A/N

This chapter concludes the Shurima Arc – well. Close enough. The next "chapter" is like a small intermission, nothing super long (or at least, that's what I say right now Q_Q). We'll be taking a break from all the death and tears and check up on Kass again. We are heading to Demacia after this, and the plot should pick up (more interactions with League champions, more conversation between Lux and Ezreal themselves, etc).

Right after I posted chapter 7, I considered having Ezreal, Lux and Janna travel to Nasus' library and meet up with Nasus and Amumu after the conclusion of the Shurima Arc – I decided to take it out because I'm about as done with Shurima as the rest of you, but I'll probably still include Nasus and Amumu in the story in some capacity. Maybe. We'll see.

I still intend to write the Demacia Arc from the perspectives of both Lux and Ezreal, but I'm going to tweak the writing style a bit – I'll try to do more 'show, not tell', and scenes probably will no longer be retold from both characters' perspectives (i.e. no more chronological overlap). I keep getting the feeling that ALBTPTH is around three times as long as it should be, so I'm going to try to fix that.

Finally, this chapter is dedicated to Annie and Glaive. Thank you for putting up with me and enjoying this story. You two are wonderful people and I'm very (very!) grateful that I've gotten to meet and talk to you. Soon I'll use Glaive's model to write the Crownguard estate – get hype!

"I don't really think of myself just as an explorer anymore. My mind drifts, making my eyes pick up things they had glazed over before. It's not just about the artifacts –it has never been just about the artifacts – it's about the men and women who created it all, the guardians who stood sentinel, and the sacred felines that once roamed the royal grounds… Discovery – curiosity – it's that lust for new things, those exhilarating first few seconds of wonder. The power of life and death, the eternity of time, what we've been able to create with our hands… that wonder sustains me, fulfills me. Even if the skies are dark and I cannot find my way home, I want to see all there is to see in this world. Someone has got to be the bard, leave something for all posterity to marvel at. I want to write a chronicle of the miracle that is Valoran, and give my life to protect it."

-Ezreal of Piltover (19), at a Journey Through Time: A Lecture Series on the Gods of Freljord

"Faith is a living, daring confidence in the Angels' grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times."

-Martin Luther (54), preaching to the most esteemed generals, Hall of Heaven, Demacia

"When prayers turn to promises, not even fate can stand in their way."

-Ionian Proverb

Shurima, the present, after the explosion

She's alone: the explosion must have blown Ezreal away, saved him as it killed her. She's glad, really; it's not remotely near his time, and it would have been fucking awful to journey to the next world with him. He doesn't need to be around to hear the Angels question her about all her life and choices, and she wouldn't want to be around him (and, conceivably, hear all accounts of his blissful life) when he goes on trial, anyway. No, for once in her life, she's pleasantly surprised that she has been abandoned all over again.

Time to be brave, she thinks, remembering all the times she lay in bed thinking of this moment and how she would act when she finally passed on. She had envisioned herself as an old woman, a middle-aged general, or even as she is now, a semi-accomplished general with a half-empty heart full of stitches and holes – but here, trembling in the dark and truly staring into the face of oblivion, she can't feel courage in her bones. I just have to be honest, a dim thought in her mind, surprisingly not in a state of utter panic. I just have to be me.

Please forgive me, Angels, she falls to her knees and prays, bites her tongue as she feels her limbs start to dissolve. It doesn't hurt – why doesn't it hurt? Even ten years later I'm still who I was, a scared little girl who just wants some form of approval.

I know the angels do not approve of suicide. I know the angels won't approve of a lot of things that I've done. The trial will be daunting, for sure. But all I wanted – all I ever wanted – is salvation, a promise of heaven. I thought – I thought if my life had not been worth anything, if my death had been noble, my soul might still be worth loving. I thought the Angels' grace would then possibly still save me, and I'll have a home at last, a home where everyone would love me and no one would ever leave me.

Memories are flashing before her, both things she cherished and moments she badly wanted to forget. She sees Garen braiding her hair again, his hands too clumsy for the work but his voice sweeter than sermons in her ears; Laura is waving to her once more on the first day of school, remarking enviously that with her arcane gifts, she's surely to be the most popular girl at school…

A stone face, she tells herself. Keep a stone face. These are your memories. These are you. You can't turn your back on what you've done, now, even if you might want to.

Father. Noxus. Leonor. Ezreal. The sadness on the child's face, and the determination in Ezreal's eyes. A small gasp of pain escapes her, quiet enough for no one else to hear, but she still can't help but grimace, slapping herself internally for her weakness.

