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Jinx woke up underwater.
Or, she wasn’t actually waking up was she? Her dreams had never been… stable… even before Powder had fallen down a well and Doc had given her the juice. The monsters had always felt a little too real when she’d been a kid, even when Vi had promised they weren’t and she’d just protect her if they were.
These days, the monsters were dead and gone. She’d made sure of that. But the dreams she had, always with that little weird afterimage to everything, those she couldn’t tell apart from the waking world no matter how hard she tried.
The water felt real, it felt frigid and oppressive, the light splaying in from above only getting far enough to prove just how vast the dark actually was.
“Ahem.”
Yeah… this definitely wasn’t real-real. Just dream-real. Which was kind of bullcrap, if her brain ever asked her, which it never did.
“Pssst.”
Like, it was her dream wasn’t it? Why couldn’t there be a mountain of ice cream or something she actually wanted? Hat Lady’s dreams probably had ice cream. She bet the Piltie had friggin subconscious room-service and rectangular dream butlers with silver platters and—
“Ahem!”
The water around her jolted a bit at the noise. Jinx ignored it. Sometimes she’d see faces in the water. Flashing, sparking faces that gnashed and snarled and growled words she tried and failed to understand. Vi was one of them now, wearing those big goggles and the gas mask, so alien Jinx could hardly believe her sister could possibly be under all of it.
“Hmm.”
But she wasn’t her sister anymore, was she? She’d made her choice, plain as day. Jinx had made her an offer, and she’d spit on it. Chosen a Piltie over her own sister. Was probably up in that big-ass house with her big-assed Piltie girlfriend snarfing up little cakes and cupcakes and—
“Sigh…”
Jinx groaned as the dream went sideways again, like a stiff breeze right at the tip of her forehead was tickling the skin with her bangs. Sleeping with her braids always made for messy hair mornings, and she’d hated mornings for as long as she could remember. How Vi had managed to get up so early for sparring practice before Vander opened the bar was a mystery. Nah, it wasn’t a mystery, it was fucking nuts . And of course then she’d stay up with Powder late the next night so she could fall asleep listening to stories. Nobody should be that ok with mornings.
“Hmm… hehehehe…”
Great, now the dream was laughing at her. That was new. Probably meant something not great about her grey matter. Oh, the water felt wet. How did she feel wet underwater? Do fish feel wet? And it was kinda warm too, but only right in her ea—
“AAAAH! You little stinker!” Jinx yelped as realization dawned and she startled awake, for real-real this time, while Isha fell to a giggle-fit next to her nest of covers. Jinx yanked her head away from the spit-covered finger the little goblin had stuck in her ear. “I’m up! I’m up! Gaaaah why did I ever show you how to do that?”
Her reaction, meant to intimidate, instead sent Isha doubled over laughing. The hand that wasn’t gripping her stomach waggled back and forth with intent.
Jinx scoffed, stretching her arms and back, joints popping. “I do not look like a ‘dancing worm’ when I get surprised. Rude.” She smacked her lips a few times. “Kinda early isn’t it? What’s the big idea not letting me get my beauty sleep, Ish?”
Isha put up a finger, then scampered off to her own little nook in Jinx’ workshop. The place was night-and-day different since the kid had followed her home. Not crowded, she hated crowded and it seemed like Isha did too. But not empty either, and Jinx didn’t like empty one bit.
Laughing was the loudest Isha ever got. But the sound filled the space like nothing else. The Shimmer made it so she could hear just about anything, ‘like a dog does’ Sevika told her once. It got annoying hearing folks breathing from across a room or their heartbeats. She didn’t mind hearing Isha giggling to herself across the workshop from her. Jinx wished more people were like her.
So the hell what if she never spoke? Jinx was at least self aware enough to know she was the last person who should be saying what was normal or not. That’s what they were; two broken pieces of the world that fit together where the edges had snapped off. That was perfect, even if it sometimes meant waking up to wet willies. Ok, fine, especially when it meant waking up to laughter like that. She hadn’t done that since…
Since nothing. Isha was jogging back over with a piece of rolled up paper in her arms. Maybe another Glorious Commander proper-gander poster for her to draw a mustache and googly eyes over? That never got old.
The kid set the roll down and shoved it open, revealing an artsy drawing of an evergreen tree in glittery ink with starbursts all around it, big cursive words up top proudly advertising the 42nd annual Snowdown Festival at the Piltover Botanical Gardens.
The date and time listed at the bottom was in a few hours.
“...Oh.”
Her reaction leaked out around every careful defense she’d shorn up for Isha’s benefit. Her little friend didn’t deserve any of her baggage.
