Ill Omen's Light (Lux/Jinx)

Chapter 1: Candle in the Dark

T/W: Mild-Dubcon.

The crate jostling startled her awake. Lux swallowed the sharp gasp that might have given her away, and the harder intake of breath at the light leaking from her gloves.

Closing her eyes again, Lux fought to control her breathing. She visualized the light as a bright sun, of many colors and none, and drew it down beyond the horizon with each breath, until it was obscured in darkness.

She opened her eyes to see that her hands no longer glowed and let out a held breath.

Only a faint twist of pain. He had taught her that technique. But it had worked, because it always did; Lux could only hope her companion hadn't seen her mishap.

The young man crouched by the wall of their large cargo container, staring out. The dying sunlight filtering through gaps between the wooden planks caught on his feathered blonde hair and the markings on his cheeks.

"Sir Lightfeather?" Lux whispered, "All clear?"

"Toldya, you can call me Jarro, Lux," her companion turned back to her and gave her that same cocky smile, "Looks clear for now."

That smile had made her chest jolt when they'd first locked eyes at a gala hosted by House Laurent some years ago. She'd been a teenager then - they'd both been - curious and easily won by a smile like that one. But any potential conversation they might have had was quickly nipped in the bud by Aunt Tianna hovering like a grandly-pauldron'd hawk. And, though she'd glimpsed him fluttering around the Demacian capital now and then, that chance to interact had never come.

Not for the first time, Lux wondered why he was helping her now. Especially to do something this incredibly reckless and dangerous...

For a moment, he seemed to be working himself up to say something, but the heavy thud of Noxian boots and heavier growl of Noxian accents outside their crate silenced him before he could open his mouth again.

The two waited for long minutes in the dark as the guards had an amiable argument with a shipping official about the loading schedule.

Experienced with espionage outside Demacia's borders as she was, Lux had little difficulty understanding them, even with the guttural regional dialect. Most of her missions for the Radiant Ones, after all, had been within Noxus.

But those had been missions, meticulously planned and tracked by her superiors. This...

Jarro rolled his eyes at the delay and mouthed 'Noxians, huh?' before he gave her another quirk of that smile. Lux was interested to note that he seemed to understand them just as well as she did. But she figured such a renowned young hero as Jarro Lightfeather, Eighth Order of the Sentinels of Light, would have broad experience in the world. It made sense for what little she knew of him, but it prickled familiar instincts nonetheless.

I barely know him. All we did was look at each other at a gala. We never even talked. Now...

Now he was helping her flee her kingdom.

What else didn't she know about him?

Lux forced her attention back to the conversation outside. Two crates had been delayed enroute. The sudden shift in troop movements toward the Demacian border wrought havoc upon the regular schedules.

Lux's heart hung leaden in her chest.

Troop movements. The Noxians were reacting to the mage rebellion, then.

As the voices of the official and the guards moved away, and they heard the airship's bay doors closing, Lux hung her head. She was glad when the doors shut out the daylight, hiding the look on her face from Jarro.