The windswept mountain heights above Uwendale had always been cold, even in the warmest of summers. When she opened her eyes, Quinn was frozen to the bone, but was also surrounded by the comforting warmth of her loyal eagle.

She propped herself up on her elbows and put her stiff muscles to work. She realized she had fallen asleep in a nest of moss and branches, right at the foot of tall red pines. Beams of sunlight filtered through their branches, softly touching Quinn's cheek. The fallen ranger squinted her eyes, and saw Valor was already awake. She knew he had been guarding her in her sleep.

Quinn stroked Valor's wings with the tip of her fingers. A shiver of pleasure ran along the bird's wings, and was soon followed by a deep coo.

Quinn wiped the dew off her shoulders and thighs, and slowly stood up. When she stretched her arms, Valor imitated her like a shadow. The Demacian woman smiled when she noticed her old friend hadn't lost his old habits. When she suddenly thought of what she had been so close of committing last night, tears began gathering at the corners of her eyes.

Valor... I'm sorry.

Quinn didn't even have the strength to say it. And to think she had almost abandoned her most loyal friend...

The taste of bile soon invaded her throat, and she was glad her stomach was empty. To chase the sick sensation away, Quinn started walking. She didn't know where she was headed to, but the direction didn't matter. She needed her legs to take her away from her dreadful thoughts.

Valor added a comforting weight on her frame by landing on her shoulder. Quinn forced her eyes to focus on each one of her steps. Her muddy boots softly sank into the mossy ground, making her feel like she was walking on clouds. She wasn't following a clear path, and it didn't matter.

I have almost done it. I was so close.

It seemed like these thoughts always found how to snake their way into her mind... Quinn almost stopped walking, but pushed herself further, catching herself on a red pine trunk. Yes, she had almost done it... Right now, the urge wasn't there. Her body and mind were simply filled with the incurable sorrow of being torn away from the Noxian assassin.

Did I really mean that?

Quinn shook her head, trying to answer to her own thoughts. Valor tilted his head curiously when he saw his human friend struggle against apparently nothing. For now, the answer was simple. No. Quinn wanted to see Talon again. Even if it took days, months, years... She had contemplated the thought of starting her search right away, especially after seeing that look in her parents' eyes...

Look at me. I'm not even able to control myself...

The tears were strong... But Quinn managed to hold them in, for the moment. Valor sensed her rising angst, and rubbed his cheek against her head. He was graced with a caress from the back of Quinn's hand.

Will I... Will I ever see him again?

The question almost killed her. All of a sudden, Quinn fell to her knees as if her legs had been cut down by an otherwordly force. She clasped her hand over her mouth, and started crying painful, ugly tears. Her distressed eagle flew off her shoulder and landed right before her, gently nudging her with his beak and with his feathery cheeks.

"Oh, Valor..." Quinn sobbed.

She didn't even have the strength to reach for her friend... Torturous tremors started possessing her body as she struggled to keep the tears from flowing out. She knew no one was watching, but each one of her sobs was a painful wave of sorrow that shook her to the core.

But despite everything she was being put through, her mind wasn't completely numb... She saw the enemy thoughts sneak into her head... And stopped them right there. She looked at Valor. Valor was there. Valor was there.

As always, the great eagle grounded her. She wanted to get lost in his warm feathers and become a bird, like him. How great it probably felt, to be flying free in the sky...

Quinn wiped her eyes and nose, and slowly pulled herself back to her feet. Talon wasn't there with her in this forest. And she was right: she was definitely not in a state where she could roam the world to search for him... Her best bet to see him again was to stay alive.

Alive.

The fallen ranger clenched her fist and grit her teeth, fighting the neverending flow of tears. That was her new purpose for the moment: to stay right there. Through the last few months, she had been hunted by friends become foes, and been rejected by her countrymen. But the deadliest enemy was within her now... And she was determined not to let it win.

She would go through uncontrollable waves of sorrow again. She would hurt, cry, and want to give up again. Quinn knew that, now. She accepted it.

Her steps had taken her out of the forest, on the top of the mountain. The morning light of the sun brought out the unique purple hue from her hair. It felt... good. Valor deployed his wings out of pleasure when a gush of altitude wind passed through them.

Like it was an old friend, Quinn welcomed the future just for a moment. Because each morning like this one increased her chances of getting back to Talon.

