Warnings: Violence, war, sexual implications, murder, weaponry, blood. Trigger warning.
A/N: Kindred comes out soon. A truly fascinating champion with many intricacies.
Chapter Twelve: A Conversation In The Woods
We start moving further southeast. Valor would have proclaimed my death by the time we reach Noxian territory. But that's days away, on foot. I doubt we have any other discreet means of travel. He hasn't changed into the clothes that Riven brought. I suppose they're for extreme circumstances, and we'd have to look anything but what we are while traveling as precaution. The time is slow and I spend much of it scribbling notes. I draw Valor from memory, careful about the damages on his beak. I glance up every few moments to ensure I'm still following at the preferred pace. I've found distance of the upmost importance.
It's hours before he finally speaks up, several feet in front of me with that satchel over his shoulder. The blade on his right arm is entirely concealed by his sleeve, discreet. He turns his head a bit to the side as he raises his voice, catching my attention.
"Why didn't you let go?" He asks so simply. As though I would be blatant in my answer. But I suppose I would be, considering the truth is within justice...and he seems to think me a true lover of the term.
"Katarina," I say. She'd have hunted me. I know my strengths and I know my limitations. The Du Couteau is one of them.
"Smart," he says.
We walk, never running. I have the map, and yet he's leading the way. The air is crisp and lacks that hollow chill. The chill which stales skin and tenses bones. I think back to the Abyss. I could have let go. I could have. Morals. Katarina. Death. I wonder why I didn't. And I remember that horrid feeling I endured when I hadn't.
"What's the real reason?" I ask. I don't know if he'd catch on. He may not know what I'm referencing. It could be a million little things surrounding the once huge initial thing. But to put it plainly, I only want to know why I'm still alive.
He pauses mid-step, head tilting a bit over his shoulder. A slight perplexity to the action. But he catches himself, and he keeps walking. Like it wasn't important. Like it wasn't history.
"You never died," he says. And it's a tone of admittance. Something he'd lied about so often. What was the real reason? The reason why he never killed me. The actual reason as to why I'm standing here.
"What?" I don't get it. I heard him, I just don't understand. The statement was apparent from any perspective. I was breathing, right here.
"I tried." He's just walking. It's surreal. Just to see him move so casually. This odd sense of unfamiliarity washes over me. I've been traveling with him, and this is the first time I relate who he is to what I thought he was. "Survival is your strong suit. Killing you became a goal."
"You had your chances several times and walked away."
"I never let you live until you dared me to kill you." I remember that day. I catch myself rubbing at the scar on my neck, fidgeting. I don't know if he noticed. It wouldn't surprise me if he did. I situate my crossbow over my shoulder. I hear my arrows still rattle on my back.
But I think about it. I remember his blade on my throat, hand on my collar bone. Immense pressure. Dead scouts. I don't remember their names. Young kids I yelled at Jarvan IV over. I yelled at Jarvan. Jarvan. What a fool.
I don't remember the names. I don't.
"Why did you?"
"Frustration."
"And when I actually fought you?" He pauses again. A slight rigidness raises his shoulders. He scans the skies and higher branches, eyes focused beyond anything close. The corner of his mouth twitches upward once, perhaps out of distaste.
"You fought distracted," he says.
"I still don't know what you mean." That phrase is old and vague. My mind was focused, it was more than evident, and yet that ferocity clouded my judgement. It made me incapable. Perhaps that's what he's referencing.
"Then you never will."
I look to the skies for Val. I'd forgotten.
I appreciate the darkness of the forest. Demacia's lights negate the stars. This world is naturally illuminated by the moon and distant suns. I find more looking up than I do forward.
He said we should rest. I'm not sure why; he may be exhausted. He refuses a fire and I agree. We sit across from one another on wide branches in the tree line, scanning the surroundings we can't regularly see. I'm placing my trust in this individual I'd once thought a monster. I'm following him loyally to save my own skin. Countless issues and yet all that plagues me is a single question: what am I doing? What's wrong with me? What kind of person stoops so low to salvage what's left of their already reduced lifespan?
Perhaps more than just a single question.
