Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Why are you here?”

The heat of the beach is sweltering and humid and the truth is Lulu’s wondering how he can withstand it beneath his layers of robes and armor. An insulating spell, perhaps?

The way she does it is by donning a bathsuit and loitering in the waves, swimming deeper when she wants to feel the colder undercurrents and returning to shore when she has had enough. She happened to land by his corner of the beach. Which is by coincidence. A coincidence she carefully orchestrated, making sure to swim in his line of sight so he’d know she was there.

“You’re the only one with a beach towel down here. You seem lonely.” Lulu knows, being this forward, a barrage of spite is to follow, and that may be part of why she does it. Veigar has such an artistry with insults she doesn’t mind kamikaze-ing herself into being his target.

“Leave. I am lonely by choice.”

Something in her intuition tickles that he’s not, and this is posturing. There’s something so pathological about Veigar; though she’s not one to go and ‘fix’ others, Lulu knows she is the cat that died from curiosity. And the harder Veigar proves to pry the more invested she becomes.

She sniffs the air, all part of a performance, twitching her nose and facing him and crawling to him and smelling his periphery, then closer and closer, until her nose digs in a sleeve and he yelps and recoils.

“Oh, I smell it,” she says, twiddling her fingers before his face, spritzing him with seawater to his annoyance. “The stench of insecurity. More pungent than even dead fish…” she points an index at him, accusingly. “You’re salty because you weren’t invited, aren’t you?”

He puffs air out. “Familiar with it because you’ve smelled it in yourself, no? In a corner in parties, looking in longingly, waiting for your so-called friends to come chat, but they don’t. Not unless you reach out to them first.” He dots the whole thing with emphatic gestures of his hands that ooze melodrama. “Me, saying more to you of my own will than they all do. I think it’s clinging to your skin, and not mine.”

He has hit a tender spot, but this is a game to both of them, and Lulu isn’t about to relent just because he’s turned her strategy on her. “You’re so salty, Veigar. Like sea water.”

She sits next to him, making his beach towel wet.

“Yet salt adds zest to meals.”

“You are once more going on tangents that I don’t understand.”

“But you said so yourself! You speak to me of your own will more than anyone else— why?”

Veigar holds his eyes on her for an uncomfortable stretch of time. But he doesn’t answer.

So they just gaze out at the sea together.

Chapter Text

“I don’t understand why the place where I put the entrance to my lair is such a point of contention,” Veigar says, bitter.

Lulu wants to say a lot of things, like how now that she knows it’s under a bridge it explains why his robes smell kind of musty. But it’s definitely a remark from annoyance, because she’s been joking about Veigar being a hobo under a bridge ever since that nugget of information made it to her.

“I have two answers for you,” she says, gesticulating the two with her fingers. “One is a lie but it’s more compassionate and the other is mean, but the truth. So, what’ll it be?” She extends her hand to him as if he’ll physically tap on her index or her middle.

“True but mean,” he answers without skipping a beat.

“Because it’s hilarious.” She shrugs at him and under the hat eyes narrow, followed what seems like an eyebrow raising. “You living like some forest troll. Do you also charge tolls for people who want to come through?” To Veigar’s amazement, like it’s second nature to her, she takes on his posture, shoulders stiff, a convincing snarl of hatred on her face, her fingers twitching and fiddling, taking the shape of taut claws. Her nails, dainty, long and sharpened to a point, sell the idea.

“Ten stars now, unless you wish for death!” She threatens, overlaying her voice with the dry rasp of his in a manner so authentic his eyes widen in shock, and just as fast as she took on his manners they’re discarded, replaced by her laughter, high pitched and racuous.

Veigar looks from side to side, mulling that may honestly not be a terrible business enterprise.

Chapter Text

Riff pushes a handful of his locks behind his ear and under his hat, eyeing Veigar in a rather avoidant manner.

“Well?” Veigar says, accusing. “Explain yourself.”

Riff sighs, fiddling with a lock. “You know, dude… In every town, in every city, no matter the empire, kingdom, spirit realm or the realm of the humans… There’s a guy.” He shrugs with feigned nonchalance.

“A guy,” Veigar deadpans.

“Yeah, a guy! A guy everyone talks about. Maybe the guy likes to juggle mead bottles or he can do a mean fiddle solo and he likes to do it rolling on a unicycle downtown… you know? A weird guy. That guy. Every town has one.”

Waltz, who merely has stood by watching the exchange, folds his meaty arms over his barrel chest and nods solemnly. “Every town, colleague.”

Veigar sighs and his fingers wriggle, making the metal of his gauntlets clink. On his other hand his grip tightens around the body of crime— a notepad, typical Bandle make, bound with twine containing pages upon pages of notes themed around what he can only describe as a ‘Lulu observation journal’, some of which are illustrated. To cement the gall, the absolute audacity of it all, Riff actually went and branded it with his name in the first page.

“Lulu’s that guy,” he snarls.

Riff nods. “Yeah, she’s that guy.”

He could spit on that smug face right then and there.

“And that justifies the stalking and the logging, I presume.” He flips through the pages. “From a week ago. Two-thirty PM. Tasted beet soup at the Hungry Hilltop and danced ‘the soup dance’. Ten AM. Singing to the snailcats about the wonders of slime…” The pages flutter as he ruffles them, seeing red. “Three days ago, eight twenty-two PM, showed at a party that she can drink soda and spit it out through her nose. Grabbed a toad, ballooned it up and played with it like a beach ball… These go back months, logged with the time down to the minute. And that just makes perfect sense to you.”

“Well she does so much weird stuff, dude. How else am I supposed to keep track of all the funny stories?” Riff scratches the back of his head. “If I could get my hands on one of them camera thingies from Piltover I wouldn’t have to do my crappy doodles, I’m a musician, not a painter—“

“Repulsive, is what you are,” the wizard hisses, reaching out and slapping the notebook repeatedly against the other yordle, making him recoil, “I’m supposed to be the mean one here, and you just go around stalking a lady and noting down her every move?!”

“Hey, it’s not her every move, man! Just the funny things! And stalking is too strong a word. I don’t like, follow her around. Sometimes it’s the other people who have funny stories and I just write them down—“

“So this atrocity is a team effort?!” Veigar hollers, smacking him over the head with the disgusting compendium. “How many of you people waste your time gossiping about a girl?!”

Riff does an over the top ouch and Waltz is brought out of his stoicism, shoving Veigar away from his ‘colleague’ hard. He’s forced to backstep to balance, and stares daggers into the taller musician, hoping it conveys his seething hatred.

“Shove it,” he says. “And give the book back. It’s not yours.”

“You people are pathetic,” he growls, patting his robes indignantly. “Tristana looks down on my plans and yet, beneath her nose, amongst the so-called good people, an entire squad keeps their eyes on Lulu like vultures to mock her whimsy. Disgusting!” On impulse, he engulfs the book on a quickly casted teleport spell, whooshing it to the foyer of his lair.

“Hey!” Riff argues, but it’s too late. The notebook is gone.

“What do you care?” Waltz says, his brow furrowing a fraction of an inch. “Don’t you mock all of us too? Constantly? What’s the matter, colleague? Got a soft spot for the local guy?”

“Ugh!” He hisses, stomping away in fury, not even dignifying the two filthy musicians with a response. Worthless scum.

Lulu has a specific way to rap on the door under the bridge, a little code between themselves so he’s not Baleful Striking her out of the way at the first noise.

He refuses still to bring her across the portal hidden there, made and hosted completely illegitimately, and to the castle he’s furnished on the other side, out in the realm of humans. But he’s nothing if not dramatic, so he still has her knock on the door to the tiny foyer just before the portal, if only so he can open it with flair.

Which he does just now.

“All okay with you?” She says, smiling at him ever as saccharine and glittery. “I wasn’t expecting you of all folk to ask me over for marshmallows.”

“Even the most bitter of us can enjoy a sweet treat every so often.” Like so many times before he is caught completely off guard by Lulu seeing right through him. He does not always understand what it is about the witch that compels him to speak to her and have her visit places with him, but if he were to guess, that is a probable part of it all.

