LT: 8.9 Respite (Patreon)

Respite 8.9

2005, July 21: Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

It wasn’t uncommon for me to find myself in the salt flats of Bolivia. I’d tried training in other locations. The Sahara made me itchy, the Himalayas was too rocky, and the view from Mount Kilauea got stale remarkably quickly, prime vacation destination or no. There was something about the salt flats, the illusion of an infinite, boundless horizon, that kept me coming back.

I’d fully recovered by now. I’d retrained my flexibility until I could put gymnasts to shame. I’d drilled the Wuju and Shojin forms into my body until I could react without a second thought. All that was left was the Mask.

‘You are afraid, Yusung,’ Farya said. Her voice was like a soothing song, enchanting and haunting at the same time. Her words were harsh, yet there was no condemnation in them, simply an observation.

‘It is good for a mortal to fear the end,’ Wolyo growled out. His voice was the direct contrast to Farya’s, grating and deep.

‘Can you blame me?’ I asked with a hollow laugh. The thought of going to sleep again, of leaving mom alone, of not seeing Riley grow up, that genuinely terrified me. Newly minted immortal or not, those were moments I hoped to cherish for eons to come. ‘The last time I put on the Mask, I knocked myself out for two and a half years. How long might I lose this time? One year? Five? I can’t afford that kind of delay again.’

‘Then do not sleep. Endure.’

‘So long as you do not tax your body beyond its limit, you will not enter the dreamless sleep.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ I took a deep breath.

Theoretically, I knew I’d be fine. Things were different from that day in Washington. The Kindred were directly present in my soul now. They were part of me, as surely as I myself was a part of the Kindred. Lamb. Wolf. Turtle. She who granted rest. He who gave chase. And the Turtle who… I wasn’t sure what I would be in this new trinity quite yet. All I knew was that such an intimate union with the Eternal Hunters had consequences for me.

Ever since I received the Rune of Inspiration, I’d stopped being truly mortal. I’d slowly come to grips with the fact that I would one day outlive everyone I loved. Each discussion with various Aspects of Death helped with that. And yet, being united with the Kindred changed me further still.

There were several flavors of immortality to be found in Runeterra, all available even to those who’d started life as plain ol’ humans. Ryze, aptly called the Rune Mage, had been the best analog to myself in this regard, an immortal who achieved this state via sorcery.

Other types included Mordekaiser, who achieved a sort of undeath by mastering Ochnun; the Aspects, who became earthly avatars of celestials; Vladimir and his blood magic; anything to do Viego and the Ruination; Elise and her oath to Vilemaw; Lissandra and her deal with the Watchers; and whatever the fuck LeBlanc kept doing to keep herself young and beautiful. Upon reflection, immortality really was rather common on Runeterra, wasn’t it?

In contrast, the Kindred were, technically speaking, spirit gods. They were counted alongside Ornn and the Freljordian Firstborn, the wind goddess Janna, and Nagakabouros, the Bearded Lady of the Serpent Isles. They were unique in that their power waxed and waned with, if not worship, then fame. Or perhaps cultural relevance would be a better phrase.

In a word, they were malleable. The Kindred did not appear to every mortal in quite the same way. During the Spirit Blossom Festival in Ionia, Lamb even took on a human form, the facade of a young woman with vibrant blue hair clad in a pink, furred kimono.

And by taking the Kindred into my soul, I too adopted some of that malleability. As the people of Lordsmith began to worship me, I too took on aspects of the Great Turtle, the one who walked with death. It was their faith in me that truly turned the legend of the Lamb and the Wolf into a trinity.

I knew this, and still I was hesitant.

The Mask appeared in my hand with a familiar pulse of magic. Complicated etchings along its face gave the illusion of a gnarled tree, but once I looked closer, I could see individual carvings of foxes, spiders, vultures, and more.

Slowly, I brought the Mask to my face. Farya and Wolyo were right. Not only was the Mask my most powerful weapon, it was also a part of me. “Well, here goes.”

