Chapter 81: Braided

Achlys was pushing herself. She threw herself into her studies as though her life depended on it. Every aspect of her magic she trained. She exhausted herself with the choir, practicing influencing wraiths and peering into their memories. Her levitation magic was strained until, after many stumbles and scrapes, she could hold herself aloft for a whole thirty seconds. Everyday she called the drakehound to her through the Mist, sending it away every evening so that she could repeat the process the next day. And balefire was conjured until her hands were chilled from the magic and her fingers turned blue.

Initially, Karthus had watched on with approval. Watching her magic mature was as thrilling for him as it was for her, but with their focus only on growth they had ignored how fatigued Achlys was becoming. And with the fatigue came an accident.

Achlys had also renewed her interest in practicing with the dagger. She had hounded Gaspare, demanding more lessons beyond the simple forms he had taught her. She kept insisting that she was not an inexperienced child anymore, a response that earned her an eyeroll from the stern Noxian, but he agreed to teach her more all the same. She sliced her finger open.

It was not deep but it had bled and the scent of spilled blood had excited nearby wraiths. Achlys had almost seemed excited for another chance to practice her magic, but Karthus stepped in and quelled them himself. The magic of the Isles would seep into wounds where it could and sap the life from those it permeated. It was not likely to kill his daughter, not since Viego's intervention, but he knew it could still weaken her. Achlys didn't seem as concerned. Karthus however, demanded she refrain from using magic until her finger fully healed.

She had actually argued with him about this. When he had refused to change his opinion, she then spent the rest of the day sulking about. Her foul attitude had mercifully dissipated the following day. She simply shifted her focus onto her other, non-magical studies. Karthus was cleaning up from one of these lessons, gathering up the books and putting them away.

Recently, Achlys had taken an interest in learning the Helian language. As much as the Ruination had destroyed, it had also unnaturally preserved a great deal. Whatever magic had existed in the libraries of the Isles before had been enhanced, allowing the tomes and scrolls that had been entombed there to survive for over a thousand years. Though there were several tomes among the collection that were enchanted to shift their text for the reader (usually the cursed ones that craved to be read), most were simply preserved by the magic that saturated them. What was preserved was unreadable for almost all the world's population, what precious knowledge they held lost to time.

Time however, was one thing the deathless wraiths had an abundance of. Karthus had ventured into the libraries countless times over his existence on the Isles and in doing so, found several tomes that existed purely to aid in translation. The Helians had hoarded knowledge from across the known world and to aid them in doing so, they had created lexicons on how to translate most languages at the time into their own, including Ur-Nox.

That ancient dialect of his native language was one he had only studied briefly during his time as a tally-man, just enough so that he could decipher some of the older texts kept in their archives. With that base, he had worked meticulously to translate the guide from Ur-Nox to a more modern Va-Nox and from there create his own guide for translating Helian. And when that had been completed, he had coaxed Scrivener wraiths into verifying his work. It had been an arduous task, one that he could not recall how long it had taken. Without Achlys's steady growth, it had been difficult to be aware of the passage of time.

Now Achlys was benefitting from all his work. It should have been rewarding to watch her learn, but instead it filled Karthus with nothing. He recalled what it was she had said to him when they had begun.

"Soon I won't need you to translate for me. I'll read everything myself."

It struck Karthus how that statement, said so casually and happily, felt as though it had squeezed his soul as shock would pain the heart of the living.

"Once I celebrated your growth and change, now it fills me with worry as well as joy. Odd. Do I miss your dependency on me? Is this something else?" He spoke to himself alone.

His thoughts ventured back to the shrouded memories of his sisters. In those, he had always been the younger one. They were watching him grow.

"Did you feel this way, dear sisters?"

Forward to his years among the tally-men his mind wandered. During that time, he took no younger members of his order in as pupils, not as closely as Acheron had taken him under his wing. Raising another life, he had thought, would be too time consuming and be an unwanted distraction in his studies into the nature of death.

Karthus chuckled to himself.

"And she has been, but it was not a burden I minded. It was a different fulfillment."

He put the last book away on its shelf and set her wax tablet beside their cooking equipment so he could reset the wax next time they lit a fire. The words upon it were a Helian maxim.

"Knowledge is the light of the world, and we must tend its flames."

"I am trying." Karthus thought aloud, "There has been a change in her. I would be a fool to deny it. But I shall keep faith that our visions remain aligned."

He returned to the main hall of the cathedral and peered through a portion of broken stained glass to where Achlys was playing in the yard.

"Good hound, Misty!" she called. "Acheron, bounce this next one higher."

She was outside taking a break from studying by playing with the drakehound. After calling it to her consecutively for so many days, she had decided it needed a name. She chose "Misty". If the wraith begrudged the name, it did not show it and served as faithfully as ever.

