Chapter Text
Diplomatic Conversations
Cassandra Kiramman pursed her lips, regarding with well veiled distaste the… associate her daughter had taken with.
Cassandra was not blind, nor was she unfamiliar with the world. In her late forties and with a life which had exposed her to much subterfuge from her work as a councilwoman, she had become quite adept at reading people. She was confident in being able to discern if not the exact details of a hidden agenda than at the very least the existence of such an agenda.
It was a skill which was mostly unnecessary considering how blatant her daughter was in her affections. It was even less necessary considering just how earnest the target of her daughter’s affection was.
Earnest was actually a charitable description. Other descriptions that might suit this Vi girl would be blunt, straightforward, painfully direct, or open book.
It was due to this, that Cassandra was forced to admit that the two were absolutely smitten with each other, to a deplorable level. She considered it deplorable not because she had any concerns about the gender of her daughter’s affection or social status differences, but rather at how sickeningly sweet the two were at any given moment.
She knew that eventually the two would reach a balance with their relationship which would be more comfortable than this cloyingly saccharine status quo. Eventually, they would express with quiet words, easy touches, and simple smiles what now they couldn’t seem to express without dramatic stares, passionate or stuttering declarations, and inappropriately gratuitous public displays of affection.
Cassandra and Tobias had managed to do it, despite themselves. Cassandra knew it could be done. She just had to give it time.
But until then, Cassandra would just have to endure the potential onset of diabetes which was her daughter’s romance.
It didn’t help that Tobias was encouraging these displays! Yes, Cassandra agreed with him that they were adorable but it just wasn’t appropriate for decorum!
And so it was with well concealed eye rolls that Cassandra found herself at dinner with her daughter and her paramour, the woman known only as Vi, for another round of obvious-to-everyone-but-themselves new couple foreplay.
At least, that was what she thought would happen.
It was surprisingly unexpected, but the new couple seemed to be having a tiff.
“Look, Cupcake,” Vi groaned, sounding exasperated, “I really don’t get what the issue is. The paperwork needed one of those fancy second names, and I gave one. Wasn’t that what I was supposed to do?”
“Yes, but why that one?” Caitlyn asked. Cassandra noted that her voice was very dramatic, poised perfectly between caring and disapproving. “There, there are other names you could have used…”
Cassandra didn’t doubt that one of those other names might have started with ‘K’ and ended with ‘iramman’. She wanted to be proud that Caitlyn wasn’t so far gone that she had proposed it only four months into their relationship, but it was a low hurdle so Cassandra settled simply at relieved.
“Look, I’m sure I’ll get a new one eventually, but for now that’s the name that fits,” Vi’s sigh was one of longstanding patience, the sound of someone who had explained something many, many times, and was resolved to explain it again many, many times if that was what it took for it to finally sink in.
Actually, Cassandra noted, suppressing a blink of surprise, it was a familiar tone. It didn’t sound precisely like her own when she tried to assist Caitlyn in her maternal way, but it had the same feel to it.
Cassandra loved Caitlyn, dearly and sincerely, but when that girl had decided on something no amount of logic, reason, or shared experience would prevent her from going through with it, and then being shocked when her choices ended up exactly like she had been warned they would. Caitlyn was very much someone who needed to see it with her own eyes before she would believe it.
Cassandra, unexpectedly, felt a well of solidarity with the pink haired woman. They both had to deal with her daughter’s obstinacy, in their own way.
Still, regardless of shared empathy for loving a stubborn girl, Cassandra found the entire nature of their conversation to be too confusing to follow. Spurred by an urge to assist a fellow individual who cared for her daughter’s health despite said daughter’s apparent inability to look after herself, Cassandra found herself interjecting into the conversation.
“Forgive my interruption,” she interjected. “I find myself somewhat lost by your conversation. What precisely is the event that you’re discussing?”
