel the terror of this in my bones, and I refuse to let it happen, refuse to just stand here and watch as she fades. "It was him. I saw him working it. I didn't know it then, but I do now. It's all my fault. If I had stopped him then – if he didn't win and pluck out my eyes – everyone would still be fine." And she abruptly starts to cry.

---

Lux.

She has been blind for almost a day, but he only believes in it now, shaking her shoulders. She's sobbing without tears, bleeding without cracks: her head is no longer tilted towards any one direction, her senses trying to pick up taste or smell, and as he whispers reassuring words into her ears, she only disregards them, shrinking further into the shell of his jacket.

"Lux, please."

He puts her on his shoulders and realizes how slight she is; he's not known for his physical strength, but she's securely on his back, seemingly without a chance to fall. Her arms are slumped over him and he folds them over his heart, wanting to make her more comfortable; her crystal he slips into her pocket as he stumbles out of the temple door.

It's nearly dawn; he has walked on this path before, eyes shining as Kiah recounted to him tales of his people's strength and love, and the familiar curve of the road only feels like a mockery now, a terrible replica of what used to be. An ache builds up in him, an irrational desire to just tear the world down to the ground and watch everything crash and burn until nothing is left, but he suppresses it, frantically reciting to himself Ionian chantings for the spring.

One of Lux's braids falls apart, the golden hair spilling past his ears. She's still burning, her light scalding the skin on his back; he inhales deeply and embraces the pain, reminding himself that he can't possibly be hurting more than anyone else in the village.

"Lux, it's not your fault."

It's just the two of them, on a path known to him but not known to her, a bruised boy carrying a living star. He recalls that the Shurimans consider those who can glow during their lifetime as either gods or demons, and almost drops to his knees; I don't care about who you are or what anyone thinks of you or even whether or not you and I are going to make it through this, I just want you to come back to me.

He can't deal with losing her as well, the one person who he asked to stay.

She's quiet; quiet as her home's dainty willow trees, the only sounds coming from her being a periodic cry of pain. It's when he has to step over a boy's body that she stirs, stretching in an attempt to touch the child's face. He stiffens. Her body language begs.

"He's his grandfather's planet now, Lux. You can't do anything for him anymore." The girl's next to him, too; their hands are frozen on top of one another, making a perfect moon orbit impossible.

"I can feel him," she insists, the first words she's said to him since her breakdown. His blood is on her hands. "I want to show the angels that he's honorable."

"Lux."

"I want to do this for all the children. All the children we've lost and will lose."

"Lux, they don't believe in angels – "

"The gods. The world." She has slid down his back and is now on the ground next to the children, the same faraway look in her eyes. He closes his eyes. Children. A snapshot of a young Lux on a window flashes through his mind, and he reaches towards his explorer's kit, a plea to Caitlyn on his lips.

"I won't let you do that. You don't have the strength. You'll just hurt yourself." Was she trying to jump?

"Ezreal – " she turns towards him for the first time, pleading.

He locks the chains around her hands, placing a finger on her lips as they snap shut with a loud click. "You're not going to get lost together with them."

---

He can't do anything for her anymore.

His hands are still bleeding when they leave village limits, a foreign boy leading an army of the soon-to-be-dead. They pass by a shrub of desert rose near the end of the road and he stops, some part of his brain faintly recalling a special tradition about the flower; he doesn't stop long enough to remember any details, though. His footsteps are too steady and too heavy. Those details don't matter anymore. I just feel numb – so, so numb.

Leonor's standing next to him, her cheeks red with fever, her small hands tugging on his shirt nervously. "I feel really, really bad for svet-kara."

"You'll make it." The lack of faith in his own words is killing him. She shouldn't be here. She asked to be here. She just doesn't want to be around Lux when she inevitably deteriorates.

"Take care of her for me when I'm gone."

How old is she, again? "What about yourself?"

"Just burn my last paper cranes with me." She smiles. His face twitches.

"Lux will be fine." She'll live, sleeping for a few hours with that tranquilizer and the flower in her hair. As for being fine mentally… She just won't be. Unless she pulls something greater than the Aurora and reverse time back to a few days ago. Hell, even if I manage to beat up Aquelis – because let's face it, these people are only here to give themselves a glimmer of hope – and save everyone who is still alive, I doubt I'd ever be really okay.

The relief on the child's face justifies the lie. "Thank you, eh-kara."

Aquelis. If Tomix's account from many centuries ago was true, Aquelis must have gained his immense power boost from the Void. Why would creatures like Kog'Maw and Kha'Zix associate with a nameless shaman from Shurima, though? Neither Aquelis nor Kiah is anywhere near as talented as Malzahar, and neither has ever brought up the Void to me before…

Tomix did mention something about harvesting souls for weaving… was that what Icathia was, what happened to it?

I need Kassadin for this, he thinks, feeling the headache at the base of his skull. I'm in no condition to fight this right now. I don't understand anything, and I don't feel like I want to understand anything. I just want Jayce to drop a bucket of icewater on my face to wake me up.

Maybe I can't lose, if Aquelis can't affect me with this disease. My immunity might mean I possess some kind of factor that acts against this magic. I'll defeat him, save everyone, and make everything okay.

His gaze lingers for a minute suspiciously on the amulet on his gauntlet, his mind also drifting to Lux's Aurora crystal.

Yes. I have to believe that. He's tired, more tired than he's ever been in a long time. He doesn't know how much magic he still has in him, but if he's going to remain true to everything that he believes makes the world worth living, he'd have to fight until his very last breath.

If I die, well. A sardonic smile. Who needs a map in the world beyond?

Leonor's dropping paper cranes as she trots, coughing, after the crowd, their paths away from the village colored by crimson blood and multicolored papyrus birds. He waves to her, taking her under his wing, passing her his towel to cough into.

Blood and cranes. That's one for death, and one for hope.

A long-running Shuriman theme.

Once Lux had pieced together the clues and he had finished reading all of Tomix's accounts, finding Aquelis was not difficult.

He stops at the top of a dune overlooking the inconspicuous hill, nervous. Leonor squeezes his hand, her small round face still a little green from vomiting.

