Work Text:
The wind of the ocean beat into his cheeks and he kept his eye closed, his head lowered to protect the one that had no eyelids to shield it from the salty breeze. The shackles around his bare wrists bit into his skin, cold and heavy. The boatman hummed a wordless shanty on a faux key. The quiet jingling of the chain, the slow motion of the paddles, and the waves crashing restlessly against the boat were his farewell hymn and were it not for the destination, Silco would have enjoyed it.
In the distance, coming closer with every row, stood the unmoving silhouette of the Stillwater Fort, dark against the murky skies. There was no place that Silco could call home, not for decades and, in retrospect, perhaps not even then, yet this would be his new home for the next three years. Silco balanced on the precipice of Stillwater so many times in the past that seeing its walls from the inside became inevitable in his mind, however, the irony that he would be sentenced for crimes not of his own wasn’t lost on him. Looking to the right, vaguely, he recognized the section of the brackish part of the Pilt where Vander and he fought nearly fifteen years ago. Under the sulfuric clouds, it still looked as toxic and venomous as that day, only this time the waters were calmer.
And still, there was pride in him when he exited the boat, the battered soles of his boots meeting the shore of Stillwater for the first time. Those weren’t his crimes he would be punished for, no, and it did make a rather large hole into his plans, but Silco would be damned if he violated the oldest rules of the Undercity.
Never assist the enforcers.
*
A letter to inmate 516, Silco
From: Vander
Silco,
I never really wrote a letter to anyone before but it’s as good a way to start as any. I want you to know that I’m sorry. I would never believe anyone in the Lanes would give out another one of us, let alone Benzo. It wasn’t a way I wanted us to take and it shouldn’t have happened. I’m not the best with a pen and paper, it can’t possibly get across the things I want to say. Let me know if I can come and visit you. I’m attaching a pencil and some paper so you can reply back, I hope the guards don’t confiscate it.
Vander
*
He read the letter with a fresh black eye and blood still dripping down his nose, spilling onto the page. Old grudges die slowly when one doesn’t have much to occupy their mind with, and some denizens of Stillwater had some sour blood with Silco. The chemistry was mutual, he left a decent trail of defensive wounds behind.
Silco wiped off the blood drops from the letter pensively, then sneered and folded the paper. This was convenient for Vander, Benzo giving his name to Sheriff Greyson instead of those of his strays. He basically got rid of two birds with one stone - Silco’s revolution and the enforcers hanging on his children’s heels. Now he came begging to clean his, oh, so pure soul. His kids will grow up without ever facing the consequence of their actions, Piltover will once again sleep soundly at night, Vander will continue wearing his mask of a good man until it decays and cracks, and Silco will rot in Stillwater for three years.
He touched his throbbing cheekbone.
Three years, if he lived that long.
The letter was put under the mattress along with the pen and paper. Silco wasn’t keen on replying, not at that point anyway. He however knew how much he could trade a stack of decent papers for. And the pencil would make a fine shiv if the need arises.
*
The first letter was written in pencil, nicely. Too nicely. This was a letter written by a child who still retained their script well and punctuated every word to be legible.
A letter to inmate 516, Silco
From: Violet
To the man I don't know,
I'm supposed to thank you, for taking the blame, but I don't know how to thank somebody I've never met, let alone heard of.
I don't know why you did it. Vander said it was an accident, but that doesn't add up; he didn't tell us much about the whole thing, but.
Thank you, even if I don't know why. Even if I might never see your face, or know who you are.
Vi
The second one was written on a scrap of paper and stuffed into the previous one. The wardens didn’t list it, possibly thinking it was simply a postscript of the first one. It was written in different mediums; first, the same pencil as the previous part, possibly composed at the same time, for a few letters, then with crayons, as if set down and continued a while later. The handwriting on the note was much rougher and blockier than Vi’s.
Vander says I'll understand when I'm older
But...
Why should you get in trouble for something you didn't do?
*
It was an insult to call it lunch.
Silco wasn’t picky, candidly, he was very much the opposite of that. The things he and Vander ate back in the mines, sour blood sausages and bread that fell apart like sawdust, stew made of rotten vegetables and fish heads. Then, later, when they worked their asses off in the Lanes, they often drew matchsticks to see which one of them would go without dinner that day so the other one could eat. The time they stole pastries from a street vendor in Piltover and Vander got ten lashes over his hands when he was caught while Silco got away, later they sat in the Last Drop and Silco took turns feeding himself and Vander while the older boy’s swollen and bruised hands trembled, fingers too stiff to hold the pastry to his lips. And what of the years with Singed? Canned peaches and salted herring, strangely smelling hash made of kelp and fish guts, and only once in a while, when the doctor traded medicine or his skills for a few coins, noodles from Jericho.
