From the edge of a moss-covered cliff above the disembarkation site, a lone figure watched the Noxians unloading their ships, making their camp on Ionian shores.

Tall and lithe, with tousled midnight hair cascading over her shoulders and fox-like ears twitching with every clang of Noxian armor, she stood still as a statue. A flowing silk dress, tailored in the Ionian tradition with swirling white and crimson patterns, clung to her frame. A long cloak concealed her multiple white tails, their tips twitching with restrained unease. Her yellow, feline eyes shimmered in the haze, catching the light like a predator’s.

Ahri, they called her. A Vesani orphan, a Vastaya who wandered too close to the boundaries of her own kind. To some, a myth. To most, a warning. The Ionians shunned her as a demon. The other Vastaya barely tolerated her presence. But she had long since stopped trying to belong.

They hate them. All of them. Noxians, humans, outsiders. Invaders. She thinks, her eyes scanning the soldiers unloading crates, barking orders, dragging steel-tipped weapons across the sand. One soldier, separated from the others, wandered toward the edge of the tree line, stepping further from the safety of his comrades. Ahri’s claws flexed beneath her silk sleeves.

You’re a fool, Ahri. What are you even doing? He won’t see a woman. He’ll scream. He’ll run. Or worse, he’ll fight. But still, she descended the slope.

Her expression softened, shaped into something human—practiced, delicate, inviting. The mask she wore when she wanted to be seen, not feared.

I just want to feel something that isn’t hunger. That isn’t loneliness. She stepped into view, and the soldier froze.

"Hello," she said, her voice smooth as riverglass, "You’re far from the others."