Chapter Text
It was supposed to be quick and easy. Get in, get all they need and get right back out. Alas, it seems that Ekko was simply too curious and way too nice.
In all technicality, they wanted to get some money in order to buy food and supplies for the Firelights, but then he thought, since he was already in the palace, wouldn’t it be nice to check out this crystal he’s heard so many rumors about. These Piltover Scientists did say something about it being revolutionary and Ekko couldn’t help but wanting to see what exactly it could do and how it might help Zaunites. Maybe (hopefully) it was even powerful enough to power his most problematic project.
So, he convinced the other to go to the chambers in which it was kept safe. Everything was going smoothly, nobody would have noticed the thing was gone until hours later, but then-
“ACHOO!”
“Gesundheit.” In his defense, it has been a reflex and he noticed his mistake the second he said it, which left him scrambling, trying to get out as fast as possible.
Unfortunately, the enforcers were quick to sound the alarm, which obviously made the entire escape a whole lot more complicated.
His carefully planned route was of no use anymore and he and his companions all but stumbled through the streets.
“You just had to make a detour!”, Scar yelled while evading a bola. “If we throw that stupid stone back at them, they’ll probably forget all about us!”
The others grumbled in agreement, but Ekko thought it was a bad idea. If this crystal really was as powerful as it was advertised, he would not want to see it back in the Pilties' hands.
“We’ll just have to make it to Zaun”, he yelled back, ignoring Scar's comments altogether. In the maze that is the undercity they would have the upper hand and everything would be fine.
Scar grumbled unhappily, but didn’t object and neither did the others. They were all focusing on the bridge that slowly came into sight while jumping over carts and avoiding to run into random people.
It was going well, considering the circumstances, until a fucking huge ship showed up that would no doubt need the bridge to be opened. There was a quick calculation to be made here and as much as Ekko trusted in all their abilities, he doubted they would make it in time. He couldn’t risk his friends being caught and losing the supplies.
“Go to the sewers!”, he instructed. “I’ll distract them.” He had the stone after all and he was sure all of these enforcers knew it. It was on him to make sure the other got back to the hideout safely, so he did the only logical thing and ran into the woods.
***
There was a shrill but comforting sound in her head.
No wait.
Jinx opened her eyes, just to be sure and there was the actual very real raven that imprinted on her. Not that she was complaining – she was mostly alone and having an animal companion at least was better than nothing.
“I fell asleep again, right?”, she mumbled while stretching and listening to the sound of her bones cracking. Maybe she should stop falling asleep on the table, it might even make her back stop hurting.
Pascal crowed again, rather loudly too, and Jinx rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I overslept and you’re hungry, got it”, she grumbled and got up, while the raven made more ruckus. “I’m on it! Would you relax? It takes a while for the blood to flow back into my legs.”
Maybe she should also work on her sitting habits as well.
The raven, despite usually being very obedient, just kept on crowing while picking at one of her books. Jinx ignored it and went to the kitchen part of the little room until she heard a ripping sound.
“NO! Shoo! Bad bird!”, she yelled and physically tried to chase Pascal away before he destroyed her precious books.
He said down at her shoulder and she inspected the page. “Just a small rip”, she observed. “Count yourself lucky, I would’ve had enough explosives here to get my revenge”, she then said towards the raven, who let out a crow that sounded suspiciously like he didn’t believe her. The worst part about that was, that he was right – she could never hurt her precious accidental baby. She would be very pissed, though, if he managed to damage any of her books and this one in particular.
“You are very lucky”, she repeated for her raven before gently touching the picture of the green animal on the page. The book called them firelights – an insect that glowed a vibrant green. There were a lot of stories in here about a bunch of creatures, but this one was her favorite. It was about the little bug being caught and slowly losing its glow and fading away. It needed to be set free for it to shine again.
Jinx was more enticed with the picture than the actual story, however.
Sometimes, she just wanted to jump down the tower, go out and search for each and every one of the animals in the book, starting with the firelight – she so badly wanted to see one.
Absentmindedly, she sat back down at her table and began to copy the picture from the page onto a piece of paper. Pascal might want to destroy the book at some point again and what would she do if the picture was gone then? She needed a backup.
