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There is so much to do, and it's not fun for anyone. A lot of mending to do, broken fences to fix, soil stomped into a sturdy clearing where nothing will grow, and scars everywhere she looks. So much to do, it's all she can think about, as she snaps bowstrings back into their slots, fingers weighed down by bandages, and tends to the broken blades in the town's hall.
Not even a few days ago, the thrill of battle soaked up the dampness of fresh rain and the spring dust off the air. In a corner of her mind, she can still feel blood stinging her nostrils, but the smell of cut wood and the feel of dented metal under her hammers eases her nerves. Riven has not had to mire herself to the aftermath of a battle as a civilian until she started fighting alongside Ionia, alongside Irelia and her people. In what feels like another life, once blades where sheathed and the heat of battle retreated off her mind, she used to ease the ghastly images of bloodshed with cheap wine over a simple campfire, and let the humourless jokes and cynicism of fellow soldiers dull the jittery reflexes off her body, back to that thoughtless routine.
Now, she has to see it from the perspective of civilians, and she loathes it, she needs it, she wants it. She has to spend every excruciating, sober second basking in the aftermath of war, healing wounds that will be cut open again, when Noxus strikes again, when the rain stops and the muddy road's hearth can drink up the blood of the fallen.. again. And it's not easy.
Riven loathes it, needs it, wants it.
She hates it, and hates that it makes her thoughtless in an even more painful way than before. She hates it more than the fact the strongest drinks can only barely get her tipsy now, more than having to stretch her lips into a semblance of a smile over the half assed jokes told under the stinging heat of campfires, the need to fit in. The knowledge she'll never fit in.
She works through her tasks without thinking, one by one. Because she's one of the few lucky ones to have been spared the worst of the damages; her skin runs scarred but unwounded, no effractios to let blood run along the trails of sweat and dust that now stick to her body, her tendons still bend under her will, when she sinks the smouldering metal of her blades into cold water, her fingers still wrap around the hammer's handle and bring it down upon the anvil with as much precision as she wants. Nothing hurts enough to land her in the healer's chambers, nothing calls for a break from her tasks. So she works through them, because there's so much to do, and it's not fun for anyone.
The infernal heat of her blades sizzles when sunk in cool water, then they're warm enough to shape and reshape. It's endless.
But, she supposes those wounded in battle have it even worse; her tendons are where they should be, her limbs move to her will, her blood runs in its vessels. Yes, a part of her is thankful, but an even more insidious part- one that coils itself around her mind and clings to her sleepless thoughts like a leech, is envious. She hates being spared the throes of battle. She should be thankful for her blade's suffocating magic and the rune shields absorbing every lethal blow she'd have taken, but she isn't. Because she can't miss the way the other soldiers eye her with indignation, like she isn't already trying hard enough. Like she isn't worth it, since she hasn't bled enough for their land. Like she isn't enough.
She'll fix their weapons, she'll tend to them and sharpen their blades and strengthen their arrows and polish their bows, and by the end, it won't be enough. She won't be enough.
She'll fix their fences, one nail hammered in at a time, she'll see to it that their roofs are repaired, their lands mended, their hearth watered and turned and carrying promise of crops, where blood had one desecrated its roots.
The possibility that she can perhaps fit in, one day.
That's why she needs it. She needs to remember that somehow, despite being a killer, she can heal. Despite her treacherous self always snapping back into counting the eyes on her, and the range of their blades and the speed of their arrows compared to her own dexterity, she can do better. She needs to remember she can do more than kill, more than destroy. She needs to be thanked by Ionia's elders and their barely comprehensible accents, she has to know all of this counts for something. Riven treasures every one of their smiles, despite never knowing how to respond to their thanks. She'll bow back and stutter over a million words and bite back on the Noxian ones that flee her in her confusion, because all she has done is fix that fence and this roof- they give too much in return.
They give their words of thankfulness and praise, their sugary baked rice dough after the day's work, their too friendly gestures. They give their unspoken forgiveness. Too much.
And Riven needs it like the soil she works needs air, like it soaks up the well water she digs up for it. Always parched for more, always needing just a drop more to wash away the blood it has drunk up over years and years- somehow it feels like she could be whole again. Just enough.
And that makes her too hopeful. The knowledge that she will fit in.
That's why she wants it. Wants it all for herself, and the few more moments of business and thoughtlessness to dull the ache, a soothing balm to a soreness so deep within her she can't quite point out where it hurts. Why it hurts. Just that it does.
When the sunlight's brightness is watered down beyond the foggy mists at the horizon, the agitated air whirring in the margosa trees cools into a more mellow breeze. Riven hesitates to take in a breath when she steps outside the forge, she can almost feel the metallic taste of blood on the corners of her tongue. But instead, the scent of demurely blossoming peony flowers fills her lungs, her ribs feel like they're opening up after having spent the majority of her day hunched over her work. The furnace heat still burns under her eyelids, she supposes it will dull with time, where now it stings like wasp needles over her cheeks.
There is less commotion than usual, Riven never knows what to expect from this. Ionians are… strangely quiet sometimes; even their battles sound more of clashings blades than guttural screams. In all her years of fighting, never has the banshee whisper of a flock of flying arrows sounded as ominous as it does when Ionian archers stand in lined up formation behind her. And Irelia- she suddenly remembers- Irelia always leads upfront.
The thought runs icy in her veins, and soon enough she locks eyes with one of the soldiers nearby; she's easing a particularly stubborn spaulder off her shoulder with one hand. There's still a dried trail of blood against her lower lip, and yet her hair is elegantly tied up around a silk band swaying with the wind. Practice, Riven concludes. Simpler days, she muses.
"You need help?" She asks, just to be polite, as an introduction, and not to be too upfront.
"Nah, I've got this," she smiles awkwardly, Riven only then notices her jaw unclenching, she's friendly, hopefully, "you?"
She is definitely friendly, Riven thinks. She shakes her head for a reply, and instead helps nudge the last rivet off the soldier's armor- just where her fingertips don't reach, letting the shoulder guard slip off finally, before she asks,
"Have you seen Irelia?"
She could have come up with more small talk before getting to that point..
