Chapter Text
Ximena had taken to travelling, in the years since she lost Jayce.
Piltover did not feel the same anymore. It was a physical difference – the rebuilding, the new council, the new people… but it was more than that. The city that she’d moved to for her marriage, only to lose both her husband and her child there. To lose everything she had, everything she had worked for, everything she had put her heart and soul into.
Her baby boy was everywhere in Piltover, and it was almost worse than if he had disappeared entirely. The more the posters went up – the statue that went up in the university square, the portrait that hung in the council offices – they all looked less like him. Like Jayce. Not that they had ever really looked like her son, not really. The more she saw all of these new images, it felt like she was losing him again: piece by piece. Giving over one part of him at a time, every time she saw a mug that didn’t get his skin tone right, or a poster which got his jaw wrong. Every time she saw the Man of Progress, or the Defender of Tomorrow – the Hero of Piltover. Every time she saw him and realised he did not belong to her anymore.
Inside her house, she had pictures of him from all ages. Her baby: newborn, chubby, with beautiful glittering eyes. A toddler, who always looked too serious: an adult’s concern in a little girl’s face. Her chunky little magician, obsessed with magic – she had that crystal made into a necklace first, before she made it into a bracelet, after Jayce had explained to her the reality of who he was. It was in a lot of his younger pictures. She used to hide the awkward pictures of him, but now, when she had such a limited set. Now, she smiled at the unhappy schoolgirl with long braids, hands clasped behind his back. But then there was the best pictures, of Jayce as a new student. Beautiful, new haircut, finally standing tall. Jayce as he explored. And then finally, her inventor.
Before he stopped being hers.
She couldn’t cope with being in the city anymore, but she couldn’t bear to move. To pack up his childhood bedroom with all of the things he had made, and the burn marks on the floor he’d covered with a rug that he thought she didn’t know about. He hadn’t lived in that bedroom for years, but it was all she had left of him now. His apartment, his laboratory – whatever hadn’t been destroyed – she’d donated to the city for some kind of museum. Caitlyn Kiramman looked after it, his blueprints, his plans and creations. They met often – they had a strong bond, one forged in agony most people could not imagine, and sometimes she would tell Ximena about it: the new scholarship in Jayce’s name, the new Hexgates opening up, but she didn’t really care about it. She hadn’t really been privy to that part of his life, and even though she had been invited to the opening of the exhibition of his laboratory, she found herself unable to cross into the building. Because that room – where Jayce had felt safe, where he had done his best… that was also the room that Monster had spent time in. The monster who had murdered her son, who had tried to destroy Piltover, who was responsible for the deaths of many, many people.
So no. She could not go into that laboratory. Even if they had promised to have incinerated everything that Man owned. It was not enough. She didn’t need to see it.
Anyway. Even if she could leave Piltover, pack up all of Jayce’s precious, precious things, and go home, what would she do? Move in with one of her sisters? Her brother? They all had families now. Children, grandchildren. They had been fast in giving her their condolences, their apologies. It was like when her husband had died. And now, they didn’t really want her there. She would be the ghost at the feast, a shadow on the edge of their lives as their families thrived. She was evidence of a reality none of them could admit was possible. The reality that you could outlive your child. The pity she would receive from them seemed worse than the reverence and almost holiness she was treated with in Piltover. It was like she was some sainted mother who had given birth to a saviour. Someone who could not be approached. Someone no longer part of society, not really. No one wanted to speak to her about the weather, or about her day, or her garden, about the business, or god forbid – how she felt. No. It was about Jayce – the Hero. And she did not know what to say to them, because she did not know that man. Suddenly, she was going days without speaking to anyone.
So, she began to travel. At first, it was day trips, and then, slowly, longer. To cities and countries where nobody knew the Talis name, nobody knew Jayce. And she began to find herself again, began to feel some interest in other things. In Piltover, she felt judged, if she displayed anything other than grief. The day she stopped wearing total mourning, she felt everyone’s eyes on her. She could practically hear their questions: How could she possibly move past Jayce Talis dying?
Hadn’t she asked herself that enough times?
