Chapter Text
With three inhibitors down, an enemy ace secured, and two super waves in base, the victory was already all but guaranteed. But Ashe had never been one to leave combat outcomes up to assumption, and she wasn’t about to start now. A prize fight match as strange as this one was no reason not to barrage the nexus as much as she could while its defenses were down.
She rather wished Miss Fortune were of similar mind, though. Instead, she’d perched herself on top of the crystalline structure, nonchalant as anything with a tipped hat and a wicked grin on her painted lips. Still, numbers didn’t lie, and after a truly vicious thirty-kill slaughter of a match, Ashe supposed Fortune had rightfully earned a bit of taunting now.
With the deep fissures running through the surface of the nexus signaling its impending fracture, Ashe was jolted from her mindless barrage by a sharp whistle from Fortune’s direction.
Ashe tugged her hood forward a little more to squint up at her, backlit from the sun as she was. “Yes?”
Fortune grinned down at her, lightly spinning one of those deadly handguns of hers on her index finger. “Draven’s up in three,” she drawled, cruel humor in her gaze. “D’you know what would be funny?”
Ashe pursed her lips to keep from smirking. If she were being truthful, it had been remarkably refreshing to have an enemy Draven so thoroughly—what was the phrase Fortune had used?—turbo-stomped for a change. “We should really end,” she said instead.
Fortune lifted a manicured brow. “What, you don’t think you can make the shot?”
It was obvious bait. Fortune knew it. Ashe knew it. The Summoners, if they were even still paying attention with the game ending, knew it.
Ashe still rolled her eyes as she lifted her bow again, gathering her ancient magics in the pull of her draw hand. “Of course I can make the shot,” she grumbled.
Fortune’s boots hit the ground in the same instant that Draven’s healed form rematerialized into the fountain—he balked in the hair’s breadth of distance he had from the crystalline arrow—tried to Flash—froze—and was dead again in a flurry of lead shot and laughter.
“Alright, now we can end,” Fortune conceded, still chuckling as she fired blind over her shoulder to put the last shot in the crumbling nexus.
Red team victory!
Fortune grinned across the way at her as the familiar blaze of Institute magic pooled at their feet, tipping her hat with a flirtatious wink. And for all Ashe knew better, she offered a genuine smile in return anyway.
The suddenness of the blinding magic snapping back into the relative low-light of the Institute’s summoning chambers had the whole team blinking hard to clear their vision again. Lissandra and Trundle shouldered brusquely out of the room before anything could be said. As usual. They never tended to stick around.
Tryndamere, for his part, just clapped Fortune good-naturedly on the shoulder as he passed her, the unexpected weight of his bulk sending her stumbling a few steps. “Not bad, Southerner,” he said, and for all his gruff voice and appearance belied the statement, Ashe knew he’d enjoyed the carnage more than he let on.
“Thanks, big guy,” Fortune called after him, wincing as she rolled her shoulder out.
Ashe barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes as she stepped forward, hand extended amicably. “The manners of our homeland’s champions aside,” she sighed—offered a small smile nonetheless. “We do appreciate your willingness to step in on such short notice on behalf of the Freljord. As per our original agreement, once the regional prize has been delivered and tallied, I will ensure that your share—”
Fortune scoffed and batted the assurance away with one hand, taking Ashe’s hand in the other. “Keep it, honestly. That match was more than enough fun to cover the cost of entry for me.”
Ashe blinked hard, frowning before she could think to school her expression properly. “Miss Fortune, I could not possibly—”
“—Sarah.”
“Pardon?”
Fortune’s grin was wide and white, amusement glittering like sea foam in the blue-gray of her eyes. “We just spent forty minutes running around in the Rift mud together. I suspect we can drop the formalities by now. Unless I should be calling you Queen Ashe.” The light squeeze to her hand told Ashe that last part was a joke.
The open, easy look on her face suggested she was serious about the rest.
