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[FIC] a city divided

The Spirit of Noxus is dying. For Riven, this is not an abstract. For Katarina, this is not acceptable. Katarina/Riven, rated PG for violence. Commissioned by @askriven-theexile as a continuation of an AU scenario from this post.

The Spirit of Noxus, they call her, and at first Katarina is too young to understand. She thinks Riven is strong, she thinks Riven is everything she wants to be when she grows up. She asks Riven for the stories behind her scars and listens raptly to the tales of Noxus’ past, forgetting what she asked about. Riven has white hair and a scarred face. It’s not until Katarina turns thirty, and Riven still looks as she did when Katarina was six that Katarina understands Riven’s title is more than a courtesy. The Spirit of Noxus stands before her in the flesh. How can Katarina help but love her?

Each time Katarina sees Riven, Riven looks weaker. Her skin is marred by bruises, purpling masses that resemble sections of Ionia, and there are new wounds weeping blood through the bandages that have started to cover more and more of her arms. “Is the war in Ionia not going well?” Katarina finally plucks up her courage to ask. Riven looks at her oddly for a moment, then laughs. The sound sputters out into coughing too quickly and she reaches a hand up to the bruise that runs around her throat like a collar. “Ionia is not the problem. Noxus is.” Riven’s words are wry and her smile is sad. Her glow of her runed sword is usually matched by her eyes but today, her gaze is dim and distant. “What do you mean, Noxus? Were we attacked on a different front?” Katarina asks. Riven always know the status of the city state better than any of the intel that the Noxian High Council receives. “No.” Riven is quiet then, scrutinizing Katarina. Within her amber eyes, cities burn and Katarina feels herself stripped bare by the weight of ages within Riven’s gaze. She is so young compared to Riven, so raw and so short-lived; Riven’s full attention makes her knees want to buckle, makes her want to kneel and pledge her allegiance to the Spirit of Noxus, again and again. Riven has had her heart since before they ever met and Katarina knows it is only too evident whenever Riven looks at her. “It’s Noxus,” Riven says finally, touching the raw split in her lip. “Noxus is rejecting me.” Riven’s words leave Katarina staring at her blankly. How can Noxus reject Riven? Riven has been there since the inception of Noxus. Without her, there would be no Noxus - only a collection of buildings and soldiers.

“You are Noxus--” Katarina starts to say. The shake of Riven’s head silences her as surely as a knife to her throat. “Noxus is changing and I cannot,” Riven says, her voice rough as she ghosts her fingers over the bruises on her throat. “I am your Noxus. I am courage, I am honor, I am loyalty, I am strength and I am sacrifice. But the people of Noxus want quicker victories. They choose the chemical weapons of Zaun. They attack civilians and soldiers alike.” Her voice quietens and she looks over Katarina’s shoulder at the sparring soldiers whose skin is marked with chemical burns. “They turn away from the foundations of Noxus and in doing so, they turn away from me.” The truth of Riven’s words stings Katarina. The weapons that Zaun makes for them are a coward’s weapons; they drop from on high and Noxus suffers no risk when they’re used. Soldiers who are caught in the infection radius are written off as casualties, calculated losses compared to how many they’d lose in a conventional battle. Noxus risks nothing but loses everything, if Riven is to be believed. “I’ll talk to my father,” Katarina promises. “He has a voice on the Noxian High Council. He can steer them away--” Riven reaches up and very lightly, lets her fingertips graze over the scar that runs over Katarina’s face and eyelid. She doesn’t say anything; she doesn’t need to. They both know that General Du Couteau no longer trusts his oldest daughter.

“I’ll find a way,” Katarina says instead. Her tone makes it a sacred vow, a promise unbreakable. “I will, Riven. You are the best of us. Whatever Noxus becomes without you, it will be worse.”

Riven smiles but there is no faith in her eyes. The light touch of her hand against Katarina’s face becomes a caress and Katarina leans into it, her eyes closing. She’ll find a way, she vows to herself, because there is no god at whose altar she worships. There is only the Spirit of Noxus and Katarina will not lose her.

---------------

Katarina slashes to the left and her dagger hits Riven’s arm - then passes through it. “Is that a new ability? Because it’s cheating if --” Katarina asks, flipping backwards to get away from a counter attack that never comes. Riven is standing frozen on the spot, staring at her arm, and the stricken look on her face makes Katarina’s words die in her throat before they ever reach her mouth. This is no trick. This is a symptom. “I have to leave Noxus,” Riven says, deathly bleak, and her words are coffin lids slamming shut. “No.” The first time, the word never makes it out. It’s just air that puffs past Katarina’s lips before she shakes her head and insists audibly, “No! You are Noxus. You can’t leave us.” “Noxus is more than the city. Noxus is the countryside and the soldiers. If I leave the city, perhaps the belief of those outside the city will sustain me,” Riven reminds Katarina even as she continues to stare at her arm. It looks so solid but when Katarina reaches out, her fingertips drift through it as if Riven were nothing but a Zaunite illusion. “And if it doesn’t?” Katarina asks, hating the hopelessness in her own voice, hating she has to even suggest that the people don’t believe in Riven the way that she does. “Then I will fade.” Riven’s words are calm but her eyes hold a fatal sorrow. It slays Katarina’s heart. “I have been here since the start of Noxus and I had thought to remain until its fall, but if I no longer represent the true Spirit of Noxus--” “You will always be the Spirit of Noxus to me,” Katarina interrupts fiercely, flicking a dagger up into her hand, “And I will kill anyone who says otherwise.” ‘Blood for Noxus’ was her old cry but she will change it if she must, she will cry ‘BLOOD FOR RIVEN!’ and plunge into the thick of battle fearlessly if it will return Riven to her once more. “Riven,” she says when Riven does not respond to her vow, and Riven smiles, sudden and brilliant as a polished weapon drawn from its scabbard. It lasts for only a second but it fills Katarina with fire from the soles of her feet to the ends of her hair. She would live and die for this woman; she would live and die for the Noxus that Riven embodies. “When you say my name, you say it the same way you say Noxus,” Riven says, and her hand is light as a cloud’s caress against Katarina’s cheek but her lips feel warm and real against Katarina’s mouth.

