Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The immediate results of Ruination.

It had appeared with no warning, as a beam of dark-aquan light over every capitol, shooting downward and cascading a glowing mist over wherever it made contact. After a few minutes the beam disappeared, and most of the mist raised into the sky to wrap around itself and form into a writhing sphere.

Then tendrils of that same mist dripped and snaked down, releasing more ghouls and beginning to possess people.

And after a few hours, just like that, it all went away. But the damage had been done. Structures collapsed. People killed. Trusts shattered. Lives ruined.

The same thing happened across every location that the mist had appeared, and each affected area responded in their own unique ways.

Demacia, a militaristic territory known for its incredible sturdiness and magic-dampening petricite, entered an increased state of alert. Giving due caution to the sudden attack, but appropriately confident in their ability to repel especially arcane incursions. Patrols and overall military presence increased, but there was no drastic change to the daily life of a typical Demacian.

On the surface, Noxus behaved exactly opposite to Demacia. Becoming louder and messier in response to Ruination. Nearly all of Noxus’s many factions raised each of their voices and took many bold actions, stating it was all for the empire’s benefit. But for all of the noise that was made, the Noxians were simply continuing to do what they always did, using their power to try to expand their reach and raise their standing. 

Ixaocan, capitol of the hidden region of Ixtal, simply proceeded with their planned response. Never having forgotten Ruination, having avoided it during its first appearance and having watched its events unfold from a distance, they created powerful wards against mind-influence and ghoulish creatures and activated them. As a result, they suffered nothing more than the chore of having to occasionally smack away unruly mist. 

And they planned on keeping it that way. 

On Mount Targon, with green light and gruesome mist having poured from the sky, the Solari and Lunari both declared the phenomena as an act of worldwide aggression from the other side. The pale-skin ghouls could only be monsters born from Lunari faith, and the mind-controlling smoke could only be the Solari’s brainwashing and history-rewriting methods gone awry. Divided yet further and still unwilling to engage in any kind of talk, Targon was put into a state of disarray.

Piltover and Zaun both kicked their production into highgear, quickly repairing the damage done to their own regions and simultaneously shipping their products all around the world. A small few businesses did so in the interest of simply providing aide where it was needed, but most took advantage of the worldwide need for resources to counteract damages sustained and raised their prices accordingly.  

In Shurima, the Ruined mist behaved differently from how it did the rest of the world. While it still sent forth ghouls and attempted possessions, the majority of it had focused on smothering and stealing from the Sun Disk. Foreseeing future invasions, Emperor Azir decreed that his loyal warriors defend his empire from the mist alongside his sand soldiers. His faithful mages would then help him work against the mist’s future attempts at stealing the Sun Disk’s energy. 

Limitless as the Disk’s power is, nothing may be allowed to desecrate the symbol of his prosperous reign. 

After the wave had pulled back in Ionia, The Enlightened One revealed to everyone that Ruination had attempted to poison her connection to Ionia’s spirit. And that it would return to do so again. Understanding the gravity of this, a permanent rotating watch was set up all throughout Ionia. And more. Ionia’s people had all recently become at odds with one another, due to differing responses to the Noxian Invasion, but they will forever be united in their will to protect The First Lands.

The known affected area of the Freljord, a vast winterscape where even the most populous Avarosans number nowhere near the thousands, did not see any broad change beyond having new tracks to learn and a new enemy to ignore. Ghouls leave behind nothing after their death and are a waste of a hunter’s energy, better left to the defenders whenever possible. WIth that said, no instances of mind control had occurred to anyone, nor were there any sightings of mist.

But a giant mass of floating Ruination did appear within the Freljord. It was simply impossible to see for most.

Which Leaves Bilgewater, and its Harrowings-acquainted residents. Although Ruination was of a different and higher threat than what they’re used to, the Buhru practices and the gunslinging tendencies of the town’s inhabitants proved more than enough to carry them through it. As a result, the only real change after that first wave was a new area of moneymaking: defending and taking advantage of the paranoid. With the most populated areas of the world affected by Ruination, it made the money earned from protection and mercenary work skyrocket.

Work that a certain cardshark, and by extension their shotgunner accomplice, did not take on for some reason . . .

Chapter Text

I leap up over the stack of crates in front of me, and the rich sound of my wolfmanta trench coat flapping in the salty ocean wind is honestly just the pickup I needed right now. Worth each and every gold kraken, not a doubt in my mind. I’d shut my eyes and try to savor the sensation if I could.

“Get BACK h-here you-”

Yeah yeah, didn’t forget you.

I’m still falling back to the ground when the flush-beaked vastayan hot on my heels punctuates her slurred, hiccuping speech with a blast from her pistol. The bullet “misses'' and lodges into one of the sturdy crates, but it’s not lost on me that if there wasn’t a crate between us she’d have put a bullet in my shoulder. And I’m not interested in standing still to give her a cleaner shot. My feet meet ground again and I keep running the only path open to me: straight down this open-ceiling, coastal stone corridor. 

“-you no good . . . THIEF!”

She forgoes jumping over the crates and charges her way through them instead. She braced herself for the impact, but lucky for her the crates only looked heavy. What they actually are is nailed together, making them just light enough to part like a door for anyone wanting to push their way through. And all after I went through the trouble of leaping over them like they were immovable too.

My mood’s sour again. 

Just my luck. What’s Harrun even doing with a tower of boxes in his corridor? What’s more, the woman’s drunk enough she can barely string together a sentence, but just happens to be the kind of drunk that keeps both her aim and her speed through it? What’s worse, the sound of her busting past those crates and keeping up with sprinting after me is drowning out the fine clacks of my abyssal stoneperch boots. 

I’m being cheated outta my money’s worth here! 

That sets me off, and I decide to throw caution to the sea. I shift my elbow in a way that’s become second nature by this point, and slip a total of three magic red cards out of my sleeve. The concentrated, arcane potential hitting my palm makes me all the more sure that this is the right thing to do, yup. It’s just me and her out here for now, and I’d like to see her try and run through a ball o’ fire. I look back over my shoulder and snap at her.

“If you aint gonna quit chasing me, can you at least quit your squawkin’ ya damn pigeon?!”

My cards glow and heat up, from like a candle to like a furnace in the blink of an eye, and I toss them back through the crisp early evening air to roast me a bird.

But the only thing getting burned is my relationship with Lady Luck it seems. The cards were meant to erupt into flames before they even touched the lady chasing me. What they do instead is limply hit her on the sternum, and the cards just barely manage to singe the plumage there before breaking away into nothingness like they do. 

This makes the bird go even more red, this time from anger instead of booze, the feathers there having been something she probably took pride in given the prominence of their display. She levels her gun at me again, keeping it level despite both of us running fast as we can, and screams at me.

“You . . . DIE!”

Fuckin’ figures.

But I didn’t make it this far by not thinking ahead. The instant my red cards didn’t explode like how they should have - a disappointment I was sadly expecting, to be honest - I moved a “colorless” card into my hand and threw it at her by the time she started shouting her threat. Without having to account for a potential explosion this time, the card travels through the air with a lot more oomph behind it. Her bullet barely leaves the muzzle before it ricochets off my card, digging its way into one of the towering walls on either side of us as the card flips for a bit before dissipating.  

That’s how it goes for the next minute, the both of us running down this long corridor with her basic bullets and my basic cards clashing in the air, and it gives me plenty of time to sink even further into my bad mood.

This should have been easy. She just got into town today. She got herself drunk. It was an easy mark. I’m at fucking Harrun’s of all dens. Only security there is paid to protect Harrun alone, the stakes are low but played up as being a huge risk for the inexperienced, the corridor has random scribbles that are passed off as being spiritually significant. It’s a literal tourist trap.

I came here, alone, because I wanted easy. And it was easy. At least, up until one of my blue cards acted up for no damn reason. I wasn’t even using it; I don’t need to ta get some money from a tipsy tourist’s already loose purse strings! The card game was going spectacularly, dozens of her coins still in my pouch at the moment, when she and I suddenly get a clear blue vision of each others’ hands courtesy of a glowing blue rectangle in my coat pocket that anyone could see. 

Didn’t even bother trying to explain that I wasn’t using magic to cheat her, I just got up and ran. Which leads us to the present situation. She’s a vastayan from Ionia, so she’s obviously no stranger to magic. And once someone sees that you can cheat, there’s no point in trying to convince them that you’re of upstanding moral fiber. Doesn’t matter if you were or were not actually cheating. 

But still . . . 

My fingers slip up on the release, card spiraling wildly outta my hand, and her bullet grazes my ear as I have to slam myself into the wall to dodge it. My raymanta hat shifts off my head from the impact, and I fix it back into place as I push off the wall and keep movin’. I’m starting to breathe heavy, but I keep on running. I’m used to running. Used to this life of mine. This is the first time my cards have acted up, but I’m not stranger to being put off my game. I’ll make it. I have to. 

