#also rafen is gay

[lunarfortune]

busts open tumblr's door, I'm gonna crosspost both of my threads from twitter for convenience and make them considerably wordier. This is not solely my own ponderings but shared brain thoughts with @tahthetrickster

STRAP IN because I’m going to take the League tag on a wild ride involving these three gals and how relationships form between them.

Long post under the cut! 2.5k+ words

(updated 13 june 2023 to add fic)

We start with the most important part of this entire thing, developing the relationship between Sarah Fortune and Shyvana. Why would they even interact?

Because Ruination.

Wait, no, come back, not that one.

Very important note here that what kicked off this entire thing was literally me seeing Ruined Miss Fortune get revealed and thinking, hmm what if Ruined MF/Ruined Shyv, would be a shame if I thought too hard about that and got invested...

Much of this plotting was prior to Sentinels of Light event launching, so if you hated that, good news! It has zero bearing here.

So let's actually get to the girls. There are certain visual headcanons to take note of

For heights, Sarah is about 178cm and Shyvana comes in at a respectable 201cm. (Kat will come into this later but she is 181cm).

There are several things about Shyvana's design that irk me, so for the purpose of this au her traits are adjusted to emphasize her half dragon nature. She has digitigrade clawed feet, because giving her clawed heels is massively dumb, just make her digitigrade Riot. She leaves her Dragonguard armour behind under Jarvan's recommendation, so rather than the large, impractical "horns" from the helmet, she has much smaller real horns that are about 8-10cm large. She also bears a tail about \~91cm long in human form. Also her ears are pointed! Ruined Shyvana has pointed ears but base Shyvana does not, which should be a crime.

* These values are rough estimates bc frankly I'm just ballparking

Worth noting! Being a half-dragon and considerably more reptilian than a human, Shyvana does not have breasts.

First row 1) Official splash 2) LoR promotional key art

Second row 1) LoR Lv2 art 2) LoR lv1 art

Second image promo art that appears on patch notes sometimes

Barring one outlier (the key art) we can agree she is mostly depicted with some sort of hard plate scaling on her chest? So put a bit more emphasis on her being somewhat flat-chested, it will make more sense if Tah ever posts any writing referring to Shyvana's chest/pecs.

also she doesn't have external genitals but anyway this is just relevant for Tah's Kinktober collection

During her stay in Bilgewater, Shyvana wears mostly casual garb appropriate for the region, so attire such as this, with digitigrade style boots/sleeves (things like this) for traversing around the city with. Would you roam Bilgewater without some sort of footwear? I didn't think so.

Post-Harrowing many of those under Viego's possession retain some sort of visual indicator of what he did to them. Often this can be a streak of white hair left behind from their possessed form. For Sarah, she has a bold splash of white near her left temple. Shyvana bears one near the nape of her neck.

These are actually not too important in the long run, but immediately following the Harrowing and for Sarah's case especially, they are marks of betrayal and distrust. It leaves Sarah largely stuck at home and unable to conduct business as normal in Bilgewater proper for some time because its citizens are too volatile and it's better to just allow time for things to settle down and not rile them up further.

***

Shyvana finds her way to Bilgewater as a result of the intense distrust Demacians hold for her after the incident with Viego. She arrives as a sort of political refugee, Jarvan having petitioned to Sarah for her safety while Demacia struggles to restabilize. Many in Demacia want to see Shyvana permanently imprisoned or worse for her role in Viego's Ruination, and so Jarvan privately sends a missive to Sarah seeking asylum for Shyvana until it's safe for her to return.

Bilgewater isn't exactly the optimal choice but realistically there aren't too many people Jarvan can approach about "hey can you potentially host the half dragon that was involved in that disastrous near cataclysmic event we all just went through recently?" What with having been involved as well, Sarah understands. As previously noted, Sarah herself also faces an elevated level of distrust for her among Bilgewater denizens, resulting in her delegating affairs mostly from her own residence with Rafen's assistance.

Given that Sarah is for the most part stuck in her own home, you could say she's... experiencing a bit of boredom. This winds up being part of why she agrees to Jarvan's request, like okay, sure, send the dragon over, it couldn't end up being any worse for me than it is right now. A temporary housemate could give her something else to focus on. Both Shyvana and Sarah are initially told this could be months at most (but stabilization and rebuilding in Demacia takes longer than Jarvan anticipated so this ends up being over a year).

Sarah and Shyvana both suffer trauma from Viego's possession. Reminded of the cold, dark grip of the Mist, neither finds sleep easy to come by. While Viego may be gone, in some respects part of Sarah and Shyvana's minds are still trapped in the Harrowing, fearing that they could abruptly become aware that they are still possessed, that Viego was never defeated. They can't trust themselves, and they can't trust others. Being somewhat of a soldier and having the extended endurance of being half-dragon, Shyvana is able to make do with what little bits of rest she can catch. Sarah meanwhile is running on empty.