No, Silco was able to eat practically anything, aided by the fact that the infection that ate half of his face also managed to damage his sinuses enough to numb most of his ability to taste or smell much of anything.
But this…
He peeled his lip in disgust and pushed the greenish slime on his plate away, returning to the letters. Saying no (or rather, ostentatiously not saying anything at all) to Vander was easy, surprisingly so. Between watching his back and trying to figure out a way to get in contact with either Singed or Sevika, Silco had barely any time to think about Vander’s words in any way.
Now, this was different. He had personally nothing against these kids. He pitied what happened to their parents during the Day of Ashes, just as much as he pitied all his brothers and sisters who died there that night, and he was vaguely aware that they filled the space in the Last Drop that used to be once his, but he had truly no personal grudge against any of them.
Did they owe him thanks?
Not more than he owed them an apology for following them around. Those were simply the ways one took in order to survive.
He picked up a spoon, licked it with a sour grimace, and watched his distorted expression in it. The bruise on his unscarred cheek was still dark, joined now by a split lip.
Should he reply to them?
Something about the way Violet addressed him, ‘to the man I don’t know’, bugged him. Vander has never spoken about him. He never explained his clothes in the Last Drop, his little trinkets, his books and journals, all those pieces of himself he left behind after he was chased out. Perhaps they had never even seen them. Perhaps Vander disposed of Silco’s phantom just as soon as the last of his Pilt-drenched clothes dried out.
He stood up, putting the letter into his shirt.
Perhaps he wanted to have his name back and not be just a ghost Vander covered with lies and his gauntlet.
*
Outgoing letter from Inmate 516, Silco.
To: Violet and Powder
Dear Vi,
You don’t need to thank me as there is nothing to thank me for. I’ve not taken it upon myself to bear the blame for your mishaps, nor was it an accident.
I consider honesty a virtue. Albeit in the past, I was often shown it to be one’s fall to disgrace, but you do deserve honesty and you will get it from me.
It’s the least I can offer you, Vi. It’s the least anyone can ever offer you, remember it.
There is one rule in the Lanes and I’m sure you know it well– never assist an enforcer. Through the many faults and flaws Vander, Benzo, and I shared in the past, this has been one I never thought would be broken – yet it was.
Vander cooperates with one Sheriff Greyson, as I’m certain you learned throughout this escapade of yours, and Sheriff Greyson has asked for a name to be given to her – a culprit to arrest in order to soothe the sleep of the good citizens of Piltover. Mind you, she’s not asked for the real culprit, only for a man or a woman to arrest, whoever would Vander deem exposable enough to sacrifice.
The name given was mine and it was given by Benzo, as I’ve learned from Vander’s very letter to me.
So, you see, child, you don’t owe me any thanks and I owe you no welcomes. I’ve not given myself up for your good sake, I’ve simply followed the very same rule that Vander and Benzo broke.
I imagine that Vander pushed a pen and paper in front of you and told you to send me your letter. I’m thankful for a word from the outside, the walls of Stillwater are dark and dense, but I don’t want you to feel urged to continue a conversation which was pushed onto you without consent. Don’t feel the urge to reply to me, however, if you were so inclined, at least you know whom you’re talking to the next time.
Silco.
This next part is for your sister, please give it to her, I don’t have much disposable paper.
Dear Powder,
You are told you’re too young to understand but that is a lie. No child of the Undercity is too young to understand, especially one as resourceful as you are.
Sometimes, we don’t get a choice. You and your sister should not be punished for what happened in the first place, as it wasn’t your fault. Like all of us, you too are the victims of Piltover’s hostile system. It drove you topside to get what you needed – to survive. I was like you once, I still am; Vander was, too. It’s commendable what you two and your brothers did, and you should be praised, not punished. You couldn’t know that the man you stole from was illegally storing unstable chemical materials that weren’t supposed to be there in the first place.
But Topside wants their hands clean and this is why they needed a victim from the Undercity to bear the blame for the real culprit. That’s why they asked for you. I was given to them in your stead and not by my own decision.
Still, I am happy that you’re not punished after all.
You can understand now. You can understand everything, Powder, don’t wait till you’re older.
Silco
*
His first visit came only five days later. It was about time too.
“You look like shit.”
