Chapter Text
It was an overcast day in Piltover, a pleasant midway between the opposites of prevalent sun and pouring rain more commonly found there. The humidity clung to Mel’s skin, and she filled her lungs with a large gulp of moist, lukewarm air. It was a lovely day to be in the market, the weather dictating people’s travel patterns as it always did - she had known it would be the perfect day to go grocery shopping. The weather was not so awful as to leave the marketplace derelict, but was unpredictable enough to deter all except a few laudable souls from coming out of their cozy homes.
The resulting atmosphere was sublime, quiet enough for Mel’s liking, but not so deserted as to make her uneasy. And given the idle chatter of the last few days, that was welcome. For all her political passions, she was not partial to the vacuous gossip.
She rid the damp air from her lungs in a long, flowing exhale, eyes drifting over a collection of appealing silver jewellery that was glimmering on the window display. Window-shopping, she found, was an excellent way to pass as the time whilst Elora weaved her way through the market, working her haggling magic on the desperately susceptible stall owners with families at home. Mel liked shopping with her serving-girl. It wasn’t the typical activity for such a relationship, but they had been through thick and thin together, those two, and so it seemed only appropriate to instantiate some sort of equality between them.
She was only just beginning to reminisce about their ventures together, when some clamour, some shrill screech and clatter of heavy boots, detracted her attention to something else entirely. She turned around, just in time to see a flash of blue and a small army of Enforcers storming past her, overwhelming her field of vision before careening down the next street.
There’s some trouble here, she thought, and such is in the nature of humans for peril to evoke intrigue, that compelled her to follow after them.
There were two types of responses people had to such things: to foolishly and wilfully ignore it, or to flounce and gawk after it like baseless lemmings. She liked to think she was above both; still a bystander, but not an ignorant one.
She wandered after the flock, hovering on the outskirts with disinterested side-eyes. She cared not for the Enforcers. They were all the same, aimless brutes just trying to do their job. But their target…that intrigued her. Granted, it was far out of her sight in the mass of leeches, but she would get a glimpse of it soon enough, see the subject of all this fuss. She wondered if this was the same blue-haired terrorist that been stimulating disquiet in the council chamber for days, rumours kept sequestered away from the public eye so as not to overshadow the advancement of Hextech.
The stories went that the youngling had caused a devastating explosion over the river, the same day as the Hextech breakthrough. It was believed there was a connection. The nymph had initially been discovered by Undercity waifs, but she had fled. The louts had chased her to the bridge before ceasing - she’d been a Piltovian nuisance ever since.
The tales differed slightly in places (as is the con of gossip) but the primary aspects were the same. One day, the mention of a sister had flitted around, but the new sheriff had snatched and buried that notion before it could gain any headway, and the next day no one mentioned it again.
Mel liked being on the outlier of it all, much like now, skirting along the edges of groups and ingratiating herself into the conversation. Present but invisible. It gave her all the information, flung it into the palm of her hand to toy with as needed.
And it was worth it.
Astutely, she observed on the horizon the flicker of blue zipping down an alleyway. The Enforcers (foolhardy puppets at best, she thought), in their clamouring, disgruntled state, grew bemused and floundered off in completely the wrong direction. Mel watched them dissipate, and shook her head, her body leading her to the alley where the imp had hid itself.
How funny, she thought, amusing herself with a painted image of what was about to happen, that I’m about to do your job for you. Little old me finding a criminal, all by myself. Mother would be proud.
With a section of well-placed optimism, she set her hand on the crux of the wall, rounded the corner and found-
A child?
Yes. Concealed in the darkest shadows of the alleyway, there was a small girl. A small, shivering, sobbing girl.
All this fuss over a small girl!, Mel thought incredulously. All that bother, urgency, and brutality over this trembling heap of suffering!
Seized by some unplaceable sensation in the crook of her heart, she tentatively stepped forward. After all, a child was lost and afraid, and what sort of responsible adult would she be if she didn’t make sure a child was safe? With that in mind, she tiptoed toward the child with mature confidence.
