A/N: Thank you to my beta readers, Joe and Balabalabagan.

10-24-14 Lore/Canon compliance note: This first chapter makes more sense if you're familiar with Sion's old lore or the old Katarina lore. Generally, I have made a great effort to be canon compliant, right down to checking the geography of Valoran, however, the massive lore shift happened while this fic was in progress. I have made edits to bring the fic in line with the lore that the League of Legends never existed. However, I've made too much of an investment in the old lores to deviate and follow the new stuff, especially as Cassiopeia's lore has changed, as has Sion's. So for future readers, please understand that this fic was begun when the old lore was still canon and will, for the most part, continue using that lore.

Acknowledgements: The cover art for this fic was created by TheGadgetFish (lineart) and Kalce (colors). They are both awesome and those are their tumblr names so you should check them out - the full art version is also on tumblr and it looks much better than the compressed thumbnail here. TheGadgetFish was kind enough to draw it for me after I asked and, generally, TheGadgetFish is responsible for getting me to write this fic because she introduced me to the Kat/Riven pairing. I also want to thank LogosMinusPity (whose works can be found at AO3 and on tumblr) because reading her understanding of these characters inspired me and gave me the groundwork upon which to build this fic. So thank you to all of those people and to everyone reading!

And, of course, League of Legends belongs to Riot Games.

Burials

It was pouring when Katarina finally guided the creaking ox cart through the pine gates of the outpost and onto the soggy parade ground.

Behind her, covered by a dark canvas tarp, the body stank of overripe fruit and putrefaction. Not even the rain could suppress the stench. It rose up from beneath its cover and coated everything it touched before seeping in – her clothes, her skin, her hair, her face.

Katarina slid down from the driver's bench. Her leather boots made a sick squelching noise as they landed in the mud. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a white-haired soldier approaching through the summer deluge. Not sparing him a second glance, she tossed the cattle prod in his direction and began to scan the nearby buildings for the command post.

The sooner she reported in and handed over the remains, the sooner she could bathe.

Behind her, the tarp rustled as the soldier pulled it back.

The stench of decay rolled out over the field and hit Katarina's nose with an almost physical force. She snarled and turned half-around to glare at the soldier.

The soldier glanced up for a moment and met her gaze with unreadable red eyes, then looked back down at the body.

Katarina cursed and then turned around again to resume her search.

Squinting through the torrential rain, her eyes passed over building after building – an infirmary, a barracks, a storehouse another barracks – all built out of green wood with cracks between the fresh hewn logs of the walls and sagging roofs. The command post, nestled in a corner of the camp, was no different from the other shacks built in the swamp. The only thing that differentiated it was its small size and the crudely painted Noxian emblem above the open doorway.

Wasting no more time, Katarina set off towards it, holding a hand up above her face to ward off some of the downpour.

When she arrived, she didn't bother to knock or otherwise announce her presence before she walked in.

The single room of the post was deserted.

Habitually, she scanned the area for entrances, exits, threats. It was woefully bare of all those things.

In the center of the windowless room, was a single, empty, desk made of the same fresh pine as the rest of the camp, and a single stool to go with the desk. Lying on the wood floor against the far wall was a standard issue bedroll and next to that, a heavy soldier's knapsack. A neatly cleaned set of infantryman's half-plate armor hung on a rack in the corner.

Beside the armor stood the only thing in the room really worth remembering. A massive steel broadsword – as tall as Katarina and almost as wide – leaned against the pine wall with its tip pointing down, digging up splinters from the wood floor.

The redhead's eyes widened ever so slightly when she saw it there, towering over everything around it.

Of course she'd seen weapons of a similar size before. She'd seen them hanging on walls and sitting in display cases and occasionally being wielded with two hands by massive men in exhibition drills during festivals. She'd never seen one in the field before.

Frowning slightly, Katarina searched through her memory for the words of the droning, dusty tutor she'd shared with her sister as a child.

Retired. The Noxian zweihander was retired over fifty years prior when battlefield tactics changed to favor lighter, faster soldiers. The zweihander had been deemed too slow, too inefficient to be of use any longer. It hadn't been a change of any note since the army had never had more than a company's worth of men able to use the massive swords in live combat.

Driven by curiosity, Katarina approached the sword and wrapped both hands around the hilt, giving it an experimental tug.

It didn't budge.

Again, she pulled on it, this time using all her strength.

The sword rose half an inch from the floor before she dropped it back down.

With a new degree of respect for, and a certain amount of interest in, the outpost's commander, Katarina sat down on his stool to wait.

She spent half an hour there, imagining warm baths, cleaning her fingernails with one of her knives, and listening to the rain before anyone else entered the small room.

Katarina looked up to find the white-haired soldier from before standing in the doorway and dripping rainwater all over the floorboards.

"Where's your commander?" Katarina demanded. "I don't like being kept waiting."

