#XXVIII / kata. draw some blood / carve your name

[kindredsmercy]

@carmencxgni said ; x

"no. I think you're doing the right thing. "[ Katarina]

// blue-green orbs eye swain. she's quiet for a moment, lets out a small breath of her own. if there's anyone's judgment she trusts, it's that of the man in front of her.

one blink, another, her vision loses focus for a second and there's a sharp pain in her forehead that she ignores. " I know " , she whispers, runs a hand through her hair and unties her ponytail. the hairtie gets tugged onto her wrist, her long, red hair falls over her shoulders.

" that's not what I mean. " it's just hard to know that she's right, sometimes. when she looks at talon, she sees herself, she sees the child desperate to prove themselves and she wants to tell him that it'll be okay. it is not like her to dwell on this, but her last interaction with him lays heavy on her mind.

confiding in swain, however, doesn't feel entirely right, either. " I just.. hope he recognizes that, eventually, too. "

[kindredsmercy]

@ebbnbout

“I know better than anyone that I’m more accustomed / to holding a knife / than holding someone’s hand.”

— Meggie Royer, from “Psych Ward Lover,” Potions for Witches the Boys Couldn’t Burn

[kindredsmercy]

@ncxianmight cont. from x

// noxian politics. katarina spends many sleepless nights thinking about them, to vowing to always be the best, strongest noxian she could be.

she's tall, but for noxian standards and especially the man in front of her, she couldn't hope to reach casual eye contact. she eyes him, silently, letting the compliment sink in. then, katarina smiles, tilts her head.

" it has been " , she agrees. " the same goes for you. I didn't know those muscles could get any bigger. "

everyday, she strives to shape noxus in a positive way. when she looks at darius, she sees someone who vows to do that, too, even if they don't fully agree on everything. he's respectable enough, she decides with a giggle, a little laugh.

" if you want business from me, you're going to have to ask swain, first. "

[kindredsmercy]

Katarina, being in noxus, never got much aid with her scarred eye. Which left it.. Pretty much blind. It's difficult enough to find someone she could tell about her impaired vision who wouldn't kill her, or take advantage of her. She's sure, if she told her father, he might have just taken her out himself. He'd have much preferred that than having a disabled daughter. So it was just kind of left alone. Talon meanwhile, went to shurima after the incident and therefore saw much more help for his eye. Which leaves his vision not exactly unaffected, but he can still see on that eye. They'd both benefit from glasses, but that's like asking someone to kill you inside of noxus.

[kindredsmercy]

// " I guess I'm still stuck with the 'family issues', after all. "

🔴 - "Trust that I saw out that route quite thoroughly dear Katarina. I did sympathise with your circumstances.."

[kindredsmercy]

Katarina definitely has the biggest and strongest case of parentified daughter syndrome. Talon is her child as much as he is her little brother.

[kindredsmercy]

katarina is the truest, purest form of noxus. she perfectly embodies noxian ideals: passion, love, a hunger for more, family, unity, a constant fight for survival. but that is exactly what puts her apart from many noxians, who use many if not all of these traits for their own goals and gains. from her father who saw weakness in her passion for killing and deemed her unworthy due to it, to noxian horrors in war.

she realizes when people are using noxian ideals wrongly. and she has become such an independent person because she is noxian. she lives these ideals so truly because they are everything she is. passionate. independent. that is what she truly believes every noxian should be. she sees lux, and she sees herself, and she sees someone who should, would absolutely thrive if raised with the noxian ideals she heeds.

she sees people she admires, like swain, and follows them, because she believes they are right. she sees her brother, and she feels pity, she feels hurt, she feels love. she wants to cradle him in her arms and tell him that he is noxian and he is himself and he will always be enough.

she will always fight for a better noxus.

