❝ Don't think that my respect will come on its own. ❞ / From Caelia!
" i'd expect nothing less from the red spear. "
pantheon was late. incredibly so. he stepped down from the beaten mountain path onto a relatively flat plateau on targon's lower peaks. the air held the familiar metallic taste of blood, though no ra-horak lay dead upon targon's stone. where their blood may have seeped into the cracks beneath their feet, pantheon watched as one warrior helped up another, dented armor and scarred skin but.. man had not fallen on this day.
he watched as caelia wrested her spear out of the now-dead corpse of the voidbeast in the center of the area. it was multi-legged, coated in a purple carapace, and with numerous wicked talons protruding from its form. pantheon approached her and the corpse, while giving a cursory glance of the area.
" i should have been here. " he muttered.
he'd sensed it too late. his mind was fogged in the past few months. fragmented memories of wars and conquests that weren't his own, but real enough to keep him awake at night. still, he'd vowed to himself and the rakkor that he'd fight to protect mankind with his gifts and burdens. excuses weren't welcome on targon.
slowly, he came to rest his gaze on caelia. her eyes, amber but they shined golden beneath the rising sun above. this was their first conversation, beyond simply being in the same space. she was right not to blindly respect him. respect was earned through deeds on targon, a name and title meant nothing.
with the power of pantheon, atreus is able to travel great distances in what would've taken weeks on foot. though he isn't capable of full fledged flight yet, since the transference of power from aspect to man was fragmented, he can still leap high into the air, and soar downwards in comet-like arcs.
this, along with the discovery of monsters of darkin and void alike capable of roaming the land, pushes him to travel beyond targon.
atreus's mother was a rakkor scout. she always seized the opportunities to travel when atreus was younger, visiting shurima and the nations beyond the continent, and bringing back pieces of other nation's literature, culture, and stories. she always inspired atreus, and now he can make those journeys himself.
when atreus travels he does try to keep himself as incognito as he can. spear and shield wrapped up in thick cloth and common traveler's garb on his body. more often than not he simply wishes to observe different people and their homes, to learn rather than bring war.
"I no longer try to understand the ways of humanity. Nor the ways of gods, for that matter. This past century I've come to the conclusion that they are like-minded. Even if the other presumes to think otherwise."
"no, diana. you're wrong."
the space between them was respectful of their positions now. before, perhaps they'd stand at arms-length. perhaps if things had been different, they'd even stand shoulder-to-shoulder, befitting of their childhood. even if diana hadn't been born on targon like atreus, she was still forged by the mountain. her mettle tested and her strength earned through the same study and hardship that the rest of them had endured.
but the energy in the air between them made that seem like an impossibility. aspects, gods, powers beyond simple strength and flesh. it made their childhoods look like but a blink in the grand scheme of the cosmos.
just like gods would see the lifetimes of man, just a blink, a blip beneath the stars to be replaced by another mortal soul.
"man is different from gods. they fight, struggle, starve, and bleed. and they endure."
pantheon placed the butt of his spear on the cliff-face beneath him and looked off into the distance. even from these lowers slopes of targon, it was still possible to see the vast expanse of the shuriman desert, and the oceans to the north. he wrapped his arms around his spear and sighed.
"gods can observe and exist for centuries. it is nothing to them. man is but a fire. short-lived, but there are those who are determined to ensure they burn the brightest, even if their lives are just a blink before gods. that's what makes them different."
slowly, pantheon turned his gaze to diana beside him. the swirl of silver, ethereal but ever-present about her form was sign enough that the two of them had changed.
spear and shield , a pantheon . 𝛀 on : childhood love
Though he was born on the unforgiving mountain that is Targon, and forged from birth into a warrior of the Rakkor, Atreus still had room in his heart for love . Two hungry flames sparked to life in Atreus’s core, beginning when he was a young teenager .
One flame was for Pylas, and the other was for Leona.
➤ Many of Atreus’s early years were spent despising Pylas . Every time they sparred, wrestled, raced, Pylas was always a step ahead of him . More often than not, that ended with Atreus knocked to the ground, bleeding, or gasping for breath . But, as Atreus got older, and the rivalry formed into a friendship, he found himself feeling something new and different for Pylas . Every patrol, every hunt, Atreus would volunteer to accompany Pylas and vice versa . They were inseparable, and Atreus found that tasks that were normally grueling, arduous, and life-threatening, were things that he tackled with assuredness in his heart and mind, as long as Pylas was beside him .
