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Talon was oddly quiet that night, Briar thought as she chewed on a severed arm. They were sitting on a roof in the slums, coated with ash from nearby arms factories. The smoke wasn’t too bad that night. You could sort of see the moon. Some people had risked cutting themselves on their broken windows to stick their heads out and look at it. Talon wasn’t looking at this uncommon beauty. He was staring at his new knife, the one his mysterious sister Katarina had gotten him for his birthday. The knife looked fine. No chips or cracks. The leather hilt was perfectly intact, designed to be easy on his hands. It wasn’t what was bothering him. Briar wondered what else it could be.
Briar had never met Katarina, or any of Talon’s kin, and knew little of her besides that Talon got along with her. She’d never had any indication that she should know her family. Such was the mindset engendered by being raised by a married couple so old they didn’t remember if in-laws had ever been a factor. Even if they had, Briar still wouldn’t have drawn the connection, because what could the slowest divorce in Runeterran history have to do with her and Talon?
Talon was not blessed with this obliviousness, and knew full well what Marcus and Soreana’s opinions had to do with him courting Briar.
She tore thoughtfully at her arm. Too gamy. Her enemies were too lean these days.
“What’re you thinking about?” she asked.
“The Day of the Wolf is coming,” he said.
“Oh.” She peeked over the edge of the roof. “Is that why everyone’s got their little wolf skulls hanging on their doors?”
“Yeah.”
“How do they have so many? There aren’t that many wolves in Noxus.”
“Most people use ceramic.”
“Ahh. Back home we used people skulls.”
Talon’s face didn’t twitch. “Somehow I think people wouldn’t like that.”
“Why? They’re dead. They’re not using it anymore.” Briar finished her arm and threw the bones behind her. She’d always held that once someone died, whether because they’d fought her or by other causes, that corpse was now free to be put to use in the community. It was only the killing people for food that caused issues. She was disgustingly progressive for a hemomancer.
Talon shrugged. They lapsed into silence.
“Would you want to meet my family?” he asked suddenly.
“Sure.”
“I know it’s a holiday and you might have other plans but it’s the only time I can get my sisters together.”
“Sounds fun!”
“I know they’re frightening—”
“Tal, I said yes.”
He stopped. Like usual, nearly every inch of his skin was covered, but Briar saw a hint of red at the top of his cheeks. She bumped her head against his shoulder affectionately. “It’ll be fun.”
Talon’s scent, chock full of cortisol, didn’t agree. Briar didn’t worry. Talon stressed about everything, and things always turned out fine. Plus, people were usually like their families. Talon was great, so his family would be great. What could go wrong?
. . .
Running late for starters.
Talon’s heart pounded as they ran through the streets, splashing through the puddles. Briar had gotten caught in a violent rainstorm the night before and had been crusted with ash and mud when he found her. He’d had to help clean her and now they were ten minutes late, tearing through the city streets. The gray sky above them threatened to open up any moment. Talon gasped out a prayer for the clouds to withhold. Bad enough he was going to have to introduce Briar late; he didn’t know what Cassiopeia would think if they showed up sopping wet.
Briar was also hoping it’d stay dry, but more because she hated being wet.
They reached their meeting spot a moment before the heavens opened up. Katarina and Cassiopeia waited underneath a stone overhang at the top of a long staircase, presiding over an empty courtyard. Talon sprinted up the stairs, narrowly avoiding slipping on the wet stones. Thunder rumbled. Talon stood as tall as he could, facing those most fearsome creatures: older siblings.
They, like Talon and Briar, were dressed in traditional festive garb: solid black. Talon wore a plain black cloak and pants. Briar had her hands down to hide the pillory. He’d given her a long tent of a cloak. Unfortunately, her bright white hair was still an attention grabber, but with her pillory covered, she just looked like one of any number of unsettling cannibals roaming the streets of Noxus. Katarina matched them in a long-sleeved tunic and pants, worn from age.
Cassie, on the other hand… Talon thought it was a little funny that Cassie chose to celebrate a traditional holiday about how all are equal in death by getting the finest Day of the Wolf clothes money could buy. They fit immaculately. She swept an assessing eye over Briar, noting the wet hair, impolitely sincere smile, and the misshapen cloak draping over her pillory. Cassie almost imperceptibly raised her eyebrows. “Briar, I take it?”
“Apologies,” Talon said.
“Oh, what for? Being late? I hardly noticed you were five minutes and thirty-seven seconds of my finite life late.”
Katarina swatted her. “Not in front of our guest.” She grinned awkwardly at Briar, who beamed back. “Sorry about this one, she’s… Well. I’m Katarina. It’s nice to meet you, Briar.”
Talon silently thanked whatever gods existed that he and Kat were on speaking terms against. He couldn’t have borne it if he had to deal with Cassie’s visible disgust on his own.
