Archive of Our Own

It was unusual for Lux’s foul moods to survive upon return to Terbisia. Nevertheless, this one was proving particularly stubborn. She usually prided herself on being able to compartmentalise whatever agitation she had suffered when she was called away on supposedly vital business. Which really meant that her family wanted her to dance like the Crownguard’s family monkey. And in order for it not to affect the people of Terbisia she always went. She could only hope that her people couldn't sense her irritation. She knew a lot of them looked to her to be a calming bulwark in the face of the uncertainty sweeping across Demacia.

However, even that usually comforting thought just drew her brows closer into their furrow. After all, she was the family monkey no longer. She was Crownguard no longer. His Majesty king Jarvan Lightshield IV had finally succumbed to pressure exerted primarily by her mother and somewhat her aunt and offered her an ultimatum. She could be a daughter of House Crownguard, or the Governor of the Magehold of Terbisia. She could not be both. Lux could still remember the horror on her mothers face as she had walked out proudly, declaring herself Luxanna of Terbisia. She focussed on that, on her mothers expression. Because she could not bear to think of her brothers or her aunts. Disappointing her mother was par for the course, she’d been doing it her whole life. Disappointing them was a new achievement. And not one of which she was overly proud, though she was glad she had finally done something that was purely for her. Had finally chosen herself when asked to choose between that and her last name.

But despite her happiness at her actions, of finally freeing herself from any claim her family had over her, something was rankling Lux. She put a little more focus into her own thoughts as she walked through the streets of Terbisia pulling Starfire along beside her. She had been away for longer than she would have liked, the journey back having taken an extra week due to an inconvenient and irregular summer migration of Silverwings. And the few weeks since her return had been full of myriad issues. From arguing villagers to rumors of more unseasonal Silverwings. False rumors, her recent ride out had informed her. So maybe that's why her brain was telling her something was off. Shaking her head slightly to banish the thoughts Lux set off to the stables intent on getting her things squared away before she got into the swing of reconnecting with her people after her sortie.

It had been a week since her unsuccessful search for silverwings and the feeling hadn’t disappeared. Something had changed while Lux had been gone and she hadn't been sleeping well. Her previously over-large but perfectly manageable governor's house seemed cavernous and haunted. As though each underused room held some kind of grisly spectre, instead of just containing supplies to run a far larger household than that of a single, fairly self sufficient, governess. She reasoned that it was likely her own paranoia from lack of sleep worsening the situation. Finding darkness in shadows for naught. But something stuck in Lux’s mind. There was something she hadn’t quite seen yet. It was another sleepless night a week and five days after her return when Lux finally broke and gave into the worries.

With a growing sense of aggravation Lux allowed the parts of her training that she usually suppressed to rise to the forefront of her mind. Sitting in the middle of one of the more sparse rooms of her echoing governors house. Lux began the meditations that would allow her to pull her memories as close to the surface as possible.

What had she seen? It must have been something soon after her return to Terbisia from the capital. Something that would stand out enough that it kept her unsettled but hadn’t alerted her immediately even in her distracted state. It dawned on her suddenly. As she had dismounted and entered the gates of the town she had gotten a look into the station the guards, most of whom were trained soldiers who had suppressed their magic enough to be trained in Demacia’s army, usually sat in during the nights. They had some kind of contraption that she had never seen before, it didn’t seem to have been active at the time but still. That must be what it was, Lux knew that most technology of that sort was nothing to fear, having spent some time around it on some of her missions abroad for the Radiant.

But its arrival without her being notified, presumably on one of the few supply runs Terbisia received from the rest of Demacia, was noteworthy, and suspicious. With quickening breath Lux hurried to dress in something warm enough to ward off the chill of the darkening evening, her mind racing. If this object was, as she feared, some kind of weapon snuck into the settlement, why hadn’t it been activated yet? And who could have both the money to acquire the tech and the skills to sneak it into the city?

Lux was almost ready to run out the door when an even more worrisome thought crossed her mind. What if she were the target, what if the person who had laid this trap was simply waiting for her to make a move on the device to activate it. Lux had no doubt that she had made enough enemies in her life for such a thing to be possible.

Breath quickening Lux began to plan, she had her regular tour of the town scheduled tomorrow. She could use that to scope out anyone new and any new pieces of technology. Maybe even manage to get her hands on one to see if it was dangerous, without bringing panic to the people of the town or chancing anyone getting caught in the crossfire. Plan firm in her mind Lux readies herself for bed with military precision. Yet despite it all, Lux did not sleep. Nightmares harrowed her every time she tried. However, when morning came she managed to drag her heavy body from her bed. This was a mission she could not afford to fail.

She was failing terribly. She hadn’t seen a glimpse of anyone new, the off duty guard she spoke with said that the heater had been a delivery from Bekka, the town's smith, as payment for helping her move the massive amounts of firewood she needed. For a moment Lux supposed that this was a good thing, a lack of plots and weapons targeting her town was only a positive development. But something gnawed, something was still wrong. And as she wandered around the town sharing pleasant greetings with its inhabitants she couldn’t put her finger on it.

Until she saw something that once again brought all of her fears crashing into the forefront of her mind. A small group of Terbisia’s children, those who had been sent by their parents without accompaniment due to being mages, playing with a series of strange mechanical contraptions. These contraptions were in various shapes including poros and dragons and were definitely unlike anything Lux had seen the younger members of Terbisia playing with before. Some of them almost seemed capable of independent powered flight, which was a technology that had definitely not made its way into Demacia yet. And certainly not as far into the reaches of the country to be available to children in Terbisia. Immediately Lux’s mind roiled with theories as to how and why these machines were appearing in her town.

Making a decision she diverted from her usual circumnavigation of the town and headed towards the playing children, a kind smile forced onto her face to hide her growing fear. The children noticed her approach and greeted her with wide smiles, abandoning the game they had been playing to run towards her, each giving a variant of a half-polite but excited greeting.

“Hello all of you,” Lux said, a genuine smile flitting across her face at how excited they all were to see her. “I see you have some new toys?” She asked, careful to keep her voice light and airy, it wouldn’t do to upset the kids who had done nothing wrong. “Mrs Bekka gave them to us, Lady Light.” One of the older boys said, he was around 9 and dressed in dirty but serviceable clothes, Lux knew his name to be Sebas, one of the ones that had arrived some months ago with the last caravan from the south of Demacia. “Well that's wonderful,” Lux said genuinely. She was happy that these toys hadn’t seemingly come from a clear threat. However, the traitorously aware part of her mind hissed to her that this was two instances of high level devices that were traced back to the town smith. Who had certainly not been operating at anywhere near that level of engineering competency before Lux had left for the capital roughly two months ago. Resolving to speak with Bekka later, Lux settled down to keep the children entertained until they would have to return to their classes with Beorn and Clara, smiling as she did. Seeing these children happy made everything worth it, and her resolve for nothing to harm them strengthened in her heart.

Bekka’s smithy was located against the outer wall on the western side of Terbisia, this is so that the majority of the fuel that the smith needs can simply be lifted over the walls rather than having to be carried to the gates. And also so that the chimneys could be built through the city's walls allowing the thick smog produced by constant wood and charcoal burning to be funneled immediately out of the city. Bekka herself was an older woman, roughly forty Lux guessed who’s natural affinity towards fire magic combined with her years of experience at the forge allowed her to smelt some of the strongest metals Lux had ever seen from the poor quality ore allowed to the non-garrisoned cities of Demacia. But Lux knew that precision engineering and invention wasn’t the woman's strong suit.

The woman herself was clearly taking a midday break, sitting out front of her smithy drinking from a waterskin, taking in the early afternoon sun, when she spotted the approaching governor. Bekka was a broad woman who’s age had yet to rob her of her hard earned muscle, her skin was a lick darker than the Demacian average, though if that was from her heritage or her time at the forge was unknown, and her eyes always seemed alight lit at all times from within by her fiery magic. She wore a high collared leather vest but her arms were bare displaying the scarred flecks gained from life at her forge.

“Hoy Lady Light, what brings you this way?” Lux smiled in spite of herself, she truly did like Bekka and was deeply hoping that there was an honest answer to her paranoia. “Hello Bekka, I hope that you’re well. I need to ask you about some things I’ve seen around the town.”
“Of course my Lady, anything I can do please just let me know.” Lux took a moment to study the smith’s face as she said this, to attempt to divine any hints of trickery or ill intention. She was pleased when she found none, but refused to leave the matter now that she had come this far. “Thank you Bekka. I appreciate that, I’ve seen some new technologies around the town including what seemed to be a heater at the main gate’s guard post? I asked about it and was told that you delivered it. But I must admit I didn’t think you had the tools here for that kind of engineering work? Oh I hope that isn’t offensive.” Lux added as though she had just realised that her words could be taken as an insult

Despite feeling somewhat manipulative, Lux was pleased when the elder woman in front of her began laughing loudly. “No my lady fear not I’m not offended at all, after all you’re right. I certainly don’t have the ability , let alone the tools to make things like that. No, those were payments I received from our new neighbour. She didn’t have coin to pay so traded that heater and then those delightful contraptions I gave to the children.”
“What do you mean neighbour?” Lux demanded, tone growing a little harsher than she meant it to. She knew she was being rude but she was concerned, a new face in town that she hadn’t even heard of let alone been introduced to was a worrisome development.

“Just as I said my Lady, she seems to have taken up habitation in the woods to the west. I said that anyone was welcome in Terbisia as long as they spoke with you and she as much as said she wasn’t interested. Traded her some bigger pieces of cloth and leather for that heater and she gave me those toys you saw the younguns with free of charge. Said she wasn’t gonna need them. I saw her yesterday so I doubt she will be around for a week or two yet, she’s frightful light footed and a slip of a thing anyway.”

“It’s odd though is it not, refusing safe housing for no reason?” Lux questioned, her concern mellowing as she listened to the older woman describe the stranger.

“Aye I suppose it is, but I can see it in that girl's eyes. She’s got that spark of genius in her, the kind that often makes bedfellows with madness, and loneliness. I’m afraid I can’t offer you more than that Lady Light. I suppose the next time I see her I can tell her you’ve asked after meeting her. But considering she only does business with me and even then only twice since whenever she arrived I can’t promise anything.” To Bekka’s credit the woman truly did look upset at being unable to offer anything more to Lux. Seeing this and accepting the vouching of the elder woman Lux nodded. “Thank you, Bekka. I would appreciate that.”

Lux had almost managed to put it from her mind in the following week, the few things that she had missed while she had been away were quickly dealt with and she swiftly and decisively burnt any mail that held the Crownguard symbol. She was doing a perfect job of ignoring the ache in her heart at the loss of her family. She definitely didn’t feel a crushing loneliness every time she retired to her empty governor’s house in the centre of town with its many halls and closed doors of unused rooms that she kept closed so that she needn’t see the dust gathering within them. She certainly didn’t feel as though it was getting more and more difficult to keep a smile on her face as she performed the duties she had given up her name to be able to do, that her family had cast her out for wanting to do. And if she did she certainly wouldn’t have dealt with it by watching the children of Terbisia play with the remarkable toys Bekka’s mysterious inventor had given them, feeling more and more entranced by their artistry each time.

It was once again time for Lux’s weekly rounds of Terbisia, to wander the streets and allow the people of her town to interact with her in a freer way than they could when they had to approach her imposing governor’s house to speak with her as with the rest of the week. It was with a slight pep in her step that Lux once again approached Bekka’s smithy and to her surprise the woman was nowhere to be seen. She stood in front of the forge for a moment slightly flummoxed before she heard voices from behind the shop where the walls were cut in to allow easy fuel access to the burners of the forge. She listened for a moment and knew that she could recognise Bekka’s deep timbre which seemed slightly heated. The responding voice however, Lux couldn’t place as it rose in pitch in response to whatever Bekka had said.

Excitement filled Lux at the prospect of meeting the enigmatic engineer and she pushed through the smithy towards the voices. It wasn’t far through to the back of the smithy which opened into a gate with a portcullis that bordered into the woods surrounding Terbisia. The portcullis was down as it always was unless Bekka was getting a delivery and the distance between it and the front of the smithy was not large. Despite this Lux moved slowly, trying to both glean whatever she could from the conversation as well as not be noticed by its participants. The smithy was full of hanging leathers and fabrics drying in its heat allowing Lux to get almost all the way to the gate before she ran the risk of being seen.

“- is that you could just come into the town, it would be easier than me acting as your go between all the time.” That was Bekka, her voice even but a touch of fire to her words making it seem likely that this conversation had been going on for some time. “And all I’m telling you is that that ain’t happening, I ain’t sticking around any longer than I need to and I sure as shootin shit ain’t meetin any fancy pants Pilties.” The second voice was higher pitched than Bekka’s voice, seemingly heightened by emotion as each word seemed less like it was spoken and more like it was spat from the back of the speaker's mouth. Lux didn’t really recognise the last word but the distaste it was delivered with left no impression that the person had any positive emotions towards whatever ‘Pilties’ were.

Pushing through the last of the drapes Lux was confused to see Bekka standing alone facing towards the portcullis with an air of resigned annoyance about her. Lux stared past her trying to see into the woods, which were cropped back to begin only a scant 20 feet from Terbisia’s western wall. “Bekka,” she inquired, “I thought I heard you speaking with someone.” The smith startled at her words jumping slightly and a slight whoosh could be heard as she pulled on the fires of the forge in her shock before realising that it was just Lux who had spoken.

“Oh, Lady Light, forgive me I did not hear your approach. Yes I was speaking to our new neighbour but it seemed something spooked her, or she grew tired of my insisting she meet with you as she was there one moment and simply off the next.” Lux tilted her head slightly absorbing the new information.

“I see, well thank you Bekka. Would you mind telling me what it is she was requesting?” She asked, if the person had been harassing her town smith then Lux’s willingness to turn a blind eye to them would be overturned quickly. Bekka was far too nice a person, and far too useful to the town, to deal with that kind of thing. “Oh nothing too uncommon Lady Light, just food and medical supplies. I told her I wouldn’t be able to trade that kind of thing without her discussing it with you or the farmers first though. She didn’t seem awfully pleased about it but she left before saying much more.”

“Alright, Thank You Bekka. I think the next time this person appears it would be best if you pointed them to me irregardless of what they are asking for.”

“As you wish, Lady Light.” Lux knew that Bekka would do as she asked; she just truly hoped that it wouldn’t get the smith into any danger as she was only acting as her voice on this. “And Bekka, please be careful. I know you’ve had a few dealings with this person but I’d hate for you to get hurt alright.” The smith seemed startled for a moment before her expression softened. “Thank you My Lady, you’re too kind.”

It was nearly a month before Lux had cause to think about the mysterious inventor again. After not hearing anything about them the following few days she had thrown herself fully into her work as governor. Passing out each night hoping to be too exhausted for disquieting dreams to find her. However, it seemed the inventor had not entirely ignored Bekka’s mention of direct trade. But had ignored any mention of Lux completely, despite the smith reporting no new interactions with the stranger, more of Terbisia’s citizens were using higher quality items.

It seemed the stranger had forgone interacting with Bekka as a go between but rather than seeking out Lux had simply gone straight to the farmers working the arable land outside of Terbisia’s walls. The town didn’t grow all its own food, still relying on a yearly stipend of things like flour and salt from the crown but little else. This meant that during harvest times the farmers ended up with a surplus of crops that they were permitted to keep as a reward for their hard work, after all Lux refused to preside over a town that demanded servitude from its inhabitants without reward.

It seemed that some of them had traded some amount of this surplus to the inventor in the woods as Lux had seen them using far higher quality tools than could usually be found this deep into Demacia. After all, the best metal always went to the Crown or the Dauntless Vanguard. This left farmers, especially those in outskirt towns like Terbisia, with roughshod iron tools that broke often. However it was no longer a strange sight to see a Terbisian farmer breaking clod with a gleaming steel tool that had no fear of bending should it strike a stone. An especially useful property later in the year when the ground froze over and even dirt could be hard enough to break an ill tempered tool.

However, even the upgraded basic tools were nothing compared to the machinery some of the town was now boasting. A few of the hunters could be seen with metal bows that looked like some mishmash of Noxian and Piltovan design and allowed their bolts to fly far more effectively. Lux could barely understand how one inventor could make everything she had seen. Seemingly the only thing that united the inventions was that whoever was using it reported that the creator absolutely refused to speak to Lux even when prompted. It wasn’t as though she was in the habit of interrogating her townsfolk even when she saw them with new items, but nevertheless, no information was forthcoming at all. With the exception of one hunter who Lux had the questionable fortune to find slightly deep in his cups, who shared with her that the person who had made his ‘fancy new bow’ lived in the western woods and had traded it to him for all he knew about the things that could be caught, eaten, and foraged in said woods. That, and that the person had glowing purple eyes and sky blue hair.

