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The rock gave under his shoe, but he was quick to move it elsewhere before he lost his balance. Ezreal didn’t look down - his eyes were focused on the faint red glow above him. He was getting close, the burning of his cheeks acting as yet another evidence. The screech filled the room, and soon the rattle of hundreds of thousands of small claws, and he clenched his teeth and picked up the pace.
He got to the top before the Voidlings flooded the room and snatched the cape. It was hot – he could feel it through the glove, but it could not burn through the Shurimian metal. It had not been made for it. He took one look down, deduced he'd get eaten alive before he even reached the ground, and sprinted the opposite direction.
Each tomb had more than one exit, he'd learnt on his numerous escapades. Most of them were easy to find, if you knew how to look.
He jumped through the space, ignoring walls and holes in the floor. Let his legs take him forward, acting on instinct - he knew he worked best that way. Soon enough, he jumped one more time, and the Shurimian sun struck him in the eyes. He stopped, took a quick look around. The Tomb was crumbling down, sinking into the sand. They often did that.
He stopped in Marrowmark, keeping the Cape hidden under the white sheets of the cloak. He met his contact, they agreed on the price of the transport. Allowed himself to stalk through the marketplace, quiet for once, unrecognizable for once. He played a traditional game, didn’t understand the rules, didn't quite get the dialect the other players were using, but he ended up winning anyway, the bitter faces judging him as the dark hands slid their coins towards him. He stuffed his pockets, saluted the group and left.
He heard the name in the crowd, hushed like a secret. Antathir. His head perked up as he scanned the people, eventually finding the source. He walked closer, interrupted the talk, and asked for more information. They ignored him at first, then threatened, then they heard the clinking of the coins and leaned forward, adding him to their now-triangle of suspicious whispers.
Antathir. He’d never been this far. He figured he was just waiting for a good reason, for the push south, and there it was. Not an artifact, per se, but someone mentioned weird things happening there and many caravans ended up missing after heading south of The Valley of the Song. Well, more than usually.
Ezreal was not a hero, never claimed to be, but if he had to decide between going back to Piltover and visiting the southern tip of Shurima, probably filled to the brim with danger out of this world, he didn't even need to think about it. He liked being on the move, exploring new places, putting his life at risk. He worked best on instinct, when he didn’t need to sit down and think .
Which is why he was glad when he learned that his guides knew Piltovian. They were explorers, too, they said (and he didn’t have the heart to tell them that no, they were not), and they travelled across the world a lot. That made him even more glad and he talked throughout the entire journey, about himself, about his adventures, about the numerous artifacts he had... liberated. The pair of guides kept sighing heavily and Ezreal knew they will end up complaining about him one way or another, in some faraway oasis, in one of the small settlements under Targon, in one of Freljord's frozen cities - and he made sure to repeat his own name as many times as he could. Ezreal, the Piltovian prodigy. Ezreal, the adventurer, the explorer. Ezreal, the wielder of the ancient artifact.
They got through The Valley of the Song and all three of them were alive, which was 33% more people than Ezreal had estimated. But there was something in the air, foreign and electrifying, as soon as they crossed some sort of invisible border. Ezreal stood up and leaned over the edge of the seat, Dormun's body obturating most of the view. There were sparse explosions of purple between the clouds, thin lines, lightning up. Like a network of veins in the sky.
Ezreal frowned, took out his notebook, and started sketching. He'd seen it before, more to the East, back when he had thought he could take something valuable from Icathia.
Void, he thought as he scribbled down, but he didn’t say anything; He was not sure how much his companions knew, and he didn't want to scare them away. Travelling on Dormun was much more comfortable than on foot, and he was still not done making sure they would at least remember his name and perhaps the general look.
The feeling of something being off just kept becoming more overwhelming until at one point one of the guides stopped the creature and turned to Ezreal.
"No further," they said, their voice firm and final.
Ezreal sighed, packed his things up, told them to talk about him on their way back with a wink. Pretended not to understand their Shurimian "we will", tainted with sarcasm and sharp like a blade, then hopped off the Dormun.
He didn't spare a single look back at the guides as he stood there and watched the desert. He could see the shadow of the city, far back, but it was too dark, too distorted. He looked around, made sure he was relatively safe before he sat down and sketched out the view. The Void was interesting to him; it was dangerous, strange, forbidden . Many places outright condemned even mentioning it. Of course, most of Runeterra either didn't know anything about it, or didn't care, but the further south you wandered, the more obvious it was that people were afraid.
Of course, it was only natural to be afraid of the unknown. At least for them.
His pencil broke.
He looked at the drawing, breathed through his nose. Calm, long breaths. Chewed his inner cheek. He looked up again, and spotted another purple lightning. He frowned.
