Garden of Enchantment 1 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Kejmur

Thank you to all of my pat-reons! 

-VB-

It started as a wisp of shadow, clinging to life by a thread by becoming a parasite on weak creatures that roamed the underbelly of civilization.

But life improved. Life adapted to the harshness of reality, and so it, too, adapted. Instead of parasitizing the weak, it fed on the excess energies of life itself: pain and emotion.

With this new method of feeding, it felt. But because it felt for the first time in its life, it loathed to lose it. It knew, instinctively, that if it lost its grip on its hosts, then it would go back to being a wisp of shadow, forever dying. It was the only way for the likes of him to feel because he would be nothing otherwise. When war ravaged the world, the sheer pain and suffering experienced by its hundreds of millions of inhabitants fueled its growth like nothing else. 

War ended, though, and it panicked. Its steady source of lifeblood, emotions and pain, came to an end.

Instead of waiting at a population center to bask in the oven of emotions, it had to start hunting.

It took on a form.

It took on a name.

It took on a purpose.

He would never go hungry again.

-VB-

Talrith hummed as he finished his last meal of the day. He gave the corpse one last kiss on her cheeks before leaving the dried out husk on the brothel room’s bed, walking out even as he changed his appearance. He loosened the clean Noxian linen shirt, even though he had entered the brothel as a rich Demacian. 

This would spark some delicious fighting between the humans. 

He couldn’t wait to soak himself in that maelstorm of emotions. It’s been so long since he took a dip. 

Unable to stop himself from grinning, Talrith made his way out of the brothel thanking the matron for the service of the red headed girl - not the black haired whore he killed - and left the establishment. From there, he made his way towards the seedier side of Piltover, hoping to avoid the inevitable rush of authorities and that sheriff.

Satisfied for now, he wondered what he should do next. With the death of that whore, he knew that the city would be delightfully anxious, wondering if they would be next. 

Maybe he should drain some nobleman’s chase and naive daughter, leaving her corpse to be found by her parents?

Maybe he should drop a disease-ridden corpse somewhere close to the hospital, leaving the city to wonder how many of them caught the disease whenever they so much as coughed?

Emotions were his lifeblood, but the ways he could go about riling the humans up was just thrilling on its own~!

He chuckled. 

“You think a little chaos is everything? You poor thing,” a husky voice purred from the shadows of the alley he’d just walked pass by. He didn’t even bother confirming. He flat out jumped away as soon as he heard the first syllable of her voice.

“Evelynn,” he uttered out. “What are you doing here in Piltover?” 

Evelynn, the most famous of their kind, strutted out of the alley, oozing human sexuality like she was the one who made it. Her purple and body suit  flickered on and off along the edges like fire while her paler purple skin glistened.

Had he been anyone else, he might have taken her to bed just for accomplishment of bedding a woman of such … sexiness.

But this was Evelynn. If he took her to bed, then he might be fighting for his life at the end of it - and probably lose it.

“Oh, just vacationing with my new husband.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Another human puppet?”

She shrugged. “Something like that.”

He pitied whomever Evelynn was playing with. 

“Are you ever going to accomplish anything by moving on from one plaything to the next?” he asked her with a tired scowl on his face. He never liked Evelynn. He didn’t understand how another member of his kin could be so … nihilistic. She destroyed and never built. 

He, on the other hand, intended to use this exchange of Noxian-Demacian hatred to push both nations’ influences out of the city. It would be two birds with one stone kind of deal.

Evelynn sighed as she placed her hand on her chin, crossed her arms, and stood there judging him as if he was the stupid one.

“You’re too much like the humans. It’s honestly baffling how you turned out.”

“Ha?” he uttered loudly. “What makes you think you’re different from me? It’s not like you starved like I did, weakling.”

Evelynn’s eyes flashed golden. “What did you just call me?” she hissed out, her beautiful human face morphing into something demonic. That suited her more. “I’m not the idiot who thinks he’s human.”

… Did that bitch really call him human?

