Caitlyn is fourteen, and she can hear Jayce telling the story. Again. She's not looking at him. She's not even listening, really. But his voice transports her, all the same, to a mountain peak lit by runes glittering above the snow and a man that can command the very fabric of space and time standing in the eye of a tempest. To Jayce it had seemed as though this man had held the entirety of Runeterra in his palm. It hurts her head to think about the whole of the world like that, so small and fragile and at the mercy of powers that Caitlyn can't even comprehend.
Or Caitlyn is fourteen, and she's listening to her history teacher talk about the Rune Wars and the fall of Helia. Entire continents torn asunder, civilizations destroyed, mages who shed their human flesh to take on spirit forms beyond the comprehension of mortals. And that hurts to think about, too.
Or Caitlyn is fourteen, reading an adventure book about an explorer who survived the trek to the base of Mount Targon, and looked up to the peak to see the cosmos. Suns and moons, stars and comets, entire planets dancing in the sky, dwarfing the little world of Runeterra and the littler city of Piltover. No one returns from the mountain with their mind intact, the book tells her. And she can believe it.
But she also finds it all fascinating, in its way. Some small, dangerous part of her would like very much to go to Mount Targon and see the heavens dancing.
Caitlyn is fourteen, and she's never felt insignificant before. How could she, when her family crest is emblazoned on half the buildings in the city, when her mother holds meetings with emperors and kings and queens? But she's only a child, holding a gun that's so small and useless compared to the World Runes, compared to the unknowable power that lies in her world and beyond. Even the forest she's spent so much time running through seems massive and intimidating...
Only it isn't even her forest, she realizes. The trees here are strange, and the plants are stranger. The moss is watching her. And so are the portraits hanging on the trees. All of the same woman.
Enter the Matrix (D)
Or Caitlyn is fourteen, and she's listening to her history teacher talk about the Rune Wars and the fall of Helia. Entire continents torn asunder, civilizations destroyed, mages who shed their human flesh to take on spirit forms beyond the comprehension of mortals. And that hurts to think about, too.
Or Caitlyn is fourteen, reading an adventure book about an explorer who survived the trek to the base of Mount Targon, and looked up to the peak to see the cosmos. Suns and moons, stars and comets, entire planets dancing in the sky, dwarfing the little world of Runeterra and the littler city of Piltover. No one returns from the mountain with their mind intact, the book tells her. And she can believe it.
But she also finds it all fascinating, in its way. Some small, dangerous part of her would like very much to go to Mount Targon and see the heavens dancing.
Caitlyn is fourteen, and she's never felt insignificant before. How could she, when her family crest is emblazoned on half the buildings in the city, when her mother holds meetings with emperors and kings and queens? But she's only a child, holding a gun that's so small and useless compared to the World Runes, compared to the unknowable power that lies in her world and beyond. Even the forest she's spent so much time running through seems massive and intimidating...
Only it isn't even her forest, she realizes. The trees here are strange, and the plants are stranger. The moss is watching her. And so are the portraits hanging on the trees. All of the same woman.
"Eda?" she asks curiously.