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Chapter Text

The Great War began as many do: over blind, prideful disputes over land and power. Fought by men both with magic and without, the death toll rose to the hundreds and then the thousands in only a few short months. The clashing of great nations led to innumerous casualties of commoners caught in the crossfire of warfare, disregarded by their rulers and betrayed by wartime crimes.

Piltover, a massive realm dominating much of the southern half of their shared continent, was a land guarded by sprawls of snowy mountaintops and centered with wide stretches of grassy planes, marked by a glittering coastline to the west.

Their people were that of magic, intellect, and innovation; gaining the upper hand in the battle due to their constant evolution in spell-weaving and the never-ending push to discover its limitations. They were aided by the cultivation of the wild pegasus native to their region, tamed and bred for battle, the great beasts were loyal and with their aid, Piltover soon pulled ahead in the battle for domination, led by the powerful House Kiramman towards victory.

Noxus rivalled them greatly, if only in size and bravery. A harsh land of tundra with a severe, frozen ocean to their northern border. They split in half two smaller nations to access these waters, and abutted Piltover upon their eastern lines. The people were ruthless, seeming never to tire in their battle despite their numbers dwindling as the months stretched onward. The dragons they rode were powerful, massive beasts with smolders dripping from their tongues as they stretched through the skies. But the dragons were few in number, and despite the tenacity of their warriors, they could not stronghold their way to the upperhand.

The last largest contender of the Great War was Demacia, the third largest realm, who proved to be the most hesitant in the end to call a truce. Their lands were vast, rich with minerals and raw materials that provided them a nearly endless supply of manmade weaponry. Tall mountainous cliffs and rocky beaches that edges along tumultuous seas, their system of caves and underground mines brought endless resources to their battlefront. Their greatest downfall was themselves, in the end; their culture had destroyed much of the old magic of their lands in the process of pushing their innovations forward, leaving them weak to the stronger magical nations in which they warred. Eventually, despite their numerous strengths, they yielded due to their numbers and resources dwindling.

Among the other, smaller realms, who had avoided battle though not without consequence, and the three greatest nations, treaties were enacted and peacetime, at last, prevailed.

Their new borders drawn, and tentative truces held, with the end of the war came the most significant magical boom in history of their nations.

One hundred years of peace passed, with it came new heirs to the thrones of these vast nations. More power was placed upon the crowns of these realms than any single man could imagine.

Piltover was no exception.

Since she could stand on her own feet, the heir to the Kiramman throne was known to run rather than walk, despite the injuries that earned her. Caitlyn was a bright girl with indigo hair and deep blue eyes, a great beauty in the making if her mother was any suggestion to her future appearance.

Rivaling her significant beauty was her intellect, and eventually, her infamous troublemaking. She was a stubborn thing, growing fast-witted and quick-tongued as the years stretched on. Her reputation spread through the realms, a warning to those who knew the name of the great rulers who befell her – the newest Kiramman to ascend the throne was no exception to the long line of great and powerful warriors that preceded her.

In time, she proved to be a brilliant sorceress, with the onset of her magic revealing itself in her youth.

The first spell the young princess learns to weave is simple - a ball of shining, golden light that flickers like a flame between her cupped palms. The soft glow of it reflecting off the deep blue of her eyes, dancing along her angular features as she shows off the witchcraft.

Already so headstrong and ambitious, but admired ever still, her parents teemed with pride at her newfound skill and encouraged her studies into the works of magic.

The illumination spell sparks forward a whirlwind of private educators, experts from the farthest reaches of the realms, and most excitedly, her enrollment in the Piltover Academy of Magic and Enchantment. An educational marvel, the only of its kind, towering nearly as tall as the Kiramman castle and glittering in the great mountain range like the snow tops that surround it. Gathered in its halls were hundreds of young students possessing all forms of magical talents, eager to learn from a faculty of the greatest sorcerers to grace the kingdoms.

As was custom in her realm, upon her fourteenth birthday, Princess Caitlyn received the great honor of being gifted a pegasus foal. The creature is young, only a handful of months old, grey with speckled drops of color that dot along her flank. She tosses her head at the princess upon their meeting, seeming to take immediately to the teenager.

She names the foal Silvermist.

Queen Cassandra took to teaching her daughter the ways of the skies on her own jet-black mare, Dreamshadow, the pair of royals often seen galloping across the endless blue skies that shone brightly above the great realm.

Caitlyn had never known such joy, taking to her lessons with her steed with the same level of tenacity and drive she approached her studies of magic. Her stubbornness proved itself her greatest foe, but her most valuable ally, and within months the pair became inseparable as steed and master.

Her attendance at the Academy was the first time the crowned princess was allowed true reprieve from her place within the palace grounds. The newfound taste of freedom was thrilling, fueling her already growing propensity to find mischief wherever she could, inspiring the girl further toward independence, and in turn, danger.

She made friends quickly and easily, most notably finding herself gaining great rapport with a Targonian youth by the name of Jayce, and his good friend Viktor. The three earned themselves quite the reputation in just the short first year they spent together within the Academy’s walls.

Jayce, a boy too lanky for his recently found height, was both charming and brash. He was a powerful mage, blessed with the old magic of Targon, and further investing in his skills of combat. Despite being made rough by his upbringing, he welcomed the princess, and she found herself delighted by his stories of danger in the tumultuous lands in realms afar.

Viktor was the quietest of the three, and a true intellect. He had wit for miles, and a natural curiosity that spurred himself and his companions into experimentation more often than not. He was tall and rail-thin, pale as unmarked parchment with an ever-present shadow cast below his eyes. He used a cane, leaning on it as he walked, having been weakened by mysterious illness he had contracted in his youth within the tumultuous nation of Zaun to the south. His mind remained sharp despite his ailing physical health, symptoms eased by the magic healers in Piltover.

After only a year of the young princess’s studies at the Academy, she had perfected well over a hundred spells alongside her classmates. Each challenge was met with a fierce stubbornness, her thirst for greatness quenched only by success, driving her to master a multitude of complex, high-level spells despite the innumerous failures and setbacks.

Her skills in spell-weaving only improved as her second year at the Academy began, her busy schedule keeping the princess occupied nearly all waking hours of the long Piltovian summers. She longed, despite her many joys and triumphs, for a freedom she had only a taste of her in short life.

She sought refuge in her magic, throwing herself into researching forbidden magic, old magic from kingdoms and sorcerers long dead.

The young princess has set her mind upon one skill in particular, something no sorcerer at the Academy dared to speak on due to the risks involved.

The danger and challenge only spurred the young princess forward.

Upon the eve of her next birthday, Caitlyn seized her moment of chance.

Opportunity came in the form of the gift of rare ingredients from her royal parents, none the wiser to the purpose of her request; snow fox’s tail from the highest peaks in Piltover, tooth of a Noxian dragon, hair of a siren from the shores of Bilgewater.

In the still night of a quiet half-moon on the day she turned sixteen, granted solitude only due to the late hour, Caitlyn weaved a spell so perverse it was thought to have not been attempted within the realms in one hundred years.

The eve was nearly cloudless; stars reflected gently off fresh fallen snow, the light bright where it cast into her chambers. It illuminates her work with a brightness unrivaled by the glowing embers of the fire she’d allowed to wane in her concentration.

Her fingers ached from grinding ingredients, her brow prickled from sweat by the exertion of her magic. She feels the ache of it between her shoulder blades where she inhales, her body feeling the demand of effort. Her low murmuring of spell words gentles in the silence of the December night, gold dripping from her fingers like sand onto the burning ingredients in her cauldron, a thick smoke burning her throat and eyes as she breathes it in.

The world ripples around her, the moonlight warping onto her form where she’d painted herself in symbols, the paste she’d ground ingredients for stinging on her skin as she absorbs the magic and shivers with the sudden push-pull-ache of transformation.

Caitlyn releases a shuddering breath at the pulse of energy that weaves through her. Her bones creak, teeth rattling in her skull and drawing blood from her tongue. She feels no fear, no weariness under the press of discomfort, only brilliant excitement.

With the midnight hour struck, the spell settled into her bones, the young Piltovian princess began to share her soul between two bodies.

One, that of her birth, a girl just past six and ten, tall and lanky with her youth; the other a black cat, enchanted with magic shimmering along her whiskers and in her wide, intelligent eyes.

The moonlight shimmers in her reflection as she stared at this form, twisting forward and back again to observe how it moved, feeling how her soul stretched into the little paws and filled out the sleek coat. It felt like new shoes, fresh from the cobbler and too-tight, not yet soft from wear.

Her steps were clumsy, her tail new, the floor much closer than it was before.

She stayed up the entire night, well until the sunlight broke the horizon, before stretching herself back into her human form with a bright burst of golden magic.

The maids chastised her for running about her room unclothed, the leftover dust of her spell still sparkling in the sunlight as they flitter around the room, pushing and pulling the princess into her daily clothes.

She cared not for the fatigue in her eyes, nor the harshness of their hands on her hair as they braided it. She could only think of the newness of her life, and the gift this other form would give her in the manner of freedom.

Caitlyn was hiding.

She sits, pressed below a shelf in the palace cupboards, shouldering bags of potatoes that hug into her and stink of dirt. She’s hiding because she missed the sound of the bell tower, the 4th hour having come and gone with her none the wiser.

She’s spent the afternoon lazing in a spring halfway outside of town, blessedly alone and at peace. It was barely noon when she had leapt in her cat form from the palace grounds to the tall walls that partition them from the surrounding woods, disappearing in a flash of black into the forest. She’d sacrificed an afternoon of her studies, of which she was expected to have returned home from by now to begin to prepare for the dinner the staff were hard at work preparing.

Any moment now her attendants were likely to bring attention to this, no doubt causing the palace to erupt in chaos in search of the missing princess.

She huffs, annoyed and still a little out of breath from her hurried journey back over the garden wall, her clothes rumpled from where she’d pulled them on from their stash in the trees.

The kitchen is bustling with people, usually empty in the earlier afternoon, but now filled with cooks and servants who shout over each other and slam pots together in a mad clash of sounds. It smells of butter and meat, the scent drawing a growl from her stomach.

She allows her mind to wander, shuffling a little further into the shelf, tucking her arms a little harder around herself. She’d let herself walk as a cat back to her chambers, but the constant pass of kitchen attendants threatens to give away her position at any moment.

She’d rather be caught as a princess, than risk her freedom as a cat.

Perhaps when the searches for her start she’d be able to slip by and return to her tower keep. There’s a quiet hall from the kitchens to her wing of the castle, her favored method of escape since it was a lesser used screen passage to her quarters.

“But Vi, I know I can finish it this time if I just have enough time.” A little voice, youthful and whining with distraught, cuts through the relative quiet of her hiding spot. Two sets of footsteps are making their way down the short hallway to the pantries.

“Absolutely not,” another voice seethes, lower in volume. Both are accented, something sharp in the vowels that spoke of foreigners. “You’re not even supposed to be on palace grounds right now.”

“You could leave me alone for a day, y’know. I won’t do anything.” The little voice huffs.

She hears grumbling in response but no actual words despite the approaching footfalls. She scooches a little further into the potatoes, hoping her hiding spot conceals her from the pair of girls that she can see now walk through the mouth of the doorway.

“Sit in here, no one will bother you. And don’t eat anything, I’ll bring you dinner when we’re finished with it.”

Caitlyn peers at the pair, the elder of which can’t be older than the princess herself. She’s crouching, holding a younger girl by her shoulders, looking into her eyes. She has uneven pink hair that is pushed messily from her face, revealing a severe expression that is leveled at the younger girl.

The little one nods, her blue hair bobbing with the action as she agrees to stay out of sight. Her hair is a lighter shade than Caitlyn’s own indigo, instead a striking shade of bright blue that frames her freckled cherub face in two twin braids.

Caitlyn and the younger are left alone after a beat, the taller of the two turning on her heel and marching back out to the kitchens.

“She can’t have more than ten years,” Cait thinks distantly, watching the girl who turns around the great pantry and comes to sit on crates of onions stacked in the corner. She turns, blessedly, to the other direction, where Cait sees her pull a tome from her weathered book sack.

The crates make an excellent makeshift desk, allowing her to spread open the huge tome and flip noisily through its contents.

She’d never seen her before, nor the other girl who had come in with her, but that wasn’t terribly unusual.

Caitlyn had minimal interactions with the palace staff, mostly her own attendants and the stable hands making themselves more known to her as their paths crossed more often. The random maid or cook hardly crossed her mind with the thousands of other duties she was already attempting to juggle on the day to day.

Cait watches her face press close to the book, eyes squinting to see in the low light. Sunlight trickles in from the windows that line the hallway outside, only a low stream of it cutting through the storage room and illuminating the text.

The girl looks up suddenly, eyes trained to the doorway in which she’d entered. She pauses, as if waiting for something, before whipping her head back to the great book.

She mumbles, voice low and whispering against the pages as she reads, her palms coming to clasp in front of her chest.

A gasp escapes Caitlyn’s lips when a purple glow spills past the seam of her fingers, bright and arcing over the room as magic thrums in the air. The ozone smell that accompanies magical conjuring drowns out the smell of produce and dirt that had surrounded her, the princess sitting forward a little to watch the little sorcerer work.

She wonders if she’s a student at the Academy too, though she thinks she’d recognize someone so young within the great halls.

The orb thrums, magic humming in the air as she uncovers her hands and lets it float over her open palms. Her face is illuminated, awed and joyful as she stares into the fruits of her labors. The electric purple light shimmers brightly, crackling as if touched by lightening.

“Pow-” cuts off at the entrance to the pantry, Cait startling as she whips her head to the side and makes eye contact with the pink haired girl from before. The princess had scooted forward from her hiding space to watch the little sorcerer work, revealing her location to the keen eyes of the pink haired girl.

She stands, a bowl in her hand, mouth askew as her eyes jump from Caitlyn, still crouched on the floor, and the ball of light balancing in the other girl’s hands.

“Vi, look!” The girl exclaims, turning to face her, hands stretching out to show her.

“Wait!” Caitlyn says, reaching forward to stop her, but it’s too late.

The sudden motion destabilizes the magic, the orb wavering for a moment before cracking like glass. The light becomes blinding for a moment, the princess shutting her eyes against it, but not before watching Vi take a handful of brisk steps into the little space

Clattering, a little shout of shock, and the teeth-clattering sound of magical energy imploding all come in quick succession.

The long braids of garlic in the room swing from the ceiling. Cait blinks, eyes adjusting to the dim light, dirt kicked up around her making her cough a little from her seat on the floor. Several sacks of food had been displaced by the reaction, jugs lying on their sides where they’d been pushed from the shelves by the force.

However, they were unharmed, the princess sitting with dirt on her face and hands, ears ringing, but no worse for wear. She focuses forward as the dust settles.

The pink haired girl had thrown herself towards the youngest, pressing the bowl she’d been holding overtop the destabilizing magic, and trapped it against the ground.

The dish had broken under the pressure of the implosion, now lying in a mess of jagged pieces and whatever corpse of a meal she’d brought to feed the girl.

“Vi, your hands,” the little girl points out, sliding from where she’d been pushed further away, seated heavily on the dirt.

Vi, it seems her name to be, rubs at her palms, no doubt singed by the heat. Her face is blank with shock, eyes roaming over the form of the girl continuously, her thumb pressing to the curve of her palm in a cyclical, repetitive motion.

“What is the-” Cait turns, rubbing her irritated eyes, to where the plump, matronly form of the head cook is blocking the hazy path of light that trails in from the hallway outside. “Princess Caitlyn?” Marta’s eyebrows knit as she looks between the three girls with an ever-growing expression of disapproval.

“We found her hiding in the kitchen pantries.” Marta states, her accent harsh but not unkind. She’s a plump woman, with mousy brown hair streaked with grey, pulled back in a tight bun at the base of her skull. She regards the three girls with a stern expression, one Caitlyn hadn’t been on the receiving end of for several years.

Cait stands, shoulders rising a little to her ears despite her efforts to remain impartial, as she listens to her crimes be presented to her parents. She stares heavily down at the floor, hands loose at her sides in a conscious effort to look less guilty.

The queen and king sit at the long table in the royal dining hall, having just entered when news of the kitchen incident had reached them. They look between the four figures in front of them with variable looks conveying intrigue, admonishment, and concern.

Her mother’s expression is unimpressed when Caitlyn’s line of sight flickers up towards the pair, but her father has concern in his eyes.

“Caitlyn,” King Tobias’s tone is questioning, laced with concern for his child. She steadfastly refuses to look back toward her mother, who has remained blessedly quiet thus far.

She clears her throat before responding.

“Yes, father?”

“What were you doing in the pantries?”

“I was… hungry.”

“So, you snuck into the kitchens? Why?”

“Oh, I did not want to bother the cooks.” She offers.

Her mother scoffs.

“You can cease your lies whenever you’d please. We know you skipped your lessons today; the Headmistress is very concerned.” Queen Cassandra offers primly, her voice sharp with distaste.

Cait clenches her jaw, annoyed. She had not expected word from the Academy to travel so fast, but she had missed two afternoons of lessons within a handful of weeks. Perhaps they are keeping a harder eye on her than she’d previously known. She is not the only royal at the school, but she is the only heir to the throne of Piltover.

“And what about these two? Since when do we employ children in the palace kitchens, Marta?”

“Your majesty, Vi is of eight and ten, she only looks young. The other girl is her sister, but she was told to not bring her to the castle. And to perform magic with no training, what a mess this has caused.”

Marta isn’t an unkind woman, Cait knows, but she sounds exasperated. The princess risks glancing at the pair of sisters who stand a few feet away. Jinx, the little one with blue hair, is standing with her hands clasped in front of her, face tilted down to the floor. From the angle the princess stands, she can see the hard set of her brow and the shiny quality her eyes had taken on.

Vi on the other hand, faces forward with her shoulders back, as if bracing for an impact. Her eyes rest, lowered in respect, toward the royal couple, her jaw set.

“Eight and ten, you say?” The queen’s voice isn’t as biting as it’d been when she addressed her daughter, sounding instead pensive. She’s got an odd look in her eye, scanning the pair with an expression the young princess cannot parse. “Vi, is it? You are eight and ten?”

Cait turns her head fully to look at the other girl, ridding herself of her feigned neutrality.

The girl hesitates before shaking her head singularly.

“No, your majesty, I will be seven and ten in a month’s time.” She offers, voice subdued. Her accent is noticeable again, the words tinged by her upbringing in some lands Caitlyn knows not of.

“But I swear I will work twice as hard as any adult. I will clean up the mess in the pantries, and my first paycheck can go to fixing anything that was broken. I offer my apologies for my sister, she doesn’t mean any harm. She has only just learned of her magic.” Her voice comes out frantic, words bleeding together in her frenzy to get them out to the royal couple. “She is… excited.”

“She’s very skilled,” Caitlyn surprises even herself, the admission leaving her lips before she can hold her tongue. “Your sister is young to have managed any magic, has she no training at all?”

“Caitlyn.” Her mother chastises.

“She should be studying at the Academy,” She faces the queen, steeling herself to the incredulous look being shot her way. “If I had any magic at that age, you’d have enrolled me immediately. Managing a spell of any nature at- how old are you?” Caitlyn turns towards the girl, cutting off abruptly.

Jinx startles, eyes going a little wide and looking up to her sister for a moment. Vi’s gaze remains on the princess but she offers a little nod toward her sister, head tilting towards her.

“Nine, your highness.” She says quietly.

“Nine!” Caitlyn gestures to the girl, turning back to face her parents. “That is so young to gain magic, it is a travesty that she is not already enrolled!”

Vi goes slack-jawed at the sharp, confident tone the princess uses, something she can see out of the corner of her eye as she regards her parents imploringly.

The royal couple look between the three girls before them, curiosity bleeding into their expressions in unison at their daughter’s out of character behavior.

“What of your parents?” Tobias asks eventually.

“We are orphans, your majesty."

Caitlyn heart seizes the opportunity presented before her. Her father was an orphan, both of his parents having passed by his teenage years, luckily after his betrothal to her mother. He had in the past shown significant charity for them.

His large brown eyes had gone soft and bright at the girl’s admission.

“The damage to the kitchens would have been worse had- Vi, is it?” She turns girls, watching as the pink haired one blinks as if having just been woken, before nodding in confirmation. “Had Vi not acted so quickly. There is not telling how many injuries could have resulted, and the damage would have been far more severe.” She offers as a follow-up.

Vi is staring at her like she’s grown a second head when she turns to face her again. She is still standing slightly in front of Jinx, her sister leaning around her torso to observe the interaction curiously.

“Are your hands injured?” Caitlyn asks.

“No, your highness. Only scalded.” She states quietly, voice soft. There’s something strange in her expression, past all the guardedness and uncertainty. It makes the princess watch her for a moment before she turns back to face the monarchs.

A silent conversation is passing between them. Her mother has a stern set to her eyes, but something twinkles in the bright blue that she shares with her daughter. Cassandra’s mouth has tilted a little, giving away some secret mirth, her father’s eyes wide with some faint amusement in his expression to match.

“Alright,” the queen concedes.

Tobias looks delighted, a grin breaking out on his face as he turns back to the two girls.

“Jinx, I believe my daughter is correct. Magical ability at such a young age should be cultivated. That is best achieved amongst skilled professionals and like-minded peers. Therefore, you will be joining Caitlyn at the Academy effective immediately.”

Vi’s mouth parts once again in shock. Her younger sister lights up, the gap in her teeth visible from the wide set of her grin.

“Really?” She asks excitedly, leaning forward with her hands clasped around her sister’s arm, using it to steady herself as she practically vibrates.

The taller of the two nudges her, throwing off the rhythm of her movements. “Oh! Thank you, your majesty.” Jinx curtsies, face still cracked in half in a wide, open grin.

“You must understand that this means you and your sister will be considered wards of the royal family. We expect you to act as accordingly.” The queen continues, a seriousness imposed in her voice. “It will take significant work for you to live up to these standards. Are you prepared to do as such?”

Jinx is nodding before the question is even finished, her face shining with palpable delight.

“I am, your majesty.”

Caitlyn can feel a smile pulling at her own lips in response to the obvious joy.

“And Vi,” the queen starts, Vi straightening up again in response. “Since you have demonstrated significant bravery, I believe you could provide some assistance outside of your job in the kitchens. If you’d be willing, that is.”

Vi’s eyes meet Caitlyn’s, something passing between the pair of strangers.

“My daughter has become quite… obstinate over the years. Seeing that she has managed to slip the careful watch of many of the crown’s guard, I feel a more hands on solution is required.”

Her heart stops in her throat, the princess’s eyebrows furrowing in suspicion.

“Your quick thinking today kept her safe. If you’d be willing, the crown’s guard could use someone like you in their ranks. And in the meantime, as you complete your training, you shall act as my daughter’s private guard to prevent any other… misdoings.”

The princess’s mouth drops open in outrage.

“I do not need a private guard.” She starts.

“You have proven that you very much do require one.” Her mother replies coolly, not turning her face away from the sisters.

“A guard, or a nursemaid?” She scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest and seething.

“You heed this solution, or we pull you from the Academy and have you work with tutors within the palace walls, where you can be monitored all hours of the day, since you’re so hellbent on escaping at any chance you get.”

Caitlyn’s jaw snaps shut, her tongue hot with the desire to respond. She and her mother stare at each other for a beat before finally she nods, a grim set to her mouth.

“What do you say, Vi?” Her father’s voice is kind in juxtaposition to her mother’s sharp words and commanding tone.

“Aye.” She bows, short pink hair sweeping her jaw, Cait watches the motion from the corner of her eye, seething. “It would be my honor.”

Caitlyn hates her immediately.

She refuses to speak to Vi for the first few weeks of their arrangement, simply for the principle of the matter.

Each morning, the guard meets her in the dining hall, bows to her, and the pair make their way to the Academy. She is a quiet girl, offering only neutral companionship despite the steely silence the princess offers in turn.

She is dressed now in typical squire attire, the worn clothes she was in upon their first meeting having been replaced by long shirts and fitted trousers, leather boots and a silver dagger across her hip.

Vi takes to her duties immediately, remaining unflappable and perpetually engaged. She sits, ramrod straight, eyes pointed forward where her vision is trained outside of the carriage window. Her deep blue eyes study the milling group of commoners they pass on their short carriage ride to the Academy, keenly observing the crowds that gather despite the early hour of their departure.

She is seemingly unbothered by the frost of the princess’s wrath in their brief stints of solitude, never once bringing it up as the weeks pass. She only speaks when spoken to, which is rare since Caitlyn had little desire to make conversation with a traitor.

Inevitably, the princess’s ice melts once they reach the campus of the great magical institute. Primarily, in direct response to Jinx’s bright, tinny voice ringing out across the great square leading up to the school’s entrance.

Each morning, the young girl waves with her whole body, winning smile across her face as she greets the princess with a curtsey, and her sister with a hug. Her joy is contagious, melting the princess’s sour attitude away with her ever-present enthusiasm.

Jinx had moved into the Academy dormitories, as was custom for most young students, rooming with other girls in her age group being educated within their walls. The distance seems to have affected the sisters, there being a softness in which they greet each other each day, and despite the passage of time, it does not dwindle.

Vi holds her sister like a lifeline for a few short seconds each morning, the pair separating only when Caitlyn would inevitably shift on her feet, feeling strangely put out by the intimacy of the sisters.

Despite the vehemence of Caitlyn’s disapproval, the days proceed nearly unchanged despite the addition of a private guard. Vi follows her course to course, finding a quiet corner to sit in until the lecture completes, trailing after her as little more than a shadow.

She seems bored, mostly, which the princess would agree with at least to some degree. The drawling of her professors is often dull to even her who has magic, let alone someone who does not.

“Have you no magic?” Caitlyn had demanded of her one afternoon, nearly a month into this arrangement.

The guard was unphased, shrugging briefly.

“None at all, your highness.”

Vi does, however, take a fascination to Caitlyn’s magical combat class. She sits forward, enraptured, eyes glued to the short instructor as they demonstrate spell weaving for defense and offense, as well taking a particular interest in the weaponry coursework they begin on a fortnight after this arrangement began.

Her steel blue eyes light up when she’s interested in something, and it’s like night and day compared to the normal somber expression that she wears on her face. The enthusiasm youthens her features, smoothing the fine lines on her brow and adding some color to her cheeks.

It proves to be a formidable distraction for the young princess. Her eyes wander to the corner of the room where the knight-in-training sits, leaning forward and listening intently to the near-monotonous drawl of her Professor Heimerdinger. Her gaze holds there, as if magnetized, at the impassioned expression the young woman holds.

Caitlyn’s friends are kind to Vi, if not somewhat cautious to the newcomer from the princess’s incessant complaining about her. She does so loudly, often, and within ear reach to the other teenager without care.

Jayce and Viktor alike are amused by her complaining, allowing the royal a fair degree of grace to adjust to her new sentence, having grown used to the newfound freedom she’d gained upon entry to the Academy.

They grow used to the new addition, eventually choosing to include her in discussions much to the princess’s chagrin. They whisper of schemes to break into restricted areas of the campus, how to steal potion ingredients, even how to sneak off campus as they both room in the boy’s dorms across the great grounds.

Vi is ever-professional, offering little in the wake of Jayce’s endless questioning, preferring instead to sit back and avoid conversation with the boisterous teen who remains undeterred despite the stone-faced responses he receives.

It gives Caitlyn some degree of relief, knowing her mischief would not be totally deterred by her guard. She seems only interested in her charge – to keep the princess safe, not necessarily out of trouble.

Vi, they find, is more willing to speak to Viktor, who is quiet and respectful, their conversations often too low for the princess to hear while preoccupied with the nonsense herself and Jayce find themselves in on the daily.

For a flash, Caitlyn finds herself envious of the quiet smile Vi would sometimes offer the Zaunite, her features broken open with the expression. She shakes this off, curling her lip at the idea of being concerned with her guard’s opinion of her, or lack thereof.