Briar, of course, lived in a beautiful reality where people said what they meant and subtle sneers didn’t’ exist, and thus happily said, “Nice to meet you two! Talon doesn’t say much about you, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.”
“He doesn’t?” Cassie asked, shooting a glare at Talon. Are you ashamed of me? she silently accused. She’d grown sore about her tail.
“He’s quiet,” Briar said. “He doesn’t say much of anything. You guys probably don’t know much about me either.”
“No.”
“I like your jacket. Reminds me of the ones from my home temple. I mean, some of us celebrated like this—” Briar jerked her head at Talon, Katarina, and her own modest clothing “—but I think most of us were closer to you.”
“Oh, did you grow up at Sgt. Augustus’s?” Katarina asked, naming one of the poshest temples in the city.
Briar stared at her blankly. “Um, I just celebrated with the other hemomancers.”
Cassie’s tail went rigid. She whipped to face Talon. “Really? From the Black Rose? You brought—”
“She’s an experiment,” Talon clarified. “Not a hemomancer. She doesn’t do that kind of thing to people.” She did eat them, but only after they were dead, so that didn’t seem like it’d be one of Cassie’s core issues.
“Is she still associated?” Kat asked.
“Nope,” Briar said. “They’re actually trying to kill me right now, which is super rude. If they didn’t want me to do what I wanted, they shouldn’t have given me free will.”
Kat laughed. “Maybe don’t say that around the priests.”
“The temple service will start soon,” said Talon. “We should be going.”
“Temple service?” Briar asked.
“Do you know anything?” asked Cassie, dodging another swat.
“I know lots of things! But I think we did things differently. Like not eating blood for the day,” Briar said.
“The temple is a holy place. And today is a holy day, so we spend it there,” Talon explained, already regretting this. He had so few in his life already, just his sisters and Briar really. He’d wanted them to get along. He should’ve picked out a day where Briar’s cultural differences wouldn’t have stood out so glaringly. Aside from minor issues like cannibalism, religion, and wanted person status, they really weren’t that different from each other.
“Oh okay, that sounds neat! Which way?” Kat and Tal pointed. Briar bounded happily down the steps. Talon made to follow her, but someone grabbed his ear.
“You need to back up your little girlfriend,” Katarina snapped before turning to Cassie, whose hair she gripped with her free hand. “And you need to be nice. She hasn’t done anything to us.”
“Understood,” grunted Talon.
Kat huffed. “I don’t need us being the Day of the Wolf curse this year. Behave.” With that she released them, leaving them to grimly contemplate what would ruin the service this year.
. . .
Ben Farron wasn’t having a good day.
There were many reasons for this. He was wet. He was working on a holiday. He was running around the capital in full plate armor. He was working on a holiday. His girlfriend was at home too sick to leave bed. And, to top it all off, he was working on a holiday.
He would say there should be a law, but he was fairly certain there was. It just didn’t matter when this particular bloodsucker was on the line.
“This the place?” he asked one of the Trifarian legionnaires with him. She nodded. They marched into the cathedral.
. . .
The Venerable Cathedral was a unique place within the Noxian capital’s religious framework. It was the oldest temple in the city and filled with architectural flourishes of the past: grand flying buttresses, glass windows stained black by centuries of burning candles and no cleaning, toxic red paint flaking off the walls. All of these were well appreciated by the lay people. If the temple didn’t leave a bit of itself in your lungs, was it really a temple? Never mind that it was cinnabar.
Later historians would speculate if it was this open disregard for toxin control that led to such a high proportion of Black Rose membership amongst the laity, as well as the markedly high risk of madness amongst the clergy.
Talon knew none of this. He knew they were there because Cassie insisted on only the finest and most traditional temples for her post cult-escape religious phase, and because Katarina had tried nearly every temple in the city for her once a year service and had yet to find one with better post-service cider.
Inside the Cathedral was split into two floors: the balcony pews, where the nobles too good to sit with peasants on this day celebrating how all were equal, and the floor mats where everyone else sat. Talon waited for Kat and Cassie to argue about whether to sit on the balcony again. If it got rowdy enough, then that’d be the incident for the year. Curse fulfilled, priests annoyed, rest of the service would go fine.
They shared a long, tense look. Cassie slithered towards the mats. Talon’s heart dropped.
“Talon? Are you okay?” Briar asked.
Still plenty of time for something to go wrong, he assured himself. “Yes. Got distracted.”
“Okay!” She scurried after his sisters. Most of the mats were already taken up by worshippers who were visibly preparing themselves for the long service. Some clever worshippers had smuggled in blankets and pillows. Venerable services dragged on to a venerable length of four hours. Cassie insisted it was holy and traditional. Talon had resigned himself to a lifetime of wondering if rumors of one-hour services at the ‘heretical’ ‘modern’ temple by the docks were true.
