Beta Reader: Gmp1000
"H-help me."
The dying man utters with red streams of life leaking out of his charred lips, his one remaining hand weakly clutching the white-haired swordswoman's ankle.
"Help me C-Commander! Shh.. Save me!"
He tries again with a haunting and desperate gurgle and the fact that Riven can even decipher the dying man's words over the havoc caused by the chemical bombs and their corrosive fumes can probably be attributed to a witch's curse or some kind of macabre miracle.
"Save me Riven!"
The broken Noxian soldier spits out along crimson vapor once more as the light of life fades from his glassy brown eyes.
"Save.."
And the white-haired Noxian commander wants nothing more than to grab the bastard, lift him up and then drag him away from the bombs and the screams and the vile poison and help him return safely back to Noxus, but what can Riven possibly do when the lower part of the dying man's body has already been liquefied?
"..me"
Her brother-in-arms desperately gurgles and so Riven instead proceeds to slit the dying man's throat.
0000
The Noxian swordswoman doesn't dart out of the sleeping she-wolves' arms and she doesn't scream as the gurgles of the dying man slowly fade from her hearing either. The betrayed glassy eyes of her murdered comrade still follow her into the land of the living this time however. They mix with the frigid shadows dancing across the frozen cave's walls and give her angry hateful glares from just out of her line of sight, the eerie shifting glow emanating from Kayle's golden burning sword also somewhat contributing to the tense threatening atmosphere.
It is only after a couple of tense seconds later when the stare of the murdered soldier refuses to leave her alone that Riven grudgingly realizes that the gaze of the dead man is here to stay and that it won't even shy away from her for the rest of her miserable life. This is another one of the punishments fate has handed her for her sins and her inhuman actions after all.
Scarred pale fists clench as the former Noxian commander wills herself to stop shaking and carefully crawls out of the tangled mass of limbs of her soundly sleeping blonde companions. Noxian warriors don't cry and they don't tremble like cowards after all.
And they obviously don't deserve a good ending either. Riven presses her back against the frozen wall at the other side of the cave, away from the two innocent sleeping she-wolves that are still unstained by death and pure like the snow surrounding them. Riven then manipulates the Ki energy within her to stop warming her body.
Maybe a little pain and a small amount of cold will help extinguish the acidic flames of the chemical bombs that dance behind her heavy eyelids every time she as much as closes her eyes. At least she hopes they shield her from the sea of lifeless gazes.
"Save.. me."
Had whispered the voice of the dying man and yet it is her own dry lips that now form those same words as Riven shudders in the darkness.
0000
The bloodstained giant hasn't stopped marching for entire days now, the maimed carcasses of the few furry beasts that had proven to be foolish enough to stand on his path left behind as decomposing frozen piles of scattered limbs, grim warnings to the other stalking predators that had proven to be wiser than their crushed companions. Dead fingers clench the enormous weapon held between snow-coated bleeding palms. The Noxian titan lusts for the next conflict that will make the cursed blood running inside his almost dry veins boil with excitement and glee. A reanimated Noxian corpse is apparently still a Noxian even if natural life has already fled from its ghastly existence.
The enormous black war axe spills even more crimson paint upon the white shifting canvas of the snow as another foolish arctic beast suddenly lunges towards the bloodthirsty grey giant only to quickly perish, buried beneath the now warm sanguine snow.
The Noxian juggernaut roars victoriously as his eternal march once again continues.
Noxians, always starving for violence and bloodshed, mindlessly rushing towards their deaths with happy war paeans spilling from their lips and unwavering gazes seemingly made of iron. Noxians, such an interesting folk, It's no wonder most of them die before they even reach adulthood.
0000
"My realm isn't as peaceful as one would expect from a community of benevolent celestial beings, but I still managed to make some good memories in it."
Kayle smiles as her eyes become distant and Janna isn't sure if she should squeeze the celestial warrior's hand reassuringly or let the troubled angel relive those aforementioned memories of hers. Would the sudden touch steal those precious reminisces away from the blonde winged woman, the wind mage silently wonders, or would it remind the Judicator that she is not alone anymore?
The conflicted support briefly averts her gaze from the clearly thoughtful angel before her in order to seek Riven's red orbs, but the Noxian warrior that's currently sitting away from them near the flaming broken sword looks even more preoccupied and lost in her thoughts than the perverted celestial female.
