again, and again, and

by yoyoandswords

Summary:

On an expedition into the ruins of what was once the city-state of Piltover, historian Elora discovers two mages, Mel Medarda and Jayce Talis, who have been under a sleeping spell for four hundred years. She insists on bringing the possibly radioactive ancient mages back to her home in the Freljord. Because there's something pulling Elora towards Mel, who speaks as if they already know each other. It's probably the same thing that pushes Jayce towards a professor called Viktor.

Or: Mel and Jayce meet the reincarnations of Elora and Viktor and get a second chance, centuries after the events of Arcane s02e09.

Chapter 1: miracles usually come in twos

[Recording 03]

The camera faces a young woman sitting at a desk. She looks to be in her early forties, with brown skin covered in freckles, large dark eyes behind thick half-moon shaped glasses, and brown curly hair, tightly tied back in a bun. She wears a light blue top, and there are clear sweat stains at the armpits. Evidently, work has been keeping her busy. She smiles easily, one hand at the side of the frame as she adjusts the camera to the right position. In the background, there are tables covered with various equipment: radiation counters, empty water canteens, vials and flasks, hazmat suits and masks in neat formation. The woman finishes fiddling with the camera, takes a deep breath, and begins.

“Log three, recorded by Sky Olsson. The date is 20, 03, 349. Rani has safely piloted us through Noxian airspace, so we –” 

“Safely?” A voice calls out in mock outrage, presumably Rani. “Don't you mean bravely? Or no, heroically?” 

A man's laugh echoes to the left of Sky. She rolls her eyes, though there is something fond in the movement. “As I was saying,” she continues, “we're about an hour away from our first destination in Piltover. Once we've landed, we'll suit up and head for site A17, which we've taken to calling the watchtower. Thank you to our historian for the name. We will be tracking levels of radiation and taking dirt and leaf samples. We hope to return to the ship before nightfall so that we can begin our analyses.”

“So that the monsters don't eat us,” the man to the left says. 

Sky gives the man, still off-screen, a look that says you think you're hilarious, don't you? She turns back to the camera. “Tomorrow, we will head to site C14 in Zaun. So far, no acid rain, no thunderstorms, no dust storms. Let's hope it stays that way. Signing off.”  

           

—

 

About ten minutes into her first expedition into Piltover, Elora realises she has made a severe mistake: she should have gone for a second safety pee before putting on her hazmat suit. It's too late to turn back now. 

She had been so eager to charge into the old city, and, if she's being honest, she was desperate to prove to the other three members of this team that she is just as dauntless as they are. Dr Sky Olsson has been to Piltover twice already, twenty years ago when she was only twenty-one but already making a name for herself as one of the most promising young biologists in Hæli, and ten years ago when the last expedition took place. For the rest of them, it's their first time, but Dr Ivarr Beck has twenty years of experience studying ancient bacteria, in and outside of Hæli, and Rani Lahiri is … well, she's a twenty-two year old pilot who volunteered for an expedition into a radioactive wasteland. Elora's seen her sneak a couple of beers into the cockpit and take a swig while flying the airship. The girl's got all kinds of issues Elora is unqualified to unpack. 

She wants to be here as much as they do. Arguably even more so, because she had even begged her superiors at the Council of Histories to let her come. They had been reluctant, happy to leave the threat of radiation poisoning to the Council of Innovations, but Elora insisted that a historian needed to be there, that the team could use an expert – more specifically, her expertise. After all, she was the only person in Sixth Point, probably all of Hæli, with two masters in the historical record of the Piltovan-Zaunite diaspora in the Freljord and a doctorate on the evolution of Piltovan warfare, which caused all this radiation in the first place. She was confident that her in-depth studies would aid them in navigating the ruins, she had said. And so she was added to Sky's crew. 

“It's good to have you on board. I always appreciate a fresh pair of eyes,” Sky had said during the first planning meeting, and Elora's stomach swooped the way it usually does when she sees a cool older woman. I want to be her, she had thought. I'm going to be like that.

So here she was, standing in the ruins of the once great City of Progress. Some kind of bird, with three red eyes on each side of its small blue face, shits from a great height onto a statue, which promptly collapses into rubble.

“Did anyone else see that?” Elora calls back, pointing to the pile of statue dust fifteen feet away. 

“That was the weirdest sky rat I've ever seen,” Rani says, her eyes still pointed up at the clouds like she's following the bird's flightpath. Her voice is muffled behind her mask and suit.

“Too bad we can't carry that camera around with us,” Sky says. Since the trip began, she's been lamenting the fact that the recording device provided by Innovations was too big and heavy. “If we're lucky, maybe one will come a little closer.” 

They're walking through what was once a city square. At its centre, there's a fountain covered in something that is too luminous to be moss or a normal fungus. The buildings are in varying states of dilapidation. Some structures have survived but are morphed with stone spikes, as if the houses are hell-bent on defending themselves from an imminent threat. Others have caved in roofs and great chunks of brick missing, like a giant decided it wanted to take a big bite. Several doors of these grand buildings are decomposing under the weight of orange goo. Sky holds up her counter to it, announces and records that it seems to emit a harmless level of radiation, and asks Ivarr to bring her a vial so that she can add another specimen to her crate. The watchtower looms up ahead of them.  

It's so tall that Elora can't make out the top of the structure, submerged as it is in grey clouds. This building, a mixture of marble and gold, with a couple of still intact bottle green windows, has stood the test of time, almost four hundred years since its last use, but like everything else, it's covered in layers of rot. Different shades of slime, some blood-red, others violet-purple, slowly slide up and down its outer walls. The slime is brighter, more foul smelling, than the other rot here.

Elora takes it as evidence that the most popular theories about this place are correct: this structure stood at the very centre of the Battle of Hextech. Three hundred years ago, Zaunites and Piltovans alike might have looked down from the tower and prepared for the fight, braced themselves for death. Perhaps there was even a Hextech weapon stored in its beacon, a kind of failsafe. 

They've yet to see evidence of a corpse. 

Elora was expecting to see bones, coffins, a distinguishable graveyard or pit. But so far they've found nothing. When Elora asked Sky if she’d ever found remains on either of her earlier trips, Sky frowned and told her no. 

They had found automatons though, she said. Hundreds of them. 

Elora had seen the remnants of one, back in Sixth Point, locked behind glass in a museum. Some academics still believe that those white marble husks were a kind of armour, but Elora knows that the structure of the marble is too thin and lithe to easily fit on the average warrior’s or spy's body, and the gold embellishments would have been impractical. Perhaps they could be melded to the body using the arcane, but the historical record doesn't support it. Oral histories, passed down by the ancestors of survivors of the battle, always recall these marble bodies with fear. They were the Herald's, not Piltover's. 

Elora walks ahead of the others, towards the steps which lead to the base of the tower. She’s eager to climb it, to get to the top and be one of the first people to discover its secrets, now that the level of radiation around the tower is low enough for humans to explore it, but Sky had insisted that they should always be able to see each other and they should under no circumstances split up. 

She can still see Sky, Ivarr and Rani when she reaches the top of the steps, even waves when Ivarr nods up to her. As she takes it all in, she reaches for her pack and brings out her notebook, begins to roughly sketch the bottom of the tower and the surrounding buildings. She tries to take care to record particular oddities around her: layers of bricks that bend and droop but do not break, reminding her of snowdrops back home; copper piping that runs between two buildings and then spirals down, seemingly connected to the rest of the city, maybe for communication; a window that looks like something had smashed against it, but it remains in place despite its cracks; the body that rests its head by that fractured window –

Elora drops her pencil, drops the notebook. She looks a little closer, checking that she isn't hallucinating, but no, there is a body there, leaning against the glass, in the small building with the second floor balcony, just right of the tower. 

For a second, her breath hitches in her throat, and Elora barely remembers that she needs to take in air, let it out again. She's found a body. 

She forgets to call out to the team, forgets even picking up her notebook. She just begins to walk towards the building. Its entrance is open, the door flung off what might have once been hinges, but now looks like a pool of melted copper. Closer to the window, the shadow of the body leant against it is larger than she expected, its outline a normal shape, not emaciated and withered away as she imagined a corpse to be. She's never seen a dead body before. She tries to get a clearer look through the cracked glass, but the frosted window pane obscures distinguishable features, visible decay. She'll need to enter the building. 

Her steps through the entrance are careful, quiet as if she'll spook the dead. Shadows and dust swallow up the light coming through the doorway, suck sunshine into this musty vacuum. Water drips somewhere further in the building, but Elora doesn't care to find the source. Slowly, she turns to her left, towards that window. 

It's good that her mask seems to catch and contain the gasp that escapes her mouth when Elora sees the body, because what's sitting there isn't a decayed corpse. It's a woman. Most of her body is covered by a white cape, but Elora can see that her face is not death-pale, her skin is not sunken or chewed apart by vermin. Her face has a vitality to it, full cheeks, an angular jaw. Elora steps closer and sees that, yes, her dark brown skin has a deep, lively hue. There's a pinkness to her bottom lip. Her eyes are closed, those chapped lips slightly parted. And then there are her tattoos. Golden like pure sunlight, little marks beneath her eyes, on her chin, across her sharp cheekbones, and then an intricate pattern across her forehead, receding up into her hairline, just peeking beneath her shoulder length black hair. 

And then, when Elora gets close enough, close enough to reach out and touch, the shock gives way to a realisation: the woman is breathing. Her chest is rising and falling.

“Sky!” Elora calls out immediately. “There's someone here! She’s alive!” 

She turns back to the woman and begins shaking her arms, checking to see if she's responsive at all. There's no way Elora could feel any warmth through the thick material of her gloves, but somehow there's heat, radiating from the body. Elora should let go.

“Can you hear me? Miss, can you hear me?” she shouts as she shakes her shoulders more forcefully. 

How is this possible? Where on Runeterra did this woman come from, and how is she sleeping and not bleeding out from her eyes and every other orifice? Sky and every other senior scientist involved in the project emphasised the importance of wearing the proper gear, making sure that you are not seriously exposed to the arcane pulses that this place still emits. Exposure could lead to all kinds of devastating sickness, could be fatal if they weren't careful or didn't use their counters properly. 

Somehow, Elora has an even more pressing question: why does this woman seem so familiar?

Elora hears the team getting closer, pounding up the steps, but they're still too far away, and the seconds between the woman's breaths are growing, stretching out cruelly in front of her. Elora reaches for the zip at the back of her suit even as half her mind tells her not to be so stupid as to remove it and risk who knows what level of poisoning to give this stranger mouth to mouth – but the other half of her brain is panicked, thinking only of this person in front of her who is breathing and can be saved and must be saved. 

But before Elora can tug the zip down, the woman's eyes shoot open. Wide and green and red at the edges. She begins coughing, making a violent, heaving effort to simply breathe. Yellow fluid leaks out of her mouth as she wheezes and nearly chokes. She spits out a glob of yellow-brown phlegm onto her white cape.

And then she notices Elora in front of her. A horrific sound leaves her mouth, guttural and terrified, as she swings an arm up, and Elora doesn't have time to say a word, to explain. She's already flying back through the air. 

A mage, she thinks a moment too late. 

Elora no longer needs to imagine being hit so hard that you fly through a window. She's got hands-on experience now. There's a cacophony of shattering glass, the sound as painful as the way the shards cut through her hazmat suit and slice the surface of her arms. Her back hits the ground in front of the building, the impact forcing the air out of her chest. Her lungs and throat burn from the pain as she desperately tries to catch her breath, push herself up on her hands, which buckle immediately and squeeze, blood oozing out and soiling the palms of the suit. Her head hits the ground hard again, the throbbing there growing into a terrifying, bludgeoning kind of pain. She can't remember ever feeling so dizzy, and she spends what feels like a full minute convincing herself not to vomit inside her mask. She heaves, trying desperately to steady herself, but she's reaching a hand out at the same time and gasping, “Miss, please – don't –” 

But when Elora looks up, she sees that the woman is uninterested in her now. She's climbing through the window, not even looking at Elora, heading straight towards the watchtower. 

“Jayce!” she calls out, but it's barely more than a rasped breath. “Jayce! Jayce?” She trips to the floor and skins her hands, leaving blood behind on the tile, but she pushes her body up, and even as her arms and legs wobble, she keeps moving forward, her steps shaky but determined. 

It's then that the team arrives. Ivarr has his medkit slung on his arm, Rani’s wielding some kind of handaxe – holy shit, where did she get that? – and Sky's holding her radiation counter like it’s a shield that can protect her team. Their eyes are wide behind the protective film of their hazmat suits, shocked as they watch the woman stumble away.

“Miss, wait –” Sky speaks before Elora can warn them.

The woman must have drained herself when she hit Elora, because when she pushes her arms back this time, barely even looking at her three targets, there's only a small pulse of gold energy rather than a mighty shock wave. It's enough to send them tripping backwards to the ground, not enough to throw and wind them. Thankfully, none of them go flying down the steps – that fall certainly would have broken their necks. The woman is staggering forward, still calling out for whoever Jayce is, and disappears out of Elora's line of sight. Sky comes to help her up as Rani and Ivarr follow the woman, keeping their distance.

By the time Sky and Elora have hobbled up to them – her right ankle is aching – they find Rani and Ivarr waiting outside the heavy, open door of the watchtower. 

“She went in there,” Rani says. For the first time, Rani, who usually puffs out her broad chest like a peacock and challenges everyone to arm wrestles, looks nervous and small. “I thought the door would crumble as soon as she opened it, but –” she looks up at the colossal building “– still standing.” 

Elora's slowly regaining her breath, her blurred vision returning to its usual clarity. Her head still fucking aches, but now she can feel the ground beneath her feet again. Feel the blood pumping through her fragile body. 

“We need to get out of here,” Sky says. “I'm ending this mission.” 

“What? No!” Ivarr says, taking the words right out of Elora's breathless mouth. “We haven't got what we needed.” 

“That doesn't matter!” Sky’s voice is firm, loud, and panicked. “Elora's hurt. Her suit is broken. We need to get her back to the ship.” 

“No,” Elora says, coughing as she does. “We need to find out what she's doing here. She was calling out for someone.”

“It doesn't matter and I don't care,” Sky says, still holding up Elora's side. “We need to get you in quarantine.” 

“You take Elora back to the ship, Rani and I can go see what the mage is looking for,” Ivarr says, suddenly the most intrepid of them. 

“No,” Sky repeats. “We're not splitting up. You two go and get the crate, I've got her, and we'll go home. We can report all of this to the Councils.” 

Elora’s starting to notice something: this conversation is going to go back and forth for a while. Ivarr speaks again, distracting Sky as she begins to pull Elora back towards the steps. Elora’s mind is racing with a single thought: why did she look so familiar?

“I'm sorry, Sky,” Elora says. 

“What –” 

Elora throws Sky off of her, pushing her away from the stairs so that she stumbles backwards onto solid ground, and she runs. Straight for the watchtower. 

She hears footsteps behind her and worries that the rest of the team is going to try to grab her, throw her over their shoulder and carry her back to the ship kicking and screaming, but she recognises Rani's heavy footfall. “I'm covering you,” she calls out. Elora smiles as her chest burns with the sudden effort of running. 

She nearly pauses when she enters the tower. Up above her, light fractures into rainbow beams, bright magenta and turquoise and green swallowing each other all the way up the tall walls. There's no clear way to the top of the tower, the stairs broken apart and floating, fragments ascending to the sky. It’s impossible to climb. 

But there are also stairs spiralling downwards, into what looks like a dark, never ending chasm. And there, circling down the edges of it, is that familiar golden light. 

“She's there!” Elora calls out as she begins to run down the steps. 

They run down the stairs into the darkness as time slips away from Elora completely. Little wisps of electric purple flame dart around her vision, and Elora worries for a moment that this is the warning before she passes out, but then a flame catches the edge of her suit, leaving midnight blue soot in its wake. The further they get, the more these wisps dance around them, joining them in this repetitive dance all the way down. Part of Elora wants to stop and stare, just watch them and lose herself in the soft, dangerous motion of these little fires, maybe draw them – and then she remembers where and why she dropped her notebook. 

Elora can't make anything out when she reaches the end of the stairs, takes another heavy step like she was expecting it to continue, and a sharp pain surges through her ankle. But her mind doesn't linger on the pain for too long, because suddenly the darkness recedes and the chasm of the watchtower comes to life. 

The wisps cast soft, pulsating light over this place. The walls look as if they are made of a fine, corroding metal, once fixed lines fading and slipping into another dimension. Elora's never seen anything like it. It's half power station, half mausoleum. Because there, at the centre of this strange room, is a great stone coffin. Onyx shards are scattered across the floor, the lid of the coffin cracked and moved to the side. And there the woman stands, half reaching into it, her tears falling on whatever remains in there. 

“Oh fuck,” Rani says behind her, and the woman's eyes dart up and turn vicious, tears still falling but with renewed fury. 

Blinding gold light emanates from her body like steam, her eyes beginning to glow. She says something that Elora doesn't quite understand, so Elora just puts her hands up, trying to convey as well as she can that they come in peace, please don't throw me out of a window again, and she nudges Rani to drop her handaxe and do the same. Reluctantly, Rani does. The woman says something again, slower this time. Elora's eyes widen in realisation. 

“Let me leave with him,” she says. In pure Piltovan. 

Few people in Hæli still speak pure Piltovan, but Hælien is a mix between the Freljordian dialects from the Frostglade and Piltovan. About three hundred years ago, when the two communities mixed, the languages were just squished together as alliances formed and friendships and marriages were made. It wouldn't be that hard for a Hælien to understand Piltovan, though it would be a bit more difficult to speak it with accuracy. 

But this team is lucky to have Elora. Studying history sometimes means you need to become acquainted with the native language of your sources. 

“If you promise not to hurt us,” she says, dropping certain Freljordian words for Piltovan ones, hoping it makes sense and wishing she could do away with this stupid mask, “we will help you.” 

Rani shifts next to her. Maybe she's surprised by what Elora's suggesting, but her gut tells her that she needs to say it. They need to know how this woman got here. Her hands are bleeding. She needs help.

She still stands on guard. The light pooling out of her, threatening them if they take another step, does not dim. Maybe she doesn't understand. Or maybe she's convinced she’s got to fight her way out this chasm. Elora tries to soften her eyes as much as she can, tries to communicate that she just wants to understand.

“We will help you and – and him,” Elora says. She puts a hand on her chest. “I promise. You're hurt.” 

The burning gold of her eyes simmers, begins to fade back into their original green. Her shoulders and jaw are still tense. 

“How did you get here? We have a ship. We can get you two out.”

In sudden recognition, her brows relax and the light flutters away. But even without the light, this is no ordinary woman. Strength and grief radiate from her in equal measure. Elora thinks of myths of spirits that guard cities, whole empires, centuries after they have fallen. Maybe those myths were based on this very mage. 

She points into the coffin. 

“You’ll help me take him?” 

Slowly, Elora takes a step forward. Rani, whom she had honestly, shamefully forgotten about for a moment, remains still at the edge of the room. Elora bridges the gap between them, and the woman does not attempt to recreate it. The wisps around the room start to dance again. When she's close enough, Elora steels herself and looks into the coffin. 

There are two figures. One body, and something else that Elora doesn't completely understand. 

First, the man: like the woman before, he appears to be sleeping. His face is young and calm but the left side is covered in green, purple, glowing scars. At the top of his forehead, just below his brown hair, there are four oval marks, gleaming crystal gems carved into his tan skin. His body is muscular and strong – the woman looks so small, standing vigil over him – and at the same time falling apart: the scars pulse sickeningly across all visible skin under loose, brown rags, tied together around him with silvery rope. One of his legs is wrapped in a crude metal brace, but even still it's clear to see that his knee is not supposed to bend the way it does.

And then, the creature: a dead husk of what could have been a god. A purple, gold, silver and black chest, caved in and carved out. A split skull, morphed from something human into a helmet. Lifeless appendages, fingers and toes curled up like a dead spider's legs. Wrists and legs contorted in uncomfortable positions, all hollow and bloodless. It’s more intricate, more horrifying, than the automaton back in the museum. 

The man and the creature are holding hands, their fingers interlaced. 

It's then that Elora notices the gem stone fixed to the flesh of the man's inner wrist. It pulses, emitting a visible blue static from his body.  

She looks back up at the woman, sees the tears that won't stop falling down her face. It's like Elora stumbled into a stranger's funeral procession. Maybe she really has. 

Elora hears the telltale patter of two more sets of footsteps down the stairs. Even when a haunted watchtower is concerned, it seems that Sky still won't leave members of her team behind. They step into the light, see Elora standing in front of the woman, Rani standing at the edge of the room. Mel startles and turns to them. 

“Who are they?” she hisses, but this time light doesn't rise from her body. She's asking Elora. 

“This is my leader,” she explains, pointing at Sky. “We are all from the Freljord. We have a ship,” she says again because it's the most important part. “We can take you home. Where is your home?” 

“What the fuck are you all wearing?” the woman asks. 

Okay, that shocks Elora a little bit. The woman can't see their faces fully. They must look a little alien. Pairs of eyes in puffed up white suits. 

“They're … hazmat suits.” She doesn't know if the word hazmat is a Piltovan word or a Freljordian one. A lot of the words relating to or generally associated with scientific endeavours have Piltovan roots. The woman just frowns. “So that we don't get poisoned by the air.” 

It's then that she remembers that her own suit was torn through, sliced apart. Sky already said that she would need to go into quarantine. And this woman is still staring at her like she doesn't quite trust her. 

Fuck it. 

As she unzips it, Sky calls out, “Elora, please don't –” 

The woman's eyes snap suddenly to Sky, and Elora almost panics, considers jumping back and throwing herself in front of Sky superhero style to show the woman that she's a friendly, but then the woman doesn't make a move. She just looks out in the darkness. As if she's searching for something she misplaced.

“Come over here,” she commands. 

Sky stands completely still, possibly unable to parse what the woman just said. 

Finally, Elora and Sky make eye contact. Worry lines her face. Elora's probably getting fired from the Council of Histories. She has evidently thwarted all of the standard scientific protocols for finding a mage in the radioactive homeland of your ancestors.

“She asked you to come over,” Elora clarifies. She's still fiddling with all her gear, trying to get her arms out of the arms of the suit so she can get rid of the mask. 

“I understood,” Sky says, her voice clearly angry and confused and a secret third thing, intrigued. She begins to walk forward. 

That's when a strange thing happens. The woman gasps as Sky steps into the faint light of the wisps around them. Her shoulders sag; her face drops as she fixes her gaze on Sky's eyes. It's as if years slide off the woman's face, leaving her young and innocent.  

“Elora,” Sky says slowly, “tell her that we can help her but we need to go now.” 

“Elora?” The woman startles again, whipping back around to face her. 

And suddenly, the rest of the world falls into the background, into history itself. Elora is transfixed for a moment, arrested by the woman's gaze, but she finally loosens the mask. She takes it off, the suit and the mask falling to the floor, and faces her completely. 

“My name is Elora,” she says. “We can help you.”

The woman collapses. Not to the floor, but into Elora’s arms. 

The sob that tears its way out of her echoes throughout the tomb. Her body shakes weakly as her hands grasp at Elora's arm, her back, her shoulders. 

“Elora, it's me,” she cries, again and again. “It's me, Mel. Elora, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

Elora can’t move, can only hold her. She looks at Sky, whose eyes are equally as shocked as her own. She turns to Ivarr, who loses his grip on his medkit, and Rani, who's picked up her handaxe again but seems to have no intention of using it. 

“Elora,” the woman continues to weep, “can we go home now? I want to go home.” 

This woman – Mel – cries in Elora's arms as if it's the safest place she's ever been, as if she's been held by them before and has missed them desperately. Elora presses her bare palms against Mel's back, her arms, and Mel's body just deflates, finally relaxes. She melts into her, her whole body softening under every touch. 

This whole day, Elora's body has moved on autopilot, without thinking straight, and in that same way, her arm reaches up and strokes Mel's hair. She tries to look as kind as she can as this strangely familiar face stares up at her. 

“Yes. Let me take you home.” 

 

—

 

Most of the Council of Innovations’ budget for this expedition went into the state of the art airship. It was small enough to still fit the specifications of Hæli’s agreement with the Noxians, but big enough to fit the lab that Sky and Ivarr required. The lab that Sky is now reluctantly going to have to turn into a quarantine room. 

The six of them are standing just outside the metal airship. Well, five of them are standing; Ivarr and Rani, the strongest of the crew, had to lift and carry the man – Jayce – to the ship, and now they've carefully laid him out on the forest floor as they head for the ship, preparing to help Sky with clearing out the lab. 

Mel had clung onto Elora's arm the whole way, as if the ground beneath her feet would crumble should she let go. Now, she pulls away, making her way over to Jayce. 

“Let me make something explicitly clear,” Sky says, pointing the big white finger of her hazmat suit's glove at Elora. She feels as if she's six years old all over again and being told off for flicking glue at her classroom ceiling to see if it will stick. “I am never bringing you with me on another expedition, because you disobeyed my direct orders and went running after the mage that nearly killed you, and then you committed the greatest sin of all: taking off your damn suit and exposing yourself to gods know what. 

“So here's what's going to happen. We’re going to make two quarantine rooms: the main lab will be for them, and the storage room will be for you. We’re all lucky as hell that the lab connects to a separate bathroom. Until all your bioanalysis is squeaky clean, I'm not letting you out of that zone. You got it?”

“Why do we need two separate rooms?” Elora asks.  

“Because we need to make sure that they can't hurt you if the poisoning gets to them and they hallucinate from the pain.”

“Oh,” is all Elora can say. She hadn't considered that Mel and Jayce might be a ticking radioactive time bomb. She supposes she hasn't been considering much of anything since she woke up this morning. 

“I'm really am sorry, Sky.” She looks over to Mel, who's crouching over Jayce, brushing the hair away from his forehead. 

Sky follows her gaze and sighs. Then she surprises Elora by putting her gloved hand on her bare shoulder and squeezing. Sky Olsson is a woman full of contradictions, stern words and comforting touches. “You saved her from being stranded out here. If we can get their bio-data, then we might actually be able to convince Innovations to fund more missions. That's if they don't die from poisoning as soon as we take off.” 

Once Sky's gone, Elora explains to Mel that the three of them will be tested in order to make sure that they can't make anyone sick. Mel looks exhausted and confused, but agrees to the terms nevertheless. She keeps looking back and forth between Elora and Jayce, no longer crying but still definitely in shock. Half an hour later, Sky announces that Elora can bring Mel and Jayce in. The two of them help lift Jayce up, and Elora directs them to the lab. It's been emptied, all the workbenches bare, but the team have laid out two small cots. They deposit Jayce on top of one of them, and then Elora makes her way to the storage room, which is more of a cupboard that can just about fit a single cot. The door is frost-glass – one of the strongest materials created by Hæliens – so Elora can see into the lab, where Mel sits beside Jayce's cot. 

They begin the testing before they take off. Ivarr brings swabs and vials, puts them through the sliding compartment of the lab window, and tells Elora to show Mel how to get a good sample of her spit and blood. Elora relays the instructions, and Mel does as she's told. She spits into the tube, pricks her finger and lets the blood pool into a vial. Then she opens Jayce's mouth, her touch tender and careful, swabs the inside of his cheek, pricks his finger and collects the blood. Elora does the same, they send the samples back through the compartment. Then Ivarr sends in some sanitising wipes, gauze, and medtape for Elora. She bandages herself up. Everything tilts as the ship takes off. 

Mel puts a hand over her mouth, and Elora's afraid that she's going to vomit, thinks of that yellow phlegm from earlier. 

“Are you feeling worse than before?” Elora calls out. 

Mel waves a hand dismissively. “I don't like flying much.” 

Despite this, Mel leaves Jayce's side to go and look out of the small window on the far side of the lab. She looks even more nauseous as she stares down at the old city. 

“Why – why do Piltover and Zaun look like that?” she asks urgently as she turns back to Elora. “What happened there?” And then another question dawns in her mind. Elora can practically see the lightbulb flash above her head. “Where were all the people?”  

Elora blinks, confused. How is it possible that she doesn't know about Piltover and Zaun? She thought that every other nation in Runeterra knew about the fall of the city-states. 

“Um, the cities were abandoned. About four hundred years ago, after the Battle of Hextech.”

Mel's jaw nearly drops. Her eyes dart around the room, to Jayce's unconscious body, to Elora, then back to Jayce. “What year is it?” 

“It's 349 AH,” Elora says. 

Mel’s head whips around. She looks unsure of what that means. After Hæli. “Do you know the Piltovan calendar? Noxian?” 

“Oh!” Elora says. “Yes, I do. So that would be –” The Battle of Hextech was said to take place in 203 APF, and Hæli was officially founded approximately fifty years after the battle, so that would be “– around 602 APF.” 

Mel stands completely still for a moment, then puts a hand on the wall to steady herself.

“Oh Kindred,” she mumbles under her breath. She's breathing harshly now, her hands shaking slightly in front of her. “Four hundred years. How is that –” 

Her eyes find their way back to Elora, raw, all cried out. Then they narrow.

“What do you know about the arcane?” 

Elora’s trying to keep up with Mel’s ever-changing lines of thought and expressions, but her head is still quietly pounding, a little reminder: hey, you fell through a window, it says. 

“I have no arcane abilities, but I've studied some of the theories.” It was necessary to gain a level of understanding about the arcane during her doctoral studies, no matter how rudimentary that understanding was. 

“Ever heard of a spell that could make someone sleep for four hundred years, Elora?” 

Mel says her name like she already knows that the answer is no. She says it like she knows something terrible that Elora doesn't. 

“You're saying you were alive four hundred years ago?” 

Elora thinks she must be staring at Mel like she's got two heads, because Mel laughs bitterly and puts her head in her hands. 

It wouldn't be the strangest thing that happened today. Elora thinks of this woman who woke up alone in a wasteland and flicked Elora away like a bug by manipulating what looked like pure light. This woman, who speaks pure Piltovan. She thinks of Jayce, asleep, with what look like arcane gem stones in his head. She thinks of the floating stairs inside the watchtower. Of the mages back home who work what some would call miracles. 

Elora's belief in the arcane is loose, the same way her attitudes towards religion, gods and spirits are sceptical. The arcane is an energy that certain people are able to control, but instead of calling it this they use words such as power or gift. A god is simply a being with an immense level of this energy and control. What makes them a god is that other people assign that title to them. Every story about the arcane and the spiritual, in Elora's mind, can be explained by an understanding of science that Elora doesn't have. (Sue her, she dropped her studies of the sciences at the age of seventeen in favour of history, literature and anthropology.)

Who's to say that the processes that age the body could not be paused, if arcane energies allowed it?

“Wait, so, does that mean that you … were you there during the Battle of Hextech? Between Piltovans, Zaunites and Noxians?” 

Mel’s eyes turn a little more critical, a little scared as she recalls something. “Yes, that – that was – it must have been a year before I … fell asleep.” 

Elora begins to feel the atoms of herself fucking vibrate, stirring to life because in front of her, speaking to her, is a literal record of history. Elora's hands might be shaking as she pushes herself closer up against the frost-glass in awe, in excitement. 

“And him?” She nods to Jayce. “He's from that time too?” 

Mel looks taken aback. “You don't recognise him?” 

Elora furrows her brow as if to say, sorry, am I meant to? She looks over again at the cot, but his face, while striking and handsome in its own cursed way, doesn't ring any bells. 

“That's Jayce Talis. One of the creators of Hextech.” 

Elora's stomach swoops. She nearly stumbles back onto her cot. 

She has read about Jayce Talis. He's one of the most famous names in all of Piltovan history, and usually credited as half the reason that Piltovans and Zaunites alike had to flee the cities. He was a great inventor and a terrible politician, a legend about hubris and ambition. Heimerdinger, the near immortal founder of the city, had been his mentor. Elora stares at him, right there in front of her, willing him to wake up and speak. She reaches over to her pack, finds her retrieved notebook. She writes down three names, her hand moving faster than her mind – muscle memory.

Three people have been credited with the creation of Hextech. Jayce Talis and Viktor Martinek, the inventors. And then there was its primary patron –

“You're Mel Medarda,” Elora says, hurtling into shock as Mel seems to be coming out of it. 

Mel straightens her posture, as if her surname is a code word that activates a dormant part of her body and mind. She shifts a little closer to the glass between them, checking Elora for something. 

“Yes,” she replies. 

Elora sets her notebook down excitedly. She can't help but look at her in a new light, a kind of reverence that she doesn't fully register or control. Mel Medarda has walked out of the history books, into a wasteland and now right in front of Elora.

There were limited first-hand records which detailed Mel Medarda's appearance – most focused on her cunning intelligence, her political career, her patronage of the Hextech project – but Elora had always secretly imagined her to be this beautiful, this radiant. Had always imagined her voice as rich and sweet as this, as powerful. 

She’s positively starstruck. 

“I can't – I can't believe this. I wrote about you in my doctoral thesis.” 

That brings a sad smile to Mel's serious face. “Oh? What’s your field of study?” 

“I'm a historian. My PhD was focused on Piltovan warfare. It was a challenge when so many survivors prohibited the written record of its weaponry, but multiple chapters were dedicated to Hextech.” 

Mel’s smile drops immediately, replaced with a grimace. 

Elora’s heart misses a beat.

“Weapons were not what Jayce and Viktor dreamt of when they created Hextech.”

Elora swallows. Of course. This isn't theoretical to Mel the way it has always been to Elora, who grew up in a place where Hextech weapons were strictly prohibited by law. This was Mel's life. 

Her life, four hundred years ago. 

Elora's excitement ebbs away and guilt pushes in with the tide. She still isn't thinking before she acts and speaks. 

“I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. I can't imagine what you must be going through.” 

Again, Mel's expression shifts, another mask coming to the front: indifference. “It's fine. By the time I fell asleep, mostly everyone I loved was already dead.”

Elora mouth opens and shuts. There's nothing to say to that.

 

—

 

They don't speak for a while after that. When Ivarr delivers food, smaller portions than before due to their increased numbers, they eat in silence. Elora doesn't lick her plate even though she really wants to.

“Where are we going?” Mel asks eventually.

She looks up from her notebook, where she’s been sketching all day. “Hæli, in the Freljord.” 

“Hæli,” she repeats, tests the word on her tongue. “Did you grow up there?” 

“Yes, been there all my life. This was my first time out of the city.” 

“Hm, how unfortunate,” she says. “Your city is advanced enough to own an airship.” 

It’s a question masquerading as a statement. Elora frowns. The way Mel says the word advanced makes it sound as if she's surprised. 

“Yes,” Elora replies, trying to not sound defensive. 

“I didn't mean to insult you,” she clarifies, all matter-of-fact. “As far as I know, Freljordians generally have a deep mistrust of modern technology. The ones I met favoured brute strength, survival skills.” 

“The Freljordians are formidable, yes,” Elora says. “Even more so since the unification of territories that took place two hundred years ago. And Hæli is unique among Freljordian states. Our ancestors are Freljordians, Zaunites, and Piltovans. We have been home to brilliant inventors for three centuries.”

Mel lets out a small laugh, which startles Elora. It sounds so fond, so much like the laugh angels might make if they were real. Elora can't help the soft blush that warms her cheeks. 

“That's wonderful. And will we be prisoners of Hæli?” 

Elora responds with her gut: “No, of course not.” Her mouth runs on autopilot. “You'll be treated the way all displaced peoples are in Hæli: with dignity and respect. You can stay there to recover, and you can go when you please.”

The moment those words leave Elora’s lips, she realises how naive she sounds. There is no way for her to promise that to Mel, not that she knows that. After all, Elora is not high up enough in any of the councils to convince them that that's the right thing to do, even though it is. In Elora's experience, Hæli has always accepted refugees and travellers. Why would they change their ethos now? If they did, she supposes she might be able to convince the head of the Council of Histories, Silas, but what if Frida from the Council of Innovations goes full mad scientist, violates the ethos and experiments on the two of them? Elora stops the thought in its tracks, tells herself that it's ridiculous. What Sky is doing right now, quarantining them, is for everybody's safety. If Mel and Jayce really are four hundred years old, then who knows what their strain of the common cold could do to the modern Hælien, and vice versa. 

Mel looks at Elora now with a smile she didn't expect, the kind you give to a child who says they're going to grow up to be the astronaut that blows up the moon. 

“I hope you're right, Elora the historian. How old are you?” 

“Twenty-eight.” 

“Oh,” Mel says. “You're so young.” 

Elora squints at her. “How old are you?” 

“Thirty-four. Well, actually, I guess I'm four hundred and thirty-four.”

Mel takes a seat on her cot and lies down, ending the conversation and staring up at the ceiling.

The ship rides through the wind. Elora's ears pop and pop again. She shuts up and gives Mel Medarda her space, walking to the far corner of the storage cupboard and watching the wall. 

 

—

 

[Recording 04]

The camera faces Sky in the same spot as the previous recording, but that seems to be the only thing that's stayed the same. She has an exhausted look on her face, stares into the camera without her glasses on. She’s wearing a lab coat. Behind her, a tall man with buzzed blonde hair walks frantically between the tables, all of them decked out with vials, conical flasks full of bright blue and vibrant purple liquids, and multiple microscopes. 

“Log by Sky Olsson. The date is 22, 03, 349, just after midnight.

“Two days ago, I made the decision to abort our mission in Piltover and Zaun. We are returning to Hæli with nine new plant specimens and multiple records of radiation levels in the city centre. Across the area, radiation levels have significantly decreased since the last expedition a decade ago, as predicted. 

“Now, the reason that we are returning. Our historian, Elora Chanda, discovered two mages in site A17. One of them, a man, is unconscious, but the other mage, a woman, claims that she is the late Mel Medarda and that he is the late Jayce Talis. Indeed, we found Talis in a mausoleum beneath the watchtower, along with what seemed to be the metal framing of an advanced automaton, which we were careful not to touch. Both of the mages look to be in their mid-thirties, but Medarda believes that their bodies were preserved by an arcane spell, and they are in fact around four hundred and thirty years old. As of yet, neither of them have any of the usual indications of radiation poisoning, such as vomiting, bleeding and hallucinating, though we are monitoring Talis’ rashes. Both of them, along with Elora, are in quarantine. 

“If Eesha, head of the Council of the Freljord can confirm Medarda's claims, then we have discovered a miracle: two people who witnessed the most prosperous years of Piltover as well as its fall. If it turns out that they are simply mad from the radiation emitted by the arcane materials in their skin, then we have still obtained valuable biodata of two altered humans who have somehow survived a deadly level of exposure to Piltover's atmosphere. I implore all three councils to regard this mission as a success. Signing off.” 

 

—

 

Jayce spends seconds or years in what he and Viktor have decided to call the astral plane. 

Time keeps slipping through his fingers like water. Viktor too. Sometimes Viktor is right in front of him, a floating body the colour of nebulas and hair shining white like a neutron star. Other times, Jayce is alone, and he's worried that he's keeping Viktor waiting somewhere, centuries away. But every time Viktor appears in front of him, it's like no time has passed at all. 

We finish this together, Jayce had said. And here they are, blipping in and out of an eternity of starlight. 

“There's a chance,” Viktor says, “that we're both dying and one of us is just having a very detailed pre-death hallucination. The brain can make up all kinds of strange things. I should have been a neuroscientist instead.” Has Viktor always been here? How long was he gone this time? Jayce can't remember how this conversation started. 

“What are the chances that we're sharing the same pre-death hallucination?” Jayce replies. His body is weightless. This vision of Viktor is the only thing that reminds him that he once had a body. 

“That's pretty likely, with the way I warped everything,” Viktor says, voice light like anti-gravity and solemn like a black hole. 

Jayce reaches out for his partner, wading through the sea of distance, and brings him close. Touches their foreheads together like he did before at the end of the world. He's back, his mind sings, loud enough for the universe to hear. 

“Stop thinking,” he says. 

“You're telling me what to do?” Viktor says, at once teasing and breathless. Jayce is surprised by the warmth that blooms in his chest, surprised by the fact that Viktor can feel it in him too. Sees their lives swim down the river of the cosmos, and all the things he missed when he could have been looking. 

He smiles. 

“Yes.” They stay like that until the next blip. 

 

—

 

“Do you think you would have wanted me to hold you like this?” Viktor asks. “Before?” 

Their arms and legs are all tangled up, Jayce's head pressed to the top of Viktor's chest. There's no heartbeat, no blood, no flesh or skin, but Viktor is here with him. His thumb moves back and forth slowly at Jayce's cheek. Can they even feel anything? 

“I don't think I understood it until … the end.” He means the chasm, which he tries not to think about in case it jumps out at him, drops him down to a place he can't climb out of. “But I would have wanted it. Did you want it?” 

Viktor's silent for a moment, and Jayce has to look up, check that he's still here with him. That a second or day or year hasn't passed. But there he is. His Viktor. 

“I always wanted you.” 

Jayce presses his mouth into what he thinks would have been Viktor's collar bone. 

“I would have let you have anything you wanted. So long as it was really you.” 

 

—

 

At a certain point Jayce immediately loses hold of, an eternity turns into a single minute. Viktor appears in front of him, and Jayce realises they haven't seen each other for what could be centuries. Jayce reaches for him, and Viktor falls right out of his hands. 

“Where did you go?” he asks. A terror grows suddenly in him, starts blinking solar systems out of existence. 

“I'm tired, Jayce,” Viktor says. “I think it's time for me to let go.” 

“Okay, we'll go. Show me where we're going.” 

“I don't think you can come with me. Don't you feel it?” 

“No,” he says, even as something tugs on him, pulls him like a dog on a leash, like the dead body at the end of the reaper's scythe. 

“Don't go where I can't follow.” 

Maybe if he says it out loud this time, the universe won't take Viktor away from him again. 

“Don't worry,” Viktor says, already just a whisper in Jayce's head. “I won't let you be alone for long.”

 

—

 

Jayce wakes up from death, and it's the seventh “worst day of his life” so far. 

The worst days of his life are not ranked by the severity of each experience, from significantly shitty to excruciating, please put me out of my fucking misery. They are simply categorised by date of occurrence. 

The first is, of course, the day his father died. Jayce did not see it happen, was just told in the middle of his school day that his mother was here to pick him up and take him home early. Jayce, the nine year old idiot, had been excited: he was getting out of drama class. His mother told him on the bus and cried all the way home. Jayce had just sat there, not able to absorb that information in his child’s brain. He only started to cry two days later, when it was clear that his father wasn’t coming home anymore. 

Second: the day he killed a child in Silco's shimmer factory. Every time Jayce thinks there could be something close to good in him, he remembers the look on the boy's face when the beam hit him. The way he just fell forward, and kept falling. How panicked he had looked when Jayce stood over him, right as his final breath left him. He must have only been eleven or twelve. He remembers the faces of the other children in that factory, the way they feared Jayce. The way they hated him. Getting slashed by Renni's chainsaw was a pain so punishing it nearly blinded him every time he remembered it, but it was deserved. 

Third: the attack on the Council. Cassandra, who had been his second mother and nurtured him in her own strict way – dead. Viktor, his partner – crushed under the rubble. Jayce had torn his shirt off and found line after line of scabbing cuts, had broken Viktor's fragile ribs when he tried to resuscitate him. Had grabbed his cane and kicked medics out of the way, ran as he carried him to the lab instead of a hospital. He couldn't let Viktor go where he wasn't. The hexcore wouldn't let him go either. Or maybe Jayce just tells himself that. He was the one who pointed the damn thing at Viktor's chest. 

