Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mystical beings were rampant in all parts of Runeterra; human-animal hybrids called Vastaya roamed the streets freely, krakens the size of ships resided deep underwater, Minotaurs enslaved and forced into gladiator rings as a popular form of entertainment in some parts of Noxus. Among all walks of life, selkies were considered the most coveted creatures. Known for their ethereal beauty and magnanimity towards sailors. But what made them so sought after was because one could very easily have these beautiful sea creatures for themselves, if they only got a hold of their seal coat.

Since Jayce was a child, he'd heard many tales of selkies like him getting their coat stolen and forced into a loveless marriage with a human. One of the toughest lessons he had to learn was that for his kind, freedom was not a right but a privilege―once that could easily be taken away at a moment's notice.

His mother had gone through great lengths to keep him from straying too far from her side. He was not to stay on land for too long, or to shed his coat no more than twice a year. Most of all, she had expressly forbidden him from mingling with land dwellers. Jayce had been an obedient son for the most part, staying in his seal form and avoiding humans like the plague. His lack of knowledge and stinginess towards humans was somewhat of an oddity among his peers since sentiment towards land dwellers had grown somewhat lukewarm over the years. It wasn't uncommon for some selkies to shed their skin to pose as humans just for a day; dancing to their music, drinking their beer, indulging in the commoners' practices for the fun of it. Sometimes they would even take one to bed before disappearing into the sea come the morning, leaving their lover with only memories of their passionate encounter and the faint musk of kelp and brine lingering in the air.

Recollections of these encounters had slowly chipped away at Jayce's ingrained wariness, giving way to a burning curiosity. As he grew older, he began pushing against these restrictions that had been imposed on him his entire life. He started spending time in his human form more, sunbathing along the sandy beaches and bathing in lakes with his more adventurous friend, Caitlyn. Then he got bolder, letting some humans catch glimpses of him but never letting them get close enough to touch.

There was a certain kind of thrill in toeing the line of danger but never truly crossing it, and Jayce could not lie and say that he hadn't let it go to his head. There had been a few close calls, but none had ever succeeded in stealing his coat.

Until now.

The ship rocked back and forth with the water's current, the wood creaking and moaning as waves crashed into it as if the ocean itself had recognised the unfamiliar object treading its surface and was trying to eliminate it.

The salty taste of the sea filled Jayce's tongue even while separated from the water. Just listening to the rhythmic sound of the waves, muffled as they may be from inside the ship, was enough to make his heart sing with longing. It must have been hours since he'd been taken from his pack. He surmised based on the change in the sliver of light he could see from the crack beneath the sealed door and the shuffling feet of sailors as they retreated to their sleeping quarters that it was now evening. But this piece of information, rather than providing comfort, only made dread build in his gut.

Shivers wracked his frame, a harsh reminder of the loss of his coat. In his seal form, the thick layers of blubber and fur made it so the cold was never a problem even in in the most frigid temperatures. Such was not the case for Jayce's human form―fragile as the beings were―and now even so much as a breeze made his body tremble unpleasantly. He tried to curl in on himself, only to be tugged by shackles around his wrists mid motion. Jayce huffed in frustration, wrapping the threadbare blanket covering his bare body tighter around himself. Those bastards stripped him of his coat, trapped him in his human form, and they didn't even bother to give him anything substantial to cover himself with.

The door slammed open, causing Jayce to startle. A girl with electric blue hair strode in, her braids swishing at her feet with every step. She held a lantern in one hand, lifting it up to illuminate her wide, manic eyes. Jayce scrambled back―as much as he could with the shackles tethering him to the floor―as the girl skipped closer, growing even more nervous when the girl grinned at him.

"Hello!" she crouched down to his level, cooing at him as if she were talking to a cute animal, "Aw, don't be shy."

She reached out her free hand towards him, and he bared his teeth at her in defiance. She retreated her hand, but there wasn't any fear in her eyes. If anything, she only looked joyous. 

"Woah, feisty! I like it." she sat back on her haunches, alarmingly nonchalant for someone who was talking to their captive, "I thought I'd drop by, you know, give you some company. It gets awfully lonely down here."

Jayce simply glared at her, still trying to put as much distance between them as possible.

"If it makes you feel better, I'm sure your friends are out there looking for you. Not that they'd have much luck, but, well, it's the thought that counts."

The mention of his pack made Jayce's chest feel heavy with grief. To think he'd only been sunbathing on the shore with pack earlier in the day, their coats left out on the sand to dry. None of them saw the ship approaching until it was too late. Jayce was glad the rest of them managed to escape, even if it was him who got left behind.

And his mother. Oh, his poor mother. He wished he at least had the chance to say goodbye to her. He could only trust that Caitlyn would take care of her in his absence.

The girl clicked her tongue, bringing Jayce out of his thoughts, "Not much of a talker, are you?"

Jayce felt even less inclined to give her a verbal response. Rather than be incensed by his uncooperative behaviour, the girl's grin stretched wider, her sharp canines poking through chapped lips, "Aw, the seal pup is still throwing a tantrum?" she giggled at Jayce's deepening scowl, "That's alright, I can talk for the two of us. Not like you have a choice anyway, considering...you know."

"Jinx." a low, raspy voice called from the doorway. Jayce flinched, recognising the cold voice that had been barking orders at his crew when Jayce had been dragged onto this ship.

It was the captain.

The man stepped forward. The shadows seemed to tremble and swirl around him with every advance he made. His thin frame was backlit by the yellow light from the hall, casting deep shadows over his front half. Only his single, glowing eye broke through the dim room, burning with an unnatural bright red. It reminded Jayce of the lure of an anglerfish, beckoning its prey before it unhinged its jaws and swallowed them whole.

The captain exhaled through his nose in exasperation, "What are you doing?"

The girl―Jinx―sprung to her feet, seemingly unaffected by the captain's intimidating presence, a comically innocent smile on her face, "Just thought I'd check on the pup."

"I told you not to call him that," the captain's good eye flitted towards Jayce for only a second, "It will do you no good to get attached to our...cargo."

Being referred to as 'cargo' made Jayce bristle but he kept quiet, less out of defiance now and more out of genuine fear.

Jinx huffed, crossing her arms like a child getting scolded, "I'm not. I just wanted to see."

The captain looked at her for a long moment, before he shook his head and let out a tired sigh, "Go play with your gadgets. I need to have a moment with him."

Instantly, Jinx's eyes lit up. She waved goodbye to Jayce as if they'd just concluded a pleasant conversation, "See ya, pup! Hope Silco doesn't eat you alive!"

She swung the door closed on her way out, shutting out the light from outside. All that was left was the lantern she left behind and that horrible red eye staring down at Jayce. Unlike Jinx, Silco didn't bother crouching down, electing to remain standing a few feet away from Jayce, far enough that the lantern's glow barely reached him.

Jayce suddenly found himself entirely bereft of the open resistance he had before. He couldn't bring himself to look the captain in the eye, focusing instead on the tips of his shoes―the only part of him that was within the light's reach.

"You've caused us quite a bit of trouble, selkie." Silco said at last, his tone betraying no emotion.

Jayce found it in himself to muster a small smirk, barely a twitch of the lips before it quickly disappeared. Silco crept closer, and although his steps were light, they seemed to echo in the room.

Now that he was closer, Jayce could make out some of his features in the dark. A long, hooked nose, an angular face, and harsh age lines slicing through the corners of his eyes and hollow of his cheeks. Most notable of all was the scar surrounding his glowing eye; skin blackened and resembling charred flesh, and long, precise lines running all the way down from brow to cheek as if someone had taken a knife and cleaved the skin there. The sight appalled Jayce, making him wonder who―or what―must have been cruel enough to disfigure this man in such a way.

"It was hard enough to find a selkie out in the open, much less get ahold of one before they swam away. But, as luck would have it, it appears that Mother Serpent is on our side."

Jayce swallowed and forced his mouth to open, "Where are you taking me?" he asked, figuring that was a good place to start.

Silco was silent for a long moment, enough that Jayce started to doubt if he'd ever get a response, "You've been there before." he stated, making Jayce frown in confusion. His mind was already running with possibilities when Silco continued, "Do you recall the name Salo?"

At once, all the oxygen left Jayce's lungs. He did. He did remember that name. It was the name of the man who had tried to capture Jayce years ago, and had nearly succeeded if not for the incompetence of his crew. The ship they had embarked on didn't have its sails set at the right angle, causing the ship to get blown off course. In the commotion and subsequent panic as they tried to right the sails, Jayce had grabbed his coat and set off to the sea.

"He paid you to capture me again?" Jayce said in disbelief. The man's tenacity would have been admirable had it not been for the fact that he never did any of the work himself, he always had to hire other people.

Silco let out an affirming hum, as if they were discussing the weather―as if Jayce's life wasn't on the line. It made the hair on Jayce's neck stand on end.

"I'm sure you're more than aware of the lengths people will go through to covet a selkie, allured by the tales they've heard, about your otherworldly beauty, your ability to bring good fortune to sailors when they set out to sea." Silco scoffed derisively, "I am not one for such tales. Nor do I have any interest in bedding a sea creature. But, there are a handful of people who would pay a pound of gold to get their hands on one such as yourself."

Jayce clenched his jaw as the words washed over him, his heart pounding in his ribs. He understood it now; the reason why Silco was being so blase about all this was because for him this was just a one and done thing. It was nothing personal. The act of selling Jayce off to a despicable man was simply his way of earning a living. Somehow this only made Jayce feel worse.

Silco lingered, giving time for everything he said to fully sink in, making sure that not a single word escaped Jayce's mind. Finally, he took a step back, effectively ending their exchange with that simple action. On his way out, he picked up the lantern Jinx had left behind, taking away the only light source in the room. Jayce felt a rise of indignation, ready to voice his protest, when Silco spoke again.

"I reckon it will take us a while before we reach land. Do try and make yourself comfortable in the mean time."

Jayce glanced pointedly at his bound wrists, although, he did not doubt that Silco hadn't forgotten about that particular detail.

Silco gripped the handle of the door, pausing in the doorway as he took one final look at Jayce.

"Welcome aboard."

That was the last thing Silco said before he slammed the door shut. Now bathed in darkness once more, Jayce collapsed in on himself, curled up on the cold wooden floor. For the first time since arriving here, he felt well and truly helpless.

The eviction notice was going to go down as the worst birthday present anyone had ever received in the history of Runeterra.

Viktor had been rudely greeted that morning by a piece of paper being slid under his front door. Before he even had the chance to read it, he was hit with a heavy feeling of dread, as if he already knew what it was. His suspicious were confirmed when he finally sat down to read it, and just like that, his entire day had gone up in flames before he even had his morning coffee.

Viktor slammed the paper face-down on the table, pinching the bridge of his nose so hard that it stung, "Fucking hell."

He couldn't say he was shocked. He'd been barely scrounging enough money all month to afford a full meal, much less pay rent, but the fact that the notice arrived on his birthday specifically was just the final kick in the balls. Viktor would prefer actually getting kicked in the balls compared to this.

He needed to think of a plan now if he didn't want to freeze to death out on the streets. Perhaps he could stay at an inn for two or three days at most while he searched for somewhere he could take up residence in the long term. Worst case scenario, he became a nomad and took up a job as a travelling bard. He was no good with crowds however, and his singing would probably cause an avalanche, which meant that idea was off the table.

Outside, the sun was beginning to creep over the horizon, shining the first morning rays into his small sitting room. With it came the distant sounds of the coastal town waking up to the start of a new day; doors and windows being opened to welcome the morning breeze, shopkeepers setting up, and scattered voices of people ready to start the new day. Once upon a time, Viktor had loved the calmness of early mornings. There was a certain peace during this specific time of day, one that was lost when the morning transitioned into noon and the streets were busy and flooded with people, then into the almost oppressive silences at night as the workers walked home and all the lights had been blown out.

Today, however, Viktor couldn't bring himself to enjoy it. Incredible how a single piece of paper could do so much damage.

He heaved a sigh and rose from his chair, grabbing his crutch from where it leaned against the edge of the table. His leg twinged in pain as he stood―as it did more often these past days. Not enough to keep him from getting through the day, but certainly enough to be inconvenient.

His eyes roamed over the various tools placed about in his small sitting room. Graphite pencils and half-empty bottles of ink littered the desk, fine chisels for carving into woodblocks with engraved images, scrolls bearing nautical charts and topographic maps of every geographic location in Valoran Viktor could gather information on. He'd spent years, decades even, gathering all this knowledge, had begged to the academy on his hands and knees more times than he could count so they could fund his travels. And where did all of that lead him? Penniless and in the midst of being driven out of his own home.

The thought of seeking asylum at the academy crossed his mind, but he shut down that line of thought as quickly as it entered. The academy was only so giving to their students so long as those students could give back. Even after all these years, Viktor still hadn't been able to pay back his debts, and he certainly wouldn't be able to now. If he were to come knocking on their doors in his sorry state, he'd imagine that their reactions would be less than kind.

Viktor ran a hand through his hair, fingers getting caught in the tangles. He mentally tallied up the prices of his tools, taking note of the pricier ones and the ones that were in less than stellar condition from constant use. If he sold his tools to the pawn shop, it would probably grant him a dozen coins to pocket. Not enough to last him more than a day, but enough to at least book a room at an inn. He'll worry about food after.

He opened the closet under his stairs, barely even a foot wide, in search of a bag big enough to hold everything. But when he picked up a chisel, his hand wouldn't move despite his brain's input. The chisel remained in his white-knuckled grip, the familiar ridges of its handle beckoning Viktor, reminding him of many a nights spent cutting blocks of wood, carving shapes of archipelagos into the grains and painting it over with ink. The pride and satisfaction as he pressed the wood against the sheet and ink bled into the paper to form a map. He would never go through that process again.

Foolish, he chided himself in his head. A chisel was not more important than being able to afford basic shelter. What use would any of his work be if he allowed himself to die out in the streets?

With his mind made up, he gathered all his belongings into the bag and set out to the pawn shop.

"Happy birthday to me." he muttered to himself.

The pawn shop at the next street over used to be run by an old, burly man named Benzo. After his untimely death, the ownership was passed down to his young apprentice, Ekko.

Ekko, despite his young age, had eyes that glinted with a certain kind of solemnity, the kind that Viktor only saw on soldiers returning from battle and on elderly people who decided they'd had enough of an eventful life and retired to the coastal town right at the edge of Piltover so they could spend their remaining days in peace. It was this exact trait of Ekko that made Viktor warm up to him when he'd otherwise prefer to keep himself occupied with his charts and maps all day rather than interact with a living being. He was aware that it said less than flattering things about himself when the closest person he could call a friend was a teenager.

The shop was nearly empty this early in the day, save for Ekko himself and a stout old man he was locked in a rather loud dispute with. When the door jingled upon opening, announcing Viktor's arrival, Ekko didn't even spare him a glance.

"Listen, you can't possibly convince me that this pile of junk are the real bones of Gangplank's severed arm. This is obviously just something you hobbled together with sticks and clay."

"This is no fake, I'm telling you," the old man insisted, "I knew the doctor who amputated his arm before I got a hold of it. Just ask him! He can vouch for me."

Ekko sighed and dragged a hand down his face, "Look, even if it's real―which it definitely isn't―I don't want someone's bones in my shop!"

Viktor cleared his throat loudly, which finally made the two notice his presence.

"Good morning, Ekko. I see you're having a productive morning," Viktor said as he smoothly cut in front of the old man, ignoring his sputtering protests, "In any case, I've got something for you. Hopefully it will be more of interest to you than what he's offering."

"Excuse me?"

Ekko huffed in amusement, completely ignoring the old man in favour of turning his attention to Viktor, "Alright, what you got there?"

"My life's worth accumulated into one place," Viktor replied shortly, struggling to lift the bag over the counter, "And it's all yours now."

Ekko rifled through its contents, frowning as he lifted a map of Piltover and turned it over in his hands. He looked back up at Viktor, the levity in his eyes disappearing.

"Viktor, what is this?"

"I've been evicted and I need the money to buy me somewhere to stay for a while." Viktor said without preamble. He saw no use in beating around the bush, and anyway, Ekko likely would have seen right through any deflection he could have made.

"So, what, you're just going to sell your life's work?"

Viktor sighed, running a hand through his hair, "I've already lost my home, Ekko. Losing these would be a drop in the bucket in comparison."

Ekko was silent for a long moment, his expression thoughtful. After a moment, he shrugged, "Then you need a new job, and I've got one in mind just for you. Think of it as my birthday gift to you."

Viktor raised a brow incredulously, "You're asking me to work at your pawn shop?"

Ekko barked out a laugh and shook his head, "Oh, no, you'd be terrible." he said, causing Viktor to frown. He completely agreed with Ekko, but he couldn't help but feel vaguely insulted. "I'm asking if you'll be up for helping the Firelights out on a mission."

Viktor froze. The Firelights were a ragtag group of bandits Ekko led when he wasn't busy manning the register or haggling with customers over prices. The group didn't really cause much trouble except for being a constant thorn in the enforcers' side, and they never targeted any of the downtrodden or plain ordinary folk. They, of course, did what any bandits were known for; stealing from nobles who had too much to spare and intercepting transportation of goods. But if Viktor were being frank, he didn't see what they were doing as too great a crime, and really, they made the city a little less boring. 

"A mission?" Viktor echoed, not even bothering to hide his disbelief, "And what am I supposed to do?"

Ekko leaned his arms on the counter, pinning Viktor with a weighty look, "We're being paid to track down some pirates and bring them to Piltover, alive, preferably. Can't try a criminal when they're dead, after all. The person who hired us―not allowed to say who―promised to pay us eight hundred gold coins if we succeed. With that offer, every single Firelight member will be set for life. Only problem is, the Firelights have never travelled by sea. We've hijacked ships, of course, but we've never sailed one. That's where you come in.

