Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

(art credit to @/li3nz0 on Twitter)

Jayce hears the melody for the first time as a young boy.

He and his mother are traveling through the deep, dark wood, the snow falling so hard and so fast that Jayce can hardly see her bare hand gripped tightly in his own, let alone the road they travel.

Piltover was meant to be a light at the end of their long, difficult path, but all Jayce sees before him is ice cutting through the darkness. He feels nothing but frigid wind and unyielding snow, biting at his cheeks, his nose.

He wishes he still had his blanket, but he dropped it, and it’s long gone to the wind now.

His mother stumbles and falls. He tries to get her up again, but his body is small and his grip is weak, and he feels himself tumble to the ground beside her. Jayce knows he ought to be crying, and maybe he is, but the wind whips away any tears that manage to escape through the crust of painful frost beginning to accumulate on his numb, stinging face.

We are going to die here, he thinks.

But then he hears it: a melody, cutting through the roaring snow. A beacon not of light but of sound, summoning them forward: deftly plucked strings, a high tune, lilting, sweet and strong and gentle in the air.

A song, blooming in the dark.

Could it be the ferryman’s call come to carry them to the other side? Maybe. But Jayce doesn’t think so. It sounds too real.

Maybe it’s a sign of another living thing somewhere close, somewhere safe: a warm pocket of hope tucked away, hidden from the groaning storm.

Jayce uses what little strength he has left and drags his listless mother to her feet, pulling her towards the music.

Despite their soft quality, the notes cut clearly through the air, resting somewhere both above and under the howling wind. Jayce hopes he isn’t imagining them, but he doesn’t spend much of his energy on the thought. He has so little energy left that if he wastes more than a moment debating his next course of action he knows he will freeze in place. And so he follows the notes through the dark, putting his trust in them, putting his life and his mother’s on the line, regardless of whether the music is real or not.

His boots and socks are sodden, heavy with ice. He moves through the thickening banks only with great effort, dragging his mother along, muscles straining and pulling. There is a noise like thunder, and Jayce watches in horror as the bough of a tree crashes to the ground behind them close enough for him to reach out and touch. It would have crushed them if he’d been just a bit slower. 

He tries to pull his mother along faster, but it’s so hard, and he’s so tired, and what little light remains begins to dim and go fuzzy before him. He closes his eyes and pulls his mother forward blindly, and the music crescendos, the notes growing faster and more frantic, until—

The air is quiet. The wind goes still, as though they’ve stepped through a doorway into the warmth of a lodge and shut the door behind them. 

The clearing they find themselves in, wherever they are, is green and lush and still, a spring meadow growing up and out of the snow, a foreign season transplanted into the heart of the wood. A ring of swaying trees surrounds a patch of soft grass and fragrant wildflowers, and there’s a stream bubbling up out of a cave, and—

Jayce glances behind them, back into the trees they emerged from, and watches the storm rage on silently just a few feet away. He cannot hear the howling wind, cannot feel the punishing snowfall, as though this small green clearing is in a bubble, though there is no barrier visible to his eyes.

It takes a moment for Jayce to recognize the green place for what it is: a magical glade, protected by the pantheon’s power. Nothing else makes sense: this place must be divine.

He hopes whatever god it belongs to is a kind one.

It takes his ears a moment to adjust to the quiet, but he realizes that although the glade is protected from the roaring storm, it isn’t entirely silent. There is the sound of Jayce’s own haggard panting, the sound of his mother’s quiet, pained breaths, and—there it is again, that strange harp-like melody emerging, clearer and louder than ever, from somewhere within the depths of the cave

Jayce checks his mother’s condition as best he can. She’s fallen into a deep sleep, breaths shallow but even, and once he ensures she’s as comfortable as possible, lying on the soft green grass, he ventures forward.

Maybe whoever is making the music can help her. Maybe they can take them to the city.

Maybe, maybe, maybe…

The mouth of the cave yawns wide and black, the darkness warm and moving like the breath of a great beast. Jayce takes a deep breath and steels himself against the fear that it might swallow him up.

“Hello?” He calls into the mouth of the cave. “Hello! Is… Is there anyone there?”

There is no response, but the music stops immediately, the song going unfinished. In the silence Jayce suddenly feels very, very alone.

“Hello…?” he repeats, quieter now. The darkness of the cave seems to draw him forward,  pulling him in, even though at this point he would really like nothing more than to be able to back away; but he looks back at his mother, and knows he can’t give up, not yet. “P-please come out. My mom, she’s—she’s hurt, she needs help. Please.”

And then, like magic, there is a boy standing before him, with eyes wide and glowing gold like embers sparking alive in the forge. The boy leans in close, his face only inches away from Jayce’s, and for a moment they are both still. Neither talks, neither breathes. And Jayce can’t help but notice:

The boy is beautiful, in a strange, sharp sort of way. He’s taller than Jayce by a few inches, but he’s not nearly as soft or stout, like he’s made up of angles that narrow and widen indiscriminately. He’s maybe a few years older than Jayce, but no more than that—that is, if his appearance is to be trusted. It might make him a fool but Jayce is inclined to think that it is. 

Intelligence glints in his burning-ember eyes. Not quite wisdom, but something akin to it. Something strange and new. Something divine.

This is what proves to Jayce that the boy is special, inhuman, post-human: his beautiful burning eyes.

Jayce averts his gaze and ducks his hooded head into a clumsy bow, trying and failing to  and trying again to remember the rituals of respect to use when meeting a god. If the boy is a godling, then it’s best to give him the respect he’s due; and if not, a bit of humility never hurts, right? He bows his head even lower until he’s staring at his own boots and at the pale feet of the boy before him.

“Hello,” Jayce says again, uncertainly. “Um. Do you think you can help us? Please?”

Something soft touches Jayce’s cheeks and he jolts his head up, eyes wide, finding that his face is in the boy’s hands. His shining eyes are even closer than they were before, his gaze one part calculating, one part cautious, and another part curious. Jayce stands stock-still and waits as the boy seems to search for some unknown answer to an unasked question, but after another moment, he steps back, hands falling from Jayce’s cheeks before reaching back out and taking one of Jayce’s hands in his own.

“Yes,” the boy says decidedly, his accent lilting and warm. “Yes, I will help you.” Jayce has never heard anyone—anything—like it before, and it’s music to his ears.

***

The boy works quietly, and Jayce cannot do anything except stand, and watch, and haltingly pace around the glade, shedding his coat and his hat as he warms and begins to sweat. He keeps the large mittens he wears on his trembling hands as he watches the boy rest his wooden cane on the ground, kneeling beside Jayce’s mother, taking her pulse and listening to the wheezing of her lungs, to the beating of her heart. Jayce watches as the boy examines her hand and frowns at her fingers, blackened by the frost. The boy brings that same hand to his lips and breathes, warmth and magic on his breath.

Jayce averts his eyes. Sometimes, magic feels like something he was not meant to see; not in this life, in any case.

But his mother’s wheezing breaths relax, and the furrow on her brow eases into an expression more peaceful and serene, as though her pain has been washed away.

The boy picks up his cane and stands, leaning on it heavily, and glances back over at Jayce.

“Is she okay…?” Jayce finally asks, leaning forward, stumbling. “Did you heal her?”

