"Mrs Talis!"

Ximena Talis was an older woman, of a tired, feeble heart. Tragedy had befallen her life more times than she could count, coming in all sorts of guises.

Not that she was ever one to complain. Too many good people had it far worse, and suffered greater feats.

But that anxiety, foreboding of tragedy, was a familiar ache in her chest. It held a designated spot in her ribcage, lodged somewhere between her lungs.

So, as she stood outside the Grand Council chamber, the feeling did not feel foreign. Still, she struggled to welcome it as an old friend, even after all those years.

Ximena heard the news from a disgruntled, unkind-looking officer, who came banging on her door earlier that afternoon. The man spat the grave words out in such quick succession, that it was hard to process them at first. And he did not care to stick around to witness the damage his delivery did to her.

The way her face had paled, her knees shook once, sending her staggering sideways, where she barely managed to catch herself on the mahogany door. Lips releasing a singular, breathless, "Oh..."

Your son.

Explosion.

Arrested.

Wide eyes watching the floor, as the officer retreated down the street he had come from — simply turned on his heels and marched away.

Places to be, laws to enforce.

No time to elaborate.

Be there at six.

That tired, feeble heart, had shuddered a moment later. Understanding kicking into the pits of her stomach harsher than a foot ever could.

Panic.

Pure, unadulterated, horror striking her system, with a force so potent and violent that her mind, an organ with its human limitations, went completely blank.

The next few hours passed in a daze.

And she barely remembered the walk over to the tall, golden Council building.

Her thoughts swirled, with basic but pressing questions that no one seemed able to answer.

Was her son hurt?

Was he bloodied, splattered on a slab somewhere, on the cold floor of a prison cell?

Was her Jayce alive?

Ximena clutched her hands close to her chest. Limbs feeling uncoordinated and weak. The two prosthetic fingers seemed to be the only ones still retaining their ability to tremble. The rest of her body had failed her long ago, and she knew she was visibly swaying on her feet as she stood by the marble columns framing the grand chamber doors.

Truly, it was a pain and fear only known to a mother.

Or, on the rare occasion, to a friend.

When the call of her name echoed in the suffocatingly warm interior, Ximena somewhat staggered out of her haze. Hesitant eyes tottering sideways, disorientated.

A large crowd, thick and bulbous, was beginning to flood the extensive hall, curious town folk —who would not pass up such gossip even for money worthy of royalty— leisurely rolling into the direction of the trial.

Amongst them, the mother spied a distinctly familiar view. A bundle of white curls, weaving urgently through the mass of people, into her direction.

And that tired, feeble heart relaxed then, if only by just a fraction.

"Lyra." Ximena breathed, as the young student floundered out of the myriad of bodies, staggering inelegantly into the spot in front of her.

The silver-head straightened, chest rising unsteadily, hair disarrayed, baggy eyes just as frantic and terrified as Ximena's own. But Lyra was still young — so the agitation on her face screamed with the cacophony of a doomsday, loud and transparent for all to see. While Ximena's was private, concealed, moving inside her like an ocean in a terrible storm.

Still, the two women understood one another.

They shared the same guttural fear.

Lyra wasted less than a second before she leapt forth to envelop the elder into a hug. Arms flailing around her, engulfing the small frame into tight, compassionate limbs. A gesture which the mother reciprocated in full, her shaky hands reaching to hold at the wrinkled vest on the younger's back.

They stood there, amongst the arising bustling of people, in their own quiet mourning. Heartbeats beating uncomfortably, thoughts swimming with a speed that even the embrace was unable to suppress.

It was needed. It helped, if only just a little.

"Do you know what happened?" Ximena asked quietly when the two finally parted.

The younger nodded, teeth sinking momentarily to fiddle once again with her dry, half-skinned lower lip.

"There was an explosion. But Jayce is alright, he was not harmed. It was not him that caused it. The enforcers know it was a break-in."

Ximena pressed her hands a little tighter to her chest, and her eyes flickered minimally, towards the direction of the Council doors. "Then—Why...?"

"There were—" Lyra swallowed, uneasily, "Unsanctioned items, in his lab."