"If a fight breaks out, eh-kara, don't worry about us," a man in the crowd said, his dark eyes grim. "He can't threaten you with us when we're already fated to die."

The words hurt, even though he knows they are nothing but practical. "But your souls."

"Everyone here is here by their own choice," the man replies, folding his palms together. The others nod in agreement. "We trust you, eh-kara. No one who could give an eulogy that beautiful could bring shame upon Kitar Kiah's memory. Even if you may not succeed, we are thankful that you're at least willing to put your life on the line for us. Unlike us, you don't have to die."

Eh-kara is strong, one woman contemplates, one hand clutching her heart as she gazes at him sombrely. My husband said he had seen the boy defeat even the greatest Demacian generals on the fields of battle.

I just want to let my daughter have a chance to grow up, another man muses, his hands reaching towards a small painting of his late wife in his pockets. My wife was the light of my life, and she has her mother's eyes.

The ghosts of the Shuriman gods are taunting me with these memories and thoughts, Ezreal settles his left hand above the amulet on his right, priming the gauntlet for a shot. The thoughts are disturbing to say the least, but he's not yet unsettled enough to lose sight of his purpose. "AQUELIS!"

The hill remains silent; behind his goggles, equipped with Tomix's knowledge of what to look for, he spots a vortex of dark violet magic, power of a very different color from Aquelis' usual dark blue, and starts charging a trueshot barrage. Leonor hides behind him, hugging his waist tightly.

"Answer us, shaman!" An old man called out, his voice coarse in the dense smog. The agony and betrayal in the words seem to pulsate through the ground, heating up the sand all around them. "We all understand Kitar Kiah and you had your differences, but why would you murder him and then proceed to poison all of us in cold blood?"

"The girl, too," another woman screams. "She's a guest – why did you attempt to kill her without consulting the will of the village?"

"Enough."

A man appears at the base of the hill, draped in a cloak the color of the smog. He's taller than Ezreal remembered him; thinner, too, seemingly exhausted from all the magic work. His brown hair has been cut short and goes down just to his shoulders, dull and dry; the shaman's usual black eyes are gone, replaced by two pockets of bright light, sinister behind his violet hood.

This is Malzahar all over again, except far more explicitly dangerous, Ezreal thinks to himself, and has to suppress a shiver. Gods, I've always known that Malzahar was dangerous, but I've never really sat down to talk to Kassadin or studied Icathia, and I never imagined the Void could actually take away the lives and happiness of my close friends.

Kassadin. Jayce said he wanted to talk to me. If only I had gone to visit him straight away, instead of being afraid of upsetting Janna and wanting to save his visit for when I'm older… now Janna might pay for that mistake with her life.

"Aquelis. Stop this now. These people don't deserve to die. You've had your revenge with Kiah."

"And what are you going to do with me? Lynch me for taking away those I've already sacrificed?" Aquelis laughed acrimoniously, spreading out his hands wide. "You forced me into this. I knew the moment I accepted the power that there would be no turning back. You would all pay for siding with him and his stupid wife."

Leonor's eyes are cold. "You loved yuna Aria."

"And that man took her away from me."

"She was never yours to begin with. She's a free woman with her own will." More coughing. He takes out Janna's vial and places it under the little girl's nose, giving her some purified air to breathe.

"She's wrong! She was betrothed to me! A Shuriman woman can't just break her betrothal. Once a betrothal is made, she belongs to me. There's no such thing as a free woman in Shurima, unless they're an orphan like you, unwanted and unloved." Rage burns in Aquelis' voice; his cloak has started to shimmer, symbols beginning to swirl and turn on the sheer fabric. Ezreal instinctively pushes the girl behind him, and is relieved when a bolt of purple power collides with his wave of gold in the air, both disintegrating into a shower of sparks.

"That is not true!" Leonor cries out, indignant, tears beginning to form in her eyes. "That's why no one liked you. Yuna Aria always loved me and cared for me, and svet-kara said she would be thrilled to move in with me!"

"A weakling and a whore!"

It's him that strikes, this time; a mystic shot hits Aquelis squarely on his face, sending him spluttering back. "No," Ezreal speaks out slowly, making sure to emphasize every syllable. Not Lux. Not Aria. Not after what they've done. "This is all you."

"Ariadne has earned her yuna title. She has been an invaluable healer and administrator for us. Without the love and trust between her and Kitar Kiah, we would all have been lost long, long ago. Moreover, we all know about your infatuation with her." Rakib walks out from the crowd, reaching out for Leonor; she runs to him, crying in his arms. "Get off your high horse, Aquelis. You're in the wrong. Repent now, and a constellation in the West may still have a space for you."

"The only place that has a space for me is the Void!" Aquelis roars, raising his hand.

He's not ready for it, this time: he has never been good on defensive. Although a trueshot manages to annihilate a good amount of the attack, it cannot break through all of it: a spasm of red-tinted violet rocks through the crowd, and many fall to their knees, moaning in pain.

I should have learned Lux's shield, he thinks dimly to himself. Or actually mastered how to heal with essence flux. "Come at me, Aquelis! There's no point in you attacking these people. I'm sure my magic would make me a worthy sacrifice."

"Or I can just erase these worthless souls from existence instead of offering them up to God!"

Anger overwhelms him then, sends him reeling, drives a pure wave of adrenaline up from his heart. "You wouldn't dare!"

The families. The children. The men who worked with me underground since five in the morning. Kiah's people. Aria's beloved. Everyone who applauded for me out there around Kiah's pyre, and sang for his place among the stars.

Ezreal flares; expands, the essence in him spreading out beyond himself to cover the people around him. The gauntlet tremors, then turns into solid light; a golden vortex forms above the amulet before it expands to the size of Aquelis' purple vortex, and numerous stars reel down the circle, weaving a net around the crowd. He can feel Aquelis' attack clash against his web, the power seeking to burn through the shield like waves of molten metal crashing against his heart; he drops to his knees, wincing, something inside of him rupturing.

Leonor runs back towards him, hugging him tight. "Eh-kara! Are you okay?"

I've never done this before. Not anything like this. What's happening to me? "I'm… fine."

