Chapter Text
The alley smells like oil, smoke, and something burned too long to identify. You shouldn’t be here-you know that. Your boots are too clean, your coat is too expensive, the fabric catching on rusted metal like the city itself is offended by you.
Zaun doesn’t like visitors from Piltover.
Someone scoffs from the shadows.
“You lost, topside?”
You freeze.
She steps into the dim light like she belongs to it ,lean, broad-shouldered, hair pulled back messy like she cut it herself. There’s a fresh cut on her knuckles and dried blood at the edge of her lip. She looks about your age. Maybe a little older. Definitely tougher.
Her eyes flick over you, fast and sharp.
Clothes. Posture. Accent.
Piltover.
“Didn’t think so,” she mutters. “This isn’t a sightseeing route.”
“I’m not sightseeing,” you say, lifting your chin despite the way your heart thumps.
For a moment, she just studies you-like you’re a puzzle, she didn’t expect to see you dumped in her alley. Then she steps closer, maybe not threatening but definitely testing.
“You got money,” she says. “And no sense. That combo gets people robbed. Or worse.”
“Are you going to rob me?” you ask.
She snorts. “If I was, you’d already be on the ground.”
Fair.
A beat passes. Somewhere above, a pipe hisses.
“Name’s Sevika,” she says finally, like it’s a challenge. “Remember it. And turn around before Zaun eats you alive.”
“Hey,” you say “You’re bleeding.”
She looks down like she’d forgotten. Or like she doesn’t care.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s still bleeding.”
That earns you a glare sharp enough to make most people back off. You don’t. Instead, you reach into your bag leather, polished, very obviously pull out a small bundle of clean bandages.
Her eyes flick to them. Then to you.
“…What are you doing?” she asks, slow and suspicious.
“Helping,” you say, like it’s obvious. “If you let me.”
A laugh escapes her, disbelieving. “You’re in Zaun. In an alley. With a stranger. And you wanna play medic?”
You shrug, kneeling anyway. “I don’t like seeing people hurt.”
That makes her quiet.
For a long second, Sevika looks like she’s deciding whether to shove you away or bolt. Instead, she exhales sharply and turns her arm just enough to give you access.
“Make it quick,” she mutters. “And don’t do anything stupid.”
Your hands tremble a little as you clean the cut. Not because it’s bad but because she’s watching you like she expects a trick. Like kindness is a language she doesn’t quite understand.
She doesn’t pull away when you wrap the bandage.
“You do this a lot?” she asks.
“No,” you admit. “But I’m learning.”
“Huh.” A pause. Then, quieter: “Most topsiders don’t bother.”
You finish tying it off and sit back. “Most people don’t bother,” you say.
Sevika studies the neat bandage on her arm. Then she looks at you,not sharp this time. Just… curious.
“You’re weird,” she says.
You smile. “I get that a lot.”
She snorts despite herself. And for a brief moment, standing there in the flickering alley light, the distance between Piltover and Zaun feels… smaller.
Not gone.
But somehow bridged.
She walks a step behind you at first. Close enough that you can feel her presence, far enough that it’s clear she’s not your guard dog.
“Zaun’s edge is this way,” Sevika says, jerking her chin toward a narrow stairway climbing upward. “After that, you’re on your own.”
“You’re walking me out,” you point out.
“Don’t get used to it.”
The city shifts as you move,air thinning, lights growing cleaner, the grime slowly loosening its grip. You can almost feel Piltover creeping back into your bones.
Sevika breaks the silence.
“So,” she says, casual but not careless. “Why were you really down here?”
You don’t answer.
Instead, you glance sideways at her. “You ever been to Piltover?”
She stops walking.
“What?”
“My house,” you continue, like she didn’t speak at all. “It’s not far from the bridge. Big. Annoyingly big. You’d hate it.”
She stares at you, brows knitting. “You’re avoiding the question.”
“Very intentionally.”
A beat. Then she scoffs and starts walking again. “Figures.”
You hesitate, then say it quiet, almost like you’re not sure yourself.
“Come with me.”
That gets her attention.
She turns, eyes sharp again. “To Piltover?”
“To my home,” you say. “Just to the gate, if nothing else.”
She laughs actually laughs this time. “You’re unbelievable. First you patch me up, now you’re inviting a Zaun kid to a fancy topsider mansion?”
“I trust you,” you say simply.
That wipes the smile off her face.
She looks at you like she’s trying to see through your skull. “That’s stupid.”
“Probably.”
Silence stretches between you, thick with things neither of you is saying.
Finally, Sevika exhales and rubs the back of her neck. “You’re gonna get yourself killed one day,” she mutters. Then, quieter: “Fine. To the gate. That’s it.”
You grin. “Deal.”
As you cross the bridge together, Zaun fading behind, Piltover rising ahead
Sevika keeps her hands in her pockets, shoulders tense, like she’s stepping into enemy territory.
And for the first time, you realize something.
She’s just as out of place up here as you were down there.
The streets widen as you walk. Stone replaces metal. Lamps glow clean and steady instead of flickering. Sevika’s steps slow without her meaning to, eyes tracking everything—guards posted too neatly, buildings too tall, too proud.
You stop in front of wrought iron gates taller than anything in Zaun.
They’re openwork and elegant, curling metal shaped like something almost floral. At the center, worked into the iron, is a single letter.
K.
Sevika tilts her head, squinting at it.
“Alright,” she says. “That’s definitely not subtle.”
You smile faintly.
“What’s it stand for?” she asks, nodding toward the gate.
You don’t hesitate.
“Kiramman.”
The word hangs there.
She blinks once. Then again.
“…That’s it?” she says. “Just a name?”
“Just a name,” you repeat.
It clearly doesn’t mean much to her. Not yet. To Sevika, it’s just another Piltover family, rich, distant, irrelevant. She snorts under her breath.
“Figures,” she mutters. “Only topsiders put their names on fences.”
You reach for the gate latch. The metal doesn’t creak. It opens smoothly, silently.
Sevika stays where she is.
She looks past you, up the long drive, at the mansion rising in pale stone and warm light wide balconies, tall windows, a place that’s never known hunger or smoke or the sound of pipes rattling overhead.
For the first time since you met her, she looks… unsure.
“This is where you live?” she asks.
You nod. “Unfortunately.”
She huffs. “You could fit half of Zaun in there.”
“Yeah,” you say softly. “I know.”
A pause. Then she straightens, hands sliding into her pockets like armor
“Well,” Sevika says, forcing her usual edge back into her voice, “guess this is where I turn around.”
You step just inside the gate, looking back at her. “Thanks for walking me home.”
She shrugs. “Don’t mention it.”
But she doesn’t leave right away.
Instead, she gives you one last look - like she’s trying to memorize something she doesn’t yet understand. The mansion. The gate. The K.
“Kiramman,” she repeats under her breath, testing the sound of it.
Then she turns and heads back toward the bridge, disappearing into the city below.
She doesn’t know it yet.
But one day, that name is going to mean everything to her.