She had been hoping to come across as conversational. It was the precise tone of voice and cadence which she would have come across as such if used in her formal meetings with her peers. When Caitlyn winced, sitting up straight and with perfect posture, and Vi winced and slouched to bury herself in her hooded garment, Cassandra sighed internally.
It seemed she truly was out of touch with how to communicate with the younger generation. She had been attempting to be conversational, not confrontational.
“It’s nothing, mother,” Caitlyn spoke up, using that tone she did when she was trying to utilize the lessons Cassandra had imparted to her regarding propriety solely for the purpose of getting her mother to leave her alone. It was a tone she heard much less now that Caitlyn had left her teenage years, but one that still came up whenever Caitlyn was trying to politely tell Cassandra to butt out of a conversation.
Vi just grunted.
Between the two responses, Cassandra found herself preferring Vi’s. It had the artless grace of honesty.
“It was not my intention to pry,” she continued, backtracking appropriately. She had obviously missed the tone she had intended for. She had been attempting to enter the conversation, after all, not end it. “I simply found myself confused. You were discussing your name?”
At her side, Tobias perked slightly. He knew his wife, after all, and could read well her intention.
Considering how… ‘onboard’… he has been for their daughter’s relationship, and how well he knew her, he would no doubt understand her interest was genuine. She had no doubt he was internally cheering at her effort to try and involve herself in her daughter’s romance.
He always could see right through her. And he was a helpless romantic.
Which was why she fell for him in the first place, that dear fool.
“Er, yeah,” Vi, finally grunted again. “Just talking about what name to use, is all. That’s it.”
“Name to use?” Cassandra asked, her brow wrinkling imperceptibly as she tried to understand the less than eloquent response. “Do you mean whether to use the sobriquet ‘Vi’ or the name ‘Violet’?”
At her response, Vi froze. Cassandra cursed under her breath, wondering just how she had offended the younger generation this time, before Vi turned to Caitlyn, and mouthed the word ‘Sobriquet’ in a silent and desperate question.
Caitlyn promptly mouthed back ‘Nickname’.
Vi relaxed immediately.
Cassandra suppressed a twitch, and the urge to feel old.
“No,” Vi responded, clearing her throat. “It’s those other names you Pilties use.”
“Other names?” Cassandra prompted, to which Vi shrugged uncomfortably and Caitlyn began to glower.
Oh dear, it seemed her daughter perceived her inquiry as bullying and was starting to rouse her hackles. Cassandra immediately sought to cut that off, if only to avoid the dramatic exit the continued perception would prompt.
“Do you mean surname?” Cassandra asked, “a family name?” Vi tensed, nodding shortly. Cassandra released a slow breath, seeking to frame herself diplomatically. She was aware at this point of Vi’s heritage, thanks to Caitlyn’s rather animated diatribes about her lover’s status as an orphan and the injustice of the circumstances behind it. She would like to avoid another lecture in the name of conversation. “In Piltover, it’s common to use the general name of ‘Doe’ when a name is not readily available. Was there an issue in using such?”
“Nah,” Vi shrugged, uncomfortably. “Zaunites just use a different system is all.”
Cassandra used all of the many years of discipline that exercising state craft hand instilled on her to refrain from sneering at that word. ‘Zaun’.
She hated that word.
The Undercity had been an endless source of troubles for her, for her city, for her council, and for her family. The Undercity, it’s lawless zones that even Enforcers dared not tread, its detestable pretense of disunification that it perpetuated, and its stolen weapons were why she walked with a limp, clutching a cane to keep herself mobile. It was why several of her coworkers were dead, though Cassandra spared little effort in mourning them. The loss of Hoskel was a relief, more than a detriment.
She could not understand why one part of the grand glory of Piltover was so determined to seek havoc with the rest of the great state: why a few discontents would harm the many. Noxus was always a restless war machine, eager to exploit any discontent it could on its grand vision to conquer the world. Demacia was barely stable with its thaumaturgical purges, and Ionia was marvelous but beset upon by all sides.
