Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jinx’s vision was black. Her ears rang. The only thing that told her she wasn’t dead was the hammering of her heart that she could still feel behind her sternum. There was a weight on top of her. Something heavy, limp. She tried to open her eyes but found that she lacked the consciousness to do so. What had happened? The last thing she remembered was a blinding flash of blue light and… 

No! 

No, no, no! 

Jinx fought frantically with all her will to wake up, to make her mind and body one again so that she could open her eyes and throw the weight off the top of her. Gradually, Jinx beat back the fog from her mind, and she felt small tingles of sensation slowly filling her again. She regained feeling at the tips of her fingers and toes first, the sensation slowly creeping back into her limbs as the seconds dragged on. She needed this to happen faster. She needed to be able to get to her. 

Isha. 

The cobalt memory of her little companion pulling the trigger on Vander to save Jinx’s life was enough motivation to will her eyes to open. Her vision was still blurry- and black around the edges at that- but she could see well enough to tell that the force of the explosion had been devastating. Smoking, lifeless bodies laid on the ground everywhere- Noxians, enforcers, and members of Viktor’s commune alike. Fire rained around her, and smoke choked out the sky. She rolled her head to the side. Her temples throbbed. Lightning arced behind her eyes. Everything in her wanted to just close them and lay in her agony for just a moment longer. 

But then Jinx saw her. Her little girl. So tiny, lying in the dust in front of Vander's mountainous body- there was Isha. Her eyes were closed. She bore the same peaceful expression that she had when she courageously sacrificed herself for Jinx. Jinx’s stomach roiled. She felt like she might be sick. A sob choked its way out from between her cracked and split lips as her heart shattered into a million pieces. 

She had failed. Yet again, she had failed to protect the person she cared about. The one spark of meaning in her life snuffed out so easily right in front of her. Snatched away just like everything else she’d ever cared about. Jinx thought the despair would utterly consume her. She would let it. But then, she saw something as she stared at Isha. Just the slightest twitch of her finger. The tiniest cough leaving her lungs.

Jinx suddenly felt full of fire. Isha wasn’t dead. Not yet. And Jinx wouldn’t let her go without a fucking fight. She didn’t know where she found the strength- maybe it was borrowed against her own life- but she managed to move her arms, her legs against the agony that laced itself through her body. The weight on top of her turned out to be her sister. Vi had thrown her body in front of Jinx’s when Isha pulled the trigger. A touching gesture, but the last thing on her mind all the same. Jinx pushed Vi off of her and let her fall into the dust. Vi had a nasty wound on her stomach where she’d been stabbed in the fray preceding the explosion. Jinx stopped for only the briefest second to make sure Vi wasn’t dead before she dumped her beside Caitlyn’s unconscious form. They would take care of each other when they woke up. 

She pushed herself to her feet shakily. Every movement was agony. Fire laced through every cell in her body. She didn’t care. Nothing that she felt mattered except her burning need to get to Isha. Her entire focus narrowed to her little girl lying motionless in the dust. 

Jinx took a step toward her. 

Pain. 

Another step forward. 

Misery.

And yet she persisted. Dust puffed from under her boots with every step as she limped her way toward Isha. Her boots slipped in blood soaked dirt. Every inch felt like it took an eternity to pass. Her face felt hot, and she couldn’t tell if it was blood or tears that streaked down her cheeks as she fell to her knees heavily at Isha’s side. 

She almost looked like she was asleep. Her eyes were closed, her face relaxed. The only immediate signs of something wrong were the small trickles of blood that leaked from her nose and her ears. Jinx pressed her trembling fingers to the pulse point on Isha’s neck. 

“Please,” she whispered. 

A weak ba-dum. A strange cocktail of relief and renewed panic flooded her body. There was a pulse. It was faint, but it was still there. 

Jinx gathered Isha’s body carefully into her arms. The gun which she still clutched in her hand smacked against Jinx’s leg as Isha’s arm flopped lifelessly against her. Jinx carefully unbent each one of her little fingers from the grip and the trigger. Jinx spared a single second to examine the weapon. Other than the blackened char at the end of the barrel, it looked fully functional. She holstered the weapon at her hip and turned her attention back to Isha. Jinx cradled her head against her chest. A single purple tear fell from her face and slid down Isha’s cheek. Jinx could fix this. She had to. She wouldn’t let her family be ripped away again. 

Jinx frantically scanned the smoking battleground. Where could she take Isha? What would she even do? The neon demons flickered at the edges of her vision, waiting for her to falter so they could descend on her. A panicked cry of fear leaked between her teeth. Isha stirred briefly in her arms. Nothing more than a cough- but enough to push the demons from her mind for long enough to refocus. 

There, across the battlefield near one of the shelters, it was Singed. Her heart stopped for a long moment when she saw him. The man who turned her into… whatever she was now. Maybe he could… Yes. He would. He would have to. 

Because Jinx was going to make him. 

She ran as fast as her legs would carry her across the battle-pocked commune. Bodies littered the ground around her. She didn’t stop to see if she could recognize any of them. None of them mattered to her right then. The only thing that mattered was dying in her arms. In the last hundred feet, a small cry of pain from Isha put lightning in her chest, and the jolt was enough to trigger a burst of her shimmer-speed that closed the distance in an instant. The sudden burst of speed put terrible, agonizing pain in every one of her muscles. Anyone with motivations lesser than hers would have collapsed in the dirt to die. But Jinx could worry about herself later. If she couldn’t bring Isha back, well… things would work themselves out, wouldn’t they? 

She flickered to a stop dead in front of Singed, panting and looking like a woman with nothing to lose. She could tell the pink of her irises still glowed in a foreboding neon. He looked surprised, but not frightened. 

“Ah, Jinx. It has been a while. You’ve looked… better.” He glanced at Isha clutched in her grasp but didn’t acknowledge her further. 

He ghosted past her and into the shelter like there were more pressing matters to attend to inside. She wanted to kick his ass right there, to make him submit and beg for what he could do to appease her, but she still needed his cooperation. Whatever he had in there must have been pretty important, so she followed him inside, a severe snarl settling over her face. If he didn’t want to help her- her fingers tightened around the grip of the gun she’d pried from Isha’s hands- well then she would just blow up whatever he was hiding back here. 

She followed him into a small room with a music box set on a small table with a cracked mirror hung behind it. A sort of pod sat in the middle of the room. At first, Jinx couldn’t tell what was inside, but then she saw the pale face and spindly limbs of a young girl, and she got the gist of what was happening. 

“I need help.” Jinx croaked. 

“Yes, clearly.” He sat down heavily in a chair facing the pod. “Don’t we all?” 

“I need you to bring her back.” Jinx held Isha up in her arms. 

Singed let a small huff of breath puff from his nose. A chuckle perhaps. 

“Why would I be so inclined to do that?” He asked, training his cold stare on her. 

“Because-“ Jinx whipped the pistol from her belt and aimed it at the pod. The three gemstones in its chamber hummed to life and lit the end of her weapon with a threatening cobalt blue. “If you don't, I’ll blow us all to Janna right now.” 

A flare of fear flickered over his good eye. 

“You would give up your life to end mine?” 

“I would give it up for a lot less at this point,” Jinx hissed. “And besides- I can tell it’s not your life you’re worried about.” Jinx flicked her gun at the pod with the young girl inside. “Fix Isha, or I detonate your little science project here and take all of us with it.” 

Singed could see from the cold look of desperation in her eyes that she wasn’t bluffing. He knew he didn’t have a choice. Not when he was so close to bringing her back. He had everything he needed at his fingertips. To waste that opportunity… that would be unforgivable even in his own demise. 

“I will make an attempt. But the process is… violent. She may not survive.” He warned gravely. 

“She will.” Jinx insisted desperately. “She has to.” 

“Come with me.” 

Singed led her into a smaller back room with a lone slab rising out from the middle of the floor. There were leather restraints attached to chains, three at the top and two at the bottom. The middle brace across the top was bigger and thicker with its chains wrapping around the shorter width of the slab, clearly meant to restrain the head of whatever captive may lay on it. 

Jinx had horrible flashes to moments when she had been strapped to a table very much like this, shimmer burning through her veins and showing her monstrosities unlike any she’d ever seen. The memory of the pain almost made her reconsider. But one look at Isha’s tiny face fortified her conviction to bring her back. She laid Isha down on the table and let Singed secure the restraints. Isha’s head lolled limply side to side as the restraints were affixed to her wrists and ankles. Her eyes fluttered behind their lids when Singed tightened the strap around her head. She was still alive. 

“You may want to leave the room.” Singed moved around the dark recesses of the room and pulled out a large syringe with an intimidating needle protruding from the end. 

“I can handle myself. Just do it. Time’s a wastin’.” Jinx tapped the butt of the gun at her hip impatiently. 

“Very well.” Singed loaded up the syringe to the top with deep purple glowing shimmer from a vial in his stores. He pressed the needle to the skin of her elbow. Before he broke the skin a look flashed across his face- sadness, maybe? It only lasted a moment. He slid the needle into her tender flesh carefully and fully depressed the syringe, emptying all of its contents to the very last drop into her body. 

