A/N: Yes, hi, still alive.
I was gonna sit on this for a bit but the outpouring of support I received after basically rising from the grave honestly really touched me. I haven't written this many words in such a short time like, probably ever.
Chapter 17 will not be out this fast, it's a bit more technical from an author's perspective, but it won't be 11 years either.
This is honestly the chapter I always wanted to write when I started this, and I hope you enjoy.
Chapter 16: Mending
"Explain yourself."
Katarina stiffened, the cutting of her father's words somehow even worse than she'd imagined it would be. Part of her had not wanted to return to Noxus when she had realized her failure, for the sake of this exact interaction never having to happen. She could not even meet the man's eyes.
"Look at me."
It took every ounce of strength she had to obey the order, and when she did, she felt smaller than she ever had.
Marcus du Couteau tapped his gloved fingers on his desk impatiently, the seconds dragging on as his daughter struggled to think of any possible combination of words that could get her out of this room unharmed.
When none came, and his eyes looked like they'd cut a hole right through her skull if she dared stay silent for another second, she settled for the truth.
"I failed, fath- I mean, Sir," she stammered ineloquently.
The General tsked with disapproval. "Yes, soldier, that much is blindingly obvious," he said as he glowered at her. "What I want to know is why."
She'd been asking herself the same question during the entirety of her march of shame. It had been a simple task, really - one that she should have, by all accounts, been incapable of fucking up. Her target had trusted her, and getting close to him shouldn't have been a problem. It wasn't, really.
But he had been Noxian. Not only that, he had been her fellow cadet back at the academy, one of very few people who had treated her with any semblance of respect as she had started to make a name for herself. The common consensus among her peers had been that Marcus du Couteau's daughter was clearly a result of blatant favoritism, not talent - a famed General's daughter pushed through the ranks at an early age due to nepotism. Devoting her every waking moment to proving them wrong had somehow only made the accusations worse, made her seem like an insufferable show-off to her peers. Between that and the general age difference, she hadn't made a single friend within the academy's walls.
But he had come close, relatively speaking. He wasn't a boy of many talents - quite the contrary, Devon had been nearly bottom of every class, obviously struggling, and had been shunned by virtue of ineptitude. But he had tried, and some foolish part of her had admired that. They made a strange pair - the famed daughter of a famed military man who had cut down an Ionian assassin before reaching puberty, and a nobody from one of the poorest families in Noxus who had clearly put him through hell in their attempts to better their own lives. He wasn't cut out to be a soldier.
Maybe that's why he became a traitor, she wondered idly. Yet at the time, she had tolerated Devon, as much as she could possibly tolerate anyone, and had taken his earnest attempts to better himself under her tutelage as genuine. She had stayed with him in the sparring room, long after every other cadet had gone to bed, hurling blows and insults at him as he floundered his way through her teachings and got better with the pace of a drunken snail. Somehow, the poor bastard had endured her cruelty, perhaps knowing that no one else would dare to bother to whip him into shape. She was truly his only chance at graduating, and somehow he had, by the skin of his teeth.
She hadn't seen Devon once in the flurry of activity that came after graduation - too caught up in her own assignments to bother. Truly, she hadn't really cared. But when word came that he was feeding valuable information to the Ionians, probably selling it for pennies to send back to his struggling family, her disappointment had been immeasurable.
She hadn't felt much of anything when she received the brief from her superiors, alongside the order to kill him as he travelled home from his last assignment. But when he had seen her approaching him at the train station he was waiting at, somehow, the complete idiot knew what she was there for, and he ran.
She had given chase, of course. As he cut across the tracks and broke through the treeline, he had no chance of evading her. His stealth versus her tracking skills? Please, it wasn't even close. She could have caught him blindfolded with one arm tied behind her back, even if she hadn't known every single thing about how the fool operated due to drilling tactics in his head night after night.
Yet when his blundering path had brought him to the edge of a cliffside, when he had turned to face her with the kind of fear that she was used to only seeing in her enemies, when he had fallen to his knees pathetically begging her for his life, she had drawn her blade - and for one sickening moment, she had hesitated.
