"What do you mean, Trial of Oath and Ice?" Decius asked the girl who had become his sometimes more, but increasingly often less willing guide through the tribulations of Freljordian culture.
Aarys answered with the same patience she always evinced when dealing with him; as if she was talking to a child who should already know about the grown-up stuff, as she called it. "Well, she has survived to spring and thus earned her naming, but Naenia's Oathsworn died before the ceremony. Since you are now the girl's Oathfather…"
Decius swallowed hard, the thought of filling a father-role to a four-year-old still foreign to him.
Aarys sent him a punitive glance, "her Oathfather," she repeated, as if he had already tried to ditch his responsibilities, "you will perform the ceremony with her. I mean, you have to partake in a real bonding ceremony with Naenia and her child anyways, so why not merge it to one hunt?"
"I don't know shit about your customs!" Decius pointed out, not for the first time in the last few days. He was not sure if Aarys was even trying to teach him anymore. "It would be really nice if you could enlighten me, you know?"
Aarys sighed deeply, rubbing her blind, scarred eye. "You are a strong man. You or the girl only need to kill one animal, regardless of how small, you have mark her with the blood and return. It signifies your bond, the carcass will serve as a reminder that in the future, the girl will be able to partake in providing for our tribe."
Decius closed his eyes to regain his center. Then he slowly exhaled. He would face this challenge like he did everything else, head on and without fear. Finding an animal in this frozen lands with a four-year-old girl in tow would hardly be the greatest trial awaiting him. If he thought about it, the more insight he gained into Freljordian customs, the better he would be able to handle himself when facing Sejuani. He made progress in using the Freljordian language as well, soon he would be able to ask Naenia about Sejuani. While thinking about the warmother of this clan, his ears colored up. In the moment, they were hardly talking... at all... and Decius was not really opposed to her ideas of connecting without relying on speech.
Katarina dragged herself back to the Noxian camp, keeping an eye out for the mobile sentinels sweeping and securing the area. She had implemented their schedules and knew well enough how they would circle, so slipping into the shadows to avoid any contact was easy enough. Soon, she reached the only fortified building, a two-story wooden house towering behind the commando-tent. She threw back her matted hair and pushed the door open, alarming the men lounging inside.
"At ease," she ordered, her head held high and poise unwavering, but inwardly smirking at the shock suffusing her men's gaze. She felt their eyes wandering over her battered form, taking in the dust and blood she was covered with, the abrasions on her face and her body, the tears in her clothes.
"Commander Du Couteau?" A black-haired guard was the first to stand to attention, his fist raised above his heart.
With the other ones still gawking, Katarina had no high hopes for her safety, should she really rely on those soldiers. "If anyone's to disturb me in the next four hours for anything less than realm-threatening, you don't even want to know what I'll be doing to you, capiche?" She half-ordered, half-challenged.
A little late, the soldiers supposedly guarding her sleep saluted, letting her pass. She ascended the stairs, unlocked her quarters before securing them again, checking every single room for breaches in her security - there were none - and prepared her bed. When everything looked to her liking, she flopped down on top of the sofa, the best spot in her rooms to hide from intruding eyes. Before her head hit the cushion, her lights went out.
"Girl?" Decius asked, his tongue curling around the foreign word of the Freljordian language. He had prepared this conversation, so Naenia's daughter would be able to understand him. He was still far less than conversant in the strange language.
The girl indeed turned and watched him, subtle interest sparking her ice-blue eyes.
He went down on a knee to be on eye-level with her. "I know you will receive your name after our hunt, but it would be complicated for me to call you girl or Naenia's daughter the whole time. Can I give you a nickname, only for our hunt? Just a small thing before you receive your real name?"
He had not reviewed this with anyone, but he assessed this to be a proper way to connect with the child. Naming seemed to be an important part of Freljordian culture, so this felt like an adequate way to connect with the kid.
