Noxus smelt of ambition and hot metal. An acrid fragrance that clung to the back of the throat and promised power to those with the strength to take it, and oblivion to those without. We had arrived in Knot Klage nearly three months ago, the blink of an eye for me, but a lifetime for the mortals who teemed in the streets of dark stone and rusted iron.
Azra'il had chosen our home with surgical precision: a small space at the back of a tenement building in the Foundries District, a place of people forgotten by the empire, yet essential to its war machine. They were blacksmiths, miners, dockworkers, and common foot soldiers. They were the cogs that moved the Noxian spear, and as such, they were the ones who most often broke.
Our apothecary, 'The Shadow and the Willow', was little more than a door and a counter, but it had become a sanctuary. Fame, as it always does with things that try to hide, found us.
It began as a whisper. With a subtle veil of magic to hide my most obviously celestial features, the points of my ears, the outline of the wings bound beneath my robes, I had settled in Knot Klage. I could have blended in perfectly with the city's diverse crowd, but I chose not to.
I adopted the dark cloak and the hood that partially covered my face, not out of a need to hide, but to create an aura, a persona. Noxians respect strength, and mystery, I discovered, is a form of strength. They called me, in whispers, the 'Shadow Healer', a woman from a distant land. And my empathy, I sensed, was an even greater anomaly than any celestial trait in a city built on ruthlessness.
I tended to the soot-laden coughs of the miners, the deep burns of the blacksmiths, and the infected wounds of legionaries who could not afford the garrison's arrogant physician. I was the medic, the one who understood the language of pain in its many dialects.
But Azra'il… she was the alchemist, the miracle worker. I was the one who knew what Demacian Iron-root did for bones. She was the one who, with an expression of profound boredom, would take my knowledge and elevate it to an art I barely recognised. "If we grind it and calcine it with moon-silver dust," she would say, her voice clinical, "the essence won't just strengthen bones, it will accelerate their regeneration on a cellular level." And thus, a peasant's remedy became something close to a miracle. She called her creations 'pills'. Perfect little spheres of concentrated power that made my most potent potions look like herbal teas.
My true work, however, began when the sun set. I would go to The Slum, the fetid alleys where the indigent and the forgotten huddled, swept under the rug of Noxian glory. There, I found pain in its purest form, illnesses the imperial physicians deemed incurable simply because the poor were not worth the cost of curing.
Azra'il did not approve. Her concern wasn't for my safety; she knew, as I did, that worldly diseases could not touch me. Her concern was for our bottom line.
"You're going to The Slum again?" she asked me one night, her tone that of an accountant who's discovered a discrepancy in the books. She pointed to the vial in my hand. "And you're taking the 'Marrow Renewal Pills'? Morgana, I used three Shuriman Sun-roots to make ten of those. And the Sun-root only grows on a specific cliff that the merchant charged us an arm and a leg for. You are, quite literally, handing out gold to people who can't even pay you with a copper piece."
"They need it more than we do, Azra'il," I replied, placing the vial in my pouch.
"And we need to pay the rent!" she retorted, exasperated. "This is a business, not a charity. Our mission here is to gain influence to reach the capital, not to cure the endemic poverty of the entire Noxian empire. You're running us at a loss!"
I stopped and turned to her. "No, Azra'il. *My* mission is to help. *Your* mission is to get to the capital."
She crossed her arms, defeated but still pragmatic. "Fine. But next time, use the 'Basic Fortification Pills'. They're made with cheap, local herbs. The return on investment is still dreadful, but at least the loss margin is smaller."
This was our dance. My compassion and her logic. And it was from the whispers of The Slum that our fame rose, a rumour of miracles born in the shadows. And it was these whispers that, one day, brought power to our door.
He was a Trifarian. I knew it before he even took off his helm. The posture, the impeccable armour of black and red steel, the deadly confidence in his eyes. His presence in our humble apothecary was as out of place as an Ionian rose on a battlefield. The other customers shuffled away, intimidated, as if the very air around him were the property of the empire.
He hadn't come for himself. "I seek the Shadow Healer," he said, his voice low and precise. "My commander, Legacy-Commander Vorlag. He is… unwell."
I felt the hesitation in his words. A Noxian commander's illness was a weakness not to be admitted.
"No legion physician has found the cause," he continued, frustration in his voice. "He does not sleep. When he does, he screams. He says a shadow haunts his quarters. He was once the strongest warrior I knew. Now… he is afraid of the dark." He lowered his voice even further. "The men… the ones you helped in The Slum… they whisper that you perform miracles."
"We don't perform miracles," I replied. "We only clean the wounds others cannot see."
We were escorted to the elite barracks. The change in scenery was jarring. We left the streets of mud and coal for a world of polished stone, silk banners, and the oppressive silence of military discipline. I felt like a stranger, a shadow in a place that prided itself on its glaring light.
Commander Vorlag was a mountain of a man, his body a canvas of scars that told tales of a hundred battles. But his eyes… his eyes were those of a child lost in a dark forest. There was a terror there that no sword could touch.
I approached and touched him on the shoulder. And I felt it. It was not a sickness. It was not a simple curse. It was a spiritual wound, deep and festering. A living echo, full of pain and rage, that clung to his soul like a venomous vine. And it smelt of magic I knew all too well, from a time when my sister and I were but goddess-girls dreaming of justice. It smelt of Ionia.
