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The soil under Caitlyn’s feet is foreign. She guides a horse, walking next to it. The dry grass that lines the horizon and covers everything, as far as she can see, looks desolate. The few trees that have managed to spread their branches look thin. Only few leaves actually cling to the wood, most having fallen off at this time of the year.
The summer is over, but the air is warm and almost comforting. It envelopes her, as if to give her some privacy with her thoughts.
Stepping outside of piltover isn’t something she imagined herself doing in a long time, the city had been her responsibility since she could form her own thoughts.
Or at least, she’d made it that, even when her mother tried sheltering her from these duties, letting her grow up pampered.
Ambessa’s rough hand pushes against her back, guiding her as if there is anywhere else to go other than the one narrow path. As long as you don’t stray from it, she doesn’t think it should even be possible to get lost. Just remember where’s forwards and wherever you came from, given everything just looks kind of the same, no matter where she looks.
But Caitlyn understands the hand is not to show her the way physically, but to make her feel less alone.
“Have you studied the map before?”, Ambessa asks, a little out of nowhere. For a while there’d only been the sound of their shoes against earth, of the horses hooves and the ocassional neigh.
Caitlyn looks up at Ambessa, adjusts her cloak around her shoulders. “The— map? Did you give me one prior?”
The older woman shakes her head. “No, child. I meant, have you looked at the world around Piltover before? Ever thought about how suffocatingly small it is?”
Admittedly, Caitlyn has to shake her head. As much as she’d tried to broaden her horizon, it’d always started and ended inside of the city’s borders. She’d learnt some basic history but now that Ambessa brings it up, it’s a little embarassing just how small her world is compared to the entirety of runeterra.
“The horizon is so wide. I’ve never seen this much grass before”, the piltovan admits, takes a deep breath of the fresh air.
This confession gets a laugh out of Ambessa. “Don’t get too used to it. The inside of Noxian cities is exceptionally dead. I believe I saw more plant life in Zaun than I ever did in the capital.”
But given how much nature is out there, she’s never felt quite as suffocated by the way Noxian cities are built. There’s so much to spare, it’s nothing to worry about, basically.
That kind of thinking has always been the downfall of noxians.
Caitlyn leads her horse awkwardly, like someone who’s seen the animal maybe a few times. Piltover has always been so small, transport methods inside of it are almost uncommon in and of themselves. It’s something Ambessa couldn’t even have imagined growing up, a collection of people so small.
The older woman nudges her, as if to snap her out of her stiffness. “Relax. We’ve got a long way ahead of us.”
Ambessa’s words don’t really comfort Caitlyn. She thinks about her home and with that she sees the dead body of her mother again. She doesn’t think that image is ever leaving her head.
Like she’s read her mind, the noxian speaks up again. “You’re going to have to get used to death, girl.”
That feels like the wrong thing to say and an even worse thing to hear for Caitlyn. She finally looks up at Ambessa, but her eyes are wide and her lips turned into a frown. “How can you say that?”
“Hundreds of noxian mothers die everyday. Most do so without graves”, Ambessa shakes her head, coldly. Caitlyn doesn’t feel better about it either way. Leaving her mom’s grave this far behind, leaving her father alone in his grief. Now he’s grieving a daughter too and all she can hope is that he’s okay.
She stops walking suddenly enough for the horse to almost walk directly into her back, stumbling over her own and the horses feet.
There’s a noise of protest from the horse and for a moment Caitlyn is distracted enough from her misery to have to focus on calming the animal down. It makes her swallow her initial anger, looks along the path and then sighs. “Is it okay if we take a water break?”, she says instead of the snappy, upset sentence she’d intended on saying before.
Now, normally, and with every other person, Ambessa would say no. Caitlyn sees the hesitation in Ambessa’s expression and almost regrets asking, but eventually rolls her eyes, then agrees.
“Stop the horses at the next rock. Get them some water and let them rest”, she speaks in an assertive tone, in the noxian language that Caitlyn still doesn’t fully understand. The rest of the group listens without protest and without second thought. When the general says something few would dare to think twice.
During this break, Ambessa finds Caitlyn sitting off to the side. Her knees are angled, hugging her legs. She’s thinking about how much she’d rather be in her comfortable house, grieving mother with her father. She thought she’d made a decision she could find peace with, but too often she finds herself wanting to just grab one of the horses and ride back. Escape while Ambessa is resting.
It’s not like she’s being held hostage, she did make the decision to follow her. She’s here because she claimed she wanted to. Bridge the gap between Noxus and Piltover, find a peaceful solution.
What she’s learnt from Ambessa in this time, being given history lessons that aren’t clouded by Piltovan politics, is that Noxus doesn’t really do that. Finding peaceful solution, that is. They love bridging gaps between cultures and describing themselves as an unifying force.
“You’d rather be home”, Ambessa comments, as if she’d read Caitlyn’s mind.
“How did you know?”
“It's written all over your face, child”, she says it with a laugh that feels both sympathetic and mocking at the same time. The piltovan shrugs, looking off. “I'm here to learn. Being homesick isn't— going to bring mother back.”
