Hi again! Thank you for the all the follows, favorites and reviews/PMs for the last chapter. Now on to this one.
Disclaimer: All characters and places mentioned belong to Riot.
Warning: This story includes a lot of bad language (there's Katarina in it, duh). If you feel offended by obscenities, please do not read this chapter.
All Things Considered
Chapter 6: Close Calls
The first thing that roused Katarina from her fitful slumber was the stray ray of sunlight that hit her directly in the face.
It took her but a few seconds to notice there was something more - namely, the numbness in her butt and legs from sitting in the remote space of the cart platform and the other numbness in her shoulder from supporting a certain blonde head for what had to be a few hours. Fighting back the urge to jump onto the rail tracks below, she scooted as far away as she possibly could - which wasn't much more than a few inches to her left. Lux merely adjusted, and was now leaning on the Noxian even harder than before.
With an angry sigh, Katarina averted her eyes back to the railway. Events of the previous night came surging back into her memory; the rushed, impromptu idea of jumping onto a train was plain ridiculous, now that she was able to judge it at least semi-objectively, and she blamed the Demacian girl for that. Spending so much time with Crownguard has really affected her ability to think clearly.
The world around them was becoming lighter with every passing second. Shadowy shapes dotted the vast, green landscape as far as her eyes could reach, and before long she distinguished them as lone trees; to her right, above Lux's head, she could see what seemed to be a small town a few miles away from the tracks, and with some amusement she realized she could spot a herd of cows or horses grazing the grass beside one of the biggest buildings. When she moved her head to the left, there was nothing but endless fields of gold.
The train entered a smooth turn without slowing down considerably, and the picture before her eyes changed but a bit. The first glimpse of the white city walls surprised her - it seemed they spurted right out of the fields, though in reality she knew there had to be miles of plains between them. Before long, the first buildings came into view - guard posts on the walls, then a tall, sharp spire of what had to be a church— or maybe some kind of a city hall. As the first turrets of the castle resting upon a hill registered in her brain, she was aware of what she was looking at.
Demacia. The train was running at full speed towards Demacia.
"Crownguard!" She elbowed the younger girl in the ribs, earning nothing but a groan in response. Katarina didn't have time for this; she gripped the blonde's shoulder tightly and shook her without mercy. "Wake the fuck up!"
"I'm awake, I'm awake!" Lux screamed back at her as soon as her eyes snapped open. "What the—" she stopped mid-sentence, looking above Katarina's shoulder. Color drained from her face as she pointed her finger in the general direction. "D-Demacia?"
Katarina was about to make a connection to the older Demacian sibling, but now was not the time for sarcastic comments.
"Yeah, Demacia," she said irritably, snapping her fingers before the blonde's face to gain back her attention. "We need to get off."
Lux gulped. She got to her knees and half-dragged herself to the edge of the cart's wall, then, very carefully, peeked around the corner.
"It doesn't look like we're stopping anytime soon," she shouted over the roar of wind as they rode at what had to be the train's top speed. Lux turned around to look at Katarina, not even trying to mask the terror on her face. Getting into Demacia illegally on a cargo train, with a Noxian, with a bounty issued for both of them was not an option. There wasn't even a way for her to talk her way out of this, not without Katarina holding a knife to her throat for everyone to see - which she somehow doubted the older girl would be willing to do, considering the consequences. "What do we—"
"We need to get off," Katarina repeated, slowly, looking the Demacian straight in the eye. For a brief moment, Lux had no idea what she was talking about; then, it hit her like a train.
"You want to jump!?" she screamed, her voice so high-pitched she sounded like a dying squirrel.
When Katarina just held her gaze, Lux felt color leaving her face once again. The train ran past some kind of a pole at the side of the tracks so quickly that she barely registered it. They were going fast, really fast. And when she looked down, a mound similar to the one they climbed on last night held the rails; the similarity ended with size, though, as this one seemed to be at least twice as tall, if not more.
"We're gonna die," she just said quietly, so quietly that she was almost certain Katarina wouldn't hear her over the clatter of the wheels against steel tracks.
"We're not." Against all odds, the older girl did hear her. Lux watched as the Noxian's eyes darted from place to place, probably searching for the best opportunity to exit their ride. With a sigh, Katarina got closer to her, so she could speak directly into Lux's ear. "Listen, it's only a matter of falling properly. You need to roll off the mound smoothly, not just dive head-first."
Despite her better judgment, Lux felt her head nod in understanding.
"Good," Katarina said, as if Lux just said she agreed to the crazy plan. "You'll go first—"
"What, why— no!"
"Yes," Katarina almost hissed in a very Cassiopeia-like way. "You first. I have a feeling that if I go first, you'll just stay here until you arrive in the city."
