Drowning in Fluff

RosyMiz writing blog. Currently not being used. But enjoy the stories if you found this blog!

[rosywrites]

Silent Waves, Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Crashing Waves Fandom: League of Legends Ship: Jhin x Sona

[AO3]

Word count: 4623

Jhin descends the wooden ramp to the stone docks of Piltover. The stones are cleanly cut and precise, just how these machine-tinkering folks love it. The skyscrapers of Piltover are always a sight, drowning in gold, hextech, and a faint air of superiority. He takes one last look at the city before glancing at the nearest clock tower, its bells tolling eleven. 

There wasn’t much time. The cabal stated they would be sending a messenger with his gun by noon. If he wasn’t there in time, there would be troublesome consequences he wasn’t willing to risk. 

Two hours left. He had to make his way down to Zaun and find the rendezvous point. He swallows a longing sigh when a haggard old man approaches him with a knowing smile. He recognizes the cabal’s mark on the elder’s eye prosthetic. He straightens his back and bows his head.

“Back again, I see,” the old man splutters as he taps his cane by Jhin’s feet. “Y’really have no limitation with the way y’treat our technology, do ye?” He urges Jhin to follow him through the dark alleyways of Piltover.

“On the contrary, elder,” Jhin replies calmly. “It is of the utmost importance that I make sure my gun is well taken care of.” He raises his head to the skies, a mysterious look in his eyes. “It’s just that I had picked up a… stray, and she didn’t seem to take too well to it.”

“Oh gob it,” the elder harrumphs. “What else did y’expect, picking up a stray like that in the sea?” He shakes his head disapprovingly. “I never once took ye fer the type, but whatever y’picked up did quite the damage to yer gun.” After a moment of silence, he asks, “What did y’even pick up, anywho?”

Jhin’s eyes squint, but the elder cannot tell if it’s out of joy or anger. “A feisty and frightening little thing, I assure you.”

“Is that so…” the elder mutters as he takes Jhin deeper into the city, where The Gray of Zaun awaits below. “By the way, y’didn’t run into any trouble coming here, did ye?”

On instinct, his hand hovers over his abdomen but brushes it off like he had touched something filthy. “Not that I’m aware of,” he answers. “Why do you ask?”

The elder cackles quietly. “The sea has quite the terrifying creatures around here, boy. Y’would do well to mind your path when you depart from Piltover.” Before Jhin can ask any further, the elder ushers Jhin into a hexdraulic conveyor. He slaps Jhin’s back as he makes his way inside. “Come now, y’don’t want to be late!”

“Please, elder. I have a sensitive back.” A shame Jhin can’t kill this old man. He’s the only connection between the cabal and the technology of Piltover and Zaun, the middleman, repairman, and analyst of broken weapons. Killing him would send the cabal after Jhin’s head. 

“Someone as young as ye? Y’might as well be one of them Chem-punks ‘round here.” The descender dings, and the door opens up to an alleyway much darker than those of Piltover’s. The streetlamps dimly light the path of cobblestones and bridges ahead. The conveyor creaks as the elder sits on the edge of the doorframe. “I’ll be waiting right here. M’sure you won’t take long.”

Jhin hums a non-committal response as he moves on. The stench of Zaun is sickly as always. The chem-fumes wafting out of the dingy chimneys makes him scoff. How vile. The sooner he gets his gun, the sooner he can get out of this place. 

“Where the spirit of this land goes, her followers are near,” a voice says from the dark. 

“The followers the stem, the spirit the blossom,” Jhin answers back. He turns to the source of the voice. “Do you have what I requested?” he asks. 

“Certainly.” A pair of mechanical hands holding a parcel manifests from the shadows. “To deliver a parcel to the infamous Golden Demon himself, it is quite an honor.” 

There is a moment of silence as Jhin unwraps the parcel and holds his newly-repaired Whisper in his hand. The feeling of metal against the palm of his hand sends shivers down his spine. He gives the grip a little squeeze and sighs longingly. Oh, how he missed Whisper…

“Now, shall we talk business?” the figure speaks up. With a metallic clang, a man covered in mechanical prosthetics steps out of the shadows. “I have a job I would like you to accomplish.”

Jhin simply stares at the man in silence. There’s another beat, and the man begins to feel uncomfortable under the scrutiny of his eye. “I understand you’re a client, and I am not one to question them.” He pauses. “Usually. What could a Chem-Baron such as yourself need an actor such as me?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I need power.” He scoffs scornfully. “The only things keep Zaun from falling into chaos are the pillars holding it up: we, the Chem-Barons. Unfortunately, one of these pillars has exhausted their use and refuses to step down. What other choice do I have?”

“Interesting,” Jhin can only say. “Normally, I would take up such a request. It would have been a fantastic piece of work, something as organic as a blossom blooming from within its mechanical cage.”

The baron’s face sours at his words and becomes exasperated. “So, will you do it or not?”

“Unfortunately,” he starts as he points his gun towards the baron, earning a small yelp at the cold touch of his gun’s muzzle to his chest, “I cannot comply.”

“W-wait, what are you doing? I can pay you to do this! A-any amount of money you want!” the baron tries to bargain. He dares not move, or else that bullet will go straight through the core of his body and kill him.

Jhin clicks his tongue in disapproval. “You see, the cabal has its own discreet way of disposing of their messengers.” His eyes squint in pure bliss when he sees the look of terror and desperation in whatever untouched flesh the baron has. Such skin tarnished by dull metallic parts… What a shame, really. “You are my client’s aim, baron. And I will make sure that your death is not meaningless but beautifully ornate.”

 “As if I would let you, demon,” the baron exclaims as his mechanical body begins to hiss with steam and overlap each other with increasing size and parts, the baron disappearing into the suit. Jhin hops backwards and shoots at the chest, but the metal deflects the bullet off-course without a dent. “You really think I would come out here to meet The Golden Demon without preparations of my own?”

“I can’t say I didn’t expect it. After all, even the side character must put some effort into their performance before the final curtain call.” Jhin hops away when the baron slams a giant mechanical fist onto the cobblestone. He slips away into the shadows before the baron can catch him. 

“Bastard, you think you can hide from me?”

“I prefer the term ‘observing’,” he replies. He studies the structure of the baron’s body, making the calculations and notes necessary to bring the stage to the grand finale. 

“You can find the weak point all you want, but it’s useless! This metal is of the highest grade and can deflect any bullet you shoot at me!”

“Weak point? Oh, no, no.” Jhin’s eyes lock onto the tank pumping chemicals into tubes that weave around the mechanical suit. “What I look for is completely different, baron.” He assembles his gun into a rifle and takes a deep breath. Four shots. He shall free this baron from his rusting cage with his art. He shoots.

A tube shatters at the leg. A sickening green chemical sprays everywhere like a spring shower. 

Another shot, and another tube shatters at the fist. As he thought, the tubes acted like hydraulics as well as a power source. 

The baron’s body creaks into a slow stop, but the baron remains unfazed. “You can stop me, but you’ll have to drag me out of this suit in order to kill me!”

“You seem to lack understanding in your own creation then, baron.” Jhin carefully aims, not at the body but at the gauge tank at the neck of the suit. When the bullet strikes the ring connecting the tank to the neck, a high-pitched hissing noise escapes from the broken tube. Within a few seconds, a pained cry comes from inside. “No matter what and how many walls you construct, there will always be a breaking point.”

The baron screams grow louder as the green chemical empties out from the tank. There’s a loud clang when the baron bursts out of the suit, his flesh and prosthetics practically melting from the acid. He tumbles down the suit and attempts to escape. He hears a dull sound of thunder, and he feels vines of flowers sap away his strength as they constrict around him and the alleyway. The baron’s outstretched arm falls like a tree branch pruned to ensure its healthy and beautiful growth.

Jhin sighs in joy at his work. Or, so he thought it would be the result. 

Odd. He doesn’t feel the bliss he’s always felt with every finale. His brows furrow in confusion, unnerved by this feeling. He only feels… dissatisfaction… and a numb pain coming from the wound in his abdomen, like it’s pulsing against his skin to remind him of its existence. Of the siren’s existence. 

“Even at these brinks of euphoria, that blasted siren continues to pull me back like a tide,” he mutters. He sighs helplessly. He can only wonder why the siren holds this kind of power over him.

  “What took y’so long?” the elder asks.

“Just appreciating my work, elder,” Jhin lies. “It was one of my best work yet.”

The elder grunts in amusement. “Sure, whatever get y’going. How’s the gun? Did it do the job?”

“Absolute perfection, if I say so myself.” He tries to ignore the elder’s dissatisfied face at Jhin’s lack of enthusiasm. “Forgive me, I am still caught up in that moment of bliss.”

“Y’always were an oddball, eh? Come. Y’got the job done, so we need to head up top.” The elder pushes Jhin back into the conveyor and ascends beyond The Gray back to Piltover. They watch the murky atmosphere of Zaun turn golden like the setting sun as they approach the top. “Did y’know? This ol’ thing belonged to that Chem-Baron back there.”

For once, Jhin’s brows raise up in surprise as he slightly turns his head to the elder. “I don’t suppose you were my client this time around, elder?” 

The elder taps his cane on the floor of the conveyor at the beat of his cackle. “The baron’s been going ‘round without a goddamn care about the other factions and his own tech!” His cackle slows into a hum. “Did he mention anything ‘bout another Chem-Baron, by any chance?”

“He did.”

“Mm, ain’t it interesting how putting a single idea about themselves into their heads can become so distorted that they become out of touch with their own reality?” the elder says. “The human mind is a fascinating thing.” He shoots Jhin a mysterious look. “Wouldn’t y’agree?”

He doesn’t answer. He feels like he can’t. Jhin feigns an amused chuckle as he turns back to the overview of Piltover. “You are quite the frightening one, elder. I don’t suppose all Piltovans are as mad as you.”

“Not mad,” the elder corrects with a crazed look in his eye. “Just passionate.”

--

Sona lies in the bottom of her tank, stretched out atop one of the several rocks they placed on the sand. She listlessly gazes up at the tarp covering the top of the glass. Faint streaks of sunlight filter through from above. Her lips purse into a straight line.

How can these creatures produce such… sounds?

It’s faint, but it’s constantly there like in the back of her head. She presses her palms to her ears and tries to shut out the cries and voices of the merfolk of this region. Even their songs sound so cacophonous. 

A new siren. A girl.

She’s not from here. She’s come to our home.

This is her home.

She belongs here.

She belongs here. She belongs here. She belongs here.

What a dangerous place this is, and yet the landfolk of this region are oblivious to the creatures that they’ve created. And worse, these creatures have caught wind of her presence. They know she’s here. They will come to take her away. To make her one of them.

She hears two of Jhin’s crew, tasked to guard her tank from any intruders, talking to themselves outside of the tank. In an attempt to relieve her mind of the voices, she swims over to the guards and taps the glass gently. They’re cautious, but for good reason. 

One of them glances at the other with a questioning look. The other returns the look with a helpless one as she approaches the tank. “Can we help you?” They watch her point up and slide her hand up to the lower half of her face, as if she’s putting on a mask. “The captain? He’s not back yet, or at least, we haven’t heard anything from the deck yet.”

Sona makes an impatient face and nods. She sits on the sand and leans back against the nearest rock with her arms crossed. 

“Excuse me?” the other guard speaks up. “If you don’t mind, would you like to join our conversation?” Seeing Sona tilt her head in uncertainty and glance up at the deck cautiously, the guard shakes his head. “The captain’s not back yet. I don’t think it’d hurt to try.”

“We’re the more curious of the bunch here,” the first guard joins in. “We’ve never really seen a siren before, or any sea creatures like the merfolk, so we’re really interested in what you see down below.” She shoots an accusatory glance at the other guard. “Unfortunately, some people don’t really believe that there are certain creatures in the sea.”

“Listen, I gotta see it to believe it. There aren’t such things as krakens the size of a battleship. I’ll believe that there are krakens the size of smaller ships like ours, sure. Bilgewater ain’t full of crazy folks, so I have no reason not to believe them.”

“What!” she exclaims. “You’ll believe them but not me, when I’ve heard those stories from the people who’ve seen it themselves?!”

“They’re just stories!” 

“So you’re saying the Bilgewater folks are fibbing?”

“I didn’t say tha —” A knocking on the glass catches their attention, seeing Sona smile sympathetically. They watch her point to the female guard before nodding. The male guard pales with wide eyes. “Y-you mean they’re real?”

Sona nods. She brushes her hand over the sand and makes an even bigger gesture with her hands, saying there are even bigger and more terrifying creatures in the abyss of the sea. She can’t help but laugh when the other guard pales as well. 

But their conversation is cut short when there’s a commotion from above. The door leading to the cargo hold opens, another crewmember poking his head out the door. “Captain’s here! To your posts!” he whispers urgently.

The two guards scramble away to their posts and wait for Jhin’s arrival. Sona, on the other hand, rolls her eyes and swims to the farthest side of the tank and sits atop the bigger rocks. She waits for that iron door to open. But it never opens. 

Strange. She had expected him to come by with that foolish squint in his eyes as he gazes at his prisoner in amusement. Her shoulders, which she notices had become stiff and tense, relax. No matter. The less he shows his face in front of her, the better.

Suddenly, the iron door to the cargo hold opens, and Sona tenses up again. But instead of Jhin, it’s the same crewmember who had told the guards to be at their posts. “We’ll be heading back out to sea. Captain won’t be coming down here until we’re out of Piltovan borders.

One of the guards furrows her brows in confusion. “Is there a reason why?”

The crewmember grimaces. “We’re being tracked. Someone found out about the siren.”

Immediately, a heavy atmosphere crashes upon those in the cargo hold. Dread pools in Sona’s stomach. She feels like something much worse will occur out at sea. 

The voices of the merfolk that were only whispers in the back of her head just a few minutes suddenly grow in numbers and intensity. She winces at the overwhelming amount of voices and hunches over with her palms against her ears.

They’re going. They’re taking our sister!

How dare they take our new sister!

This is her home!

Come back!

She belongs here!

The voices die into silence as sudden as the next words are uttered altogether in one distorted voice: 

We’re coming for you, sister.

Sona gasps in horror when the voices then spill over like a tsunami in her mind. It’s too loud. It’s too intense. She shoots up to the top of the tank, banging the glass lid and catching the attention of the crewmembers guarding the cargo hold. 

This is about to become a battle. The crewmembers are preparing themselves to fight whoever is tracking them. But she’s not up there to warn them of the creatures in the sea that are coming for the ship. For her.

  Jhin had been careful. He had never mentioned the siren directly in his conversation with the elder. But he supposed Zaunites have eyes and ears everywhere, even in Piltover. Zaunites were known for their experimental demeanors. Some are even passionate enough to steal test subjects for their work.

Mercenaries… are likely. The experimenter themselves wouldn’t go out of their way to face an entire ship of pirates. 

He brings out a golden stopwatch from his pockets and opens it up to his eye level. In the reflection of the glass, he spots a ship in the distance that’s slowly sailing in the same direction as them. The ship flies a Piltovan flag, but he can see Zaun’s technology built into the ship. He hums in thought. He had guided the ship towards Freljord, a region that has no need for Piltovan or Zaunite technology.

Even if Piltover wanted to expand their tech to the north, their ship isn’t built to withstand the harsh conditions of Freljord.

A crewmember steps up to the helm and whispers in Jhin’s ear, “Captain, the siren is acting up. We’re not sure what happened. She suddenly swam up to one of the guards trying to say something to her.”

Jhin furrows his brows as he glances at the gate of the cargo hold. What is the siren up to this time? “Do you know what she’s trying to say?” he asks.

“She’s trying to warn us about something. Something in the water? She keeps pointing to herself and then out to the water.” The crewmember looks concerned. “What should we do, sir?”

Something in the water? Pointing to herself… but out there within the sea… 

“Hey, do you hear that?” a crewmember standing by the rails murmurs to another. “It sounds like… singing?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“No, no, I hear it! It sounds like a lullaby my mother used to sing for my brother back home.” The crewmember’s eyes suddenly light up, and he leans over the rails. The crewmember’s eyes glaze over, as if he’s in a trance. “That… sounded like mother.”

“What?”

“That… sounded… like…” the crewmember’s words trail off as he leans closer and closer to hear better. “Mother…!”

“Whoa, hey, what are you doing?!” the other shouts as he pulls him back onto deck.

“It’s her! It’s mother! She’s in there, don’t stop me!” the former shouts back in rage, swatting away the latter’s grip. When the other doesn’t lose his grip, he pulls out a dagger from his belt and slices the other’s arm.

“Agh!” The latter releases the former’s shirt in pain, but two other crewmembers pull them both back onto deck. One of them kicks away the dagger and pins down their frantically pleading mate. 

Jhin directs his attention to the commotion happening on deck. Then he hears it. He hears singing coming from the waters. It sounds like an opera. The voices sound muffled, but he thinks he hears them sing of art, of Whisper, of his feats and trophies at sea. That there’s more he can do out there. With them.  

His legs suddenly feel heavy, and he feels his foot swing out towards the side of the ship. His mind feels blank like an empty canvas, and the music of the sea is the paint giving it life. 

“Captain!” another crewmember runs out from inside the ship and up to the helm in a panic. “It’s an ambush! We’ve been surrounded!”

He snaps back to reality with a hiss, having sunken his nails into the injury in his abdomen. “By who? The Zaunites haven’t even reached us yet.”

“They’re no Zaunites, sir! They’re merfolk!”

Jhin’s eyes grow wide. Sirens. He hadn’t considered this. Could the siren he captured have called these sirens here? No, she is mute. She hasn’t displayed a single ability to be able to communicate to anyone so far. He shakes his head. The merfolk have been around for centuries. Each region has their own kind of merfolk.

Piltover, the City of Progress. Zaun, the City of Iron and Glass. With the advancement of technology, there would be an equal amount of waste filtering into the waters. His eyes perk up in realization. The toxins. For the merfolk who lived in these waters for so long, they wouldn’t notice how far the toxins can be carried by the water. Therefore, they would eventually die to the toxins.

Or adapt to them. 

“Prepare yourselves!” Jhin announces. “These creatures can affect any of you to kill you! If you see someone who’s affected, hold them back!” He normally wouldn’t bat an eye if two men or three die, but with enemies coming from both within and out of the waters, he cannot afford to lose that many men at once. “Lookout, keep an eye on that Piltovan ship!” He loads Whisper with four bullets and cocks the hammer. “This show isn’t over yet.”

---

The sounds of gunshots and shouting from the deck alerts Sona of the sirens’ arrival, her banging against the glass becoming stronger and louder. The lid refuses to budge. She swings her arms down in frustration and swims over to one of the guards who had spoken to her.

“Miss siren, isn’t there anything you can do?” she asks in a panic. 

Sona nods as points at the lid of her tank. She makes the same gesture to refer to Jhin and then the instrument he had taken.

“Your, your instrument? Can you help if you have it?” When Sona nods firmly, the guard purses her lips in hesitation. She chews the tip of her thumbnail in thought until they hear a metallic clang of the cargo hold’s gate above Sona’s tank. 

As they look up, they watch in horror as one of the crewmember’s body is torn apart by a siren that had managed to jump on board. His blood pours onto the top of the tarp covering Sona’s tank. 

The guard swallows a gag, looking away. “Okay,” she says. She turns back to Sona. “I’ll get you your instrument from his quarters. I, I don’t know if I might make it, but I’ll try.” The guard runs out of the hold, ignoring the other guards’ protests, and makes her way up to the deck. She glances at the helm, the captain now replaced by another hand. 

“What are you doing?” the navigator hisses when she runs past her to Jhin’s quarters. “You’re a dead sailor if he catches you going in there.”

“It’s for the sake of this ship. The siren can help us.” The guard sneaks into Jhin’s quarters and searches the room for the golden instrument. She spots it sitting atop a dresser in the corner of his room, where the siren’s old tank once remained. “There!” Grabbing the instrument and stashing it in her satchel, she runs out of the quarters and back to the deck.

The heavy stench of blood and sea water penetrates her senses as soon as she steps outside. She gags at the sight of dead human and siren bodies littered all over deck. She takes a deep breath, forces herself to look away from the scene, and rushes back down to the hold.

“What have you done?” a guard asks when she produces the instrument from her satchel. “Are you insane?”

“If the siren says she can do something about this situation, I’m willing to take that risk,” she protests. “Get the other guards. We need them to take her up to the deck.”

“Captain will kill all of us!”

“Then what else is there left to do?! I went up there, and we’ve already lost so many hands! The sirens are climbing up the deck! We need her!”

A guard extends out an arm to stop her from climbing up the stairs. “Some of us don’t want to die because of what you did, don’t you understand that?”

“Would you rather all of us die then?” she asks solemnly. The others fall silent. “And if the captain’s more than willing to kill us after all this, then so be it. He’s only losing more of his crew. I’m still going,” she insists urgently. She lunges up the steps to the top of the tank and unlatches the lid. Sona immediately bursts of the water towards the guard, who shields herself thinking she made a mistake of freeing the siren.

But nothing happens. 

Instead, Sona is hunched over the edge with her instrument finally in her hands. She takes a deep breath and looks up at the cowering guard with a grateful smile. “Thank you ,” a voice says with a pluck of the strings. 

The guard’s eyes widen for a moment, but she regains her composure. “Y-you’re welcome.” She leans forward and hovers her hands over Sona’s shoulders. “We can carry you up to the deck.” Her heart nearly leaps to her throat when Sona suddenly grabs her wrist while shaking her head and pointing her finger at the guard’s forehead.

Jhin will kill her. All of them. 

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.” The guard tucks her arms under Sona’s and lifts her out of the tank. “Come on, we need to get you up there.” One by one, the guards in the hold come up to help her carry Sona down the stairs onto a stretcher. “I thought you didn’t want to get killed by captain?”

“Better than all of us dying to these things… or worse, getting taken for torture and experimentation in Zaun,” a guard mutters, to which the others chime in agreement. 

As they reach closer to deck, the female guard speaks up. “We have enough of us to hold her while joining in the fight. There’s a chance the Zaunites will try to take her too. Two of us need to hold the stretcher while the rest of you surround it and fight whoever tries to come after us, got it?”

“Got it. Ready?” The crewmembers crouch to prepare to run out to the deck. Sona sits up on the stretcher with her instrument at the ready. 

“Charge!”

[rosywrites]

The Tale of the Lunar Kingdoms, Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Mortal Realm Fandom: League of Legends Ship: Jinx/Lux AU: Lunar Revel, Warring Kingdoms, Immortal Journey, Blood Moon

[AO3]

Word count: 4086

A figure slinks through the shadows of the kingdom, sticking to the walls and ducking under rails whenever an attendant passes by. They run across the wooden floor, a rhythm to their feet as if they’re dancing. But there’s a misstep, and a floorboard creaks. They freeze when they hear the sound of a howl nearby and breaks into a sprint, no longer minding all the creaking of the floorboards.

Around the corner just outside of the hallway, a white-maned wolf skids to a stop before continuing his pursuit. At the other end of the hallway, he sees Lux running away faster and erratically. “Get back here!” he snarls. 

“Already?! How?!” Lux cries, picking up the pace. But it’s useless as Warwick catches up in seconds. She groans. “I’m sorry, Warwick!” With a swing of her wand, a golden light shoots towards the guardian and roots him in place. 

“You!” he howls. 

“I said I’m sorry!” Lux cries again as she gains distance from Warwick. She turns several corners to shake him off her trail. She pauses for a few seconds to catch her breath. But she knows she can’t rest for long. Warwick has the best sense of smell among anyone in the kingdom. Surely, he would find her within a minute. 

One more breath, and she takes off again. Just as she’s close to exiting the outer palace, she sees the familiar dark mane of her other guardian. 

Oh no. 

Nasus appears from around the corner with a manuscript in hand, a scepter in the other. Without even sparing a glance, he swiftly tucks his scepter under his arm and extends his hand out to grab her by the collar. 

“No!” Lux whines. “How did you know I was heading this way?!”

“You’re easy to read,” Nasus answers. He finally looks at Lux with a raised brow. “Not to mention, you’ve been trying to sneak out of the palace frequently nowadays.” He releases Lux, who slumps in defeat. 

She glances at Nasus grabbing his scepter again. His scepter. Her wand. Her old wand. She doesn’t remember when it happened, but one day, Nasus had awakened his powers through her wand. Lucian must have seen it, since he’s the one who requested the wand to be crafted into a scepter. It looks completely different from what it used to look like.

Lux, in the meantime, was given a new wand. A two-sided wand with a sculpture of Nasus and Warwick on either side with a gold plating at the center of the rod. Her new wand was much lighter and easier to use, and it was still crafted at Azir’s kingdom.

“Warwick, you’re late,” he says as Warwick slides to a stop before them.

“Hey, it’s not my fault she rooted me!” he protests. “I almost caught her three times today.”

“Then you should be faster.”

Warwick rolls his eyes and scratches the back of his ear. “Yeah, yeah, at least you caught her.” He huffs in annoyance when Nasus grunts in acknowledgement. “What are you reading this time?”

Nasus shuts the manuscript and holds it up. “Names and mentions of demons.” He flips it in his hands as if he’s examining it from cover to cover. “It’s rather short, but this is all I can find.” He then sighs. “Lux, don’t think we don’t know you’re trying to sneak out again.”

Lux, who was trying to tiptoe past them, twirls around with a nervous smile. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just, uh, thinking of heading to the training grounds!”

“You’re going the opposite way,” Warwick says, pointing at the hallway in which they came from with an expectant look. “Get going, or I drag you there with you in my teeth.” He shoots Lux a toothy grin. 

She hangs her head in defeat. “Okay…” She trudges back to the inner palace with Warwick and Nasus following closely behind. She blows a stray hair strand out of her eyes.

Why wasn’t she allowed down to the mortal realm yet? All her predecessors were able to take the carriages there. Why couldn’t she ? She sighs. She was just so curious about the kind of lifestyles humans had there. Being a demigod and raised in a palace in the heavens, she can only imagine what new and fun adventures would await her.

“Lux, we know you want to visit the mortal realm. But you can barely protect yourself,” Nasus states. “What if something happens down there, and we’re not there to protect you?”

