Chapter Text
Sarah Fortune was many things. She was a captain, a killer, a raucous pirate, and though she was never one to shy away from a good night, to imagine she would feel soft and tender feelings seemed impossible.
And yet, there she was, lying on her side, watching the moon laugh at her out of the porthole. A confidant she’d never asked for.
And now, a bouquet of emotions she hadn’t asked for either.
Sarah Fortune wasn’t a woman who did romantic entanglements, not real ones anyway. They were not her style. Nor were they Samira’s.
Sarah was a siren of the seven seas and Samira? She was something worse. A desert rose who cared for nothing but the gold in her pocket and the gunpowder in her nose. They lived lives of blood and gold. Flowers and sweet nothings were about as welcome as a bullet to the gut.
Sarah sighed and rolled onto her back.
“You went quiet on me.” Samira chuckled, hoisting herself onto her side to get a better look at the woman she’d just ravished.
“Can’t a girl think in peace?” Sarah sighed, her voice dripping with faux exasperation. It would have been flirtatious if she hadn’t sounded so sad.
“What does a woman like you need peace for, ah?” Samira purred, moving closer still and taking another mouthful of Miss Sarah Fortune.
“Don’t you get tired of this?” She murmured.
Samira pulled herself from the delightfully plump breast in her mouth with a wet pop.
“Fucking?”
“No, this life. Going from place to place with no end in sight, no home to go to. Just blood and gold and the next lay. Don’t you ever tire of it?” Sarah sighed.
Samira settled back, looking ever the predator.
“Why would I tire of it? There is nothing better than this. Ah, maybe a new gun, but still. Fucking, drinking, and fighting is life. The whole of it. There is nothing else.”
Sarah sighed, pulling the thin sheet on her bed up and around herself, uninterested in Samira’s usual bravado. She was trying to have a conversation.
“Sarah, don’t do that. Come on. We’re having a good night. And besides, you’re not ready to settle down. There are too many adventures left.” Samira said gently.
“It’s not that. I just…I don’t know.” Sarah sighed, getting up from the bed entirely and walking to the porthole. The ship swayed beneath her, rocking her back to herself. The moon shone down, still chuckling at her foolishness.
The City of Noxus spread before her, beyond the dock. She’d see another city soon, though, another continent, another woman.
They both would, and for the first time, that thought pricked Sarah’s heart.
“Maybe I don’t want you to leave.” Sarah whispered.
“Who says that I want to go?” Samira asked.
Sarah snorted.
“And if you don’t? If you stay?”
“Then we’ll have a grand adventure. I’ll kill a few marks, make a bit of cash, and we’ll see where your tide takes us.”
Sarah turned to her, taking Samira’s face into her hands.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Sarah laughed.
“You’re as reckless as ever.” She murmured, leaning in to kiss her bounty hunter.
Samira laughed right back, firing off the sound into Sarah’s mouth.
“How else can you savor all life has to offer?” She smirked.
Before Sarah could answer, fire back some flirtatious wit, Samira’s hands were pulling the sheet away and kneading the flesh beneath. Her hands were rough. A mercenary’s hands.
Sarah was absolutely powerless to resist them, quickly melting into a mewling, arching thing.
“There’s my girl.” Samira chuckled, “Let me help you relax.”
It was hard to think about futures or losses or much of anything with Samira’s battle-worn fingers pumping in and out of her. Like a dance and each step took Sarah closer and closer to the edge of oblivion.
Sarah loved her. She knew she did. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help herself. It was so much more than Samira’s strength or her braggadocios style. It was her. The whole of her.
“Mira, I—”
Whatever Sarah was going to say was cut off in a bolt of lightning that shot through her entire body, leaving her breathless and giggling against Samira’s chest. She could barely believe she was still standing, but Samira wouldn’t let her fall.
At least not literally. Despite her agreement to sail away from Noxus with Sarah and no plan, there was no telling where her heart actually lay, what she really wanted. Or maybe fucking, fighting, and drinking really was the long and short of it.
Sarah found that hard to believe.
“Shh. Come.” Samira crooned, carrying Sarah back to the bed to nestle her into the pillows once more.
“Some wine?” She offered.
Sarah nodded, still wrapped in the warmth of her bliss.
“And get the pipe.”
Samira chuckled and walked off. The muscles of her back were striped with handsome scars. Sarah knew the origin of a few. A pit fight gone wrong. A viper in her bedroll. A Vastayan assassin. There was another though, Sarah’s favorite. That one was on Samira’s hand.
It was the first night they’d met, years ago. Samira had challenged her to a game of pinfinger for a night with her. It was bold, foolish perhaps, but they were both deep into their cups with a bed of salacious flirting between them already.
The wager was that whoever stabbed themselves first would lose and the winner would make a request of the other. Simple enough.