Exhaustion eats at her, she hasn't slept other than periods of time her body simply gives out, and she knows she can't deal with this for much longer. For the first few nights after Shyvana comes to Bilgewater, she lays awake listening to Sarah wandering restlessly through the villa. Only by sheer coincidence does Sarah (and Shyvana shortly after) find any sleep, abruptly passing out in Shyvana's grip after venting her frustrations in a fit of exhausted delirium. Realizing the following morning that she fell asleep at all, she latches onto a theory. It's silly, she realizes as she relays it to Shyvana, but so far it's the only lead she's got. If the terror of the Mist's cold embrace is what keeps her awake, would Shyvana's inherent warmth combat that? Could she rest without waking in fear that she's still controlled by the Mist? Shyvana doesn't mind entertaining this theory; if one of them can sleep at all she'll consider it beneficial. Being human though, Sarah gives off comparatively little body heat, unlike the elevated body temperature of a half-dragon.

Something something "there was only one bed" trope, except make it "we are deeply traumatized and sharing a bed out of necessity so we may feasibly get some rest and feel comforted by the warmth we give each other, otherwise the sleep exhaustion will eventually end us." So this mutual bed sharing frames much of how their relationship develops in the months following, because it's awfully hard to literally sleep with someone and not come to get to know them and grow close to them.

The closeness is not really a problem, until one Sarah Fortune abruptly realizes that her typical casual flirting is decidedly crossing into more... genuine territory, though thankfully Shyvana is seemingly oblivious, which was fine up until "oh gods am I pining." Add to her later mortification the fact Shyvana liked her as well but just assumed the flirting didn't mean anything since people don't typically like her and Sarah is a notorious flirt anyway, so she just kinda humoured it and inadvertently led Sarah to think she wasn't interested. Finally realizing their feelings are mutual though, the two do agree to trying a romantic relationship.

I know Kat's tattoo and scar are backwards, Shyvana's LoR key art is just goofy looking and looks worse flipped, accept it for the aesthetic

So with setting up Sarah and Shyvana out of the way, we move to Katarina and Shyvana. These two inherently cannot be a thing without developing Sarah and Shyvana first. All of this is set up with background Sarah/Kat; they have known each other for some years, and Kat is known to drop by Bilgewater on occasion in her downtime. They deny being anything more than friends with benefits at best, which.. will change later lol. But Sarah/Shyv is important because the relationship Sarah has with Shyvana affects a lot of how Kat treats her afterward, and Sarah's trust for Kat is what drives Shyvana to in turn pay more attention to Kat and regard her favourably later. Sarah's encouragement of Shyvana embracing her draconic nature rather than forcing herself to be more human is also a large part of what later sparks Kat's interest.

Since Sarah will never know ahead of time when Kat decides to pop by, the first time she does so while Shyvana is staying in Bilgewater goes quite.. disastrously, to say the least. The two have no respect for one another, and squabble frequently. Try as she might to put the presence of an infamous Noxian assassin currently in the house with her out of mind, Shyvana realizes that Kat does certain things with deliberate intent to rile her up. Several days of this is enough for Sarah finally to snap.

Snippet courtesy of Tah. (THIS IS OUTDATED NOW I THINK BUT YOU GET THE IDEA)

Kat is content to take "be silent" to heart and just ignore Shyvana outright. She has no reason to play nice with a good little loyal Demacian. As far as she's concerned, there's nothing to be said between them that wouldn't get her angry. She does question Sarah as to why she cares so much of this little fling of hers, which Sarah regards with some confusion. It's certainly not a fling, and in fact, Sarah may not even be around now if Shyvana hadn't come to her when she did. The long period of sleep deprivation had been taking its toll on her, and she had been very much near the end of her rope.

Listening to how fondly Sarah speaks of the half-dragon, it is with great horror that Kat realizes she had been wrong about certain assumptions (namely telling Shyvana that she was nothing more than a toy Fortune would eventually tire of) and she has to make an apology (largely for Sarah's sake, of course). While not.. impressed by this debacle, Kat apologizing at all (and seemingly in great pain doing so) does leave Shyvana curious and she decides maybe there is something to her after all.

The two don't inherently get along after this but over the months they warily regard each other and come to find a sort of kinship in both being disillusioned soldiers, that neither is the mindless loyal soldier that the other thought. Being in neutral ground at Sarah's residence and finding common ground with each other, gradually they relax around one another. Kat's visitations no longer puts Shyvana on guard, and Shyvana's presence is one Kat accepts without ridicule. Sarah could not ask for a better outcome! With this slowburning friendship of sorts the two start to develop, Shyvana realizes that when she thinks about the things she has learned over the months, there is certainly more to Kat that interests her.