"Stop hurting him!" Leonor screams back defiantly at Aquelis, handfuls of sand in her hands. Oh, the things Lux and I did to stop children's faces from becoming contorted and twisted in grief. "You're evil!"

"A Piltoverian isn't going to stand between me and what is mine!"

Another wave, now: his vision is getting blurry, but the web is still holding, as far as he can tell. I can't win this, he realizes, despondent. I can keep the people safe, but I wouldn't have anything left in me to attack. Even if I don't keep these people safe, I probably still can't defeat him. He's not the same man I knew, but I'm still me. I'm not Iceborn, I'm not the Aurora, I'm just a mortal boy with my mortal limitations. Even with this strange power boost, I'm going to pass out in a few minutes if he keeps at it.

A few villagers are throwing sand and daggers at Aquelis. The shaman dodges all of them, oblivious, his eyes only on the blond boy. As he feels several of his ribs break, Ezreal wonders if the shaman is even mortal anymore.

"We have to get back." His voice is rougher than he imagined, and barely above a whisper. He rolls onto his back, panting, both a wordless prayer and a wordless curse on his lips. The world. It's failed me again. "I can't hold on for much longer. I'm sorry."

Leonor's face is pale under the light of his net. "Eh-kara, give us up."

She knows his answer before he utters it. "No. Never."

"Get everyone out, then. I'll stay."

He knows why she said the second half of the sentence, even though he wishes that he doesn't. "Leonor."

"I can't make yuna and svet-kara even sadder than they already are." He coughs his first share of blood as the entire shield trembles; his own stars are dazzling his eyes, and her voice is breaking, the waterworks at full volume. "They are hurting too much over me. This is taking more out of me than the other kids, too – yuna said I probably won't last another day. Svet-kara was so upset, I don't want her to…"

"Leonor. Help might come in a day. You shouldn't just give up."

"Me and the boys will distract him as you leave with everyone else. Save yuna and svet-kara, okay? They're very dear to me. And don't forget about my paper cranes." His light is fading, and her voice has increased in urgency. Three shadows are flanking her – two children and Rakib – and he wants to raise his hands in protest, but can no longer find the strength to even get up.

"Leonor! No!" A cry from his darkness. He's stuck in a labyrinth.

"I just wish I can see her rainbow one more time." And he feels Rakib fling him over the older man's shoulder, carrying him away; the net's moving with him, the crowd is retreating, and he can no longer see Aquelis standing beneath the hill.

"Ez, don't worry about it," Rakib's familiar husky voice thunders next to his ears as the assault on him starts fading away. Are we going back to the village? Is he still carrying me? Why wouldn't he just drop me like the worthless piece of trash I am? "We know that you tried your best. He looks like a god now, and we're all but tired and human. We'll get you out, one piece, just like what you always tell me about the artifacts… it's my fault anyway, I didn't take care of the lady well enough…"

"Rakib," he sobs weakly. The Shuriman's wound is closing. I don't think there'd be enough of her left even for a burial. I would have to just burn her paper cranes. "Can you just shut up?"

The world disappears in a blaze of gold and heliotrope.

---

He knows now, why Kiah referred to her as the Sun: she's astriferous, both in her glory and her downfall. Bearing stars. Made of stars. Shining and warm, but prone to collapsing upon herself.

Leonor. The smile of that child had been the one last thing that kept everything from falling into one singularity.

He stands under the shadow of a full solar eclipse, kept warm by her glowing corona. "I am very, very sorry."

The sun smiles in wretched understanding. The stars turn. Light fades. "Don't be."

He stretches up – tries to fly up – like Icarus, imagining wings of dew on his back. She's falling away, stumbling all on her own, ruled by the cracking wheels of fate. Don't go.

She can't see him. Her thoughts echo through his mind as if in a concert hall, though, burning like the last rays of the sun tingling on his skin. I'll miss you, too.

You'd think, after everything I've done, I wouldn't find myself still on the edge of a cliff comprehending an endless drop.

You'd think I've lost everything I have to lose.

But I hear her thoughts, and I'm running straight into the heart of the sun, never looking back –

A supernova should not be the end of all things.

It's only a new beginning.

In my dream world, there is light. Not just the sunlight that bestows all life, mind you: light that glimmers in all of us, light that nurtures, light that shines. Our souls are made of light, sparkles that make us sing and want to fly. Our smiles are lit up by light, our love laced with dancing spheres of light. We live because the light in us are beautiful. We thrive because the light in us warms our hearts.

In my dream world, no one ever dies.

He flinches as he hears her thoughts again, dragging her over yet another rolling sand hill. They're out of village limits again, in the middle of just about nowhere; the sky is slowly clearing to a healthy shade of blue, and the Shuriman village has shrunk down to only a small dot of radiance on the edge of his vision, the reality of death and suffering seemingly only an appalling dream. It's too similar. This and my pilgrimage to the Aurora statue.

Except that was a journey for life, and this… if I've been hearing her correctly, this is going to be a journey for death.

"But a dream world is only ever a dream," she recites out aloud, her fingers ruffling the velvety petals of Leonor's desert rose. He winces, déjà vu flooding.

It feels like I just woke up from a dream. A dream in which the world is not fragile. A world in which everything always turns out all right in the end, and nobody ever dies.

Oh, Lux, you and me. The things you say now, and the things I said to Amumu, all those years ago.

Behind his back, his fingers clench into a fist.

"Ezreal. I need to talk to you." My time is running out, and he has to leave. Leave. Live. They all sound the same.

"Don't try to convince me to leave." Leave. Live. I will not leave the village, and I will not leave you. "You weren't there when we confronted him… I did things that you wouldn't believe. I repelled him. Naturally. I was able to make a shield, to heal using my magic… There's something in me that counters his power, and I'm not going to leave if I can help." And I'm not going to leave you now, not when you're like this. There's still so much to live for… so much to love, and so much to remember. Leonor asked me, before she burned in that inferno, to take care of you… and I would take care of you, stay with you, even if nobody else would. That's the least of what you deserve.

