Talon awoke face down in a rather uncomfortable pillow. He slowly opened his eyes and attempted to take in his surroundings as best as possible. The room he was in was excruciatingly dark; so dark that he was amazed anyone without the eyesight of an assassin like himself could even manage to see their own hands in such a lightless space. He was unfamiliar with his location – which was an unfamiliar feeling within itself – having been across the entire continent of Valoran, and back, to end the lives of whatever target he had been assigned to.
He attempted to roll over, hoping his pillow was more comfortable on the back of his head than it was on his face, except he was stopped not only but the rope tying down his hands and feet, but by the searing pain his back that burned as if someone had taken a chunk of his muscle away and forced him to move. Suddenly, memories flooded back into his head of everything that had happened prior to that point, but not a single one of them was any clearer than the sewage water he grown up in. He closed his eyes and tried to think of all of the events immediately prior to him being tied up in the room he was in. He let his mind slip from the current world of reality and back to what he remembered occurring some time ago…
Talon was walking through the halls of the Institute of War and decided to make a quick stop by Katarina's room. Her father had been missing for quite some time now and he made sure to check up on her from time to time. He worked alone on his assassination missions as often as possible, but he learned his skill with a blade from the same man that she did: General Marcus Du Couteau, her father. He was the only man to ever defeat Talon in a duel, and spared his life in return for his loyalty to Marcus' cause. The man had mysteriously disappeared some time ago without a trace. Talon no longer had orders to follow or a debt to repay; he could be a free man, but something kept him around looking for Marcus. His disappearance was the main reason Talon had joined the League in the first place. Part of him felt that his loyalty should be passed on to the General's daughter, Katarina, being of the same house and name. He had grown quite fond of the woman in his time serving under Marcus which was a feeling he had not felt for an individual other than Marcus himself, outside of a childhood friend: a boy by the name of Kavyn, whom Talon left face down in the gutter after realizing how much more success he had in life working alone. He had refused to grow connected to any person in any way since then, knowing how it would turn out in the end. And to be fair, he really did not need more corpses pilling up in the streets; it would cost more money to continually re-sharpen his blades.
He approached the room where Katarina stayed and knocked a few times. There was no response, to Talons surprise. He turned the knob and found it to be unlocked. He entered the room with an announced "hello" and scanned the surroundings. It appeared to be completely empty with the lights turned off and no one in the bed or on the furniture. The place was not ransacked at all and knowing Katarina, if someone were to kidnap her, the room would have made it quite obvious that she did not go willingly. He quickly left the room and latched the door with a feeling sinking into his gut as his conscious grew aware of her potential whereabouts. He took flight down the halls of the Institute of War headed straight for the quietest, most isolated portion of it. As he drew nearer to his destination, he began to hear soft sounds of metal clashing against metal. He rolled his eyes as he approached a room made of a bluish marble, connecting four hallways together, all of them leading to next to pointless and unused portions of the Institute.
Talon's memories were disrupted, snapping him back reality, as the sound of footsteps corroded his thoughts. He opened his eyes again and made out the figure of a large man, suffering from an incredible hunched back and leg gimp, hobbling into the room holding a shovel in his hand while holding his lantern via a jagged stick that appeared to be attached in a janky manner to his back and hung over his head; reminiscent of an anglerfish's light. The man was quite an awful sight on the eyes, not to mention entering his line of vision in a moment like then. Talon knew who he was, but had no idea why he was looking at the monstrosity, or where he could possibly be that would provide this man as his company for the moment. The assassin racked his scrambled brains for a moment to collect all of the information on the hulking man as he could before coming to the conclusion that he knew very little. His name was Yorick, and he was a grave digger. He came from the Shadow Isles and was no longer totally a part of the living.
"Warmskin," the man said, most likely referring to Talon.
"You will untie me and show me the way out before I cut myself free, slit your ghastly appendage you refer to as a neck, and find my out using your rotten blood as a retracing line," Talon immediately demanded. Yorick laughed a horrid cry before responding to his less than appreciative guest.
"I will let you try warmskin. But there are many flaws in your simplistic plan. If you could have cut yourself free, you would have long ago. If I could be killed, I would have done so long ago. If I had blood for you to pool, it would have been spilt long ago. So, do you still wish to create empty threats, or will you let your pointless personality be set aside while I assist you to proper health?" Talon snarled at the gravedigger's response and closed his eyes to shield his brain from having to look at the dark silhouette of the horridly disfigured man in front of him. He should have known that a man who has avoided death for as many centuries as he would have accumulated enough knowledge to not be moved by such a simple threat. Talon had made it out of situations before where words had gotten him free. The will to survive is much stronger in one who depends upon only himself to do so than it is in one who relies on others to consistently grant them bail.
Yorick proceeded to remove the current wrappings on Talon's back, pour some sort of chemical over it that – to Talon's amazement – sent more of a chill done his spine than create any sort of burning sensation, and rewrap the wound. Talon allowed him to do his work unquestioned as he did not care how or why he was in his situation or why this abomination was aiding him; more so annoyed that he was in it at all. Being unable to do anything about his predicament, he allowed his memories to override his brain once again in remembrance of the last time his words had allowed him to escape.