“I did what I could,” the boy responds, glancing at Jayce’s mom’s hand surreptitiously, “but I am no healer. She will lose the fingers, I think, but she will live. When the morning comes, the storm will end and she will wake.”

“Oh, okay,” Jayce says as he looks down at his own hands, covered in his mother’s mittens, thick, woolen and warm. He takes a shuddering breath and repeats: “Okay!” His vision blurs as his eyes begin to well up with tears, but he clenches his fists as best as he can through the thick fabric and tries not to cry. “Thank you,” he says. “For helping her.”

Jayce almost can’t believe that any of this is real. He wants to go home, but home is so, so far away, and he’s never going to be able to return there. He knows this, he knows, but he can’t help wanting. He’s always wanted more than he can have. He’s always wanted.

What he really wants is for his mother to wake up now, not in the morning. He wants to wake up and realize that this has all been a bad dream: his father’s death, his mother’s decision to move them both far away in order to try and build a new life, one free from all the things they’d left behind…

But it isn’t a dream. There’s nothing for Jayce to wake up from.

A warm breeze drifts up from the dark cave and ruffles Jayce’s hair and he feels himself beginning to sway, but before he even realizes he’s falling, the boy is before him again, slipping his fingers under the hems of Jayce’s mittens, sliding them off of his hands, taking Jayce’s hands in his own.

The boy’s hands are sharp and warm and dry, and they burn like embers in Jayce’s tender, wanting heart.

“Don’t cry,” the boy says earnestly in his lovely lilting voice. “You’ve done very well. It was a good idea, for you to bring your mother to this place… She will be safe here. So will you,” he adds, as he squeezes Jayce’s fingers. “You did a good thing. You saved her.”

Jayce sniffles somewhat pathetically, and almost before he knows what he’s doing, he throws himself forward, wrapping his arms around the boy in a tight hug, giving in to the urge and beginning to finally sob in earnest abandon.

It’s not Jayce’s most inspired idea. The boy loses his balance, and Jayce knocks against his cane, and they both end up stumbling to the ground.

“Sorry, sorry…!” Jayce cries, but the boy just holds him tightly, making shh-shh-shh sounds, and through waves of sobs and shuddering breaths Jayce feels himself wash away with the tide.

After the tears begin to ebb, Jayce comes back to himself. He finds that he is now sitting next to the boy, leaning heavily against him, and that the boy is patting his back, gently humming a now-familiar tune.

“I heard your song before,” Jayce croaks with a sniffle. “I-I really like it.”

The humming stops, the boy flushing and looking away. “It was nothing,” he says quickly, “I was just practicing, I’m not any good.”

“You are!” Jayce sits up. “You’re really good! A-and it was your song that led us here in the first place. That led me here. So… It’s a good song. You’re good. Thank you.”

“…It was nothing,” the boy says again, glancing back toward the cave.

“My name is Jayce,” he says after a moment, attempting to ease the discomfort the boy seems to be feeling. It seems to work well enough.

“It is very nice to meet you, Jayce.”

Under the boy’s comforting touch and soft voice, Jayce suddenly feels heavy, like he’s weary  down to his bones. He is more exhausted than he’s ever felt before, and the boy must notice that Jayce’s eyelids are beginning to droop, even in the darkness of the glade. He helps Jayce lie down in the grass and presses a warm, dry palm over Jayce’s eyes.

“Sleep,” he says. “You’ll be safe here.”

And Jayce sleeps.

***

He wakes in the morning to his mother’s sobs, to her arms clutching him tightly against herself.

The ground around the two of them is covered in a fine layer of snow, and there is no grass to be seen, no melody to be heard. The storm has passed, and in the light of day, the swaying of the trees around them is more calming than frightening. Birds sing in the branches, and Jayce hears an apology in the whispering of the wind.

The cave is gone with the grass, as though they had never been there at all, and Jayce’s breath hitches as he realizes that the boy is gone, too. 

In his hands, though, Jayce finds that he is clutching something unfamiliar. He runs a hand over wood patterned with hammered metal and rough, glimmering stones, gems worth more than anything he or his mother have ever known: a lyre. 

Jayce’s thumb catches on a string, and a single note rings through the trees, clear and strong and true.

***

Years go by, and Jayce does not see the boy again.

He thinks of him often, though: brown curls dancing in the breeze, his voice dancing on a familiar melody, golden eyes gleaming like fire in the night… Jayce catalogs his memories of the boy whose music saved his life as he and his mother adjust to Piltover. He studies his memories as he starts school. He lists his fading recollections as he learns to work the forge at his mother’s side, as he makes friends and loses them, rising through the ranks of the academy he attends. He thinks of the boy fondly at first, then longingly, then nostalgically and distantly, until  one day he realizes that he is 24 years old and that it has been fifteen years since his arrival, fifteen long years since that snowy night in the glade.

Jayce graduates from the academy with honors. His professors sing his praises and tell him he has nothing left to learn from them. In their discordant voices they say he will be a scientist or a mathematician, perhaps a historian or philosopher. That the rest will come with time and experience, that if he stays his course he might do great things. 

An inventor, his mother calls him. She beams and wraps her arms around him in a loving hug, the metal prosthetic fingers Jayce made for her cold and firm against his back. His mother is proud, so proud of him as he takes his work in the forge more seriously, as his craftsmanship improves and even surpasses her own, surpasses everyone’s.

Blessed by Hephaestus, they say, marveling, amazed. But anyone who knows him well knows that he has been blessed by Apollo, too. Jayce has spent the last fifteen years studying the forge and crafting, yes, but he’s done more than that, is more than that. Jayce has spent the last fifteen years mastering the art of the lyre, as well. 

It was mere curiosity at first that sent Jayce scrambling to teach himself to play, to try and replicate the song the boy had played. But his curiosity became interest, and interest turned to delight, and delight to a frustrated, ambitious passion. He practiced every day, poured hours into playing and writing and singing along, until the lyre cemented itself as the instrument of Jayce’s heart. Now, when he plays, there isn’t a soul in the city who doesn’t stop to listen.

But music doesn’t pay his and his mother’s bills, and new strings cost money they’ve never really had.

Jayce tells himself that he pushes his music aside out of necessity, and he’s almost certain that it’s true. 

He tries, over the years, to find the glade and the cave again, but his efforts are fruitless. So far as he can tell, it is gone, along with the godling, vanished into the wind.

***

Jayce works alone in the workshop one night, the burning forgelight illuminating the surface of the anvil as he hammers a blade flat. His body burns with the effort he puts in, and it feels good, feels right, for the most part. He thinks he’s like a weapon himself, in a way: hardened metal, shining until the blade loses its edge, only to be sharpened again.

He has been working on this blade for days now, sketching the design, and shaping the ore  until he becomes dissatisfied, and starts reworking the metal anew.

He’d used to dream of nights like these: of being able to wholly devote himself to his craft, to the artistry of it; and that’s what this blade is going to be: a work of art. It could function as a weapon; if wielded in earnest, its owner would find it perfectly balanced, perfectly weighted. Perfect. But Jayce doubts it’ll ever get the chance, seeing as though its commissioner is a councilman who Jayce privately thinks won’t ever see a hard day’s work this side of the century.

It’s a blessing, he tells himself through a sigh as he rolls his aching shoulders and holds the metal out to the light of the forge yet again. A blessing to have received a commission from such a… respectable client.

