Of Steel and Storms

by Cinis

In the service of Noxus, Katarina is pressed into the defense of Bilgewater. Also defending Bilgewater? Riven. Riven, who is supposed to be dead. (Or: In which one of Katarina's ships sinks but the other sails quite nicely) [Katarina/Riven] [oneshot]

Lore note: I'm uncertain if it has been retconned, but once upon a time, the canon said that Katarina spent a lot of time in Bilgewater recruiting sailors to raid Ionian ships. This fic is based on that concept.

Rating note: This is a very strong T for violence.

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Of Steel and Storms

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To call Bilgewater a slum would be a compliment.

As Katarina weaves through the throng of humanity, the whores and whoresons who inhabit the Blue Flame Islands, she keeps one eye peeled for anyone emptying a chamber pot from above. Time is precious. She has none to spare for scraping excrement off her already filthy black leathers.

There's a storm rolling in from the sea and what few gasps of fresh air make it into the packed streets – those breezes smell of lightning.

Hopefully the storm will be brief. With luck, the Noxians soon will have the tide and winds and then they will raise anchor and flee the port before they're blockaded in. Bilgewater is on the brink of civil war and Noxus can't afford to lose her few ships to errant fire flying erratic on whimsical gusts of temper.

On Katarina's order, it's time to leave.

She's tracked down her captains all across the sprawling slum and laid out the plans. Each captain will gather his men and prepare provisions. They'll leave as they are able, rendezvous just north of the archipelago, then sail back to Noxus. Their short stay in Bilgewater to resupply between raids is on the brink of disaster. Gangplank and Sarah Fortune will soon turn Bilgewater into a conflagration, torching the shanties and the temples and burning every ship to the water.

Given the mood in the streets, Katarina doesn't think she's exaggerating.

Everyone is on edge. Cutlasses and pistols are worn openly and are kept close at hand when normally they'd be politely covered by long coats or the flamboyant scarves Bilgewater residents seemed to love.

The flashing of steel is driving Katarina mad. Dodging rickshaws and sidestepping drunks, she sees danger everywhere. Every glimmer in the corner of her eye is an assailant about to strike.

Katarina's nerves are frayed. Badly.

She's left the relative safety of the Slaughter Docks and come halfway up Deadman's Spire, headed towards Butcher's Bridge, searching for the last of her captains, a man whose pleasures run towards the exotic, because any magical message or flesh and blood messenger could easily be intercepted.

Earlier, when she relayed her plan to High Command, she'd done so in code. She knows Sarah Fortune well and Gangplank's ruthless reputation precedes him. She doesn't trust the former not to pressgang her men and her ships into Bilgewater politics and she doesn't trust the latter not to sink her if their fleets should cross paths. Docking in Bilgewater between raids against the Demacian supply lines to Ionia has always had an element of risk, but two days ago it was an acceptable risk. Not anymore.

Katarina slips between a particularly large mercenary and a cart full of barrels. The barrels are marked with a dark cross. They're full of black powder and headed for the cannons at the top of the spire.

Katarina quickens her step.

From Deadman's Spire to Butcher's Bridge no one impedes her way. Her distinctive red hair is intentionally darkened with soot and tied back sloppily. While she's not dressed in her Noxian commander's uniform, her grimy black leathers make clear that she's not a working woman. She's been in and out of Bilgewater constantly over the past several months and she knows she blends in well enough that her passing is fast forgotten. To any observer, she's just another sellsword going about her business in Runeterra's busiest port.

She's halfway across the bridge when a heavyset man with a ragged scar mangling his upper lip - from teeth, Katarina thinks, because a dull blade couldn't have made such a perfect crescent - steps directly into her path. Two other men stand flanking him. Katarina hears the ambient roar of slum traffic shift and she knows there are men behind her as well.

She drops both her hands to rest on the hilts of her two larger knives but she doesn't draw. She knows she can kill the three men in front of her faster than the ones behind her can react, but something this orchestrated - her ships are in no position to leave yet and they're in hostile territory.

Katarina says nothing. It is best here, she thinks, to project calm and control. She can always kill the men if things go poorly, but collected confidence has to be an opening play.

The man with the ruined lip seems to be the leader. "Fortune wants ye," he rumbles. A bit of spit comes flying out as he speaks. It's disgusting but Katarina doesn't take it as any particular insult. Someone did bite his lip off.

So these thugs are Sarah Fortune's men then. Katarina is angry but her anger is tempered with resignation. She's not in the least surprised at this turn of events. Fortune has gotten wind of Katarina's plans and now she's meddling. Because of course she is. The de facto queen of Bilgewater is nothing if not self-interested and the Noxians in Bilgewater are just another piece on her board.

"A lot of women want me," Katarina replies coolly. If she kills these men, maybe she can still… No. She can't. The war hasn't come yet. Bilgewater still belongs to Fortune. "And when they want me bad enough, they come find me themselves."

The man has the nerve to turn his back on Katarina.

Now that - that is an insult. But it's not one she can respond to properly. If she does, by the time she gets back to the Slaughter Docks, her ships will be burning wrecks. Fortune hates it when people murder her men.

Swain didn't entrust a quarter of the Noxian fleet to Katarina for her to let it sink. She has no intention of letting the Grand General down. The consequences for her and her family would be… severe. Jericho Swain may have been her father's best friend but his Noxus brooks no failure.

"Come on," the man says. He waves his arm, motioning Katarina - and her unwanted escort - to follow him.

With no other good options, Katarina complies.

To Katarina's surprise, the route they take is the same one she'd been planning on. They cross the bridge and go down towards the brothels and gambling houses near the foot of the massive stone arch. The building that she's lead into is the very one she'd heard she could find her captain in.

As Katarina steps through the threshold, she notes dispassionately that the timber of the door frame is rotting. It will be best if no one fires any blunderbusses or otherwise causes anything to explode. Like most structures in Bilgewater, she doesn't trust the place not to come down around their ears.

It takes a moment for Katarina's eyes to adjust to the dim and flickering light of the lanterns hung from the ceiling of the hallway she's entered. Behind her, she hears one of her escorts close the door - a flimsy sound. The door is probably thin and rotten, just like its frame.

The man with the mangled lip keeps walking, and so Katarina keeps following.

The place reeks of smoky incense and Katarina doesn't like the sounds coming from the rooms that they pass. They're not natural.

They go down the hall, up two flights of stairs, and halfway down another hallway.

The man reaches a door and opens it without knocking. He doesn't enter, but he tilts his head, indicating Katarina should.

So she does.

The room beyond has been, Katarina thinks, cleared out specifically for the meeting. There's but one table with cups and a pitcher and three chairs. Two of those chairs are occupied and both occupants sit facing the door. In one of them is Katarina's errant captain. He's pale as a sheet and sweating.

The quality of Noxian men in the service has deteriorated precipitously since the beginning of the Ionian war.

In the other chair sits Sarah Fortune. Captain Fortune. The bounty hunter who conquered Bilgewater. She's wearing high black boots, dark trousers, and a clean white blouse fastened only halfway up, displaying her ample cleavage. Her red hair is down and Katarina knows it's all a power play - the hair, the cleavage, the way her left sleeve has fallen down but the right sleeve is rolled up to display a long, wicked scar running nearly the length of her forearm. It's meant to distract. It's meant to break her opponent's focus. It's her game and she's very, very good at it.

In Noxus, scars are marks of distinction. They are a testament to strength. That particular scar on Fortune's arm is one of Katarina's favorites - and Fortune knows it.

Katarina forcibly shoves her thoughts into line. It's not easy. Ships. Noxus. Fire. War.

Sarah Fortune has an agenda and wants to either negotiate or dictate terms. Of this, Katarina is certain. And so, Katarina needs to project enough power, equal power, to make Fortune go with the former rather than the latter.

The room must belong to Katarina.

Katarina strides forward, doing her best to ignore the way the floorboards creak and sag under her weight, and sits down in the third chair. She leans back in it, carefully easing into a confident slouch, legs open, one arm draped over the back of the chair. She does it all carefully, because she's not sure that the back of the chair won't break if she puts too much weight on it.

A stray thought flits through her mind - it will be good to be back at her family's estate in Noxus, where she can trust the world won't collapse around her.

"Captain Fortune," Katarina says, forcing herself to sound amused rather than angry. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" She looks Fortune in the eye, ignoring the unbuttoned shirt. There's a time to play Fortune's game and there's a time to play her own.

With her right hand, Sarah Fortune reaches out for the pitcher on the table and pours a dark liquid into a wooden cup carved to look like the head of one of the grotesque local deities. As she does so, the long, smooth scar on her arm catches the dim lantern light.

Katarina's eyes stray towards the scar and it takes her a moment to realize she's staring. She immediately brings her green eyes back up to meet Fortune's blue ones but it's already too late.

Sarah Fortune, one. Katarina, zero.

Fortune slides the cup across the table to Katarina and pours herself one as well.

There are only two cups. Katarina's cowardly captain gets nothing.

"I heard you were looking for your friend," Fortune says. "Because you wanted to tell him something."

Katarina doesn't break eye contact with Fortune even as she addresses her man. "Gather your crew and get ready to sail. One of the other captains will fill you in." That much, Fortune already knows. There's no harm in saying it in front of her and she might buy some small impression of confidence from the act.

The Noxian man doesn't move.

No initiative.

A pity.

Why were all the best men dead?

Fucking Ionia.

"Go on," Katarina says, still not looking at him. She's still keeping her anger out of her voice. It is not easy. It has never been easy. Not for Katarina. But she's lived long enough to know that rarely does anything good come of letting her rage rule her.

There's a pause during which nothing happens, except that Katarina's certain the fool has looked not at Katarina but at Fortune for permission to go. He's not fit to serve, much less lead.

Fortune is, of course, busy with their staring contest and so the man gets nothing. He waits another second or two before scrambling to his feet and hurrying to the door.

Katarina will deal with him later.

"Thank you for finding him for me," Katarina says, every word measured. "Out of the goodness of your heart."

That gets a smile and a short exhalation that might have turned into a laugh had Katarina actually said anything funny. Fortune raises her cup to her mouth and drinks slowly, keeping eye contact. When she's done, she sets the cup down on the table and wipes her lips with the back of her right hand.

There's the scar again.

Katarina's not going to fall for that twice and it's insulting Fortune seems to think she would.

"There's a storm coming," Fortune says. There are dark clouds on the horizon, Katarina saw them from the bridge, but that's not the storm Fortune is talking about.

Katarina chooses to say nothing. She's going to make Fortune talk - lay her cards on the table, as it were.

"It's dangerous to set sail now," Fortune continues. "I think you should wait out the storm here."

Katarina is keeping score and she'll give Fortune a half-point for the triple entendre. So - Fortune, one and a half. Katarina, still zero.

