Undersong, CH 10

Sunshine.

That was the first thing to greet Talon when he opened his eyes. A sheer wall of radiance, an amber halo in the sky burning bright. The warmth spilled over every inch of his body, caressing his limbs, kissing his forehead and sending shivers down his spine. But the light was blinding and all consuming, too. The light was painful to behold and Talon's heart began to race as he fluttered in and out of the realm of consciousness, struggling to keep the light from piercing him within.

"Talon… wake up."

A stern voice echoed in his ears and suddenly the light was gone. Slowly Talon opened his eyes again. A shadow had fallen over his features, the silhouette of an olive-skinned woman peering down at him from above. She was beautiful. Sharp featured and lupine, with freckled lips the color of blood and an equally fiery mane that framed a piercing gaze as bright as solid jade.

"K-"

Talon's vision grew blurry.

"Kat?"

Slowly but surely the world came into focus. He was back in the courtyard of the old mansion, lying on that grassy knoll where they used to train almost every single day. His head was in his sister's lap, resting comfortably atop her thighs as though she were some sort of makeshift pillow.

"Who else would it be, idiot?" Katarina mocked him, snickering as she brushed a stray lock of scarlet from her eyes. "Maybe I hit you harder than I thought." A gentle hand moved to caress his cheek, but not before gifting one solid poke to the center of his forehead. "I'm not sorry though. Serves you right for pulling your punches."

Her touch was like a live wire against his skin and yet even that sensation felt somehow dull and altogether numb. He'd been here before in this very position. It must have been a lifetime ago, but there was no mistaking it. How could he ever forget?

"I know what daddy said to you… before he left. But you don't have to protect me. I can take care of myself just fine." A wistful smile spread across Katarina's lips. "I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."

Darkness.

That was the first thing to meet Talon's eyes when they snapped open this time. A split-second later he bolted upright, his breathing ragged and his brow slick with sweat. He was sitting in bed, shirtless, with several soiled strips of gauze wrapped around his shoulders and collarbone. Somebody had taken the trouble to both remove his clothes and dress his wounds, it seemed. Slowly Talon reached up with his thumb to wipe the wet streaks from his cheeks. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, another solid shape took form in the gloaming before him.

Lux had bundled herself up in the palm of an antique reading chair, her legs drawn into her chest and her arms wrapped loosely around her thighs. The point of her chin lay nestled between her knees as she slept, shoulders rising and falling in time with the swell of her chest. Talon hadn't noticed until now just how ragged her clothing had become, all caked with dirt and stained with blood. Her delicate features too – those soft lips, rounded cheeks and button nose – all of it had been dragged through hell and back… and yet here she was, just as beautiful as the first time he'd ever laid eyes on her.

As if on cue, her gentle sapphires fluttered open, each iris glimmering softly in what little moonlight they managed to reflect. The willowy blonde yawned and stretched her limbs. "You're awake," she whispered as a smile crossed her lips. "I'm sorry… I must have dozed off there for a bit." Lux seemed to freeze mid-stretch though, her brow furrowing as a look of concern began to spread across her features. "Talon, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," the assassin muttered under his breath before turning away. His palms shot up to dab at his cheeks one final time. For a moment, neither said another word.

"Where's… Sona?"

"She's asleep in the next room." Lux sank back into the chair, her gaze coming to a rest on her own toes. "She hasn't opened her eyes again, at least not since… the incident." The blonde cast another meek glance over her shoulder, her features still wrought with palpable concern. "What happened to us back there?"

"I'm not sure." Talon shifted his legs, working to stretch out his own tired muscles and tendons as far as they would go. "You tell me. All I remember is the light." He exhaled softly before peeling back the bandages blanketing his midsection, and two fingers took to tracing the freshly revealed scar that ran from his shoulder to just below his ribs. The life-threatening injury had miraculously closed up over the course of a night it seemed. "Was this her doing too?" He pointed with his chin first to his own shoulder then to Lux's perfect little hands, fingers once blackened and blistered beyond all recognition. "All our injuries… it's like nothing ever happened."

"I… I don't know." Lux sighed before pulling her shirt down past her shoulder, exposing the top of her arm and breast to Talon's gaze. The spot where Xin's blade had skewered her was now little more than a marbled burl of smooth flesh. "I can't remember much of anything either. It's all a blur… after the light, the next thing I knew we were outside the sanctum walls, running for our lives."

Talon's gaze lingered on her shoulder for a bit longer than it should have. His eyes remained glassy and unfocused however, as if he were utterly adrift in a sea of his own thoughts. "So how did we end up here, then?"

"You brought us here, Talon." Her brow narrowed. "Remember? We must have walked for miles through those alleyways. I don't know whose home this is… or was, I suppose… but from the looks of it not much survived the Night of Fire intact."

