Ill Omen's Light (Lux/Jinx)

Chapter 5: Enter the Cupcake

Sheriff Caitlyn Kiramman was not a woman easily surprised.

This early in a bright Piltover morning, she was the vivid heart of a whirring clockwork beast whose bones were brass-footed wooden desks, leather-lined boxes and glass tubes of sealed evidence, whose organs were frazzled clerks in button shirts and suspenders and blue-grey uniformed officers bustling and skittering and stomping about, and whose bloodstream was sheets of paper arriving with the hiss of pneuma-tubes, flowing between the organs and pooling on the bones in mountains that only seemed disorganized.

This beast, by any other name, might be termed an 'office'; specifically, the Hall of Law, though Caitlyn preferred 'Central Office of the Wardens of Piltover'. And though it appeared an unruly and chaotic monster, those who knew the tall young woman with her crisp uniform, sky-hued eyes and sleek blue-black hair knew she kept her creature on a tight leash.

Behind her desk spread a massive wall-consuming corkboard covered in scraps of paper, posters, maps, notices, and sketches threaded with a complex spiderweb of pins and red stringlines that would shame a mad conspiracist if it weren't for its artful patterns of logic, suggestive of the workings of an orderly and observant mind.

Beside the desk sat her favorite top-hat, a personalized equivalent of the tall constable's cap she'd worn as a junior Enforcer, and one that had become something of her signiture as Sheriff.

On her desk sat a large brass magnifier, several of the aformentioned paperwork mountains - neatly stacked - and a steaming porcelain mug emblazoned with a stylized cupcake.

Next to it lay a tray of real-life equivalents with their pink icing gleaming in the morning light, and Caitlyn sighed into her coffee as she reached for one - only to have it swooped from her fingertips by a deft snatch of a hand.

"Gasp!" Vi exclaimed, her false shock belied by a bright wink, "Cannibalism!"

"Violet," Cait glared up at her partner, "You've not tired of that one yet, I see."

"Never gets old," the pink-haired woman laughed and made sure to give the frosting a suggestive sweep of her tongue and an enthusiastic 'mm' before she bit slowly into the cake. "Mmmph... long as I... mmh... keep getting that... mmm... reaction - so good..."

Caitlyn eyed her above the rim of her mug with a half-lidded gaze that might be construed as judgment, arousal, or both.

"The next time I need a confession from a tough suspect, dear," she mumbled, "I'll just send you in with an empty stomach and a few plates of food and let the sight of your table manners do the rest."

"What's wrong with my table manners?" Vi said around a mouthful of cupcake, then stuffed the rest in her mouth in one bite and dusted her hands off, flicking crumbs and sprinkles everywhere.

Caitlyn let her eyebrow reply, and Vi blew her a kiss around her chewing, before leaning over the desk to peer at the stacks.

"Anythin' come in for me?"

Caitlyn lifted the files in her immediate stack one by one, dropping them on the stack beside her. "Shipping disputes. Zoning violations. Industrial patent fraud..."

"Snore," Vi rolled her eyes, "Got something juicier? Say...anything from home?"

Caitlyn sipped her coffee to mask her expression. Vi's cheery swagger around the office was a masquerade her deputy wore well by now, but the catch in her voice when she said home hit Cait somewhere deep.

A reminder that Vi had been forced to choose between Caitlyn, a woman she'd known then for only a few days, and everything she had left of her old life.