The game went on a long while with plenty of wit, drunk as they were, flying between them. But it was when Sarah leaned over the table that Samira lost her place. She plunged her knife right through the middle of her hand.
“What are you thinking about?” Samira asked, waltzing back into the room with two cups of wine and a wooden box with Sarah’s pipe.
“The night we met.” Sarah sighed.
“A good night. A long night.” Samira chuckled into her wine.
“A very long night.” Sarah chuckled right back, sitting up a little to take the wooden box.
“The stories I had heard of Miss Sarah Fortune could not have prepared me.”
Samira slid onto the bed like a panther. It was hard not to watch her. Just the sight of her laid out, contented was enough to make Sarah’s heart flutter.
The pipe couldn’t be prepared quickly enough.
“Oh, so you had heard of me?”
“Of course. You’re infamous.” Samira said.
“And what do they say about me in Noxus?” Sarah asked, finally tucking the dreamleaf into her pipe and lighting a match.
Samira finished her wine and tossed the cup. She pulled herself along the bed to plant a kiss on Sarah’s knee.
“That you’re a fearsome she-devil of the sea that leaves her quarry breathless.” She growled.
Sarah laughed.
“That part is true though, wouldn’t you say?” Sarah purred, finally pulling on her pipe.
Samira looked up at her and sighed.
“Very much so.”
Sarah exhaled the smoke and reached forward to pull off the eyepatch still strapped to Samira’s face. She liked to see her without it.
The scar there was a nasty one, a jagged hole. It was clear that Samira was slightly shy about it, even if it seemed impossible that she could be shy about anything.
“I’d heard of you too, you know.” Sarah said softly.
“No, you hadn’t.”
“I swear. Malcolm was telling me all about some hot to trot mercenary who had swindled Tobias out of a round of drinks. And then, there you were. The Desert Rose.”
“And? Did I live up to my name?” Samira asked.
Sarah leaned forward and kissed her.
The dreamleaf was making the world softer, sweeter. She felt herself humming against Samira’s lips, and then Samira’s neck.
But when Sarah opened her eyes, Samira wasn’t there.
Pale blue skin stretched over a lithe, dangerous frame. Two long tendril flicked in the air behind her. The smell of the air was suddenly cloyingly sweet.
Sarah had heard many tales about demons, but this was the first time she’d ever actually encountered one. And what else, but a demon could have fooled her like this?
She pulled away.
“Oh.” The demon said, “The game’s over then.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Sarah spat, reaching for her guns.
The demon stopped her with those long, pointed lashers.
“Ah, ah, ah. That’s not very nice.” The demon murmured, “Why don’t you just relax? Let Evelynn take over.”
The lashers wrapped around Sarah’s shoulders and pulled taut, leaving her almost entirely helpless.
“What did you do with Samira?” Sarah snarled.
“Not a thing and besides, shouldn’t you be more concerned with the things I’m gonna do to you?”
“What do you want with me?” Sarah spat.
“But what if I’m lying? What if I’ve already flayed her alive, bit by bit? Such a strong, proud woman. Her screams took some prying, but oh, when she screamed—”
“Don’t fuck with me, bitch.”
The demon’s laugh was melodious, like a horrible piano being plinked out of tune.
“Come now, Sarah, you seemed to enjoy fucking with me well enough. I can see why she likes you. And you certainly like her. My, my.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, I don’t think so. I have a new game in mind.” Evelynn purred.
She leaned in, her hot breath stinking of blood beneath that horrible sweetness.
“I was thinking I’d start by pulling out one of your eyes so you can look like your girlfriend. Then I’ll give you every one of her pretty scars.” Evelynn sighed, running her long claw-like fingers down Sarah’s cheeks.
The hold the demon had on Sarah was like iron, but surely there was something she could do. Surely, if she just waited, she would find a moment to wriggle out, to get her guns, to get out of here. She had to get out of here.
There was no way of knowing the demon was telling the truth about Samira. There was no telling, really, where Samira even was. She could be dead in the next cabin over or she could be at home, somewhere in the city, unaware of any of this. There was no telling just how long this demon had been toying with her using Samira’s face.
“Do you think she’ll love you if you remind her of herself? She strikes me as someone really into…self-love.” Evelynn giggled, taking great pleasure in an obscene gesture.
Sarah didn’t say anything to that. She was too busy trying to dislocate her shoulder to try and wriggle out of her bonds, but that was hopeless. This situation was hopeless. This demon was going to kill her or worse and she’d never know what happened to Samira. And that made her falter.
“There. Look at that. Such a delicious terror beneath all your big, brave—”
“Shut up and do what you’re going to do.” Sarah said.
Evelynn paused and her initial surprise quickly melted into amusement.
“Choose. Shall I start with your eye or just skip all that and dive straight beneath your skin?”