For a sickening few seconds, nothing happened. Singed pulled the needle- which looked so much bigger than it had before as it slid out of Isha’s tiny arm- from her flesh and deposited the spent syringe onto one of his work tables. He sat down with a heavy sigh. 

“The process takes several minutes to start. Her heart must pump the shimmer through her entire body before the transformation will begin… if she can hold out that long.” He paused and considered Jinx carefully. “You should sit. You are injured yourself.” 

“I’ll stand, thanks,” Jinx spat at him. She paced around the small room like a caged lioness in an enclosure. Every atom in her body screamed at her to help Isha, but there was nothing more that she could do besides wait for the process to take its course. 

Isha was a tough little sonofabitch. Jinx knew that. She and Jinx were very much the same in that way as they were many others. But Jinx remembered how awful the shimmer transformation had been for her, and she felt guilty for putting Isha through the same thing. What would happen if- when- when Isha woke up? Would Isha hate Jinx for turning her into a monster like her against her will when she had so readily sacrificed her life to save Jinx? Would she even remember their time together? Jinx surmised that if the force of the blast was enough to take down Vander in his new form that it could have easily blown away Isha’s memories as well. 

The four minutes that it took for the process to start felt like an eternity each. Jinx felt like she could have died and been reborn several times over in the duration that it took for the first twitch of Isha’s fingers to happen. It started slow at first. Isha’s hands clenched and unclenched randomly, seemingly as the result of muscle spasms rather than any rise of consciousness. Her tiny arms and legs pulled at their restraints, and her little head tried to sit up off the table. Jinx could see the veins closest to the surface of her pallid skin fill with the neon purple of the shimmer as she stirred. The movement filled Jinx with hope. The horrible screaming that followed filled her with the worst agony she’d ever experienced. She would take her own shimmer transformation an infinite number of times again over watching the same happen to her little girl. 

Isha began to writhe on the table, limbs spasming and twitching irregularly as her screams echoed cacophonously off of the metal walls of the shelter. Jinx had never heard Isha utter this many audible sounds before. Had only ever heard her cry out a handful of times in their year together. Jinx longed for the silence they’d once shared. Maybe this was her punishment for not letting the dead lie. Jinx felt raked over the coals of her own self loathing every millisecond that Isha’s horrible high-pitched wails of pain filled the room. 

The process felt like it took days, weeks in only the span of a little more than an hour. Slowly, ever so slowly, Isha’s screams lessened. Her muscles tightened less spastically, and she gradually began to sink back onto the slab. As slow as the process has seemed, all at once the shelter was quiet. The only sounds were the combined breathing of the three beings inside the room. Isha’s eyes remained closed. 

“Isha?” Jinx croaked barely above a whisper. “Are you in there, kid?” 

Singed sat up from his chair to undo her restraints. He hadn’t expected the little one to survive. Someone of her small stature shouldn’t have been able to withstand the force of the shimmer ripping through their body. Yet she had persisted. Singed wondered, as he undid the restraints on her ankles, if she had survived out of sheer force of will as Vander had, or if there was something special at play that he hadn’t discovered yet. 

As he undid the last restraint- the strap holding her head down- something incredible happened. Isha’s eyes snapped open. Rather than glowing pink like Jinx had expected them to, a shocking amber gold light shone from her irises. Singed reached out a hand, only to brush the skin of Isha’s limp wrist. As soon as his finger came within a millimeter of touching her, Isha’s body crackled with a vibrant yellow electricity and launched him backward into the wall with a violent flash. 

He hit the wall with a heavy thud, and the air whooshed from his lungs, leaving him gasping and twitching on the ground as the excess charge left his body. Jinx watched, spellbound in awe and terror at what she’d done. Isha sat up slowly off the table, rubbing her eyes and discharging little sparks of yellow electricity as she did. She blinked blearily, unaware of the events that had transpired in the last several seconds. Isha looked around slowly, confused as to why she was awake. 

She finally turned to face Jinx. She looked confused for a moment before she began to sign to Jinx. 

“What happened? Are you dead too?” She looked worried, like her sacrifice hadn’t been enough to save Jinx. 

“No-” Jinx cleared her throat of the shock that choked her. “No, I’m not dead, Ish. Neither are you.” She took a slow step toward her. 

Isha’s brows pinched in confusion. 

“Why?” Isha asked. 

“You saved me. So I saved you.” Jinx swallowed hard. “You know how my eyes are pink and I can move real fast sometimes?” She asked. 

Isha nodded. 

“There was a time before… when I died. My dad, he- he couldn’t let me go. And I couldn’t let you go either. I had Singed here bring you back like he brought me back.” Jinx put a hand over her mouth and choked back a sob as the full reality of what she had done to her little one hit her like a freight train full of combustibles. 

Isha looked around the room, and her eyes finally landed on Singed.  He was struggling to catch his breath, and his clothes still smoked from the sudden flash of electricity that had surged through his body. 

“Fascinating,” he coughed. “Absolutely fascinating.” 

“What’s so fascinating, old man?” Jinx turned her neon glare on him. 

“Shi-” he coughed again. “Shimmer doesn’t produce elemental effects like this in the body. It enhanced your strength and your speed, but those were skills you already possessed.” Another violent cough wracked his body. “The electricity… she must have been imbued with it before the transformation. Perhaps the explosion had something to do with it…” he trailed off as another coughing fit stole the air from his lungs. 

Jinx thought about it. It could be true. As far as she knew, a combined blast with three Hextech gemstones had never been recorded, had never even happened before then. The gemstones contained untold magical power, and she supposed that the combined energy from the three of them could have transformed something in Isha’s biology just as the Hexcore had changed Viktor’s. If she was close enough to the epicenter of the explosion, maybe she was mostly just caught up in magic instead of blasted to ash? Vander’s body wasn’t destroyed either, so maybe… 

It didn’t really matter. Jinx didn’t give a shit how Isha had survived. What mattered was that she was alive . That was it. 

Isha looked down at her hands, bewildered. Small arcs of yellow lightning ran up and down the lengths of her fingers and palms, crackling under the edge of the sleeves of her shirt. The bewilderment turned quickly to fear in her golden eyes. 

“Is…” She began to sign, her hands hovering with hesitation. “Is there something wrong with me?” Golden tears brimmed in her eyes and slipped down her face, throwing tiny sparks when they splattered onto the stone slab. 

“No!” Jinx rushed forward and swept Isha into her arms. It stung just a little, the electricity. Isha seemed to hold a constant static charge. “No- there’s nothing wrong with you, kid.” 

Jinx pulled back and cradled Isha’s face between her hands. A bomb of joy detonated in Jinx’s chest and threatened to blow her ribs apart. Her little girl was alive. Even if she was different than before, she was still her Isha. Jinx wiped a single tear from Isha’s face as it rolled down her cheek. 

“Don’t cry, Ish. There’s nothing wrong with you.” Jinx gave her a watery smile. “You’re perfect.” 

Chapter Text

Jinx and Isha moved quickly. They had to. Caitlyn wouldn’t give her a moment’s rest to collect herself, not when she had been so close to nabbing Jinx. After Isha was revived, Jinx stole her away from the battlefield. They left Singed cowering in his workspace with his little science project and snuck back to their secret hideout hastily to gather supplies. Jinx knew that she could never give Isha a good life while she had a target on her back as big as it was, so they would have to leave. They wouldn’t be safe until they did. It was a decision made with leaden finality in her gut as Jinx drew the drawstring tight on her go bag. Isha, outfitted with her little helmet and a bag of her own, followed Jinx as she rounded up the last of the supplies she could reasonably carry with them. 

With her more covert firearm supply severely lacking, Jinx gave Isha a slingshot and a bag of sharp stones that had been broken to a glass-like edge. Isha grinned excitedly and pulled one of the stones from the pouch. She gave Jinx a questioning look and mimed testing it out. 

“Go ahead, Ish.” 

Isha put the sharp little stone into the pouch of the slingshot and looked around for something to shoot at. She didn’t have to be too selective; if they were leaving, everything there that they couldn’t fit into their packs would be completely useless. She saw a little glass tube standing on the corner of the work desk. Isha drew the slingshot back as far as she could and let the stone fly. It was a good shot, not perfect, but good. It caught the very edge of the top of the tube and shattered it, spraying glass in every direction. Isha looked up at Jinx excitedly and jumped up and down on the balls of her feet. 

“Nice one, kid. A little practice and you’ll be even better than me.” Jinx patted the top of her head and looked around for anything else that they might need to grab before they left. 

They would pilfer food from the Pilties as they needed before they left the area, so Jinx didn’t concern herself with loading their small bags with food. Jinx made sure her pistol was holstered securely at her hip and checked around their workspace once more before she turned to leave. She was mildly surprised to find that Sevika, heavy-footed as she was, had snuck up on both of them. 

She was half-shrouded in shadow on the other end of the bridge that connected to Jinx’s workspace. She leaned up against a wall with her shoulder. Sevika turned her gaze onto Jinx before striking up a cigarette. The ember glowed, illuminating her face in the darkness like a classical painting. Smoke curled from her nose, her lips as she regarded Jinx watchfully. 

