Her Gun to His Head

Chapter 1: Peace and Disruption...

Perfect and blue.

Jinx adoringly peered into the swirling magical cosmos captured inside of the wonderful little orb she held delicately between her fingertips — much the same fascination she'd once felt all of those years ago, discovering a proto-form of the gemstone in a Piltovan well-to-do's workshop.

She cradled her head in her other hand, cushioning it against the thick wooden beam she lay upon, her body-length braids of hair dangling down above the spacious study below her.

"—Wasted a perfectly good night of gambling, though," a hoarse female voice spoke, "I was up for the second time this week."

An older male voice grunted disinterestedly in response.

"Kid held his own though," she continued, "he only stopped once I'd stepped up on him. Guess he didn't feel like seeing where that woulda went. Didn't have a whole lot to—"

Jinx rolled over lazily, gazing down at their conversation. Sevika sure did like to talk her boss' ear off. She held the blue gemstone up in front of her, placing it over Sevika's head; given the forced perspective it appeared roughly the same size.

'What an improvement that'd be,' Jinx thought, to entertain herself.

She looked over at her adoptive father, who appeared to be penning a letter of some sort while he pretended to listen to his second-in-command's tale.

She cast her mind back to the previous week, when she'd sat up here lamenting to him about how she was certain she wouldn't be able to achieve what she'd now just done — her head had been a maelstrom of noise that it seemed nothing would be able to make quiet.

She remembered the cold sting of the river waters caressing her face, of holding her breath and being submerged in their filth. But she trusted him in that moment — it had felt like they were going under together. And when he lifted her back up and she could see the night sky again, her mind had felt clear. Sometimes, when he looked at her, it seemed as though she could almost see her own experiences reflected back at her through his eyes — both his natural eye, and the piece of glass replacing the one he'd lost.

It felt good to be understood by somebody.

"—Anyway," Sevika went on, "we should probably think about doing something about the riff-raff bothering the workers in the smelting district—"

"On the contrary," Silco declared, turning in his chair to face her for the first time in the conversation, "those sorts of domestic matters are hardly of concern to us right now."

He gazed upon the letter he'd just written, holding it gently before him, as though admiring his work.

"Our world's about to change," he continued, "our foremost priority at this moment is to ensure we aren't spread too thin."

It amused Jinx to see Sevika's expression ping pong between faith and doubt.

'He knows what he's doing, you troglodyte,' she remarked internally.

"I trust you understand what needs to be done," Silco reiterated.

Sevika's conflict remained present on her face, but she nodded with an affirmative grunt, and left to go get done whatever it was that he'd impressed upon her to do.

After a moment, Silco closed his eyes and let out a kind of meditative exhale.

When he open them, his eye immediately found hers. He silently outstretched his hand toward her, beckoning her down from her hideout in the rafters. His expression was warm; inviting. She couldn't really remember the last time he didn't looked stressed sitting in that chair.