She wanted him dead, still, that much was clear to her. Crossing Noxus was no small thing, and his actions had already led to a failed incursion that had cost Noxian lives when the Ionians had received his word of their troop movements and met one company with unyielding resistance.
The Sinister Blade felt even more murder in her heart for Noxian traitors than she did towards their many enemies. But when she looked at him then, she saw the stupid, flustered boy that had tried so hard to make something of himself, given up every night to studies and training while their cohorts were resting. All those mountains of effort…wasted.
To say it made her angry was a drastic understatement. Anger, historically, always translated to violence, but something about this pathetic excuse for a soldier brought her pause. Was it pity? Was she even capable of feeling such a thing? She hadn't dwelled on it, hadn't given it more than a passing thought before she had lowered her knife and decided that she didn't want to hold this piece of shit while the light faded from his eyes, for whatever reason. Instead, while he sobbed and begged, she simply did what she'd always done with poor little Devon - she gave him a push.
His screams echoed through the canyon on the way down, silenced only when she heard a sickening splat that had made her nod in grim satisfaction. She had listened for a few minutes, letting the silence fill her until the sound of crickets and other night creatures slowly returned to the forest around her, an inevitable reminder that life always goes on.
Indeed, it does, because the fucking bastard hadn't actually died.
She had already made it to her next post when word arrived that Devon had somehow made it back to Ionian lines. The poor messenger who had relayed this information to her nearly ate steel when she shook him down for more information - How? Just…how? Had he really crawled the full thirty miles to the front line and made it to the enemy's side without being noticed by anyone? Had an Ionian patrol somehow made their way that deep into Noxian territory just to recover a goddamn traitor who wasn't even one of their own? But no, Noxian intelligence had no answers for her, only a single, intercepted letter to his family that confirmed that his miserable life had not ended but gave no further detail.
She summarized all of this to the General by giving him the only meek defense she really had. "That fall, by all rights, should have killed him."
Marcus' demeanor darkened, if such a thing were even possible. He stood then, his imposing figure forcing her to crane her neck to keep his gaze, crossing in front of his desk and folding his arms across his chest.
"The human body is remarkably resilient," he commented, the words sounding off-hand, as though he weren't talking about murder. "What is the most important lesson you were taught at the Academy?"
She didn't have to flounder or guess at what he was talking about. Every trained assassin had two simple words drilled into their minds before they ever even touched a weapon.
"Never hesitate."
"And do you now see why?" he said, leaning forward, his face inches from hers.
"Yes, Sir," she responded robotically, unsure of what else to say.
He didn't move for what felt like an eternity, his eyes tracing the planes of her face as though he were committing it to memory.
"I have countless troops to move now, plans to re-write, supply lines that now need a complete overhaul!" he bellowed with enough force to make her eardrums ring. She did not flinch.
"Because of you!"
She stayed silent. This was no place for apologies.
"Never. Hesitate," he repeated.
She saw his right hand move at his side, but nothing could have prepared her for what came next.
The move was blindingly fast. She couldn't have anticipated it, didn't even register the knife as it swiped up from his belt and sliced into the skin that surrounded her left eye with a savagery that startled her enough to yelp pathetically and stagger backward while the steel was still embedded in her flesh, which only served to make the wound worse as it tore jagged edges into her skin. The knife clattered to the floor between them as the assassin clutched her eye, blood pouring uninhibited onto her uniform. Her vision went red, her head swam, and pain throbbed angrily beneath her fingers as she looked up at her father with a shocked expression that only seemed to anger him further.
"I should really demote you for this despicable lapse in judgement!" he roared. "Consider yourself lucky that your goddamn traitor has thinned my ranks, because it saved you. But if you think your next assignment is going to be easy, think again."
She didn't know how she managed to maintain eye contact with him, how she managed to pull away the hand that had grabbed at her face and force it behind her back as she stood at attention, but she did.
"Yes, Sir," she blurted quickly. "Thank you, Sir." Her eye stung as blood trickled into it. She thought for certain at that moment that she would lose that sight, and would later come to realize that her father's strike had been alarmingly calculated so as not to actually damage his weapon, despite her frantic attempt to get away that had actually made it worse.
When he regarded her then, she saw only contempt in his eyes.
"You will kill the Freljordian queen."