"We need a navigator. Someone who knows the entire map of Runeterra like the back of their hand, and who has some experience manning a ship so we don't sink to the bottom of the ocean. We split the money between us, and you don't have to sell any of your stuff."

The offer was tempting; Viktor could earn a small fortune without having to work himself to the bone or sell every piece of his life. Perhaps if he'd still been in his teens or early twenties―self-assured and raging at the world―the idea of leaving everything behind to go adventuring with a bunch of outlaws would have stirred some excitement within him. Now, he was in his mid-thirties, and he'd grown weary and hardened over the years. He'd lost the hunger of his youth, the unquenched thirst for something greater. There was also something about it that gave him pause. If the Firelights were being paid so much for catching a pirate, then it could only mean that this crew of pirates were of great importance. And the fact that Ekko still hadn't revealed exactly who this pirate was made Viktor wary.

"I'm still here!" the old man protested from behind him. Viktor had completely forgotten about him, to be honest.

"Come back when you have something better to offer." Ekko shot back without missing a beat.

"So, who exactly is this pirate?" Viktor asked.

The sudden hesitation on Ekko's face spoke volumes. There was a pregnant pause between them as the boy weighed his words, before saying something that made Viktor's heart drop straight into his stomach.

"Silco, the Captain of the Eye."

Viktor's response was immediate, "No."

"Viktor―"

"No, no, absolutely not."

"Ah, the Pirate King Silco," the old man breathed out in an almost reverent tone, "Some say that people who look into his glowing, red eye will have their souls sucked out of their body, turning them into husks of their former selves."

"Oh, great," Viktor drawled sarcastically, "So death isn't even the worst part, I could also get my soul stolen."

"Hey, that guy tried to scam me a minute ago, I'd take any word he says with a grain of salt." Ekko pointed out.

"My cousin Johnny fought him once," the old man continued as if Ekko hadn't said anything, "They strapped him to the hull of their ship and sailed around with his body exposed to the elements."

Ekko paused, "...Okay, now that―that might be real. I've heard he does do that."

"Come to think of it, I believe he also collects the bones of the people he's murdered in his office as trophies."

Ekko shot the old man a glare, "Alright, you need to stop talking, you're not making this easier for me."

But Viktor was already moving to pick up his bag. He would not typically call it hubris for someone to try and capture a pirate, but to believe they could capture the Pirate King went far beyond hubris―it was downright stupidity.

"If you won't buy from me, then I'll just try my luck elsewhere." he said, grunting from the effort as he threw the bag over his shoulder.

Ekko sighed, "I'll give you twenty-five percent of the pay."

Viktor hesitated for a second, the rational part of his brain forcing him to consider it in spite of everything else. On one hand, he would likely die in abject poverty if he didn't take this job. On the other, he could earn a small fortune if he did take on this job, but he would surely die in the process. One was clearly a worse option than the other.

"Nope. Goodbye." he said briskly, turning around.

"Thirty-five percent."

"I am not putting a price tag on my life―"

"Fifty."

