Work Text:
Victor was very superstitious.
When he wasn’t in the academy uniform on his rare days out of the lab he followed a strange rule. Jayce noticed he never wore yellow in the middle of the week. Even when he gave Viktor a bracelet with a yellow stone in it, he smiled politely but refused to put it on until after midnight. When he got him yellow flowers, he grimaced a little and kept them under the window like they were poisonous.
If rain caught him outside, he’d exhale loudly with his head tilted up towards the sky once the sun started to come out. He’d stop in the middle of a conversation to do it and then continue on like nothing happened.
On the first and last days of the month, he’d tap out a pattern on his cane first thing in the morning and once again before dark. Sometimes when he felt really sick and couldn’t go to the lab, Jayce would smell something wafting out of his apartment. It wasn’t bad, but it was pungent and he’d smell it in Viktor’s hair the next morning. There was a charm Jayce could sometimes see wrapped around the handle of his cane, and other times it would be tucked into his shirt when he got undressed. Jayce was forbidden to help Viktor take it off, even when his hands were sore.
Vi had a charm too, dangling from a leather cord around her neck. He’d catch her fiddling with it when she was bored. Caitlyn had noticed it too, but when they’d brought it up to their respective partners, both had answered the same thing.
“It’s a Zaun thing. You wouldn’t understand.”
A dismissal and a frustrating response at that. Jayce wanted to know, so he kept pushing until Viktor got annoyed enough for him and Vi to explain themselves. It happened over drinks one night.
“It depends on the charm,” Viktor explained, fishing his out of his shirt. “I got mine years ago, before my parents died. It’s for protection. It keeps all kinds of nasty things away. It’s the only thing of theirs that I have, and considering everything I had to go through to get where I am, I think it’s done its job pretty well.
“What about yours?” Caitlyn asked, looking over to Vi.
“Memories,” she said matter of factly. “Some Zaunites think the dead stick around after they’re gone and they can latch onto things if you’re not careful. The ones like mine give the dead something to focus on so they leave me alone. Vander gave all of us one when he took us in.”
“Well, that’s kind of unnerving,” said Caitlyn.
Vi scoffed. “This is why we don’t talk about this. It’s not just that. Good people stick around too. It gives them a nice little place to stay until they wear themselves out and feel okay passing on. Here,”
She took it off and passed it to Jayce. “There’s a small compartment. Pop it open.”
Jayce turned it over and saw a small latch. Carefully he undid it and was immediately met by the smell of pipe tobacco.
“Tradition says that the ideal thing to keep it’s a part of whoever died. Hair is pretty commonly gifted to a family member or a close friend but sometimes people will take teeth or fingernails. I didn’t have that option so I figured, if he decided to stick around, he’d appreciate one last smoke on me.”
“That’s… actually pretty powerful,” Caitlyn admitted, looking a little sheepish. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.”
Vi gave her a soft smile. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean anything by it. Just be a little more careful next time, yeah?”
Caitlyn nodded and returned the smile, accepting a gentle forehead touch from Vi that both her and Jayce were now very familiar with.
“What’s in yours, Viktor?” Jayce asked.
Viktor shook his head. “You’re not supposed to know. Protective spirits are different. They’re more of a personal deal with whoever asked for it. My mom got it for me and she’s the only one who knew what was in it. Out of respect, I’ve never looked. I just know it would have been something important. You’re not allowed to touch mine because it’s my spirit and it would get offended and leave if anyone other than the intended recipient got close to it. Think of it like trespassing.”
“So it gets defensive of whoever has the charm?” Jayce asked.
“Yeah, that’s kind of their whole thing. Hence ‘protective’ spirit,” Viktor laughed, rolling the charm between his fingers. “Once that deal is made, they work really hard to ward off anything harmful. Strangers not touching it is a way of respecting it and giving it space, as well as saying ‘thank you’ to it for everything it does. They like their privacy. We give them a safe space to rest, and they keep an eye on us. Or so I’m told, anyway. I believe in it, at least.”
