My Firefly
The Army of Piltover’s lawyers sat looming over Lieutenant Vanderson, eyes sharp and analytic, hungry vultures circling their carrion. Vi sat and stared defiantly up at them. Her molars ground together as they continued to watch her, catch-22 style, either side waiting for someone to make the first move.
Vi had never been called to any type of inquest before. In fact, she’d never even seen the inside of the on-site courthouse before. She knew of its existence, sure, but was pleasantly surprised when she saw how normal it looked compared to every other room on base.
The walls were painted a deep navy blue, a close tone to the flag of Piltover, which hung proudly on the wall behind the heads of the row of lawyers before her. Dark oak plinths ran in rows across the room, extra seating for the larger trials which presumably took place here. Each one was engraved neatly with the signature army crest. An earthy, wooden scent hung heavily in the air.
The officer wondered how many other unfortunate souls had sat in her seat previously. How many secrets these four walls had heard been spilt. How many weddings, how many death inquests, how many sentences had been carried out in this exact spot.
How many people had stared up at the flag they served under whilst being thrown to the dogs.
The lawyer sat directly in front of Vi cleared her throat and began to speak. “Court is now in session,” she said curtly. The stenographer began typing furiously on his machine, the incessant tap-tap-tap boring a hole straight through Vi’s ear and into her skull. The sharks began to circle their prey. “Thank you for agreeing to attend on such short notice, Lieutenant Vanderson.”
The pilot didn’t respond. She was too busy staring at the various medals adorned on the officer’s chest above her, metal circles glinting ever so slightly whenever she adjusted. Vi wondered if any of them had been awarded for actual combat, not just pushing pens or typing up fancy reports. If the woman in front of her had ever had to pull a trigger knowing someone wasn’t going home to their family that night.
After the pause of silence, the lawyer continued. “Before we begin, Lieutenant Vanderson, the Army of Piltover would like to extend their condolences on your loss,” she drilled in a rehearsed voice. “The board offers its apologies for any emotional distress this event may have caused-“
“But are you sorry?” Vi interrupted.
“Come again?” the lawyer replied, leaning forward.
“Are you sorry?” The pilot repeated herself. “Everyone keeps saying the army’s sorry and the board extends whatever, but I want to know if you’re sorry. Personally.”
There was a short cough from the back of the courtroom. Vi looked over her shoulder briefly and scoffed at the presence of Commander Heimerdinger, who sat scowling in one of the back rows. Captain Kiramman was next to him, poised delicately, posture perfect as always. She stared at Vi unblinking.
The lawyer pursed her lips. She looked down at the file spread out in front of her, read whatever speech she’d had planned silently, and flipped the page over. “We will now begin the inquest,” she said sharply. “Could you please recall in your own words what happened up to the event of your Apache going down?”
Vi cleared her throat and shuffled in her seat. The fabric of her dress uniform dug into her ribs uncomfortably; God, she hated wearing these things.
“We were flying to the compound. Ek- Lieutenant Lanes and I. Just as we’d been told to do,” Vi began slowly.
Tap-tap-tap, went the stenotype machine.
“An unknown projectile came up on our RADAR, and it came in fast.”
Tap-tap-tap.
“We deployed flares, but they didn’t do anything.”
Tap-tap-tap.
“It struck us in the hull, and our bird went down.”
Tap-tap-fucking tap.
The other officer licked her lips and nodded.
“Did you utilise any defensive manoeuvres before you were hit?” This question came from another lawyer, peering at Vi down his nose.
The pilot ground her jaw again. “No,” she said lowly. “No, there wasn’t time.”
The man just hummed and scribbled down some notes.
“And what happened after that, Lieutenant?” The main lawyer, seemingly their pack leader, knitted her fingers together and leant forward.
“Uhm.” Vi cleared her throat. “It’s a bit of a blur after that, to be honest, ma’am. I remember hitting the ground, then being lifted out of the chopper by someone, being thrown into the dirt. I think Ambessa was there too.”
“You think or you know?” Her voice cut cold and sharp across the room.
“It sure as shit looked like her,” Vi muttered.
“Lieutenant Vanderson, please refrain from profanities while the court is in session. And,” she added, “kindly speak up.”
“Sure. Sorry.” There was an undercurrent of sarcasm in Vi’s tone. She felt ridiculous, being scolded as if she were a child again.
“And after you were picked up by the Noxian forces, do you remember what happened after that?”