"I have orders," Katarina replies and it's true, technically. She does have orders. Orders she gave. The fleet is her command and she has great discretion over its tack. On more than one occasion Swain has made it clear he trusts her judgement. "We're sailing at first light. Or sooner, if we have to."

Fortune scoffs. "You'll be lucky if the sea's calm enough to get out of the bay at first light. No one's leaving tonight. If I gave that order, my sailors would mutiny. You give that order, and your men will drown."

"I'll take that under advisement," Katarina says. It's grim news. She is not a sailor by trade and Fortune grew up on the sea. She hadn't planned on slipping away in the night, but she prefers to have options.

"So why don't you stay?" Fortune says. She says it so pleasantly that, to an observer, it might even have been a suggestion.

Katarina sees a chance and she takes it. "What are you offering?"

Fortune leans forward and it's abundantly clear that her shirt is too small for her chest. "I want half your ships and their crews," she says. There's steel in her eyes, steel in her voice, and there might as well be steel in her hands because Katarina can hear the threat.

"That's not an offer," Katarina replies. She's still maintaining her calm. No reason to give Fortune any advantage she doesn't have to.

"I'm offering you half your ships," Fortune says. "I think that's very generous, since I don't have to let you have anything. If you recall, this is my port."

Fortune is not entirely wrong on that count, but if control of the port is her only bargaining chip, she has nothing. "If my ships stay here, we don't have to fight with you," Katarina says calmly.

Fortune raises an eyebrow but says nothing.

It's an invitation for Katarina to fill in the blanks and make Fortune's argument for her.

Gangplank's men are pirates and they don't discriminate among their targets. More than one Noxian vessel has been lost to them. Fortune taxes ship that use her port. Gangplank might seize them. If the Noxians are shut up in Bilgewater when Gangplank arrives… if the order to back Sarah Fortune doesn't come from Katarina, it will come from High Command.

All Fortune has to do is delay them long enough and she gets what she wants - but that's a steep gamble and, despite her name, Fortune isn't one to play at dice.

But Noxus would rather her fleet be on the high seas running raids against the Demacians. The army is engaged on too many fronts and Noxus can hardly afford for so many of her ships to be mired in Bilgewater's war.

"My ship," Katarina says. "Just my ship."

"Dearest," Fortune begins, "That's not on the table."

It is on the table and they both know it because that's how these things work. Katarina fakes a smile because she needs to act confident regardless of how precarious the situation feels. "You met my captain. I'm worth more than however many of my ships you're asking for."

It is, unfortunately, true.

"Then give me all your ships and go back to Noxus," Fortune says. "I'll take good care of them."

Fortune has hit a nerve without knowing it. Katarina bristles. "I don't leave men behind," she snaps. She's lost her air of disinterested confidence now, so she lets her body language shift to match her new tone. She leans forward and sets both of her palms on the edge of the table. She presses down enough to make the table bend and creak. "Me and my ship," she says. "That's all."

Katarina knows the gears are turning in Fortune's head. The transition from not on the table to absolutely on the table has happened smoothly. Just as the demand for half of Katarina's ships was a substantial request, Katarina's proposal is a substantial offer. Neither of them have perfect bargaining power and it's a matter of finding the right middle ground.

Fortune raises a cup and gestures for a toast. "War council's at low tide at the Blue Bitch on the docks," she says. "It's good to have you onboard."

Katarina stands, leaving her own drink untouched. The conversation is over and now she needs to return to her ship and inform High Command of the change in plans. It's not a conversation she looks forward to.

[] [] []

The Slaughter Docks are abuzz with activity in the late evening, despite the storm on the horizon.

There are a bare handful of captains preparing to set out on the night's hunt for krakens. Those men and their crews are inspired by courage and a blatant disregard for their lives – more of the latter than the former.

Other crews are checking their moorings and hauling cargoes away from the water's edge and towards the great warehouses, each marked with a gang's colors and sigil. Their longshore work chants boom out, heard all around the harbor, and mingle with one another into a constant medley of men's voices.

Katarina keeps well back from the working men. Accidents from slipped or frayed rope are always sudden and grisly.

The Blue Bitch is one of the… nicer establishments in the port - if such things can be said to exist. It's marked by a crude sign painted in blue of a dog with its hind legs spread. Katarina has been on only a handful of occasions. She's not one for drinking and has little patience for drunks.

Confirming her evaluation of the place, as she approaches a man, either unconscious or dead, is thrown bodily out the front door and into the filthy gutter that runs alongside what passes in Bilgewater for a street.

Maybe the wharf rats will eat him, or maybe he'll live. If he's been thrown out in such a manner, no one cares.

Katarina has to step to the side to avoid the splash of scum that his heavy landing throws up.

Even so, some of it hits her boots.

Katarina takes a moment to wipe her boots off on the unconscious drunk before entering the tavern. The tide is already at ebb. It's a good thing that in Bilgewater, unlike in Noxus, nothing is ever on time.

The main room of the tavern is almost indistinguishable from the main room of any other tavern in the archipelago, though a few of the chairs do have specks of varnish and a few of the lanterns have been cleaned more than once in the past year. Those lanterns, burning whale oil and smelling like it, cast a flickering light that keeps the center of the room bright and the outskirts in shadow. The place is filled with burly sailors talking and rolling dice, all reeking of intoxication.

Katarina doesn't see Fortune so she heads straight to the long table that serves the Blue Bitch as a bar.

She opens her mouth to speak, but the barkeep gets there first. "Over there," he says, tossing his head to indicate a closed door to Katarina's right.

Katarina doesn't thank him.

She heads to the door and opens it without knocking.

The men and women on the other side take a moment to relax their grips on their weapons even after they see she's alone and not attacking. It speaks to their mood and also to the sort of people they are. Competent.

They'll need to be more than competent to fight their war.

It's a crowded room, but Katarina takes the time to let her eyes slide over every face. It's part of her training, drilled into her since she was first able to pick up a knife. Everyone present is clearly an experienced fighter, judging from their age and their scars. The majority are men, but there are more women than Katarina would expect to see in a similar gathering of Noxians. The locals of the Blue Flame Islands have always favored women to lead their quaint sea-rites and so, unlike men of other cities, the residents of Bilgewater who make offerings to the Mother Serpent would never dream of banning women from their ships on the basis of unfounded superstition.

Most of Fortune's crew stand, a few sit with her at a table in the center of the room. The table, it's clear, is for her favored captains.

There's one open seat left at the table.

Katarina eyes it warily.

If it's meant for her and she doesn't take it, she'll look weak. Unable to claim what's hers. If it's not meant for her and she does take it, Fortune will step in, backed by and watched by her entire crew.

Bilgewater isn't Noxus. Strength matters here but so does respect and they're not quite the same. Katarina closes the door behind her and moves to stand with the less important officers.

She hates the taste of her pride and she hopes that Fortune will sink Gangplank sooner rather than later. Sink him, again. Maybe this time he'll stay dead.

Fortune herself sits at the head of the table and projects her command effortlessly. She's wearing the same clothes as she was earlier though both her sleeves are now rolled up and her white shirt has gained an expansive brown stain of what Katarina knows to be blood – no one in Bilgewater has the time for such frivolities as changing clothes and wearing your enemies is just as intimidating as being clean.

Not for the first time, Katarina thinks that it's a shame Sarah Fortune is bound to the sea. She'd merit a command in Noxus, and more.

Among Fortune's favored captains, the only face Katarina recognizes is the man with the bit-off lip. He's sitting next to the empty chair. The rest of them are a motley collection with little in common. In age they range widely. Some seem to be bright young things full of potential and others are clearly veterans who've seen more of the seas than Fortune and Katarina combined.

"Good of you to join us," Fortune says, cutting through Katarina's musings with business. "Crew, Katarina. Katarina, crew."

Katarina nods curtly but says nothing. She stands more to lose here than to gain.

No one else is talking either and there's no drink to be seen in the room. Fortune runs a tight ship when she wants to.

Whoever the last chair is meant for, they're important. Everyone is waiting for them and, the mood in Bilgewater being what it is, there's an electric current of worry. Has something gone wrong?

The way hands rest on weapons is a strange mixture of anxiety-inducing and comforting. Anxiety-inducing because Katarina can't turn off her training, can't stop feeling as if she is about to be attacked. Comforting because she knows her hands are resting on her blades as well and it's good to be among comrades.

When the door finally opens, there's a brief tension and then immediate relief. Fortune's crew recognizes the newcomer.

So does Katarina.

Riven has changed.

Time has passed.

Change is inevitable.

She's smaller than she was – not shorter, smaller. Noxian infantry chargers have to be big, big enough to wear full plate, big enough to swing weapons so massive they scattered enemy formations with a single blow. More than one general had observed that the kind of muscular bulk the infantry chargers carried wasn't good for much else and it seems Riven's life has borne this out. She's far more wiry now, a blade instead of a bludgeon.

Instead of a black Noxian uniform, the only clothes Katarina has ever seen her wear, she's wearing the mixed ensemble of a Bilgewater mercenary – boots that are not a pair, patched trousers, a crimson scarf instead of a proper belt, a loose undyed shirt and a long brown coat.

Her sword – the remains of her sword – she carries it resting on one shoulder instead of at her side. It's small enough now, broken enough now, that it could easily have fit at her side but there's no evidence of a sheath anywhere on her person. It would seem she goes about with her weapon always drawn.

Katarina takes this all in within the time it takes to blink.

She is, after all, very well trained.

As Riven advances into the room, Katarina recedes into the background. When Riven takes her place in the empty seat, facing towards Katarina almost directly, Katarina takes a half-step behind one of Fortune's other officers. She makes sure that her distinctive scar that bisects her left eyebrow and then runs down her face is hidden in shadow. This is far from the first time she's hidden herself in plain view.

Riven sets her sword down on the table but still doesn't let go.

She probably sleeps holding onto it.

The man with the bitten lip claps Riven on the back in greeting.

His hand lingers.

Riven doesn't brush it away.

"You're late, wharf rat," Fortune says, but there's no bite to it.

Riven snorts. "No, you're all on time."

A chuckle runs through the room but it does little to ease the tension.

Or maybe it's just Katarina. Maybe she's the only one who feels like she stands on the precipice of some existential devastation that will be marked with fire and blood and whatever feelings are more disgraceful than cowardice.

When they first met, Riven's face had born only a few scars, thin and nearly invisible, small cuts from shrapnel. In the intervening years, it seems someone has taken a chunk out of her left cheek. The flesh has healed sunken and pale and the scar is prominent enough that it draws Katarina's attention more than Riven's dark amber eyes.

Where did that scar come from?

Fortune is speaking, laying out plans for the defense of the port when Gangplank arrives. Sometimes she dictates, other times she solicits advice. She's a commander at work and in her element. Katarina's captains could all stand to learn something from the way Fortune runs her fleet. Katarina could stand to learn something from the way Fortune runs her fleet.