She pouts. “I know, I know… It’s just,” she pauses with a sigh of exasperation, “There’s a festival going on down there, and I want to join in on the festivities! I just want to take a peek and have some fun, even if it means I’ll be watched for every second I’m down there.” Her eyes suddenly light up, and her pace slows to a stop. “What if the three of us go? Lucian would allow it if my two guardians would come with me, right?” She bats her eyes innocently with her hands clasped together.

Warwick and Nasus exchange looks.

“No.”

  Lux lies in bed, buried under her blanket and listening to the sounds of the night. Just as she thinks the silence is getting heavy, the click of her door catches her attention. Thump. Thump. Oh, it’s Warwick. She doesn’t poke her head out of the blanket. She then feels a weight by the side of her bed. Curious, she peeks out and sees Warwick’s head beside her own.

“What are you doing, Warwick?” she asks.

“Watching you,” he answers. “I can’t have you running off again.”

Her lip juts out in a pout. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” She reaches to pet his muzzle, at which his tail starts wagging happily. “Where’s Nasus?”

“In the archives.”

“Hm,” Lux hums in acknowledgement. 

Though she doesn’t remember when it all started, she somewhat recalls Nasus spending more and more time in the archives when they were younger. Not to mention he became a lot more mature earlier too. She tried asking Lucian about it once, Nasus’ change being sudden and all. He only smiled and told her that he’s probably settling into his guardian duties now. 

She remembers how small they used to be. They were so small, and she could carry the both of them in her arms so easily. But they grew bigger so fast, they were already towering over her by the time she turned sixteen years old. She thinks they stopped growing since then.

Probably her too. She feels like she’s been the same height.

Ah, her eyelids are getting heavier. Her hand soon relaxes atop Warwick’s head as she dozes off. Warwick patiently waits for the steady breathing before he gently nudges her hand back and pulls the covers over her. He huffs and steps out the room, sitting in front of the doors.

Soft crickets fill the room. Lux sleeps peacefully under her blanket. 

Or so she pretends.

Her eye cracks open and peers around for her guardian’s presence in the room. So far, so good. But the problem is getting out without Warwick catching onto her. She turns in bed and inches closer to the other side. She freezes up when her door is slid open. 

“Hmph,” Warwick grunts when he sees her sleeping figure. Guess she was just turning in her sleep. He closes the door again.

It takes her much effort to stop herself from sighing in relief. Warwick would have heard it. She quietly steps out of bed and stuffs a pillow underneath the covers. She removes her robe to reveal a casual outfit underneath. This way, it should be easier to move around in. She folds it up and places it on the floor, hidden.

She peers outside her window to make sure neither of her guardians are patrolling the back. She lifts herself up and slips out, careful not to step on any creaking floorboards. Once the coast is clear, she picks up her pace and heads towards the outer palace. It’s a little far, but it’s never stopped her.

Just as she’s about to reach the outer palace, she spots Nasus from the corner of her eye. He seems preoccupied with another manuscript from the archives. She hides behind a pillar and waits for him to pass by, holding her breath as he approaches her hiding spot. Once he walks past, she ducks and continues on.

Nasus stops and turns. Though faint, he sees Lux’s shadow crawling towards the exit of the inner palace. He rolls his eyes and sighs. He closes the manuscript and walks towards Lux’s room, where Warwick is standing guard.

“You saw her?” Warwick asks boredly.

“Mhm. She’s not that great at stealth.” Nasus lets out a loud sigh as he shakes his head. “Ready to go?”

“Whenever you are.”

They find an empty carriage in front of the outer palace. The two squeeze into the driver’s seat, a pair of reins materializing in Nasus’ hands. To drive a carriage in the heavens simply requires magic and control, which Nasus excels the best among the two. 

They ride the carriage out to the gates, where a pair of guards seem to be expecting their arrival. “Good evening, Guardians,” they greet. “Chasing after Her Majesty, we assume.”

“As always,” Nasus answers calmly. “Even if she decides to go alone, we must fulfill our duty as guardians to protect her from the shadows.”

“If I had to be honest, I just want to see her embarrass herself because she’s never interacted with mortal humans before. They have different traditions down there.” Warwick quietly cackles when Nasus elbows him in the ribs. “While we’re here, I’m surprised you even let her through. Why’s that?” he asks the guards.

The guards exchange looks and smile. “The Lord requested that we let her through tonight. He overheard your conversation this morning, it seems.” 

“His Lord is too soft on Lux sometimes,” Nasus mutters.

“Actually, he was counting on you to chase after her,” one responds happily. “We think that’s probably why he was willing to let her go.”

“Guess he’s not wrong,” Warwick says. “Well, we got a little lady to chase after for trying to push her luck. Can we go through now?”

“With pleasure, Guardians.” The guards hold up their scepters and insert the tip into two locks in the gate, turning them until two orbs glow turquoise. The mechanics of the gate twist and turn until the gate opens to a golden path that leads down the clouds. Beneath those clouds is the mortal realm. 

“Do you know how to get down there without being seen?” the guard asks. 

“Is it the same as traveling to the other kingdoms in the heavens?” Nasus asks.. He’s never driven the carriage down to the mortal realm before, but perhaps it’s the same with every other place in the heavens he’s taken Lux to. Don’t stray from the golden path, and you shall reach your destination.

“Almost. In the mortal realm, they have an element called ‘wind’. Once you reach the veil between the heavens and the mortal realm, you will feel a gust of air blowing around you. It is benevolent, for it will hide your presence as you descend from the clouds.”

Nasus nods. “I see. It seems I still have much to learn.” He bows his head to the guards. “Thank you for the information. We will come back with Her Majesty before sunrise.”

The guards bow as the carriage rolls out to the path. “Have a safe trip, Guardians.”

As Nasus and Warwick descends down the golden path, they realize: they have never interacted with mortal humans before either. If anything, they might be just as lost as Lux would be. Worse, they may be recognized as heavenly beings instantly. There are beings similar to them in the mortal realm, but wouldn’t they stand out?

“Perhaps next time, we should bring a change of… casual clothing,” Nasus quietly suggests.

“I mean, isn’t it a festival down there? I think we’d fit in,” Warwick says. “I heard that humans like to dress up as dragons or something during festivals.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

As they approach the veil, they feel a slight breeze picking up around them. It brushes against their fur as it swirls around. Warwick sticks his head out and sniffs the air. 

“Weird,” Warwick says. “I thought ‘wind’ would have a smell, but it just smells like… like nothing.” He sniffs again. “Wait, I’m starting to smell  a lot of different things now.”

Nasus looks around. He notices there’s magic embedded in the currents as it wraps around them like a mother protecting her offspring. “We’re here.”

The clouds slowly part to reveal the lands of the mortal realm. Clumps of lush forests, lines of tall mountains, and specks of light in various areas spread throughout the regions. From afar, they spot establishments from the well-lit regions, presumably the “cities” the mortals inhabit. Despite the dark night, the moon offers its light to guide them through the sky. Everywhere they look, there’s something new to see.

But more importantly, the wind feels really, really nice. Warwick sticks his head out and visibly relaxes as the wind strokes his fur, his tail wagging faster and faster as the wind picks up. Nasus’ grip on the reins tightens. His muzzle stiffens up as he tries his best to avoid sticking his head out of the carriage and enjoy the wind as well. 

Focus, Nasus. We need to find Lux, even if the wind feels so nice . 

But it doesn’t stop his tail from wagging just a little bit. 

“So that’s where Lux went,” he says, as they approach the outskirts of  a city below. “Lord Azir’s kingdom. I suppose she would choose his kingdom over the others.” 

“Look,” Warwick calls, pointing at something beneath the trees. Between the gaps, they spot an abandoned carriage from their kingdom. “Lux already went ahead. We should settle here too.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Nasus directs the carriage to the trees and leaves the carriage next to Lux’s. 

---

Lux tugs at her shawl as she approaches the bustling street by the forest—the aroma of fried, steamed, stewed, or grilled food, the laughter and the ever growing volume of voices from the crowds ahead, the sound of vendors luring another customer to try their game or their food, and lanterns and lights that seem to go on forever. Her eyes widen at the sight. She’s heard the cities were much bigger than the kingdoms, but this was a whole new world for her.

“Outta the way, shorty!” someone calls as they nearly knock Lux down from the tree she was hiding behind. A teenager runs ahead while two children follow closely behind. 

“Sorry!” one calls with an apologetic wave before disappearing into the crowd of people and vendors.

“Well, so far, so good. No one’s noticed who I am,” she mumbles to herself nervously. She takes her hood off, letting her silver hair fall in place. She takes a deep breath. “Okay, Lux. Act natural. You’re a human being just like them.” She steps out from the shadows of the trees and into the lights. She holds her wand tighter when she feels a couple eyes turn to her, but they immediately carry on with their stroll through the streets.

“Hey miss! You look new here. Just visiting?” an older vendor asks. 

Her head perks up, maybe a little too fast, and nods, maybe a little too fast. “Y-yes! Just visiting! I’ve never been to a festival before, so…” Was that too much information? It should be fine, right?

“A first timer! Well, you’re in for a treat! The vendor leans against the counter and ushers Lux over. “So, we got some pretty good places to visit ‘round here. You’re currently in the south side of the festival. If you head north, there’s a little place where people go through a series of physical challenges for the “Strongest Being Alive” title for the year until the next festival.”

“D-do any of them get hurt?”

“Some do, but usually it’s because they push themselves too far or bite off more than they can chew.” She pats her shoulder in laughter. “I wouldn’t worry about them much. They’re a tough and rowdy bunch, but they play fair.” She points to another street. “If you head west, you’ll see where they hold entertainment like plays, comedy skits, and whatnot. If you ask me, it seems more like a talent show, to display their skills to the people.”

“That doesn’t sound that bad. If people laugh or are fascinated by what you do, I think whatever you practiced for is a success.”

“I like your optimism, miss!”

“What about the east? What’s there?”

“Oh! That’s usually off-limits to common folks like us, but that’s the Kingdom of Rooster, where His Majesty Azir resides. Don’t be surprised, but some say he actually comes down to the Lunar Revel festival dressed like a common folk to enjoy the festivities.”

That… kinda sounds about right, actually. “Really?” she feigns surprise. “I heard he’s rather tall. Wouldn’t he stand out?”

The vendor smiles and shrugs. “Who knows? All I know is that it’s a rumor. But he doesn’t come off as the “cooped up in his kingdom all day” type of guy, so I wouldn’t be that surprised if I happen to see him roam around.”

“It’d be an honor to meet him then. I wonder what he’d be like trying to blend in with the crowd.” She almost can’t imagine it.

“Why don’t you walk around and have some fun then, miss? You might just happen to meet him.”

“Aw, thanks! I appreciate it!”

“Hey, y’know what?” She reaches for a bamboo basket behind the counter and lifts the top. A burst of steam rises from inside, and the vendor reaches for tongs and places a giant bun on a paper tray. She pulls it apart in half, a sweet and savory aroma wafting from within. It makes Lux’s mouth water almost immediately. “Here, try it. My own recipe.”

“O-oh gosh, I didn’t even bring any money. I don’t think I have anything else I can pay you with either.”

“Naw, on the house. I appreciate you taking the time to listen. I don’t get many customers, being all the way out here, but I like to chat with anyone who stops by.”

“Thank you so much.” Lux accepts, though hesitantly. She should have brought some money on her own, but she didn’t know what kind of currency they used in the human world. Gold… would seem suspicious, probably. She bows in thanks and heads north, where the brawls are.

She takes a closer look at the tray, and it seems like a pork bun. She blows a few times before taking a bite. “Hot!” she exclaims, covering her mouth to blow the hot steam out. She starts chewing, and a combination of sweet, salty, and savory flavors burst in her mouth like a firework. Her eyes light up and sparkle like it’s the best thing she has ever eaten.

Because it is. It’s the best thing she has ever eaten.

“Hey kid, where’d you get that?” someone asks.

With her mouth full, she hurriedly points at a vendor towards the forest and give them a thumbs-up. The stranger smiles kindly, thanks her, and heads for said stall. She swallows the food and peeks over, seeing the vendor smile happily at the new customer.

Lux giggles and continues her way north, occasionally stopping a lost stranger to guide them to the vendor. The moment she manages to squeeze through a crowd of people, she’s greeted by a spark that flies towards her. She yelps and ducks, evading the spark just in time, as it lights a nearby box on fire.

“Damn, I needed that!” a faint voice complains. “Stupid thing can’t even hold its fire correctly, ugh!”

Lux opens her eyes and looks up to find the source of that spark. Just beyond the crowd in a darker area, away from the vendors, lies a giant firecracker of bronze shaped like a dragon. She spots a girl, around her age, kicking the side as if she expects it to work by doing that. The girl seems petite, though a little taller than Lux, with black hair and braids in red wraps. Looking closer, she even has dragon tattoos around her right arm.

She wonders if she’s one of those ‘rapscallion’ people she hears about from the lords in the mortal realm.

The girl suddenly meets her eyes, and a moment passes before the blank expression on her face lights up with an idea. “Yo, moonlight! Care to help me out here?”

What? Her? “Me?”

“No, I mean the rat that’s scurrying behind you. Yes, you! This thing’s heavy, ya know!” The girl tries to lift the firecracker herself, but it does seem too much for her to carry on her own.

Lux looks around before making her way over, catching the other side before it collapses on the girl. “Hey,”  Lux calls, peeking over the top of the rocket with a scowl of her own. “You know you could’ve hurt me back there. That spark, or whatever it is, almost flew into my face!”

The girl rolls her eyes and waves her off dismissively. “Oh please, it’s just one little firecracker. It won’t kill you.” Her lip juts out in thought. “Eh, I guess it’ll hurt. But hey, not my fault if these things have a mind of their own.”

“I’m pretty sure they don’t,” Lux mutters. “What is this for anyway?”

“It’s for the party, duh!” the girl exclaims. “You can’t have a party without something big and fun as this .” She extends her arms out to the firecracker with a big grin. “Made it myself actually. Pretty proud of it.”

“This whole thing?” Lux is impressed. It doesn’t look easy building a firecracker as big as this. “Wouldn’t you need a lot of flash powder for this?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” the other girl answers proudly. “I got my resources, hon. Anyways, help me angle this thing on this doohickey.” She points at a small wooden block with an arc carved into it. “I gotta make sure this thing flies as high into the sky and throughout the city!”

“Well, when’s the party?”

“Eh,” the girl hums in wonder. “Dunno? Usually it’s at the end of the festival. Sometimes at the end of the brawls. It’s kinda different every time.” 

Lux can’t help but hum in curiosity. “I see…” They set down the firecracker on the block and position it so that it will be shot over the crowd. “So… is that it?”

The girl’s head shoots out from the other side of the firecracker with an incredulous look? “Is that it ? Oh, no, no, this is just the beginning, moonlight! We gotta get more stuff! Wanna join me? I promise it’ll be lotsa fun!”

“Oh…” Lux hesitates for a moment. “This is my first time at a festival, so I was hoping I can see everything first.”

“Uh-huh, I am definitely listening. We need firecrackers. LOTS of them. We can get them from different places all around the festival. I’ll go south, and you head west!” The girl is about to take off into the crowd before she’s pulled back by Lux. “What now?”

“Don’t we need money to buy those? I don’t think they’d give them out for free.”

The girl’s lips purse into a crooked line. “Ugh, why’d I have to ask a little lady for help…” she mumbles to herself as she reaches behind her and brings out a small sack. “Here, moonlight. Go crazy. We don’t have much time!” She tosses it into Lux’s hands and runs off before Lux can ask about her share of the money.

“What did I get myself into…?” Lux asks herself. She looks into the sack and see a small pile of coins inside. She takes one out and examines the engravings. “Okay, so this is this much…. And this is this much... I think I got it. West, she said?” Lux hurries off with the sack of coins strapped to her belt under her shawl.

A shadow looms over where she was standing, eyes watching her weave through the crowd. Found her.

[rosywrites]

The Tale of the Lunar Kingdoms, Chapter 1

Chapter 1: To Grow Up Fandom: League of Legends Ship: Jinx/Lux AU: Lunar Revel, Warring Kingdoms, Immortal Journey, Blood Moon

[AO3]

Word count: 4825

When Lux turns six months old, she is to be brought to the Kingdom of Dog to be raised as the future empress. Azir prepares her for the journey to the heavens, assigning two members of his heavenly court to ensure she reaches the kingdom safely. He allows Luxanna's mother and brother to say their goodbyes and watch her ascend to the heavens. It is the least he could do for them, after all.

Luxanna is bundled up and carried to a carriage sent by the Kingdom of Dog. She cooes in her mother's arms as she is handed over to one of the Dog’s soldiers. Her mother gives her one last peck on the forehead.

"Good bye, my little moonlight."

Garen reaches out to pet her head. "I hope we can see you again very soon, Lux." He squeezes his mother’s hand tightly as he watches the soldier take Lux and close the door of the carriage. “Please take care of her.”

“Of course, young one. We will see to it that our kingdom  receives the empress safe and sound,” the soldier answers back in sincerity. 

“Before you depart,” Azir says, reaching into a small sack hung around his waist, “give this to the new empress.” He takes out a small wooden bird-like doll with a bell tied around its neck. “Consider this a small tribute from me to our future Majesty. The Kingdom of Rooster will send forth its tribute when the time comes.”

The soldier bows her head. “Thank you, my Lord. I will be sure to notify our Lord of your tribute.” She knocks on the wall of the carriage, alerting the driver. “It is time.”

The driver bows his head before the carriage takes flight towards the heavens. The three watch the carriage become smaller and smaller in the sky until it is visible no longer. Azir looks down at Garen and his mother, who silently weeps into her apron. Garen remains strong and hugs his mother’s waist to offer her some comfort. He also places a comforting hand on the mother’s shoulder. 

“My tribute to Her Majesty Luxanna has another purpose,” he states.

“Another purpose?”

“Should Her Majesty feel lost and desire some answers, I believe the doll should help guide her to my kingdom.” His eyes squint up as he holds up a finger. “If my own plans to arrange a meeting between Her Majesty and her family are not accomplish, perhaps she can find the means to do so herself.”

The mother laughs into her apron, the tears still flowing. “Quite clever, Your Majesty. I didn’t expect such a scheme to come from you.”

“I am still a god after all, my Lady. Even I have simple tricks up my sleeves.” He pats Garen’s back. “I’m sure your son will be able to take good care of you in my kingdom until then.”

“I will. Maybe I can climb the ranks to the top  so I can be someone Lux can be proud of when she meets me.”

Azir is astounded for a moment before he bursts into laughter. “You have quite the ambitious dream, boy. Is that an oath?”

“Maybe,” Garen shyly mutters in response. 

Azir doesn’t hesitate to pat Garen on the head with a chuckle. “The day you become a  general of my court will be a grand day, my boy.” He guides Garen and his mother back into the palace with a comforting hand on the back. He looks back up at the skies with a wistful look for a moment and turns away.

---

When Lux turns two, she’s old enough to run and climb around the palace and cause the attendants some trouble in looking after her.  Despite her size, she proves to be difficult to keep still in one place for so long.

An attendant rushes over to meet up with another. “Have you found her?!” he asks in a panic, desperately hoping the other panicking attendant found her.

“I haven’t! I’ve already looked into the other rooms! Where is the Her Majesty?!” The attendants split up again in increasing panic.

Meanwhile, Lux runs through the garden of the palace with a curiosity more vast than the skies above her. She pays no mind to the panicking attendants running around the palace trying to find her. All she sees are beautiful colors everywhere, and it captivates her so much that laughter bubbles out.

“Did you hear that?” an attendant says. They turn their attention to the garden, the source of the empress’ chiming laughter and squeals. “We can’t lose her again, what if His Lord finds out?” The attendants rush into the garden towards the center, but they freeze in place when they see their ruler seated on a stone bench, holding Lux in his arms. “M-my Lord!” They immediately kneel before him, bowing their heads. “Forgive us, we had lost sight of her as soon as we escorted Her Majesty into her room.”

A gentle laughter blooms from the lord as a happy squeal follows. “She’s a lively one. This isn’t the first time she’s somehow slipped from our grasp.” He’s holding Lux in the air, smiling at her enthusiastic babbling. 

“Colors! Pretty!” she exclaims, pointing at everything around her.

“Yes, they are, aren’t they?” he says as he sits her atop his lap and bounces her on his leg.

“Pardon the interruption, my Lord,” an attendant speaks up. “We had originally planned to put Her Majesty to bed for a short nap.”

“No nap!” Lux shouts in response. “Lucian, play!” She looks up to the man behind her and extends her small hands out to touch his face. 

Lucian smiles in endearment and pats her head. “I have time. But you need to promise me you’ll take a nap afterwards.”

Lux purses her lips in thought. She counts her fingers as she pretends to make a very important decision. But no more than half a minute later, her head perks up with a nod. “Okay. After,” she says.

“Then let’s play.”

---

When Lux turns six, she can write letters and draw pictures of the residents of the palace. Her powers also begin to manifest in the form of light, her greatest ability being able to produce an orb from the palm of her hands. The orb is small, but it’s clear her powers are developing quickly. 

Lucian frequents her lessons to see how much she’s improving in her control of her abilities. So far, he’s amused by how creative she is when it comes to solving problems.

“Look, Lucian!” she says, as she holds out an orb of light that is now floating from her hands. 

“How are you doing that?” he asks.

“I’m holding my breath,” she answers, her face becoming redder and redder each second. “It’s the only way I can get this to float.” But when she regains her breath, the light dissipates along with her enthusiasm. “Aw, already?” she pouts.

He chuckles. “But you’re slowly getting there. Soon enough, you’ll be able to do much more incredible things with your light.”

“Like the Lunar Goddess?” she asks.

“Perhaps so.” 

“That would be cool,” Lux shyly admits. “She’s so pretty.”

A smile, though forlorn, graces Lucian’s features. He kneels down to her on one knee. “Yes, she was. She was a beautiful empress and goddess of our kingdoms. It was so long ago, but her efforts to bring heaven and earth together still remains strong.”

Lux blinks for a few moments before holding Lucian’s face with her hands. “Lucian, are you lonely?”

Her blunt question catches him by surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Sometimes I feel like your light is missing something. So you always look lonely.”

Ah, he understood now. She has the powers to see light in others, perhaps their soul. He can’t help but nod. “I used to have someone special I held dear to me. She was my light.”

“And she’s gone?”

“For now,” he replies. “She used to be human, and humans don’t have very long lifespans compared to us. When her time came, I swore to find her again when she reincarnates into the world.”

“What was her name?”

“Senna.”

“She sounds like a beautiful person! I’m sure she would look for you too.”

Her words provide comfort to Lucian’s heart, as if they will come true. A large part of him believes so. “Yes, I’m sure of it too.”

Lux smiles brightly. “Anyways, I have to go to my lessons. I’ll see you later!” She runs out of the garden, her footsteps getting farther and farther away until there’s silence. 

Lucian’s endearing smile fades into a frown, and his expression darkens as he reaches under his coat. “How did you get in here? I was sure I posted guards all over the palace.”

“You can’t expect someone such as me to be caught by mere guards,” a voice calls from behind a tree. “I heard you were taking care of the new empress. It’d be a shame if something happened to her.”

“Why are you here? What is your purpose?”

The figure falls silent for a moment. “You never beat around the bush, do you?” A rhythm of metallic clinks engulfs the garden as Lucian waits for an answer. “Notify the other lords. They’re beginning to move.”

“Them?”

A blade whisks past Lucian’s face and strikes the tree in front of him. He sees a talisman marked with red and black ink hanging from the end of it. 

“The Blood Moon cult. They’re preparing for a grand ceremony, and the little majesty is planned to be the center of it.”

---

When Lux turns nine, she is summoned to the throne room to greet the other lords of the zodiac kingdoms. An official ceremony of recognizing the new empress, is what Lucian says. But she thinks it’s just another way of saying she gets to meet everyone.

She holds the wooden statuette of a bird close to herself. A personal tribute from the lord of Rooster himself, Lucian told her. It was a figure she’s had since she was young, though she doesn’t have clear memories of the Kingdom of Rooster. She hopes to be able to meet him today. 

Once she’s dressed in extravagant robes, that feel a little too big for her current height, she is escorted to the throne room. She stops in front of the door and takes a deep breath. She’s meeting the rulers of the twelve kingdoms. She must make a good impression. The attendants open the doors, and she strides in.

All conversation, if any,  ceases immediately at her first step inside. All the rulers deeply bow their heads as she makes her way to the throne. From the corner of her eye, she sees gods and goddesses of all shapes and sizes. There’s even one with horns! Amazing! 

No, focus, Lux. 

Lucian kneels in front of the others, gesturing with his eyes to stand before her seat. She’s nervous at the grand size of it, but there’s no room for nerves right now. Lucian’s proud smile helps her ease into her posture.

Okay, Lux, just like you and Lucian practiced…

“Please raise your heads. It is an honor to be graced by the presence of the lords of the zodiac kingdoms.” Pause as they raise their heads. “I thank you for taking the time out of your duties to travel to the Kingdom of Dog. I would like to take this opportunity to finally get to know you all.” Okay, the ‘finally’ was a bit impromptu, but Lucian isn’t giving her the eye. She takes her seat on the throne and waits for Lucian’s cue. 

Lucian steps up, a line of attendants behind him. “Your Majesty, as you know, today is your ninth birthday. As a gift from the Kingdom of Dog, we present you two young guardians who will serve as your protectors throughout your life. Two brothers. Born on the night of the half moon.” An attendant brings forth a basket and opens the lid, revealing two small puppies nestled within. 

And it takes Lux all it takes to not shriek out loud in front of the rulers.

But it isn’t enough, for she bursts out of her seat and jumps up and down in excitement as she approaches the basket. She muffles her squeal in order to not wake the sleeping puppies. She nearly cries at how cute they are as she strokes her fingers through their little manes. 

“What are their names?” she asks.

“The white-maned one is Warwick, and the dark-maned one is Nasus. They were born from a family of warriors that serve to protect the Kingdom of Dog, Your Majesty,” an attendant, presumably a member of said family, answers. 

One stirs awake following another, eyelids fluttering open to reveal onyx eyes. They blink sleepily at her, striking her heartstrings immediately. It takes a few moments for them to realize they’re before the empress herself.

