Updated 5/18 Author's note: with more time to write over the summer, I have decided to relaunch this story. Chapter one (especially the latter half) has been significantly edited, but much of it remains similar in plot and direction. Chapter two is now entirely new, and picks up directly after the end of chapter one. The old chapter's 2 and 3 have been removed and archived for possible future use.

If you've already read chapter one before, and you're short on time, it's ok to skip it and head directly to ch. 2, but I would still advise at least a quick skim of the latter half of the chapter since it's been so long since I've updated this.

Posted the story all nice and formatted on FF.net. I'd prefer you read this on ff.net unless you absolutely hate following 3rd party links, since forums can get kinda messy.

Summary:

This Alternate Universe explores what Valoran would look like if it were subjected to "real world" conditions, where man's greed, violence, and corruption run rampant. People have their own ambitions and agendas, wholly separate from the desires of the summoners of the Institute itself. What if Ahri had been forced to turn human against her will? What caused that to happen, and how would she develop afterwards?



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Table of Contents

Prologue
Chapter 1




The Ninetails Saga, part 1 - A Soul Reborn


Chapter 1, the forests of Piltover

The young female kit had gone out far ahead of her mother, so focused had she been on tracking down and killing her prey. Her mother had let her wander, watching her run off happily into the forest. Only months ago the young kit had been desperately clawing at her mother, crying and pleading with sad eyes, begging her to turn over - and when she refused, trying to suckle on anything within reach instead. Now the little kit thought nothing of leaving her mother and chasing after the first thing that moved.

The kit chased the terrified mouse through the forest, dodging under logs and leaping over small creeks with child-like nimbleness, until the fleeing mouse came up against a natural barrier made of stacked boulders and entangled trees.

Finally, the kit saw that she had her prey cornered, and she eyed the mouse hungrily and bared her tiny little baby teeth at it. She watched as the mouse trembled in fear, and dug itself into the rocks behind him. The young kit readied to pounce, but then paused and turned her head sharply in response to the sounds of an epic struggle off in the distance.

When she looked back at her prey, she saw that it had run off in the direction of the noise. She heard a worried yelp off in the distance, and knew it was her mother calling for her to come back, but the young kit thought only of securing her new little prize, and swiftly chased after it, running through the forest at a furious pace.

The mouse ran under and disappeared into a thick growth of bushes, and the kit followed and burst through it, not wanting to lose track of her prey. She landed upon a large clearing in the forest. The kit sniffed the air expectantly, but there was no trace of the mouse. She scanned the forest floor, but was greeted with only the scene of what had been a ferocious battle. The mouse was nowhere in sight.

Looking around, the kit spied a number of strange bodies lying on the floor. One in particular laid in a pool of it's own black blood, and a magical vortex whirled and pulsated above it. The young kit felt an arcane force that seemed to call to her, begging her to come closer to the vortex. She approached it slowly, wondering innocently what secrets it held.

Without warning, the pulsating vortex suddenly erupted, and countless tendrils of energy appeared and engulfed the young kit, wrapping itself with whip-like force around the creature until it formed an ethereal cocoon-like structure. For what seemed like an eternity the cocoon seemed content to simply exist, pulsating and glowing with an unearthly purple light, but then it shuddered and untangled itself, and from within a human-like girl with two fox ears and nine beautiful tails burst forth and fell onto the earth, unconscious.

-o-o-o-

Upon waking up, the young fox-girl looked around at her surroundings, trying to remember what she had been doing.

...The mouse!

The girl attempted to scramble up on all fours, wanting to continue the pursuit of her prey, but was unable to – everything felt so strange! - and instead tumbled back towards the ground. Bewildered, she tried to get up again, and was met with the exact same result, this time slipping sideways and landing on her shoulder painfully as her limbs splayed out awkwardly. She cried out, but the voice that came out was not one that she recognized. Again she tried to crawl back towards the safety of the forest – her mother would surely be waiting there for her! – and this time managed to lurch forward clumsily a few feet before tumbling wildly back onto the ground. She did not try to get up again this time. Instead she sat there on all fours, panting heavily, and as her initial shock and confusion began to give way to rational thought she began to realize that something was horribly wrong. Her body was entirely unrecognizable to herself, and her paws had turned into long, skinny limbs with exposed skin that had a foreign hue of milky white cream. She looked at the bodies strewn about on the ground, and realized that her body now resembled those strange looking dead creatures.

The young fox-girl began to feel a stirring panic rise from within herself. Her childlike naivety and innocent curiosity succumbed to the creeping fear of the unknown and unfamiliar, and she felt desperately lonely. Her heart ached for the knowing touch and safety of a mother's embrace.

As the girl sat there and stared longingly towards a forest which now seemed impossibly far away, she saw a bush towards the far side rustle, and from it a fully grown vixen emerged. The girl tried to focus on this newcomer with eyes that felt unfamiliar to her, and in an instant her eyes widened in recognition and she instinctively kicked her legs and hands forward in a desperate effort to draw herself closer to the fox.