“Going somewhere?” She asked gruffly, pulling the cigarette from her mouth and tapping the excess ash off onto the floor. Isha ran to her and took a flying leap, clinging to Sevika’s leg on impact. The jolt from the new static charge that Isha carried knocked her only a tiny bit off balance. Sevika looked briefly alarmed. “Hey, kid.” She held the butt of her cigarette between her teeth and patted Isha’s helmet. Isha grinned wildly up at her. Her golden irises flashed in the dim light. “What happened to her?” 

“It’s a long story. Are you here to stop us?” Jinx asked, hand already on the butt of her gun. 

“No.” A heavy pull from her cigarette. 

“You know we can’t st- wait- what?” Jinx asked, bewildered. 

“I’m not here to stop you.” Sevika repeated. Isha peeled herself from her leg and ran back to Jinx. 

“… Well then what the hell are you here for?” 

Sevika chuckled shortly. 

“You think I was gonna let you dip out of the Under City without saying goodbye?” Sevika gave Jinx the closest thing to a real smile she’d ever seen from her. 

“What-? Why are you…?” Jinx’s eyebrows pinched in confusion. “I thought… I thought you hated me.” 

“Tch-! Hated you? Nah kid, you’re not a big enough nuisance for me to hate you. There was always more use for you than there wasn’t.” She spit her cigarette on the ground and stamped it out. “Don’t get me wrong- you annoyed the hell out of me. Pissed me off more than your fair share of times.” 

Jinx crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at Sevika while Isha chuckled behind her. 

“Regardless…” Sevika’s expression became a bit more serious. Maybe even a little mournful. “I watched you grow up. Watched you make yourself into what you are. That’s not the kind of thing you forget. You’ll see.” She jutted her chin toward Isha. “It’s hard to watch that go.” 

Jinx was actually dumbstruck by the gentle candor of Sevika’s words. Her voice still carried its usual threatening gravitas, but hearing her say those things out loud tugged at Jinx’s heartstrings a bit. 

“Sevika, I-“ 

“Don’t get all mushy on me, runt.” Sevika cut her off with a wave of her hand. “I just came to tell Isha to take care of you. Janna knows you can’t do it by yourself.” 

Isha laughed and Jinx couldn’t help the weak smile that tugged at her lips. 

“Keep each other safe. Don’t let anyone get close to you unless you’re sure they’d die for you.” Sevika grit her teeth against the memory of her years of loyal service to a dead man. “You two would do anything for each other. Don’t let anyone offering anything less worm their way in.” 

Sevika walked at a leisurely pace across the bridge toward them. Her footsteps echoed into the darkness below her. When she got close enough, she clapped Jinx heavily on the shoulder. Her lips pressed into a tight line against the sudden unexpected wave of emotion that built behind her chest. Memories of Jinx at Isha’s age flitted through her mind. Oh, how similar they were. Sisters pulled together by the string of fate even though their lives began worlds apart. As hard as she grit her teeth against it, she couldn’t help the single, tiny tear that rolled down her cheek. 

“I wish you the best of luck, Jinx. I hope you find the light in the dark you’re looking for.” She looked down at Isha. “Keep an eye on her, okay kiddo? She needs someone to have her back, and I think you’re just right for the job.” 

Isha nodded seriously.

Sevika smiled sadly at her. She gave Jinx's shoulder a final squeeze and was about to drop her hand, but was caught completely off guard by Jinx pulling her into a tight hug. Her arm hung suspended in the air for a moment as the shock wore off of her. Sevika could feel Jinx shaking against her, crying silently into her shoulder. Isha ran forward and threw her arms around their legs. She zapped both of them on contact, but that was fine. Sevika’s hard expression softened, and she afforded herself one genuine smile as she let her arm fall to return the hug. She wished her other arm wasn’t currently under repair so she could put a hand on Isha’s shoulder, but it was a perfect little moment anyway. 

They all spared themselves about fifteen seconds before they broke apart. Jinx wiped the remaining tears from her cheeks and refused to look Sevika in the eye. Isha looked sadly up at Jinx. She tugged on the leg of Jinx’s pants to get her attention. 

“Is this the last time?” She signed. 

“Maybe not, kiddo.” Jinx’s voice cracked with emotion. “Crazy shit happens in life. You never know if we’ll end up back in the Lanes.” Jinx gave her a watery smile and patted her head. 

“Before you go, I wanted to give you something.” Sevika pulled a half empty box of cigars from her back pocket and handed it to Jinx. Next, she handed over her own lighter. 

“What’s all this?” Jinx asked. 

“Those were your dad’s- Silco’s. Been carrying them on me. I dunno why… maybe I miss the old sonofabitch. In any case, I thought you might want them. I’ve never seen you smoke, but I bet you remember the smell. Might be nice to light one up if you’re ever feeling lonely.” 

Jinx swallowed hard. 

“Don’t you need your lighter?” Her voice wavered.  

“Nope. Keep it.” Sevika shook her head. “I need to quit anyway.”

“Thank you,” Jinx murmured and fought the fresh wave of tears that filled her eyes. 

“No problem, kid.” 

Jinx slung her bag on her shoulders and Isha did the same. 

“So… this is it, huh?” Jinx asked rhetorically. 

“Seems that way.” Sevika nodded. “One thing before you go, though.” 

“Hm?” Jinx hummed. 

Sevika gestured to the workspace around them. 

“This thing flies, right?” 

“It’s supposed to… Why?” 

“Something is coming. I don’t know what it is, but it’s big. If this little project of yours works, I’m thinking we’re going to need it. Show me how to use it?” 

Jinx gave her a sad smile and nodded, dropping her bag to the floor. She would at least give Sevika a hand if she couldn’t be around to finish what she’d started all those years ago. She regretted that she didn’t have time to fix Sevika’s arm before they left. Repairs like that would take at least a day or two, and that was time that they didn’t have. Jinx showed Sevika the controls and gave her one more quick hug before she and Isha left. 

Though they were in a hurry, Jinx stopped off in Silco’s old office once more before they left Piltover. It was the same as it had been the last time she’d seen it. Jinx ran her hand over the back of his chair. The material was worn with age and use. She could almost feel the lingering warmth of his ghost in the upholstery. She fought back tears, but couldn’t hide the pained grimace that twisted her face. 

Isha tapped her thigh. A little zing of electricity skipped up her leg. 

“Who used to be here?” She asked. Jinx knew Isha was a smart kid, but her intuition was still amazing. 

“He was…” Jinx trailed off as she fought the knot in the back of her throat. “He was my dad. Saved my life more than once.” She clamped her lips shut. “And I killed him for it.”

Isha looked at the chair sadly and ran her hand down the side, trying to feel what Jinx did. It smelled like old cigars and time-worn fabric. Isha had the sobering thought that an entire human life used to occupy this space. Someone that Jinx had treasured. Isha shifted her gaze to the desk in front of the chair. All of Jinx’s old drawings, ones that looked so much like her own, littered the surface. Isha appreciated every chip and scratch and dent in the dark wood as a part of something that Jinx had lived. 

Though she had never spent a moment there before, Isha felt saddened she wouldn’t return. So much of Jinx’s story was held in this place, things that Isha had yet to- and might never- learn about her. And Jinx was so incredibly important to her. A mother, a big sister, and a saving grace all wrapped into one person. Isha wanted to know everything about Jinx and what made her into the person that Isha knew now. 

Isha looked back at Jinx and saw that she was crying, purple tears streaking down her cheeks. Isha wanted to say that she was sorry that Jinx was sad, but she just hugged her instead. There was a small zap between Isha’s hand and Jinx’s leg. The small shock seemed to pull Jinx from her thoughts. She shook her head slightly like she was coming back to reality, and put a hand on Isha’s shoulder. 

“You’re the best, kid,” Jinx murmured. She rubbed Isha’s shoulder and patted it once. Isha stood back from her. 

Jinx thought about her dad’s old injector in his desk drawer. She opened it, and the momentum of the drawer sent a sparkling vial of shimmer rolling to the front with the instrument. Jinx eyed the vial, considering leaving it behind to collect dust. She had a strange feeling, though, that it would come in handy someday. She grabbed both the shimmer and the injector out of the drawer and fitted them with some difficulty into her already-full pack. 

“What’s that?” Isha asked. 

“It’s something called shimmer . It’s what brought you back when you… after you fought Vander.” Jinx clenched her jaw slightly. The memory of Isha’s near-lifeless little body in the dirt still haunted her. Jinx fixed her with a pleading look. “No more dying for me, okay kiddo?” 

Isha nodded, but she secretly held the conviction that she would do it all again if she ever had to. Jinx was too important to not save. Jinx nodded and made a move to leave. A flash on the desk caught her eye. Her knife was still there, embedded in the dark wood. She thought for a moment and yanked it sharply from the desk. Without a single moment of hesitation, she sawed through one of her braids just below the level of her jaw. The other was gone a second later. She let the ropes of her hair fall to the ground in front of the desk. 

Isha looked shocked. 

“Everyone in Piltover and the Undercity is gonna be looking for a girl with four-foot braids. Gives us a better chance.” Jinx crossed her arms and gave Isha a pondering look. “We maybe should change up your look, too. When we get where we’re going we should dye your hair again. Maybe mine too.” 

Isha nodded solemnly. Jinx almost put the knife back on the desk but stopped short, turning the blade contemplatively in her hands. 

