[Fan fiction] Shadows and Sunlight Omnibus A
So, I'm still trying to scrounge up or enlist the aid of an awesome artist to create some pretty pictures to accompany the walls of text I scribble, but I don't have anything yet this week. As I warned last week, that means no new update, but I couldn't let a Friday pass without some sort of entry from my end. So here's the story so far, all five parts in two mammoth posts. As a reminder, I'm not on the lore team, and in no way shape or polymorph is this canonical at all, in fact, I often go off-canon at points.
##Shadows and Sunlight
The blackfire burned low in the lanterns lining the high stone walls of Viscount Swain's manor. Katarina du Couteau crouched atop a snarling granite maw, the icon of a lesser house. Green light whispered across her face, burying shadows in the furrows of her brow. Even a twice-removed nephew of the Noxian high commander could afford apartments nearer the city center, but then Anton Swain would find fewer victims for his foul masques.
Less than a month after shambling into her school with an expelled student reeking of Freljordian white ale, Anton hosted his first Black Masque. Of course, the first two events were like any other masquerade held by lesser Noxian nobles. Haughty, pretentious, clinging to a past built by blood inherited instead of blood spilled. But the lights were dimmed at the third party. Attendees were dressed in mourning, no sigils or medals. Instead of garish, painted fans they wore shrouds of impenetrable shadow. And the first girl disappeared that night.
Not from the school, Katarina chastised herself for forgetting. It had been a fresh-faced third daughter of a sergeant whose meteoric rise was matched only by his complete inability to blaze in the same sky as other Noxian stars. No one had admitted she'd vanished from the party, of course. She could have left on a ship bound for Bilgewater or a caravan headed south towards the desert. She hadn't, Katarina discovered. But she could have.
She'd been attending the parties for two months now, although she never had gotten an official invitation. The gargoyles were welcoming enough, in their own grotesque way. Friendlier, she was sure than the Viscount's personal retinue.
"I still don't understand why we can't just go in the front door. I have a dress. And an invitation. Written in blood and everything."
Katarina looked over her shoulder at the young girl who insisted on following her to the party. "I don't," she snapped. "And you don't have to be here."
"It's cute that you think I'd let you sneak into some minor noble's party and possibly severely aggravate any number of important people all by your lonesome." Evanie White wore the same style of shadowleathers as Katarina, although hers had seen less use.
Evanie raised her head to the falling rain. "He could've picked a night with better weather to host his weeping party."
"You shouldn't swear."
The younger woman ignored her, staring down the wall they'd just climbed up. "I hope getting down is easier than the climb up."
Katarina grimaced. "You don't have--"
"Fine, I admit it. I chose to be here. I am choosing to be here right now. Happy?"
"I'd be happier if you were back at the dorm." Katarina went back to examining the wide glass window that sprawled across the roof. Far below, she could see the whirling shapes of drunk Noxian nobles attempting to dance.
"What are we doing now?" Evanie asked.
"I'm going to sneak through the window and lower a rope down."
"Uh. That is, um, a plan. Not necessarily a good plan, but, sure. Hey, did I tell you about--"
Away from the party raging in the main hall, Anton Swain swept along one of the many corridors snaking through his manor. Dimly lit by frogbelly moss after sunset, the hallway was lined with delicate sculptures and tall, narrow windows. Walking alongside Anton, a woman glides draped in a midnight-black gown.
"Well, that was interesting, in its own way," she muttered. "I prefer my entertainment a little less, red."
Anton shrugged. She went on, "Have you thought about what I asked?"
His shoulders twitching, Anton lashed at her, "There was a time when being Noxian meant something--you won't remember, Cass--"
"Neither do you, Anton," Cassiopeia du Couteau cut him off.
"The blood, the purest blood, Cass, the strongest blood bled for Intrigue. Now, the army bans Intrigue. They'd shut me down. And you want me to ask my great-uncle to let your lover accompany my expedition? You've grown weak, your blood is thin. Tell me, do you cry for him?”
"I have cried for men, Anton, and none of them were you."
Anton laughed.