-o-o-o-

The mother fox saw the human struggling to get closer to her, but she held her ground. Her black eyes, which betrayed no emotion, remained fixated on the girl before her. She recognized what this creature was. It was a human child, that savage war-like creature that walked on two legs and who took from nature all they desired, using their frightening weapons and tools to ravage the land and it's inhabitants in their petty conflicts, leaving only destruction in their wake. She hated humans – despised them – and yet she could not turn her eyes away from the human girl in front of her. She felt – no, she knew that the girl before her shared her own blood, had begun her life inside of her as just a tiny unrecognizable being, and over months, had developed and grown in the safety of her own womb, and finally had been forcefully ejected out into a vast and unfamiliar world. She had been a miracle – her sisters and brothers had all been stillborn – and whether or not a mother even needed a reason to love her child, that tragedy had only strengthened her belief that her only daughter was special; that she was destined for something more. It was unfathomable to her that her destiny would be to live her life as one of the humans, and yet the girl was still her only daughter, her only legacy.

And so for all these reasons – or possibly for no reason at all except a mother's love – the mother fox bravely approached the human girl, looked knowingly into her eyes, and gave her a loving nudge, encouraging her daughter to get up, to crawl by her own power back into the safety of the forest. This was not an act unfamiliar to the mother – after all, she had gone through this before. Kits must learn to stand before they can walk, and they must learn to walk before they can run.

Looking at the human girl, the mother felt a pang of regret in her heart as she realized that she would no longer be able to raise and provide for her daughter like a true mother should. She was willing to lay down her own life for her without a second thought, but as she watched her daughter struggling to control her long and awkward human limbs, she wondered if that would be enough.

-o-o-o-

The fox-girl stared at those trees and shrubs which stood guard over the entrance to the forest, and – thinking more clearly and rationally now – began to carefully test her new longer limbs to see how they could properly hold her weight. Her mother purred softly to let her daughter know that she was there, and slowly the fox-girl began to put one hand forward, past the other, move one knee forward, and then the other, slowly but surely making forward progress along the forest clearing. As she crawled, the movements began to flow naturally to her, and she was able to now consistently coordinate her movements to crawl steadily forward, and in due time she reached the forest boundary. She saw her mother leap ahead of her and into the forest, and the girl cried out in protest, not wanting to be alone again. She shuffled forward into the forest furiously to keep up.

The sticks, rocks, and leaves littering the forest floor scratched and clawed at her soft human skin, especially at her hands and knees, and occasionally pierced it, causing tiny red droplets of blood to stain the forest floor. The girl was in terrible pain, but she struggled onwards in the direction her mother had disappeared into. She caught a glimpse of her mother darting past a tree in the distance, and crawled towards it, but when she reached it there was no sign of her. Panting heavily, she stopped and leaned her shoulder onto the tree to rest. Her knees and palms were half numb with pain from the abuse she had subjected them to. She started hoping that this was all a dream, that she would wake up and find herself sleeping next to her mother, back in her own fox body, and that she would once again be chasing insects and mice carelessly out into new parts of the forest.

There was a slight rustle next to her, and when the girl looked up, she saw her mother standing there, looking at her intently. She barked sharply at her, and the girl sensed that her mother was chastising her for stopping and giving up so quickly on the chase. The girl looked down at her scuffed and bloody hands, and tried to blink back tears that insisted on coming out anyway, the occasional teardrop flowing out from her eyes and down her cheeks, and dripping down onto the forest floor to mix with the bright red blood. The girl looked at her mother with pleading, tear filled eyes. She just wanted her to come and comfort her, tell her everything would be alright.

The girl watched her mother turn her eyes towards the setting sun, then dart back further into the forest, vanishing into a thick overgrowth of foliage. Wincing in pain, the fox-girl took a deep breath, steeled herself, grabbed onto the trunk of the tree she had been leaning on, and hoisted herself up so that she stood on her own two feet. Ignoring the pain emanating from her palms as she struggled to balance the weight of her entire body, she was able to stand upright, swaying precariously back and forth on her two long legs. The girl felt that she would be able to manage if she could only inch along, ever so slowly, putting one foot in front of the other, moving from tree to tree and grabbing onto them with her hands to keep from tumbling back down. Her hands throbbed, but she didn't care – she didn't want to fall behind this time, and so she continued to shuffle from tree to tree like this.

When she had finally made her way over to the thick foliage her mother had disappeared through, she saw that the line of trees had ended, and that she would have to make the rest of the way on her own. She stared at the mass of overgrown vines and shrubs, half hoping that her mother would once again burst out from them and reveal herself. She didn't.

The girl inched forward, keeping one hand on the tree, her other arm swaying out wildly in an attempt to balance herself. When she had finally reached her limit, with her arm extended fully and fingertips just barely still holding onto the tree, she gently pushed off with her fingers, and started stumbling forward towards the overgrowth, with no crutch to hold onto, balancing on just two skinny little legs. She took small, stilted steps, but made steady forward progress, and she found that this bipedal movement felt oddly natural to her, as if she had a natural talent for it and had been designed to walk like this all along. The girl became aware of her nine tails, which, while still short and undeveloped, served as a counterbalance which helped her keep herself upright.