Viktor swivelled around and held his hand out for a shake, "You have yourself a deal."

~~~

Had he believed his words would have any influence and had he not been in such a desperate situation, he would have advised Ekko against going through with this mission at all. But Ekko was not a child he could control, and Viktor suspected that he had not been a child for a very long time. 

They trekked deep into the seedier part of town, south of the Entresol district where Viktor's house was, where Ekko said the Firelights' hideout was located in. No one paid them any mind as they walked past ramshackle buildings and dark, narrow alleyways that just beckoned trouble for anyone who walked in. The sight did not perturb Viktor the way it would for any other person; after all, he grew up in these streets before he went on to study at the academy. He'd left this piece of his past behind in search of greener pastures, only to come back decades later in search of something that could get him out of the mess he'd found himself in. The irony was not lost on him.

Viktor didn't know what his expectations were, but for Ekko to pry open a manhole and climb inside was decidedly not one of them. Viktor simply stared in bafflement, unmoving. After a beat of stillness Ekko poked his head out and raised a brow, as if to say, 'are you coming or not?'.

Viktor sighed and climbed in after him. Fifty percent, Viktor, he reminded himself over and over again.

His feet landed on the damp ground, soaking the soles of his shoes. Viktor opened his mouth to make a dry comment about how unfortunate it would be if a case of foot fungus was the one that did him in before he even had the chance to face the Pirate King, but he stopped himself when he saw Ekko place a finger on his lips. Ekko then rapped his knuckles on the wall, knocking in the tune of a sea shanty Viktor would occasionally hear the sailors chanting as they drunkenly stumbled out the bar doors. It echoed through the tunnels, and for a while, no other sound came except for the lonely tune.

Then, a set of heavy footsteps resounded from deeper into the tunnel, the slosh of water accompanying them. Viktor tensed up in alarm, but upon seeing Ekko's calm expression he forced himself to relax.

A woman rounded the corner a second later. Her bright pink hair stood out starkly in the dingy sewer, and even from this distance Viktor could tell that she had the build of a fighter―broad shoulders and wiry limbs, with the thin outline of veins running down her arms. The sleeves of her jacket were rolled up to reveal tattoos across her forearm, the intricate swirls of ink resembling inner components of a machine.

Her gaze sharpened when they landed on Viktor, "Ekko," she said cautiously, "Who's this?"

"Relax, Vi, he's a cartographer. He's going to help us catch Silco."

"He's an outsider," the woman―Vi, hissed, "No one except our people are allowed inside. You know this."

"Why are you reminding me like I wasn't one of the people who enforced that rule?" Ekko retorted, "You know me, Vi, you know I wouldn't let anyone in unless I knew we could trust them. We can trust Viktor."

Ekko didn't seem at all intimidated by her. The same could not be said for Viktor, who could tell from the bandages wrapped tightly around her hands that there had been plenty of unfortunate souls who got well-acquainted with the back of her knuckles. If Viktor didn't play his cards right, she very well could easily pummel Viktor's sorry ass into the ground if she deemed him a threat. 

"Er, if I may," Viktor interjected, raising his hand as if he were in class again waiting to be called by the teacher, "I'm only here for the job. I do not intend to, eh, reveal your hideout nor do I expect to be made a part of your group. I'm in quite a dire situation, you see, and I was promised by your friend here that I would be getting a cut of the pay if I helped you on your journey. Once the mission in finished, I will be back to minding my own business."

Vi's eyes narrowed as she scanned him for any cracks in his explanation. 

"It's also my birthday?" Viktor tried after a beat of silence.

Vi snorted, "Happy birthday." she said dryly.

"Thank you." Viktor replied. From his periphery, he could see Ekko shaking his head at them with a dumbfounded expression, mouthing 'what the hell is happening' to no one in particular.

"So, you're not gonna rat us out to the enforcers?"

Viktor shrugged, "I just want my money, if I'm being honest."

Vi exchanged a look with Ekko, and whatever she saw there made her sigh and loosen her stance into something less defensive. "Alright, fine. Just don't try anything."

Viktor glanced at Ekko, to which the boy simply shrugged in response. He supposed that was as good a confirmation as any.

All in all, the worst part about traversing through the sewer tunnels wasn't even the filth. It wasn't even the stench of rot and fecal matter, or the shallow puddles of dirty water submerging his feet, or the sludge made up of of god-knows-what that clung to Viktor's leg brace as they trudged through the sewers; it was the nonsensical layout. Had Ekko not been taking the lead, Viktor was sure that he would have easily been lost in the dark, labyrinthine maze of tunnels.

Viktor recalled one expedition with a research team to a secluded area in central Valoran, east of Shurima, aptly called the Silent Forest. He'd gotten separated with his team at one point, and he'd been wandering the thicket for miles and miles until the sun began its descent beneath the horizon. Wherever direction he went, all he could see were trees and bramble packed together so tightly that he'd almost been tricked into thinking he hadn't left his initial spot at all. Even his compass had wonky, its needle spinning erratically, pointing every which direction. It had felt as though the forest itself had been actively working against him, attempting to purge him out of itself through sheer force. It had been one of the more unfortunate expeditions he'd been on, and in the end, none of them had found what they were looking for to make the trouble they'd gone through worth it.

Viktor shook off those thoughts with a shudder. Ekko glanced back at him, brows furrowed in concern. He must have been unnerved by how silent Viktor had been the entire time, or maybe he had somehow sensed the man's unease.

"You alright?" he asked.

Viktor shook his head, smoothing his face out into a neutral expression, "How much closer are we?" he redirected.

"Not too far now," Vi answered, "You'll know when you see them."

Viktor didn't have the chance to ask who 'them' was because as soon as they rounded the corner, he got his answer.

Dozens and dozens of firelight bugs were buzzing around, producing a toxic green light from their bodies that bathed the entire tunnel in vivid color. Viktor mused idly that this must be why they named themselves the Firelights. 

"Everyone thought they went extinct." Viktor watched one whizz past him with barely contained awe, "Were they hiding down here this whole time?"

"They're one of the few things that can thrive in the pollution," Ekko said, "They hatch their eggs in the runoff and they get carried around by the pipes, dispersing them throughout the entire underground. You'll find no shortage of these guys here."

"He never misses the opportunity to monologue about them to new recruits. Everyone and the sewer rats have heard everything there is to know about the firelights." Vi said with amusement.

Ekko rolled his eyes at her without any heat, "He asked."

True to Ekko's word, more and more firelight bugs popped out from the dark the deeper they went, some even attaching themselves to their clothes, curious of these giants encroaching on their territory. The walls of the tunnel broadened, and just when Viktor was starting to get fed up with the amount of turns they were taking, the passage gave way to a large opening in the wall. Bright light filtered through from the other side, looking out of place in the rundown sewer and the bioluminescent glow of the firelight bugs. 

Viktor had to blink repeatedly at the light assaulting his vision. The presence of such light in itself was odd considering where they were. The next thing he registered―and equally odd―was the unmistakable sensation of a warm breeze washing over his skin. When his vision cleared enough for him to take in his surroundings, stretching out before him was an entirely different world.

Far from the narrow, dingy tunnels they'd traversed through to get here, on the other side of the opening led to a tall, cylindrical structure built into the sewer system. The area was illuminated by a hole at the very top, allowing the natural light to shine down on even the filthiest part of the city. The next that drew Viktor's eyes were the colorful buildings that lined the walls, seemingly constructed by whatever sturdy materials they could access; wooden planks and sheets of metal for the walls and roof, copper railings lining the sides of the bridges connecting the homes together. At the center of it all was a single sapling glimmering beneath the sun rays shining down upon it.

Viktor must have looked quite foolish the longer he stared. He could even see Vi and Ekko's amused smirks from the corner of his eye, "This...was not what I was expecting."

Vi snorted, "What, were you expecting an evil lair?"

"No, not that exactly. It's just so much more ordinary than I thought it would be. This looks more like a community than a hideout."

The pride in Ekko's voice was unmistakable, "You're right about that. Every single person you see here has lost something. Their family, their dreams, their home," he shot Viktor a meaningful look as he said the last part, "So we created a place that will accept them. None of these guys are bad people. They've made mistakes, yes, but for the most part they're all just desperate people trying to get by. That's why we do the things we do, so that the money can go to the people who actually need them."

Viktor understood―he'd never understood anything more in his life. And that was making it really hard to linger on any doubts he had for this mission. He wondered if the reason why Ekko was so quick to enlist his help was because, in his mind, Viktor was just another person in need. He would already be helping Viktor just by giving him half of the pay, but the implication that he was offering him a new home with the Firelights as well...Viktor wasn't quite sure how to feel about it. He still felt like―and was, in all respects―an outsider. He didn't think that feeling would ever go away with time.

He glanced over at Vi, who had been uncharacteristically quiet while Ekko spoke. Her eyes were distant, as if she'd retreated into to some far-off land. When she caught him looking, the shutters went back down and she shrugged one shoulder in dismissal as if to make up for the brief slip. Viktor knew better than to pry.

Ekko stuck two fingers in his mouth and blew out a shrill whistle, commanding the attention of the rest of the Firelights bustling about. Most of them had noticed Viktor right away and eyed him with blatant suspicion. But what really got Viktor was how young most of them were. Some looked the same age as Vi or Ekko, while a few might have even been younger than that.

Viktor tried to wave at one of the kids, and they gave him the middle finger.

Viktor grimaced, putting his hand back down. Okay, yep, message received. 

Their cold disposition didn't let up considerably as Ekko introduced Viktor to all of them. Ekko kept it brief and clinical, leaving out the part where Viktor had just been evicted from his home and mostly just including his expertise in his field. For that, Viktor was grateful; he wouldn't have wanted this to turn into a pity party so soon after his life got upended, and he'd rather have the Firelights trust in his skills rather than to base their opinion on him off of his misfortunes.

"So, you make maps?" a girl with similarly colored hair to Vi questioned, voice dripping with scepticism.

"That's a gross oversimplification, but yes." Viktor answered.

"And how exactly are you going to help us track down Silco?"

"Well, considering we have no way of knowing his exact location at this exact time, I can only make approximations," Viktor reached into a pouch strapped to his belt and unrolled a map of Runeterra, gesturing for the others to come closer and take a look.

"Most likely, he's in Bilgewater Bay, though how we'll get there is another challenge entirely. You see that border surrounding the island?" he pointed at the map, "That area is full of rocky cliffs jutting out of the water. When the sea is at high tide, you won't even notice them until your ship is crashing right into one. If you try to avoid them by taking the west passage, you'll come across another problem, which is the storms. These vicious things can take out an entire war vessel. They're not impossible to survive through, but if we want to make it back to shore with our ship in one piece, they are best to be avoided."

Vi heaved a sigh, "Great. So basically we're screwed either way."

"Not exactly," Viktor said, "There are ways to avoid the cliffs, which can be possible if you're travelling with a relatively small vessel. One that is also easily maneuverable." he paused, looking around, "We do have a ship, don't we?"

All the Firelights chuckled to themselves as if he'd said something outrageous. Viktor had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer.

Ekko had a smirk on his face that only spelled trouble, "Not yet." 

And that was how Viktor found himself hiding below the harbour, his limbs awkwardly contorted as he balanced himself on one of the wooden beams holding the pier aloft. One hand gripped his crutch while the other held onto the beam for dear life. All his previous thoughts of this is a bad idea this is a bad idea this is a bad idea, have since transitioned to think of the money think of the money. The first thing he was going to spend it on was a cottage in the woods. It will be a lovely cottage and he was going to have a garden in the backyard and he will never wish for any excitement in his life ever.

The rest of the Firelights were not too far, though they seemed to have a much easier time finding purchase on the beams than Viktor was. It was an odd feeling, to be the oldest person in the group while also being the most inexperienced for once―inexperienced in crime, yes, but inexperienced nonetheless.

All of them were deadly silent so as to not give their position away. The pier creaked and moaned loudly above their heads as people walked on it, and each one of them held their breaths every time someone passed by. 

Like a bubble bursting, they were alerted by panicked yelling in the distance. They all sprung into action, climbing out from under the pier―except for one boy, a Chirean named Scar, who stayed behind to give Viktor a hand and haul him up.

"Thanks." Viktor muttered, though he wasn't sure if Scar heard him over the commotion. Around them, dock workers were running about in panic while bewildered spectators gaped slack-jawed as a Frigate was detached from its cable. Vi stood at the helm, steering the vessel away from its station. Viktor was in no place to make assumptions, but he believed it wouldn't be wrong to say that the woman's many skills did not include steering a ship.

"Grab the line!" Ekko yelled from atop the deck. At his call, the other Firelights on the ship uncoiled the rope from its spool and threw it down to hang over the side of the ship. The enforcers had been called, and they were now hot on their heels, yelling at them to halt as if that would somehow make them turn around and surrender themselves.

Viktor let out a long-suffering groan. Now he was really starting to regret this.

"Alright. Suppose I just have to run for it," he muttered to himself, "I can do that."

He could not, in fact, do that. If it weren't for Scar pushing him ahead, he likely would have planted his face onto the ground. His leg burned with every movement, a crushing ache radiating from his calf to his hip, but he pushed on anyway, even as he stumbled like a newborn fawn. As he neared the rope, he glanced back, immediately regretting it when he saw that the enforcers were advancing on them.

Scar turned to him with urgency in his eyes, "Give me your crutch."

"Um...I kind of need this to move."

"Just give it to me. You can't climb up while carrying that thing."

He had a point there. Viktor reluctantly handed his crutch over to Scar. His bad leg burned with the additional weight his body was putting on it.

One by one, the Firelights climbed up the ship, hoisting themselves up. Viktor managed to grasp the end of the rope before the ship had completely drifted away from the shore. Viktor cursed as his feet were lifted off the ground, a hair's breadth away from being grabbed by one of the enforcers.

The sound of the Firelights cheering and hollering reached his ears as he hauled his exhausted body onto the deck, just barely keeping himself from collapsing into a heap on the floor. While he crouched on the ground catching his breath, the end of his crutch entered his line of sight. He looked up and registering a second later that Scar was offering his crutch back.

Viktor accepted it gratefully, "Thank you." he wheezed, still out of breath. Scar acknowledged him with a nod.

"Got your stuff," Ekko approached, lugging around the bag full of Viktor's tools over his shoulder. Among those things were a map of Runeterra, as well as a much more detailed map of Bilgewater, his compass and telescope. "You think this is everything we need?" Ekko asked.

"I believe so. And, anyway, it's a bit too late to go back for something."

"We can always steal whatever we need along the way." Ekko answered nonchalantly.

Right, bandits, how could Viktor forget.

"Hey, congratulations on your first step to becoming a Firelight." Vi called out, walking up to them with a crooked grin, "You good, though? You look like you're about to keel over."

"That's because I am." Viktor deadpanned.

Vi chuckled, "Come on, don't tell me you've already had enough. This is just the beginning."

"Vi," Ekko groaned, "Who's steering the ship?"

Vi waved a hand dismissively, "Ah, it's fine, Eve's got it."

Ekko groaned even louder and sprinted off to make sure his crew didn't crash the ship before they even got to their destination. Vi gave Viktor a brief pat on the back, before following after Ekko at a much more relaxed pace.

Viktor huffed and shook his head. He looked out into the distance, watching Piltover grow smaller and smaller, the townsfolk looking almost like ants this far away. His mind wandered to his tiny, shambling house near the docks, then to the eviction notice left abandoned on the table in his haste to leave.

All of it was miles away, separated by the blue expanse of the sea. Soon on their journey, there would be nothing but the sea. He'd be overcome with this feeling of restlessness and exhilaration before every one of his expeditions, without fail. Even after a decade, the feeling never failed to overwhelm Viktor with its intensity, doubly so now that he was uncertain of his destination―if they would even make it.

He sucked in a deep inhale, feeling the sting of sea spray go down his lungs. It felt like the first full breath he'd taken since that morning.

Chapter Text

No one told Jayce getting kidnapped would be this boring.

Time in captivity had more or less fallen into a dull routine. The fear that had once gripped him had given way to resignation, which was occasionally buffered by a flicker of hope that his captors would have a sudden change of heart. Then, in the long hours of sitting and waiting, all those emotions just kind of lost their intensity and now all that Jayce had left was pure, agonising boredom.

The room he was in was quite small, sparse in furniture or objects of any kind save for the large wooden crates piled together in the corner of the room and covered in a thin film of dust that made Jayce's nose itchy. They slid across the floor with each movement of the ship, emitting this grating noise with every squeak and rub against the floorboards. By the fifth hour or so since he'd been thrown in here, he'd gotten sick of the sight of his dull surroundings. His past time of studying the dust motes in the air had also lost its novelty, as did listening to the crates sliding along the floor. 

He could not simply look at the sky, or gauge the temperature, or see the way the light hit the water's surface to determine the passage of time. His sense of time was whittled down to the slight change in the small light creeping from the cracks in the door and the two people who would come in to bring in food occasionally. One of them was a lanky, skittish fellow who dutifully kept his gaze from lingering on Jayce's body and looked like he was seconds away from exploding whenever his eyes accidentally strayed just a bit too near the crotch area. He was the complete opposite of the other one; a tall, dark-skinned woman who wore an outer garment that draped over her left arm―or, rather, where her left arm used to be. She always had a scowl on her face, like this task was a few levels below her pay grade. Neither of them made for very good company.

The food they always delivered to him was comprised of a green sludge that might have been some sort of vegetable ('vegetable', was a word used very loosely in this context), and salty biscuits that had more in common with a slab of concrete than a baked good. Jayce had once considered spitting that awful green sludge in their faces, but the woman's glare was enough of a deterrent, and the lanky man was already so nervous all the time that Jayce pitied enough not to show him such outright disrespect.

The door slammed open, making Jayce jump. 

"Rise and shine, pup!" Jinx greeted loudly, letting the door slam shut behind her as loudly as she'd opened it.

Ah, right, there was also her.

Unlike the skittish man and the one-armed woman, whose presence was fleeting and done in haste, Jinx seemed particularly drawn to pestering Jayce.

She came in as she pleased, always greeting him with a manic grin that stretched too wide and plopping down on the ground next to him with no regard for personal space. She'd always have a peculiar gadget in her hands that Jayce had only ever seen in shipwrecks; those places were a treasure trove of artifacts that gave a glimpse into life on land, though most of what Jayce had found were encrusted with sand or submerged in the seafloor, becoming a new home for algae and fungus. Her 'inventions', as she called them, were just odd enough to pique Jayce's curiosity. If the circumstances had been different, Jayce would have loved to take them apart himself, piece by piece. 

Currently, she was tinkering with a massive firearm of some kind, its frame resembling that of the shark, with its mouth acting as the muzzle and the trigger placed where its pelvic fin should have been. It was a wonder how someone as petite as her managed to lift the barrel over her shoulder. She lovingly called this contraption 'Fishbones'. Jayce silently observed her as she fiddled with Fishbones, trying to follow along with her process, but Jinx's work style was so disorganized and chaotic that he couldn't for the life of him make sense of it. 

She seemed a little on edge this time. More...twitchy. That was the best word Jayce could find to describe her behaviour: twitchy. She couldn't seem to keep still even if her life depended on it, as if there was a bug scuttling under her clothes and she was discreetly trying to get it out without alerting anyone.

"I haven't gotten the chance to test this bad boy out. Silco says that I 'need to exercise precaution with a volatile weapon'," Jinx mocked in her best impression of Silco. She scoffed, "Pfft, sure. You know, he was the one who told me to make this. He didn't say anything about making it look like a shark, though, that was all yours truly. I think it really levels it up. Plus, sharks remind me of him. Dunno why. I guess he kinda looks like a shark, you know, with his big nose and his angry eyes. Hah!"

Jayce stared as she rambled, unimpressed. Jinx blew a raspberry at him.

"Yeah, thanks for the input. Real great conversationalist."

"You kidnapped me." Jayce reminded.

"Yeah, bummer." she sighed. Somehow, Jayce got the impression that she wasn't all that sorry about it.

Indignation rose within Jayce, "Oh, fine, please, let's make polite conversation while we ignore the fact that you and your crew took me away from my home."

Jinx huffed and rolled her eyes, "We're pirates, okay? It's what we do; steal, murder, shoot stuff. It's nothing personal. Salo offered us a bargain, and we took it. I don't even like the guy, to be honest. That Salo dickhead, I mean," she continued as if nothing happened, Her thoughts did not seem to follow a single line, but instead had the cohesion of the spilled contents of a soup bowl scattered all over the floor, "I mean, I guess it's no wonder he had to pay us off to give him his very own selkie bride since no one would want to willingly marry him otherwise. Also, he's a Piltie, so that says enough about him. We're not even technically allowed to do business with Pilties, since―"

She cut herself off, as if remembering something at the last second. She picked up the remainder of the sentence, her tone deliberately careful this time, "Since we're not allowed to."

"You already said that." Jayce pointed out. He'd heard that word, 'Piltie' being thrown around by land dwellers enough times to know that it was slang for people from Piltover. He was not well-versed enough in culture in the surface, however, to understand why Jinx threw around that word like it disgusted her.

"Oh, did I?" Jinx feigned obliviousness. She went back to tinkering with Fishbones. Without looking up, she continued, "I'm sure life as a nobleman's househusband isn't so bad. You'd be lounging around in his mansion, eating pineapples, and...doing whatever it is rich people do."

"So I'd be living in a golden cage, is what you're saying."

Jinx shrugged, "Hey, a golden cage is still gold."

"Is that all you people care about? Gold, money―those are your values?"

"Like I said, pirates."

Jayce exhaled harshly through his nose, his gaze downturned, "You don't get it. Of course you don't."

Jinx faltered, her energy dimming for just a moment. Jayce didn't know if it was a lapse in behaviour, or if it was a glimpse into the real person behind the madness. "No, I guess not, pup."

"Stop calling me that," Jayce murmured before he could think better of it, "My name is Jayce."

"Sure thing, pup." Jinx replied.

A beat passed in heavy silence. It wasn't tense, exactly―well, no more tense than any encounter with Jinx―but it was definitely uncomfortable. Jinx shook her head slightly―not in accompaniment to anything she said, rather, it seemed more like she was shaking herself back into awareness. She did that a lot, it seemed, and Jayce suspected that it wasn't a normal recurring habit shared by other humans.

Jinx twirled a screwdriver in her hand (which Jayce thought was an odd-sounding name for a tool), "You're already getting special treatment from Silco, anyways. Usually, he just lets Sevika deal with the prisoners. That ogre tends to make a mess of them by the end, so none of them really last long with us. You look pretty big, pup, but you wouldn't stand a chance against her. Just saying."

Her cheerful tone juxtaposed the casual brutality of her words. There was a perverted innocence to her, but it was akin to the innocence of a toddler tearing apart a butterfly's wings, not understanding that just because something couldn't scream it didn't mean it couldn't feel pain. Jayce fought to suppress a shudder, but Jinx still caught on to his unease. She flashed him a smile that might have been reassuring if not for the person it belonged to.

"Don't worry, pup. Sevika wouldn't harm you even if she wanted to. Silco gave everyone orders not to lay a finger on you, says he doesn't want our prized cargo to get bruised before he even reaches the buyer. She's gotta be pissed that Silco's made her a glorified lunch lady," she snickered to herself, "But, what can you do? Boss' orders."

Abruptly, she whipped her head to the side, her lips morphing into an irritated frown. Jayce followed her gaze to see what had caught her attention, but there was nothing there, only empty space. Jinx's head twitched a little, then she violently swatted the air.

Jayce was no stranger to spirits. He resided near the Eternal Ocean, east of the Serpentine Delta, where the veil between the physical world and the spiritual realm was thinner. It was not very frequent, but also not rare to catch a glimpse of a spirit when you wandering just beyond the veil. He also knew that some spirits were more shy than most, only choosing to reveal themselves to a select few. Which was why he'd assumed that there must be a spirit residing somewhere in this room, that, for some reason, only Jinx could see.

"Did they say something?" Jayce asked.

Jinx's eyes darted to him. Strangely enough, she looked a little frightened, "What?"

Jayce thought nothing of the reaction, "Oh, never mind. I suppose it couldn't be all that important," he said, trying not to sound too disappointed, "Can they hear me?"

Jinx was staring at him as if he were breathing fire out of his mouth. As if Jayce had somehow out-crazied her.

"You―You can―" suddenly, she shot up and got up close to him, brandishing a screwdriver at his face as if she were about to stab him, "How do you know they're there?" she demanded.

Jayce leaned away, startled, "Uh―"

She grasped Jayce's head in her hands, and shook it back and forth like one would an unopened present, "You're not supposed to see them too! What the hell is wrong with you?" 

"What the―Jinx!" Jayce exclaimed, trying to pry her hands off him. She stopped shaking him, but only so she could smush his cheeks together and look right into his eyes.

"I'm not a jinx!"

Her eyes were wide and frenzied, glaring―not at Jayce, no, but rather at a distant point beside him. It took Jayce a second to realise that it was not anger threaded through her expression but something more primal, like an animal trapped into a corner.

"...It's your name." Jayce said, confused.

Jinx suddenly sprang to her feet, scooped up her tools and haphazardly shoved them back in their box, then hauled Fishbones up with her free arm. She nearly dropped both in her haste. Jayce could only watch as she fled the room, startled and rendered mute by what had just occurred. 

Viktor looked through the telescope of the sextant, adjusting the index arm until the sun was in line with the horizon. Discordant noises of splashing water and harsh scrubbing filled the background as the Firelights swabbed the deck. They'd largely left Viktor alone, though whether it was out of respect or because they simply still didn't know how to approach him was up in the air. This was a familiar scene for Viktor, who often kept to himself when he'd been out on expeditions with teams of researchers and explorers, only interacting with the others to advise the team on which route to take or to relay their current course. He still did his job and he did it well, but it would be fair to say that no one ever hired him because of his pleasant company.

They'd been sailing for a day now, and so far there hadn't been any setbacks. They'd passed the river Pilt yesterday, which by itself might have seemed like they'd made substantial progress, but in reality they haven't even made a dent. It would take seven days to reach Bilgewater at their speed, provided they didn't encounter any setbacks on their journey.

Food wasn't going to be a problem, as the ship had already been fully stocked with canned food, cured meats and hardtacks. There was also no shortage of booze in the spirit room which Ekko had explicitly forbid Vi from entering. There was a story there that Viktor was not sure he wanted to know about. Viktor was a little concerned that Ekko's first priority wasn't to keep the children―who were very much capable of navigating the rooms in the ship―away from the liquor. Then again, if said children were outlaws who've stolen, fought and possibly even killed people, then Viktor supposed it would be a bit odd to suddenly draw the line at alcohol consumption.

He was still looking through the sextant when a splash of cold water soaked his feet.

He was not proud of how high he jumped in the air. He let out a series of loud expletives, barely registering the chorus of laughter from around him.

The culprit, Vi, stood before him carrying a bucket, "You know, if you're gonna be a hanger-on you could at least help us scrub the deck."

Viktor scowled, "I am helping." he gestured to his sextant, which―thankfully―had been spared from Vi's assault. He probably would've murdered someone if it had been damaged, "You realise we would have been completely lost if you got water on this, right?"

"That's why I aimed for your feet specifically." Vi pushed the bucket into Viktor's hands, "Whatever the Firelights do, we do together. That includes doing chores. And if you're gonna work with us, you're gonna have to play by our rules."

Viktor didn't really want to argue about something so asinine as if he were a child again whingeing about being forced to do chores, and in all honesty, he didn't think he'd stand a chance in a scuffle against Vi anyway. It was apparent to him that the woman still harboured distrust towards him, but her demeanor had mostly lessened to indifference and sharp jabs rather than outright hostility. Perhaps this was a test of some kind, to see if Viktor was someone she could work with instead of against. He had no problem with that; he was used to having to prove his worth to others.

With much reluctance, he stored the sextant back in its box. A dull throb in his leg had graciously announced itself since that morning, but it was nothing he couldn't bear, and it was nowhere near the teeth-gritting pain he'd felt yesterday after running from the enforcers.

Some of the Firelights had stopped to watch the exchange with clear amusement in their faces, only to studiously avert their gazes when Viktor approached, as if they hadn't just been silently making fun of him.

There was a certain kind of satisfaction in seeing a middle-aged man be brought down to their level, no doubt. Viktor thinks that if he'd been given that much power as a teenager―the ability to rise up to that level of competence, to be the person who dictated those around them and not the one being dictated―he would have probably been unstoppable and also deeply insufferable.

He rolled up his sleeves before grabbing a mop and dipping it into the bucket of water. "Do you prefer not to sing while working?" he wondered aloud.

Vi looked at him strangely, "Sing?" she questioned.

"Er, yes. You know, sea shanties. It helps keep the rhythm, or so I've heard."

"Can we try?" a boy who looked no older than fifteen piped up from Vi's side. He had bouncy curls that fell over his round face, his overgrown bangs nearly covering brown, doe-like eyes that gazed up at Vi.

Vi scratched her temple, "Uhh, sure? I don't know any sea shanties, though."

"What about that folk song? Dear Friend Across the River, wasn't it called?"

Vi suddenly stiffened. Her mouth opened and closed as if searching for something to say, before the ends curled up into a smile that seemed a little too forced, "I'm not sure about that, kid. That song's a little too gloomy for the occasion."

The boy pouted in disappointment, and turned to Viktor instead, "Do you know how to sing, Viktor?"

"I think if I sing, I'll awaken the kraken from its slumber." Viktor deadpanned.

"What's this about singing?" Ekko walked over to them, resting his hands on the top of the mop's handle.

"Viktor's gonna siiing," Eve intoned in a mock cheery lilt. She stood beside a group of girls, all the same age as her, who let out a chorus of 'oooohs' in unison before erupting in raucous laughter.

"Hey, wait a minute, I never said that." Viktor did his best to sound stern. By god, he was not going to let himself be tormented by teenagers. He was ten years the senior of at least half of the people on this ship.

Vi scoffed and nudged his arm, "Oh, come on, you were the one who brought it up in the first place. You can't just not sing."

"On second thought, we can just swab the deck in silence. No need to sing―"

"You know, Vi, you used to sing too." Ekko said with a teasing glint in his eye. Viktor owed him his life.

Vi ruffed up Ekko's hair with her knuckles, "Can it, little man," she said with faux irritation.

"Little man?" Viktor echoed, raising a brow.

Ekko looked mildly embarrassed, "It's a nickname," he explained with a shrug, while pointedly ignoring Viktor's questioning eyes the same way a kid might do when their mother called them in front of their friends. It was the sort of boyish sheepishness that made Ekko actually look his age for once; a rare, brief glimpse into the young boy behind the leader of the Firelights.

Something in Ekko's expression suddenly shifted, his eyes locked onto somewhere off in the horizon. His smile dropped, replaced by a perplexed frown.

"Uhh, hey, Viktor, have you checked the sympiesometer in a while?"

Viktor raised a brow, confused by the abrupt question, "Er, yes. Just a few minutes ago, in fact."

"Right..."

Viktor didn't understand the doubtful tone, until he noticed the shadows hanging over them. What had once been the heat of the afternoon sun bearing down their backs was replaced by a cool gust of wind, blowing on the exposed skin of Viktor's neck and ruffling his salt-dry hair. Viktor looked up at the steadily darkening sky, then turned to where Ekko had been looking moments ago. Where masses of dark cumulonimbus clouds loomed over the horizon. It might have been a trick of the eye, but Viktor could have sworn that they were colored a sickly-looking green.

"No, that can't be right." Viktor mumbled to himself.

They were still in the northern region of Valoran, where the climate was too cool to create a sea storm that big. That was not to say bad weather never a possibility―it was the goddamn weather―but it shouldn't have been anything more than light rainfall, and it definitely shouldn't look like that.

Viktor rushed to the quarterdeck as fast as he could and checked the sympiesometer hanging on the wall. Sure enough, the red line inside the tube had dropped considerably, and was only getting lower and lower by the second. His mind swirled with questions. He'd been periodically checking the sympiesometer readings for a while now, and there had been absolutely no indication of a storm approaching until now. To top it all off, the ever-present ache in his leg and back began to worsen, as if summoned by the incoming storm.