There were no allies in the international stages. The world was not friendly, it was not kind. It was hungry, and it would devour their city if they looked weak, if they seemed easy.
Hextech was keeping them stable, keeping them valuable. It was making them a center of the future, something marked on the maps.
But maps are redrawn with such ease. Cities are purged, countries ended, and continents reshaped.
It was a mark against Caitlyn that she would bring someone to their household who bought into dissonant nonsense when Piltover as a whole needed to stand strong against the world.
“And what system might Zaun use?” Cassandra prompted. The earlier sympathy she had felt for the pink haired interloper in her house hold was drying up, but far be it from her to be a poor host to some ungrateful agitator. She could only pray that her daughter got over her infatuation sooner rather than later.
“Well, I mean, it’s pretty normal to not know who your parents are, so it’s not like that’s, what’s the word, practical? Practical to track something like that, you know?” Vi shrugged, somewhere beneath her hooded shirt. She sounded defensive, but matter of fact. “It would be pretty hard to keep track of everyone if they just used the name ‘Doe’.”
Cassandra paused.
She noted that Tobias paused as well.
Caitlyn did not.
“Vi,” she began softly. She had the tone of a child approaching an easily scared animal. “What do you mean by it being normal?”
“What?” Vi snapped, crossing her arms and scowling. It genuinely looked like she had no idea what the room had gone quiet and was being defensive about not knowing. “People don’t always get to live to their forties, right? Lots of people die before they get old. And when they have kids, well, they don’t know who their parents are anyway so it’s not like a name means anything. You just choose what name is best for you at the time and move on until another name is better.”
That…
That wasn’t quite what Cassandra was expecting.
It was for a number of factors. For one, how it implied that the age of forty was considered the generous age of death. For another, the automatic assumption of not knowing your parentage as being the norm.
It was how simply Vi said it; free of pretense, from an individual Cassandra already knew she could read easily and accurately from.
“So if it’s not normal to have a family name, then how is a surname usually chosen?” Cassandra prompted, and Caitlyn turned and glared at her. Her outrage was perfectly genuine, and spoke sternly of her distaste for the topic.
It was clear that she thought Cassandra’s prompt was in some way diminishing.
However, she was mistaken. Cassandra was honestly interested, curious about a point of view she had never come across before.
“Well, you just choose whatever it is around you that fits,” Vi answered. She was still curled up, still made small in stature, but her presence had changed.
She had felt defensive earlier, however now her stature wasn’t like someone curling away to get away from sight.
Now she felt like a spring coiled, ready to unleash. Cassandra noted that like her daughter, Vi was starting to feel defensive of her questioning.
“You choose what’s the most important in life, and make it known,” Vi answered. “You take wherever you’ve been through, or what you are aiming for, or what you want, and you announce it.”
“So what is your surname now?” Cassandra challenged, eager to see how the girl responded.
“Stillwaters,” Vi answered. “For now, I’m Vi Stillwaters.”
“And I’ve said, there’s no reason you have to keep a reminder of that dreadful place,” Caitlyn intervened immediately.
Cassandra was grateful for interruption, as she found herself genuinely at a loss for words. She agreed with her daughter’s sentiment. She wasn’t certain if the stories from the pink haired girl were true or if they were perhaps exaggerated in her memories, however all stories from Vi regarding Stillwater Prison that Cassandra were privy to painted the younger girl’s time there as horribly painful to her. The idea of identifying with those experiences enough to name yourself after them was incomprehensible to her.
“I was there for seven years,” Vi pointed out. “That’s a third of my life. I mean, before that I was Vi Lanes, but the Lanes are gone now, and I haven’t had a chance to be anywhere long enough to make any other names.”
“And so you were ‘Lanes’ after you were adopted?” Cassandra prompted, eyes narrowed as she tried to cement the strange logic in her head. “And what was your name before that? Would it be acceptable to go back to using that?”
