Ill Omen's Light (Lux/Jinx)

Chapter 11: A Song of Chaos

"Jinx!"

Lux ran down the streets of Piltover, breathless, panting, her heart an aching hole in her chest.

Everywhere her frantic eyes turned, there were only empty alleys and tidy lanes, and so unlike the vivid tangle of Zaun. Everything up here looked the same...

And now it was all hazed with smoke from the explosions, fritzing Hextech streetlamps damaged by the power outage flickering on and off, throwing patches of darkness and obscuring smoke to twist that sameness into a surreal nightmare-scape.

"Jinx!"

She screamed, her voice raw and her face pale and shaken, dizziness and disorientation rising with each frantic turn of her head.

"...Where are you? Please. Please. I'm not leaving, I'm here...just come with me, just come out!"

Sobs ripped into her and out of her. Frustration, anger, fear. She knew on some level she should fear for herself, too. The whole city was hunting for Jinx, and she, Luxanna Crownguard, a stranger in this land, had made herself an associate of Piltover's most wanted terrorist and Zaun's most feared firestarter, and yet...

Who cared, how could she care, when Jinx was still out there alone?

Lux's frantic eyes searched, but her mind filled with Jinx; the husky scratch of her voice, sometimes sharp and brittle as broken glass, sometimes bubbling and cracking with fountains of wild joy.

I've only known her a day...

...She sees past everything, right into me.

Her scent, a kaleidoscope of her, indescribable in a word but full of gunsmoke, concrete dust, candy wrappers, Jinx. The flicker of her quick, clever lips from frown to smirk to wicked grin and back...

She nearly got me killed...

...I've never felt this alive.

The gaping abyss of the pain behind that smile.

She's a murderer...

...am I any better?

The warmth that lit up her and animated every part of her every time she looked at Lux.

I can't leave her.

Lux's vision blurred with tears. The thought of her lying somewhere, drugged, hallucinating and helpless, of being caught and dragged away to whatever punishment...

Never seeing her again.

"Jinx!" Lux cried out, seeing glints of purple eyes in the shadows, hopeful each time, only for it to be tricks of light playing on the brickwork, a stray cat slinking away, the silhouette of exterior pipework lying to her that it was a slumped figure.

Nothing, nowhere. Gone.

"...Jinx..." the whisper on her own lips, tiny and faltering.

"LUX!"

Her heart jumped in her chest at the new voice. A man's, familiar, but in her fixation, she didn't recognize it, nor the face on the young man running toward her.

No, leave me alone, I need to find her, I need...

Lux's eyes focused sharply as he came into view. Her hand twitched on the staff at her side, but she found herself just – freezing up, because –

"Lux, oh aspects, it's you – I found you – oh thank-"

He stopped and leaned on his knees, panting, shaking his head. The look he gave up to her was pleading...panicked. Relieved, and - guilty?