“Better than I thought, then.” He stood propped by a wall close to the bars, breathing heavily. The fever was getting worse.
“Do you have what I need?”
Sevika, the toes of her boots well over the recommended no-contact line drawn on the floor, glanced to her right to see the warden leaving behind a corner.
“You got a place to hide it all? Cause if they find it-”
“Be so kind, give it to me and spare me the lesson…”
Another look, then she beckoned him closer.
“Pretend…pretend we’re hugging.”
“That won’t be suspicious at all,” he scoffed. She rolled her eyes and slithered her strong arms through the bars, pulling him closer. Silco’s good eye widened a bit. He knew it was only a sham for the wardens but it still felt nice. He slowly put his hands on her shoulders.
“Vander went way over the line this time,” she slipped something cold behind his shirt. It chilled his spine and stopped at his tucked waistline. He shivered, “to give you up…we don’t do that in the Undercity.”
Another cold object followed, rolling along his skin and jingling, an impact of glass against metal, when it fell onto the previous gift.
“It wasn’t him. It was Benzo.”
“But that’s even worse,” two more of the glass tubes fell behind his shirt, “means that Vander has no real word in the Lanes when even his most trusted goes behind his back. How long did you get for those brats?”
“Three years. Is that all?”
“Enough for a month. I’m hoping we establish a smuggling chain by that point, I have some friends here. It seems that you don’t though,” Sevika finally peeled off and tapped one finger to her temple. Silco subconsciously touched his. The fresh, still swollen bruise and a gash there was a solid testament to her words.
“Do you have a name or two I could find here then?”
She nodded, crossing her arms.
“Look for a fella called Crane and a chick called Aureus. Tell them we’re friends, that Sevika sent you. We go way back with both, Aureus is my second cousin, Crane’s my childhood friend. They’re brawlers and smugglers from the glass factory where I used to work. They’ll take care of you.”
“Thank you, Sevika,” Silco inclined his head, “tell me, is the doctor doing well?”
“Worried about you and asking about your plan and how to proceed.”
“I will need you to take care of him for me, now. Make sure he’s safe and that he has what he needs. Give him this,” he slipped a folded paper through the bars and Sevika swiftly hid it in her jacket, “it has some instructions. For now, you all lay low, don’t do anything. Let’s establish a smuggling chain so I have some ground here. I’ll figure out how to pursue our plans without my presence.”
A warden’s heavy steps sounded down the corridor and Silco’s head snapped to the sound. He looked at Sevika, brows knitting.
“Keep in touch, Sevika. And continue as before in the Lanes, not a word to Vander.”
“Will do. Take care of yourself, boss. Three years here is like thirty outside.”
As if he didn’t know.
*
My dearest doctor,
We’ve not accounted for this, have we? As you said, no plan is truly bulletproof and anything can go astray. But we will get through this.
To not draw any attention to yourself and our endeavours, I’d ask you not to visit under any circumstances and do not use Stillwater’s postal system, they read all correspondence. Instead, send your letters through Sevika for now. She will take care of you. Ask her anything you need.
As for our plans, lay low for now. You may continue your research but don’t attract any unwanted attention. I will also still need Shimmer. Please, supply Sevika and she will deliver it to me. Currently, I have enough to cover me for well over a month. I’m hiding both my injector and the vials behind a broken brick in my cell, would you believe that? I have to laugh as I write this.
Be well, dear doctor. And eat, we both know you forget.
Silco
*
A letter to inmate 516, Silco
From: Vander
Silco,
I asked Vi and Powder to thank you because I thought it was the right thing to do, but what you sent to them, and to tell them that I betrayed the Lanes to work for the She–
(A large portion of the letter beyond this point was scratched over vigorously, making it ineligible)
It’s my past too, you know. And those are my kids, I raise them, and I decide what they know and don’t know about me or you, for that matter. You had no right to put this bug in their heads. I shouldn’t have to explain myself to them and I didn’t want them to know about you and me. Do you think you’re helping them to grow by doing this or is it out of spite?
What I did to you was terrible and I can’t ask forgiveness, I don’t even forgive myself, but don’t drag them into it.
And respond, please. Taking it out on my kids is immature and petty. We should talk like the adults we are. Let me know if I can come to visit you or if all I’ll get is your turned back.
Vander
*
Silco used the back of the letter to write down a rough plan of the smuggling chain operation while sitting with Crane and Aureus.
Sevika was right, they were good people and still remembered her fondly.
He never replied to the letter.
