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The carapace drew back as Kai’Sa rose from the dry twigs and branches that had been laid out like a cot beneath her. She pressed her hand against the side of her head and grimaced, clenching her teeth. A bad dream had woken her up. Her Mama’s scream had torn right through her; Kai’Sa thought she had been struck in the chest by something sharp.
Kai’Sa scoffed, knowing the past only hurt because she let it. She brushed the sand and dust off her arms and slowly turned her gaze to the night sky, watching as the stars blinked lazily back at her. She thought, for a moment, about a hopeful dream she once had, then another dream, and another, and warmth bloomed in her chest like a midnight rose. She could walk so far in her dreams, trekking across thousands of sand dunes without fatigue until she reached the edge of a cliff or the edge of a shore, to a place where circumstances were not as terrible as they were here.
In an instant, Kai’Sa’s gaze turned to steel. She refused to let herself get lost in her childish dreams —and the stars had that tendency to take her far away into worlds that were so unfamiliar to the one she had come to know.
Kai’Sa looked at the ground, then at her hands and claws that were monstrous and hideous. She reached for her skin, which was now a hard purple shell, and picked at it delicately, pretending to pull at it to see if it would fall off.
There was the sound of a crackling fire. The smoke eventually reached Kai’Sa and the carapace sprang up across her jaw, resting below her mouth. She frowned as she drew her arm across her face, covering her nose. She stepped forwards, following the orange light that flickered in the darkness before her.
A shadow waited for her there by the fire-pit. It sat, hunched over the flames.
Kai’Sa knelt by the fire, watching the sparks dancing in front of her. She buried her clawed hands in the dirt, feeling the soil on her skin —second skin. She wished, for a moment, she could feel it against herself, and so she imagined the soil: wet. And cold. And uncomfortable as it dug itself under her fingernails. Kai’Sa smiled to herself, longing for a life that had passed her by. Then she turned her gaze to the shadow, and now the shadow had a face, and a body, and limbs. And the shadow was very much alive.
Katarina Du Couteau, the name of this shadow, was shrouded in darkness. It loomed around Katarina; clinging to her leather garments. In her hands was a small blade. The steel shone like silver in the night. She was hacking away at a small wooden block. The sound was insistent, rhythmical. Katarina’s movement was deliberate and her eyes were focused.
Kai’Sa wanted to laugh, could feel it bubbling in her chest, but she kept her mouth shut out of fear. Katarina was, in many ways, an enigma, like one of those wooden puzzle pieces her Baba would bring home after one of his many journeys. And Kai’Sa would sit for hours on the carpet at home, playing in front of the fire, trying to fit all the odd and misshapen pieces together.
The vision startled Kai’Sa, and she looked up at Katarina, then down at Katarina’s hands.
«That is not one of yours,» Kai’Sa said cautiously, referring to the blade. The hilt was rather boring and the very tip of the blade had been chipped. Katarina, being an assassin, prided herself in her collection of daggers and kept them all very sharp and very neat. She was a fastidious person. This blade did not belong to her.
«Good eye,» Katarina said with a sense of pride.
«Where did you get it?» Kai’Sa wondered, though she already knew.
«It’s just a shitty blade. It’s not even that sharp.»
«Where did you get that knife?»
Katarina leaned back, dropping the knife onto her lap. She clutched the wooden block in her hand, clenching her fist around it.
«Got it off one of the traders. I’m not a thief.» Katarina spoke with a certainty, one that did not warrant room for an argument.
«The trader who had suffered from a heatstroke?» Kai’Sa was suddenly appalled. «The one we helped?»
«I took it as payment.» Katarina lacked honour. And respect. And mercy —though for some odd reason, she thought she was deserving of all these things, despite not possessing any of these qualities herself.
«Don’t worry. I let him keep his spear. And his coins. And his dignity.»
Kai’Sa wanted to argue, could feel the words rising like bile in her throat, but Katarina was both at once stubborn and steadfast and so unbearable at times that Kai’Sa could not understand it. And so she held her tongue, as always.
Katarina must have noticed it then; the frustration on Kai’Sa’s face. And Kai’Sa was terribly dreadful at hiding her emotions. You wear your heart on your arm, her Mama always said.
«You took a peach,» Katarina raised an eyebrow, as if to say I’ve caught you now.
«He offered it,» Kai’Sa argued.
«Yes!» Katarina clicked her tongue against the back of her tooth, then took the blade from her lap and continued carving. «And you see, the problem here is that you got something you wanted. And so I felt it was only right that I got something I wanted.»
Katarina brushed the wood shavings off her lap and sent them flying into the fire-pit. The flames roared with life. The smoke disappeared up into the night sky.
«That trader was a nice man.»
Kai’Sa looked at Katarina fiercely and wondered to herself why the world had made Katarina so cynical and uncaring. It seemed such a natural part of Katarina now; the way she spoke and the way she moved with deadly precision. She could not have been born this way, no one is born with evil in their hearts. And so Kai’Sa wondered about the elements and forces of nature and how much of Katarina’s mind and soul had been bent and broken for her to become so ruthless.
«He probably would’ve let me have it if I asked. What’s the difference?»
«You take and you take, and soon there will be nothing left of this world. If the Void does not consume us first, then Noxian greed will.»
Katarina glanced at Kai’Sa then. She grinned; a horrible expression. And though Kai’Sa was a hunter — because the world had made her that way — she was not so by nature. It simply was not a part of Kai’Sa’s being.