Fourth: what came after. Viktor emerged from the hexcore's cocoon and told him everything he couldn't bear to hear. Sky was dead. Their paths had diverged. It was affection that had held them together – emphasis on was and had. He was leaving. 

Fifth: the day the arcane swallowed him whole, sent him to Zaun, where he fell down a chasm and his own hammer smashed down on his leg, pure dumb luck or cosmic retribution. It was the day that led to infection, to madness, to catching lizards and squeezing them until they stopped trying to run, to cooking the meat over a fire, trying to eat it and immediately throwing up, then forcing himself to keep it down. 

Sixth: the day Viktor, half-alive, died again, this time by Jayce's shaking, bloodied hands. Never mind that another Viktor had told him to do it, that his Viktor had forgiven him in that other place. He still had to go through it. 

There's honorary mentions, like the day he was kicked out of the Academy and nearly walked straight off the edge of his apartment building, but then that was also the day Viktor became his partner and Mel took a chance on him, and they made the discovery that got Jayce his academic reputation back and more. The only reason that day in the snowstorm doesn't make the cut is because it was also the day Viktor – the mage who started it all and nothing at all, the mage Jayce had created, the infinite feedback loop – saved him and his mother. Jayce still hates snow, the cold, and can recall the panic that had consumed him for a moment as his mother passed out and he thought to himself, this is it. 

Too bad it fucking wasn’t. Because now Jayce is awake again, after death. He doesn't let his eyes open, refuses to believe that he's on the edge of any reality that isn't the starry one with Viktor in it. But his eyelids, the traitors, flutter open anyway, and yes, Jayce is back in his body, his stupid fucking aching body. He squeezes them shut again. 

He doesn't have the energy to cry. He mourns the way he did the day his father died, refusing to absorb it. He thinks of the number seven over and over. 

 

—

 

Eventually he's jolted awake. Jayce sits up in a cold bed and feels his stomach drop, then right itself as the world around him floats back up. The way it had not so long ago in the other place. 

“Sorry ’bout that!” a stranger's voice calls out in the distance. 

Jayce tries to look around, but he's immediately engulfed in somebody's arms. Warm, holding onto him so tight he instinctively reaches out and grips back. And then he recognises the soft pressure, the shape of these hands. 

“Mel?” he croaks. His voice is hoarse. 

“Oh my gods, you're here,” she says, her breath shaking as it passes through her. “You're here!” 

“You're okay,” he says, once, twice, as many times as his voice will let him. An entire ocean of relief crashes into him, and he holds onto Mel so tightly. 

She survived the fight at the Hexgates. She's still here. Tears well in his eyes at the mere thought of it. He was so scared that she would die too, all because of him, that he would have not just their wreck of a relationship and the harsh things he said to her on his conscience, but her life too. But here she is, real in his arms. The relief overwhelms him. He hugs her with everything he has. 

Mel’s the one to eventually pull away, but she stays holding onto his hands, turns them over and looks at his palms. 

“You fortune telling now or something?” he says, voice barely above a whisper. He just says it to make her laugh, but she doesn't. 

He looks down and sees why. There, in his wrist, is that damn crystal. 

There's no rune carved into it, but it’s still attached to him, the skin surrounding it irritated and taut. 

“How are you feeling?” Mel asks, and Jayce immediately shakes his head, because he really can't think about that right now. 

Alive again, Jayce feels himself reverting to old habits, making himself a wall, thick enough to shield him from the onslaught of all his emotions, all the pain that courses through his body, preserved in a crystal and his leg that healed wrong and his stomach that aches and his head that's split between too many times and places. He makes himself a wall and waits for a new, terrifying thing to hit him. 

He looks around. This place looks sterile, unnaturally empty. There's the cot he and Mel are sitting on, and another one pressed close to it. The walls are lined with cabinets and there are two large workbenches to the right of them. 

“Where are we, Mel?” 

She looks more tired than the last time he saw her, and that was when she had just been tortured by mages and was walking headfirst into a warzone against her own mother. The bags under her eyes are deeper. She wears a white cape, similar to the one she had when she returned to Piltover as a mage, but much simpler, with a thick lining to keep her warm. Her braids are shorter than he's ever seen them, shoulder-length, but still ornate with thick gold beads at the end. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asks, dismissing his question for her own. He answers hers first, as he always used to. 

“The fight at the Hexgates. Viktor and I used the rune to put an end to the Herald’s control, and then we were gone.” 

Jayce absentmindedly lets go of one of her hands to rub at the crystal in his skin. He barely feels anything, but the colourful scars that curl up his arms and faintly glow indicate that he soon will. This pain is pending. 

“So where are we?” he repeats. 

She pulls her hands back to hug around her own stomach. It's such a not Mel gesture. He's never known her to look this scared. Apart from right after the bombing on the Council. 

“We're in an airship, flying away from Piltover.” 

“Where are we going?” 

“To a city in the Freljord.” 

Jayce must visibly pale because Mel grimaces in apology. 

“It gets worse.” 

Jayce pushes a hand into his eye now, trying to scrape the exhaustion out, shake death off. 

“How could it get worse than heading for a frozen wasteland that will probably kill us?” It's a stupid question. Jayce's mind immediately supplies a million amendments that make it a million times worse. But at least Mel is with him. That counts for everything. 

“Well, apparently it’s not as much of a wasteland as we were led to believe, and the city we're going to is supposedly very tolerant of outsiders. A lot of its population is descended from Piltovans.” 

“So what's the ‘worse’ part?” 

Mel takes a deep breath. 

Then she says, “We've been asleep for four centuries. It's about 602 APF.” 

Jayce stares at Mel. Blinks. Just blinks. 

The muscles in his shoulders start to ache. 

Fuck. 

“Okay,” he says. 

“Okay?” Mel says, both tired and outraged. “You're taking it a lot better than I did. No follow up questions, Mr Scientist?” There's no real bite in any of her words. 

“Well, it's not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to us, is it?” Jayce says. He never told Mel about the chasm. 

Her laugh is short and frustrated but gloriously hers. It says, you have no idea. 

“And speaking of weird, there's something I need to show you. Maybe this will get you.” 

“What is this, some kind of experiment? Let's see how badly I can freak Jayce out. Gold star if he cries.” 

“The whole mad scientist thing was yours and Viktor's, not mine.” She parries his banter with ease, but that comment drops cold water over his nerves. 

Gods, he can't believe Viktor's not with him. Again.

Mel stands and walks to a glass door to their left. That's when Jayce notices legs, feet clad in fuzzy pink socks, a body sitting on a parallel cot. 

“Elora,” Mel says, “would you call your leader over?” 

Jayce's head turns so quickly a tendon in his neck spasms in pain. Did Mel just say –

“Elora?” he says. 

The legs move and a woman appears, stretches out her limbs like a cat and presses something on her wall. Then she turns and spots Jayce sitting up on the cot, and her eyes nearly bug out of her head. 

“He's awake!” she says. 

You're alive, Jayce wants to say right back. Because Mel had told him before the battle with the Herald that Elora had been murdered by the very same mages that had awoken the arcane in her.

He looks to Mel, who doesn't look triumphant or pleased. She looks like she's going to be sick. 

“How is she here? You said you saw her … You said four centuries have passed.” 

“It's not her,” Mel says plainly, stripping her voice of all its warm feeling. “She doesn't remember.” 

The new Elora looks back and forth between them. She sure as hell looks like her, though her signature “hair horns” – she never knew Jayce called them that – are missing. Her eyes narrow a little, all sceptical and obvious about it, which Elora never was if Jayce is recalling her correctly. She's trying to understand what the hell they’re talking about. He’s too tired to make sense of it himself.

Jayce, oversensitive to sound ever since the chasm, hears footsteps down the hall. He looks up, and for the first time notices that this room has entirely glass walls. Like they're lab rats. 

Jayce shudders. Until the incident with Viktor, Jayce had avoided experimenting on anything living. He wasn't one for torturing animals; he stuck to engineering, material sciences and organic chemistry, thank you very much. He feels all superior for a split second before his brain says, remember that time you killed a fucking kid, you piece of shit idiot? 

“Is he okay?” Elora asks, not quiet enough for him to not pick up on it. 

“I told him that it's been four hundred years since he went to sleep. He's adjusting,” Mel explains.

Went to sleep? No, Jayce had been ready to die. He'd accepted it, read all the conditions and come to terms with it. He'd even gone half way, spent however long with Viktor in the other place, where they could simply be. There, they weren't Viktor and Jayce, doomed partners. They were Viktor and Jayce, particles drifting in space-time. Jayce wants it back so badly he could scream. 

So much for being a wall. 

The footsteps finally stop, and a pair of boots come into his vision. He's been so caught up he forgot that Mel had just called for somebody, New Elora's leader. Jayce prepares himself for some Freljordian brute who'll probably get a kick out of dissecting him on that table over there. He looks up and faces it. 

It's Sky Young. 

Jayce stands up immediately, nearly tripping over his own legs. He gets close to the glass, presses a palm to it. His wrist pulses with energy, in agreement. It's fucking Sky. 

Not his Sky, the assistant he and Viktor had hired and brought on board about a year into their work. Not the woman who was so shy in the beginning but grew steadily in confidence and ambition over the years. Not the woman who hummed when she worked, who made the best hot chocolate Jayce had ever tasted, who brought her favourite records to the lab and played them during breaks, and had walked with Jayce and Viktor to and from the Academy campus for years. 

This woman stands across from him with her arms folded. There's no indication that she knows him. Even as he inches closer to the glass – he sees his own dishevelled reflection and thinks, gods, I look like a feral dog – she stands her ground, totally still. There's grey in the roots of her hair, he notes, equal parts intrigued and delighted. She's wearing a lab coat, a size bigger than his Sky wore. This woman looks physically stronger, with thicker arms, healthier skin. The look she gives him says what the fuck do you think you’re looking at? It's incredible. 

She's got the same half-moon glasses though.

He laughs but stops abruptly, trying not to look like he's losing it. (There's an argument somewhere that he already lost it a long time ago.) He turns back to Mel. 

“You win. This is fucking insane.”  

“What was that?” Sky says, looking over to Elora. 

Elora shrugs and says a word in a language Jayce doesn't recognise. 

Sky rolls her eyes. She speaks quickly and Jayce can't make it all out. A lot of it is clearly Piltovan, but more staccato, rough in her accent, and the remaining words are a mystery. 

Elora speaks up. “She says that the good news is that your bloods have come back normal, which is a shock, considering where we found you and the fact that you're, you know.” She gestures vaguely at the two of them. “They're still looking at your swabs. It might take another day, but by then we'll be in Hæli.” 

“Thank you for telling us,” Mel says to Sky and Elora, then takes a seat on Jayce's cot and beckons him back. He takes a seat next to her.

New Sky and New Elora observe them for a moment longer, and then Sky walks away and Elora takes a seat on her own cot and starts writing in a notebook. 

“So I was thinking,” Mel says quietly, watching Elora and checking that she can't hear them, “the arcane has evidently reconstituted them, and you, so –”

That sparks something urgent in his mind. “Where did you find my body after the fight?”

“Jayce, focus,” Mel says, but he interrupts her. 

“No, answer me. Did you find me at the top of the Hexgates?” 

Mel lets out a deep breath through her nose, shuts her eyes like she's counting to five to keep herself calm. She turns away from Jayce. 

“I didn't find you. Shoola found you and the Herald, a year after the battle. You two just appeared.” 

A pit opens in Jayce's stomach. “She found Viktor?” 

Mel avoids eye contact. “It wasn't his old body. It was all that hexcore armour. But your body was perfectly intact.”

If Jayce wasn't so disturbed by this, he might have snorted at the idea of this body being perfect or intact. 

“Where did they leave him?” 

“They put you two in a tomb in the lower levels of the tower and threw away the key. It was all very quiet. The Council was –” Mel stops, her eyes darting across the floor as she pieces something together. “They were already weighing up the idea of fleeing, so the Council didn't make an announcement that they found your bodies. Just locked you away and sent me a letter in Noxus. So I came back to see it for myself and – and then I don't remember what happened next. I woke up and Elora was there.” 

“Fleeing from what?”

Her throat clicks. “I can’t remember.”

A pause hangs heavy between them. Jayce joins Mel in looking at the floor. 

“What a fucking year,” he says.  

“You can say that again.” 

Mel takes his hand again, seeking comfort the way they always did. Jayce had been the affectionate one, but once they broke a certain barrier of closeness, Mel returned his touches easily, happily. The feeling of her hand in his settles his heartbeat, even after all this time. Even though they can't go back to the way they were. 

“I was thinking, though, if they're back, maybe he's back too.” 

Jayce tries to follow her line of thought, finds it, and drops her hand instantly. “No.” 

“He might not remember, like them, and things could –”

“Could what?” he snaps. And he's not being fair, but Jayce is always quick to action and quicker to regret. 

Mel looks at him like she's scared he'll break right in front of her.

Finally, she says, “Things could be different.”

Whatever Jayce was going to say falls right out of his mind.

Mel was never the optimist. That had always been him, up to a point. Mel was the steady realist, the person who gave sage advice that Jayce ignored time and time again. He doesn't recognise this particular, heart shattering brand of hope on her. 

He thinks of the blur of every Viktor he's known. Thinks about the Viktor who said at last, I'm tired. I think I need to let go.

Maybe what he had meant was, you need to let me go now.

“It couldn't,” Jayce says firmly. “And he's not coming back again. He’s gone this time. Trust me.” 

He takes a breath, and lets the grief that's chasing him down run a little farther.

 

—

 

Viktor’s alarm wakes him, seven on the dot like it always does. He stretches in bed, contemplates falling back asleep under his warm sheets, realises that's the devil whispering in his ear, and reaches for his cane. His polar cat, Riley, purrs and follows him to the bathroom. She whines when he closes the door behind him, so, like always, he opens the door and lets her sit in the shower and watch him as he pees and brushes his teeth. She’s such a little weirdo. He loves her. He ties his hair back into a bun and accidentally pricks himself as he changes his ear piercings and swaps out his usual nose ring for a small stud. Just because he feels like it today.

Most residents in Fifth Point opt for apartments with a small kitchenette. This is because the majority of people in Fifth Point work under the Council of Innovations, and therefore don't eat during regular canteen hours. Instead, they eat instant noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner, drink coffee like its water and shit quantum mechanics or whatever’s their poison. Viktor is one of them, but today he decides he wants porridge and green berries. He lets out a triumphant fuck yeah when he finds a porridge sachet in the back of his cupboards, pours it out into a bowl along with a sachet of milk, and puts it in the microwave. 

He hears a buzz almost immediately, and for a brief moment he's confused as he watches the bowl still spinning round and round. Then he realises it's the wall. He walks over to the little pad next to his light switch and sees the notification button turn red. He presses it and listens to the note. 

“Hey, Viktor, it's Sky. Just touched down, back sooner than we expected. We'll be quarantined and then I’ve got to go for the mother of all expedition reviews, but after you and I are going to that bar in Third and getting hammered. It's been a weird fucking trip.” 

The note cuts off, and Viktor laughs to himself. It would have to be, for Sky and her team to be back this quickly. He looks forward to hearing all about it, watching her hands fly about as she tells her stories. He's never one to turn down an invitation from her. 

The microwave pings. He adds the green berries to the porridge and it's delicious. He's got a busy day today, first the reviews of the power grid providing for Fourth, Fifth and Sixth, then his afternoon classes, and finally his office hour, but he takes his time, savours each spoonful of his breakfast. 

He looks around his pokey apartment, full of plants and filled up bookshelves, polaroids stuck to the peach-coloured walls, pictures from his first Innovations Award, his parents’ anniversaries, his fortieth birthday two months ago. Riley’s already lying on the sofa, purring in the sunlight. 

Not for the first time, Viktor thinks, this is the life. 

 

 

Notes:

is each chapter title going to be lyrics from my favourite songs? you bet!
lyrics from gigi perez's sugar water

this fic and its world have taken over my brain and i cannot wait to write more of it. thank you so much for reading. any kudos are so appreciated, and it would absolutely make my day if you leave a comment and tell me what you think. hope to see you again for the next chapter!

Chapter 2: one life torn in two

Notes:

i have been waiting to write this chapter ever since reading "ambessa: chosen of the wolf". i hope you enjoy it <3
chapter title from rachel chinouriri's "robbed"

As far as she can tell, Jayce barely sleeps on the ship either. All night, she hears him tossing and turning, closing his eyes for a little while and then suddenly startling awake. His whole body keens upwards, as if resting makes him vomit. Mel can understand that. They don't speak about it. It's possible that whatever put them to sleep for four hundred years has left a horrible sickness in its wake, an inability to let the brain shut down for more than little thirty minute bursts. 

Or, it's purely psychological. A fear or an instinct. Because Mel can't close her eyes without imagining her mother lying dead in her arms. Without seeing her own hands reach for Kino's head and smash him, or something that looked so much like him, into a prison wall. Without watching as thorns crush Elora's living body until her head pops clean off her neck like a champagne cork. She opens her eyes just to stave off the nausea. 

And she can't look to her left either, because it's where that new, other version of Elora is sitting. 

Even as her body aches with sleeplessness and a fresh, desperate sense of hunger that is barely satisfied by the meals on the ship, the most poignant feeling that Mel's suffered over the past few days has been the utter mortification brought on by her mistake at the bottom of the Hexgates: thinking that this Elora was her Elora. She had felt so overwhelmed, so tired and scared, that she couldn't see the way that Elora looked at her not with recognition and love but confusion and wonderment. Every time she thinks about it, she wants to apologise and explain that she had a lapse in her usual judgement, she is not always this emotional, please wipe that memory from your brain and we can forget it ever happened. 

Something tells her that Elora the historian, who seems to write endlessly in that notebook of hers, is not one for forgetting. Mel winces at the irony of that thought. 

She hugs her stomach, rubs her back, and thinks about how Elora's hands had held her and soothed her anyway, even not knowing who she was. How her palms felt the same, rubbing her back so gently, the same way Elora touched her when they were younger, when Mel missed her home and her father so terribly that all she could do was cry. 

She pushes the memory out of her mind like it burns her. She hears her mother’s voice, clear and disappointed and dead. 

I can't stand to see how weak you are.

She doesn't even remember if she ever heard those exact words leave her mother’s mouth. She didn't have to. They were written in her gaze whenever she set eyes on Mel. 

The only thing she ever did to make her mother proud was betray her, in the end. 

 

—

 

“What do you think will happen when we land?” Jayce asks her. 

She’s laying down on her cot as he paces. While Mel feels lethargic and feverish, insomnia seems to be turning Jayce into a skittish wreck. Following the attack on the Council, Jayce had been rooted to a single room: the lab. Every time she had gone to check on him, he’d been sleeping on his desk, looming over all of his splayed out notes with their diagrams of Viktor's body and the hexcore, or just staring at the strange purple cocoon and his partner's deadened face. There had been something stagnant in him then, grounded as he waited for Viktor to survive or fade away, even as it was driving him mad. So now, Jayce's manic pacing and fidgeting, the way he's always fiddling with his hands or pawing at the crystal in his wrist, is a little disconcerting. But then everything, every single thing that's happened since the attack on the Council, feels fucking disconcerting.

“She,” Mel says, nodding in the vague direction of Almost Elora, “seems to think that we'll be welcomed with open arms. We're apparently arcane refugees.” 

Mel thinks of the histories she had learnt as a child, about the displacement and migration that followed the numerous Rune Wars. In Noxus, and again in Piltover, such terrors seemed locked away in another era. 

“But she also knows who we are, and if it's true that half the population of her city is descended from Piltovans and Zaunites who had to flee because of the arcane fallout in Piltover, then I think it's highly likely that we'll be put on some kind of trial.” 

Jayce stops pacing for a moment and rubs at his wrist. “Well, it wouldn't be my first time.” 

Mel snorts at that. 

Very quietly, Jayce offers, “We could run?” 

She raises her head slightly to get a proper look at him, at the marks spreading across his skin like an oil spill and the sorry state of the brace he now needs for his left leg. He's leaning too much on his right side when he walks, wincing whenever his mind allows him to take a step with his left foot the way he used to. Part of her thinks that Jayce is just walking around to prove to himself that he still can, even though it obviously pains him. He still hasn't told her what exactly happened in the months she was held captive, but Mel knows one thing: Jayce Talis is not running anywhere. 

“You like our chances of surviving the tundra?” 

Jayce's face drops and he presses his lips together in resignation. “Trial it is, then.” 

“Mmhm. Maybe they'll give us coats before they exile us from their city.” 

“So we'd be out in the tundra anyway?” 

“Yes, but we might have coats.”

“That won't happen. You can talk your way out of anything.” 

He doesn't look at her when he says it, matter of fact and sincere in the way Jayce so often is. Once, Mel might have thought that she could. But then her mother had rolled her eyes, said, “Still a fox,” and sent Noxians, Piltovans and Zaunites to their deaths anyway.

For the hundredth time today, Mel tries to force her memories away.  

“Fine. I'll ask them to give you a coat when you are exiled.” 

Jayce's head snaps to her in surprise and for a second she worries that he can't read her sarcasm anymore, but then he's just smiling faintly and shaking his head. It's a sudden relief, knowing that they can still amuse each other. 

The truth is, if Jayce alone were to pay for their joint mistake in seeking greatness through Hextech, if the people of Hæli decided that for their own safety they must bar him from refuge, then Mel would probably follow Jayce into the mountains and share his cold, lonely death. 

He's all she has left. 

 

—

 

According to the Medarda code and Ambessa's own teachings, having a sharp mind and a careful tongue were just as important as physical strength and military prowess, but at a young age, Mel realised that the trait that her mother valued above all else was being a survivor. Having failed to live up to her mother's vision of one, Mel had tried to reforge the meaning of the word in her own image. 

She had always been intelligent, charming and personable. As a teenager, she knew how her sweet smile and youth could be used to get information out of people, knew when to speak and when to listen. She could convince her tutors to let her leave their classes early, even when they feared retribution from her mother; she could tease intel out of minor officials or local vendors or guards in Bel'zhun, all so she could report their secrets back to her parents at the dinner table. Though she hadn't known it then, her eagerness to play informant and future politician had been valuable training for her life in Piltover. She arrived there as a cast out,  inexperienced sixteen year old girl, the latest charge of the elderly Jago Medarda, but by nineteen she was the daring, intriguing socialite who was quickly steering her family's merchant house to Piltovan infamy. She encouraged Jago to take on new business ventures that were already paying remarkably well; she invested her own money in painters and musicians, set up funding for the future opera house, and was adored by the ever growing artists’ guilds across the city. Blooming into adulthood, her beauty morphed into something more mature but still untouchable; wealthy investors wanted her in the room just so they could look at her, without even realising that they were already her chess pieces to move and play with in her mind. She earned the respect of the Councilors Cassandra Kiramman and Shoola Adesina through her business acumen, her continued practice of investing her money back into Piltovan artisans, and of course her natural grace. By twenty-two, a position opened in the Council, and it was inevitable that Mel was given the seat. She had not simply survived in Piltover, but thrived. 

She left at the age of thirty-three, after she was effectively removed from the Council. Having renewed their fear of magic, the people of Piltover no longer trusted the mage from Noxus, even if she had been the one to kill General Ambessa Medarda and command her soldiers to stand down. Besides, it wasn't like the Council could just create a new seat again for the Zaunite that they reluctantly accepted into their fold, their hands forced by none other than Cailtyn Kiramman. After all, look what the Talis boy had done. No, the new Zaunite had to assume somebody else's position. And so Mel had stepped down and given Sevika a warning, not that she needed Mel's advice. “Believe it or not,” she had said, “we already know a lot about you people, having spent our lives crushed under your boots.” Mel nodded and left, a little envious of Sevika's use of we, the voices of Zaun behind her. Mel boarded her ship home to Noxus. 

Within two days of the journey, the majority of what remained of her mother's elite warband, the Wolf's Reapers, attempted mutiny against her. Mel, apparently, was too weak to earn the transfer of their loyalties from Ambessa, and also too close to the artificial mage who had nearly taken their lives. She was quickly getting annoyed by this new prejudice against her, but she could understand their predicament: the reapers’ pride was sorely wounded. This secret would die with Mel, and then they would go their separate ways or form their own band of mercenaries.

She thwarted that plan when she anticipated the dagger that aimed for the first stab at her back. She had thrown the man across the room, knocking him out against the door. She announced that if they thought they would be able to kill her without a fight, then they were sorely mistaken. 

“I have no interest in gaining your loyalty. When we arrive at Noxus’ closest port, you will leave this ship with your armour and your life. Do not mistake this mercy for weakness.”

Mel was left with twelve soldiers who still appreciated their paychecks and steady meals. They ate dinners together in the ship’s main hall, the way they had with Ambessa. At first, no one dared to approach the woman who could sense knives at her back and poison in her cup. 

“You'll need a personal guard in Noxus,” one of them finally said as they neared Rokrund, a young woman called Yevi. She was relatively new to Ambessa's warband, a complete stranger to Mel, plucked from Rokrund's arena of Reckoners. 

“Yes, that's true.” She knew that she should do more to secure Yevi and her fellow soldiers’ allegiance, that she was walking into Noxus with a target on her back as the new head of a crumbling clan. She could be chewed up and spat out within the week. But she struggled to care; she was tired. Perhaps her new found powers were making her reckless. 

Ambessa had spent her life in pursuit of greatness and legacy, and where had that gotten her? All it had brought was death: her own, Kino's, cousin Tivadar's, countless Ionians and Noxians and Piltovans and Zaunites. And Mel – Mel had spent her life in pursuit of her mother's approval, and therefore in pursuit of what her mother had sought before her, and now she was here. Alone. 

Most of all, though, she thought of Lady Mion of Ionia, whom her mother had murdered in front of her as a lesson. She thought of how she could only watch as her mother decapitated her so cleanly, so ruthlessly. She still dreamt of Mion, but after the battle with the Herald, the nightmare began to twist itself into new horrors. She would watch her mother slice through flesh, through bone, and when Mel, suddenly bound to her fifteen year old body again, finally turned away from her mother's bloodied sword to the head on the floor, she saw that it was Jayce's. In other dreams, her mother would listen to Mel's pleas for mercy, put down her sword and step aside – only to say that Mion would make the perfect test subject for her new soldier, and Viktor would walk out, coughing blood until his skull contorted and cracked and turned purple with death and magic. 

The dreams sickened her as life had. Her grief for her mother walked hand in hand with her fury at the nation that had taught her to be the way she was, to think that cruelty was so easily justified.

Still, she never imagined that these little sparks of dissent would grow into a blaze inside of her. 

When she arrived in Noxus, she discovered the reality of her mother's situation. Since Kino's death, she had sold shares, land, heirlooms, anything, all to pay scientists and inventors to create a drug like shimmer or an imitation of Hextech in order to defeat the Black Rose. The Rose, in kind, must have sunk their claws into the cronies in their pockets, because alliances with several other powerful Noxian houses were withdrawn without explanation. Uncle Katye was missing; Uncle Hanek was dying slowly, spending the rest of his days shut up in his home library in the Immortal Bastion; Jae Medarda, Jago's great-nephew, was still travelling in Shurima with no interest in returning. Mel did not have to brace herself for a civil war like the one that occurred when her great-grandfather passed; all of the distant aunts and uncles and cousins that remained in Noxus stayed far away, protecting the money they had and trying to divorce themselves from the ruin Ambessa had wrought on their clan's reputation. 

Emperor Swain did not call upon Mel. There was no invitation to the Immortal Bastion. 

Part of Mel felt a clawing need to fix this. To prove to everyone that she could rescue her family's name. They were wrong to ever cast her out, and they would come to see the error of their ways when she restored the clan's glory. She could make even an emperor regret underestimating her. 

But what exactly would she be rebuilding? The blood soaked foundations of her family's compounds. The wealth that her family had robbed from other nations after they killed their farmers and fishermen and soldiers and noblemen. The embroidered dress that they had stripped from Lady Mion's headless body. 

Her disgust became insurmountable, her mother unforgivable. Even as she cried for her again and again. 

She sold the compound in Rokrund and nearly everything valuable that was left inside of it. There were certain things she naturally kept hold of: her father's books; Kino's journals; Kino's clothes, which were bizarrely adult sized – she couldn't help but imagine him as the wiry sixteen year old she left behind in Noxus, who would have drowned in these trousers and jackets. As for her mother's effects, she kept the fine red robes that she remembered her wearing for Kino's thirteenth birthday; the painting of the sunrise that she had bought from the Targonian artist who had tattooed her, tucked away in the corner of Ambessa's study. She couldn't keep anything else. She told herself that it wouldn't fit in her trunks. She gave each soldier that had not tried to kill her their severance pay, and bought a small cottage just outside of Bel'zhun. 

For the first time in her life, Mel lived in solitude. There were no attendants, chefs, or cleaners. No family or friends. In the beginning, she did very little but sleep and eat as much as was necessary to keep her body from completely deteriorating. She watched the sun rise and fall from her bed. The sky itself was too bright to look at. The food she cooked had no taste, no matter how she spiced it. If she did go outside, even the sensation of the soft winds made her cry. She couldn't bear to see the world continue to exist when all the people who had made it mean anything were gone. She retreated into her room, pulling one of Kino's jackets from his trunk and hugging it, pretending that she could smell him on the fabric. One such jacket was white and gold, and that day she found herself crying not only for her brother, but also for Jayce, the man she had accidentally fallen in love with. 

It had been a surprise to her. At first, her desire for him had felt simple. He was a handsome man who hung on her every word, but more importantly he was a visionary with so many kind-hearted dreams, dreams of making the world a gentler place. Mel was used to thinking that life had to be hard, that you had to harden yourself to survive it, but Jayce asked, what if people didn't have to work until their backs broke? What if you could make their lives easier? Why wouldn't you? In a world of lies and corruption, Jayce had allowed Mel to imagine that she could build something, not simply own it. 

She had told herself that she had no intention of letting Jayce get close to her, though he was already under her skin: she remembered the mortifying anger that filled her when she woke up alone after their first night together. Mel was cold and distant, but Jayce had wanted to be close to her anyway. Not just in bed but in everything. Why did you come to me with this, she had asked that day, and he had told her, nothing feels impossible when I'm with you and kissed her hand. And that was it. She had loved him fiercely in spite of how terrifying it was. They never made a word for what they had. They were not partners, and she cringed at the term lovers, but for a little while, they had been each other's. 

Then she was taken by the Rose, and in her absence he had suffered something he would not tell her about. When they finally found each other again, it was clear that they were no longer the people they had once been. The two people who could have been in love. 

She sobbed until her throat hurt and her eyes burned. She had searched for hours after the battle with the Herald, but there had been no sign of either of them. The Firelight boy, Ekko, said that they had just vanished. 

Mel screamed into the jacket, into her empty bedroom. How could you leave me? she wanted to say. To Jayce, to her mother. She wanted to howl until the world brought them back or took her to them. Her heart ached with every crying breath. 

Sometimes, just thinking about Elora made her throw up. She could still hear the thorns tearing into skin, crushing bone. I'm so sorry, she cried, again and again into the void. Pure rage coursed through her, thinking of that shadow of the woman who had killed Elora as a test. The shame of it tore her apart. I'm sorry I didn't save you, she thought, hoping Elora could hear her somewhere, knowing that she wouldn't. I'm sorry that I didn't know how. I'm sorry that you knew me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Come back, I'm sorry. 

The sun rose every day just to watch Mel mourn. 

 

—

 

She had to walk to Bel'zhun's outer markets for food. Her cottage was on the side of a dirt path that faded into woodlands, roughly twenty minutes away from the outskirts of Bel'zhun's oldest and most secluded district. One day, she realised that she was making the trip into town more frequently than she had when she arrived, every five days rather than every ten. She couldn't pinpoint the exact day she had started to notice the sensation of hunger again, but it was here to stay and bother her, and so she had begun to cook proper meals in earnest. 

In town, she wore a cloak to cover all of the tattoos on her body and fashioned her braids carefully to cover the gold marks on her forehead. She was afraid that the townsfolk would sense the magic in them and refuse to sell their produce and goods to her, but these Noxians did not carry the same fear of the arcane as Piltovans did now. The vendors that came to recognise Mel smiled when they saw her approaching, and she smiled in return, feigning normality. It was the most human contact she had in those days. 

Her favourite stall was run by an old woman, who sold clay pots and jewellery alongside the fruits from her farm. Mel coveted every single jug and vase, painted azure blue or sunrise orange with little fish or mermaids. Every now and then, she would buy something small. A mug. A tiny seashell figurine. 

“Do you paint, my dear?” the woman asked her one day as Mel lingered at her stall. 

The question surprised Mel, who hadn't thought of creating anything in so long. “I used to,” she said. She had missed speaking Va-Nox, she realised. Her mother-tongue made her feel a little more human. 

“There's nothing like painting to soothe the soul, don't you think?” the woman said as she fondly repositioned one of her vases. 

Mel had brought her paints with her, unable to part with them. That night in the cottage, she pulled them out of her trunk and stared at them, the bright reds and greens, yellows and purples. She inhaled the sight of them, and then put them away again, under her bed. 

If she painted, she knew what would come. As soon as it was finished, she would turn around and say to the world, what do you think? The same way she always did to Elora. And the world would respond with nothing but silence. 

 

—

 

She was aware that one day her money would run out. That day was a future away, but she thought of it still. She wondered what work she could bring herself to do, now that she was barely a person and no longer receiving an income from Piltover or her mother’s coffers. She could offer her linguistic expertise to a school in Bel'zhun, teaching little children. Perhaps one day she would be able to paint for a living, selling her art in the markets that she had adored when she was a child. If that was to be the case, then she would need to start practicing again. 

Neither of those ideas were ever realised, because ten months in, Mel received a letter, the envelope covered in several Piltovan and Noxian stamps and dated two months prior. That very day, she packed a single trunk and walked for two hours, all the way to Bel'zhun's nearest port, where she paid an exorbitant amount to board a small passenger ship. She never saw the cottage or her family's effects again. 

Dearest Mel, Shoola had written. We have found Jayce and Viktor. I will not be able to delay the burial. 

 

—

 

Mel wakes to a tapping noise, a fingernail against glass. She's surprised that she even managed to drift into sleep for a moment. She turns to Jayce, who's sitting up on his cot. He nods to her left. It's Elora. 

“Hello,” she says. 

Mel blinks at her and takes her in. Elora's hair falls well below her shoulders, longer than her Elora ever grew it. There are spot scars dotted around her face, some of the ones on her cheeks darker than others, as if she couldn't stop picking at them, but her bare skin is pretty. Her lips are a little cracked, particularly her bottom lip. She probably chews on it. Since their last conversation, Mel has been trying to avoid looking at Elora, but now she wants to memorise every detail. 

Elora smiles, and there are those familiar dimples. Mel feels her mind stutter.

“Hi,” Jayce says, looking back and forth between them. 

Right, maybe Mel is supposed to speak, not just stare. 

“What is it?” she says. 

“I was wondering, uh, if we could talk?” Elora says. Her cheeks go a little pink. 

Mel and Jayce share a look.

“What about?” Mel asks, sitting up. She's worried about where this will go, if Elora will ask them something they don't want to think about. She had studied them for her doctoral studies, she’d said. She really hopes Elora won't ask Jayce about Piltovan warfare. He's already so on edge.

“Anything at all,” Elora says with a nervous laugh. “I think this is the longest I've ever gone without talking.” Jayce tenses next to Mel. 

“It's only been a day.” 

Elora looks a little embarrassed but shrugs. “I want to see if I'm speaking Piltovan properly.” 

Mel can't help but smile at that. “It sounds fine to me.” 

“Do you two know any other languages?”

Mel nods. “I know Va-Nox and Shuriman as well.” 

“Oh, wow, that's brilliant. I've never met somebody who’s spoken either of those. I wonder if it's still –” Elora cuts herself off. She smiles and tries again. “What about you?” she asks Jayce. 

His eyes widen a little. “Oh. Only Piltovan.” 

Elora nods. “Hælien is a mix of Piltovan and Freljordian. I imagine you two could learn it quite easily. If, you know, you wanted to.” 

Silence settles, strange and awkward. Elora’s eyes glaze over a little bit, as if she's trying to think of inoffensive questions, things that won't upset them or remind them of the time they've literally slept through and missed. 

She's probably right. In the world when they're not forced out of Hæli after they land and are instead permitted to stay, they'll need to adapt and learn the language. 

“Could you say something, an example sentence?” Mel says. “I'd like to hear the difference.” 

Elora’s eyes light up. She says a simple sentence and smiles happily at the end of it.

“She has something hair. Is that what you said?” Mel asks. 

“Yes. She has black hair,” she says, pointing at Mel. Then she says another sentence, this time pointing at Jayce. 

“That's he has brown hair?” 

Elora nods, her smile growing brighter by the second. For the first time in a long time, Mel's body feels warm. 

Mel asks, “So your words for he and she are the same?” 

The sentence structure is familiar and easy to decipher, but Hælien is grammatically genderless, similar to Shuriman. She decides to ask Elora if she knows that in Va-Nox, every noun has a gender and they decline too. 

Elora positively beams. “No, I didn't. Oh, I have so many questions,” she says, and then stops herself again when she looks at Jayce. Mel turns to him, and he looks a little shy but smiles slightly. “I'm sorry, I must be boring you both.”

“No,” he says. “I just don't know much about grammar.”

“I'm a bit of a – is the word nerd Piltovan?” 

That makes Jayce laugh. Mel’s head snaps over to him. It's quiet and short, but gods, it's there. She hasn't heard him laugh since before the attack on the Council. She can barely believe it. 

“Yes, I think it must be,” he says. His voice is a little lighter. Elora chuckles to herself. 

When Mel turns back to her, she feels a little breathless. Because for a moment, it feels like she's talking to her best friend again, the woman who could make you smile when you least expected it. Mel knew her to have this power from the very beginning of their friendship, back when they were fifteen and Elora sat with Mel as she waited for her broken arm to heal and the gaping loss of her father to feel less soul-crushing.

And here Elora is again, somehow coaxing smiles out of her and Jayce.

It feels like magic. She would know.

“How did you end up here?” Mel says.

Elora tilts her head to the side in confusion. “What?”

She tries again. “Will you tell us a little about your life? What is Hæli like?”

“Oh, sure. Um …” 

A new, softer smile blooms on her face as she thinks. It's so similar to the way her Elora used to smile while she read that Mel's chest aches against her wishes. 

“Well, I've lived there all my life. It's not like other cities I've heard about, and definitely nothing like Piltover. It's a –”

She says a word that Mel doesn't know. She frowns, but Elora's eyes widen with a new idea, and it's like there's a never-ending source of light inside of her. She brings out her notebook and starts sketching. Mel walks towards the glass that divides them, sitting on the floor just across from Elora. She turns back to Jayce and beckons him over with a nod. He takes a seat next to her, careful to leave his left leg outstretched. A few minutes later, Elora shows her drawing and asks what the Piltovan word for the hexagonal structure she's drawn might be. 

“It looks like a fortress,” Mel says. 

“Fortress,” Elora repeats happily. 

The sketch isn't especially detailed, but Elora has emphasised six tall towers with darker pencil lines. She points to one of them and says, “I live in a room in this tower. It's called Sixth Point. All of the other towers have similar names. And then anything in the middle – that area is called the Keep.” 

“How cold is it there this time of year?” Jayce asks. His furrowed brows and focused eyes are painfully transparent, in Mel's opinion: he's thinking about how they'll fair if they are exiled. 

“I mean, it's always a bit cool in Hæli, but I wouldn't call it cold. They never really change how warm it feels.”

Mel can practically hear the gears of Jayce's brain whirring. “What do you mean?” 

“Well, outside Hæli around this time, the snow would be very thick and it would be freezing, but you might be allowed to head out for a short time.”

Jayce and Mel exchange another look. “Oh,” he says at last. “The fortress is closed off? Even the Keep?” 

Elora nods. “Yes, right. We still get sunlight, obviously,” Elora rushes to say a little sheepishly, like she's failing at selling them on this particular vacation destination. “We have windows. In some areas, the ceilings are pure frost-glass, so you can watch the sun rise and set. I do it often.” 

“Fascinating,” Mel says, looking a little closer at the sketch. And then her mind picks up the pace, providing more and more questions about daily life in the fortress and broader ones about their society. How are they governed? What energy sources power the city?

“What do you usually eat?” she asks, because even though their morning meal was not that long ago, she is still thinking about food. 

Elora explains that their diet is a largely vegetarian one, and all citizens are prescribed vitamins that they are strongly encouraged to take. Huge parts of the Keep are dedicated to growing their fruit, vegetables, and wheat in an artificial atmosphere. The start of fishing season is celebrated with as much excitement as the new year, if not more. “Those months are special to us. Did Piltovans get to eat fish all year round?” 

Mel nods. She had never had to want for the food that she desired. No matter the season, she could speak to her chefs and they would prepare her favourite meals. Fried fish with lime and spring greens. Rich beef or lamb stews with cardamom rice. Her absolute favourite dish was sweetbreads, and it occurs to her suddenly that she will most likely never eat them again. 

“Who is in charge there?” she asks next. Elora doesn't seem to mind all of her questions. 

“We have three councils, which –” 

Elora cuts herself off, and Mel can guess why. Next to her, Jayce is already hanging his head low and muttering, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” 

Elora lets out a shocked laugh. “I'm sorry?” 

“You'll have to excuse him,” Mel says, but she's cringing herself. “Do you know that Piltover and Zaun were run by a council?” 

Now, Elora's smile tilts prettily, and for the first time she looks a little more confident. Even arrogant. “Our councils are not like yours.” 

Jayce gives her a sceptical look. “How so?”

“Well, as I understand it, your council was run by the heads of wealthy clans and it selected its own members. Am I correct?” Jayce nods pitifully. Elora continues, “The heads of our councils are voted in every five years. Any citizen can join a council and climb the ranks, but they have to convince the majority of Hæliens that they're the right person for the job. If it turns out that they are not serving the people properly, they can be removed.” 

That little crease in Jayce's forehead smooths slightly as they take this in. Mel can't help but think that even if she had needed to win over almost every citizen of Piltover, she still could have achieved her place on the Council. She thinks Jayce would have won his place too, the handsome man of innovation, the brilliant scientist that promised to bring Piltover to a new age of prosperity. As for stooges like Salo and Hoskel, she doubts that they could win the average Piltovan's support. 

No one council presides alone over Hæli’s treasury, housing, agriculture or education programs; all three have jurisdiction. Elora explains that she works for the Council of Histories, and that even though expeditions to Piltover and Zaun are always led by the Council of Innovations, they were happy to collaborate. 

“So here I am,” she says, absentmindedly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. 

Without meaning to, Mel thinks of the first time she witnessed this gesture. They had been fifteen. Mel's arm was still in its cast and she had started taking medicines to sleep at night, but by then Kino had convinced her to start joining him at his favourite noodle joint. The two of them, along with Tivadar and Elora, were eating there almost every night, trying to piece together the mystery of their father's death all the while. 

