Morgana - POV
I am a creature of long stays and quiet departures. In my life, which has now lasted longer than many mortal empires, I have learned that attachment is the root of all pain. To love a forest is to watch helplessly as it turns to ash. To love a mortal is to carry the ghost of their absence for millennia. This is a lesson I carry in my very soul. And that is why Azra'il intrigues me so.
She is young, her body still blossoming with youth, but her soul… her soul seems to carry the weight of an eternity that does not belong to it. I feel in her the weariness of a traveller who has already walked a thousand roads, the resignation of one who has already said goodbye countless times. And so, I see her as a warped mirror of myself. We both, in different ways, seem destined to be passers-by in this world. We do not set down permanent roots; we plant seeds and move on.
'The Last Cup' was always a seed. From the very first day, I knew this haven on the bridge, this small miracle of wood and tea, would have an expiration date for us. Two, perhaps three years, until the outside world intruded too much, or until the restless soul I feel in Azra'il simply needed a new sky. But this seed, unlike so many others, had become something more. It had sprouted, sunk roots into the cracks between two broken cities, and had become a small oak in a desert of stone. To let it die when we left did not seem like justice. It seemed cruel.
And justice, even in its most compassionate and stubborn form, requires a plan.
Therefore, the training began. Not with formal announcements or scheduled lessons, but in stolen moments between the chaos of the everyday. We began to prune and nurture our four stubborn saplings, preparing them not to be our employees, but to become the future guardians of the garden.
Azra'il's approach, as always, was that of a harsh frost that forces a plant to either strengthen or die. She focused on Kaeli and Eddie, the pair of raw talent and opposing temperaments.
Kaeli, our Ionian Vastayan, was a gift of nature. Her palate and sense of smell were instruments of divine precision, able to identify the origin of a tea leaf from the whisper of its aroma, or the sorrow of a spice harvest from the bitter taste of a Shuriman drought. But her gift came with an equally divine arrogance. To her, a customer who added milk to a rare Twilight Lotus infusion was not just making a mistake; they were committing a sacrilege.
I saw her one day, watching from a distance as a wealthy Piltovan merchant tipped three cubes of sugar into one of her delicate blends. The contempt on Kaeli's face was so palpable it nearly soured the tea. She was about to march to the table and likely deliver a sermon on the desecration of her art. Before she could, Azra'il intercepted her, blocking her path with a pot of hot water.
"What do you think you're doing?" Azra'il's voice was dangerously calm.
"That barbarian," Kaeli hissed. "He is ruining the brew. It's an insult!"
"No. He is enjoying the brew," Azra'il corrected. "His way. Ignorant and far too sweet, perhaps, but his way nonetheless. Your job here is not to be the judge of good taste. It is to be a host." Azra'il then nudged her towards the kitchen, where Eddie was panicking over a new recipe for a honey-lavender cake that, according to him, "didn't have the right balance".
"Eddie has spoiled the cake. You think that merchant has spoiled the tea," Azra'il said, placing them side by side. "Good. Her gift," she pointed to Kaeli, "can tell you exactly which note of lavender is missing. And his passion," she pointed to Eddie, "can remind you that we serve people, not abstract palates. Your gift is useless if it is only used to judge. It only becomes valuable when it is used to guide, to fix. Now, fix the cake. Together."
I watched them from the kitchen doorway, Kaeli at first reluctant, then sniffing the batter with a fierce concentration, and Eddie, listening to her instructions with the reverence of one receiving a sacred teaching. Azra'il wasn't just teaching. She was forging a tool from two incompatible parts.
With Eddie, her method was even more brutally direct. He was the opposite of Kaeli: all the raw talent in the world, but with the confidence of a blancmange in an earthquake. His passion for baking was pure and radiant, but his fear of failure was so great that he would sabotage himself before he even began. He sought perfection in every gesture, and the slightest mistake made him crumble.
