Chapter Text
That Shyvana was still expected to traverse the castle under escort was nothing short of pure insult, and particularly so to answer the summons of the King himself. Still, she supposed she should count herself grateful that her hands and feet were no longer bound in the heavy petricite chains that so many Demacian mages typically found themselves bearing.
She still couldn’t will herself to be particularly appreciative of that; the magic-dampening aura of the spears carried by the mageseeker guards at her back still left her temples throbbing unpleasantly with headache.
Gods, but Shyvana did long to be back on patrol in the wilds of Demacia once more, far away from the stares and scowls and stone of the city. She could only pray to whatever deities still took pity on her that that was precisely what Jarvan was calling her in to discuss today.
From the look of surprise on his sculpted features when Shyvana was brusquely all but shoved into the private meeting hall, she got the feeling that was wishful thinking.
“Shyvana,” he greeted, standing abruptly from his seat. “You’re looking… better.”
That was a low bar to set. Last he’d seen her in any official capacity was after she’d spent nearly four days alone in the pitch dark, trapped in the petricite confines of a toppled mageseeker’s prison thought evacuated. A particularly cruel note of irony that she’d recognized even then: that compound had been the first building she’d razed in a blast of Mist-choked flame seething with equal parts rage and sorrow.
“I should hope so,” was all she said, flicking her weary yellow gaze aside to the guards that lingered on either side of her. They were disproportionately tense compared to Shyvana’s lax, exhausted form, as if they expected her to lunge at any moment and would be pressed to put her down. Like a monster. Like an animal.
At least Jarvan had known her long enough now to recognize the signal. “Gentlemen, I’d like some privacy with Ana, if you would.” He always had a way of making his orders sound like requests. Suggestions. Shyvana half-wished he would just tell them to leave.
Especially when they hesitated. “…Sir, are you sure…?”
He scarcely lifted his brows. “And close the doors behind you, yes.”
Shyvana did not break military rest until the latch clicked behind her.
Then Jarvan was barreling to her, grasping her hand in his own and hauling her into a one-armed bear hug that threatened to crack her shoulders. She hadn’t the energy just now to either return the embrace nor wriggle out of it.
“‘Better’ was perhaps an overstatement,” Jarvan admitted, finally releasing her, clasping his hands to her shoulders to hold her at arms length. He studied her. Shyvana merely stared back at him, humorless, her normally bright golden eyes dulled to an exhausted, sickly yellow. “You’re still not sleeping well?”
“No.”
She wasn’t sure ‘sleeping well’ would ever be in the cards for her again, frankly. Every time she felt herself beginning to doze, each time she felt her body slipping from her own control again, she jolted back awake, stricken with panic, pawing at the thick scaling of her chest, feeling for that old, gaping wound that never quite felt healed, even long after it had disappeared.
The concern creasing Jarvan’s brow didn’t sit well with her. She found enough presence of mind to shrug gently out of his grip and turn towards the long, narrow table that dominated the room’s space, pointedly pulling the chair closest to her out from beneath it. “But I suspect you didn’t call me in to ask after my sleeping habits,” she said in a voice far more casual and amicable than she felt. “You could’ve done that at any time before now.” Wasn’t like she’d been unreachable. The Mageseekers keeping her under close observation behind lock and key made sure of it.
For a moment, he looked as if he had something to say to that. Then, sighing, agreed “Indeed not” in a mumble as he rounded the table’s end to sit back in his chair across her. “Though I had presumed you may be going a bit stir-crazy locked up in your room by now.”
That got her attention. It had been a long moment since she’d last had call for a smile to tug at her lips. “You presumed correctly,” she admitted, rubbing at the smooth pebbling of scale beneath her eye. “Am I to take it I’m at last free to resume my tour with the Dragonguard?”
His flinch was scarcely perceptible. Shyvana noticed it anyway.
“Not… in as many words.” Jarvan reached into his fine coat, drawing a folded slip of parchment from a hidden pocket within. “Here. You’d be the first to see this in its official capacity. You deserve that much. This doesn’t go on the public record for another week, so you should have ample time.”
She didn’t like the trepidation in his voice. “Ample time for what?” she asked, taking the page skeptically between two claws. The official wax seal of the Crown softened instantly beneath her thumb.
