My attempt to be organized. Here's to hoping it sticks. I'll update as I post stories/chapters. Ask box is open if anyone has requests (for fics or art). Enjoy!
Rating: Explicit (violence, drug use, eventual smut)
Summary:
(Serves as a prequel to the Arcane: League of Legends series on Netflix)
Silco cares about two things: the burgeoning revolution he and his brothers and sisters in arms are coaxing to life, and making sure his sickly mother lives long enough to see the Undercity freed from the heel of Piltover.
All Katya Slostov cares about is keeping her brother, Viktor, alive. A tall order considering his bent skeleton and chronic illnesses.
Priorities clash and feelings conflict when Katya is pulled into the Children of Zaun's orbit and Silco grapples with the fact that there is another thing - another person - to care about.
Warnings: Canon typical violence, drug use/dealing, dark themes
Rating: Teen, SFW, canon typical violence, some language
Summary: You've been Silco's loyal assistant for a long time. Too long, perhaps, because you find yourself catching feelings. Feelings intense enough to bash a dude's face in.
Hello! This is a prompt week I'm running in the Silco Discord server I mod, and I want to open it to Tumblr too. As complicated as their relationship was, I believe Silco wasn't a perfect father but he tried his hardest to be a good dad for Jinx and I want to celebrate that. Season 2 didn't give us the girldad!SIlco content we deserved, so I'm taking it into my own hands, and I hope you will as well!
Some guidelines:
Each day has 3 prompts for inspiration. You don't have to use all of them, and are free to interpret them as loosely or as strictly as you please. Make it fluffy, make it whumpy, make it wholesome, make it angsty, make it anything you want.
Participants can create a different piece for each day, combine days, or make a single creation that includes at least one prompt from each day. You can post your art/fic/creation on the latest day of whichever prompts you're combining. You do not need to make something for every day to participate.
The goal of this week is to stimulate your creativity, not stress you out, so please don't feel rushed if something's not finished in time for the posting day. You can share it when it's ready.
You are free to imagine Silco as a parent to additional canon character(s) [I see you Viktor+Jinx siblings AUs].
All Silco ships are welcome to fulfill any of the prompts.
Posting dates for the prompts will be between Sunday, Aug 16th and Saturday, Aug 22nd.
Aug 16th: inside jokes / pranks / questionable humor
Aug 17th: hair routines / bad hair day / self care
Aug 18th: personal spaces / blending of spaces / self-expression
Aug 19th: "Shark week" / puberty / cleanliness
Aug 20th: relationships / getting caught / jealousy
Aug 21st: medicine / illness / injury
Aug 22nd: overprotective / codependency / boundaries (or lack thereof)
I'll be following the tag #girldadsilcoweek, if you create something based on any of these prompts I'd love to see it!
General Story Warnings: Canon typical violence, police brutality, dark themes, smut
Chapter Summary: Silco navigates life without Enyd. Rynweaver makes Katya an offer he's certain she won't refuse.
Author's Note: The concept of grief Katya talks about early on in this chapter is not my own. The room-button-and-ball analogy is well-known in the hospice community, and is one of the most helpful ways of explaining grief I've ever experienced. If you're not familiar, I hope it helps you, too.
CW: death, loss of a parent, active grieving, inferred sex, assault, violence against women, torture
Word Count: 6.2k
Previous Chapter
Death was pervasive in the Zaun. Silco knew this, but to now have experienced it so close illuminated how shallow his knowledge had been. He’d known it in his head; now he knew it in his body. And it was excruciating. How Kat or anyone else dealt with this pain was beyond him.
He did not know why, despite having months to mentally prepare for his mother’s passing, it hurt so much. Why it still felt like a gut punch every second of every day. Everything felt wrong. Air, food, drinking, breathing, their - his - apartment; nothing was as it was supposed to be. And he felt raw in the wrongness of it all. Helpless. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Zaun was supposed to be free and she was supposed to be alive. At the very least, alive long enough to see it. To know it. To have it be the last feeling before death ushered her into the ether.He remembered her words from the night she died. As sweet as the sentiments had been, Silco was still dissatisfied, still disappointed in himself that he’d let her down. He’d promised her Zaun, and he had failed. And he hated himself for it.
He hated her for dying (which he also hated himself for.)
He hated Piltover for killing her.
He hated Rynweaver for everything.
Anger was the only balm he could find within himself. It was a comfort; anger was familiar. He’d been angry since before he could remember. Angry at the foremen for making him wield a pickaxe when it was too heavy for his young arms. Angry at enforcers’ blatant cruelty. Angry at Council for their unchecked power. Angry at how unfair it all was. Angry that so many tried to convince him that change was futile.
It was a fire within him, anger. A fuel that kept him motivated and alive. He had fanned the flames and transmuted it into the Children of Zaun. His mother’s death nearly smothered it; but there were still embers, and they sparked to life when the pain of unfairness scratched too deep. Anger cauterized the pulpy, fresh wound loss left.
Vander and Kat kept the scar tissue from hardening irreparably.
Vander helped Silco keep the Children’s morale up. He kept Enyd present by quietly sharing memories with Silco late into the evening after the Drop had closed and it was just them, cigarette butts, and two mugs of watered down ale. He tried baking bread, sinking his bruised, thick-knuckled hands into a spongy web of dough. Even though the finished product was misshapen and the texture was off, Silco appreciated it all the same.
Kat was a soft place to land. Her touch buffed out the sharp edges of his rage; her voice tempered the searing heat in his chest. Her presence did not leave him toothless, though. It grounded him, kept his feet in his boots and anger focused.
Even when the loss of Enyd was the sharpest, Silco was immeasurably grateful for the friends at his side, keeping him on track.
“How long,” he asked one night, some days later, “did it take for your father’s death not to feel so . . . painful?”
Kat inhaled deeply, thoughtfully, fingers gently scraping through his untied hair. She released the breath in a slow, steady stream. Silco’s head, resting on her chest, lowered with her deflating lungs.
“It is not so much that grief becomes less painful,” she finally said. “Time creates space around the hurt. It is like I am in a room with a button, and every time the button is pushed the pain, the disbelief, the sadness comes on. In the early days, the room was so small; I could not move without accidentally pressing that button. Everything I did made me think of papa, made me miss him.
“As time went on, the room got bigger. I could move around without always hitting the button. But it still gets pressed sometimes, no matter how much space I have. Little things like someone smoking his brand of tobacco, coming across an annotation he made in one of his books, when Viktor frowns just like he did will set it off.”
Kat paused, adjusting herself against the mattress. Silco stayed glued to her front, long arms wound tightly about her middle. He blinked, and a tear that had been quivering on his lashline trickled over the bridge of his nose and seeped into her shirt. She sighed, willing the bind in her throat to loosen.
“It does not get less painful,” she whispered. “Time just gives you more space.”
Time slipped by, and the pair continued to lay on his bed in silence. Eventually, sleep found them.
The following day was the warmest of the season thus far. Summer heat rippled on the horizon. Breezes like warm breath wafted through the streets of Piltover, and down into the cracks of Zaun. When Silco and Kat awoke it was to a stuffy room, their bodies dewy in a light sheen of sweat. They peeled themselves apart and ducked into the shower.
Perhaps it was a desire to slough off the heaviness from the previous night and long days before, but washing became an after thought as their bodies came together. Under the showerhead, against the slick tiled wall they let themselves indulge in the present pleasure of the body, and temporarily released the perseverating ache of the mind and heart. To be with something, someone that was warm and alive and there.When they were dazed and boneless, Silco felt Kat’s lips move against his shoulder. He didn’t know if she’d spoken, or if they were just kisses. He was too aware of the fact that his shoulders felt lighter than they had the past several days. His heart still felt bruised, but beating did not feel impossible. Silco guided Kat’s face out of the shelter of his neck and kissed her tenderly. Lovingly. Gratefully. The water began to run cold, and on lighter feet they climbed out of the tub.
Kat decided to keep her coat at Silco’s apartment when they left for the mine. Their conversation from the night before had left her feeling maudlin, and she wished she could’ve worn it. But the day’s warmth didn’t lend itself to the garment. She would look suspicious traveling through checkpoints wrapped up in it while people around her sweated. So, she left it behind. But with Silco’s hand in her own, there was more space around the pain of loss.