Lux tried to put the matter out of her mind. Really she did. She even succeeded for a short while. Content that nothing bad had happened in the weeks since the strangers arrival. She convinced herself that she wouldn’t let paranoia ruin what was clearly a prosperous, if unconventional, trade relationship. In fact her approach seemed to pay off as apparently the mysterious trader would now occasionally venture into the town proper to do business, seeking out people who would be able to provide them with necessary items, although that so far seemed to be limited to fruit, vegetables, rope and the occasional baked goods. However, Lux had still yet to get even a glimpse of this person despite it having been nearly two months since she returned from The Great City.

Unfortunately for Lux her life did not allow her to exist in her uneasy status quo of busy days and achingly lonely nights. The young governess knew that she was ignoring her problems, acting as though the silence that rang through her house didn't bother her. But she didn't know what to do about it. She had intended to think on it over breakfast one day when she was distracted by the arrival of a letter. She thanked the guard who had delivered it from the outer gate and settled down to read.

It was a royal letter of note, with all the correct demarcations. They functioned as official warnings, if the king thought something noteworthy was going to happen to or near a town a letter of note was sent to its governor. Lux briefly reminisced on seeing her father and later her mother reading such letters. However the memory of her mother’s icy eyes as she demanded she sacrifice her name and family quickly turned the burgeoning warmth in Lux’s gut to cold needles of loneliness and pain. Seeking to avoid them Lux tore open the letter, reading quickly she grit her teeth in irritation. Another two caravans of mages would be arriving soon, if the letter was correct they were mostly children given up by their families in central Demacia so that they could “learn to control their magic at Demacia’s first magehold” in the King’s words.

More likely the families didn’t want to deal with the social risks of raising a mage. More pressing however than the remaining social pressure that had yet to fade even in the wake of the legalisation of magic, was that Terbisia was quickly running out of refurbished buildings that had the necessities to house large groups of learning children. Group houses needed things like running water access and drainage systems.

The problem was that while they had already filled all of the Terbisian houses for which those systems were still functional. The rest had some kind of fault, likely stemming from broken pipework in the collapsed sewers beneath the town. And while the earth elementalists amongst the people living in Terbisia had managed to remove the earth from the collapsed sewers that were the problem. They simply did not have the kind of machining skill necessary to fix the networks of pipes that had been broken in the collapse. No one in Terbisia had that kind of skill. Except possibly a certain inventor, who had made it very clear that they had absolutely no interest in meeting with Lux.

And she couldn’t even go and find out if they could do such a thing. Unless she could. An idea began to take root in Lux’s mind, she knew that the person was still regularly trading with other members of the town. And while she did have a lot of gubernatorial responsibilities. Lux could admit that using her work as an excuse to not have to think had left her quite far ahead on most of her duties. It would be a good way to practice her magic, which was always good. Also, she thought to herself, this was vital for the town. They couldn’t afford to ask the king to delay the arrival of the caravans nor turn them away. Immediately she stood from the table, her breakfast, cooling where she had laid the plate before the post arrived, went ignored as she ran to the internal store cupboard of the gubernatorial office.

At the end of the day Lux was beyond exhausted. The well of light within her chest ached from being worked harder, and for longer, than it had been in some time. If Lux had been more awake she would have worried if that meant she had been neglecting her training. However, it was almost as if she had finally achieved a level of tiredness that her worries and emotions couldn’t reach her. Lux sunk into her mattress with glee, for once not even giving a second thought to the echoing emptiness of the large gubernatorial house around her. The exhaustion in her bones pulled her mind from its usual desperate haunts of sneering family, and crying brothers, and blinding, burning light and down into a dreamless sleep without pause.

Lux woke to sunlight streaming through the windows. A flash of excitement shook the morning haze from her eyes and she dived out of bed almost thankful that she had been too tired to change into sleeping clothes the night before. The pile of worked papers was still on her desk where she had put it. It had been interesting, trying to work her magic in ways to burn patterns into the paper without burning the paper itself. But she had managed, and now she had a ream of fliers. She had tried to be reasonable, afraid of calling the inventor out too hard. Instead it was simply what amounted to a hyper specific job posting. Written in big blocky font it said “Needed, skilled engineer for high priority project. Reward requestable. Contact Governor Luxanna for details.” Now all she had to do was distribute them to everyone who she suspected had had interactions with the inventor, without making it seem like she was hunting them. Which she absolutely was.

A brief check in her vanity had Lux spending a hurried few moments brushing her hair. Lux felt the excitement gripping her heart at the idea of finally meeting the inventor who’s creations had so captured her attention in the recent dour months. She wondered if they would be reclusive like the few archivists she had interacted with during her work for the Radiant. Or perhaps a quickened brilliance like the few scholars she had met at gala’s for her family. She was so excited that she barely felt the phantom weight of her mothers eyes as she brushed her hair into an informal ponytail. Barely dipping a shoulder at the weight of the disapproval she knew her mother would feel as she tightened her boots just over the hem of the riding trousers she now wore near daily.

It took around half the day for Lux to run out of leaflets. She had placed them at the tavern, Bekka’s smithy, most of the guard outposts, and the hunter’s lodge where they stored their equipment for maintenance. This was as well as handing them out to anyone who had greeted her on the street. Which turned out to be most of the occupants of Terbisia. Her task done, Lux had returned to her home. The problem now was that she just had to wait. She felt excitement thrumming under her skin. Not even the drumming of rain against the windows of her study could dampen her mood. The morning sun had given way to a severe summer shower, the kind that pounded onto roofs and made everyone who didn’t absolutely have to be outside huddle under shelter.

She could barely concentrate as she tried to complete the ledgers necessary for their next shipments of salt and sundries from the rest of Demacia. She would have continued being very very bored had the sound of loud repeated knocking not echoed through the house. Heart leaping into her throat in a way that felt almost like she might vomit the organ up, Lux rushed to her feet and ran towards the front entrance as the knocking continued. For once cursing her refusal to have any standing staff in her home. If for no other reason than to answer the door right now and prevent her from somehow missing the person who seemed to be intent on knocking down her front door.

Reaching the hall Lux took a moment to smooth back her hair and collect herself into her usual mentality for governorship. It wouldn't do to make a bad impression having put so much work into arranging this meeting. Lux swings the door open excitedly. Immediately having to recoil as the hand that was about to start another spate of furious knocking nearly swiped across her left cheek. Standing in the doorway, face slightly flush from exertion, was a figure. They were draped in an odd mismash of fabrics. A cloak covered them to the knee, seemingly made of a thick greasy-seeming material; it seemed to do a good job of keeping the rain from soaking through it. It was in a style that Lux was certain was not produced anywhere in Demacia and hid a lot of their bodily features giving them an ill defined silhouette. Where the figure's legs were uncovered by the cloak they were clad in what looked to be oversized Demacian hunters trousers that had been bandaged down at the ankle. Before Lux could spend too much more time taking in the figure they started speaking.

“Hey Blondie, could ya tell me where the governor is? Apparently his highness wants something built.” The woman's voice was pitched and raspy, seeming paradoxically like it was both airy light yet required great effort for her to speak. Lux found herself almost intrigued, before she blinked quickly as the others' words sunk in. “I’m the governor. And yes, I was hoping to get something built. Can you help?” Internally Lux was cheering, her idea had worked. This had to be the inventor if they didn’t know that Lux was the governor. Fortunately her manners won over her excitement and she hurriedly stepped out of the way of the door, “Oh please come in you must be drenched.” She almost flinched as the woman followed step with her almost instantly.

“You really the governor? I was expecting some old crusty!” The figure took another step into the house as they shook the hood from their head. If they were intimidated by the large double breasted doors and the imposing look of the home of Terbisia’s governor they didn’t show it. They were, instead, staring directly at Lux. The proximity should have been what captured Lux’s attention. She should have immediately had her hand on her sword or her magic at her fingertips as the person encroached into very close range. But she couldn’t. She was too focussed on the eyes that locked onto hers. Lux knew that magic manifested differently for all users. Had seen the eyes of earth elementalists seem to grow as dark as wet stone and the eyes of fire manipulators spark and flicker as they used their gifts. Even knew that her own light spilled forth from her eyes when she used it.

However, despite that she had never seen such beautiful magic in someone’s eyes. Had never felt herself be fixed to the spot by the sheer majesty of the view in the way she was now. Her legs affixed to the ground like tree trunks as her whole body froze. Her ribs felt too small for her lungs as her heart began to beat wildly. And all the while she stared, transfixed, into beautiful amethysts. They seemed almost like cracked glass the way they shimmered and shifted. Each crack a rainbow from violet to mauve to lavender and beyond.

She could barely hear herself think over the thundering of her heart as she scraped her eyes from the figure’s eyes to the rest of their pale heart shaped face, framed by a fluffy blue bang on one side. It was only as she watched the other’s beautiful lips move that she realised she was still being spoken to. “-lo, helloooo. Anyone home Blondie? You’re seriously in charge here?” It took another second for Lux to get her bearings as the stranger tilted her head towards her, now only a scant foot away waving her hands towards Lux as though trying to flag her down. It was only when the waving hands briefly blocked Lux’s view of those gorgeous, mesmerising eyes that she managed to force herself back to reality.

“I-! need you to do some work for me!” Lux managed to say, pulling her eyes to a point just behind the stranger's left ear to avoid getting further ensconced in her eyes. “I’ve heard around the town that you’re an inventor… a builder. And I was hoping you’d be able to- There’s some pipes that need fixing in the town sewers.” She finally managed to wrangle her tongue back under her control. “We don’t have the tools or the know-how to make new ones, nor the time or money to get them shipped in. I was hoping you might be able to do it, and install them.” She chanced a glance back to the other woman, who was still staring at her.

“Whaddya need a buncha of sewers for?” the woman asked. “Not like there’s many people here?” She seemed to be having difficulty standing still, her knees and fingers twitching as she spoke but eyes remaining firmly on Lux. “We’re the only magehold in Demacia,” Lux began explaining, “There’s at least two more caravans on their way here, mostly children, with almost no one but themselves, and if we don’t have those sewers fixed they won’t have a sanitary place to stay.” She felt her own unbalanced emotions, dizzied from her poor sleep and the sudden excitement of the inventor's appearance, well within her in the way that always precluded the appearance of her light. With a deep inhale she regained her control before more than a slight glow could escape her. The idea of those children afraid and alone truly had been haunting her, she realised. “Please.” She finished, aware that she was likely not succeeding in convincing the other girl that she was indeed the governor of this town and not just some foppish noble girl having a flight of fancy.

But when she peered back into the other girl's eyes, realising with a start that they looked to be around the same age. It wasn’t disgust at the mention of magic or pity at her emotional display that she saw. It was a slight blurring of tears, and eyes that spoke of a profound and harrowing sadness. The blue haired girl visibly swallowed, “Kids you say? Alright Blondie, I’ll do it. And I know your leaflet said a reward. But maybe we can figure that out when it’s done. I don’t need for much at the moment.” Lux started at the display of generosity, suddenly remembering Bekka’s mention that the toys had been given to the children of Terbisia for free. Her eyes once again locked into those gorgeous gemstones as the inventors blinked back tears. She felt her mouth dry and barely stopped her tongue from flickering out to moisten her lips. She hadn't really planned this far, certainly hadn't expected the lack of resistance to helping her.

Fortunately the other came to the rescue of Lux’s flailing faculties. “So let's take a look at whatever blueprints or whatever you've got. And hopefully it'll stop raining before sundown and we can go take a look at the materials we're gonna be working with.” The girl almost seemed as though she was about to set off into Lux’s house without directions if the blonde didn’t move fast enough. “R-Right!” Lux agreed quickly. Turning to head towards the gubernatorial office she realised she hadn't even introduced herself. “Please, follow me! Oh I’m so sorry I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Luxanna C- Governor Luxanna, but most people call me Lux or Lady Light if they’re feeling like using a title.”

Lux refused to let her slip of her name destabilise her further. Despite the shaft of ice that made itself known in her heart every time she thought about the loss of the name, for what it meant, she would push through. Especially when it came to this very very pretty inventor. Letting her mind wander slightly as she guided the other towards the study of her office, Lux realised a pretty significant drawback in the expedited nature of her plan. She had a vague knowledge of what actually needed doing, certainly enough that she could likely tell the inventor everything they’d need to know. But she definitely didn’t have any materials, at least other than whatever could be salvaged from the wreckages left down in the cleared out sewers. She started to think of a way to mention this when she was jostled from her thoughts by the woman’s voice. “I’m uh kinda between names at the moment. And no one’s really asked until now, so I -um- I guess I’ll go with Free..” For the first time since she met her the woman’s voice slowed from its usual rambling tilt as she said this. The uncertainty was clear in her tone, and Lux felt herself filled with sympathy for this person who is clearly as lost as any other soul who found themselves in Terbisia.

Buoyed by this sympathy Lux spoke again. “Well, Free,” She took care to say the woman's name, knowing that it might mean something to hear it out loud. “I’m in a similar position to be honest. So I know I said earlier that some people call me Lady Light but that was something of a joke. So please, just call me Lux.” She turns to grin at Free and finds herself taken aback as the other is beaming at her, eyes once again drawing Lux’s entire focus as they sparkle with glee. “Sure thing, Blondie.” The nickname is said in a teasing tone and Lux can’t help but smile back at Free, something finally burning deep enough in her heart that it starts to melt the ice that formed there when she lost her family.

The two women shared a comfortable silence as they walked the short distance through Lux's home to her office. She directed Free to a seat and made to leave, “I'm just going to grab the blueprints, while I do. Could you compile a list of definitely necessary materials like tools?”

“No need for that Blondie, I've got all the tools I’ll need. Just a matter of raw material really.” Free responded confidently, tossing herself haphazardly into the seat Lux pointed out to her. Limbs splaying wildly and cloak briefly flinging up to reveal a strip of uncovered stomach before it settled back down. The second the sliver of skin disappeared Lux felt herself filled with a bizarre mixture of excitement and disappointment. As if her heart had jumped into her throat and wasn’t looking forward to the drop back down. Resolutely filing it away as just another oddity to think about later, if at all, Lux set to finding the blueprints. She knew she had had them recently so they were likely on her desk in her study.

Heading out towards the room Lux started as she realised how immediately her lingering paranoia had disappeared upon meeting Free. She wondered briefly if it was magical influence, before she decided that no. It was simply the woman's innate charm. And that she had no mind to keep any closer eye on her than she would any other important worker. An image of the woman, mid-fall into her chair in the office briefly flashed before her eyes. Her mental attention was drawn to the strip of muscular abdomen that had been revealed, in her mind's eye Lux could almost see the knotted muscles jump slightly under cream coloured skin as Free settled into the chair releasing the tension from her abs. Lux shook her head to clear it. And mentally repeated that she wouldn't be keeping closer watch on the inventor than was definitely entirely necessary.

It took scant moments to collect the blueprints from where they had been haphazardly laying on her study desk and Lux soon found herself back at the door to the office. Through the gap in the ajar door she could hear humming, and the occasional rhythmic thump as Free beat her hands against the arms of her chair. Taking a breath to calm the unexpected wave of happiness that flooded Lux to see the woman so clearly comfortable and animated in her home, Lux pushed the door open. Immediately the blue-haired woman’s face turned towards her, Lux could almost feel Free’s eyes follow her as she crossed the room to the gubernatorial desk. She didn’t use it often. Usually preferring to work in her study and meet her townspeople on the streets or at their own residences, never quite feeling at home in the sparsely decorated, intimidating office. However it just felt right for this. Spreading the blueprints over the large, heavy wooden desk Lux crossed around to the other side of it. As she felt, more than heard, Free move towards the desk as well. Now taking up opposite sides the two women looked down at the blueprints as Lux started to explain the state of the sewers.

