Chapter Text
She was running and her heart was pounding.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump
Her heart beat like a hammer in her narrow chest, neatly aligned with the pounding of her feet. The breath burned in her lungs and in her limbs. Her muscles ached and the cold bit at her pale, scarred flesh.
It was cold, and the fortress was northerly—nestled in the lee of a high mountain less than a hundred miles from the border that marked the end of Demacian territory and the beginning of Freljord land, at least as far as the locals reckoned it. There were seven villages in that same distance, too. Seven villages, four Demacian on their side of the border, two on the Noxian side, and one further north at the mouth of a mountain pass that owed allegiance to no one.
Numbers rattled through her brain. Numbers, figures, population centers—how many people? Seven villages plus approximate travelers, no more than two thousand all told, only two from Noxus…calculate…factor the skirmishes—conflict drives people away.
Out and away. Factor immigration. Calculate.
Two Noxian villages, thinned by conscription and skirmish plus harsh environs and an unpopular administrator equals a skeleton crew of guards, small but loyal.
Well-trained. Veterans. Sharp patrols. Thin patrols. Double shifts, maybe triple. No not triple. Too many weeks since the capture. Too many long shifts dulls the edge of focus…well, maybe for some people it does.
She bit back a reflexive cackle as she pressed hard against the cold stone wall of the Noxian fortress and began to climb, her slender fingers finding small fissures in the stone. The stone was dark, not native to the area—she knew because she licked it. It was cold like ice, but beneath that, it was hot. Hot like sulfur. Hot like ash. Hot like Noxus.
Taken from Noxian quarries, fashioned by Noxian stonecutters and Noxian artisans. They know the wide plains and dark places of Noxus. They don't know the high places. The cold places. They didn’t know that their dark stone grew slightly brittle in the cold. The chemical structure broke down at low temperatures, opening cracks—tiny cracks—and her fingers were ever-so-good at finding the tiny cracks.
So she climbed the wall, ignoring how her fingers were growing numb from the snow and the cold of the early night as she clambered up the wall. By the time she reached the crenellations, they were bleeding, but she ignored that too. She had bigger things to worry about.
Her cheek still hurt.
No it didn’t. Bad. Stop lying. It stopped hurting days ago. It didn’t hurt anymore. Something else hurt. Something lower than her cheek. Something that caught in her throat and choked her at night. Something that knocked at the walls of her ribs from somewhere in the deeper places of her heart, and it hurt.
Her heart hurt.
Jinx laid a hand over her heart and grit her teeth as she clawed at her pale chest. Her heart hurt.
Ignore it.
The satchel hung heavy around her neck and back as she moved low, slinking like a sump rat across a piece of piping. She crept along the wall in the shadows of the great fortress in front of her toward the backs of two guards.
Noxian guards. Their armor was dull, matte black, and edged with dusky crimson. The colors of House Du Couteau. It was well kept, utilitarian—no embellishments like the kind worn by younger guards.
Extrapolate.
Her eyes flicked over the folds of their cuirass’. Eyes like springberries, she said. She likes those eyes.
No, stop. Stop the hurt.
Cuirass. Read the cuirass. Old style. Old school. Sword school. Noxian sword-school; blade and trade, close combat—Heater shield and half-blade for infighting, with a spear for the range. Trained to counter Demacian straight-sword styles, but it leaves them vulnerable at the sides, and to low attacks.
Zaunites always come in low and to the side.
They never saw her. She hated knives, but she used them when she needed to. They didn’t make enough noise. They didn’t bang or pop or scatter. They were quiet and dark, and that meant her head was too loud, but right now…right now that didn't matter.
Right now her heart was louder than Fishbone’s biggest rockets.
A knife went in—left of the spine, fourth lumbar down, and he bled out in an instant, as silent as the grave he’d never get. The other turned at his partner’s wheeze, his brow creased, but he was slow and too old. Too old for war. Too old for guard duty, but he took it anyway. Sentiment and loyalty.
The knife went in. The old guard went down.
Jinx dragged them to the edge and pitched them off the wall down into the snow. It was cold and dark, and the lights were low. They wouln't be found before morning. Which meant they wouldn't be found til the next thaw.
Months and months and months.
