@ebbnbout said ; x
“Yes, i'm afraid, i'm afraid for you.” Talon to Katarina
// the thought that talon would be afraid, not for himself, but for her, that he would be afraid at all hadn't even occured to her. he speaks and it makes her halt, in shock, like he's said something that she could've never expected, something that shook her to her very core.
talon doesn't get afraid. it's something he's tortured out of himself, that every noxian has banished from themselves, because to show yourself vulnerable is to ask for everyone around you to smell your fear and devour you in seconds.
fear makes you a target. talon admitting fear first makes it sink in that the many times he critizes her way of fighting, her way of being, her way of honoring the country that raised her does not upset him because it's not the way father would want her to fight: but because he's afraid. she envisions the possibility that it might even keep talon up at night, to imagine that she might be in danger, that he's afraid she might get herself killed. he's afraid that one day he'll get word his older sister got herself killed in battle.
it's something she'd accepted so inherently of noxian nature, that she forgot you are supposed to fear death. she still does not. but she fears the pain it might inflict on talon. katarinas eyes wander over him, her head tilts, before she reaches out, something in her eyes that is way too akin to pity.
afraid. talon looks at her not with disappointment but with fear, worry, concern. he doesn't repeat father's words because he is disappointed but because he truly belives he'd said them to keep them safe. " tal, I choose the death I deserve. "
the words she say don't quite reassure. she does not intend for them to. " when I die, I will die honoring noxus and knowing my life was worth fighting for, and that's okay. " death is just another aspect of anyone's lifespan. it's inevitable. she will meet kindred, and when she does, she'll trust them to make the right choice. " I'm not afraid to die, tal. "