Her brow furrowed in confusion. "...What?"
"Are you not listening?" he screamed with an unnatural fury, but his voice was not his own. It was inhuman, twisted - some dark, demonic thing that filled the room around them with a series of horrible squawks. Black feathers erupted from his body at the same moment that talons burst from the floor, digging into her ankles, rooting her in place and dragging her closer to him and his hideous form as the transformation took hold, and Swain's piercing crimson eyes bored into her as she let out a horrified scream.
"KILL ASHE!"
It wasn't him who spoke, it was the ravens that now surrounded her, claws tearing at every inch of her skin as they flew around her in tight circles.
"KILL ASHE!"
The words pounded against her skull as she tried to fight them off to no avail, fingers swiping uselessly at air as the ravens blocked out everything until her vision was pure darkness.
"KILL. ASHE!"
She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could, her will fracturing as her body throbbed, fear and pain threatening to tear her into pieces. She felt as though she was being ripped apart, and for one awful moment, she almost thought she deserved it, but her survival instinct would never let her surrender. She fought with everything she had, thrashing and screaming until a familiar voice called her name and sent her rocketing through the air, up into the sky, far beyond the clouds, where death surely waited for her for good this time…
Her eyes shot open to the sight of a dark figure standing in a rectangle of blinding light, aiming a glaive directly at her chest.
"Katarina!" the voice called again, desperately, but her instincts had already activated. Her hand moved on its own, striking the polearm with such force that it knocked the figure backwards. She moved to stand up from the bed, eyes never leaving the shadowy figure, until cold hands closed around both of her wrists and gently but firmly pushed her back onto the mattress beneath. She was dimly aware of the weight on top of her, pressing her down into the bed.
Her chest heaved, adrenaline coursing through her body as her eyes raised to what was probably the only thing that could bring her back to reality in that moment - Ashe's face, twisted with worry, floating above her as the queen held her in place.
"What was that?" demanded some angry man's voice from behind her, and the queen broke the stare, turning her head over her shoulder and calling out to him.
"Stand down!"
She turned back to the assassin, concern etched into every feature, but without skipping a beat, her voice softened.
"It's alright, Kat," she whispered. "It's alright. Come back. You were dreaming."
Katarina took several heavy, labored breaths, each slightly slower than the last, her eyes locked onto Ashe's face like some kind of lifeline. The room gradually came back into focus as her awareness returned, as did the memories of the past few days, and understanding made her unclench, her body going limp in the archer's grip to show she was no threat.
"I…I'm sorry," she managed to say after a moment.
"It's alright," Ashe repeated, though her hands did not move for a moment, and that's when Katarina realized that she was being straddled.
The queen glanced back over her shoulder at the bewildered guard. "We're safe, thank you," she said with a remarkable sense of calm. "Close the door."
The man hesitated, then slowly nodded, plunging the room back into darkness as the door swung shut with a deafening click.
Only then did Ashe relax, her grip on the assassin loosening but not receding, a heavy exhale fanning across Katarina's face as the tension left her body.
It was too dark to see Ashe's face, but the familiarity of her voice, of her slight chill struck a chord in the assassin. She didn't think, still too full of residual adrenaline to contemplate what she did next.
Her arms wrapped around Ashe's shoulders, gently tugging her down so that her body was flush with Katarina's, the assassin way too far gone to spare a thought to her probably-broken ribs. She held her like that, clung to her with the desperation of a drowning man grasping at a life preserver in a raging current, the archer stiffening for just a moment in surprise before relaxing again into the hold.
"Hey…" she said softly, chilled hands running down Katarina's sides, and something about the tenderness in her touch broke the hardened woman all over again.
In a feeling that was almost completely foreign to her, a gentle sob slipped out of the assassin's lips, her face moving to bury in the archer's hair as another overtook her, and before she knew it, she was bawling in a way she hadn't since infancy, her body shaking with each movement. Ashe didn't pull away, softly leaning into her instead, her hands never stilling - they moved in tandem, with soothing motions - rubbing circles into her shoulders, gently tangling in her hair, brushing against the exposed side of her face with a care the assassin had never felt in her life. This only made her sob harder, pulling the other woman impossibly closer. Ashe never said a word, didn't berate her for the childish display as some part of her expected, only held her as she cried with the strength of decades of pain that had never been properly mourned. Katarina felt as though tidal waves were crashing over her, far too lost to care about silly things like the fact that the guard outside could probably hear her. Her mind split apart as a searing headache overtook her, and she squeezed her eyes shut tighter at the onslaught, but nothing could stop the tears now.