Tal and his family sat solidly in the middle, in the section directly in front of the bone altar. Briar sat between Cassie and Tal, and Kat on Cassie’s other side. A minor hedge against people paying too much attention to the snake tail or pillory poking out of a cloak in front of them. They settled in for a nice four-hour session of sitting.
“What’s the idea here?” Briar whispered.
“Service hasn’t started yet. You don’t have to whisper,” Cassie said.
“Sorry.”
“You’re fine,” Talon said.
“It’s supposed to be about how everyone is equal before death. Everyone dies. No one’s better than anyone else,” Katarina said, none-too-subtly side-eyeing Cassie.
“it’s a secular holiday that got sanctified because it was popular with rabble rousers,” Cassie lied.
“I think an abolitionist group founded it,” said Talon, less falsely.
“Oh, so it’s like important?” They nodded. “Huh. My dad always said it was something we did because the new converts would throw a fit if we didn’t.” Briar looked contemplative. “Is something holy if people really want it to be holy?”
Talon shrugged.
Briar was quiet for a time. The cathedral grew more and more crowded. They were crammed so tight together that her elbows jabbed int Talon’s stomach. Eventually she half-shouted, “How do I know when the service is starting?”
A deafeningly loud bell rang through the temple. Briar nearly jumped out of her skin.
“That,” said Talon.
. . .
Ben and his soldiers changed out of their armor and into ushers’ robes, provided by a resigned vicar muttering something about a curse. Disguised, they filtered out into the service.
Ben thought hard. If he were a parasitic threat to Noxian lives and society, where would he be?
A priest at the front, dressed in pious black rags that covered less of him than everyone really wishes they would, began reciting the prayers. The ushers withdrew to the border of the room. Ben raked his eyes over the crowd. Not them, no them, not—huh. He hadn’t taken the du Couteaus for the pious sort. Though perhaps it made sense for assassins to attend services praising death. His few devout colleagues certainly attended the war gods’ festivals.
Interesting but unhelpful. He ran over his targets’ profile. Albino, unkillable but could be captured, unnatural eyes, eccentric… None of it suggested a particular seat in the temple. He was stumped. This sort of intelligence was not his specialty.
He resisted the impulse to curse Darius for sending him on this. It was a holy place. This one might actually stick.
A laugh cut through the quiet. People turned and glared at a balcony he hadn’t noticed prior. The priest tossed out a line about how all must respect the wolf, “even the frivolous, blasphemous, foolish, or falsely blonde.” Ben searched for the stairs.
. . .
It had started to pound rain during the service. Lower areas of the floor had started to flood. Fifty minutes into the service, the priest signaled to start singing. The congregation obeyed. Briar listened closely and tried to follow along. Everyone else had memorized the hymns early in childhood. Sort of. Briar wondered if some of them had maybe learned at different temples because it seemed there were at least three versions of ‘Hi Ho! Hi Ho! Hungry is the Wolf!’ being sung. The melody was no clearer. Briar tried to hum along, but no one seemed to be hitting similar notes. There was no unity in anything except when everyone suddenly became sopranos when the water splashed higher than expected. She gave up and mouthed along piously.
After the clergy made them stumble through half the hymnal, they gave them leave to stand for something called the peace. Briar stood and stretched. “Oh gods,” she groaned, “I’m tired.”
“Shh!” Katarina said. “Don’t let the priests hear! They’ll get upset and won’t let me get drinks after.”
“Is that what that smell is?” Briar asked. Her mouth watered. “It smells delicious.”
“It is. If we manage not to have any trouble, I’ll be sure to get you some.”
“There’s bound to be trouble,” said Talon. He was as tense as a bowstring. “The curse hasn’t been satisfied yet.”
“What curse?” asked Briar.
“Every year for the past half-century, during the Day of the Wolf ceremony, something big goes wrong. The first time the head priest died in the middle of the surface. The second, a chandelier fell and crushed parishioners.” Talon leaned in close. “The longer it takes, the worse it gets.”
“Oh.” Briar looked down at her soaked lower half. “Are you sure it’s not the flooding?”
“That happens every year.”
Briar wondered if the curse was just the result of having too many people in a building that was falling apart. This insight when unspoken. She thought it might be rude.
Katarina waved him aside. “It’s only a story. Briar—”
“Fifty. Years.”
“—what you need to worry about if just shaking people’s hands. Well. You can’t really do that with the…” Briar shifted awkwardly, stooped with the weight of her pillory. “Say, Talon, why don’t you show her around for this?”
“Understood.” He pulled her into the crowd.
. . .
