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Viktor had been walking the streets of Zaun alone, his exile from Plitozer and its oh so prestigious academy still fresh in his mind. He didn’t know why it hurt so damn bad, he had no love for that city, it wasn’t his home. The people treated him like some poor invalid and his teachers had repeatedly stolen his work and presented it as their own. He was just a tool to those people, a means to an end, he had know that from the beginning, so why did he feel like he just wanted to disappear.
They had dragged him through the mud. He was once so bright, full of joy and compassion. Even at a young age he had done everything he could to help his fellow Zaunites. He helped create filtration systems, safer ways to dispose of pollution, prototypes for safer and less painful prosthetic. Everything he did, he did for Zaun, even going to that goddess forsaken academy in the first place. He been given a free ride and would have been stupid not to take it. Sure he could have stayed with the Zaun University of Science but Piltover had the resources to support him, they had tools that Viktor had never even though he would be able to get his hands on, so when the asked, he accepted without a second thought.
He was the first Zaun born student in the entire history of the academy, and he was at the top of his class. Many, many, Pilties despised him for it, just waiting for any opportunity to pick him apart for any little slip up.They were all praying for his ruin and, at the time, Viktor though it was funny. His skin was toughened by the streets of Zaun, nothing these people could do to him could ever scare him or make him feel small. He genuinely couldn’t find it in himself to truly care about any of their opinion, he wasn’t there for them nor did he come to make friends.
But their was one person in the entirety of Piltover that he had come to respect, to see as a friend, and maybe even something more. But he stomped out whatever fleeting feeling he had for that man the second he crossed the border into his home country. Whatever speck of the childish and secret love he felt for him died when Jayce Giopara had him expelled from the academy, making his name forever ruined, and ending in him getting kicked out of the entire country as a whole with only one day to prepare. He had walked the entire way back, his braced leg screaming in pain and his back and chest felt so tight that they had almost gone numb. But still he walked on.
He had no were to go. His father had died from a lung related disease before he had even left for college and his mother had died on a factor floor while he sat, spoiledly, in his dorm room overlooking its view of Piltover from so high up, none the wise to the tragedy that had just happened. It was so depressingly ironic it was almost funny, while he had worked tirelessly to fix those exact problems, Zuan claimed the only two people that ever loved him.
So now he wonders aimlessly, a luggage case on his back filled with all of his things and anything else he could steal from his roommate betrayer and of the school property. He had only one other bag besides that, clutched in the hand that wasn’t holding the cane. Everything he could save from his mothers disposed of belongings were safely tucking into it. A worn quilt blanket, some crochet doilies and pot holders, two of her dresses, and one wood carving a blue bird.
He marched on through the smog of the lower levels, the thick air that he was once accustomed to tickled his lungs. Most people on this level wore gas masks, especially on days like this when the the Gray was so thick that you couldn’t even see what was in front of you. But alas Viktor had, possibly stupidly, given his own mask to a young girl he had passed on the street trying and failing to sell metal flowers. So now the toxic air began to fill his lungs, making it harder and harder to breathe, but he was content in knowing that he had managed to at least help that girl not have to deal with this.
He could barley walk three more steps before leaning heavily onto the close thing to him, the side of some old abandoned building. He slid down to the ground, coughing heavily, his whole body shaking with each wet inhale and exhale. The bag of his mothers belonging tumbled beneath him, the contents spilling onto the trash filled ground. He weakly tried to shove them all back into the bag, but the Grey began to thicken even more, to the point where all he saw was white. He was getting tired as his breaths became shallower and shallower. In his haze he ran he hand along the ground only to fell the familiar etchings of a wooden bird.
The blue bird represented Janna, the glorious protector of Zaun. The patron goddess and personification of the clean air that sometimes found its way into their retched country. Viktor was never religious, he couldn’t spend his day relying on something that may or may not exist, he much rathered care for things that were real and tangible, like the other citizens of Zaun. If there was one thing that Zaun had that Piltover would never get, it was community. It was one of the biggest things he missed during his stay in that sterile country, next to the food. Zaun might have chem-barons and gang fights, but when it came down to it, Zaunites looked out for other Zaunites.
He had felt the sense of community run through him at a young age, its what fueled him to become so politically active in the first place, what drove him to reach for better and better ways to improve his technology and his theories. But he could acknowledge that religion also brought communities closer as well. Most Zaunites weren’t even die hard Janna worshipers but everyone knew her name and were sure to praise her whenever a stray breeze managed to slip its way through the cracks and into the Underground.
Unlike now, where he was, sitting in the grey, convinced that this what was going to do him in, clutching a religious token of a goddess he didn’t even believe in.
He deserved this. This was his homelands way of punishing him for being away for so long, and it was a fitting way to go if you asked him. But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t scared, he was terrified. He didn’t want to die alone. Die like his father. Die like is mother. Die like ever other street rat that those Piltover dogs didn’t even spare a second glace at. So he did something he had never done in his entire life. He prayed.