Riven's skin is dark. She has always lived in the sun.

For Riven, always is a longer time than for Katarina. The one time they'd spoken of it, Katarina had guessed Riven to be three or four years her senior. Riven remembered, poorly, a time before Katarina's father, Marcus Du Couteau, had been Hand of Noxus. He'd ascended when Katarina was barely out of the cradle. It had been a passing deduction. Age meant less in Noxus than in other states.

There are subtle creases across Riven's brow now.

Katarina finds it unsettling.

"Katarina."

The call-out from Fortune takes Katarina by surprise but she hopes she hides it well. She slips out from behind the sailor she was hidden behind. There's no longer any point in pretending she's not present. "Fortune," she answers.

She points her head and her eyes towards Bilgewater's queen, but Fortune has a bare sliver of her attention.

Riven is eyes-wide and slack-jawed and making a fool of herself like she's still some provincial lieutenant seeing High Command for the first time.

Not that anyone but Katarina probably notices.

"First squad, in the water, just behind the sea-gate," Fortune orders. "When we lose the gate, don't let them land. When they land, make sure your crew know to fall back to the base of Deadman's Spire. Protect the cannons." The orders are grim but no commander ever grew to greatness without preparing for the worst. "Make sure the ships you want gone are gone as soon as the sun hits the sky tomorrow. They're not going to get out otherwise."

Katarina nods her understanding and then steps back into shadow again.

Riven is staring at her.

It makes her uncomfortable.

She last saw Riven in Noxus before the army deployed to Ionia.

Riven died in Ionia in the Shon-Xan Massacre. Her entire column was ambushed by Ionian guerillas and then wiped out by Zaunite melter-fire when reinforcements couldn't – wouldn't - be scrambled to save them. The bodies had been too disfigured to be identified. There'd been no survivors.

Clearly, the rumors of Riven's death were exaggerated.

Katarina keeps her face perfectly neutral and her body perfectly still.

The night before Riven left for Ionia, they fucked behind Riven's barracks and Katarina left without saying goodbye.

It hadn't seemed necessary.

When everyone understands their orders, Fortune stands. She bows her head and all her crew do the same.

Katarina follows their lead a half-second behind.

The words that Fortune utters belong to the old language of the natives of the Blue Flame Islands. The Serpent Isles, as the locals call them. "Alak, kaye-sayu," she says.

As one, her crew and Katarina reply, "Tua-shak yaoto."

"Tua-shak yaoto, homu," Fortune echoes. She raises her head once more and there's fire in her eyes. "Move."

Last in, first out – Katarina slips away as quickly as she can without outright fleeing.

She's not fleeing, not from anything or anyone. The storm will hit hard tonight and her fleet has to be ready to sail without her at first light. The one ship that's staying in Bilgewater with her, The Blade, her flagship – the crew has to be briefed. Katarina has work to do and little time to do it.

Fortune predicts the fighting will start in the late afternoon.

Katarina weaves around tables and patrons of the tavern on her way through the main room and towards the front door. She only has to step over one pool of vomit. It's watery – as if whoever threw it up hadn't eaten in a long time.

Katarina makes it all the way to the door.

"Du Couteau!"

Katarina hesitates. And then she keeps going.

She goes out onto the dark street and sets off at a brisk pace towards where her ship is docked.

There are footsteps behind her squelching loudly through the muck of the road.

The footsteps aren't close enough to be an immediate threat, so Katarina indulges herself and keeps walking without turning around.

Eventually, the footsteps stop.

Katarina's smile is spiteful and self-indulgent and she doesn't care.

[] [] []

Dawn sees the Noxian ships slip from port and out towards the open sea as quickly as mage-winds can sail them.

Katarina doesn't fold up her scope until the black and crimson flags of her country have vanished across the horizon.

They'll reach Noxus – she hopes.

Her own ship, The Blade, sits at anchor in the middle of the deep harbor. It sits surrounded by other stationary vessels, all launched slightly after the Noxian fleet..

There's a tension in the air, alleviated only by shantymen and their sailors – the songs will always run to the tempo of the work and not to the mood of the men.

Katarina takes a deep breath of sea-air and then immediately wishes she hadn't. So close to the Slaughter Docks, her nose is filled with the pervasive too-sweet stench of rotting flesh.

"So I gave ye fair warnin' a'fore we belay," calls out the shantyman on the warship next to The Blade. The ship looks as though it was built in Ionia, once upon a time. With one voice, the men call back their response, "Don't e'r take heed o' what pretty girls say!"

Katarina is not a sailor by trade and she is not a commander by choice.

Those things matter little.

She has a job.

All through the morning they sit in the harbor and wait. As the work of preparing the ships finishes, the singing goes quiet. Along the shore, the Slaughter Docks are, for once, silent as well. The men fighting for Fortune have taken their positions. The Jagged Hooks, the one dockside banner still loyal to Gangplank, are no doubt in position as well. The rest of the port, those who would attempt to stay neutral, have hidden in whatever holes they can find and are praying to the strange and ancient deities of the Islands for their miserable lives.

Riven is up on Butcher's Bridge, set to defend the sea-gate from the Jagged Hooks. She leads one of the few squads Fortune has initially placed shore-side.

Most of Fortune's forces are in the harbor, dead-set on taking down as many of Gangplank's men before they can land.

Fortune's unspoken concern for the residents of Bilgewater's slums is quaint and maybe going to get many of her men killed needlessly. More than one of her captains suggested this. Fortune held to her guns impressively though and Katarina wasn't going to be the one coward who bailed out of fear.

The men who crew Katarina's flagship are all Noxians.

They understand that the strong survive.

Standing at the prow, Katarina drums her fingers on the smooth rail of her ship.

Riven survived Couer.

Katarina scowls and shakes her head, banishing the thought as best she can.

She's seen enough of war to know that the coming battle will be worse than the waiting, but in the moment the waiting chafes her frayed nerves and undermines her focus and the very idea of battle seems like the promise of relief.

The sun reaches its zenith and there's still no sign of Gangplank.

This is consistent with Fortune's prediction, but the waiting is still awful.

Katarina walks the length of her ship, laying a hand on a shoulder here, saying a word of strength there. She's not a commander by choice, but she has learned to be a good one.

She encountered no resistance among her crew to the proposition that out of the Noxian fleet they alone would remain to fight for Fortune.

The Noxian war-ethic is a queer thing, a strange mix of glory-chasing and prudence. It is a soldier's job to rush into battle headlong and the commander's job to restrain and guide. This tension is why so few Noxian soldiers ever rise to competence as commanders. Given the choice, she suspects many of her other ships would have preferred to stay and fight.

But Noxus needs them elsewhere.

An hour passes from noon, then another.

At the third hour –

A bone-chilling screech sounds across Bilgewater, the sound of one of the great leviathans that roam the treacherous channels that cut through the archipelago. But this screech doesn't come from the water, it comes from the apex of Deadman's Spire. It's the bellow of a serpent caller, one of the strange and ancient hollow pillars that dot the islands.

Katarina has seen a serpent caller only once. It was a grotesque effigy of an enormous fish being devoured by a kraken. The skill of whoever carved it had been evident in the way the stone mimicked so perfectly the flow of blood from countless wounds left by razor teeth.

The sounding of this serpent caller is a signal. An alarm. The lookouts have seen the enemy on the horizon.

Another noise follows the screech of the caller. This noise is the deafening clank of chains so massive Katarina could stand inside a single link. Far above, the great sea-gate of Bilgewater port is being lowered from Butcher's Bridge.

Old sailors say the gate hasn't been used in two generations.

It's a great half-portcullis suspended from chains so that it reaches above and below the surface of the water and spans the mouth of the harbor.

From the prow of her ship, she watches the thing descend. It's made not of dull grey-black iron but some strange golden metal. Not gold and not brass – those are too soft by far for any real work. It's the same strange metal that some of the old totems of the local gods are made of. This gate must, Katarina thinks, be of the Islands in the same way that Fortune's prayer from the night before is of the Islands, in the same way that the ancient stone temple across Butcher's Bridge is of the Islands.

That thought is greatly reassuring.

It is less reassuring when an hour later Gangplank's ships have finished assembling on the other side of the gate, just out of range of Bilgewater's cannons. The sun is dipping towards the sea directly behind them and Katarina sees, or, rather, doesn't see, how it was that Fortune predicted the timing of Gangplank's arrival so well.

When one of Gangplank's krakens literally rips the gate from its chains and throws it into a cluster of nearby warships, whatever reassurance there was – it's gone.

The unlucky ships go to splinters and the force of the great gate sinking sends neighboring ships reeling, rocked and pulled by the ripples that are as large as storm-waves.

Screams fill the air but Katarina is grimly pleased to see that none of her men are joining that particular cacophony.

They're Noxians. Where the men of other nations are made of earth and water, Noxians are made of fire and tempest. It is fire and tempest that conquers. It is earth and water that crumbles and falls. So spoke the gods at the first dawn. So it is, so shall it be, so shall it ever be.

Katarina does not pray often, but, paralyzed by awe, watching the kraken pull itself through the arch of Butchers Bridge, enormous tentacles wrapping around the great spires of rock that guard the harbor, rising up out of water too shallow to hide its pale bulbous body – if ever there was a time to pray, this would be it.

None of Fortune's planning accounted for a kraken of this size.

Katarina turns now to her men. It is the commander's duty to guide and restrain. "Shore!" she screams, fighting to be heard over the screaming of everyone else on the other ships. "Shore!"

Katarina's crew springs to action and she's proud of them – so very proud.

If she's killed by a kraken larger than the Noxian citadel, she wants that to be her last thought.

The kraken in the harbor is still advancing and it's sending waves, waves high enough Katarina is almost swept overboard when one crashes across the prow of The Blade.

She sees an anchor fly through the air, propelled by some movement of the beast, and smash into another ship.

It's her anchor.

Oh.

There's no time to spare watching for another wave, Katarina hurls herself across the deck towards where her crew are trying to winch their anchor back under control. On her way, she seizes a cutlass from one of her men. When she gets to the rode, she starts hacking.

The rode is thick roap and it's soaking wet and her hacking isn't very effective, but they're dead in the water as long as their anchor is wrapped around the mast of the ship next to them.

One of Katarina's men gets her idea and shoves her aside. He's brought a saw.

The saw makes faster work of the rope than the sword Katarina borrowed and it's not long before Katarina's ship is crowding along with the rest of the remains of the fleet to get to shore as the kraken approaches.

It's large, unaccustomed to the light of day, and moving slowly.

Stuck on a floating hunk of timber gridlocked in the chaotic retreat, Katarina finds she can do nothing except pray.

It's a terrible feeling, helplessness.

She looks back towards Butcher's Bridge.

The kraken has stopped its advance and is moving to one side. One by one, in a fashion so orderly it evokes the ideals of Demacia, Gangplank's ships are sailing into the harbor and turning to aim their cannons at the helpless fleet scrambling for land.

