Immortalized | Viktor - arcane

A New Life

Heimerdinger never came back to arrest her, but Rose refused to let her guard down. She kept up the story that he had created for her. In front of the doctors, or anyone who came to help her in the hospital, she kept quiet. She only spoke when spoken to and kept her words short.

Everyday someone came to pull her out of bed and walk her down the halls using a pair of crutches she was still getting used to. Beatrix had been on crutches once when they were younger. She remembered her telling her how relieving it felt to finally get their cast off. Rose's fracture was much more severe than Bea's. From what the councilor and the doctor told her she knew a break like that—one that protrudes from the skin, was almost always a death sentence back home.

If she had managed to swim to the right shore, she would have been taken to an infirmary for an immediate amputation, but the water likely already caused an infection. Each morning the doctors gave her two large pills to kill her infection, pills they didn't have in the Undercity.

She thought of Bea during her walks in the corridors. She wondered where they had gone after the bridge. Rose hoped she went back home and didn't watch the violence that she herself had disappeared into, but she knew Bea better than that. She imagined Bea waiting at the other end of the bridge, just far enough away to keep herself safe, but close enough to watch, waiting for her friend or her parents to come back. Rose wondered if Bea's mother ever escaped from the enforcer after her fall. She hoped she did and that she had bought her time to get away or shocked the enforcer enough to get distracted, but she wouldn't never know unless she made it back home.

The more days that passed in the hospital the farther away the thought of going home became. It was beginning to look hopeless for her. Even if she could be discharged the doctors had told her she would need follow up visits to make sure her fracture was healing properly, and to continue her prescription of antibiotics, all things she couldn't do back home. The doctors also seemed hesitant to discharge her with no where to go.

Heimerdinger told them she was a casualty of the revolution, which was half true, they found her on the shore—their shore. They didn't know she was from the Undercity, if they had they would have no problem discharging to the streets. They even set up an advertisement for a missing person of a young girl, sixteen years old, bright red hair and amber eyes. Rose knew no one would come looking for her on this side of the city.

It had been a week and the doctors were close to setting her up with an orphanage to discharge her to when no one came to claim her. Rose was close to revealing her story and taking her chances with recovery in the Undercity when she received a visitor.

It was the professor as she expected, only instead of arriving with an arrest warrant and enforcers he came with a woman. She was tall and slender with dark skin and bright green eyes accented with golden makeup. If Rose didn't know any better she would have assumed the woman to be royalty. She was regal, but Piltover didn't have a monarchy.

No one spoke until the room was empty and the door was shut and locked.

"Rose," The professor began. "I'd like you to meet my colleague, Mel Medarda."

"Hello." Rose's voice was small and shy. She wasn't used to feeling this way but here in the hospital she was an outsider—no, she was more than an outsider. She was an intruder, a fugitive with a poor alibi.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Rose." Mel nodded back to her gracefully. Her voice was smooth and elegant.

"Are you on the council too?" Rose asked.

Mel nodded. "I am."

"Rose, why don't you tell Councilor Medarda what you told me." Heimerdinger suggested.