Askance adverb 1: with a side-glance: obliquely, 2: with disapproval or distrust: scornfully
A/N: I pictured any bureaucrats in the Institute of War (when there was an Institute of War) as having to be badass enough at their jobs to be able to pull rank on the ridiculously powerful champions. And also that certain champions would be a total pain in the ass to said bureaucrats.
Asta straightened the line of books on the edge of her desk and returned to her papers. She had just enough work left this afternoon to be able to finish without rushing, but any interruption-
The Scorn of the Moon stomped into the room, causing several of the clerks closer to the door to flinch and hurriedly pretend to be very busy. The cowards.
Still, she hoped the angry Lunari was headed to some other desk.
Of course her hopes were unanswered. Diana stormed up to her desk, slamming her hands down on the polished wood and knocking her books back out of alignment.
"What were you people thinking? I realize we each have a title to identify our cause to those less informed, but did you have to assign mine to make me and the moon sound insane?"
Asta pushed the wayward book back into place with pursed lips. "We have been through this, Diana. The Institute is not out to get you, nor are we singling you out for mistreatment."
"Then how do you explain this?" Diana practically hissed, shaking a rumpled official pronouncement in Asta's face. "What does "Scorn of the Moon" even mean? Apparently being despised by an entire religion is not enough for you people! Now you proclaim to all of Runeterra that even my deity cannot stand me!"
"That is not what it means." Asta sniffed. She knew better than to let this particular champion get to her; it was just how she was. "And titles are chosen by an independent panel and not open to appeal."
She wanted to get rid of the troublesome champion, but there was no way she could send this up the chain. The last time Diana had gotten through to Asta's immediate superior the entire office had worked in hushed tones for the next week. Her coworker who had let the Scorn of the Moon overcome his better judgement still hadn't been allowed back from his not-so-temporary stint working the sewers.
Diana continued on, oblivious to the turn of Asta's thoughts. "Can't I just be called the Chosen of the Moon? It is what I am, after all."
"It would be incongruous with the Chosen of the Sun's." Finally, a question she had an answer to. "We would not want to treat you differently there, after all."
The woman's eyes narrowed dangerously, the look made more dramatic by the scars and dark makeup around her eyes emphasizing the movement. Still, the look cleared fairly quickly; apparently her desire to get her way was stronger than Asta had originally gaged.
"How about 'Diana, the Silver Night,' or something like that." Her face lit up, incongruous with the quality of her suggestion. "Something more dramatic that doesn't sound like I'm being scorned by the one being that doesn't scorn me?"
Because that's awful, Asta thought to herself. Aloud she said, "Titles are chosen by an independent panel and not open to appeal. Regardless of how many suggestions you make or how much of my time you take up."
"I am the scornful one," Diana told her with conviction, again ignoring Asta's assertion, "and the moon's scorn is not directed at me but at those who have denied her people for so long."
Asta sighed. "Fine, then think of yourself as the instrument of the moon's scorn. Will that do?"
Diana paused, mouth already open to begin another tirade. Finally, she said, "Yes, I can live with that for now. Even if I doubt the uninformed masses will understand such circuitous reasoning. You will be seeing more of me."
She spun, foot knocking into Asta desk and disrupting her neatly stacked papers, and stomped from the room.
Asta collected her papers and arranged them to once again be perfectly even as the office once more came to life around her. It wasn't a complete win; the Scorn of the Moon would be turning her scorn on Asta again sometime soon.
She stared forlornly at her previously manageable stack of work. Well, at least there weren't any piles of sewage to shovel in her near future.