Talon's head rested against a table and he tasted a bloody mess of wood splints, dirt, and saliva on his tongue. He scanned the room without moving an inch. His eyes were not even rotating in his sockets; he was just taking in the image with his peripherals. He saw a relatively empty room, a table lying against the opposite side of his face, and shadowy figures standing on the contrasting side of the room from him. He noticed something odd, being placed upon a table: his vision was of the figures feet, not their torsos. He examined a bit more and saw legs of the table smashed apart and lying around him. It had collapsed due to his body having been tossed on top of it. He did not remember getting there, so he examined the table more closely. A small dent was visible in the surface as if a knife had been standing in it at one point in time. He recognized it as his table; the dent was where he generally held his blade to allow it to stand in the air and retain the metallic shine as best as possible. The blade was not standing in the dent though. He looked more intently at the two figures standing on the other side of the room which he now recognized as his own. One was on the ground, being held at blade point. The other was a large man, holding the blade to his captive's neck. The blade was Talon's; which had most likely been swiped up from the table.
He had no way to assault this assailant without his weapon. He recognized the one on the ground to be a woman, but he was not familiar with the man's voice. The world quickly shifted into reality as his brain let all the pieces fall into place and finish the picture. He had been tossed onto the table while sleeping, which had knocked him out; or so the assailant thought. His blade has been stolen and was now being used against the woman, Katarina, who had entered the room in concern for the loud crash caused from Talon slamming into and collapsing the table. Clearly, the man had thought the table to be of a stronger integrity, but he seemed to be coping with his error quite well. Talon was trying to think of who would hate him, or the Du Couteaus, so much to attempt to assassinate them and not assume he would pay for the deed with his life. Katarina sat very still – her face lightly bloodied from a fight with the assassin – not daring to move a muscle. Talon quickly racked his brains to get an answer to his question. He had no chance of arriving at the man in time to save her, and less of a chance of fending him off without a proper weapon. Talon had to use his words, but he had no idea who the crazed man was or what he could say to him. But to be fair, it could be anyone looking for vengeance, due to the mass amount of corpses Talon has laid across the streets and gutters of Noxus. Regardless, he had to act. He lifted his face from the table and got to his knees.
"Go ahead," he said to the armed man. "Kill her. See what happens. But just you remember something." The man tilted his head to the side and looked out of the corner of his eye to see Talon sitting on the other side of the room.
"Oh I'll kill her alright, then I'll finish you off you cocky little crap. I'll cut her to pieces right in front of you, then I'll kill you on top of her body," he scoffed at Talon. He rolled his eyes in response.
"Do you know who that woman is?" he asked. "She is an assassin of Noxus. She serves under General Du Couteau. She is a mere pawn. You strike her down, and everyone you know, everyone you love, everything you dreamt of, will be cut down with its ashes scattered all over you face when they're done. Every living moment of your life will be of waking torment and despair until the point in which you die, hardly a soul left in your body. So please, cut her down. The door is right there." He said while motioning to the exit to his immediate right. "In the time you waste to finish her off, I'll be out of here informing every watchful eye we have posted around the entire country of Noxus. So tell me, how fast do you think you can run?" The man took deep consideration of Talon's words in attempt to decide whether or not they were truthful, and honestly they were; Marcus loved his daughter more than anything else in the world and would halt at nothing to torture the very existence of the man who ended her life.
Talon looked at Katarina half slumped against the wall with a hand around her neck. He nodded at her, and she got the message. The man's grip had loosened in his distraction and his armed hand was shaking slightly as he began to understand the situation he had gotten himself into. She moved swiftly while grabbing the arm holding the blade and thrusting it into the arm holding her neck. He screamed in pain and immediately let go of her altogether. Talon ran towards him in a dead sprint and launched onto him. Wrenching the blade out of the attempted assassin's flesh, Talon reinserted it into his neck. He coughed and sputtered blood as it oozed from the side of his exposed muscle. Talon laid his limp body on the ground and kicked him in the ribs to knock out what little air was left in his lungs grasping feebly onto life. He looked over at Katarina who sat there silently, lightly wounded and very winded, but recoverable. He offered his hand down and helped her up. He walked with her arm wrapped around his shoulder and helped her limp out of the room and down the hallway towards Marcus' bedroom.
It was the first time he recalled helping someone out. While he had done it out of his own self accord, he had helped her nevertheless. He had respect for her being Marcus' daughter, but he did not expect to have to save her from such a dire situation. Although, had she not shown up at Talon's room when she had, he may have been dead already. It was a peculiar feeling to have someone care for you for something other than your skill with a blade.
"What did it mean?" he thought to himself. He shook his head. "Nothing. It meant nothing. The girl simply entered the room out of curiosity from having heard a loud noise. Then things fell into place." He looked up at the hallway he walked down. He had never recalled those halls to be of such incredible length. After sighing, and continued walking as the darkness slowly enclosed upon itself, as Talon's consciousness slipped away into a deeper state of sleep, bringing the memory to a close.