Aftershocks

Lux’s mouth dried. But something about the other woman's face, the mixture of grief and sympathy there, stole whatever lie had been crawling forth from her belly. So she simply nodded. Her words failed her at the surprised look on Caitlyn’s face. As though she had been asking out of some whimsical amusement rather than the expectation that she was right. Hammered home the ramifications of Lux finally admitting to her correspondence with someone she had heard referred to as both a hero and a terrorist in her brief time in the city. A woman, she now realised, was directly responsible for the death of Cailtyn’s mother. She locked eyes with the taller woman, and saw in her an amount of sympathy that could only mean one thing.

Lux shook her head slowly, “Please,” she begged. Barely even sure who she was talking to, Caitlyn, herself, the Protectors themselves. Caitlyn shocked Lux by making a sympathetic noise and pulling the Blonde woman into a hug. Lux realised that tears were now fully tracking down her face. “Please..” She said again, the strong grip of Caitlyn’s arms barely comforting her in her mounting horror. “I’m sorry, Luxanna…” The blue haired woman said, and Lux didn’t want her to finish the sentence. But she needed it, needed to hear it fully and properly. To have even a hope of accepting the devastating fact she knew was coming she needed to hear it from this woman. “... Jinx is dead, she died fighting the threat that destroyed the Hexgate.”

The strategist part of Lux’s mind noticed how the woman didn’t say that it was fighting the Noxians. But it was a far distant thought as the rest of her was consumed in an aching wave of grief far stronger than she had thought herself capable of. As half spun dreams she had barely even known she had, of her and Jinx reuniting in Piltover, or Terbisia, or some distant land that was both and neither, crumbled before her eyes. As images of her finally having the chance to hold Jinx in a way that she hadn’t understood when they had last shared space together burned tracks of pain into her heart. Caitlyn guided Lux gently into a council sideroom, allowing her the privacy to grieve. Lux was glad that the councillor had had the presence of mind to make sure that the room was empty when she had started her inquest. When Lux had calmed slightly she took a moment to gather herself and ask the question that was now burning in her mind. “How….” She swallowed around the burn in her throat. Her mind, now awoken from the hazy sheen of grief, was desperate for answers even though she knew they would hurt. “How did she die?”

Caitlyn looked down at her, sympathy clear in her remaining eye. “I wasn’t there, but I know someone who was. And I think they would be very interested, as am I, in knowing how you came to know Jinx. If you would like to speak with some people who knew her, albeit perhaps differently to you. They may even have nice things to say, which I must admit is a rare commodity on this side of the river.” There was a slight wry humour in Caitlyn’s tone that brought a slight smile to Lux’s face. Reminding her of the older woman’s glib commentary at the galas they had shared in their youth. She could see that the other woman was also weighed down by the time since they had last met. Lux had heard that Caitlyn had been in some kind of leadership position in Piltover during the Undercity Uprising until the Noxian Assault. She was sure that the other woman bore far more scars than those she was sure were hidden beneath the woman’s eyepatch. Perhaps this was Caitlyn’s way of establishing renewed contact with Lux as much as it was a way of trying to give Lux some closure. That warm thought in her mind Lux nodded, “I would like that a lot.”

Caitlyn told Lux that she would organise a meeting for the evening in two days time, and that she would come and collect Lux personally and take her to the Kiramman estate where the meeting would take place. Lux did her best to clean herself up from her impromptu breakdown, succeeding enough to pass muster from someone who didn't know her. However she did get some pointed looks from Garen on her emergence into their shared housing. However he did not press the issue, perhaps detecting that it wouldn't have been received in the redness still present around Lux's eyes.