“If I give this to you, you’ll be safe with it, right? Cut away from yourself and stab only who you need to?” Jinx asked Isha seriously. 

Isha nodded. Jinx packed the knife carefully into Isha’s bag. Jinx didn’t let them linger in Silco’s office any longer than that. She marched out through the door, and Isha spared only one backward glance at the office. Jinx’s braids laid on the ground in front of her father’s desk. The room felt even emptier than it had before. Isha frowned and let the door shut behind her. 

—-

There were wanted posters for the both of them pasted all over the city by the time they left their hideout. Jinx couldn’t help the feeling of pride that swelled in her chest seeing Isha’s wild-eyed smile on her very own wanted poster right next to hers. The Pilties knew her girl was dangerous. 

“And they better fuckin’ remember it.” She thought. 

Getting out was tricky, and they had several close calls. Noxians, Enforcers, and unfriendly faces from Zaun were everywhere in their path. Jinx and Isha bobbed and weaved skillfully through the crowds until they arrived at the departing airship gates. There was a goods ship bound for Rokrund- the nearest port city on the western edge of Noxus- set to leave that day. It was their best chance to make it out of Piltover. Once they arrived in Noxus, they could decide where to go from there. 

They ducked behind some freight boxes near the loading dock. Jinx made a watch me motion at Isha. She nodded seriously, pointing from her eyes to Jinx. Jinx gave her a quick half-smile and turned her attention to the loading crew. There were virtually no gaps in between the workers who loaded the cargo into the belly of the ship, but a tiny moment of opportunity presented itself when two workers carrying a big box accidentally blocked the path of two returning workers when the crate slipped from their grasp. 

Jinx made a dash for it, Isha hot on her heels and just as quiet. She’d learned well in the time that they had been together. They ducked inside the door and squeezed into a skinny open space between the cargo and the wall. They waited in the shadows, motionless while the workers continued their jobs, completely unaware of their presence. It was another thirty minutes or more before the loading bay door was closed and the two shimmied their way out into the walkway. 

It was dark, but they didn’t need to see right then anyway. Jinx had a light for when they did, but for the time being they would rest. The ride would be long, and it was unlikely that they would be disturbed for quite some time. Jinx sat down with her back against a large crate. Isha sat down and leaned into Jinx’s side. They were both asleep before the ship had even passed through the Hexgates. 

They had to hide again when their ship arrived, and disembarking was even more dangerous. Jinx and Isha fitted themselves in between the cargo and the wall as they had before, and the loading bay door opened with a groan. The sounds of heavy boot-clad feet echoed off of the walls. The ship was nearly empty by the time an opportunity to run presented itself. The six workers unloading the ship had to take one of the last boxes of cargo out as a team, and Jinx and Isha slipped out of the ship while their attention was occupied. 

It was warm, sunny and humid. Jinx squinted into the blinding light and swiftly led Isha behind a wall of cargo. She took a few seconds to get her bearings. Jinx had never seen a place like this before. The loading dock was set several hundred yards away from the edge of the town, separated from the city by a long search of sand that wrapped around the coast. Rokrund had the feel of a coastal town, but the architecture was severe and imposing. The buildings- even small houses near the outskirts- were built like bastions and clearly meant to be easy to defend. Canopies strung across the fronts of the buildings to provide some meager shade from the intense sunlight. She spotted a high dune of sand that would obscure them from the view of both the dock and the town. 

Jinx tapped Isha on the shoulder, pointing to the hill. Isha nodded, waiting for Jinx’s signal. Jinx made a break for it when the workers turned away to secure the ship’s loading door. She and Isha dove behind the dune just before they finished inspecting the locks. From there, Jinx had a second to breathe. She looked around the landscape scrutinously, searching for anywhere they could hole up and get their feet back under them. She scanned the horizon for a moment and found a small structure in the distance. It was separated from the rest of the town, sitting alone in the sand. It was clearly dilapidated compared to the rest of the city, perhaps abandoned. There was no way to get to it and keep themselves out of sight in the daylight, though. They would have to wait until nightfall to investigate it. 

Jinx leaned against the hot sand behind her. Isha nestled herself under Jinx’s arm and into her side. Jinx felt Isha exhale and relax. She allowed herself this brief moment of reprieve after the events of the last several days. The heat from the sand bled into her skin, but she felt far from warm. Scenes from Viktor’s commune played on repeat in her head and kept her chilled to the bone. Returned to her and then snatched away so gruesomely once more, Vanders gleaming teeth and glowing eyes haunted her. Her last chance at reconciliation with her sister crumbled into yet another conflict that tore them apart. Isha’s body in the dirt- her entire family ripped away once again. 

Jinx wondered if she was being foolish for trying to escape, trying to be happy. She wondered whether it was the right decision to bring Isha here. Maybe she would have been better off with Sevika back in Zaun. There was no telling what kind of peril they would get wrapped up in. Jinx didn’t even have the lay of the land. She knew nothing about Noxus other than the name of the city they landed in. She would have to figure out a consistent source of food and water as well as find a sturdy shelter for them soon. Otherwise they would waste away on the street and traveling all that way would have been pointless. 

Isha turned under Jinx’s arm to look up at her. Jinx met her gaze with a sad half-smile. 

“What do we do now?” Isha asked. 

“For right now, kiddo, we wait.” 

Jinx let Isha doze in the sand while she waited for the sun to go down. They had landed just after midday, so it was a long wait. With nothing to pass the time, Jinx was forced to listen to the echoing screams of the neon demons in her head. She couldn’t have been more grateful when sunset finally came. Jinx roused Isha just after the last rays of the sun disappeared behind the horizon, leaving the landscape shrouded in a moonless wine-dark dusk that would conceal them perfectly. 

Jinx led Isha to the abandoned structure she had scoped out earlier at a quick pace. Their feet fell silently in the sand, though Jinx found herself slipping on the unfamiliar terrain. Her boots were full grit by the time they made it to the building. 

Up close, it was evident that the structure used to be a house and that it had been abandoned a long time ago. When she rounded the back side of the building, Jinx found that there were a couple other structures similar to this one dotted along the coast that led toward the heart of the city. Jinx found that both the entryway doors were barred from the inside, and there were no windows that were accessible from the ground. She looked up to the second level and found a skinny window whose glass had been broken out long before. She wouldn’t be able to fit through it, but Isha would. 

“C’mere, Ish. I’m gonna boost you up. Go through that window and open up the door from the inside. Be careful, though. Don’t get yourself sliced to ribbons. If there’s glass in the way, smash it with the butt of your slingshot, okay?” 

Isha nodded seriously and raised her arms up, ready to be lifted. Jinx smiled at her and grabbed Isha around her waist. The small zap that happened whenever Jinx touched her was becoming easier and easier to ignore. She hoisted Isha up over her head, using just a bit of her otherworldly shimmer-strength to toss her just high enough that Isha’s feet landed in her palms. It was something that she had seen Sevika do with Isha in play before, and Jinx had eagerly taken part. It was perfectly executed as they had learned to work in tandem like a machine, more beautiful than anything Jinx had ever built. Isha pulled herself up onto the window ledge with just a bit of strain. 

Balancing a bit more precariously than Jinx would have liked, Isha pulled her slingshot from her belt and smashed out some long shards of glass that blocked her way. She nicked her knuckle at one point and paused, not out of pain, but to admire the swell of purple blood that beaded on her skin.

She shook off her stupor and wiped her knuckle on her shirt before breaking out the rest of the glass in her way. She squeezed carefully through the window and jumped to the ground on the other side. The drop was high, but she absorbed the impact in a practiced roll that Jinx had shown her in their time running through the Under City. She popped back up on her feet and tried to let her eyes adjust to the dark, but the windows were too skinny, and the night was too dark. She couldn’t get her bearings no matter how hard she squinted into the inky room. In the dark, this room was infinite, gradually expanding to pull her further and further away from the outside and from Jinx. 

She began to panic. Her heart raced in her chest. Her breath rasped harshly in her throat. The darkness in the house felt like it would swallow her whole. Just like the darkness before when she killed herself. But this was different. Jinx wasn’t in danger. Isha didn’t need to save her. She didn’t need to die. And she didn’t want to. Though there was no real danger present, a primordial fear roused itself in her gut and expanded through her body until she could feel it in the tips of her fingers and toes. 

Just when Isha thought the panic would swallow her whole, something miraculous happened. Small wisps of electricity began to arc slowly like plasma in a web down from her shoulders to the palms of her hands. When the spindles of light reached the tips of her fingers, the ones around her shoulders began to sink down her arms toward her hands. The electric web slowly condensed itself in both of her hands and produced two sparking spheres of light. They weren’t very bright- not even bright enough for Jinx to see the glow from outside- but they illuminated the darkness enough for Isha to see the floor beneath her feet, and suddenly the world materialized around her again from the infinite abyss. 

Isha marveled at the light in her palms, all the panic gone and replaced with awe. The spheres flickered and danced in her palm, threatening to go out. Isha felt a sharp spike of fear that they would disappear lance through her gut. The spheres glowed brighter in her hands at the feeling. Isha held onto that fear of being engulfed in darkness, and the orbs stopped flickering, their glow finally stable. 