*
A letter to inmate 516, Silco
From: Powder
Attachments: 11 pcs or children’s drawings, crumpled.
To Silco,
Everyone's been weird, since they took you. Vander and Benzo got into a fight over it, and even Vi's been quiet. You said the stuff in the apartment, it was unstable chemicals? They look like crystals, and they glow. I took a few when we fled because they looked expensive. I didn't know that's what caused the explosion.
Vander doesn't know we have them, Vi said it's our secret for now. If I could find a way to get one or two of them over there, maybe the crystals could get you out, and you wouldn't have to stay in Stillwater, anymore.
Or maybe it would make things worse.
In your letter to Vi, you said you didn't have a lot of paper; I stuffed some of my old drawings in with this, so you have something to write on- they're all the ones I could find with blank backs. I don't have a lot of purely blank paper, so I hope this is good enough.
Powder
*
Establishing a smuggling chain was far easier than they initially thought. Bribes to the wardens were cheap and the funds Silco had collected from smuggling and heists to use against Vander covered easily the first line of communication.
Two of the wardens were easily swayed with a promise of future percentage from similar endeavours, as long as they allowed for small objects to be smuggled in and out of the jail and excluded Silco’s and others’ correspondence from checks.
Things have begun to calm down in Stillwater. With the smuggling chain steady, Silco has started finding solid ground under his feet. Finally, he had the time to speak not just about business but also ideology, and people listened. Few and fewer dared to step in his way with a new cohort of friends who believed in free Zaun as much as he did and it wasn’t until a month later that he had the time to sit down and answer the last letter.
*
Outgoing letter from Inmate 516, Silco.
To: Powder
Attachment: One pencil drawing of sea creatures on a separate piece of paper
Dear Powder,
Yes, the gems you found in the topside apartment were rather dangerous chemicals in a solid state, possibly filled with foreign magic. I don’t know much more but perhaps I could try to find out.
If you still have them, hide them well and keep them safe. Your sister is right, don’t tell anyone and do not use them for anything. Most definitely do not attempt to smuggle them to me.
Thank you for all the paper, however I couldn’t possibly ruin your drawings by writing all over them. I know they weren’t meant for me with that intention but I kept them all and sometimes study them. They’re very sweet. I’m not as good an artist as you will once be but I attached a doodle of my own, for your entertainment. It’s a shark, you see, and some jellyfish. I used to watch them when I lived in the old cannery with my good friend. There is an underwater window which can see into the ocean and on nights when the sky is clear, you can observe many luminous wonders through it. Sometimes, it felt like magic in a dark place.
Furthermore, I want to apologize for not responding earlier. I’ve got no solid excuse other than being busy. If you decide to reply, I promise my next letter will come to you faster.
And thank you, for talking to me. It might sound cheesy, but it means a lot. I hope you’re doing better.
Silco
*
When Silco was recovering from his illness, he often visited the Lanes. Or rather, he carefully tapped at its edges, hoping for the whiff of home without being caught. During those times, and many times after, he sometimes met Vander.
He met him in a crowd, he met him on a street, he met him in his dreams, and all those times, there was something between them.
There were rivers. Always the rivers..
A river of people, as thick as a mountain stream. A river of distance, with him on the roofs and Vander down there on the street. A river of fiction, in his dreams and his nightmares alike.
He knew that there were always rivers between them, then. Even before Vander tried to drown him in the Pilt, there were rivers. Rivers of silence and rivers of screams, rivers of tears and rivers of hands. There was a river between them now, a bay of dark and cold waters too dangerous to swim over, rivers of walls, and, right now, a river of metal bars.
Always those damn rivers.
“I asked you politely,” Vander said. The first words between them after fifteen years.
“You did.”
“I asked you not to write them letters.”
“I asked you not to come.”
Vander frowned.
“You never replied.”
“Exactly,” Silco sank deeper into the darkness of his cell, remaining in its corner, away from Vander, “I thought that was a rather clear rejection of your offered visit. And yet-”
“And yet.”
“And yet, you’re here.” He extended one leg and inclined his head to one shoulder, “Why did you come, Vander? You could have simply burned my letters and not give them to your children.”
“I’m not in a habit to destroy private correspondence.”
“But you are in the habit of asking one of the correspondents to discontinue said correspondence. You’re right, you know, that’s much more mature.”
Vander sighed quietly and rubbed his forehead.
“Silco…stop, please. It’s been so many years, this can’t be how you want our first conversation to go, after all that time and all that happened. I know I don’t.”
