Chapter Text
It was a cool and crisp winter morning when the words first left Vi’s lips.
“Cait,” Vi breathed in between bites of a tangy lemon tart, citrus being one of the scents (and tastes) that didn’t send her sprinting to the nearest bathroom. It seemed the baby in her belly had taken a liking to lemon. “You know what sounds good right now?”
Caitlyn looked up from the morning’s newspaper. Nothing much, just the general gaudy gossip and an announcement of another gala she would be invited (forced) to attend eventually. Crumbs and clung, collecting and crusting, to Vi’s lower lip and she had half-a-mind to reach over and brush away. She was too busy staring at her wife’s rather marvelous mouth—those pretty and pink, perfect, plump lips, the seal-seam of that old scar, tugged at whenever she tightened her mouth, the pouting jut of her lower tip, the top teeth that worried into them, nibbling the way a rabbit might chew into cabbage—that she startled, shoulders straightening and stiffening, realizing she hadn’t even replied yet.
“Yes, darling?” Caitlyn inquired with the incline of her head, the dip of her chin and jaw. “What was it?”
She busied her hands by rolling up the newspaper with tacky, tasteless town talk and rubbing her hands clean, running sticky, syrup-stained fingertips over the soft linen spread across her lap. Mabeline had made pancakes today, with sweet batter and soft butter, but Vi had forwent them for a treat on the tray, the arrangement of prepared pastries the staff left out just in case, the array even more abundant and appetizing since they realized the Lady of the House Kiramman was expecting. Vi, as she was finally called after months of back-and-forth about minding manners and matters, enforcing etiquette, expectations, and High House ethics (she scowled at every Miss Violet or Lady Violet, or Janna forbid, Mistress Violet, when they were not yet wed, tired titles and traditions, really) had taken to the Manor the way a fire took to dried, brittle wood, bringing heat to the hearth, the heart, bringing warmth back to the walls of once haunted and hollowed halls.
She had seemed to make it her personal mission to befriend everyone from the start, from helping the maids bring in the washing, watering the gardens in the hot, humid heat, greeting the groundskeeper every morning when she let out the dogs, and helping the cook roll out rows of dough when baking brand new batches of loaves, staying over by the oven the breathe in the scent of freshly baked bread. Vi joked and laughed with the staff, asked about hobbies and happenings, spouses and situations, children and grandchildren. Vi was caring, concerned, and Caitlyn only grew more content in watching her.
Vi. Her sweet, stubborn Vi. Vi, who was now still and staring straight at her, those lips pressed into a firm, flat line as she got lost in thought, a common occurrence lately. There was a lot to think about lately, after all.
Vi, who was now shrugging, the strong slopes and slants of her shoulders curving and curling, contoured as ever, a swirl of ink and skin, smoke and gears, lines Caitlyn could not trace in the dark, with her eye closed, hazy and half-asleep. As she stared back at Vi, blinking, she noticed Ave noted that Vi’s own eyes were growing heavy and half-lidded, halfhearted. Her lashes were dark and fluttering against her cheek, her splattered splash of freckles more prominent in the dewy, dreamy, morning light, the coating covering the ridge of her nose and under her beautiful blue-gray eyes. They had popped out like pieces of confetti, circling around the center of her cheeks and the crest of her shoulders, spilling down smooth and soft skin, sun-kissed and sleep-warmed when Caitlyn counted every one each morning.
And she was sure that in another life, she was certainly a cartographer, making maps of the curvature of Vi’s cheeks and the familiar features of her face. Or perhaps a sailor of the stars, creating constellations out of a splatter of faint freckles, charting courses from that surprising, spectacular star chart. She was a trailblazer, making treks with the tips of her fingers, with the press of her palms—
“Um,” Vi said now, more of a sputter. “Clementine.”
Caitlyn blinked, jolted back into the present. “Pardon?”
“Clementine,” Vi repeated. “It just sounds good.”