“Alright, I think you need a lecture, young lady,” he growled out as he transformed his hand into a single blade as long as he was tall. 

Evelynn dropped her arms and flashed her claws. 

“And I think you’re in over your head.”

For a second, neither of them moved.

And then they moved. She tried to jump back into the shadows, while he jumped forward to strike her down in a single move. He brought his hand-knife down, causing the wind to whistle as his blade cut through the air. Evelynn saw that she wouldn’t make it and aborted her backward jump for a sideways roll. 

Talrith’s sword-arm bounced on the ground with a clang, sending jolts from the impact of steel-like flesh on brick. Evelynn took the opportunity of this brief pause to strike, lashing out with her claws. They lashed out and cut across his face.

He hissed as he backed away, swinging his sword-arm randomly. Evelynn backed off while laughing like a hyena. 

“Oh, is that all you can do weakling~?” she asked, throwing his insult back at him. “So helpless.”

Talrith was about to shout at her to shut up when both of them felt a chill run up their spines. A huge spike of magic just snapped into existence near them. They turned as one towards the source of the magic… 

And a portal opened up right beneath Talrith.

“Oh shit-!” Talrith shouted as he fell through. He transformed his sword-arm back into a regular human arm and latched onto the cobblestone ground, hanging onto a veritable cliff in the middle of a city. He looked up even as he strained to keep himself from falling through. “U-Uh, big sis? Help?”

Evelynn just stared at him blankly before her face twisted into a snarling grin.

“C-Come on, Eve. Don’t be nasty to your own kin…!” he laughed nervously. The portal began to suck up air, however, and he felt his grip slipping. “I need some help here!”

Evelynn walked right up to him, and then placed a heel on his hand.

“Come on, Eve. Don’t do this…” he begged as the suction of the portal doubled, now causing a small wind to blow.

Evelynn just smirked.

“Bye, bye. Weakling,” she laughed before she stomped down and pushed him off.

“FUCKING BIT-!” the portal closed.

Evelynn stood there on the street, staring at the spot where her greatest rival disappeared from the face of Runeterra. She hummed before cackling to herself. 

“Oh, that felt good.”

-VB-

“AAHHHHH!!!!!!” Talrith screamed as he fell through the portal. Then-. “OOMPF!” He tumbled down and about before he came to a complete stop. 

Groaning, he shakily pushed his hands against the floor (ah, he was face down on the ground) and pushed up. 

“S-Someone came through!”

“Quick, get him a -!”

He coughed as he looked up, trying to find out what the fuck was going on. He knew that he just fell through a portal, but there were people on the other side of it? He opened his eyes, bleary as they were from the blood pouring down from the face wounds Evelynn gave him, but he could see… weird things.

Weird because he was unfamiliar with them. They were dressed very differently from cultures he was familiar with. And they looked weird. 

Where the hell was he?

“A-Are you okay?” someone asked, but they were on his blind side, where his blood had painted over his left eye. He grunted and tried to get up again, only to fail and faceplant on the ground. “Alright, let’s get you up…!” Two people moved to his sides and helped him up, flipping him over. He hissed as his back touched the floor and felt far more wounds than he should have. Did the portal travel fuck him up? “Shit, man. You look like a lion mauled you.”

He chuckled despite the pain wrecking his body. “No, a bitch did this.”

“Bitch?” the person who asked the question asked warily. “I thought the Undersiders didn’t do anything rash like this.”

‘Who the hell are the Undersiders?’ he thought to himself while his right eye roamed around the place. It was a room, not quite as opulent as it could get but the quality of the furniture and the clothes of the people surrounding him were high quality. “Where am I?” he asked instead.

“You’re in our base,” a firmer voice replied from above him. He tilted his head up and saw a woman in all black and a mask. “Who are you?”

“Ah…” He was at their mercy, and this lady didn’t sound so happy with him, even though he was sure they had to be responsible for his translocation. “Name’s Talrith. Nice to meet you?”