My body moves practically on autopilot, matching the rhythm of her reloading bullets with the timing of me throwing cards, as I wrestle with what’s been eating at me for the past several hours now.   

. . . Why?

Obviously she doesn’t care about why my cards are acting up, but I do. It’s my livelihood here that’s at stake; does she think I wanted to spend my night cheating her out of her pocket change? That I wanted to turn down all the higher paying jobs coming in these days? That I wanted my reputation to get called into question, when people saw my cards acting up?! Is that what she fucking thinks?!

. . . Damn it all. I’m starting to lose it, and currently being chased and shot at isn’t a good excuse. Though I wouldn’t be the first to lose it if I did, all things considered. Gee, what a nice thought. The world’s been in a tizzy ever since beams of light came down over the most bustling places of the world, all of them leaving behind a ball of green mist-slime to hang above for a while . It happened two days ago, and the whole ordeal lasted for little over an hour. All it was initially rumored to do was release some monsters and possess some folks. Then it disappeared, the sky and its fluffy white clouds returning like nothing happened. 

Except, that’s not all it seems to have done. 

I’m about to toss maybe my twelfth card this chase sequence when I spot a flicker of that awful green mist in my periphery. Inside my card. My heart skips a beat, but before I can actually get a proper look at it, the card is shot outta my hand. I have half a mind to thank the lady for blasting that creepy gunk away from me. The other half wants to just give her her money back so I can look for the card before it vanishes and see if I was just seeing things or not. So I can get some kind of . . . information? Peace? Closure?  

. . . But none of that comes to pass, and I just keep on running.

Ruination.

That dramatic-ass title resounds through my skull for the hundredth time today alone, and it only seems to sound more and more appropriate as time speeds by. Bilgewater was hit by Ruination just like the rest of the world, though we probably handled it better. We’re no strangers to a harrowing time. I figured this Ruination stuff was nothing serious. My cards were working  perfectly fine even up to when the mist retreated and disappeared. Graves and I practically laughed that pair of light sentries or whatever outta Bilgewater, figuring the two of ‘em were just a pair of quick thinkers trying to scam Graves by telling him to join them.  

But I can’t deny that, after that Senna lady put her giant gun in the water to act as a kind of motor for their boat, one of my gold cards exploded. Without warning and without my input, it kept Graves and I where we were long enough for us to get drenched by the wall of water she blasted up. That isn’t something my cards can or should do, but they do now after Ruination.

I can’t ignore that Graves told me to wish Harrun well when I saw him today, because the poor guy’s husband was possessed by the mist. And then, after learning that he broke Harrun’s leg while under Ruination’s control, skipped town without even a note. The two of them had been inseparable since their teen years the way Harrun tells it, and that isn’t true anymore. After Ruination. 

Bilgewater has always been the place to go for rumors and gossip about the world, and there’s been a whole lot to discuss these past couple days. Ruination’s made a mess of the entire world. Made a mess of just about everyone’s personal lives. Buildings and structures have been damaged and ransacked by its tendrils of mist. It’s made a prisoner if not a slave out of hundreds of people from the sound of it, some of them having disappeared to no one knows where. And if it can do all that.

What the hell did it do to me? Why me? 

Magic tends to stick to a theming, and as far as I can tell the shticks that should have been affected before me are doing just fine. The skies went dark and the wind turned grody, but all the nature folk seem to be breezing on by. The land was saturated with those pale little monsters what hopped out of the mist, but the people with minions and pets get to keep their welcome company. They got to fight as usual during Ruination and can still fight after it, but I can’t?

What do me and my cards have to do with all this? Coloration? The mist was green, so because I’m blue, red, and yellow that means I get special treatment? Is that what we’re doing now?

I’m about to continue my increasingly deranged spiraling when I hear the absence of a gun firing when it should have, my arm pulling back from recently tossing a card. The lady chasing me grunts as the card I threw slams heavy into her shoulder, rather than hitting the bullet it was meant for. I Didn’t toss the card hard enough to dislocate anything, but it definitely hurt more than pushing past some lightweight crates. She ends up slowing down from a run all the way down to standing still as she shakes the pistol in her hand. 

And I end up slowing down too.

“Don’t you- you jam on me.” She attempts to hit the chamber of her gun with her wrist, but misses completely. The alcohol might finally be hitting her, the bird starting to sway on her feet. “You stupid hunk . . . of METAL.”

It’s not jammed. She keeps pulling on the trigger, barrel pointed down, and all the parts of the gun seem to be moving just fine. What it looks and sounds like is that the gun just isn’t loaded. And I’m also close enough to see that the pouch she was reaching into ta reload is completely empty now. 

Which means she’s simply run outta bullets, and hasn’t quite noticed.

“Don’t.” She has to close her eyes and take a deep breath to get the composure needed to finish her sentence. And maybe to keep herself from losing her last meal. “Don’t you . . . dare.”

Her words are starting to take a whole lot more effort now. Running full sprint seems to have drained her of her ability to handle alcohol. Even if she had more bullets to fire, I doubt she could hit me as she is. Let alone reload properly. 

In fact. She is so completely focused on her gun and her stomach right now, that I could make a clean and easy getaway. Actually bring home some money today. The thought makes me let out a sigh of relief; a quiet one. Don’t want her remembering that I’m here. I turn away and start my silent getaway, a haul of a handful of coins nothing to brag about but nothing to scoff at neither.

“Don’t you leave, love.”

. . .

. . . Keep moving, Fate. Those words weren’t meant for you. That much was obvious. Hell, the ocean’s been lapping up a storm nearly all day today. Was probably just your imagination. You wanted this. You walked your ass down this pickaxe-picked corridor to this pickaxe-picked gambling room, knowing what types of people would be here of all places. After Ruination of all things. You wanted easy, and this is as easy as it gets. And- 

-and then a sob escapes her beak, the lady’s whimpering clear to hear even over the uncaring waves, and I know damn well why I stopped running when she did. Why Graves didn’t want to come with in the first place.

I turn my head to the evening sky and see stars beginning to reveal themselves, probably laughing at how much smaller even someone like me must appear at the moment.

What the hell am I doing.

I stop my sneaking away, and start to take her coins out of my pouch.

My moral fiber is questionable at best. Same with Graves. He and I have always toed the line when it comes to moral decision-making. You don’t operate around Bilgewater without having to make those kinds of decisions on the daily. But the both of us have always taken pride in how we select the peoples and the businesses we shake down. We stretch our justifications every once in a while, sure, but the money we take is always money that our marks either don’t need or don’t deserve.  

And here I am, losing my mind over what might happen during Ruination while robbing someone who’s already been devastated by it. 

This time, I tried stretching my justification too far. But it’s not too late to undo some of my damage. I can give her back her money, and that’s what I’m doing. 

If I’m gonna change for the worse, let it at least be because of the magical mind-fuckery of a world terrorizing event. Not because I wanted to scrape up an amount of moolah that couldn’t even fulfill the downpayment for a halfway decent belt buckle.

. . .

Not that that’s an invitation to slither into my head and fuck me up, you damn Ruination you.

I finish counting out what I owe her - more like what I took from her and am giving back - and set the sum down on the floor. We ended up running almost the full length of the corridor, the entrance/exit just a few meters in front of us. As a precaution, I tuck her coins behind a rock so that random passersby don’t get a view of it from outside. Harrun’s has always been pretty barren for a tourist trap, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. 

Hopefully the bird pulls it together soon. Though if she doesn’t, it’d be fair for her to blame me. It’s already bad enough that I left her ammunitions-less in Bilgewater, what with our little chase sequence. I probably bruised her shoulder. And it’s a shame about her chest feathers too, they really were quite pretty. Though they still should be, considering how pathetic my magic has been recently. 

Guess that’s one silver lining to this awful situation: my cards going on the fritz means I have one less thing to regret from tonight.

I look up from the ground to see how them feathers are looking, and see that I don’t have to look all that far up. 

She stopped standing some time ago, knees and forehead to the ground, her body shaking with every grief-silenced call for that person no longer with her.

. . .

A polished gold kraken finds its way onto the pile that is her money and hers alone, and I leave without another sound.

Chapter Text

I take a deep breath, and adjust my two-handed grip on the handle to the safehouse’s “door”. 

“Hrngh!” I get it to shake with my initial burst of force, but my attempts to walk the slab forward only seem to keep me and my feet struggling in place. Still, that’s about what I was expecting.

“Want help, Tobias?” 

