Morgana - POV
The ocean, I discovered during those weeks adrift between Piltover and Bilgewater, is not simply an expanse of saltwater that separates lands. Not for those who truly live on it, who breathe it as if it were air, who understand its language of waves and currents as an intimate conversation. The ocean is a living entity temperamental, generous, and cruel in equal measure, offering life with one hand while the other prepares to snatch it back without warning.
Two weeks. Fourteen days of groaning wood under our feet, of sails cracking in the wind, of a constant sway that became not a nuisance but a rhythm, the slow, eternal heartbeat of something far greater than us. The crew of The Drowned Moon moved with a quiet efficiency, men hardened by salt and time, each a piece in an organic machine that transformed wind and courage into motion across the impossible.
And then there was Azra'il.
My daughter, for that is what she had become, regardless of blood or origin, through mutual choice and shared time, was not the kind of child to sit still and watch passively. She never was. Where there was knowledge to be acquired, experience to be catalogued, she would dive in headfirst with the enthusiasm of a scholar discovering a forgotten library and the caution of absolutely none.
"It's maritime anthropology," she informed me on the third day, when I found her on the lower deck surrounded by sailors who looked simultaneously amused and baffled. "On-site cultural study. Full immersion. You cannot truly understand a people without understanding their oral artistic expressions and their work music."
Which meant, in practical terms, that she had convinced, or more accurately, manipulated through genuine interest disguised as childish charm, half the crew into teaching her their songs.
Work shanties. Sea ballads. Melodies about krakens that devoured entire ships, about sirens who lured men to eternal depths with voices sweeter than poisoned honey, about storms that lasted for weeks and oceans that boiled with the rage of forgotten gods. And, to my growing motherly discomfort, songs about port taverns, about "women of the night" who waited at every dock, about rum that burned going down and regrets that burned coming up.
The Ionian guitar I had given her, that elegant instrument of dark wood and silver strings, meant for playing contemplative, subtle melodies about cherry blossoms and full moons, was now being used to accompany rustic choruses about male organs being compared to ship's masts and nautical metaphors for acts that a thirteen-year-old girl should definitely not be humming.
I pulled her aside on the fifth night, when I heard her testing chords for something that began with "there once was a girl in Bilgewater with tits the size of melons and a mouth that—"
"No," I said, simply. Firm and final.
"It's cultural context," she protested, but there was a glint of guilty amusement in her eyes. "These songs reveal a great deal about the psychology of long-haul sailors and their needs to—"
"No," I repeated.
"But from an anthropological standpoint—"
"Azra'il."
She sighed, dramatically. "You are suppressing legitimate academic research for the sake of puritanism."
"I am being a responsible adult preventing a thirteen-year-old from learning lyrics about brothels. There is a difference."
"But I'm mature for my age!" she protested with the classic indignation of every clever child who wants to be treated like an adult. "My intellect clearly surpasses—"
"You are thirteen," I interrupted with motherly firmness. "And no matter how clever you are, there are still things that are not appropriate. Act accordingly."
She grumbled something about "limitations imposed by current biology" but agreed, albeit with obvious reluctance. For three days, she stuck to more appropriate songs.
And then came the Rum Incident.
I found her on the ninth day in serious negotiation with one of the older sailors, a man with skin as weathered as old leather and eyes that had seen half of Runeterra's oceans.
"Just one small sip," she was saying, using that perfectly calibrated pleading tone she knew worked on lonely men with dormant paternal instincts. "For strictly medicinal and scientific purposes. I need to understand the effects of cane-distilled alcohol on the human body under conditions of sea travel. It's important to document how different cultures handle—"
I took her by the ear.
"Ow! Morgana! That's not necessary, I was just—"
"Being a foolish child trying to convince an adult to feed you substances your body is not yet prepared to process?" I suggested, dragging her away while the sailor discreetly withdrew, probably relieved not to have to explain to a dark and apparently important woman why he was giving rum to a girl.
"It's important to understand the local culture in all its aspects!" Azra'il protested as I guided her back to our cabin. "Including its spirits! How can I truly comprehend what it is to be a sailor if I do not experience the substances that define their social life?"
