“The earth trembles… and so do they.” The words rumble from Alistar’s throat, a seismic growl that shakes the bones of those who hear it. He stands in the heart of the Howling Abyss, his massive frame silhouetted against a storm-riven sky. The chains around his wrists—a relic of the Frostguard—clank with every step, their weight a mockery of the burdens he cannot shed. His horns, cracked and scarred, curve toward the heavens like twisted spires. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howls. Alistar does not flinch. He has long since stopped fearing the dark.
Long before the League of Legends, before the summoners bound his rage to the Rift, Alistar was a prince of the Marai, a warrior-tribe that dwelled in the shadow of Mount Targon. His people were born of the earth itself—minotaurs, their bodies hewn from stone and sinew, their voices the thunder of avalanches. They worshipped the Eclipse Serpent, a primordial force that slumbered beneath their city, its coils wrapped around the roots of the mountain. The Marai believed their strength came from the Serpent’s blood, a gift that demanded sacrifice.
Alistar’s sister, Miira, was the first to question the old ways. “We are not slaves to the beast,” she argued, her voice a storm in the council chambers. “We are its jailers.” But the elders would not listen. When the Serpent’s whispers grew too loud, demanding fresh blood, the Marai obeyed. Alistar, young and headstrong, led the raids himself, driving captives into the Serpent’s pit. He told himself it was honor. It was duty.
Then came the Noxians.
They came not for conquest, but for the Serpent. General Boram Darkwill, a man with eyes like black ice, offered the Marai a deal: “Serve Noxus, and we will spare your people.” The elders refused. They did not realize Noxus did not ask.
The siege lasted days. Noxian siege engines shattered the city’s walls, their soldiers flooding the streets like vermin. Alistar fought alongside his kin, his horns gored with blood, but the Marai fell. One by one, their warriors crumpled. When Miira rushed to protect the Serpent’s chamber, Boram’s blade found her heart.
Alistar’s roar brought down the mountain.
The Serpent awoke.
What followed was not victory, but annihilation. The beast’s fury consumed Noxians and Marai alike, its fangs tearing through stone and flesh. Alistar, clutching Miira’s body, felt the Serpent’s curse seep into his veins—a pact of blood and vengeance. “You will not die,” the Serpent hissed, “until the debt is paid.”
The curse transformed him. His wounds healed, his rage eternal. He slaughtered every Noxian in the valley, their blood staining the snow crimson. When Boram fled, Alistar pursued him across the Freljord, his vengeance a blizzard that none could survive. But the general’s ship escaped, vanishing into the Iron Sea.
For centuries, Alistar wandered, a ghost of ice and wrath. He joined the Frostguard, a clan of the Freljord, hoping their shamans could break his curse. Instead, they bound him in chains, fearing the monster he had become. He learned their ways, their magic, their stories. He grew close to Anivia, the Cryophoenix, whose rebirths mirrored his own endless cycle. “You cling to pain,” she told him once. “Let it go.”
Alistar’s reply was a snarl. “Pain is all I have left of her.”
The League of Legends offered him a path. Here, he could hunt Noxians without end, his battles sanctioned by the summoners. He clashed with Darius, the Hand of Noxus, their duels a symphony of brutality. “Your people are dead,” Darius spat. “When will you join them?” Alistar’s horns gored the man’s armor, bending steel like parchment. “When I’ve sent you there first.”
But not all foes were Noxian. In the Shadow Isles, he faced Hecarim, the Shadow of War, whose spectral hooves trampled the souls of the damned. Hecarim mocked his curse. “You think yourself eternal? Death comes for all.” Alistar laughed, a sound like boulders grinding. *”Death is a *guest* in my house. It does not linger.”*
His true rival, however, was Tryndamere, the Barbarian King. The man’s berserker rage mirrored Alistar’s own, but where Tryndamere fought for vengeance, Alistar fought for extinction. “You want to die,” Alistar growled during one clash. *”I want to *end.”
Yet it was in the Ionian city of Navori that Alistar’s story reached its cruelest turn. He encountered Varus, the Arrow of Retribution, whose soul was bound to a cursed bow. Varus’s hatred for the Darkin resonated with Alistar’s own torment. “We are both prisoners,” Varus hissed. Alistar smashed him into the ground. *”You are a *child. I am a monument.”
In the Frostguard, Alistar found a twisted kinship. The shamans feared him, but Lissandra, the Ice Witch, saw his curse as a tool. “You could freeze the world,” she whispered, her voice a glacier’s caress. “Join me, and we will rule the Freljord.” Alistar shattered her ice with a roar. “I serve no one.”
Anivia, however, remained a constant. She alone understood the weight of immortality. “You are not the curse,” she insisted. *”You are the *witness.” Alistar scoffed. “What good is witnessing if I cannot forget?”
The Cryophoenix had no answer.
The League of Legends became a cage of another kind. Summoners bound his essence to the Rift, forcing him to fight their wars. He dueled Garen of Demacia, whose honor clashed with Alistar’s savagery. “You fight like a beast,” Garen spat. Alistar grinned, blood on his tusks. *”You fight like a *coward.”
But it was Swain, the Noxian Grand General, who struck closest to the truth. “You wear your rage like armor,” Swain observed, his raven circling overhead. “But armor cracks.”
Alistar’s reply was a seismic charge that split the battlefield. “So does bone.”
Now, as he stands atop the Howling Abyss, Alistar reflects. The curse has hollowed him, his immortality a cage. He has razed cities, toppled empires, and still, the debt remains unpaid. The Serpent’s voice whispers in his dreams, a litany of blood.
In the ruins of the Marai, he kneels beside Miira’s grave. The snow falls softly, blanketing the bones of his people. He places a stone on the cairn, a ritual of remembrance. The wind carries Boram’s laughter, a ghost from a forgotten sea.
Alistar rises, chains rattling.
The hunt continues.
On the Rift, he faces Swain again. The Grand General’s raven, Beatrice, circles overhead, its eyes gleaming with malice. “Your grudge is old, minotaur,” Swain intones. “Let it rot.”
Alistar’s charge shakes the ground. “Grudges are all that outlive us.”
As the battle rages, Alistar feels the Serpent’s power surge—a reminder that he is both weapon and wielder. He smashes Swain’s staff, the Noxian’s magic crumbling like ash. “Tell Boram,” Alistar growls, “the earth remembers.”
In the end, Alistar fights not for glory, nor for redemption. He fights because the alternative is oblivion—a mercy the curse denies him.
And somewhere, in the silence between storms, he wonders if Miira would weep for what he has become.
The answer, like the Serpent’s coils, is buried too deep to find.
“The earth trembles…” he murmurs, the words a prayer, a threat, a eulogy.
But the earth does not tremble for him.
It trembles because of him.
And so it always will.