His voice comes from further in and downward, and to his credit he sounds as disinterested as I want him to be at the moment. 

“Sit your ass down.” I grunt the words out as I keep on pushing, and finally start to move. The sounds of stone grinding across stone, and the wind beginning to howl higher as the entrance’s opening shrinks, should make it clear that I got it. Graves hears all this and gives a simple two-note whistle in response, o-kay, and leaves me to my endeavor. 

Good. 

It’s no secret that Graves is the stronger one between us two, but it’s not like I’m some skinny twig. This isn’t the first time we’ve spent the night here, and I’ve closed the door behind me just fine plenty of times. It’s a lot harder to move the damn thing open from the outside, that’s for sure, and I managed that part just fine on my own. This place was carved into one of the gray mountains that most of Bilgewater is built on, so to make sure the entrance aint obvious there’s very little to properly grip onto from the outside. And a good location is worth the occasional bit of elbow grease.

I finish sliding the rock where it needs to go, shutting up the wind as the entrance is sealed, and I’m rewarded with the sweet sound of my coat before silence settles in.

I breathe a sigh of relief, a better and louder one this time, and start to head my way down the staircase and out of the dark. Curtains are unreliable given how windy things can get, so the place needs some difference in elevation to keep light from leaking out and revealing our location. Not that most people look this way to begin with. Whole place is made from lumpy, poor-quality forgeslate, and nobody around here is interested in rock that hasn’t sold since before Bilgewater came to be. 

Not that that makes the place any less impressive, much to my own initial surprise.  

I near the bottom of the stairway, one leisurely step at a time, and take in what lantern-lit workmanship I can see from my point-of-view.

At least eighty percent of everything here is made out of forgeslate, and the things that aren’t are stuff like mattresses and food. From the door to the walls to the lanterns; If it’s here and can be made outta stone and is made out of stone then that stone is forgeslate, be it natural or grinded down then shaped. 

When he first told me about this place, I dreaded the idea of having to endure a shoddy, monotone blob of a mancave. A smart man is an experienced man, and in my experience sometimes it’s best to stay at the same hideout for up to a whole year if need be. Sometimes longer. And the prospect of needing to lay low, and thus possibly spending hundreds of days holed up in a literal hole in the wall, terrified me. 

But for whatever reason, the forgeslate in here is a pleasantly shifting gradient of brown and white, as opposed to the bland gray that it is outside. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than just one solid color. And what areas Graves didn’t sand down, he at least chipped away at to make things nicer to look at and reduce the risk of you cutting up your hand or getting pebbles stuck to you. 

It’s nice. Graves found this spot as a kid while dodging his work on the docks, dreaming of how cool a hiding spot it’d make, and the madman actually went and made it a reality. Across years of hard, hard labor. It’s damn impressive - more of a labor of passion, really - and there’s a certain charm to all that. 

I’d be more vocal about my appreciation if he didn’t always have at least one of his many forgeslate backscratchers in hand whenever we stay here.

Speaking of which.

“How’d it go?”

Graves asks his question without looking at me as I reach the ground floor, and enter into the spacious room. The man’s in his tattered sleeveless and his shorts, sat down just a few meters away in his chair at his table, backscratcher in one hand and screwdriver in the other (guess what material they’re all made out of). He’s got some metal canisters and his shotgun laid out in front of him though, and I can tell he’s making what he calls “End of the Line” rounds.

I had plenty of time to think up a story on my way over here, and it’s not like I have to fib all that much anyways. I sigh dejectedly as I walk over to my bed, situated behind Graves so he can’t see me unless he turns around, and toss my hat onto the pillow next to me as I tell it.

“Horribly.” I plop my butt down onto the bed and run a hand over my face, the sudden hit of fatigue I feel being one-hundred percent authentic. “The few people that were there were dirt poor. Who goes to a gambling den without money, Graves?” He laughs at my expense, and I’d hate him for it if it didn’t make me so glad I decided to lie about what I did to that poor woman. 

Before my traitorous brain can latch onto that and start to spiral again, Graves responds. He settles the powder in the canister he’s working on with a few taps from his backscratcher, and says what he says next with humored patience. 

“The kind o’ people lookin’ fer stories and gettin’ not poorer, Tobias.”

“Ugh.” 

In a motion I’m woefully familiar with, I move my hat off of the pillow so that I don’t crush it as I flop onto the bed.

I hate that he said that. I hate that he’s right. Gods know why; more people go to Harrun’s to hear him talk about fake spirits and stuff rather than sit at the cards table. Spirits are real and there are plenty of stories to tell, but for whatever reason Harrun isn’t interested in doing that. He just . . . talks. It’s all watered down improv, and tourists just eat it all up. 

“How’s ‘winning against the odds’ not a good story?” I raise my voice a little as I turn to lay flat on my back, refusing to back down on my bellyaching. “If it’s a good story people want, why not come talk to ol’ Tobias, and let him regale you with tales of his travels between hands?”

“That already works plenty, and works real good when it do.” I can’t see what Graves is doing anymore, but by the sound of it I can tell he’s twisting the screwdriver now. “Can’t expect it ta work everywhere. Errytime.” 

The lazy cadence to his words lingers in the air for a bit, before it gets me to raise my head a little to look in Graves’s direction. Something about his answers feel off. I only have a view of his back from here, but that’s more than enough for me to piece together what I didn’t notice before. 

His skin is a bit redder than normal. Not worryingly so, just like he worked up a sweat. Which he did, seeing as how the back of his sleeveless is pretty drenched. He looks a bit more toned too, which is an obvious detail to notice just like his redder skin don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. And as one final clue, his workout towel is draped over his leg. Though in my defense I couldn’t see that last detail as I came in, due to the table and all that.

He must have finished a pretty intense workout just before I came in. Should have expected as much honestly, seeing as how he tends to kick up his regimen whenever we crash here. Probably brings back memories of his youth, spending hours every day swinging his pickaxe against a fairly durable kind o’ rock. This place has probably the best fitted weight room out of all our safehouses too, which is likely a result of those memories too. 

. . . Yes, just about everything in the weight room is made of forgeslate too. Some of the weights are cartoonishly large because of this, but hey, it works.

Still, it’s clear now that the man is pretty low on energy and has decided to just wind the day down with some good ol’ weapon upkeep. He might not have pulled in any money today, but he’s keeping on well enough. Dry spells aren’t uncommon in this line of work, and I’ll admit he always handles them fairly well. Me, meanwhile . . .

Ugh.  

I stop straining my neck and let my head hit the pillow, eyes closed and mouth shut.

I’m tired. I’m even tired of ragging on myself. I’m just plain beat, physically and emotionally and all that other stuff. So. So I might as well just let the conversation die down where it is. Graves was right with what he last said, and I don’t really have anything else to add. Plus it feels good to just . . . stop, sometimes.

My brain begins to relax, body loosening up and actually sinking into the mattress more naturally now, and I exhale with contentment.

“Guess not.”

The words slip outta me all quiet like, and it takes even me a moment to recognize why I said anything. That I was just responding to the last thing Graves said. ‘Can’t expect it ta work everywhere’. 

Gods, I’m exhausted. Didn’t I tell myself the conversation was over? Whatever. It’s over now, so I think I’ll just lay here in the comfortable silence-

“So. Tobias.”

. . . 

Alright, I can’t help but chuckle at that. Well, it’s more of a humored exhale. Again, I shouldn’t be surprised at Graves being Graves. He’s always got energy to talk, even if it isn’t full of his usual cheery roughness. Honestly, the most surprising thing I’ve ever learned about this man was that he didn’t talk in his sleep. 

I keep my peepers closed and wait a bit before giving him the sign he’s waiting for - the sound of my head shifting on the pillow, to show him I’m listening - and he gets on with asking what he wants to ask.

“Harrun didn’t have nothin’ fer me?”

I have to process the question for a bit, but after I do the smile comes to my face automatically. I’d forgotten that I was looking forward to giving him Harrun’s response. Sometimes Graves and his penchant for prattling on comes in handy. I open both of my heavy eyelids as I speak, not wanting to miss this.

“Yeah,” I say, my delivery purposefully dry, “he told me to tell you to give him his fucking pickaxe back.”

“HA.” 

He doesn’t disappoint. Graves barks out a laugh immediately, nearly doubling over in his chair as he keeps on howling, eyes closed, and I can’t help but smile even as I tell him to watch it. 

“Easy there, partner,” I say half-jokingly, sitting up again so I can reach my hand out half-seriously, “let’s not have you singing your nose hairs again.” 

“HAHAHA.” 

Graves really starts to roar at that, loud and vibrant, and I have to turn away to keep my widening smile out of sight of his ego. 

