Ill Omen's Light (Lux/Jinx)

Chapter 13: The New Us

Bright, clean Piltover water drizzled from the shower head amid clouds of steam.

"This is amazing!" Lux sputtered out a laugh as she blinked away the droplets hitting her in the face, "How does this even work?"

Jinx eyed her sidelong, "What, you don't have showers where ya come from?"

"Nope! Not like this, anyway! This is...this is really neat!"

"I mean it's just water pressure and a pump system, probably not even Hextech..." Jinx actually was blinking, now, sort of – rather, her eyes were slowly opening and closing, as if she were fighting for her lids to stay open, "Y'know I have one of these in the lair, right?"

"I know!" Lux laughed, "And I'm still amazed!"

"Mine like...steals water from the Piltie supply," Jinx grinned at her, "Cuz did ya know? Piltover's up so high, an' rainwater runs downhill, so they have this whole system set up to pump water back up from the reservoirs, right past Zaun, from back when it was the Undercity, one of those things most people don't even know about, and nobody's bothered to mess with even with the big split..."

Lux's eyes hardened. "...you said most of Zaun doesn't even have access to clean water, and Piltover's still stealing it right under their noses?"

"Yup. That's Pilties for ya, dur," Jinx snickered with manic glee, her eyes gleaming, "...so I rigged up a slight deviation in the pipes one night when I got like...covered in oil and sumpwater, don't ask. And...tadaa!"

Jinx wiggled her fingers. Lux shook her head back at her, "Is that supposed to make me somehow less impressed and not more?"

"Aw, shucks, Blondie," Jinx peered up at her, "Didn't you use it to rinse off before we left, anyway?"

"I tried," Lux mumbled sheepishly, "...the water pressure nearly stripped my skin off, so I put some in a bucket."

Jinx burst into spluttering laughter, weak though it was with her condition. "...D'you guys like...draw water from the village well or somethin', or ...like nobody showers and everybody just walks around all stinky?"

"Oh, we have baths, usually; there's faucets, and an aqueduct system for most of the cities," Lux turned and closed her eyes as the stream sliced down the back of her head and across her shoulders, instantly gluing her grotty hair to the back of her neck.

"Mm... but yes, in rural areas, bucket and well is pretty common ...or washing in lakes and streams...aah, this temperature-"

Lux raised her arms and ran her fingers through her hair. She heard Jinx make a few small inarticulate sounds before she cleared her throat and croaked, "I mean, uh, not like I didn't grow up where there ain't a whole lotta clean water to go around, Sunbeam, so I ain't one to talk but uh..."

Lux opened her eyes to the sight of Jinx, huddled against the shower wall with her back hunched and her thin arms around her chest self-consciously, watching Lux with a mixture of awe and desire and uncertainty that was just...

...so cute.

Lux had been raised in the periphery of Demacian military practice. Oh, she was not a frontline soldier in the same way Garen, Cithria, Quinn, or even Kahina were. Her battlefield role, when she had one at all, was of support or covert spying.

But certainly, she'd seen action in the field, and she'd been through the training regimes expected of a young scion of House Crownguard. And that meant hard, sweaty, muddy days of physical exertion hunting and shooting and running obstacle courses and sparring with swords and shields.

And those days ended in the bathing hall with steam and chattering voices and the bodies of other women bared without shame or judgment.

Lux had always felt a little awkward, maybe a little upset at herself for how long it had taken her to train herself not to blush or clam up or let her eyes linger where they should not have.