Cassandra realized that her question might have been a bit blunt, and perhaps in poor taste a moment after she had finished asking. She suppressed a grimace. She was aware that sometimes she could appear quite cold, but even for her that had been arctic.
Cassandra resigned herself to her daughter’s glare for the rest of the night, knowing that she had most likely deserved it.
Fortunately, however, the one with the most right to umbrage was the one least affected by it.
“Don’t really remember,” Vi admitted easily, shrugging. “And which one would I even use? I mean, I know before my birth father died we used a different one from when my mom met Powder’s dad. I would probably use that one, since it was the one Powder and I shared first, but it was so long ago that I forgot it.”
“You and Ji- Powder had different fathers?” Caitlyn asked, abandoning her effort to set Cassandra’s head on fire with the heat of her glare to turn a shocked and surprised look at her girlfriend.
It appeared that this was also news to her, and again, Cassandra was grateful for the interruption as it gave her time to gather her thoughts.
So it appeared that in the course of her life Vi had lost three fathers: her birth father, her sister’s birth father, and her adopted father. She had only lost one mother, despite having been through three family units, so at least that number wasn’t terribly depressing.
“It’s normal,” Vi shrugged again, glancing around the room with a bit of confusion at the stir the conversation was generating. “I mean, people die: if your parents are both gone, you’re on the streets until someone picks you up. Then when you get older and have more money, it’s your turn to take in any kids you can spare. Vander was doing good enough for himself to pick up four, but most people can only add one or two.”
For just a moment, Vi gave Cassandra a look she couldn’t quite identify. Normally her daughter’s girlfriend was quiet and nervous around her. She looked like she was doing her best to try and avoid damaging anything, or doing anything to offend her girlfriend’s mother. However, for a moment, the look she gave Cassandra was cold.
Then she was promptly interrupted as Caitlyn began to fuss about her. Cassandra rolled her eyes slightly as her daughter began to try and pamper the pink haired woman relentlessly.
“W-wait, Cait, what are you..?” Vi sputtered as Caitlyn began to insist on feeding her.
“Just let me take care of you,” her daughter ordered haughtily.
The conversation drifted from there, as the doting couple began their young love routine and Tobias chuckled quietly as the two made further fools of themselves, at one point their hands coming into contact causing the two to jump, turned to look at each other, and then apparently got lost in each other’s eyes long enough for Tobias to have to clear his throat to bring them back.
Cassandra declined from joining the rest of the conversation, her thoughts moving in a different direction.
***Scene Break***
It was much later at night, that Cassandra revisited the conversation on her own. She was in her office, a place where she was assured privacy. Two fingers of fine Noxian whiskey was neat in a tumbler that she savored slowly.
She didn’t want to admit it, but the conversation earlier had bothered her.
Cassandra was aware that Vi had a harder than average life. It seems that at every turn, something terrible had befallen the younger woman. It was hard to find a conversation where a hint of some tragedy hadn’t been unveiled.
In the beginning, Cassandra had been suspicious. She had worried that this pink haired interloper from the Undercity was trying to con her dear but softhearted daughter by spinning a tale of tragedy. At worst, this Vi was intending to use Caitlyn for wealth or influence, at best, she was simply trying to use sympathy to endear herself.
However, as time went by, even Cassandra had to recognize that this Vi had no intentions towards her daughter. Well, no ill intentions. It was obvious that she was quite smitten, but that simply made her intentions worrisome less for her daughter’s health than her innocence.
Cassandra was aware of her daughter’s past liaisons, however no mother truly enjoyed contemplating their child’s love life.
Rather, as time went on it became more and more apparent that Vi was not trying to weaponize the things she had endured. It was simply the sheer enormity of how much she had endured caused it to peak into every aspect of her life. A more tactful or concerned sufferer might take efforts to try to conceal what they had been through, but Vi was a blunt and matter of fact woman who did not shy away from the past.
