POV - Morgana
There is a certain, cruel irony in being immortal and yet still feeling the crushing weight of time. Not the weight of the centuries I have already lived, for those have become a part of me, like rings in the trunk of an ancient tree. The true burden lies in the moments that have not yet happened, in the gestures we postpone, in the words we leave unsaid. It is the weight of a silent debt to the present, a promise the soul makes and the heart, at times, forgets to fulfil.
And on that Thursday morning, as the Piltovan sun began to gild the city's bronze towers, turning the morning mist into a veil of gold, I felt that weight sharply. Because today was not an ordinary day. By the mortal calendar, it was the thirteenth since I found her in that cold forest. Azra'il's birthday. And that date, which to her was likely just another solar cycle, to me, was a pulsating reminder of the debt I owed to the one soul in this world I had chosen to call my own.
Azra'il was beside me on my room's small balcony, watching the morning movement on the Promenade below. The city was waking up, a creature of gears and ambition. She held a cup of tea in her hands not one of her complex, experimental blends, but something simple, almost mundane. Black tea with a touch of honey. The kind of drink one chooses when one doesn't want to impress anyone, not even oneself.
"They'll survive," she said, her voice flat, her eyes fixed on the stream of people below. It was not a question. It was a statement, spoken with the finality of an engineer assessing the integrity of a bridge.
"Yes, they will," I agreed, my gaze following hers.
"Lucien no longer panics when a Warden orders an extra-strong tea. Eddie has finally learned that a slightly burnt cake is not the harbinger of the apocalypse, just… a crispier cake. Kaeli is still insufferably snobbish at heart, but at least now she keeps her sermons on the desecration of tea leaves to herself, for the most part. And Rixa…" She paused, and a reluctant, almost invisible smile touched her lips. "Rixa basically runs the whole place when we're not looking."
"Almost two years," I said softly. A grain of sand in the hourglass of my life, but for them, an age of transformation. "They have learned well."
"They're ready," she corrected, taking a sip of her tea. There was a finality in her voice that chilled me. "Ready for when we leave. Which is good. Efficient. Exactly as we planned."
There was something in that tone. It was not sadness; Azra'il rarely allowed herself the vulnerability of sorrow. But perhaps… a weary resignation. The stoic acceptance of another inevitable farewell in a life that, I suspected, was built of countless goodbyes. She spoke of moving on with the practicality of one packing a bag for the next journey.
I studied her for a moment, the morning light tracing the outline of her face. At nearly thirteen, she was the personification of contradiction. Her body still carried the lightness of adolescence, but her eyes… her eyes were those of someone who had already watched the world end and begin again, repeatedly. It was like looking at an ancient scroll, written in a language I could almost, but not quite, decipher. Every look, every gesture, held echoes of stories I did not know.
"Then that's perfect," I said, getting up and shaking the invisible dust from my robes. My decision was made, solidified by her melancholic acceptance of the future. "If they can manage the place on their own for a day, it won't make the slightest difference if we're here or not."
She turned to me, her eyebrow arched in immediate suspicion. "What are you plotting, Morgana?"
"Nothing. I just think we deserve a day away from this place." I made a vague gesture towards the shop below us, from where the morning sounds of Eddie preparing the first batch of pastries and the methodical clinking of Kaeli arranging the cups were already rising. "A day where we don't have to serve tea, listen to complaints, break up philosophical disputes about sugar, or stop Powder from accidentally opening a portal to the Void in the cellar."
"A day off? For both of us?" Azra'il asked slowly, turning to face me fully. "You. Morgana. The Eternal Guardian of Justice, the Forsaken, and Burnt Tea. Wanting to take a day off. Willingly."
"Yes."
She studied me for a long moment, her eyes narrowed, searching for the hidden agenda. "This isn't about testing the staff, is it?"
"No."
"It's not about shopping for essential supplies for the shop or gathering intelligence on the city's political movements?"
"No."
"Then what is it about?"
I held her gaze, allowing the simple, overwhelming truth to weigh down my words. "It is about my daughter's birthday," I said, the truth hanging heavy in the air. "And about spending the day with her. With no obligations. Just… the two of us."
The word daughter hung in the air between us, heavy and precious, a note I rarely played with such clarity. Azra'il always maintained that careful distance. It was "Morgana" or, on her more provocative days, "Mother Raven". She avoided the words that might make the bonds too real, too permanent, too painful to sever when the time came to leave. But today, I needed her to hear it. I needed her to understand.
Her expression wavered. Genuine surprise, followed by a flash of vulnerable panic, crossed her face before it was quickly masked by her usual indifference. "Morgana—"
"I have raised you since you were a babe," I interrupted, my voice firm but gentle. "I found you wrapped in rags in a cold Demacian forest, I carried you home, I fed you when you were hungry, I held you when you were sick. I taught you to walk, to read, to create runes of protection. I saw your first steps. By the laws of nature and of the heart, I should have been the one giving you gifts all these years. I should have been the one spoiling you. And yet…"
I gestured to the silver brooch resting on my dresser. To the necklace I wore beneath my robes. To the star-strewn gown itself, hanging in my wardrobe, that she had given me.