Isha tilted her head in concern, confused by her reaction. Jinx looked away to hide the wince. Chuckled weakly to smother the lump in her throat.
She was still getting used to how different it felt. Having someone you needed to protect. Needed to. Not just wanted to. Having Isha relying on her didn’t change everything about Jinx’ life but it did make her think a lot more about Vi’s. Which really sucked; finally feeling like you got someone after you’d almost killed each other, and hadn’t exactly stopped trying on purpose.
Was this the sort of thing Vi had dealt with?
Younger Vi at least. Bedtime story Vi. Not supposed-to-be-dead Vi, or surprise-not-actually-dead Vi, or wearing-an-enforcer uniform with her Vi, or even fire-in-her-eyes outside-the-cannery furious all because “You’re a JINX” Vi. Jinx shuddered at the memory. That one never really got any softer, even after such a long time. A lifetime.
“I… uh… I can’t take you there, squirt. Topside’s liable to jump straight to shooting if they see so much as a single blue hair anywhere near their fancy party.” The words came out rusty and dry, without a hint of life.
Isha responded by pointing at her, then waggling a few fingers facing down ‘walking’ across space. Then one palm held above her head swung in a wide circle.
“No kiddo, just because I hang around places nobody else ever goes doesn’t mean I can go anywhere I want.” It felt like lying, which she wasn’t, but the feeling didn’t care about true or not. She had the brass to get just about anywhere Topside without getting caught. Getting a kid through there, with all the spear-chuckers and Enforcers running hog wild, that was a recipe for disaster.
And Jinx knew a thing or two or three about disasters.
Isha probably couldn’t help looking disappointed, head and shoulders drooping. It hurt more watching her try.
“Why do…. Why do you even wanna go to that froo-froo shindig anyway? It’s just gonna be a bunch of fops glad-handing each other over footing the bill!” It was true, what she claimed. Pilties loved feeling responsible for short-lived shiny things they didn’t have to think about all that hard. There was a time not that long ago when she’d have relished putting a little ash on that sheen.
Isha blew a little ‘fwoosh’ noise and mimicked little bursts of fireworks above her head, eyes never leaving Jinx’, watching for her reaction.
Jinx sighed. “Yeah, I do love blowing shit up. But the kind of blowing up that’ll happen if I go there isn’t going to be any fun for you, pipsqueak.” She looked a little closer at the poster. “Look, it says here the whole thing is open to the public. If you really want to go, Isha, you totally can. I’ll even walk you to the Howler.”
That sounded like Vi a bit, right? Don’t say no outright, explain it. Take her own happiness out of the equation. Gently, delicate. Vi had been so good at that part, funny considering how she fought.
Isha pointed dejectedly at the bottom of the poster, right next to the words Jinx had just quoted. Ah, right. Simple silhouettes, barely more than stick figures. Still, the size difference and ugh, heteronormative coloration made the message clear: Fun for the whole family. Bring your loved ones.
Isha gestured to Jinx, then back to herself with a closed fist to her chest. Why did she have to be so good at puppy-dog eyes?
Why did she have to go making her care again?
“Look, I’m not exactly the greatest authority on family, kiddo.” Jinx lowered onto her haunches, eye-level, racking her brain for how Vi would handle this and hating that she probably would be better at this. She had to be delicate, without just treating her like a kid. No kid had ever taken well to that. “But what I do know is anybody who says family only has one right way to be, holidays or not, probably doesn’t have one worth a crap. Family doesn’t need to prove it exists, ya dig? It just does.”
Isha nodded. Slowly. Clearly still thinking, but not crying, which would’ve sucked. Then she made a more complicated gesture, a new addition to the bunch she sometimes pulled out like she’d learned them somewhere else rather than making them up as she went. Jinx thought those ones made way more sense. She learned them all anyway.
For this one, index fingers met thumbs, like pinches of salt. The rest of the fingers stayed straight up, then both hands mirrored each other in a sweeping motion inwards towards the chest.
“That’s a new one. Family?” She plopped down at the edge of the fan blade, legs dangling off into the abyss.
Isha nodded vigorously. Pointed at Jinx, then did the family gesture again. The meaning was obvious; what did her family do?
Jinx laid back onto the fan blade. “Well… you’ve met Vi.”
Ringing in her ears, flashes and sparks of hextech, the smell of sweat, blood, tears, oil, a guttural roar that meant everything there might have still been a chance for between them was well and truly kaput. Acceptance, hesitation, a gunshot. Suddenly nothing was finished, and no one was winning.
Jinx unclenched her jaw. “Like I said. Not the best example over here.”
