Chapter Text
On the night that Sevika had first lost her arm, there was nothing to be felt but the murky pounding in her skull as her body chased a sedative-high to numb her deteriorating flesh—and, despite it all, a burning question that stirred behind her clenched teeth. When they finally abandoned the scene, Sevika was carried by a stranger into Silco’s office, where she remained silent despite the overwhelming pain. Still, each animalistic cry that threatened to escape her persisted, even as she masked her weakness; and still, the question remained, begging for attention as she blearily watched Silco shuffle in and out of his dilapidated office. Once, twice, three times. Four.
The final time he came in that night was when Sevika knew that the child was asleep. That kid couldn’t stand being without him, especially then.
Sevika regarded Silco from the couch adjacent to his desk. The man was slouched in his seat, head in his hands. The two of them were alone, so there was no better time to ask him. Since that night, Sevika only questioned Silco when they were alone. Doubt was not good for business, after all. It was better to keep her grievances private.
“Hey,” Sevika had said. “Tell me the truth.” Her voice rasped from disuse, but it was loud enough that Silco could hear her and know she was still conscious. His head remained right where it was, though.
“Silco,” she croaked again, “What does Zaun look like? When it’s free?”
That had gotten his attention. His hands fell from his face and that blaring red eye pierced through Sevika, even through the fog.
After a second of silence, he said: “Just like out there.” He gestured with his hand to a vague approximation of where the rubble of that night’s fight was. There was no pride in his voice, no puffed-up grandeur. “But when the dust settles, we’ll have won. We’ll have shown Topside our teeth.” Only spite was there—only sheer belief. Perhaps it was a matter of convincing himself too, on that night. “No more festering in the shadows. No more humiliation. We’ll have won because we are the only ones willing to fight tooth and nail to give everything for Zaun.”
Sevika glanced at him one final time and then closed her eyes, leaning back into her makeshift cot. Two days later, when the sedative wore off and she was able to think clearly again, Sevika would have had the clarity to know that it wasn’t Silco’s words that convinced her to do everything she’d done since then. She’d already decided long before that.
That night, though—that was when she knew that she was not done giving everything for that dream of freedom. No—that reality. It would be as real as the flesh that sloughed off her bones in that explosion. As real as every beating, every scuffle, every humiliating scramble for scraps she had made to survive as long as she had in the Undercity.
Sevika knew she was not done losing everything for Zaun. Not nearly.
2 months after the Hexgate Disaster.
Today, Sevika was about to lose again.
It wasn’t often that she felt a dread so heavy and all-encompassing that the thought of running the other way occurred to her, but as she made each step towards the stoically opulent maw that was Piltover Council Hall, she could feel it dragging at her very being like a granite ball chained to every limb.
In all the times of desperation Sevika had ever suffered, she never once believed she would find herself here. In her most fantastic daydreams, she imagined herself burning the whole place down, or dying valiantly trying. This—this felt horrific. This felt like being bathed in a horde of insects and forcing herself to sit still as they writhed all over her.
In every instance where she’d doubted her actions, where she’d doubted herself—Sevika found solace in the Zaun that she had promised herself. The Zaun that could only be forged from blood and shrewd deals. The Zaun that came out of the people’s never-ending fight to claw their way out of the neglected heap that Piltover had made of the Undercity. In a way, she had finally dug her way into the light—but it was Piltover’s light, shone on her by Piltover’s terms. The goal of her being there was to change all that, to transform those terms into those of the Zaunite cause, but Sevika wasn’t stupid. Piltover would try to do what it had always done: keep her exactly where it wanted her. That’s why she’d always resorted to biting and tearing and wrestling those hands off her in any way she could. At least that way, she had a better chance of winning.
But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Piltover had taken a hit in the war against Noxus, and with Silco dead and the Chem-barons neutralized, the Undercity had taken an even harder one. Nobody else wanted to fight. Nobody else could. The people of the Undercity were too busy mourning, too busy turning over the rubble of their homes in search of scraps to build new homes with. Sevika knew just as well that if someone didn’t do something drastic, Zaun might never be able to stand upright again, never mind autonomously.