In a way, that was what led to tonight’s contemplations. Cassandra knew that Vi had no talent or inclination for exaggeration or manipulation. When she shared an experience, she simply shared what she remembered without embellishment or contrivance.
Cassandra trusted Vi insomuch to provide honest and genuine information.
And tonight’s information was… troubling. Not for the reasons her daughter no doubt found them.
Cassandra organized the facts she had gleaned from dinner, attempting to isolate what it was that had unsettled her.
To begin with, it was Vi’s natural assumption that a lifespan of forty years was considered a long one. Many were shorter, and often left behind issue without caregivers. When children were orphaned, it was common to be brought into new family units, and once raised to return the charity to the best of their ability. The change of family was constant, and common to the point where attempting to track biological affiliation and lineage was impractical to the point that attempting to do so was futile. Rather, it was simpler to abandon the past entirely, forsaking previous identifiers of lineage in favor of more relevant current ones, and with the understanding that at a later time a new name can easily be chosen to reflect new circumstances.
It was madness. Pure and simple.
The Kiramman name had existed for centuries. Their lineage was unbroken through that time. Records and genealogy documented the spread and branches of the family. Cassandra herself was enjoying the close of her fifth decade, and fully expected to experience another three at the least. Hopefully some of it will be retired after she manages to convince her daughter to assume her responsibilities as councilor.
While the Kiramman legacy and her own expectations were greater than most, it wasn’t a legacy or expectation dissimilar to the rest of Piltover. Most families could trace their lineage for some generations, and the expectation to live well into their sixties was completely reasonable.
She grimaced, sipping her whiskey as she considered the image painted by Vi. It was chaotic, and bizarre. It painted a picture of a life of uncertainty, of change and madness. The very thought that your world and self could change nearly instantaneously, that one day you might be of one family and the next you are of another was disturbing to her. Cassandra clung to the rock, the spier, the temple which was the Kiramman dynasty.
Perhaps that was what was unnerving her, she considered. Cassandra wondered how she would fair, if she woke up the next day to a different name, if she had to claim a new lineage and forget her true one.
The thought made her lips curl and her gut clench.
Cassandra let herself pull heavily from her whiskey. She continued to study her train of thought, and found herself pleased with it. Her earlier unsettlement had been explained enough for her to put it aside and she relaxed, ready to finish the spirits and retire to bed now that she had determined what had been bothering her.
Really, it was ridiculous to think about, she decided, throwing back the last of the whiskey. It was like trying to understand Noxus’ determination to rule, or Demacia’s arcanophobia, or…
And it struck her. Despite herself, her grip on her cup slackened and the tumbler fell. It was fortunate she had been putting it down and the fall was only an inch or so, but the loud thud it made as it struck rang through her, echoing like a clock tower’s bell.
It was like thinking about another country.
Like Vi wasn’t even from Piltover at all.
That was ridiculous though. Piltover stood united. The Undercity, regardless of how divorced it was from the rest of the city was still part of the city. Well, Cassandra allowed that there were certain physical limitations to travel between the two. And, that the law enforcement the two locations shared might have different protocols between the two. And, come to think of it as she recalled some of the decisions made by the council, there might be a discrepancy between the amount spent on public works like roads and hospitals between the two. Actually, furthering that line of thought, when was the last time a councilor had any affiliation with the undercity outside of maintaining their mining rights? Well, having a councilor from the Undercity was ridiculous, but surely a councilor has at least visited the Undercity? At some point? Maybe?
Cassandra prided herself on her lack of self-deception. She knew that clinging to unreasonable expectations was the fastest way to fail. It was why as she reviewed her train of thoughts she grew less and less proud of her pride.