"That's captain Irelia to you," the other teases, but quickly swallows back down her laughter that Riven forgets to answer to with a smile, "but I dunno really, she wouldn't talk to any of the healers back there- probably made a fuss of some sort,"
"Oh," Riven might just know where she is, then, "thanks," she remembers to say before parting with the girl.
Riven isn't sure she's buying every word of what the other soldier said, but during such times, Irelia tends to seek out her own alone time. And Riven isn't too sure she's worth prying into every aspect of Irelia's past, nor deserving of every secret she has locked within her.
Irelia talks too little, yet and too much at the same time. Riven finds that she talks too much about what matters too little, and only lets the rarest of whispers and the most puzzling of half-thoughts escape her outloud, when it comes to what truly matters. That's why she never asks too much. Because Irelia goes to such great lengths to keep her past to herself, and even when Riven musters up the courage to ask, she doesn't talk.
She won't talk, even when they cripple her with nightmares, even when cold sweat runs down her forehead, and when Riven pulls her into her chest and feels the tears caught in her eyelashes against her skin, her stuttering, silent sobs breathing heat between them. She lets herself be held close- when Irelia pulls her closer tightly, almost vengefully- the intensity of her grips threatening to unravel the fabric of her shirt, Riven is never spoken to. She'd ease those secrets back into silence, and never speak a word of it when the looming darkness of the night and the haziness of dream fragments are vanquished with daylight. She won't mention a word of it when the harsh morning routine has them both sober up to the night's sleepless thoughts.
That's why Riven hesitates before knocking at Irelia's door; not her quarters, not her offices, but her bedroom.
When she's not met with an answer, she calls out hesitantly, almost wincing over the way her words echo in the vacant halls,
"Irelia," she takes in a breath, "can I come in?"
That's not grammatically correct, an annoying part of her thinks, when the silence between her and the other side of the door stretches out for very long.
"You can," she hears, muffled, with the locks being worked open from the inside, and when the sound of keys dies out in the distance, she slides the door open carefully.
The lights are dimmed- no, the lanterns are not even lit up. The curtains are drawn together, and not even a single brazier is lit up. Irelia doesn't meet her eyes when she sinks into her mattress with a long sigh, armour discarded messily on the floor.
It's almost suffocating with unspoken words waiting to burst out, with the dampness of the last rainy season nestling in the corners and the too little sunlight this room evidently gets. Every tap of her heels on the floor feels like stitches popping out, stuffing waiting to spill out, too much noise in an otherwise too silent space.
"Something's up," Riven says matter of factly and not like a question, "is everything alright?"
Irelia is silent for a long time, she's sitting at the edge of her bed, eyes glued to the floor only because they can't meet Riven's, else she'd never have spoken, she'd never have said, "I need to meditate." like a boring excuse, or a desperate plea for this tension to snap.
"Let me help," again, it's not a question.
Irelia doesn't answer, but she watches her pull the curtains shut all the way, and light up her scented candles one by one.
Irelia draws her heels closer together, before outright crossing her legs loosely, and letting her chest hollow out with a long sigh. She closes her eyes, and Riven isn't proud of how long it takes her to claw her gaze off her.
Again, it's quiet, and that's a good sign this once. Irelia is too serious about silence, when it comes to meditation. Riven settles the kettle over a softly crackling fire as quietly as she can, gathering tea leaves between her hands, before adding them to the mix of lukewarm water and spoonfuls of sugar- she hopes the sweetness won't be too much, she's never quite figured out how to pull off the exact measurements just by weight and smell and shapes, like Karma does, like Irelia does.. like Ionia does.
She busies herself with these useless thoughts as she gathers the discarded armor pieces off the ground, only to prop them back up one by one in the armoury. Then, the boiling vapour reaches her nostrils, the soothing scent of green tea already sets her at ease, and she pours the contents into matching cups.
Irelia accepts the cup she offers wordlessly, takes a sip, then remembers to say "thank you,"
"Did something happen?" The opportunistic part of her springs forth as fast as the barrier of silence between them is broken.
"Does it look like it?"
"Can I see?" Riven asks instead, forgetting Irelia's retort as fast as her eyes land on the still untreated battle injuries on her body.
Irelia meets her eyes with a vacant look, like she's truly too exhausted to care, so Riven takes that as a yes; a hesitant one, one ready to be broken the moment she does something wrong.
So, what she does next is retrieve the weaker healing salves she knows Irelia keeps in one of her drawers, and recalls all the tips Karma has taught her; Ionian medicine is far more reliant on magic and the blessed touch of a few gifted priests and shamans, than anything too practical or precisely calculated.
But still, she trails her fingertips along Irelia's calf to move her leg along the mattress, and runs a damp piece of cloth over her scratched knees,
"What happened?" She asks softly, and when Irelia doesn't reply, "I could've protected you,"
"I don't need you to protect me."
"I know," she says, Irelia's hands are in her hair, tucking hair strands behind her ear, "but I want to,"
"You're better with the frontline troops." And this time, her tone isn't as fiery, as impatient. It's a valid point she's making. That's why Riven doesn't reply. Her retorts are all too selfish for Irelia's fanatically nationalist sensibilities, and she would rather not test these waters so soon. So instead, she's silent, treating her wounds, letting her fingertips tangle in her hair.
Irelia is definitely in a worse mood than usual. She wouldn't let the healers treat her injuries, even the deeper cuts along her forearm and shoulders, but Riven tries to do her best with what they've got. For now.
"Did any of them do something to anger you? The healers, I mean.."
"No," she rolls her eyes, "and stop phrasing it like that. I'm not that irritable."
Sometimes, Irelia doesn't have it in her to be too agreeable anymore, and sometimes, she seeks out problems for the hell of it. Riven is sorely sure this isn't one of those times where Irelia argues too much just to let her words run free. Riven almost loves to watch it unfold, when Irelia picks fights with the other soldiers, or with innkeepers over their too outrageous prices, or with her over her not too well-rounded Ionian calligraphy; she'd argue until her cheeks crimsoned and her words slipped into entirely different topics, before settling back, hair flipped over her shoulders almost proudly, then glancing at Riven with an airy smile, like all of it was a joke, and that smile is the way she lets Riven on her little secret. Riven will never understand how she manages to always love to argue despite the more than enough fighting she has to put up with as part of her military life.