Caitlyn furrowed her eyebrows. “Clementine,” she says slowly, testing the word on the tip of her tongue. Her nose wrinkled, crinkling, as if tasting the sweet, sugary thing slide down her throat, dewy juice left sticking to her jaw, to her tongue and teeth and fingertips, the smell of a sun-warmed fruit. “Citrus?”
Vi only shrugged. “Yeah.” She took another bite of her lemon tart, finally using her tongue to swipe that tiny slip of smeared crumbs on her lower lip. Chewing, her jaw soft and slack, she opened her mouth in a small o. “Have you had it?”
Surely she had. With her heritage, her history of garden parties, tea times, luncheons, and every other type of party imaginable, Caitlyn was sure she had some. Citrus was cool, bright and bursting, popular to top off cold water and cool cocktails alike, salt-rimmed, glinting glasses and champagne cheers, and sides to finger foods at Piltovian (or Piltie, as her still said) parties, like the small, small sandwiches Vi always made fun of. Fresh fruit was always an essential at any special summer event, overflowing plates and platters, dishes in elaborate displays and decorations, all ready and ripe, refreshing and as sweet and sticky as the hot, humid day that the party was held on.
Caitlyn let out a noncommittal hum. “Oh, I’m sure I have.”
She reached over for her tea as Vi nodded, also humming noncommittally. It was masala chai, brewed black tea with a blend of crucial, common spices—cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger—and shimmered with milk and a sugar-honey sweetener. Mabeline had made it one winter and it had become a staple ever since. Vi insisted on learning how to store and simmer, how to blend and boil it, so she could make a game of sneaking out of bed and trying to surprise Caitlyn on the mornings it was so cold she winced when she shed her silk sheets and chased when her feet brushed cold marble. She shoved her feet into the slippers abandoned on her bedside—she had gotten Vi a similar pair for her during her first winter residing in the Manor and she scoffed, but still stuffed her feet in them in that dewy dawn light—and wrapped a robe around herself before venturing off to find. Predictably, she found her in the kitchen, two warm, steaming milky mugs already waiting on the tabletop.
This winter, however, Vi had taken to sleeping in, for once in her life, and Caitlyn was glad for it. Now she was the one to stir earlier and surprise Vi with breakfast in bed—broths and soft, buttered toast and crackers when the nausea was the worst, piles of pancakes and pastries when she had a sugary sweet tooth, with assortments of fruits and her allotted cup of coffee, and the sticky buns and soups Vander used to make when she missed him the most, when the memories were particularly loud, leaving her feeling haunted and hollowed. Caitlyn wanted to reach out and hold her, to replace that coldness in her with the warmth of the sticky, steaming buns and soft batter-bread. It was the least she could do when Vi carried their life, their love. Their baby.
Their baby, the size of an apple, but still had the power to rearrange their lives in the most basic and beautiful of ways, from the way Vi adjusted her gym and work routines, learning to sleep in and savor the moments she wasn’t hugging the toilet. To the whispers of the staff and their ways of making things easier for their favorite family member, the sweet, savory snacks and warm ginger tea were left on countertops for convenience and side tables for sneakiness. To the limits on caffeine and sugar that Vi seemed to take very seriously, staring down at one of the many pregnancy books pilfered from their favorite bookshop downtown. She curled up in the study, wrapping a throw blanket around her shoulders, as she squinted down at the words, stone-faced, still and serene, looking just like Caitlyn as she signed off yet another piece of paper.
The dogs, daring and dutiful as always, always laid at Vi’s feet, tails thumping rhythmically against the carpet, in between the pops and crackles of the flames in the fireplace. Perseus and Andromeda had been as loving and loyal as ever since they had sensed that change, a shift in Vi’s scent, in her rhythms and routines. They spent time sniffing at the small swell of her belly and letting out a soft whine.
It still amazed Caitlyn how adept Vi had become at these adjustments and adaptations. At first, she had been scared, shaking hands and an addled mind, staring down at scabbed, scarred knuckles and wondering why she deserved this, remembering the bruises and blood, broken bones and battered bodies, fists that had fought. Hands that had hurt, and now hands that would hold, hold her wife, and eventually, their baby. Hands that wound carry and cradle. Nourish and nurture.