The older woman blinked, and a moment of apprehensive silence downed between them. Her gaze slipped downwards, mind wrestling to assimilate the information she was given. Looping repeatedly over the three, key notions:

My son.

Unsanctioned items.

Not harmed.

"I see." Ximena muttered then, a quiet, shaky thing. When her attention rose to the taller student, she saw Lyra watching her.

Stood still, patient.

Ever respectful, ever polite.

But her figure was hunched, her attire a mess, desperate brown irises shifting sporadically across the woman's countenance in searching calculation. Breath held, looking like she was practically hanging off her every word and reaction.

Lyra was rarely one to show worry. She experienced it quite frequently, living in a state of constant anxiety on a daily basis. But it was one thing enduring it on account of her own thoughtlessness, and another being subjected to it because of circumstances forced onto others.

Lyra certainly was not one to agonise over herself, and herself was all she had at the best of times. There were very few people in her life who she willingly sought out. Very few whom her affections, sterling and sincere, extended to. That's what she thought, at least, and was very much content to live with the lie.

But Jayce was her friend.

Just like Caitlyn, Heimerdinger, the Kirammans. They were few, but very dear to her. Immeasurably so. Ximena, was part of that scarce demographic. 

Of those, she would do quite literally anything for.

So when she saw the mother oscillating on her weak knees upon arrival, that unparalleled fear her old features were etched with, and the shaking of her limbs, Lyra got the very startling, very concrete, and Zaunite desire to see Piltover burn.

She was one second away from storming into the Council Chamber, and single-handedly wreaking the wretched join to rumble. Fuck etiquette, reputation, and her life Topside, she'd smash those marble columns into dust and destroy the whole damn building if it meant Jayce was safe, and Ximena was fine. She was sleep-deprived enough to do exactly that, feeling the liquid in her veins begin to accelerate its flowing for the third time that day.

But she stayed put.

Waiting, for a command, or a sign, any kind of movement from the older woman.

When, at last, Ximena moved, however, it was to smile. Before she pulled the student into a tight, warm embrace.

Lyra's tension, her shoulders and extreme thoughts, fell away immediately.

And she suddenly realised, she just wanted to cry.

"Thank goodness, he's safe." The mother muttered softly into her shoulder, as Lyra wrapped tighter against her smaller, frailer form. "My boy is alright."

That familiar guilt booted the student in the stomach. And she buried her face into the soft cotton of Ximena's dress a fraction more, in an attempt to hide the way her eyes squeezed forcibly shut at the ricochetting voices now gavotting aimlessly in her mind.

Pathetic.

She just wanted to cry.

And that was precisely what almost happened, when Ximena pulled back, and, in a surprising motion, reached up to cradle the student's cheeks into her palms.

Lyra flinched.

A movement that was minimal, unintentional, and inwardly embarrassed her thoroughly. She was very aware that physical contact was not something that came easy to her. Initiating it, was fine. But after all that happened in her distant past, this kind of unexpected tenderness was difficult to digest.

Truly, it was understandable why it startled her. If not even made her a little uneasy.

But Ximena was looking at her so affectionally. So soft, so gentle. As if she were the Sun and the stars combined.

And it struck Lyra, with instant and brutal force, that this was how her own mother used to look at her once, a long time ago.

Her heart skipped a painful beat. Before it was gripped into such a painful hold, that she had to force herself to fight back the salty stinging surging in her throat. An alert, that her efforts not to cry were about to be wasteful.

So she took a long, silent inhale.

Steading herself.

Marred gaze calming as she watched the shorter woman carefully scanning her features, with barely visible tears of her own.

"How are you, my dear?" Ximena smiled sweetly, wrinkled face lined with motherly care.

"I'm tired." Lyra murmured, attempting a smile. Though her voice betrayed the choked emotion behind it, coming out as miserably pitiful.

The older looked on with worry, careful fingers coming to brush through the tangled curls on Lyra's forehead, before tucking them delicately behind her ear. "Have you been sleeping?" She asked, and the student released a single, half-hearted snort.