I was referring to his first attempt at making an “End of the Line”, and apparently it’s a happy memory for him. It’s admittedly a happy one for me too, but the poor guy also happened to get a lot of gunpowder in his eyes that day. His first attempt was a failed attempt, and boy did he feel it. Spent at least an hour straight just yelling out every swear under the sun. And probably under the waves and under the sands too; Graves got real creative. Honestly, I wouldn’t find that a laugh worthy memory if it happened to me.

But he does anyway. 

The realization touches my mind with an astounding sharpness, considering how drained I currently am. Like it’s supposed to be the most surprising thing in the world. When it just isn’t. We’re two vastly different types of people in so many different ways, yes, but. I know this man. And he knows me. Years of working cons together and living in the same space will do that. I turn back to look at him, this man I call my accomplice, and it’s hard to stay composed while watching him be such a dork at the moment. Face wrinkled, in that combination of joy and strain. Hand alternating between resting on and slapping his knee. Other hand waving around his dumb backscratcher all randomly.

His amber eyes opening and meeting mine, catching me purely by chance and taking my breath away from the surprise of it, the hint of a daring and yet patient smirk now playing on his wide open noise-machine of a mouth.

. . . Ah, what the hell. We’re not that different.

Laughter sputters out of me, airy and sad. I’m still tired, and my body decided to laugh before I gave it the proper go ahead. My lungs were empty, and it’s his fault.

It only makes the both of us bust our guts louder and harder after hearing it. Like how I know he knows it was going to do.

Time passes. Much more time than two little sentences from me should be able to get, but it does. Whenever one of us got close to stopping or even just tried to say something, we’d just start to howl that much harder. It’s insane. And obviously embarrassing. But it feels . . . right. We’ve both got a few screws loose it seems, but I think I can live with that. 

He has a screwdriver on him, don’t he?

The thought has me shrieking, pounding on the mattress, and Graves matches me immediately by hammering his fist onto the table. I vaguely hear something start to fizzle, but Graves makes some clattering noises and it stops, so we keep on hollering.

Can’t say I was all that jazzed about everyone else seeming to have their magic unaffected by Ruination, but hey. If Graves and I and everyone else can still have moments like these, maybe things aren’t as ruined as I made them out to be. It’s the little things that matter, after all, and as someone with a finely made outfit I know just how true the saying is. 

Eventually though, the laughter does have to die down. I stop first, clutching my midsection from the exertion. I’m in some serious pain, but oh it was worth it. Another giggle squeaks out of me though, and it hurts bad enough that I almost reconsider. Almost. And as I watch Graves starts to calm down from his own laughing fit, never having fully left the seat of his chair, he uses the backscratcher for its intended purpose before talking again. 

“Good.”  

His voice is solemn, but warm. “Harrun is doin’ good.” He moves his arm at a comfortable rhythm, the sound of him scratching his back being something I find oddly steadying at the moment.

“Yeah.” My voice has a slight raspiness to it. Breathing is difficult at the moment, but I’ll get over it quick enough. I take my eyes off Graves and lie against the mattress to help things along. “Yeah. He’s doin’ good.” Things quiet down again, and I relax into it.

Harrun is nice. He’s also the one that “loaned” Graves the pickaxe that made all this possible; the tool responsible for this safehouse. It broke a long time ago, and Graves uses other gear these days. The pickaxe Harrun used to make that corridor and his den broke an even longer time ago. They’ve “loaned” things to each other plenty of times over the years, and it’s always transparently an excuse to just try and see each other more. They’ve known one another for a long time, and Graves actually works security for Harrun from time to time. 

The two of us have a decent rapport as well, though he favors Graves for obvious reasons. Harrun was actually one of the first people that Graves reached back out to, after coming back from- 

Shut the fuck up.

I almost automatically yell at myself within my mind, loud and cruel, cutting off that train of thought as best I can. Quickly and harshly; I never want it to show up again. Ever. But still, it does. No matter what I do, the past refuses to die. This isn’t the first time I’ve reprimanded my brain for so casually and so horrifically opening up an old wound. And the fact that I know it won’t be the last makes me more nauseous than I already am.  

You never needed Ruination to ruin things, did you, Fate? 

It’s okay. My eyes widened and my smile was wiped away, but that’s it. I’m still here, present in this moment. I’m still in full control of my body, and Graves can’t see me. Didn’t see me freak out for that fraction of a second, still facing the table and twisting away with his screwdriver. It’s okay. I scrunch my eyelids closed and try to brush past that landmine as fast as possible, before my good mood disappears anymore than it already has. 

I breathe in and focus on what Graves said. On the fact that I genuinely agree with what he said. If Harrun is still talking like that, then he’s taking the absence of his husband well. Which is a good thing. It’s good. He’s good. We’re all good.

I’m good . . .

With that neatly settled, I move on and make the decision to end my day as soon as possible. The faster I get to sleep the better. In order for that to happen though, I need to first sit up and take off my coat. It’s finely made and can handle a beating, but no way am I sleeping in it. The sound of it moving is as crisp as always, and the physical act helps keep my mind focused. But I know what I am, and I know I need more at the moment. 

My arms are out of the coat’s sleeves now, so I get up and walk on over to the nearby coat rack. On my way there, I speak up so as to turn both our attentions to tomorrow and drown out the negativity nipping at my heels.

“Don’t forget Graves, we got a job tomorrow.” I give my coat a few flaps, firmer than strictly required but every little bit helps, and hang it on the rack when I’m satisfied. As satisfied as I can be at the moment. “Seven in the morning. Hundred gold kraken bounty.” I turn to look at him and he’s still working on his stuff, turned away from me.  

I’m annoyed, even as he replies.

“I’m workin’ on my gear aint I?”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

He said it like I’m nagging him, the nerve. I ended up snapping at him a little testier than I meant to, but it doesn’t make me any less angry. Does he think I like having my cards acting up? If I could take a dumb screwdriver and twist the mistakes out I woulda already done that. And couldn’t he at least look at me? We’re talking business now!

Well I get my wish, because he physically pauses for a moment before turning around, shifting his body to rest his arm on the backrest. His face would be completely neutral if not for the slightly raised eyebrow, raising my blood pressure.

“Relax, Tobias.” His words sound more like a command than a suggestion. “This’ll-”

“Don’t tell me to relax.” I speak, clearly and sharply, cutting him off before continuing. “I just want to go to sleep and be well rested for tomorrow, and you’re messing with your gunpowder and screwdriver and fucking backscratcher .”

I spit out that last word with more venom than any backscratcher could deserve. More disdain than I actually feel. And Graves stares at me. He doesn’t do anything but just stare at me for at least three long seconds, his eyes not even doing those tiny movements as he looks in my direction. He just, stares.

Then he stands up, chair rumbling across the forgeslate floor, taking his workout towel off his leg and throwing it to the ground beside him with a thwap.

“Damn it, Tobias!” He tosses the screwdriver onto an empty spot on the table with a clatter, and points at it all with the backscratcher. “You want me to work on my shit while yer asleep?!”

He gives me an out and I take it. There’s enough truth in it to be convincing.

“Yes! The metal squeaking keeps me awake!” I hear how petulant I’m being, but it’s not the first time I’ve said as much. Hopefully my exasperation makes it sound less pitiful. “You know this!”

Gods- 

My hands ball up into fists, shaking. 

-don’t give me your pity.

And again, the man doesn’t disappoint. I glare back at Graves, right into his eyes, and there’s not a trace of pity to be seen in his frustration. His contempt. He knows me, and he knows I’m not just angry over a screwdriver and a backscratcher. But he’s no telepath, and he grits his teeth before telling me off. 

“Oh, I do?!” He shouts twice as loud as me, and I shout back at equal volume.

“Yeah, you do!” I walk up to him and he does the same. 

I’ve mentioned it before, and he’s accommodated before. It’s unrealistic of me to expect or even want him to not so much as touch a screwdriver when it’s dark out, but come on. He knew Harrun’s was gonna be a dud for me tonight. Do the math, man.

We’re in arm’s reach of each other, staring daggers. It crosses my mind that if we had actual daggers here, it’d be another trip down memory lane. One that even Graves wouldn’t laugh at. Neither of us were very trusting by the time we first met. It’s quiet again, but not like it was just a minute ago. The comfort is gone. He looks furious. It’s mostly my fault, but he’s the one not thinking ahead. 

And blaming Ruination is too easy. That’s the real kicker here, and I know he knows it too. Recently it’s like we can only be pleasant to each other when we’re not face-to-face, and it was like that for a while even before that mist showed up.

So why did you want him to look at you?

Before I can answer my own intrusive question, Graves-

-breaks the staredown first, looking away and stomping off to the corner of the room opposite to me.

