Chapter Text
The next day I'm sick. I wake up on a sleep mat -- my sleep mat -- with lips as dry as the sands outside. Every breath I take stops short of reaching my chest. I'm breathing, getting air, but I feel like it's just not hitting the right part of my lungs. If it could, then I'd be alright. To do that, to breathe like that, I need to breathe through my nose though and it's plugged. I try to sniff back the stuffy mucus blocking my air but it's stiff as a wall and only causes my head to ache.
Now that I've drawn my attention to it, my head doesn't stop aching. Neither does my chest. The left side, right on the side of my breast. Is it the cold? Or is it my heart? Stress can give you tumors. Or a heart attack. Maybe it's just shrapnel in my soul from that fight yesterday. Fragments of Ambessa.
That's it. That's why I'm sick now.
I think my body is ridding me of all the poison she's pumped into me these past two years. My spirit has been like my lungs -- like the part of them that I just can't get oxygen to. Only now, it's full of air and can finally exhale the toxins.
I sit up slow and dull. The ache in my head becomes a pressure that threatens to pop me like the grapes I used to feed her. Come to think of it, that's something I'll never have to do again. In fact, today, I don't even have to wear that armor. Those robes. Anything I don't want to.
But I haven't been Rabbit before.
The Demacian…she's dead. Now I'm not just a Noxian but a soldier. What does a soldier even wear? What do I wear? What do I have to…
…wear.
I felt so safe, I didn't even think to check over the room. Last night I was tired. Lots of drinking and celebrating and comradery with my new fellow legionnaires. I don't remember when I passed out or where. It wasn't here. Focusing, I think I woke up at one point between them and now. The sun had not yet risen and the walls of the praetorium were a dark irony color. More like dried blood than the usual Noxian crimson. Someone with a deep regal voice spoke to me. Something blurry, about first nights being difficult and better rest away from hounds with questions. I went back to sleep after that.
I hope I haven't just traded one master for another.
No.
No, my mistress never would have left me a note. Not like the one resting, pristinely folded on monogrammed paper, by the side of my mat.
Legionnaire,
Burgir, the on site armorer, will have something off-size but suitable for you. When we return to the city in a few months we will fit you for your own set with any accomodations you prefer.
You seem ill. That is to be expected. For today, we will not see battle so you may wear whatever you wish. When you rise, come speak with me.
Your captain.
Whatever I wish. I get excited for a moment before I realize that I own nothing but what's on my back. There's no mirror in the tent. For a noble, Captain Jericho Swain isn't vain. What a nice difference already.
I can't change my clothes. Yet. So what can I control?
I pull the long brown leather laces off my sandals. Guesstimating a center part, I finger comb my hair. It's getting long now and the undercut is far gone. It needs a wash something bad but I tell myself that an updo can cover that up for now.
I pull the greasy locks into twin cone shaped buns, tangling in the leather laces here and there to hold. Some parts hang longer than others -- like white-striped curtains in long loops beneath the main structure. Others still fall half out of my criss-crossing and weaving of leather. But I decide it must look good enough. Certainly it's at the very least different from what it was. It's unique. And it's mine again.
I make my way to the armorer and I bring the note. I'm not sure why I do, I just do. I guess a part of me worries that he won't have heard about my freedom. That without this evidence that the captain himself has ordered me here, he'll call my old owner to reclaim me.
“I was told to report to you,” I say in a voice I hope soldiers use. I hold out the letter. Just in case.
He doesn't even glance at it. Nor does he turn from his forge.
The light of the smithing fire paints his face red but blue eyes pierce through it like stubborn icebergs before a rising sun. His hair and beard are both blonde and braided and his arms are decorated with tattoos of some cultural significance I'm not aware of. I know they're Freljordian symbols. I know that he's as frozen on the inside as his homeland.
I take a few steps closer, eyeing his work. He's heating some metal and I won't even pretend to know what he's going to do with it next. It sure seems to take a while. A long while. My eyes trail to the stones of the forge. To the flames inside.
Every part of the forge looks old but this encampment can't have been here that long. It's like pieces of an ancient forge were taken and then remortered together here in a sloppy careless fashion. The only stone in that lopsided dome of grey that is perfectly straight is bordered by smooth mortar flecked with gold and icebound blue. Engraved on that stone’s surface is the boxy figure of a minotaur with the horns of a ram. It's a weird looking minotaur. Even as a caricature, he has small round eyes and mammoth feet. He wears a blacksmith’s apron and holds a hammer over his mighty head.
“Is that guy Freljordian too?” I ask.
The armorer makes a noise that would be a scoff had a scoff been smothered by a pillow. He pulls the metal from the forge and tosses it into some water. It hisses out steam before breaking into two with a distinct clinking noise. He leaves it and pulls hunks of shiny silver from a trunk.