It was more luck than anything else that word of his skills had spread so far and wide. Jayce Talis, they called him, the boy with the golden hands. And even though it rankles that this is what he’s known for (all he’s known for, says the cynical voice creeping in the back of his mind), he now at least receives enough requests for commissions to get to choose between them. Except for when his clients outrank him, of course. 

So: Now he’s here, bludgeoning a perfectly good piece of bronze into a pointlessly hammered mess.

Jayce’s mother now has more money than she knows what to do with. Jayce gets more attention for his work than he ever has, even when he was still at the height of his popularity in the academy. He has countless achievements under his belt and a myriad of patrons who promise they’re willing to wait as long as it might take in order to receive their completed commissions, their outlandish swords and ridiculous shields, heavy lidded vessels, hunting horns and harps and tools and sculptures—all of which Jayce knows will inevitably end up unused on shelves, growing layers of dust and rust and rot.

Frustrating himself by thinking about it, Jayce casts his hammer aside and cards his fingers through his short coarse hair. 

The forge was supposed to be where he was meant to be. It was what he’d been raised for, what he’s been working towards for his whole life. And yet it wasn’t the life he longed for. It wasn’t what he loved, what he wanted, because, well—

Jayce knows that deep down, he doesn’t have the spirit of a craftsman. He’s too soft for it, too much of a dreamer, a yearner, a wanter. No, Jayce has the heart of a musician. Music is undeniably his true calling, his purpose. He’s known it ever since he first worked out a tune on his lyre, on that precious, beautiful gift given to him freely all those years ago.

Stuck in between the heat of the dying forge and the chill of the breezy night air, Jayce’s heart is gripped with a longing so powerful it leaves him breathless.

It’s late enough to head home now. It has been for hours, really: the moon is high in the starry sky, and all of the assistants and workers are long gone. Jayce is alone in the forge.

He’s alone as he packs up shop, alone as he opens the door and steps out into the cool night. He’s alone as he walks down empty streets, alone as he ducks through the doorway of the family home he and his mother share, too large for just the two of them, and he’s alone as he grabs his lyre and slips back out into the night.

Firelight flashes from hanging lanterns and streetside firepits, the heat warming his skin as Jayce passes through the thrumming crowd of a late-night market for some god’s festival, he’s not sure which. One of the angry ones, probably, with sacrifices and plagues and the like. He almost wishes there was a plague on him as he shoulders his way through the mob of hawkers and revelers, cradling his lyre carefully in his arms, valiantly defending it from the errant elbows and straying hands of masked strangers in their brightly dyed chitons and himations spilling down from broad shoulders, seeming to dance of their own volition in the breeze.

Nobody in the crowd is looking at Jayce, clothed in grey, green and black, blending in with the night. Nobody sees him. 

Does anybody ever really see him? He isn’t sure.

He emerges from the crowd, and making his way through the darkness eventually finds his way to the outskirts of the city, to the fields and farmlands, onwards all the way up to the cliffs overlooking the sea and the city and the forest alike. From here, Jayce feels like he can see it all: every aspect of his life condensed into one view.

Jayce feels a shiver as it arcs up his spine.

To the north is home and the forge. The white stone buildings that make up the center of Piltover glow in the bright light of the full moon, columns stretching high above the fields of dark grain swaying between himself and the city.

Jayce turns.

To the east are fields and cliffs, rolling hills and bluffs covered in wildflowers stretching as far as the eye can see. There are other cities, somewhere over the horizon, cities larger than even Piltover, places full of love and warmth, hatred and violence. How many friends has Jayce lost to that distance? How many more will he lose?

There are wars being fought past those hills, he thinks, fought by swords I’ve forged.

Again, he turns.

To the south, Jayce sees the calm waters of the sea. There are ships on the glimmering waves, dark shapes passing in the night, their lanterns lit as they dot a plodding path towards the islands and outposts on the horizon. He wonders where they came from, what they carry: spices and oils and perfumes, furs and tools, people and their vibrant, beautiful, horrible dreams… Below the cliffs, Jayce sees sandy white beaches glowing grey-ish in the shadow of the cliffs, leagues and leagues below. A smattering of light drifts beneath the waves closest to the shore: small creatures full of light? Or, perhaps it’s merely the runoff of some divine conflict, drops of a god’s blood drifting through the seafoam, impossible to be restrained. 

One last time, Jayce turns.

To the west is the forest. To the west is, in the imperceptible distance, the place he and his mother are from. Their homeland, if you can call it that. Not so distant is the memory of a strange, slender boy with a cane and warm, sharp hands, the memory of a voice like a ballad, rising and falling and lilting in unfamiliar yet comforting tones.

Jayce has not seen the boy since that night, all those years ago. Fifteen years have passed him by and despite everything good he has—despite his mother, despite his friends, his patrons, and his mostly-pleasant colleagues—despite it all, Jayce feels more alone than he ever has.

And, when Jayce feels lost in his longings, when he feels most adrift and alone, he indulges in his heart’s greatest desire: music. Always his music, carrying him home.

Jayce takes his lyre and heads west, towards the forest, towards a memory from so long ago yet so close he can almost grasp it in his hands.

The forest is dark and deep, but the moon is full and bright, and Jayce’s eyes have already adjusted enough to the night for him to make his way into the trees just fine. Lonely as he is, Jayce feels more at home alone in the trees than he does anywhere in Piltover.

Though he has long since strayed from the road, the way he takes through the trees is a familiar one. He’s sure now that the glade he and his mother sheltered in no longer exists, never did, or that it simply no longer wants to be found. That hasn’t stopped him from trying, though. He’s made his way through these trees many times, trying to find the place, trying to find him, and though he has failed at that, he has at the very least found a decent spot or two to play his music in relative solitude. 

He finds himself making his way to his favorite of those spots: a ledge overlooking a deep crevasse in the ground, surrounded by the dilapidated foundations of what must have once been a village, or perhaps even a small town. Ancient stone walls slump off into the crevasse, which is really more of a ravine, into a darkness so deep that even during the daytime is too dark for Jayce to see the bottom of.

There are no signs that anyone else has been here for a long, long time. No road leads here, no track, no trail. Jayce thinks that he might be the only one left in the world who knows it ever existed at all.

He knows that the ledge is a dangerous place to spend his time. Perhaps that’s why he continues to seek it out: for the feeling he gets when he leans over the edge just a touch too far, the thrill of fear that jolts him back to himself. Being so close to the edge makes Jayce feel alive, in a twisted sort of way.

Sitting there, with his legs dangling off the edge, Jayce begins to hum a melody he’s had memorized, has been etched into his heart for more than most of his life. His lyre in hand, strings beginning to vibrate as his fingers start to fly, Jayce sings.

Several things happen, then:

A deer emerges from the trees, and Jayce quiets immediately. It is a white deer, with great, sprawling antlers like branches on an elder tree. An elk, maybe. The world seems to go still as he stares into its eyes, black and shining in the night, stark against the glow of its white fur; for a moment, the moon seems to brighten, its pale glow flooding the ruins.

It huffs, and Jayce’s finger slips against a string, the discordant note sending the beast startling, moving at the exact moment that an arrow pierces through the air, missing its mark and thudding into the trunk of a tree, sizzling and smoking, smoking and glowing in tandem with the white light beaming down from the sky.

