Chapter Text
Lux watched from her perch above the narrow, choked alley that made up the winding southeastern border of the Grimeward as three less-than-upstanding gentlemen exchanged hushed words with another fellow. A fellow whose personal hygiene, even from her distance, Lux could unfortunately detect despite being nearly five meters above him, pressed into an alcove.
The truly baffling part was how it somehow contrived to be both gritty and slimy at the same time. She couldn’t even make out his appearance, since he was covered head to toe in filth-matted rags. All she knew was that whatever those three Grimeward bully-boys were buying from him must have been exceptionally valuable to tolerate that kind of proximity.
Flicking her fingers out, she spilled magic between them, forming a lens of light that she adjusted with twitches of the digits. They were arguing, that much was obvious, but it was the kind of arguing where you more or less knew what the outcome was going to be well in advance.
Fees would be settled, cogs would change hands, and whatever they wanted, they would have. They wouldn’t be down here dealing if not.
Lux waited for almost a full minute before the Grimeward doing the talking seemed to finally hit his limit, and pulled a pouch that looked far too heavy for a simple weapon or chem deal from his hip. She couldn’t hear them with all the pipes banging and hissing around her, but she could read lips well enough to get the gist.
All the man said was, ‘Fine. Deal.’
There was an air of satisfaction from the filth-covered operator, and they took the pouch, weighed it in one gloved hand, then tucked it away before pulling out a totem made of bone and hair that hissed with the whispering promise of death
A totem leaking with the noxious mists of the shadow isles.
“Haha. No,” Lux said flatly as she snapped out a telescoping baton topped with a hextech focusing iris and fired a bolt of ravening light down at the group.
The pair of Grimewarders in the back got chained and nearly cooked by her magic, leaving them screaming and writhing in place as the other two stumbled away and bolted in opposite directions. Lux swore as she made a snap decision and went after the Grimewarder. As much as she wanted to chase down the source, she wasn’t going to let that totem disappear into Zaun’s black markets only to end up in the hands of some back-alley sorcerer intent on filling the Lanes with ghouls.
A year ago, she would have lost the man almost immediately. Chasing a Zaunite in Zaun was a losing proposition unless you, too, were from Zaun. Fortunately, Lux had gotten a damn good education from a very special woman in her life.
“She danced through crowds, cut through alleys, mantled walls, and skipped across rooftops before finally catching up with the Grimewarder, running parallel to and above the big man, across a series of tenements. His eyes were up and in front of him, only occasionally twitching back as he snapped a look behind him.
He was bound to look up, though.
Zaunites always did.
Before he had the chance, Lux snap-forged balls of light beneath her heels then detonated them as she pushed off, sending her sailing up and over the man. If Zaunites liked coming in low and the side, then it was Lux’s habit to drop straight down from above.
He saw her far too late, barely managing half a syllable before she landed knees-first into his face, crushing his nose and slamming him to the ground. With one hand, she rammed a long, thin blade through his arm, pinning it to the floor as he let out a muffled scream. That scream was cut off abruptly as she pressed the flickering iris of her staff to his cheek.
She didn’t even need to try to find the totem. She could feel it. The whispers were hissing at her from his left inner breast pocket, and Lux retrieved it before holding it up in front of his face as he finally looked her in the eyes and blanched.
“Y-You’re Jinx’s wife!” he cried from around a busted nose and a split lip. “What do you w-want with us?”
“I want to know why three no-name legbreakers are suddenly interested in ruin magic from the shadow isles,” Lux said through a thin smile that did more to bare teeth than show joy. “This strikes me as slightly above your pay-grade.”
He shook his head—what little he could with Lux’s staff humming against his face—and very unconvincingly said, “I-Is that what that is?”
Lux blew out a breath. “You…really?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Really? That’s all you’ve got?”
“Uh…yeah?” he mumbled, looking almost embarrassed.
“And you really think I’m gonna buy that?”
“Worth a try,” he muttered.
She sighed and shook her head, then knee’d him in the ribs before hovering her focus over his face and spooling it up as she let her arcane drip-feed into it. He leaned away from it, eyes straining against the golden glow as Lux leaned closer and closer, until even she could feel the heat from it.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said in a low voice. “I’m not stupid enough to think you’re buying this for yourself. I don’t know if Petrok has suddenly developed a lethal new hobby, or you’re just in on the wrong side hustle, and frankly, I don’t care. I just want to know who your contact was, where to find him, and how he got Shadow Isle magic into Zaun.”
The man swallowed, then said, “H-He’ll find me if I say anything.”
