"Sorry?" Diana didn't catch what he had just said, he'd murmured it so quietly. He shook his head like he'd changed his mind.
"I'm sorry, just…" Varus paused, closing his eyes and massaging the bridge of his nose as if in indecision.
"Varus…?"
Varus opened his eyes to look at her, tilting his head as if analysing her.
"You still hate them don't you?"
She looked at him funnily. What?
"Elders." His gaze seemed strange. Like he was trying to distract himself. Diana grimaced. Why was he continuing to bring up the past? It was as if he was trying to verify that she felt the same way… why?
"Y-Yes…"she scowled in reflex. "They are part of the past now."
"You too, were condemned to death by your elders, were you not?"
Diana shifted, uneasy at the turn of topic. She didn't want to think any more about her past, hearing about his was more than enough synonymous evocation. Her past well, it was the past. There was no need to bring it up, even less to him.
"They are all dead now, I saw to it myself." She did not take up on his question directly.
"That is why we are more alike than you think." His voice took on a slightly lighter tone as he tried to put on a jovial face again but there were still lingering traces of submerged grief in it. So this was what he meant. They were both forsaken. It… it was true in some ways. She could understand all too well where he was coming from. But…
He turned to look at her, his eyes locking onto hers, piercing her mind. "You lost something too, something different." He commented quietly.
She flinched internally, bitter disdain on her face as she bristled at his intrusive probe. "I did not lose anything." She replied sharply. "Merely ridded my burdens. On the contrary, I have gained much more." She met his steely gaze head on. "I am no longer blinded by lies, their lies."
His gaze flickered between her eyes.
"You're eyes speak differently." He stated, his voice low. She felt compelled to glance away but did not allow herself to, let him see through to her; she had nothing to show and he would find little where her heart was.
"And what do they say?" she humoured him dryly, not caring for his answer. He was silent for a while before replying.
"Leona." She flinched subtly at the name but she made no reply. His gaze flickered between hers eyes.
"Shunned. Injustice. Unfairness." Diana fought the trickle of memories his words were calling up.
"Betrayed." Varus did not break his eye contact.
"Stop." Diana broke her silence, finally tearing her eyes away from his piercing gaze.
"Am I wrong?" Varus asked quietly. She struggled to speak; the past was hitching at the back of her throat.
"…No – yes." She cleared her throat.
He stayed silent, as if waiting for her to go on. Why… why did he want to know? Why did he care? He was… alike, too alike. Too much like her, too much like her past. Too much like everything she had left behind and buried and fought to forget.
Somewhere outside a bell tolled solemnly, once, twice, three times… the twelfth signalling midnight.
"They… they denied the moons power. Yet Leona…" she replied, her voice barely a whisper. She struggled to find the words to convey across the writhing boil of emotions Leona conjures up.
"She was called a sacrilegious defiant, sentenced to execution too. Yet she was spared in the name of the Solari and me…" Diana exhaled sharply.
"I was not. If I had not been push to the brink, teetering at the edge with no other choice but a cold hard will to live and the desire for the strength to overrule them, then I wouldn't have sought out the moon's strength and been 'gifted' the light of way. Yes I had revered in the moons powers, but I had no need for them. Not until the axe swung down."
Varus tilted his head in acknowledgment.
"Injustice - I know what you want to say, we are alike." She cut him off before he could speak. "But not entirely. Your past is…" Diana gestured with her hand and drifted off silent for a while as her memories fought to the surface.
"And to think I almost succumbed to their petty faith" Diana scowled at the images conjured up, unconsciously clenching her hand on her blade again. Varus regarded her impassively, making no move to interrupt her as she continued on in her bitter recollection.
"To think there was a time when I sought to belong to the Solari... I should have seen them for who they really were long ago." She could feel a trickle of old filthy revulsion seep back.
"The Solari, they were all about power and politics, rituals and rites – I should have seen it sooner. What I had found through the tomes showed the Lunari were different. They had a bond between the moon and the sea. The Lunari drew power from the tides and in turn, the Marai drew power from the moon. It was a mutual relationship where each needed the other." Diana clenched her hand around her blade hilt.
"They killed the Lunaris High Priest under the pretence of cleansing Mount Targon - something along the lines of 'there can only be one true faith'. They had been looking for reasons to do so and when they heard there was no new Tidecaller for the Marai, well that was just the excuse they needed wasn't it? With the priest dead, they'd cut off our bond to the sea and as such, took away the Lunari's power. With that they sealed their rule over the Lunari and rewrote the history books for themselves. Solaris, the true faith." Diana slammed her hand on the table, the force stinging her palm.
"Every one of them nothing but a liar, they are the heretics." She grit her teeth in anger.
"It's easier to stay angry than to remember why." Varus picked up the ornate framed picture from his desk, gazing at it.
"Because to remember why would bring back other memories too…" Diana sighed, the wind blown out of her sails as the bubbling anger died down.
"And the other memories hurt too much." His words were mellow, staring at the picture like he was looking through it.
There was nothing to do here anymore, the emotional drain was taxing. She glanced to his hand, still clutching his bow. Diana sighed, closing her eyes. I'd be better if she left soon, it had been a stupid impulse to come.
"I fear I would have done the same if I were in your place." She opened her eyes to look at him.
He gazed at the picture for a while longer before placing it gently down again. She caught a glimpse of a scruffy haired boy with a bow next to a woman with –
"Beautiful flowing hair, pale as the moon… Just like you." Varus' voice ached with yearning and bittersweet nostalgia.
"She was a lot like you in many ways."
He looked at Diana, eyes full of a long lost ache. There was something diffusing into the atmosphere that felt different, a shift.
Diana opened her mouth, not quite sure what to say. Or what to feel.
"What…what do you mean…"
He smiled sadly, placing the frame back.
"Fierce. Defiant. Strong-willed. And beautiful, always beautiful. In daylight…" Varus tentatively reached out, slowly running the back of his fingers across her cheek. "… and in moonlight." He glanced at the sky outside the window.
"You shouldn't have come back with me, Diana." A tendril twitched on his arm, flicking up as it rippled.
"Vengeance. It's the only purpose we have left. But there was something…"
He took a step forward, his corruption flaring as his presence bore down on her. She took a step back in reaction, her heel hitting wood as she backed against the wall. What was he doing?
"A kind of pale ethereal beauty that shone under moonlight. I thought I had lost that forever." He leaned in closer. "Until I saw you."
Diana writhed at his proximity, instinctively pushing him away.
"Diana." He grabbed her wrists with a steel grip, unrelenting to her struggles.
His voice was a whisper when he spoke, but his steely words were laced with something different now.
"I know what you want to do, why you came here. Twitch sent you."
Diana opened her mouth in unsuspecting bewilderment. There was something in his voice that made her heart race. In fear?
"Didn't you know?" his voice was tinted darkly humorous and there was a rippling and shifting as the bow merged and dissolved into his arm.
"The bow is part of me." The realisation hit her too late. He had never been holding his bow, it was part of him.
Diana faltered for a moment but that was all it took for him to make his move.
What can I say? I'd forgotten I had half-written fan fictions here. Thousand apologies.
For those who were wondering about Marai and Tidecaller, check out Nami's lore.