Serenity in the Wild

thatguyingreyhoodiewithwidesmile:

Those words warmed Ahri’s heart and she smiled genuinely, her gold eyes shinning. To her, this friendship was something special as it was so rare for her to be able to bond with others easily and without fear of retribution. She had lived long as a pariah, too different from her human counterparts to even consider mingling with them, so she thought.

But here was a man like her, different...and yet not.

“Yes. I’m enjoying my time with you. It is not often I get to be so close with others. And...I do not know how long I will live or if my lifespan may be extended or infinite because of what I do, but I will make the best of what we have.”

Differences in Recharging

thatguyingreyhoodiewithwidesmile:

Ahri smiled, working fingers through her slightly messy hair to settle the strands back into place. Sleeping always did fluff her hair a bit for some reason. As she fixed this minor issue, she listened to Rezzak, canid ears pointed in his direction to display quite plainly that she was very much focusing on him.

“I am interested in everything you say, Rezzak.” she replied, walking over to where he was seated and curiously glanced around “You don’t seem to believe in the existence of magic. This may be part of your...struggle to understand. This world is full of people gifted with mystical power, myself included. Even my vary existence was born from magic infusing me with the power to be what I wished to be.”

She tilted her head a little, seeming not in the least bothered by Rezzak’s intense interest in how she functioned.

“And If there are other people like me, it would be interesting to meet them. But as of yet, I have not met another who bears this...gift.” Ahri was mildly hesitant in calling it that. At times, it was a curse. 

“Also, I apologize for that. I was very hesitant to use that ability on you...for that very reason. I do not like to take away the will of those who I consider friends. It is wrong. But it is also simply something I am able to do. I’m afraid i cannot explain it any better to you than your machines might.”

Differences in Recharging

The heavy sliding doors made soft, almost melodic noises - the plasteel alloy used in them could absorb quite a lot of shock and noice from one side to let the other side stay in quiet. However, Ahri’s hand raised a silent alarm around her. So far the ‘bots on Skyrunner ignored the curious fox, but the moment she knocked the door - the entire ship knew what she was doing and where. Naturally, they informed the man in grey, who turned around on his chair, and walked to the doors. He was not sure how is it possible for the fox woman to find him on her own, but he knew well that the ship won’t lie to him.

“Lady Ahri? By the Nebulae, how did you know I was here?” - he sounded more surprised than anything else - “Please, do come in. I… uh… I was about to go check you, actually.” The man in grey wasn’t sure how to react on Ahri’s arrival. He couldn’t send the fox woman back, nor he felt like he should let her see what exactly was he doing. Still, his manners demanded that he’ll let his newfound friend to come in the bio-lab freely.

Ahri waited and felt a strange sense of being watched shortly after knocking. Her ears twitched and swiveled but the sounds they picked up were nothing out of the ordinary for the ship and she decided it must just be her own anxiety. That and there were always those odd machines around--robots, as she recalled them being labeled.

When the door opened, Rezzak seemed surprised to see her but she gave him a small and pleased smile. The fox woman wasn’t entirely sure why he seemed so caught off guard by her appearance until he said as much and before replying she stepped inside the room.

“The same way any canine would. Smell.” she replied naturally, as if there wasn’t anything strange about having such a keen smell that she could track people with it. To her, it was normal. Hands laced behind her back and her eyes scanned the room that they had been in previously.

“Sorry if I disturbed you.”

