Preface: I'm doing something unusual here and splitting chapter six into two pieces. This one scene gave me so much trouble writing it that the chapter as I had envisioned it is still not complete, but it's been a month with no update, and so I've decided to post this scene on its own while I finish the second half of the chapter to post separately.

Thank you to everyone for your patience!

Irelia would not believe it. She had seen the broken chain and still she would not believe it. She wasn't sure what answer she had expected from the old man, but that had not been it.

'That cannot be. The beast is a monster, you have no idea what you're saying.' Irelia moved back in her chair and folded her arms.

'You know the story.' Asa did not seem surprised.

'I do. Coeur Valley is a grim legend for those of us who fought in the war. The beast was supposedly born out of whatever happened there.' Asa leaned forward slightly in his chair, eyes focusing on her. He was interested, but she had limited time. 'Spirits are often described that way. White hair, red eyes, they're symbols of death and evil, you know this.' An important detail was missing. What set the beast of Shon-Xan apart was not its appearance, Spirits and Akana often took such forms.

Besides, Asa would be dead. The beast had been a monster even before they'd died in the cursed valley. Irelia faltered at her thoughts and pursed her lips. Somehow, she had been put in the position of defending the Noxian woman. Wonders never ceased.

'Do you believe the story?' He had edged further forward and was watching her from beneath his deeply creased brow.

'I do. She is not the beast.' She lowered her chin and made eye contact with him to highlight her own certainty. 'Shojin monks tried to exorcise the valley once. Instead, it was the beast that chased them out. Shojin monks fear little and run from less. If she was the beast you would be dead.'

'She's changed since then', Asa insisted.

'Then why are there dead bodies outside? Whoever she was, when push comes to shove, that's who she still is. But she is not the beast.' Asa looked away from her and worked his jaw as he grumbled. He almost seemed angry at the wall.

'How different are you from who you were before the war? Riven is just as different.'

'Do not compare me to the Noxian again.' She took a deep, slow breath and closed her eyes for a moment to recompose herself before continuing. 'I can never go back to who I was. Nor can she change from what she is. Corpses do not lie.' She expected Asa to be angry with her, but he just frowned at her. He shook his head slowly and looked down at his tea.

'You don't believe me, even after what we've seen together.'

'I do not. She was a soldier, and a leader. And a Noxian, she does not need to be the beast to be a killer.'

'Who do you suppose treated the wound of the man Yu found on the road?' Asa asked, and Irelia squinted at him. She hadn't considered it before. 'The wrappings on him were just like the ones my Riven wears over the scars on her arm.'

Irelia's voice came thick with her exasperation, 'you suppose she killed two men and then treated the survivor?' she let the backs of her hands fall on the table to highlight how empty they were. It made no sense.

'No, I suppose that she did not kill anyone. You saw what she can do to tempered steel, she would have left no survivors.' Irelia opened her mouth to object but found her mouth empty. Asa's approach was strange, but he had her there. Whatever weapon had sundered the chain would have torn men limb from limb. She closed her mouth and let Asa speak. 'The other- Teneff, she killed those two men. And I don't even believe she was the aggressor.' Asa leaned forward and held eye contact with her. 'My daughter is innocent,' he said. And she held his gaze, willing him to look away first. But he wouldn't. For his daughter, he would never back down. Irelia envied that.

'No soldier is innocent.' For all of the anger that bubbled in Irelia's stomach over the deaths of two of her countrymen at the hands of Noxians, she had nothing to contradict him, but she would not hear an invader labelled innocent. Asa's head tilted and his brow creased with pity of all things. Irelia looked away.

'Noxus made her what she was, as surely as the war made you who are-' Irelia opened her mouth to respond but he raised his hand to quiet her, and he still wore his expression of pity. She frowned but let him speak. 'I wish you would not bristle so when I compare you to someone I hold dear', he said, and Irelia frowned. 'Fine, Riven may not be innocent, but neither of you chose this.'