So, there she was, stepping over the gilded threshold of Council Hall—not as Silco’s right-hand woman or as an Undercity rebel gathering supporters, but as Piltover’s first Zaunite councilor. Yet another deal written in blood, this time her own.
This was more than a necessary evil for the sake of Zaun’s freedom. This was throwing away years of work for a slim chance that she could find purchase on a rigged playing field. This was a desperate gamble. Peacocking herself in front of Piltover in the hopes of receiving mercy from her butchers. This was risking the loss of herself in all her entirety.
Sevika strode towards her seat at the Council’s table and sat down, feeling more humiliated and doomed than she had in her entire life. And then, just like that, the meeting commenced.
2 weeks after the Hexgate Disaster.
Every morning since the world nearly ended, Mel awoke with the itch to paint. She squirmed under her covers, twisting over and over like a fussy child in her pristine white sheets, and cowered at the sight of the canvas that sat on the opposite side of her bedroom. Doing so had become a maddening habit.
Despite the urge, she could never bring herself to pick up her palette or her pots of pigment. Mel already knew what it was that her mind wanted her to put on the canvas, but a painting could never do it justice. Or worse—a painting would make manifest just how real it all was.
There was no red deep enough to depict the blood that coagulated in the crevices of the stone pavement beneath her. No shade of amber could capture the dulling of her mother’s eyes as she looked upon her daughter for the last time. There was no color at all that could help her make sense of feeling Ambessa’s heaving breaths grow slower in Mel’s grasp, and none to encompass the heft of her final words—
You are the wolf.
The smile on her mother’s face, stained by the blood on her teeth. The warmth and pride in her voice. Mel had only dreamed of it, before. Everything she’d ever wanted, given to her in the same moment she’d lost everything.
As the rising sun poked through her gaping glass skylight, Mel tried to ignore the canvas altogether. There were far greater matters to attend to. Last night, a letter from Noxus made it official: the newly crowned matriarch of the Medarda family would set sail for Noxus in four weeks to begin taking up her duties.
There was so much to do. Her mother’s body had not even been buried yet. At a typical Noxian funeral—or whatever you’d call a postmortem ceremony that discouraged lamentation—the body was buried in the place where the warrior died, but well: a stone memorial for the woman who waged war on Piltover and mowed down scores of enforcers had no place in the town square. The politics of it were beyond messy.
So, Mel had to find a place to put her mother’s body. She had to prepare for her coronation. On top of all that, she had all her duties as one of the only two surviving Councilors that managed to avoid... an untimely demise over the course of the year.
And then there was… her project. Mel had hoped she’d have more time to put it into action, but that was foolish to begin with. As long as her mother was in Piltover, things would have escalated—and she was right, they did. If she had been there instead of wasting away in the Black Rose’s prison, maybe things would have gone differently.
If she hadn’t been so hellbent on proving her mother wrong while in power, maybe things would have gone differently. None of what could have been mattered now, though. What mattered is how she would fix it.
As Mel fastened her white cloak on her shoulders, she mulled over the several appointments she had planned that day. The newly instated Council would have its first meeting to discuss the current state of Piltover at noon. The topics on the table included the several buildings demolished in the battle with Noxus, the mass exodus of both Topside and the Undercity, and of course, that of Hextech—and what a monumental pain in her side that conversation would be. Mel suspected the eyes of the Council would be glued to her through the whole ordeal, and not in the way she usually preferred. After all, it was her mother that arrived armed and ready onto Piltover’s shores, and it was her investment that went so fantastically wrong that several countries were in talks about ending trade agreements with Piltover altogether.
Mel huffed out her first laugh in days at the thought of it all. One way or another, she had gotten Piltover on the map. Everything she wanted in the worst way possible.
Slipping her hood over her head, Mel gently locked the door to her penthouse and strolled toward the lift at the other end of her lavish hallway. Oddly enough, even with all the layers she’d donned to hide the gleaming gold designs etched into her body, she felt naked as the day she was born. She had developed a new habit of checking every corner around her for some dark and scheming body, some malignant thing that would come up behind her and attack, but felt shame every time afterwards. Nothing could hurt her in this body. She was a Wolf, now. She was a living weapon.
