Irelia Short Story: "A Step in the Right Direction" (fan)

##Hi! I'd love some feedback on it on a short story I wrote about our favorite Blade Dancer. The timeline might not fit with cannon, the Noxian invasion's history is a bit jumbled and hard to discern (which makes sense given the trauma it caused), but I can easily fix that. This story does reference both a bit of Irelia's backstory and her color story, but it should be mostly standalone. Also the formatting is off because of boards, sorry. Thanks for clicking! Feel free to comment with any issues you have!

#A Step in the Right Direction

    The rhythm of the night was not in sync with Irelia. Her sleep had been irregular for the past moon, and she had come to accept the daily sunrise as an end to her foolish attempt at rest. Every night, the stars seemed to urge her to stay awake just a little bit longer. The campsite no longer felt welcome, with the people’s expectations leaving Irelia gasping for air. Her mind confused the calls of nearby drunks for battle cries, and twisted the sound of the soft breeze into the vibrations of war drums, causing her to jump to a defensive stance, her blades tumbling into the air, out of their leather carrying satchel. 

Tonight, it was not nearby drinkers or the wind that kept her awake. It was a mysterious voice, a familiar voice that, although quiet and fragile, carried through the wind with strength. *Who is that?* She thought, *more devotees of the Brotherhood, conversing in the nearby woods?* Or maybe it was just refugees, attracted by the pillars of smoke and the smells of fresh food emanating from the camp. She held her breath, hoping to discern more of the mysterious voice. After a couple of seconds, it’s sing-songy tone materialised once again.

“Step one, two, three, and four. Breathe. In through your nose, child. Now try again, step one, two…” the voice trailed off again. Irelia, still deep in a stupor of insomnia, recognized the words, the tone, the way syllables meshed into one another, weaving an intricate song of pitch and lyric. Irelia finally released her breath,

“O-ma?”

No response. She ducked her head under and out of her tent, blades levitating behind her like a loose thread.

“O-ma?” She repeated. “O-ma is that you?”

As her eyes adjusted to the dim glow of nearby fires, she turned to the forest, holding her breath again, hoping to catch another word on the wind.

“Yes! Perfect, my I-Gai, one day you will dance for all of Ionia… Yes, dear, I know, I know, and they will all watch and cheer,” the voice said, words drifting through the breeze like morning fog.

Irelia sighed. It was gone again. She must be going crazy, she thought, she couldn’t possibly believe the voice of her O-ma would dare dance over these blood-stained lands. Her exhaustion was playing tricks on her, or maybe she had too much ale with supper. Old Teacher Raig was not known for a light brew. Nevertheless, after another pause, Irelia resolved to go back into her tent. As she turned to reach for the ruff canvas, she spotted a glowing figure out of her right eye, sitting on a wooden bench at the edge of the campsite, next to a dying fire.

“Yes,” Irelia whispered. “It must have been the ale.”

Despite her doubts, she decided to humor the hallucination, walking across the clearing to the abandoned common area. As she approached it, the apparition turned to face her. O-ma’s round, caring face rested on a woven prayer shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her right hand braced against the outline of a wooden cane, and although her eyes were no longer tangible, they glinted from the light of the dim embers that were nestled in the nearby fire pit.

“Sit, Xan Irelia,” O-ma said, her translucent form greeting Irelia with a warm, but stern smile.

Irelia couldn’t find any words, as a tear formed in the corned of her eye. O-ma patted the empty space on the log next to her,

“You look tired. Come,” O-ma continued. “but you can leave those.”

Her frail hand gestured towards the blades hovering like a tail below Irelia’s hips. Irelia acquiesced, lowering the shards to the damp grass, and sat next to her grandmother.

“Your eyes, Irey, they are darkened with burden,” O-ma remarked. “Why?”

Irelia’s posture sagged a little, her knees leaning into one-another.

“I have done terrible things, O-ma, I have stained these lands with the blood of others. The people here, they look up to me. They expect me to lead them into more war and more blood and more pain. I know someone needs to, but I don’t want them to be me. I don’t want to disappoint you any more than I already have.”

O-ma sighed, “You are my granddaughter, my little sakura dancer. You have always had angry feet, and that is what made you so special. You could never disappoint me.”

Irelia tensed her muscles with frustration, the blades nearby beginning to vibrate in irregular rhythms.

“But that shouldn’t change how I-,”

“Ah, ah ah. No, “ O-ma interjected. “What did I always tell you to do when you were angry or sad? Dance. Dance away, because the weight of your burdens means nothing when your feet are as light as air. Do you remember that? When was the last time you danced, Irey?”

Irelia looked down, shaking her head as she wracked her memories for more. “I…” she said, “I can’t remember… Maybe during the celebration of our victory at Dalu. I had a lot of wine that night, I must have gotten out my silks at least once. Yes. I remember now, I did.”

O-ma, despite her previous promises, seemed disappointed.

“When was that?” she asked.

“Well, that was just a bit after the last noxian ship left Ionia, so, three years,” Irelia murmured.

“Three years,” O-ma whispered incredulessly. “Irey, Irey, Irey. That is much too long. Much, much, much too long to go without it… Did it feel good then? To dance?”