"You are going to leave." And there it is, in her mind, a sacrificial Cross, falling through life – she's chained and blindfolded by the angels, laughing despite herself as they drive nails of iron through her, weaving threads of destiny around her to tie her down. Tick. Tock. A long bottomless descent, a countdown of time, and a well of tears. A Cross. Where sinners go to die, but those who dream to be gods can find redemption and divinity. If I die here and now, I can make up for everything I've done. I can pay off all the debts I piled up over time for running away, for being cowardly, for wanting to live… for being a disgrace to Demacia.

I spent too long trying to preserve my own life, but now at the end of the road, with nobody to turn to and nobody to love, I realize I have to die on the Cross alone. I must atone for my own sins. I must choose the path for light in the end, and save everyone that I can save.

"You can't force me." You can't force me to accept a Cross, and most certainly not your Cross. He reaches out both inside his mind and with a hand, but that's when she bursts into flame, her golden hair turning into a living blaze. She goes up in fire and light right in front of him and there isn't any warning, no sound as her crystal shoots into a luminosity brighter than the sun itself and her bloodstained robes become seven shades of the rainbow; she's a star, a sun, a firebird bathing in her own heartbeat –

And she is burning herself from the inside out, a supernova.

"…Lux, what are you doing?" The Cross itself has caught on fire. It's the world to her now, and with that burning, everything's just falling down, melting and sizzling. Is she turning into the Aurora? She can't be, if she just wants to take her own life.

You're brave and kind, but I suppose we can only be friends in another life. You don't have to know how I truly feel about you. My tears are enough. The world doesn't need yours. Behind those devastated eyes, Lux's thoughts are fast, convicted, and too horrifying to behold."Saying goodbye."

He stares at her imploringly, every piece of the aurora myth flooding through his brain and leaving him breathless. "But you'll die." I don't care if you're turning into the Aurora or whatever you're turning into. This isn't how the story ends. The sun will not crash out of its orbit, and I will not let you become her, a smile frozen on her face on that lonely bridge of Howling Abyss. For Gods' sake, even in the most tragic versions of the tale, the Aurora still never tried to say goodbye.

"If you leave, I can end it all. He will perish in light, and I will perish in darkness. There's nowhere for me to go. Would you rather watch Aria die? Janna? All the children in the village?" There's a panic in her voice now, urgency as it pulses through her being. The entirety of her is consumed by cackling anxiety, electricity running down the parts of her he could still see. Alone. I have to go through this alone.

He finds her then, his hands on her wrists. His tears are evaporating in her heat, his eyes wide open despite all the sleepless nights and all the agony; the heat is viciously tearing through him, the light ripping through his skin, but he only throws a shining shield around himself and sends pockets of gold deep into her soul, using his explorer's senses to help them seek places to take hold. If you can't find the bottom of your pit, I'll find it for you, and build a net for you to fall onto.

"EZREAL, STOP IT! it's just you and me. This might as well be the living world. Just you and me. You're the only person left, the only one still in the light, the only one who can still cry, the only one still smiling at me, although I can't even see... and I'm asking you now, begging you, Ezreal, JUST LEAVE!"

The burning Cross. The tainted girl on it, the one who embraced the Cross instead of being forcibly tortured by it. His stars are chasing the Cross, now; he rides a line to her, encircling her with a net of molten gold, and lands near the bottom of her Cross, spitting out fire and blood as he starts cutting through every link forged by an angel, trying to suppress the inevitable explosion. Lux, I'm so sorry. Just let me do this. I will make this okay. I promise. Just let me. "But if there's something I know, something I learned after all these years, something after all these deaths – it's that I can't let anyone die alone!"

She's made of corona and electric plasma, a tiny sun flaring a supernova right above the ground, melting from the inside because she has to, to save everyone for the people that she couldn't save; he's a ball of fire and glistening gold, his hands never letting go, his heart a shield blocking out all the heat that threatens to physically consume them whole. They're falling down a sand dune and her consciousness is fading, the pain and heat finally gaining ground and sweeping her sanity away; he pushes back against her, willing the fire to die out, willing the light to retreat back into her and keep her alive –

And he sees her, blind in life and blind in her mind, falling in a desert and falling wingless from a disintegrating Cross, her consciousness nevertheless seeing him as he approaches her, reaching out with his gauntleted hand –

And he pulls her in, hope crossing light, the boundaries between physical and mental shattering as they touch right at the moment of the final overload –

And the world explodes in a shower of rainbow and gold, the sound piercing through the domineering silence of death, the light bright enough for all of Valoran.

---

Clink.

The sound of everything finally breaking.

He's in tattered rags, only his lower abdomen and some parts of his legs still covered by ripped pieces of cloth, the fabric barely clinging onto his skin from blood and sweat. His goggles lie splintered in front of him, the shining shards of glass layering the larger, yet-fuming pieces of his gauntlet, and the amulet has seared itself into the flesh of his right hand, leaving a large, round scar.

I don't care, he thinks dimly to himself, an unspeakble pain building in his throat and the rims of his eyes. I can be put back together. Some other things just cannot ever be.

He's still holding her, her golden hair still framing her face and soft on his lap, but there's no color left on her face now, no weight even left in her, no warmth or fight to convince him that he's holding anything but an empty shell. Her crystal is on the ground by his gauntlet pieces, miraculously still whole, but it's now opaque like any other piece of rock crystal, its mystifying brilliance gone.

"Lux, do you know that Piltover doesn't believe in souls?"

He's at the epicenter of it all, fault lines breaking out all around him; tiny iridescent butterflies of light surround the two of them in circles, clusters of glowing fragments, ephemeral dancing spirits of every color of the rainbow. Some of them are clinging onto her face, seemingly still believing that there's substance beneath the pale layer of skin; others are behind his head, struggling to keep themselves afloat with clipped, fragile wings.

He buries his head on her shoulder. There's no more heartbeat there, even as a thin cluster of butterflies land behind his neck and try to pull him back up again. "Because I did, Lux."

The reflection of tears on pieces of broken glass. A broken soul and a broken heart. "I always did."

You did not, I repeat, did not just force her to die without even getting back at Aquelis.

I didn't want her to die –

Why would you even try to save her when you've never, ever saved anyone that mattered?