It felt to her as though hours passed like that, though it was probably only a few minutes before her grip loosened and the last sounds of her crying faded into the night.
Ashe still held her, allowing for this simple moment of stillness before reality came crashing back, and the adrenaline finally faded enough for a sharp stab of pain to rip through the assassin's torso. She let out a rough hiss and winced as Ashe's weight crushed her battered ribs.
The archer realized at the same moment, springing off her suddenly with a stammered apology, fumbling to light the lamp that sat on the bedside table beside them. A moment later, yellow candlelight fell across her face, and she placed a hand on the blanket that covered Katarina's still-trembling form.
"May I look?" she asked softly.
Unable to speak, the assassin nodded.
As she peeled the blanket back and leaned over, a sudden flash of self consciousness brought heat to Katarina's face. Her chest was bound tightly by bandages, beneath which an angry bloom of purple bruising spread across her skin. This only made the many, many ancient scars that criss-crossed her flesh show in stark relief against the flickering light, and she caught Ashe's sharp inhale as she saw them for the first time.
The archer didn't comment, only seemed to assess the damage briefly before her eyes lifted to the assassin's shoulder, where another bandage was now soaked in fresh blood.
"This needs changing," she remarked, reaching for the box of medical supplies on the table that the healer must have left, then drawing a wooden stool out from underneath the bedside table.
Her hand moved to the bandages, and again, she asked, "May I?"
"Yes," Katarina breathed.
She sat on the stool and began peeling the edges of the formerly white gauze. Katarina watched her as she worked, her expression one of care and concentration. Each move was gentle so as not to cause further damage to the reopened wound.
It took awhile for the assassin to find her voice.
"Why are you here?"
Ashe seemed caught a bit off guard by the question, but she did not look up from her work.
"Several reasons," she finally said. "I've been making the necessary preparations for our defenses. I only got here less than an hour ago when I was too exhausted to be of any further use in readying the guard. I slept in the other bed because I didn't want your contentious presence to give anyone any ideas about trying to slip past the guard. I was hoping to ask you more questions when you were awake and able to speak. And…" she hesitated, "...frankly, I just wanted to be."
Katarina's heart painfully skipped a beat at the admission. "Why?" she heard herself ask.
Ashe's hands paused, and their eyes met. For a moment, the assassin could see the full weight of the strain the queen had been under, stress carved into every feature. "I'm not sure either of us are able to answer that."
Something unfathomable and nameless stirred in the air as they looked at each other, and the assassin shivered, her eyes sliding shut as Ashe returned her attention to the bandage.
"The questions, then," Katarina said quickly, grasping for anything tangible to shake off the feeling.
Ashe succeeded in removing the full bandage, carefully examining the gruesome wound beneath, seemingly unphased by the gore beneath. "How much time do we have?"
Katarina fixed her gaze to the ceiling as she answered. "I don't know, honestly. My orders only included the information that Swain deemed necessary. If I had to guess, I'd say not longer than a day or two, but it's speculation."
Ashe seemed to consider her words for a moment. "What were your orders?"
The assassin swallowed past the lump in her throat. "Beatrice came to me with a letter, ordering me to kill you immediately. I…" she hesitated, "I was to do it in a way that was 'memorable,' and clear as to who the killer was. I was to order every Noxian champion from the Institute, save for my sister, who was meant to hide and relay the Institute's reaction and movements back to Swain. I was to report to a military transport. When I got there, I was told it would be going to Dodkjole."
"How much of that did you follow?"
Katarina's cheeks burned again, this time in shame. "All of it," she admitted. "Except for killing you, obviously, and when I got to the van I…" more shame made her squeeze her eyes shut, "...I incapacitated the drivers and drove it as far north as I could. Beatrice found me. I crashed."
