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Chapter Text

[enter Antigone and Ismene]

Antigone: we begin in the dark

and birth is the death of us

Antigonick, Anne Carson (2012).

Jinx,

i am writing this because

i know there is nothing i can

You are dead. i guess i held onto the hope that You, somehow, managed to escape, but a day turned into a week and a week into two months, and i still don't have a grave to visit and stoically stand over. Not a true one, at least. The altars keep popping up everywhere, even more so than when You first blew up the council and for a moment people thought our lady Janna had used Your body as a vessel to punish the pilties. They're putting Your face everywhere, anywhere, nowhere, and where there's a flash of blue there's people worshiping a god that takes Your name and Your face, but never Your body, because You are dead.

Vi doesn't come by anymore. She is a carcass without a soul, walking around from Piltover to the bridge, then the bridge to Piltover, but never crossing to the other side because she knows she'll find You wherever she goes, unable to look at an empty corner and not see Your ghost. Caitlyn looks at her like this is not what she signed up for, but i guess the paint's dry and there's no point in shipping Vi back to the lanes, like a rejected birthday present, now that she's emotionally attached. Sometimes, when we meet at the end of the bridge, she will look and me and she will say

"Ekko, I'm sure she's still alive, out there somewhere," she will say, blue-eyes just like yours shining with flimsy hope, and at first i used to entertain her, allow myself to believe there was a sliver of a chance that You escaped, not only death but Piltover and Zaun too, and as we spoke You were re-building your life. Sometimes, when i still had hope, i wished for You to feel a guilt so heavy and crushing that You hurried back to Zaun, finding Your way to my doorstep and falling to Your knees, begging me for forgiveness.

But You will never come back because You are dead. If i had known that You would not be coming back to the tree with me, i would've chained You at the base and then You would still be here. There was a time when You would've wiggled your eyebrows and said some corny punchline, about kinks and not having enough time for all of that, and i would've taken the flask out of Your hands and drank it all in one go because You only ever said stuff like that when the whiskey started to warm up your cheeks, and telling You to quit it with the jokes during serious moments was useless, we both knew this. Because You knew every nook and crevice in my body with the precision of someone walking through the streets they grew up in, and i knew You like the sailor knows the sea and the changing tides, which is to say i didn't know You at all, just the surface of what You were willing to show me, because if i had known the depths of the murky waters enough to predict Your future absence, to realize that the sadness settling in Your eyes wasn't some sort of fear but the knowledge that only one of us would make it back, i would've never let You finish that flask of whiskey and kiss me like we had the rest of our lives ahead of us to figure out what to call ourselves.

i do not forgive You for dying. i have decided to hate You, just like Vi hates You, and the rest of the undercity hates You enough to build statues that have Your name and face but never Your true body, because they only worship the idea of You, unlike me, who knows the true shape under your clothes; the infinite sky upon which Your clouds grace, the mounds that i can fit in one of my palms and pretend it's the whole world, the tangled river currents that drowned me when we shared a bed and now the only thing that there's left are a few stray droplets that i keep finding when i think i'm done mourning You, Your razor blade sharp nails that would make me bleed when we went on for too long, and Your core grew too sore so You debated Yourself between throwing me aside and bringing me closer, and they certainly don't know about the whiskey flavored kiss You gave me, moments before take-off, and You said to me—with those powder-blue eyes filled with tears to the brim—You said "Try not to die, nerd."

But i lived and You died. Did You know it then, Jinx? Did You know that You would die and i would have to live without You?

i hate You for knowing and not preparing me for the all-encompassing sadness you'd subject me to. i hate You, i hate You, i hate

i love You. Why did You do this to me, Jinx?

Why?

If you walk up to a Zaunite, and somehow manage to strike a conversation—because they're paranoiac individuals, you see, that's what years of living under an oppressive regime and fighting a war that's not yours will do to you—, and you ask something, typically how long ago certain event was, the Zaunite you're talking to is prone to looking away in the distance, lost in something bigger than themselves, and will tell you that happened sometime before or after the war. Hello, Helaena, by chance, do you remember when was Vander assassinated? Why, yes, of course Ziggs, it was eight years and two months before the war, why do you ask? I get nostalgic these days, you know, with Sevika being sworn in into the council, and the conversation goes on about Sevika and her old alliances, of their hopes for the future and all the repairing there's still left to do.

Sevika is on everyone's mouths these days, not like when she was Babette's regular and she could gloat about having been with each and every one of her girls, of course. It's more metaphorical, like people are talking about an "achievement" she's recently had. She doesn't think people have ever talked about her for something other than warning each other about her. Hah. Life can be unpredictable like that.

So yes, people are talking about her, some good and bad things, as always, but the problem—if one can call it that—is that Sevika never wanted this. Not the talking, but the "achievement"—hand-out—of being the first Zaunite to serve as a councilor in the Piltover government chambers. 300 years and just now a child of Zaun is being allowed inside the decision-making? Everyone and Sevika knows it's all for show.

Kiramman came to her, a few weeks after the war ended and the buildings were being reconstructed; she never had any direct contact with the brat, just that one time she shot her, back when the snowball hadn't caused an avalanche yet. Sevika knew her by word of mouth, and the dozen posters hung up on every corner of Zaun when she had this whole dictator thing going on. So no, she didn't know her personally, but the Kirammans have a lot of rats in the undercity, it seems, because she easily found her at Vander's old statue, which was still standing by some sort of miracle. Neither knew what to say after the initial greeting, that was until Caitlyn pulled out a box of cigarettes so fancy they probably cost the same as half the undercity, and offered one to Sevika.

"I hear you're the top dog now," Caitlyn said, voice wobbly at the edges. She tried to give the appearance of someone confident and self-assured, but her trembling knees and bitten nails contradicted her.

Sevika snorted, exhaling the smoke. The cigarette tasted oddly sweet.

"That's a nice way to say everyone's on my ass about something these days," she replied. It wasn't technically a lie; the undercity always had a hierarchy, someone at the top of the food chain. Vander climbed to the top by being the one to pull everyone's weight and take care of things that weren't his business when they lost so many people during the Day of Ash, Silco got there by his use of violence and drugs, and Sevika—

Well, she knew she was there because there was no one else to claim the spot, no one to step up and care for things like Vander cared about everyone, and certainly there was no one with enough gold as Silco to try to climb up the ladder, add in the fact that people always sort of saw her as an extension of him, and, yeah, no fucking wonder she had people knocking on her doors all the time.

Caitlyn huffed, shifting her weight from one foot to another. She looked uneasy, Sevika noticed.

"But that means people listen to you. They trust you."

Sevika didn't like the tone she spoke with.

"Nobody 'round here trusts anyone anymore, I'm just the guy they like to inconvenience." But Caitlyn still had that stupid determined look on her face, and Sevika knew she was planning something bad. "Why are you here, anyway?"

"There are attempts to bring back the council, now that things have quieted down. Only two councilors survived the war, and one of them has rejected to go back to her position."

Caitlyn looked sideways at her, a heavy air started to surround them. Sevika didn't like where this was going.

"I fail to see how that's any of my business."

And just like that, Caitlyn struck Sevika with a death sentence disguised as a favor.

"I'm entitled to a council seat due to my family's hierarchy in Piltover society. I was thinking—I want to reject it and offer it to someone who represents the people of Zaun," Caitlyn said, with the cigarette dangling between her fingers. Sevika's heart was ringing in her ears when Caitlyn looked at her with that lonely blue eye. "I want to offer it to you."

The world stopped spinning.

"Why?" She squeezed her eyes towards her, trying to pry the truth from her, but Caitlyn recoiled and took a step back.

"You know. Because—you know." Which Sevika easily translated to: I don't think it would be wise for me to take the seat, after all the damage I inflicted. The people would never accept me, and that's not something we need when we're trying to rebuild and move forward. The undercity needs a champion in that chamber, and it can't be me.

Sevika then took a long drag of her cigarette, which she then realized was a peace offering, and didn't say anything until it was gone completely, only ashes left between Caitlyn and her. Caitlyn was impatiently tapping her foot against the ground, a nervous tick, Sevika recognized.

Such a young thing. Young and stupid and vulnerable and with a skin easy to puncture; her hair was dry, dead like everyone around them, she was bony and pale looking, and a thin layer of make-up tried to hide the fact that she wasn't sleeping well. There was not a doubt in Sevika's mind that Caitlyn would be eaten alive before she ever stepped foot inside the council chambers. It didn't matter that she once was a ruthless dictator who betrayed her House and used the grey against zaunites; now, she was but an echo of herself.

War does that to you, Sevika supposed.

"I'll take your spot," she said, once the cigarette was only ashes drifting through the wind. Caitlyn turned to look at her, young and stupid and vulnerable, and smiled in a way that reminded Sevika of herself when she was younger and stupider. "But I have my conditions."

Caitlyn, ever the eager little thing, nodded once, twice, and allowed Sevika to rest a heavy hand on her shoulder as she detailed her conditions, never once betraying uncertainty in her face. When all was said and done, Caitlyn gave her a time and place, then left with the hurried steps of someone that knows she's not welcome around.

