"Why are you here, Riven? You know what Noxus thinks of you."

Riven shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I just wanted to see you again. Maybe I just wanted to talk."

"Riven, it's been years since we last spoke to each other."

"My point exactly."

Katarina studied her carefully as she swigged. "It's flattering for you to say that. But I wasn't born yesterday." She leaned closer, feeling loose, feeling daring, which meant the alcohol was doing most of the talking now. "Haven't you found someone else on the Island by now? I'm sure you have. You're more friendly with them than you ever were with your own people, don't you think so?"

Riven's eyes flitted to the band of twine on her middle finger, and Katarina jumped on that moment of weakness. "You're married, aren't you?" she pressed.

"Two years ago," Riven answered. Something in her face twisted. "I don't want to talk about it."

Katarina frowned. "What happened?"

"Here, give me that. It's my turn."

"What's he like? Who is he?"

"He's a stubborn man who demanded from me things I couldn't give. Let's leave it at that." Riven stared at the bottle, and something in her gaze suggested she very much wanted to throw it across the courtyard. "I don't want a heart-to-heart, and I especially wouldn't want it with you. No offence."

"None taken."

When soldiers were cut in the field, the wounds needed to be cleaned before they could be sowed and stitched, or there was a chance that gangrene or tetanus would set in. Best way to do it was with hot iron. Barring that, drink could also work. She didn't know the why of it, and she never cared to find out. Perhaps alcohol just happened to be good for injuries of mind and body.

Riven passed the bottle back into Katarina's hands. She hadn't taken her turn. "I think I'm done for today."

Katarina glanced at her and shrugged. "More for me, I suppose."

"Well I did bring it for you."

It was just after a skirmish at a Ionian village. Katarina remembered a man with a bleeding arm who didn't want the flame, and there was no whiskey at hand, for it had been guzzled down just the night before. "It's fine. Just a scratch. Little boy got me with a hoe," he'd grunted, waving the corporal and sergeant off. "It'll heal on its own."

She remembered the other two soldiers sharing a knowing glance, before the corporal tackled him and pinned him as the sergeant put the red-hot poker into the wound. The man howled and fainted and swore bloody vengeance afterwards, but he got to live, and another man, who bandaged his injury and lied, wasn't so lucky. First there was the swelling. Then there was the smell of pus. Then the rot started to spread upwards, darkening the skin. The captain wanted to amputate, but the man had pleaded for something else. Cripples were just one step above beggars in Noxus, and for some people, better a short life as a whole man than a long life as half a man. The captain refused, and decided to make him an object lesson.

"Nothing good came from letting anything fester. Pain avoided can be pain prolonged." Katarina recited out loud, before swigging.

Riven glanced at her. A beat passed, and Katarina stared ahead. "In the Coeur Valley, where I went missing," Riven murmured, "the weapons used by the Zaun still have interesting side effects on the land. The soil there is too sick for crops, the fish in the rivers have extra fins and eyes, and apparently the air is still poisonous to breath. The people who survived the acid-fire also didn't escaped unscathed. For years, the unlucky ones developed boils in their mouth and throat. Their skin started shedding and their hair fell out in clumps. If they didn't die immediately from all of that and the fever, they became delirious, violent even, and then they died."

Katarina shrugged. It wasn't news to her. Morbid, but such was war. "And? You're fine. The only thing it did for you was take the pigment out of your hair."

Riven shook her head. "I told you I was married. I didn't tell you I was also pregnant. Twice. Two girls." Katarina met her eye then and quickly looked away as she saw something she didn't want to see. "Both labours nearly killed me," Riven continued, her voice steady. "And both of them failed. I was told not to expect any more." She cleared her throat. "That's why I couldn't see you after the treaty was signed."

"Was that also why you and him stopped seeing each other?" Katarina suddenly asked, guessing. "And you came here?"

"No. Not even the half of it," Riven replied flatly. "We had problems even before I had the children, but their deaths, well, they were the final straw for the both of us."

