#rouxgrace

[bladesurgence]

try + katarina (:

     The miller’s son had grown a couple of marks since Katarina had last seen him. Now he stood taller than his father, boasting a wide chest and powerful arms honed from years working in the field. With a rueful grimace, Katarina drew her cloak around her, passing the tables near the entrance of the inn and heading for a corner lit by a single lantern.

     A Noxian at his age would’ve led his first division. Would’ve captured his first territory - or in the case of the Demacian front - reclaimed it.

     Someone approached her corner, heading for the stateroom behind it. They kept a low profile like her, keeping to the wall, a black cloak covering their face. But Katarina noticed that gait, the practiced posture, the walk of someone who strung themselves up by nothing more than their precepts.

     “Laurent.” Katarina kept her voice low, but Fiora froze, spinning around as she reached for her rapier. Katarina smirked, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair.

     “Relax. This is a neutral zone, you know.”

     Fiora’s eyes flashed towards the rest of the patrons and then back to Katarina. “Why are-”

     “I’m here to protect this village.” Fiora arched an eyebrow. “Yeah, you heard me. Don’t think Noxians have it in their hearts to do anything but conquer?” She gestured to the patrons, most of them farmers like the miller’s son, talking quietly among themselves. The famine had hit them hard. Exports from the borderlands had been at an all-time low. Katarina had come here to fix that.

     “You’ve heard the rumors, and want to know if they’re true. A scythe-wielding revenant, clad in black, spreading a trail of decay everywhere it goes? It’s ridiculous.”

     Fiora narrows her eyebrows, but she doesn’t make any effort to deny it. Katarina’s lip curls up. She’s read Laurent like a book.

     “But I wouldn’t be here if it was just a story. Like I said, I’m here to take this thing out. So it looks like we’ve got the same interests. For now, anyways.”

     “Noxus would scarcely lift a finger to help a territory not its own.” Fiora purses her lip, scowling.

     “Sure wouldn’t. Can’t let a vassal state go hungry, though.” Katarina cocks her head, red locks falling down behind her shoulder. “Bad for business.” She leans forward, pulling out a dagger from her belt and spinning it around a finger.

      “A pleasure working with you, Lady Laurent.”

[libratis]

try + karma !

I tried therefor I cannot be blamed // literally always accepting

   Darha thinks the day Karma became her soul is the day she died.

   Not all at once; the spirit of peace is a river, not a tsunami, and it does not kill by consuming. It is a gradual, steady descent into something far bigger than Darha could have ever imagined for herself.

   Self - a concept lost to the many voices of Karma.

   Today, she is Darha for some time; Darha steeps her morning tea leaves, Darha climbs the fragrant hill to the Lasting Alter, Darha is the one who sips her tea and scrutinizes the sunrise.

   It is a small boy, unclaimed and frail and only ever bearing the name Karma who lifts the cup next; the aged and withered Yailani cradles the cup in their lap as the sun tops the horizon, and when it has reached its peak, Alar is left only the dregs, though the cool breeze that has abandoned him for so long mollifies the ancient wistfulness.

   Darha sees them, us, we, complete the cycle, hardly more than a bystander in her own skin. She cannot say that she despises this; though war has been ushered away from her land, Darha possesses a restless, seeking soul. Those who share it bade her to bask in the peace, as they are wont to do themselves.

   And at the insistence of Yailani, and Alar, and the boy who was plucked from nothing, Darha does; she has promised this time to Ionia as repentance, and she owes the disquiet in her soul some amount of soothing. If not for her, then for the Karma that will inexorably follow.

   It is the ultimate test of faith and of strength to delve into that vein of thought; Darha knows she is gone, she knows she will succumb to a truth death eventually, and she knows she is less and less in the present. Despite this, she clings to the faith that brought her to the Alter in the first place.

   And she hopes against hope that she may carry that strength into her next life, should Karma ever need to call on it again.