When all was said and done, Sevika found herself inside the council chambers, surrounded by her enemies, and realized with embarrassing clarity that Caitlyn hadn't done her any favors by offering her seat in the council; rather, she had sent Sevika to the slaughter yard with a bow on top of her head and a target that read Easy to kill! Because Caitlyn knew, as her mother had known, that the life of a councilor can only survive by political alliances, arranged marriages between two houses to be able to have a vote to rely on when the time to pass legislation comes, enough gold to spare to buy someone's silence and another one's favors, charm and wit to spin a web of lies and wrap both your enemies and your allies into blindly following your command, or at the very least a house crest to rely on for extortion when times got tough—Sevika had none of that.

Sevika had her name but not a surname, the clothes on her back, a burned down house at the outskirts of Zaun she was slowly and painstakingly trying to rebuild with what she had at hand, and the ability to shoot someone dead before they blinked, but she couldn't make use of that skill here, now, could she? And both Sevika and Caitlyn knew—even though the latter wasn't there to see it—that being all alone in that chamber as the only zaunite among a sea of pilties from the most important houses in Piltover was nothing more than a lost battle.

Yet she's here, sitting in her shiny seat, debating about what material they'll use to carve out the new facade for the council, who are they going to hire to carve out the new designs, and oh my God, my daughter-in-law comes from the Pietá house, her brother has an innate talent for marble carving! You should see the statues he built for our garden. But no, we should focus first on repairing the main streets and, I'll have you know, I have a contact from Demacia who would be able to get us the finest materials to re-build, the demacian stones could support another rocket being launched against them. And, oh goodness! Haven't you heard that my house is hosting a theater night on Saturday, based on an old demacian folk-tale to uplift the spirits of our people? Of course, you're all invited, except…

All of the eyes in the room land on her, the outcast, the one without connections, without family, without anything worth a dime to justify her sitting among self-proclaimed gods. Sevika taps her fingers against the table, chewing on the anger and frustration instead of spitting it out and firing a few bullets in the middle of their foreheads.

She lays back against her chair, lighting a cigarette, and speaks in a calm, even-tempered voice.

"Zaun needs to rebuild itself, too," she says, not for the first time this evening. "We need schools, hospitals, walkable streets and a way to contain the pollution that comes from the abandoned factories. That's Zaun's priority, not—" Sevika makes a vague gesture at the lady with the heavy jewelry, Beata, she thinks. "—not a theater function, you know?"

Beata throws her a pinched glare, huffing and saying something under her breath. Sevika knows she won't cuss her out, if only out of feigned politeness. The rest of the councilors talk through gritted teeth, a lot of well, yes, we were getting to that, we were sure that Zaun could wait a little longer, because you're used to it, you know? And lots of poor excuses I don't care to remember.

"Councilor Sevika is right," Shoola suddenly says, loud and clear. She sits with her spine as straight as an arrow, and the rest of the councilors soon imitate her. In this new era, where the current people in power are still adjusting their shoes to the size of the task, Shoola wears her title with the pride of a survivor. "Let's not forget that, in our time of need, the undercity came to our rescue when they very well could've abandoned us. That's no small thing to take for granted; we have to show our citizens that we're not leaving them behind, isn't that right, councilors?"

A begrudging murmur takes over the chamber, and Sevika tries to hide her astonishment. She looks for Shoola's eyes, and finds an empty, even gaze that betrays nothing. Shoola nods towards her, starting to talk about budgets and materials and the work force necessary to help rebuild Zaun, while Sevika breathes in, still incredulous, and starts to list off the most damaged parts of the undercity.

When the session is done, and more glares of hatred are thrown at Sevika like the owners of said glares expect their eyes to suddenly shoot knives, Sevika finds Shoola alone in one of the many corridors of the building.

"Thank you," she says, and Shoola dismisses her with a wave of her hand.

"It's nothing."

"It is something, you know they—"

"—would rather kill themselves before supporting your policies?"Sevika hisses, pretending Shoola struck her with something blunt. Shoola chuckles quietly. "It's harsh, but it's the truth. We both know this."

"Yeah, and why do you support me?"

Shoola looks at her sideways, like she's weighing the truth on her tongue. In the end, she smiles at her without teeth and shakes her head.

"It's never too late to fix your mistakes, isn't it?" She says, all enigmatic, but Sevika has an idea of what she's talking about.

Of course. Of course she's talking about turning a blind eye to Zaun's suffering for as long as she was councilor, about dressing with the finest silks and using gold for bodily modifications while the people of the undercity died of malnutrition. She has to mean this, doesn't she?

Shoola walks away, bidding her good night, and Sevika walks back to the undercity in a sort of haze.

Sevika always thought the undercity had her own charm, compared to Piltover's impossibly polished streets and muted beige colors. Her home was an explosion of contradicting colors, a bunch of buildings and infrastructure pulled together by pure genius and faith in the gods; the city didn't follow anyone's logic, she created her own and demanded a true born zaunite to understand it. When Sevika was growing up, people liked to say the city was alive, really alive, and just like people knew her, she knew her people, and she would make foreigners get lost in alleyways with no end just to have a little fun.

There was a moment, when she was barely fifteen, where she stripped herself naked and laid on her back against the dirty ground in the fissures, where no one went. She closed her eyes, breathed in, and felt the city stir under her, vibrating with life.

Ammi never believed her, but Sevika knew what she felt. She felt the city as alive as ever, stirring under her, reaching out to touch her, and despite the fact that everyone wanted to leave, she wanted to live and die in the soil that saw her grow up. She still does.

In spite of the fact that everything's destroyed and the Zaun she knew no longer exists, she still wants to stay.

She walks through the streets, or what is left from them. People look at her, nod in acknowledgment, and she knows they whisper behind her back as soon as she's out of hearing range. Sevika doesn't have many friends nowadays, not that she ever had many friends, but the few that survived the war—and still speak to her—usually tell her what the people of the undercity really think about her. Sell out is the kindest word they used.

It's not a fucking surprise that many people still want independence from Piltover, wanting nothing to do with their neighbors after they were made to fight and die in a war that wasn't theirs to begin with. Sevika willingly taking that council seat, mingling with their oppressors in their fancy building, is not the solution everyone wanted.

There's a growing amount of people that repeat one name, over and over again, when the topic of who should be running Zaun is brought up—and it's not Sevika's anymore. Sevika knows he would never agree to it, especially because she hasn't seen his face around ever since war ended; he's licking his wounds, still processing, still adapting.

Sevika stops in her tracks, taking a cigarette out of her pack and lighting it. She's heard a rumor here and there, about people already deifying him; of course, nobody can rally that many people if it's not by the grace of some god. They're already saying he can shape-shift into owls, so, whenever someone sees an owl out and about, they drop to their knees, elevating their hands in prayer, and beg him to listen to their ailments.

But he is alive, as painstakingly alive as Sevika, even though she's well aware that he doesn't want to be. He's alive and he's not a god or anything similar, like a shaman with magic in his fingertips to solve everything. He's but a human, more bag of flesh and bones these days than anything. He has this sort of vacant look to him, as if his heart is still beating but his soul migrated to someplace where she is still alive, that chills Sevika to her bones.

Of course she misses her, she's not a fucking monster—but, unlike Ekko, Sevika knew a world before Jinx, so while for her life went on and the world kept spinning, Ekko's axis came to a violent halt.

These kids, you can't help but to feel bad for them, Sevika thinks, balancing the cigarette between her fingertips, keeping the smoke inside just a second longer, until it burns like she wants it to. Waste your youth like that, then when you think everything's settled, just like that, just like that—

I didn't want you to die, Sevika tells herself, blowing a cloud of smoke. She slumps against a wall, the left side of her body is aching, pulsing with something. Huh. I didn't want you to die, I know I yelled at you many times when you were still a brat, but I didn't mean it. I hope you know that, if you're somehow listening. I didn't mean it, Jinx.

There's a rustle of feathers somewhere, and Sevika's eyes find the culprit sooner than later. Not far away from her, sitting atop of a street light, is a black bird. A raven, was it called?

It looks at her with its black, curious eyes, tilting its head. Sevika stares at it for a second, uneasiness clawing in her gut the more she stares at it. Why do its eyes feel weirdly human? Why can she feel it judge her, even though she knows its impossible?

A spasm shocks the left side of her face, she hisses involuntarily.

"I didn't mean it," she blurts out. She's talking to the wind, to the possible spirit of Jinx walking among them, fuck, to the stupid bird that keeps looking at her with those eyes full of life. "She knows I didn't. Jinx, I mean. I didn't want her to die. She was just—just fucking annoying, but I hoped she'd grow out of it by the time she turned twenty, now—"

Now she'll never be twenty, never grow out of her stupid childish attitudes, like crafting actual bombs and bombs full of paint and chalk and smoke then triggering them all at once to watch you run in a frenzy, which used to drive Sevika fucking crazy. She most definitely told her I will kill you when I get the chance more than once. She will never get to tell her she didn't mean it, even though she wants to convince herself Jinx knew, just to get some sort of peace of mind that the kid didn't die thinking Sevika hated her.

Sevika never hated her. Not ever, not really.

She thinks a lot about her these days, now that her birthday is around the corner. Jinx would've been twenty.

The bird makes a horrible sound, like nails on a chalkboard, and snaps her out of her thoughts.