Vi could feel Caitlyn’s eyes drilling into the back of her head as she recounted the events. “I woke up in some room, I don’t know where. Lanes was already awake by the time I came to.” The breath hitched in her throat. “His face was all bloody and swollen too, like he’d been beaten. Ambessa and Deckard were there.”
“That answers our question of where Mr Deckard is, then,” one lawyer chimed casually. The others nodded in agreement.
“Did you witness Lieutenant Lanes being struck by any Noxian forces at all?”
“No. But I can assure you he didn’t get like that from falling.”
“Hm.” The head lawyer jotted more notes down. “And after that?”
“Ambessa spoke to me. To us. She knew who I was, who my father is. And then she told me to fight her or she’d kill Lieutenant Lanes.” Vi felt her heart constrict, the beating bloody thing in her chest squashed down to a pulp under her ribcage.
“Did you fight her?”
“Yes.” The pilot spoke shortly and bluntly. “I lost.”
Tap-tap-tap.
“And after that? How did Lieutenant Lanes come to lose his life?”
The blood was pumping in Vi’s ears now, hammering violently across her eardrum. An unceasing ringing broke out. “Ambessa shot him in the back in front of me. I watched it happen.”
“How could you be sure Lanes was dead, Lieutenant Vanderson?” This came from the lawyer who made the comment about Deckard previously.
A bubbling fury appeared in the pit of Vi’s stomach. Her skin twitched as her knee bobbed up and down under the desk. “I just knew,” she spat.
“What happened after that?”
“Deckard dragged his body away. I don’t know where.” For a second, Vi was back in that cold dungeon again, staring into Ekko’s blank lifeless eyes as he was swallowed into darkness.
“Do you feel there was more you could have done to save his life, Lieutenant Vanderson?” The question came without a shred of remorse.
“Of course I do. He was my best friend. But what could I have done?” she pleaded desperately. At this point, Vi didn’t know if she was trying to convince them or herself. “I was restrained. We’d just been in a helicopter crash, for Christ’s sake. I wasn’t the one pulling the trigger on him, you all seem to be forgetting that.”
Another awkward silence fell between the two lines. The pot in Vi’s guts continued to bubble.
“After Lieutenant Lanes was removed from the room, did anything else happen?”
“Before they knocked me out, I told Ambessa I was going to kill her,” Vi replied emotionlessly. She licked her lips before adding, “I really hope this inquest doesn’t get in the way of me fulfilling that promise, ma’am.”
Quiet descended upon the courtroom. The stenographer continued typing away as the lawyers shuffled through their papers, holding Vi in another state of limbo as she awaited their further questioning.
An officer on the left of the board spoke again. Vi’s eyes followed his voice. “Lieutenant Vanderson, we have a file here detailing an incident between yourself and a fellow officer that happened just days prior to your mission.” Shit. Seemed Vi’s visit to Maddie had ended up on her file after all. “Do you believe your heightened emotions may have affected your ability to successfully carry out your assignment? Your entire record highlights previous acts of defiance and an incline for disobeying direct orders. Can you offer any comment on that?”
That was it. The pot finally tipped over. “Who are you trying to convict here?” she growled.
“Lieutenant Vanderson, please, we’re just trying to cover all-“
“My best friend’s body is still fucking warm, and all you care about is finding a scapegoat.” Vi shot out of her seat with such force it sent her chair flying to the ground with a thud. “I didn’t pull that trigger. Ambessa did. I didn’t send us on that mission. You did.” She jabbed a furious finger at the lawyers before her. She bit back the threat of tears as she continued tearing into them. “I would give anything, anything to swap positions with him. To have it be me dead in some foreign land instead of him. But that won’t happen. He was my best fucking friend, and any question you throw at me now won’t be anything I haven’t asked myself a million times already.”
A loud slam echoed from the back of the courtroom. Vi turned her head again and found only Caitlyn still watching, listening. Her eyes, wide with concern, stayed glued to her pilot.
There was another scrabble of movement at the lawyers gathered their files, feathering the reports neatly into a bundle. “Court adjourned. Thank you for your time, Lieutenant Vanderson,” the pack leader said flatly.
Vi didn’t respond. She glared up at the vultures, the blood-sucking parasites, the circling sharks, with pure hot hatred riddled across her complexion.
Without another word, she turned around and stomped out of the courtroom, carefully avoiding Caitlyn’s uneasy gaze as she went.
“Vi! Violet!” A scuffle of heels followed the voice.
Vi didn’t respond. She was too busy scrabbling furiously in the depths of her pockets, feeling for the familiar cuboid packet she’d made sure to take with her.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she produced her cigarettes, sticking a white stick into her mouth and inhaling slowly as she lit up the tip.