“Fine!” He shouts with his back to me, and I have no idea how I feel about that anymore. “Ima work on the jigsaw!”

I wait just a beat too long before responding, watching him stride away and then watching him grab what he needs. But I ignore the awkwardness, and talk like I wasn’t taken by surprise by his . . . defusal, of the situation. 

“Fine!” I’m relieved that I didn’t end up stuttering, my voice at least sounding unbothered. “I drew out those compositions you wanted!” I gesture to the stack of papers near him, not that he can see what I’m doing. Still, he grabs them all up along with the chisel, hammer, and grinder. And backscratcher.

“I saw! They look good!” 

Graves has everything he needs now, and power walks towards one of two extra doors we have here on the ground floor. One leads to the weight room and the other leads to something of an open space. His most recent project is a jigsaw puzzle, made out of yet more forgeslate. His hands are full, so he ends up squeezing them tighter to free up an index and middle finger wrap around the handle.

The sound of crumpling paper spurs me on. 

“Then why are you creasing the drawings?!”

Graves shoves the door aside with a thrust of his arm. The rumbling and vibrations are intense, and I feel them both shake me right down to my bones. Rattling my chest. He stomps through the threshold and, without looking in my direction, grabs the inside-handle before shouting one last thing.

“FUCK YOU!”

His words echo slightly, due to the open door creating extra space for them to travel and bounce around in. Which means what I say next echo too.

“FUCK YOU!”

I get my words in just before the door shuts with a thud, and I stand there fuming as I listen to the muffled sound of him walking away.

After I can no longer hear anything he’s doing, I look away from the door with a jerk of my head. I exhale angrily through my nose, and my eyes land at the table he was doing his work on. His canisters and his shotgun. 

‘New Destiny’.

The name he gave his weapon flashes in my mind as I leer at it. Tch. The first gun was called ‘Destiny’, so of course his replacement is called ‘New Destiny’. That man’s creativity is focused so damn narrow sometimes. He comes up with a type of ammunition designed to slide across the floor before jumping into the air and exploding after coming back down, but all he can come up with is New Destiny?  

Graves settled on the name ‘Destiny’ after being “inspired” - his words not mine, if you can believe it - by something I said during the very first of our many nighttime conversations. We both finally dropped our guards enough to trust each other, and took on a convoluted job with an even more convoluted plan. It went off without a hitch, so afterwards I joked around and said it must be destiny that brought us two Bilgewater boys together in Shurima of all places, and-

. . .

Sigh. And nice going, Fate.

I stare at the gun a little longer. It’s a faithful recreation of the first, with every old scratch and dent added again. On purpose this time. And now there are new nicks in it. A lot of them. It’s a wonder Graves hasn’t needed more replacements. He keeps using his weapon as a damn shield. 

. . .

A million memories wash over me, all at once, and it’s just. Too much.

I turn away, pinching the bridge of my nose and putting my other hand at my hip. I close my eyes, and I start seeing stars without even pressing them closed all that hard. That second wind I got is all spent. Any second now I’ll be the one swaying on my feet, and without any alcohol or exercise to blame for it. 

No, don’t think about that. It’ll just make you sit in bed for hours, and at the very least you need to make sure to get a good night’s rest after making such a fuss over it. Think of something else. You’re not good at doing that, clearly, but.

You have to. 

I repeat the phrase in my mind again and again until I can settle on something new to think on. It’s a boring trick, but it works for me. You have to, you have to, you have to.

. . . And I have it. Or, something, at least.

I walk back over to the coat rack, and reach into an obscure pocket hidden in my coat’s lining. A location I tend to only keep last resorts. As such I have to do some additional finessing, the average hiding spot needing some nudging to open up and the better hidden ones needing more complicated maneuvers. 

After a few seconds I earn my access, and am rewarded with a flashbang.

“Damn it.”

It’s annoyingly bright, but I’m too damn spent to really make a bunch of noise over it. I close my eyes and cover them with one hand as I reach in with the other, the light lessening as my fingers wrap around what I was looking for.

I lower the hand at my face as I take it out, and look at the glowing rock Senna tossed me. 

It's a flat white rhombus, about the length of one of my cards and just a bit thicker, with the edges around three of its four pointed corners squished in a little. For aesthetic purposes, probably. The last corner's edges are completely straight, and stretch out further away from the center. It's a simple but appealing design, and I can fit most of it in my hand. The detail that stands out the most right now, however, is the bright light coming out the side of it. 

Senna said a lot of things and I was quick to disregard most of it seeing as I figured her to be making it up, but at least one of the things she said was true: the light points to Graves. I’m keeping most of the light subdued, the edges of my fingers illuminated orange as white light leaks out from the little gaps between them, but even now it’s obvious it's directed towards that other room he’s currently working in.

And there’s one other thing. Supposedly if Graves touches this little doodad, he’ll be teleported to their HQ. Not "holds" it, touches it. So it's on me, and not on him. I mostly kept it because it looked expensive - that, and anything that is clearly locked onto either of our locations should be in nobody’s hands but ours - but the possibility of giving Graves his own personal teleport out was a tempting reason too. Other people can use my blue cards to teleport to a lesser degree, sure, but.

But something made me really want to keep the carved bit of shining stone. And I’m glad that I did. Maybe some subconscious part of me knew my cards were going to be affected by Ruination. It’d be nice if they had a chat with the conscious part about why that is. Won’t happen, but it’d be nice.

I haven’t tried teleporting since getting drenched by Senna and Lucian’s departure. I’ve come close to trying a few times, but I always give up before going through with it. My blue cards have always been more significant to me than the reds and yellows, and. And I guess I don’t want to open that box. Who knows if it still works. Who knows how’d I take that revelation. Better to take this as an opportunity to brush up on the basics, rely less on the primary colors.

So I’m keeping this sentry - no, Sentinel - thing on me. For Graves.

If only one of us can get out of something, it’s probably my turn to get left behind.

. . . Wow. That’s a thought. What happened to finding a boring thing to think about? I exhale, too worn out to groan, and just look at the lightshow in my clenched fist. The thing really does glow pretty fiercely. Which makes the fact that you can’t see it glowing while in my jacket but you can see when one of my blue cards is acting up . . .

No.

I square my shoulders and clench the little star in my hand tighter, further choking the light.

I’m done thinking for tonight.

I abandon my attempts at finding a mundane topic to drift into sleep thinking about, and jam the rock back into the secure darkness of my trench coat. I’m fucking drained. My brain feels like it’s smothered in cotton. I’ll fall asleep as soon as I really give it a go.

I seal up the hidden pocket, and the room returns to a more manageable level of lighting. I approach my bed and take off my boots, not thinking about how I completely tuned out the sound of them as I stomped around. I pick up my hat and toss it next to my jacket, watching it land on the rack and finding no joy in seeing it happen.

I flatten myself against the mattress, and glare up at nothing in particular.

Then my eyes move, against my wishes, to the center of the room. And they find that lone lantern fixture, the only one built into the ceiling. All the other lanterns in here are separate from the room, portable in your hand. The roof is totally flat, except for the upward concave that the forgeslate lantern I’m staring at is responsible for.

I recall the way he pointed it out to me when it was newly added. When he went and added it, all those years ago.

‘Ya like things fancy; well how ‘bout this? S’close enough to a chandelier, aint it? Ah-don’t think I didn’t catch that smile!’

My eyes shut all on their own, the corners wet from being too tired and too dry, and I can’t take anymore.

I turn on my side, away from the light all around me, and surrender to slumber.

Chapter Text

The automated hologram shimmers for a bit, adjusting their chef’s apron, before telling me what I owe the bakery in its default customer service AI voice.

“That will be two Baotd, good sir!”

I blink. Wasn’t expecting to pay with something other than credits today. The menu just said the price was two. But I guess it’s no big deal, seeing as how this means I’m actually paying less than I was planning to now. I smile and send silent thanks to Lady Luck, always watching over me and my ship.

“You got it.”

I send the directive to my hat, and in no time at all it encrypts the value of two Baodt into the card that slides out of my gauntlet with a satisfying tchk-sound. I could just point my wrist and shoot the card through the designated reader location, but where’s the fun in that? I pull it out of the slot and flick the card into the blue light, watching as it dematerializes in a blocky animation and deposits my money into the bakery’s system. The hologram’s eyes light up green as the transaction is validated, and they smile before the nearby window opens and my order is slid out.

“Thank you! Have a nice day!”

The window and the hologram both close up, and I take in an appreciative whiff of the fresh melty-chocolate muffin. I don’t even care if they’re lying about the whole “lovingly handmade” thing, and if there’s only robots behind that window. There’s no faking that smell. There are some things a rejuvenator will never be able to recreate, no matter how high tech. 