But he didn’t pray to be saved. He wasn’t so delusional to think he was that special. No, he just talked as though he was speaking to an old friend. His thoughts run through everything that had happened the last couple of years of his life. He told Janna about his inventions, his hopes, his dreams, what his mother’s favorite food was, how Piltovians didn’t season their food, how he was slowly forgetting what his fathers face looked like as every day went by, how he scared the same would happen with his mother, how he didn’t want to die.
The longer he prayed the more he spriled. Sinking deeper and deeper into the realization that he was really going to die. His troat contracted, he couldn’t even cough anymore. Tears leaked from his eyes as he fell onto his side. He couldn’t stop himself from crumbling into the fetal position. Saliva dripped from the side of his open mouth as he attempted to make any sort of noise. Black dots danced across his vision as it quickly became harder and harder to keep his eyes open. His body, so often riddled with chronic pain now felt light and tingly. Ringing filled his ears as the darkness covered his vision. He felt cold.
Then everything was white and warm. His eyes shot open, quickly realizing that he was now sitting up and that air was filing his lungs at a rapid rate. Vomit all but shot out of his dry mouth onto his Piltover University uniform, probably staining it. He was glad that at least it was clothes he had been thinking about burning anyway. Shamefully, it took that thought passing through his mind before he realized he could not only see, but that he could feel a set of thin yet strong arms wrapped around his torso. He knew he should have felt terrified but for some reason he could only feel content and safe. He felt like he was in a state of only being half awake, like dreams still danced just outside of his vision. A warm cuckle came from behind him, shook his thin frame.
“Oh my child, look how you've grown, I am so very sorry I could not reach you faster.” The voice sounded just like the wind chimes his mother had hung from their windows.
The person ran gentle circles over his stomach.
“You’ve been so strong, my dear little helper. Now please alow me to fix everything”
They gave him small kiss on the back of his head before he heard the wind start to pick up around them. It was then that he realized that the space around him had been cleared of The Grey. It was like a bubble of fresh air encircled the two of them, he couldn’t he but stare in awe. It was like a tornado picked up around them, The Grey swirling faster and more violently.
And just as quickly as the toxic smog had came, it was gone. He couldn’t believe what was happening around him, he must be dreaming. Some crazed side effect of the toxins? Or possibly the lack of oxygen is causing auditory and visual hallucinations. But the way the sun now beamed in his eyes, causing him to squint, the way the air brushed through his hair, like fingers gently petting him, and the way the ground felt damp and rough underneath his calloused hands had to be real. Please, let it be real.
“It’s okay, It’s okay, I promise. Everything will be alright now.” His heart jumped in his chest when he heard those words be spoken so close to his ear. He hadn’t realized it his breathing had sped up. He tried to relax, closing his eyes tight as he counted in his head. He felt like a child, yet for once, this feeling didn’t upset him. He could smell the scent petrichor filled the space around him as long strands of hair tickled his nose, he knew exactly who was now standing in front of him without even opening his eyes.
“I-” he tried to speak but the words clogged up in his throat. He tried to blinking away tears but more flowed out of his eyes, blurring the bright new world around him. He tried, he really tried, he always tries, but all he could do was slightly sob. Whole body shivers wrecked through his body.
It as then that the softest and gentlest hands he had ever felt cupped his cheeks. Long and thin fingers brushed away his tears, bringing them to halt so quickly it was as if he hadn’t been crying in the first place. He cracked his eyes open only to greeted by the image of the air incarcerated. Her long golden hair flowed around her as though she were underwater. Skin pale as white fluffy clouds that he would see pass overhead as a child. White orbs met brown as they stared at each other.
“Shhh, my little bird.” she cooed at him, her large smile threatening to split her face in half. “I promise you will never be alone again my dear boy, you will always have me. You will always have Zaun. Be strong, don’t ever let you’re spark dwindle again. And I swear to you, you will find peace and love all around you. Maybe not today, or tomorrow but you will.” She giggled gently. “Much sooner then you could ever imagine. Now pick up your head. The sky is above you, the wind is at your side, and the Earth is under your feet.”
She leaned forward kissing him on the brow one last time.
“Welcome home.”
It was just two words, but they made him feel like he was being filled to the brim with warmth and love. He wanted to thank her. To tell her he was sorry. To ask her why. Why now? Why him? But she gave him a knowing look, shutting him up. She stands, taking him with her. Leaning his weight on her he looked out onto the street.
Zaunites looked around in awe. Some coming out of buildings, children began running up and down the road, older folks looking up like the cracks that let the sun beams in held the answers. Viktor turned to speak to Janna, to her something, anything, but she was gone. His hands now holding his bag and cane. It was as if she was never there.
The sound of that laugh that sounded like wind chimes flew past his ears, or maybe it was just the sound of wind chimes that sounded vaguely like a chuckle. He didn’t care. He couldn’t help the laugh that slipped past his lips. It was completely involuntary, but he was laughing. And not just the little snicker he usually lt out, no, this was a full body chuckle.
He looked back at the people standing in the street, he knew each one of them was being filled with the same sense of warmth and love as him. He tightened his grip on his bag, specially already filled with with all of his mother’s belongs again.
He walked on further into Zaun. But now he was standing tall, chin up. He wasn’t alone anymore, though looking back, was he ever really alone?