So when Pylas told Atreus that he intended to marry Lula, Atreus felt a boulder the size of Targon itself form in his chest . As any friend and brother-in-arms would, Atreus supported the decision of his friend, and he was there at their ceremony of bonding .
Pylas was happy, he made his decision . That was the mantra that Atreus replayed in his mind for a number of months, until that boulder within his chest that was composed of his untold confession eventually eroded away .
During their harrowing ascent of Targon, Atreus held Pylas as Pylas drew his last, shuddering breath .
With only the sheer stone-face of Targon and the howling winds as company, Atreus finally confessed what he should have said years ago to Pylas’s lifeless form . Atreus pressed his lips to Pylas’s brow, the tears that formed from his watering eyes near-instantly froze on his cheeks, then he turned his head upwards and continued the climb.
➤ Where Atreus and Pylas began their relationship as rivals, Atreus and Leona began their relationship on somewhat friendlier terms . One of the exercises that the young Rakkor would endure were exhausting hikes across Targon’s slopes . They would be runs into the valleys, expeditions into the forests, or hikes into the higher reaches of the mountain .
Pylas who was a few years older than the other Rakkor would always be at the head of the group . He would run and he wouldn’t stop until the exercise was completed, often far ahead of even the second closest Rakkor . Leona and Atreus would often run alongside one another . Their conversations were always brief, as expected when trying to catch your breath on Targon’s icy terrain, but they spoke when they could .
She would tell him about the Solari faith, about her training with the sword and shield . He would tell her about the things that his mother taught him (in hushed confidence, as it wasn’t normal for Rakkor children to devote time to literature or keeping a journal) .
The time that Leona and Atreus spent together grew less and less as they got older . Leona’s interest in the Solari faith took up much of her free time, that time which wasn’t already taken by the Rakkor’s training . They still made it a point to meet every few weeks, often when the moon was high in the sky or just before sunrise . Atreus would bring bread, Leona would bring fruits, and they’d speak softly or sit in silence together and watch the stars and sky .
Their paths would take an interesting turn as adults . Fate’s strings took an interest in the pair . One would be the champion of their faith, while the other would crawl out of the maw of death and claim the power of the aspect for himself . Atreus couldn’t remember the last time they spoke . There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that the both of them would try for as long as they could to never cross paths .
( Atreus wrote Leona a poem once . Many years ago, as a foolish teenager . He wrote about how her hair and eyes dwarfed the sun itself, forcing the great star to be background scenery in her presence . He still wonders if she kept that piece of parchment . )
Now it seems that their ideals will be forever at a conflict . Should they meet one another , Atreus wasn’t sure if they would exchange words or cross blades .
As an adult , the slow - burning love that Atreus felt within him towards Leona feels all the more wistful. As he stands on Targon’s peaks and watches the sunrise -- alone , he can’t help but think …
since it has been so long i figured it'd be good one stop place to have the main points that are unique to my portrayal. this includes the things i've taken from the much older lore of targon from years ago as well as some of the new additions that they've added to canon.
also, this is just me being comfortable with my portrayal and headcanons and not wanting to try and stay up to date with canon + new lore riot adds. to each their own obviously this is just my pantheon portrayal, i wouldn't force my headcanons on any other targonians and am happy to discuss things.
bullets below the cut!
atreus, leona, and pylas were childhood friends. atreus and pylas were much more rivals than friends, while leona and atreus actually were quite close.
during the rite of kor, which all rakkor who wish to become warriors must go through at the age of 16, atreus slayed his opponent as did pylas, while leona chose to spare her opponent. she was to be killed for disrespecting their traditions, before a flash of light struck her and made her the chosen of the sun, where she would go further up the mountain to live among the solari.
diana in past lore was a solari child as well, and became friends with leona. as well as atreus on the odd visit down from the solari city to the mid-level slopes where the rakkor camps resided.
i go more into depth on atreus and pylas's journey from their time as young adults to present time in pantheon's lore page linked HERE.
while atreus, now pantheon to most everybody, bore many titles, he also bore the title of paragon of the rakkor. the strongest warrior among them, a title that could be challenged by other up-and-coming warriors. this makes him the de-facto leader of the rakkor military and has him co-exist with a rakkor oligarchy of elders.
pantheon's relationship with the solari and leona is uneasy and tense. childhood friends drifting apart with their own duties, and he looks at disdain with the solari's generation long crusade against the lunari. pantheon's desire is first and foremost to protect his people and those of the solari and lunari of targon.
he very often travels in search of void monsters or darkin. visions of the pantheon the aspect of war are fragmented in his mind given the way he received his powers, and he is very much on a quest to reconcile that strife within himself all the while.
i'm sure i'm forgetting more stuff but this is a number of the main, unique points of my portrayal!