Serenity in the Wild

Rezzak remembered his hometown for a moment. He recalled how busy it is no matter the time of the day or night. The district that he used to live in has more people than the whole population of this island, he assumed. And the whole population of this planet could be easily placed in a megacity like Iridiumgrad. Knowing this, he could not argue with the fox woman. The quiet nature can indeed be precious. “It is not sad, lassie.” - he spoke up - “That’s just life. Or is it an afterlife for me, technically? I was a dead husk of a semi-synthetic man before the Swarm found me who knows how much time ago. I…’’ - Rezzak paused, searching for words - “You know what? I can’t even remember what did I see when I was… Well, dead.” - his voice had nervous chuckle - “Perhaps I like the cryopods so much because they remind me of that… that nothingness I used to know. Since then I existed for longer than I can remember. I suspect that the med-bots erase some of the memories I get since the moment of my ‘reconstruction’. Think about it, lassie - human minds were not build to last for this long. Eventually the sheer amount of memories will drive anyone insane. The Swarm can’t let it happen. I sure as hell don’t want to go complete bonkers. I suppose, one day they’ll decide that I don’t need to remember about you as well, but from what I understand - this will happen in hundreds of years in future. We’ll have enough time to chit-chat before that moment, lady Ahri.” By the end of his reply Rezzak felt somewhat discouraged. What was the point of his seemingly eternal existance? He didn’t know. And sometimes he suspected that it’d be better to stay in such way. Ignorance can be a bliss in some cases.

Ahri listened and that twisting feeling of sadness in her chest did not lessen in the least. She felt it nest there, make its home and she knew it would stick with her for some time. Every time she met Rezzak’s eye, she would be reminded of his endless subservience and that eventually, she would no longer be part of his recollections. Was that a life worth living?

It was cruel to ask and as such, she kept it to herself.

“I will do my best to ensure our time together is both pleasant and memorable.” Ahri regarded him fondly and gave a small smile, despite the lingering sadness in her eyes. It was hard to think of anything to say beyond that, but the fox woman tried. She didn’t want there to be a silence between them, lest Rezzak start to think poorly of his own existence.

“I hope that I’ve done something to make things a little more fun for you.”

Serenity in the Wild

The standing man in grey idly raised his gaze upward. The view was nice, given how clear the local sky is, and he certainly could understand why such place gives his new friend a good ground to sit and relax for a while. Ahri’s mention that she haven’t seen any other spaceships made him sigh a bit: “Well, shucks. Guess no-one will be bringing the FTL tech gizmos on your planet, lassie. It sure as hell won’t be me. Can’t afford it - ain’t got so much free time on my hands.” Her question made him think of his own room in the space cruiser. It was a good place, a place where Rezzak could ‘reboot’ himself so he won’t go insane from loneliness in endless space, but the empty room could not help him fully relax. Even though he always tried to avoid this thought - he really missed the opportunity to talk with anyone in his travels. The synthetic lifeforms on Skyrunner were not the best conversation partners he could ask for. Thus he had enough time to sleep and think. The time itself was against him. “Oh, you know. I usually simply go here and there… Anywhere is fine, really. I sometimes visit cryopods, when I want to just… Cease to exist for a while. I don’t dream in cryosleep, and, ironically, I used to despise this ‘drawback’ of the pods back when I was part of the Blue Fleet. Now I see them much more differently…”

Ahri’s eyes fluttered shut as a soft breeze blew some of her wavy dark fringe around her face. Deep breaths pulled the fresh, water scented air into her lungs and ears twitched as the wind tickled them. Snowy tails swayed behind her, motions slow an absentminded.

“I think I prefer it that way.” she said quietly, a small smile on her lips. “The quiet, the nature...that’s...precious to me. I enjoy the adventures with you, learning about all these fantastic things that I could never have even dreamed of before...is incredible. But it’s nice to come back home to the peace and quiet of the natural world.”

She sighed softly, leaning back and using her tails as bedding. 

“That sounds so.....sad.” It seemed to take her a moment to pick through words and find the right one. Ahri felt that ‘sad’ was not quite the proper representation for how his description of desiring dreamless escape from the weight of reality made her feel, but it was the closest she could grasp on short notice.

“How long have you lived? she asked curiously, unable to imagine thousands of years of age. She herself was still quite young but it was likely her lifespan was different than the average human since she thrived on the essence of life to extend her form and power. Perhaps her lifespan too would suffer changes.