"My Prince... We don't understand how it could happen... Please! Have mercy!" A soldier's voice begged.

If it had been possible, Jarvan IV's anger would have set the whole castle aflame. He had pounced from his throne, and was holding his sword right in the face of the poor soldier...

Jarvan grit his teeth and shook his head: this man was only the messenger. He had to remind himself of who truly was to blame. He sheathed his sword, but knew his fingers were eager to make someone pay for what he had just heard. The prince briefly closed his eyes, and cracked his knuckles.

"Do we have any information about the authors of the crime?" He coldly asked, turning away from the soldier and walking back to his throne.

"The author. It was just one man." The soldier's voice trembled. He was terrified of his own honesty.

Jarvan stopped dead in his tracks, and spun around like he had just changed his mind. The poor soldier cursed the task he had been assigned.

"What did you just say?" Jarvan seethed.

"I... I said it was just one man." The soldier stuttered.

"Are you telling me that just one man was able to massacre the entire unit at the guard post ?" Jarvan let out a manic laugh. "And get away with it... freely?"

He inched closer from the cowering soldier again.

"Am I supposed... To believe THAT?" He spat.

"My... My lord... Our only witness is still under shock. And he... He would like us not to inform his wife on why he was out so late a-and..."

"I don't CARE about his fucking wife! Tell me what he saw!"

"He... He saw a man sneak out of the guard tower. B-But he couldn't see his f-face... He was hooded."

Jarvan pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers and finally sat back in his throne.

"You may go now..." He muttered, not even looking at him.

The soldier was more than relieved to be freed from this torturous audience, and scampered out after a hasty bow. The rest of the guards in the room didn't dare say anything, but shared the same thought: the prince had stopped being his usual self for the past months.

Jarvan rested his chin on his balled fist, entering a deep reflexion that no one could decipher. The atmosphere in the room was slowly getting less tense, when a messenger with a sickly look presented himself before the prince, a strange box in his hands.

"L... Lord Jarvan..."

This messenger was terrified... But this time, Jarvan had nothing to do with that.

"Speak." Jarvan sounded like another bad news wouldn't change his mood at this point...

"We received... A message."

The messenger loudly swallowed and refrained from emptying his stomach's content before his lord... Jarvan's muscles tensed out of their own will. The messenger laid down the box a few meters from Jarvan's feet.

"Are you sure you want to see... My prince?" The messenger was fighting the sickness.

"Yes. Please proceed."

The unlucky messenger nodded and squinted his eyes shut a few times, profusely sweating. He opened the box, and searched for something inside... His fingers found the object of their search, and rose it so that the prince would be able to see. All the while he accomplished this task, the messenger didn't dare open his eyes.

The ugly, bloody, contorted head of Kendrick the guard hung from the messenger's hand, right before Jarvan. Like a Medusa sculpture, it was frozen in an expression of mixed anger and terror. Its paleness indicated that most of its blood had ran out already. The messenger retched.

"The message is... With Talon Du Couteau's regards..."

"Quinn! Quinn!"

The Demacian woman was startled by a distant voice calling her name. She had been sitting on the bald summit with Valor by her side for a while now, and had completely forgotten what time of the day it was.

Soon, an out of breath woman she knew well came into her sight, below. It was her mother. By the looks of it, she had been relentlessly tracking her daughter, and had not taken a single break.

"Mum! What are you..."

"You! You... Ugh! I was scared out of my mind."

When her mother started rambling like this, Quinn knew she would go on for hours. It didn't matter anyway... If she had come here to pursue her and shove in her face what a disgraceful daughter she was once again, Quinn was ready to shut herself off from the coming storm.

She was shocked to feel her mother throwing her arms around her, and simply embracing her. Quinn froze, her body's instincts refusing her mother's warmth. It felt too good, too soon... Too fake.

"Quinn... My girl..." Her mother didn't cry, but her voice was softer than it had ever been. "I'm sorry."

Quinn didn't move, didn't lean in her mother's embrace.

"Will you come home now? We need to figure everything out together."

It was tempting... But Quinn couldn't find in her the ability to trust anymore.

"I don't know..." Quinn let out in an inaudible whisper.

"Dear... " Her mother breathed in. "When I thought I lost you... It was... Hard. I'm glad you're back. You're the only child we have left, and I don't want to lose you again."