“What the hell were you thinking back there?” Caitlyn’s scolding tone finally caught up to her.
The pilot took another puff and let the smoke trickle slowly from her parted lips. “He hated me smoking, you know,” she mumbled, shifting her feet against the ground. “Said it reminded him of the smog when we were kids back in Zaun.”
“Why didn’t you just answer their questions, Vi?” Cait ignored the painstaking comment. “Do you know what-“
“They teach you that shit in trade school? Or does the Corps of Justice just have a tendency to spit out assholes?” Vi snarked, cutting the other officer off.
“I’m not the enemy here, Violet.” Caitlyn found herself repeating that same phrase. Again.
Vi took a shuddery breath. She exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
Caitlyn pursed her lips and folded her arms. She glared down at Vi, expression hard and unforgiving. “You look like shit. Go home and get changed. I’ll come see you later.”
Before Vi could protest, the captain was gone, taking her heavy heart with her.
***
“If you keep fidgeting I’ll end up taking your eye out. Or worse, I’ll have to buzz it all off.”
Vi sat between Caitlyn’s legs, back against the bathtub in Vi’s apartment, wincing and grunting as the other girl forked fingers through her hair and attacked the sodden strands with a pair of hairdressing scissors. Cait had already taken care of the two shaved spots on either side of Vi’s head. The evidence had fallen into an awkward semicircle on the floor by their feet.
The pilot was very particular about her hair; she almost always cut it herself, refusing to let any barbers or hairdressers go near it. While she trusted Caitlyn enough to save her life, letting her trim her mullet felt like a whole other kettle of fish.
“I don’t think it was even that bad,” Vi muttered grumpily between her legs.
“You looked homeless, darling,” Caitlyn half-teased without bite.
“Are you saying that as Captain Kiramman or Caitlyn?”
“As your squad leader, I would have written you up for not upholding personal grooming standards,” Cait continued, snipping a dead end as she spoke. It tumbled to the floor silently. It was true; Vi’s hair had begun touching her ears and the collar of her shirt, and it was now obstructing her vision whenever she wasn’t wearing a cover. “But as your lover, I don’t care what your hair looks like.”
Lover. That was a new one. Vi wondered how the word would taste upon her own tongue.
Returning back to the pilot’s apartment had been hard. Everything seemed to remind her of her wingman, no matter what she looked at or what resemblance it bore to him at all. The pictures were the most painstaking of all to look at, sealing his smile into ink forever.
She’d had the opportunity to hang up her dress blues and look a few times solemnly around the room before Caitlyn made the suggestion of a haircut. The tension from earlier had dissolved; a conversation for another time, perhaps, but it was near impossible to stay mad at Vi given the dire state she was in.
“Sorry, did I-“ Caitlyn fumbled.
“No,” Vi said almost instantly. She ran her fingertips up the inside of Cait’s bare calf and ghosted her lips against the inside of her knee. “No, you’re good, Cupcake.”
They fell into a comfortable silence again as the other officer continued to run her fingers through her hair and take off chunks. Vi leant back into the touch, warm and welcoming against her tense scalp, grateful for Caitlyn’s tender and gentle hands.
After a few grumbles of despair, and a couple more metallic snips, Cait dropped the scissors into the bathroom sink and stood up, helping Vi get to her feet in the process.
The pilot took the opportunity to examine her new cut in the mirror, tug at a couple of stray strands, comb her fingers through a few more times before looking at Caitlyn again in the reflection. “Well? How does it look?”
Caitlyn kept her mouth shut for a beat. She snaked a hand up and over Vi’s shoulders, placing a gentle kiss to her cheek before adding with a sarcastic undertone, “Presentable.”
Vi looked back into Cait’s eyes and offered a weak smile.
Ocean met storm, and this time Vi wasn’t scared of the riptide.
***
The coffin was light.
This didn’t come as a surprise to Vi; after all, his body was never recovered.
It still felt as if the weight of the world rested on those same shoulders.
The coffin was empty.
At a best bet, her best friend’s corpse was probably face down in a ditch somewhere in Noxus, his brains already being consumed by maggots.
If worms were to eat into Vi’s brain right now all they’d see was Ekko, too.
There was no body in the coffin.
There were other pallbearers helping carry the large wooden box into the church. Claggor and Mylo led at the front. Jayce was in the middle next to Vi. Two people Vi didn’t recognise were at the back.
His body wasn’t in there.
Powder had wanted to carry her boyfriend into the church as well, but Vander told her no. It wasn’t his choice to make but she obeyed regardless, too tired to fight anymore.