Cassiopeia leaned towards him, freezing in her stride. "Do you like thinking of me, crying? Does that excite you? You have exactly one tiny connection to a single noble house from two generations ago. This manor? This masquerade? Paid for by your great-uncle's military wages. You're only the slightest bit more noble than Jericho Swain himself by grace of your grandfather's predilection for prostitutes."
"I could have you beaten for saying that."
"No Anton, you couldn’t. Do you know why?"
Anton Swain glared at her.
Cassiopeia turned her back to him, walking away as he stood in shock. "Because I actually am noble."
She pulled open the door to the opulent ballroom, filled with black dresses and blacker dress uniforms. In Noxus, even the least martial nobles pretend at being military, Cassiopeia scoffed, letting the doors swing closed behind her.
Katarina and Evanie hunched over, crouched among the twisted gargoyles and wicked crenellations. "And then he tried to--Kat--isn't that your sister?"
Far below them, Cassiopeia and Anton Swain entered the ballroom. Long flickering shadows made Cassiopeia's gown seem to stretch on forever behind her.
"Tears! Wha in the name of the last emperor is she wearing?"
"Really, Kat? Your sister shows up the night we go sneaking around Anton Swain's house and the first place you go is to her dress?"
Katarina stood back away from the glass, checking the daggers in their sheathes along her waist, thighs, forearms, wrists, neck, ribs, ankles and feet. "I mostly just wanted you to shut up about Draven."
"What is she doing here?" Evanie asked as she ran through her own inventory.
"I have no idea; I've told her enough about Anton Swain. She knows what happens at these masquerades." She resumed her crouch, leaning towards the glass.
"We have to find Tymara. They brought her inside two hours ago. Why isn't she in the ballroom? Who am I talking to right now? Why do I even bother?" Evanie let her voice trail off.
Katarina's gaze was locked on the scene a hundred feet below. She tilted her head, cocking her ear even closer. She winced as she overheard an awkward conversation. "Seriously, stop with the talking. I need to hear them."
"We're, what, a thousand feet above the ballroom? Fine. A hundred. There's still no way you can hear anything in this rain."
Katarina ignored her, flourishing a dagger in the gloom, its silver blade flashing.
"That's nice, I can do that , too." Evanie brandished her own small blade, trying to spin it between her fingers the way Katarina had. A fumble and the knife clattered to the glass, a small crease crackling over the pane.
Katarina let out a deep sigh. "You may possibly be the worst assassin ever. How'd you get into the school again?"
Evanie slumped to pick up her knife. "Magic, I think they said.”
Cassiopeia's eyes swept across the room. "For a nefarious, secret black masquerade, there's an awfully high number of attendees tonight," she whispered in Anton's ear. As they approached one of the larger groups she spoke up. "No, you're right, Anton. There is more to being noble than merely blood. I am not my sister. I never joined the military."
"And yet, you could talk to them," Anton let his own voice carry, the two of them drawing a crowd. "To your father," he continued. "Convince him to do what he has to do. He's the third-highest ranking noble in the city, and only Jericho stands above him in the High Command."
Cassiopeia spun around, taking in the eager gaze of the onlookers. Most of them, she observed, were rather interested in the cut of her dress. "Are we bartering, cousin? If I pry some of my father's time away from his precious war games. If I reason with him until he agrees to oppose the military action to the north. If I do this, Chaeme accompanies us?"
Anton began to point and grasp, his hands a flurry of motion as he spoke, spittle flying from his flailing fishlips. "I'm not some sore-swollen Bilgewater pirate, Cass. I'm not bartering. It's the right course and you know it. That slattern bladesister was infected. We do not have wars to fight, we hone our skills behind closed doors and the army is keeping those doors propped open. Did you listen, how she begged before she died?"
The crowd went silent. Stray clattering wine glasses and dropped silverware plucked a discordant dirge in the background.
Cassiopeia paused and fixed Anton with a deadly glare. "I didn't come here to fight with you, Anton Swain."