I want to succeed for once. Soundless sobs. More butterflies in his hair, like a glowing crown. All that's left of her, now. Lingering. Almost taunting him in their exquisiteness and promise of short-livedness. I just want to win, if only once. I couldn't save the kids in the rain, I couldn't save Kiah, I couldn't save Leonor and her friends. And she wasn't even marked for death.

It's all about you, in the end, isn't it? You want to win. You want to make a difference. And at the end, who pays for all of your actions?

I – Her skin is cold, too cold. Stop it. I never wanted any of this to happen. I didn't ever wish for anyone to die. I didn't do anything because I wanted to be a hero. I just didn't want to live through this life without caring.

She was brave.

So she was.

And you made all of that just utterly, completely worthless.

"STOP!" He screams, sending tears flying like sparks, all his regrets draping the soul butterflies in glistening coats of dew. His blackened fingers reach towards her heart – or where it used to be – and start pushing down on it, forcing it to keep pumping blood through her body. "This is not how it ends. I will get her back. Just watch me." The desperation and violence in his actions send the butterflies scattering, but as he settles into a rhythm – one two three four – they return again, forming rings of light that illustrate his world of desolation. "These butterflies have not yet forsaken me. The Aurora is still glowing in the North. I won't give up on anyone anymore, not today, not any day."

Her mind is gone, but his thoughts are still wandering in an endless field of wasteland, seeking answers. There are butterflies here, butterflies like the ones in the physical world clinging to his skin, and he lets one land on his hand, its wings shimmering with memories of the past.

"Why can I see you now?" He asks, half hysterical, half in awe of just how beautiful the butterfly is. He thinks he sees a vision of Lux within the beats of its wings, a little girl running through rose gardens with braids. "I've seen a lot of people die, but I've never seen souls before today. Why can I hear people's thoughts? Why did I gain all these powers that work but are just not strong enough? Am I dead, now, too, and everything's just a dream?"

The butterfly stills. He thinks he hears Lux's laughter in its light, carefree and chime-like in its youth. He falls to his knees, sighing, bringing the butterfly closer to his face.

"Fine. I won't ask. I won't care. But don't tease me with this anymore. If you actually like me, then show me. Show me her past. Show me her love. Show me if there's a way I can still put her back together, somewhere in Demacian heaven."

---

He falls headstraight into light, blinded by bejeweled splendour.

It's a large central gallery. Jarvan III, the King of Demacia, is seated on his throne near the end of the gallery, raised several feet higher than the elegant court ladies in expensive satin and the stalwart guard knights in white and gold. His son, the crown prince, is kneeling before him, his exquisite armor breathtaking to behold against the veined white marble of the floor; lines of courtiers and generals fill up their spots behind him next to one edge of the gallery, holding their swords and serving tools respectively in the exact same positions regardless of their location relative to the king. The opposite side of the gallery is almost entirely decorated with classic murals and huge mirrors, raining natural light into the heart of the corridor; golden and marble statues of angels and war heroes fill up the last spaces in the grandiose image of the room, their figures compelling next to the far more fragile bodies of the real Demacians.

The Hall of Mirrors, he realizes with wonder. A small, almost forgotten part of him – the perfectionist explorer – lets out an exasperated sigh at his terrible physical appearance in the most decorated hall in all of Valoran. The heart of the Demacian Royal Palace, open to no one but the most esteemed of their citizens and rulers of other states.

"Enter, General Luxanna Crownguard!" a courtier cries out, reading from a scroll. The king nods in approval as Jarvan IV turns his head, apparently curious.

The rosewood door swings open. Lux strides into the room, flanked left and right by two young lieutenants, clad from head to toe in battle armor that shines like the moon. Her eyes are a shade of confident stormy blue, although the fire in them easily yield to submission as she walks up to an invisible line quite some distance away from the Prince and gets down to her knees, bowing deeply to the King and the Prince.

"Your Majesty. Your Highness." A steady voice.

Lux. She's not looking at him – he has to be a spectator, someone who is supposed to learn something from this memory. Lux, can you hear me? Or – he shifts his weight uncomfortably – can I still hear you?

It is an honor to be summoned here in the presence of the Prince, Lux's thoughts are meticulous and fast, without a drop of troubled emotion. The Measured Tread always mentions the Hall of Mirrors. Only three generals per generation receives recognition here. I believe Garen was three years older than me when he was first summoned.

"General Crownguard. You have been an outstanding fighter for our nation. All generals speak highly of your leadership, valor, and arcane power." The King smiles as a courtier smoothens out a wrinkle on his robes with gloved hands. "And our nation always honors its military."

She bows again. I can handle this. I spent an extra four hours last night reading up on Court Representation and Etiquette. "It is only my duty, Your Majesty."

"There is only one thing we need to discuss," the King continues. "The recruitment of new soldiers."

He's caught off guard by how she suddenly stiffens, a white-hot anger seizing control of her mind as if the feelings of obedience and rationalism have never existed. Oh. This is the same Lux that got mad at me over Leonor. "Your Majesty?"

"You should revise the amount of trial time you are giving the recruits. You seem to be inspiring excellent loyalty in your subordinates, but you are also reporting the highest trial time out of all generals in your rank." Jarvan IV frowns; his father's smile is still serene, although Ezreal can sense a current of threatening disapproval underneath the benevolence. Jarvan III. The Noxians said he's the epitome of Demacian kings – noble and smooth on the outside, but calculating and ruthless deep within. The perfect hypocrite. "You understand, as all Demacians do, the importance of always running a disciplined, well-manned army. All recruits who fail must be sent away immediately."

Lux's hands are shaking. She's subtly manipulating the light around here to hide it, but they're shaking nevertheless, and he can't help but grimace. Fear is curling in her gut, an ugly snake unfitting her handsome outfit and lovely figure – but denial is there too, as much as she's trying to suppress it. If the King's after me, then someone's on my case, probably one of the rival generals. Sera… I guess I can't even give the children what I gave to her now, that final night, an exclaimation that she's really never mattered to me and everything has been a lie. I know the importance of feeding a steady stream of qualified recruits, but the children, I can't help but sympathize. If the woman didn't give me the crystal so many years ago – he backs away from the imagery of her hands pounding at the ground, the bleakness on her eleven-year-old face as she crawled towards the window – I'd be just like my recruits, dead and buried. I'm here now, in the Hall of Mirrors, having proven my worth, but this is a slap on my face. He's telling me that I should have died.