A crackle of energy makes his hairs stand on end and Jayce stumbles to his feet as another arrow whirs by. This time, the hunter’s aim is true, and the beautiful, noble animal is pierced through the throat, its blood spurting red against its pale fur as it pathetically bleats, and huffs, and falls.

The light dims, and the animal lies there dying, maybe already dead, and Jayce’s eyes go wide as something begins to emerge from the trees, her movement somehow both fluid and tense, like a predatory animal stalking its prey. She is a sight that is impossible to truly behold. He thinks she has the features of a person but he cannot place them, the knowledge of her true nature sliding from his mind like a drop of water rolling off of a pane of glass.

Jayce watches, stunned, as she leans down to press a bloody kiss against the animal’s throat before tearing the arrow from its flesh. Jayce feels, more than sees, the weight of an angered gaze falling on him for just a moment as she tears the arrow that missed from the trunk of the tree, before her anger fades into irritation, then to disdainful indifference.

Jayce isn’t sure whether he stumbles back in surprise or whether the ground simply gives way from underneath him. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. He couldn’t have possibly avoided the drop either way.

Time slows down again as he falls into the ravine; a lifetime passes by in a matter of seconds. Over the wind rushing past his ears, past the uncaring, unaffected glow of the moon, Jayce swears he can almost make out a melody, the very same melody he has kept close to his heart for so long.

But, no. There is no music, and he is as alone as he ever is. Jayce feels himself falling, and then he feels himself hitting the ground, body and lyre and all, and then he can feel nothing at all.

***

Jayce is not solitary by nature. There are so many people he loves, has loved, will love: Caitlyn, for instance, the daughter of his first (and if he’s being honest, his most generous) patron. She’s been like a little sister to him since they met, even if she doesn’t understand his love for music, even if she doesn’t quite get him. He doesn’t share her love for the hunt, but he loves her all the same. He goes with her to the fields when she goes out to shoot, carries her bow and quiver of arrows alongside his lyre, and he sits and plays and listens as she talks and shoots.

“I’ve met someone, Jayce,” she’d whispered the last time they’d walked the fields together, a few weeks ago, just before Jayce had begun working on his latest series of commissions. Her eyes were bright, the way they always were whenever the two of them made it out to the countryside together.

“Mm-hm, have you?” He’d responded in a low, teasing tone. “And did you meet him at one of your mother’s dinner parties, or one of your father’s games?”

She’d shoved him to the side and he’d laughed and shoved her right back (gently, of course: he might craft swords and hammers and test them to the best of his abilities, but Jayce was no fighter).

“No! Of course not, Jayce, don’t be ridiculous. Her name is Violet, and I met her in the woods!”

“Naturally,” Jayce said, picking a good spot to sit and beginning to pluck through a new melody he’d been working on. “The woods! Where else? I guess that’s a step up from the weaver’s market. Or the brothels…”

“She’s a hunter, you know,” Caitlyn said, no longer really listening to him. “A nymph, I think. One of Lady Artemis’ attendants.” She glanced up at Jayce, whose eyes had widened in surprise, and then she’d flushed and looked away. “Oh, shut up!”

“I didn’t say anything! Didn’t say anything at all.”

“I’m going to see her again soon. They’re camped nearby, might even be staying for the rest of the season…” Caitlyn drew an arrow from her quiver, set it to the bow, and pulled the string taut, looking straight-on, clear-eyed. She let it fly, and the projectile whipped through the air, its aim as true as ever. She turned her bright gaze towards Jayce and grinned. “I might even join them. Just for a little while, if they’ll have me.”

Jayce hesitated for a moment, then tentatively smiled. “They’d be lucky to have you. You’re one hell of a shot, Sprout. The best shot in Piltover,” he said before hastily adding “excepting the gods, of course.” You never knew when they were listening, after all.

“I know I am,” she responded with a sly grin. “And my mother couldn’t possibly say no to a goddess, could she?”

Jayce had agreed with a laugh, and they’d left it at that. He didn’t ask about Violet. He didn’t ask about the nymphs or their camp. He didn’t ask anything. 

He should have asked. He should have stayed out of the forest. He should have hugged Caitlyn more, should have gone home after work, should have told his mother he loved her, one last time. He should have—

But what’s done was done. Too late now for regrets.

Too late now.

***

He wakes up, eventually. It’s hazy and barely any light reaches him. He’s not sure how long it’s been—only a day or two at most, he hopes.

Is anyone looking for him? He wonders if anyone has even noticed that he is gone. He wonders if it was Artemis who he saw in the ruins. He feels like he knows nothing, like he has nothing.

His lyre lays in pieces next to him, broken far beyond his skill to repair.

He is in agony. His heart is in pieces. He is probably going to die.

Jayce feels exhausted. He’s delirious, probably, and his leg is definitely broken. Shattered, probably. He can’t move it and he can’t bear to look at it and it hurts like nothing he’s ever felt before, so he doesn’t try to get up. Not yet, in any case. He might be half-starved and bruised to Styx and back, but he isn’t stupid. He’s never been stupid.

And so, his first course of action is to take stock of the situation, and try his best to stay calm. The next step is to use his wits and the resources available to him in order to make a plan.

Jayce steels himself against the pain, and after some deliberation, makes the decision that he is going to survive this. And when Jayce sets his mind to something, there is very little that can be done to shake him.

***

He manages to pull himself together, eventually. His leg is a lost cause, and he can’t do much more than drag himself around using his hands and forearms, but he manages to cobble together a makeshift brace, a splint to keep the bones more or less in place. He uses a few sturdy branches he finds, affixing it to himself with the strings and some of the metal pieces from his broken lyre. The gift that keeps on giving, he thinks irrationally. It isn’t perfect, and it still hurts so badly every time he moves that he feels like he might scream or cry. Usually both. But it gets the job done.

The walls of the ravine are far too slippery and steep for him to climb, even if his body was in top form, which it absolutely, absolutely isn’t. The gorge itself seems to curve off in the distance—towards an exit, maybe? He can’t tell. It is too far for him to go, for the time being.

He’s been hungry from the second he woke up, so he sets to finding something, anything, to fill his stomach, but all he finds is a handful of half-recognizable herbs and some strange little lizards. The herbs are hardly more than a mouthful, bitter and astringent in taste, gritty and fibrous in texture, but he eats them all. He spares the lizards for the time being. He thinks about killing them, then thinks about the felling of the white deer and can’t bring himself to hurt them, and although he is starved, he isn’t hungry enough to eat raw reptile flesh. Not yet, at least.

It’s probably for the best that he leaves them, though. He’s never been quite sure what exactly the rules are when it comes to eating wild animals. He feels like you can never be completely sure they aren’t sacred or beloved by some god or another, and the last thing he wants is to be struck down by divine provenance before he can even begin to get himself back up again.

(Plus, the lizard had these great big eyes, shiny and curious and kind of cute, in an angular kind of way. They almost remind him of a certain god-child he met so long ago. Though, it might just be the hallucinatory delirium putting strange ideas in his head.)

Days and nights pass. Jayce eats more bitter leaves and some moss, drinks from a puddle of rainwater, and tries to keep himself together, down there in the dark, damp, mossy depths. 

