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She is well aware that she is being difficult.
It would not be the first time someone has described her as that in more polite words, nor, Caitlyn suspects, will it be the last time someone does so. She is not trying to be difficult on purpose—there is rather no point in that and she has no desire to add to the stresses that those around her are already suffering. If anything, she'd much rather they cease this ridiculous babying and let her do things that will help.
She's healing, yes, but she's not incapacitated. She's wounded, yes, but she's not immobile. She has two good hands, half of a good leg, a good eye, and a brain that is gnawing desperately at the bars of its enclosure, rattling against the inside of her skull. She can't sit still, she finds it so difficult to hold her tongue and stars above, she's trying.
She really is.
Vi means well. The staff mean well. The doctors are doing their best. They all just want to keep her safe but there's such a furrow in the brows of the groundskeeper that Caitlyn's afraid his face will freeze that way forever. The chef looks like she's this close to attempting to feed Caitlyn, something that honestly, no one's done since she was nine and broke her arm that one time—and even then she'd only broken one arm, so the point really was rather moot.
If Father were here—
She banishes the thought immediately. It'd be even worse if he were here.
It is worse already with Vi, through no fault of Vi herself. Vi doesn't leave her side—at once everything Caitlyn has ever wanted and all she does not need right now. She does not need company. She does not need help. She does not need someone stopping her from helping. Vi knows. Vi knows, she knows Vi knows, can see that knowledge hang low in the silent half heartbeat before Vi says things like 'maybe not today' and 'how about later', knows Vi is trying, doesn't fault her for trying, cannot, would not, could never. Vi's wonderful heart tries to give her the small freedoms but when she thinks Caitlyn's not looking, Vi sneaks glances at her like she's a mirage, like she's a pile of ashes, like she's leaves scattered in the wind, a puddle on a sunny day, a myth of her own making, sure to disappear the moment no one lays eyes on her.
It takes her heart and fills it so unbearably full but the worn wood is heavy and Caitlyn's hands are tired, her shoulders aching, her back bowed and not broken. Every step is heavy and every moment itches on the grooves in her bones, drags cold fingers down the insides of her ribs, has them ringing out as windchimes tossed about in the gentlest breeze. Her fingers itch with the need to pull a trigger, her nose despairs of the moment she will next smell gunpowder, and it has been far, far too long since she's heard the satisfying ping of metal on metal, have had the crack of a shot ring out in the cool crisp air like a smattering of bird chatter at dawn.
She used to do that.
Whenever the world got too much, too loud, too quiet, too sharp, too soft, too distant, whenever the moon scraped its way across the windowsill just wrong, whenever the silverware made that discordant screech, the edge of wood catching on polished floor. Whenever Caitlyn needed to stop thinking she'd pick up her rifle and take it outside.
She's not supposed to now.
Something about straining her eye. Something about opening her wound. Something about not stressing her leg.
Something about her not particularly giving a shit.
It turns out that it is not quite so difficult to sneak out of her own bedroom, given that its only other inhabitant is sunk half melted into the silk sheets.
She resists the urge to run her fingers through the tousled strands of Vi's hair, pale and muted in the dark, resists the urge to trail her hands across the warmth of the soft skin from the shirt riding up. It's good, tonight at least, that Vi hasn't seemed to have noticed. Vi hadn't stirred when her cane had clunked against the side table. Vi hadn't moved when she'd gotten out of bed. Vi rests, swaddled in the goose feather fluff of the duvet, the tip of one big toe sticking out. Vi rests. She's glad that Vi rests.
So yes, sneaking out hadn't been the hard part.
It turns out that the problem that Caitlyn has yet to solve is almost a laughable one, as she pauses at the main fireplace in the sitting room. It is that Caitlyn, Head of House Kiramman, heir to a long, rich legacy of marksman, finds herself to be in a strange sort of predicament where she does not currently own a firearm to suit her purposes.
Her childhood rifle she'd given away. Her Hextech rifle won't do. She's not ever had an issued firearm from her time as an Enforcer since she hadn't needed one. That leaves her with the spares they keep for guests, impeccably upkept for the average marksman but not for the impossibly exacting standards of what it means to be Kiramman, or these ones here, mounted on the wall.
It leaves her with Mother's guns.
Moonlight streams through the glass, daubing the old wood of the two further weapons cold around the edges, dyeing them too dark and chilly. The third, the last, however, is iridescent in the soft silver, a distant dream because this one was Mother's treasure, a gift Mother had gotten when Caitlyn had been born. Mother wouldn't have prevented her from shooting it but it hadn't ever felt right to ask.
