Chapter Text
Caitlyn sits alone at a table tapping her fingernails against the glass of water on the table in front of her. The only thing keeping her entertained and from losing her mind sitting on her family’s yacht for her birthday while all the adults that are at the very least two times her age engage in the festivities around her.
Her father tilts his head back in laughter with a group of his friends playing shuffleboard.
Her mother takes a delicate sip from her champagne flute, gossiping with her circle of friends.
And Caitlyn… just sits at the table… alone. Bored out of her mind. Tapping her glass, taking sips occasionally and making satisfied hums whenever she hits a perfectly in-tune note afterwards and she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t intentionally taking small sips inching her way towards a perfect note.
Caitlyn sighs as she slumps her head in the palm of one of her hands.
Caitlyn hates her birthday. She dreads it every year because her parents, especially her mother, insist on throwing some sort of huge party that Caitlyn doesn’t actually want but is expected to dress up for and attend anyway.
So here she sits. In a navy blue skater dress with an all-over gold foil filigree pattern, a thin gold belt, black flats, an assortment of gold jewelry, and her hair put up into an immaculate chignon.
All dolled up for nothing. Just so she can sit here and wait for her parent’s friends to eventually wander over and wish her a happy birthday and add to the ever-growing gift pile sitting next to her on the deck.
Suddenly a ramekin of walnuts slides into view. She scowls at it before she looks up and sees Jayce smiling down at her.
“Happy birthday Cait! Brought you some walnuts.”
Caitlyn’s eyes dart back down to the walnuts before she looks back up at him.
“I hate walnuts Jayce, you know this.” She says, disgust evident in her tone.
Jayce clicks his tongue as he takes the seat to Caitlyn’s right.
“More for me then.” He shrugs as he pops a small handful into his mouth.
Caitlyn shakes her head before she resumes her slumped position, tapping the glass again.
“I hope these aren’t the kinds of gifts you give Viktor.” Caitlyn teases, looking at him out of the corner of her eye, a small smirk on her lips.
“Don’t worry, that’s not my actual gift for you. I know you hate these things.”
He pulls out a tube that he had been hiding behind his back and hands it to her.
She hesitates before taking it from him, giving him a look of clear doubt before looking down at the plain-looking tube.
“I promise it’s not another trick.” He reassures, nodding at it with a smile.
Caitlyn pulls the cap off one end and gently slides out the big piece of paper inside., setting the tube down on the table before unrolling it.
Caitlyn gasps as she takes in the poster in her hands. Jayce has given her antique-looking art of a rifle patent. It’s such a simple gift, but Caitlyn knows she’ll love it more than any of the gifts that lay in her gift pile.
“I love it, Jayce!” She says breathlessly, as though the poster has taken her breath away.
“I found it during one of my last trips to Zaun, thought you’d appreciate something like that.” He says.
Caitlyn rolls the poster back up and carefully puts it back in the tube before standing up and giving Jayce as crushing of a hug as she can with her tiny frame.
“Thank you so much!” She says, her voice muffled in his shoulder as he hugs her back.
“You’re welcome,” He says as Caitlyn pulls away from the hug looking at him with a smile on her face.
He smiles back before his face falls a little as he sighs.
“I’m really sorry I can’t stay long, I have to go help Vik in the lab, but I promise I’ll make it up to you okay?” as he stands up.
Caitlyn gives a sad smile as she nods, “It’s okay Jayce, I know you’ve been busy.”
“Thank you for understanding, try not to go too crazy here, okay? Don’t shoot anyone.” He says patting her back.
Caitlyn rolls her eyes, smiling and he smiles back at her before leaving.
She goes to resume her sitting alone but her mother walks up to her at that moment, with a boy her age following behind.
Oh no. Not today of all days…
“Caitlyn! I’m glad you’re up and about, I have someone I’d like for you to meet…”
Caitlyn’s feet pound along the wooden deck as she storms away from the heart of the party on the main deck, looking for a secluded spot where she can calm down. She finds a nice spot with no people and walks up to the edge of the boat leaning her hands against the silver railing there.
She rocks back and forth, trying to rid herself of the anger and frustration she feels, before she suddenly slams her hands as hard as she can against the rail.
“Stupid party.” She seethes.
Another slam.
“Stupid gifts.”
Another slam. A small creak that Caitlyn doesn’t notice in her rage.
“Stupid mother that keeps trying to play matchmaker.”
Another slam. Another louder creak that Caitlyn fails to notice.
Caitlyn’s face contorts as she tries to hold back frustrated tears.
