Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

First Holiday

4 months together

***

Chestnut brown hair rustles beneath an old steel miner’s helmet. The hat is scribbled on with colorful, childish renditions of teeth and spirals. Two little braids stick out of the back of the helmet, rustling against the flared collar of a grey-blue vest. Isha shivers, rubbing her palms together to generate warmth and breathing hot air into her cupped hands. 

Jinx hops alongside her, not looking the slightest bit cold in her typical outfit that shows just about as much skin as a bathing suit. The demolitionist glances at the shivering little copy of herself as she walks in long, slow strides, hands on her hips, “Ya cold, kiddo?” 

Isha nods, running her hands along her forearms to sooth the goosebumps along her skin. Enforcers and Noxians have been sparse today, for whatever reason, probably stupid meetings or something, and the two menaces took the opportunity to spend the day on the streets of Zaun. Jinx had needed to buy some more illicit parts for upcoming weapon projects. The bomb-builder has just been exploding open with fresh ideas lately! Probably thanks to Isha always doodling up wild, wacky gadgets that most certainly break the law of physics. But who is Jinx if not a law-breaker? Dumb physics and math and common sense won’t stop the genius from building a miniature ferris wheel that launches a rocket every time one of the passenger carriages reaches the top, or a bomb disguised as a wrapped hard candy (maybe not that one, Isha could accidentally eat it), or a rabbit plushie that can shoot lasers from its eyes.

Isha is always convenient to have along when making deals and haggling. Using a puppy-eyed little kid as leverage is surprisingly effective sometimes. After acquiring the needed parts, they searched for some chow. Usually they just grab food from Jericho’s, but today Isha had spotted a newer stall among the rows of vendors on the popular strip. A janky wooden booth selling sweet bread. The mousy kid had eagerly tugged Jinx’s hand in the booth's direction, biting her cheek and humming excitedly. Jinx, of course, had given into the kid’s request. The vendor, and presumably the baker, seemed a little too jolly, probably hopped up on shimmer (the kind that gives you the energy of a thousand fuel engines without turning you into a hulking beast).

But hey, if shimmer helps ya bake delicious shit like this, more power to ya. Isha had picked out a bun filled with a chunky jam, probably crystalberry. It’s not often one finds bread of this quality on the Undercity, so Jinx had decided to try some for herself and got the same thing. She’s always had a sweet tooth, and the crystallized sugar forming in the jam definitely satisfied her craving. Seems like Isha definitely has a sweet tooth too, but Jinx wouldn’t expect anything less from a kid, they usually like to live off of candy, right? 

Jinx’s taste buds had been partially damaged from shimmer consumption. But unlike addicts who repeatedly and exclusively ingest shimmer by drinking it, the procedure Jinx had undergone mostly consisted of blood transfusions. Her taste buds are no doubt permanently damaged, but over time the sense has been coming back gradually. When she eats duller foods, she pretty much only tastes the icky, sweet, chemical flavor of shimmer. But foods with stronger flavors come through much better, letting the demolitionist actually enjoy eating. When she remembers to eat, of course.

The sweet fruitiness of the pastry certainly came through on her tongue. Nonetheless, even when it comes to less flavorful foods, Isha had started to make everything a game, an adventure, fun and enjoyable. Like some kind of curse or infection. 

Hm, guess I’m cursed to let this kiddo make everything in my life sweet forever. ‘Suppose being cursed ain’t so bad sometimes. 

They had left the booth with full bellies. Jinx had to spit on her hand and wipe jam off of Isha’s face, using the collar of the kid’s vest as a napkin. Isha had squirmed and whined, annoyed by the rough wiping.  

“Sheesh kid, sorry for makin’ sure ya don’t walk around filthy!”

They had briefly gone back to the hideout so Jinx could add the finishing touches to a very special new project. She declared it complete with a shout and a toss of confetti (she keeps a handful in the pocket of her pants. You never know when you’ll need to announce something, theatrics are absolutely unequivocally necessary!)

Now, they’re on their way to a certain brute’s apartment, Jinx carrying the project in a slightly soggy brown box with a large pink bow tied around it. The blue haired teen does her best to ignore the stares she’s been getting ever since she was declared the “Symbol of Freedom”. Now that the Jinxer’s practically worship her, other Zaunites aren’t too much of a danger. Rather than scorn; fear and respect seem to swim in the eyes of the fissure folk and gang members who glance at her on the street.

I take a break from that ugly grey cloak for one day while enforcers aren’t up my ass and now I’ve got every dirty trencher gawking at me like a circus attraction! 

Jinx’s string of thought is broken when she sees another intense shiver run through Isha's body, her hat practically rattling on her head. 

She rubs the kid’s shoulders, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her in closer, “Ah, sorry Ish, didn’t notice. I don’t feel cold so easily anymore, y’know- cause of the shimmer.” Jinx taps on her chin in thought, “huh, we don’t really have any wintery clothes, do we? Here, let's get ya somethin’ to warm you up!” 

Jinx swings her head around, scanning with wild eyes. There are some stands, but they mostly have weapons and dried foods. There are a lot of buildings around, but they look a little too drab to be anything at all. 

“Hmmm…” 

That’s when Jinx spots a small, unassuming shop on a corner. Dark metal filigree carves out the exterior. Classic green Undercity light bulbs illuminate from a circular window on the side, and white steam puffs out of a pipe above the lintel. A hanging wooden sign swings back and forth, creaking with every gust of wind. In blocky letters, the sign reads:

Smog City Hand-Me-Downs

Hm, should be good enough. 

Jinx swings open the heavy wooden door of the shop, sauntering in like she’s just bought the place, with Isha following right behind. The shopkeeper glances up from a counter adjacent to the door. They’re a chirean with long, dark hair. Jinx pays them no mind. 

“Alight, let's get ya some garb!” The shop is a little dingy. The walls are dark and so is the shelving. Yellow overhead lights flicker, and green bulbs illuminate the corners and windows. There isn’t much of a theme, various clothing and accessories hang dreary on racks or strewn across closely lined shelves, making the place feel cramped despite the frankly limited selection.

They squeeze between shelves, Jinx squinting her eyes and bending her body unnaturally to get a look at the lower brackets, searching for heavier jackets or cloaks. Isha climbs up one of the shelves, straining her neck to look behind some leather bags. The plywood beneath her foot creaks with the weight.

“Hey, you break any of the fixtures and you’re paying for them,” comes a monotone voice from the front counter. Jinx rolls her eyes, setting the gift box at her feet and grabbing Isha by the torso, holding her up herself and letting the kid get a better look at the higher shelving. 

Her voice drips with sarcasm, “Yeah yeah buddy, don’t want anyone breakin’ such precious equipment, huh?”

They work their way through the shop, combing through shirts and pants, turning over shoes and goggles, and finding nothing thick enough or small enough for Isha. 

“You looking for something warm?” asks the shopkeeper once they notice the pair's clear frustration. Jinx peers at them through squinted, suspicious eyes, taking a second to observe them. They have their hand on their chin, looking relatively bored, but they’re staring at the two with something akin to interest. 

“Yeah, for the kid,” Jinx finally answers. The shopkeeper hums, slipping out of their stool. 

“Think I’ve got something for you over here.” They walk over to a couple of boxes in the opposite corner of the shop. They rifle through the boxes for a minute while Jinx and Isha stand by the counter and watch curiously, raising a brow at each other. The shopkeeper stands, shaking dust off of the garment and walking back to their previous place. The chirean brushes some leather scraps, doohickeys, and an empty bottle aside, laying the article of clothing across the countertop. It's a turtleneck sweater-jacket thing, musty green in color. Half of it folds over and buttons on the side of the chest with big black buttons. It appears to be made of pressed wool, maybe a little scratchy but nothing a few washes can’t fix. The sleeves are baggy but cinched at the ends around the wrist. There’s a convenient little pocket on the chest of the coat, and some loose threads from a missing button on the flap of the pocket. Jinx runs her hand over the coat- yeah, a little itchy - and thumbs at the inside. Luckily, there is a softer, cleaner inner layer. It's fluffy and yellowish, what was this stuff called again? Sherpa or something?

Overall, it's a satisfactory coat. Pretty cute, even. It looks warm and soft, maybe a little big but Isha can grow into it.

The thought sparks an image in Jinx’s mind of Isha, a few years older, taller and wittier and even better at building bombs than Jinx was at that age. Isha, grown into all of her clothing. 

Jinx has never had a future she can clearly envision. She’s always assumed she would die young, and after Silco’s passing, she had her mind set about it. She’s never had a grandiose plan, or an idea of what an older, more stable Jinx’s life might look like. It had never seemed possible. 

But now, practically set in stone that Isha would be staying- forever, the outline of a future has become so vivid. It's real, and terrifying, and amazing, and the fact that Jinx wants it so badly is what’s scary. Every instinct in her body is telling her she will fuck all of this up. 

She ignores the voices in her head, and decides that she will get to see this jacket fit Isha like a glove next winter. She will fight and kill for it.

“Whaddya think, Ish, wanna try it on?” the kid nods furiously, taking the jacket and unbuttoning it with just a bit of trouble. She slips it on, pulling the front edges to adjust the fit. Like Jinx thought, it's a little boxy, but it's the smallest thing they’ve seen in here.

Isha wiggles her shoulders, then waves her arms out, testing how the jacket feels and holds up to movement. They live a chaotic life, afterall. She nods to herself, patting the sleeves, then looks up at her guardian and gives a thumbs up. She signs warm. Looks cool. I like.

“Nice job, Chuck! The kid likes it! How much’ll that be? Actually- before ya answer, how much’ll that be after I haggle ya down?” Jinx leans on the counter, patting her back pocket for her pouch of cogs.

“You seem pretty confident you’ll successfully haggle me,” the shopkeeper answers, raising an unimpressed brow.

“I am!” Jinx smiles, tapping her nails on the counter impatiently. 

The store goes silent as the shopkeeper stares at her. The tapping of Jinx's blue and pink nails being the only sound. 

They sigh deeply, seeming like they don’t care enough to argue, “Alright, why don’t you just name your price?” 

“10”

“Are you serious? 45”

“Are you serious? 12”

“35”

“15”

“30”

“12”

“You can’t just go back down! 20, take it or leave it.”

“...”

“Fine, 20 it is to the bat," Jinx takes some coins out of a pouch, counting them lazily. She moves to drop them into the chirean’s hand, but pauses.

“How'd you know what we were lookin’ for, Chuck?” She eyes them suspiciously. Isha copies her, furrowing her eyebrows at the shopkeeper and frowning.

Their animalistic nose twitches, “Again, name’s not Chuck. Winter’s creeping up, getting colder and windier. I’ve gotten a lot of customers looking for coats. Can't say I’ve had someone as popular as you come in, though.” 

The proclaimed “symbol” rolls her eyes and drops the coins into their open palm, “Ugh don't even use that word. I've just become the next unfortunate figure for desperate, insane cultists to latch onto.”

The shopkeeper eyes her curiously, “hm, I don’t know. I heard some rumors about you doing some pretty big things last month.”

Jinx’s eyelid twitches and her nostrils flare, “I don’t do anything for the Jinxers, and I don’t do anything for this city.”

Isha kicks her boot. She doesn’t need to look down to know the brat is pouting. 

The shopkeeper goes quiet, observing her- way too analytically for her liking. They look at Isha, just for a moment, and their eyes soften, looking back at Jinx with something like understanding, as if they’re in on an inside joke. 

The nerve. You don’t know a damn thing.

The shopkeeper looks down and begins counting the coins. As they sift through the pile, they ask, “You two celebrating the solstice tomorrow?”

The change of topic snaps Jinx out of her brooding. Huh, the winter solstice. That’s already coming up? Been awhile since I’ve…done anything for it. Too many memories attached. Stupid memories. Don’t do you any good. Too many stupid violets, too. 

“That’s tomorrow? Haven’t been keeping track.” Isha takes Jinx’s hand, swinging both of their arms between them in the way children do when they’re bored.

The shopkeeper opens a drawer under the counter and tosses the coins in, “Yeah, Janna’s altars are going to be crowded.”

“We ain’t exactly the spiritual types.”

The shopkeeper goes back to resting their chin in their palm, “Hm, yeah but, still the start of a new season. The beginning of something new is always worth acknowledging, don’t you think? I remember this trend popped up awhile back, people talking about what they’re thankful for over a drink or some decent food. I try to keep up with that tradition myself. Something to look forward to.”