“…Sarah,” Ashe tried the name out, the Common name construction unfamiliar on her tongue. She was pretty sure she didn’t get it quite right—hadn’t it sounded more rhotic when Sarah pronounced it?—but Sarah looked somehow pleased anyway, so she supposed it was close enough. “Alright. Even so, Sarah, I do not like not settling debts to those who have helped my people.”
“You don’t owe me anything. I just told you I’ve already been paid for my time.” She released Ashe’s hand then, sliding her thumbs casually into the pockets of her fitted trousers.
“I do not like feeling indebted, either.”
Sarah peered up at her for a long moment, searching her expression for… something.
For all the appalling, risqué rumors Ashe had heard around the Institute about her fellow marksman, Ashe had always found them somehow lacking believability. Not that she’d had much interaction with Sarah outside the Fields, but… something about Sarah had always seemed ill-fitting when it came to the stories she’d heard. Certainly, the captain was shaping up to be every bit the shameless flirt Ashe had always heard, but…
It was the eyes, Ashe was realizing. Those stormy gray-blues were far too sharp, far too critical to belong on someone as mindlessly shallow as the Summoners so often jeered behind Sarah’s back. And if any of them had ever bothered to actually look her in the eyes, they’d know that. But… Ah. Sarah didn’t want them to, did she? That would make her appear instead as what she really was.
Dangerous.
Sarah’s pretty mouth curled into a sly, self-satisfied grin, those sharp blue eyes crinkling at the corners. Found whatever she’d been looking for, Ashe realized belatedly. She couldn’t fathom what that might be.
“Buy me a drink,” Sarah said finally. It wasn’t quite an order, but it was clearly given with the expectation that Ashe would do so.
The imperative made Ashe blink hard, momentarily thrown for a loop at the audacity of the suggestion. “Pardon?”
Sarah laughed. “Oh, come on. I’ve heard enough stories about the kind of celebrations the Freljordian champions get up to after taking prize fights like this. Is a celebratory drink of my own too much to ask for?”
Ah. That made more sense. Ashe’s shoulders relaxed. “Ah, certainly not.” She clasped her hands politely behind the small of her back. “You would be more than welcome to join my people in celebrating our victory this evening, particularly given your effort in securing it. Typically they meet in the communal hall in our wing—”
“Not… quite what I asked, though, is it?” There was a sly little slant to her grin now. “Rumor has it the Avarosan warmother doesn’t much care for celebrations. And how would you buy me a drink then?”
A faint warmth of a blush crept up the back of Ashe’s neck. “Well—no, not usually,” Ashe admitted, a little stilted. “My apologies, I did not realize you wanted to share a drink with me, specifically. I can certainly arrange to make an appearance this evening to attend with you if that is your preference.”
Sarah cocked her head, still smiling. “Far be it from me to put you in a situation you didn’t want to be in, either. How about this—” She paused briefly, drawing a small paper pad and pencil from a leather pouch at her hip to scrawl a few details down. Sarah tore off the top page with a flourish, folding it once in her hand and holding it out to Ashe. “Let’s meet on slightly more neutral ground. The Serpent Isles’ wing ‘communal hall,’” her grin twitched with private humor, “has long since been turned into something of a drinking hole in its own right. Come by this evening around the start of first watch. We can… settle up then.”
Ashe warily took the folded page, lifting a brow. “May I inquire how Bilgewater’s halls qualifies as ‘neutral ground’ rather than the Freljord’s?”
“You ice-dwellers only do business in the light of day. That’s fine. But I’d just as soon not have more rumors spreading around about what business I may or may not have had with the Freljordian entourage during a celebratory drunken revel, aye?”
Ashe wrinkled her nose at the implication. Fair enough. “And what of the rumors of the Avarosan Queen seen baying at the heels of the Bilgewatian envoy in the dead of night?”
Sarah only laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, darling. We sailing types get all… restless when we’ve been ashore too long. I’d be surprised if anyone was sober enough to recognize you—if they can even see far enough in front of themselves to notice you there at all.”