"From afar you look as happy as ever, but I have felt your mood sullen." Karthus thought as he watched her. "I do not know what has happened to cause this. Does Viego still trouble you or is it something else?"

Without thinking, his hand moved to rest over where his heart had once been.

"We are family, so why are we drifting apart?"

Once more, his thoughts returned to his sisters. He was older than they were when they died, but he still yearned for their advice.

"What should I do? You three who raised me, how should I help her?"

Liviana's voice, cherubic and innocent, came to his mind.

"Horatia, Caecilia, come play with Karthus and me. What's the point of so many siblings if we don't take time to play together?"

And then it suddenly occurred to him.

"When was the last time we had spent time together for no other reason than to simply be with each other? Studying, practicing, tending to the choir; all of it together but always it was towards and end, not the moment. Today my reason shall be your happiness, nothing more."

With a wave of his hand, the doors of the cathedral opened for him as he glided out into the afternoon gloom.

Achlys was still playing with Misty. She held a rock in her hand and conjured balefire to it. The faintest amount of her magic was woven around the stone before she threw it, sending it flying through the air far further than she should have been able to. Misty took off after it.

"Achlys."

His daughter looked back over her shoulder at him.

"Yes?"

"How is your finger?"

She held up her left hand and slowly curled the bandaged digit.

"It still stings a lot but less than yesterday."

"It may still be wise to wait another day before casting magic through it." He continued as he watched Misty plod back with the still dimly glowing rock in its mouth.

"I'm being careful. I'm only using magic in my right hand." She took the rock from the drakehound, called magic to her right hand to prove her point, and threw it for the wraith again. "Doing that doesn't hurt. And I am taking a break from magic. That's why I've been learning the Isles language."

"And you have been studying diligently. Perhaps you should rest a while."

"That's what this is."

She turned completely around and looked intently at him. Her brow creased with concern.

"Is something wrong?"

"No. Nothing is wrong."

"Oh, okay. It's just, you seemed upset for a moment."

"I am not upset." He assured her.

A small smile crossed his face. It seemed as though, even as he found it more difficult to read her as she grew, she began to read him more easily. To that end, being honest was the best course of action.

"Achlys, I worry you are exhausting yourself. I would like to see you relax and I would like to do so with you."

A tilt of her head let her eyes catch the light of Acheron's gently flickering balefire.

"Really?"

There was hesitation in her voice. Karthus heard her tone and resigned himself that she was likely going to push him away, but the words were spoken. He should not take them back. He nodded.

"Yes."

"Okay, sure. What did you want to do?"

No hesitation in that response. He almost didn't believe it.

"What you want to do. It has been too long since we have spent time together that has not been occupied by studying."

Her eyes fluttered to the sky as she thought of the last year and how much more time she had spent exploring beyond the confines of the cathedral's yard.

"Yeah, we haven't."

"We should amend that."

"Okay. So, I can pick something for us to do? Anything that doesn't include me using magic because I'm supposed to be resting, right?"

Karthus nodded. Achlys nodded back. She closed her eyes, thought for about five seconds, and then snapped them open again.

"Okay, I know what I want."

"What is it?"

"Can I braid your hair?"

Karthus was taken aback. He had expected her to want to venture out together to the beach or to the forest, or to remain home and play a game. It had been over a year since they had played tellstones or chess with each other. He had never been skilled at chess, but neither had Achlys and there was something about laughing together at how poor you both were at a thing that made it enjoyable once more. But she had not asked for any of those things. She had asked for something new.

"You want to braid my hair?"

She nodded.

"I need to practice and practicing on yourself isn't always the easiest and I can't practice on Katherine because her hair is full of hooks. Please?"

"If this is what you want, I can oblige."

"It is. Thank you!"

As soon as Misty returned to her, she dismissed it with a final scratch between its metallic spines. The drakehound sprang away towards the gate as Achlys moved with equal spring in her step up the stairs of the cathedral.

"You sit down, I'll be right back. I need to get my stuff!" she called back, already at the far side of the building by the time Karthus had entered it.

The lich took a seat in one of the pews rather than his throne behind the altar. It would be easier for Achlys to reach his hair here. He removed his hat and pulled back the hood of maroon fabric that covered his head. His hair was as long and full as it had been in life, though all the color it once had was gone. Scooping his hand under his hair, he pulled what was still tucked under his hood and robes out. It fell about his shoulders like a silver cascade.

He pinched a few strands between his fingers and looked down at them. Compared to his withered hand, his hair was immaculately well preserved. He hadn't given much thought to his hair in the last few decades. It never tangled, the etherealness of his form keeping it undisturbed from even the fiercest of winds. Magic could cause it to flutter, but no matter how it writhed and twisted, it always returned to its silky, untangled state within minutes.

"Will any braid she makes even stay?" he thought. "But again, she is capable of affecting wraiths in a manner no other mortal can."