When she and Vi had been younger, they had a loose definition of “tradition” on the winter solstice. They would go up Topside, find a place where they wouldn’t be seen by enforcers, and pack snow into balls and throw them at each other. They would shape snow into barricades, and sometimes even fill the snowballs with rocks to up the stakes. When Mylo and Claggor came along, they indulged in the tradition as well. The game always ended with someone bleeding and everyone laughing and puffing out white, misty breath. It would get cold, sometimes freezing in the Undercity, but the snow would never really reach them, especially down in the Lanes. The upper parts maybe, but any sectors that didn’t have a clear view of the already limited skyline wouldn’t get any snow at all. Rain and mud from melted snow would always end up leaking down into the lower parts of the Undercity, though. Just another instance of Piltover’s muck being pushed out onto them. 

In the really deep parts of Zaun, in the trenches and near the mines, the air would stay warm even during the winter. The gases from the mines heat the air, making it unbearably hot in the summer and fairly warm in the winter. Not much of any kind of weather down there. 

They’d listen to regulars in the bar spin tails about Janna (White Birds, the worshippers called themselves), how the cold winds were a sign of her presence. They would say. When you look up through the openings of the crevices, and see a cloudy grey sky; that’s Janna’s hair falling over the Undercity as she watches over us, as she shields us. 

Though a bit silly, there was something whimsical and comforting about the stories. 

At the end of the day, Vander would insist their little cobbled together family gather around the bar and talk about the good that had happened that year. There was always so much strife, so much news of death and lack of resources and brutality from the enforcers and gang activity. It was all anybody had to talk about. But Vander always wanted to inspire hope in the people of Zaun. Pick out the bits of goodness from the rotten cake. 

Vi usually said she was thankful for Powder, and Powder usually said “Violet” and Mylo usually said something stupid like “boogers” or “Powder falling down the stairs” or “hair gel I found in a piltie's trash” (but with Vander’s coaxing would grumble out a serious answer after everyone else had gone).

Vander always said “my kids, every little thing we have, and another year lived.”

“Something to look forward to…” Jinx mumbles, lost in thought. Her eyes drift to some shelving behind the counter. There is a mannequin head wearing a soft looking, faded orangish-red hat with flaps on the side to cover your ears and braided string hanging off of the ends. There are a few more items laid across the shelf that catches Jinx’s eye as well.

Shee pulls out her pouch of coins again, “actually, I think we’ll get a few more things.”

***

That metal helmet probably gets pretty cold on her head…

“Throw in that hat too!” 

Isha gasps indignantly, tugging her helmet down.

“Don’t worry kiddo, you can wear it under the helmet.”

“Anything else?” the shopkeeper asks, retrieving the hat. 

“A pair of your thickest socks, please!”

***

They move to leave the store, Isha having already put on her new hat and pair of socks (which were so thick they barely fit into her boots). Jinx had also bought a pair of gloves. They’re technically two different gloves that had lost the other half of their pair. One puffy, pink nylon glove, and one black leather glove that's fuzzy on the inside. At least they’re both water resistant. Jinx supposes the kid can start wearing them once it gets really cold. They won’t restrict her hand signs as much as mittens would, but they’re still not totally convenient.

The chirean shopkeeper smirks at them and waves, “have a good solstice, Chuck,” they say, putting emphasis on the last word.

Jinx looks back and huffs through her nose, continuing out of the door, “what a weirdo, am I right?” Isha giggles, and the heavy wooden door slams shut behind them. 

Isha hops along beside Jinx, now thoroughly warmer and more upbeat. The turtle neck of her coat covers her mouth a bit, and the sleeves nearly cover her hands. The kid looks so tiny in the bulky coat, it reminds Jinx of the fluffy little poros she would watch waddling about Topside. She’s also wearing the terracotta hat under her miner’s helmet, the flaps coming out of the sides and the braided string seeming to mimick the movement of Jinx's braids. 

The kid is so fucking adorable Jinx almost can’t stand it, she just wants to squeeze her until she pops! And she does, grabbing Isha off of her feet without warning and hoisting her up into a smothering hug, nuzzling her head against the side of the kid’s face.

“ggrrrr look at you ya puffball!” 

Isha shrieks out a laugh, wiggling in the embrace and kicking her legs out. Jinx smiles, nuzzling into her harder, tickling the poor giggling girl. 

Jinx drops Isha back down and squeezes her face, squishing her baby fat. 

“Okay, stop being cute! We gotta focus, Stinkbug! We’ve got some very precious contraband to move!” 

Isha stifles her giggling, putting on a serious face and saluting. 

“That’s the attitude! Okay, the ogre’s cave should be around here somewhere…” 

While they walk, Jinx thinks about the conversation with that shopkeeper. Winter hasn’t been too cold so far, and it had only snowed lightly in Piltover from what she could tell. They wouldn’t be able to enjoy it anyway, considering enforcers would rain bullets on them the moment anyone gets a glimpse of her up there. She wants to give Isha what she had with Vi. Something fun to do to remind them of why they’re all here. Something to celebrate. But The Last Drop is dead, and her big sister is drowning in the bottom of a mug, and there isn’t any snow here. She would have to think of something just as good. Maybe she can’t get the real thing, but Jinx is an inventor after all! There is no mountain too long or road too high, or whatever the saying is!

On their way, they pass by a small altar. A man sits on his knees, igniting a match and lighting a bundle of sticks and a lump of coal. Dark smoke plumes from the bundle and whirls through the air. The man blows the smoke, uttering a prayer under his breath as a light breeze picks up the smoke and helps to move it along, dissipating it into the air. 

Another Zaunite sits facing a barren wall. With a small chunk of white chalk, they draw on the wall. Nothing in particular, it's more about the movement. A slow, deliberate spiral here, a rapid streak of lines there. 

Zaunites never have much to offer their gods. They have no food to spare, no bread to break or wine to leave in golden cups. No coins to spare, no tokens. No effigies, no elaborate totems. 

They have only the words on their tongues and the art their minds can conjure. 

It must be enough, for the wind still comes.

Jinx had only ever been to Sevika's apartment twice, both times having been what Vika called “break-ins”, which was exaggerating it in Jinx’s expert opinion. Her apartment is all dim and boring anyway, smelling of cigar smoke and being fairly empty other than the alcohol, raggedy furniture, and some dirty magazines. Totally stodgy and totally Sevika. The woman never spends much time there anyway, always out on “political business” taking care of what’s left of Silco’s empire, or playing poker with the shadiest characters Zaun has to offer, or slumming it in a brothel. 

“Heya Vika!!!! Your favorite do-gooders are here!!!” Jinx yells as she kicks open the door to Sevika’s apartment from the hallway of the housing unit, green lights flickering along the ceiling and rats scurrying to hide in the walls. Honestly, Jinx isn’t 100% sure Sevika’s even home, but she probably doesn’t have much to do during this time of day. 

Fortunately, a gruff voice sounds from somewhere in the apartment, “do-gooders? Don’t lie to my face, Brat.” Sevika is sitting on a tan, beer-stained couch and leaning over a low table. Lying on the table is a stack of papers, blocky letters scrawling the papers in dense writing. Probably some territorial mumbo jumbo Sevika has been trying to make “official” so there won’t be so much fighting between the Chembarons. Her metal arm lies across the table as well, detached from her stump to give it a rest and let her skin breathe.

“Are you allergic to knocking? You don’t know what I could be up to in here,” she organizes the paper in her hand back into the pile. 

Isha runs over to the gruff woman and hugs her leg. Sevika pats her back in a greeting, quirking her mouth just slightly, “I like the getup, kid.” 

Isha smiles at her with that big gap-toothed grin, Was cold. Jinx bought it for me!!

“Well, we’re do-gooders today! And what could you possibly be up to? A life? You make me laugh, Lefty! ” Jinx skips over to the woman, dropping a bow-tied box onto the table with a thud. 

Ignoring the teasing, Sevika arches a brow, looking at the demolitionist with suspicion, “This for me?”

Jinx rolls her eyes, “uh, yeah it's for you, ya dingus. Exactly whatcha pestered me for!” 

Isha is clenching her fists excitedly, waiting in anticipation for her to see the gift. Sevika picks up the box and brings it closer, pulling the bow to undo it. She flips it open, and inside is a complex mechanical object. a metal hand. It's about the same size as Sevika’s real hand, made with silver steel and golden bolts to match her chomper prosthetic. There are rings around the fingers, cogs and latches that probably activate with her arm and open up into various tools and weapons. As expected, it's splashed with pink and blue. Jinx’s signature doodles decorate the hand; X’s and toothy smiley faces and monkeys. Though Jinx’s doodles are childlike, they’re practiced and confident. Some more distinctly childish and uncoordinated doodles accompany Jinx’s; hearts and bunnies and what appears to be a drawing of Sevika herself. 

“A boring and normal hand for doin' boring and normal things,” Jinx drawls. Though her attitude gives off the impression that she was bothered to build the prosthetic. The care and detail put into the design gives her away. 

Sevika had been asking for months now for Jinx to build her an actual hand for her arm so she wouldn’t have to go about her day using a glorified mousetrap. Jinx, with her ever-confusing train of thought and thoroughly damaged mind, always said something about hands being “overrated” and she was “too busy” to build one. Sevika always thought she was just trying to piss her off for fun. 

“I actually started building it two months ago, but I stopped anytime ya did something that made me mad,” Jinx says, picking at her colored nails. 

Isha eagerly takes the hand out of the box, presenting it to Sevika with eager mmn! Sounds.

“Isha helped build it and convinced me to finally finish it, so you can thank her. She’s a real natural y’know, even with my excellent teaching abilities she’s got a wicked mind! She’ll be building Fishbones a brother in no time!”

Sevika takes the prosthetic, turning it and looking it over, “yeah, I don’t think that’s a good thing. Another one of you? Runeterra better say it’s prayers now,” she teases as she pats Isha’s helmet, “ya did good, kid.”

The kid smiles widely, thank you!!

“You too, Brat,” light grey eyes look up at Jinx through choppy bangs. Said blue-haired menace bites her cheek to suppress a smile.

“Yeah yeah whatever.” Jinx plops down on the floor, sitting opposite Vika at the table. She pulls the metal arm closer, “lemme make a few modifications to this thing and then I’ll show ya how to attach and detach the hands.”

The engineer takes the moment to explain how the prosthetic works and how she built it, Isha chiming in with her own commentary every once in a while. Though Sevika has never really cared about Jinx’s process, and she herself has her own experiences in mechanics- she listens quietly, her eyes softening. Her calloused, scarred, steel plated exterior melts away at the warmth that comes from the two happy kids sitting in her apartment with a gift they made through sweat and oil, just for her. 

Jinx has come up with an absolutely genius, one of a kind, stupendously spectacular brand spankin’ new invention to give Isha an unforgettable experience in the snow!!

The machine will need to be large, with an industrial sized fan. Not too strong, that could get dangerous, but strong enough to get snow in the sky. There’ll need to be tubes, probably just one mid sized tube, connected to a tank. Tank should be big enough to fit a few gallons at least. I could refill it, but that would break the immersion. If I have the tube connected to an air compressor below the fan, then the liquid should be light enough to blow out easily. If I have the air compression tubes released into a chamber behind the fan, then the snow may stick to the fan blades. But if I have the tubes running along the inside of the fan’s exterior walls, they could blow out in front of the fan and the wind would flurry the snow while it’s already in the air, lessening the chance of build-up and clogging. Turning water into snow will be the tough part. But I think if I modify one of the mechanisms I used in Fishbones, and use my experience from installing those pipes in the hideout, I can create a…rapid cooling chamber. A coil maybe? Cooling it won’t be enough, I’ll probably need some kind of chemical to keep the ice from forming into a solid. Eh, I’ll figure it out, can’t be too hard. I’ll need to test the ideal speed for the fan…I should put some wheels on this thing too…and definitely a drawing of a shark on this part…

It's the morning of the winter solstice. The wind is cold and biting and muddy water drips from roofs and pipes, flowing over from Topside. The sky is overcast and the streets of the Undercity are wrapped in a blanket of fog. The people on the streets are swathed in cloaks and scarves, some going about their business, some observing from the sidelines with a thieving eye, and some kneeling around murals of a wind goddess, praying into skeletal, veiny hands. 