“Ish!” She heard Jinx call in a loud whisper from outside. “You okay?” 

Isha whistled back two sharp notes in response. She didn’t understand how this was happening, but it didn’t really matter since she really needed it to keep happening. 

Isha crept forward in the dark. Guided by the dim light she held in her hands, she was able to find her way to a door. She turned the knob with an awful squeak and pushed it open to find a stairway that led to the ground floor. She raced down the stairs and bobbed and weaved frantically through indistinguishable pieces of furniture until she found the front door. She unbarred it with one hand, losing the light she held in it. The light she held in her other hand glowed doubly as bright. 

She had to jump to flip the latch over all the way, but she managed and flung the door open as quickly as she could. It was almost just as dark outside, but she could clearly see Jinx’s shocked expression from the light that glowed in her hand. Jinx stood there frozen for a moment before she shook herself back into action and darted inside so she could close the door and stifle the light. 

“Watch’a got there, Ish?” Jinx asked, trying for a casual tone and failing pretty spectacularly. 

Isha shrugged, wide-eyed and clearly a bit alarmed. 

“How did you do that?” 

Isha shrugged again. With her fear of the dark waning, the electric orb in her hand flickered and fizzled out leaving them engulfed in the darkness of their new home. 

Jinx struck Sevika’s lighter and gave them a little bit of illumination. She was able to find several pillows and blankets strewn about the abandoned house and piled them together in the center of the entryway for her and Isha to lie down for the night. Jinx let the lighter go out when Isha snuggled into her side. She felt her hair stand up on end when Isha touched her, but the usual sharp zap that occurred in contact with her was absent this time. Jinx wondered what it all meant and what she had turned Isha into, but those were problems that could wait for the daylight. 

When the sun came up after their first night in Noxus, Jinx awoke to find Isha still sleeping soundly curled into her side. It was dim on the main floor of the house, but just enough sunlight streamed in the skinny upstairs windows that she could see. This house was still nearly completely furnished. Whoever abandoned it must have done so in desperate haste. There were two couches, several chairs and tables, book shelves, clothing hangers and various other miscellaneous items strewn about the house. At the very least it would be easy enough to make it comfortable. 

“Ish…” Jinx rubbed her hand over Isha’s arm softly. “Hey, Ish- c’mon let’s wake up. We have things to do today.” 

——-

Weeks passed, and they established a sort of routine that made their new lives feel less alien to them. In the first few days, they tore apart one of the tables to make a set of shutters for the four windows on the second floor which was all one bedroom. That way, at night, they could light candles without someone spotting them from the city. During the day, she and Isha would sneak through the city with their hooded cloaks on, ghosting by market stalls and pilfering produce as they went. When they had what they needed for the day, they would go back to the house. On the days when meat was scarce at the market, Jinx would head to the shore at dusk to steal fish from the traps the fishermen set out at the end of the day. 

They rearranged the furniture several times, eventually settling on making a massive fort in the bedroom. The rest of the room was barely accessible around the structure, but it made it feel a little more like their old lair. It was comforting. They slowly accumulated bits and bobs and various tools from around the city to begin building their contraptions again. Jinx kept her eyes peeled specifically for parts that she could use to make some mechanical bugs to battle. 

It was a good routine- regular and safe. But Jinx could tell that Isha was getting bored. Jinx wanted a safe life for her, but she also didn’t want Isha to be unfulfilled. The next time they went into the market to pilfer food for the day, Jinx saw a flyer for a music festival who’s caravan was set to pass through town and stay for a week of performances before they left again. Isha had seen the flyer too and had begged Jinx with the biggest puppy dog eyes she had ever seen until she relented and said that they could go. 

Isha was a live wire in the most literal sense with all the excitement that she held over the festival. Her hair was constantly on end, and little arcs of electricity sparked off of her and connected to anything metal if she passed too closely. Jinx was concerned that she might not have enough control over that energy, but she didn’t want to take this outing away from Isha. Whatever happened, she would protect her.

The first night of the festival arrived, and Jinx and Isha cloaked themselves and headed out the door toward the town at dusk. They were always careful not to be seen entering the city, but once they were inside, it was easy enough to blend in and pretend that they were regular residents. The streets were lit with red paper lanterns, and milling bodies filled every path. Mages spun weaving webs of light through the air in dazzling displays of magical prowess while passersby looked on in awe. 

Isha tugged on Jinx’s cloak and pointed excitedly at the streamers of light dancing overhead. Jinx smiled down at her. She was glad to see some happiness back in Isha’s eyes after the last several weeks. If the first night of the festival went well, she would bring Isha back again. 

Isha grabbed her hand with a tiny spark and pulled her toward the street vendors. Many sold various hot dishes cooked in metal fire pits that they’d brought with them; the smell of charred meats and foreign vegetables wafted pleasantly between the stalls and coaxed Jinx into spending some of the very little money that they had on a hot sandwich with some sort of roasted beast that Jinx had never heard of on it to share. It was delicious, though, and they munched happily while they drifted between stalls. Some people sold small carvings and trinkets which intrigued Isha. One vendor even gave her a simple little charm shaped in an upright triangle to hang on her necklace for free just because she looked like she wanted it so badly. Isha gave him a glowing smile as Jinx accepted it on her behalf and hung it on the cords strung around her neck. Jinx contemplated buying or stealing a few metal-working tools and some forged gears for some projects that she’d been wanting to start.

They continued deeper and deeper into the market where the music was louder. The wares here were more frequently interspersed with more occult findings, and some people sold things that Jinx didn’t even have words to explain. It reminded her of some of the more eccentric sides of the Lanes. Eventually they came to the small city’s center where there was a temporary stage set up. Jinx had observed the progress of its construction over the days prior. Several musicians sat atop the stage playing instruments of all sorts while mages put on a coordinated light show around them. Jinx watched red, green, and blue dance in Isha’s wide, happy eyes, and she was glad that they came. 

At one point, there was a small break in performances while the musicians and the mages grabbed food and drinks. Jinx wanted to move Isha closer to the stage so that she could have a better look. She took Isha’s hand and wove them carefully through the crowd to the front. When she was almost to where she wanted to be, another cloaked figure, much taller than her, strode suddenly into her path, and Jinx bumped into them rather harshly. 

“Sorry, I-” The words died in Jinx’s throat as the stranger turned their face toward her.  

Her eyes froze Jinx, rooted her to the spot for a moment. Jinx had never seen such clear, sky-blue eyes before. The stranger was tall and pale with long golden locks hidden under her hood. 

“I’m sorry!” The stranger apologized and reached out a hand to touch Jinx’s shoulder for just a heartbeat. “I didn’t see you there.”

Isha was shocked that Jinx didn’t pull away. She had never seen Jinx so speechless before, especially not after someone had so carelessly walked into her. The woman seemed just as stunned though she was doing a better job of hiding it. It irked Isha the way her eyes lingered on Jinx’s face. Isha tugged on Jinx’s hand lightly. Jinx turned her dazed pink eyes down to her. 

“What?” Isha inquired, brows furrowed. 

The tall woman looked down to address Isha. Isha met her gaze with a slight glare. She wasn’t happy that this lady had run into Jinx.

“I’m sorry for running into your mom. I should watch where I’m going better. Here-” She reached into a pouch on her belt. “For your troubles, young miss.” 

The woman handed Isha a small blue rose made from pulled glass. Isha recognized the style as one of the vendor’s on the inner circle. She had wanted one, but didn’t want to steal one from them when she thought about how little money they had. The glare immediately fell from her face as she accepted the flower. Luckily for Isha, the grounding from Jinx’s hand clasped in her own kept her from shocking the woman. Isha smiled up at the woman before she looked back to Jinx once more. The initial frozeness had fallen from her features and had been replaced with a cautious skepticism. 

As much as Isha had been instantly disarmed by the stranger’s kindness, Sevika’s words rang out in the back of her mind, reminding her to not let anyone close to them. Jinx pulled Isha a little bit closer to her and gave the stranger a tight smile, clearly distrusting, but hopefully friendly enough to not cause a scene. The woman seemed to recognize that Jinx was uncomfortable with her presence and dipped her head in one more apologetic nod. 

“Again, I’m sorry for running into you. I’ll get out of your way now.” She brushed past Jinx and disappeared back into the crowd of milling bodies. Jinx was only barely able to keep sight of her for a moment because of how tall the woman was. 

Isha pulled on Jinx’s hand and showed her the new glass flower excitedly.

“It’s very pretty, Ish. That was nice of her to give that to you.” Jinx bit her tongue and didn’t tell Isha about the dangers of accepting things from strangers like she wanted to. This particular interaction seemed harmless enough, and Isha was so excited about the flower that it made Jinx sad to think about raining on her parade. She’d let it slide this time for her sake. 

After a little while longer, the performers retook the stage and struck up another fast, excited song that spun the crowd into a jubilance. Jinx and Isha danced together near the stage, fewer bodies in their way than before. Isha laughed and twirled in circles around Jinx’s legs while Jinx spun with her. For a little while, Jinx really had fun. She let the stress of her new lifestyle fade away while the music moved her, and for the first time since they’d arrived in Noxus, Jinx let herself have fun. 