Katarina set the bottle aside, rested her hands, and leaned back, thinking. "He's a warrior?"

"Sword-master. From one of their schools."

"As good as you?"

"I wouldn't settle for less. Luckily we never met during the war."

"I'll say. Seems rather poetic that two killers can't make a life."

Riven chuckled. "You think?"

"By the way, before I forget again. What did you do with your sword?"

Riven hesitated. Riven never hesitated. She opened her mouth, shook her head. Katarina waited. Finally Riven said it.

"I threw it into the ocean."

One Week Ago

Old habits die hard, and some people, like dogs gnawing on their favourite bone, loved to hoard their grudges, for they have hated to the point where they couldn't remember why they hated or what they would do if they ever let go of that hate. Demacia and Noxus as a whole were just like that.

It didn't help that Lux also didn't see eye to eye with her parents. Perhaps it was because both her and Katarina were, by appearance and temperament, conflicting with Mr. and Mrs. Crownguards' impression of the ideal noblewomen. One an assassin. Another a spy. Both in their mid-twenties and without a husband or a fiance. Their reputations dubious, even scandulous if the rumours weren't taken with a grain of salt. Perhaps it was because of the timing, since the Crownguards have just buried a son. Their only son. The one who would have carried the family name into the next generation. Their hopes and future now beneath the earth. Or perhaps it was because Katarina was literally the only woman Garen had ever chattered about, and now that his parents have finally gotten to meet her face to face, they find her lacking, and that tells them that there was a part of their son they couldn't understand and definitely never will. Whatever the case may be, when the father quietly excused himself to head upstairs to his study, with Lux excusing herself a minute afterwards to follow him and berate him for his impoliteness, Katarina was left alone with the mother in the living, and looking at her, Katarina tried to smile, but knew she was grimacing. Her sister was better at these types of things. Always had been.

She cleared her throat. "Mrs. Crownguar-"

"No, please. Call me Lila." The older woman leaned forward on her, clasping her hands together, smiling a mild smile that was much like her daughter's, except it didn't quite reach the eyes. "I'm sorry about my husband. He's taking it rather hard at the moment."

"It's perfectly fine. It was a bad time for me to come," Katarina said. "I-"

And just like that, her tongue tied itself into knots and her mind went blank. Katarina faltered, and she knew other noblewomen wouldn't falter if they were in her place. They could make conversation with a drooling mute. Banal, boring conversation, but conversation nonetheless. Her conversations tended to end with someone on the ground and bleeding, but that wasn't how things worked in Demacia, and recently, Noxus was starting to become just like that to her as well.

Lila turned her head to look out the window, as if to admire the petunias, the chrysanthenums, and the marigolds, but she was waiting for Katarina to continue. They both pretended not to hear Lux raise her voice upstairs, her words indistinct but her tone apparent. Katarina stared at her hands as they clutched a cup of tea. She sipped to give herself time, but then all she could think of was the possibility of her it being poisoned, and how, treaty or no treaty, old habits die hard. She should know. She'd seen Talon do it before. Wolfsbane. Nightshade. Hemlock. Usually he'd mix them with mortar and pestle. Sometimes the poison only needed skin contact. The victims could die frothing at the mouth, trousers and the floor soaking as they lost control of their bowels, or they could just go to bed and never wake up again. Whatever the desired effect. Katarina set her tea down.

"Do you not like the tea we have prepared?"

'No I do. I've always loved tea." Katarina stared down the cup. No doubt about it. It was definitely from the Island. She'd seen sets of these taken out by soldiers when they were pillaging the towns. Museums in Piltover brought some of them from High Command. Not just kitchernware. Fans. Kimonos. Tomes and grimoires. Spears and ancient armour. The Crownguard residence even had a katana in one of the glass cases she passed in the hallway. Ionia would, of course, ask for everything back, but invaders, especially the defeated ones, liked to hold onto what they've already taken.

"Let me guess," Katarina said, taking the cup in hand again and looking down it, noting the sunset orange tone. "Oolong?"