The room echoed with a loud crash and an explosion of glass. Katarina du Couteau tumbled as she landed on the smooth marble. Rolling to her feet, her daggers spread out in a fan, she faced Anton and Cassiopeia. The crowd's murmur grew to frantic chatter as the identity of the unexpected guest spread.
Katarina flipped her hair back and stepped into the flickering torchlight. Twin daggers held at the ready, she realized the audience had guards. Ten of them. The sound of steel slew the silence of the masquerade. All she could do was shrug and nod towards Cassiopeia. “That’s all right, sister. I did.”
"It's wonderful, truly," Anton began to say, ignoring the guards circling around the assassin who'd just shattered his ceiling and crashed his masquerade. He went on, "to have both of the du Couteau daughters in my humble manor, although to be fair, I could have done without the broken glass. Na kalyn, Katarina, did your entrance have to be quite so, dramatic?"
Cassiopeia whirled on her sister, parting the crowd to stand by her side. "What in the seven scars are you doing here?"
Katarina pushed past her, squaring up in front of Anton. "Yes, it did. And that slattern was my sister."
The main entrance to the ballroom clanged open; Evanie walked in, her shadowleathers discarded in favor of a slim cut black dress slit at the hip.
"Yeah," she said to Anton, "you probably shouldn't have said that."
"How'd you get in here?" Katarina asked without taking her eyes from the Viscount.
"The front door," she answered, shrugging.
Katarina caught back the sigh she felt rippling in response to the girl's ridiculous calm. "Anton Swain," she challenged, "I will fight you. Druz'yami."
"Katarina, docherni. You should know better. There are no challenges here, not during the masquerade." Anton gestured at the room filled with enough rival nobles Katarina should have expected a brawl.
"Why are you doing this? Why are you embarrassing me?" Cassiopeia tried to put her hand on Katarina's shoulder, but her sister bristled, her daggers twitching.
"Anton is murdering soldiers in the Noxian army. Girls. Students at the academy," Katarina protested.
"There is no evidence of unlicensed murder," Cassiopeia retorted before Anton could even muster his own response. The crowd nodded its approval. Noxian law was brutal, but it was law.
"I'll leave evidence," Evanie mumbled.
"Simmer down," Katarina snapped, still staring Anton down. "My challenge stands."
The crowd shuffled, the rustling like whispers echoing through the silence of the hall. The guards shivered, sweat slipping from beneath their dressleathers, dotting the floor with shimmering beads. Anton maneuvered around the cliques and councils, dropping Katarina's gaze as he slipped behind his guests on his way to the main entrance to the wide stone room.
"Not here, it doesn't," he reiterated. "But you have proven rude, and more than enough of a nuisance," he crowed, peeking his head behind one of his guards. "It's time for you to leave my house." He signaled his security, having circled back around to where he started.
The guards filed through the remaining crowd as the onlookers backpedaled from the threat of violence. Cassiopeia clung to Anton before realizing who she'd grabbed. She recoiled; Anton signaled his men. Dressed in the ornate ceremonial armor of the lost Intrigue, the ring they formed around Katarina and Evanie was as prickly as a spikerat.
The younger woman groaned, "I knew I shouldn't have changed into my dress."
The first guard attacked from behind Katarina, his sword slashing at an angle across her back. Her legs split as she dropped to the ground, his blade whistling above her head. She spun on her hands, her foot snapped the guard's shin.
With the others mesmerized by the flurry of motion, Evanie ducked into the crowd. Among a hundred other black dresses and sunstarved complexions, she was invisible.
Her assailant incapacitated, Katarina tossed her daggers towards another pair of guards. One grunt, one shout, and two more guards were out of the fight. She fetched a foursome of smaller blades, waving them before her like a fan. Three of the remaining ebon-armored men inched closer. She dipped her head, her eyes peeking out of her crimson tresses. Twirling, she launched the quartet of daggers, a whirlwind of sinister steel. One man was unlucky enough to be hit by two. All three collapsed.
Evanie palmed one of her throwing knives. She feigned a stumble, tugging on a noblewoman's sleeve as her free hand fired a deadly missile. Her target clutched the gash her razor-thin blade gouged in his arm; his sword clattering on the marble floor.