The dark-maned puppy blinks with a tilt of his head. “You look funny,” he says, not having seen a human before.

Lux’s jaw drops, and the entire room falls dead silent. She feels her ears turn red hot in embarrassment, and she swears she hears someone among the rulers snort back laughter. 

“Nasus!” the white-maned puppy calls. “That’s rude!”

“What? I didn’t know that’s what the empress looks like…”

“ Nasus! ” Warwick hisses in warning.

“I-it’s okay,” Lux stammers. “Um, Warwick and Nasus, right? My name is Luxanna, but you can call me Lux.”

“Warwick! It’s nice to meet you!”

“Nasus. Nice to meet you.”

  One by one, the other rulers present their tribute to Lux. One presents accessories for a lifetime. Another presents armor for her guardians, who gaze in wonder at the large size. Lux is amazed by the different types of lords who rule over their kingdoms. Some look human like her, others look like animals. Or in one case, a human AND an animal.

A slightly petite woman walks up to the throne with another young woman following closely behind. She spots a stringed instrument of wood and gold that floats in front of the woman. They bow before rising.

“Your Majesty,” the former woman calls. “The Kingdom of Dragon has been without a ruler for millennia, but it has never stopped our kingdom from acting as a pillar for the empress. I, Xan Irelia, have been acting as a representative in place of our missing ruler. As our tribute, we would like to offer a mentor to help with controlling your powers. She is well-known for her music, but her control and knowledge in magic is extensive among our courts.” She extends a gracious hand to the latter, a woman with chestnut brown hair in a red robe.

Lux bows her head. “Thank you for such a generous offer. I hope to learn many things under her tutelage.” 

  Lastly, the lord she has long been waiting for: Azir. He steps up before the throne with a long wooden box and kneels before her. “Your Majesty, it has been years since I last saw you as a child. You have grown so much since then.”

It takes her a lot of patience to not burst into a storm of questions. She deeply bows her head to him. “My Lord, I had heard much about you from the Lord of this kingdom. It is an honor to finally meet you in person,” she states. She peeks up, and she sees his expression light up in joy. All of a sudden, she becomes shy about the questions swirling in her head. 

“As tribute from the Kingdom of Rooster, we would like to offer you a wand.”

“A wand?”

“Yes. Those with magic need a tool to focus their powers and energy into in order to use it efficiently. This wand was crafted using the finest wood and gold, magic weaved within to guide your own through it.” He opens the lid of the box to reveal a wand, a gold sculpture of a dog on one side attached to a wooden rod with gold plating towards the top. He picks it up and offers it to Lux to take it.

She holds her breath and extends her hand out to reach for the wooden rod. The moment her hand wraps around it, light flares from the eyes of the sculpture as if they’ve come to life. The orb in the sculpture’s mouth illuminates a bright turquoise. She staggers back from the weight, but she holds still with two hands.

“Hm. It seems it’s working well,” Azir observes. “How do you feel, Your Majesty?”

“It… I feel really light,” she can only say. She hears the other chuckle and suddenly feels shy again. “Um, thank you for such a wonderful gift, my Lord. I am sure I can use this during my lessons.”

“I am happy to hear that, Your Majesty.” He bows his head once more before he returns to the line of lords. It is only then when she remembers the wooden figure she tucked into her sleeve. She pats it gingerly, wondering if she’ll have another opportunity to talk to Azir again.

---

“Azir.”

The lord, taking a stroll through the halls of the Dog Kingdom, turns to see Lucian approaching. “Lucian,” he greets back. “To what do I owe this honor of speaking with the lord of this kingdom?”

“It’s about the Blood Moon cult,” Lucian answers with a grave expression, which Azir catches immediately.

“Have you found them?” Azir asks.

“I’ve had soldiers search all over the lands for where they are, but…”

“Nothing?”

Lucian shakes his head. “None. Fortunately, we hadn’t run into any danger since then. But as Lux’s power grows, the chances of her being kidnapped also grow.” He taps his chin in thought. “It’s just… odd. There are no signs of them gathering or even an individual scent. A demon’s scent is easy to sniff out, yet my soldiers have yet to catch a single one.”

“They may just be waiting for the right time to take her.”

“But when would that be?”

The two fall silent. With the Blood Moon cult having emerged only recently,  they barely know much about them other than that the demons are involved. “Perhaps, just like their name, they’re waiting for a night when the moon turns red.”

“We don’t know when that will be. It could be months or years from now.”

“But it’s definitely while Her Majesty is still alive.”

“What do you plan to do?”

Lucian hesitates. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I can’t have her roaming freely between the human world and the heavens like the past majesties have been able to do. The Blood Moon cult is based down there, but we don’t know where they could be. It’s too dangerous.”

Azir looks troubled for a moment, but he reluctantly agrees that Lucian has a point. Should the cult be based in his own territory and Lux comes for a visit, there’s no telling if the carriage transporting her can be destroyed with her taken away. Is there really no other way for her to visit the mortal realm?

“Where is Her Majesty?”

“She’s gone to bed for the night. Her birthday must have tired her out. She’s still a child, after all.”

“I see,” Azir says with a nod. “Do you plan to keep her sheltered in this kingdom forever then? Surely, even she can’t come to accept that.”

“Of course not. But she needs to learn how to fully control her powers before she goes out there.” He presses his fingers to his temples. “I can’t let her go when she can’t even protect herself yet. Her guardians need to train to be able to protect her as well.” 

“I suppose I should gradually increase the patrols around the kingdom. I can’t have any harm come to her family while they’re taking residence there.”

“That may be wise. Perhaps the other lords should know about this as well.”

“Well, they’re all here. It’s still not too late in calling a meeting.”

“Yes, let’s do that then.” He takes a few steps but stops. “One more thing, Azir.” He turns to the other with an apologetic smile. “If you can, try to avoid talking about her family. We can’t give her any reason to visit the mortal realm. Not yet.”

Azir understands the decision. He closes his eyes in slight regret, knowing both Lux and her family will have to wait a little longer. “You have my word.”

---

By the time Lux turns twelve, she had gained a considerable amount of power over the past three years. Her only problem is being able to contain it all. While her wand is excellent at helping her channel her magic into it, sometimes her skin leaks light as bright as the moon’s. Even under the tutelage of her mentors, she finds it difficult to control it.

She finds her way back to her room after a long lesson. Sona is a kind teacher, but her methods are spartan. Upon opening her door, she is immediately greeted by tufts of fur. She’s knocked to the ground by her two guardians, whose tails wag excitedly as if she hasn’t come back in a long time. Lux struggles to sit up from their heavy weight. They almost reach her height now, and they will surely grow even bigger as time goes by.

“Lux, play with us!” Warwick whines. “We’ve been waiting forever!”

“What about training?” she asks, taking the two in her arms and petting their heads. “Didn’t you just come back from it?”

“We did, but it’s not like it’s fun,” Nasus answers. 

“Please?” the two plead, their ears drooped and tails tucked.

How could she say no to that? “Alright, let’s go play!” she exclaims, her two guardians immediately perking up and chasing each other out the door she opens. She chases after them as well, reminding them not to be too rowdy in the halls. She rushes past the attendants, apologizing beforehand if any of the brothers knock them aside on accident.

“Lux?” 

“Oh! Lucian!” The three skid to a stop, nearly running right into him. “Sorry, we wanted to go play for a bit.”

“That’s fine, but where’s your wand? You need to keep it with you at all times.”

She then realizes she left her wand in her room, having dropped it when her guardians pounced on her. “Oops. Um, let me go get it real quick!”

“It’s okay, I’ll do it,” Nasus claims, not giving Lux any time to object as he runs back to her room. “You two go ahead, I’ll catch up!”

Lux and Warwick exchange looks and then glance up at Lucian, who smiles helplessly at them. He nods his head towards the inner court where the park would be, and they run off in giggles. He continues his stroll through the halls, turning the corner.

Nasus opens the door and spots Lux’s wand on the floor. He picks it up and turns to close the door but stops in his tracks. He sniffs the air, his ears now up and alert. There’s a scent. It didn’t belong to anyone in the kingdom. And this presence… it feels dangerous… and bloody. He feels his fur standing on end.

Who’s here?

He follows the smell into the garden ahead, treading carefully to make sure he doesn’t make a sound. He walks through the winding path of bushes and flowers until the scent is just a few feet away. His entire body tenses up when he hears a voice. 

“So this is where they keep the new empress." The voice drips with disgust. Nasus grips the wand tighter as he peeks out from the bush. A beautiful woman with lilac skin stands at the heart of the garden. On her back is a pair of golden and jade wings. “Hm, the empress is still young. It’d be perfect to kill her as she is now. What a shame.”

He gulps and hides again. He needs to tell someone. But his legs refuse to move. Kill her? Lux? What should he do? He doesn’t even have his own weapon or magic yet. 

“What’s this?” A hand clasps around Nasus’ throat and holds him up in the air. “A puppy? What are you doing in this garden? Don’t you know you’re not allowed here?” the woman states, a sadistic venom in her tone. 

Nasus struggles against the woman’s grip. “Let… go of me!” he chokes. 

“Ah, ah, ah, bad dogs deserve punishment,” she says. “And you were being naughty by spying on me.”

“It’s not like, like you belong here anyway,” he responds. But his answer forces the woman’s hand to grip his neck tighter. His legs start kicking at her dress, but he’s too short to do any damage. “Ghk!”

“You know nothing of me,” she hisses, her expression contorting into nothing short of malice. “I wasn’t planning on killing anyone today, but I’m afraid I can’t have you barking for the authorities. The Blood Moon cult simply wouldn’t allow it.”

Nasus feels her grip getting tighter and tighter by the second. She’s going to kill him. She’s going to snap his neck. He can no longer breathe, and his strength is starting to fail him. 

“But perhaps it would be a good distraction to take that empress of yours.”

His eyes widen. She’s not satisfied with just killing him? A low growl escapes his bared fangs as his nails dig into her skin. “You are not getting past me! You will not take her!” Something stirs within him, a new strength. It courses through his body into the wand in his hand, and it lights up in response.

“What is this?” the woman exclaims, her skin starting to burn from the aura emanating from the puppy’s figure. Her grip loosens slightly in her surprise, and it’s all Nasus needs to swing the wand at her. “Augh!” she yelps as she’s immediately knocked down to the ground by its sheer power. 

Nasus wheezes and coughs as he regains his breath. With shaking legs, he stands back up. “You, you are not getting past me. I will not allow you further,” he states again, like a mantra. He grips the wand with two hands and raises it above.

“Nasus!” A light dashes in front of Nasus, followed by Lucian holding his arm out to stop him while he points a gun at the woman. “What are you doing here, Wraith ? Haven’t you caused enough trouble?”

The woman’s lip curl back into a scowl. A troublesome one has come. She wouldn’t have a chance to go against him and even an injured dog alone. She clicks her tongue in anger as she backs away. “You know I’ll be back. You can’t protect your little empress forever.” Her wings fan out, and she flees into shadow. 

Lucian waits for a moment before tucking his gun back in its holster. He kneels before Nasus, who collapses once the danger is gone. “Nasus. Are you okay?”

“She said she’ll try to take her after she kills me,” Nasus cries. “I couldn’t let her do that, couldn’t let her take Lux.”

“You did good, Nasus. You did very well holding up on your own. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there sooner.” He pats Nasus’ back, gently calming him down.

“Can we… keep this a secret from Lux and Warwick?” Nasus asks. “I don’t want them to know I almost, um…”

Lucian takes a moment to think, hesitant. Eventually, he nods. “Sure. Sure thing, Nasus.”

  Lux gazes at Nasus, who sleeps soundly with his back turned to her. Her brows furrow in worry. He hadn’t been himself today. She wonders if it’s because he’s upset Warwick and she really went ahead instead of waiting for him. But Lucian did say he had to scold Nasus for getting distracted. Perhaps he’s upset about that?

“Are you worried about him too?” Warwick asks sleepily, having woken up from Lux’s stirring. “He’s been acting funny all day…”

“Yeah. I don’t know if he’s upset with us or not.”

He wasn’t. Nasus’ eyes flutter open with a pang of guilt. He didn’t want to tell him. He didn’t want to worry them about what could have happened today. He’s a guardian. It’s his job to protect the empress and his brother. If he ends up being protected by them, he would have failed his own duties. 

What was it that woman said? Blood Moon? A cult? And she was called a wraith. What was a wraith?

Nasus decides to check the archives for any information after their training tomorrow. There has to be information of all this there. And if whatever information he can gather can help him protect Lux and Warwick, he’s willing to study as much as it takes. 

[rosywrites]

Silent Waves, Chapter 2

Title: Silent Waves (Siren Sona x Bounty Hunter/Pirate Jhin AU) Chapter 2: Driven to the Brink Fandom: League of Legends Ship: Jhin x Sona

[AO3]

Word count: 4,623

Eyelids flutter open to the moonlight shining through the porthole. The light bounces off the water of the tank, almost as if it's dancing to the sway of the ship. Seeing the moon provides some comfort, if any at all. At least this was better than being damned to rot in the bottom of the ship.

Sona doesn't sigh her woes away, rather admiring the moon for her beauty. Sirens of her kind, despite being native to the dark, have an appreciation of light and warmth. She would often swim up to the surface near caves to sunbathe by the rocks.

A stream of bubbles floats from her lips, not yet a sigh. Being captive was, obviously, quite restricting. Along with the porthole her only means of sight of the outside world, there was nothing else to do. All she did was sit on the sand and rock placed in her tank while glaring at the captain that took her instrument hostage. 

Watching him try to figure out how to make her instrument produce a sound was endless entertainment for her. Though he kept a straight face in her presence, she could hear the tones of frustration and irritation in his words. 

Her hand touches glass as she tries to reach for the moon. Despite the night sky being her only solace, she smiles, for she feels at home even in this moment. 

“Frustrating not being able to escape, isn’t it?” a voice suddenly says in the dark.

Sona fights the urge to roll her eyes and turns to the voice. She sees the captain’s figure looming over his bed and pulling back his sleeves to his elbows. He turns his head slightly to see if Sona has reacted, but there’s nothing from her. Not a single sound. 

What else did he expect?

Jhin stands still for another moment before trudging over to her tank with a chair. He sits with his leg over the other and stares at Sona.

To her, this is rather odd. Her brows irritatedly furrow in question, wondering what he plans to get out of this. Instead of being unnerved, she’s just confused. Just what is this man thinking?

“For a siren, you’re quiet. A peculiar trait.”

She raises a brow, further confused on where this is leading to.

“I’ve read books on creatures of the sea. Several of them,” he starts. “But I have yet to read about a siren that never speaks or sings.” He leans forward, perching his chin atop his crossed hands, curious. “Not to mention, you carry an instrument. There’s no speculation of sirens using instruments in these books.” 

Sona blinks. She doesn’t give an answer. It’s not like she can, anyway. She mirrors Jhin’s pose, her tail bending to the side, and stares back. She feigns interest, but her eyes are clearly mocking him. How far is he willing to talk in the face of mockery, she wonders.

Jhin knows she’s mocking him. It’s always the same, every time he interacts with her. She’s constantly provoking him at every opportunity, but he knows the moment he opens that tank (even to kill her), he would lose. He may have a gun, though not Whisper, but creatures of the sea can be faster. The siren would surely claw his neck easily.

“Don’t you have other tricks up your sleeve?” he asks. “The mockery is tedious, and it gets us nowhere.”

She releases a stream of bubbles towards him in response and shrugs. There’s nothing else she can do without her instrument. Silence is her best weapon right now, and gods forbid she doesn’t use it to its full potential. If even sirens can’t withstand a long period of silence, what about humans?

A sigh escapes Jhin, a sign of frustration. He shakes his head. “What’s the use talking to a mute siren?” he mutters to himself. “As if I should have expected anything more.”

Hearing his words, Sona smiles smugly. That’s right. He wasn’t going to get anything from her.

“You’re being moved to the cargo hold tomorrow,” Jhin states aloud as he looks back up. “I can’t keep you here forever, and I’m sure you’d appreciate the bigger space.” He leans back in his chair and purses his lips. “Though it’s much darker and lonelier down there,” he says with a small chuckle at the end.

Her eyes perk up at the words. She tilts her head in curiosity. The ‘cargo hold’? She had never heard of that before. But if the space was bigger, and darker, it would certainly make planning her escape much easier than being trapped in such a small tank in the corner of his room.

“If you think you’ll be able to escape while we’re moving you, don’t get so ahead of yourself,” Jhin says. “You’ll still be trapped inside the tank before we open the lid to transfer you to the other one. Just so I won’t lose any hands, physically and figuratively.” He holds up his hand, where Sona had scratched during their first encounter. The wound appears healed, now a scar in its place. “You’ve made quite the ruckus that day.”

Sona’s smirk grows wider. He deserved it anyway.

After a moment of silence, Jhin stands up and approaches her tank. He relishes in her expression suddenly changing to suspicion. “It’s unfortunate Whisper is still out of commission. I would have loved to carve your skin like a statue and use your scales as decoration. It would’ve been a fantastic piece of art.” He turns around and walks towards his bed.

A chill runs down Sona’s spine. She doesn’t doubt Jhin would have done that to her, had she not ruined his gun. Fear catches at her throat and almost freezes her in place, but she forces it down. She can’t show fear. Her gaze hardens at Jhin’s sleeping figure. 

It feels like an eternity waiting for Jhin fall asleep completely, but once she recognizes the steady rising and falling of his shoulders, she gets to examining her tank. She descends down to the rock she perches on and places her hands on the sides.

Removing the rock from its spot reveals a pit, where she dug at it at any chance she had to get to the bottom of the tank. There had to be rocks or just anything she can use as a weapon. Her efforts prove to be fruitless, as there were only pebbles and pieces of kelp inside. Disappointed, Sona swims up to the top of the tank and observes the latch.

She doesn’t recognize the mechanism of the latch, but that doesn’t stop her. She flattens her palms against the glass and slightly shakes the lid of the tank. She hears a strange rattling sound coming from the latch. It’s loose? She pauses to check on Jhin, who’s still soundly asleep. She nods to herself and keeps shaking the lid, and for a moment, she feels the lid shift aside. She huffs and tries again. She hears the click of a nail head that fell out of the hinge. 

Sona takes a breath and gently presses a hand against the lid, lifting it up just enough to be able to peer outside it. She lowers the lid quietly. 

This is it.

Tomorrow is a chance for her to escape. 

And if she fails, she can at least try to take her instrument back from him.

---

She watches the other men stride into Jhin’s room with a cart. She hisses at them when they approach, and they step back in hesitance. But the commands of their captain forces them to overcome their fear and move her tank onto the cart. Though faint and masked by sounds of glass hitting metal, the sound of a loose nail clatters on the wooden floor. She shoots Jhin one last glare before they roll her out of his room.

She’s rolled through hallways until they reach a flight of stairs. Needless to say, the men have a hard time bringing her down, especially since she uses all her might to throw them off balance by swimming into the glass in different directions. 

Jhin observes their struggle from behind. While he’s somewhat entertained by how much of a hard time she’s giving his men, he becomes a little impatient by how long it takes them to take her down a flight of stairs. He sighs. “Two of you hold the tank while we go. We’re close to the hold.”

“Yes, captain.” Two of the men who were standing in front of him move to the sides of the cart to hold the tank still while they move up the stairs. 

The siren doesn’t do anything more to cause any more chaos. But her eyes are fixated on Jhin with a mysteriously knowing look. He can’t tell what she’s thinking, but her stare continues to unnerve him.

Once they arrive to the cargo hold, Sona sees an iron gate in the middle of the deck. More of his men are outside holding it open while a lift awaits them. Realization hits her. She will be living in a bigger tank in a place she can’t escape from . It’s not like she knows how to work machinery, or if she can even move it to where she needs it to be. She starts slamming against the glass with even greater intensity. The lid is still unlocked. If she can tilt it just enough… 

A gunshot suddenly freezes her in place, the sound ringing in her ears like a high-pitched squeal. She covers her ears in pain, but then she sees it. A white graze against the glass, barely deep enough so that the glass doesn’t break. Her eyes widen in fear. The bullet grazed her tank right where her throat could have been.

He really could have killed her.

Jhin smiles cruelly at her reaction. Though his gun isn’t as perfect as Whisper, it does the job. He approaches the tank and lowers himself to her level with a triumphant spark in his eye. “When I said you’d be an excellent addition to the crew, I meant it. Whether you’re dead or alive. But keeping you alive has more perks than having you dead.”

Sona keeps her eyes on his. As if she would back down with one little murder attempt. Her furrowed brows suddenly smooth over that she appears expressionless, but it’s there. A scheming intent in her eyes that only Jhin can catch.

Just what is this siren thinking?

They move her onto the lift and descend into the hold. As Sona turns, she spots the tank placed nicely in the middle of the hold, just underneath the gate. Looking around, she doesn’t see any other ways of escape. Piles of crates and barrels surround her, hiding any doors or hatchways, if there are any at all.

She’s trapped for good.

She was doomed to fail from the beginning.

The siren is silent, almost too silent. She’s just floating in her tank as the sailors use the lift to carry her up to the top. The only movement within is her wispy hair moving about. Strands of her hair cover her already lowered head. Her head slightly moves up when the lift comes to a stop. The sailors lower her tank onto the glass and attempt to remove the lid.

Jhin suspects something. For the siren to give up before being dropped into the new tank, it’s too sudden. 

“Hm?” one of the men hums questioningly. “The hinge is loose.”

As the man is about to grab the hinge, the glass lid of Sona’s tank shoots out, a blurred figure of blue and sea green following after. It’s only for a moment, and it’s more than enough. 

Sona bursts out of the tank right above the sailors and right at Jhin’s eye level. 

It happens all too quickly.

Jhin feels a hand clasp around his collar and pull him towards the tank.

His feet lose balance.

At first, his sight is dark and soon opens to a blurry blue. 

There’s a constant pull at his body now, and he can faintly hear his men create a ruckus. He releases a breath of air in the form of bubbles. 

He struggles, and struggles, and struggles. His feet kick at nothing in the water while his hands grab at his collar to prevent choking. 

But he can’t break free.

He feels his lungs filling up with water.

Another splash of water comes from above. There’s another pull at his arm now, and he hears someone yell for him. He then hears a sound like thunder and sees wisps of red in the water. He feels himself sinking for a moment before a hand grabs for him again and pulls him out of the water. 

He’s carried to the lift, where he hurls up all the water he swallowed. His lungs and nostrils flare with searing pain as he coughs violently. He wheezes as he whirls around to see Sona curled up in the water and bleeding from her arm.

She tried to drown him.

She tried to kill him.

It takes him all his self-control to not kill her that instant. He has to stop every muscle in his body not to reach for his gun and shoot her down for good. His eyes meet hers, and in that moment, both of them well up with a desperate rage they know they can’t unleash.

“Lock the tank,” Jhin spits. “And make sure she can’t ever get out.”

She failed. As Sona watches the sailors take Jhin back up to the deck, her face contorts in pain as she sinks to the bottom of the tank.

---

Jhin sits in his room, staring out the porthole from his chair. In three days, they will arrive at Piltover, where the ship will be docked while replenishing supplies. Despite knowing he will finally have his gun fixed, he doesn’t feel any satisfaction or anticipation of his arrival there. After all, he feels like he hasn’t even made a dent in the siren’s will yet. He feels he hasn’t gone anywhere.

The incident a few days ago still weighs heavily on his mind. He tips his glass of whiskey in his hand and takes a sip, the liquid burning hot in his throat. 

A loose hinge.

He sighs as his hand tightens around his glass for a moment before relaxing his grip. He sets the glass on the table and stands up from his seat. The corner in which the siren’s tank was placed is now empty, only a small space left that still reminds him of her presence on the ship. He approaches the corner, his eyes immediately spotting the nail by the foot of a dresser. He picks it up.

When did she shake it loose? How did he not notice when they rolled her out that morning? He was there to ensure nothing went wrong too. 

Yet, this one tiny nail was the only oversight that allowed her to nearly kill him.

His hand starts to shake. With a growl, Jhin thrusts the nail into the wall as he slams his fist against it. Her will to remain quiet, her indifference to his actions… her mocking eyes … they were insufferable. He turns his head back to the table, where the siren’s gold instrument stands like a trophy. 

The instrument that failed to produce a sound, no matter what he did. Just like her . The siren’s smug grin surfaces to his mind, and he feels something snap. 

The sound of thunder echoes from his room, and it reverberates all the way to the cargo hold, where Sona sleeps. Her eyes snap open, and she bursts up from the sand. She winces at the pain in her shoulder, but she hears the sound of dissonance with that thunder. An all-too-familiar dissonance.

It doesn’t take long until she hears a door slam open in the cargo hold, and it’s not the iron gate above her tank.

“What… did your instrument do to me?” she hears a voice murmur, as if in pain. 

She sees a figure stumble through the darkness. Her eyes squint to focus on the figure. She presses her face against the glass, but it’s not until the figure is a few feet away that she realizes it’s the captain. He has injuries resembling that of blade wounds. And on a ship full of guns, the only thing that could create injuries like that is…

“What have you done to me?!” Jhin exclaims, holding her instrument in his hand as he staggers against the glass. He slides down the tank, gripping his abdomen, his white blouse stained red with his own blood. 

Sona’s eyes widen as she sinks down to Jhin’s level. She bangs her hands against the glass to elicit a response from him, but he isn’t moving. She panics. Her instrument attacked him. She bangs the glass again. She hears him groan in pain. He’s still alive.

“Just… what… are you?” he wheezes. 

The wound doesn’t seem deep from what she sees, but he’s injured at a vital place. She knocks on the glass to get his attention. When he looks up at her, she points at her instrument. She gestures at him to give it to her. 

He only chuckles. “Now why would I do that? I won’t give in to your little game, siren ,” he hisses.

Sona gives him a stern look, an expression different from the glares and looks of indifference she’s always given him. She keeps gesturing at him to give her the instrument. She throws up her hands in frustration and places her hands at her abdomen, then carrying her hand away. She then firmly points at her instrument.

“Are you… trying to say you can… do something about this?” he asks between breaths. Seeing her nod insistently, he sighs. “Even… if you can… I doubt I can make it up there.” His words trail off as he falls unconscious.

