A/N: League of Legends really needs more fanfic. There's not much to read in this fandom.

Read a soulmates fic, in which one pairing was this. Can't remember who it was by, but if that author is reading this, it's obvious I liked many aspects of the story. Anyway, I realized this isn't all consistent with Ashe's lore, but I'll just call it creative license or an AU. Better than "I forgot to read her lore before writing."

Thanks for reading.

I – There is life. There is death. And then there is me.

Ashe followed the hawk.

The freezing air burnt her throat and lungs, and her legs were beginning to stumble, but she ran. She followed the hawk. It was leading her somewhere, and if she'd gone mad and was following an animal to its nest – well. It didn't matter, not really, not when her own people hunted her.

Her own people, who were chasing her with swords and bows and deadly intent. Why? Did they truly hate her that much? She had seen resentment over her declaration of peace, yes, and dissatisfaction with her, a young woman, as a leader, but murder? Certainly not. And they came to kill her, there was no mistake. They'd kill her and her body would lie under the snow, forgotten, with nobody to remember – no!

She shook her head. Shouldn't think about that, she scolded herself. Fortunately, the hawk had stopped ahead, so either she had reached her destination or she was a fool. A dead fool-

Ashe saw the hawk's landing site. It was an old, stone construction, and she gladly entered the open doorway. At the very least, a place to rest, free from the bitter cold, would be nice.

Her harsh breaths echoed strangely inside. Something prickled at her senses, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to rise. This place was – she hesitated to say creepy, unsettling was a better word. There was something…

"I feel like I should know this place," Ashe murmured to herself. The thought made no sense, as she'd never been here, but still.

A few more steps and something loomed up ahead. It was difficult to see in the gloom, but it almost looked like a… like a stone coffin. Was this someone's gravesite? She glanced back toward the way she'd come, stomach suddenly roiling. The hawk was nowhere to be seen.

As Ashe walked up to the coffin, the uneasy feeling intensified. Now it seemed as if she was being watched. Perhaps this mausoleum was haunted by vengeful ghosts, angry at her intrusion. She gulped. If she could find a name, that might help her understand this place's purpose.

The coffin was old, but well preserved, and the bottom half was imbedded in a pedestal of ice. She wiped a hand over the top, clearing it of dust, and a name became visible. It was an old form of her language, but still readable. Her eyes widened as she read –

"Avarosa."

Avarosa. Avarosa, the queen one of the three sisters in the legends. "Why bring me here?" she shouted into the still air. "Why? To taunt me? Queen Avarosa. Queen, the title that will never be mine, not when I can't even lead my tribe without them calling for blood!" Ashe scowled, breaths coming in rough gasps. "Taunting my dreams of peace? Fitting, I suppose, as I haven't yet met anyone who thinks it's not an impossible dream at best and a fool's quest that will ruin us all at worst. Why not add another to the list?"

Silence, again, seeming more eerie after her outburst of sound. She glanced around, still finding no one there, but unable to shake the feeling of being watched. Tales she once heard as a child, of the Watchers, came to mind. She quickly banished those thoughts.

She looked down at the coffin again, then stepped back in shock. The hawk stood serenely on the coffin lid, looking for all the world as if it had been there all along. This close, it was evident that it was no normal bird. Not brown and white and lively, its coloring was blue-white-clear and it moved not an inch. She might have mistaken it for an ice statue, in different circumstances.

Ashe frowned at the bird. "What is it, then?" she snapped. "Why have you led me here? Is this where I am to die?"

The ice-hawk flitted off the lid, then looked at her expectantly.

The archer and the bird stared each other off for several seconds, before Ashe realized she was having a staring contest with an animal, no matter its strange coloring or mannerisms. She sighed. "I don't suppose you could tell me what it is you want me to do," she said.

The bird pecked the side of the coffin a few times, then resumed staring at her. She frowned. The… coffin? She was supposed to do something with it? There was nothing to be done with coffins, they were for burial purposes, except – except –

Her eyes widened. "You expect me to open this?" she asked, pointing. The hawk inclined its head, then pecked the coffin's side again.

"But – the disrespect!" Ashe exclaimed. "This is Avarosa's grave!" The bird resumed its stare, somehow conveying it thought she was being stupid.

Then, voices outside.

"She's gotta be in here," growled a male voice, echoes carrying the sound to her. "Couldn't see her from the top of the hill, so unless she went and died off of the cold and saved us some work, she's in here."

"I don't like this place," said another. "Feels like something's watching."

"Oh, just get searching, won't you?"

Ashe swore and pried up the stone lid. For a moment, she feared it was too heavy, but after the initial resistance it seemed to come to life of its own accord.