It was empty.
The church was stunning. Tall, spindly pillars reached up to the ceiling, spilling into a gorgeous mural painted above. The depiction was of snow-white horses galloping across the clouds, hands of saints prying at an ascending golden light above them, little cherubs and robe-clad men shielding their eyes.
It reminded Vi of the type of place Caitlyn would’ve begged to take her when they were younger, in the sparse times between their study sessions and chocabloc schedules. Under any other circumstance she’d have the wind knocked from her chest at the raw beauty of it.
The pallbearers set the coffin down on a plinth at the front of the ceremony before taking their seats amongst the crowd. It was easy to spot her family; Vander’s giant shoulders stuck out like a sore thumb against the sea of half-uniformed attendees. A smaller, blue-haired frame was nuzzled into his bulbous shoulder.
Vi took her seat between Powder and Caitlyn. Her lover didn’t say anything, just wrapped her hand over Vi’s clenched knuckles and gave a light squeeze. Vi reciprocated.
The first speaker went up. Benzo, Ekko’s adoptive father, slid out of his booth and trundled to the front. His hands shook violently, clutching a small slip of paper in his unsteady fingers, as he stood before the podium and began to read.
He got three lines into his speech before breaking down into heaving sobs. It took a lot longer for him to get through whatever he’d planned to say after that, but he managed, placing his palm against the coffin lid before walking back to his designated spot.
Other people went up after him. Claggor. Vander. Mylo. Heimerdinger, even. Their voices all faded into one as they went up.
Vi couldn’t stop glancing at her sister throughout. Tears ran steadily down her face, her eyes red and puffy. She looked at the same girl she had to remind to brush her teeth before bedtime, who used to beg Vi to tie her shoelaces for her, having to now bury the love of her life in a foreign land. A sharp pain twisted in her gut; for a moment, she was back in that dungeon all over again.
Vi didn’t realise it was her turn to speak until Cait nudged her with her knee. Her gaze shot away from Powder, briefly settling on Caitlyn’s before she stood slowly and made her way to the front.
There were cue cards tucked into her dress uniform pocket. She’d spent the previous afternoon fawning over what to write, stuck in a vicious loop of jotting something down, then screwing it up, then jotting some more down, having a drink, screwing it up again, drinking some more and writing some more. In the end she’d produced something manageable.
Sweaty fingertips placed the cards down softly on the podium in front of her. Vi set her hands either side. The dark oak was cool to the touch.
“Uhm,” she began stupidly. Her eyes flickered around the church as the words constricted in her throat. She took another glance down at the speech she’d prepared. The words danced tauntingly along the page, and Vi couldn’t tell if it was because of the tears stinging at her eyes or her emotions.
What the hell. She could wing it. Half the shit she did with Ekko was winging it.
Vi picked her voice back up and continued slowly. “I was 11 years old when I first met Ekko,” she recited, palms sweating. “I was being chased by some of the bigger kids on the block, and his house was the closest, so I went banging on his door like hell and hoped for the best.”
“He didn’t have to let me in. All I was to him was the girl down the street in the crazy house with all the brothers. But he helped me out anyway. Because that’s who he was.”
She swallowed a hard lump in her throat before carrying on. “Ekko was a good man because he didn’t want people to know he was a good man. Everything he did, he did because he wanted to, not because he knew people were watching.”
“I knew he’d play football with the kids on the streets back in Zaun. I knew he’d drop food packages off to the families of fallen soldiers, reminding them that their child’s sacrifice didn’t go unnoticed. I knew he donated a portion of his paycheck every month to the orphanage he spent time in when his parents passed.”
“I didn’t know this because he told me. He never brought it up once. Because that’s the type of man he was.”
“When we were back on our haunches during missions, when the chips were down, Ekko was the light in the darkness. He picked us up, brushed us off, and made sure we got out safe every single time. Even if it meant he got hurt in the process.”
“He loved his country. He loved his family. He loved my sister, Powder, unrequitedly. That’s why he signed up. It was never about him. It was about doing the right thing.”
“He loved me. And I loved him. He wasn’t just my wingman, or the boy from down the street, or someone I worked with. He was my best friend. And I’ll love him forever.”
Vi fell quiet. The crowd was silent, watching her speak. In the distance she could see Powder’s shoulders shuddering with tears.
She stepped back from the podium, swept around and placed a gentle hand against his coffin, the smooth wood brushing against her fingertips.
“Until Valhalla, Little Man,” she breathed.
For the last time, Violet Vanderson said goodbye to her best friend.