“Please, just… read it first. And then I’ll explain.”
Shyvana stared at him for a long moment, silent and contemplative.
Then she broke the seal with a swipe of a claw and flipped the missive open.
The frown came across her face almost immediately. She didn’t have her reading glasses with her—predator eyes were not suited to parsing tiny cursive lettering—but she caught enough words and phrases to get the idea. Her mouth twisted into a deep scowl as she looked back up.
“It’s not an order of exile,” Jarvan assured her before she could even open her mouth to speak. Her eyes narrowed to an incandescent glower.
“You’re sending me out of the country until further notice, with no mission and no indication of when I might return,” she said, straightening up incredulously. “How is this not placing me in exile?”
“It is not an order, it is a request,” he spoke over her, hands lifted in a placating gesture, “and you are not under exile.”
“No? Oh, well, imagine my relief,” she spat sarcastically, waving the sheet of parchment at him. “Enlighten me then, my liege, what precisely is this if not exactly that which it appears to be?”
He blew out a sharp, weary exhale. He’d known when the subject first came up in his court that this would be a difficult conversation to have, but actually going through with it was far moreso than he’d anticipated. “Officially, it is a notice that as of today, you are on mandatory leave,” Jarvan said, tapping part of the page in front of her. “Leave is something to which all military personnel are entitled, and yours has been piling up unused for a few years now. Some time away from military affairs will do you well, both physically and mentally. This is all standard procedure for people who—”
“You said ‘officially,’” she interrupted. She tapped an impatient claw on the page. “You and I do not confer over official matters, Jarvan. What is this, really?”
Jarvan hesitated a moment longer before sighing, running an exhausted hand over his face. The tension and diplomacy both sank out of his shoulders as he slumped forward, elbows on the table between them.
“The people are not as understanding as one might hope, Ana,” he said, voice low, conspiratorial. “They do not see you as I do, nor even as the Dragonguard do, no matter what steps I have made thus far to open their minds. I have made proclamation after proclamation, to no end. The people of Demacia insist that they saw the half-dragon of Demacia attacking her townsmen, and they demand justice.”
Shyvana flexed her hand, scowling. It had long since healed, but the lingering sting of silver through her skin was still present some days. “You refer to the Harrowing.”
“That I do.”
She tossed her head, snorting. “Then inform them that they may take their objections to the ruined king of Camavor,” she said. “I was hardly even present for the event, let alone in control of my own body. As were countless others!”
“I know it wasn’t you, Ana,” Jarvan promised, reaching out to grasp her forearm, squeezing firmly.
“Then make that clear to them. Do they not respect the word of their King?”
“Men’s minds are not so easily swayed. It will take time.”
Shyvana’s lips thinned. She looked down at the page in front of her again. “Time in which I am not here to cause further friction, I presume.”
“It is not about friction,” Jarvan said, uncharacteristically frustrated, “it is about your safety.”
Her tail lashed once behind her, sharp and irate. “‘My safety?’ I assure you I am more than capable of defending myself from the zealotry of your countrymen.”
“In a way that wouldn’t justify their fears as the truth?” Shyvana glared up at him. He didn’t flinch, meeting her burning glare evenly. Jarvan spread his hands out open. “Tell me honestly, Ana, if a group of civilians were to attack you in an attempt at vigilante justice, would you be able to disengage them without killing or severely injuring them?”
Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “I would defend myself as needed.”
“Without—?”
Shyvana growled openly, banging a palm on the surface of the table between them. “Why must I stay my hand when they are the ones seeking to kill me?”
“Because they would find their judgments in a court of law,” Jarvan spoke over her raising volume. “If you were to kill them, even in defense, what purpose would that serve except to prove right those who think you a monster in disguise?”
Hearing the word from Jarvan, even in hypothetical, stung more than Shyvana liked. “That’s not fair,” she growled out as her temper dimmed, “and you know it.”
“It isn’t fair,” he agreed with a sigh, thumbing at the crooked bridge of his nose. “You’re right. It’s not. None of this is. But I am trying to work within our current structures to make it fair. And I need you to trust me in the meantime.”
Shyvana growled a vaguely irate little sound as she glared down at the missive on the table once more, silent for a long moment.
At length she huffed, picking up the page and folding it neatly, creasing the paper between her claws. “Where, precisely, am I being shipped off to, then?”