Lux gulped down; Katarina was right. If the Noxian went first, Lux would stay glued to the place, paralyzed with fear. She never shared that with people, but she was terribly afraid of heights - and being in motion, at high speed didn't calm her down at all.
As she stared at the passing railway like some endless abyss, she felt a strong hand grip her shoulder and shake her a bit.
"You okay?" Katarina sounded almost... concerned, if Lux didn't know better. One look at her indifferent face was enough to set the Demacian back on a proper track, so to say. "Listen, I get you're afr—"
"I'm not," she cut in sharply. Of course she was afraid, but she didn't need Katarina to know about it.
Still, she found some odd reassurance in the fact that the Noxian was still holding her arm.
"Okay then." Katarina's right brow went up, but she didn't comment in any other way. "Try to roll sideways, that way you'd probably receive less impact damage. I'll throw your bag right after you, the fucking saucepan could probably break your hip if you had it with you."
Again, Lux nodded her head, fighting back the nausea. She positioned herself at the break in the cart's railing, facing sideways to the train's wall. The mound looked steeper on the left side, so of course she chose the right one - which, sadly, ended in some bushes. She could only hope there were no thorns.
"Ready?" Katarina asked, then changed the placement of her hand from Lux's arm to the Demacian's back - and the blonde was almost sure that if she hesitated, Katarina would just push her out.
"Y-yeah."
"Alright. Go."
And, just like that, Lux jumped off the train.
The following seconds seemed like eternity - an eternity in which she was floating, endlessly, caught between the wooden ramp of the train's cart and the hard, vicious ground that wanted to kill her. For a brief moment she really regretted not standing up prior to her jump, and instead going from her knees - maybe, had she stood up, she could propel herself further and avoid the freaking steel rails. Those things were bound to break her anything if she hit them, and she just wished that it wouldn't be her head.
But, somehow, as she neared the ground, she avoided the tracks - there was no time to cheer, though, as the very next moment her left side hit the gravel of the mound and she had to grit her teeth not to scream in pain as she was sure she dislocated her shoulder. She covered her head with her arms on instinct, then closed both her eyes and mouth tightly as she felt sand and gravel in her face. Then, next thing she knew, she was rolling off the mound - like a very big, awkward ball with protruding elements.
Before she even had time to register it, she reached the bottom of the slope and landed safely in the bushes, her bag following close behind, hitting her square in the stomach. She survived, and was now blinking her eyes in surprise and bewilderment.
The sound of the train went further away as another thing rolled off the mound, hitting the bushes a few tens of yards away from Lux.
With some caution and dizziness, she sat up, clutching the bag to her chest - then, a wave of panic surged through her as she realized two blood-freezing things. First, her baton was not tied to her bag; second, Katarina was still lying in the place where she hit the bushes, not moving.
Lux scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could and - with some enthusiasm - she noted that nothing was wrong with her body. Sure, she was sore in a few places, especially her shoulder that didn't seem to be dislocated after all, but still hurt as hell. She was certain there was a nasty scratch on the side of her face, but other than that, she didn't damage herself half as bad as she thought she would.
Katarina, on the other hand, was lying still on her back. From the distance Lux could tell the Noxian was breathing, but for all the blonde knew she could be unconscious or dying.
She jogged up to the lifeless body and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Katarina's eyes were open.
"Are you fine?" she asked, panting; she might have not ran that much, but she had every reason to be tired.
Katarina made an attempt to nod her head and hissed in pain.
"I hit my neck hard," she grumbled. "There was some fucking bump on my way."
Lux looked over to where a trail of disturbed gravel marked Katarina's downhill path; true to the Noxian's words, she could see a bigger rock protruding out of the mound just at the edge of where Katarina's body passed.
"I'm sorry," she said, while extending her hand to the lying girl. With a few seconds hesitation, Katarina grabbed it firmly and almost dragged Lux to the ground while trying to sit up herself.
"Why?" she huffed, touching a hand to the back of her head. "Why the hell do people say that? It's not your damned fault."
"I don't know," Lux admitted, her eyes fixed on the Noxian's neck. She knelt down beside the older girl and gingerly placed a hand upon Katarina's shoulder. "Do you mind if I take a look?"
For a brief moment, she feared Katarina might snap at her; but, after a while, the redhead only let out a defeated sigh and moved her hair aside.
Lux's eyes immediately found the hurt place; right at the base of Katarina's head, at the right side of the back of her neck, there was a reddened spot that was slowly swelling as the Demacian watched. It was surely going to leave a very nasty bruise, but there didn't seem to be any permanent damage to her muscles - or worse, bones.
"I'm gonna apply some pressure to your neck now," she warned.