Lila smiled. "Chamomille, actually. Do the Couteaus drink tea?"

"No. My father preferred wine."

"In that, my husband is not too dissimilar. You ever thought about marriage?"

"Not really." She sipped again. Why did tea have to be drunk when it was hot enough to burn your lips?

"Garen told me he once proposed to you."

There was something else that separated Katarina from noblewomen. They'd never gag. Tell them things better meant to be said by the pillows than the dining table, and they'll widen their eyes and blush, but they'll never choke. They'd sooner die than sound like a cat about to hurl a furball. Or Kat.

Lila waited till she had recovered her voice, offering her a handkerchief. Suprisingly, she didn't look disgusted. "You don't recall?"

"Not really," Katarina lied. She wheezed, cleared her throat and took the cloth.

"Strange. That's usually not the sort of thing a girl would forget, especially one who'd never been courted before."

That was because her sister was the suitors would usually look to, and after the accident happened and they started sniffing around the younger, less hissy Du Couteau, she dissuaded them, and did it at swordpoint. "You'd be surprised. I'm not like most girls."

"Now that I don't find hard to believe."

Katarina nodded and stared at the tea again with handkerchief and hand over her mouth, forcing herself to calm down as her heart hammered in her chest.

Didn't even have to be herbs. Talon kept some snakes somewhere. He would give them mice he'd snatch from the cellar, and extract the venom himself for blowdarts and occasionally soak throwing knives in them. But some variants work just as well in beverages. Funny thing is, though he never once got himself bitten, the same can't be said when it came to her sister. Those two didn't get along from the very beginning.

Upstairs, the father was the one now yelling. Something heavy crashed upon the floor. Lila Crownguard stood up. "Please excuse me," she said coldly. "This shouldn't take too long."

Katarina waited as she heard the mother ascend the stairs. She waited as she heard the woman start speaking in a hushed tone. She waited as the mother lost her temper like her daughter and husband.

She stopped waiting, stood up, and saw herself out, handkerchief still in hand.

When Lux ran outside to find her gone with the carriage, one of the guards told her he overheard her asking the driver to take her into the city.

"You know I love you. Not like actual love-love but you know what I mean?" The wine was all gone, and all that was left was her mouth moving on its own, spilling things her mind never remembered thinking. If the truth was ugly, booze twisted it and made it embarrassing, liberating. "Like my father kept dogs, and when one died, he would take a shovel and bury it out on the field on his own. Like, he wouldn't ever fuck a dog, but he loved them, you know? Man's best friend and all that?"

"I know. So you think of me as your dog and you'd bury me when died?"

"No no, not like that. Well, I'd definitely do the burying, but not the dog part. Just the shovel."

"Uhhuh, right."

"Seriously, I thought we're having a moment here, and now you're...don't smile like that. Come on. I'm being honest here."

"Of course. We're trading confessions now."

"I mean, if you weren't married, I'd take you for a roll. Shit I'd try it right now, and your man can go fuck himself."

Somehow they both found that funny, and so they both had a fit of laughter that degenerated into cackling and ended in watery eyes and coughing.

Riven gasped as she clutched her sides. "Please don't. You'd probably spew on me."

"I think you underestimate me. I never spew."

"Kat you're drunk. Go home."

"I am home!"

They started laughing again. Katarina shoved Riven, but too hard. Riven yelped. Katarina felt her grab her arm, and together, they slipped off the balustrade head-first and screaming as the earth below rushed up to meet them.

One Week Ago

The place was all but packed to the rafters. Sitting at the counter, it was impossible for a customer to get some elbow room. Being a beautiful woman, it was impossible to not be the centre of attention.

Being a Noxian, it was impossible that there wouldn't be trouble. The kind that needed violence like bullies needed someone to be bigger and badder than them.