But even if it's that she often argues for the fun (Riven would adorn that word with sceptical quotation marks) of it, this once must not be such a case.
"Riven, you're missing something," she says, before Riven can fully shift her weight off the dipping mattress that swallows up her movements like quicksand.
She doesn't have time to reply when Irelia turns her back to her, and only then does Riven note the bloodied streak clinging to the silky fabric of Irelia's dress, running right across her left shoulder. Riven winces wordlessly, then blinks away the squeamishness,
"I'll take care of it,"
And she does, methodically and way less intuitively than those healers would've done, and once she's done, she notifies,
"You've still got to check with the healers for this,"
"I don't want to talk to anyone right now," Irelia mumbles, and lets her entire weight fall against Riven's chest, "except you, maybe,"
"Why is that?" Riven whispers into her hair, her arms coming up over Irelia's own when she pulls her closer,
"You didn't notice?" Irelia scoffs, and before Riven can reply, she reaches to run her fingers through messy locks of hair sprawled against her shoulder.
"Oh," Riven follows with her eyes as Irelia's fingertips lock around the singed ends of her hair, cut too short along her shoulder and looking almost burnt off around the edges.
"Yes. Oh," Irelia sighs, "out of everything else,"
"It'll grow back," Riven promises, her lips trailing down Irelia's jaw with ticklish warmth, until she buries her face into Irelia's neck, "this is what's upsetting you?"
"It'll take so long to grow back. I don't even know if I'll-" she takes in a sudden breath, and shifts her weight in Riven's lap to turn and face her instead.
She's silent, for an ephemeral moment like that, with her fingertips pulling Riven closer; nails digging crescent marks into her shoulders, and the dampness of unshed tears under her eyelids, her ear pressed to Riven's chest and her uneven breathing the only sound to break the silence.
"It'll take so long to grow back,"
"So what?" Riven's hand tangles in her hair, and she watches it pool between Irelia's shoulder blades, cut uneven and messy- surely with a blade otherwise intended for her throat,
"This could've ended really badly, but you're alive. That's all that matters." Riven holds her closer to herself, not even noticing this, nor her words, just that Irelia bristles against her touch.
"Is it really?" Her voice is hushed, almost broken. For a moment, Riven thinks back to how different she sounds, when she's leading her armies at the forefront with no notable armor to keep her safe- or how she sounds when she's on her more diplomatic missions, enunciating her speeches like the words are spun from her very being.
"Yes," Riven wants to say that it's because Ionia needs her, but she doesn't think she's in a position to speak for Ionia, so instead, she chews her lip shut. Irelia's patience is stretched too thin when she waits for the rest of her sentence to finish itself.
But Riven doesn't know what else to say, and what she's not in a position to say just yet.
"I don't know if I'll live long enough to see it fixed, Riven,"
"You will," she hushes softly, and softness falls easy from her lips, unlike Irelia's "you will. I know it."
"I'm not sure which I want most,"
Riven isn't entirely sure what that means, and sheepishly, she doesn't want to know what Irelia means, either.
"You're tired," Riven says after a bated pause, "not thinking straight. We can talk about this when you're feeling better, tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" She derides, "tomorrow, I have to practise for the coming up meeting in Navori. Or have you forgotten?"
Riven has, indeed, forgotten. Even if she says otherwise, and insists that yes, these political meetings are of utmost importance to her, and because Noxus shapes great liars, Irelia must believe it. At first. Because Irelia knows what a lying Riven looks like too much to fall for it anymore, so instead she pulls her under the blankets with her. And only then does she agree that tomorrow will fix things, magically, just the way a promise of a tomorrow is enough to ease the mind.
But tomorrow is like today. So much to do. Not fun for anyone.
Riven is focusing too much on her stupid notes, because Irelia has insisted on teaching her to write in Ionian. And to write in Ionian, one has to know how to treat these fragile scrolls, and how to hold these quill pens, and how to spell every syllable that isn't pronounced in casual speech. Riven hates it. She's heard it before, Ionians often told her, in an effort to cheer her up, that Noxian is more difficult to master- a thorny language, all sharp strokes and piercing lines and full stops, end of the line. She's not sure if that's just what Ionia's signature propaganda and national pride concoction looks like. She supposes every nation must have one, it's better than Noxus's glaringly obvious ones, as far as she's concerned.
But these thoughts consume her too much, when she rounds up her curves, fills in the too thin lines-
"That's not how you do it," She hears Irelia hum over her shoulder, before settling on the ground next to her. Under the swaying raintree's leaves, her face is its unmasked self; tired creases at the corners of her eyes, make her irises almost twinkle when she smiles at Riven's messy writing, "let me show you."
Irelia's unscarred hands know how to hold these annoying feather pens just right, how to makes the fat curves plump and warm, the thinner ones graceful and light- Ionian writing is like a dance, like the pen is an ice skater and the paper its opalescent rink. Riven watches, more to force her eyes to remain on the paper, instead of Irelia's eyes, her lips, her everything. In a way, she's just perfect like this, Riven is almost embarrassed to let herself think of that.
"Why don't you try again?"
"I'm not sure-"
"Try again."
Riven sighs, swallowing down the way that stupid smile makes her heart beat just right. And again, the words make no sense, they're just shapes to remake, Irelia's shadow to follow in. She repeats the sentence again, until,
"This one," Irelia's nail digs into the paper, right under the last word she wrote- more like drew - "almost perfect. But you messed up this one,"
Perfect. The word makes her heart leap. She feels so pathetic, like this; Irelia's arm resting on her shoulder, their knees pressed together, her voice sounding so close,
"You always mess up this word; love. "
"Uh- yes.. I'm sorry,"
"Keep trying."
Riven feels so ridiculous, getting lectured like a child, and not only that- but again, misreading Irelia's sentence.
" Love.. " Irelia hums again, shifting her weight back to her feet, "it's not that hard." She laughs.
She's in a much better mood today, Riven notes. She can't think of anything else, when she rewrites her sentence once, twice, then… her eyes can't remain on her notes anymore.