[kindredsmercy]

@ebbnbout said ; x

“Yes, i'm afraid, i'm afraid for you.” Talon to Katarina

// the thought that talon would be afraid, not for himself, but for her, that he would be afraid at all hadn't even occured to her. he speaks and it makes her halt, in shock, like he's said something that she could've never expected, something that shook her to her very core.

talon doesn't get afraid. it's something he's tortured out of himself, that every noxian has banished from themselves, because to show yourself vulnerable is to ask for everyone around you to smell your fear and devour you in seconds.

fear makes you a target. talon admitting fear first makes it sink in that the many times he critizes her way of fighting, her way of being, her way of honoring the country that raised her does not upset him because it's not the way father would want her to fight: but because he's afraid. she envisions the possibility that it might even keep talon up at night, to imagine that she might be in danger, that he's afraid she might get herself killed. he's afraid that one day he'll get word his older sister got herself killed in battle.

it's something she'd accepted so inherently of noxian nature, that she forgot you are supposed to fear death. she still does not. but she fears the pain it might inflict on talon. katarinas eyes wander over him, her head tilts, before she reaches out, something in her eyes that is way too akin to pity.

afraid. talon looks at her not with disappointment but with fear, worry, concern. he doesn't repeat father's words because he is disappointed but because he truly belives he'd said them to keep them safe. " tal, I choose the death I deserve. "

the words she say don't quite reassure. she does not intend for them to. " when I die, I will die honoring noxus and knowing my life was worth fighting for, and that's okay. " death is just another aspect of anyone's lifespan. it's inevitable. she will meet kindred, and when she does, she'll trust them to make the right choice. " I'm not afraid to die, tal. "

[kindredsmercy]

@carmencxgni cont. from x

// she might be considered noxian company, but this noxian is something much more, too: she's a girl. her name is katarina. she knows pain, disability, hurt. when talon took her eyesight, it's something that she lived without as if she never lost it. she doesn't know if her father had noticed, but if he did, it's never been addressed.

but it aches. it asks for something that listens, she had felt so uncoordinated. jericho's arm dissipates and it's an awkward reminder of who the man in front of her really is: just a cripple that any other noxian would've thrown a jab at by now. katarina doesn't. she respects the man in front of her too much for that. but she's aware that even she is showing how taken aback she is at the fact he feels comfortable enough to show his losses.

she could never tell talon. she doesn't think he'd feel well knowing what he'd truly done to her. marcus would only be more disappointed in her, more ashamed of her. there was no way she could've told anyone in her life.

her working eye wanders over swain, and she sighs. " it feels stupid. " she should get used to it already. but sometimes it flares up and sometimes she's even upset at talon.

the breath she lets out shows obvious relief. like there was a right answer and swain had spoken it. comfort. empathy. it's hard to come by in noxus. it's another one of her shortcomings. she can't find the words to speak, opens her mouth and closes it, but all that comes out is slightly anxious breaths. her gaze wanders off. " sorry. I guess I just needed to tell someone. "

[kindredsmercy]

@allourinsides said ; x

i don't mean to offend you , you don't fit the Du Couteau brand . Elora @ Katarina!

// the look on elora's face indicates that she means no offense, as try the words to convey, but she feels it is something she should've kept to herself. an unnecessary comment poking at something katarina has always been insecure about. it's the same thing her father has beat her up daily for. ( an assassin does not seek recognition. you're a tool. )

what she's supposed to be is a knife for noxus, but it's a mold she can never quite fit her jagged form into. she yearns to fight, to be a part of the bigger picture, swain recognizes that she's meant for so much more, and so does ambessa. they're people she's grown a liking to, if just simply for the fact that they recognize she's a person.

katarina eyes elora. then she gives an off-handed chuckle, roll of her eyes. " I hear that a lot. " but instead of getting as offended as her instincts tell her to be, she shrugs, sits down on the edge of the wall next to them, pats a hand over her thigh. she's aware of elora's connections to mel and the medarda family, so she wants to keep the air light.

she owes a lot of comfort to the medardas, and remembers when ambessa offered her a place in her family, and she could only decline but it's something she's never been able to quite forget about. " I'm sure ambessa told you all about it. "

[kindredsmercy]

Katarina knows how to listen for footsteps. How to listen for emotions in those. She knows how to listen for rage, anger, she knows how to avoid it and she knows how to tip toe around and she sneaks back in through the window and she hopes she never sees her father in the house. It's not home. It's a battlefield. Like she's constantly bending and conforming desperately trying to hold something together that clearly doesn't work out. Katarina doesn't break but she bends and listens and adapts and she's so soft in response to every jagged edge her father throws her way. She spends every day tying strings for a family that's bursting at the seams. Even after father is gone something seems to keep cutting the string between her and talon. She keeps tying new knots but it's gotten so messy she doesn't know if it's a bond talon even wants.