One day, there was a new waitress. She must have been about nineteen years old. Kino’s eyes had lingered on her, and Mel understood that easily: she was beautiful, with her golden brown complexion, dark curly hair, black lipstick and pretty gold eyes. But what had surprised her was the way Elora had stared at her with wide eyes, blushing as she thanked her for bringing their food, tucking her hair behind her ear when she came back to ask if they wanted to order anything else. Mel had asked Elora about it once they left and teased her gratuitously. Elora had snorted and teased right back. “As if you don't yearn for those young, strong men that your parents hire to guard the compound.” Mel had laughed in mock outrage, and their jokes became ruder, even more scandalous as they walked closer to the Medarda compound. 

It was the first time Mel didn't cry when someone mentioned her father in passing. She hadn't even thought to correct Elora: parent, singular, now. 

As they grew up, Elora became so prim and proper, even though she was secretly anything but. She always had her hair tied back in those double buns. Even if there was anyone that Elora had coveted, she wasn't able to tuck her hair behind her ear anymore.

Mel knows it’s not the same. That this motion from this Elora is totally innocent, removed from Mel's past life. She knows it. She does. 

Her cheeks grow warm anyway.

 

—

 

Jayce’s head shoots up, which means that someone is approaching. 

They were told this morning, when the tall man, Ivarr, brought their food, that they would reach Hæli by the evening. She and Jayce have been discussing the exact words they'll use when they're brought before the heads of Hæli's councils, while Elora seems to be napping. Mel envies how easily she can fall asleep. 

Jayce's ears are so sensitive that he keeps picking up on sounds that Mel misses, and she tries not to mentally compare him to a guard dog on high alert, even though it's right there. He stares at the hallway cautiously, any conversation they were just having immediately halted.

“It's Sky,” he says. He's good at telling the difference between Sky and Ivarr's gaits. 

A moment later, she stops outside their room and stares at them. They're both sitting up on their cots, watching her carefully. Mel's kind of surprised that Jayce is not immediately up, battle stance ready, but maybe his leg is hurting more than usual today. 

There's a buzz and a heavy click of a mechanism. Then, slowly but surely, the glass divider that separates this room from everything else peels back and recedes into a slot in the ship's wall. 

Sky offers a small smile and says, “Hello.” There’s no barrier between them now. Then she walks right past the two of them, towards Elora's door, which she opens. She says something loudly and Elora's sleeping body startles awake, then freezes, and the two of them begin to talk indecipherably quickly. Suddenly, Elora shoots up, her body heavy with sleep but her smile wide and excited. She turns to Mel, and her chest aches at the sight of her bedhead. She looks so young. 

“We're free,” Elora says with glee. She walks out of her room, and then Mel and Jayce's, and takes a deep breath. “It's so good to breathe in air that didn't just come out of my mouth.” 

Mel turns to Sky. “We're allowed to come out?” 

Sky puts out her hand and hums in affirmation. “I'm sorry we had to keep you here. You can join the rest of us now.” 

Her smile seems sincere, but Mel is more encouraged by the fact that she's holding out her hand, proving that she and Jayce aren't harbouring some terrible contagion. She's been worried that they would be stuck inside this lab forever, that the heads of the councils would come to observe them and declare them lab rats or waste. She takes Sky's hand and rises to her feet. Next, Sky extends a hand to Jayce. He looks at her palm and thanks her, but stands slowly on his own. 

Mel hasn't missed how Jayce seems so scared of touch. He used to be the one who sought it, the initiator: little soft touches to her back or shoulder; gentle hugs that you wanted to melt into. Now, it's Mel who takes his hand in hers, featherlight so he doesn't hide from it. She remembers how before the battle with the Herald, Jayce hadn't tried to hug Caitlyn, when he had always been the one flicking her or scooping her into his side. Instead, it was Caitlyn who had pulled him into her arms for a brief embrace and said, “See you on the other side.” 

Jayce hasn't mentioned Caitlyn once this entire time, or his mother, or Viktor. He had looked so cold when he told Mel, he isn't coming back again.

She hates the way grief looks on him. 

Jayce flinches when he's finally upright. Mel thinks that if the Hæliens are willing to help them, she should ask if they can make him a cane. Or better yet, just give Jayce the materials and he'll do all the work. That would be good, keeping him occupied. While Viktor was in that cocoon, Jayce had held onto his crutch so tightly. “I made it, you know,” he had said quietly at one point, unable to tear his eyes from it. 

Mel’s curiosity gets the better of her, so she asks Sky, “All the blood and swabs you took, it all came back normal? We'll be able to leave the ship when we land?”

Sky winces slightly. “Well, normal would be a stretch. You’re mages after all. But yes, the three of you can leave this room now, and you'll quarantine with the rest of us when we land.”

Mel furrows her brows. “Sorry? We'll have to do this again?” 

“This trip was always going to end in a quarantine for the crew, but at least we'll all be allowed into Fifth Point. We'll stay in a small outpost for a week.” 

Elora frowns at that, to which Sky tells her to be grateful. 

“You’re lucky it's only a week. When I came back from Piltover twenty years ago, it was three.”

Sky leads them to the main hall of the ship. This ship is nowhere near as large as the Noxian ship Mel had travelled home in, but the hall has been made up into a nice lounge area, with two bright green sofas and a small table with two benches. There's a door in the corner, sealed shut with one of those strange keypads next to it, where Sky says their impromptu lab is. Then there's another small hallway which leads to the cockpit. 

What Mel really stops to stare at, though, is the window that takes up most of one of the walls of the ship. Mel somehow hadn't noticed it when they were entering. It hardly seems ergonomic – surely a glass panel this big would result in unnecessary heat loss and be particularly vulnerable if the ship were to be attacked – but Mel looks out at pure, fluffy white clouds for miles, the sky a piercing ice blue, and feels enraptured. She walks towards the glass and gently presses a hand against it, as if she could run her fingers through the soft clouds as they fly. 

“Don't worry,” Sky says, “it won’t break. Frost-glass is incredibly strong.” 

Mel turns back just as Ivarr and the young, muscular woman with short, oiled back black hair walk into the room. Without a barrier between them, Mel can see how Ivarr might intimidate most people he meets, with his tall, warrior's body, cropped blonde hair and piercing grey eyes, but the lab coat he always seems to be wearing makes him look like a disgruntled teacher and reminds Mel of all those weary researchers from the Academy. The girl’s clothes are much more casual: loose fitting slacks and merely a cropped vest. Is she not freezing on this ship? Now that Mel's out of that room, she notices the cold air in here a little more. She pulls her cape closer around her body. Jayce must be freezing in those robes he's still wearing. He looks like a beggar. God, she wonders if there's a shower on the ship. 

“I think a more formal introduction is due,” Sky says. “Mel, Jayce, you know Ivarr. This is Rani, our pilot.” 

“Nice to see you again,” Rani says. 

Mel looks at her in confusion. “If you're out here, then who's steering the ship?” 

A big smile rises on Rani's face. “It's on autopilot for now. We'll reach Hæli in an hour.” 

“Autopilot?” Mel repeats.

Rani's eyes widen. “Oh, the ship can fly itself for a little while. They didn't have that, back then?”

Jayce bristles visibly. Back then. They should want to talk about it, but it seems that both of them want to avoid any reminders of the fact that they're so far away from their own time. They can't return, so the only way is onwards. Always onwards. 

“No. We have a lot to catch up on,” Mel replies, trying to make her smile as placid as possible. She's not sure if she pulls it off.   

 

—

 

The first lurch of the ship descending nearly sends Mel's dinner flying up and out of her stomach, but she manages to push it down with a deep breath, keeping her eyes focused on the view from the hall window. 

They’re landing on the outskirts of Hæli. Even from afar, the hexagonal fortress looks huge, but as they get closer and closer, the stone towers seem to double in height, growing until it looks more like a colossal mountain than a settlement. She can't help but be reminded of the Hexgates, the tallest and most impressive feat of architecture and engineering in Piltover. This fortress would make the Hexgates look like a child's building block. 

The place they'll be staying in is called the Annex. At the edge of Fifth Point, a snow covered stone tunnel connects to a stone house, two stories high, like someone took one of the mighty Hælien towers and shrunk it all the way down. It is sparsely furnished, and something about the bare, tall workbenches in the joint kitchen and living area tells Mel that this too, like their “room” on the ship, was once a laboratory of some sort. The three rooms upstairs have been turned into bedrooms, all of them made up with two single person beds, more sturdy looking than the cots on the ship. They don't need to draw for their roommates. Mel and Jayce don’t leave each other's sides. Sky and Ivarr put their kits in the room next to theirs, and Elora and Rani take the last room down the hall. 

Sky had apparently told whoever prepared this room about how poorly equipped Mel and Jayce are for a trip in the Freljord, because on top of their beds, there are thermal tops and thick trousers, fleece jumpers, and sturdy boots. The shoes are thankfully the right sizes, though the clothes swallow Mel and Jayce up, not that they're complaining. They both ask Sky and Ivarr if they have belts that they can borrow. 

The most incredible thing here, Mel decides, is the mere existence of a shower. Multiple, in fact, so Jayce and Mel can both take their time. Having borrowed a comb and conditioner from Sky, Mel begins to unravel her braids, and once she's detangled her hair, she strips and steps into the shower, turning the temperature valve as far as it will go. It takes a while, but eventually the water runs hot, and Mel can finally wash years of grime off her skin. Even though she knows she shouldn't take too long or else the loneliness will make her feel anxious, she relaxes for a moment under the hot spray. Some sensations feel eternal. She can pretend that this water is the only thing that exists and all she needs to think about. 

When she makes it downstairs, dry and dressed in two jumpers, Jayce is already waiting at an empty table, and his shoulders fall in relief at the sight of her. She takes a seat next to him. His hair is damp and shiny, fringe falling over those diamond marks on his forehead. Water obviously couldn't wash the multicoloured scars from his face and hands, and he's rubbing at the sleeve of his fleece, where the gem is embedded underneath in his skin. 

“Feeling better?” he asks. 

“A little.” 

The others come down one by one. Elora's first, her long wet hair tied in a braid, and Mel's eyes linger on the damp spot underneath the plait on the back of her grey cardigan. She keeps feeling surprised by all the evidence that Elora is real. She wonders if the footprints Elora left in the snow between the ship and the Annex have already been covered up and lost.

Elora heads for the kitchen area, opening the pantry and fridge to assess what they've been given by the rest of Sky’s team. She smiles brightly when she finds onions, potatoes, squashes, and tomatoes, and almost immediately begins to wash and prepare them. Mel considers walking over to help, but fatigue weighs down her legs. She thinks she’ll just stay here and watch. Jayce does the same. Sky comes down next, sees Elora and asks about their provisions, but Elora just shoos her away from the kitchen.

“It’s my turn to cook. Not fair for you guys to do all the work.” 

So Sky walks over to one of the other counters nearer the supposed dining area and starts opening cupboards. 

“Frida said she told them to – ha!” 

She pulls out a deck of cards, and takes a seat across from Mel and Jayce. She looks at the staircase and leans in, all conspiratorial, and says, “Whoever comes down first, I'll deal them in. The other has to help Elora with the cooking.”

Jayce looks up at the stairs, hearing the steps before anyone else does. Soon enough, Ivarr comes down in a simple black turtleneck and dark blue trousers.

“Come over, we're playing Hearts,” Sky says.

Ivarr looks over at Elora, who flashes a smile, and then mumbles, “You sure you want to leave the cooking to the kids?”

“They'll be fine,” Sky says, shuffling the deck, as Rani wanders down the stairs and walks over to the table. “Nope,” Sky says to her. “You're on kitchen duty tonight.”

Rani puts her hands up in defeat and makes her way to Elora, swinging an arm over her shoulders as she stirs something. They seem close. Sky interrupts Mel's staring before she can bring herself to look away.

“You two ever heard of Hearts?” 

Mel shakes her head. “I'm a fast learner though.” 

“I bet,” Sky says with a soft smile.

Sky wins the first round, Ivarr the second. Mel takes the third. And fourth. Fifth, sixth, and then Elora announces that dinner is ready.

“Thank goodness,” Sky says. “Put me out of my misery.” 

Mel smiles, enjoying this distraction more than she expected. She turns to Jayce and something nearly telepathic passes between them. How many rounds did you just lose? Mel's eyes say. Fuck off, Jayce's weary smile replies.

Elora's stew is hot and filling, a bigger portion than they ever got inside the ship. They eat in relative silence, and Ivarr insists on washing up once they've all finished. 

Mel still isn't sure what to say to these people yet, can't figure out what conversation she should or shouldn't make. Jayce speaks even less than she does. It's easier with Elora, simply because Mel is so intrigued by her and Elora reflects that curiosity right back at her. All of a sudden she has the clear thought that they must seem like terrible guests, so she clears her throat and says, “Thank you all, again.” It's quiet and probably not enough. She doesn't know when their kindness will end. “If it's alright, I think we'll head to sleep.” 

She speaks for the two of them, figuring Jayce won't mind and doesn't want to be left alone with strangers. He nods and stands, offering a small thanks to the others as well.

“See you tomorrow,” Elora says. Mel allows herself one last look at her sweet smile, and makes her way upstairs. 

 

—

 

It's weird: they're alive centuries in the future, and she's brushing her teeth. These normal, plain teeth, which somehow haven't rotted over the past four hundred years. Mel spits out into the sink and looks at her mouth, her skin, at their lack of aging. She feels overwhelmed with the desire to close her eyes and sleep forever this time and also to pull herself apart until she can understand why she hasn't aged a day. Instead, she carries the toothbrush that they have given her back to her room and places it in a cup on the small nightstand by her bed. 

Jayce is lying down on his bed. He hasn't changed out of his clothes into pyjamas like she has. He just stares up at the ceiling. She lies down on her own bed, looks up and stares at nothing with him, and holds out her hand off the edge of her bed. Jayce turns towards the motion at the corner of his eye and just looks at her for a moment, before taking her palm in his. Their arms stay out like that, in the space between their beds.

“I don't know how we're here,” Mel whispers. “Just in case you think I brought you here somehow. That this was … like before …” 

Nausea creeps up her body when she thinks of Jayce's anger the day they reunited in the Council room. Why just me? Why not save all of them? he had said. I didn't have any greater awareness, she had promised him, promised herself. She had not known how to save everyone; she would have if she had only known. Just remembering the look he gave her cuts through her like a jagged blade. She tries to bring the memory of his apology to the forefront of her mind, but the echo of it feels hollow. 

She worries now that they are here because of something she doesn't know she can control. That soon she will learn that she has lost everyone she ever knew, the world she knew, everything except for Jayce, because this too is some secret ability of hers. One last curse from her mother. 

Jayce turns to his side, squeezing her hand. “I know.” 

He's whispering too. For a moment, she can pretend that there's nothing out there waiting for them. All they have to do is lie here and not be alone. 

“I still mean what I said before, you know.” 

Mel turns to look at Jayce, takes in his hazel eyes, the scars that run along the left side of his face. 

“What's that?” 

“There is no force in this world that can control you.” 

He manages a smile. She does too, just about. 

“We survived before,” he tells her. “We'll survive whatever this is.” 

That’s a nice platitude, Mel thinks. Usually I'm the one coming up with those. But his gaze is surprisingly steady. Sometimes, Mel looks at Jayce and it's as though he's not really in the room, as if he's watching the world from the inside of an aquarium or else not able to see it at all, locked in a house of mirrors. But right now, in this moment, he looks at her and she knows he's really here. It makes her feel as though she's really here too, somehow. 

She thinks simply, nothing feels impossible when I'm with you. 

They have changed, but maybe the sentiment still stands. 

“Okay,” she says, letting go of his hand. 

If only for one night, Mel falls into a dreamless sleep. 

 

—

 

It was the third evening since arriving in Piltover, Mel thinks. Third or fourth, it doesn't matter – the crucial detail is that she still couldn't sleep alone. Each night, after they said goodnight to Jago, Elora would sneak into Mel's room, tiptoeing quietly and joining her under the covers. She’d smile and joke, “Your room is so much bigger than mine. I could move in and you wouldn't notice.” It was the first time in her life that Mel experienced sleepovers. She had never had friends like this before. She had never had anyone who was so simple as Elora. 

There was Kino, of course, but he was her brother. He was fated to love and care for her. It was not that she was unappreciative of their bond, just that they both knew they had no choice but to look after each other and drive each other mad and make each other laugh. That was destiny, if such a thing existed. 

This friendship with Elora, though, was a choice. Mel had chosen to trust Elora, and Elora had chosen to follow Mel into exile. They chose to talk and listen to each other and eat together and give each other knowing smiles when Jago began an impromptu lecture. Mel wouldn't have dreamt of saying this aloud to her, not at this early point in their history at least, but it felt so special, to have found each other randomly and just keep coming back together. Back then, she had still feared that one day Elora would grow sick of her, resent her for asking her to come to Piltover for her and leave her life behind, even if Elora had jumped at the opportunity to leave Bel'zhun behind. Mel tried not to overwhelm herself by that worry, and instead basked in Elora's company while she would allow it. And of course, that day Mel feared would never come. 

“You snore in your sleep, you know,” Elora had said. Mel couldn't see her in the dark of her room, but she could hear the grin in the way she spoke. 

“I do not.”

“You do, I'm afraid.” 

“No. Kino would have already made fun of me for it.” 

Elora must have noticed the immediate shift in Mel that came from mentioning her brother. She missed him so much her chest ached. 

“He probably just didn't tell you because he loves you that much. I’m telling you now because I want you to let me fall asleep first instead of keeping me up all night.”

Elora's voice was all mischief. Maybe she feigned indifference sometimes because she thought that it would make it easier for Mel to accept Elora's company, make her feel less embarrassed about the fact that she could only fall asleep with someone right next to her and Elora was the only person here to help. 

Mel tries to remember the first time she heard Elora tell her that she loved her, the first time Mel had said it, but those moments are lost in an ocean of “I love you”s, said a million times over a decade and a half of companionship. They wouldn't say it in front of other people, but they were liberal with the words in private. “Love you. Have a good meeting,” Elora would say from her desk, not even looking up, as Mel left to go to the Council or meet with another House, and Mel would say, “See you tonight. Love you.” Those words were well worn between them. Anyone who said that her relationship with Elora was simply business had no idea what they were talking about.

Looking back, though, Mel thinks of the third or fourth night in Piltover, when she had watched Elora fall asleep next to her again, and pinpoints the first time she had thought the words. Elora’s lips had parted in sleep, her brow relaxed, her hair fell gently past her shoulder, and Mel couldn't believe that she wasn't alone. There were a million things she had wanted to whisper into the space between them. Thank you. Stay with me. I've never had a friendship like this before. I'll make it all up to you. You're the only person I can trust. Unspoken words drifted through her mind like water making its way down a stream, and all of them had meant a single thing: I love you already. 

Notes:

"soulmates aren't found, they're made" and i believe with my whole heart that those bonds are often found in female friendships <3 (yes mel and elora are friends yes they're colleagues yes they're partners yes they will be kissing making out obsessed with each other in this fic)

spoiler alert jayce is going to meet viktor next chapter and lose his mind :D

Chapter 3: i walk my days on a wire

Notes:

CONTENT WARNING for this chapter. there is a brief moment of suicidal ideation, where jayce imagines walking into the tundra but does not seriously consider it. there is a short but detailed description of him dissociating. to avoid this, skip from "Mel replies to her, but the words float far away" and go to "He reaches out to her as she holds onto him".

reminder 1: jayce is not a reliable narrator and his self-hatred clouds his judgement a lot. i love him and have always been a ride-or-die jayce fan 🫡 reminder 2: jayce and mel will survive the horrors, they will have support, they will be so happy and loved and the eventual smut will go crazy. okay 18k let's do this!!!!

chapter title from hozier's "cherry wine"

Jayce steals glimpses of sleep, hoping that it won't take hold and trap him. But even still, the nightmares come. He is alone apart from the lizards he will inevitably eat, and he carves line after line, number after number, into the wall of the cave, first with the scratch of a sharpened rock, and then with his bloodied nails. The markings slowly begin to take a different shape: a distorted skull, three crushing hands, a thin waist with divots made just for Jayce's palms, and an open cavity of a star-loaded chest. He smashes his head into the drawing of that caved in space, and when the Herald's automatons come to lift him and carry him home to his mother, she does not cry for him. Her own face is a shell, an oil spill coloured swell, of its former self.

“Oh, Jayce. Always getting yourself into trouble.” 

He wakes, sweating in all these layers. Mel's eyes are closed but she looks too peaceful to be asleep. He tries to match the pace of his breathing to hers, and watches the plain white walls until sunrise. 

 

—

 

Ever since he was a child, Jayce had a noticeably different attention span than that of his peers. His mother fondly lamented the years between one and four, when Jayce rarely slept and was always reading or drawing or running laps around the house from midnight to sunrise. He always had to understand the hypothetical purpose of every task, deem that purpose necessary or beneficial to him, and only then could he carry it out with an uncomplicated focus. Some things were easier to focus on than others. He could watch his father and his team work at the forge for hours and never tire of the heat or witnessing the slow process of creating something solid and shiny. After meeting the mage, he could read ancient tomes about the arcane and never succumb to distraction, and would often completely disregard the need to sleep, eat or drink as well. For a time, he became obsessed with magic tricks. Nothing could steal his attention as he learnt a new trick or perfected his sleight of hand. Jayce could only ever be satisfied when his mind was occupied.

All of this means that the boredom he is currently suffering feels unbearable. It's only the third day of their second bout of quarantine.  

He should be grateful that he has nothing to do after the spiral of stress and terror his life has been recently, but the fact that he and Mel are just waiting to meet the Hælien Councils that may cast them out to the wastelands – it makes it impossible to sit still. Yesterday, Jayce had wandered around the Annex, trying to absorb his surroundings at a surface level and find anything notable about the outpost, other than the fact that it was situated in the Freljord, a place Jayce had never imagined even visiting. There was little of note. The place was sterile and white, completely cleared before their arrival, no books to peruse, photo frames, or other evidence of life. So he quickly moved on to observing the strangers who now held his life in their hands. Elora and Rani spent most of their day in the communal space, Elora writing again in her notebook and answering whatever questions Mel threw at her about Hælien language and social customs. Rani spent most of her time lounging on the sofa, playing on a device unlike anything Jayce had ever seen before. It was a thick rectangular console with a little screen, and depending on the button Rani pressed, a little cyan line shot up from the bottom of the screen and hit or missed small red squares that appeared and darted around randomly. 

“What is that?” he had asked. 

“It's called Firefighter. Want a go?” 

For sixteen minutes, Jayce shot pixels at different coloured pixels. He thanked Rani for her time and went back to Mel and Elora. Elora explained that Sky and Ivarr were missing because they wanted to use the rest of this time examining samples in the laboratory on the airship. 

“As in our samples, or the samples from Piltover?” 

“I'm not sure,” Elora replied simply. 

He had felt tempted to walk over there and see what exactly it was that they were working on, but then he remembered he would have to cross that brief stretch of snow between the Annex and the ship again and decided against it. He didn't know if they would appreciate his presence either. Besides, Mel seemed content with just staying in this room all day, asking Elora whatever questions came to mind. 

But today, Jayce is struggling to sit still at the table with them. Mel keeps putting a hand out to stop him from shaking his good leg, but he only remembers to hold off the motion for a couple of minutes at a time. He's both desperate for something interesting to think about and terrified of any offer his brain dutifully provides. 

The loudest thought is, of course, how in the world is he here? 

It is in his nature to theorise, so he tries to lay out every element of this problem before he tackles it. 

Jayce spent the majority of his life trying to master and utilise the arcane, but ultimately he must admit this: the arcane was beyond his comprehension and control. With every second that he and Viktor put it to use, building the Hexgates and the Hexcore, constructing and firing arcane-powered weapons, the arcane kept the score and waited to rebalance the scales they kept tipping. If they demanded the runes to work rather than simply exist, then they would take Viktor and Jayce as a form of payment. 

Jayce's stomach churns and mind spins when he thinks of the astral plane. It was a realm beyond time, space, feeling, and yet Jayce had felt something pulling on him, dragging him back to the living world. And at the same time, Viktor had felt the pull to nothingness. I think it's time for me to let go, he had said. And once again, just like before, Jayce had tried to resist it, to will the universe into keeping them together when they couldn't be. At least he didn't drag Viktor back into a life he didn't want this time. 

So Viktor is gone. He doesn't – can't – say it out loud again. The thought of it already threatens to tear his heart from his chest.

All I want is my partner back, he had said. It still rings true.

Perhaps in joining so thoroughly with the arcane, in pushing it to new extremes first in the lab and then in the commune and finally as the Herald, Viktor had racked up a debt that could only be repaid in his universal death. Surely Jayce had as well, so why is he still alive? Why is the gem, this time without its rune, still embedded in his skin? Wasn't completing the mage's mission enough?

The answer is obvious and petrifying. The arcane is not quite done with him. It has decided that now it will put Jayce to work. 

He can't imagine yet what that might entail, so he moves on to the next problem. How are Sky and Elora back from the dead? 

So far, he keeps returning to the laws of conservation of mass: nothing in this world is created or destroyed. Things aren't simply gone when they're dead; they are reabsorbed back into the system. Simple examples come to mind. Jayce's father died. Some defect occurred and cut off the blood supply to part of his brain, it was not treated fast enough, and he was starved of oxygen. Brain function and life ended, but the body remained. It was buried and became a food source for worms and bacteria and mulch. He found a new place in the ecosystem, returning in flowers or trees or woodland animals, in crops consumed by other humans. 

But Sky and Elora's deaths had been far from ordinary. Mel had said that Elora was murdered by a mage in some other dimension. Jayce had seen glimpses of Sky's death, when his and Viktor's minds joined at the near end of all things: the Hexcore had consumed her and left only ashes behind. It assumed Sky's shape, spoke to Viktor in her voice.

Maybe the arcane is incapable of the full decomposition of a person. It cannot break you down properly so it spits you right back out, and you get to live a brand new life. 

He's afraid of being caught staring at her like a creep, but Jayce tries to get a good look at Elora. Her skin is a little paler than he remembers; he supposes no one gets much of a tan inside a closed off fortress. She has the very same smile lines as before. If Viktor had a second chance at life, would he have smile lines?

Jayce grimaces and pushes the thought away like it's burnt him.

The final problem that he can barely stomach: Piltover is gone. Piecing together Mel's hazy account of Shoola's letter with Elora's brutally extensive knowledge of Piltovan-Zaunite migration and Sky's previous expeditions, they easily came to a likely hypothesis: though Jayce and Viktor had sealed away the anomaly and prevented the Herald from consuming everyone in Piltover and Zaun, arcane elements had already seeped into the ground, their water supply, and the battle at the Hexgates had left a unique rot in its wake that kept spreading and making people viciously sick. It could not be contained the way the Grey had mostly been by the time Jayce and Viktor were teenagers.  

So Jayce, who had once dreamed of saving people with magic the way he had been saved, of making the everyman's life better, had only brought death and destruction in the end. Hundreds of thousands of people, displaced or gone. And it is all his fault. 

His mother is dead. So is Caitlyn. 

Did they die fleeing? Or did the radiation take them first? 

The disgust weighs so heavy in his bones he can imagine never moving again. Or walking off into the tundra.

The only reason that he doesn't? He can't let Mel be alone. She deserves so much better than his company, but at least his company is slightly better than being alone when she's stranded four hundred years in the future. Right?

“Are you feeling okay?” Elora asks.

Jayce startles. He forgot for a moment that he's in a room with other people. He nods and goes back to staring at the table. And shaking his leg.  

“Right,” Mel says suddenly. She's fixing him with a look he can't decipher and then turning back to Elora, her eyes softening immediately. “We're going to the ship.” 

“We are?” Jayce asks. 

“Yes. We've bothered Elora enough. It's time Sky and Ivarr had a turn, don't you think?” 

“You don't bother me,” Elora says, a light blush forming on her cheeks. “I'll take you. You'll need the code to enter.” Mel smiles and heads for the stairs, telling Jayce that she'll get the two coats that Hæli provided for them. He stands – pain shoots through his bad leg but he forces himself to stay upright – and waits. His eyes fall back on Elora unintentionally. Her gaze follows Mel's back as she leaves the room. 

Jayce thinks back. He can't remember ever seeing Elora look the way she looks at Mel now, with a quiet kind of wonder that Jayce recognises in his younger self. Once she's out of sight, Elora turns to Jayce and her eyes widen when she realises that he was watching her watch Mel. As if she isn't supposed to. She gives him a friendly smile, but it seems slightly nervous too. 

It's okay, Jayce wants to say. I get it. It's hard not to stare at Mel.

 

—

 

The ship door opens with a slow and steady, loud creak. Every step Elora makes in the snow back to the tunnel and the Annex can't be more than a soft crunch, but Jayce's sensitive ears turn every noise into a cacophony. He hates it. He hates the freezing cold too. His mind threatens to take him back to the mountain, to conjure the image of his mother passed out in the blizzard. With each passing second, slow, icy dread roots Jayce to the spot. He mentally clings to Mel's grounding presence next to him for dear life. 

“What did you want to talk to them about?”

Mel gives him a confused look. “I don't have anything in mind. I figured you would do the talking.”

He shoots confusion right back at her. “Um, that's not exactly my strong suit at the moment.”

Since he woke up, Jayce has been more than happy to let Mel do the speaking for the both of them. They've become a “we”, going everywhere together, a pair of anomalies that can't be separated. He's only spoken briefly to Elora and Rani on his own, and Sky and Ivarr haven't thrown any questions his way apart from “Round of cards?” and “Can you pass the salt?” at dinner yesterday. He knows that he objectively used to be quite charming, had to be in order to secure investors and convince the Council to retire the literal founder of Piltover, but the social skills he once possessed are probably still stuck down the bottom of that damn chasm. Anything that remained, he spent trying to convince Piltover's Houses and Zaun's representatives to join him at war with Ambessa and the Herald. 

“We're just out of practice,” Mel says, like it's that simple. “Come on. I know you have questions for them. For Sky.” 

Jayce gulps and they share a look. 

“It's good to see her, isn't it?” Mel says, looking down, deep in a memory. 

Jayce feels the pull himself. To one of the earlier days when he, Viktor and Sky gave Councillor Medarda and her assistant the tour of their brand new, Academy commissioned lab. Seven years of exciting new developments, showcases, investment bids, and brief celebrations in the lab before getting back to work. 

Jayce realises, suddenly, that Mel doesn't know about the details of Sky's death. About the Hexcore consuming her. They barely saw each other after Viktor left him behind, and when Mel did come to check on him, Jayce was in shock, unable to get the words out in full. She's gone too, he'd said, and Mel might have assumed that Sky had simply left Piltover and returned to her family in the undercity. If Mel knew the truth, she'd be horrified. She'd be sickened by what he and Viktor had done, the outcome of the research she had helped to fund. It's better not to remind her of the blood on their hands. And ridiculously, Jayce doesn't want to give her, or anyone for that matter, another reason to turn their back on Viktor's memory.

He'll keep one more secret and make it up to Sky, he thinks, for a brief moment. And then he remembers that the Sky he knew is dead, and the Sky he's walking towards doesn't know him at all.

“She might not want me around her work,” he manages to say.

“We won't know unless we ask.” And then, with a slightly mischievous look, “Don't worry. I bet you'll be convincing them to invest in your promising scientific career in no time.”

“You're hilarious,” Jayce says, totally deadpan, as they finally walk onto the ship. “I don't think we should make jokes like that around them.” His very existence here feels insensitive. Offensive.

“Yeah, no shit.”

Jayce raises an eyebrow at her as she heads for the lab. He likes this Mel, who leads him as she always did but swears too. She's a little more human, even if she looks more like a goddess now, with all those arcane marks covering her face and body.

They arrive at the lab where they were previously sleeping. This time, when they look in from the other side of the glass doors, Jayce sees the lab as it should be. Even at a cursory glance, he can tell that Sky runs a tight ship. Each desk is methodically organised, its own designated station. Solutions are sealed, grouped, and labelled. One desk is lined with a series of microscopes, another has what looks like a potentiometric titrator. Sky and Ivarr stand next to the far counter, which is completely covered in heavy duty crates, making notes in their respective notepads. 

Mel knocks on the glass door. Ivarr startles and Sky turns around, evidently surprised but offering a small smile and a wave a moment later. They're both dressed in white coats and thick gloves. 

Just looking at Sky sends a pang through Jayce's chest. 

She makes her way towards one of those electrical pads on the wall, presses a series of buttons, and the glass doors slide open. 

“Hi there,” Sky says, a note of uncertainty in her voice. “I'm surprised to see you back here after, you know. Being holed up in here for days.” 

“What can we help you with?” Ivarr says.

There's a beat of silence, until Mel gently taps Jayce's hand with a finger. He turns to her, and she gives him a painfully soft, encouraging look that says go on, then. 

He takes a deep breath and speaks. 

“Hi, uh – I was wondering if you would show us what you're working on. If it's public research. And if, you know, you don't mind.” Then, in case they need an explanation or because he doesn't know when to stop: “I'm missing being a lab, I think.”

Behind her glasses, Sky's eyes widen a little. He remembers this look, her pure curiosity. Her eyes dart over to Ivarr and then back to Jayce.

“What was your field?” Ivarr asks.

“Engineering and material sciences. Though, at the end, I was spending all my time on” – he thinks of what to call it – “augmented biology. What are your specialisms?”

“Dr Beck is a world leading expert on archaea,” Sky says. 

“I don't know if you can call it world-leading when so few states accept the legitimacy of Freljordian research.” Ivarr shrugs dismissively. “But even Demacia accepts Dr Olsson's expertise on arcane radiation and environmental adaptations.” 

Sky smiles and turns to Jayce. He rarely ever saw her wear this kind of confidence before, but it suits her so well. He wonders what she might have achieved if she had never gotten tangled up in his and Viktor's mess. 

“Okay, that's enough peacocking,” she says. “Come over here.” 

She gestures towards a nearby microscope, beckoning Jayce towards it.

“Should I get more gloves?” Ivarr asks Sky. 

“I think the mages from Piltover will survive without gloves for now,” she replies. 

She shares an amused, knowing smile with Jayce, but there's a quirk to her eyebrow, as if she's giving him the opportunity to protest and demand the proper protective equipment. He shakes his head, trying to mirror her friendly expression.

He doesn't correct her, tell her that he isn't actually a mage. Always dreamed of being one, played with literal laws of nature in an attempt to bend it to his will, but only ever managed to tick the arcane off and got these scars as a souvenir. He just walks over to the microscope and bends to take a look. 

“We're monitoring the plant samples we took first, recording the different stages of decay and how long it takes for the matter to completely break down.” 

Jayce gasps when he realises what it is. It's a leaf, similar to the one Ekko and Heimerdinger showed him when they broke into his lab. But the corruption of the natural matter has warped it so thoroughly that the chlorophyll is obscured almost entirely by purple webbed marks, pink boils ballooning and bursting along the veins, leaving something acidic behind that slowly kills whatever's left of the leaf's blade. He thinks of the plant Viktor demonstrated on when he discovered that the Hexcore responded to organic matter. Of the foliage he found in the other timeline.

The plants that remained at the end of Piltover. 

Jayce steps back and takes the nearest seat. His body curls in on itself slightly, the slouch natural for him now. He looks at Sky and tries to not throw up. 

“It's … it's like this all over Piltover?” 

Her lips part for a moment as she stares at him. He must look like death.

“We collected this sample very close to the – what did Elora say you called them? The Hexgates. We didn't get to go to any of our other planned sites this time, but when I went to the outskirts of Piltover's fields and the highest point in Zaun a decade ago, the radiation and pollution wasn't as pronounced. Even this,” she says, pointing at the leaf in the slide, “is a remarkable improvement compared to what we found ten years ago at the city centre. Oh! And …” 

Sky hands Jayce another slide. He lines it up, readjusts the magnification. 

This cutting is a flower petal, violet and luminous. Large clumps of what looks like orange-yellow pollen are dotted across its ridges. 

“Last time, we found no evidence of pollinators. I'm really hoping that when we get to analysing our soil samples, we'll find microorganisms that will prove that Piltover and Zaun's wildlife is adapting and surviving. Because we've seen birds, ten years ago and this time too. They don't look how they did before, but …” From the way she talks, Sky seems to possess a hope that she's a little wary of showing Jayce. 

Ivarr speaks up. “It's promising that they're still around.”

Birds. Jayce pictures the pigeons that used to mill about the Academy square, cooing and following the soft first years that always offered bread. He thinks of the nest of blackbirds that lived in a tree opposite his mother's house, how their songs would wake him up early on the weekends and he would groan, pulling his pillow tightly over his ears and trying to fall back to sleep to no avail. He wishes that he'd never wanted them to shut up. He wishes he could hear their song right now. He wishes Piltover was still standing. 

Ivarr asks him if he's okay, and he's shocked to look up and see the soft expression on his face. On Sky's too. She looks younger all of a sudden, though the slight crease in her forehead and her greying hair remains. Her eyes search his and, for a second, she's just the wonderful Sky Young, who knew Jayce and laughed at his terrible puns and said, “We'll do better next time,” when their latest prototype broke down or blew up. Sky, who had reviewed every model that he and Viktor designed for the Distinguished Innovators Competition and hollered in the crowd when they won. Who had invited him and Viktor to a bar in the fissures, where she and her high school friends went for drinks and pool every week. He and Viktor never went. He wishes they had. 

It's so easy for his mind to slip and fall into that imagined life. The one where he had been a better friend to her, where he pulled Viktor away from the lab and asked them to show him around the undercity.

The reverie doesn't last, of course. Sky speaks again and Jayce finds himself in reality, as unrelenting as always. 

“I'm sorry,” she says quietly. 

Jayce shakes his head again. “Don't. I asked.”

There's another stretch of silence, and then he hears Mel walk towards them. 

“Can I have a look?” she says.

Jayce moves out of her way. She hovers over the microscope and looks through the lens at the slide with the leaf.

“Oh, gods,” she says. When she stands back, she swallows. And then Jayce sees a metaphorical lightbulb flash over her head. “Did our samples look this … strange too?” 

“Oh, no," Ivarr says. "You're not plants."

The three of them just stare at him. He immediately gives an embarrassed smile and scratches the back of his neck. Sky fondly shakes her head. Another habit Jayce recognises. 

Then she says, “Like I said before, there were abnormalities.”

“Such as?” Mel probes. 

Jayce's mind slips again, hears an echo he can almost place. This blood is alien to me. Mel had said that on the balcony. Had he heard birdsong then? 

Sky walks away for a few seconds and returns with another notepad, opens it up and flicks through until she lands on a page covered in sketches and what looks like chicken scratch. Another difference to tally, then. His Sky's handwriting was always neat. His head is spinning, the lights above him suddenly sending a heavy pulse through his head. 

“So, in your samples, Mel, we found that your cells break down arcane corruption incredibly quickly. They seem to purify any foreign arcane matter easily. As for Jayce, your cells undergo a different process. They appear to constantly alter themselves, absorbing and adjusting to the foreign matter. It's a wonder that you didn't die from the radiation in that tower –” She cuts herself off suddenly. “I mean – well, it's a wonder that you two are here in the first place.” 

“You believe us then?” Mel says. 

“What do you mean?” Sky asks. 

“You trust me when I say that we were alive in Piltover four hundred years ago?”

Sky thinks for a moment, then shrugs. “I have no way of proving otherwise. And personally, I've witnessed my fair share of miracles. There are plenty of mages in Hæli. Eesha, from the Council of the Freljord, is one of them. When she meets the two of you, she'll be able to confirm or deny your story.” 

Mel replies to her, but the words float far away. Jayce somehow feels both glued to this spot and totally adrift. He looks down at his hands, one covered in marks just like that leaf, and can't believe they're his own. He taps his fingers together. There's no sensation. The more he stares, the hazier his hands become in front of him. Little stars dot his vision and pop. The ground swims below him. It's just Jayce and this chair in the world.

He had said to the mage, in the world he and Jayce had ruined, that surely it didn't have to go that way. He had begged Viktor to tell him that there was a chance he could save Piltover, that he could prevent all that loss of life. And he thought he had. It's only now that failure settles over him, cold and unforgiving. 

At least he saved as many people as he could, his mind faithfully supplies, always grasping at straws. At least all those Zaunites and Piltovans didn't instantly die, burned from the inside out in the Herald's evolution. 

No. Their deaths had merely been delayed. They died from radiation sickness or exposure as they travelled to other lands in search of refuge.  

Tell me you're coming to get me. The words drift forward from Jayce's mind, the thought a beam of light across a dark ocean. He knows who these words are for. 

Don't go without me, he thinks uselessly. Come and get me. Come and take me to that world where we go out for drinks and I say everything right, and no one gets hurt. It's just on the other side of this chair and that ocean.

Thank you, somebody says. We should be – 

The words trail away. What should Jayce be doing? His body sways. He watches the motion outside of himself. And then a pulse of warmth, a hand on his shoulder, reaches out for his soul floating above his body. 

Jayce, are you okay? Mel says. 

People keep fucking asking him that. No. He doesn't know. He doesn't know anything anymore. If he could only hold out and touch his hand, feel it for himself, then maybe he'd come back to his body and this room. There are other people in this room, but embarrassment is a distant concern. How does he get back to it? 

Can you hear me? 

Oh no. We should lie him down.

He watches as his body is maneuvered to the floor. It's not just Mel, helping his body down onto his side, but her presence is the only one that he recognises. He reaches out for her as she holds onto him, and feels something in his mind give way, a dam break apart. Feeling, present and pressing, rushes out of him and through to her. She is right here with him. 

“Jayce, what is this?” she says. Soft, gentle light reflects pink and sparkles along her golden tattoos.

“I don't know what's happening,” he says. He's scared, but here. He can feel the cool floor beneath his cheek. 

“Will this –” Mel touches her hand to the gem in his skin. “Will this help you?” 

“I don't know,” he says. He's not sure what she's referring to, but suddenly –

Mel's mind flows open. 

Someone says, “Can you hear me?” and Jayce has the wherewithal to say yes before he's washed away in the flood. 

 

—

 

When Jayce was a child, he knew which magical powers he most wanted to possess, if he were to suddenly gain arcane abilities. There was teleportation, obviously, a personal and practical favourite. Number two? Shooting lasers out of his hands. He thinks any kid would choose to shoot lasers out of their hands if given the option. Flying would be cool too. He let it sit comfortably at third place on the imaginary podium.

Whatever the fuck this is? Yeah, it never made the fucking list.

The vision is a familiar one. Jayce watches as Mel paints, but he knows that this is no memory. For a start, there is no context to it, no floor or room or world that she stands in. Here, there is only Mel painting, alone in a realm of nothingness. Secondly, he never saw her paint on a canvas this small. As far as he's aware, Mel always chooses to paint landscapes at a grand scale, on a canvas that can take up an entire wall of a stately room. This painting – it is miniscule in comparison, and it's a portrait, just the head and shoulders of a man with dark skin, short black hair, and deep, forest green eyes. A scar cuts a severe line down his brow and cheek, and he looks out with a grace that suggests nobility and a kindness that reveals Mel's adoration. 