'I admit, I don't know what to make of your daughter', Irelia said, and a faint smile forced its way through her otherwise grim expression. Asa was the Ionian man with the Noxian daughter, and whatever the woman was, it felt wrong to deny him his affection for the woman any longer. She could call her that.

'Hearing that would please her.' Irelia's brow furrowed and she wondered just what he meant. It didn't matter, she decided.

'We're off-topic, and I have to meet up with Yu and Eiji at sunset. I want to know more about who your daughter is before I go and find her.'

'We,' Asa said and Irelia shrugged. She focused on regathering her thoughts. Images of Asa's daughter came to her from the day they'd met at the Placidium. Irelia had never seen someone like her. Until she'd heard a Noxian accent from the woman's lips, she really hadn't known what to make of her, but she wouldn't have thought her a monster.

'Her appearance is not enough', she said. 'She may just be unlucky. Imagine being born with red eyes...She's probably been compared to spirits and monsters her whole life. Yes, she looks unusual but…', she breathed deeply and reached for her tea. 'But she hardly resembles a beast.'

Across the table, Asa's eyebrows were slowly rising. He said no words, he simply observed her, and Irelia felt the tips of her ears growing warm. Irelia brought her tea to her lips to hide her face, and Asa sipped his own. Silence prevailed.

'You don't want it to be her', Asa said eventually, and that was true.

'I'll admit that I don't. But it's not for her sake, it's for yours. You remind me of someone, and your presence is comforting. I like you, old man, and it would be nice if…', she struggled with how to touch on the very uncomfortable subject. Asa had asked for her help, but it seemed more and more likely she would have to put the woman down than reunite her with the small man.

'If you did not have to take my daughter from me', he finished for her. Not having to choose the words herself did not make them any easier. She frowned sincerely and gave him a slow nod.

'That would bring me no joy.'

'You won't. I'm not afraid of that. Otherwise, I would not share this truth with you.'

'If she were the beast, I could not allow her to live.'

'The beast is already dead. She is only Riven.'

'She never was the beast. What makes you think she was? A valley? Her appearance? The first lands have many valleys, and the beast is supposed to be monstrous and terrible. Do you see her as such?'

'Of course not', he said. 'Any story is embellished. Her eyes don't glow, and she's obviously not a ghost. But...If you'd seen her when we found her, you would understand.'

'How so?'

Asa's fingertip traced the outer rim of his mug, and he stared into the surface of his tea as he spoke. He seemed far away. 'She was like a dying animal', he said, and it was hard for Irelia to imagine. The woman had seemed almost aggressively alive the day at the Placidium. She had radiated vitality and confidence, and something else Irelia couldn't put her finger on. Irelia simply couldn't forge the picture in her mind. Instead, a sickly wolf with white fur came to her. She frowned at the image she'd conjured.

Asa was still talking. His voice was the texture of parchment. 'Her armour was a wreck; half melted, half shorn, and what was left of it hung off of her like a pair of broken wings. But it was unmistakably Noxian. Somehow the emblem on her shoulder had survived.' He huffed, almost laughed, and Irelia thought she understood why. Where steel gave way, symbols did not.

'She was filthy and starved. Bone and muscle with barely enough skin to hold her together. I think she'd been alone that whole time. Ever since the war. Years, all alone. She couldn't speak to us, or anyone, she didn't have the language yet.' And there it was, Irelia could see the beast. But not as the monster who haunted Coeur Valley. The beast in her mind's eye was just a wolf. It was wretched, skeletal and dirty, but it was just a wolf. It held its tail between its legs and snapped at anyone who came near to help it. It knew no better.

Irelia felt pity for her. She had felt pity for Asa, for he cared for this beast, whether it was a killer or not. But she had never, until then, pitied the woman. She wondered to herself, had it been her instead of Asa who had found the dying Noxian soldier, if she would have put the woman out of her misery.

'I'd never seen someone so deprived of their own humanity.'

'That doesn't make her a ghost or a beast.'