Differences in Recharging

Several floors and few long corridors away from fox woman’s current location the semi-synthetic man was sitting on a chair in the bio-lab room. The samples that he gathered from his new acquaintance wasn’t as processable as he hoped. The ship’s supercomputers were struggling to understand how exactly the fox woman is able to cast blue fox fire out from thin air, and how exactly her mind-manipulative techniques work. Her entire DNA was an unreadable mess for the ship’s AI, and it all made Rezzak rather impatient. “I brought you samples of xenos much more weird than that one, pal.” - the man spoke up with notable irritation, talking seemingly with the machines in the lab - “Must you really take this much time to decode the girl’s DNA? I’ll need this data for further researches on the planet. If I meet anyone else with similar abilities - I must know how to avoid their psionic attacks and neutralize them before they neutralize me. Think faster, brains in jars.” There were no brains in jars in the bio-labolatory, strictly speaking, but the man in chair cared little about accuracy of his phrase.

Though Rezzak was somewhat artificial in nature, he still held a scent and the fox woman followed it religiously in the hopes of locating him. She also chose to extend her extra senses, trying to seek out his life force as she walked the halls, eyes scanning around. Fingers occasionally reached out to touch the walls, feeling how smooth they were or clutching tightly to her chest when she wasn’t certain of how dangerous something might be. There were often buttons she found intriguing but without him there to tell her what they did, she wasn’t willing to find out.

It took her quite awhile to figure her way through the complex of the ship but eventually her senses did lead her to Rezzak and she stood outside of a door, unsure of what exactly to do. Maybe she should have waited. Would he hear if she knocked, Ahri wondered, rocking back on her heels and biting her lip.

She reached out and knocked somewhat forcefully in the hopes that the mechanized door would not muffle the sound to a point of silence for anyone on the other side.

Differences in Recharging

Rezzak observed the fox woman with a quiet chuckle. For a moment he wondered whether or not she acted like this on purpose. In any case, the man stood patiently near her bunk for a few moments before she became quiet. “Silly little xeno…” - he mumbled in his native language - ‘’You are lucky I didn’t find you few hundred years ago. You wouldn’t be having carefree dreams on that bunk, you know…” - the semi-synthetic man reached a small locker above the sleeping fox woman, and pulled thin but cozy blanket made from cotton-like material. He cautiously covered his sleeping guest, and slowly headed to the exit. Rezzak turned around at the door, gazed at Ahri one more time, and smiled.  “Sweet dreams, lassie. Have a good rest.” He was heading to the bio-lab few moments later. Rezzak obtained quite a lot of unprocessed data from recent scanning of the clueless fox woman, and he was genuinely curious to know how her bizarrely looking body works. He was extra curious to know how she could control so many fluffy tails, too.

Snowy tails curled around the woman’s form and she nestled into them, using them as bedding and finding comfort in the soft fur. Ears drooped and her form relaxed as sleep took hold.

Ahri’s only reaction to his words was a couple twitches of her ears and a bit of nuzzling once the blanket was draped over her but it was clear she was deeply asleep. Dreams pervaded her subconscious, from faces she knew to fantastical imaginings of all the things Rezzak had been speaking of before the need to rest had overtaken her.

Some hours later the fox woman awoke with a small yawn and a languid stretch of her body, tails splaying out in all directions as she arched. The blanket slid off her frame and she took note of it absently, pushing it off the rest of the way. Slipping out of the bunk she rose her arms far above her head in another stretch and then worked her fingers through her hair as if to smooth the strands down. Hands sleepily rubbed at her eyes and she blinked, casting her gaze around.

For a moment, where she was was a bit of a mystery to her until it all came back and a relieved sigh emptied her lungs.

Ahri stepped out of the room and went searching for Rezzak.

Serenity in the Wild

The shady man had nothing to say to the fox woman, so he simply did what he asked him to do. Even if this location was precious to her eyes - he couldn’t see anything special in it. He knew it, so he took a long pause, and tried to chose his words carefully: ‘’So… How often do you gaze at the night sky from here? Have you seen anything interesting up there yet?” Rezzak wanted to hear her voice tonight. Recently he almost talked her fluffy ears off with endless stories about various people and civilizations that inhabit endless Universe, so he figured that at this very moment she might tell him something in return. Or she could be silent till the dawn, that would be fine for him too.