The lift’s door nearly clattered into Kat as she pushed her way out of the cramped elevator. She released Silco’s hand at the last moment. A couple of the Children also in the lift made kissing sounds that were followed by a ripple of giggles. Surprisingly, Silco just rolled his eyes and shook his head as the lift jerked, and restarted its descent. He held Kat’s gaze, expression soft and fond, as he lowered from sight. Heart feeling heavy yet full, Kat slowly made her way down the craggy passageway to the clinic.
She rounded the bend and stopped, confused. The clinic’s lights were on. Surely Will had not stayed late again to give her another earful. After the last time a little over a week ago, she’d been wholly grateful that their shifts no longer overlapped. The interaction had left her feeling queasy and agitated; that feeling returned now. A petty part of her thought it might be nice to just throw up on Will’s shoes if he tried shaming her again. Steeling herself, Kat pressed forward.
Any hot, righteous certainty she felt went ice cold when the door swung open and revealed the clinic’s interior. Will wasn’t there, but Rynweaver was, seated casually on the desk’s edge. Two large, wild looking men dressed in patchworks of worn leather and metal scraps stood off to the side. Mercenaries of some kind. They eyed her with sadistic interest.
While her insides had turned watery, Kat had enough survival instincts to keep her face passive, if a little lost. She looked from man to man, before her attention went solely to Rynweaver. There was a manila folder in his hands.
“Hello, sir. Is everything alright? What is going on?”
Rynweaver cocked his head and sat up straighter. He gently waved the folder. “Some very interesting information has been brought to my attention. Please, come in, Miss Slostov. Close the door behind you.”
Kat’s expression remained open, but her body locked up in fear. A voice in her head screamed at her to run, but there was nowhere to go. The stretch of tunnel behind her was long, and either went deeper into the terra or back to the elevator; which would not ascend in time for her to escape. Her heart battered against her ribs as she stepped inside and closed the clinic door. Her eyes flicked to the pair of mercenaries warily.
“How can I help you, sir?”
“A few days ago, I received a distressing memo alleging that you, for the past few years, have been stealing clinic supplies.”
Kat’s stomach soured. The inside of her mouth went dry. She was sure she’d gone pale, but still tried to keep her face neutral, tried to keep the shake out of her fingers. A small seed of anger and disbelief towards Will sprouted in her chest. She couldn’t believe he’d betrayed her. How else would Rynweaver know?
“Sir –?”
Rynweaver stood. “Come. Have a look.”
It took a second before Kat’s legs worked. In a couple jerky steps, she went over to the desk where he laid the folder open. She peered down at the papers. They were old order forms, her signature scrawled at the bottom. Rynweaver leaned over and flipped through the pages. Inventory lists were revealed. Again, her signature in their bottom margins. Then there were metric sheets that had been compiled with dates, orders, clinic visits, and reported inventory numbers. Suspicious order timeframes, supply numbers, and patient visits had been highlighted.
Kat fought to stay upright. Her thoughts spiraled around trying to come up with an explanation. But all she could think about was Viktor.
Viktor Viktor Viktor
“Sir, I do not know –”
Rynweaver tutted, and shook his head. “Let’s not do that, Miss Slostov. Between lining up all this information, speaking with Will and hearing about your discussion with him, as well as your exploits, I am not interested in hearing excuses.”
He looked down at her, his expression too relaxed and confident. A cat who had a mouse by their tail. Kat stared back at him. The lies fighting to concretize themselves in her head crumbled.
“I –”
“Will told me that you and your father conspired this plan to pay for your brother’s tuition balance. That this all started before the Children of Zaun.”
Kat’s throat clicked. Her eyes flicked to the two men watching them idly before dipping her chin slightly. Should she beg?
Viktor Viktor Viktor
Sighing, Rynweaver settled his hips casually against the desk again and crossed his arms over his chest. His flippant energy made Kat’s skin crawl. It made her stomach curdle.
“Under regular circumstances, I would just have your arrested and charged for theft. But these are not regular circumstances. Hence why I have not gone to the Sheriff. Yet.”
He pinned her in place with those nearly black eyes, and a new sort of dread trickled into Kat’s veins.
“Will led me to believe that you have direct access and knowledge of the Children.” Kat did not blink. Even if she denied it, he wouldn’t believe it. “That being the case, I have a proposition for you.”
Kat’s tongue glued itself to the roof of her mouth.
Viktor Viktor Viktor
“If you tell me everything you know about them - who else is involved, where their nests are, what their plans are - all of this -” he gestured to the open file “- will go away and be forgotten.”
He paused, watching her closely. A terrible glee danced in the low light of his eyes. Kat stared back, everything feeling too close and too far away all at once. She wished, despite the weather, that she’d worn her father’s coat. For the comfort - and for the pistol she kept in one of the pockets. Maybe she would’ve been able to shoot all three. Ideally kill them, but at least wound them enough to make an escape. Her heart thudded painfully when he spoke again.
“And I will personally fund the rest of Viktor’s education. Full room and board for the rest of his years at the Academy. If he wishes to study beyond that - perhaps at the libraries in Demecia - I will foot the bills for that, too.”
Kat’s knees nearly buckled.
Viktor Viktor Viktor
“What is more,” he continued, “I am fully prepared to bring you both into Piltover. Permanently. I will financially provide until you get on your feet. Unless, of course, you also wish to study; in which case, I will also finance your education. It is clear that your brother is not the only one with a sharp mind.”
He once again gestured loosely to the papers. Kat was no longer able to keep the shock from showing on her face. She felt numb. Rynweaver was prepared to hand her everything she and papa had ever wanted for Viktor. Viktor Viktor Viktor. He was offering her the same.
“I’d like to become a doctor, I think.”
She and Viktor would only be separated by class schedules, not a river and metric tons of terra. He wouldn’t be alone. Viktor would follow her if she accepted, she knew. Follow her in the way a child would when their caregiver did a sudden aboutface on all their values: curious but plaintive. He wouldn’t ask too much about it, what their good fortune had cost, too afraid to look a gifthorse in the mouth. Despite never asking, he’d know. He’d see it in the vacancy of her eyes, the dullness of her spirit. He’d know she’d sold her soul for their freedom. Theirs and no one else’s. And even if he’d never tell her, she knew that he would grow to resent her for it. For swallowing their oppressor’s sweet poison after everything they’d done to the Undercity. To them.
“What say you, Miss Slostov?”
Kat jerked back into the cold light of the clinic, blinking. The stupid glimmers of disbelieving hope fluttering in her chest began to sink. Disgust pulled them down. Disgust at herself for entertaining anything this man offered, regardless of how it may benefit her and her brother. This man and his family had abused her people for years without batting an eye. Cruelty was the bedrock of his power and privilege, and he gave no signs that he at all regretted it. Twisty worms of loathing writhed up Kat’s legs, up her intobelly, through her ribs. Eating at her as if she were an apple.
With more confidence than she had in the last several moments, Kat looked Rynweaver square in the face and the hate intensified. She saw Silco there, obviously. It was as if Rynweaver’s nose had been cast in plaster and molded to her lover’s face. She hated the feature on Rynweaver’s too-broad face. She hated him for the angst he caused Silco. Caused Enyd. Her fists curled. She hated him for dangling her brother in front of her like a prize. She despised him and his entitlement for thinking she could be bought like he could.
“No.”
Kat relished the way surprise briefly shuttered over Rynweaver’s face, shocked that anyone would decline. The emotion was quickly blanketed by his usual dark, blasé countenance. A gloved hand delicately flourished in the direction of the two rough strangers.
They moved, and so did Kat.
She knew it was futile, but the combination of survival instincts and the hope she’d been fostering for nearly a year catapulted her toward the clinic door. She did manage to wrench it open and get a few strides down the tunnel before one of the wildmen barreled into her back, pinning her to the ground. The crash punched the air out her chest, and her diaphragm seized with the impact and weight crushing her. Her face had smacked into the rock, skull thrumming with sharp vibration.
Regardless, the message her mind was screaming was still clear: RUN RUN RUN!