He returned to the main deck, "Looks like we're going to run into chop," he informed Ekko solemnly, "Turning back now would render all our progress moot, as the nearest landmass is sixteen hundred kilometers away. We have no choice but to sail through the storm."

Ekko nodded and turned to address the others, "Hoist the jibs!"

The Firelights sprung into action; they put away the mops and buckets, their priorities set on managing the sails. The time for jokes and levity, it seemed―short as it'd been―was over. The mainsails were in the process of being lowered, while another group had come together to pull the halyard that would hoist the jibs up the forestay. A little girl stood at the very back, struggling to grip the halyard, but still determined to help even when her feet were nearly lifting off the ground. Vi stepped in from behind, giving the girl a warm smile as she help her pull the rope. It was curious, how Vi seemed to be a natural at interacting with children.

Ekko stood a ways back, giving out commands. His expression and mannerisms did not indicate any unease for their predicament. Just as well too; it wouldn't do good for the leader's anxiety to pass on to their crew on their very first encounter with a storm.

Viktor sat down on the edge of the capstan and stretched his bad leg out in front of him. He then dug his fingers in the gastrocnemius, massaging the muscle to try and alleviate the pain. He let the moment pass in silence for a second or two, before saying, "There is something I have been intrigued about, Ekko."

Ekko turned to him with a raised brow, "What is it?"

"I recall you saying that you've never sailed a ship before, and yet, you seem to know how to manage one perfectly well. You know all the correct nautical terms, too."

Ekko shrugged, crossing his arms, "I've read a few books about the subject here and there. Didn't want to go out unprepared."

It was not an unreasonable explanation, but it was purposefully vague―practically a non-answer with how little it revealed. Viktor eyed him sceptically, but chose not to question him further on it. He gave himself a mental reminder to try and pry more out of Ekko at another time.

Ekko's eyes flitted to Viktor massaging his leg, then to his crutch, "Sorry if this is a stupid question, but that's not gonna rust, is it?"

Viktor suppressed a smile, spotting the deflection as if it were a stain on white fabric. Nevertheless, he answered genuinely, "It's a reasonable thing to ask. It's made with aluminum, so it won't rust per say. I'm more worried about corrosion. I would have commissioned it to be made with Noxian steel, but, eh, it's much too expensive."

"You can use the prize money to get the steel after this."

"Eh, we'll see. I've grown quite attached to the one I have now."

"Well, if the storm is as big as you say, you might have to worry about what that's gonna do to the metal."

Viktor shrugged, "Large storms are rather unusual in North Valoran. I have faith that this will pass quickly."

This statement, he'd soon come to realise, was going to solidify itself as one of the stupidest things he'd ever said or done.

The number one spot was when, on his first day at the Academy, he'd worriedly suggested his seatmate to go to the nurse's office to have her nosebleed treated, only to be promptly informed that it was not a nosebleed but in fact very large a mole beneath her nostril. After which Viktor had endured an incredibly awkward and all around unpleasant week before he finally caved and burst into his professor's office, politely requesting (i.e. begged) that he change his seating arrangement.

Now this―this had to be number two.

Because the storm did not 'pass', nor did it do so in a manner that was 'quick', as evidenced by the torrential rain and the thirty-foot-tall chop coming at their ship with murderous intent. Some stray fish had been thrown on board by rogue waves, and were now flopping around the deck like an epileptic worm. The wind was so strong that it was pushing their ship along without them having to steer the ship―which, if you were to reach really hard, could probably be construed as the one positive thing about this predicament apart from maybe the free fish that they could cook for dinner later.

As he and Ekko clung onto the wheel for dear life, Viktor thought nothing could possibly compound this already awful situation.

Until Ekko shouted over the pouring rain, "This will pass quickly, huh?"

If Viktor weren't going to be thrown off board, he would have let go of the wheel just so his hands were free to strangle Ekko.

His crutch was precariously nestled beneath his armpit, and if it fell from his grasp at any point, he was going to lose it.

There were twelve others on watch, tasked with either hauling the rigging or keeping watch on the starboard and larboard side from the top. Those who were staying at the bottom had pinned themselves against the bulwark. Vi in particular had been one of the people pulling the jib sheets, until the ship took a big wave that caused her and a few others to be thrown into the starboard side, and now none of them wanted to move from their position and risk the same happening again. The rest of their crew were in the lower decks making repairs so that water didn't make its way inside the ship. 

Prior to getting absolutely bodied by the wave, Vi had produced a flare gun from her belt holster and fired it into the sky. The conditions were less than ideal for firing a flare, and the rain made it so the flare had only stayed up for less than twenty seconds. Hopefully that was long enough for someone to see it. Now there really was nothing left to do but to hang on until the storm cleared. Provided none of them fell off, or got struck by lightning, or got their ship destroyed by chop.

"Unknown vessel off the starboard bow!" Scar yelled from the topmast.

Ekko looked up at her, blinking away the rainwater getting caught in his eyelashes, "Do they have their flag up?"

"Can't tell through the fog." Scar said apologetically.

Viktor transferred his crutch to his left side, freeing his right hand to take out his telescope from his belt pouch. He extended the tube, and peered into the eyepiece. Dark clouds and obsidian waves stretching out in every direction was the only sight that greeted him, and for a moment―though illogically―he was almost underwhelmed.

Then he saw it. A few hundred yards away, obscured by a thick cloud of mist, was the silhouette of another ship gliding over the waves. Sailors would tell tall tales of ghost ships being operated by an undead crew, aimlessly wandering the sea in pursuit of whatever would make for a good ghost story. They could have been sailing to Trannit to get a taste of authentic Bolbo head soup for all they knew. Viktor had never been impressed by those tales, but as he stared, awestruck, at the visage of the ship, he was almost compelled to look back on those stories in a new light.

The mist was so thick that he couldn't make out any of the vessel's distinguishing features, but what he could see clearly was its size. The ship was a behemoth compared to their Frigate, most likely a Galleon or a Ship of the Line. Viktor knew he should have felt relief that someone had seemingly seen their flare, but the longer he looked, the more puzzled he became. The ship did not look at all like it was struggling against the waves―in fact, he would almost describe is as serenely bobbing on the water as if it were leisurely sailing on a pleasant summer day. Despite the uncanny feeling that gripped Viktor, he honestly felt a bit envious.

Vi was trying to tell them something, though the specifics of what she was saying were drowned out by the cacophony of rain and thunder and wind. Unlike Scar―whose Chirean traits allowed him to easily detect everyone's voices from over six meters above and vocalize loudly so he could be heard from far away―Vi was, unfortunately, fully human.

"What?" Ekko yelled.

Vi said something again, accompanied this time by aggressive gestures with her free hand that could either mean that she was trying to draw their attention to something or that she had recently gotten a pet pigeon that had a penchant for biting her fingers.

"What?!" Ekko repeated.

"I think she's saying that she got a pet pigeon." Viktor yelled.

Ekko squinted at him, "Okay?"

Vi smacked a hand over her forehead and let out the one noise Viktor could discern with clarity; an irritated groan. Realising that verbal communication was a lost cause, Vi held up her flare gun, then turned it up at the sky, jabbing it upwards repeatedly as she mouthed words with exaggeration.

A lightbulb sparked in Viktor's head, and he shot upright, "She's saying she can use the flare to give us light!" he told Ekko.

Ekko squinted again, processing the words, before his eyes widened with comprehension. He locked eyes with Vi, and nodded his assent. Vi loaded the flare gun with a second round and shot it.

The flare launched into the air, bringing along with it a streak of red light that cut through the overcast sky like a stroke of paint. The sky, dull and grey just moments ago, now looked as if it were on fire.

And with a loud pop, the ship was illuminated in a burst of red. The figurehead at the bow was the first thing that drew Viktor's eye. It was a wooden sculpture of a kraken, its tentacles stretching out towards the beak as if it was latching itself on. On its head bore five eyes and a maw that stretched open to reveal several sharp teeth.

It took a second for Viktor to realise what the figurehead resembled. He remembered stumbling across its likeness while scouring through the reference section in the Academy's library, coming across a tome detailing the different deities and religions from other parts of Runeterra―Nagakabouros, also known as the Mother Serpent to her followers, though some might call her the Great Kraken, the Bearded Lady, goddess of life, growth, and perpetual motion.

It was only when his gaze lifted and he saw the Jolly Roger flowing in the wind. But instead of the generic skull with crossbones, it was the letter S curved into a shape that resembled an eye. The symbol was easily recognisable, one that would make any sailor just about piss their pants at the sight of it. 

Viktor saw it dawn on all the Firelights, the realisation that what they had run into was not a ghost ship nor an ordinary vessel that had seen their flare and come to their aid out of the goodness of their hearts. But it was, in fact, the very pirate ship they were hunting for, and whom they had just revealed their location to.

A thought occurred to Viktor just then: They really should not have fired that flare.

Then the flare sputtered out, and darkness fell over them once again. Despite the roaring sea and the sound of fish smacking their wet, scaly bodies on the deck, it almost felt as if the very air around them had settled into an uneasy stillness. That lasted for about three seconds, before a deafening boom shattered the quiet.

"Get down!"

Ekko yanked Viktor down by the collar right as something sailed past their heads and crashed into the deck just a few feet away. The Firelights clamored as the already unstable ground rocked beneath their feet. Luckily, no one had gotten hit, but the impact sent bits of wooden planks scattering everywhere. Viktor turned his head away before any splinters could slice through his face.

The impact was too small to be a cannonball, and the line of fire was all wrong. If it were fired from a cannon, its point of origin should have been lower; cannonballs were too heavy to be able to sail high enough to go over them and land perfectly on the quarterdeck. Besides, Viktor was pretty sure he would have felt the weight of a forty-two-pound ball of iron as it landed.

Ekko cursed under his breath, "You've got to be kidding me," he then turned to address one of the Firelights; a tall, gangly boy with golden curls that would have haloed around him like a puffy cloud were it not soaked by the rain, "Gabriel, tell everyone inside to get the gun deck ready." 

"Aye." the boy replied, then climbed down the hatch.

"How close?" Ekko asked Viktor once Gabriel had gone.

"About eight-hundred yards away, turning seventy-five to ninety degrees to the wind."

"Abeam to starboard!" Ekko yelled. At his signal, the Firelights began pulling the jib sheets and adjusting the jibs' angle.

"Ready!" 

Ekko and Viktor steered the wheel. The bow of the ship turned so that the waves were hitting them on the starboard side, bringing them closer to The Eye for it to be within their cannon's range.

Viktor pushed down a growing feeling of apprehension. He was a cartographer; he charted directions, constructed maps and diagrams by his own hand, and had an endemic knowledge of Runeterra's geography. He did not engage in naval warship, nor was he an expert battle strategist.

A loud, distinctly feminine cackle managed to penetrate through the raging storm. Through the fog, Viktor could faintly make out a person's silhouette standing at The Eye's bow, carrying what appeared to be...a shark?

Viktor squinted, staring at the figure with vicious intent. The longer he looked at it, the more certain he was that, yes, that was indeed a shark. He was about to point out the absurdity to Ekko when they fired again. At that moment, Viktor was graced with two revelations: The first one was that it was not a real shark, but rather a rocket launcher shaped like a shark. The second was that they very well could die from a shark-shaped rocket launcher. That would be kind of funny to put on his gravestone.

A blast from below shook the very floor beneath their feet, and made Viktor's ears ring for a few seconds afterwards. It was accompanied by the telltale stench of smoke and sulfur brought by burnt gunpowder, briefly overpowering the smell of rain and seawater. Viktor was impressed by how quickly Gabriel had gathered the gun crew.

Instead of all the cannons in the starboard side firing en masse, only two of their cannons were being utilized. Every ship, even a small Frigate like theirs, would usually have hundreds of men operating the gunnery; there would be different people tasked with preparing the ammunition, lighting the gunpowder, moving the cannons in place, and so on. But the Firelights were made up of only thirty people in total, less than half of which were up here and not down there. 

But Ekko had already known that. Which was why, rather than a normal iron ball, the projectiles were instead tin canisters that exploded into several smaller iron balls upon firing. The projectiles rained down on The Eye, battering its hull and tearing a few holes in its sails.

The assailant retaliated by destroying a portion of the gunwale in their next shot. Water rushed freely from the holes blown through the protective barrier, flooding a portion of the deck. The rapid flow of seawater caused the deck to turn into a make-shift slide. Some held on to the rigging, others had caught themselves on the capstan.

As the ship crested another wave, Vi lost her footing, and before she knew it she was quickly sliding down the deck.

He didn't even have the chance to alert anyone when a great CRACK! sliced through the air.

The main mast splintered apart, halving itself from below the topmast. Vi's eyes went wide in horror, and she took off in a sprint. She stretched out her hand and tried to grab the shrouds, but the rope slipped away from her palm. There was a split second where Viktor saw Scar cover Eve's body with his own, before the mast toppled over the ship. 

"No!" Ekko cried out.

Viktor braced himself, knowing that he could only watch helplessly as they crashed into the water. With the strength of the waves, there was no chance of them being able to stay afloat. He knew the same thought was running through each of the Firelights' minds.

But they all forgot, in that moment, just how tall a ship's mast was. A fact that only dawned on them when the topgallant crashed over The Eye's deck. 

In the distance, that same feminine voice let out a shriek, "God fucking damnit! What the fuck!"

But to Viktor's ears, it sounded more like,

"G――ing――fuck!"

The mast floated on the sea, bobbing rhythmically along with the waves like a message in a bottle. Something stirred beneath the surface, nearly indistinguishable from the sea foam that had formed when the mast fell into the water. Viktor unconsciously held his breath. 

Seconds later, brown fur and a shock of red hair surfaced above the waves. Scar and Eve were both clinging to the topsail yard, coughing and sputtering out seawater; but impossibly, wonderfully alive.

Cheers broke out around the ship. Viktor expelled all the air that had been building up in his lungs; he felt like he could breath again.

"Line," Ekko blurted out, with the voice of someone who'd just recovered from cycling through a dozen different emotions at high speed, "We need to toss them a line!"

Scar and Eve were fighting valiantly to keep their heads from getting submerged, but it would only be a matter of time before they were overwhelmed. A line―light enough to not sink down yet heavy enough that it wouldn't get blown away by the wind―was uncoiled and thrown as far as possible, but the length was not quite long enough to completely close the distance. Eve let go of the yardarm in favour of holding onto the mast instead. She carefully moved herself along the length with both hands, until she got close enough to the line that she could stretch her arm out and grab the end of it, then yank on it for Scar to able to reach. 

Movement on The Eye drew Viktor's gaze. He could see a number of shadowy figures emerging from the forecastle. Viktor took out his telescope again, trying to see what was going on out there, but the mist revealed little more than the outline of bodies and blurry features; it was like looking through a window made from stained glass, or like those impressionist paintings he'd seen while wandering aimlessly in Piltover's museum while trying not to make it too obvious that he was starting to doze off. He tried to look for that gunman among the crowd, searching for their distinct shark-shaped weapon, but no such luck.

A glint of red flickered out of the corner of his eye (eyepiece, technically). It was so small, merely a pinprick in his vision. Viktor paused, then adjusted the lens again, trying to locate the source of that red light. He could hear the others hauling Scar and Eve closer, inch by inch. But Viktor wasn't focused on that.

The red light appeared again. This time, it was in Viktor's direct line of sight―unmoving, watching. Then Viktor noticed the thin figure standing behind the light―no, not behind. It was who the light belonged to. 

And Viktor realised that was not a light at all. It was their left eye.

Viktor's blood went cold. At that moment, he understood why Silco became so infamous for his red eye.

"Ekko," he called, voice a little unsteady, "It, eh, it appears that Silco has come out of his hiding place."

Ekko's brows shot up to his forehead. Beside him, Vi went deathly pale.

"Can you see what he's doing right now?" Ekko asked.

"He's just...looking right at me."

"What?"

And that was about all the two of them could say. Because not even a second after that, The Eye's cannons fired at them.

He tried not to make it veritably clear that he was unused to walking around in land clothes. The man's shirt and pants were a bit of a tight fit around Jayce's frame but were otherwise similar enough in size to not be much of a problem. The sensation of fabric rubbing against his skin and shoes constricting his feet would take a bit of getting used to, however. As a seal, Jayce had no use for clothes, his coat serving as enough protection and insulation. He didn't wear any garments in his human form either, since he'd only be out of his coat for a short while before diving back into the sea.

A few crew members passed him by with a sort of single-mindedness in their steps, seeming to be in a hurry to get somewhere. None of them paid Jayce any mind, nor did they seem to notice how he carried himself like a bunch of scuttle crabs in a trench coat.

This section of the ship he'd found himself in seemed to act as a storage. Lining the walls were small cubicles much like the room they'd confined him in, but for the most part it was an open space that housed large barrels, sacks filled with some sort of powder, and ropes and cables of varying thickness. The low ceiling was held aloft by thick, wooden beams which Jayce had to crouch beneath to prevent his head from bumping into. 

Jayce spared a glance around himself to check that no one was watching, before peering through one of the cubicles. There was nothing of note inside; a small cot pushed to the far side of the wall, a wooden chest filled with someone's clothes and personal affects, and a small bookshelf. The other rooms were much of the same, with only slight differences in the furniture...and no sign of his coat. He was about to try his luck with the last cubicle in the aisle when a voice stopped him.

"Oi, what are ye doing in front of the carpenter's store room?" a grizzled, bearded man yelled at Jayce, startling him nearly a foot into the air. There was no recognition in his eyes even as he stared right at Jayce, and the reason for why became imminently clear; his right eye was milky-white, clouded over like the surface of a brine pool. 

Jayce let go of the doorknob as if it burned him, "Uh, nothing," he immediately kicked himself for giving the most suspicious answer possible, "Just looking for―" my coat "―supplies?"

Before the flimsy excuse had even left his mouth completely, the old man was already grabbing him by the collar and all but dragging him up the steps. Immediately after they ascended, Jayce nearly got pushed to the floor by someone.

A quiet sense of panic overtook him as he realised that he'd just walked into a scene of pure bedlam. The crew was either running around in a frenzy or shouting at each other or both. The cannons which lined the entire stretch of the side of the ship were being moved around, people were carrying bags of what Jayce just now realised was gunpowder, there were balls made from pure iron piled up on low platforms. Tied to each cannon were thick ropes the same diameter of Jayce's forearm, the purpose of which was not immediately clear to Jayce. Jayce could only stand by the wayside, struck dumb, just trying not to get trampled in the commotion.

"Fire!" a voice bellowed.

A round of blasts rocked the ship, and Jayce wobbled on his feet. The strength of the recoil caused the wheels below each cannon to careen backwards. Jayce realised that the ropes were there to keep them from rolling too far away. 

"Dinnae be so glaikit, git yer arse tae work!" the old man yelled.

"Uh, right―On it, s-sir."

He fought back a wince at his stiff tone. He took a step forward, then retracted that step almost immediately, completely clueless as to what he was supposed to do. A heavy bag was shoved into his hands and rough hands steered him by the shoulders to push him towards one of the cannons.

Jayce was hit with the unfortunate fact that he had not thought this through.

His hands were sweating so much that he almost feared they would soak through the bag. That was one of the things he disliked about being in his human form, other than how sensitive he was to the cold like this; it was the frankly disgusting amount of sweat it could produce. He pitied the humans who had to deal with this every day.

He only realised how long he'd been standing there completely silent when the bearded man snapped at him again, "Are ye gunnae put it in the barrel or what?"

Jayce looked down―he assumed that the barrel was referring to the opening inside the cannon. He hefted the bag, then delicately placed it in the mouth of the cannon. He stepped back and chanced a glance up at the crew members to see their reactions, hoping for an indication that he'd done it correctly. Judging by the befuddled, almost appalled look on their faces, he did not.

"I, um, I'll just―" he moved to take back the bag and redo it, but a hand on his wrist stopped him. Jayce's eyes ascended from the person's hand all the way to their face, and felt all the color drain from his face so fast that his head spun.

Glaring down at him was that very same woman who brought him his meals―Sevika, Jinx called her.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded.

Jayce tried for his most charming, not-at-all-suspicious smile, "Firing the cannons?"

Sevika's scowl deepened; it was a look that could make melting glaciers refreeze themselves. Jayce could feel the weight of wary, hostile eyes boring into the back of his head.

His saviour came in the form of an explosion rattling the entire ship. Splinters were sent flying through the air, one managing to graze Jayce on the cheek. Sevika's grip loosened for a moment, offering a split second window. Jayce tore himself away and ran, shoving his way through the throng of people scrambling from the devastation of the blast. He didn't need to look behind him to know that Sevika was hot on his trail.

His mouth kept moving even as he ran for his life, "Miss, I don't know why you're chasing me, but I promise I'll be better at firing the cannons next time."

"Why are you still trying to lie?"

Jayce didn't really know where he was going―truly, he had no destination in mind more specific than 'far away from her'. He felt blood dripping from the cut on his cheek, but he didn't spare a second to wipe it away. Once or twice, he'd stumble over his own steps, and he cursed the death traps that these people called shoes.

He took a sharp turn for the stairs and ran up the steps, driven by pure, adrenaline-powered instinct. The top of the stairs ended at a hatch made up of wooden grating. Through the square openings, Jayce caught a glimpse of some sort of tarp covering the outside. Jayce pushed the hatch open, nearly sending it flying off its hinges in his franticness. The tarp came loose in the process and fell over the top steps in a heap.

Just then, he felt the air behind him stir. He dodged out of the way, and a metal hand shot out beside him, barely an inch away from his head. It lodged itself into the top step, the force of it splintering it into two.

Sevika stood at the bottom of the stairs. The outer garment she usually wore had been pulled back, fully displaying her prosthetic arm. Jayce blinked in shock, having never seen anything quite like it. It was a bulky assemblage of bronze and teal metal, with all the joints and components to imitate the general shape of an arm without actually trying to fool anyone. A glowing purple liquid streamed inside, pumping through the limb like capillaries. Its appearance gave it the impression that it was not built for the purposes of acting as if it were a normal limb, but to horrifically maim.

"You wouldn't want to go up there," the corner of Sevika's lips turned up in a sharp, humourless smile, "The moment you pop your pretty little head out, Jinx is going to blow you to smithereens with her new toy. And trust me, you wouldn't want to try your luck with her in the state she's in."

The metal claws unhinged itself from the step, then retracted its length.

"So I'll give you one last warning, come with me without any fuss, and maybe you'll have all of your limbs intact."

Jayce recalled what Jinx had told him earlier. Despite the dangerous edge to Sevika's voice, Jayce knew she couldn't truly harm him―not that extensively, anyway.

"Alright, I-I admit, I'm not very good at the cannons, but isn't this taking it a step too far―"

Sevika looked at him blanky, "Why are you still trying to convince me? I already know who you are."

As she was saying that, Jayce's hand snuck behind his back and snatched the tarp off the ground. He threw it at Sevika, who tore through it like wet paper.

Everyone flattened themselves on the ground as bits of wood and burnt gunpowder rained on them. The destruction was much more absolute than when it had only been the one person firing their rocket launcher. Viktor almost missed that cackling, trigger-happy maniac.

"Fuck!" Vi thumped her fist on the ground in frustration, "They decide to start firing their cannons now?"

Even in the chaos surrounding them, it didn't stop Ekko from clambering across the floor, evading falling splinters and ropes, and grasping the line before it could slide off the ship. Scar and Eve were still in the water―closer than before, sure, but still in danger of getting washed away by the unforgiving sea. It would only be a matter of minutes before their bodies became exhausted and they lost the energy to keep themselves afloat. 

Vi suddenly grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him towards her, "Viktor, you said you saw Silco?"

"Yes, I―"

"Where?"

Before Viktor could give any proper answer, Vi pried the telescope out of his hand and looked into the eyepiece. Viktor could pinpoint the exact moment when she spotted Silco; her shoulders tensed, jaw hardening to the point that Viktor worried she'd chip a tooth. She threw the telescope to the side as if it had burned her. There was a fire in her eyes that wasn't there before, a fury burning so hot that it could have evaporated the raindrops in her vicinity. 

Viktor's heart nearly fell to his stomach at her careless handling of his telescope. That was his baby, "Don't do that! What is wr―"

His concerns about his telescope were immediately overshadowed when Vi held up her flare gun and fired it.

Not at the sky. At The Eye.

At Silco.

Viktor shouted at her to stop, but the shot had already catapulted out of the barrel. However, the flare did not hit Silco. Instead, it hit someone else on the deck―a male, based on the scream they let out as the flare knocked them off board and sent them plummeting into the sea. A scream that decidedly did not sound like Silco at all (Viktor didn't actually know what Silco sounded like, he'd never heard the man speak, but he did have a preconceived idea on what his voice should sound like: i.e. Not that)

New rule: Vi was no longer allowed to handle long-range weapons. This rule was placed right beside not letting Vi steer the ship.

Ekko turned to Vi, horrified at what she'd tried to do, "What the hell were you thinking?!"

Vi bowed her head―not in regret, but with the air of someone who knew they were about to get their arse torn into and was not in the mood for it, "Shit." she muttered.

"You didn't even get him! You shot some other guy."

"Oh, yeah, and what was I supposed to do instead?" Vi bit back, "Let Silco get away a second time? Just lie here while they keep firing at us?"

Another round of blasts struck them.

Vi held her hand out, "Like that!"

It occurred to Viktor just then that the mast smashing into The Eye was one of the worst things that could've happened to them. Though the mast had completely split from the ship, the cordage tethering it to the ship hadn't. This kept it, and by extension Scar and Eve, from being swept away by the sea. But they were also stuck, unable to evade Silco's attacks or sail in any direction so long as the ropes were still connecting them to the mast. It was dead weight.

If they cut the ropes, they would be freeing their ship, and thus be able to get away, but it would be at the cost of losing Scar and Eve. Viktor wouldn't let that happen. It didn't matter if he'd only known these people for a day and a half, he refused to let the Firelights lose their comrades.

Viktor scanned his surroundings, his eyes roaming over scattered wooden parts, ropes severed from the rigging―then, he saw it.

"Ekko! Give me the line."

Ekko furrowed his brow, "What? Why?"

"Just do it!"

Whatever Ekko saw in Viktor's face was enough to convince him to hand over the rope. Viktor took it, then got up from his position. He could hear people calling his name, yelling at him to get down unless he wanted to get hit by a cannon blast. Viktor ignored them.

He made his way to the system of ropes and pulleys near the rigging. He threaded the line through the bight attached to the block and tackle. The tackle on a ship was usually used for lifting cargo and heavy loads, but, well, no one ever said they couldn't be used to lift people.

"Please work, please work." he muttered to himself like an orison directed at a deity he'd never worshipped. But if this plan bore fruition, he just might consider worshipping. He looked around him, "I need some hands!"

Ekko came first, but not without sparing him a curious look at what he was planning, then Vi joined, then a few others. All of them grabbed the rope.

"Scar, Eve, you still in there?"

"Yes!" Scar answered.

"Yeah! Fuck, it's freezing down here." Eve tried for a joking tone despite the situation.

"I need you two to grab on tight. This might be a bit of a shock."

"A bit of a wh-woah!" Eve's inquiry was cut short as she and Scar were lifted with the combined strength of a dozen or so people. The ascent was made quicker with the block to aid them. Viktor could not be much help in pulling the rope, but he was at least there to stand near the edge of the ship, ready to assist Scar and Eve up the deck.

Just a little more. They were already coming up the hull. Just a little more, they were so close.

Viktor reached out his free hand to Eve, the other clutching his crutch, and helped her up. She didn't weigh much, thankfully, granting a bit of mercy to his back. Scar, however, was another story.

He grasped Scar's hand just as he did with Eve. However, just as Viktor was about to pull him up, Silco decided this was the perfect time to fire. The ship shook with the barrage, knocking Viktor off his feet.

Time felt like it slowed to a stop. Viktor could recount what happened in the five seconds that mattered. One, his body began to lean to the side. Two, he tightened his grip on Scar's hand. Three, with a strength he didn't know he was capable of, he tugged Scar forward and onto the deck.

Four, Viktor's feet slipped off the edge. Five, he was falling.

There's a saying that your life flashes before your eyes before you die. Moments from your childhood, the last time you said 'I love you' to your parents, all the things you didn't say, and all the things you said but didn't mean. All played out before your very eyes like flipping through a picture book.

But in that moment, all that ran through Viktor's mind was,

AAAAAAAAAAAAH

Chapter Text

When Viktor was a child, he had a toy boat that he was unreasonably attached to. While other children usually kept a blanket or a stuffed animal around their persons, Viktor had a miniature boat he made from scrap metal and miscellaneous parts he'd scrounged from garbage bins outside shops with his own tiny, nail-bitten hands. Perhaps it was by some stroke of luck that his childhood home was placed only a few blocks away from where Piltover's aqueducts expelled streams of water into a cavern dug deep into the earth. At the bottom of the cavern lay a shallow lake that branched out into smaller streams of water, enclosed by a network of tunnels long-since smoothed down by soil erosion and weathering.

If one knew where to look, they would find many caverns like these all over Piltover. Some of them had bridges built over them or been drilled into mining pits, like a bandage slapped over a scar, not so that it would heal, but so that you wouldn't have to look at it anymore. It was said that the peculiar geological features were a result of a series of earthquakes―historical records estimated it to be just shy of a century ago, although an exact date was not recorded―that had not only obliterated the isthmus connecting Valoran and Shurima, but also formed deep fissures in the earth and shrunk major cities in Shurima. Eventually, the surviving citizens had gathered whatever resources were still available and set on rebuilding, until eventually the decimated swath of land became Piltover as everyone knew it.

The path leading to the bottom of the cavern was steep, the soil lumpy and soft from the moisture in the air. Despite that, Viktor had traversed it time and time again thanks to sheer stubbornness and a mind that couldn't be contained inside his sickly body. He wouldn't even go there to swim. No one swam there; the water was murky and tinged an alarming shade of green reminiscent of brackish water, and the seabed was littered with sharp rocks that poked the soles of your feet like tiny knives. Instead, he went down the green lake to take his boat out for a ride.

Everyday he would dedicate his time to perfecting a fully-working miniature boat, then he would bring the newest prototype with him and let it drift into the sea. He never could get the boat to stay afloat for very long. The propellers would always sputter out and die with a pathetic whine, or water would get inside some hole that Viktor could've sworn had only materialised the moment he tried to use the boat.

His long-suffering mother would advise him against spending so long out there, and would tell him folk tales about the dangers that lie in the waters. Stories about sailors being lured to their deaths by sirens, whirlpools dragging swimmers into the bottom of the ocean, a giant serpent that lurks underwater. Viktor would nod along and say with solemnity, 'Yes, mama. Of course, mama' and then he would be back at the lake again the next day. He was responsible for a good portion of the grey hairs on his mother's head.

(The rest of his mother's grey hairs were thanks to his father, who―just as Viktor was obsessed with his boat―had a compulsive habit of playing his favorite records on the phonograph at wee hours to lull himself to sleep. This, of course, had the opposite effect on the other two occupants in the house. Viktor would have buried his father with his beloved phonograph if he could, but the damn thing wouldn't fit in the coffin.)

He could never say exactly why he was so fixated on this boat. Perhaps he just wanted to accomplish one thing, to prove to himself that even though he couldn't play with the other kids or throw a punch or defend himself against schoolyard bullies, he could still make something of value.

Or perhaps it was for the simplest of reasons; because boats were just really cool.

He liked watching from the docks as the vessels took sail, wondering what it would be like if it were him at the helm. Or not even steering the ship but just being there, feeling the wind rushing past him, looking back and seeing how far he had gone from the shore. At eleven years old, he believed it would be the closest thing he could ever get to knowing what it was like to run.

He wouldn't know until twenty years later that sailing a ship...kind of stank, actually.