Upon reaching the soft barrier of overgrowth, the girl lost her patience, and pushed forward with her legs, bursting through the foliage, and tumbled forward, reaching out with her hands to break the fall. A sharp flare of pain shot up from her palms in response, and the girl instantly regretted her rash action, and had to blink back new tears. The girl felt a gentle nudge to her right side, looked that way, and saw her mother there. In her jaws was a freshly killed rabbit, which she laid down next to her daughter. Scattered on the ground were a bunch of random berries. The girl looked at the rabbit, then at her mother doubtfully, and her mother understood and started tearing at the rabbit with her jaws and paw, ripping it's flesh into chunks. She watched as her mother laid out the chunks of flesh in front of her.

The chunks of flesh repulsed her for some reason, but realizing now that she hadn't eaten since that morning, the girl sat up, grabbed some blueberries instead, and stuffed them into her mouth. She had always loved blueberries, but these tasted especially sweet and delicious. She quickly devoured all of the sweet and ripe berries, pressing them delightedly onto the roof of her mouth while chewing to bring out even more of it's tart juice. She wiped away her tears, leaving small smears of blood on her face. She could not help but grin in satisfaction as the emptiness in her stomach abated.

When the girl looked up from her meal, she saw the faint outline of her mother laying in a nearby patch of dirt, asleep. The sunlight was starting to fade rapidly, and the girl found that her eyes had difficulty discerning the gray outlines of the forest, her vision ill adapted to the blackness of the night. The girl crawled slowly next to where she thought her mother was napping, and laid down next to her. The rigors of that day caught up quickly to her young body, and though the girl did not want to, she quickly fell fast asleep, comforted by the presence of her mother beside her.

-o-o-o-

The girl was jarred awake early at dawn the next morning, forced out of her deep slumber by the pestering nudges and bites of her mother. When the girl finally sat up and composed herself, she saw her mother again dart out further into the forest, disappearing from sight. The girl looked at the wounds on her knees and hands, and found that they had scabbed over, and were healing slowly. The girl did not understand why her mother kept urging her to continue deeper into the forest, but her mind was still in that stage of life where a child would follow her mother's orders without question, and so she slowly picked herself up from her sitting position, and carefully stood up, swinging her arms and tails rapidly in circles to keep her delicate balance.

The girl thus was able to transfer herself after some struggle into a standing position, and she became amazed at how it almost seemed natural to her now to stand so high up on her legs like this, as if some part of her brain had always possessed the knowledge of how to walk upright and she was only now remembering that she knew how to do this all along. Still, the girl continued to nurse some doubts in the back of her mind, and she shuffled forward slowly towards the direction her mother had gone, reaching out an arm and grabbing onto every tree she approached in order to check her balance.

She continued on like this for what seemed like hours, her mother darting in and out of sight every few minutes, leading her child onwards on what seemed like a never-ending wild goose chase. As she walked, the girl slowly began to become surer of every footstep, and she fell into a steady – if somewhat odd feeling – rhythm, so that soon she found herself walking more and more by her own power, and electing not to pause at every tree.

As the day wore on, the girl began to wonder why they were traveling so fast and so far. It was not as if she were too tired to go on – the girl by now found that walking on two legs was taking less and less effort – but she had never remembered seeing her mother act so strangely, not even stopping for rest and food. The girl's ears picked up the sound of rushing water, and after walking a short distance she found herself staring at a creek. Her mother sat kneeling by the creek bed, lapping up water with her tongue, and the girl, realizing now that she was incredibly thirsty, kneeled beside her mother, lowered her head into the stream, and joyously slurped up the water.

It was during this time that her mother suddenly stood up, turned around, and let out a threatening growl. The girl heard a strange-sounding yell behind her, and she turned around to discern the source of the sound. She saw two creatures approaching quickly towards where she and her mother stood, and her eyes widened in fear as she remembered what these creatures were. They were of the same type she had seen in the clearing the other day! The girl noticed that the two men wore a distinctive symbol on them, that of a flaming blue sun.

The two men, upon reaching the stream, slowly approached the mother, and the taller one brought up a weird looking tool and pointed it at the fox. The girl saw clearly and vividly what happened next, and the scene would later burn itself into her psyche, becoming a part of her memory and self-identity that would stay with her for the rest of her life.

-o-o-o-

With a fierce rustling of leaves and foliage, the mother charged with determined speed and quickness at the taller man and, letting out a ferocious bark, leaped up towards the man and clamped her jaws into his arm as he brought it up to defend his body, causing the man to cry out in pain and surprise. In a flash, the man's partner responded by drawing out a long, razor-sharp blade and swiped it horizontally at the fox, cutting a deep, mortal gash across the length of her body that caused blood to gush out uncontrollably.