It's my fault for naively thinking my plan might work, I guess. He just wanted to save me. If I'm going to be denied an eternal peace because of him… I suppose it cannot be helped. It's not like I lived my life expecting a happy ending anyway – my life, sadly, has just been a series of unfortunate events…

The last tears evaporate into the light as her hair metamorphoses into glittering butterflies, a small cloud of fluttering rainbows. Just give him a break, alright? If the Angels would let me make one more wish, and even actually grant it…

I wouldn't want my death to weigh on him, when he's already carrying the burden from everyone we were not able to save.

Send not to know

For whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

Twenty-year-old Luxanna Crownguard knelt before the altar, feeling thoroughly shaken and unclean.

She had bedded Whitefield the night before – didn't feel like she had an option to say no, knew that it was what everyone in the military did on a daily basis, male or female, lieutenant or general – and afterwards just could not look him in the eye again. He wasn't the worst – would probably rank near the top of the entire Demacian list as far as how he handled her went, to be honest – but the experience still left her reeling, devastated at how something that she had read to be intimate and loving turned out to be anything but.

That's how my entire life has been, though, she remembered, a hollow chill in her bones. Trusting in light. Dreaming about becoming like the legends of old. Feeling certain that everyone around me dreams like I do, desires to banish the shadows and marry for love in order to raise an affectionate family. But it's not like that. It's never like that, is it? In the end it's just about power, wealth, lust, prestige. The military doesn't believe in chivalry, and the people don't believe in the Church. Those who do just end up like me, struggling in the rain, alone with our thirst for happy endings…

Is Garen just like Whitefield? What about the Prince? Are they even worse? There's a lump in her throat, and she feels sick to her stomach. Is there even anyone else like me?

"Please accept my confession. I'm sorry. I'm a lost child. Please lead me home with your guiding light, for I know you have the power."

I can't. I can't doubt. If I doubt, then there's truly nothing left in the nobility we Demacians claim. I can't let Demacia rot to the ground. I can't let my dreams fall apart, not when they've sustained me for all this time. I owe it to them. I… I can't just give up and tell myself that everything I believe in is worth nothing. Even if my own soul might not be worth anything, my faith and my beliefs must, for they are endowed with divine grace… if I give up on my faith now, there truly won't be anything left for me.

There's something on her tongue, something too sacrilegious, but something she knows she believes in the deepest parts of her heart to be true: even if the angels are not real – even if, at the very end, Noxus and the rest of Valoran are right – she'll invent them.

I've dreamed of myself with wings.

If there truly is no heaven, for the sake of my own sanity, I suppose I will still build paradise with my own hands.

"No. Please accept my confession."

The twenty-year-old Luxanna jumps, startled; the older, dying Lux's consciousness stirs, her fragmented mind coming back together under the shock from the voice she's hearing. Is this the judgment? Am I listening to an Angel? It has to be an Angel, the way their voice is packed with a passion I cannot describe with words. Too much feeling in that voice. Too much empathy. If anyone could have written our holy books, this Angel could have.

It has to be an Angel, because I've spent more than ten years wishing someone could just understand.

He isn't done; talks to her as if from the statue on the altar, his voice rich and vibrant but so, so sad. Her disjointed memories cry out, sure that she has heard the voice in life from somewhere, something identical but different; she ignores the memories and simply strains to hear him, willing to let her soul overload and disappear if that's the cost of hearing an Angel for the first time.

And what she hears sends tears soaring, breaks her and puts her together at the same time.

"I love you."

She's on the run.

She's a shipwreck in the middle of a hurricane, a little girl imprisoned underwater by a web of weeds: gotta run gotta run gotta get out of here just let me breathe just let me see. She doesn't know if it's her or if it's dying or if it's anything at all but it hurts, pulses of unreality and intense panic permeating through her entire universe: she's seeing things that even she knows she has never dreamt about, Garen leading her to a polished bronze guillotine or herself staring down at a whole field of desert poppies right outside of her Demacian barracks door, and she just keeps running, ignoring the looks of the dead children staring at her from the sides of the road, hoping that everything would stop turning if she just keeps running.

How can I feel so scared, she sobs in between hyperventilating breaths, if I'm dead?

How can I be so scared, another thought wails, because I'm being loved?

I don't have a heart anymore. It has to be ash now, burnt to cinders – so how am I getting these palpations, these rigid tears?

