And here begins the last of the interquels, this is likely going to be a shorter chapter, apologies, but some stuff came up while writing this.

Haven't figured out the posting schedule yet, but I'm feeling like delving into Battle of Silvermere ahead of the others after this point.

If you haven't read the original, I highly suggest you do, as this interquel is the most involved with the main story dealing with the aftermath of chapters 17-22.

Mourners Three, Together

Seek the Cure For Damnation

In Kinkou Answers Lie

Spirit Quest Part I

Around the Fire

Irelia wrenches her blade free from the crystalline eye of the Ruined Shrine Guardian, gently caressing it as the corrupted life goes dormant once more. A cold wind carrying the briefest flurry of snow rushes past her sending her thick cloak flapping.

She looks out to the horizon, her once verdant and beautiful home trapped in a corruptive morose of greys, blacks, and eerie greens. Viego had stolen the very soul of her home in his blind fury.

Her gaze turns up towards the soaring peaks that mark the northern portion of the main Ionian isle. The bastion of the Kinkou was not far. The spirit tenders would know the location of their quarry. She could only hope.

"You both alright?" Rakan asks, hopping up from the bushes into which he had been sent spiraling. Like her, he had added a heavy cloak to his Sentinel-gifted clothes. They'd picked them up from a deserted homestead a few miles back.

They'd been traveling for weeks, fighting when they'd had to, helping where they could, but more often than not, once vibrant villages were no but silent ghost towns. The people vanished into the Black Mist, fled to more secure domains, or trapped in some deep torpor, fitfully sleeping, crowns of black metal wrapped around their brows. The few who followed them on their quest had stayed behind to look after them.

Another troubling challenge to add to their growing list.

"I am fine." Irelia states, sliding to the ground, "Are you?"

"Come on. This is the third we've faced in about as many days." Rakan states, sliding his fingers through his hair, "I've learned to keep my shield at the ready. Erath?"

She looks from the vastaya to their young Noxian companion and feels a rush of relief as he takes his helmet off and seems largely unharmed. Once she would never have felt any worry for an injured Noxian, but Erath was different.

Too young to have been fed the old propaganda, too calm, too…nice. She hates it. It was much easier just to feel annoyed at his presence.

Erath checks the pouch on his hip and lets out a sigh of relief before scooping up his rifled and turning to his mount.'

She snaps at him with a low growl and hunkers down closer to the ground, and Irelia can spot a long gash bleeding freely along her tail.

"I'm fine, but Henrietta needs bandaging and well…I might not be after." Erath states, turning back to them.

Rakan looks towards the horizon squinting his eyes. Irelia follows his gaze towards the horizon where the faintest bit of sunlight breaks through the Black-Mist choked clouds. It had almost set.

"Sun's about to dip below the horizon." Rakan notes, "So that on top of your hurt…monstrosity, I say we make camp."

"Here?" Irelia counters, nodding to the downed Shrine Guardian.

"Well, not right here." Rakan responds, "But close by, you know how it gets anymore when the sun goes down."

Irelia grimaces.

With the loss of the Spirit, the predators of the land had taken on an even more deadly feralness, backed by the Mist's creations and the rampant Azakana.

"Then let's make haste," Irelia states, Rakan falling into step beside her, Erath coaxing Henrietta to stand.

"Let's hope it's not a long night," Erath mutters, earning a shoulder punch from Rakan.

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop saying stuff like that?" the vastaya hisses. Henrietta seemingly huffing in agreement.

Irelia shakes her head, keeping her eyes locked on their path, looking for anything that may be seeking their heads.

"He'll learn." she states, "Hopefully."

Erath grumbles something, and the quartet continues on their way into the desiccated woods before them.

Rakan stretches, resting his hands before the fire as Erath finishes dolling out the shimmering stew he had made into three bowls, and spilling much of the remnant into Henrietta's feeding trough. A bruise was blossoming atop the young human's forehead where Henrietta had tail-whipped him. Compared to some of the other reactions she'd had to their medical administrations, this was tame.

Henrietta immediately digs in, scarfing the food down with a savage delight.

Erath shakes his head and hands Rakan his bowl.