Kat’s limbs scrabbled madly beneath the merc’s solid weight, fingernails biting the ground, heels digging into his desensitized muscle. She was a lifelong Trencher, but her scrappiness could not compete with someone whose whole job was hunting people. Without so much as grunting, the merc wrangled her arms behind her back, and held her wrists together with one hand. Kat hissed at him and feebly kicked her heels against the small of his back. Wordlessly, his other fist landed two solid punches to the spot just below the right side of her ribcage. She cried out, and tried to tug her hands from his hold. Behind them, two sets of feet scraped against the dusty stone floor.
“Get her up,” Rynweaver said. “Restrain her, but keep her able to walk. We’ll be taking her to the cathedral.”
Everyone looked up when the bell toned. Drills wound down, pickaxes sagged in the hands that held them. The child slipper assigned to unit 90 paused in counting the crates of dynamite he’d carted into the tunnel for detonation later that week. Silco looked up at the speaker bolted into the wall, befuddled. He looked over to Sevika, who glanced suspiciously back.
“Maybe someone knocked into –”
The bell sounded again, followed by the crackle that preceded a voice. Everyone in the tunnel stood up straighter.
“Please proceed to the cathedral for an announcement. Repeat: Please proceed to the cathedral for an announcement.”
Silco frowned. A wave of uneasiness rolled through him, the hair on the back of his neck rising. The miners around him began grumbling, but began shuffling toward the tunnel’s opening. Sevika appeared at his side.
“What do you think this is about?”
“Nothing good.”
Kat’s knees wobbled horribly as she stood on the raised stage in the center of the mine’s main cathedral. Fear was choking out any sense of righteousness she’d felt in the clinic. Rynweaver’s mercenaries flanked her, each gripping her arms with tourniquet-like strength. Her blood pumped furiously beneath their palms. Rynweaver stood off to the side, patiently waiting for the massive room to fill up.
When they’d arrived, he’d knocked on the door of the head foreman’s trailer and ordered him to call the employees to the space. The foreman quizzically looked over Rynweaver’s shoulder at the strangely dressed, formidable men and Kat, and nodded, slurring a yessir through the stubs of his teeth. Then Rynweaver ordered the men to take Kat to the stage. As they frogmarched her there, more hulking, dark clad figures emerged from the shadows, and placed themselves around the stage’s perimeter. Had they been there all along? Or had Rynweaver hired them out just for today? Just for this demonstration?
Miners began to trickle in from the many stretches of tunnels that branched out from the cathedral, like the winding, knotted legs of some terrible spider. Kat fought to get a hold of her breath and to pull back the tears stinging the corners of her eyes. She scoured the faces that poured in, desperate to find Silco or Sevika among them.
The first thing Silco noticed when finally entering the cathedral were the Not-Enforcers. Muscled men dressed in mish-moshes of travel-worn clothing; their belts laden with knives, their arms cradling firearms like fussy babies. He was not surprised that Rynweaver would hire-out his own security for the mine. He was perplexed by the sudden timing. Why now? His gaze tracked each burly guard until he got to the center of the cathedral, to the stage. His heart plummeted.
Next to him, Sevika hissed, “Shit.”
Silco kept his eyes glued onto Kat's sallow face as he pushed his way through the growing crowd. What had happened? Dark suspicion clenched around his stomach like a vice. He knew what had happened. There was only one answer. Pulling back his murderous thoughts toward Will was a mighty effort, but there wasn’t anything to be done about him at the moment. There was only Kat, and getting her out from in between those two hulking brutes. Her own eyes flicked madly over the sea of faces in front of her. Scared, desperate.
Here, Silco thought as he pushed forward. Look at me. I’m here. You’re not alone.
Kat’s panicked eyes roved passed then snapped back to his face. Silco was struck still, not breathing, heart not beating, as he gaped up at her through the shoulders of his fellow miners. It didn’t eclipse the obvious fear constricting her body, but some amount of fragile relief softened the worried crinkle between her eyebrows. She took a shuddering breath, teeth clacking together.
Silco’s mind tugged in a hundred different directions. He was overwhelmed and destabilized. And he had to get her out of here. Around him, confused murmurs traveled from miner to miner. Those that were Children were most obviously upset.
Then, seemingly satisfied with the turnout, Rynweaver strode toward center stage, a lip-ribbon microphone clutched in his hand. Silco’s insides went cold with hate. A dull roar filled his head. Out of habit, he slunk behind the back of the miner in front of him. The speaker system of the cathedral crackled to life, silencing the crowd with a couple sharp peals of static.
“In an effort to make this as impactful as possible,” Rynweaver began, “I will keep the message of this impromptu gathering succinct. Our head medic, Miss Katya Slostov, has been smuggling items from the mine to the Children of Zaun. The reason she is still here and not being shipped off to Stillwater is because I think, after all this time, that treatment is not sufficient for traitors like her.”
The crowd shifted, the mica dust on their skin glittering like shoals of tiny fish. Some glanced at each other nervously, others looked between Kat and the ring of Not-Enforcers circling the stage. Silco stayed tucked out of sight, mind racing. He had to get Kat out of there. He had to save her, keep her safe, keep her alive.
“The individuals you see around and on stage were loaned to me by an acquaintance of mine who is the keeper of the Marrowmark in Southern Shurima. I highly doubt anyone here has heard of the place, much less knows the traditions of the market there. They do not waste their time with arrests and investigations and trials on thieves,” Rynweaver continued. “They are flogged.”
He reached a hand down, and one of the guards on the ground removed an item from the back of their belt and handed it to him. Kat automatically jerked back at the sight, and the merc on her left kneed her in the back of the leg. She cried out and crumpled to the ground, knees cracking on the stage surface. Her arms torqued painfully in the ironclad grips that held them. Rynweaver rolled the flogger over in his hands. Its handle was long and wrapped in worn, black leather; it knotted at the neck and sprouted into over a hundred thin tails. Some ends of the strips glittered with hooks of metal and glass.
Silco’s mouth went dry. Fear and fury whetted his mind. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it. He wouldn’t lose anyone else. He’d blow up Rynweaver’s life before he let him take another thing from him.
The mercenaries hauled Kat back onto her feet. Even from far away, Silco could see her legs shake. Her eyes were wide and pleading, scouring the crowd again. Silco stepped out from behind the shoulder covering him and grabbed her attention. He fixed her with a fiery, sturdy look and mouthed three words to her before slipping back into the crowd.
I got you.
Kat felt her lips shake as they silently replied You have me as Silco disappeared from her sight. She trusted him, but she was still scared. Her shoulders were beginning to ache with how her arms were being held, fingers tingling into numbness. Her thigh throbbed from where it had just been kicked moments ago. Her kneecaps vibrated. Rynweaver dropped the mic and walked over to her, the flogger’s tails swishing and clinking softly. Nausea rolled up Kat’s throat and it was an effort to not vomit all over her boots. She was distantly aware of cries of dissent coming from the crowd. Then Rynweaver was face to face with her.
“Last chance,” he whispered. “Tell who and where the Children are.”
Kat stared up into his dark eyes. She wondered if this had been what Enyd had seen. Her gaze flicked to the crowd, and she saw Sevika trying to push her way to the front. She saw a few other familiar faces looking angry and sick, their voices drowned out by the blood pumping through her ears. She looked back at Rynweaver. And spat in his face. He flinched and recoiled, free hand reflexively flying up to touch wipe at his eye. He glowered at her. Kat glared back until, suddenly, there was a loud crack and her head was ringing, her teeth rattled in their sockets. Rynweaver had slapped her. Hard. Her right cheek fizzed before pain bloomed across her face.
“Stake her and tie her,” he ordered, thrusting the flogger to one of the mercenaries.
The one on her right took it, leaving his partner to take both of Kat’s arms. He spun her around, bringing both wrists to the front, and tying them together with a hank of rope that was looped to his belt. The jute bit into Kat’s skin, and she winced. The other merc returned, a metal stake with a loop welded to its head gripped in his free hand. He chucked it at the stage floor, and it pierced through the wood with a mighty THWACK! The other tugged the ends of the rope toward it, and Kat stumbled, falling to the ground again. Her knees sang at the impact and her head hit the rounded top of the loop. White spots blotted her vision. Through the splotches she saw the scared and angry faces of her fellow miners, of the Children. Their mouths opened and closed, presumably yelling their disapproval, but she couldn’t hear them through the metallic ringing in her head. The rope tugged again as the mercenary tied its ends around the stake loop in a complicated knot. Then he ducked close and breathed hot, broken words into her ear.
