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The butterfly is white, but it didn’t used to be. It hasn’t been anything else in a long time. It’s perched, wings just starting to open on a shoulder. It’s stone, not quite marble due to the pearlescent sheen along the back of the wings that can be seen if you’re behind it, but not any type of stone that can be identified. It matches the statue that it's sitting on the shoulder of. Both of them haven’t moved in so long, frozen in time. Yet, the kneeling form of the statue has begun to decay. Anomalous patterns of it have started to crawl out of its back.
A bright purple dragonfly lands beside the butterfly. It stands out from the rest by the depth of color and vibrancy of it all. Its wings shift and it takes a moment to dart around before landing again. If asked, though there are precious few who could ask, it thinks the butterfly used to be beautiful. Hypolimnas salmacis , otherwise known as the blue diadem, tended to be beautiful though, didn’t they? The wings that started a deep black but turned into bright, vibrant blue with white specks and flecks meeting scalloped edges were brilliant. Even the underside with its brown and white to try and blend in was mesmerizing. The dragonfly could admit to, rather easily, the fact it used to watch the butterfly dance and sway in the air without how it used to fly. It hasn’t flown in centuries, or moved.
The dragonfly sighs, wings dipping before it perks up, tracking something unseen. That is the only warning before a cloaked figure appears in a crackle of energy. Their hand is very careful to reach out and rub the shoulder that neither insect is on before he makes his way to sit in front of the statue, leaning lightly against its hammer, looking at the empty eyes of it.
“I see your hammer has returned,” Viktors voice is quiet, though he can’t honestly recall the last time he was loud, “Which means that last rune failed. Not to worry, I’ll get the next one ready in time. I think I’ll have a bit this time. My little trips are starting to take longer, but I’m sure you knew that.”
Silence from the statue of the man and the butterfly sounds for a long few moments. The dragonfly cocks her head and her voice is clear to him, “How many runes are we at?”
A shrug and a hand is scrubbed down his bearded face, “Too many, I think. Though, even one is too many to myself. I don’t recall the specifics but, well, you know that don’t you, Amarelle?”
If her face were capable of emotion visible, Viktor has no doubts his daemon would be giving him dirty looks. As it stands, he merely has to deal with the impression of it mentally and the emotions through their bond as pieces of the same soul. Still, she adjusts to better face the butterfly. He knows her fascination with the smaller creature is something he shares as well. The pure white butterflies that sometimes flutter around are his own way of coping, after all.
He cannot bring himself to make copies of the beauty that once was his friends daemon, but making little white fluttering butterflies is something close enough. Maybe it’s just another thing on the long list of ways he self-flagellates, but it soothes something in him to see the small insects dance and flutter in the air. Of course, then, Amarelle had pointed out
she
was lonely so the crystalline little dragonflies had joined her in their darting. They’re little more than impulses of the Arcane that flows through him but they’re so deceptively simple it’s easy for him to pretend for just a bit.
The garden that had slowly formed around where they both rest currently had been half happenstance and half guilt. The butterflies and dragonflies had needed flora to pollinate and attract other insects and the like to consume. The dragonflies never preyed on the butterflies. Even if they were natural predators, Viktor could not stand to imagine or witness the butterflies be hurt by them. He had caused enough pain to the one they were modeled off of and he could not bear to think of the fact that insects modeled after his soul would prey on ones modeled after Jayce’s soul . It was bad enough he did not know what had happened to Jayce’s soul in the first place, but to watch such a thing be preyed upon for eternity? No, so he merely gently swayed their preferences. Amarelle had never commented on it, but he knew she agreed.
Still, he thought the garden was… nice, if he allowed himself to think positively of his work. It wasn’t something he often tried or put effort towards, but the simple act of growing the plants soothed something in him that was long warped and broken. The fact the plants were not normal did not even bother him anymore. They had to be warped and affected by the arcane to survive in such a world anyways. The bright pinks and seafoam greens and blues blend into abstract rainbows and scattering of growing leeching colors that curl and anchor in Jayce’s statue. Even the stains on his now cloak were pleasant to him.
“Are we going to try and free them again?
Both
of them?” is what she asks instead of continuing that avenue of conversation. Neither of them have ever discussed saving one but not the other. It’s an implicit understanding for them both. To save Jayce is to save Dido and vice versa.
A heavy sigh and he slowly moves to curl up in the arms of his once-friend, muttering, “Maybe later. I am tired and wish to sleep.”