" the past marches with me . "
returning roleplay blog for PANTHEON of League of Legends.
heavily canon-divergent, drawing inspiration from both new and old targon lore, as well as personal headcanons. usually para/multi-para.
written by jan, he/him, 18+.
/ edit by @chaosintact but i don't think they're around on tumblr anymore ;_;
hey all, so i have like no confidence in my writing as of late which has been making it hard to try and sit down and do things. so gonna just take a break from it for a bit. just wanted to post this as an update to people waiting on replies from me and what not.
To preface: I’m not saying this as someone who enjoys the panth x leona ship, I’m merely saying this as someone who really loved Leona as a character herself. I thought she was super cool way back before the first Targon update, and now seeing these constant rewrites and now this most recent update just made me super sad.
With that out of the way, I don’t have any strong feelings for Diana’s update since it is more or less the same as the previous iteration just rewritten to remove the elderly woman that Diana saw and also saying that she endured the ascent by thinking about Leona.
But the fact that they removed Leona’s desire to preserve innocent life entirely, first when she refused to kill during the Rite of Kor back in the day, and then with the golden goat-person, just is so mind-boggling. In doing this, they also removed another huge part of what made her unique by taking away the Rakkor tribe -> Solari readjustment and movement when the Solari priests WOULD have intervened upon the Rakkor sentencing her to death/fight to the death.
Smaller tidbits that really just made this lore even more bland is the complete removal of Atreus from her lore. Before the Targon update years ago they were both childhood friends among the Rakkor, and when Leona refused to kill she also had to deal with leaving her friend in the tribe behind. And then in the update again, Atreus and her fought to the death before there was the intervention.
Her lore reads so flat now. I’m not sure if this was a conscious choice to make things easy to follow with how many Targonian champions/aspects they’ve thrown into the mix now, but to me it felt like an INSANELY rushed piece they they’ve put out. It’s sad, really, since Leona was part of the original three of Targon who is now reduced to this.
Thick wads of purple-black liquid dripped over the rim of Pantheon’s shield and sizzled as it made contact with this skin. Pantheon grit his teeth and thrusted with his spear again and again, each piercing motion ripped into the beast’s gums and caused more streams of its blackened blood to pour out from its open mouth.
Pantheon’s shield was the only thing keeping those hundreds of jagged teeth from clamping down on him whole. The shield was wedged between the void monster’s jaw, the full weight of its biting power caused even this Targonian relic, a shield wielded by the chosen warrior of the cosmos, the aspect of war, to bend at the edges and get scratches across its surface. This great beast, wormlike in its structure, but the size of a small mountain, protruded from the sands with its body coiled and bent downward, pushing down towards Pantheon with its hungry and seemingly never-ending mouth.
It pushed and pushed against him. His shield, which had stopped its maw from snapping him up, now was both keeping him alive and pinning him in place. The sands beneath Pantheon’s sandals shifted, foot by foot, as more and more of the void-worm’s body slid out from the sand and pressed down on the lone man. Saliva and blood doused his shield arm and a majority of his torso completely. It was acidic against his skin, he could feel it burning and tingling wherever it touched.
Sweat streamed down his brow. The Shuriman sun bore down on the expansive sands with unrelenting rays of heat. Pantheon’s jaw clenched, the tendons in his neck flared from holding this beast back, veins along his arms bulged against his skin. He had to act. Every second that passed, was Pantheon giving this monster more and more ground.
He tossed his spear to the side, it tumbled across the sand. With his spear hand now freed, he planted both his hands behind his shield and he forced his legs to churn the sand beneath him. Forward, forward. A vehement roar echoed like thunder from the void monster’s throat, and Pantheon roared back in response. He bent his knees, gathered all the strength he had in his limbs, and with one great push he lunged into his shield.
The worm recoiled with the sudden force. There was a split-second window of opportunity as the worm’s mouth reared back that Pantheon seized. Pantheon rolled forward so that he was now beneath the worm’s underside. He extended his left hand outwards and behind him, and his spear flew threw the air before it collided with his palm with a satisfying thud. Then, Pantheon leapt upwards. Ten, twenty, thirty feet into the air and plunged his spear into the side of the worm’s body, dragging it downwards until a long cut poured more and more of its blackened blood across the desert sands.