Katarian found hers as a pair of men stood up from a corner table, their hands adjusting trousers and belts, the spurs on their boots jingling as they stepped towards her. She tried to meet the bartender's eye but he was already striding away to take someone's order. So be it. Already she could hear all conversation and noise slowly fading to a low din, everyone's mouth yapping with their eyes on her and impending company.

Draven was right. Everyone loved a spectacle.

Both men stopped a stride away, close enough for her to smell the liquor on their breath and the sweat and grime on their clothes. One of them hacked up a gob of spit, and it landed in Katarina's glass with a plop. The people sitting on either side of Katarina stood up, dropped the payment for their tabs, and left.

The second man said, loud and proudly, so everyone could hear: "My friend here doesn't like you."

Katarina raised her head and flicked her gaze towards him, taking it all in. Face flushed. Eyes wide. Chin jutting out aggressively, like an ape. His friend was similar, except he had a goatee and wasn't blonde but dark-haired. Hostility made monsters of people. If they had been sober, they'd probably be cute. If they were smart, they'd have stayed that way much longer.

She smiled sadly. His face tightened. "I don't like you either," he declared. "You don't belong in this city."

She thought that was completely understandable. Sometimes she felt the exact same way about herself.

Katarina looked away and raised her hand up to the bartender to order another.

"Hey! Look at me when I'm talking to you!" He stomped forward and pulled her by her jacket.

The man was right-handed, and he was gripping her left shoulder. Twisting around in her seat as he yanked, her left hand grabbed his bicep, holding the arm still and straight, while her right hand snapped up and across in an open palm.

Everyone in the room heard the elbow snap.

That was when the screaming started and the running began.

The other man moved quickly, but Katarina was already standing and shoving his howling friend into him. The two stumbled back together, and the uninjured one recovered and lunged. Something loudly snicked and then Katarina's foot was sweeping up.

The merchants barely managed to throw themselves clear as the body crashed onto their table and toppled their chairs, knocking meals and drinks to the floor. The door to the outside world slammed open on its hinges as people fled.

Katarina beheld the man with the broken arm, who whimpered and hissed curses under his breath as he tried to pull himself up and against the counter. She twisted her head and glanced at her glass, the brandy untouched, and she noticed the cockroach crawling right next to it, antennas waving and dark shell gleaming glimly in the light.

An example had to be made. It was not how things worked in Demacia, but this room was hers the moment they wanted blood, for blood was Noxus's way.

"I'm really sorry about that," she drawled, turning back to him, her gaze making him quiet. "But where are my manners? Let me make it up to you."

Outside someone called for the city watch. The bartender dropped his head behind the counter and fell out of sight. The man's eyes widened as she picked up the insect and dropped it into the glass.

Running footsteps coming closer. A voice bellowing for people to get out of the way. Inside, the people who remained stared at the scene in silence, shrinking back into the shadows where they couldn't be seen. The body on the table wasn't moving at all/

"Here," Katarina said, stepping towards him, face gentle and smile sheepish as the cockroach writhed in the golden water with the bubbles. "One for the road. It's on me."

Everyone left after that.

Running out onto the balustrade after hearing the screams, Talon found them giggling and choking while lying belly up on the ground. There was an empty bottle nearby. As their laughter spluttered into coughing, they both looked up at Talon's expression, glanced at each other, and started laughing again, a note of hysteria in their voices, until Katarina got up on her knees and threw up on Riven's boots. Then the whole courtyard was filled with two people shouting and swearing.

As they scrambled to pull Katarina inside, it finally started to snow. As the last leaves floated up and away, the white flakes, whiter than Riven's hair, white to the point where they were merely the absence of darkness, drifted down and landed on their heads, on the trees and upon the earth.

The wind died, and darkness fell upon the land.

One Week Ago

When the captain of the watch and two of his subordinates ran into the tavern, weapons at the ready, they didn't know what to make of the strange picture before him. They didn't even know where to begin:

The man convulsing on the floor and frothing at the mouth, eyes rolled back and a sprawled arm with a morbid shape.

