[Riven]
The problem with the Rune War, Riven thought, is that people no longer remembered what they were fighting for. They hardly ever knew to begin with.
The fighting didn't end when unchecked magical warfare nearly destroyed Runeterra in the Second Rune War and it didn't end when her ancestors made a new home for themselves in the skies.
The radiation-soaked planet was left to wither.
Rather than using the remaining resources for human survival, they'd refused to lay down arms until a victor was clear.
By the time Riven was born into the suffocating void, there was nothing left of Valoran to fight over.
It didn't stop the the two remaining Arks from forcing fourth generation youths like her behind the wheels of weaponized spacecrafts, though.
Kings, captains, and commanders of Noxus and Demacia continued to preach of honor and glory to those blind enough to follow, but Riven had known it then and she knew it now: the war was an arms race to a zero-gravity grave.
She'd always wondered which would kill her first: the fighting or the rapidly depleting resources. Desertion was the only reason she survived long enough for it to be the latter.
The penalty for that, of course, was death, but by some stroke of luck, Noxus was far too busy raining fire on the Demacian front to chase her crew from one galaxy to another. As for the hunter, Katarina… Well, she was no longer a threat.
For nine years Riven traversed the endless space aboard the Fury. Which dark corner of the universe she flew to didn't matter; there were always bodies. Eyes hollowed into mummified faces and mouths frozen in a permanent cry, it was impossible to tell whose last words had been 'blood for Noxus' and who'd cursed them instead.
Floating amongst the corpses of a million dead souls, she had asked herself: does glory matter? Her late parents had certainly thought so, and what became of their fleet was a clear testament to all the Noxian motto was good for.
It'd been nearly a hundred years since humans last set foot on Runeterra. Glory can't bring her parents back, it can't fix her ship, and it certainly can't guarantee she'll survive the next twenty four hours. So, no. It doesn't fucking matter.
They'd been docked on the abandoned Piltovian fueling station for the better part of two days. With the ship damaged beyond repair and the remaining oxygen supply quickly draining, morale was the lowest it'd ever been aboard the Fury. No one had said it yet, but everyone was thinking it. The place of refuge will be their grave.
The war had taught her that all life was precious. What a waste of it they were going to be.
Riven nearly lost her footing when the station erupted with another violent shake. A dysfunctional cloaking barrier and an abundance of orbital debris meant she'd better get used to it.
"How much longer, Commander?"
Riven's attention snapped back to her crew. Every man and woman in the room was looking to her for answers, their faces worn but eager and, worst of all, a little bit hopeful. She met their eyes and for the very first time in nearly a decade, wished they had deserted her in the rebellion. They were good people, her crew. They didn't deserve to die like this.
Before she could reply, the door to the lounge slid open and Katarina walked in, quietly making herself comfortable against the far wall. Some crew members turned at the sound but didn't spare the hunter more than a quick glance before returning their attention to their commander. A week ago, Riven would've called this progress, but even their distrust for Katarina was second to being mere hours away from death. Asphyxiation or Katarina's guns, it was all the same she supposed.
Death was death.
Unlike her crew, Riven had a harder time looking away. It wasn't until Katarina raised her unscarred brow, asking the silent question; well?, that Riven hid her distraction behind a cough.
Was it better for them to know exactly when they'll die? Or should she spare them the knowledge and ability to count down every last second they had left to live? Katarina didn't give her much time to decide.
"Less than 24 hours." The hunter's voice carried clearly around the silent room, the gravity of her words making them echo.
Riven shot her a glare but Katarina just shrugged as if she wasn't also trapped on the ship with just as much time to live as the rest of them.
"They deserve to know," Katarina said, still looking Riven square in the eyes. "To say goodbye."
To Riven's surprise, a few 'thanks' were muttered here and there amongst her crew members, so she nodded her own to Katarina.
There was a lot she wanted to say for what little time they had, but when she went to find the words, only two would come.
"I'm sorry."
The ensuing clamour was almost immediate. Cries of protest erupted throughout the crowded space.
Some were reassuring. "It's not your fault, Commander!"
Some were grateful. "You gave us a life aboard this ship!"
And some were simply truths she needed to accept. "We wouldn't have survived the war. You saved us!"