“I know you’re still upset that I left you with Vika last night, but I had to do something really really important, and I had to do it alone. Trust me,” Jinx says as Isha lands behind her with a thump. The grumpy kid stomps over to the edge of the roof, preparing for their next leap. 

I can help. Or it’s too big for me? she signs, her mouth screwed up into a pout. 

Jinx deduces that by “big” she means “important”. I’ll add that to the list of signs to learn.

“Of course not. Not in that way. Like I said, you just need to trust me on this. Hang out with Auntie Vika for just a couple more hours, and I'll be all done with my thing, ‘kay Kiddo?”

Isha doesn't respond. She steps backwards to gain distance before running and leaping across the gap and onto the next roof. 

Jinx sighs inwardly. She isn’t trying to upset Isha, but there’s no other way to make it a surprise for her. It’s only a few hours- and then the winter fun can begin!

Jinx hands off a grumpy kid to Sevika outside of her apartment building.

“Want to get some fresh air while the streets are relatively calm. If the White Birds are good for one thing, it’s making things quiet." The muscular woman is wearing a brown leather jacket, cropped at her waist with cuffed sleeves. She’s leaning against a brick wall, a half-burnt cigar hanging out of her mouth. 

“Would be fresher without this nasty thing,” Jinx swifty plucks the cigar from Sevika’s lips, twirling it between her fingers and threatening to snuff it out beneath her boot. 

The smoker grabs Jinx’s wrist in a firm grip, “you gonna make me pop a blood vessel on a holiday, Brat? I'm doing you a big favor, y'know, being your babysitter all the time. I've got other shit to do,” She growls, yanking the cigar out of Jinx’s hand.

Jinx rolls her eyes, "yeah yeah yeah, just don’t go breathing that shit into Isha’s face, okay?” 

“Dear Janna, I’m not going to blow smoke into a child’s face,” she grits out irritably, dropping her arm and casually snuffing out the cigar on the brick wall behind her. “Speaking of, let's get moving Brat Number Two, we’ve got things to do.” She flicks Isha’s helmet as she walks, hands in her pockets.

“What kinda things?”

“Important business,” Sevika mocks, smirking back at Jinx.

Isha crushes the teen in a hug, tiny arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Jinx runs her hands along Isha’s back, “just a few hours, Bug.” Isha tightens her hold, and it takes a few moments for her to let go, but she does eventually, turning and catching up with Sevika without looking back. 

“Have fun with Auntie Vika!” Jinx calls, waving at the pair.

“Don’t call me that,” Sevika yells back, all the while undoubtedly looking like the dictionary definition of an aunt. 

Isha puts both of her palms up, bringing them towards herself then closing them. Then, she crosses her right index and middle finger over her left fist, making a finger gun with the right hand.

Want Jinx.

Sevika sighs, “for the billionth time kid, she’s got stuff to do that you just can’t be there for. What, you don’t like hanging out with me?” 

when Jinx says she has "important stuff to do" it usually means killing somebody, or a few somebody's. Sevika usually finds it better to not ask questions, less she gains another grey hair. 

Isha pouts and shakes her head, not that.

She scuffs her shoe on the ground, wringing her hands together. Sevika closes the book in her hand and drops her shoulders. They had picked up where Isha and Jinx left off in the current sign language book they were studying. They had worked their way through a few children’s books and were now using a slightly higher-level one that Jinx had somehow, no doubt nefariously, acquired. Isha was a natural at picking up new signs, it was mostly Sevika who needed the extra help in memorizing them. 

The pair are sitting on some crates on one of the streets near Sevika’s apartment. She thought the fresh air would do the kid some good. Unfortunately, Isha seems especially down today. 

Sevika snaps her fingers to get Isha’s attention and combs through her memory for the right signs, what is it then?

Isha doesn’t answer for a minute, just sits with her arms crossed, looking not the slightest bit intimidating in that oversized jacket. Sevika thinks that’s the end of it, Isha will just ignore her for the rest of the day, but eventually, tentatively, Isha takes the book from Sevika’s hand. She flips through it, running her finger over certain drawings of hand signs to memorize them. It takes a little while, but eventually she turns back to Sevika.

The kid scrunches her face like it's tough to get the words out, Special day. Want Jinx here. No one was here for long time. Lonely. Nothing special. Want Jinx.

Ah. the winter solstice. Sevika knew it was today. a long, long time ago, when she was young, her family took part in it every year. They were always passionate about traditions like that, especially Undercity traditions. Isha must have come from a family that celebrated it too. Probably followers of Janna. 

That must be…rough, for a kid. Celebrating a holiday every year and then suddenly not. Having nothing to do on that day for years. Only reminders.

Sevika taps at the book with her new prosthetic hand, “what makes it special?” she coaxes. 

Isha flips through the book again, thinking deeply and signing along the way, kind of hard to remember. Papa liked wind. Told stories. Hot drink. Cold but warm. Special.

Sevika rests a comforting hand on Isha’s leg, speaking softer then she probably ever has “sounds nice, kid."

Isha still looks worried though, her face stuck in that downcast expression. 

“Hey, chin up,” she pushes Isha’s helmet up to uncover her face, “I’m sure Jinx will come back, alive and annoying as ever. She’d probably do something special with you today. She’d do anything for you, y’know that? it's so sweet it makes me nauseous.”

Isha nods, blinking away wetness in her eyes and running a hand over the chest of her coat, Care. Here.

“Yeah, Ish,” Sevika scoots closer, shoulder to shoulder, and lays the book between them across both of their legs. Care. Here, she signs, having never imagined she could be so tender towards a tiny creature like this. 

Whew! Area cleared. Can’t have any used shimmer needles lying around. Okay, all set up. With a generator like that, this baby should be huffin’ and puffin’ for hours! How long would it take to cover a few yards? Probably not long, it’s pretty fast. Maybe we can even build snow huts, or snow goons! Oooo, I haven’t thought about those in so long. 

The aunt (I’m not anybody’s aunt!) and the child scale some pipes, working their way out of the lanes and up to the boundary markets. Unfortunately, Enforcers had been hanging around some of the dingy little elevators, so they’ll have to get there by foot. After practicing a few more signs until they were relatively memorized, Sevika had filled in Isha in on a small, slightly embarrassing errand she needed to run. The fact that Sevika was so abashed about it had Isha grinning and probing for the details. When the brute revealed what the purpose of this errand to upper Zaun was, Isha had practically squealed, flapping her hands and pointing at Sevika as if saying ha ha! Look at you! Being nice!

There was a particular store that sold something not easily found in the Undercity. Vinyl records. Expensive to manufacture and easily damaged; they’re not a luxury that survives long here. This place is the only dedicated record store in Zaun, and they cost a pretty penny. Anyone who gets to know Sevika learns that she loves records. She has a gramophone in her apartment, and when The Last Drop was still breathing she was a frequent visitor to their jukebox. She likes slow rock when she’s smoking, soul when she’s working, and swing when she’s in a good mood. There was a certain pair of bar owners and their pretty friend who shared the same hobby.

Lifetimes ago, when Sevika had first met Vander, Silco, and Felicia, they had bonded over their love of the classics. Vander’s jukebox was full of rare, even one-of-a-kind records, some being decades old. Oh, the time they had spent in that bar, cycling through vinyls and drinking until their cheeks were hot and their heads were fuzzy, stumbling into the center of the bar, twirling each other around, singing along to the songs they knew and laughing over the ones they didn’t. It's hard to remember what that was like- to dance so light on her feet, so free and uncaring, to belt from a whole and hopeful chest. It’s hard to remember, but it existed once. 

There is a safe in Sevika's apartment with a wooden box inside. Sevika always takes a portion of her gambling wins and keeps it in that wooden box as “vinyl money”. This morning, she had emptied the contents of the box into her leather coin pouch. 

The record store is a familiar sight to Sevika. It’s one of the more elegant places that exist in the Undercity, if "elegant" were to exist at all here. A dark wood, dusty interior, the walls plastered with posters of musicians that are well known around Zaun, and no doubt some of the record store owner’s more niche tastes as well. Rows of long racks hold hundreds of records, leaning against each other in their protective coverings. Sevika inhales, appreciating the smell of old vinyl, cigarettes, and the persistent stench of moldy water that permeates the Undercity this time of year. 

“Looks like the gutter rats dragged in another bloated corpse!” says a woman, stepping through a couple of saloon doors at the back of the shop. Isha observes her. She has big curly red hair and looks around the same age as Vika. There’s a fresh cigarette between her teeth, dropping ash on the floor. She’s wearing a soot-stained white tank top and baggy, brown-striped pants. The shop falls silent, and Isha thinks,  this woman must have offended Sevika! Jeez, she better get ready for the beating of a lifetime. 

Isha looks up at Sevika fearfully and gulps, preparing for a bout of violence to break out in the shop, but suddenly- Sevika’s face relaxes, “I must be in a morgue then, cause this saggy sack of flesh is starin’ at me all dead-eyed.” 

The ginger woman laughs. She walks up to the pair, large black boots scuffing the floor. Sevika and the woman clasp hands in a greeting that looks like an arm-wrestle. 

“You comin’ in to browse? Win another game of blackjack against a druggie?” the woman jokes once they’ve dropped their hands. 

Sevika puts her hands in her jacket pockets, leaning back casually, “Nah, I’m actually looking for something real specific this time. It’s a pretty old one.” 

“Well we’ve got a big collection, don’t doubt us now.” 

Then, the woman finally notices Isha, even doing a double take at the sight of the child. Isha puts on an intimidating face, glowering at the woman as her slightly too-big helmet falls over her face and her slightly too-big turtleneck scrunches up to her ears. 

“And who’s this? Didn’t take you for the kid type.” 

“Just this little tick I can’t pick off for the life of me.”

Isha grunts in offensive and kicks Sevika’s leg with her tiny, steel-toed boot. 

“Fine, fine. This is Isha. I watch her sometimes, as an unfortunate favor.”

The woman smiles at the two, taking a drag of her cigarette and breathing out smooth grey smoke, “you’re always full of surprises, Sevvy.”

Isha had never seen Sevika act this way. Confident and barrel-chested like she usually is, but casual and light at the same time. It was strange. She was usually so tense and growly. Sevika and this woman must know each other well. I wonder how?

The woman takes another puff, “Alright, so tell me about this mysterious record you’re looking for.”

Jinx will love it, Isha signs, gesturing to Sevika’s shoulder bag where the vinyl is being carried. 

Sevika only hums in response. She adjusts her shoulder, holding onto the strap of the bag in a protective manner, angling it away from any curious eyes on the street.

Isha is still feeling a little left out of everything. There’s this nagging feeling, pulling at her heart. Sevika had just bought Jinx a gift- a really really good gift! Shouldn’t Isha get her a gift too? And get Sevika one as well! Isha thinks back to the first week when Jinx had taken her in. The way the criminal had so quickly crafted Isha her very own nightlight just because she had been a bit scared of the darkness in Jinx’s lair. How Jinx had bought her a new outfit without hesitation yesterday. She thinks about how satisfied Sevika was when she put on that new prosthetic hand, and how Jinx had been smiling the entire way through. She thinks of blurry memories, the ones where papa sets a mug of hot tea water in her hands. How it wasn’t particularly sweet or yummy, but she almost never got to have it, so it was special. And it warmed her hands, which was always nice. there's this feeling Isha can't quit identifying or express. maybe she could do it wordlessly, with a kind object. 

Isha tugs on Sevika’s pant leg to get her attention. Gift too , she signs, pointing at the bag.

“You…want a gift?”

Isha shakes her head, Jinx.

“You want to get Jinx a gift? I’m sure she’ll like anything you give her, kid. Pretty sure she hangs your boogers on the wall.” Isha scrunches her face and sticks out her tongue in disgust, no she doesn't! and it needs to be better than boogers, obviously. 

Isha jams her finger into Sevika’s torso, looking into soft grey eyes with fiery golden ones.

“Me? You don’t have to get anything for me, kid.”

Isha glares and nods her head fervently, insisting on it. 

“you helped make my new hand, remember? Don't worry about it.” Sevika looks away, grumbling lowly. Isha takes the out the black silicone disk that's hanging around her neck and tucked into her shirt. She chews on it in thought. They continue walking, taking a detour through a more spacious area of the city. As crooked buildings and colossal machinery part, cloudy grey sky flows into Isha’s vision. 

