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**
One departure mixed with the previous one, and then the one before that one, and even the one before. When you said goodbye as often as Ezreal was used to, things started to get blurry. This was an exceptionally dangerous expedition, so he had taken the precaution to hug his mom just a little longer, to hold his dad's hand just a little tighter before he watched them step on the ship, off to a city he couldn't name but knew it was really, really far away.
Before they went away though, Amarta gave her son one last kiss and heartfelt look, followed closely by her husband's own farewell in the form of a hug and ruffling the kid's already messy blonde hair.
"How long will it take you this time?" Ezreal asked, knowing he had to let go of his father's embrace soon and accept his uncle's hand before he got too lost in the crowd.
"If we find it, we'll make sure to teleport to Piltover that very same night, okay?" Luis laughed, reaching inside his coat for a folded rectangle he made the kid promise to not open until he was home. "Wait for us to come home. We love you, Ez."
The memory gets blurry after that, the last thing he remembers is the silhouettes of his parents waiving as the ship parted away.
**
I
It began when his uncle opened the door one night while he was playing around with the peas on his plate, still pretending he didn’t notice how cold the rest of his dinner had gotten as he waited for a completely different set of footsteps to be heard behind the door.
(Ezreal learnt to recognize the limping steps of his uncle by the first three months of his parent’s disappearance, but he’d be lying if he said his stomach didn’t turn and his breath didn’t hitch the moment he heard the door’s handle be turned).
The professor did not frown at him for not yet finishing his food like he used to, he didn’t even have a trace of anger in his eyes as he approached the child and sat next to him on the table with hunched shoulders. Instead, the man looked at his intertwined fingers with the sorrow of a soul that had long accepted the truth now eating away his nephew. Breathed in, breathed out. He was a man of science, logical, analytical, and if there’s something about children that he knew, is that they are smarter than they appear, and sugar coating things doesn’t help at all when the truth is as painfully definitive as this one.
So that’s what he said: The truth. No filter, no pink colored lenses. Just the truth. Even as his hand trembled as he reached to take off his round glasses, the man made a tremendous effort to look as impassive as he felt he should. This was his brother their reckless adventuring had taken away and while he had come to terms with the fact this was something that could eventually happen, the date was suddenly all too real. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to Ezreal, to lose both of his parents at the young age of eleven, barely past the first decade.
“Amarta and your father…” His voice trembled and almost broke, but he concealed it as a cough and continued speaking. “They were declared dead this afternoon, Ezreal.”
Ezreal, however, did not care to look ‘impassive’ or strong. All he could feel right then was the knot quickly forming on his throat and the quivering of his lips as the news sank in. He could feel the world collapsing into itself as he sank deeper into his chair, the trembling of his lips now universal throughout his small body as he tried to cry and weep louder than his lungs would allow him, while tears fell freely down his cheeks and chin.
It was not often that his uncle offered any kind of affection, and it was even less common for Ezreal to take it. But that night, both indulged in a hug that seemed to comfort the child enough for him to fall asleep. Still in the arms of the only relative he had left now, still with wet cheeks.
II.
Goggles?
Checked.
Star maps?
Checked
Provisions?
Checked.
Picture…?
Picture!?
Quickly he began throwing everything out of his backpack, where could it be, oh where could it be!?
That was when he spotted, sitting right at the bottom of the bag, a carefully folded rectangle that brought all of his systems out of panic. Ah, so there it was.
Ezreal brought the photograph closer to himself to see it better in the dim light of the Nashramae bound ship that he had sneaked in as his ride to Shurima. It wasn’t the fanciest thing around, but it was something he knew for certain would lead him to his parents so he didn’t have to make out their faces from an old worn-out photograph that had seven years now. So, a bit more than half his age.
A fingertip traced the youthful faces of his parents, still smiling in this frozen moment of time even if they were lost the gods knew where now, dead to all of Piltover but him. He knew they had to be out there, waiting for him. And he was going to find them.
The teen took one last look to the photograph before carefully folding it and saving it again. He tried to find a comfortable (and decently hidden) spot to rest and be rocked to sleep by the waves crashing into the ship, to dream of great reunions and big smiles he wouldn’t have to imagine nor remember cos they would be happening in real time now, not just in a photograph.
III.
As the dry desert air hit him, so did a realization.
He was now in possession of the very same gauntlet his parents had come to find.
This meant that either they got lost along the way (but why hadn’t they found their way into civilization yet? Why hadn’t they come home if that was the case?) Or that they had… perished.
This last possibility was painfully likely.
Ezreal fell to his knees, looking at the sky but nowhere in particular as his sight became unfocused and clouded by the tears he was trying to prevent from escaping to no avail. There it was again, the lip quivering, his arms that now laid weightless next to him, the jerking from his shoulders and the feeling of a supernova bursting in his heart as he busted into tears; He could feel the subsequent black hole spreading through his ribcage and making him curve into himself, like suddenly his chest was too heavy to bear. Like suddenly all of his denial weighted on him all at once. They were dead, gone. Not lost or waiting for him.
(He remembered for a moment that his cries might bring the attention of any near-by void creatures, but he couldn’t bring himself to care that much at all).
As quickly as it exploded, the black hole evaporated into rage and impotence that brought the explorer back to his feet as he ran his hands through his hair, pulling at the golden locks in frustration. Everything he did was for nothing! They were truly gone! And there was nothing he could do about it! All those nights waiting had been useless, all that hoping and all that yearning, and for what!? To come back home empty handed!? With the same shitty photograph as his only solace!? No! No! No! No! He didn’t want this!
He took the photo, crumbled it into a ball and threw it to the ground a few feet away from him as he kicked the sand and cursed every god he could remember as loud as he could, and as long as he could feel his tears running hot down his cheeks.
By the time he was done, the sky was turning orange and Ezreal was now frenetically looking for the photo between the sand dunes, digging through layers and layers of sand that kept falling into each other and making his search all the more difficult. But when he spotted a bit of white between all the brown his face, puffy and red from all the crying, turned into an expression that almost counted as happy. Almost.
He quickly undid the ball as carefully as his desperate fingers could manage and sighed with relief when he found his mother’s green eyes and his father’s blues still staring at him through time and anguish, still smiling like nothing had happened. Like they weren’t dead and somewhere he couldn’t mourn them. Ezreal anchored to this last bit of them he had in that moment, held the photo close to his heart and began to sob tearlessly as the sun went down.
He was alone. Now, more than ever.
He needed to find water.
Not another Lymere would be beaten by this god forsaken desert.