"You can start," I said, nudging her gently inside and closing the door, "by not dying of alcohol poisoning before we get there. Your 'cultural observations' can wait until you have a fully developed liver."
She crossed her arms, indignant. "You are very overprotective."
"I am your mother. It comes with the territory."
For a moment, she looked as though she was about to argue. Then, something in her expression softened, something young and genuine that she rarely let show through all her layers of sharp intellect and defensive pragmatism.
"Thank you," she said, quietly. "For being."
And my heart, which had been broken and reassembled so many times over millennia that I'd lost count, broke and reassembled itself again, just a little. But not all during those weeks was confrontation over appropriate boundaries.
There were the nights.
Oh, the nights on the open ocean, when the sky would transform into something words failed to capture, a vast black sea sprinkled with thousands, millions of stars, each a distant sun burning its silent history across the void. In Demacia, the sky always seemed smaller, contained by the protective stone and the city walls, by the petricite forests. Here, with nothing between us and the infinite but the wood of the ship, the universe revealed itself in all its brutal, beautiful magnitude.
Azra'il and I would go up on deck on those clear nights. She would take the guitar, not for tavern songs, but for something different. Melodies she played alone, when she thought no one was paying attention. Soft, moving pieces that came from somewhere deep inside her that all her sarcasm and cool analysis tried to hide but could never completely bury.
She would sit near the bow, cross-legged, the instrument nestled in her lap, and play. Sometimes she would sing, low, almost to herself, in languages I didn't fully recognise. Melodies that seemed too ancient to have been composed by someone so young, lyrics in tongues that shouldn't have made sense but somehow carried an emotional weight that transcended translation. As if they came from somewhere deep and ancient inside her that even she didn't fully understand.
It was in those moments that I saw not the brilliant, calculating mind, not the little manipulator who turned chemistry into miracles and logic into social traps. I saw just a girl. A girl who seemed to have lived too long, seen too much, carried too much, and who found in music the only language honest enough to express the impossible weight she bore alone.
And Captain Mahr'Lokk, that leviathan of scars and pain, would join us on those nights.
He would come silently, his massive form materialising from the shadows, and stand there, not too close, respecting our space, but near enough to listen, to share that moment of peace stolen from an ocean that rarely offered such gifts.
The change in him was remarkable. Azra'il's tea, that concoction of liquid hope and pharmacological expertise, had given him back something he thought was lost forever. Not just sleep, but the ability to be present in the moment without flaming ghosts constantly screaming at the back of his mind. His dark circles had faded further. His posture, once always tense like a ship's rope about to snap, was relaxed. And he spoke more. Not much, he was still a man of few words, but the words he offered were lighter, carried less of the weight of old pain.
On one of those nights, in the second week, after Azra'il had finished a particularly melancholic melody, Mahr'Lokk pointed to the sky.
"Do you know the navigational constellations?" his deep voice asked, breaking the gentle night silence.
"A few," I replied. "Demacia has its own guide-stars. But I imagine they are different for those who live on the sea."
He nodded, that slow, deliberate motion. "The ocean has its own stories written in the sky. Let me show you."
And he guided us through the stars.
"There," he pointed with a claw, tracing invisible lines between points of light, "the Protector. Five stars forming a shield. Sailors follow it when they seek safe harbour. They say it represents the Aspect who defends the helpless." His voice carried respect, not religious belief, but the practical respect of a man who had seen enough of the impossible not to dismiss anything completely.
"And there," he continued, moving his hand, "the Twilight. Two twin stars dancing around each other, never touching, never quite parting. It represents balance. Harmony between opposites. Some say it is the mark of the bringer of change." He paused. "Superstitious sailors avoid sailing under it. They say it brings unpredictable events."
"And that one?" Azra'il asked, pointing to a particularly bright constellation, seven stars forming what looked like a raised sword.
Mahr'Lokk's face darkened, just slightly. "The Warrior. Represents Pantheon, the Aspect of battle. When it is brightest in the sky, sailors say conflict is coming. Blood will be spilt somewhere on the ocean." He looked at her. "It is the constellation I was born under. Fitting, perhaps."