As she thinks of things that are meaningful to their little family, a shrill cry startles her out of her thoughts. She jerks her head towards the direction of the noise. Instead of danger, her eyes fall upon a woman sitting with her legs crossed, back against a grey brick wall. A hood falls over the woman's eyes, a black braid peeking out over her shoulder. She's frantically rocking and shushing a bundle in her arms. As she adjusts her hold on the bundle, Isha sees the tiny hand of a baby reach out from makeshift potato sack blankets. 

Babies are not a common sight in the Undercity. Parents typically kept them hidden away for the first few years of life. 

Large purple veins run across the woman's hands, a telltale sign of shimmer abuse. Then, she finally gets a glimpse of the baby's face, red and wet with tears, nestled within the nest of blankets. The baby's face- its a deformity Isha had seen a few times before, where the top lip and nose split down the middle, like someone took their thumb and dragged it up the baby’s mouth, leaving an indent. 

Isha can’t hear what the woman is saying, but she’s speaking low and frantic, shushing softly and running her fingers along the baby’s face. Isha thinks she can hear “I’m sorry” somewhere in those whispers. The sound of crying only gets louder. The woman reaches into her coat, rooting around desperately. Her shoulders drop, seeming to realize she’s missing something. Just like the baby does, the woman lets out a frustrated cry, scrubbing her firsts over her eyes. She unclips a small canteen from her belt, holding out her thumb and pouring water over it. Cleaning it? She shakes the water off and brings her thumb to the baby’s wide, weeping, deformed mouth. At first, the baby turns their head away, their face getting redder with frustration and scrunching up with angry whines and coughs. Gently, the woman turns the baby's face back towards her and slips her thumb into their mouth. Immediately, the mouth latches, sucking on the offered thumb. The woman visibly grits her teeth- the baby is probably biting her finger. But the tiny creature quiets, sucking on the thumb and relaxing their little fist, grasping at their mother’s hand. The woman’s chest releases shakily, and she drops her head to plant a kiss on the baby’s forehead. 

Her thumb must taste icky. Maybe the baby doesn’t care, As long as they’ve got something to suck on. Or maybe as long as their mama is there. 

“Hey kid! You coming? We gotta get headed back, Jinx should be done soon. That mooch… ” Sevika calls from a few feet ahead. Isha lets out an affirmative mmm! Excitement sparking at the thought of seeing Jinx. She scurries to Sevika, and at that moment a gust of wind hits her back, knocking the helmet off of her head. Sevika catches it with practiced reflexes before it can hit the ground. She plops it back onto the kid’s head, patting it down, “careful there.”

Isha glances back at the mother and baby against the wall. It looks like the baby has finally fallen asleep. The mother breathes slowly, her thumb probably getting pruney in the baby's mouth. But she looks like she might be falling asleep too. It's a painful sight. It's a peaceful one. 

“Hey Ish, look,” Sevika says, her head tilted up towards the sky. Isha follows her eyeline and hears the distant sound of wings flapping. There, against the grey sky, clouds parting just slightly to reveal a streak of blue, is a white bird. Isha doesn’t know what kind of bird, but it's a pure, shining white, almost glowing. The bird soars, circling above them and gliding on the wind. It caws, a high and echoing sound, different from the ragged ones she hears from the crows that live in the Undercity. It's a rare sight for the people here. A brief glimpse into a more beautiful world than the one they exist in. They are creatures of the ground. Buried and kept in darkness. What would the world look like from that high?

Sevika hums, “white bird. Today of all days, huh?” 

“Come on come on come on slow pokes!! We’re almost there!!” Jinx is holding Isha’s hand,  eagerly tugging her along as she leads the trio through some dark, deserted sector on the edge of Zaun. Jinx had told the kid to put on her mismatched pair of gloves, as her hands would definitely be freezing during the surprise. Jinx, shockingly, is actually wearing something a little warmer too. Her jacket is greyish-brown and cropped at the waist, only two buttons clicked together to marginally cover her abdomen, but the rest flowing free. It has a collar, the flaps jutting out sharply across the chest. The sleeves are double layered: the first layer haphazardly ripped away and spiked at the end to match Jinx’s pants. The second layer is pink and striped, longer than the first, stopping at her forearms and also frayed at the ends. There's a dark leather belt wrapped around the bicep, and another hanging from the bottom of the jacket. The back of the jacket has a bit of a coattail to it. It reminds Sevika of Silco’s old trench coat. 

Sevika follows behind the two girls, eyeing the area with suspicion, “tell me again why you’re taking us towards one of the hellholes people go to rot away?” 

Jinx groans, “it isn’t that anymore! Ever since those rumors of that magical healer guy started spreading, all the zombies moved outta this place and disappeared. It's practically a ghost town! We’ll be fineeeee.” 

Isha walks happily beside Jinx, completely trusting her bomb-building caretaker. Despite how grumpy Isha had been before, she was quickly bouncing back.

Is this what Jinx had been doing all along? Working on a surprise for us? Hmm, I guess I can forgive her then. I wonder what it is. It’s probably really big- or really dangerous! If it has to be outside of the base. 

Jinx stops the group suddenly, pulling out two blue pieces of cloth from her pocket, “okay, we’re almost there. Time to get blindfolded!”

Sevika’s nostrils flare, “I am not letting you blindfold me.” 

Jinx hops around Sevika, standing behind her and bringing the blindfold up to her face, “ugh I know, you only let those skimpy brothel girls do it, right?” Jinx says with a shit-eating grin on her face. Sevika elbows her away, crossing her arms in defiance. 

Jinx moves away with a melodramatic groan. Isha is hopping on her toes and buzzing with anticipation as the blue haired girl ties a blindfold around her eyes, “See, Isha’s a big girl about it. Humor me, Vika?”

Sevika does in fact humor Jinx. The terrorist holds both of their hands, guiding them to whatever awaited them. Possibly certain death. Or something worse. When they stop, Jinx turns them by the shoulders, positioning them to face a specific direction. 

“TADA! Oh wait, take off the blindfolds.”

Isha and Sevika untie their blindfolds, letting them fall to the dirt. They’re in a pocket of the city down in the Lanes. It's mostly dark, surrounded by decaying wooden and metal structures and discarded mining machinery. The ground is made up of dark rock and dirt, and some of the walls surrounding the field are just a rocky layer of terra, chiseled and hacked away at. A few tents dot the field, most of which have collapsed. It's pretty much empty. It’s a dim, ugly place, where the bottom feeders of Zaun have hidden themselves away, like bugs beneath a rock. 

The only positive about the area is that the lack of buildings make the sky a little more visible. Where the towering rocky wall ends, some grey cloudy sky peaks through. It’s small, and far away, but it sticks out- because a beam of midday sunlight has squeezed its way through the opening. The light paints a streak across the rocky field, igniting it with just a bit of warmth and clarity. 

Standing before them is a large machine. The body of the machine is a metal cylinder, held up at an angle- nearly pointing straight up- by thick hinges and a wheeled base. Within the cylinder are sharp fan blades, and small black tubes peak out around the edges. A tube connected to the base runs into a large, clear tank that appears to be holding water. A vicious, blue shark is painted on the side, though the earmuffs drawn on the animal makes it a sillier sight.

Jinx doesn’t invent many things that aren’t weapons. Well, she didn’t , because ever since Isha came into her life, she’s found herself building nonviolent things all the time….nice things, even. For once in her life, Jinx isn’t hurting anybody, or providing the tools for other people to cause hurt. She’s building nightlights and mechanical bunnies that hop around and silicone disks for Isha’s biting habit and prosthetic hands and snow machines. And miraculously, Jinx had discovered she actually really likes building these things. 

Maybe…maybe I could start using my skills like this more often. Maybe this could be the…new me. The better me, the one I swore to become for Isha’s sake. Not a “weapon builder”. Just an inventor. Is it possible for a jinx to do any good in the world?

“This right here is the Completely Brand New Stupendously Spectacular Snow Storm 9000!!!!” Jinx swings her arms out wide, presenting the invention, “this powerful, artificial force of nature can create snow just as real as the stuff from the sky! As much as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, rain or shine! With no stupid enforcers to put an end to your fun!” 

Isha gasps, looking at the machine with awe. Even Sevika looks surprised, eyebrows raised on her stoney face. Isha runs up to the contraption, running her fingers over the steel. 

Jinx really built this whole big thing…amazing…

She turns to Jinx, a thoughtful look on her face, and sticks her hands out in front of herself. When her eyes sparkle with an idea, she starts moving them. She raises her hands, wiggling her fingers in a pitter-patter sort of way. Their sign for rain is wiggling fingers gradually falling straight down, but this time Isha zig-zags her hands in the air while she moves them down. 

“That for snow? Didya just make that one up?” Isha nods, “it's perfect Kiddo!” Jinx copies the sign, and the two giggle together while signing ‘snow’ over and over, Sevika watching with amusement, uncrossing her arms to copy the sign as well. 

Isha’s face shifts to a more questioning expression, what to do? she gestures towards the machine, signing snow again. 

Ah, that’s right, Isha must not have much experience in the snow. No parents to sneak her up Topside, no siblings to play with. and she had been living deep in the Lanes, huh? It makes Jinx’s heart squeeze in her chest. Isha may have never had snowball fights or made snow goons before, but she would now! Every year! Jinx would make sure of it. Isha would have the funnest winter solstice- better than anyone else's! All those piltie brats will be jealous!

“A whole lotta fun is what! I’ll show ya,” Jinx ensures some of the tubes are securely attached before moving to the back of the machine. She sets the speed, checks the temperature on the rapid cooling system (which she had ingeniously calculated and constructed with some chemical engineering, thank you very much), and pulls a lever to turn the snow maker on. Immediately, the machine starts whirring, the fan blades creaking as they begin to gain speed and the tubes pumping water into the rapid cooling system, which pumps into the compression chamber. 

Jinx scurries back to the front of the machine, observing it closely and looking for any faults that may arise. At first, only a few snowflakes blow out, slowly gliding on the wind from the fan and barely gaining any height. A single snowflake, like a little white star, flies through the air and gently lands on the tip of Isha’s nose. The child crosses her eyes, looking at the bit of snow and sticking her tongue out, trying to taste it. With a whump whump whump sound, the fan quickly gains speed, a flurry of white particles blowing from the ring of tubes. The trio watches, heads tilted upwards as the fan begins blowing clouds of white about twenty feet into the air. For a moment, it's like the sky is glowing. Like they’re looking up at a heaven, or like swarms of white birds have covered the cloudy grey expanse. Then- it's like they’re in a big fluffy cloud! The snowflakes fall on them gently, breezing around in playful circles.

A laugh bursts out of Isha, high and joyful, and Jinx can’t help but join in. The blue haired teen glances back at Sevika, and is entirely shocked to find that the brute isn’t standing there cold-faced, or smirking, or half-grinning; but smiling. A real smile. And a big one at that. 

Jinx cackles, raising her arms high above and feeling snowflakes chill across her skin, “hahaha! C'mon kiddo!” 

She grabs Isha’s hands, startling the brunette girl. Then, she’s spinning her around, and Isha is smiling as a white world swirls in her vision. Jinx leads them into a dance, hopping and skipping and spinning in flowy movements, dancing with the pattern of the snow. She swings her arms in circles around her head. She takes Isha’s hand, twirling her through and around Jinx’s long, ever-moving legs. 

Isha looks up at her protector, whose braids swing side to side, a toothy, carefree smile on a face. A face so pulled by exhaustion, so marred by scars. But as joy caresses Jinx’s cheek, none of that seems to matter, to affect her. She looks the same but different. Her face looks youthful and bright in this moment. Snowflakes dust Jinx’s fine blue hair, and the streak of sunlight painting the desolate, rocky field catches on her just right. Snowflakes shimmer in her hair, on her eyelashes, along her pale skin. The air is getting colder and colder as the snow gets thicker. Layers of it begin building beneath their feet, and they leave deep footprints along it as they dance. Suddenly, it's like they aren’t even in the rocky field anymore. They aren’t in the Undercity at all. It’s like they’ve been transported to some kind of…wonderland. The kind of fantasy world described in those books Jinx reads to her every night. A place so much kinder and more beautiful.

And Jinx is the one who made it. 