"You have spent the past few years giving me things," I continued. "Working, using your incomprehensible talents to ensure we had not just a roof, but a home. A business. A legacy. And I… I just accepted it. As if it were perfectly normal for a child to take care of her mother, instead of the other way around."
"I'm not exactly a normal child," Azra'il said, her voice low, her gaze fixed on a distant point over the Piltovan horizon.
"No. You are not." I approached, resting my hand on her shoulder. It was thin, yet it seemed to carry the weight of mountains. "But you are my child. And today, on your birthday, I want you to allow yourself to be just that. Not the strategist, the boss, or the teacher. Just a thirteen-year-old girl, going for a walk with her 'mother'."
I saw something break in her eyes. A small, fine crack in the wall she always maintained. She opened her mouth to say something sarcastic, an instinctual defence, but then closed it. She looked at the tea in her cup as if it held the answers she could not find.
"I don't really know how to do that," she finally admitted, her voice so low it was almost a whisper carried on the wind.
"Then learn," I said, with all the tenderness my ancient heart could muster. "For one day. Let me take care of you. Just as you did in Noxus with me and when we first arrived here. Let me give you something, just because I want to. Not because it is practical or necessary. Just because…"
"Because you love me," she finished for me, her voice trembling slightly on the last word.
"Yes."
She was silent for a long moment, the steam from the tea rising and dissipating between us. Then, slowly, she nodded. "Alright. For today. I… will try."
The smile that formed on my face was as rare and precious as the sun breaking through the clouds of a thousand-year storm. "Thank you."
The city of Piltover in the morning was a symphony of progress and ambition. The air smelt of machine oil, fresh bread from the bakeries, ozone from the hextech lines, and that characteristic metallic tang of polished ambition. The streets were already bustling, a constant stream of inventors, merchants, academics, and ordinary citizens, all walking with the haste of those who have a purpose and a deadline.
But today, we were in no hurry. We had no deadline. Only the day.
I watched Azra'il as we walked. She moved through the crowd with the ease of someone who had walked through a thousand different cities, but there was something different about her today. An almost imperceptible lightness. As if, by allowing me to take the lead, by letting me guide her, she had finally set down an invisible burden she always carried.
She took me to her favourite shops. Shops I never knew she frequented. A small, cramped bookshop that sold old maps and forbidden texts. A hardware shop that, according to her, had "the best smuggled Noxian brass cogs". In each place, she spent her own coin, buying a small metal brooch for me here, a rare book on Shuriman legends there. With every gift, the stone in my chest grew heavier.
It was then, as we were passing through a quieter street in the Artisans' Quarter, lined with the workshops of glassblowers and metal-sculptors, that I saw my chance. I remembered passing by weeks ago and seeing something that had fixed itself in my memory. A small musical instrument shop, sandwiched between a clockmaker's and an art gallery. And in the window, still there, was the guitar.
It was a piece of silent art amidst the city's noise. Made of a dark, reddish wood, so rich it seemed to hold the sunset's light, with delicate mother-of-pearl inlays that formed a subtle pattern of flowering vines climbing the instrument's neck. It was not ostentatious, did not scream for attention like the gilded instruments of the Piltovan elite. It whispered. It had the quiet, deep elegance of something made not to impress, but to be loved. It had a soul.
The image of Azra'il, standing on that grimy stage in 'The Last Drop', her voice cutting through the noise, the music flowing from her like a long-dammed river, came to my mind with overwhelming clarity. She had turned a battered, out-of-tune guitar into a channel for beauty. What could she do with an instrument like this?
"Wait here a moment," I told her. She was momentarily distracted, analysing the complex mechanics of an automaton news-vendor.
Before she could protest or ask a sarcastic question, I stepped into the shop. The air inside smelt of polished wood, resin, and metal strings. An elderly man with white hair and hands gnarled with arthritis, but with the long, thin fingers of a musician, looked up from his work.
"Good morning, madam. May I help you?" his voice was gentle, like the sound of cello strings.
"The guitar in the window," I said, pointing. "I would like to know more about it."
A knowing smile touched his lips. He stood and, with a reverent care, took the instrument. "Ah, this one… this one has a story." He held it out to me, and the weight of the wood was solid and comforting. "It was not made in Piltover. The wood is Ionian Whispering-Cherry, cut from a tree that grew near a silent monastery. Legend says those trees absorb the unspoken songs and prayers."
I ran my fingers over the smooth wood. It was warm to the touch. "And the inlays?"
"Bilgewater mother-of-pearl, but worked by an Ionian artisan," he explained. "Each flower on the vine represents a lost story. He made it in memory of his beloved, who was a storyteller. This instrument was not made to play fast tavern jigs. It was made to tell stories. Its sound… is deep. Melancholy, but with a note of stubborn hope."
Melancholy, but with stubborn hope. It was Azra'il, in the form of an instrument.
"I'll take it," I said, without hesitation.
