Chapter Text
Ambessa Medarda needed a fucking break.
Five weeks had passed since Caitlyn Kiramman declared martial law at her behest. Five weeks of Zaunite uprisings, of whispering Piltover nobles, of broken hextech, despondent scientists, unresolved disappearances, Mel —
The last thought she locked away.
The rest she turned over in her head. Problems within problems, answers without questions, a thousand blackened thorns sprouting from this dead-end backwater. She was running on phantoms and fumes. It just so happened that Ambessa Medarda’s fumes were most people’s best efforts, but even she had her limits—nor was she foolish enough to push the fast-twitch fibers of her mind toward muscular failure.
She needed rest. She needed to untangle this increasingly demented web that held her tighter the more she struggled. She needed to slide her fingers into something pretty and inconsequential.
Still, Ambessa did not operate in half measures. She recuperated as hard as she fought. Noxians measured strength by its upward trajectory and downward momentum, and she would not compromise on her recovery. When Ambessa told Caitlyn she would be gone for forty-eight hours, the girl’s alarm and dismay rapidly changed tune upon learning why, exactly, her general needed the respite.
“Just go,” Caitlyn said, the tips of her ears reddening.
Ambessa raised a slate-gray eyebrow. “Are you quite sure? Why, moments ago, you insisted that you be privy to the details of my miscellaneous activities—”
Caitlyn shot her a withering but supplicating look. Ambessa eased off. “Let this be a lesson,” she said with a good-natured chuckle. “Some doors are best left unknocked.”
“Indeed,” Caitlyn muttered, and Ambessa set off toward her usual haunt.
By the time the fourth boy collapsed in blissful exhaustion atop salt-streaked sheets, Ambessa had grown restless.
Past the balcony, the sun tore open against the crown of the undercity, bleeding vivid hues of orange and pink across the mahogany floorboards. The bitter tang of sweat hung in the air. Ambessa worked her tongue over her incisors, watching the sun droop closer and closer to its demise, trying to figure out her uneasy state of being. Boredom during sex was unusual for her. Frustrating. Not what she needed.
Sensing her ambivalence, Ambessa’s latest muse pulled himself out of his post-coital oblivion. He placed his elbow on a scandalously soft pillow and blinked up at her. “Are you displeased, Lady Medarda?”
Ambessa made an uncommitted noise. Her eyes traveled from the drowning sun to the boy and took in the youthful skin, the hair like river moss, the soft chin, the freckles. He looked like a pinned moth—beautiful, breakable, wings primed for tearing. Exactly what she liked, exactly what she needed.
At least… what she thought she needed.
Ambessa stroked the side of his face. His eyelids fluttered; he exhaled in contentment. Her fingers grazed his lips, coaxing out a shaky sigh. Then she grabbed his chin. “Suck,” she said, and stuck a finger into his mouth. The boy whimpered and obliged immediately. She watched him with greater interest than before, a droplet of anticipation mixing in with the ennui. The wet heat of his tongue mirrored the heat that began to unfold within her—
The youth rocked in surprise as she pulled out. His green eyes studied her face, unsure. “Was that not to your liking, Lady Medarda? I can be more enthusiastic.”
Ambessa waved him off. “Does your employer keep anyone with more bite?”
He looked unsure. “I can bite you if you would like, my Lady.”
“I don’t want someone who will bite when I say ‘bite.’ I want someone who will bite without being told.”
“You wish to be dominated?”
She laughed.
“I see,” he said hesitatingly. “My employer provides the best services Piltover has to offer, but if you desire an experience with more bite…” His next words came slowly, carefully. “There is an excellent brothel in the undercity. The madame prides herself on discretion. Even one so esteemed as yourself would have nothing to fear.”
The undercity. Ambessa did not fear the undercity nor its countless wretches, nor its putrid air, nor even the possibility of scandal. Let the rabble whisper about the commander’s Noxian adviser fucking Zaunite boys—so what? Their opinions meant nothing, did nothing. No. Fear did not keep Ambessa from the undercity. Irrelevance did. If she appeared on those misbegotten streets, word might spread that her presence was necessary to quell the uprising and lend credence to their fruitless struggle.
The sour must have shown on Ambessa’s face because the boy quickly amended, “Merely a suggestion. I can see about bringing someone who bites without being told—”
Ambessa shook her head, grabbing her trousers. The boy took the hint and did the same. Before he was halfway done buttoning his shirt, Ambessa gestured for him. He looked at her with some confusion. She gestured again and he eagerly obeyed. One of his knees dropped onto the cloud-soft mattress, then the other. Ambessa grabbed the back of his head and pulled his face toward her hips where his mouth bucked against the zipper of her pants; he made a small, keening noise. Tugging him by the roots of his hair, Ambessa guided his eager tongue over her belt, her navel, and the thick planes of her abdominal muscles until it reached her lips.
She kissed him. He melted against her.
When she let go, her brown eyes were wood chips waiting for fire. “Give me the address.”