He went on, pointing out constellation after constellation, each with its story, its meaning, its legend. The Wanderer. The Forge. The Messenger. Each Aspect of Targon had its mark on the night sky, each representing some primordial force of the universe.
And then, finally, he came to two particular constellations, side by side yet distinct.
"The Judicator," he said, pointing to a formation of stars that looked like wings, or perhaps swords, depending on how you looked. "They say each wing represents two faces of justice. One that judges, one that protects. Eternally bound, eternally divided."
I felt Azra'il glance at me, but I kept my eyes on the sky. Yes, that was Kayle and I, our story written in the stars by peoples who had turned our family tragedy into celestial myth. Two sisters who had inherited an Aspect's power, who had become more than mortal, and who in the process had lost each other in ways no star could truly capture.
"Sailors," Mahr'Lokk went on, unknowingly, or perhaps knowingly but being courteous enough not to mention he was talking about the history of the woman beside him, "say that when both wings shine equally bright, it is a sign of balance in the world. But when one outshines the other…" he paused, "they say justice is unbalanced. That judgement without mercy, or mercy without judgement, is prevailing somewhere."
"And now?" Azra'il asked, still looking at me but asking the question of him. "Are they balanced?"
Mahr'Lokk looked up, studying. "Hard to say. The stars shift with the seasons, with our position on the ocean. But…" he tilted his head, "if I had to choose, I would say the 'Protector's Wing' is a little brighter tonight. Just a little."
Azra'il smiled, small but genuine, and turned her attention back to the guitar.
And then she began to play again. Different this time. Something new, or perhaps something very old, a melody that sounded like memory, not composition. As if it came from somewhere deep and inexplicable inside her, an echo of something she shouldn't know, but somehow did.
Her voice, when she started to sing, was soft. Almost fragile. So different from her usual tone of controlled confidence that for a moment I almost didn't recognise her.
🎵"La-la, la-la, la-la..."🎵
The melody flowed like water, like waves, like the ocean itself turned to sound.
🎵"As all the pain in the world dissolves
Washed by the crashing waves
A whisper of the heartbeat slows
Floating in the oceans' embrace..."🎵
I watched her sing, her small hands moving over the strings with practised precision, her eyes closed, lost in the music. And I realised, not for the first time, but perhaps more clearly than ever, that music was the only way she had of truly expressing herself. Of letting down her defences. Of letting the world see, for just a few precious minutes, what she really felt behind all the layers of acerbic wit, sarcasm, and defensive pragmatism.
🎵"A fading wave, in hues of blue
Draws out the gleam from your eyes
Stirring your dream, my sweet elixir
Melts into the silence
I'll sieve out your desires..."🎵
The song went on, soft and moving, about oceans that carried pain away, about dreams floating in deep waters, about freedom found in surrender to the eternal motion of the tides.
🎵"So I sing this simple prayer
And hope that your heart will hear
Let my warmth guide you to the shore
With no illusions of fear
Floating in a dream
Give your pain to me
Love and purity
Brewing a gentle release..."🎵
I looked at Mahr'Lokk. The captain, that fallen reaver king, that father who had lost everything in fire and blood, that man who had carried a decade of nightmares, had his eyes closed. Not in sleep. In something deeper. Peace, perhaps. Acceptance. The surrender the song spoke of, not of defeat, but of finally, finally letting the ocean take what was too heavy to carry alone.
🎵"You're safe, you are free
In the cradle of the sea
Where the light of your memories gleam
The ocean knows, so let them go
Surrender to the waves
We'll take you away..."🎵
The melody deepened, growing richer, more resonant.
🎵"Look in my eyes as it fades away…
La, la-la-la, la-la-la…
Here you're safe with me..."
And then, soft as a receding wave, the song came to its end.
"For now good night
You're safe, the sea takes you
The sweetest of dreams
Yielding to the gentle release..."🎵
The last note died slowly, absorbed by the eternal sound of the waves against the ship's hull. When she had finished, the silence that followed was the sacred kind. The kind you don't break lightly, because there are things happening beneath the surface emotions being processed, pains being confronted, souls being, for want of a better word, touched.