"Lux." He aches to hold out a hand for her, to hug her; I didn't know any of this. I didn't know everything you've been through. She bites down on her teeth, staring right through him, trying her hardest to maintain her composure; Demacia. Home, nobility, honor. If I anger the King, it will be the end of all things. "I will discuss this with the other generals, Your Majesty. I believe they have the experience to properly educate me on this matter. I will not fail you again." Her voice is level and genuine-sounding, but behind it something's starting to crack: her hands are shaking harder than ever, and her mind's shadowy shades of red and yellow, an uncontrollable flame starting to spread.

"Lux." The flame hurts him, hurts in their damned familiarity. Even though he had tried to stop it, she had burned down, exploded, allowed her soul to become consumed by a flame. Is this where it all started? A conversation with a King in the Hall of Mirrors?

"Excellent, Crownguard." The King rests his scepter, his expression calculated. "You should remain while I summon Buvelle. Together you can inform me of the current situation south of the Great Barrier."

Her hands suddenly relax. His start trembling more than ever. I can't do this forever. I want to both preserve myself and save others, to both serve the King and serve my own feelings, but those are two monsters baring fangs at each other and one day all my fractures will collect and annihilate me completely. But if I know that is true and inevitable… if I know one day I can't be useful to anyone in life anymore, I can try to be useful to someone in death. I can turn my soul into a bomb and detonate it, destroy all that is ugly until there is nothing left, burn through the waters that drowned Sera and the winds that took away Ran. The desperation in her radiates, too much, and he finally throws his arms around her, not caring about his current incorporeal form, all just a fraught desire to keep her there. There's too much blood on my hands, all these children I saw slowly wither and die, and even if I can justify self-preservation right now to myself, I don't know when I'd eventually just want to tie myself to a Cross and die with all the weight of the children I was never able to save.

"It is my honor, Your Majesty." She responds carefully, polishing her words picture perfect. Excellent. I'm going to survive this for now. He remembers his own struggles with Leonor and the children in the rain, and can't help but attempt futilely to hug her tighter, blinking to stop his own flood of tears. Lux. Goddammit.

I will visit Sera's grave often, Lux decides, as she turns to greet the Buvelle general, brother to Sona's adopted mother. Give her all the flowers she would ever want.

Don't turn yourself into a bomb, he begs, burying his head into her armored shoulders despite knowing he's many years too late. You're worth it in life. Leonor isn't the only person who can find blind rainbows beautiful.

I wish I can't feel, more distant from her now, as the Buvelle general performs the same bow. His tears are falling through her in the mind as he continues to force her heart to keep beating in Shurima, the soul butterflies still gathering around them with their delicate wings. I wish I am actually what I wanted to become, a robot who can remember nothing but complete love and trust in my country. But that isn't to be. I can't even succeed in stripping myself of my humanity.

---

He's a wreck.

"Lux, your butterflies are awful," he croaks as his mind returns to the material plane, his fingers quivering hard as he clumsily lets go of the first soul butterfly. "You're not allowed to break yourself up into them. Never again."

She's still not breathing. He thinks he'll lose it when rigor mortis sets in. "Fuck the King. Fuck the plague. Fuck Piltover, even. Why don't you just go on adventures with me? You don't have to stay near me. I'll just tell you where to go. You could found a temple somewhere in Ionia and raise orphaned kids, if you wanted. A lot of their teachings say you can erase everything from your previous life and just become someone completely new. Lux. Listen to me. You can do that. Just don't throw your soul away."

Her mutilated face hurts all the more after seeing her eyes in the Hall of Mirrors. "God, Lux. What do you want? Do you need an angel to tell you that it's okay, that you've never sinned and nothing in your life was ever in your control?" The Aurora. Rainbows. Visions of light, all the soul butterflies. For the love of everything that is holy in Valoran, why does it have to be butterflies. "Do I need to convince you that you're actually a reincarnation of a Freljordian goddess, as crazy as that sounds? I just wish you gave me more time. You're already a goddess to me. Not everyone can stay true to light after losing so much. I sure don't have that kind of courage."

She's still unconscious. He's still rambling. Somewhere in the sky Kiah's probably laughing at how insane it all is. "You have all the light and no way out. I have all the exits but only darkness. Come, butterflies. Come show me something else. Something with hope in it. Something to save yourselves with."

A blue butterfly veined with black hovers before his eyes. He sees snow in its wings, a flicker of divinity. I suppose that's my last chance. "You. Let's go."

---

Demacian snow. It doesn't stick the way Freljordian snow does, but it still lends chill and melancholy to the land, a stillness that clings to the marble buildings and hushes hotblooded talk of war. He reaches out for some flakes and sticks them to his temple, grateful for how real the numbness feels even in Lux's memories. I need that. I wish I can have a cold massage just about now.

She steps out of the barracks in a white dress, snow in her golden hair. His eyes widen in surprise, but he follows her anyway, a strange soul in a strange land.

She leads them to a church; it's not one of the stately ones, and he doubts anyone from a respectable Demacian house has ever set foot in it, but the hearth is invitingly warm, and a transparent dome seems to trickle snow and starlight into the space all at once. She kneels before a statue of an angel, her palms pressed together; he sits down on one of the wooden chairs, watching her like the first time they met near the Guardian's Sea.

"My fathers, forgive me, for I have sinned…"

A drifting line. He shakes his head. She shivers.

"… I've doubted my country, my faith, and myself. I dream of myself as an angel, even when I am nothing more than human. Even when I know I should act to protect this land and everyone under your wings, my heart falters. I know you have a plan for everyone. I know all you want for all of us is a place to shine, be it in your kingdom or our own. But I doubt."

Her voice cracks. "I have so many doubts."

Demacia, where dreams grow up to die. He had admired the city-state for its beautiful infrastructure and romantic undertones, but after glimpsing Lux's experiences and failing to halt her self-destruction, he can't help but hate everything associated with its golden halls. You were taken away as a child. You tried to prove your worth – and you got it – but even then you had to live every single day watching children like you flail and drown. How can you still believe that the angels are anything but a scam, a religious set-up to hold Demacians loyal to the King? How can you still think they own a kingdom in heaven and want anything good for you, when the only one they serve is a selfish man on Earth?