“Maybe,” Lux allowed, then added, “But I’ve already found you, so the way I see it, you have three choices. One, you can play it straight, walk away from this, and go to ground, and maybe you die. Two, you keep your mouth shut, and you definitely die. Or three, you can lie to me, walk away, and then have both him and me after your life.” She chuckled as she pulled her staff back. “No good choices, but like my wife says, between maybe, probably, and definitely, always pick maybe.”
The man swallowed thickly, then sighed.
“I need a new fuckin’ job,” he muttered.
Lux grinned. “Try Demacia,” she sneered. “It’s on the other side of the continent, and their standards are a lot lower than you’d think.”
In the end, it turned out that the Grimewarder, who Lux eventually learned was named Daxo, barely knew anything worth beating him over. He was a go-between that was about three steps above the sumpscum that made up the other ninety-percent of Baron Grime’s workforce, but that was it, meaning he was less cream of the crop and more cream of the crap.
The only thing he had known for sure was that the seller was a member of some fringe cult that popped up after the Ruination, and was known as the Boatman. Other than that, nothing. There were a few leads that had Lux sprinting back and forth across Zaun for the rest of the day, and to his credit, despite most of the leads being busts, there was enough veracity to them that Lux doubted he’d ever actually outright lied to her.
What bothered Lux the most was that this was the first she was hearing of this cult. The directions Daxo had pointed her in had led her to whispers and rumors, and the frustrating part was that those little drips of information had all somehow managed to slip her informant net.
By the time she dragged herself back to her and Jinx’s home above the Lanes, Lux was dead on her feet, half-coated in Zaun’s second-best layer of scum, and willing to kill for a decent shower.
The door was a unique mechanism designed by Jinx to give them some privacy. On the surface, it looked like a perfectly normal door handle, but there was a catch. Actually, there was a catch and a trick lever, in fact, and if you didn’t pull the catch and flick the lever before opening the door, you’d end up with a variety of fun and exciting new holes to explore.
Fortunately, Lux had practiced them so much that she pulled both out of reflex more than any conscious decision, dragging the door open and stepping inside the safe, warm confines of home.
Speaking of which.
“I’m home,” Lux called as she kicked the door shut behind her with a heel and peeled off her cloak, tossing it into the laundry basket to be laundered.
Surprisingly, it was the door to the kitchen that cracked open rather than the one leading down and back to where Jinx’s workshop was. If she wasn’t out causing havoc, she was usually building new ways to execute her havoc. Moreover, there was a surprisingly…appetizing smell coming from the kitchen.
Jinx poked her head out, braids askew, and a welder’s smock that was probably doubling as a cooking apron from the stains hanging off her lean neck. “Welcome home, Blondie! Got a surprise for ya!”
“I can smell it,” Lux said with a faint laugh. “Jinx, we’ve…we’ve been married for six months, since when do you cook?”
Jinx raised an eyebrow, then shrugged as she retreated back into the kitchen, her words muffling slightly as she said, “Eh, it’s not that hard. It’s basically like making bombs that you eat.”
“Somehow that does not fill me with confidence,” Lux replied aridly as she followed her wife, pushing the kitchen door open but lingering outside of it, not wanting to track the filth she’d gotten caked in into where Jinx was (ostensibly) making food. “Is there an occasion?”
“Sorta,” Jinx replied with that wide, enigmatic grin of hers.
Lux snorted out a laugh, then said, “Fine. I’m going to go boil myself in hot water for a while.”
“Don’t take too long, Blondie.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Lux shot Jinx a smile over her shoulder before stepping back out of the kitchen and making for the rather robust bathroom down the hall.
When they had scouted the place out, one of Lux’s requirements for a living space was hot water, and Jinx had come through in spades. It wasn’t like Demacia was completely backward; they had indoor plumbing. But it was nothing like this. The place that Jinx had picked ran right alongside a heated section of tubing for the mains, and a little mechanical know-how had let Jinx tap right into it.
That meant that not only did she have a proper shower with scalding hot water just the way she liked it, but she also had it anytime she wanted.
As tired as she was and as much as she wanted to just luxuriate in the shower for a while and then go to bed, Jinx was clearly planning something sweet. So Lux took only as much time as she felt she could, cranking the water on and the heat high before unbuckling and peeling off her leathers, and letting them fall away. They hit the ground with muffled thumps, and she kicked them to the side, intending to add them to the laundering pile later. The movement made something flicker in the corner of her eye, and she turned without thinking, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror that was slowly fogging over.