Katarina slipped another pair of daggers loose from their sheathes at her hips. She twitched, the crowd gasped as she vanished, only to fall from just above one of the two remaining guards. She straddled his shoulders, locking his sword arm in place. She repositioned her dagger, bouncing and spinning it between her fingers the way Evanie couldn't when she'd tried. A sharp twist of her wrist, and the guard fell to his knees, his throat rent and gushing.
Katarina wiped her burning red hair away from her bloody face. Her dagger dripped in her hand. The last guard was nowhere to be seen.
Anton drew his dueling blade. The crowd's buzz died, the hall filling once more with silence. The door to the ballroom shattered. Heavy footfalls echoed, a cacophony capable of halting the duel.
"Marcus, how wonderf--" Anton beamed, greeting Marcus du Couteau and his grim retinue.
"I can assure you, malen'mal'chik, that I am not here for the pleasure of your company. I am, however, here because at least one of the children in this room was of sound enough mind to set one of your guards bolting to fetch me before sneaking in."
Katarina's eye flashed daggers as sharp as those in her hands towards Evanie. The other girl shrugged.
"Do you believe, direya, that I am a man accustomed to being summoned like a cur? Would you imagine that leaves me in a fine or foul mood?"
"I, Anton, it was Katarina who swan-dived from my roof. This is supposed to be a private affair."
"I don't imagine it is, any longer. No. I imagine, however, that it was illegal whether private or exposed. Kresnaya doch," he called to Katarina, focusing his gaze on hers, "Darius will take you back to the mansion. Lady White, I trust you can return to the dormitory on your own."
"There's no evidence I did anything illegal," Evanie exploded into a frenzy of gestures, Marcus' Crimson Elite bodyguards flinching as she spun her hands. "Look at this dress," she went on. "Is this a dress you'd do illegal things in?"
Anton looked ready to speak. Katarina leapt in, "Not that she's suggesting you'd do illegal things, da."
"Or wear a dress," Evanie said. "Although I could see how you might think I was implying those--that."
Marcus was silent towards the young woman, although his cocked eyebrow at Evanie was an encyclopedia of disapproval. "Darius," he commanded.
The big man lumbered forward from the pack of Crimson Elite. His great axe slung across his back, his brown eyes glittering as they caught Katarina's, just before he flipped her over his shoulder and carried her out of the room.
"I'll be going now, too," Evanie chirped.
"Now, Anton. I suspect you have a fantastically good explanation for why you were threatening my first-born daughter with naked steel?"
A wide glass dome encloses one roof of Ebonclaw Manor's three spires. Across a short span, the Nest crowning the Rookery stirs a hundred rustling ravens blossoming into a dark cloud casting a shadow over the sky.
General Jericho Swain eschewed a traditional library or study, preferring to strategize under the stars. He struggled across the mirrored floor, prodding his way with his crooked cane towards the young woman sprawled languid along a lounge chaise.
"It is a profound wish of mine, captain," he said as he approached her, "that these daily intrusions of yours would cease. If not on the third attempt, surely by the ninth."
"I have nothing but time, general. And my name is Sarah, not Shirley."
Swain scoffed, descending at a snail's pace to rest in the high-seated 'tovian recliner.
She leaned forward, "Time and a great deal of military surplus and a few truly unique treasures I'm still more than confident you should be interested in seeing."
"You've misplaced your confidence, miss," Jericho chuckled, adjusting his weight to his seat instead of his cane. The chair protested, groaning loud in the echoing chamber. "My answer is no different now than it was two weeks ago."
Ravens rushed in through a hole in the dome, pecking noisily at the feeding troughs. Swain reached inside his robes to produce a few stray bits of fruit among the dusty cotton balls that kept nibblers away. One particularly large bird perched atop his shoulder, picking through the pieces in Swain's hand to nab the largest morsel.
"Sadly, the volume of my wares is. I'm running low on supplies and even lower on goods worth selling. I promised you something you hadn't seen before." She stood up, her heels lifting her even higher above from Swain's slumped form. "I'm breaking at least two of my own rules, general, but I brought a sample with me."