I shouldn't doubt, her mind whispers, as if it has heard him. I have to believe that the angels are real, and that they are beautiful. I wouldn't have anything otherwise. I've always wanted to be a shining beacon of light to my people, no matter how hard that may be, no matter how much further dreams of the angels are from the truth… but if I don't cling onto the noble image of our world and try my hardest to make it real, who will? Certainly not Whitefield. Certainly not Dar Regale. I don't even know about my own brother.

It killed you, he murmurs, heartbroken.

It'll be worth it, she swallows.

It's not. It's really not. He runs out into the open, blocks the images of the angels with all of himself, tries to pick up the holy relics and smash them into the ground. You're more an angel than any of these false gods can ever hope to be. I don't care aout symbolism anymore. I don't care about promises of salvation and promises of hope. I just want to fight with the real feelings storming in my heart, and to run past this labyrinth to save the only goddess I've ever met.

"Please accept my confession." The words seem to have dropped from a trance; her eyes widen and then she shakes her head violently, face red with shame. "I'm sorry. I'm a lost child. Please lead me home with your guiding light, for I know you have the power."

Guiding light? These angels? Don't make me laugh. You were the Aurora. Even during the longest nights in the wastelands of the Freljord, you were much more than just Guiding Light. You are Pilot Light, the origin of all, the Sun. How could I have been so oblivious? The exit of the labyrinth is the point of light. The only way out of all of this is just to follow the light I can sense on the tip of my tongue, to trace it back.

Everything comes back to finding you.

The round scar on his hand is burning. The amulet. Lux's body is growing warm under his hands, and the butterflies are gathering, drawn to the glow of his crystal. Now. Now or nothing.

"No." It's strange how easily the words come to him now, and how he knows beyond any doubt that she'll finally hear him. "Please accept my confession."

An angel? How? He hears her internal question of wonder, realizes that who she's perceiving him to be, and laughs to himself, not sure if it's a blessing or a curse that she is going to believe that he is some kind of god. I'm no god. You are the goddess. But I suppose you're never going to believe in your own divinity, especially not when you had grown up believing that the only part of you worth anything is your magic, so I will have to convince you that you are my champion – that what I'm going to say means something completely different.

But I'm honest, Lux, I really am.

One day you'll hear this from me as myself, because you will live long enough to open your eyes again, and you deserve to hear it as many times as you could possibly want.

"…Yes?" The ground is shaking. The dome of the church has crashed onto the floor behind her, the glass shattering much like the real-life ruin of his goggles and gauntlet, but neither of them pay any attention to it, their eyes only on each other. The snow has turned into a blizzard, the white flakes quickly covering both of their blond heads like down; there's light in her eyes, though, her stunning cerulean blue eyes, and he is reminded of just why he feels this way about her, why her eyes are among the least impressive things in this girl who just absolutely refuses to gives up.

She has just always clung onto that one thing. Light, no matter how hallucinatory. Light, no matter how dim. Even when all else fades. Even when the world falls to silence, an eclipse covers the sky, and there's only cold snow. Clinging onto the hope of heaven, to the belief that she can bring light to others even if it means perishing in darkness all alone. The belief that light is good, beautiful, warm. The belief that light can save entire worlds.

Her soul butterflies merge into one sphere of light above his hands, a flaring walks up to her in the snow as a god would, pronounces it loud and clear into her ear, guarding her from the disintegration of her own soul.

We'll make it through this. If only for your faith. If only for what I now know.

"I love you."

---

Three years ago, he had sat down next to an Ionian nun, a remarkable woman who served first as a summoner and then a farmer before devoting herself to the pursuit of peace and happiness. The conversation had gone like this:

How would you describe love?

Oh, dear, that's the one thing I have actually figured out. Love is a string of coincidences that gathered significance and became miracles.

The final chamber of Lux's mind is a zoetrope; silhouettes form the border of an enclosed city, shadows of her family, shadows of the children she loved, shadows of the wheel of life turning despite not turning at all. He knows why that's the shape of her heart, for the construction is nothing but an illusion of light, a symbol of neverending pretend progress that reflects her belief that her attempt to preserve her own life is her own undoing, but he also knows that a heart can change, provided that he continues to keep it beating, a hundred beats every minute.

"Lux? Where are you? I believe you. I believe that you're still out here somewhere. Can you hear me?"

The scene is twisted, packed to the brim with creations of Lux's despair; he is surrounded on all sides by things from broken mirrors and Demacian banners to kaleidoscopes and damaged angel statues, and he cannot take a step without hearing a disfigured wail somewhere in the distance. Children with wasted faces and rotting limbs are skipping past him, songs on their lips, holding hands as they stomp over motionless bodies of Demacian knights and Noxian assassins; a black-and-white rainbow is rising over the horizon, its stark colors weaving a picture of disappointment and grim acceptance.

"You're an idiot, dumb, ugly ass!" He cries out defiantly into the world of her soul, throwing everything she has ever said to him back at her. "You believed in light enough to last more than twenty years, so why can't you just spare some of that brightness for yourself?"

No answer. He continues to run, hoping that he'd be able to find her, trapped somewhere in all the misery.

Let me have a happy dream, for once since I left my bubble of naivete and privilege, all those years ago.

Would you, Lux, really believe that someone as traumatized and wretched and crazy as me is actually a god, someone greater than anything you've ever been? I guess you would. I guess this is your happy dream, a dream in which you have done something for someone, a dream in which you can pass away knowing that you've saved the sunrise for a good number of people.

You had set up this bomb determined that your suicide would be a heroic sacrifice, after all.

"Lux! Luxanna! General Crownguard!"

His amulet-scar tingles, the light rays from the circle focusing into a solid flashlight beam; he stops, adjusting it to make sure he'll be able to see the road directly ahead, and stumbles on, stepping past a picture of Garen combing Lux's hair at her fifth birthday.

She had said love can become miracles. If my voice can reach you, I'm sure a miracle will happen.