The world expanded as the Mask settled over me. Normally, I had a perfectly spherical range of vision. Within this field, I could see through walls, armor, even directly into people’s organs. I called it “sight” because that was the nearest human analog, but it wasn’t, not really. However, I simply could not see beyond a certain point unless I utilized dragonfly drones, each with nodes that expanded my range. 

Taking on the mantle of Death, that field of vision effectively ceased to exist. Instead, it was replaced by another sense, not for the living or any sort of physical stimuli, but for the very act of dying.

Now that I wasn’t fighting for my life against the Simurgh, my nature as a paradox made itself fully known to me. I was human, yet a nascent spirit god. I was alive. Technically, I was Death. I was Inspiration, a spark of creation that formed all of Runeterra. I was destruction, the end of all living things. I was here, in the Salar de Uyuni. I was also there off the coast of Chile, watching a seagull devour a crab, and in the jungles of Brazil, watching a pack of otters chasing down a juvenile caiman.

My awareness spread across the world, all the way to Lordsmith and beyond. From the lowliest of insects and microbes to the mightiest of trees, I saw them all. They were like little candles, a sea of lights spread throughout the entirety of the biosphere. Put on a macro scale like this, with no world-ending calamity to guard against, it was self-evident that life and death were truly two halves of the same whole.

Dimly, I felt my ass hit the salty ground. The sheer vastness of the biosphere overwhelmed me. Without the urgency of the Simurgh to rally my focus around, simply trying to process it all felt like an insurmountable task.

‘Retain yourself, Yusung,’ Farya coaxed. ‘We are closer, and so you feel the scope of our domain more closely in turn.’

I couldn’t respond. There was so much going on. My attention was being pulled in too many directions. As beautiful as the eternal dance of life and death was, it was also so much bigger than myself.

I had to let go. I stopped trying to see everything, stopped trying to understand. Whatever the state of my soul might be, Yusung the human was still not ready for that kind of omniscience.

I pulled back and retreated into myself. The Ymelo pulsed at my feet, reminding me of all that I was, all that I’d gone through and overcome. It pushed back against all the Death in the world until my identity and my future struck an uneasy balance.

Finally, I opened my eyes.

‘This is nothing like fighting with you,’ I complained.

‘You are us.’

‘We are you.’

‘We are closer now.’

‘We are more together.’

‘How am I supposed to learn to fight with the Mask on if I can barely stay aware of my own surroundings?’

‘We can shield you from our domain should that be necessary again,’ Farya said gently, ‘but you must learn in time.’

‘Yeah, I understand. Baby steps. If I had to fight like this, how long would I have? Safely, I mean.’

‘Who can say? Learn swiftly, little turtle.’

‘Time just isn’t on my side, is it?’ With a rueful smile, I sank within myself.

Figured, mastering Death wasn’t about learning fancy kung fu moves or putting grumpy ghosts to rest. If anything, it had more to do with philosophical discourse and introspection. It was a little like forcing myself to stare into the sun, while at the same time trying to work out the natural laws that governed the universe.

When I next roused myself, I could see a little further into the sea of candles without being overwhelmed and the finality of existence did not weigh as heavy on my shoulders. Heavy still, but not overpowering.

As it turned out, “mastering Death” was a bit of a misnomer. If anything, it was about mastering myself, coming to grips with my humanity, and looking beyond myself even as I searched inward. Through this introspection, I found studied the way the currents of magic flowed around the Kindred and integrated these currents for myself.

It would not happen overnight, but someday, I would hunt alongside the Kindred without holding them back.

X

2005, July 23: Cauldron, Ivory Coast

David stared at me like I’d grown a second head. Around the table, the members of totally-not-the-Illuminati were likewise bewildered. Except Fortuna, she’d long since been inoculated to my bullshit. “Come again?”