“Is it my fault?” Silco’s eyebrow arched, “You made yourself also rather clear by the Pilt. Conversation over, Vander, I trust we said all that needed to be said and-”
“I didn’t want any of this to happen,” Vander interrupted him softly, head lifted and nearly panicked, as if some old fear crept inside his head. Silco couldn’t watch his expression, it was too full of pain and regret and he himself began feeling what Vander did. He looked away, that mutated eye in the darkness lowering to the bare ground. He was quiet for a moment.
“But it did,” there was bitterness in Silco’s tone then, “It did.”
A rustle of fabric and crackling of leather made him look up again, hoping, and fearing, to see the man leave. But he didn’t. Vander was sitting down, legs criss crossed, ass on the warning yellow line.
“Let’s talk. Please.”
“What is there to talk about? You betrayed me, ruined me, you tried to kill me, and the same people you protected by doing that now betrayed me once again,” Silco hissed, “All of you, the whole damn Lanes that I helped to build, that I wanted to liberate along with the rest, have never seen me as anything else than means to an end. I’m the butt of this long-running joke that spans all the way back to the mines. I wanted to give you and them everything but I’m nothing to any of you, and even now I continue working for them, for you, when all you do is cleanse your consciousness. What do you want to talk about, Vander? What more can you throw my way?”
“Let’s talk,” He repeated quietly, “about all that happened. Let’s start at the beginning.”
“I don’t have time for the past.”
Vander leaned his head to one shoulder and a small, sad smile appeared in his eyes.
“Silco. Time is all we have right now.”
*
When Vander was a child, he once met a fortune teller. She was a vastaya, one he’d never seen before or after. She came on a ship from Ionia one day and reclined in an old, abandoned building by the harbour, one that had no glass in its windows and no door to close. She sat in that empty house and waited for the ship to depart again.
None had seen her face but all knew that she was short like a child no older than fifteen, that she had long, slender hands, and that the hair flowing down from underneath her silken hood looked more like tentacles of a squid or an octopus than anything else. She wore a flowing cascade of fabric in terracotta reds and lazuli blue. She spoke with a strange accent and her voice was that of an old hag.
As weeks passed and the ship slept motionless in the harbour, people began calling the vastaya woman the Sea Foam Witch and they said she was a prophet.
Vander’s mother then sent him, just like the mothers of other children, to fetch her an offering.
“This city has older gods than Janna, son. Some that don’t have any name we could pronounce and some that have no names at all,” she told him, “but when we were still Oshra Va’Zaun, we always watched out for those that came from the sea.”
And so he walked to the house of the sea hag with an old enamel pot full of grits and oily fish and biscuits made with flour, agave, and water.
The house was dark and cold, so full of moisture it felt like a cabin of a fishing boat, and only a small oil lamp illuminated the greenish inside with a flicker of warm orange, bathing the tones of the Sea Foam Witch’s silks with fire.
“Come in, Pup, I can smell your single-heart from the doorway. You brought offerings.”
Vander frowned and stepped inside.
“You can…smell my heart?”
“It smells of hot cinder and bile, Pup. It smells of burning sky-paths, of ink, of lost battles and mother’s lonely ends. The offering, Pup, I cannot tell you more until you give me what’s yours.”
He hesitated, then stepped closer to the seated figure. How small was she, smaller than him and ever so delicate. Her hands lay in her lap like withered and bleached branches of driftwood, four-fingered and bearing far too many joints to count, lacking fingernails. The pale tentacles hanging from her hood moved without an end in a sluggish swirl and each of them carried circular suckers at its underside. They pulsated now slowly when the pot clanked against the bare concrete of her house.
One hand lifted and a many-jointed finger dipped into the grits, coming up under the hood to meet an invisible mouth. It came back slick with saliva and clean.
“Your mother has the soul of a triggerfish, Pup. She will protect her kin until her final breath and you will never thank her for it.”
Vander frowned, reluctantly turning to leave.
“I’ll come for the pot later.”
The feeble hand wrapped around his right wrist and held him and he recognized its fragility’s deceptiveness. The sea hag was strong like a large man.
“Sit, Pup,” it was a harsh order, something clicked in her voice, snapping like a crow’s beak, “Sit and listen to my gift to you.”
Against his will, Vander felt his legs turn into jelly and he sunk to the floor before her, suddenly feeling, oh, so small. Her hand never let his go as she leaned closer, presenting to him the impenetrable darkness of her hood.