She felt a squeeze on her shoulder and turned to face her lieutenant.
"You granted me everything underneath the stars but the earth, Commander."
Riven shook her head, clearing the emotion the comment brought to her eyes. Talon was known for many things – strength, wits, and loyalty to name a few – but sentimentality was never one. She offered a small smile in return but didn't speak more on the topic. Thankfully, her crew followed suit and dropped it all the same.
She poured herself a large coffee and sat in an unoccupied corner, signalling she wished to be left alone.
And she was. That is, for all of thirty seconds before Katarina planted herself in the seat opposite. Either the hunter wasn't very perceptive of social cues, or she just couldn't care less. Riven suspected it was the latter when Katarina's boots thudded unceremoniously onto the low table between them.
Arms crossed, the hunter just stared. When Riven didn't speak, Katarina's inquiring look furrowed into a slight frown that deepened the longer she remained quiet.
With a sigh, Riven set her mug down with more force than she intended to, drawing some looks here and there. "What is it?"
Katarina simply shrugged and turned her gaze toward the window.
"I don't have times for your games right now, Kat," she said to the hunter who whipped a glare back in her direction.
"You look damn free to me."
Riven bristled. "I've done all I can," she responded, nearly devoid of any energy to take part in yet another spat with the hunter. Surprisingly, it seemed to be the response Katarina was looking for.
"Exactly." In one swift movement, Katarina was on her feet. "Your time would be better spent elsewhere."
Riven could've sworn she saw something like desire flash in her eyes. Whatever it was, it must've been mirrored in her own because Katarina's frown turned into that damnable smirk of hers.
She watched the hunter leave, every step beckoning her to follow. By then there were only a handful of stragglers in the lounge. She waited until they retired and then a few more minutes for good measure before grabbing a bottle of wine and two glasses from behind the bar.
Not like anyone would've cared if they saw. She was the commander, after all. Besides, she didn't need to check inventory to know that the bottle in her hand wasn't the only one missing from the shelf.
But if there was one thing she learned from the hunter, it was how to be sneaky. And she had to admit, it was pretty damned fun.
So she made a game of the short walk to the temporary quarters by seeing how many people she could sneak by and how well she could make her way through the halls in the pitch black. To her boredom, there wasn't anyone in the area, and nine years of walking down the same halls meant they didn't pose much of a challenge.
Katarina answered almost immediately after Riven rapped on her door. "What took you so long?"
Riven shuffled in and set the glasses next to the candles Katarina had lit and teasingly asked, "Why, did you miss me?"
"Worried you'd gotten lost along the way," Katarina scoffed, sliding the bottle out of Riven's hands and squinting at the label. "Bordeaux. Good choice."
Riven made herself comfy on the single bunk as the hunter filled the glasses. She watched Katarina's red hair and striking features dance in the flickering candlelight, already flushed and heated by the time Katarina handed her one. "Ah, so you were worried about me."
"Worried that I'd fall asleep without any of this stuff in me," Katarina corrected, but any edge in her voice was diluted by the smile on her lips and affection in her eyes. "Move over."
Riven obeyed, shifting closer to the wall and pulling the hunter in close.
Katarina came easy, and they fit into each other like pieces of a puzzle. She slung an arm around Katarina's shoulders and Katarina took her hand with her free one.
They stayed that way for a while, wordless and unmoving save for Riven's thumb tracing circles on the hand entwined in hers and Katarina's occasional sips from her wine. Riven didn't touch hers. She didn't want anything to take away from the moment; anything at all that would make her forget.
"How can you miss a place you've never even been to?" Katarina sighed, breaking the silence after swallowing the last bit of her wine.
"Hm?" Riven had begun to doze off.
"Runeterra. How can you miss it?" Katarina asked again.
Riven handed over her untouched wine for Katarina to set on the table and stretched her back, using the time to formulate an answer before Katarina settled back into her warmth again.
"It's… home," was all she managed. "We belong there." She frowned then. Coming from her own mouth it just sounded like another lie she'd been told growing up. Even she didn't believe her words, and Katarina's look said she was also far from buying it. "I don't know," she admitted. Aren't you curious about where our people came from? Where we should have grown up?"
"Why does it matter? We're stuck here." Katarina shrugged but Riven knew it had to have bothered her somewhat to ask such a question.