'Indeed, she is neither. But she's been called worse just for carrying wheat to market. Whoever she was before, they died in that valley. Who she is now is my daughter, but that's not what people see when they look at her. And I want you to understand that.'

'Why?'

'Because I am telling you the truth,' he said. Irelia's brow creased. 'And I don't want the truth to cloud your heart. I know who my daughter was.'

You truly don't, she thought, but she was beginning to doubt how true that was.

'Then, there's more? It's not just her appearance and a few mentions of some valley.' And, as she feared he would, Asa nodded.

'She carried a weapon; a broken sword.' Irelia held her breath. 'And I tell you, with no embellishment, that just the piece that remained attached to the handle was bigger than I-.'

'Stop', Irelia said with a raised hand. Her blades surrounded her flattened palm like a shield against his words. She closed her eyes and turned her face from him. 'If you want her to live, you must stop. No matter what you believe about her, if she truly is who you say, she is beyond redemption. The beast of Shon-Xan is just a ghost, and it must remain so.'

'Why? Noxians deserted and defected all through the war. There are entire villages of them in the South, why should Riven be any different?'

'They are not the same.' Irelia could hear her own exasperation, 'They live in our Southern provinces because they didn't push further. She- the beast isn't like them. Shon-Xan is in the North! Coeur Valley is the furthest any Noxian ever made it into our lands. Before falling in that valley, the soldier who became the beast pushed and pushed until they could push no more. If it's her, she's too dangerous. She cannot return to Noxus.'

Asa's eyes were thin, but his brow was relaxed, he didn't look angry. There was interest on his face again, though it came with a frown.

'What do you know of that soldier?' he asked. And, with a sigh, Irelia relented. If it would help him to understand, she would tell the story. She placed her hand to her chest to measure her heartbeat and willed it to slow. She knew that it was a topic she did not always handle gracefully.

'The soldier', she began, adopting the silently agreed-upon term, 'was the leader of a war band. A big one, more than three hundred strong. They cut a path so far beyond the lines of battle that at some point they stopped receiving supplies, reports, and even orders. Noxus attacked from the South, no other Noxian made it to Shon-Xan, only them.' Irelia paused. She felt her chin wrinkling and her chest tightening.

The war band had made it so, so far. She had never crossed paths with them during the war, but she could not help filling in the blanks with her own experience. How many villages and towns had ended up like hers had? How many families? She looked to Asa.

Asa, who stood to lose his family for a second time, was looking back at her with sympathy and compassion. She recomposed herself, took a deep breath, and continued.

'They never slowed. At first, we thought it was just Noxian madness. Bloodlust and recklessness. What else could push a unit of only three hundred soldiers so far out of position? But then we tried to surround them.' The old man reached across the table and gave her hand a brief but reassuring squeeze before letting go. She appreciated it.

'In life, the beast led that band, whatever they were. They were infamous and tenacious. If your Riven truly is one of them, then you have no idea the danger you have housed.'

'Fury Company', Asa said, 'that's what they were called.' Irelia's mouth fell open and her words escaped before she could measure them.

'You knew.' She was incredulous. Her face and throat tightened. 'You knew all along! That she was a murderer! That they were right to condemn her! And you came to me anyway!', she shouted across the table. Asa frowned at her, but all she saw in the softness of his expression was betrayal. Irelia shut her eyes to keep him out.

'Blade dancer-'

'I am sorry', she said as she held her hand up to silence the old man. She could feel tears welling as she spoke, 'she is too dangerous, she cannot return to Noxus'. Irelia stood. 'Thank you for the tea', she said as she walked to the door. In her ears, her heartbeat sounded like war drums.

A/N: Annnnnnnnnnd boom! Who saw that coming?

I deleted seven thousand words from this scene alone. I hope that the result is satisfying to read! It's thick with double meanings and parallels. (And has just a liiiiittle lust in it, ha)

Sorry again for the long wait. Chapter 6-2 shouldn't take nearly as long.

Cheers!