I grab my order off the windowsill, its delicate warmth spreading through my hand, and continue on my way back to my spaceship: The Wildcard. It’s just a short walk away from where I am now, the spaceport here as small as the rest of this outer rim backwater. There’s nobody else around and almost nothing here; it’s like swiping through a history tablet. Or like walking through my hometown, which might explain why I ordered a chocolate treat specifically. Ol’ Mama Thera could bake a mean pie. 

Let’s see how she measures up. I move my unoccupied hand underneath the muffin as I take a big bite, and have to stifle a moan when I’m reminded of what a real dessert tastes like.

Oh, Thera. I empty the crumbs I caught into my mouth, every tiny piece delectable. I am so sorry. 

It takes all my strength to not just stuff the entire thing in my mouth and be done with it. I was hoping to find an actual restaurant here, but that bakery was the only place serving stuff not out of a rejuvenator baggie. And it only allowed one item per person which, okay, makes sense. I would have bought every last thing there if I could, and the same could be said for probably every other sorry soul that finds themselves here. Locals included, few though they may be. 

I’d hate to be the pilot responsible for restocking at this location. There’s no FTL clearance out here, and the nearest map-registered planet is a three month cruise. One and a half months for my beaut of a ship, but it’s still a long time. And I refuse to install a refrigerator. It would clash with the aesthetic. I’m no stranger to spending my money, of course, but the value you get out of a good rejuvenator and good packets is too good to ignore. Besides, the difference in flavor between a full rejuvenated meal and a fully real meal is barely noticeable. It’s really only the sweets that hit differently.

So I’m just going to have to savor this delicious, glorious treat while I can. Because it’ll be rejuvenated donuts for the next long while. I could stock up on some better desserts, but like I said some desserts will just never be good enough when coming out of a machine. Besides, I need a reason besides a job to hop off of my ship every once in-

* Alert: Unauthorized Passenger *

* Location: Engine Room *

The alert blares through my earpiece, and I’ve already taken cover behind the nearest building as the blue card finishes printing out of my gauntlet. I’m near enough to teleport back on board, and like hell am I waiting even a second longer before I start the process. Nobody messes with my ship.

The hum of techno-sorcery sings around me, my surroundings highlighted in an arcane azure. Energy wells up within my card, and it travels up my arm and to the center of my forehead to grant me vision of this trespasser. My eyes feel electric as my consciousness splits into two, one keeping me aware of what’s immediately around me in this alley and the other being sent to peer into my engine room. My magic reaches its intended location, and I extend my vision through it to find a very young, human girl. Floating girl, her thick straight hair longer than she is tall, animatedly pressing every button on the wall one after another. 

Thank Ora for biolocked keys. Last thing I need is for my ship to be responsible for destroying a spaceport, even one as old and sad as this one. She doesn’t react as my magic reveals her to me, the sensation reportedly feeling like a rush of guilt, and I’m not taking my chances with teleporting right next to her after seeing that. Either she’s got zero magic sense or she’s immune to guilt, and neither of those are a good type of person to surprise with sorcery.  

I teleport into my quarters, coat billowing and hat pulled down, and get a few more colored cards queued up just in case.

. . .

“Hey there, little lady!”

I put a bright smile on my face as I walk into view of the engine room, unfinished muffin in hand and a full stack of cards hidden and at the ready. Eyes calculatedly cheery, open and ready to take in every last detail that they can. Because regardless of how the next few seconds go, peacefully or otherwise, I need information. Who she is. Where she’s from. How she got on to my ship. 

So I wait for her to respond, and take in what details I can.

My first impression is that she’s more than she appears to be. The floating and the twinkling hair can easily be attributed to tech or magic or both, but the fact that she’s on my ship looking the way she currently does is harder to explain. I have an automated security at least seven decades advanced from what is available to the general public, and she’s just here. No proximity alarms sounded, no traps triggered; she’s completely fine. More than fine. Her skin and her clothes and all her trinkets are spotless. I almost want to say she’s from this outdated planet given how simply she’s dressed, just teal scarves and basic leathers almost in direct contrast to current fashion trends, but her trinkets look made out of gold and that isn’t right. 

Things aren’t adding up.

That’s about as far as I get before she turns to face me, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise at my appearance. She’s pretty short, but because of her floating we’re at eye-level with one another, her left eye blue and the right one pink. 

Then she stops being surprised and starts being pouty. 

“Aw man, why’d you have to come now?!” She positions herself like she’s standing on an invisible chair and leaning onto its backrest, her voice high and whiny. “I was waiting forever, and then just when I find a cool board of glowy buttons you have to rain on my fun!” She raises a hand close to her face and makes a pinching gesture, closing her blue eye as the distance between her fingers shrinks. “I was thisssss close to finding the big pew-pew explosion button, I just know it!”

Second impression: she’s crazy. There’s literally no point in questioning her; I can’t trust a thing she says. I smile and take it all in stride, devising a new plan and fully dedicating myself to it in an instant: kicking this crazy kid off my ship as soon as possible. And if she tries anything remotely funny, I’m well within my rights to attack first. There are too many tales about children being underestimated, and this grown-up plans on only ever being on the winning side of them stories.

“Aw, I’m real sorry about that. I had to move that button to the outside of my ship. If it’s inside,” I make a show of grimacing and moving my hands like they’re opposite ends of a fluctuating scale, “it’s too distracting. Makes me want to get up from my chair and just press the darn thing all day long, ya know?”

She stops leaning against the air as she listens, and moves to float cross-legged. After hearing my explanation the girl gives a hum of affirmation, nodding her head along like she not only completely understands but views the scenario as being incredibly complex and tragic.

“Oh. Yeah.” She crosses her arms, brow furrowed. “Yeah, that makes sense.” 

Her voice is tight, like she has the weight of the universe on her shoulders. And notably not like she was just trying to ram my ship through this planet’s spaceport, intentionally or otherwise. I just barely suppress an angered twitch of my eye. Calm down, Fate. She seems to be buying the story. Stick to it.

I place a hand over my heart and put a weary look on my face. 

“I’m honored to know there’s someone as smart as you who understands what I’m going through.” Her own face softens in response to my act, and I pretend to think for a moment before speaking again. “Would you-.” A careful pause, cutting myself off. And as she leans in like I want her to, I resume what I was always planning on saying. “Would you like me to show you where the button is? So you can press it?”

Her expression brightens immediately, and her volume turns childishly explosive.

“REALLY? I CAN PRESS IT?!” 

She stops pretending to sit on her invisible seat and zooms so close to me that our noses are almost pressing together. Crazy kid. If my disposition weren’t so nice and my composure weren’t so unflappable, I’d have killed her. Lucky for her, my gauntlet didn’t so much as whirr and my smile went completely unfazed by her sudden movement. 

Or maybe lucky for me. 

Because her breath is sickly sweet with the smell of chocolate, to the degree that only a child could stomach. Like she ordered a cake for ten and had it all for herself. It’s nauseating. The muffin I’m digesting suddenly doesn’t taste so delicious. But more importantly, It’s alarming. Because for a child like her, or the kind of child she is acting like, her teeth and her fingers are far too clean for all this to track. She should look like a little mud monster, not some freshly clean kiddo. Things continue to not add up, and that just makes it all the more clear that I need to get her off my fucking ship now.

I look into her mismatched eyes with an unassuming casualness, noses still almost touching, and breathe through it naturally. There’s a hint of danger in the air now, but I do some of my best work under pressure. I reply with a carefree wave of the muffin in my hand, not daring to move my feet an inch from where I’m standing. And cards at the ready.

“Oh, you deserve it! I mean, you’ve been on my ship for how long now?” I give a gentle and embarrassed laugh, letting her know I don’t expect an answer. Nor do I want one. “It’s only right that you get what’s coming. Come on, I’ll show you where it is!”

“Wow.” 

She whispers in a mixture of awe and surprise, her fingers now pressed against her lips she’s so overcome with whatever she’s feeling. Silence descends, and nothing happens for a while. We continue to look into each others’ eyes, still way too close to on another, and the fact that it isn’t technically a staring contest because we’re both blinking doesn’t make it any less tense. I’ve had to feign comfort under the scrutiny of dangerous people before, but something about this girl is putting me on edge. 

Thankfully, the moment does pass. After a few seconds she ends up leaning back out of my personal space, and I make sure to not show how relaxed it makes me.   

Or show how close I got to blowing everything up with red cards as she shuts her eyes, tangles her fingers into her hair, and throws a fit.

“Noo, nooooo!” Her voice is tight again, before it explodes in frustration. “AGH!” Her elbows and feet begin to jab the air at haphazard angles in a literal tantrum. I take the opportunity to back up a little, as she scrunches her eyes closed while she keeps whining. “I wanna, but I can’t! But I really really really wanna! But we cannnnnnnn’t.” 