The unfolding auburn hills span as far as she can see, from here, swaying like easy summer waves with the cool morning breeze. Irelia is practising her blade swings not too far off, she doesn't seem to notice Riven's eyes on her. So Riven doesn't let herself stare too long, and tries again, writing a sentence that makes no sense beyond the shapes of its words.
Then she can't focus on it too long; Irelia's blades glint like silver scales, winking back under the gauzy surface of cerulean lakes. Her simple attire is easier to drown into, no more sharp edges and metallic spaulders to thwart Riven's eyes off her- but she shouldn't be doing this, thinking like this.
Again, she must write, the same words over and over, "love" that looks nothing like Irelia's, it almost annoys her. She drops her pen, it's impossible to reach for again when her eyes find Irelia again.
She's moving like she's weightless, almost like those small theatrical dolls she's seen in festivals, should their strings snap, like fallen cherry blossoms if they could defy their governing winds and fly where they wanted on their own. Riven can barely liken it to anything she's seen, only to metaphors she imagines now. Irelia's blades follow her hands' movements, like an obedient herd sometimes- beckoned by a soothing lullaby, and sometimes, it's like they're fighting against unseen leashes, like they're ready to lunge at an incoming attacker. When she raises her arms, the spaces between her lower ribs dip in shadowed valleys, and when she relaxes her shoulders, Riven can almost feel her exhale out the soreness of battle scars. Her eyelashes are a whisper of a shadow on her cheeks. Not a single thought to force her now relaxed eyebrows together, unlike how it mostly tends to be, nowadays.
Like this, Riven thinks, with her eyes barely held closed under the shower of sunlight, with nothing but the dance she loves more than anything else, she's almost perfect. Is this what Irelia wants to be? She doesn't see the sleep deprivation under her eyes, her messily cut hair, her bandaged arms and knees, she sees only her, then sees her eyes open and meet her own for half a second, then her unfinished sentence, a snarky reminder, a taunt; "life is worth living only if you've got someone to-"
Riven feels as if the sun's heat is channelled solely onto her face now, bubbling under her skin.
"I saw that..!" Irelia yells out, suddenly breathless when she hurries up to where Riven is.
Love . She finishes writing at last, something that looks Ionian, enough to make Irelia smile through her rushed breathing.
"Oh, you've got it," Irelia notes when she peers down at her notes, "I told you, it's not that hard."
"Yeah. Not really,"
"Ionian is easy." She rests her back against the tree bark, their shoulders slumped together now, "Ionia, however, isn't."
Riven doesn't reply. She waits, like she knows it by heart, for Irelia's inner monologue to grow too self righteous for her to bottle up any longer, until,
"Sometimes I don't understand them at all." A hollow chuckle follows, then her pale lips are pursed together before another sentence escapes her, "it feels like nothing is certain, or real, anymore,"
"I think I know what you mean," Riven hesitates. She always hesitates before bringing up anything related to Noxus. Like her writing that is never too smooth, her curves that are never continuous enough, her ink strokes never quite right, Riven fears what she was made to be, what she cannot unlearn.
There are always smudges and sharp lines and sudden angles on her papers; like Noxian writing. Part of her worries this only serves to show she will always be irrecoverably Noxian and nothing else, that she still doesn't want to totally bury Noxus behind. So, when her next words leave her lips, they feel like biting down on a pulsating, old ache within her,
"I thought I understood Noxus until, well, I realised I didn't. It almost broke me, but.. I've learned to let go of what I so wanted Noxus to be.. face it for what it.." her mind halts, and she nods, "is."
Because neither of them is in the mood for a "face it for what it became" sentence instead.
Irelia should hate her for this.
But she doesn't.
"I worry for you, Riven," her voice is like an echo underwater- distant and light, her fingertips are trailing down Riven's forearm, her unbandaged battle scars, "I have given so much for Ionia, more than my life, more than anyone else could. And still, it's not enough for them."
Her fingers flatten across Riven's open palm, and she threads their fingers together, ink blotches smudging her knuckles when Riven's hand tightens around her own,
"I wonder what it's like for you.. ah, well, I suppose they like you well enough by now," she smiles when their eyes meet, "it's not hard to like you."
"You deserve their love more than anyone," Riven mutters carefully, "Ionia is lucky to have you,"
"And yet they always plot to kill me," she's still smiling, "their petty attempts do get tiring after a while."
Irelia breaks eye contact before Riven can find her words. She lets her head rest against Riven's shoulder, and with a long sigh, she says, "It is tiring."
Riven agrees silently, her thumb tracing aimless strokes along the back of Irelia's hand.
"I'm tired."
More so because of the diplomacies and useless politics than the war itself, Riven has come to understand. Irelia hates this position of power she was made to conquer. And Riven hates it too. The Navori Brotherhood is a name she has learned to loathe. A paranoid part within her sometimes imagines it to be an inner attack by Noxus, doing more harm than good. But again, there are a thousand things Riven will never understand about Ionia. A thousand things Irelia only explains. So, when the conversations become too heavy with Ionian terms she doesn't understand, she forgets her snarky arguments.
She hates to ask so many questions. She hates to make so many mistakes. She hates it, because it makes others see her as something irrevocably Noxian.
But Irelia explains it all, as much to herself as to Riven. Because to her, she'll always remain just Riven, someone that can make mistakes, that can always try again. Irelia will always have her try again, until even the fear within herself is diluted with time, with repetition, with Irelia's unspoken reminders; she's just Riven- someone allowed to make mistakes.
So, she thinks, why doesn't Irelia allow herself to make mistakes of her own? Why, in a spiteful, sorrowful way, she asks, does Irelia not break from the facade of perfection? She can't hate Ionia, but she's spiteful towards it. They allow themselves to breach every boundary and break every rule and when it comes to Irelia; suddenly, it's different.
Suddenly, a wrong word spoken in that reverberating meeting hall will have some clans brandishing their weapons, out of Irelia's throat. Irelia isn't allowed mistakes. She isn't allowed to try again. Riven finds it infuriating.
