With a silent curse constantly lingering at the tip of her tongue, the queen of Freljord tried to keep herself awake. Even though nothing could be won in denying her exhaustion, she would stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it aloud. Akali did not exaggerate when she said that everything she knew would make for an extremely long story. Frankly, the Ionian downplayed the matter, as the white-haired woman was hardly prepared to spend the whole night listening to it. Granted, the discussion was eye-opening, nearly immediately changing the queen's perspective of the assassin. Of course, she knew about her professionalism, but there was so much more to it. Her keen mind shocked Ashe many times throughout the nighttime as she relentlessly kept pointing out dangers, disadvantages, and possible solutions. Strangely enough, all of this felt like a heartbeat – all of these long hours passed in the blink of an eye.

Undoubtedly, the former ninja's knowledge was impressive. As someone who was used to speaking for long periods of time, Ashe found herself baffled at how trivial it seemed for the dark-haired woman. After hours of near-constant conversation, one would expect forming coherent sentences to be challenging, severely hindered by fatigue, yet in her case, it felt as if she barely started speaking. The same could not be said about the queen. Her own exhaustion got the better of her on numerous occasions, making her unintentionally yawn loudly. Even though the matter was hardly addressed between them, they wordlessly knew it was a matter of time before Ash would need to rest.

"Drink it," Akali abruptly said, handing the monarch a decently sized mug, which released a pungent aroma as it slowly steamed.

"What is this?" the white-haired woman inquired about the drink, pressing her right palm against her lips, effectively muffling another yawn.

"A mixture of herbs I found on my way here, mixed with hot water," the ninja replied, not even glancing at her speaker. Instead, the young assassin approached the war table, fixing her eyes on the worn-out map spread on it. Like hundreds of times before, she began inspecting the piece of paper as if it was about to reveal some secrets to her.

"Pff," the queen scoffed before taking a hesitant sip of the provided beverage. "You kept staring at this very map for almost all night," she commented, a hint of anger and irritation tainting her voice. "Do you honestly believe there is more to learn from it? Or … are you still fooling yourself that there is more to it than meets the eye?"

"Hm," a quiet hum was provided as a response of sorts. "It is not about grasping anything more from it," she whispered, shrugging nonchalantly. "I would describe it as a bad habit of mine. I was taught always to have everything planned to the smallest of details. After some time, it became natural to me to have everything figured out and under control," the assassin explained after a short pause.

"Pff," another scoff filled the air. "If it helps you keep your mind fixed on the goal, by all means, go ahead. However, I would say it is a waste of your time. And time is not a resource that we have much to spare," the monarch commented, lowering her voice and making it cold.

Author's notes section:

Please, note that the dialogues written in italic are thoughts.

As always, I would like to thank you for everything. See you soon :)

Changelog:
[2024-01-21]: A preview has been released.

References:
- Rise - The Rasmus

End of the author's notes section.