The definition of culture was the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a people. Vi had many times over, though seldom as clearly as she had this night, displayed the difference in customs that she had from the rest of Piltover. Her stance on genealogy and lifestyle was nearly the polar opposite of Piltover’s. From past observation of her, Cassandra was willing to believe that Vi’s sense of aesthetic appreciation differed greatly from her own. The symbols of wealth which would have drawn the envy Cassandra’s peers, the trinkets and tokens of history and wealth on display were given nothing more than idle glances of at best curiosity, at worse disinterest…
As Cassandra pondered this revelation, of the sheer gulf between herself and her daughter’s paramour, she reached for the decanter of whiskey. As she poured, she realized her hands were shaking slightly, causing the liquor to splash in an unseemly manner.
This time, Cassandra poured herself four fingers instead of two. She felt the need for something strong as she pondered this epiphany.
What if…
What if Zaun was real?
She had scoffed every time before when she heard of the desire for the Undercity to separate. She had chalked it up to over the top revolutionary rhetoric designed to cause unrest in order to leverage some sort of concession for the Undercity. It was a common negotiation tactic, to demand far more than you desired so when negotiations began you could aim for your actual goal with more ease and the appearance of compromise.
Now though, she realized just how different things were from her actual expectations. Vi had what she considered to be normal, and while Cassandra was aware that her status of wealth and political power separated her from the rest of Piltover if she were to compare herself to the poorest family in the upper city to the richest member of the Undercity, she would have more in common with the poorest Piltian than the wealthiest Zaunite.
As she pulled strongly from her fresh tumbler, she found herself recalling Vi’s eyes, the cold look she couldn’t identify. There was another answer there, Cassandra was convinced. There was another revelation there.
There was something important.
What had they been discussing? Cassandra knit her brow as she tried to remember. They had been discussing Zaunite adoption customs. Vi… Vi had displayed a filial moment of pride, recalling how Vander had been considered wealthy enough to adopt four children…
And it clicked.
It was a custom, a rite of Zaun to adopt those who have lost their parents. It was normal, as Vi put it, to take those of the street and welcome them into your house as many of them have been welcomed before.
So what did the Kiramman manor look like to her? All these rooms, the lavish displays of wealth. It was clear to all that the Kiramman were flourishing. Vi’s father had run a bar, and was considered wealthy enough to care for four children.
So where were the children that the Kiramman were caring for? Where were those without family that someone so obviously successful should be taking care of?
Cassandra recognized then the look Vi had given her. It was ‘distaste’. Cassandra had felt it often enough, when dealing with the other woman. Cassandra had distained her lack of manners, her abrasive and sometimes rude conduct, the way she chose to garb and comport herself.
And in return, Vi distained Cassandra. To have such wealth and not use it to expand her family, to bring others into it. It must seem the height of selfishness, coldly contemptable of others in need of family to deny them hers.
Cassandra sought to protect her name and legacy. To Vi, they mattered so little that she was already seeking a new name, and was already ready to expand her legacy.
It was only then, that Cassandra realized the true import of the situation. Piltover was in conflict, right now, with a foreign nation whose rights and independence, whose customs and traditions, Piltover had no knowledge of. Piltover in fact believed it was its rights to rule that nation.
How did they not expect an attack? How did they not see that the violence directed at them as resistance to an occupying power rather than rebellion against legitimate authority?
“Honey,” Cassandra blinked, glancing up woozily at Tobias as he hovered at the door to her office. “Are you coming to bed soon?”
Her husband trailed off, as he studied her. Even after decades of marriage, she had to keep herself from blushing at his attention. He took in her expression, the glass of whiskey in her hands, and his eyes tilted in concern.
“Cassie, are you alright?” he asked her.
“I just had a revelation which alters the shape of the political environment so greatly that I have no idea how to proceed,” she admitted, her voice slurring just a bit as she did so.
“Oh dear,” he sighed. “Would you like to share it with me?”
“Yes please, darling,” she nodded.
Tobias gave a good natured sigh as he sat himself, and Cassandra took another deep drink from her tumbler.
While she would call it different in the morning, some drunken rambling to get her head straight was just what she needed to process the monumental revelation which had been staring her in the face for years without her ever even realizing it.