We? Sounds like she actually has business with me. Well, she can try to reach me through another channel at another time. I’ve had just about enough of humoring this stowaway. She’s obviously a few crayons short of a full set, and I’ve got better things to do than mind her.

“Okay, kiddo.” I move a gold card into my hand, keeping my voice cheery to not give away what I’m about to do. “It’s-”

“I have a message to deliver.”

The floor falls out from under me, and my brain reboots.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

An internal scream is all I can manage as a crushing downward force has me clench my jaw so hard I start to taste metal. A kaleidoscope of spinning colors and morphing shapes assaults my vision as I’m pulled down what has to be a tunnel. No, sucked down. There’s an intense pressure forcing my arms to stay straight at my side despite my panicked struggling, threatening to rip my fingernails off before the fingers themselves too.

I have no idea what the fuck is happening or what led me to being here, but right now I need to focus on keeping my neck from flattening into itself like a can. It takes everything I’ve got to keep my chin from smashing into my clavicle, veins stressing against my forehead and the thinnest sliver of my airway remaining just open enough to keep me breathing.

Though through all of this and for as fast as I must be moving, my brain is somehow able to register a total absence of air resistance here. I hear my blood rushing through my ears, but I don’t hear any wind rush by me. My body rattles, but only from pressure and not from any wind pushing back against me, my clothes pulled so straight they look practically starched. 

“Only.”

My arms start to go numb, all the blood pulled to my fingertips. I honestly can’t tell whether or not my fingernails have cracked and started to bleed, my senses of what’s warm and what’s cold blurring. Colors continue to flash by one after another, and I have to shut my eyes to keep myself from going sick from the stimulation. 

And as soon as my eyelids close, it stops.

All at once the pressure and the hues disappear, a gentle darkness enveloping me, and I breathe a grateful gasp of air. I hunch over, and spend several seconds trying to control my breathing from short and raspy to fuller and steadying. I’m still lightheaded by the time I manage to breathe right, but I feel better than I did just a moment ago. A lot better than how I was while falling down.

But falling from one place, means ending up in another.

My eyes snap open and I maneuver a fan of colorless cards into both my hands, just barely remembering that I don’t have my coat on at the moment. Without it and the cards in its sleeves, I have to move a little differently when I’m just in my shirt and vest. 

I put my guard up and look around, but all I see is an expanse of black nothingness. Turning to my left and turning to my right get me the exact same view: solid black. 

And I scowl. Magic. The gravity tunnel should have clued me in on that much. Odds are that this place I’m in isn’t even technically “real”, but my anger sure as fuck is.

Is Ruination not enough? Does someone else want to ruin my fucking night? 

I remember it now. I went to sleep in the cave, and now I’m here in this darkness. Hatless, coatless, and barefoot. Just great. No one seems to be around, so I look back up the way I came and yell. The silent vortex of color is still there some meters above me, its exit a perfect circle against this black backdrop all around me. 

Someone’s up there . I know it.

“HEY!” I nearly snarl, making sure to speak clearly so all my irritation is obvious. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT WITH ME? CUT THE THEATRICS. I’VE HAD A LONG DAMN DAY.”

. . .

No response. 

The swirling colors of the circle above continue to move, inaudible and unbothered. Like I’m not even here. The only sound for seemingly miles in this place I never wanted to be is my panting, growing louder and louder as I get more and more pissed.

I stare at the multicolor acid trip funnel above me, and I don’t even have to think about it. 

I drop the colorless cards from my hands, and in their place I add blues, reds, and yellows. 

That’s when a half-eaten chocolate muffin falls out of the tunnel, and a little girl follows shortly after. I’m taken completely by surprise, but manage to take a small leap back so that I don’t get hit on the head. My plan to chuck cards and give the spinning rainbow what it was asking for will have to wait. Though if the kid I see is responsible for what’s happening, she’s certainly colorful enough to warrant the same treatment.

“Phew!” She catches the muffin in her hand, before levitating in the space I was just previously occupying. “Sorry I took so long, I had to grab this. You can have it; more chocolate mooncake for me~” With a giggle, the girl gently shoves the slightly cold looking baked good my way, wafting through the space between us with a merry bounciness.

I backhand it roughly to the ground. Or through the ground, as it keeps moving through the uniform black of this place and beyond my assumption of where the ground is. Beyond the assumed flat plane I am currently “standing” on. I watch it move further and further away, and see the colorless cards I dropped twisting their way through the dark as well. Small and growing smaller, dwindling away with nobody concerned over it.

I stop watching, and turn my attention to the mischief maker in front of me.

“I don’t want your fucking leftovers.” I raise my fist, colored rings of energy emanating from the cards between my fingers and warping the zone around it. “You see the chocolate on my knuckles? Unless you want it to be replaced with your blood, kid, get out and and stay out of my fucking dreams.”

As I finish my threat, the portal above disappears with a blop, like a drop of water melding back into the ocean of perceived reality. This seems to surprise the girl more than my threat on her life just did, as she looks away from me to look up at where she came from. Where we both came from. Her shoulders droop after not even a full second, faster than I can get angry over being ignored, and then she turns back to face me with her lips puffed out.

“Okay okay mister grumpy pants, I don’t want to stick around neither. But the math likes these specific types of messages delivered all specific like. So, ahem.” She straightens her posture and puts on a more professional expression, before immediately leaning forward with an unnervingly unrestrained smile on her face. “I’m Zoe, and I have a message for you!”

Her voice is jubilant, and It’s sickening. I’m a prisoner here. Acting all cutesy doesn’t change that fact.

“Tch.” I angle my head away from her, fist and cards still raised. “You can shove your message up-”

I’m interrupted by the sudden need to dodge, because within the literal blink of an eye she conjured up a snowball and threw it at me! 

THAT’S IT.

I roll to the side, the snowball’s chill rushing past my ear and sending a shiver down my body as I avoid it. I finish my roll and plant my knees onto the invisible fake ground, throwing a pair of each color for a total of six cards towards the child. “Zoe”. She’s suddenly a lot further away now, but still well within range of my tosses. Without waiting to see whether the cards work or not, I push myself off the ground and dash toward her, fists ready. 

When magic is concerned, it doesn’t matter what the other person looks like or presents themselves as. You’d be surprised at how many depraved monsters try to pass themselves off as innocent toddlers when they’re anything but. Still, can’t say I’ve ever swung at someone while they still look like a little girl. I usually try to dispel these illusions with some true-sighted blue before any roughhousing, and it works most of the time.

But that was when I was competent at what I do.

Zoe fucking waves at me while I charge her, like she knew my cards were going to be the most pathetic they’ve been yet. Now the red cards decide to work, and they do so by killing all their forward momentum before bursting into an all-consuming inferno several times more intense than I’ve ever seen. 

“Mmm, marshmallows~”

I can just barely hear her dreamy comment over the fluctuating din of the fire. It stops me in my tracks, the sudden towering red in front of me and the scorching heat nearly cracking my skin. The flame is short lived, but just long enough for me to recognize that it destroyed the other cards as well, small charred bits barely visible through the harsh scarlet.  

And Zoe is still right there on the other side of it, waiting for me with a smile as red fades away and black consumes the space once more. The look on my face must be something because again she laughs, this time clutching her sides and kicking her feet animatedly. The fire may be gone, but I’m still seeing red.  

“You-”

Before I can tear into her, she holds up a single finger so suddenly that it’s jarring. Like my perception of time is what’s being played with here, rather than my fucking patience. Then she rotates her hand so that the back of it is facing me, and pulls the finger down to point towards her. It’s at a somewhat awkward angle, but it’s clear that she’s challenging me. Mocking me. I clench my fists a little tighter, and my trepidation towards punching a little girl goes away.

There’s a first time for everything.    

I pull out another handful of colorless cards, but those too fall through the false floor.

Because as I take another furious step forward, something sucker punches on the side of the head.

My vision swims, but I remain conscious. It isn’t the worst hit I’ve ever taken, but it’s enough to make my head bob and blur my vision. And the fact that there is so very little to latch your attention to here, makes it all that much harder to stay awake. It’s going to take some time for my body to listen to my brain again. The cards fall out of my hand as my fist reflexively opens from being hurt, and I’m on my knees as I watch Zoe skip through the air towards me.  

It takes until she speaks again for my senses to register the intense cold I feel, coming from where I was just hit. That she wasn’t trying to get me to come closer when she pointed towards herself. 

Zoe was pulling back the snowball she threw earlier, and that’s what conked me on the head.

“Listen to this message, child of rivers.”