Several months into their arrangement, Vi changes their routine for the first time.

Each day, it was the same. They came to the school, she trailed after the princess through her classes, and they returned home.

They would part at the palace, Caitlyn to her private tutors or duties, and Vi to her training with the other squires. They would not see each other until the following morning, unless they happened to run across each other on the grounds.

Most days, they would exchange only a handful of words, stilted and unfamiliar despite the passage of time.

Never once had Vi seemed to take an active role in her studies, instead opting to regard the princess and her peers from the sidelines.

Until one afternoon.

It’s halfway through her combat practice, the class having taken to the vast sports grounds the school had on their campus. The midday light was almost too bright, the late winter sky unyieldingly blue with not a cloud in it to deter the path of sunlight.

Heimerdinger had challenged them with a particularly difficult combination of factors. Specifically, that they were to subdue an attacker using no magic, only a sword enchanted to cause no harm.

And that attacker was Jayce.

Caitlyn ached where she’d been physical with her classmates. Her muscles strained from swinging a heavy sword overhead, hands clumsy with pain as the hour drew onward.

Even with two of them on Jayce, they could not best him in battle.

Their instructor had long left them to their devices, having found himself amused for some time by their lack of conquest over the singularly skilled combat student in her class, and with no other coursework scheduled for that afternoon, the group of peers had tried and failed for the better part of three hours.

It was her third attempt at besting her friend, fatigue long setting into her tired joints, sweat sticking her hair to the back of her neck despite the chill in the air.

“Come on, princess, you can’t possibly be giving up already!” Jayce delights as he dodges another swing of her sword.

Despite the blades having magic to not inflict injury, nothing had been done to reduce the weight of the steel. The princess’s fingers ache with the strain of her hold on the handle, her wrists protesting with each swing and teeth-clattering meeting of their swords.

“I am more partial to archery,” She huffs out shortly, spinning to take another jab at him. He jumps back, graceful for all his boyishly long limbs, dodging her attack with ease. “And magic.” He grins at her, their swords clanking as they meet and he redirects her stab with a twist of his weapon.

She groans as it twirls from her grasp, falling to the grassy lawn below.

“I yield.” She raises her hands, huffing past the exertion.

“I am the champion once more!” He exclaims, raising his sword above his head in victory. It earns an annoyed jab in the side with her elbow, him grunting with shock and doubling over.

“Had I the build of a man, perhaps I would give you more of a challenge.”

He laughs, clapping her on the back in good nature, drawing her attention to the sweat that had pooled beneath her uniform shirt.

“I have no true competition here, my upbringing fed me many hours of combat practice with my friends and brothers. It was not a fair fight, princess Cait.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel better, you are not succeeding.” Cait drawls, unimpressed. She removes the wraps from her hands, fabric clinging to her skin as she unwinds it from her abused flesh.

“Have I any further challengers?” He asks the class, whom laid in the cool shade of the trees that line the academy campus. The shadow offers reprieve from the bright sun overhead, shielding the magical students who exude varying degrees of disinterest as the day draws near close.

He is rebuffed in his challenge, the class disinclined to fight a losing battle.

Vi is quiet where she sits away from the group, but her keen eyes watch as the princess approaches and sits heavily in the grass, still huffing a little from the exertion. Her hair is a mess, sticking to her sweaty face, which she attempts to tame with fingers clumsy from overuse. The muscles of her arms are sore, shaking as holds them aloft to comb through the ruined locks.

“I could…” The guard starts, stopping short after just a breath.

Caitlyn pauses, looking over to her in question. She hardly speaks, spending some days entirely silent save for greeting her sister when they arrived to campus.

“Yes?” The princess asks, raising an eyebrow toward her.

“If it pleases her highness, I could aid you in your studies.”

“What?”

The girl nods towards the field, and the swords left stored on a stand a few steps away.

“I have experience. I could aid you in your combat studies, if it be beneficial.”

“You know how to wield a sword?” She asks, quirking a brow at the girl.

“You do?” Jayce asks excitedly, having followed the princess to the shady patch of trees after ridding himself of his weapon.

Vi startles a moment at his booming tone.

“Aye,” She nods, hesitantly.

“Well then, you must battle me!” He exclaims.

“Jayce!” She hisses.

“What, she will be fine. The swords are enchanted to draw no blood.” He reasons. “What say you, Ser Vi, up for a match?”

“She is not yet knighted,” Caitlyn grumbles.

Jayce ignores her, positively beaming with the opportunity to go up against a worthier opponent. She huffs, waving off the questioning gaze offered to her by her guard.

“Go ahead.” The princess approves in a bored tone, settling back against the tree she’d selected to lean against and feigning disinterest with her arms crossed over her chest.

Truth be told, she had some questions about the girl, though she’d never admit to it. She was curious how capable she was at deterring her escapes.

“Perhaps the match would provide some insight into her capabilities. It would be useful to know exactly how cunning she is if I ever hoped to outsmart her,” She reasons mentally, eyes trailing toward the pair.

They’re nearly the same height, Jayce still lanky in his youth, and Vi tall for a girl. Though not as tall as the princess herself, standing an inch or two shorter than Caitlyn when she isn’t slouching in protest to their proximity.

Their swords glint in the afternoon light, shiny from polishing, a task the match losers must complete before returning the blades to their stands.

Vi raises her own with ease, her hands wrapped neatly in white fabric to stave off irritation from the friction. She swings it once, then again, testing the weight as it slices cleanly through the air with a swishing sound.

“Ready?” Jayce calls, lifting his own blade in challenge. The princess can see his beaming smile even from steps away, practically vibrating with excitement.

The guard nods, a determined set her brow.

Something in her expression makes the princess lean forward, settling up against her bent knees and squinting at the pair.

Jayce leads with the first move. He’s fast, pulling forward the few steps that separate them to jab at the guard. She slides easily to the side, avoiding the first swing with a divergence of her body.

Vi pulls her own blade down as she passes, Jayce only just moving in time to block the swing. The ‘clank’ of the metal is loud where it rings across the court.

Her classmates sit forward too, intrigued by the match immediately. The princess watches them clamber against each other out of the corner of her eye. It sets her on edge a bit, for a reason she can’t quite place.

The second meeting of metal is louder still, more force from the blade that any of the class had managed. It makes Caitlyn blink in shock, watching as Vi turns and slams her sword into Jayce’s, using the strength of it to press him back a step.

He’s absolutely delighted by it, she can tell. Sweat has begun to sprout from his brow, the tanned skin shiny with the exertion. His teeth are large where he still smiles.

He pulls back and turns fully, swinging in a long ark to the side, his blade slicing through the air quickly.

Vi catches this with her own, using the momentum to swing the sword up and over their heads. The suddenness of it causes the weapon to twist of his grasp, landing behind the pair.

The girl steps forward, blade poised at his neck with her elbows bent. Her eyes are keen, unblinking as she stares up him from the slight crouch in her position, the pair frozen for a moment as the match comes to a sudden close.

Caitlyn feels her mouth part, eyes focusing on the brightness of the Vi’s blue eyes, the color standing out despite their distance apart.

Something in the expression sets a burning low in her stomach.

The class sits in shocked silence for a thread of seconds.

Jayce raises his hands.

“I yield.” He says, grinning still.

The students erupt in noise, pressing forward onto the court to crowd around the pair.

Vi immediately takes a step back, looking surprised by the attention. Her eyes had widened in shock, but Caitlyn can’t shake her last expression from her memory.

It had been so calculating and determined, like a predator upon their prey. It was unlike anything the princess ever seen.

“Where did you learn that!” One of her peers is asking, enlivened by the match, when the princess approaches the crowd, the last of the class to do so.

“I, it-” The guard fumbles. She looks around helplessly, eyes settling on the princess when she comes to stand by their side.

“I would also like to know that.” Caitlyn offers, eyebrows raised in question. “Surely, a few short months with the crown’s guard did not dispose such great skill upon you.”

It’s a bit of a dig at the other teenager, the guard’s eyes sliding away from the princess’s harsh gaze.

“My… father was insistent on us learning combat.” Vi finally offers, rubbing the back of her neck in a show of discomfort. Her face is a little flushed, perhaps with embarrassment, though there is the slight glisten of sweat on her brow from the match.

“You must spare with me more often!” Jayce exclaims.

“I am not sure I can,” She shrugs, gaze sliding to Caitlyn once more.

She wrinkles her nose in annoyance, unsure of why.

“Come on, princess Cait! I have no other opponents, perhaps she can help all of us learn enough to impress Heimerdinger!”

The class all turn to face her, eyes bright at the notion.

“Fine.” She concedes, rolling her eyes at their delight in her agreeance.

It’s all anyone can talk about for the rest of the week, the news of Vi’s show traveling quickly through the Academy. Instead of her guard seemingly dissolving into the background of each classroom, her peers seek her out with their attention and questions. It obviously makes the girl uncomfortable, shifting quietly and often refusing to answer even the most surface level inquiry.

On their journey back to the palace the following combat training day, Caitlyn sits with a begrudging feeling of accomplishment. She had managed to best another of their classmates that day, only after her guard had spent a handful of moments showing her how to shift her weight to her advantage.

Her quiet contemplation is interrupted before they reach the palace gates.

“Thank you,” Vi murmurs quietly out of the blue.

“Whatever for?” She drawls.

“For allowing me to train with you, and your friends… It has been a long time since I was- since I could do something of that nature.”

Her expression still appears guarded when the princess looks over at her, but her eyes have a light in them that the princess can only place as gratitude.

Caitlyn hums, then shrugs and returns her gaze out of the carriage window at the passing street.

“It is no matter, it will hopefully aid in boosting our marks anyhow.”

“I am glad to be of assistance, your highness.”

A grudging tolerance blooms between the teenagers.

Vi was of great assistance in mastery of combat, offering corrective queues and nonjudgmental advice despite the shocking lack of skill the class possesses. Caitlyn’s classmates like her immediately, much to the princess’s chagrin, their enthusiasm to include the other girl is grating against her continued resistance to enjoy her guard’s company.

She has to admit that Vi has the ability to be charming, especially when she’s teaching. She moves with a confidence that few among them possessed.

She was witty, amusing even, with a quickness to her words that her peers delight in. More than once the princess had been drawn to the sound of laughter only to find Vi at the center of it, a bemused expression on her face after making the students titter with some story or anecdote.

The guard seems to know of her charge’s dislike of her, never speaking out of turn when alone with the young royal despite the familiarity she had gained among her peers.

It makes her seethe initially, with a jealousy she feels hesitant to admit.

Eventually, though, the princess manages to wrangle her emotions, and with it, the brattish quality to her behavior simmers until it finally is smothered out.

A season passes, her marks in combat improve tremendously, as do those of the entire class.

By the time of Caitlyn’s next birthday in the chill of December, the pair had at last come to terms with the arrangement at hand in something more than a weary acceptance of their sentences.

Instead of steely silence and sharp words, the two exist in quiet understanding of their positions. The future Queen of Piltover, and the guard charged to protect her, if only in exchange for her sister’s education and safety.

With their, mostly one-sided, feud resolved, a new challenge instead awaited the young princess.

The passage of time ensured that she was careening ever closer to adulthood, the weight of her future making itself known upon the discussion of her crowning. As the sole heir of the vast realm of Piltover, it was custom for her to be crowned in her twenties, something she grew ever closer to now that her teen years were approaching their end.

However, a single provision stood in her way of her throne.

“Suitors?” Caitlyn exclaims, outraged by the very prospect. “I have barely passed seven and ten, who could possibly be asking my hand already?”

Silvermist whinnies loudly at her outburst, the princess having dug her heels into the filly’s flank harshly. Her feathers ruffle, the two taking an odd pitch to the right in their flight before Caitlyn managers to pull her reigns back steady.

The pegasus shakes her head, a show of irritation at her rider, before galloping back toward where the Queen and her own steed had not wavered from their course in the clouds.

“I was married to your father at eight and ten,” Her mother states, unimpressed by the outburst, looking down at her daughter from her higher path. “You are acting as if I am suggesting something outlandish. We have delayed your debutante for a year already, and the other kingdoms grow suspicious of your absence.”

Caitlyn can feel the scrunch of her brows as she regards her mother with scrutiny.

She had received letters.

Letters from suitors.

People she had nary met nor known in any capacity who were asking for her hand in marriage.

She can feel her expression twist in distaste at the very idea of marrying someone she had little knowledge of.

“It is high time to consider the expectations put upon you.” Cassandra continues after the silence stretches a beat longer.

The wind wisps by their faces, their hair tossed by the cool breeze of the higher atmosphere, let loose from their bounds of braids and heavy crowns.

Her mother’s hair is nearly pure black, but stripes of silver had twined into the ink starting some years previous. Caitlyn’s indigo comes from her father’s side, his hair having had a bluish hue in his youth, gone now by the salt age had added.

“I have no desire for it,” Caitlyn states, sounding all the bit like the petulant child she refused to consider herself any longer. Her brow is set in annoyance, a little line appearing between them as she glowers down at the cloud-line below. Through the sparseness she can see the dotting of snowy mountain tops, and the catch of pink as the sun began its descent down beyond the horizon.

“Perhaps currently you do not, but in time you must marry. It is advantageous to keep updated knowledge of who is included in the currently eligible list of nobility, so that you may best select a suitor. You have received several letters already, and you are expected to respond to them even if you have no plan to pursue them. Though I urge you to be kind in your rejections.”

“Whatever for?”

“Diplomacy,” The queen drawls, unimpressed by her daughter’s tantrum, shooting her a look from her slightly higher flight path. “They are our allies, we must ensure we keep our relations in place above all else. Snubbing a suitor could result in a war.”

“Dramatic.” The princess snarks. Silvermist huffs loudly as if in agreement, drawing a slight grin to the princess’s lips.

“Wars have been fought for far less.” Queen Cassandra replies just as quickly. “Beyond that, we are hosting your debutant in a month’s time. Each of these potential suitors, and many more even will be invited.”

“A month?” She tries not to scream it.

“Oh hush, you will be fine. You have been preparing for this for years.”

“I wish you had given me some warning.” She mumbles, pulling the reins in her hands taught and urging her filly forward. The grey pegasus overtakes her mother, galloping through the clouds as the pair make their way back toward the castle.

They are both sweating when they land, though Caitlyn’s face is flushed with the cold. Her hands ache as she removes the saddle from her horse, waving the stable hands away despite their protests.

“Your expected matrimony has been no secret.”

“It has not,” the princess concedes, not turning to face her mother. The echo of her pegasus’s hooves are loud on the stable floors, the sound of her shaking her wings out breaking the otherwise quiet of their grounds.

The other pegasus shimmy in greeting, moving themselves to the edges of their stalls to stick their heads out toward the queen and her mare.

“It is expected of you,” Cassandra says softly. “It will not be so bad. Your father and I agree that you may select anyone that interests you, within reason. It is more freedom than most receive.”

“And yet it feels like I am being sentenced for some crime I have not committed.” She mutters, but she turns towards her mother and allows herself to be drawn into her embrace.

She is taller than her now, by a few inches at least, yet she feels like a little girl in queen’s hold. They share the same slim frame and high arched brows, their faces nearly mirrors of each other, except the shape of her eyes. That is from her father.

One day, she will ascend the throne, and her mother will retire. The remainder of her days would likely be filled advising her daughter, until the time of her death. They are never free from the pressures of the crown.

Kirammans know their duties to the kingdom, and Caitlyn is no exception.

“The crime of nobility,” Her mother muses gently. “It is a challenge to accept, sharing your life with another. But, this is not an expectation you can put off forever, Caitlyn. If you wish to claim your throne, you must be betrothed.”

Truly, the only time Caitlyn has to herself in her long days of studying, preparing for her future rulership, and attempting to keep up with appearances, is when she trounces around the castle in her feline form.

As soon as her attendants have closed the door to her chambers, she will throw aside her robes and blankets, and stretch her arms up into the air. Changing after years of doing so is as easy as breathing, her body folding into the little cat with a quick curling forward of her limbs and a whisper of golden magic.

She always shimmies this lithe body, adjusting herself in the new skin as she feels her soul settle into the little bones of the feline. It is a shape she wears well, that brings her comfort. There is no foreignness in this, not now.

Her feet make no noise as she hops from the stone floors of her chambers up into the wide shelf below her chamber windows and outward into the night.

She will leap from balcony to balcony until she can lower herself to the gardens.

In summer, she pounces on lightening bugs as they dance through the vast grounds of the Kiramman palace.

In winter, she rolls in the fresh powder snow, letting it chill her to her core.

Some days, she spies on the castle staff. The maids gossip in the halls. Marta trades pastries for tobacco from the head of the crown’s guard. The stable hands cheat at games of cards. The knights not on duty often leave early in the evening, and return stumbling and reeking of ale.

No one pays attention to her as a cat, letting her roam in and out easily through the rooms and halls, never the wiser to her presence, let alone her identity.

Vi once, shockingly awake despite a particularly late hour, tries to bribe her with bits of jerky to come close. She kneels on the palace floors, hand outstretched with the offered gift, eyes kind and patient as she murmurs lowly to the little cat.

Caitlyn can’t help but think she looks ridiculous, nearly rolling her eyes at the display before she hisses and scampers off.

It doesn’t deter the guard from trying each time she is in company with the cat, even as the months continue with no change to her behavior.

She is, for perhaps one of the first times since this arrangement with Vi had been instated over a year previous, alone within the Academy walls. She sits within the vast library, by a large window that beckons in the almost too-bright color of winter sunlight, eyes trained out to the snow topped mountains surrounding the school.

Her notes lie useless in front of her, having been discarded since the moment she’d been left on her own by her classmate. Her guard had requested the afternoon with her sister, having checked multiple times that the princess did not plan to abscond from the campus without her at the first moment she turns her back.

It hadn’t even crossed her mind until the accusatory way the knight-in-training had asked it, keen eyes narrowed suspiciously. The princess waved her off, giving Vi her word she would not leave the campus grounds while the sisters spent some time together.

She could have, she realizes, but somehow the quiet of an afternoon in isolation was more appealing. It was rare that she was left on her own in the daylight, her eyes trailing over the snow in an almost meditative manner.

It was nearly spring, but the cold of winter refused to leave the air. Stubborn clouds rolled overhead, sprinkling down fat flakes of snow that drift to the earth below.

The Academy was warm, fires glowing in each room to stave off the frigid air, but she can feel it clawing through the glass of the window only feet from her.

Her train of thought derails from a familiar call.

“Princess Cait!” The young woman in question tilts her head to the side, eyes sliding away from the window to rest on the lopsided form of her Zaunite friend.

“Hello Viktor,” She greets, a little smile playing on her lips. He’s slightly disheveled, which is quite the norm, leaning heavily on his cane with a bright look of excitement on his gaunt features.

“You simply must come to the grounds and see what Jinx has managed!”

“Jinx?” She asks, leaving her items strung across the library table, the chair screeching upon the stone floors as she pushes it away. He leads her through the doors of the library, murmuring in quiet excitement all the way.

“Yes, your ward has done quite well for herself. She has a knack for invention!”

“She is more my parents’ ward than mine.” The princess offers uselessly, her long coat swirling behind her as she pulls the ties closed on her midsection. Though the school had their emblems placed upon each of the students coats and robes, she had the Kiramman crest adorning the black fabric.

Two pegasus, one black, one white, stand facing from each other and reared up on their hindlegs, the feathers of their wings spread together. Fine curls of bronze leaves cradle them, winding to frame the pair.

The practice grounds are covered in uneven layers of snow, the ice having melted and frozen over and over again as the long months of winter persisted. The labyrinth of great hedges at the far end of blanketed by the powder, leaves obscured entirely from the brightness of the overcast day.

There is a small group of individuals gathered there, Caitlyn immediately recognizing her guard’s pink crop of hair. She's looking down to her younger sister, who is chattering excitedly with a handful of other students.

The group, of which Viktor is an occasional member, is known for their tinkering, some fine geniuses in the ways of spell-making and experimentation. Often, they’d roped the young princess into their explorations of magic, the royal incapable of resisting the temptation of discovery.

It had gotten her in trouble often in her earlier years at the school, but she’d become quite good at covering her tracks since then.

“Princess Cait!” The young girl practically jumps with joy, her smile infectious, Caitlyn mirroring back to her. Her face is ruddy from the cold, freckles standing out against the warm color.

“Hello Jinx, Viktor tells me you’ve managed something quite extraordinary.”

The princess feels her breath lodge in her throat when her eyes fall to her guard. The look that had overtaken Vi’s features is breathtaking. She stares at her sister with a softness only the very starting threads of sunlight in the morning would compare to, gentle and warm in a way her features had rarely arranged themselves before.

“Let me show you!” Jinx interrupts the internal dialogue, drawing the royal back to the younger students who whips around in the snow and walks a handful of paces away. She feels eyes on her, but refuses to acknowledge whatever expression her guard is sending her way.

Jinx’s magic is bright purple, taking on the form of bolts where it draws from her palms upon her command. It’s a brilliant color, similar to Viktor’s and only one other student at the Academy that the princess had seen some years beneath them.

Caitlyn nearly shouts with shock when the sparkling rivets of magic bend together under the girl’s command, forming into the shape of a fish.

It swims upward into the skies, reaching nearly to the clouds. The group is awed, their hands pressed over their brows in an attempt to stave off the brightness of the sky they stare openly towards.

The fish twirls, rolls, and then explodes in a fiery swirl. The taste of magic makes its way to her parted lips, ozone sharp on her tongue. Caitlyn’s eyes glitter in awe, watching the sparks fall gently towards the earth among the snowfall.

“Jinx,” she starts, “Where did you learn this?”

The girl looks not at all guilty when she turns towards her, her face bright and open. There is mischief in those eyes, something Caitlyn has seen on herself more than once.

“Oh, I learned about it from a friend.”

Viktor looks just as playful.

The princess looks between the pair, something passing through her thoughts in an instant.

They look similar, she realized.

Skin pale, though the sisters have numerous freckles where Viktor had only a handful of moles on his body she’d observed.

Despite the difference in their hair colors, there was something about the sharpness of their features that looked like kinship, perhaps cousins.

Vi is watching her when she flicks her eyes towards the guard to compare her against her friend’s features.

It makes her look away just as quickly, the feeling of being caught rolling through her stomach.

She wants to ask. It feels within her right to ask.

But as the younger girl falls into conversation with the rest of their peers, chattering excitedly about the other shapes she plans to attempt, the words die on her tongue.

Though they do not slip from her mind.

The castle is eerily silent with the late hour. Moonlight trails through the tall windows of one of the many parlors, blanketing the floor in bright white stripes of light that cut sharply from the darkness that fills the room.

The only other light is dancing from the burning fireplace, the flames licking upward and effortless in their jumps and spins.

The same cannot be said for the room’s sole occupant.

Caitlyn moans in frustration, her hands scrubbing over her face. It’s the umpteenth time she’d fumbled over a simple waltz in a handful of hours of trying, her feet aching with the effort of her actions.

Her skin feels tacky from the day’s grime; despite the late hour, she had yet to bathe. Her feet have a low dull set through the arches, the harsh cold of the palace floor seeping through the thin stockings she wears. Her shoes laid forgotten in a haphazard arrangement steps away.

The attendants had long left her to her devices, gone to bed one by one until only a guard remained at the far hallway, out of her line of sight and hopefully earshot.

“Okay,” she mutters, steeling herself once more. Her shoulders right, drawing upward and back as she lifts her arms to rest on an invisible partner.

The princess hums out a simple four beat tune, her feet pressing forward, then back, then forward again. The softness of her song evaporates quickly in the largeness of the parlor, the sound swallowed by the stillness of the night.

It’s not until the second score that she finds challenge, stumbling where she would be expected to twirl outward, and then twist back in at the beckon of whatever partner she took. Her toes curl under the wobbling she takes, heel digging in harshly to stop her stumble.

It so happened that a majority of the lessons she’d skipped in the years of her rebellious youth were those that stressed the importance of dance and music for young royals to perform.

It felt frivolous, and somewhat insulting, to spend the hours she desired to fill with learning and exploration with shallow hobbies of the arts she had little skill for.

Caitlyn curses, spinning on her heel and stopping short when it feels wrong. Her hair, long and loose since pulled from its day styling, sweeps across her shoulders and comes to rest like a cape over her scapulae.

“Your highness?”

Caitlyn startles at the low tone, body jumping in surprise and head turning to face the bewildered expression of her guard.

“Vi?” She mumbles, eyebrows narrowing. “Why are you still awake at such an hour?”

“I just finished training,” she states, taking another few steps into the great parlor Caitlyn had taken for her practice space. She holds a lantern in one hand, the light playing over her freckled cheeks as she approaches. “I… noticed you were not in your chambers.”

“I don’t believe my parents requested you check on me all hours of the night.” She sniffs, crossing her arms across her chest. Truthfully, she feels quite humiliated, curious if the young knight had seen her fumbling attempts at ballroom dancing.

“No, my liege.” She drawls, something in her tone making the princess bristle further. “Though I assume they would like to know your general whereabouts at such an hour.”

“Well, if you must know, I am woefully underprepared for the ball this weekend.” The princess admits, shocking herself in the process. Perhaps the late hour had loosened the truth from her lips. Her face warms.

“And since the castle is asleep, I wanted to take advantage of a larger space than that in my chambers, away from prying eyes.” She ends pointedly, glancing from the knight to the open doors as if to usher her away.

“Ah,” the knight intones, placing her lantern on one of the tables lining the couches in the sitting area. “I… do not fancy dancing, but I do know a few steps.”

“You do?” She can hear the disbelief in her tone.

Vi’s pink hair shifts with the motion of her nod. Her facial expression seems to suggestion she’s annoyed at Caitlyn’s shock, but it quickly smooths from her features.

“If… If you would please her highness, I could aid. It is easier with a partner, after all.”

Cait bites her lip for a moment, considering.

Vi glances at her feet, shifting to slip off her boots that shine in the firelight, damp from the snow outside. She steps towards the princess, holding out her hand.

Her eyes stay locked on her abandoned shoes, her thoughts reeling.

Though they warred no longer, their relationship was that of a castle employee and a ruler. Distant, and unfamiliar, despite the hours they spend together.

She hesitates to agree to such a thing, feeling some invisible thread holding her back from the young woman’s offered hand.

Caitlyn has less than 48 hours to learn these dances lest she humiliate herself in front of her court, suitors, and every ally to the great realm of Piltover.

The imagined thread snaps easily in her decision.

When her hand brushes Vi’s, a little prickle of warmth trails down her wrist and spreads upward to her torso. She suppresses a shiver, instead swallowing and steadfastly looking down to where their feet are positioned.

Vi’s hand at her waist is heavy in a way she wasn’t expecting it to be. The skin of her palm is rough compared to Caitlyn’s. There’s a little dirt under her nailbeds, likely from the training grounds, her hair somewhat windswept and unruly.

Her shoulder is warm under Caitlyn’s other hand, the threads of her shirt somewhat humid as if she’d been exerting herself.

“Are you in training this late?” She asks, eyes locked on her feet as she moves her right foot forward and Vi responds with stepping back.

“Aye.”

She grimaces in annoyance when she steps on Vi’s foot during a turn, the guard huffing a laugh but not commenting as she turns the princess again.

“You shouldn’t watch your feet.” Vi offers after another fumbling press of their feet together. “You will only see where your feet fall, not where they should go next.”

“Oh, and who made you so wise?” She snarks back without heat, but she does obediently trail her eyes upward, and over the knight’s shoulder as they step into a simple rhythm. Her palm is becoming sweaty where it’s placed in Vi’s, their proximity horrifically, invigoratingly new.

She doesn’t get an answer, but after a moment more, Caitlyn realizes she’s actually successfully performed the series of steps she’d been fumbling over.