“But let’s not waste any more time. Come.” He beckons her, and while she often does as she pleases, leaving more than one baffled Bandle citizen stranded whenever what they say to her ceases to be engaging, she follows him, for the same mysterious reasons he invites her.

He has already, pre-emptively set it all up. The sacrificial altar, so to speak. For, true to his nature, the marshmallows are but a guise. He shall burn the wretched book and metamorphose it into flames that shall warm marshmallows that she, the subject of such slander, shall consume and enjoy. Closure.

Of course, she’s not to know what the contents of the notebook are. Because then he’d look nice. And he’s not sure of how to cope with that yet. Too much vulnerability attached.

“Oh, you even had a fireplace set up,” she says, clapping her hands together giddily. “You were really looking forward to the ‘mallows, weren’t you?”

“You have no idea.” He snickers.

He pulls the notebook out from behind him. A cover spares her from the cursed inscriptions within. “I present to you, Lulu, the fuel for our bonfire.”

She rolls her eyes a bit and laughs. “Do I want to know, Veigar?”

“No.” he shakes his head. “But you do want marshmallows.”

“Can’t argue with that.” She takes a seat by the bonfire and he takes his place next to her— not close enough that it’s uncomfortable. A bag of marshmallows and some sharpened sticks are readied for use and she sticks some in anticipation as Veigar lights a spark using a firefly bulb. A growing fire licks the twigs and sticks, roaring to life.

Veigar, with satisfaction, displays the notepad almost ceremonially, savouring its imminent destruction.

But then lilac hands pry it away from him, so sudden he can’t even grip in retaliation.

“Actually,” the sorceress says, “I’ve decided I do want to know.”

Veigar scrambles to retrieve the heathen item, dreading her peeking at the notes. “You don’t,” he stammers, his voice giving away more of his concern than he wishes it did.

“Yes I do. I want to know why you want to destroy this so much you asked me over to have some ‘mallows. So I will find out.”

He persists and Lulu grows irritated with his antics, swatting him away with her hands and for some gods-forsaken reason he cannot bring himself to get physical with her, shove her away, pull her. “Sheesh, Veigar! What’s in this thing? Is this your diary, or something?”

He fails to stop her. Because he was weak. Because he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her for her own good.

He observes, in terror, how her expression shifts as the contents sink in, her eyes darting corner to corner of each page, then flipping them. Expectant for something— dreading something, too. Dreading what? What is it about this mockery of Lulu specifically that gets so under his skin?

She puffs her cheeks and spits the air out like a deflating balloon.

“Wow. He even added doodles.”

Veigar cringes, mercifully obscured by his hat.

She closes the book, her eyes fixing on the glowing mushrooms that grow in the walls under the bridge. Pensive. Veigar finds something about this, her being so quiet, her face so still, horrific, but is unsure of what to say.

And she smiles. And it looks very put on and fake.

“Well!” she says, fanning herself with the book, “At least I take pride in being entertaining.” She laughs.

“What?” he says, blinking and shaking his head in confusion.

“I mean, when you think about it,” she dangles the book from the tips of her index and her thumb, making it wriggle in front of her face, “Something has to be very fun about me if he’s doing all this, right?”

Veigar clears his throat, uncomfortable. “It… it was several people,” he admits, incapable of being dishonest to her. For some reason.

“Wow, I have an audience!” Lulu claps her hand against the book, the smack echoing on the dank walls. “It’s worth being at least a little proud of, right?”

She smiles at him, again; tilted and stiff.

He interlaces his fingers and leans forward, trying to look through her like she does him, and she seems to notice, shuffling in her seat awkwardly.

“We should destroy it,” he says, slow and methodical.

Lulu gazes at it and then at him. She appears to be thinking about something, perhaps realising much like his tricks don’t work on her, the reverse seems to be equally true.

They look at each other and their minds and souls dance in circles, a balancing act on the yarn that tenuously connects them.

Seconds drag on, quiet and nearly too uncomfortable for the mage to bear, but he’s one to be stone faced in the face of discomfort.

“Do you still want marshmallows, Veigar?” her voice interrupts the static crackling of the small fire.

His hat does a serviceable job of keeping his face obscured but his eyes, gold and bright, still narrow in an unmistakable smile.

“I’ll give you the honors,” she says, offering him the book.

“No,” he says, “It’s you who should have a taste of revenge for once.”

She laughs and he’s delighted to notice that it’s genuine this time, truly from the belly. Mischievous, even. Something swells in his chest, warm and almost larger than life itself.

“Okay. Then let’s share it.” She folds the book and offers it in such a way that, if they are to both pull at it, the binding will come undone and the pages will rip. “On three, okay?”

“Gladly.” He grabs his half of the parchment and she counts to three; and with a hard tug his claws cut through the sheets like butter, the twine holding it togetherripping. Pages fly from the sheer force, falling like petals to the ground. One lands on his hat and he, nonchalantly, crumples it into a measly, pathetic ball and into the cleansing fire it goes, turned to ashes in an instant. Lulu’s laughter picks up with delight.

He grabs some of the stray pages on the floor and together, they shred them, Lulu ripping hers into ribbons, then confetti, then imbuing a couple with her magic so they’ll take the shape of moths and flutter into the fire, making Veigar cackle.

The flames, spurned by the parchment, grow livelier, warmth in the humid cold of his lair.

Then they stuff themselves with marshmallows.

Chapter Text

“You can do any dance then, right?” Lulu taunts, rolling her ankles to stretch them and gathering her breath.

Something she has learned about Veigar is that he is, in fact, a clean dancer. And she doesn’t want to be arrogant about this, but there’s a reason Tristana came to her for lessons, despite the fact Lulu can see she’s more annoyed than not at her laissez-faire nature, which may easily be third or fourth behind magic and dancing. Because she’s good. Sometimes people at the parties don’t even wanna battle her.

But he does. And he is her match.

“You need more proof?” He says, smug, his voice intercut with little gasps. They’ve been going at it for a while now and, in part, it was her intention to wear both of them down like this. Because when people are worn down, their shells start cracking. And she has a goal.

“Swing, Rock and Roll, Boogie Woogie! Shoot, woman!” he challenges, smug.

The lights of the dance floor make it so that she can see his face a bit more than usual, hitting from below, where the rim of the hat can’t hide it. It’s just one of many little magical things about dancing with him.

“Slow dance,” Lulu says, firing the killer shot. Hands on her hips, making herself bigger. Veigar’s not the tallest of all of them. A handful of centimeters scales hard at creatures of their size. But Lulu is tiny. So it’s all in the attitude.

His face betrays his befuddlement. At least to her. Most people don’t bother reading Veigar, but he fascinates her.

“Slow dance.” He repeats, a deadpan remark she has learned is his way to question.

“Slow dance, I said!” She swoops her arms in a circle above her head, adding flair.

Veigar fidgets in place. The metal bits and bobs around his clothing tinkle like bells.

“Oh, hesitant?” She teases, unveiling her trump card, “Veigar? The Tiny Master of Evil? Frightened by a little ballad?” She spins on the tips of her toes, facing her back to him, and with a whip of her mane stares him down over the shoulder, relishing every little button she knows how to push. “Disappointing.”

“Hey!” His everlasting frown comes back with a vengeance. “I never said anything about being frightehed!” He crosses his arms. “It was just… surprising.” His head cants down, reaching for the safety of his hat’s shade. His gauntlet toys with the rim, a fidget of his she finds terribly endearing.

“Well? Will you do it?” she’s already tweaking the groove spinners, preparing whatever slowest, cheesiest ballad she can muster. Because this was her plan all along.

“Veigar never backs down from a challenge,” he answers, his voice subtle. Maybe insecure. He tilts his face back up just enough she can see his eyes.

He’s so dramatic.

A slow jazz crackles from the gramophone, and she walks to him, offering her hand with a graceful spin and bowing in a comically princely manner.

“Shall you give me this dance, milord?”

He does a small, indignant, hilarious puff of air through his nose.

But then her train of thought is shot when her hand’s gently enveloped in the cool metal of his gauntlet.