"Sleeping doesn't help."

Ximena smiled a fraction further. "I know what you mean."

It was that sadness in the older's voice that physically pained Lyra.

So even when at last, she reached to gently pry the fingers off her skin, she still held them tightly, within her own.

"Please, do not worry." Lyra spoke with conviction, expression resolute. "This is all simply procedure. Jayce will be fine."

I'll make sure of it.

The mother smiled wider then, and nodded.

Even as they started towards the Council doors, with Ximena's hand cradled into the crook of her elbow, Lyra was aware of the tears swimming behind the woman's eyes.

||

The sight of the grandiose room was not new to the student. Heimerdinger had taken her there several times, during her childhood. Still, it was not a place she liked. And she was sure the Professor had come to understand that fairly quickly, prompting those visits to cease.

Something about the interior made her skin crawl. A feeling that was very much present now, but had quadrupled in size due to the current circumstances.

Supporting Ximena's weight on her own, Lyra directed them towards the right side of the hallway, where most people had gathered closer to the circular area designated to the politicians.

Of course, the Grand Chamber had no seating for the public.

It was not a luxury they would ever be willing to provide.

After all, "Commoners have no place in political matters", she remembered Councillor Salo utter once.

It was a long time ago, when Lyra was still very young. On one of the first outings the Professor had taken her, to watch the unfolding of a private trial. And little Lyra had listened on, from her stool in the corner of the room, as that sentence fled the blond's mouth while he lounged carelessly in his seat, picking at the dingo nuts in his purse.

That day, she had spent time thanking all the gods of Runaterra individually, that nature had built her with some crumbles of self-restraint. Otherwise, instead of her juvenile silence, the evening would have panned out very differently.

So they were forced to stand, pressed against one another like sheep in a stable, cramped in smothering unease.

Disgraceful.

This was the land of equality and innovation.

It made Lyra furious. Having to watch as the older mother struggled to fit her weak, swaying form into the discontented crowd. People throwing foul looks at her back, as her trembling legs uneasily routed her amidst the front lines of the spectators. Ximena did not notice their judgmental stares. Nor did she hear their mutters of distaste, as they shuffled sideways after brief seconds of forceful resistance. She was staring downward, leaning carefully onto the student's arm in her pensive state.

Lyra, on the other hand, saw it all.

The way they sneered and scowled, how they scanned the older's less flashier attire with derision. Before leaning to their companions and silently whispering offences.

Lyra's knuckles itched.

And she was happy, so gruesomely ecstatic, to meet any of those gazes that ended up slipping by accident towards her own.

The look she gave the unfortunate souls, was beyond savage. Staring them down with unhinged, slack eyes, paired with a small, prompting smile.

Try it.

Just you fucking try it.

They absolutely did not. Instead, most flinched, flushed minimally, and looked away immediately. Shifting sideways in a matter of seconds, some even going as far as moving to the back of the section.

Lyra did not know why that made her chest brim with intoxicating, addicting satisfaction. But it did.

One particular, moronic individual, had not been as compliant. When Lyra stepped into the spot next to Ximena, the man scoffed, loudly, in an obnoxious manner.

"Hey, you mind? It's my spot."

"We're the defendant's family." Lyra responded calmly, not deigning him with a look. Instead, busying herself with shifting the elder's hand snugly onto her arm, so that Ximena had somewhere to lean on more comfortably for the duration of the trial.

The student physically felt the stranger leer at her back.

"So?"

Lyra did turn around then. Head travelling in a whole hundred-and-eighty snap in a manner that was scarcely natural. The man did not know if he startled at that, or at the way her mane of hair seemed to struggle to follow the fast movement, delayed in its response.

Most likely, he cowered because of those wide, near pupil-less eyes, the scathing grin, and the way she snarled her next words.

"So — back off."

Her attention was gone as quickly as it had appeared. And the man was left standing, still, blinking in shock at nothing specific.

Eventually, he sneered, silently, to himself. While a voice of reason in his head suggested that this spot wasn't all that great anyways, and in fact, he'd be much better off on the opposite side of the room. For the acoustics, and all that.