They practice further. In time, it feels natural to pace into the dance despite the lack of music. The pair of them move easily throughout the room, spinning in the quiet of the library so late at night.

When they finish, the princess sighs. It’s as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, her concerns about her debutante ball quelled just a touch by mastering at least one of the skills she’d be expected to know and perform in the coming days.

She wonders distantly if Vi could teach her to patience, so that she does not cut any of her suitors on the quickness of her tongue.

“You are but a year older than I,” Caitlyn says aloud, taking a sip from her goblet at watching as Vi does the same in the quiet of their rest. Not even, really, only nine months between their ages.

They had taken a seat across each other in front of the fire, opposite couches poised to face one another. The wine is warm and spiced, holding heat in their bellies as they drink it.

“Aye, princess.”

“How is it you’ve learned so much in just eight and ten years? Sword handling, dancing. What other talents do you hold a secret?”

“I have lived a life,” She shrugs, toying with the cup instead of looking at the princess.

“I would like to know about it.” She ventures, tilting her head in an attempt to capture the knight-in-training’s line of sight.

She avoids it.

“Perhaps another time, your highness.”

“Vi,” she deadpans. “Will you tell me nothing of yourself?”

“There is not much to tell.”

“You are lying.”

The guard sighs, shoulders drooping as if under a great weight.

“I am the crowned heir of Piltover, yet you deny me something I request?” Caitlyn sits forward, eyebrows drawn in confusion. Vi swallows, the princess watching the dip of her throat in the firelight.

“I… would deny you nothing, your highness. But-”

“But?”

“I.” She pauses again. Her eyes are jumping from Cait’s hands to the corner of the room. “Please, princess. I request that you allow me some secrets.”

Caitlyn stares at her hard, watching her expression with a keen eye.

Vi looks nervous, more than she’d ever seen her. She wonders, for a moment, if she pushed further she’d be given what she wants.

It was illegal for knights to deny their rulers of anything, even a passing dalliance like this conversation.

She would be well within her rights as the princess to demand answers, and even expel her for denying her such.

Something in that thought sours on her tongue, the thought of dragging secrets from someone instead of being gifted them openly.

“Alright.” She concedes, sitting back once more. The guard nods, meeting her eye for a moment before she stands and offers a short bow.

“Goodnight, my liege. I will see you on the morrow.”

“Goodnight,” She offers distantly, watching the woman go with quiet steps. The light from her lantern grows dimmer as she turns down the hallway and out of view.

The hollowness of the halls feels comparable to the somewhat empty sensation within her chest.

Caitlyn had, thus far, managed to not make a fool of herself at her own debutante. She’d been introduced to more people than she’d ever seen in her entire life, and managed to not forget even a single one’s name despite the challenge in the number of them.

She could barely breathe in the tightly fitted dress that had been specially tailored to someone perhaps thinner than her if the fit had any suggestion. It was beautiful, deep blue in color and intricately designed with dripping stones and dark lacing, the bodice tight against her waist that had been cinched small with corseting.

Despite that, she’d managed to dance with relative success, even partaking in the group numbers that required much more spinning and twirling than she felt comfortable doing.

She had barely a drop to eat all night, finally stealing a moment away from the party if only to gulp down a goblet of wine she snagged from their many attendants, stealing away into the gardens.

The doors had been open to allow the early spring air to flow into the ballroom, a spell used to keep the chill of the night’s air to a minimum.

After she passes the barrier, her breath wisps out in tendrils of gentle smoke in the coldness that permeates the mountain air. She shivers, but welcomes the reprieve from the nearly too-warm environment of great roaring fire and torchlight.

Her shoes crunch softly in the slush adorning the walkways of the guarded, the princess taking care to step down each stair fully as to not slip in the stubborn powder that had yet to melt fully despite the spring month.

The music is loud even here, the strings serenading the night with beautiful melodies that weaving into the stillness of night. The sound of her dress jingles along with the tune, the fine little crystals that had been sewn into the rich blue fabric tinkling along with her movements. She feels, all at once, very at peace in a manner she hadn’t the entire evening.

The wine on her lips is dry, pulling on her tongue as she finishes the goblet and toys with the rim as she continues her walk around the gardens towards the darkened archways of their grounds.

She nearly screams when a callus hand wraps around her arm, where her gown had left her upper arms bare. Her breath is stolen when she is pressed backward a handful of steps, her feet moving quickly on the snowy pavement to keep up with the hurried motion of her captor until her back makes contact with the palace wall.

It is freezing, shocking her to her core, a horrible feeling in her stomach until her eyes catch in the wisps of borrowed firelight from the windows, pink hair.

She tries to move against her guard, struggling against the hold over her shoulder that keeps her exposed upper back pressed against the frigid stone behind her.

Vi had never dared to touch her in this manner, almost harshly, having little regard for her comfort. She isn’t even looking at the princess, her eyes thrown over her shoulder toward the opposite direction of the entrance to the gardens she’d come through.

Annoyance flares within her, slapping the other girl’s hand from her arm with a sharp noise.

Vi looks at her incredulously, as if she’s the one being unreasonable.

“How dare you!” She hisses, yelping when a wide palm is pressed to her mouth, effectively cutting off the words she was prepared to spurn.

Indignation follows her shock.

“I am attempting to help you, you stubborn-” Vi cuts herself off with a short noise of frustration, shifting to press them further back into the shadows cast by the palace walls, falling into the stone walls with a harsh ‘thump’ that sends another shiver of cold through the royal.

Caitlyn nearly screeches under the hand holding her mouth, her face ablaze with an emotion she refuses to place and instead focusing on the boundless degree of fury that swells within her.

“Someone was following you.” The guard urges, tone subdued where it’s whispered against her ear.

“Was it not you?” She thinks, petulantly, her face burning hot despite the rest of her growing cold.

“No, it was someone else, one of your guests I think.”

She’s struck silent at the response, peering queerly at the guard for a moment. Her head is turned away, facing out once more into the gardens that are darkened by the late hour. The light from the palace windows streams over the grounds in long columns, breaking up the darkness into a pattern of irregular stripes that drip into the distance and the tree line further out past the garden walls.

After a beat of silence, the princess’s anger growing in temperature by the second, there is the subtle sound of footsteps approaching that leads her breath catch in her throat.

The pair are well hidden in the shadows, despite the glittering blue of her gown and the stark white of Vi’s formal clothes. Their bodies pressed back where the lines of stories-tall hedging split, offering them a glimpse into the gardens proper from the angle at which they part.

Vi is facing toward this sound, eyes peeled wide and unblinking.

A familiar frame steps into their line of sight, Jayce looking wobbly in his drunkenness. Even in the nightfall she can make out the stumbling quality of his gait, his fine clothes rumpled from dancing, face broken out in a wide grin characteristic of his inebriation.

His suit was well tailored, the rich fabric white and gold and cut to show the width his shoulders had broadened in just the past few months.

“Viktor?” He calls out, a slur to his voice, his footing slipping on the snow laden stone of the walkway, his arms twirling around him at the threat of injury. He is able to steady himself before he falls, though she can see the slight shiver of his shoulders as he laughs at his own antics.

Caitlyn watches as Vi’s frame relax a fraction, the princess seizing the opportunity to rip her hand off of her mouth with a harsh, freezing grip around her wrist.

“It is only Jayce, you massive git.” She hisses, catching the slight eye roll that her guard responds with. She steps back, letting Caitlyn brush past her, poised to call out to her friend who had wandered just past their hiding spot towards another entrance.

A shadow moving to her right stops the words in her throat, fear seizing hot and sharp in her chest.

A flash of silver bolts from the light cast from the palace windows, blinding in its intensity as it bounces from the surface of a blade. The princess stares at the reflection of it as it moves from her periphery, feeling time slow in to a crawl.

Her hand throws out a string of gleaming, gold-tinged fire in an instant, fingers flickering with magic in her haste to conjure the flames that burst to life under her command.

The heat licks forward, prompting a sharp yelp from a deep voice, the figure illuminated by their clothes catching in the magicked flames. They are masked, clad in dark clothing, their eyes the only part of them exposed to the darkness of the grounds.

His eyes are deep and endless, nearly black in color. Despite his muffled yelling from the burn of the fire, he watches her unblinkingly, his gaze intense.

Fear is an unfamiliar taste, but it cloys at her.

His frame is huge, standing at least a foot taller than her, with broadness obscured in his dark clothes, his hand still clasping a curved dagger that shines in the firelight.

Caitlyn feels caught in his gaze, rage building in the dark irises.

It’s as if she’d frozen to the ground, heart in her throat, hand still pose with gold glittering on her fingertips. Her magic waits for her command, brimming at the surface of her fingers.

The dark eyes are horrifying in their hollowness.

She flinches back when in an instant, there is an arching movement from her right. Vi had stuck the weapon from the assassin’s hand with a twist of her blade, the curved knife falling to the lawn they stand on, the snow swallowing the sound of its drop.

She’s faster than Caitlyn can see, the guard moving to sweep the assassin’s feet from beneath him, the heavy form making contact ground with a great noise, his body immediately writhing as the flames scorch him.

“Princess Cait!” Jayce exclaims, his voice too loud in alarm.

Time moves again.

She’s breathing hard, waving her hand to dispel the flames before they eat through to the skin. Vi flips the vast form of the man onto his belly and bears her knees down onto his back, her hands unkind in the hold they press onto the assassin’s wrists.

The princess feels far away, watching the guard speak in a harsh, clipped tone towards her drunken friend, his form starting to shake with the sudden rush of adrenaline.

She can’t hear a word they’re saying, eyes still caught down at the man’s form, his body writhing underneath the pin Vi has on him, a low growl coming from his throat.

It’s like she can still feel his eyes on her despite his gaze being pressed into the snow beneath him. Coldness sweeps her from within, having nothing to do with the chilled spring air.

The crown’s guard descends into the gardens seemingly instantaneously, having spotted the flames from their vantage points on the castle’s exterior walls, the sounds of their armor loudly clanking as they draw toward the four figures clad in darkness.

Jayce presses his hand over her shoulder, warm against the cold skin, providing a grounding point of contact for the panic that burns alight in her system. Her eyes watch, entranced, as her guard is replaced by two knights who wrangle the man into chains.

Her heart is pounding, waiting for the instant his dark eyes reach hers again. She can’t breathe almost in the anticipation.

Their guests have come to see the commotion, flooding out into the poorly lit gardens, the snow crunching under their rich shoes and dampening the hems of their expensive skirts. The formation of a crowd brings with them her parents, rushing through the gaping observers towards their shocked daughter.

Her line of sight to the assassin is broken by the slight of her mother’s frame.

“Caitlyn!” Her father gathers her in his arms, something that may have annoyed her at any other points of the evening but something she welcomes now. She is shaking from head to toe, trembling as her body swings wildly from adrenaline to panic to attempting to logic through the series of what had just occurred.

The crowd murmurs, their voices bleeding together into nonsensical background noise as she curls into her father’s embrace and tries to steady her breathing. Her mother’s slim fingers on her shoulder further ground her.

Distantly, she hears Cassandra’s commanding tone order the guests back inside as they perform a full sweep of the castle and grounds to ensure their safety.

When her eyes finally focus once more, she’s sitting in one of the palace’s most private chambers, in the innermost ward of the stronghold. The winding path of underground tunnels it takes to get to these spaces are so difficult to track, it is easy to become lost in the near endless tunnels that provide secret passages and endless exits for the royal family and their court.

Her father is seated beside her, his arm around her shoulders and drawing her to him. He smells of woodfire and earth, the vegetal quality of his scent soothing in its familiarity.

Jayce is there, looking wide-eyed and pale, and horribly sober, as he makes eye contact with her from his place across the chamber. He’s sitting heavily on his hands, looking smaller than he actually is, the couch beneath him red in color making him look oddly pale in the flicker of firelight against the rich color.

“Are you alright?” She asks, concern in her hoarse voice.

“Am I alright? Cait, there was an assassin at your debutante!” His volume is too loud in the stillness room, nearly echoing off the walls.

For a moment, there is only the crackling of fire. Distantly, she can hear feet outside their doors. Something uneasy rolls in her stomach.

“I. Yes, I am aware.” Caitlyn replies hesitantly, unsure of how else to respond. Her friend’s eyes search her face, flitting over her features in a buzzing fashion. He seems wildly distressed, some unbalanced component to his expression that leaves the princess feeling off-kilter in response.

One thing she had always admired about her friend was his endlessly sunny disposition, even at the face of discouragement. He was nothing if not positive.

It was horrible to see him so shaken, looking all the bit as if the assassin had succeeded rather than been stopped.

They both jump when a knock comes to the thick wooden door, a knight who had been silently standing in the corner of the chamber moving to open the entryway after a brief exchange of words through the heavy wood.

Cait realizes there are several, perhaps a dozen guards in the entirety of this small space, standing in the shadows cast by the fire.

When her eyes finish flickering nervously to count them all, they come to rest on the familiar frame of her guard.

Vi appears nearly unfazed, a mask of neutrality place familiarly over her angular features. But, Caitlyn can spot a set to her brow that is harsh. It makes her look older, darkening her eyes and making more severe the circles beneath them.

“Vi,” her father speaks for the first time, his tone quiet and soothing, beckoning the guard into the room further with a gentle motion. His other hand stays firmly on her shoulders, a warm point of contact on her clammy skin.

“Your majesty,” she offers a short bow, “The assassin has been contained in the palace dungeons. He is to be transported to the jail at the edge of Piltover in the morn. His bore a blade of Shuriman origin, but that is the only identifier he held. He is refusing to speak.”

There is a beat where Caitlyn feels far away again. She stares at the guard, hearing the words in a detached manner as she speaks evenly. She sounds almost casual, so neutral and professional, but there is a hard set to her syllables. The manner in which her sentences end is rough, like she’s rubbing the words against metal.

Her father speaks after a beat, his hand still pressed gently to his daughter’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Vi.” The king nods, his eyes relieved. “Your quick action saved my daughter’s life.”

The guard shifts, eyes dropping away.

“It is my duty.” She offers.

“It is. As it is mine, but I would have failed had you not been where you were.” He states, the gratitude palpable in his warm baritone.

Vi seems to not know how to reply, her expression still shuttered, but after a beat she nods.

“Come, join these two. I wish to check on my wife, and I trust you to keep them safe in my absence.” He moves, leaving her on the couch in solitude. She wants to protest, but she swallows the girlish cry in her throat and allows her father to leave the chamber, the three teenagers falling into an uncomfortable silence.

Caitlyn shivers, wrapping her arms around herself and looking toward the fire. She thinks to make it bigger, but she’s overcome with the sensation of lighting a man aflame with her magic, the sound of his yelling cutting across her consciousness.

Her fingers shake.

“Your highness,” Vi’s voice breaks her trance, drawing her eyes from the fireplace toward her guard. She has the dark, woolen coat of her uniform outstretched in her hand, looking smaller in the shirt and pants that it leaves behind.

"She is but a girl still, too." The princess thinks, offering a quiet murmur of appreciation while grasping the fabric and drawing it shakily over her exposed shoulders.

The dress is too tight, her feet aching from hours of standing and dancing, her skin clammy with the leftover tackiness of dried sweat.

She wishes to sleep, or to run. To make it to the stables and mount Silvermist and fly off to the stars where there are no men who wish to kill her for being an heir.

It was always a possibility, she was raised knowing it well. There had been an attempt on her life at only a single year of age, the murmurings of unrest in the realms that followed had been legendary.

Peacetimes can never last, her mother had told her when she was old enough to understand.

“Cait?” Jayce’s voice cuts through the silence.

Vi had sat heavily on the other couch alongside her friend at some point, looking just as far away as the princess felt.

“I’m so sorry.” He whispers, his voice heavy with sorrow.

“What? Whatever for?” She scrunches her brow, drawing the coat further over her shoulders, letting the warm fabric engulf her.

“I just… stood there. I couldn’t do anything. I saw him move from the shadows and I thought for a moment my mind had conjured it up, but then he was still there. I just… I can’t help but fear-”

“You need not fear what has not occurred,” Vi’s voice cuts in, steady in contrast to the shakiness the princess feels. “What has happened, has. We cannot think of the alternatives. It serves you not.”

Caitlyn can feel the way her lips part, blinking at the guard in surprise at the steel in her tone. After a beat, she nods.

“Yes, that is for the best. Rid it from your mind, my friend.”

By the time she is permitted to return to her quarters, it is well toward dawn. The crown’s guard is patrolling the castle, the loud sound of their armor shifting through the halls as she walks with Vi, her father, and four knights before and behind them.

Jayce was sent back to the Academy in a palace carriage, promising to stop by the next day to visit. Viktor had been blessedly spared from the whole ordeal, though he had insisted on remaining at the castle and awaiting his friend before they departed together.

“They have searched your quarters and four guards are to stand outside of it throughout the night. I believe it is best for you to sleep here, I feel you will relax most adequately in your own rooms.” Her father gentles, his hand brushing back her hair where it had fallen from her tight up-do over the hours since the attack. Though the sun had not risen yet, she can see the first colors of dawn on the horizon, visible through her large windows.

The palace feels empty in the wake of their guests departing, the staff working hard to remove all signs of the event. They flit about, pausing to curtsey quietly to the royals before moving along and ridding the night from their memories.

Tobias places a gentle kiss upon her forehead, offering Vi a nod as he takes his leave with his own detail of guards.

Left with her attendants, Caitlyn feels a cloying panic scuttle up her arms and down her spine. The guards close the door behind them, the gentle hands of her maids ushering her towards the privacy of her chambers.

“Vi,” she calls suddenly, before the woman can turn to remove herself from her quarters. She stands at attention again, thought Caitlyn can spot the signs of fatigue pressing down upon her.

“Aye, your highness?”

“Will you… You must be quite exhausted, I am… I have little reason to ask this of you, it is childish, and horribly fearful.”

“Ask it.”

Caitlyn swallows, her hands digging into the woolen coat she had still wrapped around her shoulders. It smelled of the forest around them and the bright dewy moss of spring.

“Will you stay? I have… It is only that there is no one… I wish to not be alone.”

She can feel her attendant’s pause around her, a strangeness befalling the room at the request.

“Aye, princess, as you command.”

“Oh,” she breathes out. “Oh, yes. Excellent. I must… I will change now.”

She can see the pink hair bobbing from her line of sight, which had moved from the other girl’s face to the corner of the room as she made her request.

She is disrobed by the attendants, their hands gentle on her skin as they pull the rich dress from her form and take the pins from her hair. Her skin is lined with indents the fabric had pressed into the softness of her abdomen, the lung fulls of air she can finally pull entirely feeling decadent in comparison to the mere breaths she taken before.

The weight of the heavy fabric is removed, leaving her feeling light in a nightgown and dressing robe. Her fire had been stoked back to life, the dawn light dripping into the room and rivaling the illumination it offered.

When her bedroom door is opened again, something dislodges in her chest at the sight of her guard sitting on the couch within her living quarters, her boots removed. Her shirt had been partially unbuttoned, the shape of her collarbones tantalizing and new as she stands in her doorway.

Vi was leaning heavily on her knees with her elbows, her head hanging between her shoulders in a show of exhaustion she had not yet seen on the young woman.

“Vi?” She asks, prompting the woman to look up. “I… You can go to your own quarters, I shall be fine to rest on my own.”

A smile curls gently on Vi’s lips, the grey blue of her eyes suddenly warmed with some unstated emotion.

“I shall remain here, if it is alright with you, your highness.”

“Of… course.” She leans against the doorframe for a moment. “Well… goodnight.”

“Goodnight princess.”

She climbs into her bed, the covers turned down. She can see that her attendants had brought blankets for the knight, and from the angle of her bed she can look out into the great living space within her quarters and see clearly the line of Vi’s shoulders as she turns onto the couch and draws the blankets to her chin. Her wild mop of pink hair curls on the pillow beneath her skull.

It is the last thing she sees as her heavy eyes fall closed.

Spring finally chases the chill of winter away, the last of the snow dissipating into the ground and leaving behind muddy grass and the new growth of the season.

Caitlyn is glad for it, the reminder of her near-miss at death hot on her heels since the night weeks previous.

Though everyone seemed to have moved on, despite the still slightly high number of guards patrolling the palace grounds, very few words had been exchanged on the matter since.

She thinks it is to shield her, perhaps allow her to avoid the stress and tension it leads to. It only has the effect of frustrating her, something in her hungry for information.

As if knowing more about the situation would make her feel more in control of it.

It is a strange spring, the air slow to warm, and Caitlyn’s normal pastime of flying with Silvermist cut from her as the mare is tasked with the brutality of childrearing.

She is excited for a new royal pegasus, it having been several years since the arrival of their last foal. She can tell her steed shares her frustration in grounding, tossing her head in annoyance when Caitlyn passes her up for another, older mare instead.

“My apologies, my friend.” She would whisper sweetly to the grey pegasus, stroking gently across her face. Her foal is a wild thing, gangly in his youth and dark as night. “You have duties to attend to.”

Vi, much like the rest of the palace, seems unchanged since her assassination attempt. Though Caitlyn had noted a significant pause she would provide now, before she would rid herself from the princess’s presence. She would stand at attention, hands easy at her sides, and wait.

At least, that’s what it seemed like.

After the passage of some handful of seconds, she would bow to the princess once more and bid her goodnight, as she was expected to.

She can’t tell how she feels about it. Something in all things now feels far away, even her studies at the Academy, and her seating the throne alongside her mother. She tries to stay engaged, but she finds her mind adrift in a manner it had not before.

She does insist upon being the one to knight Vi, the occasion occurring three weeks following the debutante.

Cassandra seems pleased her daughter is to take such an active participation in this round of knighting the squires, but it feels significant in a way she had not expected it to when her guard kneels before her in the throne room.

The great hall was filled with the court, and the families of the knights that were to be. Everyone teaming with energy, delighted and joyous at the occasion.

Vi looks somber, though there is a pleased tilt to her lips when she spots her sister seated amongst the court members.

Caitlyn’s hands are surprisingly steady as she lifts the heavy blade, engraved with the Kiramman crest upon its handle, and touches the cold steel to either of her broad shoulders. Pink hair obscures her eyes as she bows before her, but Caitlyn images the spark she often sees there.

Her arms grow tired after the three or so dozen knightings are finished, a great feast to be held in honor of their new guards. They are young, handsome men, all eagerness and passion. They are respectful when they address her, bow lowly in greeting and send praise to the princess and her Queen mother each time she turns to address them.

Vi is permitted to sit beside her, something she does without showing if it pleases or displeases her. Jinx chatters excitedly at her side, the younger sister having grown tall in her teens, her enthusiasm palpable in all her actions.

Something slides gently into place within her chest, Caitlyn feeling an ease settling over her shoulders that had not been there in weeks.

Weeks pass. Vi, newly Ser Vi, though she insists upon being called by her first name, is quiet once more.

Quiet in a manner she had not been in months, perhaps even a year or more. Not since their grudging truce had bloomed, at least on the princess’s side, and perhaps even a friendship though she loathed to admit it.

It sets Caitlyn on edge. She had gotten quite good at reading the guard over their companionship, knowing the subtle tells to when she is annoyed at Caitlyn, or when she is feigning interest in something Jayce is saying.

It is unnerving to suddenly be without these hints at her inner dialogue, leaving the princess out in the dark on her thoughts once more.

She chooses to blame that for her actions that follow.

The first time since Vi had become her personal guard, Caitlyn chooses to cross some invisible boundary they had set long at the beginning. They had kept themselves separated by duty, never once crossing into personal time spent together.

On the weekends, when the princess didn’t attend the Academy, she scarcely saw the knight. In the evening, she was busy at the training grounds, only managing a glimpse of her form if the princess happened to pass by on her way to the stables.

And they had never dreamed of visiting each other’s private chambers.

Vi knew where hers were, obviously, sometimes greeting her there in the morning if the princess had not yet made it to the great hall for breaking fast.

And she knew where the guard's were, especially now. Having been knighted, she was given an upgraded room in the knight’s wing of the castle, no longer sharing a dormitory-style room with the other knights in training as she had been for the past couple of years.

Her new quarters are meant for members of the crown’s guard, tucked away in a corner of the palace, providing privacy in the manner of a single room, single bath, and a small lounge. Seeing that she’d made it into the good graces of the king and queen for saving their only daughter’s life, she was even given quarters high upon the tower that stood at the four corners of the palace.

Caitlyn had not yet ventured to these towers in her cat form, weariness bleeding into her stomach as she eyes the treacherously tall peaks of the walls where they curl far into the sky.

She can make the leap from the awning of the floor above onto the window of what she presumes is Vi’s bedroom, but still it is… quite a long fall. She glances down at the grounds below, further away than her comfort level.

She feels the breeze shift the whiskers on her face.

The princess huffs, shifting her shoulders a few times as she crouches on the cold stone of the awning. Light spills from the hallway behind her and offers a rectangle of warm, orangey light to form a path toward her destination.

She shifts her body, feeling the strength that was built into the lithe form, muscles vibrating with anticipation.

Her feet are quick on the stone as she presses forward, feeling the ground drop from beneath her paws as she sails forward.

Her claws screech across the stone, her body swinging tumultuously for a moment in the air as she feels her bones creak under the weight of her body hanging from the window sill.

She shivers, unwilling to look down as she scrambles upward and onto the ledge properly, sharp claws digging into the unyielding stone for purchase. Her fingers ache, feeling the strain in the motion of her acrobatics.

“If I die in this form, do I turn back to a human?” She muses, glancing back to look over the ledge and down into the gardens below. Moonlight filters over the fields, staining them a rich blue hue in the midnight hour.

Caitlyn presses her face to the window, feeling it yield under the pressure where it was already cracked to let in the cool evening air.

There is a low fire burning in the corner of the room, its embers offering nearly no light in the darkness. Instead, the bright moonlight illuminates a path through the chamber, pressing a streak of color from the floor to the adjacent wall. It cuts over the bed where an occupant lies.

The cat stops short, feeling herself hold her breath in her attempt at stillness.

She is not asleep, she observes nearly immediately. Her eyes are closed but the sound of rustling is loud in the otherwise quiet evening.

She blinks, eyes straining to see in the inky atmosphere nightfall had created. Vi makes a noise, something low and quiet, scratching along the back of her throat.

It makes Caitlyn’s hair stand on edge. She feels it ripple along the line of her spine, all the way down to her tail. It’s the only part of her that moves.

Another beat passes, the woman shifting again in her bed. The sound of fabric whispering over itself makes the cat shiver. It’s an intimate sound in the stillness that permeates the room.

The guard makes another noise, shorter now, the edge of annoyance clipped into it. Caitlyn had heard her make that exact sound when she was being particularly obstinate, a hum that threatens to turn into a growl with all the gravel held in it.

In a flurry of motion that makes the princess’s heart seize in her throat, Vi pushes the blankets off of herself and allows them to tumble messily to the floor beside her bed.

It leaves her entirely bare, skin stained in moonlight and absolutely painted in freckles.

Caitlyn feels like screaming – she probably would have had her heart not been in her throat. She stares, eyes unblinking, as the nude knight shifts upon her mattress, falling back into her supine position.

Her body is toned, still a bit gangly with youth, her limbs long and somewhat spindly. The hours of training had sewn mass into the muscles of her limbs, toning them. Her thighs, where she pulls them up to fall open, are particularly corded with strength.

The shadows thrown across the room by the low firelight define the lines and crevices of her body, dragging along her body playfully.

She watches in near-horror as the woman’s fingers press to the folds of her cunt, her free hand moving upward to clutch at her small breast. Cait can see the way her thumb brushes over the hard peak of her nipple, pressing it hard as her breath shudders out of her.

It’s as if she was carved of stone, perched on the window sill, made into a gargoyle from the pure shock.

The bed is pressed against the far wall, adjacent to where the window lies open now that the cat had pressed her way inside. The angle and height give her a perfect view of the way her guard’s fingers press inside of herself. The hair around her cunt is curly, stained dark in color from the midnight lighting.