The palm is not actually armoured. It’s a plain leather glove. She can feel the warmth of his hand beneath, dampened but present nonetheless.

Of course they have touched when dancing, doing spins and lifts, not to mention how many times they’ve pulled and shoved and tugged at each other when fooling around. But this feels different.

It dawns on her how tenderly he’s holding her hand this time and how flustered that makes her.

He doesn’t allow her much more time to mull on it, though. With a sudden pull from Veigar their chests are flush together, which is a first.

Her face must look like a firefly bulb, the way it’s lit up.

She can feel Veigar inhale and stiffen, probably as taken aback by what he’s just done as she is. His robes are quite thick, and a bit raspy, but through them arrives the realisation that the mage is, after all, just a yordle with a body, warm and slender.

She’s glad, then, that he’s always donning gloves, because her palms are sweating.

Remarkably hesitant, he lands his hand on the curve of her waist.

He’s already grabbed her from there, of course—Lifts are often done from the waist— But the contact lasted no more than a brief moment. This time his hand stays there and she’s paralysed by a sensation she doesn’t know how to digest, her stomach dropping but not like after ten prism apple pies in a row, no; pleasant and electric—At the same time the pokey bits of his gauntlets tickle her side so she has to stiffle a giggle.

Well, this was all her doing. Equally cautious, she rests her hand on his shoulder, feeling it tense for an instant, then relax.

They look at each other for what must have been three seconds but feels like three thousand years.

Of course, the pose is not complete, merely three-quarters of the way. In an unspoken agreement, their faces draw closer, millimeter by aching millimeter.

They’re not actually cheek to cheek. For one, he’s taller, and for two the high collar of his robes remains a safety barrier. But she has no tall collar, and she can feel Veigar’s breathing on the skin of her neck.

They’re not even dancing, just posed mid-step like two out-of-place statues, still with shock.

She chooses to initiate, wishing to take her mind away from what this is rousing in her. It feels new and tingling and awkward, and maybe she shouldn’t have suggested it, and in spite of it all she enjoys it so decadently.

It’s her who leads them in a slow sway.

This might be the one dance they both kind of suck at. Nobody’s perfect. Muscle memory kicks in as they feel the tempo; Lulu relaxes, yielding to the familiarity of the music.

When she steals a glance at Veigar, she notices he’s closed his eyes, his demeanor unusually serene.

She follows, letting her imagination drift; simultaneously hyper-aware and distracted from the close contact. Her face is as hot as the ovens in food stands and likely as red as the flowers feeding Ingvar’s forge.

She’s only snapped out of it when the record ends, the needle lifting off with a rather jarring screech.

They’re simultaneously startled, jumping and looking at each other for an instant, as if having just woken up from a dream.

Veigar’s the one to let go and make distance between them, closing into himself. That disappoints her, and the fact it disappoints her weirds her out.

She clears her throat. “Good dance,” she says, because the quiet is driving her insane.

He nods frantically but only verbalises an mhm of acknowledgement.

They stare into each other and Lulu has a striking sensation they both want to say something, but neither does.

“So,” Veigar says, fidgeting with the rim of his hat, “Charleston?”

Chapter Text

Gerbo’s food stand may not be at the level of the Hungry Hilltop, but there’s a reason it has accrued fame of its own merit despite being smaller in scope and yordle-power.

Veigar and Lulu slinked out of the bridge near the Root Market and arrived with enough antedation to be first in queue, loitering on a nearby prepped table near the counter and taking their place as soon as he rang the bell.

Gerbo flicks the little plaque at the counter with a well-practiced turn of his wrist. Behind him, his assistants finish up food prep, starting the machines and chopping veggies with refined expertise. But when he notices who his first clients of the day are, his expression cools.

Lulu waves at him and Veigar can’t determine if she’s ignorant on the change of demeanor or if she simply chooses to not pay attention it.

“What will it be?” Gerbo asks them, not affording even so much as a greeting.

The wizard is miffed at the blatant discordance between how heavily valued service and politeness is in Bandle City, and how it’s essentially nonexistent when it comes to addressing him. But it doesn’t bother him as much as Lulu receiving it by proxy.

“Stuffed flatbread with a beet shake, please!” Lulu says, chipper, doing an excellent job at navigating the uncompanionable approach. “And a mushroom tartar with red wine. Thank you.”

Veigar smiles lopsidedly, touched by her remembering his order.

“To go, or for a table?” Gerbo says, vacant.

“Table, please.” She’s already reaching for one of the wooden standees with a number before the man can even argue against it. As she should. They’re paying customers, here.

The witch reaches into her purse, a fascinating little object Veigar has seen store all manners of trinkets and impossible-to-fit objects, but without much showmanship what she draws is a colorful knitted coin purse, plopping the correct amount of Stars on the counter.

Which is comparatively generous, considering the tartar and the wine. Veigar makes note to pay her back later.

Gerbo doesn’t even bid farewell, simply scriblling down the order on a notepad and forwarding it to the assistants so they can do prep while he tends to the customers behind the two mages, whom Veigar notices he actually welcomes with the expected, polite ‘Welcome to Gerbo’s food joint!’

The absolute bastard.

They take a seat on the table they’d already wasted time in, doing small talk while they wait for their order. She tells him about sorting her marble collection and a new choreography idea for them to try.

Weather in Bandle is nowhere near as hostile as it can be outside, and Veigar cherishes the lukewarm temperature and the fresh breeze, so unlike the drab steely skies and harsh winters of his Boleham mansion. Because, for better or for worse, he is a creature of meat, and enjoys a bit of sun and freshness. Cursed be his body.

Gerbo himself comes to deliver at their table, a paper bag on his hand, neatly folded for takeout. “Your food,” he says, placing it on the table brusquely.

“You must be confused,” Veigar says, tugging at his collar, straightening up and leaning forward and on his elbows to intimidate. “We ordered to eat here.”

Gerbo follows, supporting himself on his hands and staring back unhesitant. “No you did not.”

His tone makes it quite clear that he doesn’t mean a misunderstanding, and the way his eyes widen says the implied ‘Take your food and get out of my stand’.

“Nope, I’m pretty sure we did,” Lulu butts in, and to Veigar’s surprise there’s actual defiance on her usually sweet voice. “And we paid for the food, so. We should eat here if we want to like any other yordle.” She smiles up at Gerbo, more a threat than an appeasement.

The man straightens back up, patting his afro down as if recouping his composure, then plants his hands on his hip with assertion.

“Look, here’s what’s going to happen, friends,” he says, his voice lowering in both pitch and volume. “You will take your food, which you paid for, and which I have already made and brought to you, and you will leave my stand, because you being here pushes customers away. And all will be well. And if you don’t, I’ll call Tristana over.”

He finalises his ultimatum with a last, firm smack of his hands on the table. “Are we clear?”

“What a waste.” Veigar reaches for the paper bag and swiftly stands from the table, clearing his throat with indignation. “We’re not interested in your lousy service.”

Lulu gasps, shaking her head in disbelief. “You’re kicking customers out?!” She screams, making other yordles at the establishment jolt and look in their direction. “We paid for food and service! We haven’t even done anything wrong here! You… You poophead!”

Unlike Veigar, or even Gerbo, Lulu is entirely disinterested in subtlety. She slaps the table, shoving her chair away with a screech. “Whatever. Whatever, you know? I bet your food sucks too,” she screams.

Veigar, far more used to these incidents, pulls on her sleeve, dragging her out of the accursed restaurant.

“You know what the secret ingredient in food is, dummy? Love!! If you made this with hate in your heart, it’ll taste like rotten fruit! You… You absolute…”

Gerbo shakes his head in disappointment, rearranging the table for other clients and stepping back to his place in the counter, a queue of market and university student yordles already lined up.

Lulu gasps and stomps her foot in frustration. “I’m never coming back to this stupid place again!”

Veigar touches her shoulder gently, catching her attention, and when she faces him he’s awestruck at the fire blazing in her eyes, so consistently playful and soothing.

Something about it all, about her being so unafraid to cause a scene, about her earnest anger, about her paying for food only for this to happen, makes a restraint inside Veigar snap free.

