"Please! Don't kill me!"

"Shut up!"

Katarina tugged, pulling Luxanna's shivering body through the doorway and out to the grounds. Night had fallen long before, inviting Runeterra's lightning bugs to swim in the fog around her and in the void above. Luxanna, blindfolded, was only aware of the grass- a wonderful contrast to the carpet on her skin. Katarina tugged again at Luxanna's bound hands, dragging her face-up toward a maze in the garden.

"I don't want to die!"

"Shut up!"

Katarina tugged again, her dress preventing a full range of motion. She passed under the arch of the garden labyrinth, between two guards who looked away and thought of feeding their families. Katarina's mind was still inside with her father.

"I don't understand," she was still saying.

Marcus' image hovered beside her, murmuring like wine drowning a cigar.

"Throw her in the sewer."

"But she'll drown."

Katarina tugged again. She couldn't think about it. She could do it as long as she focused on the image of her father setting down his drink and walking across the room to her. She could do it as long as she would "Make me proud, Katarina."

She had never taken pride in killing a defenseless person. Training mistakes and unchecked episodes of rage gnawed at her mind, but always hand-to-hand with regret. She had hurt many spies- interrogated them- but they always returned to their homeland alive. In hindsight, they always returned to her father alive. After that, she didn't know.

"Please! Oh gods, please!"

"Shut UP!"

They had given the prisoner too long to recover, too many potions. She was speaking clearly and trying to escape. But Katarina couldn't find it in her to apply more pain, not knowing it would be this person's last moments. The grass turned to stone. An antique gate swung shut behind them, securing the family crypt. In ancient times, the maze above would confuse the spirits of the dead. The sewer entry, below, was modernization's fault.

Luxanna shivered. The temperature had dropped noticeably in the presence of the dead, then again as they took the stairs from mausoleum to public utilities. Each stone step jarred Luxanna's shoulders and ribs. Katarina was panting now, the exertion and stress shaking her resolve. They stopped near the sound of water, where the current sucked heat like blood from a wound. Gazing down, Katarina wondered what horrors had been dumped that made it reflect so perfectly. The image of her flawless face, of her symmetrical beauty, scared and unsure, looked up from the surface.

She turned away to remove Luxanna's blindfold. Lux squealed, trembling beyond control now, eyes flashing between daggers and water. Katarina waited for their eyes to meet, and in a sudden moment, couldn't tell who was more afraid.

Luxanna, with nothing to lose, spoke. "I was forced. I'm a conscript. I just want to go home. I just want my life back! I know you're a murderer, but I'm not! I never wanted to do this!"

Katarina dragged Luxanna to her feet against the stone wall. She leaned in close, demanding silent attention. "Shut. Up."

Her blade punctuated, tapping the younger girl's lips. Luxanna had said her piece. With a hand gripping her bound wrists, she could not escape. Luxanna's tears streamed freely, her knees clacking against each other. Katarina took an intentional breath, mantling the will to act- the authority and responsibility for what she was about to do.

"I never meant to kill anyone, either," she whispered. "It just happened. And when you're good at killing, it's the only thing people see in you."

The knife slipped forward between Lux's arms, against her wrists, and paused. "I didn't want this."

The knife sawed at Luxanna's binds. She gasped, still trembling, and watched with growing hope as the first wrap split. She tried pulling her arms apart, only to have Katarina immobilize her angrily. "Three-Cuts' Brig knot. Hold still."

Katarina sawed at a second part, trying not to think about what she would tell her father. Lux gasped again as it split, no longer shaking. She was readying her escape. Oblivious, Katarina only cut, thinking that she was doing the right thing.

The final tie popped, a light flashed, and Katarina found herself blinded in the darkness, and falling. Luxanna had pushed her, tripping her over her own dress. And Katarina was no longer holding her blade. Luxanna was grabbing at it, scraping the hilt against the ground somewhere that neither could see.

"No. Wai-!"

Luxanna swiped, and Katarina's face was perfect no more. She shrieked, scrambling backwards and falling into the water. The current gave her no introduction. She was lost seconds later, winding down the labyrinthine trap to Noxus' reservoir. Her head surfaced in darkness, and she gasped, kicking dressed legs to stay afloat. The only light that graced her was a minute later, when she saw the Hextech logo on a torch. And just beyond it, a drop. Her strength surged, and she kicked with all of her might, trying to reach up to the walkway. But it had been designed, and with good reason, not to let things escape. Katarina was only saved by a generous hand from the shadows. A man grabbed her and pulled hard, depositing her with a wet splat on safe ground.

Katarina wasted a minute coughing and breathing and cursing. There was no way she'd be able to rescind her generosity- to fix her mistake. The prisoner was too far gone. So her thoughts of spite focused instead on this new stranger.

His reflection in the water was darkness, save glowing slits in his helm- four, then eight when her vision swam. But she couldn't focus her vision in time to make sense of that. Silent and dark, her savior turned and retreated into the shadows.

She thought of the reward her father would have offered if someone had rescued Cassie from the same perils. Then she thought again of stabbing that spy.

The walk back gave her time to ruminate on it. The stairs into her family crypt lifted her mood to more practical problems, like what to tell her father. Then her father's shadow stopped her dead in the center of four caskets.

He was waiting for her here, to pass judgment.

"You didn't expect me to kill her," Katarina realized.

Marcus sharpened his mouth too much to call it a smile.

"No," his shadow murmured, "But I expect you will next time."

He approached another step into the lamp, where only his head was left in shadow. He planted a sword by its tip against the stone path. "Some things can only be remembered by pain, Kat. Do you know what your grandfather taught me?"

"Fencing?"

She had learned, through pain, not to laugh at her own quips. She was disappointed that no one else did.

Marcus cleared his throat. "This is your grandfather's sword. He trained war dogs for a living. There was one he kept for himself. He found that dog in the wild, cold and starved, patches of hair missing where its scars had knotted the skin too much. Its teeth were covered in infectious film, and its paws were calloused and scarred beyond usefulness, ears swollen with ticks. It had stopped in a hole and lain down to die when he found it. So he took it home and nursed it to health."

Katarina had heard that part of the story, and never understood why the unfinished tale was so important. Marcus continued.

"I named it 'pooch.' Pooch never bit us, nor snapped at us, nor showed us any hostility- not even on the day dad made me slay him. The lesson was: No dog will bite the hand that feeds it."

Katarina knew not to speak. Marcus came to terms with things one at a time, and spontaneously. She feared that disturbing his unpacking of baggage would just unpack it all at once on the offender.

Grandfather had died that way.

Marcus finished, "That is the difference between dogs and men."

Katarina nodded her understanding: That men, and women, would bite. Her blood dripped from a split cheek.

"You were bested in the dark," Marcus noted. He stepped back into the shadows and raised his sword.

"You need to practice fighting blind."