She gasps when he doesn’t move anymore. No! She balls up her hands and knocks against the glass with full strength. Anything to catch any of his men’s attention. Anything. They must have heard the gunshot from earlier. Sooner or later, they have to come looking for him.

And sure enough, one of the men who was standing guard at the deck comes running into the cargo hold. She assumes he had checked the captain’s room and followed the trail of blood. She hurriedly ushers him over to Jhin’s location, pointing at the wound on his abdomen. 

“What the…? Captain!” the sailor calls out, trying to shake him awake. “What did you do?” he asks the siren.

Sona sighs in frustration. She points at the instrument and gestures at the sailor to give it to her. Please, I need it , she tries to mouth her words. But her words are overpowered by the commotion of the other sailors who barge into the cargo hold to find Jhin slumped against her tank. She helplessly watches them carry him away back to his room. Their words begin to blend together to the point they’re just unrecognizable muffled sounds to her. 

Please. All she needs is her instrument. Her precious, beloved etwahl. 

No one can hear her. No one can understand her.

A burst of bubbles floats to the top of this prison, nothing but silence coming from within.

---

“Fortunately, the wounds weren’t very deep, captain. You’ve already recovered from most of the injuries. Though, the one on your abdomen may take a little longer.”

“I figured as much. Very well. You are dismissed.” Jhin stands up, puts on his coat and mask, and walks past the medic. 

“Where are you going, sir? We’ll be arriving in Piltover within half an hour.”

Jhin stops before his door, staying still for a moment before turning back. “The siren has answers I need.”

“But sir—” The medic suddenly yelps as the barrel of a gun is pointed at his head.

“Do not interfere with my personal matters. It is of no concern to you.”

“Y-yes, captain.” 

“Dismissed,” Jhin repeats once more. He fastens the golden instrument on his belt before he heads out to the cargo hold. But when he arrives at the door of the hold, he freezes in place. His eyes glance at the instrument. Absolutely no signs of distress or even a dent, as if it’s still in mint condition. He suddenly remembers the look of panic the siren had last night when she saw his wounds.

Why did she look like that, he wondered. She had tried to kill him a few days before, did she not?

He sighs and shakes his head of the numerous questions that follow. He enters the hold and spots the siren perched on one of the rocks in the tank, looking up at the sky past the gate, in longing. The sun is shining upon her, her scales shimmering like the ocean itself. She suddenly turns her head towards him, which almost takes him aback, considering he went inside as quietly as possible. For a moment, he swears he saw her sigh in relief.

Sona watches him approach the tank, and she spots her etwahl in his hand. Her eyes perk up in surprise.

“We’ll be arriving to Zaun soon,” Jhin starts, “I won’t have the time to sit down for a cup of tea yet, but I have questions I know only you can answer.” He can’t help but chuckle bitterly. “I doubt you’d actually tell me, given our… interactions… so far.” She shoots him a matter-of-factly look. “That’s why I’ve come here to make a deal,” he states as he holds up her etwahl. 

She raises a brow in curiosity. She slowly swims over to the glass with her arms crossed.

“If you can answer my questions, I will give you your instrument back.” Though, depending on her answer, he could just end up killing her himself. “Is that sufficient?”

Sona takes a moment to think. What kind of questions would he even ask her? It’s not like she can answer him properly. She tries to gesture to him of her freedom.

“Answering my simple questions all for your freedom? Don’t be absurd, siren. I don’t plan to free you until you’ve exhausted your use to me.”

An attempt was made, at least. Though irritated at his last sentence, she accepts the deal. But in exchange, he must only ask her questions that she can answer through nodding or shaking her head. He wonders if she thinks this is just a game to her, but he accepts anyway. 

The ship rocks to a stop, the sailors above the gate rushing to keep the ship in port. “All hands on deck!” one shouts. The ship is now much louder than it usually is, and Sona can hear several voices that don’t belong to any of the captain’s men. 

“Ah, we’ve arrived,” Jhin says. “Perfect timing.” His men come into the cargo hold with a large tarp, bewildering Sona as they rush to cover her tank. “We wouldn’t want anyone stealing you while I’m gone. The people here—rather, the people below Piltover—are rather… interesting people. If they spot you, you may end up in a worse position than you are now. We can’t have that now, can we?”

Sona frowns in annoyance.

“It’s too bad. Even if you somehow escaped while I’m gone, the toxins in the water would probably kill you before you even swim out of region limits.”

She’s aware. Piltover and Zaun are known as a major source of danger for all merfolks, after all. The toxins would seep into their skin so slowly that they wouldn’t notice until it’s too late. Those who survive become so malformed both physically and mentally that they wouldn’t be considered a merfolk anymore.

“Why don’t we fulfill that little deal of ours once I’m back, yes?”

Sona huffs out an acknowledging stream of bubbles in response. 

They were both reaching for scraps at this point. 

They were tired of these mind games.

They just want anything, anything to keep their sanity at bay.

[rosywrites]

I... I forgot to upload my stories here... fuck.... I’m so sorry, I’m gonna queue all the updates I’ve made here within the next few days.

[athelynia]

MERMAN JHIN AAAA

@rosymiz 's lovely fanfiction "Into the Depths" has my HEART. I apologize that I didn't do your boy justice, he looks much better in person I swear (you can't count the pixels) 👊😔

Now allow me to gush about the fic (spoilers?):

-Seeing Jhin's emotional journey through the story was beautiful and compelling.

-I COULD LITERALLY PERFECTLY PICTURE HIS EVERY MOVE WHENEVER HE WAS MAKING HIS "ART" IN THE FIRST CHAPTER. WONDERFUL USE OF DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE AAA-

-"Done with your shit" Sona is best Sona.

-Sona using her magic to defend herself? You go girl!

-Lux was BABIE- A literal little ball of light and sunshine!

-Jhin's sass meter was off the charts.

(I could literally go on forever but I'm gonna stop here asjwkwk)

Okay rosymiz is an amazing author, I highly recommend reading all of their JhinSona fics, especially "Like a Rose"! Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. ♥️

[rosywrites]

Omg, such high praise??? Thank you so much for your wonderful comments and the artwork as well! He looks fantastic <3 I'm very happy to hear your thoughts on the story! ;; v ;;

[bekkomi]

My buddy @rosymiz wrote a JhinShen thing for me so naturally my trash ass drew out the last scene as a comic and I haven’t been happy or excited to draw a comic since school crushed my soul ;;_;; (Even if it’s been in wip since June) 

I’ll link the fic/reblog it soon bc tumblr hates linksaldsdjk

[rosywrites]

To Believe in Someone

Fandom: League of Legends Ship: Jhin x Shen Summary: Jhin thinks about what led him to his current, peaceful present.

[AO3]

Word count: 803

There were times when Jhin wondered he deserved what he had. Thinking back, he was fated to die by the hands of the two little boys that were out to kill him. Or at least, he thought so.

Yet here he was, spending his days happily and leisurely in Ionia. He hadn’t felt that urge to kill in years either, that compulsion having disappeared after a long time in… Jhin chuckled. Therapy? He supposed he could call it that.  Of course, he’s had his low moments, when he nearly or completely failed to resist his compulsions.

Needless to say, it almost caused a rift in the bonds he worked to keep. Even though he kept telling himself he won’t do it again, he was afraid. He feared all his efforts would be for naught, that he was hopeless. And for a time, he believed it. After all, his past attempts had a bad end. Who was to say he could resist the next?

“I know you’re trying to do the right thing, so I believe you. I have faith you can stop yourself.”

The words echoed in his head. Believing his own words was already difficult enough, but having someone else believe in him was reassuring. Even when he almost gave in again, those same words would be repeated with the same determination and strength.

Keep reading

[bekkomi]

Posting it here too o/ Clickable version is in a previous post! Tysm tho Alice ;w;

[rosywrites]

The Tale of the Lunar Kingdoms, Prologue

Chapter: Prologue Fandom: League of Legends Ship: Jinx/Lux AU: Lunar Revel, Warring Kingdoms, Immortal Journey, Blood Moon Summary: Every few millennia, a newborn child is blessed by moon with powers beyond mortality—the arrival of a new Lunar sovereign to guard the heavens from the darkness. On the night of the full moon, a daughter named Luxanna becomes destined to become the next Lunar Empress. But the darkness that was once so quiet begins to stir below, and Lux must now face the threat before history repeats itself once more.

[AO3]

Word count: 2586

Every few millennia, the full moon shines its light upon a newborn human, blessing them with its power. Once the child is bathed within the moonlight, they are no longer mortal—perhaps, closer to a god. They say such a child has hair and eyes that shimmer silver under the moon. From infancy, they are groomed by their zodiac-year kingdom to become the emperor or empress of a new era. 

But to become the ruler of all zodiac kingdoms, comes with risk and danger as well. Should the child meet their untimely end, it would be the end of their era. 

It wouldn’t be the first time it has happened. The kingdoms had fallen into disarray and became divided when an emperor, still too young to take the throne, had been slain by the Lunar Wraiths. Their war lasted for centuries until the next ruler was born. 

An empress was born on the night of a crescent moon, an occurrence that has never happened before. Blessed by the powers of the crescent moon, the empress’ was born with hair and eyes as dark as the night. She was truly a gifted child, able to see things in the darkness that past rulers couldn’t. 

Using her powers, the empress gathered the divided kingdoms and united them once more. Having received the blessings of all twelve kingdoms, her powers grew that she soon attained the status of a goddess. 

But in the darkness, demons that sought to wreak havoc in the world lurked beneath them, whispering amongst themselves of the chaos they ought to bring. The key to open the gate of demons was to use the powers of the Lunar Goddess.

Discovering this, the goddess believed staying in the heavens would only bring about the downfall of the kingdoms she worked diligently to unite. In an attempt to hide herself, she descended into the land of mortals below—despite the protests from the zodiac rulers. 

Her time with the mortals was slowly changing her. She became humbled, eventually filled with a desire for a life with them. Some rulers claimed she seemed almost human. 

Over the next few centuries, the zodiac kingdoms assimilated with the mortals under the goddess’ wishes. There was peace among the gods, demigods, and mortals. 

It was perfect.

A sorceress queen from a faraway kingdom had caught wind of the Lunar Goddess’ actions. The queen, who harbored feelings of disgust towards mortals, believed the goddess was not worthy of her powers. To bring an end to the goddess’ rule and bring the zodiac kingdoms to their rightful place in the heavens, she concocted a scheme to seal the goddess’ powers. 

The queen turned to the demons, dangling the goddess’ powers of the moon before them. She asked for nothing in exchange, knowing it’s futile to bargain with their kind. Once the plan was set, all she needed to do was lure the goddess out.

She fabricated a meeting with the goddess and the rulers of the zodiac kingdoms, in order to crush the goddess in front of her entire court. 

A great battle was unleashed in the heavens, each strike echoing like thunder in the skies. While the zodiac rulers were powerful, they were greatly outnumbered. Even the goddess was at her limit. Forced to her knees and rooted to the ground, the goddess was at the queen’s mercy. 

However, before the queen could seal the goddess’ powers, a hero of a valiant sword dashed between them and held the queen at the tip of her blade. What the goddess and zodiac rulers couldn’t, the hero was able to do with only a few strikes.

The queen soon became too weak to fight back and fell to her knees. She looked up to see the Lunar Goddess supported up by the hero. As punishment for her defiance, the queen had her powers sealed and was banished from the heavens, forced to roam the land of mortals for eternity.

But doing so proved to be a great risk to the goddess, the punishment draining the last of her powers, and thus, her lifeline. Though the zodiac kingdoms emerged victorious against the demons and the sorceress queen, they suffered the greatest loss. 

To preserve the goddess’ wishes, the kingdoms gathered and formed a friendly alliance. After all she had done, they didn’t wish to see her work be for naught. They had no reason to become divided once more. For the next several millennia, the kingdoms worked to keep the future emperors and empresses from harm and to live until their natural end.

The kingdoms slowly split apart over time, however, to expand their eyes on the lands. Some remained in the heavens to keep other gods in check, and some established their kingdoms among the mortals. Such kingdoms even accepted mortals who wished to enlist as warriors for their court. 

However, the rulers soon realized that humans were fickle. Their lands were divided, much like their own kingdom was once, and war was rampant. The zodiac kingdoms that descended to the land of mortals remained, feeling sympathy for the people who lived near their kingdom. 

The descended zodiac kingdoms kept close ties with each other, despite the distance. Their alliance held strong, and if needed, they were willing to send their troops to the other for battle. They maintained this lifestyle even after countless emperors and empresses were born, all the while taking care of them. 

Despite there being no harm to come to the sovereigns, the zodiac kingdoms had some qualms of the lack of activity from the demons. They were awfully quiet, perhaps too quiet. They couldn’t help but wonder… if they were planning something in the shadows. 

Something much bigger than the death of their goddess.

~.~.~.~

A soft cry pierces a deafeningly silent room, a sound that causes shouts and cries of joy within. A midwife gently holds up a newborn baby with tears streaming down her face. “It’s a girl, ma’am!” The baby cries with vigor, a sign of a healthy infant.

The mother sighs lovingly at the sight of her daughter. “Oh… my little baby…” She relaxes against the pillow and watches the midwife bathe the newborn in a small tub of water. The baby has a bit of chestnut brown hair on her head, almost resembling the shape of an upside down teardrop. 

A knock comes from the sliding door. “Mother, are you okay? May I come in?”

“Yes, dear. You can come in.” 

A young boy about the age of 7 slides the door open meekly, peeking into the room, before opening it enough to slip inside. “A girl, I heard! A little sister!” he whispers excitedly. “Can I hold her yet?”

“Not yet, young master.” The midwife comes back with the baby nicely wrapped with a blanket. The baby is quiet now, sleeping. She hands her to the mother, who holds her ever so gingerly like a delicate flower. “A healthy daughter, my lady. She will surely live long.”

The baby moves in her sleep as if she recognizes her mother’s touch. The boy’s eyes seem to sparkle. 

“So small,” he says as he puts his finger on the baby’s palm. She wraps her hand around it softly in reaction. “Was I like this as a baby too?”

“Oh, you were very much like her. Though, you had quite the grip for a newborn,” the midwife says with a chuckle. “You just wouldn’t let go of your father’s finger, no matter how hard he pulled.

The mother sees her son fidget in his seat impatiently. She smiles. “Would you like to hold her?” She places her into the boy’s arms, shifting his hands to support the baby properly. “There.” 

The boy’s eyes grow wide with joy as he lightly bounces her. “She’s so tiny, mother,” he repeats. He looks up at his mother. “Can I take her out to the balcony? I want her to see the moonlight as one of her first experiences."

"Of course, dear, but make sure to be careful with her." She turns to the midwife and requests to watch over them.

The boy walks to another pair of sliding doors, one covered with translucent white paper. As the midwife opens the door, he sits down by the edge of the balcony. "See that big bright circle in the sky?" he asks her. "It's called the moon. It comes up every night to grace us with its light. And what's more, the moon is much bigger than usual today. You're truly blessed, little sister."

The mother smiles in joy to see her son so fond of his new sister already. But the smile fades when the boy suddenly gasps loudly and calls for her in slight panic. When the midwife and she exchange glances, the midwife walks over to the son and gasps as well.

"M, my lady…"

"Is something wrong? Did something happen to her?"

"My lady, she…" The midwife gently takes the baby from her to show the mother. The baby that once had chestnut brown hair had suddenly turned a silvery white, her skin just ever so slightly paler than before. Looking closer, a strange light emanates from her own body. "She has been blessed by the moon…"

The mother's eyes widen. When she's given her daughter, she caresses her daughter's skin and hair. It was genuine. The baby cooes sweetly, unaware of the tears that well up in her mother's eyes. To be blessed by the moon was the sign of a new sovereign, and her daughter was deemed fit to become the next Lunar Empress.

While this is considered a blessing to many, the mother weeps for her daughter and the long winding path ahead of her. She knows the rulers of the zodiac kingdoms will keep her safe, but she surely may face dangers during her time as empress. 

And if she ever loses her way… where will her mother and brother be to give her the comfort and answers she needs?

~.~.~.~

It had only been a week since the baby’s birth, and a letter from the king had arrived a few days after. 

Today is a grand day, for the ruler of this land himself is coming to visit the home of the new empress. The mother and son stay huddled at the center of their living room, anxiously waiting for the announcement of His Majesty’s arrival. 

Just when they think the room can’t be any quieter, a voice softly announces from outside, “His Majesty of the Kingdom of Rooster, Azir, has arrived. He will be entering shortly.” The two deeply bow their heads, waiting for the sliding door to open.

“Pardon the intrusion,” a different voice calls as the door slides open to a headless body. “My, I never realized how tall I am in other mortals’ homes.” Legs bend lower to carefully squeeze his body through the door and sits before the mother and the son. “Please raise your heads. I am simply here to discuss matters with our new empress.”

As they raise their heads, they lay their eyes upon the ruler of their land, the ruler of the Kingdom of Rooster. He seems like a man with the head and feathers of a bird. But from what they usually see, he is dressed like a humble civilian today. 

“Your Majesty, it is an honor to be graced with your presence,” the mother greets with another bow. The boy follows suit. “It is not much, but we have prepared some tea for your visit.” The son politely sets down a tray with a cup of tea and a plate of dumplings.

Azir’s eyes seem to squint as if he’s smiling and slightly bows his head. “No, it is I who is truly humbled by your generosity and hospitality. I understand this can be a difficult situation.” He raises his head and looks at the baby peacefully sleeping in the mother’s arms. “May I?” he asks.

“Of course, Your Majesty.” The mother raises the baby into Azir’s hands, and he cradles her carefully. The baby’s eyes flutter open, but she doesn’t cry at the sight of Azir. She stares in wonder at how different he looks from her human family. When he gently pokes her cheek, she grips his finger and tries to suck it. 

Azir chuckles. “Even after all these millennia, I am still fascinated by how small the sovereigns are when they come into this world.” 

“Your Majesty, how long will we have with her?” the boy suddenly asks.

“Hold your tongue! That is impolite,” the mother whispers in warning. 

“You are worried, my dear boy,” Azir replies. “I understand this very well.” He gently rocks the baby as he continues to explain, “By tradition, we keep the child under the care of their birth family for 6 months. Usually by then, they can endure the travel to their respective kingdom. Considering she was born in the Year of Dog, she will be ascending to the heavens to be taken care of there.”

“Are, are we allowed to go with her?” the boy asks.

Azir closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I’m afraid not. Mortals cannot withstand the ascension into the heavens. It is too powerful for their vessels to endure. Even if they do, they end up crippled. I do not wish such a thing on her family.” He seems to hesitate. “Had it been a kingdom established in your lands, like mine, you would be warmly welcomed into our courts.”

The boy visibly deflates, disappointed he won’t be able to watch his little sister grow. “Oh… I see…”

“What is your name, my dear boy?”

“M-my name is Garen, sir, Your Majesty,” he answers.

“Garen,” he repeats. “What do you wish to be in your future?”

Garen doesn’t hesitate when he answers, “A warrior, Your Majesty. I have always wished to fight for the kingdom that has always treated me well all my life.” When he sees Azir’s eyes squint happily, he suddenly feels self-conscious of how proudly he answered his question. 

“When you grow older and still wish to become a warrior, you can enlist in my court.” He sees Garen’s eyes widen and start fidgeting in joy. He chuckles again. “As the empress’ family, I humbly offer my court to be your new home. There is more than enough room, and I can ensure protection should anyone try to bring harm onto you.” He strokes the baby’s face gently with his finger. “And if there ever comes a time the young Empress is allowed to travel to my kingdom, I can arrange a proper meeting. After all, she may not have many memories of you by the time she’s taken.”

The mother’s eyes begin to overflow with tears. “Thank you. Thank you very much, Your Majesty. I am very much in your debt,” she weeps as she bows.

“I will send two of my warriors to escort you to my kingdom in three days. Will that be enough time to gather your bearings?”

“It’s more than enough, Your Majesty. Thank you very much for your generosity.” 

Azir nods in satisfaction. “Excellent. I will look forward to your arrival.” He looks back at the baby, who had  fallen asleep to Azir’s voice. He hums in curiosity. “What is her name? I don’t believe I’ve gotten it yet.”

Garen smiles at his little sister, the light of his family. “Luxanna. Her name is Luxanna.”

“Luxanna. A wonderful name.”

[rosywrites]

Deal, Chapter 2: Love and War

Fandom: League of Legends AU: Star Guardians Summary: Rakan approaches Zoe with a deal of his own. But he needs to improvise when Zoe shuts him down before he can say anything. .

[AO3]

Word count: 1,347

“Zoe.”

Zoe doesn’t turn, too preoccupied with juggling little stars in the palms of her hand before extinguishing their light with her powers. “I’m a little busy here, Rakan.” She hears him grunt in doubt followed by a whisper that sounds like, “Sure you are.” 

“Gee, I wonder what would get ya interested in what I have to say?” Rakan asks himself mockingly. He snaps and tosses his gem up in the air like a coin. “Perhaps… a deal?” He sees Zoe’s arms freeze and smirks. Bullseye.

Zoe is frozen for another moment before groaning. “Ugh, that’s so boring! Not interested!’

Rakan’s smirk fades into a frown immediately. He was sure Zoe would fall for it. He scoffs, mocking offense at her response by posing in dramatic despair  “Not interested? I’m hurt, Zoe. You won’t even give me the time of day!”

“I’ve had enough of deals. They’re all the same. Why make useless deals when I won’t have any fun?” she says. Unknown to Rakan, Zoe smiles darkly. It was a lie. Xayah was the very first star guardian she corrupted who tried to bargain with her. Once was fun enough. But a second time? Boooooring!

Damn.  

If she wasn’t interested in a deal of all things, what other options were left? 

Rakan chews on his thumbnail as his mind grabs at straws to salvage the situation. After all, Zoe had a tendency to disappear into a portal the moment she didn’t want to be there. He had to keep her here. 

She relishes in the panic she sensed from him. He is like reading an open book. “If there’s nothing else you have to say, then leave. Can’t you see I’m busy?” she says, her expression smug though keeping her eyes in Rakan’s direction.

“Uh, no, no, no. I ain’t done yet,” Rakan immediately responds. “How about,” he pauses for dramatic effect, “a little game?”

Ah, Rakan always was full of surprises. 

“Ooh, a game?” Zoe finally turns, lazily laying in the air but with a twinkle in her eye. “What kind of game we talking about here? Is it fun?”

Rakan is slightly taken aback by her sudden interest, but it doesn’t let that deter him. He stands his ground with a cocked brow. He smiles and rubs his chin thoughtfully. “The funnest game ever.”

“Ooh! Do tell, Rakan.” Zoe bats her eyes with an eerie smile. “I’m all ears!”

“Right,” Rakan drones. He clears his throat and begins to pace back and forth as if he’s explaining the best theory in all the universe. “So, the game involves you, me, and Xayah.” He glances at Zoe, who nods fervently at him to continue. “I’m sure you know the saying:  ‘the universe is the apple of your heart.’”

“There are literally several things wrong with that phrase, but I guess that works too,” Zoe interrupts.

“Uh… right. Well, you get the gist.”

“Yeah, yeah! The world is my oyster, it’s the apple of my eye, blah blah blah,” she drawls. “Anyways, the game?”

“Yes! Let’s take Xayah. She’s the perfect—absolutely perfect, I love her a lot by the way—person to completely turn to your side. Strong. Determined. And drop dead gorgeous.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But here’s the thing: I don’t want that. I know what happens when you’re completely corrupted.” Rakan’s lips purse into a straight line. “I’d rather play right into your hands than see that happen.” He holds up his gem, a dull shine and a haze of darkness emanating from its center. “No matter how much you try to corrupt her, I won’t let her go over to the side of darkness.”

Oho. That took a turn Zoe didn’t expect. Rakan really was full of surprises.

“Hmm, okay. So, in other words, it’s like tug of war.”

He snaps at the word, the same goofy smile returning to his face. “Tug o’ War, you got it! You got the entire universe in the center of your heart—(“palm of my hand, Rakan”)—yeah, yeah, I got it. This should be a breeze to ya.” Zoe nods as if he has a point. “What do you think? Wanna play this little game?”

“I can! But what’s in it for me? What’s my reward if I win?”

“Uh, easy. You corrupt both of us and do what you want with us. You can shatter us, use us to destroy more star guardians, or make us your personal servants if you’re into that.”

“Very nice. I like the way you think.”

“But if I win,” Rakan says, “Xayah is free.”

“That’s it?” 

“That’s it.”

Zoe leans back in thought, but it doesn’t take her long to perk back up with a mysterious and strange smile. “Sure, Rakan. We can play this little game of yours. It sounds super fun!” Her lips then pull back into an ominous grin. “I can’t wait to see what kind of moves you’ll pull to win,” she coos as she taps his nose with her finger.

“Pinky promise?” Rakan suddenly asks, holding up his pinky finger.

“What?” Zoe looks at his hand in mild bewilderment. 

“You gotta promise me you’ll play with me.”

Zoe rolls her eyes. “I’m not a kid. I’m older than you.” Though she says, she wraps her own pinky finger around Rakan’s. “But sure!” Once they make the promise, she stretches her back as if she was sitting for forever. “Anyways, this was fun. But we’re going back to work.”

Rakan narrows his eyes in suspicion. “What’s next?”

There’s a glint in her right eye as she giggles. She looks beyond the stars, and Rakan knows she can see the exact location. “I finally found the little lizard I’ve been searching for all these months.”

Neeko.

Rakan’s breath almost catches in his throat, but he suppresses the reaction so Zoe doesn’t notice. He cracks a dark smile and follows Zoe’s gaze. “So, it’s finally time.”

“Get Xayah. We got a lizard to catch.” Zoe disappears into a portal, presumably to go ahead and set some traps. 

As soon as Zoe leaves, Rakan huffs, stretching his back and cracking his neck. “Alright, here we go, Rakan. Gotta pump yourself up!” He whips around to go get Xayah but yelps when he sees her standing before him. “ XA- yah! Babe, don’t scare me like that.”

“Anything from Zoe?” Xayah asks. She seems jittery, impatient. She must sense it: Neeko’s presence.

Rakan hesitates for a moment. “Uh, yeah! She finally found that slinking lizard.” 