“I hope this doesn’t sound disrespectful, but that’s fascinating,” Jayce said. “What else is there?”
“The pattern you’ve asked about before is for good luck,” Viktor tapped on his glass to demonstrate it. “You do it at the beginning of the month to bring in luck, and then you do it at the end to say ‘thank you’ to whatever brought you the luck. Then you burn something to send it away. Yellow is the opposite. I don’t know why, but wearing it on specific days is supposed to piss something off.”
“I know this one,” Vi said with a grin. “There’s a story about a man who was a folk hero way, way back. He was a character from a novel penned by one of the most famous authors from Zaun. He was always very kind and generous, and respected others. There were people who didn’t like him, but he was nice to them anyway. Outsiders from beyond his community saw how important he was and decided to teach him and everyone else a lesson because they were jealous of him, but many didn’t know his face. One who knew where he lived left a yellow scarf on his doorstep and claimed it was from one of his friends, so he put it on and wore it into town the next day. The scarf made him stand out, so the group could pick him out in a crowd. They kidnapped him. He was never seen again after that.”
“The people in the character’s town mourned him but celebrated his life and how he’d been such an honest person. The author died the day the novel got released and no one knows why. People mourned him, and the characters he made too, since he made living in the trenches a little less depressing. We don’t wear yellow on the day on that day in middle of the week when he died as a way of respecting him and what he did. If you wear yellow, it’s a good way of inviting something nasty to pick up on you. I used to tell Powder the story all the time when she couldn’t sleep. It was one of her favorites. There’s some moral in there too, but mostly it’s about honoring a good man that’s turned into something bigger. Some people think the man with the scarf actually existed a really long time ago, but not everyone does. To some he’s just a bedtime story, but others swear he existed. It’s sort of up for debate.”
Caitlyn looked surprised. “I didn’t know Zaun had famous authors.”
“Of course we do,” Vi sighed. “They don’t really make their way topside but even us barbarians can be creative sometimes. I doubt any of them would be in a bookstore here, but copies of people’s books get passed around at markets or handed down. I’ve still got the copy that I used to read to Powder.”
Viktor leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. “A lot of people from different cultures from around the world end up in Zaun so sometimes their habits or way of doing things get mixed in with everything else too. As you know, fresh air is a rarity down there so to say thank you for the sun coming back after it rains and everything gets half drowned, we do something in return. We’re offering the breath back as one of the few things we’re able to do. I’m not sure where that one came from either. I don’t know if anything bad would happen if I didn’t do it, but it feels disrespectful not to.”
“Why doesn’t Piltover have stories like these?” Jayce asked.
“Because,” Vi said, gesturing with her beer. “You tried to wipe everything out for the ‘sake of progress’. Traditions like ours and science like to argue. I’m surprised Viktor kept his after all the years up here.”
Viktor shrugged. “It was important to my parents and I. I brought as many traditions as I could when I came up here, but Sky is the only person who understands. It was almost spiteful after a while. People already looked down on me for where I was born and because of my leg, so why would I try to hide something that was important when they were going to judge me already? Sky and I celebrate small things when we can, but it’s hard when you don’t have a community.”
“Why was I never invited?” Jayce asked, curious.
“Piltover tried to kill as much of this as they could,” Viktor answered. “The cities came from the same ground, but your part of it wasn’t interested in it anymore. I appreciate you never questioning it, but with things like holidays and big events, either they never came up or it would be a lot of energy to explain things to people.”
Vi nodded. “Really old families in Piltover might have had the stories passed down, but when the generations stop practicing it just… dies. It’s mostly oral tradition so if you don’t have people able to tell it to you, there’s no way of knowing about it. I tried to teach Powder what I could, and Vander filled in the rest. Not every Zaunite believes in it anymore, but more people than you might expect still do. Even the people with no one to teach them will have traces of it somewhere. Young people will sometimes completely forget it and not bother to practice or talk about it, but a lot of the time they come back to it or keep a very small part still alive. Charms like ours are the most common way. It’s pretty rare you see anyone without one.”
