"How many times do you want to say that?" Taliyah asked.
"But he really was weird, you know, that doesn't happen here.." Was the quick answer from Elvira.
"Why do you have a problem when people are nice?"
"You could get killed for that!" Elvira shouted. "The whole city of Noxus has turned friendly since you arrived."
"And that wasn't like that before?"
"No! If you fall and your nose bleeds, you're lucky if nobody comes and starts to kick you!"
"Maybe everybody changed but you didn't realize? Come on, calm down." Taliyah said, clearly not giving it a second thought. Elvira instead wasn't very convinced. She murmured something under her breath and continued thinking about why such a stranger would give them a free inspection.
The two girls continued walking down the road. As they continued on, the sun was taking it's leave and they quickened the pace to get home earlier.
"Elvira?" Came a sudden question from Taliyah.
"Yes?"
"Did you hear about the legend of the great stoneweaver?"
Elvira started thinking and after a while answered: "Not really, sorry.."
"Oh, alright."
"But how does the legend go?"
"Ehm, well, I'm not too sure..." Taliyah replied and started making excuses in her mind.
Elvira raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe you"
"Well, you know, it's about an-"
A big, massive person, probably a man with his face covered, took a stone and let it crash on top of Elvira's head, instantly knocking her unconsious. Then Taliyah felt a hand on her mouth and started getting pulled into a dark sidealley. After dragging her there, Taliyah's kidnapper dropped her to the ground.
"One sound and you're dead." The kidnapper said and started walking to the second kidnapper.
"Did you kill her?" The first one, rather small, asked.
"No" was the sudden reply from the other guy. He had a very low and rusty voice.
"She's just sleeping."
"Hm. Alright. Help me drag this one to the rendevous."
The two started lifting her and started carrying her out of the alley, but Taliyah made heavy resistance. "Let me go!"
"Please make her shut up" the smaller one said.
"Alright."
Then the world went black for Taliyah as she felt something hard collide with her head.
When she woke back up, she found herself locked up in a prison cell. It was rather clean, with one hole in the wall (Taliyah refused to call it a window because it was so damn tiny). The 'window' was locked up with bars, so she searched for another way out. Of course, her door was locked. She started walking around and realized two things. First, Elvira wasn't there with her. She was probably locked up in another cell. Second, there was a small table with food and water.
Taliyah realized that she was pretty hungry, so she inspected the food and to feel rebellious, she took her meal to the bed and ate it there instead of on the table like she probably was supposed to.
After finishing her meal, Taliyah looked around. The wall was made out of stone, the door and the window out of metal, and everything else was out of wood. She looked around her cell for a while before she realized that the wall was made out of stone. Stone? Taliyah was a stoneweaver! She was quite insecure in those arts, but she was going to try to make a hole in the wall anyway.
Taliyah started concentrating. She could feel the stone and she could feel that the wall was pretty thick. So she decided to make a hole as small as possible, but still big enough for her to crawl through. Taliyah started thinking about the hole and after what felt like a lifetime, she could feel the stone changing. She opened her eyes and saw a little hole, fistsized. It didn't even go through the whole wall, and Taliyah was already sweating waterfalls. So she continued on.
After a few more lifetimes Taliyah finally managed to make a hole big enough for her to crawl through, and she only had to break the last thin layer of stone left. After concentrating for another lifetime again, the wall finally gave in. Taliyah sensed a proud feeling. She had managed to break a hole through this wall without even touching it!
Her euphoria was drastically reduced as Taliyah felt something tickling her legs. She opened her eyes and realized that the hole that she had managed to make didn't lead her out of her cell, but only to a lot of dirt.
"Who builds a prison cell underground?" Taliyah asked herself. "Makes no sense..."
"Well, it holds people off from breaking the wall, right?" Taliyah's attention snapped to the man behind her. How did he enter without her noticing?
"But technically, you didn't break it, did you? You just changed it's form. Very interesting. Come with me." The unknown man said. He was quite tall and young, with an amused expression on his face. When he reached the open door, he turned around and waited.
"What are you waiting for?"
"Nothing" Taliyah said, crossed the distance betwenn him and her and punched him in the face. The man took the blow without flinching and said, unamused: "Come on now." With that he took her hand and dragged Taliyah across the prison.
Trying to regain her dignity Taliyah stood up and asked: "Where are we going?"
"To the boss. He has a lot of uses for you." The two started walking again.
"Who is the boss?" Taliyah asked.
Silence.
"Who are you?" She tried.
"I'm Dan."
"Alright, Dan, who is your boss?"
"You'll see" With that, Taliyah gave up. Apparently noxians like to keep secrets. 'Maybe', Taliyah thought, 'it's not just Elvira, but every noxian who refuses to tell me anything'.
"We're here" Dan said.
They arrived in front of a huge door. When Dan opened it, Taliyah got greeted with darkness. They both entered and Dan closed the door behind them. As soon as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, laughter could be heard across the room and the lights suddently went on again, causing Dan and Taliyah to blink and adjust their eyes again.
"Greetings, Taliyah" the tall and strong man said. "Come closer." As soon as Dan came into view he nodded to the man and got the exact same reply.
"Who are you?" Taliyah asked.
"I am Darius."
"..." Taliyah had heard that name before, but couldn't really place it. She had probably heard it somewhere on her shopping tour with Elvira.
Darius was just about to say something when the door suddently got knocked down as two figures started running inside, the latter chasing the other. The guy in front had two axes spinning and desperatly tried to get away from the weird birds that obviously followed the commands they were given from the tall man following him.
The latter managed to catch up. He took the other guy close ans said: "If you ever even dare to think about..." He looked around and coughed, "that again, I will personally murder you!" And with that, he walked out of the room.
The smaller guy who hold his arm where he charged the door tried to regain his composure. He looked at the trio and asked: "My bro feeling like executing someone again? Great! I, Draven, will help and even start a show in the arena!"
"No, Draven, don't worry, it's not going to be an executioning..." Draven didn't even hear the last sentence because he immediately stormed out of the room. Dan started chuckling but immediately stopped as soon as Darius gave stared furiously at him.
"Alright, Taliyah, just let us forget what happened here, alright?"
"Okay"
"So, opposite to what my brother said, I do not plan on executing you. Dan told me of your talent and we want to..." He continued talking, but Taliyah unwillingly stopped listening because she started to think about two things. First, Darius' brother was this weird guy Draven? And second, when did Dan have time to tell Darius of her 'talent'?
After a while of speaking the Darius started looking at her, expecting an answer. What was the question? Taliyah just replied the simplest thing. "Yes."
"Perfect! So, Dan, please lead her to her quarters. And if you catch-" Darius got interrupted by a booming voice that came from afar.
"Welcome, Lads! Today, I, Draven, am going to execute somebody again! While we wait that the person gets dragged here, Draven is going to show you all his acuraccy with the axe!"
It was nonmistakenly Draven who had started a show in the arena. Darius let his head drop in his hands and Dan had to chuckle again.