He stands as tall as he will muster, inhaling shaprly before yelling, “Curse your foolish kitchen, wretched yordle!”

“Yeah!” Lulu adds, impassioned, “I hope you go broke and all your veggies get moldy!!!”

“I spit on the soil these tables are set on!”

“I hope you don’t pass the next health inspection!!!”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Veigar says, snickering. “I don’t want to get you in trouble with Tristana.”

The little witch is still fuming, but spent from the altercation, she follows him without further argument.

Initially, he almost thought of calling the entire thing off, but Lulu seemed so disappointed something in him, the same part of him that inexplicably yielded to her whims, compelled him to change plans. So they portalled to the Greensprout Woods, somewhere near the waterfalls, closed off from the farmers and the fisher-yordles.

They ended up on a ledge, obscured from the rest of the Grove by a subtle passage in the cave complex around the woods, comfortable in the shade and with a view to the waterfalls Veigar has to concede is rather beautiful despite it all.

They improvise a little picnic there. Lulu digs around in her bag until from within it, elbow-deep she summons a colorful, checkered blanket.

Veigar unfolds the paper bag, taking care not to damage the food packaging with his claws. For what it’s worth, Gerbo at least stored everything neatly.

“Your flatbread.” Lulu receives the bundle of leaves carefully and unwraps it, taking a vigorous bite. Her face is still grumpy, her cheeks puffed up from the food while she glares at the waterfalls and Veigar finds that terribly endearing, chuckling to himself.

One of the leaf cups smells distinctly alcoholic and he separates his wine and places her beet shake near her, then reaching for the box with his tartar.

“It’s a little smooshed, but it survived,” he tells Lulu after inspecting it.

“I still can’t believe it,” she says, her voice haughty. “This thing is delicious, but I can’t enjoy it. It being delicious just tastes bad.”

She folds the flatbread wrapper shut again, not having taken more than two or three bites. “I’ll eat this later, or give it to Pix. I don’t want it anymore.” In it goes, to the bag of multiple dimensions, and then she curls into a pitiful sad ball, looking out at the curtains of flowing water.

Despite himself, Veigar takes pity on her, but before he can fully absorb that discomfort a final slap in the face reaches him.

“Oh, that bastard,” he mutters to himself, crumpling the paper bag.

Lulu looks up from her cocoon of misery and glances at him, curious.

“He didn’t pack a spoon for the tartar,” he says, bitter.

Lulu gasps for what must be the tenth time today.

“Oh, on top of it all…!” She rubs her face and hair and kicks her feet, yet another tantrum that Veigar finds almost too cute for his liking.

“You know what?!” She squeaks, and without even saying ‘what’ is she jumps to her feet and paces around the grass and brush, scanning for something.

Veigar tries to figure out what she’s doing now, fortunately, the answer comes sooner than he expected. She returns with a wooden stick in her hand, approximately pencil-sized. She shakes it in her grip, purple sparks jumping from her fingertips and enveloping it; when they fade what’s left is a utensil that has the cup of a spoon but three small prongs like a fork. A spoon-fork.

“Here you go. Here’s your spork. Better than any spoon that mean man Gerbo could give you.”

He’s touched by her unprompted kindness, and receives the ‘spork’ from her with care, trying not to poke her hands with his gauntlets.

He has to muster true effort to say what he says, but he finds it warranted. “...Thank you, Lulu.”

“Bah. It’s the least I could do,” she says, shaking her head.

She sips at her shake and Veigar, too, takes a swig of his wine. It’s rather cheap tasting, not as refined as the stuff in Noxus. Delicately, he scoops a bit of his tartar with the unusual cutlery, then poking it with the prongs and tasting the bite. Her idea’s remarkably efficient.

“Your… ‘spork’ concept… it’s quite creative,” He tells her, latching onto anything that could bring her out of her funk. He twirls the thing around in his fingertips, examining it from all angles.

She doesn’t answer, just savouring her shake, but he can notice her eyes softening.

They eat in disquieting silence.

“You know what?” She says, her voice finally simmering back to its normal timbre, “we don’t need to go to a food stand. Screw that,” she says. She takes a final, resolved gulp of her beet shake, then starts fiddling with the cup, spotting the seams in the leaves and prying them open, disassembling it. “Come to my house. I’ll make you food. And we don’t even need to pay.” She pokes at her chest with pride. “And I’ll actually make it with love. I bet I can do it better than that fool Gerbo!!” She straightens her back, standing proud.

She doesn’t seem to realise the ramifications of her words, and the sorcerer chooses not to bring them up.

“Is that a brag, or an earnest invitation?” He says instead, sipping the wine and following it with a bite of tartar.

That seems to throw her balance. “I mean…” she twirls her thumbs. “It… It can be an earnest invitation. If you want it to be.”

Veigar avoids her gaze, instead taking in the mist from the waterfalls and the slowly moving clouds.

Her brings the utensil she made for him into his eyeline, and seeing it sparks a mystifying warmth in him.

“By all means.” He finishes his meal, folding the rubbish and stowing it in the takeout bag. “I’d like to see how well you outdo him.”

He could toss the ‘spork’ with everything else, take it to the nearest pitcher muching plant. But he subtly tucks it inside a pocket in his robes instead.

To his pleasure, that seems to make Lulu smile.

Chapter Text

“Okay, but there’s one rule in the house.”

Lulu turns around on her tippy-toes, a mannerism of hers he has noticed before.

He looks over her and observes the wooden door and the small stained glass window adorning it more in detail.

Odd looking houses, at least when juxtaposed with what humans build, aren’t a rarity in Bandle City. Carved out and dried giant Calasas are considered a perfectly respectable choice of housing in Greensprout Grove. But even by the standards that they’re working with, hers is unique. Shaped not unlike her hat, triangular, constructed from what appears to be entangled bark and twine. Almost blending in with the rest of this corner of the forest, were it not for the colourful windows of stained glass, behind from which warm, golden light peeks in tinted rays.

Veigar had never seen her house before. He appreciated her upstanding honesty, though. She promised she would make him a meal and have him eat at her house, and so she did.

They had to take a couple odd twists and turns in the Magic Tunnels. That is striking to him— though she’s more socially inclined than he is (of note, inclined , not adept ) she still lives in a rather secluded place, a small sanctum in the forest where only two or three other yordles appear to reside; a corner almost liminal, where even him, a mage, can almost smell the magic in the air.

Fitting for her, really.

He, too, was surprised that Pix didn’t live with her. Though he supposes that makes sense. In a way, he appreciates it’s just him and the witch. It’s not that he particularly despises the fairy, but his absence makes things feel… different.

“No shoes inside, okay?”

He sighs and closes his eyes. Lulu sparks the magic lock, pushing the door open and ditching her boots, walking in only her striped stockings.

Veigar methodically strips the armoured greaves and, resigned, the plain leather boots beneath.

His face scrunches in embarassment as his crimes are revealed: Dark yarn socks with stars interspersed.

“Don’t you dare make fun of—“

“Oh, I love your socks,” she says, it all just oozing with earnestness.

“Come on in! I’ve been getting everything ready since gods know how long ago.”

Relaxing a little, allowing himself the comfort of shedding at least a fragment of his defensive shell, Veigar steps inside.

The floor is not covered in rug, rather wooden as the rest of the structure, but it may as well be with how many rugs Lulu has. It’s a borderline unbearable hodge podge of colours. As he takes the scenery in, he notices the walls are littered with shelves that seem to grow from the bark itself, and they are themselves crammed with all manners of trinkets and decorations, several of which he can distinguish as coming from many a region in the other realm.

This piques his curiosity. Is Lulu a traveler? There always appear to be more layers to her than he’d assume.

He paces past a small section of wall covered in a shocking variety of mounted clocks, all ticking in unison, a march of tick-tocks. Cuckoo clocks, pendulum, mechanical, magic-operated.

The light inside her house is warm and welcoming, not dull but not overwhelmingly bright. He notices firelight bulbs mounted on receptacles that resemble flowers in bloom. Another corner has a tapestry hanging from it. This section of roof has a toy airplane from Piltover hanging from a spring, and when he experimentally pulls on it, it bounces up and down, a mechanism in the wings making them flap in unison.