Though her mother had many talents, Quinn knew expressing her feelings had never been one. The older woman had taken it upon herself to confess the slightest detail of how she had felt back then. Quinn's heart was protected behind the thick walls she had erected during the last few months... And her mother's words were, surprisingly, only knocking on the walls. Not trying to break through them. Quinn was tempted to let her barriers down.

"Mum..."

Quinn accepted the embrace, and hugged her mother back. Her eyes stung, but that was all. She knew it was too soon to let her in, but she accepted the moment for what it was.

"Let's go home." Quinn said.

And Valor happily deployed his wings.

When Quinn and her mother opened the heavy wooden door, they stumbled upon her father and Vianna sitting at the table in the midst of a conversation. As if they had been caught in the act, they both stopped talking, and looked at the two women. Quinn's father rose from his chair, relief filling his eyes.

"Quinn, my little girl! You're there!"

Quinn had a small smile.

"Yeah, Dad."

He opened his arms, inviting her in. She accepted without resisting, there again, enjoying the moment for what it was. She had always felt protected in her father's arms, even though the feeling was often brief.

"I feel a bit tired..." Quinn muttered.

"Your room is ready. Rest as much as you like." Her father reassured her.

Quinn avoided his warm inquiring gaze, as well as her mother and Vianna's. She wondered what the strange woman had been telling to her parents... She told herself that Vianna didn't have bad intentions, though she was stubborn enough to do things her own way. She walked in the direction of her old bedroom, a path she knew by heart.

The delicate door in which two deer were carved was already open. The shutters were half-closed, letting in a thin beam of sunlight. Quinn noticed how no floating dust was revealed by the light: her parents regularly took good care of the room, even though their children weren't there anymore.

On each side of the room was a bed. Her own bed was topped with a dark blue coverlet embroidered with white snowflakes. Her twin brother's bed was almost the same, except its coverlet was light purple. Seeing this room again, ever so peaceful and so out of time, made Quinn feel weak in the knees.

It felt like the universe was keen on making her relive painful memories, these last days.

The ex ranger sat on her own bed, and let her eyes rest on Caleb's side. She perfectly remembered how, after his death, his parents had insisted on taking his bed away. She had fought teeth and nails to force them to keep it. Though it always stood there like a painful reminder of her loss, it was also comforting. It was a proof that Caleb had been there.

But he wasn't there...

Quinn wasn't prepared for the violent rush of pain and sorrow invading her at once. Being in this room full of memories had revived the old wounds and the new ones at the same time.

Though Quinn wasn't ready yet to fight those feelings, she at least acknowledged them. They brought her back to another time where she saw no point in living after Caleb's passing. She was no stranger to this darkness, but had never found an effective way to fight it.

She reminded herself that even though this time, it was Talon who had left her, he was still there, somewhere.

Quinn wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. The sight of Caleb's bed was becoming blurry...

Suddenly, a pecking sound resonated on the other side of the wooden shutters. Quinn stood up, and opened them... The sunlight was finally let in, revealing how warm and charmingly simple her old bedroom was.

Valor was there!

The majestic bird happily cooed when he saw Quinn open the window to him, in a way she had done countless times before. He passed his head through the opening and rubbed his cheek on hers, resulting in a giggle from his human friend.

Quinn sat on the windowsill next to Valor while she took in the morning view of the mountains and forest.

For a brief moment, Quinn smiled.

The walk back to Noxus had been painful, but Talon had finally made it.

He stood in front of the familiar iron gate protecting the entrance to the Du Couteau domain. After some thorough examination, he understood it was not only locked, but it was also trapped. Katarina was probably still living there, and the lockdown of the domain had to be her own doing. Talon decided to circle around the walls of the domain to find one of the many secret entrances that only he had knowledge of.

The woods of the domain were thick and perfect for concealing him from sight. Talon couldn't wait to get back to his room and sleep in his bed like he would never wake up. His body was riddled with pain, but he knew that his wound wasn't the sole culprit.

After the thrill of the kill was gone, Talon was left empty. Though he had known this unpleasant feeling in the past, it was now far worse than after the General's disappearance, and made him want to forget himself completely. Talon still believed that he had done the right thing, but the growing pain was starting to make him think otherwise.

He knew retreating to Noxus after his brazen crime was the right call. After all, he had done it to draw Demacia's already confused forces attention to him, and him only. He was ready to take on the retaliation, and knew Noxus' frontiers would do most of the job for him. By taking the manhunt to Noxus, he knew that Quinn would finally be left alone. Safe.

