The crescent moon cast its light upon the indinstinct shapes of the sleeping world. Talon would have liked a moonless night better, for pure darkness was where he thrived the most. Considering he was intruding in one of the castle's most important areas, remaining unseen was crucial.

On this peculiar night, most of the guard seemed to have been called to the east side of the castle. It was the perfect moment to sneak into the war room through the wall he was crouching on.

Talon was ready for any unexpected threat coming up to him. His best knives were just within reach, and all his senses were wide awake. Though his only motivation in coming to Demacia had been to get back to Quinn, he couldn't ignore the opportunity sitting right next to him. In the war room, he could certainly find documents about Marcus Du Couteau's position... They had to be there.

The war room's tower had just come in his view. Now, it was time for Talon to put his muscles to work and climb its walls to access a large window he had spotted a few days ago. He silently put on clawed climbing gloves he had crafted himself, and threw a rope over a protruding crenel from the tower.

Talon began hoisting himself up the wall. Damn, it had been a while since his muscles had burned like that. He planted his clawed fingers in the slick stones of the wall and clenched his fingers so hard he thought for a moment that they would break. He grit his teeth in silence and focused on the window above him instead of the pain. It was all worth it.

When he reached the window sill, he pulled up his whole body in a last excruciating effort. He almost let out a long breath out in relief, but stopped everything when he saw the light of a torch through the stained glass of the window.

A guard, his back turned to him, was standing on the doorstep of the war room. Talon swore internally. Fuck. A thousand times fuck. Had he become so naive to think that they would leave the war room unwatched? But it didn't matter... The guard was no obstacle for him.

His right hand instinctively found the pommel of his dagger. But Talon didn't unsheathe it... He watched the guard. He already saw himself silently sneaking in through the other opening of the room, planting his blade in the man's throat and plucking it out in one long slash. The guard would be dead before he realized anything.

But if it was so easy... Why did Talon's hand remain stuck above his scabbard, just like his body remained stuck on the window sill?

The murder would be a mess, oh yes. Talon knew exactly how it would happen, for he had done it already more times than he could count. He knew the course of things by heart like a knight knew his vows. He would effortlessly kill his clueless victim, leave a bloody scene on the floor, and escape right after his mission was completed. The body would be discovered in the morning, and he would be gone far away...

Not this time.

Talon wanted to plant the blade in his own stomach for not thinking about this beforehand. The process of killing and disappearing after the act was as natural as breathing to him. Talon contemplated the man through the window again, his silhouette surrounded by the flickering light of the torch. Killing him would mean leaving Demacia... And leaving Quinn.

And to think this precious information was just a few meters from him, separated by the tainted glass and by the mere life of a random guard... His fingers trembled on the blade, and after a last tense caress, he let it rest in its scabbard.

Quinn would probably never know it, but his love for her had spared the life of this unknown man.

Talon had just finished the laborious process of skirting around the castle through the royal woods. He knew they were one of Quinn's favored training places, but were also often the theater of the prince's hunts. At night at least, animals and intruders alike were safe from harm. His own camp was outside of the royal domain, and he had spent a few nights uncomfortably sleeping in a high tree of the park, waking before the sun to ensure no one caught him there.

Though his body was used to the strain of sleepless nights, Talon's impatience of getting back to Quinn was growing on him. He noticed his own heart beating faster in anticipation, something he didn't even remember experiencing for something positive...

The last step was there: climbing the vines growing on Quinn's tower. Talon was glad not much maintenance was done in this area of the castle. It was much calmer, less watched, and closer to the forest. An easier place to escape in case things went wrong. Ready for a last painful effort, Talon held a vine with one hand, and planted the other gloved one between the cracks of the wall. Soon enough, he was at Quinn's window.

A sudden warm feeling tingled his stomach when he noticed the window was open. Silently, he slid in the room, and didn't let his guard down.

Everytime he saw her, Talon felt like Quinn was even more beautiful than before. He caught sight of her sleeping face first, and his eyes lingered on her slighlty parted lips blowing out air. But the more he saw her, the more he noticed something was wrong...

The cheeks he adored so much were stained with dried tears and runny makeup. A flowery perfume emanated from her hair... It smelled good, but not like her. Only then Talon realized her curled up body was clad in a dark blue dress. It hugged her shapes too tightly for Talon not to appreciate the overall result, but he wondered why she was wearing this attire.

It clicked in his mind. The event the guard had been called for was a ball, and Quinn had gone there. A strange feeling took hold of him, and he wished he had been there with her. He almost wanted to snicker at this thought. When he was still in Noxus, Katarina had often made fun of him for viscerally hating events of any kind. She would have made even more fun of him for wanting to go with Quinn.

He would have hated it, of course. But at least he would have been with her. Protecting her. The marks of the tears on her cheeks slowly built up anger in his stomach. At this moment, he cursed the existence of the person who had hurt her, and he cursed his own as well. He was bound to the darkness and to the forbidden world. Never in his life would he be able to be out publicly with Quinn.

He would remain her dirty secret.