What really bothered Mel was not her nakedness, but her loneliness. She had never travelled with a troupe of guards before, though that might have been wise for a Piltover official. She’d had her friend and confidant, Elora. The company was enough. She’d been blind to the truth that there were things out in the world that wanted to hurt her.
Now Elora was dead and a security detail was too conspicuous. Mel had an image to maintain, especially given how precarious the political atmosphere of Piltover was. A Councilor that was too afraid to mull about in the streets of her own city said tomes more than any speeches she could make about Piltover still being a City of Progress. Imagine. The clamoring of printing presses would be heard from as far as Ionia. The Noxian regents would have her head.
At any rate, Mel couldn’t have brought anyone with her on this particular trip anyways. The meeting she had scheduled in the next hour was among her more… clandestine ones.
The morning air had not yet taken on a blanket of summer humidity, so the wind still had a cool bite to it. Mel drew her cloak tighter around her. As she stalked the less-than-lively streets of Piltover, she was awed by its silence—she knew much of the Piltovan population had left before Noxus had arrived onshore with its weapons blazing, but the reality of the people’s absence was disorienting. Half a year ago, these streets were packed and practically unnavigable through a sea of visitors from far and wide. But now…
Mel grimaced, clutching her sleeves as she tore her eyes from the ghost-town avenues and marketplaces. It was all almost too much to bear. This void of life was on her mother and her war mongering, but she couldn’t help but feel that it was also on her. Even if she had been taken by the Black Rose, she’d had ample time beforehand to turn those Noxus ships homebound. And either way, the wreckage of Piltover still had her surname written all over it. She had a hard time ignoring that.
She had to remind herself that the past was the past, and ruminating on her mother was a path that would leave her paralyzed, body and mind. She would tread with her eyes trained on the pavement if she had to, but she had to keep moving. It was her only option.
The stone streets outside the Medarda Opera Hall were empty, but a construction crew hammered away at a slightly crumbled condominium a few blocks down. The hulking glass doors of the Hall, embellished with gold, had not been opened in at least a few weeks. The metal Medarda crest that hung on the face of the building gleamed in the sun like an all-seeing eye.
Mel ignored the entrance altogether in favor of a side door towards the back of the building. It led to the anterior half of the concert hall, where performers would preen themselves before rows of mirrors between acts. The familiar haunting grounds of a familiar old friend. Or informant; same difference.
Said informant stood beside a row of pulley systems, her back facing the light that came from a thick window behind her. She was less done-up than usual, with only a fur-lined overcoat and a deep purple wrap dress that swept around her knees. The illuminated lint and dust from the building swished around her like a halo, kicked up by her long, twitching tail. She was obviously agitated. When was she not, though?
“Mel,” Lest greeted plainly as one claw fiddled with a lush feather boa around her neck. She shifted, leaning from one side to the other. “You’re late, you know.”
“I apologize; I slept in,” Mel sighed, stepping towards her. “It’s been… an eventful couple of days. I wasn’t even sure you’d be able to meet with me.”
“If I had it my way, I wouldn’t be.” Lest let those orangey lamp-like eyes drift over her, regarding her with lowered brows. She sighed, her hardened gaze going back towards the window. “If I agree to do this job for you, the price will be much higher than usual. Understand?”
“Of course.” Mel, ever the negotiator, heard the desperation in her informant’s voice and rushed to alleviate her worries. “We have plenty of time to discuss it. And you’ve done too much for me to deny you now; I owe you that and more.” The timing part wasn’t entirely true, but—
“And I’ll need to be fully informed this time,” interrupted Lest, whipping around suddenly to face Mel again. The jewels on her headscarf jingled as one of her massive ears twitched sharply. “None of that funny business like before. You promised me I was indispensable, but went no contact the second things went to shit. Did you think I’d forget?”
At that, Mel’s reassuring demeanor stuttered to a halt, and a meager I didn’t mean to failed to escape her lips. She hadn’t told anyone about the Black Rose. She couldn’t. She tried so hard not to think about those horrific few months that she hadn’t realized people like Lest would have noticed her absence. Her body felt rigid yet flimsy and she couldn’t meet Lest’s eyes, favoring the brick wall beside her as her mind recalibrated. How could she have been so stupid?
