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Jayce was walking the line between drowning and swimming. With each step, he seemed to be drawn further into the deep. Each accusation and punishment weighed down on his shoulders and he was slowly sinking.
He almost wished the explosion had been a little more powerful, just a little more closer. This could’ve all been avoided if it had killed him. His dreams of magic had been crushed by the Council’s decision and his research was gone.
He only vaguely remembered writing the letter and putting it on the desk. His bracelet caught his eye, though, as he put it down. It seemed to shine with anticipation as if it knew what was about to happen.
He took a step closer to the edge. Barely a step and it felt like he was running based on the way his heart was in his throat and his palms were sweaty.
The waves were rushing in his ears now, as his head was finally lowered under the water.
His feet seemed to move of their own accord, pushing him forward to his ending. He never thought it would end with his broken body on the street.
Maybe it was his blood, trying to remind him that his heart was still pumping and he was alive.
He could feel the empty air all around him. Dust swirling like a phantom laughing, preparing to dig claws deep into his flesh.
The current was dragging him forward towards the open water.
He inched over the edge, preparing to fall. The city of Piltover would be the last thing he would see. How fitting. A man whose entire life’s work has been taken from him, the things he would have achieved are erased, the lives he could’ve saved are forfeit, and his last vision is the people who ordered it, the Council of the self-proclaimed City of Progress.
He let go of his grip and prepared to surrender to the steady flow-
“Am I interrupting?” A voice called curiously from behind him. Jayce stumbled backward, heart beating like a terrified rabbit. He hadn’t heard the door open or the footsteps coming inside.
Bile was rising in Jayce’s throat with anger, horror, confusion, fear, and resignation as he turned to see… The Dean’s assistant. “The hell’s your problem?” Jayce spat out, shaking and desperately hoping the other man wouldn’t notice.
He noticed the book the Dean’s assistant held open in one hand, “What’s that? Another list with my name on it?”
Jayce had turned away by the time the assistant spoke again. “Actually, yes, but only because you signed your notes. Every page I might add.” A shot of confusion ran through Jayce before it turned to irritation with the next words. “Ehh, a little egotistical, don’t you think?”
Jayce ran a hand over his face. “Is that why you came? To insult me?” He would’ve preferred the other man had just let him jump. It would’ve been easier that way.
“No, no, I was… I was intrigued by what you said at the trial.” The man seemed baffled by that very notion. He stepped forward until he stood by Jayce.
“That makes you the only one,” Jayce replied bitterly. He entertained the thought, for a second, that the Dean’s assistant would possibly be interested in Jayce’s work when the Dean had been so vehemently against it. He dismissed it almost immediately as a fanciful imaginative concept for a man who should’ve been dead minutes ago. He wondered if the combination of the explosion and adrenaline hadn’t knocked a few screws loose in his brain and this wasn’t all a hallucination by his brain desperately attempting to live just a minute longer.
“Yes, well, I wanted to talk about your work,” the man seemed oblivious to Jayce’s train of thought as he talked. “This Hextech theory of yours.”
“It’s not a theory,” Jayce stressed, annoyance clear on his tongue. “I saw with my own eyes what magic can do, the lives it could save. You have no idea how beautiful it is.” An image of his mage flashed before his eyes. The way that the mage had so effortlessly channeled magic in order to save Jayce and his mother. The runes that had lit the snow up and dispelled the cold.
Then he remembered his trial, the way that the Council had dismissed him. As if magic’s only purpose was harmful, as if Jayce had never been saved by it. He looked longingly back over to the edge as he spoke, “And now it’s gone. No one believed me.”
The other man spoke quietly as he came up to Jayce, “Nobody’s ever believed in me.” Each step took him closer until he stood at the edge of the building with Jayce and dust fell down to the street below. As if they were about to take the last step together. “A poor cripple from the Undercity. I was an outsider the moment I stepped foot in Piltover.” Jayce could hear the quiet resignation and bitterness in the man’s voice.
Jayce looked at him as the man gazed at the city before them and continued talking, “I didn’t have the benefits of a patron or a name. I simply believed in myself.” Jayce could hear something else in the man’s voice now, a confidence and desire to do something great. “Which is why I’m here. Because I think you’re on to something.” The man finally glanced at Jayce with determination in his eyes.
“I want to help you complete your research.”
“No one thinks it can be done,” Jayce protested weakly, he could feel sadness starting to creep up his spine.
The man shot him a wry look and the corners of his mouth lifted up, “When you’re going to change the world, don’t ask for permission.” With those words, he held up Jayce’s bracelet.
Jayce reached out to take it and hesitated. What if this was wrong? What if Heimerdinger was right? What if he did more harm than good? He looked at the bracelet again, the rune that the mage had given him, and the thoughts dissipated.
When Jayce took the bracelet, clutching it tight in his fist, a thought occurred to him and a pang of guilt ran through him. “I don’t even know your name,” he blurted out.
You saved my life and I don’t even know your name. You believe in me and I don’t even know your name. You want to help me and I don’t even know your name. The thoughts echoed and echoed. Like he was back in the snowstorm, back in the ruins of his childhood.
“It’s Viktor.” And suddenly it was like Jayce could breathe again. Viktor. Viktor.