The cigarette is dead in the blink of an eye. She resumes her walk, and soon she's home, overwhelmed by a feeling she can't quite explain. It's something in her veins, stirring low in her gut and crawling its way up to her lungs, constricting them like a rope tied tightly around her ribcage.

Suddenly, breathing becomes a hard task.

Sevika wheezes, undressing herself from the torso up, and makes a beeline for her room, yearning for her bed. She lets herself fall against the duvet, hoping to catch her breath, but the rope is still tight, squeezing every bit of air out of her lungs.

It comes to a point where she's sure the lack of oxygen is making her delirious: she sees flashes of blue out of the corner of her eyes, bouncing from here to there, with no distinct shape or form. It jumps from here to there, from there to here, and it surrounds Sevika like a hunter stalking its prey before it pounces down.

She rolls around until she's face down, face pressed against the covers to not see it anymore, and all of a sudden there's a million ants crawling all over her face, her body, making her skin itch. Although she swats them away, she can't get rid of all of them, and soon she realizes there's no ants, not really, and it's something inside her stirring, pushing to come out.

A bird shrieks in the distance.

Sevika throws up a blue liquid all over her sheets.

Everyone leaves. This is the way things always play out; everyone leaves and Ekko is the last one standing in a sea of loneliness, while the rest gets to enjoy their happily ever after thanks to Ekko neglecting his own.

When has he not been alone? When has anyone looked at him, drowning in his unsaid sorrows, and said "I will not abandon him, I will stay"? When does he get to receive all the love and care he puts out to the world? Is his sole mission in life to be a stepping stone for the rest to get what they want, while his wishes end up neglected?

He dug people out of the rubble, reunited crying kids with their last living relatives, put up tents that functioned as infirmaries to treat the wounded, bent over backwards to make sure everyone had a piece of bread and a glass of water even if it meant he had to starve herself and reject food, and he would do it all over again because it meant something to those people, whether they made it or not.

Ekko had blisters on his hands and feet for weeks, his body kept going on despite the overwhelming exhaustion he felt—and still feels—at times, and when the situation stabilized, and everyone buried their loved ones, what was left for him?

Only a cold bed and an empty room.

The bottle of whiskey is empty. He holds it between his hands like some sacred treasure, while the last embers burn out. It's quiet now that the moon is up; not many people are still living in the base, and the ones that are still here have already gone to sleep. Scar stayed for a little longer, but he left when Ekko started to slur between words, saying he had to check on his daughter.

"Sylwia has started to talk," he commented before he left, lingering just a moment longer. "She said your name the other day, actually."

That perked up his interest. For some unknown reason, his eyes got all watery, fondness swelling in his chest. He loved Sylwia like a blood niece; he always looked after her so that Scar and his girlfriend—now wife—could catch some sleep. He missed her like crazy.

Which made no sense, because Sylwia was just a short walk away, but even a few steps felt like a thousand miles when his body always felt so heavy.

"She did?" He asked, a genuine smile blooming in his face. It was probably the first time in weeks since Scar saw him smile, so he reciprocated the gesture and nodded.

"Yeah, of course. She kept babbling your name, I guess she—" Scar stopped, mood suddenly souring. His gaze flickered between him to the bottle in his hands, and Ekko knew the brief gift of tenderness was about to be yanked away from him. "I guess she misses you, since you stopped coming by. You—yeah."

Scar looked away, embarrassed at not being able to catch himself before fucking it up, but it wasn't his fault that he was right; he hadn't seen Sylwia in a long time, neglecting his role as her uncle in favor of wrapping himself in his grief.

It hit him then just how much he was missing out on.

"I could—" He forced out, driven by his guilt and sudden need to make things right. "I could swing by tomorrow, have a play-date with her. I do—I miss her too. You know I do, I just—"

"I know, Ekko." Scar looked at him with a pitiful look that burnt Ekko's skin. Neither said anything. Scar left soon after, mumbling a goodbye.

And then it was him and his bottle of whiskey, all alone again.

Ekko grips the bottle between his fingers, wishing he had the courage to break it in a thousand pieces, so that the shards of glass would pierce through his skin and make him feel something, anything that's not this all encompassing void in his chest where a heart used to be. His skin starts itching, a familiar feeling these past days, he supposes it's due to his horrible blood circulation.

Who would've thought the great Firelight leader, who never had a moment to rest, now spends most of his days sitting in a chair, rotting away?

Nobody knows what to do; they've grown used to relying on Ekko. No one knows how to make him snap out of it. Maybe she would've known—she always knew how to make him snap back into being himself.

But she's dead. Dead, gone and buried—metaphorically, of course, because they never found a body to bury. Once he gave up his hope of finding even a scrap of her clothes, he decided to treat all the corners where they loved each other as endless graves.

Ekko hasn't slept in his own bed for a long time now.

Every inch of Zaun is a new grave, a new spot where her ghost flashes him a toothy grin, before laughing maniacally in his face and disappearing before he can reach out to her. Places where once their blood was spilled in a senseless fight are now covered with flowers, murals with a face that's not hers and people kneeling in prayer.

And he hates it, hates that they've desecrated the memory of Jinx and turned her into something she's not, an idol to worship and blame their problems on. They all hated her, not long ago, and cowered in fear at the sole mention of her name—what right do they have now to proclaim her their god?

Ekko made her his goddess a million times over, in every corner of the tree. He knelt in front of her and helped her rebuild the broken parts of her temple in the most taxing year he could've ever imagined. That was true devotion; not the thing the rest of Zaun has going on.

His devotion made him turn his back on a life where he had everything and come back to his true homeland, to her, with nothing but the hope that change was possible.

Things changed, so much so that Zaun is almost unrecognizable now, and he should be excited that a new era is upon them, but the void she left won't close up no matter what he does, because everywhere he goes, there she is.

It's the flash of blue out of the corner of his eye, the little girls running around with strands of hair dyed blue, the murals that keep popping up all over the city, the abandoned graffiti she once scribbled all over the city, the strands of hair he keeps finding all over his bed and causing him to break down crying because that's really all that's left from her—escaping Jinx is impossible.

"I should give up," he muses, running his thumb all over the edge of the bottle. The fire has died out. "It doesn't matter what I do, you're always there."

Ekko looks at the drawing Jinx made on the wall with multi-colored chalk; it's them holding hands, allegedly, while one of her monkey bombs go off. "Your room needed a bit of color," she said, cheeky smile plastered all over her face when he caught her red-handed.

He doesn't have the heart to wipe it out, so he pretends that if he talks to it enough, maybe it'll count as an altar and she'll manifest in his dreams to tell him what he wants to hear.

"I hate that this is what I am now," he says to the wind, to the drawings on his wall, to the droplets of blue still lingering in the crevices of his room. "There used to be more to me than this fucking excuse of a person who can't do anything but miss you."

The bottle slips from his grasp, landing with a thud on the floor, but it doesn't break; there's only a few cracks. Ekko stands up, stumbling around the room until he reaches the wall where Jinx's drawings mock him.

"There's—I want to move on, I want to let you go," he slurs, banging his head against the wood. His head hurts, but it doesn't matter anymore. "But I can't, Jinx, I can't. I wasted so much time, so much time…"

Falling to his knees is almost inevitable when there's no one to hold him. He cries, ugly sobs that make his whole body shake, while his forehead is still pressed against the wall.

Where did the fearless leader go? When will he be back? All of these years, he sacrificed himself and worked until his body gave out to have a thriving community, to help people like he wanted to be helped when he was left all alone in the streets with no one to care for him as a kid. There's kids who have his name because their parents were grateful that he provided them with a safe haven, people who have sworn with their lives to help him in anything he might need—and where are they now? Where is the community he fought so fervently for now that the sky is falling and his chest is collapsing?

Dead, they're all fucking dead because you brought them to a war to die, he helplessly thinks, with the tears pooling under him. They left because nowhere in Zaun is safe anymore, not even in this fuck-ass tree you traveled dimensions for, and the ones that are still here, you have shunned them because you can't see past your grief. Your loneliness is your own doing, Ekko.

He knows, logically, that it's not—he wants to hang onto with tooth and nail to the hope that it's not—but this late at night, with a bottle of whiskey already in his bloodstream, he can't help but to let out his worst thoughts.

It's funny. Jinx and him weren't so different, after all.

He breathes in and out, in and out, trying to take his mind off the tingling sensation in his hand.

"I want to…" He says through hiccups. "To let you go. To go on. Please, Jinx. Just—let me go on."

But the drawing on the wall isn't an altar, and Jinx isn't a goddess, so the only thing that answers him is the faint buzz of the firelight bugs hovering outside his window. They're always there, lurking, mocking him for his weakness.

Ekko clenches his hands in a fist. The tingling sensation turns into a vibrating pain that shots through his arm, making him hiss.

"I want to let you go. To go on. Please, Jinx. Just—let me go on."

But the drawing on the wall isn't an altar, and Jinx isn't a goddess, so his prayer remains unanswered.

There's a throbbing pain between his eyebrows, splitting his head in half. He reaches out for his bed, but stops mid-way—if he laid on it, pressed his face to the covers, would he be able to catch a whiff of Jinx's scent, even if months have passed and he's cleaned the sheets until the color faded and his fingers bled in the water bucket?