A helmet is tossed my way. One with a long red plume that mimics a feather boa. I catch it, but then a breastplate comes flying. One with sharp points and angled edges. Unlike the breastplates the knights of Demacia wear, it's all practicality -- brutality -- and not decorated in the slightest. Shin guards. Gauntlets. Both in the same style.
“I'm running out of hands--”
A cowl. Boots. Rope for tying on the underlayer that's apparently in a different trunk.
“I'm beginning to understand why Ambessa left some of this shit off,” I say. “Honestly, I don't even know what half of it is. Any chance you could help me out?”
Leather and quilted fabric and layers and layers of some red cotton-y stuff piles by my feet.
“Do I need everything?” I ask.
The armorer walks unflinching to the bucket of water he'd thrown the metal into and picks up one of the half pieces. He shakes it dry and shoves it into his forge. This time he only leaves it for seconds before pulling it out to beat it on an anvil.
“A hint would be nice.”
“He'll be of little use. His tongue’s been cut from his head.” Her voice clears my sinuses and I finally breathe to that desperate part of my lung. It doesn't last.
“Looking to get your ass beat again? Leave me alone.”
It's a hard sell. What, with my shaking fists and stuck feet. The place between my shoulder blades pinches with tension and I can feel her muzzle ever so slightly open above my nape. I can't even find the courage to turn and say it to her face.
“Careful, little rabbit.” Her voice is smooth and in rhythm with the blacksmith's hammer. “As an enlisted recruit, you should be wary in how you speak to a colonel.”
Fuck you.
I choke on the words. A pathetic cough bursts through my defenses. I can tell she enjoys it. Sickness. Ha! What a weak sign.
Looking for anything to change the subject (seeing as I still can't move), I nod to the armorer. “Why did he lose his tongue?”
The man stops hammering. Back to the fire. At first, I think I've offended him but then he starts swinging away again.
“He’s a devout worshiper of the Freljordian forge god, Ornn,” she explains. She encroaches upon my peripheral vision but, just as she does, I keep my eyes forward. “He is also a talented mage. He can infuse weapons and armor with protective spells and enhancements. Since what we seek here is steeped in old magics, his particular talents have brought a value to his life.”
“And his tongue?”
“He doesn't need it to forge. He does need it to utter prayer spells that could be used against us.”
“Could be.”
Neither of us speaks. We don't have anything to add. I kind of think she'll just walk away but that'd be too easy for her. No. I'm supposed to walk away. I'm supposed to yield this battle. To give her back some of the power and dignity that I stole from her yesterday.
She doesn't deserve it.
My feet finally budge but only to turn her way and close the gap. I drop the armor I'm holding and gesture blankly.
“How much of this do I actually need?” I ask.
“A soldier’s equipment comes standard. Over time, you will find your strengths and preferences and a unique quality to your silhouette will emerge.”
“I've fought more than a regular recruit. I know what I like.”
“You haven't been allowed to like much of anything.”
I hate how she says it. Simple. Factual. Emotionless. As if she's disconnected from it. As if it isn't her fault that I--!
I drag my attention down the armor, if only because seething through a stuffy nose only worsens my migraine.
“If you need assistance putting it on, I'd be more than happy to help,” she offers superciliously.
“I've had enough practice taking yours off that I should be able to handle it.”
The armorer pauses again. Bastard. But it's only to bring his metal back to the fire.
“What's he doing?” I snap.
“Forging a blade.”
“Why did he break the metal in half first?”
“To get further use from the rare material. That metal as you so call it is why we are here. An old battlefield, buried right beneath the sand dunes. The weapons and armor from which are linked to the legions of Azir.”
“Azir?”
She hums. “I'm afraid I have places I am needed. Good luck with that armor.”
She leaves, hands behind her back folded neatly together. As if he shoulders weren't fucked yesterday.
With a glance over said shoulder towards me (and a rather arrogant roll of it just because she can -- just because any injury I give to her she'll just be able to shrug off with no lasting effects) she comments, “I like what you've done with your hair. Those buns are like little rabbit ears. They match your coin.”
Remembering that I have it causes it to burn against the skin between my breasts. The skin her hands have so often caressed. I yank it off, breaking right through the chain. It's thrown into the sands with all that old armor, stomped even deeper by my boot. I make a big fuss of grunting and kicking up dust but she just walks away regardless. Cold as Freljordian ice.
When she's gone the armorer stops hammering. I sink to my knees, alternating between pants of ill air and suffocating while I lick my dry lips.
For some reason I watch as I go digging through the sands for the denarii. I hold it in my hand until the armorer offers his. He looks slowly to his forge without so much as a twitch anywhere else on his face. Then the Demacian turned Noxian hands the coin off to the Freljordian turned Noxian and the two embrace the red together.
***
I have to be shown to my captain because he's nowhere I can find in the encampment.