“Stupid. Stupid. Stu-”
She slams her hands each time she says it, but the third time she cuts herself off when she suddenly lurches forward, the rail beneath her hands finally giving way and falling into the water. Caitlyn loses her balance and pitches forward. Her shins hit a second, lower rail that flips her forward as she falls, hitting her head off a solid part of the yacht before she crashes into the water.
As she sinks in the frigid water, she watches blurry-eyed as the yacht, a big, black blob against the blue water, leaves her behind. Just as she had been at her own birthday party by everyone else…
Her salty tears that she had been holding back mix with the saltwater around her as she loses consciousness from both drowning and her hitting her head, just as she loses hope and her eyes start to close, Caitlyn feels two arms wrap around her waist, and start to whisk her away…
When Caitlyn comes to, the first thing she notices is the feeling of sand underneath her., making her feel itchy. Goodness, her skin is probably going to get all irritated, and red, and her father will fuss over her with a bunch of creams and ointments, mother will fuss over her disappearing from her party, the party she didn’t even wa-
Wait.
She stops her inner thoughts as her ears pick up on something.
Is that… someone humming?
She strains to listen more. By the sound of it, it sounds like a young girl humming. A soft little melody that soothes Caitlyn, almost makes her forget all about that stupid party…
Then a second later there’s a hand on her forehead startling Caitlyn, and making her eyes shoot open. She’s immediately greeted by a blur of pink hair and a pair of stunning powder-blue eyes that widen at Caitlyn’s reaction before she jerks back and away from her.
Caitlyn jerks up to a sit wincing at the pain in her head the action causes, grabbing her head. She cracks her eyes open and once her vision focuses she notices the girl in front of her.
Caitlyn gasps.
The girl is just as beautiful as the song she was humming.
Her light pink hair is wet and plastered to the right side of her head, while the left side is shaved close to her head. She has a generous dusting of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, dark and thick eyebrows that almost look too big for her face. She notices a scar on her upper left lip that tugs it up slightly higher than the other.
But most of all,
Caitlyn notices the scaly red tail the girl has instead of legs, and a bandeau of matching red scales that go across her chest.
There’s no way…
She’s a…
“You’re a…” Caitlyn breathes, trails off because she can’t bring herself to finish the statement.
Mermaids aren’t real. They can’t be…
And yet, there’s one sitting right in front of her.
At Caitlyn’s words, the mermaid jumps, and her eyes dart around Caitlyn’s face before she flips around onto her front in the sand and frantically starts dragging herself back into the water.
It takes Caitlyn until just as the mermaid reaches the water before Caitlyn reacts, pushing herself up as fast as she can in her probably concussed state. she runs towards the water, shouting ‘Wait!’ Wait!’ until her legs fall out from underneath her and she falls into the water with a splash. The fall jostles her head and she winces and shouts in pain. But she pushes through the pain to look up, searching for the mermaid, only to not see her anymore.
“Please! Come back!” Caitlyn yells, looking out to the water, hoping that she’ll see that mop of pink hair surface up from the water, but it doesn’t. Nothing resurfaces.
Caitlyn looks down at the sand, dejected and disappointed. A glint of something slightly ahead catches Caitlyn’s attention. It sparkles differently than the sunlight hitting the waves.
Caitlyn crawls towards it, grimacing the whole way before she flops to the ground in front of the object. She picks it up gingerly and inspects it.
It’s a silver charm bracelet. She wipes the wet sand off that’s gotten stuck in between the chain links before she gives up and just shakes it under the water for a second to get the rest of the sand off. The bracelet isn’t like the fine jewelry of the boutiques in Piltover. This bracelet looks to be handmade, with imperfect chain links and jump rings, and five equally imperfect hearts dangling from it. Each charm has symbols scratchily etched into them.
A megaphone, an octagon, a numeral for six, an interesting monkey design for which the scratchy look of the etching seems to really work, and a boxing glove.
Left to right, in that order.
Caitlyn has to assume that this bracelet belonged to the mermaid that saved her, had it been here any longer it would’ve gotten dragged into the ocean. It must’ve fallen off during her quick departure. These symbols don’t make sense to Caitlyn, she doesn’t know what they mean. But to the mermaid, they probably meant something significant. She wishes she could return it, but with the mermaid probably long gone and Caitlyn injured, there’s no chance of that in sight.
As Caitlyn rolls over onto her back she catches a glimpse of the area she’s at. Some sort of isolated island with a dormant-looking volcano and plenty of woods surrounding it.
Suddenly she hears sirens sound from behind her, she tilts her head back as best she can and sees a water police boat speeding towards her from a ways away from her. Caitlyn lifts the bracelet and looks at it again briefly before bringing it down to her chest, clutching it with both hands as she looks skyward, closing her eyes.
“I’ll find you again. I promise.”