An intense shiver runs through Isha, and she gasps, eyes feeling wet, her smile so wide it hurts her cheeks. When she releases a lung full of air, her breath comes out white and misty like a little cloud. Like the little clouds running along the length of Jinx’s arm and torso.

Wow, Isha thinks. Because this is it. The thing she’s heard about in stories. The invisible thing that surrounds the little families she sees on the street: mothers hanging laundry as siblings play. Children sitting upon their father’s lap as he wraps them with protective arms. An older sibling with a bloody nose standing protectively over a younger sibling, prepared to give a black eye to whichever street kid insulted them. An impoverished and drug addicted mother providing the little that she can to her newborn baby. The feeling that has been nagging Isha all this time  

Love.

Isha feels love, and feels loved like she never has before. 

She jumps, crashing into Jinx and knocking them both to the ground with a yelp. The force of the fall buries them in the snow, like a bed of pillows so soft you sink right in. The cold burns along their skin, but it's a wonderful coldness, because it makes the warmth in Isha’s heart that much more intense. It burns, Isha’s chest burns when she presses against Jinx in a suffocating hug. Her eyes burn as tears well within them. 

All the while, Jinx’s heart burns just the same. 

“Aren’t you gonna join us, Lefty?” Jinx yells over the sound of the fan blades. Sevika is still standing with her arms crossed, just watching the two of them roll around in the snow with a smile.

“And get all cold and wet? No thanks,” Sevika replies. Suddenly- a ball of snow hits her square in the face, knocking her back out of shock.

“Wah-” whatever furious thing she was about to yell is cut off as Jinx and Isha lunge at her, tackling her into the snow with them. She lands with a loud oompf. Jinx and Isha are wrestling her down, noses bright red and melting snow dripping off of their faces. 

“You guys are so insufferable-” Sevika attempts to get an insult out, but she starts laughing, almost uncontrollably. As snowflakes tickle her nose and the two kids she’s started to think of as her own wrestle above her, shoving snow in each other's faces, her chest stutters. The feeling of such a genuine laugh is unfamiliar to her now. Maybe it’s lung damage from all the years of smoking, maybe it's just the sadness she has been dragging around like heavy luggage, but laughing like this has been so hard for so long. But now- it forces its way out. It gets easier and easier with every gasp. Jinx and Isha almost freeze at the sound of it, but they don’t, they just keep playing as Sevika finally joins in, grabbing the two and rolling them into the snow, making them screech from the shock of the cold. 

Jinx wraps her arms around Isha, pulling her out of the snow rapidly piling on top of them. She has the kid’s back pressed against her front. As Isha faces the sky, she opens her mouth, catching snowflakes in her mouth.

No taste, she signs, smacking her lips.

“It's water, whaddya expect?” Jinx laughs and Isha giggles along. Her helmet and beanie have since fallen off somewhere in the snow. That big fluffy head of chestnut brown hair, and those small twin braids glittering with white flakes. She has her little hands sticking straight up in the air, waving towards the sky. Along with the snowflakes, a couple of freckles dot her skin. The baby fat on her face seems more prominent than ever, and she’s practically glowing with childlike wonder. 

I did that, Jinx thinks. I fed her and- and made her happy and- I did something good . I helped something grow. I helped her grow.

A sense of fulfillment and awe overcomes the bomb-builder as she presses a tender kiss to the top of Isha’s head, eyes filling with tears as she breathes into her kid’s hair.

There’s a word for this. A word that hasn’t crossed her mind a long time. She can’t even remember the last time she’s heard it. 

And maybe that word is a little too scary, a little too big for Jinx right now. But she doesn’t have to say it, doesn’t even have to think it. It’s obvious with her every action. It's right here, all around her, so very clear. 

A big snowball- more like a snow boulder! - lands right on top of the pair, and they yelp and sputter snow out of their mouths. Sevika cackles from a few feet away.

“How dare you! You wicked ogre! C’mon Ish, let's get’er!” Isha topples off of Jinx as she sits up. The blue haired menace starts gathering snow into her hands, “okay, like this, you hold as much snow as you can and pack it into a tight ball. Then- you fire!” Jinx finishes her tutorial by chucking the ball at Sevika, who blocks it with her arm and immediately bends down to start making more snowballs. Isha catches on quickly, getting to work on making a pile of snowballs. As she finishes her third, she notices the lightness of her head and the breeze on her cold, red ears. She starts looking over the small field of snow they’ve created.

Suddenly, a beanie is tugged down onto her head, pulled a little too tight, and a helmet is plopped right on top. 

“I gotcha, Champ!” Jinx says after patting the helmet down and getting back to making snowballs. 

Sevika starts throwing her extra large snowballs, and they practically explode onto the ground. Isha jumps out of the way, quickly gathering her own balls and throwing them, missing a few times but getting a good shot at Sevika's stomach. Jinx, of course, hits her square in the face, and then square in the groin, which makes Sevika growl like a provoked bear and start taking headshots at Jinx as well. 

As Isha turns and reaches for her pile of snowballs- one hits her right on the back of her head! Hard enough for her to go falling face first into the snow. She hears Jinx cackling behind her, and Isha shoots up, turning to look at Jinx with an absolutely shocked, offended, unbelievable expression, her mouth wide open and eyebrows furrowed as snow drips off of her face.

“Hahaha! I just had to see the look on your face!” Jinx’s cackling slows, “I’m- hahaha! I’m sorry, are you okay, Kiddo? Not hurt?” Jinx’s expression begins to fall into something more concerned, but Isha quickly shakes the snow off of her face, grinning deviously and gathering an armful of snowballs.

“Hey- hey now! It was only a joke! We can talk about this!” Jinx raises her hands and scurries backwards, hamming it up and pretending like she’s being held at gunpoint.

Isha grins smugly and begins pelting Jinx with snowballs, Sevika joining in.

“Hey! You can’t go two against one!” Jinx whines as she shields her face.

“That's literally what you were just doing to me, Brat!” Sevika shouts.

The snowball fight must have gone on for an hour. Eventually, an all-for-one war broke out. Snow barricades, differently shaped snowballs for different speeds, and even a moat was carved out of the snow. take snowball fights vey seriously in this family!

“No fair! You’ve got an arm that I built! You have a huge advantage!” 

“Hey, not my fault you only have weak flesh arms! Maybe blow one of yours off next time and we’ll be equally matched!”

Let’s all blow our arms off!!

“Aw, family bonding time! Good thinking, Kid!”

“NO, not good thinking!”

An alarming number of snowballs were launched for just three people, the fight raging with the intensity of a Noxian battlefield. Lives were (pretended to be) lost! Limbs were (pretended to be) blown off! And Jinx actually did get a bloody nose.

Two things stayed consistent through the entire game: the sounds of laughing, screaming, and yelping, and the smiles on all of their faces. 

Once they were all panting from exertion, noses running and hands numbs, they declared the fight a perfect tie and moved onto a calmer activity. Jinx decided she would have to get Sevika back for that bloody nose some other time. It would be funnier when she least expects it. 

The snow is light this year, but the wind is harsh, nipping at the ankles of her enforcers as they guard the streets with steady guns drawn, pursuing the undying threat that is Jinx. 

Caitlyn stands, tall and tense, before the front window in her office. She surveys the streets of Piltover, looking for any signs of amiss behavior, teeth clenching with every moment as she braces for an attack, for another bout of tragedy to strike.

Jinx has been scarily quiet for the last few months. no attacks, no threats, barely any sightings of her at all. It is highly suspicious. Jinx has never been subdued or quiet. If she is, it must mean she's planning. Building. She is volatile, her need for chaos will manifest eventually. As time crawls on, the silence builds like a crescendo. Tension rises, bracing for a larger and larger impact. Jinx must be planning something big to require this much focus and underground activity. Another missile? A super-sized bomb? Perhaps a contraption so deviant caitlyn couldn't possibly imagine it herself. 

Whatever it may be, the Commander is ready. She has recently held a meeting to discuss heavier action. More enforcers in the lanes, stricter rules at the security checkpoints, untouched ventilation shafts that could be utilized for Grey dispersal. She has every base covered. 

The Commander clenches her fists behind her back, breathing deeply and observing the fog building on the window from the cold. 

Without her mother here, winter is colder and more barren than it has ever been. Her father doesn’t have the energy to partake in any of their traditions this year. When Caitlyn had been young, her mother would take her to the ice rink. Cassandra was quite good at skating, but Caitlyn would always fall flat on her face, no matter how determined she was to keep her stride on the ice. It always got an airy laugh out of her mother, though, which made falling in front of all of those people not so bad. 

She thinks of hot chocolate in the lounge, and her father wearing that hideous brightly colored sweater that her mother hated, but never got rid of. She thinks of winter being fun. 

Now, it is only a hindrance to her enforcers on the field. The wind and ice and mud make navigating the streets of Zaun significantly more difficult. 

the sound of clattering metal startles Caitlyn out of her thoughts. She tenses, her hand reaching towards her hip on reflex, before realizing she recognizes the sound. The weather vane atop the mansion, shaped like the Kiramman crest, must have been blown off again. She really should have double checked to make sure the groundskeeper had reinforced the screws. The wind howls like it has something important to say, rattling the window and blowing the broken weather vane off of the roof and onto a balcony with another loud clatter. Caitlyn sighs, I'll have to find someone more equipped to fix it. 

She finds it increasingly arduous to care about such things right now. 

A pale, calloused hand draws on the foggy glass, creating a circle over the Undercity in the distance. 

Jinx is no doubt in deepest, darkest parts of Zaun, engaging in the most nefarious of activities. Scheming and rambling to those voices inside of her head like the lunatic she is. 

The thought makes her sick. This terrorist, responsible for the death of her mother- wandering free and building weapons of mass destruction, preparing to harm her people again. 

Well, Caitlyn will not allow it. Wherever Jinx is, she will find her. Whatever depraved crimes she is committing, Caitlyn will stomp out, once and for all. 

“Okay so, snowgoons are these little ugly, cute, ugly-cute guys that you build out of a big lump of snow. And they’re like your little goons! Like those ugly guys Cross has!” Jinx explains to Isha as the trio sits on their knees, watching as Jinx finishes her own mini-goon. It's a lump of snow, smoothed out and molded to be a sort of hill. She’s stuck two pebbles on it for the eyes and sculpted some snow into a weird, long nose.

“Okay, you try! Remember, there’s no wrong way to do it.” 

Isha begins gathering snow with her arms into a tall pile. She tries smoothing it out to be taller, but her arms aren’t quite long or dexterous enough, and she struggles as some of the snow on the top falls off and the goon begins crumbling. 

“We’ll help ya’ out kid, it can be a collaborative effort,” says Sevika as she cups the fallen snow and begins shaping it back up with steadier hands. Jinx helps too, all three of them shaping the snow sculpture. Isha suggests it should be “fat” and Jinx suggests it should be “extra ugly” and Sevika suggests it should be wearing a “weird hat”. 

“Ooh yeah! That’s perfect!” Jinx praises as Isha takes a metal cog out of her pocket to use as the goon’s eye. Jinx steps back with her hands on her hips, observing their work. The snowgoon is large, and the bottom of it is round and bulbous and the middle area is lumpy. On its head is snow shaped into a comically large top hat, and beneath the top hat the snow is stained blue with paint, which is slowly dripping down the length of the sculpture. The goon’s right eye is a black button that had fallen off of Isha’s coat while they were roughhousing (sheesh, I really need to fix that raggedy coat up . I guess I DO have the money for nicer clothes, huh? I never really think about it. Guess I should start, Jinx thinks) and the other eye is the aforementioned gold metal cog. The goon has a wide nose, with little bits of dead plants sticking out of the nostrils like nose hair, and a glob of green paint to look like a booger. A big, shark-toothed smile carves out the goon’s face, with one of Sevika’s cigars held between its teeth. 

“I hate to say it, but I think we did a damn good job,” Sevika says as she crosses her arms with pride. 

“Probably the ugliest goon I’ve ever seen!"

Isha nods and hums in agreement, adjusting the brim of her hat and smirking proudly.

The demolitionist snaps her fingers, “oh! I’ve got a great idea for the next goon we’re gonna make,” in a split second she’s behind Sevika, pulling her by the back of her leather jacket. The woman falls into the snow with an oompf, again. 

“You fucking-!” maybe Sevika’s reflexes are getting rusty. Or maybe her heart is just getting too soft for these kids.