She watched him with her intelligent gaze, seemingly thinking about his words. "A temporary name?" She echoed, and Decius nodded. Her forehead knitted in earnest contemplation. "What kind of name?" She finally asked.
Decius had never been subjected to such a scrutiny before, and his heart started to pound unexpectedly. "Something short. I would call you Wren, and when we return, it will be our secret."
"What's that mean?" She asked, seemingly not satisfied.
"It is a little, fast bird from... the south," he explained. From Freljordian perspective, everything laid south.
"That does not sound great," she observed, her nose scrunched up.
"It is greater than it looks," he explained. "The wren is supposed to be the most intelligent bird, even more clever than the Great Fleetfeet-Eagles."
"More intelligent than an Aleju?" The kid asked.
Decius nodded, even though he had no idea what an Aleju was. The girl said a word he did not understand, but he interpreted it as an invitation to explain. He took his time and readied the words he had memorized, trying to tell the story as smooth as possible. "So, little one. The birds once wanted to determine who should be their ruler. They wanted the strongest as their leader. To see who possessed the greatest strength, they decided to fly against each other. The bird who would be able to rise the highest would be chosen the victor."
The girl's nose twitched, but she stayed silent.
"And so they did. The wren knew that it, with its small wings and meager physical strength, would never be able to overcome the mightier birds, so he made a plan. When the test started, he was nowhere to be seen. The birds flew up, each of them trying to overcome the other. But, one by one, they all surrendered to the Fleetfeet-Eagle's superior strength, who was faster and stronger than them all. At long last, only the Great Eagle stood high, hundreds of meters above the earth. He was exhausted but saw that there was no one stronger than him, no one to fly higher. The little wren chose this moment to dart from the eagle's plumage, where it had hidden. With its tiny wings, it surpassed the Fleetfeet-Eagle by many meters."
Decius stopped, the rest of the story untold, but his vocabulary was at its end. It was a harsh clipping of the story he had heard as a child, he had left many loops out, but it was everything he was able to craft in the foreign language in such a short time. Plus, the gist of the story was told.
The girl listened in rapt attention, seemingly not minding the lack of details.
"So the wren outwitted them and won the race?" She asked.
Decius nodded. "Right now, you are small. After the hunt, you will get a grand name fitting of your future but, until then, I want to call you something."
The girl contemplated, and Decius found that her judgement really mattered. After what felt like half an eternity, she finally nodded. "Our secret," she confirmed, a conspiratorial smile spreading on her face.
The subtle sounds of a harsh shout, muffled by layers of wood, woke her. One glance to the window revealed that she had indeed managed to get a good few hours' worth of sleep. Noticing no one else in the room, Katarina stretched and sighed at the way her hair stuck to her forehead. Dried blood and dust fluttered from her forehead. She scraped off a particularly big flake, flicking it to the ground before she stretched. Her muscles still burned from overexertion, her back ached from the fall, and she felt the numerous bruises and small cuts littering her body. The shouting downstairs grew louder and she rose, ready to see and stop what caused such a ruckus.
Her steps were soundless as she crossed the distance to the stairs, so nobody noticed her assessing the situation. There was a stranger in the lobby, a man clad in official messenger-robes and the colors of Darkwill himself. He had puffed up, surrounded by Katarina's own, grinning soldiers. His colors protected him from their direct assault, but they seemingly did not need to put a finger on him.
"Let me pass, imbeciles, two hours of waiting is enough already! Hamper my work any longer and face the consequences! The Grand General-"
"Is not here," Katarina rasped, having phased down the stairs and now standing in the middle of the room.
The heads of five men turned to her with varying degrees of surprise at her current state.
"Commander Du Couteau," the messenger stood to attention, looking at her with relief. "Grand General Darkwill tasked me with getting this message to you at once, but those... those imbeciles hindered the execution of my duty. I demand them to be punished-"
"I had a shitty night, so cut your bullshit," Katarina interrupted. The messenger started huffing in indignation. "But hand over that message and I might let you leave," she offered with a feral grin.
