Chapter Text
The butcher was closed. I groaned out loud. “Oh, come on. It took me forever to hike up here! Couldn’t you put a notice down by the ladder?” I slumped down to the floor. I hadn’t had blood to drink for days. I wasn’t like humans. When hungry, my belly didn’t rumble. The hunger didn’t even increase. It’s more like a dripping faucet, more annoying the longer it goes on. Like a faucet, if my hunger isn’t turned off, eventually I want to hurt someone. No point in whining though. There was a big, beautiful city, full of friends to meet and corpses to drink from, out there for me to explore. Sure, I couldn’t see the part I was in too well, because it was underground and too poor for the city to put lights in, but that didn’t matter. After wobbling back down the ramp, I went looking for things to do. That’s how I spent most of my days, walking and talking to myself because no one else would.
“I could try the morgue, down on Sion Street, but they probably tightened up security since last time. For some reason, people didn’t like me taking the blood. But it wasn’t like the dead bodies were using it. Like, I got it when living people don’t want to share their blood. Sometimes they didn’t have access to the nutrients to make more blood. That’s why I tried not to drink from living folks. But dead ones? What’s the point in letting the blood rot when people like me could use it? No eating today, then. Maybe I could people watch? But those dance halls are all by the surface, and they always call the city guard in. People don’t sit and talk for free anywhere else. The library in Iron Allery might be open…” And on and on I chattered.
After a while, weird things started happening. That part of Noxus Prime was never friendly, but instead of people sneering from their little fortresses, I saw no one at all. Footsteps quieter than a rat’s heartbeat pattered along behind me, never changing pace. Super weird for a human. They were always tripping over stuff, stopping to check they hadn’t lost anything important, and getting rocks out of their shoes. Of all the city’s smells, armor polish smelled a lot stronger than usual. Was someone following me? I stopped and looked. A masked man, clearly not from the city guard, kept walking. “Hi!” I said with my best smile, showing my teeth like gladiators do.
He looked at me like I was crazy and hurried off.
Okay, maybe he just walked quietly. Bummer. I’d hoped someone had seen me and wanted to talk. It’d nice to be the one approached sometimes, y’know? Oh well.
I decided I wanted to try and make a friend today. That meant going somewhere with lots of people. There weren’t any dance halls in this neighborhood, but there was a water fountain. Humans would go there, right? Drink, swim, wash stuff. I followed the burbling and found a big old circular water fountain. The rock looked expensive. The statue in the center’s face was smashed off. People in clothes so patched they looked like quilts sat on the fountain’s edge. I thought about what people did when they saw someone they liked. They moved faster towards them, bared their teeth, and showed their palms and wrists. The pillory made that tricky. I decided to hold my arms straight up and tilt my wrists. The pillory went horizontal. It wasn’t quite like humans did, but it worked! They turned towards me.
“Hi! I’m Briar, what’s you guys’ names?” I said in my nicest tone.
Unfortunately, the masked guy from earlier totally ruined it. He tackled me from behind, which is such a rude greeting. The patchwork people yelled. My forearms smacked into the dirty stone. I yelped in surprise. Mask Guy got up and grabbed my hair, trying to drag me away. I jerked my pillory behind me as hard as I could and as far as my shoulder joints would allow. He grunted and let go of my hair. I leaped to my feet and spun around. Two other masked people ran to the first one. They held ropes and nets. My prison cell flashed into my head, years of nothing but my pillory and the bricks---no. Never again. With a snarl, I unlatched my pillory. I only had a second to appreciate the relief in my arms before the haze swallowed everything.
Swipe blood scream bite food roar pain fight fight fight hungry hungry hungry prey fleeing not prey friend blood floor-
I snapped my pillory together before I ate. It was bad to eat when wild. I’d eat the nastiest stuff sometimes and make myself sick. I learned that after the Cupcake Shop Incident. The masked people laid dead and in pieces across the square. The patchwork people were all gone. One still screamed in the distance, growing fainter, probably running away. “Don’t worry!” I yelled. “I got the scary guy!” No one came back. “Aw, man.” Humans are very judgmental, I’d learned. They see you rip apart one guy and they’ll run away without asking why? So that was like a dozen people who’d now never be friends with me, even though I’d waved. So unfair.
I kneeled by the bodies to smell the blood and see if it was worth licking off the street. Swain’s forces were well fed, so their blood was delicious. Totally worth it. These weren’t his, though, so who knows what they were eating? Could be totally anemic. I poked and pushed them with my feet, looking for clues. There weren’t many. Their clothes fit well, they wore no sigil (not even the Trifarix’s, which everyone and their dog wore), and they wore no armor. So, they’d had money, were trying to be sneaky, and had zero common sense. It’s Noxus! Even if you’re so likable no one wants to kill you, we carry around so many weapons you’d eventually get stabbed and die by accident. I’d almost poked some kid’s eye out the other day with my pillory. I said sorry, of course, but… Sorry, I’m rambling. Now, I didn’t wear armor, but that was because I couldn’t put it on with the pillory and, you know, living blood weapon. Most lethal blows barely hurt me. The magic puts me back together right away. These people were not constructs like me. They were clearly regular squishy humans.
“What kind of job would have you sneak up on people carrying weapons, but no armor?” I wondered. “Assassins? But then why would they have the rope to capture me? Ugh, this is so confusing. And annoying. And the blood’s dried up so I can’t even eat it, ugh!”
I stomped off, ignoring my aching side and the dead bodies. People died so much in Noxus Prime coroners rode around in wagons, picking up bodies and displaying them for families to identify. They’d take care of it. My real problems were finding out who the masked people were, why they’d attacked me, and if any more were coming. But how could I learn about assassins? They didn’t go having meetings for targets to ask questions. They snuck around so well I hardly noticed them, which is impressive, because they train against human ears and noses way weaker than mine.
I wasn’t thinking clearly, but then I realized, wait a minute. That first guy wasn’t alone. What if there’s more coming for me? This area isn’t safe anymore.
I spent the rest of the day trying to hike as quickly as possible to the higher levels of the city without looking suspicious, while still looking around nervously. The sun was setting, but even that felt blinding after weeks below ground. I found a nick nook b the docks to huddle in, letting me stay hidden and dry while listening to fisherman talk about summer hauls. NO masked people came poking around. The tensions in my muscles left. The outside world was weird and scary sometimes. I wished I had some blood. After a day like that, I deserved it.
Eventually, the fisherman went home to bed. The only noise was the thunk of a whaling ship’s crew unloading and the water lapping against the columns. My hunger was all there was to think about. Maybe a cat would do? I looked for mice-where they were, their predators followed. And then it clicked. I had an idea for how to figure out who those people were.