One morning, he brought me a batch of madeleines, his brow furrowed with anxiety. "They're… a little lopsided, Mistress Morgana. The heat from the oven didn't distribute evenly. I think I should throw them out and start again."
Before I could reply, Azra'il swept past us, grabbed one of the 'imperfect' madeleines, took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, and tossed it in the bin.
"Dreadful," she declared. Eddie's face fell. "The texture is slightly grainy, and the sweetness is one percentage point above the ideal." She stared at him, her eyes cold. "Make five more batches exactly like this. And don't you dare throw them away. I want to see fifty lopsided, grainy madeleines on my table by the end of the day. When you stop trembling over one small mistake, when you accept that perfection is a myth for fools, perhaps a good cake will finally come from your hands by accident."
My own method was gentler, focused on Lucien and Rixa, order and chaos, faith and scepticism.
Lucien, my dear, haunted mage from Demacia, was the personification of discipline. His control over his magic was flawless. He kept the water in our teapots at the exact temperature, degree by degree, for hours on end. Every one of his movements was precise, every task executed with a perfection born of fear. The fear of making a mistake, of being seen, of being discovered. He clung to rules and procedures like a drowning man to a plank. The idea of improvising terrified him.
"But what happens if our supplier of chamomile tea doesn't show up, Lucien?" I asked him one day. "What would you offer a customer seeking calm?"
He drew a blank. "I… I would inform the customer that we are out of the requested product."
"No," I said gently. "You would look at the other herbs. You would see the lemon balm, the valerian. You would create something new. Magic, like life, does not thrive on rigidity. It blossoms in adaptation." He nodded, but I saw in his eyes that the lesson was too theoretical, too abstract. He needed a nudge.
That nudge came in the form of Rixa. She was Lucien's polar opposite. Forged in the streets of Zaun, she trusted no rules, only her instincts. Her ability to read a room, to disarm an arrogant customer with a single dry sentence, to anticipate trouble before it happened, was a form of magic in itself. The magic of survival. But her talent was encased in an armour of cynicism so thick that I sometimes feared no light could penetrate it. She did not believe in better futures or higher purposes. She believed in getting through to the next day.
I put them to work together organising the storeroom. A deliberately tedious task. It was there that Rixa's pragmatic nature kicked in. Seeing the meticulous, slow way in which Lucien stacked the crates, she huffed in impatience. "At this rate, we'll finish in the next ice age," she said. In one quick motion, she kicked a small, unstable pile of empty crates near him.
Lucien started, instinctively raising a hand. A barrier of shimmering air materialised, stopping the crates in mid-air before they could fall. He looked at his own hand, shocked at his instant reaction.
Rixa just raised an eyebrow. "See? You're faster when you're not thinking. Try using a bit of that at the counter."
Later, I called them aside. "You balance each other," I said, looking at them both. "Lucien," I turned to him, "you have order, discipline. But you need to trust someone who knows how to fall and get back up without breaking. Someone who understands that sometimes, the best rule is the one that adapts to the moment."
Then I turned to Rixa. "And you have instinct, resilience. But survival alone is an empty existence. You need to trust someone who, even after all he has been through, still believes it is worth building something that lasts longer than a day. Who still believes in hope."
Rixa huffed and looked away, but I saw the message had hit home. "Hope doesn't pay the bills," she grumbled, but there was no venom in her words.
The culmination of our lessons came on a Tuesday evening. After the last customer had left and the shop was cleaned, I gathered the four of them in the empty salon, the chairs upturned on the tables. They were confused, expecting some critique or a new task. Azra'il was sprawled in her favourite armchair in the corner, pretending to read, but I knew she was listening to every word.
"Sit," I said, my voice calm but with a weight that made them obey without question. I faced them, one by one, seeing not just the employees we had hired, but the seeds we had nurtured. Lucien, straight and serious, the pain of exile still haunting his eyes. Kaeli, with her sharp golden gaze, trying to pretend the solemnity of the moment did not affect her. Eddie, already looking on the verge of tears, cleaning his spectacles out of sheer nerves. And Rixa, her arms crossed, her wall of indifference firmly in place, but her eyes fixed on me.