The vixen yelped pathetically, released her grip on the man's arm, and dropped to the ground, staying motionless. The shorter man raised his sword, then sliced it downwards at the fox's neck. In her last moments, the mother stared at the incoming blade, thought of her daughter who would now be alone against these two humans, and wished desperately that the world would look upon her child with pity and show her mercy.

-o-o-o-

The fox girl sat there next to the creek bed, and did not move her gaze from her mother. The swordman sheathed his blade, and then the two approached the girl. She did not know what to think, and instead looked up at the two men apathetically. She watched as the swordman drew up next to her, and reached for his blade, as if desiring to finish the job he had started with her mother. The taller man brought a hand up to stop him, and uttered a strange speech to his partner. His partner relented and drew back, and the taller man approached the girl, uttered some more strange speech, spit into her face, then drew his hand back and struck the girl's head violently, causing her to spin and fall backwards into the ground.

The man dragged the the still conscious girl to a tree, and propped her body up next to it's trunk. He kicked at the defenseless girl with his boot several times, then laughed and kneeled down, stared admiringly at the girl's body, and brought his hands up to her breasts and fondled them. He grabbed the girl's head and twisted it upwards, forcing the girl to look the man in the eyes. He brought his hand up to her battered face, and wiped off some of the blood while chuckling contentedly to himself. The innocent girl did not comprehend anything that happened after, and simply waited for death to come, so that she could join her mother once again. Was her mother really dead? She didn't want to think about it, but she already knew the answer to that question. As the man continued to abuse her, she found herself staring past his lustful eyes and into the lush forest canopy above, watching the bits of brilliant blue that burst through where the leaves parted, opening a tiny window into the tranquil skies beyond. She wondered whether she would see anything as beautiful when she was dead and with her mother in the afterlife.

A loud, unfamiliar voice suddenly resounded through the forest, and the tall man released his grip on the girl, stood up, and watched as a new third man approached the pair. He was dressed in a brown cloak that shrouded his face, and he carried a small hammer on his his back. He wore on his chest the same symbol of a flaming blue sun. The cloaked man uttered a few harsh words at the taller man, upon which they began arguing back and forth with each other for several seconds. The cloaked man suddenly yelled in anger, then strode forward and struck the taller man so violently that he lurched back and fell to the ground, half conscious.

The girl stared at the cloaked figure absently as he approached her, kneeled down, and looked at her. The girl thought his eyes looked so sad and regretful. He looked back at the corpse of her dead mother, uttered something incomprehensible to her, then looked down and drew out a long, sharp knife. He pointed the tip at her neck, then began to utter a few more words in a pitying tone. The girl was still in a stupor and stared at the man blankly, not caring what happened to her, but something stirred in the back of the girl's mind, and she thought she could almost understand what he was saying. She heard the word "mother", and her eyes widened as she finally understood what that word meant. She felt her throat tingle, and her mouth open, and heard a strange sound escape her throat.

"Mmmo...ther..."

The girl suddenly felt a fire fill her body from within, and an incredible energy grab control of her body. The cloaked man's eyes widened in fear. He looked past the girl, and saw the taller man standing there, his crossbow aimed at his heart. The girl felt a glow of energy from her hands, and she instinctively reached up and fired a ball of essence energy at the cloaked man. The man drew back and dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding both the ball of energy and the arrow that had been aimed at his heart.

The girl let out a rage-filled scream, then scrambled up with unholy vigor, leaped at the taller man next to her, and forcefully dug her fingers into the man's eye sockets. The tall man screamed in agony. She felt energy coursing through her arm and into her fingers, and the man's eyes began to steam and burn with a brilliant blue glow. The man let out one more hideous scream, then tumbled over backwards. She drew her fingers out from the man's eyes, and his body began to overheat and burst into flames. The man moaned in terror and struggled wildly, screaming and shouting obscenities as his body was consumed by the mysterious blue flames.

The girl whirled around, and leaped with blinding speed towards the sword man who was responsible for killing her mother. She bounced high into the air, looked down at her prey, and dived down, aiming to slice the man's throat open with her bare fingers. The man stared in terror at the fox-girl, then grabbed his scabbard desperately. Having no time to draw his sword out, he braced himself, then swung the scabbard at the girl as she crashed down on him. The impact sent them both tumbling backwards into the ground. The girl placed a hand around the man's neck, and her hand began to emit a dull blue glow. The man, fueled by pure adrenaline, pushed himself back onto his knees, and battered his fists blindly at the girl in an attempt to free himself. The girl let out an angry growl, then pushed the man off her with frightening strength, sending him flying backwards several feet.

The man landed on a patch of soft earth, and, without even looking back at his foe, struggled onto his feet and began stumbling forward into the forest in a desperate attempt at escape. The girl was about to follow, but was cut off by the cloaked man, who had now drawn out his powerful hammer and moved in between the fleeing man and the fox-girl. Their eyes locked for a moment, and then the man grunted and swung his hammer downwards, emitting a thundering shockwave that tore the earth beneath it apart as it traveled towards the girl. With no time to react, the girl watched as the shockwave blew past her, barely missing her and instead hitting a tree behind her, tearing the outer bark of the tree apart and sending shattered shrapnel everywhere.

