A/N: Some stuff came up and my travel plans changed. So here's Part 2 of Chapter 6, right on schedule. I think there will be two more chapters after this one to finish up Act I and then I'll be going on a hiatus to work on some other projects and plan out Act II.
Thank you, as always, to everyone reading and double thanks to those also reviewing. Y'all are great.
As the Night Falls
Act One: In Light
Chapter Six, Part Two
Both of Katarina's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Darius is not like his predecessor.
His words have an instant effect on the assembled officers. They shift about uncomfortably. In all the years the Second Army has sat at along the border, they've never crossed the Adige River. The senior officers assembled here have served in the Second Army for longer than they've served Darius. Except, perhaps, Riven. She stands calm and unbothered by Darius' announcement.
She knew it was coming.
Katarina is distinctly aware that had Riven fidgeted with the rest of officers, she might have brushed into Katarina. As distracting as it would have been, Katarina wishes that she had.
"How long until the fort is done?" Riven asks calmly.
"Not too long," Einen says. "It's a whole army working – they'll work fast. Maybe a week." He pauses after answering Riven's question. He turns to Darius. "We should strike soon, before they finish." He says it forcefully, enthusiastically.
Katarina revises her opinion of him. Young, well connected, reasonably intelligent, extremely ambitious. She hasn't seen anyone brown-nose with so much gusto and so little subtlety since Cassiopeia was eight.
Einen's suggestion sets off a flurry of arguments from nearly every officer at the table. Gradually, the assembled commanders warm to the idea of attacking and taking an emplacement on the other side of the river, though Katarina senses that unease lingers for some at the prospect of invading Demacia. The Dead Hand commander – the infamous Kvellin of whom heard so much about in her first days at camp - in particular never speaks except to propose why an idea won't work. It's a valuable function for a council, but it's not coming from good faith.
Every now and then, someone will glower in Katarina's direction but no one bothers trying to remove her from the meeting again. The officers have more pressing matters to argue about.
For her part, having set the discussion on Darius' course, Riven says little. The only indication that she's paying attention is the way her eyes flicker between whoever's speaking at the moment and the faces of the other men present, gauging reactions.
The basic shape of the plan forms quickly enough. There's something incredibly Noxian about it. The walls aren't set yet and will be of minimal help to the defenders. The Noxians intend to walk to the Demacian line, charge, kill everyone. There's a beautiful simplicity in trusting in strength alone. What's more, they don't have any siege equipment with them and they have no way to get any. The local trees aren't big enough or plentiful enough to build with. The assault will have to happen soon – not tomorrow because the men need to rest after the march, but the day after.
This brilliant plan is apparently satisfactory to Darius and a few of his officers, Riven included. Everything else is details and bickering among the men who are worried that charge isn't enough of a strategy.
By the time the meeting adjourns to reconvene the next morning, the sun is dipping towards the horizon outside. There's no agreement on where to position the cavalry for the battle if it rains and the commander of Dragon's Breath company is paranoid about ambushes. Katarina hasn't spoken once but she feels as if her ears are near to falling off from all the arguing. Aside from the conviction that the Second Army will win the battle and cross the river, Darius has offered little in the way of a firm hand guiding the course of the planning.
He's still used to being just another commander, Katarina thinks. He doesn't know how to be a general - yet. She would worry that this failure of leadership could have consequences for the rest of the army, but whatever the old general had been doing, it hadn't worked. Darius is better than the alternative.
What will come will come. For the time being, Katarina is covered in the dust of travel and it's time to wash up and sleep. She stops by her tent to retrieve what's left of Riven's soap before making her way down to the river.
Late evening is a popular time for the men of the camp who care about washing to wash up and the riverbank is relatively crowded. The current is stronger here in the hills and everyone has to stay close to the shore for fear of the undertow. What's more, while the rest of the world has been warming, the water is still icy. Katarina drops her bag of clean clothes on a low, broad, branch of a tree. It's nice to be able to not have to put her clean things on the ground. She strips down and her garments go in a pile next to her clean clothes.
She's steeling herself against the frigid river water when she hears, of all things, a whistle.
Katarina's eyes narrow as she snaps her head around to stare down the soldier with absolutely no sense of self-preservation.
He's a heavyset balding man missing a chunk of his left ear standing waist-deep in the river. When he sees her looking at him, he has the gall to leer.
There is a line between admiration and condescension. One is acceptable and the other is not.