With a gap open, they’d notice. Jinx knew they would notice. Noxians liked schedules—Jinx hated schedules. Everything on time. Everything in order. Everything tick-tick-ticking like the world’s most boring bomb. A bomb that wasn’t meant to explode with a ticking that was never meant to stop. Just to tick and tick and tick forever and ever and ever until the ticking drove you mad.
Jinx was mad. Jinx was furious.
She bit back another laugh as she slipped down the wall. The Noxians would notice when their schedule was disrupted. Then they’d begin their orderly little search. Jinx already studied the lines they would walk and the gaps they would leave; blind spots made a little bigger by a missing pair of old men.
Her fingers found the cracks—found the center. All cracks have a center, where the crack was widest and weakest. Her face split into a broad grin as she traced the infinitesimal cracks with her bloody fingers and found the angles.
Found the angels in the angles.
Calculate.
Jinx bit back another laugh. She wanted to laugh because it’s just…well, it was funny, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it so funny how they didn’t know that their stone cracked a little in the cold? Wasn’t it just so silly that there were little soft spots—open spots—in the meat of their wall like badly healed fractures in a leg that’s just begging to get kicked?
The satchel came open, and a surprise was pulled out and pressed to the wall where the angels were. It went right over the pinhead where all of them were dancing.
Pinhead.
Must’ve been a real pinhead who designed this fortress!
A giggle escaped Jinx’s lips as she circled around the darkness of the fortress, dodging between patrols and torchlights to leave presents with the angels, almost emptying the satchel before ducking into the shadow of the eaves of a servants’ door.
She knocked.
No one ever expected it when she knocked, which is really…well, that was funny, too, wasn’t it? She was there to make so much noise and if she kicked her way in they’d fight tooth and nail to stop her, but they opened the door when she knocked. This time it was a pretty thing that opened the door; short and mousy and tired, and her eyes (dull brown eyes, not blue like hers. Not pretty like hers) went wide, and her mouth did too. Wide to scream.
The scream was a quiet, choking noise as Jinx moved past her, dragging the thing with the boring eyes along with her before pulling the knife from her throat as she dumped the lumpy thing in the latrine…wait, no. Jinx turned back and narrowed her eyes at the hole in the floor where she’d dumped the not-pretty-thing. Not a latrine…is it? No, what’s the word? She would know. Not a latrine, then that would make it…a privy. Right, that’s what they call it when it’s indoors: privy. Jinx nodded. Mystery solved. She shut the door to the latr—damn it, the privy, and moved on. She slipped through the halls, ducking between rooms and doors like a dance. The fortress was barren of people. Thinly manned. Thinly maintained. Not enough blood in the veins to make the heart beat-beat-beat.
Thump-thump-thump.
She knew where the prison was. Knew where the red-haired woman went every night. Every night to see the knight to say night-night to the big old knight. Jinx smiled and tried not to laugh. Night…such a funny word, wasn’t it?
The halls were empty, but she moved low anyway. It was a habit, to stay low and to the side. Her habit. A Zaunite habit. Habits like rabbits. Jinx choked on her laugh, but a little got out anyway, but that was okay. The halls down here were dark and empty of anything but the prisoners’ cells. Prisoners for Noxus. Meat for Noxus. Meat to feed into a machine so it can keep on tick-tick-ticking without ever exploding.
What kind of crazy, silly idiot makes a thing that ticks but doesn’t explode?
Makes no sense.
Jinx counted the cells and listened. There was breathing in most of them and each of those got a present too. She moved until she reached the last cell and heard voices. Chattering and nattering voices saying words that meant nothing to no one who mattered.
He was talking. Then she was talking. Then he was talking again. None of them were blowing anything up, so what was even the point?
Then the door creaked.
“Goodnight, Crownguard. And goodbye.”
For once, Garen saw the danger before Katarina did, but only because he was looking at her while she was looking to the side. She was looking away from him and towards him at the same time, so she didn’t see the girl in the doorway with electric-blue braids, bloody fingers, and the widest, craziest rictus of a smile that Garen had ever seen. She was wearing so little clothing that it was a miracle she hadn’t frozen to death just stepping outside; she wore a wild array of belts and straps that barely kept her bits in check, but despite her near-nudity, it wasn’t her body Garen was staring at.
It was her eyes.