“Why haven’t people written this down?” Jayce asked.
“Never been a need to,” she answered. “Zaunites tend to have their little groups, and those groups take in other groups and it just spreads like that. There’s a lot of people like Viktor who do it out of protest. A lot of the graffiti in Zaun isn’t purely for art. It’s a way of telling stories and sometimes there’s wards sprayed onto houses. Vander had some scratched into the beams of The Last Drop.”
Jayce looked at Caitlyn, an idea forming. “What if we wrote it down?”
Viktor and Vi blinked. “Why?”
“I think it would be good for people topside to know about this. If you’re worried about people forgetting it, then we can teach it to others in Piltover. It might help them realize that Zaunites aren’t so scary.”
Vi rolled her eyes. “Yeah, they’ll think we’re just a bunch of scary superstitious lowlifes instead of normal lowlifes.”
“Kids might not,” Caitlyn countered. “If we want to start bridging a gap between the two cities now that they’re more independent, I think reaching out like this would help a lot. Plus, maybe the older folks in Piltover will be able to tell their own stories. Cultures and history die when people are too afraid to express them, so if we make that less scary and get people curious, it’ll be good for the Zaunites who don’t have anyone to teach them too.”
“You make a fair point,” Viktor admitted. “I’m fine with the idea. Honestly I don’t know as much as I’d like to, so it would be interesting to fill in the blanks.”
Vi finished her drink and slid the bottle towards the bartender. “Me too. But now you better buy me another one as a reward for trying to explain all of this to you.”
The four of them stayed at the bar way into the very early hours of the morning, telling stories and little things that they did so often they might as well have been second nature. Certain foods were reserved for holidays or birthdays, and Viktor missed a particular dish that he’d never been able to find a recipe for. Sky didn’t know it either but they’d tried to make some form of it but it was never exactly right. Some people refused to sweep the floor at night, and others wouldn’t cut their hair on certain days.
There were rules for death too, as Jayce discovered. If the deceased was able to have people there, someone was supposed to sit with the body until it was burned or buried if possible. Friends and family would take shifts sitting by it while others came and told stories, drank, and just celebrated life. Life was often short in Zaun, so they tried to focus on the fun stories and adventures of the deceased instead of how bitter their end had been. Piltover had funeral homes, Zaun just had homes. They managed their dead themselves in a way that challenged Piltover and how they handled things. Most people Jayce knew would have been horrified at the idea of keeping a corpse in their living room, but Vi and Viktor talked about it like it was completely normal. There was nothing gross about it.
“Think of it this way,” Vi had said. “Would you want a total stranger looking after your mom before she was buried, or would you rather have someone you trusted? Someone you knew would respect her wishes and make sure she got the care she needed?”
That had been hard to argue with. But even those without family weren’t completely fucked.
“The people who die on the streets still have people who care,” Viktor explained. “It’s not a very common role anymore, but there’s still those who will go and do what they can. The forehead touch we taught you two? They’ll do it with the deceased as a way of saying that they mattered to someone and it’s supposed to stop them from suffering as much. Kind of like a final kiss goodbye. Some people from Zaun believe in a specific deity, but most of us focus more on the spiritual side of things. Aside from jewelry, some people make little memorial spots in their houses if they’ve got a permanent residence. I’ve got a small one in my apartment in a cabinet.”
The four of them talked until Viktor and Vi were exhausted from story telling and tapped out. They promised to share more later when they’d had the chance to brainstorm and swap their own stories so they knew what to say.
A few days later, Jayce drafted up a list and brought Viktor and Vi to a counsel meeting with him to ask to start a project of writing down and archiving Zaun’s traditions. Their argument was that ultimately it would help the two cities coexist a little more peacefully. People from outside of Piltover could be interested in participating in preserving Zaun’s history so it could be studied. The two of them weren’t the most thrilled about their livelihood being held under a microscope but admitted that it might help them in the long run. Funds from educational events could be donated to Zaun to keep improving their quality of life so future Zaunites would live long enough to keep their history alive themselves.