Lux had hoped it would have been easy to convince Garen that she was simply taking a more active role in the diplomatic portion of their shared mission. That she was using her ‘connections’ to Caitlyn to advance their interests without having to convince the whole council at once. She was hoping that his posting with the Dauntless cleared the more economically important and dangerous damaged parts around Piltover, primarily focussing on the bridges between Piltover and the newly named Zaun. Would prevent him from noticing that Lux had spent the day after their council meeting almost entirely in her quarters leafing morosely through her letters with Jinx, tears flowing almost non-stop as she grappled with the loss of the other woman. It was a strange feeling to Lux, trying to grieve for something she could barely have labelled before she lost it. She had spent much of the days trying not to think too hard on it, instead trying to grieve the things she knew she had lost. The joys of finding that a new letter had arrived, or the thrill she got when she was younger and Jinx had supported her in her small but potent acts of rebellion against the suffocating rule of her mother, or later the radiant. But it seemed that even the exhaustion of days of clearing rubble and lofting the beams that Piltover used as its primary building materials with the Dauntless hadn't tired Garen out enough for him to not blockade her path as she prepared to go to the entrance to their accommodation to meet Caitlyn for their meeting. Lux had donned her mask with unusual care, trying to cram every volatile emotion behind the ironclad wall of Demacian Noble. But it seemed that she was out of practice as Garen had requested a brief audience before she left as soon as he had seen her.

“Where do you go at this hour sister? I had hoped we might share a meal with the rest of my platoon.” Her brother had a look of concern on his face that almost masked the suspicion Lux saw beneath, he truly had picked up a remarkable amount of political skill since his promotion to head of the Dauntless. However, it was Lux who had been raised in the guile and intrigue of womanhood in Demacia’s nobility. Much as her brother could wield his blade as though it were an extension of his body due to the time he had spent training in his youth. Lux wielded the skills of a politician. “Garen, of course I’d love to share a meal with you all. But I have a meeting with Councillor Kiramman tonight.” Lux could tell from Garen’s face that he was unconvinced, on guard, and some time ago that would have hurt her deeply. In a time before the rebellion, before the attack on Terbisia. Before the truth of what her magic could do was forced into the open. But now, Lux understood. She could see the blood that stained her hands whenever she closed her eyes. However, she had expected this so she had prepared. The best way to convince someone was to thread the lie with truth, so she continued. “Caitlyn has said she will give me some information about the battle in which the Hexgates were destroyed, apparently it was neither during the undercity uprising nor the Noxians that destroyed it.” Lux watched Garen’s eyes widen imperceptibly as he digested that fact.

“I see…” He trailed off, seeming caught between wanting to continue his inquest and the worries for what this revelation might mean for Demacia. “I apologise for doubting you, Lux. I see that you are doing your part for this mission as well.” Lux felt a flare of guilt that was quickly smothered by her need to understand what had happened to Jinx. “I just…. I am worried about you sister, I know it has been some time since we saw each other regularly and for my part in that…. I am sorry, but…” Lux cut him off, the churning in her gut that hadn’t stopped since her last meeting with Caitlyn was worsening, she didn’t want to talk about the past with her brother. Didn’t want to talk about the difficult and dark times after he had walked away from her in the wake of Sylas revealing her secret to the world. Not when she was going to be late to her meeting. “I appreciate it, Garen, and I am grateful for it. And we will have that meal soon. But I really do have a meeting to attend.” She stepped past him, laying her hand on the thick pauldron of the armour he was still wearing. Trying to pretend that it was real contact, real comfort. That the cold of the metal on the skin of her palm didn't match the icy feeling in her heart as she left their accommodation to the waiting vehicle marked with the Kiramman crest.

She was surprised to see that it was Caitlyn herself waiting in the vehicle. Besides the familiar face of the councillor Lux was surprised to see another woman, she was wearing a beaten red leather jacket, and the scars on her knuckles and tattoo on her cheek marked her fairly clearly as being from the undercity. For a moment Lux wondered if Caitlyn had decided that she needed a protection detail for this meeting, before recognition sparked in her mind. She remembered when Jinx had told her about her sister. It had been slow going sharing personal details like that between them. But after years of epistolary conversation Lux was fairly sure she knew most of what there was to know about the wild girl she had called her best friend. And she was certain that she herself held no secrets from Jinx. “You must be Vi.” Lux said as the vehicle began to wend its way through the streets towards the Kiramman estate. The redhead startled slightly at being addressed, her eyes flicking briefly to Caitlyn’s before she nodded. “Yeah, nice to meet you.” The rest of the journey passed quickly in small talk about recent events and shortly the three women were exiting their ride and entering the Kiramman mansion.

