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Lux waved brightly at the other mages as they plodded their way down the frosted path that led to the Freljord and safety for each of them. She alone stood on the Demacian side of the border with cold creeping into her chest as she watched each of them disappear over the horizon. She shivered despite the fur-lined cloak wrapped around her shoulders and tugged at her hood to warm her cheeks. Minutes passed before she realized how long she had been standing there, staring off in the direction that her previous companions had gone.
She hated to admit it to herself, but Lux envied them. They were free to escape to safer lands, far away from the place where they were seen as anything but people. She wanted to run across the border herself. She wanted to feel the bright crunching of snow beneath her boots. She wanted to return to a place where there would be a warm fire, warm food, and warm conversation waiting for her every night. She wanted to be able to use her gift out in the open and have no one bat an eye.
A lump grew in Lux’s throat as she turned on her heel and walked back towards the heart of her country. A knot wound itself up in her chest so tightly that she felt her shoulders winding up with it, closer and closer to her chest. The shaft of the staff in her hands pressed against her breastplate, crushing it against her sternum. The cold that spread into her face was warmed by tears that slowly dripped from watery eyes. She felt herself suppressing them, trying to tuck them back away to not worry anyone. She choked back a sob with a deep, shaky intake of breath that rattled from her throat and all the way down her body. The metal of her staff clinked loudly against her armor as she hugged it to herself like a child’s stuffed toy.
All of a sudden, Lux realized that no one was around anymore.
She stopped walking and shivered as she let out a sound that she hadn’t realized that she could make. A slow wail rose out of her throat, broken up by wet sobs. She stumbled to the side and felt the bark of a tree pinch up against her arm and tangle itself into her hair. She hugged the staff even tighter and whimpered at the sharp pain against her scalp as she felt herself slowly lowering down to the ground. She fell back just before reaching the ground, the impact sending pain shooting up her spine. Her body curled up against the tree like it was a brace keeping her tethered to reality as she felt herself fading away with each sob.
How long had it been since she had cried like this? She hadn’t cried when she saw Sylas up on the executioner’s platform, nor when her heart shattered after his betrayal. She hadn’t cried like this when Tianna had begun to bear down on her about her duty as a Crownguard. For a fleeting moment, she remembers crying as a child and wonders if that was truly the last time that she had felt her body overtaken by sorrow like this.
Lux loathed herself for falling apart at the seams. She felt a need to get a hold of herself but her body refused to comply. Her nails dug into and chipped against her staff. Her teeth bore against the skin of her cracked lips.
That brought her back to reality for a moment. Cracked lips meant thirst and crying would only make that worse. “Water,” she breathed out in a crackly voice, just to hear herself making any noise with a shred of normalcy attached. She jabbed her staff into the ground and slowly lifted herself up with shaky arms and wobbly legs. She squinted her eyes through her tears to see what lay in front of her and slowly stepped back onto the path. One foot. Then the other. One foot. Then the other. She remembered there was a stream filled with clear water that she had passed on the way to the border. That was her goal. That was all there was for now. She pictured it vividly in her mind and strained her ears to listen to the sound of rushing water over her labored breaths. The forest warped around her gaze like the thoughts that spun around in her head, save for one pinprick of solidity in front of her. She clung to it and the quiet sounds of the stream to drag herself forward.
Soon Lux felt misted ground under her feet and she sank to her knees again to cup the water and bring it to her lips like a life-giving elixir. Each sip gently massaged the aching patches her sobs left in her throat. Her mind began to quiet as her eyes slowly refocused on the ground in front of her. Although she felt as though she had been rubbed raw, a strange weight that she hadn’t noticed before seemed to have been lifted from her shoulders. Maybe crying, at least in private, was just what she needed to keep going.
She dabbed at her puffy eyes with her sleeve and sniffed. Step by step, she felt her mind retreating back from the loss of something that she never had towards equilibrium. In order for Demacia to have the warmth she envisioned- in order for it to have a future at all- she couldn’t simply turn her back to it. As they were now, Sylas and Jarvan were on a path that would tear Demacia apart from the inside. Someone needed to forge another path, or at least light the way for someone else to do so. With a bit of encouragement, maybe there were mages out there who were willing to take a less extreme path. Maybe even Sylas or Jarvan could be persuaded towards less militant solutions. There had to be a way for Demacia to move forward without destroying all that had come before. Ignoring the past was exactly what had caused Demacia to take such a draconian stance against magic in the first place. Repeating the process would only prolong the suffering.
Lux filled her lungs and let out a slow breath, imagining her sorrow being blown away into the river and carried off by its currents. Her gaze then turned to the path beside her as she dragged herself up again, now on much stronger limbs. Hope filled the cracks the cold had left in her with gold brilliance, and she found the energy to start walking again. Things seemed bleak now, but she saw a pinprick of light in the distance towards a future where she might be able to live peacefully among the Demacian people that she loved. It would take sacrifice, but if her momentary unhappiness could light the way for a brighter future then that was what needed to be done. The path stretched on far into the distance, but it didn’t feel endless. She would wind through the trees and reach home eventually. But first, she needed to make it to the nearest town. It was imperative that she restock on supplies before continuing her travels to the hidden mage village that her previous companions had mentioned. The future was murky, but this first step was crystal clear and she moved forward with a renewed sense of duty.