My parents – they had promised to love me. So had Whitefield, Dar Regale, Sera, Ran… Leonor. Hugs, kisses, promises, even that one singular bouquet of roses Dar Regale sent me… I hated it, hated how I couldn't even pretend to enjoy it because I knew everything was just going to fall apart. I hated how the world would bait me with love, harvest all my hope and tears before showing me the reality that tore everything to shreds. If you loved me, either you were going to die, or you were going to leave. There had never been a middle ground. And often, in my darkest moments, I wished the ones who left had died instead –

Gotta run gotta run run. Escape. Forget. Die. Stop existing. Fade. Burn.

She stumbles and falls on Sera's water-worn corpse, probably badly spraining a no-longer-existent ankle. A doll rolls out from under the girl, something that Lux had owned before she burned it on her thirteenth birthday: a Demacian paladin with the brown hair and stocky build of her brother, stuck with more than a dozen resentful voodoo pins.

I'm a horrible person.

The warmth, though: golden light is chasing her, starting to wrap around her as if building a cocoon, and she can't resist it, no matter how much she wants to. She kicks with whatever phantom limbs she has, tries to tear through the fabric, fight against the power of the angel; the golden ribbons sink glowing hope into her, force her tears to be swallowed into her stomach. She covers her face in her hands, drowning in that oh-so-familiar sensation of affection again, relieved despite herself.

I'm dumb. I can't stop myself. I'll always fall in love, because I love falling in love, and I love being loved. I couldn't stop but smile at Whitefield, at Sera, at you. It doesn't matter if it hurts. It doesn't matter if I died for it. It doesn't matter doesn't matter don't care.

I just wish the world would fall silent, and let me love.

"Lux! Luxanna! General Crownguard!"

It's him, golden in flight and impossibly sweet in the order he called out her name as he rushes through the Gardens of Harrenhausen, ever so graceful even in his urgency, leaving the dry fountains to sprout and the wilted flowers to bloom in his wake; she surrenders herself at last, falling onto the ground where she stood, face thrown up towards a clear sky, futilely trying to recall her childhood prayers.

The stars. She doesn't know how they just appeared out of apparently nowhere, but she isn't going to complain. These circlets of gems are bright above her, entire constellations and star clouds, the twinkling orbs ranging from dirty rust red to a brilliant bright blue, and she's reminded of her childhood, sitting on the Crownguard balcony, sketching the Pleiades with broken colored crayons. Childhood… prayers? What about my childhood bedtime stories? Demacians had their folktales about the stars, too, no matter how unimaginative the Noxians and Piltoverians might have thought we were. I had a whole journal about those tales, how Altair and Vega was a loving couple separated by the angels for disobedience, and Spica was a shining lady who brought the healing arts to her people. I only wrote down the nice stories then, the ones that showed either the angels or the humans to be kind and redeemable… I didn't want to learn harsh truths and discipline from fairytales, for didn't I know in the deepest pit of my heart, even then, that I would learn those truths in real life anyway?

A small voice, blushing, thankful, whispering as she feels him settle down next to her, his being too bright to directly lay eyes upon: But, thank you. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for being one of those fairytales I'll always remember.

I don't know how to worship you, but I suppose I do know the universal prayer.

Thank you. It's the ending word of every prayer, even outside of Demacia – that sincere sentiment of appreciation, of love, echoed in every human language by all in their wishes for hope.

She can't see him, but she can feel him: next to her, around her, in her mind, on her heart. His voice rings in her bones, melts her from the inside. She's boasted before – many years ago, to please the King – that she was made of solid light, but oh, this is too hard; even solid light can't hold in pure hope, not for long.

"I actually want to make a difference." She knows his voice, that plaintive tone, that casual authority that vibrates without a grand hall or a crown. She wonders if he had spoken to her before, blown out one of her prayer candles when she was a child as she stopped before his statue. He has a strange accent – Demacian, but not quite – but there's a strange quality in it that mesmerizes, as if he knows everything in this world and beyond and he has been talking to entire generations of Demacians from the dawn of time. Maybe he had spoken to her in a previous life. Maybe… he's speaking again. She'll just revel in it.

There's no way for her to see him, or for the two of them to touch; he's far more than what she could ever be, having existed ever since the first Demacian settlers established the city-state. Nevertheless, she feels him trying to hold her hand, and it's like holding onto a warm mug of coffee after a whole night of guard duty. Ugh. It feels like home. "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."