Terrified by the awesome display of power from the cloaked man, the girl suddenly felt the instinctive urge to call out for her mother, who she knew could no longer help or comfort her. The girl struggled to suppress those feelings, and instead turned and ran back into the forest as fast as she could. She heard the man call out from behind her, as if he wanted her to stop, but she ignored the call and kept running.

The girl leaped and ran through the forest rapidly, ignoring the burn in her muscles, thinking only of getting herself as far away from the three men and the memory of her mother as possible. She did not understand what had happened to her back there, and could only feel that some sort of repressed memory had awakened inside her, and that she now possessed strange new powers.

The girl continued to leap swiftly through the forest, traveling rapidly at an impossible speed, running away from things she did not understand. Wayward limbs and tree leaves slashed at her exposed skin as she dashed past the thick forest of trees, but she did not feel any pain - only terror and the surges of adrenaline that bade her to keep running until she could run no more. After a while, the trees slowly began to thin out and became more sparsely populated until it finally yielded to a plain country field covered with short green grasses that extended far into the horizon. The girl finally began to slow her furious pace. She did not know how long she had been running, but she could feel her body beginning to shut down from exhaustion.

Ahead of her, she spotted atop a gently sloped hill what looked like a large wooden structure with doors and windows, and fences, inside of which contained various strange animals she had never seen before. Standing a ways from the house were two humans, a male and a female, who stood there with their hands clasped together, seemingly staring in shock at the strange fox-girl approaching their home. The girl by now had spent the last remaining reserves of her strength running from whatever it was she was running from, and was covered in bruises, cuts and wounds. She looked at the two humans bitterly, and suddenly felt regretful that she had not stayed with her mother instead and accepted whatever fate awaited her back in the forest. For a moment she considered whether she had the strength left to either fight or flee - then, without warning, the world began to spin slowly, and the girl's knees began to buckle. The memories of all that had happened that day rushed up and and haunted her visions, and as her last reserves of strength drained away and she collapsed onto the earth, the shrill wail of a terrified and broken girl filled the air, followed by a chilling and sudden silence.

-o-o-o-

Henry and Margaret Walker, husband and wife, both walked up towards the naked and unconscious fox-girl, hands clasped together, unsure of what lay before them. The husband walked up next to the girl and kneeled down. He looked the girl over, then looked up at his wife, who had her hands over her mouth, taking pity on the broken girl that laid there before her. She nodded as if sending a silent communication to her husband of over 20 years, and the man looked out over the Piltover countryside, wondering how this fox-girl had made it to their home in this condition, and just what the heck his wife was thinking to want to bring her in. He bent over and picked the girl up with both hands, walked back to their humble country home on the outskirts of Piltover, and went in. His wife shut the door behind them.

End Ch 1

Ch. 2 - Discovery...

The fox girl opened her eyes to darkness. Was she dead? She tried to open her mouth to utter something - anything - but nothing came out. She moved her eyes right, left, up and down. Not a single source of light to be found anywhere.

So this was what death felt like. No sight. No sound. Nothingness. There wasn't any afterlife, no shining sanctuary where the dead could wake up and rejoice at their discovery of an existence after death. This was oblivion, and this was what she and her mother had been condemned to for eternity.

Her Mother!

The girl reached out into the void with her arms, desperately searching for something.

No, not something. Someone.

Her mother was somewhere out there - she had to be. The girl refused to believe what her mind was telling her. But she could neither cry out nor feel anything. How would she ever find her in this darkness?

The girl could feel her thoughts begin to cloud. Where was she? Was she alive after all? A spark of blue light streaked across her vision, and for a fleeting moment the girl felt a power grow from within her. The same power she had felt earlier in the forest. It was as if a fire had sparked inside her belly, furiously growing larger and stronger as if afraid of being snuffed out by a gust of passing wind. It seemed to fill her chest with warmth, spurring the girl to take a sudden, deep gasp of air. Heavenly air! She could still breathe - she wasn't dead after all!

The blue streak appeared again, and the girl sensed a wave of euphoria and contentment wash over her. She felt one with the earth. Her loneliness seemed to fade away and she began to feel a connection with the earth, and every living being in it. Maybe she was the earth. That would be something interesting to tell her mother, indeed!

...Tell her what, exactly? The girl began to feel a little confused. Had she turned back into a fox? Or was she still one of those tall creatures with those long, spindly limbs? Maybe she was still dreaming? The girl brought her hands to her face and ran her fingers through its contours. No. She definitely wasn't a fox. She could feel her long arms, those weird fingers that seemed to move with such dexterity and precision. She was one of them.

In an instant, the girl recalled the bloody image of her mother's corpse, its body sliced open and twitching, the severed head falling with a thud onto the floor and staring at nothing with half closed, empty eyes. The image was so sharp and pristine in her mind. Was this how *they* thought? Her mind could recall every image and emotion of that day with a clarity she had never before experienced in her existence as a fox.