“Hey, Red!” She chirped.
A weapon—a gun, maybe Piltovan?—snapped up to press against Katarina’s head. Katarina didn’t hesitate, she moved like a blade being unsheathed from oiled leather, vanishing in a flicker of darkness, and Garen’s eyes went wide as she did.
His eyes widened because he saw the crazy girl tossing something behind herself. Something with wide chomping teeth that snapped open just Katarina reappeared, landed, and—
Garen let out a bellow of warning but it was far too late, and Katarina muffled a scream as the chomping teeth bite deep into her ankle. Her eyes went wide, and her dagger fell from her hand just as the girl turned and stomped down hard on the chomping thing, and Garen winced at the cracking sound. Broken ankle, for sure.
“Noxians,” she laughed, waving a slender hand back and forth in front of her. “Always trying to get in the back…next time, you should just punch me!”
Katarina didn’t say a word; she just let out a hiss of agony as she pulled another blade out, and as she did, the crazy girl tapped her foot. The second she lifted it, the thing with the teeth attached to Katarina’s ruined ankle started rapidly ticking down.
“Do it and lose the leg.”
Garen’s heart went cold at the smiling ice in the girl’s voice. That wasn’t the voice of a sane person. Garen had heard voices like that once or twice. Usually the oldest and worst Noxian soldiers. The ones that didn’t mind the blood anymore. The ones that liked it. It was the voice of a natural-born killer.
“What do you want?” Katarina snarled.
“Nothing from you, Red,” the girl said as she pressed down on Katarina’s wound, somehow keeping the thing from going off. “Just, y’know, don’t move…otherwise I might take off a little more than I mean to, y’know?”
She raised the gun, and Katarina’s face was lit for a brief moment by white light before a snarl like a lightning strike spat from the barrel. Katarina spasmed violently for a moment before flopping bonelessly to the ground as foul-smelling wisps of smoke drifted up off of her.
The girl knelt and carefully removed the chomping thing—a grenade, Garen realized. He’d seen them used by some of the Piltovan Champions in League matches, most notably Heimerdinger, to deadly effect. She fiddled with it, presumably disarming or resetting it since it didn’t suddenly explode, as she turned and walked into his cell.
“Who are you?” Garen asked hollowly.
Crazy. She was crazy. She had to be to get this far. Crazy and insanely dangerous.
The rictus grin faltered as she stared at him. Her eyes were bright and lit from behind with madness. With sickness.
“You don’t care.” She said it without tone or feeling as her smile melted away to a look like a doll someone had forgotten to paint an expression on, and Garen thought it was somehow worse than the smile. “You don’t care, not like…no, you don’t care, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll do this, then maybe it will be enough.”
She raised her hand and scraped red furrows in her chest over her heart.
“What do you want?” Garen snarled.
“A favor.”
Garen grit his teeth. “I don’t deal with criminals.”
“You do tonight,” she replied, still smiling.
His gut clenched at the certainty in her words. It wasn’t unlike a zealot’s, except at least they had the good grace to believe in some higher power. This girl, this woman…this thing didn’t seem to believe in anything but violence.
“Tell ya what,” she leaned in, all broad smiles and murder in her eyes. “One day, you'n me? We’re gonna come face to face, and it’s gonna be a problem, okay?” Somehow Garen suspected she was right. “Just like it’s a problem now. I could solve my problem by blowing you up! But I won’t. That ain’t why I’m here, Chunky. So here’s the deal…when the problem pops up, you ignore it, just like I did this time.”
“I will not betray my people,” Garen hissed. “I will not betray my family.”
Something about that made her grin go wider. So wide that her lips cracked and blood trickled from the fissures as she leaned in so close that their noses were almost touching. Her eyes were terrifying. They were so gods damned bright. At that distance, he could smell her. She smelled like black powder and death, and her breath smelled like blood as she hissed two words: “I know.”
There was a click, and Garen’s manacles fell away. She moved with careful precision that belied her underlying, frenetic nature, and Garen’s numb, aching limbs finally relaxed as she freed him, and he slumped to the floor.
“Is she dead?” Garen asked quietly, his voice almost shaking as she walked away from him, and he pushed himself onto his elbows to turn a dark glare onto the girl.
The girl shook her head, and smiled back with that rictus grin.
