Archive of Our Own ^beta

The halls Vi wandered felt endless and the rooms cavernous as she explored the emerald green labyrinth of Caitlyn’s house that she was staying in. Living in. Her house too, if Caitlyn was to be believed but the paperwork was yet to be done. It had apparently been one of the Kiramman’s more minor properties, but it hardly felt as such, this oversized dollhouse.

Finally, Vi made the turn that took her where she wanted to be, to Caitlyn, to her study where she spent much of her time these days, wading through the paperwork that was supposed to allow her to rebuild a city and system, though apparently much of this led to dead-ends and turnarounds before any actual progress could take place.

At her desk, Caitlyn sat with the uncaring poise that Vi had come to associate with Piltovans, back as straight as a marble Column, head slightly tilted - half careless boredom, half fleeting interest - against the soft pads of her fingers, wrist as delicate as the stem of an orchid. It had the uncanny effect of always feeling as if they were looking down at you from some great height.
The first time Vi had seen or properly recognised this effect had been with the judge, who with the same sort of un-calloused, delicate looking hands as Caitlyn’s , brought down the gavel with a clattering, resounding bang and declared 10 years for robbery, trespassing, endangerment of human life, and ‘intention to commit further crime.’ Vi had been 16 and shaking and truly alone in the dire, stonewalled courtroom, and the even through shuddering breaths it had occurred to her that the judge looked almost bored, as she waved Vi’s case away with a flutter of her hand, allowing the guards to haul her out.

“You’re staring,” Caitlyn broke Vi out of her reverie with a coy smile.

Vi faltered for half a second before bringing a matching smile to her lips, hoping it didn’t look too much like a grimace.

“No harm in looking,” she said teasingly, perching on the end of Caitlyn’s desk, “my love” she added on somewhat experimentally. She remembered Vander had said it, light and easy on the end of almost every sentence. Vander had been bursting with love once, she remembered when she was young enough to consider him uncle instead of father. For Zaun, for all it could be, for every one of its citizens that he brought into the fold of The Last Drop and poured a drink for. Loss, hopelessness and compromise had tempered that free tone but the love remained as glowing scattered embers.

Vi conceded the endearment sounded better in his broad accent of rounded vowels and dropped consonants, but all the same it made something glow in her heart a bit when she used it.

Caitlyn smiled at that, settling into her high backed cushioned chair, self-satisfied.
“No, no harm in looking,” she said sweetly, “well maybe some harm if it’s nothing but looking” she added conspiratorially, running a manicured fingernail up and down the seem of Vi’s trousers. That would have been enough for Vi to lean in and pull Caitlyn out of her office or at the very least against one of neatly papered walls. But a name on the paperwork below caught her eye, a familiar name.

“What’s this you’ve been working on?” Vi asked, gesturing to the paperwork.

“Hmm? Oh red tape and bureaucracy mostly; for every councillor we have a file detailing potential security risks and such. Our newest member’s paperwork has been quite extensive.”

Vi hesitated, “Sevika? Sevika is the promised Zaunite chair they’re adding to the council?”

Caitlyn grimaced with a look of disdain that made Vi want to shiver, “Yes, not my first choice either, nor the council’s would it seem. They had proposed the Firelight leader - Ekko? - at first. He declined, which seems a waste, why would someone who so clearly cares about the Undercity refuse an opportunity to do so? So we’re left with Sevika. On paper it’s a sensible choice, to be fair. Her and her forces were an important final push in holding out against Ambessa’s troops, she has something of a following and a name in the undercity, present during both Vander and Silco’s reigns of the Lanes,” she scanned the file as she spoke “plus a reputation for loyalty, which should be useful.”

Vi ran her thumb over the hills and valleys of her knuckles, uneasily.

“They’re going to eat her alive.”

Caitlyn furrowed her brow, “I thought you hated her, first person out of prison that you run at fists flying. You said she was just one of Silco’s lackey’s.”

When it had been announced that a Zaunite would be allowed a seat on the Council, Vi had allowed herself a moment of happiness or perhaps more realistically, relief. After all if something for Zaun was gained out all of this then perhaps it might have been worth it, all the Zaunite men and women who had donned the uniforms of the very forces that all their life had kicked them down, raided their homes, prowled their streets, and then died in those same uniforms; Zaunite blood splashing onto the neat Piltovan cobblestone paths. Vi didn’t know the ratio of Zaunite to piltovan casualties, but she could hazard a guess as to who took the heavier losses. If Zaun might gain something from this then perhaps the indignity would be worth it? Vi imagines this was the motivation behind many who joined up. The possibility of Zaun, and their lives by extension, gaining a step up.

Climbing up, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, up the ladder, a step forwards, progress progress progress, always struggling upwards to some unreachable sky dwelling utopia where Zaun might exist on something akin to an equal level to Piltover. All the same that means people would still exist below propping up this crumbling mountain of progress and civility. It seemed absurd, Sisyphean.

Vi too had always longed for a free independent zaun, that inherited dream. The details of it more fuzzy, a child’s conception of what that might look like - hope had seemed a fickle thing in Stillwater so that dream of a free and livable Zaun had calcified at her 16 year old self’s understanding of what that might look like. A free Zaun would have Milo and Clagger in it. It would have Vander. And it would have Powder.

She hadn’t led or organised anything in a long long time. But Ekko seemed to know what he was doing with the firelights, the sanctuary that he was building, the connections and community he was facilitating. Vi also thought she understood why Ekko turned down the offer of one of those high-backed cushioned seats and the sneers and the red tape and the out-voted proposals. What point was there in sitting above it all trying to reach a hand down, when maybe there shouldn’t be a top and bottom to begin with.