~~~

Cold.

That was the very first thing Viktor registered as he plunged into the water. Harsh, all-encompassing cold that seized his lungs.

Viktor nearly sucked in a desperate gasp for air, purely out of instinct, but he managed to stop himself at the last second. Get to the surface, his mind screamed at him. Get to the surface, now.

There was no sense or grace in his movements at first. He had a basic understanding of swimming, but he had never gone anywhere deeper than shallow coastal waters, and the Academy hadn't exactly been handing out swimming lessons because the professors automatically put faith in their students' swimming skills the same way they put faith in their ability to walk and breathe.

His limbs were burning with the physical exertion. The brace hugging his leg felt heavier, bogged down by the water seeping into its crevices and soaking through the leather straps that held it in place. He knew he would only waste precious oxygen trying to get the brace off; he'd have to undo the straps, then unlatch the metal parts supporting his calf and his knee.

Viktor could hear the muffled sounds of gunfire from underwater, growing louder the closer he made it to the surface. His head surfaced into the open air, and his whole body shook with a series of rattling coughs as it tried to expel the water that had made its way down his nostrils and his esophagus. The process of getting it out honestly hurt more than when they got in. Gods above, it was freezing. He didn't know how Scar and Eve were able to endure this for so long.

Looking around, he realised with a start that he was much farther from the ship than he ought to be. If Viktor squinted, he could see the Firelights above deck waving their arms at him and yelling things he was too far away to understand. Viktor was unsure whether he should wave back or holler a question about what it was they were trying to tell him.

His head ducked back into the water as another wave crashed over him. Wooden debris floated all around him like dust motes in the air. Every so often another chunk from either of the ships would plunge into the water, enveloped in a cocoon of bubbles that dissolved in the water as quickly as they had formed. The sight was deceptively beautiful, the muffled explosions barely penetrating through the water gave the impression of separation to the chaos of the outside world. And then Viktor spotted something else in the water that was distinctly not debris or a particularly large chunk of a ship's hull.

To his astonishment, there was a man a little farther away. His eyes were shut as if he were peacefully sleeping, his body lax as he sank deeper and deeper. There was an open wound near his hairline, oozing fresh blood that curled into the water like wisps of smoke.

Then Viktor remembered, when Vi had fired that flare it had knocked off some faceless man over the deck. He froze for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth between the sinking man and the ocean's undulating surface up above.

The man's fate was almost certainly sealed anyway. He could've been out for mere seconds or minutes, but there was no telling how much water he'd already inhaled while unconscious. He was almost certainly a part of Silco's crew, so it might even be in Viktor's best interest to let him drown.

It wouldn't even count as taking a life, would it? It wasn't like he was actively drowning the poor guy, he'd just be turning away. It wasn't Viktor's responsibility, even though he was the only one around and with the full ability to save him...

He almost sighed, except there was no way to do so without swallowing seawater.

Fuck it.

He swam back up to the surface, but only to take one big gulp of air before diving back underwater.