Her form shifted, knees curling up to her chest, arms draping around the folded limbs. Chin resting atop her knees, the fox’s golden eyes were cast skyward but it almost seemed as though she wasn’t truly seeing, as if she were thinking of something else entirely.

“Maybe a couple of times a month, I come here to...meditate and clear my head. I’ve seen a lot of things, but if you’re asking whether or not I’ve seen anything like your ship around, then I’m afraid not. The skies are usually quiet except for the occasional shooting star.” Ahri’s voice was soft and low, calm.

“I suppose it is the fact that it is so...mundane, so still that makes it such a good place to rest my head when the thoughts get to be too intrusive.” Painted nails reflected light as Ahri adjusted her grip on her legs, slender fingers grasping at her own limp wrist.

“Is there somewhere you go to just....think and relax?”

Serenity in the Wild

As they were nearing the place, Rezzak prepared himself for a spectacular view. He even resisted the urge to joke about ‘what else he enjoys to do’ in his travels. When they reached the lake - he started to look around. He had no clue at first that the lake and its surroundings are the place Ahri mentioned. And when she spoke up - his disappointment grew stronger.  The view was nice, even for him, but it was nothing special for someone who saw literally millions of similar views by now. It probably was a significant place for the fox woman, but the man from far space saw nothing special. Still, he could not spoil the moment for the fox woman. He smiled tiredly, and spoke up: “Oh… Right… Nice place, lassie. Very… Relaxing, and stuff. I could totally set up a living module nearby, if I never met Skyrunner.”  He could lie very well if he wanted. But he couldn’t do it good enough at this moment. His conscience resisted, for some reason. “I mean… I spend so much time among the stars that I sometimes forget that they look just as good from the surface. Oh, and the water looks fine too!” Rezzak didn’t know what to say now. And he was afraid that he was, unintentionally, mean to the fox woman.

Ahri had waited for his response, expecting him to not be as enthralled as she was with it. For her the place was somewhere to go to hope. Something about wishing upon stars for a better future. She had gone there many times, spent many long nights trying to imaging a brighter future where she would be accepted.

However, it was just a view. It wasn’t something that didn’t exist elsewhere. She knew that and she didn’t take it personally that Rezzak didn’t care for it as much as she. The fox leaned back, resting her arms behind her head and staring into the sky.

“It’s alright. I knew you wouldn’t see it the same way i do. It’s not really the view. It’s....the sentimentality. For me, this place has been something important. For you, it’s something you’ve seen dozens of times.” her voice was soft, not a hint of sarcasm or other sort of bothered emotion.

“Come sit with me.”

Differences in Recharging

The smiling man in grey sighed. As much as he enjoyed this overly long lecture, he realized that his guest simply couldn’t stay up for so many hours straight. With a simple mental effort he deactivated the built-in 3D-projector in his left hand, and slowly stood up from the bunk.

“It seems to me that little miss ‘I have too many fluffy tails’ have forgotten about one petty detail. You are a pure organic creature, lassie. As much as I appreciate your iron will to study non-stop, you must rest now. Or else you are risking to simply lose half of the things I already told you. We don’t want this to happen now, don’t we? Don’t worry - I’ll be back in a… Uh… in eight hours, I think. That should be just enough for you to fully recharge-… I mean to rest up perfectly.”

The fox maiden stifled a yawn behind slender fingers, ears drooping a little as she relaxed. Her tails were nestled in around her, the perfect pillow to rest herself upon.

“Mn...yes...I guess you’re right.” She nuzzled into her own arms. “You can stay if you want.” Ahri added, her voice already growing softer. It was so very difficult for her to stay awake at this point and though she tried to calculate, she couldn’t quite remember when the last time she slept was. Ahri was definitely excited for the coming days, wondering what else the man could tell her. Even if it took ages, she would listen.

She drifted off shortly after.

