Chapter Text
Time. Its incremental passage, measured and chronological; a straight line. Past, present, future. Though, I must wonder - is there more to it? Unexplored possibilities? A cyclical nature at play? Or do we exist in echoes and fragments, scattered among different timelines if not to the afterlife? I have all the time in the world laid ahead of me. I am now but a wandering soul, a restless incorporeal spirit doomed to roam among the living in fields of dreamless solitude.
And what about timē? Why does honor hold any meaning for my remaining consciousness? Did my peers deem me worthy of honor upon my death? No, no. I would not be in this predicament if they had held me in any esteem. That’s not true, though, a voice whispers. Ah. A figment, as it is, but the instantaneous recollection of the warm timbre is just as well in death as it was in life. Jayce. The one my soul loves. I wish I could have told him one last time. How honored I was to have been his therapon, his companion, his partner. Before then. Before the prophecy took root that fateful day on the bloody beaches of Noxus.
Did he know? He must have. It is no matter. I am lost to him, and he to me. To dwell on it further is futile, so I leave it be and reach further back into the recess of my memories.
***
I am five when my mother is widowed. My father had lived an honest, pious life up until the moment his thread was clipped unceremoniously by the Fates. The scissors that made the cut must have been dull and blunt indeed, for his was a slow death succumbing to the Grey. Such is the life of a Zaunite man that makes a concerted effort to walk the path of the straight and narrow. The gods had long since turned their eyes from this subterranean hellscape, even before the struggle for independence was hard fought and won by its people. In contrast to the shining acropolis of Piltover, this was a city sorrow built. It seeps from the mining fissures, to our honey and milk. Sorrow laces and weaves into the omnipresent volatility of the thick air, a pervasive murky green gaseous cloud that surrounds all and holds the possibility of combustion at any given moment. It’s a bitter harbor of unrealized potential and dashed dreams. Only the most ruthless manage to claw and scrounge their way to see another day in the wasteland. If they were really lucky, under extraordinary circumstances and improbable odds, they’d make their way to Piltover - and by extension, a better life. It was seldom heard of, though.
As for the weak and soft-hearted, they are laid by the wayside, as my poor father was. I fared no better physically, being born with a limp in the right leg, and plagued by a respiratory ailment for good measure. In spite of this, or because of it, Mother and Father spent their days gently nurturing and carefully doting on me, their only child. For a time, I had known what it was like: to be kept like jewelry, kept with devotion. Lovingly crafted and borne out of my father’s resourcefulness, I was set with a cane that rendered me able to explore the fissures among the other Zaunite children.
The cane just so happened to serve as a last parting gift from father to son, and a reminder of fate’s cruelty. Of how abruptly one’s path and trajectory can be changed, eclipsed, or snuffed out altogether by the Fates.
Perhaps that is why my mother, in an attempt to bend Moira, agreed to the marriage arrangement with Silco after Father’s death. Her health was rapidly deteriorating as well, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to fend for ourselves in the absence of our steadfast patriarch. It was a practical, purely transactional match: her deceased husband’s savings, however meager, would go to Silco and fund his enterprises. In return, Mother and I would be offered protection, a small relief from the unfortunate events that had befallen us in quick succession.
Still, it was not an easy transition. Silco, whose scarred appearance and countenance defied the gods, ruled over Zaun with an iron fist. The same could be said of the household. He was an intimidating presence, and I could never be sure of his intentions. Even so, it was abundantly clear that having a congenitally malformed stepchild as an heir was not the show of dominance expected from a man of his political prowess.
For the most part, it was a cold indifference to the strange child that had entered into his life; at worst, it was palpable disdain. It grew worse as Mother became bedridden and absent for days at a time. But blessedly, he reserved his bone-chilling viciousness for his enemies: there would be no question as to who would be maintaining the stronghold over the nation.
***
Years before Silco came to reluctantly claim me as his heir, and before he rose to power as Zaun’s imposing authoritarian, there were whispered tales that the man was not always so. He had once been an idealist and therapon to a centaur, both sharing a vision of a proud Zaun. Through mutual respect and admiration, the bond blossomed into something more.
However noble their shared cause started out, independence was won at the cost of this love. The centaur was disillusioned with Silco’s violent methods, unable to reconcile the man he knew with the deplorable depths that Silco had gone to achieve sovereignty. The tit-for-tat violence had nearly escalated to a full-on war; there had been considerable bloodshed before a truce was reached and blanket amnesty granted to Zaun. By then, the damage had been done. The centaur had vanished from the city; some suspected, either from heartbreak, or banished by Silco himself in his embitterment from the fallout. This became the man that I had come to know: shrewd, calculating, and infinitely cold. A heart that had been locked away and hardened to stone.
