Chapter 2: Forced Healing

Present. Freljord. Avarosa's Palace. The Royal Hall.

"I have always been strong!" Sejuani roared. "I will never become anything else!"

Ashe bent down and picked up a large shard of marble. She gazed at it as she rose. She looked at it as if it were something precious to her that had just died.

Sejuani grinned. "Fret not! I doubt your face will shatter in the same way!"

Ashe looked up at, not Sejuani, but at Bristle. She pocketed the shard and walked over to him. He lowered his head as she started to run her hands through his fur. "It is a pleasure to see you once more, old friend."

Bristle gave her a soothing huff of air from his nostrils.

Sejuani had been in the same spot facing the throne since Ashe had walked past. She spun around and let out, "Do not dismiss your opponent and face your back to them! Only the weak trust those who oppose them!"

Ashe was fixated on Bristle. "My how you've gotten so big. Having you been eating a lot, or is it just muscles from battle?"

Bristle gave her two quick puffs of air and licked her on the cheek.

"Hehe." Ashe giggled at the cool gel-like fluid that was dragged across her face.

"Bristle! Enough!" Sejuani barked.

The large boar-like creature stomped the ground with his front left hoof and made a harsh grunting noise.

"Don't you talk back to me! She's the enemy!"

Ashe was still brushing Bristle's fur when she looked up to Sejuani and said, "He sure doesn't think so. You know…they say animals have better instincts than-."

Sejuani grabbed the hand Ashe was using to brush bristle's fur by her wrist and yanked it up. "Now is not the time for playing games!"

Ashe just gazed into Sehuani's eyes and exclaimed. "You could never be bothered to ask someone to stop first. You always went straight to forcing them. Didn't you?"

Twenty-three years ago. Freljord. Outside Avarosa's Palace. Royal Horse Stable.

Sejuani had a tight grip on the right wrist of the girl who had been hovering over her. "It burns! Stop it!"

"Of course it burns!" Ashe exclaimed. "It's one hundred and sixty-five proof alcohol; the burning feeling means it is working!"

Sejuani set her hand on Ashe's chest and pushed her back and off of her. "It's fine! I know how to fix it! I just…I was hoping it would've healed on its own."

Ashe looked annoyed. "Well it won't. I need to clean it, and a doctor needs to sew it up." Then she charged at Sejuani, held her down, and dumped the remaining contents of the bottle in her hand on top of Sejuani's wound.

Sejuani swatted and lashed out at Ashe in a mad rush, screaming in agony. She came to her senses and this time threw Ashe back hard enough to land her on her back. "What is wrong with you?!" She demanded in anger.

Ashe sat up and said, "We were getting nowhere with just dabbing on a little at a time. That was much faster."

Sejuani got her knees under her to get close to Ashe so she could land a hard punch on her face. Ashe reeled back and put her hands up in a feeble defense. Sejuani's breathing was heavy. "Don't…do…that…again." Her tone was deadly serious.

Ashe made a whimpering reply. "Okay, okay, I won't."

Sejuani sat back down. "What was that stuff supposed to do, anyways?"

Ashe didn't want to make a scene, so she just let it go. "It's supposed to clean the wound so you don't get an infection."

Sejuani made a scowling face. She reached over to the fire and picked up a log that was two thumbs wide and half covered in hot charcoal. She held it up for Ashe to see it. "This is what you do with wounds." She grabbed a stick from the pile and bit down on it while grabbing a hold of her leg with her free hand, and then directed the partially scorched log down at her wound.

Ashe's eyes went wide. "NO!" She lunged out to tackle Sejuani. "You can't do that! It won't heal that way!"

Sejuani screamed through the stick in her mouth. "Het off oft hme!" She struggled with her free hand to push back on Ashe's face while she used her occupied hand to try and get Ashe's arm near it to release her.

"Don't do thisAAAAHHHH!" Ashe came off of Sejuani and clutched her right upper arm. She began to cry and moan from pain.

Sejuani didn't need genius to understand what had happened. "Idiot! You burned yourself!"

Ashe looked up at Sejuani, eyes wet with tears. "ma…mai…mmm I didn't do it! You did!" Her lips were trembling.

The brutish little girl sighed in annoyance. In that moment she felt the almost natural instinct to let this crying moron deal with her own pain and get back to searing her wound shut. Any idiot who gets hurt trying to be stupid deserves their pain, and has to deal with it themselves. That was the way Sejuani had been raised. Well, not raised, but that was the life she knew. But for this girl, who obviously had lived this long without that fact being forced upon her, Sejuani felt…actually she didn't know what she was feeling. Guilt was a concept she hadn't been made accustom to. Neither was concern for others well being. She couldn't handle it. More of these weird feelings that made no sense. No sense to her life, or how it has been as far back as she could remember.