After the explanation Free was silent for some time, prowling around the desk to look at the blueprints from all angles. Lux was used to people focussing in meetings like this so she chose to stay silent and let the woman think. A plan that paid off shortly afterwards as Free turned suddenly to her and said. “I need to know what kind of materials we’re working with, and the distance these actually need to cover. It’s a bit late now, and probably wouldn’t be safe with the rain but tomorrow we need to go down and actually have a look at these. What kind of materials have we got?” Lux stiffened, knowing that they’d reached the point where this was all going to fall apart. She felt that same numbing iciness in her chest grow as she responded, “We only have whatever materials we can get back from the broken sewers. There’s no time to get a new shipment in.” She looked down, staring blankly at the blueprints on the desk. Mind immediately catastrophizing as she heard Free curse under her breath. She looked up expecting to find the other woman turning for the door. But was shocked to find Free staring intently at her, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. Free seemed to take a shuddering breath,blinking hard and almost seeming to flinch at something unheard, before she spoke again. “Tomorrow, we go look at the sewers. Depending how much area needs covering, I can figure something out for materials Blondie.” Now it was Lux’s turn to blink hard.

“S- Seriously Free? I mean… I’m already asking so much of you? I wou-.”

“You said it’s for kids right Blondie? Little ones with no parents? No one to look out for them except for you?” Free’s voice seemed to grow thick with emotion as she spoke, eyes hollowing as she stopped looking at Lux and started staring into the past. “I can figure something out for them.” This time Lux couldn’t stop the slight hitch of her voice, emotion overwhelming her.

“Th- thank You, Free.” Lux stepped around the desk. Lifting her arms to go to wrap the other in an impromptu hug but coming up short when the slighter woman flinched away, arms twitching as though to protect herself. Logic reasserted itself in Lux’s brain and she murmured an apology stepping back away from the woman. The woman seemed to flinch again, demurring the apology before looking at Lux again. “To- tomorrow, an hour after sun up. Rain or shine, we’re going into those sewers Blondie.” A feral grin seemed to creep onto the bluenettes face and Lux felt her cheeks curving to match it. “I’ll see you there, Blue.” The grin on the other woman's face became blinding and a sharp, staccato giggle bubbled from between her parted lips, her eyes sparkling in a way that suddenly stopped Lux from being able to turn away. Fortunately Free didn’t linger long enough to notice, turning and striding out of the study and out of the house, pausing only to flick her hood back onto her head and wave a blasé salute over her shoulder to Lux by means of a goodbye. For some reason Lux couldn’t bring herself to be sad over the suddenness of the departure, not when she knew she would be seeing the strange girl again tomorrow. Her sleep that night was a paradox, both difficult to find due to her excitement but warm and welcoming when it did come. The memory of blazing amethyst eyes and infectious smiles chasing away the chill of another night alone in the large empty house built for a family.

The next day found Lux awake with the sun. Or it would have, had yesterday's rain not continued, casting a gray pall over the morning. However, Lux was awake all the same. If she had thought she was excited the day before, it barely held a candle to the storm of feelings in her chest as she dressed that morning. A storm that was seemingly matched by the rain beating against the windows. A quick breakfast of some dried fruit was all she could manage on her nervous stomach. With nothing to do until Free’s arrival Lux put her efforts into putting together a packed lunch for herself and Free. She knew that the inventor might not want any of Lux’s food but it felt rude to prepare a meal for herself without preparing some for the other woman, especially as she was technically her employee. Shortly after she finished there was a heavy but familiar beating on her front door. Gathering the lunches in a small backpack Lux rushed to the door. Opening it she saw Free, with a canvas bag slung haphazardly over one shoulder and pulling her hood lower over her face to avoid the slashing rain. “Come on Blondie, the sooner we get into the sewers the drier we’ll be!” Without waiting for a response the hyperactive woman turned and headed confidently down the street before Lux managed to gather her thoughts and follow. Pulling her own hood over her head and ducking low to avoid as much rain as possible. Lux stepped into the street calling out, “Free! Wait for me!”

It didn’t take them long to reach the sewer entrance closest to the place they needed to be. Lux set to moving the stone cover from the top of the sewer revealing a ladder set into the side of the shaft. The dim sunlight only illuminated about 3 feet into the hole leaving the base of the ladder shrouded in darkness. As they both briefly stared down the dark hole, Lux realised that she had no torches on her, and any that she did have would have been completely soaked in the rain. Free began fishing around in her bag for something, Lux wasn’t sure what until with a noise of aggravation Free drew out a metal object, a fluted box with a few exposed wires and a glass cover over the largest end. Free pressed a button on each side of the thing drawing forth a slight whine from within the box before it sputtered into life, a greenish light issuing forth momentarily before dying with a barely audible fizz. “Shit, Fuckin, Shit.” Free cursed under her breath and slammed her hand into the box harshly. Startling Lux into acting. “It's fine, Free. We don’t need torches.”

The bluenette looked up at Lux then down into the dark manhole, “Yeah, we kinda do Blondie?” Lux almost laughed at the look on Free’s face, and she might have had she not been consumed with the familiar panic of what she was about to do. She had assumed that living near and trading with Terbisia, Free would be used to magic. But a childhood of fear and suppression was not so easily overcome, staring resolutely down into the darkness Lux made her decision. Drawing in a breath and allowing it to steel her nerves, she lifted a hand and willed her light to burst from her palm, lancing into the darkness of the sewer. She heard a gasp from Free beside her and buoyed by the courage it brought her Lux looked to her companion. Her heart felt like it was soaring as she saw the look on Free’s face. The light from Lux’s palm was refracting in her eyes like a rainbow through a dewdrop and there was nothing on her face but pure awe. Her mouth was slightly open, her lips curled into a slight unconscious smile but her eyes glimmered with wonder. “Holy shit Blondie,” Free’s usually high pitched and manic voice was slightly low, rasping slightly more than usual, almost reverent. “That’s fucking incredible…. You really are Lady Light huh?” Lux felt a blush begin to bloom on her face and the light from her palm brightened for a second as she wavered. Worsened by Free murmuring “Beautiful” under her breath. She knew that people respected her magic, and when she spent time with the children of Terbisia they were always asking her to show off. But this stranger’s words were far more affecting than that, to know that the woman found Lux’s light beautiful was enough to nearly unmoor her on the spot. “We should go in.” Lux said, thankful that her voice didn’t betray her emotions. “Right.” Free responded, taking a step towards the ladder and dropping fluidly into the shaft, illuminated only by Lux’s light as she followed.

The sewers in Terbisia were much like those in the rest of Demacia. They ran below and parallel to the streets of Terbisia, roughly 5 foot circular tunnels with the various pipes for inflow and outflow running through them. This meant that while Free could move through the sewer rather easily only having to bow her head, Lux, as the taller of the two, was in a much more awkward position. Shuffling forward in a half crouch Lux thanked the hours of horse riding that had strengthened her legs to allow her to manage to move like this with any speed at all.

Fortunately the entrance they had chosen wasn’t far from where the worst of the damage was so soon Lux was able to lean against one of the curved walls and focus her energy on making light for the inventor to see by. For some time as the inventor picked through discarded and broken pipes Lux was free to stare at her, she was still covered mostly by her cloak but Lux found herself taking in every detail she could. The arch of her neck as she peered down at a piece of metal, the scrape of what seemed to be a metallic finger against the buckled surface of another. The way her eyes never seemed to still always darting from one thing to the next, Lux almost didn’t realise when the inventor had looked at all the pieces in the tunnel.

Looking at it in person it was clear that none of the pipes were going to be reusable. While the collapsed tunnels had been restored magically the damage to the pipes was clear. They were fully flattened in some places and there wasn’t a single section that was likely to hold water. “Well Blondie, I gotta say this isn’t looking good.” Free said when they had inspected the length of sewer that ran beneath the street Lux was intending to use to house the incoming children. “We’re gonna have to rebuild these entirely. Fortunately the main pipes at the end still work so other than making sure they’re connected we’ll only have to build the pipes for this street. But still…”

The inventor trailed off but Lux understood what she was saying, that was over 700 feet of piping to connect the buildings to the main town network that branched out from under the main street, with no materials to speak of. She felt tears begin to well in her eyes and the light she was outputting flickered as they fell the sewer surrounding them almost falling into darkness. She looked at Free who’s eyes seemed to glow in spite of the lack of light. “I’m sorry.” Lux said, the inventor's face fell, her chin hitting her chest as she hung her head. If Lux hadn’t been staring at Free so intently she might not have seen it, the minute flinching as if a loud noise had startled her. She opened her mouth to ask the inventor about it but before she could the blue haired girl's head shot back up as another flinch rocked her frame.

Without a word the blue haired girl turned back, and headed towards the entrance they had entered the tunnel from. Even stooped slightly she was fast. And Lux, having to crab walk due to her height, couldn’t keep up. “Wait Free, where are you going?” Lux called out to the inventor as she fell out of sight around the sewer corner at the end of the street. Lux reached the entrance and pulled herself back to the surface without any sign of the inventor. She stayed for a moment, sat on the soaked ground by the sewer, the rain seemed to have stopped while they were below but in that moment Lux couldn’t bring herself to be overly happy about it. She guessed that the inventor was gone, back to whatever she called home. Lux wasn’t completely sure how long she stayed by the sewer before finally standing up. Her joints ached from the long crouching walk in the sewers which made the walk home all the more miserable. She was just glad that she managed to make it into her bedroom before she broke down. Sleep did not come to Lux that night.

Lux couldn’t get out of bed the next day, no one came to check on her and that made everything so much worse. Her stomach groaned and her eyes ached from dryly staring at the ceiling but Lux couldn’t bring herself to care. She wasn’t entirely sure when she finally fell asleep but her fitful dreams were poor company through a second miserable night. It was only when the sun beamed through her window and her head pulsed with pain that she finally got up to drink water and wash herself, and began robotically going through her tasks.

The next few days were a gray blur of necessary paperwork and administration, she talked with no one and none of her citizens came forward to request anything. It was a depressing realisation that almost managed to force her back under her covers on the fifth day. And likely would have had it not been for the loud insistent rapping on the door. Despite having only heard it twice before Lux recognised it instantly, and ran quickly to the door, pausing only to pull on some more appropriate clothing so that she wasn’t answering the inventor in her pyjamas. Swinging the door open Lux was shocked to see the state of the inventor, her bejeweled eyes were held over deep bruised bags and she was wearing the exact same clothes that Lux had last seen her in.

Lux didn’t have a chance to question it though as the inventor had already started speaking. “Come on Blondie, I need some light. I didn’t manage to fix my torches so you’re the best I’ve got! Come on! Come on!” Lux was stunned for a moment before she responded.
“Free, what do you mean? Also where have you been? It’s been days?”

“Has it? I guess that explains some stuff. Doesn’t matter though! Come! On!” Free emphasised the final demand by reaching forward and grabbing a surprising firm grip around Lux’s wrist and dragging her out of the door. Lux quickly pulled her hand free so that she could secure her door behind her. The inventor was still quick, but without the handicap of the sewer Lux found she could keep up easily enough. She quickly realised she was being led to the sewer entrance but had no luck in managing to get Free to answer any of her questions. When they got to the sewer entrance, Lux was surprised to see a covered cart sitting next to it. It was a familiar cart that she was certain Bekka regularly used to collect fallen tree limbs for firewood. However, what shocked Lux more was when Free tore the covers off it to reveal 10 uniform segments of pipe, each several feet long. They were pristine burnished metal, clearly treated with something to prevent rust. “Ta-daa,” Free crowed, voice peaking in joy. “Now all we gotta do is get these suckers tested and I can get down there and get started!”

“Wha- Free this is amazing! Where did you get these!?” Lux demanded when her tongue started working again. “I made ‘em Blondie. That’s what you got me for right?” The woman’s tone was blasé but Lux could hear the pride. She grinned largely at the woman, “That’s right I suppose. Now you said we needed to get them into the sewers?” Lux already had an idea of how that could be done, but she wanted to get Free’s opinion first. “That’s right Blondie! I don’t really know how to do it without snipping these babies in half which would be a real pain.” Lux nodded in agreement, it would be much more work if they had to use shorter pipe segments plus carrying each of those the distance in the sewers would be difficult and time consuming. “I know someone who can help.” Lux said, turning away from Free. “Can you get these over to the street we’ll actually need them on?” She asked over her shoulder only half acknowledging the affirmative before she was off on her quest.

It didn’t take Lux long to find Edgar. The farmer was sat cross legged in the centre of his patch meditating, the sun shone brightly on him and the plants seemed to grow more lushly in his patch than the surrounding ones. His brown hair was long grown as was his beard, he had been one of the first residents of Terbisia. Escaping the mage jails of the capital with her during her disastrous first flight from the Great City. He was of a similar age to Bekka, though wearing it worse due to his decade or so of confinement.

A bright smile lighting his face as he saw Lux. It was something she had come to appreciate about the man. He was always cheerful. “Lady Light! To what do I owe the pleasure of your radiance?” He called standing and stretching. “Edgar,” Lux responded warmly, stopping a few feet from him “I was hoping to make use of your power for a building project. Nothing too heavy, don’t worry, just need a ramp down into the sewers.” The man seemed to think for a moment before gesturing for Lux to lead the way. “Of course My Lady, whatever I can do to help.” Edgar was a reasonably powerful terra-mancer, his magic wasn’t fast enough for him to have become a battle mage with the Mageseekers but it was wonderfully useful for a struggling town that lacked the manpower or infrastructure for large scale construction. Lux and Edgar chatted amicably as they moved through the town, greeting the few people who weren’t working hard in the sunshine, or who were but still had time for a few words. The rain had finally gone away meaning that the streets of Terbisia were once again populated with her people.

Lux had expected to beat Free to the street given that the other had to drag a wagon full of metal but was surprised to see the inventor lounging on said wagon looking for all the world like a lizard sunning itself. Free was still wearing her cloak with it pulled over her eyes. Lux called out to her and received no response, she looked nonplussed at Edgar, who stared back bemused. “She’s the main builder on this project but I suppose we don’t need her for this part….” Lux trailed off as a noise came from the wagon and Free sat up. A large yawn came forth from beneath her hood and she stretched her arms up to the sky with a satisfied groan. Glancing around her violet eyes alighted on Lux and Edgar, “Blondie, you’re here! Finally! I thought you might have got lost or something! Who’s this guy?” Lux looked at Free for a moment before she said, “Free, this is Edgar. He’s going to make us a better route into the sewers. Edgar,” the man looked to her, “Not too steep an incline please so we can get the cart down it. Beyond those buildings as well, no use closing up where Free needs to be working.”

The man nodded and closed his eyes, breathing becoming steady but laboured as the ground below them began to rumble. It almost seemed to become liquid as a river of dirt and stone sluiced from the ground into a heap and a smooth ramp into the sewers was formed over the next hour. Lux had thought that Free might take the chance to go back to sleep but instead she was shocked when the inventor simply watched the entire process in wonder. Making the occasional comment but otherwise completely enraptured. Lux herself took the opportunity to engage in a hobby that had been dominating more of her thought processes than she wanted to admit recently: Staring at Free. She watched the way that even when sat still watching Edgar the woman was never motionless, always tapping or shaking her hands or feet. Or even mouthing the words to something that only she could hear. At some point Lux knew she would need to ask why the other had run away so suddenly the last time, and where she had gotten enough metal for these pipes. But it didn’t feel right to bring down the mood when things were going so well.

Considering the eagerness with which she had been gathered and how excited Free had seemed about the completion of Edgars ramp. Lux was a little surprised when after the earth mage had left, with a small sum of coins from Lux as thanks. Free pulled a beaten leather journal from inside one of the pipes on the cart and spent the next 30 minutes pacing the street, making notes and muttering to herself. It was after the fifth lap of the street that Lux interrupted the inventor. “Do you need me here for this Free?” The bluenette looked up in shock, allowing Lux to once again see just how stark the bags under her eyes stood out against her pale skin. “Sure do Blondie, no other light sources and we’ll be going under in a bit. Why? You got something better to do? I thought you governor types were all about supervision?” Free seemed to chuckle at her own joke before returning to her journal. “Well I suppose I can supervise you. If you insist,” Lux called back with a grin but went largely ignored as Free focussed on her journal again.

The new ramp made things much easier for Free, who spent another half an hour wandering around in the sewers with her journal and a set of chalks which she used to mark the walls with a strange vertical language that Lux didn’t recognise at all. Not that Lux spent much time looking at what Free was doing. Using the excuse of lighting her work Lux had positioned herself to the side of Free allowing her freedom to stare at the curves of the woman's face as she focussed.

The freedom to watch as Free worked her lips between her teeth, or stuck her tongue out just a quarter of an inch as she puzzled over her journal. The freedom to sear each new expression the inventor made under Lux’s light into her mind. Lux found herself entering an almost meditative trance as the inventor moved slowly through the sections of tunnel methodically marking the walls, Lux only ever a few paces behind her. To that end she was almost shocked when the inventor finally snapped her journal shut. Turned to Lux and said “Right, there we go Blondie! Boring parts over! Time for the fun!” Free turned immediately and headed immediately towards the entrance and the cart. Lux was briefly stunned and realised that they had gone all the way from the buildings they had earmarked for the children to where the sewers joined into the main, unbroken town sewers.

