Riven stumbled out of the Belladonna estate with a not so slight stagger to her step. She didn't have half the history of drinking her brother in arms Yasuo did. Her role in the Noxian war machine simply did not allow such frivolous indulgences. When you were a figurehead for the military, there could be no hint of scandal. Alcohol had come much later in her life. The conversation, past the first hour, was somewhat hazy in her mind as a result. She remembered the pair seemed amiable enough. She remembered they had a daughter,who was absent. Even drunk as a skunk, Riven could pick up on the subtext there. The main reason they seemed somewhat less than friendly towards their military seemed to be their daughter joining up.
Prior to her time with the Kontes, she wouldn't have understood. Emotionally, she still didn't, truth be told. You could take a Noxian out of the war, but you couldn't take the warrior out of a Noxian. Even during her most ardent denial and at her lowest hour, she'd fought for her life instead of letting the blade fall. She'd even killed…
Half-way between the estate and where Riven assumed the inn was, she found herself faltering. Some thoughts still made her stumble. She clenched her eyes shut and wiped them with her arm, holding her bandaged forelimb to those peepers for a bit, followed by a few deep breathes. Then, she looked to the sky.
She looked for a while.
What she was seeing seemed so utterly incomprehensible, she thought she was hallucinating at first.
There's a HOLE in the MOON!
"What the FUCK?!"
She spent a while there, just standing and staring with her mouth slack like a cow's, her eyes wide as a fish. Riven was a fighter, not a great thinker. Especially not when utterly sloshed! Sure, she wasn't an idiot, but some things just broke her frame of reference entirely.
Was this a premonition? Was this a hallucination? Did those Vastaya drug her food?
She turned heel and stumbled back to the estate's garden. Riven knew what she had to do!
One splash later, it was done. There she was, face-down among the catfish, cheeks puffed up to keep the air inside. She stayed like that for almost half a minute, before rolling on her back and sitting up, soaking wet in the warm, jungle night. Riven had no idea how long she just sat there, however. Nor did she notice when exactly Sett-, no, wait, the other large cat man had settled in to observe her with what seemed to be an incredibly amused expression. Ghira! Right, Ghira! Had she called him Sett? Probably. Shit. You spent one week tracking down some Black Rose agent in Navori and that arena master just stuck with you like a bad penny!
She shook her head rapidly, wiped her face with a palm and stared at the large man with a mild furrow of her brow: "It's not that funny."
Oh. Whoa! She was definitely still sloshed! She'd barely seen him move into a squat by the side of the pond. Riven did appreciate the hand up, though, and let him haul her drunken ass right out of the water.
"It kind of is.", he assured her, mirth written all over his tone. "If I were ten years younger, I'd have taken some pictures on my scroll."
"Nothing you just said makes any sense to me.", Riven mumbled.
"How about you sober up in our guest room?", he offered her. "It's the least we can do for overdoing it somewhat in the drinks department."
She considered her options. It took about two seconds. "Strange town, strange going ons, aye, best stay here. Thank you."
He chuckled and glanced over to the side for some reason, then helped her inside. After closing the door behind him, he remarked: "So you noticed your shadow after all. No need to worry too much. While you are our guest, the Fang will simply keep tabs on you, nothing more."
"Politics as usual.", she replied as they ambled along to the estate's spare bedroom. Thankfully, she didn't need to climb the stairs in her condition. Ghira was supporting her a bit more than she liked. That said, she hadn't noticed someone stalking her. It was good to know the man wasn't just talk. Not that she'd assumed such, with how fit he was even with his hair greying at the fringes.
"I always hated them on some level. But it's better than the alternative.", he told her, then left her there to sit on the bed and soak it up in her drunken stupor. The towel he handed her soon after seemed almost superfluous now.
His words were a bit beyond her scope right now. Especially with the majority of her thoughts still a jumble from what she'd seen in the sky. What she'd seen and what was, apparently, completely normal for the man. She'd have to sleep on all this.
So, she thanked him and he bid her good night, leaving her to her slumber.
The next morning, Riven woke up with a terrible headache. She spent some time in the bathroom retching into the sink, before marvelling at the technology the people here possessed. Needless to say, she tried out every single lever and push panel she found. Running water was a luxury she was familiar with, conceptually, but to have it change temperature at a whim was somewhat beyond her scope.
The second thing her hungover mind eventually caught up on was how sanitary everything was. She was no slob, but even in her domestic life as a farmer, it'd been impossible to clean up this well. There wasn't a speck of dust on the surfaces, not a bit of grime in the corners. She'd have to figure out how this was done; preferably without letting the Belladonnas know just how much of this was unfamiliar to her.
The biggest thing on her mind, the moon, was still something of a mystery. But, she eventually pieced together enough to make sense of things once she was well-rested and had time to sleep off the shock and mull things over in the shower. Firstly, she'd come here through a portal. She had some vague notions she'd travelled through the void, which, as far as she understood the cosmos, was some sort of endless realm of darkness. Except it stood to reason that where it bordered Runeterra, it most certainly bordered other places as well. Somewhere else was more sensible than 'the moon exploded and I didn't notice until last night', after all.
Somewhat to her own surprise, she wasn't truly broken up about not being able to go home. She knew she'd never be able to return to her parents as long as LeBlanc lived and Ahri was a capable enough sorceress that she'd eventually be found. That was her assumption, at least. If one ancient being could do it, another should be able to figure it out. The fox was a good person, at her heart. She'd not make too much of a fuss if Yasuo pushed. Which he would. That much she was sure of. She was also sure he'd not do so immediately. He knew it'd take time to track the witch down if she ran, and with neither her nor LeBlanc seen after the battle, that would be the obvious conclusion. So, he would wait a bit. Eventually, he and his girl would set out to find her. When mundane means were exhausted, they'd turn to magic.