Her brush strokes are unrefined. She blends tones of brown, grey and red with a harsh touch, leaving the man as more of a moving blur than a static image. She creates like there is a deadline, or like this painting is a secret that she cannot let others see. There is obvious skill here, but something about this particular technique, the mess of it, implies that this kind of painting is not something Mel has simply learnt. This is a talent that pours out of her, untouched by tutors or critics and completely her own.

A faint, golden light circles around Mel's fingers, a small halo forming around her hand. Jayce's eyes follow every movement, feeling his mind commit this vision to memory. He has never studied classical painting, and yet he suddenly thinks he could paint this portrait with his eyes closed. Jayce knows the contours and shadows of this man's face, though he is a stranger to him. He is certain that if this painting were to open its mouth and speak, he would recognise its voice. 

“You're very wise for someone so young.” The voice would be deep, melodic. Loving. “And compassionate. I'll say you got it from me.” 

Jayce hears a young girl's laughter, and sees Mel, only a teenager, giggle and curl towards the man's side as he grins. He sees the carriage they sit in lurch and tilt and fall, crashing into a gravel road. A white halo of light wraps around young Mel's body, just as horrid red blood pools from the man's mouth. He knows without meaning to that this man was Mel's father.  

When Jayce turns back to the painting, the man's portrait is indecipherable. All that remains is a field of crimson and the shadow of a green eye. 

 

—

 

He wakes in his bed, in the strange house. In the middle of the frozen wasteland. In the life he didn't ask for. 

The Annex is warmer than it was this morning. There's a soft ray of lamplight in the corner of Jayce's eye, and when he turns towards it he sees Mel on her own bed, arms locked in a hug around her legs, her sleeping head resting against her knees. He wants to sit up, and more importantly he needs to use the bathroom, but the second he goes to rise, his leg seizes and pain shoots up his side. He can't help the shout that escapes his mouth, and Mel startles awake. 

“Jayce?” 

She’s immediately at his side, one hand pushing the hair out of his face, the other pressing a damp cloth to his forehead. He closes his eyes, unable to look at her. He doesn't deserve her care. His leg pulses and he bites on his tongue to bear the searing ache of it. 

“My leg, fuck, it really hurts.” 

He remembers the chasm, how some days he let his mind play tricks on him and imagined that his mother or Mel or Viktor was there to listen to his crying, to encourage him as he slowly climbed out of the hell he had fallen into. He had pictured his mother saying, “You can do it, my love. Just one more time,” as he had peeled cloth from the infected skin of his lower leg. He had heard Viktor say, “That won't hold; you need to readjust that gear,” as he constructed a crude brace from his hammer. Right now, Mel could be just another illusion. 

“I can get you medicine. I saw Elora taking painkillers the other day. I'll go and get them.” 

“No, can we –” He never thought he would have to ask Mel for something like this. He had always thought they would be young and shiny forever. “Will you help me to the bathroom? I don't think I'll be able to stand on my own.” 

“Yes, let's go.”

He tries not to lean too heavily on Mel, but eventually she's supporting most of his weight on her side. They hobble to the bathroom with loud, heavy steps, Jayce grabbing onto the doorframe when they finally reach its threshold. 

“Do you need me to …” 

Jayce shakes his head determinedly. He thanks her, closes the door behind him, and holds an arm out to the wall for balance as he relieves himself. He wants to wash all this sweat away from his body, but he won't be able to shower in this state. He washes his hands, and when he opens the door again Mel is waiting for him with a small vial of blue pills. They make the trek back to their bedroom in one piece, and while Mel tries to lower her body to help him gently onto the bed, Jayce just throws himself onto the mattress, exhausted and sweating even more. He feels ravenous. He could eat a whole pot of his mother's chicken soup, an entire box of those incredible chocolates Heimerdinger gifted to his classes at the end of each winter term. The thought of telling Mel this makes him feel childish and small.

“Here,” Mel says, handing him a single pill and a glass of water she brought up for herself the night before. 

“I'm sorry,” he says. 

“For what?” 

“For making you my mother.” 

Mel grimaces. “Please don't say things like that. We have enough issues as is.” 

Jayce smiles, half at her and half at the absurdity of this situation that they're in. 

“And you shouldn't say sorry to me about this,” she says, keeping her eyes on his and away from his leg. “I'm sorry I made you go to the lab. I thought it would be good for you. We have to learn how to help each other.” 

“What can I help you with?” he says, more self-pitying than he should be. 

“Well, you're my source of entertainment, obviously.” And then, “What happened to yesterday's Jayce who said we'll survive this too?” 

In the dark, it's easier to be honest with Mel. “I was taking my turn to be brave because you seemed worried.” 

Mel laughs at that, but it's gentle. Fond. She takes a seat on her bed and looks at him pointedly until he finishes the glass of water. 

“What happened in the lab?” she asks. 

He groans. “I wish I fucking knew.”

“Do you remember what it felt like?”

His throat clicks. There's no way to run from this conversation apparently. 

As if she hears that very thought, Mel says, “Come on. If we figure this out, then you can stop it from happening again. Or as much.”

After a moment, he nods. He rubs his eyes with his hand, any sound blocked out as his vision blackens and turns spotty. When he puts his hand to his side again, he can think a little clearer. 

“I just … I felt like I was drifting away from the room, like I wasn't in my body.” He takes a breath and feels the soft sheets against his palm. Smells the distant, sweet scent of whatever body wash Mel's been borrowing from Sky. Watches the lamplight flicker. “I was trying to find a way back, and you were the only thing that was familiar. And then I just kept getting more dizzy, so I tried to hold on harder, and then it was like you just … I saw –” 

Oh god.

Jayce had invaded Mel's mind. 

He had seen something he wasn't supposed to, taken a memory that was hers. She'd never shared that moment with him; in fact, Mel had rarely ever mentioned her father. 

And now Jayce knows exactly how he died. 

“I'm so sorry,” he says, his mind racing. “I – I didn't mean to, please believe me.” 

He waits for Mel to call him disgusting, to say that obviously she can't trust him anymore. But she just stares at him tentatively. And then –

“Here's what I saw. You were crying and on the verge of passing out. Your skin started to glow. I felt you send a rune to me and I let you in because I thought it would help.” She pushes her lips into a thin line and shrugs, as if she's saying that's all. Just a little arcane mind invasion. Nothing to worry about. “And after, Sky, Ivarr and I had to carry you back here. You're heavier than you look, you know.” 

“Aren't you scared? I didn't even understand what was happening.” Because Jayce feels a slow panic rising within him again, knows that with just a little more time, he'll be able to work himself up into a stupor. 

“I've already dealt with an arcane awakening once,” she says, gesturing obviously at her extended tattoos. “Whatever you did back there? That was far less terrifying. Trust me.”

A silence settles between them. It gives Jayce time to catch his breath and his thoughts. 

On instinct, he imagines what a younger Viktor might do in this situation. If Jayce appeared right in front of him as the aged time bomb that he is now, what would twenty-four year old Viktor's first course of action be? 

Well, they were scientists. He would start with taking notes. Make a hypothesis. Plan an experiment. 

“Was there paper downstairs?” Jayce asks. 

“I don't think so. Why?” 

“Could we get some from Elora, do you think?” He tries to look as innocent as possible, which causes Mel to squint at him suspiciously. 

“I'll ask.” 

She leaves the door ajar. He hears her knock on Elora and Rani's door, and then their hushed voices. 

“Are they not working? I could ask Sky for something stronger.” 

“No, they're fine. Thank you. I was wondering if we could use some of that paper from –” 

“Oh, let me –” 

There's some shuffling, and then Elora's footsteps return. Mel hums and tells her that she's too kind to them. She returns to their bedroom a moment later, just as he hears Elora's door close. There's a large, blank notepad and two pens in her hand.

“She had a spare.” 

What Jayce can't tell Mel directly, he writes down. She reads it all over his shoulder. When he was in the astral plane with Viktor, they had been able to peer into each other's memories, an open link connecting their minds as they drifted. Now that Jayce has returned, it's apparent that he's retained an echo of this ability. His arcane potential could come from any or multiple of the following sources: the gem in his wrist, which is no longer bound to the acceleration rune and could therefore become much more malleable in its applications; the gems in his forehead, the Herald's fingerprints; his altered blood, which has apparently been absorbing the arcane matter he's encountered rather than filtering and expelling it. 

Has he retained the information from his connection with Mel? He remembers the details of the vision, but what about the skill he had felt that he suddenly possessed? He turns a page, and begins to sketch. It's been some time since he's drawn anything, but the moment a face starts to take shape, Mel's eyes widen. 

“Kindred, what in the world –”

“That's him, isn't it?” 

She takes the notepad from him and a single finger hovers over the sketch, but she catches herself before she can trace the lines. 

“His name was Azizi,” Jayce says. She turns to him, and he thinks her eyes might actually bug out of her head. 

“Holy shit,” she says. 

“I know.” 

They stare at each other and then look back at the notepad. 

“If you had been able to do this before, you wouldn't have been an inventor,” Mel says in awe. “The Council probably would have made you a spy.”

Jayce raises an eyebrow. Would she have really wanted that for him? “That would require me to be able to understand and control this. I can't do either.” He frowns with another realisation. “If those Councils find out about this, they won't let me stay.”  

“We don't know that. Mages aren't persecuted here. This Eesha – she could teach you how to control it.” 

“Oh, yeah, great. Not only did I destroy the home of your ancestors, but now I can see somebody's memories just by touching them. Help! I'm sure that'll win them over.”

Mel scowls at him. “Jayce, we don't mean these people any harm.”

He shoots back, his voice bordering on desperate. “I didn't mean any harm to Piltover and Zaun either, and look what we did.” 

The air between them feels thick, suffocating.

She takes a deep breath.

“We have to be honest with them, Jayce. Hiding what you are now isn't the smart decision.” 

What he is now. Jayce feels sick just thinking about it. 

He hates his younger self, every version of himself, for not being careful with what he wished for. 

He knows that Mel is right. They're in no position to try to deceive or negotiate. They can only beg. Beg for refuge and help. Once more, Jayce needs to do away with his pride. 

“Okay,” he says. “I mean, you can vouch for me. And your magic is defensive, right? Have they seen you use it?” 

Mel's expression turns a little sheepish. 

“Well, um –” She pauses. Oh no. Mel isn't one to stutter and mumble. “I … I did throw Elora through a window.”

Jayce's jaw drops and his hands splay out in shock. Just as he says, “What?!” Mel says, “It was an accident! She was in this weird suit, I didn't know it was her – I thought she was going to kill me!”

“Alright,” he says. “That's … not ideal.” 

“I apologised.” She crosses her arms. “I don't think she holds it against me.” 

Jayce thinks back to Elora's staring. The way she answers every question, hangs on Mel's every word. Grants every request.

Yeah, he guesses she's right. 

“Okay. So all we need to do is convince the Councils that we're not a threat, that they should let us stay in their home, and that they should teach me – the worst candidate for magic abilities in history – how to master the arcane.”

Mel blinks. “Yes.”

They stare at each other.

“That's only three things,” she adds.

A beat of quiet, and then he begins to laugh in disbelief. It's nervous, or maybe it's hysterical, but Mel laughs too. It's something to share.

“We can practice what we're going to say and rehearse it,” Mel says. “And we still have a few days. We could see if you can cast that spell without passing out.”

Jayce turns back to the previous page in the notepad and looks over his own notes. It's as close to an experiment as he can get to. It's a cure for boredom. And – even though he should know better, even though he knows just how curiosity can kill – he thinks he has a duty to learn how to control himself. If not for his own safety, then for everybody else's. 

 

—

 

The remaining days of their quarantine are more or less spent in their bedroom, away from the others apart from at meal times, which is good for Jayce, since walking down stairs is so fucking painful at the moment. The Hæliens don't seem too concerned; after Jayce passed out without hurting anyone or impacting the radiation readings that Sky has been routinely monitoring, they must view him as Mel's ward rather than a threat. The two of them tear pages from the notepad and draw together, testing Jayce's memory and ability to sketch Azizi's likeness. The day after his fainting spell, he struggles to recall certain details: the shape of Azizi's jaw, his smile, the scar over his brow. After two days, any skill or technique of Mel's has entirely vanished from his mind. He's back to his own sketching style, stylised and practiced on Viktor's sharp features. 

They make a note of it, and then they try again. 

“You're not glowing,” Mel says as Jayce holds onto her hand and scrunches his eyes shut.

“I don't know how to glow,” he says with a huff. He feels for the echo of that sensation, the pull towards her, but he can't seem to capture it again. 

He wonders how long it took Viktor to master his powers after Jayce brought him back to life. Did he just know how to float midair, suspended by arcane light, or did he ever accidentally lose focus and plummet to the floor? 

That thought, unsurprisingly, conjures the image of Viktor's body crashing down. Life leaking out of him, a hole where his heart should be. Jayce feels his body tense, his own chest ache – 

And then, he feels an alien warmth over his hands. He opens his eyes and sees the scars on his left side start to gleam. A deep green, then lilac purple, then sky blue hues flare from his hand and arm, the brightest point around the gem in his wrist. 

“Focus on me,” Mel says. “Pass it to me.” 

They've decided in advance on the memory that Mel will let him see. It makes him feel less dangerous, less invasive. He just has to send her this spell. He closes his eyes again and tries to shape his mind into a question, a request. He squeezes Mel's hand in his and searches for her as she stands right in front of him. 

Their breathing syncs into a slow rhythm. It's just the two of them in this room. 

And here it is –

Nothing. 

There's nothing. 

He doesn't feel the barrier of Mel's mind, only his own thoughts, familiar and disappointing. When he opens his eyes, there's no glow. 

Mel looks at his hands in anticipation, and finally, after a minute passes, she lets go. She takes a step back and turns towards their notepad, on Jayce's bed. 

“What is it you and Viktor used to say every time something expensive caught on fire in the lab?” she asks. “Failure is a result too.” 

They write it all down. With every note about the thoughts that had run through his mind, each record of how his head or hands or chest had felt as he attempted to cast that spell, Jayce writes himself into a more solid kind of existence. He is his own prototype. So long as he can be measured and tested, so long as Mel can say, “We'll try again tomorrow”, he can talk himself into being real. 

 

—

 

Since bringing back an unconscious Jayce from their trip to the ship's lab, Elora has seen less of him and Mel. Which is fine. Normal. Her life obviously does not revolve around Mel Medarda, a stranger she just met. Even if that stranger is the most interesting person Elora has ever encountered in her life and a literal time capsule. 

In twenty-four hours, their quarantine will end and Elora will hypothetically be able to leave the Annex. Sky, however, expects another day of being based here for the beginning of the expedition review. Normally, Elora, an auxiliary member of the team, would not be required for the in-person review; she would submit her notes and proposal for post-expedition research to the three Councils from the relative comfort of her home or the base for the Council of Histories in Sixth Point. But the fact that she was the one to find Mel – and consequently get thrown through a window and disobey Sky's direct orders – complicates things. She will have to be interviewed along with Sky. Her opinion of Mel and Jayce will very likely impact the Councils’ verdict on their request to stay in Hæli. 

She has not known Mel Medarda for very long, but here is what she has learnt.

One. Mel is as intelligent as the historical record of her suggests. Almost everyday, she has asked Elora a plethora of questions, ranging from linguistic construction and grammar to economic cycles, folklore and musical traditions to education programmes, agricultural policy to the history of Hælien democracy. She has not written a word of Elora's replies down, but has committed them to memory. She will pick up a conversation two days after it finished with a new theory and the eagerness to clarify what she has learnt. 

Two. Despite being displaced from her life, Mel still speaks in the register of a diplomat. She is open to sharing the surface details of her life, her knowledge, when Elora has mustered up the courage to ask, but she is careful with what she says. Where Jayce is occasionally mute, Mel is polite to a fault. She appears conscious, at all times, of how others will perceive her. 

Three. Her main objective, ever since the moment she woke up, has been to secure Jayce's safety. She protected him in the tower; now she is nursing him back to health. She speaks for the two of them, and sometimes they seem to communicate telepathically. (Elora is not sure whether the two mages actually do possess telepathic powers. She has been too nervous to broach the topic.) Elora comes to the plain, obvious conclusion. She doesn't know how she missed it before. 

Mel and Jayce are married. If not married, then they must be partners.

Elora has already come up with her post-expedition proposal, and she believes that her plan will ensure Mel and Jayce's stay in Hæli. Because as far as Elora can tell, they are no threat. They have nowhere else to turn to. When Elora had asked Mel if she wanted to return to Noxus, Mel had simply said, “Piltover is my home.” Mel has already apologised for hurting her, and for hurting the others on her way to Jayce, and Elora considers it forgotten, even as her back and shoulder occasionally twinge.

She just needs to tell Mel about the proposal. It relies on her cooperation. 

When she sees Mel make her way down the stairs to the kitchen and head for the kettle, Elora has every intention of starting a normal, casual conversation and veering it towards her plan. But from the kitchen table, her eyes fall on the open neckline of the blue shirt that Mel is wearing, and her mouth gets the better of her. 

“How are you doing?” she starts with. 

Mel looks back, a small but easy smile on her face. “I'm well. How are you?” 

“Good,” Elora says. 

“I'm making some tea for me and Jayce. Would you like some?” 

“No, thank you.” She stands up, makes her way further into the kitchen space until she's resting her hip against another kitchen counter, while Mel reaches into the cupboard and pulls out the black tea that Frida gave them at Sky's request, two mugs and a spoon. 

“I was wondering if I could ask you some questions,” Elora says. This line is familiar to the two of them by now. 

“Go for it,” Mel says. She pours the boiled water into the mugs and swirls the tea bags, pushing each of them back and forth with the spoon.

“I've been wondering about Piltovan marriage traditions. How did you mark engagements and unions? I noticed that you and Jayce don't wear betrothal necklaces like we do.”

The way Mel stops moving is comical. The spoon clatters against the edge of one of the mugs. She turns to Elora with wide eyes, and a hearty laugh leaves her. Elora instantly feels rooted to the spot, caught by her pretty smile. 

“Oh, oh no,” she says, giggling. “Jayce and I aren't married. We're not together in that way.” 

She's still laughing as a furious blush creeps up Elora's neck and cheeks.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I just – I just assumed.” 

Mel hums, happy and amused. It's a beautiful sight. Elora hasn't seen her like this before.

“It's okay. We were together, once. Did your records tell you that?” 

Her tone is teasing, and Elora feels a mirror of a smile break out on her face. 

“No, they didn't. I mean, people had their theories about the three of you.” 

“Gods, really?” she says. Her voice doesn't carry its usual natural gravitas, but retains its calm grace. 

“Mmhm. When we studied you all during my undergrad, plenty of my classmates assumed that Jayce and Viktor were vying for your affection. I mean, who wouldn't?” 

Elora curses herself the second the words leave her mouth. Who wouldn't? What is wrong with her? She finds herself praying to a god she doesn't believe in, asking them if they'll save her from this conversation of her own terrible making. 

“That could not be further from the truth. Viktor and I weren't close by any means. And Jayce –” She thinks for a moment. The tea has turned dark, the steam floating up between them. “I suppose there was once a possibility of us marrying,” she says casually, “but I don't know that it would have been successful. He was always Viktor's.” 

“Wait,” Elora says. “As in … he was in love with him?” 

Elora had never spent time dwelling on romantic theories about the three founders of Hextech. She's shocked to hear that there might have been some truth to her classmates’ ridiculous ideas. 

Now Mel looks at her a little more cautiously. “I don't know all the details, but I think it was actually worse than that.” 

Elora can't tell what that's supposed to mean. They were ex-lovers, then? 

“But I mean, you saw how they were, when you found them,” Mel says. “Surely you must have guessed it?” 

“Them?” Elora asks. 

She thinks back to the previous week – god, this has been the longest week of her life. She had followed Mel all the way down the tower, the Hexgate as she called it. She had found Mel standing over Jayce's unconscious body, and a dead creature. Sky had recognised it as an advanced automaton, and told them to be careful not to touch it as they helped to lift Jayce out. 

But Mel had touched the automaton. Because Jayce was clasping its hand. She had unlocked their fingers gently, one by one, and laid the automaton's hand to rest over its sunken chest. 

Her voice is hushed when she says, “You're saying that thing was Viktor Martinek?” Her mind is running a mile a second, trying to keep up. “So he had been transformed by the Herald?” 

Mel's lips part open, any humour drained from her face. 

“Oh. You … don't know.” 

Elora stares back at her. 

“Don't know what?” 

The Herald, as far as Elora is aware, was a mage who had amassed a following in Zaun. There is no record of his name. He was said to have worked miracles, curing the sick and diseased, and was revered by all he saved except one, who had murdered him. His body was found by the Noxians and harvested, until the perfect arcane weapon was constructed and they had acquired an army of undying, robot-like entities. Jayce Talis and Mel Medarda were two of the leading commanders in the fight against them; they had even managed to sway Caitlyn Kiramman to their side, though she had been chosen as a puppet leader by the influential Noxian military presence in Piltover. By this time, Viktor Martinek had already died. 

This had been confirmed during one expedition to Piltover's Academy. It was years before Sky's first expedition, before Elora was even born. The expedition crew had recovered documents from the Academy's archives, records of administrative orders within the university and death certificates of its notable alumni. Viktor Martinek's death was written on paper, locked away somewhere in the basement of Sixth Point's museum.  

“There's … there's so much you don't know.” Mel empties the tea bags from the two mugs and then looks back at Elora. “I know I've asked so much of you and that we are already in your debt, but if we're allowed to stay here, I need to ask you for something else.” 

Elora nods. Anything, her mind supplies. And then she mentally curses herself for even thinking that. 

“Will you show me everything that's been written about the Battle of Hextech?”

Elora blinks, and exhales in relief. “That's – yes, I will. That's actually what I've been meaning to talk to you about. I want to make a case to the Councils and argue that you and Jayce should stay and help us fact check our records of Piltover's history. I know you're only two pieces of a very large puzzle, and of course neither of you can offer us a Zaunite perspective, but you might be the closest we'll ever get to understanding what really happened. If the oral histories have omitted something or been mistranscribed – well, you two could help us build a clearer picture.”

Mel nods thoughtfully. “That's perfect, then. I'm happy to help you in any way. It's the least I can do to repay you all.” 

That formal tone has reemerged in Mel's voice. Elora doesn't know why, but she feels worried all of a sudden, aware of the transactional nature of their relationship. They rescued Mel and Jayce, and now they must prove their worth in order to be accepted into Hæli? The idea sours in her mind. Yes, Elora wants to know what Mel knows, she wants to hear every story Mel is willing to tell her, but she doesn't want it to be an observed interview. She doesn't want to talk to Mel with officials from Histories watching. She wants it to be just them. Talking and uncovering the past in the kitchen.

She's reminded of that silly hypothetical. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be? Her answer has always been her grandfather. She wanted to meet the man whom her nani had loved so much. He passed away when Elora was two, but she had grown up with stories of him, the tale of their love. She wanted to see if the real man matched the myth her nani had created. 

Elora's answer has changed now. Nani would be appalled if she knew.   

Then, Elora reminds herself that she is only a woman. Up until the year of this expedition, her work for Histories had hardly ever been bought for extended publication. With Silas’ appointment and his broader academic interests, things had changed a little, but her contributing chapter for the Journal of Hælien Origins was still rejected. Elora lives in relative obscurity – which is fine. She's at peace with that. Some people make smaller marks than others but are no less significant. She knows this. 

Mel Medarda, on the other hand, is a mage, a politician, an artist. She is over four hundred years old. She walks this earth with the beauty and strength of what others would call a goddess.

They are worlds apart. 

“Thank you,” Elora says. “For being so open with me.”

Mel smiles, and returns up the stairs to Jayce. The sudden emptiness of the kitchen is vast and difficult to ignore. Elora returns to the write up of her proposal and adds a quick but important note. 

*Concept approved by Mel Medarda. 

 

—

 

All messages for the crew get sent to the single intercom on the ground floor of the Annex. Mostly, the incoming messages have been for Sky, notes and reminders from Frida and others from the Council of Innovations. Ivarr gets a message from his brother and his partner, who have been taking care of Ivarr's nine year old daughter.

For the first time since their departure, on their final night of quarantine, Elora receives a message.

It's a long note from Nani, who still doesn't understand that the point of intercom messages is brevity. She's asking Elora why she hasn't contacted her since she arrived back in Hæli, why she had to learn about their early return from an old colleague from Innovations, and what she wants to eat when she's released from the Annex. Last week, she made a killing at her monthly poker game, and she and her flatmate Marta have won a prize for their allotment. 

Elora feels distantly guilty; she hasn't visited or helped with the allotment in a year. 

She sends back her congratulations, says that things have been hectic, and that she can't wait to see her soon. 

 

—

 

Jayce knows he needs to put the best possible version of himself forward today, but he can't bring himself to completely shave his beard. He's scared of seeing even more scarring underneath it, so he trims it down instead. He looks refined enough, he reasons. Mel will probably tell him if he looks too rough around the edges. 

She says nothing. She's busy going over their notes, practicing the Hælien phrases Elora's been teaching her. They've both dressed in the more formal clothes they were given, meaning the white button-up shirts and slacks rather than the padded trousers made for braving the snow. They look like middle-aged adults masquerading in undergrad Academy uniforms. Mel, though, is also wearing a loose fitting, light green jumper when Jayce returns from the bathroom. He doesn't recognise it. 

“Where did you find that?” he asks. 

“Elora said I could borrow it for today,” Mel says, not looking at him.

Jayce raises an eyebrow at her and waits. When she looks up, she says, “What?” 

“Nothing.” 

They make their way downstairs. They said goodbye to the others this morning. Ivarr and Rani were returning home, while Sky and Elora went to meet with the heads of the three Councils. Right now, Jayce thinks nervously, they could be deciding his and Mel's fate. He doesn't like knowing that other people are talking about him when he can't defend himself. It seems that the arrogance that grew in him as a councillor never really left him. Or maybe he's been this way since the trial, all those years ago. The whispers never stopped following him after that. He had convinced himself that he didn't care back then. 

“Once we're done, we'll bring them back here to you,” Sky had explained. “I think we'll all be more comfortable that way.” 

It's obvious to Jayce that she was referring only to him. He feels humiliated and grateful at the same time. 

 

—

 

The second the door clicks open, Mel and Jayce are on their feet, standing stock still by the sofas as the head councillors enter. Jayce's palms are sweating so badly that he keeps wiping them subconsciously on his slacks. 

Jayce's first thought is that these councillors don't look anything like the ones from his own time. They look relatively normal. No grand jewellery, no extravagant clothes. None of them are wearing makeup. It's both disarming and confusing. 

Elora prepped them with names before she left. The first to come into view are Sky and Frida. Frida looks to be about fifty years old, with completely straight, greying black hair styled in a pixie cut, dark brown fox-like eyes and freckles all over her face. From afar she seems to be the most formally dressed, but when she gets a little closer Jayce can see that underneath her simple black blazer is an old jumper with what looks like university insignia. Her wheelchair is sleek and well-designed, a blue bar glowing on the side of one wheel which Jayce imagines indicates a full battery. He's never seen anything like it.

Eesha and Elora come through next. Eesha is signing to Elora, gesticulating wildly with a huge smile on her face, revealing a gap between her front teeth. Her energy and the bright blue streaks running haphazardly through her messy silver hair betray the deep wrinkles across her tan skin, making her appear younger. Jayce guesses she's in her mid seventies, but then Elora said she was a mage, so who knows? She could be as old as Heimerdinger. She's short, with bright yellow eyes, and she wears a loose lime green dress that pools at her feet – that's when Jayce notices that she's wearing sandals. Who in their right mind would wear open toe sandals while living in the Freljord? He supposes that since a tunnel connects the Annex to Fifth Point, Eesha never actually had to step outside in the cold, but his question stands. 

Finally, there's Silas. He follows behind Eesha, unable to read her conversation but smiling as he observes Elora with her. He's clearly the youngest of the three. He wears simple grey slacks similar to Jayce's and a red sweater vest, along with thick-rimmed tortoise shell glasses. Deep, brown eyes shine behind the frames, taking in every detail of the Annex as they dart around the room. His black locs are tied with a large gold band atop of his head. Jayce is reminded of the suave humanities students from the Academy; of Shoola's brother, the clock making tycoon; of the librarian's post-grad assistant whom Jayce had looked at more than once whenever he went to the shared study spaces in his second year. Silas is that good-looking. It's kind of annoying. 

Finally, the three of them see Mel and Jayce at the far corner of the room and pause for a moment. Then, Frida pushes forward with a welcoming smile. 

“Mel, Jayce, it's so good to finally meet you.” 

“Thank you,” Mel says. “It's an honour to meet you all. You're Councillor Frida, I presume?” 

“Just Frida. Please, we can do away with those formalities.”

Mel doesn't look any more at ease. 

Jayce fears for a moment that he's going to be bombarded with handshakes. He doesn't want to be touched, shrinks away from the idea of it. Thankfully, Frida stops when she reaches the living space, and gestures to the sofa behind the two of them, implying that they should sit. 

Mel stays standing until Eesha and Silas introduce themselves and take a seat on the chairs across from them. Sky and Elora hang back in the kitchen, turning on the kettle and preparing some coffee. 

Eesha begins to sign, and Silas watches and lets out a small chuckle before translating. Frida lets out a brief, shocked laugh and shakes her head.

When I heard that Sky Olsson had picked up some fossils, I didn't expect them to look so young!

Jayce doesn't know how he's meant to respond. He turns to Mel, sees the surprise on her face. It's so different from the cool, collected mask he's used to, but then this might be the first time that Mel's been at a kind of social disadvantage in years. He knows that there was a time when she was an outsider in Piltover, but even then she had her family name and the good standing of her old uncle. 

Now, they're just Mel and Jayce. The fossils. The downfall of Piltover. 

Mel takes a deep breath and says the Hælien phrases she rehearsed with Elora. She was right – it is a lot like Piltovan, just with fewer pronouns and some Freljordian terms. “We want to thank you all for your hospitality. Your team has been so kind to us. We are so grateful to them.” 

The three of them look varying degrees of impressed. Eesha seems the most enthusiastic, while Silas stares at the pair of them thoughtfully. Frida smiles and says, “I trust that your stay in the Annex has been comfortable for the most part? Though, Sky did inform us that you haven't been all that well, Jayce.” 

His mouth is dry, but he needs to speak. He can't keep letting Mel do all of the heavy lifting. 

“It's been an adjustment, but we've been well taken care of.” He hopes the Hælien word for adjustment is the same. They nod, so they must have understood the gist of what he said. 

At that moment, Sky and Elora bring over some coffee and leave it on the low table between them. Jayce doesn't take a cup. The last thing his anxiety needs right now is a caffeine hit. 

“I hope you won't mind me asking, Jayce,” Frida says, “but did you design that brace yourself?” 

He looks down at the brace over his trousers. He started wearing it again when the pain got worse. Then, he looks back at Frida's wheelchair. He wonders about the evidently monumental advancement in technology over the past four hundred years. Mobility aids, Freljordian airships, that intercom thing, even Rani's gameboy. What else has changed while he was asleep?

“Yes, I did. It's not as comfortable as it looks.” He attempts the joke, aware that the stiff metal rods and squeaking links at his knee must look so primitive to her. “Maybe one day I'll be able to upgrade it.” 

She smiles at him. “I don't see why that couldn't be arranged.” 

Yes, Eesha starts to sign. I don't see any point in waiting for the ice to melt. Let's get down to business. 

Each movement of her hands holds Jayce's attention as Silas interprets.

With Frida, Silas, Sky and Elora as my witnesses, I can confirm that you two are indeed Mel Medarda and Jayce Talis of Noxus and Piltover. 

Mel's eyes go wide. “Already? That quickly?” Jayce hears the unspoken words: I prepared a whole speech to convince you.

Eesha waves a hand dismissively and then signs, Your stars are older than mine. She looks pointedly at Silas, who seems to omit something at the end there. My dears, Frida adds. 

Jayce sneaks a look at Mel, and she seems as confused by that explanation as he is. But Eesha continues. 

Elora tells me that you two have already requested to stay in Hæli rather than head to, say, Noxus. Of course, there could be no place for two mages in Demacia, and Ionia remains a mystery to all of us. I agree with her that the safest place for the two of you is here with us. The ethos of our state implores us to help those in need. 

Jayce's eyes find Elora's across the room. She smiles encouragingly at him and Mel. 

“You present a totally unique opportunity for us,” Silas adds, “and the Council of Histories are very happy with Mel and Elora's suggestion of working together to consolidate our records, particularly before the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Hæli's founding next year.” 

Jayce realises that this is his moment. He thinks of the words he practiced with Mel. 

“If I'm allowed to speak,” he says, waiting for confirmation. Silas nods as if to say of course. “I am happy to assist Elora as well” – it's a lie; the idea of going over the history of Piltover and Zaun's fall with a fine tooth comb makes him feel physically ill – “but I was hoping you might allow me to join Sky and other scientists in the Council of Innovations. It would be a privilege to observe your engineers. I can assure you that I will never attempt an experiment or any other endeavour that could jeopardise Mel's and my place in your city. But I understand if you don’t think this would be appropriate.”

Silas' lips form a thin line as he thinks. Eesha, so casual and at ease, shrugs in acceptance and turns to Frida. 

Her eyes meet his, and he tries to keep his expression as open as he can. Smiling confidently the way he used to at the end of an investment pitch won't do now, and he wouldn't know how to find that persona again. He hopes he looks as non-threatening as he possibly can. 

Frida finally speaks. “Hæli was built by the Freljordians who welcomed and offered refuge to Piltovans and Zaunites in need. We are bound by the ethos of our ancestors to provide shelter and safety. Personally, I am happy for you to observe our work, so long as you are chaperoned. But let me make myself clear: putting any of our citizens in danger or violating the principles of our home – every person here is cared for and respected; we are one community working together; and no one should have their rights stripped from them through arcane means or otherwise – will have grave consequences. Is that clear?”

“Of course,” Jayce says, as Mel says, “Yes.” 

Brilliant! Eesha signs. Silas’ voice doesn't carry the same excitement as Eesha's hands, but he smiles all the same. We have already spoken to Elora – we believe she is the best person to help you integrate here. We hope you two are happy to stay in the Annex for now. 

Jayce nods immediately. Eesha laughs, the sound loud but airy. She turns to Elora and signs something quickly, earning a chuckle from her.

“She says I should take you to the markets in Sixth Point first. This place needs more character.”

In all of the scenarios Jayce imagined, he never expected the pseudo-head councillor of Hæli to suggest that they should decorate. It's somehow more outrageous than being here in the first place. 

“That does leave me with a concern,” Mel says. “I hope you won't be offended. We came here without anything. Without money. Will we be able to get a loan that we could repay later?” 

Frida explains that they will be granted an integration fund, and then once they begin working with the respective Councils, they will receive the standard wage, same as every other Hælien. It's an alien concept to the two of them. They just nod and thank them again. 

When Jayce thinks aloud, asks if he will be able to pay to see a doctor about his leg and his brace, Silas and Frida just give him a concerned, strange look. “You will not have to pay,” Silas says. He turns back to Elora and asks her to help Jayce arrange an appointment in Fourth Point over the next few weeks. She nods happily.

Eesha has one final condition. 

I will oversee your progress here. You will meet with me, separately, each week. It's standard for mages here to work with guides in the Council of the Freljord. These check-ins will be just as essential as Sky monitoring the two of you for arcane sickness.

Again, Jayce and Mel agree. They're in no position to refuse. 

Not long after that, the three of them leave, telling them that Sky and Elora will be in touch in two days, after they iron out a schedule for them. Sky congratulates them and makes her exit as well. Only Elora lingers, grinning and occasionally rising up and down on her tiptoes. A seemingly unconscious habit. 

“Welcome to Hæli,” she says. “Officially. I've got to head for the review and then my grandmother's, but I'll see you in two days. I think you've got enough food in the fridge, and soon I'll take you to the canteens. Sixth Point's are the best, but I'm biased.”

Mel nods, matching her excited smile. Jayce can't help but smile himself as he looks between them. 

Once Elora opens the door, Mel realises something. “Oh, your jumper, let me –” 

She takes it off and starts to make her way over to Elora, who just shakes her head. 

“It's fine. Consider it a moving gift.” 

The door shuts behind her. Mel stands still for a moment, just holding the jumper in her hands. A moment later, she turns back to Jayce. 

“That wasn't so hard,” she says. She's as astonished as he is. 

 

—

 

Elora doesn't go back to her studio apartment. Instead, she rides the upper monorail to the higher levels of Sixth Point and heads for Cirrus Hall, where Nani’s lived ever since she married at twenty-six years old. 

Elora knows the passcode to her apartment, because every time Nani is reminded to make a new one, it's Elora that updates her locks, writes down the new code of post-it notes, and sticks up said notes around the apartment. As she opens the door, she's immediately hit by the smell of orange blossom and jasmine, of the spiced tea Nani drinks every day. Something deep in her chest unwinds. She's home. She can already hear Nani's footsteps, the patter of her thick slippers, as she makes her way to the hallway. 

“There's my shona,” Nani says the second she sees Elora. No matter how old Elora is, she'll probably always be her sweetheart, her baby. 

Nani is not even five feet tall, but her presence is so large that Elora rarely ever thinks about it. From afar, you might not see the resemblance. Nani's hair runs in thick black waves that Elora always wished for herself growing up. Nani's skin is a rich brown while Elora's is pale. Their eyes are different shapes. But they're nearly the same gold colour. They have the same cheekbones. They have the exact same nose, a direct link, right in the middle of their faces. 

Nani engulfs Elora in her embrace, and time rewinds. It's amazing how you can be twenty-eight years old, tired and hungry for home cooking and faking your adulthood until you make it real, and then for a moment, you're just a kid again. Home in your family's arms.

“No jumper? No layers? Really, shona?” 

“Sorry,” she says, still buzzing from today's successful meeting. She's lighter than air. 

 

—

 

They eat and talk until midnight.  

“What will you show them first?” Nani asks. “The Sundial, surely?” 

“Eesha thinks I should take them to the markets first; there's nothing in that house. But I don't think they're ready for that.” 

“Three bedrooms for two people.” She makes a tsk sound. “I've never heard of anything like that.” 

When Elora turned six, Nani asked Elora if she would like her own room. Up until that point, Elora had always slept in Nani's room; it was a one bedroom apartment. Elora had said no but Nani applied for an extension anyway (everyone needs space), and they were granted access to the small studio next to their apartment. This became Nani's room, and Nani's old room became Elora's. When she moved out at twenty-three, Nani's close friend Marta moved in. 

Elora nods in agreement. “It's not as big as it sounds. Rani and my room was more of a cupboard.”

Nani hums. She makes an entire conversation sometimes with only these little sounds. 

“What about your chapter? Or have you moved on again?”

Elora gives her a hard look, to which Nani responds with her own that says, “What, am I wrong?” It's true that Elora's academic fixations wax and wane. Sometimes she falls completely out of love with the paper she's writing, plans a brand new research project, and then returns to her original idea with a renewed, fiery obsession. Nani has witnessed the cycle many, many times.

“Well, for now I'll be working on the post-expedition project. It's already been approved. Just helping with Mel and Jayce's integration will be acknowledged as research.” 

“Working by hanging out with your new friends? That's the life, eh?” 

Elora matches Nani's smile. “Well, I don't know if we're friends yet.” 

“But they seem nice?” 

Elora thinks of Jayce looking over her sketches of Hæli's architecture. His quiet tapping on furniture when he's lost in thought. Mel's inquisitive green eyes. The sound of her voice.  

“Yes. I like them.” 

 

—

 

Just from Jayce's fidgeting, Elora knows that he doesn't like being in Sixth Point's less busy canteen. It's on the middle level, a good distance away from the upper and lower monorails, so fewer people choose to eat here before they head to work. 

This proves her theory right: Jayce can't handle the markets yet. Maybe she could take Mel, and she could choose some trinkets and decorations that Jayce will like. At least Elora gets to see Mel and Jayce's delight at the food on offer. They both take a generous helping of soup, greens, and tarts, and they savour every sip of their orange juice. 

Both of them wear long sleeves, which isn't anything out of the ordinary here, but the way they carry themselves leads Elora to believe that the two of them are feeling more than a little self-conscious. Jayce's fringe obviously covers the gem marks on his hairline, but he's keeping his head down; he turned the left side of his face away or else strategically scratched at his cheek when he looked at the chef serving him earlier. Loops of Mel's hair are positioned in such a way that they cover the more intricate tattoos on her forehead, the rest of the thick locks pooling at her shoulders. Her golden nails are trimmed down. 

Elora makes sure not to rush them, but she reassures them that the place she's taking them to will be much less crowded than this. 

“Why is it called the Sundial?” Mel asks. 

“Patience isn't your strong suit, is it,” Elora teases. Mel rolls her eyes with an amused huff. 

“You don't know the half of it,” Jayce says. 

“Excuse me?” Mel says in mock outrage.

Jayce just smiles. It's infectious. 

 

—

 

Elora had told them that there were gardens and stretches of glass ceilings in Hæli, but Jayce wasn't imagining this. 

They take the “monorail” to the Keep. It's nothing like any of the screeching trains that Jayce has been on in his lifetime. The long pods just hum, moving steadily without any of the high pitched scratching sounds Jayce has always associated with this particular mode of travel. It's pretty odd. He realises the irony of that thought. 

It's easier to comprehend a new place by trying to reconcile it within the framework of what you already know, your own home: Hæli is like if some futuristic, colossal version of the Academy was turned into an entire city. The interior of every “street” is sleekly designed, but most of the white walls are covered in murals, different styles of verdant green fields, calm beach scenes, or glowing purple cityscapes. Occasionally the ceiling is lined with a foliage Jayce doesn't recognise, but the relief of seeing real, normal plants is unbelievable; the sight counteracts the stifling claustrophobia Jayce anticipated. The floors are made of shiny hexagonal silver tiles. It's something out of the science fiction books Jayce read as a kid. 

They walk for ten minutes, and then when they turn the next corner, Jayce sees an open archway at the end of a long hall. Golden light shines through the opening, beckoning them all forward. It's almost hypnotic. 

“You two go forward,” Elora says with a pleased glint in her eye. “I'll be right behind you.” 

Jayce and Mel walk towards the archway, equally transfixed. As they get closer, they can see it already. A tree. An entire orchard.

When they reach the Sundial, a huge park right in the middle of this closed off fortress, Jayce takes a deep breath and feels, for the first time since waking, like he's just inhaled oxygen. In front of him, there's almost a forest of trees, the rich bark glowing in the sunlight and leaves rustling in a barely there, probably artificial breeze. Fake stone paths are lined with small weeds, dandelions and little daisies. Great structures of orchids – white, yellow, purple, red, orange and pink – hang above serene pools and fountains of clear, clean water. The ceilings are triple the height of the previous street and completely see-through. He looks up at endless, ice blue skies coloured by a wintery sun, and almost forgets that there's a barrier.

He turns to Mel and finds a look of wonder that he's probably wearing too. In the sunlight of this space, her tattoos shine so bright. Her eyes wander past him and then turn back to Elora. “Are those willow trees back there?”

Elora hums in agreement, smiling as they walk further into the garden. She's obviously pleased with herself. And for good reason. 

Jayce realises that he never thought he'd see beauty like this again.