Ezreal stood up, stuffed his things back into his satchel. The vein was turning into a thunderstorm, the sky turning at a weird angle. One of the lightnings reached the city. There was no sound.
He stretched out, rolled his shoulders, then began sliding down the steep hill, towards the city.
Ezreal watched Piltover with a weird mixture of sentiment and disgust. He couldn't say he hated the city - he rarely admitted to hating the things he did. But it was so full of itself, so prideful in everything it shouldn't be, so fixated on the idea of being the City of Progress , he found it difficult at times to tolerate it. Piltover was a tainted mirror he hated looking into, all big words and pride, but he knew that in the raging war it was nothing but another pawn. Currently on Demacia's side, but things change.
He took in the view, the crooked buildings, protruding cogs, abraded billboards. He breathed in the smog, let it fill his lungs, focused on it. On anything, really. It was late, getting dark, and he decided he didn't want to spend another minute here, so he walked down the staircase, said goodbye to his uncle, and left. This time going north.
Ezreal did his best to absolutely forget about his birthday, but it did not work. Huge part of it was him checking the mailbox almost compulsively starting two days prior to and ending two weeks after the day. A bad habit he wished his uncle had eradicated.
Caitlyn had brought him a gift, in a neatly packed package, and Ezreal gave her a smirk and a raised eyebrow. "Awww, you remembered," he cooed, taking the package and enjoying the way the sheriff's face flinched.
"I do not forget such occasions," she simply said, clearing her throat and pointedly looking at the package.
Ezreal opened it up and studied the aerosol for a while before he ended up reading the label. "Metal... cleaner...?"
"You always wander around in that gauntlet," Caitlyn explained in a stern voice, and suddenly Ezreal was getting a scolding instead of a gift. "I reckon it'd do you both well if you cleaned it up from time to time."
"Gee, Cait," Ezreal shook the container, sprayed it into the air as a test. "Thanks!"
The sheriff just nodded, stiff and formal, and Ezreal felt uneasy. Too close. Too personal.
"But that'd take away the charm of it," he grinned, spinning the bottle. Caitlyn raised an eyebrow, but didn't say more. She just nodded, understanding, and then left when Ezreal didn't even offer tea.
By the time he realized he was doing it again, the irony taste of blood had already filled his mouth. He winced, slightly, then ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. He felt the irregular texture of the inside of his cheeks, exhausted and scarred by his habit. So the right side has had enough for now. He moved his jaw, working his teeth through the left side now.
Ezreal watched the shapeshifters walk past him, seemingly not noticing him at all. He had already produced the detailed sketches of the creatures, notes and descriptions of them - but he just wanted to watch, now. It was an entire colony, just taking a stroll by the waterfall, and he hoped the raging water covered both his sounds and his smell as he sat in the bushes.
Another wave of pain spilled over his face, and he sucked the vacuum inside of his mouth, placing the tip of his tongue over the newest wound, tasting blood yet again. He wondered if the vastaya could smell it, then wondered if they could hide two adult human beings among their tribe for so many years. He bit hard, this time, and audibly sucked the air in, frozen for a second, letting the pain wash over him in waves. He closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling, dropping the previous train of thought.
Eventually, the vastaya let him know they could see him right away, but for once in his life, it wasn't a disaster - they invited him to one of their feasts, mildly impressed by his drawings, and spent a good portion of it trying to teach him some of their words and laughing earnestly but kindly at his mispronunciation.
Some of these days, he would just sit down and let himself go. He wasn't stupid - he knew it'd just pile up otherwise, most likely come crumbling down in the least convenient moment. So, from time to time, he reserved the time to lock himself down in the empty house he pretended so hard not to hate.
He stared at the maps hanging on the walls, the old notes he'd found among countless lost notebooks, the hastily scribbled details and ideas and drawings staring back at him. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost hear them sneering at him, pointing at him, because if anything else, at least they were useful. He let them.
Ezreal scratched his arms to the point they bled, but it was always too late, too late to refocus, to look at the red, to taste the iron. He opened the windows but his lungs already forgot how to work, and he curled up on his bed, ignoring the pointed looks and comments of the sharp papers and artifacts surrounding him, because of course he'd keep it all, gather it all, let it watch over him and judge him, as everyone always has, as this entire city always has; because he was never enough, never enough to look at, talk about, never enough to look back at , talk to , come back to . He was just there , and then he wasn't, just as he wasn't right now, curled up and gasping for air, and screaming back at the walls, the empty rooms, the echoes in the corridor.
His cheeks burnt as he thought back to all the times he could have died, all the little sparks of adrenaline, the countless distractions he kept finding for himself to look at something else than the hostile, empty house in the hostile, empty city.
He gave up on rubbing his face, gave up on biting and scratching and screaming, and just embraced himself, slowly suffocating in the room, excuses and apologies and screams and sneers and laughter mixing all up in his head into a melodic image of two empty chairs at the table, the aching, the pain , the confusion and the understanding. Of course. He'd leave, too.
