a warning fallen on deaf ears

Lux had trouble sleeping at night. She didn't dare to close her eyes for too long, because she was afraid of the pictures she would see if she allowed her head to have its way with her – and when she finally glided into darkness, just hours before she'd have to get up, Katarina was there again, whispering, her skin hot against Lux'.

Making her burn.

Waking up wasn't pleasant. Realizing what she had dreamt about was even worse.
It was rather ridiculous, how detailed her dream about the other woman had been. It wasn't as if Lux had any real experience with making out – or other things – to begin with, so whatever her brain was coming up was probably her own, inaccurate fantasy.

Really, it was embarrassing. Some part of her wanted the dreams about the war back. At least, all the death had really happened, she had every reason to remember the horrors of war with every sense her body. She had actually smelled the battlefield, felt the cold mud on her arms, heard the screams and the explosions. And what if she woke up screaming from time to time? She had the right to need time to get over the past.
She had no right to dream about Katarina like she did, especially not as detailed as her last dream had been, vivid and bright like a memory. It made her feel disgusted with herself.

Monday mornings, Lux decided while downing her second cup of coffee, were created by the devil himself.

Garen, who was silently sitting across the table and looked just as miserable as she felt, seemed to agree.

She had planned to grill him about his fight with Katarina, but right now, with the mental image of his fiancée moaning under her touch, she couldn't quite bring herself to question him. Instead, Lux flipped though the papers she had requested months ago, when she had first played with the thought of going back into personal protection. After the doctor had told her that she could stop resting, because it obviously didn't do anything for her amnesia.

Her old general, a man called Cadmus Laurent whom she held utter respect for, had talked to the crown for her when she had told him she played with the thought to go back to her old job after the war, and she still owed him a drink for it. The papers were different jobs she thought of applying for. One of them was protecting the crown prince during his tour through various parts of Demacia and a few surrounding villages, and General Laurent had written her a small note on it – apparently Jarvan the fourth would be more than happy to have a Crownguard in his personal guard.

If she took the job, it would mean returning to her career with a bang. It would also mean that most of the free time she had right now would swiftly disappear. Maybe it was for the best, considering she spent her free time pining after her brother's fiancée right now.

"So, you're really doing this, Lux?"
Garen eyed the document in her hands. She nodded, mentally preparing herself for an argument she didn't want to have.

"You know dad won't like it?"
Lux gritted her teeth. 'Dad won't like it'? Garen might phrase it like this, but she knew exactly what he meant with his words. Her brother didn't approve much more of it then their father did. While Garen knew her better, knew she had a right to be the person she was and knew that fighting with her over it would lead nowhere, that didn't change his opinion on it.

Her brother had always been old-fashioned. Not in the suffocation, patronizing way her father was, but Garen believed that traditions were traditions because they proposed a way for society to function that was superior to other ways. He believed that there was a natural order and that obeying it was the best for everybody in the long run.

He understood that joining the military hadn't been avoidable for Lux, and he was well aware that there had been no other choice than to let her fight in the war if their family wanted to save face, but when Lux had had the option to leave the military and hadn't seized it, he had been confused. The fact that Lux simply found no joy in what society deemed appropriate careers for noble woman was alien to him.

And Lux knew that her brother just worried about her, because she was different, and because he believed that straying from tradition was dangerous, but when she looked at him and saw the irritated look in his face it still stung.

She had long given up finding any kind of approval from her parents, but Garen, who had been there with her though years of military training, who had spent half his life watching her be the person she wanted to be … His opinion had always mattered.

"I don't really care about what dad likes."

"You should. He is the head of the family." Garen's face looked worried, and Lux had to fight really hard to not get mad at him. It was just impossible to argue with somebody whose only response ever had been 'I can't stop you, but I believe you're making a mistake and I love you enough to wait for you to come back to your senses, and I pray you don't hurt yourself until you do.'

"Well, I am of age. What's the worst thing he can possibly do to me? Kick me out?", she retorted instead.

