Chapter Text
Slowly, so slowly, she had been eroded away.
Beliefs held so strong and true that they would make a fine foundation to build her legacy on. But what did she care of legacies when she had done such a fine job running the Kiramman one into the ground. Beliefs didn’t feel so strong anymore; they were shaky, fragile things, susceptible to the winds that blew in from the northeast. From Noxus.
Caitlyn was a pillar, but not the pristine pillars seen in the square in Piltover; she felt like one of the aged and cracked pillars of the ruins of Shuriman or the illustrations of old temples in Targon. Beautiful, but cracked. Weathered by the months that dragged like nails in her flesh. Her glare was focused, leveled at Singed as he sat with Ambessa and Rictus.
This was where her rage and grief had led her, into a den of wolves and mad scientists. Her blood ran cold when he had deigned to compare the two of them. Why does anyone commit acts others deem unspeakable?
For love.
Her fist tightened beneath her gloves. The cold that had seeped into those too blue eyes over the last six months remained trained on Singed, boring holes into the back of his neck. If she focused hard enough, she could almost imagine the carnage of one of her hex bullets tearing through his throat.
That is what they made of her. What she made of herself.
Were it not for the gloves, her nails would have dug crimson crescents into her palm. The longer she stayed here, the harder it became to tear herself away from their crimes. Even the ones she didn’t know about until they were done, were done in her name. Her name!
And now Singed sat here, in this Noxian tent, strategizing about a biological weapon to be harnessed and used against the people of Zaun. It would be a bloodbath! She saw what it did in Stillwater; the spread of the claw marks in the wall was massive. It would even dwarf Ambessa. No, there was a line she was not willing to cross.
As if she hadn’t already crossed so many of her lines. Simply kicked sand over them and redrew them a few feet further out. Further and further until it brought her here. The first line started at Vi’s cell all those months back.
A crossroads, and beyond it a point of no return.
She straightened herself further, stance so rigid she could be mistaken for another tentpole.
“Enough!” There was command in her voice, an edge she couldn’t force if she tried. The trio at the desk turned their heads in unison to face the Commander. “I will not stand by and allow this to continue further.”
Ambessa simply cocked a brow. “And what makes you say that, dear child.” It was meant to be a question, but it didn’t sound like one.
Caitlyn made herself as tall as possible, taking up all the space she could in the war tent. “Utilizing this beast? How does it meet our ends? It won’t get us closer to finding Jinx. We saw what it did to the enforcers at Stillwater; it tore right through them as though they were nothing. I didn’t have to be there to know its destructive nature.” She paused, steeling her nerves. “But you were. What good does using this beast do to bring the two cities closer to peace?”
Rictus pushed his chair out, starting to rise to his feet when he was stopped by Ambessa as she held her hand out in his direction. A silent no. And like the loyal retainer he was, he obeyed, slowly returning to his seat.
She had butt heads with Ambessa before, but usually they were alone and on her own home turf. But here? Noxian tent, Noxian guards, and two people who dwarfed even her enviable stature with none of her enforcers to back her up. Perhaps the anger and grief had finally driven her mad. For weeks, she had told herself she needed a way out. She never wanted this, the position was thrust upon her, and she fell into the role because she felt she had no other choice.
And she hadn’t. Who would have filled her shoes if she refused? It would have been so much worse than it was.
Eyes remained cold, fixated on Ambessa now, waiting for her rebuttal.
And then it came. “In war, we must do whatever we can to ensure the safety of our people. And when the enemy doesn’t come to heel, we make them. I had so much faith in you, young Kiramman. I thought we were kin. Maybe I was wrong about you.”
Bold child , Ambessa had once called her. She had no idea how bold Caitlyn could be when lightning was traveling down her spine. “War? Is that what you thought this was? I never called for a war; I only wanted to bring those responsible to justice. This… this is a perversion and I let myself be blinded to it.”
A step forward, brows furrowed, causing two deep valleys to carve into her forehead. “If you think I will allow you to unleash some bioweapon on the people of Zaun, you are mad.” It had been bothering her for some time, but it wasn’t until she saw Huck greeting them. Huck, who had helped her save Vi, and then betrayed her for some shimmer. Had he recognized her as the naive but kind girl in the Fissures? Or had she overwritten that image with the cold that wore on her face like a bloodstain?