Xayah’s face darkens, her hand balling into fists. “She hid while she watched us die, and she didn’t even do anything to save us.” Xayah grits her teeth and unsheathes her feather quills from her hand. She starts to shake from pure rage. “Well? What are we waiting for?”

“Babe, calm down. Zoe will send us the portal soon.”

“Calm down?! After what Neeko did to us? Ahri? Sarah?” Xayah shouts. “They abandoned us! They left us to die . They...” It hurts Rakan to see Xayah being consumed by the lies that took root within her. But he senses her hesitation when she trails off. Even she has her doubts too, doesn’t she?

“Hey Xayah.” She doesn’t respond. “Xayah?”

Xayah shuts her eyes as she’s brought back to reality. “What? Did you say something?”

Before Rakan can answer, Zoe’s portal opens up before them as if it is waiting for them. Time to go. He smiles sadly at Xayah, though she doesn't notice, and pats her head. “Never mind. We should go. Ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Xayah runs ahead, Rakan following closely behind.

Rakan stares at Xayah’s back and holds onto his star tightly. Zoe’s taunts echoes in his mind. He knows she has doubts of his victory, but there are plenty of tricks up his sleeve she doesn’t know about. That she doesn’t know he’s been doing since day one. If it means Xayah will be alive—and best case scenario, purified—he’s more than willing to sacrifice himself for her sake.

If anyone is going to die first, it’s him.

He can’t watch Xayah die.

Never again.

[rosywrites]

Deal

Fandom: League of Legends AU: Star Guardians Summary: Having already fallen and corrupted, there's really nothing else Xayah could lose. Except one. She strikes a deal with Zoe to salvage what's left dear to her: Rakan.

[AO3]

Word count: 1,175

“A deal?” Zoe exclaims with mock surprise. She twists through the air to swim to Xayah, approaching uncomfortably close. Her mismatched eyes seem to maliciously glimmer as she stares at Xayah upside down. “It better be a fun deal or I won’t be interested!”

Xayah’s eyes narrow in disgust at the child’s taunt. For a moment, she thinks it’s a bad idea. No, she knows it’s a bad idea. But the image of Rakan—her beloved, beloved Rakan—bubbles up in her mind, forcing her former notion deep down into the darkness. 

She was never one to swallow her pride for anything. Ever. But…

“This is already getting boring. Either you spit it out, or I go on my way,” Zoe says flatly, turning to leave. 

“Wait.” Xayah stops her in her tracks, but Zoe doesn’t turn back around. “It’s about Rakan.”

At the name, Zoe wheels back around and shoots up to Xayah’s face with an expression of interest. Maybe a little too much interest. “Oh, you mean your boyfriend? Yeah, what’s up with him?”

Xayah makes a quiet disgruntled sound before opening her mouth to say what’s on her mind. She averts her gaze to avoid Zoe’s unblinking eyes. “I want you to spare Rakan.” Not hearing Zoe respond, she continues, “If you spare Rakan from falling further, I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” Her hand that was already balled into a fist grips tighter, blood trickling down from her nails digging into her palm.

“And why would I do that, hm?” Zoe finally asks after what seems like an eternity of silence. “Having two guardians instead of one sounds a lot more appealing and useful, don’t you think?” She closes her eyes as she waves her hand in dismissal. “You’re gonna have to give me something better than that, Xayah.”

“Who said anything about letting go of him?” Xayah immediately responds. “Don’t think I’m willing to let go of Rakan either.”

Zoe smiles wider as her eyes snap open towards her in interest again. “I’m listening…”

“You’re not going to corrupt Rakan any more than this.” Xayah takes a deep breath. “Like I said, I’ll do whatever you want. Even if it means corrupting me completely and dragging me into your side. But you must never tell Rakan about this.”

“Aw,” Zoe squeals, “now that’s what I call true love.” She twists onto her back as if she’s laying on a couch. “But you realize if you’re completely corrupted, Rakan will still follow you, right? If anything, he’ll also end up corrupting himself because of it.” She smirks when Xayah falls silent. “Don’t you know what happens once you’ve completely turned? You’re on your own. You don’t care about anything else. All you want is chaos, to destroy everything and anything the First Star created. Rakan? You probably won’t even remember him or care about him anymore.” She starts to hum as she playfully counts the stars in the sky above. 

Despair. Hope. Combined together, that is all she needs to begin the corruption of a star guardian. As long as one has hope, it would turn into despair that would silent creep into their hearts. And the more hope there is, the deeper the fall into despair. Zoe has seen it shatter star guardians countless times.

Xayah was all too easy. All Zoe needed to do was prey on the vague idea of being abandoned by her own teammates to save themselves, leaving Xayah all alone to fall. Rakan, on the other hand, was the last person she expected to fall. But then again, watching his lover die must’ve been what sent him over the edge. That was enough to corrupt him as well.

“Do we have a deal?” Xayah suddenly asks, loud enough to pierce Zoe’s hums.

Zoe’s smile turns into a frown, her tune trailing into silence. She turns back to face Xayah, now upright in the air. “So I stop corrupting your boyfriend, and I have you all to myself. Is that it?” She scoffs when Xayah growls at her in discontent. “Okay, fine, fine. I will stop corrupting Rakan. In exchange, you will do what I want—even if it means corrupting you completely to my side. Also, I won’t tell him of our little conversation.”

“Do we have a deal?” Xayah repeats.

“Ah, ah, ah! Not yet!” Zoe taps a finger against her chin. “If you fail , I will corrupt you both and watch you shatter like all the other star guardians I’ve hunted down.” Her face darkens into black like the abyss, only a golden orb for her right eye and a white void for her mouth remaining. “I didn’t resurrect you for nothing, you know. But you’re just as disposable as any other star guardian I can get my hands on. One snap, and poof! You’re gone!” She begins to giggle as if she heard a wonderful joke.

Her voice is chilling, and it reverberates as if the entire universe is speaking with her voice in its own tones. 

“Do we have a deal or not?” Xayah asks again, a little frustrated this time. She takes another breath. “Please,” she forces out.

Zoe’s face reverts back to normal. She smiles slyly, lifting Xayah’s chin up to force her to look at Zoe. “Weren’t you ever told to maintain eye contact when speaking with others?” she says. “But, since you asked so nicely, it’s a deal.” She sees Xayah’s ear twitching incessantly and giggles. “I think I’ve made you swallow your pride long enough.” She evades a swipe of Xayah’s nails and laughs. “See you!” She dives into a portal and disappears.

Xayah exhales with a hiss, her rage still pulsing through her blood from the ordeal. She tries to hold herself back, but she ends up destroying a nearby pile of rocks in frustration. 

“Baby? Baby!” Rakan calls from afar. When he finds Xayah hunched over by some sliced up rocks, he rushes over to her side, thinking she’s injured. “You okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No. I’m fine.” Xayah huffs. “Maybe just a little too angry.”

“Yeah, you get that way sometimes,” he says, earning a light slap on his chest. He chuckles, walking alongside Xayah on this desolate planet of rock and… whatever it is Zoe told them to come here for. “So, where to next?”

“No idea. I’m sure Zoe will tell us soon.” Xayah bites the inside of her cheek as she gazes at the starry sky. Her deal with Zoe weighs heavily on her mind, but it almost lifts a burden on her heart. Watching Rakan fall all because of her, it never left her. Even in her dreams, she sees the scenario over and over again. Unable to tell him to leave her so he could live. To save himself. 

She’s willing to go through whatever Zoe tells her to.

Just as long as Rakan will be saved, maybe even freed.

Watching him fall for her sake was hell enough. Nothing can compare to that.

[rosywrites]

Silent Waves, Chapter 1

Title: Silent Waves (Siren Sona x Bounty Hunter/Pirate Jhin AU) Chapter 1: Drops of Blood Fandom: League of Legends Ship: Jhin x Sona

[AO3]

Word count: 3,930

Songs have power within their melodies. Some say it’s like magic, that it has the power to soothe the soul of its worries and troubles. Many would agree. While there is truth within those words, it is merely one side of the same coin.

“Out! All of you!” a voice calls out through the wooden hallway, each step heavy with panic. 

Songs have power within their melodies. 

“What?” Sailors perk up from their cots in a daze, not registering the frantic rocking of the ship. “W-what’s going on?”

But its power isn’t limited to soothing those who are troubled.

“We’re under attack!” another yells before the ship heaves onto its side, throwing panicked sailors overboard into whirlpools. Seawater begins to fill the ship as it sinks under the waves. The sailors fortunate enough to swim out lay their eyes upon the wreckage floating among the sharp rocks. 

Just what happened? There was no storm to cause this. Was it bad navigation?

Songs naturally have the power to attract anything with a heart.

“Hey, do you hear that?” a sailor asks in between coughs. “Music.”

Two sailors who had escaped alongside him exchange glances and listen. He was right. Though faint, they could hear music playing from a cave up ahead. It sounds like someone singing. The other survivors seem to hear it as well. They swim towards the cave, seeing a figure sitting on top of a rock lit by the sunlight above.

A woman. They don’t hesitate in getting closer, wondering if she was stranded. But one sailor, notably younger than the other two, doesn’t move from where he is. He feels something is wrong. He opens his mouth to warn the others, but his words are lost to the seawater that fills his lungs. 

Songs can lure unsuspecting prey by seeping into their hearts, their innermost desires and insecurities laid bare.

He struggles against something that’s pulling him under. It feels like a hand around his ankle. A cold, scaly hand. He sees colors of green, blue, purple and more glimmering under the water. For a moment, he thinks them beautiful. Then his vision fades to black as he runs out of air.

His hearing is the last to go before his imminent death. He hears a melody as clear as day. No words, no voice. Just a melody that puts him at ease as the sea welcomes another victim into its arms.

~.~.~.~

“Captain,” a voice gravely calls from behind a door. “They’re here.”

“Are they now?” In the far corner of the captain’s quarters by the window sits a man polishing an ivory white gun on his desk. One. Two. Three. Four. Four wipes, that’ll do the trick. “Stubborn bunch, aren’t they?”

“We’re holding them back as best as we can, but they’re being impatient.”

“Anyone dead?” the captain asks. 

“Not yet, sir.”

The captain clicks his tongue in disappointment. “Shame,” he responds as he stands up. “I suppose I’m ready to meet them. Tell them I’m on my way.” He hears the sailor run up the stairs after a curt salute. He folds up his sleeve into a neat roll and holsters his gun. Slipping on a leather mask that covers the lower half of his face, he squints with a glint in his eyes. “Time for a little show.”

  “Where is he?” a burly, bearded man barks at the men blocking the entrance of the ship.

“Sir, he’ll be right out.”

“You expect me to wait any longer when he’s the one who suggested this damn rendezvous? Near Demacia of all places?”

“Sir—”

The sound of clapping coming from the side catches their attention. “Gentleman, gentleman, no need to rush,” the captain says as he approaches the burly man. “Captain,” he greets, before the barrel of a gun is pointed at his head.

“Khada Jhin,” the man sneers. “Did you really think you can get away with the bounty all by yourself?” His eyes narrow as he gets closer to Jhin. “We made a deal, and you broke it.” He pulls back the hammer of his gun. “You wanna know what I do to traitors?”

Such a boorish man, Jhin muses. But he does not look fazed from the gun practically pressed against his forehead. He gazes into the other’s eyes throughout the exchange, a sinister spark in his own that unnerves the man. “Let’s not jump to conclusions so quickly, captain. It’s rather insulting—”

“No,” the captain interrupts. “I know the kind of bounty hunters you are. You spout some noble bullshit to let their guard down, and the moment they turn around, you shoot them. I ain’t gonna fall for that kind of trick, lad.”

At this, Jhin sighs with dramatic flair. “Is that so?” he asks. He looks back up into the captain’s eyes, that sinister look now fully evident on his face. “I’m glad to know this won’t last long, then.” In the blink of an eye, his gun is already in his hand with the hammer already cocked and ready to fire.

Before the man can pull his trigger, he falls by Jhin’s feet, dead. 

The gunshot echoes in the open sea for what seems like forever. 

A wisp of smoke rises from the barrel of Jhin’s gun. As the smoke blows past his face, his eyes scan the captain’s crew and his own. Three to his right. Two to his left. Six in the back. Four around his men. The moment the smoke disappears, he swings to his left and puts another bullet through another’s head. He ducks and rolls to the right, dodging three bullets shot into the door behind him.

His men take cover and shoot the six enemies behind them, as Jhin takes out two others. He reloads his gun and cocks the hammer. He inhales, smelling the aroma of gunpowder mixed with the scent of blood. How delightful, to be able to bask in this moment.

He shoots a man that was too distracted to check the barrels Jhin was hiding behind. One. Leaping over a downed enemy, he shoots another with the grace of a dancer. Two. With a twirl, he snipes one that’s trying to jump overboard. Three.

One more left.

Jhin spots the last remaining enemy, who drops his gun and makes a break for it. He takes a breath and holds his gun towards the back, where the heart is. He can just see the red petals bloom from the man’s chest, like a flower in the dawn.

But before he can pull the trigger, the last man falls from a gunshot to the head. Jhin’s chest tightens, as if he just suffered a great loss. His eyes widen and turn to the crewman who shot the last enemy dead. 

The crewman isn’t aware. He simply sighs in relief that this is all over.

But the other crewmen who understand that look in Jhin’s eyes exchange nervous glances. 

Jhin walks over to the crewman, looming over him eerily with his gun still in hand. The latter takes a noticeable gulp in fear. “So,” he starts, “do you think you can get away with what you just did?”

“Captain, I—”

“Shh, shh, shh, shh,” he hushes, holding his finger to his mask. “You must understand. No one deprives me of the fourth shot. It just isn’t acceptable.” Before his crewman can respond, he holds the barrel of his gun to his forehead. “I’m afraid I can’t have that happening again.”

“P, please spare me, Captain,” the crewman pleads, tears welling up in his eyes. “It won’t happen again, please. I beg of you.”

Jhin only tuts at his pleas. “You should smile. Everyone is watching,” he whispers before he shoots the fourth shot through the man’s head, sending him toppling overboard into the sea. He peers over the edge, watching the blood seep into the waves like ink on paper. Behind the mask, he smiles in bliss.

The others stand in dreaded silence. They were always careful to not take Jhin’s fourth shots, but there was always one that made a mistake once in a while. And all those who did would die. 

“Well, gentleman. That’s the end of that.” Jhin turns back to the crew, who straighten up immediately. “I’m sure you all remember your oath when you joined this crew. I have stated this as clear as day: Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

“Yes, captain!” his crew responds.

“Dismissed,” he says. “And clean up the deck. I’m sure the deep sea would appreciate the meal. Once you’re done, we set sail for Zaun.” He glances at the dead captain bleeding out by the door that leads inside the ship. “We have a bounty to collect.” He goes back into his quarters and closes the door behind him.

~.~.~.~

The sea seems troubled today. There’s a stir in the sounds of the waves. More than just a ship passing by. A battle, perhaps? Even the fish seem anxious. 

A hand brushes apart the kelp as a figure swims out towards the open sea. Aqua scales shimmer in the sunlight trickling through the surface of the sea, revealing the silhouette of a siren within the deep. Her hair blends with the deep blue sea, tips of green lit by the sunlight. The light reaches a small golden stringed instrument strapped to her hip, glinting dully in the water.

The siren remains still, listening to the sounds in the sea. Her face contorts in bewilderment at the faintest sounds she hears. It sounds like… 

“Blood.” 

The siren turns her head to the voice behind her. A fellow siren, who followed her out the kelp forest, flashes a toothy smile at her, her brows arched mischievously. The former’s brows furrow instead, averting her focus to her sense of smell. Ah, she smells the blood. Fresh blood of humans.

“Guess everyone might have a feast today,” the other comments once more before taking the siren’s hand. “Come on, Sona, we can’t stay out in the open sea for too long.”

Sona sighs, taking one last look towards the scent of blood, and follows the other back into the kelp forest. They swim through the thick stipes into an enclosed area on the sea floor. As they approach, markings on their skin glow a sea green in the dark, providing them light through the dark. Others slowly reveal themselves as they swim closer: her circle of sirens.

“So?” one asks Sona.

Waving her hand and arms around, she gestures the sounds of battle and the scent of blood. She points to the direction they come from. Though the scent of blood is fainter, the sounds still reach her ears. Whatever, or whoever, is throwing corpses into the sea had emerged victorious. 

“Should we check it out?”

“Maybe seduce them into the sea.”

“We haven’t had visitors in these parts in quite a long time, after all.”

Sona suddenly intervenes, waving her arms out to reject the idea. Something tells her the victor of that battle could easily kill them all. It sends shivers down her spine.

“But we don’t want to just sit here while they pass by us. That’s like letting easy prey escape.” The other sirens seem to agree. 

“Sona, if you’re worried, you can sit back for this one. We can bring back something for you.”

“It’d be a shame though. Sona’s music is foolproof in getting humans to fall for our trap.”

Foolproof, yes. But Sona can’t help but wonder if there even are fools on that ship. She chews her nails in thought, her sharp teeth almost biting into the skin. She looks up and starts to sign again, that she will scope the area to make sure it’s safe enough. A little test with her music wouldn’t hurt.

If her music works, then they feast.

But the thought of failure looms over Sona’s mind as she swims out to open sea, heading towards the direction of the ship. She remains cautious, as open waters tend to make it easy to be captured. She sticks closer to the bedrock and pokes her head out the corners.

The scent of blood is getting stronger. The sound of ships bobbing along the waves get louder as well. Sona stops under a rock arch, looking up at the hulls of the ships above. All around her are fresh corpses, all clearly dead. She examines one nearby and brushes aside the corpse’s hair to see a perfect hole in his forehead. A golden glint in the sea floor catches Sona’s eye.

Picking it up, she knows its shape immediately. A bullet. Many merfolks, including sirens, have fallen from these before. It’s another reason to never venture out into open waters alone. She’s heard plenty of nightmares from the few who survived, though they died shortly afterwards.

She traces her finger over the engraving on the metal, an organic design that she doesn’t seem to recognize. But it looks so… elegant. The sound of another body plunging into the ocean tears her eyes away, giving her enough room to evade the sinking corpse. Looking at all the other corpses, she sees most were shot dead by the same bullets. The others that weren’t aren’t shot as cleanly.

Maybe this is a bad idea.

Sona shakes her head and turns to swim back. 

But before she can escape the ship’s shadow, she finds herself tumbling through the sand, her vision spinning with red and white. She grips her shoulder in pain. Her nails dig into the skin, drawing more blood aside from the hole made by a bullet. Blood seeps out of her wound and dissipates above.

Suddenly, she hears people yelling from the ship, and the next thing she knows, she pinned down by a heavy net. Her eyes widen in horror when she sees the golden bullet roll in the sand. She scratches at the net desperately to cut it open but no no avail. 

Never stay in open waters for too long.  

The only rule among the merfolk to keep them safe.

Lest you become another tale of blood and foam.

The net wraps around her as it ascends, and she slams downward to force her way out. As the net breaks surface, Sona feels panic and dread pool in her stomach. She holds her instrument close to her chest and stays still as she’s carried onto the deck.

“A real mermaid…” a crewman whispers in awe when they see the face of a woman barely hidden by her hair and the fins of her tail. “Impossible.”

“The sea is full of surprises,” Jhin states. “The stories of merfolks had to come from somewhere.” He crouches to take a look at Sona more clearly. His eyes slightly squint in amusement at Sona’s expression of mixed horror and wariness. It was exactly the look of a cornered animal. “However, this is fascinating. I have never once thought I would one day capture a mermaid.”

Sona hisses at Jhin, managing to swipe at his face and tearing off his mask. The mask clatters across the wooden floor, the entire crew falling silent. A few hold their breath, never having seen Jhin’s mask forcibly ripped off his face before. Her eyes are fixated on the insidious smile on his face. 

“A good aim,” he responds with a raised eyebrow. “You’d certainly make me… quite a fortune, if I sell you.” He chuckles as he stands, but instead, he raises his gun at her. “But you would make such a fine masterpiece. I cannot pass this opportunity.”

No, she can’t die here. She takes a breath to gather her magic at her fingertips. Right as Jhin cocks the hammer and touches the trigger, she plucks the strings of her instrument. Her magic turns the sound into a sharp bolt that knocks the gun out of Jhin’s hands and even slashes the back of his hand. 

Jhin reels back with a hiss as he cradles his hand with the other. “You insolent…!”

Sona hisses again in smug defiance. Two men approach to restrain her, but she starts to play soft, quiet music that lulls them forward in a trance, allowing her to slash their exposed necks. They grip their wounds to stop the blood but end up choking on their own blood. Sona glares at the others, who refuse to come closer should they become the next victims. 

“Music?” Jhin mutters under his breath. Was it just his imagination, or did he hear music come from the mermaid? It takes him a moment, but he realizes this is not a mermaid. “A siren,” he concludes.

“Captain?”

“This one is not a mermaid,” he states louder, “She’s a siren. Get too close, and a single siren can lure sailors with their song to kill several.” At this, the crewmen backs away even farther from Sona, but Jhin approaches closer.

“W-what should we do then, sir? Can’t we just release her?”

Jhin shakes his head in fascination. “No. This one seems... special.” His eyes travel down from her gritted teeth to her neck, catching a glimpse of gold clutched in her hands. He watches her cradle it closer and hide it from his view. “An instrument-wielding siren. You don’t see that everyday.”

Sona breathes heavily, as the lack of water is beginning to take a toll on her body. Fish can’t usually survive out of water, but merfolks like her have a longer timespan to breathe air. But they can’t do it for long, or they too will end up like a fish out of water.

What’s more, she recognizes his language: Ionian. What would Ionians be doing so far out here in Demacia?

“Hghk,” Sona chokes, unable to breathe properly anymore. She starts wheezing, and she only just starts to feel the burning sun on her skin and scales. Her vision blurs and spins; she doesn’t have the strength to swipe at the hands that restrain her. It takes everything she has to keep her instrument in her grasp.

“I think,” Jhin muses out loud, “you would be an excellent addition to this ship.” He bends down to her eye level to show her the gash on the back of his hand. “Whether you like it or not.”

She glares at the man, but a smirk tugs at a corner of her lips, as if daring him to try to break her. It’s only before she falls unconscious that she sees a glimpse of the smile on Jhin’s face turn into an unsatisfied frown.

~.~.~.~

When Sona awakes, she finds herself in a dim corner of a wooden room. The water is tinted slightly orange from the sunset. She reaches out to touch a foreign object a few feet in front of her, only to be obstructed by an invisible barrier. Her brows furrow in panic as she starts reaching around. It’s all the same. Swimming above meets the same results as well. 

She’s trapped, just like the stories she’s heard of. This is a ‘tank’.

Her hands bang against the glass. Her nails scratch against it. But the glass is too thick, unbreakable, to make even a dent. She reels her arm back to make one last attempt to break it, but a white flash of pain stops her. Curling in with a hiss, she finds the shoulder she was shot at, bandaged. 

“I have to say, I didn’t think the movement in the water would end up being a siren. I thought that, somehow, one of them survived to tell the tale. Tried to survive, might I add.”

Her head jerks towards the direction of the muffled voice, immediately recognizing it to be the captain’s. Her eyes narrow at the figure that’s barely lit by the setting sun from the porthole.

Jhin sits on the corner of his table, his mask and a glass of wine by his side. His posture seems relaxed despite having his hand injured by her earlier. His gun is nowhere to be found. Seeing Sona’s wary eyes, Jhin chuckles. “My gun is in no condition to use, thanks to you,” he utters the last few words in spite. “Whatever you did, whatever magic you used, cut through the metal.” He clicks his tongue in further annoyance. “It would take days, perhaps even up to a week, to get replacement parts.”

Sona stares at him in deafening silence. There’s just something in the way her eyes seem to… bore a hole through him, like she’s staring deep down into his soul.

“I don’t suppose,” he pauses to reach behind him, “you’re looking for this.” He holds out the golden instrument she was holding prior. He watches her eyes widen in panic as her hands reach for her hip. “You really had an iron grip on this. It took my men forever to pry it out of your claws,” he continues. 

Bastard, Sona thinks. She curses herself for even getting caught in this mess. She was just supposed to scope the ship, but now she knows she stayed too long. This man was perceptive, and she should have left instead of investigating. And now she was stuck on a ship with no way to communicate to her circle. There aren’t any escapes either. She can only hope they don’t come after the ship to save her. Otherwise, they were just as dead as the other pirates that now slumber in the sea.

“Your little instrument is peculiar,” Jhin comments as he plucks a string, only silence following through. No matter how hard he strums, he hears nothing. “Not a single sound.”

Sona only blinks, making no indication of responding to him. She looks around the tank once last time before inaudibly sighing and perches herself on the uneven floor against the glass. She gazes out the porthole that’s placed near her tank. The sea glimmers orange and gold from the sunset as if it’s on fire.

“Giving the cold shoulder, are we?” Jhin asks without looking up, mesmerized by the instrument. “Can’t be that bad, being captured and all. It’s fortunate you’re not dead.”

She turns her head towards him with a mysterious look and turns back to the sea again.

Two can play at that game. Jhin knew it wasn’t going to be easy anyway. He knew plenty ways to get her to talk, even if it meant destroying the treasure he had just obtained. 

But first, his gun took priority. 

A bounty hunter can’t do their job without their tools, after all.

They would arrive at Zaun in 2 weeks. By the time they reach the gates, one of them will have surrendered. Both have no intention of giving in. 

Jhin takes a sip of his wine as he eyes Sona’s reflection in the glass of the porthole. She looks unamused with a hint of exasperation. To keep a siren in a tank in a dim room, he wonders what kind of results would occur. Insanity? Savagery? Agony? Despair? Desperation? The possibilities are endless. 

And he can’t wait to watch how she descends.

Sona’s lower lip slightly juts out in annoyance. At first, she panicked because of the stories she’s heard: merfolk eaten for longer lifespan or immortality, forced into entertainment for other humans, or tortured for their secrets. But seeing that she will be kept alive, she thinks of every plan possible to plot her escape. It seems the captain wants answers she can’t give. 

And she can’t wait to watch him break against her will.

[rosywrites]

To Believe in Someone

Fandom: League of Legends Ship: Jhin x Shen Summary: Jhin thinks about what led him to his current, peaceful present.