So he moved. But as he walked, he did not dare dwell on why that voice in his head had been quite so hasty, and quite so stuttering.

Meanwhile, content in her now unobstructed place, Lyra busied herself with brushing back her hair and smoothening the wrinkles on her clothes with her unoccupied hand. An attempt to make herself presentable, before the trial commenced. To regain some semblance of control.

She felt a set of eyes on her.

And her gaze flickered sideways, arm pausing mid-toil.

Lyra blinked in confusion.

Because she found Ximena giving her the look.

Quiet, stern, and pointed.

The picture-painted, displeased mother.

Lyra's hand dropped, and she gulped uneasily, gaze automatically sliding down to her feet.

Alright, yes, okay, sure.

She had been rude.

She behaved a tad too rashly due to her nerves, and should have been more graceful at handling the man...

But he deserved it.

All of them did.

Still, she found herself feeling very much like a scolded child under the scrutiny of Ximena's attention.

"I asked nicely." Lyra grumbled quietly, in her defence, frowning grumpily at her boots.

And the image was so comical that the mother could not help herself. A soft, quiet laugh rippled through her lips. The student peered her way tentatively, through downcast, guilty eyes. However, her attempts to question the woman were silenced, as she stumbled to a mute pause when Ximena reached to squeeze Lyra's fingers a moment later, with genuine affection.

Suddenly, the student was struck with the image that was the older woman. The way she was chuckling silently to herself, head shaking lightly in amused disbelief, hand patting Lyra's own.

It was such a simple gesture.

But that smile, the way her skin crinkled slightly at every corner. It was unmistakable.

It was Jayce.

His own laughs, barely contained snickers, as he watched Lyra's more brazen, explosive behaviour time and time again. The way he'd clap her on the shoulder while they giggled, and snorted their way through a lighthearted afternoon.

That could all be gone now.

It could be taken away.

Against her better wishes, the remainder of the whole ordeal came rushing back to her full speed, and Lyra's heart dropped completely. Anxiety wrestled yet again with the tubes of her guts, stabbing at her stomach in a way that made her sick.

Gods, she hoped he was okay.

She'd ensured Caitlyn was, in the hours leading up to the trial. After she'd forced herself out of the dusty broom closet, and staggered all the way to her room. Scribbling a hasty note, before rushing to get it sent to the Kiramman household.

The next hours were spent pacing. Erratically, without a purpose. She did not sit down once. Only moved to grapple the blue cravat off her neck, before tossing it aside. Working the first few buttons of her shirt open in such hasty spasms that she tore two of them off completely, and they went clacking against the floorboards. Then, she walked, circle after circle, loop after loop, so much that her shoes engraved permanent footprints into the papers scattered on her floor. Her mind was racing, as her fingers assaulted the skin of her arms, —scratching, gnawing— then her scalp —pulling, knotting— and finally her lips, which she picked at continuously. Her thoughts scurried. But they sped with such velocity that she could not have understood what she was truly thinking even if she really tried.

The reply to her telegram came when Lyra was just about to leave for the trial. The young delivery man rushed off without a glance back, and she was glad for it, because she tore into the envelope as quickly as her broken nails allowed her, in a manner that was far from elegant in respectable society.

Caitlyn was fine. She had not been hurt. She had spoken to Cassandra and convinced her to help Jayce at the trial.

So the odds were in their favour.

Then why, did she continue to feel so utterly hopeless? 

Lyra was startled back into the present by an abrasive shift above her. Gaze flickering upwards, she saw the blinds on the mosaicked, glass roof start dragging leisurely closed. Her eyes shot down, to her right. Sure enough, all Council members were present now. She could see Cassandra, swiping through her notes. Hoskel, fidgeting with a new gadget opposite her. And her mentor, at the very head, sat next to Councillor Medarda.

Her head spun to her left when she heard the murmurs increase.

And there he was — walking quietly in front of Grayson, with his head held low. Handcuffed, solemn, and utterly silent.

On any other day, Lyra would have teased him to death over the notion. Right now, she was ready to blow the building to shreds if it meant he was out of peril's way.