“Nah, just a little toasty! Side-effects may include the jitters, the jumps, and everything tasting like peanut butter for a little while!” She rattled off.
Garen breathed out a sigh of relief. For some reason, this madwoman didn’t strike him as a liar. People as crazy as that tended not to see the point in lying. “Fine, but I can’t make any promises…but why, though?” Garen asked. “There’s no getting out of here, even if I am free.”
“What would it take?” she asked, looking unperturbed at the concept.
Garen sighed, not sure if he should play her game or not. In the end, he figured he may as well humor her. Why not? She was crazy but deadly.
“An army?” Garen offered wryly.
She shrugged, her narrow shoulders rolling with lean, whipcord muscle. “Yeah, that’d do it, that or a prison riot.”
“Even then, it wouldn’t be enough,” Garen insisted.
She tapped her lips thoughtfully, then nodded and smiled a big, broad, toothy grin. “Y’know, you’re right! You’d need like, holes in the wall or something for it to even matter, huh?”
“Or an army outside,” Garen repeated. “And unless you’ve brought an army, all you’ve bought me is a quicker death.”
“Pssh, it’ll be fi~ne.” She laughed, waving her hand dismissively. “Now—” she reached to the side of the door, pulled a satchel into view, and tossed it into the cell “—when the ticking stops, you’ll have like, oh, ten minutes to run!”
“The ticking…?” Garen looked down at the bag and flipped it open.
Inside was an old brassy alarm clock with a cuckoo bird stuck between the bells and a crude grin daubed across the face of the clock itself, and it was ticking slowly down.
“Your sword and stupid shoulderpads are in a room that’s left, right, left, left, and two doors down from the end of the hall,” she said brightly. “If ya want’em then ya better grab’em fast!”
She stepped out of the cell and gave Garen another big grin and a thumbs up.
“Where are you going?” Garen asked, a small part of him fearing the answer.
“To start a prison riot!” She chirped.
Then she was gone and the clock was still ticking, faster and faster. It was tick-tick-ticking, and Garen felt a premonition of something ugly open up in the pit of his stomach as he ran for Katarina, scooped her up, and wrapped her in his arms protectively just as the ticking stopped and the world exploded.
A knock came at Lux’s door. The second one that day and the hundredth one that week. Like all the others, Lux ignored it. Instead, she curled up under her blankets and shuddered as her eyes burned. She’d long since run out of tears, but that didn’t stop her from trying.
“Lux?” Cithria’s voice came through clear as a bell. “Lux, please, can…you know what, I’m coming in, and I don’t care what you think.”
She pushed the door open, and light flooded into the dark room.
“Gods!” Cithria flinched. “Lux! What—?!”
Cithria of First Shield entered Lux’s room with worry in her eyes, her armor clinking as she squinted at the lump on the bed.
Quietly, Cithria closed Lux’s door, banishing the harsh light of the outside as she moved to Lux’s bedside, knelt, and put a hand on Lux’s shoulder. “Lady Lux, please,” Cithria pleaded softly. “You’re not eating or drinking…I don’t even think you’re really asleep.”
Lux didn’t react. Another tiny tear worked its way down a cheek that was raw and red from crying. What was the point of eating or drinking? Really, what would be the point? After what she did, did she even deserve to? And as for sleep…no, that was worse. If she slept she would dream, and when she dreamed, she dreamed of eyes like springberries and hair that smelled sweetly of ruin. A tiny hiccup escaped her chapped lips.
“I know we haven’t heard from the Noxians in a long while, but you can’t just…” Cithria’s grip tightened faintly. “He wouldn’t have wanted this.”
It took a moment for Lux to realise what it was that Cithria was talking about.
Garen. Her brother. He was being held by Noxus, that’s right. Gods, she’d almost forgotten. She’d lost Jinx, and now, from the way Cithria was talking, she was going to lose her big brother, too. Maybe she already had. Maybe the Noxians had already killed him. Somehow, that seemed less important now than it had she’d lashed out at Jinx over it. It felt so stupid now; to have gotten so mad at Jinx over something so silly. Yes, it was terrible that Garen was, or might be, gone, but he was a warrior—a Crownguard—and it was no secret that they tended to die in battle. Garen had been ready for his death every moment of every day from the instant he took up his blade, just like Lux had been ready to spend her life as the coin of the Demacian crown.
