A.N.: Due to a computer crash, I've lost the Lucian-Thresh chapter I wanted to post next and need to rewrite it. :( I couldn't finish it yet, so that will go up in two pieces.

Also yaay, new cover art, Azir being all casual in his Shurima hoodie. I might come up with something more fitting, but this was the only LoL related drawing I had at hand for now. Hope you like it.


As a mercenary, Sivir had her share of sleeping in unsuitable places. Even the richest of contractors liked to cut down the cost of living quarters for the "thugs" as they regarded them. After all, the easiest way to stay rich was to be a cheapskate.

Still, all those years of sleeping in barns and even on the ground couldn't prepare her for the disaster that was Azir's couch. As the Shuriman main building was still in construction, he still lived in that miserable mouse hole of a room and used the spare furnishing it came with.

The couch was the oldest of the pieces and started to show every single sign of it. Sivir had the dubious honor of experiencing it all first hand, every creaky spring and uncomfortable bump.

If it were up to her, Sivir would have never crashed on her ancestor's couch – she had been a champion for years after all and had already furnished her room just the way she liked it.

Her room, however, was currently uninhabitable. It was mysteriously flooded it the day before, forcing Sivir out until it dried. Her first thought was that it was Cassiopeia's doing – the Du Couteau girl blamed Sivir for her unfortunate transformation and she was petty enough for something like this. She couldn't prove it, but it didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

What mattered was that despite the numerous, thick blankets Azir provided to make her more comfortable, she woke up with a persistent ache all along her back and neck, with her left arm stuck in a position that she couldn't even move it because of the lack of circulation.

She pushed herself into a sitting position, shrugged off the blankets and with a grimace tried to massage some circulation back into her arm. The curtains were closed, keeping the room nice and dark, but Sivir could faintly hear the sound of rain.

Azir was reading by the window, but looked up when he heard Sivir move.

"Good morning."

Sivir groaned. Sitting up made her aware of another set of aching muscles that she didn't know she possessed before.

"My everything hurts."

Knowing that she disliked the bitter tea he favored, Azir offered her a mug of overly sweet cocoa.

"I told you to use the bed. I would have been fine on the couch," he pointed out.

"Don't be ridiculous! I'm the guest, it would have been weird if I slept in the bed and you slept on the couch." She accepted the mug and took a sip.

"I think it would have been weird only if we both slept in the bed. And as you said, I am the host it is well within my right to offer."

"My knight in shining armor. Would you seriously suffer in my stead?"

"Don't be so melodramatic. Among the positive aspects of my ascension is faster healing."

"No sore muscles?"

"No sore muscles."

There was a smug look on his face. Sivir still wasn't adept at guessing his expressions, but she knew a smug look when she saw one.

"Shouldn't you be preparing for your match?" she asked, trying to change the topic.

Azir snapped his beak, a gesture she learned to interpret as annoyance.

"They postponed it due to some irregularity in the turrets' magic. One of them started to shoot its own team as well as the enemy."

Sivir furrowed her brows. Some glitches were usual on the Rift. It was the inevitable side effect of the constant changes the summoners were making and everyone learned to live with them. A turret shooting everyone in sight, however, was far more than the ordinary glitch in the magic.

"I never heard of a malfunction like that. They must suspect sabotage."

"I believe so. They were in quite a haste to remove every powerful caster from the Twisted Treeline's rooster as well." It remained unsaid, but Sivir got the implications: the summoners suspected that the malfunction was one of the champions' doing.

Azir circled around until he stood behind Sivir. "I know you have contacts among the summoners. Discretely ask around, maybe one of them heard something. I have a bad feeling about this." He rested his palms against Sivir's shoulders and channeled some magic through her sore muscles. Sivir couldn't help but relax under the touch as the warmth of magic soothed the ache.

"Hmm, okay, I'll sniff around. Don't you dare to stop!"

Azir chuckled.

"You remind me of a desert cat at times."

"Coming from you, Emperor Pigeon, I will take that as a compliment."

"You will achieve nothing with insults. Or perhaps you want to deal with your sore muscles on your own?" Sivir tilted her head back to look at him.

"Oh please. This has to be the weakest attempt at blackmail I ever heard."

Azir removed his hands. The warmth receded and the pain returned – it even intensified, if such a thing was possible.

Underhanded bastard.

"Okay, you win. No more insults." For a while, at least. "Now put those healing hands back." For more emphasis, she grabbed one of his wrists and dragged his hand back to the sorest spot.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Azir slightly shaking his head at her antics.

She turned her attention back to her cocoa, trying her damnedest to ignore how fricking weird the whole situation was.

Despite the several generations between them, Azir was alike her in a lot of things – well, that's an exaggeration, but he was likeminded enough that she easily grew accustomed to think of him as family. The issues started when she tried to pin a role to him inside the broad category of 'family'.

Their actual relation – great-great-great-something-something grandfather – was out of question. He simply didn't have the mindset for it and wasn't that old fashioned. The same way, he was unfit for the role of a big brother – it showed that he was a good decade older when he died than Sivir was now and had too much of a patronizing, 'fatherly' vibe to be called a big bro. He might have made a good uncle, but Sivir remembered her uncles a bit too vividly to ever want more.

In the end, she simply gave up and let Azir decide how close he wanted them to be. At times, especially after a tough job that didn't pay nearly enough, she wished that he would distance himself. Then she could think of him as a cash cow again, as a golden ticket to the throne of Shurima.

But Azir, despite all of his shortcomings, was very easy to like and he held onto Sivir like his life depended on it. In a sense, maybe it did: he was out of his time and she provided a point he could fixate on and hold onto. It was tiring sometimes and he could get positively fussy when the mood took him, but all things considered, it wasn't too bad to play anchor for someone whose life turned topsy-turvy in a hurricane of events.

Especially when he made her cocoa (with enough sugar to make Lulu think twice about drinking it) and knew how to ease the pain, even when it was the consequence of her own stupid decision.

Sivir downed the last of her drink then stifled a yawn. Not only was she still sore – though Azir made a great job of remedying that – she felt like she didn't sleep at all. Now that she noticed, she felt downright drowsy.

Azir snatched the mug from her hands and started to steer her towards the bed.

"You need to rest, Sivir. You look dead on your feet," he said in a tone that left no place for argument. "A few hours of actual sleep won't hurt anyone."

She wanted to argue just for the hell of it, but couldn't find the will to do it, drowsiness quickly overcoming her. Even if she had the strength, it would have been pointless to even try to argue. Azir could be quiet mercenary about taking care of his own, no pun intended, though his methods were rather unorthodox at times.

So she went without complaint and let herself be tucked in. She will get back at Azir for this later when she wasn't so comfy, she decided before she drifted off.


A.N.: Shortish chapter, but is that a hint of a plot I spy there? Maybe. As I can't write an exciting plot if my life depended on it, the focus would still be on the characters, but I want to put in at least one 'arc' to see if it will work out. Also note for this chapter: Azir might have put something in Sivir's cocoa to convince her to go back to rest. He doesn't really need sleep as such, not much at least, so he knows that Sivir had slept maybe two hours at most that night. He's a good emperor birb, he takes care of his only heiress whether she wants it or not.