"He can shun you from society. He can cut you off from the family." Lux thought about how General Laurent personally recommended her and found herself politely disagreeing with Garen. From everything she knew, the Laurent family had had quite the scandal a few years ago, when one of their daughters had refused an arranged marriage and had battled her father to death over it. Said woman was now head of the family, and Cadmus had once called her his favorite grandniece.

Personally, Lux thought that this had something to do with the way that Cadmus had always stood up for the few woman in the military. Garen, however, had no idea that she was on first name basis with their old general. It was a valuable connection to have.

"And I'd he does? We made names for us in the war. Neither of us relies on dad any longer."
There was no way she would tell Garen about Cadmus Laurent.

"I worry about you."

"You don't have to, though."

"Lux, please. I don't want to lose you. Can't you tone it down a little bit?"

He snatched the other sheets of paper from her hand and started flipping through them. Lux watched him, trying very hard not to be disappointed. Garen was trying to find a compromise between them, and she should be happy that he was even making the effort. I don't want to lose you – you don't have to, she wanted to answer. Neither of us are controlled by our parents. But she knew better than to start that conversation again.

"Look, here, this job – Kaede Lee, political refugee from Noxus. She's a few years older than you and some kind of specialist mage. She sounds interesting – and she's not the crown prince. It's less of a statement."

Lux grabbed the paper. It wasn't a high-profile job. Mrs. Lee was in hiding because her family had been targeted by a black magic organization from Noxus before, and she was scared for her own life, and that one of her seventeen-year-old half-sister. And she would prefer if she wasn't noticed at all.

So, if Lux chose this job, preferably nobody in high society would ever know. It was hard to not roll her eyes.

"What if a statement is exactly what I want, though?" She dropped the paper back on the staple.

"You'd make yourself a target, Lux. And -"
"Fiora Laurent made herself a target, and last time I looked she seemed to be fine.", Lux interrupted him. Garen had the actual audacity to roll his eyes.

"Yeah, she's just fine. She's also going to die lonely because no man will touch her with a fifty-foot pole."

"Unmarried and lonely are not the -"

"Lux, please. The only reason she was even able to stay in society was because she was willing to murder everybody who tried to stop her. Are you willing to kill our father?"
She shook her head and decided against going on a rant on how Fiora Laurent getting labeled as a murderous lunatic had probably the most unfair thing to happen to anybody lately. She and Garen had been there fighting about it already, and in the end, there was no way changing his opinion – and Lux had learned to pick the battles she was willing to fight wise a while ago. This wasn't one of them.

"You won't stop me from taking the job.", she said eventually, and when Garen wanted to say something, she raised her hand, cut him off. "But enough about me. What's going on with Katarina and you?"

She hadn't meant to ask, she truly hadn't, but if Garen had kept trying to talk her out of going into personal protection for any longer, she might snap at him. And it worked, Garen retreated immediately, she saw his facial expression change from worried to carefully blank.

"We had a minor disagreement." Garen's voice had changed as well, away from the confidence in himself he'd had mere seconds ago. Whatever it had been, it was bothering him greatly, and it was certainly not minor.

"What about?", she asked with raised eyebrows.

"Politics. And before you descend on me again -" Words of truth, Lux had been about raising her voice, "She started the discussion. Told me she refuses to be protected by our guards because every noxian politician can protect themselves, went to the banquet armed, and told me our nobility is useless because they aren't made from fighters. It, kind of, escalated from there."

Lux sighed. Garen had a history of saying unwise things when he felt angry or insulted, and if Katarina really insulted his beloved tradition like this … "What did you say?"

"You see, we kind of started to fight about the war and whose fault it was -" That wasn't anything either of them had any chance of knowing, Lux thought while stopping herself from rolling her eyes, "- and eventually she said that Noxus had to start the war as a display of strength. And well -"

He mumbled something under his breath, and Lux leaned forward over the table.
"Garen, what did you say?"