Caitlyn and Vi led Lux to a well appointed sitting room in which a man that Lux recognised and Caitlyn’s father was conversing with a young dark skinned man with white hair in a loc ponytail. Tobias noticed their arrival first and stood to greet Lux. “Ms Crownguard, it’s been some time.” Lux had always admired Caitlyn’s father for his warmth and it seemed that time and the recent loss of his wife had dimmed that only slightly. Although Lux could tell that it was more performative now, his smile not reaching his eyes in the way it once had and the lines on his face more predominantly those of stress instead of mirth. “Indeed it has, I’m glad to see you again Mr Kiramman, and let me offer my heartfelt sorrows for the loss of your wife.” The man's face shuttered slightly, the loss visible in his eyes. “Thank you Ms Crownguard. I shall leave you all to it.” With that the elder man left the room followed by Caitlyn, something Lux was grateful for as she wasn’t wholly sure if the man knew why she had been invited to the estate this evening and Lux didn’t want to be the one to accidentally reveal that this meeting was in honour of the woman who was responsible for the death of Cassandra Kiramman.

It was then that Lux had a chance to look at the other person in the room, someone she once again recognised from her conversations with Jinx. This had to be Ekko, the one time friend turned enemy. Jinx rarely spoke of the person she called “The boy saviour” save to complain about the Firelights ruining her jobs. In fact her last letter from the girl had spoken at length about The Firelights stealing off with Vi and Caitlyn just after Jinx had managed to meet with her sister again. The girl had clearly been distraught in the letter but Lux had hoped that everything would have worked out, then the letters had stopped. And now she was here, in Piltover, supposedly meeting with the few people in the city that knew anything about Jinx, only to find that it was her long lost sister and a boy Jinx herself had seemed to consider an enemy more than anything else.

If Lux was honest with herself she had expected to be led to an imprisoned Silco. For as much as that man had been a monster in his own way it was impossible to deny, even from Lux’s perspective through Jinx’s letters, that he had cared greatly for Jinx. Enough that he had allowed her to do almost anything she wished, for good or ill. Lux had been surprised not to see the man mentioned in the mission briefing about the Undercity Uprising, and a sinking feeling in her guts was telling her that perhaps things had gone truly terribly for Jinx since they had last spoken. If Silco had been injured, or protector forbid killed, Lux is certain that Jinx would not have stopped until she had avenged herself upon whoever was responsible. However, Lux didn’t say any of this, her guard was raised at the appearance of Ekko so she resolved to wait for someone else to make the first move.

Fortunately she wasn’t waiting long, Caitlyn had reappeared with a tray and gestured for them all to sit around the table. “Now, Lux I know you recognised Vi so I’m assuming you may recognise Ekko as well.” Lux nodded and resolutely ignored the suspicious look it got her from the white haired man. “Good,” Caitlyn continued, “that makes things a little easier. Vi, Ekko this is Governess Luxanna Crownguard, she is one of the diplomats from the Demacian contingent currently working on removing rubble from the bridges. She has also been in consistent communication with Jinx for… how long, Lux?” Lux recognised the dig for information for what it was, but she was already here. The most damning secret that she had was that she had communicated with Jinx at all, the length it had been ongoing was a secondary concern really. Therefore Lux answered honestly, “About five years, give or take, since we met. We began exchanging letters around a year after that.”

The others seem to wait for Lux to continue, likely hoping for the story. But she knows the value of her information, and something is beginning to bother her, she was told that she would be meeting people who also knew Jinx but it didn’t seem likely that either Vi or Ekko knew anything she didn’t save for the events between Jinx’s last letter and the present day. She is saved from having to press for answers or dodge around her own current unwillingness to speak by Ekko. “So, what do you actually know about her then? If you haven’t even spoken to her in years. How do we know anything you think you know is even true? Did she even tell you about all the people she killed?” The boy said, some anger clear in his tone. Lux wasn’t wholly sure what she might have done to irritate the Firelights leader but she could make an assumption, and frankly she was angry. It was rising like a wave now, washing past the grief and pain, subsuming them all.