A slick sound follows her fingers as she pulls them upward and presses them against her clit.

Caitlyn’s mouth is open, she can feel it in the way her jaw is relaxed.

Vi draws circles into the swollen skin of her clit, the slickness from her cunt allowing her digits to glide easily over the organ. Her eyes are shut, blessedly, when the princess glances up to her face. Her mouth is ajar just a bit, soft little sighs leaving the parting of her lips as pleasure undoubtedly follows the motion.

She’s rough with her breast, digging the short nails of her left hands into the plush skin. Her thumb and forefinger trap her nipple and tug, making the skin go taut in response to the tension.

The knight has a fine spattering of freckles all over her body, but they cluster most on her arms, chest, and face. She trails her eyes across them, enraptured, unused to seeing so much skin on display by the woman.

If Caitlyn were in her human form, she’d have licked her lips, as she feels the dryness in her mouth from her gawking. A warmth is stirring inside her chest, but it is a shade different than humiliation. She feels very hot all over, trailing her eyes back down to stare at the pattern Vi draws against her own clit.

Her cunt is shiny with slick, the folds blush-warm in color in the low firelight.

A hunger she had not yet known passes over the young princess.

Vi lets out a little hiccupping noise, her fingers pressing hard against her sex. Her thighs tense, the dense muscle there bunching under the demand. Cait’s eyes snap to the woman’s face, watching in fascination as her eyebrows furrow.

A full body shudder shakes the woman from her toes to her head, a hoarse gasp leaving her parted lips. A blush colors her face in the darkness, an expression of pleasure etched out onto the angular features.

Caitlyn had never seen her look so pretty. She’d never once thought of her knight as beautiful, but here, with an expression broken by climax, her features are awe inspiring.

The tension bleeds out of the woman, her pleasure found in orgasm. She sighs, removing her shiny fingers from her cunt, the one on her breast still cupping the soft tissue gently.

The cat takes a step back, her body slinking out of the open window easily.

She feels shaky and uncoordinated as she leaps from one window sill to the next, finding easier purchase on the balcony of Vi’s quarters. Here, her dissent into the grand halls of the second floor is less treacherous, no overhanging drops to her demise to color her adventure.

She is quick-footed as she slips back through the palace halls and curls through the duct system to take her easily back into her own chambers. It is too small for any man to traverse, but the interconnection of vents allows her to move without fear of locked doors or prying eyes.

The cat curls forward in a low arch, slipping her front paws forward and feeling the change spread through her in a bending of gold light. Her body aches as it pulls into her human body, her fingers sore from the scrambling of her claws.

“Ow, ow,” she hisses, feeling the tension in the bones that creak under her flexing. The princess wobbles to her feet, finding purchase on two legs once more as she pads through her chambers, off-kilter in her search. She cradles her injured hands to her chest, the digits curled and bruised from the pull of her near-missed fall.

It is simple to dump a handful of ingredients into a large bowl in her study, however clumsily her fingers perform the action. She swirls the healing spell with one hand, feeling the ache pull as the salts and wine combine with her magic.

Caitlyn sighs, submerging both hands into the dark liquid and feeling the pain pull from the digits as she does so. Her limbs stop shaking so much as she finishes, letting the last of the healing weave into her skin and the pained bones beneath.

Her mind wanders, blinking unseeingly down to her potion as her consciousness inevitably draws back to the soft sounds of her guard’s whimpers. The way her brow scrunched in pleasure at the crest of her orgasm. The shininess of her fingers, slick with her own juices as she pressed them against her cunt.

She is wet between her thighs, she can feel it. A dull thrum presses through her, hot and demanding.

She is in her own bed before her mind can catch up to her feet. Her fingers, still damp with potion, trail over her breast and cup the tissue exactly how she’d seen Vi do it. Her own chest is larger than her guard’s, breasts soft and heavy under the experimental press of her fingers.

She lets out a little noise when her nipple is pressed between her thumb and forefinger. It sends a blossom of heat through her, the nub hardening easily under the influence of her touch. It makes her want to writhe, body warming from the spattering of pleasure that sends from her chest.

Her legs part easily, knees askew as she trails her other hand downward.

She’d never done this to completion before, only some fumbling presses of clumsy fingers upon the first influences of her puberty. It had felt pointless, touch not offering a sense of completion. But now, with how wet her fingers come from the easy slide over her opening, she feels like she is pressed right up on the edge of an orgasm.

Caitlyn huffs out a breath through her nose, shimmying to better position herself as she pets at her center. Her cunt is blood-warmed, the hair there coarse and damp already. It is a thrilling juxtaposition to the softness of her folds, the skin hot and slick when her fingers press exploringly forward.

She feels the desire to press them into herself, but she refrains. Instead she repeats what Vi had done, pulling the moisture upward and circling her clit with her fingers.

It makes her positively ache with pleasure, a soft noise leaving her lips. Her eyes are wide, staring up at her ceiling as she presses upward again, fumbling to find a rhythm with the unfamiliar action.

She looks down, staring down to her breast where she pinches at the hard peak of her nipple once more. The muscles in her own thighs bunch at the pleasure, a fascinating discovery.

They’re not as muscular as Vi’s, she observes. Her mind trails gently away, remembering the way her legs had looked splayed open, the fine spattering of hair on her legs disrupting the perfect, defined lines of her muscles.

The princess’s eyes slip closed, recalling images she had drunk in, sweeping her eyes upward from her legs to observe Vi’s cunt. Caitlyn hums, a little noise in response to the wave of pleasure she feels drip from her center. Her cunt is hot under the press of her fingers, clit practically pulsing under the uncoordinated circles she draws into the organ.

She imagines, gulping at the thought, of what it’d be like to have her guard walk her through this clumsy fumbling attempt at pleasure. It was obvious she had experience, perhaps even with other women. Her fingers moved so expertly over her center, and plucked at her own nipple in a practiced fashion.

Caitlyn does the same, feeling the wave of heat that pulls from her chest as she does.

“Ah,” she sighs out at it, pressing her hips down a little move to angle her long fingers more onto her clit. She makes another little noise at the change, feeling herself practically gush with more slick.

She wants to feel, moving her hand off of her breast to slide it down to where her folds are wet and hot. It takes some repositioning, desperation suddenly thrumming below the surface of her chest as she keeps drawing circles into her clit.

Her opening is burning hot when she presses her fingertips to it, and very, very slick. She slides the tips of her fore and middle fingers up into herself, feeling how easily she yields to the intrusion.

Her hips jump at the stimulation, pressing downward to force her fingers a little further into her.

Caitlyn makes a pathetic whimpering noise, mind unfairly feeding her the image of her knight pressing over her. The way her arms would bunch with exertion if she were the one to perform these actions, dutifully fucking into the princess’s cunt despite the strain.

The strain she currently feels in her forearms as she careens closer toward an orgasm, feeling chest heave with the demand.

“Princess,” Her mind supplies, the treacherous thing. Caitlyn squeezes her already shut eyes, tossing her head and moaning.

She wants to come, she can feel the agony of it press right up against her. Her body flushes with humiliation, feeling herself want desperately for her guard to be doing these things to her.

“Aye, princess, as you command.”

Her voice strangles in her throat, a shout crushed under the hoarseness as she topples into an orgasm. Her first.

It oozes through her, the feeling of her cunt clutching to her fingers where they rest still inside her. The pulsing of it feels otherworldly, hot as it curls through her body and makes her shiver.

After a beat, she exhales and pulls her hands away, fingers of both sticky with her slick. She’s shaking, body warmed under the pleasure that bleeds through her extremities.

“Oh no,” Caitlyn moans, voice soft with the admission, “Oh, this is bad.”

She makes the horrifying discovery that she cannot look her guard in the eye the next day without flushing. Her entire face burns when the woman’s steel blue eyes meet her own, face lighting up with mortification at the very expression she’d dreamt of the night before.

Caitlyn spends the following handful of days ducking away from the woman as quickly as she can manage, spending no more than a barest stretch of minutes in her presence a day.

She breaks her fast earlier in the morning, rising with the sun despite the shock of her parents, claiming to desire solitude in the morning hour. It allow her the freedom to take to the school earlier, since the streets between the palace and the Academy were near vacant with the dawn’s light.

Vi caught to this quickly, rising earlier still to greet her at the palace gates on only the third day of her attempting this.

She takes on another lesson at the school, waving her guard off to go back to the castle early since she would remain at the Academy far past supper time, when the knight would be expected to be at her own formal training with the crown’s guard.

The guard agrees, not without pause, but sends another knight in her wake to man her station since the sun would dip nearly beyond the horizon when the princess made her way back from her studies.

He was a young man of red hair and quiet disposition. Nothing but professional. Offering her nothing more than a bow in greeting as he opens her carriage, and a bow in farewell as she enters the palace once more.

It’s normal.

And horrible, somehow.

On the week’s ends, instead of seeking refuge in the palace libraries, or attempt to sneak off to the quiet of the forests surrounding the grounds, she throws herself back into the equestrian hobby she had nearly begun to neglect since her pegasus’s sabbatical following her pregnancy.

The birth of her colt had kept her feet firmly on the ground, but now that the creature had grown for some time, Silvermist grew restless to take to the skies once more.

The Queen eyed her with suspicion the first time she followed her to the stables, chattering away without an end in sight to the listless words that spilled from her mouth. It wasn’t often she chose to spend her few free waking hours with her mother, but her intentions were not questioned despite the shift in her behavior.

It’s more time than they’ve spent together in years, finding refuge high above the clouds as the season’s change drifted upon them.

The endless avoidance is exhausting, leading the young princess to fall to her bedding most nights without managing to undress, her attendants chastising her for sleeping in her uniforms or finery. Every waking hour she is focused on not being in the same room as her pink-haired companion, who had quite obviously picked up on her behaviors but had yet to confront her.

As was custom, when there were closures of the Academy for the seasons between their semesters, Jinx came to the castle to reside within the walls.

The ward was ever charming, entering each room with a brightness that was palpable. Caitlyn had taken to her more easily than she had imagined, sometimes thinking in another life what it would be like to have had a younger sister such as her.

Vi and her had some similarities, at least that which the princess could observe. The knight was so secretive, private in a manner that the younger sister seemed not to be. She was openly loud, opinionated, often somewhat brash if she knew she wasn’t to be overheard by anyone of importance.

She wonders how the two can be so different, if they came from the same blood.

“Tell me of your sister.” Caitlyn startles herself with the question, knocked from the quiet that had lulled between the two as they took their tea.

Jinx’s eyes are keen where they snap up to her, teacup poised halfway to her mouth. It pauses there for a moment, a beat passing between the two.

The princess feels something uncomfortably vulnerable about the way the younger girl stares at her, calculating in some manner. Her eyes were intelligent, searching.

Another similarity she had to her sister.

After she sets the cup down with a ‘clink’, she rests her hands in her lap at tilts her head to the side. Her long locks of hair had been pinned up, but some stray strands brush along her cheek as she completes the motion.

“What would you like to know?”

Caitlyn clears her throat.

“She speaks little,” she starts, grasping for some legitimate reason to be asking of her guard’s personal life. “I am curious if she… has always been this way.”

“Private?” Jinx asks.

“Yes, extremely so.”

The younger nods, blinking in understanding.

“She was not always so, when we were children. Though she has always been quite… in control. Composed, I suppose.”

“Is that her personality, then?” The princess asks, taking a little sip of tea despite the hot temperature.

“No,” Jinx seems a little amused, head tilting in thought. “I would not describe her personality as ‘composed’, though she is very committed to her… duties.”

“Ah,” Caitlyn tones. “Then how would you describe her?”

The young mage hums, a little musical tone that fills the air briefly, as if she’s considering.

“Stubborn, I’d say. Almost purely stubborn.”

She barks out a laugh before she can smother it.

The girl, a young woman now, looks amused by this.

“But she is kind, always has been. Very much so.”

The princess hums, a bemused expression gracing her features. She looks ever more like the queen with each passing year, the sharpness of her Kiramman features becoming more apparent as the years chisel away her baby fat.

“I would describe you as kind as well. Though you do not show it in the same manner as Vi does.” Jinx offers, conversationally. Her fingers are thin and delicate as she lifts her teacup to her lips once more, peering over the rim of it at her companion.

“Thank you,” there is a question in her tone.

“I mean no offense! I am ever grateful for your kindness, since I would not have the opportunities afforded to me today without it. But I think you know as well as I do that you had some… ulterior motives that day you appealed to your parents on our behalf.”

Caitlyn’s mouth drops open suddenly at the mischievous tone.

“I… well, yes, I suppose I did.” She sits back, shaking her head in amusement. “I was attempting to take some of the focus off of myself, a useless attempt at diverting my punishment. We see how well that ended.”

“Aye,” the deep blue purple of Jinx’s eyes sparkle with mirth. “It is not such a bad punishment, is it?”

“I have to admit she’s grown on me over the years.”

It’s the understatement of the century. Cait can’t help but think the girl in front of her can see right through it, the keenness in her stare unsettling.

“She would curse me to admit it, but I believe she feels the same about you.”

She ponders, her tongue heavy in her mouth at the admission.

Vi was many things, but glad to be in her company was not something the princess would have ever dared to consider. She was kind, in her own manner of speaking, but she’d yet to parse out exactly how much that was derived from her sense of duty.

Where did her kindness come from her own desires, rather that of obligation?

“Does she?”

Jinx hums, a tinny musical note that tilts up on the end in question.

“Does she feel the same… in that we’ve come to some sort of… well, agreeance, I suppose.” The princess minces, her brow drawn forward in question.

“I would wager it is more than agreeance, your highness.” Caitlyn opens her mouth, but her words are stopped by the younger girl’s quick diversion, “Though I have said more than my sister would allow me if she were present!”

“Yes. Of course.”

A beat passes.

“Thank you, Jinx.”

“Certainly, your highness. I will say…” She tilts her head to the side, her blue locks sweeping gently with the motion. “Vi wears her heart on her sleeve, and her emotions on her face. If you are looking, nothing about her is a secret.”

By the time the new month had arrived, her luck had run out. Though Vi had been more disconnected since the attempt on Caitlyn’s life, it seems she’d grown suspicious of the princess’s sudden avoidance.

“You are avoiding me. Or attempting to.” Vi’s voice cuts through the silence of the study room. The statement alone enough to make the princess raise her shoulders to her ears in guilt, but the voice belonging to the one person she was attempting to steer clear of further spurs her bristling.

“Whatever gives you that idea?” She feigns, not looking up from her textbook. Her pen sits unmoving over the paper, dripping ink uselessly onto the parchment in a dark pool.

Though it had been nearly a fortnight since their last conversation, she feels less jittery at the prospect of seeing her guard now that time had been placed between their interactions like a shield.

“Leaving before I wake, keeping busy on your week’s ends, even taking more lessons here rather than spend time within the castle.” The knight lists off. She standing at the doorway, propped against its frame with her arms crossed.

Caitlyn only manages glance her way before looking back to her ruined essay.

“I thought perhaps it was simply a fluke, but as the days drew on, I knew your scarcity had to have intention.”

“Perhaps I have been busy, Ser Vi.”

“Ah, something is wrong.” The knight takes a seat across from her, the table jostling a little with her motion. “You have yet to call me by my title.”

“Well, perhaps I should start. It is appropriate, is it not?” She diverts.

“Aye, appropriate. But we have known each other for some years now. I would find the use of titles odd if they were to start now, your highness.”

“Yet you call me by my titles.” Caitlyn reasons, pushing her voice into a listless sort of tone that suggests boredom at their subject.

She hears a slight huff of laughter in reply.

Her stomach flutters.

Her mouth sets in annoyance at her girlish… swooning.

“That is different. You are a princess. I am a knight of only three weeks.”

“Well, perhaps I should start.”

“It is no concern of mine if you use my title, my liege.”

“Perhaps, Ser Vi,” She sits up, finally making horrible eye contact with the woman sitting across her. “It is a concern of mine.”

Silence passes between the pair, the knight tilting her head with a strange look upon her features. Surprise, or perhaps reprehension.

“Is it, princess?” She leans forward, crossing her arms over the desk in front of her. “Is it a concern of yours?”

She has no idea what she is being asked, suddenly feeling as if she’d fallen from Silvermist’s saddle and is careening dangerously down towards the earth.

“Yes.” She answers, putting more conviction in her tone than she feels. Her eyes go back to her essay, easily spotting several errors in her work, a testament to her distraction.

The guard is silent for a count, prompting her to reread the same lines fourfold before she speaks again.

“Aye, princess. As you command.” She says lowly, voice heavy under the weight of some unknown emotion. It matters not, the words send a wave of wanting through the young royal, the gnawing edge of guilt following.

“My apologies,” Vi stands, offering a little bow. “I will wait with the carriage for whenever you are ready to return to the palace.”

“No need,” She mumbles. “I will return on my own, there is little need for you to stay.”

Another beat of uncomfortable silence before she sees Vi nod out of the corner of her vision. Her shoulders are a little drooped, curled in by the sudden icy wall placed between the pair.

“Of course, your highness. Goodbye.”

It leaves a terrible taste in her mouth, the princess sitting back in her chair and staring out the Academy window for long after her knight had departed.

She has no idea what she had agreed to, but she feels a sense of finality in their conversation that she had not expected. Caitlyn rubs her face, feeling exhausted by the overwhelming wrongness she feels stir within her.

“Foolish,” She chastises herself. “Foolish, foolish girl.”

The edge of melancholy colors the remainder of her study hours, pulling her thoughts away from her work in a nagging sort of manner until she gives up entirely and returns to the castle.

In the coming weeks, she doesn’t press herself to avoid her knight.

They resume their average days, though Caitlyn’s schedule had adjusted with her age.

Her afternoons in the spring are spent at the castle rather than the Academy, her lessons falling way to allow her to dedicate more time sitting the throne aside her mother in preparation of her future rulership.

She is tested on the history of their nation, educated in war strategies, and bestowed with knowledge held close to the crown itself.

Despite her schedule remaining full from dawn until dusk, it is often that her and her knight are left in solitude together. When they travel to the Academy and back, between her classes where other students may chatter inanely with one another, when they roam the palace grounds from one task to another.

Even so, where they had begun to fill this time with the threads of conversation, there is now a silence that wedges distance between them like a splinter in one’s foot. They limp along through their interactions in an awkward, jilted manner, one they hadn’t known since their first meeting as girls.

The seasons shift, bringing a wave of bright summer heat and new growth in the valleys below their city. Flowers bloom, the days lengthening, and yet a coldness remains within her.

She finds solace in her melancholy with Silvermist, the great beast delighting in taking frequent flights once more since her pregnancy and subsequent childrearing. Her foal turns to a yearling, spreading his wings for the first time to take clumsy flight next to the pair as the summer months reach their peak.

He is nearly a copy of his grandmother, his coat midnight black, but speckles of brown and grey show through on his flank when the high sun catches his color. He is quick to learn, his propensity to pick up the commands his mother follows well proves how skillful this particular pegasus will be in the coming years.

He takes flight alongside the pair more easily as the weeks stretch, held with a lead tied to his bridle to keep him from wandering too far into the skies. His wings were growing by the day, strengthened by each stretch he takes in these outings, speaking to how soon he may take a rider.

The storms that summer raged wild, sometimes several hours of deep downpours plagued the mountain city, only to be replaced by brilliant glittering sunlight moments later.

The humidity kept the citizens damp and bleary, weighed down by the constant moisture in the air. The townspeople find relief in the cool mountain springs, and the shades of great trees that tower over the groves.

Caitlyn takes to riding in the morning, when the dew had not yet left the petals of flowers in the gardens surrounding the palace. The sunrise is golden, giving her a sense of peace as she takes to the skies, solitude making a home in her.

Her riding clothes become damp with moisture from the clouds, their vapor clinging to her as the pegasus breaks through the cloud lines and drives them toward the rising sun.

In mid-summer, Caitlyn’s normal morning ride is disrupted by the rolling of storm clouds on the horizon. It paints the morning into a greyish hue, leaving her eyes clinging to sleep as she mills about her quarters, not yet interested in embracing the day knowing her routine had been interrupted.

Lightning splits the skies open, making the day appear like it’s drenched in sunlight for one heart-seizing moment. The princess stops her pace where she’d been thoughtlessly strolling the length of her living quarters, her eyes caught on a scene in the distance.

The gardens give way to a large pasture where the pegasus roam free during the daylight hours, allowing the great beasts their freedom to wander.

She approaches the window, leaning to push it open with her fingertips. Her hair immediately whips in the strong current of wind that steals into her rooms, bringing with it the strong scent of moisture as the impending storm kicks up around the palace.

She squints, eyes poised toward the grounds where it is nearly too dark to make out the shapes in the distance. Another strike of lightning illuminates the kingdom, her blue eyes pressing wide at the scene before her.

Her bare feet falls are loud on the stone floor of the palace as she makes haste from her rooms, her heart jumping to her throat.

The winds claw at her as soon as she stumbles through the doorways to the gardens, a palace guard shouting after the princess as she descends the stairs towards the stables. The dewy grass is slippery underfoot, difficult to find purchase on as she pushes forward.

A stable hand comes into view, a young man still within his teens by the look of his boyish face and wild hair, his voice quaking as he calls out hurriedly, hands desperately grasping for the lead that thrashes dangerously unmanned in the air.

Silvermist’s yearling rears back, his height having grown over the months since his birthday, his hooves kicking into the air as he lets out another horrible roar over the sounds of howling wind.

A terrible boom of thunder shakes the earth, crackling down the spine of the princess who watches in horror as the young pegasus tears away from the man, his hooves kicking desperately as he attempts to find purchase on the wet earth.

The storm rages, wind slamming against his wings as he spreads them.

Caitlyn’s gasps, fear striking her as he gallops, the air catching underwing to propel him up and towards the rolling storm clouds overhead.

The stable hand shouts, looking back toward the princess desperately, his hands grasping as if he cannot believe they are empty.

A thread passes through the pair before she suddenly turns foot, taking off towards the stables on the other side of the pasture.

The doors are clambering in the wind, slamming forward to rattle noisily against the wooden walls. She can hear the anxious squeals within, the pegasus hooves dragging horribly against the stable floors in their fear. She bursts through the doorway, her eyes finding Silvermist’s in the dim lighting.

The grey horse throws her head, letting out a snort, her fear palpable. Caitlyn wastes no time grasping a set of leather reins, her feet carrying her towards the great beast.

Silvermist tosses her head warily, allowing the princess to mount her. Her hooves are fast on the stable floors, the doorway falling away as the pair make it back out into the storm.

Rain had begun to fall, fat droplets soaking the earth, and the pair of them immediately.

More people had gathered in the pasture since Caitlyn had left, having come from the training grounds on the western side of the palace grounds.

Their lanterns flicker wildly in the wind, highlighting the solemn-faced crew.

“What direction did he fly?” She shouts over the storm, Silvermist whinnying as she pulls to a frantic stop among them. She kicks once in her annoyance, wings fluttering out impatiently.

“Towards the northern mountain range!” The stable hand shouts, his hand cupped around his mouth to raise his volume above the storm.

“Alert my mother at once, and tend to the pegasus! They must be calmed!” She orders, her voice aching in its loudness.

She urges Silvermist towards the north, her heel kicking into her flank. A hand at her elbow gives her pause, hot against the cold, wet fabric that clings to her skin.

Vi is similarly dripping with rain, eyes blown wide and frantic.

“You cannot take off in this storm!” She shouts over another rumbling growl of thunder. Silvermist huffs, stamping her foot in frustration, a mirror to Caitlyn’s own feelings.

“I must, there is no time!”

“The storm is too strong, it is not safe!” Vi urges, gesturing to the rolling clouds, sparking to life with lightning.

“Come with me if you fear for my life, but you cannot stop me!” The princess screams back, her teeth bared. “I will not have a pegasus lost to the storms if I can help it!”

Vi’s eyes are the same color as the storm clouds that roll above them, pressed wide and searching. She glances from the princess’s expression, down to the pegasus she sits atop, before she seizes Caitlyn’s outstretched hand and uses the leverage to mount the pegasus behind her.

They’re off the ground in a handful of hoof falls.

Silvermist pitches dangerously for a moment in the horrible wind, but rights herself under Caitlyn’s urge to the left, dragging the dual riders further towards the skies with great, powerful pumps of her wings.

The raindrops are freezing upon their skin the closer they ascend in the sky, painful against her skin and further chilling her despite the burning heat of anxiety within her.

Vi clings to her waist, her hands bunched in the fabric of Caitlyn’s soaked tunic, a warm point of contact where she would otherwise feel displaced from the earth.

Caitlyn blows out a long whistle, cupping her hand around her cheek to strengthen its range. Her steed gallops forward, her breaths loud even in the storm they inhabit, her exhales steaming from her nose in the cold as the clouds surround them.

A crack of lightning screams to their right, Silvermist roaring with fear as she pitches forward again, heeding to Caitlyn’s direction to pull upward once more.

She whistles again, rubbing water from her eyes that threatens to blind her in the storm.

It is horribly dark within the storm clouds, loud from the wind and the thunder that rumbles beneath them. It might as well come from within her chest with how much her bones rattle from it.

Silvermist roars, her wings flaring as they avoid the crackling lightning that threatens to reach out and touch them.

“There!” Vi yells over the storm before Cait can whistle desperately into the darkness once more. Her head pulls to the right to look where her hand is poised, finger directing her line of sight below them.

In a flash of lightning they see the shape of wings whispering between clouds, the black of them nearly invisible in the camouflage of the storm.

Caitlyn digs her heels into Silvermist’s flank, snapping her reins as the mare drives forward with a great drag of her powerful wings.

He is horribly frightened, the yearling screaming out as another crack of lightning narrowly misses the pegasus. His wings beat desperately, his form off-kilter from the fear, sending him careening wildly through the wind in an anxiety-driven unsustainable rhythm.

Silvermist stays in line with his pace, her wings beating loudly as she flies atop her yearling, his body twisting below them.

“Vi, take her reins,” Caitlyn commands, grasping them in her left hand to pass them back to the knight. She feels the hands bunched in her shirt tighten at the words.

“What?” She shouts, incredulously.

“I have to,” fear chokes the princess for a moment, her eyes resting on the unsteady form of her mare’s only child as he fights to stay airborne, his breath curling in desperate pants around his crazed expression. “I have to jump to him!”

“Do you wish to die!” Vi screams in reply, her voice shriller than Caitlyn had ever heard her.

“You need to trust me!” She retaliates, shaking the reins desperately until she feels them gain tension from the knight’s hold around them.

Her thighs burn from squeezing her steed between them, the bare flank of her steed slippery and soaked with rain when she shifts to draw her knees beneath her. The line of warmth at her center where her knight’s arm had been going cold nearly instantaneously in the chilled atmosphere.

“She will not allow me to ride her!” Vi insists, her tone unreadable. Her right hand steadies Caitlyn, her legs wobbling dangerously as she attempts to put her feet beneath her.

“Hold onto her reins, she will not throw you.” She wobbles dangerously for a moment, body shivering in fear at the idea of what is about to unfold.

“You cannot possibly know that!”

“She is my steed, Vi. She is a part of my very soul! She will not allow you to fall.” She shouts over her shoulder, her eyes just barely making out Vi’s from the angle she turns her head back. She looks afraid, eyebrows scrunched in concern, eyes incredibly dark in the lowlight of the storm clouds.

The yearling makes another horrible noise, his roaring growing weaker as his body tires from the strain of the flight.

“Trust me,” she implores.

“I do.”

Caitlyn inhales sharply, and for one horrible moment, heat slips into her belly to curl amongst the nervous butterflies of anxiety. She ignores it, pressing her feet beneath her with more confidence, balancing shakily in a low crouch. The warm hand that holds her upright is nearly burning compared to the chill of the air around them, placed gently in the curve of her waist.

Thunder crackles beneath them, pressing hard against her sternum.