The kid is speaking again. I didn’t notice her come within arm’s reach. I try to look up but my rattled head won’t listen, not yet. But I can tell that she isn’t floating anymore, my eyes locked onto her elbow. She’s standing at the level that I am kneeling at, looking down at my hunched form. Something about her voice is different. The slower, more professional pacing. The crisp enunciation. 

. . . The accompanying sound of a far-off boy laughing, and some manner of beastly companion laughing alongside them. 

“What was a blue together, will be forced into a green and indigo apart. But play your part, and a white harmony shall reunite the friends made family.”

I can barely register the words themselves, let alone their meaning. And already, the memory of what she said is lost to me. All I can recall is that there was some kind of rhyme scheme. Not a very good one. My eyes move, away from looking at whatever’s in front of them, and towards Zoe’s face. She’s still standing there, and she tilts her head like an owl as she looks back at me. She gives a wide and patient smile, seeming to be waiting for me to reply. But I’m still too dazed to talk. 

But she’s in arm’s reach. And if I can move my eyes, then I have enough for this.

To hell with her message.

I put everything I have into the next motion. Every last bit of my energy and focus. I turn every thought in my mind sharp and yellow, seeping away my sluggishness and morphing it into what I need for one perfect moment. Like liquid lightning, I move a single colorless card between my fingers and hone it to its sharpest before whipping out my arm. 

Decapitation is my goal, and her neck is the target.

But. When she made the snowball return, she interrupted me almost before I even started to talk. And just like with then, she’s done something similar now. Zoe started to take a step back before the card even reached my hand, and I miss. Barely. Zoe moved as perfectly and as little as possible to avoid getting cut. 

But it’s enough.

My perfect moment disappears without ever being realized, and the momentum of my attack pulls me out of my already shaky balance. Zoe is none the worse for wear, and she watches as I flail and then thud against the nothingness supporting me. I nearly unsocketed my own arm from how fiercely I moved, and it wasn’t enough. All it did was get me to land on my side, absolutely drained and now only capable of thinking. Barely.

And with an embarrassing amount of quickness, I recognize my mistake. My miscalculation. If she really had a message to deliver, why wait until I was asleep? Why talk to me here, and like this? She brought me to this black place for a reason. There’s something about this location that must be valuable to her. After all, she’s a kid. Something about this place probably gives her an edge.

She could be reading my mind.

The girl giggles at the first thought my brain supplies me, her looking down on me from even higher up now, and that all but confirms it.

My card dissipates, even my fingers too drained now to close the now open distance between them, and I’m left defenseless. Too weak to take out another card, colorless or otherwise. The snowball's chill creeps across my skin, like a lake starting to freeze over from the shore inward. It's cold enough that I wouldn't be surprised if crystals started to form, my body too drained to even shiver. And to add insult to injury, my understanding of the “ground” under me slips away. I’d been doing well enough up til now to just go along with it, but there really is nothing under me. And now, tired and disoriented, I can’t pretend or ignore anymore. I start to spin in my stupid looking position, a fool barely conscious enough to breathe and to think.

Zoe hmphs, before matching my unwanted movement and rotating with me face-to-face at a surprisingly non-invasive distance. 

“Come on, aren’t you a pirate?” She sits, legs swinging, and the less I try to understand it three-dimensionally the better. “Getting your bearings in a place with situational gravity isn’t that different from standing on a ship. Look at the horizon or something. Oh! Look at me! Yarr!”

Fuck. You.

That’s the only thought I can muster, and surprisingly I get out before she can smile her damn smile. Given the way things have turned out, I’m decidedly not in any actual danger. Except from possible hypothermia, but yeah. I just tried to legitimately kill her, and this Zoe girl doesn't seem to care. She could do pretty much anything she wanted to right now and I wouldn’t be able to stop her. And yet she just sits and talks with me, not even doing some childish prank like pulling out a pen and writing on my face.

Still, that doesn’t make any of this shit okay. I wanted to sleep, not engage in some weird magic thing.

As for the magic here, it turns out that she really can read my thoughts. As soon as I finish cursing her she looks away and turns her chin up, scoffing. Which is several times more agreeable to me than having to watch her grin again.

“Woooow, so much for me trying to help. Where’d that patience back in Odyssey go?” She shuts her eyes dramatically with a huff, but they open back up immediately and look at me with a child’s annoyance. “You’re going to need to get used to this sort of thing you know? And yes, practice like this will stay with you after you forget. This stuff is just like riding a bike.”

She smiles brightly with that, and acts as if she’s on an invisible bike now, pedaling. It’s probably a trike, honestly. Not that I give a damn. I wouldn’t bother to care if I were full of energy, and I certainly don’t care now. Still, she just keeps on talking. And most of it is really out there.

What the hell are you even talking about? What patience?

Even I’m not going to pretend that I was patient with her. I wanted her gone and to leave me alone before she even showed up. So, just add that to the pile of stuff I don’t understand I guess. Damn it, it’s just one frustrating thing after another. Zoe starts to feel frustrated as well, stopping her pretend pedaling and throwing her hands up with a groan.

“Ugh! This is why I can’t stand you posturing wrinklies. At least when I play I don’t deny it.” Zoe cups her hands around her mouth and yells the next word at me, before gesturing aggravatedly. “HELLO? The spaceship? This muffin you were eating?”

She reaches behind her, and pulls out the muffin from earlier. It looks like it was punched, which it was. But that punch was the only interaction I had with the damn thing; I didn’t eat it. Those aren’t my teeth marks, I haven’t been anywhere near chocolate for weeks now. Is she trying to equate any and all physical contact as consumption? No. No, don’t bother trying to rationalize her ramblings. I stare back at her and blink slowly, not that there’s much else I can do right now. Well, that and have her read my thoughts.

. . . 

Crazy kid.

She blinks, surprised. She really shouldn’t be, if she’s been reading my mind. I’ve been calling her crazy for a while. Then Zoe leans in a little closer, and starts to scan me with her eyes. She looks me up and down, her brow in a concentrated furrow, and after a moment she finds whatever it is she was looking for. She clasps her hands together, and gasps in amazement.

“Oh my gosh you don’t remember you don’t remember! So that’s why I couldn’t bypass your ship’s biolock!” Zoe leans closer and invades my personal space, not that I can do anything about it as she continues. Her excitement is almost overwhelming in its shrillness. “You have Ultra Baby Runeterra magic!”

. . . I have no response to that. But she obviously wasn’t looking for one, because she turns away from me now to continue talking as she waves her hands around expressively.

“Ohhhhhhh, it makes so much more sense now! Okay, yeah, you’re definitely the one for the job. I mean, at first I was like “why does this hairy boy need to get this message” but now I’m like “ oh you’re her stinky boy baby. Okay, I get it now.”

If you’re going to curse me or eat my soul or something, just do it.

If I could talk right now, I would have said it with the most dead monotone voice possible. That’s honestly how I feel at the moment. I’m not even sure if I really mean it in the end, asking her to ‘just do it’. I mostly said it to try and get her to stop talking. Shock her with something mildly morbid. But she’s unaffected. Mostly. For a moment my heart rate picks up as she turns back to face me after hearing my thoughts, and jogs back over to me with too much joy on her face.

But she only came back to pat me on the head and stop my slow rotation, before giving me her patronizing, parting words.

“Awwww don’t worry baby boy, it’ll all make sense eventually. Not that you’ll remember this conversation or anything~” She says the last part with a tremor in her voice, like she knows several things that I don’t and they’re all hilarious. “But hey, my job here is done! And yours is about to start! Soooo, here’s a little wake up call good luck!”

She picks up the pace at the end of her sentence and, with a clap of her hands, Zoe summons two things. The first is that portal from before, the swirling maelstrom of colors that brought me here. Thankfully it’s at the bottom edge of my vision directly under her, so it doesn’t assault my senses. Looks like she really is leaving.

I blink and see the second thing Zoe summoned, taking up the black expanse behind her: a flaming pink comet large enough to wipe all of Bilgewater off the planet. And it’s closing in, fast. 

“Good morning Runeterra!”

Zoe gives her best announcer yell, making her voice deeper for some reason, as she dives into the portal. Its entrance closes as soon as she’s fully in, and I’m left alone for the next few short seconds before I’m dashed into nothing. The entirety of my view is a shaking, world-ending pink. And as the meteor approaches, there’s no sound. No physical vibration. No heat. And honestly, that makes it worse. At least if the thing were some kind of hot, there'd be a chance it would remove the biting cold consuming me. Before, you know, consuming me. 

The end of this “dream” hurtles toward me in all of its ensured, flaming destruction. I can only see the color pink, the comet's sheer size drilling home in me all of my insignificance to reality. 

And I wake up.