“Okay, you just lay perfectly still there,” Jinx begins pushing snow onto Sevika’s form, Isha joining in on burying the body.

Sevika only lets her head fall back with a sigh, I guess I’m letting this happen.

Jinx and Isha completely bury Vika’s body in snow, leaving only her head sticking out from a mountain of white. 

“This is really fucking cold.”

“Hey, watch your fucking language! You’ll be fine, little frostbite never hurt anyone.”

Sevika can only muster a groan in response to that.

Jinx has started dumping her bottle of blue paint over the snow while Isha sticks two scraps of red wire into the lump as skinny little arms. Isha pictures Sevika with arms like that and giggles to herself. Her and Jinx shape the bottom of the snow pile, making it look like Sevika has a fish tail. Looking at their sculpture, satisfied, Isha snaps her fingers, done!

Jinx pats the hill of snow as Vika glares at her hand, “I take it back, this is the ugliest goon I’ve seen yet.”

Isha giggles and pats Sevika on the head the way the woman does to her. Sevika snaps her teeth at the hand, but there’s no real bite behind it. The little girl just sticks her tongue out at her in retort. 

Jinx jumps to her feet with a gasp, “I almost forgot! Me and Vi used to really up the stakes of snowball fights by packing the balls with rocks! Wouldn’t that be totally fun?!” 

Isha grins and claps her hands, agreeing with the idea.

“Oh hell no,” Sevika says from her snow cocoon.

During their games, there were a few moments where the snow machine sputtered and the snowfall faltered. Or the snow would come out too lumpy, or melted, and Jinx would give the machine a good kick to bring it back to life. But overall, she would call it a success! It was perfect, really. The flaws weren’t enough to stop their fun. There are always kinks to be ironed out in her projects, and next year it would be even better! 

They laid in the snow, moving their arms and legs back and forth to make "snow birds". They dumped a canteen of juice onto fresh snowballs and ate them, which Isha especially loved. They dug holes, and buried each other, and got in another snowball fight, and made the absolute most out of their small field of snow that belonged to only them. 

In the dark, polluted, abandoned underbelly of the city, a spot of white grows. soft. Infectious. Unlike anything else within the starving, steel-pointed world they live in. 

Building somethin’ out of nothin’. It seems impossible, Jinx thinks. 

Love is relentless like that. 

The three must have spent hours playing in the snow. By the end, the sun was setting, a fair amount of snow had melted and turned the ground muddy, and everyone was shivering and sore (well, except for Jinx, whose adrenaline never shuts off). The stump where Jinx's middle finger is missing had started throbbing agonizingly from the cold. She had done her best to hide the pain, messaging the stump discreetly. Though Sevika had probably noticed, recognizing the feeling in her body language.

When they decided it was time to pack up, Jinx shut off the machine, tossing a tarp over it and leaving it there for the night. It was already a huge pain to move the larger parts from her base to the field, and she just really did not feel like doing that again today.

Jinx had been resistant to Sevika’s suggestion to go to The Last Drop. She had stopped by a few times over the last few months for the sole purpose of retrieving Sevika when she needed her. But Jinx couldn’t stand spending more than five minutes there. It was too overwhelming. The bar is stained with grief, permeated with guilt and a lifetime of complex feelings and memories that Jinx may never be ready to process. It's suffocating. Every person in Jinx’s family has stayed at that bar at some point in time. It's a monument to everything Jinx has lost. To everyone she has killed. 

But Vika had been insistent, saying she had cleaned up the place, that they couldn’t let such a historical building go to waste, and that they could all have a warm drink after a long, snow-filled day. Isha had looked so delighted by the suggestion, tugging on Jinx’s pants, giving her those begging puppy eyes. 

Now, the three slip through the cracks of the city, jumping rooftop to rooftop towards The Last Drop as night falls over Zaun. 

The bar still looks abandoned from the outside. There are heavy chains wrapped around the front door handles. Sevika unlocks them and discards them aside. Sevika and Isha walk in, the lights flickering on to reveal a tidier bar than Jinx could previously remember. The destruction from past fights has been tossed into the trash or swept aside. Tables are moved to the walls with chairs stacked on top of them, leaving the floor spacious. There are some broken lights, some dust bunnies, but it's looking usable again. Some of the neon decor has been removed, it makes the bar look more the way it did when Vander was running it. Warm and homey. 

Jinx steps through the doorway. If her hand trembles, she shakes it off. It physically hurts to be here, but she pushes through. Isha had taught her a thing or two about bravery.

She shuts the doors behind her, locking it to be safe. 

“There’s some dried tea leaves back here. They’re pretty old but they should still be good,” Sevika says from behind the bar’s counter. She picks up two jars, blowing dust off of the lids and opening them. They’re unlabeled, so she sniffs both jars.

“Uhh…you guys feeling like chamomile? Or thyme?” Isha hops up onto a bar stool and holds up one finger for chamomile. 

Jinx slinks into the stool beside her, “thyme.” 

As they wait for Sevika to make the tea, Isha takes off her damp winter wear, setting the coat, hat, and gloves in a little pile on the counter. She decides to rest her helmet on top of the pile as well. Jinx follows, slipping off her jacket. 

“Oh. I think there’s a bottle of cider hidden back here. Might be a little flat though. Want me to add it to your cups?”

Jinx peaks over the counter, “cider? That's fizzy right?”

“Yep. tastes sort of…like apples, I think. It’s good hot.” 

Isha nods, intrigued by the drink. Sevika lays a tissue over each of the mugs with a spoonful of tea leaves. She pours boiling water over the leaves, filtering it through the tissue. Once the mugs are mostly full, she adds a shot of cider (and quietly adds a shot of whiskey to her own) to each cup and stirs them.

She sets the mugs in front of them. They’re small beer mugs with chipped rims. Hot condensation fogs the glass. Sevika leans on the counter and takes a long, slow sip of her own drink, her shoulders visibly relaxing. 

Isha wraps her hands around her mug, feeling the heat seep into her hands. She shivers as warmth gradually travels up her arms, through her nerves, chasing out the cold. She lifts it to her face, softly blowing white steam from the surface of the drink and smelling it. It smells good, herbal, with a subtle fruitiness. She takes a sip, and the moment the drink hits her tongue it's like she’s right back in that dark little shack. 

“Careful now, it’s hot,” comes the gravelly voice of her papa, gently cupping his hands around hers to help her hold up a warm cup. 

“S’good for your throat,” papa coughs into his hand wetly and pushes the cup towards her lips. The drink isn’t very flavorful. It's just water with a few flowery tasting leaves floating on the surface, and the barest hint of honey. The aftertaste is a little bitter. But it warms her throat and stomach as she slowly swallows it down. It's so cold here. She had thought her fingers might fall off from how icy they were. But papa had told her her fingers would not fall off, he wouldn’t let them.

She finishes drinking, a few drops of tea dripping down her chin, and shoves the cup back into papa’s hands. He must be cold too. And his throat sounds much worse than her’s does. He needs it more. 

He looks at the cup warily, eyes sad like they always are. He gulps it down, almost desperately. 

“M’sorry. There aren’t any leaves left. We’ll have to drink the hot water plain,” his voice sounds a little smoother now. 

The wooden paneling of their home creaks as a gust of wind passes by.

The bar creaks as strong gusts of wind begin whirling outside. It whistles through the air, knocking around garbage bins and signs and window shutters outside. 

Isha’s drink is flavorful and the first sip fizzes on her tongue. The cider tastes like apple and cinnamon, a more intense flavor then she’s used to. As the fizziness dissipates, a smooth, buttery texture follows. The chamomile is floral and herbal, quiet and comforting. She swallows, it's hot and sweet and she can feel it travel right down her throat and into her tummy, filling her entire body with the warm feeling. She opens her lips with a smack and makes a satisfied mmm sound. 

“S’it good, Kiddo?” Jinx asks after taking a sip of her own. Isha nods her head earnestly, really good!

Jinx clinks their mugs together, and Sevika joins, toasting to nothing in particular.

Once they’ve all settled, Isha squirms impatiently and shoots a pointed look at Sevika, not wanting to wait any longer for Jinx to see her gift. 

Sevika rolls her eyes and bends down, reaching under the bar and bringing back up a large, flat, square paper pouch.

“Don’t let it get to your head or anything, but I have a small something for you. Just to show my…ugh, appreciation for the prosthetics,” Sevika slides the gift to Jinx, looking away and tapping on the counter with a metal finger. 

Jinx looks at the gift, and then at Sevika, and then at the gift, and then at Sevika again, “You’re not going soft on me, Lefty, are ya?” 

Sevika huffs, her choppy bangs falling in front of her eyes, “just open it.”

Jinx gingerly picks up the pouch, the paper crinkling beneath her fingers. She feels something circular and hard inside. She reaches into the slit at the top, and pulls out a black, grooved disk. A vinyl record. She lifts it out completely, holding it carefully on her fingertips.

The circle in the center of the record is a teal blue, with subtle grey insignias stamped across it. In black, the title reads:

Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)

Edison Lighthouse

“It was one of Silco’s favorites. It got broken or lost or something awhile back, but I tracked down a copy,” Sevika takes another long sip of her drink. 

Jinx is…speechless. Wide pink eyes, swirling with ghosts of blue, locked onto the vinyl that suddenly feels so heavy in her hands. 

She thinks she recognizes the title. Silco may have still owned the record when she had just arrived, when she was still mostly Powder. He had a collection of them, all kinds of genres, but he mostly favored jazz, classical, and what he called music from “the good old days”, which had consisted of heavy rock music and the sort of techno you would hear at raves. Suppose his music taste made sense, considering the way he decorated The Last Drop when he took over.

He had gladly gifted her the gramophone that she still has, and he offered no judgement when she decided to exclusively listen to music that screamed its lyrics and sounded like an airship crash. 

When she wanted to make her own song, which was basically just her theme song because she’s Jinx and of course deserves her own theme song, he had paid for a private studio and band and everything, commissioning multiple copies of the record to be printed. The song even became a bit of a local hit!

Silco loved music and loved records. And this had been one of his favorites. For so long, Jinx had been convinced that Sevika absolutely hated her guts. And maybe she truly did, back then. But now that they only have each other, now that they have this kid they both care for, Sevika has become one of Jinx’s closest confidants. Sevika, loyal to a fault, a steady hand she has never been afraid of. She doesn’t know when it happened exactly, but that big brooding woman had become her family. She only really sees it now as they sit in this picture of domesticity. 

Jinx sucks in a shaky breath, eyes wet with unshed tears, “this is…this is-uh…” she breathes out of her nose, a sort of wet laugh, “he was always such a sap. So lame…” she runs her thumb along the edge of the record lovingly. 

“I’ve got somethin’ else too,” Sevika reaches into the pocket on the inside of her leather jacket. Isha leans forward curiously. She hadn’t seen Sevika buy anything other than the record. Jinx blinks away the tears in her eyes.

Sevika drops two small metallic objects into Jinx’s palm. A pair of golden cufflinks, custom made and specially shaped. The design is reminiscent of the oxygen masks fissure folk wear when the grey begins to brew. But it becomes a bit abstract at the top of the design, sort of flowing like smoke or clouds. It was one of the latest renditions of a crest for Zaun. Silco had once told her he had been sketching such things since his youth. He had notebooks filled with various crests and symbols to represent their nation. He always said it had to be a perfect mix: the grit of their people, the clunkiness of their machinery; the speed at which they live, fall, and succeed, and the beauty that awaits them in their future. 

“He must have taken them off of his coat at some point. Found them while I was cleaning up the place. You can, y’know, put them back on, if you want,” Sevika swirls the drink in her cup. She makes a motion like she’s going to reach for a cigar out of her pocket out of habit, but seems to think better of herself and simply taps on the counter instead. 

Isha had been watching the scene with interest. Jinx didn’t like to talk about her dad. She always gets quiet when he comes up. Isha’s always been curious about him, but she understands Jinx’s sensitivity about it, and hasn’t pried. 

Jinx squeezes the cufflinks in her hand, feeling a grounding pain as they dig into her palm, “I’m-I’m gonna go up to the office. Just for a minute. Need a minute.” she slips out of her stool, walking stiffly towards the stairs. 

Isha makes a motion to follow her, concern written on her face, but Sevika stops her with a hand on her shoulder. 