Isha furrowed her brow. She’d been there, she’d seen. Part of Jinx hoped that would be the end of it. Maybe she’d take a nap. Or toss some grenades into the abyss. That was always fun.
Instead, the kid spun two fingers counter-clockwise, like she was rewinding a record.
“Take it all back? I mean, shit yeah, so many th—” Jinx started, stopping in the tracks of what would’ve probably been a great rant as Isha put a hand up. She held the other up, flat, then lowered it slowly so it rested around the top of her head.
“When I was your age?” Jinx knocked a fist into her head. “Well… nowadays there’s not much worth remembering from back then.”
Dear friend…
“I remember mom singing. Lullabies, parties, whenever one of us got hurt. She had this one song about some girl in town, she’d do this little dance and point at Vi when she was feeling down and Vi would always join in for her part, no matter how in the dumps she was.” Where the hell was this coming from? She hadn’t thought about any of this in such a long time.
Isha motioned for her to continue.
“She uh, well I guess you’ve probably got an idea what happened to her. Happened to a lot of parents. Ended up getting taken in by this guy named Vander. Walked like a boulder. Now him you’d have liked. You’d’ve fit right in with the crew. It was… not easy, but simpler.”
Why was her voice cracking? Why was she still talking at all? She knew thinking about this stuff always sent her into a dark place, then she’d wake up with no memory of the last few hours except the rawness around her eyes. Kind of like right now. Less bite.
“Snowdown with him…”
While it lasted, a voice like hers said unspoken.
“It was a pretty tame thing. The main event was Vander cooking a big meal for everyone we knew, the sort of stuff we couldn’t afford to have all the time. Bar got crowded, people gave each other little things, whatever they could manage. Even us kids. One year, Vi even gave me her favorite toy, this old stuffed rabbit she had forever. Didn’t make a big deal of it. Meant the world to me though.” She sniffed a bit. “Fuck, I miss—”
No. No you don’t. “You’re a Jinx” her words, her choice, there isn’t anyone worth m
—
Isha’s hand landed on her shoulder, now sitting next to her prone form, and suddenly she couldn’t hear the barbed voice with its whisperings and jeers.
Huh. That was new. She sucked in a shaky breath.
“The Vander sitch kinda blew up in all our faces. Silco, next dad, he wasn’t about Snowdown. Or traditions in general. Just a great chance for everyone around him to slack off, way he saw it.” Somehow it was easier to talk about the times that nothing went on. What kind of sense did that make? “Sevika, his number two, I guess she tried a few times, in her way. Wasn’t into holidays either, but she always said I needed a break around Snowdown, took me to do something. Didn’t really have kid gloves, but she tried. At least until she realized I was more of a lit fuse than a kid.”
She didn’t really process that her tears were falling until she felt Isha’s arms snake around her shoulders in a tight hug. Maybe that was what made the difference. There wasn’t the teetering out of control she usually felt with big feelings. It felt raw, yeah. But also, kind of cleaned out. Fresh.
“Know what?” She said, once she could. Isha listened. “Right or wrong, good or bad, none of them were ours.”
Jinx patted Isha on the back. “So how about you and me make our own Snowdown, kiddo?”
It took them ten hours. Most of which was spent finding the right lights to steal. Basic white were the easiest, some even twinkled, but after a long, silent moment staring at the display case, they’d both shaken their heads and reaffirmed that As Much Color As Possible was the way forwards, and always had been, and anyone who disagreed could bite them.
They took the white ones too. Having options was never a bad thing, right?
The trick was going to be the wiring. It had to be strong enough but flexible enough to feed properly. Braided insulation was a must, considering how long it might be until they could figure out how to maintain them without being able to reach the walls of the hideout. They settled on the first brand that Isha could hang off of without it breaking; and also maybe the alarms going off at the hardware store were also a factor, but hey, no DIY project went perfectly.
Creating the mount was actually the easiest part, all things considered.
She’d gotten Pow-pow’s pieces back a few weeks after the fight with Vi and her sugar-baddie. Most of it was junk; being torn apart by those crazy bitch mittens had done a real number on the internals, especially the rotating bolts. But she’d been building stuff out of junk since before she could read.
A few pieces from the new-fangled ‘sprinklers’ from lawns around the Estate District meant it could spin freely in a full circle, which Isha tested until she got dizzy and Jinx tested again (to be sure) until she felt sick and had to lie down for a bit.