Several moments of silence filled the air, punctuated only by the sounds of Ashe cleaning the wound carefully.
"Our…" a pregnant pause filled the air, "...friendship," Ashe finally settled on the word, "was that ordered, too?"
Katarina thought for a moment. "Yes, and no. Swain began a campaign of gathering information from everyone in the Institute. I was reluctant to participate at first. I don't know if you've noticed, but pleasantries aren't exactly my forte."
Ashe snorted in soft laughter.
"I wasn't targeting you specifically. I didn't even think my information would be of any use. Foolish, I know. I thought the whole thing was ridiculous."
"Would you have spoken to me at all, if not for that?"
The question furrowed the assassin's brow. She was tempted not to answer, but after a moment, she did. "At first, no, probably not," she admitted. "After I got to know you…" that vague, ethereal feeling filled her again, and she shifted slightly, uncomfortable. Ashe's hands stilled her.
"Careful, try not to move while I do this."
"Sorry," the assassin muttered, unsure of how to finish her previous sentence. "I've never had a friend," she added after a minute, the vulnerability of such an admission making her struggle not to squirm again.
The question that followed was tentative, as if Ashe was afraid of her own words. "Or a lover?"
At this, Katarina almost laughed. "That was more…Cassie's forte. I'm a weapon. Weapons aren't supposed to feel things like that."
Ashe frowned, and Katarina caught the look out of the corner of her eye and turned to her.
"What was that you told me in the hospital that day? About repression?" asked Ashe, fixing her with a guarded stare.
The assassin stiffened. "That's different," she said quickly.
"Is it?" Ashe asked with a raised brow. "You're human, Kat," she added softly. "Asking you to never feel isn't realistic."
"It worked," she countered.
"Until it didn't," Ashe retorted, but then her expression softened. "I do…know what you mean though," she said, a strange sadness filling her eyes.
"In what way?" Katarina asked carefully, suddenly curious about the look.
"Being royalty means making sacrifices," she said cryptically. "A queen can't always be with who she wants."
Something in the assassin's stomach flipped at her words, and she found herself weighing each one for a moment.
"Who was he?" she asked, her heart throbbing painfully at each word.
Ashe's hands stilled, her eyes sliding shut as she seemed to deliberate with herself.
"She," she finally said. "A common-born huntress. I was…young, naive. It um…" her words trailed off. She looked like she was in pain. "It doesn't matter, she's gone."
Katarina watched her every move, eyes searching her face as the archer steadied herself and removed a fresh roll of bandages from the box.
"I'm sorry," she said, her words genuine.
Ashe looked at her, as though surprised by the emotion in her voice. Understanding passed between them.
"I lost her the same day that…well, that this happened," she said softly, one hand reaching for her stark white hair. "A story for another day, please," she added when she caught Katarina's question before it could escape her lips. "I probably shouldn't speak of it, there's been too much pain today already."
Katarina shook her head slightly. "No, I'm glad you did. But…I won't pry," she promised. Curiosity burned within her though, and she shushed it inwardly, afraid to misstep. Still…one aspect of the archer's words wouldn't quiet in her mind.
"You…" she started to say, then thought better of it, her mouth snapping shut.
Ashe seemed to sense the question. "I loved a woman, yes."
"Have you always?" Katarina asked before she could stop herself. "I, uh…" she looked away. "I mean, have you always…preferred women."
A full minute passed, enough time that Katarina started to worry that she'd crossed a line. She let go of the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding when the answer did come.
"I'm not sure how to answer that," she confessed. "She was my only love before I married Tryndamere to unite our tribes. But it was never an option for me, really. Like it was never an option for you to love anyone."
Katarina pondered that a moment, thinking back over a life of endless violence, purpose, duty.
"I never thought about it," she said as Ashe wrapped her shoulder. "Men were always afraid of me, anyway. Well, everyone was," she amended. "There was never time. And there was never…" she struggled, waving her free hand in the air.
"…attraction?" Ashe offered.
"Yeah, that," Katarina said awkwardly.
"You've never let yourself open up." Ashe responded. It wasn't a question.
Something about the words bothered Katarina, and she turned her head back to the other woman, unsure of how to phrase her thoughts. "I…was…well, basically taught that if I ever tried, it would probably lead to disaster."