It’s some sort of convoluted, organised chaos. Maximalist, colourful, overwhelming. Very her , if he had to say.

“Do you like it?” She says, and he watches her ditch her hat and hang it on a perch, amongst a plethora of comrades. “It’s from Zaun. That music box over there is from the same human,” she points to a neatly polished, wooden box sitting on one of the shelves. “The maker, Mr. Reveck, made things far more beautiful, but I had only so much gold.” She smiles.

A couple of her hairs are sticking out at odd angles, having been squished under the hat, which he finds rather cute. She quicky adjusts them to the best of her ability.

“I didn’t take you for a traveler, somehow,” he says, taking a seat on a couch that is the centerpiece of the lounge, surrounded by beanbags and swarmed by all manners of cushions of patchwork and sequins. It toes the line into nauseating, but he endures it all the same. He can appreciate someone with the drive and commitment needed to accrue all this glittery nonsense.

“Of course. How could I miss out on all the wonders of the world?” She does not follow, instead dropping her trusty bag on the centerpiece table and disappearing behind a bead curtain. Delicious smells waft from past it, so he surmises that would be the kitchen. He’s pleasantly surprised at how good it smells. “I come and I go. Pix comes and goes. It’s what we do.”

Veigar chews a bit on that, how she places herself on the same level as the fae, at least philosophically.

“How do you do it? Portals aren’t always within walking distance.” By admitting to this, he knows he’s helping her piece together confidentials about his existence, which may be unwise, but if he has ever trusted someone from within Bandle, it’s this strange lady that has never been unkind to him. “All of this has to be gathered over years…”

“The whispering key,” her voice chirps from the kitchen. “Or doodad, as you know it. I call it that because it annoys Tristana. She doesn’t know how funny she is when angry.” A series of clanks from kitchenware follow, a couple ceramic noises. She arrives with an entrée of tiny frosted cupcakes and tea.

Veigar is delighted at how much she seems to note about him. He was the one to offer her tea first, from the little pot in the foyer behind his door under the bridge.

“Appetizer? I don’t know how hungry you are, but I made a snack anyway.”

He politely gets ahold a cupcake frosted in a delicate swirl of purple and blue, doing his damnedest to not destroy it with his gauntlets, and bites into it coyly, giving it a test run.

The conclusion is Lulu could give some people at the stands a run for their money. He subsequently gulps the entire thing down in less than three bites, washing it down with tea, satisfied. She even took note of keeping it without milk or sugar, the way he likes it, adding both only to her cup.

“You arrived a little early. Want a house tour before dinner?”

Lulu slams the doors to her wardrobe open, giving him a glimpse into an array of dresses, each hung from a wooden perch.

“And these are my dresses.”

They’re all surprisingly similar, all red with accents of purples and golden trim, but as he looks closer subtle variations in the shape of the trim, the positioning of a specific swirl, the order of the purple stripes, become evident.

“They all look almost the same, but there’s tiny differences, because sometimes I notice people actually make note of them and it seems to drive them crazy. Like they want to say that I’m always wearing the same dress, but obviously that’s not true. It’s fun.”

“Lulu, you are mad.” He says that, but he’s smiling at the simple deviousness of it all. From this day onwards, he’s gonna memorise all of her dresses.

“Oh you,” she answers, with vaguely flirty mannerisms. “I have more, I just usually wear them when outside, or to some parties. They’re folded over there.”

Maximalist, like all the rest of her. A frankly disgusting smorgasbord of colours and patterns is folded in a couple hefty towers.

“Oh, and here, look at this.” She moves some of the dresses aside, revealing a couple modest wooden shelves which contain many pairs of brown leather boots, some with taller and flatter heels, some with a little swirl on the tip, some with detailing on the rims. “I also keep boots that are a little different.”

“I admire your dedication,” Veigar says, meaning every word.

“From the lord of mischief himself? Why, thank you.” she twirls a strand of hair in her fingertip, batting her eyelids coyly.

“Keep that up and you may almost make a trusty right hand.” He rubs his chin in ponderance. She would make a decent partner in crime. A little trickster. Perfect for deceiving targets.

“I’ll make sure to keep papers ready for when you do the hire,” she jokes, and perks up as if remembering something, “Oh! Oh! Here, look.” She guides him to a rack of drawers, one of a plethora of compartments he has been toured through already, opening one and pulling two humble cardboard boxes painted with tempera and hosting all sorts of flowers and magic symbols. Tragically tacky.

She sits on her bed, and it yields with generous bounce. She frantically pats the space next to her. “ Check this out !”

He obeys, finding it impossible not to. He peers over her shoulder, their proximity giving his sensitive yordle nose a whiff of the scent of mana and cinnamon and wildflowers that clings to her. Something warm pools in his stomach.

She lifts the lid. “These are some of my most prized possessions,” she says, solemnly, but when the wizard looks down, it’s just glass marbles with all manner of patterns and colourings peering back at him.

“My treasure boxes. This one has marbles from all over Runeterra.”

She pulls out one, the glass inside poised in such a way that it looks like a lotus flower in bloom, a feat of craftsmanship he has to admit is rather impressive. “This one’s from an Ionian glass blower, I bought it,” she says, spinning it in her fingertips, the light catching on the curvature of the glass and refracting in colourful beams. “But this one I actually won in a game.” She smiles, impish, digging in the box, marbles rolling around noisily.

“Look,” she says, pulling a blue glass marble, a swirl of deeper blues and purples spiralling into a nebula, specks of glimmering white glass painting stars.

Veigar is awestruck, admiring the tiny galaxy in her nimble fingers.

“Do you like it? It reminds me of you,” she turns to look at him, their faces so close together, which should be really uncomfortable, and he would have probably pushed anyone else away with a fistful of gauntlet, but here just feels intimate and oddly pleasant. “I’ve wanted to show it to you for a while, now.”

She gives it another slow spin and they watch the light play games in the glass together. “The kid who lost it was soooo mad.”

They laugh together at that.

“I like it,” Veigar says. “Uh… Thank you. For showing me.”

They just look at each other for a moment, a spell cast over them, and Veigar chooses to dispel it, clearing his throat. “This is the marble collection you told me about, then, correct?”

She nods. “Yep.”

“How did you organise it, if it’s all together in one box?”

She tut-tuts him, clicking her tongue dismissively, making him frown. “You wouldn’t get it.”

He certaintly wouldn’t, but he’s learned to accept Lulu doing incomprehensible things.

They were irritating, at some point. And then at some other point that has morphed into her being a puzzle to figure out. Which he may never. And that is part of her appeal.

“Well,” he pokes the cardboard lid of a second box, “What’s in this one, then?”

“Buttons,” she answers, confident. She quickly closes the marble box and gently puts it aside. She truly does cherish it. Lulu is a mysterious configuration of complete earnestness to do the most erratic things, and, despite himself, he likes it.

“Buttons,” he repeats, that little song and dance of theirs where she says some non-sequitur and he says it back at her to confirm he heard right.

“Buttons.” She pries the lid up, and lo and behold, a cluster of buttons fills the box nearly to the brim. And while he was expecting modest things, there are instead glass and metal and wooden buttons with intricate carvings and lovely minute paint work, cylindrical and disc-shaped and rectangular and all sorts of things in between.

Some are distinctly Bandle make, and truly cheap, nothing more outstanding than what one would see on a random yordle’s robes.

He grabs one such specimen. “What’s special about this one? Just looks like a random tunic button to me.”

“I found it in the grass in Concerto Park.” She taps it with her fingernail. “Someone lost it, and then I found it. Isn’t that magical?”

Veigar fails to see the appeal. “How so?”

“The coincidences of the universe,” she says, observing the button wistfully. “Everything arranged so someone would lose it, and I would find it.”

Huh. Now that’s food for thought.

“We may never know each other. Or, I may actually know the owner. I have no way to be sure. But now we’re connected by this button. Isn’t that cool?”

“I… I suppose,” is all he can say.

