There is something wrong with the site again, I couldn't upload a new story file and I had to overwrite the contents of an existing one in order to overcome that problem. I have copy-pasted the text so inform me if you think that there are any format problems.

Tags: Quinn, Sejuani, Yuri, Drama

Once every year a white-haired girl would wake up with a sharp pain in her chest and blurry images racing behind her sky blue eyes. The pain soon fades, but the sense of deep longing remains. Loneliness and despair festers inside the young child's heart and frost threatens to engulf her pure soul much like the cruel barbaric lands that she so happens to inhabit.

…

Once every year fighters and hunters would tread out of the village and roam the icy tundras until the next dawn. Most of them return, some of them alone and others in pairs of two, but the young blue-eyed girl? That pathetic, scorned child always returns by itself with pale clenched fists and a downcast expression marring its small and round tearstained face.

…

Once every year the Freljordian folk are assaulted by fleeting visions of their bonded soulmates. Foggy dreams and even hazier landscapes, quick snippets of faces in the white canvases of ice, frost and the brittle snow. Those dreamers then abandon the safety of their ragtag and rickety settlements. The Fate Seekers brave the snowstorm in search of their chosen partners.

But the cursed pale child regrettably doesn't dream of endless arctic white lands, but vast green ones instead. Soft grass and blooming plains, rustling foliages and the smudges of a pencil against the pages of a weathered leather-bound journal. The little barbarian girl hears the feminine laughter of a faceless person around her age without the haunting telltale howls of an approaching snowstorm or the ever-present crunching of fresh snow underneath wet boots.

There is no such thing as snow in the birthplace of her precious soulmate it seems. Not even a hint of frost or a sole lonely snowflake, nothing familiar at all to connect the existence of the two bonded children. The barbarian child starts sobbing when it finally realizes that joining the other Fate Seekers in the raging storms is just a waste of resources and time.

The little pale girl's poor heart is from then on encased in a thick layer of ice.

…

Once every year Sejuani would scream and stomp on the snow, and she would curse the whole world with the vast tundras stretching all around her and tears threatening to spill from her cold pained azure-colored eyes.

…

The lonely white-haired child had slowly turned into a woman at some point. The Winter's Wrath curses her soulmate and swears vengeance upon the wretched being that was born so far away from her, so far out of the Sejuani's reach just to torture her with those hopeless and bittersweet visions of ephemeral joy. The present chieftain of the Winter's Claw vows that she will make her Bonded One pay for tormenting her for so long if she ever manages to find them.

…

Sejuani resigns herself to a life without love, with visions of ghostly light pestering her dreamscape, reminding her of her failures for years to come until either she or her soulmate unexpectedly meets their impending ending.

…

Once every year the Freljordian child-turned-woman would dream of dancing green glass blades, bright blue skies and warm suns. But this time the nightmares are different. Sejuani sees chunks of ice instead of dry earth, snow instead of fertile brown soil and crimson droplets spilled in the snow instead of the usual green plains full of fragile vibrant flowers. There is also a loud sound that's accompanying this dream, a howl more haunting than the paeans of bloodshed and war. It is the sound of an oncoming blizzard, the roars of the violent winds mixing in with the breathless pants of a ragged figure as more and more snowflakes are marred with a warm scarlet liquid. The spilled lifeblood of her dying soulmate.

The white-haired warrior wakes up with a bitter taste in her mouth and terror flooding her very being. Sejuani quickly glances at the storm clouds and the spinning snow outside of her little window that's made of clean flat ice. The hardened female barbarian then darts out of her melancholic hunting shack with a pained scream building up inside her sore throat and hot desperate tears streaming out of her wide panicked eyes.

No, no, no, not like this! Some long winter's nights ago the mighty Freljordian woman might have wished in her rage and heartache for the death of her damned fated one, but now the thought of never peeking into those fragile and hated dreamlands utterly terrified the scorned warlord.