"I might have suggested that Runeterra might be better off without Noxus starting any more wars because of their philosophy."

"Oh, for fuck's sake -" Lux dropped her head on the table. It was too early, and she'd had way too little coffee to deal with this. "- please don't tell me you gave her a talk about how much noxian moralities are shit and the suggested literal genocide as a solution."

Of course, he had. Garen at least had the decency to look ashamed. Seriously, Lux could see why her father had never attempted to push Garen into diplomacy, because as much as she loved her brother – something, that no amount of fighting about tradition would ever change – he had the tendency to speak without thinking, especially when he was angry.

"Look, I know what I said was tactless -" And incredible stupid and hypocritical, Lux added mentally, "– but Katarina isn't exactly the pinnacle of composure either. She threw a knife at me."

Lux frowned. There were two emotions fighting in her head. The part of her who'd always had Garen's back, who was well aware that without each other neither Garen nor her would have survived the war, wanted to go find Katarina this very moment and tell her kindly that if she ever tried to harm her brother again, Lux would make her regret it bitterly – but the other part of her, the logical one, was mad at Garen. Because, honestly, if Lux had been in Katarina's place, she wouldn't have stayed calm either.

Lux wasn't overly aggressive, and she wouldn't hurt somebody over a disagreement, but if someone actually told her that her family should have died, that all her comrades should have died – Lux wasn't so sure if she would have stuck to her moral code either. Even if – especially if said person was her future spouse.

But this wasn't some hypothetical spouse she was thinking about here. It was her brother, and the idea of somebody throwing a knife at him bothered her greatly. She furrowed her brows.

"Threw a knife? Was she really trying to hurt you?"

Garen shrugged. "Well, she did aim, but I doubt if she really wanted to kill me throwing a knife at my face is the only thing she can do. I mean – she wouldn't be alive anymore if it was, I guess? Mainly she just stared at me like she wanted me to burn on the spot."

Lux sighed and raise her cup of coffee again, just to find it empty. Garen chuckled at her annoyed face.

"Oh, shut it, I'm not nearly awake enough for this.", she growled, no real anger in her voice.
"Look, I'm not defending her throwing a knife -", not at Garen, at least, "- but you should maybe consider apologizing to her for what you said. Maybe start fresh. Try to find some common ground before you stray into 'I think your family should be dead'-territory again?"

"But I wasn't -" Wrong, Garen wanted to say, and Lux found herself disagreeing with him again. She cut him off.

"Garen, it doesn't matter if you're right or not. You guys don't have to fall in love with each other immediately -", the idea hurt, and Lux locked the emotion neatly in an opaque box, closed it and pushed it into the hindmost corner of her mind to never look at again, "- but you're going to spend your life together eventually. Do you really want to spend your first week knowing each other fighting about the war?"

Garen shook his head but didn't say anything. He grabbed the coffee can and refilled both his and Lux' cup, and the silence between them stretched thinner and thinner. Eventually, he groaned frustrated, and his next words sounded pained.

"I just don't know how, okay? I tried to make small-talk and look how it escalated. I don't even know her, and she hates me. Before, I could barely get a word out of her that wasn't a freaking one-syllabus-answer. How am I even supposed to find any common ground with someone who doesn't even talk to me?"

The the one-million-gold question that Lux didn't have an answer to either – How? Because besides the fact that the Katarina she had met had talked quite a lot, neither Garen nor her had even been in a relationship. The fact that this discussion was even shifting in a direction where she tried to give her brother advice was laughable at best. Maybe pathetic would be a better word for it.

"She seemed to enjoy your dances on the banquet. Maybe you can start there somewhere?", she proposed rather helplessly.

"Not as much as she enjoyed dancing with you, though."

For a second, Lux heart stopped. There was no way Garen could have realized how she had stared at Katarina, right? "What do you mean?"

But the anger that should be in Garen's voice if he really had realized that something in the way Lux had looked at Katarina in a wrong way was missing. "Oh, she was just rather stiff when we were dancing earlier that evening. With you she looked more relaxed. Although", he shrugged, "she'd had drunken a few more glasses wine at that point, so that might've been it."