[kindredsmercy]

Katarina can't sleep in the family house. She barely feels safe walking around the house. Every careless step feels like she's about to be hit or yelled at. She's always holding her breath, listening for anger and for rage - she's learnt the way her father's footsteps sound and she knows when they're heading to pin her against the next wall and choke her out. Even after he's gone for years, and she knows the only other person living in the house is talon, who sometimes seems to sleep so soundly she feels ridiculous, it doesn't get inside of her head that she'd be safe now. After talon moves out, she finds it feels worse. She neglects the house. It'll never feel like home.

[kindredsmercy]

@ebbnbout said ; x

" you're making a huge mistake. " Talon to Katarina

// talon's words are spoken in a tone of voice that carry a weight so similarly to marcus' insults that it takes her a moment to sort them apart in her mind. the worry that might coat talon's voice is overshadowed by the disappointment katarina feels she is hearing.

for a moment, she feels like if she blinks and squints, talon would blur and she'd instead find marcus in front of her. grabbing her by the throat, pushing her against the wall, her legs kicking like it'd make him let go --

but he's not there. he'll never get to do that again. she takes a deep breath, keeps her hands to herself, then bites her lip. " no. you are. " , she says and for a moment, she surprises herself. that's not what she meant to say. talon is the one making a mistake. it's all he ever does. ( she doesn't actually think that, does she? )

katarina feels spite bite at her throat.

" keep it. I don't want to hear from you right now. " she balls her fists. a tight grip. a shaky, uncharacteristic breath.

[kindredsmercy]

@ebbnbout said ; x

"I want to believe you... but I don't." Talon to Katarina

// talon's words make her throat tighten up. she looks at him, tries her very best to find eye contact but talon is avoiding it like it'd kill him to see the look on her face. she searches - she reaches out, katarina feels so far from her little brother it's stifling. even as her fingers grasp the cloth of his sleeve, look for the arm underneath it, it's like they're worlds apart.

something tastes bitter in her mouth, but she swallows every spiteful word down in favor of something nicer: in favor of something that wouldn't make talon feel bad. the last thing katarina would want is for talon to blame himself for the tightness in her chest.

" I know what I'm doing. really.. " , she speaks, voice soft, fond, looks for his eyes again, but then gives it up, looks down at her feet with a sigh.

" I get you're worried. but I'm not being taken advantage of. "

[kindredsmercy]

katarina and talon would be pitted against each other by marcus all of the time. he'd make sure to rub it into katarina's head just how much better at everything talon is, despite being younger. he never really wanted katarina dead but whenever he sent talon after he, it was specifically because he knew it would drive a wedge between them. if he truly wanted the job done, he could've just done it himself. the point was to drive them apart.

it becomes glaringly obvious just how... uncomfortable. how, not used to it katarina is when during the time marcus is "dead", talon, for the first time, can openly talk to her. (as we find out, he didn't, and she's been questioning every word they shared inbetween those years since she's found that out.) when talon comes to her, cares about her safety, talks about how the house is hers and she shouldn't let marcus' disappointment in her rule her entire life, she feels spiteful and she feels bad that she feels so spiteful. she loves him so much but it is always so hard to just listen to him talk knowing he will always be her better counterpart.

they grew a bit closer during the time marcus was "dead", but when he came back, and it's revealed talon knew the entire time that he had not been dead - something in her is so, so, so hurt. she keeps it together in front of him, tells him she's not mad, even after she's hurt him, she tells him it's okay and that she knows it's not his fault and that he's just father's puppet, but when she settles down on drann's couch she falls apart.

she hugs the pillow. she buries her face in it. she cries. every part of their bond that had healed in those 3 years, she wonders how much of it had been real. she wonders if he truly meant it when he said all of those comforting words or if he was just repeating whatever their father had said, or if she's always been so insignificant that all it took was one night of father returning and it was enough for talon to attempt to kill her again. one night and she'd been replaced.

he betrayed all of the trust she had in him. and it's something that she hates admitting continues to haunt her for weeks, months, years. talon can't look her in the eyes, but neither can she.

[kindredsmercy]

Thinking about katas chosen of the wolf skin. I wonder when she met kindred. I wonder if it has ever been while fighting talon or her father.