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Silco would have to hold a gun to her head to get Sevika to so much as breathe a nice word about his brats, but she had to admit that she held a certain fondness for Isha. Not because Sevika particularly liked her - an ankle biter was an ankle biter, after all. But the kid was predictable, at least as predictable as someone her age could be. Her mischief never left anyone face down in a pool of blood. The worst thing that Sevika ever had to worry about when Isha was around was making sure that the kid didn't try painting her arm. If Jinx had been a hornet, then Isha was little more than a fly. One that barely even buzzed at that - where Jinx had never known when to shut up, Sevika had barely heard Isha ever utter more than a handful of words.
She supposed that she was grateful to have the kid around. While Sevika hardly paid much mind to her, anyone with eyes could have seen how Isha had changed Silco. For the first few weeks after Jinx's passing, her boss had been a shell of himself. He'd slumped when he walked, barely spoken, and always smelled like booze mixed with dead fish. When she'd watched him release Jinx into the undercity's filthy waters, a part of her had wondered if he'd dive in after her and finally let the river have more than just his eye.
Isha had flipped him like a switch. Oh, his gaze was harder now and there was more grey in his hair, but at least Sevika could look him in the eyes again and see the man she'd once gladly risked life and limb for, even if she had to do it while the kid was crawling around in his lap. "The children of Zaun" had become more than just a hypothetical for him to prattle on about.
Really, the only thing that surprised her was how quickly Silco had replaced Jinx. Though perhaps it shouldn't have. Jinx had torn a hole through Silco's soul when her own had left her body and all he could have done afterwards was desperately try to fill that newly emptied space. Sevika could grit her teeth at his newest foundling if it meant Silco could stop wallowing around and keep the Chem-Barons in line and the Piltover Council on call.
Maybe that was what had pulled Silco out of the river. There was actually something to hope for now, a spark of light that somehow managed to slip through the under city's smog. Piltover was willing to negotiate. An independent Zaun was now no longer a mere dream. It would be Silco's true legacy, more than any dishevelled orphan he purloined off the street could ever be. Oh, Sevika didn't doubt that some, perhaps even all, of the council members would lay out negotiations like a deck of cards and hope he'd draw a bad hand. But Silco was clever enough to keep them from turning it into a zero sum game. If the kid could help keep Silco's head clear and be the spark that pushed him to finally make this collective dream come true, then who was she really to complain?