Caitlyn had held Vi through the hardest nights, nights of grief and ghosts, when she wished her family were here, when she wished for her mother’s advice or even Jinx’s teasing and taunting, her poking and prodding, her raspy laugh and sayings. You’re getting sappy, sis. And fat.
On some nights, Caitlyh cried with her too. She wished her mother were here, and could tell what to say, what to do. Could share stories and spread her own wisdom—which Ionian teas were good for the morning sickness and where Cait could press her palms to help ease the tension in taut muscles and tight joints. Could tell just how to be a mother when your own mother was…
Love was such a natural thing for Vi. It came as easily as breathing to her. Vi loved with the ferocity and fearlessness of a Noxian army (and, now, that was a term Caitlyn did not use easily). She was patient and protective, still gentle when the world had been never but cruel to someone so kind. She was so, so strong: a spine of steel and a heart of gold, of goodness, the best heart of anyone Caitlyn had ever known. Now, a body that had broken and been broken was building. Her body was mending. Making.
Caitlyn knew one thing: Vi was made to be a mother, just as she had been made to be her wife.
Now, Caitlyn carefully ghosted a slender fingertip over the still-warm ceramic of the cup. She slowly raised an eyebrow, swallowing her sip, the spice and sugar lingering on the tip of her tongue, stinging the back of her throat. “So,” she asked when she was done, clearing her throat with a small, polite sound, the way she was taught, or more so trained to do, a thing she didn’t want to bother with their child. “Have you?”
Vi was ripping off another chunk of the lemon-frosted crust. “Once,” she replied, and Caitlyn stilled as she shrugged. “Mom tried to get us a treat for Snowdown. Me and Pow would always split it.” Vi began to smile, a soft thing. “We’d get sticky fingers and Mom would always chase us with a cloth, trying to swipe away the juice before we got everything sticky.” She slowed, blinking. “Mostly oranges, I think, but fresh fruit was hard enough to get in the Lanes, especially in the dead of winter.” Vi shrugged again. “You had to walk all the way to Piltie markets for the real, ripe things, with all their greenhouses and fancy schmancy stuff, or be overcharged in Zaun’s markets for shit that was half-spoiled anyway.” Vi shook her head anyway, that smile almost slipping sideways. “I don’t know how she managed it, but Mom always scrounged up and saved enough money to buy us a little holiday treat.”
Caitlyn listened, the warmth from her tea curdling in her chest and twisting, curdling like spoiled milk. It was just a reminder of their pasts, of the persisting differences and difficulties they had when growing up. Vi was looking after a toddler sister, sharing a bed and shivering under threadbare blankets, her parents sparing extra oil to keep the lamps burning and working themselves to the bone to save and spend. They all shared sips of warm tea pilfered from the back of near-barren cupboards. All the while, Caitlyn slept in a too-big bed under silky sheets, adorned in a matching silk sleep set. She woke to an elaborate breakfast spread, their Snowdown feast of roasted vegetables and glazed wild boar. She went shooting in the snow-dusted forests of their winter home and swimming in the still-warm waters of Ionia when they vacationed there. She drank hot chocolate in front of a roaring fireplace, swaddled in blankets and surrounded by stacks of gifts, of new books and blouses, new brushes and oils to clean her rifle. Well, rifles, plural. Caitlyn had an armory full of shining weapons she used for target practice and tracking, hunting. Caitlyn shot for sport. Whereas Vi had only her first, wrapped in plain bandaged wraps. And Vi fought for survival, to protect and provide for her siblings, her family.
What had Caitlyn done to deserve all that? What had Vi done not to? What difference was there in the accidents of their births?
Caitlyn only knew one thing, since the moment she saw Vi in the shadows of the cell. Since the moment they kissed underground, and then kissed (and more) underground once more. Since they slid matching silver rings onto their fingers. Since Vi had pricked her finger on that golden gadget and it had shone white, showing them their impending fate as parents, since they hugged in between bouts of breathless laughter and sniffling.