Despite the knowledge that Jinx was waiting for her, Lux couldn’t help but stare. Her throat tightened without warning as euphoria built in her chest, and she blinked rapidly while struggling not to rub at her eyes, knowing she’d only get grime in them if she did.
“There you are,” Lux whispered, reaching out to touch the glass reflection. “There I am…”
Most of her life, Lux had avoided mirrors because they had shown her a face that made her skin crawl; stubble, broad shoulders, and hard, masculine lines that made her stomach clench with an unnameable grief mixed with helpless anger.
Then she had come to Zaun. The birthplace of chemtech. A place where anything could be changed for the right price, and that price could be paid in blood or coin. The wonders of that technology were borderline miraculous, and it had given her a new lease on life, and more than that, it had given her a place to call home.
Speaking of which.
“Right…” Lux muttered, turning away from the shower to the medicine cabinet, pulling it open, and drawing out the small metal case inside.
Flipping it open, she quickly assembled the brass syringe mechanism and loaded it with the unique cocktail of chemicals that Lux couldn’t even pretend to understand. The Glascari chemist who had evaluated her and concocted it for her use had used a lot of words that, even with her vast education, she only partially grasped. Words like mutagenic and polymorphic.
Whatever the case, it worked.
Lux carefully scrubbed at part of her thigh, cleaning off the dirt and grunge, then pressed the brace and needle of the syringe in place, and hit the trigger. There was a pneumatic hiss and a brief flash of pain that was more shock than actual hurt, then it was over. The nausea came next, as it always did, followed by a brief, feverish heat and the feeling of her skin and bones adjusting themselves very slightly.
The first time she’d done it, she’d felt like she was dying, but Jinx had sworn by the man who’d helped her, so she had endured it. Sure enough, the results had spoken for themselves.
‘It cannot replace or rebuild organs,’ the man had rasped through his heavy filter. ‘But it will change the seating of muscle and fat, adjust the shape of bone over time, and alter mood and brain chemistry. You will see a new you in the mirror.’
And he hadn’t been lying.
After her first dose, she’d seen herself in the mirror for the first time, and on that day she had unashamedly wept for hours in Jinx’s arms.
‘Side effects, though,’ he had continued mechanically. ‘Ninety-nine point nine repeating likelihood of sterility. Severe mood swings, joint pain, nausea, vertigo, and since you’re older than my usual patients, with rigid bone plates,” he said with an unpleasant smile in his voice, “the first few doses are really going to hurt.’
And Lux still remembered how she had responded that day.
‘I don’t care.’
And she hadn’t. It had all been worth it. Lux finished disassembling the syringe, cleaning it as she did, then put it away before stepping into the shower and letting the scalding hot water sluice away the day’s filth. She reveled in the feeling of herself as she did, running her hands over a body that, even with the hard muscle born of a life as a weapon, was still soft in all the right places. Something she had always loathed before her treatment.
As much as she wanted to linger, though, Lux had made a promise, and she went through the motions of quickly washing, taking a little extra time with her long, golden-blonde hair. It was probably her most distinctive feature in Zaun, and how most people knew her.
Her particular shade of blonde was not a common color in the undercity. It marked her out as different. As foreign. But more importantly, it told people, in an instant, who she was.
She grinned as she recalled Daxo’s immediate recognition.
‘You’re Jinx’s wife.’
“Damn right, I am,” Lux muttered as she stepped out of the shower and toweled off, grabbed a set of Jinx’s loose trousers and a sturdy linen tunic.
She had her own clothes, but she liked wearing Jinx’s, despite the fact that the taller woman’s clothing hung on her like a scarecrow’s garments. Where Lux was built stocky and sturdy, Jinx was long-bodied, limber, and lean, with muscle built for the kind of urban acrobatics that Zaun demanded.
Jinx was built for speed.
Lux was built for war.
Tying off the trousers and tunic, Lux stepped out of the bathroom and was immediately hit with a wave of exhaustion. The hot water had washed away more than the filth. It had swept away the adrenaline that had kept her going.
Shaking her head, Lux took a deep breath, slapped her cheeks lightly to shock herself back awake, then followed the smell of food into the small dining room.
The table was set with all kinds of Zaunite delicacies, most of which Lux still couldn’t name if you put a gun to her head. It was a lot of seafood, actually, since that was the most affordable type of meat that most merchants could get their hands on. Things like beef or lamb were essentially unknown down in the trenches since importing food like that into Piltover came at a princely price, and getting it all the way down into Zaun was probably twice that.
But Zaun had its own cuisine.
The door to the kitchen opened, and Jinx stuck her head out, rictus grin wide on her face as she said, “Surprise! Happy anniversary, Blondie!”