Far above, the cannons of Bilgewater are peppering the enemy with heavy shot, but without the might of the fleet as well, they can't hope to stave off the invasion.

Katarina, her ship, and her crew are sitting ducks.

A nearby vessel slams sideways into The Blade and Katarina stumbles.

There's an idea.

Throwing her voice as loudly as she can, she calls out to her crew, "Noxus! Follow!"

She hopes they heard her, but if they didn't, they'll see.

Katarina runs to the rail of her ship, jumps up onto the rail, and throws herself forward onto the next ship over. She hits the wood deck of that ship and keeps going. The heavy thuds behind her hopefully indicate her men are with her.

Leapfrogging from ship to ship, Katarina leads her crew, and a growing number of sailors from other vessels, to shore.

When she gets there – Katarina has never in her life been so glad to be standing ankle-deep in mud that's half-dirt, a quarter rotting fish-flesh, and a quarter excrement.

The air continues to echo with the boom of cannon fire.

Katarina half-turns to see who of her crew have made it. There's no time to count, but she thinks she sees them all.

Good.

As she told Fortune, she doesn't leave men behind.

She'd made that promise to herself when Swain gave her command of her ship, her crew, and her small fleet. She'd made that promise thinking of Riven.

Riven who was dead.

Riven who is alive.

Riven who will probably be dead, just like Katarina, by the time the day is done.

Because there's a kraken the size of a city crawling up Butcher's Bridge.

Fuck.

Katarina waves a hand in the air, vying for the attention of her men. "Deadman's Spire," she shouts. "Go!"

Katarina herself sets out at a jog, headed for the rendezvous point Fortune set for when everything went wrong. Everything has most definitely gone wrong.

Synchronized footfalls sound behind her.

Katarina spares a glance and sees that her men have fallen into formation behind her and are jogging together. As Bilgewater goes to the nine hells and then some, it's good to have a Noxian squadron at her back.

All around, the air fills with smoke. The ships left abandoned in the harbor are burning splinters and Bilgewater is starting to catch fire as well. The entire shanty town is made of wood. There won't be much left come the next morning.

At the base of Deadman's Spire, standing in the middle of the road and blocking the way up to Butcher's Bridge, is the man with the bitten-off lip. The man who sat next to Riven at Fortune's council. He's got a whole group of men with him, fortified behind barricades of tables and chairs and beds and whatever else they could find that wasn't nailed down.

"Not another ste', Noxus," the man snaps. "We're holdin' the ser'ent damn line. Here." He enunciates his last word with force and a thick glob of spit flies from his mouth and hits Katarina's neck.

She doesn't even feel it slide down her skin because she's still soaking from the sea and covered in the grime of Bilgewater to boot.

Katarina's temper flares.

She won't tolerate disrespect for her strength. Not from this whoreson, not from any Bilgewater scum. And what's another casualty in a warzone.

Katarina has a blade out and pressing against the soft underside of the man's chin in a heartbeat. "I know the plan," she hisses. "So shut up before I take your other lip."

The man laughs and steps back, backs down.

Katarina supposes this is acceptable. She lowers her blade but doesn't sheathe it. Waste of effort. She'll be using it again soon enough.

"Stand and defend," Katarina calls out. It's a standard order, drilled into every Noxian soldier regardless of the service. Sailors know it just as well as infantrymen and even the cavalry are trained to understand entrenchment. Katarina's crew stream past her, forming a pack that joins the Bilgewater fighters behind their makeshift barricade. What sailors followed them from the shore fill in as well.

The man with the bitten lip extends a hand to Katarina.

She eyes it warily.

"I'm Handsome," he says.

Belatedly, Katarina realizes he expects her to shake. It's not a custom of Noxus nor of Bilgewater. She looks up, ignores his disfigurement, and studies his face, tries to recall his accent, mangled though it is by his lack of upper lip. He's from Demacia, originally. Slowly, Katarina takes his hand. "Katarina," she says. "Du Couteau."

"Graced," Handsome says. "Rivers 's told me lots about ye."

"Rivers," Katarina says, pronouncing the word as if it were in a foreign tongue.

Around them, Bilgewater continues to burn. Handsome seems either not to notice or not to care. Katarina would normally be fine with this behavior if he weren't so intent on conversation. With her. About… Rivers.

Katarina moves towards her crew where they're waiting at the barricade.

Handsome follows. Like a dog. Katarina considers cutting off his lower lip for no reason at all.

When Katarina crouches down next to her lieutenant, Handsome crouches down next to her. His breath smells rotten. Most things in Bilgewater smell rotten.

"She was real u'set las' night," Handsome offers, unprompted.

"Bilgewater is on fire and there is a kraken destroying the harbor," Katarina snaps. "Mind your men, let me mind mine."

"No," Handsome says, and that earns him Katarina's knife at his throat again.

"Piss off," Katrina growls. She means it to be her last warning.

"I'm like to die t'day anyhows," Handsome says. "So damn listen ye – ye two make it out, ye mend this, ye hear?"

Of his own accord, he gets up and lumbers to his men, his half of the barricade.

Katarina scowls – because what else is she supposed to do?

Handsome's words don't - shouldn't - merit a first thought, much less a second. He is no one. Soldiers who think of death in battle die.

"Commander?"

Katarina looks to the man who spoke and continues to scowl.

He's an ensign. His name is Sorin. He's been serving on her ship since they set out from Noxus, though they're not particularly close.

Sorin's normally pale skin, pale even after months at sea and more sunburns than anyone on the ship wants to hear him whine about, is dark with soot from the burning city. His short platinum blond hair is a mess. A flying splinter has left a gash over his right eye. It will scar nicely – a trophy for his efforts.

Katrina's still angry, but she's not interested in directing that anger at any of her men. "Yes?"

"If he's talking about a woman," Sorin ventures – and Katarina knows she doesn't want to hear it, but it's too late now. "You should listen to him," Sorin continues. "You're shit with women."

That gets a laugh from the entire crew.

Bilgewater is on fire, there's a kraken destroying the harbor, and Katarina's crew is sharing a laugh at her expense.

This is… fine.

The laughter lightens the mood by a shade, eases some of the nearly unbearable tension that sits in the air.

Katarina forces a smile. She forces herself to sound like none of her men will die. "I'll take that under advisement, ensign."

There's a crack of gunfire and a sailor from Handsome's side of the barricade screams.

Down the road, a squadron of pirates is advancing.

They're holding up shields fashioned from the thick carapaces of sea monsters to block pistol shots while still firing their own weapons from the relative safety of their shields.

For the second time, Katarina is struck by how orderly Gangplank's men are.

Acting on instinct, Katarina shouts orders. Her men are to stay behind their barricade and wait until the enemy is near enough to charge. The Noxians carry firearms, but the firearms will do little against the pirates' shields and the Noxians are more effective in hand-to-hand combat in any case. This is how they'll win.

Unlike a kraken, Katarina and the Noxians can kill men. They've made their lives killing men.

Down the barricade, Handsome yells for his sailors to follow the Noxians.

It's good to know that even a Demacian can recognize a better plan and better soldiers when he sees them.

Katarina adjusts her grip on her knife.

The strong survive. So spoke the gods at the first dawn. So it is, so shall it be, so shall it ever be.

It feels like the pirates take an eternity to march up the road, but in reality it's only seconds. They're not marching so much as charging headlong.

Katarina watches them through a crack in one of the tables wedged up as part of the makeshift barricade. When she judges the pirates are close enough, she calls the order.

A charge of their own.

The strong survive. Glory to the strong. Let the weak die. Let the memory of cowards be forgotten. So shall it ever be.

Katarina is the commander and she's the first over the barricade, sprinting forward to spend as little time as possible subject to gunfire.

When she gets to the shield wall, she grabs the top of a shield and uses that hold to vault over it.

The rough edge of the shield cuts her hand, but she ignores it. It's really not the time to pay attention to injuries or pain.

Past the shields, Katarina is a whirlwind of death. She spins, she cuts, she kills. The chaos she creates allows the other Noxians to breach the wall as well and they fall upon the pirates with a vengeance.

No Noxian likes cowering behind walls. No Noxian likes being chased from his ship by sea monsters. They take out their displeasure on the pirates. The muddy street turns into a swampy mire of blood and gore.

When Handsome's men realize the fight has started without them and finally join the brawl, the chaos is such that Katarina isn't sure if she's killing pirate or sailor, only that she's not killing any of hers.

This is as much as she can ask for in such a melee.

As well as she fights though, as well as her men acquit themselves, the pirates are seemingly endless. And with them are fighting creatures that don't belong on land – strange beasts with squid-like faces and rock-hard skin.

Katarina and the Noxians are losing ground, being pushed back towards their own barricade.

Katrina stabs one of her knives into a man's gut and rips upward, splitting him open, knife rattling along his ribcage – thunk, thunk, thunk, slipping over it instead of slicing through bone.

A hand on her shoulder – Katarina whirls and nearly slits Handsome's throat.

She recognizes him in time and converts her momentum to behead a sea monster behind him.

"Fortune!" Handsome screams. His brown eyes are wide and wild. "Get t' Fortune!"

He takes a sword from behind, bloody steel stabbing out from his gut, slightly to the side. It's lethal, but not immediately so. He turns on his attacker, slams his body into the other man, knocking them both to the ground. Handsome shoves his fist into the pirate's mouth and down his throat.

A sea creature slams a war hammer made of a barnacle-encrusted timber into Handsome's back – again and again and again and again.

Katarina continues to fight.

So long as her crew fights, she won't leave them.

Her crew will continue to fight to the last man.

They are Noxian.

They will not run.

Katarina takes down pirate after sea creature after pirate, but for every man she cuts down another replaces him.

She sidesteps the sweep of a cutlass and slips on a severed hand.

She falls, hard, unable to find any purchase to keep herself upright except for her assailant's knee, which she stabs on her way down.

The pirate screams.

Someone kicks Katarina in the stomach, someone else steps on her shoulder – she struggles up, pushing against feet and knees – she has to get upright or she'll be trampled. She succeeds, mostly, but she's gone from killing to desperately pressing against the throng of bodies, trying only to survive.

A stray chiton-plated elbow catches Katarina in the nose and nearly knocks her down again. Maybe her nose crunches, maybe it doesn't – she can't hear anything except screaming and the roar of blood in her ears.

Rising above the chaotic din of the melee, there's a Noxian battle-cry.

Prayers are too much – too much thought – but relief is a base emotion.

Someone from Katarina's crew, someone else, someone else is still alive.

Going to die soon – but for now.

Alive.

Katarina is an assassin, not a soldier, and she doesn't have the battle-sense to recognize that the tide is turning until someone shoves her aside and rams a broken sword through the forehead of the squid-faced creature that had been trying to stab her from behind.

