Tales of Runeterra: Ashes Falling Like Snow

 

Tales of Runeterra

Chapter 11:

Ashes Falling Like Snow

Ashes burned between his fingers as flames raged incessantly around him. The world seemed to fall away, just the same as the once long-standing stone that made up the halls of the Ravenbloom Academy. This place, this hallowed hall of learning, used to be a bastion for all the noble children of Noxus that were blessed with the magic necessary to lead a new era of the empire.

And it was all gone, tossed away to the whims of a single child.

Some of his classmates were excited. They whooped and hollered as the iron ringlets that bound them to the school fell ineffectually from the wrists. Their mana, no longer bound, rushed and roiled, batting away their once teachers with laughable ease. Smiles, wide and sadistic, decorated their faces as they followed the hellspawn out the front door. They didn’t even seem to care as the flames licked at their boots.

For the rest of them, however, they weren’t as excited. He could see the other noble children seethe. He could see the way that their eyes followed the little hellspawn that all but crushed their path towards power. Graduating from the Ravenbloom Academy was the easiest way into a surefire position of power, and now it was all gone. The teacher, the schoolgrounds, their future, all burned away on the whims of a child who couldn’t even appreciate what she was lucky enough to have had dropped in her lap.

She wasn’t royalty. She wasn’t nobility. She treated magic as it were a toy, and not a weapon to be utilized for the good of the empire. She grandly desecrated years of tradition and slept through classes that were meant to better her.

She was everything Arnold hated. And she was also his better in every way.

Of course, he would never admit it out loud, but there was a reason why Annie was able to get away with what she did. Her magic, was sloppy and brutish, was raw and powerful. Even the upperclassmen had trouble dealing with her particular brand of excitement, and there were even entire classes that were put away by her raging, rampant casting. Even the valedictorian, a thorny girl by any means, had become enamored by her, and that was no small feat.

No, Arnold could never hope to beat Annie, but that did nothing to assuage the rage he felt heating his gut. Everything in him told him to attack the girl who, even now, was skipping happily towards the gates. Her job done, she likely didn’t need to do anything else here, and was content to roam the blackened streets of Noxus, her horrifying little bear in tow.

He doubted that there was much of anything Annie couldn’t procure for herself. She was a powerful mage, after all, and Noxus respected its mages. Even more than that, however, Noxus respected its power. And Annie was definitely that. Power incarnate, with little regard for safety of others or herself. Such a psychopath would care very little for the lives of others.

Anger welled up inside him as he thought of her charging her way through life, with little to no consequences for her actions. While he had to attend countless lessons on behavior and watch his every move, this… commoner… got to have it all. Fame, excitement, power, prestige. They all came to her as if she deserved it, and the girl acted as if such things were a given.

That angered Arnold more than anything else. The entitlement. The worst part was that he couldn’t say that she didn’t deserve it. She was everything that he aspired to be, and all while being so much younger than him.

Magic had a way of understanding. Most scholars would read books and scrolls, and tell you that magic was something that you studied. They would tell you that magic was something that you learned. Arnold was not like them. He was more of the idea that magic was something that you felt. The Vastaya, as odd as they were, were on to something with their idea.

As such, Arnold would say that his next actions were not entirely his fault. Magic was born from emotion, and as such would activate based on emotion. Mana welled up beneath his skin, forming into water before he could stop it. Holding his arm out, he cast a rudimentary spell that slung a lance of carefully tuned water at his foe.

It never reached the child. Fire sprung forth from the bear that the girl held carelessly in her hand, and not only did it devour his spell as if it were nothing, flash boiling and evaporating it into nothing, but it continued, flying directly toward him like an arcing snake of heat and malice.

His eyes widened as it drew closer, flying far faster than his water lance ever could. He knew that he should dodge out the way, or perhaps summon a mana shield to protect himself. Perhaps he could summon some more water, and extinguish the flames before they could envelope him, eating his flesh far faster than it ate the foundations of his school. He could try his hand at teleportation, though he was never particularly good at it. Or he could even simply take a few steps back, where he knew the very edge of the barely standing magical barrier was.

But, as these thoughts flooded his mind mere seconds before his end, the only thing he could think of was the fact that Annie didn’t even care. She hadn’t turned to see what he did, nor did she stop her merry jaunt out the door. Her bear had cast that pyroblast all on its own, reducing Arnold to a mere afterthought in Annie’s life, if that.

He could step back and watch as her flames washed harmlessly off the strongest barrier he had ever seen. He could try to erect his own barrier, and see if he could at the very least defend from her attacks himself. He could try another attack, and overpower it with brute force if he couldn’t with skill. Or he could simply step to the side, and watch as the fire shot past him.

But, in the end, what was the point? The academy was gone. His future was gone. And now, at the very end, so was his pride and any hope he had of getting revenge. Even if he did survive, what would he be for? Noxus didn’t care for him. His parents didn’t care for him, and Annie sure as hell did not.

With these thoughts in mind, Arnold chose the one option that would have never crossed his mind not minutes ago. He held out his arms, then closed his eyes. He felt the fatigue of the world leave him as he accepted his end as it came hurtling towards him.

This… this was okay. He couldn’t choose, couldn’t control anything in his life. But this? This he would have full control over.