The view of the Zaun sky used to be the little light coming from the filtered through the smoke and ash that was generated in a tangle of pipes that were discharged from Piltover, but today those little rays of light were impossible to see. They were almost impossible to see with all the explosions that were occurring throughout the city. The piltovites were invading, their transport ships were moving freely carrying reinforcements to all fronts, we had lost the battle for airspace a few hours ago.
We were rebelling, we were fighting for the right to live and that was not something we could do according to our rulers.
"Do you think we can win this?"
"Well we were having a good run of good luck, at some point it would have to end, change will come friends, and we will have been part of it" I said in such a confident way that they even stopped feeling my hands shaking, the hope of the idea almost deafened the pain of the beam going through my body.
Four of us were under one of the many Zuanite buildings of gray and industrial architecture that had been demolished due to the war, all of us were about to die either from our wounds or from our Chemtech combat armor. We were nobody important, in fact, we couldn't matter less in the course of this battle, for that very reason we had been given the armor, pieces of metal, and scrap metal that boosted our strength and agility in exchange for our health, we were disposable pieces that would die any way the war turned out.
But we were okay with this. We were simple street rats, we knew what our fate would be since we were little, but we had been given the option to change our end. The result was what we expected, but the smile on our faces was hard to take off.
"You don't have to talk to them anymore, looks like Lily and Mark left first before us" he wasn't in a good state either, with three metal rods going through his body.
"They always made a good couple..." My words could barely be uttered because of the blood escaping my lips.
"...Hey, I never apologized for what happened, I appreciate you, my friend..." His voice seemed to lose strength, as I watched the life in his eyes slowly slip away.
"...and I to you, we would have made it big..." Even though I knew no one was listening anymore, I still felt remorse for all the opportunities life had robbed them of, they had fought with all their might to get out of their destiny, but after hundreds of attempts, they learned their place.
A gentle breeze swirled around the rubble, the weight of the beam on my body had lightened and the force of the breeze increased until it was a gale, until I felt a figure at my back that seemed to lift all the debris from the place.
"It's all right, my dear child," she says, and I know without needing to see her who it is. All the orphaned children of Zaun knew of her, tales and stories of how she saw for us through the winds.
She squeezes my shoulder, then kneels and holds me in her arms very gently, it is a strange thing, I feel light and calm, just as every child of the Sump wished, drawing me into an embrace and lifting me to her, as the aches in my body were ceasing as we levitated on the desolate battlefield.
"It's going to be okay," she says.
Strands of her hair fall over my shoulders. It smells like the air after a long rain.
"I've failed them, I'm sorry, but this won't be the end of them," she says. My face is warm and wet and I don't know when I started crying, but it's a relief, as if the clouds are clearing, I hug her and she without hesitation reciprocates warmly and softly in the same way. telling me over and over that everything is okay, that she is here, and that things will get better.
"The winds will be in charge of taking you back pure soul, may your hopes drive changes in the destinies of the underprivileged, for you are now the child of the wind" I barely understood her words due to the confusion of everything happening. Her voice was majestic.
After leaving me in a clearer area, she rises again and glides to my side. For the first time, I see her in her entirety: a tall, ethereal figure that I would have assumed was a figment of my imagination had she not touched me. I notice her long, pointed ears. Her feet don't touch the ground. Her hair waving in the wind, even now that the wind had ceased. Her eyes were as blue as a larimar stone, provoking a cold feeling just by looking at her.
Being the last thing I watched, as I felt her lose the energy in my whole body and rise with the wind.
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"Ughh" a desperate cry came from my body as soon as I came to my senses, there was still a whirlwind of emotions in me and I could not find an explanation for what had happened. She was not just a myth, I had met the lady of the wind. Jan'ahrem.
"Damian wake up, we are in trouble" Little did I understand, when another mystery was happening in front of my eyes, the darkness of the place and the little light that was coming through what seemed to be a shack. The bizarreness of the situation made my thoughts have no order as to what I should process first.
"This way" Said the figure, who picked me up and dragged me through a series of narrow alleys until I could recognize the main streets we were passing through. A plume of smoke was rising from the district. I was back in the zaun Sump; passersby were casting somber glances at them, but they didn't seem particularly concerned to see two figures running.
It was an area where only the lowest of the low gathered to seek survival, no one cared about those who lived there. The whole area was a heresy against the very concept of urban planning: just shacks that had sprung up around the plentiful "employment" provided by the Sump complex.
"We were by the prix area, we heard rumors that they had dumped quality scrap metal in the area," Lily said, but not the same one who had died a few minutes ago, but a Lily about 10 years younger.
"We thought at night we could avoid the gang rates but they caught Mark, we had arranged to meet by Seetower, Yutong is helping him escape but it's the Prix" Immediate memories assaulted my memory.
Ten years ago we'd had our first run of good luck, we'd gotten a place near the junkyard to sleep and were making enough income to have 2 meals a day. The plans had been simple, keep going until we could be old enough to enter a barony.
But we were trusting and greedy, we underestimated the speed of the rumors and the machinations behind them, and the Prix put iron shackles around our necks. Our first stolen dream is happening this very night. I don't know what is happening, I don't know if this is a dream, but I will not let it end the same way.