As she walked back towards the ramp she admired the inventor's handiwork. The entire tunnel was now etched in a pattern of white slashing chalk. Roughly every 5 feet there was a marking. Some were the same, others different. But each one had a line down the centre and a variety of angled slashing lines through the central line. She would have spent far more time staring at the strange sigils, attempting to force her brain into understanding them, had Free’s voice from the top of the ramp not broken her out of it. Emerging blinking into the midafternoon sun Lux found the other woman with both of her arms wedged into the aperture of one of the pipes on the cart, she was mumbling to herself voice rising randomly from regular volume speaking to inaudible grumbles.

Finally with an “Aha,” the inventor pulled her arms out, bearing aloft a pair of satchels connected by a loop of fabric with another longer loop on each. Before Lux could ask, Free had hiked her cloak up to her shoulder allowing her to pull the satchels up her legs and hook the longer straps in an X pattern over her chest and back. However all Lux could see was the full view of the same tantalising glimpse she had seen that first day in her office. Free’s shirt was not as short as Lux had originally thought, in fact the sleeves were both full length. However it had clearly been torn at some point leaving the space between Free’s low belted trousers and just above her belly button completely bare. Lux watched in fascination as her abs tensed slightly under the weight of the satchels, she barely even registered the view of blue swirling ink down one side of the taut muscle in her upper brain. The image instead bypassed her logical thought centres to sear itself somewhere much lower in her skull. And Lux knew for a fact that she could reproduce that image perfectly with her light so well had she just memorised it.

If Free had noticed Lux's reaction to her impromptu show she didn't display it. She simply turned to Lux and said, “Alright Blondie, any chance you've got a tester wall I can use? Could even be outside if you're tired of using your flashlight powers.”

“What do you mean?” Lux asked when her brain had reengaged enough to understand that Free was watching her for a response. The blue haired woman made a facial expression that implied she was once again realising that Lux was not exactly accustomed to leading works of engineering. “I made a bunch of brackets when I dialled in these pipes. All these pipes are the same measurements and all the ones I make going forward will be the same cus of the work I did. So since we know that we know that whatever bracket holds them up the best will hold them all up the best. So..” As she was saying this, Free started going through the left sided satchel and Lux had to put real effort into continuing to listen to the inventor instead of watching eagle eyed for another slip of the cloak as it rose to allow access to the side bag. “Mounting the brackets won’t be a problem cus I could make enough mortar bolts out of the scrap for double the length with double the brackets. But we need to figure out what can hold the most pipe weight with the least metal for the brackets.”

“Couldn’t we just put the pipes on the floor?” Lux asked. Free didn’t respond verbally, just tilted her head back and laughed like a mad woman. “Tester wall blondie, and you can go get the sleep you’re clearly missing asking questions like that!” Free’s face settled into a smug look of concern. Huffing slightly but acknowledging internally that she really didn’t know enough to be questioning the inventor Lux led her down the street to an area that had been deemed too damaged to live in permanently. Pointing out a wall to her, Free removed a strange tool from her right satchel that quickly revealed itself to be some form of powered drill. “I’m gonna be at this the rest of the day Blondie. Won’t need your light shows til tomorrow I reckon. Guess you can just go do whatever it is magical glowing governors do when they ain’t playing flashlight.”

“You think you don’t need any more supervision?” Lux asked wryly, hiding her disappointment at no longer having such a good excuse to hang around the inventor, then mentally balking as she realised that she had only spent about half a day with Free all told and was already this attached. “But seriously, Free, is there anything I can do? I’d feel bad asking you to do this and leaving you to do it all alone.” For some reason that seemed to capture the other woman's attention. She turned from where she had been drilling holes into the test wall at different heights, “Oh, well alright Blondie. In about 20 we’ll have the brackets ready for the test pipe. I guess they’d be easier to put up there with a second pair of hands since I haven’t bothered to set up the support struts.” Lux thought for a moment,
“Alright, well I’ll go get us some food while you do that then.” Without waiting to hear Free’s response she set off towards her home, hoping that she had something that would work as an on the go meal.

About 25 minutes later Lux returned, she was hoping Free wouldn’t mind that she was a bit late but she had been caught up talking to some of the people that she hadn’t managed to connect with due to her being in a funk all week. She found the inventor laid on top of her ‘tester wall’. At first Lux thought the inventor might be asleep again until the bluenette raised an arm towards the sky and made a strange gesture with her hand. To Lux it looked almost like the inventor was emulating some kind of weapon with her pointer and middle finger out at a right angle to her thumb with her other fingers folded to her palm. Fingers pointed to the sky, the inventor's hand made a slight rocking action before the hand fell back down to Free’s side. Lux tried to see what the inventor had been pointing at but whatever it was she couldn’t tell it apart from the rest of the sky. Deciding not to ruminate on it she raised the hand that was carrying some of the bakers daily goods. She had found the food in her home lacking due to her week spent indoors so had decided to indulge her weakness for berry filled sweets and hope that Free wouldn’t turn her nose up at free food. “Free! I got lunch!” The inventor slipped smoothly off the wall she was sitting on, hitting the ground lightly. “Ooooh what you got Blondie?”

Lux told the inventor and the two spent some time eating together. Lux didn’t end up saying much instead listening to the other. Who rambled about the different theoretical benefits of the brackets she had affixed to the wall, pointing out the ones that used the least metal, or took the least time to create. At one point Lux asked why there was a point in making different types and testing them if one used the least metal and was easiest to affix to the wall. She got another of those slightly mocking looks before Free seemingly realised her genuine curiosity and explained that using less metal wouldn’t matter if it took double the amount of brackets per section of pipe.

She explained that that was what they were testing today. They would affix the pipes and then weigh them down, leaving them for a few days under a greater load than they would face in action as part of the sewers. Then Free could come back and measure the degradation and see which bracket or combination of brackets would be best. Lux was frankly fascinated, and not exclusively because of the sparks of excitement that seemed to suffuse through Free’s eyes as she got more and more involved in explaining the ins and outs of the plan to Lux, eventually going so far as to put her food down so that she could gesture more effectively. It was mid gesture that Lux, who had finished eating entirely while Free spoke. Was once again reminded of Free’s metal prosthetic as it caught the sun on its pitted surface.

Free must have seen her gaze linger on the finger, and Lux’s mouth open to ask a question because all of a sudden the shorter woman was on her feet, mouth full of the last bite of her lunch as she spoke. “Alright enough sitting around Blondie, hope you’re ready for some heavy lifting!” Lux, accepting the distraction for what it was, although adding it to the growing list of oddities about the woman before her, responded by rolling up her sleeves and jokingly flexing an arm, grinning wryly at the woman. “Absolutely!” With that she spun and walked purposefully towards the cart, missing the way that Free’s cheeks darkened for just a moment and her eyes followed the defined lines of Lux’s arm musculature before the blonde’s sleeve fell to cover it again.

Between the two of them it was short work to affix the pipes to the brackets although Lux definitely worked up a sweat holding the highest pipes in place while Free attached them to the brackets. Honestly it almost seemed like the woman was deliberately taking her time with the higher pipes that put Lux’s arms in difficult positions of having to keep her shoulders and biceps tense without being able to lock her elbows out. However when she voiced this in exasperation the blue haired woman just responded with a laugh and asked if Lux, “Felt like her politicians arms were being worked too hard?” Which had the blonde clenching her teeth and powering through the attachment of the final bracket.

“So what now?” Lux asked, having finished shaking the ache out of her arms. “Now we fill em with rocks.” The inventor responded, walking over to the pile of dirt and stone that Edgar's magic had churned up. She had a shovel in her hand that she had unfolded from somewhere in the cart, which she used to start filling what seemed to be a series of patched together cloth sacks. “Two sacks a piece should be good enough, hope your arms ain't tired.” She grinned slyly at Lux who had been resting against the cart trying to surreptitiously massage some feeling back into her biceps. Lux groaned slightly but started forwards to help the inventor. They lapsed once more into a companionable half silence of grunts and grumbles. Occasionally punctuated by a request for assistance with a particularly troublesome stone, or to sling the higher bags into their respective pipes.

It was closer to dusk than anything else by the time they finished. Back aching but satisfied Lux let out a sigh of relief as they piled the last bag onto its pipe. “Good work Blondie” Free said, a hint of something in her voice that Lux really hoped was a sliver of the admiration she was feeling for the blue haired girl. It had been impressive watching the woman work. Even more so when she had easily held ground with Lux when it came to lifting the bags of stones. “Thanks, you too,” she responded “so what's next?” She added when Free didn't say anything from where she was gathering her tools. “Well we gotta leave these up for a while. Longer the better really but if we're on a tight schedule then at least 3 days. So I'm gonna go pass out then make some more pipes. So I'll see you in a bit, Blondie.” With that the inventor took the handles of the cart and began dragging it away. Calling over her shoulder, “I'll need light all the time from now on I reckon so I'll try and get my flashlights working.”

Lux had never felt possessive of her light before, had never viewed things lit by her light as different than any other light source. Until the inventor said that. Had never felt jealous of when the sun hit things as she lit them. But for some reason hearing the inventor say she would try and replace Lux's light caused a fire to jump into her heart. However, before she could express that she was more than happy to be the inventor's light and that if she saw her with a torch she'd smash it to bits. Free was gone, leaving Lux with a confusing knot of feelings that she spent the night and the following few days attempting to untangle to no avail. She didn’t understand how Free had unmoored her so completely from her usual thought patterns. She knew she could be territorial about the safety of her town and her people but that’s just because she needed to be to look after them. But the inventor didn’t even live in Terbisia proper. She was probably only doing the job for Lux out of pity for the children. Lux certainly couldn’t imagine that the inventor was lying in bed staring at the ceiling trying to figure out why she couldn’t get the image of Lux’s eyes out of her head. Or staring out of the window of her study, if she even had a study, wondering when Lux would next beat on her door to bring another injection of interest and wonder into her life.

Free, it seemed to Lux, excelled at appearing exactly when Lux had begun to doubt if she would. It had been more than a week since she had last seen the blue haired woman. And Lux had received word that the caravans of children had been delayed. This was because someone in an office somewhere had noticed that if the caravan of people were delayed at the capital for a few weeks they would be able to take the supplies that the capital sent to Terbisia at the end of summer with them. Saving the need for a second caravan to be sent and guarded. Saving the crown some precious coin and manpower of which Lux was sure it felt it was terribly lacking.

However, in this case it was something of a blessing as it gave Free more time to finish the sewers. The remaining work of preparing the buildings would have to wait until that was done just in case the houses needed some greater structural changes to accommodate the refurbished piping. That was the thought that occupied her as she waited for Free to reappear. Lux had even gone to check on the pipes and the sewer to make sure that the other girl hadn’t simply fixed her light machines and begun working without Lux at all. A thought that bothered her enough that she hadn’t even thought to question it when she added the worksite to her weekly walk around the town. She checked in with Bekka who had assured her that she was perfectly happy for Free to use her cart when told that it was for something that Lux had requested. Although the woman did look at Lux with a strange kind of entertainment when Lux enquired if the smith had seen the other woman in the last week.

However, while Lux had found no blue haired women at the work site she had found, covered in waterproofing cloth, more pipes. It seemed that Free, using whatever calculations the marks on the walls in the sewers were connected to, had figured out what number and sort of pipes would be required and began making them. Lux couldn’t tell if what was piled next to the ramp into the sewer was all the pipes that would be required or just a section but it was certainly an impressive number of pipes to have been made in the time. Especially by a single person, no matter how skilled. That at least assuaged Lux that the inventor wasn’t planning to abandon the job just after giving Lux hope that it could be done. Although it did bring about far more questions about where around Terbisia the inventor was finding metal high quality enough to be reliably used as piping. That thought had sent Lux back to Bekka. The smith told her that she hadn’t supplied any metal to the inventor and that even if she had, the ore she worked with wouldn’t be able to produce metal of that quality and that no she hadn’t seen the inventor in the day it had been since Lux had last asked. Resolving to ask Free about it at some point Lux set the matter aside. The inventor wasn’t stripping the town for metal and there was nowhere particularly worrying nearby that she could have been taking it from like barracks houses. So it wasn’t really a pressing issue to Lux.

It was almost two weeks before Lux saw Free again. Summer had reached its peak and it seemed that even the nights were blisteringly warm. Although never quite warm enough to keep Lux from shivering as she was woken by nightmares of cold eyes and empty rooms. At some point the pipes on the tester wall had been taken down. Although Lux wasn’t entirely sure when, distracted as she had been by concerting Terbisia’s harvest and what tributes they could afford to send to the High City. A day after she had noticed the removal of the pipes she was pulled from her morning training by the now familiar pattern of wild knocking on her door. She hurries quickly to the door, anticipation speeding both her feet and her heart. Throwing the door open Lux is not at all disappointed to find Free standing at her doorstep. The inventor is once again primarily covered by her cloak despite the full force of the sun beaming down onto the white stone that made up much of Terbisia, as it did all Demacian towns. Forgoing any kind of traditional greeting the frenetic woman immediately began filling Lux in on her progress, “Blondie, so the 3 point brackets had the least degradation for content over the time so I’ve made as many of those as I reckon we’re gonna need. So you’re up.” Lux blinked for a moment,

“I’m up? Oh you need light?”

“You catch on quick Blondie, time to get to fixing pipes to walls and I never managed to get my torches working so…. you’re up.” Privately Lux was thrilled. She had been worried that the inventor may have made good on her word of fixing her torches and was very glad to continue to have an excuse to watch the woman work. Instead of externalising her relief Lux asks, “Alright, well lead the way. What are we doing today?” The two headed towards their work site Lux listening as Free excitedly explained that the next stage was to start placing the brackets. That due to various parts needing to settle it would be most efficient to do the entire thing one task at a time. All the holes would be drilled, all the mounts fitted, then all the brackets, then all the pipes.

Then finally the pipes would be tested before everything would be attached together and connected to the town's systems. “That’ll be a difficult part I think, I had a look around and I didn’t see any shutoffs. So when it comes to connecting it up I’ll probably have to jump in the well and shit to get it connected.” Lux’s steps stuttered slightly, worry overcoming her. “Won’t that be dangerous!? You could drown!?” Free turned to her in slight befuddlement. “Oh sure but I’ll be fine, I’ve done this kinda stuff before. Now come on, we’re on a tight schedule right?” Lux jerked her head slightly, deciding to trust the inventor for the moment, and realised that she hadn’t shared the news of the carriage's delay. The rest of their walk to the site was filled with Lux filling Free in as to why the carriage would be delayed.

Once they got there Free wasted no time in beginning drilling the holes in the walls of the sewer where the pipes would be mounted. The tool she was using created enough noise that conversation was difficult so Lux settled in to watch Free work, keeping the light suffusing from her hands even so as not to cause the inventor to mess up. It was after about an hour of this, with about a quarter of the holes drilled that the sun started showing its full force. It remained dark in the sewers but the stone did nothing to stop the heat from leeching in, and the lack of wind made it even more potent. Finishing a section, Free set down her drill with a sigh. “Jeez, it’s hotter than a foundry here.” Without waiting for Lux to respond, Free reached down and wrapped her hands into the bottom of her cloak and with a yank pulled the garment free.

If the glimpses she had gotten before had sparked something in Lux the full view was a gout of oil on embers. Her mouth went dry instantly as Free lifted the drill again. Her arms were still covered by the same cut down shirt. But in Lux’s light, with her back turned towards the mage as she got to work, Lux could take her time staring at the other woman, watching in fascination the way the muscles of her back twitched and moved, how the tattoos on her side inked down to where they faded from view beneath the waist of her trousers and up under the bottom of her shirt.

But what was even more magnetic to Lux’s eyes was the way that Free moved. The easy refined motion even as she pulled the presumably heavy drill out of a fresh hole in the wall. The smoothness and ease of her gait as though she were some kind of jungle cat stalking through its territory. The way that even as she stood fully focussed on drilling her feet would tap and shift slightly. Even the way she swept a hand over her forehead to clear the light sheen of sweat felt holy to Lux. The way she blew her long bang out of her face almost every time she set to drilling another hole made something deep in Lux’s guts flicker and flit. Unshrouded by her cloak Lux felt as though Free was putting on some kind of performance. One lit by Lux and put on solely for her. The way shadows danced on Free’s skin as Lux moved around her to better light her work area seemed like the most beautiful art she had ever seen. All of it took Lux’s attention and her breath wholesale. If Free noticed Lux’s distraction she didn’t show it. And Lux found herself grateful for the other woman’s total focus on her work.