People were more receptive than they worried about. The council didn’t debate for very long before decreeing that they’d bring in other people from the city to work out some details before announcing it.
“Zaunite Heritage Day” was first celebrated the year after.
Stalls were set up and stages for talks were put around the town square. The bridge was filled with people going to and from Zaun, curious about the differences between the two cities now that things had settled down. Classes were held for children as the adults told ghost stories, whispering that if you heard scratching from the back of an alley, the proper thing to do was bow your head and keep walking unless you wanted to see a nasty pair of red eyes peeking around a corner. The kids squealed before laughing and pestering the old teacher with questions that she happily answered.
There were more adults interested than Jayce expected too. They were more hesitant to show immediate interest if they belonged to a higher social standing, but they’d trickle into places discussing Zaunite art and whisper amongst each other that even they had to admit how interesting some of the pieces were. Zaunite art was a lot bolder, their painters unafraid to use wild streaks of color and heavy lines to display their emotions. Their writers were varied, covering all kinds of fiction and works describing the lives of Zaun’s brightest that no one else in the world had heard of. Stalls selling copies were overwhelmed once the citizens of Piltover saw the first brave few picking up the novels and thumbing through them.
Zaun’s music was more aggressive and a little brash in comparison to what Jayce had grown up with, but there was still massive amounts of talent and technique within it. When it was played to a crowd, people were bobbing their heads along and looking excitedly at each other when a particular riff was played that really sent the bass notes through their chests.
Convincing the Zaunites to teach and show off their culture hadn’t been easy either. There was a lot of hatred still burning within them, understandably, but Vi had a way of convincing people it was worth it. Viktor was nervous about giving a lecture on some of the lesser known scientists he’d admired as a kid, but several students from the Academy were present in his audience with their notebooks in hand. Jayce sat in the back smiling at him, taking his own notes so he could pester him about further details later. Viktor answered the questions confidently once he saw people weren’t going to be insulting, excitedly talking about the experiments people had set up on their own funds just to see if they could do something to make a difference.
Some of the Piltover citizens were awkward and mildly insensitive without knowing so, but they didn’t mean harm. They were trying, and asking questions in good faith, aside from a few jokes at their own expense when they did make fools of themselves. They’d accepted critique honestly and promised to be better next time.
There had been some pushback too, unfortunately, but that was to be expected. People raged when the holiday had been announced, insisting Zaun had nothing to offer and that it would be a waste of time and space. Jayce could practically hear Viktor’s teeth grinding when he’d been present at the meeting discussing the protests, and he’d ranted about it to Vi as soon as it was over. Viktor hadn’t been silent at the meeting either, not quite being openly insulting to the people who’d insulted him first, but he’d defended where he’d come from until the detractors either gave up, or admitted he was right.
When the main festivities were done, chefs from the two cities worked together so people could sample what could happen when their foods collided. Zaun’s food had spices that the topsiders had never tried, leaving a lot of people gasping for water when they got too confident. The Zaunites challenged them to contests to see who could hold their heat the best, laughing and sharing drinks with whoever had to back out first. There was an empty spot at all the tables, an honorary seat for the people who hadn’t been able to make it.
At the end of the night while people ate, Jayce noticed Viktor had disappeared. He walked through the crowds until he spotted him behind a stage, eating by himself.
”You’re missing the party,” Jayce said, walking over to where Viktor was hiding.
Viktor smiled at him and patted the bench he was sitting on. “This many people is… a little much for me.”
”Fair enough,” said Jayce as he joined Viktor. “I think today went about as good as it could have.”
Viktor nodded. “Never in my life did I imagine something like this happening. It’s strange.”
”I’m sure that’s the thought on a lot of people’s minds.”
