#libratis

     Flesh was fragile, but flexible. The skin took in the heat of the Ionian afternoon sun, a membrane that adjusted itself to its surroundings. The best disguise, to quote one of its proverbs, hides in plain sight.

     Lissandra lifted her cup of tea with a practiced hesitance, dainty enough for the grip of a Frostguard glass-maiden. Those girls practiced the art of scrying in their temples of ice for years, learning to read every portent in the snow - but at the cost of their physical strength. A dark blue blindfold covered her eyes. Most had lost their eyesight, but every maiden’s vision would eventually suffer. To the rogue ninja sitting across from her, she posed no threat.

     Yet as she drank the liquid, she could feel its detestable warmth, the icicles gnawing inside of her. Life flourished all around her seat in the forest - grasses, moss, flowers, trees, woodland creatures, birds of the air. Lissandra knew the temperature she would need to freeze the tea instantly. She knew the temperature needed to crystallize the ground, the chill needed to stop those beating hearts.

     And when Lissandra looked to the human in front of her, through her skin and past the limits of sight, she saw the cold. Most of it sat in her bare feet and near her head, at her fingers with every breeze, and in the air exhaled from her nostrils. Lissandra, however, was focusing on one particular space.

     Her heart. An icy, white veil draped over the shape in her chest, and Lissandra knew that someone, somewhere, had placed doubt in her heart.

     “You are troubled,” Lissandra told the ninja, in the rippling whisper of a glass-maiden. “I have studied the tradition of Ionia, the eternal quest for your people to find balance. It is difficult, I must imagine, to constantly wrestle with such an abstract thought.”

     The ninja didn’t respond, but Lissandra could sense her shift on the grass.

     “In the Frostguard, we are ruled by an ideology as well, something to give us purpose. I have lived by it, as did my mother, and her grandmother before her. It may not be peace, but I have always felt calm. It may not be order, but I have never wanted for justice. It may not be balance, but my soul has always felt equilibrium.”

     She knew she had the ninja’s attention, by the way the seal on her veil of ice struggled to burst.

HE’S BACK. | ACCEPTING

The first that whets Zed’s lips is Stay your tongue. It has the burn of an iron yet reaches no further. His fingers spindle together and his legs are crossed, head turned down and mind somewhere in the sky. Akali has a talent for interrupting just as she means to be punctual.

YOU KNOW WHAT SHE’S COMPARING YOU TO, MASTER.

“I don’t think it’s seduction that brings you to me, Akali.” Zed’s voice flattens with something dull. While he may not appreciate being regarded as true evil, he would still extend her an iota of understanding. He was, after all, consorting with it.

His head turns aside. “Rather you and I already know what does.”

It is not power; Akali has no reason to seek more than she already has, and she knows better to learn from Zed that which he may turn against her in the end. Is it not company either, as neither he nor his Order are anything for that. Instead, Zed has posed a question and Akali comes to answer-- and with each visit it becomes clearer.

A whistle rings through the trees and lands square on the burning eyes of Zed’s helm.

     A red wind, rusted with night’s shadow, croons through the air. It rustles between the branches of the magnolia tree, between each petal of its white flowers, between the cadence that sits between each of their words.

     “Not always,” Irelia admits. “I took a chance. A lucky guess.”

     The Kinkou wore masks to conceal their faces. Akali stepped in and out of twilight’s veil as she delivered justice, her form a sinuous shadow. But the real mystery confronted Irelia when Akali stood in front of her, in plain sight. What did she live for? What did she want to accomplish?

     Irelia shifts, adjusting her position on the branch. She looks over the edge of the small ridge where the magnolia hangs over the Lake of Mirrors. Its white surface surrounds the ridge on three sides, and Irelia feels that she’s looking at the sky instead of a body of water.

     As a leaf falls onto its surface, and a small ripple pulses across the water, the illusion breaks for a few seconds.

     According to legend, the gods had placed a ball of pure white jade in the mountains of Navori, the domain of the White Tiger. As it clashed with the Azure Dragon of the East, the dragon’s flames spread across the land, and melted the jade. The liquid pooled into a basin, and became the Lake of Mirrors, known for water the color of snow, as translucent as glass. It was said that anyone who swam in it would have their heart and soul opened, and their true intentions known.

     One of Irelia’s guardsmen had once become a thorn under the Fist of Shadow’s eyes, an aberration that needed pruning. But Irelia intervened, stepping in between Akali and the guard, even as she told Irelia of his crimes, the threat he posed to balance.

     “He is under my command.” Irelia stood firm. “I believe he has the capacity to change. Or would you strike him down before hearing his side of the story?”

     Akali did not stand down, but she did lower her kamas.

     “If I’ve made a mistake, I’ll take on the consequences myself. But I don’t think the story is that simple. Have you never questioned an order?”

     And Akali told her she did, many times, especially during the invasion.

     That day had been Irelia’s first foothold in her efforts to scale the web of mystery that surrounded Akali. There was no doubt in her loyalty to the order. But something else, a shard of doubt in the form of flawed humanity, punctured the perfection of discipline. And as Irelia continued to speak with her, the more Akali’s character began to shine through - as if she had plunged into the Lake of Mirrors and laid her soul bare.

     “It was a thread,” Irelia continues, swinging her legs over the edge. “But I followed it to the end, and… I think I learned some things.”

     From where they sat, one could almost see the bottom of the lake, despite how deep it was. A testament to how clear, how pristine its waters were. Irelia leans over, and she can make out her outline in the water’s reflection.

     “You know the story of this lake, right?” Akali nods, her eyes narrowing, as if she’s catching onto what Irelia wants to do. Irelia reaches for the ribbon tying her hair back, loosening the knot and tossing it at Akali with a gleeful wink.

      “I trust you, peragi,” she tells her, removing her silken sleeves and letting them hang on another branch, before turning with her back to the water, and giving Akali one last look.

      Then, Irelia smiles, leaning back, and she plummets backwards, falling into the whiteness.

dishonored sentence starters / not accepting.

     “Home?” 

     It takes several long moments before Zed can bring himself to respond with anything but a sharp glare. Akali has been slipping. Lately, he has noticed her faltering where once she would strike a decisive blow. Once upon a time, when Zed issued instructions or discussed a plan to strike down their enemies, Akali would listen with rapt attention, offering clever suggestions on how better to achieve their goals. Now, she seems distant, obedient, but only because she dare not expend the energy to fight.

     She is falling back into the dappled light from which they strayed, and Zed feels powerless to stop it. 

     “Home?” He repeats the word, his voice low like rolling thunder heralding a storm’s arrival. “What home?” 

      He has already lost one person to balance’s wicked chains. He cannot lose another.