There’s a poison in her soul that she’s sure she’ll never be free of, a disease lurking beneath the skin that knows no cure, no end but death.
She learns to live with it, with the vengeance of thousands of Ionian ghosts settled deep in her veins and clutching their pathways when she thinks to forget, to take a breath that isn’t tainted with guilt.
Riven rejects the idea of redemption, rejects the idea of recovery.
She doesn’t believe she’s worthy.
But today her eyes crack open, and there is an odd quality to the morning.
Golden, pure, airy, easy.
There’s a woman in her arms, familiar and warm and inspiring a rush of surprisingly gentle affection in Riven’s heart without even having to be awake.
Karma’s arm is still wrapped loosely around Riven; by some miracle, they haven’t shifted in the night at all from the position they fell asleep in.
Her palm is resting on Riven’s back, easy against the tattered remains of tattoos that reflect the tattered remains of Noxian loyalty, easy against the ragged, knotted scar tissue that reflects the ragged, knotted state of what Riven’s become.
Karma’s palm is easy there, comfortable – at peace with both.
The Ionian sun caresses Riven’s back with the same forgiving touch.
Maybe even if she’ll never feel worthy of forgiveness, it’s enough that Karma feels she is.
85 Words: Karma uses a phrase that Riven's heard from other lips long, long ago, and it drags her back to the past suddenly.
The air gets stuck in her throat, mostly smoke now with the sun rising over the charred skeletons of the village. She’s standingat a scorched stone gateway, looking down at the smoldering timbers and tryingto forget the night.
“Smile,Commander!” one of her men cajoles as he strolls past, bag of loot in hand. “It’s ours now.”
Riven smiles automatically,choking out the memory of another bloody conquest.
“Did you hear me?”Karma asks, holding open the freshly painted gate, “It’s ours now.”
Riven gets Karma to waterfall-meditate with her. She gets distracted. (+200)
Back straight, shoulders squared, chin up, mind clear.
Riven breathes easier than she has in months – maybe years – the crushing weight of the waterfall helping her stay invigorated rather than numbed. Well, besting the challenge is one fragment of the tender peace she’s found, but Riven owes even more to the woman seated at her side.
Karma has different ideas about how best to weather the torrent. She’s chanting some unheard mantra under her breath, her will manifested as a gossamer-thin and iron-strong barrier keeping her dry as the Shuriman desert.
Back straight, shoulders squared, chin up, Riven’s mind wanders.
She thinks about how close they’ve grown, how connected; about the way Karma always has the right words ready to slay her lingering doubt, or how she can sense what Riven needs without being told. She thinks about Karma’s rich voice whispering low in her ear while those magic hands roam–
The barrier flickers out, water dropping over Karma with a sudden crash. She splutters forward, Riven reaching through her disoriented flail to pull her out from the unforgiving deluge. “Distracted?”
Karma whips her hair back and gives an easy, breathless laugh, “I should say so!”
300 Words: Riven allows Karma to see the extent of the melters' damage for the first time.
Karma had thought she’d seen the worst of it, fingers trailing carefully across Riven’s back, mapping the irregular wrinkles where the skin had warped, gliding unfelt over the shiny patches where magic and medicine had exhausted themselves in piecing the soldier back together.
It had been a tremendous step for Riven, baring herself, submitting to Karma’s tender care. But that had been the first, just one of many steps on her journey towards recovery, towards redemption.
Eventually the night comes that Riven wakes her, the darkness in her eyes blacker than the moonless sky. “Karma, I was dreaming,” she says, a pale ghost drowned in shadow, “I had a dream I didn’t walk away from Couer.”
Karma raises herself in the bed next to her, pressing a palm over Riven’s chest, the faint heartbeat a reminder to them both. “I’m sorry. That must have been terrifying.”
But Riven shakes her head. “It was for a while, but then –” she huffs this dry little laugh that Karma’s never heard before “—then it felt right. I felt like the peace I’ve been looking for, somehow. Like everything was the way it should have been.”
Her heart beats, slow and steady, under Karma’s hand. Karma withdraws it gently. “Let me put the kettle on, and we’ll talk more.”
The hall is long and dark, but she knows the way. She fills the kettle and hangs it over the glowing coals, quickly stoked to a lively flame. She unlatches the tea chest and comforts herself in the aroma of wild jasmine until the kettle whistles.
Karma lifts it from the hook, but her hands are shaking too hard to pour. When she doesn’t return, Riven goes looking and finds her weeping on the kitchen floor with the cooled kettle in her lap.
Five Times They Kiss And One Time They Doesn't - #0
6/6 Karma/Riven for gayemissary. Thanks for coming along for the ride. I greatly enjoyed having a reason to write OTP feels. :3
0
There’s no honor in the gallows. Even as a public spectacle, it amounts to little more than taking out the trash. Only the scum of Ionia deserve the gallows – and there’s only one more man to swing before it’s her turn.
