When your best friend is studying to become a medic and you’re too cocky to admit that you have a needle phobia & volunteer as patient.
(And pass out in the process)
Tena & Steb did the enforcer training program together and had a ~ thing during those years. She was a bit of a prodigy during the enforcer trainee years. She was meant to be more of a brawler and did exceedingly well. She came from a pretty well off family in Piltover and was a bit spoiled, sheltered, and incredibly cocky with all the positive attention she got during her police academy years. She liked Steb a lot, but picked on him mercilessly, and got on his nerves as much as he liked her back.
(I think both of them wanted to have something more serious, but she wasn’t emotionally mature enough to open up about it & Steb didn’t want to pressure her.)
They got along well, (despite her boisterous nature) but she acclimated poorly when they actually started working. Cracking under the emotional pressure of coming eye to eye with the raw display of poverty and misery in Zaun that she had previously been sheltered from, along with the creeping doubts about the morality of the job she was having, she escalated a violent situation during a mission in the undercity and ended up taking a life. She couldn’t bear the guilt and left the profession soon after.
She left Piltover shortly after quitting her job as an enforcer, not able to stand the societal divide she herself had been a part of upholding. Today, she lives in Zaun where she works as a sorta underground bouncer. She’s still dealing with immense guilt, but has found a community of people she feels at ease with. Steb and her haven’t talked since she left the field.
I like to think that Steb went to visit her shortly after she quit to check in on her, but she’d already left Piltover at that point
In s2, she joins the other zaunites to fight alongside Piltover in the war, where she unfortunately passes away.
I wrote a HORRIBLE hurt/little comfort Steb fic a while ago about an enforcer cracking under the emotional pressure of the lacking morality of their job and that’s how Tena was created. I couldn’t bear posting it because it was so damn sad. But here’s some art of her! 😀