Lux blinked owlishly at her. Surely she wasn’t that tired, was she? She looked between the table and Jinx for a moment before her brain finally caught up, saying, “Annivers…Jinx, our wedding anniversary isn’t for another six months.”
Rolling her eyes, Jinx ambled out of the kitchen, pulled a chair out, and gestured blithely at it. Lux sighed, gave her a warm smile, then kissed her cheek before dropping into the chair.
“Not that anniversary,” Jinx said, pushing her chair in before going to the other side of the table and sitting down excitedly. “It’s your anniversary! Remember?”
“Remind me?” Lux said with a crooked smile as she served herself some glassy noodles suspended in a light devilfish broth, which was one of her favorite comfort foods since coming to Zaun.
Jinx sighed dramatically as she grabbed a sauce-covered sample of one of the larger mollusks that Lux was too tired to recall the name of off the top of her head. “It was a year ago you did that first job for ol’ Saito, remember? Hunting down that goon who figured he could scam his own gang and a chembaron and walk? You dropped him in an alley and knifed him?”
“I…huh.” Lux hesitated, then chuckled and nodded. She remembered now how she’d tracked him, waited, then folded out of the dark from behind and put a blade between his ribs. “I suppose you’re right. It’s exactly a year since my first contract. So that’s what this is? A year since my first job in Zaun?”
“Ya knifed a shit-head in an alley for thinking he could cross a line, Blondie,” Jinx clarified gleefully. “That’s more’n a job. That’s called being Zaunite. First time you came in low and to the side.”
Despite the weariness that was gnawing on her bones, Lux couldn’t help but smile at that. It was bloody work, but it had been her first act as Lux in Zaun. Professionally, anyway. So in a way, Jinx was right. That may as well have been the day she became Zaunite.
The rest of the meal passed enjoyably enough. Jinx carried about ninety-percent of the conversation because, frankly, Lux was getting more tired by the minute. Not so tired that she didn’t notice something pointed, though. Jinx had a lot of little quirks and habits, but she wasn’t much of a dissembler. There was barely an ounce of real guile in the woman, which was one of the things Lux loved most about her, and it was pretty obvious that Jinx was dancing around something.
It probably wasn’t materially important since, if it was, Jinx would have said something. That meant it was probably something personal. Something that Jinx didn’t consider to be important because it was something that Jinx herself wanted.
That was another quirk.
Call it a bad habit.
Jinx tended to ignore those things, and Lux really wished she wouldn’t. Lux wanted to make her wife happy. She wanted to make Jinx the happiest woman in the world. The problem was that Jinx often struggled to let her.
So, as they finished dinner and Jinx started cleaning up with the same mechanical motions she did most things, Lux caught her by the wrist and said, “Hey, what…something’s on your mind. What is it?”
Jinx stared at her like she’d been caught napping, then let out a dry, awkward chuckle as she looked this way and that, her bright, springberry eyes darting around nervously as she finished piling up the dirty dishes.
“Don’t worry about it, Blondie,” she said, pulling back and heading into the kitchen. “You should get some rest. Y’look dead on yer feet.”
“Don’t do that,” Lux said, following her and wrapping both arms around Jinx’s middle and laying her head between Jinx’s shoulderblades as the dishes went into the sink. “Don’t shut me out.”
Sighing, Jinx tensed like she was going to brush off the question again, then relaxed as Lux hugged her a little tighter. Finally, she said, “I…y’know, was thinking…maybe…” one long-fingered hand went over Lux’s, “tonight, we could…”
Suddenly, Lux was quite a lot less tired.
Stepping back, she pulled on Jinx’s arm, turning her about, and then stepped into her wife’s arms. She walked fingers up Jinx’s chest to her clavicle, reveling in the way Jinx’s eyes went slightly wider and the way her breath hitched. Then she went up on her toes to brush her lips against Jinx’s ear.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Lux whispered as she used her other hand to guide Jinx’s hand down between her legs. She shivered and made a little noise in the back of her throat as those long, dextrous fingers settled on Lux’s hardening length.
“I uhm, you just seemed kinda…tired,” Jinx mumbled.
“Jinx.” Lux pulled back, gripping her by the shoulders as she stared heatedly into her wife’s eyes. “I doubt I’ll ever be that tired without being unconscious or dead.”
“Oh.”
Biting her lip, Lux leaned in again, lightly licked at Jinx’s neck, then whispered, “Now let’s go to bed so I can plow you into next week.”
Jinx swallowed, then chuckled softly, her cheeks pinking.
“Yes, ma’am.”