“Lux, please,” Cithria said quietly. “We’re…we’re having a memorial tomorrow, and you should be there. I can help you clean up and maybe get some food in you, okay?”
Absurdly, Lux was almost grateful her brother was dead, assuming he was. It meant that her family would leave her to grieve what she’d done to Jinx in peace. It would give her an excuse to be broken and shattered and burst into tears every time she thought about never being held by her madwoman again. Everyone would assume it was over her brother. None of them knew that she would never weep over her brother, because Cithria was right. He wouldn’t want that. Lux knew Garen better than anyone. He was a warrior, loyal and true, and she knew that when death came for him he had, or would, face it with honor and dignity.
There was no dignity left in Lux.
Sniffling, Lux pulled the covers back to stare, ruddy-faced and red-eyed at Cithria, who’s own eyes were a little bloodshot. She was gentle, moreso than people gave her credit for, Lux knew. Cithria had more kindness in her than a soldier ought to, but she was bold, brave, and true, just like Garen. Soldiers were already starting to call her Cithria the Bold.
“Lux—”
A clamor started up from somewhere in the manor. Voices shouting and calling for aid, and suddenly Cithria was up, her hand on her blade and posture squared, and even Lux craned her head up out of the blankets.
She was a mess. She hadn’t bathed in days, and barely been out of bed except when her body forced the issue. Lux didn’t want to leave her room anymore, so she didn’t, and thanks to her Aunt’s house arrest (grounding) she hadn’t needed to argue the point. Now though, something was happening, and Lux felt a tiny twinge of energy. Seconds later a pounding came at Lux’s door, and Cithria laid her hand on the pommel of her blade, readying to draw it at a moment’s notice as she pulled the door open.
A sergeant of First Shield stood on the other side.
“Report!” Cithria barked. “What’s all the commotion about?”
He was red-faced and out of breath, but what he did manage to gulp out between pants, and through a smiling face, were two words.
“Garen’s back!”
Cithria’s face bloomed into a smile, and Lux, hatefully, felt her heart plummet. No more excuse for her grief, then. Worse…she would have to smile. Lux peeled herself out of bed, wrapping the blanket around herself. She wasn’t wearing much but she didn’t care. She darted out of the room past Cithria and the guard; better they didn’t see her expression. Better that they thought she was just so very eager to see her brother.
Maybe if she saw him, she really would smile. It was the only hope she had.
So Lux ran. She ran down the hall and down the stairs before bursting into the open foyer. It was dark outside, night had swallowed Demacia, but despite that, there he was.
Tired, bruised, and dirty, but there he was.
Relief flooded Lux’s chest as she found she really did want to smile. She had been ready for her brother to die like any good soldier, but she had never wanted it. Seeing him alive and well, with a broad smile as he turned to her and opened his arms…it was good.
“GAREN!” Lux slammed into him, and he didn’t move. He was big as a Krug, and his hug encompassed her whole body as he hugged her back.
Garen Crownguard wasn’t given to great shows of affection, but this was an exception, because he was home. He was home and safe, and at least Lux could take comfort in that.
“How?!” Lux cried as she buried her face against his chest. He was wearing a tunic that was ragged from weather and wear. His armour was gone, and the only thing he carried with him now was his blade. The heirloom of the house that Lux knew her brother would die before losing.
“An excellent question.” Tianna Crownguard moved slowly into the foyer, one eyebrow raised. “It’s good to see you safe, though, nephew, but please, regale us… we haven’t heard from the Noxian negotiator in over a week and feared the worst.”
“High Marshal.” Garen clapped a fist over his heart. “The fortress…it was attacked.”
Lux frowned. It wasn’t like her brother to hesitate, especially not during a report. His words were always clean, clipped, and straightforward.
“Clarify,” Tianna ordered.
“There was a prison riot and explosions,” Garen continued. “I got loose from my chains and followed the prisoners out, rallied them, and together we beat through the stunned Noxian guard and fled south from the Fortress.”
Lux could practically feel the gears turning in her Aunt’s mind, but that wasn’t what was consuming her thoughts.
Explosions? A prison riot? No…it wasn’t possible.
