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She remembers how the crows would caw when they found her, down in the undercity.
It was like they recognized her; the blue shock of her hair among the grotesque green hues, and revolting red of the undercity. So much color, but never quite so startling as her own pigmented locks. The crows would glide after her, hop along, pecking at the ground where they waited for her to do something.
She could remember the sound of their little claws ticking and tapping against stone floors. Tap, tap, tap , followed by mocking caws and the taunting sound of wings flapping just out of reach.
They'd follow her.
Cawing, cawing, going on and on until they would scatter at the fire of her gun.
She'd always had good aim.
Ever since she was Powder, before Jinx, and even while Jinx with those sprinklings of Powder that remained. Didn't miss — hardly missed— hardly aimed sometimes.
It was instinctive. Finger on the trigger, fiddling with it, toying with it like the pin in a grenade covered in vibrant neon paints to create crude faces from nightmares turned dreams turned nightmares again.
Aim, pull the trigger, shift her attention, swing her body or her arm or flick her wrist — pull the trigger. Instinctive. Reckless.
He would've scolded her for it, maybe. Be tactful, Jinx. Play your cards carefully, Jinx. You never know who will betray you, Jinx.
Jinx, jinx, jinx.
It’s only us. You are my daughter—
Tap. Tap.
Soft clicks of a beak. Another caw, echoed distantly. They followed her everywhere, diving down to greedily take in what she left them.
They were smart. She knew that. Smart enough to follow hunters — smart enough to associate her with food . Not smart enough to fly away when she aimed at them and fired, though. Not that smart.
Followed her, still.
Ate the corpse of their own, watched her sit on a chair decorated in their own feathers. They still followed her. Cawing turned to cackling, constant and unchanging and yet so startlingly different every time. Different voices, maybe. Something like that.
It didn't matter though.
Didn't matter if she was in Zaun or Piltover — the crows followed her.
Followed her from deep in the depths all the way to the Kiramman Mansion. Up from the dark, damp trenches of the undercity to shining, shimmering salvation. And they cawed as they collected in the yard, along the fences, circling in the skies above those grand rooftops.
Cawing, cackling.
Same difference.
They knew what she'd bring, sooner or later. A part of her, some part that was young and childish and foolish and still responded to a name she had killed all by herself — that little part of her almost felt bad for them. For making them wait.
But they knew better, didn't they? She could hear it in their cackling cries as they perched beyond her reach. Fingers twitching, arm swinging, instinctive.
Aim, fire, hit. Fire, fire, hit – swivel, finger on the trigger, a flash of movement, fire.
Hit.
She was better than that, of course. A bit more — what would Topside call it? Dignified , maybe? Whatever. A bit more , to simply leave it at that.
But Topside’s opinion didn't matter.
Jinx was very much sour in terms of Caitlyn’s opinion of her. Especially when she noticed how the woman made the effort to go out into her oversized backyard just to go right ahead and feed the crows. Right in front of her.
And then, then , she went ahead and just asked Jinx to join her.
Worst part of it all?
Jinx did join her.
And she hated it. A little bit. But not enough to go back inside. And Caitlyn knew it.
But Caitlyn, in all her high-and-mighty-ness, didn't say a thing.
Just. Just fed the crows. And listened to their cawing like it was a song instead of a symphony of shrieks. And she didn't even seem to mind Jinx not fully joining her. And Jinx definitely hated that .
(Except, she didn't hate it. And that just made her want to hate it. But she didn't. And it was a little frustrating in a way she couldn't really describe.)
A crow hopped by, pecking at a seed Caitlyn had dropped a few moments ago, and Jinx was certain this could've been a scene pulled right from one of those fairy-tale books that Caitlyn had lended to her. It was mildly infuriating in ways that made perfect sense and no sense at all.
But the crows seemed happy.
And Caitlyn seemed rather content.
And so Jinx decided, very graciously, to not ruin the moment.
So instead she asked, “Why bother feeding them?”
It wasn't really a genuine question. She knew. She wasn't stupid — she had observed Caitlyn enough to understand she was just… Like this. It conflicted entirely too much with her generalized depiction of topsiders. Too much, too often. But Caitlyn was distinctively kind, in a very uppity, topsider-y way. And most days, Jinx was okay with it.
Caitlyn answered her simply, in that infuriating topsider accent of hers; “Why not?”
“That's a dumb answer.”
A thin lipped smile returned to her, and Caitlyn's eyes faintly creased in amusement. “I am aware. I just don't have a better one. They're clearly hungry. Why would they be here if they weren't?”
“I think you spoil everything you come across.”
A pesky thought pointed out that she herself was included amongst that ‘everything’ and she dutifully ignored it, up until Caitlyn scoffed softly and pointed out the very same thing.
“You are lucky then, hm?”
It was banter. Jinx was fine with banter. She still rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, not deeming the remark worthy of a reply. Caitlyn only let out a soft huff that sounded like laughter, and kept feeding the crows.
Their cawing didn't seem so much like shrieks anymore.
Jinx held out a hand for a small scoop of bird feed that Caitlyn obliged her for, and as she helped feed the noisy birds, she was only somewhat reluctant in thinking that maybe, one day, she could hear it more like a song.
Maybe, one day, the crows would follow her for bird feed instead of anything else.
And she was okay with the faint hope of ‘ one day’ .