Irelia thought for a moment. “No…” She said, “I was drunk, afraid and… guilty. My steps felt heavy. Moving through the air was like swimming in molasses. It’s as if the war and my vengeance on Noxus were the only things keeping me from thinking about what I had done. Once it was over, I was drowning.”

O-ma seemed tired now as well. Her deep eyes searched for something to focus on.

“Did I not teach you the ways of silk dance for your entire childhood?” She asked.

“Yes, of course O-ma.”

“Did I not send you to the placidium to learn more, from the very people responsible for keeping the tradition alive?”

“Yes, O-ma.”

“Why refuse these gifts, Gai Irey?” O-ma asked.

Irelia lashed out, standing up, blades surging to her shoulders at odd angles,

“Because I don’t deserve them, O-ma!”

The old woman closed her eyes, and took a deep, deep breath, “Of course you do. What happened in the war does not trouble me. Your ancestors will never abandon you, and you will never abandon your roots.”

Irelia realised her wrongs and dropped to her knees, blades following her to the grass, resting on the dark soil around her.

“I’m sorry. I forgot, I did abandon dance. Ever since I left you, I’ve been scared to do it alone. Please forgive me,” Irelia pleaded.

O-ma brought her luminescent fingers to the side of her granddaughter’s face, wiping away the tears.

“You did not forget. Get up, girl, you just need a refresher course,” O-ma commanded, heaving her frail body off of the bench.

“What?” Irelia said, confused and reassured by her grandmother’s request. After a moment, she complied, once again rising to her feet.

“We will start with the first dance I ever taught you, the moon rise dance,” O-ma said, gesturing for Irelia to step farther into the open field.

“But I don’t have my silks, how can I-” Irelia said, before being interrupted her grandmother’s finger pressing against her lips.

“Ah, you will not need those tonight,” O-ma declared. With one swift movement of her arm, she willed a piece of energy around both of Irelia’s hands. “Now, step to your left, one, two, three and four…” O-ma willed, her voice beating a rhythm like a drum.

Irelia followed her commands with ease, remembering the times she struggled to keep her silks in the air as a young girl. As she skipped to her left, the energy connected to her hands extended out, creating flowing silks made of energy, flying behind her as she danced.

“Spin, step to the right, two, three and four. Now twirl and bring your hands high then low,” O-ma continued, chuckling as she too remembered the girl’s first encounter with silk dance.

As Irelia kept dancing, more memories flooded her conscious. Like the time she accidentally tripped herself with her own silk.

‘Do not force the silk to follow you,’ her O-ma had told her as she lay crying on the ground, ‘dance and they will follow, whether you like it or not.’

“There you go, that’s my Irelia!” O-ma cheered her on, like she always had.

O-ma had stopped her commands, but Irelia kept dancing, circling the smoldering embers of the fire pit with elegant, seamless spins and jumps. As she continued, she felt a rip within her mend, bringing two parts of her identity together. Eyes closed, Joy filled her feet as she leapt across the clearing, feet grasing the dew-covered grass beneath her.

But suddenly, as she flew through the air, she heard something out of the ordinary. The sound of metal on metal, clanging through the quiet night. She hit the ground, the weight of her body leaving impressions on the dirt beneath her feet. Opening her eyes, she saw that, without realising it, she had commanded her blades to dance with her, following her silks as they arced through the cold air.

At the moment of realization, the shards fell to the ground. Irelia, joy once again drained from her eyes, lowered herself to the ground, surrounded by her lifeless blades, and nestling her head between her knees.

“Irelia. You were dancing a dance of freedom. You were beautiful, what is wrong?” said O-ma, creeping up behind her granddaughter and lowering her hand to grasp her shoulder. Irelia kept her face hidden, wiping away silent tears.

“I can’t escape what I’ve done. I can’t…”Irelia said, sniffling.

“What, I-Gai?” O-ma asked.

“The blades follow me. They’re just reminders of all of the horrible things I’ve done. They are covered in invisible blood, from all of the people I ruined, from every time I let a drop of blood stain these lands,” Irelia whispered.

O-ma knelt down, and smiled, running her bony fingers through Irelia’s hair. She leaned into her ear, “You are just like your father. You are speaking only of the blood of those who you protected yourself from. Your blades may be covered in invisible blood, but you too are covered in many invisible scars. I see them, they glow on your skin like tattoos.”

Irelia looked up from the ground, and into O-ma’s eyes. As O-ma spoke, she began gathering each blade from the ground in her hands, one by one.

“I have always worried about you, but not about what you have done, about what they have done to you… We are all a little broken,” O-ma gestured to the blades in her hand. “like these shards, what makes us beautiful is how we put the broken pieces back together.”

O-ma extended her hands towards Irelia, offering the blades back to her. Irelia hesitated, but begrudgingly took them in her arms.

O-ma smiled, “You are no longer the granddaughter that I raised, but that is okay. You are the blade dancer, one of a kind. That is what makes you beautiful, and we could not be prouder of you, Xan Irelia.”

O-ma’s last words resonated on the wind as her silhouette faded away, leaving Irelia alone with her stained blades, glinting from the pale glow from the dying embers beside them.