Amarelle doesn’t say much, she can feel the grief pulling at him and herself, but she does dart to sit on the hand gripping the hammer, her wings shifting. They will rest, for a bit, and then they will both rise again to try again. Viktor doesn’t say anything and neither does she. Every time the hammer returns, drawn back by some unseen as of yet force, they know they’ve failed them, failed
Jayce
again. He’d once joked to her that it would be thought it would stop hurting after so long. Amarelle hadn’t laughed and neither had he.
For now though, he relishes the fact she came closer, even just a bit, before he settles into whatever his resting is called. He doesn’t need to sleep, hasn’t in so very long but letting his mind rest helps occasionally. Other times, he’s just too tired. It’s never a physical state of being tired, but one where his emotions and mind drag him down, further and further, until he can barely summon the energy to move from wherever he ends up. These days, he tries to have such moments by Jayce. Perhaps his friend is gone, but he likes to, in his better moments, thinks his friend would want to offer him some form of comfort.
Today, memories drag him down into the past.
Viktor had first seen Jayce Talis after an explosion in his apartment. Sloppy, he recalls thinking as he’d walked up, leaning a bit on his cane as he walked around. Amarelle, who had been a magpie then, had shared the sentiments quite a bit. Dangerous experimentation was best done in environments when entire crowds of people weren’t at risk if or when an explosion occurred. He doesn’t recall much of what is actually said, beyond Jayce protesting his arrest.
He does recall, however, watching the rather sizable butterfly daemon flutter about her partners shoulders. The blue on her wings had been a deep iridescent color. Even when her wings had closed, there had been something that drew his eye. Then, he saw her land on Jayces shoulder and couldn’t help but remark, even if only mentally to himself, that of course such a daemon belonged to that man. He was probably unseemingly social and a braggart too.
The trial though, oh the trial had changed everything. He’d barely paid attention to the rest of The Council. He knew Professor Heimerdinger would be against it but still, watching Jayces passion sparked something in him. Where the day before he had almost been a cowed Academy student, here he was standing up to the council and almost accusing them of being against Progress . The mentally imposed capital letter for Piltovers connection was obvious to Viktor. Amarelle, ever the opportunist though, made sure to gently tug his collar when the trial was done.
“He seems passionate,” she commented quietly to him, her head tucked close even as she cocked it this way and that to keep eyes on their surroundings as they slowly walked around.
“Lots of people are passionate,” he’d grumbled, mind already on all of the other work they’d have to do before whatever Heimerdinger requested of them for the night.
“Well, yes,” she allowed, quickly hopping to his other shoulder in a flutter of her own wings as he turned a corner before continuing, “But you don’t exactly look at that with most people. You know you can’t lie to me too, so go on, say it. We’re going to have to try and speak to Cecil about it all anyways, may as well get the fumbling over and done with.”
He didn’t bother trying to argue with her. She was, after all, his soul made manifest . He was her and she was him and all that meant. It didn’t mean he’d be verbally agreeing to his interest. Part of it, he could admit in the privacy of his mind, was because he did, in fact, have eyes and Jayce Talis was an attractive man. The fitted Academy outfit truly left little relevant details to the imagination. Were he a more lecherous man, he would easily admit to using it to fuel fantasies later. As it was, his ideas were much more attractive. Giving magic to the people, giving miracles to the people.
Still, he merely gave Amarelle a face, grimacing and glaring at her lightly. She didn’t need to be more smug than she already was, no doubts. Judging by the soft ruffling of her feathers in what he felt was clear pride, he had his answers of what she thought already. They both knew why they’d be going to bother the Professor too. The lure of such a result as magic was too high to turn down. They just had to know, was it possible? Could magic really save people or, even, just help them? His hands tightened on his cane in the smallest bit of excitement. Just what was magic capable of? Already, his mind was racing with the ideas.
Despite the improbability, his mind had gone where it always did when miracles were mentioned. Maybe he couldn’t cure himself, maybe he couldn’t cure anyone but he could help people with magic. Research was fine and good, true, and he would be changing lives as he currently sat but with what Talis had said in his speech? That could change not only a few lives, but the masses. While he didn’t picture himself a particularly vain person, he knew deep down what he wanted. Helping people had been his lifelong goal and, with this magic dream laid in front of him, he could finally do what he’d wanted, and do it properly . No more little percentages of progress, no, they could revolutionize the very face of technology.
That night, when he saw the man about to jump, Viktor made a choice. It was hardly like things could get worse than where they started, clearly. Besides, he learned that, yes, somehow a butterfly could glare at him.
(Centuries down the line, he could have laughed even if it was more sobbing. Oh, no, things could get much, much worse. It was awful, what they’d done, what he’d done. Still, he had to have hope that one timeline would succeed where he failed.)