They end up summoned to the dinner table by the ding of her oven: Eggplants and radishes and sauce, grated cheese; bread she toasted and seasoned with garlic, savory and warm. Veigar understands, then, that old adage of getting to someone’s heart through their stomach. Why go to a food stand, when they can do this? He may just have to level up his cooking to pay her back.

And oh, she even made some ice cream for dessert. When he’s done, he feels full to burst in stomach and spirit.

“I’m never going to a food stand again,” he says, getting a hearty laugh from her, “Can’t I hire you to be my cook?”

“Oh, pick one,” she says, picking up the dishes, “Am I gonna be your chef or your second-in-command minion?”

“Ah, tough spot you leave me in…” He undoes the belt that cinches his waist, content.

“Right now you’re in my turf, though,” she sing-songs from the ktichen. “And I charge one tariff for the food.”

Veigar had closed his eyes in relaxation and cracks one half-open. “Hm?”

“Help me wash all this stuff.”

Ah, what kind of demand is that to do of a dark lord? How undignified and far beneath him—

He heads there, dragging his feet all the while.

He starts on autopilot. Often, at the mansion, a minion takes over this task. He loosens the gauntlet of his good hand—the right— without thinking about it: If he doesn’t, the water will rust the hinges and tarnish the fine leather they’re mounted on. And it’s when he reaches for the other gauntlet, the left, that it clicks in. There’s no hand to expose there; and he hardly has time to absorb that, cause Lulu looks at his bare right and gasps, covering her mouth. It’s lost a good chunk of the fur, singed and scarred.

Overwhelmed by shame, he scurries away before she can even say anything; he’s trying to rush the process of donning his greaves and evacuating the premises when she reaches him, touching his shoulder, pleading, “Wait, wait! Please!”

“What!” He snarls, his voice raspy, sour, the kind of awful voice he saves for the scouts, or for his enemies; caught aback by it he freezes, compelled to apologise.

It has its effect: Lulu recoils, standing stiff, staring at him in shock. It’d been a hot minute since he spoke to her like that.

“I—I’m sorry,” she stammers. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He’s stuck in a comically awkward posture, half-fastening his boot. He sighs. Deeply. Then slowly puts his foot to the floor.

“What happened to your hands?”

“Ugh, who are you to know?” He groans, shaking his head in disillusion.

“...Your friend?” She answers, like it’s obvious, like that’s a trivial thing to say to an evil mage who has no friends, who is unlovable and doesn’t need such ridiculous menial attachments.

“Look,” she adds, her hands taking a pacifying posture, “Tristana told me once, she said something like, she knew it wasn’t your fault that you’re evil, but you still had to pay for the things you did and I was like, what? What do you mean? And she said, ask him.”

Veigar closes his eyes. Of course. Of course that happened. Stupid, stupid Tristana. One of this days, he’s gonna snap, and blow her head off with a Primordial Burst. And maybe then Teemo will kill him. His worthless life, over after one last revenge. Or maybe he’ll go ahead and kill Teemo too. Could go either way with that guy—

“And I went like… That’s none of my business… I don’t want to pry, I like you regardless of whatever, I don’t know why the others don’t. You’re nice, when one gets to know you. Who cares why you’re evil? You’re not even evil to me—“ She interrupts herself, shaking her head, catching on that she’s going in disjointed tangents. “—But now I’m worried.”

Veigar just looks at her, overtaken with fondness he tries to rein in but turns out to be indomitable.

“I… you don’t have to answer me, but—“

He doesn’t let her finish, walking to her, one shoe half off-half on, clutcing her forearm and guiding her to her disgustingly garish couch, perhaps more forcefully than he’d liked.

He plops her down. Everything in her house is soft like her and it takes away the dramatics when they bounce on the cushion.

“This won’t be easy to listen to.”

The air goes heavy. Sometimes Lulu gets a rare sobriety to her, and he can see it now, cloaking her face.

Then he tells her everything.

“Oh, Veigar,” she weeps, embracing him, “I’m so sorry.”

He can’t believe he actually confessed to her. To her, of all people! Why would she want to know? She could want to know for a lot of reasons. She could be a spy. She’d admittedly be a terrible one, but still.

And all she does is hug him, hide her face in his purple scarf. Ugh, she’s probably going to stain it with her tears and her snot. Disgusting.

He still hugs back. “Perhaps I should have kept that to myself.”

She shakes her head no. “No, no… Thank you. Thank you for trusting me,” she sobs. Pathetic.

Pathetic! Why, then, is he so compelled to protect her?

He pats her head, awkward and curt. He’s not good at this. He doesn’t quite know what to do with a crying Lulu.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffs, her nose is full of snot. Ew. “You probably hate this. I’m sorry. I’ll stop crying.”

He can feel her chest swell as she breathes deeply, trying to stall her tears. Even now considering his feelings. Perhaps he should have done the same. Perhaps he wants to do it for her.

What was a curt pat becomes a soft cradle.

“I still like you, you know?” her voice is nasal from the crying. “It makes me sad because I like you so much.”

Veigar hates that most. Even with everything, even with his pretentiousness and overconfidence and sharp tongue that delivers mostly insults and curses, even with his recluse attitude, even with his bloody history, even then she likes him. It’s truly incomprehensible; about as incomprehensible as the happiness he feels hearing those words. It’s almost bitter. He didn’t need anyone, but he’s happy knowing she likes him anyway.

“We shan’t talk about this again.”

She shakes her head, “We don’t need to if you don’t want to. I have fun with you anyway. I like making you happy. You’re funny. I don’t care what happened, you’re my favorite person.” She clears her throat, “After Pix. Pix is my bestest-best friend. But you’re special.”

He laughs, bitter, “I don’t particularly care about taking Pix’s place.”

“I know,” she whimpers. “But I don’t want you to think you’re not special. I don’t know why I like you so much, but I do.”

Lulu’s not one to look at people, that much he has noticed. Her eyes are always caught on the flowers and the clouds, the bugs, the water of the lake. Now she’s staring him dead on. This is so rare it weighs the atmosphere down with near unbearable intimacy.

He wants to push her off, run away, averse to all this gooey nonsense. But his want to keep her close is stronger.

“You don’t have to help with the dishes anymore. I’ll let you keep the marble. You can remember me when you’re sad. I don’t know if that means anything, it does to me—“

Shut up, he thinks, you’re blabbering too much again.

But what he does instead is push her to him, using the gauntlet cradling her head.

A demon must have possessed him, or something. It’s only on the corner of her mouth. He does not know if he could take mouth-to-mouth. He’s honestly probably not ready. Ready for what?! He’s entertaining kissing her for real. What?!

But it works. She stiffens and goes quiet.

It lasts for the weirdest two seconds, then he lets go.

She withdraws and her face is as red as her dress. Even her ears are red. It’s frankly adorable, much to his chagrin.

“Lulu, you are mad,” he near-whispers. “You earned that marble fair and square. Keep it, alright?”

she nods frantically, avoiding his eyes harder than ever before. Fidgeting on the couch. It looks like she’s about to explode and stand up and do cartwheels all around the living room, she’s shuffling that much.

Adorable. Disgusting.

“I-It’s getting late,” her voice is wavering, “...Do you want to stay the night?”

He nods. He’ll probably have nightmares tonight, having spoken about all that again.

But at least, if that happens here, she’ll be around.

So maybe it can’t be that bad.

Chapter Text

“But you think I am a fool for that, though. The search for power, and wanting to rule the city. Don’t you.” 

Lulu shrugs. “A bit. You are a silly lily. But I understand why you are that way too. And at the same time I understand I still think you are a silly lily. And about now would be the time where anyone says I am saying things they don’t understand. But I like you, you know? I meant it.” 

Her head, hatless– hat hanging out with Veigar’s own a foot away– is resting on his shoulder, somewhere in the area between the spiky pads and his neck, closer and oddly intimate. He kissed her, or at least approximated something like it, and then they went back to their usual like nothing happened, but now he lets her do things like this. She might not just be his friend anymore, but they aren’t something more, either. What they are doesn’t have a word for it. And they have yet to kiss again. 