She can see below them, fixing her sights on the flapping, great wings of her mare’s offspring. Another crack of lightning shudders through the sky, illuminating his dark coat in the near blackness of the storm.

She presses her strength though her feet, leaping from Silvermist into the clouds below.

It is mere seconds of freefall, her arms dragging forward as her stomach drops from her body. She dares not breath, nor to blink.

Caitlyn crashes into the pegasus’s back with a horrible pain that stabs through her sternum, her teeth rattling with the force of it as she scrambles for purchase on his wet coat. The yearling screams, his wings arcing wildly as he pitches upward, running the pair further into the storm.

She can hear Vi’s voice behind her but cannot make out her words over the sounds of the storm. Her eyes water dangerously, blinding her for a moment as she drags herself properly onto the yearling’s back. The muscles under his wings are bunched tight with tension, showing the terrible strain he was under from the flight.

His lead tosses wildly in the winds, Caitlyn spotting the shape of it as it swings around him. She drags herself until she can dig her thighs into his back, his shape much slighter than Silvermist in his youth. She grasps forward, her hand sliding toward his mouth to find the source of the lead where it was connected to his halter. Her arm clings to his neck, his mane soaked and sticking to her face where she presses it against him.

The storm’s wind pitches them sideways, the youth overcorrecting and nearly tossing his rider into the depths of the storm clouds below them. She grasps at him desperately, her heart hammering in her chest.

Finally, her hand grasps the leather lead, drawing it back so she can slide it to her right hand and drag it to slip under the opposite side of his harness.

She rights herself, pulling the leather to strengthen the knot, the makeshift reins pulling taut and yanking the yearling’s head back. Without a bit, the control is difficult, but it is all she can do.

He tosses his head in protest, attempting to shake her as his hoof falls falter in rhythm from the exhaustion.

She pulls again, bearing down on his sides with her heels, and yanking his head back with a great drag of her sore arms. Her biceps bunch from the strain, her shoulders aching, the horse fighting her hold for a moment more before he kicks his chin up with a snort.

She pulls again, his pace, finally, blessedly slowing. She hits his side again, urging him to pull hard to left, her hands grasping desperately to the reins to stay upright as the wind screams before her and whips her soaked hair over her shoulders.

She guides his path, snapping the makeshift reins to urge him downward until he breaks through the line of clouds and reveals the countryside below. The lands are blanketed in darkness, soaked from the heavy downpour.

Finally, the wind ceases to press upon her face so fiercely, the air catching on his stretched wings and allowing him to glide down towards the earth.

Caitlyn’s hand is shaking as she lifts it to her face and lets out a loud whistle back up to the sky. She is immediately met with the sound of wings pounding, Silvermist breaking through the clouds above them and yielding her pace until she is in line with the princess.

Vi’s hair is plastered to her face, made red by the harsh wind and rain. Her eyes are alight when she meet’s Caitlyn’s, her expression immediately breaking into an exhale of relief at the sight of the princess.

Her hands are clutched into Silvermist’s reins, though it matters not. The steed would follow the royal to the ends of the earth, her hooves keeping pace with her yearling as the two make their way in the pounding rain back towards the towering shape of the Kiramman palace.

Their landing was shaky at best, with the exhausted yearling stumbling in his footing as the pair glide to the safety of the wet, solid earth. His chest shudders with each breath, pants coming harshly from his nose as he trots forward, his wings shaking out the rain from between his feathers, head tossing in a show of appreciation. She pats her hand along his neck, watching out of the corner of her eye as Vi immediately dismounts Silvermist and leads her forward.

The crowd that swarms them is larger than the one they had left from, the people immediately helping Caitlyn down from the yearling. Her legs shake as she stands on bare feet once more, smiling blearily at the stable hand who takes the lead from her and gasps in apology for losing the pegasus to the storms.

The younger pegasus knocks into Vi when she approaches, the guard stumbling a little at the motion. His eyes are pressed forward, the vibration of his anxiety having almost bled out of his frame in a matter of moments.

The princess looks between her guard and the yearling, the former of whom is looking up at the creature with a perplexed expression. His dark ears flick forward, expression showing none of the anxiety that had weighed upon his features mere moments previous.

She startles at the hand that draws her forward, too slender to be her guards as she is plucked from the crowd, concentration lost.

Cassandra is soaked, as is everyone in the group of palace employees and attendants, but the absolutely bewildered expression she offers her daughter is not lost on her despite the dimness of the grounds in the storm.

“Get these two inside the stables instantly.” She commands to the stable hands, the workers scrambling to obey.

Caitlyn breaks her hold to press her face gently to Silvermist’s, the damp hair that lines her nose tickling the skin of her forehead. She whispers sweetly to her, hearing the chuffs of delight from her steed as she presses a kiss to her cheek.

The royals make towards the castle, the crowd of attendants falling in line behind them. Vi looks to be in shock, her face blank as she walks alongside the princess. Caitlyn cares not what punishment befalls her, her head held high as they climb the steps of the garden towards the great hall.

“Leave us.” The Queen commands immediately upon them entering, waving the flittering and anxious attendants away with a flick of her fingers. The three drip long rivets of rainwater to the rich carpets below their feet, shivering in the coolness of castle despite the humidity that still clings to the air.

“Do you care to explain,” Cassandra begins, turning to the pair, “Why it is that you, the only heir to the great kingdom of Piltover, decided it was your duty to take to the skies in a- in a monsoon to rescue an escaped pegasus? An unbroken, untrained, unridden pegasus that you then proceeded to ride back to the castle in that very storm?”

Caitlyn opens her mouth to responds, but is cut off by her mother’s continued chastising.

“Why is it that you insist upon putting yourself in the way of danger? Must you disregard your mortality at every turn? I certainly never took to the skies in a storm as I have no need to die before the gods have chosen it for me!”

Her tongue is frozen to the base of her mouth, lips parted just slightly as if to make words appear but none come forward.

Cassandra rounds onto Vi, who has stood silently observing the queen chew out her daughter. The knight straightens a little in response to the fiery expression she wears, dark eyes sparking with rage.

“And you!” She seethes. “You are the one I had charged with keeping her out of danger, since she is clearly completely unwilling to listen to reason! And instead of deterring her, you joined her on this suicide mission! You!” She clenches her fist in a show of subdued anger. “You have not ridden a pegasus Vi!”

Though her volume isn’t particularly high, the words boom in the empty hallway, echoing down the stone towards the greater halls.

Vi opens her mouth to much the same treatment as Caitlyn.

“What have I done in my life for the gods to send me a daughter so hellbent on ending our line? Why is that every effort I take to keep you safe is met with complaint, derision, and outright rejection? Do you have no regard for the life I have bestowed upon you?”

“I do.” She states plainly.

“I certainly see no evidence of this!” Her mother snaps, her eyes alight with anger.

“If I may,” Vi says mildly.

Cassandra’s head whips towards the guard incredulously.

“I do not believe it was disregard for her life that drove you daughter to do what she just did,” She pauses, “Your majesty.”

The three remain in teetering silence for a beat, the ruler’s eyes stare into the knight’s very soul before her before she manages to speak again.

“I beg your pardon.”

“It is not a selfish disregard for her own life or safety to ride blindly into the storm to rescue an escaped pegasus.” Vi says, eyes glancing toward the princess for a moment. She has no idea what her expression looks like, but there’s something soft in the way the guard regards her. “Rather it was an act of sacrifice. For the safety of a creature in need.”

Caitlyn’s lungs shudder, her lips dragging in a short gasp that is nearly inaudible in the quiet hallway.

The Queen looks queerly between the pair for a moment, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“What… exactly happened here today?” She ventures to ask, her voice dropped in octave, no longer raised.

“I only sought to save him, mother. He is Silvermist’s. I could not bear to have him lost to the storm, it would break her heart.”

The Queen seems to consider this for a moment, glancing back to Vi, and then to Caitlyn.

“And you brought Vi along, despite knowing the danger of an inexperienced rider in such conditions?”

“She insisted,” Caitlyn explains, eyes glancing to her guard. “But I am glad for it, I do not think I would have succeeded without her presence. She sought to keep me safe, and she succeeded.”

Cassandra sighs, some degree of weary acceptance in her tone when she asks, “And there was truly no one else available to attempt such a foolish act of heroism?”

“No, mother. No other riders were present, and there was no time. He would have been lost to the winds had I not acted when I did.”

She hums in reply, finally lifting her head to stroke Caitlyn’s cheek softly, her eyes heavy with regret.

“You are fortunate neither of you died.” She admonishes, her tone softened once more. Though there was sternness in her eyes, there is a gentling in her tone that makes the tension in Caitlyn’s shoulders cut away.

“We are fortunate that we trust each other.” The princess replies, glancing to her knight.

Vi’s expression is raw, a fragile shine pressing over her eyes for no more than a beat before it smooths into neutrality.

“Yes. That is fortunate.”

Something in the Queen’s tone is odd, but Caitlyn is given no time to decipher it as the pair are dragged towards the healers and left with nothing more than a kiss on the princess’s forehead.

The princess bestows the yearling with the name Stormchaser the next morn, the stable hands delighting in her sense of humor.

By the time autumn weaves a chill in the air, and the summer months draw to a close just shy of her twentieth birthday, Caitlyn is finally afforded some highly sought-after freedom. Freedom she finds in her human body, at least.

Her tutors at the castle had deemed her private education complete, leaving her only with her impassioned coursework at the Academy to fill the waking hours. With that, there now was a considerable gap in the hours of her afternoons where there once were countless tasks to complete. After sitting with her mother and their council to hear the requests of their realm, she is turned over to her own devices for the remainder of the afternoon until the dinner bell rings.

Delighted by the opened days of long hours spent without schedule, she took to pressing the distance beyond the palace walls, daring to go further than she had ever previously.

The forests were vast, filled with gigantic trees and endless wildlife. Leaves would crunch underfoot, her fingers covering with dirt as she collected the last flowers still standing as the heat of summer fades into autumn.

Caitlyn had found herself often drawn to a babble brook that twists through the trees, cold snowmelt dragging over large, round stones. She follows it as it winds further away from the palace, cutting through the stony earth of the mountainside until it drops off into a waterfall, the pool beneath filled with cold, clear water.

It takes her weeks to build the courage, but she finds herself with her feet balancing upon the cold stony river’s edge, the soles of her feet growing cold where the rock steals the heat from her body.

Her overdress is folded neatly on at the base of a tree just behind her, her bag situated beneath it. The skin of her arms prickles with gooseflesh as a chilled wind kicks her hair up around her shoulders, the dead leaves around her rustling with the sound.

She inhales deeply, shaking her nerves off, and leaps.

The fall isn’t very far, just over a dozen feet, but she feels like she falls forever before she’s engulfed by the frigid water. Bubbles explode around her, dancing upon her skin as they rush to escape to the surface. She uncurls herself and follows the upward, breaking through the surface with a gasp.

The water is cold, but it leeches from her the strain in her shoulders that has been there for some weeks. It is easy to drift there, the water rippling from the disruption of the waterfall, pooling there in the deep channel before it escapes again further away to continue down the mountainside.

It is easy to lose herself, her heart beat slowing in the cool water as she stares out at where it flows downstream.

“So, this is where you’ve been running off to when you sneak over the garden walls.”

Caitlyn screeches in shock, splashing wildly as she turns to face the bemused expression of her guard. Vi is leaning against a tree at the edge of the pool, arms crossed over her chest as she watches the princess who treads in the clear waters. Her hair is in disarray, likely from the trek out to where they stand now, a good hour’s walk back to the castle.

“You frightened me!” She accuses, face ablaze as she holds out a finger to point at the nonchalant form of her knight.

She shrugs in reply.

“Perhaps you should be more aware of your surroundings if you are so insistent on slipping past your personal guard.”

“I did not slip past you,” she huffs, swimming closer to the rocky edge where Vi stands. “You just happen to be busy in the afternoons, and I am not.”

Her underclothes drag in the water, weighed down and saturated with snowmelt. The rocks near the border of the pool are slipper with algae, frigid cold where her feet slide upon them.

“Oh, alright then.” Vi muses. She unwinds her arms from where they’d been crossed over her chest, leaning down to offer the princess a hand. “Come, princess, dinner will be served within the hour. Your parents would have my head if they knew I had let you get this far from the palace grounds.”

She glances from her offered hand, up to the woman’s face, an unamused expression set in her brows as she regards the soaked royal.

Caitlyn thinks for not a moment more before she grabs the offered hand and twists back, kicking off the stones at her feet and pulling the knight from the slippery edge into the channel.

Vi lets out a short yelp as she stumbles, crashing forward into the water, sending the princess back on the rippling wave the disturbance makes.

When she surfaces, the princess is cackling openly at the shocked expression on her face.

“Are you not freezing?” Vi mutters, brushing back her pink locks, dark where they’re soaked and clinging to her skin.

Caitlyn can barely breathe past the hiccupping laughs, kicking away when the knight makes to swim towards her.

“I am winter’s child, Vi, it takes more than this for cold to seep into my bones.” Her voice is still alight with laughter, the knight looking upon her with an unimpressed expression.

She pushes forward, the chilled water rippling as the princess is circled.

“You stay away from me!” Vi is undeterred, pursuing her until she’s able to wrap a hand around the princess’s delicate wrist and pull.

“I am your crowned princess!” She cries, still giggling helplessly when she’s grabbed around her middle and flung upward towards the middle of the great pool.

She crashed through the surface, submerged in the dark waters with a grin still on her face. It is easy to kick up to breach the waters once more, inhaling deeply through the laughter.

Vi’s expression looks different when she finds it again, rubbing the water from her eyes with the fingers from one hand. She is looking at Cait in alarm, blue eyes pressed wide and unblinking.

“What is it?”

“Shhh!” Vi hisses, swimming forward to press the princess into the stones lining the waterfall from which she’d initially leapt. “I heard voices.” The knight whispers.

“So?” Caitlyn does not love their sudden proximity, the line of her guard’s body warm against her front where she’s back against the rocky wall.

“So! You are half naked in the woods, and my sword is at the castle.” The knight shoots at her. Her body shields the princess from the wooded path that transverses mere yards from their location.

They’re pinned from chest to hip in the water, Vi’s arms curling around her side to press into the slippery stones that dig into her back. The rush of the waterfall is loud pressed close to it, but even she can now hear the sound of people approaching.

“Half naked?” She thinks, mouth thinning at the accusation. She glances down, her wet hair clinging to her neck as she observes the transparency of her underclothes, the water having rendered them useless in providing cover.

Her face blazes, heat curling over her cheekbones. Her dark nipples are visible through the soaked fabric, perked from the chilled water.

Several of the voices are loud, speaking on top of each other, the edges of lantern light coming into view in the shadows that had fallen in the forest as the sun set from overhead.

Vi is very warm where she’s pressed to her front, their chests barely touching on each inhale.

The knight is faced away, staring over her shoulder toward the direction of the voices. Her feet slip where she’d been perched precariously upon slick stones, stumbling into the woman a little more and steadying herself upon her shoulder.

She can feel the bunching of Vi’s muscle under the soaked fabric, the heat from her skin penetrating past the chilled water and into the princess’s palm.

A complicated series of emotions cross through her; thrill, embarrassment, immediately followed by guilt.

Twin pairs of eyes watch as the rowdy group moves further away, the volume of their words fading as they pass through the forest.

They wait a beat more until Vi lets out a low breath. She can feel the way her muscles relax, the tension bleeding out of them. The guard seems to take note of their continued proximity, pushing off the rocks behind them to give her some space.

Caitlyn’s hands immediately fall to her chest, wrapping around herself in an attempt to maintain some decency.

“Sorry,” the knight mumbles.

“It is alright.” Her face is burning.

“Come on, we should get you dry. Your mother will end me if you catch a sickness out here.” Her guard slips a little as she climbs from the rocky basin out of the channel. She’s dripping with water, it pouring in heavy rivets from her clothes as she turns to offer her hand to the royal once more.

Caitlyn can’t stop her gaze from sliding up the woman’s body. The shirt and pants she wears cling to her, the soaked fabric hugging to her. It reveals the gentle curve of her waist, Caitlyn studying the transition of her figure it changes to the swell of her breasts, the sight making her mouth go suddenly dry.

After a moment, she grasps the slick hand of her guard, allowing her to pull her from the water. She’s graceless, stumbling over the slippery rocks and dead leaves. Twigs and rocks cling to her damp feet when she walks up the basin, finding her footing on the large stones to climb up to where her clothing had been abandoned.

She shakes herself, shivering in the chilled air as it settles into her damp skin. The coolness of the water had not bothered her initially, but now in the chill of early autumn air she is shaking. The sun had long set, leaving the forest cooled with crisp mountain air.

It is easy to weave a spell of summer sunlight into her fingertips, pressing the brightness of it to her skin where it instantly draws away the cold water and leaves her warmed.

The princess continues, pressing her fingertips over her whole form, until she’s left mostly dry and a little frizzy from the sudden heat.

Her guard is off to the side, having scrubbed her hands into her short locks in an attempt to rid it of water. Caitlyn huffs in amusement at the sight of unruly hair, pulling her plum overdress upon herself and tying the knots on either side to tighten the bodice it against her torso.

“Let me dry you, Vi,” she demands, pulling her hair up into a tie easily to disguise its unruly state. “Come, your outer layers must come off or we’ll be here all night.”

The knight looks like a rabbit snared in a trap, eyes going wide suddenly as she stares at the princess.

“That is alright.”

“Do not be foolish, you may fall ill if we walk back to the castle with you like that. Come, just the outer layers should suffice.”

“No, truly princess, I do not mind.”

“You are shivering,” she states, unimpressed. “Come, I won’t look.”

“I. Alright. You won’t look?”

“I swear it,” she promises, holding her hands out for the clothing and closing her eyes.

She hears the sound of fabric sliding, soaked with water and pulling difficultly from her equally wet skin. Eventually the outer clothes are placed in her hands, dripping and cold.

The princess turns her back, mumbling the warmth spell as she rubs her hands over the clothing, watching as the water pulls from the cloth like it’s being squeezed. It soaks the ground beneath her feet, the fabric growing warm and dry. The trousers, shirt, and vest are smooth against her hands when she toys with them for a second, her mind flickering between her thoughts.

Surely, it would be no issue for Vi to don the dry clothes for their walk back to the castle. She would immediately dampen them, but it would be hardly as dangerous as making the journey fully soaked as she had been moments before.

However, she can’t help but feel there is an opportunity presented before her that she hadn’t dared to think much of in the past few months. She swallows past the dryness in her mouth, decision made.

“I’ll shut my eyes but I have to dry you too. Won’t do you any good to put dry clothes on top of wet skin.” She reasons, proud her voice is steady as she speaks, the clothes left upon her bag.

“Aye, princess.” Vi concedes quietly. She sounds uncharacteristically subdued, which strikes Caitlyn as odd. True to her word, she keeps her eyes closed as she turns back to the woman and holds her hands out expectantly.

Vi’s fingers are chilled when they touch hers. It makes Caitlyn startle, embarrassingly, though she was expecting the touch. The contact allows her to guide her palms up her arms, the damp skin growing warm under her spell weaving. Even with her eyes shut, she can see the warm glow that spreads from her palms and fingers, it paints red behind the curtain of her eyelids. The magic is pleasant where it tingles on her skin, she wonders if it tickles the knight before her.

She discovers quite quickly why Vi was so hesitant to remove her clothes. Despite not quite touching her, she can still feel the bareness of the skin beneath her glowing palms, a hair’s breadth of distance between the two. It makes her jolt a little at the discovery, her already warmed face burning with the realization that the woman in front of her might be totally nude.

“Uh,” she offers dumbly.

“This is alright,” Vi reasons, “I am dry enough.”

“Nonsense,” she shakes herself, snapping her attention forward once again. Her touch turns featherlight as she presses further over her shoulders. The skin under her fingers shivers, gooseflesh breaking out under the light contact.

She crouches to press down the length of her legs, skirting her hands over the indent of her knees and the flare of her calves. Vi shifts a little, making a soft noise, the motion pressing her skin further into the warmth of her hand on one side.

It makes her mouth go dry, moving on quickly in hopes of appearing unaffected.

She wonders if Vi is watching her face; if the knight can read the embarrassment burning on her expression. Or the wanting that simmers beneath.

Maybe unnecessarily she moves to press up the span of her back, water running from her hair to drip cool rivers down the plateau of her muscles.

The skin there makes her pause, bumpy and uneven where most of the other had been soft to the touch despite the woman’s career.

The warming spell acts quickly, pulling away the rivets of water that spill from the pink locks, but her hands still remain on her back where she can feel the edges of what she can only imagine are scars bunching the skin oddly.

“Vi,” she starts, questioning in her voice.

“We need to start walking,” the knight cuts her off, prompting Caitlyn to take a step back. “You are already late for dinner.”

“Right,” the princess mumbles, her eyes still shut. The rustling of fabric stretches for a moment before the two begin their trek back through the darkening woods.

The castle is fully lit when they tumble over the edge of the garden wall once more, their feet thudding as they roll into the grass of the palace pastures. Vi helps her up, brushing the dried leaves from her clothes as they approach the looming palace.

“Will you tell my parents of the channel?” Caitlyn inquires, not quite worried but still curious.

“No, your highness,” her knight muses, “I believe it’s time you’re afforded some secrets.”

It makes her squint for a second, something like dread looming in her stomach as she watches the woman for any sign that she knows of her other identity.

The knight looks amused, head tilted and a small smile in place on her lips. After a beat, she bows lightly to the princess and bids her goodnight.

When dinner is finished, the last colors of sunset fully stolen from the sky, Caitlyn sits in her quarters still damp from her bath. The last of the river water washed from her hair, replaced with the smell of rosehips oil. She toys with her hair, bidding her attendants goodnight as she slips the damp locks between her fingers.

Her skin is warm from the hot bath, but it is flushed for another reason.

The memory of Vi’s skin under her hands feels like it is pressed like a brand into her palms, the shadow of the sensation haunting her as she opens and closes her fists a handful of times.

Her mouth is dry despite the water and wine she’d consumed, a thirst unquenched regardless of the hydration. She debates for a moment.

She’d tried, since that initial night all those years previous, to avoid touching herself with her guard in mind. It had taken well over a month to rid herself of her girlish blushing around the knight due to her voyeuristic masturbation, and she did not require a reminder of that particular shade of humiliation.

It felt like a boundary she should not cross again, keeping instead Vi at arm’s length to prevent the temptation of such crimes from occurring again.

But that is not to suggest that she hadn’t considered it.

A pulse of wanting goes through her whenever she sees the woman in any state of exertion, and unfortunately common occurrence since the knight had taken up a role higher in the crown’s guard. She was charged with training many of the young squires to pledge duty at the castle, a daily matter that left the woman sweaty and perpetually glistening.

Caitlyn would feel something deep in her belly curl at the sight of her, draining a cup of water out on the training grounds, wiping her sweaty brow with the back of her wrist. It would often pull the line of her shirts upward, revealing the tantalizing tan skin of her stomach.

The princess would turn away before her thoughts ran too far away from her control, embarrassingly having to mumble cooling spells to rid the warmth from her cheeks.

But here, in the privacy of her quarters, long after her maids had bid her goodnight, she had a far harder time convince herself.

Especially now that she knows what the feeling of Vi’s skin is under her hands, the hard line of the muscles of her shoulders and the inhuman level of heat that she puts off.

The princess throws aside her dressing gown, the robe fluttering uselessly to the ground as she presses herself back onto the mattress. She takes her breasts in each hand, cupping them and feeling the way her nipples had already pebbled from her thoughts. The hardened peaks are tight when she presses her fingers to them, rubbing over the flesh and plucking them.

The heat between her thighs is hard to ignore, her legs shifting restlessly on the bed as she strokes the softness of her breasts. Pinching her nipples harder forces a breathy exhale to escape her mouth, her lips parting under the soft sound.

Her eyes had slipped closed, thoughts drifting easily to where it typically strays when she does this, despite her efforts.

Vi’s broad shoulders, wide hands and long fingers, her expression when she throws her head back in laughter.

Now, the feeling of her skin, warm and unyielding under her grasp.

The soft sound of surprise she makes sometimes, just the barest gasp of breath.

How similar it is to the sounds of pleasure Caitlyn can recall like one of her spells.

Caitlyn’s fingers are between her thighs before she can think of anything else. Her center is slick when she rubs her fingers over the seam of her cunt, the skin soft and hair still faintly damp from her bath.

She slides her fingers up and down over the vestibule of her cunt, feeling the wetness spread from her opening over her clit. She moans softly, pleasure sparkling along her core at the attention.

It’s easy to slide two fingers into herself, relishing in the way she clenches around the digits.

Her other hand is still curved over her breast, fingers pinching her nipple more harshly than before.

She imagines what it would be like to have Vi’s mouth there, pressing her teeth to the sensitive skin of her areola. Leaving marks on the delicate skin.

In her mind, she’d press her fingers over the woman’s shoulders and cling there. She’d dig her nails into the flesh of her back, leaving her own marks in response, feeling the strength built into her form over the years of training.

She would drag a hand up to tangle in the unruly locks the woman always wore, the coarse hair pulling under her hand and allowing her to direct her mouth to where she saw it fit… perhaps even. Perhaps.

Caitlyn lets out a short noise at the thought, her face ablaze with the very consideration of her knight pressing her lips to her cunt. How it would feel to have her tongue press against her folds. It is something she’d only read about, but the thought makes her burn with desire.

Her fingers press hard inside of her opening, the slick sound of fucking filling the room in the late hour. She tilts her hips into it, a shuddering breath leaving her at how close she is.

The princess thinks of it, let’s herself think of it, the idea of Vi crouching before her. Here, in her chambers, away from the prying eyes of her court or the palace attendants.

Caitlyn would open her legs, letting the length of her skirts be pushed up and away, the knight trailing bites over her thighs until she reached her center. She would have a hand held in her pink hair, sighing at the first press of her lips against her cunt. It’d be easy to hold her there, how Vi would allow her to grind against her and tug on her locks.

She imagines Vi’s tongue curling inside of her, licking away at the slickness from where it pours from within her.

Caitlyn lets out a strangled noise, her pleasure crushing her in the suddenness of its cresting. Her breath shudders out of her, cunt clinging to her fingers where she’d been grinding her clit against the heel of her hand, fingers still buried within her.

All the tension bleeds out of her, leaving her with the familiar sensation of guilt in its wake.

When the princess passes her twentieth birthday, her mother sits her down with a serious expression on her face.

“I have little reason to believe you are avoiding the matter,” she starts, voice even and serious. “But if you do not select a suitor soon, there will be little I can do to protect you from the backlash of the other realms.”

The princess sits back heavily, her eyes narrowed in thought.

“Do they call for war if I do not accept a betrothal?”

“No, daughter-mine, but they do question the strength of our realm if we do not have a crowned heir who follows in the path designed for her.” Her father’s voice is warm, perhaps a little amused. He comes to stand by his daughter, resting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Why do you not wish to marry? Do you have some fear we could help dispel?”

“It is not fear,” Caitlyn says immediately. “It is only… I do not believe there is anyone who could be a fair match for me, that is all.”

Her mother’s eyebrows raise.

“You have been granted the ability to select a spouse for yourself, and even still you do not believe there is anyone in the realms who can be a good match?”

“Yes, precisely that.” She nods.

“We could consult a matchmaker.” Her father offers.

“No, I would hate that even more.” She jokes, smiling up at the king who does the same to her.

“Perhaps a competition then,” The queen suggests.

“A competition.”

“Yes, for your hand. Any suitors who are interested need to prove themselves in any case, perhaps a contest of your making would appease you.”

“It would allow you to tailor the rules to your liking.”

The princess considers this, her eyes going far away for a moment before she nods.

“Yes, I think… perhaps a competition would be the best manner in which to evaluate a suitor. I could announce it at the next council meeting.”