It doesn't feel right now either but Caitlyn's fingers itch, she's never been all that good at holding back, and there's no one left to ask.
Everything in this house is hers now, after all.
It takes her longer than she'd have liked to make it to the range but even as every single step she takes on the path sends a soft twinge down her side through to her bad ankle, a thin film is peeled off of her lungs with each breath, fibers shearing from the rope that has knotted itself around her heart with each beat.
By the time she's set up at her usual position she barely has to think anymore, hands moving through the motions. It is a beautiful machine, the trigger guard an impossibly vibrant burnished with a mother of pearl inlay, the case-hardening speckling the metal of the chamber handle ball with splashes of blue, the action—
Her breath catches at the small gold C&C on the action that looks back at her.
Oh.
Her hands finish the rest of the setup almost mechanically, sliding in a clip of rounds. She lifts the gun and presses it to her shoulder, lowering her cheek. Another low, soft ache that seeps into her flesh. It isn't sharp, it doesn't demand her attention, it doesn't hurt, so she ignores it and lets her body move for her.
In the moonlight with one less eye than she's had her whole life it feels like this should be impossible but she stands the same she has always stood, holds the gun as she has always. Caitlyn doesn't need to see to know where the targets are on this range but she can see them. She can see them as they shift ever so slightly in the breeze, the metal practice targets—the wood ones are saved for competition, not because of cost, but for efficiency since the sound is enough information, since there is need for neither visual confirmation nor the time spent reloading the targets—they dance the same way they have danced for Kirammans generations past, for Caitlyn in her youth and her own folly.
She has one more moment of doubt, allows herself one more breath of worry before the metal bleeds it from her into the soil beneath her booted feet, before the familiarity takes that doubt and casts it into the stars.
Caitlyn pulls the trigger and hears birdsong for the first time in weeks.
Vi's been awake since the moment Caitlyn stirred.
She has her face buried in a gloriously soft pillow but the bed shifts and that is enough to wake her now as it has always been. She waits, waits for Caitlyn to say something, to make some of those sounds the way she usually does in a nightmare, but there are none. Nothing. Just more shifting of weight, then a soft clunk, a familiar sound, Caitlyn's cane making contact with any one of the many pieces of furniture in this room.
Caitlyn shouldn't—
Her first reaction is to sit up, to tug Caitlyn back into bed with her, to wrap them both in this impossibly soft and perfectly fluffy blanket, hold Caitlyn in her arms until she can be sure that Caitlyn's not going to disappear from between her fingers.
But she tamps that down sharply as the memory of a tired blue eye swims into her mind. Caitlyn's been avoiding her gaze more, of late, been quieter, more sullen with each passing instruction, each medical professional coming into their space to attend to this or that, to check on the healing progression of their many injuries. Vi's shoulder's been set back fine and her elbow is only half busted. Caitlyn's been stabbed, sliced, stomped on and if she thinks about it all for a moment longer, Vi really will get up and bundle Caitlyn back into bed with her, Caitlyn's feelings be damned.
Caitlyn—
The sounds have disappeared.
Vi's eyes open to a closed door, an empty space where her heart had been. This room has always been too big but in the light of the full moon it is cavernous and unbearably hollow.
It's not that hard to trail after the quiet thump of Caitlyn's cane; the footsteps themselves aren't too loud but the way the sound strikes early and too hard tells Vi everything she needs to know about Caitlyn's frustrations. They're not loud by any means, but they're harsh, regular, and slow. Too slow for Caitlyn's usual walking speed. Too slow for someone in the way that screams they should not be up and moving.
The metallic ping strikes right through her heart, rings out clear through the crisp night air. Caitlyn almost doesn't recognize this feeling, this lightness, the way it sweeps right through her like a storm washing out the dust. Her eye flicks to the next target.
Bang. Whistle. Ping!
Her heart leaps.
Bang. Whistle. Ping!
Bang. Whistle. Ping!
Bang. Whistle. Ping!
She lowers the rifle.
In the moonlight the carbonization of the gun in her hands is the rainbow of a beetle she saw once in her youth, running ahead of Mother and Father through the humid summer air. In the cool of the night the scent of gunpowder is the sparks of fireworks that come dripping down from a chrysanthemum blossom so large it is the whole sky. In the slightest tickle of the breeze the lingering sweetness of the whistle is the warmth of Mother's embrace from that first time she ran through these woods with a weapon. In the smoke that disappears around her shooting gloves Caitlyn Kiramman feels like herself again.
She reaches down for another clip.
Her shoulder aches. Her side throbs. Her knee is starting to twinge. She knows better but she reloads all the same.