She gulped down the knot forming at the back of her throat. Just as Ximena's hand tightened against the sleeve of her shirt. The student reached to squeeze it in an equal hold, watching the older as he ascended the hall, coming closer and closer in their direction.

Lyra forced her attention firmly on Jayce, so that she wouldn't miss even a fraction of his look if he chose to throw one their way.

He did.

Their eyes met, but only briefly.

For a second, in which Lyra managed to spy a small new cut on his right cheek.

He looked away immediately, with little to no emotion. Blinking blankly, at the pavement before him as he walked.

Lyra gulped.

Anxiety tumbled over her like a bucket of gelid water. Wet, biting her down to the bone.

Was he...

Was he angry at her?

Her stare mindlessly shifted sideways, hand clutching a little more at Ximena's in the crook of her elbow.

She felt nauseous. Her fears were slowly being confirmed.

She had fucked this up.

Again.

Another friendship, gone.

Because of her stupidity.

Her mind began to reel. But she caught it in time, and forced it to stop.

No.

Her feelings did not matter now.

All that mattered, was that Jayce got out of this.

This was about him, and him only.

She could deal with her personal issues later.

With these thoughts clear in her head, the student observed, absently, as shadows licked at the road he'd paved with his footsteps. Gradually working on enveloping the Grand Council Chamber into complete darkness. As her eyes rose, though, resolute on returning to Jayce's back, they ended up being subjected to an entirely different fate.

Hauled, accidentally, but quite concretely, into a pair of glimmering, golden ones.

That orange hue glinted at her from the obscured section, on the opposite side of the empty passageway. And Lyra was ashamed to say, that the sight of the way shadows hugged and laced around his angular frame, made her mouth go dangerously dry.

He gave her a soft, acknowledging nod.

She staggered to reciprocate it, cordial, stone-faced. But her brain suddenly felt a little too blank for her own good.

He looked away then.

So, she did too.

And then the room plummeted into complete darkness, and the trial commenced.

"Jayce Talis. You are accused of illegal experimentation and endangering the citizens of Piltover. What do you have to say for yourself?"

I endangered people.

It was reckless.

I'm sorry.

Lyra's eyes flickered to Heimerdinger, briefly. Somehow, she knew he had a hand in Jayce's public repenting. And for that, she was infinitely grateful.

All that mattered, was that Jayce kept quiet. As long as he did not mention magic, all would go well. He would be returned to them, safely. Not expelled, nor banished.

They could resume their lives. Bickering in the courtyard, laughing in the cafeteria, teasing each other over nothing important in the slightest. Gods knew, she was ready to buy him as much fish tartare as he craved after this whole ordeal.

All this, all the fond times, they could have back.

As long as he kept his ego in check.

Her heart was in her throat when Cassandra spoke. When Hoskel interjected.

But then it came to Councillor Medarda.

And it was with that one sentence, that Lyra knew their normality would never reign again.

"So you're saying your study was meaningless?"

"It was revolutionary!"

"Revolutionary how? All I see is a boy meddling with things he doesn't understand."

They prodded. Each word cutting. And Lyra watched in slowly engulfing horror, as each prompt weaved its way deeper and deeper into him.

"The Academy seems to have loosened its standards."

"This is a fine line. If we condone this, what's next?"

"Ridiculous, really."

"The Council has more important matters to deal with."

Stay quiet.

Just stay quiet.

Do not react.

Please.

You cannot—

"I was trying to create magic!"

Lyra's breathing stopped.

The silence the entire Council Chamber plummeted into pulsated loudly in her ears, with a screeching noise that whirred in the cavities of her skull. And she blinked, and struggled, attempting desperately to control the volume of her own short, quick, frantic gulps of air.

Her fingers steeled against Ximena's. Just as much as the mother's did on her arm.

"Magic?" Hoskel scoffed, in disbelief.

"Arcane powers are something you're born with. They can't be... fabricated." Councillor Shoola reasoned, her words calculated, rolling easily along the leisurely clicking of her sharp, golden nails.