"Here," said the soldier. His – no, definitely her – her voice was soft and tired sounding. "I am the officer in command."

Katarina raised an eyebrow and pointedly looked at the sword against the wall and then back to the soldier. The white-haired woman was slightly shorter than Katarina and even though she had the muscular build that all infantrymen ended up with eventually, she looked nothing like the towering mountain of a man Katarina had imagined wielding the weapon.

"Yes it's mine," said the soldier. There was an edge of annoyance in her tone.

The words were out of Katarina's mouth before she remembered all she wanted to do was hand over her cargo, bathe, and then requisition a bed. "Prove it."

The soldier brushed past Katarina sitting on the stool and headed to the massive sword. With one hand, she grasped the hilt, lifted the blade up, and leveled it at Katarina's face. Her voice betrayed no strain, "I am Riven, acting commander of this outpost following the death of our captain. We have received his body and will give it a proper burial. You may leave."

Refusing to be intimidated, or shocked, by the display of strength and the challenge inherent in the soldier's pose, Katarina sat unflinching on the stool. Instead of looking at the point of the sword as it hovered a few inches from her nose, she locked eyes with the soldier and let a lazy grin spread over her features. "Du Couteau," she said. "Katarina Du Couteau. I'm staying here until I receive new orders." She leaned in slightly and reached out to tap a finger against the flat of the blade. "Not that I mind. It's not every day you see one of these."

Saying nothing, Riven set her sword back against the wall, digging up new splinters in the rough floorboards. She turned and moved for the door.

Still sitting on the stool, Katarina watched her go before getting up and heading to the nearest barracks to find the quartermaster.

The quartermaster was wiry bald man without facial hair and with a lean face, making him resemble some sort of underground rat-like creature. He was able to point Katarina to an empty berth but as for soap and water, he just laughed and said, "It's always raining."

Eventually she found a secluded spot a short distance from the camp and took advantage of the downpour to scrape as much of the filth of the road from her skin and her leathers. She didn't feel clean exactly, but it was a definite improvement over her state upon arriving.

That evening, the mess hall of the camp was the quietest mess hall Katarina had ever dined in. There was none of the usual hum of conversation between squadmates. Only the quiet clunking of wooden spoons against the edges of wooden bowls filled the somber room.

The unnatural quiet set Katarina on edge. The men around her should be talking, laughing, fighting, not… whatever it was they were doing. Acting like someone had died.

She was so uneasy that when someone laid a hand on her shoulder, she instinctively pulled the knife from her left arm sheathe and went for the throat instead of the wrist. The steel was arcing faster than the eye could follow when it stopped abruptly, still inches from its target.

The soldier from before, Riven, had caught the blow in a textbook block, slamming her forearm into Katarina's and knocking the weapon aside. The counterstrike came a heartbeat later – a punch that crunched into Katarina's chin and knocked her to the floor.

Even as she was falling, Katarina reached for another knife and hurled it half-blind – it whizzed through the air and missed removing Riven's ear by less than an inch before embedding itself in the far wall.

The already quiet mess hall went silent.

Katarina picked herself up and wiped thick blood and saliva off her lips with the back of one hand. With her other hand, she reached for the blade she'd dropped in her fall.

Riven took a step back and held up empty hands in a pacifying gesture. "I didn't mean to startle you."

Katarina checked the set of her jaw before spitting more blood onto the pine floorboards. Considering how strong she knew Riven was, the punch had to have been pulled since nothing was broken. That irked her even more than the fact the blow had connected. She tightened her hand on the hilt of her blade. "What do you want?"

"I need a favor," Riven said.

Finger by finger, Katarina relaxed her grip on her knife. Could she beat Riven in a fight, she wondered. If she had her knives and Riven had that hulking sword? A rush of adrenaline shot through her, though she did her best to ignore it. "What sort of favor?" she asked.

Riven glanced around at the company in the mess hall, all faces turned towards her, and the slightest of frowns tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Can you come back to the post with me?"

Still aware of the audience and the embarrassing bruise spreading across her face, Katarina sheathed her knife and nodded, saying nothing.

Riven turned her back on the redhead and headed for the door to the mess hall. She picked up a small glass lantern she'd left on the floor when she'd entered. "Come on."

The rain had finally abated, but that didn't mean the world was any dryer. If anything, the weather had gone from bad to miserable. The warm air, heavy with humidity was thick and cloying and walking through it conjured up memories of swimming.

The two women crossed the waterlogged parade ground to the dark command post. Riven set her lamp down on the simple desk, right next to what was clearly a satchel of orders from command. "I can't read them," she said.

"You can't read?" Katarina asked as she reached for the oiled leather bag. She hadn't been sure what she'd been expecting exactly, aside from that it wasn't this. There was only one piece of parchment and she laid it out on the desk next to the light. Someone had already broken the red wax seal. The writing was in black ink and the penmanship of the flowing Noxian cursive was impeccable.