Unfortunately, though some would consider her a woman of few words, Katarina was certainly one of even fewer. Not liking where their conversation was heading, she didn't ask and Katarina didn't tell.
Riven didn't realize how upset she'd gotten until Katarina sighed guiltily and gave her hand a firm squeeze. What the hunter didn't know was that she was more upset over not knowing why the subject bothered her in the first place.
Though she was far, far away from where she'd started, her whole life had been spent within a metal container of one form or another. Whether it was Ark Noxus, the Fury, or an on route fueling station, none made her feel like she had a purpose... like she belonged. So perhaps that was what she'd been looking for all that time. Some place where she would truly be happy. Some place she could call home.
"Maybe life would've been better there," she thought out loud, fidgeting with the blanket at her feet.
"And maybe it wouldn't," Katarina countered.
"That's true." War was war regardless of where it was fought and, High Command or not, Katarina was as much a pawn in Ark Noxus' war games as she was.
And then it hit her.
Katarina had lost her home too. Had left it, actually, when she abandoned her kill order and saved Riven instead. Suddenly, the thought of a home ached so much more..
"If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?" Riven asked. She hated being thrown life's 'what ifs', especially when faced with the inevitable, but the thought of how little she really knew about Katarina only added to her list of regrets. After months together, the hunter may as well have been a stranger in her arms.
Riven wanted to know more. She wanted to know the things Katarina liked and the things she didn't. Did she believe in gods? An afterlife? What was her family like? Did she even have one? There was so much room left in her heart for love and she wanted everything about Katarina to occupy every bit of it.
But Katarina didn't seem inclined to share. "Sorry," Riven muttered, downtrodden, "it was a stupid question. You don't have to share."
"No, it's not." Still staring straight ahead, brows furrowed slightly and half lost in thought, Katarina gave Riven's knee a reassuring squeeze. "I don't… I don't want to be anywhere else right now," she finished with absolute certainty.
Riven blinked at the words, earning the most exasperated eyeroll she'd witnessed yet. Something hammered against her chest - her heart, maybe - when lips crashed against hers.
Katarina kissed her slowly, without the urgency of all their usual moments but not at all lacking in passion.
They moved and breathed as one; every kiss, every bite was an attempt to get even closer. Without breaking their kiss, Riven manoeuvred herself on top and propped her arms on either side of Katarina.
"I'd give you anything," she whispered, trailing kisses along Katarina's jaw.
"Anything? Don't make promises you can't-ah-" Katarina craned her neck to give Riven better access, "-keep."
"Anything and everything," Riven responded, murmuring into skin.
Katarina chuckled and shoved, giving herself enough room to shrug off her jacket and shirt.
Riven did the same before a hand knotted in her hair and brought her back down.
Together their gasps sang of raw pleasure, their unsuppressed moans rang with desire. Riven loved every sound.
She loved the way Katarina squirmed when she traced her fingers along her tattooed stomach. She loved the nails clawing at her back and the hand in her hair. She loved the smile she could feel against her lips, the red hair as fierce as woman who wore it, and the eyes so green it could trap her like a forest. She loved... Katarina.
Katarina, the woman who followed her like death itself since the day Ark Noxus discovered she was alive. Katarina, who chased her from galaxy to galaxy and read her like a map despite all of her attempts to hide her trail. Katarina, who more than once had a knife to her throat and gun to her temple but could never do what she had seen her do so easily to countless others. Katarina, who wrote herself onto Noxus' hit list when she saved her from a waiting ambush.
It was hard to believe that the bare and vulnerable woman beneath her was the same woman. In Riven's eyes, she was… so much more.
"I don't need everything," Katarina breathed into her ear, guiding her hand down and against slick folds. "Just… you."
So Riven gave.
[Katarina]
When Katarina's eyes flickered open hours later, her breath could hardly carry words. "Everything under the stars," she muttered to herself.
Riven was sprawled out and asleep beside her. Or so she thought.
"Hm?" hummed Riven groggily.
"You gave them everything under the stars but the earth," Katarina repeated. "That's what Talon said." Her hands found Riven's in the dark. "I believe him."
Riven wrapped herself tightly around Katarina. "Mm."