He runs past an expansive field on his own, wings of light on his back as he rushes through her version of the Royal Palace's Garden of Herrenhausen, the grass failing to pull him under and hold him hostage. Sirens from the fountains are reaching towards him, words of temptation and promises of honor on their lips; he has heard enough empty-meaning Demacian to become sick of it, though, and he ignores the mythical women utterly, his eyes only on the one true goddess that insists on staying elusive.

"I'm getting tired. Would you want to force an angel to spend so long looking for you? Is that how you respond to a god's love?"

The road beneath his feet is changing. Tiny desert roses are sprouting next to the black tar, the little blossoms soft and fragrant just like the last flower Leonor secured in Lux's hair. The path is leading to a gate of the city, the door swinging open; he only hesitates for one second before sprinting towards it, trusting in the symbol of love between Lux and someone she wanted to give her life for.

He finds her lying down on top of a sand dune, her face intact and her eyes a glassy shade of blue, staring up at a luminous sky. He approaches her quietly, half-hoping she would be able to see him, but she doesn't even stir when he lies down next to her, reaching for her hand.

"Lux. Found you at last."

"I'm sorry it took you so long." Her voice is coarse, wistful. "I didn't want you to find me."

"Why not? I'm an angel, a god. You weren't going to escape from me."

"I'm dead," she says matter-of-factly, and he realizes that she's wearing her Shuriman robe, the one still tainted with blood. But she still has eyes. She still yearns to see. "It's too much trouble to recruit me when you could well go for someone else."

"Are you questioning the gods?"

"I guess I am," she sighs. "I've been questioning everything for a very, very long time. I just – I just want things to turn out alright. As well as they possibly could. And I'm so bad at it."

"You sure are talking to a god as if I'm just a friend."

"I'm dead," she repeats again. "This is a fugue. My soul is in your hands. You can do whatever with me, and I can't fight back. It's not like anything ever went my way when I fought back in my lifetime. You've tolerated my antics for so long, so I'm just going to assume that you don't mind talking to me this way." A melancholy smile. "You know all my thoughts, don't you? But you are not judging me. You're not smiting me. You're just here with me, sympathizing, talking. It's all kinds of wrong, but it's nice. I've always been lonely."

"I've been lonely, too."

"How so? I thought all the angels are friends. Family. The relationship between the angels is supposed to have inspired the Measured Tread's entire section on how all Demacians should treat each other."

"And do all Demacians actually do that?"

"…No." She laughs, a chime. By the Gods, it's not the same laugh that he's heard before on the Fields. "I suppose you're right. I'm sorry."

"I actually want to make a difference." He watches the sky, all the constellations, all the stars that have inspired tales of love and power of perserverance. "I want to make sure we'll stay true to what we claim we are. I want us to love, to support each other, to fight for what is just and true… I don't want to see kind Demacians cry, not anymore."

She freezes, and then forces a smile, obviously unnerved. "I never thought anyone would agree with me. Not anyone in Demacia, and… of course, not any angel."

"You haven't been abandoned. Those scars on you, Luxanna – I see them, as if they are on myself. For every single scar you have, you've given the world a kiss. You've loved. You're loving. Keep loving, for that's all that matters. The Sun needs to rise in the sky, and light will shine over all."

She's almost to the point of tears. "Ezreal. He tried to save me."

"He'll just want you back. He just wants a friend." I'm a liar. A terrible liar. But if a lie would keep you here, I'll lie until the end of the world. If a lie could convince you that you're loved – that you're wonderful – that this life is worth it… I suppose a lie can be beautiful, too.

It's love, despite betrayal.

"I – " she swallows. "I'm blind."

"Vision isn't the only expression of light in this world. Remember Leonor's words about your rainbows? The Freljordian Aurora?"

"I – " she covers her face in her hands. "I'll have the power? To make something as wonderful as that?"

"All of that, and more. You will have my blessing. There is a whole wide world out there, Luxanna. An entire Valoran that needs a Sun, something for the cult at Mount Targon to worship. The domain of the living needs you, Lux. I know you only remember the children you couldn't save, but what about those you did? Aren't some of them well on their way to being generals themselves now, their hearts human instead of stone?"

She's crying. "I just want to take them for granted. No one is supposed to die. If I'm just a bit better, just a bit stronger, than I could have saved them all. I wouldn't leave anyone behind. I never want to leave anyone behind."

"You're right. We shouldn't leave anyone behind." Her soul's flaring up again now, the sphere dancing with multicolored sparks; on the real sand dune in Shurima, he hastily lets go of her heart, placing her crystal right above the organ right as the dream Lux realizes what he's trying to say.

"You – "

"I'm not going to leave you behind," he admits, almost breaking into tears himself. "I didn't want to fall for you. I wasn't supposed to, but I have. Just do me a favor, okay? Return to where you came from. Go home. Carve out a path for yourself, find your own happiness, the rules of the other angels be damned. You're a goddess to me, and you'll always have my blessing."

Her blue eyes are startling under the starlight. "That'd be the last thing I can do."

"Trust me. Trust yourself. Trust the light, and trust hope." And I promise you, as Ezreal of Piltover, that I will always love you. Even if no one else would. Even if you lose sight of eveything that is dear to you. Even if you don't come back, despite everything we've said, all the tears we've shed. Even if the world has ended while I tried to talk to you, and you'll come back to a world void of life, with only me for company.

"I'm glad you found me," she mumbles, closing her eyes. He leans close, both in life and in his mind, a prayer to the Aurora in his breath.

"And I'm glad that I love you."

He kisses her on the sand dune in Shurima, breaking over to the barrier of her soul under a scintillating sky; the crystal above her heart once again bursts into a supernova, but one for creation this time instead of destruction, melting the two of them into a sea of warmth instead of a cloud of fire. The stone dissolves into her skin, seamless, the action identical to when his amulet seared into his skin; the soul thaws along with the crystal, falling back into her as their lips meet, bringing color back onto her cheeks again, drawing air from him back into her lungs. She stirs, kissing back; he backs away, an angel's helpless smile on his face, his heart beating too fast in his chest.

You'll be a goddess, Lux. No matter what I said.