The time passed quickly and soon it was close to noon as Free finished the last of the drilling. Lux went off to the market to once again get them lunch. They took a break in quiet companionship Free scribbling in her journal more only briefly stopping to explain to Lux that she was just making sure that all her calculations for bracket quantity and pipe angle were correct. The girl went on to try and show Lux the same calculations but Lux could barely understand it, between the strange vertical language used and the high level arithmetics that was far beyond anything Lux had been required to learn in her training. However, Lux happily listened to Free explain it, especially when it meant that the blue haired girl looked at her with those sparkling eyes.

The rest of the day went similarly, the drilling being finished meant that the two could continue speaking while Free worked to get the holes prepared for the affixing of the brackets. They mutually and unspokenly stayed away from serious topics but instead spoke about what life was like in the town. Whether the weather was likely to stay good for the foreseeable and even things like the ongoing summer crop yield. And whether the caravan was likely to be delayed further. Lux for the most part succeeded in not being noticed staring at Free as she worked and even got the other to give her an actual job as well as being a walking light source. Granted filling the holes ahead of free with a small amount of oil to tamp down the dust wasn’t exactly engaging work but Lux enjoyed feeling as though she was contributing and it kept the darker thoughts that swirled in her mind when conversation turned to the politics of the capital. Eventually though, Lux started to tire, her light dimming fractionally after hours of consistent output. Enough for Free to notice. “Alright Blondie, we’re done for the day. No use using up all your juice when we’re gonna be getting right back to it tomorrow.”

“No, I'm fine, Free. I can keep going for a few more hours.” Lux tried to protest, but now that it had been brought to her attention she could feel the heavy aching exhaustion that told of her powers being heavily drained. Free didn’t even bother to dignify her counter with a response, simply finishing what they were doing and heading out towards the ramp out of the sewer. Lux followed quickly, allowing her light to die with a relieved sigh. Truly she hadn’t realise how much she had begun to ache in the last hour of work. She had been too caught up in talking to Free and the enjoyable repetition of her work. “So back at it again tomorrow?” She asked, catching up with Free who was safely securing her tools under the waterproof covering on the cart.

“Yeah, I reckon we can get the rest of the brackets done, then we’ll give them a day to set properly. You gonna be alright lighting the way tomorrow? I don’t know what the cool down on that lovely light of yours is.” The concern in Free’s voice felt so achingly genuine to Lux in that moment. The compliment to her light helped as well, and Lux felt heat flush her cheeks. “Yes, I’ll be ok. As long as I don’t overstress it too often in a row I’ll be ok.” The blonde explained, glad that the dim orange light of the late afternoon allowed her to hide her blush somewhat.

The two women walked in companionable silence back to Lux’s house and Lux almost spoke when the blue haired woman turned to leave her at the door. But a second of overthinking, of if Free would really want to spend any more time with what was basically her employer, allowed the other woman to get far enough down the street that Lux couldn’t bring herself to call out.

Despite that though, Lux slept soundly that night for the first time since her day making the leaflets, waking with a smile and enough time to eat before her door was once again soundly beaten by Free. The next few days passed in very similar fashion. Free decided that actually the brackets probably didn’t need a whole day off to settle so they worked through the rest of the week. They never really touched on any more serious subjects and if they did there would be a swift deflection from one of them before anything could really be said. Still Lux couldn’t find it in herself to mind. She enjoyed being around Free too much to want to pry into whatever skeletons Free was holding in her past so long as the other didn’t begrudge Lux the same.

She still hadn't managed the muster the nerve to ask the woman to share a meal with her outside of the lunches they had while working, but she was determined to spend as much time with the inventor as possible. She had started pushing her magic harder and harder, extending the time that she could spend watching Free work bathed in her light, it was entrancing. Lux hadn’t tried to question her own feelings too hard, she knew that she was being strange. Certainly she knew her mother would have been aghast at her behaviour, this was not how Crownguards were supposed to show affection. But Lux didn’t care, her mother had traded away any right she got to say how Lux spent her time. Or how and to whom she bestowed her light.

She liked Free, so she would spend as much time with her as she could. It was after three days of this that Free seemed to catch on. “We’re taking the next few days off.” She suddenly said as they packed up at the end of the day. Lux looked at Free a little surprised, she didn’t think that anything they had done over the last few days would require time to settle, they had even started putting the pipes into the brackets today. Free had manufactured a set of stands to make it so that they didn’t have to muscle the higher pipes up like they had on the first day. “How come? You said that you were going to start connecting the pipes next to make sure they fit right?” She turned to face the inventor and noticed, not for the first time, the way her lilac eyes seemed to glow slightly in the low light.

“That’s right Blondie. But you’ve been burning low today, don’t think I didn’t notice that the last two days you lasted two hours over the first day. I get that you want this done quickly but killing yourself over it won’t help.” Lux noticed that the girl seemed to look angry, as she continued talking. “I’m sure I could fix my torches if you don’t wanna be around helping or whatever.” As she said it the girl seemed to collapse into herself slightly and Lux couldn’t help the way her heart plummeted. “No Free. I - I’m sorry I’ve been pushing myself but it’s just….. I-” For a second Lux thought she was brave enough to say it, that she could admit to Free how much she enjoyed her company, how she wanted to spend time with her as much as she could. And for a moment she imagines the cold halls of her house filled with light and laughter and Free’s excitable raspy voice.

But then reality set in, fear set in. No one had ever wanted to spend that kind of time with Lux, not when she was a child nor since. Her family didn’t want her enough to keep her even after everything she had given for them. Even her beloved Brother had only wanted her around when she was helping him in his duties. And unbidden a lie crawls up the back of her throat. Her noble training takes hold in a way she hasn’t allowed it to in the time since she stopped working for the radiant. “I…. it’s just the kids. I know that they’ve been delayed but… I’m so worried they’ll arrive before we’re done.”

She lets her voice quiver just a little. Hating how easy this deception still is for her. Except it isn’t. Free’s face doesn’t really change. Her lip seems to shake slightly and her eye twitches in a way that makes Lux’s stomach swoop with how much it reminds of her when Free ran out of the tunnels that first day. “Whatever you say Blondie.” The blue haired girl says, anger seeming to subside a little making Lux breathe a sigh of relief. “But we’re still taking a few days off. I’ll see you later.” With that the woman turns, but this time Lux can’t stand to let her go. She isn’t even there right now but she knows in her bones that the halls of her house are freezing cold and so achingly dark right now. “Free, wait!” she calls out, stopping the other in her tracks although she doesn’t turn. “I’ve been selfish and I’m sorry, so let me treat you to dinner.” Her heart is in her throat.

“Thanks, Blondie. But I’m not hungry.” Free seems to continue walking away and Lux’s heart plummets from her throat to her feet, a leaden weight that seems to smash through her guts on its way down. Until Free speaks again, “I'll see you in a few days for work though. Get some proper rest.” Lux looks back up to Free, the girls slightly luminate eyes once more fixed severely on her as she seems to wait for Lux to join her, their nightly ritual of walking back to Lux’s house seemingly back on now that the olive branch has been extended. Lux smiles widely at the girl, heart once again back and beating strongly in her chest.

It was not exactly what she wanted, but she had been selfish enough for the time being. And the aching tiredness in her chest was getting heavier and heavier with every passing moment. “I’d like that.” She said, walking to meet Free allowing them to walk, in a heavier silence than usual, to Lux’s now somehow more imposing house. This time Lux does call out again, her desire to fix whatever it is she has broken between them far outweighing her fear. “Sleep well Free, I'll see you in a few days.” She tries to suffuse it with as much warmth as she can, trying to say without saying how much she enjoyed the others' company. Free doesn't turn, already walking away. But Lux tries to comfort herself with the imagined joy that returns to the other’s steps as she says it. It was a cold comfort when she walked through the once again silent halls of her home, but a comfort nonetheless.

True to her word Lux didn’t see Free over the next two days. Granted it turned out she was far more exhausted than she suspected so she spent almost the entire first day asleep. The second day was also spent in bed, as Lux wrestled with the reality of what had happened. At first she didn’t understand it. Why had Free reacted so harshly? Until Lux thought about it, thought about the kind of circumstances that might drive a non-Demacian towards Demacia’s magehold. A place that was famous for accepting all comers. And to not even feel comfortable enough there to move into the town. Combined with the fact that Free had clearly somehow been able to tell that Lux was lying, and things started to make a sick sort of sense. Truthfully everytime Lux closed her eyes to try and sleep more on the second day the sickness in her stomach only grew. As she saw in her mind Free’s eyes shutter with pain as Lux lied to her.

The first day of work after Lux’s enforced break was difficult. The awkwardness had returned like a cloud around them. And the shadows of the past that they previously sidestepped easily loomed large and treacherous. Eventually Lux couldn’t take it anymore. For the first time since they had started working together, staring at Free’s back was feeling far too much like the other was ignoring her. Like she was back in her room at the Crownguard estate with her mother organising her life without Lux getting a say so. Almost taking confidence from the horrible feeling Lux began speaking. “I… I’m sorry I was being so selfish Free. I… I just.” Once again though, Lux was too much of a coward to speak the full truth. She felt the words of her enjoyment of Free’s company claw their way back down her throat even as she tried to speak them. But, learning from past mistakes, what came out instead wasn’t a lie. But the truth, possibly a deeper and uglier truth. But one with far less risk.

“I just wanted to be useful.” Lux hates how small her voice sounds, hates the way that the sentence makes Free’s head twitch from where she had been resolutely staring at her work. “I can tell you could keep going much longer each day. But you can’t work without my light. And I spent so long being told that I was only useful without it. That my name or my face or even… even my body were what made me useful. But you called my light beautiful. And here with you it…. It’s not some affliction that I had no choice to be born with, to burden my family with. It’s helpful. And I so desperately want to help.” The last sentence is a wraith, barely a whisper. And had the tunnel not been so achingly hollowly quiet it would have been swallowed up before it hit Free’s ears. But the silence allowed it passage. In the few moments of silence that followed Lux almost wants to shove the words back down. To cut off her light and use the darkness to escape. She almost does. Until Free turns. And Lux sees the tears streaming down her face. Lux had barely taken a second to notice it before the other woman was in front of her, holding out her arms as she wrapped them so gently around Lux’s shoulders. And instead of going dark, Lux’s light blooms just a little. And Lux can’t help it. She breaks.

Free’s arms are tight around her like steel bands, like the petricite chains that Lux once so feared. But she doesn’t feel constricted, they don’t feel hard. It feels more like she is wrapped in the softest fabric, the scent of earth and oil and smoke filling her nose as she presses it snottily into Free’s shoulder and feels the other woman do the same. Both wracked with slight, tremulous sobs. Lux doesn’t know how long they stand like that. Wrapped together, finding comfort in each other before Free speaks.

“I understand, Lux. And thank you. But, Blondie, you’re more useful alive and well than anything else alright. It…. It won’t help anything for you to go and kill yourself for a job. You…” Lux can hear as the inventor's voice almost breaks, and she squeezes her just a little. Offering silent support as the bluenette continues. “.. You have to be alive to build something new, Blondie. And you have to be alive to enjoy it when it’s built.” Lux doesn’t know what affects her most about the words, if it’s the softness in Free’s tone. The way that she seems to hold the words close to her heart just in the way she delivers them. Or maybe it’s the way that because of their positions they seem to be whispered right into her ear, a tickle of breath on the shell of it. Truthfully Lux knows that it’s both of those things, but more, even more than those. Is that Free says it like it is something she believes. Something that she has held onto with scarred bleeding hands as the world tried to wrench it away from her.

Time once again fades from Lux as she holds Free and is held in turn. But as it passes and the emotions fade Lux can feel certain other parts of her brain begin to catalogue information, the way that Free’s hands grip into the fabric over Lux’s shoulder. The previously noticed smell somehow becomes spicier and more enticing. It is as that thought crosses her mind, and Lux almost finds herself inhaling deeply to chase the scent. That she winds her own arms from around Free’s back. Stepping away is a task of will that Lux nearly fails. “Thank you, and again. I’m sorry” She says, voice dry and hoarse enough that she goes for the water pouch at her side.

“No worries, Blondie. And.. I forgive you, just be careful, yeah?” Free wipes her eyes on the cuffs of her sleeves. When they start working again it feels as though the air between them is lighter than it ever had been before. And unspokenly, some of the areas that were previously avoided in their conversations are touched on. Lux finds herself talking a little about the architecture of High Silvermere. And Free in turn tells her about how she learned the slanting vertical writing language that she calls Miner’s Code. Free never quite talks about the man who taught it to her, and Lux never quite talks about the family that she had once had among the great white walls of High Silvermere. But the omissions don’t seem as glaring as they smile and work and laugh together.

The remaining weeks of work are the same, the pipes taking longer than Free had expected to properly seal together. But neither seem to mind the excuse to spend time talking in the sewer. And if Lux sticks slightly closer to Free, within arms reach, it’s just so that she doesn’t have to tire her light out. And if Free turns to Lux at the end of each day and thanks her for helping, tells her that she couldn’t have done so much that day without her. Who is going to know? If the inventor had simply stopped wearing her cloak at all it was because it was warm, not because she luxuriated in a special kind of warmth and light that somehow found her only underground. And if sometimes it seems to Lux like the only thing keeping them apart is the gossamer thin but steel strong line of Lux’s foolish cowardice and she goes home at night alone and dreams of tattooed muscle, and skillful fingers, and the smell of oil and smoke. Who is going to know?

And yet, somehow in what feels like the blink of an eye to Lux they’re finished. It’s the last day, the pipes are sealed together and the hole into the sewer is easily refilled by Edgar. Who steadfastly doesn’t comment on the withdrawn nature of both women as they watch the dirt and rock slide back into place. And when they are done Free turns to Lux and says, “I guess there’s just one last thing Blondie.” Lux looks at her curiously before with a growing dread she remembers a conversation from what feels like months ago. “You can’t be serious.” She tries to channel all of her nobility and forbiddance into it. To prevent the girl who has become her best and closest friend and maybe her everything. From doing something as foolish as jumping into the town well with nothing but her courage and a length of hose. But Free doesn’t look perturbed. “It’ll be fine Blondie. I already prepped everything.” And with that she turns once more to the cart. Due to be returned to Bekka now that it is no longer being used as a pipe stand.

She produces something that boggles Lux’s mind. It’s a kind of small metal canister, attached to a face mask with a length of rubber tubing. “This’ll give me more than enough air to be down there for an hour. And I know exactly where I need to go.” Her piece seemingly said the girl turned and began walking towards the town's central well. It technically did multiple duties, it was a well where water could be drawn from as it was closest to the underground aquifer that much of Terbisia’s water came from. It was also the closest thing the town had left to an internal access system to the water pipes. The waste sewers were much simpler as they weren’t pressurised and had therefore already been attached and tested for function. Lux was completely unsuccessful in her attempts to talk Free out of it as they made their way up to the well, at which point Free started wrapping a length of chain around a post and clipping the other end to a harness.

“Alright Blondie!” Free said, still ignoring Lux’s protests. “I got two jobs for ya, and they’re important so you’d better listen.” Despite her fear Lux did listen, she didn’t want Free to put herself in this danger. But the confidence the other woman was displaying was going a long way to assuaging her fears. “The first bit is to hold this,” Free handed her a part close to the tied up edge of the length of the chain. “If you feel this get tugged hard for whatever reason, pull as hard as you can, I’m gonna set up a few pulleys so you should be able to yank me up easy enough.” True to her word, Free carried a length of the chain to the other end of the well and fed it through a strange mechanism that was easily weighted down with a brief help from Edgar as he passed. The well square was otherwise empty except for Free and Lux, with it being a ways off from the central market squares of the town and only really visited during droughts or routine maintenance. Lux looked at Free as she finished checking the pulleys and wandered back over to her. “What’s the second job Free?” Lux asked, unable to hide the impatience from her voice. If this was going to happen she wanted to get it over with quickly. She was surprised when the inventor gave her a devious grin and reached a hand down to the latch of her belt.