There are other visitors in this place, mostly elderly men and women, but Jayce forgets to worry about his appearance. They smile politely as he passes them, and he musters a smile back, and then he keeps walking until he finds a more secluded stretch of trees with a bench. His leg aches with relief to finally be sitting down again. Mel keeps wandering, utterly captivated, while Elora takes a seat next to him. They don't speak, but Jayce hopes Elora understands. 

If hours pass, he doesn't notice. Mel seems to walk the entire stretch of the garden and make it back to them in a loop, and then she begins the journey all over again. Jayce is happy to watch her pass. Every minute, he takes in a different detail. The petals of the daisies clustering around the bench. The blossoms budding on the tree across from him. The sound of running water. 

And then there's a gurgling sound. It's high-pitched.

It's a baby. 

Jayce freezes. Coming around the bend of the stone path to his left, a toddler walks – that unsteady, wobbling baby walk – ahead of her parents. She's running in a zigzag across the path, bending down to feel blades of grass or flowers in her chubby little hands. She wears a plain blue cotton dress and has little butterfly shaped clips in her wispy brown hair. 

As she gets closer, Jayce avoids looking at her, turning away and keeping his eyes down. He doesn't want to scare her. She stops for a moment in front of Elora and Jayce, and then keeps wandering on. 

When her parents, two young women, pass by, Elora says, “Good morning,” and they say it back. Jayce offers a small, barely there smile as their eyes momentarily fall on him. They smile, and then they walk on, hand in hand. Into the next stretch of almost-forest.

“I hope this was worth the trip,” Elora says. Her voice is so gentle. Not in a condescending way. It just seems to be the way she is. 

“How often can we come here?” Jayce asks. 

“As often as you want. There are other parks in the towers, but this is the best one. I'll give you guys some directions so you can make your own way from the Annex.” 

“Thank you.” 

He doesn't know how much time passes on the bench. He doesn't care. 

Jayce hasn't felt this human in a long time. 

 

—

 

The day after visiting the Sundial, Jayce feels something akin to firm, tangible hope for the first time in – what? A year? Two? 

(There's an argument somewhere that Jayce had clung onto hope with his desperate, bleeding hands ever since the mage who had always been Viktor told him that it was still possible to change Piltover's fate. He had hoped, even as he killed Viktor. He had hoped as the Herald held him by the throat, flying to Jayce's future resting place on top of the Hexgates. He had hoped, and hoped, and hoped, and somehow in the end it had worked. Almost. But he's trying not to think about that.)

It's the reason that he and Mel take the leap. For the first time since they woke up, they are going to spend the day apart. Elora will pick her up and take her to some of the archives in Sixth Point. Sky is coming to take Jayce to shadow a friend of hers, an engineering professor from Fifth. 

“It's fine,” Mel says, not even looking at Jayce, apparently talking to herself now. “If it's too much, we can just ask them to bring us back here. It's fine.” 

“Yeah, it is fine,” Jayce says. It's his turn to be brave again. 

 

—

 

Jayce finds that he prefers the murals in Fifth Point. The streets here are painted with the history of Hæli and the steady development of its fortress. On one wall, there is a painting of Piltovans and Zaunites being welcomed into a Freljordian tribe, different families gathered together around a fire in the middle of a snowy village. On another, a community works tirelessly together to lay the stone foundations of the fortress. There is an inauguration of a university, the construction of a farm and then a garden, the creation of some kind of glowing glass panel that is fixed by a group of women and men to Hæli's outer walls. When Jayce finally reaches what Sky calls the university sector, they come to a seemingly blank street, but at the end of it, Jayce can make out a sketch on the wall; it just hasn't been painted yet. A group of men and women stand next to what looks to be some kind of robotic giant. 

It's funny to think that he's thirty-two, centuries in the future, and once again surrounded by students. They don't have a uniform or a specific dress code like they did at the Academy. Most of them are in the standard clothes that Jayce has come to expect, simple cotton shirts or dresses, thick snow-duty trousers with lots of pockets, but some have altered their clothes, tearing odd rips in their tops or cropping them, attaching charms to their belt loops, sewing patches on their jumpers and jackets. Lots of them have piercings, even more have tattoos. 

He thinks, all of a sudden, of Vi from the undercity. From Zaun. There was a moment when they were planning their attack on the shimmer factory in the forge, and Vi got too hot and took off her jacket. Jayce had seen the spiral of tattoos on her back, shoulders and arms. The cogs and gears in thick black lines. 

They weren't friends, but they had been allies. He wishes that he had asked Caitlyn about her while he had the chance. She probably would have said that they didn't have time to talk about it.  

He has to visualise the pain of missing her and all that lost time in his mind, and push it away. 

When the streets get a little more crowded, Jayce does his best to make himself as small as he possibly can, slouching slightly and darting out of the way of incoming students, trying to avoid accidentally touching anyone. He's not glowing or anything, he's sure nothing would happen, but he doesn't want to risk it. Today is going to be another good day, he decides. He's not going to let himself ruin it. 

“Your friend won't mind us following him around all day?” Jayce asks Sky, eager to distract himself by making small talk. 

“He knows we're coming,” she says. “And I haven't seen him in ages, what with all the prep leading up to the expedition. Even if you weren't here, he wouldn't be able to get rid of me today.”

“What's Dr Novak like?” 

She smiles fondly. “He's the best engineer in all of Innovations, but he wouldn't let you say it. He helps to manage some of the power cells, and pioneered something called the Blitzcrank programme when he was only twenty-two. Now, he teaches the next cohort of engineers how to maintain Hæli. The postgrads love him, undergrads are terrified of him.”

Jayce smiles. He thinks of his first ever lecture, how anxious he had felt, and then Heimerdinger walked in, beaming and announcing, “Weeelcome young inventooors!” Any nerves had melted away.

“Wow,” he says, warmed for the first time by a memory. He wasn't aware that was still possible. “Sounds like an impressive guy.”

“He is.” 

The next street Sky takes him to ends with a heavy set of frosted glass doors. Jayce is reminded of a hospital, but above the doors is a silver plaque – The Conservatory, opened by the Council of Innovations – and when Sky leads him through, he doesn't find a sterile ward and nurses.

He finds labs. A great, hexagonal hall divided into different rooms, all of them with large windows so that Jayce can peer in. In one lab, a woman who must be a professor here demonstrates to some students how to connect a panel of diamond shaped crystals to what looks like a compact, blue power cell. He's reminded of the glow of Hextech gems, but the image is replaced by the battery marker on Frida's wheelchair. In another lab, pairs of students are repairing huge, gold and copper coloured cylinders, fitting wires and refilling coolant cartridges before sealing them up again. When Jayce turns to the lab to his right, the unfinished mural makes sense: two scientists stand in the shadow of a mechanical giant. Painted gold, with a thick chest piece, enormous arms and towering legs, this automaton looks practically indestructible. Jayce feels his wrist pulsing, his body growing hot as he watches the giant come to life. His fingers curl into fists – muscle memory, searching for a hammer that isn't there. 

The giant makes a whirring noise, and then two small eyes on its small head power up and focus. 

“Hello. How can I help you today?” says an upbeat, robotic voice. 

Jayce is close enough to read the tag on its chest and arm. Blitzcrank 062. 

The automaton doesn't stalk forward, doesn't prepare to attack or crush the two scientists in front of it. The scientists look positively elated, in fact. They're making notes and then beckoning an older gentleman towards them, proudly showcasing the blinking robot. 

“Is that him?” Jayce asks, pointing towards the man surveying their work. 

“Hm. Oh, no. Come on, this way.” 

Jayce struggles to pull his eyes away from the robot, but he follows her further into the hall. On the far side, there's a small gap between two rooms that leads to a corridor with several blue doors. 

“Like what you see so far?” Sky says.

Jayce isn't sure yet. He's caught halfway between fear and awe. There's a buzzing under his own skin that he can't place. He wants to chalk it up to the excitement of this new but vaguely recognisable environment. 

His own voice echoes in his mind. My place was always here in the lab. With you. 

“It's remarkable,” he manages to say. 

As they walk, Jayce can't help but retreat into himself as his mind forces the question: what would Viktor think of this place? And then one question mutates into another. An unstoppable cell division. If Viktor had come back, would he want to come here, or insist that they should have nothing to do with inventing ever again? Would he join Elora and tell her everything, as if he were confessing his crimes and begging for absolution? Would he have dragged Jayce further into the Hexgates and hid from Sky's crew? He pictures an alternate timeline where he and Viktor wander the ruins of Piltover, looking for lizards. Their punishment. But at least they'd be together.

Jayce tries to pull himself back from that ledge. Viktor wouldn't want him to spiral like this. He can push everything else down and focus on what's right in front of him, nothing but the present. He's going to meet this professor, and later, if Mel is up for it, they can go and sit on that bench in the Sundial. 

One step at a time. 

They reach the office at the very end of the corridor. There aren't any windows into these rooms, no glass panel on the door. Instead, each of them has a small plaque. 

This one says Dr V. Novak. Senior Engineer.

It's an instinct more than anything, freezing. He looks at the single initial, V., and his heart skips a beat. It's because he was just thinking about Viktor, Jayce tells himself. He got carried away. Sky knocks on the door but opens it without waiting for permission, grinning as soon as she sees the profile of the man inside, sitting at his desk. 

The first thing Jayce registers is the man's long, slender fingers. Tattooed, covered in ink splotches from a green pen, and poised. Almost unrecognisable. Almost born from a memory.

The second thing is the cane. Those fingers reach for a silver and black cane. The man rises and casually distributes his weight. He doesn't lean too far forward or to one side; Jayce still remembers the difference between his stance on a good day and a bad day. 

The third: the beauty spots. Dotted across a calm face. On his cheekbone, visible underneath his black glasses. One near his lips. On his neck – he's wearing an open collared white shirt, the sleeves rolled up. On his forearms, in the spaces between more tattoos. 

There are more stark differences: long hair, a little grey at the roots, tied back in a loose bun; silver piercings in his nose, his ears. 

And smile lines. In his cheeks. Little wrinkles at the edges of his amber eyes. 

“Jayce Talis, this is Dr Viktor Novak.” 

Jayce is pretty sure his heart stops.

So does time. He stands forever at the edge of this room. 

Viktor, his partner, his reason for living, his undoing, stands in front of him. Alive, and breathing. Smiling.

“Please come in,” he says. “It's a pleasure to meet you.”

With every word, this apparition's deep voice warps and changes in Jayce's mind. A vaguely Freljordian accent is translated into the voice of Viktor – Jayce's Viktor. Viktor Martinek. 

His mind struggles to keep up, to parse the secret meaning. 

It's a pleasure to meet you becomes: remember me? There you are. I've been looking everywhere for you. 

This man's eyes have not left Jayce's once. Jayce cannot tear his eyes away. In this moment, the world around them could crumble beneath his feet, this fortress could collapse where it stands, and he would not be able to turn away. He imagines walking forward, taking Viktor's hands in his. But he is rooted to the spot. 

His mind calls out to him. It's you. You found me. 

I will not let you be alone for long, Viktor had said.  

“Viktor?” Jayce says at last. Barely above a whisper. He can't say it any louder. He can't let the universe hear him and take Viktor away again. 

Viktor's smile falls slightly, his expression slipping and shifting into concentration. Or, no – confusion. His eyes search Jayce's. He readjusts his posture ever so slightly. 

“Jayce,” Sky says hesitantly. “Is everything alright?” 

He finally looks away and sees her. Sky's brow furrows slightly, her shoulders a little raised. Her face transforms, any sense of ease from a moment ago drained away in an instance. In its place is an immediate, urgent concern. 

Jayce realises then. The look on Viktor's face – it's not dissimilar to Sky's. This look is a question. 

Viktor is looking at him without history. Without memories. 

Two people who have known Jayce for years stand in front of him. And they have no idea who he is. 

The feeling that washes over Jayce is well known to him now. It's a loneliness that threatens to break him where he stands. Those students outside will have to piece him back together.

Jayce makes the sensible decision next. The only decision left to make. 

He runs away. 

 

—

 

Further proof of his theory: the arcane cannot fully decompose a person. They are made anew; the slate is wiped clean. Jayce Talis had attempted something similar once. And the Viktor that came back had hated him for it. 

Jayce said, in the other place, I would have let you have anything you wanted. So long as it was really you.

The arcane had, once again, been listening. Now, it spits his words right back at him with a laugh.

 

—

 

In reality, Jayce doesn't get very far.

He staggers away from the room, turns around and the world spins on its axis with him. The dizziness is overwhelming, and he knows that he has to get out of this place. He has to leave before his vision totally blurs. 

“Jayce, wait!” It's Sky calling out after him. But he can't turn around, because there's a chance that he has followed her out of the room. That he is watching him leave. 

It's not you, Jayce repeats to himself. It's not you. I'm sorry for leaving. It's not you, it's not you. 

Jayce has to get as far away from him as possible, before he blows this Viktor's life apart like he did before. He's sure that even standing in the same space as Viktor will send all the terrible things from his own history crashing into him. The bomb. The sickness. The Hexcore eating him alive, because Jayce let it. 

He runs through the hall in a whirlwind and makes it to the other side of the Conservatory's doors. He could barely hear the whirring of machinery in there, the whispers as he passed groups of confused students, but now, alone in this stretch of hallway, he can start to hear himself think again. 

And he really doesn't want to be able to do that either. 

The doors burst open behind him. “Please stop,” Sky calls out desperately.  

He turns around, and she stops, a reasonable distance away from him. Close enough to catch him if he falls. Close enough to the door to hide behind it if he detonates. 

“Jayce, can you tell me what just happened?” she asks slowly. 

Sky's feelings are plain to see on her face, even to Jayce in his panic: she's tired and worried. God, in less than two weeks, Jayce has fainted in front of her and now there's this. 

He had never imagined worrying Sky before, beyond their shared workload and deadlines, that is. He had thought it relatively easy to befriend her; when he and Viktor brought her onboard, she was already aware of who they were and admired their work, recognised their potential. She was young, like they were; she was Viktor's age. This Sky is forty-one. She's the most eminent scientist in her field. And she's being forced to babysit him. 

“I'm sorry,” he says to her now. “I'm so sorry.” 

She takes a step forward and walks a little closer. “Let's just lean against the wall for a moment. Catch your breath.” 

She's still kind, Jayce thinks. And then he reminds himself, it's not her. 

She guides him to the wall and he leans into it, presses his shoulder into it as hard as he can. Sensation, sight and sound. The wall by his arm. Sky in front of him. Footsteps at the other end of the street that's just a big fancy hallway. 

“I know this must be overwhelming,” she says, after Jayce's breathing has steadied a little. “You can join Elora and Mel if it's too much. Or wait a little longer. Elora and I can speak to the Councils. But I promise, no one here is going to hurt you.” 

Right. So Sky can see that he's obviously afraid. But it's not for the reasons that she thinks. 

Viktor won't hurt him. It's the opposite he's worried about. 

“I know that,” Jayce says. “It's my fault, not yours. You two just –” He can't help himself. He has to say it, just this once. “You both are different but you're the same, too.” His voice cracks at the end of the sentence. He wipes his eyes, pushes the tears away before they can fall.  

Sky pauses. “Me and Viktor?” 

Jayce looks at her as she runs a calculation in her mind, and nods.

“What does that mean? Please, just – just be clear and honest with me.” 

Jayce swallows. And then forces the words out.

“I had friends who looked just like you. Four hundred years ago in Piltover. Viktor Martinek, and Sky Young. Do you know those names?” 

Sky's eyes go wide, her lips part in shock, then close. “I know of Viktor Martinek.” 

They stare at each other, but Sky might be looking right through him as she tries to process what he's saying. 

“That's … that would be quite the coincidence.” 

“Yeah, it is,” Jayce says. 

“I know what you're thinking,” he continues, “and you're probably right to consider me mad.” He takes another deep, steadying breath. “I understand you not wanting to be around me. It's kind of insulting that they made a senior scientist like you babysit me in the first place. But if I'm strange to you, that's why. On top of, you know. All the other arcane radiation stuff.” 

That seems to shake Sky out of her thoughts. She presses her lips into a thin line as she decides something, and then she speaks. 

“Did Elora tell you what happened? When we found Mel?” 

“I know that Mel … threw her out of a building.” 

“Exactly. So obviously, I tried to cancel the expedition then and there. I was responsible for the whole crew, and Elora was hurt. And despite that, she ran straight after Mel, because she knew that there was something wrong and she needed help.” 

Her expression breaks into something a little less weary. A little softer. 

“Honestly, I didn't want to bring you two back. I was nearly certain that you would make everybody sick. But you didn't,” she says with a smile. “Silas was right, the other day. You and Mel present an opportunity for us that I never could have imagined. So selfishly, I want to help you and get to know you, just to see what will happen. I'm a scientist at the end of the day. But I'm also helping because I should. So stop apologising for being here. You didn't really have any other choice.” 

Jayce listens, and when Sky raises her eyebrows as if to check his understanding, he nods.

“How about this? I'll walk you back to the Annex, and tomorrow you can try coming with me to my labs. You can see how I really do things here. And if you hate it, then you can go off and read old tomes with Elora. How's that sound?” She looks at him hopefully. 

“You must care quite a lot, if you're willing to invite me to your lab after I fainted on the ship.”

If Sky's willing to take another chance on him, then he can take another crack at humour. 

“I wouldn't be where I am if I stopped trying after one test run,” she replies. “Come on. Let's get you home.” 

She says it casually, but it still causes Jayce's brain to shortcircuit. 

This place is strange but beautiful, full of wonder and teeming with ghosts. Most importantly, it's a shelter from the tundra. 

It isn't home. 

 

—

 

When he reaches the Annex, Jayce takes off his boots and drags himself up the damn stairs, his leg protesting the entire way. He doesn't think to eat or drink water. He just throws himself into bed, pulling the covers up and over his face. 

He's both exhausted and too afraid to go to sleep. Too scared to close his eyes and see Viktor's confused face. How is he ever going to sleep again knowing that another version of Viktor is here, alive only a tower away, and Jayce cannot, under any circumstances, go to him?

This new version of Viktor has no idea about all of the catastrophic messes that Jayce has made, one after another. He doesn't know that Jayce broke his promise to fulfil his dying wish; he doesn't know that Jayce wouldn't let him die and instead set him on the path of complete destruction. His hair is greying, and Sky mentioned earlier that they had shared classes at university. This must make him around forty. So he must be free from his lung disease. How could undercity fissures scar your lungs if you never lived in the undercity? 

Viktor looked so at ease. He only saw him briefly, but he looked happy.

Jayce can't ruin that. He won't allow himself to. 

He sobs, unable to hold it in any longer. 

Hours pass, hidden in bed. Whenever sleep tries to take hold, Jayce jolts and catches himself. His legs and hands go completely numb, his eyes burn, and Viktor's voice plays in his head like a broken record. It's a pleasure to meet you. 

Am I interrupting? 

I was supposed to die. 

You must go, Jayce.

Eventually, he hears a click of the door below. Someone slumping down at the edge of the stairs to take off their boots. Mel calls out his name, and then makes her way up. He peels the covers away from his face but stays in bed. When she opens the bedroom door, she doesn't look particularly shocked to see him cocooned there. Maybe Sky found her and told her what happened. Maybe she received a message on the stupid intercom that he still can't figure out how to use.

“Hey,” she says. The way you would speak to a crying child who just skinned their knee. “What happened?” 

Not so long ago, Mel had asked him those words. And Jayce had told her that it didn't matter.

He can't pretend now. He's so, so tired.

“He's here.” For some reason, he can't bear to say his name. When he looks up, he sees understanding fall across Mel's face. His own crumples as he tries to wipe away incoming tears. “He's like Elora. He doesn't remember me.” 

She doesn't say anything. Thinking of Elora, Jayce continues, the words pouring out of him like a flood. “How are you doing this? How are you just talking to her when she doesn't know you?” 

And then, a whisper: “He didn't know me.” 

Mel moves then. He follows the motion as she's walking away, but she's just going around the other side of her single bed, and pushing it towards his. When the two beds meet, she climbs in under her covers and shuffles close. They're not hugging or anything – she seems to be making sure that she isn't touching him. But the nearness of her is enough. Jayce is scared he won't be able to stop crying. 

“I'm sorry,” she says weakly. 

He shakes his head. Not able to meet her eye.

“It's not your fault, is it?” Jayce replies. “It's mine.”

In the brief blips of darkness when he blinks and his eyes close, he sees Viktor. Drifting away into a sea of starlight, all the way to oblivion. Unreachable and lost to him. 

“It's all mine.” 

“No,” Mel says. “It isn't.” 

She had guessed it. Before, on the ship. He might not remember, like them. Things could be different.

She was right in a way. Things will be different. Jayce will make sure that he and Viktor never cross paths again. 

 

 

Notes:

long ass endnote incoming!!

can you tell that i hate capitalism? anyone else want to join me in the loosey goosey utopian fantasy i'm cooking up?

fun fact! i love dnd so the magic in this fic is inspired by official spells. without meaning to, jayce cast "borrowed knowledge" on mel and she let the spell take effect. eesha took one look at the two of them and cast "legend lore"

also! i see latino jayce and czech viktor and raise you bengali elora. my reasoning you ask? because her middle parting and hairstyle in arcane reminds me of how my bengali grandma did my hair when i was a kid. shoutout to my dida i'm sure she would love my gay fanfiction 😎

thank you so much for reading this chapter where i'm just hitting you relentlessly with the worldbuilding hammer and going "blah blah fake science backstory stuff". writing this story and seeing that other people are enjoying it too has brought me so much joy, and the plot is finally plotting! the dialogue might be cringe but i am free! also the chapter count has gone from six to ten oops ... i realised there's a lot more i want to explore in this story, and i hope you'll join me for the ride 💕

as always, any comments will be so so loved and appreciated. if you've left a comment already, just know i love you and i read it over and over while writing this chapter

i hope to see you again for part 4, jayvikers i promise they will interact properly next chapter, i just had to get some angst in first 😅 viktor's pov let's goooo

love, yoyo x

Chapter 4: looking for saints but you only found people

Notes:

finally! i'm so relieved to have finished this part! i literally wrote the last scene this morning and edited all of it in a craze, so i'm sorry if there are any mistakes, i'll come back to edit it soon. to every person who has left kudos, bookmarked, subscribed and commented, thank you so much for encouraging me <3

this chapter ping pongs between viktor's developing jayce obsession (#obsessed in every timeline) and mel's crash out (i am once again announcing that she will be okay and taken care of). my warning for this chapter is that mel, like jayce, is dealing with biblical levels of grief, survivor's guilt and anxiety. she's just been trained all her life to mask it. mel has a nightmare that turns into a panic attack; it is a brief description, but to skip it go from "Mel wakes to searing white light" to "Someone's wiping away her tears". please stay safe!

chapter title from lucy dacus' "best guess"

The day Sky's quarantine ends, Viktor doesn't get a message on his intercom telling him when and where to meet her for drinks. He's a little disappointed, missing her a lot more suddenly now that he knows she's only a tower away, but he knows that she's busy. He eats with his colleagues in the canteen closest to his office in the Conservatory, and returns home. As soon as he's closed the door, Riley brushes up against his legs and, feeling a swell of affection, he picks her up and kisses her cute face, right on her forehead. She looks at him, completely shocked that her pet human might dare to handle her this way. He laughs and lets her down. 

He's marking papers on his sofa when he hears the knock at the door. A double knock, a pause, and one more knock. 

When he and Sky shared a dorm room during their university years, they established this knock as a signal. I'm here with someone. Over the years, its meaning transformed from I've brought someone home, please clear out to Our boss is here too. So Viktor isn't surprised when he opens the door and sees Sky and Frida, Head Councillor of Innovations. 

Still, he's too pleased to see Sky to not pull her into a hug, professionalism be damned.

“It's good to see you,” Viktor says to her. 

“Hey, it's not been too long,” Sky says, but that's not really true. In the lead up to the expedition, they barely had time to catch up over the intercoms, let alone meet for dinner. Viktor doesn't feel the need to hide the fact that he's missed his best friend. 

“Oh, okay, bye,” he jokes anyway, leaving her embrace to say hello to Frida. “Dr Yang, always a pleasure.” 

Frida rolls her eyes and looks back at Sky. “What's with all the formalities today? This one's as bad as the fossils.” 

Viktor isn't sure what to make of that comment. Frida must see the odd look on his face, but all she says is, “Can we come in?” 

Viktor can't think of a reason why Frida is here to see him too, but he says, “Please. I'm sorry about the mess.” 

The only real mess here is his corner desk covered in class notes and his students’ practice tests. Still, apologising for the non-existent mess is a habit from his mother that he's never been able to shake. 

Sky moves a chair aside from Viktor's table so that Frida can take a place there, and then sits down herself. Viktor offers water or tea but they both refuse, so Viktor comes over and takes a seat as well. 

“I've gotta say, I was surprised when I got your message the other day. I thought you were meant to be out there for two weeks.” 

“So did I,” Sky says. “But, uh, you know what I said about the expedition?”

Viktor nods. It's been a fucking weird trip.

“That's what we're here to talk to you about,” Sky says, looking over at Frida. 

“Okay,” Viktor says, but it sounds more like a question. 

He and Sky probably know the ins and outs of each other's work simply because after they met during an elementary mathematical modelling class, they never really stopped sharing notes. Sure, engineering isn't Sky's field, but she's helped Viktor take base power cells apart and rewire the Blitzcranks enough times that she could do most of his job for him. He wagers that having listened to nearly every draft of her presentations and speeches to the Council, he could break down a radiation analysis and run one of her simulations with relative ease. Despite all this, though, he's still not sure why Frida would come to Viktor if it's a Piltover-Zaun matter. 

“Sky and her team found something in Piltover that we never could have imagined,” Frida says. “They found two people. Alive.” 

Viktor's eyes go wide and he turns to Sky. He might be thinking so hard that he actually spontaneously develops the power to telepathically transmit the words You did fucking what?

“I thought your simulations said it would be impossible for people to survive out there.” 

This could be huge. If Piltover and Zaun are deemed safe enough to move through, to live in, does this mean Hæli will be sending more teams to scope the land out? To potentially set up a base there? Perhaps schematics or simulations are what Frida wants from him. 

“We couldn't,” Sky says, “but the people we found? They're mages, not from our time, from four hundred years ago. Eesha already confirmed it.” 

Before Viktor can process that information, Frida adds, “Remember the names Jayce Talis and Mel Medarda?” 

After a moment, sharp recognition slices through the weird slog that Viktor's mind is trying to order and compartmentalise. Did she just say –

“Jayce Talis? As in the man who designed the energy gates and all the weapons of mass destruction?”

Frida goes, “Ding, ding, ding! That's the one.” 

Viktor turns again to Sky, waiting for her to say this is just a really weird joke. She doesn't. He needs to make sure that his response is professional and eloquent.

“Fucking hell,” he says professionally and eloquently. 

“My sentiments exactly,” Frida says, running a hand through her hair. 

He has so many questions. Viktor's heard of Hælien mages who lived to nearly a hundred and sixty, but four hundred? He wonders if that's unheard of to even the senior wizards and sorcerers in the Council of the Freljord. And it's been a while since Viktor's heard that name or studied arcane-mechanical theory, but wasn't Jayce Talis just an ordinary man who meddled with something he shouldn't have? Perhaps he had some terrible accident during all the experiments that he must have conducted to create his weapons, and it scarred him with some arcane power. One of the mages here could figure it out and then Viktor would be able to translate it into his preferred mode of scientific logic. 

He can't stop himself from imagining a tiny old man with a ridiculously long white beard and a magic staff just wandering around the Piltovan wastelands. 

“What were they like? Could you communicate with them?” 

“We can,” Sky says. “What they speak is basically old Hælien. It's strange but understandable. Wanna talk to them yourself?” 

Another double take. “Wait, you brought them back here?” 

“They were stranded out there. I don't think the historian we took there would have allowed us to leave them there in any case. They've undergone testing; I'm constantly checking them and the crew for radiation sickness. In my opinion, it's highly unlikely that they pose a radiation risk to the rest of us.” 

Sky says this with such a calm, firm kind of authority that Viktor can tell that she's not only trying to reassure him but Frida too. Viktor obviously trusts Sky's expertise. This is just a lot to take in. And he still can't tell why Frida is allowing him to hear all of it. How many people already know about this? 

“Okay, so what's next?” he asks.

Frida explains, “Earlier today, the heads of the other councils and I met Jayce and Mel. We've made a deal with them. We provide them safe harbour, and in return they'll provide valuable insight into the state of Piltover and Zaun centuries ago. Mel will be looked after by Histories. Jayce, on the other hand, has requested to shadow us here in Innovations.” She gives Viktor a pointed look. “His background was in engineering, after all.” 

Oh. Viktor sees now. He's about to become the babysitter for an ancient mage. 

“And Sky and I thought, who better to handle a most likely temperamental walking time capsule than our best professor?” 

“Thank you, I'm flattered,” Viktor says, unable to hold back a laugh. “You want me to, what? Enrol him in my first year classes?” 

“That would be a good start,” Frida says. “Maybe meet with him one on one first, gauge how much he really knows.” 

Viktor can't believe that this is a real life conversation that he's having. He turns to Sky for help, trying to tell her with a look alone that he's absolutely not the right person for this job. 

For a start, Viktor knows that he's not exactly the most welcoming professor in his department. He rarely finds time for helping the first years with their orientations, preferring to dive straight into the extensive and complex curriculum he has to teach each year and focus on the third year and Master's projects. That's not to say he doesn't enjoy teaching the introductory classes. On the contrary, one of the most fulfilling joys he feels comes from explaining a concept to a struggling student and seeing a new level of understanding form on their face right there in front of him. It's just that Viktor isn't the most social or tactful member of the engineering department. He's blunt. He doesn't try to be rude or harsh, but he's heard too many times that he comes across that way. He's not sure he'll be able to manage a mage from another time period delicately enough or the way Frida wants him to. 

Furthermore, Viktor is happy with his current workload. Between overseeing a power cell division of his own and running his first year, third year, and MA modules, he's not sure he has the time for this kind of … commitment. 

Even if he is curious. He knows what he wants to ask. What pushed Jayce Talis to create the technology that he did? What level of scientific understanding did the average Piltovan possess back then? What has he been doing in the past four hundred years? What –

No. This will be extremely time consuming. He has to find a polite way to shut this down. They can find someone else. 

But Sky's been watching him think, and now she's got a small smile on her face. Her I've got you, you've just lost this round of Hearts smile. 

“He's very eager to learn, Vik. If it proves impossible, you'll stop.”

“The Council is happy for you to hand over one of your classes to one of the new professors. Maybe Jinny. You supervised her for years; I'm sure she knows your syllabus inside and out,” Frida adds. 

“Eesha and I will be checking in with Jayce every week. And since I imagine a lot of my upcoming work will involve him and Mel, so you and I would get to work together too,” Sky says. “Like the good old days.”

Damn, she's good. Hook, line, sinker. 

Okay. He'll do this for Sky. And because he's curious about Jayce Talis. 

 

—

 

Once Frida's left, Viktor asks Sky as many questions as he can before she falls asleep on his sofa. Riley's already sitting and purring on her chest. She's so big now that she almost covers Sky's entire torso. 

“So, come on, how crusty do they look? Like skin falling off their faces old?” 

“No, they're actually annoyingly hot.” 

“You fucking what?” Viktor splutters a laugh and half of the hot chocolate he's just made. “Is this how I find out that you have a thing for really old guys?” 

“What? No! They look like they're in their thirties,” Sky says, her eyes closed as she relaxes and strokes Riley's soft fur. “And they're literally magic, Vik. Mel's got these awesome tattoos all over her and the prettiest bone structure you've ever seen. And Jayce kind of has the whole grizzled frost-glass harvester look going for him, plus these glowing marks.” She waves a hand over her face, neck and legs, as if saying all over.  

So not the stereotypical old wizard Viktor had imagined. He reassesses and remakes the image of this guy in his head into a burly, mysterious, kind of tortured looking frost-glass harvester. 

Okay, no, he's going to put that thought away immediately and find another topic of interest. 

“Do you know what kind of arcane abilities they possess?” 

Sky hums as she strokes Riley, who purrs louder in kind. “I've seen what Mel can do. She blasted poor Elora through a window and managed to knock the rest of us off our feet on the way to Jayce when she thought we were there to kill them. As for him, I don't know that he has a firm handle on his abilities himself.” Viktor listens as Sky recalls Jayce passing out in her lab, sending a pulse of energy through the room that thankfully didn't set off any of Sky's monitors. 

In any other circumstance, Viktor would insist upon staying away from this. It's not that he's wary of all mages – he grew up with plenty of them, in fact. But Hælien mages are counselled and trained by the Council of the Freljord from more or less the moment they present their abilities. Jayce and Mel are unknown, probably as volatile as they are powerful. Viktor considers himself a smart man; he doesn't intend on dying in the crosshairs of an unstable sorcerer.

And yet, it's intriguing. It's not exactly Viktor's field of study, but he feels the insistent urge to understand, as unstoppable as it was when he was a young child. He wants to meet these mages and help Sky solve the puzzle of their survival. 

Once Sky's asleep, he drapes a blanket over her legs. He watches her rest for a moment, just relieved that she's back home safe, before he drifts off next to her. His neck will ache in the morning, but he doesn't care. 

 

—

 

Two days later, Sky sets up a meeting between Viktor and Jayce, to take place in his office around midday, leaving him enough time to clean up the space after his morning class. In her message yesterday, Viktor hears that Jayce and Mel are apparently adjusting well, especially after a visit to the Sundial. It only makes sense; greenery and sunshine are crucial to the human brain.

So Viktor makes the mistake of being optimistic. 

He taps a quick rhythm into his desk, both with his fingers and the end of a pen. As he usually does, he's been trying to script, imagining what he's going to say and how the meeting might go. They'll make their introductions. Viktor can ask how Jayce is finding Hæli, what he thinks of the Sundial, the canteens. Then he can tell him a little about his work here in the university district and the energy plant, and ask Jayce about the specifics of his interests and areas of expertise. If it all goes particularly well, maybe he can demonstrate piecing a basic cell together, break it down, and ask Jayce to try to put it back together again. He finds himself feeling strangely hopeful, excited by the prospect of taking on a truly unique student. 

In all honesty, Viktor hit the books yesterday, because he remembered reading about the Hexgates back in his first year of university, over twenty years ago. It's said that the creators of the first energy plant in Hæli based their power channel models on those in the gates, which used arcane materials as their source instead of sunlight. It could be argued that Jayce Talis and Viktor Martinek played a crucial part in Hæli's development and advancement. 

At the same time, they failed to properly safeguard their technology, which was exploited by warlords and religious zealots in their own time. So, as it often is, discovery becomes a double edged sword. 

Still. There's a chance Talis will be pleased that a part of his work lived on, was transformed to produce sustainable energy sources. 

Just then, there's a rap on the door. Sky opens it without waiting for permission.

As she comes in, Viktor grabs his cane to stand. Sky's smiling wide, obviously excited too. This man behind her must be Jayce. He's standing still at the threshold of the door. 

Viktor knows immediately that any image that he made of Jayce Talis in his head would have paled in comparison to the real thing. The man across from him is startlingly beautiful. It's the eyes he's fixed on first, wide and hazel and soft, and then his other defined features. A strong jaw, high cheekbones, slightly crooked nose. Dark brown hair, nearly reaching his shoulders and falling messily over his forehead, and a trimmed beard. And then there's the marks across his left cheek, growing up and up around his eye. They shine in the light, multicoloured webs so pretty that Viktor struggles to look away. 

Jayce is tall and visibly muscular, his broad body nicely defined in his plain black slacks and navy blue jumper. And then there's his left leg. It's in a brace, matching Viktor's own right leg. Where Viktor's brace is made of a combination of plastic and metal, cushioned with foam and strapped around his calf, knee, and thigh, Jayce's is made purely of a bronze coloured metal he can't place. It doesn't look like it's intended for any comfort or even ease. It's just holding his leg straight as he stands.

“Jayce Talis, this is Dr Viktor Novak.”

He forces himself to look up again and speak. He's supposed to be introducing himself. 

“Please come in. It's a pleasure to meet you.”

As soon as his gaze meets Jayce's again, it's impossible to turn away. The way Jayce is looking at him startles him. Eyes blown wide, lips parted slightly, his breathing more laboured all of a sudden. Like he wasn't expecting to see Viktor, and he's – he's relieved, maybe. His face just softens, years falling away right in front of him. He looks young.

He also looks like he's seen a ghost. 

Then, so quiet that Viktor wouldn't have been able to make it out if he weren't completely zoned in on him, Jayce says, “Viktor?” 

It's a breathless, disbelieving sound. Jayce doesn't move to come into the room, and Viktor doesn't feel like he can move either. He's not sure what's happening right now. He just knows that he can't turn away. 

“Jayce,” Sky says next to him. “Is everything alright?” 

A flash of guilt swirls in Viktor's gut; for a moment he had somehow forgotten that it wasn't just him and Jayce alone in this room. 

And then something in Jayce just crumbles. Hurt, plain enough for anyone to see, falls over his face like a shadow. 

Before Viktor can ask this stranger what's wrong, he's turning around and running away.  

By the time he's snapped out of the strange daze he accidentally fell into, Sky is already calling out Jayce's name and running after him. 

“Just wait here,” she says before she leaves. “I'll figure out what's going on.” 

So Viktor finds himself standing alone in his office. Staring into the open space Jayce Talis left behind.

What the fuck just happened?

 

—

 

Sky returns two hours later. Viktor's door is still open. 

“Come on, we're getting that drink,” she says, tired and rubbing her temples.

Viktor blinks at her. “It's, like, one in the afternoon.” 

She shrugs, as if to say what the hell do you want from me. “I don't care, man.” 

He can't fight that logic. Viktor follows Sky, locking his office behind him. 

 

—

 

They don’t end up heading all the way to Third as they originally planned. Instead, they go to a Fifth Point bar that usually hosts rowdy students. Today, on a random afternoon in the middle of the working week, it's fairly quiet.

Sky and Viktor grab one of the dark blue booths at the back of the place, ordering two beers on the way. When their drinks arrive, Sky takes a hearty swig before Viktor can even raise his bottle. 

“What happened back there?” 

Sky holds up a finger, signalling for him to wait one more moment as she takes another long swig. 

“So there's been an unforeseen hiccup,” she says.

“No kidding.” 

She groans. “Why can't the ancient mages we picked up from the nuclear wasteland just be, I don't know, regular and normal?”

Viktor doesn't say anything, just waiting and letting her get another long groan out. Sometimes that's what you've got to do to make it through the day.

His mind is already spinning though, trying to figure out this problem. What went wrong? It can't have been something Viktor said – he barely spoke! Sky had said that Jayce was doing well, excited to observe him. What could have changed in less than a minute? 

Finally, Sky speaks. “According to Jayce, you and I look like two people he used to know very well, back in the past.” She's rubbing her head again. A stress headache must be coming on. “He says you look like his old partner, Viktor Martinek.” 

They stare at each other for a moment. 

So it's both Viktor's fault and not his fault at all. 

“That's a … bizarre coincidence,” he says eventually. 

“That's what I said. Seeing you just … spooked him a bit.” 

“Just me?” he asks. “But you said you look like someone he knew too?” 

“Yeah, she was called Sky Young. I mean, it does explain why he looked at me so weirdly when he first met me.” She shrugs. “I guess he's used to me now, after spending quarantine together. Or maybe it's just that he was much closer to Martinek." There's a pause for a moment as Sky sits there, stumped. "Isn't that too many coincidences? Us looking like two people from four hundred years ago, who happened to have the same names as us?”

Viktor shakes his head immediately, taking another sip of his beer. “Eh, I don't think so. It's likely we don't look anything like them at all and Talis is just latching onto the fact that we have the same names. He's literally been displaced in the future. Anyone would try to cling onto something from the past.” 

Sky doesn't look convinced though. “I don't know. He looked so certain, Vik. And the fact that we happened to bring him back to the Freljord, the mythical home of reincarnated spirits?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I'm just – it's a statistically significant number of coincidences we've got here. Finding Jayce and Mel, us looking like people from their past, sharing their names –” 

“You're not seriously suggesting that reincarnation could have anything to do with this?” Viktor says, more than a little surprised by the way this conversation is going. “It isn't real, Sky.”

“We can't know that,” she says. 

Viktor is flummoxed. “Yes, we can. We're scientists.” 

“And we're also Freljordians.” 

It's true that Hæli, like the rest of the Freljord, has a rich religious and spiritual history. Viktor's grown up hearing myths about powerful mages contacting ancient spirits, being granted eternal life or a new one, holding onto their memories. But myths are simply fantastical stories born out of truths. Tales of immortal mages are merely reimaginings of an entire order of magic users, passing their knowledge and history down through generations, because everyone likes a figurehead, a single point to rally around. The notion that someone you've lost can be reincarnated into another being is a balm for their devastating absence; the hidden truth in this case would be that you love that person so desperately you cannot accept that they're already gone. 

Viktor, of course, can respect and appreciate that these stories are incredibly important to the majority of his community, even if he cannot find a clear line of logic in them himself. But he's still surprised that someone as logical as Sky might be seriously entertaining reincarnation as an explanation for the coincidences here. 

She continues, “Plenty of Freljordian mages have written about an awareness of living multiple lives.”

“Yes, they've written it,” Viktor says. “That doesn't necessarily make it true.” 

“What, so someone like Eesha is just a lying madwoman?” 

That startles a laugh out of Viktor, cutting through the slight tension that doesn't normally accompany their debates.

“That's not what I'm saying. She's a powerful seer and an incredible healer, but there are tangible explanations for those abilities.”

Some people have more arcane matter in their bodies than others and are easily able to bend both internal and external fields of arcane energy. Others learn how to hone the arcane purely by using a medium – gems, ancient artefacts, the like. In scientific terms, a healer's body is able to use their source of “magic” to encourage the body's cells to remake themselves, mend certain pathways. It's a fast-tracking of natural healing processes. As for seers, they can bend their energy in a way that prompts the exchange of information between two stores of energy, in this case people. It is possible to scan, map and observe this unique occurrence in the brain. 

“And there couldn't be one for reincarnation?” Sky probes. “What about laws of conservation of energy? Couldn't we say that the energy in all of us remains? Who's to say that the soul can't remake itself?” 

“What we call souls are just our personality and memories stored in the living brain. So the souls of Viktor Martinek and Sky Young died four hundred years ago. They can't just be recovered or regenerated. And I resent the idea that you and I could simply be their copies. We are two people with our own lives and souls.” 

“I know that. I'm just thinking,” Sky says. She smiles at him, and it's both dazed and invigorating. It's been a while since they were on opposite sides of a discussion. Of course they challenge each other, but Viktor had no idea that Sky was such a spiritualist. 

“Okay,” she says. “Let's look at the facts then, Mr Scientist. Jayce believes that you bear such a close resemblance to Viktor Martinek that he ran away upon seeing you. Now he'll be joining me in my labs.” 

“Didn't he faint last time?” Viktor asks. 

“Yup,” she says with a laugh. “But he knows me and Ivarr, so that's something.” 

“Wait a minute,” he says. “God, I can't believe you've had me so distracted.” 

“What are you talking about?”

“How is Ivarr?” 