It takes nearly no time at all for the young princess to decide on her contest of choice. A month later, at a council meeting that included the heads of many noble houses, she takes the floor following her mother’s introduction.

“The question of my betrothal has been brought up once again. My mother and I agree that it is time that I enlighten the public on my wishes on that matter.”

A low murmur crosses the crowd.

“I propose a competition for my hand in marriage.” Caitlyn offers, her hands clasped in front of her as she addresses the table of council members.

“And the competition, your highness?” A council member requests, sitting forward curiously.

She clears her throat. “Any who wish to marry me must collect three silver whiskers from my black cat. I will know if these whiskers are not from her, and any who attempt to fool me will be spurned by my court.”

A murmur goes over the crowd, ranging from disbelief to enthusiasm.

A competition for the hand of marriage to a crowned heir was not common, though it wasn’t unheard-of to ask suitors to perform some task to prove themselves.

With the council in agreement, word spreads through the crowd and squires taking note of her proposal to send off to neighboring houses in the realms.

Her mother has an unreadable expression on her face when Caitlyn turns back to her, but the daughter can tell there is something akin to approval in it.

“The princess has spoken,” She states, hushing the group with her tone. “Eligible suitors may come to our kingdom to compete for a chance at my daughter’s hand.”

It makes a sigh ghost out of the princess, though she tries not to show it. She sits primly on the edge of her seat at her mother’s side, back rigid. She had, for a moment, believed her mother to deny her of this.

Instead, she leans over to the princess, and whispers in her ear.

“I am glad you have settled this matter, my daughter.”

Settled is perhaps not the word the princess would use, but she smiles at her mother nonetheless.

Winter is a difficult time to ride pegasus, the chilled mountain air cutting in its coldness as one sweeps through the air. Piltover’s high altitude kept the freeze of the colder months weaving through the atmosphere far longer than most of the realms, the dry cold of it harsh upon any rider’s skin. They are prone to sunburn, frostbite, even delirium as the constant snow clouds in the skies bleed together endlessly into dangerous and challenging routes to navigate.

It does little to deter Caitlyn, who takes to the skies most days of the week when she can manage.

On a cloudy, but otherwise calm day, she is surprised to find company within the stables, and not of the hands she is so used to.

Vi looks at ease in a way she rarely sees from her, a small smile curled on the edge of her lips as she pets her hands along the neck of a brown mare in her stall. She inclines her head to the princess when Caitlyn approaches, a light hum passing her lips as she continues detangling the long mane of the pegasus before her.

“You have spent much time in the stables as of late,” Caitlyn offers conversationally a beat later, having placed her saddle upon Silvermist’s back, hands working at the clasps to train her eyes down instead of up towards the woman she addresses.

“Aye, it is peaceful here with the pegasus.” Vi offers, “They make easy companions, their intellect is unparalleled."

“Yes, they are known for their minds.” The clips fasten easily underhand. Her fingers are cold with the chill of the air, the wool of her riding pants and tunic warmer to help stave off the cold. “An excellent read on people, this species.”

Vi looks up at that from her placement two stalls down. The princess can feel her expression where it lies on her face, but Caitlyn remains invested in the task of looping the saddle. Perhaps overly so.

“Are you alluding to something, your highness?”

“No, no,” she waves her off. “Only that they are not always so friendly with newcomers. It makes me curious what else you could manage with them.”

Vi is standing at the door to Silvermist’s stall when she turns, her eyebrows raised in skepticism.

“Stormchaser does need a rider,” The princess offers, injecting a conversational note to her speech.

“Do you mean to suggest that rider to be me?”

Vi can’t hide the incredulous nature of her statement if she tried.

“It seems only fair, seeing that you have risen in rank in the crown’s guard. Not to mention you were present for his first ridden flight.”

“His escape, you mean.” She points out in rebuttal.

“Is it truly an escape if he was gone for only a matter of minutes?”

“Princess,” Vi implores.

“You have much riding experience, I have seen it. This is little different.”

“It is in the sky, your highness.”

“Yes, a mild adjustment.”

Caitlyn shrugs, noting knight’s posture where she is leaned against the stable doorframe, her arms crossed over her chest. She has a look of pure bewilderment on her face, making her look more youthful somehow.

Silvermist tosses her head for a moment, as if laughing at the conversation that passes between the pair.

“He already has taken a liking to you,” She points out, nodding toward the black stallion who is leaning his head out of his stall, looking towards the three where they stand a few paces down. His eyes are wide and dark, ears pointed forward in an obvious sign of interest.

“This is a liking?”

The princess laughs, finishing the belting of her saddle upon her steed.

“If you are afraid, that is alright. I promise it passes quickly.”

“With all fairness, my liege, you have grown up upon pegasus back. I have only recently become acquainted.”

“Certainly, but you cannot ignore that you took well to it.”

“During an emergency.”

“If you wish to keep fighting with me, I will leave you on the ground.” She hums, the knight stepping back as she leads her mare through the doors and towards the exit of the stables. “However, Silvermist and I are going for a flight on a beautiful day, and I see not one reason why you should not accompany us.”

“He may throw me.” Vi drawls, eyebrow arching.

“I know him not as well as my own steed, but surely you do not expect that I would allow you to plummet to your death.”

She seems to consider this for a moment, eyes sliding to where the black stallion shakes out his head and goes back to staring at them. His wings ruffle in excitement, ears flickering.

She can practically feel the way her guard rolls her eyes as she moves to grasp a saddle.

“They take to flying quite easily, even he has done well the last few times I have taken him out. You must kick just to the rear of their wings and guide them into a canter.”

The knight looks to her trepidation, regarding her as she nudges at Silvermist’s flank and feels the familiar swoop of her wings catching wind beneath them. They are above the ground in a breath, Caitlyn’s back arching as she looks back towards her guard and grins.

Vi shakes her head, which she can see as she circles the pair. Stormchaser shakes his head out, his mane tossing as he shifts, impatient to take to the skies with his mother.

Though it is cloudy, the overcast allows a near blinding whiteness to shine below upon the snowy pasture. She can clearly see the spots that are nearly hidden beneath his dark coat, the only signs of his parentage revealed in the light.

Finally, the knight snaps the reins and does as Caitlyn had instructed, the pegasus kicking off as he strides forward. His wings stretch long and wide, the feathers fluttering in the wind as he beats them once, again, and they were off the ground.

The older pegasus trots as she falls in line beside them, Caitlyn grinning over to the guard who refuses to look over at her. Her jaw is tight with how she is clenching her teeth, her hands clasping the reins with a desperation as the stallion canters in delight through the sky.

“You are skilled at this!” She calls with a smile.

“Thanks,” Vi grits out sardonically, watching as the princess laughs and urges her mare upward towards the clouds. Despite her obvious dislike, the other pegasus is urged to follow.

“Are we to meet the moon today?” The knight calls over the winds, her tone tight.

She looks displeased, but not fearful at the prospect of being so high. Stormchaser, on the other hand, is absolutely joyous, his feet kicking in delight at the end of his footfalls as they canter westbound.

“I do not know why you insist on complaining, you are more successful than I was on my first flight.”

Vi glances over to her, eyebrow raised. They glide in line with each other, the wind passing below them. It is cold, redness rising to both of their cheeks at the exposure.

“Oh yes, it wasn’t Silvermist who took me on my first flight, but a stubborn old mare that was a cousin of Dreamshadow. She refused to yield to me once we took to the skies, driving up to the clouds before my mother could catch us.”

Her face erupts in horror, regarding the princess with concern. She cackles in reply, Silvermist whinnying at the noise.

“I was fine, Vi! She taught me fearlessness in that moment, a lesson I am grateful for.”

“So that is what to be blamed?” She calls, sounding less strained now that they had drifted amongst the clouds for a handful of minutes.

“I choose to think it is, though if my grandmother was to be believed, my mother was much the same at my age as I am now.”

“Ah,” The knight calls, urging Stormchaser forward to overtake the princess in pace. The princess blinks in surprise, a smile stretching her features. “Did your grandmother happen to mention when she grew out of that?”

Caitlyn makes a noise of shock at the rare jab, startled into a laugh when the pair take off, Vi snapping the reins to urge the young stallion into a gallop. She watches, eyes tracing the line of her shoulders as she pulls ahead. The broadness that they possess, and the way that they taper down to her slim waist where she can see the wind blow her shirt close to her skin, the fabric clinging to her in the force of it.

Silvermist huffs, as if annoyed at her rider’s inaction, prompting the princess to follow the pair and kick their pace higher to reach them.

Though Stormchaser is strong, he is still young, and they catch up to the pair easily and overtake them.

Vi is regarding her with a rare expression as she shoots a grin down towards her, some quality in it of indecipherable, but still awe inspiring in how open it is. It leaves Caitlyn breathless all at once, her heart lodging in her chest upon her next inhale.

The brightness of the overcast sky had cast a cool halo over her guard, her hair swept back in the wind and leaving her face open. Her freckles were countless, blending over each other in their numerosity, decorating her face as they disappear from view below her collar.

Caitlyn is struck by the urge to see this exact expression upon her features as often as she can manage it, watching how the normally present set to her brows drops away in her joy, making her expression less severe.

She looks young, and beautiful.

Stormchaser overtakes them again, prompting a race between mother and son that leads the riders exhausted and laughing by the time they wobble off the pair of pegasus onto solid land once more.

“Thank you, your highness.”

She hums, handing the reins off to the stable hand who greets them on their approach.

“I see no reason to thank me. Pegasus choose their riders, Vi.”

The woman halts, Caitlyn continuing two paces before she turns to face her.

“You… mean to say…”

“That Stormchaser is yours? Of course. Why else would I implore you to take to the skies if not for this very reason?”

Vi shakes her head, expression open and lost.

“It is… It is not permitted, no? Usually?”

“It is. I permit it.” The princess insists, waving her off and continuing her approach to the castle.

It is an incredible honor to be granted a pegasus outside of battle, the only ones permitted to ride typically members of the royal family or their armies, even then they were usually a member of nobility of some kind.

Vi is neither, but Caitlyn isn’t in the habit of denying nature what it likes. She knew the moment she had witnessed Stormchaser interacting easily with the woman that she was his rider. She is satisfied to find her assumption correct, the pair taking to the skies more easily than if they had not been bound by soul and heart.

The princess hears the startle in Vi’s laugh, followed by a hurried pace until the knight catches up with her once more and falls into pace beside her.

“Aye, your highness, as you command.”

Winter weaves cold into the palace walls, leaving Caitlyn thankful for the coat of fur her little feline form contains.

She’d taken to roaming the castle in the evenings, chasing the end of sunlight as it dipped beneath the horizon. Snow falls easily nearly each night, growing piles feet deep upon their grounds and obscuring the gardens from view.

The princess jumps from balcony to balcony, her feet crunching in the snow that lines the railing.

It is a clever way to show the cat’s participation in her challenge without needing to be present at all hours of the day.

Though there were initially suitors each week who came to try their hands at the princess’s challenge, the numbers soon dwindled. Often, they would go an entire month without another noble man or woman coming to the palace to walk the halls and try their hand at the feat.

All of them were perfectly fine people, she had to admit. Some were even interesting, chattering with the princess warmly as she toured them through the castle, as was custom.

But she found herself still heavy with the boredom of their presence, feeling nothing more than a passing pique of fascination at the newness, quickly dispelled at their incompetence.

It wasn’t their fault. She was purposely attempting to make it more difficult than most had bargained for, even the palace staff becoming keen to the monumental task at hand as the weeks passed and the princess remained unbetrothed.

Sometimes, they would call to the cat. Whisper and coo at her, offer her bits of dried meat or fish in an effort to draw her near. She wonders if it is to steal her whisker, sell them to the highest bidder. She never allows them, and no one chases her, so the harm is null.

They remain employed, for the time being.

Voices draw her closer to the walls of the palace, the snow nearly so tall it covers her as she hops through the darkening gardens and towards the knights’ quarters. Light spills from within the walls, painting gold onto the snow outside as she watches the figures within move about.

Vi is among them, she notes, her pink hair a shock of color among the dark browns and blacks that are common of the men of Piltover.

They are dressed to go out, their uniforms discarded and instead the casual ware of their people donned on their figures. Their cloaks all match, the kingdom’s crest upon their breasts as they swirl the fabric about them and tie the laces.

She feels a pang of envy as she watches them, darting through the shadows and following their footsteps as they move towards the palace gates.

They are boisterous, and loud. Vi is not, though there is a smile on her face, and an ease to her gait. She is not required to remain at Caitlyn’s side at all hours of the night, though the thought had not occurred to the princess that she went out with the other members of the guard on their social excursions.

It fills her suddenly, and entirely, with curiosity.

What was she like, when she was not with the princess or on duty?

Caitlyn hops to the pillars of the walls surrounding the palace grounds, sitting upon the ashlar of the walkway. The knight beside her waves to the group as they depart, the lanterns of the streets lighting their path as they jostle each other and descend towards the town below.

Her tail swishes, annoyance, or envy perhaps, coloring her night. The guard beside her returns to attention, making his way down the allure towards the corner of the outer walls.

It is not often she desires so deeply to be different than what she is.

She has more freedom than most heirs, being allowed her education outside the walls of her palace, and even the freedom to abscond the safety of her quarters at a moment’s notice.

Though she wonders, distantly, if there were more freedom to be found.

This little body had provided much of it, giving her the gift of near invisibility amongst the palace staff, and her family alike. But she was confined there, even still. Her outings in the afternoon had slowed with the falling of snow, leaving her restless.

Glamour magic, much like that she wore in her feline form, was known to be fickle. If a sorcerer were not careful, they could permanently maim themselves, or even destroy their minds.

It was certainly a challenge.

Her tail flickers again, knocking more of the snow from her perch.

She knows a few people who enjoy challenges.

“I have a challenge for you, my friend.” Caitlyn’s voice rings out into the quiet of Viktor’s home. It is a nice, private apartment near the town square, the sounds of the streets below magicked to dim as soon as she closes the door behind her.

The man in question turns from his desk in the corner of his sitting rooms, regarding the princess with an unimpressed stare. His cool gaze goes to where her fingers still shimmer with magic from the bright pop of her lockpicking spell.

“What if I had a guest, Cait?” He tones, quirking an eye at her but gesturing her to the couches all the while.

“Oh, please, you’d have told me immediately had you any desire to bring guests into your solitude.”

He grumbles something, swinging himself onto the couch across her, the cold of the air vanquished by the warm, crackling fire he had lit despite the early hour of the day.

“Tell me, what challenge has brought you to me on a day I know you have better things to do?” He grins, handing over tea, which Caitlyn grasps gratefully.

There is a thrill of nervousness in her stomach, the anticipation of tackling the task at hand.

“I want to perform a glamour.”

The Zaunite sets his own cup down, regarding her with an odd expression.

“Did you not tell me, some years ago, how you desired freedom in this form, and not one you’d have to wear for only a few hours’ time?”

“Yes, yes,” She waves off, before his sentence has fully greeted the room. “But I only wish to do this once. Well, perhaps twice, if it goes well.”

“Cait,” He admonishes.

“I will not do it more than once.”

“It is dangerous, to wear another’s face for any amount of time.”

She shifts, mildly uncomfortable by the scrutiny he offers her. He watches her queerly for a moment, his deep brown eyes searching over her while she smooths her skirts and considers how to proceed.

She’d never told anyone about her other form, though it technically wasn’t a glamour, it was controversial. There was a reason the old magic was protected as it was. Forms other than that of one’s birth could be a curse, binding the soul of a person so intrinsically that they lose themselves, and then their mind.

The princess considers, briefly, mentioning the other form her soul shares. The transfiguration she’d manage in her youth, and her continued success as keeping her forms separate.

Viktor speaks again before she can decide.

“What is the purpose, now, since you’d rid this from your mind for so many years?”

The teacup is warm in her hands when she strokes her thumb along the curve of it.

“I am tired of watching the backs of people leave the palace grounds so freely.” She decides eventually. “Not escaping over the walls, or sneaking out through the dark of night. To just walk, freely, easily, through the gates and out into the town.”

Viktor is watching her, unblinkingly, where he leans forward. His elbows brace upon his knees, head tilted lightly as if to hear her better.

“Once, Viktor. I’d like to, just once, be someone other than Caitlyn Kiramman.”

The pub is nondescript, several of its kind on that very street. She’d not have been able to pick it from the others had she not witnessed the familiar faces of the crown’s guards entering. The tavern is tall, rooms for rent on the floors above, a welcomed place of rest for weary travelers.

The inside isn’t quite so crowded, a handful of patrons coloring the dining room with their presence and conversation. A barmaid looks comfortable, leaning against the bar to speak to a man seated there before her.

The knights had spread throughout the tavern in the time it took Caitlyn to work up the courage to enter after them. She’d worried that she would be recognized immediately, but with each passing townsperson who did not immediately bow before her, her confidence grew.

The glamour had set an ache into her skin, something she’d read about from past sorcerers who had overused the magic as such. It could cause chronic conditions, the constant shifting of bone structure, the cells of one body unused to the magic weaved within their walls.

She was never more thankful to have chosen a transfiguration spell to find freedom as a cat.

Within the warm walls of the main dining area hung the smell of yeasted dough and rich stews, the lantern light coloring the room a deep orange hue that spills out upon the patrons from magicked lanterns hanging about the space.

The princess spots Vi almost immediately, seated at a table with a girl who looks barely eight and ten leaning deep into her space. The princess takes her seat upon a bar stool a handful of paces away, tilting her head to listen to the conversation, though she needn’t try too hard. The girl spoke loudly despite the relative quiet of the tavern, her voice carrying and grating.

Caitlyn orders ale and keeps her eyes to the bar top as she takes a sip, the taste sharp upon her tongue. From this angle, she can see the pair seated just adjacent to where she is out of the corner of her eye.

“You work in the palace?” The young woman’s voice is high pitch, her eyes wide with wonderment. It makes Caitlyn’s teeth itch. She takes another sip of the ale she’d ordered to help.

She’d never seen the girl before, young with dark skin and a crown of curly black locks that surround her cherub-like face. She truly can’t be out of her teens, slight in frame but not so much to suggest she were a child. Her face was round, giving away her youth, but her figure was that of a woman.

Caitlyn can, unfortunately, see the appeal.

“Aye, it is a job.” Vi’s voice responds, sounding light with amusement.

“What do you do?” Awe-inspired.

“What do you do?” Cait mocks in her mind, before she can prevent herself the pettiness.

The ale is bitter as she drags it into her mouth.

“I am a knight, a member of the crown’s guard.”

Caitlyn can see from the angle she’s seated that the girl is now fully leaning into Vi’s space, hand poised to touch the woman’s arm where it holds her own pitcher of alcohol in front of her lips. The girl’s fingers are delicate and tiny, brushing over the tanned skin of her guard’s arm.

She has to begrudgingly admit she is pretty, however irritating. Her eyes are wide and brown, sparkling in the warm lamplight, even from the far angle Caitlyn sits.

The girl gushes, impressed by the knight’s career. Caitlyn truly can’t resist rolling her eyes in response, downing the rest of the bitter beer with a long swig and motioning to the tavern lady for another.

“Never seen you around here, stranger.” The waitress drawls, pouring her another.

“Just passing through.” Caitlyn mumbles, her voice pitched low and quiet.

Her glamour is relatively simple, making her appear taller and more androgynous, similar to the people of Targon just to the northeast. It’d made her tanner, masculinizing her face and lightening her hair to a rusty brown.

She’s plain, which is exactly what she was going for. Easy to blend into the background of the busy tavern, the other members of the crown’s guard she recognizes milling about the room in conversation.

They jeer a little at Vi who waves them off, a good-humored smirk upon her face where she doesn’t look away from the girl across her.

She had no idea she’d be jealous of some village child. Begrudgingly, she has to admit she would have adjusted her form to appear more… attractive, perhaps, if she’d known, despite the unwanted attention it would have no doubt brought upon her.

The taste in her mouth is acrid, not just from the alcohol, the envy sharp on her tongue. It makes her stomach ache, perhaps spurred on by the speed in which she’d consumed her first beverage.

Vi has a flush on her face when Cait glances back up, leaning forward on her elbows and letting the slight thing that had occupied the seat next to her press close and talk directly into her ear.

“I see you’ve noticed Lara’s selection for the evening.” The barkeep states, her hand pressed against her hip as she gestures to the two seated a table over with her head.

“Lara?” She responds, quirking a brow at the woman.

“She’s the seamstresses’ apprentice. Chatty thing, likes to collect conquests.” The woman rolls her eyes fondly, whipping the bar in front of Cait. She watches in a detached manner, mulling over the words.

“So, the knight is another notch in her bedpost?” The princess responds conversationally, injecting neutrality into her tone.

“Aye, it seems that way.” They share a smile.

Somehow, it makes Cait feel a bit better, but still her stomach is soured. She sighs, rubbing her eyes tiredly with the thumb and forefinger of one hand.

The outing was not as she had planned, though she wasn’t entirely sure how she’d planned it in the first place. Her glamour was effective, seeing that Vi didn’t recognize her, and none of the commoners in the tavern were gawking at a royal in their presence. And she’d solved the mystery of where the knight would run off to on her evenings off, so in all she should consider it a success.

Caitlyn startles when she feels a form next to her, shoulders tensing as a flash of fuchsia hair sways into her periphery.

“Barkeep,” Vi’s voice is low and drawling in a way she had not heard before. “Another round, please.”

The woman nods, obediently going to pour more mead from the pitchers down at the end of the bar. Cait toys with her mug, feeling her face grow hot and wondering if her embarrassment shows through the glamour or not.

Distantly she makes a note to practice that in reach of a mirror.

“You be careful with that one,” the barkeep muses, “She may be small, but she be trouble.”

“Nothing I haven’t gotten good at handling,” her knight jokes. Cait bristles at the potential jab to her own shortcomings, turning to look at the woman who throws a grin her way when their eyes meet.

For a moment her throat seizes with the potential that she’s been recognized, but no sign of familiarity passes over her guard’s flushed expression. Instead she offers a neutral nod toward the stranger and snags the beverages off the bar.

Something like anger wells within her, petulant and sour on the back of her tongue. She drains her glass, pressing down a smearing of coins to the bar top before making her leave.

She refuses to look back toward the pair, though she hears a peal of too-loud laughter that follows her out onto the streets. It only serves to make her anger burn brighter as she journeys back to the palace in the midevening foot traffic.

“I need 7 stones worth of dried fire newts.” Caitlyn states primly, not acknowledging the form of her knight once she enters her private study. She stares down at a book, though the page she’d been reading over and over for the past quarter hour while she waited for the woman in question.

“I can send a squire for them,” Vi states neutrally.

“Not necessary, I wish for you to do it.” She flips the page, fingers playing along the parchment as she pretends to read.

She hears the guard pause, shifting weight from one foot to the other.

“Would… this task not be better suited for a squire?” She asks.

“Are you questioning me?” Her voice is short, looking up from the tome but not toward the woman. Instead she glares at the point directly between them, tilting her head as if waiting for an answer.

“No, your highness,” Vi responds after a beat. “As you command, I will leave at once.”

She nods, offering nothing more as she turns back to her pretend work and hears the woman exit.

It’s nearly evening when Vi is returns, knocking on her chamber door with her distinctive, sure raps.

“You may enter,” Caitlyn states, shifting a little as her attendant draws her hair over her shoulder, brushing through it with rich-smelling oils. It soothes her, but not enough to rid the clench of her stomach in response to her guard’s form entering her private sitting area.

“Your ingredients, my liege.” Vi states, though there’s something in her tone that Caitlyn can recognize as annoyance. Fire newts were a challenging find, the only trading post to house them well outside Piltover’s walls.

Internally, she simmers a little at the tone in her knight’s voice, glad that she was being affected by Caitlyn’s punishment.

“You may place them in the study,” she states, not looking from the letter she reads. The attendant pauses her brushes for a moment, obviously picking up on the uncomfortable air in the room.

“Will that be all, princess?” Vi asks once she returns to the common chamber.

“No, actually.” She states, glancing toward her form but refusing to meet her eye. She can tell Vi has an expression she’s schooling into neutrality, some tension visible in the clench of her jaw. “Tomorrow, another suitor plans his arrival to try his hand at my competition.”

She can see the knight’s jaw tick slightly at that. She relishes in it. Vi had never outright declared her dislike for the many suitors who had clambered over the palace in recent years, though Caitlyn had picked up on her distaste of them regardless. She always has an air of disinterest around them; respectful, but detached in a way that was almost judgmental

“I wish to make myself scarce after his greeting, so you shall keep an eye on him as he makes his attempts.”

“I…” Vi flounders for a moment. “I do not feel I am best equipped for such a task.”

“Nonsense,” she cuts. “You’ve lived in the palace for years now, you know the grounds well.”

“Getting lost is not my concern, my liege, rather the diplomacy I lack to navigate such a situation.”

“Whatever do you mean,” she drawls, an unimpressed expression set upon her face.

The knight shifts, “I have no concept of… I do not interact with your suitors.”

“Perhaps you should start. One of them shall be my betrothed, after all.”

Another tick to her jaw, Vi makes a short noise of comprehension.

“Aye, your highness.”

“Excellent. They will be here at sunrise, so do make sure to not be late. Goodnight,” She dismisses before the conversation can continue.

The next morning, Caitlyn is pleased to find Vi standing outside her quarters, posture straight and tense as the princess offers no greeting and passes by her towards the palace entrance.

The suitor is a man younger than even Caitlyn, hailing from their eastern neighbors of Ixtal. He is tall for his age, a handful of inches over the princess, and has kindness in his eyes when he bows to her in greeting.

She wastes no time explaining the rules of her competition, the words rehearsed and easy as she pours them from her lips with a diplomatic smile. Vi nods to the man, a young lord in his own right, as she’s introduced as his escort for the day.

She can practically feel the tension in her knight’s shoulders as she walks past them, off to the privacy of her quarters to shift her forms and spy upon the failures of her newest admirer.

Her little feet are fast as she prances along the balcony railings above the grounds, the young lord chattering away at her knight who trails among his court members with a harsh set to her brows that betrays her otherwise neutral expression. She is seething.

Caitlyn hops to another railing easily, her feet gliding easily through the air as she begins to make out their conversation as she comes within earshot.

“She is beautiful, I find it no surprise that so many have come to attempt this conquest before me.” The lord’s voice is boisterous, loud and joyful, the volume carrying easily through the grounds.

Vi makes a noise of agreeance, but says nothing more.

“Has no one come close before?”

“No, my lord. The cat is quite illusive, even I have not managed to touch her in the years I have lived within the palace.”

“And how many is that?”

“Nearly four now, my lord.”

He laughs, seeming undeterred.

“So, you and the princess are close, you would say?”

“No, I would not say.” Vi’s tone is colored by some emotion, Caitlyn relishing at the annoyance that is placed within it.

“No? She speaks to you without title, I had assumed you are friends.”

Vi’s jaw twitches, Caitlyn bending forward on her perch to observe it from one floor above their heads.

“We have only known each other for some years, it is familiarity sir, nothing else.”

“Ah, well. Perhaps you could enlighten me, nonetheless.” He rounds grandly, the silks of his robes swirling around his form as he turns to face the knight head on. She stops short, hands clasped behind her back in a show of relaxation, but Caitlyn can spot the tension in the line of her shoulders below her uniform. “What is Princess Caitlyn like, truly? When she is not being so… diplomatic.”

Vi’s eyes shift, glancing towards the castle. The hairs on her back raise, fearing being spotted from her perch above them, but the knight’s eyes do not slide so far as to brush along her form.

“She is… intelligent beyond words,” Vi says finally. “And very skilled in magic.”

“So I have heard,” The lord waves off, “Tell me something of her that is not known by the reputation which precedes her.”

The knight rolls her neck once, another sign of irritation. The cat leans forward, fascinated by the show. She’d never seen her so on edge, she wonders distantly what it is about this man that provokes such a reaction.