And while Garen just sipped on his coffee with a resigned look on his face, Lux calmed down considerably. He was probably right, Katarina had warmed up considerably over the course of the evening – hell, Lux was sure that the way they had danced in the end had been a tad too close, and being drunk was the most likely explanation for that. But Lux hadn't been under the impression that the other woman had been drunk, not really. Sure, she'd had drunken quite a lot of wine – in fact, Lux hadn't seen her drink anything else, which was concerning if she thought about it – but at no point during the evening she had seemed drunk.

"Okay, no dancing. Maybe start with an apology?", she eventually said, and Garen looked at her with a hint of defiance in his eyes. Lux raised her hand before he could give a talk about how he wasn't going to apologize for being right.

"You say she's angry, right? It's probably because what you said hurt her. Doesn't matter if it was the truth, but sometimes you have to be diplomatically."

"Can't you speak to her, then? You're the better one at being diplomatic out of us."

Lux raised her eyebrows. "You are aware that you're the one who's engaged to her?"

She could see what he thought about it in the furrowing of his eyebrows, in the frustrated sight, could hear the words he wouldn't say because it wasn't proper – her brother didn't want to be engaged to Katarina DuCouteau, not like this. He wanted a fun, happy marriage, wanted to come home to a loving wife and multiple children. Wanted to decorate homes and watch fireworks together and bake pies for each other.

Back then, when they had been children, Garen had felt free enough to tell her those things, to swoon over sappy movies and tell her how he wanted his first date to be a candlelight dinner. Sometimes Lux wished that they were still this honest with each other as they had been before the war, when Garen hadn't searched for comfort in tradition yet. When he could still admit that what his father wanted wasn't always the same as what he wanted.

Now, Garen would deny all those things, but in his eyes, she could still see it, how being engaged to somebody he barely knew had somehow crushed what had still been left of his dreams of romance. She rested his hand on his.

"You guys will sort this out, I'm sure of it. You're not the only couple ever to have a rocky start. There are a lot of arranged marriages that make both parties happy in the end. Some just need more work than others."

Garen made a sound that sounded like a dry laugh. "Well, then I'm sure Katarina and I are about to set a new record on how much work we'd have to put into our marriage to be happy."

When she responded, Lux forced her voice to be light. "You've always been a hard worker, though, so this should be home territory for you."

For a second, Garen seemed to be unsure how to react, then he smiled. "Okay.", he said, dropping his hand on on the table. "I'll just get her flowers until she starts talking to me again."

Lux wasn't sure if this was actually a good idea, but she didn't voice her opinion on it. It was better than sulking sleep-deprived in the kitchen, at least. Once her brother had at least started to try, he could always adjust his methods.

An hour later, Garen had left to search for a florist that opened early and Lux started her daily routine of training.

Katarina's face was hard as she watched Talon gather the few thing's he had brought with him to Demacia. Her father and he would leave in the evening – Marcus DuCouteau had business to attend to, and Talon was rather uncomfortable to know that Cassiopeia was alone right now. Still, she wished he would stay.

It was a selfish thought, of course, because her sister needed protection way more than her – she was ill, after all – but she couldn't stop herself from thinking it. It was also unfair, because even if Talon wanted, he had no choice but to leave – Demacia had only allowed his presence as Marcus DuCouteaus protection. And yet, some part of her still resented her for leaving her behind, for going back to Noxus. She closed her eyes and tried to stop her anger from bubbling to the surface, anger at the world, anger at her life. Anger at him.

Talon seemed to notice it anyways, or maybe they just known each other for long enough that he simply knew what she was feeling, because every now and then he glanced at her worried.
"I'll visit as soon as I can.", he said, and she just shrugged. She didn't trust any words to come from her throat right now.