He was perfectly aware of how monumentally stupid this was. His mother used to always tell him: If you get the urge to do something potentially stupid, give yourself a time frame of twenty seconds to think about it before you do that thing. Viktor, not for the first time and certainly not the last, directly disobeyed his mother's advice. If she knew what he was doing, her grave turning would have single-handedly accelerated the planet's rotation.

The benefit with keeping his leg brace on was that it made it much faster to make his way down. As he bridged the distance, he could make out more of the stranger's appearance; he had an angular face, a sharp jaw beneath his scruffy beard, and hair as black as ink floating around his head like a halo. He appeared to be a good foot taller than Viktor, and of a significantly larger build―which proved to be a bit problematic as Viktor hooked his arm around the man's waist and carried him up. The buoyancy of the saltwater only helped to an extent, as if it were saying, 'You decided to save him, you do all the work'.

Viktor had to leave one arm free to paddle up the water, expending a not insignificant amount of effort in carrying the man with him. More then halfway up, his chest began to ache, nearly convulsing with the urge to inhale.

He could hear the gunfire again. They were almost there. If they could both just held out a little longer―

A gasp clawed its way out of Viktor's throat the second he popped his head out of the water. The first breath felt even more painful than it did last time. He pulled the man's chin above the water, and placed slightly trembling fingers over his neck. Viktor held his breath for an entirely different reason now.

Although very faint, he could feel a pulse pumping beneath his fingers. He closed his eyes for a brief moment and heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn't all for nothing after all.

He scanned his surroundings, eyes passing over the bits of lumber bobbing along the waves, until spotting a large segment of spar. Viktor lifted the man up a bit higher, moving so his head was lightly resting on Viktor's chest, then swam towards the spar. With a grunt, he hefted the man's limp body onto it. Mere seconds after he settled, the man began to slide back into the water.

Viktor cursed loudly and pulled him back up by the shoulders. He laid the man on his back, double-checking, and triple-checking too while he was at it, that he wasn't going to fall off this time.

As far as he was concerned, Viktor liked to think he did a pretty good job at the whole rescuing thing considering he had zero experience in saving anything beyond the occasional stray cat.

The wound on his forehead didn't look deep. The flare hadn't seemed to penetrate any deeper than the skin, and it wasn't actively bleeding anymore. It was starting to swell, however. Viktor winced with sympathy; he didn't imagine submerging an open wound in saltwater felt very pleasant.

As he was observing the man's injury, something made Viktor pause. The adrenaline of the situation had made him block out anything else that wasn't important to ensuring both of their survival, so he hadn't exactly had the capacity to observe the man's appearance. Now, however, Viktor was able to truly look. And he couldn't stop looking.

He became unfortunately aware of the swell of muscles visibly straining beneath the man's damp clothes―something which had only been a nuisance to Viktor as he was carrying the man up the water was now something Viktor had to begrudgingly appreciate. The man's bronze skin, which might have glittered like gold under a sunny sky, looked almost sallow in the foggy sea. His hair was plastered to the nape of his neck and the sides of his face, giving the impression of a stray dog left out in the rain. And he was the most beautiful person Viktor had ever laid his eyes on.

He felt like he was staring at a marble sculpture placed in Piltover's Museum of Arts; striking yet unreal, only ever brought to life by someone else's salacious and―depending on which artist had created the sculpture―borderline vulgar imagination.

Viktor supposed he ought to be feeling like a valiant hero after saving this impossibly beautiful stranger, but he felt none of that. Mostly, he just felt cold. And wet.

He lightly slapped the man's cheek to wake him up―not too hard, mind you. The man didn't rouse, so Viktor slapped him again. This continued for a few seconds, and right as Viktor thought to himself that maybe he should try a different method of waking him up, the man started convulsing.

A crease formed between his brows, which was the only warning before his head tipped to the side, and he coughed out a mouthful of water. Viktor's hands hovered uselessly for a moment, until he remembered to tilt the man to rest on his side so he wouldn't choke on the water he just regurgitated.

"Easy, easy there." Viktor said. He rubbed the man's back in an almost certainly pointless attempt at comfort.

The man's eyelids fluttered, then slowly blinked open, revealing warm hazel eyes. They were still unfocused as they trained on Viktor, and a slight frown formed on the man's face, as if he couldn't quite comprehend what he was seeing.

Viktor flinched as he felt something brush the side of his face―the man had lifted his hand, cupping Viktor's jaw.

Viktor was a little uncomfortable. He did not say a thing for a long beat, but then again, he doubted there was really anything he could have said.

"Um―"

And it turned out that he never would have gotten the chance to say anything either way, because in the next second, the man brought Viktor's head down and slammed it on the spar.

As consciousness began to slip away from him, he had just a few seconds of awareness to think to himself,