Pale blue light radiated from the inside, and she swallowed her displeasure at having to see what was probably a skeleton to look at its source. The light came from a bow, seemingly made of ice. She'd never seen anything like it before, but she knew it was –

"True ice," she muttered. "This is Avarosa's bow." She tore her gaze away from the bow to look at the queen herself, who was decidedly not a skeleton, but seemed as if she were only sleeping, frozen in time. A young, white-haired woman in ceremonial dress, eyes closed and face serene, hands clasped on her chest.

Ashe had no more than a few seconds to gaze at the once-queen, before rapidly approaching footsteps shook her out of her reverie. They'd caught up, and there was nowhere to run. She was going to die – no. No, not today, not for a long time. She muttered an apology to Avarosa, then picked up the true ice bow from its resting place.

Cold.

An all-pervading cold that spread from the hand which picked up the bow to the roots of her hair to her feet, chilling her blood and numbing her bones. This was it, Ashe thought wildly, Avarosa was going to kill her for daring to desecrate her resting place. Well, it was a rather better way to die than being murdered by her own people.

As suddenly as the cold started, it stopped. Ashe found that she had collapsed against the side of the coffin, which had somehow closed again. And… and she still held the bow, which chilled her fingers slightly but otherwise didn't hurt. And her would-be murderers stood but ten yards from her position, hesitating for an unknown reason. She quickly got to her feet.

"Er, do we still –" one of the insurgents began. She knew him, he sold furs to travelers, she'd greeted him on occasion.

"It doesn't matter," another snarled. Mother used to invite her over sometimes, back when –

"Came all the way out here, just do it." A bear of a man, he had two daughters she'd seen just earlier that day.

They charged. Ashe's fingers rose in the familiar motion of drawing an arrow, but there was no arrow, until a volley of ice arrows formed on the string and flew, sharp points striking true into armor and flesh. That gave them pause, and she didn't waste the chance, loosing another volley before ducking behind the coffin for cover from the delayed return flurry of wooden arrows and a few spears.

She settled into a rhythm. Feel ice, then draw and shoot. Nothing came closer than grazing her, and the scrapes felt strangely numb, not hurting as much as they should. Her attackers fell. They stopped trying to attack, at some point. They may have tried to run, but her arrows cut them down before they'd taken two steps.

And then she was alone with the dead.

Slow, mocking applause from behind her, where she was sure there'd been no one. "Wasn't that interesting?" said a voice like madness.

Ashe was acutely aware she should probably turn around – unknowns at her back were never a good idea – but her instincts rebelled against the idea. She didn't want to know what had spoken. All of a sudden, she was a child again, hiding under the covers, hoping the monster would go away. But the difference was, those monsters had been the imaginings of a frightened child. This…

"Rather rude of you to not look at someone who's speaking to you," said the voice. Casually, like a friend commenting on how well her hunt had gone. Ashe shivered.

"I apologize," she said stiffly. "I find myself rather overwhelmed, having just k-killed people I believed to be my friends." Oh, gods above, she'd killed them and they were dead by her hand. Her own people, even if they'd attacked first, and that was mothers and fathers and children who would never come home, a pain that wouldn't heal, and if she had stayed her hand when they were trying to escape –

"Friends?" said the… thing behind her, still pleasantly. "I should think attempted murder would more than disqualify anyone from that category."

"I still don't like killing," Ashe said through gritted teeth.

"You don't?" A sense of movement, displaced air, and she stiffened. "Well, this is a terrible distance to appreciate a death from. You have to be close. To see their hope slowly fleeing, even as they desperately cling on to their will to live. To see their eyes slowly glaze as they realize that yes, this is their end, and they can't change a thing. To see them shatter into pieces and to know you're the one who's doing this, the one who holds their fate. And they all break in the end, no matter how strong they seem. No one wants to die."

A pause.

"No," she forced out. "I don't like killing."

The voice continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Far too clean, these deaths, anyhow. The souls would be served well with, oh, an eternity of torment or so. Ah, well, I can fix that."

At that, Ashe's composure finally broke. She spun around, intending to demand answers, no matter how creepy – unnerving – and she found a grinning black-green skull far too close to her. She yelped, stumbling backward a few steps. What – she always noticed when someone was that close to her!

Seeing her reaction, the smile on the skull/face transformed from unnerving to downright terrifying. Ashe noticed she was hyperventilating, and quickly slowed her breathing, tearing her eyes away from that grin. She took in the robe lined with – were those bones? – and the scythe and the chains.

"Reaper," she breathed.

"Archer," the reaper returned.