No, of course not. That's a silly question, Ekko. That's not how any of this works, son, but you don't know it yet.

He hesitantly approaches the bed, as if the mattress and the covers will attack him. His body is stiff as he lays on it, breathing in and out to try to control the pain, but the more he sinks on the mattress, the more it expands. It trails down to the side of his face, constricting his throat as it does so, and he only starts to worry when it makes its way down to his chest.

This pain that assaults him is unlike anything he's ever experienced before; Ekko is sure he'll die in any second now. He tries to scream, but no sound comes out, only strangled noises that won't wake anyone up. He rolls around in bed, until he falls off the side, and starts to crawl around the floor, blindly trying to reach for the door.

"S… Scar…" He says, his voice but a whisper.

He wiggles his way to a wall, though he's not sure if he's closer or far to the door; the pain has him shutting his eyes, blinking away to try to clear his vision but failing miserably. He's acutely aware of the sounds surrounding him, of the buzz of every firelight roaming outside his room, of every step everyone left at the base takes.

Ekko can't understand what's happening, if this is what death is like. He opens his eyes one last time and all of a sudden he's surrounded in a sea of blue, ears bleeding with the sound of Jinx's laughter everywhere, bouncing off the walls and haunting him. He sees blue out of the corner of his eyes, in his fingertips, through the cracks on the floor, blue light spilling over the window crystals even though it's well into the night.

Blue is Jinx, blue is the color of his sorrows, it's death and life and immortality all in one. It's in every corner of the undercity, in every wall and crevice people have deemed holy enough to worship on, it's the color of the sky and the color of her eyes every time she scrunched up her nose and pinched her glare when he made a corny joke she didn't like, it's the color she used to paint the nails that would end up scratching his back relentlessly when they shared the bed, it's everything and it's nothing. It's hell and heaven. Blue, blue, blue, blue. She will torment you until the day you die, and you know this, Ekko, but it's not your time, not yet.

Because something stirs within you, something that I need, so you will wake up and see the world as I need you to see it, and you will be grateful.

Ekko opens his eyes, breathing heavily. His body is still tingling with something he can't understand yet, and the world is suddenly quiet again. The quiet makes him uneasy.

He rolls on his side and throws up a dark blue liquid.

Chapter Text

ORESTES: How could you recognize me after all these years?

ELEKCTRA: What a stupid question. I was born knowing you.

Sophocles, Elektra.

Sister

Powder

Jinx

I miss you. You are so fucking stupid. Why did you do that? Why did you interfere? I would've given everything to have more time. Just a little more time. Two times I thought you were dead, two times I mourned you. My little sister, Jinx, Powder, neither—I miss you.

They say the undercity has made you their new god. I went back just a few days after it all ended, when the shock wore off and I wanted to see what remained from the old bar. I couldn't,  I couldn't. Everywhere I looked was stained Powder blue. I ran all the way back to the Kiramman mansion and my legs hurt for two days after that. Caitlyn couldn't find a way to console me.

I see Ekko sometimes. He thinks I don't notice his disapproving glare. I know he wants to cuss me out, but he's not himself lately. Hasn't been for a while, since

It doesn't matter. I miss him too. I offered him to come live with us and take a breather from Zaun's pollution. I'm not used to Piltover's air yet, neither to all the food Caitlyn has just… Laying around. All the time. I feel guilty having that at hand and not sharing with you, or Ekko, or the boys. Or anyone from the undercity.

I can't eat most of the time. It's just too much and my stomach isn't used to too much. I wanted to have Ekko around so that maybe it would be enough, but he refuses to leave Zaun. It's okay. I get it. He wants something better for the undercity and leaving would not be the right choice.

I know I didn't make the right choice by staying in Piltover. I know Caitlyn would be upset if I said this, so I'm telling you: I know I shouldn't have stayed. This isn't my world, these are not my people. I can't stand seeing kids with their fat bellies and full cheeks while Zaun's kids are emaciated and fighting for scraps. Did you know I have a period? I didn't either. I started eating the fancy meals Cait's chef (!) does and I randomly started bleeding one day. We went to her family doctor (!) and he said that was because I've been underweight my whole life, that I should get regular cycles now. 

Did you have a period? Did you ever eat enough meals to develop properly and get one? We never sat down to talk. We only ever tried to kill each other. I regret that. If I could turn back time, I would go back to the moment I hugged you again and run, run until everything is behind us, so that nothing may separate us ever again.

I love Cait. I think I do, at least, when the differences between us aren't so glaring. She's been distant lately, or maybe I'm the one that's growing apart. I don't know. I thought it would be fine to have a fresh start here, but even the fucking bathroom reminds me that I'm a gutter rat and she's the benevolent benefactor that picked me up from the sumps. If you were here, you would make fun of me for using all of this weird vocabulary, and talking so much about Caitlyn. She's been letting me read books from her library. Books! Plural! She has them to spare, can you imagine being rich like that? Do you remember that old fairy tale book Vander got us when we were kids? We memorized each and every line, read it until the pages were jagged by our touch. We felt like the richest kids in the lanes because no one else had a book to read in such good conditions.

It makes me angry, you know? That we felt rich with the scraps of scraps people left behind, to the point we walked with our chests puffed out and glaring at kids our own age over the shoulder because we had something they didn't: protection. It's infuriating, Powder, just how little that means over here. Caitlyn talks about her spring house, her winter lodge, the renovations that need to be done in the west side of the mansion and it's so fucking unfair, Pow-Pow, how I'm drowning in riches but it means nothing because I can't use it to quell your hunger at night, or Mylo's, or Claggor's, or even Ekko's. It means fuck all that my belly is full when there's kids fighting as we fought with Deckard and his gang for loose cogs they can sell for a few gold pieces, in an endless cycle that starts all over again every time a child is born in the undercity.

Caitlyn thinks she gets it. She never does. She tries, I swear to you she tries, but it's never enough, and her good intentions always fall flat. It's like she can't comprehend that there's no fertile land in Zaun where we can grow our own stuff, or that the coast is as polluted as I say it is, or that there's no schools lefts in Zaun, or that there's no real doctors, or, or, or…

I don't know what to do. I don't think I can keep just letting it go and not arguing further for the sake of peace.  You would've laughed at me, mocked me for going on with this lie. Maybe if you hadn't died, you sack of shit, I wouldn't avoid the undercity like a deathly plague and I would be able to tell Caitlyn, I'm sorry, I love you, I can't do this, and then I would've come back to the streets that saw me grow up and taught me everything I know. But you're dead and everywhere I look there's the ghost of you. Lately I'm not even safe in this big silent house; blue flowers started to bloom in the pots and I smashed them against the ground because they were the same shade as your hair.

You're so fucking stupid, giving me headaches like this even when you're dead. I miss you. I hate you. I wish you were here to have lunch with me.

I guess I'll just fold the laundry again.

Ekko's not quite himself when he leaves the room when the first rays of sun sneak through his window. He constantly looks at the place where he puked blue last night, concern brewing in his gut when the blue blotch stares back at him; no matter how hard he scrubbed, the stain wouldn't disappear. (It's probably the hangover and the lack of sleep, but if he squeezes his eyes, the shade of blue is constantly changing.)

Never mind the fact that there’s something running in his veins, poking holes in his skin from the inside. There’s a tingling sensation in his left ear, as if there’s wind blowing softly against it. It’s all driving him fucking crazy. There’s old wives tales that talk about what he’s going through, so he has an idea of what’s happening; he just prefers to ignore it.

He'll deal with it later, when he has the time to care. Right now, he needs to kick his priorities back in line; the base won't run itself, drinking himself unconscious won't change that. His role is more of an ornament these days, with the shimmer trade all but halted. He's the authority figure everyone goes to when they can't figure out a problem, or when something needs fixing. Jinx used to say he's always been a fixer-upper, taking broken things and fixing them until they're unrecognizable. She said that while they were tangled in the sheets, with his hand on her hip and her index finger tracing shapes on his chest.

It's like the possibility of what it could be turns you on enough to tame even the wildest beasts, she said, a sort of bitter tone in her voice as she avoided his gaze. Her body was tense, closed off and distant despite being chest to chest. Ekko said nothing, just argued that it wasn't in his nature to give up. Jinx muttered something he preferred to ignore, a Sometimes it would do you some good to know when to give up that carried the weight of the world.

She looked at him for a brief moment, shimmer pink and dark brown clashing in a silent conversation. If I had given up, we wouldn’t be here. No, you would be here, I would—you know where I would be. Yes, I know. I’m going to hurt you. What’s one scar more?

Jinx looked away. The conversation ended there and then. She left the bed not soon after, and Ekko didn’t follow her because he knew it would be no good to hound her, accosting her with his heart in his hand, ready to give it away. She was adamant that they had to wait until war was over to talk about feelings, about relationships and the long-run—things she didn’t believe in.