[AO3]

Word count: 803

There were times when Jhin wondered he deserved what he had. Thinking back, he was fated to die by the hands of the two little boys that were out to kill him. Or at least, he thought so.

Yet here he was, spending his days happily and leisurely in Ionia. He hadn’t felt that urge to kill in years either, that compulsion having disappeared after a long time in… Jhin chuckled. Therapy? He supposed he could call it that.  Of course, he’s had his low moments, when he nearly or completely failed to resist his compulsions.

Needless to say, it almost caused a rift in the bonds he worked to keep. Even though he kept telling himself he won’t do it again, he was afraid. He feared all his efforts would be for naught, that he was hopeless. And for a time, he believed it. After all, his past attempts had a bad end. Who was to say he could resist the next?

“I know you’re trying to do the right thing, so I believe you. I have faith you can stop yourself.”

The words echoed in his head. Believing his own words was already difficult enough, but having someone else believe in him was reassuring. Even when he almost gave in again, those same words would be repeated with the same determination and strength.

“Why do you still have faith in me, even after all this time? All I’ve done is fail and fail,” Jhin asked, his eyes swimming in doubt.

He heard a small sigh after a brief pause. A hand took his and held it ever so gently. “Because you’re still here. It means you still want to believe in yourself, whether you want to admit it or not. I still believe in you.”

Jhin pursed his lips in thought. But he held the hand tightly, not wanting to let go. “Thank you.” He couldn’t keep his composure anymore. If the crack in his voice wasn’t apparent enough, the warm droplets that fell from his cheeks onto their hands gave it away.

That day was so long ago, yet it felt like it was only yesterday. But Jhin cherished that moment. It held a special meaning in his heart, marking the beginning of his path to where he was now. He smiled to himself.

Since then, he used that moment to remind himself that there was someone who was willing to put their faith in him. He used that moment to take him back to reality and his goals. He used that moment to force himself to stop in his tracks, before he did something he would regret again.

He no longer wanted to disappoint the person who believed in him. His own motivation flared back to life as he moved on to rediscovering the things he once enjoyed. Days turned to months, and months turned to years since he last felt that compulsion.

There were hurdles along the way, but they weren’t the kind he struggled with before. But in the end…

“Jhin?” a voice called.

Jhin perked his head up to the window, his train of thoughts interrupted by the voice. He smiled pleasantly at the figure brightly lit by the sunlight. “Shen, how long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to wonder if you’re spacing out or if you’re that mesmerized by the page you haven’t turned within the past ten minutes.” Shen smiled back as he leaned against the window frame. “What are you thinking about this time?”

“Oh, you know. Things. Many, many things,” Jhin mused as he closed the book he was no longer interested in. He turned his attention back to Shen, who gazed at him with the softest expression. Even with Jhin’s considerable amount of self-control, he couldn’t help but melt under Shen’s smile.

“Would you like to go for a stroll? The sun will be setting soon.”

Humming in thought, Jhin nodded. “Why not? I think it’d do me some good to stretch my legs.”

“I’ll wait by the front then.”

Jhin watched Shen walk to the entrance of the Kinkou Order. His gaze lingered for a few more moments before he made his way outside. He spotted Shen leaning against one of the wooden pillars, staring at the setting sun. He spent a moment in silence, admiring this composition like it was a painting.

“Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” Jhin asked.

“Several times, but you can say it again anyway.”

Jhin burst into laughter at Shen’s remark. “You’re getting better at answering with banter nowadays.”

“I learned from the best there is.” Shen extended out a hand. “Let’s go.”

“Gladly.” Jhin took Shen’s hand and gave it a light squeeze before heading out.

In the end, he found someone he believed he could love, too.

[rosywrites]

An Easy Decision

Fandom: League of Legends Summary:  After receiving a tip that Jhin was spotted in Navori, Shen and Zed didn't stop searching for his whereabouts without rest. Until one day, the Virtuoso himself sets the stage for Zed to make a choice.

Note: A collaboration story with @spinyoctopus based on a tweet she made!

[AO3]

Word count: 3,012

Several days passed since Zed and Shen received a tip that Jhin appeared in Navori, and they hadn’t stopped to hunt him down since. Both the Shadow and Kinkou Orders were on high alert for the Golden Demon. The two masters kept in contact with their students, making sure they would be prepared if Jhin tried to go for them. Even Akali, who had distanced herself away from the Kinkou Order, accepted the message and kept Shen updated on her whereabouts.

A white cloud formed from Zed’s breath as he turned from the mountain he was climbing. He could see the entire region of Navori from here. He crouched, wondering where Jhin would be hiding… or waiting. His helmet sat in his hands, staring up at him with its empty eyes. He shut his eyes and allowed himself a moment of rest, rubbing the bridge of his nose in exhaustion.

He was tired, very tired.

It had been so long since Jhin’s imprisonment, his breaking from the Kinkou Order, and his murder of Kusho. Then everything came to a stop when word got out that Jhin escaped. It all took a toll on him, but he could never show that. He didn’t deserve to.

The golden light overtaking the dark night from behind the mountains signified the break of dawn. He squinted from the sliver of light that shone into his eyes and shielded them with his hand.

Ever the one to lean towards the shadows.

Another white cloud seeped out of his helmet with another long sigh. The mountain air was cold, but it felt refreshing to his tired soul. Zed allowed himself the liberty to think of nothing and enjoy the sunrise, though he only let it last for a moment. That’s all he could give himself. He put the helmet back on his head and sent one last look at the horizon before sinking into his own shadow.

Shen was waiting for him. If finished with the patrol, Kayn as well.

Zed arrived at the top of the stone steps of the Kinkou Monastery, or rather what once was the Kinkou Monastery. Ever since he overthrew Kusho, the monastery turned into the base for the Shadow Order. Shen had been coming to the Monastery to help deal with Jhin. He could imagine how angry Shen must have been when he first stepped foot into his former home.

They had decided to meet at the monastery every three days to report their findings. So far, their searches had all failed. There was no sign of Khada Jhin anywhere. Nothing on Zed’s end this time either.

He made his way towards the entrance of the monastery, expecting Shen to stand by one of the pillars with his usual stoic expression. And just like Zed, there was an underlying exhaustion in his eyes. Shen was just as tired as Zed was, if not more.

Zed slowly looked up in realization Shen wasn’t waiting for him by the entrance. Odd. He was never one to be late for their rendezvous in the morning. There was a chance he had business in the spirit realm, but he would leave a sign that he would come back.

While he would have shrugged it off, a glint from a bush had caught his eyes. Furrowing his brows, Zed approached the bush and brushed it aside.

Dread immediately pooled in his stomach as he jerked his arm back with his blades pulled out on instinct. His breaths became shorter as he continued to stare at the lotus trap hidden within the bush. It was almost perfectly nestled into the leaves, just barely showing enough to be noticed by a careful eye.

But the Golden Demon would not make such a grave mistake.

This was on purpose.

A warning.

“Shen…!” Zed whispered in panic. He snuck down the hall through the shadows, searching through every room in the monastery. Each room contained a butchered corpse, torn apart and rearranged into different displays. Very few were left untouched, but those few were gravely injured and barely left alive.

“M-Master Zed…” a student croaked, catching his attention.

Zed materialized from the shadows and rushed over. The student’s wounds were severe, half his body covered in deep cuts and gashes. Pieces of metal were embedded into his skin, possibly even puncturing his body. A victim of Jhin’s traps. He laid a hand on the student’s shoulder, trying to shake him awake. “What happened?” he growled.

The student gripped Zed’s wrist with a desperate strength. “You can’t, you can’t,” he kept muttering. “He… he got them too…”

Zed almost felt his heart lurch up to his throat. “Where are they?” he hissed. “Tell me. Now.”

“The meditation hall… they’re…” The student choked and struggled to breathe from the blood that filled his lungs from the penetrating metal. He wasn’t going to live through this. Even if he did, he would be crippled for the rest of his life.

The least Zed could do was end the student’s misery.

Zed silently opened the door to the meditation hall. His eyes scanned the area for any dangers or even the Golden Demon himself. The hall was empty and quiet, the floor and bottom of its intricate carvings and pillars dimly lit by the rising sun. As he walked closer to the center of the hall, he looked up at the swinging chandelier above.

But it was no chandelier.

Zed gasped in horror as he noticed the familiar blue hair. Kayn was hanging limply in the air with two metal hooks dug into his back, his face covered in knife cuts, and metal wires wrapped tightly around his neck. The wires extended to the ceiling, silver bells tied every four feet and around his neck like a harness. His scythe was on the platform ahead, propped up against a statue of the Spirit of Ionia. The red eye of the scythe, usually open and actively looking around, was closed.

Following the wires above Kayn, there was some sort of mechanic constructions extending throughout the ceiling. But it had been placed so neatly that one would have thought it was part of the ceiling structure. Zed brought his attention back to the boy hanging above him.

Kayn was still alive. His eyes were barely open, and the bells made quiet chimes with each shallow breath he made. Zed wasn’t even sure if Kayn could recognize his surroundings anymore.

“Kayn, are you awake? Answer me.”

A quiet wheeze sounded from Kayn’s throat, his eyelids fluttering in response. Zed’s shoulders lowered as he sighed in relief. Kayn was awake, but barely. He saw Kayn’s eyes roll to the left and followed his line of sight, to where Shen was.

Shen was kneeling in the far corner of the meditation hall, where the sunlight began to crawl towards, hunched over with his head hanging low. Golden rope immobilized his torso and legs, preventing him from breaking free. Above him was an arrangement of metal scraps and pieces, disturbingly resembling the shape of eye.

“Shen! Are you awake?”

Groaning, Shen awoke to Zed’s voice. He shook his head, trying to clear his head. But even when he was completely conscious, he didn’t make a move. “Sorry, Zed,” Shen uttered, his voice coarse. “I couldn’t stop him.”

Zed tried to rush over to Shen’s side to untie him, but a propelling glint of silver stopped him in his tracks, and he caught it before it pierced his head. An Ionian dagger, elegantly carved with designs of smoke along the blade with a green gem inlaid in the handle.

The sounds of metal clinking on stone then caught Zed’s attention. From the shadows, an all-too-familiar figure stepped out into the light, the trademark ivory mask almost glowing under the sunlight. “Welcome to the finale!” the figure announced, his cape flying with his grand gesture.

Khada Jhin.

It took everything Zed had to stay where he was and not recklessly attack the murderer before him. His vision was flooding with memories of the gore and horror he had witnessed all these years since his youth. If he hadn’t been used to the smell of blood and corpses, he would’ve vomited by now.

Besides, Jhin was always a step ahead: he stood just out of Zed’s reach.

Jhin chuckled at Zed’s trembling shoulders. Was he trembling out of rage? Panic? Fear? Perhaps all three. “You’ve learned to stop charging headfirst into danger, haven’t you? Indeed, quite the character development.”

“Why are you here?” he growled angrily.

“Why? I thought this is what you wanted. To catch me. And what’s better than being caught in the Shadow Order’s temple?” The amusement was clear in his voice. He paced around in a rhythm, humming to himself. “But what good is a capture if there is no reward, yes? After all, you’ve come so far from back then. I suppose it’s only fair to let you decide your reward.”

“Bastard. You’re only toying with us.” Zed’s hand balled into a fist around the handle of the dagger, a desperate urge to drive the blade into Jhin’s neck overtaking his body. But he couldn’t. Jhin had him wrapped around his finger, and one wrong move would be the end of it all.

Jhin raised his arms, gesturing to both Shen and Kayn, whose bodies were now lit by the rising sun. “Let’s start with the setting for this finale. I walk away, and these two bloom in a matter of seconds.” He lazily paced to the side, keeping an eye on Zed. “But you, the protagonist, can still save them from their fate.

“One, you can save your beloved student from bursting with wings to fly to the sky. Two, you can save Shen, the man you once called your brother, from becoming the final piece to complete the Eye of Twilight above.” He paused to chuckle. “You did come to a peaceful compromise in your little detective adventure, after all, right?”

A shuriken shot past Jhin, narrowly missing his mask.

He merely clicked his tongue and shook a finger at Zed. “Ah, ah, ah. You need to listen thoroughly.” He held up a third finger. “Three, you settle the score with the Golden Demon once and for all, abandoning the angel and the all-seeing eye.” Jhin paused before he turned around and began to walk away from Zed.

“And the fourth?”

Jhin turned his head back to Zed, his visible eye squinting in amusement, before walking away again. The sunrise slowly filled the room with light, creeping up the mechanism until it reached a green gem embedded into the center. The meditation hall became lit with green fractals from the reflecting gem.

With a snap of his fingers, numerous cogs in the mechanism above went into motion like the gears of a clock. Kayn started to ascend to the ceiling with each tick. He had no reaction to his body lightly swinging from the hooks, but Zed couldn’t imagine how much pain he was in.

Looking at Shen, Zed saw wire that was being pulled above between the metal scraps. The wire led down to Shen’s neck. There was plenty of wire before Shen would be beheaded and pulled into the air, but there was not enough time to save both. Zed knew that.

“Choose wisely.”

Zed glanced at the dagger in his hands, then to Kayn, then to Shen, and then back to the dagger. His eyes moved up to Shen, who stared back with those glowing blue eyes. The two shared a look that seemed to last for an eternity.

“You need to save Kayn,” Shen insisted. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me.” He was now sitting upright, the rope just barely tightening his neck now.

Kayn suddenly coughed blood when the metal hooks began to pull him in opposite directions. His breathing was getting shallower, the bells chiming in quick succession.

Jhin was still walking away with a lazy bounce to his steps. He was slowly disappearing into the shadows.

The cogs continued to tick away faster.

Tick.

Tock.

There was no time.

But then it dawned on Zed. He realized it was an easy choice all this time. He made the decision a long time ago after all. He raised the dagger, its blade flashing at Shen.

Shen closed his eyes and lulled his head back, leaving his neck and chest open. But the dagger never came. The sound of metal meeting flesh snapped his eyes open to look at Zed.

Zed had pierced the dagger into his own stomach, twisting it with a pained grunt and pulling it out. In that moment, his shadow materialized behind Shen and cut the wire free.

“Zed!” Shen called in desperate panic, jumping to his feet.

Jhin stopped in his tracks to turn his head, seeing Zed bleeding out on the stone floor. His eye met Shen’s, whose eyes were glowing brighter in rage. He could only smile. “What will you do, Eye of Twilight? It’s all up to you now.” He once again turned to walk away without a care in the world. Not even two steps, and Shen had already gone to Zed’s side.

And the Golden Demon disappeared into the shadows.

The cogs in the mechanism came to a stop and lowered Kayn onto the ground. Shen first cut the wire tied around Kayn’s neck and laid him on his stomach. He carefully pulled the hooks out of Kayn’s back, which were hooked onto his scapulas. Had Zed been any later, the hooks would have tore Kayn’s scapulas apart and spread his chest and arms into the air.

Kayn wheezed before he coughed a few more times from becoming able to breathe better. “M-Master… Zed…” he called before falling unconscious.

Shen wasted no time tending to Zed’s wound, removing Zed’s helmet in the process. He kicked away the dagger in Zed’s hand while applying pressure onto his abdomen. “Zed? Zed, stay with me here.” He watched Zed’s face contort in pain from the stab wound. “God, what is wrong with you? Killing me was the easiest option, and yet you—”

“No, he knew what he was doing,” Zed answered. “This was the only way.”

“What happened to the Master of Shadows I knew?” Shen retorted. “We need you to capture him. Stabbing yourself was not the answer.” When Zed didn’t respond, Shen tried to slap him awake but was stopped by Zed’s hand raising up.

“He never stated out loud what the last option was.”

“But you shouldn’t have gone with that choice. You should’ve just killed me to save Kayn.”

Zed didn’t respond. Instead, he exhaled slowly to help with the pain. “Do you remember when we were young, we made that oath of brotherhood? I never really forgot about that.”

“Zed,” Shen said, a warning evident in his tone.

“I deserve this, don’t you think?” He tasted the blood rising to the back of his throat. Spitting blood out, he croaked out a laughter.

“Stop.”

“Ironic that I, the one who started that oath, destroyed everything with my own hands. The Kinkou Order, the monastery, our bond… your father…”

“Stop talking about things that are long gone, Zed!” Shen shouted, slamming the side of his fist onto the stone floor. “I thought the past is dead. What is the point of bringing this up now?”

Zed couldn’t help but smirk. “When was the last time I heard you lose yourself like that? It feels like an eternity ago.” He closed his eyes. His senses were beginning to numb, and the lull of sleep was tempting. He let out a long sigh before fluttering his eyes open again. He scoffed, “You were foolish for thinking you were the choice.”

“I,” Shen started, a slightly crack in his voice, “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“I thought you always wanted to see me dead? Your wish is getting granted now.”

“Don’t, Zed. You are not going to die.” Shen’s shoulders started to shake. “I’m not going to let you.”

Zed blinked in slight surprise at the warm droplets that fell onto his hand. “The Eye of Twilight? Showing emotion? The world must be coming to an end.” He laughed despite the fluctuating pain. He gripped Shen’s wrist tightly. “Shen, promise me you’ll get that masked demon. He doesn’t deserve to see the light of day.”

“I will, but you have to stay alive for that. You’re foolish to think I can do it on my own.”

“Better than what I can do. Besides, you still have your Order. You’re not alone.” Zed pursed his lips and took a deep breath. He couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer from the blinding morning sun. “I think I’m going to sleep for a while. I don’t think I can keep awake. I’m just… so tired.”

“No. No! Zed! Stay with me!”

But Shen’s cries were for naught. Zed’s vision was beginning to blur to black, and Shen’s voice was getting quieter and quieter by the second. For a moment, he didn’t want to die. For a moment, he felt fear for his candlelight being snuffed out by the darkness. For a moment, he feared the shadows he embraced.

That moment of fear was soon replaced by a wave of catharsis. His own words echoed in his mind: I deserve this, don’t you think?

He blinked, and he was taken back to his childhood in an instant, back when he and Shen happily spent their days in the monastery together. Shen’s tearful face turned to his younger, happier grin, dragging Zed over to the temple. It almost felt like another world where nothing bad happened, where Zed didn’t crush everything he had.

A world where Shen and Zed grew up together without a single drop of animosity towards the other. A world where there could have been more. A world where Kayn became closer to a son figure to him. A world where both Shen and Zed were happy and had nothing to lose.

“Shen… I…”

[rosywrites]

Beyond the Depths, Chapter 5

Title: Beyond the Depths (Merman Jhin AU) Last Chapter: Soaring Fandom: League of Legends Ship: Jhin x Sona

[AO3]

Word count: 7,431

It had been well over a year since Sona took Jhin into the Buvelle estate for his recovery. The first few months were rough and tense. It took a while to simply talk to each other without ending with a slammed door. Despite the complications, Sona didn’t want to wallow in despair or anger forever; she wanted to move on and forward. The first step was confronting the source.

Sona stood in the room where Jhin’s tank was, the room dark and barely lit by the ceiling window. She stared at her backlit reflection on the glass. A few blinks, and she could see the ocean. Wood and precious belongings sinking slowly among the wispy blood mixing with the currents. Dark shapes taking form of mangled dead bodies.

It wasn’t an event she couldn’t ignore, but it didn’t scare her anymore.

Another blink, and she saw her mother before her. Lestara was completely in-tact, but her skin was grey, pruny, and becoming skeletal. She almost seemed one with the ocean. Her eyes were sunken in, but they still gleamed with life—as if she still had something to do.

“Mother, I don’t know how, but… I befriended him. His name is Khada Jhin, and he’s become someone I can trust.” She waited for a response that would never come. “I know what he did. I know who he was. But…” She sighed. “There was more. He’s helped me overcome my fear of the ocean. I don’t hear phantoms anymore.”

Lestara blinked patiently.

“I want to move on.” Her heart ached and ached to see her mother again. But now, it was time to accept that it can’t be done. “Is that okay?”

And for the first time, Lestara’s lips curled into a gentle smile and nodded slowly. Sona shed a tear as she watched Lestara fade like seafoam back to her reflection on the glass. She paused before pounding her chest as she let out one last sob.

Jhin’s head popped out of the water when he recognized Sona’s figure sitting by the beach. She seemed to be in contemplation, her gaze lost in blue above. He decided to watch her from afar, not wanting to interrupt.

After a while, he noticed Sona tilt her head back to the cove and wave. He approached her, letting the waves carry him to the sand. Seeing her closer, he sensed something different within her. She had a sort of pleasant air about her, something that seemed subconscious. “Did something happen?” he asked.

A smile graced her features, knowing what he was referring to. “I just did some thinking and a bit of self-reflection over the past few days, I suppose? I’ve come to accept a lot of things.”

Jhin nodded in understanding. “I see.”

Silence ensued when Sona’s gaze wandered back to the sky. Jhin lowered his head into his arms, staring at her in wonder. He remembered his time back in the tank, when Sona had, against her own judgement, saved him from imminent death. She even took the time to take precautions when approaching him, including relaying instructions to the maids and butlers. She helped him work through what he had given up on long ago.

He despised her for not only escaping him but imprisoning him in a tank. The thought of his unintended survivor turned the tables on him infuriated him. How dare she trap him in a tank for her own satisfaction, to watch him suffer a slow death.

Of course, the feelings were mutual on her end too. He was well aware. Having her mother’s and several others’ killer in her own home, kept alive, to say she was boiling with anger was an understatement. He was a monster in her eyes. Perhaps when he murdered that maid, that was the last straw.

Perhaps she realized something had to be done. That something was wrong.

“Hey Jhin.”

“Yes?”

“As ironic as it is, maybe it was a good thing you washed up on these shores,” she said contemplatively. “You’ve done more help than I expected you to.”

Jhin’s brows raised, his mouth slightly agape. He blinked once before regaining composure and smirked. “Why do you say that? I would say I have changed your life for the worse, don’t you think so?”

Sona sniffed in amusement. “Yes and no.”

Another few seconds of silence filled the air before Jhin sighed from impatience. “I’ve never said this to you, and I feel I should say it sooner than later.” He looked up at Sona in regret. “I’m sorry for killing your mother, the passengers, and one of the maids. I’m sorry for all the times I taunted you back then. I’m sorry I’ve caused you so much grief and distress.”

“I…”

“Wait. I also wanted to thank you for saving me and keeping me alive. For trying to help me, even after everything I’ve done. We definitely had our differences and arguments, but I’ve always appreciated you talking to me about… well, myself. It wasn’t something I’ve ever done, and I’ve given up on doing something about it a long time ago.” His eyes didn’t falter from Sona’s gaze. “You’ve helped me more than I expected you to. Thank you.”

Sona felt her heart fill with warmth to the point she didn’t know what to say back. Her hand moved across the sand towards Jhin’s hand but settled for a brief touch of their fingertips. “Thank you, Jhin,” she said, the words brimming with so much more. Everything.

Hesitation welled up within Jhin as he slowly placed his claw under Sona’s fingers, his thumb on top. His fingers curled tighter, as if almost desperate to not let go. He craved her touch, remembering the softness of her skin when he brushed her wet hair away.

He chuckled in relief. “I’ve been wanting to say that for so long, it’s been eating me alive.” He closed his eyes when he felt Sona’s fingers hook around his as well. “I just didn’t know how to bring it up without hurting you.”

“You didn’t.”

Their lingering thoughts of doubt and hesitation ebbed away as their hands slipped farther into the palms of the other’s. Jhin stroked slow circles on the back of Sona’s hand, as hers fully nestled into his. They remained like that for a while, indulging themselves in this moment, to hold the other in their hand.

Words bubbled up to their chests, wanting to escape its prison to reach out to the other. Feelings wanted to come forth like little petals to shower them with these precious words.

No, contain them. They can’t come out. Ever.

Else, they would disappear like seafoam, into nothing.

Sona lightly coughed to distract herself from her racing mind. “I, um, wanted to give you a present. I finally finished making it.”

Jhin’s head perked up from his arm in interest. “A gift?”

She nodded, almost starting to feel embarrassed. “Do you remember when you helped me collect pieces from the ocean floor?” She released Jhin’s hand—an emptiness lingering at the tips of her fingers—to reach into the bag beside her. She brought out a necklace, decorated with small pieces of shells and beads. A sea green stone, the one Jhin had found for her, glimmered in the sunlight as the centerpiece.

Now that he looked closely, Sona’s fingers were still covered in cuts. Of course, there were less than when he first saw them. But there were a few recent-looking cuts over healing scars. This was what she had been working on the past few weeks, he realized.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious, Sona slightly reeled in her arm closer to her. “It’s not much. Just a token of my gratitude.”

He couldn’t find the right words to convey the whirlpool of thoughts in his head as he stared at the necklace. His nails brushed against the stone. Something in him stirred when he closed his claw around it. “Really?” he managed to utter. It was a simple necklace, and it was small enough to be able to fit around his neck without hindering him.

However, his claws made it difficult to tie it around his neck. The string slipped out of his sharp nails, a string of merfolk curses following after. Sona held back her laughter. She took the necklace and leaned forward to tie it around his neck.

Jhin held his breath. He felt the natural warmth of her skin as she reached around his neck. He could hear her muttering silent words to herself. Sona, soon realizing the close proximity after tying the necklace, froze in place. Eyes averted from looking into the other’s, in fear they would betray the restraint on their hearts.

“I, thank you.” Jhin placed a claw on the necklace. “I’ll take good care of it.”

Sona nervously laughed. “You have no idea how hard it was to find the right string that won’t deteriorate in the water. It’s why I took longer to finish this.”

“I can only appreciate your efforts all the more then.” He laid eyes on Sona’s fingers, eyes softening at the healing scars and cuts.

Sona smiled as she cupped her hands together. “It’s not like they hurt. They’ll heal in no time.” Her eyes slightly widened when Jhin held her hand and traced the tips of her fingers. Her skin was hardened with callouses from plucking strings, though it didn’t stop her tools from giving her a few nicks here and there.

Lips brushed against her fingers, the heart’s first betrayal, evoking a short gasp from Sona. Jhin was the next to gasp once he realized what he’s done. Blinking furiously in a panic, he turned his head away from her.

“I, I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” Without another word, he retreated back into the waves as fast as they came.