Mahr'Lokk opened his eyes slowly. He said nothing. He didn't need to. The sigh he let out, deep, heavy, but somehow lighter than before, said everything.
Azra'il could be sharp. Sarcastic. Analytical to the point of coldness. But when she sang, when she played, she became someone else. Or perhaps, she became the person she truly was beneath all the walls she had built around herself walls raised for reasons I didn't fully understand but deeply respected. The music was her truth. The rest was just her way of surviving.
And then, on the morning of the fourteenth day, the smell changed.
The clean, salt air, that scent of the open sea that had been our constant for two weeks, was invaded. Slowly, insidiously, like poison spreading through clear water. Something heavy. Rancid. Organic in ways that made the stomach turn.
Azra'il, who was beside me at the rail, covered her nose with her sleeve.
"What is that smell?" she asked, her voice muffled by the fabric. "It smells as if a leviathan ate rubbish for a solid week, then died here, and then other leviathans came and ate the dead leviathan and also died." She paused. "Not even the worst days in the Zaun Sump, when a dozen chem-factories were all dumping waste simultaneously, smelt this bad."
[Atmospheric analysis: Air composition altered. Detecting: advanced decomposing organic matter, fish offal, human and animal waste, fermented alcohol, burnt-wood smoke, and approximately 47 other compounds that technically qualify as 'unpleasant but not immediately lethal'. Welcome to Bilgewater.]
"That," I said, pointing to the horizon where a dark, jagged mass was beginning to form, "is the smell of a civilisation built on ships' bones and ruled by the law of the strongest."
"Charming," Azra'il murmured. "Really sells the place. We should make tourist pamphlets."
But her eyes, despite the sarcasm, were shining. Curiosity. Anticipation. The look of someone about to dive into something completely new and possibly dangerous and absolutely fascinating.
"Finally," she said, watching the ever-nearing Bilgewater. "Let's see if the legendary chaos of Bilgewater lives up to the hype."
The city revealed itself slowly, like a dirty secret being unearthed.
There were not the ordered towers of Piltover, with their clean lines and confident geometry. There was not even the 'organised chaos' of Zaun, where at least there was an underlying logic to the madness, layers and structures, even if they were vertical and poisoned.
Bilgewater was… something else entirely. It was a tangle. A shipwreck that refused to sink. Overturned ship hulls turned into buildings. Docks built on the wreckage of older docks. Slums piled on top of each other like layers of civilisation without civility. Crude floating temples anchored on chains that disappeared into the depths. Rope bridges swaying between structures that seemed to defy not only gravity but architectural sanity itself.
It was a city built from failures, ships that didn't survive, dreams that sank, lives that ended in the waves, and held together by the pure, brutal stubbornness of people who refused to stop moving, because to stop meant to sink, and to sink meant to die.
"It's… organic," Azra'il said, fascinated. "Not planned. Not designed. Just… grown. Like a coral. Or a tumour."
And then I saw it, rising in the centre of everything like the pulsating heart of the madness, something that made me pause.
A colossal structure. Not built, but carved hewn directly into a cliff that jutted from the waters like the fist of a drowned god. The shape was unmistakable: a kraken's head, tentacles of stone intertwined, deep, dark eyes from which waterfalls plunged in white curtains of spray, turning the creature's mouth into a temple where water and stone and faith merged.
The Temple of Nagakabouros. The Serpent Goddess. The Mother of Eternal Motion.
Even from a distance, even without being religious in any conventional way, I could feel its weight. Not magic, exactly. Something more fundamental. Belief, perhaps. The concentrated faith of thousands of desperate souls who had found in a goddess of brutal motion and change a philosophy that made sense in a place where nothing else did.
"Move or die," Azra'il murmured, echoing the words Mahr'Lokk had spoken. "It's literal here, isn't it?"
"Very," I confirmed.
