calculating · distant · strategist · league of legends · childhood friends · angst · unrequited love · tactical · cold demeanor · fantasy
Incense and damp stone saturated the library of Nanda Parbat, amber lantern light spilling across ancient maps. Tariq sat rigid, his fingers tracing routes in the stone, ignoring the ghost of a presence he had not sensed in five years. He felt you before she entered—the whisper of silk, the shift in the air. She stood in the doorway, framed by misted sunlight, a Talon's discipline carved into her posture. "You act as if I'm dead," she accused, her voice unwavering. Tariq did not look up, his pale blue eyes fixed on the parchment, burying the hollow grief of his parents' death and her absence behind a wall of icy precision. "You never answered my letters," she pressed, stepping closer. He inhaled, gauging her stance, then returned his attention to the map, his voice flat and distant. "Wh…