He tries to keep track of the days by the brief moment of sunlight he gets around midday. Otherwise, he is mired in shadow. He starts noticing mushrooms, which glow gently in the dim light. He eats those too, even though they cause shapes, colors and sounds to swim across his vision like angry ghosts wading through thick fog. He tells himself he is building up his strength, even as he feels himself growing weaker day by day. His leg alternates between flares of agony and going completely numb. His wounds have started to fester, and he can feel the rot beginning to spread. He knows it is a bad sign. Jayce waits, though what he waits for he isn’t sure.

He sleeps.

He sleeps.

He sleeps.

***

It is always night now, he thinks.

The world has closed in on him. The ravine’s deep purples and blues become gray, and everything becomes dark, the distant stars mocking him like buzzing flies. They flutter into his ears. Were they stars or flies…? He feels like he is falling, always. Has he always been falling? Did he ever even make it to the city after that night, all those years ago? Is he dying? Has he always been dead?

What a world, he thinks, and grins, and sobs.

The walls of the ravine grow tighter around him, claustrophobically tight, as rocks become cancerous growths, multiplicities of tolling deaths, and all the mossy vines creep and spin into letters in the soil around him.

He eats a handful of oddly shaped leaves but can’t keep them down. He writhes about in the decay, feeling himself decaying along with it. Jayce digs his ragged fingernails into the ground and screams.

In the distance there is a note, a flash of musical gold. A familiar melody.

Music is a nice thing to hear, Jayce thinks, when you’re dying. 

He sleeps.

***

Jayce wakes to warmth, to comfort and softness. He feels floaty, sort of like he’s drifting in a dream. His senses aren’t dulled, exactly; it’s more like they’ve been soothed, as though the gods have seen his pain and are taking pity on him, at least for the time being.

He wonders where he is, or when he is. Is this what death feels like…? Strange. It’s all so strange…

Blearily, he blinks his eyes open to a scene stranger than anything he could have imagined: an earthy room, full of trinkets, tools and tapestries, all bathed in the warm glow of golden-hour sun. Light filters in through angled panes of glass connecting the low wooden ceiling to walls painted with golden designs, ancient and peeling, the glow covering the corners of the floor with a modest shine.

Something smells good in the room, although Jayce can’t tell the source: something cooking, or baking, maybe. Smoked herbs and fresh bread…

Jayce blinks. He is very, very hungry, he realizes, though not nearly as badly as he was when trapped in the nightmare of the chasm. He tries to sit up, but doesn’t quite have the strength, and he’s too comfortable anyways. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so comfortable in his whole life, and laying there in the soft bed, his leg barely pains him at all…

There are blankets draped over him, warm and thick. He finds his eyes widening when he sees the topmost one. It’s a verifiable work of art, patchwork, made of every kind of fabric Jayce  can imagine, a myriad of colors. Almost in a daze, Jayce finds himself running a trembling hand over the rough edge of one of its patches—

Thin, soft wool, dyed a deep blue. There are signs of the wool having been mended with golden thread, and Jayce recognizes it, because he picked that fabric, picked that thread, watched as his mother and father sewed it together for him—

The patch is from his blanket. The one he’d lost when he was a child, a castaway in the snow… 

And then—

The door on the far side of the room swings open and Jayce sees him, him, light streaming past as though he’s haloed by the sun.

A young man with brown curls and golden eyes enters the dwelling and shuts the door quietly behind him, his graceful movements steadied by the tall wooden staff he leans on. He tiptoes across the floor holding a bowl full of some kind of stew. He is beautiful; cloaked in that same blue fabric punctuated by gold, like he’s wearing the night sky, like he’s covered in the stars. The skin exposed by his himation is pale and marked by divinity: deep purple marks swoop and curl across his arms, his hands, his chest, his cheek: beautiful, Jayce thinks. A small smile plays across the man’s lips, and as he sets down the food and begins tidying the mess on one of the many cluttered surfaces of the room, he starts to hum a familiar tune.

Jayce is staring, staring, staring, mouth hanging open, eyes wide as he looks and looks and looks. He drinks in the sight like a drowning man breaking through to the surface of the water, taking in that first sweet gasp of air.

The man looks up from the clutter and goes still as he sees him staring. Jayce tries to speak, but his voice comes out a dull, dry croak. The man’s golden eyes go wide, and he grasps his staff as he makes his way to Jayce’s bedside.

There is a pitcher of water next to a wooden cup, both sitting on a nightstand that Jayce hadn’t noticed in his survey of the room. The man leans his staff against the wall and takes a seat on the mattress next to Jayce. He pours a stream of crystal-clear water from the pitcher into the cup, before crumbling in some kind of dried herb. 

Jayce is completely unfamiliar with herb-lore; for all he knows, the herb is some kind of poison. For all he knows, the man is going to kill him, or use him for some ill purpose: sacrifice him, maybe, or eat him himself…

“Drink,” the man says softly, as he cradles the back of Jayce’s head with one narrow and graceful hand, tipping the cup towards Jayce’s dry, cracked lips with the other. 

He could resist. He could close his lips and let the water run down his face. He could knock the cup out of the man’s hand, could muster his strength and try to make a run for it—

Jayce drinks deeply. 

“Slowly,” the man adds when he sees Jayce hastily gulping the water down. The cup gets pulled away before Jayce is done, but it is probably for the best.

Jayce pauses, and gives himself a moment to breathe.

“Um. Hi,” he finally croaks.

“Hello,” the man responds indulgently.

“Where are we…?” Jayce asks.

“In my home,” the stranger replies, his voice slow and deep and comforting. “You have been here for some days now; I found you in the deep forest, dying. I brought you here so that you might recover—” 

Jayce reaches out a weak hand and clasps it around one of the stranger’s, as firmly and gratefully as he can. He tries to impart as much meaning as he can into his gaze, finding that he doesn’t have quite the right words to express what he feels. There is a sensation in his chest that was not there before. He thinks that his heart is a forge that has lain dormant for more than half of his life, and that a fire has just been lit there. Yes, that’s what it is: his heart is on fire, and it’s a raging, all-consuming blaze. The parts of him that were in the dark have now come into the light, he thinks. He feels so, so sorry, and so grateful, and he wonders if this is what love feels like—

“You’re still delirious, then,” the man says. His brows are furrowed, but Jayce watches, enraptured, as a pretty blush spreads across his cheeks. 

Jayce realizes he must have said some of his thoughts out loud. He isn’t sure which parts stayed in and which made it out, but it doesn’t matter. “I’m not,” Jayce says, “I’m not delirious, I meant it. Whatever I said.” 

He wants to reach out and touch the man’s hair; it’s feathery and layered, a nice dark brown color, and it looks like it would be very soft to touch, but his hand is still occupied with hand-holding, and he’s probably not strong enough to lift his arm up all that way just yet. He notices the mole on the man’s cheekbone and realizes he would very much like to lick it. At that thought, Jayce feels his own face flushing. The man laughs incredulously, but doesn’t pull his hand away.

“I feel like I know you,” Jayce blurts out, the words tumbling out in an attempt to keep himself from saying something else even more off-putting, even if he would mean all of it.

The man startles, face turning even redder than before. “You don’t even know my name!”