Jarvan’s smile was wry and apologetic. “To the Blue Flame Isles. Specifically, Bilgewater.”
She grimaced, nose wrinkling at the very idea. She leaned back in her seat, folding her arms over her chest. “You really aren’t selling this plan, you know.”
“You won’t be made to stay in the city proper,” he clarified. “Just north of it, rather. You’ll be staying with an… unorthodox contact of mine. An unauthorized contact at that, really,” he admitted, rubbing absently at the back of his neck. “As I said, most of this entire arrangement is… rather off the records. But I’ve written her already, and she’s agreed to host you for as long as necessary.”
“‘She?’” Shyvana echoed, lifting a brow. “Pray tell, do I know this mysterious contact of yours?”
He winced slightly. “Well, I would be a little surprised if you’d ever had cause to meet her. Only a little, though. She comes and goes all over the place as she pleases.” Shyvana cocked her head, expectant. Jarvan grumbled, fumbling in his jacket pocket once more. “Her name is Captain Sarah Abigail Fortune. But the more notorious alias with which you may be familiar is Miss Fortune.” He slid a folded piece of parchment across the table.
Shyvana squinted in vague recollection of the name as she unfolded the sheet. Her brow lifted ever higher when it opened. It was a bounty poster, of all things. And staring back at her, a severe, handsome woman’s face, stippled with freckles and framed in vibrant red, smirking boldly out at Shyvana as if in silent challenge.
She smoothed the page out on the table, briefly scanning the listing, and looked up at Jarvan again. “You’re in personal contact with the Pirate Queen of Bilgewater?” She wasn’t sure if she was more amused or incredulous.
“Only in name,” he said hastily, a very pale flush creeping into his face. “She’s a bounty hunter in actuality. One of the best on record, in fact. ‘Pirate Queen’ is, ah... the title for the current ruling party in Bilgewater.”
“Hm. I don’t imagine the transitions of power in Bilgewater are known for their civility.”
Jarvan shrugged, lips twisting in a little frown. “No more brutal than any other country installing a new dynasty, I’d wager. To hear it told, more of the city does support her than not.”
“So what is she getting from this arrangement, then?” Shyvana demanded, sliding the page back in his direction. “Trying to maintain political power in any scenario is already difficult enough, let alone in some… backwater pirate hovel on the heels of a harrowing and a coup. I hardly believe she’d have the time or trust to invest in a…” Her lips quirked in just a ghost of a sarcastic smile. “Visiting dignitary. How much is this favor you’re pulling going to cost you?”
“A favor for a favor, if you can believe it.”
“Bullshit.” She did not. “What kind of favor?”
Jarvan half-winced, making a vague gesture with one hand. “An… open-ended favor. To be redeemed at a later time.”
“Jarvan.”
“Normally you’d be right,” he admitted, folding the sheet up again. “Captain Fortune’s… assistance is rarely offered to those outside her fold, and even less often to those she has no personal investment in. It’s actually due only to those very extenuating circumstances you listed that she was willing to grant you asylum in the first place.” He spread his hands out, apologetic. “For as much trust as I place in you, there are regrettably few political contacts of mine who were willing to extend the same courtesy. Particularly after stories of the harrowing in Demacia began to spread—”
“Back up,” she said, leaning forward. “What do you mean ‘extenuating circumstances?’”
“You said it yourself. The whole of Runeterra is recovering from the horrors of the harrowing that infested it. That includes Bilgewater, for all they’ve weathered more Harrowings than anyone else.”
Shyvana’s jaw tightened a fraction. “Does she know, then? Did you tell her everything? What I—what he made me do?”
His eyes looked as weary as she felt. “I had to. For this agreement to work, she and I needed to be transparent with one another. I couldn’t risk something like that coming to her attention from someone else who might’ve been less… charitable in their descriptions.”
“Then why?” Her lip curled in an expression approaching a snarl. “Why would someone struggling to rebuild her own home care to invite in someone who was made to destroy their own?”
“Because,” Jarvan spoke over her, soothing for all his expression betrayed some annoyance, “she is also one of few people who would be sympathetic to your situation.”
Shyvana frowned. “What? Why?”
“Because Captain Fortune was taken by the mists as well.”