Jericho arched a wispy, fading eyebrow. He gave heaped scorn into a stare directed at shadows behind the pillars lining the dome. "I'm surprised the Nightravens let you pass with contraband on your person."
Sarah's wry grin slipped wider as she jostled the chest she'd been sitting beside with her ankle. She stood one foot on it, "There are a lot of places to hide contraband on a person."
"Clever, but not compelling," Jericho said, swallowing and looking away. "Your time is up."
Sarah sprung back, hoisting the container in front of her, proffering its contents. "Don't you want to see what's inside my treasure chest?"
She opened it, pulling a burnished cup from the felt lining. Swain took hold of the strange, shimmering bronze goblet. As he lifted it, he seemed to stand taller in the grim green light of the blackfire torches.
"An athenic grail," he murmured, examining it, turning it over in his hands. The raven on his shoulder cocked its head, pecking at the metal. "Marcel's Artifacts of an Antique Age mentions one. But it's a reference to another text, not a primary source."
"Hmm, well. I deliver on my promises."
"So it seems, child." He ran his fingers across the etchings in the chalice. "It appears you actually may. What else do you have?"
"What, exactly, has that blighted school done to you, girl?" General Marcus du Couteau, the master of his house, last living male of his line. Walls lined with cartographic depictions of his military victories, bookcases stacked with volumes upon volumes of tactics, strategy, diplomacy and a section on magic kept in the shadows. Katarina knew her bladecraft and parlor tricks did not stand up to the eldritch power in those tomes.
Her father went on. "Anton Swain's tapped to escort your sister and you crash his party, threaten not only to slit his throat, but expose his perversion to the entire court? All of whom, it should be noted, are fully crying aware of it already!" His face was flushed in the orange glow from the fire. He'd practically spit on her.
She composed herself. "Even if Evanie told one of the guards to find you, you still arrived too fast. You were watching me."
Her father didn't speak. His eyes bore into hers.
"No, I understand. You were watching him. You knew about the masquerades. Following up on intelligence, like a proper general. You weren't going to let Cass be trapped with that lazy, bloodvirgin hedonist."
"But you," Marcus rapped his knuckles on the grey ash table, "you weren't there for your sister, were you?"
It was Katarina's turn to be silent.
"When you expose a man's secrets, kreshnaya, his hidden weakness, it is far better to exploit it yourself. Leaving him open to your rivals costs a victory as surely as a spoiled supply train. But this one. This one would have debased your sister. My youngest daughter. And far from here. So sure, he would have been, that there'd be no repercussions."
Marcus paused to circle the room, silence gathering in the gloom. Letters littered tables, candles flickered as the wind passed through an open window.
"The world is deadly and wide," he whispered.
"Killing any Swain has consequences," she observed. "Even one so inconsequential."
"With Jericho involved, we are already mired in consequences. We just can't see them yet."
"That's comforting, father."
"In any case, that was before he threatened you. Before he attempted to kill you. Anton Swain," he spat. Katarina backed away from the table, looking over a bookcase filled with half-finished efforts Marcus had made of writing memoirs. "Jericho is not emperor. Not even Grand General."
Katarina glanced back at her father. She tilted her head, "True. And none of Anton's guards could dance with me. And Anton showed none of the makings of a decent partner. I could challenge him again, away from the loopholes he used during the party."
"It's far easier than that, daughter." Marcus du Couteau rose from the high-backed goldenwood chair. "A tribunal has been convened. I will prosecute courts martial." He walked around the desk until he stood beside her.
"Courts martial? Who else is on trial?"
Marcus raised his hand to her shoulder.
"Kreshnaya, you penetrated his security, ascended the roof of his manor house, shattered an enormous, and alledgedly enormously expensive, skylight, killed seven of his allegedly enormously expensive guards, and were about to kill him before I broke down the door."
Katarina whistled the tune to the Noxian funeral dirge. "So," she paused to say. "You're saying I'm the other one on trial, huh?"
Click here for the rest of the story so far (http://community.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/nbx0Er64-fan-fiction-shadows-and-sunlight-omnibus-b)