Riven is covered in so much blood that Katarina solely recognizes her by her sword, and even then it's only by the one rune still whole on the weapon, glowing green beneath the thick coat of crimson all over the stone blade.

The reprieve that Riven's arrival has bought Katarina gives her a chance to draw another set of knives and wade back into the fray.

Riven has brought with her a fresh – or fresh enough to fight – squad of mercenaries. The pirates are finally running out of men to throw at the Bilgewater defenders and they're breaking and fleeing, doubtless to regroup.

Gangplank didn't summon a kraken the size of the Noxian citadel to be stopped by a single scuffle on land.

When the last of the pirates has been dealt with, Katarina tries to wipe blood from her eyes.

It doesn't work. The back of her hand is sticky with blood just like her everything else. She's just as blood soaked as Riven.

On weary legs, Katarina stumbles back to the barricade. She finds a bit of chair leg to wipe her hand off on, and then she uses that hand to try to wipe at the blood covering her face. She's exhausted and the world is a fog around her.

But she's alive.

Where are her men?

A mostly bloody handkerchief is held in front of Katarina's face. There's a clean corner left. Katarina takes it and dabs at her eyes and mouth. When she's done, she drops the handkerchief on the gore-covered ground.

Riven sighs. "You haven't changed."

Katarina's eyes flick over to Riven. She's dressed as she was the night before, minus the coat. Long heavy garments probably aren't good for frantic melees. There's barely an inch of her that's not crimson.

Katarina hasn't changed. Riven has.

"Come on," says Riven. "We need to get to Sarah up at the cannons."

Katarina shakes her head. She can't leave the barricade. Now now. She can't. She has a commander's duty. She has a commander's duty to her crew. She has to find them. "My men," Katarina says flatly.

"Dead," Riven says. "Dying."

Katarina turns back to the mass of bodies on the road down to the harbor, stacked three or four deep in some places. She has seen battlefields before, at the end of the day when the fighting is done. This is one of the worst.

Somewhere in there, are her men.

She has to find her men. Sorin – she has to find the ensign. She'll know him by his pale skin and his blond hair. He's - he's somewhere. He needs her. She is his commander.

Riven grabs Katarina by the shoulder – fucking hells it's the shoulder that was stepped on – and pulls her back. "Come on, Du Couteau. Keep moving. Sarah needs us."

Katarina tries to pull herself free. Even with the advantage of being slick with blood, she doesn't manage. "I don't leave men behind," she recites.

Riven moves her hand from Katarina's shoulder to the back of her head. She pulls Katarina so that Katarina's forehead bumps against her own, hard, and she holds Katarina there. Her amber eyes to bore into Katarina's green ones. She smells like blood and rotting fish. "The strong survive," Riven says, enunciating every syllable of the Noxian creed. "And when the strong fall, they shall find glory and they shall rise immortal in the memories of men and they shall join the gods awaiting the last twilight. So it is, so shall it be."

It's the prayer for the dead.

Katarina says nothing.

Riven doesn't release her. "So shall it be," she says again.

Katarina licks her lips. Her lips taste like other people's blood. Her throat is dry. She swallows. "So shall it ever be."

Katarina's men are dead.

Riven finally lets go. Instead of stepping away, she reaches up towards Katarina's face. Totally unprepared, Katarina lets out a furious yelp as Riven crudely sets her broken nose.

Now Riven steps back.

She shouts for the mercenaries she brought to follow her. Responding quickly, they assemble and then in a mass, they all set out, headed up the spire, at a brisk jog.

Katarina falls in at the tail of the pack.

At just the thought of going up, climbing Deadman's Spire to the peak, part of Katarina wants to scream and then sit down. It's entirely unbecoming of a Noxian. She's tired, exhausted, burnt out on adrenaline.

Her crew are dead. Her ship sits in pieces at the bottom of the harbor. Her first command – her only command. All dead.

She's lost men before. One here. Two there. One overboard in a storm. Never so many. Never so quickly. Never all at once.

A commander's duty is to guide. To restrain. To retreat when there's more glory to be won elsewhere.

They're all dead.

The way up Deadman's Spire is free of Gangplank's forces – they stopped the advance at the foot of the spire. They did their duty.

It's all so eerily calm, save for the crackle of flames down by the harbor, the steady boom of cannon fire, and Katarina's own panting.

Her legs are lead and she feels she's moving forward on willpower alone.

It's not until they near the gates of the cannon emplacement that Katarina hears the screams of men once more.

There are winged creatures, feathered wings, viciously long talons, the heads and torsos of naked, blood-drenched women – sirens, Katarina's weary mind provides – attacking Fortune's group. The entire emplacement is partly obscured by the white smoke of spent powder and the air smells charred, burnt.

Captain Sarah Fortune, recognizable from a distance by her distinctive scarlet hair and bicorn hat, stands front and center between two cannons, alternating fire from her infamous pair of pistols. It seems that every time she fires she takes down a siren – but every time a siren goes crashing to the rocks below, two more appear to take its place.

Riven shouts an order and her men stream into the emplacement, shoring up the faltering perimeter, guns blazing.

A second burst of adrenaline hits for Katarina and she joins them. She doesn't have a gun, but she can still fight. She picks up a knife from a dead man – his eyes have been clawed out and his throat torn open.

His knife is bad steel and poorly balanced, but it's no matter.

In the open air around the spire, the sirens swarm, moving fast, weaving in and around one another before they swoop down to pick off an unlucky target.

Katarina has trained with blades her entire life.

She chooses a siren, tracks its movement, predicts its course as it rears back to dive down towards the defenders, and then she throws.

The knife, for all its shoddy make, flies true.

It hits the siren right in the soft spot at the base of its throat.

The monster falls like a stone.

With Riven's reinforcements poised to reverse the tide, the sirens back off, screeching unearthly howls that send shivers through Katarina's weary bones.

A cheer goes up among the men and, tired as she is, Katarina joins them.

No battle is ever won without small victories.

A sell-sword, face bleeding from three long parallel gashes running from his right temple to the far side of his chin, offers Katarina a canteen. She takes it without question and helps herself to several large gulps of water before holding it out for someone else.

Riven takes it.

Instead of drinking immediately, Riven speaks. "Sarah wants to see us."

Riven's hair is matted with blood. There are stray feathers from fallen sirens caught in it, sticking out at strange angles.

It's ridiculous.

Katarina giggles.

Riven stares for a moment, then shakes her head and walks away, towards Fortune.

Fortune is sitting atop a sandbag as one of her men wraps a bandage that seems to have once been the sleeve of her shirt around her left thigh.

Her leg has been slashed open. It's a wonder she's been able to fight standing for so long, injured as she is.

She's just as blood-coated as everyone else.

"You two," Fortune shouts as soon as Riven and Katarina are within speaking distance. Fortune's voice is spilling over with unadulterated fury. "Get to the temple across Butcher's Bridge. Find the high priestess. Make her call off the monsters. If she won't, kill her. I'll follow as soon as I can."

Next to Katarina, Riven raises the canteen to her lips and chugs. When she lowers it, she offers it to Katarina.

Katarina takes the canteen and drains it.

Riven doesn't say anything, doesn't attempt to order Katarina, just turns and starts heading out of the emplacement.

Katarina is tired. So tired. Her second course of adrenaline is fast fading. The thought of going back down the spire and crossing the bridge – the bridge that a giant kraken is currently half-wrapped around – seems to her to be the equivalent of being told to sail to Demacia and back.

But Riven is moving. She's less tired than Katarina. A benefit of having arrived to the first fight when it was already half-over.

Riven is moving, so Katarina moves too.

Without anyone to hold the road at the base of the spire, there are groups of Gangplank's men now roaming the lower streets. They're easily identifiable - they wear the red badge of the Jagged Hooks sewn onto their coats.

The first squad Katarina and Riven encounter is only three men. Riven falls on them and dispatches all three without Katarina's help. The first one she stabs in the gut, the second one she beheads, and the third one she knocks to the ground before moving to stand over him, then kneeling down on his chest, then crushing his face with the jagged and broken end of her runeblade.

He sees death coming and screams all the way.

When Riven's done, Katarina notices how her shoulders rise and fall quickly, her entire body moving with every breath. When she stands, she has to wrench her sword out of the pirate's skull.

Riven is, after all, human.

"Back alleys," Katarina says.

Riven looks at her, silently asking for an explanation.

"Can't fight all the way there. Won't make it," Katarina says.

Riven nods and then they're moving again. Riven leads them into an alley and then through the twists and turns of the sprawling Bilgewater slum that makes up Deadman's Spire.

Riven has, likely, been living in Bilgewater for far longer than Katarina.

Katarina trusts her not to lead them astray.

They encounter another squad of pirates. Four of them this time. Katarina draws her blades and takes out one before they even realize the two blood-soaked women before them are hostile. Riven cuts down two more and then there's just the one left.

He tries to run.

Katarina flips one of her blades around in her hand and throws it. It cuts through his spine just below his ribcage, dropping him instantly.

She walks over to him and retrieves her knife, wiping it off on his coat before sheathing it again.

Riven looks down dispassionately at the pirate as he tries to crawl away from them. He's shat himself and he's sobbing uncontrollably. "Finish him?" she asks.

Katarina has already put away her knife. She's too tired to take it back out. "Handsome's dead," she says. "Warhammer to the back. Wasn't clean."

Riven flips the pirate over with her foot so he's looking up at her when she stomps down on his chest hard enough to shatter bone.

They keep moving.

The alleyways are mostly quiet, save for the boom of distant cannon fire. Everyone who's not fighting is terrified they might be noticed by those who are.

Katarina's and Riven's boots squelch loudly in the Bilgewater muck. They're walking quickly. They're not running. Better to walk around a corner and into an enemy gang than run headlong into an unsheathed blade.

"I named him Handsome," Riven says.

"He wasn't very handsome," Katarina remarks.

"He was before I bit his lip off," Riven replies.

Katarina shoots Riven a look, question implicit.

Riven shrugs as she answers. "Bar fight."

Katarina doesn't have anything to say to that. Fucking Bilgewater.

They reach the bridge without any further encounters.

Now, Katarina sees, again, the kraken. It remains in the water far below, but one of its enormous tentacles lies across the entire width of the bridge to dangle down on the other side.

The tentacle is pale to the point of translucence, showing purple pulsing veins beneath the skin, and it's thicker than Katarina is tall. It's covered in bits and pieces of deep sea life that should never have seen the light of day. The stench of the festering sea is overwhelming.

After an afternoon of wading through human entrails, Katarina finally feels the need to vomit.

She does so, leaning over out of habit to avoid getting anything on her gore-covered leather boots.

All that comes up is the water she had back at the emplacement.

Riven pats Katarina on the back as she finishes retching. "I'll give you a boost over," Riven says.