Rakan gladly spoons a hefty helping into his mouth and allows just for a moment to let himself revel in this small joy.

"Say what they will about Noxians," he states, patting Erath on the shoulder, "But you're people make a fine meal."

Erath snorts, "Don't give all the Empire that credit. This is Dalemor cooking, learned it from my Ma."

"What is it like?" Irelia asks, accepting her offered bowl with the faintest nod of thanks, though her eyes flick to the side. Rakan fights a scoff but then considers that not so long ago, he'd never have shared a meal with a human, let alone an Ionian war hero and a Noxian soldier.

"Another thing to frustrate her." he thinks, shaking his head and gulping down another mouthful, trying to bury his grief in spiced meats and savory broth.

"Dalemor?" Erath asks, looking surprised that Irelia was engaging with him on a personal level, "It's a lot flatter than Ionia, much less green, wide skies, thigh-high grass as far as the eye could see. My people are shepherds, largely."

"Shepards?" Irelia returns, looking slightly baffled.

"What did you think they pulled their meat from the ground?" Rakan jokes. Erath shakes his head.

"Aye, shepherds, collecting wool, meat, milk, we learned to fight against the elements and the beasts long before Noxus came to our lands. I was in the first generation of my people to be born under Noxian rule." Erath states.

"Your father fought here?" Irelia states, narrowing her eyes.

"He did." Erath returns, staring into his bowl, "And he gave up the fight here. Much of what he told me, what Noxus told me…doesn't track with what I saw here."

"Why did you come?" Rakan asks, "You never told the Wanderer or me. You mentioned your father?"

"He wasn't the reason." Erath states, "I thought he'd died when I was younger, and in a way, he had. This land changed him. For the better, I think. But then he died in reality, protecting me from the Navori."

Irelia grimaces, shifting in her seat, and Rakan nods, "So what then?"

"I didn't come as a soldier. They wanted me along because of my people's way with animals." Erath states, "The group I came with, they were after a war criminal, a traitor."

Irelia's eyebrows raise, "The Butcher?"

Erath frowns, "Riven, you might want to hate her, but I don't think she is the person you try and make her out to be."

Irelia sits silent.

"Think about it. She was a kid when she came over here. I know you were as well when the War started." Erath states nodding to Irelia, "It's history to me, but you lived it, and as I said, after everything I've seen, I know what happened wasn't right."

"A repentant Noxian, you really are a rare breed," Rakan mutters.

Erath ignores him, "But I was traveling with people that knew her. I saw the scars that Noxus and Ionia left on them."

"Then why were you still here if she had been taken away?" Irelia asks, "She was with the Sentinels."

Rakan could see the nervousness in his eyes, "What did you do?"

"I killed." Erath returns, flicking his eyes to the fire, "To protect a traitor and others. She was important, on a mission from someone in the Empire, and I worry that my actions may have put a target on my back, but that was not fully why I stayed."

He reaches into the pouch on his side and brings out a small urn of Ionian design.

"I had been told my father betrayed me. I was angry, blood hot, confused, conflicted." Erath mutters, "I wanted to know why. But…"

"The truth was worse?" Irelia returns.

"Yeah…yeah, I guess it was, and it wasn't." Erath returns, "My da loved me, and I never got to tell him…quite a bit. I was planning on taking him home."

"And then…" Irelia begins.

"Ruination." Erath states, "I couldn't leave, not as those specters were tearing into the people that my father had come to love, offered him protection, and safe haven even after everything. Yasuo found me not long after, and well, here I am."

The camp goes silent for a second except for the delighted grumble of Henrietta as she lays down to sleep.

"What about you?" Irelia asks, turning to Rakan, "Where were you?"

Rakan sighs, fingers wrapping around his locket, "We were fighting…someone, I don't remember who. Standing up for our people against some group or another."

"We'd won, and everyone was celebrating." Rakan mutters, "Miella was so proud, so happy, we'd done something good, something righteous."

His eyes go distant for a moment, "I hated you for so long. Humans, a problem that needed fixing so often, not listening to us, not respecting us, it needed to change. Some of my people were claiming the Noxians were treating us better, but…."

His eyes flick between both of his compatriots, feeling the influx of judgments that want to seep out of his brain, but all the experiences, close calls, and quiet moments like this have changed his perspective.