Coming back to focus took a second, but once Mel did, she noticed Lest’s brows drawing low over her mesmerizing eyes, and her hands clutching her shoulders, and her mouth forming the words What’s wrong? and I shouldn’t have—
“I was—Sorry.” Mel shook her head, taking a deep breath and pushing herself out of Lest’s grasp. She turned away from the other woman, trying to find her composure. “I was preoccupied. If I had the means to contact you, I would have, I promise, it’s just…”
“…Right. I should have known it was something, I just—got spooked.” Lest said nothing for a moment, but her swishing tail kept its rapid back-and-forth pace. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Mel snapped, but it was such an obvious lie that she cringed.
“Mm?” Lest murmured, not acknowledging that she lied, but tracing a straight line down her nose bridge with one claw. The same path that Mel’s golden Arcane markings made on her own nose.
“Nothing worth talking about,” Mel corrected. She took another deep breath. “I didn’t ask you to meet here to discuss that. You mentioned a price for your services, Lest. Name it.”
Lest seemed dissatisfied with her answer, but decided not to push it further. “I need you to fund my relocation to Ionia,” she said. “Ship tickets, housing, moving my things. All of it.”
Mel’s eyebrows raised at that. It wasn’t really the quantity that fazed her—she was asking for a lot, but it was still well within Mel’s means. Though, in their previous agreements, she never got to know what Lest did with her money. She never felt the need to ask. Lest was revealing a specific need of hers, which was so unlike her that Mel immediately knew this arrangement must have been her last option. Or was among at least five other last options.
“I see,” Mel replied, trying not to look for relief in the other woman’s expression. “That’s… manageable. I’ll see what I can do.”
Lest’s ear flicked at the air again, and she pressed her rouged lips into a thin line. “That’s it?”
“Consider it done. You have my word; I owe you.” Mel approached her, laying a reassuring hand over her informant’s folded arms. Lest didn’t fend her off, but her disposition remained guarded.
“Well, it’s not just that. I’m asking you to take me there. I want you to sign the papers for everything, not just give me the money to do it myself.” Lest swallowed nervously, tucking a stray lock of brown hair further into her scarf. “Believe me, if it was just a matter of having money, I’d be halfway there already. Getting out of Piltover is complicated now. Every time I think I’ve found a ride out of here, the price rises fourfold in a matter of days. Other cities don’t want to let us in. I need someone powerful at my back so that they can’t screw me.”
Yet another consequence of the war with Noxus. Evacuating the civilian areas closest to the Hexgates was the only way to ensure the people’s safety, but it uprooted lives. Evacuees would begin pooling back into Piltover and the Undercity in the coming weeks as reconstruction progressed, but some would choose to abandon Piltover altogether and relocate. As relations with other countries became more strained, people would have less places to go—who would want to claim the baggage of thousands of foreigners from a war-torn city state?
“I’m sure the sea merchant guilds love the business,” she grumbled—which was undoubtedly not the thing to say at that point—but got her a wry huff from Lest anyways. Mel nodded, even as a headache began to bloom at the thought of all the work she had to do. “Nevertheless, Lest, I will get you to Ionia. My word is bond.”
“Hm.” She was trying to disguise it, but the tension that seeped from Lest’s shoulders was palpable. With a swish of her skirt, she pulled Mel’s hands away—Mel hadn’t even realized they were still there.
“If you agree to my terms, fine,” Lest replied, with an air of haughtiness that had been missing before. “I still have to hear yours.”
“Of course,” said Mel. She paused, eyeing her informant in a way that made the other woman’s ears lower a bit. Mel cleared her throat, reaching into her robe to pull out a gold-embellished envelope. “You won’t be thrilled by it—It requires a more… direct approach. I need you to deliver a letter.”
Lest raised an eyebrow. “I’m not a fan of being your messenger girl, Mel, but I’m capable of delivering a letter.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Mel conceded. She brandished the envelope before her informant, letting the wax emblem that sealed it closed catch the dusty morning light. Lest leaned in curiously, her irises expanding as she noted the halo of gold gears that comprised the Piltovan Council’s insignia.
“Looks official,” she said warily. “Who’s it for?”
“Well, that’s the thing.” Mel pursed her lips, failing to hide a smirk even as she recognized the stakes of the situation. “You might not like who.”