"This was Kat's room," Talon responded in the most dry and flat tone imaginable, prompting Lux to freeze dead in her tracks once more. She felt her heart plummet into her stomach and her hand moved to cover her mouth.

"This… is… your…?"

A single involuntary tear splattered on the back of her wrist.

"I had no idea-"

"It's fine." The muscles in his jaw seemed to tighten quite visibly. Lux could have sworn she heard a chink in his vocal armor right then and there. Talon had always seemed so calm and collected, like nothing could ever faze him, no matter the odds. That wasn't the case right now. His poise and wits were very clearly fraying at the edges, unraveling twine by twine. This had been his home… and to see it like this… devastated, burned to the ground…

Lux could only imagine that kind of pain.

"I'm fine." Talon rose from the bed, tossing his sheets by the wayside. Without another word he shambled off into the darkness of the hallway, leaving Lux alone with nothing but her thoughts and tears to keep her company.

Talon couldn't look himself in the eyes.

He had lost count of the number of times in his life he'd found it difficult to gaze into a mirror. To stare at his own reflection for more than a few moments without feeling the urge to reach out and ruin it. Normally cooler heads would prevail. He'd close his eyes and sigh a heavy sigh as ice water filled up his veins. Any semblance of loathing or self-hate would bubble away into nothingness, vanishing just as quickly as it had appeared.

This wasn't one of those times.

A casual jab from his right fist was all it took to shatter the mirror hanging above the bathroom sink, smashing it into a hundred tiny little pieces. Slowly he turned away from the broken mirror and stepped into the shower. The tattered remains of his bloodstained bandages and boxers pooled in a damp pile on the floor behind him, the last remnants of the events that had transpired over the past several days. A familiar hiss filled his ears when he turned the brass faucet, letting him know that at least the plumbing was still functioning in his old home. A second later the showerhead sprang to life. Talon held his good hand out under the cascade, allowing the water to form a rippling pool over the calluses of his open palm. At first the water felt cold enough to burn his skin, but after a while the spray grew hotter and hotter until hazy plumes of steam were rising up towards the ceiling to bathe everything in a filmy mist. Talon ducked in after that, head bowing as if to allow the liquid heat to drench his matted hair and wash away his sins at the same time. His bangs grew heavy and slick, the longest locks among them spilling down about his face, but his gaze stayed anchored to the floor the whole time. He watched the porcelain tiles beneath his toes turn a watery shade of red in the process. He watched as the once dried blood trickled down his bare skin, only to spiral into the waiting maw of the drain below.

Slowly Talon's fingers balled into a fist, knuckles going bone-white from the tension.

The first punch hurt the most. It was a solid one, hard enough to rupture vessels and mottle skin. The second and third sent spidery cracks along the surface of the shower wall, and by the forth he'd all but grown numb to the pain. Over and over Talon slammed his fist into the tiles, the wet porcelain darkening as a scarlet smear formed along its shiny surface. His hand began to quiver, blood burgeoning from the swollen ridges between his knuckles, and yet he wouldn't stop punching the wall. Not until a pair of trembling arms threw themselves around his midsection, encircling his waist from behind.

"T-Talon!?"

A tough and bitter lump of pent-up emotion formed in the pit of his throat upon feeling Lux embrace him. Slowly his hands fell by the wayside and he pitched forward to lean against the wall. His palm left a bloody print in its wake. "Get out," a guttural groan drifted forth from the assassin's lips, hollow and gruff.

"No." Lux's embrace grew more desperate, almost as if she were afraid he'd vanish into thin air if she were to let go. "I'm not leaving."

Talon grit his teeth and splayed his ruined fingers along the tiles. Her tiny frame felt so impossibly heavy against his back. He could almost count the palpitations of her heart now, what with the way her breast lay trembling against his spine.

"Lux," Talon growled finally as he forcefully shed her grasp, "you have no idea what you're-"

"I know that!"

She took hold of his wrist and pulled, forcing him to wheel about on his heels and face her head on. In that instant Talon realized just how fragile and vulnerable Lux was standing there before him. Her eyes remained partially obscured beneath her bangs, and her tattered top – all but soaked clean through – seemed to cling to every curve of her body like a second skin.

"I know I'm not that brave… or even that strong. But whatever happened to you in the past… whatever it is that still hurts… let me help carry it."

Her voice trailed off as fresh tears streamed down her cheeks, only to mix in with the shower spray from above. Even though the water was warm, Lux was still shivering and her body moved to hug itself, arms folding in under the diaphanous curve of her breasts as she did so.

"Just this once… let me in."

Talon clenched his jaw shut as heat pooled in the corners of his eyes. Neither said a word after that, not until his glare faltered and his eyes fell to the floor, vanishing beneath a tangled river of damp chestnut.

"The day Noxus fell, Swain told us that Kat's father was still alive."

Lux's eyes went wide.