The redhead sitting at the counter a few steps away, speaking cheerfully. Clothed like a man. Hair smooth and let down.

The bartender pouring her a drink, his face twitchy and his hands trembling to the point where he spilled several drops onto the wood.

The fact that the place was usually just about packed to the rafters at this time of the afternoon.

"Loosen up!" The redhead was saying. "That stuff doesn't come with the rain." She clapped him on the shoulder. "Look, why don't you have this pint? I think you need it more than I do."

The captain nodded to one of his men as he lowered his crossbow till it was pointed at the floor. "Take care of him." He loudly cleared his throat. "Excuse me?"

"Yes?" the redhead asked turning around in her seat as the city guard rushed forward to kneel and examine the man on the floor. "Can I help you with something sir?"

"We were told there was screaming coming from this place." The captain watched her carefully, noting the scar that ran near her eye. "Is everything alright?"

"Absolutely sir," the redhead replied, her green eyes wide and innocent. "That man over there just collapsed and hurt his arm after he drank something he seemed to disagree with. Someone went to get a doctor here, while everyone else decided to try another establishment where there's less chance the booze won't make them faint."

The captain met the bartender's eye. "Is that right?"

The bartender licked his lips nervously, glancing at the redhead before looking back to the captain and nodding furiously. He'd have left, but he had fainted from dizziness and had just woken up a few moments ago, confused but afraid.

"Strange then that you would still be here, lassie."

"I like to give every place I visit a try. I am nothing if not fair."

There was a low groan from the corner of the room, drawing everyone's attention. The captain turned and saw a second man raise himself up and onto his knees with his face in his hands, surrounded by broken plates and shards of glass, with bits of food on his soaked shirt and trousers. The captain jerked a thumb. "What about him?"

The redhead frowned. "I'm not sure. I think he had already passed out when I came in." She shrugged and shook her head at the sorry sight with disapproval. "Drinking should be done in moderation, wouldn't you agree, sir?"

"Certainly," the captain replied stiffly, watching as the second man try to rise. "Piers. See if you can help that man up. Get him into a chair."

"Harold," said the guard kneeling over the first man. "This one's alive but out cold."

"Well that's a relief. Don't worry about the arm. It'll be taken care of." Harold looked at the redhead and the bartender in that order. He rubbed his brow. Something was definitely not right. Even a blind fool could see that. But if he arrested her, how could he explain it? I saw two unconscious men and thought the redhead, who's shorter than the both of them by a full head, assaulted them. With her bare hands too. "I suppose we shall be leaving then. Let the doctor sort this out..."

The redhead smiled prettily and stepped out of her chair as the captain's men went to the door, leaving the captain and her standing in the centre of the room. "Of course. Sorry about the inconvenience, sir," she said, crossing forward and holding her hand. "I just wanted to say...thank you for keeping the peace of this fair city. Truly appreciate it."

Harold nodded. She looked familiar. Very familiar. A fleeting memory. Like a fish nibbling at the bait. Perhaps it would come back to him later . He still had a shift to finish. "Just doing my job." He reached out to take the proffered handshake, and that was when he noticed it.

The redhead's boots. One of them had a small blade sticking out from the end of the toecap. If she were to kick someone, that person was going to have a hole in them. That aside, the mechanism was an invention used by career criminals, spies, assassins and occasionally the intelligent cutthroat who knew how to make it, but more importantly, it was illegal due to it technically being a concealed weapon.

The redhead followed his gaze, and her face tightened as she saw what he saw. "Oh dear," she murmured, looking up and seeing the captain's crossbow pointed directly at her chest as the man warily stepped back, his colleagues already falling suit.

In a corner of the room was the second victim sitting in a chair. Blood was pouring out from his face and beneath his fingers. Lots of it. A small puddle was forming at his feet.

"Alright now, lassie. Let's have the truth from you now," Harold ordered.

"Well," the redhead murmured, holding her hands. There was a snick as the blade retracted back into the boot. "Would you have believed me if I said it was self-defense?"