“She’ll be fine, kid, she just needs some time alone. We all do sometimes, right?” Isha stares at Jinx’s form as she disappears up the stairs. The kid still looks like she desperately wants to follow Jinx, but she stays put, nodding at Sevika’s words and looking down thoughtfully.

Draw, Isha signs. Sevika remembers she had brought along some of Isha’s paper, crayons, and books, so she just hands over her shoulder bag. Isha takes it, scampering off to one of the booths and pulling out her art supplies. 

Sevika decides that it should be okay to have a cigar now that the kid is on the other side of the bar. 

The sound of scribbling only gets louder and faster, like Isha may tear a hole through the paper and right through the table too. Sevika only smokes down a quarter of her cigar before she rests it on the rim of her mug and walks over to Isha’s booth. She slings an arm around the top of the booth, watching the kid furiously scribble out something on her paper. Her third scribbled out paper, it looks like. 

“What’s got your helmet in a twist?” Isha only glances up at her before continuing to deface the paper with a red crayon. Sevika sits beside her, lowering herself down with a groan.

old people always do that, Isha thinks. 

There’s blue on the papers. It's a little hard for her to tell, but maybe it’s supposed to be Jinx’s braids? There’s the remnants of words on the paper Isha currently has, one word looks like it's supposed to be ‘Jinx’, and the other word is mostly scribbled out, starting with maybe an ‘m’ or an ‘n’?

“Is this about earlier? Remember what I said, Jinx loves everything you make. I’m sure she’d be over the fuckin’ moon with any of these drawings.”

Isha stops coloring, and Sevika notes the way she ducks her head shyly and the tips of her ears turn red.

Isha taps the paper aggressively and signs not right. 

After taking a moment to think, eyebrows deeply furrowed, she rustles through the bag laying on the table, taking out a thin, colorful book. It’s one of the children’s sign language books, with beginner words and big drawings. Isha flips through the pages, and when she lands on the one she was looking for, her face flushes deeper and she turns the book away, trying to hide it. 

Sevika tries to soften her tone, “what is it? Trust me, I was around when Jinx was a kid, so I’ve heard some pretty batshit stuff.”

Isha sighs and scrunches up her shoulders, putting the book on the table. Two pages lie open.

The first page has a drawing of a person holding their hand open, palm visible and thumb touching their forehead. father/dad/daddy/papa the caption reads in large letters. The second page shows a drawing of a person holding their hand open, palm visible and thumb touching their chin. mother/mom/mommy/mama the caption reads. 

Isha taps the second page, then taps the drawing she was scribbling out, staring hard at the table.

“Oh,” Sevika breathes. 

Isha knocks on her head three times, the sign they had made up for stupid. 

“Hey, it’s not stupid,” Sevika rushes to say, unsure of how she should approach such a topic. Jinx obviously cares for Isha- loves her, more than anything else, even if she hasn’t said it that bluntly. But being a mom, it’s not a position Sevika has ever, or could ever imagine her in. It seems ridiculous. She’s a mentally deranged bomber, a force of chaos. She’s messy, violent, irresponsible. A spoiled brat who refuses to take over Silco’s empire that’s rightfully hers. 

And yet, here she is, being a mom to this crazy little kid she found on the street. And here the kid is, calling her mom. Sevika supposes she doesn’t have to imagine it, it’s here right in front of her. And somehow, it’s come about completely natural and right. 

Scared. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be brave? Can’t let a little fear control you. I think…” She gently lays her flesh hand on Isha’s forearm, attempting to offer physical comfort despite the experience she obviously lacks. Isha’s eyes are wet by now. She scrubs her nose with the back of her hand, conflicted emotions swirling in golden eyes.  

“I think however you're expecting Jinx to react…she may surprise you.”

Isha stares at Sevika, much too deeply for her liking, snot running down her nose. She turns back to the paper, fidgeting with the edge of it. 

“If you really want to make her something, just draw…exactly what you feel. Don’t put too much thought into it. That’s how you get stuck in your head.”

Jinx gets stuck in her head a lot, Isha thinks. 

Draw exactly what I feel……

Sevika can see the new spark of inspiration in the girl’s eyes. Isha reaches for the colored construction paper, grabbing pink and collecting a few different crayons. She looks up at Sevika, rubbing away the snot from her nose, her anxiousness dissipating. 

Scissors? 

“Hey dad,” a shaky voice speaks into an empty room. Silco’s office is dark, the only light being the glow of the moon filtering through the circular, ornate window from behind his desk. The room is cold, and dust particles float stagnant in the air. 

Silco’s chair is turned away, it's back to Jinx. It's almost like she can pretend he’s there, turned around in the menacing leather chair, waiting for someone to walk in so he can spin around threateningly. 

There aren't any voices in Jinx’s head right now. No scribbles on the edge of her vision either. Ever since Isha fell into her life- her head has been clearer. Or more fuzzy in a way? It's hard to tell. There aren't hallucinations or paranoid thoughts muddling up her mind, but now there’s this new warm and cloudy feeling that makes her feel soft. The scribbles haven’t disappeared, but they’ve taken a back seat. Maybe it’s like they’ve been blown away. Isha falls from the sky like some kind of…gift from Janna, and her wind takes all the voices with it. 

Though, at this moment, the lack of noise is haunting. It's silent and lonely, a harsh reminder of what’s gone. Jinx does her best to fill the silence. 

“It’s the winter solstice today. I know you were never big on this kind of stuff, but you always spoke about the importance of tradition. Always “preserve the culture of our people” this! And “let the disenfranchised have faith in something” that!” she hugs herself, wrapping her hands around her biceps and wandering forward towards the desk.

“It's um…it's actually not so lonely this year, can ya believe it? Think if you saw it might just give ya a stroke from shock, but me and Sevika are actually kind of…good now. Close maybe? Definitely closer than before. I might actually…enjoy her company? Ewgh I don’t know,” Jinx sits on the edge of the desk, poking at the cufflinks in her palm as she rambles, “she gave me your cufflinks back. She even bought me one of your favorite vinyls. How sappy is that? Wayyyy too thoughtful. Like, who even does that?” Jinx laughs, hollow and manic, turning to look at the back of the chair. She is met with silence. Her laughter fades.

“Ya’d probably be happy about us finally getting along. Pretty funny that it took ya dying for it to happen,” she fully sits on the desk, wrapping her hands around her legs and tucking her chin into her knees. 

“There’s someone else now too.” if Jinx strains her ears, she can hear the sounds of movement downstairs. The thudding of heavy footsteps and the clinking of glasses. The pitter-patter of tiny boots and the creaking of old wooden tables.

“A kid. Her name’s Isha. I found her a few months ago. Four, I think. A little while after ya died. Well, I guess she found me. She just fell on me one day. Was running from some of Chross’s men. I shot ‘em all in the head, and she just clung to me after that. Wasn’t even afraid of big bad Jinx on all the wanted posters. I killed for her, and that seemed to be the ticket into her heart.” she slides forward, sitting closer to the chair, almost touching her forehead to it. 

“She’s real brave. Probably the bravest kid ever. Definitely braver than I was. I’ve been teachin’ her how to build bombs, and she loves to tinker, gets so into it. She’ll even just sit and watch me work for hours. Even taught her how to diffuse my bombs. She’s the only other person in the world who knows how. And she’s so creative, always drawing and coming up with new ideas. And they’re so good . Am I biased? ‘Cause seriously, she’s gotta be a genius or something, right?” Jinx inhales shakily. 

“And-and she’s got this big fluffy brown hair that ya just wanna ruffle all the time. And she even wants two braids like me! Her braids are still pretty short right now, but one day they could probably be as long as mine. If she still wants to keep growing them out by then. She wants to dye her hair blue too, but it’s too dangerous for that right now. Can’t have enforcers knowing she’s with me. Those stupid Jinxers… But she wants to look just like me, I don’t know why! And she’s so small. I can’t even believe a person can be that small. I hug her and it's like my entire hand covers her back! Like she can just- can just fit in the palms of my hands!” Jinx falls forward, her forehead hitting the chair and a sharp breathe releasing from her lungs. She squeezes her eyes shut, curling tighter around herself. 

“Is this how ya felt when you took me in? Were ya afraid of how small I was? Afraid ya could break me at any moment? Did-did’ya look at me and see so much goodness? Did’ya just want to hold me as tight as you could and keep me safe forever? Did’ya want to give me the whole world?”

Of course, there’s no response. Not even a hallucination to answer her. The chair creaks slightly as Jinx shifts her head. The wind howls outside. 

Jinx whispers, the way she would when she only wanted Silco to hear, “I build bombs. I destroy things. How am I supposed to hold her without breaking her?”

She sits there, resting her eyes and feeling at the hole in her heart, like when you're missing a tooth and can’t help but tongue at the empty space.

She slips off of the desk. She doesn’t shift her eyes, she doesn’t look at the chair. She walks past it to look out of the green-tinted window. 

“I wish ya were here to tell me.” 

She thinks about Silco’s coat that she had selfishly kept. She thinks about falling asleep with it in her arms, sniffing what remains of his scent. She thinks about how the scent has mostly faded now. She thinks about how she could never forget the smell of cigars, ink, coffee, and shimmer even if she wanted to.

She thinks about bundling up in Vi’s arms after a cold day. She thinks about the smell of dried blood, rubbing alcohol, dust bunnies, and that warm undertone that always just smelt like “home”. She thinks about Vi towering above her, pinning her down and raising a gauntlet to her face, smelling of poisonous gas and lavender shampoo. 

Jinx slams her palm onto her head, gripping her hair and smacking her other hand to her mouth and screaming into it. She screams and screams into her palm for all of the things she has lost. For sisters that aren’t here to play with her and fathers that aren’t here to comfort her. She stomps her foot, trying to contain that fury and misery, knowing Isha would hear and come running. She bites into her palm, tears running down her face as she drops onto her haunches, rocking herself back and forth. 

She scrubs away shimmery tears, mumbling to herself. She breathes deep and rapid, trying to remember the technique she had shown Isha so the kid could calm herself down after a nightmare. 

She squeezes the cufflinks harder, the sting of sharp metal bringing her senses back gradually.

What would Silco say to her now?

Probably “be thankful, child. Look around you.”

That’s right. For every thing that is lost, something is gained along the way. As long as you make the effort to keep what you have gained.

She thinks about Silco sitting her on his lap at the desk, explaining what the paperwork meant and his duties as a Chembaron, letting her doodle through his lectures as he played with her hair softly. She thinks about letting Isha crawl into her lap at her work table, telling her which explosives do what and how to connect wires within robotic arms, letting Isha doodle through her lessons as she plays with her hair softly. 

The wind shakes the bar again. The chair creaks.

“Huh,” Jinx says aloud, opening her eyes and gazing back up at the window. She lets go of her hair, rolling the cufflinks between her fingers. 

She breathes out, something like a weight being lifted just a bit. She doesn’t smile, but she does relax her shoulders, standing back up taller than she did before. As she walks past the chair, she runs her finger along the top of it, still refusing to point her gaze directly to it. 

“Thanks dad.”

Isha holds her creation up to the light, looking at it from different angles through a critical eye. She finds no flaws, the drawing is exactly what she wants to express. She takes another bite of the oatmeal Sevika had made her after her stomach rumbled loud and angry while she was drawing. it's a little sugary, warm and soft in her mouth. 

Sevika is at the bar refilling their mugs. She would never say anything to the kid but she’s just a little worried about Jinx. It's been ten minutes without so much as a peep from upstairs. Just as Sevika’s worry begins to bubble, thinking that maybe it had been too soon to bring up Silco like that, the stairs creak and she hears the familiar sound of Jinx’s light footsteps coming down the stairs. 

Immediately, Isha perks up, dropping the spoon in her mouth and hiding the drawing inside of her vest, sliding out of the booth. Jinx makes it to the bottom of the stairs. Her eyes are a little red, but she doesn’t look crazed or manic. No depression visibly crushing down on her. No grief shackling her wrists and making her tremble. She just looks…light.

Sevika walks around the bar counter, two mugs in hand, “hey, I refilled the mugs. I don’t know if you want to… talk to me but-” Sevika is cut off as a small but powerful body crashes into her, two thin pale arms wrapping around her waist. Tea splashes on the floor as she almost drops the mugs. Jinx squeezes tight, burrowing her face into the woman’s chest. Sevika looks down at a blue head of hair, too shocked to speak.