The man gulped and looked around, into the faces of Katarina's still-grinning soldiers. "The Grand General will hear of this-" he tried to intimidate her.
"The Grand General is not here," Katarina pointed out, letting her tongue slither over her sharp teeth.
Even as he quivered in fear, a satisfied lilt hushed over the messengers lips. "Oh, but Commander Du Couteau, he soon will be. And he requests you to come and meet him at once, without wasting another moment."
Katarina froze before nonchalantly tossing her matted hair back. "Do you have a written marching order?" She asked, clipped.
"But of course, Commander," the messenger now smiled, happy to have wiped the grin out of her face. His satisfaction vanished as Katarina snatched the letter right out of his fingers, ripping open the envelope. "You are not supposed to-" he started.
Already reading, Katarina silenced him with a dismissive gesture of her hand. "I'll be on my way at earliest convenience," she assured, unwilling to show her astonishment. Paranoid and ever-fearful Darkwill, who saw assassins in each shadow, who never left the Immortal Bastion anymore, had seemingly managed to cross the distance to Shurima. Without giving her a heads-up, which was suspicious. In a brief moment of clarity, Katarina wondered why her father had not told her about this – Marcus had been adamant in his order for Katarina to stay away from the Grand General.
The messenger snorted, a noise which earned him a particularly violent shove from behind him. He looked back in search for the culprit, only to see Katarina's guards looking away from him, none of them moving. "I mean, Commander Du Couteau," he said, more respectful this time, "I am to accompany you, to make sure you take as minimal time as possible."
"Not going to meet up with him looking like this," Katarina winked, "so either piss off or wait."
Once more, the messenger puffed up. "But the Grand General-"
Katarina turned once more, silencing the man with an icy glare. "Just to be clear," she interrupted, "I'd much rather see you piss off. Try and patronize me once more…" She completed the sentence with another display of her teeth. "Choose wisely." Without listening any further, she took the stairs back to her rooms. The calmness her rest had brought had evaporated, leaving her on high alert. She did not like the Grand General, and he had no apparent reason to appear in an insignificant affair like Kalamanda. She was sure that Marcus had sent her to Kalamanda to create some kind of distance, which was not implying anything good. Of course, she could simply wait this out or flee, but that would only be a temporary respite. She was not afraid, and she would not behave like a coward. Her men had only acted up against the messenger because they had had superiority in numbers, but there was no doubt that they would all buckle to the Grand General himself. Suddenly, she felt the loss of the dagger she had left with Crownguard. It might not have been one of her signature blades, but a fine weapon she could have depended upon nonetheless. Briefly, she thought about returning to the Demacian camp, but doffing the idea shortly after. Her timeframe was just too small and if she intended to clean herself up, she had not another moment to spare.
Darius only rested when it became necessary and, after three days, he had finally pursued the next stage in finding what had become his charge. A few tents gathered in front of him, almost invisible due to the snow, but the billowing smoke rising from a fire was clear evidence.
He readied his axe, briefly noting how the people, clearly natives clad in heavy fur, seemingly prepared a feast. Without the bonfire, Darius might have missed the habitation altogether.
Darius did not intend to hide, and so he was spotted by two supposed guards, armed with poor excuses for axes. Something inside Darius steeled. They screamed something in the strange language of the Freljord. When he did not react, they charged, the camp behind them breaking into bustling activity. His gaze zeroed in on his two opponents, and he almost laughed as he reared back his trusted weapon.
Talon leaped onto the pier before the ship had berthed. Expectantly, he turned, ready to receive Lux who followed swift. A prickling kind of tension had settled around the assassin as soon as the harbor had come into sight, him pacing the deck expressing his uneasiness. The sun stood low already, but her rays were strong, vitalizing Lux with crackling energy. If her jump was accompanied by a flash, nobody took offense, and she landed safely in the assassin's arms. She caught a glimpse of the determination overwriting everything else in his eyes.