Lyra was struggling to stay tuned into the conversation. Her panic was overwhelming. But she forced herself to concentrate. To listen to their words, instead of her screaming voices.

Focus.

"The Arcane is the curse of our world." Bolbok ground, mechanically. "My race, was nearly destroyed by it."

"Surely, we, the pioneers of science, can use it for good! We're the champions of discovery! Why fear it, when we can master it?"

Just shut up.

"Jayce, enough." Heimerdinger echoed her inner monologue.

"This is the city of progress. Think of the wonders we could create! Let me prove—"

"Enough!"

Jayce visibly flinched. So did Lyra.

The knot in her throat was suffocating. Her teeth paused their assault on her trembling lower lip, and she watched as her mentor frowned at her only friend.

"You don't understand what's at stake. But how can you? That's a burden that only I, here, carry. Time. I've seen this power in the wrong hands. It corrupts. Consumes. Lays waste to civilisations. That cannot happen here, my boy. It must not."

"Heimerdinger is right. Piltover was founded to escape the warmongering of mages. Not— cultivate it."

"The ethos is clear. He must be banished from Piltover."

And with that, Lyra was unable to stand still.

Brain aflame, all thoughts blanking, legs telling her to move, go, forward, now. Impulse taking over any semblance of rationality and reason, propelling her off her spot.

She went to spring forth, into the light, towards Jayce's side.

But never quite managed to make it far.

Long, nimble fingers, captured three of her own, tugging gently at the middle one. Softly, but securely pulling her back. The hold was scarcely there. It hovered, faintly touching her skin. But she felt it, nonetheless.

Her head snapped sideways, eyes wrestling to blink away the panicked tears that had started gathering there without her consciously realising it.

Somewhere at the back of her mind, she was surprised he had made his way over. Questions of how long he had been standing by her, when that had happened, and why, swarmed her brain. Though, they were very distant voices, silenced by the uncomfortable tightness her lungs had become constricted with at the sight of those stern, amber irises.

He was silent, leaning onto his cane in a way that put space between them. But she noticed —after a second of straining her vision— that he was watching her closely, out of the corner of his eye. His lips twisted minimally at the corner, and golden streaks glinted in the shadows of the dark Council Chamber.

Before he gave her one, barely detectable shake of his head.

Do not.

Lyra scowled, openly, with vigour, and irrational, fierce anger surged through her once again. She went to snatch her hand, and hiss a blistering insult, (one, two, seventy, she did not care how many) into his face. Because who was he, to stop her from doing this? From stepping up, and fighting for her friend? He knew nothing of her, of the person she was now. And she would have been damned if she let his recent intrusion in her life change the way she felt about anything. About him, about Jayce, about her family, and her position Topside. 

However, before she could truly do much, she became suddenly aware that the crook of her elbow felt decidedly empty.

And that Ximena's hand had disappeared.

"Please let me speak!"

Viktor was forgotten in an instant, and Lyra thypooned so quickly on herself that she barely managed to stay upright. Her breathing hitched. And she watched as a humble, tentative Ximena stepped towards the singular beam of white light that basked Jayce's form.

"As a lower house, my voice doesn't carry much weight here. But as a mother... I have a voice that matters deeply. My son isn't in his right mind. His entire life he's chased an impossible dream. What he did was foolish, a-and unwise. But he has a good heart. Please. Let him come home."

"A crime like this can't be overlooked. The boy must be punished."

Without truly meaning to, Lyra made eye contact with her mentor. And oh, what a state she must have looked. Her hair splayed wildly around her, looking as if she had walked miles in a rainforest. Expression frozen, desperate, on the verge of breaking. Knees fighting not to buckle under her weight.

Heimerdinger looked away.

But the crease astride his brows deepened.

And, after a momentary pause, he spoke. "A violation of the ethos calls for banishment. But I can sympathise with a young man's dream to change the world. Perhaps, in this matter, a lesser sentence may suffice. I move that Jayce be summarily expelled from the Academy. And remanded to the care of his parents. All those in favour?"

Four votes out of six.

It meant Jayce could go home.

"But he is never to set foot on Academy grounds again."