Pretty lights flashed around them and illuminated the square in warm tones that added to the comfortable atmosphere. The drums on the stage reverberated through Isha’s chest, the soundwaves feeling like they were dancing with her heart. She was absolutely giddy. She wished that every day could be full of magic and fun like that night. Isha loved Jinx and knew that she was trying to keep her safe, but being cooped up in the house all the time was starting to get stale. She wanted to have fun with Jinx like this all the time. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Isha saw the tall cloaked woman from earlier swaying at the outskirts of the crowd. She didn’t look like she was having fun. She looked like she was stressed, her eyes scanning the crowd with piercing precision like her life depended on it. She wasn’t smiling, eyebrows pulled together with strain. The woman made eye contact with Isha by happenstance and smiled at her. 

After that, a few things happened all at once. First, a hand shot out of the crowd and grabbed the woman’s arm; it was revealed a split second later to Isha that the hand was attached to a truly massive man with a thick, ropy scar that bridged his nose and ran almost into his left eye. He was dressed in dark clothing that matched his raven hair and beard. Next, Isha watched a second, smaller accomplice come through the crowd. 

She heard him say, “That’s her alright!” The smaller man held up a wanted poster that had once been crisp and white before its stint in that man’s pocket. 

Lastly, Isha watched the woman’s free hand fill with a blinding white light that she brought crashing down on the man’s arm who held her. The light exploded, filling the square and temporarily blinding everyone within two hundred yards of the woman. Isha was the only one who saw the events unfolding and managed to close her eyes and cover her face in time to keep herself from being flashed. She heard the big man scream. 

“Isha!” Jinx yelled in a panic as she tried to rub the light spots out of her eyes to no great success. 

Jinx felt blindly for her in the crowd. Isha grabbed her pant leg and dragged Jinx toward the stage where the crowd was the thinnest. With everyone trampling around in a sightless panic, they would be safest in the place with the fewest bodies. Once Isha pushed Jinx’s back against the stage, Isha dropped her hold on Jinx’s pants and immediately rushed to help the woman. She scrambled up onto the stage, taking a tumble near the top of the stairs and scraping her shin on the way up. 

“Isha, wait!! Where are you going?!” Jinx screamed. 

Isha couldn’t spare any time. With Jinx blind, she wouldn't be able to communicate with her to say that they needed to help the woman who’d given her the flower. When Isha got to her feet at the top of the stage, she bobbed and weaved skillfully through the crowd of musicians who stumbled clumsily over one another in their haste to escape. She came to the edge of the stage closest to the woman and yanked her slingshot out of her pocket, loading the pouch with one of the sharp stones that Jinx had given her back in Zaun. 

At her new vantage, Isha could see the man had been expecting the lightshow from the woman and had also closed his eyes. He did not stumble blindly around like the rest of the crowd, but he did howl in pain and clutched at his arm which was burned and blistered visibly even from the distance Isha was at. The attack seemed to only make him grip the woman’s arm tighter, though. He stood to his full height and lifted her into the air by her wrist. She kicked and squirmed viciously in his grasp, desperately trying to free herself. 

Isha didn’t even have to think. She drew back the stone in the pouch of her slingshot as far as her little muscles could manage. Time seemed to slow down. That electric buzzing that Jinx told her about was behind her eyes again. The thrill of combat thrummed through her veins and made her heart race in her chest. Without her conscious command, electricity arced down her arm and wrapped itself around the stone in her fingers. Isha let the stone fly with a little snarl and watched it flash through the air before it connected explosively with the man’s temple and knocked him unconscious. He dropped the woman as his giant body slumped to the ground like a sack of rocks. The woman landed on her feet, looking shocked and searching around for the source of the attack. Her eyes quickly landed on Isha. 

She smiled at Isha briefly before her face twisted in pain and a chilling scream of pain ripped out of her throat. The giant man’s smaller accomplice had gotten enough of his sight back to stab the woman in the back of her shoulder with a wicked looking knife. Isha loaded another stone in a panic and let it fly. She couldn’t call upon the electricity that time, though, and the stone bounced painfully off of the man’s head without knocking him unconscious. Isha watched a red frowning mouth open in the skin above his eyebrow and spill blood down his face. He stumbled and clutched his head for a moment. He regained his footing, and his eyes locked onto Isha furiously. The slighter man abandoned the woman at the edge of the crowd to go after her. Isha turned and ran back to Jinx, jumping off the edge of the stage and rolling when she hit the ground. 

Jinx was blinking the last of the blind spots out of her vision when Isha got back to her. She grabbed Jinx's hand and tried to pull Jinx around the stage, but Jinx still couldn’t see well enough to cooperate to any extent. Isha peaked around the stage and scanned the crowd for the men. The smaller one was gone, and the bigger one was waking up. The woman struggled to get to her feet. Isha turned back around to find herself face to face with the small skinny man. Crimson streaked down his face and clouded his left eye, though that did nothing to dampen the fury in his gaze. 

“Think that’s pretty fuckin funny dontcha?” He hissed at her. “Slicing me open like that. I’ll show you something funny, kid. Teach you to fuck around in other people’s business.” 

He brandished a second knife at Isha. It was skinny and a bit curved. Isha knew it would slice through her like she was butter. Fear spiked through her gut. She didn’t have time to get away. 

He lunged at her, just as Jinx regained enough of her sight to see that Isha was in danger. She whipped her pistol out of her belt and flung her hand out in front of Isha. Jinx caught the blade on the barrel and deflected his motion. Isha ducked under his arm and ran past him, socking him solidly in the stomach with an electric punch as she ran. She heard the air whoosh out of his lungs as she left him for Jinx to deal with. He wouldn’t be difficult for her to take down. Jinx would be right behind her.

Isha rounded the stage once more and saw that the woman had gotten to her feet and was clutching at her shoulder over her cloak. She scanned the crowd, delaying her escape for some reason. Isha watched the big man get to his feet and shake the dazedness from his head. She saw his eyes lock onto the woman, and a wave of fury washed over his face. Isha spared no time for any more thought and drew back another stone in her slingshot. A single sharp bang startled her just as she let the stone loose- Jinx must have killed the cohort- and Isha’s shot which would have blinded the man went wide, skipping across his forehead and drawing blood but leaving him regrettably conscious. 

The man clutched his forehead with a snarl and broke eye contact with the woman to search the crowd for whatever nuisance was impeding his mission. Isha saw the instant that his eyes landed on her. His face twisted in rage, and he charged across the short empty space to Isha. He planted one foot and made a move to land a kick to her head that would have killed her had the woman not put her body between him and Isha. She got there so quickly that Isha didn’t even understand what had happened until she heard the sickening snap of the woman’s left leg breaking level with her face about four inches above the knee. 

She cried out in agony and crumpled to the ground. The woman took a desperate shot with a beam of light from her hand at the man that went wide as he ducked out of its way and demolished a section of the stage behind him. A fire sparked somewhere in the space beneath the stage which held extra instruments, costumes, and other kindling galore. It wasn’t long before smoke started to pour out of the hole and flood into the city center. 

Much to Isha’s surprise, the woman forced herself with a pained cry to her hands and her good knee and crawled to put her body between the man and Isha. She entirely eclipsed Isha, shielding her with her back- dagger still in her shoulder- turned toward her assailant. Isha felt the woman brace for another blow, but several more sharp bangs rang out in quick succession before Isha heard the sound of the behemoth slumping to the ground lifelessly. 

Jinx blew the smoke from the barrel of her gun and holstered it at her hip once more. The sight of the woman curled protectively around Isha filled her with a flurry of conflicting emotions. She was glad, grateful even, that Isha had been protected. But the sight of a stranger so close to her made her skin crawl with anxiety. Jinx darted forward and pulled Isha from under the woman. As soon as Isha was out from under her, she collapsed on the ground on her chest, a whimper of pain snaking through her teeth. A bloom of crimson spread over her left shoulder, and Jinx could tell immediately that her leg was broken. 

Jinx debated whether or not to leave her there. On one hand, she’d saved Isha’s life and sacrificed her own body to do it. On the other, in her injured state she was deadweight that would slow them down, and she was clearly a person of interest considering those two men had been willing to try to capture her among hundreds of people. The plaza was empty save for the three of them and the bodies of the two men, the rest of the crowd having fled to safety outside of the square. Jinx could hear the sound of angry soldiers rushing to the city center echo off the walls of the buildings over the roar of the fire that consumed the stage quickly behind them. 

Isha yanked on Jinx’s hand, pulling her desperately toward the woman who was trying in vain to stand on her own. Isha whined urgently, her face a mask of panic and desperation. When Jinx hesitated, she dropped her hand altogether and ran to the woman to help her up. Isha fell to her knees and put her hands comfortingly on the woman’s side. She cracked her eyes open and gave her a pained smile. 

“Thank you, miss,” the woman groaned. 

Isha did her best to heave the much larger woman up to her feet by her good shoulder, but the woman was too weak and collapsed to the ground as soon as her broken leg shifted under her weight. 

“AAAAHHH!” She screamed as the broken ends of the bones scraped against each other. 

Isha began to cry and put her hands on the woman’s uninjured shoulder. She looked up at Jinx, pleading with her eyes for help. 

“Go-! Leave me- there will be soldiers here in moments. They’ll be after you now.” She tried to push Isha away, but Isha was too strong and stubborn for her in her weakened state. 