"Go ahead," Katarina huffed in response. "But I can't promise I'm not going to put a knife through your hand if it hurts more than it should."
With a gulp - and trying hard to ignore the threat - Lux found a corresponding spot on the other side of Katarina's spine. She pushed down on it, watching as the assassin's tendons flexed under pressure. Then, she made an attempt to repeat it in the wounded place, but stopped as soon as she heard the older girl hiss in pain. Instead, she moved her hand back to Katarina's right shoulder and pressed down with as much force as she dared.
"What are you doing?" Katarina asked, but her voice was curious more than it was angry.
"I'm checking whether your muscles are damaged, or if it's just superficial—"
"And I was supposed to scream in agonizing pain if it was the muscle thing?"
"Well... yeah," she admitted, getting back in front of the other girl. "Pretty much so. It was a wild guess."
"Good thing you were right, or else I might have killed you." Lux rolled her eyes while Katarina smirked. She tried moving her head from side to side and, though with some difficulties, she managed to do so - it really was no internal damage, just a very bad abrasion.
Meanwhile, Lux stared at the bag she now had in her lap; she should probably go and search for her baton, maybe it got detached from the strap and was now lying somewhere on the mound—
"By the way," Katarina interrupted her thoughts, "here."
She placed Lux's baton in the Demacian's lap, on top of the bag.
"Th-thank you," Lux stuttered, disbelief both audible in her voice and visible in her eyes.
Katarina cared enough for her weapon not to throw it off the train like that. Scratch that, she cared enough to carry it on her, probably inside her coat, even though she most likely had to hold it with her hand—
Lux's eyes widened even more as she realized it was probably the reason why Katarina didn't cover her head and neck properly. One of her hands was occupied.
"Alright, break over," the Noxian said as she stood up, dusting off her pants. Lux followed suit mechanically, still deep in thought over Katarina's actions. "There's a town some six or seven miles away behind those bushes. We can try to get closer."
oOOo
"I'm pretty sure they will know who we are."
They stood on a dirt road leading to the town, looking down on a stray piece of parchment; precisely, a torn piece of parchment depicting Katarina's chin sticking from under a hood, adorned with a Wanted: Arina Steelblade title.
"We're so lucky we didn't get to come in the town before we saw this," Lux continued, crouching down to pick the poster up.
"What, you're taking souvenirs now?" Katarina huffed, kicking off a tiny pebble that was apparently in the wrong place on the road.
Lux nodded her head, sticking the torn parchment inside her pocket. "That, and removing clues, too," she said. When Katarina shot her a half-angry, half-confused look, she continued, "you know, if there was somebody only traveling through the town, they might not notice the posters on notice boards. Would be really bad if they did notice them on the road."
An irritated sigh was Katarina's only response.
"So what do we do now?" Lux asked after a while, looking in the town's direction. They were still, thankfully, too far away from it to be noticed by a normal citizen that wasn't trying to spot newcomers - and the town didn't seem like one to have armed guards at the gates, waiting to search anyone coming. But to head North, they'd probably have to take a roundabout.
"You really like that question, don't you?"
"I really like to test my solution against yours," Lux said, looking Katarina straight in the eye. "Look, the way I see it, we need to make a rather big detour to be sure that they won't see us. I thought you might have some other, better plans."
There, that was the word that Katarina needed; Lux figured out some time ago that the best way to get the Noxian to cooperate was to give her a competition. Katarina always had to be better, so of course she'd need to come up with something brilliant now.
The redhead turned to face the town again. The Sun was high in the sky - it was almost noon, and the day was turning much warmer than the previous ones, especially since they left the marshy lands of Kaladoun and were now in the plains of central Demacia. Spring was blooming and, despite the nights still being almost as chilly as in the Winter, the days didn't require coats and capes anymore. Yet here they were, two suspicious looking women, hiding their faces under heavy hoods. If nobody recognized them, they would arrest them anyway just for being creepy.
But the town was big and surrounded by plains, with only a vague outline of some hills and woods on the other side of where they stood now. To circle it unnoticed, they'd have to move in a miles-long radius... it could take days.
"Let's walk through the city," Katarina said at last.
Lux gave her an incredulous look. "I said better, not insane."
"I know what you said," Katarina growled. Okay, so maybe Lux did cross the line with the last comment, but she couldn't stop herself. Walking through the city was sure to bring them the unwanted attention. "I also know that you can turn invisible, Light Mage."
Lux was at a loss of words for a couple of seconds.
"Not in broad daylight," she started after a while, pointing her hand to the Sun shining happily down upon them. "And I've never tried to cover anybody else but me."
