//3rd Pov. Sept.
It was cold in the hills of Kalduga.
The flock moved slow in the morning mist.
The soft tear of grass and shuffle of hooves told Sept everything he needed to know about the flock. His father had taught him that counting by sight alone was wrong. "You need to listen too. Understand them. Like family," he said.
His dog, a scrappy brown thing with one torn ear, circled the outer edge without being commanded.
It was a good morning.
From the hill he could see the vila below, its smoke rising against the sky. It was Market day. His mother had been up before dawn preparing the cart. His father had sharpened his tools the night before.
Things are always tense on Market day.
Sept had heard them talking after they thought he was asleep.
The guild raising its cut again. Hunters stealing stalls. Blackmail. Treats. Protestest. But after a family of apothecaries tried to leave, people went quiet. Nobody talked about what happened.
He pulled his coat tighter and whistled the flock to move toward the pen.
.
His mother was already loading the cart when he came down from the hill.
She handed him a crate and pointed at where it should go. He placed it without a word. That's their life.
His father came out of the house with the tools wrapped in cloth, setting them carefully in the back. He checked the wheels. Checked them again.
"Papa."
"Mm."
"What happened to the family of apothecaries?"
His father's hands stopped on the wheel. Then kept moving.
"Nothing you need to worry about."
Sept looked at his dog sitting by the pen gate, watching the road down to the vila with its ears flat.
Sept knew not to ask again.
.
//3rd Pov.
Hunter Guild.
A grand and spacious hall. Long-timbered banquet tables. An ornate mission board. Shaggy animal hides like trophies decorated the space.
The hall was loud and reeking of liquor.
"Thirty gold for a live vastayan last month. Thirty. You know what they're paying in Noxus now? Eighty. Eighty for a breathing one."
"What do they want them breathing for?"
Laughter.
A cup slammed down.
"We had three last season. Because Domas kept botching the nets."
"The nets were fine. The girl who kept biting them."
More laughter. Higher this time.
"Cut her tongue out next time."
"Cut more than that."
Someone at the back table was cleaning blood off his bracers with a rag,
"The apothecary family tried to file a complaint. Then tried to leave. Can you believe that?"
Gulp-Gulp—one sipped his beer.
"They're still trying?"
"No. Not anymore."
The fire cracked.
"And hey—What about the feral. The cat woman up in the deep jungle?"
"She's still there. Alive. She got a whole army of those things. Took six men last night."
"Six good men?"
"Six men."
Laughter again.
"Someone'll get her eventually. String her up and she'd fetch a fortune. Something that can shift like that… is pretty hot."
CREEEK
The great door moved. Slower, and much louder than usual.
Everyone gazed towards it.
A frame. Someone.
The shadow it cast stretched long across the floor.
The laughter died as more gazes were pulled. Even the fire seemed to reconsider itself, pulling back to a thin blue tongue before steadying again.
Air thick. Bodies trembling. Nobody knew why. They only knew it came from that shape.
Tap.
It stepped inside. The air shook with each tap, a faint humming resonating beneath everything.
Then he stopped.
One of the men near the back started to rise. Slowly.
The shape turned its head slightly in his direction.
He sat back down.
He walked to the nearest table. Looked at the fire.
"What do you guys know about mana?"
His voice was conversational. Like he was continuing something.
Sweat slid down foreheads.
"You all probably more used to the term 'magic', which creates a phenomenon."
"But mana," He pulled out a chair and sat down, unhurried, "Is the force behind it."
"But what is mana made of?"
A man near the wall reached slowly for the handle at his belt.
"Nothing." His eyes didn't move from the fire. "At its core, there's nothing that builds it. It simply exists. Try to look further and you pass the realm of information. No space. No time. Nothing."
"I named this element as Magicon. Since what people know about mana might be misleading."
"So,"
The ambiance humming grew louder.
"What moves such force? Genes? Spirit?"
The man drew.
"No,"
ZINNG!
The sound wasn't a weapon. It came from the air. As the blade closed on the hooded figure's face, time seemed to slow. The hunter pushed through, screaming from the top of his lungs. "AAGHH!"
"Will."
SWISH—the swing went wide.
The man's hand was empty. The blade gone. Like it had turned to air.
The shadow stood.
The man flinched back, not knowing what just happened.
"The same way light switches between wave and particle, a mage switches between magicon and phenomena."
ZINNNNNNG!
Everyone brought their hands to their ears. The humming was deafening now, pressing against the inside of their skulls.
.
"BWAAH!"
.
"GAHHH!"
.. .
"AGHHH!"
. .
He raised his hand. The light caught his face—his skin marked, blood stains spreading like cracks across his cheek and jaw.
. .. .
"Once I understood that, building a pathway was simple."
. .. . .
He smiled.
. . . .
"I call this technique—"
. .. .. . … .
.. . .. .
.. .
.
"Electron Gun."
.
.
.
//3rd Pov. Sept.
The vila was on fire.
All of it.
Sept didn't understand what he was seeing at first. His mother's hand was iron around his wrist, pulling him through the market crowd that had turned into a wave, all moving in the same direction. Away.
Someone knocked him sideways. His mother pulled him back.
"Mama—"
"Don't stop."
The smoke was wrong. It wasn't gray. It was a color he didn't have a name for, something between white and light itself, rising in columns so straight they appeared solid.
.
The docks was chaotic.
Edran, the captain, had been moving people onto the ship for ten minutes and his arms were already done. He grabbed, pulled, pointed, grabbed again.
"Move! Inside, go, move!"
He didn't let himself look at the vila. Tried not to.
But when someone shouted:
"T-There's a person in the sky!"
He looked up.
At his side, Sept saw him at the same moment.
Above the vila. Above the smoke. A figure suspended in the air like a god.
Or the devil. The strange light that had been eating the buildings moved beneath him like it sprouted consciousness and realized it was afraid.
Around them on the dock, adults grabbed their children and turned them away.
Sept didn't look away.
The figure above the fire wasn't moving. Wasn't gesturing. Only watching what had happened with an unreadable gaze.
Edran on the other hand saw the same figure and felt his legs go cold.
He had seen soldiers. He had seen what Noxian war parties left behind when they moved through a town and decided it wasn't worth keeping.
He had categories for human destruction. This didn't fit any of them.
Whatever was standing above the burning vila hadn't done this because it needed to.
"Get inside," he said to no one in particular. Then louder. "Everyone get inside now!"
He reached and grabbed Sept by the shoulder, pulling him towards the ship.
Sept resisted for just a moment.
Moment enough to see the figure above the flames tilt its head slightly, like it was listening to something nobody else could hear.
Then stared directly at the boat.
Sept let himself be pulled inside.
.