Katarina doesn't bother with the futile gesture of trying to wipe her lips clean. Her mouth tastes like bile. She stands back up, nods and Riven, and walks toward the heaving, pulsing, grotesque abomination draped over the bridge and directly in their way.

Riven kneels down and laces her fingers together.

Katarina puts one foot in Riven's hands and presses her own hands up against the slimy tentacle for balance as Riven stands and pushes her up and over.

She slides down the other side of the tentacle.

Katarina is quite sure that she will never be clean again. In addition to blood, she's now covered in kraken mucous. Her stomach contemplates a second revolt.

A few moments later, Riven comes sliding down the tentacle as well. Her sword is dripping purple – she stabbed it into the tentacle to climb over.

Katarina understands intuitively that that was a terrible idea. If Riven had asked her before-

Behind Riven, the tentacle spasms.

The bridge shakes.

Beneath all the blood covering Riven's face, her dark skin pales.

Katarina knows that her own face has adopted a horrified expression to match Riven's, but now really isn't the time to takes stock of what she knows or doesn't know.

One word leaves Katarina's mouth. "RUN!"

And then they're running.

Sprinting.

Charging.

Racing for their lives.

For the most part, they run even with one another. It's not intentional. Every time Riven seems to be pulling ahead, Katarina manages to find a way to make her legs pump even faster and then she gains on Riven again, and then Riven puts on a burst of speed of her own.

Behind them, the tentacle, a tentacle, something – something smashes down on the bridge and Katarina nearly slips as the ground shakes under her.

But she doesn't slip.

She keeps running.

She has never run so fast or so desperately in all her twenty-nine years.

Her focus is on the far side of the bridge and only the far side of the bridge. Except for Riven beside her, the rest of the world ceases to exist.

Another quake rocks Butcher's Bridge, and another and another and the quakes are getting closer and stronger and Katarina's not running fast enough and Riven is ahead of her but they're almost there, Katarina pulls ahead, she's there, Riven's almost there – Riven's not there –

Katarina turns in time to see Riven's blood-matted hair vanish down beyond the ledge that's been left by the collapse of the bridge.

Katarina screams.

She stumbles towards the ledge and looks down.

Riven has managed to catch an outcropping with one hand and she hangs suspended in open air.

Far below, the bulbous and pale body of the kraken sits, filling the harbor.

She doesn't pull herself up, she just hangs.

She's still holding onto her broken sword in the hand that's not holding onto the outcropping.

It's like she's determined to get herself up with only the one arm.

Katarina swears.

She wipes her hands and forearms as clean as she can on the stone of the bridge before lying down, leaning over, and grabbing Riven's blood-slicked wrist in in her right hand, keeping her left up to brace herself on the bridge.

Katarina pulls and nothing happens – Riven's got a death-grip on the outcropping and that's not going to work.

"Riven!" Katarina shouts. "Let go!"

She tries to pull again.

Riven is not letting go.

Katarina grits her teeth. "Trust me!"

Riven looks up and their eyes meet.

Riven lets go and the sudden burden of holding all of Riven – and her sword – up nearly drags Katarina over the ledge with her.

In Katarina's hand, Riven's wrist starts to slip.

Katarina doesn't have the breath to spare for curses.

Riven slips a bit further – but then there's a vice around Katarina's own wrist. Riven's grip hurts. It feels like it could crush bone.

It's motivation for Katarina to heave up with all her might.

She gains a bare inch.

It feels as if Katarina's arm is being pulled out of its socket.

Katarina heaves up again and gets another inch. She scoots back a bit farther on the ledge and tries again.

It's slow going. Torturously slow.

When Riven finally brings her other arm up, still holding onto her damn sword, and finishes levering herself up to safety, Katarina's eyes are wet with frustrated tears.

Riven is so fucking heavy.

Riven crawls over the edge and rests on her hands and knees, shaking from exertion.

When Katarina is satisfied that Riven is no longer in danger of falling off the bridge, she rolls over onto her back and stares up at the late evening sky.

The dark purple clouds are shot with crimson from the setting sun.

How fitting.

Katarina feels a weight press against her side – and what now? She turns her head to look, even though she's too tired to- Riven's face swims into view. The weight is Riven, lying down next to her.

Riven takes Katarina's head in both of her hands – the idiot has finally dropped her fucking sword – pulls Katarina over and kisses her.

It tastes less like Riven and more like blood and soot and it doesn't last nearly as long as Katarina has earned.

Riven rests her forehead against Katarina's briefly before struggling to her feet. She offers Katarina a hand, which Katarina takes.

Katarina gets up. Slowly. She gets up slowly because everything hurts and she's tired and she's not sure if her shoulder is in quite the right place after hauling Riven up from death.

"Temple," Riven says.

Katarina nods. How is it that Riven still has energy for words?

Together, they stagger off the bridge and into the slum beyond.

Gangplank's men haven't gotten to this section of city yet. If it weren't for the way every street is empty, it could have been a normal day in Bilgewater.

The way through the slum is clear.

Part of the way along, Katarina finds enough breath to speak again. "Who is the high priestess?"

"Illaoi," Riven says and at first Katarina mistakes the name for some kind of strained grunt instead of an answer.

"What is an Illaoi?" Katarina asks.

"High priestess of Nagakabouros, the Mother Serpent," Riven says. She pronounces the name of the old god with an ease and a reverence that shows she believes in the deity's power. She's been living in Bilgewater long enough, Katarina supposes. "Commands sea monsters. Used to have Gangplank as her lover before he lost his tack," Riven says. "Thought she gave up on him. Guess she didn't."

"Why did no one deal with her earlier?" Katarina demands.

Riven's grimace is evident in her tone of voice. "You don't really deal with Illaoi."

Katarina doesn't press the topic any further because that's all she needs to know. What's more, their destination is on a cliff a distance above Butcher's Bridge and the road up is steep. Katarina is bone-weary from the afternoon of desperate clashes. She's past running on willpower at this point, she doesn't know what she's running on anymore, and she doubts her chances of a miracle fifth wind.

Riven is in much the same state, especially after the incident at the bridge.

Katarina is loathe to make them both waste breath on idle chatter.

The temple they're headed towards is a massive stone and metal tower ringed with a thick wall. It rises above the surrounding cliffside slums, imperial with the grace of a bygone age. The metal that glimmers from between the great stones of the building, covering whatever mortar holds them together, is the same golden-colored stuff as the old sea-gate.

Katarina shudders involuntarily.

The seven guards clustered around the gate of the temple walls are all women. They have dark skin covered in the seaweed-like green sinuous tattoos favored by the people indigenous to the Islands. Their arms are golden spears and their armor is golden greaves, golden gauntlets, and grotesque golden masks that are several times larger than their heads.

Do they fight or is it all for show?

Katarina has maybe one fight left in her, at most. She'd rather not waste it on guards.

"Leave, outsider," one of the women calls when they've advanced far enough on the road that their destination is clear. Katarina can't tell which one it is who speaks. The golden masks hide their mouths and distort the voice.

Riven walks grimly forward. "We're here to see the high priestess," she announces.

Several of the guards laugh. "Leave," one of them says. "She won't see you."

"The high priestess has to see everyone who comes," Riven argues. She stops at the base of the steps leading up to the gate. Katarina moves to stand behind her.

"The Truth Bearer sees all who come to be tested," says one of the guards.

"Do you come to be tested?" asks another. Whichever one of them it is, she's clearly sneering.

Again, they laugh.

Riven says nothing.

It seems her courage has failed her.

"Yes, we do," Katarina says.

The guards stop laughing.

Riven stiffens.

Katarina is too tired to question what it is she's gotten them into. She's gotten them through the door is what she's gotten them.

Without a word, the guards open the temple gates.

Katarina and Riven cross the threshold together.

The courtyard beyond is as majestic as the rest of the temple complex. Giant statues of the gods of the Islands litter the yard, placed seemingly without any rhyme or reason. Some are even upside down – or, Katarina thinks they're upside down. It's hard to tell with the Island deities and she only recognizes a few, like the catfish god of greed whose visage graces the obverse of gold coins minted in Bilgewater. Most of the statues are overgrown with undisturbed moss. The wind and the weather keep them, not human hands.

Within the temple walls, Katarina can't hear the Bilgewater cannonfire anymore. It's unsettling.

Katarina takes the lead in crossing the courtyard, following a slightly submerged path. The water is clean and clear – no, the water was clean and clear. Was clean and clear until now. It turns dark pink in their wake. They ascend another short flight of steps to enter the temple tower.

The stone steps are worn down in the center – evidence of generations of feet passing the same way.

The chamber they step into upon entering the temple is empty save for a massive fire blazing from a stone cauldron in the center of the room. The fire is a ghostly greenish-blue and gives off neither heat nor sound. Katarina is not in the mood to be intimidated by parlor tricks, so she isn't. She ignores the fire and casts her eyes around the room. It's a round room, mimicking the outside shape of the tower but it's not large enough to be the entire first floor. There's a small door at the back of the room, but that door is closed.

It's unlikely they're meant to go through it.

Riven and Katarina are let to wait alone.

As they wait, the sense of urgency that was mostly bludgeoned out of Katarina by the continuous action of the day creeps back in. Does Fortune still live? Has the entire port fallen? Does any of what they've done matter? If it might still matter – they must act soon.

Or it will all be for nothing.

Sorin is dead. All Katarina's men are dead. She should have found a way to sail every single one of her ships out before-

Riven squeezes her shoulder – why does Riven always pick Katarina's injured shoulder? – and it's somewhat reassuring, if painful.

"Stop thinking," Riven murmurs.

Easier said than done.

Riven stays still.

Katarina fidgets.

They're wasting time.

The longer they wait, the-

"Didn't expect to find you here," Riven says.

"Likewise," Katarina replies. She hears herself speak and she notices her voice is raspy. Her throat is dry. She's parched. Shame she didn't think to drink any of the water outside before they walked through it. "You died."

Riven nods. She glances at Katarina. Then she vocalizes. "Mostly."

"How did you survive?" Katarina asks. There's a slight echo in this room with its silent and cold fire.

There's a long pause. Then Riven answers, "I'm stubborn."

Katarina chuckles. Maybe Riven hasn't changed so much. "What is this test?" Katarina asks.

Riven shrugs slowly. "Mystical. Religious. Something to do with the Mother Serpent. Most people die." She hesitates, "I don't-

Riven is interrupted by the opening of the small door on the other side of the room.

The woman who comes through the door is so tall she has to duck down to avoid hitting her head. She's not just tall, she's enormous. She has easily as much muscle as Riven did in her days in the Noxian infantry, but this woman is slightly taller than Katarina while Riven is significantly shorter than both of them. In one hand, the woman carries a giant metal head crafted in the shape of the Mother Serpent. Nagakabouros.

Riven tenses. She offers the woman a very shallow bow. "Illaoi," she says.

Katarina doesn't bow and she doesn't say anything.