Visionary as he is, he's out in the sands, already planning not only where to dig but how best to fortify against the attack that disturbing such a once sacred place will call upon us.
“Rabbit,” he greets. He tilts his head, still smiling. “Is that a denarii on your breastplate?”
“Didn't want to lose it,” I say. I bow as best I can which is probably very poorly. He doesn't seem to mind. “Ambessa mentioned that we're standing on an old battleground fought by some guy named Azir.”
“You spoke with Ambessa?”
“She spoke with me. Who was Azir?”
The captain’s eyes twinkle with envy as he recalls the story, “A mortal Shuriman emperor of a far distant age who stood at the cusp of immortality. He was never meant to be a ruler. The youngest son in a family of many. As luck would have it, assassins struck one night while he was still a child and paved his way to the crown by killing every brother he had. They tried to kill him too, but he was saved by a boy who he'd name his brother and eventually have rule in an almost lockstep beside him. His hubris brought an end to his life before he could reach his final goal -- a solution to death itself. Though some say that he's been reborn. Others still, that he never died.”
“What do you believe?”
He stares up at the black shadow of birds circling the sky. “I believe that we are standing above dead soldiers holding the very weapons and armor Azir used when he was on the doorstep of a discovery grand enough to swing the tides of fate. Destiny marches, like any man. Let us hope it can be cut down the same.”
“You hope to cut down destiny itself?” I don't mean to laugh but I do.
That he does not appreciate. His patrician expression sobers and his eyes fall back to me.
“Apologies, sir,” I say, lowering my head. “It is just…I always thought battles were fought without goals other than to kill and conquer. To expand borders. To raid villages. This…plan of yours, it has merit. It has thought. Vision.”
“Vision is one pillar of strength. It is something Ambessa thinks she possesses but that she does not understand well enough to teach you. Stick by me, legionnaire, and you will learn what it takes to see opportunity where others only see sand.” He pauses. Then that smile is back -- a split in the corvid beak of his face. “Would you believe me if I told you that Azir’s named brother, the boy who saved him from the assassins, was his slave?”
I can't. It shows. For a moment my breath stops and I'm drawn to how dry the air has once again made my lips. I lick them then swallow. When I find one side of my nose can again draw in air, I close my mouth.
“The more time I spend here on the front lines,” my captain says, “the more I learn that everyone, those with and without Noxian blood in their veins and of every status, can be equal when judged purely by the merit of their strength. I wouldn't have thought that before my commission. A new angle can truly alter one’s entire battlefield. Go. Rest today and try not to spread that plague of yours through the troops. When you are well, you will assist with the digging and train.” He turns back to the dunes. Back to the invisible armies that he can already see approaching at every likely angle. “There will be a battle here before we are gone.”
“Thank you.” My voice is no voice at all. I clear my throat, blaming that for the struggle. “You saved my life and for that, I will forever aid your vision, captain.”
“You saved yourself. There was a door and you unlocked it. I merely reminded you there was a key.”
***
I continue to be isolated, quarantined, in the praetorium. The captain is awake at late hours, plotting by candlelight over a desk separated from my small part of the tent by a curtain. I watch his shadow like sheep. One tuck of hair behind an ear. Two dabs of a quill into an inkwell. Three shifts. Four twitches of his arm. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
By thirty-seven I'm about as far from sleep as I can imagine. My blanket is warm, lined with the pelt of a sheep, but the air around me is cold. So is the air inside me. I still can't breathe and if I lay on one side the other clears up but I can't for the life of me get both parts of my nose to be free so I'm forced to keep sucking air painfully past chapped lips. A long time ago I'd use beeswax and oil to resoften them. I don't have any beeswax though and the oil around here is only used for the lamps.
I sit up and my head spins. I feel even colder, like invisible hands of that Freljordian god from the forge are hovering over me. There's too many people here. I've got too much space around me.
The world is an open road -- the kind built by Noxus in the lands they conquer that cowards then use to flee and soldiers to march. It's spiraling, twisting, and turning. There are many street signs but they're all in a language that I don't know and don't wish to learn. I can see the battlefields that lie along these paths. When I start to envision them the way I believe the captain does I get four steps ahead and begin to feel dizzy. All the things I could be and right now all I feel I currently am is alone. I need everyone to go away. I need someone to hold me. Gods, that's juxtaposed. I don't know what I want, truly, other than out of this bed.
I slip out beneath the side of the tent. I don't know why I sneak. It's not like the captain can't just see my shadow disappear. I don't know yet if he'd have questions about why I'm wandering but even if he does I don't think I'd lie to him. Then again, isn't it always a lie if you're trying to explain the rationale behind something you don't fully understand yourself?