I was right. For once in my goddamned life, I was right. Even the current King hasn't gone so far to claim direct divine favor, and out of every Demacian in the city, every Demacian priest even, it's me. I'm the one he loves, the one he approves of. She chokes before spluttering, and finally forces a smile: I can't be disrespectful. I can't disappoint him. '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." Shivers. He speaks them as if he knows her, every time she had wanted to lash out, every time she broke down alone. Her lips tremble as he voices the word love; he hesitates when he feels it, and only softens his voice, as if he is determined to absolutely convince her of his favor.

Ezreal. Ezreal sounds a little like this. But Ezreal's Piltoverian, has always been, will always be. He belongs in a free world, a world without rules or tragedies – even if he would ever visit Demacia, he could never be Demacian, far less a Demacian angel. Tears shouldn't fall down his face, that ever-so-sunny face, so he would never understand me… I still wish, though, that I didn't leave him like that, alone in a world of the dead, heartbroken over my stupidity. Oh, if he could be here now, listening to the angel along with me… I wish he could. I wish for a lot of things. "Ezreal. He tried to save me."

"He'll just want you back. He just wants a friend."

Me? Me, as a champion of an angel? For a while the fear shoots up her once again like a net of thorns, and she stares at him pleadingly, hoping he didn't really mean what she thought he meant. "I – I'm blind."

He reassures her. It doesn't matter.

"You –" She struggles, crying. I can't do this. Not when I'm blind. I've never wanted to succeed so much in my entire life, but that also means I've never been so scared to fail in my entire life, either. Every part of me hopes that he's right, that the light in my heart would be good enough, but how am I going to convince the King? My people? Myself that I can be a light mage again, when my world has fallen into darkness?

"I'm not going to leave you behind. 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."

Home. Goddess. What's a goddess to an angel? Does he think of me as his equal? For a second she's terrified again, but of something else entirely. Fall for me? Has an angel ever fallen in love with their champion? Someone remotely worthy of an angel has to be a Princess or a Queen, and even then –

"Trust me. Trust yourself. Trust the light, and trust hope.' A pleading tone enters his voice. A jolt runs through her, collecting guilt from the bottom of every memory."

Who am I to doubt? He created me, the city, all of my ancestors and everyone who will come after me. She bites her lips hard, overwhelmed by his affection and by the sudden pride welling up in her heart; bliss and relief is filling her up, putting her back together, making her feel more alive than she has ever felt. If he tells me to trust him and trust myself, then he truly, truly believes in me. I'll be up there with the legends of old, the battle saints and the founding King, above the authority of even His Majesty himself. I'll be able to lead my people, save all the children I ever wanted to save, become more powerful and enlightened than I'd ever been before he claimed me… I'd make him proud. I'd make Demacia proud. I'd make Demacia free of tears, at the very least.

Her fingers are shaking. If she is to fall apart right now just from the sheer magnitude of all of her feelings, she'd be okay with it, just like she has always been okay with sacrificing her happiness for love. This pure joy… I don't know just what I can accomplish with this sudden faith, this trust, knowing that an angel is willing to put a halt on my death just to tell me that he loved me. Probably anything. I feel like I can accomplish anything and everything. And the light in me, that well of power that I thought would be lost to me forever when I lost my sight… is that what he wanted, a blind champion of light for the angels?

One thing is certain: she had never been so happy in her entire life.

"I'm glad you found me," she mumbles, closing her eyes, brimming with gratitude and affection. He leans in, the light he's giving off preventing her from opening her eyes; he smells like the dawn and the freshness of spring, his face inches away from hers, and she wishes this would be forever, just her, and him loving her.

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

Love?

Love.

He kisses her under the light of both Altair and Vega, breaking the barrier between them as she feels his touch for the first time; she kisses back, not caring about dissolving all over again, forcing down the electric currents in her mind and throat as she seeks him, a bomb for death and rebirth detonating in her dead heart. His glowing warmth is trickling into her, someone shining the sun onto her core again after a thousand years under a glacial sea; there's a desperation in his kiss that doesn't feel human, feels too passionate, too melancholy, too fucking familiar, something stirring in the depth of memories that don't feel like her own, but then his touch is also astonishingly human, because it's too real, too sweet, those lips too soft to belong to an angel that has seen many thousands of years. It's a promise of love, as if he's actually right next to her, cradling her soul, as opposed to being that shadowy winged angel in the sky; she clings to it, making it linger, hungrily drinking in that indescribable feeling of hope, using it to fuel her light.

I'm alive, she remembers, sensing her heart start beating in her again, the rhythm building fluttering butterflies like a little girl falling in love for the first time. He was that spark of life, that one thing that allowed me to burst into brilliance again.

He's backing away; she smiles, letting him go. It would only be wrong of me to take up so much of his time.

