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The night begins like any other. Yet when morning comes mere hours later everything will have changed. A man will be dead, body left unburied. Two boys will join him, entombed in rubble and ash.
In the sky the stars shine indifferently.
Their light falls only upon the streets of Piltover. In the undercity one would be hard pressed to see any stars at all, with everywhere not already underground obscured by the ever present smog.
Yet the city is nevertheless alight, never fully sleeping. Like an ants nest it creeps and crawls all throughout the night, only ever slowing down during the small hours right before dawn.
A small boy cries. He has cried the entire night, and only felt smaller for it. The man who raised him is dead, and the longer he is alone the more he starts to suspect that the rest are too.
When the confirmation reaches him he has no tears left to cry.
This night does not bring only pain. In the great academy two men watch their own stars.
Made artificially, they shine just as well as the real thing. One of the men smiles, his pride in their accomplishment evident. His companion smiles back.
They do not know this yet, of course, but in the future both of them will think back to this moment as their prime.
A girl with hair like an early morning sky awakes screaming on the boat to Stillwater. All that earns her is bruises and a tight gag, but still she won't calm. She does not stop thrashing until the guards step in and sedate her. When she closes her eyes all she sees is red.
When the stars finally fade to make way for a sunrise upon a changed world, a child stops weeping. She finally falls asleep, exhausted after the disastrous night. Her father, for that is what he is now, carries her home.
The dawn colours them both a fiery gold.