Vi would never want for anything ever again, nor would their baby. Now, Caitlyn would be the one to protect and provide. If that was the only thing Caitlyn accomplished in her life, as Head of her House, as Sheriff of Piltover, she found she would be just fine with that fact.
Vi, as if sending a shift, leaned closer, the chair creaking casually, carefully, under her. She smiled softly, wavering, watching. “Cait?”
Caitlyn’s head snapped up, her single eye settling on her wife. “Yes, darling?”
Vi’s eyebrows were knitted together, her lips pressed flat again. “You good?”
Caitlyn forced herself to nod. She didn’t need to worry her wife with her own worries, her internal rants and rambles. Vi was preoccupied with carrying precious cargo, after all. “Yes,” she replied, voice rather raspy. She stopped to take another sip of tea. “Please continue. Clementines, was it?”
Vi’s expression was still pinched, lips parted and puckered, but she nodded effortlessly. “Yep,” she said, popping the p. “Clementines.”
Caitlyn held back her chuckle.
“Anyway,” Vi went on, almost wincing as she sat up, one hand going to the small of her back. Again, their baby was only the size of an apple, not the changes were still palatable, persistent in aching joints and muscles. “One year, they were out of oranges, so Mom got us a clementine.” Vi wrinkled her nose, as if remembering the taste, the tang. “I don’t think I had heard of one before that. I must have been, like, seven or eight.” She squinted, staring down at the table, her own fingertips tracing the rim of her own ceramic cup, half-filled with the amount of the bitter black coffee she was allowed for the day. “The peel was loose, kind of like the winter coats Mom bundled us up into when we went to the market. It slipped right off versus an orange, which had a tight, tough skin.” She sniffed. “It was smaller than an orange. Sweeter. Less sour. It was also seedless, which Pow liked too. She used to spit out the orange seeds and drive Mom crazy.” She paused to snicker, almost a snort, and her lips eased into an easy, gentle grin. “I think that was my favorite Snowdown. We got to try, taste, something new and my mom was glad we didn’t get seeds all over the sheets.” She shrugged for the third and final time, a smile still tugging at her lips, the corners of her mouth curling up in tandem. She looked up at Caitlyn, her eyes half-lidded as she sighed, then drawed in a long breath. “It’s always the little things, you know.”
In this light, Caitlyn could see that shimmering shine in her beautiful blue-gray eyes, see the familiar splatter of freckles as she wrinkled her nose, biting into the last bit of her breakfast. She could see the ring upon her finger, cool silver and steel.
It was simple, as they had agreed. The Kirammans had a vast selection of jewelry—emeralds as green as willows in spring and diamonds that shone like sunlight on water, rocks as big as a fist. But Caitlyn didn’t need for her declaration of love and unity to Vi to be decorative, elaborate and egotistical, so Caitlyn sealed their vows with their matching rings, just slips of metal, a small rendering of the Kiramman crest and words written in tiny, tight Ionian script—Our Love on Vi’s and For Eternity on Caitlyn’s own.
It was from a song Vi had been both excited and exasperated to play her, right in the study with the old gramophone. Vi told her it was one of her mother’s favorites, one she played in the Last Drop, swaying and singing and sipping, dancing and laughing, living. She had listened to it when she was pregnant with Vi and then Powder. And, now, their own child, still curled in the warmth of their mother’s womb, would grow to hear the song too.
Legacy was a tricky thing. It always had been for Caitlyn, who came from a long line of predecessors, who expected her to carry on that line, that legacy. But it didn’t mean she only had to pass down the knowledge and the Kiramman Key, only pass down titles and traditions like they were tithes, duties and deeds and dedications. She could pass down laughter and leisure, while simultaneously passing down law and loyalty, learning and laudability. She could pass down love.
