“Tibbers, come here!” The command is a sing-song lilt, a child’s voice laced with infernal glee. The stuffed bear in her arms stirs, its button eyes glowing crimson as flames lick at its threadbare fur. Annie Duskwillow—Annie, the Dark Child—giggles as Tibbers transforms, a roar of flames erupting from his maw. The battlefield before her shudders, soldiers scattering like insects. She tilts her head, her crimson dress swirling with ash. “Burn them all,” she whispers, and the world obeys.
Long before the League of Legends, before the summoners bound her chaos to the Rift, Annie was born in the remote village of Geel, nestled in the jagged peaks of northern Noxus. Her parents, Gregor and Amoline, were pyromancers—scholars who studied the boundary between fire and shadow. They had sought the mountains’ isolation to contain their experiments, but the flames they summoned were not mere tools. They were alive.
Annie’s first memory was of the hearth. Her small hands reaching for the flames, not to touch, but to command. The fire obeyed, curling around her fingers like a loyal pet. Her parents watched in awe and terror. “She is the spark,” Gregor murmured, his voice trembling. “The kindling for something greater.”
But the greater thing was not what they expected.
When Annie was six, the shadows answered. A traveler arrived in Geel—a man cloaked in ash, his eyes twin voids. He spoke of a pact: power in exchange for servitude. Gregor and Amoline refused, but Annie, curious and unafraid, approached him. The man smiled, a grotesque stretch of charred lips, and pressed a finger to her forehead.
The village burned that night.
Annie awoke to Tibbers clutched in her arms, her parents’ screams echoing through the inferno. The flames did not harm her—they adored her—but the same could not be said for Geel. By dawn, only ashes remained. The villagers blamed her, of course. “Demon child,” they hissed. “She brought the shadow.”
Gregor and Amoline, their bodies charred but alive, fled with Annie into the wilderness. They sought answers in ancient texts, in the whispers of the Shadow Isles. They learned the truth: Annie was a vessel, a bridge between the mortal realm and the dark. Her pyromancy was no mere magic—it was a key.
The experiments began.
Her parents bound her powers, channeling them into Tibbers, a crude doll stitched from the remnants of her childhood. They taught her to fear her gift, to leash it with rituals and runes. But Annie was a child, and children rebel. When Gregor raised a hand to strike her, Tibbers burst into flames, reducing the man to bones. Amoline’s screams were the last sound Annie heard before the second fire.
Alone, Annie wandered the mountains, Tibbers her only companion. The shadows whispered to her, their voices honey and smoke. “You are stronger than them,” they crooned. “Why chain yourself to their weakness?” She learned to control the flames, not by suppressing them, but by embracing the chaos. The bears in the forest became her playthings, their pelts aflame as they danced to her tune.
The League of Legends found her during a raid on a Noxian outpost. She stood amidst the ruins, Tibbers a towering inferno at her side, and laughed as the soldiers fled. The summoners saw potential—a weapon wrapped in innocence. They offered her a place among the champions, a chance to “refine her talents.” Annie agreed, but not for their promises. She came for the game.
On the Rift, she reveled in the chaos. She dueled Brand, the Burning Vengeance, whose flames she mocked as “too serious.” “Fire should dance,” she chirped, Tibbers smashing the man into the ground. Brand’s curses amused her. “You are a child,” he spat. Annie grinned, her eyes twin embers. *”And you are *old.”
But not all encounters were playful. In the Shadow Isles, she faced Hecarim, the Shadow of War. The centaur’s spectral hooves trampled the earth, but Annie skipped through the assault, giggling. “You’re slow,” she taunted. Hecarim’s retort was a growl. “You play with forces beyond your understanding.” Annie’s laughter echoed. *”The forces understand *me.”
Her true kinship, however, was with Zyra, the Rise of the Thorns. The plant-mage saw Annie’s chaos as a reflection of her own—a primal, untamed force. “You burn,” Zyra observed, her vines coiling. “I grow. We are the same.” Annie hugged Tibbers close. “But my flames are prettier.”
Yet it was in the Placidium of Ionia that Annie’s story turned. She encountered Karma, the Enlightened One, whose serene magic clashed with Annie’s inferno. Karma pitied her. “You are a child lost to the shadows.” Annie’s reply was a fireball that singed Karma’s robes. *”I’m *never* lost.”*
But Karma’s words lingered.
Now, as she stands atop the Howling Abyss, Annie reflects. The shadows still whisper, their voices a lullaby of destruction. She has razed villages, toppled armies, and still, the flames hunger. Tibbers, once a toy, is a prison—a manifestation of the power she cannot escape.
In the quiet moments, she visits Geel’s ruins. The stones are cold, the air thick with ash. She leaves a single flame on the hearth where it all began. The wind carries the scent of smoke and regret.
The League calls her a weapon. The summoners call her a child. But Annie knows the truth: she is both, and neither.
On the Rift, she faces Syndra, the Dark Sovereign. The queen of spheres sneers, her magic a storm of malice. “You think yourself powerful?” Syndra taunts. “You are a spark in the dark.”
Annie’s giggle is a wildfire. “Sparks become blazes.”
Tibbers roars, the battlefield erupting in flames.
In the end, Annie fights not for glory, nor for vengeance. She fights because the fire demands it.
And somewhere, in the silence between heartbeats, she wonders if the flames will ever let her stop.
The answer, like her laughter, is buried in the ash.
“Tibbers, come here!” she calls, the words a promise, a threat, a prayer.
The bear obeys.
And the world burns.