The port bustled with action, despite the desert's heat instantly affecting Lux. A short glance around showed her people in wide, colorful clothes. Usually, she would have liked to take her time in exploring a bit, but Talon had already picked up his pace, walking straight to a warden. A shiny coin changed hands, the dark-skinned man whispering something in Talon's ear she did not catch. He seemed to get the piece of information he wanted, for he turned city-wards, hastening his steps. Lux almost had to jog to catch up.
"The city's wardens have not heard from a Noxian General pitching camp, we might have arrived in time," he murmured, the crowd of people surrounding them clearly not to his liking. His eyes moved fast and steady, looking out for dangers.
"Where is the Noxian camp?" Lux asked.
He nodded sharp in the direction they moved to. "The Demacian camp lies a little more south. Can you find your way from now on?" He asked, not looking in her direction, but sounding conflicted nonetheless.
Lux's steps faltered briefly, not sure if she had heard right. "You promised to bring me there, remember?" She finally said, softly.
His mouth thinned to a line. "I have to check-"
"-Katarina first, yes, I will accompany you and after you finished your job, after I finally decoded the rest of Darkwill's ritual, you can still deliver me," she noted, grasping for his sleeve.
He looked her over briefly, seemingly assessing the clothing she wore. They were dark, she was unremarkable enough to blend into the Noxian camp, should she get spotted. He gave a nod, even as his jaw clenched. He looked worried, a dark sense of foreboding brooding behind his eyes.
Lux bumped her shoulder into his sympathetically, gifting him a small, reassuring smile.
Decius had survived much. Rigorous training in the Noxian army, two years of service for the empire, different drill-sergeants with varyingly cruel methods of strengthening mind and body. He had worked hard and earned leadership of his own small warband, and he had been chosen as Second in Command by his mother; not because of relations, his sister was testament to that, but because he worked hard for what he was always getting better at. Regardless of that, in the short years of his life, he had seldom felt this strange combination of absolute fatigue and heady giddiness.
The jubilant girl, her forehead marked by blood, dancing around his feet felt otherworldly, but the weight of the heavy carcass resting on his broad shoulders grounded him to this realm, reminded him that yes, this was real. Even the always serious marksman in their company looked less stressed, his lips curling upwards in satisfaction. He had patted Decius's back once, a praise beyond compare. The third person accompanying them on their hunt had been courtesy to Decius's heritage. No one had believed him to be able to hunt properly, so they had strained tradition's limits.
What counted, though, was that they had completed their task, had hunted down an edible animal and soon, the little wren would receive her own name. Her blue eyes sparkled as she circled around Decius, the bloody circle on her forehead already blackened and dry.
Sweat ran down his brow and caught in the stubble that could not be called a beard yet, his body-heat enough to keep it unfrozen. As the girl ran past him, he stretched out his hand and tugged playfully at her bright hair, earning an indignant huff.
Suddenly, the hunter accompanying them stopped, and Decius as well as the girl froze instantly. The crunching of hasty steps in old, frozen snow now became audible, and Wren instantly pushed herself against the bark of a tree. Decius himself covered her, not as well-hidden as the girl was.
A bedraggled grey-brown jacket became visible, hiding a person with the height of Decius's waist.
He knew the child hastily approaching them. "Aarys?" he asked, seeing the black-and-white strands of hair sticking out from under the hood, stepping into the girl's line of sight.
She looked up, an expression of pure terror in her face. "Decius!" She hiccupped, tears in her uneven eyes and frozen snot smeared over half of her face.
Instantly, Decius jumped to a run to meet her, his heart freezing to ice. "What is it?" He asked sharply.
"The camp has been attacked," she wheezed with wild fear. "I managed to sneak out-"
"How many?" Decius asked, mentally drawing a picture of the camp, counting forces and mapping the surrounding forest.
"Just one."
Now it was Decius to freeze, the hairs on his neck rising in abject horror. "What happened?" He asked fearfully. Wren as well as the marksman approached them, the girl grasping for his leg.