"Getting off track." Rakan mutters, "As I was saying, we were celebrating, and this….Black Mist starts rolling in. We don't know what it is, some attack by another group, the Shadow Order maybe."

"And then…out of a house I hadn't been in, this little girl stumbles, eyes glowing a vibrant green, blood in her hair, and the people we'd captured start screaming. But I can't…the girl, I never…we never, that wasn't supposed to happen. We promised."

"And she points at Xayah, and I watch as the Mist starts crawling towards us, wrapping up ankles and snagging limbs, those damn crowns snaring around the heads of humans and vastaya both. I try to run, but Xayah won't move, she's frozen, and I can see the faintest bit of tears, and then the Mist is on us, and she looks up to me…."

"Her eyes were changing, I could see it, and she pushed me, with all her might sending me stumbling away and dove deeper into the Mist, feathers at the ready, brave and bold and stubborn as always. I gathered who I could, didn't matter who it was anymore, and I ran. I thought we'd awoken a Demon, but then I learned the truth."

"Was the girl…" Erath mutters, looking up at him over his bowl.

"I don't know." Rakan returns, blinking back tears, "I really don't."

He kicks a stick into the fire and looks to Irelia, "What of you?"

"I was visiting my family." Irelia mutters, "With Liana."

She draws Liana's blade from the pile at her side and rests it across her lap.

"I lost…all of my family when the Noxians came." Irelia mutters, "Mother, Father, O-ma, and all four of my siblings."

Erath blanches and looks down at the dirt, while Rakan lets out a deep sigh.

"I'm-" Erath begins, but Irelia stops him with the faintest shake of her head.

"You weren't even born, Erath." Irelia mutters, "I can't hate you for what they did, and I certainly can't take an apology from you."

"I wanted Liana to meet them," she continues, "For them, in a sense, to meet her. She was, she is-"

"Yaella," Rakan mutters with a sad smile.

"Yes." Irelia breaths, tears filling her eyes.

"The Mist didn't-" Erath begins before halting himself and looking aside.

"No." Irelia states, "But it tried to get to them through me, it wormed its way into me, clutching at my grief and rage, whispered in that mad asses voice that it could answer my problems. Reunite me with my family, avenge the wrongs of Noxus. All I needed to do was find Isolde. Find his love, and I would be unstoppable."

"Where you tempted?" Rakan asks.

"I am not a liar, so…I was." Irelia returns, "Anger is easy, grief convincing."

"But Liana was there." Erath states.

"She was, and she drew me back. She was able to save me, and I…." Irelia mutters, looking down at the blade hand curling protectively around the hilt.

"Will save her." Rakan states, reaching out and taking her by the shoulder and grasping Erath with the other hand, "We are going to succeed."

"We don't have any other choice," Erath states grimly.

"There's the Noxian in him, and after all that soul-sharing," Rakan remarks, eliciting the smallest of smiles from Irelia.

"We've all got things that haunt us." Erath mutters, "But we will find the Greenfather, is that better?"

"Almost." Rakan states, "But I'm going to bed before your latest jinx catches up with us."

"What jinx?" Erath asks, turning to Irelia.

"Haunting is what the Black Mist is best at doing," Irelia notes.

Erath blinks, "Oh…shit."

"Get some sleep." Irelia offers, "It's a long walk to the Kinkou, and I hope to be up as early as we can muster."

Erath nods, and Rakan turns over without another word.

Irelia looks about the forest one last time, eyes squinting for any sign of trouble, before snuffing the fire.

Unknown to the trio, a pair of blades, blue and red, clash with another draped in green, an unspoken guardian attempting to give them one more night of quiet respite.

And with that, all of the Interquels have begun!

This one was heavier than I intended, but hey, we've gotten Chance of Hope, and Sudden Conflict begins, so have some Dour Revelations instead.

So next time, the Kinkou Monastary and What Remains.

Who is their Unseen Guardian? Well, that one should be fairly clear.

Who is the Green Blade? Well, that…is a bit more nebulous.

Hope you enjoyed.

As always, comments, questions, and critiques are welcome. This has been VerBeeker, signing off!