The implication hung heavy in the air. It was hard to argue with, given the circumstances, but Ashe found a way.
"If you had been allowed to explore…any sort of emotion besides murderous rage, it might not have."
Katarina frowned. "I'm not sure I know how to do that."
"Do what?"
"Do…you know, not be a murderous rage."
"What would you call this, then?"
"That's not what I mean."
"Then what do you mean?" The question was serious, and something in it frightened the assassin. She swallowed the feeling and tried to push past it. That was something she knew, fighting her own fear. But somehow, the way Ashe was looking at her? That was scarier than any weapon, more terrifying than facing every army in Valoran single-handedly.
"I don't think I have the right words."
"Try," Ashe said encouragingly.
Katarina slowly sat up. The move was slow and agonizing, and Ashe chastised her softly, but she didn't listen, wrestling with the pain until she was upright, her knees resting against the other woman's.
"Don't do that, you need to rest."
"I need something else," she said, her voice shaking with effort as she looked at Ashe, their eyes now on the same level. "Something that could well end very badly," she said solemnly.
"You're afraid." That also was not a question.
Despite every piece of training that would have told her not to admit it, Katarina breathed a "yes." There was no point in denying it.
"I am too."
"What are you afraid of?"
"You. Not your knives," she clarified. "Just….you."
Katarina broke the intense stare, looking down at the floor for a few beats. Her next sentence was one she'd never in her life dreamed she'd say out loud. "I don't want you to be afraid of me."
"Then try again."
Katarina winced, not from physical pain this time. She had no idea how to do this, no clue how to ask for what she so desperately wanted…but the want was there, coiled in the pit of her stomach. The smooth skin of the Frost Archer's kneecap resting against her own felt like heaven and torture all at the same time.
The words were there, somewhere - the answer to what she wanted. It probably utterly lacked any sort of eloquence, or sense, it would probably end her. Death felt better than this, she knew that personally, this feeling of unknowing. This feeling that she could be stepping directly off of a cliff that had no bottom.
But…Ashe had asked her to try. And if there was any chance that she could phrase this right, then she had to do just that.
"Kiss me," she forced the words out with a sudden lurch of her heartbeat. "But-" she interjected swiftly, holding a trembling hand in the air between them, "not like…not like before, when I…uh," she was losing her nerve, and quickly, but Ashe's eyes betrayed no discomfort, no resistance, so she continued. "…just, like…gently."
Ashe inhaled deeply, and nodded once, sending a burst of relief through the broken assassin. "Close your eyes," she said on the exhale.
This request felt like turning her back on an armed enemy, for all of the anxiety that shot through Katarina, but she felt her eyelids tentatively flutter shut.
A few seconds passed, each agonizing as she felt her body tense, then…cold hands found the side of her face, tracing the planes with an almost reverence, careful to avoid her gruesome scar. Katarina leaned into the touch unconsciously, letting the chill seep into her skin, the lightest gasp escaping her at the contact. She heard the sound of the stool creek as Ashe leaned forward and pressed the softest, featherlight kiss to her lips. It was only a moment, fleeting, so careful it could barely be felt - but when Katarina's eyes half opened to find ice blue staring back at her mere inches away, searching, as always…they wordlessly shut again in unison and returned to each other only a breath later.
The assassin fought against urges she couldn't name, desire flooding her all at once. Her fists twisted in the sheets beside her, lest she let them spoil this moment of tenderness that felt like quenching a thirst she'd never known. Their lips moved together with a slowness that felt like torture, but, she desperately wanted more of exactly that.
When Ashe's hands found her waist and just delicately settled there with all the force of a butterfly landing, she found the strength to release the sheets and bring her still-trembling hands to the other woman's sides with the same delicate touch.
"Yes," Ashe sighed against her lips in approval, pressing ever so closer until their bodies melted together, long enough for Katarina's heat to warm the ever-present chill until their skin was almost the same temperature.
When the archer broke the kiss, she started to pull away, but something in Katarina made her tighten her hold on the other woman ever so slightly - no real force behind it, just a suggestion.