"I can read a little. Not that," Riven said.

Katarina glanced up. "But you're an officer."

Riven shrugged. "Our captain couldn't read much either," she said. "Between the two of us we could normally figure out orders if we stayed up late and worked at it…" She paused and for the first time, Katarina saw her hesitate. "But this isn't normal writing. The letters don't look the same."

Katarina tapped the parchment. "It's cursive," she said. "It makes it easier and faster to write with a quill or pen."

Again, Riven shrugged. "What does it say?"

Katarina looked back down to the orders. She read them twice to make sure she understood, then said, "This is directly from High Command. I'm to take the body back to the forward base four days march from here and give it to the necromancers," she said. "And you've been promoted – captain. Congratulations."

"What?" Riven grabbed the parchment and squinted at it in the dim light of her lamp, as if by sheer force of will she could make herself understand the letters that seemed to run together and move across the page. "But we've already buried him," she said.

"Better get digging then," replied Katarina.

"We've already buried him," Riven repeated.

"If that's all you needed, I've had a long day and want to sleep," Katarina said. She stretched and faked a yawn.

Still staring at the orders, Riven nodded. "Dismissed," she mumbled.

Katarina left the command post in a strange mood. By no means did she look forward to spending another half a week dragging the decaying corpse back to the forward base. But this time she was moving it with a real purpose. The necromancers were going to resurrect him to fight for Noxus and that – that would be something to behold.

The barracks she was spending the night in was near to deserted when she entered. What few men were there were either already sleeping or settling down for sleep.

There were many empty mats – many more than she'd seen faces in the mess hall.

Casualties of war.

Her bedroll smelled like old sweat and dirt. She didn't bother undressing or pulling the cover over her, preferring to just lie on top of it. Katarina's knives dug uncomfortably into her sides, but she kept them on. She never slept without them near and she didn't trust her surroundings enough to unbuckle the sheathes. The entire arrangement was far from perfect, but it was a vast improvement to the bench of the cart.

Sleep did not come easily.

The air was too hot and sticky. The snores of the soldiers were too loud. The stink of unwashed bodies was too overpowering.

After over an hour of fruitlessly chasing rest, Katarina got up and headed for the door of the barracks. Silent, she slipped out into the night.

The first thing she noticed about the camp was how loud it was – louder than even the snores inside the building. The noises of wetland creatures buzzing and chucking and screaming out to each other was deafening. The second thing she noticed was how bright it was. With the rain gone, the sky was clear and full of shining stars, which were in turn were outshone by a silvery full moon.

Not content to merely stand outside the barracks, Katarina set off at a slow walk to make a circuit of the camp inside its palisade walls. The few watchmen perched on platforms along the barricade paid her little attention, their senses focused on what lay beyond the outpost.

Once, she reached out and touched one of the timbers of the wall. Her fingers came away sticky with sap. The camp had stood for no more than a month and would probably continue to stand for no longer than another month before Noxus abandoned it to the swamp. The front lines of the war were constantly shifting. It didn't pay to build for permanence.

She'd almost finished a complete loop around the buildings when she saw a figure sitting on the ground ahead. Given how bright the night was, it wasn't difficult to identify the figure as Riven. The woman had her arms wrapped around her knees, which she'd pulled up to her chest so she could rest her chin on them.

As she approached, Katarina raised a hand to momentarily brush across the dark bruise that had bloomed across her jaw. Internally, she winced as her every footfall squelched in the mud. She was trained to move silently, but there was only so much you could do in a marsh.

Riven turned her head to see who it was, then turned back to whatever she'd been staring at.

When Katarina stood directly behind her, she could see that it was a freshly dug grave. Lying next to the soldier was a shovel.

"Why don't you just order someone else to do it?" Katarina asked.

Riven didn't look up at her. "We buried him together," she said. "But I am the commander. I have to dig him out alone."

"Hm," said Katarina. "He was that important to you?"

Riven said nothing.

Growing bored of the sounds of swamp creatures, Katarina turned and went back to her barracks, leaving Riven alone.

This time when she lay down in the dirty bed, sleep found her instantly.

The next morning, the ox cart was waiting for her on the parade ground. A long pine box, covered in mud, had been loaded already. Riven stood holding the cattle prod. At Katarina's approach, the soldier handed it over. "Travel safe," she said.

Katarina pulled herself up onto the driver's bench. "Glad to see you care," she said.

"He meant a lot to us," Riven replied.

Katarina looked back at Riven. "If you're ever in the city, come to the Du Couteau estate and say that I sent you," she said. "Someone there will teach you to read and write."

Riven nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

"It's an embarrassment that an officer can't read," Katarina said.

Riven's lips pressed into a thin line. "Strength is all that matters," she said.

Katarina jerked a thumb to indicate the pine box. "He was strong." She turned back to face ahead and smacked the ox, driving it to motion.

Riven watched the body leave the camp and then turned back to her post.