“Face crowd unless you want lashes to face.”
Kat was shaking, fear nearly rattling her apart. The shadows of the hulking men left her sides, she felt the quake of their footsteps fade behind her. Her insides felt like they were going to spill out of her. She looked to the crowd again and found fear had stolen her focus also; she looked, but couldn’t see. All of the faces bled together, became a sea of browns, peaches, greens, and purples. She looked to her right and saw the shape of Rynweaver. She looked away, trying to get a handle on her rapidly deteriorating breath. Rynweaver would not be the last thing she saw. A sob burst from her, tears shivered down her cheeks. She searched the crowd frantically for Silco or Sevika. Where had they gone? What had she done?
Viktor Viktor Viktor.
She’d failed. She’d let him down.
Through her panic, Kat became vaguely aware of a sudden increase of noise in the crowd. Shrieks and yells. For a brief second, something whistled behind her. Then every thought left her head as her back exploded with pain.
Hate and fear tunneled Silco’s vision as he barreled down the rocky pathways back to his unit’s post. He’d barely registered Sevika’s question as pushed his way back through the crowd.
“What do we do?”
“Rile up the crowd and wait for my signal,” was all he’d offered as he jockeyed passed her with barely a glance.
Enyd had worked hard to keep Silco from becoming a slipper, to keep him safe from the inherent perils of the job, and to protect him from developing the same malady that had laid waste to her. Still, he absorbed all her tricks and knowledge for working with combustibles. He knew how to place detonations just right, knew how to distribute powder to get the most efficient chain reaction.
A CRACK! ripped through the air, and Silco’s steps faltered. The scream that followed turned his insides to ice. He forced him to sprint back to his unit’s fissure instead of spinning back around for the cathedral. His mind filled itself with an image of the mine’s complex map of passages, rooms, and shafts. He’d been born there, lived there. Silco was certain he knew Rynweaver’s mine better than the magnate did.
Breath ground through Silco’s teeth, tears burned behind his eyes as he rounded the bend into the fissure, and barreled for the slipper’s cart. His hands shook manically as he unspooled a length of fuse housed in the carts’ lower compartment. Stripping the wax sheath, he pried apart the spiral of wires within and stabbed each one into the dense end of an explosive. He crammed three into a crack in the tunnel wall before grabbing the cart’s handles and pulling it with him down an adjacent passageway. The length of fuse whipped behind like a thrashing snake.
Silco’s sawing breath wasn’t enough to drown out the rhythmic cracks of the flogger, Kat’s primal screams, nor the crowd’s garbled anxiety. He didn’t have time to be thorough. Kat didn’t have time. He just had to get to one of the bigger mine shafts; it would be enough to cause a distraction. Enough to bring Rynweaver’s whole bullshit empire down around him.
The cart rattled fiercely as Silco ripped around the corner into Fissure 27, and sprinted for the end of it. To the turbine Kat had pushed Kells off of all those months ago. Silco’s blood boiled further, daring to steam right out from under his skin. Collapsing the shaft on top of Kells’s rotting corpse would be a bonus.
The cart’s wheels clanked against the metal blade of the stationary turbine, and Silco made quick work of unspooling more fusewire and plugging the ends of it into more explosives. He tossed them into the dark below, locked the cart’s wheels, grabbed another end of wire, and ran back for the fissure’s entrance. He didn’t dare stop running until he was sure there was at least over fifty-yards of distance between him and either fissure. Silco placed the wire’s end on the ground, took a match from his cigarette tin and lit it. This was the only moment he paused. The small flame flickered at the end of the wooden stick, slowly creeping down towards his fingertips. A deadly but not unwelcome calm soothed Silco’s insides. It didn’t bring his mother back, but as he put fire to fuse it felt like the scales tipped ever so slightly. The fusewire sparked and began sizzling along its path. Silco did not wait to watch it arc around the bend. He ran back to the cathedral.
The crowd was in a lather when he returned. Pleads to stop and cries of dissent went unheard as the flogger snapped again and again. Kat still cried out as the tails cut against her. Silco’s eyes were pulled to the stage on instinct, and whatever groundedness he’d found lighting the fuse crumbled. A bloody lump had Kat’s breath, her voice. She hunkered limply over the stake, her features utterly indistinguishable beneath the gore matting her hair, flying off her body. Rynweaver stood off to the side, a darkly content look on his face.
“STOP! STOP! YOU’RE KILLING HER!”
Sevika’s screams tugged Silco through the agitating bodies until he found her trying to push to the front of the crowd. Rynweaver’s hired security was pushing back, ramming their rifles against anyone who got too close. When he found her, he grabbed her arm. Sevika swung around, silver eyes wide. Hot, angry tears streamed down her cheeks.
“THEY’RE GONNA –!”
BOOM!
The world rocked beneath their feet. The whole room swayed. Some stumbled. The man with the flogger was knocked to his knees midswing. Rynweaver’s typically suave posture crumpled as his balance was thrown off. Silco ate up the ugly look of shock on his face.
BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!
A symphony of far off explosions rumbled through the terra. The floor and walls of the cathedral vibrated as cracks formed deep within the mine’s stone. Sevika gawped at Silco. Wait for my signal. The shock on her face turned steely, and she seized the opportunity before panic could overtake the room. She leapt for the nearest guard - whose focus was in the direction of the explosions - wrenched the rifle from his arms, and cracked it over his head. In a split second, the attention of the miners shifted. They saw Sevika take advantage of the distraction and followed her lead. Before they could react, the guards were swarmed by angry, strong bodies. Yell and shouts and chaos nearly drowned out the rolling, thunderous claps of distant passages and shafts collapsing.
Silco weaved his way to the stage, Sevika on his heels. He hauled himself up and slid to the stake. He ignored the puddle of blood seeping into the knees of his trousers.
“Kat! Kat!”
His heart lodged in his throat as he fumbled for the knife in his boot. Kat’s head lolled out of the crook of her elbow. The whites of her eyes were stark behind the sticky red mats of her hair. Her eyes drifted to-and-fro, trying desperately to focus on him.
“Hang on.”
Silco began cutting away at the knot of rope around the stake. Sevika clambered up on stage, a bruise swelling on her cheek, knuckles split and bleeding. The mercenary with the flogger was stumbling toward them, and Sevika intercepted. Before he could raise the weapon, she grabbed his wrist and torqued it violently. Bloody leather and metal thunk’d to the ground, and Sevika wound his arm around hers, tugging him in close and headbutting him twice in the face. The merc's head swung back, broad nose flat and gushing blood. Sevika pulled him in again, her knee flying up into his groin and gut before throwing him aside. She picked up the flogger, and with a mighty swing brought the flails down on him. Once. Twice. Three times –
“Sevika!” Silco yelled, flinging the cut rope aside. “You need to take her!”
They needed to get out, to run, and as much as Silco wanted to be the one to gather Kat up, he knew he wouldn’t be fast enough with her deadweight in his arms. Sevika lashed the flogger one more time, letting its teeth lodge firmly into the merc’s mangled back, before dashing back to Silco and Kat. She was crying still, Silco saw, and the delicacy with which she hoisted Kat into her arms belied the fierce, rageful display just moments ago.
The scream that tore from Kat as she was moved gutted Silco, but also eased the worry shivering through his bones. She hadn’t faded so far that pain was negligible. Sevika adjusted Kat so that they were chest-to-chest, her thick arms looped underneath her rear. Fury coated the inside of Silco’s mouth as the fullness of Kat’s brutalized back was revealed. A great, wet, bloody, jagged maw of flesh.
The mine continued to shake. Dust rained down. A crack cleaved the air and a stalactite fell from the ceiling, crushing guards and miners alike. Angry yells morphed into screams and everyone flooded for the passages that would lead out of the mines.
“We need to go! Now!” Silco yelled.