Soldering and welding would’ve only taken a few minutes. Once the structural pieces were assembled all they needed to move was a timing chain rigged to the firing mechanism and the platform itself (Jinx argued that keeping Pow-Pow’s rotating barrels would be cooler. Isha figured the whole thing rotating made up for it). But soldering, and especially welding, despite being almost like an explosion that stuck around for a while and didn’t wake the neighbors and therefore, fuckin great, required protection so nobody burned their eyes out.
Finding a welding mask small enough to fit was tough, but luckily Professor Heimaintenance-probably-with-all-that-facial-hair or whatever his name was didn’t lock the doors to his lab at the academy. Plus, poros really weren’t great guard dogs if you brought bacon with you.
Isha painted her newly acquired apparel with a cloudy pattern in a predictable shade of blue. Plus Skuttlebutt’s team colors in the middle of one cheek. Gotta represent.
The timing stuff they got from the big clock tower in the middle of Piltover probably broke something in it. But it was Snowdown! Anyone being a stickler for lateness was probably a square anyway.
By the time the whole contraption was set up in the middle of the hideout, looking majestic but slightly deadly, both of them were pooped. It was the best kind of tired, though. The sort that meant you knew you’d done something great with the day.
“Alrighty, no time better to test than during production! Chief Assistant Isha, would you do the honors?” Jinx said, wiping sweat from her eyebrows. Hooking the lights together had been awful, but strangely meditative at the same time.
Isha nodded seriously, grabbing the power cables and bringing their new creation to life. The belt of Snowdown lights slid smoothly into Twinkletoes’ (only two minutes to decide on a name, slaying it) action, the turret rotating with a quickening ‘clack-clack-clack’ noise that was as satisfying as it was functional. No actual shooting, yet.
Turned out, the main grid heading through the air ducts didn’t have enough juice for the air compressor to be shooting while also rotating the mechanism. But, with a clever little slip ring and copper brushes, it could rotate with enough force to build up spring tension, so it would spin way faster backwards as soon as the motor ran out of oomph.
Then all hell would break loose. Instant, automated decoration, delivered at muzzle velocity. Exactly as planned.
Jinx and Isha stared at the machine as it chugged and clacked away. When she felt a tug at her thigh, it took a few seconds to tear her eyes away. Isha had that curious confusion look, questioning.
“What’s up?”
A gesture to the machine. Big windmilling arms in a circle, finger guns.
“Yeah, full coverage. Cool right? Best way to make sure the lights go all around the cave.”
Isha looked to her side. To the other. Then back at her, still confused. Two-finger point at Jinx, then herself, then a questioning hand.
“Where do we stand…” Oh shit.
DING
Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!
“Hit the deck!”
Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!
Luckily even a few months with Jinx had taught Isha how to duck and cover. As for Jinx herself, diving away from new inventions was second nature. As Twinkletoes fired strands of holiday lights only inches above their prone figures, propelled by the same nails that embedded them in the fissure walls, Isha gesticulated wildly towards her. Difficult while laying down.
Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!
“Don’t yell at me! Clearly yeah, we forgot a little something so sue me!” She had to half-shout to be heard over the slaps of lights being nailed into the stone fissure walls.
Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff!Pff! Pff! Pff! Pff! …Pff! ….Pff!... Pff.
After a few seconds to be satisfied Twinkletoes had either run out of tension or ammo, Jinx popped up with a finger to her chin. “Well, I’d call that a mitigated success! Timing needs a little work, gas tube seals definitely leaked, might have to swap it to a fouled setting or it’ll clog. What do you think, Isha?”
Isha said nothing. She just stood there and stared.
“Kiddo?” She hadn’t been hit had she? No, she was fine. Then what…
Isha pointed up, and then spun slowly on a heel, mesmerized. When Jinx followed the little finger, she was too.
What had been a fairly dark cave with warmth and cheer in the middle was now sitting in a sea of rainbow stars. Twinkletoes had done its job perfectly, lines and lines of fairy lights broke up the shadows in little haloes of every color she could think of and a few she hardly ever saw. Some actually sparkled, either built-in features or a loose cable somewhere. Didn’t matter.
The pattern was chaos. Nothing went in straight lines, some bunched up in clusters. It was perfect.
“Wow…” Isha didn’t say it with her mouth so much as her face. Jinx heard it anyway. She slung an arm around Isha’s shoulder, rubbing up and down a few times, and echoed the sentiment.
Far from the first time since a scruffy kid had fallen on her from the sky, but for the first time she really noticed all the way, that underwater feeling, the one that followed her from sleep and weighed her down wherever she went, lifted.
“Best. Snowdown. Ever.” She declared. She felt Isha nod against her side. “Least until next year, right?”
Isha looked up at her, and huffed determinedly.
Jinx exhaled, and didn’t feel empty.