"I'm not crazy," Katarina huffed, and the smirk re-entered her face. "I wouldn't trust you that much. What we need is some basic masking, just like you said you did with those guards at the border."
The memories of that night came back to Lux and a wave of guilt twisted her insides.
"That was a different case," she said hurriedly, before Katarina could develop that idea any further. "And besides, it was dark there, and dark equals easier to play with light—"
"Shouldn't very bright light be better?"
Lux thought about what the Noxian said for a second; very bright light was very useful, but—
"It is the best for blinding," she admitted, fighting back the scowl that threatened to enter her face. "But blinding is... rather tricky. There's a very thin line between just temporary dazzling and permanent eye damage—"
"So? Who cares?"
"—and besides, the people will notice there's something wrong if everybody goes blind for some unexplained reason," she finished through gritted teeth. Damn, she wanted to punch Katarina for that comment. Even though she knew the Noxian would probably hit her back twice as hard.
"They don't need to go blind," Katarina huffed in that annoying way again, and Lux felt her eye twitch. "All we need is for them not to notice our faces as we pass the city."
For a moment, Lux considered what the Noxian said. She could well mask them so that the light would reflect off them, making it hard for the people to look at them without having the need to avert their eyes - something she actually liked to do when she was younger to mess with the housemaids. However, it would work at long distance, but had someone come closer...
"What if anyone wants to greet us?"
"Greet?"
It was the most disturbed she'd ever heard Katarina sound; the Noxian didn't even manage to mask the surprise on her face as her right brow shot up so high it almost touched her hairline, and Lux was once again left to wonder if the older girl was even able to move the other eyebrow at all.
"Well— yeah?" Lux half-nodded her head, confused with Katarina's behavior. "Like, you know, approach us and say hello, maybe even ask where we're headed—"
"Why?"
The Noxian regained control over her face and her expression went back to a more toned one, but there was still apparent disbelief in both her eyes and voice. Lux felt a major sigh build up in her lungs.
"Cause it's a normal thing to do," she said, shoulders slumped down in defeat. After a second thought, she added, "at least in Demacia."
It had to be a Noxian thing, it always led back to Noxus when it came to Katarina. It was sad to think about it, but maybe the people in Noxus didn't greet themselves after all - and judging by Katarina's quiet, surprised huh, it might have well been the deal.
"Alright, I can do it," Lux continued after a few moments of silence, as she watched the Sun climb to the highest position on the sky. "They'll just think the Sun's directly behind us when they look our way, and we'll just have to hope nobody comes close enough to see through the fraud."
It was reckless, dangerous and just plain stupid - but then again, the past few days were all a blur of these adjectives to Lux.
"But we'll have to wear our hoods down, so they don't see shadowed figures in cloaks when it's so warm outside."
oOOo
So far, halfway through the city, nobody paid much attention to them.
Getting through the gates was what Lux feared the most - but it turned out to be a simple task any toddler could do. The guards were either completely not interested in their job or not there at all, as nobody even stopped them with a simple hello. The blonde figured there must have been a lot of visitors in the city, considering it was close enough to Demacia for the merchants to stop, so people just didn't care about anyone passing through the gates anymore.
It was just so Demacian it made her scowl involuntarily; after spending months at the Institute of War and mingling with people of other nations and fractions, she'd come to learn just how trusting the Demacians were when inside the safe zone of their border. The necessity to lock the doors to her room came as a surprise at first, but then she became used to it after a few instances of Annie barging through the door wanting to set Lux's bed on fire. Here - in Demacia - people assumed others are friendly; the justice system had always been so highly functional that it became practically useless some time ago. This city state now had the lowest crime ratio amongst all, which was even more funnier if you considered one of its most powerful allies, Piltover, had the second highest.
The conclusion of her train of thought was simple; people didn't lock their doors, people didn't care about newcomers in their city, people just generally trusted people. When they were stopped at the border they were deemed as possible trespassers - but inside the city-state lands, they were considered friends and fellow citizens.
So long as nobody's seen their faces and recognized them as the wanted criminals they essentially were, at least.
That didn't seem to be a possible problem, though; the town was clearly a residence of farmers and innkeepers, owning nearby fields and taverns for the travelers to stop in on their way to and from Demacia. The former group had to be in the fields, as it was little past Noon by now and the Spring was coming with full force. And, even though Lux had practically no idea how inns and taverns worked, she could guess this was the right time to clean the rooms after previous night's owners and prepare them for the evening.
Some children crossed the street running and shouting a few tens of yards away from them, but even they didn't seem to as much as notice the two women walking through the town. Lux felt a pang of pride at her camouflaging skills.