One day, she was so wrapped up in her walking tour of the city, she realised that she hadn’t thought about Jayce for the whole time. And when she realised that, she had cried so hard she threw up, and then she felt so awful, she did not leave her bed for two days. She didn’t do anything the rest of that trip.
Travel was where she found herself again. She visited the cities of Runeterra, and then travelled further. She got an invitation, a couple years down the line, to visit Mel Medarda in Noxus. An invitation she hadn’t really expected, but that she greatly appreciated. Mel understood her feelings, her confusion, her anger (‘Had he just listened to me!’ she remembered sobbing. ‘If only being a Talis was enough for him! If he didn’t feel too good to be what his father had been!’). Mel talked about him – Jayce – the man, not the Defender of Tomorrow.
Occasionally she would try to broach the other subject. Ximena would not allow it.
She developed hobbies. She became interested in the plants and fauna of the other places. Her garden in Piltover became filled with tropical plants, always changing. And she loved cooking, and new foods. And she loved to walk.
As she gained confidence, she went to the smaller towns and villages, straying from the tourist areas, to the more authentic places that rarely received visitors. They were always happy to receive her, excited to have an outsider interested.
It was there, on a market day, in a small town somewhere far south and to the west of Piltover, that she was investigation the market stalls, looking for new ingredients to try, that she first saw him. It was the posture, more than anything, that twigged her off. Leaning to the right, hand on his crutch.
She’d met Viktor once or twice, in the early years. Jayce was uncharacteristically shy about his business partner, and she did not understand why, at the time. With hindsight, she wondered whether Jayce had been frightened of him, whether he knew there was something not right inside of him that he was attempting to keep her away from.
Viktor’s image was infamous. Sketches, mostly – no real photographic image survived of the man who would try to destroy Piltover. He hid from them in life, even before becoming the monster he did. She’d heard descriptions of the people who had seen It in battle, it made her shiver to think about it being the last thing her son had ever seen.
She stopped in her tracks, studying the man from the side. The lean was the same. The head tilt, too. The hair was longer, much longer now, down to his waist part of it pulled back from his face in a braid. There were markings across his cheeks – bringing more distinction to him.
She knew him. But she couldn’t. Because Viktor was dead and gone, the same way Jayce was. Had burned up in the arcane, leaving no shred behind.
Before she could decide, he shifted, turning, starting to walk away from her. Without even thinking, Ximena followed him. As she studied his frame she became more certain. It had to be him, but there was no way.
Her mind was flooded. Why did he survive? Why did he get to live, when her son was gone? Why was he here – now – after all of this?
It all undid in her mind. This man killed her son. He eviscerated him, burned him until not a single piece of her beautiful son remained, and then he – he what? Fled? Slipped away, letting all of those people died, and now he was here? In a market on a sunny day, like nothing had happened?
She followed him. He wasn’t difficult to follow, he moved at a relaxed pace that she was able to keep up with. She became more certain. More angry. She could not feel her feet, her hands, she could not feel anything but her rage.
The only thing she could focus on was him. If she could get her hands on them, she would kill him. If she could make him feel even an inch of what Jayce must have felt –
She was about to move forward, closing the gap, when she heard a little voice shout ‘Tata!’ and he turned towards the voice.
He has a child.
The thought chilled her. This man, who had murdered so many people, had been allowed a second chance, allowed love, and the opportunity to have a child, where Jayce never could.
A little girl ran towards him, her arms going around his waist. Ximena tried to take in the sight, the girl. Viktor stroked her hair, smiling at her. She had thick black hair to her shoulder, and a tooth gap that painfully reminded her of Jayce’s.
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to -
‘Mom?’
She turned to the voice on instinct – an instinct that never left her bones, even after years of not hearing that voice. She knew it, even when the voice had changed in his second puberty, becoming deeper – she knew it. She would know that voice even when she lost everything else.
The man who stood there was scrappier than the Jayce she knew. His hair was longer, and wild. He had facial hair and his skin was darkened after days out in the sun.
Jayce.
There were two children at his side. They looked like him – with other influences. Paler skin, sharper jaws.
He put a hand against his stomach – resting against it almost protectively.
‘Mom?’ he said again, his voice cracking.
Ximena collapsed to the ground.