#irelia.

[warriorforged]

MUSE AESTHETICS: XAN IRELIA, THE BLADE DANCER

We once danced in harmony with the land — until the tyrants defiled it. But when they shattered our spirit, we became sharpest at the break. 

[thegoldendemon]

@warwaged - Irelia

     Ah, the Blossom Festival.

    How many years has it been since it was moved from Zhyun?

    Navori yabak gelée is frankly tasteless compared to a proper bone broth from outside Kaijn City, but he digresses. There are lanterns everywhere to celebrate the incoming equinox, where many believe the spirits of flowering plants wake from winter’s hibernation to dance and sing and in our world, bloom. The Placidium is aglow tonight, but there are signs of concern amidst the revelry, if you care to look. As though some are bracing for something, but for what?

    Khada Jhin is here.

    “Yagami! Not a sight for sore eyes! Finally decided it’s warm enough to come out of hiding, did you?” exclaims someone who is certain Jhin knows their name and might even consider them a colleague, but on either account doesn’t. “The Blossom Festival is going to be lovely this year.”

    They are correct in that assessment, at least. Jhin says sparingly, “Of that, I have little doubt. No news from the borderlands?”

    “What can I say? The vastaya are hardened. They’ll let me paint them, true, and maybe exchange some clay pots, but that last attack by the Order of Shadows has the whole area on edge. I had arrows pointed at me just last month, you know.”

    Shame, laments Jhin. I wouldn’t have missed.

    Thankfully the not-colleague has their eyes torn away from them by the sight of a rather prodigious woman, to who they then depart from Jhin with a pat on the back—he disguises his disgust at having been touched excellently—to heckle, hopefully for the rest of the evening. He’s left with a bottle of Ionian spirits the label of which he doesn’t care to read before having told a lantern lighter to keep it as he trudges onward to the Meeting of Winds.

    He’s not here for any of these people, after all. He’s here for her. The Captain of the Guard.

    Xan Irelia.

    The Golden Demon appears to have become something of a renewed talking point in peacetime Ionia, much to Jhin’s amusement. His benefactors have helpfully informed him that they have heard that conventions on the matter of himself are now going all the way to the Placidium, the Guard included. Though Ionia has greatly changed since what it was before Noxus, the failings of polite society are eternal—if the Golden Demon won’t work in their image of Ionia, then he must be dealt with. Potentially permanently.

    Oh, but Khada Jhin’s just shaking in his boots.

    That’s the problem with these pompadours and politicians. Jhin accepts his benefactors because they engender chaos, and chaos engenders drama. Art cannot exist without drama. If the Brotherhood had their way, they’d use Jhin as a cudgel against their enemies until he was done with the task, because Jhin never leaves a good work unfinished. Then they’d seek to dispose of him before anyone would know the truth of who might consort with the Golden Demon so willingly. Tripe!

    Then again, they must have rather smart when he had sent their messenger back to them with more heads than legs.

    Jhin is at the Meeting of Winds now and he spots her, speaking to another guardsman before the latter is sent off. If it’s true that the Captain of the Guard has agreed to try and find the Golden Demon for the Placidium court, then far be it from Khada Jhin to not give her the show of a lifetime.

    He smiles.

    “Xan Irelia,” greets Jhin, stopping to the side of her. “Yagami Hiro. You may remember me when the court had me paint the inside murals. You were much to busy for a chat, I recall. Busy work ahead of you still?” He indicates the leaving guardsman, before slipping his hand into his tunic.

    Inside, silver. Rife for a blade. But there’s no need for that, just yet.

    “Dealing with the court on a daily basis must be excruciating. I could never. Had enough trouble dealing with their unwanted ‘suggestions’ behind my back while I was working then. I wasn’t able to ask—did you enjoy the mural?”

    It was all faces.

    “Despite all the bothering, I do think highly of it.”

[snipedshot]

❝ they were all good people…my people. ❞

“ i’m terribly sorry for your loss. your country’s loss. “

features softened briefly at the exchange. such vulnerability deserved care as the sheriff closed in. intent on comforting the other, a hand briefly brushed the other’s before she clasped it in both.

“ perhaps you’d allow me the privilege of showing you our fair city given that you are a visitor? i can’t promise that it will take your worries away but we have sights worth seeing. “

[forhunting]

⭐️

she’s stumbled across the blade dancer in a moment of privacy. a dance far contrasting the appearance of a warrior cutting down foes. granted she remained undiscovered, she has yet to question the other about what she was witness to.