“I see,” she said slowly. “And the attacking force? Did you get a count of their numbers? Allegiance?”
“No and no, ma’am,” Garen replied. “The attack came at night, most of the lights were doused, and there was stone-dust everywhere. I heard fighting, but it was chaos. I considered remaining but opted for discretion and used the distraction to rescue the prisoners I’d escaped with.”
“And you never saw who orchestrated the attack?” Tianna repeated.
For a moment, just a heartbeat, Garen hesitated. Tianna didn’t seem to notice, and even Lux wouldn’t have if she hadn’t been pressed up against him and heard the way his breath caught just faintly in his chest.
“No, ma’am.” He lied. “I didn’t.”
Garen had just lied to their Aunt. To the High Marshal of Demacia. Lux had just heard her big brother tell a bald-faced lie to their Aunt’s face.
“Pity, that, but I’ll be happy for the mercies we’re given,” Tianna said, her cold features warming just fractionally.
If Garen rarely showed affection, then Tianna Crownguard was a Freljord glacier.
“Let’s get you a bath, brother,” Lux said, pointedly nodding towards the hallway she’d come from, to where their rooms lay. Garen hadn’t stayed in his for more than a few days at a time in years, but it was still kept up by the servants. “You smell like a hundred miles of bad road.”
She laughed, and if the gathered soldiers, and Auntie Tia, noticed anything in Lux’s voice that suggested anything but fondness, they didn’t remark on it. Garen chuckled back and nodded as he let his little sister lead him. She was so small compared to him. His solid mass dwarfed Lux by a considerable margin, but at the same time he sagged as he moved. Lux could feel the weariness in his limbs. For all his bravado, he was barely standing.
When they were finally alone in the corridor leading towards the residency, Lux finally spoke up.
“Why did you lie to Auntie?” she asked quietly, and Garen almost audibly grimaced. She could feel him gearing up to lie again, to say he didn’t, but he stopped before the words got out. He knew he’d been had.
“Still can’t get one past you, can I?” Garen rumbled, and Lux shook her head as she smiled wanly.
“It’s the prerogative of little sisters to know when their big brothers are lying,” Lux said with a faint air of cheek that she hadn’t felt since her fight with Jinx. “So?”
“Because it was absurd,” Garen said darkly. “Completely absurd.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Garen let out a low breath. She could feel him thinking. As a rule, Garen didn’t dissemble very well. He wore his thoughts and emotions on his face, and that made him a popular leader. There was never anything calculated about his bravado and personality—he was as he appeared to be, a leader who led from the front and cared deeply for those around him. He was an easy man to like.
When he did speak, it was slowly and carefully. Not in the manner of someone choosing their words, though, but more in the way that suggests the person speaking doesn’t quite know how to say what they wanted to say. “It was chaos,” he began. “The prisoners, maybe a dozen of them at first, but then she freed more—all of them, I think.”
Lux’s stomach clenched at the word ‘she’.
“There were explosions and screams, and when I finally got out of the dungeons it was madness.” Garen dragged his fingers down his face. “The prisoners were mobbing the guards, but I’m certain some of them were dead before that…and there were holes, great holes, blown out of the walls…blown out. Everything smelled like smoke and blood, and it was the stink of the worst kind of battlefield, the kind where, when it’s over, you’re left staggering around bodies so ruined you can’t tell your comrades from your enemies because they’re all just meat.” They stopped at the door to Garen’s room as he ran a hand through his short, sweat-matted hair. He looked harrowed. Lux had never seen him like this. He was shaken to his core and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “She was there to free me, I know that, but I don’t know why. She said she wanted a favor, but she was vague.” Garen grimaced. “Maybe it was just some Noxian plot. Infighting from one of the Grand General’s political enemies designed to make him look bad… she was a mercenary, I think, but I’ve never seen her before and…”
Lux put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him to look at her.
“And what?”
Garen sighed. “I know…I know that she was human, but at the time, I don’t think I’d have believed it. Talking to her, just being around her, it reminded me more of a being like Kayle or Janna, from the League.” He looked back at her, his eyes faintly hollow. “It was like looking at a force of nature that only knows how to kill…and Gods, she wouldn’t stop smiling.”
Lux swallowed hard, then nodded, squeezed his shoulder, and patted his back.