Illaoi's attention is on Riven. "I know you," she says. Her voice is loud, booming, bright. "You're one of Sarah Fortune's lieutenants."

"Captain Fortune would like you to call off the kraken and the other sea creatures swarming the city," Riven says.

Illaoi heaves her golden idol up onto her shoulder. From the way her muscles visibly strain, it's clear the idol is heavy. Given Katarina's recent experience trying to drag Riven up over a ledge, she's certain she herself would not be able to lift the artifact. That Illaoi can raise it up to her shoulder with only one hand is… impressive. "Gangplank was tested," Illaoi says, "Sarah Fortune refused."

Katarina sees the muscles tighten in Riven's jaw as she searches for a reply.

When Riven doesn't come up with anything to say, Illaoi takes two steps forward. She's now looming over the two of them. So close, Katarina realizes she misjudged. Illaoi isn't slightly taller than Katarina, she's significantly taller.

Riven shifts her weight, preparing for a fight. Katarina does the same.

The two of them against this giant - even exhausted by the afternoon, they'll win.

"Have you come in her place to be tested?" Illaoi asks. From the direction of her imposing gaze, it's clear she's only talking to Riven. "You, born so far from the Serpent Isles?"

Katarina thinks of how she volunteered them in order to get through the temple gate and she thinks that now would be the time for her to intervene, but Riven gets there first.

"If I survive, will you call off your monsters?" Riven asks.

Illaoi hesitates. She's thinking it through, weighing her options. The calculation in her eyes is serpentine. Illaoi's entire manner reminds Katarina of her distant sister and that thought sends a chill down her spine.

"Yes," Illaoi pronounces, finally.

Riven nods, seemingly as much for her own benefit as Illaoi's. "I've come to be tested."

Illaoi returns Riven's nod and steps back. "Will you be as strong as Gangplank, I wonder?"

Katarina hears Riven's temper flare as she snaps back, "Gangplank is a small and vicious man."

A long shadow falls into the room from the door.

"Do ye want to say that to my face, lassie?" Gangplank asks. Behind him loom two of the strange squid-faced creatures Katarina faced down by the docks.

Gangplank has an almost mythical status in Bilgewater. But. He's just a man. He is older, heavier, and shorter than Katarina expected. Even so, the way he carries himself speaks of power and authority. His most striking feature is his massive metal arm – his entire left arm is either a hextech prosthetic or covered in as much armor as a Noxian charger. Standing in the temple doorway, he's dripping as much blood as either Riven or Katarina. Everyone in Bilgewater has spent the day mired in slaughter and Gangplank is no exception.

Riven doesn't know the meaning of the word 'fear.' She turns to face Gangplank and stares him down. "You are a small and vicious man. Captain Fortune killed you once and she'll do it again."

Gangplank laughs and as he does it Katarina gets an ugly view of his rotten teeth. "Little Miss Fortune is holed up on top of a mountain hiding from monsters," he says. "She's in no spot to kill any soul but herself." He grins. "And when I get my hands on her - I won't let her."

Gangplank carries a cutlass in one hand and a pistol tucked into his belt. They're the weapons of a pirate reaver. He starts to reach for his pistol. "But I'm gettin' ahead o' meself," he says. "You two first."

"You will not interrupt the test," Illaoi bellows, and the force of her voice is enough to stop Gangplank from drawing his gun. Her idol is no longer on her shoulder, she's holding it at her side. There's a ghostly glow all about her, seeming to seep out into the world from her skin. Whatever magic is in the Islands, be it demons or gods, it flows through her.

Illaoi, standing lit by the otherworld of the Islands, is terrifying.

Gangplank gnashes his teeth and the ugly grinding noise his gnashing creates is like fingernails on slate. "Fine," he says. He yanks his gun from his belt. "I'll kill this just this one then."

Duels are as much a part of Noxus as the old gods and their litanies of strength. Katarina's blades are already in her hands. She's been dueling her entire life. She's been killing pirates all day. What's one more? Confidence surges - a poor man's adrenaline. It gets the job done though.

"You take your test," Katarina says to Riven. "I'll take out the trash."

Katarina doesn't wait for acknowledgement. She knows Riven heard her. She trusts Riven will do her part.

Katarina throws herself at Gangplank, drawing two knives as she charges. She has to close the distance fast enough he can't use his pistol to pick her off.

It's a small room and he'd already been walking forward, so she succeeds in entering his guard.

As soon as they cross blades, Katarina wonders if she's made a mistake.

Gangplank shoves into her and sends her reeling backwards.

He spins his pistol in his hand and laughs.

Katarina tired, so tired she's not moving as fast as she normally does, and Gangplank is a far more skilled opponent than anyone else she's faced recently.

From across the room comes the clang of stone on metal. Riven has engaged Illaoi and the two women are, as far as Katarina can see from the corner of her eye, both attempting to bludgeon each other to death. Ghostlike tentacles spring up from the ground and grab at Riven's ankles, but she rips her way through them. One tentacle seems to punch straight into Riven's chest, then curl, as if it's trying to pull something out of her ribcage, but Riven keeps fighting.

Katarina has plunged the two of them into another life-and-death struggle and, for Riven's sake, Katarina can't have made a mistake.

She darts back towards Gangplank, careful this time to avoid any engagement where he can leverage superior strength against her.

Katarina is of Noxus.

She has been fighting her entire life.

The strong survive. So it is. So shall it be. So shall it ever be.

Gangplank is an experienced and a cunning opponent. He wields his cutlass deftly and his pistol is always seeking a clear shot. He has yet to pull the trigger. His bullets are limited and the pistol is a trump card. When he needs to, he uses its metal barrel to block Katarina's strikes, but otherwise he reserves it for a finishing blow.

Katarina endeavors not to give him such an opportunity.

She's tired but she's still faster than he is. His metal arm gives him an advantage in that he uses it as a shield, but she's fought and killed men wearing more armor than him before.

He's a competent fighter.

So is she.

It's all a matter of who makes a mistake first.

It won't be her.

She just has to stay controlled until-

Katarina sees an opening. She takes a fast sidestep and twists, knocking into Gangplank and furthering his forward momentum, trying to make him fall forward. He doesn't fall, but he stumbles. Katarina stabs downward, aiming to slide her knife between Gangplank's shoulder blades.

The blow never connects.

A wave of force slams into Katarina and knocks her off her feet, throws her into the stone wall of the room. Her back hits first, and then her head collides with the masonry too and her entire world is briefly nothing but light and pain. Limply, her body slides down the wall.

What…?

Katarina blinks rapidly, trying to force her head to clear.

In the center of the room, the cauldron of parlor-trick flame has been tipped over and gone out.

Illaoi lies strewn on the floor. She's holding her golden idol up as a shield, blocking Riven's sword –

Riven's sword is shimmering runes and emerald fire tracing an image of what the blade once was. It's like Riven herself is what she once was – but more now. She's changed. This, Katarina knew upon first laying eyes on her. But she hasn't just changed. She's grown. She's stronger. Stronger now than she ever was.

It's the fire-blade part that's hit the idol and while it's clear that Illaoi has successfully defended herself from the strike, Riven hasn't drawn the sword back yet.

The both of them seem almost frozen save for their deep gasping breaths.

It was the sword striking the idol, Katarina thinks, that threw her and Gangplank across the room.

Gangplank.

Katarina tries to force herself to her feet so she can finish the pirate off but she can't manage. Her body doesn't want to work. She aches all over and the world seems far away.

Slowly, in the center of the room, Riven stands up straight.

So does Illaoi, though when she rises, she doesn't make quite make it all the way. Her idol weighs her down so that, standing, she leans towards the side she carries the idol on.

Illaoi laughs. It's a deep, belly-shaking laugh.

Riven takes a cautious step back, eyes never leaving her opponent.

"Very good, girl," Illaoi announces. Between every word she has to take a great heaving gasp for air. "Few who survive the test of Nagakabouros can keep fighting. Perhaps…" she trails off, then, "Perhaps Gangplank is not the only one who can defend these isles."

"Call off the monsters," Riven says. She's shockingly calm given all that's come to pass.

"Done," Illaoi says.

Gangplank pulls himself up.

Katarina is starting to relearn how to make herself move, but she's not there yet.

"You promised me," Gangplank hisses. "You owe me."

Illaoi sets her idol down on the ground and kneels so that she can keep a hand on it. She's tired, but probably not as tired as the rest of them. "No," she says. "I promised you nothing. I owe you nothing."

Gangplank swears at the priestess. He rounds on Riven. "You're dead, lassie."

And then he sets out to make good on his word.

Watching Riven fight Gangplank leaves Katarina sorely wishing she'd seen Riven fighting Illaoi.

With her sword restored, Riven's style is so much smoother than the blocky use of brute force that she resorts to when all she has is the blunt stump of a weapon.

Even with her full sword though, Riven lacks the skill to overwhelm a man of as much experience and strength as Gangplank. As in Katarina's duel with him, he holds his own and doles out as much punishment as he takes.

Riven's face glimmers with sweat in the emerald glow cast by her sword. The blood that covers her dried some time ago.

The light of Riven's sword flickers.

She's reaching exhaustion.

Gangplank opens the distance between them and slows his pace. It takes Riven more effort to maintain her sword than it takes him to wait her out.

Shit.

Katarina takes a deep breath.

It hurts to breath. Hitting the wall – has she cracked a rib? Two ribs? More?

There's work to be done.

Riven's sword flickers again and when it recovers it's paler than before.

Gangplank doesn't laugh – there's no room for laughter in their duel – but he does let out a victorious exhalation.

Katarina finds her legs, finds what remains of her strength and throws herself up and at Gangplank's back. She hits him squarely, shoving him onto Riven's dying blade. The sword rams through his shoulder – right on the flesh side of his metal arm – and narrowly avoids impaling Katarina as well.

Gangplank howls – some mixture of agony and fury.

Katarina is entirely spent. She slides down Gangplank's bloody back and hits the floor.

Riven's sword finally winks out of existence, releasing the pirate. Unable to remain standing, she slips to one knee.

Gangplank teeters. His pistol falls from limp metal fingers to the ground. He still has his cutlass. There's a madness in his voice. Not a fury – a madness. "The flames couldn't claim me," he murmurs. He staggers through a turn. His cutlass is perilously near Katarina's face. "The depths couldn't claim me…"

"Put the fucking sword down."

Katarina has never been so happy to see Sarah Fortune in her life. And if she's minimally lucky, she'll never be in a position to be so damn happy for Sarah Fortune ever again.

The bounty hunter captain stands in the doorway, in the same spot Gangplank himself loomed what feels like at least two lifetimes ago. Most of her weight is on one leg, the other having been savaged in the siren attack. In her right hand she holds one of her pistols and it's aimed at Gangplank's face.

She's steady as an anchor.

Gangplank's cutlass touches Katarina's cheek. It's cold. It's slimy with blood.