Quinn's sleeping form looked so vulnerable, so feminine. Talon suddenly felt like he was cursing her with his love. He needed to hold her and feel her warmth, but he refrained his urges. Many times already, he had thought it was better for him to go and to leave her alone. He shouldn't even have come to Demacia in the first place.

But the egoistic need to be with her was too strong. He had even put aside his own quest of finding the trail of his disappeared father for her. Quinn was the first person Talon wanted to get back to without any resistance. He knew she wouldn't treat him like he was evil incarnate, make him mad, or pry into his mind like he had no say in it. And he didn't feel the need to protect himself from her, or even hurt her.

She made him feel so good. Like he was someone else.

His father and Katarina would have mocked him for experiencing those feelings. They would have said he had become weak, dumb, and a traitor as well. They wouldn't have been wrong. But having already lost so much in his life, being already considered a traitor to Noxus, Talon wanted to have something good... For once. And he had it.

An angel offering herself to him.

Talon took off his leather armor and cloak in silence. He contemplated the empty space in Quinn's bed, but decided to sit on the hard floor, his back against the stone wall. He wouldn't sleep well, but he didn't care. He needed to stay alert anyway, but most of all, he didn't want to disrupt Quinn in her sleep. She probably needed it more than ever.

He crossed his arms on his torso, watching Quinn's heaving chest from his spot. He knew he wouldn't fall asleep anytime soon, but he was reassured by the familiar weight of his blade resting against his thigh.

Quinn was dying.

She woke up panting, her whole body shivering and covered in cold sweat. She thought her heart was going to burst. Her eyes frantically searched around her, but she realized she was in her own bed. She despserately realized the panick attacks had come back in her sleep, despite Talon returning to her. The only other moment in her life where she had experienced such a state was after her brother's death. At the time, she had prayed whichever Gods existed to never be inflicted such a torture again.

She couldn't remember every part of the nightmare, but some images from it had imprinted themselves in her mind: Talon was holding her hand, and a giant Demacian blade had fallen from the sky and had cut his arm. She had then been taken away to a dark pit by thousands of cut hands, leftt alone in the darkness.

Bile was rising in her throat. She unsteadily left her bed to spray some water on her face, and saw the pair of eyes that was watching her in the dark. She almost jumped away before she immediately recognized their amber color.

Quinn's throat felt unable to let out a single word, in spite of the relief of seeing Talon was right here. He was sitting against the wall of her room, his arm resting on his knee. She tried to decipher the strange expression he wore, for she had never seen it before. Was it because of her pitiful appearance?

"You look hurt." The raspy voice finally spoke.

Quinn's heart jumped in her chest, but the beat wasn't the painful thumping of dread she had been suffering for far too long. Heat came back to her cheeks, slowly. He was there. He was there.

"I... It's nothing."

Out of all the people she had lied to, it was for Talon she hated it the most. But he wasn't fooled.

"Who hurt you?" He asked calmly.

"I told you. It's nothing."

Talon's hawk eyes searched in hers with such force that all her being was tempted to deliver the truth to him. Swain's threat, Jarvan's doubts. Her fear.

Quinn was so afraid of his possible reaction to her holding everything back from him. But she had no choice if she wanted to protect him. She knew somewhere, the raven was watching, and listening. And if she told only a word of this to Talon, Swain would make sure for her treachery to reach the prince's ears in an hour at most.

Talon stood up slowly and came at her level. When his hands found her waist, she was still trembling under his touch. The guilt killed her so hard she expected him to shake her, to threaten her... She deserved it after all.

"I don't believe you." Talon gently pulled Quinn's head in the crook of his own neck. She let him do so, and felt all of Talon's warmth softly spread to her. His own lips were brushing against her neck. "But I love you."

And that was all.

Quinn had worriedly been waiting for the threat, for the imperious demand. Nothing of that came. Talon's regular breathing soothed her as her own lungs copied the rhythm. She inhaled the smell of woods and sweat that came from his skin as if it was the strongest drug. He was the andidote to the poison Swain had introduced in her veins.

Talon then had a gesture Quinn hadn't seen much from him yet: he passed his fingers in her hair, and stroked it softly. Pleasant tingles ran down her scalp to her back and made her close her eyes. It reminded her of Lux's earlier brushing of her hair... In his own way, Talon was taking care of her too.

His hand in her waist pushed her towards the bed. She didn't even resist. Their bodies naturally found their place in the bed, Quinn strongly pressed against Talon. One of his arms rested over her protectively, and she held it with her cold hands as if she was trying to survive a shipwreck.

She didn't know if Talon slept at all. Before she could stop them, long held back tears flowed freely out of her eyes while a few sobs shook her body. Talon didn't say anything, but still held her. At that moment, it was enough.

All she had needed was for her shadow to chase the nightmares away.

[A/N: Firstly, thanks a lot for the sweet reviews. Your support means a lot to me.

This chapter is special, since there's more internal thoughts and little action... But I feel like this is one of the most important chapters of the story. A lot of decisions, a lot of internal change for the characters.

I also wanted to subtly define how I imagine Talon's own way of loving. Tell me if you think that's in character. I'm scared of OOC.]