“My town of fantasy medieval peasants is now haunted by a fluffy midget with reality bending powers and her pet pixie,” I replied with a completely straight face. Why wouldn’t I be? This was a serious Cauldron briefing and I did not derive amusement from fucking with my peers; such claims were slanderous and uncalled for. “Her name is Lulu. She can be bribed with pastries. She is kind, friendly, and filled with childish playfulness.”

“Yeah, I thought that’s what you said. What the hell, Andy?”

“She is to be treated as a friend. It is in your best interest that she remains a friend. I highly advise that you do not poke the Lulu. Do not speak to the Lulu unless you have been spoken to. Do not make promises to the Lulu unless you can keep said promises in that very instant. Do not accept food from the Lulu, especially if it glitters or can be considered some shade of purple. Most of all, do not threaten the Lulu.”

“Andy, we’re going to need more than that,” Keith tried. He was still in his blue and white spandex, something about a new Ward undergoing orientation in New York that he had to show up for. “You’re saying words but those words aren’t making sense. Is Lulu one of Peter Pan’s?”

“Lulu is the Fae Sorceress, completely independent of Neverland. She hails from Bandle City, though I suppose she would more closely identify with the Glade if you asked her. Though she herself is not technically a fae, she has the mentality of one and so you should be mindful of your words when speaking to her.”

“I didn’t realize we had a new settlement. Where is Bandle City?”

“It is beyond the Void Between Worlds and can only be reached through the Low Roads. It exists as a part of the Spirit Realm, a tangential dimension attached to Runeterra Prime.”

Eugene sighed and rolled his golden helmet around on the table in front of him. “Is this for a video game? Are you getting into tabletop RPGs? Because a Cauldron meeting really isn’t the place to bring up your worldbuilding.”

“What? No, this isn’t a D&D campaign.”

“Fine, Andy, but please keep this brief. We all have things to do.”

I cleared my throat. “Sorry, let’s try this from the beginning. The multiverse is vaster than you’ll ever know. I’m not a parahuman. Magic is real. My power comes from a place called Runeterra. It’s fantasy-land with lots of different species and Lulu is a guest from Runeterra. Lulu is super strong and will turn you into a turnip if you piss her off. Was that brief enough?”

“Too brief!”

Fortuna and I shared a quick laugh. She knew about magic of course; she’d been consuming the Elixir of Sorcery for a while now and used my Dream Blossom Censer more often than I did. She’d been briefed more extensively than the others.

My peers typically shrugged off my talks of “magic” as “that mysterious force that kept anyone else from using Andy’s gear,” but Fortuna was different. Given her exposure to me, the Path’s diminishing usefulness when predicting my actions, and her childhood in a pre-industrial earth, she was far more receptive to the idea of magic than even Doctor Mother.

“I’ve yet to lie to you all. It just so happens that whenever I talk about my tech being hextech, your eyes just glaze over. Well? Magic is real. There are worlds that sustain human life yet look nothing like any earth. If anything, Doormaker is capable of accessing one, small slice of the multiverse, a dimensional cluster, if you will.”

“And this… Lulu… is from another world? One with entirely different rules from ours?” Keith asked. “I’m not calling you a liar, but you understand how strange that sounds, right?”

“Perhaps not,” Rebecca said. “Andy’s corona is inactive. It is a known anomaly we marked on his files but dismissed as an insignificant outlier. Considering his power, his corona and gemma should show far more activity than they do.”

I blinked at that. “Wait, I have a corona? One sec… Oh, there it is… I forgot I even had this thing…”

“Sometimes, I forget you can look inside your own skull,” Eugene said dryly. “But yeah, your corona’s not active. We always thought it was a little weird, and that maybe we didn’t have the tech to examine your specific permutation of powers.”

“Oh… I mean, I was born in this world so I guess that makes sense. A corona really just means that a Shard has taken an interest in a human as a potential trigger candidate.”

“Right. So you have one. And you have powers, even though it’s not active. I guess this is the ‘magic’ you’re talking about?”