After the war, she had expected that the worst was over, that she would actually get the chance to rebuilt what had been shattered. Of course, certain things weren't reversable – Riven would stay dead, her mother would stay gone, Cassiopeia would stay loyal to everyone but their family – but she had expected to at least get some time to attempt repairing what could be repaired.

She had been wrong.

Riven had once told her that everybody wanted something from their life, had some kind of abstract goal they intended to reach before the end. Some people wanted to be rich or famous, others wanted respect, or love, or recognition. Riven herself had wanted to make a name for herself, to be more than a face in the crowd, more than a nameless soldier.

Katarina had never been able to name a goal herself. Everything had felt hollow. She was already rich, and it hadn't made her happy. She was already famous, and it just made her a more likely target for muggers. And how could she expect respect or recognition from her family, when everybody was way too busy with their own drama?

And love? She had stopped wanting things that were impossible when Riven had died in her arms in the war. It had felt fitting, as if her dead hadn't only put an end to her own dreams, but also to Katarina's. It still did.

Right now, if Katarina wanted something, it would be peace of mind, the mercy of not having to think about how her life had gone down the drain.

Talon dropped his suit in his case and closed it, and Katarina thought of getting drunk again. At least, alcohol would let her forget a few hours, would dull the sharp pain she felt. But as much as she wanted, she needed control right now. It wouldn't do to act on impulses again, not when the last time she had done so had gotten her dangerously close to Lux.

The thought about Sona being just a few dozens of meters away from her filled her with hot rage. She had become stronger, Talon had said, had worked on her magic for a change, build up on her talent for telepathy and became a mental magician. And, Katarina got it, really, because becoming strong was something she usually supported, but this was Sona they were speaking about. The girl who had estranged her sister from the family. The girl who was supposed to be dead.

And now she was close to the Crownguard family. It was like fate was playing some sick kind of joke on her, because Katarina had watched history repeat itself often enough already.
She refused to be wary of Sona, because that would mean accepting her existence and Katarina wasn't willing to do so. But she would not be caught in the same situation as Talon had been in the evening before, so she vowed herself to check rooms for active magical signatures before entering them.

Because if Talon was right, Sona had gotten her act together in the last eight years, and had stopped acting like a pushover, hiding behind stronger people's backs, and that made her a danger.

A knock on the window pulled Katarina out of her thoughts, and when she looked up, Talon had already opened it and pulled a bird in. It was a raven, Katarina realized with dread, such as her sister used. Talon handling it with more gentleness than she saw him handle anything else confirmed her suspicion.

"What does Cass want?", she asked when Talon opened the paper that had been attached to the raven's foot. Her voice came out angrier than she wanted, but Talon didn't flinch – he was used to her moods after all the years after all.

He didn't answer immediately, and as he read, she watched him furrow his eyebrows. Then, he grabbed the paper so hard it ripped. Finally, he looked up.

"She's sending her congratulations for your engagement.", he said. "And she's advising you to stop whatever you are doing, because last night a crack appeared in her crystal orb."

"What does she- ", Katarina started before cutting herself off when she understood. Of course.

"I guess it's about Lux.", Talon responded, face blank. Katarina nodded numbly; she had come to the same conclusion.

"I haven't done anything yesterday. I haven't even talked to her. This is -", unfair and cruel shot though her head. She didn't deserve this. Talon didn't respond, just dropped his hand on her shoulder.

After a few seconds, he spoke, voice careful. "Maybe, this isn't a sign that you did something. Maybe it's just Cassiopeia getting … weaker. She's been bad for a while now."

"So, the orb is going to shatter anyway when she dies?"

Talon flinched at the word and his hand disappeared from her shoulder. "If, you mean. We aren't even sure if the curse will really kill her."

"Yeah, it just killed the last, what, twenty people it was used on and the only person to ever survive it became a mindless monster?", she spat frustrated and Talon ripped the paper in smaller pieces. "I'd say that it's pretty sure that she will die."

"She and LeBlanc are the two best black mages in Noxus, they'll figure out how to reverse it."

