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Jinx's life was a series of jokes of poor taste and dark humor that stretched across many, many years. And the punchline was always a killing blow.
One of those jokes started like this: once upon a time (wait, was that right? That didn't sound right... whatever) a makeshift family composed of a retired warrior and four orphans forged by the war he waged sat down to have a tea party in commemoration of the youngest's 10th anniversary. Some fondly indulging, some begrudgingly, but the little girl had insisted.
"If we don't have a tea party," she said. "I'll be as blue as my hair." Which was quite blue. As blue as the sky above Piltover, as blue as the sky never ever got in the Undercity. "And then I'll die."
"Why should I care?" Mylo had grumbled, but then the Big Brave Wolf, who was the little girl's knight and best friend and big sister (all in one!) had sent him a look and he'd shut up and gone to put on his nice clothes to attend the party.
The girl had been radiant in a blue dress she'd thrifted a few weeks before, then splashed the base of the skirt in pink paint, and coupled that with some pink and black striped knee-high socks, a black frilly apron, a black hair ribbon, and as many homemade accessories as she could put on. To complete the look she'd let her hair down for once to resemble Alice, from Alice in Wonderland. She'd been obsessed with that book at the time which was why she even wanted a tea party.
The four of them had sat in a basement haunted by invisible friendly ghosts, drank juicy from mugs sat atop dessert plates with their pink finger raised, and eat the small undecorated cake the warrior had gotten for the occasion.
"Every day you look more like your mother." The warrior had told the little girl, a sad smile gracing his face.
"She really does." The Wolf agreed, in the low and indecipherable tone of voice she used when they talked of their parents.
The little girl would not know. She didn't remember her parents' faces. But she thought this might be the kind of thing that made the people around her sad, so she hadn't said anything.
It was a great tea party and, at the end of it, she'd raised from her spot on the floor with her favorite plush and declared: "And now, Mister Whisker shall die. For now."
Reactions to that statement were varied. Claggor started laughing, though his laugh sounded a little weird and choked. Maybe he was laughing at the absolutely hilarious face Mylo made. Vander and Vi had stared at her with what she recognized as confusion and worry only because she saw that expression on their face very often.
For a kid afraid of her own shadow, Powder had been obsessed with death, among other morbid subjects.
"Powder. Why are you going to kill your cat plush?" Vi asked.
"Don't worry, he'll revive tomorrow when the sun comes up!" She reassured. It was nice of Vi to worry about Mister Whisker.
"Ok, but why?" Vi insisted.
"Someone always dies at tea parties." Powder informed her. "... or was it dinner parties?" She muttered to herself. Well, it didn't matter, it was already dinner time anyway.
"You're making that up!" Accused Mylo.
"I'm not! I read it in a book!" Powder defended. Everybody knew that if it was written in a book then it had to be true. You had to be real smart to write a book, much less to get it published.
Mylo's face twisted into something even uglier, because he couldn't read so he couldn't say she was lying.
Despite being the youngest, Powder was the only one who was actually good at reading and had it as a hobby near and dear to her heart. She was always begging Vander to take her to the public library in Piltover or to thrift or exchange books for her in the small book shop near the Bridge. The other three didn't much care for it.
Vi and Claggor could read but slowly and haltingly and they never bothered to practice. Mylo couldn't at all and had never spent the effort to learn. It was not strange in the Undercity, as a matter of fact, most people were illiterate. It didn't affect their lives much in the Lanes, and getting an education was hard.
"Stop, the two of you." Vander ordered, finally getting involved after a too-long minute of his two youngest glaring at each other seemed to be about to turn into bickering. "Powder," he continued, addressing just the little girl this time. "You don't need to kill Mister Whisker."
"No, I'm gonna." Powder insisted, nodding decisively as she squished the cat plush against her middle. She wanted her party to be a real tea party so someone had to die. And who else could it be? Mylo? Tempting. But Vander would be upset with her, so it had to be Mister Whisker.
"You're so fucking weird." Mylo had shouted, gesturing wildly with his hands at her and sending Vander and Vi looks, as if to say see, see!
Weird.
Powder knew she was weird, like every kid knows that when the older people around them start calling them something too often then it must be true.
Weird was just another word for different.
Different was another word for monster.
She'd tried to explain that to Silco once. He'd taken her to the window that looked over the bottom of the river and explained to her that all life forms living in it now were changed and deformed. Unnatural, like nothing else in the world. They had lived there for generations, surviving in the toxic waters and eating the toxic trash until they became what they were.
They'd simply done what they needed to in order to survive in a hostile environment, displaying impressive resilience and adaptive capacity. But it had been ugly and brutal and it had changed them in irreversible ways. And because of that, anyone who looked at them would call them monsters.
But Jinx, for all that she had done quite a few ugly and brutal things to survive, didn't see herself in that category at all. Because at the end of the day, the worst things she'd ever done were never for survival... They were accidents.
Once upon a time, a little girl was allowed to play with bombs because the ones she build never worked. She tried and tried again and prayed that they would work, until the day they finally did.
Once upon a time, a little girl killed almost her entire family while desperately trying to protect them, then got adopted by a man that had tried and failed to kill her family before the girl herself succeeded where he didn't.
Once upon a time, a makeshift mockery of a "family" composed of a little monster, her traitor crime boss adoptive dad, her traitor big sister, and her traitor big sister's Enforcer girlfriend sat down around a table to have a tea party with unfriendly ghosts in a dark, decrepit and smelly building.
And as a little girl obsessed with death had well know... Someone always dies at tea parties.
Thinking back now, she should have known this is how it would end.
She had fucking jinxed it.