The sun is striking down with searing heat when it's socketed in the apex of the sky. The morning's easy mood vanishes like an old dream with every hour that passes. Riven finds shelter from the punishing heat outside in the monastery's kitchen grounds, almost vacant. The chatter of the other monks plays like an easy, droning hum in the back of her mind, and from the window, she can see Irelia working on her upcoming speech- angrily.
Riven watches Irelia's trial and error, practising her words to none but herself and the trees; branches heavy with star-shaped leaves, sloping under the weight of their ripening fruit, like a bowing audience. But in Ionia, they only bow in gratitude or in apology. A ceremonial bowing is a Noxian trait, Riven reminds herself. But for all she cares, Ionia owes Irelia both; a thanks, an apology. Not unskilled assassins ready to die if only to bring her down with them.
She's irritable, Riven knows, no matter how much she denies it. And Riven thinks that's okay. She's not perfect, she doesn't have to be. She gets to impatiently jot down messy notes and groan in frustration every time she mispronounces something or gets the delivery wrong. She gets to give it all up, all together and forget it all for a while, because it must be getting physically painful at this point, standing under the heat of the fully blossoming sun for hours, not even a northern breeze to subdue the sweltering heat.
"I don't understand them at all, Riven," she's calmer than she ought to be, when she says that, "I don't know what they want me to say. What should I tell them?"
"Whatever you want to say," she retorts, watching Irelia flop down on a seat behind the bar.
"I do not know that, either," she mumbles with her chin resting on her arms. She sighs deeply, almost melting into the coolness of the counter, before correcting her posture in an instant and reaching to examine her hair with hesitant hands,
"Does it look that bad?"
"I don't know. You always look beautiful to me."
"Then you're the wrong person to ask," Irelia coughs, but Riven doesn't miss the way she hides her smile behind a closed grip over her lips.
She's kicking her legs under the chair impatiently, before crossing them and letting a sigh seep through gritted teeth,
"They're awaiting my words." it's like she suddenly remembered, "what do I tell them? I only want Noxus dealt with, I want nothing to do with Ionians. I don't want anyone to die, if they can be spared…"
"You're doing your best, Irelia. If that isn't enough for them, then that's their problem." Riven says softly, sliding a cup of fruit juice across the counter to Irelia. With the straw, Piltoverian luxury.
"Huh, look at this," that's the first thing she notes, toying with the tip of the straw under her fingertip, "Zelos had a funny name for these- I can't remember it,"
She takes a first sip, then, looking up at Riven, she smirks, "you're better at making juice than tea,"
"You said I was improving," Riven pouts, overdramatically maybe, but it still has Irelia snicker, like she forgot she isn't supposed to be laughing now,
"You are. You're not the worst at it, but also, not the best."
And for a minute, it's quiet like that.
"You're the best at distracting me, though." Irelia mutters, unprompted.
"I'm helping you," Riven argues, fighting off a smile, "the distracting is a side effect."
"You can help me with something else instead."
And that something else is, much to Riven's dismay, meditating.
"I need to find my rhythm again," Irelia explains, when she practically drags Riven along, up the hill, "I can't focus if I can't think at all to begin with."
"I hate meditating." Riven allows herself to complain, uttering words she'd never dare say in Ionian to anyone but Irelia.
"I know. That's why you'll keep watch as I meditate. You never know when they might strike again,"
Riven manages to silence her surprised "oh," that almost forces its way out her lips, instead, she says, "I won't let anything happen to you" as fast as she's able to wring control over her voice again.
Because the least Irelia needs now is any more doubts on her mind. So Riven quells them with a truth of her own, with what might be what she's the most sure of, in her life. Irelia falls for it, like just the utterance of those words is enough for her.
Riven has promised to never give herself up to admitted truths blindly again, not after what's happened with Noxus. Not after being forced to rip the life principles she's spent years etching onto her very soul, with her own hands. The resonating ache of it still simmers within her, palpable when she thinks about it long enough, like the unsettling realisation that a scar might never fully heal.
But here, when they sit cross legged face to face, watching Irelia's breathing even out, her shoulders still, her eyelids fall closed, she forgets it all. She won't let anything happen to her, and that much is clear. It draws her hands into fists, tense breathing.
She allows herself to fall into the same trap, the comfort of an objective truth to give herself up for. Like trusting the tides will carry her still body if she breathes evenly enough. It's a comfort she finds herself drawn to every time, like a lantern's glow to a dazed moth.
Uncountable minutes stretch between them like that, nothing but the sun drawn to the western horizons. The hostility of the barren earth where nothing grows invades Riven's mind despite trying to focus on anything else. She doesn't know why Irelia chose this location specifically to meditate. The wind is whistling an ominous tune as it catches in the dying leaves of the trees. The land itself is scarred, irredeemable. Noxian occupation has crippled fauna and flora alike, and even the spirits residing within these once peaceful shores, having either fled to the more distant reaches of Ionia, or been twisted into unrecognisable wretches.
When Karma has taken it upon herself to help Riven with her own meditation, she explained that a comforting location eases the mind into the weightlessness required for such a practice. The meditation grounds were always equipped with incense sticks and the comforting crackling fires in their braziers, and the resonance and soft chimes of various musical instruments. But now, she finds none of that comfort here, she doubts Irelia does, until she hears a hushed sigh.
"It's not working," Irelia seethes, her shoulders tensing up, her nails digging angry lines into the sickly dirt below, "I can't hear anything. I can't find her anymore,"
"What's wrong?" Riven asks carefully, and when Irelia snaps her sights back at her, she feels for a second that her teary glare is directed at her, its anger, its hatred-
"I'm doing everything wrong," Irelia retorts, her voice heavy with barely suppressed sobs, "I can't hear O-ma's voice anymore. None of them.."
Riven's lips part wordlessly, her hands hesitate over Irelia's arms. She just wants it to be as simple as pulling her closer, silencing the angry thoughts in her head, telling her that it's not over. There's always a tomorrow to try again. But, as fast as her fingertips graze her skin, she recoils from her touch with a hushed sob,
"Don't," she warns, and by this point, her tears are running in damp streaks down her cheeks, "I can barely think anymore.."