"W-wait! Please, wait! Wait for me my Bonded One! I am right here!" Screams the now sobbing Winter's Claw chieftain as Sejuani runs in the frozen plains with the blizzard raging all around her and the cold wind feeling like daggers in her face and throat. The pale warrior being so scared, so utterly terrified out of her mind that Sejuani doesn't even consider fetching her dear boar companion, Bristle before the shaken Winter's Claw warlord starts yelling and sobbing, blindly searching in the white frigid dirt and digging in the snow of the frozen arctic wastes for the body of her dying soulmate.

"I-I am sorry! I'm so sorry for wishing for you death! Please don't leave me now!"

A few long heart-wrenching minutes later and the chieftain of the Winter's Claw finally gives up and kneels on the brittle white snow. The harsh winds still whipping her short pale hair as Sejuani lets her cold scarred fingers sink into the ivory white blanket of the frigid Freljordian earth. The young chieftain's armored body being racked by sobs of pain and despair as new bitter tears abruptly start spilling from the scorned warrior's defeated eyes.

"I-I'm sorry.. I.. I am so sorry m-my love. I searched for you I swear, but I just couldn't f-find you. I-I should have come out sooner, searched for you this year alongside the other Fate See-kers! P-please d-don't disappear on me. I will love you! I will cherish you! I-I.. I will do anything for you! So long as, so long.. as you.."

Sejuani's face and eyelids are now covered with glistering snowflakes, the armored warrior's solemn knelt form is gradually getting buried in the merciless shroud of ice and snow. Much like the pale female's lost lover, much like cursed chieftain's dying soulmate that's currently freezing to death blizzard-knows-where. Perhaps Sejuani should let the plains take her too, maybe the unfortunate warlord should just let the harsh elements that are raging all around her claim her life much like the body of her precious Fated One.

"A-as long as you are alive and well that will be enough for me. So, please.. please, don't die on me, my love. I am begging you. Let me lay eyes on you for a single moment to know that you have really existed in this world and then I promise to let you go…"

The echoing laughter of the heartless blizzard is the only reply that Sejuani receives as the heavyhearted Freljordian warrior merely closes her eyes in resignation and lets the storm swallow her body whole.

And then abruptly, a few paces away from the warlord as if to answer the broken woman's frantic prayers a cloaked figure suddenly collapses face down on the snow and a large azure-colored bird of some sort starts cawing in both alarm and surprisingly enough immense fear.

Sejuani slowly opens her eyes to hesitantly glance at the body of the unmoving fallen stranger and then the loud bird that's cawing around the cold still figure.

The sight of the giant blue bird fills the pale warrior with a great amount of relief for some inexplicable reason, the Demacian eagle's ruffled azure plumage almost reminding Sejuani of something out of an old memory or a forgotten distant dream that the currently crying warrior had once simply disregarded a long, long time ago.

With her rapid heartbeat echoing in her eardrums the Winter's Wrath swiftly approaches the silent body of the unconscious Demacian scout and effortlessly uses her trembling hands to lift the tanned woman's freezing frame from the suffocating blanket of the soft snow. The hardened barbarian warrior tightly embracing her freezing Bonded One for the first and probably the last time in her life.

"Please, be alright" Sejuani lightly prays in a broken and shaky tone "Please be alright, my Bonded One. P-please..." More helpless hot tears are spilled over the dying scout's unresponsive deathly pale visage as Valor keeps cawing in fear and agitation.

Quinn's pained amber orbs minutely open to briefly glance at the unfamiliar strange woman that's holding her curiously before the injured brunette instantly faints once more and the Demacian ranger's eyelids slowly close.

The idea(s) behind the story: This story started as another short attempt at smut. Sejuani would have found Quinn injured in the Freljord after Lissandra had wounded the scout during Quinn's espionage mission. Sej wouldn't help Quinn for free however, medical supplies and resources in general are rather scarce in the frozen plains as you know, and so Sej would have asked for Quinn to repay her with her body and be her personal bed warmer in exchange for her assistance. Sej offhandedly threatens to toss Quinn back in the snow if the trespasser refuses and even warns the scout that this option might be the better one for the scout since Sej isn't a particularly kind lover. Much sexy time ensues and while Sejuani initially mocks the foreigner and doesn't bother making their interactions pleasurable for the weakened/recovering scout the chieftain starts developing feelings for the Demacian. Sejuani starts fearing that Quinn might leave her and return back to her country after she has done paying her debt and so she starts being more affectionate towards the scout in an attempt to make Quinn stay.