"Listen carefully," I began. "'The Last Cup', this small haven we have built, was never meant to last forever with us. Azra'il and I… we are travellers. We always have been. We arrive, we tend the garden for a while, but always, inevitably, we depart. It is our nature."
A deep silence hung in the air. Eddie swallowed hard. Kaeli frowned.
"One day, soon, we will be leaving," I continued, the truth hanging between us. "And when that day comes, this place will be yours. Not just the counter and the walls, not just the stock of tea and the cake recipes. The soul of this place. And the soul of 'The Last Cup' is a simple but radical principle in this divided city: here, everyone has a place."
My gaze passed over each of them. "It does not matter the origin, it does not matter the race, it does not matter the status. Whether they come from the City of Progress with gold in their pockets, or from the fissures of Zaun with only dust and soot on their hands… the door opens the same for all. This tea does not discriminate. It soothes, it reveals, it unites. And the four of you must become the guardians of this principle."
"You have your gifts, and you have your weaknesses. Lucien, you have discipline, but you lack improvisation. Kaeli, you have sensitivity, but you lack patience. Rixa, you have the hardness of survival, but you fear hope. And Eddie, you have a passion that could move mountains, but you lack the confidence to give the first push. Alone, each of you is an incomplete piece. Brilliant, but flawed."
I paused, letting the words settle. "But together… together you are like a table with four legs. If one leg breaks or falters, the whole table falls. But if you lean on one another, if you learn to use one's strength to make up for another's weakness, you can bear any weight this world places upon you. This tea house is more than bricks and mortar. It is a pact. A silent pact that, behind these doors, no one needs to be an outsider."
The silence that followed was thick with unspoken emotion. Eddie finally took off his spectacles to wipe away the tears that were streaming freely. Kaeli was staring at a distant point, her eyes glistening. Rixa huffed but looked down at the floor, hiding something that looked dangerously like vulnerability. And Lucien, for the first time since I'd met him, did not look like a soldier on high alert, but just a man, who finally bowed his head in acceptance, perhaps even in peace.
The solemnity of the moment was, of course, brutally shattered.
From the back of the room, Azra'il's voice, drawn-out and full of sarcasm, cut through the air.
"What a lovely speech, Morgana. Touching, really. I almost cried." She turned a page of her book. "But let it be known: if any of you burn my personal stash of Targon's Moon-Blossoms after we're gone, I swear by all the forgotten gods that I will come back from the great beyond just to haunt your lavatory for the rest of your miserable lives."
The tension snapped. Eddie let out a laugh that was half a sob. Kaeli smiled. Even Rixa let out a small huff of amusement. The serious message had been delivered, but the threat of a haunting over spoiled tea somehow made it even more real. The legacy had been passed.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
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Guys…
I need to confess something to you: writing from Morgana's POV is my mental rest. Seriously. Some people do yoga, I do "Morgana - POV". It works the same.
This chapter was born precisely from that tranquil-melancholic-poetic vibe that only Morgana brings me. "The Last Cup," this little refuge that she and Azra'il created in the middle of the chaos of Piltover and Zaun.
This place has become like a warm, tea-filled embrace, and I'm not even kidding.
And, of course, the Morgana + Azra'il dynamic continues to be one of my favorite things to write. One is the ancient calm, the other is the sarcastic gremlin that threatens to haunt the employees' bathroom if they burn the expensive tea. Soulmate? Maybe. Crazy? Definitely.
And yes:
"The Last Cup" wasn't made to last, but everything planted there leaves a mark. Even those two scoundrels who run the place.
Anyway, leave your comments below:
🧑💼Which employee do you like the most?
🐺 And which part of the chapter made you laugh or want to hit Azra'il?
Because, honestly, I live for your comments.
They are literally my daily cup of tea. ☕💜