[Lore-friendly Jhin backstory] The Imitator.
Author's comment: Hello there. First of all I want to thank you for your time. Second, I apologize if there is any grammatical error, English is not my native language. Finally, this is a translation with few changes that I worked on last night of a story that I did myself and published in the LAS forums a few months ago with a smurf account, since that I always wanted to publish in NA forums, so here I am. I hope not to break any rules. Thank you.
** PROLOGUE: **
When Koota Deijhinse was still a child, he used to love to hear the stories his father related to him about the ancient region that was once his home. The little Piltovian dreamed about the magic and spiritualism of that far continent called Ionia. Koota was the son of a famous Hextech prosthesis artisan who always caught the attention of Piltover's rich families for his eccentric creations with beautiful Ionian details, and who years before married the daughter of a prominent merchant family, Koota's mother.
Of all the stories his father told, his favorite was the fourth story he could only hear once a night with his mother, with an intense atmosphere of truth that would forever fascinate Koota's imagination; The Story of the Golden Demon. His father then narrated that the story took place in the ancient province where he lived, Zhyun, and this tale revolved about the massacre caused by an evil entity unknown throughout the province. He related how many self-proclaimed heroes tried to stop it, but they were always murdered in such grotesque and indescribable ways that when the tale ended, his mother was irremediably displeased.
From his captivated imagination arose a special obsession, with the conviction that the story hidden more than legends, a certain day he searched through his father's stuff to find anything that could link to the tale. What he found fascinated him even more: A detailed Ionian canvas painted with the representation of a young man with familiar facial features, and another man who appeared to be the same age, holding in their hands their beautiful inventions, a mechanical arm and a mask, and beneath them could be awkwardly read in an Ionian poorly practiced by Koota: "The Golden Artisans".
** CHAPTER I: **
The evidently fatigued man finally descended from the merchant ship sailed from the ports of Piltover. Koota knew that adulthood was just beginning, but a long journey deserved a good rest once finished. He found himself in Raikkon port, finally on his fantasy mainland. He carried few luggage, but enough money to subsist the first months of his investigation.
Everything he saw enchanted him, from the fine dresses of peculiar-looking beautiful women until the simplest buildings of the area. The air he inspired evoked a certain peace, spirituality and mystery. Koota put his own polished Ionian language in action, learned from teachers he hired during his years at Piltover.
"Could you sir please tell me where can I host?"
Koota asked with extreme courtesy. A man with a particularly piglike face looked at him for a second before laughing loudly:
"I only know the port seats and my bed at home, if you want to know where to stay at night ask around the town" - He paused - "And don't be so formal or you'll end up with nothing left in your pockets".
After all the seamen and adventurers from Piltover as well as the infamous Bilgewater arrived in Raikkon.
Koota decided to explore the town streets. His eyes were filled with the Ionian art found in each corner of the place, he also recognized certain figures and designs that his father incorporated into his creations. Although he lived his childhood in Piltover, he felt a strong connection with the whole place.
**CHAPTER II: **
A few months passed since Koota arrived in Raikkon, almost four months in which he had established himself in a modest lodging and while investigating he began to work as an artisan merchant of Piltovian small gadgets that attracted the locals' interest. After all, he had inherited the talent for artwork from his father, and the business skills from his modest mother.
During this time Koota discreetly investigated everything he could find about the Golden Demon. Occasionally his questions caused glances of uncertainty, sometimes of contempt, but he always justified himself by saying that he was just asking for one of many other Ionian legends that he wanted to include in the supposed book he was preparing to publish in his homeland. It was a lie, of course, Koota was trying to learn all about the Golden Demon, and every day that he spent there he felt more and more admiration for this mysterious figure.
Suddenly, the room where he was lodging was empty. The proprietor discovered a note on the bedside, finely written by a very delicate and skillful hand, which read in Ionian: " I appreciate the hospitality, I appreciate the attention, I appreciate the delicious meals, I sincerely appreciate your service".
It took four weeks until Koota arrived at Zhyunia in a merchant caravan crossing through the mountains of the region, in his mind he imagined and detailed everything he learned about the Golden Demon. For Koota, to manifest his great admiration for the Golden Demon, who considered himself an artist, there was no greater way than to make a tribute to him.
**CHAPTER III: **
Very few people recognized the technique implemented in his art the first time he executed his performance. For years people had not talked about everything happened in that province decades ago, nearly as a permanent censorship. Maybe because they were traumatized, perhaps because they were terrified, or they were sickened by remembering what happened. This situation was ideal to make his debut with no major disturbance. Throughout his whole performance he could only reflect his admiration for the original artist.
His first performance was consummated by the disappearance of four members of a poor fisherman's family from the port of Zhyunia, who four days earlier had bought kitchen utensils at an incredibly cheap price from a young merchant who was camping in a merchant caravan from Raikkon. The skilled artist, with botanical knowledge, was able to create a highly discreet narcotic that would facilitate his first act.
His second performance took place four weeks later, when the artist requested four elderly women with very peculiar faces walking on a hill outside the town. For four hours the artist quietly followed these old ladies, for four minutes the artist contemplated how each woman disappeared through the forest in a desperate flight, for four seconds he experienced his own performance as he gently caressed each of his co-star's throats with the edge of his blades, before moving on to the next scene and finally closing the curtains with his exit from the scene. For a second time, the artist had resorted to old routines that once belonged to another artist, his inspiration, his divine being of admiration, the Golden Demon.