“Why are you saying it like that? Ivarr,” she says, mimicking him, “is fine.” 

“Oh, he's fine, is he?” He wiggles his eyebrows obviously at her. 

“Dear god, please shut up.” It's funny how Sky rolls her eyes and looks away as she finishes her drink. 

There's one last thing Viktor wants to say before he has to finish his own drink and head back to work for the day. He doubts he'll be able to push his meeting with Jayce fully out of his mind, but he'll have to try. 

“So I'm guessing you and I won't be able to work together after all this time.” He pouts slightly, more than a little disappointed. 

Sky furrows her brows. “Oh, right, yeah. I mean, I can reassure Jayce that, you know, you're not him, just like I'm not her. You can still come visit my lab.” 

Viktor shakes his head. “No, there's no need to cause him more discomfort. I'm not teaching him. Guess it wasn't meant to be.” 

 

—

 

Mel was eighteen when she first saw Viktor. It was Elora's doing.

Taught all her life by impressive Noxian governesses and then highly recommended Piltovan tutors, Mel's decision to forego studying at the University of Piltover had not been challenged by Jago or her mother. If her father had been alive, the story might have been different; he might have approved of Mel's secret wish to study fine art. But as it stood, Ambessa Medarda would always see art and the study of it as a hobby rather than a vocation, and Mel knew that to earn the honour of her family name, she had to prove her political and business acumen. What could be better than hands on experience, now that she was officially an adult?

Elora, on the other hand, had been accepted into the Academy and was in the first year of her Mathematics and Economics degree. 

Before her studies, Mel had never seen her companion in a uniform. With her ankle length blue skirt and white waistcoat – as soon as winter broke, Elora did away with the collared shirt that was supposed to accompany it – and her eyes lined in kohl, Elora became alluring in a way Mel could have never imagined. She looked like those avant-garde Piltovan models that Elora kept postcards of in her room. Her sharp cheekbones and the even sharper gaze, aided by the black liner, made it almost intimidating to look directly at her. But every time Elora's eyes found Mel's, whether across a room or the crowded quad of the Academy, that mask fell away. She was only Elora, Mel's greatest friend. 

In her first year, they met for lunch most days. Sometimes they wandered to the nearby cafes and restaurants in the university district, and sometimes they simply picked up snacks from the campus stalls and ate on the quad green. On this day, they had managed to find a free bench, and were eating warm buns – mushroom for Elora, custard for Mel – and drinking coffee from Elora's flask. Elora pulled out a bright green apple from her satchel and offered to share it. Mel took a bite, savouring the sour-sweet flavour, and told Elora to eat the rest. 

Often, these public meetings at the Academy would turn into gossiping sessions, as Mel and Elora attracted stares from her coursemates and other students. Mel would ask for the name of their latest admirer, and Elora would provide any amusing or interesting information, whether she had met them personally or had only heard of their reputation. 

“And him?” Mel said. 

Elora followed Mel's line of sight, and immediately rolled her eyes, already flicking through her mental encyclopedia of Academy students. The man was tall and muscular, his hair tied back in a ponytail. He stared at Mel confidently, and smiled and waved when she returned his gaze. 

“Dimitri Aslanov. Engineering major. He keeps pausing his studies to go travelling with his parents and their fleet of airships.” Everyone and their mother had heard the boasting of a peacock like Dimitri, apparently.

“A fleet, you say?” Mel put on an exaggerated, eager smile. 

“Shall I prepare your wedding invitations?” Elora quipped.

“Pfft.” Mel immediately backed out of the joke. “Engineering major or not, it looks like there's not a single thought in his pretty head.” 

“Pretty? You're in a generous mood.” 

Mel was about to protest that men like Dimitri were objectively attractive, or at least conformed to Noxian standards of beauty, but someone far more interesting caught her eye. Across the way, she saw Councillor Heimerdinger.

At this point, Mel had only met the good councillor once, at a dinner with Jago. She had expected him to take no interest in her, a young foreign socialite without any fervent scientific passions, but the yordle had remained engaged throughout their brief conversation. He didn't ask Mel about her mother or her family's business interests; he spotted paint marks on palms, the ones Mel had furiously scrubbed at earlier in the day, and asked her if she had a favourite art movement. He had seemed genuinely pleased that he was unaware of the Noxian masters that she spoke of. Here was a man who gathered information not for acquisition's sake, but for the sheer love of learning. 

Now, Heimerdinger was walking quickly through the university square, barely watching where he was going as he delivered an animated lecture to the young man following him at a leisurely pace. He had fine, ruffled-looking brown hair, and the standard – but pristinely kept – uniform of an Academy undergraduate: pale blue trousers, a matching waistcoat, a crisp white shirt and black tie. His shoes looked recently polished. He walked with a cane. From afar, Mel could make out the faint smile on his face as the councillor, his professor, rambled on. He began to speak, but of course Mel could not hear him all the way over here.

“Do you know who that is? With Councillor Heimerdinger?” 

Elora let Mel tip her cheek the right way until she spotted the two of them. Her eyes settled on the man and she leaned in towards Mel as she spoke. 

“That's Viktor Martinek. Second year bioengineer, I believe. He's from the undercity.” 

“Really?” Mel said. 

In three years of living in Piltover, she hadn't ever met somebody from the undercity. Jago had warned her that she should not, under any circumstance, go there, not even to its upper district where some Academy students liked to go to drink and buy cheap goods.  

“Mm. Word is that he's here on a full scholarship. Must not have a wealthy patron who offers an education in exchange for company,” Elora says, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively at Mel, who just snorts and rolls her eyes. “Anyway, he's not very popular.”  

“Heimerdinger seems to like him.” 

“Exactly,” Elora said, as if Mel was being purposefully obtuse. “How dare a poor boy from the slums be intelligent enough to catch the attention of the founder of Piltover. The nerve of him.” 

Elora scoffed as she imitated the ridiculous accent of her Piltovan peers. She shook her head before taking a loud, harsh bite of her apple. As she chewed, she seemed to shake off some of her frustration, but Mel could see the remnants of it in her tense shoulders, the way her free hand gripped the edge of the bench. 

Mel obviously could never understand what it was like to live in Elora's shoes. Elora didn't ever speak of her parents or family, only of work in the Golden Drake. She had worked there since she was ten years old and moved into its smallest room at thirteen. Mel had gathered that Elora wasn't an orphan, though; she had once mentioned that she always sent sixty per cent of her earnings from the inn “back home”. There was someone she was taking care of, even though she was only a child.

And now Elora was here, a foreign student at Piltover's elite university, the hub of the city's best and brightest – supposedly. In private, Elora never missed an opportunity to recount the painful level of ignorance that her classmates possessed. They were spoiled and apathetic, conceited, and oblivious to the true and frequent injustices of the world. Mel occasionally worried that Elora viewed her this way. 

“I'm not here to absolve you,” Elora had said in response. 

She put great effort into assimilation and protecting her obscurity. Elora had no interest in being noticed and singled out. No one could accuse her of being exotic: she spoke Piltovan without even a hint of her Bel'zhun accent; she would not elaborate when her classmates asked her to tell them what it was like to grow up in Noxus. Her tuition was paid in full thanks to Mel, and as Elora had not brought a family name with her, she had picked a new, common name for herself: Elora Sen. She had already performed exceptionally well in her exams – she had teased, “Want to sign my report card, Miss Medarda?” – but she told her advisors that she had no intention of ever pursuing further study, informing them that she was in fact “destined to be an administrator for the Medardas.” 

“Gods, I wish you wouldn't say that,” Mel told her. 

“Why? Isn't it true?” Elora replied with a mischievous smile.

“Of course not. You don't have to work for me when you graduate. You can do whatever you want.” 

“Ah. It's good that I want to keep annoying you, then. Isn't it?” 

 

—

 

The day after Jayce meets the latest version of Viktor – it's Viktor Novak, this time – he does not bring up his partner – ex-partner? – again. Mel asks if he wants to talk about it – they should probably talk about it; it's healthy to talk about it – and Jayce says, “Nope,” with a pop of the “p”. 

“I can't keep falling apart all over you,” he says. “I just need to keep my head down and focus on working with Sky. Maybe something in her lab will help me understand these weird new powers too. I can get a handle on them and become the best psychic this place has ever seen.” 

His joking is even more unnerving than him passing out onto the floor. Mel can deal with that. She can even just about handle him suddenly drawing the perfect likeness of her long dead father. But this? This is just painful to watch. 

So she thinks about Viktor on her own. She hasn't seen him for herself, and she's yet to catch Sky since Jayce leaves the Annex early in the morning to meet her on the other side of the tunnel. 

Mel is no scientist or devout spiritualist, but she has her theories. She considers herself meticulous, so she lays out every element of this problem before she tackles it. 

Her family grew up believing in one god, though perhaps the word “one” was misleading. Kindred, the god of death, is actually twin spirits, depicted always as a mighty wolf and a gentle lamb in Rokrund's great temples. As a child, Mel's father had told her that Ambessa had met the twin god and lived: “There was a vicious battle over this land, and your mother was wounded terribly. The Wolf came to take her away, but even Death could see her ferocity, her strength, her potential. So Death walked away from her. Not long after, you were born.” 

That kind of myth was comforting to a young Mel: even if her mother could not always be at her side, even if she was harsh or strict or even disappointed in her, Mel had been a part of her mother's destiny. The notion of destiny is a powerful thing. It comforts you in your ignorance and silences your critics. Or it had, for Mel, until she saw her mother kill Lady Mion right in front of her. 

After that, Mel had nearly abandoned her reverence of Kindred at fifteen, but it was stories of the Lamb that renewed her faith. 

The Lamb, unlike the Wolf, is supposed to ward not warriors and rulers but those who die senselessly, without living the full life that they deserve. A baby lost during birth; a child taken by disease; a teenage girl murdered mercilessly in a throne room; even a father killed on the roadside. Mel found comfort in that idea, after Azizi died. She wanted to imagine him walking into the afterlife not as a hero, but her hero. She wanted him to follow the Lamb to a calm, quiet realm, filled with a warm hearth and his favourite authors and one day his children. She would meet her father in a splendid place and fall into his open arms. They would have every conversation that they were meant to have while he was still alive and Mel was only his child.

She never considered it possible that the Lamb too might try to hold out for as long as it could before it takes a soul. Death is never lonely; it makes friends and enemies by the minute. 

So maybe it had seen Elora's potential, the life she was always meant to live – a life in safety, in love, without violence, with family – and pulled the strings of fate until they resembled a new life. The life she deserved, untangled from the Medarda's webs. Brand new. And here Mel is again, possibly jeopardising it. 

As soon as she catches herself thinking about Elora, her brain halts, reminding her how far she has veered off track. She was supposed to be thinking about Viktor. Why did Kindred let Viktor live?  

Mel thinks of everything that she knows about him. The list feels too short for the length of time that they spent in each other's orbits. 

One. Viktor Martinek was one of the greatest scientists in Piltover's history. Though reclusive, introverted, and fatally uninterested in the politicking required to maintain control of Hextech as an enterprise, Viktor was not shy about his ambition: he wanted to make the world a better place through scientific discovery. He was certainly intelligent enough – and crazy enough – to do so. The man had facilitated Jayce's first ever Hextech breakthrough. He had mapped the runic patterns for the Hexgates from scratch and tested it meticulously. Heimerdinger recognised that Viktor was an academic marvel, Mel had every faith that he could achieve anything he set his mind to, and his mind was steadfast and fixed in its ways. Indeed, she had never been able to bend his will to her way through persuasion or flattery. The minute she hit a wall with Viktor, she turned to Jayce Talis and found an unlocked door.

Two. Viktor grew up in a place colloquially known as the Fissures. His parents’ proximity to vast quantities of the Grey were the root of his lung disease, which presented with mild symptoms as a child and became more and more severe with age along with his degenerative scoliosis. She had read Viktor's self-assessment and the doctor's reports from his spine surgery, which Jayce had annotated in a craze once Viktor was absorbed into the Hexcore. 

Three. Viktor died and Jayce had pulled him back from Kindred's hold, except it wasn't fully him anymore. It was the Hexcore too, forever consuming just to stay alive. Its disguise was clever – it could heal the sick, mend the body, ease any affliction, Jayce had said – but it was a disguise all the same. The magic washed Viktor and his subjects away, until soldiers were all that was left. And Viktor, in his heartbreak over the injustices of his life, over Jayce's rejection of his supposed perfection, had been swayed by Ambessa and turned into a weapon. 

The Herald's ends could not justify his means. Viktor killed people and used them, senselessly. But Mel can see the path that led him to destruction. Her mother had a way of finding the grief in people and fashioning it into a leash. 

So perhaps Kindred had found Viktor on that path, a warped husk of his former self, transformed beyond comprehension after a life of pain and judgement, and deemed him worthy of a second chance. One more chance to be better this time. If the scales were balanced, maybe it didn't have to end so cruelly for him. Things could be different. 

She wonders if Kindred would be so kind to her, when the time comes. 

And then she realises: it's likely that she already met her god, back in Piltover four centuries ago. 

Kindred as the Wolf must have weighed her soul, just as it had her mother's, and thought that a clean slate would be too much of a reward. Mel was allowed life again on the condition of keeping hold of her memories. Someone had to remember, nevermind if it drives you to madness or misery. Perhaps that is what she deserves now. One life spent in self-pity. One more in retribution. 

 

—

 

In the afternoon, the Viktor problem evolves. The new question is: how much can Mel really tell Dr Elora Chanda? 

Yesterday, Elora had given Mel a brief tour of the Council of Histories’ base in Sixth Point. She showed her the shared office where she normally works. There's only four of them there, but she guessed that it might be overwhelming for Mel to be around strangers, let alone talk about the past in front of them, so she decided that they can begin their work together in Elora's flat instead. Mel was tempted to correct this assumption, an instinct to avoid letting anyone see her as unsocial or weak, but Elora was right. She doesn't want anyone else's eyes on her, only Elora's. 

And if she's being honest, she's curious about Elora's home. So despite barely sleeping last night, too worried about Jayce and Viktor and everything else she's terrified to think about, she feels strangely energised as Elora opens the door to her studio. 

When she moved into the Medarda residence in Piltover, Mel insisted straight away that Elora's room would be on the same floor as hers. Eventually, this floor would be taken over by Mel's public office, along with her private study and library, but Elora's room always remained there at the end of the hall. Unlike Mel's quarters, it had no antechamber, but the L-shape of it meant that Elora could divide her room in two: one side was for her bed and wardrobes, the other for her writing desk and bookcases. She lined the walls with posters and paintings, collected from artists’ stalls from all over town. An entire shelf of one bookcase was taken up by records that she liked playing at the end of the day. Most walls were also covered in little pinned notes, all different colours – reminders or to-do lists or books and plays that she wanted to remember. Her room was always superficially tidy, but Mel knew that just opening one cupboard could send clothes flying out onto the floor. 

Mel half expects this Elora's room to be an echo of Elora Sen's. Which she knows is ridiculous. She knows that they're not the same person. 

And yet, she still gasps quietly when the door clicks, unlocks, and opens wide. 

While Mel's Elora kept the walls of her room white, Elora Chanda's home is painted a gorgeous pacific blue, with only a single wall left the metallic steel tone that Mel has come to expect of Hæli. This far wall has two huge windows, looking out onto the snowy landscape. There are other pops of colour around the room – pale orange counter tops, an amber yellow bedspread that Mel can see hidden behind a pearl coloured room divider – but the rest of the room is overwhelmingly green, absolutely full of plants. Huge leaves emerge out of jewel-toned pots, a climbing vine rests against and atop the few cabinets in the kitchen area of the room, little vases dot every available surface, sprouting full of small buds, little flecks of white and pink peeking through.

There's none of the imperial reds, golds and whites that Mel is used to. When Elora flicks on a light, Mel notices the faint glow that comes from the blue walls. This low light must take care of the plants. 

Mel's Elora had never kept plants. The two of them used to talk about buying succulents, something that would survive without much care, but knew that they never really had the time or interest. For one birthday, Mel had bought Elora silk flowers. Pretty, everlasting, and self-sufficient. 

Elora Chanda's home is like a well-kept garden. A glimpse of the Sundial. 

Mel crosses the threshold, enveloped in the brightness and warmth of this place. She only realises that her awe is plain on her face when she turns and sees Elora's smile. 

“This is me,” she says. “Would you like some tea?” 

“It's lovely here,” Mel says, instantly forgetting to answer Elora's question. The nearest plant is on the corner counter in the “kitchen”. Like she did in the Sundial the other day, Mel reaches out to touch its soft leaves and feels a warm, slow pulse deep in her chest. When she's in the Annex, completely plain and surrounded by boundless snow, she keeps thinking about the gardens they've made here in Hæli. 

“Oh, thank you,” Elora says. “You have no idea how relieved I was when I came back and saw that my plants were still alive. I mean, I'd asked a friend of mine from the office to come round and water them everyday, but, you know.” 

“I never expected Freljordians to care so much about plants.” 

“What? You expected us to eat snow and worship ice cubes? Do all Piltovans stereotype like this?”

It's a tease – Elora's smiling as she shakes her head and tuts at her – but Mel knows that the realistic answer is probably yes. At least the Piltovans in her circles, in any case. 

“You're telling me you all can't shapeshift into polar bears at will?” she teases back. “Anyway, now you're trying to stereotype us, so that's a bit hypocritical, no?” 

It's strange how much she's enjoying just a little sarcastic back and forth. She can pretend that this isn't the woman who saved her in a previous life and saved her again from her rotting home city. She's just another friend in an unknown, strange place. That's easy enough to imagine. Mel's been there before.

She wants to believe that they're friends, even though it's not been very long. That feeling is familiar too. 

“Hy-po-cri-ti-cal,” Elora says to herself. Before Mel can explain, Elora's already using context to place its meaning and telling her the Hælien variation. She seems both amused and pleased. Another piece of vocabulary to add to her mental wall of different coloured notes. 

After another linguistic detour, she says, “Tea? Coffee?”

“Coffee.” Mel needs the pick-me-up. 

Once Elora's made their drinks, they take a seat at her table. She's laid out two thin folders, and pulls out a sheet of paper with bullet points of potential topics for them to discuss. She explains that on some days, she'll conduct informal interviews after giving Mel a series of questions in advance. On other days, she'll take Mel to the Histories’ archives and show her the collection of primary sources, which they've used to piece together Piltover and Zaun's past and the establishment of Hæli. Mel will have access to anything that Elora writes up, able to check and edit to make sure that it's a fair account. 

As she asked before, the “Battle of Hextech” is there, at the very top of the list, but with Viktor's arrival here – reappearance? Reincarnation? What’s the right term? – she regrets her previous eagerness to learn and correct Hæli's vague knowledge of Jayce's and her Viktor. She's all too aware of the need to handle the story of the Machine Herald with care. How much of the blame can she levy onto Viktor's shoulders? How much is hers? Jayce's? Her mother's? What is the right division of guilt?  

Nothing about what happened can be painted in black and white. And what if she's mistaken about a crucial detail, and the story gets twisted? What if, by revealing that the Herald was once Viktor Martinek, the Hælien councils brand him as an outright villain? Jayce will never forgive her – he'd probably demand that every misdeed of the past be placed squarely on his shoulders – but she doubts that he'd ever want to come here and rehash Hextech's history either. Especially now that he's hellbent on marching forward and keeping his head down. 

Her chest feels so tight, all of a sudden. She tries focusing on the words in front of her, but Elora's neat, cursive handwriting keeps blurring. Gods, what is she going to say? 

“I, uh,” she starts, and then stops. “I … Seeing it all laid out …” She takes a deep breath. Splays her palm flat against the cool surface of the table. “I think I didn't realise how daunting this would be.” 

Elora nods, quiet for a moment as she thinks. 

“Of course. If you change your mind and don't want to talk about it, I'll understand. Maybe I should have started with smaller details rather than huge historical events.” She gives an embarrassed half-laugh. “How about this one?”

She points to the question, What were the different seasons like in Piltover? 

Mel hadn't even noticed it. It seems a bit trivial, next to the other questions about battles, the economy, and social rifts between Piltover and Zaun. 

But then Mel remembers that besides her trip to Piltover, Elora's never left the Freljord, and the concept of seasons changing must be fairly foreign to her when her home city remains at a constant, ambient temperature. 

Okay. Mel can do that. She can talk about the weather. 

“Well, even in the winter months, snow never really stuck in Piltover. It usually just rained and rained. I hated the cold at first. The minute autumn hit, I'd be counting down the days until spring. The end of spring, really – spring showers always left a chill in the air. Even the summers in Piltover were quite cool, but sometimes the temperature creeped up to the warmth of winters in southern Noxus.”

Elora smiles as she listens. As always, it is soft and warm. Intrigued.

“I see. You must not be happy to be here then. You know, in the constant cold …” Her voice trails off as she nods towards the window, to the view of hills of frost and snow. 

Mel considers this and shakes her head. “No. I mean, I'm certainly glad that your city is a heated one,” she says, “but I think it's pretty out there. I've never seen anything like it. Before Piltover, I only ever lived in the warmer parts of Noxus, by the coasts. This ... every place has its own kind of beauty.”

Elora hums. “When I was a kid, I used to dream of going somewhere warm. Not artificial warmth, or radiation site heat." She chuckles. "True warmth. I wanted to sit in the sun and swim in the ocean.” 

Mel thinks about living a life without ever dipping your toes in sand, without knowing what the seas feel like against your bare skin. 

“I lived in Bel'zhun for a while. Ever heard of it?” Elora tells her no. “It's a Noxian port city. My brother and I used to sneak out at night to go and swim in the sea.” 

Gods, she hasn't thought of those nights in an age. They had been so little, back then. She remembers the thrill as they egged each other on, ran faster and faster until they couldn't make out the Medarda estate behind them. If she gives herself enough time, she might be able to remember exactly how the cold shock of the water felt at her feet. The exact sound of Kino's delighted laugh as they waded in. 

“You've been to a beach?” Elora asks, pulling Mel back to the present. She looks a little awestruck, like a million questions are surfacing and firing in her brain. Mel feels a smile growing on her face. “What's the sea like?” 

Mel feels that it's important that she paints the perfect image for Elora. She tries to tell her about the overwhelming beauty of it: how violent it can be, how it froths white foam and leaves salt on your skin, how it pushes you and beckons you and even throws you away if you're not careful. As she speaks, she imagines Elora standing at the precipice of the ocean, water lapping at her bare feet, seaweed kissing up her legs. She imagines her walking slowly into the turquoise body of it, the sea spray droplets scattering across her face and hair. She feels warm at the very thought of it. Is Elora imagining the same?

And then her treacherous mind takes that image and runs wild with it. Mel imagines herself there leading Elora around Noxus’ seas, wandering through every beach until the experience is imprinted in the back of her eyelids and the weight of her bones. She imagines taking Elora to Bel'zhun, if the city still stands, and showing her the seas she ran to in the middle of the night. Pulling Elora's soft hands towards her as they drift into the waves together. 

Oh gods. What is she thinking? 

She snaps herself out of her reverie. Her skin is so hot, and when Elora looks at her with her sweet eyes, Mel feels herself only grow hotter with something close to guilt. She clears her throat and has to look away. 

“It would be wonderful to see that someday,” Elora says, her voice full of wonder and maybe hope. 

Mel forces herself to feign normality. “Do Hæliens never travel outside of the city?” 

“Sometimes. It was more common in my nani's generation, I think,” Elora says. “She had friends who travelled to different villages in the Freljord and ended up staying and starting families there. I've heard of some mages who left to travel to Ionia but never returned. As for Noxus – there are treaties in place between the two nations, but I don't think we'll ever be truly open to each other.”

“And Demacia?” 

“We stay away from mage hunters,” Elora says plainly.

Mel nods. “Well, I'm sorry that Jayce and I cut your first ever trip to a warmer climate short. But who knows? Maybe you'll be leading the next exhibition to Piltover. You could stop off by the sea and swim.” 

Elora laughs quietly and Mel is immediately drawn to the sound. When she looks back at Elora, she seems pleased by Mel's words. The way she looks at Mel – 

If they knew each other better, Mel might say it was fond. 

But they don't. This isn't her Elora. 

Not that she ever imagined something so intimate as that reverie with her Elora before.

Gods, she needs to stop thinking.

“Oh shit,” Elora says. “I really should have been writing this down. You don't mind if I start taking notes while we talk?” 

Mel's eyes widen in shock. “No, I don't,” she says with a small laugh. 

“What?” Elora says, crossing the room to retrieve a notepad and then sitting back down. 

“Nothing, I just don't think I've heard you swear before.” 

Mel's Elora swore like a sailor – in private, that is. But as she keeps reminding herself, they're not the same. 

Elora's eyebrows scrunch together. It's so strangely endearing all of a sudden. 

“Shit isn't a swear word.” She thinks for a brief moment, questioning herself. “I mean, it's not really offensive on its own.” 

Mel gives her a confused look right back, and then shrugs. “It was in my day.” Maybe she's become her father, who used to say, “Language!” whenever Mel and Kino so much as uttered the word damned. 

There's an amused grin on Elora's face as she scribbles something quickly and shows it to Mel. 

• Piltover winters: rainy.
• Piltover summers: colder than most of Noxus. 
• Shit: Piltovan swear word. Do not use!!!

“I'll make sure I keep it clean in front of you and Jayce, how about that?”  

Mel hopes her own fond expression isn't too plain on her face. 

“I think that would be appropriate, Dr Chanda.” 

“Thank you, Miss Medarda.”

She looks at Elora, both an echo of Mel's past and brilliantly new. 

 

—

 

Jayce had asked Mel, “How are you just talking to Elora when she doesn't know you?” 

Even if the conversation has already passed, Mel thinks she knows the answer now. 

First, she wants to tell Jayce that she misses Elora Sen as much as she did the day she lost her. It's true what they say: grief is a hole that never completely closes. Mel simply feels herself moving in spite of the chasm. She can eat breakfast and think I miss you; she can walk through a futuristic city and think Come back to me, I don't know how to live without you, it doesn't make sense that you're not by my side.

But Mel is also so happy, so relieved that some part of Elora made it out. Here she is again, and she is safe. It might break Mel's heart that she has no knowledge of their past, that this isn't the Elora she knew, but at least this new Elora has no memory of the pain either. Of her horrible death, and Mel's hand in it.

Mel can live with this. She can live with it so long as Elora doesn't have to hurt.

 

—

 

Viktor's life resumes as normal, of course. A week passes uneventfully. He checks in with his cell team, helps repair a glitching Blitzcrank in his spare time, and holds his usual classes. He meets with Sky and Jinny for drinks one day. At the end of the week, he heads home to his parents’ place.  

Even after all these years, Viktor cherishes these weekly dinners with his parents and his sisters. If it weren't for them, Viktor doubts he'd see his sisters as frequently as he'd like to; they all went into different fields after all. While Viktor remained in Fifth, following his mother's footsteps and becoming an engineer, Evelina, who's four years younger than him, followed their father's and went into agricultural sciences. She's been based in the Keep since she was twenty-five, helping to grow and monitor Hæli's food stores. Ashika, the baby of their family, who's ten years younger than Viktor, didn't go down either of “the nepotism routes”, as she would say. Now she's a historian in Sixth Point. 

When Viktor arrives, his sisters are already setting the table and keeping their mother company while she drinks tea. Today must be one of her good days; she's out of her wheelchair and using her left hand to lift her mug. Viktor heads to the kitchen and finds their father taking his signature casserole out of the oven. The smell of herbs and spices warms Viktor to the bone. 

At the table, their mother thanks their ancestors for blessing them and her husband for this meal. Finally, they dig in. As always, his mother asks if there are “any new developments” that she should know about. Viktor tells a story about one of his students who genuinely tried to get away with not handing in a paper by arguing that their cat ate it. Evelina talks about the trip she and her boyfriend are planning; they're going to the nearest village, Lake Ava, where her boyfriend's grandparents live. Their mother seems especially pleased with this news. Finally, Ashika laments that her office has been terribly boring for the past month since her friend has been away, working on a project outside of their council. 

Viktor doesn't know why he doesn't bring up what happened with Jayce Talis. It certainly constitutes a new development. He supposes it's because absolutely nothing came of it. He didn't learn anything about Jayce or Piltover; he'll have to hear all the details through Sky. 

Maybe it's because Jayce had run away from him, clearly heartbroken that Viktor isn't the man he knew. 

Something strangely indignant in him wants to prove that he's his own person, even though that is obviously the case. He wants to prove that he has absolutely nothing to do with Jayce's partner.  

Maybe then Jayce won't mind talking to him. 

“Mama, Dad, I actually had something I've been meaning to ask you.” 

His parents turn to look at him. 

“I realised I don't know why you chose our names. I don't know if I've ever thought much about it before.” 

“Oh! I know this,” Ashika says happily. 

“We've definitely talked about this,” Evelina says. “Your memory must be failing you in old age, Vik.”

Like they're still immature teenagers, Viktor shows his sister the finger, which she mirrors right back at him. Their mother, Alena, shakes her head disapprovingly. 

“Go on then,” their father, Filip, says to Ashika. 

“Viktor's named after Mama's grandmother, Viktoria. They chose Evelina because it was Dad's turn and he thought it was fancy –” 

“Pretty,” Evelina corrects, just as their father interjects, “It's a beautiful name.” 

“– and I'm Ashika because of the ancient queen, Ashe.” 

“Spot on, my love,” their mother says and looks back at Viktor. “What brought on that question?” 

Viktor looks at their mother, at the life written into every part of her face. Her smile lines, her clever amber eyes that all three of them inherited, her full cheeks. Her burn scars too, across her jaw and going down the left side of her neck, the evidence of her accident twenty years ago. 

Frustratingly, Viktor thinks again of Jayce.

He tries to focus instead on the fact that his name has nothing to do with any historical figures, only his mother's love for one of the remarkable women who raised her. His name might be Piltovan or Zaunite in origin, but that's where the similarity ends. He tells her, “Oh, no reason.” 

Before he leaves, he grabs the old memory box from under his bed, leaning it on his hip as he walks. On his way out, Viktor's father spots him and says fondly, “You're in a sentimental mood lately, hm?” 

Viktor shrugs. “Sky wanted to see an old album. I know it's somewhere in here.”

“How is Sky? She's gone on her expedition already, hasn't she?” 

Filip Novak is an odd man. Sometimes he can spend an entire evening listening to his children bickering, making random interjections just to stir the pot, and have absolutely no recollection of what it was they were all talking about the next day; other times he remembers specific details about Viktor's friends or colleagues and their work. Though, Sky is basically another daughter to Viktor's parents. Hell, she's probably his mother's favourite somehow. Maybe he should have invited her over today. He'll bring her next week. 

“She's good. She just got back actually, so she's very busy with, you know, all the write-ups.” 

His father hums thoughtfully. “Well, you'll tell her your mama and I say hello, won't you?”

“Sure, Dad.” 

“Good. Want me to help you take that back to your place?” he asks, gesturing at the memory box.

“I've got it, don't worry.”

“Okay, Vik. Love you. See you next week?” 

“Of course. Love you.” 

 

—

 

A week later, Viktor's heading to the nearest canteen for lunch with Jinny, and it's too late to pretend he isn't hungry and leave by the time he realises that Jayce is also there. 

Viktor enters through the north entrance, while Jayce is sitting far away on a corner table in the south side of the hall. He's next to Sky and Ivarr. There's a large distance between the two of them, and Viktor has no intention of going over to join them.

And yet the second Jayce spots him, he's standing up and heading for the nearest exit.

Viktor stands completely still, dumbstruck as Jayce disappears, his rickety brace squeaking off into the distance. A moment later, a motion in the corner of Viktor's vision catches his attention. It's Ivarr giving him a small wave. There's an embarrassed smile too, as if it's his fault that Jayce has bolted, and then he leaves to follow him. 

Viktor does decide to walk over to Sky. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make him run off again.” 

He's not sure if he actually is sorry. If he's being honest, he can't help but find Jayce's pathological avoidance of him upsetting. No, maybe that word is too emotionally fraught for what this is. They don't even know each other, he reminds himself. It's unnerving, then. Really fucking unnerving. It's not like Viktor has done anything worthy of this kind of response from Jayce. He just happens to exist in the same time and space as him. Hæli has its stone and frost-glass boundaries and Fifth Point isn't endless, so the two of them are bound to run into each other eventually. Is Jayce really going to flee every time? 

“It's okay. He knows you're not him,” Sky says. 

“Does he? He looked at me like I was here to hunt him for sport.” 

Sky just sighs. “Yeah, I guess it's a step back in terms of his integration.” 

“Exactly. Surely I've got to speak to him and show him that I'm not that other guy. Then you'll stop having to chase him down whenever I walk into the room.” 

Sky pauses and thinks. And then: 

“I suppose there's one person who might be able to arrange that.” 

 

—

 

When Sky joins Mel and Elora for lunch one day in a Sixth Point canteen, it's clear to Mel that she's gearing up to ask her something. Her eyes keep falling on Mel and then guiltily looking down, and she keeps shaking her leg. Mel half wants her to just get it out already, but she also wants to see how long it will take for Sky to finally broach whatever's on her mind. 

“Admit it, Sky, the desserts here are so much better than in Fifth,” Elora says, taking another bite of the golden sponge on her plate. Apparently the chefs in every canteen make their own sweet treats in the middle of the work week. 

Sky shakes her head, amused. “Okay, I'll let you have that if you confess that the coffee here is terrible.” 

“Deal,” Elora says graciously. 

There's a lull in the conversation and Sky gives Mel another brief look, and Mel changes her mind. She'll put her out of this misery. 

“Sky, is everything okay?” she asks.

Sky nods. “Yes. Um ..." She takes a small breath and tries again. "There's just something I want to talk to you about but I'm worried I'll make you uncomfortable.” 

Mel shrugs. “I suppose we won't know unless you try. Hit me.” 

She never would have said a phrase like hit me before; she would have found it far too informal. But Elora's enthusiastic, casual way of speaking seems to be rubbing off on her, especially as Mel picks up more Hælien. Jayce has already noticed and commented on it. 

Sky takes a breath and says, “Has Jayce told you about my friend, Viktor Novak?” 

She tenses immediately. Since Jayce is vehemently avoiding the Viktor problem and Elora has thankfully been focusing their conversations on Mel's everyday life in Piltover rather than everything that happened with the Herald, Mel's been trying not to think much more about him either. 

So much for pretending the problem wasn't a problem. 

“Yes, I know about him.” 

“What's going on?” Elora asks. 

Oh gods, Elora's here too. Mel is going to have to talk about this when Elora, her reincarnated childhood best friend and companion, is right here with her. 

She suddenly feels a terrifying heat on the back of her neck, in her cheeks. 

“Um, Jayce was a little upset the other week, because Sky's friend looks like the Viktor we knew.” She can't bring herself to look at Elora's face as she says it. She just has to keep barrelling on. She turns back to Sky. “I know Jayce ran away that day. If he caused your friend any offence, I promise he didn't mean to.” 

“I know, and it's fine,” Sky says, “but recently it happened again and Viktor was concerned. He doesn't want to be freaking Jayce out if they just happen to be in the same room together.”

This is news to Mel. Jayce hadn't mentioned it.

She thought that she was getting better at reading him these days. Sometimes she can see that Jayce has drifted away into his memories and isn't sure of how to bring himself back to the present moment. When that's the case, Mel gives him a small tap to let him know she's here and asks him to join her for a walk through the Sundial. Usually, it's enough to ground him. 

But then there was that day last week when Jayce came back from Sky's lab brooding and barely able to look Mel in the eye. She had left him to think on his own for a while, and after he spent a couple of hours in the dark, she made them tea and asked him to shuffle the playing cards for them. He wouldn't talk about what was upsetting him, but the repetitive motion seemed to calm him down eventually. Mel had let him win their game of Hearts. She told herself it was just one of those days. She had them too. 

“To tell the truth,” Sky says, “I'm happy to have Jayce in my lab, but I can tell it's not exactly his field of interest. He loses focus a lot. Viktor, though, he's an engineer – he's a teacher too. And very kind and funny. I think he and Jayce would get along if Jayce gave him a chance.” 

Mel can understand that line of logic. And then she thinks, oh. Maybe that's exactly what he's afraid of.

He and Viktor got on like a house of fire the first time they met. And then they literally almost burned the world down with them. 

She could bring this up to Jayce, but she doesn't want to send him spiraling. Apart from these blips, he's doing okay, isn't he? Surely she shouldn't push this if he's still avoiding even thinking about Viktor. 

“I'm sorry, I don't think Jayce wants to speak to him. Maybe one day he'll get there, but he's just not ready.”

Sky frowns to herself, but nods.

“Okay, I understand. Thank you for hearing me out.” 

“Of course,” she says. “Thank you for taking care of Jayce.” 

“Of course,” Sky echoes in return.

Once Sky leaves, Mel turns to Elora and finds concern, plain and easy to see, on her face as she thinks.

“Are you alright?” Elora says at last. 

“Yes. Why?” 

Her expression morphs as if to say isn't it obvious? “I don't know. I just thought … It must be strange, knowing there's someone here who looks so much like someone from the past.”

Mel has to look away.     

 

—

 

That night as they get into their respective beds (which they've pushed apart again, because Mel is apparently a bit of a kicker in her sleep), Mel asks Jayce if he's okay. He looks at her like she's said something funny. 

“Yeah, I'm okay. Are you okay?” His expression shifts quickly, laced with concern for her.

“I'm okay,” she says. 

Jayce smiles, content with that. Great. They're both okay. 

Except Mel isn't, because she's worried and already sweating in her freshly clean pyjamas. Night sweats aren't exactly new for her, but it frustrates her to no end, waking up all damp and hot with her heart racing a mile a second. 

All day, she's been distracted; she's not sure if she said the right thing to Sky. Should she have at least asked Jayce, tried to convince him to speak to Viktor the way she speaks to Elora? Maybe she could still bring it up, but surely it's wrong to upset him senselessly. 

Mel remembers that there was once a long stretch of time when she was confident in her convictions, but now she has no idea how to get back to that young woman who believed that she could do anything. 

Despite growing accustomed to her exile, Mel had always secretly yearned for the guiding hand she didn't have. She was independent and yet desperate for approval. It was so shameful, to want it so badly, but she couldn't help it. She wanted her mother to watch her work tirelessly as she built Piltover into a powerful player on Runeterra's stage and say, well done. You've done just the right thing. And now, once again, she wants someone to come and tell her those very words. You're doing the right thing. 

Because she's made so many mistakes. Mistakes that cost so many people their lives. If someone would only tell her that she's doing something right, that she's succeeding in keeping Jayce safe and maybe even happy, then maybe Mel will be able to live with herself.  

If she can't keep the only person she has left safe and sane, then what good is she? 

As she lies down and Jayce turns off the lights, Mel finds herself wishing that she could just go back. To her life before, as flawed as it was. She wants so badly to forget. Everyone else gets to – and good for them. It's great that they don't remember anything. It's for the best. It's for the best that Elora doesn't remember getting torn apart because of Mel's family. It's so good that Viktor gets to forget about all the people that he hurt as the Herald. It must be so nice to just forget about all the people that you scraped apart until they were blank and yours. Good for her mother, her mother whom she killed – who died before she ever thought about how generations of her family and the ideology that she clung to all her life killed countless people all over Runeterra. Good for all of them. It's so fucking great for them. Mel will just carry all this herself. It can all be hers.

Her bitterness turns to guilt in an instant. Is she really suggesting that she suffered more than the dead? She knows that Viktor Novak isn't guilty of the Herald's crimes; she wouldn't want Elora Chanda to remember Elora Sen's miserable death.

She's just tired. So tired of holding onto all the memories.

She resolves to be better, kinder, in the morning. All she can do is wait for the morning. 

 

—

 

It was bound to happen, Mel will reason after. The moment Jayce drew that likeness of her father it became an inevitability. A matter of time. 

Mel dreams of the crash. 

Consciousness begins with the carriage already on its side, an echo of pain shooting through Mel's arm, and her father bleeding out next to her. No one's neck should ever bend this way, and yet her father's does. She's already crying, her breath coming out in terrible wheezing gasps as she tries to call for help. 

It's been quite some time, but Mel is still well-versed in this particular nightmare. She has to stay here, writhing and weeping, until the carriage window cracks open and Elora's there, pulling her out and away from her father, who shouldn't be dead. How is it that her father can be dead? 

But in between her cries, Mel can't hear the usual commotion that accompanies the terrible ringing in her ears. That's wrong. She should be able to hear Elora's footsteps approaching by now, surely. Surely she's still there. Even in her sleep, Mel knows that this is how it's supposed to go. 

She hears the heavy stomp of boots. 

No shouting, no concerned pedestrians trying to break the carriage open. Just the even, steady thud of someone circling the carriage. 

Just as Mel realises that she should be trying to hide the sound of her breathing, the carriage door cracks open, inch by slow inch.

And there, climbing into the carriage, is her mother. 

Her eyes never leave Mel's as she easily contorts herself to fit in the cramped space. She doesn't even look at her husband. Mel needs to speak, has to tell her that she's sorry, that she never meant for any of this to happen, but her voice is nowhere to be found. 

Her mother is looking at her like she's going to unhinge her jaw and eat Mel whole. 

Please. I'm sorry. I had no choice. 

And then her mother's eyes flash gold. A molten fire eats up each sclera, consuming completely, as black smoke begins to curl out of her hands. 

“Please, what?” comes that melodic voice. 

No. No. Mel tries to scream, but there's nothing left. 

“Sly girl. I've been looking everywhere for you.” 

NO.

Mel wakes to searing white light. It's burning her, it is her, it might burn this room down, wherever she is. Mel will do it, if that's what she has to do. She cannot let the woman find her. 

She's been so distracted, trying to play normality, taking one day at a time, that she didn't think about the very real possibility of the woman being alive after all these years. Of her coming for Mel, seeking her debt. Coming for Jayce. For Elora, again – 

Mel can't stop gasping. She can't breathe in air. A suffocating pain descends on her throat, her chest, squeezing her to breaking point. Oh gods, she's going to die. 

Even as she dies, sobbing and burning with tears, she knows she has to get away from Jayce. She has to leave this room. She can't let them get to him. She can't let him see her like this. She has to get her legs to move. She has to run. 

But then there's a distant touch at her shoulders, the back of her neck. Her cheek. Someone's wiping away her tears. 

“I'm here. I'm here, I've got you.” There's Jayce's voice. His hands on her are cold, cutting through the terrible heat of her as she sends pulses of light through this dark space. 

Run, she thinks desperately. But she can't stop crying. 

“I've got you. It's over. I'm right here with you.” 

He brings her hand to his chest, which expands and deflates steadily, slowly. He presses her palm right there, into his heartbeat. Jayce is here, alive. He's okay. 

“Mel, I'm not going to let anything happen to you. I've got you. I promise.” 

She falls into his chest, firm and real and here with her, and cries until she runs out of tears. The light dissipates, leaving cool darkness in its wake. 

 

—

 

She's not sure how long they stay like that, locked together in an embrace. Eventually, Mel's breathing steadies, falling into the same rhythm as Jayce's.

Even scrubbed raw like this, her eyes and throat aching, Mel feels familiar, mortifying embarrassment wash over her. 

“Gods, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” 

Jayce just holds her a little tighter. 