Others were more well-adapted to the dangerous ways of this world than she was, and one such hunter was Katarina. Her green eyes were both lovely and dangerous. She moved with efficiency and struck with precision, her words were just as sharp as her blades.
«I am not as horrible as you make me out to be.» Katarina pointed the broken tip of the blade at Kai’Sa’s chest, as if accusing her of lying. «You should remember that the next time you ask me to stay.»
Kai’Sa drew back sharply, startled by Katarina’s bluntness. Her cheeks felt hot. She could feel second skin nibbling at the surface of her skin, and that intrusive foreign voice in her mind told her it was time to strike. To put an end to things; to this horrible dance between her and Katarina that would lead them nowhere.
Misery. Nothing good could come of what they were doing. But it truly was misery to be alone in this world. To be wholly and completely shut out from it. Kai’Sa had spent too much time with the Void. It had made her a monster —but only in vision. Her heart was still soft, and kind, and golden. And so Kai’Sa sought comfort in a real monster’s arms, because Katarina would constantly laugh and snicker and shake her head and tell her: No, Kai’Sa. You’re not a monster. Not even close. And Kai’Sa felt a sense of relief, because only the truly horrible and miserable monsters could tell the false ones apart from the real ones.
The night dragged on, and Kai’Sa was unable to go back to sleep. And as their conversation faded and died away, so did the thoughts in Kai’Sa’s mind. She still had hope; it was the strongest aspect of herself. The light within her aching chest. Kai’Sa rested her cheek against Katarina’s leg and sighed. When she looked up at Katarina, she could see the hints of loveliness in the corners of Katarina’s smirk and in the green shade of her eyes. Again, this world, with its unfathomable haunts. Kai’Sa wondered what Katarina would have been like if the world had been kinder to her, if Katarina’s father had not placed a dagger in her hands and taught her the way of the blade, or if her mother had paid more attention to her in her youth. Who would Katarina be if she had been given a different beginning?
Katarina stood, suddenly, and Kai’Sa shifted away, drawing her legs to her chest and wrapping her arms around herself. Katarina towered over Kai’Sa, then tapped Kai’Sa on the shoulder, presenting the wooden carving.
«It is a bird!» Kai’Sa sounded surprised. She took the carving, cradling it in the palms of her hands, being mindful of her claws.
«It’s an Ionian bird,» Katarina corrected her.
«You’re giving it to me?» Kai’Sa wondered aloud. «How symbolic.»
Kai’Sa felt the weight of it in her hands. Then she traced the carvings and thought how marvellous it was that such rough and rugged hands as Katarina’s could make something so intricate and delicate.
«This is a special type of bird because they feed off the dead. I saw them for the first time in Ionia as they shoved their beaks into dead Noxian soldiers. They were there, all along the shore, with their grey wings and yellow beaks. The eyes —these birds tend to go for the eyes first.»
How lovely. Kai’Sa tried her best not to grimace at the vision in her mind. She tried to hand the carving back to Katarina, but Katarina shook her head and nudged the bird back into Kai’Sa’s hands.
«And where do you expect me to keep this?» Kai’Sa frowned.
Katarina knelt on the ground next to Kai’Sa, and it was this closeness that reminded Kai’Sa of wet soil and the smell of a forest after a rainstorm. Katarina’s earthy scent made Kai’Sa delirious in the most delicious ways possible. She closed her eyes and imagined a different world. And that Katarina was handing her a gift, and Kai’Sa was not covered in second skin. Kai’Sa could have easily twisted in her position, craned her neck and parted her lips ever-so slightly, and kissed Katarina on the cheek without consequence. Perhaps in this other far away world, they would be allowed to be in love, to be lovers, and love was such a tender and brilliant thing. Kai’Sa’s Mama and Baba had shown her that.
But this was the world they lived in now. And the stars were making Kai’Sa dream of nonsensical things —things she could never have.
«I’ll carve a hole in it, right here,» Katarina pointed to the bird’s neck, «and then I’ll get you some string until I find something nicer. Silver or gold, perhaps. You look like a girl who’d appreciate silver.»
«I have no use for jewellery.» Kai’Sa was serious, her scowl harsh. But it was the stars that made her this way, not Katarina’s uncharacteristically kind gesture.
«Fine. Toss it into the fire.» Katarina stood upright, kicking at the dirt, stubborn as always.
Kai’Sa watched Katarina and curled her clawed hand around the small bird in her palm. She felt the soft edges and the sharp arches digging against her skin, not that it mattered or hurt too much. Kai’Sa had protection, an unwanted second skin was now a part of her.
Kai’Sa reflected upon it often; all the things she could have been had events not unfolded the way they did. If only her luck had not run out when it did, or if the world had not opened up beneath her and swallowed her whole only to spit her back out again as this hideous creature.
Now she wondered about Katarina, and different worlds, and different times, and perhaps even different endings? She thought about the two of them. Together. Katarina’s bluntness and lack of consideration was an odd but successful pairing to Kai’Sa’s careful sense of hope and more gentle approach to the world —which at times made her appear a bit foolish.
But if neither existed the way they did now, would they still be together in another life?
Kai’Sa looked at Katarina and thought about kissing her instead of killing her. It would be easy; Kai’Sa had done it before, and Katarina had kissed her back with such devotion it really did make Kai’Sa believe in other possibilities. But what they had was not love, because love did not exist between horrible, horrible monsters such as themselves.
Kai’Sa dared not think about anything anymore and shoved it all towards the back of her mind, hoping it would eventually be forgotten. Because what good would a world be without the possibility of her and Katarina in it?