“Take a bath,” she said, “and get some sleep.”
Huffing softly, Garen nodded.
Once he was gone, Lux turned on her heel and pulled the blanket that was keeping her modesty in check more tightly around her shoulders as she all but ran for her room. She knew what she would find there—and who—even if she couldn’t say how. The guards that had been standing at her door were gone, dismissed to their posts now that the troublesome daughter of House Crownguard didn’t need minding, and Lux put a hand on the door handle only to find her fingers wouldn’t close around it. Her hand was shaking, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. All she could feel was her heart beating a rapid, staccato tattoo in her breast as she commanded her rebellious limb to close around the damn handle over and over.
She had to. Because on the other side of the door was…
Click
The door cracked open as Lux finally found the will to push. There were no lights, and there was a faintly musky smell wafting out from her unwashed sheets. It was drifting out on a breeze that hadn’t been there when she’d left the room, because when she’d left, the window had been closed. Lux stepped into the room, closed the door behind her, and faced the slender silhouette that stood like a wraith backed by the dim moonlight filtering in through the window. The breeze ruffled her two electric-blue braids, flicking them lazily in the wind, and for once she wasn’t smiling.
“You—”
“Was it enough?” Jinx spoke over her woodenly as she wrung her hands. Her springberry eyes were wide as she licked chapped, cracked lips
Lux frowned. “Was…what? Was what enough?”
“Your brother,” she said thinly. “I…I brought him back because you…because I made you mad, and… “ she swallowed thickly. “W-Was it enough, Blondie?”
Oh.
Oh.
Tears began to trickle down Lux’s cheeks as she realized what Jinx was saying, and the blanket fell away from Lux’s shoulders leaving her with just her long linen undershirt as she stumbled towards Jinx with her arms out. As she got closer, Lux saw the damage that had been wrought. Jinx's fingers were worn and stained bloody, and there were scratches—fingernail scratches—all over her chest.
Jinx lowered herself dully into Lux’s arms like a collapsing building whose foundations were slowly crumbling out from under it, and Lux knelt, lowering them both down until she was cradling Jinx in her arms.
“It hurt, Blondie,” Jinx said hollowly. “I…I tried to get it out but I c-couldn’t, and it just kept hurting.” Her fingers were hovering over the scrapes on her bare chest over her heart. “I did the wrong thing, and it blew up. S-So I had to fix it.” She looked up at Lux with wide, desperate eyes. “Was it enough?”
“Oh, Jinx,” Lux sobbed. “It was never you! It was never your fault!” She clutched Jinx and rocked back and forth as tears fell in hot, angry streams across her face. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Jinx, I promise! You didn’t blow it up. It was me! It was my fault! I never should have—! I…I hurt you, and it was wrong, okay?! I was wrong!”
Slowly, Jinx’s arms went around Lux, and she buried her face against Lux’s shoulder as she laughed weakly. “That…n-nah, you’re perfect, Blondie, so it…it was me…I did the wrong thing, and—”
“Stop, please!” Lux cried into Jinx’s hair. “You can’t do that! I was wrong, Jinx! I’m not perfect! I’m not! You can’t let me just…just…” She trailed off and drew back, then pulled away so she could look Jinx in her softly lit eyes. “You can’t just let me hurt you. I’m the one who has to apologize to you and beg you for another chance! A chance I don’t deserve!”
“But…But I want you.” Jinx sounded confused, like a child who’d been asked to solve complex arithmetic when they’d barely learned their numbers. “You don’t have to beg me for anything, Blondie. I’ll always want you.”
She said it so simply, the way someone says the dawn will happen or the tide will come. It wasn’t even conviction in her voice. It was just a simple belief in a fundamental aspect of reality.
The sun rises. The tide goes in and out. And Jinx wants Lux.
“A-At least let me apologize!” Lux pleaded.
Jinx raised an eyebrow. That look of confusion was back.
“How?”
The question was simple, but it betrayed so much, and it broke Lux’s heart all over again. ‘How’ was her response to Lux begging Jinx to let her apologize. ‘How’. Jinx didn’t even know how to react to an apology, much less accept one. Had…Had Jinx ever been apologized to? That was absurd right? She must have at some point. Right?