The verdict was final.

The roof began rolling open.

Slowly, the unrested crowd started moving to disperse.

Yet Lyra stayed frozen in her spot.

Watching as Ximena carefully walked up to a head-hung Jayce. As she hesitantly laid a delicate hand on his back, and whispered to him softly, quietly. Lyra could not make out what she said. But her heart pressed with uncomfortable tautness when the boy's shoulders sagged completely. His back curved, and after a second of hesitation, he nodded, absently to his mother.

So they turned, and started gradually towards the main doors. Ximena's palm refusing to leave her son's shoulder, the other holding him up gently by the forearm.

They looked at Lyra as they passed. Ximena gave her a soft, fleeting, but reassuring smile, and Lyra took it as a prompt, her queue to move towards them at once.

When she caught Jayce's eye, she stopped her attempts immediately.

The boy gazed at her with purpose, intentional,  firm. Before his irises skimmed minimally, into the direction behind him. There, where Heimerdinger was watching him leave. Along with Cassandra, and the other apprehensive members of the Council.

Wretched confusion distorted Lyra's features.

He doesn't want me around anymore.

This is through.

I've colossally screwed up—

His look, expression, and overall stance softened. As if he perceived the turmoiled state of her mind. And he gave her a barely detectable, fractional shake his head.

Please, don't, his stare pleaded.

Lyra's mouth clapped shut. And she blinked, once.

Twice.

She swallowed, heavily.

She wanted to cry.

Break something, and then fall and sob.

Instead, Lyra stood, dragging uneven breaths through her nostrils, watching as the pair disappeared down the hall and out of the Grand Council Chamber. Mind ablaze with abhorred thoughts, fingers twitching as they dangled motionlessly by her sides.

At one point, she spotted Heimerdinger leaving, and meant to follow. But even when she commanded, and begged her feet to move, they would not.

She remained there, vision pointed downward, as the crowd slowly drained out of the room. The Council members vacated, the low whispering tones of the bustling ceased. And every problem in the world faded away.

Lyra was alone.

Staring blankly at the sunlit marble that shimmered under her Academy boots.

Frame solid.

Breathing missing beats.

Her unkempt, sloppily entwined curls obscuring her face with the shadows she desperately wished to crawl into.

The only small, barely visible movement her body was unable to suppress, was the increasing quivering of her lower lip. She could not even muster enough strength to bite it into submission.

After a moment, hesitant and slow, she let her mouth part. "Why did you stop me?"

She wasn't angry.

Not nearly as much as she wanted to be.

All she felt, was a little too much awareness of the stinging bile at the back of her throat. Maybe that was why her voice came out that strained.

"I could've—"

"Done what, exactly?" Viktor was still in the same spot, right beside her. His tone calm, levelled. That accent characteristically soft. However, his voice was void of any decipherable emotion.

Lyra didn't know.

What could she have done?

Ran up there and proclaimed herself a culprit?

To what end?

To help Jayce?

Or to alleviate her own, nauseatingly churning guilt?

Selfish.

The thought punctured through her temple with such force that her whole body toppled sideward, giving her legs the ability to move again.

"Where are you going?" Viktor did not follow her as she walked away, merely watching her back with attentive eyes.

"To speak to Heimerdinger."

"That will not change things."

"It might."

Her feet paused, though.

Knowing deep down, that he was right.

Her body felt hot. And she was very much aware that all her extremities were vibrating with coiling emotion. "I have to do something." She ground through a bruisingly clenched jaw. "I have to try. I can't just—I can't just do nothing."

"There is little you can—"

"He's my friend."

That sentence escaped her. She had not meant to voice it, truly. What more, was that it came out in the form of a broken whisper. Far from her usual uncaring front. Though, at that point, it all scarcely mattered. So Lyra did not even try to stop the spilling outpour that came next.

"My only, friend. The only semblance of a family I have. If I'd just kept my mouth shut... If I'd stayed out of his work... I'm just as responsible for all this as he is. And yet I'm here, and I'm fine." She laughed then, a single, cynical, choked sound. "Because I'm just so goddamn lucky. Because it all turns out well for me regardless."