Maybe, one day, the Kiramman name wouldn’t mean a cage. It would mean simple silver rings and warm tea in the mornings, the budding sprouts in the bountiful flowerbeds and a song humming in the hitch of a throat. In the staff’s sweet worries and words. In her father’s gentle grin and not-so-subtle suggestions of Violet, only one cup of coffee and Violet, don’t lift too much weight. In the slanting sunlight coming in from the windows in the morning, the curtains thrown open.
It was the little things.
“I know,” Caitlyn murmured in agreement. In appreciation.
I know.
“Still,” Vi continued, once she was done downing the rest of her coffee, tipping the mug back and tilting her head to get the dregs of the drink. “I think Powder managed to get juice all over the sheets.” Vi sighed, more happily this time, but still… hesitant, in a way, as if remembering a more current, casual event, but still a bit unsure of the transpirings herself. “Had to wash them and Mom made Pow scrub them. She must have been four, and a little terror.” Vi rolled her eyes and placed her mug down with a plop. “We had to wait until the morning to put the sheets out to dry, so we had to share a bed with Mom and Dad unless we wanted our toes to freeze and fall off. It was stuffy, but it felt…”
She trailed off, biting her lip again.
“Safe?” Caitlyn offered up the word the way someone would offer a morsel of meat to a starving stray mutt, all hungry and hopeful.
Instantly, Vi nodded. “Yeah.” A breath, a beat. “Safe.”
After a moment, she snorted. “Pow used to have nightmares at that age anyway, and just climbed into bed with our parents. Secretly, I liked those nights when I got the bed all to myself. I got to spread out.”
Caitlyn held back her own snort. That was true. When in Caitlyn’s “ridiculously big bed” (as Vi said), she would sprawl across it, sideways and slanted, all four limbs spread like a starfish. Due to her years in prison, she was a light sleeper, and sometimes her internal clock still woke up her at six in the morning, when the alarms would blare and batons would strike silver steel bars, wardens corralling inmates into a crowd for their first (and sometimes only) meal of the day, like a herding dog nipping at the heels of cattle. Cattle, animals, the way most of them viewed those who were imprisoned.
Vi occasionally brought up those times, those thoughts, memories and musings of the stony, salty fortress that had stolen precious seven years of her life. Years later, with countless regret sessions between them, both together and separate, Vi still brought it up almost casually sometimes, and it still made Caitlyn pause, peering carefully, cautiously, over at her wife, looking for any sign of discomfort or discontentment in her now-familiar facial features. Vi always caught on to it because of course she did. She always smiled softly and sighed, reaching out to brush Caitlyn’s hand or intertwine their hands, twisting their fingers together and saying the same thing every single time, something their therapist still said weekly. You can’t perfect the past, but you can focus on the future.
The future, like the way currently growing in Vi’s belly.
Now, Vi grinned at her, that damn scar pulling taut again. “Don’t tell her I said that, though.”
Caitlyn hummed. “I’ll put it on my calendar,” she chuckled. “To tell her when whenever…” She made a vague motion with her hand, flicking her wrist. “She comes back from wherever she’s docked for winter.”
“Probably somewhere warm,” Vi muttered a bit sullenly, like a particularly petulant child. “Ionia. Or Shurima.”
Vi had always hated the start of autumn and the chilling winds because it meant the loss of her beloved tank tops and ripped jeans. She exchanged them for sweaters and cargo pants, for gloves instead of hand wrappings, hats and scarves painstakingly sewn by the old ladies in the Sanctuary who were quite taken with Vi, even though Vi insisted they were not whenever she brought it casually in any conversation. Caitlyn also mourned the loss of not being able to see sweaty skin, rippling muscle, and swirling ink under Vi’s thick winter coat. That was why perhaps the end of the day was her favorite, when Vi returned home while Caitlyn sat up in bed, leaning against the ornately carved headboard with her reading glasses balanced on the sharp slope of her nose. She would be reading her recent cheap crime thriller novel (a guilty pleasure) or making notes on that current case that would most likely be nonsensical by morning light.