It's not a long walk but in the darkness, the trek to the range feels like it lasts forever. Is it that far away? Are these grounds truly so large? Vi breaks into a jog once she starts hearing the distant cracks of gunfire, counting them in time with her heartbeats.
Bang. Two. Three. Four. Five.
A pause.
Bang. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Vi doesn't know what gun Caitlyn is using but if she had to guess, she thinks a little hysterically, it'd be one that has five rounds on a clip. Her feet slip on a damp stone. Vi swears aloud for the first time in days. The syllables snap crackle pop from her lips and that feels good, it does, but by the gods she's going crazy.
It's slippery.
It's night.
Caitlyn is out here.
Bang. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Each of those shots is one right to the soft tender parts of her heart because Vi knows that Caitlyn is shooting way too fucking much and she doesn't know what it means. She doesn't. They're all still so new to this. She doesn't know what to do when Caitlyn goes quiet. She doesn't know what it means when Caitlyn looks out the window. She can guess what holding a weapon says to Caitlyn but she doesn't know. She doesn't. All she knows is that these are way too many for someone with one good leg and a stab wound that had barely missed anything really important. One more inch and Caitlyn wouldn't be with her.
One more—
Vi rounds the last corner and skids to a halt.
In the moonlight Caitlyn's hair is the soothing dark of the sea, her stance tall and straight. Caitlyn holds the gun the very same way she had all those months back when she'd stood on that height and saved Vi from her own folly, from her own stab wound.
Bang. Whistle. Ping.
Now she can see the flash of red, the color bursting from the muzzle of the gun. Now she hears the familiar raptor cry. Now she wonders how she'd ever forgotten the whistle of Caitlyn's shots.
Bang. Whistle. Ping.
The ping, she realizes, is the sound of Caitlyn hitting her target.
Bang. Whistle. Ping.
The gun wobbles. Vi's hands shake. "Cait," she calls out.
Bang. Whistle. Ping.
The gun jerks this time. Vi's heart goes with it.
"Cait!"
Bang. Whistle. Ping.
Ridiculous. Vi's mouth is open. She has so many words they battle each other on their way out through her lips, a million a minute and none making it.
Caitlyn gets to the words first, gun lowering, turning like it isn't the middle of the night, like she hadn't just crushed all of her targets. It is one ethereal blue eye and the biggest smile Vi has ever, ever, ever seen on Caitlyn—she's never seen Cait smile so wide, hadn't even known she could. It knocks the breath from her lungs for a moment, wraps warm fingers around her middle and pulls.
"Did you see that? Or well, not see, per se. I'm afraid the targets are a little far away. They're not quite so visible in the dark now, I don't think, unless you know what you're looking for. You've never been here. I wouldn't expect—In any case, I think…" Impossibly, Caitlyn's smile grows even as her voice steadies and drops back into that quiet, confident lilt. "I think I've still got it."
There are so many different Caitlyns that Vi has come to know but this one, this one, this one she knows and loves the most. The glimmer in her eye, the grin on her face, the lightness in her stance. It's everything she wants but Vi can't look past how the gun visibly shakes in Caitlyn's hands, how now that it is lowered, Caitlyn's hip leans against the edge of the table.
Caitlyn's eye darts to her. Her smile turns rueful. Of course she knows Vi knows. "I may have overdone it," she mutters. A wince as her fingers tremble. "Just a little."
She holds out the gun.
Vi takes the weapon from Caitlyn's loosened grasp. Vi reaches for Caitlyn's cane, handing it over as she holds her arm out. Caitlyn takes her elbow, a warm pressure so light it's clear that even now she's still trying to not be a burden. It is entirely ridiculous and if Vi had both of her arms fully functional she would have swept Caitlyn clear off of her feet, complaints be damned.
But she has to settle for this, a slow toddle back under the moonlight that dances off the damp stone. Caitlyn's expression grows a tad more pinched with each step, the sparkle in her eye beginning to fade just as their eyes meet.
"I'm—"
"Uh—"
"Oh no," says Caitlyn as she leans a little more heavily on Vi's shoulder. "Please. Go ahead." Her grip is strong, her bearing still painfully, pridefully upright, stiff and controlled and everything Vi has never wanted from her.
There are so many things Vi wants to say.
You shouldn't have. You could have hurt yourself. It wasn't safe. You're hurting yourself. You should have woken me. Take me with you, if you must go. Take me with you. Let me be by your side. Don't—
Caitlyn's eye waits for her to decide and in the silence of this moment Vi finds some of the right words.
"You're an excellent shot."
In the slightest of breezes Caitlyn's lips part in surprise. Then they settle into a smile wide as the moon, sweet as birdsong.