Talon wouldn't doom her with his presence, he wouldn't have to bear the shame of being her dirty secret anymore... It was all for the best, right?

During his journey back to his homeland, Talon had reflected upon the strange state his relationship with Quinn had put him in. During all his life, he had never been ashamed of who he was. After all, he was his sole ally, the only person he could ever count on. Hating himself was not an option.

But then he had met the beautiful Demacian ranger... He had been given her undying love, had witnessed her weaknesses, been entrusted with her deepest secrets. Without noticing, he had grown self-conscious. Loving her even more for who she was, and hating himself for what he was.

A monster.

And it was easier to be a monster alone... It suddenly clicked in his mind. There had always been a rational reason for him to leave. That had been protecting her, like he was currently doing. But it was not all... Why had he felt so wounded when Quinn had pried into his mind? With repulsion, Talon realized his emotions had taken their toll on him. He felt guilty... And he felt ashamed. Ashamed of who he was, and who he would never be for Quinn. Her intrusion had simply reminded him of the truth that he wasn't willing to see...

The sky was dark by now, and Talon had reached the breach in the wall he had been looking for. He slid inside, and held his palm against his painful wound. Talon understood why his mind constantly replayed the image of their hands next to each other... Hers, a delicate pale hand... And his, a tanned, callous hand streaked with scars. The hand of Death.

Talon hated himself for having planted the seed of love into Quinn's heart. It was a rotten seed, and nothing good would ever come out of it. He would never be able to offer her a future... A house... Children. He could never become someone else. It would have simply been easier if he had understood it from the start.

He found his way in the interior woods of the domain, and arrived in front of the manor. To his great surprise, the main door wasn't locked. Talon walked in warily... The manor felt empty.

The second he penetrated inside, an icy blade flashed in the dark, and was pressed against his throat. Talon chuckled, not feeling in danger at all despite his position. His skin already knew who this blade belonged to.

"Hello, Kat."

The weapon stayed in place, but the feline silhouette wielding it moved from the darkness and stood before Talon. The redhead smirked in return, applying more pressure with the blade.

"You're lucky I saw it was you..." She purred. "One more step... And you were done."

"Your blades have been hungry for too long... Admit it." Talon taunted his sister.

"Fine, fine. You got me." Katarina laughed.

She finally released Talon's throat, and closed the main door behind him. She observed him from head to toe, which was making Talon uncomfortable.

"Why are you holding your stomach like that? Are you sick?" She snickered.

"Later, Kat."

Talon's voice was cold and clear: now, he wanted to be alone. This interaction had been more than enough, and had served its main purpose: Kat knew he was here, and wouldn't try to kill him thinking he was an intruder.

The redhead didn't try to drag anything out of him... But Talon knew it would come. He made a beeline for his room, not even bothering to bathe first. He couldn't count for how many nights he had been sleeping with an eye open, and needed the real sleep his room would offer.

He found it in the same state that he had left it in. His bed was neatly done, and his shutters were closed. He secured the door with the many locks he had installed there years ago, and stripped bare of his clothes. He was dirty, and his muscles were sore... Talon let himself fall on his bed as heavily as a rock.

The familiar sensation of his mattress invited him in a dreamless sleep. This was what he needed to briefly forget it all... But when he closed his eyes, his mind processed the thousands of images and thoughts he had been bottling up during his journey back. And one image stood out among the others:

Her face. Her body. And his arms around her.

The two of them sitting in a bed just like this one.

A shy knock on the door...

... And in comes a small boy with brown hair and amber eyes.

His eyes.

Talon almost sprung from the bed in sweat. He panted, and held his wound by reflex. But the real pain wasn't settled there. It was buried deep into his churning heart. There was a reason he hadn't authorized himself to go into those forbidden thoughts.

In the end, he wasn't the only one that had planted a seed... Quinn had done just the same into his own heart, and it was just as poisonous, if not more. Talon was now under its cruel spell, rooting for a future he knew he could never have.

[A/N: Sorry for the long wait! It's hard to write with this heat, my brain is literally cooking... Here is a very introspective chapter, idk if that's your thing but I felt like this was necessary. I find it fun to delve into the characters' minds, especially these two. Don't forget to follow the story and put it in your favs if it's not alreay done (I have a huge amount of anon readers!), and drop a review! Much love!]