His thoughts were interrupted by Achlys's voice.

"Okay! I think I've got everything!"

A brush, a comb, a hand mirror, and a fistful of colored ribbons were cradled against her chest with one arm as her other kept a Noxian book clutched tight. Slowly and steadily Acheron followed behind, two more books stacked atop his head with hair pins stacked upon them. She spilled all the items onto the pew next to him as soon as she was able.

"Is all of this necessary?" Karthus asked.

"I don't know. It might be. This way I won't need to leave if I need anything though." She picked up one of the books and began flipping through it until she came to an illustration she liked. "We will try this one first. It's easy. Antie Elise can do it so fast on me but it still takes me a while."

Karthus looked at the drawing his daughter held up. It showed a young woman with two braids in her hair that started towards the front of her head and went around like a crown until the met in the back and tumbled down unbraided. He had seen Achlys do her heir in this manner many times, often tying in ribbons at where the braids met. Purple was by far the most common color, as it was her favorite, but red, blue, black, and other moody colors made up her steadily growing collection.

As if reading his mind, Achlys asked, "Which color do you want?"

She held up a dozen ribbons before him. Karthus looked them over, though his dulled wraith's perception of color made several of them appear to be the same shade. He chose one that he was still sure the color of.

"Black."

"Good choice. The silk one is one of my favorites." In what seemed like one motion, she threw the rest of the ribbons onto the pew, snatched up her hairbrush, and darted into the row behind Karthus. "Let me know if I pull too hard and it hurts."

"I shall."

He felt her hands gather his hair and pull it towards his back before feeling the rhythmic, gentle tugs of a brush being moved through it. It was such a light sensation, a mortal instrument against his unliving form, that he felt her hands holding his hair more than the teeth of the brush itself. As he had expected, there was not a single tangle in his hair.

It had not always been so for Achlys. He could not count the number of times he had battled snarls in her long hair that, especially in her younger years, had seemed to appear out of nowhere. It had been even worse after days at the beach. Sand and salt and bits of seaweed would conspire to make the most frustrating knots to work through. More than once those battles had ended with tears and Achlys avoiding him for the rest of the evening.

"I must have been much the same when I was a child." Karthus mused to himself.

His eldest sister, Horatia, had always been a little envious of his hair and she would scold him when he came home with it a rat's nest. But no matter how exhausted she was, she always helped him and would do her best to rally the energy to talk with him as she did. Time had stolen away many of the things she would say to him, but not all. Those he could recall, he held close.

"Your hair is so beautiful, so soft, and so bright."

"Horatia."

"Huh? I didn't say anything about Auntie Horatia? I said your hair is beautiful. Are you thinking about her?"

"I was. She used to brush my hair when I was younger, just as I brushed yours."

"And now I'm brushing you. Did she braid your hair like I am?"

"No. The simple braids I can do for you, that's all she would do for me. She kept her hair shorter than mine; only down to her shoulders."

"Oh, well I'm glad you didn't cut your hair as short. I wouldn't be able to do this if you did." There were a few quick pulls as Achlys tied in the black ribbon. "Ta-dah! What do you think?"

Karthus picked up the hand mirror and held it up before him. As with most mirrors that weren't imbued with magic, it struggled to show his reflection clearly, but he could see where the braids were and he twisted his head to see the ribbon tied in. He brought his hand up and felt along the braids all the way around.

"It looks nice." He said.

Achlys poked her head over his shoulder and looked into the hand mirror with him. Her reflection was clear and smiling.

"You look a little fuzzy."

"But I can still see that you did a good job. See, the ribbon is not distorted."

He pointed a claw up at the ribbon. The edges of the silk glowed dimly with balefire's pale light. Achlys had infused just enough into the ribbon for it to hold to a wraith's hair, at least for a little while.

"I'm so, so happy your hair is like this." She sighed.

"So you can have your fun?"

"Yes, but there is another reason too."

"What is that?"

"Our hair is the same color. Families usually look like each other. I know you found me, so we aren't related by blood, you don't even have blood, but we still get to look like each other."

She pointed to their reflections.

"We do." Karthus agreed.

Achlys was happy. Happier than she had been in days. Karthus didn't need to see the smile in her reflection to know it. He could feel it just from her being next to him.

"Okay! Ready for the next one?"

"I am."

A twist, a bun, a braid, and another braid; Achlys played with her father's hair. They spoke as she did, her asking more about her aunts and Karthus recalling as many happy memories as he was able. All the while, the wraiths that made up the choir settled into the pews or perched on the architecture. As lesser wraiths were drawn to strong mortal feelings of fear and sorrow, so to were they drawn to intense happiness. They filled the room around Achlys and basked in the presence of her warm emotions. Neither Karthus nor Achlys gave any more time to their troubling thoughts and, at least for this evening, things felt as they used to be.