Lux couldn’t speak. She could barely think. Her mind had been bleached empty by the sight of Free smoothly pulling her trousers down to her ankles, stepping out of her boots. Removing her shirt as well. Revealing that her only undergarments were a pair of thin half length shorts and a scant wrapping of bandages around her chest. Also finally allowing Lux to see the full extent of her tattoos as they wrapped over her hips and down her arms in beautiful swathes of colour on skin that made Lux’s mouth feel both bone dry and like she was moments away from drooling. Free turned, seemingly in slow motion to Lux, and pulled the harness up to cross over there chest. Finally turning back to face Lux she smiled once more attaching the mask to her face, “Watch my stuff Blondie. I ain’t got a lot of spares.” and with a coy grin she leapt into the well. Lux felt her heart restart as the other disappeared from view. Felt the chain pull as the other went below the surface.

She would have liked to claim to have been greatly vigilant, to have spent every moment with bated breath waiting for a tug on the chain that would give her the reason to haul Free back to the surface. But she couldn’t. The chain instead slipped easily through numb fingers as her mind replayed the images of Free’s clothes sliding away over and over again. The flex of her wiry toned arms as she lifted the harness. The curve of her ass under the fabric of her shorts, so thin that Lux could almost see addicting hints of the colour of the skin beneath them.The smooth swell of her breasts as they sunk under the bandages covering them, one adorned with swirling blue smoke that travelled across one side of her body in a way that almost made Lux mad with fascination and a feeling that might have been jealousy of those brilliant azure clouds.

Lux wasn’t even sure how long she stood there, until Free emerged from the well. Short hair dripping rivulets of water down her shoulders and chest in gleaming rivers that Lux’s eyes couldn’t help trace. Her tongue moved without her input as she licked her dry lips. Free’s eyes caught hers as she once again raked them up the slender body of the inventor before her. And despite the heat Lux now realised was pulsing at her core, it was still those eyes that captivated her most. She took a step towards Free as the other woman dropped the harness from her chest. Lux felt almost as though she was under a spell as she watched the other pull her trousers and shirt back on.

A feeling that only magnified as Free once again caught her eyes. “We’re all connected up Blondie, it worked.” A huge grin stole across Lux’s face, mirroring the one on Free’s. Seeing that Free was once again fully dressed Lux couldn’t help herself, she slammed into Free. Wrapping her arms around her tightly, feeling the damp cloth of Free’s shirt against the skin of her own uncovered forearms. “Thank you Free, thank you so much.”

And for a moment, Lux almost thought she could do it. Almost thought she could close the distance between their lips and ask Free to never leave even though the job was done. But she couldn’t, she was still too scared. Too scared to relive that heart plummeting moment when Free said no last time but so much worse. Free walking away was fine as long as there was the possibility of her coming back. And if Lux pushed her too far, that would disappear. If Lux revealed how much she wanted her friend to be so much more than that, that she wanted her to only ever be lit by Lux’s light. Free would surely be disgusted, confused, scared and horrified by the obsession that had been building in Lux’s chest since she had seen those guards huddled around that mysterious heater.

Eventually the hug had to end. And Lux and Free had a slow walk back to Lux’s house, the excitement of their success growing dimmer and dimmer. Yet neither spoke. Lux’s tongue felt heavy as she climbed the front steps. Suddenly she had a thought, and she seized on it immediately. “What do you want your reward to be?” She turned away from her own front door to Free, rounding on the girl who looked a little surprised at the sudden shattering of their heavy silence. “Oh, Uh, I dunno Blondie. I hadn’t really thought about it.” Had she not been watching so intently. Lux might have missed it. Had her brain not spent every free second of the weeks they’d been working together committing every second of Free to memory. Lux might have missed it. As it is she sees clearly when Free’s eyes flick downwards for a second. The way those amethyst orbs flick to Lux’s lips and back as Free claims not to have thought about her reward. It’s that beautiful moment of reciprocity that finally overpowers Lux’s fear.

Not entirely, barely even, but just a little. Just enough, “Maybe we can talk about it over food?” She asks, stepping aside just a little. Just enough to imply that food was something she had access to through the open door of her home. “You should come in and we can talk about it?” Lux says, putting just a little hint of something behind her words. Free seems stricken with something, for a moment. “Ye- Yeah ok Blondie, that sounds good. I guess I am a little cold.” It’s then that Lux really recognizes that Free had spent some large amount of time under the unheated water of Terbisia’s wells, and late summer or not that can’t be good for someone as lean as the inventor. She leaps to action, once again seizing the initiative as it is presented. “I’ll run you a bath, and make you some hot food.” She turns before Free has a chance to disagree. Almost pulling the other into the house in her wake. Lux quickly drew Free a bath demanding that she put her wet clothes on the hot stone to warm as Lux stokes the fire beneath it hoping they would be dry when the other had finished bathing. Once she was assured that Free had everything she would need Lux went to the kitchen and set about making them each some food. She wasn’t the best cook in Terbisia but she was sure she could make something passable.

At the very least cooking allowed her to try and distract herself from conjuring images of what was happening elsewhere in her house. Of amethyst eyes and soft pale skin marked by ink stretched tautly over enticing muscle. Of Free, in her house, in her bath, even more undressed than she had been earlier. Of her enticing smell of smoke and oil mixing with the same soaps that Lux herself used. The thought almost caught her unawares and it was only luck that Lux didn’t catch the pad of her finger with the knife she was using to dice potatoes. The meat that Lux had prepared and began roasting smelt good. She almost wished that she had access to some wine, certain that it would perfectly compliment the meal.

But Lux had never been one to enjoy drinking, and she was anxious enough already. Before long she heard the sounds of soft padding feet at the entrance to the kitchen. Turning from her work Lux had thought she would be prepared for whatever she saw. And what a sight it was, Free looked soft in a way that sent a very different thrill into Lux’s heart. Powder blue hair mussed into a half dry state that let it fall chaotically from Free’s head in a way that shouldn’t be so reminiscent of a halo to Lux, but was. Face slightly pinked from the heat of the tub and free of what Lux now realised had been an omnipresent layer of dirt or grease that she had mistaken for freckles. Trousers and shirts back on but without the iron shod boots, gloves and satchels that Lux was so used to, Free looked positively domestic.

“Smells good Blondie. And thanks for the bath, I didn't really realise how long it had been.” It was phrases like that that always made Lux realise that she still didn’t know whereabouts Free was even really living at the moment. “No problem, Free. Honestly I should have offered earlier.” Lux tried to smile welcomingly past the pounding of her heart. Free was finally here. In her home. For a reason other than business. Lux felt like she might start giggling at any moment.

“Food will just be a second. I didn't know if you wanted anything specific so….” She trailed off waiting for a response that never game. Free instead just stared at her, almost as if confused or seeing her for the first time. After a second more of silence Lux turned back to the worktop and began finishing up the preparations for their food. The meat was sliced thinly and left to rest as the potatoes and vegetables were portioned out, each pungent with herbs and the few dried spices that made it this far into Demacia. Lux had gone all out for her guest, using rarities that she had once thought she might never have a reason to. She gestured for Free to take a seat at the small table Lux had set into a nook in the kitchen. Her house, like all Demacian noble houses, had a dining room with a large imperious table, but it was another in the long list of rooms that Lux simply never used. Eating alone at a small table was sad enough. Eating alone at a table that felt like her families table was torture.

They ate in silence, or at least without conversation. After all it was difficult for Lux to focus on her food when she had Free groaning loudly in pleasure with every bite to focus on. Free; who had watched Lux pick up her cutlery, copied her for the first bite before moaning what Lux was fairly certain was some kind of prayer before the blue haired girl abandoned the utensils in favour of shovelling her food into her mouth as quickly as possible. Each mouthful accompanied with more of those breathy moans. Enough that Lux was almost certain her face was crimson red and that she could feel the heat blasting from her ears. Eventually Lux gathered enough of her wits to ask “I take it you like the food.” With a smile. Free didn’t even have the decency to look abashed instead nodding and saying, through another sinful moan, “This is incredible Blondie. Almost as good as Jericho’s.” Lux didn’t know who Jericho was but the tone suggested that that was a compliment of the highest order, so she wasn’t going to question it. They both continued eating, Free complimenting the food a few more times through appreciative moans that made Lux’s mouth dry despite her drinking water throughout the meal.

Eventually the food was done, and Lux knew she had to make good on her original statement. “So, rewards?” She prompted Free as Lux stood to clear away the plates. “Would you like to come sit in the study, it’s more comfortable than the kitchen table?” She also asked. Lux was sure that her mother would be having an aneurysm if she could see her now, inviting a person she barely knew into her home like this. However as they entered her personal study Lux noticed that she truly couldn't care less in that moment. The warmth of Free's presence behind her melting away the imagined shadows of Augatha Crownguard’s disapproving stare. Lux let Free in ahead of her and moved to stoke the coals burning in the hearth of the study.

Despite the warmth of the late summer it seemed as though the heat never truly managed to suffuse the governor’s house Lux found herself living in. So to that end she always kept coals burning in her personal study and her bedroom. Free stopped in the middle of the room, casting her eyes about in slight confusion. “I thought you said we were going to the study again, Blondie?” She asked, glancing around the room Lux called her study, which was actually the house’s small library with a writing desk in one corner, overshadowed by the shelves of books. It was a far cry from the deliberately imposing nature of the large desk in the gubernatorial study Lux had taken Free to last time they met in this house. “Oh,” Lux responded finishing tending to the coals, “This is technically the library but I call it my study since I much prefer to do my work here. The real study is a little too…” Lux made a face instead of finishing the sentence, hoping that Free wouldn't mind.

Instead the inventor seemed to accept the explanation, but rather than letting the matter drop she spoke again. “Why do you live in this massive place anyway, you don’t much seem to like it? Why not live somewhere smaller if that’s what you want?” Free asks as she pulls one of the plush reading chairs to face the centre of the room and collapses into it. Lux follows suit as she answers, “It’s expected of the governor of Terbisia to live in the governor's house. If I didn’t and the nobles in the capital found out they would think less of me. And if they thought less of me they would think less of Terbisia. Which would lead to them not trying as hard to defend us. Or it might even have an impact on the new laws around magic.” Lux trailed off for a moment, eyes staring unseeingly over Free’s shoulder. “We’ve sacrificed too much to let them take what it got us away just because I’m uncomfortable.” To her surprise Lux heard Free make a noise of slight agreement. “I get that Blondie. You’re too far down the path to stop now. But that doesn’t mean you can’t move the path to go somewhere you’d rather be. You’ve built the bars to your own cage, but you’ve still got the key.” Lux looks at Free as the other says this, swallowing down the defensive response when she sees that the other has adopted that same faraway look. Reminded of that day in the tunnels when the inventor last shocked her with her understanding.

“It's not so bad here, I'll get used to it eventually.” Lux defended, the words hollow even to her. After all, if that was true she surely would have already. Surely the nightmares would have been getting better, rather than worse. Ss they had been, until she had started working with Free. It hits Lux all at once while feeling like it had always been true. How badly she wanted Free to stay. Not just in Terbisia. But with her. Not just as friends as they had been up until now.. As more. In this house. In her kitchen during dinner. In her library during those long mornings of paperwork. In her bed during those cold winter nights when it felt as though the sun may never rise again. Lux ached with it. Thought she might be going mad with the desire for it. And it was more terrifying than anything before it. More terrifying than when Lux had first shown Free her magic expecting scorn. More terrifying than when Free had run from the sewers that first day

“Alright, Blondie. Can’t say I know enough about this place to make a comment on it really but….” Free’s face wobbles slightly, as though she’s fighting towards the words she’s trying to say. “Look after yourself too alright. You’re a…. A good one. And they’re pretty rare.” Lux smiles at the other girl, her heart singing from even the slightest compliment, who somehow looks more uncomfortable now than she did heaving herself out of the well. “Thank you, Free. Now, I believe we were to talk about your reward.” Lux usually wouldn’t have engaged in such blatant deflection with Free. Usually she would trust the inventor to naturally steer clear of uncomfortable topics after they’d spent weeks in the sewers doing nothing but talk and getting a pretty good idea for what the other didn’t want to speak about. But the thought of Free even glancing a blow at the thoughts currently running rampant through Lux’s head was enough to make the blonde's back start to damp with sweat and her guts churn with nausea. She needed time to process. To understand what it was she really wanted. As much as she hated it, saying it aloud to Free had reminded Lux how much was at stake, she couldn’t afford to be selfish.

Lux focused on Free again, aware that her mind was wandering a little. She was surprised when she found Free’s eyes and saw her equally unresponsive. “Free.” She prompted, surprised when the girl twitched bodily. “Are you alright?” Lux asked, growing concerned. Free hadn’t explicitly spoken about what it was that ailed her but Lux could read between the lines of the few stories of her youth Free had shared and the conversations the two had had to see the many spectres of grief that dogged the inventor's brilliant mind. Lux was truly heartbroken just thinking about how difficult the woman’s life must have been to cause her so much pain. She wanted to do anything she could to help, but she couldn’t think of a way to take some of Free’s pain. For the moment though she resolved to be gentle with the woman, to show her that she didn’t judge Free for her struggles. “Free?” She asked after a moment which prompted the other to jump slightly but thankfully those beautiful amethyst eyes did eventually refocus on Lux with a blink.

“Your reward?” Lux prompted again when the woman said nothing. Trying to keep her voice soft without sounding patronising was a difficult skill, fortunately it was one that Lux had practiced many times on irritating noble suitors. Finally Free responded, voice low almost to a whisper as though she was afraid that something might notice if she spoke too loud. “Let me help….” Free trailed off, flinching again. But Lux waited, a low affirmative in her throat in the hope that Free would see it as the invitation to continue that it was. Free’s eyes fell to her lap and it looked to Lux like she was shoring up her courage. “Let me help again. When the kids get here they’ll want toys and… and stuff like that.” At this Free locked eyes with Lux again and the blonde was shocked to see the tears gathering in her violet pools. “I wanna build that stuff for them, and maintain the pipes. And make more stuff for the farmers.” Free’s voice was getting faster, her breaths coming sharper and quicker, and Lux knew she had to interrupt before she worked herself into a frenzy.

“Free.” At her name the other fell silently. Looking nervously at Lux. “I can’t count that as your reward.” The inventor's mouth shot open a plea on her lips but Lux didn’t allow time for the miscommunication to take hold. “I would love for you to do all of those things, but letting you do more work can’t be a reward for doing work. But if you want to build more things for me, then I’ll never stop you.” Lux was conscious as the words left her mouth that she had intended to say that Free was welcome to build for Terbisia. But she couldn’t help it. She only hoped the woman wouldn’t notice. “You mean it, Blondie? You’ll let me help?” Free’s voice was trembling, the tears gathering in her eyes adding a further layer of shine to her intoxicating eyes and Lux found herself enamoured even as the woman in front of her suffered. “Free, you finished a job that we never could have done in half the time it would have taken us to do half as well as you did it. I can’t even think of a reason I’d say no to you building more for us. But I mean it. You're still owed a reward whenever you decide what you want. Terbisia owes you a debt. And we do not ignore our debts.” Lux managed to restrict herself to ‘us’ this time around. Aware that she was playing with fire, but slightly thrilled all the same.

A thrill that only increased as Free leapt the space in between them and dragged Lux into another steel-banded hug a litany of “thank you’s” spewing from the smaller girl as Lux was once again thankful that she no longer wore her armour everyday. Lux held the smaller girl until Free broke the hug, a final murmured thank you between them as Free dabbed at her eyes with her sleeves. Glancing outside Lux saw that night had fully fallen at some point. Free followed her eyeline and realised the same thing, a slight hiss leaving from clenched teeth. “Guess I’d better go get some sleep, Blondie. Thanks for the meal. And the uh… yea… thanks.” Lux walked Free to the door and wished her a safe journey home. “Free,” she called just before the other left. “The children arrive in two weeks. So I’ll see you then?” The smile she got back made her hands glow behind her back and her heart start doing flip flops in her chest. “Sure thing, Blon.. Lux.”

Lux had hoped that knowing that she would see Free again would make suddenly not seeing her nearly everyday easier. It didn’t. It was a salve on a gaping wound. Lux felt as though each of her senses was individually obsessed with Free. Her eyes would track any shade of blue or purple in her periphery without her really noticing. Her nose would wander to the smell of oil and machine smoke despite their rarity in Terbisia, and indeed Lux had found herself finding excuses to walk past Bekka’s smithy entirely for the similarity of the smell of the forge to the smell she remembered. Her ears would prick at the sound of a raspy voice or high pitched laughter only to be disappointed when it turned out to be someone else. Her skin felt like it was tingling whenever she thought of the two embraces her and Free had shared. Even her sense of taste felt haunted, with her mind regularly wandering to thoughts of what it would feel like to trace her tongue over the arch of Free’s neck. To wonder what her lips might have tasted like if she had had the courage to close the gap any of the dozen times the thought had seized her. Even sleep came even less easily than it had before. Her nightmares constant company despite that whenever she closed her eyes she was tortured and delighted by visions of water sluicing down tattooed skin or eyes like glimmering pools of amethyst set into pale perfect skin.