In the overcast lighting, walls towering either side of Mel, the world was coloured in a shade of light grey. Her noise cringed as she entered the realm of dank smells, dingy trash crunching under her fine feet. That will spoil my shoes. Somewhere, there was a dripping sound, as thick liquid of questionable contents pattered onto the concrete, mingling with the fellow puddles of mud. Dirt floated through the air, the sparing light of the grey scintillating off the particles, so that Mel could see each exact one as it drifted past her vision. From the furthest end, meek sobs wafted up into the atmosphere and resounded of the steel walls, tainting the aura with sorrow.
Mel approached, though her stomach twisted with regret the further she delved. Each fresh sob greeted her ears with renewed vigour, each of her steps inching her closer and closer to the dark where the child resided. A form took shape. She could now pinpoint a rugged shirt, torn and about ready to be discarded; a scuffed pair of maroon boots; trousers wet and seeped through with a shameful amount of water.
Blue hair.
Oh.
Oh.
This one?, her inner voice cried, pitch growing as the ludicrousness became more and more apparent. This one, the terrorist?! This one, the nuisance?! This one, the parasite?!
She found it hard to believe, to say the very least. Yet here she was, and the description fit, and the business was not hers. Her conscience wrangled with pragmatics, but what was the worst they could do to a child?
A lot, actually, and you know it.
Marching children, pale as death, chained in Noxian red...
No. Piltover wasn't like Noxus, and this wasn't her affair.
More stinging memories.
"Keep your noise out of other people's business, child..."
She was a millisecond away from calling for further assistance, when the foetal ball let out a heart-wrenching shriek of grief.
"Violet!" the creature wailed. "Please..."
Well, that changes things, Mel thought. Unbeknownst to her, she'd been seized by an unprecedented but miniscule maternal twang that clouded her better judgement. It threw her for a loop, doing a dramatic circle before rounding back to the present with an altered perspective. So, there is a sister, she identified, judging by the mournfully familial tone of the shriek. She would know. It was with that same tone that she used to call for her mother.
But enough of that.
So, there is a sister. Marcus kept that quiet, she thought grimly.
What else does Marcus keep quiet?
She reserved that thought-spiral to a different spot in her head for now, saving it for later and concentrating on the task at hand. If there was a sister, the girl didn't have to go to the Enforcers. Mel could take her back home. It might be a hassle, but she was rich, and Enforcers spineless at best - it was doable. More significantly, it would spare the poor child the probability of suffering at any level Mel had seen convicted Noxian children suffer.
As Mel inclined her upper body forward, the maternal twang throbbed inside her.
"Hello, little girl," she greeted, voice rich and full of cream. "Come, come, let's see that pretty face."
The face wasn't pretty. The face was nowhere near pretty. The face was coated in filth punctuated by rivelets of tears, cheeks smeared with snot, and from the nose to the quavering upper lip Mel discerned a trickle of bronzed, dried blood. But the eyes were pretty, gorgeous deep, grey pools with flecks of speckled blue, that Mel stupidly thought she would love to paint some day.
"There you are," Mel crooned. "You look lost, little one. Let me take you home. Tell me, where is your sister?"
Then the girl's face filled with despondency, and Mel found herself for the first time at a loss. It was discomfiting, perturbing, all at once frightening.
And as those wide eyes pierced her soul, she considered if she should just let it alone. She was not so brimming with love, and this child clearly needed more than she could give. She really oughtn't to bring herself trouble. This was not her forte, not her place, not within the boundaries of the comfort zone she had built around herself since her exile. She had no maternal instincts, and for a dreaded moment she reconsidered whether she should just turn the girl in and be done with it.
And then the child leapt forth and latched onto her waist, knocking her to the ground.
Well.
“She left me…” the child whimpered. “She’s not my sister anymore…”
Ah.
Even in the dark of the alley, a pinch of sun peeked through the clouds and sent a strip down Mel’s face. There was that maternal twang again, stronger and more vehement than ever. Mud splattered her pure white skirt. Snot and-yes, that’s definitely blood-dribbled from the girl’s nose, seeped into Mel’s torso, staining the silky fabric, and she didn’t care. She didn’t care one bit.