He keeps leaving all the time, anyway.
Eventually, the night came and went. Ezreal forced himself to sit up, then stand up. To walk downstairs, to make himself tea, to sit at the table and pointedly ignore how unnecessary big it is.
Eventually, he took a deep breath, recalibrated again. Not unnecessary. They will be back, he tapped into the hot mug. The walls went quiet, the maps and notes and photos back to rustling slightly at the wind from the opened windows. He just needed to try a little more.
It will never be enough , something whispered at the back of his mind, but his break time was over, so he finished the tea and walked outside. Locked the doors, swirled the keys on his finger for a moment before he stuffed them into a pocket and left.
Jayce figured him out the moment he laid his eyes on him. Of course he did, because he's Jayce, and he has to know everything , and for Jayce, everything is science and Ezreal stopped being interesting the moment he became obvious .
Most of the time Ezreal was glad it was Jayce who figured it out, the only person smart (observant... caring?) enough in all of Piltover, because Jayce did not care. And thus did not try to bash it into Ezreal's head that (his parents are dead) he's not enough just yet . And thus Ezreal didn't need to worry about breaking apart in the middle of the street, about the entire world realizing, about his wonderful plan burning in Hell. But there were days, albeit sparse, when he looked at Jayce and couldn't hide the plea in his eyes, couldn't stop hoping that he'd do something. But he didn't know what, and he never asked, and Jayce was just Jayce, so he always gave him a look full of contempt and superciliousness. "Get it together," he said one day, rolling his eyes. At the time, Ezreal wanted to punch him, and scream at him. When he got home, he was just grateful.
Caitlyn seemed suspicious at first, but she ate up the beautiful lie fast enough, and Vi didn't seem to be interested enough to spare eight seconds thinking about Ezreal. Which frustrated him - after all, what if she ended up taking to someone who ended up talking to...
He let it slide, this one time, and decided he would try not to repel these three people. But soon he found himself doubling over in the efforts to do just that , because the rustling, yellow papers on the walls of his room kept mocking him, kept reminding him that they would leave as well, as soon as he gets content, as soon as he thinks they wouldn't.
Jayce was never a friend to begin with, and he didn't seem to notice when Ezreal grew distant, turning whatever they were into a weird, pointless rivalry. But Jayce let him, and it must have meant something.
Caitlyn eventually accepted the Ezreal that was just there to help her when she specifically needed him, and Vi didn't pretend to feel bad about not having to waste any attention on him, instead focusing on Caitlyn and their work.
Heimerdinger got interested for a while, but it wasn't for the same purpose - he wanted to know what Ezreal had found, in the sands of Shurima, the snow of Freljord, the bloody fields of Noxus (Ezreal hated going to Noxus, but the Noxians hated him even more, so he kept doing it. It was a fair deal). And the explorer soon realized it could be a mutual thing. He would share his adventurous knowledge with the professor, and in exchange, Heimer would share his own, more academic. They spent nights figuring out blueprints and patterns for wild machines that could never become real, and then one day Heimer welcomed Ezreal at his home with a working prototype of one of them.
And then Ezreal was spiraling again - he focused on sharing his personal information (name, at least his name ) alongside the distribution of the machine, then he almost thought about talking to Heimer about more personal matters. He was Icarus, and this entire city was the Sun, and he got burned enough times to know how much it hurts (once), and so he eventually just shut the professor off as well, and left for three months.
When he first met her, Lux didn't even look at him. He was in Demacia, Jarro Lightfeather at the moment (such a beautiful, ironic lie, such a heartbreaking revelation that he did not quite reach just yet), when a squadron ran past him, all white horses in shiny armour, all flawless soldiers.
She rode at the lead, and she threw a careful look around them, her eyes easily sliding past his silhouette in the group. He saw the insignia on her collar, recognized the blonde hair, the blue eyes - Luxanna Crownguard - and he got curious.
The second time, he purposefully ran into her, if only to test her. But there was no recognition in her eyes. He saw the initial caution, the way her eyes darted to the soldiers around them and back. He stood up, dusted himself off, held out a hand. He wanted to make a good first impression, to say something witty, something friendly, but he had long forgotten how to be amiable and accessible, so he just went with the flow.
"Better watch where you're goin' next time!" He said, winking, all sass and confidence.
Lux gave him a smile, warm, yet shammed. She accepted his hand, let him help her stand up, then he patted her shoulder, and left. He knew right away what the best way of repelling her would be - and it'd never been easier. He just had to keep the act up.
He slammed the door shut, slid down the inner side of it. He let the papers rustle quiet insults and cruel chuckles as he silently reasoned with himself that it's good, it's perfect.
Ezreal was, after all, born to be hated.