The docking was carefully controlled chaos. Mahr'Lokk found us on deck as The Drowned Moon glided to its mooring, a process that involved shouting, the throwing of ropes, and a surprising amount of casual bribery for the dock-hands who seemed to determine anchoring positions based purely on how much gold changed hands.
"From here on," he said, his voice more serious than I had heard it in weeks, "the rules of Piltover do not apply. Nor those of Demacia, or Noxus, or any civilised place you know. The only law is Nagakabouros: move or die. Be strong or be consumed. Be quick or be left behind."
He turned to one of his sailors, a younger man with eyes that had already seen enough violence to look decades older than his body. "Erik, you will accompany them to The Choked Serpent. Ensure they arrive in one piece. And make it clear," his tone darkened, predatory, "that no one touches passengers from The Drowned Moon. No one touches Sangremar, even if the old man is retired. The consequences will be… educational."
Erik nodded, his hand going instinctively to the knife at his belt. "Aye, Captain."
We descended the gangplank, me, Azra'il, and our reluctant but clearly competent guide, and set foot in Bilgewater.
The sensory impact was immediate and brutal.
The smell, which had been bad from a distance, was oppressive up close. Rotting fish piled in barrels no one had bothered to properly clean. Blood, human, animal, impossible to distinguish, forming puddles in the cracks between rotten wooden planks. Fermented spirits leaking from broken casks. The urine of countless drunkards who had decided that alleys (or just corners) were perfectly acceptable lavatories. Muck, literal, from humans and animals in piles no one cared to remove because, frankly, where would you put it that wasn't just another part of Bilgewater?
And under it all, the salt of the sea, persistent and inescapable, a reminder that despite all the human filth, the ocean was still there, waiting patiently to wash it all back into its depths.
The sound was a constant assault. Shouts in a dozen languages. Rough laughter. Metal on metal. Creaking ropes. Anchors being weighed. Merchants yelling about fish, about weapons, about 'exotic spices' that were probably just local herbs with made-up names. And under it all, always, the crashing of the waves against the wreckage that served as the city's foundation.
The crowd was dense. Crushing. Predatory.
I saw races from all over Runeterra squeezed into this impossible space. Humans from Demacia, Noxus, Ionia, the Freljord exiles or fugitives or just unlucky. Vastaya of lineages I did not recognise. Yordles who had likely committed crimes so terrible that not even their own kind wanted them back. Beings that did not fit any clear category, hybrids of magic and desperation.
And all of them, they all had that look.
The look of a predator. Of a hunter. Sizing up every person who passed not as another human being, but as potential prey. What are you worth? Do you have something I want? Are you strong enough to defend yourself? Fast enough to run? Important enough that killing you will bring a retaliation not worth the profit?
Azra'il was walking beside me, but I could see her eyes moving constantly, cataloguing, analysing.
"See those three by the fish barrel," she murmured low, for me alone. "They aren't looking at the fish. They're looking at your bag, Mother Raven. They're calculating the cost-benefit of trying their luck. Like a pack of hyenas deciding if the carcass is worth fighting the lion for."
I looked. And yes, three men, or rather, two men and something that might have been human once but was now more scar-tissue than skin were watching. Sizing us up.
I turned slightly and cast a look at them.
Not a hostile look. Not a verbal threat. Just a look. But I let, for just an instant, a fraction of what I truly am leak through it. The weight of millennia. The memory of judgements given and clemencies granted and the deep, terrible knowledge of how easily I could erase them from existence if I so chose.
They left. Quickly. Suddenly finding something much more interesting to do in literally any other place.
Azra'il let out a low laugh. "Your 'I've already seen the end of your universe and it wasn't pretty' look is surprisingly effective. Really ought to brand that as 'Parenting Tool Number Three: Existential Intimidation'. But imagine," she went on, her voice full of wicked amusement, "if it were Kayle here. With those eyes of fire and divine judgement. At one look from her, the whole of Bilgewater would have already been preemptively cleansed in holy flames. 'City of sinners! Burn in penitence before you taint the innocent!' Boom. Problem solved through well-intentioned genocide."
