League of Legends: Short Stories

Aurelion Sol: Twin Dawns

This world's familiar sun still hides below the horizon. Crude and unpolished earth unfurls below. Mountains contort into barriers that stretch like fingers across empty scrub lands. Palaces, or rather, what pass for palaces, fail to loom over anything but the squattest of hills. The curvature of the planet meets the stars with a serenity and grace few of the dwellers below will ever witness. They are so scattered across the globe and grasp so blindly for any sort of understanding that it's no surprise they've been conquered and don't even comprehend their predicament.

The fiery sheen I've gathered as I streak toward my preordained destination illuminates the world beneath me. Pockets of warring, fearful, rejoicing life tucks itself into any fertile nook it can find below. Oh, how they gaze and point as I streak over their heads. I've heard the names they call me: prophet, comet, monster, god, demon... So many names, all missing the mark.

In a vast stretch of desert, I feel the twinge of familiar magic emanating from the seat of the premiere civilization amongst these savages. Lo and behold, a massive Sun Disc is under construction. The poor enslaved laborers beat their heads and rend their clothes in my wake. Their cruel masters see me, a streaking bolt of fire, as a portent of good omen, no doubt. My passing will be etched in their uncouth pictograms upon common stone, an homage to the great comet, the blessing of the sky-god gracing their holy works and so forth. The Disc's sole purpose is to funnel the sun's majesty into the most "renowned" of these fleshy humanoids, transforming them into exactly what this planet needs: more insufferable demigods. This effort will undoubtedly backfire. But I suppose they might last a brief while, perhaps a thousand years or so, before they fall and are supplanted by others.

The desert below fades into the night trailing behind me as I streak onward across lonely steppes, then over rolling brown hills gently flecked with greenery. The pastoral scenery belies a field spattered with blood and littered with the dead and dying. Survivors hack away at each other with rough-hewn axes and scream battle cries. One side is losing quite badly. Stag skulls rest atop pikes stuck into the soil, next to writhing warriors. The few still on their feet are encircled by soldiers riding great shaggy beasts.

Those defeated, surrounded few see me and valiance seems to surge through their veins. The wounded rise and grasp their axes and bows in a final stand that throws their foes off guard. I don't linger to see the rest of the little clash play out because I've seen this scenario unfold a thousand times: The survivors will scratch my comet likeness onto their cave walls. In a thousand years, their descendants will fly my image on banners and undoubtedly ride into a tediously similar battle. For all their efforts to capture and record history, one ponders why they do not learn from their mistakes. That is a lesson even I have had to suffer.

I leave them to perpetuate their bleak cycle.

My trajectory reveals more inhabitants. Their collective repertoire of reactions span the typical gamut: pointing, kneeling, sacrificing virgins upon stony altars. They look up and see a comet and never ask what lies beneath the blazing façade. Instead, they stamp it onto their own self-centered worldviews, muddying the splendor of my visage. The few more advanced life forms–and I use that description loosely–gaze up and jot down my coordinates in scientific almanacs instead of using me as prophecy fodder. It's mildly refreshing, but even their developing notions of intellect seems to indicate I am a regularly appearing phenomenon with a predictable orbit. Oh, the feats they could accomplish if only... Well, no use dwelling on the wasted potential of the simple-minded terrestrial born. It's not entirely their fault. Evolution does seem to have a difficult time gaining traction on this world.

But alas, the novelty of such infantile antics has worn thin. The grasping energies of my magical bondage have dragged me from one paltry world to another for centuries. Now it has led me back to this familiar and unpleasant rock. The star that floods its surface with light was one of my earliest creations, a confluence wrought of love and radiance. Ah, that cherished moment when she flared to life with colors only her creator could see. How I miss a star's crackling new energy warming my face and trickling through my fingers. Each star gives off a unique energy, precious and reflecting its creator's soul. They are cosmic snowflakes burning in defiance of the infinite dark.