He pushed Sevika to the edge of the stage. She bounded off, and cut through the crowd skillfully. Before he followed, Silco threw a glance in Rynweaver’s direction. He was being helped to his feet and by the other mercenary that had been on stage. For the first time ever, Rynweaver looked at him. Saw him. Confusion, anger, worry, and color bled from his face. His mouth dropped open. Silco’s heart hammered in his chest. Icy hate filled his bones. He pointed the tip of his knife in Rynweaver’s direction. A promise. And streaked off the stage.
It wasn’t long until he caught up with Sevika. Together they climbed one of the many emergency escape stairwells up and out of the mine, their lungs heaving with adrenaline and silica dust. They wasted no time sprinting off the landing, traversing through the throngs of people pouring out of the mine. A massive cloud of smoke and dust plumed high into the air behind them.
“The sewers,” Silco wheezed. “To the Drop.”
They ran and did not look back.
Hey there, reader! Thank you for taking time out of your life to continue this story with me <3 Please consider leaving a comment before you click away. With the Arcane fandom slowly going dormant, the boost active engagement gives means so, so much. You're the best <3
Originally, I had written out an entire smut scene for Silkat, but ultimately cut it because it felt like it undermined the plot in this moment. However, my plan is to post that scene to my Children of Zaun: Supplemental series in the coming days. So keep your eyes peeled for sexiness 👀
If you are enjoying this story, and have the means to do so, please consider supporting me by visiting my ko-fi page ☕️
Coming Up Next: Kat makes the hardest decision of her life.
General Story Warnings: Canon typical violence, police brutality, dark themes, smut
Chapter Summary: Silco navigates life without Enyd. Rynweaver makes Katya an offer he's certain she won't refuse.
Author's Note: The concept of grief Katya talks about early on in this chapter is not my own. The room-button-and-ball analogy is well-known in the hospice community, and is one of the most helpful ways of explaining grief I've ever experienced. If you're not familiar, I hope it helps you, too.
CW: death, loss of a parent, active grieving, inferred sex, assault, violence against women, torture
Word Count: 6.2k
Previous Chapter
Death was pervasive in the Zaun. Silco knew this, but to now have experienced it so close illuminated how shallow his knowledge had been. He’d known it in his head; now he knew it in his body. And it was excruciating. How Kat or anyone else dealt with this pain was beyond him.
He did not know why, despite having months to mentally prepare for his mother’s passing, it hurt so much. Why it still felt like a gut punch every second of every day. Everything felt wrong. Air, food, drinking, breathing, their - his - apartment; nothing was as it was supposed to be. And he felt raw in the wrongness of it all. Helpless. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Zaun was supposed to be free and she was supposed to be alive. At the very least, alive long enough to see it. To know it. To have it be the last feeling before death ushered her into the ether.He remembered her words from the night she died. As sweet as the sentiments had been, Silco was still dissatisfied, still disappointed in himself that he’d let her down. He’d promised her Zaun, and he had failed. And he hated himself for it.
He hated her for dying (which he also hated himself for.)
He hated Piltover for killing her.
He hated Rynweaver for everything.
Anger was the only balm he could find within himself. It was a comfort; anger was familiar. He’d been angry since before he could remember. Angry at the foremen for making him wield a pickaxe when it was too heavy for his young arms. Angry at enforcers’ blatant cruelty. Angry at Council for their unchecked power. Angry at how unfair it all was. Angry that so many tried to convince him that change was futile.
It was a fire within him, anger. A fuel that kept him motivated and alive. He had fanned the flames and transmuted it into the Children of Zaun. His mother’s death nearly smothered it; but there were still embers, and they sparked to life when the pain of unfairness scratched too deep. Anger cauterized the pulpy, fresh wound loss left.
Vander and Kat kept the scar tissue from hardening irreparably.
Vander helped Silco keep the Children’s morale up. He kept Enyd present by quietly sharing memories with Silco late into the evening after the Drop had closed and it was just them, cigarette butts, and two mugs of watered down ale. He tried baking bread, sinking his bruised, thick-knuckled hands into a spongy web of dough. Even though the finished product was misshapen and the texture was off, Silco appreciated it all the same.
Kat was a soft place to land. Her touch buffed out the sharp edges of his rage; her voice tempered the searing heat in his chest. Her presence did not leave him toothless, though. It grounded him, kept his feet in his boots and anger focused.
Even when the loss of Enyd was the sharpest, Silco was immeasurably grateful for the friends at his side, keeping him on track.
“How long,” he asked one night, some days later, “did it take for your father’s death not to feel so . . . painful?”
Kat inhaled deeply, thoughtfully, fingers gently scraping through his untied hair. She released the breath in a slow, steady stream. Silco’s head, resting on her chest, lowered with her deflating lungs.
“It is not so much that grief becomes less painful,” she finally said. “Time creates space around the hurt. It is like I am in a room with a button, and every time the button is pushed the pain, the disbelief, the sadness comes on. In the early days, the room was so small; I could not move without accidentally pressing that button. Everything I did made me think of papa, made me miss him.
“As time went on, the room got bigger. I could move around without always hitting the button. But it still gets pressed sometimes, no matter how much space I have. Little things like someone smoking his brand of tobacco, coming across an annotation he made in one of his books, when Viktor frowns just like he did will set it off.”
Kat paused, adjusting herself against the mattress. Silco stayed glued to her front, long arms wound tightly about her middle. He blinked, and a tear that had been quivering on his lashline trickled over the bridge of his nose and seeped into her shirt. She sighed, willing the bind in her throat to loosen.
“It does not get less painful,” she whispered. “Time just gives you more space.”
Time slipped by, and the pair continued to lay on his bed in silence. Eventually, sleep found them.
The following day was the warmest of the season thus far. Summer heat rippled on the horizon. Breezes like warm breath wafted through the streets of Piltover, and down into the cracks of Zaun. When Silco and Kat awoke it was to a stuffy room, their bodies dewy in a light sheen of sweat. They peeled themselves apart and ducked into the shower.
Perhaps it was a desire to slough off the heaviness from the previous night and long days before, but washing became an after thought as their bodies came together. Under the showerhead, against the slick tiled wall they let themselves indulge in the present pleasure of the body, and temporarily released the perseverating ache of the mind and heart. To be with something, someone that was warm and alive and there.When they were dazed and boneless, Silco felt Kat’s lips move against his shoulder. He didn’t know if she’d spoken, or if they were just kisses. He was too aware of the fact that his shoulders felt lighter than they had the past several days. His heart still felt bruised, but beating did not feel impossible. Silco guided Kat’s face out of the shelter of his neck and kissed her tenderly. Lovingly. Gratefully. The water began to run cold, and on lighter feet they climbed out of the tub.
Kat decided to keep her coat at Silco’s apartment when they left for the mine. Their conversation from the night before had left her feeling maudlin, and she wished she could’ve worn it. But the day’s warmth didn’t lend itself to the garment. She would look suspicious traveling through checkpoints wrapped up in it while people around her sweated. So, she left it behind. But with Silco’s hand in her own, there was more space around the pain of loss.
The lift’s door nearly clattered into Kat as she pushed her way out of the cramped elevator. She released Silco’s hand at the last moment. A couple of the Children also in the lift made kissing sounds that were followed by a ripple of giggles. Surprisingly, Silco just rolled his eyes and shook his head as the lift jerked, and restarted its descent. He held Kat’s gaze, expression soft and fond, as he lowered from sight. Heart feeling heavy yet full, Kat slowly made her way down the craggy passageway to the clinic.
She rounded the bend and stopped, confused. The clinic’s lights were on. Surely Will had not stayed late again to give her another earful. After the last time a little over a week ago, she’d been wholly grateful that their shifts no longer overlapped. The interaction had left her feeling queasy and agitated; that feeling returned now. A petty part of her thought it might be nice to just throw up on Will’s shoes if he tried shaming her again. Steeling herself, Kat pressed forward.
Any hot, righteous certainty she felt went ice cold when the door swung open and revealed the clinic’s interior. Will wasn’t there, but Rynweaver was, seated casually on the desk’s edge. Two large, wild looking men dressed in patchworks of worn leather and metal scraps stood off to the side. Mercenaries of some kind. They eyed her with sadistic interest.
While her insides had turned watery, Kat had enough survival instincts to keep her face passive, if a little lost. She looked from man to man, before her attention went solely to Rynweaver. There was a manila folder in his hands.
“Hello, sir. Is everything alright? What is going on?”