Of course, of course she didn’t believe in any of that. Not when there was a war being fought on not far away, that hadn't yet reached their doors by some miracle, when she still wasn’t convinced that she deserved the softness he offered. Jinx still believed herself to be a curse that spared no one, and no matter how much Ekko groveled and showed her that wasn’t true, she didn’t need to say it for him to know she thought her permanence in this world was ephemeral. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Ekko tried not to think about that. It's not like Jinx's initial admonition wasn't true; she more than anyone else knew about his savior complex, having been patient zero of this ailment—it made her sacrifice all the more bitter. She knew he would take the blame, hit the ground screaming and beg an barter with destiny for it to not be true, knew that she was the only thing he ever had faith in despite everything, and she did it anyway. Ekko would never be able to understand why she allowed him to do everything he did, to wake up every day and dream of more, more time, more shared secrets over a flask of whiskey, more late nights inventing new gadgets to help them with the task they planned to take on, more tomorrows where they had time to sit down in silence and just be together, if she never planned to stay.

In the end, it didn't matter what he did, he ended up back in square one—just a little kid standing on the bridge, face muddled in ash as he stood over the product of violence, except this time there was no body to cry over as he hugged himself and screamed until his voice ran away from him.

Always the savior, never the saved, he bitterly thinks.

He snaps out of the memories as soon as the morning breeze hits him. There’s things to do.

The base is much more of the same; there’s a line of houses built against the wall, some are on top of each other and accessible through hastily made stairs held together by a prayer and rusty nails. It’s what they have left from the grey crisis, when they took in too many refugees and in consequence had to turn away people from the first time since they established themselves—Ekko still regrets not being able to do more, but Scar had been right, and there was nothing to argue against the truth. Most of the second story houses are already abandoned; the people left once they were able to, taking off in cargo boats to find new places to call home. Some said teary goodbyes and thanked him for everything, others slipped away in the night without a word.

Everything is quiet. It's not going to be long before the people start to wake up, and the tree becomes alive once again. Of course, not as alive as he'd like it to be. Ekko stands under its shadow, savoring the moment of peace and quiet just a little longer. He breathes in the air, clean and fresh, and thanks the tree once more. But the gratitude quickly sours when he spots a couple of rot riven branches, mocking him as they sway with the breeze.

"The rot" is what they've decided to call the sickness occasioned by the hexgates. It kills what it touches, corrupts everything and is almost impossible to prevent it. You just pray and keep your eyes peeled for any spot of it. It hasn't affected the main roots as far as they know. Scar tried everything to keep the tree alive while he was—somewhere else, even going as far as sneaking into Piltover's botanic gardens and stealing books he could hardly read to find a way to reverse the rot.

(He makes a mental note to find a gift for Scar, I know he took on many responsibilities he wasn't prepared for and kept the ship running as well as he could during his absence. He hasn't shown him any gratefulness lately. His stomach twists in knots at the thought of being perceived as ungrateful).

The only thing that's worked so far is cutting the rot-riven branches and monitoring for new signs of the plague occasioned by the hexgates. They haven't yet figured out a way to make a new tree sprout, having to work with a sick soil that refuses to grow new vegetation, but they have to. Their survival depends on it; the factories have shut down, but the pollution is more or less the same.

There's a chest full of tools always at the foot of the tree, in order to swiftly spring in action when anyone spots a sign of the rot. Ekko takes a pair of scissors and soon he's turning his hoverboard on. The machine whirs in a way it has never done before, and he immediately knows he has to get himself inside the workshop to fix the weird sounds, but that's a concern for later.

The tree leaves move softly, thanks to the early morning wind. Ekko places a hand against the trunk, breathing in and grounding himself. It’s silly, he knows, but he’s always felt a deep connection with it. He was the one that found it, nurtured, and cared for it since he was thirteen; they grew side by side, taking care of each other for their survival.

Nobody will understand if he tries to explain the connection he feels to it. Sometimes, if he tries hard enough, he feels it stir under his touch, reaching out to him.

It’s silly. The gods have all but abandoned Zaun, and nobody has seen the minor deities that used to walk around humans since the ban on magic, some hundred years ago, but sometimes he’ll look at the tree and wonder if it’s the result of a minor deity escaping the spirit world. After all, only magic would be able to make a tree like this bloom in the sumps.

“Alright, big guy,” he says, patting the trunk a few times before peeling himself off of it. “Let’s cut the rot out of you.”

He follows the path of each and every branch, inspecting the smallest leave to find what he’s looking for. He’s sure he saw it as clear as the day from below; where did it go? Ekko frowns, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

It takes him a moment to spot the rot; the blinding light of the early morning hides the white parts, obstructing his task. When he finally finds the branch he was looking for, he goes to wrap his hand around it, thinking nothing of it, and then—

And then—

He’s yelling before he realizes, abject horror overtaking his body. He throws the branch far far away, but he stays where he is, paralyzed by the fear.

“What's going on?! Are we being attacked?!” Scar yells from somewhere, footsteps already echoing from below. There's the metallic sound of hoverboards coming back to life, joining him up in the sky, but he can't move, frozen by what just happened.

When a hand squeezes his shoulder, Ekko finally snaps out of his horror.

“Nothing happened,” he roughly says, panting as he pushes the hands away. “I prickled my hand, nothing happened, go away!” Ekko quickly flies down, avoiding the concerned gazes of his people. The irony isn't lost on him.

But he can't let them know what happened, not when he himself doesn't understand it either. It was supposed to be a normal maintenance task, one he had done over and over again, but this time—

Ekko hits the ground and starts running away from the prying eyes, faster than he’s ever run in his life, tuning out the screams from Scar behind him. He reaches the workshop and shuts the door behind him, heaving as he does so. I have to repair the hoverboard, he thinks, over and over again, to push the image of the rot to the furthest corner in his mind.

He ignores the incessant banging on the door, ignores Scar’s voice. He finds a table to drop the hoverboard on and works on it like a madman. Eventually, the banging stops, what doesn't is the fear coursing through his veins, like heavy molasses weighing him down.

Pretending to fix the hoverboard isn't helping. He's only tugging at cables, unscrewing and re-screwing things, not doing anything to fix the actual problem with it.

The actual problem is burned into his retinas, and no matter how many globes he stacks on top of each other, he's not able to stop feeling the tingling sensation in the pads of his fingers, calling out for the tree.

"Are you not hungry?" Caitlyn asks, peeking her head behind the doors. Vi hums non-noncommittally, gaze lost in the spring bloom happening right before her. The blue azaleas are slowly opening their petals, showing their beauty to the world. Blue like— "The azaleas are gorgeous this year, are they not?" She tries again, coming closer. Caitlyn places a hand in the curve of her back, but the touch is hollow.

Vi says nothing about the implication that she sees this every year, one after the other, as if its normal. She wishes it were normal for her.

The morning sun hits them right in the face, warming up their bodies. The large windows are wide open, letting in a soft morning breeze that would've been calming if it weren't because Vi knows Caitlyn is getting impatient. She wonders when will be the day she sends her back where she found her.

"They're beautiful," she says after a while. Vi turns to look at her, and she wonders for a moment if the smile she gives her is genuine or not. "Breakfast ready?" Caitlyn nods, and Vi trails behind her, sneaking one last glance at the azaleas blooming under her.

She has a question ready at the tip of her tongue, about the sudden blue flowers blooming all over the mansion and the reason for choosing that color, if it's a mistake or deliberate, but she swallows them down, just like she swallows down the dream she had last night, one she thought about sharing with Cait.

It's best if I keep it to myself, she thinks, remembering it all so clearly. In the blink of an eye she's not in the Kiramman mansion, but in her childhood home, with the leaky roofs and wooden floors that creaked wherever you stepped on, sitting at the table with Powder. It felt so real, then, when she looked into that little kid's eyes shining with unrestrained adoration, proper of a little sister, and reached out a hand to push the hair out of her face.

She remembers Powder being a fuzzy child, who couldn't sleep unless you cradled her in your arms. She carried that habit until she was ten, when she was growing too tall for the bed they shared and had to part ways. In the dream, Powder rubbed her eyelids and asked her if they were going to sleep soon, Vi said yes and reached for her across the table.

The Powder she ended picking up was the one she left behind, that night under the rain. She even had the drenched clothes and badly cut bangs. Powder clung onto her neck, asking all over again why did she leave her, and Vi, no longer the twenty-four year old, couldn't find her voice to tell her she didn't mean to, she wanted to come back but couldn't. Powder just kept crying, until her ears hurt with the sound of her voice, which escalated the more they got closer to the bed.

Vi clung onto Powder's small frame, physically feeling her weight in her arms, and when they finally reached the modest bedroom they used to share as kids, she put down Jinx. Jinx, with her body covered in ash, cuts all over her skin, and a bleeding mouth.

It didn't hurt. Not like other dreams, where she kept dreaming with her dead body in varying conditions—it felt oddly peaceful, like some type of closure. Vi cleaned the ash off her face, softly kissing her forehead like when they were kids, and she maneuvered them so that they were lying together in one bed. Intertwined, like they once had been, like it should have always been.

Vi didn't wake up crying, instead, she woke up feeling rested for once. Nightmares accosted her more often than not, waking her up while the moon was still up and keeping her awake; Caitlyn never said anything, but Vi knew she had woken her up more than once with her incessant tossing and turning. It was weird. How could such a disturbing dream bring her so much peace?

She ponders about the many meanings a dream can have, about old zaunite tales regarding the dead visiting you in your dreams, while she eats breakfast in silence.

