Hands off, property of Sofia Arvino

The evident relief from the baron made Talon arch his eyebrows in surprise. What had he thought, that Talon would demand a monthly retainer to not kill someone? Or some ridiculous price up front to not take the contract even if nobody ever tried to hire him to kill whomever the baron wanted protected? He was an assassin, not a businessman! He earned his money by killing people, not by gouging his clients. His fees were high, yes, but that was commensurate to the risk he took and the difficulty involved. It wasn’t arbitrary prices where he charged whatever he thought he could get away with.

The crackling jolt of electricity between the baron’s fingers had Talon cocking his head to a side curiously. “How the fuck do you ever touch electronics or take a bath if that’s always happening?”

Wouldn’t the man be electrocuting himself every time he showered? Or did he just get sponge bathed by his servants and had the metal parts of himself polished?

The offer to join the man for dinner was accepted with a nod and a faintly amused smirk. “If you have a meeting, doesn’t that mean you’ll be discussing other business? Whoever’s waiting for you might not be too happy if you also want to bring an assassin along. In Noxus, it’d be considered an indirect threat.”

Talon would go anyway, though, as long as the baron didn’t rescind the invitation. It was free food! What sort of person could turn down free food? And maybe he could get a doggy bag for Warwick too.

Volkage was slightly taken aback by the question.

“It doesn’t usually happen. I have been fighting earlier today. It will wear off in an hour or two.” Or when went back to HQ and asked the mechanic to recalibrate it, whichever happened first. “Augments are impractical in quite a few ways, but no mechanic worth their money would let you walk out of their workshop with one that was dangerous to you.”

That principle, as Volkage could attest with a bitter grimace if you managed to get him drunk enough to be chatty about the topic, regrettably did not extend to whatever damage they made to you while the augments were installed.

"That's more than fair. Thank you, master assassin. I'd suggest to shake on it, but-" He smiled bitterly and lifted a hand, a small arc of electricity running between the brass components.

"I'm running late from a meeting," the baron said, letting his hand drop to his side again. "A dinner, in fact. Perhaps we could discuss the details there, if you are willing to join me. Knowing my staff, there will be plenty of food to spare."

Inviting an assassin to his home was a bad idea on principle, but they needed to make the agreement official and he didn't want to go into details in an unsecured location.

No. He wasn’t lost. He never got lost, never. It definitely wasn’t a conveniently frequent mistake he made both when he’s drunk and when he’s sober. Definitely..

The woman who answered the door was dressed as a butler and was quite handsome if your taste ran towards stern and gaunt.

“…Yes, though most people who only know me as an assassin call me the Blade’s Shadow.” It wasn’t an egregious breach of privacy but it was unexpected enough that Talon arched his eyebrows at the man, wondering where he’d picked up the idea of addressing Talon by his personal name instead of his title.

It was no secret that the Blade’s Shadow was a man named Talon who lived in Noxus and had served the Du Couteaus, but it was generally considered politer to refer to him by his title than his name. The people who called him by his name on a regular basis were only a handful, a group so small that Talon could count them on his fingers.

They were friends, not clients, and thus interacted with Talon rather than the Blade’s Shadow. This man, stranger that he was, was not a friend. Using his first name as an attempt to either forge intimacy or show disrespect was a poor move on his part, though Talon was willing to consider that perhaps he had picked it up from Viktor or someone else whom Talon counted as a friend.

"I apologize if I misspoke, master assassin. I acquired your name from Emperor Azir. He suggested that he might put in a good word for me, but I see that didn't come to be."

Headcanon, the aftermath of Severed Ties.

Never let it be said that Caitlyn, Sheriff of Piltover, wasn’t a patient person. One had to be to hold onto the position for as long as she had. Her patience however was not endless and the current case valiantly and relentlessly tried her limits.

One busted ascender, two beaten up thugs, three dead bodyguards, one traumatized lady of high breeding and multiple eyewitness accounts of a woman with blades for legs. It should have been such an easy case.

If only her eyewitnesses stopped lying for two minutes.

She crossed her arms and gave the three a sharp look, two giant augmented bouncers framing the slight form of Lady Arvino as she tried to dry her tears, with no avail.

“Would someone care to tell me what have really happened here?“

Volkage can be sexy when he tries.