"You're pushing yourself too hard,"
"No. I'm not doing nearly enough. I've got no time for this." She lets a final sob escape her, drawing in a sharp breath like it's supposed to cool down her anger.
Irelia gets to her feet, practically struggling to find steady footing, "I need time to think," she explains with a broken voice, "do not follow me."
And that's exactly what Riven does not. She lets Irelia walk away a safe distance, then, and for as long as the starry night lasts, she keeps a careful watch on the horizons, and the angry waves crashing upon charred shores. The foamy spume swallows up blistering sand ravenously, an endless rhythm. The once comforting melody of crashing waves now sounds like charnel requiems to her ears. Irelia's failed meditation does not help to alleviate the dread that fills her now. She's not even meditating anymore, Riven realizes, when she allows her eyes to leave the horizons carrying a promise of an ambush. No, she's apologizing. Every minute she spends there feels agonizingly slow, there is nowhere else she'd rather be now but right down there with Irelia. She'll find a way to talk away her worries, to let her know everything can be fixed somehow. But, because Irelia values her alone time too much, and she has made it more than clear she wants to be left alone now, Riven continues to keep watch from a distance.
There are some questions she can't ask, some reaches better left uncharted. Every time, like this, standing at the other end of the glass wall, her shackled steps hold her back from the enticing final leap of faith.
She wants the last of those tears to be dried by her hands, but instead she lets them run into the denuded land below. She lets the broken apologies clot the night air, as if anyone can blame Irelia for what she did. As if the family she fights in the name of could really forsake her after everything.
Riven understands so little about Ionia, but especially the parts Irelia won't explain, the ones she can't let herself inquire about. The ones that have Irelia seek the fleeting voices of her murdered family's spirits, where they're most likely to be found, and exactly where she can't find them.
It makes her hate Noxus even more.
Basking in the aftermath of war, the old fear of an ache everlasting, it digs itself in her mind vengefully. She almost succumbs to it, the myth of being broken beyond repair, that some things cannot be healed with time. Vengefully, she banishes the thoughts away.
Noxian doctrines, she hates them now more than ever.
The scars of a recent battle are only fully closed when armaments and weaponry are restocked in preparation for the next, In Ionia. That's why Riven is the last to remain in the forges, under that scorching heat of her furnaces, that thoughtless rhythm, clunking of metal ringing deafeningly in her ears.
The healers are first to come to action, because lives are too fragile, and war renders the already ethereal fragility of it frighteningly short. Every drop of blood is too precious, every twitching muscle, every flicker of a memory, rasp of a breath.
Next are the builders and farmers, salvaging what can be revived, because one cannot live without shelter, without crops. The cycle of life is exacting and all consuming; this dainty probability, one so easily crushed under the immovable cruelty of war- it always finds a way to go on. Riven has never had to think of what comes after the fight, until she started raising blades against Noxus. And what comes after battle, the bitterness of it is almost worse than the constant assault of action, in the eye of the storm. There's suddenly too much silence, too many thoughts, not enough actions.
And for life to go on, in a nation at war, there must be weaponry.
And that's where Riven comes in; fixing Ionia's weapons, shaping their steel, strengthening their metal. It's something she does mindlessly at this point, because she has seen it all, every blade they can come up with, every aimed weapon, every variant of a spear, a dagger, a kunai.. until this once, at least.
The early morning fog hasn't even cleared up by the time her first unexpected visitor comes, laying blades the likes of which she's never healed before, on her already busy anvil- a dance instrument, a family crest,
"They're not working," that's the first thing Irelia tells her since their last encounter, a bitter continuation to the last words she left her with, "fix them."
"They're not the problem, Irelia," she responds, but still, almost curiously, she picks up one of the blades between her gloved fingers, examining the sharp edges, the inscribed surfaces, even down to the silvery, glinting metal.
"You're wrong." She half yells, before a sudden exhale forces its way out her lungs, "you are wrong." She repeats, more for herself than anything.
Riven doesn't reply, and instead takes a closer look at Irelia's blades, now both their curious gazes following the metallic petals in Riven's hands. She tries to employ whatever she has learned about other weapons analogically to Irelia's own, but it must not be working, because-
"Everything seems to be alright."
Irelia groans and flops down on the seat opposing Riven, exhausted, sleepless, irritable,
"I don't know what to do, then.." the sharpness of her voice melts off with that sentence, and Riven far prefers her irritable self to this, to the Irelia that just gives up, "I think I've finally done it.."
A bitter half smile is tugging at her lips, and her eyes dart over to Riven's own, a blink away from being flooded with tears, "finally earned their hatred, the Spirit forsakes me. Maybe I've earned it,"
"Irelia," Riven starts, sighing like all her doubts were waiting for a last dent to pour out from, and this is it, "you can talk to me, tell me anything, if it'll make you feel better,"
"Me feeling better is not the issue at hand, Riven."
"It very much is," she retorts, exasperated, "we've tried everything you wanted. Can't I try something in return?"
"You can," Irelia replies dismissively.
And those words, however inconsequential Irelia may believe them to be, are all that Riven needs.
She turns to close the door, a "closed" sign adorning the outside handle now. And, like she knew they'd be there, she reaches for a pair of scissors kept in one of the drawers.
"You're injured, yet you still fight for Ionia every day, Irelia," Riven says softly, standing behind the chair and moving to gather Irelia's flowing hair between her hands, "this should be enough,"
"It's not." Irelia replies, "if it were-"
"If it weren't, Ionia wouldn't even be standing now. Noxus would have won already."
Irelia is silent, afterwards. But, Riven supposes that she'd never be speechless enough as to not comment on why Riven is spraying her hair with light splashes of water before combing it straight and silky,
"You're not.." Irelia hesitates, making Riven stop with the scissor blades caught too close over a messy strand of hair,
"I'll even these out, alright?"
"Do as you please,"
So Riven does, closing the scissors jaws between the ruined ends of her hair, sending them flaking to the ground.