"You know as much as I do that LeBlanc told her she's out of ideas a few months ago and Cass is just reading old fairytales for clues. If they knew how to reverse the curse, they'd done so a year ago. At this point we can probably be glad if we don't have to be the ones who end her."

Talon wordlessly threw the pieces of paper in the fireplace and watched them burn, and Katarina wanted to take back what she'd said. He didn't deserve her snapping at him, he was suffering enough even though Talon usually didn't show many emotions. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "It's okay."

His eyes didn't meet hers, and Katarina knew it wasn't. What she said in her anger and frustration had hurt him, but it was the truth. And hadn't it always been like this between them, spouting off painful truths and watching each other fall, united in their helplessness?

He'd watched her though the war, though her one-sided love for Riven, though the grieve when Riven had fallen. He'd watch her now, getting married to the last person in Runeterra she wanted to get married to. And in exchange, she'd watched him falling for her sister, and not allowing himself to reach for her because he wasn't a suitable match. She'd watched him deny his feelings for years, pushing Cassiopeia further and further away and hurting every step of it.

And now, they would watch her die together.

The silence between them was loud. Katarina wanted to cover her ears, but it wouldn't keep the thoughts out.

"Write me about how Cass really is once you are home, will you?", she pressed out eventually, when it became unbearable. "We both know she won't tell me how she's really feeling."

Talon nodded, and with some weird semblance of finality, he closed his suitcase. The metal lock snapped into place with a loud clicking sound, and suddenly Katarina understood that this really was a goodbye. The next time they'd see each other was either Katarina's marriage or Cassiopeia's funeral.

When he stood up, she grabbed his arm, pulled him close. For a second, his face was just centimeters away from his, and she remembered the nights they'd spent together. Pretending to be somebody else, for each other, to keep the pain at bay for just a few hours. Being each other's second choice, each other's replacement for the person they really wanted.

Pretending to be content with it.

She knew every inch of his body, and he knew hers, and yet, they had never thought about them, not since their first night, when he had whispered Cassiopeia's name.

Still, his smell was comfort. She wanted to beg him to stay, to make her forget the world, but she couldn't – Talon wouldn't do it, after all. Not only because he had been ordered to leave, but also to go back to Cassiopeia. She was his first choice, after all.

'You know you will never have her, don't you?', Katarina had once asked him, a few years ago, after they'd both had one to many drinks. 'She won't just randomly wake up and decide to run away with you. If you stay as her bodyguard, you will watch her marry. Do you really want to stand guard in front of her door while she fucks somebody else? It will break you.'
'If that's what it takes to stay a part of her life, I'll break.', Talon had answered, and Katarina had wondered what hurt more, to love somebody who was long dead or somebody who was alive.

Right when she wanted to step back, he pulled her into a short embrace, squeezed her body awkwardly for a second. When he pulled back, she could see the same pain in his eyes. "Be kind to yourself, okay?", he whispered.

Katarina thought about daggers, about alcohol, about spending ages out in the cold on purpose. Her thoughts flickered back to the scars at her hip, about blood running down her skin the night Riven died, about Talon who had stopped her from cutting deeper. When her father had asked her for them, she had responded that they were battle scars. It wasn't a lie, not really.

"I'll give my best.", she responded, hugging him back.

When he left, she didn't follow him. She had said her father goodbye hours ago, and Katarina wasn't sure if she would have been able to watch the carriage leave.

When Garen asked, if she was okay later, she just nodded. She declined the invitation to eat with Lux and him, because she seriously doubted that she would be able keep anything of substance down. Later, when she passed by the entry of Lux' suite, she got as far as putting her hand on the door handle before she froze.

'Last night a crack appeared in her crystal orb.'

She stepped back as if the handle had burned her, turned around and left for her room, that was still mercifully far away from both Garen's and Lux'. Yet.

There was a bottle of whiskey somewhere in her closet, and she stared at it for a second.

'Be kind to yourself.'

Right now, a few hours of not-thinking were the only kindness she could give herself.