“Wait!” Sona chased after Jhin, the heart’s second betrayal, plunging herself into the waves. She searched for the golden-tipped tail in the water, following the ripples on the surface of the sea until she was left floating in the middle of the cove. She deeply inhaled and submerged underwater. She opened her eyes to a blurry blue and looked for Jhin’s figure in the deep.

She resurfaced to breathe again and rub her stinging eyes before submerging again. But this time, she saw Jhin a few feet before her.

He bit back a bitter laugh. “Why did you come after me, Sona? You’re making this so much harder than it should be.”

Sona was silent for a moment. “I… I just want to know something. It’s selfish, I know, but…” The two inched closer to each other until they were face-to-face. Sona, unable to endure the sting of the water, shut her eyes to relieve them. “I just…” She was at a loss for words. She didn’t know how to go about telling him of what she was feeling, taking the lull in conversation to regain her breath.

“You know I don’t deserve this,” Jhin stated. “It’s so difficult to let myself go through with it.”

And yet, he yearned for her touch, to hold her in his arms.

“Jhin…”

Gods, there was just so much in her tone of calling his name. He felt like his heart couldn’t take it any longer, but he had to. He had to endure it.

“Do you know how much the guilt is tearing me apart?” He reached out to stroke her face, the heart’s third betrayal, then cupping her face so tenderly. “Do you know how many times I’ve thought of doing something like this but can’t bring myself to? All because I did so many terrible things to you.”

Just as he was about to release her, Sona’s hand shot up to keep his claw on her cheek. Her brows furrowed in desperation, just barely bringing his hand to touch the corner of her lips.

“I’ve moved on. Things are different now.”

Please.

“But is it alright for me to move forward? After all I’ve done?”

The heart can only take so much.

“You can’t forever dwell on something you’ve changed from, Jhin. Everyone can change.”

The chains that kept the heart at bay started snapping apart, one by one.

“Sona.”

Her heart fluttered hearing him call her name with such emotion. She wanted him to say her name so many more times.

Like a dam, the floodgates opened.

Something soft met her lips like the crash of a wave, the heart’s final betrayal, and then easing into a tender kiss laced with a hint of passion that had been held back for too long. She pressed her lips back in return, trembling at his hungry touch. She cupped Jhin’s cheek as she nipped at his upper lip, a stream of bubbles escaping her mouth. The sea seemed to feel colder, but she couldn’t care. She tasted his light, yet impatient whisper of her name against her lips when she wrapped her arms around his neck.

Jhin’s arm wrapped around to pull her closer, his fingers tracing Sona’s face from her cheeks to her soft jawline. His other hand slipped lower to the small of her back when she settled snugly into his arms. He shivered when he could feel her breath in the form of bubbles tickle his face.

They pressed deeper into the kiss, as if pouring everything they had been holding back. Yet it ended too soon, Sona breaking apart from lack of air. Jhin immediately carried her back to the surface to let her regain her breath, but they continued to stare into each other’s eyes while pressing their foreheads together.

“I,” Jhin started, panting, “Was that selfish of me?”

Sona silently laughed, embracing him and smiling against his sun-kissed skin. “In that case, I’m just as selfish.”

A knock prompted a maid to crack open the doors of the Buvelle estate, revealing Lux standing by the doorstep alone.

“Lady Crownguard, what a pleasure to see you!”

“Hello! Is Lady Buvelle present?” Lux sheepishly waved. “I wanted to discuss some matters with her if she’s available.”

“I see.” The maid slightly covered her lips, going into thought. “Please come in, I will go and ask Lady Buvelle.”

“Take your time! I’m not in any hurry!” Lux watched the maid turn a corner and disappear down the hall. She hummed in curiosity. Hopefully, she wasn’t barging in on anything important. Sona was taking on the responsibilities of the Buvelle head and a famous musician, after all. She leaned against the wall with her staff behind her, waiting patiently.

The maid returned slightly out of breath and in a sweat. “I apologize for the long wait, Lady Crownguard. Lady Buvelle is currently preoccupied with something, but she said she can meet with you soon.”

“Aw, you didn’t have to rush for me! But thank you! Where can she meet with me?”

“Right this way, my Lady.” The maid escorted her down the hallway she took. She guided Lux towards the back of the estate, where one can just barely see the Buvelle shores past the white curtains. A small patio table sat by the large windows with a cup of tea ready for Lux. “Please wait here. Lady Buvelle will be here shortly.”

“Thank you!” Lux seated herself and helped herself to some sugar and cream for her tea. As she took a sip, she took note of the butlers that seemed to stand guard of the hallway leading to the shores. No doubt Sona was probably there.

Suddenly, a strong breeze blew through the windows, sending the curtains flying and the bushes rustling harshly with the wind. Lux pressed down on her hair from the wind, but something caught her attention. Between the rustling bushes, she spotted the familiar blue hair and the glint of sunlight on scales in the water.

Sona’s head suddenly disappeared under the water, the merman diving in after her.

Lux stood up with a clatter and grabbed her staff in a panic. She barged out to the balcony to look at the shore closer. She shoved the bushes aside, despite protests from the maids and butlers.

Just then, the merman’s head resurfaced along with Sona’s. Her body was completely in tact, and upon closer inspection, there were no wounds on her body either. They were exchanging words she couldn’t hear, but it seemed the merman was peeved about something. Actually, Sona too. But after a while, Sona turned away in laughter.

Lux released the breath she was holding in one huff. “What the heck…” She watched Sona swim out of the shore with the merman swimming beside her until she reached the sandy slope. Sona waved at the merman before ascending up the stairs with a towel given by a maid. “Oh!” Lux exclaimed when Sona spotted her by the balcony.

They both waved at each other nervously, given what just happened.

As Sona approached the back doors, Lux gazed at the merman, whose eyes seemed to follow Sona’s figure. He had a look that seemed almost… intimate. Lux’s eyelids lowered in realization of his expression.

Sona rushed in with a robe covering her wet dress. She wore a solemn expression, her eyes watching Lux with wariness. With a simple flick of her hand, the butlers shut all the exits of the room Lux was in. The atmosphere suddenly became colder, unwelcome.

Lux scanned the room, taking note of the positions of the guards. Every possible exit was blocked off by a butler or maid, even the glass doors of the balcony door shut and locked. They weren’t going to let her walk away with what she just saw, were they?

“I’m sorry for making you wait long. What was it you wanted to discuss?” Sona gave her a small smile.

Lux rubbed the back of her neck. “Um… well…”

“Did you see?” Seeing Lux smile acknowledgingly, Sona sighed. Would she have to bubble up Lux’s memory? Her hand was ready to hover over her etwahl behind her, in case Lux would try to escape. Lux wouldn’t do that though, she knew. “Lux, that wasn’t something you were supposed to see.”

“I know. I would say the wind was what swept the brushes apart that I could see, but that’s not much of an excuse, huh?” Lux pursed her lips into a straight line. “Sona, I came here to warn you about something. It’s about the merman.”

Sona cocked a brow, narrowing her eyes at Lux’s statement.

As if Lux was aware that the merman was still here in Buvelle shores.

“What?”

“Before I tell you anything more, I need you to trust me first.” She glanced at the guards around the room. “Without them watching.” She watched Sona consider her options as she took a step back from her, like Lux would do something to her. But gods know she would never hurt Sona.

“What’s the reason that you need me to trust you first?”

What could she even say to that as an answer, Lux wondered. “It’s for your own and even the merman’s safety. But I need to know if you can trust me.”

At the mention of the merman, Sona’s eyes jerked up at her in wary curiosity. After a few more moments of consideration, she gestured to the butlers and maids to stand down and leave the room. All obliging, they left Lux and Sona alone.

“I can trust you, Lux.”

Lux slid all the curtains together to darken the room. She slowly set her staff on the floor and took off her white gloves to reveal her skin beneath. Just when Sona thought this was going to end badly, Lux held out her hands. From the palms of her hands, a ball of light seeped out of her skin and levitated above.

Sona recognized the flow of the light in her hands: Magic. Lux was a magic-wielder, in the capital of Demacia.

The light dispersed. As Lux pulled her gloves back on, she sighed. “I know. Shocking, isn’t it? It’s never really done me wrong, though. I’ve made a few friends thanks to this gift.” She looked at Sona, whose mouth was agape in surprise, hoping this wasn’t too much information all in one go. This was barely scraping the surface of her business here. “Now do you see why I wanted you to trust me first? You can’t tell anyone about this.”

Regaining her composure, Sona nodded. “I swear I won’t tell a soul.” Not even Jhin. It was a promise. “Why would you show me this? You could be putting your life in danger. What if they try to get information out of you?”

“It’s because, I trust you. I just feel like I could trust you.” Lux picked up her staff and leaned it on the edge of her chair. “But now I can tell you what I’m really here for.”

“The merman…”

“Yes. I am a member of the Circle of the Illuminators, basically a group of other magic-wielding users that protect Demacia. Our job is to make sure nothing in or out of Demacia will come to harm our society.”

“But, I thought Demacia didn’t allow those who had magic in their blood?”

“They don’t. They still don’t, calling us “afflicted with magic” or the such,” Lux said, a slight bitterness coating the name. “But the truth is, they have secret groups of us mages who are willing to protect Demacia. It’s not as straightforward as it seems.” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, the Illuminators have caught wind of the merman. If what I heard is correct, they might try to take him away. To lock him in a prison or use him as some sort of weapon against his own will.”

Sona’s eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?” she asked in disbelief. “How did they hear about him? Rumors should have spread that I had set him free.”

“The Illuminators have connections everywhere, even where no one thinks to look. They look the same as everyone else; no one would even tell them apart from a normal Demacian citizen. It’s part of our job, Sona. One of us was bound to find out.” She furrowed her brows. “I’ve tried to deter them away by insisting that you released him, but I think their sources said otherwise.”

Dread pooled in Sona’s stomach like a parasite eating away at her flesh. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but her racing thoughts stopped her from doing so.

Jhin was going to be taken away.

He was going to be locked up in a prison again.

Worst case scenario… he was going to be killed.

Sona felt herself growing dizzy and nauseous at the thought. Her breathing started to become frantic as she thought about ways to fight them off, if they ever came to ambush her estate. There was no way she could. She would end up revealing herself to be a magic-wielder as well. The Buvelle head. A mage. Preposterous.

“… Sona!” Lux’s voice snapped her out of her trance, along with a wave of her hand in front of her face. “I… I hate to be the one to give you the news. I really wished I could’ve done better to convince them. But… he has to leave. He has to leave Demacian waters if he doesn’t want to be captured.”

Jhin had to leave. Sooner than she had hoped for. Perhaps… immediately.

A heavy and shaky sigh replaced the sob that caught in her throat. She cupped her mouth in disbelief that this was happening, biting at her thumb. “How much longer do you think I’ll have with him?”

Lux lowered her head in thought. “Three days. I overheard them requesting a tank to fit a large creature of the sea. No doubt they mean the merman. The day the tank arrives, they will come to the Buvelle estate. They’ll also erase your memory of the event soon after.”

Torture. This was torture. However, Sona refused to shed a tear. She knew this was coming. She knew Jhin couldn’t stay. She knew he had to leave at some point. It had been weeks since they confessed to falling for the other, but now, it all felt like it was ending too quickly, too soon.

“I’m really sorry. It seemed like… the merman has come to like you too. This isn’t an easy decision.”

No, it was the easiest and the only decision left. But letting go was, too hard. Sona turned around, now facing her etwahl, her shoulders shaking with her breaths. She took a deep breath and looked at her etwahl. She had to do this. For Lux.

“Thank you for telling me all this, Lux. I genuinely appreciate you for all you’ve done to try to stop them.” She plucked a string, letting the note drone. “But…” Another drone. “What you have told me will put your own life in danger.” The droning of the string became more consistent, each pluck weaved with her magic.

Lux was puzzled at the notes. But the longer the drone became, the more she felt her head becoming clouded. It was like their earlier conversation was getting foggier and vague that she could barely remember what they were talking about.

“I can’t let you do that to yourself, so please…”

By the time she could realize what was happening, Sona’s magic had already done the deed.

“Forget this happened and go on with what you were doing for the Illuminators. Forget you wanted to tell me about the Illuminators trying to take away the merman. Forget about even warning me at all.” Before the final pluck, Sona smiled in pity at the poor girl who was risking her life to protect her and Jhin. If the Illuminators found her actions suspicious, they might try to extract the information out of her. Sona could at least spare her such troubles by making her forget for the time being.

  After what felt like minutes, Lux snapped out of her trance like a popped bubble. “O-oh no, did I space out?” She saw Sona sitting across her from the patio table with her own cup of tea. Lux looked down to see her cup of tea, still steaming. “Sorry, Sona. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Have you been overworking yourself? That’s not good for your health,” Sona replied worriedly.

Lux giggled. “Oh, nonsense. My line of work lets me see a lot of interesting things and people—ah, uh, I mean, since I get to travel often,” she stammered, having nearly given away her position in the Illuminators.

She suddenly paused. The Illuminators. Right, there was something she… wanted to say. But as quickly as the thought bubbled up, Lux’s eyes clouded over again, the idea disappearing into the fog.

What did she come here for again?

Well, the Illuminators… No, she couldn’t possibly tell Sona of that. It would put her life and the Buvelle name in danger.

“Lux?”

“Oh, not again. Sorry!” Searching for anything that could sound remotely like an excuse, Lux took a sip of her warm tea. “I just wanted to see how you were doing! I know you’re busy, but I thought I could come by for a chat.” For a moment, she felt like the smile on Sona’s face seemed a little sad. “You have any idea where your next concert will be?”

“I was thinking… Ionia.” Sona looked down at her reflection in her tea, grasping her hands around the cup. “It’s been a while since I last visited, and I think I could try visiting the orphanage I grew up in. It’d be nice.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a nice break!” Lux chirped. “You think you might be able to meet the merman along the way?”

Sona’s fingers twitched against the porcelain cup. She watched Lux, her smile bright and optimistic as always, carefully. Her magic hadn’t worn off, and there was no deceit in Lux’s voice.

After all, Sona didn’t need to know about what the Illuminators were planning. Lux was going to put a stop to it, as much as she can.

“I hope so. I’ve come to think of him as someone special to me.”

Lux smiled knowingly at Sona’s words. “I’m sure you will.”

Jhin waited patiently in the water, occasionally poking his head above the water to check for Sona’s figure descending to the shore. He had kept his mask on while she had a visitor. She poked fun at him for it, but he didn’t want to risk anything. Just in case.

But Sona was taking a while, longer than her usual visitors.

He blew bubbles in the water, curious about her visitor. He submerged into the waves again to chase after the fish below to pass the time.

  When Sona finally returned, Jhin quickly swam over to the shores after sensing something wrong. Sona was staring at him with wet eyes, as if she was about to cry. His eyes widened in shock. He pulled off his mask in a hurry.

“What happened? Did they do something to you?”

Sona shook her head frantically, the tears now rolling down her cheeks like streaming turning into rivers. She plopped down onto the sand, crying for an end that was expected. Just not this soon. She felt Jhin’s hand settling on her head and looked up.

“Sona?”

“Why does this have to happen so soon? I didn’t think… anyone would find out about it.”

“Come with me.” Jhin pulled at her hand to ease her into the water. They dove into the depths, into the familiar fissure in the cove, into the glowing cave. He caressed her cheek in comfort and pressed his forehead to hers. “What’s wrong, love?”

“They know. They know you’re still here.” Sona cupped Jhin’s face and pressed back. She didn’t want to let him go. Not so soon. “Lux came to me with a warning. People are going to try to take you away from the sea. I can’t… I can’t let them do that.”

The shock didn’t come as strongly as Jhin had originally thought. After all, he knew he couldn’t stay here forever. He pulled Sona closer into an embrace, rubbing circles on her back to help her calm down. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he repeated in a hushed voice. “It’s only us in here.” He felt her chest and shoulders heave with each sob.

“You have to leave, Jhin. Or else, they’ll capture you in a prison or use you as a weapon, and they’re coming 3 days.” She shook her head frantically. “I can’t let them do that to you. Not again.”

Jhin’s chest felt heavy with dread and helplessness. He shut his eyes to hold back his own tears stinging at his eyes. He didn’t want to leave this soon either. He wanted to spend more time with Sona, to be with her at any opportunity they had.

He kissed the top of her head, letting his lips linger on her hair. Fate was such a cruel thing, but he refused to let it get in the way of their connection. He kissed the corner of her eye, where a tear caught in her lashes, down to her cheek, down to the corner of her lips. He paused to look at her.

Sona’s sobbing had eased into sniffling once she managed to calm down. She looked into his eyes, her own swirling with light from the glowing water.

“Did I ever tell you your eyes remind me of the sea?”

She couldn’t help but laugh through a sob. “Funny, I always thought the same thing.”

What started with a long kiss turned into a storm of small nips down the jaw to the neck to the collarbone. He refused to let her go. She returned every kiss with her own. Stealing each other’s breaths away. Names whispered into the other’s lips. Small gasps escaping the throat. Water splashed with each movement: arms wrapping around the neck, a hand stroking through hair, bodies plunging under.

No one could see or hear them here. Their special place. Their own little world.

There was a knock on the door in the evening, stopping a passing maid from her cleaning duties. The maid’s eyes turned cautious, giving knowing glances at the other maids in the hallway. One followed her to the door to greet the visitor.

Or visitors.

They cracked the door open. A group of soldiers stood before them, no weapons or an intent to barge in.

“Is the Lady of the house in?” the head of the group asked.

The maids feigned a puzzled look. “She should be upstairs working on some paperwork for her next concert.”

“I recently brought her dinner upstairs, so she may not be available to speak with anyone right now.” The maid held an arm behind her, signaling the other maids to go warn Sona. “We can at least take a message for you, if that’s preferred?”

“No, this is an important matter we must discuss with Lady Buvelle immediately.”

The maids had to stall as long as they could. They had to give her time to say good-bye. “As you wish. We will fetch Lady Buvelle, but we must ask you to wait here.”

The soldiers weren’t fazed. “We will accept those conditions.”

Golden hair caught the maids’ attention. Lux was in the back of the group, where no one could look back and see her. She wore an apologetic look while shaking her head in warning. They had to stop stalling now, or things were going to get ugly.

“Would you like some tea while you wait then?”

“No need. We just need to speak to Lady Buvelle.” The soldiers walked into the estate, making no suspicious moves. When one of the maids rushed down the other hallway, leaving one alone, the soldier nodded to another. “Go.”

One soldier knocked out the maid with a strange cloud of magic, gently laying her by the wall while the other soldiers dispersed into the household. The maid that had left to deceive them of the direction of the shores gasped.

Mages? They weren’t regular soldiers.

But before she could get reinforcements, she was knocked out by another mage as well.

“Crownguard!”

The golden-haired soldier froze, having tried to run towards the Buvelle shores. She turned her head. “Yes?”

“You’re coming with me to Lady Buvelle’s room.” The head Illuminator extended out a hand and motioned her to follow up.

Lux hesitantly sighed. “Yes, ma’am.” She followed the head upstairs to Sona’s room, pushing aside any maid or butler that tried to get in the way. “I’m so sorry,” she would mouth to all of them. When they arrived to Sona’s room, it was dimly lit by a lamplight on her desk, where papers were strewn about.

But there was no sign of Sona anywhere.

Sona was able to formulate a plan for this day. She took the time to talk to her staff about what they were to do the day the Illuminators come to their doorstep. She could hear the faint sounds of armor clinking in the manor while the Illuminators tried to find the back door.

She crouched by the wooden bridge meant for private ships to drop off packages, lowering a bag for Jhin. “Remember when you said you wanted to travel and mark special places? I, um, got a few materials made for you to start. They won’t be ruined by the seawater, since it’s aquatic animal skin infused with magic. But you’ll have to find your own ink. I couldn’t find one that wouldn’t wash off.”

Jhin stared up at her, his mouth hanging in pleasant surprise. “You’re just… full of surprises, aren’t you?” He received the bag with careful hand and slung it around his shoulder. “I actually have a gift for you. It took… a little longer than I thought, but I tried to make it as best as I could.” He held out a necklace with a single stone as the centerpiece. “I used a little bit of magic to compress it into a stone.” When he touched it, it glowed the colors of the sea with a swirl of magenta. Just like the water of the cove.

Sona gasped as she took the necklace. The stone felt warm at her touch, as if Jhin’s magic was alive within it. She tied it around her neck, in awe at the gift. “Thank you... I’m glad I have something to think of you with.”

He smiled lovingly. “Thank you, Sona. For everything.”

“Come visit me in my next concert, will you? I’ve told you the city it’ll be at.”

He reached out to her, touching her cheek. “Of course, love.”

No tears were shed. Just a knowing smile and kiss on his palm. “I’ll miss you. I’ll try to come visit you in Ionia too, whenever I can.”

“I’ll see if I can come visit you here once in a while, as well. I’m sure I’ll have many treasures to give you then.” A crash sounded from the manor, catching their attention immediately. Jhin bit back a laugh, somewhat reminded of old times. “Though, it might be a while. You’ll have to fend them off for good before I can visit you for certain.”

Sona shrugged. “Easy. I have Lux on my side.”

“Ever the confident one,” Jhin remarked with a smirk.

The two shared one last kiss.

Sona gave Jhin’s claw one last squeeze before letting go.

Jhin let his touch linger one moment longer.

“Good-bye, Sona.”

“Good-bye, Jhin.”

  Lux followed the head down the stairs of the manor towards the door leading to the shores. An Illuminator had burst into Sona’s room, claiming they found the back door. She felt panic bubbling up to her throat. She couldn’t stall the head any longer now.

But when they reached the shores, they found Sona sitting by the bridge with her shawl over her shoulders and soaking her feet in the water. A tray with a cup of tea and biscuits sat beside her, half-finished. She jumped up from her seat, pulling her shawl together in shock.

“Light the cove, Crownguard. Now.”

Light emanated from Lux’s skin, flowing into her staff as she tossed out a sphere of white light bright enough to light even the deepest depths of the cove. There was no sign of the shadowy figure of a merman, not even past the cove, no matter how or where they looked.

The head clicked her tongue. “Our sources were wrong.” Her eyes moved to Sona’s figure cowering under the light. “Crownguard.” She threw a vial of glowing blue liquid into Lux’s hands. “Go erase her memory. I expect you back with Lady Buvelle in ten minutes.”

Lux nodded. “Yes, ma’am!” She rushed over to the bridge and knocked Sona out with her staff before her light dissipated. She then opened the vial and tipped it into Sona’s mouth until all the liquid was gone. Once the head was out of sight and earshot, she sighed in relief. “You okay?” She sat Sona up. “Sorry if I was a little rough.”

Sona shook her head. “No, you did just fine.” She spit the vial’s contents into the sea and kicked the water around to mix the concoction until the glow faded. “Thank you very much, Lux.”

“I should actually be thanking you,” Lux replied. “Turns out the Illuminators tried to question me about being an accomplice to you. If you didn’t make me forget at the time, they might’ve known about our conversation.”

“Ah, so my magic wore off after. That’s a relief to hear.”

“So, did you have enough time to say good-bye?”

“More than enough. I appreciate your help, Lux.” Sona sighed longingly at the sea as she gazed at the horizon. “He’s definitely long gone now.”

“You can see him again,” Lux cheered optimistically.

Sona smiled, patting Lux’s hand on her shoulder. “I know. Hopefully sooner than later.” She turned her head away from the sea to Lux. “So, you now know I wield magic. What will you do with that information, Lady Crownguard?”

Lux tilted her head in mock confusion. “What magic? Not sure what you’re talking about.”

There was a pause before they giggled together.

“That’s what I thought.”

The sea was calm and inviting, gulls calling overhead like a harmony of the sea. The ship rocked with the gentle waves. By the side of the ship, Sona stood hunched over the railing.

“Hurk,” Sona huffed, cupping her hand over her mouth.

“Oh dear, would you like some ale, Lady Buvelle?” a maid asked, patting her back.

“That, that would be nice.” She slid down the railing, feeling sicker when the ship rocked a little too quickly to one side.

Even after all that time in the sea, her seasickness never disappeared. Of all things to remain the same…

The coastal town of Ionia gave Sona a warm welcome, guiding her through the town and escorting her to her inn. The citizens were just as kind and inviting, even those who traveled far from and within Ionia to listen to her music. She would humbly greet them before being pulled away for rehearsals.

Though, she would be much too exhausted to continue talking with others once the night was over. Rehearsals took lots of energy and work, collaborating with the staff responsible for the stage and presentation. But at least, it was going well.

A creature flew overhead to a nearby tree, chirping a short and quiet tune. The town was silent tonight. Only the sea provided an ambience to allow for thought.

Footsteps in the sand followed the shoreline, just barely touching the line where the waves rolled in. Sona enjoyed the cool evening breeze the sea brought. It felt just right for what she needed to relax. The full moon’s reflection sparkled on the horizon, and for a moment, she thought of the glowing cave within Buvelle shores.

She never went back into that cave again, even if she had the equipment to. That cave was a special place she would only visit if Jhin was there with her.

It wouldn’t be the same without him.

A quiet, heavy sigh filled the air. Sona stopped at the middle of the shore. The town was too far away for anyone to look all the way here, and there was nothing but a forest behind her. Here, she was alone. At peace. She took a deep breath of the ocean breeze, a sense of familiarity washing over her immediately.

Then, something caught her eye in the horizon. A splash in the glimmering sea. Something poking out from the moon’s reflection like a black hole in the light.

There was a flash of blue. Like a pair of eyes.

Familiar eyes.

On instinct, her hand reached for the necklace around her neck, the stone lighting up blue. She took a step towards the sea, shivering at the cold water washing over her feet. But that didn’t stop her from walking farther into the waves. The eyes were approaching closer, faster towards her. Once she stepped knee-deep into the water, she leapt at the figure that now stood feet before her.

A large splash followed by a happy chuckle ensued. Sona felt those same arms she’s always known wrap around her and give her a tight squeeze. An overjoyed sob escaped her lips as she buried her face into Jhin’s shoulder.

“What took you so long?” Jhin whispered into Sona’s hair. He missed her melodic voice so much; it was music to his ears.

Sona smiled against his skin. “I had to take care of some matters with the Illuminators first. Had to get them off my back so that they don’t follow me here,” she answered, earning another chuckle from Jhin. She longed to hear his voice again for so long, her heart soared at even his thoughtful hums.