Katarina's smile is feral and her razor intent guards her against the freezing water of the river as she wades in.
The soldier stands his ground as Katarina approaches. No - he doesn't just stand his ground, he actually takes a step forward. Fucking idiot.
Katarina stops just outside of reach - his or hers. Her advance has been slow. The riverbed is smooth pebbles. It's not ideal footing for walking, much less murder, and the resistance of the water itself further complicates any quick movements. She needs surprise and she needs power. The surprise won't be difficult because the man before her is a complete idiot. The power though - she'll just have to trust in herself. Thankfully, trusting in herself is easy. It comes naturally to her. She's Katarina Du Couteau.
Judging from the way the man is ignoring her face, Katarina knows she has his attention. She mimics her sister's drawl, "Do you like what you see?"
She tunes out whatever babbling answer the solder gives - can he not hear the sarcasm? - and while he's distracted she digs her feet down into the pebbles of the riverbed, bracing.
And then she steps, swings, pivots with it.
The knuckles of her fist catch the man high on his cheek and then slide into his nose as well.
He crashes down into the water with an enormous splash.
There's blood in the water. She probably broke his nose.
She was being merciful. She could have taken out his jaw.
Katarina has to take another step forward to close distance further and get a hand in what little hair he has to hold him under. She hit him harder than she'd anticipated. He wasn't supposed to travel so far in falling.
Keeping the man under ends up taking both hands. The first hand stays in his thin hair, what little of it there is, and the other hand presses down on the back of his neck. If she didn't need both feet planted firmly to keep her own balance, she'd probably add a knee to his spine for good measure.
He's stiff and flailing but between the shock of the icy river, the weight of the water and the current, the lack of footing, the drowning - he has little success in fighting his way out of Katarina's hold.
All around, other soldiers have come near to watch. But they haven't come so near that Katarina might get ahold of them. She's not paying attention to them though. All her focus is trained on the increasingly weak struggles of the man she's drowning.
His mark is visible on his back. It's angular and rough, an unsophisticated blob. Just like him. If Katarina keeps him under long enough, she'll be able to watch it fade.
Souls are not meant to stay locked in cold corpses.
Katarina doesn't keep him under long enough to kill him.
It's with slow reluctance that she pulls the soldier back up to the surface when his struggles amount to barely anything at all.
She's riding an adrenaline rush, but even so, she's not so unaware as to have forgotten why she ended up exiled to the border in the first place.
When he's finally back up in the air, the soldier clutches at his throat as he coughs up great gulps of water. Blindly, he stumbles towards the shore.
No one moves to help him.
Only now does Katarina notice her audience. Had there been so many assembled down in the river when she started? She doesn't remember. She barely remembers anything between undressing and throwing the punch that knocked the soldier into the river. But she remembers holding him down in great detail. Funny how that works.
Most of the crowd, Katarina doesn't recognize. She can pick out a few men she's seen around before, spoken to on occasion. Almost everyone is of low rank. A bunch of weak nobodies, easily intimidated. When she looks at them, they all have the good sense to avert their eyes, turn, and pretend they hadn't seen her at all. If the river weren't so damn cold that every sense in her body is slowly going numb, she'd probably be able to smell the reek of fear undercutting their admiration.
Good.
Mission accomplished.
Lessons learned.
The only one who's not scared, the only one down in the river who's not no one at all - Riven hasn't come to join the staring crowd. She's off a ways, within sight and watching but not one of the gawkers.
On some level, Riven standing in the river is a ridiculous image - the muscular commander dripping suds, washcloth in one hand, hunk of soap as large as her bicep in the other, frozen staring like she's forgotten she was in the middle of obsessively cleaning her white hair.
On a far more immediate level - fuck.
The heat in Katarina is significantly dulled by the godawful freezing river, but it's definitely there.
Very definitely.
Riven's left her chest wrap somewhere on the shore. She's spent so much time training with her chest bound and without a shirt that she has tan lines along the top and the bottom of where the bandages normally cover, in much the same way as there's a clear line showing how far the glove on her right hand normally rises. Pale breasts and pale skin around her mark, dark skin everywhere else.
Riven is all lean muscle in a way that means she could probably benefit from eating more of the slop from the company mess, but also in a way such that Katarina wants to fuck her.
But not in the middle of the shit cold river surrounded by every soldier in the Second Army while her extremities slowly freeze, her toes falling off one by one. There's a time and a place for everything.