Garen or Jarvan would have gladly faced death. Their heads would have been high and their swords even higher. Yet I cower behind my own rival, reliant upon him to live. But Valor had encouraged this. He knew there was no other way. Even Ashe had developed plans behind my back; a brief truce with a Noxian assassin to save the life of a comrade. I wonder if Jarvan would understand. Or would he have me executed? Reduced to naught?
I don't see Talon eat. I know he has but I don't visually catch it. I settle on my branch and cross my legs. These trees grow larger as we crawl closer to Noxus. I rest my head back and shrug my quiver off to the side. We don't move much from our spots. As though the trees we chose were the final and only option. My crossbow rests idle in my lap, finger tense against my ready trigger. I don't trust him that much. Not yet. Not ever.
"Where'd you get that scar?" The question is out of near darkness and complete silence. I nearly jump at the intrusion set upon the noiselessness, save for the birds and insects creating suspect sound. Echoes. He's looking at me, chin high and head rested back against his designated tree. It's abruptly unsettling.
"You don't remember?" I catch myself rubbing it, fingertips circling. I regret my tone of voice, though I doubt I could have helped it.
"Not the neck. The arm." He's drinking from the canteen that's painfully Avarosian. The leatherwork and all, talking between sips. He gestures to my elbow with it, casual. I caught him looking at that scar earlier. Perhaps yesterday, though I can't see the moon to tell the time. I rub my forearm and examine the long rip of raised flesh, skin unconcealed. I have scars everywhere. It's unattractive. My eyes avoid the rounded one where the limb had been reattached. My stomach turns oddly and causes nausea.
"It's old." I flick stray hairs from my face, agitated without my headpiece. I should have butchered my hair in Raklestake. I should have asked for sleeves. I should have made Valor stay.
"I didn't leave it." What he said catches me off guard. I'm uncertain of his intention or point. I feel a tension raise my shoulders; a sixth sense puts a rigidness in my spine. He didn't leave it? Did he assume every scar on my body was inflicted by his hand?
"No...you didn't." His tone is uncomfortable. I feel nausea set in at the base of my stomach. He's become such an intense threat in only a single phrase.
I analyze my surroundings, bringing my shoulders back against the bark. I discreetly angle my crossbow further in his direction. I prep my legs to move. I could drop off the branch and catch my weight onto another. I would be out of his range of attack. It's a plausible escape plan. The rest would be evasive maneuvers. I know what he's capable of, and yet I'm unable to draw the line of trust and trepidation. Perhaps its one of my many faults; and now I'm sitting here, paranoid.
"Where did you get it from?" It's far too personal for my liking. The question, that is. My finger stiffens against the trigger, eyes unfocused in the dark. Now he's watching my arm. I can barely see the very brief reflections of light off his eyes. I doubt he's smiling.
"Sparring, " I tell him. Jarvan had apologized profusely. Needless to say he won the match. And he held my arm for hours, as though I were something fragile. Luxanna said I should find myself wounded more often. We laughed.
That was years ago. I don't recall him visiting while recovering from my removed extremity.
"With who?"
I think on my words. Would he act on a lie? They leave my mouth slow. "My general."
He mumbles something inaudible. The feeling subsides, as quick as it'd come. That unruly stiffness that instilled a silent anxiety rung about us., though lessened. The waves of tension he'd emitted are still thinning the air. Like an animal, really. Violent by nature.
I swallow my concerns and close my eyes. My lips are cracked and aching. I rub at the bridge of my nose, shoving hair from my line of sight. "Where did you get the one on your chin?"
I counter him, relaxing my arm. Earthly noises break the silence. I hear a specific species of bird in the background.
"You," he says. But that doesn't remind me of much. I've seen it countless times. I never once recall leaving it.
"I don't remember that."
"You wouldn't."
"When?"
"When you cut off my hand."
"Oh." That was the sum of the conversation. But he's still looking at me. Almost with a misplaced tenacity, persistent and unyielding. I can barely see him, and I recall removing his hand vividly. I reach my arm over my shoulder, anticipating Valor to perch on my wrist. The air is oddly frigid on my fingertips, vacant and without the anticipated contact. I don't look anywhere but at my crossbow, avoiding the realities that have suddenly forces my back against a tree.
I shift my weight and sit in silence, awaiting his call to continue.