Another roar ripped through the air from the beast, pain caused its entire body to shudder and shift the surrounding dunes of sand. It whipped its body left, then right, and Pantheon clung to his spear on the side of the worm’s body as it tossed and turned.
spear and shield , a pantheon . 𝛀 on : cycle of pantheon
➤ I’ve mentioned this briefly in a previous headcanon post, and a couple times in threads, but I feel it would be good to go into more detail about the cycle of Pantheons, and the memories that Atreus catches glimpses of.
When a worthy soul makes the ascent to Targon’s summit and is deemed worthy to bear the powers of the Pantheon, they become part of an ancient collective that have all bore the title of Aspect in the past.
This is why I think that Atreus has become as Pantheon such a proficient, deadly, and versatile warrior. He has an innate instinct now that he’s never had before, and that instinct comes from the Pantheon’s that came before him. Ancient weapons of the Aspects that may have been lost to wars long forgotten or taken back by the cosmos, such as swords and axes, bleeds through into Atreus’s muscles and mind.
Though, to reiterate on a previous headcanon unique to my portrayal, Atreus’s embrace of the powers of the Aspect was fragmented, so he doesn’t have a complete grasp and complete connection to the previous generations.
Drawing on this line from Pantheon’s quotes: “ The beyond can have me when I am done , ” I see the Aspect of War and the title of Pantheon itself as part of a cycle that involves life and death as well.
When a Pantheon falls in battle, their soul is taken by the heavens and becomes a part of this ancestral chain of Aspects.
Atreus may not know the full extent of his afterlife, given that his transition into Aspecthood was unique and the previous Pantheon was completely devoured by Aatrox, but he knows that for as long as he can he will serve as the spear and shield of mankind.
Humanity was pushed to the very brink. The great civilizations of Runeterra were crushed, frozen, or razed in pillars of flame. The dragons, thought to be rare and nearing extinction, turned out to be simply lying in wait for centuries. Now, their wrath swept across the land on their conquest to rid the land of its inhabitants, and become the sole species to dominate the world. Humans hid in fortified and secluded corners of the continent. To fight was to die, but to hide was to survive.
That was the case for most people, but not for a dragonslayer.
Pantheon plummeted through the air, a swan-dive from the heavens with his spear pointed directly beneath him. The air screeched in his ears, but it was dwarfed by the earth-shuddering roar from his quarry beneath him. A massive dragon, spanning nearly a hundred feet from snout to tail, breathed fire on a secluded Demacian settlement. The people fled in terror, running as fast as they could from the dragon’s flames. Then Pantheon finally made contact.
His spear drove deep into the dragon’s back. It let out a pained roar and instantly began tossing its head back and shaking its body. Pantheon reared his spear back and stabbed at it again, before he leapt off of it and planted himself between the dragon and the fleeing humans.
“ Go ! Run ! ” Pantheon shouted towards them, “ Do not turn back ! ”
In the midst of the fleeing survivors, Pantheon saw a tall woman, taller than himself, approaching. Pantheon scowled, slammed his helmet back on his head, recalled his spear to his hand, and rushed towards the massive dragon again.
' Do you have to scream at everything ? It's just a basilisk, it's not going to bite you if you stay quiet. '
“ It is not -- ” Pantheon clenched his jaw, a low growl of frustration rumbled in the back of his throat.
“ It is not the basilisk that made me shout , ” he whispered back, his voice obviously strained.
Pantheon looked down, and there, around his calf, was a large green… Thing. It was wrapped about his calf like a rope, its skin looked to be made of some leather-like material. Pantheon reached down to grab it to try and pry it off, but at his touch, he felt hundreds of tiny teeth dig into his skin around where this creature was clinging to. Pantheon couldn’t make out any distinct features of this thing, no eyes, no mouth, nor arms or a nose, it looked simply to be a massive and moss-green leech, its length was the size of Pantheon’s forearm.
He dropped to a knee and grabbed the leech between his hands again. He pulled and pulled, and with each pound of force he put into trying to pry this leech off, more teeth pierced deeper and deeper into his skin. After a handful of seconds of straining, thick trails of blood began to seep down from Pantheon’s calf and drip onto the jungle floor.
All the while, a massive snake slithered in the clearing that Qiyana and Pantheon were on the fringes of. Pantheon could hear the leaves and grass shuffling beneath its serpent-like form just a couple feet from where they were crouched.
“ Qiyana , ” Pantheon hissed as he picked up his spear, he held it so the spearhead hovered an inch above the jungle leech, “ I hate the jungle . ”