”If my parents were here, I don’t think they would have been able to believe it either. I saw Vi teaching a group of children the slang I grew up with. Most of them were using it wrong, but it was cute. It’s not perfect, considering all the pushback, but maybe it’ll get better as time goes on. The idea that one day, kids from my old neighborhood will be able to wear their charms openly and not treat it like some big, scary secret is… almost unbelievable. If you’d told me it would start to happen in my lifetime, I would have called you crazy.”
”We did this, Viktor,” Jayce said, nudging his arm. “Your people can start celebrating because you and Vi weren’t scared to hide. Maybe one day no one will have to be scared.”
Viktor rolled his eyes. ”The good thing about shitty people is that they die eventually and they’ll get replaced by less shitty people over time.”
Jayce laughed. “Maybe if we’re lucky, they’ll have some kind of miracle and be less shitty before they die.”
”Eh, I wouldn’t bet my life on it. You can be optimistic enough for both of us.”
Viktor smiled as he said it and stood. “Can you come with me? I want to show you something.”
Jayce nodded and offered his hand, letting Viktor lead him further away from the crowd and down the quieter streets. They walked until they were by the river, the music faint in the background. “What’s up?”
Viktor took his hand back and pulled something from his pocket. It was a bracelet made of corded leather, woven together in intricate knots with orange beads dotting the strings. At the center was a wooden ball, a symbol Jayce didn’t recognize carved into it. He pressed it into Jayce’s hand and eyed him nervously.
“Viktor… it’s beautiful. Does it mean something?”
Viktor looked away, his cheeks reddened. “In Zaun, this is a symbol of thanks. The knots tell a story and the orange beads are major events. The symbol etched in the wood is a request the craftsman makes before gifting it to someone. I made it myself. Vi made one too to give to Caitlyn, but I wanted to do this privately. It’s… our story. From how we met to now.”
Jayce tried to think of something appropriate to say back. “Viktor, this is beautiful. How long did this take you?”
“A while,” he admitted. “I had to undo the cords a few times when I missed something and needed to add another bead. It took me a while to settle on the symbol. I had to ask around from some people who knew more than I did. I’ve been away from Zaun for so many years that I don’t remember everything exactly. It’s for good health and happiness. I thought about making you a charm, but this is more romantic. It’s a sort of… declaration of affection. And commitment.”
”Did… did you just propose to me?”
”No, not quite. Think of it more as a… promise ring. I can lecture you on Zaun weddings another time. For now, I can show you how to put it on?”
Jayce held out his arm and pulled his sleeve up. Viktor explained how to tie the knots properly to keep it on and that he could explain the process of making one later. Jayce looked down at it once Viktor tugged the strings tight. Now both of his wrists had something to remind him of Viktor, and he loved it. “There’s one other thing.”
”Oh?”
Viktor looked up at him, a soft smile on his face. “It’s the anniversary of my parents death in a few days. The body isn’t supposed to be alone, but the mourners aren’t either. Can we take a day off from the lab and just spend it at my place? There’s a few small things I like to do, and I want to share them with you so we can do it together. Sometimes it feels like they linger around on big days, and it’d be a way of introducing you to them. I think they would have liked you.”
”Of course we can. I’d… love to meet them too.”
”Good, I’m glad. If you want, when I teach you, you might be able to feel closer to your dad too. If you don’t want to then it’s fine and I com-“
”Viktor,” Jayce said, squeezing his arm gently. “It would mean the world to me if you did.
Viktor’s smile widened. “Okay, it’s settled. I can take you to the market and show you what to get tomorrow before we start work.”
“Do you want to go back to the party?” Jayce asked, running his fingers over the beads.
”I’m okay with staying here for now, if that’s fine with you. I need a break from all the questions. My brain is going to melt if I have to explain anything else.”
Jayce grinned and pulled him in close, resting his chin on Viktor’s head. “Happy Zaunite Day, Viktor.”
”Happy Zaunite Day to you too.”