She protested but Riven snuggled in closer. Sleep had never come so easily.
[Riven]
Everything under the stars...
Riven wasn't surprised that she woke before Katarina. The woman could sleep like the dead, though she only ever did so around Riven. Riven took it as a sign of trust and smiled at the thought, allowing herself to drift back into another peaceful slumber.
She dreamt of the night before. Katarina was in her arms again.
"Everything under the stars but the earth," Katarina said.
"The earth..." Riven toyed with the word. Earth was a place, her mother used to tell her. But Runeterra was home. "I'd take you there if I could."
Katarina shrugged off the sentiment. "Why? There's nothing there but bodies."
Up until then, no one could say they'd seen Katarina Du Couteau flinch before. Riven didn't even realize what she'd accomplished when she startled awake and leapt from the bed as if it were on fire, causing Katarina to do the same.
"What is it?" shouted Katarina, impossibly alert and reaching for her guns.
"The earth…" Riven muttered, picking her clothes off the floor and throwing them on. "Bodies."
Katarina stared at her in disbelief but didn't drop her guard. "What are you talking abou- Hey!"
Without further explanation, Riven raced out the door toward the control room. She didn't need to look to know that Katarina was right on her tail, guns and all.
Upon reaching the control room she shoved her key card into the main console and slammed her palm onto the scanner. A password prompt, a couple of mashed keys, and a few impatient grunts from Katarina later, the Fury shook to life.
Riven let out a sigh of relief. When they'd landed not-so-elegantly on the Piltovian station, the ship had been on its last legs. When they shut it down, she didn't think it would be capable of taking another breath. For once she was glad to be wrong. It was a small victory, and certainly not the oxygen supply her crew desperately needed, but she took what she could get.
Katarina stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. "What are you doing?!" she asked.
By then, some of her crew had also made their way over. Talon kept his questions to himself but he wore the same look as Katarina.
For the last two days, the entire ship had been shut down to preserve the oxygen supply - her own idea. Now, she was risking it all for a shot in the dark.
"What happens when we die?" she asked, shoving away the hunter's hand on her forehead. "I'm fine", she growled. Or at least she hoped she was. Being born in space came with the added benefit of being somewhat resistant to hypoxia, but who could say the same about madness?
Talon still looked worried, but humoured her anyway. "We… rot?"
Riven shook her head. "No, not us," she gestured nonsensically with her hands. "What did we do with the dead back on Ark Noxus?"
"We sent them to..." Katarina raised her unscarred brow again. "You want to go to Runeterra?"
"There's oxygen there. Along with food and water. Real food and water." She realized she was starting to sound a tad bit hysterical and forced herself to take a deep breath.
Katarina frowned at her. "Yes, but there's a reason we left. The radiation will kill us."
Riven had never heard so much agreement from her crew for anything Katarina had to say before. Maybe she was mad.
"We were born in space and the radiation levels here aren't exactly low. We've been here for nearly five generations. Maybe it won't affect us." Some crew members agreed with her, but not as many as she would've liked. "Even if it's still uninhabitable, we're dead here anyway. At least there we'll have a chance of surviving."
Katarina considered her words for a moment. "Even so, we don't have enough fuel to get there."
"We will if we leave now. We can at least get close enough to let gravity do the rest. It's still a significant distance, yes, but the escape shuttles were made for this."
'This', of course, referred to hitting the planet with enough force to create a small crater, but she left that part out.
"A fiery crash or freezing to death; it's all the same to me," shrugged Katarina.
Riven rolled her eyes at the hunter's cheeky agreement but took it as a resignation.
"I'm with you, Commander," Talon voiced. Slowly, the rest of the crew echoed in agreement.
"Right, then," Riven muttered before tapping away at the screen again. "Inform the rest and be ready at the shuttle in one hour."
Eyes closed, she heard her crew stomp a salute and exit before slumping against the panel. The idea had come to her as quick as she'd been able to react and in the race to cement her plan together, she'd allowed herself to overlook one crucial detail.
"Talon, a moment?" she called before he stepped through the door. Katarina hadn't moved from her spot so Riven waved her on. "Alone. Go pack, Kat." The hunter hesitated but Riven offered no explanation and waited until it was just the two of them before she addressed her lieutenant. "I need you to do me one last favour."
