As They Bloom

15 - The End

You are no stranger to nightmares.

Since you were a small, frightened child; to your tumultuous, chaotic adolescence; to your insecure adulthood as a soldier, they haunted you. Everything you've done, everything you strived for – it was all an attempt to escape the roiling fear within you. But standing there, overlooking the encroaching battalion, shadows pooling in your hand, you feel at peace. As though everything has led to this moment, falling piece by piece into place like a puzzle.

The shadows sit in your hand, neither liquid nor smoke; drip, drip, dripping down your arm and onto the forest floor where they dissipate with a hiss. In your other hand you hold a handful of glittering dust, shining iridescent. Across from you, watching with bated breath, are Yone and Bo. They dare not speak, watching you with such intensity that you feel their eyes may just burn right through you.

You put your hands together, and the shadows mingle with the dust, seeping into it like water on dry sand. The mixture you are left holding is strange – shining black and purple; smoky but solid; and so, so frightfully cold.

But not yet completely merged.

You close your eyes, drawing on the magic churning deep within you. Your hands tremble as you force it into the dust, and as you do you are inundated by hideous memories. Every bad choice you ever made. Every embarrassing memory. Everything. Everything all at once. It becomes the glue that holds the nightmare dust together.

When you finish, you are left exhausted; smoking, pitch black dust nestled in your hand like ground charcoal.

One packet down, so many more to go. If only it wasn't so exhausting to bind the shadows to the dust. You sit down on a nearby stump trying to catch your breath, replacing the nightmare dust in its little packet.

Yone wanders over and crouches beside you. His blue eyes are locked on you from the depths of his mask. "You're putting a lot of strain on yourself," he cautions. "You've not had enough time to heal from the ichor."

"Time is a luxury we don't have," you murmur, still trying to catch your breath. You retrieve another packet from your pocket. "We cannot beat them with steel..."

"We cannot beat them by magic either." His voice is stern, pierced through with worry. "Even if you enchanted all the dust Lillia gave you, it wouldn't be enough. They are thousands. We are three."

"And the longer we linger, the fewer we can evacuate," interrupts Bo. He turns away from you, crestfallen. "So many will die, but it need not be everyone."

"No one will die if you let me put my plan in motion."

"What plan?" snarls Bo. "Are you going to wander into their camp and sprinkle them? Make them dream that their spouses are back home laying with their neighbour?"

"Don't be a fool," you scowl, raising yourself to your feet. "Do you truly think I'm not taking this seriously? That I haven't thought it through?"

Something burns within you, but its neither fever nor fear.

You stand before him determined. Strong. Not in the way of the Noxians, who know only battle, but in a way all your own. "I stand to lose my home and dear ones just like you. And I will not hand them over, just as I haven't the times before. Not to the Noxians. Not to Yue. Not to anyone stupid enough to cross me!"

He falls silent, mulling your words. But Yone smiles, pleasantly surprised.

"Very well," he says, standing tall beside you. "Let us hear your plan."

"It's very simple," you tell him. "In fact, I only need you by my side. Bo will continue gathering the villagers and usher then to safety."

"I apologize for my foolishness," scowls Bo. "You don't need to send me away."