Rynweaver cocked his head and sat up straighter. He gently waved the folder. “Some very interesting information has been brought to my attention. Please, come in, Miss Slostov. Close the door behind you.”
Kat’s expression remained open, but her body locked up in fear. A voice in her head screamed at her to run, but there was nowhere to go. The stretch of tunnel behind her was long, and either went deeper into the terra or back to the elevator; which would not ascend in time for her to escape. Her heart battered against her ribs as she stepped inside and closed the clinic door. Her eyes flicked to the pair of mercenaries warily.
“How can I help you, sir?”
“A few days ago, I received a distressing memo alleging that you, for the past few years, have been stealing clinic supplies.”
Kat’s stomach soured. The inside of her mouth went dry. She was sure she’d gone pale, but still tried to keep her face neutral, tried to keep the shake out of her fingers. A small seed of anger and disbelief towards Will sprouted in her chest. She couldn’t believe he’d betrayed her. How else would Rynweaver know?
“Sir –?”
Rynweaver stood. “Come. Have a look.”
It took a second before Kat’s legs worked. In a couple jerky steps, she went over to the desk where he laid the folder open. She peered down at the papers. They were old order forms, her signature scrawled at the bottom. Rynweaver leaned over and flipped through the pages. Inventory lists were revealed. Again, her signature in their bottom margins. Then there were metric sheets that had been compiled with dates, orders, clinic visits, and reported inventory numbers. Suspicious order timeframes, supply numbers, and patient visits had been highlighted.
Kat fought to stay upright. Her thoughts spiraled around trying to come up with an explanation. But all she could think about was Viktor.
Viktor Viktor Viktor
“Sir, I do not know –”
Rynweaver tutted, and shook his head. “Let’s not do that, Miss Slostov. Between lining up all this information, speaking with Will and hearing about your discussion with him, as well as your exploits, I am not interested in hearing excuses.”
He looked down at her, his expression too relaxed and confident. A cat who had a mouse by their tail. Kat stared back at him. The lies fighting to concretize themselves in her head crumbled.
“I –”
“Will told me that you and your father conspired this plan to pay for your brother’s tuition balance. That this all started before the Children of Zaun.”
Kat’s throat clicked. Her eyes flicked to the two men watching them idly before dipping her chin slightly. Should she beg?
Viktor Viktor Viktor
Sighing, Rynweaver settled his hips casually against the desk again and crossed his arms over his chest. His flippant energy made Kat’s skin crawl. It made her stomach curdle.
“Under regular circumstances, I would just have your arrested and charged for theft. But these are not regular circumstances. Hence why I have not gone to the Sheriff. Yet.”
He pinned her in place with those nearly black eyes, and a new sort of dread trickled into Kat’s veins.
“Will led me to believe that you have direct access and knowledge of the Children.” Kat did not blink. Even if she denied it, he wouldn’t believe it. “That being the case, I have a proposition for you.”
Kat’s tongue glued itself to the roof of her mouth.
Viktor Viktor Viktor
“If you tell me everything you know about them - who else is involved, where their nests are, what their plans are - all of this -” he gestured to the open file “- will go away and be forgotten.”
He paused, watching her closely. A terrible glee danced in the low light of his eyes. Kat stared back, everything feeling too close and too far away all at once. She wished, despite the weather, that she’d worn her father’s coat. For the comfort - and for the pistol she kept in one of the pockets. Maybe she would’ve been able to shoot all three. Ideally kill them, but at least wound them enough to make an escape. Her heart thudded painfully when he spoke again.
“And I will personally fund the rest of Viktor’s education. Full room and board for the rest of his years at the Academy. If he wishes to study beyond that - perhaps at the libraries in Demecia - I will foot the bills for that, too.”
Kat’s knees nearly buckled.
Viktor Viktor Viktor
“What is more,” he continued, “I am fully prepared to bring you both into Piltover. Permanently. I will financially provide until you get on your feet. Unless, of course, you also wish to study; in which case, I will also finance your education. It is clear that your brother is not the only one with a sharp mind.”
He once again gestured loosely to the papers. Kat was no longer able to keep the shock from showing on her face. She felt numb. Rynweaver was prepared to hand her everything she and papa had ever wanted for Viktor. Viktor Viktor Viktor. He was offering her the same.
“I’d like to become a doctor, I think.”
She and Viktor would only be separated by class schedules, not a river and metric tons of terra. He wouldn’t be alone. Viktor would follow her if she accepted, she knew. Follow her in the way a child would when their caregiver did a sudden aboutface on all their values: curious but plaintive. He wouldn’t ask too much about it, what their good fortune had cost, too afraid to look a gifthorse in the mouth. Despite never asking, he’d know. He’d see it in the vacancy of her eyes, the dullness of her spirit. He’d know she’d sold her soul for their freedom. Theirs and no one else’s. And even if he’d never tell her, she knew that he would grow to resent her for it. For swallowing their oppressor’s sweet poison after everything they’d done to the Undercity. To them.
“What say you, Miss Slostov?”
Kat jerked back into the cold light of the clinic, blinking. The stupid glimmers of disbelieving hope fluttering in her chest began to sink. Disgust pulled them down. Disgust at herself for entertaining anything this man offered, regardless of how it may benefit her and her brother. This man and his family had abused her people for years without batting an eye. Cruelty was the bedrock of his power and privilege, and he gave no signs that he at all regretted it. Twisty worms of loathing writhed up Kat’s legs, up her intobelly, through her ribs. Eating at her as if she were an apple.
With more confidence than she had in the last several moments, Kat looked Rynweaver square in the face and the hate intensified. She saw Silco there, obviously. It was as if Rynweaver’s nose had been cast in plaster and molded to her lover’s face. She hated the feature on Rynweaver’s too-broad face. She hated him for the angst he caused Silco. Caused Enyd. Her fists curled. She hated him for dangling her brother in front of her like a prize. She despised him and his entitlement for thinking she could be bought like he could.
“No.”
Kat relished the way surprise briefly shuttered over Rynweaver’s face, shocked that anyone would decline. The emotion was quickly blanketed by his usual dark, blasé countenance. A gloved hand delicately flourished in the direction of the two rough strangers.
They moved, and so did Kat.
She knew it was futile, but the combination of survival instincts and the hope she’d been fostering for nearly a year catapulted her toward the clinic door. She did manage to wrench it open and get a few strides down the tunnel before one of the wildmen barreled into her back, pinning her to the ground. The crash punched the air out her chest, and her diaphragm seized with the impact and weight crushing her. Her face had smacked into the rock, skull thrumming with sharp vibration.
Regardless, the message her mind was screaming was still clear: RUN RUN RUN!
Kat’s limbs scrabbled madly beneath the merc’s solid weight, fingernails biting the ground, heels digging into his desensitized muscle. She was a lifelong Trencher, but her scrappiness could not compete with someone whose whole job was hunting people. Without so much as grunting, the merc wrangled her arms behind her back, and held her wrists together with one hand. Kat hissed at him and feebly kicked her heels against the small of his back. Wordlessly, his other fist landed two solid punches to the spot just below the right side of her ribcage. She cried out, and tried to tug her hands from his hold. Behind them, two sets of feet scraped against the dusty stone floor.
“Get her up,” Rynweaver said. “Restrain her, but keep her able to walk. We’ll be taking her to the cathedral.”
Everyone looked up when the bell toned. Drills wound down, pickaxes sagged in the hands that held them. The child slipper assigned to unit 90 paused in counting the crates of dynamite he’d carted into the tunnel for detonation later that week. Silco looked up at the speaker bolted into the wall, befuddled. He looked over to Sevika, who glanced suspiciously back.
“Maybe someone knocked into –”
The bell sounded again, followed by the crackle that preceded a voice. Everyone in the tunnel stood up straighter.
“Please proceed to the cathedral for an announcement. Repeat: Please proceed to the cathedral for an announcement.”
Silco frowned. A wave of uneasiness rolled through him, the hair on the back of his neck rising. The miners around him began grumbling, but began shuffling toward the tunnel’s opening. Sevika appeared at his side.
“What do you think this is about?”
“Nothing good.”