Lux took in a shuddering breath, then swallowed hard and nodded. “O-Okay, uhm, it goes like this,” she looked Jinx in the eyes, “Jinx, I…hurt you, because I was angry and scared, because I thought I was going to lose my brother, and you…and that was wrong of me, and I had no right to lash out like I did, so I’m sorry, and that means that I recognize my mistake and I’ll correct it, and I’ll never do it again, okay?”
She stared at Lux for a long moment, then gave the smallest, softest smile Lux thought she'd ever seen on the Zaunite's face. It was no strained rictus, just a look of patient understanding; the kind you show to a child that was doing something silly in a very serious manner, and that you didn’t want to make them feel silly about it.
“Okay,” she said, and Lux laughed.
Why was it that she could never predict anything about Jinx? Never. Nothing she did seemed to matter, and yet Jinx thought the world of her.
It didn’t matter, though. Lux's confusion didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she hadn’t lost Jinx. So Lux held her tight and bawled into Jinx's chest while Jinx wrapped her arms around Lux and stroked her head.
Jinx held her like that for a long time. Lux didn't know how long, but she knew that the night was starting to lighten by the time she looked up from where she'd been resting against Jinx's chest. She felt exhausted and sluggish, and belatedly Lux realized that at some point she must have cried herself to sleep. Jinx, of course, hadn’t moved. It probably didn’t even occur to her to, or if it did, she judged the odds that she’d wake Lux up as being too great to risk. So she had stayed where she was, on the floor, holding Lux as she slept and at some point, Jinx had fallen asleep too. Her head was resting on Lux's, and her eyes were closed. There were faint snores issuing from her, and as Lux stared up at her, she realized something.
Something that she felt the most absurd need to tell Jinx right that minute.
“J-Jinx.” Lux nudged her shoulder a few times, trying to prod Jinx gently out of her slumber. She shifted, smacked her lips, and her eyes fluttered open.
It wasn’t fair for someone so dangerous to have such beautiful eyes.
“Wazzahuh?” Jinx mumbled. “What’s wr—”
Lux kissed her before she could say anything more, and she squeaked faintly before melting into the touch. The kiss was warm and deep, and their tongues danced slowly against one another as Lux cradled Jinx's cheek, stroking her face and down along the slender column of her neck, and then back up, and when they pulled away, Lux was smiling like an idiot.
“Thank you,” Lux said softly. “Thank you for bringing back my brother, and for forgiving me…and for always wanting me.”
Jinx looked blind-sided but her face split into that too-wide smile anyway. The one that Lux was sure that Jinx thought was a perfectly normal smile, and probably was by her standards, and she held on as Lux rested her head against Jinx's lean shoulder and took a deep breath while savoring the feeling of just being with Jinx.
It was a good pain.
Jinx lowered her head to press a kiss to Lux's temple, and as she lifted her lips Lux felt as much as heard her whisper. “Was it enough?”
“Always,” Lux replied. “You’ll always be enough, Jinx…I promise.”
Her breath caught audibly in her chest, and every muscle in her body went rigid as Lux said those words. Lux could feel the surge tide of emotions roiling through her. Emotions, Lux thought, that Jinx might not even be sure what to call. Jinx was someone who was deeply broken on a fundamental level. There were parts of her that were just flat-out missing, and others that Lux wasn’t certain were even supposed to be there at all, and yet all of that combined together to make something unassailably perfect in her eyes because all of it—the broken parts, the empty spaces, and the strange, nameless fragments—were all Jinx, and Lux loved each and every one of them.
“I love you.” Lux whispered the words, and the spiraling, surging emotion stopped.
It was, Lux imagined, like seeing a hurricane snap-frozen mid-tempest, and she rested her head against Jinx’s scratched and scraped chest, settling her ear against Jinx’s ribcage and smiled as she listened to the strong, thudding heartbeat. It was, Lux decided, her very favorite sound.
Slowly, Jinx lowered her head and settled her chin onto Lux’s crown.
“L-Love you, too, Blondie,” she murmured.
“Will you say it again?” Lux asked. “For me?”
Jinx nodded as she stroked Lux’s head and down her shoulders and back, and took a deep breath as she buried her nose against Lux’s hair briefly before finally saying the words Lux had been terrified she’d never hear again.
“That’s my girl.”