"I… haven't cut my hair since I can remember," Irelia muses, and the sigh that leaves her next feels like the echo of a smile, "my O-ma used to trim it for me, whenever I wanted it cut, Riven,"
Riven reminds herself that she is not allowed to ask about this, and for a second it's all she tells herself, just to keep her lips from uttering words she may regret… until,
"I really miss her. Miss them all. It was easier back then," Irelia chuckles, and Riven takes in a breath, drawing back her scissors when she's worked through the damaged hair.
"Tell me about it," She asks carefully, moving the scissor's between the longer hair strands now, the perfectly normal ones. Her heart is beating too fast, even her hands are shaking, but then- if Irelia really wanted to keep all this to herself, she wouldn't have brought it up to begin with,
"O-ma was so… cheerful, Riven."
Irelia feels the lightest goosebumps travel down her shoulders when the scissors close around her hair. She takes in a breath and lets her shoulders relax, "I always felt she liked me the most, out of everyone,"
Every snip of the scissors sends her long hair strands to the ground, pooling at Riven's feet. Every snip is ticklish against her scalp, not unwelcome, but almost dazing.
"I'm not sure if that's still the case though," Irelia says, voice dropping quieter, "I've done a lot to disappoint her. Sometimes I pray she isn't watching, when I know even my hands aren't free of Ionian blood. But I.. I miss her too much for that, I end up hoping she's watching over me, and my mistakes,"
"If it weren't for your blades, Ionia would have fallen," Riven replies, "do you think she can't be proud of you for that?"
Irelia shakes her head, making Riven's scissors withdraw momentarily before they resume their work,
"You are enough, Lia. You're doing more than enough,"
"Riven," she takes in a breath, "I don't want to hear my praise, especially from you, when I know I've done too many wrongdoings to deserve it."
"You've done no wrong for me. I'll say it however many times you need to hear it,"
"I'd rather you said something else, if you've got that much time on your hands,"
Riven's last snip closes itself over the last strand of long hair, shortening it to a shoulder length one, on par with the rest. She forgets Irelia's words when she moves to meet her eyes. Her hands immediately move to tangle in Irelia's hair, now feeling too light between her fingers. She takes in a breath,
"You're so beautiful."
"That's not what I meant,"
Riven's hands move to cup her jaw, pulling her into a kiss that Irelia immediately melts into. She lets her fingertips trail down the back of Irelia's neck, she feels her shudder every time her fingertips are flattened between the ridges of her spine, and when her nails move to scratch at the base of her scalp gently. Riven pulls away barely enough to utter her next words, a hushed "I love you," that Irelia feels against her lips more than hears.
"Yes," she nods weakly, eyes falling closed when Riven's hands cup her cheeks,
"Irelia," Riven whispers against her lips, trapping the weightless hum that leaves her next between her own. Irelia's back meets the chair's spindle, and she sighs into the kiss, her legs parting for Riven's knee to press on the seat between them. She doesn't let herself think too much now, she just lets Riven tip her head up with gloved fingers over her chin. She closes her eyes again, and for a moment, it's just them in a bubble. Riven's breathing is audible against her lips, hushed and sweet with the promise of her lips against her own again,
"I love you," her words ignite a familiar warmth within Irelia.
"I know," she murmurs when Riven pulls away, her shaky exhale blowing warmth against Riven's neck, "sometimes it's all I can think about, when everything else becomes too blurry, incomprehensible."
"Me too," Riven smiles, letting her thumb trace Irelia's lower lip.
"Knowing you'll always be here, it makes it easier to forgive my mistakes."
"I don't care about your mistakes,"
"I know. That's why I.."
She takes in a breath, and she doesn't release it even when Riven's hands leave her. Her back slumps against the chair, and she watches thoughtlessly as Riven moves to retrieve something from one of her drawers.
She should hate her, hate the Noxian who makes it so hard to choose Ionia again and again. But again, selfishly, she sides with Riven. With the Noxian who makes the sizzling ache within her melt into nothingness. With Riven whom she knows will be a constant, an anchor, when everything else is a blinding flurry she cannot comprehend.
It's so selfish, so hypocritical - she loves it too much to stop. She lets herself conquer that selfishness, just own up to it. In a sense, it's so liberating, like treading down uncharted waters, letting her weight be lifted off the sand bank below, letting the tides cradle her body.
She only releases the breath she's been holding when Riven hands her a small mirror, her thoughts withering into nothingness in the back of her mind,
"Wanna take a look?"
She's not sure, but curiosity wins her over in the end.
"Oh," her eyes barely settle anywhere on the mirror, eager to take in every detail, she doesn't even notice Riven's hands on her shoulders until later, her fingers moving to find Riven's own, an anchor.
She shakes her head slightly, getting used to the lightness of it, no longer having to counterbalance the weight of her longer hair. It's almost ticklish against her neck,
"What do you think?"
Irelia can't quite find it in herself to reply, but she lets her hand find Riven's, slipping the leather glove off. She's unable to tear her eyes off her reflection, but she turns to press a light kiss to the back of Riven's hand, her knuckles and scarred fingers, something to make up for the words that cannot leave her lips now.
Again, the rest of the day rolls by where it's not fun for anyone, but this once, there is too little to do.
The noise of the city sounds like a bee's hive in the back of Riven's mind. She watches the warrior priests walk up the long steps leading up the podium in the town's hall, their ivory robes trailing long behind them. The ancient walls trap within them all this hushed chatter, back to reverberate with unsettling solemnity. Riven knows how the usual routine goes, and she has, so far, always abided by the unspoken rules like every other Ionian. She should sit quietly on the benches, blend in with the myriad of other faces, hope Irelia's eyes find her own when she stands at the other end of the room, a practised speech falling from her lips.
She should stay out of sight, but this time, she doesn't. The thrill of having broken that first glass wall still carries her movements with unworthy giddiness. In a sense, she doesn't care if the glass shards pierce her steps from here onwards, she supposes if she is to make a mistake by this, then so be it.
She slips by unseen, into the long halls just out of sight. The banners are still to be hanged, the endless rows of benches are still mostly vacant, and she is still carrying something that doesn't quite belong to her; and that's Irelia's blades. She still has got some time to waste, so she heads for the backstage, pushing the door open with ease like she belongs here. In a sense, she just does.