I took her by the ear. Firmly. Not painful, but definitely uncomfortable.
"Ow! Morgana! I was just making a joke about contrasting leadership styles and—"
"Have some respect," I said, but softly. "For my sister. Despite everything."
She chuckled quietly but stopped talking. Good enough.
Erik led us through the labyrinth of narrow alleys and suspended bridges, wooden walkways that creaked ominously under our feet, stairs that went up and down with no apparent logic. The city made no geographical sense; it was as if someone had taken a hundred different ships, smashed them to pieces, and then glued the parts together randomly while drunk.
I saw a vendor trying to sell what he swore was a "genuine kraken tentacle, only lightly used." Azra'il stopped, looked at the giant, shrivelled specimen hanging on hooks.
"That's a giant squid's leg," she said. "Architeuthis dux, specifically. You can tell by the sucker-ring structure and the pigmentation gradient. Krakens have a completely different morphology, including suckers arranged in a spiral pattern and tentacles that regenerate more quickly, leaving distinct growth marks. This one died of old age, probably, was fished out by accident, and is being sold as a mythological rarity to uninformed tourists."
The vendor looked at her. Looked at the tentacle. Back at her. "...want to buy it for a special price?"
"No."
We moved on.
A knife-fight broke out just three metres from us, two men screaming in some tongue I didn't recognise, blades flashing, blood splattering on the wooden planks. Erik put a hand in front of us, keeping us back.
The fight lasted perhaps fifteen seconds. One of the men went down, bleeding, but probably not dead. The victor spat on him, snatched what looked like a purse of coins, and vanished into the crowd.
No one interfered. No one helped the wounded man. Two children, no older than seven or eight, darted in, grabbed the fallen knife, and disappeared before anyone could claim it.
"Welcome to Bilgewater," Erik murmured. "Where crime is less 'crime' and more 'Tuesday'."
The crowd was a study in desperation-born diversity. Pirates counting coins in dark corners. Weapons merchants displaying swords, pistols, homemade explosives with warnings that they were "safe products, probably." Priestesses of Nagakabouros, muscular women with tentacle tattoos that coiled up their arms, offering blessings and curses for a negotiable price. Slaves being auctioned on platforms while buyers appraised muscles and teeth as if they were livestock.
And all of them had that look.
Hunter and hunted. Predator and prey. No one here was safe. No one here was protected. The only protection was strength, your own, or that of someone whose wrath you could invoke.
Finally, Erik stopped in front of a structure that looked less likely to collapse than the average, a two-story tavern made of dark wood, stained by salt and time. A sign hung above the door, swaying slightly in the saline wind, proclaiming in faded letters: The Choked Serpent.
"Here," Erik said. "Tahn's inside. I'll be leaving you now. Good luck. You'll need it."
He turned and disappeared into the crowd before we could thank him.
Azra'il and I exchanged a look.
"Well," she said, "let's meet our host."
We pushed open the door and entered.
The interior was dark, damp, and it stank, if possible, even worse than the outside. Spilt alcohol mixed with sweat, old blood crusted into the floorboards, something that could have been vomit or could have been food that had become vomit post-consumption. Rough wooden tables. Mismatched chairs. A long, scratched counter where dirty glasses were arranged on shelves.
And behind a counter, wiping a glass with a cloth that was probably dirtier than the glass itself, was our contact.
Tahn Dead-Tides.
He was… unique.
His head was not human. It was the head of an octopus, the skin a damp, bluish-grey, short tentacles where hair and a beard should be, coiling and uncoiling slowly in a motion that was both hypnotic and slightly disturbing. His eyes were large, round, a sickly yellow that seemed to see through you more than look at you.
But the rest of him was mostly humanoid. A stocky but muscular body. Arms covered in tattoos of ships and anchors and things that had died at sea. And his left hand, his left hand was not a hand. It was a crab's claw, massive and mechanical, creaking softly whenever it moved, a prosthesis of metal and leather that seemed built less for function and more for intimidation.
He did not look up as we entered. Just kept wiping the glass, that endless, futile motion.
