I am immersed in other duties around the Institute. Correspondence trips are always in full drive. The League has to keep in touch with all its Champions, so every two months we send over a guy to see if they're still alive and fit for battle. Whether through teleportation or physical travel, danger is ever present. In reckless search of this danger, I signed up for all the excursions available. Many of them were at least a week away, so that gave me time to finish up the required paperwork. In the meantime, the entire Institute is boiling in anticipation for the newest Champion to join the League. A demon, from the Ionian woodlands next to the fields that Lucid's nephew used to own, faced judgment today. I want to be as excited as my peers, but it's hard to get into the mood.

Afterwards, I went to the park next to the Institute, It's a big field dotted with trees and two fountains. Mornings look just stunning here with the amber sun shining off of the dewed grass. Along the trails into some wooded areas go lots of traffic. The Institute main building and the surrounding stone still looms over the view, but this little patch of paradise is still a popular spot for picnics There were lots of crows flitting and cawing around lately. Their calls competed with the songbirds, creating quite a ruckus. A troubled guy like me could take it as a metaphor for inner conflict if I were so inclined. I am so inclined.

Swain made a visit to the League today. With the power struggle in Noxus right now, I have no clue why he siphons time away from his efforts in the capital to do seminars on battle strategy and tactics. Perhaps to prevent the Institute from interfering with his politics, and maybe even to protect himself, he keeps the high summoners in close contact.

That would explain the heightened activity of the crows. Swain's companion, Beatrice, unnerves even me.

On the stone proscenium, the Noxian general is demonstrating lane swapping in front of a circle of summoners some distance away from my resting spot under the evergreen closest to the proscenium. The best and most prominent summoners often hold seminars like this during the offseason. I recall going to several of them regularly throughout my stay in the Institute. I still have the hundreds of flashcards I made, listing protocols and maneuvers, all for a futile effort. I want get rid of them.

The crows are getting more active, flying in denser formations above the crowd. Getting a bit loud, but nobody seems to notice. Suddenly, a particularly large raven landed a few feet away from my foot. It stood with a tense regality. One of Swain's birds probably. It's holding a small package wrapped in brown paper in one of its claws. The raven cried loudly at my face, then hopped closer. I grasped the package with care. It quickly flew away, and I was left alone in this big empty expanse with someone's message in my hands. I opened it right there.

The last time I saw an Innervating Locket was in the Journal of Justice, an article pronouncing the maker's death. It was shaped into a heart, carved from purple hued stone and embellished with silver trim. A simple crown emblem topped the front. I delicately traced my fingers around it searching for the latch. The pulsated with a familiar sentimental power. The item manipulates the emotions of its wielder. It was rich and sonorous yet rang strongly with guilt and grief. It probably was handled roughly during the shipping. That's maybe why the magic was acting up. Yet I can't recall why the artifact was decommissioned in the first place.

I opened it with reluctance. Obviously the locket signified something profound and bothersome. I wasn't done shaking Sona off yet to fiddle with thrown out League equipment dropped from the sky.

Inside was a note in place of a portrait. There is little room for words, and the terse message is scrunched up like a bundle of hair. Still, the text remains smooth and flowing. Only Sona's fingers, digits that speak through strings for a living, can achieve a feat like that.

"I have another concert in Zaun next week. I want to see you again, hopefully not for the last time. If you wish it so, then let it be so final. But please give me audience. Give me this chance to be candid with you, so that we can reprieve each other from guilt, so that we can forgive each other."

I was so lost in pondering that I hadn't noticed Swain limping towards me from behind to smack my shoulder with his cane. In a flash, I was up and alert to greet him and four of his equally intimidating guards. With a wave of his hand, Swain dismissed them to speak in private. The general, he explained to me with his mainstay glare, heard rumors of a young man seducing Sona Buvelle as part of a plot to ignite an Ionian offensive on the mainland.

Obviously, that wasn't me.

There was no need to convince him. One look, he said, was enough to dismiss me as no threat to him or Noxus. I was equally flattered and insulted, but thanked him and Beatrice for delivering the locket with my best poker face.

Swain saw right through it. "There is turmoil in your eyes, Summoner. Something is amiss in your little correspondence with Sona?"

I laughed defiantly and told him that whatever was between me and Sona had ended. Apparently, most of the preceding story had slipped my tongue with it.

"The Maven never was the one to keep secrets." he said solemnly. "Of all the Ionian champions here, Sona is, ironically, the worst Ionian I know at keeping secrets. In spite of being mute and all." The Noxian put a hand over my shoulder and forcefully started walking along the nearest trail. "Did she tell you about Lestara, her foster mother?"

This question hit me like coming to the light at the exit of a cave. She didn't tell me a word about what happened to her. And in retrospect, Sona's emotional display during our last outing so scared me to the bone that I couldn't act to comfort her. Thanks for making me feel like crap, Swain.

"Your ignorance of her past disturbs me greatly. I must remedy this immediately, seeing the woman has grown attached to you in this manner. Love is a battlefield, and I make it my war at every opportunity. It's a hobby."

And so he told me of Lestara's death, and of her judgment, known only to the High Summoners. I couldn't believe it. I refused to. I hesitate to write it down, even.

Lestara was slain by the etwahl, around the time of Sona's coming of age.

"Just being near her means risking your life, Summoner" warned Swain, in a tone that suggested I would be enticed by the danger. In a way unknown to me, I was. "Think of the power and influence within your reach! You could preside over the course of Ionia's future!" Swain averts his eyes for a moment. "That is, if you don't die too early." "Think of the power and influence within your reach! You could preside over the course of Ionia's future!" Swain averts his eyes for a moment. "That is, if you don't die too early."

I said I would think about it.

Right now my head's torn in decision. Zaun is infamously dangerous on account of just the smog. I could go somewhere else and forget these worthless ideas of hemorrhaging sentiment. To risk getting my skin melted off by a wayward vat of acid for an apology? I want to believe that I can put aside this rash thought. In the summoning profession, that is the ideal.

Forget ideal. Since when was I even close to ideal? I'm packing now. I was a fool to even think twice.

Pack list:

-Street clothes

-Credit stone

-Crystal ball

-Flintlock

-Redwood staff

-Socks

Itinerary:

08:00AM Flight LOL leaves from Institute of War to Kalamanda

160g-120g League disc.

40g

04:00PM Flight YCH leaves Kalamanda to Zaun

200g-120 League disc.

60g

12:00PM Flight ASWS leaves Zaun to Bandle City

40g

2:00PM Flight FU leaves Bandle City to Institute of War

200g

Absolutely tired of apologizing to people. Outside the Institute right now. The sun's setting. I'm making the trip now, to Zaun, by airship. The locket hangs by a chain on my neck. This next meeting will be a mutual hurdle, for both of us. I've talked much of affection in the past. Nothing more, nothing less. However, maybe the following rhetoric will examine a word infinitely more powerful than that.

If I can learn what that word is, my life as a Summoner would mean so much more.