"I knew you'd be here," Riven lets out a relieved sigh when she finds Irelia, leaning against one of the vanities in the room,
"I have nowhere else to be," Irelia meets her eyes in the mirrors reflection,
"Really?"
"What do you want?" Irelia asks, unamused.
"You, maybe," Riven steps forward at that, and when Irelia turns to face her, she takes one of her hands between her own, shaky with unspoken anxiousness, "some time for ourselves,"
"Riven.." Irelia's glare breaks when she sees Rivens smile, her eyebrows scrunch with flustered confusion, "now?"
"We've got a bit of time," Riven's chuckle is too loud compared to Irelia's hushed whispers. She reaches for the leather sheath safeguarding Irelia's blades, and unfolds the ends carefully,
"I forgot to take these back," Irelia notes softly, watching Riven reach for one of her blades and pose it on her open palm, motionless, lifeless.
"Let's fly these," her hand cups the back of Irelia's own, she only then notices how much they're shaking, "together."
"I've tried everything," Irelia rasps, her thumb tracing the back of the blade hesitantly, "I don't know how,"
"Just try again," Riven reassures, and Irelia decides to lose herself in the blissful obliviousness of those words, of the way Riven's smile draws her in helplessly. She doesn't wholly believe it, but every second more she spends in here feels like it's testing her resolve.
Right outside these doors, the masses await a message she isn't even sure she can pronounce right. At the other end, the unscarred grassy hills flutter in blissful waves with the magic-breathing breeze.
Selfishness feels just right, if only for a few minutes more, before she eventually has to slip into the suffocating shell Ionia has sculpted around her. So, selfishly, she discards the papers she'd been drafting messily on her desk, letting stray ink drops erase away her unwilling words- no coming back. Riven's hand finds her own again, it's not shaking anymore, but it's held firmly when she's led outside.
Away from the marble pillars and proudly outstretching walls of the assembly hall, the sun rays rain down through the canopy of tree leaves above, spilling like scintillating waterfalls. Irelia takes a moment to regain her breath, her eyes unable to leave Riven's own. The way she unsubtly smiles at nothing in particular is so not-Noxian in a way Irelia's mind can't help latching onto helplessly. Sometimes, somehow, Riven knows where to go and what to do just right. Irelia never was much of an outside observer, she's been raised to lead, to pierce through the unseen roads ahead so everyone else could follow. Now, she's just content to let Riven do that, if only for today, for just this once.
"Let's take a look here," Riven starts, falling into a kneeling position and laying Irelia's blades one by one into the earth, "try to find your Spirit again,"
"Does it want me back?" Irelia follows in hesitantly, letting her fingertips trace the blunt edges of one of the blades, "that is the question."
"Yes," there's a missed beat within her chest, after that word, "we're not here to fight or to kill anyone, Irelia."
"Then.." the edge of the blade almost flutters off the ground when Irelia withdraws her hand, "we're here to dance."
"If that's what you want."
If only it could be that simple, Irelia thinks. Still, she tells herself to follow Riven's rhythm this once.
And, slowly, to the whispered song of the wind's whistle, and the beating rhythm of the woodpeckers in their nests, Irelia draws in a breath, letting her fingertips trace the back of each burnished blade once.
Not here to kill, she reminds herself. We're here for this.
Dancing for the sake of it, she barely retains memories of such a time. Have these blades ever known motion without the intent to draw blood? Irelia realizes for the first time that, no. The thought of it sinks itself into her heart like the sharpest claws. Without realizing it, her grip closes around one of the blades, not tightly enough to injure, as much as she wishes she could do just that, hold it as close as she could.
"They would've never wanted to kill," Irelia mutters, running her thumb across the metal in her hand almost apologetically, a comforting touch.
"And neither did you," Riven comforts, her hand coming over Irelia's own again, the weight of the blade doesn't feel staggering against her grip anymore, "but we do what we must, sometimes."
"Right," she nods, "I hope they know that."
"I'm sure they do."
Riven's voice plays in her mind like the comforting summer breeze that always flowed homeward, the one she always used to follow, all before Noxus even had its sight set on Ionia.
Her grip eases, and she watches the first blade levitate above her palm, shallowly rocking to the lulling swell of memories within her.
"I remember, Riven," she almost whispers, "what it was like, back then."
Riven's touch is grounding, a trail to follow back to the present when her thoughts get too loud. But right now, she wants to venture into the memories that harken to her longing. A stinging warmth pools under her eyelids when she shuts them, and soon, comforting dampness to follow, when the images of the first training grounds she'd trod as an apprentice manifest in her mind.
She used to dance for the fun of it. There was no cut-throat precision to fall into, lest her own limbs were lost. And there was no trail of blood to cover up afterwards. It seems like another lifetime entirely.
"Oh, it's working.." Riven's voice snaps her attention back to the present.
She watches those pink cotton trees vanish in her memory, the twirling silks she used to practise her dance with now hollowing out into nothingness when she opens her eyes. The present isn't much different, she reasons, when her eyes fall upon her set of blades, hovering safely over her hands, awaiting her command.
"You were right," Irelia mutters, voice uneven, "I don't know what I was doing wrong. Why this of all things works.. I don't get it."
Her babbling drowns behind a hitch of her breath when Riven pulls her into her chest, her hands smoothing down her back, "you've always protected all of Ionia, Irelia. But you.."
"Me..?" She lets a shuddering sigh escape her, her arms coming up to wrap around Riven shakily.
"You'll let me look after you this once, alright?"
I shouldn't, a part of her objects.
Her blades stand in ready formation like a shattered crown behind her, floating merrily to the comforting voice of the Spirit beating within her.
I really shouldn't, she thinks, letting her entire weight fall against Riven. As if to silence her self-imposed restraints, she nods against Riven's chest, before she fully musters the willingness to utter a "yes,"
Riven lets her breathing even out in her embrace. She lets her recall all those old memories, almost faded in the confinement of her mind. She recalls it all, the first shaky steps, the first time her magic fully seeped to every one of her veins, her first kill.
There's so much she wishes to forget, and so much she wishes she never forced herself to forget. But, as if tracing old footsteps to find her way back home, she welcomes both, and her blades answer.