Katarina swallows. And then she turns and marches back to shore where she left her washcloth and the remnants of Riven's gift of soap.
By the time Katarina finishes cleaning up, Riven has already left.
In Katarina's life, she has learned that there are a near infinite number of ways to go about things. There are, however, only two ways that matter. Cassiopeia's way and Katarina's way. Sometimes there are three, but Talon keeps his opinions to himself most times.
What would Cassiopeia do, were she to decide that she wanted Riven as badly as Katarina has found herself wanting Riven? Cassiopeia would wait a day or two. Then she would accidentally find herself in the same place at the same time as her target. She'd come with legitimate and desperately important business with which she needed help. She'd express moderate distress and suggest that her target's aid was required - but could they discuss it privately? And so on. And so forth. Over the course of a week. Or two. Cassiopeia likes to play with her food.
Cassiopeia's method, in Katarina's humble opinion, is shit. This is not to imply that Katarina couldn't execute it perfectly. Anything Cassiopeia can do, Katarina can do better. That's how being the older sister works.
Katarina has already waited two damn weeks. And she wants what she wants now.
Katarina collects her belongings and heads back up the hill towards the camp. The dry grass crunches beneath her boots.
While Cassiopeia's method is shit, that Cassiopeia's method is shit does not make Katarina's usual favored approach a particularly good idea, given the situation.
In Noxus, Katarina works alone, the rare exception being assignments alongside her brother.
Unlike her sister, she prefers her engagements to be brief and without strings.
Cassiopeia enjoys pulling strings. Katarina doesn't.
The point being - she's never before been faced with the problem of wanting to sleep with someone she'll have to work alongside in the future. Is that enough of a reason not to?
Of course not, the Cassiopeia voice in her head advises. Quite the opposite, really. Once you have her, you'll have her. Not that you don't already - you're not me, you're slow and inelegant, but you're still a Du Couteau. Now - be a dear and get me another glass of wine?
And what about Talon? What would Talon advise? That's a trick question.
Talon wouldn't advise. He'd shrug. He'd walk away. Not my problem, he'd say.
Katarina drops her belongings off at her tent, then heads for the section of camp where Fury Company have clustered. The sun has dipped almost entirely below the horizon now and night is falling.
In the absence of any better ideas, Katarina has decided to fall back on what she knows.
She has to ask a small group of soldiers playing dice which tent is Riven's. They point her in a direction. As soon as she's gone a few steps away, she hears them behind her, bursting into excited chatter.
What is it about Riven that's made her entire command so invested in this… whatever it is?
Whatever it is, it's Riven's problem, not Katarina's.
Katarina knows what Katarina's problem is and she intends to solve it.
Riven's tent looks like all the rest. It's the same drab dirty canvas affair, no bigger than those of her men. The only thing that distinguishes it is the sigil flag stabbed into the dirt next to the entrance - the green vertical line of Fury Company on a black field.
Riven's sitting cross-legged on the ground next to her flag, whittling a small piece of wood.
Katarina knows how to move silently, even across the brittle dead grass of the hill they're camped on. She chooses not to. She'd rather Riven see her coming. The grass crunches under her boots.
Predictable, Riven looks up. She doesn't look surprised in the least, rather, her mouth pulls up into a lopsided grin at the sight of Katarina. She slips her knife into its sheath on her belt and stands, dusting herself off. She's wearing the slightly threadbare shirt and trousers she uses when she trains. The wood she was carving goes into her pocket. Katarina doesn't have a chance to see what design was taking shape.
With only a foot or two between them, the difference in height is noticeable. Katarina had forgotten that Riven is short. She doesn't seem short when she's riding Trout and she doesn't seem short when she's barking orders at hapless infantrymen. Riven has to tilt her head up significantly to look Katarina in the eye.
Katarina loves being a Du Couteau. She loves being tall. In most interactions, it gives her an advantage even before a conversation has begun. Height is dominance.
Except, apparently, with Riven. Riven's amber eyes gaze steady up at Katarina.
Katarina's thoughts are a white static. Fuck she's hot.
Riven's low voice has a touch of mirth. "Do you need more soap?" Riven asks. "Another blanket?"
Riven's lips are slightly chapped. She is wasting them, using them to talk about soap and blankets. There are better things she could be doing with them.
There are eyes on them. Katarina can feel soldiers watching. She ignores them.