It's alright. I'll be alright. I promise. I believe it, this time. If you believe me, then there's nothing in the world that I can't do.

For I will be your light.

Light – it's a strange concept, isn't it? It blinds even as it defines vision, teaches the world both the glory of the day and the despair of the night. She thinks she's made of it, of both the stars and the shadows, the entire rainbow of the spectrum: all it took was one kiss to ignite it all, rekindle electricity and warmth in her that she never remembered she had, and she's flying, glowing, even as he fades away and she's just reclaiming her body again.

I'm a symbol, she muses, sluggishly pulling herself up as her heart beat in a different rhythm in her chest. A new Era is dawning, and I'm his champion. It's up to me to open the curtains. He's given me the power…

And just how wonderful of a power it is, her tears are catching in her throat, to be able to see all this light, everything that I've either missed or have had taken away from me?

She can see her hands. She's not seeing them through a pair of blue irises, the way she's used to; her hands are glowing in her mind, giving off that passionate shine that only belongs to the living, and she can see it as clearly as she had before she came to this village, every slight wrinkle of the skin and every dimpled lifeline. It's clearer, even, in a way: she can see her lifelines stretch out like the branches of an aspen tree, and rainbow mist is dancing between her fingers, little lovely swirls of light and smoke at her very fingertips. They are jumping around and wrapping themselves around her, passing from her hands to her wrists and her shoulders; they're nowhere near the solid brilliance of her focused beams, but they're beautiful, those delicate things that refuse to leave, and they're just as powerful, each single one of them capable of blasting through layers upon layers of armor and concrete –

She really cries when she sees the world around her again, the lines of the world, the sun blazing far above, the colors that fill up both the brown rolling sand dunes and the pristine blue sky. It's like I'm a Sun, a miniature one, and I'm throwing off my own light, demanding that the world bathe in it and give me something back. The world reflects me – my light hitting every single grain of sand – and I warm it, giving it every part of me, only wishing that it'd let me unveil its secrets, appreciate it for what it is, this world so, so worth loving even as it drowns in broken promises and forgotten dreams.

There's Janna's cart, barely still recognizable, a lot of the wood burned to a shade blacker than coal. Ezreal is hiding behind a dune twenty feet away, burying his head under his thin arms, the gold in his hair much like her own even in mourning and despair. Don't cry. Don't cry for me, not when I came back. The world… He gave it back to me, and I'm alive.

She reaches for her face subconsciously, wincing slightly as her fingertip brushes over a familiar pair of smoked craters. Standing feels different, too; she feels floaty, light. Almost as if she can sprout wings of her own and simply fly away.

"Lux?" Ezreal asks, jerking his head up as he sees her move. His voice is haunted but hopeful: although his voice is only a shadow of that of the angel, there's a yearning in it that hurts, and something in her slips as she sees his tearstains, those unnatural lines watermarking the vivid triangles beneath his sky blue eyes. "I thought you… died."

"I did." The words roll off her tongue unnaturally; it's strange to hear herself speak again, and stranger still to taste the difference in her voice, the newfound confidence deeply ingrained in every syllable. "Someone… saved me."

"I'm – I'm glad." He's struggling up, coughing as he gets up to his feet. "Are you okay? I mean, of course not, but – "

"I'm okay. More okay than I've been in a very long time."

He cracks a nervous laugh. "Those who come back always say that."

"Shut up."

He laughs, but then stops, and almost starts crying. "It's you. Oh Gods it's you. Lux, please… don't do that again, okay? You deserve so much more than that. There are far better ways for us to deal with that. Lux... I…"

He trails off, fighting back tears. She walks up to him and hugs him, hugging him closer as she feels him flinch and swallow whatever he wanted to say. "I made a promise to my Angel. I'll stick around. I promise."

There's something in his eyes that she can't read. "You shouldn't have to promise anyone. You are worth more than any Angel."

"Ezreal, please. The Demacian Angels are real. Look at me." She draws rainbows again with her bare hands – except, this time, she's painting them over the entire sky, bridges over bridges of shimmering light that refuses to fade away. But behold, this power! I didn't even have to think about it… the light. It just happens, as naturally as breathing, as fleeting and sweet in my mind as his kiss. "I'm here. I can color the clouds. I can probably turn night into day, if I wanted. If I wanted to shoot a laser, it can probably reach from here all the way to the Great Barrier… he gave me all this power, all this love, everything to do good with. You can't tell me that it's not real."

His lips are trembling. "Lux."