Azra'il, who had remained silent as my 'apprentice', was observing the commander with her impossible blue eyes. "Low-level parasitic spiritual possession," she declared with the certainty of one reading from a textbook. "Resulting in stagnation of the Heart-Qi and contamination of the Sea of Consciousness. Standard treatment would require a Spirit-Purifying Pill and the realignment of his mental meridians. We need ingredients that cleanse energy, not just calm the nerves."
The soldier stared at us as if we were speaking a lost language. But Vorlag, the commander, seemed to understand. My eyes met his, and I saw a silent plea.
I guided him to a chair. "Tell me," I said softly. "Tell me about Ionia."
And he told me. His voice, at first a hoarse whisper, spoke of one of the countless invasions of Ionia, of the burning of the forests. And of a specific order. A sanctuary, protected by nature spirits, had to be destroyed. He gave the order for his battlemages to use a chemical weapon, Zaunite chem-fire. He described the green flames, the way the trees screamed, how the forest's magic twisted in agony before it died. And he spoke of the Moonlight Lady, the guardian spirit of the sanctuary, and how she had bound herself to him in her final breath.
"I see her in my dreams," he whispered. "She doesn't attack me. She just… weeps. And her pain… has become mine."
I understood. The shadow that followed him was the pain of Ionia, incarnate.
"We will need Ionian Moon-petal for the base," I said to Azra'il, already planning the remedy. "And Demacian Sleep-thistle, to soothe the connection without severing it."
Azra'il nodded, her mind already working on another frequency. "One soothes, the other is the source of the poison. The principle of harmony through opposition. Logical."
We returned to our apothecary. We worked in silence, a dance of shared knowledge. I selected and prepared the herbs, feeling their essences. Azra'il took the extracts and, with her precise alchemy, transformed them into a single, pearlescent white pill that seemed to glow with its own light. The 'Pill of the Silent Garden'.
The ritual was performed at night, in the commander's quarters, with only the loyal Trifarian soldier as a guard. First, Azra'il administered the pill. "This will purify your body," she explained to Vorlag. "It will cut the physical anchor the spirit is using to bind itself to you."
Then, it was my turn. I placed my hands on the commander's head. I closed my eyes and delved into his mind. I found the Moonlight Lady, a figure of pale light and infinite sorrow, coiled around his heart like a root. I did not confront her. I spoke to her, in the language of pain we both knew. I showed her that her gaoler was suffering as much as she, that her vengeance was becoming her prison. I offered her peace, a path back to what remained of her forest. Azra'il, on the outside, maintained a circle of containment runes, ensuring the released energy would not consume us.
I felt the spirit hesitate, and then, let go. Vorlag sighed, a deep, shuddering sound, and for the first time in months, he fell into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning, Vorlag was a different man. The shadow in his eyes was gone, replaced by a steely calm. Decius, his loyal Trifarian soldier, did not know how to thank us. He offered a heavy pouch of imperial coins, enough for us to live comfortably for a year.
I refused with a gesture. "We do not heal for gold," I said, and I felt the sincerity in my own words.
Azra'il, however, stepped forward, her eyes fixed on Decius, not with greed, but with a cold calculation that made me hold my breath. "Gold is temporary," she said, her voice surprisingly mature. "Debts of honour, however, have a more… lasting value."
Decius put the pouch away, the respect in his eyes deepening. He understood this was not a refusal, but the beginning of a true negotiation. In Noxus, to be indebted was a stain on one's honour, especially for a Trifarian. "What do you ask, then? Commander Vorlag's word and the blade of the Third Legion are at your disposal."
"We don't want blades," Azra'il continued, her tone practical and direct. "We want a path. We are outsiders with useful skills. But in Knot Klage, skill without patronage is an invitation to danger. We heal foot soldiers and labourers, but the doors that matter, the ears that hear the empire's secrets, remain closed to us."
She paused, the request clear and unthreatening. "A debt is paid with an equivalent favour. We want your word. Your recommendation. When you hear of an officer with a wound that will not heal, of a quartermaster with shattered nerves, or a noble with a… delicate family problem, we want the name of our apothecary to be the first one whispered in their ear. We want the clients no one else can help."
The brilliance of the request struck me. She wasn't asking for a reward. She was asking for an investment in our reputation, forged by the honour of one of Noxus's most respected legions.
Decius smiled, a thin, Noxian smile, appreciating the shrewdness of the move. "You don't want gold. You want influence. That, I understand. It is a far more valuable currency."
He considered for a long moment. "The commander cannot be your direct patron. But…" he continued, his voice low and conspiratorial, "…his gratitude can be expressed in other ways. He will ensure your reputation reaches the right circles. But for a first contact, you will need a more discreet door."
He wrote an address on a scrap of parchment. "Lady Amoline Vorth. A minor noblewoman, a recluse and a collector of 'curiosities'. She suffers from a lung ailment that no imperial physician has been able to alleviate. The seal of the Third Legion," he said, handing us a heavy iron ring, "will grant you an audience. The rest… will depend on the efficacy of your pills."
He made to leave. "The Legacy-Commander's debt of honour is paid with this opportunity and with our ongoing protection," he declared, formally. "Use it wisely." With that, he was gone.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
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What did you think of the new business Azra'il and Morgana set up in Noxus? Did you expect them to open a medicine apothecary?