The situation is disgraceful.

"Truce until I leave. I leave now. I don't hurt any of yours, you don't stop me," Gangplank rasps. "Your word."

Fortune hesitates. She blinks. She licks her lips. Her trigger finger twitches but doesn't pull. "Done."

Neither Gangplank nor Fortune moves.

"Drop the sword," Fortune says.

"Drop the gun," Gangplank snarls.

"Whose life do you value more?" Fortune asks. "Hers or yours?"

Gangplank holds his cutlass to the side and drops it. It clatters on the stone floor.

Fortune lowers her pistol and steps aside, no longer blocking the door.

Step by step, Gangplank limps towards the exit. When he's close enough, he spits in Fortune's face.

Fortune wipes her face with her bloody sleeve. Better blood than a broken pirate king's spit. "Go away, old man," she says.

Gangplank obliges, staggering off across the courtyard and into the night.

Riven is still kneeling on the floor. Her eyes are closed. "What about your revenge?" she asks.

Fortune holsters her pistol. "He'll come back," she says. "I'll kill him then."

"He is a strong man and a proud man," Illaoi interjects.

Fortune's tone drips with condescension. "You would say that, wouldn't you," she says. "I'm taking my people now – but we have unfinished business."

Illaoi nods. "We had unfinished business before."

Fortune doesn't reply. She turns to Riven. "You're too heavy to carry, Rivers. What did we tell you about a diet? You need to lose weight."

"Yes Sarah," Riven drones. "Just… give me a moment."

"Take all the moments, honey," Fortune replies. "We won. His pirates are dead. All he had left were the monsters."

Riven's laugh is some strange mixture of exhaustion and celebration.

It's a good sound.

When she finally does stand up again, she tucks her broken sword into her blood-soaked scarf-belt and staggers over to Katarina.

"Kat, can you get up?"

Katarina closes her eyes. The answer to that question is no. So she says so. "No."

Riven nods and then scoops Katarina up off the ground, cradling her.

Katarina shifts around just enough to rest her head against Riven's shoulder.

Is Riven smiling?

Somewhere on the way to the temple door, Katarina passes out.

[] [] []

Katarina wakes up in what passes for a nice bed in Bilgewater. There's no straw poking uncomfortably into the small of her back and the bed even has sheets.

Her head feels like death, her neck is so stiff she can barely move, and her entire body aches.

On the upside, she's clean. Someone has given her a bath and put fresh clothes on her, though the trousers and the shirt are both a little big.

She hopes that 'someone' means either Riven or Fortune, but it doesn't really matter.

Being clean is glorious.

She hasn't been clean in… months.

Getting up is out of the question.

Katarina is awake but she's in no condition to move.

She lies in the bed and thinks of nothing.

Eventually, the door of the room opens.

Katarina manages to twist around enough to see a shock of white hair before the door closes again.

Near the door, propped up against the wall, is Riven's sword. It's been cleaned of blood and the single whole rune left on it glows emerald green, soft and steady.

Katarina has to wait – she doesn't know how long, but a long time – before the door opens again and Riven comes in with a plate heaped with…

"I never want to see another fish in my life," Katarina says.

Riven shoves the plate at Katarina. "Welcome to Bilgewater."

Katarina eyes the 'food.' It's fried, but it also has an unsettling resemblance to the squid-creatures that nearly killed her at the base of Deadman's Spire. "Are you here to make sure I enjoy my stay?"

Riven sits down next to Katarina. She produces a fork, then stabs a hunk of fried squid and sticks it in her mouth. She chews, slowly, then swallows. "Mmm," she says. She forks another piece of squid and starts to eat that too.

Katarina has been passed out for who knows how long, maybe days. She's famished. She pushes herself into a sitting position and takes hold firmly of the plate and fork, pulling them away from Riven. Katarina cleans the plate in record time. Then she hands the plate and fork back to Riven.

"More?" Riven asks.

"Yes," says Katarina.

Riven takes the plate and fork out of the room, leaving a significantly more alive Katarina behind to wait for more… hopefully whatever it was Riven brought before. Fried squid things.

It takes two more plates of food before Katarina is satisfied she's not famished anymore. When she's done eating, Riven puts the plate and fork on a small table next to the bed.

Riven goes to stand near the room's single window. It's a small room, so she's only a step from the side of the bed.

It feels like a far greater distance than it is.

Riven leans against the windowsill and looks out. The shutters are open and there's a view of the harbor beyond. The indistinct singing of sailors floats in on a breeze. "Sarah has passage for you back to Noxus," Riven says slowly. "She's sorry about your ship."

Katarina nods. That's… good. She needs to return to Noxus. To home. It's where her duty lies. And…

"She's at the temple now, but she'll be back soon..." Riven says. "She wanted to see you before you left." The light of the sun touches her white hair and throws off a fuzzy halo about her head.

Katarina nods again. A reasonable request. There's a heaviness in her chest and a thought dancing at the edge of her consciousness, not quite lending itself to words. "How long have I been out?" Katarina asks.

"Two days," Riven answers.

Two days is nothing. When Katarina staggered back to camp after the mission where she nearly lost her eye, she was in and out of consciousness for nearly a week as the healers worked on her.

The conversation enters a lull. The weight in Katarina's chest doesn't get any lighter. "What have you been doing?"

Riven doesn't answer immediately. She continues to stare out towards the sea and the horizon. When she does finally answer, her answer is soft. "Burying men."

The heaviness in Katarina twists and spreads to become a lump in her throat. She'd… forgotten. Already. Guilt tastes like bile. "My crew?" she asks.

Riven turns her head and looks at Katarina. She meets Katarina's green eyes with her own amber ones. Her face is unreadable.

Katarina looks down and away. The sheets on the bed are made of undyed cotton.

Riven pushes away from the window and moves to sit on the bed. She chooses a spot next to Katarina, turning so that she's at Katarina's side but facing her as well. "I gave the rites," Riven says, voice quiet. "I'm… sorry."

Katarina wets her lips. "Better that you did it," she says. Her brow furrows. "I… don't even know the words. Someone else… always…"

She couldn't do her duty. Not to her men when they lived, not to her men when they died.

Katarina is still looking down and it's shameful. She forces herself to look up. She expects to be faced with judgement and scorn.

She should really know better.

Riven tucks a stray lock of Katarina's hair behind her ear. "You learn the words by hearing," Riven says. "It takes time. I didn't know how long you'd take to recover. They deserved their rest."

Katarina presses her lips together and nods, then looks down once more.

Riven's arm wraps around Katarina's shoulders.

Katarina tenses at first.

Hugging is… not a terribly Noxian thing.

And it's not…

It's not… a bad thing.

As Katarina relaxes, Riven pulls her in til Katarina's head is tucked into the crook of her neck.

"The strong survive," Riven says, slipping from the common tongue into old Noxian, the archaic language of ceremonies older than the city of Noxus itself. Her voice is resonant. They're so close. Riven speaks softly. "But all must perish. The strong survive. And when the strong fall, they shall find glory and they shall rise immortal in the memories of men and they shall join the gods awaiting the last twilight. Our brothers have died as they lived. Strong. Unbowed. Unbroken. When the last twilight comes, they shall rise for the last battle, charging into the abyss in the name of the gods."

As Riven reaches the end of the prayer, Katarina finds her voice and joins. "So it is, so shall it be. So shall it ever be."

The prayer for the dead summons up a weariness, a weariness that surpasses exhaustion, a weariness that seems to emanate from Katarina's very core.

Katarina's crew were her first command. How many times has Riven given her comrades their rites?

This time, when silence falls, Katarina doesn't spring to fill it.

She just stays slumped against Riven.

Moving is...

She's tired.

Riven smells like salt and fish. She smells like Bilgewater. She smells nothing like the woman Katarina knew a lifetime ago.

But she's still Riven.

When Katarina finally speaks, she speaks against the immeasurable weight in her chest. "Come back with me."

Riven is quiet and she takes a long time to answer. "I have a life here, Kat."

Riven pauses and Katarina feels that it's a purposeful pause.

Riven speaks, haltingly.

"We can't just… be... who we were," Riven says.

Katarina swallows. "That's not what I'm asking."

Riven nods but doesn't speak.

Katarina shifts in Riven's hold. She reaches out and slips a hand around the back of Riven's head, sliding her fingers through short white hair. She pulls Riven forward so that their foreheads touch. "Come home, Riven."

Still, Riven is quiet. She doesn't look Katarina in the eyes. She closes her eyes instead.

Katarina doesn't wait this time. "Noxus is your home," she says. She slips from common into Noxian, the language they were both born into. "Come home with me. Sail with me."

Katarina wants Riven to say yes.

Riven wants to say yes.

Katarina knows, feels, is certain that Riven wants to say yes.

Because it's right.

Riven breathes deeply. "When I fought Illaoi," she begins, "I was... outside of myself. Like my... soul... was… elsewhere." The word Riven uses, soul is not a Noxian word, though Katarina recognizes its intent. It is a word, a concept, of the Serpent Isles. It rolls off Riven's tongue as easily as the ancient prayers to the old gods.

"You came back then," Katarina says. She hesitates now - because she is afraid. Riven is of Noxus. She will always be of Noxus. But she is more. So much more. Katarina has to wet her lips before she speaks again. She does not know the language of the Isles and she does not attempt to pronounce it. "Where is your will now?"

Riven opens her eyes.

Riven leans forward and kisses Katarina and this kiss – this is the kiss that Katarina earned but didn't get back at the bridge.

It starts soft and hesitant, then builds until it's everything they had before - but it's more. It's everything they had before and it's everything that they deserve now and it's a promise for a new future.

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A/N: To those of you who got this far - thank you so much for reading this. I wrote the first draft for this entire fic in about three days and then edited on day four. Really, mostly, in two days. It's a 17k word fic and I did 14k of it last weekend while listening to the various Bilgewater tracks on repeat and skipping breakfast, lunch, and dinner (slight exaggeration, I only skipped breakfast and lunch and then ate dinner because I had a hunger headache and it was interfering with writing).

Anywho. After writing "Strays" for Caitlyn/Vi I started seriously questioning why I always write angsty Katariven and I made it my mission to write Katariven that wasn't angsty. In order to make Katariven not insanely angsty, I tried playing around just a little bit with some of the underlying character interpretation that inevitably leads to misery for them. What if Katarina's life isn't actually consumed by an anti-Swain campaign? What if anger isn't her primary emotion? What if Riven succeeded in recovering psychologically from Ionia? What if these characters are mature adult women? This is the result. So while these characters are different interpretations than how I normally write them, I hope I did this well enough that they're still recognizable.

Thank you so much to my beta readers, CrimsonNoble and Balabalabagon for going above and beyond in helping with edits. And by "above and beyond," I mean, "putting up with me for over seven hours while I questioned my life and my choices thoroughly."