"There was this man with a giant axe, clad in black and red and steel-" Decius's stomach plummeted down, leaving him with the sudden urge to vomit. "-we were preparing the feast for your return, but he just slashed through the Hearthbound, calling your name while slaying our people left and right." She was openly crying now, water freezing on her lashes and on her blue-tinted cheeks.
"Naenia?" Decius asked tunelessly.
"She told him he would make a good Oathsworn for a Scarmother and that he should toddle off, and she warned him, but he-" her voice broke into sobs.
Decius grasped her shoulders and shook her in panic, hoping against hope that he would find more than carnage when he came back. "Tell me!" He demanded urgently.
"He did not even listen! He ignored her words, she barely managed to draw Starswirl, and then he cut right through her!"
Decius stared into Aarys's wide eye, full of the recent horror she had to endure. Everything inside of him seemed to numb down. "He killed her?" He asked, hoping against the odds that he had misunderstood, that Aarys did not know the right words in the common language.
She swiped her sleeve over her eyes, crying, snot running down her nose. "Yes," she wailed, no hope left in her remaining eye.
The carcass fell down into the snow. The old hunter had listened, eyes wide in horror. Wren, not conversant in the common tongue, tugged at his sleeve. She had surely been unable to follow the exchange.
Decius's eyes closed as he tried to shield himself from the harsh reality, but his mind already took stock of his situation. He had tried to reason with the Freljordians, had tried to show how alike they were, and he had no idea why General Darius, head of the Freljord-campaign, would run after a possible casualty like himself.
The face of his mother, returning from Ionia, rose to his mind, dead inside and her body crippled by the same man who had now taken Naenia's life.
Whatever his reasons to follow after him, once more General Darius had cut away his hopes and ambitions – no, if he was being honest to himself, Naenia had been as much a safety-net as his mother had once been – with a ruthless cut of his ever-thirsty axe.
"Who else survived?" Decius asked, tunelessly and without hope. He had heard how General Darius worked.
The girl shook her head. "When Naenia fell, the tribe went all-out." She shuddered. "There was so much blood..."
Decius looked to the ground. "Aarys, Daen, little wren?" He asked, the three bespoken gathering around him. Daen looked helpless, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. "I want you to hide. And I want you to wait until the man is gone, then take whatever supplies you can find and try to find another tribe. Naenia told me something about Avarosa?"
Aarys looked horrified. "What are you planning?" She piped, grasping for the fur of his coat.
He looked at the three people surrounding him. "I will lure him away."
Naenia's daughter wound her arms around his thigh, she seemed to understand at least the fact that he would leave soon.
"You... you will come back to us, right? So we can go away together, right? Decius?" Aarys whimpered, her voice high-pitched.
"I... I don't think that will be possible," he confessed. If general Darius had come after him, he would be hanged for desertion. Or he would meet his end right at the blade of Darius's axe. Right now, this prospect did not seem so bad, but the children had to live. He looked at the marksman. "Can you try to find Avarosa with them?"
The older man looked to the ground, seemingly catching his breath. Then, with the acquiescence to fate many Freljordians seemed to possess, he straightened and nodded, his gaze turned down to the girl clutching Decius's leg.
"Canna, Wren," he summoned in their native language, heaving the animal's carcass on his own shoulders.
Wren looked at him with all the world's pain in her clear blue eyes. He stroke her head, hoping that she would make it to a safe spot. She sniffled once and turned away. Aarys looked to the ground, unable to meet his gaze.
Decius, not knowing what else he should say, turned to the clearing where they had stroke camp.
Lux tried to swallow down the lump forming in her throat. One thing was sure, Katarina was not in her suite. That alone would not have been an alarming sign, but the scroll currently laying in Talon's calm hands, clearly an officially signed and sealed piece of paper, was.
"Let me see," she demanded, looking over his shoulder. He did not move, so Lux placed her cheek against his shoulder and skimmed over the neatly written lines. He was firm under her touch, cold, and she felt a determination rising within him that could have frightened her. But, since this was still Talon, she simply kept on reading.