She moves one hand away to trace his jaw. "And I can see you."

There are just so many different things on his face; there's wonder there, a raw delight in her creations that lights up his features like the first dawn of Demacia's spring, but there's also a deep, deep well of grief, darkening the morning sky in his irises to glittering sapphires. There's also just that one twitch on his face that she can't for the love of the Angel understand – Fear? – "I just don't want to lose you."

"You'll lose yourself sooner than you'll lose me," She assures him with a small smile. The young man returns first a look of surprise, and then a slow nod; a strange wave of déjà vu washes through her as she lets go of him, but she's not going to stop and wonder where it came from – there are far more important things at hand, and she already knows how she will have to deal with her first target.

Lux: pray.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

Light always finds itself winding around feelings of love, doesn't it? Don't I always have to recall a happy memory whenever I wanted to perform my magic?

She reaches out into herself and it's gratitude that answers, a fine golden spring that coils around her lungs and glows with every exhale. I'm thankful for the Angels, Leonor, Ezreal, the old lady, Sera, Ran, everyone who offered me something as I stood in the cold – thankful for my parents for bringing me into this world, even. Thankful for my brother. Thankful for my priests. Thankful for Whitefield for trying his best to be kind. Gratitude expands her and clears her mind, envelops the entire desert with a sweet honey scent; I won't let them down. I will fill the world with the sun and stars.

Wonder chases gratitude, a multicolored wave that travels along with her heartbeat, wrapping itself around every tiny vein and artery: green for the leaves of the flowers in Aria's garden, blue for the flawless Shuriman sky, fierce indigos and violets for the bleeding bruises on Leonor's face that still smiled when she did. She admires those things, loves them for their courage: for how else could the Sun continue burning in the endless cold, the Angels continue to share their grace after several millenium, if not for all those little tiny things that bring warmth and happiness to the world, lights everything up? Wonder overflows from her, blows away the tears in her sinuses and becomes something new: a staff both longer and more solid than her baton, topped with a sigil of the Sun and shrouded in the glow of the bluest stars, small wings supporting the delicate orbs that spin and shine.

She's an instrument, something high and bright and beautiful, and she believes it, basking in her own glory; passion erupts from her core like a flame, crimson and tangerine and too many shades of promise, and her blood boils with it, sending her skin tingling with power. The colors of the Sun. The colors of the blood that run in every single human being, the colors of fire and flame, of rebirth and hope after a hopelessly long night – passion surrounds, cleanses, burns: it's mixing with gratitude and wonder to become the rainbow, chasing after what little of those she love that she could find, washing her hair liquid gold as it bestows on her a long flowing dress of rainbow and white, the fabric irisdescent against the pristine sky –

Souls. She stops abruptly in her tracks, her features settling as she strains to hear and focus. Her own soul butterflies have been a kaleidoscope, nostalgic, fragile but stubborn-proud, but she senses Leonor now, a lost child caged even after her death, spirit trapped as fluttering hummingbirds within an invisible barrier. What did he say back then, again? She had tried to defeat him for glory, but he had said one thing that provoked her, caused her to lash out at him without adequate preparation –

Oh, right. He had said he was going to sacrifice everyone in the village to his lord and master.

As if I'd ever let you.

She was a butterfly; Leonor was a baby crane, her friends doves and hummingbirds, another lady that had greeted her a seagull, someone born at the wrong place at the wrong time. The Shurimans' souls are clashing against each other in the enclave, longing to be free but trapped without reprieve; it sickens her to think they will be devoured by a void creature, disappearing into a mouth dripping with slime and filth, never to see and embrace light again.

If I could give them anything, I could promise to give them hope for joy.

She takes flight, her wings a butterfly's instead of an angel's, jumping headfirst back towards the sound and the fury; the staff is glowing white-hot in her hands, too bright for mortal eyes. She raises it, the orb pointed straight at heaven, willing her Angel to hear prayers for doves and baby cranes.

Leonor? She cries out a hundred feet above Aquelis' base, envisioning chirping avians with her mind. Leonor, I'm sorry.

Just hold on. I'm coming.

"You're here again, huh?" Aquelis asks, standing in front of the soul cage, his dark cloakdraping over the pearly light of the souls. "I suppose Demacians really are that stupid."

She lands in front of him, holding the staff in front of her cautiously. His words had incensed her, once – she had gotten too used to defending her pride as a League champion – but now she simply flicks them off, looks at him with both pity and wariness. "Let them go."

His lips curl up in surprise. "You can see them?"

"Maybe your powers aren't as unique as you think."