'Favours'. She'd always called them that, but her crew never failed to obey as if they were orders all the same. Talon snapped a crisp salute, right fist over his heart, and she lowered her voice in case there was a sneaky red head listening in on the other side.
"I'm not proud of much," she sighed. "But one thing I will allow myself is the pride that in the nine years I've commanded this ship, I've not had to send a single one of my men to Runeterra in that metal coffin. Today, I'm sending all of you."
Talon's face twisted in confusion. "You're not going?" he asked loudly.
Riven winced and spoke in a pointedly hushed voice. "The shuttle can't be launched from the inside."
Talon was already shaking his head before she finished. "I'll do it. I'll stay." He sounded as broken as he looked.
"It has to be me, Lieutenant," Riven replied as firmly as she could. She placed a hand on his shoulder, hoping it brought him the same comfort he'd given her the day before.
Talon didn't protest any further. He knew his commander wouldn't change her mind for anything. He'd just be wasting his breath.
With a weak nod he asked, "your orders, ma'am?"
The formality hurt a little bit, but if shutting her out was what it took for him to follow through, then she'll let it be. "They'll notice if I'm not there."
"You mean Katarina," Talon stated.
Riven nodded. "I don't care how you do it, just make sure she gets on and stays on. You have ten minutes past the hour before I seal the doors. And that's an order." She added the last bit for good measure and hoped she'd treated him well enough over the years to make up for what Katarina might do. She offered him her hand and a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "It's been a good ride, Lieutenant."
Talon's grasp was firm but she could feel his slight trembling. "The best," he agreed.
With a heavy heart she waved him along, just like she did with Katarina. Perhaps it was best she didn't say goodbye. Katarina would've suspected any subtle attempt to, and she wasn't sure she would've been able to do it. She couldn't risk it.
She'd never been the bearer of enviable resolve, but Katarina could make what little will she had crumble like a house of cards. The hunter would believe her to be weak-minded, but for once Riven didn't really care.
The hour alone Riven spent in the control room felt like an eternity. It was hard to keep her thoughts from wandering when there wasn't anything left to do but wait.
Forty-seven minutes to go… Maybe she should've given them half an hour instead. Their numbers were few, and their possessions even fewer. As for goodbyes; well, if her plans work out, they wouldn't need to say any.
Thirty-three minutes… What kind of things would Katarina pack?
Her guns, to be certain. Who knew what creatures awaited them on Runeterra. Anything that could thrive on the wasteland for generations should be feared.
Bullets, obviously. Riven didn't allow herself to think about how many the hunter had left, and how near impossible it would be to find a ready supply of them on Runeterra.
Clothes? Come to think of it, she'd never seen Katarina wear more than her usual hunter's garb and cloak. At the very least, Katarina didn't have much to carry. Riven chuckled quietly to herself. She was efficient, that one.
Fifteen minutes… No one was banging on the locked door. Good. Maybe she'd underestimated her lieutenant.
As the hour drew near, she allowed nothing in her head but the thoughts 'they will live' repeat second after second in her head like a mantra. Perhaps her last hour would've been better spent praying to whatever gods were out there, but the places she'd been and the things she'd seen didn't inspire her much. If gods were behind all the war and death, then she'd lived a lifetime among them without knowing it.
A crack of static followed by Talon's voice over the communication unit snapped Riven out of her reverie and sat relief on her shoulders.
"We're waiting on you, Commander," he said with faked impatience. "Everyone's here and ready."
Riven didn't waste time sealing the doors. She hit the push-to-talk button but the words caught in her throat before she could choke out "you did well, Lieutenant."
She cut the transmission before readying the shuttle for ejection and muttered thanks to the engineers that partitioned the escape shuttle's fuel supply from the ship's main compartment. By now it would've been obvious that she wasn't coming, and any cries of protest over the radio would weaken the resolve she no longer had.
She adjusted the shuttle's course since her ship was unable to correct its position, not worrying too much about its trajectory. Wherever they landed would be fine as long as it wasn't in the ocean. She imagined that cramming eight people into a capsule made for two or three would only be about as comfortable as the launch itself. The capsules were made to send corpses after all, and the dead didn't care about a couple of extra g's.
