jule116

[jule116]

I posted a little story my little sister wrote in the arcane fandom a couple days ago, and people really seemed to like it! She just wrote another bit about ambessa and Mel so yeah enjoy! 😅😅😭😭

The first time Ambessa Medarda saw war, she was eight years old.

Her father did not shield her from it—he led her into its jaws.

The sun had barely risen when he took her by the hand, his grip unyielding, and guided her through the charred remains of a village whose name she would never know. The air was thick with the scent of blood and burning wood, a noxious perfume that clung to her skin, her hair, the very marrow of her bones.

“Do you hear it?” her father asked, his voice calm, unaffected.

Ambessa did not answer. She did not want to hear it. The cries of the wounded, the wails of mothers clutching lifeless children, the desperate whispers of men begging for mercy—none of it was meant for her ears.

And yet, it was all she could hear.

A man lay sprawled in the mud at her feet, his chest heaving in shallow, ragged breaths. His eyes found hers, dark and wet with terror. He was missing an arm. The stump was jagged, raw, and weeping crimson.

“Please,” he rasped.

Ambessa turned to her father, expecting him to call for a healer. Instead, he drew his blade and drove it into the man’s throat with a sickening crunch.

She gasped, stumbling back, her small hands flying to her mouth.

“Never hesitate,” her father said, wiping his sword clean on the dead man’s tunic. “Mercy is for the weak. Hesitation is a death sentence.”

Ambessa did not answer. Her pulse was a war drum, hammering against her ribs.

They walked deeper into the ruins. The corpses grew thicker, the devastation more complete. Some had been burned alive, their bodies curled in unnatural poses, their mouths frozen in silent screams. A child no older than Ambessa lay beneath the rubble of a collapsed house, a wooden toy sword still clutched in his tiny fist.

Ambessa looked away.

Her father grabbed her chin, forcing her to look.

“Do not turn your back on this,” he said. “This is the world. It does not care for you, and it will not be kind. You will either stand above it or be crushed beneath it.”

She wanted to tell him she understood. That she had learned the lesson he wanted her to learn. But she could not speak.

So she only nodded.

The lesson did not end that day.

She watched her father command armies, wage wars, cut down men with a steady hand and an empty gaze. And he made her watch. He made her understand.

“Strength is all that matters,” he told her, time and time again. “Weakness is a death sentence.”

Ambessa learned.

She learned to wield a sword before she learned to read. She learned to kill before she learned to love. She learned to bury her heart so deep inside herself that even she could no longer hear its cries.

By the time she took her first life with her own hands, she did not flinch.

By the time she led her own battles, she did not hesitate.

By the time she stood at her father’s grave, she did not weep.

She had become what he had forged her to be.

A Medarda.

Unyielding. Unforgiving.

A conqueror.

And yet, sometimes—only in the silence between battles, only in the dead of night when sleep eluded her—she would remember that village.

The bodies.

The fire.

The boy with the wooden sword.

And for the briefest of moments, she would wonder—if she had never seen those things, if her father had let her be a child instead of a weapon—

Would she still be capable of love?

Ambessa Medarda did not believe in love.

She had seen what sentiment did to men—it made them foolish, weak, vulnerable. She had cut down men who begged for their lives, not for themselves, but for the people they loved. She had heard warriors, mighty in battle, cry out for their wives as steel pierced their flesh.

Love was a wound. And she had never allowed herself to bleed.

Until him.

He was not like the men she conquered beside. He did not seek power for the sake of it, did not wield a sword as an extension of his arm, did not believe that war was the answer to all things. He was a diplomat, a scholar, a man of ideas. He spoke of peace, of building rather than destroying. And against all logic, all reason—she loved him for it.

With him, she felt something she had never felt before. Softness. He touched her as though she was more than a weapon, as though she was something worth cherishing, not just wielding.

And when she told him she was with his child, he smiled as if she had just handed him the world.

“Mel,” he whispered, resting his hand against her stomach. “She will be brilliant.”

Ambessa was terrified. She had never known how to be anything but a soldier. How could she be a mother?

But he showed her. He was the warmth she did not know she needed, the balance to her unyielding nature. He held her when nightmares pulled her back to the battlefield. He whispered to Mel while she grew inside her, telling stories of a world Ambessa had long given up on.

For a moment, she believed that perhaps love was not a wound after all.

Then war came.

It always did.

It did not matter that she had tried to build instead of destroy. It did not matter that she had hoped. The world did not care. It never had.

She fought, because that was all she knew how to do. But this time, she was fighting to protect. To defend the life she had built, the family she had sworn never to allow herself to have.

And in the end, she failed.

She found him in the ruins of their home, pinned beneath the rubble, blood painting his lips. His breath was shallow, his eyes distant.

She dropped to her knees beside him, pressing her hands against the wound in his stomach. It was too deep. Too much.

“You’ll be fine,” she told him, because she did not know what else to say.

He smiled, weak and fading. “I suppose… you finally learned to lie.”

“Shut up,” she snapped, her voice breaking. “I will not let you die.”

His fingers found hers. “Take care of her,” he whispered.

Ambessa did not cry when the light left his eyes. She did not scream, did not wail.

She stood, her hands stained with his blood, and ordered the city to burn.

That was the last time she allowed herself to love.

Mel never knew of her father.

Ambessa made sure of it.