Without thinking, literally, she went out of the stable and got some fresh snow into her palms. When she came back in Ashe was curled up on the ground, cautiously attempting to inspect her injury. Sejuani kneeled down next to her. "Get up."

"W-why?" Ashe nearly begged.

"We have to get the snow on your burn." As Ashe arose, Sejuani started to try and get her gown off.

Ashe wiggled enough to get free. "Stop! What are you doing?!"

Sejuani got her hands on Ashe again. "We have to get this cloth off of you to get the snow on the burn."

"No!" Ashe struggled to be free again. "I don't want to take my clothes off!"

Sejuani tilted her head to one side. "Clothes?"

Ashe looked up at her with an annoyed look on her wet face. "Yeah, clothes, what we wear. What you're wearing or whatever you call that."

Sejuani shook her head, as if to shrug away this conversation. "Whatever…we need to get to the burn." She looked around and found her rock-blade. "Here, I'll cut down to the burn." She grabbed Ashe by her collar.

"No!" Ashe pushed her back with the hand of her injured arm. The rubbing of the cloth on her wound via her quick movement caused her more pain. She cringed. "The staff will ask me how it happened, and they'll find you!"

Sejuani almost asked her, 'Why do you care so much about me?' but realized she didn't have the time. That burn was getting worse by the second. She watched as Ashe grabbed her own collar and started to shiver as she tried to force herself into pulling down her dress gown. She didn't seem to have it in her to do it. Sejuani closed her eyes, 'Why do I care so much about you?' She opened her eyes and said, "Okay, look, I'll make you a deal. Let me help you with the burn, and I won't patch my wound with the fire." Immediately her head began racing. A conscious that had kept her alive for all of the life that she could remember began screaming at her, 'What is wrong with you?! Why are you doing this?! What is there to gain from this?! She is weak! Let her suffer her weakness alone!' She shook those thoughts away.

Ashe nodded her head. "Okay. Thank you." She reached back and unbuttoned a few buttons as she pulled her gown down enough to expose the burn just below her shoulder.

Sejuani cupped some snow in her hand and turned to grab Ashe with her free hand on the opposite shoulder to the injury. She paused to take it what she only could now see. Ashe's bar skin, on her chest, on her arm. It was so…seamless. She had seen her own skin in the reflection of a half thawed pond in the summer. Her own skin seemed so very rough by comparison.

She ignored what her eyes could not explain to her head and brought the snow to be placed on Ashe's burn. Instantly Ashe cringed and tried to back away. Sejuani followed her to keep up pressure and it forced her to pin Ashe to the ground. Ashe writhed in pain as Sejuani got her free forearm across her chest to hold Ashe's back down. The pained little girl began crying and shaking her head around. Sejuani had to push hard on the burn to keep her injured arm from moving. Then she felt a tug on the hair at the back of her head. Ashe had latched on with her free hand. Sejuani needed her to stop struggling. She couldn't think of what to say, so she brought her forehead down to lock with Ashe's, just to stop her from moving around so much.

With her head so close, and with Ashe's eyes clenched tight, leaking fluid, Sejuani began to have disturbing nostalgia. A girl, a few winters older than her, from as many winters ago. Holding their heads together with a grip behind hers, just the way Ashe was doing now. She was begging, begging to be held tight. She didn't want to die. She wanted to live. She was so pretty. That's what Sejuani could remember most. That was why she was dying. Her father found her just as pretty. So many times he would find her to be oh so pretty. But that morning was the last time anyone was going to say she is pretty. Blood. Sejuani could remember being relieved. Relieved to see this crying face inches from her eyes, instead of the blood that poured from beneath the girl's stomach.

Sejuani wanted Ashe to stop. So she said, word for word, what the girl's father had told her. "Stop now…be still…this will all be over soon." She said it as soft as she could, but the still new feelings of guilt and shame wrecked her on the inside. She began to cry.

Ashe's eyes opened as the first droplet fell from above her. Their eyes were wet and locked with one another. "Thank you." She muttered.

She muttered oh so softly that it broke Sejuani. She clenched her eyes tight and let out, "You're weak! You were so weak!" She choked on her sobs. "I was so weak! I did nothing for you! I'm so weak!"

The snow between Sejuani's hand and Ashe's arm had compacted and melted into hard slush. Ashe didn't know what to make of what Sejuani was saying, but she seemed to be soothed by having someone to share her pain with.