Should We Meet Again

Chapter Seventeen

Talon shut the door to Riven's room, bringing a close to his first encounter with her since their reunion. It was hard to tell where exactly he stood with his old colleague, but he was sure of one thing: there was a chance to salvage their relationship. He didn't know what it would take, but there was little he wouldn't sacrifice to stay close to one of the only people to ever matter to him. Even if they could reconcile, he still had to find a way to bring her back to Noxus. Riven's ideas for reform would be impossible to implement without her. She was an idol of the common people, a paragon of Noxian values. If house Du Couteau tried to implement these changes without her and pulled the rug out from under the powers that be, they would be systematically weakened and eliminated. What could he do to convince her?

"Is there a reason you're standing out here all alone?"

Talon immediately recognized the voice as Ahri's and turned to face his companion. "Not really," he answered. "I was just about to go get myself a room."

"There's no need to spend your money like that. You can stay with me."

The assassin was put on his back foot by this offer. She had made it clear she wasn't interested in romance at this stage of her life many times over, so he knew there wouldn't be and precarious activities occurring, but would Riven see it that way? He had only just found her again, how could he be so reckless as to share a bed with another woman? "I'm going to have to refuse." The Noxian moved to pass the Vastayan girl, but was stopped in his tracks.

"Please?" Ahri pleaded, placing herself in front of him once again.

"Why are you being so persistent?"

"I need to talk to someone," she answered. "You're all I've got, so it has to be you."

"Talk about what?" Talon pressed.

The fox girl tugged on the sleeves of his cloak, pulling him down the hallway. "Just come on. I'm not going to explain this whole thing to you outside of someone else's room."

The walk to Ahri's room was chaotic, but ultimately short. She was only staying a few doors down, so they reached it in only a couple of heavily contested steps. Before Talon could truly wrap his head around the situation, the wooden door had shut behind him, and was caught in a predicament he scarcely understood. What was she so desperate to talk about? Ahri's mannerisms weren't giving him much of anything to go off of. He could only wait and see.

"So, what is it that you want?"

Ahri sat down on the only bed in the room, patting an empty spot next to her and inviting him to join her. "I said I want to talk, didn't I?"

Talon slowly made his way over to her bed, opting to stand a few feet in front of her. "I'm not sleeping with you."

"I know you don't want to, but this is probably going to take a while. I don't really take you as the kind of person that would wake up a sleeping innkeeper, so I'm offering to share my bed for the night."

She was right, or at least, he thought she was. It really depended on this conversation. "Well? What's on your mind?"

"It's about what Quinn said when we were still on our way here. She recommended that I go to the Placidium to see if I could get help. It's good advice, but I want to know what you think I should do."

Talon raised an eyebrow at her request. It was strange to him that she would seek help in her pursuit of a moral life from an assassin, but perhaps it was simply an indicator of how much their friendship meant to her. "Why ask me? You and I both know I don't know the life you seek is foreign to me. I can't help you reach it."