Vi would slip in and begin to shed her layers, swooping in to kiss Caitlyn on the lips, sometimes swiping the glasses off her nose and smirking, or squeezing Caitlyn’s knee and deepening the kiss, leading to Caitlyn helping her slide out of the rest of her garments and, well, and undergarments, only stopping to swat them away, throwing them unceremoniously on the ground—
“I hope she comes back by the time the snow melts,” Vi added now, pointing towards her stomach, hidden under the layers of the silly, silky robe that had once been Caitlyn’s, which was tight across Vi’s bigger frame, straining against her broad shoulders and bulging biceps. Caitlyn tore her gaze away when Vi reached out to pat the place she had been previously pointing at. “We have a lot to tell her.”
Caitlyn scowled, taking another sip of the spiced tea, which was now nearly gone. She would usually indulge in a second cup, but if Vi couldn’t consume any more caffeine, then she wouldn’t either. “No confetti. Or glitter. When we announced our engagement, it took ages to scrub the stains out of the rug in the study.”
Caitlyn frowned, pausing and recalling the explosion of paint and pieces of confetti that came out of the box Jinx had sent in the post. It still almost sent a shiver down the straight line of her spine. Almost.
Vi sent her a sideways glance. “That thing is ancient anyway. And ugly.”
“It’s an heirloom,” Caitlyn countered, sighing, the tips of her fingers tapping a tentative pace at already tender temples, a rather lackluster massage. “My great-grandmother’s, to be exact.”
“Yeah,” Vi huffed. “And she’s ancient too.”
Caitlyn let out a low, long breath, scraping the back of her throat and the tips of her top teeth. “Violet.”
Vi instantly fluttered her eyelashes, innocent as a fumbling spring fawn. “What?” She inquired, lifting her eyebrows. “I’ve seen her portraits. The ones in the West Wing? Scary-looking lady with the globe, looking like she owns the whole world?” She snorted at her own sentence before Caitlyn could even answer. “Probably thought she did, huh?” Her eyes rolled skyward, eyebrows suddenly furrowing. “I wonder what she’d think of me.”
Caitlyn raised one eyebrow. “You?”
“Yeah, you know.” Vi made a flicking motion with her fingers and a floppy wrist. “The Zaunite stray, the scoundrel, who seduced her way into the highest House in Piltover.”
Ah, the rubbish that had been published in Piltover’s tabloids and newspapers. In her own opinion, gossip rags had the same general use as the cloth she used to wipe the dogs’ paws off when she they were galloping and gallivanting around the back gardens. Its only use to her, personally, was to wipe away mud and filth, coating and covering the filth that had been printed and publicized all over the city.
Caitlyn tasted her other eyebrow, her expression feigning shock and surprise. “The redhead with piercings?”
Vi nodded vigorously. “And tattoos!”
“Scandalous!” Caitlyn hissed, gritting through the gap in her two top teeth.
“Uncouth!” Vi huffed, and then promptly plopped over in laughter, shoulders slanting and shaking ever so slightly, slowly.
Caitlyn hid her chuckle behind her cup, the way a prim, proper lady would gossip at a garden party, sipping tea and wearing silky gowns.
“I do hear she’s rather handsome, though,” Vi added once she had recovered, taking a respite from giggling like a gossiping schoolgirl. “And that her physique is simply phenomenal.”
“Hmm,” Caitlyn hummed. “I suppose so.”
“That’s why her great-grandmother, Matilda the pirate, doesn’t support their union, I hear.”
“Well, in your wise words, she’s rather ancient,” Caitlyn mumbled, fingertips scraping the cooling ceramic of her cup. It was a sign she would have to leave sooner rather than later, and it made her stomach sour and curdle. How she wished these morning could last forever, that she could capture and cork this moment in a glass bottle: Vi, with ruffled, restless hair, shimmering eyes, and the crooked corners of her mouth, hand splayed at the slight, subtle swell of her stomach as she laughed. Caitlyn briefly wondered if their baby would laugh the same way. “And so are her ideals.”
“And that portrait,” Vi added.
