Disclaimer: I own neither League of Legends nor the Magic: The Gathering references I make with this fic
Yo;
Okay, so this is the second chapter for this story.
Now, before we continue, there're some things I want to clarify first: One, this – judging by how I have portrayed this chapter – might very well evolve into a darkfic. I feel that this is justified considering the fact that it is difficult to pair characters like Mordekaiser (A man wearing armor that is suspected of being undead, and also seems to take some sadistic satisfaction with taking the souls of his enemies – albeit temporarily in-game) and Sona (a champion that seems to exude this air of goodness, especially with the fact that she is from Demacia – LoL's typical 'good guys.')
Part of this story will be my attempts at diving into Sona's psyche and twisting it in such a way where her joining the League and entering a relationship with Mordekaiser feels more believable, so forgive me if Sona might appear out of character to a certain degree in subjective opinion.
Lastly, this chapter's title and partial inspiration of the title of the last chapter are inspired from the card game 'Magic: The Gathering'
-Specifically, 'Damnation' for chapter one and 'Death's Duet' in chapter two.
Of course, I would greatly appreciate it if you shared your thoughts after reading. So, R&R plox 8D!
Enjoy your read.
Sincerely,
Toph the Trickster / mr_Trickster (Summoner name)
Sweet Corruption:
Death's Duet
Sona wasn't sure what she should have been feeling as she stared down the countless trembling bodies that lay bloodied at her feet. A part of her tugged her towards guilt, taking the lives of these people rather than allowing them to escape, but another – larger – part of her argued that doing so would have left others victim to the bandits' intentions.
She examined them, taking in the deep slashes strewn across their bodies, several limbs cut cleanly off and one of two holes punctured through their chests.
With the success of he goodwill concert sponsored by the League of Legends, Sona Buvelle and her fellow performers had packed up and departed for their respective homes – mostly Demacia and Ionia – the day after; the mute musician not sharing her encounter with the entity that introduced himself as the Murder Emperor to any of her acquaintances and friends within the troupe, and when queried, simply declared that she felt the need for some fresh air.
No one questioned her presented statement despite the fact that the city-state of Noxus was so full of mist and smoke that the air was hardly fresh.
It had been a surprise that just as they were at the Noxian border that crossed into the League's Institute of War, the six carriages that made up the caravan were surrounded by bandits of unknown origin; she wasn't sure if they had at some point been Noxian or not, or perhaps even made up of mixed nationalities, but she had then known one thing:
The guards provided for them by the League would not be enough to protect everyone in the troupe, and this had left her with one option, one that admittedly excited her a great deal:
She was to join the fray and brandish the darker side of her music that, quite possibly, only the Mordekaiser had witnessed insofar.
Up until that point, she had only ever used her etwahl's destructive abilities on inanimate objects: wooden posts and stone walls of already condemned buildings in the older districts of Demacia and barring the night of Lestara's death, never seen the effects the blades of sound had on another human being.
Sona wondered how she would feel using the ability on living creatures, sending the blades out knowing full well that her targets would most-assuredly die.
Then again, killing them was the point, was it not? For allowing the aforementioned bandits to live would bring about the death of countless more innocents.
Her blades cut clean through her opponents, severing limbs and puncturing holes without losing any apparent efficiency as she went about the morbid work; when they came close, she floated out of reach while her etwahl played a different tune before shifting back to the shifting back to the gruesome chorus of dismemberment.
Her quickness in dispatching the intruders had come to such a point that the guards of the league and the members of the troupe could do nothing more than observe with mixed expression the brutal symphony being preformed before them.
Sona paid them no head however, for something of greater personal interest had caught her eye as she went about her business:
The cold wind, the clouding sky, and the red radiance that she observed shining from her bloodied dress told her instinct of a presence she appreciated.
He was here, and if she could tell anything from the discordant rising and dropping in the temperature around her, he was intrigued with her newest composition.
She cast her gaze to the last three of the bandits, seeing them shake under the imperious gaze that she subjected only a selective few to. They eyed the most recent mortality that lay at Sona's floating feet: a body torn asunder with its arms several feet behind the woman and its legs above its head that was three feet before her. Sona Buvelle then found herself divided with how to deal with these last few men – not too happy at her own questioning of her earlier decision, wondering if there was a point in killing them off now that they had been reduced to so few. Her decision was unfortunately made for her.
They ran.
They ran, and her instinctual response had been to pursue with her music blaring with a fast-paced tune while her fingers moved restlessly over the etwahl strings. Her blood pumped faster, her focus heightened by the adrenaline flowing through her as she lashed one hand at them in aggression.
The screams followed soon afterwards.
Two of the bandits that had been lagging behind cried out when the note resounded, falling to the ground in bloodied heaps of dying flesh while the note spun around them and tore them apart; they're expiring bodies shaking in the throes of death, limbs falling off in wake of the pressure exerted by her music. The third bandit – the last of the band – did not even deign to look back despite the passing of his companions but preferring to wail in what Sona believed was fear as he stumbled onward.
She took a deep breath before continuing the chase, relishing the feel of the cold wind as it brushed her long hair and brought more attention to the slight dampness dripping from the hem of her skirt: blood.