“Is this okay?” he says. Meaning the hold, she thinks. 

She nods. 

“Don't say sorry. You're not allowed to say it, alright?” 

Mel says nothing. And then Jayce's hands are on her face again, moving her gently until she has to look at him. 

Even in the dark, the gem marks on his forehead glisten and sparkle. Like stars. 

“You've been looking after me all this time.” His smile for her is so soft. Mel realises that she thought it would be impossible for her to ever earn this smile again. “So you have to let me take care of you too, okay? Actually, you don't have a choice. I'm here to take care of you.” 

Mel shakes her head. She doesn't know how to tell him that being strong, being in control – it's all she's good for. It's what her mother tried to train her to be since she was a child. But even now, she keeps failing at it. 

“I'm okay, Jayce, it's fine.” She just needs to pull herself together. 

“No,” he says, firm and unflinching. 

“You shouldn't have to worry about me.” 

Jayce makes a tsk sound. He was never so brazen with her when they were younger. 

“You shouldn't have to worry about me either,” he says. “But here we are, worrying. Because we're friends and we love each other.” 

That makes Mel's eyes go wide as she looks at Jayce. He seems surprised, and then amused, by her shock.

It's not that it's a secret to Mel that she loves Jayce. She knows this. It's second nature to her now. She's just surprised that he said it. 

It's not the same kind of love that she felt before. When they were something else to each other. This is deeper than that. It's unyielding devotion. It's terrifying. 

“You're my best friend, Mel, so I've got you. There's no choice.” 

She wipes her tear-stricken eyes again. She can't meet the intensity of his gaze. 

“I'm your only friend,” she says. So that makes her his best friend by default, but trust Jayce Talis to use the actual words. Like they're only school kids. 

Jayce laughs at that. “Nuh-uh. I'll have you know that Sky's warming up to me. The other day I made Ivarr laugh. I crack that guy up.” 

Mel's laughing too. “You're ridiculous, Talis.” 

“I know. It's why you like me.” 

She thinks of the day they met. All of the ambition and hope in Jayce's eyes. And then again, later that night, how determined he was to show Mel, the world, the magic he could make. 

Jayce looks older now. A little more wary. More than a little tired, too, like her. What a pair they make. 

They don't go to sleep again. They don't talk the entire night either. They just lie there, safe. Together. 

 

—

 

Sky tells Viktor that she's spoken to Mel Medarda, who doesn't think it's a good idea to push Jayce to talk to him yet. And that's fine. It's totally fine. Viktor is fine. 

He's not fine.  

Viktor isn't even sure what's come over him. He can't remember the last time he was so fixated on something. Maybe it was the Blitzcrank project, all the way back in his twenties. Or maybe it was his ex, in his thirties. Either way, the fixation doesn't feel good this time. He wants to peel himself out of his skin, isolate whatever part of him is so stuck on Jayce Talis, and throw it away. Incinerate it for good measure. 

He asks Ashika if he can borrow any academic papers on Hextech that she can find. She says that surely he can access them himself through the library connected to the Conservatory, but Viktor specifies that he isn't interested in the science behind the technology – he wants to know about the history of its creators. 

He's in luck, since Ashika's best friend from work is apparently a little obsessed with the history of Hextech herself. 

Viktor stays up all night reading brief and obscure histories of Piltover's most famous inventor, the son of a toolmaker who tried to bend magic to his will and became the de facto head of the Council. He wonders if he'll find some tale of how Jayce Talis and Viktor Martinek's partnership soured, leading to a bitter rivalry before the latter's eventual death in an attack on Piltover's ruling council. Perhaps Jayce can't bear to look at him because he fell out with Martinek. But he finds no such story. The sources overwhelmingly suggest that Viktor's death undid Jayce almost entirely. There's no record of him anywhere for months, disappearing from his role as a councillor, until he finally appears again to organise the fight against the Machine Herald. 

So Viktor's original assumption was correct: it was simply heartbreak that he saw on Jayce's face the day they met. An unstoppable grief as he looked at someone who reminded him of a friend he loved. 

How would Viktor react, in Jayce's position? If he woke up stranded in the future and saw someone who looked close enough to Evelina or Ashika or Sky or his parents, he'd probably have a breakdown. The mere thought of such an immense loneliness, an all-consuming grief like that – it's bone chilling. 

And Jayce isn't just mourning a lost time. He's mourning his partner who happened to die in an assassination that was probably intended to kill him. He's a survivor of war. It's a wonder he can get out of bed in the morning and follow Sky around Hæli. 

Maybe Viktor is just tricking himself into turning something he wants to believe into reality, but surely Jayce is tired of spending energy on avoiding Viktor. He deserves peace. He deserves to not have to always be looking over his shoulder in case a ghost jumps out at him. 

So Viktor feels a plan forming. It's probably a bad plan, and Sky would most definitely tell him not to go through with it. 

He decides he just won't tell her. 

 

—

 

Viktor remembers Sky saying that once Jayce is finished observing her and Ivarr for the day, he likes to make his way to the Sundial. How hard can it be to find a one of a kind mage in a park Viktor's been visiting since he was a kid? 

Admittedly, he hasn't been here in a long time. He's been so absorbed with his work that he hasn't been making much time to be in nature; he tells himself his houseplants are enough. But walking through the arch, he's met with the sight of mighty trees, soft cascading flowers and moss, and he knows that there isn't anything quite like Hæli's parks. 

So captivated by the hanging orchids, Viktor nearly forgets why he's here, even as he carries his satchel full of mementos over his shoulder. But he turns the first corner of the winding path, and there he is. Jayce. 

He's just sitting on a bench, basking in the sunlight here. Wearing a short-sleeve white shirt, Viktor can now see how his scars extend all the way from his face and neck down his arm. They refract rainbow light along his rich brown skin. He's pressing and rubbing something sapphire blue into the divot of his wrist, and another sparkle of light catches Viktor's eye. Something's glowing just under his hairline. 

With Jayce here, the park, a place so familiar to Viktor, becomes something even more beautiful. Magical.

As he approaches, his cane announces his presence before he can. Jayce's head snaps towards him, and Viktor's speaking frantically before he even remembers what he's supposed to say. 

“If I promise to come over really slowly, do you promise not to run away?” 

Jayce stares at him, his lips parting in surprise. A moment later, he nods. 

True to his word, Viktor walks over at an almost glacial pace. He takes a seat next to Jayce on the bench. 

So far, so good. Jayce is still there, looking at him. He's gripping the edge of the bench so hard his knuckles nearly turn white. Now that Viktor's up close, he can see that the sapphire object he noticed before is actually a gem embedded in Jayce's skin. 

He has so many questions. But he has to stay focused. 

He clears his throat. “Okay, here I go.” 

Jayce watches him, seeming both scared and transfixed.

“Hi,” Viktor says with a smile. When he talks to people, he's rarely able to hold prolonged eye contact. He's thankful for that as he speaks now. “My name is Viktor Novak. I'm forty years old. I was born and raised in Hæli, and I've never left the Freljord. I'm an engineer, and five years ago I became a professor.” 

He pulls out his polaroids from his satchel. “This is my family.” He hands one of the photos to Jayce, who holds it like it's something delicate that he absolutely cannot drop. “Those are my parents and my sisters. That's Evelina and that's Ashika.” He shows another polaroid, a photo of him and Sky from a party when they were only twenty. They're grinning, eyes scrunched closed as the camera flashes in whatever dark dance hall they were in. “You know Sky, of course. We've been friends since we met at university.” 

Jayce stares at the polaroids for a moment, and then hands them back over. 

"Why are you telling me this?" he asks.

Viktor nearly gulps. It's the first time he's heard Jayce's honeyed voice.

“Sky told me that I look like someone you used to know.”

To Viktor's surprise, he hears a low, brief laugh. When he turns to meet Jayce's gaze, he's startled by the warmth of it.

“Sorry. It's just – that's the understatement of the century.” 

“Yes. Well – I guess … I was a bit freaked out. I know it's obviously more weird for you but – you know, I even went to my mother and asked her why I was named Viktor, tried to dig up what information I could find on our heritage. Rest assured, I'm named after my great grandmother, Viktoria. I know our ancestors weren't scientists. The story goes that they were shoemakers. We don't know what side of the divide they were on, but who knows? Maybe in your time my ancestors made the shoes you walked in.” 

Jayce's eyes are a little distant, kind of glassy. He's probably talking too much. 

“All this is to say, I'm not him.” 

Jayce does a double take. “I – I know that.” 

“But the resemblance is bad enough that you see me and run away.” 

The air feels heavy between them. The world's hanging on a gossamer thread and they're barely holding on. 

Viktor says, “I don't want to be the cause of any discomfort for you. I'll admit, I'm a bit intrigued by you, how it's possible for you to even be here, but I don't want to cause you distress. So the reason I came to talk to you is just to say that I'm not him, and if we see each other in the canteens or here in the park, you don't have to run. I have no intention of haunting you.” 

He hears Jayce's shaky breaths. His hands uncurl slowly from where they were wrapped around the bench. His thumb moves to trace the outline of that stone in his wrist. Viktor puts his polaroids away, readies his cane so that he can stand, but then –

“I'm sorry,” Jayce says, stopping Viktor in his tracks. He blinks, staying completely still as Jayce speaks. “I didn't mean to make you feel like you did something wrong. You … You just look so much like him.” 

Viktor nods slowly, like he's still trying to avoid startling Jayce with any sudden movements. 

“It's okay. I've been trying to think of what I would do if I was in your position and I saw someone that I really cared about. I don't know that I'd be able to just go about my day like it hadn't happened.”

Jayce hums – it's a deep, sweet sound – and then there's a silence, which is only interrupted by the faint breeze and ruffle of leaves around them.

And then Viktor's running mouth. 

“You actually broke a record of mine, you know.” 

“What?” 

“You left an office hour meeting with me in five seconds. The record before you was a minute and thirty."

For the first time, Jayce actually smiles. Not with a bitter laugh, this time. It's so gentle, barely even there, but it feels like a win. 

“Oh, I'm sorry,” he says.  

“Don't be. I wasn't too offended. When your students publish a quarterly paper called Rate the Professor, you grow a thick skin.” 

Jayce's smile grows slightly, intrigued. Viktor is expecting another awkward silence, but instead Jayce asks, “So? How do they rate you?” 

“Ah, apparently I'm very strict and have delusions of grandeur. And dramatic.”

Jayce snorts. “Someone dared to write that?” 

“Kids these days. You set one plagiarised paper on fire in front of your first year class and suddenly they all start spreading rumours.” Viktor tuts. Now they're both smiling. 

“Wow, maybe I should be glad you're not my teacher.” 

There's a small twist in Viktor's stomach. He doesn't know why. 

“It's too bad, really. I was kind of looking forward to teaching one of the fossils.” 

Jayce sighs. “God, is that nickname really sticking around here?” 

He hums and says, “I'm afraid so.” 

“Damn.” Jayce runs a hand through his hair, and there – right there, Viktor can see little iridescent oval marks on his forehead. They glimmer like the rest of him. “I suppose I've had worse.” 

“Really? Like what?” 

Jayce thinks for a moment, clicks his tongue. Viktor sees the apple of his throat bob as he swallows. 

He should probably look away. 

“Golden boy. That was pretty bad.” 

Viktor can't help it – he snorts. “Golden boy? How much of a teacher's pet do you have to be to earn that one?” 

Jayce laughs. “I wasn't one, trust me.” 

“I don't think I believe you. I bet you told the teacher when they forgot to hand out homework.” 

Oh boy, this is bad. Not just because he shouldn't tease, or because he's gone so off script he can't remember how he got here. It's bad because Jayce is smiling at him and then shyly looking away, and then looking back at him again, all warm and intense, and Viktor doesn't know how to deal with that. He clears his throat. 

“So how are you finding Sky's lab?” 

“It's interesting,” Jayce says, his eyes wandering to look off into the green around them. “She's a very intelligent scientist. It's – it's comforting to see that there are people like her properly investigating the impact of the arcane. In a safe way.”

Viktor looks at Jayce, at this man who touched the arcane in such a way that it left its fingerprints running down his skin. And he knows he shouldn't say it – he really shouldn't – but before he can stop himself, he's says, “Her work is fascinating. I've always avoided working with the arcane, but Sky – it's her dream.”

Jayce hums again. “That's – that's wise. Avoiding it.” 

Viktor shrugs. “Eh, I don't know about it being anything to do with wisdom, per say. More that I have other interests. If Sky was a zombie apocalypse kid, then I was a robot with lasers kid.” 

A pause. “Wait. Are you really telling me those robots in the Conservatory have lasers?” 

“Of course not,” Viktor says. But then he thinks of their metal cutting beam feature. “Actually … they don't not have lasers.” 

This baffles Jayce, apparently. “Oh no." And then: "You're a perplexing guy, aren't you, Viktor?”

He feels his cheeks go hot. “Eh, I don't know about that.” He hopes his voice stays steady. “But if you ever want a tour of the engineering department, or a demonstration of the laser robots, I'm your guy.” 

I'm your guy? What the hell is he saying? The whole point of this conversation was to make it clear he is not Jayce's guy. He's praying that his smile is normal.

Jayce looks down at his hands and clears his throat. 

“I, um – I have a habit of breaking things though,” he says. His voice is quieter now, as if he's worried someone will overhear. “And fainting, now, I guess too. You really won't … mind me being there?” 

Viktor blinks, says plainly, “I wouldn't have offered if I minded.”

There's that small smile again, and the slightly glassy eyes, trained straight on him. God, Jayce is –

He's captivating. 

Viktor needs to focus. 

He stands, finally. “Thank you. For hearing me out. I hope I'll see you around?” 

Jayce nods. “Okay.” 

“Okay,” Viktor repeats. “I hope you enjoy the sunshine, Jayce.” 

When he's out of Jayce's line of sight, the exhale that leaves Viktor nearly floors him. He doesn't know why his chest is bothering him this way. That went fine. It went pretty well, actually. Still, as his heart beats so quickly, he's left with an echo of his own thoughts:

What the fuck just happened? 

Notes:

writing postmortem time baybee!

this chapter was both cathartic and really challenging to write. i'm not sure if i'm rushing things on the page because in my head all the scenes of this story are happening everything everywhere all at once style, but i hope it's still enjoyable to read <3 hearing any of your thoughts would make my day <333

my favourite things to write here were definitely mel's spiritual musings, elora's apartment, and viktor losing the idgaf war yet again

also!! something i and so many other arcane fans are interested in when it comes to the show is the use of surnames. i fully believe that zaunite characters do have family names, but they aren't ever told to viewers as a way of highlighting how piltover disenfranchises the undercity and strips its citizens of any social capital. that's one of the reasons why surnames are so important to me in this fic. i also realise that the number of characters in this fic is just getting bigger and bigger, but i have no regrets because i want to show that there are full communities here and so many people looking out for one another. i loved writing the scene with viktor's family. we never meet viktor's family in the show, and the line "no one ever believed in me" lead me to so many tragic possibilities for his backstory, so i wanted viktor novak to have a big family that adores him and he adores in turn. there will be more of the novaks in the future!

thank you again for joining me. i hope you'll be back for the next chapter <333 love, yoyo x

Chapter 5: am i making you feel sick

Notes:

last chapter was momentous for me. this fic now has 1000 hits and 100 kudos. 50 people are subscribed. i've got the kind of wonderful comments i could only dream of earning before. writing this fic is so much fun for me, and having so many people follow it – i'm truly blessed

this has been one of my favourite chapters to write so far. time for multiple perspectives and magical therapy sessions (no eesha is not a licensed therapist AT ALL but she is a weird old lady and i love her)

my warning for this chapter is that jayce is dealing with internalised ableism. some relevant ambessa chosen of the wolf context: at the start of the novel mel meets a travelling mage and artist, and she convinces him to give her those famous tattoos. this man is revealed to be rudo, her biological father and a member of the black rose, but mel never meets him again or discovers his identity. the mention of him here is brief, but i thought i'd explain it for those who haven't read the book. okay let's go!!

chapter title from "strangers" by ethel cain. this song may be the anthem for the rest of this fic

Journal TWO. 

Drafts of Dr Elora Chanda's seminal work and 

assorted conversations with Mrs Mel Medarda.

Translated by Miss ██████ █ ██████

Since the creation of Hæli's Council of Histories, one of the body's key goals has been cultivating and protecting the research of the arcane fallout of the Battle of Hextech, which resulted in the mass exodus of Piltovans and Zaunites alike to the west of Runeterra. However, in the past fifty years, there has been a renewed academic interest in what came before the great tragedies: the foundation of the city states by Cecil B. Heimerdinger; the oppression of the mining factions of Piltover, which came to be known as Zaun; and, of course, the three entrepreneurs who brought Hextech into being. 

Plenty has been recorded about Jayce Talis, the ‘Man of Progress’ who promised to bring magic to the common man and cure the injustices of his beloved society on the way. In Hæli, first hand accounts of Talis, passed down through generations, are divided: he has been described as both Piltover's downfall and its greatest defender. Significantly less is known about his partner, Viktor Martinek, a genius born in Zaun, who worked his way to becoming Heimerdinger's assistant prior to joining Talis’ project. He was ultimately killed in an attack on Piltover's Council. 

Mel Medarda was Hextech's greatest investor, and a political marvel in her own right. Born in 170 APF (83BH) in Noxus, Medarda arrived in Piltover at fifteen to a wealthy but othered House. In a single decade, the Piltovan branch of the Medarda enterprise saw its wealth double, with Mel taking the reins from her guardian and heralding the expansion of the Sungates trade routes, funding Piltover's artisans, and achieving a nomination to the Council. This knowledge originates from ledgers recovered from Piltover and the accounts of two people who knew Mel Medarda firsthand, recorded by their children not long after Hæli's founding: the Piltovan Steb Loushen, and the Noxian defector Yevi Namara. Unfortunately, any other information about Mel Medarda was sadly lost to time. 

Now, in 349 AH, this is no longer the case. 

 

—

 

Elora's journals regarding Mel are entirely written in code. This is not due to paranoia or delusions about the importance of her work, but because she has her own short-hand language, easy to use when making notes and second-nature to her. 

“I thought you're meant to be transparent,” Mel says, guffawing over the state of Elora's pages. “Aren't I supposed to be able to read it and make corrections if I need to?” 

She reassures her, “You will absolutely see all my written reports. I promise you, these are just notes so that I remember everything we talk about. You don't want to be misquoted, right?” 

Mel asks Elora how this code even came to be, and she has the joy of telling her a story about her favourite person, her Nani. One day during her school holidays, Elora, ten years old and missing her friends and routine, had told Nani that she was bored. Nani, always busy with her work as a cell technician or else occupied with caring for Elora, clicked her tongue and shook her head, pausing her stitching of a dress Elora had accidentally torn. 

“Only boring people get bored,” she had said. “By the time dinner is on that table tonight, you have to tell me what interesting thing you have found to do.” 

Elora had gone straight to her room to write in her diary about how annoying it was that Nani was so indifferent to having any fun. But she couldn't write these things plainly – what if Nani happened upon her diary? – so she came up with a code. Before she knew it, she had done something interesting. The code evolved and became more complex as Elora grew up. 

They're sat together at Elora's table, and Mel reaches out and gently places her graceful hand over Elora's ink covered one. Her fingers stall immediately, thrumming at the contact of skin. Mel deftly removes the pen from Elora's grip and pulls the journal she's using towards her. Elora watches, the ghost of Mel's touch leaving a pulse on Elora's right hand as Mel reads. 

“Do you know the difference between a code and a cipher?” Mel asks. 

Elora, awestruck, says no. 

“Codes map one meaning onto another. Entire words or phrases can be distilled to a single symbol. Ciphers, though – a ciphertext has the same number of characters as its true text, and they depend on a companion text too. The key to it all.” 

Elora listens, transfixed. 

Mel is a person, not a language, or a puzzle. But if she were to be, would she be a code or cipher? Is a map enough, or is she only unlocked with a key?

 

—

 

E: What were your first impressions of Piltover? 

M: I was charmed more or less immediately. I remember we docked at the Gold Way port, and I was foolishly expecting some grand welcome from my great uncle [M. laughs, remembering this.] but he had just sent a carriage for me, which was late. It gave me time to wander around the harbour, with my chaperones. I saw sailors bartering with each other, artists painting the sea, students setting off on expeditions abroad. It was similar to Bel'zhun but totally different; Noxus had no stamp on the place. It was free. It felt like the city of opportunity. 

E: Wow… I think… I hope you won't mind what I'm about to say. 

M: I doubt I will. 

E: It sounds so daunting. If I'd been sent away to a new place at fifteen, I'd be terrified. You weren't scared? 

M: Of course I was. But I had brought a companion from Bel'zhun with me, so I didn't feel totally alone in my fear.

E: Ah. A little company goes a long way. 

M: Indeed. 

E: I suppose it was an honour too. To be chosen by your mother to represent her interests in Piltover. 

M: Actually, I was furious with her. I never stopped resenting her for it. And that wasn't why she sent me there. 

E: What was the reason? 

M: I was the weak link in our family. Both because of my magic, which she had stolen from some very powerful people, and because of my sentimentality. She said I would be better suited to the soft-spined idealists overseas. [Her voice carries a new weight when she speaks about her mother, Ambessa.] 

There are many words to describe Mel Medarda. Weak is not one of them. 

 

—

 

E: You have your first check-in with Eesha tomorrow, right?

M: Yes. Is this still on the record?

E: Technically. I wanted to ask if mages were ever trained in Piltover?

M: Not at all. Piltover was founded as a safe haven from empires in Valoran and war-mongering mages across the Shuriman continent. Cultivating magic abilities was a taboo. That changed a little, with Hextech, but after the battle… You could say that my expulsion from the Piltovan Council was an inevitability. 

E: Did you want to stay in Piltover? 

[M. takes a moment to consider this.]

M: It didn't matter what I wanted anymore. The people of Piltover and Zaun did not want me. 

 

—

 

To her surprise and disappointment, it's not Elora who collects Mel at the other end of the tunnel on the day she meets with Eesha. It's a fresh-faced young man who smiles and waves at Mel in the way an excited child would. She is immediately confused, but she smiles back as she makes her way towards him. 

“Hello, Mel. It's lovely to meet you.” The boy introduces himself as Joy, a name that obviously suits him. He bows his head to Mel, and she does the same.

He looks as if he's barely twenty. There are small braids tied off with string running through his long, roughly cut brown hair; freckles all over his olive skin along with clusters of spots; and warm brown eyes, big and eagerly staring at her. His light blue trousers and sunshine yellow top balloon around his small frame. Something about him is vaguely familiar. 

“You're here to take me to Eesha?” 

“Yes. I thought it would be better if I explained everything to you on the way over. Please, follow me.” 

They'll be taking the monorail to Second Point, where Eesha's home is. 

“Are you her assistant?” Mel asks. 

“Kind of? I'd like to think so,” Joy says with a natural honesty. Sometimes, the casual nature of this place, its people, catches her totally off guard. “She's my grandmother.” 

His appearance clicks into place. Mel tells him that she sees the resemblance, and Joy practically beams. 

“Thank you. Eesha always says so. Calls me her little me, which is ironic, since I'm basically double her height.”

Another culture shock: he calls his grandmother by her name. Mel cannot fathom addressing family without their title. Ambessa was always Mother, Azizi always Father. Then there was Menelik, whom she and Kino always addressed as Sir. Are things really so informal here? She thinks back to Elora, naturally, and remembers how she had called her grandmother Nani, an affectionate term for a maternal grandmother, she explained. It grounds her for some reason, the thought comforting her as Joy continues to ramble. She wishes Elora was here, walking with them. 

“Anyway, Eesha sent me to you in case you decided that you wanted an interpreter instead of speaking with her through the veil.” 

The veil? She supposes this is another Hælien concept that's completely new to her. She wishes, again, that Elora was here with a notebook. “I'm sorry, what do you mean?”

“Either I can translate her signing for you during your meetings, or she can just speak directly to you through the veil.” 

Mel blinks. “I – I don't know what the veil is, I'm afraid.” 

“Oh!” Joy says, a little delighted. “Did your college of mages have a different name for it?” 

His enthusiasm is relentless, she's realising. “I have no… college.” 

“Oh,” Joy repeats, more concerned this time. “Okay, so –” He thinks to himself for a moment, figuring out how best to explain this to her. 

Even after every bizarre experience she's had since waking up near the Hexgates, Mel still finds it unnerving to be at a loss like this, learning a new city and its people all over again, split apart from them by time and culture. As she and Joy walk down streets and up to the monorail station, she sees the way people look at her, with intrigue and wonder. In a simple white dress, her tattoos on show, Mel feels like more of an attraction than a person, even if no one in Hæli has given her a reason to believe that she would be treated as an oddity, a show. 

“So there's communicating like this, with our voices,” Joy says, “and then there's communicating –” 

His eyes flash with an unnatural violet tone. Bright and unmistakable. 

– like this.

Mel screeches to a halt. She nearly jumps out of her fucking skin. 

Because Joy's mouth hadn't moved, but his voice had rung, not loud but clearly, in her mind. In her mind, he's there, speaking like there is nothing odd about it. But he sees that this startles her, so he puts his hands up as if to say that he means no harm. 

I'm sorry! It's a basic messaging spell. 

“Can you –” Mel gulps, tries to make her mind as blank as possible, but her heartbeat is picking up with every passing second. “Can you hear what I'm thinking?” 

“No,” he says out loud, and then – I promise. That's a different spell. This is just for talking. 

Mel stares at him like he's grown two heads. Maybe he will; maybe people can actually do that here. 

“Gods, that's terrifying.” She feels winded, taking a moment to swallow her heart back down into her body. 

Joy frowns, his expression tainted with embarrassment. “I didn't mean to frighten you. I was just trying to show you …”

Mel is the strange one here, she knows, even if that thought is ridiculous to her. This must be second nature to him. To them. Casting spells and speaking through minds and being so at ease with it all. Looking at his saddened, childish face, Mel finds that she wants to reassure him. 

“No, it's okay. I've just never experienced that.” Is that true? Had that not been what the woman had done? Speak to her through her mind, making herself a shadow and hiding just behind Mel, where she couldn't see her out of the corner of her eye? “It's not your fault that I'm not used to this.” She hopes those are the right words. 

“Okay.” He begins walking slowly, guiding Mel forward again. She follows, matches his pace. “If me interpreting would make you more comfortable, that's fine. So long as you don't mind me knowing what you two talk about,” he says with a light laugh, a little forced now. “I won't tell anyone. I promise you complete secrecy.” 

Mel considers this as she walks. She doesn't know exactly what she'll be discussing with Eesha, only that she intends to monitor Mel's ability to control the arcane. She thinks of her history with it, full of bloodshed and thorns. She thinks of Joy's youthful face and innocent smile. 

“I think it will be better if it's just me and your grandmother.” 

Joy's smile is easy, not necessarily relieved as she expected. Whatever it is in his expression, it's simpler than all this really is. 

“As you wish.” 

 

—

 

Eesha is in charge of Hæli's most mysterious council, so Mel expects her home to be an entire floor of Second Point. Some grand, futuristic estate – a great atrium and multiple rooms, covered in art and full of old sculptures, bookshelves with glowing tomes and maybe even jars of strange potions. Okay, she's still unsure of  how inaccurate her perceptions of mages really are, but while those assumptions might be all wrong, Mel is certain that she knows power. She knows what people who have it tend to do with it. Even when the money – and therefore the power – is old, when it has been passed down through generations and its inheritors have been taught to hide the extent of it, to not be so gauche as to flaunt it – even then they cannot help themselves. It reveals itself in their home, or else the number of homes they have. It is in the difference between their worries and the worries of the people that they govern or employ. It is in the way they carry themselves, as if they are untouchable. Too often, they are. 

So when Joy taps a code on the pad next to the entrance of Eesha's home and holds the door open for Mel, she does not expect to find what she does. A quaint kitchen and living room, only a little bigger than the length and width of Elora's studio. Two doors, one of them left ajar – a bathroom, by the look of the plain blue tiles. The other must be another hallway, Mel thinks, leading onto the rest of Eesha's home. But a second later, Eesha comes out of this door, and Mel can see a single bed behind her, tucked against a wall. She leaves this door to her bedroom, her most private space, open as well. The walls of this place are a warm, light peach tone. The furniture is simple and wooden. Looking a little closer, Mel can make out small, intricate patterns on the arches of the otherwise plain chairs at the little dining table in the corner. There is a simple blue teapot there as well and four small metal cups with no handles, stacked together. Mel stands completely still, suddenly recalibrating, as she keeps having to do.

Eesha smiles at her, the brightness of it so similar to that of her grandson's, and signs something. Joy translates. Mel, thank you so much for coming. It is good to see you again. 

Is it? Mel wonders. Is it really lovely or good for these strangers to see her? Wouldn't they rather that Elora had never found her and Jayce and decided to haul them back here, upturning all the routines of all these officials? 

“Thank you for inviting me to your home,” Mel says. 

Of course. I have been looking forward to the work we will do together, Eesha replies, and then turns to Joy. Something passes between them, and Mel wonders if they are speaking together without Mel knowing. Through the veil. 

“I was just explaining that you would prefer to work with Eesha one on one,” Joy explains.

Eesha smiles at Mel again, and then walks forward to him. She signs, a hand touching her chin and extending out to him, and then reaches up to pinch Joy's full cheek.

“Don't,” he says with a bashful laugh. Eesha shoos him away, and Joy excuses himself, leaving Mel reeling at the casualness between them, the easy display of it. Mel cannot fathom ever being so openly affectionate with her family in front of others. Maybe she would have been with Kino when they were younger, but even hugging in front of attendants was an embarrassment to them in their teenage years.

Mel is pulled back from thoughts of Kino with a single clap of Eesha's hands. She takes a deep breath, and there's that flash of colour across her eyes. 

It's no less unnerving the second time. 

Let's get started, shall we?  

There it is. Eesha's voice in Mel's head is not like any she's ever heard. It takes her a moment to take in the fullness of those words, and she realises that voice is perhaps the wrong term all together, but it's the only one she has. Eesha's voice is something impossible to listen to. It appears in her mind not as sounds, but letters and words and the very concept of let's get started, at once tangible and totally invisible in front of her. It's akin to knowing that there are atoms all around her even though Mel is not able to see them.

“How can you do that?” Mel asks, too awestruck to worry about it being a stupid question. 

Come. Let's sit down. She leads Mel to the dining table, and they both take a seat. How are you finding Hæli, Mel? 

As much as she wants to insist that Eesha answer her question, she knows she's in no position to. “I’m grateful to be here,” she says. It's both the truth and what she imagines Eesha will want to hear. “It's remarkable, and everyone here has been so generous to me and Jayce. I'm trying to help Elora as much as I can so that I can begin to repay you all.” 

The moment the word repay leaves her mouth, she regrets it. If there's one thing she's learnt about this place, it's that it has no fixation on money and debt as Piltover and Noxus did. She and Jayce have their transition fund and soon a wage, same as everybody else, but they've barely spent a penny. Every time Mel goes to a canteen, she expects them to hit her with a huge bill, the tab she's been running up since she's arrived, but there's no such thing. People here are just provided for. It makes so much sense, and yet it's completely foreign to her.

I imagine it's difficult, though, to spend so much of your time thinking about the past. 

Mel speaks plainly. “I would probably be thinking about it this much in any case. It's better to put it to use. And it's important to remember everyone that's not here with me. Maybe if I remember them, I can honour them and avoid making the mistakes we made.” 

She thinks of Jayce and Viktor, spinning in man-made anti-gravity, and of herself, captivated and already considering how their dream could be put to use. They had been so young then. 

Use. Repayment. It's always taking, with her. Just like every other Medarda. 

She hears a hum in her mind. A gentle buzz transmitted from Eesha. 

What a monumental task you've set yourself. 

Mel frowns, confused for a moment. She's about to tell her that it's necessary, that it's the least she can do, but then Eesha answers her previous question. It's a simple spell, this. Messaging, we call it. It's something that mages here learn very young. You picture a rune in your mind or draw it out in front of you, which allows you to cast it. I can teach you, if you wish.

Mel smiles awkwardly, aware that there is so much that she doesn't know about the arcane. She doesn't know the correct terms, the right methods. Every time she's used magic, in the Council Hall, on the battlefield against her mother, it's only been an instinct.

She thinks of Jayce in Sky's lab, on the verge of unconsciousness and sending a rune to her, a symbol that was apparently only visible to Mel. She's forgotten the exact shape of it now, but she remembers feeling drawn to it, as if it was only an extension of Jayce. It allowed him to see into her memories and he found her father waiting there. Jayce must be so familiar with runes after spending years inscribing machinery with them that now the magic is second nature to him too. One more terrible thing that they have in common. 

And then – the other night. Her nightmare. I've been looking everywhere for you. She feels the urgent need to clarify something.

“These aren't lessons, are they? You're just monitoring me? I have no intention of becoming a skilled mage. I just want to prove to you that I can control myself. Of course, if becoming familiar with the theory is necessary, then I can do that.” 

Eesha's eyes narrow a little as she looks at Mel thoughtfully. Control, she echoes. I see. She sits up straighter, clasps her hands together and leans forward. Mel takes care not to alter her posture in any way. 

Let me try to make myself clear so that we both can proceed comfortably. Has Elora told you much about the Council of the Freljord?

Mel shakes her head. “Not really. I know that many of you are spiritual guides.” 

Eesha smiles. That's one of our jobs, certainly. We have many roles here, but yes, we task ourselves with helping the mages of our city. It is our aim to guide them so that they can live in harmony with the arcane. We do not train them so that we can put them to use. She doesn't repeat Mel's choice of words with scorn or derision, but she feels vaguely ashamed anyway. If a mage decides that they don't want to help our city through arcane means, they do not have to. Our attitude to magic is one of respect and coexistence. It is a fact of life. Not something to be turned into a weapon or forced onto people.

Mel's memory fires, thinking of how the woman had said that her mother made Mel to be a weapon, and then turned around and used Mel like one anyway. Her whole life, Mel has been a bargaining chip or a pawn or a sword. She was starved in the woman's cave for months. She felt thorns slice through her insides until she couldn't take it anymore. There is nothing arcane in her that was not forced upon her.

“That's … different to how I've come to know the arcane.” 

I can see that. Your magic is tied up in knots. I hope that I will be able to help you undo them, as it were. This way, you will be able to live here in peace.  

“I don't know that peace is possible for me.” 

She says this without thinking, and immediately scorns herself for it. What a pitiful thing to say. When did she become this pathetic? 

But Eesha smiles kindly at her. We'll give it our best shot anyway. Of course, it will be uncomfortable, but I believe it will be worth it. 

Mel can't bear the softness of her smile. She wants to look away, but she also doesn't want to miss a moment of it. 

Can I ask you about the first time you experienced a connection to the arcane? 

The breath Mel inhales stalls in her lungs, but as she hesitates, she feels an overwhelming exhaustion. Is she going to hide and shy away from this for the rest of her days? How many times can she wake up from her nightmares, gasping in the dark, until Jayce grows sick of her or cannot coax her away from that panicked edge? She swallows, and wills herself to speak.

“The Council Hall in Piltover was bombed.” She tries to keep her voice blunt, unbothered. “Jayce and I should have died, but I protected us somehow. And then months later, I was abducted by mages. An order of them, whom my mother had made an enemy of. They killed my brother, my dearest friend, and tortured me.” She clears her throat, reminded of the thirst. The hunger in that prison. “They were trying to awaken the arcane in me, and they succeeded. Then I helped them kill my mother.” She waits for shock on Eesha's face. It doesn't come. She only nods. “I had to. She would have killed thousands otherwise, probably more. But I stole her back from them before she could die alone.” 

If Ambessa were here, she'd laugh and spit in Mel's face. As if Mel holding her mother as she died could ever be a noble deed. 

But the voice that appears in Mel's mind is not her mother's.

I am deeply sorry, Mel. Eesha's presence in front of her, in her head, wraps around her like a warm hug. An embrace she does not deserve. 

She shakes her head. “It's okay. I'm alright.” 

I don't know anyone who could be alright after suffering such unbearable losses. 

Mel feels her eyes begin to water. She wipes at them as if she's tired. 

Can I ask you about your brother? Eesha asks. 

She nods, preparing to say that no, she does not know how he died. Yes, she is certain that it was the order who did it. They probably killed her father too. Gods, they've stripped Mel apart, piece by piece. She's not even sure what's left of her now. 

It's easier to hold onto herself when she's near Jayce. Elora, too. Here, on her own, she's barely a person. 

Eesha cuts through those thoughts cleanly. What was his name? 

“Kino,” Mel says. Her heart aches. Even after all these years, she still loves the sound of his name. Those two syllables simply can't lose their magic. 

Older or younger?

“Older.”

You were close?

Mel nods again. “When we were young, yes.” But on second thought, she says, “I hadn't seen him for nearly two decades, though, before he –” She can't finish that sentence. Tries again. “I was sent away from home at fifteen, and we wrote to each other often. I begged him to come and visit me in Piltover, but he said that there was something in Noxus that he couldn't leave behind. Now I know it was them – the mages he was hunting, who were actually hunting him.” 

Eesha nods, her expression calm. What was he like? 

“He's – he was –” 

She stutters again. She never used to before. How should she describe Kino? Which Kino? The one she grew up with, the one from the letters, the ghost she met in the prison? 

Eventually, she settles on, “He was funny. He did excellent impressions, would scare me half to death imitating our parents.” The thought makes her smile. “He was so friendly and charismatic; he could charm anybody. You met him, and that was it, you wanted to be in his orbit. I envied him for that. I wanted to be just like him.” She remembers herself, eighteen and a socialite on the rise, her persona practically modelled on her memories of Kino. “I was born with him loving me,” she says suddenly. “I know there's no point but I wish that we'd never been separated.” 

Her words run out, and she's left with the sheer surprise of voicing such thoughts. She never talks about Kino. She couldn't even bear to talk about him with her Elora after her mother brought the news of his death, even though Elora had been his friend and was mourning too. She had decided, back then, that she couldn't allow herself to revert to her old ways, crying over her dead family in Elora's arms. They had grown up after all. 

Tears are brimming again in her eyes. She can't blame it on tiredness.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “I don't really talk about Kino with Jayce. Or anybody.” 

Eesha nods. Then she reaches for the teapot and two of the metal cups. She pours something with a strong herbal smell, hands Mel a cup, and raises her own. 

To Kino Medarda, Eesha says, his name so gentle in her hands. A good man who is so well loved by his sister that his memory lives on. 

The tears fall now, and she rushes to rub them away. She hums, taps her cup to Elora's with a soft clink, and sips the hot tea. It's got to be made of some root close to ginger, but with a sweeter note. It makes its way pleasantly down her throat, warming her chest from the inside. 

“The other day I dreamt of the woman who – who did all of it. She said she was looking for me, and I couldn't tell if it was real.” It occurs to Mel now that she probably should have notified somebody of this immediately. “I'm sorry, I should have told you. If her order is coming for me, then I'm putting your people in danger.” 

Elora Sen appears in her mind, torn through with roses and thorns, and then she transforms into Elora Chanda, waiting to choke on petals. Mel feels her skin itch, her vision blur as the tears keep coming. 

Eesha puts her hand over Mel's. With a soft squeeze, she says, I am confident that you do not need to fear anyone finding you here. Let's finish our tea, and then I'm taking you for a walk. There is so much for you to see, my dear. 

Mel nods. She can't remember the last time anyone called her my dear. Maybe Cassandra Kiramman, when she was much younger. When it was easier to find the good in her. 

 

—

 

As soon as Eesha puts on a coat and brings out a spare cloak for Mel, along with a matching hat and gloves, she prepares herself for the cold winds outside of the city. Eesha weaves through Second Point's streets with a speed that surprises Mel, and she can only hope that she'll be so physically fit if she reaches Eesha's age. (How old is she anyway? It's too rude to ask.) When they take the elevator to the lowest level of the tower and make for the exit gate, the two women dressed in thick black clothes and stationed by the thick, steel door smile and wave them right through: with a push of a button, the door unlocks, and they're heading out into the snow.

I try to make it out here as often as I can. Cold air keeps you young. She winks at Mel like she's let her in on some great secret. She can't help but smile, realising just how much she's enjoying Eesha's company. She hopes Eesha likes her too. 

They walk for around twenty minutes, until there's a considerable distance between them and the city's stone borders. Eesha surveys the spot they've found, a raised bed of earth and ice. Mel can see that the snow here isn't as thick as it was the day she and Jayce arrived here. 

“Is it spring time soon? Elora mentioned that it's a very important time here.” Most of all, she's intrigued about the fishing season. She's grown used to a vegetarian diet, but she still misses the taste of white meat. 

Eesha takes a deep breath and smiles. Yes, it is. In about a month, there will be the spring festival. Then she looks at Mel, up and down, and nods as if she's decided something. You'll have to dress up. Jayce, too. I think you'll enjoy the celebrations.

Mel makes a mental note. Ask where to find a formal outfit. Ask Elora her favourite memory of all the spring festivals she's seen. 

I love this view, Eesha says, looking back again at Hæli. 

Mel tries to see it through her eyes: a goliath, an impenetrable fortress. Or maybe it's simpler than that. Maybe it's just home.

One of the many incredible things about our city is its defenses. Mel considers this and finds that she agrees, looking at this enormous structure of stone and frost-glass. Head out far enough, and it could be any other mountain, impossible to climb. But then Eesha adds, The magic around it has been perfected over hundreds of years. 

Mel's eyes go wide. She blinks and expects to see something that she's missed, some glow that reveals the arcane, but she sees the same fortress as before. 

Immediately, she has questions. 

“Are there runes carved into the stone? That's how Jayce and Viktor crafted the Hexgates in Piltover.”

Eesha shakes her head. That kind of magic will drain the very life out of the matter of its binding. We rarely use such forceful methods. The cost is too great.

Mel tries not to shrink into herself. If only the three of them had the guidance of a mage, back then. Someone to tell them not to meddle with the arcane fabric of the world around them. But she supposes there was Heimerdinger, and Mel had supported Jayce in kicking him off the very council he created. 

The magic we use requires constant maintenance. Intention. There is a way for you to see it.

Eesha raises a hand, and the air around them begins to simmer. She draws one of her plump fingers and begins to carve a rune into the air, violet bright and crackling like lightning in front of Mel's eyes. She paints a half moon shape, and then three dots around it. 

Your magic is already in tune with the ethereal plane. I'm sure with practice, you could train yourself to see through the veil between this plane and ours at all times. But for the sake of ease, I want you to imagine this rune in front of you. With any luck, you'll be able to detect the magic around Hæli. Try it. 

Mel focuses on the shape of the light in front of her, tries to picture drawing it herself, as if it was as simple as painting. A brushstroke here, and purposeful smudge of colour there. Her own stamp, her signature in the corner. She draws it in her mind –

And the shield reveals itself.

Thousands of blue and lilac runes – circles and diamond shapes and jagged lines and sketches of anatomical hearts and eyes – appear all over the fortress, cloaking it entirely, each line of magic spinning and dancing and breathing. They expand and contract like lungs, fire off signals to make one another quake and fizzle. It's unlike anything Mel has ever seen. It's nothing like her magic, fleeting flashes of light extracted out of her. This is an entire organism, a body of the arcane wrapped around a city, taking its shape. When one rune dims, another sends a surge of energy to carry the load until the first rune is back and glowing in full force. Mel feels the pull almost instantly. The urge towards it. The urge to run until she is back in its arms, its safety.