Serenity in the Wild

The shady man listened, and made mental notes as he kept fox woman’s walking pace. Ahri’s words made it clear that he should visit Zaun strictly on his own. As for Piltover - they could indeed visit it later. In the next day, or week. Depends on Ahri’s free time, mostly. “I cause as much problems as the situation demands, lassis. I can be a proper tourist if I must. It’s nearly not as fun as I am used to, but with such pleasant companion I can make an exception.” - his respond was accompanied with a cheeky grin - ‘’I am getting more intrigued with each new moment, to be honest. Just what exactly do you wish to show me so much, I wonder.” Rezzak assumed it could be a local landmark. Maybe some kind of shrine dedicated to fox people. Whatever it was - he wanted to see it.

Ahri was fairly convinced that the well traveled explorer would be disappointed at her offering, but she was a fox woman living in the wild. It wasn’t as if she had much to her name.

“If you have to cause trouble to have fun, I have to wonder what it is you enjoy doing, you troublemaker.” she retorted playfully, giggling softly as she grabbed his hand to tug him along.

“Mm...well, it’s not much...but it’s something that’s kept me hoping on the lonelier nights.” Ahri said, pulling him through some thickly clumped trees into a clearing. The ground was lush with soft green grass that grew sparse until it faded into the edges of the clear water of a lake. The water was so clear that the bottom could easily be seen, even under the light of only the stars and moon. 

The moon itself was full and made the water seem to glimmer where it touched. And out here, the stars were vibrant and could be seen so clearly in the sky. She knew from experience that the water tasted incredible and she went over and sat close to the edge. 

“This is one of my favorite spots. The moon shines just right, when it’s clear, all the stars are so visible and the water is comforting. It’s cold, fresh and plenty consumable. Sometimes you see groups of animals stopping by to drink from it. I’m sorry if you expected something more but I am just a woman living in the wild, after all. There’s only one other place that’s special to me in this way but I can show you that later.”

Differences in Recharging

The next several hours were spent quite bizarrely. A lone man, who spends most of his time in silent company of sentient robots, could finally share his accumulated knowledge with someone who actually wanted to learn new things. Using his handy built-in holo-projector, Rezzak showed various worlds to the fox woman. He answered all her questions about their inhabitants, customs, he told and showed everything he knew about their believes, technologies, and cuisine. He read about the common problems that raised between humans and non-humans, how those problems were solved or grew out of hand. He read about journeys, discoveries, festivals, as well as wars, intrigues, and great disasters. Naturally, he showed the following holo-images too, if he had some. ‘’… So when gunirians became completely fed up and tried to repel the moneybags from the forth yellow trade fleet, they simply tried to use good old ‘gun diplomacy’. A very common practice among rimworlders, I must mention. Which was, by the way, extremely short-sighted on their part, because, well, they had yet to reinvent space traveling technologies that their hot-blooded ancestors managed to lost in between drunken bar fights. So anyway,  the surrounded merchants called in for heavy reinforcements from other systems, which ended up in violence. And I don’t mean funny kind of violence. Gunirians might be the most fearsome and well-equipped folks in the Federation at this moment, but back then they were just a bunch of gun-hoarding rimworlders who didn’t want unfair trade with… Uh, lassie? Are you listening to me? Do we need to take a break?”

Ahri lost track of time as Rezzak spoke of many tales, people and the problems between races. She was enthralled and hung on every word, interjecting every so often to ask questions for clarification or get answers for simple curiosities. Her eyes were fixed on every image Rezzak showed her and her heart raced at all these new things she was being shown. It was incredible to her to be exposed to such things and she was absolutely taken with it all.

Ahri had no idea how much time had passed, not that she cared. She could listen until she fell asleep and then wake up and listen some more. Which seemed to be the case, actually. Ahri was getting sleepy, though determined to push the need off until Rezzak had spoken his fill. Yet the more he spoke the more her eyes began to shut until she was forcing them open and trying to make herself focus.

“Yes, I’m listening!” she insisted, giving a smile. She certainly didn’t want to take a break, but her eyes were already starting to close again.