This girl had been left. Excluded. Abandoned and made loveless, and alone. It was hardly a universal parallel, but Mel couldn’t help feeling the startling familiarity to it, as though her facade had been poked by a spark and was now gradually disintegrating to ash. Something deep inside had been called out by a war horn, roused from its dormancy to reenter the world blinking blearily, squinting at the splashes of sun.
She left you, did she?, her brain voiced, free from her self-inflicted restraint. She left me, too.
But the ‘she’ was not Violet to Mel, not by a mile.
This girl had been left. Exiled. Abandoned and made loveless, and alone. Right now, a bitter wind would break her brittle bones in two. The child probably felt she would never love again. Whatever shrivelled seed of love was left would blossom in time, but it would never be the flourishing gardenia it used to be.
Will I nurture you? Will I grow you better than anyone else has?
Mel had had no one to nurture her, she’d done that herself. Been plucked out of the flower bed and plopped into the desert, and survived all the same. The gardener was gone. The gardener had loved her to her best, but the gardeners’ best was not enough, not for either of them.
I’ll love you better, she concluded. I’ll love you better than either of them ever have.
Mel placed a hand on the child’s heaving back, the other landing in much the same place, the result something between a genuine hug and a mandatory embrace.
”It’s alright,” Mel cooed, glad to hear her voice sounded levelled and controlled despite her inner turmoil. In the near-distance, strident footsteps could be heard thundering away. “Now, hush, we can’t let them find you.”
The girl did not - could not - stop crying, but reduced her racking sobs to acute weeps. It was lucky that the whimpers she couldn’t suppress were muffled in Mel’s dress; she listened anxiously as the footsteps grew louder and louder, hollers starting to echo through the air, then decreased in volume as they trooped lazily away (never the assiduous ones, Mel thought), off to prance after some other incoherent lead.
“They’re gone,” Mel soothed, rubbing circles into the trembling child. “You’re safe now. They can’t find you. You are safe.”
There was an inkling of a nod into the silk. Attentively, Mel tried to get up on her feet.
”Arms up,” she commanded, feeling instantly more weightless when the girl’s arms snaked around her neck. Mel repositioned accordingly, hooking one arm under the child’s legs as the other supported her back.
She needed to get the girl indoors. She would take the backroads, she decided. Four years of exile had ensured that she knew Piltover like the back of her hand, knew every nook and cranny like it was her own home.
She would wait for Elora at the secret entrance to the marketplace. Her serving-girl would be looking for her by now, and Mel could take a rest in the meantime. Any child, even a feeble child, was heavy to carry.
As she walked, Mel added a lulling sway to her gait. The girl’s head was buried in the crook of her neck, and Mel could feel the cold streamlets of tears gushing down her neck and into the fabric; it was the least she could do to try cheer the poor thing up.
It wasn’t long before Mel found herself inclining against the secluded wall, the prattle from the marketplace crawling over to meet her ears. She could even make out a few silhouettes meandering past the alley, and she was certain one of those would eventually be Elora. The pair had known each other long enough that the serving-girl knew where to look when her mistress went astray, and this place was one of them.
Surprisingly, Elora didn’t come from the direction Mel anticipated, but from the side.
”Madam, there you are!” she chirped, making Mel start and twist her head toward the voice. “I was wandering where…” she trailed off, and Mel watched her face contort into the shape of apprehensive confusion. ”…who…who is this?”
”I’m not quite sure, Elora,” Mel admitted, hoisting the girl up a little higher as fatigued arms began to slip. “Let’s get home, shall we?”
The nonchalance of Mel’s sentences, meant to calm the woman, only stunned her further. Shopping baskets rattled in Elora’s occupied arms, and she stepped backward and forward nervously as Mel made to leave.
”Madam, she looks heavy,” she burst out timorously. “I can take her?”
Tiny fingers tightened around Mel’s neck with remarkable force.
”No, that’s alright, Elora. I can manage.” Her eyes moved over arms debilitated by groceries, and then, by some mystical instinct, landed on the child.
Again, the eyes spoke to her soul. They peered at her earnestly through the fabric, tucked into her shoulder, and Mel could swear the grey was turning into blue.
Don’t leave me, the eyes pleaded.
”Besides, I think she has a favourite,” she said consolingly, brushing a hair off of the girl’s face.