[Fan fiction] "Shadows and Sunlight"
##Hello again!
I'm going to use some boilerplate now. Don't recognize the boilerplate? That probably means you missed part one; I recommend checking it out before reading on.
I love the League of Legends world; stories of Runeterra, her cities and her characters, are fascinating. Like most players, I'm not on the narrative team. But, like a few of us, I dabble in short stories and novellas whose main characters are League champions.
Sharing my own stories is my attempt at finding a consistent meeting place and time for players who love lore, narrative and the craft of writing to get together and let our imaginations get all new age-y, running wild.
As a reminder, I am not a member of the narrative team. My words are as canonical as they are written in Latin. Which is to say, not at all. In fact, I probably go off-canon at points. But I won't waste any more of your time, here's the next section of my fan fiction, which, since it's now a continuing story, I'm renaming "Shadows and Sunlight." Also, I'm going to go ahead and see how big this story can be, so I'll write actual chapters instead of short sketches (which is, you'll notice or remember, how it worked in part one).
##Shadows and Sunlight
"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 Cocteau 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 Cocteau 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?"
