A/N: Thank you to my beta readers, CrimsonNoble, Balabalabagan, and askriven-the-exile. Special thanks to CrimsonNoble because he was writing a Riven/Irelia soulmarks AU and graciously allowed me to pilfer his idea.
As the Night Falls
Act One: In Light
Chapter One
Exile is not quite the word to describe Katarina's situation. Should she turn her horse around and ride back to Noxus, no one would stop her at the Red Gates. No guards would attempt to lay hands on her. High Command would not part her head from her shoulders.
Her father, however, would close the door of their family home in her face.
A fate worse than the bite of an axe.
Failure does not befit a Du Couteau. Having failed she is not welcome home for the foreseeable future.
Katarina scowls. Beneath her, her horse, a chestnut mare, snorts in agitation. Katarina inhales deeply through her nose and then breathes out, slow. She eases her grip on the reins and wills herself to relax. Taking a waterskin from her saddlebags, she raises it to her lips. The water is cool, even though it's around midday. It's the last days of winter, the early days of spring. The rivers have swelled with melt from the distant mountains and the rains are beginning to fall. It will be warm soon.
At least there's that. At least in her not-exile, she doesn't have to freeze. For the moment, her customary black leathers leave her somewhat colder than she'd like. When summer comes, should she still be out on the plains when summer comes, she'll be uncomfortable but but not miserable. She hopes.
By her reckoning, she'll arrive at the camp of the Second Army sometime today or tomorrow. It's late enough in the year that they've moved from their winter quarters at a fort set some distance away from the front up to the Adige River, the river that most men agree marks the border between Noxus and Demacia.
There's already been one major engagement of the season and the army now waits to repel further enemy incursion.
Katarina left the dense forests of Noxian pines behind days ago. The dark trees have given way to the seemingly endless plain that is the border region. The grass has some green to it but it's still mostly dry and dead; there's just enough for her horse to graze.
On the plains, you can see for miles. The sky above is a monotonous grey that casts an awful glare on everything and makes her squint. The air is dry.
It's hard to be certain out here how far she's come or how far left she has to go. She can't see the camp yet, so she thinks that tomorrow is a more likely arrival than today.
The Second Army is commanded by Darius - or so the reports say. In a bout of fervor, he apparently murdered his predecessor and took control of the army by right of strength. A bold move that High Command applauds. But it does not applaud enthusiastically. High Command is far more worried than impressed by this man's display of Noxian values. And so it falls to Katarina to ascertain his motives and his likely direction. To observe him. And to remind him that High Command is watching.
Ostensibly, she is there to offer her services.
She is the second best blade in Noxus. And she's been reduced to babysitting.
Her father's instructions following the incident had been to accept the assignment from High Command to go out to the backwater of the Demacian front and not come back until she was less of a disgrace.
That night, Katarina camps without a fire, beneath bright stars.
The stars are, maybe, the one good thing about being expelled from the city. Even from atop the citadel of High Command you can't see the stars in Noxus on most nights. Industrial smog blots out everything. As a child, Katarina learned the shapes of the stars on the Du Couteau's country estate some distance from the city, but it's been a long time since the family has traveled together to the quiet villa.
Serving Noxus is world-consuming work – work that no Du Couteau shirks from.
It's too cold to be comfortable, even in her bedroll. The ground is hard and rocky. Katarina finds the closest thing she can to a soft patch to lay herself down on and sleeps, shivering.
Fuck the great outdoors.
Fuck everything, really.
Katarina wakes the next morning as the sun is just starting to light the distant sky. Rising early is a discipline, one she learned at an early age. She's stiff from the early spring chill, but in the course of decamping she warms. She slips her horse a dried apple from her bags as she switches halter for bridle and secures the rest of the tack.
Katarina knows that she is not the most reasonable of riders and the horse has put up with her for a week and a half. She's glad that she didn't have to walk all the way out to the camp of the Second Army. If she weren't… herself, she'd have named the horse by now. But she is who she is so the horse remains nameless.
She mounts up and heads out.
The horse and Katarina come within sight of the army camp a little after noon, judging by the sun.
It's a sprawling affair, a city of tents stretching out perhaps a mile wide from Katarina's view. A few tents here and there fly flags that mark that they belong to the commander of a particular company. Katarina's still too far off to make out the details of any of them - not that they matter. She's read High Command's dossier on the Second Army several times now. Unlike the First or the Fifth, the Second has no companies of particular note.
Were it not for Darius - even in spite of Darius - the Second is a footnote in the eyes of High Command. An army whose sole purpose is to protect the various crossings over the Adige River.
There's little wood on the plains so instead of proper walls the camp has a broad trench and a low earthen rampart. Sentries sit on top of the rampart. As soon as they see Katarina, they stand and pass some message off into the camp proper.