Azra'il approached the bar. With one hand, she placed the Blood-Tooth on the sticky wood, that massive, white shark's tooth, carved with symbols that promised protection and threatened vengeance. The sound of it hitting the surface echoed in the tavern's quiet.
With the other hand, she slid a sealed letter towards him. The seal was dark wax, marked with Mahr'Lokk's personal symbol.
Tahn stopped wiping.
Slowly, so slowly it seemed purposeful, he set the glass down. His eyes finally focused, first on the tooth. He picked it up, turned it in his hands, examined the carvings with the attention of someone who had seen many and could tell the fakes from the real ones.
Satisfied, he nodded. Then he took the letter. The mechanical claw broke the seal with surgical precision. He read the contents in silence, tentacles twitching and relaxing in a pattern that probably meant something if you could read cephalopod body language.
When he had finished, he held the letter over the flame of a nearby oil lamp. The paper caught quickly, curling and turning to ash which he let fall into a metal tray.
Finally, he spoke. His voice was wet, bubbling, as if he were speaking from underwater.
"Sangremar." He pronounced the name like both a curse and a prayer. "That old bastard is still alive and sending souvenirs. And instructions. Commands, more like." He looked at us, first Azra'il, then me. "What does the old king want with me, other than bringing me trouble I don't need and don't want?"
"Protection," Azra'il said, simply. "And guidance. And, if possible, answers about a place that fascinates scholars and terrifies sane people."
Tahn let out a sound that could have been a laugh or could have been him clearing phlegm. "Protection. Guidance. Answers." He shook his head, tentacles wobbling. "Do you know what Sangremar asked of me in the letter?"
"No," Azra'il admitted.
"He asked me to keep you alive. For seven to eight weeks. In this city. Which kills people more competent than you in hours. And if I fail, he promised, not threatened, promised to come back personally and feed me to the sharks. Piece. By. Piece." He leaned over the bar. "So yes, I will protect you. Because I owe the old bastard my life, and because I don't want to find out if he was bluffing about the sharks. But don't ask me to be happy about it."
"We weren't expecting happiness," I said gently. "Just competence."
He laughed again, that wet sound. "Competence, I have. Happiness is a luxury Bilgewater took from me a long time ago." He gestured with the mechanical claw. "Come on. I'll show you your rooms. They're not luxurious, but the locks work, which is more than ninety per cent of the places here can say."
He led us upstairs, via stairs that groaned in protest with every step. The second floor had a corridor with four doors.
"Two rooms," he said, opening two of them. "Yours. Not luxury, as I said, but clean. Locks from the inside. Window looks out to the alley, so you can see if anyone's trying to get in. Not that they should, The Serpent is respected territory. No one messes here without consequences. But," he added, "in Bilgewater, 'no one messes' means 'only the very stupid or the very desperate mess', and there's always a steady supply of both."
I peeked inside. He was right. Simple. But remarkably clean compared to the rest of Bilgewater. A bed. A table. A chair. A small window with a stained curtain. And crucially, a solid lock on the door.
"Rules," Tahn said, crossing his arms one of tattooed flesh, one of creaking metal. "First week: you do not leave without me knowing where you're going and when you're back. I'm not your babysitter, but it's for survival. I need to know if you've disappeared because you were fools or because something genuinely bad has happened. The difference matters for how I react."
He paused, those yellow eyes sizing us up. "After the first week, if you prove you have more brains than the average suicidal tourist, you get more freedom. Bilgewater respects competence. If you show you know how to move, know when to fight and when to run, know how to read danger… then I'll treat you like adults who can look after themselves. But until then, you check in. Always."
"Rule two: don't accept anything from anyone food, drink, gifts, 'friendly offers'. Nothing is free in Bilgewater. There is always a price. Three: if someone asks if you want to 'see something interesting in a private alley', the answer is no. Always no. Even if it sounds genuine. Especially if it sounds genuine."
"Understood," I said.
"Four," he continued, "if you see a Priestess of Nagakabouros coming towards you and she seems overly interested, run. They have a tendency to 'test' new visitors. The tests involve pain. Five: do not go in the water. Ever. Not a single toe. Doesn't matter how hot it is, how tempting it seems. Things live in that water that see humans as appetisers."