The girl's mind continued to race with images of anything and everything. The fire inside her that had filled her with warmth seemed to grow smaller and colder, suffocated by the encroaching vastness of her own mind - a flurry of uncontrollable thoughts and emotions. The girl wanted to scream out, begging and pleading for that mysterious blue light to appear and fill her with comfort once again. But nothing came. The girl struggled to twist herself this way and that, desperately seeking to end this nightmare, or whatever it was.

If she was dead, just let her sleep in peace! Anything was better than this nothingness!

-o-o-o-

Margaret Walker sat quietly on a stool in her son's bedroom, staring intently at the little girl before her. Nine fox tails, and two fox ears. She was undoubtedly one the ferals.

Henry had warned against helping her. Gwylts - or in layman's terms, ferals - were known to be unpredictable. Especially in this case, the girl was obviously being hunted or chased by someone, or something, which could only mean trouble if the hunter was able to track the girl down to their home.

Margaret knew Henry was probably right, but she just couldn't find it in her heart to leave such a young girl to die, feral or not. When she had brought her in, the girl was a mess of blood, sweat, and tears. Her face had been battered and broken, her legs and feet covered in bloody gashes, and it looked like she hadn't eaten in days. Everything about it just looked wrong.

"Let me help her survive, at least," she had told him. "She's in no position to hurt anyone, and we can decide what to do once she's out of danger. Would you rather we cast her out and let her die to exposure?" Henry, being the secretly soft hearted man she knew him to be, had reluctantly agreed to her plea after some consideration. Thus Margaret had ended up becoming the temporary caretaker of the fox girl, trying to help her in any way she possibly could.

Although Margaret was no doctor, she knew enough from life and raising her son that wounds this extensive and exposed to the elements were liable to become infected. She had tried her best to clean and wrap the girl's wounds immediately after taking her in, but within a few hours the girl had begun to develop a strong fever. Margaret had spent an entire sleepless night watching over the girl, undressing infected wounds, cleaning the pus and dead material with water, and redressing them. The wounds by themselves did not look fatal, but in the girl's weakened state, the combination of infection, fever, and blood loss still posed a serious threat, and Margaret had been forced to keep the girl's temperature under control by constantly shedding the heat off with a bevy of wet towels that had been soaked in lukewarm water. These tasks had basically taken up the entire night, and part of the morning as well.

In her intense concentration Margaret barely noticed the sound of a door creaking open, and her husband walking in. She continued to dote over the girl, slowly lifting a patch of fabric she had ripped up that had been covering a nasty gash below the girl's left eye. The wound had scabbed, but was blood red and swollen.

"So how's it doing, Maggie?"

Her husband walked up behind her to take a peek at the girl's condition.

Margaret murmured something inaudibly in response. She picked up a pad of cotton dipped in alcohol and cleaned the wound under the girl's eye. She then ripped a fresh piece of fabric, applied some sticky ointment to it, and applied the makeshift bandage over the cut.

"I'll look after the feral for a bit, alright? You need to go get some rest," her husband said.

"I'm worried, Henry. Her wounds seem to be healing better now, though the cut on her face will likely leave a scar. But her fever doesn't seem to be getting any better."

"I know you're worried, Maggie, but there isn't much you can do for her now." Henry placed a hand on his wife's shoulder and squeezed, hoping to get her attention. "I'll make sure to re-wet the towels and try to keep the fever under control. I'm not a miracle worker, but I can do that, at least."

Margaret got up from her stool, and stared down at the girl. She seemed to be sleeping more quietly now, which reassured her somewhat. She felt a sudden wave of fatigue wash over her, and sighed to herself. "I suppose I'll go and get breakfast ready, then get some sleep after."

"There's no need. I already made some potatoes and eggs. I left some for you also."

"Thanks, Henry. Call me if she wakes up, ok?" Margaret gave her husband a kiss on the cheek, then started to head out of the room. She suddenly stopped by the doorway, however, and turned back. Something had been bothering her.

"Henry -"

"I've got it, Maggie. Just go eat already."

"No, it's just - I want to tell you about something weird I experienced last night. While I was trying my best to treat her wounds, the girl suddenly started thrashing about, and reaching out with her arms as if searching for something. I had thought she was just having a little nightmare, but then she started struggling for her breath, as if being suffocated by some unknown force. Not knowing what to do, I reached out and grabbed hold of her arms to keep her still, and whispered a little lullaby into her ear, hoping to calm her down. The girl responded by crying out - it sounded like the word 'mother' - and then she opened her eyes and looked right at me - her pupils had a color of amber and seemed to glow slightly."

Margaret paused for a bit, as if she were suddenly doubting her own words. "I could swear then that I saw a weird blue glow surround both of us, and then - I suddenly felt as if I had caught on fire. I felt as though I would burn up in a blaze of flames, so I let go of the girl and reached out for the water basin in panic. But as soon as I let her go, the feeling just vanished. I looked back at the girl, and she had gone back to sleeping peacefully, as if nothing had happened. It seems silly, but when I think back about it...perhaps I had just fallen asleep and had a nightmare without realizing it. But it felt frighteningly real to me."