Kat’s knees wobbled horribly as she stood on the raised stage in the center of the mine’s main cathedral. Fear was choking out any sense of righteousness she’d felt in the clinic. Rynweaver’s mercenaries flanked her, each gripping her arms with tourniquet-like strength. Her blood pumped furiously beneath their palms. Rynweaver stood off to the side, patiently waiting for the massive room to fill up.
When they’d arrived, he’d knocked on the door of the head foreman’s trailer and ordered him to call the employees to the space. The foreman quizzically looked over Rynweaver’s shoulder at the strangely dressed, formidable men and Kat, and nodded, slurring a yessir through the stubs of his teeth. Then Rynweaver ordered the men to take Kat to the stage. As they frogmarched her there, more hulking, dark clad figures emerged from the shadows, and placed themselves around the stage’s perimeter. Had they been there all along? Or had Rynweaver hired them out just for today? Just for this demonstration?
Miners began to trickle in from the many stretches of tunnels that branched out from the cathedral, like the winding, knotted legs of some terrible spider. Kat fought to get a hold of her breath and to pull back the tears stinging the corners of her eyes. She scoured the faces that poured in, desperate to find Silco or Sevika among them.
The first thing Silco noticed when finally entering the cathedral were the Not-Enforcers. Muscled men dressed in mish-moshes of travel-worn clothing; their belts laden with knives, their arms cradling firearms like fussy babies. He was not surprised that Rynweaver would hire-out his own security for the mine. He was perplexed by the sudden timing. Why now? His gaze tracked each burly guard until he got to the center of the cathedral, to the stage. His heart plummeted.
Next to him, Sevika hissed, “Shit.”
Silco kept his eyes glued onto Kat's sallow face as he pushed his way through the growing crowd. What had happened? Dark suspicion clenched around his stomach like a vice. He knew what had happened. There was only one answer. Pulling back his murderous thoughts toward Will was a mighty effort, but there wasn’t anything to be done about him at the moment. There was only Kat, and getting her out from in between those two hulking brutes. Her own eyes flicked madly over the sea of faces in front of her. Scared, desperate.
Here, Silco thought as he pushed forward. Look at me. I’m here. You’re not alone.
Kat’s panicked eyes roved passed then snapped back to his face. Silco was struck still, not breathing, heart not beating, as he gaped up at her through the shoulders of his fellow miners. It didn’t eclipse the obvious fear constricting her body, but some amount of fragile relief softened the worried crinkle between her eyebrows. She took a shuddering breath, teeth clacking together.
Silco’s mind tugged in a hundred different directions. He was overwhelmed and destabilized. And he had to get her out of here. Around him, confused murmurs traveled from miner to miner. Those that were Children were most obviously upset.
Then, seemingly satisfied with the turnout, Rynweaver strode toward center stage, a lip-ribbon microphone clutched in his hand. Silco’s insides went cold with hate. A dull roar filled his head. Out of habit, he slunk behind the back of the miner in front of him. The speaker system of the cathedral crackled to life, silencing the crowd with a couple sharp peals of static.
“In an effort to make this as impactful as possible,” Rynweaver began, “I will keep the message of this impromptu gathering succinct. Our head medic, Miss Katya Slostov, has been smuggling items from the mine to the Children of Zaun. The reason she is still here and not being shipped off to Stillwater is because I think, after all this time, that treatment is not sufficient for traitors like her.”
The crowd shifted, the mica dust on their skin glittering like shoals of tiny fish. Some glanced at each other nervously, others looked between Kat and the ring of Not-Enforcers circling the stage. Silco stayed tucked out of sight, mind racing. He had to get Kat out of there. He had to save her, keep her safe, keep her alive.
“The individuals you see around and on stage were loaned to me by an acquaintance of mine who is the keeper of the Marrowmark in Southern Shurima. I highly doubt anyone here has heard of the place, much less knows the traditions of the market there. They do not waste their time with arrests and investigations and trials on thieves,” Rynweaver continued. “They are flogged.”
He reached a hand down, and one of the guards on the ground removed an item from the back of their belt and handed it to him. Kat automatically jerked back at the sight, and the merc on her left kneed her in the back of the leg. She cried out and crumpled to the ground, knees cracking on the stage surface. Her arms torqued painfully in the ironclad grips that held them. Rynweaver rolled the flogger over in his hands. Its handle was long and wrapped in worn, black leather; it knotted at the neck and sprouted into over a hundred thin tails. Some ends of the strips glittered with hooks of metal and glass.
Silco’s mouth went dry. Fear and fury whetted his mind. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it. He wouldn’t lose anyone else. He’d blow up Rynweaver’s life before he let him take another thing from him.
The mercenaries hauled Kat back onto her feet. Even from far away, Silco could see her legs shake. Her eyes were wide and pleading, scouring the crowd again. Silco stepped out from behind the shoulder covering him and grabbed her attention. He fixed her with a fiery, sturdy look and mouthed three words to her before slipping back into the crowd.
I got you.
Kat felt her lips shake as they silently replied You have me as Silco disappeared from her sight. She trusted him, but she was still scared. Her shoulders were beginning to ache with how her arms were being held, fingers tingling into numbness. Her thigh throbbed from where it had just been kicked moments ago. Her kneecaps vibrated. Rynweaver dropped the mic and walked over to her, the flogger’s tails swishing and clinking softly. Nausea rolled up Kat’s throat and it was an effort to not vomit all over her boots. She was distantly aware of cries of dissent coming from the crowd. Then Rynweaver was face to face with her.
“Last chance,” he whispered. “Tell who and where the Children are.”
Kat stared up into his dark eyes. She wondered if this had been what Enyd had seen. Her gaze flicked to the crowd, and she saw Sevika trying to push her way to the front. She saw a few other familiar faces looking angry and sick, their voices drowned out by the blood pumping through her ears. She looked back at Rynweaver. And spat in his face. He flinched and recoiled, free hand reflexively flying up to touch wipe at his eye. He glowered at her. Kat glared back until, suddenly, there was a loud crack and her head was ringing, her teeth rattled in their sockets. Rynweaver had slapped her. Hard. Her right cheek fizzed before pain bloomed across her face.
“Stake her and tie her,” he ordered, thrusting the flogger to one of the mercenaries.
The one on her right took it, leaving his partner to take both of Kat’s arms. He spun her around, bringing both wrists to the front, and tying them together with a hank of rope that was looped to his belt. The jute bit into Kat’s skin, and she winced. The other merc returned, a metal stake with a loop welded to its head gripped in his free hand. He chucked it at the stage floor, and it pierced through the wood with a mighty THWACK! The other tugged the ends of the rope toward it, and Kat stumbled, falling to the ground again. Her knees sang at the impact and her head hit the rounded top of the loop. White spots blotted her vision. Through the splotches she saw the scared and angry faces of her fellow miners, of the Children. Their mouths opened and closed, presumably yelling their disapproval, but she couldn’t hear them through the metallic ringing in her head. The rope tugged again as the mercenary tied its ends around the stake loop in a complicated knot. Then he ducked close and breathed hot, broken words into her ear.
“Face crowd unless you want lashes to face.”
Kat was shaking, fear nearly rattling her apart. The shadows of the hulking men left her sides, she felt the quake of their footsteps fade behind her. Her insides felt like they were going to spill out of her. She looked to the crowd again and found fear had stolen her focus also; she looked, but couldn’t see. All of the faces bled together, became a sea of browns, peaches, greens, and purples. She looked to her right and saw the shape of Rynweaver. She looked away, trying to get a handle on her rapidly deteriorating breath. Rynweaver would not be the last thing she saw. A sob burst from her, tears shivered down her cheeks. She searched the crowd frantically for Silco or Sevika. Where had they gone? What had she done?
Viktor Viktor Viktor.
She’d failed. She’d let him down.
Through her panic, Kat became vaguely aware of a sudden increase of noise in the crowd. Shrieks and yells. For a brief second, something whistled behind her. Then every thought left her head as her back exploded with pain.
Hate and fear tunneled Silco’s vision as he barreled down the rocky pathways back to his unit’s post. He’d barely registered Sevika’s question as pushed his way back through the crowd.
“What do we do?”
“Rile up the crowd and wait for my signal,” was all he’d offered as he jockeyed passed her with barely a glance.