Janna sighs in defeat, she just had to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with only those two antisocial hermits as a company didn't she? Her not so secret white-haired crush in particular had been even more silent and reclusive that morning than the Noxian warrior would usually be if that was even possible!
"We would practice battle magic and healing spells when we were old enough, the elders gave as frequent lectures about the history of our kind and our parents would teach as of how to fly gracefully like the birds in the sky. Morgana was a natural at it, while it would take me weeks to even learn how to gain altitude without putting myself in danger."
The angel's sky blue orbs lower to stare at the golden flames surrounding her once proud sword for a moment or two, the same weapon that had ruined her sister's plumage and made sure that little Morgi would never again dance among the swallows in the clouds.
The Judicator's eyes are narrowed when they finally rise to stare at the quiet wind mage sitting by her side and her voice is somewhat cold as if all of its love and warmth has been stolen by the passage of time.
"I really miss those simple days…"
Janna merely nods her head as she grimaces and the gentle support suddenly finds herself staring at the snow beneath her naked feet when she instinctively lowers her gaze to avoid meeting Kayle's hard azure eyes. The blonde Zaunite mentally sighs and attempts to put a calm encouraging smile on her lips as she decides to address the other less irritated warrior in the cave.
"And what about you Riven? Do you feel like sharing something with us?"
A stone face-shaped mask slowly rises as crimson dull soulless eyes clash with her nervous blue ones. The smile on the Noxian's lips is a fake and mirthless one, more artificial than even the abominable customizable prosthetic limbs flooding Zaun's black markets. The image of a fallen Noxian warrior's statue suddenly resurfaces from the deepest corners of Riven's mind, its mere reminder causing pale scarred fists to tighten and the skin around her red eyes to wrinkle.
The former Noxian poster child leisurely nods as she mentally grips the almost forgotten memory of her past and shoves it so deep into her black cursed soul that not even a mind reader could actually find it. She then grins and nods her head at the nervous support instead of crying out in pain.
"Sure. Do you know how much a normal man can bleed before he can no longer move at all and his body ceases to function?"
The blonde Zaunite swallows the lump suddenly formed in her throat. The azure-eyed angel shoots the deserter an annoyed disapproving look, but she had been the one that actually suggested they started discussing among themselves to help them pass the time so she will hopefully keep her stupid celestial mouth shut and let her push away the healer.
"N-no, I don't think that I do."
Riven shows Janna her teeth as the former soldier smiles, her lips moving as her mind flees from the company of the two blonde females. The faded red of her distant crimson glare somewhat dims as the dark memories slumbering inside the Noxian deserter slowly start unraveling like stitches being suddenly torn from around her poor injured heart, uncoiling like angry malicious snakes.
"Oh? Well then let me enlighten you my dear wind mage-"
Riven keeps her dull crimson eyes locked on Janna's shocked blue ones as the words spill out of her lips like toxic venom. Maintaining eye contact while repeating her war stories always makes it so much easier to push away the compassionate ones and have them running for the hills while cursing her very name. They always run when they finally realize just what kind of vile monster is standing right in front of them.
"You will need a jagged knife and a fire to cauterize the wounds so the victim doesn't bleed out too soon. Make sure that they can't bite off their tongues too and that there are some bandages to keep them alive for as long as possible-"
Riven briefly closes her eyes for a moment as the world around her shifts and turns into a murky stained red, and she ignores the bloody palms that wrap around her body from behind her.
They aren't really here after all or Riven would be already dead. The former Noxian commander sometimes wishes that that was really the case and that she had ended up as another nameless corpse rotting away in the middle of that once beautiful razed Ionian valley.
The white-haired deserter barely registers it when the compassionate wind mage finally cover her ears with her hands to block out the sound of her cruel words and smother her morbid descriptions. The tormented white-haired swordswoman almost doesn't notice Kayle suddenly approaching her and slapping her either. Oh? And now the righteous good angel would become Janna's Sheppard and lead the lost lamb away from the rabid savage bad Noxian. How fucking poetic.
Note: So it seems that some people actually like this ship, it would be a shame if something bad were to happen to it-
*Janna snarls and angrily shakes her fist as she loads a shotgun.
Nevermind! Let's just move to the marriage scene!