I don't think I deserved that very much.

~~~

Viktor's return to consciousness came in short bursts. He could vaguely remember hearing voices murmuring at one point. He thought he'd heard Ekko's voice, though the line between dream or reality was so blurry that it was impossible to know if that was really him. Mostly, Viktor just drifted. This continued for a period of time that oscillated between feeling like minutes and feeling like an eternity.

Surreal images danced across his vision. He saw green tentacles writhing in an endless spiral with no beginning or end in sight. A set of five eyes blinked open in front of him, glowing an unnatural green and deep blue, and upon a second look they looked more like shining emeralds than any eyes possessed by a living being. Green light swirled, blended, melded, and danced deep in those emeralds. Then the imagery transitioned into something different. Now there was a woman standing with her back turned to Viktor. Tattoos covered her entire body; they were moving, pulsating, as though they had a life of their own.

Viktor woke up, and then just like that, it was gone. Memories of the visions faded into nothing, leaving only the vague feeling that he had a strange dream but unable to recount any of the specifics.

His head was throbbing with pain. The last time he'd had a headache this bad was when he'd slammed a bottle of rum and woke up the next morning. But the difference between then and now is that back then he was twenty; now he was thirty-three, and his body was a little less built for that.

Light seeped through the darkness of his closed eyelids. He felt heat beating down on his face and the fabric of his clothes, as though he was sunbathing in the late afternoon. There was a rough, hard surface digging into his back, and a crick in his neck from where it was awkwardly bent forward, which did absolutely nothing to help his headache.

Viktor let out a croak between chapped lips, moving his hand to rub his face―

His eyes shot open. He looked down, and saw that his wrists were bound with a black strip of fabric. He gave a tug, just to check that he wasn't dreaming still.

He frantically looked around. Floating in the middle of the ocean, he was not. Instead, he was on a beach. To his right, the white sand gave way to a rocky escarpment, obscuring everything beyond the coastline. His back was propped against a slanted boulder, there was sand all over his trousers, brace and the inside of his shoes. All of these facts danced around in his mind, and none of them made much sense, because last he'd checked he was floating on a piece of timber in the middle of the ocean with―

"Shit," he hissed to himself, hanging his head in defeat. What was that saying? Watch out for the pretty ones, was it?

"You're awake." an unfamiliar voice said nearby. Viktor turned his head to peer up at the man, whom Viktor was beginning to regret ever saving.

Sunlight framed the back of his head, casting shadows on the planes of his stony face. He was standing a good foot away, as if wary to close the distance despite the fact that Viktor was literally immobilized.

Viktor glanced at his bound wrists, and held them up, "This is a rather odd way to say 'thank you' to the person who saved your life, no?"

Jayce had been exploring the unfamiliar area when he heard the human groan. The sound made him freeze in his steps, and there was a split second where he considered just bolting, leaving the man tied up until some coconut crabs showed up to nibble on him. But that would be a little rude, and Jayce hadn't gone through all the effort of dragging him all the way to the shoreline just to flee at the last minute. No, Jayce needed to show who was in charge. It was about time he stopped letting himself be victimized by land dwellers.

He grabbed a large stick that had been lying on the sand, holding it like a weapon as he cautiously made his way to where he'd left the human. The boulder blocked most of Jayce's view, allowing only a glimpse of the human's legs, and that strange contraption wrapped around the right leg. Jayce was still curious about that. It wasn't an accessory he'd ever seen other land dwellers wear―although, admittedly, Jayce hadn't interacted with many. He'd almost taken it off the man, fearing that it would have augmentations like Sevika's arm did. He'd given in to his curiosity and inspected it while the human was still unconscious, and found that it was blessedly free of sharp things and purple goo.

He'd also inspected other things, like the little satchel strapped to his belt which contained some rather intriguing devices. One of them was a telescope, whose shape reminded Jayce a bit of a Hexactinellid sponge. The other object in the satchel was a thin book. Jayce curiosity had not been strong enough to keep him from feeling a little guilty about peering through its contents. It mattered little, anyhow, since the water had made the ink bleed through the pages, rendering most of the text unintelligible. Hopefully, for that human's sake, the contents of that book weren't all that important.

The human was shifting on the sand as Jayce came up from behind the boulder. He stood in place, gripping the stick in shaky hands and listening to the human's hushed curses. He perused through his mind for different openers.

I've been expecting you. No, that was a bit too menacing. And quite redundant; Jayce already knew they would be here.

Well, well, well, look who we have here. Same problem with the last one, and Jayce didn't trust himself to deliver that with the right tone.

He shook his head. This was taking him too damn long, and he hadn't even spoken to the darned human yet! Perhaps he should start with something simple. He gathered himself with a few deep breaths, before stepping in the other man's line of sight.

"You're awake." was what came out of his mouth, which was honestly considerably better than all the things he'd been planning to say. And if he purposefully lowered his voice a few octaves deeper to sound intimidating...well, that was no one's business but his own.

The human stared up at Jayce blankly. For a split second, all the confidence Jayce mustered faltered as those eyes pinned him down. The human's eyes were a striking golden hue, glimmering like molten lava in the rays of the sun. They were the first thing Jayce had seen when he'd woken up, and they were as unnerving then as they were now.

The human had brown hair that curled away from his face elegantly enough that it could still be reasonably described as 'messy waves' without completely looking like a bird's nest. There were two moles on his face; one above his upper lip, and one below his right eye. Their placement looked so deliberate that if Jayce didn't know any better, he'd think that they were just ink dabbed on his face.

(Jayce had tried to rub them off a while ago, but had to stop when the human started mumbling in his sleep. The moles stayed, but the skin surrounding it remained red for a few minutes due to Jayce's rubbing.)

"This is a rather odd way to say 'thank you' to the person who saved your life, no?"

Oh, so this one was sarcastic. Great.

Jayce cleared his throat, brandishing the stick and tilting his chin up a little higher, "Why did you save me?"

The human's brows furrowed, before he shook his head with a tiny, almost disbelieving chuckle, "I don't know. I wouldn't have if I'd known you'd tie me up for my efforts." he tilted his head down, eyeing his bound wrists, "How did you even get the material? There's absolutely nothing on this beach."

"I used the straps..." Jayce didn't even know why he was bothering to answer the question. Maybe it was the politeness his mother had ingrained in him, "The...things...you clip on your pants? The ones that go around, sort of like..."

He had no idea what they were called, so he just gestured to the waistband of his pants in the hopes that the human would get the idea.

"Suspenders?" the human questioned, looking confused, if a bit annoyed at how much trouble Jayce was having describing a simple piece of apparel, "You mean suspenders. That's the word you're looking for."

"Erm, yes," Jayce once again cursed whoever came up with these stupid names for objects, "Sus-pen-ders."

The human raised one brow, "You've never done this before, have you?"

Jayce tilted his head like a clueless puppy, "Done what?"

"This whole...taking someone hostage thing. You don't seem to know what you're doing."

Jayce felt a little put upon by how nonchalant the human was acting. Jayce had been expecting to be met with...not fear, maybe, but definitely wariness. It was the logical emotion to feel when one was tied up without any means to free themself; Jayce would know. Was he not doing this right? He felt as though he had missed a step.

Clearly, playing the part of the tough guy wasn't working in his favour. He let his shoulders sag, deciding to try a different approach. "Fine. How about this, you answer a question of mine, and in turn I answer a question of yours." 

The human's eyes narrowed, "That's all?"

Jayce nodded once, "Yes. Think of it as an exchange of sorts."

"And what happens if I don't answer?"

"That depends," Jayce injected some steel into his voice, placing the one hand not holding the stick on his hip, "Are you trying to hide something?"

The human paused for a few seconds, letting the tension simmer, and Jayce wasn't entirely sure whether or not it was a deliberate move to make him squirm. "No," the human finally said. Foolish as it may be, a part of Jayce felt like he could believe him, "Now, I think it is my turn to ask you something."

"Well, I-I never said we were already starting―" Jayce protested.

"My question," the human bulldozed over Jayce with the efficacy of a dynamite blasting a coral reef, "is how strong is your loyalty to Silco?"

Jayce was making a face. He didn't need to look in a mirror to know he was making a face. His face felt like it was making a face.

"What?" distantly, he was aware that he was breaking the rules by answering one question with another question.

"Are you a first mate, second mate? Third mate? Just an ordinary seaman on the ship or...what?" the human continued, looking confused at Jayce's confusion. He suddenly looked off to the side, frowning to himself, "Ah, wait, I just realised that's technically four questions in a row."

"You―" Jayce pinched his nose, taking a breath in to keep himself from blowing up at the other man and ruining whatever morsel of civility they'd established. He didn't know what a first mate was, or a second mate or third mate or why there would be so many mates on a ship. But if he was right in his own assumption of what those terms could mean, then that just made the human's line of questioning especially baffling, "You think I'm working for Silco?"

The human looked like he'd just been told that penguins didn't have feathers. In his confusion, he didn't even point out that Jayce wasn't allowed to ask his own question yet, "Are...you not?"

"No!" Jayce said indignantly, "I was captured by him."

He watched the processing of this information play out on the human's features. The way he looked at Jayce was a bit different now, though no less wary. "If you were a captive then what were you doing on the deck?"

"Oh, no," Jayce interrupted, sternly pointing the stick at the human, "It's my turn to ask a question. Who are you, and were you one of the people attacking Silco's ship?"

"I believe that's two questions."

"You fucking―!" Jayce snapped his mouth shut and growled in frustration, "Fine! Who are you? Let's start with that."

The human hesitated for a moment, eyes flicking to the sides as if contemplating whether he should answer. Finally, he sighed, "Viktor. My name is Viktor, I'm a cartographer from Piltover, though I suppose that hardly matters at the moment." he said with a bland chuckle.

"Cartographer," Jayce tested the word in his mouth. He'd heard that word before, but the specifics of how and where escaped him, and he tried to recall what its meaning was, "You...make maps?"

Viktor had a tired look on his face as if this wasn't the first time someone had said that, "A gross oversimplification, but yes."

Jayce was about to ask what an ordinary Piltovan cartographer was doing aiding an assault against Silco's ship, but Viktor ripped that chance away from him, "My turn now. Why did you tie me up?" 

For the first time, Jayce answered without pause, "Because you're a human."

Viktor's brow creased in bewilderment, "Yes? So are you."

"No. Well..." Jayce took a second to think, "Partly, anyway. For now, I am."

Viktor scoffed, "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Whatever you think it means. Now, my next question―"

"Wait, wait, wait, we are not just side-stepping that. What do you mean you're human 'for now'? What exactly are you?"

"I believe it's my turn to ask something. Not yours." Jayce said through gritted teeth.

Viktor muttered a curse, lifting his hands up as if he were about to rub his face or run his hands through his hair, but the suspenders wrapped around his wrists prevented him from doing either of those, "Fine! Just get to the point."

"Why did you really save me?"

"This again? You already asked that earlier."

"And your answer was pathetic," Jayce spat back, "Be honest this time. What were your motivations for saving me? You must want something, I just know it. There's no use in hiding it, so tell me."

"I―" Viktor seemed to be struggling for words, either too frustrated to speak coherently or unable to come up with a suitable lie that would get him out of this, or a combination of both. Eventually, he slumped, his temper melting away into defeat, "I don't know why I did it. I just saw you, and I knew you would drown if I didn't do something."

Jayce shook his head, refusing to believe Viktor's words, no matter how sincere they sounded. It just didn't make sense. "You're lying."

"I'm not."

"You don't even know me!"

"You're right," Viktor looked directly at him, one corner of his mouth turned up in a wry grin as if he himself was aware that he was speaking nonsense, "I don't know a single thing about you. But you're a living being, you were about to die, and that was enough."

"I know your kind. Every single one of you is always seeking something else, even things you're not supposed to want. Things that you don't have the right to have," Jayce violently jabbed the end of the stick into the sand. The anger had come on as suddenly as a tidal wave, assuming control over his mouth, "So, no, I don't believe 'that was enough'. What do you really want?"

Viktor looked taken aback. A beat passed where neither of them spoke as Jayce's breathing evened out into something less frantic. A new emotion had settled in Viktor's face as he looked at Jayce; it was fascination. "This is my last question," Viktor's voice was jarringly quiet amidst the whistle of the breeze and the waves crashing over the shoreline, "What are you?"

Well, no use trying to be discreet now. "I'm a selkie." Jayce answered simply.

Viktor's eyes widened in surprise, before narrowing inquisitively, "And I don't think I'm wrong to assume that that was the reason why Silco captured you?"

"It's not your turn anymore." Jayce pointed out.

"Oh, to hell with the turns!"

Jayce nodded in acquiescence, "That's fair."

"That still doesn't explain why you were out on the deck. Aren't prisoners usually thrown in the brig all the way down the orlop deck?"

"I was, but I managed to free myself. I had made it all the way to the very top, and I could have escaped on my own if someone hadn't fired a―a thing at my head!"

"Why are you saying that like I did it?" Viktor said indignantly.

"It came from your stupid ship!"

"That 'stupid ship' was fighting Silco. And that 'thing' that hit you wasn't even meant for you, by the way."

"Oh, so now you're saying it as if I'm to blame."

"Well, maybe it is, considering if you hadn't been there, I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to save you and I would still be with my crew."

Jayce held the stick up, seconds away from hitting the stupid human over his stupid head.

Viktor scoffed derisively, "Careful with that, you might hurt yourse―oh shit!"

He scrambled away as Jayce slammed the stick down. It hit the side of the boulder, causing its tip to snap off. The two of them stared for a moment. Jayce was just as surprised at his own outburst. He quickly composed himself, holding the stick in one hand like a staff and placing his other hand on his hip haughtily, "I have the upper hand; I have a stick."

Viktor sighed and put his hands up in surrender, "Okay, okay, calm down. Let's come to an agreement, alright? Just...put the stick away."

Jayce scrutinized him, "What kind of agreement?"

"You said that you were trying to escape from Silco, yes? And I'm guessing, since you're...well, not a seal at the moment, that he's in possession of your seal coat. Am I correct?"

At Jayce's nod, he continued, "Then, perhaps we can help each other. My crew and I, you know, the people who were sailing what you called that 'stupid ship'―"

Jayce couldn't resist rolling his eyes at that.

"―are being paid to capture Silco and bring him back to land so he could be put on trial. If you help me find my crew, and we succeed in our mission, I'll ensure that your coat is returned to you. We'll be killing two birds with one stone. But to do that, you'll need to untie me first."

"Well, I don't want to kill any birds." Jayce muttered.

"No, we won't actually―It's not―It's a saying, it means to achieve two things at once."

"Oh," Jayce made a perplexed face, "Why birds? Why not use other animals to convey the meaning?"

"I didn't invent the phrase! Look, are you in this or not?"

It was a tempting offer, Jayce would give him that. Still, he couldn't get rid of the nagging suspicion that Viktor was going to stab him in the back. He could even try to take Jayce's coat for himself and force him into another unwanted marriage. But that idea was immediately shot down for the simple fact that Viktor could not seem to stand Jayce, and thus, would almost certainly not want tie himself to Jayce so permanently like that. In fact, it seemed he'd much rather try to suffocate himself by burying his face in the sand rather than wed Jayce.

Jayce had never been the best at reading people, especially not people he'd just met, but he liked to think he had good enough intuition to tell if someone was being sincere. He steeled his resolve, "Alright."

Viktor's face softened with surprise, as if he hadn't expected to get this far, "Alright?" he echoed.

"But before I untie you, there's one more thing I must ask."

Viktor rolled his eyes so hard Jayce almost feared his eyeballs would get stuck in that position. But nonetheless, and with as much freedom as the fabric around his wrists permitted, he gestured with his hand as if to say, 'go on'.

Jayce tilted his head, allowing a bit of mischief to peek out, "Aren't you going to ask for my name?" he said with a faux innocent tone. 

Viktor blinked. A beat passed.

He heaved out a great sigh, as if even the mere act of humouring Jayce was laborious, "What is your name?"

Jayce smiled sharply, lacking any real amiability, "You can call me Jayce."

"Nice to meet you, Jayce." Viktor replied with about as much warmth as Jayce had shown. Which was to say, zero.

Jayce undid the knot tying Viktor's wrist, doing so quickly before the other man could have any chance to grab him. As quickly as it crossed his mind, Jayce chastised himself for the thought; how could be still fear this scrawny, anemic human who, just a moment ago, had to bargain with Jayce to free him. It should have given Jayce some sense of victory to be able to have some modicum of power over a land dweller, as repayment for everything they'd done to his kind. But it didn't. In fact, Jayce felt no change at all.

"Oh, and one more thing," Viktor said. He hadn't gotten up from his position.

Jayce raised a brow, impatiently asking, "What?"

He gestured to the stick held loosely in Jayce's grip, "I'm going to need that."

Jayce scrunched his brows together, glancing between Viktor and the stick, "What for?"

The stick was not a good substitute for his crutch by a mile, but it was sturdy enough that Viktor could reasonably put his weight on it, so long as he didn't hit the stick against any boulders. When he was a child, he'd made do with taping together pieces of wood and metal before he was able to afford a real cane. This stick was a little nostalgic, in that way (Minus the multiple injuries he'd sustained from falling as a result of his makeshift cane breaking apart. He wore a lot of bandages on his face during that time in his life.)

Most likely, he'd lost his crutch when he fell off board. He hadn't seen it splash into the water, and if he denied it hard enough he might even be able to convince himself that it was still safe and sound on the ship.

He was going to need that Noxian steel sooner than he'd thought.

After Jayce freed his wrists, another problem presented itself rather quickly. Well, multiple problems, actually. A whole slew of them. But by this point it might've been easier to list down all the problems that weren't presenting themselves. Most pressing problem on the list: They had no idea where they were.

He did not have his map, and his journal―where he'd written the ship's coordinates―had been completely soaked through. Oh, but at least he had his telescope. Maybe they could use it for sightseeing and observing the granules of sand up close.

A cartographer with no tools, no crutch, and no ship, Viktor did the only thing a sensible man could do in this situation; he let out one, long scream in the middle of the deserted beach. It was a very cathartic scream.

His father taught him that trick. He claimed that it was the only proper way for a man to release his emotions. Viktor had long since been made aware that his father's method was rooted in unfounded beliefs, but he'd been doing it for so long that he couldn't rid himself of the habit. And it was effective. Don't fix what isn't broken, as the saying goes.

After he'd finished emptying his lungs, he walked back to Jayce, who was looking at him with an unconcerned if not slightly perplexed expression. It occurred to Viktor just then that the selkie might get the wrong idea that screaming for an absurdly long time was a regular human activity, rather than an exclusively 'Viktor' habit. Oh well, no harm done with that misunderstanding. Besides, Viktor did believe that more people should get in the habit of screaming every now and then. He always felt so much better afterwards.

"Are you done now?"

Viktor nodded, having spent up all that remained of his voice.

"Right, well, I haven't been able to do much exploration while you were out. I went about as far as below the cliff face before you'd woken up. I suggest we―"

Jayce's sentence died down as a faint, melodic tune came from the distance. Him and Viktor exchanged a look, neither daring to make a sound. They listened in as the the tune grew louder and louder, drawing nearer to them. It sounded like strings being plucked. A mandolin, perhaps? No...a banjo. Now that question was, who was playing a banjo in a place like this?

"Pardon me, sirs!"

The voice hit Viktor like a slap to the face; he knew that voice. It was impossible not to recognise it.

A stout figure revealed itself above the cliff's edge, strumming on a banjo that perfectly matched his tiny yordle body. Their white and yellow fur swayed with the light breeze like cornstalks, or like a ginger's beard that was in dire need of trimming.

"Professor Heimerdinger?" he called up.

"Viktor, my boy? Goodness gracious, was that you screaming? I though someone was getting their cogs knocked out of their noddle!" he did a double-take, squinting, "Has your cane turned into a stick?"

Viktor tried to shift the stick out of Heimerdinger's view, before realising that he can't, "I use a crutch now. Well...used, I suppose."

Jayce made a face, "Their cogs knocked...what?"

"Oh, just the ramblings of an old soul. Are you a friend of Viktor's?"

Jayce visibly grimaced, though Heimerdinger didn't seem to notice, "Uh, sure, you could say that. I'm Jayce."

"Pleasure to meet you, Jayce!" Heimerdinger pulled a lever on the side of the banjo. The neck folded in on itself like a book being snapped closed, and its newly compressed size allowed Heimerdinger to sling the instrument over his back like a satchel. Jayce watched with wide, stunned eyes. Viktor was more surprised that the professor played a banjo at all.

"How did you do that?" Jayce asked.

"Ah, just an invention of mine," Heimerdinger said cheerily, trotting to where the outcrop carved a slope leading down to the beach, "The inner workings are rather simple, really. The lever connects to a coiled spring inside, that, when pulled, will cause the spring to unwind which will then..." he let out a small 'oof' as he hopped down a tall slab of bedrock, "...activate a series of gears connected to the neck of the guitar."

Jayce listened to the entire explanation with rapt attention, looking like a child being read from a storybook, "Fascinating," he breathed.

Viktor was still trying to wrap his head around his seeing his old professor from the Academy. He'd left around six years ago, and had never seen the yordle since, not even in passing. Heimerdinger looked just as he did when Viktor first met him, bright-eyed and desperate to prove to the world that he was more than some dirty cripple from the slums.

"P-Professor, what are you doing here? Where is here?"

Heimerdinger cocked one furry brow, "Why, you're in the border between North and East Shurima, my boy."

If Viktor's memory served right, that was...

Oh dear.

They were 3800 kilometers away from Bilgewater.

Another pressing question made itself known in Viktor's mind; "Why are you in Shurima?"

"Ah well, you see, it's been a long, eventful century as Dean of Piltover's Academy, and while I wouldn't trade all that time for the world, I fear that I've limited my work to Piltover for so long that I've forsaken the chance to explore the world more."

The words, combined with the sentimental look on Heimerdinger's face nearly caused Viktor to choke in mortification, "You're retired?!"

"Oh, no! No, no, no, my boy," Heimerdinger hastily assured. He chuckled sheepishly, "I'm not quite ready to give up my position as dean yet. I just thought that, with how long I've been working, a vacation was in order. I've travelled far and wide, absorbing as much as I can of the world. Recently, I went to Trannit to finally get a taste of their famed Bolbo head soup. And let me tell you, it's just as delectable as they say it is! If not a little salty..."

"Professor," Viktor interrupted, "Could you lead us to the nearest town?"

Jayce stiffened and shot Viktor a slightly nervous look. Heimerdinger brightened, not noticing Jayce's reaction, "Why, of course, my boy!" he beckoned them over, scuttling up the rocky slope, "Come, the coach I came in is only a short walk from here. The coach belongs to my guide, Kadsaj, a very helpful and courteous young man! I'm sure he won't mind giving you boys a ride."

Jayce frowned, turning to Viktor and mouthing, 'Coach?' with visible confusion. Viktor waved him off in dismissal, not wanting to make Heimerdinger suspicious of Jayce's apparent lack of knowledge about simple things.

Instead, Viktor smiled at Heimerdinger, "That would be most appreciated, professor. I can't thank you enough."

Heimerdinger tsked, "Oh, enough of that professor, now. Outside the Academy, I am simply Heimerdinger. May I ask what brought you two here in the first place? You seem to be in quite the disarray."

"Ah, well, I was sailing with my...friends, when we happened upon chop. I fell over the deck, and somehow got stranded here. I met Jayce on this beach, who is in a similar position as I am."

"He...also fell off his ship?" Heimerdinger questioned.

"As a matter of fact, yes." Jayce said, his tone bearing an undercurrent of accusation. Viktor didn't need to guess that the selkie was still feeling a little bitter about that flare knocking him over. Perhaps he could get Jayce to meet Vi so he could direct his fury onto her instead of him.

Heimerdinger hummed in thought, "I see. And where were you two headed originally?"

"I was on an excursion," Viktor answered, the words fell from his mouth before he had the time to properly think them over, "I've been...in a bit of a rough spot, financially. And to help, a friend of mine had hired me to come aboard their ship and chart their course. We were heading towards Southeast Valoran, I believe."