The teen breathes deeply, turning her face to speak, pressing her cheek against Sevika’s chest, “thank you.”

the words seem to echo across the bar. 

The moment after is silent, but not uncomfortable. The sound of gentle breathing and whistling wind fills the space. 

Sevika blinks hard, grey eyes roaming across Jinx’s back, briefly considering that Jinx had been replaced with a completely different, alternate universe version of herself while she was up in the office. The woman's arms twitch, like they want to wrap themselves around the body clutching her. 

“Its um- it’s no-” Jinx cuts Sevika off again with a slap to her sternum, pulling back and straightening up like nothing had ever happened. 

“Don’t mention it, Ogre. Speaking of, where'd you get a vinyl like that anyways?”

Jinx quickly changes the topic, strutting over to the bar as Sevika’s arms stay stagnant in the air. The woman takes the hint, shaking her head and moving on from the hug. Not without a soft gaze pointed towards Jinx, though.

She falls onto a barstool, “there’s a record store some ways up of Zaun. been goin’ there for years.”

Isha skips over, grinning smugly. She points at Sevika, then at the vinyl and signs woman, intertwining her hands and making kissy noises. Sevika chokes on her saliva.

Jinx gasps, smirking at the red-faced brute, “flirting with the shopkeeper, huh?”

The woman huffs, “she’s just an old confidant. It was…a long time ago.”

“Confidant, huh?” Jinx wiggles her eyebrows, elbowing Sevika in the side a tad too hard. 

Just as Jinx is about to blurt another stupid and witty joke, Isha grunts loudly to get her attention. Jinx turns to the kid, and Isha is shuffling her feet, silently asking Jinx to come closer. 

“Yeah?” the teen asks, walking up to Isha and lightly running her fingers over the scruffy hair. Isha grabs her hands, pulling her down, and Jinx obliges, getting onto her knees.

Want to give you a special. You are special. Isha signs close to her chest, blinking rapidly. 

the sentiment practically melts Jinx's heart, moreso than she thought possible. It already feels like this kid had brought a cold dead organ back to life, and she just continues to fan the flame, huh?

"Th...thanks, Kiddo. Whaddya have?"

Isha slides her hand into her vest, pulling out the gift. She holds it out to Jinx, tiny arms outstretched and wide honey eyes looking aside. Jinx accepts it gingerly. What lays in her hands a piece of pink construction paper cut into a choppy heart. The white outline of a heart remains on the edges, displaying the childishness of the cutting. The drawing in the center depicts two figures drawn in the same white crayon. A taller stick figure with two long strands of blue hair and a black shirt. A smaller figure with short blue hair. Both people are smiling and holding hands. Cartoonish, circular hands and crooked smiley faces. It's a drawing of them. The two of them, inside of a heart, holding each other. And Isha’s hair is blue. 

Jinx opens her mouth silently, wordless like an idiot. She’s embarrassed by how quickly tears well in her eyes.

“Isha, you made this? For me?” she asks breathlessly, looking into the child’s eyes. Isha nods, curling her arms against her chest, eyes darting around Jinx’s face to gauge her reaction. 

Then, she signs, small. Good enough. Want to be good enough. Special.

And Jinx laughs. Because how in the world could this kid ever think she doesn’t mean the world to Jinx already? That anything she makes won’t be tucked away into the deepest cavities of her heart?

Jinx is smiling and sniffling away tears, making sure she speaks from her chest and sounds as earnest as she possibly can, “Isha, I wantcha to listen with your ears wide open when I say this,” she takes Isha’s face into her hands, the drawing pressing against her cheek, “ you, just you, here with me, will always, always be enough.” 

As Isha looks into Jinx’s eyes, purple veins and pupils so wide they nearly swallow bright pink irises, gleaming and looking deeply into Isha’s own, the feeling that had burst within Isha while they were playing in the snow comes back again. And comes back with a vengeance. It's almost painful. 

A love like this is always painful. It reroutes your brian, doesn’t it? It regrows parts of your heart. What is life without growing pains?

Isha has known that she’s loved Jinx for months now. She became attached to her quickly, and grew to love her just as fast. But now, the feeling is bigger, deeper. It feels unbreakable and unrelenting. Family. Unconditional. Unbreakable. unrelenting.

Jinx and Isha move to hug each other at the same time, Jinx holding onto the back of Isha’s head, digging her fingers into her hair, tucking the child's into the crook of her neck, feeling sniffling against her skin. Isha curls her arms around Jinx’s shoulders, gripping the baby hair at the base of her neck and nuzzling deeply into her. 

Isha signs while tucked against her, and Jinx does her best to interpret the signs by feeling them against her chest. 

Care. here. 

And Jinx knows exactly what she means. she taps twice on Isha's back. 

Right here.

When they pull away from each other, Jinx wipes the bit of wetness under Isha’s eye with her thumb. Isha's face is red and wet, but joyful. Jinx suspects she looks the same, as Isha wipes her face as well with her little thumb. 

“Remember, I don’t need anything but you. But, it’s a really great gift kiddo. I’m gonna pin it right above my work table so I can look at it all the time." 

Jinx begins to stand, but Isha stops her, repeatedly clenching her fists like she’s thinking of a sign. 

“Yeah?”

Isha brings her hand to her face, sticking out her thumb, index, and middle finger in a finger gun. She touches her thumb to her chin, then turns her hand outward like she’s cocking the gun, pointing it right at Jinx. 

“What’s that one mean?”

Isha pokes her finger at Jinx's chest with a humph.

“Me? I thought we already had a sign for me.”

The sign Isha had made up for Jinx’s name had been created quickly and out of necessity. It was just a modified version of the sign for name. It had worked, it had fit Jinx.

This one fits her much better. 

Isha repeats the sign, gesturing harder this time. Her eyes have that hardened, determined quality in them that means she refuses to budge. 

Jinx sighs, slightly bewildered, “alright, a new sign for my name. Any particular reason?”

Isha doesn’t answer, only shrugs with a quirk of her lips. Eventually, Jinx will figure it out, but for now she’ll let Isha have her secrets.

“I’ll need some time to get used to it, y’know?”

Isha nods, signing the name again to practice it. 

Jinx looks back down at the drawing, then twirls Isha's short hair around her finger, "I promise, once the whole "Jinxer" thing dies down and it's safer, you can dye your hair, okay?"

This is the point where Isha usually argues that she is a Jinxer and should get to dye her hair now, but this time, she only nods, listening to her m...to Jinx.

I just want to look like yours.

Jinx runs her hand through the kid's hair again before standing, walking to the booth Isha was sitting at to safely tuck the drawing away into Sevika’s bag, knowing she’ll remember to retrieve it later. 

meanwhile, Sevika has been gathering a few herbs from around the bar, putting them into a pile on a small dish and lighting them with a match. it's a small ritual she borrowed from her grandmother a long time ago and never stopped borrowing. The smell smell of earthy herbs fills the bar. 

Once the drawing is safe, Jinx turns around with her hands on her hips, addressing her little family with a big grin, “well, lets get that record spinning!”

***

The blue-haired criminal sets the vinyl into a row alongside the others. She shuts the glass of the jukebox and pulls the level for the slot she wants. The machine lights up, mechanical arms grabbing the disk and precisely positioning it onto the platter of the turntable. 

As the machine adjusts with a few clicks and whirs, Jinx takes Isha’s hand and leads her to the open floor space. 

As the needle touches the disk and the vinyl begins to spin, the sound of static fills the bar. 

Jinx flicks her bangs out of her face, “hey grumpy, ya gonna keep brooding over there, or are ya gonna join us this time?” 

The sound of a rhythmic, groovy electric guitar sounds through the speakers.

Sevika rolls her eyes, acting like she’s going to leave the brat hanging. But after a moment of defiant silence, she uncrosses her muscular flesh arm and her powerful metal one, walking over to the pair all hunched and grumpy.

Drums enter the instrumental, the buoyant tune building. 

“Just don’t step on my feet, Brute.” 

“No promises,” the brute says. 

As trumpets enter the song, Isha giggles, looking up at her guardians and smiling so radiantly it could very possibly blind you. As the lyrics start, a smooth masculine voice flows from the speakers. Jinx moves, twirling the three of them, light on her feet and moving her arms erratically. 

She ain’t got no money

Her clothes are kinda funny

Her hair is kinda wild and free

Oh, but love grows where my Rosemary goes

And nobody knows like me

Jinx swings her braids and they fly this way and that. Sevika’s dancing is clunky with that big metal arm, but she tries, and she looks like she’s even having a little fun ( just maybe.)

The music drowns out the sound of the howling wind. 

She talks kinda lazy

And people say she’s crazy 

And her life’s a mystery 

Oh, but love grows where my Rosemary goes

And nobody knows like me

Isha and Jinx do their best to sign along with the lyrics, filling in the gaps with random hand movements, their signs not nearly fast enough to keep up with the lyrics. They giggle, acting out the song and dancing around each other, bumping hips and signing large and dramatic. 

There’s something about her hand holding mine

It’s a feeling so fine 

And I just gotta say, “Hey!”

She’s really got a magical spell 

And it’s working so well

That I can’t get away 

Jinx thinks of Silco, listening to this album in his office, bobbing his head along while scratching away with an ink pen. For the first time in four months, she thinks of her father and smiles.

Sevika steps on her toes, and Isha jumps around and Jinx scoops her up and spins her, and they all laugh and stumble around this old dusty bar that never really stopped being home, and sign along to the words pouring out of the jukebox instead of singing them, 

And Jinx, Isha, and Sevika all experience something they never thought they would experience again. 

I’m a lucky fella

And I’ve just got to tell her

That i love her endlessly 

Because love grows where my Rosemary goes

And nobody knows like me 

It keeps growing every place she’s been 

And nobody knows like me 

If you’ve met her, you’ll never forget her 

And nobody knows like me 

Better believe it when you’ve seen it

Nobody knows like me

***

It’s up to you Petula

Do the things you wanna do with your life

Well, do you want my love?

Petula well it’s up to you

***

I’ve tried forgetting you

But no matter what I do

Memories keep coming through

Every lonely day

I tried to carry on

It’s hard since you’ve been gone

So the tears fall one by one

Every lonely day

***

There’s a breeze above my shoulder

Seems to blow a little colder

Suddenly I’m so much older

Thinking about you

Lonely without out

There will be a symphony 

Playing on inside of me

***

I’ve been wondering all along 

Does it matter who was wrong?

Is it really something that we have to know?

Now’s the time to put aside

Every trace of foolish pride

Or we’ll only hurt each other so 

Let’s make it up, girl, while we can 

A lonely heart needs a helpin’ hand

***

Every little move she makes

Only takes my love a little closer

***

In those bad bad old days before you loved me girl

I was just a lonely man 

In so many ways until you loved me girl

And I was your only man

You came into my life

And ended misery

In those bad bad old days

That used to be, yeah

Everyday I slave to pull us through 

But one day I’m gonna make it girl

I’m telling you 

The sun goes down around home every night

To see your smiling face and hold you tight 

***

Come on and 

Take me in your arms and make me love you

Let me know how much I’m thinking of you 

***

Oh yeah my Melanie makes me smile

And melts away the grey

A little light comes shining, into my life again

And with my Melanie in my arms

The worlds a warmer place

A little light comes shining, down upon my face

I feel it, feel it, shining in my face

I just have to hold her

Head upon my shoulder

And tell her that I'm feeling low

And I got no place I can go

And I said darling 

I need you 

Then she lifts her head up kinda of slow

Oh, Oh

And then my Melanie makes me smile

And melts away the grey

A little light comes shining, into my life again

There is probably somewhere in the world where the winter solstice is bright and grande. Where snow falls in perfect powdery blankets. Where trees rustle with the biting wind and birds build nests in the nooks of trunks to safely hide from it. Where colorful gleaming lights line the roofs of quaint buildings and wrap around the hearts of those gazing upon them. Where sweet, warm drinks are put in every cold and thirsty hand to be savored for as long as winter lasts. Where children play in the center of the city, fearing nothing and no one and laughing from their bellies. Where the townspeople don’t need to pray for wind to blow the gases away. Where hard metal machines don’t need to fabricate the barest of nature's offerings. 

But that isn’t here. This is their home. This is what they’ve got. They have worked with the hand they’ve been given, and frankly, it’s a pretty damn good winter solstice, despite it all.