Ben had caught a glimpse of the white hair he was looking for. He’d raised his hand to signal to his fellow, only for peace to be announced. Suddenly everyone was standing. His mark vanished. Ben growled to himself. He made his way to the edge fo the balcony. Scanning the crowd through the haze of incense, he spotted a white head amongst the pack of nobles deigning to shake the hands of commoners. He hurried down the stairs. His mark had already melted into the crowd. He allowed himself a brief moment of grief for the time he could’ve spent curled up with his girlfriend, then commenced grimly shouldering hsis way through the crowds, shaking hands where necessary. He saw plenty of brunette, blonde, and gray heads, but none the moon white he was looking for. No, there! A glimpse of cream. He charged in that direction. If he could just grab them, he could go home—
“Hi Captain Farron!” a familiar voice said. He looked down. Katarina du Couteau stretched her hand out to him. He was about to deny her and keep moving when he realized that white hair wasn’t the white hair. This set belonged to a short woman facing away from him, stooped with age. Talon du Couteau had a hand on her back, and was helping her speak with another parishioner. An older relative then. Ben redirected his attention and shook Katarina’s hand.
“Hello Miss Du Couteau. Here with the family?”
She grinned. “Yeah. I’m just here for the cider.”
“Not for your grandmother?”
“My grandmother?” Katarina said, befuddled. “I—oh! You mean—yeah, she’s not my grandmother. She’s my, uh, mom’s cousin, I think? You know how big families are. Can’t keep track of them all.”
Ben, youngest of seven, son of the oldest of six and middle of eight, nodded sagely. “I’ll leave you to it.” He lowered his voice. “Before I go, have you seen a white-haired hemomancer? We’re looking for a criminal.”
“No,” she said.
Ben nodded. As he left, Katarina leaned over to her sister and whispered something. He found no sign of his prey before the ushers called an end to peace.
. . .
Dad sure trimmed this down, Briar thought as the service slogged into its third hour.
After peace, they had commenced with more singing. People had been singing so long their voices were creaky and prone to cracking, but at least they weren’t squeaking every time cold water sloshed further up on them. Once the music finished, the main ceremony had begun. The Recitation of the Dead. Talon whispered that it was a list of every recorded death in the city over the past year. Every name was written onto a slip of paper, then put in a bowl which was mixed well. There was no order to how the names were read out. All were equal in death.
The cathedral was reverently silent as the priest read them out. Briar stilled. She wasn’t still often. It was always moving with her away from LeBlanc and Swain, towards blood, orbiting Talon. Not acting was strange to her. Her eyes fluttered closed and she soaked in the cold water against her legs, the hot smell of spiced cider, the prickle against her neck as someone watched her.
Talon shook her. She stirred from where she’d dozed off against his shoulder. He helped her stand and join the line up to the altar, where priests were swiping ash across the foreheads of kneeling parishioners. Briar’s shoulder’s strained with the weight of the pillory. Ahead of her was Cassiopeia, back straight and eyes glued to the plate of ash, and Katarina, whose eyes were glued to the door to the kitchen. Briar’s stomach rumbled. Cider…
Her neck still had that prickling feeling. She was tempted to turn and see who it was, but she wasn’t sure how rude it’d be. She didn’t want to risk irritating the priest so close to her goal. She ignored it.
. . .
At last, ben spied his target, standing brazenly in a line for ashes. He signaled to his coworkers. He didn’t like doing it this way, but they couldn’t risk the target slipping away again. “Out of the way,” he barked, before throwing himself at Lord Vladmir vol Kalah Heigaar.
. . .
At the shout behind her, briar turned, right in time to watch a massive man tackle her father. She yelped. Blood spurted, then formed into knives. The pierced the large man, who instinctively withdrew. Vladimir lurched to his feet with unnatural speed. “Hello, daughter!” he said cheerily. Briar bashed him on the head with her pillory. Several legionnaires joined in, then Talon, and after that it was very confusing right until they were all thrown out into the rain by a crowd of angry temple goers.
“My cider!” wailed Katarina.
“This is your father?” demanded Cassie. Talon opened his mouth, ready to defend Briar from the accusation in her tone.
“Yup!” Briar said before kicking her father, currently laying on the ground, in the stomach and launching into a tirade in a language none of the du Couteaus understood. Vladimir tried to get up and leave, only for Briar to unlatch her pillory and launch herself at him. This, the du Couteaus understood, and joined in with great enthusiasm.
Later, once Farron dragged off his dejected prisoner, they stood in a circle, soggy and grinning. “What’s the deal with you and your dad?” asked Katarina.
“Don’t like him,” Briar said. Her shoulder sagged. “Sorry, that’s not a good reason. This hasn’t been a very good first impression.”
“Oh, trust me,” Cassie said, “we understand.”
Talon’s chest eased.
And despite the priests denying them their prize, they soon discovered that the taverns were more forgiving, and drank cider well into the night.