#What's this? TimeBomb crumbs in my LightCanon snippets?

[renatogpadilla]

On Who Made Us Who We Are...

Jinx hated to say it, but the hug had worked wonders.

It was a funny feeling, hugging Lux. Like being put in a very soft, very caring slow-cook oven. She warmed up with every second, to the point where Jinx thought she would have gotten burnt if she hadn't pulled away after a while. It's not like she was mad at her for eavesdropping. That was on her! She had been a little later than usual and Jinx took that as a sign to get depressed...

But boy, was she glad Lux had gotten to her. She thought (a little hesitantly, but she thought it nonetheless) that she really missed having a friend to talk to. Back in Zaun, she'd never really had anyone to talk to since she was a child. Silco had tried his best, and he'd been as good a father figure as she could have asked for! But that was so different to having a friend your age. Sevika was... Sevika, and Isha... Well. Isha had been Isha.

Happy, joyful, perfect little Isha.

Cut it out. You'll cry again.

She pushed the thought out of her mind.

Since the night of their big hug, Lux had gotten a little bit more familiar with Jinx's little hut. She came over after a long day of work and sprawled on the couch (which Jinx had joked wasn't very ladylike of her and Lux had replied by flashing her hand at her and making her eyes wince) and just ranted about her day to her... And Jinx had gotten more used to her. She was beginning to understand that what had started as nothing more than unhinged curiosity had become a genuine friendship. She was a bit weary of that still (everything she grew to love exploded at some point, after all) but she decided to be a little less cagey towards Lux. She'd trust her word. She'd give her a chance. She had earned that. Maybe she'd even let her in on Pow-Pow and Fishbones, if she proved trustworthy... But that was still some ways away.

Lux, got to Isha's hut a little earlier than usual and caught her making tea. After the night of their hug, she had seen Isha far less jumpy around her and couldn't help but feel accomplished and proud that she'd managed to help her friend. It felt good to be able to be herself and it helping someone out...

She pushed the door open (Isha really should invest in a lock, she thought) and spoke In a small sing-song voice, as she'd started doing whenever she'd had a particularly good day... Though maybe that was more for Isha than for herself today. Work hadn't been exactly pleasant.

"Hello, Isha!" She tried not to sound too cheerful, she really did! But coming here made her so happy... Made her feel safe. The irony of feeling safer in a hut in the woods with a crackpot wannabe "witch" than in a fortress city with her knights and guards and her walking tank of a brother was not lost on her, and it made her giggle on occasion, to herself. She flopped on the couch.

"Hey, Flashlight. You're early!" Isha replied. She seemed in a good mood! "I was thinking today we could try something different to just blasting things. You can aim now, sure, but just how far do those powers go? Is it just light blasts or can you do more with that? And how can it burn if it can't touch things? Can it touch things? These are the questions I have decided we'll try to-"

Lux wasn't listening. She was just... Sprawled out on the couch, disassociating. That wasn't like Lux. Ugh, fine! She'd ask!

"How was your day? You seem a little dim, and I don't mean your powers." Isha draped herself on the spine of the couch and looked at her friend.

Hoo, boy, where to start...

"Have I ever told you what I do, Isha?"

Actually, she hadn't. Jinx had some idea. She knew Lux had a brother who hunted Mages and she knew that Lux's family were guardians of the Royal Family... But other than that, she just though her friend's job was 'Be in a castle and look like a fancy painting for most of the day until someone needs something decreed' or something shmancy like that.

"Nope. You never said." She passed her a cup of tea. "Why? Are you secretly an evil mastermind and forgot to tell me?"

Lux actually laughed at that. "Well, no. But... Well, it does come into play a bit. An evil mastermind."

"Oh?" She did that thing she thought others didn't notice where she tilted her head like a puppy when she was curious about something.

Lux noticed. She found it adorable.

"Have you heard about the state of the kingdom lately...?" Ooh, she sounded nervous.

"I don't get a lot of news coverage here in the woods... Kinda like it like that." That way, I don't have to see the day my face shows up on a screen and I have to dip again. "Why? Some evil criminal on the loose or something?"

Lux's smile dropped. That was a strange sight for Jinx. Like that wasn't supposed to happen, just... in general.

"I... I can confide in you, right, Ish?" Lux's voice was so soft Jinx barely felt it. Also, 'Ish'? Damn, she was being vulnerable. That wasn't her strong suit at all. "You won't tell anyone, right? Like, I know you already know I'm a Mage, but this is... arguably worse."

Oh, now she HAD to know.

The not-a-witch nodded her head, and Lux took a deep breath.

"Over the last few weeks... Maybe months, I can't tell anymore, there has been a rebellion brewing."

Jinx felt herself grow tense. One day, she'd pop up somewhere where a rebellion wasn't brewing, but it seemed like that was not gonna be today... At least she wasn't at the center of this one, this time.

"Before I met you... I..." Lux was struggling to get the words out. "I wanted answers. I wanted to know who I was and not have to hide my powers. When my brother got accepted into the guard, we were made nobles. And that meant that now I had some power to go with my name... I may have abused it a little."