Ambessa rolls her wrist in her hand. “Neither is any of this. Death is irreversible. Bridging the gap between Noxus and Piltover won't repair your heart if you haven't accepted that life goes on.”
Caitlyn plays with her ponytail, then undos it when she finds a stray strand, just to redo it. “I know my mother isn't going to come back.” She gets angry at just how cold Ambessa talks about death. When people die it affects Caitlyn and she's never seen it as a bad thing.
She's never imagined she should see it as a bad thing. When she's told to treat her emotions like they're in the way she only gets more upset at the person telling her that. Maybe it's the first thing that puts her apart from noxians, that makes her incompatible with the things Ambessa wants to teach her.
“I just want to prevent— something like that happening again.”
Ambessa sighs, lifts her hand to Caitlyns hair and interrupt the ponytail she's making. She makes a mess of the hair and in Caitlyns confusion, brushes her rough fingers through strands. “You will never be able to prevent death. Your loved ones will always die. Noxians have accepted this. There is no way around the embrace of Kindred.”
The mention of Kindred makes Caitlyn look up. Where she comes from, you're only taught the basics of Kindred. It's not like piltovans don't believe in them, but it's definitely less serious than most other cultures.
After Ambessa is done messing Caitlyns hair up, she pulls it together to make a much neater bun, tying the hair up while Caitlyn lets her.
“Can you tell me again? Where do noxians go when they die?”, Caitlyn asks, falling against Ambessas shoulder when she's finished doing her hair.
“Well, the strongest make it to volrachnun”, Ambessa explains, puts her hands on her thighs. “Those who die for Noxus, usually, do too.”
“Volrachnun?”
The noxian nods. “The eternal battlefield. Forever honored as soldiers, who get to fight for as long as their souls desire”, she elaborates, rolls her head. Her right hand wipes over Caitlyn’s forehead. “I’ve been there. But they sent me back. It hadn’t been my time.”
The question lays on Caitlyn’s tongue long enough to turn sour. Her expression cringes, then she slowly speaks up. “Do you think— that’s where your son went?”
Ambessa laughs. “Oh, no, definitely not. Kino wasn’t a soldier. The kindred are kind, they will take you only to what you believe in, where you rightfully belong.” She gives her answer some more thought. “I believe— he’s resting, like your mother is.”
“That’s— more comforting to hear.” Caitlyn nods, leans back. “Was there a funeral for him? Does he have a grave?”
Ambessa sways her head from left to right. “No funeral. But his body lays in one of my estates in Rokrund”, she huffs, “No fancy coffin like your mother had. The earth has probably made sure to reclaim him by now. There is likely little left.”
Another chuckle like it’s a funny thought. “The ground in Noxus tends to be hungry. There’s never enough to feed on.”
It’s not exactly something she expected to hear, but the more Ambessa explains, the more it makes sense. It’s exactly what she should have expected to hear from a noxian, who value death less than the dirt underneath their feet. Ambessa has told her that they value life, while they’re still strong and useful and serve a purpose, but living long enough to require peace and quiet is usually not sought after.
Of course, does a general wish to retire in their older years, they are free to do so, but it is never done without judgment by their peers.
‘You should die on the battlefield’, Ambessa had described it. ‘If you die comfortably in your bed, it’s like you’re giving up.’
Caitlyn finally lifts her head again, pushes the noxians hand away and bites her lip. “Is that how you intend to die?”, she whispers, which only makes Ambessa narrow her eyes, in confusion. Caitlyn lets out a breath with a noise of resign. “I-I mean, I was thinking— how you told me, noxians should die on the battlefield. Did he— not die on the battlefield?”
For the first time, she sees Ambessa avoid the question. Look away like there’s shame involved and she’s deciding on what answer would be most satisfactory, while still hiding the actual truth. Caitlyn doesn’t expect her to tell her everything, when she finally opens her mouth. “I guess, he died on his own kind of battlefield. Politics in noxus are a different kind of battlefield. One with just as much bloodshed involved, and often even more dangerous.”
To come back to Caitlyn’s first question, Ambessa stems herself back on her feet, shaking the dirt off her pants. “I do intend to die on the battlefield. With soldiers around me, for noxus— and for my family”, there’s a content smile and she speaks the rest of the sentence in va-nox. “When Kindred takes me, wolf will have to fight me with all he has”, she swaps back, “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon and I don’t intend to lay down the fight, either.”
The thought of losing Ambessa scares Caitlyn a little bit. It’s hard for her to define their relationship, but it’d be like losing a mother and a partner at the same time. She’s her mentor and she’s guided her in almost all of her recent decisions.
Caitlyn watches her carefully, clears her throat and then responds, shaky and not at all confident in her pronounciation. “Let’s— let’s keep going, general.”
The general laughs, pats Caitlyn’s shoulder before sliding downwards and grabbing onto Caitlyn’s arm, dragging her up by it. “C’mon, then. You’ve got plenty to learn and there is a lot of way to go.”
She’s shaky on her feet when being dragged up, stumbling all over them trying to find her balance.
“Thank you, general.”