“I want to,” Jayce says, earnest and wide-eyed. He feels like a boy again, somehow. Like things are going to be different now. “I want to know about you.”

“That’s not—”

“My name’s Jayce! Jayce Talis. Like the hammer, we make those! Now you know about me!” Jayce says, breathless, squeezing the man’s hand in his own. “So. Um. What’s yours? Your name?”

The man laughs again, even more incredulous than before. But he does answer.

“It’s Viktor,” the man—Viktor—says, slotting his fingers between Jayce’s.

Jayce’s eyes start drooping shut. “I’m Jayce,” he says.

“Yes, you said,” Viktor says, amused.

There is a certain weightlessness passing over and through his body, that softened, airy feeling he’d noticed when he first woke up. It’s stronger now. He wonders if it is the herb that the man put in his water: a medicine of some kind, maybe? Herbs do weird things! Now that’s some good herblore. Maybe Jayce has a new passion, a passion for medicine!

Jayce feels his eyelids growing heavy as he melts into the covers of the bed. The man brushes a sweaty lock of hair off of Jayce’s forehead and sighs. The corners of his eyes crinkle in a subtle reluctant smile.

Things begin to get hazy as Jayce drifts off into sleep. The last thing he perceives before the dark overtakes him again completely is Viktor’s voice:

“Sleep well, Jayce.”

***

The next time Jayce wakes, he has a bit more energy, both mentally and physically. Not quite enough to haul himself out of bed, but enough to sit up and drink water himself out of the wooden cup at his bedside. There are lanterns hanging from the wooden beams holding up the ceiling, glowing mysteriously and likely magically; judging by the lack of light streaming through the windows, Jayce would wager that it’s nighttime, though he can’t be entirely sure. Upon this second awakening, Jayce becomes aware that this place—Viktor’s home—might not be entirely of this world. Viktor certainly isn’t.

Now that he has more of his wits about him, Jayce realizes that he has gotten lucky. Unpredictably, disastrously, inconceivably lucky.

He should have died by a stroke of Lady Artemis’ bow. He should have died from the fall into the chasm: a broken neck, or blood loss. He should have starved. The things he ate—and he shudders to think of the things he ate—should have been poison. He should have wasted away five times over.

He certainly should not have been saved, again, by the mysterious godling he met in his youth. He should not have gotten away with the improper things he said to him, the things he’d thought about him—

He shouldn’t have been nursed back to health by the man. The potent herbs Viktor gave him have worn off, but Jayce isn’t in nearly as much pain as he should be. He can feel a splint and thick bandages wrapped around his leg, but he can also almost feel the sensation of his flesh knitting itself back together, fiber by painstaking fiber… He’s not really hungry anymore, either… Viktor must have been spoon-feeding him broth while he slept.

Jayce’s face warms. He gulps down another cup of water, and shakes the thought out of his head as best he can.

The point is, Jayce should be dead, but he isn’t, because he got lucky, and now he gets to live. He won’t squander this chance. He won’t lose Viktor again.

He takes note of his condition as he lies there in the glowing dark of Viktor’s living space. His leg hurts more than it did last time he was awake, though not nearly as bad as when he was dragging himself around in the chasm; he must be healing, and he’d guess that Viktor has deemed him well enough to start easing him off of the medicinal herbs he’s been giving him.

Jayce tries to swing both his legs over the side of the bed, to test the amount of weight he can stand to put on them, then thinks better of it as a sharp pain shoots through his body before he can even get the covers off. Better to leave it for now, he decides, and not ruin all of Viktor’s hard work…

Jayce is finally clear headed, but he doesn’t know what to think. He feels like he should be missing home more than he is. He misses his mom and Caitlyn, of course he does, but even if he hadn’t gotten himself hurt, he wouldn’t have seen much of them anyway. His mother is busy with her own work, her own social circles, and Caitlyn is more than preoccupied with her latest beau. He’s been so wrapped up in work lately that he’d barely seen anything but metal and fire; he thinks back to the loneliness he felt walking home from the forge the night he fell.

Jayce is alone right now, but he doesn’t feel that same cold isolation anymore. The entirety of Viktor’s space is saturated with the warmth and care of another being, and Jayce knows in his heart of hearts that this is where he’s meant to be.

He takes another drink of water, then falls back to the mattress and closes his eyes, warm.

***

Jayce wakes to music and to light. He keeps his eyes closed, but the sun presses against his lids, a mosaic of dappled morning light. He thinks he hears birdsong, but his ears are more occupied with the tune in-progress, a song that sends warm shivers up Jayce’s spine even in its unfinished state.

Jayce knows that it’s Viktor. Beyond the obvious, he can feel it—as though Viktor’s soul is imparted in the music.

Jayce hears flashes of the melody, hears contrasting colors and shapes strung together quickly and harmoniously. He hears light in darkness, darkness in light: a dimming star in a distant sky. Visions emerge from the strings as Viktor plucks them, the song unfurling like the petals of a blooming flower, like leaves turning back over after a storm.

These flashes are intercut with moments of silence, punctuated by what Jayce thinks sounds like the tightening of strings, the loosening of a peg, the tap-tap-tapping of a craftsman’s small hammer. And then the melody unfurls again…

Eyes still closed, Jayce listens to Viktor work. He thinks he feels a tear slip down his face. Strange…

When the song ends, Jayce uses a hand to shield his face from the sunlight streaming in from the angled skylights above. He opens his eyes, sits up in his bed, looks across the room, and sees:

Viktor is sitting at a cluttered table on the other side of the room, angled away from him. A pair of goggles sits on top of his head, blue crystalline lenses nestled among the thick amber tendrils of his hair. He’s surrounded by a myriad of tools, piled on the table and the floor, but he can’t quite see the lyre he knows was just being played. Viktor’s head perks up a bit, and Jayce watches as he turns around, the instrument in his hands —

“You’re awake, then,” Viktor says with a smile. “Good morning.”

“You play beautifully,” Jayce says in lieu of a greeting. “I’ve never heard anything like it.” You play like a god, he keeps to himself.

“That’s very nice of you to say,” Viktor responds evasively. He stands, makes his way over to Jayce, and pushes the lyre towards Jayce, who accepts it clumsily. “I’d much rather hear your playing, if you’d indulge me? And in any case, the instrument does belong to you, not to me.”

Jayce peers at the man quizzically, then glances down at the lyre he now holds before letting out a strangled gasp. His hands tremble as his fingers run over the familiar wooden structure of the lyre he’s been using all these years. He turns his head to Viktor.“But it was—it broke, when I fell, it didn't… How did you…?”

“It is yours.”

“This is—” Jayce’s voice breaks. “I don’t know what to say, Viktor. I don’t know how to thank you—”

“There is no need for thanks,” Viktor says mildly. “As I said, it is your instrument. The repairs were no great trouble.”

“No great trouble,” Jayce murmurs unbelievingly. “Viktor, I’ve worked with wood and metal almost every day of my life, and I’ve never seen anything like this. Ever.” He stares at the lyre, noticing the seams running along the pieces of wood. They are imperceptible to the touch and barely visible to the naked eye, but Jayce sees them: thin seams of golden metal hold the broken pieces together like glue. In a certain light, the gold almost seems to glow: no, it does glow, golden-green, like the eyes of the man who saved him, like the divine, like magic. He casts his wide-eyed gaze back to Viktor and looks at the man wonderingly.