That ending reminded me of one of my other posted soulmate stories and I thought, what if the chapter was written from Quinn's point of view and we didn't once again know that Quinn and Sejuani were soulmates until the very ending? Sej desperately wanted to be with the scout and so she offered Quinn that shady deal. This is similar to the other story I mentioned, but hey I like the concept and I never said that my pieces were original. But unlike usually I couldn't just drop that bomb in the last few lines, we need to know that there are soulmates in this universe for it to have any impact and not be a random forced ending.

And that's how this short story came to be. I started wondering, if Ionians are blessed and can recognize their soulmates and celestial beings can uncover them due to the changes in their magic, what makes the Freljordians unique? How does the bond affects them? I then came up with the visions, since the barbarian tribes are so close/exposed to nature and the elements and shamanism made sense for the Freljordian culture. The story could also explain Sej's demeanor if she was bitter for failing to find her soulmate and that changed her over the course of time.

Possible plot twist we never mentioned who is Sejuani's soulmate, only blurry sceneries that were centered around Quinn so the fated one might actually be Valor! Trolololo. Ok, no it was just a thought.

And that's what happened behind the scenes. Every story is a game of Russian roulette for me with all the paths and possibilities that are available.

Inside the secure walls of an ancient glacial fortress a white-haired woman wakes up with a loud, shrill cry of terror. Lissandra pants as she unwittingly clenches her heart, her breath escaping from her mouth through quick sharp huffs of hot misty air.

Liss isn't in danger however.

The Ice Witch frowns as her blind eyes briefly close in thought. It is the time of the Fate Seekers it seems and so those meaningful images have come back to pester her yet again with their stupid night terrors. Lissandra had foolishly hoped that those pitiful dreams would have disappeared over the passage of the centuries, her soulmate succumbing to age and fate even as her own ice-magic preserved both her youth and her body.

And yet here she was still suffering from those pathetic dreams, as disturbing as ever the snippets of her Bonded One kept assaulting her with apparently renewed vigor. And Lissandra is puzzled and annoyed and somewhat scared, even though the intelligent ruler would certainly never admit of such a thing of course. The Ice Witch is unfortunately once again unable to pinpoint the origins of her mysterious soulmate…

Because Lissandra's visions are displays of fire, scenes of roaring flames and odorous brimstone, vile arcs of pointy black towers accompanied by the booming laughter of an unseen threat. Oh and mushrooms of course, so many poisonous deadly mushrooms spreading beneath the earth, engulfed by sinister dark flames of pure evil and obscured by the horned shadow of a short furry creature…

"Hut, two, three, four." The inhuman voice tirelessly counts inside Lissandra's dreams, the numbers repeating every single year. The sinister being's despicable and childish tone of voice almost driving the poor Iceborn woman crazy. Why this? Why her? Why does She has to suffer her soulmate's antics every damn year?! Just what was so important about those damned numbers?!

Meanwhile in hell Teeto is happily counting his nude concubines and wives all the while casually smoking his Maokai-brand cigar. The Dark One then deftly removes his clothes and underwear and gleefully dives into the bed with his awaiting maidens.

"Captain Teemo on duty!" The hellspawn shouts as the naked women around him giggle and approach him and somewhere in the distant Freljord Lissandra is repeatedly slamming her head against a chunk of True Ice in order to make the images of that disgusting union go away. Wait.. is that Ashe?

Note: The T harem keeps growing folks and our favorite yordle has found two powerful allies in Ashe and Lissandra.

Ships within ships!

I only need One-shot!

That's gotta sting. 0_0

Mute blissful moans in Sona. (This one is referring to the 'cries in Spanish' meme)