Katarina straightens in the saddle but doesn't change pace or make any move to hail the camp. She's a lone rider in black coming from the direction of the city. She couldn't be any more clearly an agent of High Command. It's unlikely that they will try to shoot her. And if they do - she is the second best blade in Noxus.
Katarina is not arrogant. She is confident. And her confidence is well founded.
Her directive - babysit the general - is, however, not one that will be welcomed, she thinks. First impressions count. There's no need to debase herself with waving and shouting. She's confident - but deterring challenges is as important as winning them. Even the best fighters eventually find themselves unlucky.
She makes it to the camp walls and through them without any difficulty. When the sentries hail her, she identifies herself simply. She is a messenger from High Command.
Katarina dismounts. She takes her saddlebags and slings them over her shoulder, then offers her reins to the nearest soldier. He's shorter than her - which is no surprise. Katarina is exceptionally tall. He's also well-muscled and doesn't look particularly intelligent. It might be a side effect of having shaved his head so closely that it seems to shine even under the dull grey sky. In any case, he looks easily bullied. "Where is the general?" Katarina demands.
The soldier tilts his head in the direction of the center of camp where a large canvas tent with a tattered flag fluttering from its peak. The flag is the red axe of Noxus on a black field. "That way, sir," the soldier says. He blinks. "Ma'am."
Dumb as a brick. Typical.
"Take care of the horse," Katarina orders. The soldier has rolled over and showed his belly. He didn't even try to ask who she was. And this is the army that produced a murderous beast of a general bent on traditional Noxian values? Unlikely.
Katarina strides through the camp on her way to the general's tent. She takes long steps, trying to discretely stretch. Riding all morning has left her with a bevy of minor cramps but she doesn't want to stop and work them out now. She has an image to create and maintain.
The camp smells of horse shit and man sweat and gods know what else. It is an offensive odor.
The ground on which Katarina walks was maybe once covered in grass like the rest of the plain, but now it's been churned up by so many feet that it's bare dirt - mud at some point, now dried to show the occasional bootprint as the land waits for a rain.
Men sit about gambling over cards and dice. They've little else to do. They stare at her as she passes - the first thing outside their routine they've seen in weeks, no doubt.
She ignores them.
The general's tent is large but not ostentatious. Because of the tattered flag she likely could have found her way to it without directions, but had it not had the flag she'd never have been able to pick it out from the rest. It's less than what she'd expect of a general.
The guards at the entrance to the tent are more alert and assertive than the man she'd left with her horse. There are two of them, both large men - Noxus has few small men - clad in black plate armor with a smear of green paint running in a vertical line along the right side of their helmets. The green paint marks their company. Green is traditionally the color of Noxus' heavy infantry, the men who push the front and center of the line in a battle. Katarina hasn't been bothered to study the companies of the Second though, so she can't say what this particular green company calls itself.
Both guards hold spears - badly. Katarina thinks that they're not accustomed to using polearms. If she wanted, she could knock their weapons from their hands before they even knew what she was doing. No, they are definitely not pikemen. The swords at their sides, however, look well-worn. The spears then are ceremonial and the men have only recently been made the general's guards.
One of the men steps forward, blocking Katarina's way. "You need to wait," he says. "The commander is busy." The way he says it isn't particularly disrespectful, but his words can only be taken as a challenge.
"Do I?" Katarina asks. As she speaks, she raises her left hand as if she's about to shove him, and then quickly darts to the right. She sidesteps the guard easily. His fellow is too surprised to intervene, to stop her from entering into the tent.
Even carrying her saddlebags, it's not much of a challenge.
At least the guards tried.
The tent is dark, lit by what sun shines through the canvas ceiling. Because she had to slip the men outside, Katarina didn't have a chance to keep an eye closed to help adjust to the change in light. It's no matter though. She can see everything she needs to.
There are two people in the tent, standing close together near a table strewn with maps. Both wear the plain black uniform of a field officer. Neither appear startled to see her. They surely had word of her arrival as soon as the sentries caught sight of her..
Katarina quickly takes in the rest of the tent. It's bare of every luxury she's come to associate with the ranks of the generals. There's an armor stand that seems to bend beneath the weight of the plate armor hung on it and the enormous axe leaning up against it. There's a closed trunk, probably where the maps live when they're not out on the table. And then there's a bedroll. The general doesn't even have a bed.
Of the two officers, one is a man and one is a woman. That makes identifying the general simple. He's the hulking one with the dour face that must surely have gotten stuck like that. He's either old enough or tired enough that his hair has started to grey and there's a deep scar cutting through his left eyebrow. Her respect for the man rises infinitesimally.
Katarina wouldn't mind earning such a scar herself. It speaks of danger and strength in a primal language all Noxus knows.