"I am absolutely enraptured by this tale." Isha told her, still laying on the spine of the couch, but now showing Lux her full attention.

"Yes... Enraptured. So was I." Might as well rip the band-aid off. "Well, as you can imagine, I used my new political power to... Get into places I shouldn't have. One of them being a prison."

Jinx shouldn't have admired that... But she did. Now they had something else in common!

"It was there that I realized what had been done to the Mages that my brother and his people caught..." She continued. "Isha, it was horrible. Forced to live in cages, made to drink this horrible potion that could take their powers at best and... Outright kill them at worse. I saw people whose only crime had been being born different get slowly, legally murdered under our noses. And nobody thinks it's wrong! Nobody saw how cruel it was to deprive someone of freedom, of life, just for being themselves!"

Jinx saw Lux's fists clutch and realized how deeply personal this was to her. The day her brother slipped... Hell, the day she slipped or even if Jinx herself ended up spilling the beans, Lux now knew exactly where she would end up. In a hole. Alone. Dimmed forever... That would NOT happen while Jinx was around.

"As I explored the prison... I eventually came across a door. One the guards pretended wasn't there." She had to get done telling this story. "So I went up, waved my name around. And through it I met someone... I met him."

Jinx couldn't tell what was there in that last weird cocktail of a tone... Was that venom? Hatred?

Yearning...? Oh, Gods, Lux you didn't...

"He was a fellow Mage." Lux continued, and Jinx was genuinely, completely and utterly entranced in her story. "His name is Sylas. And he was one of the few prisoners who had survived since childhood inside the prison. He was chained to the ground, malnourished. Like, there was still muscle there, but the kind of muscle you get when you can't eat anything other than scraps for years and you need a hobby to keep you from choking yourself with your chains... But he could still talk."

Every word that came out of Lux's mouth felt like drinking Petricide... Suffocating.

"He said the most harrowing things, but he sounded so... Pained. So done with life that there was nothing to keep him tethered other than maybe seeing the sun again... I pitied him. I felt for him. So I talked to him. Told him what the city looked like now. He seemed to miss it, at the time. He recounted what it looked like when he was young with such joy... And he suddenly felt less like a malnourished prisoner and more like... Like a friend... Like... Like... Oh, Isha. He said the sweetest things."

"This story's going to end horribly wrong, isn't it?" Jinx couldn't help herself. She heard the strain in Lux's voice.

"I trust you not to judge me for what happened next."

"I won't." How could she?

"I kept visiting him... Seeing him in his cell, day after day, whenever I could spare the time. And whether it was because of the way I spoke, or the things I said, or maybe because he was a Mage too, he ended up discovering what I was. And he made me feel so..."

"Validated? Like you were perfect, just the way you were..."

"Yes... I can look back on it now and see the signs, but back then I was too ecstatic to notice who he really was... And I grew to like him... I- I think I grew to love him. Genuinely. I'd never felt that way for someone before and it was... Liberating and just... For lack of a better word, it was magical. For as little as it lasted. We only saw each other through the cell. I didn't know better... I didn't know better."

"Luxanna..."

"I should have known better."

They stayed in silence for a little while... Jinx could tell her friend was suppressing tears. She was being braver than her opening up like this... So much braver.

"If you don't want to keep talking, I understand." Isha saw her pain, bless her heart.

"I need to get it out." Lux said, breathing in sharp. "Please."

Isha simply nodded. Lux mouthed a 'thank you' at her. She reached out and took Isha's hand.

"You know how I said he was a Mage too? Well, as it turns out, a bunch of Mages have a bunch of different flavors of magic. His involves stealing magic from others. We touched, once, through the bars, and he took my glow. Used my power to break himself out and took every other Mage in the prison with him... Killed so many people with the same chains that kept him locked away... He even tried to get me to join him." And if my life had been different, maybe I would have... "The worst part is, that the care he had for me feels genuine, Ish... But to him, the fight comes first, and he will put me and everyone that stands in his way in the ground for the sake of his Great Mage Rebellion."

"Glorious Revolution, huh?" Jinx had heard of that before. A while back, before everything after Silco's death, she probably would have admired Sylas's efforts. Not now. No matter how righteous his cause.

He hurt Lux, so now he dies.

"And now he's out there, and not only does he know my secret, but the image he's painted of Mages has all but destroyed any chance of peaceful resolution... He kills so many of my brother's men every time he shows up and now my job implies hunting him down and it is just the most stressful thing in the world... And I know it's my fault! Some days, I don't know how I even get out of bed."

Jinx knew that feeling all too well. She squeezed her hand. They left a little while pass... Lux got some sobs out and Jinx listened. No sarcastic comments, no jokes. She just held her friend's hand and let her get it out.

"Thank you for that." Lux said, wiping her tears. "I... I needed someone to know."

"And now I do. I can tell that stings for you... Lux, if it's your whole job to stop him, you know you can't hesitate if the chance comes to-"

"I know."

Jinx hated herself from having to ask, but she'd been there too, once, and she knew where it was going.

"Do you still love him?"

Lux barely let her finish.