Serenity in the Wild

‘’Sounds just like my hometown so far.” - the shady man laughed not too loudly - “I didn’t know there is such city like Zaun. I ought to take a look on it too, but later. And certainly - on my own.” The fox woman was surprisingly cooperative. Rezzak was not sure that he could talk her into visiting Piltover at all, so her positive answer was a good news for his augmented ears: ‘’Well, lady Ahri, if they are not as good mannered as I am - I can always easily evacuate you from the streets. I have a lot of experience in such things, I assure you. Naturally I’m hoping that everything will go smoothly, and we can just walk around in there. I’ll need to take a couple of search-bots with us too. You know, for the pictures!” - Rezzak finished with a wink

“We should be fine.” Ahri said, her eyes casting around. They were nearing the point she wished him to see so she slowed down a bit to give them more time to chat.

“Piltover is...more accepting of things, from what I’ve heard. Zaun...I’m not sure about.” Ahri wasn’t fond of Zaun just from what little she knew of it. She definitely wanted to avoid going there if possible.

“As long as you don’t cause any trouble.” the fox maiden teased, giving the man a playful smile. “We’re getting close. I know your appreciation for things like this might not be as great as mine since you’re...well traveled but...that’s alright. I’ll share it with you anyway.”

Differences in Recharging

The smiling man observed his guest quite lazily as he mostly kept looking through the glass before her last reply. Ahri was willing to learn, and that was all Rezzak needed to hear now.  “Yeah, the others. All people who ever got stuck in alien worlds, in alien societies and such. Both humans and xenos. Back in my first years of service in the Fleets I used to read a lot about such daredevils. Now - not so much…” - Rezzak paused. He recalled that he used to be quite curious person who dreamed about traveling on his own around his home galaxy one day. A foolish dream that came true in unpredictable form in bigger scale that he could ever imagine. “I mean, the Federation has solid control over five percents of Heaven’s Treasure, plus we have presence in another twelve percents of galactic space. That would be millions and millions of stars with habitable planets around them. I know it sounds big for you, lassie, but there are way, way more… uh… ‘non-humans’ than humans in space. And not all humans are related to the Federation, but that’s just details. The point is - there were billions of people who had to adapt quickly and efficiently in order to survive. Most of them were kind enough to leave notes behind, so the others can learn from their mistakes. Granted, the variations are far too wild for you to find anything too close to your exact situation but…” - sitting Rezzak slowly returned all his attention to the fox woman’s face - “Maybe we can dig up something that could be useful for you. The only real things that separate you from the locals is your appearance and, ahem, eating habits. It’s almost nothing in comparison to things that some travelers and refugees had to deal with back in their lives, lassie. And you know what? I’ll stick around with you just so I can read their stories for you, given that you don’t know the language and such… What do you say?”

Ahri listened with intent curiosity, eventually taking her gaze from the stars outside the window to Rezzak’s face. The whole thing was a little nerve wracking for her, it was so rare that she could share such details about herself with anyone else.

And as he spoke of such fantastic things, things that were entirely out of her realm of fathom, she could only listen. There were people outside her small world that were more inhuman than anything she knew, beings that shared her trait to a more extreme level. It was hard to imagine. Of course there were far worse creatures than she roaming her own planet, but the difference was, those were evidently non-human. She walked the border between, a very narrow border indeed. It would have been interesting to see and hear of places where what you were never mattered.

“Absolutely.” she finally said, ears perking and eyes lighting up. Ahri was at least excited to learn.

Differences in Recharging

Rezzak listened wordlessly as they were walking not too quickly in hallways of the spaceship. He sensed how his guest was relaxed in his presence, and he assumed that he was on the right way to persuade her to make a try. ”If you need some time to prepare - do take it. Make the perfect plan, gather all the data you need, and such. You’ll feel it when you are ready to go, lady Ahri.” - Rezzak replied with warm, albeit still digitized voice. ‘’At least she is not doubting herself so much now.” - the man thought to himself as he listened to the fox woman while leading her back to the guest room - “Might be a while before she sees herself as a promising person with various options in her arsenal, but it will happen eventually. She’s not dense. Rather, a bit unsure in her appearance and social skills. What a silly xeno…” He didn’t know what to add when they stood before the familiar automatic doors again. As by a untold command, they opened, and the fox woman could see the stars behind the thick glass again. Rezzak coughed, and gestured her to go in: “You know… I might personally know very little in the matters of ethnography and such, but I do have quite a lot of data gathered both by me and the bots. If you, perhaps, need something to compare your situation to others - I might be able to help you with that. It might be a bit too educational, naturally, but then again…” - the semi-synthetic man smiled widely as he casually sat on the bunk - “I do not know how exactly I, a very random man from another universe, can help you out, lassie. Just… Give me a word, alright? Educating others is a strange guilty pleasure of mine, so… Well, you know. Just one word is enough.”

