Yordles

When I slowly came to, I felt my body rocking nonstop. Over the din of the crowd, I heard the wind whistling and water splashing. Was I on a ship?

I opened my eyes, only to be dazzled by the glaring sunlight. I quickly shielded them with my hand and sat up.

The blue sky met the sea in the distance. I was sailing toward the gap between them, riding the wind and waves. No doubt about it—a cruise ship!

"You're finally awake. I told them you were still alive. They almost threw you into the sea."

A short, chubby girl beside me had been staring at me. Her pale blue skin was unusual, and she had huge, round eyes, pointy ears, and two high ponytails.

I recognized her at once—Poppy!

"Thank you. Where are we?"

"This is the Sea of the Watcher. We're sailing from Demacia to Ionia. Someone found you on deck at daybreak this morning. At first, they thought you were some drunk who'd had too much to drink, but no matter how much they called to you, you wouldn't wake up. Then they felt your chest and found that your heart had stopped beating. The captain ordered them to throw you into the sea, but I stopped them because I could sense that you were still alive. And look, you're awake! I'm Poppy. What's your name?"

"Zhao Xin. Thanks again."

Poppy was quite the talker. She explained everything in one breath. I had no idea what LeBlanc had done or why I'd ended up aboard a ship sailing from Demacia to Ionia, but she had spared me.

I wondered how Darius and the others were doing. I clearly remembered that, in the lore, their coup had succeeded, so why had things turned out this way? LeBlanc's actions were especially baffling. It seemed not everything was going according to the script.

With so many questions on my mind and having narrowly escaped death, I felt much as I had when I woke up in the gladiatorial arena. This time, though, I hadn't died or turned into someone else.

I felt around my waist and found the spear and dagger Fiora had given me. I immediately felt much more at ease.

"How did you get here?" Poppy asked.

"A mage teleported me from the Immortal Fortress. It was probably some kind of teleportation magic."

"The Immortal Fortress? Noxus's capital? That's a long way away!"

"No matter how far it is, I have to get back. It's just... I don't know how to defeat that mage."

I wanted to return and let Riven know I was safe. After everything that had happened, she must be worried sick. But once I got back, I'd still have to help Darius. Given what LeBlanc was capable of, I really didn't know what to do.

"A mage? What's her name? Maybe I can help."

I looked at Poppy. She seemed so innocent that she couldn't possibly be joking, but how could a little Yordle like her help me?

"Her name is LeBlanc. She's an old witch who's lived for several hundred years."

"Oh? Several hundred years?" Poppy fell into thought. After a moment, she said, "I remember Kled is in Noxus. He must know her."

"Kled knows her?" I was stunned.

According to LeBlanc, no one had seen her true face for several hundred years. How could Kled know her? But what Poppy said next surprised me even more:

"I heard it from the Old Chieftain, Antiquit. Kled was fighting in the Noxian region more than eight hundred years ago. Back then, there was no empire, just a bunch of independent city-states. Later, he helped the first Noxian emperor establish the empire, so I figured he'd know something about LeBlanc."

"Kled's lived for more than eight hundred years?"

"No. By your way of counting, he's probably about three thousand years old."

Three thousand years!

I was astonished. I could hardly believe anyone could live that long. Even for a Yordle, that was absurd. In the world I came from, that was almost the entire span of human civilization.

But what good would it do to know LeBlanc...

I briefly told Poppy about the battle. Kled aside, neither Darius, Draven, Swain, Talon, the other elites, nor I had managed to win. Would recognizing her really help us find her weakness?

"Of course recognizing her won't help by itself. Your chances would still be slim. But with me, it'll be different!"

Poppy's words gave me hope. "You know how to fight her?"

"Uh... I don't. But the person I'm looking for does. He's a true hero, and no magic can stand against him. If you help me find him, we can ask him to help us!"

"Who are you looking for? I'll help!"

"He's a great hero of Demacia. I've been looking for him for a long time, but I still haven't found him. At last, I asked an old member of the Tabor Family to divine his whereabouts. He said the great hero had been wandering and was heading to Ionia."

"How are we supposed to find him? What does he look like? Ionia's a huge place. If we search blindly, we might never find him. Well, I might not, anyway. By the way, how old are you? You're not several thousand years old too, are you?"

"No, no, I'm still young. I'm only a little over six hundred. Finding this great hero won't be hard. He's righteous and brave, so wherever Dark Magic is at work, he'll show up. Once we reach Ionia, we can just ask around."

"Six hundred years old... Are all Yordles this powerful?"

"Powerful? If you mean killing people, then I suppose Yordles are pretty powerful. But there's no need for us to compete with other races. Time will kill them."

"How carefree. If Yordles are so strong, why not conquer the world?"

"Why would we conquer the world? Don't assume all Yordles are like Kled. He's a weirdo, and he doesn't want to conquer the world. He just likes fighting. There's no war in our world, so he's so attached to this one."

"Your world? Don't you live in Runeterra?"

"I can't tell you that. The Chieftain won't let us reveal anything about our home. You only need to know that Yordles live for their own interests."

"What about you? What's your interest?"

"My interest? I'm not sure either. Right now, I just want to fulfill my friend's last wish and give his Warhammer to a true hero. I treasure our friendship so much. Maybe that's my interest."

Living for your own interests? A world without war? What kind of place was that? I couldn't imagine. If I ever got the chance to visit, it would surely be an unforgettable experience.

Then I suddenly remembered that when I'd been hit by the motorcycle, along with my family, a blue face had appeared in my mind. It had been Tristana.

I hadn't known what to make of it back then, and everything that had happened since I arrived in this world had left me no time to think about it. Now was the perfect chance to ask Poppy:

"By the way, Poppy, do you know Tristana? She's a Yordle, like you."

"Tristana? I'm not sure. She might be a young one who came into being in recent years. I haven't been home in over three hundred years, so I don't know if there are any new members."

"Came into being?"

"Huh? Didn't I tell you? Yordles aren't like you. We aren't born to parents. We're brought into being by the Will of the Yordles..."

Poppy and I talked until evening. Besides telling me about her home, she also shared many things about Yordles that completely overturned everything I'd believed about them.

Put simply, Yordles came into being naturally under certain conditions, as if they were incarnations of particular "interests." The phenomenon and conditions that brought them into being were called the Will of the Yordles. To this day, no one knew what the Will of the Yordles really was.

Though they embodied interests, Yordles were still made of flesh and blood. Sometimes hundreds or even thousands of years passed without a single one being born. Once they appeared, they almost never died, and they were all powerful.

Poppy said that the oldest Yordles were almost as old as Runeterra itself. Their Chieftain, Antiquit, for instance, couldn't even remember exactly how many tens of thousands or billions of years old she was.

Unfortunately, Poppy knew nothing about Tristana. If I ever got the chance to meet her, I might be able to unravel the mystery of how I'd come to this world.