Maybe the guilt was a sign that the hopeful Caitlyn hadn’t been snuffed out just yet.
Caitlyn had always been aware of how much taller Ambessa was, but as the general stood, it felt painfully obvious. There wasn’t an ounce of that woman that wasn’t covered in muscle, with hands so large they could practically envelop Caitlyn’s head.
“So idealistic, even when the enemy would see you dead in an instant. It is thinking like that which leads to promising warriors getting killed. They fill their heads with folly, that things can be made better if they just remove the offending pieces.” She towered over Caitlyn, forcing the Commander to crane her head upward just to maintain eye contact. “But that is not how the real world works, child, and one day you will realize it. Whether today or later. They declared war when they attacked your mother’s memorial. Do you not wish to make them suffer as they have made you suffer?”
Steel. She had to be steel in the face of lava. Even when the lava was inches from her now.
“I wish for this to end. It was never meant to go this far.”
Perhaps if Caitlyn hadn’t tunneled her vision as she had, she could have seen the writing on the wall. First with Jinx, with her revenge, and then now, as she felt a hand close around her shoulder, thick fingers digging hard into the flesh, even causing the metal adornments on her armor to nearly bend. For all her stoicism, she couldn’t bite back the audible wince as her knees began to buckle under the pressure.
Fuck.
Rictus had trapped her as Ambessa held her attention.
“This will end, child. I will see to it,” Ambessa replied coolly, stepping back from her protégé. A predator’s eyes sized Caitlyn up, even as the Commander struggled under Rictus’ grasp. His other arm managed to pull her arms behind her back, immobilizing her, save for her struggling legs. “With or without you.”
“What will you do? Kill me? If you do, you lose any foothold of power you have in Piltover!” But the possibility was still there; she had been so isolated that there was no safe way to fight back against Ambessa. She should have done so earlier, on her terms. Too late now.
Her eyes surveyed the room, getting a quick headcount: Rictus, Ambessa… no Singed. Where was Singed?!
“It’s quite the tragedy, really,” Ambessa said, the tone leaving Caitlyn on edge, so nonchalant despite the heightened tension in the room. “The young leader of House Kiramman, so consumed by her grief and anger and the weight of her responsibilities, that she turned to the one thing she tried to eliminate.”
Caitlyn’s eyes widened, her struggling growing more severe as she attempted to kick back toward Rictus. “No!”
“It will be all over the papers by tomorrow,” the warlord continued. “The poor child gave in, lost control. It was just too much at such a young age.” Ambessa punctuated her sentence with a tsk of her tongue.
Her muscles strained under the pressure from Rictus’ crushing grasp, bruises already beginning to blossom along her arms. “Do you really think anyone would believe such a story?” What if they did? Caitlyn had thoroughly murdered her own reputation to the point where she didn’t even recognize herself in the mirror. Why would anyone else?
She struggled further, but his grip was a vice, tight and unrelenting. Unforgiving. This couldn’t be how it ended, not like this, not surrounded by the very people she had learned were never her allies. And certainly not with Singed here.
Singed, whom she still couldn’t see, but with Ambessa in front of her and Rictus behind her, her field of vision was limited.
It wasn’t until she saw movement out of the corner of her eye that she realized it was too late. One tiny little prick of pain in her upper arm, her face twisting in horror as she felt the needle dig in and watched the pinkish-purple liquid empty entirely into her.
And then she was tumbling forward, her hand reaching for her arm, eyes wide as she darted her attention to Singed.
“What did you do?”
He moved to stand next to Ambessa, saying nothing.
“What did you—AUGH!” Pain ripped through her, body feeling rigid as she collapsed to her knees, fingers digging into her arm, wanting nothing more than to rip the meat of it right off her bones. Purge it, purge herself, purge her of the last six months.
“You…” And the world, as she understood it, flipped. Painted in shades of red and pink as pain overtook every other thought she may have had.
A scream tore from the tent, ripping through the gorge.
And then silence.