He remains still for a few seconds, before shaking his head. "It doesn't matter."

"It does." Her staff is glowing a steely, cold white, and Lux knows she's channeling the hate from her childhood, all the nights spent alone and afraid that never mattered to anyone. Not hate, she reminds herself. Justice. "Children's souls are not pawns in your games."

"Oh?" He laughs. "So what about those other villagers, those children's parents – do Demacian morals only go so far, Luxanna Crownguard? Would you leave them to dissipate, as long as you can save those you sympathize with?"

Her aura is clashing against his, bright rainbow against purple black. She shivers, tasting his words on her tongue: the syllables are merciless, bleak, shards of metal clashing against her flesh.

There were moments when I thought my parents were worse than Noxians, she remembers, tightening her hold on the staff. Moments when I thought only children were worth saving, and that I would never share my innermost thoughts and dreams with a grown human, even if we were marching to war under the same banner, our lives crossed by each other's swords. Even when I stepped onto the Rift of the League with my brother and the Exemplar, more often than not, I felt impossibly alone.

"You know you are living a lie, woman," Aquelis continues, an abyss behind his glowing eyes. "There's no nobility in your country. No nobility here in Shurima, either – it's not a simple coincidence. There is no nobility in humanity. We're inherently flawed, corrupted, evil. I used to want to become a better person for that woman. I promised! I said I would reform my ways, lay my hands off him, become someone respectful and powerful. But I can't change what I am. No one can. Our only hope lies with becoming something else."

"Is that what you want? Did they promise you an union with the Void?" She spits, feeling her wings expand and flutter behind her. I'm loved. I'm alive. 'How funny. You did not waste any words with me the last time I was here.'

The souls. They're reaching for her, calling for her – they're enslaved, struggling, afraid of the dark. She reaches out for them instinctively; he blocks her, sending a wave of pain up her arm, laughing the way Kha'Zix did on the fields when he sank his teeth into her, tearing apart her limbs with fancy. "You and that Piltover boy. You think you are champions of the League of Legends, so you're gods, invincible, infallible – I showed you the first time that you were nothing, and I will show you this time that you're pitiful."

Pity? Did I ever think I ever expected pity? "You know nothing about me."

He leans in, his ruined eyes inches from her own, and she can't help but flinch, feeling a presence rivaling that of her Angel behind him, backing his poisonous words. "But I do, Luxanna. Bitter people can smell like bitterness from a mile away. My prophet plants malefic visions into his victims' heads, but you, you already have more than enough in your head."

"And I'm brave enough not to become corrupted like you."

He shakes his head. "You on the ground after I took your eyes. That hollowness and pain, laid so bare… I would have taken you, if not for your cowardly scream. You'd make the perfect sacrifice. Your soul is asking to be fed to our Lords."

She levels her staff, the orb flickering threateningly. Leonor is waiting for me, but it's not just about her. My vision had been restored in more ways than one. "I don't deny my past. Unlike you, I learn and live."

He pushes her back with a torrent of power, throwing up his arms to strengthen his barrier. "I suppose you'll never understand what's good for you."

It's not just the children. I had thought losing my vision would be the end of me, but too many adults have shown me true empathy. The villagers had wished me a steady recovery from their sickbeds as Ezreal carried me back to the village, and Ezreal himself had tried his best to cheer me up… he cried over me. I had been worth something to him, although he had seen nearly all that could be seen in the world, and I was just a broken blind girl who wanted a way out. Janna, Aria, the villagers that tried to protect me… Demacian banners and swords are not the only answer. The true light within me is the light that wants to shine and protect.

It's good for me to love, and just be myself.

"I understand," she responds, leaping to the air. The staff blazes like the midday sun after a solar eclipse, the light burning; the fabric of her dress shimmers, little points of light sparkling like crystal. One strike. One strike to cut through him, and to release the souls. "More than you would ever know."

The blast from the laser colliding with the wall sends her flying, the wave blasting through the entire desert and almost getting through her shield; the entire hill is swallowed by torrents of black and rainbow, the stone melting down to become glittering pieces of glass. The wall falters, and then shatters completely, the structure smoking and then vanishing as if it has never existed; she lands by the horde of souls gracefully, catching her breath.

It's not the same kind of laser she has used throughout her adulthood; this annihilates, superheating and evaporating before the shaman had a chance to scream. She scans the scene for a hint of what's left of him before shrugging and turning away, deciding any effort would be futile. Instead, she kneels down to picks up a handful of cranes and seagulls, cooing to them; the souls are starting to drift up into the air, their prison broken but their substance unharmed by her light.