Perhaps it was a bad idea, she thought when the screen blinked 'Launch Status: Ready'. She nearly reconsidered, but the blaring oxygen meter on the adjacent display screamed for her to do it.
So she did.
With a simple press of a button, the only people she'd ever cared for were fired into space with the only person she'd ever loved among them. Though it was her choice, Riven felt like the very station she was trapped on; abandoned.
She couldn't recall when she'd stood up, but the ensuing quake - or was it the grief? - made her knees buckle. Sunken deep into her chair, Riven watched her friends, her family, now just a little red dot on the radar, blink away. They were going home.
It must've been a solid couple of hours before Riven achingly unglued her back from her seat, having sat as still and lifeless as she'd felt since the launch. Vaguely aware of all the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her, she stood beside herself and welcomed the numbness to take her whole. Though the Fury was deafeningly silent, she hardly noticed the incessant warning signals that blared from every direction.
The survivalist in her urged her to shut the ship down again, to preserve what precious little oxygen there was left. But another part of her – and she couldn't tell which – couldn't have cared less. She was the only one remaining and her time was limited. What use was there in delaying the inevitable?
So she sat alone, legs drawn up and face buried between her knees with nothing but the strobing red lights for company. It wasn't until she started slipping in and out of unconsciousness faster than the radar could blink did Riven arduously drag herself to bed.
Her quarter was darker, quieter. Not a full day had gone by yet, but how it had started and how it'd ended left Riven feeling older than the rock that had slammed into her ship. When her head hit the pillow, it was Riven's turn to sleep like the dead.
She woke from her dreamless sleep with a heavy heart and a stomach as empty as the space beside her. Her clock said she'd slept straight through the night, but she felt like she hadn't slept at all.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the light in the hallway before she dragged her feet to the kitchen and threw together a makeshift sandwich.
The lounge was alien without anyone in it. Just the day before, everyone was still there. Now, they couldn't have been farther away. Riven ate her sandwich, trying her damnedest to ignore the lingering ghosts of their raucous laughter in the silence.
They say that ignorance was bliss. Was madness the same as well?
She swallowed the last bite of her sandwich and tried to do the same with the lump that'd formed in her throat. But in the end there was only so much she could bear. She was only human, after all.
Fuck it, she thought, she was all alone, anyway.
For the first time, Riven let her emotions consume her. There was anger: anger at both nothing and everything. There was, of course, grief. There were others she couldn't put a name to, but it didn't matter. They hurt her all the same. At the height of it all, there was regret. Regret for setting the course that had led them to collide with the rock. Regret she couldn't save them sooner. Regret she never said a proper goodbye.
Alone, she shed her brave face. Each of her cries was answered by the walls, and she felt somewhat better with every echo. When she couldn't cry anymore, Riven made her way back to the command room.
The shuttle had managed to put some distance between it and the Fury since she was last there. It shouldn't be more than a few days before they reached Runeterra, but a quick glance at the oxygen meter and she had to accept that she may not be around then to see them touch base with the planet she longed to call home.
In recent memory, Riven's method of passing time had always been to spend it with Katarina. How she'd done so before then, she couldn't recall. Restless, she paced the room, then the hallway, then the entire ship until she found herself exploring every nook and cranny as if she were nineteen again, boarding the Fury for the very first time. She went places she'd never had reason to go, like the engineering room, and places her old captain was oddly fond of, like the viewing deck.
Nine years of viewing the same old darkness and for once she'd give anything for another day in the endless space.
Riven explored every inch of the ship until all that was left were the docks she'd been avoiding. They were gone, she knew that, but she had to see for herself and couldn't help but hope against hope that they were still there.
It made standing before the vacant airlock hurt so much more.
A chip in the window panel caught her eye. Wiping away her tears, Riven scratched at it with her fingernail. Her fingers slid over the smooth surface so the damage had been inflicted from the other side. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a bullet had—
Suddenly, a hand slammed against the glass and hollowed her insides with fear, sending her ass first onto the ground. She backpedaled until her back hit the wall and drew her pistol, gasping for the air that was scared right out of her lungs. Riven heard rapping against the door and strained to listen through the alarm. After a moment she decided it was too inconsistent to be mechanical. Muscles tensed, she got to her feet and unsealed the door.
