Took a break from studying to write this for you. It kind of took root in my head and wrote itself, so I very much apologize for not getting to the battle in this chapter. Rest assured, it is coming.
Thank you for your patience and enjoy!
Chapter 5: Enticement
There was only the one tent, and Irelia offered it to Karma without hesitation.
"No," Karma said gently, resting her hand on her friend's shoulder. "I have not yet faced the barrier and am thus more rested. Recover, Irelia. I will meditate by the Kun'oh Village's shrine, if it still exists."
Irelia smiled gratefully, her blade dipping behind her, and sat, cross-legged on the ground with a soft sigh.
"I brought provisions with me if you are hungry, Karma," she said, gesturing at a pack lumped in the corner of the embroidered tent.
"I think I shall walk by myself for a time, in the sunset," the Duchess said thoughtfully, looking out at the trees. "Perhaps Lee shall regale you with tales of our most recent matches?"
"I would be honored, my Duchess," the monk said, sinking to a crouch before Irelia with a friendly smile. "Will you be returning to us before night?"
"After the light has gone," Karma murmured, her eyes still far away, "I will return."
Irelia looked at her sharply, but said nothing. She and Lee Sin busied themselves with scraping a shallow bowl of dirt into the thick moss for the dry branches of their fire, and Karma slipped away, following a violet gleam between the knobbed trunks of the karmals. A few steps into the underbrush and the quiet of the forest came around her like a thick blanket, disturbed only by the liquid chirps of crickets and the sound of rustling leaves. She pushed her way through the ferns, calm, impassive, but ever-watching that purple flicker she could barely see—or perhaps sense—at the forest's edge.
After several minutes of walking in this way, the trees began to this and she saw the shores of a small lake, at the western end of the ruins of Kun'oh. Several, thick, flat stones were piled on a thin bar of sand that extended out about halfway between the village and the hill, and beside it knelt a man that appeared to be a statue of amethyst and ebony, with fine white hair and deathly pale skin on his bare chest, but the rest of his body covered in a thick, stony skin of corruption.
Without a quiver, Karma walked out of the forest and strolled towards him. He looked up and she felt his fiery eyes rest upon her like two spots of heat on her brow, but she knew better than to hesitate. Her boots sank slightly into the sand as she reached the curve of the shore and started making her way around it.
When she reached the beginning of the sand bar, Varus stood and a black, slippery sheet shot from his hand and formed his bow.
"Come no further, Karma," he pleaded, his voice alternatingly harsh with fury and quavering with fear.
"You will not hurt me, Varus," she soothed him. "Do not worry." Placing her feet carefully on the small spit, she approached close enough that she could smell his bitter scent, and reached up to take his hands.
His eyes, glassy in his tormented face, shut as her fingers brushed against the jagged coating of his skin. His bow shook wildly, its red string snapping as she smiled and closed her hands around his.
Karma squeezed lightly, wondering if he could feel it.
"Varus," she said softly, "are you quite well?"
His tattoos, bright lines of the Owl, writhed on his skin as his eyes opened and he looked down at her.
"No forgiveness," he warned her. "Do not try to stop me, Karma."
"I will not permit you to kill the innocent, Varus," she whispered. He snarled in rage, his ebony armor cracking and sliding over her fingers. The hideous touch of corruption slid across her soul, but it found no hold in her. It felt like sticky fingers of black oil, trying to mar the shine of her will.
"My purpose is clear," he hissed. "Is yours so easy to see?"
"You don't mean that, old friend," she said soothingly, looking into his face without flinching. His hands tightened around hers painfully, and she sent a sliver of will as silver gloves around them. "Your revenge does not extend so far as to these children. Save yourself for honoring the dead and helping the living rebuild."
"But in the spring their cries are so clear," Varus groaned, looking away from her and out over the lake. "I see them die a thousand ways, and those Noxians slip away, laughing, hiding from me—only cowards flee their fate! I will find them and my arrows will tear them from this world!"
She squeezed his hands lightly and the unearthly tone died out of his voice.
"They are innocent," she repeated firmly. "Innocent, Varus. Do not stain your noble soul with this tragedy. Let them go."
"There is no salvation for me, Karma," he said softly, "you are Ionia. Do not trouble yourself with me. Keep us safe-and so will I, in my own way."
He was taller than she remembered when she had visited the newly appointed warden as a young girl. Then he had seemed so grand, so fierce and powerful, burning with heaven's light, a bow of fine-wrought gold in his steady hands, a handsome angel to keep the darkness at bay. But they were a decade apart, and such thoughts were—not for her.
"You are a hero, Varus," Karma insisted. "You are no child-killer. I need you to protect our people but not in this way."
"Please do not try to save them," he begged, the violet lines around his eyes quivering as he stared at her face. "Pain is all I can give you."
"It is my duty," she said simply.
"Then do not touch me!" he snarled, ripping his hands from her grasp. His plates crackled as he loomed above her, menacing in the dusk, his fingers beginning to twist and warp into claws. "Are you inhuman? Can you no longer feel repulsion?"
"You do not sicken me," she said sadly, letting her sleeves slip down over her hands. They ached from touching him, as if she'd dipped them into acid. "You are my friend, and I have so few of those that I cannot bear to lose them."
"You are a fool, Karma!" Varus growled, the shadows gathering thickly around him. Red crackles of energy lanced down his arms as his bow began to form.
"I will never stop hoping for you, Varus," the Duchess said calmly, one, two, three breaths. Her will surrounded her in a brilliant corona, tinged purple by her proximity to the Pit's corruption, enfolding her like the wings of Ulu the Owl. She could almost hear his mournful hoots resonating in the pulses of her chakras as tendrils of darkness began to wrap around her ankles. "I am the embodiment of inspiration and willpower. If I can stop the Pit of Pallas with only my devotion to my country, so too can you throw its influence back where it belongs. I believe in your salvation, my friend."
The Arrow of Retribution let out a sound like a sob as a slender lance of her will darted between them and plunged into his pale chest. Boiling anger thrashed against her questing thoughts, and fathomless grief dragged them down, but she was not deterred in searching for a chink in his terrible armor. And there it was, bright, shining, buried thickly under misery and shame and memories of his dead wife and children. She sucked in a startled breath, almost breaking her count.
She could not—but if it would weaken him on the morrow, then she must, for her powers would fail her if forced to shield too many. So Karma opened a gap in the violet flames and rose up on her toes, wrapping her hands firmly around his head, and pressed her mouth against his as firmly as she could.
Karma had never kissed a man but she was not blind to the world around her, and she noted with dispassionate clarity that she at least managed to stun him into silence. His hands fell to his sides, shaking. His mouth moved slightly, as if to protest, and she pressed harder, though she never felt his lips move against hers.
After she had judged enough time had passed she drew back and touched him lightly on the shoulder.
"Never falter, Varus," Karma said calmly, turned, and walked back towards the forest.
She did not hear him resume breathing until she was almost at the edge of the trees, and paused there to look back at him. He had one hand outstretched in her direction, as if he could catch her sleeve from so far away, and his eyes glowed like pale candles in the twilight.
"Onward," Karma whispered to herself, "always."
She slipped into the forest as the owls began to call.