Viktor omitted the part about being attacked by pirates, and the part about his 'friends' actually being Piltover's most notorious group of bandits...and the fact that they were actually heading to Bilgewater, giving the relative direction of where the island mass was located instead. He had a feeling that Heimerdinger wouldn't take too kindly to the idea of his former pupil affiliating himself with bandits and getting embroiled in a pirate hunt. Despite living for hundreds of years and sharing experiences with many people of different generations, Heimerdinger was a little conservative. At some point in his life, he'd isolated himself to matters purely relating to Piltover, and as such had adopted some of their highbrow, restrictive societal customs.

When Viktor had been accepted into the Academy, he had dedicated a significant chunk of his life trying to adhere to said customs―a decision which was now coming to bite him in the ass.

Out of is periphery, he caught Jayce shooting him a perplexed look. He, of course, knew that Viktor was lying but didn't know the reason why. Viktor's eyes darted to him once, pulse drumming in his ears, waiting to see if Jayce was going to say something. He didn't.

"Southeast Valoran?" Heimerdinger exclaimed, "By heavens, how do you plan on getting there?"

"Well, I'm hoping to find my crew first. Once I do, we can begin planning a course of action."

"You'll bring Jayce with you, of course?"

Jayce seemed startled at the mention of his own name, "Erm, yes. I was promised..." he stopped, seemingly trying to find the best way to answer without giving too much away, "They're helping me find something. Something very important to me."

Viktor held back a grimace. He was not surprised to find that Jayce was a very bad liar; he just seemed like the type.

Heimerdinger paused for a moment, as if expecting further clarification or a follow-up to that cryptic statement. When it didn't come, he responded, "Well, I hope that, whatever it is, you manage to find it."

A smile across Jayce's face; the first real one Viktor had seen from him, "Thank you."

The climb up the escarpment was a nightmare for Viktor to trek through; steep inclines and rough surfaces were his worst enemies, and now both of them were working against him. Putting one leg in front of the other, he tried to distribute some of his weight to his left side. He was nervous about leaning too much on the stick; the thing could not possibly hold the weight of an entire person bearing on it. His leg was beginning to tremble, rattling the metal parts of his brace like the aftershock tremors after an earthquake. When his left leg raised to make the next step, his right leg buckled. Out of pure instinct, his hand clamped down on the stick, scraping its end harshly against the ground and using it to regain his balance at the last second.

"Are you alright?"

Viktor looked up at Jayce, who had stopped a few paces ahead. Hazel eyes gazed back at him in concern, contradicted by the relaxed slope of his brows and the thin line of his lips as if he was making some halfhearted attempt at indifference.

Viktor looked away and continued trudging up the slope, although his pace was considerably slower than before, "I'm fine." he replied shortly.

"How long has your leg been that way?" Jayce asked, blunt yet without malice in the way an inquisitive child would be.

"Since birth." Viktor replied briskly, getting irritated by the line of questioning. He was already frustrated by the climb and his near fall, he didn't need this golden-skinned, physical embodiment of 'perfection' itself rubbing salt in the wound.

Jayce tilted his head curiously at him, "So, that thing is for support, then?"

Viktor frowned up at him, "What 'thing'?"

Jayce nodded towards Viktor's leg brace, "That...contraption on your leg. I was under the impression that it helped you move."

"Are all selkies this chatty or is this just a quirk of yours?" Viktor snapped.

Jayce scowled, and Viktor lamented how that face could still be so pretty even when it was looking at him like he was a particularly disgusting stain on a window, "Fine, then." he sniffed, turning away from Viktor and briskly walking forward.

Five seconds of blessed silence passed between them. And then Jayce spoke again.

"I just figured you were having a difficult time by the sound of your huffing and puffing."

Viktor scoffed in disbelief, "I was not huffing. Or puffing."

"Sounded like a whale's blowhole." Jayce informed, rather cheerily.

Viktor came very close to snapping the stick in his hand, "You know, it would be remarkably easy to push someone off this cli―"

"The coach is just over here!" Heimerdinger called from up ahead, slicing through the building tension like a knife through melted butter.

When they ascended the slope, true to Heimerdinger's word, there was a wooden coach waiting just a few feet away from them. The driver was a russet-skinned man dressed in fine, colorful fabrics. He stared Viktor and Jayce down with narrowed eyes, either from suspicion or displeasure at their disheveled, sand-covered clothes.

Heimerdinger exchanged a few words in Va-Nox with the driver―presumably Kadsaj. Viktor wasn't fluent enough in the language to be able to parse what they were saying, and he'd hazard a guess that neither was Jayce. Jayce stepped a little closer to Viktor's side, shrinking under Kadsaj's icy gaze.

"Calm down," Viktor whispered to him, "You're acting like he's going to bite off your fingers."

"You don't know that he won't." Jayce muttered unconvincingly.

"I know that he's a driver, and that his job is to transport people safely. He has very little reason to harm you."

Jayce huffed but didn't argue back. Viktor's gaze lingered on him for a moment, then he clicked his tongue, "Do you want to get your coat back?"

Jayce shot him a bewildered look, "Of course I do." he answered as if Viktor was being stupid.

"Then stop behaving so suspiciously. You can't be bumbling around, flinching at anything that breathes in your vicinity. You know practically nothing outside of your life as a selkie―"

"I know some things."

"―you don't know the culture here, you don't know what devices we use, you don't even know what suspenders are. If you're going to spend this long as a human, you need to actually act like a human."

"And, what, that includes acting like you?" Jayce bit back.

"Ah, attitude," Viktor tutted, lips stretched into a caustic grin, "You should work on that too."

"I don't see how my 'attitude' is the problem when you're the one constantly mocking me."

"Perhaps don't start introductions by tying up the person who saved you from sinking to the bottom of the ocean," Viktor shrugged one shoulder, "Just a thought."

"Ah, good news, my boy!" Heimerdinger interrupted their little spat once again. At this point, the yordle was probably the only buffer keeping the two from ripping each other's throats out, "According to the travel guide, our current route will take us to the Kumangra Song-Market District. If we travel by carriage, we will arrive there in just three days."

"Three days?" Viktor choked, "Heimerdinger, I―we don't have three days. Are you sure there's nowhere else we can go that won't take days' worth of travel?"

Heimerdinger thought for a moment, "Well, I hear Mudtown is an hour's drive away, however, I strongly advise against entering that town. Mudtown has become somewhat of an external hub for thieves and gamblers ever since it was overrun by Bilgewater criminals some years ago. You will find nothing there but danger."

The town's name rung a bell. Shurima was one of the regions Viktor was most familiar with―if not geographically then through pure personal experience. If his memory served correct, then Mudtown was a little over 500 kilometers away from Kumangra's Song-Market District. Ideally, Kumangra would have been the best place to stop for the rest of the day; Kumangra was home to some of the biggest docking stations in Northern Shurima due to its bustling trading economy, docking stations which, additionally, were often visited by Piltover's trading ships. The Song-Market District would have been the closest place to dock where the Firelights could have sought repairs for their ship after the encounter with Silco.

Viktor opened his mouth, preparing for a response, when Jayce beat him to it. "May I have a look at the map you're using?" he asked.

Viktor blinked, a little put upon. He was surprised that Jayce knew what a map was. With some prompting to Kadsaj, Heimerdinger untied the string holding the map together and unrolled it to allow Jayce a glimpse. Jayce's eyes swept over it for a moment, before seemingly coming to a resolution.

"No, Mudtown will do just fine." he said, with a kind of solid certainty that only came from someone who knew what they were talking about or, possibly, was only pretending to know what they were talking about.

Heimerdinger was visibly concerned, "Are you sure, Jayce?"

A small smile tugged at Jayce's lips, "Yes. I recognise this part of Shurima now. South of Mudtown is the Serpentine Delta. My family and I lived near the river delta's coast before we migrated east," he paused, briefly turning his gaze downcast as if he revealed more than he intended to, before clearing his throat, "I know some people there who can help us." he said, turning to address Viktor.

"No, we don't need to go to the river," Viktor shook his head, "We can settle in Mudtown for just tonight then make the trip to Kumangra in the morning. We were heading towards North of Shurima when the storm hit us, it's only logical to assume that my crew would have docked somewhere around that region."

"You heard what Heimerdinger said, the trip would take us three days. The way to the delta will only be less than a day, and I have close ties with...the people there." Jayce said, his tone bordering on pleading. Viktor could tell that he was doing his damndest not to say the word 'selkie' while the other two were listening.

"If I may, Jayce," Heimerdinger interjected, "Who, precisely, are these people in the Serpentine Delta?"

"Just my childhood friends and extended family. I can't be sure how many of them have stayed and how much has changed in the years since I've been gone, but my father was a pillar of the community for most of his life there. I may not be the same man, but being his lone heir must count for something."

Viktor thinned his lips. He didn't trust Jayce enough to follow his plan, but he had to concede, albeit reluctantly, that neither was he willing to travel for three days straight to Kumangra without absolute certainty that the Firelights would be there. Worse still, the pain in his leg and back was steadily reaching past the threshold of what was usually tolerable for him. A light sheen of perspiration was beginning to form over his forehead, neck, and back. If anyone asked, he could easily write it off as being due to the heat, but he wasn't sure how well that farce would hold up once the pain inevitably got worse.

Viktor blew out a defeated sigh through his nose, "Fine. We'll go to Mudtown."

Heimerdinger shook his head ruefully, "I cannot say I agree with your decision. I understand the importance of reuniting with your crew, but that goal cannot be achieved by putting yourselves in danger."

Viktor smiled wryly, "You forget that I started out as an ordinary sump rat, professor. Sorry, eh, Heimerdinger. I'm no stranger to crime or danger."

Heimerdinger's moustache fluttered as he sighed in defeat, "I don't suppose there is anything I can say to dissuade you. Let me accompany you on your journey, then. I simply cannot in good conscience leave you two alone."

"You really don't have to―oh." Viktor was midway through his sentence when Heimerdinger hopped into the coach on his stubby legs. He exchanged a look with Jayce, "You're alright with him tagging along?"

Jayce shrugged, already walking away, "He certainly makes for better company than you."

Viktor glared daggers into Jayce's retreating back. Spitefully, he called out to Jayce, "Do you know how to get inside these things?"

"Yes, I know how to fucking get inside!" Jayce snapped, slamming the door closed with excessive force.

Suppressing a smile, Viktor followed them inside. Even with the professor's small size, the coach was still a tight fit, clearly made for a maximum of two people. The coach jumped into a steady crawl as the horses clopped forward. The sudden movement caused Jayce to jolt in a way that was unbecoming of a man his size. Through the small window at his side, Viktor observed the stretches of sand and outcropping transition to trees and shrubbery, passing beneath a forest canopy that blotted out the sky.

Barely any wind brushed his face through the window. Whereas the air in Piltover was crisp, slightly humid, and carried a slightly salty scent from the ocean breeze during the summer months, Shurima was significantly warmer all year round, and instead of getting kissed by the sea you only got dust blown into your eyes. Actually, in Shurima, you prayed that there wouldn't be any wind, because the only times the region would even be graced with a cool gust of wind was before or during a monsoon, and, if you were in South Shurima, strong winds became the heralds of sandstorms.

Jayce sat hunched in on himself, as if trying to make himself seem as small as possible. He kept stealing glances at Kadsaj as if he were paranoid that the driver could be planning a scheme targeting him and him specifically. Then Viktor recalled how Jayce had described humans, the vitriol in his voice as he berated Viktor and his 'kind', so venomous that the words could have burned Viktor's skin like acid, and suddenly he felt as though it had been a mistake to keep Jayce in an enclosed space with two humans.

Heimerdinger filled the silence with friendly chatter that Viktor absent-mindedly supplied with noncommittal hums and agreements. Jayce, on the other hand, did his best to respond with much more enthusiasm, even if it was clear that he didn't quite know what the yordle was talking about most of the time. Jayce seemed rather taken with Heimerdinger, gazing down at the old professor the same way Viktor used to when he was still a student before their differences became more prominent over the years. He honestly liked the geezer, and vice versa, but Heimerdinger was largely a mystery to him. There were many things Viktor would never share with him, knowing that even if he did, there was a good chance Heimerdinger wouldn't understand anyway.

The consequence of being immortal was that, no matter how involved Heimerdinger was with his city and his students, he could not relate to the people he surrounded himself with, and neither could anyone relate to him. He had a general moral compass and basic empathy (in most cases) but he'd lived through so much and experienced all the good and bad the world could possibly offer that he'd grown largely apathetic to most things―even death. The yordle would say he was against killing but would not flinch in horror if someone were to be killed right in front of him, and would probably tut to himself and express the barest amount of sympathy before carrying on with his day. Hypocritical, maybe, but understandable in a way. When you've lived that long and already seen millions die while you're still standing, Viktor imagined the idea of death became a lot less harrowing, possibly even appealing. Heimerdinger was right about needing a break from work, but a holiday across Runeterra wasn't going to change anything about him at this point.

The sun began to dip around the halfway point of their journey, bathing the sky in shades of orange, pink, then purple. By the time they reached Mudtown, it was evening. Lights from the town glowed amidst the darkness descending on them, looking like a swarm of fireflies from a distance.

The horses were led to their post at a stage station. Kadsaj climbed down from the driver's seat and patted the mane of one of the horses, saying something in Va-Nox.

"He says he will not be able to accompany us from here on out. He has to relay to another post in the morning." Heimerdinger translated. Viktor nodded and said his thanks, which Heimerdinger relayed to Kadsaj in Va-Nox. Jayce kept silent; he seemed rather relieved to be parting with the driver.

The hour was not yet late enough to make people return to their homes, and the town was still alive with activity. Men and women were only now making their way inside bars to end the night with a drink or ten and start the next morning with a raging migraine. Viktor spotted a brothel house here and there, neatly tucked away from the rest of the buildings, flickering on its lights as darkness fell as if to tantalize whoever was passing through.

Some aspects of the town reminded Viktor of what life was like in Piltover's slums. The difference, however, being that despite it all, Mudtown was clearly thriving in its own way. The roads weren't overrun with garbage, people weren't dressed in rags or unwashed clothes, and instead of twenty or so beggars sitting on the pavement there were only five beggars.

Heimerdinger whispered conspiratorially, "The Sunset Inn should only be a few blocks away. Now, remember, this town is dangerous. Watch every corner," he lowered the hood of his cloak over his head, "Follow my lead."

He scuttled away with not nearly as much grace as he probably thought he had. Surprised yelps and gasps erupted from people who nearly tripped over this yellow, furry thing weaving through their legs.

Viktor elected not to remind the yordle that this place was actually a kindergarten compared to where he'd grown up in. Heimerdinger, following Kadsaj's advice, had suggested that they stay at a place called Sunset Inn. The staff there was friendly toward tourists, the service was adequate, and they were less at risk of getting ambushed in the night and waking up the next morning with a gaping hole where their organs should be. According to Kadsaj, at least.

Viktor was not feeling too inclined to walk an additional few blocks. The persistent aches in his body were reintroducing themselves like particularly rude houseguests who brought duplicate dishes at a dinner party, or like a vengeful ex lover whose letters you hadn't responded to for a fortnight. Every step made shocks of pain hike up his leg and throb in his hip, and the way his brace was digging into his flesh was reaching a level of discomfort he could no longer ignore. The only thing that was keeping him going was the promise that rest would come soon.

A few paces ahead, he spotted a man in a checkered scarf heading their direction. His fingers were adorned in gold rings that sparkled under the lamplight like stars, one ring on his left pinky had a tiny blue jewel encrusted on its surface. Viktor bumped into the man's side, stumbling in an almost exaggerated fashion. He lowered his head, muttering a meek apology when the man turned to glare at him. As they walked away, the sound of the man's footsteps growing faint, Viktor discreetly pocketed the two rings in his pants.

Jayce seemed jumpy the entire walk to the inn. His eyes darted in every direction, looking simultaneously paranoid and awestruck at everything around him.

"There's so many people." he mumbled, more to himself than anything.

"It's a town, what exactly did you expect?" Viktor replied blandly.

"I knew there would be a lot in theory. But, seeing it in person, it just makes it all the more..."

"Disappointing?" Viktor guessed.

"Overwhelming," was Jayce's correction.

Viktor supposed he could see why he would feel that way. If Viktor had lived a majority of his life in the sea with only seals for company whilst harbouring hate for everyone and anything that walked on land, he, too, would probably feel overwhelmed if he got thrust into a town that wasn't even a fifth of Piltover's land coverage.

They arrived at the Sunset Inn, a two-storey building constructed from burnt clay brick and covered in twining vines that made the building look like 70% ebony and 30% russet clay. The entrance hall was scarcely occupied; there was an old couple seated in the farthest corner of the room; two tables had been pushed togather to seat a group of burly men dining on grey gruel and obliterating mugs of mead with a good chance of ordering another round very soon. At another table, three people dressed in clothes reminiscent of that worn by Northern mountain rangers sat silently amongst each other. They had turned their heads when Jayce, Viktor and Heimerdinger walked in, gave them a desultory glance, before going back to their important business of slouching over their table in dismal silence. There was a bar at the far wall, facing the inn's entrance.

"Well, my boys, this is where we part for now."

"You're not staying with us?" Jayce asked.

"Oh, no, I  can't. I have some exploring to do, and the moon hasn't even fully risen yet," Heimerdinger leaned in, casting a wary glance at their surroundings, "I have certain...suspicions about the residents of this town, relating mostly to Bilgewater."

Viktor frowned, "What kind of suspicions?"

"Oh, I mustn't discuss them here. For now, just remember what I said: Watch every corner."

And with that, he exited through the main door. So much for accompanying us on our journey, Viktor thought to himself.

"That was...strange." Jayce said after a while. Viktor gave a small hum in acknowledgement, his absent gaze lingering on the door as it slipped shut. 

"Do you think it might have to do with Silco?" Jayce asked.

"Possibly. He's hardly the only pirate causing trouble around Runeterra." Viktor said even as he filed the information for something to ponder over later. It was only natural that a town often frequented by residents of Bilgewater would get sucked into their system of piracy and illegal trade. He didn't know how the town's council operated, but if they shared anything in common with Piltover's council, then there was no chance they didn't somehow benefit from Bilgewater's association if they had let it go on for this long.

The innkeeper sat behind the bar counter, and upon seeing them approach, he left his post to greet them warmly. The innkeeper looked to be in his fifties, with greying hair and a rotund belly but with the leftover impression of muscles on his arms suggesting that he had once been trim in his youth.

"How much does two rooms cost?" Viktor asked, holding out hope that it was a reasonable price.

"Hm, for two rooms that would be one hundred and fifty coins, sir." the innkeeper said, his accent slightly distorting his words.

Viktor wilted. Looked like they would have to share, then. And just when Viktor thought he could get a good rest tonight. "Just one room is fine."

"We have room with single beds or room with queen size. Single bed is cheaper but do not think it will fit your pretty companion."

Viktor assumed the 'pretty companion' was most likely in reference to Jayce. The selkie in question had preoccupied himself with staring at the flames flickering inside one of the oil lamps that hung from the walls while Viktor was left to discuss room lodgings. The firelight reflected in his eyes, hazel set alight into a golden brown like tiny pockets of sunlight in his irises.

Viktor shook himself out of it, "The room with the singles is fine."

Payment was upfront―the innkeeper claimed it was their policy―which Viktor had anticipated. He began rifling through his pockets, feigning sheepishness after a few seconds of rooting around, "Ah, apologies, I didn't bring enough coins for this. However, I do have these on hand." he fished out the rings and offered them to the innkeeper, "Will this suffice as payment?"

The innkeeper examined them for a moment, before snatching them from Viktor's palm and patting him on the shoulder with a hearty laugh, "Good! This is good, my man."

It was only when the innkeeper handed them their keys that Jayce returned to them, having fully exhausted his designated time of staring at oil lamps. Viktor unceremoniously threw the key to their room at Jayce, who narrowly missed catching it, "Come on. We're sharing a room."

Jayce's head snapped up, "What?"

"Don't. Don't even complain." Viktor said; he was too exhausted to be able to weather Jayce's whingeing, "I'm not going to pay for an extra room. Now come on."

Viktor turned away from Jayce's bewildered face, heading towards the narrow flight of stairs that he had to climb up yet again.

They got to the door which bore the same set of numbers inscribed on the key's head. Jayce inserted the key into the lock and turned it until it clicked open (Viktor held back a wry comment about how he was surprised Jayce knew how to unlock things). The door's hinges groaned loudly as it slowly swung open. They were welcomed by darkness. The open doorway brought in a shaft of light from the hallway, reaching only the first few feet into the room and carving outlines of the furniture inside.

Jayce stepped forward, decidedly not put off by the unwelcoming atmosphere of the room. There was a curious look in his eye, similar to the one he had when he'd been staring at Viktor's brace, as if this was his first time stepping inside an inn's lodging. And then it hit Viktor that this was most likely was Jayce's first time inside an inn lodging―which was rather unfortunate because this particular inn made for a very poor first impression.

There was a lamp on the nightstand―already filled up with oil―between the two beds. Viktor twisted the turning key but was met with resistance. He twisted it again, hearing the inner piston pull then halt like a sputtering faucet. Viktor sighed and tightened his grip on the turning key, putting his entire arm strength into it.

"What are you doing?" Jayce asked unhelpfully.

Viktor grunted, "Trying to...turn this damn thing―"

The flame ignited inside the burner, and Viktor finally released the turning key. He heard Jayce make a surprised sound.

"Ta da." he intoned without excitement.

"Oh," Jayce gasped, with actual excitement, "Oh, that is marvelous."

"The wonders of kerosene." Viktor deadpanned. It boggled his mind how someone who had, only a few hours, earlier spat so much anger for Viktor and 'his kind', simultaneously be endlessly enamored with all their creations.

The bed squeaked under Viktor's weight as he sat on the edge. He undid the buttons on his vest and slipped it off, leaving him in his white linen shirt. He placed the stick upright against the wall, grunting at the ache in his muscles as he lifted his right leg to lie flat on the bed. Reaching down, he unbuckled the straps in his brace starting from the kneecap to his ankle, then carefully slid the brace off. 

Jayce haphazardly flopped down on his own bed, bouncing a little on the mattress. He let out a small, surprised giggle, then sat upright and flopped back down again as if he was testing the springiness. Viktor was sharing a room with a toddler trapped in a grown man's body.

He turned his brace over in his hands, checking under the straps and metal hinges for signs of filth or leftover moisture from getting submerged in seawater. Hopefully, he could find something to clean it with in the morning; he would have to purchase a rag and some disinfectant solution. Yet another thing to worry about. There was some shuffling from Jayce's side, which Viktor paid no mind to at first. It was only when he turned to set his brace down that his gaze happened upon Jayce.

Jayce, who was in the middle of removing his shirt.

Viktor jumped to stop him, "Hey, hey, hey―"

"What?" Jayce turned to him, his shirt still halfway up over his head, and Viktor forcibly dragged his own gaze away from the golden expanse of his chest and abdomen. My god, that chest―No, no, focus. Viktor was not a lust-brained animal, he was a reasonable man.

"You―You're," Viktor, the reasonable man he was, sputtered, "You're not supposed to do that while I'm still here."

Jayce paused, finally lowering his shirt back down in a stunning act of mercy for Viktor's sanity, "Why not?"

"Because we don't know each other." Not in that way, at least.

Jayce's brows lowered in exasperation, "Selkies walk around naked all the time. It's only you people who are so stingy with clothing."

"You do know Vastayans wear clothes too, right?" Viktor retorted, "This isn't just a human thing."

Jayce stared at him, his lower lip jutting out a little in that way he did whenever Viktor said something that annoyed him―of which there were many instances, and they hadn't even been around each other for twenty-four hours. Eventually Jayce rolled his eyes and lied down, turning around so his back was facing Viktor, "Fine. I'll keep them on."

Viktor closed his eyes, "Thank you." he muttered.

He wasn't sure when, but at after some time lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, he managed to drift off. Right before he fully succumbed to the darkness, he wondered if those strange dreams would come to invade his sleep again. But he dreamt of nothing that night.