Her drawing wasn’t quite as detailed as in the book, but it would do. Maybe she could color it later to make it more lifelike.
For now, though… wasn’t there something she wanted to do?
Another crow from Pascal, who has been silently watching her draw until now, reminded her of food. In fact, she herself was hungry too.
“Right, sorry”, she said and petted the raven's head apologetically. “Let's make breakfast!”, she declared and went in the direction of the kitchen, again. Until she was interrupted. Again.
“Jinx!”, she heard Silco yell from the bottom of the tower.
Pascal was already making his way up into the rafters to hide, reacting way faster than Jinx ever could, while she sighed. “We’ll get food later then. It’s not that important anyway.”
She then hurried to get that drawing and the book back into its hiding place beneath the stairs. Her father is not a big fan of the outside world and she doesn’t want him to be worried about her dreams of seeing all these animals and exploring the world.
“Almost there!”, she yelled back down while she tried not to stumble over her own hair. One quick glance around the room and she deemed it safe enough to allow Silco in here.
So she threw her hair out the window and if there was a lot of dust transported outside as well, then that’s no one's business but her own. It’s just that with the length of her hair, she rarely moves it from the spots it’s lying on. Sue her.
“Is everything alright? You left me waiting a bit longer than usual”, Silco wondered as soon as he was through the window. He looked around as if he suspected Jinx hiding a guy in her closet.
“I’m fine, everything’s fine. I just woke up, is all”, she explained and now his worried glance was on her, which honestly wasn’t a whole lot better.
“Have you been working through the night again?”, he asked.
Jinx waved his concerns away and smiled. “It’s fine, really”, she stated. “I made some plans for a few new weapons. I wanted to get them done by the time you’d be back.” While talking, she ran back to her table to get said plans in order to shove them into her father's face.
He studied them for a few seconds, although he didn’t understand any of it – engineering just wasn’t what he was good at. “They are truly admirable”, he praised her nonetheless. “I will get you the needed materials you listed until the next time I visit.”
“Great! I’m so excited to work on these”, she exclaimed and already eyed her welding machine with giddy energy.
“Now”, Silco said and carefully put the piece of paper away. “There is something else I want to bring you next time and-”
That made Jinx even more excited. “Ooooh, what is it?”, she interrupted, grinning widely.
“You tell me”, her father told her and chuckled shortly. “You’re birthday is in three days after all.”
“It is?” She thought for a few seconds and- damnit, she really forgot her own birthday! Who does that? “It is!”, she repeated in shock. “Oh Janna, it’s my birthday! Fuck! How old am I even getting?”
“Try 18. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I forgot my birthday!” Granted, Jinx might be panicking a little bit, but she never forgot her birthday before. She forgot a lot of things all the time, but never something like that! Her 18th no less!
Silco put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “How about we focus on your present, hm? There is still a lot of time until the day, you haven't missed anything”, he calmly explained and together with some deep breaths, it actually helped ground her.
“Right… what do I want?”, she mumbled and started to think.
She would love to have some proper toys to entertain Pascal, but she couldn’t ask that, since Silco didn’t know about her raven child. Usually, paints were always an option, but she still had so many of them to waste and didn’t need anything new. The same goes for brushes, paper, ink, pens and literally anything else that occasionally needed a refill or replacement.
Her gaze subconsciously went to the staircase.
“Firelights”, she mumbled without even noticing.
“What was that?”, Silco questioned, which kind of made her panic again, but she took another deep breath and made the probably very stupid decision to shoot her shot.
“I want to see a firelight”, she said.
“A firelight?” Her father seemed very confused by her request, which made sense considering that she never asked for an animal before. “Well, I guess I could get you one caught, although I can’t tell if it would be successful. I hear these things are hard to get a hold of.
Well, here goes nothing – fuck literally any of the things she thought earlier. “I don’t want one caught”, she said and now Silco looked less confused and more suspicious, if not even outright … well, not a fan of the idea, to put it lightly. “I want to see them”, she continued. “Outside?”
“Jinx”, he sternly said.
“I know!”, she interrupted him. “I know what you think of the world, but it would just be for a few days and I’ll go right back home. I can handle myself! Please, I promise I won’t make any trouble.”
