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A house so grand should never feel so empty. A house so empty should never be filled to the brim with grief as suffocating as the sort that swallows Caitlyn whole, and yet.
The lavish life was never appealing to her anyway, familiarity to luxury breeding contempt as the imminent approach of sovereignty loomed over Caitlyn as an heir, but now it truly appalls her.
Despite Caitlyn’s intrinsic opposition, every inch of the estate being adorned in her mother’s belongings—photos, accolades; armaments, of course—graced her with a sliver of comfort. Caitlyn couldn’t draw that feeling from anything that hadn’t a story of her mother’s behind it, the polished paraphernalia meaning nothing to her.
That comfort wilts away by the day. Now, they were all bitter reminders of the life taken by virtue of her vaulting ambition; ghosts of her faults. Perhaps it was ironic that, in the face of her grief, Caitlyn seeks solace in them nonetheless.
Cassandra’s study has been a perennial escapism for her daughter. Neither could count on their fingers and toes the number of times Caitlyn had found herself balled up beneath the desk as a pass time in her youth—she was a strange one. Drawn curtains dim the shine of the morning star, illuminating dust motes like will o’ the wisps, and the plush chaise cradles Caitlyn as though she’s a child again. Can you blame her for wanting to stay, even with the torment it may bring? It’s cozy.
Strewn insouciantly (a subtle display of her mother’s natural disposition) across the arm of the chaise is a coat far too prickly to be her own. When she was young, no older than seven and no taller than a mousing owl, Caitlyn would cling to her mother’s leg and bury her face in this very jacket; the bristly sensation delighted and irritated that little girl all the same. Cassandra must have doused it in perfume, as the sweet aroma overleaped Caitlyn’s senses to the last nerve back then.
She wonders if that remains true.
This coat hasn’t collected a single speck of grime in the past few months, notwithstanding Councilor Kiramman’s… absence. Caitlyn, who tends to betray all healthy forms of self-preservation for momentary succour, is to thank for that – she can’t bear to let it rot away. Never removing it from where it lays, but always stroking each soft thorn as her mother once did to her hair. Immortalising her, in a way; holding onto a part of her.
Against her internal conflict, Caitlyn betrays that creed. Caitlyn places her coat in her lap and, as she does, caresses its sleeve with slender fingers—once frail, now with rough, torn cuticles, battered and bruised as result of her arrogance. Hesitantly, she raises it, already spellbound by the lingering fragrance, takes a deep breath and sinks.
It certainly remains true.
She was twelve again.
Petals swayed as they fell to the ground. Caitlyn couldn’t tell if it were the violets or her mother that had smelled so nice, but all the perfumes of Arabia couldn’t rival the saccharine scent that embraced her. Cradled her.
Even with the skyline of Piltover hanging over the foreground of weeping willows, this garden was the perfect escape for Caitlyn. The lavish life was never appealing to her, and the idea of even needing an escape at such a young age set the sentiment in ironclad stone; the fact that her mother found as much comfort in the quietude as she did only consolidated that.
“I don’t want to be an heir,” she had mumbled to Cassandra, teary-eyed with a lip jutted out—not with petulance, no, Caitlyn was above that. As a Kiramman, she had to be; with fear. “I don’t want to be a councilor.”
Some days she wished she had been a petulant child, and hopefully unfit enough to not be the next matriarch. Unfortunately, all that her (ephemeral) defiance and (deep-seated) ambition had brought Caitlyn was her parents deciding that one child was enough.
So, she simply learned to suck it up. It’s what she figured her mother would have told her. No, it’s what she figured Councilor Kiramman would have told her.
Her mother, Cassandra—not Cassandra Kiramman, simply Cassandra; stripped of all opulence—had said something far different. Running her fingers through the oceanic locks that cascaded in waterfalls down Caitlyn’s back with hardwired elegance and foreign care, she hummed in agreement.
“Don’t we all?” It was more of a statement rather than a question, a lilt of bitter amusement weaved into it.
Only then did Caitlyn notice the tension in her mother’s shoulders and the bags that hung beneath her eyes, the crease between her eyebrows less pronounced than usual. Had it always been that subtle? Of course not. Caitlyn had always been acutely aware of it, for she had never seen it soften. She had then learned how it came as a great comfort to her mother, to be whisked away from the heavy responsibility, by twirling violets and the sweet spring air.
Only then did Caitlyn realise how much of a burden it really was, being a councilor.
“I don’t want to be a Kiramman.”
Being a Kiramman.
Commander Kiramman.
Chance has crowned her Commander Kiramman without her stir, a higher rank than Caitlyn had ever intended. The superficial lavish life seems all too appealing in the midst of things. Perhaps even being a councilor.
She will not cry, she will not bother make reason nor excuse as to why the extensive measures she had taken were supposedly necessary. Caitlyn knows better than that; Ambessa’s pursuits are beyond her, for she realised long ago that she is no more than a puppet—a vessel, perhaps even a protist—for the parasitical matriarch that weaselled her way into Caitlyn’s life.
She was sickened by how easily she’d fallen for it too, conditioned to seek solace and stand by her every word.
Desperate measures, Caitlyn had told herself. She knew otherwise.
Commander Kiramman would not cry, would not stir in the face of conflict, would not dwell on the sick feeling in her stomach as she looked back at the withered face in the mirror; the wizened skin that stretched across what once was the face of our beloved arrogant, steadfast Caitlyn Kiramman.
So, Commander Kiramman works herself to death. Commander Kiramman allows herself to be battered and bruised, grinded to dust by whoever she could muster; to be beaten to a pulp as a form of discipline; to crack her knees against the padded ground, or break her back time and time again against the blunt end of a spear—hardship and responsibility doing so all the same.
She calls it training, the enforcers who tread too closely and stick their noses where they shouldn’t see it for what it is. Punishment.
With every new scar—new bruise, new kink in her neck—Commander Kiramman feels a nauseating sense of pride. This is just. This is right. Perhaps, if each bone in her body turns brittle and she cracks under anything other than pressure; breaks thanks to training rather than the burden that is Being a Kiramman, she’ll have nothing to be ashamed of. She will be who she’s meant to be, for there’s nothing left for Caitlyn Kiramman – she would forever be Commander Kiramman.
With the way things are going, no longer any name less bewitching than Kiramman, and nothing beyond the name, Commander Kiramman is all that she has going for her.
The lavish life was not desirable to Caitlyn Kiramman, but it’s not even an option for Commander Kiramman.
So, she won’t cry. Heavy is the crown, but she will not stir.
So, Commander Kiramman she will be.
It’s her legacy now, after all.