“Yes,” Caitlyn bit out, breaking character. She felt that twinge, that tug, to deplore, to defend. “But it’s tradition, to showcase the lineage, the l—”
Vi interrupted with the incline of her head, inquiring and inquisitive. “Don’t tell me you’re suddenly worried about trashing and tarnishing your ancestors’ legacy.” Caitlyn’s frown deepened, which only prompted Vi’s gloating, gaudy grin to widen, whole and wild. “Hells, I think I’ve even tarnished you under that portrait—”
“Ah,” came a deeper, different voice from the doorway to the hall beyond the sunroom. “Good morning, girls.”
She had had her head turned away from the doorway, the only point of entrance and exit in her blindside, something that only happened when Caitlyn felt completely comfortable and at ease, like when she was with Vi. Still, she sat straighter and spun around so fast she nearly knocked her mug off the tabletop, causing Vi to lift her eyebrows.
“Father,” she breathed.
Tobias looked between the two of them. “How long have you been up?”
“About an hour,” Vi replied as she reached for another pastry, this one a carefully-baked banana bread. It seemed their baby was bartering and begging for fruit.
“Ah,” Tobias hummed again. His dark eyes followed Vi’s movements as she brought the bread to her mouth. “Please do tell me you’ve had more than sugary sweets for breakfast, Violet.”
Vi nodded sheepishly. “Coffee,” she said, slurred and muffled by the pastry pieces in her mouth.
One blue, bushy brow raised. “Only one cup, correct?”
Vi nodded again, albeit a bit slowly, swallowing.
A tsk of a tough tongue. “Violet.”
“She’s only had one, Father,” Caitlyn sighed dismissively. “Stop scolding her like a child.”
“She’s carrying one,” Tobias protested, as he always did. He doted almost as much as the house staff these days, almost as worse as Percy and Andy, following Vi from room to room, whining and whispering. When Caitlyn asked for Vi’s thoughts, she just shrugged. She admitted that she did some humor in it. Who knew we’d see the day when pampered Pilties are tripping over themselves to cater and coddle a Zaunite.
Vi had laughed, but Caitlyn, crossed-armed, hadn’t.
“Yep,” Vi said now, popping the p. She patted that place on her stomach again. “Well aware of that fact, sir.”
Tobias’ softened at that term, more of a term of endearment these days. In the early days, Vi had been shy and sheepish around her father, bashful and blushing. She stuttered, calling him sir and Mr. Kiramman and the occasional Mr. Kiramman, sir. When Caitlyn had pressed, Vi admitted she had never brought a girl home before (though, technically, this was Caitlyn’s home) or met parents or anything of the sort. She never had the time for dating or crushes, too busy with bar work or watching over a rowdy sister and brothers. Vi had been nervous, fidgeting with the silk sheets as she told her tale, spinning the story of a girl who had to shoulder so, so much at such a young age. Caitlyn had kissed her silly afterwards, and the next time they shared tea together in the parlor, Vi dipped her head and said “Hey, Tobias.” Her father smiled, and Vi smiled back, and suddenly the sun was shining. Caitlyn had to hide her own smile behind the steam of her hot teacup.
With softness still in his eyes, he fixed Vi with a long look. “Oatmeal,” he offered, though it wasn’t quite one able to be declined. “Fiber. Protein.”
Vi shoved another bite of bread into her mouth, swallowing thickly. “This is banana bread.”
“Hmm,” Tobias hummed, already moving towards the pantry. “You need real fruit, Violet.”
Vi promptly sighed as she shoveled the last shred into her mouth, nearly slurping the way she did when eating the noodles at any Ionian restaurant. “Real fruit,” she muttered, muffled. “Right.”
Now, Caitlyn hid her smile behind the rim of her mug, that festering, fearful feeling twisting down to her stomach, like said seeds planting in fertile soil, spreading its roots. Fresh fruit was hard enough to get in the Lanes, especially in the dead of winter. You had to walk all the way to Piltie markets for the real, ripe things, with all their greenhouses and fancy schmancy stuff, or be overcharged in Zaun’s markets for shit that was half-spoiled anyway.
