#x: kindred | (du couteau)

[thedanceofblades-blog]

Haven't seen you in a while! Really missed you on my dash. Now, I don't know what came over me to make me ask but indulge me if you will--- what does Katarina feel about the others in her family? Like, Cassie leaving for Shurima and becoming a half snake, Marcus' sudden dissappearance, and Talon's hellbent will on finding said General.

// yeah my brain happened so I didn’t sign on for a bit and then I felt embarrassed for not signing on so I kept not doing it… for the next few months… w h o o p s 

I MISSED YOU TOO THOUGH

also OOH

this got a bit long (thx Cassiopeia) so it’s under a cut

Cassiopeia:

...Mixed, with a focus towards concern (for both Cassiopeia and herself) and anger (on Cass’s behalf).

Katarina has never been on particularly good terms with her sister. When they were younger, she just wasn’t sure what to do with her; as they grew up and Cass started becoming more and more well-versed in skills that Katarina was personally weak against (i.e. magic and politics/diplomacy/talking to people on purpose), Kat started to actively distrust her. But she does love her; Cass is family, damn it. That means something. So when Cassiopeia suddenly vanishes and then comes back as some sort of mythical creature, of course she's worried.

But she’s also a little worried about herself, because Cassie has access to even more magic that Katarina knows even less about, and is fundamentally inhuman these days. Not that Kat has anything against that in general, but when it was an actual transformation that was forced on her sister, who may or may not even give however much of a damn about Katarina as she used to. She’s an unknown.

Another important thing to note on this front is the roles that each of them was supposed to play within the family. House du Couteau used to be a fairly large and prominent one in Noxus, but its habit of holding fast to the old ideals of “go out and do stuff and don’t just sit inside your manor all day feeling good about what your ancestors did to get you there” while the rest of the nobility did exactly the opposite has whittled its numbers down considerably. Cassiopeia, Katarina, and Marcus himself are pretty much the last of it outside of distant cousins. So this is something of an heir-and-spare kind of situation.

Katarina is technically the spare. She was brought up to carry on her family’s work; Cassiopeia was the one who was supposed to carry on its existence at all. Kat could drop dead and the family would survive just fine without her.

But.

Kat’s not exactly an expert, but she’s pretty sure that half-snakes who were actually born fully human and just got the snake bits later on probably can’t have kids. Probably. If she had to guess.

Which leaves her. She’s not precisely okay with that. Not that she wants to die, of course, but she certainly didn’t mind being technically disposable.

TL;DR Katarina Has Some Concerns

Marcus:

Absolutely heartbroken, but in a furious way.

Katarina was never in the Noxian army proper; all of the training she went through until Ionia came from Marcus. Her orders (once she actually started getting them) came from High Command in the end, but her father was still her CO until she was sent to help with the Invasion. For a very long time, he was the only person she completely trusted.

And now he’s mysteriously vanished, for no reason, probably because he was considered a Threat to Swain Becoming Grand General somehow, and there’s nothing she can do about it. If he’s dead (which he is not; she refuses to believe that’s even a possibility), she can’t even avenge him, because that would require treason. She has to be careful even investigating this, because she’s a pawn and was always supposed to be a pawn and her direct superiors are the primary suspects. There is absolutely nothing she can do.

TL;DR: Very Sad And Very Pissed

Talon:

In her estimation, that’s the right thing to do. Hell, she’d be exactly the same way if she could, but Talon isn’t quite as... utilized by High Command as she is and has a bit more freedom on that front.

(Also, he gives less of a fuck about that kind of thing.)

Honestly, she’s proud of him anyway, but she is incredibly proud of him for that. It’s the only right choice to make as far as she’s concerned.

[thedanceofblades-blog]

headcanon: what's with the hair?

Yes, that incredibly unlikely shade of red is her natural color.

Noxus in particular being fond of recreational use of potentially dangerous magic, a fashion started up several centuries ago for noble houses to magically install a sort of calling card into their own genes--a particular physical trait that was instantly recognizable as belonging to that family and could not be bred out under regular circumstances. Some families added extra protocols--the trait would only be dominant in children born in the family's estate, in the presence of a certain number of family members or even just a few particular people, etc., ensuring that bastards did not get the visual indicator of their heritage and by extension did not get any support the house didn't want to give. Some families did not, leading to the overabundance of odd physical traits (red eyes, anyone?) in regular Noxian society.

The ancient du Couteaus decided on their hair color as their signature, changing it from its original fairly standard ginger to its current bloody shade and magically ensuring its dominance.

[thedanceofblades-blog]

// tag dump + small retcon notice:

so @aformerspellthief and I realized that as long as Katarina leaves Demacia in just as bad a shape as she entered it in (which is easily done, since it ends with her fleeing the capital city in a Very Suspicious Manner) there’s nothing stopping us from merging BitL into the main timeline

so that’s why there are two pairing tags instead of one. it’s because The Worst Breakup Ever is now canon. the end

(also lmk if any of the tags break anything for y’all! I’m retagging my shit because I didn’t want my posts leaking into any actual tags since that’s a pet peeve of mine. shout-out to whatever poor sods in the bladesmithing tag looking for ACTUAL bladesmithing had to deal with me instead

will clean up my tag page and start retagging shit later today probably!)