“Sure. It’s complicated and probably has to do with why I know so damn much. What really matters is Lulu. She’s here.” I opened up a projector and showed them a picture of her, cheeks stuffed with cookies. She didn’t usually like pictures, but I bribed her to go without her glamor for a bit. “This would be the Lulu. She might not ever appear in this form to you, but if you do meet her, once again, do not poke the Lulu.”

“How intriguing,” Kurt said with a curious gleam. “I do not recognize this one. I take it she is not a Case-53?”

“No,” Rebecca confirmed. Her memory wasn’t in question; she knew every Case-53, whether they were in Neverland or released into Earth-Bet. “Which lends Andy’s claims some credence. If there is an entirely new world, perhaps we should tap it for resources as well.”

“Nope. Can’t go there. Lulu’s method is unique to her species, called yordles.”

“Yordles? Really?” David laughed. “She looks adorable. Are you sure she’s a threat?”

“You know what? Eugene mentioned D&D. Maybe that would be the best way to frame the discussion. Lulu is a creature from their equivalent of the Feywilds. She is, like most fae, immortal. Unlike my magic, which emphasizes Inspiration and has a set structure and process, Lulu’s magic is instinctive.”

“She’s a sorcerer? As in the class?” Eugene asked.

“Exactly! In fact, she’s a wild magic sorcerer.” 

“Ohh… Oh, that’s bad.”

“Lulu’s chaotic-good. She’s so chaotic-good that her magic automatically reacts to her wishes to ensure she has a fun time. She spends her days playing games and likes to behave childishly. Usually, this means casting Polymorph, pretty much at will. No reagents, no hand gestures, sometimes not even any spellwords. And unlike D&D, her transformations don’t always have a time limit.”

“I’m starting to understand your worry. Are you saying there are no limits to her magic?”

“I’m sure there are,” I said, satisfied with the D&D comparison. Eugene at least seemed to have an easier time wrapping his mind around the idea now that it was presented in a format he could digest. “She said she can’t transfigure the entire planet so there might be a mass component to it. Then again, wild magic defies understanding by its very nature so who knows?”

“Huh…”

“I think we get the idea,” Doctor Mother said. “Perhaps we should preemptively take care of the variable then.”

I slammed my head into the table with a dull thunk. “What part of ‘She is immortal,’ did you not hear? I can’t kill her. You can’t kill her. It’s not a matter of beating her in a fight, which is debatable by the way. Things, destiny, just has a way of going her way.”

“I find it hard to imagine that anyone is truly unkillable, even a… yordle.”

“Well, I don’t know how. Take my word for it; trying to find out is really not worth the hassle. There's a reason ‘Don't mess with yordles,’ is a common saying on Runeterra.”

“Containment then,” Rebecca added. “If she is such a chaotic variable, is there a way to hold her?”

“Nope. That’s not worth it either. I wasn’t lying about things going her way. Yordles are creatures from the Spirit Realm and they have an innate connection to the world on a metaphysical level that even I can’t replicate. They might seem spontaneous, and they are, but that’s because long-term planning isn’t really necessary where they’re concerned. Hell, given Lulu’s wild magic, long-term planning might not even be possible.”

“Killing her is impossible. Containment is equally impossible. What is your plan then, Andy? You seldom come to us without a solution ready.”

“I told you my solution: Do not poke the Lulu. Do not threaten the Lulu. Do not make promises you cannot keep to the Lulu. I got her to make some promises of her own. If she polymorphs anyone, she’ll make sure it won’t last longer than the nearest sunup or sundown. That promise is entirely contingent on her goodwill though. So, once again, do not poke the Lulu.”

“I see. I take it we can leave her to you then?”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best. I needed to warn you so you’re not surprised if you ever encounter her,” I told them. “On the plus side, she isn't likely to seek any of you out. You're too boring.”

“I think ‘boring’ might be a good thing where the fae are concerned,” Eugene said dryly.