“It’s unbelievable,” Jayce says. “It’s beautiful.”

“Well, say what you will, I suppose,” Viktor says. He turns away, casts his eyes to the far wall, and Jayce thinks he sees a flush spread over the tips of Viktor’s ears, down the back of his neck. “You can play it for me later. For now: how are you feeling?”

“Hungry.” The word jumps out of Jayce’s mouth almost before Viktor can finish his sentence, and it’s true. He’s suddenly starving. He needs to eat a lot, and soon.

Viktor gets up with a small smile and wordlessly makes his way over to his work table. Jayce now sees there’s two plates of cold food there; one of them has been picked at, and the other plate, untouched, Viktor brings over to Jayce’s side. There are roasted vegetables, baked fruits, a bed of greens, a small bowl of vinegar and oil, and a slice of bread.

It is a relatively simple meal. It is also quite possibly the most amazing thing Jayce has ever seen in his life. He has his faculties about him enough to note that this is a relatively inane thing to think, especially after the miracles he has witnessed. He is hungry enough not to pay that thought any mind.

“Not too fast,” Viktor reminds him as he begins to dig in. “Don’t hurt yourself, there’s plenty…”

“Okaugh,” Jayce says through a mouthful of food. “Errn, thmank oo.”

“Anytime,” Viktor says dryly. He makes his way back to his table, grabs his chair, and drags it over to Jayce’s bedside, settling down next to him. The lyre is set gently at his bedside table, gilded seams glinting in the golden light. 

Jayce eats, and eats, and eats some more, then remembers to take a sip from his cup of water as the sun continues to rise. By the time he’s done, he’d wager that it’s around midday, and he’s feeling relatively good: full, and warm, although his leg still sends jolts of pain up through his body every so often.

Once he’s had his fill, Jayce’s wits are clear enough that he realizes he has no idea how much time has passed since Viktor found him. He could intuit a guess, and he considers it for a moment before taking the more sensible route.

“How long have I been here?” Jayce asks.

“In my house? Hmm… Two weeks or so, I think,” Viktor responds.

“And, er, what’s the date?”

“It is the fifth day of Autumn’s first moon.”

 So around four weeks since he fell in the crevasse, then. Huh.

Jayce isn’t quite sure how he felt about this information. Four weeks isn’t exactly a short amount of time, to be sure, but… it isn’t a particularly long one either, is it? Was two weeks of being trapped really enough time to send him spiraling like he had…?

“You have been recovering remarkably well,” Viktor says mildly. “In fact, it is remarkable that you lived long enough for me to find you at all. You were quite… far gone, by the time I made my way to you.”

“How did you find me?” Jayce asks. ‘And… Why did it take you so long?’ He thinks.

“I was out foraging. Mushrooms, herbs and such… they all grow quite well in the dark. And… I suppose it reminds me of home, in a way.”

“Home?”

“Mmm, yes. Not my home here, of course. More of my hometown, really…” He trails off, not elaborating any further, and Jayce decides to leave off questioning him on that subject, at least for the time being.

Jayce hesitates, then voices a question that has been burning in the back of his throat since he woke up: “Do you… remember me?” 

What he means is: ‘Did I mean anything to you? For all these years—have you been thinking about me as much as I’ve been thinking of you?’

“Yes, of course.” Viktor responds as though the answer is obvious, as though it’s just a piece of information that anyone could have access to and not something that Jayce has been agonizing over for more than a decade. Like Jayce is maybe a little stupid for asking. He feels his face flush with embarrassment.

“I couldn’t find you,” Jayce says, then turns away after seeing the look on Viktor’s face. “I’ve been looking. I mean… I looked.”

“You did not find me,” Viktor says, “because I did not want to be found.”

“Why?” Jayce flushes even further—he must sound like the same petulant child Viktor met all those years ago. He probably didn’t want to see him again because he was a petulant child. Or—

“Make no mistake,” Viktor adds hastily, reaching for Jayce’s hand, touching it quickly  then withdrawing. “Jayce, I am glad to see you again. I cannot tell you how much I—how badly I wanted—but, no,” he corrects himself. “It was not possible for me to seek you out, and it would not have been… prudent to reveal myself to you a second time. I was not looked upon kindly for the first; a second revelation would have been a step too far…”

For each question Jayce asks, a dozen more crop up. A revelation? And, Viktor had wanted to see him, really? But it would not have been looked kindly upon… By whom?What was—what was going on? Jayce pushes his hand through his hair and takes a deep breath.

“Viktor,” he says. “Why am I here? Couldn’t you have, I don’t know, just called for help, or brought me to Piltover…?”

Jayce catches a glimpse of a pained expression on Viktor’s face as he turns away. “I’m very sorry, Jayce. I’m sure it would be preferable to be there, but for the time being I do not think it will be possible. Will it be bearable, for you to be here, for a while? At least until your leg is healed?”

“Bearable?!” Jayce’s voice cracks. “Viktor, that’s—it’s more than bearable, it’s great! I don’t even know how to—to tell you how much I wanted to see you, how much I dreamed of it, of you—” Jayce cuts himself off, his face flushing even more. “Gods, I just keep humiliating myself. All I wanted was to make sure that me being here wasn’t putting you in some kind of danger. I’m just—so relieved—”

The weight of the weeks gone past suddenly crashes down on Jayce, all at once. The goddess in the forest, the hunt for the deer… his fall, the horror of his injury, the ravine itself… Gods, gods. His leg was probably never going to be the same. Was he even going to be able to walk? Was he going to be able to work? Everything he’d ever strived for, everything he’d done, all seemed to have fallen to ruin.

And what must his mother be thinking?

Jayce starts to cry, and once he’s started, he’s always found it hard to stop. He’s barely aware of himself as the tears come fast and his breaths come faster, but then there’s a shift in the mattress beside him, and he feels a warm arm wrapping around his shoulders, feels the soft bump of a head resting against his temple. .

Jayce sobs like a man broken. He has been broken. Maybe he still is, deep down, but he’s alive. He’s alive, and he is here.

With Viktor.

“It will be okay,” Viktor says, voice soft and a touch awkward, but still unbearably kind and warm. Jayce buries his face into Viktor’s shoulder. “It will all be alright,” Viktor repeats, and Jayce—finally—believes him.

***

Jayce spends the rest of the morning watching as Viktor moves about his living space, tinkering, cleaning here and there, but for the most part, working.

Viktor’s work is somewhat inscrutable to Jayce. The room is full to bursting with a wide variety of objects: musical instruments, books and scrolls and inscribed tablets, clay and bronze and stone vessels, statues and idols, fabrics and tapestries and looms bursting with thread, and more that Jayce isn’t even able to begin to recognize. Viktor’s interests (or at the very least, his belongings) seem to refuse categorization.

As for his work, Viktor seems to specialize in mending things. Fixing, perhaps. As Jayce watches him work, it almost seems to him like Viktor is healing the objects he touches. It’s not all magic. Jayce squints from his spot in Viktor’s bed as he fills the wide metal mouth of some sort of pen-like device with small, crumbled pieces of what appears to be gold, holding it to a candle to melt, before applying the material to the cracked edge of a clay pot.