The clacking in her voice became more pronounced then. Thin lines of bloody browns began spidering down her tentacles, dying them with fresh tones of clay and crimson as she spoke.
“Before my colour meets my end, I shall tell you the tale of your future, Pup. You will meet kin in caves of elden breaths and earth fire and you will be bound by your red blood and soul. Ka’azach dael’brainth.”
Black, thick liquid began pouring down the front of her silken robes in lazy trickles.
“Together you shall spill lives and forget your lonesome nights. Like two young killer whales, you shall become the fear of others in your peculiar joy. More than brothers from other-kin, Pup, mates eternally bound. A clownfish and an anemone, and just like them, without one another you fall prey to the golden-toothed eels of the sky city. Aldhan va’ Mizzerach.”
As the darkness of her hood bled onto her, the light in the oil lamp flickered violently and her tentacles spilt with colours. Blue circles stood on the speckled skin and began glowing.
“But one of you will betray, Pup. One of you will have to sever your ever-bond and there is no current strong enough to carry that fate away. If it’s him who betrays you, that sacrifice will lead to freedom for all your kin but it will be the end for all you hold dear. If it’s you who betrays, Pup, sky fire will rain on the golden city, great waves of arcana will swallow the shores and drown Oshra Va’Zaun in purple waters and greed for payback. Gravach al’deveraine, Sael’fan Andirhan, it cannot be avoided.”
Blackness swallowed the cabin when the oil lamp finally lost its battle with the cold magic filling the air and Vander, unable to pull away any longer, felt slick wetness soak his knees when that dark liquid which flowed down the sea hag’s front reached his body. The blue circles on her tentacles glowed with brilliant icy light and it was all he could see.
“Sky paths will burn and your kin will die. Offspring left without battle fathers, thankless mother will rot in the mud. Caverns of your world will cry violet tears, your single-heart will bleed with regrets. Hazzareth Khtort’tenath, Pup, you will suffer either way the current takes you. But ask yourself, will your kin suffer with you? Hazzareth del’anachk, your path is sealed. If you succeed, your kin will drown. If you fail, your kin will breathe the earth fire. And you, Pup, kel’ Faraney, you will die at any end.”
The tentacles opened, blossoming into an eight-armed flower in front of Vander, and in their midst was a sliver of a sharp beak.
“Don’t cross the sea fingers, Pup, don’t cross the rivers or you will regret.”
*
The Sea Foam Witch left with her ship back to Ionia a week later. Vander came to watch her leave with all the other street urchins.
The sea hag’s tale lay in his mind for months and he pondered over it, weighing her strange words. Then his mother became sick and died of the sump lung only a few months later and Vander was left to fend on his own. His path soon led him lower into the Undercity in search of odder and odder jobs until one day, he took a shovel and a pickaxe and joined the Mercredi’s Mining Company.
And there, he met a filthy little boy, large ears sticking from between strands of coal-black greasy hair and sea-green eyes shining beneath the muck of his face. He stood with a bucket and a shovel and watched Vander struggle with the pickaxe. He broke two already, being too strong to handle them.
“Gauntlets,’ the boy spoke up suddenly, making Vander jump, “would be a better fit for you. Better coin, too.”
Their eyes met, the crystal waters of shallow seas and the grey tranquillity of the vast oceans. The boy turned to leave.
“Ask the foreman.”
*
“Do you regret it?”
“Regret what, Vander?”
“Meeting me.”
He was quiet. The cold bars pressed into his back as he watched the darkness of his cell. Vander’s jacket, just behind him, pleasantly brushed against his shoulder and nape providing the warmth he wanted to seek.
“I regret nothing. All that ever happened only pushed us to become someone else. Stronger, weaker, more broken, more solid, further apart, closer… Stagnant water becomes poison, running streams a weapon. We became weapons, Vander. Against them, against one another, but weapons nonetheless. I regret nothing. Do you?”
“Do I…regret meeting you?”
“Do you…?”
Vander was quiet for so long that Silco thought he was going to lose his mind. Eventually, when his heart was as tight as a string, something clicked and a moment later a lit cigarette extended through the bars. He accepted it reluctantly, his cold fingers brushing over Vander’s burning ones.
“When I was a wee lil’ kid, I met a sea witch. Did I ever tell you that story?”
“You did not,” the smoke tingled pleasantly in his lungs.
“I think she was a real Raylu. Never seen another one like her. She read my fortune, you know, told me lots of things.”
“And?” Silco turned slightly over his shoulder to meet Vander’s smiling profile, “I thought we grew out of fairy tales by the time you lifted the shovel for the first time.”