"It was a lie of course, but you should have seen the look on her face. We both needed so desperately to believe."

Talon grit his teeth.

"It was supposed to be a rescue mission, but all they wanted was for us to be away when the fires started. Darius and his men ambushed us in the dead of the night, not thirty miles from the walls of Noxus. While the city burned, they caught us by surprise - nearly killed me with a single blow. Honestly, I wish he had… because then… I… I wouldn't have had to…"

Talon faltered and his voice grew raw. His bloodied hand grabbed at the seams of his opposite shoulder, where tarnished steel met flesh and bone.

"She trusted me, Lux. Her father trusted me. But that night, all I could do was watch… while… w-while-"

Lux cupped Talon's cheeks with both hands so that his gaze met hers. Gone was the fire from his eyes, that dark and smoldering shine. No longer were they a pair of glowing molten orbs, but two lumps of spent coal instead.

"Talon," she whispered as hot tears streamed down her own cheeks. "It wasn't your fault."

Talon shook his head once but otherwise remained motionless. His arms dangled at his sides, fingers still slick with blood. "I promised her father that I'd protect her… that I'd never let any harm come to her…"

"It wasn't your fault," She whispered more assertively this time, burying her face in his chest with such force that both their knees buckled and the pair sank to the floor. Lux fell back against the shower tiles and suddenly Talon was lying atop her, their bodies so intertwined it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. She looked up at him through a veil of tears. Her heart was pounding so hard against the inside of her chest she could have sworn it was about to explode.

"I-It… wasn't… your-"

When their lips met it was purely by chance. Nothing more than a faint caress, an absentminded moment of weakness shared between two souls, mortally wounded beyond all reason. Maybe it shouldn't have happened. Maybe it was the wrong place and the wrong time… but when their lips locked again for that second time, everything else seemed to crumble around them. It was as though the world itself and all of its troubles had come to a grinding halt.

"Tal…on…" Lux whimpered soon after they parted, a thin string of saliva still dancing along the tips of their tongues. "I'll never let go again." Her back arched and her breasts heaved, those coral-tipped nubs now just barely constrained by the sheer fabric separating his skin from hers. "I promise."

Talon could only close his eyes in response, his brow furrowing as though he were in pain. Wordlessly he leaned in to take hold of Lux's wrists, pinning her against the shower floor. She was utterly defenseless to his desires now, helpless as he peeled away what little remained of her clothing. Her entire body arched again when she felt the bindings of her breasts come undone and Talon's lips moved to touch down on the smooth porcelain valley between them. Every time he planted a kiss along that bone another moan wafted up from the shower floor. His lips grew emboldened from this and before long he'd taken to nibbling upon the edges of her nipples, each pale, puffy nub forced to stand flushed at attention. He kissed them, then licked them, then tormented them with his teeth. Luxanna whimpered; Talon knew all her weaknesses… just how much to push her buttons and how much she could endure.

One of Lux's hands managed to slip free from his grasp. From there it traced a bold line downwards along the taut musculature of his chest, sliding past his hips and on to the hardened "V" of his sinewy core. Talon groaned as Lux's fingers drubbed the sensitive skin there, only for them to collapse about his pulsing member and tug with an almost tentative stroke. Back and forth she went, pumping rhythmically, and suddenly the weight of his manhood began to grow heavier in the palm of her hand. The swell of her breasts pressed up against him as she looked into his eyes. "It's alright," her lips wanted to say to him, even though her voice was nowhere to be found. "I was always yours."

Her hips bucked and her toes curled when he entered her. From her throat came a muffled cry of white-hot pain and from the corners of her eyes, a fresh batch of tears. She was far too tight for him, those soft, rosy lips far too tiny… or at least so she thought. Slowly but surely the agony bubbled away and her body quivered as nectar dribbled down his shaft, forming a wet seal between their sexes. Lux began to sob, even though Talon's ministrations were gentle. His lips took hold of hers as they rocked together now, every whimper of hers disappearing into the back of his throat. Lux was on pins and needles; the sound of his pubic bone slapping against hers with every stroke only forced her muscles to clench that much more desperately.

When he broke off their kiss, Talon leaned back to take hold of her legs, her pale skin dimpling under his grip. Lux's grasp on reality was fast unfurling, already slipping away even before Talon had begun to take her in earnest.

"Lux," he growled as their movements grew more feral and her moans more piercing. "I… I'm…"

Lux bit down hard on her lip and cried out. Her back arched off the tiles, breasts heaving as both bodies shuddered, and suddenly warmth was swelling in her loins. Her mind remained in a daze as Talon slumped towards her, their bodies cheek to cheek. Lux could only smile now, placing a kiss on the underside of his jawline as she took to gently stroking the damp forest of his dark chocolate mane.

They fell asleep in each other's arms that night. For Talon, it was the first time in many years that he didn't wake up until morning.