Her hands gripped the linen napkin in her lap, wrinkling it. Mom tried to get us a treat for Snowdown. Me and Pow would always split it.
Sweet, stubborn Violet. Always sharing, always slicing herself in half and then handing those halves off too.
She looked down at the crumbs on the table, sweet and sugary. It was smaller than an orange. Sweeter. Less sour.
Then she looked to her wife, who was staring down at her small porcelain plate, teeth piercing and biting her bottom lip, eyes almost wide and wanting.
Clementine. It just sounds good.
Instantly, Caitlyn stiffened, sitting up and straightening her shoulders, clearing (forcing) the lump out of her throat. Vi’s head snapped towards her as she suddenly stood, wiping stray crumbs off her buttoned-up blouse. “The post,” she said, rabidly, randomly, then proceeded to push out of the room.
Vi only raised an eyebrow, but didn’t make a move to stall or stop her. Clearing her throat once more, Caitlyn quickly cleared the front hall and the foyer, pushing open the grand double doors just as the courier raised his palm to press against it. The door swung open and Kieran stepped back, jaw soft and slack in surprise.
Caitlyn stared back at him, just as surprised. His gold and gray uniform glinted in the morning light, the sun just rising over Piltover’s tall towers and shining spires. His satchel swung on his shoulder as he stood taller, stiffening. For a brief moment, Caitlyn wondered if she had forgotten to put on her eyepatch this morning. No, she had. She could feel the elastic strap nestled next to her ear, next to that strand of hair on the side of her hair that simply refused to lie flat while she wore it when she was working.
“Mrs. Kiramman!” Kieran said, nearly a shout. She nearly expected him to scramble to salute, the way the rookie recruits did. “Er, Sheriff Kiramman. Good morning.”
Caitlyn blinked. She no longer flinched or fumbled at the name that had once been used in courtrooms and concert halls, in ballrooms and beautiful gardens, the name that had once belonged to her mother.
“I’m not on duty yet,” Caitlyn says coolly, trying not to give any more reason for Kieran to startle. She looked down at herself, her hair let long and loose and at her clothing choice of soft slacks and a sweater, a far cry from the gold-trimmed uniform and tight updo she donned during her shifts. “Evidently.”
Kieran gave a tight, shaky smile, as if not sure he was allowed to do so, and promptly said over the familiar silver correspondents tray, the same shiny steel her mother had used as she signed and sighed. “Here you are, Mrs. Kiramman.”
Caitlyn reached out and took it without sparing it a glance. Her fingers grazed thick envelopes and stiff stacks—probably updated patrol routes and reports, case files she had recently requested, and even more complaints from the Council, mostly Sevika—but she couldn’t bring herself to care for them at that moment.
Kieran flashed her another shaky smile, about to step away from the stoop, hand settling on his still-swinging satchel, when Caitlyn spoke. “Wait.”
Kieran looked over the slant of his shoulder, his smile quickly slipping sideways. “Ma’am?”
Caitlyn schooled her face into a neutral, normal expression. No reason to spook the poor man. “Does your company handle larger parcels?”
“Sometimes,” he replied, blinking, confused. “Ma’am.”
“Shipment delivery?” She pressed on.
“That could be arranged, yes.”
“In bulk?”
Dark, bushy brows bunched together. “Yes?” He said slowly, scratching at his clean-shaven chin. “I mean, the House Beaumont has fresh fruit flown in. They order baskets of fresh fruit in bulk for their big winter gala.”
House Beaumont. Fresh fruit. In bulk.
“Oh,” Caitlyn said. She was silent for a moment then, thinking, aware of the young man upon her front steps, staring back up at her. “Thank you, Kieran. That will be all.”
“Oh,” he replied. “You’re… welcome?”
The rest of his sentence was cut off as the double doors closed and Caitlyn started to stride towards her study, the mere pieces of a plan planting themselves in her mind like sizzling seeds.