“This was no fairy tale, Sil.”
“So? Did her prophecy come true?” He couldn’t spare himself that sarcastic bite but Vander just chortled under his mustache.
“Yes and no! She said a lot of things that kind of came true and a lot that didn’t. I think she couldn’t understand that some suffering is good and that some sacrifices are for the better. As you said, everything that happens fractures us but also makes us become stronger. Like a broken bone that knots when it mends and never breaks in the same place again.”
“So it was a fairy tale.”
“Not quite. She was right in one thing,” Vander leaned his head back, the molasses-coloured strands of his curls tickling Silco’s ear, “she said I’ll regret. And I do. I regret so many things, Sil. The times I didn’t stand by you, the times I didn’t take a moment to think stuff through, when I let my blood boil until it spilt over and the times when I put a blindfold on. But I never once, not once, regretted meeting you. You fractured me and made me stronger. You taught me more than this sea witch ever could, not with all her magic and prophecies.”
Silco turned and their eyes met yet again. Tranquil seas and ice and fire. Vander’s glistened with those seas now, ready to drown him and his voice was nothing more than a whisper of night waves disturbing the quiet shore.
“I came to ask you for forgiveness and gave one of my own. If you’ll have it, that is,” he chuckled nervously.
Silco thought for a moment.
Then he nodded.
*
A letter to inmate 516, Silco
From: Doctor
Dear boy,
Sevika tells me it is now safe to send you correspondence through the regular postal system.
A child came to visit me the other night. She said you sent her.
How she reminded me of you in some aspects. Her endless curiosity and tentative bravery. We sat by the window as I did many nights before with you and watched the sea life till the sun came up. We drank herbal tea and spoke of fears and nightmares.
I thank you for that little gift, albeit it might have not been intended as such, but her little visit truly brought me back the company I so craved, and a piece of you, might it be distant.
I shall inquire if I could visit you too and bring you a piece of your home. I hope you eat well and take your medicine as prescribed. Please, do let me know if any changes might arise.
Yours truly
PS: Should the child come again, may I present her with your sea life studies? She was quite intrigued and I saw she carried a folded picture which I recognized as your pencil drawing. How you deceive the child, Silco, to give her a drawing of made-up Medusozoa and Selachimorpha. She was trying to locate what you drew in the water and could not find a match. I had to explain to her that you’ve not drawn any specific species but an approximation of said subdivisions and promise to show her your real studies.
*
A letter to inmate 516, Silco
From: Vander
Silco,
I came to visit but the cunt warden at the main reception told me you can’t accept any visits now. What happened? And apparently, you didn’t also reply to a letter from your friend, that skinny scientist. It’s enough to make that man worry, he even came to the Drop to ask me of all people.
Seriously, please, reply this time.
Vander
*
A letter to inmate 516, Silco
From: Sevika
Get your shit together and answer your letters. Nothing for Singed, nothing for Vander, not even that little brat. She fucking pesters me every day now, I’m not paid enough for this!
S
*
“Don’t…look at me like that. I looked worse,” Silco’s voice was strained through the wires that held his jaws together. Vander’s lips tightened into a doubtful line, bushy eyebrows knitted in concern.
“I don’t think you ever did.”
Silco turned his head away as much as the brace around his neck allowed and closed his remaining eye. It was swollen enough that keeping it open posed trouble anyway.
“Piss off… You say that because you didn’t see me after the river.”
A chair creaked as Vander sat down, sighing heavily.
“So. On whose toes did you step?”
“Someone lonely enough to try to get friendly.”
“Sil. Did he hurt you-”
“Oh, Janna’s sake, Vander, no. I stabbed him in the throat with a pencil,” Silco looked back at him, the bruised fingers of his broken arm tensed slightly, “nothing like that. I simply didn’t feel like I should stop stabbing and the wardens disagreed with my passing judgement. Maybe I stabbed a warden too. Who knows? The damn pencil broke anyway, it couldn’t hurt him that much.”
He swallowed and closed his eye again. It hurt to talk, aggravating his broken jaw and ribs alike.
Vander reached out reluctantly to swipe away something wet and salty from his temple. It wouldn’t be a tear. He wouldn’t cry. Not in front of him, not because of this. Not because he lied that the prisoner didn’t lay a hand on him.
“Sil…”
“What,” he uttered between clenched teeth.
“I know you will be mad, but I have some decent news.”
“Decent news will make me mad? How bold of you to assume that they’re decent then.”