"Shit," she heard Katarina curse and her mood instantly cooled down. She threw a cautious look at the Noxian, and even she had to squint her eyes a bit to see through the light magic she'd placed around the older girl's face. Now that she thought about it, she might have overdone Katarina's camouflage a bit, but there was no way to adjust it now without looking suspicious. "Crossroad."
The Noxian pointed her finger to prove her point; and true, when Lux followed the invisible line it made, her eyes came to rest upon a crossroad's sign in the middle of a small square surrounded with a few shops and inns. There were only three ways out, not including the one they took to get here, but none of them seemed to end directly opposite the entrance to the city, as two of them went right-ish and one left. They took a few more steps forward and Lux could read the three signs - stating there was church and Demacia, whatever they meant by that, on the right and town hall on the left.
"So, where to?" Katarina asked, arms crossed on her chest.
There was no way of saying whether any of the three ways would lead them to the edge of the town. There was no way of even guessing whether these ones wouldn't split further on. The town looked much simpler from the distance, and now that they were in, it was turning into some kind of labyrinth - and time was running short, considering their camouflage would seem more and more suspicious the later it got.
If what she thought was right, the Demacia way should lead them to Demacia - and that, quite possibly, meant out of this town. Without saying anything, she turned rightmost into a broad alley that looked considerably better than the two other ones. Box of flowers were standing on some of the windowsills of the two-storey sandstone buildings, and the doors were all painted royal blue - a very noble, Demacian feature. This had to be some wealthier part of the town, as even the inns didn't look like rathouses and instead like places her parents might consider stopping in.
Lux could almost picture Katarina roll her eyes as they passed a marble statue of some young, handsome, gilded armor-clad man holding the Demacian flag.
"Fucking ornaments..." she could swear she heard the older girl mutter. She would confront her about that later, now was not a proper time to have a fight.
As they went on, the Demacian started noticing the faces in the windows. They showed just briefly, for every time she looked their way they would disappear behind the curtains, but she could tell they were mostly women and children. She felt a sense of dread rise in her chest.
"We're being watched." Katarina's whisper didn't do anything to soothe the feeling. They have left the nice, non-caring part of the city behind and entered what seemed to be a small, aristocratic quarter. Now, what she had previously thought about the Demacians being very trusting of people was mostly true - but not when it came to the nobles. Coming from such a family herself, she knew there was always a big gap between aristocracy and common folk - and if their attire didn't cause any suspicion before, it was bringing them twice the unwanted attention now.
Lux remembered how she would look at people from her own house in a prestigious Demacian district. Anybody not wearing fancy apparel was immediately considered a threat - and right now, the two of them had to look like the darkest kind of bandits in their dirty clothes and heavy cloaks.
Before long, a door opened a few paces ahead of them and the blonde felt the blood in her veins freeze. A middle-aged, balding man stepped out of the house and looked straight at them for a second, then brought a hand up to cover his eyes from the Sun. At least her light shield was still working.
"Excuse me," he said in the most unwelcome polite tone she'd ever heard. She could see a younger man moving to stand behind him - his son, perhaps - then another door opening on the other side of the road. "Could we help you?"
The question seemed friendly, but it was just a nice way of saying Leave right now or I will let my dogs out.
"Oh, no, thank you," Lux answered in the most carefree tone she could muster right now. "We're just on our way to the city, so if you don't mind..."
She trailed off, not really knowing what to say. They couldn't get past these men now without getting too close to them, and getting to close to them would mean revealing their faces - and she was sure guys like these were well aware of what all the wanted criminals looked like.
"Why, of course we don't mind," a man from the other side of the road spoke, a young boy peeking from behind the short wall surrounding his house. "If you would just be so kind to come closer, it's hard to see you against this bright Sun."
"They know," Lux heard Katarina whisper as soon as she herself thought the same thing. Two girls walking alone, appearing in the city out of nowhere. They had to make a connection. "Run!"
Before she could process the hissed command, or even form any coherent thought at all, the Noxian was dragging her by the wrist in the direction of a narrow passage between two houses to their left. From the commotion behind them, Lux could tell they were being followed, and not by just three men if her ears were right. It sounded more like a whole witch hunt, with shouts of Stop! and Seize them! to accompany them on the journey through the town.
They crossed a similarly looking street on the other side of the buildings, where people were already standing in open doors to check what all the noise was about. As soon as the commands of Catch them! settled in, one of the men standing closest to where Katarina aimed to cut through a narrow alley again stepped in to stop them. He was a young, large man with more fat than muscle, but Lux was sure they were going to crash into him at full speed and be caught by the crowd behind.
She severely underestimated Katarina's strength as the older girl just shoved the man aside with her shoulder, a cry of pain escaping him as he landed on the ground. Lux had no time to look at the man, though, as they were already running through uneven terrain of some god-forsaken backstreet that reeked of piss and garbage.
