Azra'il's POV
For three whole days, Piltover offered us its version of peace: an efficient and dreadfully predictable routine. I would wake to the synchronised chime of the public chronometers. I'd spend the mornings dragging Morgana through various districts on our 'reconnaissance' mission, which in truth was just me trying to combat the existential boredom that threatened to consume me. The afternoons were spent in our room at Bartholomew's inn, her on our balcony tending to her stubborn plants. And me staring at a map of Piltover, feeling a growing kinship with the inkblot that represented Zaun. At least there, I suspected, things didn't run on time.
Today, I had spent most of the time lying on the floor of our room, studying the cracks in the ceiling and calculating the probability of a faulty cleaning automaton finally going haywire and providing us with a bit of entertainment.
But it was on the fourth morning, while I was in the middle of this vital research, that the peace was rudely interrupted.
"Azra'il."
Morgana's voice came from the doorway. It had a tone, one I had learned to recognise over the course of our journey. It was the "I'm about to talk about mundane responsibilities and spoil your fun" tone.
"I'm busy," I murmured to the ceiling.
"You're counting cobwebs."
"It's a census," I retorted. "Important work."
She approached, holding a small accounts book. The sight of it sent a shiver down my spine. "I've done the sums," she began, her tone serious. "Our funds from Noxus are considerable, but this city is expensive. The lodging, the food, the... apparel. If we don't find a stable source of income, we'll have to move somewhere considerably less pleasant in four months."
I sat up, dramatically. "Four months? What a tragedy. Where shall we go, Zaun? At least there people have the decency to be openly miserable, instead of hiding it behind polished cogs."
"I'm serious," she said, the patience in her voice wearing thin.
"So am I," I said, getting up and stretching. "But what do you suggest? That I apply to be an automaton traffic warden? You could sell your miracle remedies in an alley? I'm sure that wouldn't attract any unwanted attention."
It was then that her gaze fell upon the dark clay kettle I had left on the small table. And a dangerous, dreadful idea began to form in her eyes.
"No," I said immediately, knowing exactly where her mind was going. "Absolutely not."
"What?" she asked, the innocence in her voice a transparent sham.
"That conversation. The Tea House. I was joking. It was sarcasm. A form of humour that, apparently, is still an alien concept to you."
"But you're good at it," she insisted, ignoring my protests. "More than good. People would pay for a tea that makes them feel… at peace. We could have our own place. It would be… honest. Respectable."
"'Honest' and 'respectable' are synonyms for 'boring and barely profitable'," I groaned, throwing myself into an armchair. But as I looked at the hopeful expression on her face, an expression I hadn't seen in a very long time, I felt a pang of defeat. Her stubbornness, when combined with the logic that we did, in fact, need money, was a formidable force.
The tea house joke was about to become my professional nightmare.
"You don't understand the complexity, Morgana," I tried one last argument, my voice muffled by the cushion. "It's not just about boiling water. It's an art. A science. It requires the right ingredients, the right tools, the right atmosphere."
"Then show me," she said, her voice soft but unshakeable. It was a challenge.
I sighed, the sound of a millennial soul being forced to get up and do manual labour. "Fine," I said, rising with the reluctance of a cat woken from a nap. "But if I am to surrender to this forced domesticity plan of yours, we are doing it my way. Prepare to be educated."
I went to my travel bag, which was slumped in a corner, looking deceptively mundane. I crouched with my back to her.
"Let's see what we have in our… 'collection'," I murmured, while in my mind, Eos's interface overlaid my vision.
My physical hand dipped into the bag, and the objects materialised to my touch. When I stood and turned, I was holding a dark clay kettle and two white porcelain cups of a craftsmanship I knew would make Piltover's greatest masters weep with envy.
"Good thing I packed the essentials," I said, placing the items on the small table with a delicate click.
Morgana's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the objects, recognising the quality and the strangeness of their design. But, as usual, she didn't ask. She had learned to accept that the contents of my bag were just another one of my many enigmas.
I began the ceremony with a focused silence, heating the water with a small heat-rune. For the first infusion, I opened a carved wooden container. Inside, long, thin green tea leaves, like pine needles, gave off a fresh aroma of grass and rain.
"Emerald Dragon Needles," I announced, inventing a plausibly exotic name. "A tea to clear the mind." The truth was, it grew on the slopes of a mountain in a world guarded by skeletal swordsmen. "They say it was the drink of guardians before a long watch."