Planning was an odd thing to Ahri, not to say she was not one to strategize, but it wasn’t the sort she was used to performing. Either way, perhaps Rezzak was right. With some careful forethought and the right mindset, maybe she could present herself well enough to at the very least get her foot into the door of communication with the humans.

Surely, it would take time for there to be true comfort, but she was willing to wait and put forth the effort to garner their trust.

“Compare my situation to others?” she repeated curiously as she stepped back into the room where the stars almost seemed reachable through the thick glass. Golden eyes were staring out into the wonders of space and she sighed softly.

“If you want to, sure. I am willing to learn, to listen. Anything you wish to tell me.” Ahri turned to Rezzak, giving him the full view of her genuine expression so she would not seem insincere. “If you think it will help. You have...explored. You know of things I could only ever imagine.”

Serenity in the Wild

‘’Only one city on a whole planet, lassie. That’s almost nothing, if you ask a person like yours truly.” - the shady man shrugged with a smile - “I can show it to you, after I visit it personally. Heck, I might as well take you there. How do those people see your kind, by the way? Will they be terrified by your long fluffy tails?” - Rezzak finished with a chuckle. He had absolutely no idea what is Piltover, and what kind of people live there, and he doubted Ahri could answer. But he nonetheless wanted to hear her answer, or at least an attempt. All is good to kill the time in their travel. Part of him somewhat hoped that he could indeed bring her along, just so the attractive fox woman could distract the locals, law enforcers included, while Rezzak surveys the surrounding in relative peace. The other, less practical side of the man, simply wanted some company in unknown place, even though he guessed that she’d get lost there quickly without him.

“Well, there’s Zaun too, but....” she trailed off, her mind wandering to the stories of bio chemical warfare, though she didn’t know such terms. Ahri recalled the descriptions of horrific deaths by gas and people who were driven mad by Zaun’s polluted atmosphere or perhaps the chaos of the city itself. She would never know which. “Zaun, according to rumor, is a polluted husk of a city. Their technology is good and Piltover and Zaun are considered to be rivals, but...Zaun is a dangerous place.”

The fox maiden hummed. “I don’t know. Perhaps they would be more understanding if they are...of the scientific mind? My people are superstitious. Perhaps Piltover would be more like you.” It was a positive thought, but she could never really be sure of it.

“And if you wish to see it and take me with you, I would not mind.”

Serenity in the Wild

‘’It’s a ‘board’ made of durable and lightweight alloys that hovers above solid and semi-solid surfaces. Not much of a use above most liquids, sadly, unless you use directional mini-boosters.” - the man replied as he tried to keep the pace with the fox woman - “It usually cuts time needed for the traveling on the surface of planets like this one. Hoveboards usually make little to no noise, but leave tracks of radiation behind… Hardly a concern of mine, naturally. Back in my hometown most kids have those things. Heck, my ‘obsidian devil’ taught me more about gravity and inertia than most of physics lessons in middle school combined. It also taught me that broken bones take a while to heal, but that never stopped me from using that thing before it broke down beyond repair.”

Ahri listened curiously, ears twitching every so often and rotating away from and to the sound of his voice in succession. She was as much listening to him as she was keeping an eye on the surroundings. It sounded like a device that Piltover would pioneer, but she had never seen one, nor had she ever actually visited Piltover herself. She was nigh contained within ionia’s borders.

“I see. Piltover might have something like that. I hear they are the...”City of Progress” but I have never seen it.” It would take a bit of time to cross to the clearing she wished to show Rezzak, so she thought the smalltalk might make the trip less...silent.

“Technology is not the...strength of Ionia.”