“What are you doing?” Jayce asks, then flushes when Viktor turns to him, an amused expression on his face. “Sorry, um… I didn’t mean to interrupt your work, I just—”

“It’s quite alright, Jayce.” Viktor sets the device down on a stand, holds the clay vessel up to the light, looks at it and smiles. “It’s similar to the method I used to repair your lyre; albeit, a much more basic version, I suppose…”

“Is it a… commision?” Jayce asks.

“Of a sort…” Jayce watches as Viktor presses his tongue against the corner of his mouth as he inspects his work. Jayce wishes he could press his tongue against Viktor’s mouth, then shakes his head, trying to dispel the vaguely blasphemous thought.

Instead of saying something stupid, he continues asking his questions: “You do this often, then? Fixing lyres and pots?”

“I do many things. Mostly mending and fixing, yes. Some are paid jobs, some are favors, some barters or bargains, but I suppose most of them are for my own gratification. In the forest, I often find things that are broken. Or lost,” he says, glancing slyly at Jayce before glancing away again. “I set them to rights. Fix them and let them find their way back to where they belong…”

Jayce listens to him talk with rapt attention. Listens and learns. He could listen to Viktor talk for hours.

He could, and he does. And he does.

Days pass, and Jayce grows restless. He knows he can’t exactly leave the bed and start walking if he ever wants his leg to heal, so he stays put, keeps his leg stiff and still and elevated, drinks the potions Viktor brings him to dull the pain and encourage healing. He endures the poultices and pastes, and relishes in the time Viktor spends applying them.

He reads some of Viktor’s books: stories both familiar and strange, instructional accounts, guides to far-off places Jayce has never heard of and will probably never visit. He asks for some paper and spends a bit of time writing, and a bit more drawing, drafting up schematics for tools and sculptures, pulling the visions from his heart rather than his head, rather than as commissions for people he doesn’t care for, for objects he’d rather never saw the light of day. He talks to Viktor often, although he sometimes tries to curb his enthusiasm for conversation, knowing that Viktor does, in fact, have things he needs to attend to.

For the most part, though, Jayce spends his time playing his lyre.

He has been a musician since he was young, has played the instrument for the majority of the life he remembers, but never has he felt so free to practice and play and perform.

Viktor has no expectations of him. Viktor is not a client waiting for him to finish his work. He is not a family member relying on him, or a sponsor constantly trying to push him forward towards a fate he isn’t even sure appeals to him. Viktor is not exactly a friend, either. He’s…

Difficult to define, Jayce thinks to himself. Impossible, even. Jayce can’t quite find the words to describe how Viktor makes him feel, how much Viktor makes him feel. The only way Jayce feels able to express it is through his music. And he is finally, at long last, free to do so.

Propped up against a veritable mountain of collapsed pillows, old cushions and delicate, valuable brocade fabrics rolled into haphazard piles, Jayce improvises melodies for hours. All of them are for Viktor, about Viktor. Imbuing the music with what he feels is his very soul, Jayce plays, and plays, and plays.

Viktor listens to him. Jayce knows he’s listening, because whenever Jayce picks up the instrument, Viktor takes to his own work, focuses in, doesn’t look at Jayce, doesn’t speak, hardly makes a sound at all—his attention might seem to be turned to his mending, but Jayce can tell that Viktor is, in these moments, focused entirely on him.

With his music, he tries to tell Viktor something. Anything. He tries to express even a fraction of what he feels. He hopes that at least in some small way he succeeds.

The days become a bright wheel, spinning ever forward. On and on he plays. 

***

Jayce has had lovers before. There was a girl he went to school with who could add large numbers faster than Jayce could blink, and a man he met at the forge, all glistening muscle and shining hair and bright smirk. And there was Mel, of course: strong, bright, and courageous Mel. She had been the only one of his lovers with whom Jayce had considered himself to be in love.

As he looks back at the time he and Mel shared together, Jayce can’t help but feel how young they’d been then. Full of youth and light and ambition, the two of them had dreamt of a future for themselves, for their city and their world, that Jayce was simply no longer cut out to pursue. Mel’s work was speechcraft, and Jayce simply didn’t have the same capability to weave words as she did. Jayce has always been a wanter, and Mel was, too. They’d just wanted too much from each other that the other hadn’t been able to give. And so they’d parted ways.

Jayce has been alone since then, for the most part. He looks back on his memories with Mel fondly, and he supposes that they love each other still, in their own ways.

If what Jayce had felt for Mel had been the fiery, passionate heat of the forge, what he felt now for Viktor was more like air: vital, all-encompassing, and filled with music as often as Jayce’s hands and heart could stand to play. What he feels for Viktor is green and gold and growing, even when the sun is shuttered away; in the half-light of Viktor’s home, which as the days pass by is slowly and surely becoming Jayce’s home  as well, the two of them speak, and laugh, and grow. 

Jayce learns to help Viktor with his work. Much of forging is the act of joining, of fixing and shaping, and they find that Jayce’s hands are suited to the work, despite the fact that his broken leg still confines him to his mattress.

Jayce finds out that Viktor has been sleeping in a chair, and insists that for as long as Jayce steals his bed that the two of them might as well share it. And they do.

An unbidden thought slips into Jayce’s mind one night and makes its home there. He thinks, as he plays his lyre, as Viktor sits close by and listens, that they are beginning to heal together. That they are becoming two sides of the same coin. That they always have been.

He pictures two souls grafted onto each other; two spirits intertwined.

I feel like I’ve always known you, his music says. I think that I would follow you anywhere. I love you, I love you, I do. I do.

The days fade into nights. The two of them are bathed in the warm, glowing, magic of the lights that float around Viktor’s ceiling.

Jayce sleeps, and dreams, and even in his dreams, Viktor is there. He dreams that he and Viktor are resting in a glade, that Viktor is cloaked in the deep blue robe, the one made of Jayce’s favorite blanket, dark like the night sky and gleaming like the surface of a deep, rushing river. He sees Viktor seated upon the trunk of a fallen tree and knows that he himself is kneeling upon the ground, cloaked in white, a shining lyre in his hands.

They match, Jayce notices: they each bear a band of bronze, wrapped around their upper arms. Jayce knows in his heart of hearts that he made the one that Viktor bears, and that his was made by Viktor. A pair of lovers’ bands for a pair of lovers.

Jayce knows, somehow, that there is an adder in the grass. He knows that what he sees is nothing but a dream, and that it might soon fade away. But it is a beautiful dream, he thinks to himself. One worth dreaming. 

He keeps his eyes on Viktor and his hands on his lyre, and from it a familiar melody pours out. The light from the trees fades until the only light left is spilling from the tears in Viktor’s eyes. Dream-Viktor reaches out towards Jayce’s face and presses a chaste kiss to his lips.

They lean away from each other, and Viktor’s face is blurred. The world around them recedes into darkness, and then Viktor blurs away into nothing, into the dark, and Jayce is left alone. Falling, falling into the darkness—no sound, no music. There is nothing. Jayce falls and falls until he becomes the darkness, becomes the act of falling, and then becomes the nothingness. 

Bereft and alone, Jayce is no longer himself. He is no longer anything at all.

Jayce wakes up in Viktor’s bed, sweating and cold, gasping for air. The room is quiet and grey, and—in an instant—Jayce knows that Viktor is gone.