Caitlyn is sitting across her—the real Caitlyn this time, not a Dream Caitlyn where she shouts at her to let her kill Jinx—, buttering up a toast and pretending she doesn't feel the tension in the room.

The enforcer badge with Caitlyn's name on it sits between them. They haven't brought it up again, but Caitlyn never goes too long without insisting she should do something, leave the mansion for a bit to clear her head.

"I have to be in the office soon," Caitlyn comments, bringing her teacup to her lips. Even the way she sips tea is so refined. Vi straightens up her spine by pure reflex and shame. "Lots of things to do at the station."

"Uh huh," Vi says, for a lack of a better answer. Caitlyn looks at her, and Vi can almost hear the next words.

"You should—"

"No." Vi calmly says, putting down the knife. Caitlyn purses her lips into a thin line. "I'm not having this conversation again, it's early in the morning. You know my answer."

"I don't think it's good for you to stay inside all day like this, you're practically a hermit."

"That doesn't mean I want to be an enforcer again."

Caitlyn has ready at the tip of her tongue all the excuses she usually hears, about reform and a new era, dismantling the corruption of the previous regime, respecting the zaunite people, and things that don't have a real meaning in a society that still subjugates her peers under the poor excuse of a new council that's barely even new, if the majority piltovan councilors have anything to say for it.

She has that tirade ready, Vi can tell, but at the last second, something else overtakes Cait, who furrows her brow and lets frustration take the best out of her.

"You know, it's like you don't even want to be here with me! Like you want to go back to that—" She stops in her tracks, suddenly aware of what she's saying.

Vi's heart is pounding in her ears; a heavy rock just fell down her stomach, keeping her attached to her seat. I knew, I knew this would happen, she would eventually have to get tired of me.

Caitlyn babbles something, trying to correct herself, but the damage is done. In the end, she rubs her hands all over her face, exhausted, and doesn't look at Vi when she speaks next.

"I just don't know what else to do, nothing I do makes you happy, so what will?" She sounds defeated, cornered against a wall between keeping up the pretense or the truth.

Through all of this, Vi stays silent.

Make my sister come back, she thinks. Nothing else will suffice.

Vi gets up without looking at Caitlyn, and leaves the dining room.

She walks aimlessly around the mansion, body numb. Her mind is full of static noise, not really processing the words but more so the feeling behind them. Vi can't put into words just how much the punch hurt, maybe even more than that hit Caitlyn gave her with the butt of her gun.

Maybe this is the end of everything, she thinks, walking by a wall full of windows, with the curtains moving in every direction thanks to the strong winds from the outside. Vi walks towards one of them, a chill running down her spine as soon as the early morning breeze hits her exposed skin.

The window looks out to a patio, where chairs and tables that look to be as old as the sister cities are arranged in a meticulous position that not even the wind can disturb, with its polished cushions and teacup set displayed on the table, always ready for an occasion to eat and drink.

Maybe this was a mistake, maybe she had it right the first time they tried to go their separate ways, on the basis that they were too different to be able to be together.

The coldness of the wind, contrary to what she would expect, doesn't cut her cheeks and make her stagger back (you're welcome, by the way); instead, it feels like a soft caress, despite the strength of it. Vi grips the veranda, breathing in and trying to cool herself down.

The sound of footsteps echoes over the noise, and Vi grips the veranda just a little tighter, clenching her jaw as she does so.

When the footsteps come to a halt, silence engulfs them for longer than comfortable.

"I'm sorry," Caitlyn whispers finally. She's standing right behind her. Vi doesn't say anything; she focuses on the wind messing up her hair, tickling her nose. "I let my emotions get the best of me and spoke while I was angry, I shouldn't have done that."

There's the faintest crack in the marble, right under her fingertips. Vi traces the pattern of the lines, frowning ever so slightly when she realizes the lines follow the position of her fingertips. That's weird, isn't it, Vi? Weird enough for you to see it yet?

"Please, please say something," Cait begs, coming closer. She squeezes her left shoulder, and Vi flinches. "Anything. Cuss me out if you have to, just don't—don't stay silent. Please."

Vi opens her mouth to say something, and a gust of wind fills her mouth, taking the words she wanted to say right out of her lips and rendering her back to silence. Caitlyn comes closer, placing her hand against her shoulder blades, begging for something, anything. But Vi's too worried by the wind carrying the scent of Zaun, by the tickling sensation in her left ear, and all the memories it brings back to pay attention to Caitlyn.

It's a revelation, a secret door unlocked right before her eyes and allowing her into a place she always knew but forgot about it. Vi feels the wind, finally feels the message it carries, and sees it all so clear she's embarrassed at having closed the windows for so long.

Vi lets go of the veranda—there's more cracks than before—and finally says something.

"I'm going back to Zaun today," she declares. Caitlyn sinks her nails against the fabric of her shirt almost instantly, heart paralyzed. Vi quickly rectifies herself. "I wanna see Ekko, I haven't come down in a while. I wanna—I have to go back."

"And you're coming back?" Caitlyn asks, full-blown panic bleeding into her voice. To me goes unsaid.

Vi falters.

She lies through her teeth, with the old charm only she can possess, and as soon as Caitlyn is out of the door, Vi fetches her old clothes from the boxes they keep on top of the wardrobe. Her old jacket greets her, perfectly folded and with a perfume packet to keep it smelling nicely.

Stripping herself from the clothes Cait bought for her and putting on her old zaunite attire is like putting back her old skin, her old worries and fears. It's familiar, and not the least bit comforting. But it's okay, Violet, you will walk the streets of Zaun again, and feel the life speaking to you through every step, just like I want you to.

So come home, hurry down the flight of stairs and run as far as you can across the tiled rooftops of Piltover, hurry back home, where I wait for you with a new purpose and a new life. Let my winds carry you through the narrow alley-ways to safety, like it guided you before.

Stand at the top of the bridge, breathe in, and step forward, my child.

When Ekko comes out of the workshop, hoverboard definitely not fixed and with guilt for abandoning his responsibilities nestled right in the middle of his ribs, he finds Scar playing with Sylwia under the tree. Scar spots him easily; he doesn't smile nor frown in his direction, just sort of expectantly stares at him, waiting for Ekko to join him.

Sylwia is the one that shrieks with happiness, immediately trying to reach out for him, making grabby hands and everything. It tugs on Ekko's heartstrings, making him run the remaining distance in order to scoop her up sooner.

"I missed you, little lady," he coos. Sylwia says something in the language of babies, immediately rubbing her hands all over his face. Ekko at least has the decency to look remorseful as he turns to Scar. "About earlier…"

"Did you see a ghost or something like that?" He questions almost immediately, cocking a brow. "You screamed bloody murder like you did."

Ekko squeezes his eyes shut. Even now, meters away from the tree, he feels the pull. It calls to him, like the sea calls the sailor.

"It's… I don't know if I can explain it. Maybe later?" He pleads, looking back at Sylwia, who's demanding his attention. Scar huffs, but relents.

"We have to repair the water tanks, there's a problem with the main valve. I shut off everything, so no one has water, basically. I would've solved it earlier, but—" He makes a vague gesture, and Ekko understands the implications. But you were hauled up in the workshop, is what goes unsaid.

"I'll take care of it, don't worry. Sorry for—you know." He sets Sylwia down, and she immediately starts running around him, saying something he can only interpret as her asking to play tag.

They share a brief look, in which they speak without the need for words. I don't know what is wrong with me, but I'll always be grateful for your help, and I hope you know that. I do know, if I didn't, I wouldn't be here; I'll always have your back, just don't forget to have mine's. I would never.

He played for a little while with Sylwia, in which he got renamed as Koko, and suddenly he wasn't the firelight leader but Sylwia's squire who had to help her defeat a mighty beast. Kids games came and went, as did his grown up kid responsibilities.

Then night came, and as always, came the reminder of his grief waiting for him in his bed.

See, maybe that's the problem, Ekko. Maybe that's what you have to do in order to move on; dust off the whole place, deep clean your bed, or just burn down the mattress until you're sure you'll never find a blue hair ever again—but that's not the problem, is it? No matter where you go, what you do to the room, or even if you tear it down and build it anew from the ground up, with new everything, that won't solve the problem.

The problem lies within you, at your core, is you who's the problem. You know it, as do I, but stubborn as humans are, you won't admit it until it successfully drags you down by your ankles, despite my best efforts.

At least you have enough sense of curiosity to guide you back to the tree, pushed by the need to know that what you saw was fake. But it wasn't, Ekko, and you know it.

His feet take him back to the tree, answering to its call. With trembling fingers he touches the trunk, keeping his breath steady. There's a warmth underlying there, reaching out to him. It scares him, but he pushes on.

He plants both hands on the trunk, breath ragged.

"What do you want from me? Why me?" He asks, knowing there's no answer.

The hoverboard strapped to his chest is soon back on, with its horrible whirring sound that could wake anyone up, but it won't because that's divine intervention for. This is supposed to happen to you, not anyone else.

He flies up, back to the precise place where it happened, and spots the rot. Memories of what happened earlier flood his mind, as well as the surge of electricity running down his veins. Ekko hesitates.