Vander squeezed his fingers carefully, minding his strength. Silco looked at him.
“Out with it, then. Start with the part that makes me presumably mad.”
“I spoke with Sheriff Greyson–”
“Oh for fuck’s sake… You were right, get out.”
“–and she told me that the boy my kids stole from is under heavy investigation because of the materials he kept there. Apparently, some of it made its way back topside, straight to the academy, to councillor Heimerdinger.”
Silco’s eye opened. He frowned, staring at Vander. The older man continued.
“It seems that one of the thieves found someone in the Undercity who has connections to Heimerdinger’s assistant. I heard they’re old friends, the boy’s from the Undercity too. And it looks like, in the light of recent events, topside is beginning to admit that the thievery and the explosion were two separate things, not necessarily connected to one another. Councillor Medarda laid hard into the whole thing. She seems to want to utilize whatever Talis has but doesn’t want it to be blackened by a connection to the crime. So…”
“So?”
“Your sentence is getting shortened,” Vander smiled softly, “eight months for breaking and entering. And you’re already here for six months, yeah?”
His breath got stuck in his throat.
“Two months, Sil. You only have to sit tight for two months and you’re out. I’ll try to press on Sherrif that with you getting hurt like this should shorten that time even more, what with the broken knee, they can’t send you back to the cell anyway.”
Silco’s gaze travelled down to his leg. Only hours ago he was cursing it for the never-ceasing throbbing pain and the possibility of limping to the rest of his damn life. Now, he blessed the warden then stomped hard right on his kneecap, snapping it.
“Silco.”
“Yes,” he didn’t find more in him than a single breath. Vander’s thumb rubbed against his fingertips.
“When you’re out, and I’ll do everything I can to get you out in a couple of days, I would like us to not get lost again.”
“Rivers, Vander,” Silco whispered, still dazed, “There are rivers between us, you know. I…can forgive you. In fact, I think I did already, but I don’t think I can cross that bridge so easily. We burned it down well.”
“I was thinking we could build new ones,” Vander mused, sitting back, “New bridges, new connections, damned be the rivers and prophecies, yeah?”
“We have our own ways, now.”
“Do we? I’m not so sure,” Vander grinned, “See, when your doctor friend dropped by, scared shitless for you, we got to talk. Let me tell you, that old man has some fire in his bones. He spilt so much poison my way I thought I was gonna drop dead right there. But then we sat down and exchanged some words and he mentioned this Shimmer thing.”
Damned be the doctor.
“What did he tell you?” Silco asked tiredly. Vander shrugged.
“Lotsa alchemical mambo jumbo I didn’t get at all. But then he said something about scaring the topside and that I should ask you,” a sparkle of mischief appeared in his eyes.
Silco looked at him, exhausted, dazed, hurt, but Janna be, some minor hope bit at his throat and he wondered briefly…
“Alright,” he sighed, “listen well, Vander. I have an idea, a plan, perhaps. But I wager it might make you mad and reconsider your offer of…reconciliation,” he spat that word out with bile. Vander smiled.
“Well, start with the part that’s gonna make me mad and we’ll see.”
Silco took a deep breath. By the Kindreds, he rehearsed this so many times in his mind and now his tongue felt like wet cement when the moment came. He held his breath and then,
He crossed the river.
“It’s a bit crude, I’ll admit—the base violence necessary for change, but we both know topside won’t listen to anything else. Listen close–”
*
Rivers were crossed and prophecies have proven nothing but fairy tales, and no current was too strong, in the following months. Of course, much patience was needed and the most tentative of baby steps were taken, and not just because of that broken knee.
For now, Vander was yet to accept and understand all that Shimmer would bring in the future and Silco was to learn that compromises must be made.
But they had time, that was all they had. With Singed on Silco’s side, and discovering a parental bond with not only Powder but Vi as well, he was able to step back here and there and find a better way.
The plan was reworked more times than Silco dared to count, though to the benefit of both him and Vander, like the waves of the Pilt, it was barely the same as when Silco began.
But, oh, Piltover would fear them nonetheless.
Because soon, when the time was right, they would cross that river too.
And somewhere, the Sea Foam Witch cackled.
What a fickle little thing this fate was. Always changing, different with every breath one took, just like the sea hugging the shores of Piltover and Zaun. Still, the fire would rain and still the betrayals would happen, for perhaps one event was mistaken for another, and that’s the thing with prophecies, isn’t it?
Yet, nothing would ever be the same, for better or worse, the old vastaya smiled.