But despite the time passing slowly it did pass, and eventually it was the day the children were supposed to arrive. Lux was torn, she knew she should be nervous because Terbisia was going to be receiving new residents. That the children would need to be introduced to their new surroundings. Introduced to the Terbisian residents that would be in charge of their education and health. And to make sure that they all understood that everyone in Terbisia would do whatever they could to keep them safe. But if Lux was honest that was not the main cause of the anxiety that was sitting heavy in her gut. Today was the day she would hopefully see Free again and her body ached with it. Her mind was conjuring scenarios both brilliant and terrifying with absurd speed. From Free not showing up to her running straight into Lux’s arms as soon as she did. Lux took a calming breath and looked at herself in her vanity mirror. She was making sure she would be properly dressed for her office to meet her new citizens, armour on and staff by her side. A final calming breath that she hoped would take the slight flush in her cheeks, Lux ensured that her hair band was properly placed and headed out for the day.

The main entrance of the town was abuzz with activity. This was the closest Terbisia got to town events, since the usual Demacian festival days were given a certain muted effect in a town mostly made up of people with complex feelings towards their homeland. The usual stalls in the market were bustling even more than usual as people milled around excited to see and greet the new arrivals. Lux had tried to warn the citizens that it would mostly be children arriving, and that it would be good not to overwhelm them. But it was difficult to convince people not to be excited when something so exciting was happening. There was also a low hope that the extended delivery time might also mean that word of another decision from King Jarvan Lightshield IV might arrive to further cement the acceptance of mages into Demacia and progression with the dissolution of the mageseekers. Lux knew that some of her villagers were awaiting news with the hope of returning to their true homes and families in wider Demacia.

Lux felt like her entire body was flooded with electricity, if she had thought her body was wired into Free before. The chance of her actually being there was sending her into overdrive, every movement in her periphery was Free until it wasn’t. Every person who approached her was Free until they weren’t. Lux thought she was doing a good enough job of suppressing her disappointment whenever one of the citizens approached her to make nervous small talk through the morning and part into the afternoon. A few farmers left seemingly satisfied and even one of the only medics, a couple one of whom was a mage who could manipulate blood, briefly stopped to speak.

That illusion was shattered by Bekka, who approached around midday and attempted to speak with Lux about her success in stockpiling some higher quality metal for the needs of the new arrivals. About halfway through her explanation Bekka stopped speaking, catching Lux’s eyes once more wandering over her shoulder. “Watching for that inventor of yours, Lady Light?” the older woman asked with a mischievous glint entering her eyes. Lux was caught off guard for a moment, “What do you mean?” She asked, hoping she had somehow misheard. “Well it’s pretty easy to see from my perspective,” Bekka said, her grin widening in the face of Lux’s denial. She continued, “You com-” Whatever Bekka would have said was cut off by a series of noises from the guard post. Lux turned, glad for the distraction.

Hurrying towards the town entrance Lux saw the plume of dust on the horizon, hearing the growing hum of chatter of the crowd behind her and felt the smile on her face grow huge as in her rushing she saw a figure, with a grease-cloth cloak standing back to a wall a distance away from the small crowd, purple eyes glinting from below the hood. She walked through the entrance and saw what had caused the guards to cry out. Three caravans each towed by a pair of horses, Lux assumed that the third caravan was the delivery of goods that had been added. It was a little odd that there were no guards or outriders but Lux knew that the crown was still pressed for men with the flames of Sylas’ rebellion still burning across Demacia.

After a moment a small head stuck out the cloth and a small hand waved. Lux waved back. The caravans slowed a good distance from the gate as some of Terbisia’s guards stepped forward. The guards briefly conversed with the drivers of each caravan and after a gesture from the lead guard Lux approached. The driver of the first caravan was a young looking man who seemed a little nervous. “Hello,” Lux greeted the man with a smile, his youth gave her pause but she wondered if the job of driving the vans had simply been given to the eldest of the children being sent to her. “My name is Luxanna, I’m the governor. You seem young for this job? Are there no guards with you?” She asked, allowing concern to suffuse her voice. The boy trembled slightly but responded nonetheless, “H.. Hello Governor Luxanna. My name is Quinn and, no, they said we were to ride to you and stay. The wagons will be picked up whenever the next delivery comes here. The horses are Terbisia’s to use.”

Quinn looked scared and Lux’s heart ached for him. “Alright then, come along. You can leave those there for now. We have made some food for you and the others. Please come.” She raised her voice slightly. “All of you are now treasured citizens of Terbisia, and I welcome you all gladly.” Lux stepped away as Quinn stepped down from the caravan and turned to open the door, while the rider of the second caravan, another youth named Roke did the same, evident fear on his face. If Quinn had looked nervous the second rider looked terrified. Meanwhile the rider of the third simply stepped down and began to walk over. “My Lady Luxanna, I’m Barrick. My caravan only contains the supplies, what should I do with them?” This man was older than Quinn and Roke, even older than Lux. “That’s alright, you can leave that. Let’s get you all inside and fed first.” He made mention of a few personal items which Lux was more than happy for him to carry with him. Barrick relaxed slightly and Lux allowed herself to relax in turn.

A relaxation that was stolen as the remainder of the caravan's occupants were revealed. Under Lux and the guards watchful gaze the first two caravans were emptied to reveal a sum total of 13 children of different ages, no adults in sight beyond Quinn Barrick and Roke. The children were dirty, some were bruised while others still wore nobleman's clothes with the patches of house visibly sliced away from them. Lux felt a familiar anger take hold. These children had been sent across the country with nothing but themselves all because of the prejudice of her homeland, of her family. She suppressed it, with difficulty, to present a welcoming front to these poor children. “You must all be very hungry, it’s very brave of you to make it here all on your own. Come along, we will get you all fed and show you where you will be staying.” Lux turned and began to walk away.

A few minutes later the contingent sat around tables that had been laid out in what was usually Terbisia’s market building. It wasn’t regularly used in summer meaning that it was perfectly able to be repurposed as a meal house so that the children and other new arrivals could eat while meeting the people who would be in charge of them. Lux had managed to pull each of the riders aside briefly on the walk in and during the serving of the food to tell them that they would be established separate accommodation but that her current priority was the children. The introductions were going well, a few of the townspeople had come in as well including both Bekka and Edgar as well as Free.

A fact that Lux was trying very hard to ignore despite the way that it felt like every fibre of her being wanted nothing more than to once again bask in the inventor's presence. She had introduced herself to the children properly as well as giving brief summations of each of the major people. There was Clara, who had previously been a librarian and had taken over as the head tutor of the children of Terbisia. Beorn who despite his stout Freljordi appearance was an incredibly loving man and acted as the dorm keeper for the boys while Clara was that for the girls. There were various other citizens who played small parts in the running of Terbisia’s orphanages but so far even with the addition of these children there was no need to expand to more people as of yet.

Finally Lux reached an important part of the introductions, the food was eaten and the children had been told where they would be staying and who they would be leaving with afterwards. She stood and got the room's attention with ease. She saw Free shift forward interestedly in her seat, the others knew what to expect having been through their own version of this speech when they joined Terbisia themselves. “As you may all have heard,” Lux started falling into the familiar patterns of her speech. “This is a magehold, many of the people here are mages. Although not all. And while this does mean that no one here will deride you for your gifts, or try to hurt you because of them. It doesn’t mean you can use your gifts as you like. As part of your lessons I or any of the other trained mages will be giving you schooling on how to control your powers. These are also available for any citizen of Terbisia. But I promise you, no one here will judge you for your gifts. But I know that is easy to say, you’ve likely spent your whole lives hiding that part of yourself. So for now, a demonstration. To show you that you don’t have to hide your magic, but also that you don’t need to fear it.”

And with that Lux released the clamps on her light, allowing it to slowly filter from her skin gently. Focussing hard she created wavering rainbows in the air, a light show that she had dreamed of when she was a child. She heard the awe and wonder of the children, saw Bekka adding her own swirls of the hearth and torches in the room. And when she finished, without any real thought, she immediately looked to Free. Who was staring at her in open mouthed wonder, and when she caught Lux’s eyes she simply mouthed ‘Beautiful’. And Lux felt her face heat up. “As you can see, magic is beautiful and wonderful. And I hope those of you that have gifts eventually feel comfortable enough using them to see that for yourselves.” Lux never really expects a response to her display or her speech. She hopes it’s affecting but never really thinks much of it other than its use in delivering the message.

However, in all the times she’s given it she has never heard laughter at the end of it. She turns confused to the end of the table that the riders were seated at to see Barrick laughing. He pulled something from the small bag he had told Lux contained only sentimental items and with a flourish produced something that looked like one of Free’s broken flashlights and harshly pressed a button on it. It groaned for a moment before a flash ripped through the room and a fizzing powder seemed to blossom from the device. Instantly Lux felt the effect of whatever had just happened, and moments later her body was completely locked. And she knew whatever it was was petricite related. She couldn’t move at all.

Barrick stepped forwards towards her and began speaking. “You mages are all the same. Wielding your disgusting powers as though you aren’t abominations.” He pulled something else out of the smouldering remains of the knapsack and fitted it over his face. The sterling silver of his mageseekers mask was blackened slightly but he didn’t let that deter him as he also produced a forearm length white blade. Stepping round the table he began advancing towards Lux. “People blame Sylas’ for what happened. But I know the truth, Lady Light.” He mockingly spat Lux’s pseudonym towards her, hate blatant in his curled lip and flashing eyes. Lux was terrified, she could only hope that someone noticed something had happened inside the room. Paralysed as she was she could do nothing and she knew that no one else could do anything either. As the man moved slowly closer to her still speaking, savouring his moment. “So when I heard you had made this disgusting little commune I had that little gift made for you. A combination of petricite and that abominable Piltovan technology. Should keep all you little monsters down for the count until I’m done. Usually I’d start with the others. Make you watch so you can know the suffering I felt watching my mageseeker brothers cut down by you animals. But I don’t have time for that.”

By this point he was almost within range of Lux, and a different kind of terror was crawling up her spine. The terror of who he might turn on when he was done with her. The thought wouldn’t leave her. The image of that wicked petricite knife, stained crimson with her blood, plunged into the beautiful swell of Free’s neck. Emptying the guts from beneath her beautiful inked skin. Lux was sure if she could move she would have vomited. Even her eyes were paralysed, drying stuck open. She couldn’t even move them to confirm her worst fears. To confirm that Free was just as stuck as everyone else. Fortunately her worries were alleviated just as they worsened.

With a hoarse scream Free came flying across the room into the mageseeker faster than Lux thought anyone could move. She wrapped her legs around his waist and if Lux didn’t know that magic was currently impossible she would have assumed that that was what gave Free strength in that moment. Her only weapon was a cutlery knife taken from the table. It was wooden and worn smooth with age. But that didn’t stop it from jamming into the mageseekers eye and sticking. He screamed in pain, his own blade flashed as it sunk into Free’s side. The inventor managed to get a grip on his wrist before it went any further and with another howl and strength that far belied her size she wrestled the knife from the would-be butcher. Kicking off from him she pulled the blade away, the hand holding it bleeding freely as she switched to grab it by the handle. A puddle of nightmarish crimson forming on the floor that was only added to as she wrenched the blade out of her side and sunk it into Barrick’s torso. Her screams had turned to ragged cries as she wrenched the blade free only to sink it again into the man's chest. Following him down to the floor so that she was kneeled over him Free raised the blade again and Lux truly felt bile gathering in the back of her throat as the blue haired murderer suddenly dropped as if her strings were cut. For the following minute before the paralysis wore off Lux could only watch as a growing patch of red soaked Free’s cloak. Terrified that when she could move again it would be to two corpses.

The next moments passed in a blur as Lux stumbled to Free’s side, desperately feeling for a pulse and pressing a hand to the wound to stop the blood flow. For a brief moment she couldn’t hear, couldn't see, couldn't feel anything but the tacky warmth of blood on her hand and the clamour of Free's skin. The children were sobbing and screaming even as they were dragged from the building by Clara and Beorn. Edgar had run to the guard house on Lux’s order, they needed to have the caravans searched immediately. Lux gathered her wits about her as her fingers at Free’s wrist found a brief and thready pulse.

Terbisia’s medics rushed in, and Lux thanked all the protectors she knew that the pair had been close at hand. She listened numbly to their instructions and eventually watched as a pair of the city's guards were summoned to take Free away on a stretcher. Eventually, the other caravans had been labelled as safe. The children had been reassured as best as possible, which they took with a pragmatism that made Lux proud of them but also deeply saddened at what they must have already been through. Soon though, Lux was out of distractions. The only thing left to think about was Free. She had tried to extract a promise that Free would be ok, that she would survive. Unfortunately all she got was a sympathetic look and the admittance that the wound was far deeper than they’d feared and that while they’d done all they could. Free would be lucky to make it through the night.

Sleep didn’t come to Lux that night. Instead she found herself sat by Free’s cot, a silent and protective vigil marked only by Lux’s muffled sobs and the sound of her tears dripping into her palms. Eventually lit by a dim light that Lux couldn’t seem to stymie and had eventually stopped trying dawn broke over Terbisia. When Lux finally fell into a troubled and fitful sleep. Her hands still glowing even as she faded into unconsciousness, as though her magic was trying to light a beacon for Free to follow home to her. Lux was woken by one of the medics, who offered her some breakfast that she gladly accepted as his partner checked on Free. Their clinic was run out of the front room of their house so Lux sat in the kitchen and ate as she got her bearings. It was a little past 11am she was told. The mageseekers body had been disposed of, and many of the townspeople wanted to thank Free. Even more when they found out she was the one who had fixed the pipes, apparently the whole system was running far better than it had in years. Soon the other medic came back into the room, a perplexed look on his face. When questioned by a very concerned Lux he shared that while the news was good he didn’t understand how she was healing so well. He shared that it was almost as if it was magic. But if that were the case it would have been dulled by the petricite as Lux's light had been.

Lux decided not to question her blessings, much like she hadn’t questioned where Free had got the metal for the pipes, or how Free had managed to escape the mageseekers binding. Sleep deprived as she was, Lux found it difficult to drag herself from the slowly growing spiral that was realising how little she truly knew about the woman who had saved her life just a day before. Nevertheless, she thanked the medics for their help and buoyed by the knowledge that Free was apparently out of the woods and healing well she went to speak with Bekka. The smith took one look at Lux, still clad in her armour and leaning on her staff more than she was carrying it and dragged her back to Lux’s home and to bed. Promising that if anything happened with Free she would be informed but that, “If you don’t get some sleep My Lady I will personally hold you down until you do.” Lux smiled at the woman's threats and thanked her sincerely before doing as she was told.

When she woke again she made her way immediately to the clinic. There was surely work to be done, duties to be attended. But Lux found that she could not summon the care to attend them. Instead she found herself once more by Free's cot in the clinic. Her hand once more clutching the others. Free looked better but apparently she still hadn't woken. Now that Lux wasn't half mad with fear for the other she spent her time at Free's bedside more constructively. Memorising each line of her face at rest, tracing patterns in the palms of her hand and even admiring the incredible craftsmanship in Free's metal finger. Eventually, Lux couldn't help herself. She laid her head down onto the blankets covering Free's chest and lulled by the sounds and feeling of Free's breathing, fell into the most dreamless sleep she had had in months.

When Lux awoke something had changed. It was difficult to tell what at first, a feeling. Then the feeling made itself more known as a hand smoothed gently over Lux's hair. Opening her eyes Lux saw Free staring at her. Starting a little Lux sat up, “Free,” her voice sounded rough. She was suddenly reminded that she wasn't sure if she had eaten or drunk anything since the meal before the attack. “Blondie,” Free’s face crumpled as tears began streaming down her face. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I didn’t mean to.” Free babbled as Lux reeled in confusion. She reached for the inventor's hands but Free wrenched them away, instead digging her nails into her hair, breath coming faster and faster as she curled into a ball in the middle of the bed. “Free it’s ok, everyone is ok.” Lux tried desperately, hoping to reassure the woman that everyone was alright. That no one but Free had got hurt, eventually she succeeded and the woman's desperate pleas slowed over the following minutes. “You mean it, Blondie? No- none of the kids got hurt? You’re alright?” Lux passed Free some water and took a small sip herself, thankful that the medics had left water for the two of them. “Yes Free, the only person who got hurt was you. You and that bastard Barrick.” Lux felt more fury towards the man now than ever before. Seeing how much his actions had hurt Free mentally as well as physically. “You were stabbed with a petricite dagger, we didn’t know if you were going to survive. All the children will be so glad that you’re okay.”

