"Welcome back, sister."
Katarina stared dully at her fingernails, slowly peeling out the remnants of blood and dirt from beneath them.
Cassiopeia moved leisurely around her sister, her sap-green tail slithering, side to side, across the ground. The tip of her tail flickered as she moved, and Katarina's attention was slowly pulled away to look at her sister.
"I don't feel very welcome at all." Katarina replied, sighing quietly. She watched with disinterest as Cassiopeia tucked her tail into a coil, which her sister rested the human-part of her body on lazily.
"They're suspicious, that's all." Cassiopeia said, hoping to lighten Katarina's mood.
The assassin of Noxus sighed once more, then stood up and made her way across the room. Her fingertips caressed the iron bar in front of her and a light shock reverberated back to her, sending a stinging up her arm. Her reaction time was slow, she recoiled her arm slowly, then stared at her slightly-burned fingertips.
"I was held captive for two months."
"They don't know that."
Katarina huffed. "They are making assumptions based off of nothing."
Cassiopeia was quick to reply. "They are making assumptions based off the fact you are reported to had fought with Garen Crownguard."
"Wouldn't that be his problem? I didn't fight my kind. I fight Demacians." There was a hiss at the edge of her voice, threatening. She didn't like being blamed or assumed to be a traitor. Traitor. Oh, how that word stung.
Cassiopeia clicked her tongue against her fangs. "He is at fault, but they can still have their opinions. Just let the elders decide. They will see. Half of them nearly raised us."
Katarina recalled how some elders were, very much, part of her younger life. Though the memories may have been some-what decent for Cassiopeia, Katarina could only remember creating problems for the Elders. She may be seen as one of the strongest assassins of Noxus, and the Du Couteau family especially, but the elders could easily overlook her utility.
She thought them the type to hold a grudge.
"I don't trust their judgement."
"Hold your tongue, sister. You will regret it when they find you unoffending."
Katarina shot an irritated glare at Cassiopeia, whom simply fixed her gaze on her claws instead.
Just as Katarina opened her mouth to say something more, the door to the under-ground room opened. A servant eased his way inward, keeping his head down respectfully. The scars around his ankles and wrists showed he was a newer servant, just out of training, but his shaking also gave it away. He stammered as he spoke, which came across as an annoyance to the sisters.
"Y-your tea, m-madames. W-we h-have made it just as you both like."
Cassiopeia stared at him, waiting for his eyes to search for hers. He kept them fixed on her tail, which only helped Cassiopeia's annoyance. Katarina watched from behind the set of electrified bars as her sister's tail moved quickly to caress the face of the young servant. He was obviously shocked, his shaking increasing.
"It's rude to stare at a woman's tail, didn't you learn?" She said, wrapping it around him playfully. "You need more training... Didn't they tell you to look us in the eyes? My sister here is a prisoner. You will not serve a prisoner with such fear. It doesn't matter who she's killed."
The servant shook and sweat dripped down his face. Katarina smiled, "Don't scare him too much, sister. He'll learn nothing that way."
Cassiopeia laughed, her tail fixing the servant's head so that he was face to face with her. Really, what could be worse than looking into the eyes of the woman said to turn a man to stone? His eyes were shut closed, and Cassiopeia laughed menacingly. "Oh, honey. If only it worked how you think it does. Open your eyes." His eyes opened, slowly, and his shaking continued.
Katarina could only watch, envying how easily she could play with the servants. It wasn't as fun for her. She was much deadlier, yet she didn't quite have the tail, tongue, or slitted eyes her sister had posessed through a curse. Somehow, the servant was keeping the dish of teas in well shape. His shaking may be disastarous, but he had some control over his hands. They hadn't quite fallen over, which was what they normally expected from a new servant.
Katarina laughed as Cassiopeia flicked her tongue infront of the servants face, testingly. He was held a couple feet off the ground, panicking. Cassiopeia slowly took the tray of tea from him, placing it next to her. Just as she set it down, the door to the room had opened once more.
In walked their father, Talon trailing behind him. He stopped as his eyes were set upon the tiny servant, in the grasp of his daughter's serphant tail. "Cassiopeia, keep your composure." He ordered, looking down upon his youngest daughter. She slowly lowered the servant to his feet, making sure to be careful of causing him pain.
Both sisters looked shamefully at their father's chest rather than his face.
"I suspect you both will act more like adults than children when faced against the elders. I may be king, but they are responsible for deciding your fate, Katarina."
Katarina bowed her head, "Yes, father." Cassiopeia budged in, "I believe they will find my sister just fine. She has nothing to be guilty of."
The king adverted his eyes to Cassiopeia, whose head of hair he patted affectionately. "I believe so as well, but they may have a change of heart at some point. They can be quite unpredictable."
Katarina sighed, the thought of imprisonment forever dwindling in her thoughts. It sounded boring - she had already been imprisoned for two months, years would kill her slowly.
Talon walked up from behind their father and began to put a hand on a bar of the cell, but his senses told him otherwise, and he recoiled before the current could touch him. Katarina missed her reflexes as his were. A smirk touched his lips, obviously a feeling of smugness at his ability to recognize the secret ability which was maged into the bars. "I will remind them that you had tried to escape, as you told me."
Katarina nodded. She had told her "brother" details about the plan earlier, and how she fought against Garen of Demacia, though futilely. She had "lost" in the end, but what was important was that she had been against him in that occasion.
She knew what the elders would find suspicious. He didn't die. It was obvious she didn't put as much effort into killing him as she could have, especially in such a one-on-one situation. They would believe she could easily overpower him, and went easy.
Just as Katarina began to look up at her father, a look of dissapointment passed through his face. His eyes glinted at her and he began to turn.
"Come, Cassiopeia. Leave your sister to think. She will need time to gather her thoughts and best actions towards the elders council. We will see you tomorrow morning, Katarina."
The king, Cassiopeia, and Talon left silently, all following after the King's words, letting them linger in the air. Katarina sat back against a wall of the cell, letting the words sink in.
"I may be sentenced to life in prison as of tomorrow." She told herself, feeling like an oddity.
Prison. Prison in her own birthplace. Prison where she was the Head of her house. It wouldn't matter what the Sinister Blade had to say anymore.
She would fade into a myth, a myth forever held, underground, in a prison.