Next thing she knew, they almost ran into the very same children she'd spotted before, back in the peasant part of the town, but the pursuit didn't calm down a single bit. A brief look over her shoulder revealed the son of the first man that spoke was right behind them, gaining on to them quickly - and Lux realized they were slowing down, and that Katarina's hand was pulling on her arm harder than before.
Her breathing was coming in ragged puffs of air as the asthma kicked in. If they were going to get caught now, it was going to be her fault only.
With some resolve she never knew she had, she forced herself to speed up, almost passing Katarina in the process. Her breathing was as asynchronized as it's never been before, but they managed to get away a considerable distance, before taking a sharp turn around some abandoned looking building.
Suddenly, she felt her whole body pulled in every possible direction, and a surprised yelp died inside her throat with no breath to carry it out. Darkness swallowed her instantly, the bright street and stone buildings disappearing so abruptly she was sure she went blind. Maybe a vein popped in her brain from exhaustion, and she was going to bleed to death in the middle of the street, with the nobles looking down at her in confusion.
Then she was pulled again, but down this time, her butt falling down on something hard and cold while her back collided with something soft and warm; the dark was illuminated by a single light, a long, narrow line that reminded her so much of the times she would try to toy with the light seeping through the crack under her door while she was supposed to sleep.
A gasp escaped her lips at last and immediately a cool hand clasped over her mouth, and warm breath tickled her ear.
"Shut up," came a growled order, and the hand pressed down on her face harder, to the point where it actually hurt. She grasped Katarina's fingers with her own, trying to pry them away, or at least force a gap between them to let the air through. The older girl seemed to understand her struggle after a while, as she adjusted the hand in a way that would allow Lux to breathe, though still not in very comfortably.
"Stop it," Katarina hissed, putting one of her legs over Lux's as the blonde didn't even know she was shuffling her feet restlessly.
At this point, the blonde realized the awkward position they were in; turned out, there wasn't complete darkness in whatever place they suddenly appeared in, as more shapes came into her field of vision. In front of them, there was some kind of a big, wooden chest of drawers - or something along these lines, she couldn't be sure. The gleam she noticed before actually was light seeping under the door a few feet away from them, interrupted by some shapes in the way. They were squished between a cold, stone wall and what had to be a similar chest of drawers, Katarina leaning against another wall in the corner of the room and Lux partially lying between the Noxian's legs.
She began to try and break away from the redhead, but an arm was circled around her midriff, holding her in place.
"Shh," was the only thing the Noxian said before they both froze. The light got interrupted again, but this time by moving objects outside.
"They can't have disappeared just like that," came a muffled voice of a young man, obviously irritated. Judging by what they could see, there were at least three people outside the door leading to their hiding place, and who knew how many more were still roaming the city.
"I don't know, Finn, they were just in front of me," answered another, and Lux could swear it had to be the son of the first noble. "I turned round the corner and they were just gone—"
"Maybe they're on the roofs!" cut in an excited third voice, a boy audibly younger than the two other men.
"Not unless they can fly," said Finn, and he sounded even more irritated than before. "They had to hide somewhere."
Lux felt the little breath she had get caught in her chest; if anybody found them right now, she was sure there would be no way to escape this time.
A screech sounded so suddenly that both of the girls jumped a little in shock and Lux had to fight back a surprised yelp. There was some commotion coming from the other side of the room before a pair of glistening eyes appeared in what Lux thought to be a wardrobe before. Some scratching answered from just beside her head, and a couple of screeches followed. As if on cue, her breathing returned to a more normal rate, allowing her to take the quality of the air she breathed into consideration; it smelled awfully, and she was actually glad Katarina's hand was covering her nose or it might be far worse.
They were in an aviary.
"Did you hear that?" the second voice said. There was some shuffling as the shadow of the man edged closer, so close Lux could practically see the color of his leather shoes through the crack under the door.
"It's just the birds, Rod," Finn answered, and it was more than clear that he's had enough of the whole charade. The blonde girl watched his shadow move away from the door, but Rod still stood firm in his place.
"What if they're hiding..." Rod's voice trailed off. Before long, Lux heard him fiddle with the door, and she instinctively pushed farther into Katarina. There was the slightest grunt of disapproval coming from the Noxian, but she didn't say anything.
"There's a lock here, see?" Suddenly, there was a sound of metal banging against the wooden door as Finn probably showed the other man the lock he was talking about. "Leave it, let's go search by the church with the others."
Whatever was Rod's response, it got muffled out as the men went down the street, the third boy following them closely.
After a few moments, all sounds of pursuit calmed down outside. The birds didn't make any sound as well, leaving them in a silence so overwhelming Lux could hear the Noxian's heart beating just behind her head.
oOOo
"I still don't understand why you had to take the bird with you."