“How long will you be staying in this town?”

“About four more days before I move on to the next one.” She looked up into his eyes with a loving gaze. “Will you have time any of those nights?”

“For you, always.” Jhin cupped Sona’s face ever so tenderly, leaning in for a kiss that was happily returned with a similar passion.

Their necklaces intertwined in the water, both their stones glowing colors of the sea. Colors beyond the depths.

[rosywrites]

Beyond the Depths, Chapter 4

Title: Beyond the Depths (Merman Jhin AU) Chapter 4: Surfacing Fandom: League of Legends Ship: Jhin x Sona

[AO3]

Word count: 5,588

Pencil tapping against a wooden clipboard sounded from the platform by the tank. A doctor hummed in thought as he went over the results. There was a silence between the group of people gathered by the merman. “Going over the results of your physical condition, you can perform complicated maneuvers without any pain or hesitation. We can release you back into the sea,” he said to the merman.

Sona, sitting at the bottom of the stairs leading to the platform, raised her head at the statement. She pursed her lips and sighed. The time has finally come. Jhin would be released within the next few days. She started listing the things they would need to send him back.

“If I may make a request…?” Jhin started.

“Oh, what would that be?”

“I…” Jhin’s eyes averted to Sona, who was too busy preparing in her head, and paused. “I would like to stay for a while longer.”

Sona’s eyes widened as her head perked up.

“Uh, I see,” the doctor said slowly. He glanced at Sona. “We will have to discuss that with Lady Buvelle first.”

“Let me know if my request can be granted then.” But he wasn’t talking to the doctor.

The doctor nervously tapped his pencil against his clipboard. “Lady Buvelle, I’m sure you’ve heard the merman’s request earlier. But what do you think of it?” He glanced back at the tank with a perplexed expression. “My knowledge on merpeople is limited, but he has no reason to remain in a tank any longer. So why?”

Sona furrowed her brows. She wasn’t sure either. Jhin shouldn’t have had any reason to stay. They both knew even he can’t be kept in such a small space forever. “I’ll try to ask him myself later. But I still plan to release him back to the sea soon.” She escorted the doctor out after some words of thanks and returned to the tank room.

As she approached the tank, Jhin swam over to the glass. “How did it go?”

“The usual, though the doctor is confused about your request.” She looked up at him. “I’m wondering, as well, why you asked if you can stay. It’s not like you plan to be domesticated to be some sort of pet.”

“First of all, it’s insulting that you would think I would choose to stay to be a source of entertainment,” he said in mock offense. “But that’s not the reason why.”

She raised a brow. “What do you mean?”

Jhin’s eyes seemed to soften. “Consider it as paying back a debt.” He sank lower towards Sona’s eye level. “You trying to help me with my compulsions and future… and I help you with your trauma, considering I am the source of it.”

Sona chuckled. “In other words, you regret it?”

“Hah, I wouldn’t say ‘regret’. Perhaps ‘pity’ is the right word.”

“Ugh, you sure know how to hit where it hurts most, don’t you?” Sona asked jokingly.

“I learned it from the best.” That earned him a pouting glare. “I have another request, actually.”

“What is it?”

“I remember you talking about the shores. Something about a private shore. I would feel much better if I am allowed to spend the rest of my time in the sea than in a tank. It would also be better for you to interact with the sea itself than something artificially made to feel like it.”

“That… is a rather big request,” she admitted.

“Not an easy one either.”

Sona gave it some thought. It would indeed be a very big move. The tank would have to be emptied, the entire household may have to put aside their tasks just to get him into the ocean, and there was that slim chance of him using this to escape or worse. She glanced at him, who remained where he was and stared at her patiently.

As if he read her mind, he asked, “Do you trust me?”

Her eyes perked up, searching for the sincerity in his question. But she didn’t need to. Her lips turned up into a genuine smile as she nodded. “I do.”

“Um, Lady Buvelle, is this safe?” Two maid struggled as they stepped down the stairs as they carried a stretcher with Jhin laid across it. Another pair of maids in the back called for the front to be careful so as not to drop him.

“I mean, this is how we transported him the first time, no?” Sona was helping them down the stairs while also assigning other tasks to the butlers and maids to take care of the tank.

“You do realize I was unconscious at the time. Not to mention, I feel ridiculous.”

“Do you have any other ideas we can transport you, then?”

“A small, merman-sized tank, perhaps?”

“.... Too heavy.”

“Excuse me?” Jhin croaked in offense.

“No talking, or you’ll run out of air,” she quickly dismissed smugly. Her smile widened when an annoyed growl sounded from his throat. “Once we release him into the ocean, please go back inside to help the others with the tank,” she instructed the maids.

“Will you be okay by yourself, my lady?” one of them asked, eyeing her knee-length dress. It was shorter than her usual long dress, so perhaps she planned to walk into the water.

“I’ll be fine.”

  The maids slowly walked into the water with Sona in front. As soon as they reached hip-deep water, they set the stretcher down and let the merman float in the water. He slowly slipped out of the stretcher and dove headfirst into the sea.

Everyone paused, waiting for the merman to resurface. In minutes, his head poked out of the water a few feet away with a pleasant sigh.

“It feels good to be in the sea again,” he said.

Sona smiled and dismissed the maids to go help the others with the tank. She stayed where she was, watching Jhin swim around Buvelle shores and occasionally surfacing to see the sky. For a situation like this, she was almost glad that the Buvelle shores were a cove, almost surrounded by a wall of rock with only one passage that leads to a small dock on the right of the beach. If someone were to come by to deliver a package, at least Jhin would be able to hide easily.

Not that it would matter. They’d need permission to enter anyways.

Jhin swam over to Sona. “Worried?”

“A little. Just unsure if I might freeze up in the water again.”

“Hm, well, how are you feeling now?”

“It’s cold.”

He rolled his eyes with a smile. “It’s the sea. Of course, it’s cold. But with the weather being so warm, a human like you should adapt eventually.” He extended his hand out of the water. “Give it a try?”

After a deep breath, Sona took his hand and let him guide her deeper into the water. She gulped when the water rose up to her waist. So far, so good, just a little nervous. She could feel each step get deeper and plush faster now that the sand was sloping.

Then, they stopped.

“Sona?”

Sona realized she was shutting her eyes as they were walking in. Her eyes fluttered open, and there was Jhin. The water was now up to her shoulders, and each wave carried her off the ocean floor for a few seconds.

“I’m not going to panic. I promise.”

“If you don’t want to keep going, we can go back to the shore.”

“Thanks, but it won’t be necessary,” she reassured. She took another breath and allowed herself to float, letting her body surface and drift with the gentle waves. “It’s nice, being able to do something like this.”

Jhin stayed close to her, making sure she doesn’t drift too far from where they were.

“Where are you staying when it’s nighttime? Surely, you sleep too, don’t you?” Sona asked while she stayed afloat on the ocean waves, her eyes closed to focus on the movement of the sea. Jhin kept her from drifting too far by leaning against her body in the water. He kept his back turned to her as they continued conversation.

“Yes, but it’s just like almost any predatory fish out there. Part of me is still awake so that I don’t go into unknown territory or drift too far. I stay closer to the rocks since it’s a cove.”

“Hmm,” she hummed in satisfaction at his answer. She opened her eyes and looked over at Jhin, who stared at the sky. She positioned herself so that she now floated upright in the water. She looked at the back of Jhin’s head, his flesh-colored mask with a dark, dull purple coloration framing his face. In curiosity, she smacked her hand on top of his head. It felt weirdly slimy, unlike how it looked.

Jhin flinched, wheeling around to see Sona’s surprised and amused face. “What was that for?”

“Sorry, I… had this urge to feel it,” she said with slight shame in her tone. “You mentioned that it was a mask, right?”

He stayed silent for a moment. “It’s a mask I used for, well, killing and… a bit for myself. I loathed how I looked, so I tried to use the mask to look more suitable to who I was. But even then…” he paused, “I would hate it.”

Sona swam closer to Jhin, placing her hand on his cheek under his eyes. His blue eyes stood out from the mask, and upon closer inspection, there was a space between his eyes and the eyeholes of the mask. She traced the purple coloration of his mask down to the slits of the mouth.

“Can I see?”

His eyes looked into hers, and she could see the concern swirling in the blue. She was about to reassure that he doesn’t have to, but he held out his claw. “I don’t see the harm in doing so.” He dug his thumb under the lining of his mask and pulled up, slowly revealing his true skin underneath. Wet, black hair spilled out and clung to his face as he completely pulled the mask off his head.

His face was like any other human’s. He had no features that resembled a monster like his mask did. He looked like… a normal human. She reached out to touch his skin, her fingertips just barely brushing against his cheekbones. Her fingers traced the dark purple scales that framed his face. They felt smooth, almost like leather, but she could each individual line and texture in another direction. He even had ears that resembled small fins, unlike human ears.

“Not what you expected, is it?” he asked.

Sona shook her head with a smile. “Not really. But I think you look perfectly fine as you are.”

“Would you like to try submerging again today? You did well last time.” Jhin extended his claws out to Sona once they reached the deeper end of the cove.

“Are you sure? This is a little deeper than before…” she said worriedly. Last time, Sona had tried to hold her breath underwater when she could barely stand on the tips of her toes. But this time, she was floating about three feet above the slope. Plenty of distance away that she couldn’t reach and ground herself with her toes.

Jhin smiled reassuringly. “Remember I’ll be with you. I’ll go underwater with you on the count of three?” he suggested.

Sona gulped, but she nodded. She placed her hands in his claws and took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m ready.” On three, the two submerged. With her eyes closed, she couldn’t anything other than the water and Jhin’s claws gently wrapping around hers. Seconds passed, and she tried to squint her eyes open.

It was blurry underwater, and the water stung her eyes, of course. But in the blue, she could make out Jhin’s figure in the water. He was staring up at her from below to help her sink deeper into the water. Without his mask, she could almost see the encouragement in his face. His black and gray scales shimmered purple in the light, his golden tail even brighter. But the brightest of all were his eyes. It almost seemed to glow even in the midst of all this blue. The same eyes she saw in the distance that night in the ship.

Having forgotten how long she was holding her breath, she released a stream of bubbles from the lack of air. She kicked her legs to swim up, but there was no ground to get a boost. She felt Jhin's claws release her hands, grab her by the torso, and take her back up to the surface.

“Humans can be rather unpredictable,” he said. “I think this is your longest record of holding your breath underwater without being overtaken by your fear.”

Sona laughed when she realized: “I didn't even have the time to think about it.”

Recently, Jhin had stopped wearing his mask altogether since a few days ago. Though he had trouble maintaining eye contact and would wear his mask again for a while, he began feeling a little more confident in showing his face to Sona. Had it been anyone else, he’d feel less inclined to show it.

He explored the bottom of the cove, not hesitating to swipe a fish for food if one was nearby. Shells, sea stars, fish, and many other colorful creatures littered the floor. He never frequented the bottom of the ocean near the shores in his current age, nor did he like diving too far into the dark depths either. That was where the more frightening monsters lie, and where merpeople go to lose their sanity forever.

“Hm?”

He spotted small schools of fish swimming around a fissure in the cove, several different fish even going in and out of it. He swam towards it in curiosity without mind of the fish that evaded his presence. The fissure went quite deep inside and tall enough for anyone his size to swim through.

“How peculiar.”

  Later that afternoon, Sona went for a swim, despite Jhin’s absence today. She felt more and more comfortable swimming in the sea by herself now, though it was more enjoyable having someone else accompany her. The waves looked calmer than usual, so perhaps she could take it easy for today.

She swam off the sandy slope and headed towards the deeper side of the water. There was no sign of Jhin swimming around or underwater. Perhaps he went off to explore farther out the cove, though she hoped he would stay away from any peering eyes.

Drifting along with the waves, Sona reached out to the sky as if she could touch the clouds peeking out of the space between the cliffs.

Then, she heard the familiar sound of something moving in the water. She looked to her right to see Jhin watching her from nearby. Suddenly self-conscious, she scrambled upright in the water, her ears red and hot. “How long were you watching?”

Jhin’s head perked up, averting his gaze to the side. “Sorry, you just seemed really peaceful. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

She covered her ears to cool them down as she asked, “D-did you need anything?”

“Actually,” he started, swimming over to Sona, “there was something interesting I found inside the rocks: a cave. You can only get in through a fissure underwater though.”

Sona nodded slowly. “Is it possible for me to swim into it?”

He shook his head. “It’s too deep below for you to swim to it by yourself. The only you can get in…” he paused mid-sentence in hesitance, “... is if I take you there.” He watched her think, taking her fear and trauma into account. “I understand if you don’t—”

“If you’re okay with it, then you can take me there.” She smiled. “Besides, I think I’m doing well with handling my fear now.”

“In that case,” Jhin said as he extended his arm out to her. “Shall we get going?”

With a nod, she let Jhin wrap his arm around her waist and take her under. She held her breath as she felt the current rush past her. The water pressure gradually increased as they went deeper underwater, and the sounds of movement became muffled.

And for a moment, she thought she could hear voices calling out to her in the water.

Sona. Sona.

Help us, Sona.

Sona. Save us.

Sona. Sona.

No.

They were simply phantoms. Just remnants of the fear she worked to overcome.

She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t going to panic. Wanting to prove it to herself, she opened her eyes despite the salty seawater stinging them.

There was no darkness. There was light. Bits of blue and sea green lights lit the water like clusters of stars in the night sky. The lights swirled with the force of their surfacing bodies, just like the gentle brush strokes of a painting.

Beautiful , she thought until she finally surfaced for breath. She took a few breaths to reorient herself in this new environment. The cave was bright with blue light, and she wondered if the cave had openings to the outside. She couldn’t see properly from the seawater blurring her vision.

Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the cave, she saw that it wasn’t sunlight lighting the cave or the water. Bioluminescent plankton and algae glowed like beautiful stars of blue and green within the water. Her every movement made them twinkle. At the far end of the cave, sunlight shone through holes in the rocky ceiling.

“Are you alright?” Jhin’s voice sounded from beside her. “Can you breathe properly?”

Turning to Jhin, Sona saw his face underlit by the light, the blues of his eyes almost glowing. She could see the subtle features of his face that she wouldn’t see in broad daylight. She huffed in laughter. “Yes, I’m fine. This is such a gorgeous cave, though. Just how did you find this?”

Jhin guided her to the rocky floor, where she pushed herself up onto the ground and sat on the edge. He looked up at her smiling face lit by the glowing water. He could almost see little bits of sea green in her eyes as they gazed across the water. Blues and greens suit her , he thought. “I was exploring the cove, and I happened to see a fissure in the rocks that fish were coming out of. I figured I could take a look inside.”

“Well, I never knew about this little hidden spot. It’s almost like a cave full of treasure.” She narrowed her eyes at the ceiling and spotted minuscule pieces of glowing rocks embedded in each pillar and crack of the cave. She felt at peace here, with no one and nothing to bother her. “Hey.”

“Hm? What is it?”

“Can we come here again? Tomorrow?”

He chuckled at the captivation in her smile. “Whenever you’d like.”

Sona usually brought a towel with her to the cave to give herself a cushion when she sat by the rocks. She spent most of her day in the cave to have some peace and quiet, though they’d sometimes be outside for a change of pace.

Today was just another long day of paperwork, scheduling, and giving two Demacian nobles an audience only to see the disappointment in their eyes upon seeing Jhin’s absence in the tank room. At this time, she was glad she made the decision to show the Crownguards. And now word would spread that she no longer had a merman in her manor, and no one would dig into the situation any deeper.

It’s just what she wanted.

“I heard you speaking with those nobles by the balcony before you came here.”

“You could hear them?” she asked in disbelief.

“They were rather loud. I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation while you were gone too.” He sighed in slight annoyance. “I suppose it was a good thing to confirm my existence so you wouldn’t come off as a liar.” His brows furrowed in irritation. “They were saying something about that.”

Sona tilted her head. “Did they really call me a liar?”

Jhin pursed his lips. “Not exactly… Something along the lines of “she must not have been lying about the merman” or something of that sort.” His eyelids lowered as his brows furrowed further. “Despicable that they would dare imply that.”

She smiled, a little grateful that he was angry for her. “Thank you, Jhin. I appreciate the sentiment.”  She saw his eyes dart to her before averting their gaze immediately. Suddenly, she remembered something back when she talked to Jhin for the first time. “Say, I just realized that you could understand Demacian. I thought you could only speak Ionian.”

Jhin thought for a moment. “Show me your hand.” He gingerly took Sona’s extended hand in his and stared as if examining it. His claw touched the dips between her fingers. “Haven’t you ever wondered why humans can swim as well as they can? Why they look a little webbed?”

Sona didn’t say a word, waiting for him to continue.

“There are myths among my people. Stories of merpeople who turned to humans and moved on to live on the land. Their tails, which they once used to swim, became two legs able to walk on the earth. They wanted to become humans for different reasons: curiosity, wanderlust, elopement, rarely vengeance, or,” he paused as he traced his thumb across her palm, “to be with a loved one who was human.”

Her hand fit snugly in his like a puzzle piece. He could feel the calluses and her tough skin from plucking her etwahl. Upon closer look, he could still see scars at the tips of her fingers from the ship. Something within him stirred painfully.

“It’s believed that humans evolved from merpeople. It’s why they have slightly webbed hands.” He wrapped his fingers around the tips of her fingers. “It’s why we can understand your languages, because they were derived from our people by our people. Of course, after centuries and centuries, those languages slowly became their own. But their roots haven’t changed.”

He inaudibly gasped when he realized he almost brought her hand to his face. Distancing himself away, he averted his gaze back to her. She was staring at him with wide eyes, her face brimming with interest and curiosity.

In that moment, he started to wonder…

Just when did he fall so deep?

“I’ve been thinking…” Jhin trailed off as he relaxed his head into his folded arms on the ground.

“About?”

“About how many of these kinds of hidden caves exist out there all over the world. Each of them made out of their own special materials. The journey of chasing and discovering treasures that humans generally can’t get to. It sounds fascinating.”

Sona put a finger to her lips in thought. “That would take a long time, wouldn’t it? I mean, you just got lucky that there happens to be a glowing cave right by my manor.”

“That’s why it makes the journey all the more worth it, no?”

She laughed with a nod. “Yes, it makes sense.” She then frowned again. “Do you plan to just take a look and go back to the surface, just like that? Though, then again, there’s nothing you can use to record something that can last underwater.”

“I was thinking of taking a sample of my discoveries to remind me of where I’ve been.” His tail slightly splashed the water when he thought of something. “Hm, maybe create a map of where I’ve been and record my discoveries on it. I’d have to hide them somewhere no one can find while I’m searching.”

“Oh! That sounds like a nice idea.” She grinned as her hand waded across the water. “Maybe you can take me to one of your discoveries someday, given I’ll survive the dive.” Jhin didn’t respond. How odd that he didn’t even reply sarcastically.

His arms hid most of his face, but Jhin’s eyes softened at the thought. Taking her to one of his discoveries, huh? He closed his eyes and smiled against his skin, thinking how wonderful that would be. He couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s nothing. I was imagining nonsensical things.”

Sona tilted her head, pouting at the answer. Her expression then changed in annoyance. “Ah! You better not have been thinking of me trying to swim after you”

The imagery made Jhin stop and burst into laughter. “I wasn’t, but what an interesting thought!”

Sona’s jaw dropped in offense and crossed her arms. “Ugh, you bastard…”

Jhin continued to chuckle as he shifted his arms to lean his head against one. He gazed at the irritated maven with a loving smile. Her lips puckered into a small pout then pursed into a thin line. When she returned his gaze, he immediately averted his eyes to the pillars of glowing rocks.

She didn’t have to know. It would be better that way.

The water was calm and serene. Sona could feel herself sinking deeper and deeper into the depths. On instinct, she opened her eyes to see how far she was from the surface. Bubbles rose for what felt like forever. But she felt no fear. Only peace.

She didn’t want to swim back up to the surface. Being embraced by the sea was almost comforting now.

Just as she closed her eyes, she felt blades of kelp reach out from the dark and wrap around her torso. However, it didn’t do anything to sink her any faster or further. They simply kept themselves wrapped around her like a blanket.

No, not like a blanket. They felt like… a pair of arms. A familiar pair of arms. The feeling grew more and more warm and comforting when she caressed the claws that gently pressed around her waist. She wanted to stay like this for a while.

But then the feeling disappeared like sea foam, and Sona found herself in the water of the cave. All around her were lights of blue and green, but nothing was blurry. Everything was clear. The lights danced before her eyes.

She then saw the same familiar shadow swim through the water above her. It passed her once, twice. Then it descended below towards Sona with the arms extended out. In response, she reached out with her own to let them take her into a warm embrace.

“Ha…” Sona gasped as her eyes snapped open to the top of her canopy. It was a dream. She pulled her covers over her head and curled up inside. She cupped her face, which became red and hot in wake of her dream. Her mind and heartbeat raced as she realized…

She had fallen too deep.

“I found one!” Sona exclaimed as she burst out of the water with a shell in her hand. It had a slight pink hue and an iridescent sheen. However, it had already cracked and chipped off in several places that it wouldn’t be useful to contain any life. She swam towards Jhin while preoccupied with pulling off round goggles away from her eyes.

“Oh good, I found an interesting stone as well.”

Jhin held out a pouch for Sona to deposit the shell. Inside were pieces of sea-weathered glass, shells, pebbles, and even fish scales they collected from the ocean floor. He watched her eyes gloss over the pouch contents with satisfaction. He was sure that if Sona could have had a voice, she would’ve been humming a happy tune.

“So, hm, why did you want to collect things today?” he asked.

“Well, I…” Sona trailed off as if deciding how to word her answer. “Let’s just say I’ve taken an interest in crafting something.”

Jhin hummed in curiosity. “Something to use for your next concert?”

Sona smiled as she pressed the bag closer to her. “That’s a secret.”

“You, a noblewoman of Demacia? Keeping secrets? Scandalous.” He even gasped for dramatic effect. His comment was met with a splash of water. He chuckled at her smug face.

  That night, Sona dumped the contents of the pouch next to jewelry tools on her desk. There were bits and pieces of pink, green, blue, and purple among the collection. She sorted out the pieces that she wanted to use and didn’t need to use and got to work.

This was certainly going to take her days to finish, given her crafting skills weren’t the best. But she didn’t mind.

By the time she went to sleep, her fingers were covered in scratches and bandages. She took note of the pieces that broke and need a replacement. She should try to find them again in the morning.

  Sona winced when her fingers stung in the water. There were cuts all over them after all, of course it would hurt. But she needed to find replacements for the pieces that broke into an unusable state. Surely the pain will dull the longer she stayed in the water.

“Just what are you doing that your hand is in such a state?” Jhin took her hand and examined it closely. “You have cuts everywhere.”

“I’m fine, Jhin. This is the result of what I’m trying to make.”

Jhin couldn’t help but smile grimacingly. “You’re not very good at crafting, are you?”

“Rude. I did say I took an interest to it. That doesn’t mean I will be the best at it in one night.” She huffed and put her goggles on her eyes and dove into the water. Her pouch stayed tied around her waist, made sure to remain closed while she was searching.

This time, Jhin joined her below and swam beside her while she was looking around. Of course, if she became desperate for breath, he’d immediately take her back up to let her catch her breath before going back down. He wanted to ask what she was making that she was so diligent in her searching, but he knew the answer.

Sona reached for a shell that stuck out of the sand and wrapped her hands around it to pull it out. She felt a painful sting in her hand and jerked it back. Swimming back up to the surface, she caught her breath while sucking on the fresh cuts from the shell. The pain sent her into a fit of Demacian and Ionian curses that Jhin laughed at.

“That’s not very graceful of you.”

“It nearly tore my hand open. I deserve to curse as loud as I want.”

“Well, on that note, I did happen to pick up that same shell as you swam back up.” He held it up for her in the light. “Though, I’m not sure if you want the very shell that has slighted you,” he said dramatically.

“Haha, very funny.” Despite the stinging pain, Sona reached for the pouch and pulled it out of the water for Jhin to put the shell in. “It’s a beautiful shell. I’m glad I found it. Now I need to find something for the centerpiece.”

“Hm, what about this one?” Jhin opened his claws to reveal several other pieces he picked up in that short time period. His nails sorted through the piece to isolate a green stone among them. It shined like the ocean itself was contained inside.

“Wow…” She picked up the stone and held it up in the light. The stone seemed to dance like the waves in the sea. “It’s exactly what I needed.”

Strands of her bangs stuck to her face messily despite her having combed her hair back when she came out of the water. The stone reflected its colors into her own sea-colored eyes, almost looking full of life. Her rosy lips curled into an excited smile and then pulled back into a grin when she placed it into the pouch. She noticed Jhin staring at her and felt her ears turn a little hot. “Is something wrong?”

Would it be okay, he wondered. “Nothing, it’s just…” He brushed aside the strands of hair that stuck dangerously close under her eye and tucked it behind her red ears.

Their eyes met. Jhin’s claw lingered on Sona’s cheek. How he wanted to caress her cheek, to trace his finger around her eyes down to her soft lips. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He didn’t want to impose on her any more than he had already. He felt a pang of fear, just a little afraid that she would push him away.

His touch felt inviting. She almost wished his hand would stay where it was, just so she can bring up her own hand and hold it against her skin. But she couldn’t bring herself to. She couldn’t bear the thought of scaring him away when they’ve become so close. She didn’t want him to push her away.

Jhin lifted his hand and hesitantly submerged it underwater. “There we go. Your hair was, was close to your eye.”

Sona felt herself shrinking in embarrassment—especially after that dream—as she tucked strands behind her other ear. “I, um, thank you.”

The two fell silent, averting their gaze from each other and finding anything else to set their eyes on instead. An awkward silence passed. It felt heavy, weighing on their already-heavy hearts filled with the feeling of wanting to hold the other in their arms.

[gapiju]

Khada Jhin? More like Cuttle Jhin

Well. Glad that’s out of my system.

Based very very very loosely on @rosywrites ’s jhinsona mermaid au,, you can read the fic -> Beyond The Depths

Spoiler,, Jhin doesn’t look like that

[rosywrites]

I still hate you for making me look at this with my own two eyes--