It was clear to her that Ekko had heard her name and her position as a Demacian politician and assumed her to be some soft handed noble that Jinx had somehow bewitched. That their friendship was some fakery of Jinx’s, playing pretend for her foreign friend. She heard herself scoff, “the ones when she was working for Silco or before? Perhaps you mean your own Firelights?” Her tone was hardening, the anger in her chest burning more harshly at this man who thought he could cast doubt on her friendship with Jinx when he was her enemy more recently than her friend. “Why should I care about that?” Lux asked, an honesty in her tone that surprised her. She had known that she was supportive of Jinx and not overly bothered at the blood that stained the girls hands, perhaps a reflection of the support the blue haired girl had given her. Nevertheless, she pressed forward even as shock and anger flickered on Ekko’s face, she cast her eyes briefly to Vi’s assuming she would find understanding in them.

Both Vi and Caitlyn were staring at her warily, as though they too had suspected what Ekko had said was true. The flames of anger were well and truly burning in Lux’s breast now. These people had invited her here to mock her friendship directly to her face. She took a calming breath and buried the rage beneath a patrician’s mask. She was still here as a dignitary, and a dignitary she would be. “Killing is simply the price to exist as you wish to exist in this world.” She said, “It is not good, it is not nice. But sometimes it must be done. I highly doubt any of you can claim to have clean hands.” She drew in another breath, seeking to calm herself, she was a little shocked by how surprised the others seemed to be at her words. It wasn’t as if Demacia was a stranger to the need for violence, each noble child was raised on stories of the need for constant vigilance against the forces of Noxus and Magecraft. But it seemed that her opinions had contrasted to what the other three sat around the table had expected of her. “It’s not the same.” Ekko said, his voice hardened completely and his arms crossed tight to his chest. “Jinx killed for fun!”

“That’s not true.” Lux said, feeling her own voice go hard with certainty, she knew that Jinx had usually had a reason for her violence, sure she enjoyed it. But she never spoke to Lux of killing simply for the pleasure of it. “And even if it was true, it wouldn’t change anything I just said. You decided that she was a monster just because she didn’t agree with you. I think perhaps you’d judge the choices I made just as harshly. Caitlyn?” She turned to address her host who was looking like this was not going how she had hoped it would. Vi sat next to her, their hands touching but the redhead hadn’t said anything yet. “I appreciate the invitation but why am I here? You said this was going to be people who knew Jinx, so far that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.” She felt bad putting her host on the spot like that but Lux knew that if she continued this conversation she would end up saying worse, and possibly even end up sharing things that weren’t hers to share. She refused to betray her friend's loyalty just to prove a point, even if that friend was gone.

Caitlyn sighed heavily, “Sorry, you’re right we’re not here to argue. I was hoping this would be something of a memorial, a funeral as it were. I thought that Vi and Ekko could both use the chance to talk about their… complicated feelings towards Jinx and when you arrived asking after her I took the opportunity.” This is everyone we’re expecting, I had asked councilwoman Sevika if she wished to join.” Vi huffed what could have been mistaken for a laugh at the statement, clearly there was little love lost between the redhead and Zaun’s newest councilwoman. “However, she said that ‘the day I spill my guts to a bunch of brats about other different brats is the day I walk into the sump with my arm still attached.’ So I think it’s safe to say she isn’t coming.”

There is a silence in the room that feels to Lux as though it lasts for aeons. But despite the still lingering flames of her anger she finds herself enamoured with the idea. For so long Jinx had just been her secret, something that the people around her couldn’t know about. Even now that as the governess she could discuss it with people she found that there was no-one she wished to share her memories of the eclectic woman with. The idea of being able to talk about her to people who at least tangentially would understand was very appealing. She had spent so long as the only person in her life who even knew that Jinx existed let alone had anything new to say about her and she found herself curious about what new things she might learn about her longtime friend from these people. So Lux found herself leaning forward to take a sip of her now cooled tea, and beginning to speak.