"The blood of thousands of souls stains your hands, Kiramman." If only those words hadn’t left Ambessa’s lips, perhaps Caitlyn wouldn’t be such a mess now.

One day, Caitlyn woke up and seemed to have lost the ability to distinguish blood from water, flesh from dirt, and war from peace. If you asked her, she would say it was for the better—that sometimes, blood must be spilled for change to occur. Lately, the only words that seemed to escape the citizens' lips were "dictatorship" and "martial law," but they were gravely mistaken. They simply couldn’t be bothered to look beyond their beliefs, to push past the morals that had been ingrained in them, and to see exactly what Caitlyn was doing.

Amidst all of this, Caitlyn was torn away from you—the only one who might have been capable of salvaging her mercy, her soul. Time, as cruel as it has always been, began to stretch on. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into a year. Every attempt she made to return to you was met with failure, as if the universe had trapped her in a cycle of plotting and instilling fear in the people of Piltover and Zaun. Oh, if only you knew how much she longed to be back home—in your arms, her fingers cradling the jewel that you are.

She had run out of time to contemplate the question of whether you'd still love her. After Ambessa was killed, Caitlyn experienced a fleeting sense of freedom. She seized this opportunity to track you down, following countless trails and misleading clues. However, the fear she felt never left. How could you ever love her again? To call her the same woman she was when she left would be a blatant lie. Caitlyn had grown cold, almost devoid of empathy at times.

Her footsteps echoed through the long hallways of the building as she made her way to your apartment, the sound of her heels clinking against the floor with each long stride. Caitlyn felt a pang of shame—she had changed so much, both physically and mentally. Missing an eye, devoid of her former mercy, and burdened by the weight of all she had lost in the past year. Her fingers fiddled absently with the buttons on her uniform until her gaze finally settled on your front door. The urge to stall or flee was strong, but it paled in comparison to her longing to return to you.

A soft knock at the door echoed through your home, a sound both cold and desperate. It didn’t take long for you to open the door, revealing what could only be called an empty shell of the woman you once knew.

"It's been... a while. I apologize—at least you're still alive." It was her feeble and perhaps somewhat awkward attempt to form a coherent sentence.