Up over their heads looms the crown of a tree in bloom, glowing pink flowers tinting them rosy, and no one is around. This tree is closer to the liminal area where her house is than the rest of the city. They trek to secluded areas like these more now. Something has changed, subtly but perceptively.

“Well. You are silly too. You lack any grander goal.”

“Did I offend you? I didn’t mean it. I don’t need a grander goal. I like this world and this life. I want to have fun and eat things, learn dances, and see landscapes and pet critters. And then someday my time here will be over. And I hang out with you because you’re fun, too.”

“Hm. I don’t understand you sometimes.” 

She smiles at him, “me neither! But I like figuring you out. You’re fun. Don’t you think I’m fun too?” 

And he does, despite himself. “Hmph. In a way, I suppose.” 

She cheers and claps to that. 

A bloom from the tree falls to them in a slow, elegant pendulum and lands on her face pollen-down, the faint gold dust making her sneeze. The momentum sends the flower flying away elsewhere in the vicinity. Veigar laughs. He’s that type of guy, reveling on schadenfreude, but there’s a gentle edge to this laugh of his– endeared, even, laughing more with her whimsy than at her– She has seen him laugh at Tristana. 

“Veigar,” She rises on her elbow, “Do you like me?” 

He clears his throat, loudly. His ears stand at attention. She expected no less but his reaction remains quite cute. But he kissed her and she truly wants to know. 

It’s a bit scary, what’s growing here between them. She didn’t think much of it until now. Crushes and romance were not at the forefront of her mind, nor at the back burner. But he kissed her and she liked it, and now she has to think about it; this new, foreign, exciting, intimidating thing.

“I don’t know why, but I do. I shouldn’t, for your sake and mine. You make no sense and are naive. But I suppose that is it. You make me think. You’d also make an excellent minion, you’re a talented mage…” He trails off, taken aback at how candid that response is: Even if he set off to tell her that he disliked liking her, what it’s devolved into is praise. Pure insanity. 

“Thank you,” she says, near in a whisper, “I… I liked what you did the other day.” 

The inside of her belly feels like how it feels when Pix flutters his wings in her face to wake her up. It lurches in anticipation and nervousness. Veigar doesn’t answer anything, avoids addressing her directly, building the tension. 

“I would do it again. I liked how it felt. I want to do it to your mouth. Would you like that?” 

It comes out insecure and wobbly, tripping over itself, enough to make even her embarrassed, and for a second she pleads with Mother Earth and the Bandle Tree that Pix is not there because a fairy would never let her live that down, and that he doesn’t return now, before she can get an answer. 

“I don’t know,” he answers, sincere. “Touch is scary, yet yours is not. And that is frightening. I do not fear much. But I fear what I feel for you.” 

Thousands of words linger between those lines. Lulu knows, understands, that there’s a shocking amount of bravado to that admission, a shattering of his persona he so fiercely protects, and it feels like being kissed with words. Of course touch is scary to him, having been beaten and whipped and heavens know what else. But they touched sometimes, dancing and fooling around. And now that she thinks of it, she can’t immediately bring to mind Veigar touching anyone else. 

“It’s fine. It doesn’t have to be now. Sorry.” She waves her hand, whooshing this weird moment away. 

“No,” he, too, rises on his elbows, in a strange inversion of their roles it is him to push and her to be avoidant, “I mean… Maybe not now. Maybe not yet, but later. I…” he clears his throat. “I liked it too.” 

His voice is extra tight and raspy, saying that. But it’s music to her all the same. 

“Okay.” 

Caught on a whim, she scans the carpet of blooms beneath them for one that’s more or less intact, and before he can scoot away nests it by his right ear. His black fur and mess of spikes crowned by the delicate pink flower is hilarious, and amused, she breaks the tension, laughing and pointing at him.

“Agh, you trickster,” he groans, pawing at his head to rid himself of it, “Disgusting. How dare you take advantage of my trust like that?!” He discards it with revulsion and Lulu rolls on the floor, cherishing the wrinkle of his nose in annoyance. 

“You’re awful,” he complains, “I’ve learned my lesson. Hand me my hat.”

“Nooo,” Lulu whines, “come on. You looked cute. Here,” she reaches for a second bloom, but in an instant Veigar is on his feet.

”Absolutely not,” he grumbles. 

“Absolutely yes!” She, too, jumps to her feet, standing in his way, threatening him with the flower, “here, we can match! I’ll make you a whole crown!” 

“Nevermind, wench. I hate you, actually.” He tries to sidestep her, but she holds her post, quick on her feet. 

“No you don’t, that won’t work. Flower now,” She reaches out, but Veigar ducks, scurrying away from under her arm and, in two paces, grabbing his hat off the floor. 

“No!” The witch screams, “how dare you! I’ll put it in your hat!” 

“You will not.” And he takes off running. 

“Don’t you dare!” She screams, but he already got a start on her–And so, flower in hand, she floats her hat to her, and out she goes, after him.

Chapter Text

The door raps with their familiar, secret sequence and Veigar groans and moans all the way to the knob. He told her it wasn’t a good day, that he would just lounge in his musty cave under the bridge, but she would not listen. She pried from his cold hands that he was in pain, which was not a lie, but it wasn’t anything she had to know. That was an opening, a chance for her to kick him while he was down, and then she mumbled something about knowing some healing. How would she know healing. She was a good dancer and she knew about some bugs and plants but that seemed like a reach. But she insisted. And now that she knew he was in pain she also knew he could not just scamper away. It was the odd rainy day in Bandle City, which added a second layer of misery to the rotten pain cake; the places where broken bones had been half set and healed poorly pulsed with dull, visceral pain.

It wasn’t every day, but it attacked him sometimes. The place where his scars shut, gnarly and keloidal, burned and froze and stung like pins and needles were digging under the skin. If he moved around too much waves of crawling ants and sharp pangs rippled through the whole thing. It was distracting enough he could not study. Those days he would stay in bed hoping and praying he would not be ambushed, stewing in rage, impatient for whenever it would go away, irritable like the slightest provocation would egg him on to murder. And now she was here. Making it all worse.

More knocking. He grits his teeth, trying to ignore the red-hot needles, priming himself to not strangle Lulu, to at least hear her out.

He does not even greet her. His teeth just on the edge of gnashing.

“Oh, that’s not good,” she says, probably nothing the way his eyes strain, “Come.”

She pulls his arm, guiding him inside the foyer, where he does have a little sofa to lounge in when he wants to be away from it all, including his underlings at boleham. The motion makes the skin of his back tug, rippling with pain, stabbing flames scorching up and down the long lines of hus scars, making him grunt something incoherent.

She rests him on the couch and, uncharacteristically merciful, she stays quiet while he gathers his bearings.

“Where does it hurt?” She asks, plopping her purse down.

“Back,” he forces out, trying to string words together.

“How does it hurt?” He looks at her, befuddled by the question, and she adds, “Like, is it a pulse, thwomp thwomp, or is it like a pinch that makes you go eek, or does it feel like little bugs are walking all over with sharp little legs that burn,” she makes the motion of bugs crawling with her nimble fingers.

“Bugs in my back,” he flinches.

She carefully repositions him and he is forced to endure a dual torture as her hands rub up and down, following the spine then circling the sides— the ache and the awkward closeness. Even through the fabric his hypersensitive skin responds to her touch with fury, her fingertips drawing hot trails where they roam.

He can’t help but flinch and whine like a baby, a pitiful little uuurrgghh.

“How bad is it from one to ten? One is a little annoying like a paper cut and ten is oh Gods, Bandle Tree kill me now.”

Veigar’s a little surprised at that dark joke and tries to chuckle but stabbing burning cuts him halfway. “I don’t know. It’s hard to think. Seven? Eight?”

Lulu does a pensive little hum he cannot read. Unbeknownst to him she mulls in consideration. He did not ask for help. She found out basically by coincidence with how much he rebuked her when she just wanted to hang out. She could hear it in his voice that things were worse than usual. She could not understand why he was so averse to care, but it didn’t matter. She was going to care for him anyway.