She was able to catch the gist of the message – impromptu examination of the troops, personal report expected, Grand General Darkwill, meeting him at earliest convenience, classified meeting because traitor suspected, before Talon placed the paper exactly how he had found it and turned to the door.
"Wait," Lux verbally intervened, knowing that he had taken the gloves off. Whoever would try to get into his way now would face severe consequences.
His gaze was dark as he turned, a cold mirror. But he did turn, which Lux counted as a success.
"Can I come with you?" She asked, her hand fisted in front of her chest.
Talon looked to the floor briefly, weighting something she could only guess. "This is not your fight," he finally said, his voice without melody.
"I chose my fights myself," Lux reassured, trying to catch his gaze.
Talon looked to the scroll now laying on the table. "You do realize," he said, "that someone is going to die very soon?"
Lux chewed her lip in consideration. "Listen," she started, and he did, finally meeting her gaze. "Darkwill is the Grand General for a reason, he has been the Grand General for the last four generations for a reason. I do not wish to see you leaving without at least a bit backup, okay?" She hardly ever allowed herself to worry about his wellbeing, she knew that Talon could look after himself, but this was different, the whole mission was not his usual modus operandi. And his opponent was definitely much stronger than anything Talon had ever faced, plus the assassin did not know what exactly he ran into.
Talon turned away, thinking for a long moment. Without looking at her again, his head moved in a barely perceptible motion. A nod. With that, he vanished from her sight.
Lux sighed and spelled herself invisible as well.
It had never been harder to follow him, only the educated guess that he would search out the Noxian horses for faster transportation saved her from losing his track.
Over 250.000 words. When did that happen?
I know I said this update would take longer but, back then, I thought this would be the last chapter. Damn. Seems like Decius just does not want to die, don't ask me why -.- Soooo, the Kalamanda-arc is just this short before its climax, Decius will probably need a little longer. I think I promised multiple times that this would be over soon, so I spare myself the repetition . (but the next chapter will take longer to write. This one does feel rushed... I might work it over in the future.)
The story Decius told the girl actually matters to me and I figured it fits well into Noxian society. Might, Guile, Vision, guys. It is a short version of a tale my grandfather always told me. I forgot about it for years but remembered it just now. Thinking of it made me really happy (I called my granddad so he could tell me the fable once more. It was a good day). Originally, it is a fable from Aesop (and much longer).
I did not write out how Darius slew the whole tribe, but that sounds like something he'd do effordlessly. If you want to read it, hit me up and I might conjure something.
I based the customs of the "naming" to one quote of the Ashe-comics ("She was the only one who survived to spring and naming"), for there surely are different traditions in different clans. Decius not whining about "had I never met her, she would be alive" is intentional. He just does not think that way.
Lux's biography was updated once more, the Radiant Ones as well as Kahina vanished. Lux is seemingly no Illuminator anymore, and nothing of her missions in the borderlands are mentioned.
Anyway, RN I am playing Legends of Runeterra like crazy. The quotes are solid and fitting, the artwork is splendid… and I never thought I'd say this, but Draven has the best quotes. The quotes to and from Garen, combined with the comic and the cinematic, depict exactly what Thresh sais to him.
Generalblood1: Decius is not happy about Darius following him xD Darius meant well, though. Decius still greatly disapproves. (my pup hates cold, btw, he is too smol) The only ongoing plot with Noxus is the renewed war against Ionia… but they have to explain Riven being in Draven's arena first (Awaken-cinematic)! Anyway, Lux catching that Freljordians magic scepter/wand was awesome, and her eyes at the end…. DEMACIA!
101Asa: Thank you, as always. I hope this does not disappoint.
.32: Thank you, intertwining old with new lore gets harder by day – for "new" lore gets shot out of canon faster than Daring Poro out of a Progress-Day cannon. Thanks for your comment :)