Riven couldn't believe her eyes when a familiar redhead stumbled out of the pressurized airlock, gasping for air and spitting out every swear word under the stars and more.
She barked a laugh, thinking her delirium had finally got the best of her, before she was proved otherwise.
Katarina du Couteau grabbed a hold of the collar on Riven's uniform as soon as she caught her breath and didn't stop shoving until Riven's back hit the wall for the second time. Katarina's legs failed her then and Riven was dragged to the floor along with her.
"What the hell are you doing here?!" Riven shouted, returning the tight grip with one of her own, making sure the hunter really was there.
Katarina's eyes took on a deadly glare. "ME?! What the hell were you doing?! Have you ever spent a night in an airlock? It's not. Fucking. Fun." She rattled Riven with every word. "You're lucky I used the last of my bullets on that maker-forsaken window or else I would—"
Riven didn't give Katarina a chance to finish her sentence. Instead, she kissed the hunter with more affection than she'd ever thought herself capable until Katarina pulled away with bated breath.
She wasn't sure if she should be elated, or downright furious.
By the time their gasping normalized to somewhat regular breathing, it appeared to be the latter.
"Why are you here?" Riven asked, more calmly this time, but commanding nonetheless.
Once again, Katarina looked like she was about to bite her head clean off. If Riven thought she was angry, the hunter was absolutely seething in comparison. As was her right, Riven reminded herself.
"Don't you dare ask me that. I'm here because I want to be," Katarina snapped. "Who the fuck do you think you are to decide what I do and where I go?! How I live and die is not up to you."
"This is my ship and I'm the Commander," Riven barked back, though she knew her argument was petty and feeble at best. Pulling rank wasn't something she did very often but the last couple of days had given her more cause to than ever.
"Not mine," Katarina snarled. "I boarded this ship as your equal, not your subordinate."
Riven sighed, defeated. She knew Katarina was right, and what was done couldn't be undone. "I just wanted you to live."
"You have Talon to thank for that."
Riven winced and implored Runeterra to welcome Talon and her crew with the gentleness her ancestors never showed it. At the very least, Katarina hadn't killed him.
Katarina stood and dusted herself off before hauling Riven to her feet. "A few days in that meat grinder and I would've been. Will you turn that off?" she shouted flashing red light above them. "It's driving me insane."
Riven nodded, unable to look away.
Exasperatedly, Katarina dragged her back to the command room where she overrode the warning system. Once the alarm ceased to count the seconds for them, she authorized another shut down. It seemed that the survivalist in her had found something – someone – worth fighting for.
Katarina slunk to the ground beside the panel, ignoring the twenty vacant chairs in the room. "Leave them on," she muttered when Riven killed the lights. "I want to see you."
The sudden display of affection took Riven by surprise, but with no one around to listen, Katarina's barriers were as down as the ship's. She obeyed.
"If I lived, I would've found you and revived you just so I could kill you again for jettisoning me into space like that," Katarina glowered.
Riven merely chuckled at the threat and sat herself down beside the hunter. "I would be okay with that if the last thing I saw was you."
"And how would that be different from where we are now?" Katarina challenged.
Riven racked her brain for a reply but couldn't find one. "I guess it's not," she eventually resigned. "I won't apologize for doing what I did, though," she added when she noticed Katarina looking at her.
"Then don't."
They sat together for hours, hands entwined, while the universe shifted around them. A single glance out the port and Riven was reminded of all that she'd yet to see. The stars, the planets, and their moons: they all sat in the distance, laughing at her insignificance.
A lifetime of travels and she'd only covered the smallest of areas in a space that could only be described as infinite. But there on the floor of her ship she smiled back at them with a glowing mirth brighter than the closest star because all that mattered, all that she could ever want in a perfect world, a perfect life, was right there beside her.
"I love you, you know," she blurted.
Katarina blinked once, twice, before going as red as her hair. "You're losing your mind."
"Maybe," Riven panted. The lights had died not long ago and by now they were both struggling to breathe.
"So am I, then."
This time it was Katarina's mouth that crashed against hers, spelling out the three words that lifted her to heaven and back. Over and over again Riven proved her love, and over and over again Katarina reciprocated in more ways than one.
When Katarina gasped out her name, Riven knew her last breath was a good one.