“I’m gonna have to take off your robe, Veigar.”

He groans in disapproval. One thing was his socks and one thing was his missing hand but he did not even strip for the beach in Lazybones Bay, nevermind being half-naked in front of her.

“I know, I know. But I have to see what’s wrong with you if you want me to help you. Or, you know, you can just stay the way you are, like a baby.”

“I never asked for your help,” he stammers, though he thinks he would take anything she had to give if it would drag him out of the stake he was burning at.

“You’re right. So I’ll just leave then—“

“No,” he complains.

“Then let me take off your robe. I won’t make fun of you, I promise.”

“Urgh.”

“Veigar, when have I ever been mean to you?” she purses her lips.

Many times, actually. She teased and tormented him and remained unfazed by his threats and his intimidation.

But then he remembers the day he almost-kissed-her-but-not-quite. She cried when she saw his hands. Held him. Said she was only so sad because she liked him.

“Promise you won’t cry again,” He says through grit teeth.

“Cross my heart,” she does, miming the gesture over her chest. “I’ll try. I want to help, double pinky-promise.”

He nods, something barely perceptible.

Cautiously she loosens the buckle of the leather belt holding his garb together. She is slow, meticulous, unusually non-erratic. She strips the purple scarf and thick blue robe with care, orchestrated by his puffs and grunts and complaints. Beneath lays a white silk shirt held by suspenders. It’s a little dorky and she can’t help but cock a smirk at it. This is the most she has ever seen of him. She’s awash with a strange nervousness. She has seen many scantily clad yordles at the beach, women and men, but this feels different, less impersonal. Perhaps because she has never seen him in any swimsuit, hardly anything other than the very same thick, vaguely musty blue robe he always has on him.

The sight is shocking. He has so many scars on his back the fur there is patchy, islands of black separated by nasty gashes that have healed in inflamed keloids. Wherever she looks they are, laid one over the other, a collage of who knows how many years of torture under the Iron Revenant. She promised not to cry but she has to breathe and swallow back the tears. That explains why he hurts so badly. The scars must be pinching on his nerves, making them fire off. There’s so many.

“I see,” she says, trying to keep herself together.

Veigar does not know what to make of those words, they’re too vague. The conjunction of pain and embarrassment leaves him speechless.

“I can help. Have you ever sewn anything?”

He’s about to berate her for going in a tangent while he wallows in suffering but decides against it, too worn to even have fighting spirit in him.

“I’ve seen my tailor…”

“Okay. Well. Have you seen when he pulls the thread and the fabric folds and scrunches up and it looks ugly?”

He nods.

“That’s what’s happening. The scars scrunch your skin and there’s nerves under and they’re being scrunched so they’re firing off, that’s why you feel like there’s ants and needles.”

She digs in her multi-dimensional purse and procures a glass jar holding dried twigs, the end of which is coated in a purple goo that has dried off. She offers one to him. “Eat this.”

“What is that,” he drones, ever-mistrustful.

“Have you seen those colorful toads with the weird pupils that jump around the lotus flowers in the Bandlewood? Their skin secretes a substance that makes you feel good. It will help, I promise. These twigs are from a plant that helps with pain. You’ll just get a little sleepy and have sweet dreams,” she insists on her offer. Veigar entertains, for an instant, the idea that he’ll go to sleep and wake up with a missing leg or one of his organs or somesuch. He observes her skeptically.

“You’re hurting a lot and this is strong stuff. When you rub the scrunched fabric and stretch it out, it stops looking ugly. I can rub your scars, make them less tight, it’ll help. But it may hurt even worse, so this’ll let you snooze it off. Trust me, just this once,” she pleads.

“How do you even… know all this?” He asks— but accepts the offering nonetheless.

“I know lots of things,” she answers rather ominously.

He chews on the stick. It’s grassy, and the coating is something between bitter and sweet. His nose wrinkles.

“Let it rest a bit under your tongue, it’ll make it kick faster,” she instructs. Out from her bag follows a jar of something clear, oily, littered with dried herbs.

“Oil from the coconuts of bilgewater and flowers of chamomille,” she explains, noticing his skepticism, “softens the skin. Makes swollen things calm down. Also smells nice. I’ll rub it on your back and massage and you’ll feel better. I triple quadruple pinky promise. Will you let me do it?”

He would let her spit on him if it made the pain stop. How more humiliated can he be than this? He relents. Lulu helps him lie down on his front, face sideways on one of his pillows. She didn’t lie, the oil does smell good. He cannot bear to look at her, so bare and vulnerable, so he focuses on the wall out front and tries his damnedest to clear his mind. Her fingers dig into the scarred skin, slick with oil, the friction making it warm. His back screams in objection and he furrows his brow and grits his teeth, bearing it.

Something is kicking in. He swallows the remnants of whatever that twig had on it. She was right about letting it rest under his tongue. The colors of the foyer are brighter, more vivid. The angry ants biting with their mandibles are chased off by pleasant ladybugs tingling his hands and feet, walking with their little legs and flying with their silky wings. The patterns in his navy blue rug undulate and displace. Lulu’s fingers that started off making his tender scars cry out in pain now pleasantly tug and pull at them, drawing tight lines in many directions. His mind is foggy. She may be humming, singing something to herself. Down here the glowing mushrooms that litter the rock walls look like stars at night. The stars are so beautiful. Lulu’s eyes look like stars sometimes when they’re in the dark and her tapeta lucida reflect what little light is there. The texture of the rock breathes too, expanding and contracting like a big lung of mother nature. The light of the mushrooms pulses like his heartbeat. Her hands are warm and her song is a cradle, and he doesn’t even realise when he dozes off.

Lulu giggles when she hears him snoring. She was very nervous at first, this being the first time she touched him so directly. But what started out as tentative and new soon fell to the comfort of routine, mechanical motions. He had so many scars, so big and knotted—she could feel the bumps of tightened tissue with her fingertips— that she was sure she could not get to all of them in one sitting. It deeply saddened her. At the same time it offered the prospect of doing this more than once.

Her stomach flips onto itself, swarmed with the beating wings of fairies. Perhaps he was hurt and taken to this point, once, but she too could work her magic as well as the Revenant. She’d make sure, to the best of her ability, that he knew how important he was— at least to one person.

When Veigar wakes up, everything’s spinning. The roof and walls swirl counterclockwise and his first thought is how dizzy he is— but his second thought is that the searing flames singing his skin have dulled to merely a hot coal, and everything smells nice, like coconut and chamomille.

A blur of purple and red overtakes his view and he forces his eyes to look up at Lulu. Her hair swirls and moves like a soft current and her eyelashes are curtains to staggering green, powerful and warm like the suns in solar systems and the freckles on her cheeks are stars he can connect as constellations and her lips a bow to shoot the sharpest arrows. How is her hair doing that, it keeps moving in spirals.

“Hello, sleepyhead. Want to eat something?”

“How is your hair doing that?”

She laughs. “I told you that stuff was strong. How’s the pain?”

“Mmgh… Better? I think.” He drags that th.

“I’m glad.” She smiles a smile warmer than early summer mornings just before the sun becomes unpleasant. “I told you I could help, you silly lily.”

He smiles back, despite himself, but can’t really say anything.

“Sleep the toad juice off, I’ll fix you some beet soup,” she says, and Veigar does a little woah when she summons a bowl of purple liquid from her miracle purse. “You should get something in your belly to make it wear off easier. Rest up.”

“Hmmh,” is all he can say, flopping back on the pillow.

Lulu observes him, overcome with endearment. He closes his eyes and relaxes into the couch. She fires up his humble stove and pours the soup on a pot and leaves it warming in low heat. By the time she has returned to him he’s already asleep again, breathing easily, so at peace it makes her swell with feelings she can’t describe.

She cannot resist. Softly she brushes the neat short fur on his face, following it to the thicker tufts at the side. It’s surprisingly neat. He cares a lot about his appearance. Even on his placid face scars linger, a dark reminder of his past forever branded onto his visage. But she doesn’t care.

She double, triple checks that he’s sleeping and, surreptitiously, sneaks a kiss to the corner of his mouth.