Katarina's brow rose as she eyed the shorter girl, eyes fighting through darkness to see Lux's face. It was a cloudy night again, but at least the wind was low. They didn't dare to speak any louder than a hushed whisper.
"I didn't explain this to you."
"I know." She shrugged. "I was trying to come up with something on my own, but—" Another shrug. "Nothing."
Katarina rolled her eyes. They'd spent the entire afternoon and a good part of the evening hidden in the aviary, huddled in one corner behind the bird cages; the Demacian had moved away from her as soon as they decided the young men weren't going to enter the building, but she'd still kept close to the older girl, just to be safe. Had anybody chosen to look inside the aviary after all, they'd probably see nothing much besides the curious, restless eyes of the birds in the cages.
As it turned out, the chase led them close to the church - and through this, to a thankfully open gate in the town's wall. Come nightfall, as all the voices in the streets died down, they left the hiding place the same way they went in. Another shunpo, with two people and a bird wore her off far more than she'd admit to - and combined with the still dully throbbing injury she sustained in the morning, it made for a pretty straining mix. By now, the Noxian was walking just for pure survival's sake. The farther they were from the city, the better she'd feel when she finally lost consciousness for the night.
"What kind of a bird is that, anyway?" the younger girl asked, as if to keep up the small-talk.
"I have no idea," Katarina just answered, praying to whatever gods there were for patience. "I don't care."
"So what are you going to do with it?"
Her vein was about to pop any second now. Even when whispering, Lux's voice had that annoying, chirpy tone to it.
"It's a mailbird," she managed through gritted teeth. Her eyelids were heavy, but her feet dragged her on through the grass as they mounted a small hill to enter a patch of trees they'd spotted before.
"You're going to write a letter?"
"Yes."
The Demacian stopped dead in her track, but Katarina didn't turn around to see her expression. She didn't care a tiny rat's ass about the younger girl's thoughts right now, she just wanted to find a place to set the tent and pass out.
"A letter?" Lux jogged up to her after a while, disbelief dripping from her voice as it cut through the silence. Katarina felt something inside her break, one of her last walls of resistance. If this kept up, she was going to strangle the Demacian here and now, then think about the consequences in the morning.
Thankfully, the blonde didn't press on when she didn't say anything, and they proceeded in peace, Katarina's right arm - currently used as a bird perch - feeling heavier than rocks.
After what seemed to be no more than half an hour, they found a nice, flat place between the bushes, perfect for their little tent. The trees weren't nearly thick enough to cover them from prying eyes, but they hoped nobody would enter the tiny forest in the middle of the night. With no wind to rustle the leaves, the place was dead-silent, safe for the Demacian fatigued breath and the constant buzzing in Katarina's head.
Without a word, she bent down and set the bird on the ground, hoping the tiny eye-covering hat it wore would be enough to stop it from running away. Her brows furrowed when it didn't move at all.
"What's up with this guy?" she asked, not really expecting an answer. Damn, she had more than ten birds to choose from, and she had to pick the retarded one. Something shuffled to her right and she didn't even have to move her head to know the Demacian was standing next to her, looking closely at their tiny companion.
"Huh," was all she said before kneeling down and touching the soft feathers of the bird's neck. It still didn't move, as if it didn't register the touch at all. "It seems to be enthralled," Lux muttered after a while as she poked the poor beast a few more times. "I guess it's to secure the bird doesn't fly away—"
"It wasn't like this when it was in the cage."
"Yeah, it was certainly more lively," Lux agreed quietly. The birds were screeching almost the entire time they'd spent at the aviary, making them both go crazy. "But it did go oddly stiff when you took it out and didn't really move ever since..."
Katarina stood up and turned around to take the tent out of her bag. If she wanted to have something to cover her from the possible rain before she lost consciousness, she had to work quickly while she still had the energy to. Or trust the Demacian to take care of everything.
Yeah, she had to work quickly.
"My guess is, it's enchanted to become like, uh, this," Lux stopped to point at the bird that stood straight as a statue, "when a human touches them. It's pretty clever, actually. Probably wears off after some time."
"Whatever," Katarina growled around the metal tent pegs she was holding with her teeth. She took them out before continuing. "I just need him to fly to the Institute."
"The Institute?" Lux picked up as she took hold of two corners of the tent fabric. "Who—"
"Not your damn business," the Noxian snapped at last. A wave of regret washed over her upon seeing the younger girl's genuinely hurt expression, followed closely by a much bigger wave of confusion. She was far too tired to think about that, though.