Jinx was frozen with indecision. The pros and cons weighed almost evenly in her mind and made it impossible for her to choose what to do. She met the woman’s eyes. They were clouded with pain, but there was no plea for help in her gaze. Everything in her eyes was telling Jinx to run . 

She was snapped out of her reverie by a sharp cry from Isha which she punctuated by jumping up and slamming her feet into the ground. Jinx sprang into action. Isha’s compulsion to save the woman tipped the scales in Jinx’s mind. Isha wouldn’t leave without the stranger which meant that she would be in peril until Jinx helped get her out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, getting this woman to safety was then her number one priority. Jinx helped Isha get the woman painfully to her feet and propped herself under her shoulder, acting as a crutch. 

“You should leave me here. I’m going to slow you down,” she hissed in pain. 

“You think I don’t know that?” Jinx snapped. “The kid isn’t going to leave without you, and that means that she isn’t safe until you are. Don’t think I’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart.” 

“I didn’t,” the woman fired back. 

It was hard work moving this woman from the stage into the alleyways that wound tightly between the buildings; she was much taller than Jinx and had to keep most of her weight on top of her for the entire time that they walked.  The woman was obviously trying to keep quiet and hide her whimpers of pain, but she was struggling. Every step wrote agony across her face. It was difficult to maneuver her through the narrow twists and turns, but it was the only way to avoid the soldiers that Jinx could hear flooding the main streets. Jinx helped the woman squeeze through the side streets with Isha hot on their heels until they reached the edge of the city closest to the coast. It was dark there; the sun had set some time ago, and the only light in the city came from the torches that the soldiers carried to the city center where the stage burned away. 

Their feet hit the sand, and the woman instantly slipped and tweaked her bad leg. Jinx couldn’t stop her from falling to the ground, but she slowed her as much as she could. 

“Damn-!” The stranger hissed, face twisted in pain that Jinx could just barely see in the light of the moon. “I can't- I can’t. I won't make it wherever you're trying to take me. Just leave me here. I’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” Jinx answered instantly and turned to collect Isha. She’d done her due diligence and helped the woman out of immediate danger. She didn’t need to do anything more to keep her conscience clear. 

“Aah!” Isha exclaimed loudly and stomped her feet again. She grabbed Jinx by the hand and held her in place near the woman on the ground. 

“Help her!” Isha signed angrily to Jinx. 

“She’s gonna get us caught, Ish! You remember what Sevika said?” Jinx pleaded with her. 

“Don’t let anyone in if they wouldn’t die for us,” she quoted and gave Jinx a serious look. 

Jinx couldn’t really argue with that. The woman had almost died for Isha, had let her own body be broken to spare her. Not only that, but she’d used her broken body as a shield in a second attempt to save Isha’s life. Still, Jinx didn’t trust her. She didn’t know why this woman was on the run, nor did she know if the mage held any ill-intentions toward them. But Jinx couldn’t deny that her personal sacrifice for Isha did make her feel the slightest bit obligated to help.  

“Fine,” she sighed. “We’re gonna get you standing again and you’re gonna wrap your arms around my shoulders like I’m giving you a piggyback ride but you’re gonna let your feet hang down.”

“Can you carry me like that?” She asked. “I’m a good bit bigger than you.”

“No shit- it’s not hard to be bigger than me. Do you have a better idea?” Jinx fired back, already helping her into a sitting position. 

“Fine,” she groaned as Jinx heaved her onto her shoulders. 

“Ach-! Choking me-!” Jinx cried out in a strangled voice. 

“Sorry!” 

The woman adjusted her arms around Jinx’s neck and tried not to cry too loudly as Jinx set off through the sand to their hideaway. It was incredibly difficult. Even if the woman wasn’t almost a foot taller than her, the sand squishing under her feet made the trek almost impossible. But Jinx grit her teeth and pressed on. She only made it a few yards before her legs started to burn with the effort of walking. The woman on her back was just as tired. She really only had the full use of one of her arms, and Jinx could feel her shaking with the effort it took to hold herself up. Her feet hung limply below her and carved deep trails in the sand behind them. 

Isha ran through the sand after them and scuffed their tracks away, darting to and fro and running off for several yards before backtracking to make their prints more muddied. At one point, she ran a long, zigzagging path away from the woman and Jinx. She ran beside her own prints on the way back to give the appearance that the trail was two sets of tracks wide instead of one. Jinx’s progress toward their hideaway was so delayed with her extra load, so Isha had ample time to run wide swaths of trails around their path that nearly completely obscured their prints.  

They finally made it safely to the front door, and Isha unlocked it for Jinx to pull the woman inside. Jinx used the last of her waning strength to drag the woman through the doorway. Her legs gave out on her just past the threshold, and she fell to her hands and knees with the stranger still on top of her. Jinx cried out when her knees smashed into the floor, and the woman echoed her as the impact jostled her broken leg. Isha pulled the door shut behind them and leaned heavily against it. 

“Ish-” Jinx panted, “Can you run upstairs for me to close the shutters and steal some cushions from our fort so we can put her on the couch?”

Isha nodded seriously and ran upstairs. She’d gotten used to the layout of their little home and could navigate her way easily even in complete darkness as it was then. Thirteen big steps to the top of the stairs and six steps inside of their bedroom door, the front wall of cushions of their fort stood in her path. Isha skirted around the perimeter of the fort to the windows and quietly closed the shutters. What little light the moon had cast through the windows was extinguished, leaving the house completely dark. Isha felt her way back around the fort and pulled several of the less integral ones from the front. She gathered as many as she could and chucked them down the stairs before throwing the rest down. She made her way back downstairs carefully, gathering cushions as she went. She threw the mismatched cushions onto the couch, jamming them down flat when they didn’t fit. She whistled once to let Jinx know that everything was ready for them. 

“We gotta put some lights in here,” Jinx grumbled before she crawled her way to the couch with the woman still on her back. With the stranger’s help, Jinx hoisted her onto the cushions with one final heave before she collapsed on the ground.  

Jinx took a few moments lying on the ground to catch her breath. Her body hurt. The stranger was heavier than Jinx thought she would be. Under her cloak she was laden with thick muscle. She remembered the flex of the woman’s arms around her throat, the heat of her body draped over her back. 

Jinx squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head minutely. She forced herself first onto her hands and knees and then onto her feet. Jinx braced her hands on her knees for a moment and sighed before she stood upright. Jinx navigated through the dark in their house just as well as Isha and found her way easily to the far wall in the kitchen where a single torch was mounted. Jinx struck it up with Sevika’s lighter which she’d taken to carrying in her pocket wherever she went. 

The flickering light revealed the sorriest sight Isha had ever beheld. The woman laid half on her stomach half on her side to let her broken leg lay straight and avoid putting pressure on the blade that was still buried in her back. She was pale and sweating, though Isha found upon touching her face that she was ice cold. 

“Isha go upstairs,” Jinx called from the kitchen while she searched for whatever remedial medical supplies she could find amongst their pilferings. 

Isha frowned. 

“I want to help,” she argued. 

“Ish, this isn’t something you need to see,” Jinx frowned resolutely and rounded the couch with an armful of bandages and her knife. 

Isha stomped her foot and signed I want to help more aggressively at Jinx. 

“I know, I know, kiddo. But-“ 

“She’s dying because she helped me.” Isha interrupted her.

Jinx looked like she wanted to argue. It wasn’t right for a child to witness this brutality. But, then again, it wasn’t right to act like Isha wasn’t mature enough to decide. She’d been through a lot more than most people would ever experience, and she knew what the meaning of suffering was. If she was sure she wanted to stay and help then Jinx would let her. 

“Okay. Okay- fine. Fold up one of those rags for me?” Jinx nodded to the pile in her arms. 

Isha took one of the rags and folded it carefully a few times. She held the long strip up questioningly to Jinx. 

“That’s perfect. Fold it one more time the other way and put it between her teeth. If she screams too loud they’re sure to find us.” 

Isha grimaced and followed her instructions. She turned to face the woman who was fighting for consciousness through pain and blood loss. She met Isha’s eyes and somehow still managed a pitiful smile. 

Isha patted Jinx on the arm to get her attention and signed, “I want to know her name.” 

“What? Why?” Jinx asked. 

“If she dies we should know.” 

Jinx’s stomach twisted. Isha was right. They should know at least that much. 

“Hey- hey you!” Jinx put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. Her eyes shifted lazily up to Jinx, unfocused. “What’s your name?” 

“My…?” She trailed off weakly. 

“Your name. ” 

“L-Lux,” She murmured. 

“Okay, Lux. Bite down on the rag.” Isha presented the rag at her mouth, and Lux allowed her to fit it between her teeth. “This is gonna hurt the whole time. I’m… I’m sorry.”

Lux met her eyes and nodded in grave understanding. 

Jinx clenched her jaw. She ripped open her cloak and her shirt around the dagger buried in her shoulder. She leaned down and pressed her ear to the bare skin of Lux’s back and listened intently to her breathing. Jinx breathed a brief sigh of relief. There was no sound of any fluid in her lung. The knife must have lodged in her shoulder blade. From Jinx’s estimations, the tip of the blade probably came within millimeters of breaking all the way through the bone and puncturing her lung. She was lucky; all her vital organs were intact. It would hurt like hell to heal, but it was possible if Jinx managed to staunch the bleeding. A pretty substantial vein had been opened up. It wouldn’t kill her if Jinx acted quickly. 