Lyra did not realise her feet had turned her towards him.

So when she spoke that last sentence, the same one he'd shouted at her in accusation that night he barged into her room in the dead of night, she did not mean to steal a glance his way.

He was silent, having not moved an inch from the position she'd left him in. Leaning on his cane with both hands and watching her unfalteringly.

But for a fraction of a second, when his own words echoed in her mouth, his expression seemed to shift. And she swore that, even though it was only for a fugitive moment, he almost looked pained.

Lyra rolled her attention off him, down to her shoes.

It was all just flashes. So many memories. Jayce waltzing into her classes unannounced, annoying her in the cafeteria. Their signature lunches every first Sunday of the month, his annoying presence orbiting her at every possible occasion.

The way he loved his research. Loved the Academy. His studies.

It was gone now.

And the world just kept moving on.

"It isn't fair." She gritted. "This—it isn't right and I can't just stand here, or go back to my life while he's out there suffering the consequences. I can't do that, I just— Fuck." She choked pathetically, darting her disarrayed, wrinkled sleeves to angrily wipe at the silent streaks of salt now streaming down her cheeks. Sporadically and violently scrubbing at her skin, while doing everything she could to stay mindful, to make sure Viktor did not fully see her state.

Face hidden behind her mane of hair, she turned her back to him fully. Naively hoping, he would not see the shaking of her shoulders, or hear the miserable sniffles she attempted to reign in alongside her rebellious tears.

Fuck's sake.

Get a grip.

Don't cry, not now.

Get a damn grip.

She rubbed at her reddening face with force, mortified and feeling utterly disgraceful. Until her limbs slowed. Gave up. And dropped, soundlessly, back to her sides.

Lyra stood there, with her head hung low, vision unfocused and blurred. Staring at very little, registering even less so.

She heard the sound when it echoed across the Chamber, despite its softness. The place was so vast and bare, that the noise bounced off with ease from the cavities of the vast interior.

The gentle, muffled clinking, came into her direction.

Until it stopped, right beside her, where she knew he could see her face.

Tiredly, face devoid of emotion, she looked up. Dulled eyes shifting into his direction, features hollowed and stained with the grey of faint mascara trails.

She was surprised to find him looking elsewhere, towards the circular seating area. Her mind, buzzing with constant static, had little power to stop her when she found herself trailing mindlessly the curvature of his sharp profile — the arch of his nose, his angle of lips and jaw.

Her more buried, practically entombed thoughts, echoed with one sentence. A faint, whispering appraisal. She refused to acknowledge it that day.

"I will speak to Heimerdinger." He spoke, and she found her eyes widening.

Why would you do that?

Don't.

Please, don't.

You'll make this between us more complicated than it already is.

I can do it myself.

"It may look less... conspicuous." He spoke, watching the distance through a thoughtful frown, one arm held regally behind his back. "Perhaps, something could still be done, but..."

"I know."

Viktor looked at her then. Serious and stone-faced. But there was a concealed softness swimming behind it all, and she almost jumped backwards when she'd thought she detected it. So unaccustomed now to seeing those specific features, brimming with that specific emotion.

Her legs did not allow it. They solidly rooted her into the marble, until all she could do, was stare back blankly, watching in blanched, covertly mesmerised awe as those lips pursed lightly, eyelids fluttered down in consideration, before he fixed his attention fully, devotedly on her.

"I stopped you, because there was a reason you were not up there with him." He said. "I do not believe, he wanted you to suffer the same fate."

Slowly, Lyra gave him a nod.

He mimicked it.

Then, he walked away, following in the steps of her mentor and the rest of the Council.

And Lyra was left utterly alone again.

||

Holy MOLY did this take a while. I honestly struggled a little bit with this chapter, just because of how much writing had to be done. But here it is! I'm so glad to see more people reading the work. I do hope you like it!

And thank you so much to those who still stick around. I'm so sorry about the longer wait, I've been a bit sick. But the next chapter is already in the works! So, if you're interested, keep an eye peered.

I hope you enjoyed, and have a lovely day!