Seeing that Free was calmed down Lux moved to sit back down but as she distanced herself Free’s hands moved with a flash to grip Lux’s and prevent her from moving away, the request clear but unspoken. One which Lux was more than happy to oblige. “Free,” Lux spoke after a moment. “I wanted to say thank you, properly. You saved my life, and the lives of all of those children. The pipes have been working wonderfully as well.” Lux felt her throat begin to close, emotion clogging her airways. “Ever since you arrived you’ve done so many wonderful things for this town.” Free was staring at her in amazement, as though she had somehow expected recrimination for her actions. “And I just wanted to say thank you, I still don’t know how you ended up here.” Lux found that now that she had started it was hard to stop, hard to keep down all the questions she had about Free, that had built up over the two long nights of her convalescence. “But I’m so so glad, and we’re so so lucky to have you.”

Lux almost heard Free go stiff. Saw the way that Free’s eyes shuttered a second later. And felt as a great flinch tore Free’s hands from hers. A terrible omen came over her, she had seen Free like this before. “Free please wait,” she tried to reason. But the animal fear in Free’s eyes and the way her hands clamped over her ears made it clear that it was a lost cause. Short of physically attempting to restrain the woman Lux was powerless. With fast movements the slighter woman leapt from her bed. Messily pulling her stained cloak over her, Free ran through the door of the clinic and tore onto the street. Shocked and hurt, Lux could only sit and watch as Free fled again. She sat there numbly as the medic couple quizzed her on what had happened. She moved robotically back to her home, and listened as the guards reported to her that Free had fled through the main gate unopposed. She sat at her desk in the library for hours that night, replaying the conversation again and again. Wondering if there would ever be anything she could do to make Free stay. Indeed Lux wanted to chase Free down immediately. But unfortunately duty called first and foremost. Amongst the caravan that Barrick had ridden into the town had been some genuine personal effects. One of which included a diary, which Lux was determined to read to ensure that the monster had been working alone.

Lux spent three difficult days decoding Barricks journal. Sleeping fitfully, haunted by the image of Free screaming as a petricite blade was driven into her stomach, and the image of Free sometimes still carrying the same wound, running through the streets of Terbisia wild with terror. And another two days after that trying to understand the insane ramblings of the man. Apparently he had been excommunicated from the mage seekers even before Sylas’ rebellion. His dalliances with Piltover’s Hextech were considered far too close to heretical magecraft for an order as steeped in prejudice as the seekers. Finally, a week after the arrival of the caravan. Terbisia began to relax as Lux was certain that no more mage seekers were coming to follow Barrick’s footsteps. She stopped by the school a lot during the days after that, reassuring herself that the children had all survived and were integrating nicely. She was running herself ragged, she knew, barely sleeping more than an hour a night before a sickening nightmare would have her dry heaving into the morning. The guilt of being the reason Free got hurt was weighing more heavily with each day of not seeing the inventor. The further guilt of being the one to drive her from a place of safety and healing into the waiting arms of whatever dangers still lurked beyond Terbisia’s walls.

Lux managed another week. Days long and miserable as the dregs of summer gave way to the harsh cold and rain of Terbisia’s Fall. She felt almost as though the weather was understanding her. Frigid rain poured from the sky in ceaseless sheets and it felt as though the sun rose only to remind them of what it had been like when it shone. Lux had reverted to her old habits, chasing things that reminded her of Free. As though the only thing that kept her moored to the earth was the bright blue paints at the market. Or the way that Bekka’s smithy smelt a little like the smoke and oil that Free smelt of. It was during her third visit to the smithy in as many days that Bekka managed to corner her. What had started as a routine business discussion about the quality of the ore they had been delivered ended suddenly when the older woman, face hardened as though she were delivering grave news. Struck Lux with a look. “Lady Light forgive my bluntness but you look appalling.” Lux startled slightly but couldn’t bring herself to disagree. She hadn’t been taking care of her appearance as she usually did.

“And I think I know why.” Bekka continued, “I was happy to ignore it when you were just stepping around each other. But I saw that inventor of yours the other day. She came to trade for some coals, said she was ‘doing what was best for everyone and getting out the way.’” Bekka paused to look at Lux as she said this, not that Lux could have seen it through the tears that suddenly clouded her vision. “And like I said, when you were just stepping round eachother I was happy to let you go about it your own way, glad even. That goofy face you made whenever you saw her brightened my heart, My Lady. But now, now that you’re risking it all by being stubborn I can’t stay silent anymore.”
“I’m not being stubborn.” Lux tried to say, tried to defend herself to the woman, but found she could barely speak through the tears in her throat. The idea that Free was leaving, properly leaving. Was devastating her again and again in waves. Ignoring her attempted interruption, Bekka waded forwards, each word heavy. “And I understand it, you’re scared. Too used to living under that tyrannous rule that is nobility. But, Lady Light. Your family gave you up, just like Demacia gave up the rest of us. Just like wherever Free is from gave her up. Stop letting the fear they taught you control you. Stop going back to that big empty house of yours because you’re too afraid to accept that they left. Please, My Lady. Chase some happiness for yourself, even if it doesn’t work. You’ll feel better for it.” Lux finally looked up at Bekka, saw the regret on her face, and wondered who the solitary smith thought of when she imagined chasing someone irregardless of fear.

“I… I’m so scared, Bekka.” Lux finally allowed herself to admit. “And everytime I think I do the right thing I get more scared. What if she’s already gone? What if I already let her get away? What if I never get a chance to ask her to stay?” At this Lux’s voice broke and Bekka dragged her into a hug. “She only came by this morning, Lady Light, said she was leaving at the end of the week. If I didn’t know better I’d say she was giving you a chance to go after her. I’d say that she’s just as afraid as you. Maybe she feels foolish for running every time you took a step forward. But this time, don’t give her a chance. Even if all you do is ask her to come move into town proper. That’ll do, all a person like that wants is an excuse to stay, a person to stay for. Trust me.” And Lux does, she drags the half-broken parts of her heart close. Knowing that she’d need each part for the next step she had to take. “Bekka,” She said, voice trembling. “Thank You. And do you know where in the forest Free was staying.” Bekka smiled down at her, teeth glinting. “Why Lady Light, I thought you’d never ask.”

Despite being governor for nearly two years Lux had never really taken Starfire through the woods around the town. The memories of the times her mother had chastised her for wanting to ride with her brother breathing down her neck too closely for her to enjoy it. But Bekka was right. No longer did she have an overbearing family who would shake their heads in disapproval as she rode Starfire out into the western forests looking for someone who may as well be a ghost. If Free was afraid to come back to her. She would go to her.

Navigating the forest by horse was difficult at any time. But when rain lashed from the sky giving the usual wind a chilling effect that made your face involuntarily flex whenever it hit. It was a nightmare. Suffice to say that Lux’s enthusiasm had been swiftly iced out. Leaving in its place a kind of grim determination that threatened to give way to anger any time she had to slow to a picking crawl over a dense pack of slippery roots. Part of the problem was that she had absolutely no idea what she was looking for, Lux was a decent tracker thanks to her training but even she struggled to track a day-old trail of a single light-footed person. She was just following any human track she came across. Most of them were looping and crossing each other in a mad series of whorls and spirals, and it was starting to really aggravate her. Her breath came in hot sharp draws through clenched teeth as Starfire nearly slipped again. With a growl Lux unseated herself from the saddle and plopped down onto the uneven ground to walk alongside the steed, cursing the loss of speed and mentally calculating when she would need to head back to be back before darkness fell. It was in fact thanks to her decision to continue on foot that Lux made some progress, as her foot slipped into a muddy wear in the ground. The kind that seemed as though someone had pushed a heavily laden cart through this area. Lux could have kicked herself as she realised that she had known that Free had dragged a cart full of pipes through this forest at least twice. And set about following the cart tracks further into the woods.

Through the thicker trees of the deeper wood Lux saw something that looked like light flittering dimly through the treeline, and deciding to trust to faith one last time before she turned back, and comforted by her staff and armour with Starfire following at her back, Lux headed towards it. Her steps filled with purpose and a leashed deliberate anger Lux makes quick time towards the light peeking through the trees. The sound of the heavy rain falling on the leaves of the trees meant that Lux didn’t need to put much effort into disguising her footsteps as she entered the clearing the light was coming from. The clearing itself was odd, it didn’t look naturally formed and the knee high tree stumps dotted around it seemed more like it had been forcefully made.

That combined with the deep furrows in the earth that ran the length of it made it seem almost as though something had crashed here. But Lux could see no evidence of such a thing, in fact the only sign of further strangeness in the clearing was the presence of what seemed to be a makeshift tent constructed of spars of metal wrapped in a strange kind of cloth that had struts of metal wrapped through it, the cloth wasn’t thick enough to disguise the light emanating from the structure but seemed to do decent job of being waterproof. Confused but hopeful, Lux cast a more careful eye around the clearing, and found great evidence of this being the location of Free’s pipemaking. Small piles of metal offcuts lay strewn randomly around, some clearly having impacted with quite some force. In fact, Lux noted, it seemed from the furrows that something had crashed here and then been deconstructed by its inhabitants. Realisation hit her. Free had arrived suddenly with no warning, lived in the forest without seeming to be overly concerned about shelter and had had access to enough metal to construct hundreds of feet of pipe alongside more complex machines. Had the inventor truly been so selfless that she had offered her very home and method of exit to Terbisia, to Lux without even giving a chance for her sacrifice to be acknowledged?

Lux marched up to the strange tent, noting that it was easily large enough to house several people, and found a flap staked down with a metal rod that seemed to have been gouged and torn beyond use as anything but a post. Reaching a small flat piece of metal set into the skin of the makeshift tent, Lux rapped it hard with the head of her staff, thinking back to Free’s exuberant knocking on her own front door. After she knocked Lux waited a moment, but nothing seemed to happen. It was then that Lux strained her ears beyond the sound of rain hitting tent skin to hear a kind of low level mumbling from within the tent, as if the occupant were engaged in incessant conversation. Squaring her shoulders slightly Lux drew back her arm and smacked the head of her staff into the plate of metal again, and again, and again. As though she were a military drummer keeping marching pace for an army. A good dozen times she beat her staff against the metal, almost to the point of her fingers beginning to numb from the vibrations. Until finally she saw movement within, a slight flickering of the light before the cloth opened and a confused Free stood there.

Her cloak had been stitched closed. It was the first thing Lux noticed, because it was the first place she looked. It was still dirty, dried blood crusted into the fabric. But it had been fixed. “Blon..” Free started to say, but before she could finish she was interrupted as Lux threw herself across the distance between them. Free clearly hadn’t been ready for it and the two crashed to the floor, limbs tangled as Lux desperately gripped onto the slighter woman. She hadn’t realise how much she hadn’t really believed that Free had been ok. It was only when she noticed that the other woman had gone completely stiff below her that Lux scrambled off the other woman, an apology about to cross her lips before Free beat her to it. “You’re really here? Why?” Free stood and walked to the entrance, closing the flap of her tent sealing her and Lux inside the surprisingly spacious room. Lux took the opportunity to look around the space, noting that most of it was dominated by what seemed to be a large workbench, on which were various prototypes of what Lux recognised as the brackets that Free had used to fix the pipes. Any further investigating Lux might have wanted to do was interrupted by Free’s voice. “You didn’t need to come chase me away Blondie, I’m leaving already.” There was anger in her tone, but it was masking a deep well of sadness. As though Free really thought that Lux was only here to make her leave.

“What?” Lux asked, turning to face Free in her confusion. “No. NO.” Lux stepped back into Free’s personal space, staring into the beautiful eyes that had haunted her since she first saw them. “Free, I’m not here to ask you to leave. I - I….” Lux drew in a deep breath, remembering Bekka’s words and using them to fan the flames of her courage. “I’m here to ask you to stay. In Terbisia. Wi - With me. Why before all the protectors would you think I would want you to leave? You saved my life. And even before that, even before I saw you do something so brave and so dangerous and saw you nearly fucking die for me! I wanted you to stay.” Lux could feel the tears tracking slowly down her cheeks, could see in her periphery her hair glowing slightly suffused with her light that she was leaking in tune with her emotions. “Why?” She asked again, voice ragged. “Why do you want to leave?”

“I don’t!” Free snapped, shocking Lux. “But it’s just like I thought I’m bad luck, I guess changing the name didn’t change anything this time.” Free said the last part almost to herself but Lux heard it anyway. “You said you were trying out a new name? Why is being bad luck relevant to your old name?” Lux almost let the question hang. Let her curiosity win out, but she continued. “And you’re not bad luck, I told you in the clinic. You’re - you… You’re the best thing that’s happened to this town yet. You’re good luck Free. We got lucky when you arrived.” Free shook her head. “You don’t get it, Blondie. I’m a Jinx. Always have been. Anyone who gets close to me gets hurt. If not by some fucked up bad luck. Then just by me. It coulda happened to you when I lost it on that Barrick guy. I couldn’t stand the idea of hurting you, Blondie. And when I woke up I didn’t know that I hadn’t snapped again, they kept telling me it was you I’d killed. So I’ve gotta go, better for me to hurt than you. I couldn’t stand it if I hurt you, you’re worth a hundred of me Blondie.” Free finally looked back at Lux and Lux saw the pain in her eyes. Finally understood where the ghosts that dogged the brilliant woman came from. The immense guilt that Free carried with her.

“But you leaving won’t save me from hurting Free.” Lux said gently, “Barrick, people like him will come after me anyway. For the things that I’ve done. For being what I am. But if you leave then not only will that still be true. But I won’t have you with me either. And that would be much much worse. So please…” Lux closed the gap between them, feeling that she needed to show Free exactly what she meant, what she wanted, right now. She gingerly moved her hands to either side of Free’s face, cupping her soft tear-damp cheeks between her hands. “Stay.” She whispered the final word, her face now close enough to Free’s that she could feel the others breath on her lips. And with a final moment of courage she asked for what she had truly wanted for so long. “Stay, and be mine.” She held Free there for a moment, before suddenly the other girl pushed forward, sealing the gap between them as her lips touched Lux’s. And the whole world seemed to explode in Light, so bright that it shone through even the black cloth of Lux’s under-armour clothes. Free pulled back slightly, eliciting a slight whine from Lux who reopened her eyes and saw the other staring at her with unadulterated awe. “Alright Blondie. I… I’ll stay.” A cheeky grin found its way onto her lips as she asked, “Does this count as part of my reward?” Before she kissed Lux again.

The two spent longer than Lux realised standing in the middle of Free’s tent, talking and kissing. The glow of Free’s torches and Lux’s magic prevented them from noticing as night fully fell. They finally spoke about some of the shadows that had stood in their conversations in the sewers. Lux telling Free bits and pieces about her family. While Free shared her own disastrous flight from Piltover in a stolen airship that had ended up falling into the forest just outside of Terbisia. “So Blondie…” Free started, interrupting what had been another long and languid kiss, “It’s getting kind of late. And it’s probably too dark for you to get home safely…” Free looked at Lux with a gaze that kindled a new kind of warmth, apart from the one that had been suffusing her heart, within her. “Yes,” Lux said, returning the heated gaze. “You’re probably right, but I don’t imagine it would be a problem if I were to return in the morning… Provided you came with me to assure people that no harm had come to me during the night.” Lux knew that Free had promised to stay, but she wanted her to say it again. She wanted to hear from the woman that she would follow Lux back to Terbisia. “Of course Blondie. But we’ll have to make multiple trips, lots to salvage here.” Free responded, slowly closing the gap between their lips once again.

In the end they didn’t make it back to Terbisia until the afternoon. But when Lux arrived with Free at her side and Starfire’s saddlebags full of the inventor's belongings. Nobody seemed to mind her sudden absence. They were all far too excited giving Free their well wishes. And indeed it turned out that many of the newly arrived children had heard about Free’s toys from others and were very excited to place orders with the town's newest inventor. And when the day came to a close after a meal full of laughter and love. The two snuggled together in Lux’s bed, in a room that felt far warmer than it ever had before, in a house that had felt far too large for one. But seemed just the right size for two. Lux finally felt at home sleeping soundly in the arms of her good luck charm.