It's magnificent. It's the kind of magic that only exists in legends.

“How?” she whispers, breathless with the sight of it. 

Thousands of us, Eesha replies. We work together to keep us all safe. 

Mel watches the shield, her mouth agape. “It's incredible.”

She feels Eesha's hand on her wrist, an unnatural but not unwelcome press of warm skin. 

Do you recognise any of those runes, Mel?

She shakes her head.

You have been wearing them for some time.

Mel's head whips round to Eesha so quickly she thinks she hears a small crack with the motion. 

“What? You mean my tattoos?”

Eesha nods. Where did you get them? 

Has Eesha even seen her tattoos? Mel doesn't think she's worn something revealing in front of her. Perhaps she can sense them. “I met a Targonian sun worshipper once, when I was a teenager. I asked him for something similar to his tattoos.” 

Eesha nods, and begins to cast more runes into the air. This, she says, drawing an arch shape that Mel recognises as the pattern on her back, is a protection rune. These – the symbols across her shoulders, her thighs – are often used for illusory purposes. The man who gave these to you could evidently see the magic within you, and took it upon himself to disguise you from other mages. He didn't explain their meaning with you? 

Mel thinks back to the artist she met at the market in Bel'zhun when she was a child. How she had requested symbols of strength, and he had spoken only about marks of fortitude and perseverance, the kind great fighters would wear. And yet, here is another part of herself, wrapped in an illusion. She looks at her hands, all the gold ink that stretched and hardened into armour, covering her under the pressure of captivity.  

She turns to the city, the magic veil that protects it. How does she build something like that around herself? 

The day we met, Eesha says, I told you I believe that this is the safest place for you and Jayce to be. If you didn't believe me before, I hope you can start now. 

Mel feels tears in her eyes yet again. She can't allow another embarrassment in front of Eesha, so when she looks Eesha in the eye once more, she puts on her most determined smile and asks, “Can you show me the message rune?” 

Eesha raises an eyebrow. Learning two runes in less than an hour? 

Mel waits in anticipation. And then, Eesha grins. 

Sounds reasonable to me. 

 

—

 

It's too early to head back to the Annex and wait around for Jayce; he won't be back from Sky's lab for two hours. Mel feels both exhausted and a buzz under her skin, an excitement she needs to shake out. So she goes to the second person that she likes talking to.  

She knocks on Elora's door, tapping her foot on the ground as she waits. After thirty seconds, she tries again, but still, there's no response. 

Where else might Elora be?

The issue is that Mel can't remember the route to Elora's shared office, so the Annex it is. On the way, she wonders what her Elora would think of this, her friendship with a woman who looks just like her. 

Elora was never the jealous type, or perhaps she was and Mel simply never warranted jealousy from her. But as she thinks, she remembers the slight changes in Elora when she started seeing Jayce. How suddenly she'd bite her tongue when they were teasing each other as usual. How she was less openly affectionate. She was never cold, but it was as if she was giving Mel and Jayce space even when he wasn't in the room. 

You're a bit self-centred, aren't you? Mel hears an echo of Elora's voice in her mind. There was a lot happening back then. Maybe I was busy. But the words are transparent. Empty. They're only Mel's thoughts. 

Obsessed with me in every time and place, huh? That sounds a bit more like her. It's true that Elora Chanda carries that familiar kindness in her, that same open heart, and that Mel can't help but want to be around her – but she knows that they're not the same person. Of course she knows that.

And yet.

Can you blame me? Mel wants to say. If our paths were switched, wouldn't you want to be with me if you could? 

The thought stops her in her tracks. There's no reply obviously. Obviously. 

Would Elora Sen want to be with her now? Now that Mel is so different? Would she recognise her? 

Be with you how?

Mel forgets to breathe. Only for a second, but it's a long second.

Wouldn't you want to be my friend? she clarifies, to nobody but herself. 

But then she's thinking of the sound of Elora saying I love you. Of her in her Academy uniform in the quad. Of how she looked when she pulled her hair back behind her ears. Of her pretty voice, words blending together as Elora recalled Mel's itinerary for whichever day. Every day. 

She thinks of a memory that never happened: pulling Elora into ocean waves.

Of Elora Chanda watering plants and telling Mel their names. Talking about all the places and plants she wants to see. Calling Mel deeper into the sea until she loses her footing and falls into her soft, full arms –

Mel's face burns. 

She can't remember the last time she felt this way; she can't name the feeling either. She just knows that she has to get back to the Annex. She focuses on every turn: right, left, right again. She occupies her mind until she's through the tunnel and the Annex door is shut behind her. Mel makes her way upstairs to hers and Jayce's room and opens her chest of drawers. It's barely full, and there's one compartment that's empty apart from Elora's green jumper. 

She hesitates for a moment, before taking the fabric into her hands, feeling the soft fibres give against her skin. She closes her eyes, and remembers how Elora had taken it off before she left to meet with the Councils all those weeks ago, holding it out so Mel could slip her arms into the sleeves. She imagines that Elora was close enough to feel her gentle breath on the back of her neck. 

Her eyes shoot open as her stomach flips. She's being ridiculous. Mel really doesn't have the time for a craving like this. She has too many things to worry about. And it's inappropriate. Elora is … Elora. She's one of Mel's only friends. If that. It's Elora's job to help Mel right now, to be kind to her as she adjusts to Hæli. So for Mel to take advantage, to want to imagine –

She puts the jumper back in its drawer. 

Luckily, she has something new to occupy herself with. She heads to the far side of the room and begins to picture the half moon with its three grounding points, the rune that will allow her to detect the arcane around her. She feels a hum, the telltale sign of magic waking up beneath her skin, as golden light begins to extend along her chest and arms, casting an almost sunset glow across the bedroom. 

Mel takes a deep breath in and lets the rune go with her exhale, trying to release it as gently as she can, the way Eesha showed her. When she looks up again, she can't help the triumphant smile that sprouts on her face, because along every wall of the room are the protection runes, spinning comfortably, totally at ease in their vibrant blue glory. 

She watches them for a few minutes, comforted by their little movements, until her eyelids begin to feel heavy. She waves the arcane away completely, keeping in mind Eesha's advice: some runes and spells will take more energy than others, and it is imperative that Mel cuts her tether to the arcane the moment she feels any tiredness. She doesn't want to feel too exhausted before she can give Jayce a demonstration. 

So she relaxes and lies down on her bed, just staring at the white and silver walls, and then she remembers another thing Eesha said, the first time they met: she and Jayce should decorate this place. It's too bare here. It only feels like it's theirs when they're about to sleep under their plain white bedsheets. They could die tomorrow and there wouldn't be any physical evidence left of them. As morbid as it is, she would like Elora to be able to point to these walls and say, “Mel Medarda picked out this colour. She used that comb. This was her favourite blanket.” 

By the time Jayce gets home – she's decided she'll call it home for the sake of ease – she's already made notes: she's taken the measurements of the room and its sparse furniture; she's got ideas about the colour scheme she'd like not just in here, but around the whole house. Interior design was never exactly Mel's calling, but standing with the tape measure she found in the living room cabinet and imagining wallpaper patterns, she feels calm. 

“What's going on?” Jayce asks as he enters the room, observing immediately that their beds are slightly out of place. 

“We should paint this room, I think,” Mel replies, offering the most hopeful smile she can muster, hoping that it will have some effect on him. 

“Oh yeah?” Jayce looks a bit confused, but he's returning her smile. “What brought this on?”

“I'm just tired of all the blank walls around here. It just feels a bit …”

“Clinical?” 

“Exactly.” When he looks at her, Mel thinks that maybe he's the only person who understands her. Not that other people don't try – Elora and Eesha have made it very clear that they want to – but with Jayce, it's effortless. It's simple, when nothing else is. 

“It's a good idea,” Jayce says. 

Mel beams. “I was thinking we could have a statement wall. Maybe a bright, deep blue –” She remembers where she's seen the tone she likes: Elora's studio. Okay, so not that colour. “Actually, no. What about green?”

“Wouldn't something lighter be more relaxing?” Jayce asks. 

Mel raises an eyebrow.

“Are we about to have an argument?” she teases. 

He smiles. “Of course not. I just always preferred paler walls and statement furniture.” He shrugs as he says it. Mel's smile must be hilarious because he laughs, quiet and brief but delightful. “Who doesn't like pale blue?”

“How about you paint this room your cowardly pale blue, and I'll paint the room next door the colour I like? It can be a competition.”

Jayce's shoulders drop slightly and he tries to disguise it by stretching his arms back for a moment. “You're moving out of here? Do I snore too loudly?” He tries making his voice sound light and casual – and fails miserably. She can count on Jayce to wear his heart on his sleeve. 

“No, and I don't think so, but maybe it's good for us to have our separate spaces. The room next door could be my studio. The one at the end could be your study?”

Jayce's smile returns, fond and shy. “What would I need a study for?” 

“All the homework Sky gives you,” Mel says, trying to match her smile to his. “It's only a suggestion.” 

They've held each other through nightmares and sleeplessness, through Jayce's pains and Mel's panic attacks, but this moment makes her feel strangely vulnerable. She doesn't feel used to domesticity anymore. Whatever she had once with her Elora feels so far in the past now. 

Maybe she and Jayce can make something new. A simpler life, if they'll let themselves have it. 

They spend the rest of the day walking around the Annex, imagining what kind of furniture they'd like in each room. Of course, it's unlikely that they'll be able to find anything that they're envisioning; all the furnishings Mel has seen around Hæli are plain and practical, but maybe they could find something like those woodcarved chairs in Eesha's home. It's then that Mel is reminded of her meeting with Eesha in the morning.

“Was she nice?” Jayce asks.

“Very,” Mel says. She knows Jayce's first meeting with her is at the end of the week. Before, even mentioning it had made Jayce retreat into his shell. She wants to make sure he'll go through with it. “I think she can help us. Once you get over the telepathy, she's very easy to talk to.”

“The what?” 

Mel decides she's going to try to cast the rune in the air this time. She feels the energy within her, the renewal that came with simply talking to Jayce, and calls for the hum. Her skin shines, and she draws the messaging rune – she's decided to call it the squiggle, since it's just a jaggedy line. “Don't freak out,” she says. And finally, she sends Jayce a message.

Hello, she says as quietly as she can. 

“FUCKING hell!” Jayce shouts out, stumbling back and away from her. “What the fuck, Mel!” 

I told you not to freak out! She suddenly has a lot more sympathy for Joy.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Jayce says, putting his hands over his ears. But the way he's looking at her isn't sheer horror. There's an upward curl to his lips. He looks at her with wonder. 

Mel thinks nothing could take the wonder away from Jayce Talis. 

“Do it again.” 

You won't have to learn this. Eesha says she's not here to teach us. She's just going to help us figure out how to live with it. 

Jayce considers this for a moment and nods, resolute. “Anything to get this under control, I suppose.” He rubs at his face with his left hand, with its glowing scars. 

“Unfortunately I don't think we should use that word around her.” 

Mel explains how Eesha's attitude towards the arcane is on the idealistic and reverent end of the scale. How she happened to show Mel the shield rune to quiet her worries, and it had been Mel's decision to try spellcasting for herself. Maybe the next time they meet, Mel won't choose to again. It's unlikely that Eesha ever would, but if she did show Mel some great arcane power, she thinks that she'll realise her limits and catch herself. She had seen through the woman's illusions and known to cut off their connection, hadn't she? For the first time in an age, Mel feels confident that she knows when to stop. 

Jayce, evidently, doesn't afford himself that kind of trust. 

“I think we already learned that I have no right to coexist with the arcane, let alone learn more about it,” he says quietly, already shaking his leg. 

Mel puts a hand out to stop it, tries rubbing soothing circles into his knee. Whatever worry that consumes Jayce seems momentarily paused by the contact.  

“But we already are coexisting with it. Look at us.” 

The two of them look down at their hands. Mel's with her gold armour, Jayce's with his opalescent webs. 

“Will you promise me that you'll try meeting with her?” Mel says. “It's not because I want us to become masters of the arcane; I know better than that now. We both do. I just think she can help us get to –” 

It's the wrong word, but she'll say it anyway. 

“– normality. Our version of it,” she clarifies. “Weird normality.” 

Every second of silence from Jayce has her heart beating desperately and wildly. But finally, he smiles. 

“Weird normality, huh?” he says. “We can give it a try.” 

 

—

 

It's pretty clear to Jayce that he and normality don't fit together anymore, but he finds himself playing pretend anyway. 

Sky, Ivarr, and a few of Sky's mentees spend their days examining the samples from Piltover, plotting degradation and mutation, examining the effect of different stabilising agents, testing if arcane corruption can be isolated and even removed. It's intriguing work, and Jayce feels lucky to be allowed to observe. He also feels watched – by Sky's mentees, that is. It's not creepy or malevolent; they're just young scientists and he happens to be a scientific wonder, a living subject changed by the arcane. They smile when he looks at them, and observe him when they think he doesn't notice it. 

Thanks to his new sensory sensitivity and his bad leg, Jayce usually stays at a desk in the corner of the room, where Sky dims the overhead lights, leaves a spare pair of noise plugs in case he's forgotten the ones Elora bought for him, and asks him to read her notes and chart their data. Sometimes he has useful input – knowledge of the arcane that's otherwise been lost to time, possible explanations for variation in degradation depending on the source of the soils or plants she's analysing – but mostly he enjoys getting lost in the mundanity of reviewing Sky's findings and drawing tables and reaction graphs by hand. So long as she keeps them coming, Jayce can keep up and away from his worries. 

Like Viktor, for example. 

His plan to stay away from Viktor had lasted all of two weeks. He'd seen him in the Fifth Point canteen and bolted as quickly as he could, hoping that would be the end of it. But apparently, he had only made things worse, because Viktor decided that he had to seek Jayce out and clear the air. 

It crosses Jayce's mind that it was a very Viktor thing to do. Hadn't they met the first time because Viktor had seen Jayce in handcuffs in his destroyed apartment, read his research, and decided that he couldn't just let it go? He had to go and stop Jayce from jumping off the edge of a building and make him believe in his research again, and be brilliant and insane and break into Heimerdinger's lab, and solve Jayce's experiment. He thinks of irreversible reactions. Of Viktor telling Jayce his name and that being the start and end of it all: they were partners. 

The similarities between Viktor Novak and his Viktor don't end there – just thinking that, his Viktor, sends an ache through his chest, his stomach. This new Viktor shares his determination, his surprising humour, even some of the same mannerisms: he hears, loud and clear in his mind, “Eh, I don't know about that.” He is evidently as intelligent as before, if he pioneered that Blitzcrank programme and teaches the next generation of Hælien engineers. 

That constant makes particular sense, Viktor being as brilliant in this life as he was in Jayce's.

There are obvious differences too. The lightness and swagger of his walk, the confidence in it as he moved with his cane. The eye-catching tattoos that Jayce could see sprawling up his forearms and all those piercings in his ears, the nose ring too. How easy it was to draw a smile from him. How forthcoming he was: he'd shown Jayce photos of his family. There were five of them. Jayce's heart soared just thinking about it. It took his Viktor years to reveal any details about his early life to Jayce – the death of his father at four and his mother at seven, the years he spent in different orphanages – and those conversations were always brief, Viktor relentlessly detached from it all. 

So these changes feel precious and exciting in their unfamiliarity. It seems that Viktor Novak lives without an awareness of an early expiration date, or maybe he's good at hiding it, just as Jayce's Viktor was. But Jayce hopes he's right: he hopes this Viktor will have a long, happy life. The good life Jayce knows he deserves, where he doesn't have to hurt so much. 

Selfishly, Jayce wants to see him live it. 

He squashes that desire the second it rears its ugly, carnivorous head. Because the world might not have imploded when he and Viktor sat together in the Sundial, but he's not going to tempt fate. He'll try to keep their interactions to a minimum, for Viktor's sake. 

When Jayce comes back to himself and out of his thoughts, he sees that he's been doodling in the notebook Sky's given him. All of the sketches are different outlines of Viktor. That isn't exactly new either. He could maybe pass them off as someone else, but there are the distinctive beauty marks, the beautiful curl of his hair. The striking eyes. He tears the page out and stuffs it in his pocket before Sky notices. 

Once it's finally time for lunch in the nearby canteen, Jayce finds that he's scared of moving his leg, recognising the stiffness in his joints and anticipating the pain of standing. He tries his best to stand and walk to the lab door without wincing, but Sky sees his face and frowns. 

“Your leg troubling you?” Sky asks, looking down at his brace. He wears it all the time now, again. 

“A little today,” Jayce says casually. He doesn't want to make it into more than it is. 

“You were going to see a doctor, weren't you? They given you a date yet?” 

Jayce nods. Elora had arranged it all. “It's coming up. I don't know if I'll just be wasting their time though. There isn't exactly much to be done about it.”

“You're not wasting anyone's time,” Sky says. Her eyebrows scrunch together in concern. “Are you always in pain?”  

Jayce shrugs as they head for the canteen, taking extra care to keep his gait even in front of her. “It's manageable most days.” 

Sky's look turns firm, scrutinising. “That answer is more telling than you think.” Then, “I could go with you? I can show the doctor your blood analysis, help to piece together what's going on if the mutation is changing.” 

“That's generous, but it's fine, really.” 

Mel had offered to go with him too, but he had told her no. He feels embarrassed enough that she has to help him move around some days, that there are times where he can't bear to walk down the fucking stairs. Thank the gods that the rest of Hæli is accessible enough – elevators, ramps, no blaring lights or screeching modes of transport, maps on the wall of every street so that you can find where you are. Jayce had never considered any of these things before. Now he feels like he has to prepare himself every time he leaves home. 

(With Mel calling it that and getting so excited about their upcoming “renovations”, Jayce has taken to the term home a little easier.)

They make it to the canteen and Jayce eats heartily; thankfully today his stomach isn't giving him any issues. He hates how much maintenance his body requires. The brace and the doctor's appointment, and avoiding certain foods that suddenly irritate him, and carrying the noise plugs wherever he goes, just in case. How had he spent so much of his life feeling so invincible when this was what was waiting for him?

If Viktor – his Viktor – could hear him now, he'd probably roll his eyes and threaten to throw a chair at him. Yeah it sucks, he'd say, but you'll have to get used to it, golden boy. 

He drinks his coffee, thinks of all the other ways Viktor could scold and condemn him, and wishes he was here to do it. 

 

—

 

Jayce learns that Mel wasn't kidding: Joy really is as bubbly and energetic as she made out. He matches Jayce's sluggish pace as they walk to Eesha's home, but he's practically bouncing off the city walls, talking in a continuous stream of consciousness. Jayce isn't doing much to keep up the conversation on his end, but he doesn't need to. All he had to do was ask Joy about who does all the street art, and zoom, off he goes on a ramble that lasts the whole journey. 

They arrive, and Jayce finds that he had forgotten just how short Eesha is. She looks up at him with a huge, welcoming smile, her shaggy brown hair sticking up in all different directions. She's dressed once again in a brightly coloured dress – pink, this time – and her sandals. It occurs to him again how Eesha looks so much younger than she probably is. Just like he's starting to look like an old man when he's only thirty-two, with all his scars and the bags under his eyes and the aches. Eesha asks if he'd like Joy to stay and interpret her signing, and Jayce says no, mentally preparing for what her voice might sound like in his head. Mel hadn't been able to describe it all that clearly: something about concepts rather than words and sounds. 

It's only when she actually “casts message” that he understands immediately. 

How are you, Jayce? she asks as they take their seats across from each other at her small dining room table.

It appears in his mind, not as a distinguishable sentence but as an idea. Plain and easy to interpret but totally alien to him. It's remarkable.

“I'm fine, thank you,” he manages to say. “How are you?”

I'm well, thank you, she replies with a smile. How are you finding Hæli?

“It's lovely here,” he says. “Everyone's been very kind to me.”

He hopes this is the right answer.

I'm glad. Have you ever been to the Freljord before?

“No, I haven't.” 

There's a pause as Eesha looks at him. He shifts in his seat, unsure of himself under her gaze. 

The silence stretches for a long moment, until Jayce finally asks, “I'm sorry, is there something I'm meant to say?” 

He hears her chuckle in his mind. No. Just thought I'd try some small talk before we begin.

Jayce nods, tries a small smile. There had been a time when he was good at that. 

As I said when we first met, these meetings are for me to keep an eye on your connection to the arcane. Jayce expects that she's already heard about what happened in Sky's lab. He's prepared himself to recall it and explain that he had no idea how he did it, but instead Eesha says, So tell me, when was the first time you encountered magic?

Almost immediately, he feels a cold air fall over his body, though the temperature of the room hasn't changed.

“I was ten. My mother and I were in the mountains past Piltover and got caught in a blizzard. We were going to die, and then a mage found us and teleported us to safety.” 

He gulps, thinking of Viktor hiding in the shadow of his robes, the tattoos on his aged hands, how he dropped the acceleration rune into Jayce's palm. The start of it all for Jayce, and the end for him. Just thinking about it makes him feel dizzy. All those years Viktor lived alone in a wasteland, learning magic that would send him back in time, saving Jayce to save the world that they jeopardised in the first place. 

Why were you in the mountains?

Jayce looks up at Eesha. The question catches him off guard. 

He often thinks about that terrible moment in the snow, when his mother passed out and he screamed for help, half-accepting that he was going to die there with her, but now he realises that he rarely thinks about how they ended up there. 

“My mother decided one day that we were going to visit her sister in Krexor, but –” He frowns as the memory comes back to him. “She wasn't in her right mind. She said we'd walk all the way there.”

He thinks of his mother, packing a bag with only a few clothes, a little food. The vacant look on her face, how she couldn't look Jayce in the eye again yet. How it had been like that for a while, by that point. The grief had paralysed her, and then suddenly one day, she woke up and decided that they had to go somewhere else. Jayce, only a child, had tried to make sense of it and couldn't.  

“I went with her. We walked and walked and got up to the mountains. But then the snow started to get worse and … she realised that we had to turn back. It was like she woke up.” 

He remembers his mother, after, sitting in a hospital bed with two less fingers, how she cried and hugged him so close to her. He had felt so lucky that she was finally back with him. Looking at him and holding him. “I'm so sorry, Jayce,” she kept saying. “I'm so sorry. I'll never – it will never be like that again.”

“It wasn't her fault. My father had died the year before,” he explains.

Eesha looks at him, and for a moment he's worried she'll say that she's sorry for his loss. He never was good with that, people being sorry about his father, especially when it was so long ago. It's not like it's anyone's fault.

My first time, she says, was after my grandmother passed. I was six. My grandfather took me outside of the city and showed me the shield runes around it, told me about how my grandmother had crafted some of them herself. I was so young, but in that moment I felt I'd found something that could fill the void she left, just a little. The arcane has a way of showing you how to be part of something bigger than yourself.

Jayce nods in understanding. “In my case, that wasn't exactly a good thing.”

What do you mean?

Surely she knows what Jayce means. She knows who he is. But she stares at him and waits. 

“I thought I could make the world better through Hextech. All I actually did was nearly destroy it and lay waste to Piltover and Zaun.” 

There's silence. Eesha just stares at him. It's uncomfortable. He doesn't know why she isn't saying anything. He supposes there's nothing she or anyone could say that would make it better. 

“I'm surprised I'm even allowed to walk around here,” Jayce says finally, unable to bear the quiet.

Why wouldn't you be?

“Because it would have been better for you all to throw me in prison.” He says it so quickly that a startled breath leaves him. He feels his pulse starting to pick up as he looks down at his hands, his left hand. 

What would be the good in that?

“Justice,” Jayce says plainly. Like it's obvious. 

Another excruciating pause. And then an echo: Justice. Eesha hums in his head. Okay, tell me: how long should we punish you?

Jayce looks up at her, uncertain. Her expression isn't angry, or concerned. It's strangely neutral, like they're discussing the weather or their preferred teas. 

A year? Ten? The rest of your life?

Jayce swallows. “That would be for you to decide.”

And should we allow Mel to visit you?

That makes him sit up straight. His shoulders tense. 

Or would that be too much of a kindness? 

He hadn't been thinking of Mel, when he said that. He wasn't considering what she would think of him saying it either, putting the idea in Eesha's head. He can see the frightened look on her face already, clear in his mind, and immediately regrets this whole conversation. 

He doesn't want Mel to be alone. He doesn't want her visiting him in a cell. He just wants her to rest. 

The way I see it, Eesha continues, imprisoning you doesn't do us any favours. Since you and Mel are so obsessed with productivity and justice, you can think of the work you do with Sky and Elora as community service, if it helps you sleep better at night. But it's clear to me that you and Mel already punish yourselves well enough. 

The words hit Jayce slowly and he only blinks at Eesha, totally still as she appraises him. He feels like a scolded child, and finds that all his self-flagellation suddenly tastes bitter like self-pity. Empty and achieving nothing. 

Word gets around quite fast in Hæli. Has someone told you that you don't deserve to be here? 

“No,” Jayce says, his throat dry.

I imagine it's because they're busy living their own full lives, she muses, shrugging. You can live the rest of your life drowning yourself in guilt or isolation, or you can get on with it and try to make something better this time.

Jayce feels pinned to the spot, like a butterfly in a frame. 

All he can say is, “How do I do that?” 

Talking is a start, Eesha says with a smile.

He thinks, then mumbles, “I'm not very good at that anymore.”

But you were once?

Jayce's hands close slowly into fists and he squeezes tight, then curls his fingers open again. 

“I had to be convincing in order to win funding for my work, and then I was on the Council. I liked the attention, but not the talking. I don't think it ever really suited me. I wasn't a popular kid growing up or anything.” It was quite the opposite, the other children at school always making fun of Jayce for his obsession with magic. Until he reached puberty, and suddenly he was considered handsome, his awkwardness reinterpreted as humility and his oddities as passions. 

Eesha's smile grows. I can relate to that. There's something strange about being a weird kid, then growing up and finding yourself in a position where you have to talk for a living, make speeches. He hears her laugh warmly. It's a deep, comforting sound dancing through his mind. It reminds him of his mother. So what are you good at, Jayce? 

Jayce looks down again at his rough hands. He was good at working at his family's forge, he thinks, but he couldn't do that now, with all the pain in his leg, his back. What is he good for? Right now, in the present?

He's good at making Sky's graphs. At reading Ivarr's data. Making Mel smile. 

“I think … I'm still good at tinkering with things. Fixing broken things.” 

Eesha smiles and then suddenly stands. She puts a finger up, as if saying give me one moment. She goes to another room, presumably her bedroom, and then there's a comical crash, followed by clattering sounds. Jayce sees a steady pile of strange objects thrown haphazardly onto Eesha's bed. When she finally reemerges, she's carrying something small carefully in her hands. She lays it gently down onto the table.

It's some kind of small toy. It looks like a metal crab, but there are obvious insectile wings on the back. It's painted neon green and pink, with bright yellow eyes at the front. 

This is Stink Maw, Eesha says, proudly.

Jayce smiles. “Cute name.”

Isn't it? I made her for my youngest granddaughter. She's supposed to be able to crawl around in circles, but one of the mechanisms stopped working, and I can't bear to take her apart and fix it. She looks at the toy lovingly. Would you take a crack at it for me? 

Jayce picks up the toy as gently as he can. Under the wings and behind the first painted metal shell, he can see tiny gears. It will be delicate work, but he's not a stranger to that. 

“I'll do my best,” he says. 

Thank you.

When Jayce says, “You're welcome,” and the conversation moves on, it's not anything groundbreaking but it doesn't feel like just another pleasantry either, something from a script he has to follow. He hopes she can see that he meant it, as he puts the toy carefully in his pocket. 

 

—

 

Elora takes them to the markets in Third Point. Jayce doesn't expect to spend hours browsing paint swatches and looking at furniture, but Mel is a meticulous shopper. He finds that he doesn't mind.

He watches and helps to push a small cart as Mel rambles to Elora, detailing every colour palette that she intends to use around the Annex and the specific kinds of chairs she'd like to collect – the woodcarved ones, like the chairs in Eesha's home. She picks up ceramic pots in different shapes, sizes and shades, and credits Elora for the inspiration. Jayce doesn't miss the way Elora blushes as she looks away. 

It's clearer to him now that there is something blooming between them. It's in the way Mel takes Elora's hand in hers to drag her to some stall and Elora tucks her hair nervously behind her ear. In the way that they stare at each other fondly when the other isn't looking. He makes a mental note to tease Mel about it later. He can't remember ever seeing her this smitten.

Eventually, his leg starts to ache from all the walking around, and though he doesn't voice this, Mel must notice something in his gait because she begins to hurry up. Elora takes over pushing the cart for him, and when they return to the Annex, Mel tells him to take a seat on the sofa that they covered in a plastic sheet this morning. The painting will take days, so Jayce rests while he can. Elora makes tea and helps to move furniture around the room. 

He finds that he enjoys the work of it, rolling paint back and forward on walls, sanding them down, measuring the exact amount of wallpaper they'll need for the statement wall in the living room. It's a pretty design, soft yellow and pale orange suns on a white background. Mel paints the trim of the wall a bright, dark blue. The kitchen space is fitted with turquoise panels, the white cabinet doors replaced with light-coloured artificial oak. His and Mel's room is painted a light duck egg blue, and when the fumes are finally bearable and they can sleep there again, he wakes to the pretty hue and can't stop the smile forming on his face. Mel talks to herself while she works, Elora hums when she paints and tells them when they need to eat. The days are long and precious. He sits and watches when his leg demands it, works with his hands when he needs to. Soon, his and Mel's home is unrecognisable. The only room left to be painted is Mel's new studio. 

“I still can't decide how it should look,” Mel says. 

“What about murals, like the big landscapes you used to do?” Jayce asks, thinking of the huge canvas she'd been painting the day after their first night together. “I always loved those.” 

Mel smiles. “Didn't you only ever see the one?” 

“No. There was one in your bedroom as well, remember?” He gives her a mischievous smile. 

Mel playfully nudges him with her shoulder. He pokes her arm in return. 

And there it is. That feeling again. 

Jayce is alive, and he's only human. 

 

—

 

A few days later, Jayce works up the nerve to walk over to Sky in the lab. 

“I know this is short notice,” he says, “but is the offer of you joining me at my appointment tomorrow still on the table?”

Sky smiles at him. “Yes. Let me go and clear my diary.”

“Oh,” Jayce says. “No, you're busy, don't worry about it then –”

Sky interrupts him with a hand on his shoulder. 

It's warm. A real touch from someone other than Mel. Jayce surprises himself by not shrinking away from it. He sees no mechanical dolls in front of him, no marble hands reaching out to pin him down and cut off his air. It's only Sky. She's here and real. 

“It's fine, Jayce. I don't mind.” 

The doctor is like everyone else here: kind in a way Jayce doesn't deserve. She insists on Jayce calling her by her first name, Ingrid, and handles his leg with care as she takes a scan. She's patient as he stumbles through the story of how it all happened as fast as he can. 

“I fell down a cave and my hammer – it was about this big – slammed into my leg as I fell, and then I was stuck down there for months. Had to make a brace and crawl my way out, then got sent through a portal back to my dimension. It stopped the infection but replaced it with all the arcane corruption. And then we were fighting the Noxians, so I didn't really have time to go to a doctor.”

Ingrid stares at him with wide eyes, her lips parted in shock. Sky isn't so good at hiding her horror. 

“Oh my gods, Jayce –”

“Anyway,” he says, knowing it's rude to interrupt but not wanting to linger on those memories any longer. “It hurts sometimes.”

Ingrid shakes it off and her professional mask appears again. “When you say it hurts, would you say the pain is mild or moderate?” 

“What's the difference?” Jayce asks, not because he wants to be obstructive but because he doesn't want to exaggerate anything. It's not that bad, he reasons to himself.

Ingrid explains, and he's suddenly struck by the fact that on any given day, he's dealing with moderately strong pain. He knows logically that it's ridiculous to feel embarrassed about the fact that the pain interferes with his daily activities, makes it harder to concentrate, prevents him from sleeping through the night. Surely he should just be able to get on with things. 

It takes a while, but eventually Ingrid decides on some painkillers for him to take on the good days and stronger ones for the bad days. She takes measurements for his leg so that she can order him a new brace. If the arcane corruption spreads at all, he's to book an urgent appointment and they can put him on a medicine that they know is effective in slowing tumour growth. Jayce can anticipate the worst-case scenario – amputation – but Ingrid says they're not there yet. She'll schedule regular physical therapy appointments for him and call him back for monthly reviews. 

She tells him to consider using a cane to take some of the pressure off his leg. It's phrased as a suggestion, so Jayce tells her that he'll think about it. 

He thinks of the day Viktor complained about the crutch he'd been given by his doctor. How he had spent the rest of the evening working on his own design, with detachable parts that could be secret compartments. He remembers how nervous he had felt before showing it to Viktor, and how hard he grinned when Viktor said, “This could work.” Jayce crafted it himself, took Viktor's notes on board, then built an improved model. And Viktor used it just as he had used the cane Jayce made for him in apology for the one they broke in Heimerdinger's lab. 

Viktor probably would have pretended to vomit or else hit Jayce with the cane if he'd ever said it out loud, but Jayce liked hearing the sound of it, clicking steadily on the floor as Viktor walked. It sounded like a heartbeat but better.

He thinks of Viktor approaching him in the Sundial, bathed in golden light.

Do you promise not to run away?

 

—

 

Jayce Talis does not sit down for interviews with me, but sometimes he does like to comment. Medarda and Talis bicker the way old friends tend to do. 

M: The first time they gave me a proper demonstration, they were both wearing leashes around their waists because they knew they might float up into the air. It was hilarious. They looked like kids in a play pen. 

J: [interrupting from another room] They were tethers because we were scientists trying to not get stuck in the air for hours again.

M: [laughing] They were adorable. In the end I was the one who was floating up by the ceiling. Jayce had to reach up with Viktor's cane to pull me back down to the ground. [She smiles like she's back there, weightless in anti-gravity.] 

 

—

 

For their past few meetings, Eesha has taken Mel to a park in Second Point called the Marsh. There are wooden platforms raised above pools of water, with reeds sprouting up as far as the eye can see. With fewer trees than the Sundial, it's easier to make out the walls of this place and remember that they're actually enclosed, but the murals on the walls uphold the illusion for a little while: they've painted stretches of forests on one side, the ocean on the other. The almost holographic quality of the paint makes it seem like the ocean is actually there, alive. The Marsh is smaller than the Sundial with fewer paths, but they rarely run into other people. And even if they did, it wouldn't matter, because Mel has been practicing the messaging spell. 

I find it easier to picture the rune in my mind rather than drawing it out, Mel says. I think it's taking me less time to conjure it.

Your progress is remarkable. Your voice is much clearer now.

Mel feels herself preening under the praise. It's ridiculous, how good it makes her feel, but she tries to not examine it too hard and just let herself feel. 

How are your talks with Elora coming along?

Mel smiles, thinking of her. “They're going well, I think.” They reach the end of a path and Eesha makes to turn back, but Mel stands there at the edge. If she stepped off the ledge, she would fall into the water and land on the metal floor. She doesn't, of course. “I spoke about Viktor, the other day. About his and Jayce's first few demonstrations of Hextech.” 

Eesha looks at her and waits. Mel knows by now that she won't respond until Mel peels back the first few layers of the matter at hand. 

“I thought it would be terrifying, or that she'd be offended that I still have good memories of those times, before, you know, everything went wrong. But she wasn't. And it felt good to remember, for once.” 

She hears Eesha's thoughtful hum in her mind, her grounding presence. I'm pleased that it was a positive experience.

Mel turns around and they begin to walk again. “I started to wonder if I could … tell her more. Not about Jayce and Viktor” – what happened between them doesn't feel like her story to tell anymore – “but about me.” Because sometimes she looks at Elora Chanda and can't help but want to talk about Elora Sen, and say, This was my best friend. She was my favourite person in the entire world. She was so kind that she changed my life, changed me. If you know me, then you know a part of her. 

What's stopping you? Eesha asks. 

Mel thinks of the squiggle, casts the rune because she can't say the words out loud. What if I show her something and she realises she doesn't want to know me anymore?

Eesha thinks for a long moment. Mel listens to the sound of the water below her, propelled into constant movement. 

If that were to happen, I think you would give her space, and time, and hope that she'd come back to you.

Feeling brave, Mel admits, “I don't think I can handle any more heartbreak.” 

Eesha gives her a soft, kind smile. You don't have to tell her anything that you're not ready to talk about. But I implore you to hold onto that feeling from before, how good you said it felt to be honest with her about the past. She squeezes Mel's wrist, a gentle touch, and lets her go. In my life, I've found that the joy of being seen is worth the risk. 

 

—

 

Mel doesn't head home. She goes to Sixth Point, hoping that this time, Elora will be there to answer her door. 

After a single knock, she hears Elora call out, “Coming! One moment!” and soon she's pulling the door open. There's sweat on her forehead and dirt on her plain blue shirt and grey shorts. 

“Mel! Hi,” she says, smiling so wide that Mel's heart jumps in her chest. 

Elora opens her door wide, ushering her in. There's soil all over the kitchen floor, where she's apparently been repotting plants all day. 

“Were we meant to be meeting now?” Before Mel can even answer, she says, “Sorry, I must have forgotten. I got so caught up with these guys.” She points at all the plants, refitted into their new homes. Her face is flushed so prettily. Mel feels the urge to tuck stray strands of Elora's hair behind her cute ears. 

She shakes her head, snaps herself out of her reverie. “No, we didn't, but I –” 

Her voice won't cooperate. She takes a deep breath, and tries again. 

“I wanted to talk to you about someone I remembered, and I came right over before I lost my nerve.” 

“Oh, sure,” Elora says happily. “Let me get my journal out. We can sit at the table. Tea?”

“No, thank you.” 

Mel takes a seat and watches as Elora washes her hands, moves carefully around all her pots, goes to a cabinet near her bed and retrieves her journal and pens. She takes a seat across from Mel like usual. Smiles, like usual. Mel tries to pretend that this will be any other conversation. 

“Do you remember when I told you about my companion? The one who followed me from Noxus and became my assistant in Piltover?” 

“Yes,” Elora says, flicking a couple of pages back in her journal. “Miss Sen, right?” 

“Right. I'd like to tell you about her.” 

Elora nods, poised with her pen at the ready. Mel wants to memorise exactly how she looks right now, before things change between them. Before Elora tells Mel to leave and give her space. 

“Her name was Elora Sen.”

There's a heavy pause. Elora doesn't write anything down. 

“Really?” she asks. 

Mel nods. 

“Wow, what a coincidence.” Her voice is light and airy. Unbothered. She doesn't understand yet.

Mel shakes her head and looks away. “The thing is … And after I say this, you can decide whether you still want to be –” she isn't sure what the right word is “– friends.” She clears her throat. “The thing is, she looked just like you.” 

No response – and then, the sound of Elora setting her pen down on the table.

When Mel looks back, she's leaning in a little, waiting. Not writing or recording. Just waiting for whatever Mel's going to say. 

So Mel takes another breath, and goes back to the beginning. 

“We met when I was fifteen and staying in Bel'zhun. She worked at the inn where I got my tattoos. I never expected to see her again, but one day, I – my father and I got into a carriage accident. He died, and Elora, she – she pulled me out of the wreckage. She saved me. And after, she came to my house to check on me, and I – I just liked her.” She smiles, thinking about her, but she can hear the desperate edge to her voice. How badly she wants Elora to understand and not turn away, even when Mel can't bear to look at her just yet. 

“We became friends. When I told her that I was being sent away to Piltover, she said that she would come with me. She was the most fearless person that I knew, and so, so smart. Cunning when she needed to be, too. And kind. Not in an effortless way, necessarily. It felt intentional, special, every kind thing she did. She wasn't all that open, but there wasn't a single person she couldn't win over. You just felt calm the moment she was near. And when she died, it felt like a part of me died too. Because I loved her.”

There it is. Her and Elora's secret. That they loved each other in a way they couldn't love anyone else. It had been just theirs, and then only Mel's, and now, she's letting the memory of it finally breathe. So that she can breathe too.

Now, she has to say the important part. “But I know that you're not her. One of the reasons why I didn't tell you was because I was worried that you would think I was just using you, and missing her. It's not that at all,” she says definitively. “I just … I like you too. You're intelligent, and sweet, and you make me think about the world, about myself, in a new way. When I'm around you, I – I feel like I can think clearly. I like who I am when I'm around you.” 

She has to stop and wipe the tears away from her eyes. She can't look at Elora, not yet. She just wants to steal a few more moments, sitting with her. 

“So I hope that we can still be friends. I know you might need some time away from me, but I really hope you'll still want to get to know me. Because getting to know you is –” she lets out a brief, breathless, relieved laugh “– it's one of my favourite parts about being alive again.” 

She looks up, finally, but then she immediately has to shut her eyes, bracing herself for impact, or the opposite of it: withdrawal. Or hurt. Or horror. 

Instead, a warm touch.

A hand, covering her own. 

Mel opens her eyes, and sees Elora, looking right at her, her eyes so gentle and kind. 

“I'm confused,” she says. Her voice is so quiet; it's just for Mel. “So, what's the part that would make me not want to be your friend?” 

Mel's bottom lip wobbles, and then she can't stop it, the sob that leaves her and the tears that fall. Elora stands, coming to kneel next to Mel, and pulls her into an embrace. Their bodies together, Mel's face in the crook of Elora's neck, Elora's hands at her back – it's heaven. It's right. Mel never wants it to end. 

“Thank you,” she whispers into her skin. As many times as she needs to say it. 

 

—

 

Miss Mel Medarda has stated that if any of the material in this journal is published, the following passage must be included [to be edited upon Medarda's request]:

Elora Sen was born in 169 APF (84 BH) in Bel'zhun, Noxus. Sen was not her family name; she would assume it at the age of eighteen after gaining Piltovan citizenship. 

Little is known about her family, apart from that her mother worked as a servant on the estate of a Noxian banker before Sen was born. Sen worked in an inn as a child, helping to financially support herself and her mother until she became Medarda's companion at sixteen. She was awarded First Class Honours in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Piltover, and became Medarda's personal assistant at twenty-one. She was Medarda's dearest friend, loving and loyal to her always. 

She died at thirty-four years old. Here in Hæli, Medarda held a remembrance ceremony for Sen, attended by myself and Jayce Talis. In her studio in the Annex, the walls painted with a soft, sunset sky and magnificently realistic ocean waves, Medarda lit three candles, as is Noxian tradition: one for the spirit of the Lamb, another for the spirit of the Wolf, and a final flame for the woman she loved.

 

 

Notes:

you know that meme of the wolf tearing off its shirt and howling to the moon in agony? that's literally me writing elora c's notes about mel and elora s

as always, i'm a slut for comments. i'd love to hear your thoughts or predictions or anything <3 thank you for reading <333

next chapter preview: jayce and mel visiting viktor and meeting the blitzcranks. elora being down so bad for mel. spring festival celebrations. earning the "angst and fluff and smut" tag in a single chapter. ANYWAY see you then bye!!