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As it does many nights, the same nightmare grips her.
The same images loop through her mind. The look in the eyes of the Ionian girl, their color so much like her own, as she silently pleaded for her life. Her mother’s blade slicing through the flesh of her neck. The room’s ivory tiles sprayed scarlet, the girl’s necklace—and her head—laying in a pool of blood at her feet. The memory has stayed with her for over a decade, but it never becomes less frightening.
She wakes with a gasp. Her chest heaves and her heart races, threatening to burst from her ribcage. Her curls are drenched in sweat, sticking to her equally-sweaty forehead.
“Mel?”
She startles. Peeks at Jayce from the corner of her eye. He gazes up at her, eyes half-lidded and bleary with sleep. “You okay?”
“I…” She nearly chokes trying to catch her breath, blinking back tears. She’s never allowed Jayce to see her like this—unraveled, hysterical, afraid. How humiliating.
Jayce sits up, those golden eyes of his seeming to glow in the darkness of the room. They hold no judgment or even surprise. Just genuine concern. “Nightmare?”
“Yes.” She draws a shuddery breath, still unable to fully look at him. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
Because her mother taught her long ago that weakness is an unforgivable sin. “Never let anyone see you weep, little fox”. She is a Medarda, and Medardas do not cry. Her tears are what got her sent away.
“I’m sorry,” she repeats.
There’s stillness for a few moments. She can still feel Jayce’s eyes on her.
“Come here.”
Only then does she finally look at him. He’s laying on his side, his gaze and smile soft. He jerks his head slightly—an invitation. She hesitates, sniffling, before carefully lowering herself back onto the mattress. She scoots closer to Jayce and allows him to gather her in his arms. They’re strong, rippling with muscle built from years in the forge, but gentle as they wrap around her. He holds her like she’s the most precious thing in the world, something worth protecting. No one has ever regarded her in such a way.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, breath tickling her skin. “I’m here.”
She’s still tense. He must sense it. He starts to trace her tattoos with one finger, and she finds that his touch grounds her. She hums and curls into his chest, grateful for his warmth, desperate for more.
Eventually, they both drift into blissful sleep.
A lifetime later in Noxus, the new head of House Medarda wakes from the same nightmare. This time, Jayce isn’t there to comfort her.
As she clutches her blankets, knuckles white, she ponders what she’d give for one more night with him. Her life, her soul, her all—just to feel the warmth of his body beside hers until the next sunrise. She felt it when it happened: the moment Jayce was taken from her, wiped from this plane of existence. She’d sensed something stir deep within, her sigils tingling with a strange warmth. As she knelt beside her mother’s body, she felt him disappear, and she knew she would never see either of them again.
Still, if she closes her eyes, she can pretend she’s laying beside him and not his ghost. If she wraps her arms around herself, she can pretend it’s him holding her tight.
She can’t go back to sleep. She has to do something.
Mel was never one for portraits. The only one she’s ever done is Kino’s. In the years after her banishment, she painted her brother over and over again. It was her way of committing his features to memory—she refused to forget his face. She’s also not the best with ink. Something about the way paint colors pop has always appealed to her, and learning to guide her palette knife in even, careful strokes has been a helpful exercise in intentionality and patience. But at this hour, it would be too much to fish out her supplies and make her own pigments. She promises herself she’ll dedicate time to properly painting Jayce later.
For now, she just needs to get this out. She needs to see him again somehow.
So she locates a sheet of parchment paper and a pen, and then she’s hunched over her desk, sketching by candlelight. She wades through the raging depths of her subconscious, scouring her broken mind for fragments of him. She captures as many as she can. The tiny gap in his teeth and subtle point of his canines when he smiled at her in a way no one else ever had. Warm eyes that always reminded her of honey, the kind she and Kino took turns sampling from a spoon as children. Soft coiffed hair she used to card her hands through as he lounged with his head in her lap. She draws him as he once was. Before the Arcane broke him. Before it broke them both.
Ink bleeds across the paper and into her skin. She keeps scribbling, combining her tainted memories into a messy amalgamation of his features. The strokes of her pen shift from focused to frenzied. She can't forget him. Won't forget him. She draws until her wrist aches and the pen threatens to tear the parchment.
When she finishes, her hands are stained black. Her tears flow freely, dampen the paper, smudge the ink below his lip.
When she wakes the next morning, Jayce is gazing at her the way one would admire a painting. His hair is tousled, a few strands dangling in his eyes. “Good morning,” he murmurs with that crooked smile.
“Good morning,” she responds, amused. “Do you often stare at people while they sleep?”
“Just you. You’re so beautiful, I can’t help it.”
She swats at his arm. “I will not dignify your flattery, Mister Talis.”
“Worth a shot.” He shifts closer. “How’d you sleep?”
Her smile grows wider. “Wonderfully. Thank you.”