Henry pondered Margaret's words for a moment, then chuckled to himself. "The guys would have loved to hear this one. Of course you've never experienced rune-fervor..."

Margaret gave her husband a puzzled look. "Rune-fervor? Why would that happen here? We don't use any quintessences, and the runes we do use are just tiny little flakes."

Her husband's tone and manner seemed to sour a little as he turned to look at her. "I've had to deal with a few ferals during my time as a Sentinel, Maggie. You may just see them as another species of humans, but they're entirely different from us."

"Stop it, Henry. We've already had this argument." Margaret shifted uncomfortably. Her husband's tone had changed so suddenly.

"I'll let the feral stay until it's able to walk. Then we make it leave, ok?"

"We'll decide that once she's awake and fully able to take care of herself, and not a moment sooner."

Margaret didn't stay to hear her husband's response, and hurriedly left the room. She went to the kitchen, found the plate of food waiting for her, and grabbed a few bites of the potatoes. She didn't bother to sit down, instead mulling over what her husband had just said.

Rune-fervor? Was that what she had experienced last night? It didn't make any sense. The tiny bit of rune energy they chose to use in the home were just little flakes embedded inside mechanistic devices, and certainly none of those flakes were used directly for organic-based magic. Rune crystals refined for use by humans were specifically called quintessences, but neither she nor Henry used them in the house - nor would they, even if they could afford those prohibitively expensive little crystals. Henry might have had exposure to them during his service with the Piltover Sentinels, but the Sentinels were primarily known for their use of mechanical devices - quintessences were more the realm of Piltover's sister city, Demacia, which had no shortage of talented quint mages like Luxanna Lightshield who could withstand the harsh effects of rune-fervor.

Margaret stabbed at some of the cold scrambled eggs with her fork, and jabbed them into her mouth absentmindedly. Henry could be so stubborn and mistrustful sometimes, but even she didn't understand his petty dislike for the ferals. Ferals were an uncommon minority in the human dominated cities of Valoran, and while they did often have odd and unpredictable behaviors, for the most part they were relatively mild mannered, and stayed out of most human affairs. She supposed the dislike was a trait shared among current and former members of the Sentinels - there had been very minor conflicts between the two groups in the past, but Henry had elected to take an early discharge from the Sentinels after attaining the rank of Captain. Regardless, she was not going to let the fox girl go until she was completely recovered and able to fend for herself. She resolved not to let henry bully her on this matter.

Feeling the fatigue of last night's rigors catching up to her, Margaret pushed the plate of eggs and potatoes away, got up, and headed towards her bedroom. She didn't bother to put on her nightgown, and simply plopped onto the bed. Her thoughts drifted to her son Roland, who was scheduled to come home later today. She started to wonder how he would react to the presence of the fox girl, but did not get to finish her thought as she drifted off into sleep.

-o-o-o-

The first thing the fox girl felt when she woke up was the dryness of her parched throat. She opened her eyes and was greeted with a blurry image of a plain, slightly mottled but smooth brown surface above her. Her right was blocked off by the same smooth surface. As she traced the two planes she could see that they connected on four points and extended to form a sort of square enclosure. In an instant it dawned on the girl that she was now inside the home of one of those tall creatures - the humans. The girl tried to get up from where she laid, but was stopped by a series of both sharp and dull aches throughout her entire body. Her muscles ached with that dull, burning sensation commonly experienced after bouts of extreme exertion.

The girl laid back down. Slowly she began to ascertain her surroundings. Parts of her body had been wrapped and bound in fabric, but they did not restrict her movement much. The girl spread the palm of her hand out in front of her face, and stared with muted acceptance at her long, delicate fingers, each of which she could move with uncanny dexterity. Fragments of memories began to take shape within her mind. She remembered her desperate flight through the forest, the throbbing pain she felt on her face, hands, feet, and body. She remembered ignoring the burn in her chest as she continued to run and leap through the forest beyond the limits of her endurance, ushered onwards by a strength she did not know she had.

The girl heard a strange noise from the far end of the room, and she turned her head in time to see a male figure enter the room. The girl widened her eyes in fear as the man took notice of her, and slowly walked towards her. She did not move from her resting spot, frozen by a combination of fatigue and fear.

The girl stared warily at the man as he approached closer, wondering what he was planning to do to her. She knew she had been unconscious and helpless for a period of time - though she did not know how long - so she was able to guess that this man was not here to kill her. She would have been dead already if that were the case. She nonetheless felt her heart begin to beat faster as the man walked up next to her. The man stared down at her with a sort of empty expression, then vocalized a series of strange sounds to her. She did not understand any of it, so she simply stared back at the man's face nervously and tried to gather some sort of emotion from his features. There were none. Then, to her amazement, the man simply backed off, turned around, and left the room, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

The girl turned her head back and gazed passively at the brown ceiling above her. With no one in the room and nothing for her to do except lay there, the slow realization of her current state began to creep up on her. All of her present memories were now of a life she no longer belonged to.