I poured the hot water over the leaves. They danced, releasing a pale jade colour. I served a cup and slid it towards Morgana.
"Drink," I said.
She took the cup in both hands, a gesture the shape required. She took a sip. And I watched. I saw the tension in her shoulders simply… dissolve. Her eyes closed, and a genuine serenity settled over her face.
"In all my long life," she whispered, her voice full of a reverent awe, "I have never tasted anything that felt like peace… until now."
While she was lost in her moment, I began to prepare my own. I opened the second container. Inside were small, ethereal white flowers, mixed with what looked like crystallised rose petals. The aroma was floral, sweet, and heavy with a melancholy that was mine alone. Her blend. Anastasia's blend.
"And this one?" Morgana asked, her voice soft.
"This? It's an experiment," I lied. "Research."
I took a sip, and the taste of memory filled me. "Battles are won with swords. Lives are won with tea," I said, more to myself. "It is a truce with the universe." I looked at her. "After all, the difference between a poison and a cure… is just the dosage."
She looked at me, no longer with doubt, but with a new understanding. She saw the art, the science… and the opportunity.
"People talk a great deal when they think they're just having a warm drink," she said, a smile forming. "It's an excellent source of information."
The project was hers now. The responsibility, too. I could go back to sleep.
In the days that followed, a new energy took hold of Morgana. While I took the opportunity to catch up on what Eos catalogued as 'accumulated sleep deficit', she went out. I would see her from the window, exploring the districts, talking to merchants, investigating rentals. It was one afternoon, while I was in the middle of a particularly productive nap, that she returned, her face glowing.
"I've found it," she announced, shaking me from my slumber.
"Found what? The meaning of life?" I mumbled.
"Our place. Our shop. Come on."
With the energy of a reluctant tornado, she dragged me through the shining streets of Piltover, but our direction was clear: downwards. Ever downwards. Her search had led her to the 'Boundary-Mark Promenade', the walkway that was the last frontier of Piltovan opulence before the city began to bleed into the darkness of Zaun. It was a bridge, both literally and socially, between two worlds.
She stopped in front of a shop. It was dilapidated, the Piltovan-blue paint peeling to reveal the dark wood beneath, the windows grimy with years of soot from the undercity. The dusty sign of a failed (or exploded, judging by the scorch mark on the back wall) alchemist still hung askew.
"It's perfect," Morgana said, her voice low but resonant with conviction.
"It's a disaster," I retorted, yawning. "It's probably structurally unsound. And it smells of desperation and failed experiments."
"It is," she agreed, which caught me by surprise. "And it's in the perfect place." Her gaze was on the flow of people: elegant Piltovans and tired-looking Zaunites who crossed paths on the Promenade but never truly met, their worlds separated by an invisible chasm of prejudice and wealth.
"Perfect place to get robbed, perhaps," I remarked.
She turned to me, her violet eyes holding a dark and ancient purpose. "This place, Azra'il, is a border. And what happens at borders? People are judged. The Zaunite who comes up is seen as an intruder. The Piltovan who goes down, as an explorer. They share the same sky, but they live in different worlds."
She looked at the shop's grimy door, but her vision went beyond it. "I don't want a sanctuary," she said, her voice filling with a quiet determination. "I want neutral ground. A place where the only thing that matters is not the soot on your hands or the shine on your cogs, but whether your tea is hot. A place where a Piltovan and a Zaunite can sit at neighbouring tables and be, for ten minutes, just two tired people."
I looked at the condemned building. And at her. It wasn't about charity. It was about creating a small pocket of equality, an act of rebellion so subtle most wouldn't even notice. It was stubborn, impractical, and dangerously idealistic. It was the most Morgana thing she could possibly have done.
"So you want to be the hostess for world peace, one cup at a time, with a dreadful business model and an extremely high security risk," I summarised, just to be sure I understood the scale of the disaster.
"I want a quiet place in the middle of a loud world," she replied, and there was no logical argument in the universe that could move her.
I sighed. A long, suffering sigh that came from millennia of pragmatism losing a battle to a single act of stubborn altruism.
"Alright," I sighed. "We'll take the ruin. You can have your little social experiment. But I choose the name. And the cellar… the cellar is mine. And it will be soundproof. For my hobbies."
A rare, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. "That seems fair."
"Well," I said, looking at the dusty sign. "It looks like we have a lot of work to do."