His third performance resulted more chaotic than the previous one, as he had taken the next step by performing on different stages on the same night. His co-protagonists were no longer a family, nor elderly women anymore, this time it was four guards in different locations of the town who appeared in representation of the art he was performing. Although he considered himself as a dignified artist paying tribute to the Golden Demon, he knew he still had much to improve,
and during the nights before going to sleep, going over the details of each one of his performances, he knew that he missed something. He didn't know if it was the scenography, he didn't know if it was the painting, he didn't know if it was his implements or if it was himself. For this reason, he spent four more months producing his fourth performance.
**CHAPTER IV: **
Koota watched himself in the curious mirror with musical box and piltovian details that he had finished, this time he tried to do something different. The mirror was partially modified to reflect a slightly amorphous version of the image. He felt more anxious these days, suffocated by the loose clothes he wore. Despite his discomfort, he never ceased to be kind and excessively cordial and polite to the people who bought his handcrafts. When he opened his store, the mirror he just created was placed a step behind all his artifacts for selling, to disguise the perfect imperfection he had consciously made from the eyes of his clients.
Among the multitude that always congregated in his modest store, a man wanted to buy his latest creation notwithstanding the obvious imperfection it was having. Koota holding the appearances and dissimulating the intrigue that caused the man agreed to the transaction without unnecessarily prolonging it. Once his day's work was completed, Koota thought about the man again. Certainly something disconcerted him. There was something that seemed familiar to him but he couldn't even think about what. In spite of this, he felt his heart racing as he projected in his mind the idea of discovering the co-star for his fourth performance.
Four days later Koota already knew where the man lived. About four times he had already been crossed through a passage in the direction of the most distant lodging in the town. Koota learned that the man was visiting the place because he had never seen him around before. He was sure then, that same evening he would set the stage.
And so he did. During the fourth hour of the new day, under the mist of darkness, the artist quietly walked covered in a simple leather hood, dark enough to hide his face from any incautious look.
He made his entry to the lodge through the back door, passing a large, dark, and quiet corridor. "A perfect stage" echoed in his mind, there were no signs of secondary actors that could obstruct the magnificence of his masterpiece. As he advanced under the veil of darkness, he heard in the last room of the scene the familiar music played by the artifact he sold to the man. Never crossed his mind to stop and verify the other rooms leading toward the corridor, because his accelerated pulse and the sensation of suffocation that had accompanied him for days stopped. He was about to carry out his masterpiece. Koota opened the door.
A tenuous candlelight revealed a dark amorphous figure. Koota heard attentively the asphyxiated breath projected by the figure, he strangely felt peace, the rhythm of his beats had become coordinated with that breath. Koota forced his sight to see the abomination in front of him.
The room had candles meticulously arranged around it, Koota could count about four feet between each one. The abomination facing him moved awkwardly as the tenuous light illuminated what Koota thought would be its face.
"Do you know the greatest insult an artist must tolerate?"
The abominable figure finally said, in a profound and serene voice.
"Imitators."
It sentenced. Koota opened his eyes in surprise. Was it him? Was it the Golden Demon? Was it the fountain of his inspiration?
"I realized my old self in the first performance."
The abomination talked again while his breathing became more energetic, a hint of anger impacted the intonation of those words. Koota was suddenly blinded, and felt the heat. That strange heating did not come from fear, no. Koota was already on the ground with his right leg decorated with beautiful Ionian cherry petals. The Golden Demon spoke peacefully again:
"Then I found another two performance, looking at the technique, visualizing the details, feeling repugnance for each brushstroke precisely the same as mine old self only to find that a vulgar imitator was stealing my performance."
"I am not an imitator"
Koota refuted serenely.
"I have appreciated your performance since I was a child, since I heard your story from my father's lips, I came from Piltover..."
From his stomach and left arm emerged beautiful ornaments, this time branches from his body flowered with delicate blossoms at the end of each of them.
"You admire an incomplete art! I..."
The Golden Demon breathed deeply and serenely to continue:
"I have risen."
Koota understood those words as a secret intimately shared between two art scholars. At that moment he discovered what he always needed: to elevate himself, to become perfect, everything he had achieved was perfect, but being perfect was not enough, it wasn't enough to reach the perfection of the Golden Demon technique. A truly valuable tribute would have been more perfect than anything the Golden Demon had ever done. Koota was truly sick of himself.
The Golden Demon contemplated Koota's deep reflection and approached him. Koota contemplated how the Golden Demon limped, he contempled, as he raised his sight, a prosthetic arm whose figure he immediately recognized, it was the one his father was holding on that canvas seen during his childhood. The Golden Demon contemplated Koota's expression of surprise through his mask.
"Your arm was made by my father"
Said Koota while raising his sight until he reached the face of the Golden Demon.
"And that mask belonged to the other man who stood with him, the Golden Artisans"
The Golden Demon remained in silence for exactly four seconds before he spoke.
"Tell me your name”.
The Golden Demon demanded, and Koota replied:
"By my father’s will, my name is Koota Deijhinse."
A final light shined into the room that night, and the curtain of the imitator's final performance finally fell.
**EPILOGUE: **
The ship almost sails at noon in direction to Piltover, and an elderly merchant called Orfei who returns to his homeland with his pockets filled is boarding just behind a squalid pale man while thinking distractedly about how to expand his enterprise. He accidentally hits the partially translucid cloth bag the man was carrying on his back, and suddenly he seems to see a mask through the cloth. Orfei looks at it for a few moments with the feeling of have seen it somewhere. He does not give it any more importance and continues to the room assigned to him.
As the ship is sailing away over the horizon, a poster is loosened from one of the pillars of the port and flies to the air's rhythm, a wanted poster with the face of that abomination stamped on it, the mask of the Golden Demon.
https://i.imgur.com/zUZuHC2.jpg)]