In other words, she was stuck here for a few years, at the very least. She may as well get local.
Step one in getting local was acquiring currency. Her armour was a mess. Her clothes were, pond be thanked, filthy. Her armour and clothing were also absent. Riven frowned, then picked up the neatly folded bathrobe someone had left in her room while she was in the shower, girded herself and headed into the house proper.
"Good morning!" Augh! She flinched. Kali was either incredibly loud or she was still decently hung-over. The bright light didn't help much either.
Riven squinted some, then offered a small smile and a raise of her hand. "Err...morning." She motioned to her clothing. "Do you know where…"
"Oh, I put them in the washing machine. Ghira's out back cleaning all the blood off your armour.", the matronly cat woman informed her, before promptly sweeping her up arm in arm with herself and bustling her off to the table, where Riven was sat down with a light breakfast. Some bread, some fruits, plenty of water and an empty bucket. Oh. Lovely.
"Thanks. He didn't have to.", she said lamely as she sat down. Her reaction to the bucket clearly hadn't gone unnoticed either, if Kali's chesire grin was anything to go by.
"I insisted. Though fret not. We didn't touch your sword.", she assured her, as she sat down with her at the table. "My Ghira tells me you noticed little Ilia last night?"
"Was that her name?", Riven asked, as she helped herself to some water. She drank slow, alternating with bread as to keep her stomach civil.
"It is. She's a good girl, deep down, but horribly smitten with our Blake. Dear Sienna likes to send her to visit us from time to time on 'official business'. I think it's mostly to keep her out of trouble, really. We did practically raise her." Oh? What was that? If Riven's ears weren't playing tricks on her, Kali's pleasant tone was just a bit too fake there.
Unfortunately for subtlety, the Noxian could be a blunt instrument sometimes: "Sounds like your...friend Sienna thinks she's too young for anything serious, too."
Kali definitely caught the pause. Indeed. Riven was bad at this, much to the Vas-; the Faunus's evident amusement. "Small blessings should be counted as well, I suppose. Speaking of, my husband and I couldn't help but notice you seem to have lost everything at sea, except for your weapon. We talked things over before you woke up and we believe it might be prudent to give you an advance and some bare necessities. You're taking care of something rather substantial for us, after all."
That was an interesting way to package charity and a considerate one. Kali could read her guests well. Though, while proud, Ionia had beaten it out of her not to accept help when she needed it. Thus, she her grateful smile was a bit less strained than her host expected: "I appreciate it. A bit of money and some rations should do. And some fresh bandages."
"Bandages?", Kali glanced down to where Riven was blatantly abusing the Ghira-sized bathrobe she'd selected and hiding everything but her fingers in its long sleeves. "Your aura should have taken care of any injuries already."
"I have...cosmetic reasons.", the swordswoman eventually replied, unable to hide her uncomfortable expression.
It was met by a reassuring smile from Kali, who, while not outright taking her hands, reached forward to offer her upturned palms to take. Not that Riven took her up on that. The chemical burns were something she hated looking at or showing off. She hadn't even shown her parents willingly.
After a few awkward seconds, Kali lowered her hands into her lap and tilted her head slightly. "You're not just light sensitive because you're hung over, are you?"
When Riven shook her head, the cat woman scooted over to her side of the table and draped an arm around her shoulders. Her voice lowered as she drew the completely wrong conclusions. Riven had had issues since the explosion. Not since birth. But Kali didn't really know her history. She just knew a light-sensitive person who could see well enough in the dark to spot Ilia, allegedly, and had no apparent issues with Faunuskind was hiding things under bandages.
"Now, I'm not going to push you into anything, darling.", Kali told her quietly. "But Kuo Koana is truly a haven for our people. You don't have to worry about humans here, or about being judged for your traits, no matter what the people you grew up with said about them."
This was akward. Incredibly awkward. Riven also felt kind of bad about the conclusions Kali was drawing, especially from the indecision she showed right now. The truth was, she was about to come clean with her, tell her that it was an injury. Then her strategic mind told her to lie and fake being one of them. She was, in a small way, at war with herself.
In the end, it was the similarities between the Kontes and the Belladonnas that won out and let her better nature prevail. They lived alone. Their daughter had gone and joined a war, from what she could gather. The subtext inferred they didn't even know if she was alive or not. And while her people had killed their actual son, maybe she could do some good here somewhere down the line.
"I'm not a...Faunus.", she confessed. "I'd rather keep my arms hidden all the same for other reasons. They're not a pretty sight."
Kali went rigid for a moment, before having the grace to look somewhat embarrassed. She still kept her arm around Riven, however. The innate urge to mother people was strong in this one.
"I understand.", the feline assured her. "I have some spare gloves you might appreciate. Are you sure you're no Faunus, though? You have exceptional night vision."
"Well, I'm an orphan, but, I don't have any animal bits that I know of. I check twice a week.", she tried some flippant humour there, though all it got was a roll of the older woman's eyes and a smile.
"Brat. You stay here for now. Finish up and I'll get you your new things. I'll save our number on the scroll, so you can reach us when you're done with your task."
Riven had no idea what that meant, but whatever it was, right now, she was fine with it.