The Spirit of Noxus is kissing her and it is everything good in Katarina’s life. It is the yielding resistance of a blade surging into flesh, it is the adrenaline rush in the aftermath of a successful battle, it is the meeting of an opponent’s eyes, it is the warmth of the Noxian sunshine and the crisp kiss of the Noxian winter winds. It is courage and strength and loyalty, it is the Spirit of Noxus, and Katarina has never felt so devoted.

---------------

There is a monster lumbering around the barracks and the soldiers say this is the true Spirit of Noxus. This is a soldier, renowned and praised, whose hatred of the Demacians is so strong that he has risen once more to lead them into battle. Even death cannot stop Sion and after all, is that not the meaning of Noxus? To push onwards against all odds, to be strong? Katarina looks at him and sees a dead man walking, one who is incapable of hurt or death. What sacrifice is there in such a thing taking to the battlefield? ‘Blood for Noxus’ has ever been her cry but it works both ways. The soldiers of Noxus must be willing to spill their own blood and Sion has none to spill. If he charges onto the battlefield and eats the Demacian attacks, then he makes cowards of the legions behind him.

He needs violence; death and war are all his corpse can consume. There is no honor in him, no humanity, and Katarina will not pledge herself to him. (She has known the touch of the Spirit of Noxus. This pretender will not take that title from Riven.)

--------------- Her father was a General and before he left, he taught Katarina about the art of war, about the deployment of soldiers, about the importance of strategy. Battles are not won by men clashing on the field, he told her, but by the generals in their tents who plan the battles before hand. So Katarina plans and sends out her troops. Cassiopeia, beautiful once and monstrous now, still holds sway with the nobles of Noxus. They remember a time before the Trifarix, before upstart nobodies like Darius could rise to sit in control of Noxus. Darius isn’t even Noxian, Cassiopeia reminds them, and hisses poison into their ears until their minds reel and all they can do is repeat, repeat, repeat the words she wants spread. Every noble on their side is one less private army that will answer Swain’s call once the rioting spreads. Talon, sharp-tongued and violent, is feared in the Underground from where he rose. He speaks to the poorer people of Noxus, sits in bars and buys drinks while mentioning the armies of children, the way that the foot soldiers are always the poor people while Swain sets his favorites as generals where they’ll be well out of the way of battle. He talks about the Grand General’s demon arm, dredges up again the rumors of human sacrifice and what exactly the demon demands in exchange for the power it gave Swain. Nobody’s ever seen the Faceless. It’s easy to make them believe the Faceless is the demon and what Swain traded in exchange for power is Noxus itself. It’s easy to make them believe that Swain is ruining Noxus because it is true.

---------------

There is rioting in the streets and blood in the gutters. Katarina has not heard from Talon in hours but she has seen enough sightless corpses with bubbling green skin to track her sister’s passing. They’re winning. She thinks they’re winning, at least. They have to be winning because if not -- if not-- An enraged bellow comes down from the far end of the street. She jerks her head up, soot-streaked hair flying back, and sees Sion barreling down towards her, looking as unstoppable as death itself. She crouches, ready to leap out of the way and then a figure jumps down from a rooftop and Sion stops as if stunned.

Noxus is burning and Riven’s skin is beset by black holes edged with flame. There is fire in her eyes and banked embers in the back of her mouth when she speaks. Fire licks out from the ends of her short hair and flares from the tips of her fingers. It edges her broken sword, glowing from her runes, and Katarina feels the same blaze hot in her heart as she looks at Riven. “FOR NOXUS!” Riven shouts and Katarina echoes. As Riven jumps towards Sion, sword whipping back high above her own shoulder, Katarina runs towards them. Fire frames them, fire and darkness. Every second of the fight burns itself into her eyes as she tears down the street at top speed, leaping over the corpses and jumping, at last, from a table onto Sion’s back. He’s facing two opponents now, one stabbing daggers into him and clinging on to dear life, one slicing with a jagged-tip sword, and they move in perfect sync. For a second, Katarina feels what it is like to be Noxus, feels the glory and the greatness, feels the weight of Noxian hopes and heroism -- “You are beyond redemption,” Riven says and drives her blade through Sion’s heart. Sion collapses forward and Riven jumps back. Katarina, still kneeling on Sion’s back, ends up bowed before Riven. “Rise,” Riven says and holds out her burning hand for Katarina to take. Katarina’s fingers close around hers and she feels no pain, no more than when their lips meet and Riven’s flame engulfs her so that Katarina, too, blazes with the phoenix-fire of new beginnings. Noxus burns itself clean of infection and the Spirit of Noxus heals.

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