She’s been dead on her feet for weeks now, all bones and no muscle, the bite of Zaun’s masterpiece slowly eating her away from the inside. Her ruined sword, even at only a fraction of its original weight, had become too heavy to carry in the days before her capture.
She’d dragged in through the streets behind her like the death sentence it was, too tired to hide her face and too weak to run. So long she’d wandered the wild country far north from any town her company had razed, running from the ghosts of her past. But those ghosts had chased her back again, the poison reminding her that she could only outrun her fate for so long.
Better to give the Ionians the retribution they deserve than to waste away on some forgotten mountainside, nameless and screaming. Then, maybe, her death would have some purpose.
The man before her goes up the time-worn steps without a word; the assembled crowd neither jeers nor curses him, rather watching with solemn civility as justice is enacted. Sometimes it’s hard for Riven to remember why, back in Noxus, she had understood these people to be barbarians.
It’s Riven who feels barbaric, clambering stiffly onto her numb legs as a stoic guard hauls her up. Soon, though, it won’t feel like her blood is trying to burn its way through her skin. Soon, she won’t feel anything at all.
The guard steadies her, pushes her forward, but something’s wrong, terribly terribly wrong. The gallows steps are right there, but he’s steering her to the side and away from the platform. Back towards the ramshackle holding cells that reek of regret and resignation.
Her head spins and it’s not the acidic effect of the chemicals that makes her dizzy. She’s reeling, sick to her stomach, as he pushes her down onto a rough bench and disappears back out into the sunlight. Is she not meant to be hanged after all? Is it too good for a filthy Noxian?
Riven’s head hangs and she sits shaking in the squalid darkness of the cell for many minutes before the door opens and a fresh breeze touches her face.
Cool fingertips dig in under her chin and force her head up. Riven complies, there’s no fight left in her. Standing before her is the last person she’d ever expected to see, one of the Elders of the Ionian government.
“You’re the Noxian defector,” the woman says. It’s not a question. “What’s your name?”
Riven’s shoulders twitch in a weary shrug. “Does it matter?”
The woman’s smile is tight but not hostile. She removes her hand and Riven’s head dips without the support. “Maybe it doesn’t,” she agrees, “Maybe you’ll make a fool of me. But I’d like to think that it does, and you won’t. Noxian, would you like a chance to redeem yourself?”
Riven deflates. “I don’t think I can,” she whispers.
But the Ionian kneels in front of her and Riven’s head is still spinning, spinning. “What do you say we find out? Together.”
Janna notices the way Karma eyes follow Riven. (+200)
Troll fill:
At first Janna thought that, pardon the pun, her eyes were deceiving her. Verily, Runeterra was a world of unchained magic and supernatural forces beyond the control of science and order – take Janna herself, imbued with such immense power that she hardly ever needed to walk among the common man. (Literally walk, she preferred to hover all over the damn place.)
But no, as she (again, apologies) looked into the matter further, Janna had come to the conclusion that a pair of Karma eyes were actually and truthfully following Riven as she went about her daily tasks.
Yes indeed, that disembodied ocular orbs were levitating at a fixed point from Riven’s back was unusual in its own right; that they were clearly and unmistakably Karma’s was something altogether bizarre.
At last Janna approached Riven, humbly and carefully so as not to give her a start. “Riven, are you aware that you are being followed by Karma eyes?”
Riven gave Janna a puzzled look. “Yeah, she said something about wanting to keep an eye on me.”
“But, don’t you think, that this is a pretty odd way to do that?”
“You’re not her real dad!” Riven shouted, running away back home.
Real fill:
The air is ice and early snow dusts the path with a crust that crunches underfoot. Karma leads, Riven takes her dutiful place at the rear, Janna floats serenely between.
“The pond looks dignified this season,” Janna comments as the path winds them alongside the reflection rock towards the veranda steps. “Although I think the fish will be pleased to see the spring.”
Karma nods. “They surely will. I know of someone else who would like to sleep off the winter, if she could.” A brief glance over her shoulder – bypassing Janna altogether – speaks to the person in question.
“They don’t have snow in Noxus,” Riven confirms, grumbling along behind. “Not much point to it.”
They come to the veranda and Karma steps up, out of her winter shoes. Janna drifts to the raised edge and takes a seat.
“I like the cold,” she says, looking up at Karma with a smile. “It brings out the best in people.”
Only Karma, the perfect host, isn’t listening. She’s watching Riven gather a few cords of firewood to heat the water for tea. “Sorry, what was that, dear?”
Janna shakes her head. “Suddenly thinking that this winter might be cozier than expected.”