They put the tent up in blissful silence. Katarina could see the blonde glance into the bird's direction every now and then, but the little guy seemed to be as unfazed as the rock sitting next to him. The little hood was covering its eyes, so it was hard to tell whether they were even opened or closed, but from the steady rhythm of its breathing the Noxian could swear the bird was either deep asleep or a Wuju master. Seeing as it didn't have a goatee, she'd go with the first option.
When the shelter was nice and ready, the Demacian crawled inside without a single word while Katarina crouched in front of their feathery little friend; she jabbed her index finger into the bird's side, but it didn't even raise its head. With a sigh, she reached behind it to untie the leather hood that she made it wear - for no reason at all, apparently. When she took it off, the bird's eyes were in fact opened, but its pupils were dilated so much there was no iris visible; it reminded Katarina of somebody who'd severely overdosed narcotics and was about to die any second now. It almost gave her the chills.
Reaching back to her bag, she grabbed a small piece of parchment and a pencil from an inside pocket, then hurriedly scribbled a few words as she fought very hard to keep her own eyes open. She'd done something crazy today and she was quite aware of it; never before had she tried to perform her shunpo with somebody, but the adrenaline rush from the chase made her body work before her mind could think. Katarina wouldn't tell her that, but the Demacian was lucky to be alive and in one piece. The second after they'd appeared on the other side of the wall, the redhead was actually scared to look to where her hand was holding Lux's wrist in fear of seeing just that - an arm, without a body attached.
But it worked. It worked well and she'd have a lot to tell to her military commander when she's finally back to Noxus. In fact, it left her so sure of herself she didn't even care when they'd performed the same move to leave the aviary - this time with an additional passenger. She was so certain it would succeed that she didn't pay much attention to possible consequences.
It was just like years ago, when she was still learning to perform the move. It drained her physically more than a ten-mile run would.
As soon as she was finished with the short note, the bird surprised her with a move. It was somewhat mechanical, but it offered her a leg with a leather strap tied to it. With some understandable hesitation - she'd never been fond of robots, and that was precisely what the bird reminded her of now - she tied the letter to its leg and then, after a second thought, wrote a name on top of the note.
The bird then took its leg away and went back to stand-by - this time, with its tiny head turned in Katarina's direction, waiting.
"Uh... the Institute of War," she said, feeling somewhat stupid talking to the bird. This was Swain's area of interest, not hers.
The bird just stood, unmoving eyes still plastered to her face.
"The Institute of War," she repeated louder, a little annoyed with the lack of compliance. When it still didn't start off in the general direction of the Institute, she resisted the urge to smack it. Instead, she balled her fists, before shouting, "Crownguard!"
The blonde's head appeared in the tent's entrance so quickly the Noxian could swear she was just waiting to be called.
"Yes?" she said, her voice falsely nonchalant.
"It's broken," Katarina answered, pointing in the birds direction. It was still watching her with its coal-black wide pupils.
With a roll of her eyes, the blonde emerged from the tent and walked over the the Noxian, then promptly sat down on the ground next to her.
"It's not broken," she sighed, and Katarina felt her brow rise when the bird immediately switched target to the young Demacian. "You're just saying it wrong. I understand you, and probably most people will, but the bird doesn't speak human, and certainly not Noxian," she stopped briefly to scratch the bird's head, but again it just looked on like a stuffed animal. "And there's, like, two hundred something people in the Institute, you have to be more prec—"
"My sister," Katarina cut in, closing her eyes as if that could keep the annoying voice out of her pounding head. Damn, she really was tired. She needed to lie down before she cut the younger girl's head off. "Sent the fucking bird to my sister and just stop talking."
Without a second thought, she turned around and dragged herself to the tent on almost-wobbly legs, cursing again the idea of bringing the Demacian along. Then, in a stream of conscience, she cursed the very idea of agreeing to help her sister in the first place. As she hit the ground, too tired and hungry to even sit up anymore, she could hear a quiet Cassiopeia Du Couteau leave the blonde's lips, the Demacian accent deforming what she otherwise thought to be a beautiful name. So fitting for the girl she once used to be.
She let her eyelids drop and slipped into wonderful, silent nothingness, a pair of viridian eyes the last thing on her mind.
All things considered, there was at least one good reason to keep up with this.
A/N: Thank you for reading the chapter. Please review or PM me to state your thoughts.
Before you ask - no, I have no idea how is Katarina's shunpo supposed to work according to lore. The name refers to the 'fast walking' technique and thus would suggest something along these lines - but then we have Katarina on Summoner's Rift, shunpoing through walls and stuff as long as there's at least a ward on the other side. In this story, I will go with the explanation of magicks, and say she can shunpo-phase through walls... with other people and/or animals. This will be further explained in-story in the future chapters.