Reaper. She was going to die. The thought was somehow funny, and she nearly failed to stifle a giggle. After everything. After killing her own people, and was it just her or did that thought come easier? Ashe shook her head. Had to focus. Say something clever, she thought to herself.

"My name is Ashe, not 'archer'," she said, then winced. That was a failure. She glanced at the coffin, in vain hope that Avarosa or the hawk would aid her somehow, but the hawk was nowhere to be found and the coffin remained shut. It was a silly hope, anyway.

"And my name is Thresh," said the reaper. "Though it wouldn't mean anything to you, I suppose."

"It doesn't."

"That would explain why you haven't run screaming yet. Not that it would do you any good."

"I think it's mostly that I'm not quite in my right mind," Ashe replied automatically. Then the words registered, and she took a step back.

The reaper – Thresh laughed, a grating, echoing sound that chilled her in a way unlike cold or ice. He took a gliding step forward, invalidating her efforts to put distance between them.

Ashe snuck a glance at the exit. It was slightly blocked by the… corpses, but if she ran she could reach it in seconds. It was hardly a choice. She bolted, heart hammering.

One step, two, three, wait what was that sound –

Something caught her around the waist, tearing at her clothes and dragging her back. She flailed for a moment, then landed in an undignified heap on the ground. Blinking away bright spots, it slowly registered that Thresh's scythe had a chain attached to it, and he'd thrown it to catch her. More lengths of chain whipped out, tangling around her limbs and preventing her from rising.

She was probably going to die, now, she thought, closing her eyes. How anticlimactic. The adrenaline had passed, and Ashe was left feeling tired. Probably couldn't mount an effective defense if she tried, she mused.

So she waited.

And waited some more.

When a few minutes had passed and she was decidedly not dead, Ashe cracked open an eye. Thresh was standing over the bodies of the people she'd – killed, holding a glowing green lantern, but it was difficult to tell what he was doing from her angle. He was ignoring her, or so it seemed.

Perhaps, she could – no. She winced as her attempts to move only succeeded in entangling herself further and opening cuts on her skin where the sharp chain links caught. Worse, the noise attracted Thresh's attention. As he turned and began walking sedately toward her, the trepidation she'd thought lost to sheer exhaustion rose again, making her heart pound in her ears. Thresh stopped a bare few feet away from her. Far too close.

"If you're going to kill me, just do it," Ashe croaked, breaking the silence.

He laughed again, the sound making her skin crawl and every human part of her want to get as far away from its source as possible. "If you knew anything about me," he chuckled, "you would know death to be a far kinder fate than me."

Ashe's stomach sank.

"But, no," he continued. "You won't come to any harm by me today." He paused, as if reflecting. "Wait, this is the Freljord, the sun won't be up until – let's say today means the next twenty-four hours. That seems reasonable, if not generous."

Despite everything, his obvious unfamiliarity with the day-night cycles this far north caused a quiet giggle to escape Ashe. The sound was strained, and she stifled it quickly.

"What?" Thresh asked, sounding hurt. The hurt had to be fake, of course, but it sounded so genuine, so absurd, that her efforts to quiet herself failed. Several heartbeats, and she choked down the giggles again, causing them to trail off into a coughing fit.

By the time she quieted, he actually looked mildly annoyed. "I'm sorry, it's just – never mind, I'm sorry," she said, trying to recover her breath.

"If you're quite done, then run along back to wherever you came from," he said. "I have souls to finish collecting, not to mention torture, and I'd appreciate fewer distractions."

Ashe's initial relief turned into a blanch. Did he say – souls – he collected souls? From who, the dead? But they – she opened her mouth to protest, but a glare from Thresh had her reconsidering her words. "Would you mind untangling me?" she squeaked after some moments.

"From what?"

She glanced down, gesturing, only to find the chain that tripped her had vanished. A look told her the scythe was back in its proper position, at Thresh's side, too. Strange, certainly, but stranger things had already happened that day, and she wasn't inclined to push her luck

She was nearly down the hall, close to a corner that would blessedly take her out of Thresh's vision, when a thought occurred to her. So trivial, in the face of things, but basic respect …

"Thresh?" she asked hesitantly.

The named party looked at her.

That look nearly made her abandon her cause and just run, morals be damned, but she forged onward. "The – these bodies," Ashe said, gesticulating wildly, "would you mind – I mean, this is Avarosa's resting place, and it isn't right for unburied dead to – to be here?" Her uncertainty turned the last part into a question. So much for not pushing her luck.

Thresh smiled, but it held no humor. "Corpses are hardly my field, but I know whose they are… yes, worry not. They will be disposed of."

Ashe shivered and turned around. This time, she didn't look back.

She ran again, following nothing but her own feet.