The moon is high and the tents all dark. The liveliness of the camp has become a cemetery in the darkness. Every soldier seems to be dead asleep with these little irony curtains popped up to mark their graves. Epithets in the form of turkey bones from dinner and discarded boots and armor wished them farewell and told their stories. How many slept here. How many there. You can tell how long someone has been asleep based on the layer of sand on the little mat outside their tent door. Some barracks had fresh dusty footprints, others a mess of a dozen ghosted tracks. I wouldn't want to be the final man in a tired tent. If you wake up the others, there's likely some agitation you'll have to face come morning.
I stop before a grave marked by boots that have found a uniqueness to their silhouette. Boots that fight battles in a way with which I'm too familiar.
I catch myself as I reach towards the flap of the tent.
What are you doing, Rabbit?
I pull back. Not entirely. Something won't let me pull back entirely. My fingers twitch. Those hands hanging around me feel both further away and more suffocating than ever.
I should go back to my bed and sleep. Tomorrow, when the dead rise and I regain my senses, the space around me won't feel so foreign and I'll be able to avoid her properly again.
I just about tear my feet away when I catch sight of it. A light on the horizon. It isn't dawn.
I squint and the light swings softly side to side to side again. It's a flame. No. Two. Four. The lanterns grow brighter and larger against the dark of the night sky. Like stars falling to earth and getting closer to our camp.
I whip open the tent door and step one foot inside. A thin silver sliver of moonlight cuts like an extra scar across the colonel's face as she cracks open one eye.
“There's someone approaching the camp,” I say to interrupt her questions.
All at once she's out of bed and wide awake. She storms to the path outside her tent and I follow. Her scowl threatens the horizon. Her eyes, flirting back and forth along the image. There's a group of them. Men, yes, but they're also carrying something. Something that leaves a big black shadow in the center of their formation. Flags hang beneath their light whose sigil is indiscernible.
“Get the captain,” Ambessa orders. “If it's Shurima, they aren't attacking yet. Not while they signal their arrival so pompously.”
True. I can't imagine soldiers lighting their way into a sneak attack.
I turn, stopping only because the man of the hour is already approaching behind me.
“Captain,” I bow. “Th--”
“Stand down, Rabbit.” The captain orders. He makes his way to a few paces before both of us. “You too, colonel. I was awaiting our visitor’s arrival. That's why I’m still awake at this hour.” He holds up a friendly wave to the incomers.
Ambessa and I trade a look. I stand down. She's still ready to fight. When we turn back to the approaching strangers I think we both see the flags at the same time because her shoulders drop and her feet move together. First, there is shock. And why wouldn't there be? It's swiftly replaced with the anger of betrayal.
I'd know those golden crosses and the diamonds they lie on anywhere. Medarda. As in, Ambessa Medarda. It's her family crest. She does not seem happy about a reunion.
“Who did you bring here, Swain?” She asks, each word it's own individual point -- it's own dagger turned for his neck, awaiting the rare answer that doesn't get him slain.
He doesn't respond. The noble dressed servants with banners stop at the edge of camp. The captain moves in greeting to the halfway point between them and us. While I don't originally intend to follow, I do only after Ambessa does. It's ingrained in me still to seek her silent permission. Even on the simplest of actions.
A boy slips out of litter that's been lowered to the ground. Boy should be emphasized here because he has to be no older than fifteen or sixteen years old. He's well dressed in fine leather shoes and silks of red, white, and gold. Embroidery of gold and black accents his outfit and his short rows of braided hair. When he moves his eyes from his careful steps to our little welcome party I can see that his eyes are flecked with much the same colors. He has that same warmth and aristocratic air about him as the captain along with a jovial innocence any child should be entitled to. For a Noxian, I'm surprised how at ease and diplomatic he seems. How untouched he is by war.
“Mother,” the boy greets cordially.
“Kino…” the surprise in her voice betrays her. “What are you doing here? What's the meaning of this? You should be back at home with your tutors -- with your sister.”
“I requested his presence here,” the captain explains as calm and simply as one would discuss the weather. “When I heard that you were the colonel that Grand General Darkwill was sending to aid me, it got me thinking about your family name. Medarda. Such a talented bunch. I recalled a time at a gathering when your son talked down an argument between the heads of two esteemed houses that was surely going to end in a rather faux pas of a fight. When I wrote to Darkwill, thanking him for sending a woman of such esteem to me, I included this story and he had the brilliant idea to invite your son here as well. To help negotiate away from unnecessary battles with the local Shuriman people. Battles that, I assured him, would be very costly to both our time and the amount of labor we will have for digging up this precious material beneath us.”
I hear his translation as loud and clear as Ambessa does. He's here to keep a leash on you, colonel. To make sure that we're all on the same team and you don't do anything slippery to steal back Rabbit. A distraction and an insurance policy, all in one.
Welcome to the jungles of war. How does it feel to be the one who's leashed?