“Truthfully sir, there is much I have learned about her in my time in her service. But all I can provide that would not do a disservice to you by not learning it in your own right, is this: I believe there is not a thing in all the realms that will stop her if she sets her mind to something.”

There is something in her tone that stops the princess short, freezing in her posture as she stares down at the group. Vi sounds nearly admirable in her words, spoken with a reverence she had not heard from the woman more than a handful of times.

The lord sits back, seemingly pleased by the information provided.

Caitlyn makes sure to stretch dramatically, catching the eye of one of the lord’s court members who alerts them of her presence. She sniffs, dismissive as they clamber to find their way within the halls and towards where she is.

Vi trails after them, looking up at the little cat as she enters the awning below where she’s perched like a gargoyle.

“Best run off, little beast,” she calls with a smile.

Caitlyn blinks slowly, unimpressed, but turns to do just that as she hears the loudness of voices approaching her from within the halls.

The lord does not succeed, though he does attempt to search the castle as thoroughly as he is allowed. Caitlyn is kind in her dismissal of him, smiling as he places a gentle kiss upon her knuckles at his departure.

“I thank you, princess, for your consideration in this competition.”

“I thank you for your participation.” She responds, a twinkle of amusement in her eye.

When his court has left, she hums and directs a question toward her guard without turning to face her.

“What did you think of the young lord, Ser Vi.”

“He was an admirable competitor, my liege.” She drawls, her tone low and monotonous. “He would prove a formidable betrothal match.”

She feels oddly rejected by this statement, something in her tone feeling like an insult. Perhaps it is at the words feel wooden, hollow and disingenuous.

Caitlyn makes a face, turning away from the woman and stalking off down the halls.

“You’re dismissed for the evening.” She calls over her shoulders, feeling annoyance flare in her stomach as she hears an equally, infuriatingly neutral reply called towards her retreating back.

By the end of the week, Vi is looking drawn. She was struggling to school her expression, instead glaring down at the floor when Caitlyn delivers her nonsensical order of the day. It’s met with reluctant acceptance, the knight no longer even attempting to divert the princess’s bizarre new desire for her to complete tasks far below her standing and skillsets.

Though Cait had felt a shadow of satisfaction in the first few days of her revenge, it wanes quickly as the week progresses. Vi’s inability to refuse orders and Caitlyn’s endless list of tasks to complete make for a long week of early mornings and late nights. The guard sways gently at the end of the last evening, bowing for a moment too long when she bids the princess goodnight.

“I… Princess,” the knight says suddenly, pausing in her turn. Caitlyn raises her head in acknowledgement. “I had wondered… Jayce will be leading a hunting expedition to the north the week after next. Would I… be permitted to join him?”

She knew of Jayce’s plans; his endless excitement having rubbed off on her the last fortnight of his arranging. It was elk season now, the beasts roaming the mountainous terrain of Piltover, though the best hunting was far into the ranges to the north of their city.

The princess purses her lips. She hadn’t been feigning any activity at the late hour so she lacks something to do with her hands. Instead, she turns over the sachet of rare salts she’d asked Vi to procure to for her. They rattle gently in the glass receptacles, large crystals shiny in the low light.

It’d been a full day’s journey one way to the trading post she knew would have them, but the knight had returned in less than four full turns of the clock.

She’d ridden through the night previous, then, Cait considers. An emotion she can’t quite place thrums in her at the thought, but it eats at her stomach in a gnawing manner like rats upon a trap.

The woman looked as haggard as she’d expect from it, deep circles under her eyes standing out against her skin that had gained some pallor.

“I have not an answer for you.” She states honestly, unsure of how to proceed now that her game felt less like a punishment and more like torture.

“I-” The guard starts, then falters. “Aye, your highness. Goodnight.” She bows again, just as unsteady this time, and turns to exit.

Her shoulders are curled inward, defeat present in her tired frame.

She pauses with the door partially opened, a sigh whisping from her turned face.

“Princess, if I may,” the knight murmurs it gently, tilting partially back to where the royal sits. “If I had performed some… misstep, I do wish you would only tell me what it was, so I may apologize. Properly.”

Cait stares at the door long after it had closed behind her departure.

She’s surprised when a moment later there is a quiet knock on the doorway, the rich wood parting to reveal her father’s kind face.

“Oh, I didn’t expect you at such a late hour,” she states, standing to embrace the man with a smile.

“Yes, daughter mine, we had a late ride in from Ixtal. I wanted to see how you were faring.”

“I fare well.” She states, half honest, moving to sit with him in front of the crackling fire. His eyes are pensive as he glances over her, a ghost of a smile on his face.

“You are your mother’s daughter,” he offers conversationally. The princess makes a questioning noise, tilting her head in inquiry. “You have been required to grow despite such a significant weight of responsibility on your shoulders. You know that this kingdom will come to you in the coming years, and all of the heartaches and joys that come with it.”

“Yes, father,” she murmurs.

“When your mother was your age, she struggled to find balance in it as well. You must control so much, that I believe it is difficult to recognize what you cannot control.”

She blinks in surprise, making a questioning noise toward the king.

“People, daughter mine, are fragile things. Even the strongest of people are brittle this way; if we hold them without care, we can break them under the force of our embrace.” He strokes over her hair once, his eyes bright with affection. Caitlyn shifts, eyes sliding to the side and going very far away for a moment.

“Your mother struggled much the same in her youth. So desperate to hold someone close that she nearly destroyed a years-long friendship in the wake of her actions.”

The princess’s mouth parts in surprise.

Her queen mother’s disposition was so regal and elegant, finding ease in her decisions and endlessly confident with her wisdom. It was shocking to know she had made such a terrible misstep at any point in her life.

“I do… I did not mean to.” She offers quietly.

“I know, Caitlyn. Though it is challenging to release the cage we set on those we hold close. But the freedom it allows gives opportunity for growth, and in that, closeness.”

His fingers are soft where he brushes them over the curve of her face, offering her a gentle and knowing smile as he bids her goodnight.

She sits for a long while before the fire, lost in thought. A stone rolls itself into her belly, pressing horribly upon her, as if to demand her attention.

The next day, instead of finding a new task to keep her knight occupied for all her waking hours, she grants her a day of rest from her duties. Furthermore, she approves her request to accompany Jayce on his hunting trip the following week.

Needless to say, she’s shocked the woman wants anything to do with her, when only an hour after she sends the message through a page there’s a request for her audience.

She sits in the great dining hall, dressed to ride with her mother in the midmorning. She’d been picking at her breakfast, uninterested in the food despite it being expertly made and tailored to her liking. Her stomach was still leaden with unease, a heaviness that makes it hard to fill herself.

The knight looks more rested, color returned to her cheeks where there hadn’t been the previous evening. The morning light plays across her freckles where it strays in through the large stained glass windows, her eyes sparkling with some positive emotion the princess cannot place.

“Princess,” She bows. Caitlyn nods. “I came to thank you.”

“There is no need,” she dismisses quietly, her voice soft in the stillness of the morning. “I simply granted your request.”

“Still,” The guard reasons, shifting from one foot to the other. “My gratitude demands attention.”

The princess huffs, feeling odd at the prospect. Mostly guilty. It was horrible to see how she’d be thanked for something so simple, especially with all she’d done the past fortnight. She certainly hadn’t thanked Vi for all the work she’d put in to find innocuous ingredients from all stretches of her kingdom.

“Count it as repayment for the tasks you have completed for me as of late.” She says instead, hoping her tone impresses the sense of gratitude that she feels for it.

A smile pulls at the guard’s lips.

“You will be alright without my presence? We will be gone for some weeks.”

“The kingdom has survived many hundreds of years without your presence,” She raises her eyebrows. “I believe we shall persist.”

Despite the potentially cruel-sounding dismissal, the knight chuckles and offers another bow.

“I will take my leave then, princess.” She nods in response, watching the woman leave with a lightness to her step.

She’s perplexed enough by the exchange that she is late to meeting her mother, who shoots her an odd look but thankfully makes no comment on her tardiness.

The hunting trip was an annual affair, something Jayce had taken to doing with other young men from the Academy, mostly noble men in the making. He spoke endlessly about it for the weeks preceding it, something Caitlyn allowed with a shocking degree of patience.

He was a strong hunter, it was only natural he spoke so impassionedly about the subject, though the princess had little interest in the sport. She had attended her fair share of hunts in her youth, but the moment she was allowed to reject these duties, she did so.

Vi had gone with him once before, on a far less significant mission in the fall to hunt hares. It must have been great fun if she had such a strong desire to attend the multi-week ordeal this one was.

Elk were their game of choice, going to great lengths to track the huge creatures where they roamed in valleys down the opposite side of the western mountain range. It would take days by horseback to arrive, and many more still to succeed in the hunt, if they did at all.

Caitlyn, despite the welcome reprieve from the newest development with her knight, finds herself somewhat lonely in the wake of her departure.

The Academy had closed between the semesters, allowing students to travel far back to their homes and allow them to bring in the new year amongst loved ones. The King and Queen were away until the festivities the following week, gone on some diplomacy trip to Noxus.

Caitlyn had considered going, visiting her friend Mel, the Medarda princess, but she had changed her mind and decided to find peace within her solitude.

It had been difficult to come to terms with her own shortcomings that had occurred recently. She felt like a tyrant, torturing her trusted knight instead of removing the jealousy from her mind.

Jealousy she had no right to feel, seeing as though Vi was free to do as she pleased.

Freer than Caitlyn, at least.

There would come a day when she would marry, ascend the throne, and rule over her realm. She hoped, distantly, that Vi would be by her side for all of that. Though she had taken an oath, knights were known to retire after a certain age.

And her sister, who had come to stay at the palace upon the Academy’s closure, would complete her studies sooner than later. The years came quickly now, passing in the blink of an eye with all that happens within them.

Would she stay with the royal family after Jinx’s education was completed? She had little reason to, seeing that Caitlyn had taken to treating her so poorly.

A sourness had made itself known in her throat for some weeks now.

She was driving her away, she concluded. Making it easier even to retire from her duties, perhaps even abscond without bidding farewell, the sisters gone in the night and not to return.

“Are you alright?” Jinx’s voice was heavy with concern, drawing the princess from her thoughts.

She’d been worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, she noted distantly.

“I am. You fare well, Jinx?”

“Aye, princess.” The girl grins.

Vi and her had similarities, but there was a different kind of beauty in the younger sister. Where her elder was broad and angular, she was lithe and thin. She’d grown taller, nearly Caitlyn’s height, and her hair fell long and beautiful nearly to the floor. Though she was still young, just barely into her teen years, she’d already begun to grow into the great beauty she would be in time.

The princess had taken to braiding it when they drifted together in the mornings, the days short in the winter cold but the palace warmed by fires magicked to burn upon entrance to a room. They take walks through the woods sometimes, snow boots crunching over the thick mountains of snowfall, but often find themselves reading in each other’s silent company in the palace’s vast library.

She misses her sister, Caitlyn can tell, some sadness in her eyes when she’s speaking of her.

“I have received word that the hunting group shall return soon!” Jinx offers conversationally, weaving braids into her hair easily as they pair don their snow clothes and prepare for another walk. The sun was bright, reflecting off the powder to create a near blinding level of white, but a wall of flat clouds upon the horizon threatens more snowfall to come.

“Ah, you are excited to hear of their success.” She smiles. It is easy to do so with the younger woman, her joy palpable and bright.

There’s a swooping sensation in her stomach at the thought, wondering distantly if it’d been on purpose for her knight to not send word to her.

Jayce had written to her about their hunt, boasting his successes and failures, but she’d not heard word from their camp since the beginning of the week. A gnawing feeling remains in her thoughts for the remainder of the afternoon.

When they part that evening, Caitlyn is exhausted.

Snowmelt had soaked the legs of her pants up to her thighs, the two of them having stumbled and laughed as they’d lost their footing upon the mountain trail. Despite the chill in the air, she had sweat underneath her clothes, the humidity of it unpleasant as she drew the layers off.

Her attendants had protested to her dismissal, but she wished to be alone.

It was easy to sink into the warm waters of her bath, the metal tub warmed by the embers beneath it. Rich oils of lavender and ginger spice the bath and ease the ache in her hips where the muscles had grown tight from their hike.

Peace found her easily in the solitude she’d requested, the lack of attendants allowing her to slip into a near meditative state as she reclined into the waters, swirling magic among the oils to warm her skin further and draw more tension from her spine.

Her stomach still cramped with distaste at the idea of facing her guard again, but she also felt some anticipation. She wanted Vi to return, if only to rid her of this horrible anticipation, the anxiety that swirls within her at the thought of their eyes meeting for the first time in weeks.

If the guard hated her, so be it. Her charge would be finished within the next handful of years, perhaps she could even be reassigned if she despised the princess so much.

That leaves a worse taste in her mouth, her mood simmering a bit at the idea of taking on another personal guard other than Vi.

She’d grown on her.

Caitlyn’s skin is soft from the oils when she brushes soap along her calves, ridding the last of the chill of snow from her bones. The hair there is soft and dark, plastering against the rich tone of her skin, stuck from the oil and water.

The hair on her thighs is softer still, sparse the further up her legs she strokes.

The contrast of the curls of hair at her center is tantalizing. The hair is coarser, curled close to her cunt even in the water. She pets over it, fascinated by the texture of it, especially compared to the softness of her folds when she slides her fingers lower.

Her knees knock into the tall edges of the bath, spread open easily as she sinks into the water until it comes up to her chin.

The angle makes it easy for her to slide her fingers against her clit, less strenuous than sliding her fingers into herself. It is challenging, even when she lies upon her bed to do that, the angle leaving an ache in her wrist.

This is as simple as breathing.

The water beneath her nose ripples upon her low exhale, her cunt clenching as she circles over her clit easily with the pads of two of her fingers. The organ is blood warm, the same temperature of the ember-heated water she lies within.

She shudders, shifting again as she drags her fingers down the seam of her folds.

The bath makes it hard to tell, but she is wet at her center, slick in a way water cannot be.

She wants, desperately, to feel what it’d be like for someone other than herself to press their fingers within her.

How they’d manage to press deeper within her, unburdened by angles. How she’d spread her legs wider in an attempt to allow her closer, demand for them to have no space between their bodies.

How she’d cling to her back, her shoulders, her hands.

Her hands.

Caitlyn makes a little noise in the back of her throat, head lulling on the tub rim as she circles her clit again. Sparkling pleasure fizzles throughout her core, tingling along her limbs.

Vi’s hands are a gift from the gods. She’d taken to staring at them as they work, watching her in her feline form when she can manage it.

She makes arrows, sharpens swords, lifts great barrels of supplies with those hands.

They are rough, the palms scoured deep by her work, but they are soft too.

It is a testament to Vi’s very existence, in that way.

Hardened, but soft still.

Caitlyn feels a weak moan drip from her throat into her closed mouth.

Committed, now that she’s in so deep, she imagines it.

She wants Vi there, in the waters with her.

She thinks of how her hair would cling to her face, darkened by the water and dripping down into the bath they share.

How her shoulders would press the princess’s legs open, not allowing them to clamp closed regardless of how much she squirms in pleasure.

How her fingers would press into her, the digits broad and thick but still thin in the way women’s fingers are.

Caitlyn thuds her head against the tub, feeling the contact keep her tethered to her body. She shakes a little, the water rippling in response as she grinds her clit against her fingers.

She wants Vi’s lips upon her, she thinks suddenly, almost crazed.

She wants to feel the way her teeth would fit around the cords of her neck, how her own skin would yield beneath the press. How her breath would fan out along the column of her throat, prickling gooseflesh with how sensitive she knows she is when she’s like this.

She wants.

She topples into an orgasm, her lips parting under the gasp she quiets beneath the surface of her bath. Her skin is alight with pleasure, imagining how Vi would leaning back and watch her face as she shook apart like this. How her eyes would be half lidded with wanting, regarding the princess like she desired to know this side of her entirely.

Like she loved her.

A coldness seeps into Caitlyn at the thought.

She sits up abruptly, removing her hand from between her thighs and sitting for an incredibly still moment in the hot waters of her bath.

She is alone, having failed once again at not imagining her guard in such a manner while pleasuring herself, but this was new.

This desire, looking upon her expression in her mind, conjuring up an image of her knight besotted before her.

This was dangerous new territory.

Caitlyn swallows, ringing the water from her hair as removes herself from the bath.

Another thought to lock away from her mind; a list growing by the day.

“Good morning, princess!” Jinx’s voice is loud as always, filling the library with its charming raspy quality. Caitlyn glances up from her book, having already broken her fast hours before she normally did, and having resigned herself to her books ever since.

“It is the afternoon, Jinx,” She offers in a bemused tone. The girl is undeterred, taking a seat across from the woman and dropping her books to the table to join the stack Caitlyn had procured.

“Aye, so it is.” She grins.

“How do you fare? I hear Vi has returned if Jayce is to be believed.” He had sent word upon their arrival, late the previous evening.

“She has! A successful hunt, by the sounds of it, though she has slept much the past day.” The younger woman offers, toying with one of her long blue braids.

“It is a long journey from the valleys.”

The younger nods in agreement.

“She brought pelts, and meat, and even an elk skull for me to use in my spell work!”

“Oh, lucky thing, you are.”

“I’m sure she’ll show you the gifts she brought for you soon!” This gives Caitlyn pause.

The quiet of her absence had been a weight she had not expected, though she still regarded their next meeting with trepidation. Seeing as their last interaction was over a fortnight previous, and on the cusp of the princess’s foolish punishments towards the knight, she hadn’t expect… gifts.

“She brought me gifts?” Caitlyn presses, perplexed.

“Aye, princess! Many! Though she likely will need time to bring them, her shoulder is still wrapped as of now and I think she would need assistance to take them from her quarters to yours.”

“Her shoulder?” The princess startles. “What of it?”

The young woman’s eyes go wide. They’re nearly the same steel blue as her sister’s, though some purple seemed to have been weaved into her irises, casting them an odd shade of indigo.

“Oh,” Jinx notes flatly. “I. Well. I thought she would have told you.”

The princess gives a short shake of her head, eyebrows drawing together in concern.

“I have yet to see her since her return.” She’d been in the library all day, nowhere near the knight’s quarters or the grounds where they’d per chance run into one another.

“Oh.”

“Jinx, is your sister alright?”

“Aye, she will be. She needs time to heal, so she cannot attend trainings for some time.”

“She is in her quarters now, you think?” The princess asks, standing suddenly with a great noise from the wooden chair below her.

“Uh, I believe so.” Her eyes wide and searching.

“Thank you.” The royal states primly, a fire lit beneath her feet as she strides purposely out of library.

Vi looks all the bit guilty when she’s cornered by the princess mere minutes later, Caitlyn’s chest heaving from her quick pursuit through the halls. The guard stands with an apple in her hand, no doubt having just come from the kitchens.

The hallway they’re in is quiet, not often used by the royal family, but it is an indirect way to the wing of crown’s guard quarters to the east of the castle.

It is a longer route.

A less traveled route.

She’d been trying to avoid running into her, Caitlyn concludes immediately.

“You are hiding something from me,” She accuses, her voice steely. She cannot help but feel spurned by the secrecy. “Your sister speaks of information I knew nothing of.”

Vi freezes, eyes widening where she had been looking ahead of Caitlyn, as if planning her escape. She’s caught, like prey in a snare, not moving a muscle for a several beats.

“I know not of what you speak, your highness.” She states, her voice tight with something. Caitlyn’s eyes narrow in suspicion, trailing over her form.

“I will not have you lie to me,” She insists, taking a step forward.

Vi moves back, nearly cornered against the large tapestry that lines the walls of this corridor.

“I have told no lies.”

“You stand before me here, telling me you have told no lies, yet I have learned from your sister that you are injured at this very moment.”

The tension seems to bleed out of the knight all at once, her shoulders sagging with it, though the princess can spot a difference in their levels that betrays the injury hidden from her view. Her right shoulder droops in relief, but the left remains raised, as if frozen.

“My apologies, princess,” Vi murmurs. “I had not the intention to do so… It seemed. Unimportant.” She settles on the word after a slight pause.

“An injury that prevents you from performing your duties is ‘unimportant’?” She demands, leaning into the woman’s space with a quirked brow.

“I… it is only a minor injury. There was an accident on the hunting trip, my liege. Though no casualty.”

“An accident? Of what nature?”

“A… hunting accident.”

“Vi.” She presses.

“It was a wolf, your highness. But it is merely some scratches now that they have had some time to heal.”

“You went to our healers?” The princess inquires after a beat, voice a little softer.

The knight looks caught once more, tilting her shoulders as if weighing her options before finally shaking her head.

“Why ever not? Your sister says you ache, that you cannot attend trainings.” Caitlyn steps forward, crowding the woman who walks back to hold herself against the stone walls of the hallway.

“I…” her eyes dart from Caitlyn’s face to her shoulder, then over it. “I was uncertain if… their services would be available. To me.”

The princess throws her hands up in frustration, irritation weaving through her nervous system at the answer. It feels like they are speaking different languages, something crucial lost in translation.

“And why would they deny you?” She demands.

Another long pause. Vi feels small, somehow, despite her great strength and broad shoulders, the way she’s leaning against the wall making her look all the bit young as she is.

“If… her highness,” she starts haltingly. “If you had forbidden it.”

Caitlyn’s mouth drops open in horror, the frustration bleeding out of her all at once. Her hands sway where they drop to her sides, as if cut from a rope.

“Why would I deny you healing?” She nearly whispers, voice deadened with some unplaced emotion.

The guard shrugs, still looking over the woman’s shoulder. Caitlyn watches as one side of her broad torso lifts with the motion, and the other remains still. She zeros in on it, the injury hidden beneath her layered shirts.

“When I departed we… I am guilty of some crime, I believe.”

“Oh,” Caitlyn sighs out, guilt flooding in just as quickly, drowning out the sudden ache of sympathy. “Oh, Vi, no.”

She sighs, rubbing a hand across her face. The emotional whiplash leaving her heavy and tired all of the sudden. Her stomach aches horribly, the stone heavy where it’d taken residence within her belly.

“I owe you an apology,” she says with false certainty, dropping her hands to her side and straightening her spine despite her discomfort.

The guard’s mouth gapes at her, eyes finally sliding to meet the royal’s with an incredulous expression.

“I acted unjustly towards you. I was cruel, for no fault of your own, and yet you believed it to be earned. It was not. I am sorry, Vi. Truly.”

The apology tastes bitter on her tongue, words clumsy from lack of use. It was infrequent that the princess was moved to apologize. Few people mattered enough to her to warrant her swallowing her pride.

“Would you let me earn your forgiveness?”

“There is nothing to forgive, princess.” Vi murmurs, voice quiet and awestruck.

“There is,” she insists, stepping forward to clutch one of Vi’s hands between her own. The skin is warm, and textured under the smoothness of her own palm. She thinks Vi will snatch it away, her grey eyes training down to the point of contact, watching it unblinkingly.

“I was brutish. Please, allow me to make up for my actions.” She pleads, feeling a sense of urgency seldom known.

“You were not, your highness.” The knight states. “You were angry. I harbor no ill will.”

“I will find a way,” she decides. “Even if you do not tell me how, I will work to discover it. We start with taking you to the infirmary, there is no reason for you to be in pain when you have the kingdom’s healers at your disposal.”

Her guard allows herself to be led through the castle halls by her hand, quiet and uncomplaining as the princess drives them forward with a quick pace. Her hand is warm in Caitlyn’s slender grasp, callused against the royal’s soft palms. It makes her warm in the chill of the stone walls, the point of contact invigorating in its newness, but disrupted by the sensation of her guilt that wades throughout her system.

When Caitlyn leaves her in the infirmary, the healers ushering her out, she catches the pensive expression the woman wears on her face, directed right at her.

It leaves a fluttering feeling in her stomach that follows her all the way back to the library.

Despite the passage of time, she feels unsteady in her normal routine. Her classes resumed, the holidays passed, her knight returned to her duties since her health had been regained, and yet she moves through each day as if expecting some proverbial shoe to drop.

It leaves her uneasy, something still odd passing between the pair as they go through their days.

She makes the decision, eventually, to barrel onward into the unknown, if it only means to dispel this great discomfort from the both of them.

The knight is startled, obviously so, when Caitlyn begins to join her in the late afternoons.

Typically, Vi would sit on the grounds near the knight’s quarters, and perform mundane tasks, perhaps out of enjoyment, now that she’d climbed in the ranks of the crown’s guards. The first time Caitlyn asked to join her, Vi had even asked if she was feeling alright, as if to suggest the request was so out of character, she might be ill.

The princess had regarded her, eyebrows raised, face as impassive as she could manage, until the knight had agreed and allowed the royal to sit alongside her by a burning fire.

The spring air was still chilled in the evenings, the fire working to chase it from them.

Caitlyn liked doing this, she decided after the first time. It was quiet, but in a peaceful manner. Vi would sharpen knives, or write ledgers, or some other duty to keep her hands busy. The princess would sit, watching the sun’s light kiss the mountain tops before dropping below the horizon.

She’s toying with the ties of her cloak when she finally steels herself enough to ask something.

“Have you heard of Bilgewater, Vi?”

“Aye, princess, the string of islands to the west.” Her knight replies, not pausing her long strokes of a whittling knife against thin sticks, those she intends to form into arrows.

The princess watches her for a moment more, staring at the practiced ease in her movements.

“What of it?” Their eyes meet when Caitlyn waits a beat too long. She clears her throat, taking a sip of the wine she’d taken to bringing on these nights if only to give herself a moment.

“I was thinking… they have some healing springs there, ones I had seen when I was a girl. They are a sight to behold, glowing at night with bright colors. Perhaps you could join me on a voyage there.”

“Oh.” She seems to think a moment. “Would you not prefer a friend to accompany you, your majesty, perhaps someone from the Academy?”

“I should have been clearer. The trip is for you.” She leans plucks at her skirt for a moment, fixating on the fabric bunching instead of the scrutinizing expression of her guard. “An apology gift, if you’ll have it.”

“I require no gift, princess.”

“You must allow me to apologize properly.”

“There is no need. You are forgiven.”

“Vi, allow me do this for you. We don’t have to go to Bilgewater, or anywhere. Or you can go on your own, if you do not desire my company.”

A familiar taste is acrid upon her tongue. Her stomach aches.

The knight looks perplexed, task lying still in her hands as she runs her eyes over the princess’s flushed expression in response to these words.

“You will not let this go, will you?” She asks after a moment, tilting her head. Her pink hair sways as it moves from the motion.

“Aye.” She mocks, taking another sip of wine.

The woman seems to ruminate on it for a moment more, flipping the knife over in her hand for a few turns.

“You and me? To Bilgewater?”

“Yes, if that pleases you.”

Caitlyn feels very warm all of a sudden, swallowing thickly under the unusual sensation. She blames it on the wine, rich and heavy on her tongue.

“Alright.” She concedes, finally.

She feels a grin pull at her lips. Somehow, it feels like agreeing to more.

“Excellent! I shall plan it immediately. It is a beautiful place, you will like it, I think. We can leave the week after next, it’s a half day’s journey by carriage, and a half more by boat. You have been on a boat, yes?”

“Aye, princess.” Vi seems amused by her enthusiasm. Her eyes are twinkling in the late afternoon light, face warmed by the sun that has begun its decent into the mountains.

She blames the sun on her warmth, an unseasonably warm day for spring. She dares not think of how much her face must flush in response to the soft expression the knight offers her.

Bilgewater is all the bit welcoming and boisterous as Caitlyn recalled, the people loud and joyful. The Queen there had sent a greeting party for the pair, who bore great baskets heavy with the weight of many local goods intended for the pair to take back to Piltover with them.

Vi looks a little overwhelmed with it all, sticking close to the princess’s side as they are led to their quarters in the bathhouse they’d chosen. Her eyes are nearly unblinking, her head turning every few minutes to take in the tropical island in question.