Azra'il was taking mental notes, I could tell. Cataloguing every rule, every warning, adding them to her growing map of Bilgewater survival.
"And six," Tahn finished, "remember that I don't want to be doing this. I agreed because I owe Sangremar. But do not test me. Do not make my job harder by being brave idiots. Understand?"
"Perfectly," I said. "And we thank you for your reluctant hospitality."
He grunted. "Get settled. Rest if you can. Tomorrow we can discuss what exactly you're doing here other than 'academic research', which is what all the spies and assassins say when they want to hide their true intentions."
"We are not spies or assassins," Azra'il said.
"Then you are real academics. Which is somehow worse, because it means you'll ask stupid questions of dangerous people out of sheer curiosity and I'll have to save you from the consequences."
He left, the door closing behind him with a final thud.
Azra'il and I stood in the room for a moment.
"He's cheerful," she remarked.
"He's realistic," I corrected. "And competent. And he was a friend of Sangremar, which means he's survived hell and come back. Those qualities are infinitely more valuable than cheerfulness."
"Fair."
Azra'il then left and went to her respective room. I put my limited luggage in the corner, tested the lock on the door (solid and sturdy), and approached the window.
From the small, grimy window, I could see Bilgewater stretching out before me like an open wound that refused to heal. The city pulsed with a raw life. Life that brawled and bled and drank and fornicated and killed and moved on because to stop was to die, and to die was to admit defeat, and Bilgewater did not admit defeat.
I heard the bells. Subaquatic bells, ringing from the depths, reverberating through the stone and water and wood. The sound was the slow, oppressive heartbeat of the city itself. The pulse of Nagakabouros, the goddess who demanded eternal motion, constant change, growth through destruction and rebirth through violence.
And through my window, in the distance, I could see the Temple. That massive kraken head carved in stone, those eyes that wept waterfalls, that mouth that swallowed the faithful and spat them out either transformed or dead.
I saw youths, some older than Azra'il, some younger, climbing the slick cliffs towards the temple. I saw some fall. I saw the sea swallow them. I saw others reach the top, scream something inaudible at this distance, and launch themselves into the turbulent waters below. A test. A baptism. A trial where the goddess judged if you were worthy of continuing to live or if the ocean wanted you back.
This was not Demacia, where justice came from written codes and debated morals. This was not Piltover, where progress was measured in inventions and profit. This was not even Noxus, where strength was worshipped but still organised into structured military hierarchies.
This was Bilgewater. Where the truth was singular and brutal: Move or die. Be strong or be eaten. Grow through pain or be left behind as flotsam the waves would eventually wash away.
Azra'il had come here seeking 'data' and 'sociological studies', or simply an 'adventure'. She had come seeking to understand a culture built on a philosophy that turned survival into a religion.
I feared, with the certainty of an ancient soul that had seen too many gardens turn to jungles, that in this ocean of brutal, honest truths, we would find far more than we had ever sought.
And maybe, just maybe, Azra'il would find something, or someone, that would change the course of her life in ways that not even she, with all her sharp intellect and unshakeable confidence, could predict or control.
But that was for tomorrow. For today, we had survived our arrival in Bilgewater. And in Bilgewater, to survive the day was victory enough.
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💬 Author's note
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We've officially arrived in the Waters of Bilgewater. 🐙🌊
From this point on, Piltover's rules mean absolutely nothing, and yes, the smell only gets worse from here. Welcome to a city where getting stabbed is a weekday activity and "move or die" is less philosophy and more survival guide.
Also, a quick note about the song Azra'il sings in this chapter: it is not an original composition.
The music is inspired by "Elusive Seas" from the game Wuthering Waves. There are both Japanese and English versions of the song, and honestly… both fit the oceanic, bittersweet calm before chaos perfectly.
I'll be leaving the links below for anyone who wants to listen while reading:
🔗 Japanese version:
🔗 English version:
Take a deep breath.
Bilgewater has only just begun. 😈⚓