It was in this short interval she heard him speak, his voice carrying through the very air around her: "Can you feel it, Maven?"
Sona Buvelle flew onward, the decorative strips of cloth hanging from her dress swinging to and fro as she dodged rocks and other obstacles while slowly entering the ravine ahead where she was certain the last bandit had fled into.
"-Welling up from deep within you."
Her hands stilled above the instrument, not a single note resounding as the musician listened to the music of the world around her. She willed the situation to give her the answer she required of it: the direction in which her game had gone.
"The panic in your heart, the shortness in your breath; that want, that need to get to your prize."
Then she heard it. A pebble falling from one of the lower ridges and bouncing off the larger boulders and crying out in protest as it hit the ground; the bandit had attempted to hide in one of the caves.
"You are enjoying this. Murder and bloodshed and carnage though it may be.
"What sick thrill do you derive from this, woman? Mercilessly tearing apart these insects in much the same way you had so unwillingly taken the life of you mother.
"Was she no better then?"
This gave her pause, the thought of being responsible for the death of Lestara making her cringe and accidentally breaking her magical connection with the etwahl. It fell to the ground with a clunk, her feet descending to the earth bellow her.
Had it been her? Had she been responsible for the death of her adoptive mother?
She instinctually denied any involvement in the mortality, reasoning that the instrument had acted on its own and murdered her mother in cold blood. But such a thought also deigned to query: was not the etwahl bound to her? Was it not bound to do her bidding even on an unconscious level? Sona recalled the time when she had been plagued by the touches of the emperor while not being granted the salvation of release and the etwahl forced its own return so that its presence could drive the Mordekaiser's ministrations back – even if only to a certain degree.
Could she – a child born from Ionia and raised in Demacia, two nations well-known for being Valoran's best examples of goodness – have subconsciously desired the termination of the person that took her in and raised her?
No! She mentally cried in response to his accusation. Wanting Lestara dead followed no line of logical reasoning. The older woman had always been kind to her, only scolding Sona gently during her younger years and fully supporting the maven's decision to travel the continent for concerts.
The Mordekaiser only laughed at her response, the air growing colder as the sky turned gray above.
"Bloodlust follows no rhyme or reason, my lady, as you have so nicely-portrayed today; what reason was there in taking the lives those two bandits you killed just now? What reason is there to continue this pursuit of the last one despite his rather apparent harmlessness already?"
He could have returned to a possible hideout – she thought – they could have had more allies. There would neither be peace for us nor safety for any others that would pass through here in the future!
"And what of the League then, woman? Is it not their duty to keep the peace of this accursed continent? Is it not their duty to protect the lives of you and your lot?"
She heard him laugh again and she could almost imagine his glowing scarlet eyes staring down at her in amusement; Sona heard shaking and looked to see the etwahl shudder against the stone and earth, calling for her to take it up.
"Admit it, Buvelle, admit to me that you enjoy ripping these insects limb from limb, making them barely recognizable to anyone that may have known them in life!
"Admit it to me, then enter that cave and dismember that last whelp that is hiding in there. I can sense his soul quaking in fear of your music, and I can promise you that you shall relish his passing with satisfaction so rarely known in the nations you were raised in."
She gave no reply, in neither thought nor silent admittance. Her deed however, Sona believed would suffice. Lifting one hand in a beckoning gesture, her instrument leaping from the ground and coming to its normal position beneath her hands; Admit to wanting her mother dead? Her eyes closed as she carefully analyzed all that she felt today.
Her tongue slid across her lips before her teeth sank into them, a shiver running through her as she recalled.
To the emperor, apparently, what she had barely knew she did was enough of an answer for him:
"Enter that cave, play your tune and let that man's screams of agony be your song's accompaniment."
The cave was even colder than the already chilling climate in the ravine, the gray of the sky turning into a purple hue that came from the strange crystals hanging from the sides and the ceiling. Sona's eyes swept across her immediate surroundings, taking note of dark corners and other entrances that may branch out deeper into the cave.
To her left she saw no openings; to her right the wall bore a jagged face and a shelf-like opening where a person could have hid; and before her the cave kept extending, ending with a cluster of crystals nearly twenty feet ahead.
She wanted this; Sona could accept that fact even though she was unwilling to admit to have desired Lestara's life. What she had done today had brought her too much enjoyment, too much guilty a thrill to be denied before one that had known of her doings since she began them for her to say that she deigned not finish what she had started.
A deep breath, and she pressed her fingers against the metal wire that served as the etwahl strings; Sona willed the instrument to hold fast as she placed her weight against the hands, ignoring the pain as the steel broke skin and her blood began to drip on the polished wood below.
Drawing in a gasp, she braced herself for greater sensation before she dragged her hands outwards from their previous place near the middle of the etwahl. The strings were tinted red with her essence.
"Sing Death's Duet for me while the wailing of today's fallen act as your choir in light of your muteness."
She closed her eyes, feigning exhaustion from her just-completed self-destructive ordeal and hearing movement coming from the upper parts of the wall to her left.
She called out to the Mordekaiser before she opened her eyes:
My acceptance of myself, I confirm in blood. I pray that you are to be pleased with this masterpiece I shall play for you.
"Time to shred, my lady!"
Life has always been a dance; it is only fitting that Death sing the tune.