“Exactly. And you won't find her unless she wants to be found. She, like all yordles, can wear a glamor to disguise herself, see? She usually looks like a normal human child.”

“Let me guess, only children are likely to see the real her?”

“Oh, like the Tooth Fairy?” Keith muttered. “This world keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

“You have no idea, Keith,” I replied. I then pulled a box full of cookies and set them on the table. “Just in case, I made emergency cookies. These are sugar cookies with candied yuzu peels baked inside. The pink frosting is homemade from strawberries. Keep a few on hand to–”

“Ooh, these are great,” David said. He’d already put one in his mouth.

“To distract Lulu! David, those aren’t for you!”

“There are more, right?”

“By Bel’Veth’s all-swallowing cunt, you’re going to get yourself turned into a turnip and I’m not going to help you.”

“Oh, relax. I think we’re all capable of talking to a child. We just need to play with her and keep her happy right?”

“The problem is that she’s not a child,” I grumbled. “She’s ancient, and by ancient I mean quite possibly older than Babylon, the original one! If she behaves like a child, that’s a choice on her part.”

“You say that, but you’re also handing out cookies we can bribe her with.”

“Just trust me on this. Lulu means well, but she can be immensely inconvenient. Your best bet really is to bribe her with these. They’ve been enchanted to never spoil so keep a few in a ziplock baggie or something.”

“Fine, I get it,” he said, looking longingly at the cookies. “We’ll be careful with the midget. Was that all?”

“From me? Yes. Eugene, any idea when my lab will be renovated for large-scale construction?”

He laughed at my interplay with David, the bastard. “A few more days? A large hangar has been added according to your specifications and so have some of the tools you’ve asked for, but a lot of work still needs to be done. You can build in parts and then assemble everything later, right?”

“That’s what I’m doing. I’ve been trying to fix a machine together that’ll mass produce the drones for me.”

“Huh. Haven’t you had trouble with mass production in the past? Besides your potions, I mean.”

“Kinda? The runes need to be enchanted by me. There isn’t an easy way to make machines that do that part for me, but they can be carved by other people.”

“If you say so. Let me know if you need help.

“Will do.”

“Good, if that’s settled, Glen would like me to tell you that you need to visit other cities,” Rebecca said. She was, technically speaking, my boss.

“Glen can suck my–”

“I happen to agree with him. The Worldstone Network is important, but that’s not what you’re doing all day.”

“I need to train.”

“That’s not what you’re doing all day either. Like it or not, you are an icon, Andy, no different than us Founders. You need to be visible.”

“Fine, what do you suggest?”

“Whatever you want. All I ask is that you make yourself known to Earth-Bet, and not just from behind a computer screen. Whenever you have time, take a few hours to visit a cafe in Montreal. Drop in on a random bank robbery. Show the world you’re alive and well.”

“You’re right. I’ll do that,” I promised.

She wasn’t wrong; I did say I’d visit. I’d done most of what I wanted to do while “recovering” anyway.

I’d built up rapport with my new little sister. I’d explored Lordsmith and Neverland, even meeting the ever-peppy Lulu. I’d reconnected with my old Wards team, added to the Worldstone network, and started on the long road to accepting my place as part of the Kindred.

“Excellent. Now, let’s talk about the next endbringer. It is estimated to arrive in the next two or three weeks.”

Author’s Note

In a way, Andy’s retreading old ground in that he’s been the Kindred before. In another way, what he did against the Simurgh was incomplete, a bastardized mix of life and death that wasn’t at all sustainable. The Mask represents a pair of very big shoes to fill, and Andy will have to grow into them.

It’s really hard to drive home how dangerous a yordle can be to someone who’s not from Runeterra, and sometimes not even then. Andy is worried someone will inevitably try to mess with Lulu. He’s pretty much resigned himself to the fact that at some point, he’s going to have to bribe Lulu into un-squirrel-ifying one of his friends.