I paid the price, which was exorbitant but completely insignificant in the face of what it represented. The man placed it carefully in a soft leather case, lined with dark velvet. "Take good care of it, madam. Instruments with a soul choose their musicians. I hope it finds the right one."
"I think it already has," I replied.
When I stepped out onto the sunlit street, the large case in my hands, Azra'il stared at me, her eyes narrowed in pure suspicion. Her analysis of the automaton was forgotten.
"What have you done?" she asked, her voice laden with the distrust of one accustomed to gifts with strings attached.
I did not answer with words. I just approached and held the case out to her. "For you."
She stood still, looking at the case, then at my face, and back to the case. The confusion on her face was genuine. For a moment, she did not move. Reluctantly, she took the case from me. Its weight seemed to surprise her. With a deliberate slowness, she placed it on the ground, knelt, and opened the brass latches.
She saw it. And the world around us seemed to disappear. Her fingers, which I had seen dissect complex cogs and fight with deadly precision, traced the curve of the dark wood with a heart-breaking tenderness. She touched the coolness of the mother-of-pearl, following the path of the flowering vines. It was the first time in many years that I had seen her genuinely speechless. The sarcasm, the indifference, the weary wisdom that seemed so incongruous with her age… it all melted away like mist in the sun. What was left was just a girl, looking at the most beautiful gift she seemed to have ever received.
Slowly, as if afraid to break a spell, she lifted the guitar from its velvet lining. The instrument looked as though it were made for her. She settled it in her lap right there, sitting on the stone ground of the Promenade, indifferent to the curious stares of passers-by. Her posture changed. The vulnerable girl vanished, giving way to something older, more focused: the musician.
Her right hand glided over the strings, and a single chord rang out. The sound was clear and deep, a note that seemed to carry the weight of distant mountains and the lightness of falling leaves in a silent grove. The acoustics of the artisans' alley amplified the melody, making it resonate against the stone walls. The sound had history.
Her eyes closed, and her fingers began to move on the strings. It was not a song I knew, not a tavern jig or a noble hymn. It was an improvisation, born in that exact moment, a conversation between two ancient souls: hers and the guitar's. The melody began hesitantly, a series of exploratory notes, like someone fumbling in a dark room, getting a feel for the space. It was her question to the instrument.
And then, the guitar answered. The melody deepened, becoming bittersweet, weaving a story without words. It spoke of long journeys under unknown skies, of beloved faces becoming memories, and of fleeting reunions that lasted only as long as a song. It was the stubborn melancholy the shopkeeper had described, flowing through the fingers of a child who should not know such feelings.
The people around us began to stop. A merchant pushing a cart of gears halted his movement. A Piltovan couple, dressed in their afternoon finest, turned, captivated by the music. A group of children who had been running through the street slowed their pace, their wide, curious eyes fixed on the girl who made the wood sing. In a few moments, a small, silent crowd had formed around us, all united by the sudden, unexpected beauty that had blossomed in the middle of the stone street.
I, who have heard the celestial choirs on the peaks of Targon and the desperate wails of the abyss, felt I had never heard anything so honest. It was the music of her soul, the melody of her eternal travelling, finally set free.
She played for perhaps a minute, completely lost in her own world, a world made of notes and memories. And then, as suddenly as it began, the melody ended. The last note hung in the air for a moment and then dissipated, leaving behind a silence that felt louder than the music itself.
Azra'il opened her eyes. She looked at the guitar in her lap, and then at me. Her eyes were shining, an ocean of unshed emotion. The wall of cynicism was completely broken.
"Morgana… why?" Her voice was a whisper, fragile and raw, almost inaudible amidst the gradual return of the city's sounds.
I knelt before her, ignoring the stone ground and the stares of strangers, so that our eyes were level.
"Because you gave me a home," I began, and the words came from a deep and long-dormant place. "A long, long time ago, I lost my family. I lost my home. And for centuries, I wandered, believing I would never have anything like it again. I contented myself with the shadows, with the solitude, believing that was my destiny."
My gaze grew distant for an instant, re-seeing an image that had never left me. "Until the day I found you, a little bundle of stubbornness wrapped in rags, in that cold petricite forest in Demacia. And when I picked you up, something changed."
I looked back into her eyes, the complete truth in my voice. "You, with all your sarcasm, your stubbornness, and your incomprehensible heart, you gave me a place to belong again. You became my home. In every city, in every refuge, in every moment of quiet. And I… I just wanted to give you a song back. One that was entirely your own."
She did not cry. It is not in her nature. But the way she hugged the guitar to her chest… it was with the devotion of a pilgrim who has finally found their shrine.
The small crowd, sensing the private moment was over, began to disperse, leaving a few coins in an upturned hat one of the Zaunite boys had placed on the ground.
In that moment, on the bustling street of a city that barely noticed the souls it crushed beneath its cogs, amidst strangers who had stopped to share an instant of beauty, I felt the weight in my heart finally lift. The debt, I felt, was paid. And for one brief, perfect instant, time ceased to be my enemy. There were no immortals, no fallen goddesses, no ancient souls burdened with a thousand lives.
We were just a mother and her daughter, on her birthday. And we were at peace.