League of Legends: Short Stories

Ryze & Brand: From the Ashes

"Why?"

His master exhaled something like a sigh.

"Fine," Kegan agreed, tossing the branch into the fire and sheathing his bone-handled knife once more. "Fine, fine, fine."

He took a deep breath, swelling the muscles of his chest and shoulders. Silenced as he held his breath, he looked to his master for whatever would come next.

"You do not create the air you breathe," the sorcerer said. "You draw it inside you, letting it sustain you. You use it as your body requires, and then release it as you exhale. It is never yours. You are just a vessel for it. You breathe in, you breathe out. You are a channel through which air flows."

Kegan made to release his breath, though his master shook his head.

"No. Not yet. Feel the air in your lungs, Kegan. Feel it pushing at the cage of your body. Feel it straining to escape."

The young barbarian's features were flushing red. His eyes asked the question his mouth could not.

"No," the sorcerer answered. He gestured to Kegan with a discoloured hand. "Keep holding."

When Kegan's endurance finally gave out, defiance took over, buying him more time. When even his defiance began to ebb with the pain of his quivering chest, naked stubbornness took control. He glared daggers at his master, trembling with the effort, knowing this was surely a test—knowing he had to prove something, without knowing just what it might be.

Greyness misted the edge of his vision. His pulse was rhythmic thunder in his ears. All the while his master looked on, saying nothing.

Finally, his breath burst back into the chill evening air, and Kegan sagged, gasping, as he recovered. He was a wolf in that moment, a wild animal baring his teeth at the world around him, offering a threat to any that might attack in his moment of weakness.

His master watched this, too.

"I was beginning to wonder if you would actually let yourself pass out," he murmured.

Kegan grinned, and pounded a fist against his chest, wordlessly proud of how long he'd held out.

"Therein lies the problem," his master observed, reading his posture. "I told you the air was not yours, yet you are thrilled with yourself for how long you kept it inside you. It is the same with magic. You want it, believing it can be owned. You cling to it, forgetting that you are merely a channel through which it passes. You choke it in your heart, and in your hands. And so the magic is strangled in your grip, because you see it as something to bind to your will. It is not, and never will be. It is like air. You must draw in what exists around you, use it for a moment, then let it free."

The two of them—student and master, barbarian and sorcerer—fell silent again. The wind howled through the canyons to the south, bringing a keening cry on the breeze.

Kegan eyed the older man suspiciously. "So... why didn't you just say all that? Why make me hold my breath?"

"I have said all of that before. Several dozen times, in several dozen ways. I hoped a practical element to the lesson might aid your comprehension."

Kegan snorted, then glared into the fire.

"Master. Something's been preying on my mind of late."

The sorcerer chuckled to himself and patted the rolled, bound parchment leashed to his back. "No, Kegan. I am not letting you read this."

The young tribesman grinned, though his stare was devoid of mirth. "That's not what I wanted to ask," he said. "What if I'm not a bad student? What if you're just a bad teacher?"