The resort Caitlyn had selected was one designed for noblemen, private and removed from the general public and incredibly well designed. Great murals of beautiful tiles splash across the halls of the bathhouse as they’re led to their quarters.

The quarters are ones she’d stayed in before, designated for particularly high-ranking guests of the kingdom. They take up an entire wing of the bathhouse, guards posted at the doors who bow to the princess as she’s led inside by their attendant.

Volcanic springs babble outside the great windows, left open to usher in the humid sea breeze that runs warm despite the early month.

“Is it to your liking?” Caitlyn asks when they are left alone, their quarters large with several separate rooms and a huge sitting area connecting them. There are plush cushions on nearly every inch of the floors, tapestries dripping from the ceiling and swathing the room in warmth and color. The gentle breeze from outside trails toward them, the fabric of the room dancing under its force.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the guard says, voice hushed with awe.

She stands by the doors that open to their private balcony. The glass allows them to see the mountainside from their quarters, the setting sun playing off of the waterfall that flows from the mountain springs down unto the pools below their balcony. Rich colors had exploded in the sky, painting the woman with its light as she stares outside.

“You must try the food, too. It is difficult to find such amazing produce in Piltover since they do not travel well, but the fruit here is legendary. If I could eat it every day, I would die a happy woman.” She muses, picking up a bright pink pear that had been sliced and left in one of the many dishes that now litter the surfaces in the den. It is far more food than any two people could hope to consume, but she is glad to attempt it.

The guard laughs, still sounding a little breathless, prompting Caitlyn to look up from where she’d bitten into the pink flesh. The sweetness is bright on her tongue, different from the pears that grow in Piltover, some lightly floral quality in these.

The soft expression on Vi’s face is something to behold, something the princess had only seen a handful of times. It makes her look delicate, almost, all the lines of her face smoothed, a gentle smile curling on her lips.

The princess stares, paused mid-chew to take in the expression. The fruit had left stickiness on her hands, bright pink juice staining her fingertips.

She feels frozen there, watching the knight even after she’d looked away and approached another plate adorned with cut fruits.

“Those are mangos, they are my mother’s favorite,” Caitlyn says, after she swallows the bite she’d taken nearly whole. It stings at her throat a little. She resists the urge to cough.

The guard pressed the cube of fruit into her mouth, making a little noise when the taste of it processes.

“It is so sweet.” She states, after swallowing.

“It is. Sometimes I wish I had grown up in an area like this, it is so nice here.”

“Piltover suits you, princess.” Vi states, eating another fruit.

“Does it?” She leans back into one of the cushions, sinking comfortably into the space.

“Aye, you are a person of expansion. I cannot imagine you anywhere else in the realms.”

It was true, Piltover was the realm of invention, bringing forward new magical discoveries with each passing year. Being nearly at the center of the realms, it was a common meeting spot for nobility of all kingdoms, as well as intellectuals and tradesmen. This had built the kingdom into the finery it now stands as, a looming power with a great many allies.

“Where are you from, Vi?” She asks, compelled by light feeling her compliment pays.

The guard seems to pause for a moment before saying, “Noxus.”

“Ah, I have a friend from the kingdom there! The Medarda family are old allies of the Kirammans.” She presses her fingers through her hair, pulling it from the braid she’d adorned for their day of travel. “You traveled far to get to Piltover, then.”

“Aye, it was a long journey.”

“It was just you two, you and Jinx?”

“Just us.”

“Your… I recall, when you’d first spoken with my parents. You’d said that you are orphans.” She pauses, the knight nodding in reply. “I am sorry for that. I cannot imagine losing my family so young.”

Vi shifts, her fingers trailing over the pottery adorned with fruit, selecting another colorful slice of some tropical plant. Caitlyn expects very little from this conversation, as was typical among them.

She was a private person, the princess had learned. It was a challenge sometimes, to not demand every detail from this woman, but somehow she feels that the little things that had been shared with her with little prompting were that much sweeter with how scarce they were.

“My mother when I was ten.” Vi offered a beat later, her tone surprisingly easy. “My father at four and ten.”

“Oh,” the princess murmurs, sympathetically. “You were very young. My father is an orphan. His father died just after his birth, and his mother when he was only five and ten. He speaks of them often, I think it helps.”

A beat passes.

“You could… speak of them too, if it would help you.”

The knight looks up at her from where she’d been staring down towards the table. Evening had descended on the kingdom, taking with it the golden light that had blanketed the volcanic mountainside. The room cast in low candlelight, magicked to burn just as the sky turned dark, their faces alight with dancing fire.

“Thank you, princess.” She says after a beat.

Caitlyn opens her mouth to reply, but a yawn escapes instead of words.

“The quarters here are for the both of us. You may choose any room, whichever pleases you.” She offers, feeling a heaviness in her eyes from the long journey.

“Is that… appropriate?” Vi asks, sound unsure.

“Of course, we are guests of the kingdom. These are the guest’s quarters.”

“No, I meant. For a knight to share quarters with their charge.”

“Oh, yes.” She clears her throat. “It is not unusual to do so on journeys such as these.”

That seems to satisfy her, the woman nodding and offering the princess a bow.

“Goodnight, your highness.”

“Goodnight Vi.”

It takes the princess a long time to find sleep despite the beautiful comfort of the bedding and sound of water that gentles in the night. She lies awake for a while, considering the new details revealed to her today.

Vi and Jinx are Noxians, something she’d never thought to ask, and orphans for much of their lives.

It was not what she expected, the sisters did not look to be from the arid desert region to their northeast. Though there were a great many ethnicities there, Caitlyn certainly couldn’t hope to know them all.

Her thoughts flicker, gnawingly, back to some years previous, when she’d seen the sisters standing amongst her friends. The slant to Viktor’s eyes and how it was similar to the both of theirs.

She shakes her head, rubbing her face in the quiet of the borrowed bedroom.

It matters not, these strange pieces of information. She will take whatever is shared freely with her, storing it amongst all the little details she’s learned of Vi over the years, deep in the recesses of her mind.

“We’ve come all this way to swim in healing springs, famous for their glowing lights and restorative power, and you are refusing to swim.” Caitlyn states, unimpressed, upon their rising the next morning.

Her guard shifts, obviously resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the princess’s admonishing tone.

“You do know how to swim, do you not?”

“Aye.” She snarks, arms still crossed over her chest defensively. “You have seen me swim.”

So she has. The princess swallows hard for a moment, blinking against the urging of her mind to trail back to that winter night, when the mountain springs had chilled them both but her guard’s warmth had painted along her front when they’d pressed together in the waters.

“So, there is another reason.” She leans forward, “Are you shy?” The princess had donned a long silk robe to cover her swimming clothes. The fabric whisps gently with the motion, her hair following it in its shift.

Vi stands, fully clothed in her normal wear, save for being barefoot. Her face takes on an unimpressed quality at her accusation.

“If that’s what you want to call it, so be it.” The woman drawls.

The princess scoffs.

“I do not believe you, there is no thread of diffidence in your body. The swimming clothes are hardly revealing in any case, there is no need to be timid.”

“Timid,” Vi raises an eyebrow, unamused.

“Aye,” Caitlyn spurs back, a grin pulling at her lips. A challenge met. “Timid, like a mouse.”

“A mouse!”

“You can’t lie to me, you’re afraid of water.”

“I am not.” Vi defends, tilting her head in an incredulous fashion.

The princess puts up her hands in mock surrender.

“It is alright if you are, I had only hoped to show you the springs. We can amuse ourselves in other manners if you are afraid.”

“I know what you’re doing,” Her guard presses.

“I’m not doing anything,” she feigns innocence, turning away to walk a handful of steps towards the entrance of the guest chambers. “I am only trying to accommodate your fears.”

“Gods above,” Vi hisses. “Fine.”

Caitlyn is gleeful as the woman storms off to change in her chosen room, the grin pulling easily on her lips.

The princess can see at once why the guard had been so hesitant to change into the swimwear. The suits provided by the resort were very covering, the pants coming down to midthigh, and sleeveless with high cut necks.

Even still, it reveals the winding motif of runes that curl around her upper arms and disappear beneath the fabric.

“You are runed?” Caitlyn gasps at the new information when the guard strides past her and out the front door. She scampers after her, eyes trailing over the marks in awe. “Since when?”

“Since years ago.” She drawls, walking confidently through the halls, leaving the princess to trail after her.

“Who did them?”

“Can I have no secrets, princess?”

“No, you can. I just.” She ponders as they’re ushered by the staff into the hot spring area, quiet in the early morning. Dawn had broken not a half hour previous. “I haven’t seen runes in abundance, and never so many on one person.”

Vi seems to consider this as they descend the rocky quarry into the area where springs reside. It’s warm and humid despite the hour, the steam from the baths curling in the mountain air gently.

The sky is still pink, casting a warm glow over the gardens. Flowers of all colors and shapes spring from the ground, rustling gently in the wind as the two descend into the largest pool.

The temperature is soothing, the water warmed by the volcanic activity under the mountainside. Caitlyn sighs when she slides into the pool, feeling the tension bleed out of her.

The water is a bright, unnatural green. It glows gently, glittering in the early morning light, though not as brightly as it would at night.

“Is it magic that causes it to glow?” Vi asks quietly after a beat.

Caitlyn opens her eyes. Her guard is leaning back against the side of the pool, arms stretched out. She looks more at ease than the princess has ever seen her, as if the waters were physically pulling the tension from her frame.

“Yes,” she hums. “There is old magic weaved into Bilgewater, still living in the soil and water here. It’s why there’s such abundance. The sorcerers here take good care to keep it thriving, and in turn, it offers healing and fruitfulness. They say that is why the serpents here guard the islands with such ferocity, to protect the magic within the mountains.”

Vi swirls a hand in the pool gently, watching the green adjust and ripple against the motion.

“May I ask a question about your runes?” The royal asks after another long stretch of comfortable silence.

Vi inclines her head, expression considering but not closed off.

“Do they hurt to receive? I have always heard that they do.”

“Aye, in some manner of speaking. It is not pain like an ache or a stab. It is more like a… burn, perhaps.”

“Oh, wow.” She blinks at the information. “You are brave to have so many.”

“They are a gift,” the guard muses, pushing away from the wall to wade further into the pool, where the rocks dip away and allow for more depth.

Caitlyn can spot, just on the edges where the swimming clothes end on Vi’s shoulders, the ridges of scars that hide beneath the fabric and runes. It makes her curious, her mind returning to the months previous when they’d swam in the sound together.

She remembers the way they felt, the bumps smooth when she’d pressed her spell against them with her fingertips. Vi had tensed, refusing to make eye contact with her for the entire walk back to the palace.

She’d never asked what they’d come from. It never felt right to.

Though her fingers sometimes ached to feel along them again, to assign the texture of the healed skin to memory.

The princess watches, pensively as the woman floats in the warm waters, eyes closed to the sunlight that kisses them from above.

“One day, she’ll tell me on her own.” She thinks, leaning her head against her arm where she’d curled over a rock on the natural edge of the water. Caitlyn’s eyes don’t stray from the form of her guard for several long minutes, a sense of peace descending on the pair that had yet to up until that point.

The smell of clean mountain water clings to their skin for hours following their morning lounge in the springs. Magic sparkles on their shoulders, bright green and glittering in the sunlight that weaves between the high treetops.

The food they receive at lunch is colorful and full of bursting, bright flavor. The springs had many accommodations, but they had been given some of the finer ones, a private dining area on a veranda overlooking the mountain tops.

A waterfall crashes to their right, but the sound is a welcome disruption to the otherwise comfortable silence between the pair.

Caitlyn can feel herself lost in thought much through the day, eyes far away as her mind wanders aimlessly. Her body feels far away, incredibly relaxed after their morning soak in the springs.

Vi seems not to mind, sitting with a relaxed posture the princess had only seen on her a handful of times in their years of knowing each other. She sits with her shoulders drooped in ease, looking off the edge of their dining area toward the lush forests of Bilgewater.

Birds call in the distance, songs that tangle together in the breeze.

“It really is peaceful, isn’t it?” Caitlyn murmurs, her voice nearly drowned by the flowing water around them.

“Aye,” Vi nods, glancing over to her with a gentle curve of a smile.

It suits her, the princess thinks, eyes following the tilted curve of her expression for perhaps a beat too long.

“Bilgewater has serpents, does it not?” The guard asks some time later, as the pair enters their guest quarters once more.

“Yes! Oh yes, I meant to arrange us to meet some of them.” Caitlyn states, “I am to see the crowned princess tonight as a curtesy, perhaps she could set up a time for us. The royal family has many serpents.”

“They ride them?”

“Yes, it’s quite a feat! Huge beasts, brilliant but fearsome. They have guarded Bilgewater from invasion for many centuries. Some say they share an ancestor with the dragons of Noxus, and the waveriders of Zaun.”

Vi hums at this, something strange passing over her expression for a moment before it smooths effortlessly into neutrality once more.

It is nearing the evening by the time Caitlyn had finished washing the magic from her skin, feeling the sparkling viridian glow leave as it settles in the cooled bath she removes herself from. Her hair drips long rivets of water down her back, her hands pulling the long locks to twist the water from them.

They had walked one of the many mountain paths in the afternoon, which had been to both of their likings, the views brilliant from so high up. They could see their ship from Piltover docked in the royal harbor, the double pegasus crest of their flag flying high atop the bow. The towns below the mountain seem to glitter in the late setting sun. Magic weaved brilliant light from the soil to the treetops, into the springs that surrounded their walk.

Though her parents had insisted she take some attendants with her, she had waved them off and insisted she would function just fine on her own, perfectly capable of dressing herself despite having this act performed by the many palace attendants since her birth.

Her hands comb through her damp locks, pulling the moisture from them with an easy spell, her skin drying quickly under the warm air that trails through the open windows. Stars had begun to dot through the sky, poking into the inky horizon and shining brilliantly down unto the island.

The rich oils that had been gifted to them in their quarters smelled of earth and spices, soothing to her senses when she brushes them up her arms and sweeps them down her long legs.

Perhaps it is the relaxed state she is in, or the slight buzz she’d acquired from the stone fruit wine she’d drunk while soaking, but an idea passes her thoughts.

A horrible idea.

Terrible.

She’s out of the bathroom before she can think to displace it, a robe of thick fabric swirling around her shoulders, a glass vial of oils in her hands.

“Vi?” She questions, her voice carrying through the sitting room, cast once again in the warm glow of candlelight as the hour draws later.

Her knight is reclined on the cushions that line the floor, her eyes peering out of the open doorway to their balcony to the mountainside beyond their quarters. She’d changed into sleeping clothes, the pants and shirt she wears thin and breathable.

She turns her face towards the princess, freezing at once when she takes in the state of undress she is in.

The robe was poorly tied around her waist, leaving the line of her chest bare until just where the curve of her breast sits. She wasn’t known for being fully conservative, but this amount of cleavage was nearly unheard-of for a woman of her standing in their society.

“Could you assist me? I had not thought to request attendants, and my skin is particularly… sensitive to the waters here.” The lie runs easily off of her tongue, her face a little flushed.

Her heartbeat thrums in her chest, loud to her own ears.

Vi makes a short noise, shifting to stand but not approaching for a beat.

“Just my back, please, I have managed the rest.”

The knight is eerily silent when she finishes her approach, taking the offered vial in her grasp. Caitlyn smiles, turning her back on the woman, and undoing the hasty done knot of her robe. It allows the fabric to pull open, slipping from her shoulders and resting at the crook of her elbows.

There is a sharp inhale from behind her, the smile on the princess’s lips pulling up more at the edges. She moves her hair to the side, grasping the straight, indigo tresses in her hand and sweeping it over her long neck. Her eyes can just barely make out one side of Vi’s face from the way she glances back, the grey blue eyes pressed wide and unblinking.

Her stomach flutters at the first press of her hand against her shoulder.

It’s warm, incredibly so. It makes her skin shiver in its wake, immediately missing the warmth as soon as it moves on to another stretch of skin.

The smell of the oil is rich in the room, overwhelming her senses as it spreads outward and heats between her skin and that of the guard’s.

It must take only a minute, but time stretches thin and long at the feeling of Vi’s hands on her so intimately. She hums, feeling hot with the pleasure of it. The knight’s hand stops at the little noise, remaining pressed for a moment on the curve of her waist.

She wants to sink into the feeling of it, the way her body seems to melt under the intimate press, the skin there so infrequently touched let alone stroked in this manner.

The princess has to resist the urge to chase the feeling as the wide palm is removed, the fingertips trailing lightly against her skin in their retreat. It leaves gooseflesh in its wake.

“Will that suffice, princess?”

“Yes,” She clears her throat. Her face is incredibly warm, more so than when she had entered their borrowed living space. Her tongue is heavy in her mouth, made dumb by the reality of what she had just allowed to happen.

How can she ever expect to not desire this in the future, now that she had allowed the line to be crossed so blatantly?

“Allow me to provide the same service,” she implores, fastening the tie once more as she turns towards the other woman. She’d take a fully step back, leaving a comically large gap between the pair, as if standing off before a duel.

“There is no need.”

“Nonsense, it is no bother. These oils are enriched to aid in healing, they will do wonders for you.”

“I have no need for healing.” Vi answers shortly, though her tone is not unkind. Instead, there is a choked quality to it, revealing some level of discomfort.

“I will not look, if that is your concern.” She recalls the boundary.

“It is inappropriate, your highness.”

“I swear myself to secrecy.”

The knight seems lost at that, the teasing and light tone she’d taken on through the conversation. Vi’s eyes slide from hers down to the vial in her own hand, then back at the princess in a quick succession of motions.

It’s like she’s weighing something in her mind, eyes squinted slightly and tracing over her expression.

Her face feels warm, likely from the wine, but she forces herself to reveal nothing under the scrutiny. The knight takes in a short breath, as if bracing herself against something.

“Aye, princess.” She mumbles, looking all the bit like she is about to go to war, not receive a personal massage from the crowned heir of Piltover.

“Excellent, you may sit if that is more comfortable.”

They do, placing themselves among the soft cushions lining the floors of the social room, Caitlyn dutifully closing her eyes until the sound of rustling has ceased.

The oil warms quickly in her palms, her hands meeting the wide expanse of her knight’s back, fingers hesitant until they make contact with her skin and then press until her palms follow suit.

The oil glides between their skin, spreading quickly on her shoulders through wide sweeping motions.

Caitlyn dares not breathe, if only to not break the spell that had somehow fallen upon them. She can feel the ridges of scars beneath her fingers, raised and gnarled against her back, but smooth, proving their long-healed natured. Despite this, her skin is surprisingly soft, the magic of runes thrumming under her fingertips as she swipes up and out, creating wide circles with oil.

Vi sits ram rod straight, her shoulders slightly bunched with tension that the princess can feel under the press of her fingertips. She slides her thumbs along the curve of her scapulae, pressing the knots that sit beneath her skin from the strain of sword wielding, her body a testament to the strength she had built in since her time with the crown’s guard.

Her waist is small, Caitlyn’s fingers trailing over it, feeling the way the skin there shivers sensitively from the light pressure. She wants to open her eyes, but she knows not to betray the trust of this person, so she hums lightly and swipes her hands up, pressing over her shoulders to slide on her upper arms.

There are more scars here, she can feel them under her palms, but Vi makes a soft sound at the sensation of her hands over her biceps. Oil slips easily from her fingers onto the skin she touches, immediately hydrating the skin beneath her touch.

Her fingers hit the edge of fabric, the knight having only removed her shirt partially, the article still tangled over her forearms.

She slips her fingers along this line for a moment, feeling the vulnerable skin that lines the inside of her elbows. The knight shivers, Caitlyn delights in knowing the feeling of it against her.

“You can remove this,” she whispers, bolder than she’s felt ever before. Her lips feel dry suddenly, so she licks at them, the sound feeling loud in the intimacy spread between them.

“Princess.” Vi’s voice is at a higher volume than hers, spoken out into the room before them haltingly.

She feels her turn, Caitlyn allowing her hands to fall away as she shifts. She keeps her eyes closed, darkness her only vision, some warmth creeping in to the edges of her sight just from the candlelight around them.

There is a long pause, where she is unsure of where the knight is. Her stomach jumps when there is a tug at her robe, the belt pulling until it yields, the knot unraveling under the influence of this force.

She inhales sharply at the feeling of tension leaving the fabric, the robe open and loose where it hangs over her shoulders. Her hands had fallen to her knees where she sits crossed-legged on the ground, eyes still closed, waiting desperately for whatever is to come.

She can tell, somehow, that a hand wavers over the skin of her shoulder. Heat drifts from it and presses downward onto her bare skin where the line of her robe ends, the barest hint of contact pressing to the skin there as if to push the article off.

“Princess-”

A knock at the door startles the both of them, Caitlyn’s eyes flying open as the spell breaks. She catches only a glimpse of her knight’s bare torso before she remembers herself and shuts her eyes once more, going so far to press her face into her oiled palms as if to dispel the image.

Vi’s nipples are dark, her mind immediately assigns to memory.

There is a rune on her stomach, inky and large, but she’d had only a glance at the design.

Her mouth opens to press apologies from her tongue when anxiety suddenly rolls in her stomach.

“Oh!” Caitlyn remembers all at once, “The princess, I am. I need to.”

She hears rustling, a hand tugging at one of her hands that still cradles her face until she looks up to her guard, clothed once again.

“Go, you must dress.” There is something unreadable in her tone.

“Yes, I,” she wavers, clutching her robe closed as she stands shakily. She’s trembling and she cannot tell why, the sudden urge to cry overcoming her.

She swallows it immediately, her feet making haste to her room to don a simple dress, one in the typical style of Piltover with a deep blue color and intricate bodice.

Her hands had only just finished the ties when she walks from her rooms again, Vi standing at the entrance to their guest quarters where an attendant of the royal family waits with a patient smile upon her pretty face.

“Hello, my apologies,” she hurries.

“It is no concern, Princess Caitlyn. A carriage awaits you.”

“Yes, of course.” She turns to her knight, whose eyes had turned away from the pair. There is something pinched in her expression, but she offers Caitlyn a little wave, something tight in the smile she offers.

She looks upsets.

“I shall see you on the morrow, princess.”

“I, Vi.” She starts, stopping when she can feel the attendant’s eyes on her face. “Rest well.”

She nods, offering a short bow as Caitlyn makes haste down the halls, the attendant walking quickly through their accommodations.

Her heart hammers in her chest even after she had sat, her throat tight.

Anxiety rolls within her belly, displacing the stone there that had been quiet up until that point that day. Its weight is an unwelcome reminder, leaving her feel a little sick.

Princess Sky is beautiful, just as Caitlyn remembers, her hair pulled back to reveal the roundness of her tan face. The evening had finished breaking through, the night sky dotting with shimmering stars that reflect down into the ocean at the palace’s gates.

“Princess Caitlyn,” she greets kindly, offering a curtsey that the Piltovian returns. “My apologies for the late hour of our meeting, I wanted to ensure you had ample time to enjoy the springs today.”

“Yes, it is no bother.” Her voice is light, expression schooling easily into a diplomatic smile.

Their meeting lasts no more than an hour, the young royals catching up since it had been many a year since they had last seen each other. Sky sends her off with a promise to give them a personal tour of the serpent house the next day, urging her to bring along her guard to experience the impressive nature of their creatures.

When Caitlyn returns to their quarters, dragging her feet in the exhaustion that presses over her, she finds the space quiet and still. Her sigh disrupts the quiet, the sound of bugs chirping loud from the still-open doorway, which she trails over to press closed.

Her eyes immediately spot the abandoned vial of oil that had been placed upon one of the low tables lining the sitting room.

Only when she has clicked the door of her room closed behind her does she allow a handful of tears to drop, some unknown emotion overtaking her desperately.

The next morning, Vi appears nonplussed from the events of the night before. She greets the princess with an easy smile, no trace of the tension from the night before, and follows along behind her as they are taken to another carriage. She remains easy and engaged with the princess of Bilgewater, nodding along to the information she’s told about the string of islands and their inhabitants.

The only component that would suggest that she was not as she usually was, is the aversion of her eyes if Caitlyn attempts to look into them for too long. They glance off after a beat of contact, though they are not shuddered with any heavy emotion, the princess cannot help but feel that she too has been affected by the spell that overcame them the night previous.

The serpent enclosure is brilliant, a huge stone fortress built into the side of the cliffs, a quick walk from the castle. The waters there are bright blue, nearly glittering despite the enclosed nature cutting off the light from the sky.

The creatures are massive, bigger even than Caitlyn had recalled. They swim towards the group there, Sky immediately walking into the water to greet them. They swirl along her, delighted by her presence, their scales shifting in the water and reflecting beautifully off the lanterns that float over the cave of sorts.

“They are mighty,” Vi breaths out beside her, her eyes pressed wide.

“Yes, you may join me if you’d like, they are no danger to you as long as I am here.” Her friend grins, her cherub face split by the genuine smile as a green serpent shifts to curl around her in the shallow pool she had entered.

The water gained depth as one walked out, the serpent’s body curling upward off the shelf to disappear into deeper water below. Caitlyn can see how they favor the dragons of Noxus, their faces similar in structure despite not having wings.

She’d never seen the waveriders of Zaun in person, having been forbidden to travel there since the current ruler came to power. She’d seen them in drawings, though, reading about the realms surrounding Piltover. Their neighbors to the south had domesticated the beasts, some amphibious, four legged creatures with large eyes and webbed toes.

Vi offers a hand to her when they had shed their outer clothes, the swimming clothes once again donned to match that of the Bilgewater princess before them. She sits in the water, gleefully petting along the serpent’s great head as the creature rumbles loud enough to vibrate the water around them.

Caitlyn’s hand meets hers, stepping down into the pool carefully, the ocean water cool and swirling around her calves. Vi’s hand leaves hers immediately, pulling back and leaving her feeling chilled suddenly in its wake.

Winter could never weave such cold into her, but here she stands in the humidity of the tropics, nearly shivering with the sudden freeze.

“This is Kahal, she is my serpent since my birth.” Sky states proudly, the pair moving forward to sit alongside the other princess. The serpent trills warmly as more hands press along her scales, sliding over the cool flesh. She looks big enough to carry multiple men, her body so long it is not even seen in its entirety.

“She is beautiful,” Caitlyn offers, her hands slipping along the iridescent scales.

“Thank you. It is said that she was born at the very moment I was, her egg hatching right here in the serpent hold. We are soulmates.” She smiles.

It is a beautiful story, but something sad sits within the princess suddenly, melancholy falling over her thoughts. She glances up toward her knight, who smiles gently as she strokes along the creature’s face. It makes her heart ache.

“Our steeds are not born with us,” Vi offers quietly in reply. “They choose us, though.”

“Oh, you ride a pegasus?” Sky lights up, leaning towards the pair.

“Yes,” Caitlyn catches her eye as she finally, finally looks towards the princess again. There is something so heartbreakingly beautiful in her expression. Melancholy dances in her blue eyes. “Silvermist gave birth to my stallion, Stormchaser. We ride them often.”

The conversation is easy to fall into, but Caitlyn finds her eyes drifting back to her knight continually despite their company.

Their trip concludes without any further life-altering experiences, the pair leaving the following day to make their long journey back to Piltover.

Caitlyn wants to feel upset that Vi is feigning normalcy when what transpired obviously had affected her just the same, but instead she is made tired by the prospect of it.

She doesn’t know what it means. Truthfully, she fears what it means.

Perhaps this is an attempt to rebuff her advances in a manner that spares her feelings. It is likely that Vi considers rejecting her to be dangerous, something that would threaten her employment, or her sister’s wardship.

It leaves a hole in her stomach, one that follows them all the way back to Piltover.

The next time she walks towards the knight’s grounds, she finds the hearth empty and dead, no fire or familiar figure to be found.