Enyd had worked hard to keep Silco from becoming a slipper, to keep him safe from the inherent perils of the job, and to protect him from developing the same malady that had laid waste to her. Still, he absorbed all her tricks and knowledge for working with combustibles. He knew how to place detonations just right, knew how to distribute powder to get the most efficient chain reaction.
A CRACK! ripped through the air, and Silco’s steps faltered. The scream that followed turned his insides to ice. He forced him to sprint back to his unit’s fissure instead of spinning back around for the cathedral. His mind filled itself with an image of the mine’s complex map of passages, rooms, and shafts. He’d been born there, lived there. Silco was certain he knew Rynweaver’s mine better than the magnate did.
Breath ground through Silco’s teeth, tears burned behind his eyes as he rounded the bend into the fissure, and barreled for the slipper’s cart. His hands shook manically as he unspooled a length of fuse housed in the carts’ lower compartment. Stripping the wax sheath, he pried apart the spiral of wires within and stabbed each one into the dense end of an explosive. He crammed three into a crack in the tunnel wall before grabbing the cart’s handles and pulling it with him down an adjacent passageway. The length of fuse whipped behind like a thrashing snake.
Silco’s sawing breath wasn’t enough to drown out the rhythmic cracks of the flogger, Kat’s primal screams, nor the crowd’s garbled anxiety. He didn’t have time to be thorough. Kat didn’t have time. He just had to get to one of the bigger mine shafts; it would be enough to cause a distraction. Enough to bring Rynweaver’s whole bullshit empire down around him.
The cart rattled fiercely as Silco ripped around the corner into Fissure 27, and sprinted for the end of it. To the turbine Kat had pushed Kells off of all those months ago. Silco’s blood boiled further, daring to steam right out from under his skin. Collapsing the shaft on top of Kells’s rotting corpse would be a bonus.
The cart’s wheels clanked against the metal blade of the stationary turbine, and Silco made quick work of unspooling more fusewire and plugging the ends of it into more explosives. He tossed them into the dark below, locked the cart’s wheels, grabbed another end of wire, and ran back for the fissure’s entrance. He didn’t dare stop running until he was sure there was at least over fifty-yards of distance between him and either fissure. Silco placed the wire’s end on the ground, took a match from his cigarette tin and lit it. This was the only moment he paused. The small flame flickered at the end of the wooden stick, slowly creeping down towards his fingertips. A deadly but not unwelcome calm soothed Silco’s insides. It didn’t bring his mother back, but as he put fire to fuse it felt like the scales tipped ever so slightly. The fusewire sparked and began sizzling along its path. Silco did not wait to watch it arc around the bend. He ran back to the cathedral.
The crowd was in a lather when he returned. Pleads to stop and cries of dissent went unheard as the flogger snapped again and again. Kat still cried out as the tails cut against her. Silco’s eyes were pulled to the stage on instinct, and whatever groundedness he’d found lighting the fuse crumbled. A bloody lump had Kat’s breath, her voice. She hunkered limply over the stake, her features utterly indistinguishable beneath the gore matting her hair, flying off her body. Rynweaver stood off to the side, a darkly content look on his face.
“STOP! STOP! YOU’RE KILLING HER!”
Sevika’s screams tugged Silco through the agitating bodies until he found her trying to push to the front of the crowd. Rynweaver’s hired security was pushing back, ramming their rifles against anyone who got too close. When he found her, he grabbed her arm. Sevika swung around, silver eyes wide. Hot, angry tears streamed down her cheeks.
“THEY’RE GONNA –!”
BOOM!
The world rocked beneath their feet. The whole room swayed. Some stumbled. The man with the flogger was knocked to his knees midswing. Rynweaver’s typically suave posture crumpled as his balance was thrown off. Silco ate up the ugly look of shock on his face.
BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!
A symphony of far off explosions rumbled through the terra. The floor and walls of the cathedral vibrated as cracks formed deep within the mine’s stone. Sevika gawped at Silco. Wait for my signal. The shock on her face turned steely, and she seized the opportunity before panic could overtake the room. She leapt for the nearest guard - whose focus was in the direction of the explosions - wrenched the rifle from his arms, and cracked it over his head. In a split second, the attention of the miners shifted. They saw Sevika take advantage of the distraction and followed her lead. Before they could react, the guards were swarmed by angry, strong bodies. Yell and shouts and chaos nearly drowned out the rolling, thunderous claps of distant passages and shafts collapsing.
Silco weaved his way to the stage, Sevika on his heels. He hauled himself up and slid to the stake. He ignored the puddle of blood seeping into the knees of his trousers.
“Kat! Kat!”
His heart lodged in his throat as he fumbled for the knife in his boot. Kat’s head lolled out of the crook of her elbow. The whites of her eyes were stark behind the sticky red mats of her hair. Her eyes drifted to-and-fro, trying desperately to focus on him.
“Hang on.”
Silco began cutting away at the knot of rope around the stake. Sevika clambered up on stage, a bruise swelling on her cheek, knuckles split and bleeding. The mercenary with the flogger was stumbling toward them, and Sevika intercepted. Before he could raise the weapon, she grabbed his wrist and torqued it violently. Bloody leather and metal thunk’d to the ground, and Sevika wound his arm around hers, tugging him in close and headbutting him twice in the face. The merc's head swung back, broad nose flat and gushing blood. Sevika pulled him in again, her knee flying up into his groin and gut before throwing him aside. She picked up the flogger, and with a mighty swing brought the flails down on him. Once. Twice. Three times –
“Sevika!” Silco yelled, flinging the cut rope aside. “You need to take her!”
They needed to get out, to run, and as much as Silco wanted to be the one to gather Kat up, he knew he wouldn’t be fast enough with her deadweight in his arms. Sevika lashed the flogger one more time, letting its teeth lodge firmly into the merc’s mangled back, before dashing back to Silco and Kat. She was crying still, Silco saw, and the delicacy with which she hoisted Kat into her arms belied the fierce, rageful display just moments ago.
The scream that tore from Kat as she was moved gutted Silco, but also eased the worry shivering through his bones. She hadn’t faded so far that pain was negligible. Sevika adjusted Kat so that they were chest-to-chest, her thick arms looped underneath her rear. Fury coated the inside of Silco’s mouth as the fullness of Kat’s brutalized back was revealed. A great, wet, bloody, jagged maw of flesh.
The mine continued to shake. Dust rained down. A crack cleaved the air and a stalactite fell from the ceiling, crushing guards and miners alike. Angry yells morphed into screams and everyone flooded for the passages that would lead out of the mines.
“We need to go! Now!” Silco yelled.
He pushed Sevika to the edge of the stage. She bounded off, and cut through the crowd skillfully. Before he followed, Silco threw a glance in Rynweaver’s direction. He was being helped to his feet and by the other mercenary that had been on stage. For the first time ever, Rynweaver looked at him. Saw him. Confusion, anger, worry, and color bled from his face. His mouth dropped open. Silco’s heart hammered in his chest. Icy hate filled his bones. He pointed the tip of his knife in Rynweaver’s direction. A promise. And streaked off the stage.
It wasn’t long until he caught up with Sevika. Together they climbed one of the many emergency escape stairwells up and out of the mine, their lungs heaving with adrenaline and silica dust. They wasted no time sprinting off the landing, traversing through the throngs of people pouring out of the mine. A massive cloud of smoke and dust plumed high into the air behind them.
“The sewers,” Silco wheezed. “To the Drop.”
They ran and did not look back.
Hey there, reader! Thank you for taking time out of your life to continue this story with me <3 Please consider leaving a comment before you click away. With the Arcane fandom slowly going dormant, the boost active engagement gives means so, so much. You're the best <3
Originally, I had written out an entire smut scene for Silkat, but ultimately cut it because it felt like it undermined the plot in this moment. However, my plan is to post that scene to my Children of Zaun: Supplemental series in the coming days. So keep your eyes peeled for sexiness 👀
If you are enjoying this story, and have the means to do so, please consider supporting me by visiting my ko-fi page ☕️
Coming Up Next: Kat makes the hardest decision of her life.
it remains a crime we never got to actually see Silco working up a sweat in the mines. one single hardhat concept art, am I meant to be satisfied? show me Silco doing the backbreaking labor he wasn't built for, you cowards