"Wait," the assassin said with a hint of desperation in her tone. Their foreheads met, eyes inches apart, breaths mingling in the air between them. "…stay for a moment. Like this."
The flickering candlelight lit only half their faces from this angle, but it was enough to illuminate the unbridled desire in both of their eyes. Ashe breathed deeply, as though steadying herself, while Katarina breathed unevenly, her lungs struggling to get enough air. Half of her wondered if she was not thinking clearly because of this, the other half didn't care.
Against her will, the anxiety rushed through Katarina again, as though she could break whatever spell this was with the slightest wrong movement.
"What's wrong?" Ashe whispered.
"I'm dangerous," came the reply before the assassin could stop herself.
Ashe's lips twitched in a smile of amusement.
"I know that."
"No," Katarina said quickly. "You don't. I don't, either. I'm not talking about my knives." Her gaze tinged with sorrow. "I could hurt you in ways I can't even understand. I already have. I…"
Ashe shook her head minutely, never breaking the contact between them. "That's the nature of…" she struggled for a word, "…these things. I can hurt you just as badly, can't I?"
It pained Katarina to admit that she was right. "Yes," she confessed, the word barely audible.
The archer's eyes darkened. "Some of it may be unavoidable," she warned. "This…whatever this is, it will be complicated."
Katarina suppressed a laugh. "Because it's so simple already." She sobered the next moment when Ashe's expression didn't change. "Why take the risk?"
"That's…a borderline insane question, Kat," she said heavily. "Coming from you, right now. You have given up everything you know, just to be here, with no promise that this moment would even happen."
"And I would do it again, even if it didn't," she replied, feeling the truth of the words in the same moment she said them. "I didn't have a choice."
Ice blue eyes filled with tenderness. "That," she finally said. "That's why I'd take the risk."
The air between them electrified, surging Katarina's heart into a strange, frenzied gallop. Her eyes flicked to Ashe's lips.
"Kiss me again," she whispered.
The request stirred something in the archer, want and passion flashing across her face with a heat Katarina had not expected, but the following hesitation stopped it in its tracks.
"There's too much that I want, now," Ashe admitted. "I worry I might break you."
"You already have."
Ashe's sharp inhale sounded deafening in the quiet room. "I meant your injuries, Kat," she clarified. "With everything that's coming, you need rest."
The queen was right, but it was hard to admit it. "So do you."
Neither moved. Neither breathed. It felt for a moment as though everything around them would fracture if they dared. When both of their gazes fell at once to each other's lips, all hope was lost. Each gave in at the same instant, the tension snapping like a bowstring as they came together for a kiss full of barely-restrained hunger. Ashe's hands were everywhere - brushing her shoulders, her arms, running along the raised lines that marred Katarina's torso before traveling north. They ran over the bandages that bound the assassin's chest before finally coming to rest in her thick crimson hair, twisting among the strands as she pulled Katarina closer with absolute fervor.
The assassin tried to match her, her own exploration somewhat inhibited by the tunic the other woman wore, but when she raised her left shoulder too far, the kiss broke involuntarily with a grimace of pain.
"That's enough," Ashe said regretfully as she watched the other woman catch her breath. "…for now," she added.
Katarina let out a sigh, but nodded in agreement as she rubbed her throbbing shoulder, willing the searing pain to retreat.
"I have to admit, I'd climb into bed with you now if there were enough room," Ashe said as she stood up and slid the stool back under the table.
That thought was as enticing as it was terrifying. Katarina looked left, then right, mentally calculating the space. "I mean, neither of us are very large," she offered weakly.
Ashe smirked at her before turning and crossing the room. "Think of your shoulder, please. Obviously I can promise absolutely nothing, given the circumstances. But…" she sat down onto the far bed and pulled the single blanket up to her chest. "Assuming we live to see tomorrow night, I'll see what I can do."
If Katarina dwelled on that too long, she'd never sleep. She leaned over carefully and blew out the lone candle, plunging the room back into darkness, turning towards the wall as though to will her mind to empty.
"Goodnight, Kat," the words were said with such fondness as the assassin forced her eyes shut.
"Goodnight, Ashe."
Mercifully, Katarina fell into the deepest dreamless sleep she could ever remember having.