She likes her, in fact.

It's a simple thought, and Shyvana chews on it for a while. Kat intrigues her, provides a good sparring partner and is clearly physically attractive but if Shyvana approaches this carelessly then Kat could very well rebuff her instantly. So she waits patiently. She lets their relationship, both the budding one between herself and Kat and the three way one with Sarah, flow naturally, until one day seeking advice from Sarah on the prospect of potentially courting Kat.

***

It really is hard to condense months worth of discussion and character exploration into a single post but this sure is an attempt. There is so much more we have discussed but also like... ultimately this is our big headcanon playground we have built up, this thing is essentially our baby there will be one of those too

. When the Kat/Shyv aspect forms, it in turn drives Sarah and Kat to accepting there is more between them than they've ever allowed themselves to think. It's a very slow process of the three of them, each with their own baggage and hang ups, learning to slowly trust one another with the pieces of themselves they can't entrust to anyone else.

This has been absolute HELL for me to type up but if anyone else enjoys it then worth ✌

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Tah's currently posted works involving this pair:

Manicure - Sarah/Shyvana, Teen+

My Favorite Most Dangerous Fascination - Misc pairings, Explicit, Kinktober (slow updates but planned Kat/Shyv and Sarah/Kat/Shyv at a later date) (MAYBE)

I HAVE FINALLY UPDATED THIS 13 JUN 2023 WITH SOME OTHER STUFF WAHOO

Morning Routine - Sarah/Shyana, Teen+

Redolent of Romance - Misc, Teen+, Twitter prompt drabbles

Animal Oddity - Sarah/Shyvana, Mature, THE BIG ONE THE MAIN EVENT THE LONGFIC (Chapter 2 up!) ✨✨✨

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Miscellaneous tidbits that are not chronological:

While Shyvana may be called Ana by some Demacians like Jarvan and the Dragonguard, Sarah and others call her Shyv. Rather region appropriate because a shiv is also a homemade knife, and Bilgewater isn't lacking those

Bilgewater simply does not care in regard to Shyvana being half-dragon. They have fish and reptile people and all manner of oddities, Shyvana is frankly just another day of the week. It's something that surprises her initially, being so used to being regarded unfavourably in Demacia simply for existing, though she understandably comes to find it a relief.

Sarah likes braiding trinkets into Shyvana's hair, including ones bearing her own crest. She's not claiming Shyvana, what makes you think that

Stretching dragon peets

Shyvana tends to workout and do some personal training sessions in the morning to stay in shape since she's not on duty for the time being.

Kat and Shyvana's first spar was Kat looking to prove a point and getting her ass handed to her. While a bit shameful (Kat is Not Immune to strong buff women!), it's been a long while since either had had a strong opponent so sparring becomes a habit when Kat drops by. Which she also complains about because she is also off duty, Fortune your dragon is making me work 🙄

Sarah took one look at Shyvana's Dragonguard armour once and laughed her ass off. Oh hun, no, who made this, you're better off just relying on your natural dragon scale. She later had some more appropriate styled armour made. She has her own forge and has a better eye for metalwork than.. whatever that red mess was.

While the Sentinels event never happened here, the skirmish between Shyvana and Vayne did in some aspect, and Shyvana retains some scarring from Vayne's bolts that sometimes ache with incoming bad weather.

Shyvana does make periodic visits back to Bilgewater when she returns to Demacia, and she and Sarah exchange letters while they are apart. Curiously she experiences feelings of homesickness despite being home and it takes her a while to realize that sometimes home is not necessarily the place you live, but the person you love. (Sarah is absolutely NOT acknowledging the deep pining she was struck with after Shyvana left, Rafen will say it was quite sad and pathetic to watch though) This eventually leads to Shyvana making arrangements to relocate to Bilgewater as a sort of ambassador.

Sarah has several pets: a three-legged cat named Scurvy, a spectral shark named Atlas, and a spiderling (roughly the size of a housecat) named Mila. Mila is one of Elise's spiders and is part of... an entirely different can of worms I'll have to explain sometime 😭 but she grew on Sarah. Sarah knows when they've spotted a fly because both cat and spiderling will sit together watching patiently. (GUESS WHAT RUINED KING SAYS MY HC OF ELISE SOMETIMES HUNTING IN BILGEWATER IS VALID THO)

Some years down the line and through the aid of some magics that took a lot of work to find, the three have a daughter together named Adeline Fortune. Addie bears genetics and characteristics of all three of her mothers; it's a fantasy world, don't think too hard about it.