Jinx gripped the handle and grit her teeth. With one swift motion, she yanked the blade from Lux’s back. Lux screamed, the sound dampened through the rag. A fresh stream of blood poured forth, and Jinx quickly took the rag from Isha’s waiting hand and pressed it hard against the wound. The blood quickly began to soak through. 

“Ish! Get me another rag ready,” Jinx ordered. 

Isha folded another one of the cloths as quickly as she could. Jinx took it from her as soon as she finished. She pressed harder against the wound, grimacing through Lux’s cries of agony as they slipped through the rag in her teeth. The flow was slowing, but not quickly enough. 

“Fuck-! Isha, get my knife and hold the tip in the fire from the torch until it’s orange. Be careful, don’t burn yourself.” 

Isha picked Jinx’s knife up off the floor and ran carefully to the kitchen where the torch hung. She did as Jinx instructed and held the last three inches in the flame. Lux’s whimpers echoed through the lower level of the house behind her. It made her stomach churn. Lux was hurt so badly because of her. Maybe if she hadn’t distracted Lux in the crowd those men wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on her. 

Once the blade glowed red hot, Isha walked quickly but carefully back to Jinx’s side. Jinx took the blade from her. 

“Don’t move,” she instructed Lux before she pulled the cloth away and pressed the blade flat and hard against the wound on her shoulder. 

Isha saw Lux’s eyes roll back as she wailed, but she did as Jinx instructed and held painfully still even though it was clear her body was fighting to writhe in agony. Isha grabbed one of Lux’s hands in both her own and squeezed it comfortingly. Lux didn’t look at her, opting to keep her eyes screwed shut while her flesh burned and smoked, but she did give her hands a light squeeze back, just to let Isha know she appreciated the gesture. 

Jinx pulled the knife from her skin. There was a horrible burn over the wound, and none of it would heal prettily, but the bleeding stopped, and that was cause enough for celebration. Lux sagged into the couch, whimpering without letting herself cry. She spit the rag out of her mouth. 

“Okay- done with the easy part,” Jinx mumbled and wiped the blood off of her hands onto her pants. “Can you go upstairs and throw that little table with the long legs down here?” She asked Isha. 

“Throw it down?” Isha questioned. 

“Yeah. I want it to break. We need the wood to make a brace for her knee or it won’t heal right.”

Isha would have been excited if the situation wasn’t so severe. Ordinarily, smashing things up with Jinx was one of her favorite things to do. But Lux’s whimpers of pain sent lancing guilt through her heart and put some fervor behind her actions. She sprinted back up the stairs and trekked easily through the clutter of the upstairs until she found the table Jinx was talking about. It wasn’t too big, but the wood was in good condition. 

Isha hefted it up so it wouldn’t make the awful scraping noise across the floorboards before retracing her steps to the stairs. When she reached the top of the stairs she threw the table and watched it shatter at the bottom. 

“Ha!” She heard Jinx laugh shortly as the shattered pieces scattered across the floor. Isha let herself have a brief flare of joy watching the pieces fly before she came down the stairs and started to pick them up. She gathered up the legs and some longer pieces of the tabletop and ran them over to Jinx. 

Isha stopped to look at Lux when she dropped the pieces at Jinx’s feet. They had removed her cloak and secured a bandage in place over the wound in the time she was gone, leaving her in a dark shirt that hugged her shoulders tightly. Lux was pale, and a thin sheen of sweat covered her forehead. She shook slightly with every breath, but her eyes were slightly more focused than before. With the knife out of her back and the bleeding stopped, she seemed at least a little more comfortable and coherent. 

“Alright Ish, help me out and get me some long strips of cloth. We’re gonna tie a brace around her leg so it doesn’t heal all wonky.” Jinx handed her the knife. 

Isha nodded and set to ripping up an old sheet that was balled up in a corner of the room. Jinx began measuring lengths of the table’s legs, snapping them off and smoothing the splintered ends against the floor. Isha returned with the strips of cloth like Jinx had requested and handed them over while Jinx helped Lux get adjusted on the couch so that she was laying more parallel with the cushions. Isha steadied her leg, and Jinx let her wrap an arm around her shoulders to give her a little more leverage to ease her adjustment. Lux yelped and whimpered as her broken leg jostled. 

“Sorry,” Jinx murmured. 

“Ah-! That’s okay,” Lux hissed through her teeth. She let her arm slip off of Jinx’s shoulders. 

Lux sagged into the couch when they finally got her situated. She was panting, fists clenched so tightly that the skin around her fingers turned white. 

“I’m going to have to set your leg before I can tie the brace on. It’s going to hurt like hell.” 

“Do it,” Lux growled through clenched teeth. 

Jinx nodded seriously. 

“Ish,” Jinx called her attention while she moved into position. “Go hold her hand.” 

Isha did as she was told, taking one of Lux’s hands in both of her own. 

“Your name is Isha?” Lux asked weakly. 

Isha looked at Jinx. She glanced at Isha out of the corner of her eye and nodded slightly. 

Isha nodded yes . 

“That’s a lovely name. Thank you for helping me, Isha.” Lux smiled at her and gave her hand a light squeeze. 

Isha returned her smile. 

“Are you ready?” Jinx asked quietly. 

“As I’ll ever be.” 

Jinx fit the rag gently back between her teeth. There was a moment where Lux met Jinx’s eyes. Her blue irises shone in the torchlight, full of anguish. It didn’t sit right with Jinx that such beautiful eyes were filled with such pain. She cut her gaze away before she could linger on the thought. No matter. Only the dead were spared the agony of living. The pain meant that she was still alive. That’s what mattered. 

Jinx cut the leg of Lux’s pants up the thigh. Her once pale flesh was marred with a huge, dark mottled bruise that spread from the top of her knee to her mid thigh. Her leg lay at a slightly awkward angle, and Jinx’s stomach roiled at the thought of how much pain she was about to inflict on this woman. 

Jinx slid her hand under the woman’s calf as carefully as she could and braced her thigh on the opposite side with her free hand. Jinx heard a sharp, shaky gasp and spared a glance to see Lux with her jaw clenched and her eyes squeezed shut in grim anticipation. Jinx grimaced and gripped her leg firmly before swiftly correcting the angle of her femur. 

Lux cried out sharply as her leg clicked back into alignment. Isha watched her already pale face go stark-white before her eyes rolled back in her head and her hand went limp. Isha whimpered in panic and looked to Jinx for help. Jinx left her position for a moment to press her fingers to the side of Lux’s neck and pull the rag out of her mouth. 

“She’s okay. She just passed out.” Jinx sighed with surprising relief. “It’ll be easier for her this way. I need to finish bracing her leg before she wakes up. You just keep holding her hand, okay?” 

Isha nodded seriously. She rubbed her thumbs over the back of Lux’s hand comfortingly, hoping that Lux still knew she was there. Jinx quickly began tying the lengths of wood on either side of her knee, jostling Lux as little as possible as she worked. Isha kept hold of Lux’s hand with one of her own while she smoothed the other over the crown of her head. She felt awful that Lux was in this state because she’d tried to help her. Isha hoped she would be okay. 

Before long, Lux’s leg was securely braced. Jinx took a seat on the floor facing Isha and Lux. She watched Isha smooth her hand over the top of Lux’s head, concern etched so deep into her features that Jinx worried it would be permanent. She needed to break this new attachment before it grew too strong. It would just make it that much harder to kick the woman out at the first opportunity. 

Isha refused to leave her side. Jinx attempted to coax Isha away from Lux numerous times. She was resolute, though, signing to Jinx that she wasn’t leaving her until she woke up. It bothered her to see Isha so troubled over this stranger. They didn’t know anything about this woman save for the fact that she had a bounty on her head. Jinx couldn’t have Isha becoming fond of someone who could put her in jeopardy. Jinx eventually gave up her efforts to get Isha to come over to her side of the living room. 

After a while, Isha sat down on the ground. She leaned against the couch and threaded her fingers through Lux’s, propping Lux’s hand on her shoulder so she could use it as a pillow. Jinx was on her way to being hurt over the fact that Isha didn’t want to cuddle up to her, but she eventually signed for Jinx to come over to her instead. Jinx rolled her eyes but acquiesced anyway. She took a seat on Isha’s right and scooted in close to her. If she turned her head to the left, Lux’s face would be in line with hers. Isha let her eyes close, and it wasn’t long before Jinx felt her breathing slow and her jaw fall slack. Jinx envied how easily Isha could sleep. 

Since Jinx was effectively alone, she took her time studying Lux. She was tall and built solidly. Jinx wondered what kind of lifestyle would lead to that physique. She didn’t seem like a warrior, but how could Jinx know? She could be an assassin. That might explain why there would be a bounty on her. She wouldn’t get any answers until Lux woke up, and, after the exhausting events of the day, Jinx wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t until the morning.

Jinx sighed exasperatedly through her nose. 

“What the hell did we just get ourselves into, Ish?”