The woman could also be described as hulking - if she wasn't so short. While Darius is Katarina's height, the woman is a full head shorter than them, but she's heavily muscled. In addition to being short, she has shockingly white hair and piercing amber eyes. None of these things is particularly Noxian and Katarina thinks that she probably has at least one parent from somewhere else. If she looked Noxian, she'd be handsome. She doesn't look Noxian, and so she's exotically handsome. There's a splash of green on her right shoulder. She's the commander of the guards outside.
The guards no longer outside.
Katarina hears the two men clatter in behind her, but she's already stepped beyond their immediate reach. She doubts that they'll try to follow after her and grab her when she's already halfway to the Darius and the female officer. It would only make them look even more incompetent than they've already shown themselves to be. Proving her correct, the guards stop just inside the entrance.
Darius and the woman share a look between them. "Dismissed," the woman says curtly. Her voice is low and rough.
Katarina wonders how hard she has to try to make her voice sound so decidedly unfeminine.
The soldiers leave. The woman does not. If she's the commander of the general's guard, there's a good chance she's his second. She's not as old as Darius but she's appreciably older than Katarina. She's spent so much time in the sun that her exact age is hard to read - perhaps late twenties or even early thirties. Young, for a commander. She stands to Darius' right, arms crossed over her chest. From the way her eyes move, she is clearly sizing Katarina up, though she's not holding herself as if she expects a fight. Katarina notes that she wears a glove on her right hand but not on her left. There are many reasons to wear gloves, few to wear a glove on only one hand. More likely than not, her mark is on her right hand.
Some people don't like showing their marks, almost as if by covering them they can protect some piece of themselves.
This is a nonsense thought. The entire point of marks is that they be seen and recognized.
If her mark's location on her hip didn't make it impractical, Katarina would bare hers to the world. It is her – all graceful sweeping lines that mimic the flow of a blade in motion - and she is proud.
This woman commander, this general's second, hides her voice and hides her mark. Katarina might ask what sort of woman she is, but Katarina already knows: despite her muscle - weak.
"What does High Command want?" Darius asks. He crosses his arms over his chest. The movement makes him seem to occupy even more space than he already does. It doesn't seem as though he means to be intimidating, merely, it's a motion of habit.
He's straightforward. Again, Katarina's respect for him grows ever so slightly.
Katarina is not enlisted and thus Darius is not her superior. She does not salute. She drops her saddlebags on the ground and then chooses a wide stance, clasping her hands behind her back. Deferential but not subservient. "High Command sends its congratulations, general," she says. She speaks quickly, businesslike. There are many ways to take respect for oneself. Speech is one. "I am here to assist you in your… transition."
"Don't need help," Darius replies.
Katarina doesn't bother arguing. There's no need. "I'll be here, should you require anything," she says.
Darius grunts. Actually grunts as if grunting is somehow communicative of anything except insecure masculinity.
He's a caricature of a Noxian general. It's ridiculous - and even that thought feels somehow redundant.
Darius and the woman both look at each other at the same time. Something passes between them. The woman offers the general the slightest of shrugs. Darius makes a sort of low choked sound. The woman shrugs again, more obvious this time. Darius sighs.
Katarina glances at Darius' right hand. It's just a hand. No mark.
"Your name," Darius grumbles.
"Katarina Du Couteau," Katarina replies smoothly. She says her first name quickly, her family name slowly. She gives weight to what matters most.
"The quartermaster is the tent next door. He'll give you a tent if you don't have one. Pitch it somewhere out of the way," Darius says.
Katarina can hear what is unsaid. And stay out of the way.
"If you need anything," Darius continues, "Don't come to me. Bother Riven." He jerks his head towards the woman beside him – Riven, it would seem.
Riven who, Katarina can only assume, has indicated some sort of support for Katarina's tenure in the camp.
Riven's expression, mostly unreadable throughout the exchange, finally betrays something: annoyance. There's the slightest shift in her weight as she turns just enough to glance at Darius out of the corner of her eye.
"Or don't," Darius amends. "We're busy."
This Riven doesn't respect her. And neither does Darius.
Such a situation cannot be allowed to continue and even now Katarina's mind turns, formulating a plan.
But Katarina has been riding half the day, has been traveling near to two weeks. Now is not the time to correct matters. That doesn't mean she has to cede ground though. "Sir," she says, speaking slower than she had before and giving a very shallow bow. It's all calculated to be politely condescending. She's banking on Darius and Riven being too much soldiers to recognize it for what it is until she's already gone. And when they do recognize it, it will fester to no end.
That Katarina's younger sister is known for her mind games doesn't mean that Katarina isn't also adept at them.
Without asking leave to go, Katarina picks up her bags, turns, and walks out of the tent.