The winds—the softer winds I could conjure—whisper promises in his ear, of protection and knowledge, though he can't understand them yet. It's not the wind what convinces him, but the memory of blue hair draped all over his bed. When had she cowered against danger, against the unknown? She hugged her fearlessness so tightly it ended up killing her—maybe it will kill you too, or open your eyes to what I'm trying to show you.

Ekko sucks in a breath and reaches out to the rot.

The rot answers to him, looking for his touch, moving under his command.

This time, he doesn't scream.

Chapter Text

SERVANT: When neither self-control nor care for law exists, nor human feeling, trust, and sanctity, the kingdom can’t stand firm.

Thyestes, Seneca.

Zeri can't comprehend what just happened.

She was trying to pickpocket a random man's wallet. She promised her mother she wouldn't do it again, her legs had never been the fastest nor the strongest when it came to running away, but they were running out of food and coin and finding death strolling down an alley was easier than finding an honest job in the undercity.

When hungers opens the front doors, rationality takes her cue to leave. So, she swallowed down her shame and picked a victim at random; one of the many that frequented the alley of the lights to pray for relief that never came. It should've been an easy task, if it weren't because old dog have the sharpest reflexes. Before she could realize what was happening, her victim had her pinned to the ground, trying to get his wallet back, and in her desperation to break free, she closed her hands around his wrist and sank her nails into his ashy skin, a deep, guttural scream somehow managed to escape her throat.

Zeri never had too much to show for in terms of physical strength, her cunning mind was what got her so far in life. So, safe to say she wasn't expecting to—

The rush of electricity—

And then the charred skin—

She shudders, bracing herself against the cold winds. She's huddled behind a dumpster, trying to process what just happened without the man's friends trying to hunt her down and beat her up, maybe possibly kill her in retribution of what she did to his skin.

The smell of burnt flesh clings to her like an uncomfortable second skin she can't shed.

Zeri holds out her hands, trying to inspect them under the dim, sickly light of the single lantern in the alley. She chews on her lips, heart beating like it wants to come out of her ribcage when she confirms it wasn't a mistake: the skin on her fingertips is mottled with white and speckles of yellow.

Something weird is happening today.

Sevika makes her usual commute towards Piltover, having no recollection of what happened last night. A migraine is palpitating in the base of her skull, a faint buzz thrumming under her skin. No matter how much she scratches herself, it won't go away. It's unnerving.

There's something wrong with her, she knows that much. Or maybe it's the world that surrounds her that's wrong; everything seems—weird. She can't pin-point what, exactly, but even the air rubs her the wrong way. It's heavier today, as if the factories were miraculously back on and all the toxic waste was swirling around, clinging into their skin as a reminder of their place in the food chain. But it's not that.

The left side of her face spasms, with the intensity of the first day, when she didn't know if she would make it out alive and instead surrendered herself to the will of the gods, if they were at all still watching—it didn't seem like they were all that concerned with Zaun for the past few millenia.The scars of the explosion itch with particular insistence as she walks by the district surrounded by altars and murals of Jinx.

This side of the city always makes the hairs in the back of her head stand up; she knows it's not possible, but she always feels as if the eyes on each and every painting were following her, assessing her reactions with a mocking grin. Even though she's dead, Sevika does think the brat is stubborn enough to follow her everywhere as a ghost, tugging on her blankets at night just to get to her.

She stops at a particular corner where she's pretty sure there used to be another altar, attention caught by the ash and charred gifts. Someone must've set it on fire at night, perhaps a bitter enforcer that, emboldened by the empty streets, started a fire as a petty vengeance. As she approaches the wreckage, her migraine starts to increase by the second.

It's not a secret that Piltover officials still haven't forgotten about the council bombing. Jinx's death during war was a heavy blow for them, not because they had suddenly opened their eyes, had a change of heart and decided to be thankful for her help; if you asked any enforcer still alive, they'd spit on the ground like it had personally mocked them and tell you they were sorry she died in battle instead of rotting away in a jail cell.

Her growing cult seems to be a preoccupying matter for the enforcers and council alike. She's heard hushed whispers among the other counselors, when they think she's not around, about the savages of the undercity turning "that blue-haired terrorist" into a martyr to pray to. Piltover believed itself to be above such things as believing in a god, ditching their religions to cement themselves as the city of progress, despite the fact that if you were to really scrutinize their oldest buildings and family crests, you'd quickly realize they once formed part of my cult, prostrating themselves and praying for my favor just like zaunites kept on doing.

Whatever happened to this one, it probably wasn't something good. Sevika kneels down, inspecting the damage. The paint splattered on the wall went away with the fire, only a few flicks of blue remain.

She tsks, pulling out two cigarettes from her back-pocket, leaving one at the bottom of the altar—or what once was an altar, more like—as an offering. Jinx never picked up the habit of smoking, even though she used to steal Sevika's cigars and smoke them like she knew how to keep the smoke in to spite her. Nowadays not supposed to smoke, it's not good for her, specially on an empty stomach, but there's worse things that can happen to her and a little nicotine always helped her with her migraines.

Go figure why it's not helping now. It's as if it's increasing it instead of mellowing out the sensation.

"Sucks to suck, kid," Sevika says, lighting her own. She holds the smoke for one, two, three, four, five seconds and exhales when her eyes get watery, mentally preparing herself for the scowls full of contempt the day ahead promises. "Sometimes I miss working for your old man. You were more annoying than all of the counselors combined, but at least you didn't have the fate of the two cities in your hands." She digs the heel of her palm against her eye-socket, doing her best at ignoring the body tremors assaulting her body.

Sevika should get going. She'll be late and the others will chew her head off, instantly hurling accusations towards her and her professionalism. Any small mistake is enough for them to look for an excuse to kick her out of the council.

Some days she wishes they would, just so she could get everyone's attention off her back, crush zaunite's expectations and lay on the dirt once more, until she dies by starvation and becomes one with the undercity; being fertilizer for the land sometimes feel more productive than whatever the fuck she's doing, prancing herself in those shiny hallways that reflect all of her imperfections back at her.

It's just the migraine talking, she thinks, finishing the cigarette and crushing it against the ground.

She exhales, long and tired, and reaches for the ashes left of the altar in an impulse.

When the tips of her fingers brush against the brick surface, a blinding light flashes past her eyes, and she sees it—the kneeling people, hands up in prayer, and a green thing with sticky fingers but not enough speed to run away from the angry man she tried to pick-pocket. An angry man closing his hand around someone's wrist, clamped down like the jaw's of a hungry beast. Screams bouncing off the walls, some desperate and some irate.

And then came the lightning.

Not from the sky, but from a measly, terrified girl screaming bloody murder.

When Sevika retreats her hand, stumbling back as she pants like she just ran a marathon, heart ringing in her ears. Her body is aflame; she felt the girl's terror in her own veins, smelled the charred skin as if it were happening right now.

She looks at her hand, dirty with ash but otherwise normal. What the fuck was that?!

Sevika hastily gets up on her feet, running until her lungs collapse in her ribcage, until her face is red and sweat coats every single inch of her body and she's far, far away from burned skin and girls who can conjure lightning from their bare hands—but, of course, escaping is only a temporary solution; she will come back, or I'll make her come back.

This is only just the beginning.

As the newly appointed Sheriff, Caitlyn is supposed to leave her problems at the door and not make them the whole city's. And she tries, she can tell you that much until she's blue in the face, but the thought of Vi not returning has her stomach in a twist.

She would love to tell you she's being irrational, that Violet will most certainly come back, but the space between them is slowly turning into a void that can't be abridged or filled, no matter how much she tries—so no, she doesn't have any certainty about anything.

In a sea of changes, she wanted to believe Vi would be the one thing she could count on, desperately clinging onto her like a drowning man clings to a rock in the open sea. Looking back, it was foolish to expect war to not change them; it corrodes even the strongest soldier, leaving hollow eyesockets where once the stars had seen themselves reflected.

She supposes she expected anything to happen to them, like losing their friends along the way and gaining a few more scars to their inventory. She never expected that Jinx would be alive after a year since her latest disappearance, willingly fighting by their side against the noxians, only to sacrifice herself when it came down to it.

She saw Vi become nearly catatonic when Jinx tricked her and escaped the cell, staring at the walls of their shared room unblinking until her eyes were dry, repeating over and over again to herself that it was not her fault if Jinx did end up—anyway. But she got over it, slapped on a new face and dived head on to war duties to keep her mind occupied.

Now that death isn't knocking at their doors and they're done holding out hope for a miraculous third return of the sisters who just can't help escaping death, it's like the grief has finished carving a hole in Vi's chest and permanently made a home there; it's finished consuming her, taking the girl Caitlyn once knew and replacing her with a hollow body that looks like her.

If only she let me help her, Caitlyn thinks, signing trade permission slips and reading over papers without really processing the words, her mind preoccupied elsewhere. Just because I didn't like her sister doesn't mean—it's not like I wanted her to die.

That is a lie, obviously, but Caitlyn needs to lie to herself to not feel the shame and guilt crawling up her neck like millions of cockroaches.

May the gods forgive her, but her resentment never truly vanished. Part of her will always think of Jinx as her mother's killer, even if she swears it was never personal.