"I think what I need is better discussed privately," Katarina says smoothly. She tilts her head towards Riven's tent. "By your leave?"
Somewhere, somewhere back in Noxus, Cassiopeia is applauding how well Katarina is handling herself. Katarina violently expels all thoughts of her sister from her head.
Riven doesn't speak, but her answer is clear enough. She ducks into her tent.
Katarina follows her, bending down to get through a doorway adjusted for someone exactly Riven's height.
It's quite dark within the tent, which is a little disappointing - not that Katarina expected anything different as the sun has almost set - but darkness doesn't hinder Riven finding Katarina's lips even before Katarina's fully inside.
Riven planned that, Katarina is sure. Riven is short but she knew Katarina would have to bend down to come in.
There is nothing of hesitance in Riven's kiss and it occurs to Katarina for the first time that Riven has been waiting for her.
A calloused hand runs up along Katarina's neck to rest at the base of her skull, fingers in her hair. Another hand settles on her upper back, drawing her forward, further into the dark.
Katarina follows for the first two steps - but Riven's been waiting, Katarina's been wanting, there's no reason Riven should get to dictate what happens now.
Katarina hooks a foot behind Riven's ankle and pulls.
She can't see Riven's face, but she imagines there's surprise and at least some annoyance.
A good counterpart to Katarina's smirk.
Riven lets go of Katarina to break her backwards fall. She hits the ground with a thud. Riven's a fighter so Katarina doesn't need her eyes to know how it is Riven's fallen. She's got her arms out to dissipate impact, her chin tucked to protect the head, and her legs open enough for Katarina to follow her down and slip a knee between them.
Economy of movement and all that.
Hands on Katarina's shoulders pull her down further and Riven finds her lips again for another kiss. Unsurprisingly, Riven recovered from being tripped quickly.
Katarina keeps her weight back on her knees. She settles her hands on Riven's stomach, the fabric of Riven's shirt rough under her fingers. She slides her hands down, finds the hem of Riven's shirt, and then brings her hands up again, fingers spread wide, this time running over skin as Riven rises slightly into her touch.
Riven's skin is crisscrossed with scars.
Katarina's hands pause at the base of Riven's breasts. She's not wearing her chest wrap.
Katarina pulls back slightly from the kiss and Riven lets her. "You were expecting me?"
Riven's hands let go of Katarina's shoulders. She hears a glove slide off and then hit the ground nearby. From the way Riven's torso moves, she thinks Riven is running her previously gloved hand through her white hair. "I don't sleep with it," Riven says.
Katarina's disappointed. And maybe Riven feels it in the way she shifts slightly.
"You eye-fucked me in the river," Riven says, matter-of-fact.
Katarina arches an eyebrow but in the darkness the effect is no doubt lost entirely. "You object?"
Riven replies with a low chuckle. "No."
Katarina bends down, lowering her mouth to where she's fairly certain Riven's ear is. "What if I actually fuck you now?"
Under Katarina's hands, Riven's body shivers. Katarina can hear Riven grinning. "No objection."
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When they're both thoroughly finished, Katarina dresses again in the near complete darkness of Riven's tent. Riven tries to help, but Katarina swats her away. Riven had difficulty enough figuring out Katarina's buckles in getting her clothes off, there's no way she'd be any more useful getting the clothes back on.
Fully dressed, save for carrying her boots in one hand, Katarina slips out of the tent and into the camp.
It's very late now and light comes from the stars and the full moon above.
That half of Fury Company isn't huddled around the tent is actually somewhat surprising. Instead, it's only a handful of Fury Company, five men, all of them looking pleased with themselves. They're at enough of a distance that Katarina supposes it might be considered respectful, but just barely. She picks Victor and Cheran out from among them.
It's hard to glower when she feels as good as she does, but Katarina is nothing if not a master of looking angry. "Enjoying yourselves?" She's not actually angry. She's gotten what she wanted. The audience was a foreseen annoyance.
Victor laughs. "Nah," he says. He waves a hand dismissively. "The commander would have our heads. She tanned the last fool who got too keen."
Katarina's eyes narrow. She doesn't quite believe him. "Then what are all of you doing here?"
Victor's grin seems to stretch from ear to ear. "Commander owes us money."
"Not a bad bet," the normally quiet Cheran interjects. "She won either way."
Katarina walks away, shaking her head. Men.
When Katarina makes it back to her tent and lays herself down, she sleeps a deep, satisfied, sleep.