Luxanna Crownguard? There almost seemed to be a crowd around here, the same crowd from yesterday that watched her try to keep Leonor from going down fighting. They were speaking in Shuriman, but she understands them, the echoes of pure thoughts and feelings; she stands up and puts her hands together in prayer, knowing she's surrounded by the dead. Luxanna, thank you.

She has been surrounded by the dead before, walking through battlefields and raid scenes after the grass have been painted red with blood. It doesn't matter, she had thought, trying to convince herself that people were only valuable when they could stand and fight. This was moral and necessary. Everyone is a murderer in a world full of death. Whitefield had slipped her scrolls to write on, bodies to count and battle details to haunt her dreams at night; she had bit her lips and walked off, trying not to look at disembowled girls and beheaded men.

"Be at peace," she murmurs now, watching the twinkling shapes rise up in the air. Ezreal was right. We can't find death beautiful, but we can still appreciate the lives people have led, wonderful kind people who did not deserve to die. We speak daily of sending our enemies to hell, but it's been too long since I've stood and prayed for paradise. "There will be no more suffering in heaven."

Lux? A single remaining crane, suspended in mid-air, transparent.

"Leonor?"

I love you.

"I love you, too."

I'm afraid.

A smile. "Don't be. If my Angel promised a future to me, there'd be one for you, too."

I'll miss you.

"Don't miss me," Still that same smile, but a line of tears running down those blind eyes, too. 'I've still got a life to live.'

Then go. The crane's fading. Svet-kara, you look beautiful.

Ezreal is waiting for her by the village gate; he's changed into a Shuriman robe slightly too large for him, and the sleeves are dangling off, a hood slightly obscuring his blond hair and eyes. Although there are still dark circles under his eyes – circles big enough to completely cover the triangles – he smiles when he sees her, the lines on his face smoothening out. "Hey."

"I'm assuming Janna and the villagers are feeling better now?"

He's studying her outfit, awe on his face as he takes in the dress, the staff, and her aura. "I ran back as soon as you left to find him." A cough. He looks absolutely exhausted. "The rainbows – those were gorgeous."

"Don't. They were made of human souls."

He blinks. "You don't understand how much they meant to the Shurimans, though. That you had defeated him, and their loved ones would be at peace."

"You look terrible."

"I feel terrible."

"Have you gotten any rest? Because you should." They've crossed into the village now and walking towards the temple; he grimaces, trying to avoid her critical gaze.

"Aria needs help brewing some more stuff. If she can do it while passing out every other hour, I can."

"I can help."

"You might want to keep a low profile for a while. I'm pretty sure the village thinks you are a goddess."

"Tell them to praise my Angel, if anyone."

His grimace is turning into a full scowl. "You know they are not going to buy any of that. It's not like your Angel showed up and blasted the shaman to pieces."

"It's true! I'm not going to take credit for anything I didn't do."

"You're impossible,' he decides, before suddenly turning and throwing himself into her arms. She instinctively steps back before feeling him sob in her arms and pulling him in for a hug; his tears are warm on her shoulders, repressed for too long, a stream of both frustration and relief. 'Lux – I'm sorry – '

"Shh," she says, pulling him back when he tries to back away. "You're fine. More than fine. And I understand."

"Thanks for hugging me earlier," he mumbles, the tears in this voice making his Demacian even more accented than usual. "And for fixing this mess. And for not dying on me. I – is this over, Lux? Is this really over?"

"Only if you promise to go get some sleep."

He makes a noise that's halfway between a chuckle and a sob. "Please."

"Unless you want me to withdraw that offer on the Demacian library."

He makes a bigger noise. There's incredulity in it, this time. "Are you serious?"

"After this, I'm going to go back home. You're welcome to come with me, if you want. I did promise, after all." There's a slight chill in her bones, even though there was nothing wrong with her words. It's the image of it, she decides. He is both too right and too wrong for Demacia, with that look and that mind.

"You're going to have to get me some new clothes and an excuse for being there. Plus, your sight, and your injuries – "

"I need to go back. My Angel has plans for me."

He's silent for a long while. 'Alright. But give it a day or two, okay? Janna needs her time to feel better, and I don't want to leave this village without her. We can go our separate ways at the next town.'

"You'll come to Demacia with me?"

He breaks off from the hug, staring onto the ground. There's that trepidation in him again, a heavy wariness that she can't for the life of her understand. What is he scared of? Demacia? Me? "Yeah. Yeah, I'll come."