“No”, her father was quick to deny her.
“But-”
“No buts. You are not leaving. You have no idea how dangerous it is out there, no matter what you might think.” He wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t loud at all, just the usual polished attitude he uses when he talks business. It hurt all the same. He knew when to switch to soft, though. “Do you think I did this to myself?”, he asked and pointed to his eye, which was so damaged not even Jinx’ shimmered hair could fix it. “The world is cruel and everyone out there will betray you. I just don’t want you to get hurt.” She could understand, she really could, but it didn’t change her dream. “I’ll make sure you get to see a firelight, but it will be in here, okay?”
No, it was not. Nothing was. Jinx never really bothered with her being in the same place all the time. It was quite nice actually to be able to focus on what she likes to do at the moment, but sometimes she wonders what grass feels like. Or how the fur of a dog would feel beneath her hands. Or what it looks like when a firelight glows in the night.
“Okay”, she said still. “I guess it’s good enough.” It has to be.
Silco sighed in relief. “Good. I’ll make sure to get you one”, he promised and looked her over once more as if to check that her resolve to get outside had been well and thoroughly broken. When he seemed satisfied, he turned back to the window. “I’ll be back in three days then”, he said with a little smile and Jinx did her best to grin back.
As soon as her father went back down, she stopped trying and simply watched him leave. The next three days will be very depressing.
Pascal flew back down and poked her cheek with his head. For her child, she was able to muster a real, if sad, smile and scratched his belly.
“Let’s get you that breakfast, yeah?”
***
Ekko was tired of running. He’s been doing it for what felt like hours, it had gotten him nowhere closer to a hiding place and the enforcers were getting closer with every step he grew more exhausted.
He couldn’t be caught and let this power fall back into their hands. The others might have escaped with the supplies, but what good did that do if the Pilties were able to build weapons that could destroy all of Zaun?
The trees were getting in his way more and more and he stumbled over his own feet a lot, too. His situation was getting desperate very quickly.
Right when he already thought about giving up after all (before he collapsed on the ground and got left for some animals to devour), he ran into a person. In the middle of the woods. A very big person even, who by the looks of it seemed to be a Zaunite.
“Watch it”, he spat. “Kids are not allowed here, piss off”, he grumbled and shoved him in the direction he came from. Well, he couldn’t go back, but … this looked like a mining site.
He could see more than enough cave entrances, which would provide the perfect hiding opportunity. All he had to do was get past the miners without getting noticed, but with the enforcers on his heels, he didn’t have a lot of time to think about it.
For now, he ran in a direction away from the mines without running into the enforcers, before coming back around eventually and quickly vanishing in an unguarded cave.
A little walk into the darkness later, he chose to make the tiniest break in order to get his breath back under control. People loved to talk about the incompetence of the sheriff, but he had to be doing something right if he and his enforcers could keep up with Ekko this long.
“You’re trespassing”, he heard the gruff voice of that one miner again, which made him tense, but the guy didn’t seem to be talking to Ekko.
“We’re on the lookout for a thief, if you could kindly point in the direction he went, we’ll leave you alone”, a female voice calmly explained, probably one of the enforcers, because who else would be running around in the woods?
He just hoped no one saw him – he was sure he went undetected, but what if he didn’t? He was screwed. Instinctively he walked backwards, deeper into the cave until he could barely hear the others anymore. The grumpy miner said something again, but Ekko couldn’t understand what exactly. Just in case, he ran.
Frankly, he would have expected the cave to be a lot deeper, since mining caves usually are, which was why he was surprised to find light on the other side. There seemed to be some sort of valley in the middle of the mountain here.
Even a whole damn waterfall was there and next to the little river was a tower that looked like an old mill. It seemed old and structurally unsound, which probably meant it was abandoned and he could hide a few hours in peace. By the time he’d make his way back home, the enforcers would hopefully have given up.
There wasn’t even a question about it, this was a good idea since it would keep him safe, so he mustered the last bit of strength he had to climb up there. It took a lot longer than he expected and he was extremely exhausted by the time he made it – his brain really seemed to power down at this point because he thought he smelled pancakes.
Then everything suddenly went black, but Ekko could still feel a dull pain in his skull.