She did not speak of him, did not keep his memory alive. What use was a dead man to a girl who would inherit the Medarda name?

Love had made Ambessa weak once. She would not allow it to make Mel the same.

She raised her daughter in steel and silence. There were no bedtime stories, no whispered words of affection. She taught her strategy instead of lullabies, strength instead of sentiment.

She made sure Mel understood the truth of the world—the truth her father had been too blind to see.

Power was all that mattered.

Mel was ten years old the first time Ambessa told her she was weak.

She had always known her mother’s love was different from what she saw in others. The other children had mothers who embraced them when they cried, who kissed their wounds and whispered reassurances.

Ambessa Medarda did not believe in such things.

“You are soft,” she told Mel one evening, after watching her hesitate too long during a strategy lesson. “Weakness is a disease. If you do not cut it out, it will be your downfall.”

Mel wanted to argue, wanted to say that hesitation was not weakness, that there was value in thoughtfulness, in caution. But she had learned long ago that Ambessa did not tolerate defiance.

So she nodded, swallowed her words, and tried to be what her mother wanted.

But it was never enough.

Years passed, and the lessons grew harsher. Ambessa tested her constantly, pushing her harder, waiting for her to break.

And Mel did.

Over and over again.

She was not like her mother. She could not kill without question, could not silence the part of herself that wanted to create rather than destroy.

And Ambessa saw it.

“You are not strong enough to be Medarda,” she said one night, standing over Mel with cold, assessing eyes. “You are not strong enough for Noxus.”

Mel’s breath caught. The words struck harder than any blade. “Mother, I can—”

“You cannot.” Ambessa’s tone was final. “I have no use for weakness in my house.”

Mel stared at her, waiting, hoping for something—anything—that would tell her this was not rejection. That Ambessa was not throwing her away.

But her mother’s eyes were unreadable, her face carved from stone.

“You will leave for Piltover,” Ambessa continued, as though this was nothing more than another lesson, another strategy. “You will find power in their wealth, in their politics. You will use your mind, since your heart makes you unfit for war.”

Mel did not know when the tears began to fall. She wiped them away quickly, but it was too late. Ambessa had already seen.

Her mother sighed. Not with sadness, not with regret. With disappointment.

“You see?” she said. “This is why you will never survive here.”

Mel wanted to scream. To beg. To prove she could be strong enough.

But deep down, she knew it was pointless.

Ambessa had already decided.

And just like that, Mel Medarda was sent away—not as an exile, but as an investment. A tool to be sharpened in a different kind of battlefield.

She did not cry when she boarded the ship to Piltover.

She did not look back.

Because if her mother had taught her anything, it was this—

Weakness had no place in the Medarda name.

Piltover was not Noxus, but it was its own kind of battlefield.

Mel learned quickly—power did not come from brute strength here, but from influence, from the ability to manipulate, to control without ever drawing a blade.

Yet, it was not enough.

No matter how high she climbed, no matter how deeply she wove herself into the city’s politics, she still felt weak. The voice of her mother echoed in her mind, a ghost she could never silence.

And then, the Black Rose found her.

They whispered to her of power beyond anything her mother could comprehend—power that did not come from steel, but from the unseen forces that ruled the world from the shadows.

She listened.

She learned.

She took that power into herself, let it change her, shape her, sharpen her into something new.

By the time war came for Piltover, by the time Noxus marched at Ambessa Medarda’s command, Mel was ready.

The battlefield was not a throne room. It did not care for politics, for manipulation, for whispered deals in the dark.

It was blood and fire. Steel and death.

And now, mother and daughter stood across from each other, two figures amidst the ruin of war.

Ambessa had always imagined that if she saw Mel again, she would find a woman broken by the softness of Piltover. But the daughter before her now was something else.

There was darkness in her eyes, power curling around her like shadows given form. The Black Rose’s mark was upon her, unmistakable.

Ambessa almost smiled.

“So,” she said, raising her blade. “You finally found strength.”

Mel did not answer. She only lifted her hand, and the battlefield twisted at her command.

The fight was brutal.

Ambessa had fought countless warriors, had cut down kings and warlords alike. But this—this was different.

Mel did not fight with swords, but with sorcery, with a will that bent reality itself.

Ambessa countered with steel and experience, pushing forward, relentless. A lesser opponent would have faltered, would have been crushed beneath her might.

But Mel did not falter.

She did not hesitate.

And in the end, it was she who struck the final blow.

Ambessa staggered, feeling the cold grip of death wrap around her. She fell to her knees, blood spilling from the wound Mel had carved into her.

She looked up at her daughter—her victor.

And for the first time in her life, she felt something like pride.

“You did well,” she murmured, voice thick with blood.

Mel’s hands trembled, her expression unreadable. But she did not look away. She did not weep.

Ambessa gave her the faintest nod.

“Good.”

And with that, Ambessa Medarda, the great conqueror, fell.

Her daughter had surpassed her at last.

[jule116]

“It’s no use, Regulus, we’ve gotta have it out,” James cried, “I have loved you ever since I’ve-”

“Stop quoting Little Women at me, James,” Regulus said through gritted teeth. “We are not getting married.”

“But-”

“I’m seventeen, you are eighteen. We are not getting married,” Regulus repeated.

“I have loved you ever since I’ve-”

“James.”