She recalled past mornings of her life as a fox, where she would wake up to the bittersweet smell of fresh honeysuckles blooming in the conifer forest. She would get up on all fours, arch her back, and lazily stretch out her muscles. When she felt ready, she would walk out of the cool, damp burrow in which she and her mother lived and out into the dusky forest, where beams of morning sunlight would penetrate through the canopy, forming small patches of heaven where she would sit and recline in while taking in the warmth of the sun's rays. The girl felt her chest throb with an unfamiliar pain as she envisioned her mother coming out of the burrow, coming to rest beside her, and giving her a loving nudge, prodding her on to whatever new adventure awaited them that day.

The girl tried to snap herself out of her little reverie. Although the memory was a happy one, it only made her sad, and the girl tried desperately to bury it inside herself. She did not want to think of her mother as it only filled her chest with pain and an empty longing. She tried to concentrate on the moment at hand instead. Was she a prisoner here? If she was, how would she escape her captors? Were these people related to the ones she had met in the forest earlier? She did not remember seeing on the man the distinctive blue circular symbol she had seen on the three men in the forest.

The fox girl heard more voices coming from outside her room. They were distinct - one female, one male. She turned her head towards the entrance, and saw a woman enter the room. In her right hand she held a tall, gray container. The woman flashed a reassuring gaze at the girl, walked up to where the girl lay, and knelt down beside her. Slowly she brought the tall, narrow container next to the girls lips. The girl drew back at first, unsure of what the woman wanted from her, but when she looked into the container she saw that it contained...

Water!

Remembering how dry and parched her throat was, the girl struggled onto her elbows, and gave the woman a hesitant glance. Oh, how she desperately hoped that the water was for her to drink! The woman gestured encouragingly at the girl and gave her a reassuring smile. Feeling a bit braver now, the girl leaned forward over the water container, stuck out her tongue, and lowered her head into the container, trying to lap up some of the water. To her dismay, she found that she could only slurp up precious few droplets, as the container was impossibly small. She found that she was unable to stick her tongue out far enough into the container. Growing a bit frustrated, the fox girl looked up at the woman, who had on her face a sort of amused expression. The woman gently grabbed hold of the girl's hand. The girl did not shrink back, but instead let the woman guide her hand onto the container. The container was placed below the girl's lips, and slowly tilted forward.

In a flash of realization, the girl proceeded to sit up a bit and placed both hands on the container. She opened her mouth wide, and eagerly tilted the container in so that the water gushed into her mouth. This method of drinking seemed immediately obvious to her now, but she had been so stuck in her previous frame of habit that she had not even considered other options. Now the girl drank the blissfully refreshing water with untold glee. Much of the water missed its mark and instead streamed haphazardly out of the girl's mouth and down her cheeks, but she did not care. The girl tilted the container further inward and gulped down the remaining water, and she felt a thrilling jolt run down her body as her intense thirst was finally sated.

With the water finally gone, the girl looked back up at the woman, who had been watching her with a sort of intrigued expression on her face, and sheepishly handed the now empty container back to the woman. The girl decided that she liked this woman. She didn't know how, but she felt that she knew this was the woman who had cared for her and helped her while she had been unconscious. What's more, she had this feeling of safety with this woman that reminded her of the happy memories of her mother.

The woman stood up from her chair, and began to turn around. The girl quickly realized that she was about to leave, so she let out a soft little cry, reached out with her arm, and grabbed hold of the woman's hand. Startled, the woman turned to look at the girl. The girl stared back with pleading eyes, begging silently for the woman to stay with her. She tightened her grip on the woman's hand, and tried to tug her back. With her mother gone, the girl had struggled to deal with and suppress her feelings of loneliness. Now that she had finally found someone who seemed to care for her, the girl was now terrified of losing her newfound friend. She did not want to be alone, to face those feelings of loss and loneliness again.

Looking into the girl's eyes, the woman decided to acquiesce to the girl's touching plea, and sat back down. The girl, still feeling weak and tired from her ordeals, laid down and closed her eyes. They stayed like this for awhile, the girl's hand happily latched onto the woman's, the woman looking on, until finally the girl's breathing began to rise and fall in a steady rhythm, and her grip began to relax. After making sure the girl was fast asleep, the woman carefully released the girl's hand and placed it onto the bed. She stood back up, but then hesitated for a moment. She then bent down, gave the girl a loving kiss on the cheek, and then quietly left the room.

reserved

Reserved

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Very good! I like your portrayal of Ahri as a young, confused child, the naivety of which contrasts well with her cold, dangerous, and seductive nature as an older teen/adult. Though I've never really liked Jayce's character, I'm proudly part of the Ahri-club, and I love the potentially rich and yet unexplored history behind the nine tailed fox. I look forward to more from you in the future!

~BL.

I can tell you were really inspired to get this story out! Keep it up!

This was a really good story. Not much to criticise. can't wait for the next chapter!

res