"No. Not anymore. I mourn what could have been, what I thought could have been, yes. But I won't waste another heartbeat for that bastard if he dares show his face. I've learned my lesson. No matter how sweet he talked, he's still a deranged, insane, grandstanding-obsessed, irredeemable psychopathic murderer who will stop at nothing, at no one, to bring our society down. Demacia has made horrible mistakes, it's true. I won't say there isn't a lot of work to be done, but this is not how you do it. Don't worry, Isha. Mage rights are one thing. But the actual monsters? The ones that give us all a bad name? I am done loving criminal scum."

Well, thought Jinx as she physically bit her tongue, now I sure as shit ain't telling her about that...

Lux sat up and pressed her head against Isha's shoulder. "Today has been a lot. Zanks for 'aving me here, friend."

Wait, what the fuck?

"Was that an accent?"

Lux hadn't noticed it slipped this time. She must have gotten more comfortable than she thought...

"Yes, it is." And she wasn't hiding it anymore. She figured if Isha could know about Sylas, she could know what Lux really sounded like. "It's a whole thing. Noble stuff. We usually hide it since we're not royals, but we all speak like that."

"You sound like you're gargling!" Jinx found it sweet. She laughed. Genuinely! Her friend looked like a meerkat and sounded like a pelican. She loved it!

Lux just stared. She's laughing. Oh, Gods, Isha's laughing! She'd never heard her laugh before! It was so heartfelt she almost started tearing up again. But instead she laughed along. Just the two of them, laughing about how dumb Demacian sounded in a hut in the middle of the woods.

Lux could have lived in this moment for a few days... It would have been nice.

"It's not that bad if you speak the language." She pushed out between chuckles.

"Oh yeah? Now I GOTTA hear this! Go on! Say something in Demacian, please!" Isha pushed back.

"Um... Que veux-tu que je dise?" She asked between chuckles.

Isha stopped laughing almost immediately.

"Wait, say that again?"

Lux repeated herself.

"Holy shit, it was Demacian." Isha exclaimed. Now her eyes were huge!

"You've heard it before?"

"I mean I don't... Understand it, but it makes sense he would-" Isha stopped herself. Right. Personal stuff.

Lux had promised she wouldn't pry so she just put her hands up, but Isha went on.

"When I was a kid..." Jinx started, sitting on the couch properly next to Lux. "There was this... Bar. I... Lived in it. And in that bar there was a jukebox that played these old records my-" Oh, this was bringing her back... With all its flavors. "My Dad had lying around. He wasn't my real dad, but he raised me and my sister, so he was our dad."

"You have a sister?" Lux couldn't stop herself. Isha lore? Given willingly?! Gimme gimme gimme!!!

"Yeah. She's a tough one. Nothing like me. She's... Heh. She's a cop. Overbearing and rough. Her answer to every problem is 'punch it!' and if that doesn't work, 'punch it harder', you know?"

"Oh, Gods, don't let her meet Garen! They would either become best friends or kill each other!"

"Oh, that second one I would pay to see!" Miss you, Vi. Really do. "Anyway, we were practically raised in a bar, and our dad's friend Benzo sometimes brought little trinkets around to spruce the place up, and on one occasion he brought an old record. It had this just absolute banger of a club ballad on it! But I never understood it... Because it was in Demacian! I never really danced to it, but my friend Ekko LOVED it! He's a bit more serious now, I think, but I bet he still sways to it on occasion... Anyways, your accent just took me back, that's all."

Lux was hanging on every word. Isha had a sister. She had grown up in a bar! She'd had a friend that- Wait a minute. If nobody reached her in the woods...

"If you don't ever leave the hut... Then, how do you know he's so serious?" Lux tried to sound playful, but she was so curious...!

And then she noticed. She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed before! It was right in front of her face the whole time!

That hoodie was way too big to be Isha's. The way she held it the night they hugged... The way she played with the rim right now! Her mind was racing. Oh, please let me be right...

Isha must have noticed that she noticed. She immediately broke eye contact, and she got this big smile on her face... Lux noticed she was blushing. She was flustered! Isha! Flustered!

"I didn't judge you, okay...? So..." Jinx was smiling too much at the memory of that last night in Zaun before the big fight... Before leaving. She tugged the hoodie closer. "Yeah... He was a childhood friend, but... Well, he's this boy I like, too."

Meerkat. IMMEDIATELY.

It was like nothing in the world existed other than Jinx in Lux eyes in that moment. She grabbed both her hands and got a big, dopey smile on her face.

"Mon ami," she said, and she was glowing in a way Jinx hadn't seen before. She wasn't even trying to hide her excitement! "Tell me EVERYTHING!"

"Woah, Flashlight, slow down!" She was kinda enjoying this, though... She never really had the chance for 'girl talk' with her sister growing up. Boy, would THAT be awkward now! But this was too quick... "We're not- Sorry. I'm not there yet. I appreciate the interest though."

"Aw, come on! It can't possibly be worse than my terrorist ex!" That was probably the most casually she would ever refer to Sylas in her life. "But I understand. When you're ready. Then I'll hear all about your boy!"

Jinx gave her a hug and stayed there for a bit. Mostly to hide how wide she was grinning.

"For what it's worth," she said, without a hint of sarcasm, "you're already getting close..."