Caitlyn's hands starts to tremble, like it always does when she thinks too much about the past. She pushes away the tower of papers, walking towards her office window. A little air is sure to clear her head.

The city has been so quiet lately. It's never been the kind of city that has a high criminal activity; Cait used to think that was something to be proud of, until she realized that, where Zaun's crimes were a secret out in the open, advertised with neon signs all over them, Piltover kept theirs wrapped up in the finest silks and carefully picked out words to conceal their true intentions. Once she realized that, every corner was ripe with all sorts of felonies she worked hard to dismantle.

Zaun is another story entirely. She's tried to keep the enforcers out of Zaun's hair as much as she can, given their history with reckless brutality and the animosity after the war, but the undercity always had a delinquency problem, so completely withdrawing them from Zaun isn't a possibilty—at least, not for now. Maybe later, when the crime statistics go down and she's sure they won't kill each other.

It strikes her that Vi would be so mad at her if she could hear her thoughts. Caitlyn winces, ashamed of her line of thinking; it's no different from the rest of Piltover.

Maybe Vi is right when she says they will never see eye to eye on certain things.

Caitlyn's is too busy pondering on their flimsy compatibility, and the inevitability of their glaring class differences resulting in a break-up that leaves her all alone in the giant Kiramman mansion, when the entire building shakes and a blasts echoes all across Piltover, reverberating inside everyone's bodies, reminding them of that one day where Zaun gave them a taste of their own medicine.

It's entertaining, in a way, to see them scramble to their feet, running all over like headless chickens trying to figure out what happened. The oldest building in the city, where once stood a gorgeous temple—back when Piltover hadn't forgotten zaunites shared their blood—, then a frivolous shop where piltovans sell jewelry made out of minerals extracted from Zaun, was being engulfed with flames. It felt like a fitting place to start.

Caitlyn stands in front of the wreckage, trying to make sense of the blue fire, shouting at her people to hurry up with the water before someone ends up dead, but no matter how many liters of water they pour over the flames, they keep rising, until the fire engulfed the old marble and turned it to dust.

It makes no sense. It's as if the fire has its own life, avoiding the blasts of water trying to extinguish it, instead spurred on by the desperation everyone wears on their faces.

Part of her duty isn't, necessarily, diving into the flames to rescue whatever civilians might remain inside, but she does anyway. The smoke clouds her vision, making her eyes water as she tries to search for the screams echoing all around her, but she finds nothing.

Her men are shouting from the outside, telling her to come back before the fire gets to her, but it's in that moment, when she's stationed right in the middle of the shop, that she notices something.

The fire isn't touching her. It moves away when she tries to approach it.

Horror drips down her spine, guiding her limbs into a frantic run to escape the building. When she's out, none of her officers are able to make her speak about what she saw inside, she just keeps babbling the word fire, in a state of shock.

Only when the last bit of the old building burned down, did the fire magically disappear.

Despite what mortals may think, the spirit world isn't high up in the sky or down in the center of the earth; it's here, right beside them. Nothing more than a veil separates both worlds, one which gods can lift at their will, while mortal souls can't. The spirit world is radically different, though.

There's no defining shapes, no individuality to single out the souls. Everything moves en mass, surrounded by all the colors that exist morphed into one single blinding light. Life at the spirit world isn't good, or bad, it just is.

I exist because someone wanted me to exist. That's how this works; humans need something to believe on, and when that need surpasses a certain level of desperation, the first spark is ignited. Sailors on the verge of dying at the sea prayed for the winds to be in their favor, prayed for someone to make sure they made it home—thousands of years later, here I am. Jan'ahrem is what they named me at first, and since then I've taken on many names. Before I had a physical form, I had a name. Before I knew of the existence of humans, they built me altars and prayed for the things they wanted.

That's the order of things—at least, it used to be. Gods aren't randomly selected among humans and then elevated to the status of divinity. It's not natural.

Powder's soul is slightly bluer than the rest, beating with energy. It's easier to pick apart from the mass of souls that come and go in one single motion, like a tidal wave with no clear direction. Since she's not a god, there's no way for her to answer the prayers of the people, but mortals don't know that. They think that just because they build altars for her right next to mine's, it's enough to grant her divine status. It is not.

I'm not, by any means, angry or jealous. Gods don't have any use for mortal feelings. It's just—curious, dare one say, how her soul reacts. By all accounts, this has never happened before.

I turn her soul in my hands, inspecting it. In this form, where all that remains from Powder is raw energy, she can't feel anything. She doesn't have a body, so there's no need for a conscience or a nervous system; and yet the way it stirs in my hands, with its particular blue glow and erratic movements, as if she wanted to break free from my grasp, would indicate otherwise.

How strange, indeed.

You could be useful for me, I say, the sound reverberating all over the realm.

Gods don't "get their hands dirty"—not in the traditional human sense, at least. We whisper courage and send gifts from our realm so that the humans can learn to fend for themselves. Gifts as in spirits to do our bidding, little spirits to keep humans out of territory we don't want them in, and the occasional blessing to a human that deserves it. Our presence in the earthly realm could alter the fabric of existence, so, we stay here, and delegate tasks.

I lift the veil of the realm for a brief second, taking a peek at the city that made me their patron god. The gifts I sent are waking up, one by one, carrying my missing children home. Some don't understand it, screaming in horror when they realize the change in their bodies, but they will eventually come around.

My attention turns back to Powder's soul, that feisty little thing that caused so much destruction. My hands hold her, meditating on my decision. Obviously, before my children figure things out, a good amount of time will pass. And who will keep Piltover on their toes until then?

I start molding her soul into her body from before, carving out her figure exactly as I remember it. The energy obeys my command, bending into the shapes I will. It's not an arduous task; before I notice, I'm holding her body between my hands, cradling it with care.

Her body is still pale, void of any real life. Of course, she hasn't woken up yet. I have to breathe life into her first. Giving and taking life is not usually part of my jurisdiction, but this one time, I guess I can make an exception.

I bring her closer to my mouth, and a gust of wind forces itself through her lips, filling her body with my life essence. Her body starts gaining color, a firmness characteristic of humans. I see in real time how her body starts to spasm, coming back to life.

When her eyes open, they're pink. A panicked look sets on her face, trying to scream but no sound comes out of her mouth, even though it reverberates inside my body.

Hello, Powder, I say through our connection. Her body starts to tremble uncontrollably, fear striking her body in violent waves.

Who are you? She asks. My laugh must echo in her mind, because she looks as freaked out as anyone could be.

I believe zaunites have given me the name 'Janna', although I've been called many different things for the past few centuries.

And you're—what am I doing here?

I take Powder between my hands, maneuvering her as I please. It's so weird to hold a human like this; never knew they could be so soft and malleable. Powder thinks it's a little unnerving, but I just can't help myself.

You're dead, my dear, and I'm choosing to bring you back for many reasons. Starting with the fact that zaunites seem to be quite fond of you. I bring her closer to the edge of the veil, momentarily lifting it so she can see the many altars with her figure on them. In a particular altar, people scramble away as enforcers approach, intending to tear down just the figures representing Powder. And piltovans… Well, you can see for yourself.

She looks at it incredulously, not believing it's real, but it is. The enforcers tear down the altar, relishing in the destruction they cause as they delete any trace of Powder. We can feel their agitated breaths, and she flinches when a hand passes right next to her. All it takes is a flick of my wrist to change the scenery to a lonelier one; the ruins of her old home greet her.

I can sense her bewilderment through our connection, her thoughts become frantic as soon as she recognizes the bar. Powder tries to jump off my hands, in a futile attempt to cross the veil, but she's not strong enough to go against my will, so she stays exactly where she is.

But… What can I do? I'm not a god like you, she says, eyeing me warily.

I just smile. Even though I can hear her thoughts racing in her mind, it doesn't work the other way around if I don't want to show her. I don't want to scare her off with the size of her task yet.

I know that humans are aware of the gifts we send to earth every once in a while. They have many names for them, depending on if they like them or not—demon for those they don't, and demigod for the ones they do.

No, you're not. But gods, spirits—to your people, they might just be the same, so long as someone's answering their prayers, I say, letting the veil fall back. Powder is still confused, thoughts running into each other into an incoherent mess I'm barely able to pick apart.

Janna… What are you asking of me?

I smile. She's trembling, already figuring me out. A smart one, this one is.

Of course, a god wouldn't just bring a human back to life because they're cute and entertaining to mold. No. Powder has a purpose.

I'm not asking, Powder. You will become my champion down in the human realm, and you will buy my children time. My voice travels through the realm, calm and firm. A surge of electricity runs down each individual nerve in Powder's body, resulting in a violent tremble.

When she looks at me, it's not devotion what she feels. Fine, I didn't expect it after this, either way.

Buy time… How? She asks.

I hold her with one hand, bringing the index finger of my free hand towards her skull. The tip of it presses against her forehead, and her skull shatters in two perfect halves, a blinding blue light emanating from the cracks.

It's easier to show her my intentions like this; if I were to try to explain to her through words, she'd think she has an option, that she can barter her way out and somehow slip from my grasp.

She cannot.

When she's done writhing in agony, tears rolling down her face as she absorbs every last bit of knowledge, she'll bow her head and fall in line.

And once more, one of my gifts graces the world.