***
On days I was left alone with Silco, I could quickly sense the growing disappointment. I remained small and slight, to no one’s surprise. The best that could be said of me was my aptitude for Zaunian affairs. This, Silco could work with. As long as I could assist in the betterment of Zaun, I was afforded a modicum of begrudging respect.
My days then were spent alongside Silco’s closest advisor Corin. He had risen among Silco’s ranks for his expertise in scientific inquiry and innovation, proving his usefulness in more ways than one. The man was peculiar in his methods, but we utilized proprietary tools to clean up and improve as much of our city as we could. Money came from Silco’s questionable but auspicious enterprises; we never broached the matter in our time together. When the day’s work had ended, Corin would disappear into his personal quarters, where I had come to learn housed secret developments for Silco’s more illicit affairs. I would not be permitted to follow, not until a couple years later.
***
When I reach the age of nine, Silco proposes to host the games. Our city had undergone significant rehabilitation, and enough time had passed since the revolution to welcome visitors from across. In a tentative display of goodwill and amity between the two cities, Piltover had agreed to days’ worth of sporting events traditionally held in their domain. Silco is determined to make the most of the games, eager to stockpile his storehouses with Piltovian gold from the visiting wealthy elites.
The Piltovians come in droves, the draw of the games strong enough to put aside any lingering doubts of their Zaunite counterparts. A bull is brought in and sacrificed, commencing the start of the games. I remember being most eager to spectate the races, vicariously committing the runners to memory: tan, lithe and all sculpted muscle, their oiled bodies reflecting sun rays at every angle off the track.
The youngest boys are the first to be ushered to the dais where I sit beside Silco and my mother (who was relatively well enough that day to be present), surrounded by prizes to be handed out to the winners throughout the day’s races. There are gold-flecked mixing bowls for wine, well-crafted bronze tripods, and, contributed by Corin himself - sleek wood spears tipped with valuable iron. In my hands, I cradle the most covetable object: a lush wreath of twined olive branches, a pleasing halo composed of earthy verdant green leaves brushed to a sheen between my fingers. Silco gives me a withering gaze, as if to say, don’t make me regret entrusting you with this one responsibility. He goes back to presiding over the youths, ready to signal the commencing race.
Before they take off from the designated mark, I spot among them a singular boy, staring out at the expanse of the sandy track. He cannot be much younger than I, possibly only a year or two of difference. His dark skin is of a healthy flush full of vitality, my perpetually pallid complexion a laughable comparison in contrast. His face still bears the plumpness of childhood, a pair of wide eyes reflecting dogged determination and nervous energy in equal measure. He is shorter than the others in the group by a few inches, but that isn’t what sets him apart. In his brown hair, already gleaming a striking deep chestnut from the sun, lay a thin circlet that glimmers gold. He is of noble birth, then.
Silco gives the sign; a priest strikes the ground, signifying the race’s start.
My gaze remains transfixed on the boy, who slips past runners older and taller alike with a practised ease. His small heels strike the ground as swift as a match, so much so that they seem to be levitating and carried by the wind in intervals. Initially unwilling to tear my eyes away from the implausible awe of the child’s light footwork, I chanced a look at his face: it is as serious as a man’s. The expression remains implacable for several more beats until he claims his victory. He wins by a landslide.
I continue to stare as Silco nudges me out of my reverie, pointedly gesturing to present the garland to the boy. I grab my cane and rise slowly, hesitant to make my way to the boy victor. I feel ridiculously inadequate in his presence. He meets me halfway, hands outstretched to receive his prize. Our small fingers brush briefly as the wreath exchanges hands, the contact prompting me to look into his eyes. They are a captivating shade of hazel otherwise only found among the namesake trees in the garden of the gods.
Soon after, his mother Ximena rushes over to embrace her son. She radiates warmth and pride. He is laughing now, and his face lifts, bright with mirth.
Ximena’s lineage can be traced back to a small kingdom, and her husband is rumored to be a god. The Piltovian people love her, and after today’s events, her son, moreover. Silco watches the pair with barely concealed envy, contending with the fact that this child has just become a fresh-faced pledge that will ensure Piltover’s legacy of excellence for years to come. He has nothing to say to me: why would he, when he knows I cannot race in the first place.
Beyond this, I remember little more than scattered images encapsulating my formative years in Zaun. My mother, mending a rip in my tunic on one of her better days. Silco, ever frowning from his throne. A toy boat, determinedly navigating itself among other floating debris in the runoff waters.
In this last memory, I desperately chase after the boat and its trail of ripples left behind. The water conspiratorially leaves a message hidden within the pattern for me to decipher, if only I am fast enough to catch it. I see butterflies fluttering by as I make my way downstream, caught in my peripheral vision as fleeting starbursts of white.
I lose traction. The composition of cogs and gears continually propel forward without its inventor. Yes, I have built this. This is what I do, what I’ve always done - invent. Iterate. I am glad to be good at it. I remind myself of this, and let my prototype flow onward.
So much has passed since then.
***