Lux

This story begins like many others, with an honest mistake.

Ezreal had made it maybe twenty whole minutes at the Crownguard estate before her mother had snatched him away again. She’d missed those twenty minutes too. This was a worst-case scenario.

For how much Augatha talked about him and his expeditions being nothing but trouble, she also always bloomed when he was over. Any semblance of her talk about “he shouldn’t tamper with buried things” vanished and the questions came out in ****. If Lux didn’t know her mother, she would have thought that the caution and fear of the unknown that she seemed draped in was just a facade. But she’d also slipped up before, gotten her mother poking into business that Lux would have preferred her parents didn’t ask about. Hiding her magic had trained her to believe that what her mother showed her was the reality, and that how she treated Ezreal was the exception. Augatha liked Ezreal, so did Lux. If it was an affection arms race with her own mother, Lux didn’t stand a chance.

But that wasn’t really how it was. The impression was always that her mother’s interest with him was that he was doing things she was too scared to. If there was anything romantic about it, if it went at all beyond vicarious curiosity, she hadn’t seen it.

… Not that she was worried. When he’d shown up again, Ezreal had still been using the bag she gave him. The one that matched hers. She hadn’t… told him that they matched, but they were matching… so things were getting pretty serious.

She didn’t recognize the mistake at first. He had arrived while she was out riding. Even if she pushed it away, both of her parents claimed that somebody from house crownguard needed to know how to ride. She had brought up that Garen didn’t, they had brought up that Garen had gotten better marks in his physical training. At a certain point, it wasn’t worth arguing “Garen’s legs are twice as long as mine, so he moves faster” as opposed to just getting on a horse a few times a week. The fact that she also liked Chestnut made it a little easier to swallow, she wouldn’t have named him Chestnut otherwise.

So she’d gotten word Ezreal was back, ridden Chestnut back to the stable, then stepped inside to find him already in the study with her mother. Too slow, try again next time. She went to pick up her bag, but Thomas must have taken it to her room while he was taking Ezreal’s to his room. That would have been her mom’s doing too. Not only was she going to insist he stayed, she probably did that thing where she saw him set a bag down next to Lux’s and wrinkle her nose and talk about how messy her daughter was.

Of course she hadn’t noticed anything off when she’d stepped into her room and saw a bag on her writing desk. She’d told Thomas not to poke in her closet. And… well… the bags matched. Not really like she could have seen the difference. She totally would have fixed it if she’d recognized it at that point, it wasn’t like she’d wanted to root around in Ezreal’s bag.

So she’d showered the smell of horse off and then changed into one of the nice dresses that Augatha insisted she wear when they had company over. She usually wouldn’t have bothered, but the one she picked was also the one that she thought looked good. Considering that most everything else was in the pile of “to wash” it also made the most sense.

And then she’d walked out of her room and almost killed her mom walking down the hall. Luckily, she’d stepped back in time.

“Do I really need to keep telling you not to throw your door open so violently, Luxanna?”

Lux turned on her heels and very gently closed the door. She smiled nervously as her mom rolled her eyes.

“Sorry mom! I was just-”

“Honestly, I only attest my continued survival to the fact that I’ve begun to instinctively paused before walking past your room.”

“Sorry! I just… where’s Ezreal?”

Augatha clicked her tongue against her teeth, “I’m sorry dear, I’m afraid he had to run off almost right after he arrived.”

Lux felt her face flush red, but it was also mixed with a horrible, deflated feeling that crept through her.

“I missed him?”

“He said he would be back as soon as he could, but he was only stopping by for a moment. He’ll be back, darling.”

“Mom, last time he said that, we didn’t see him for half a year!”

“I’m sorry darling, that’s just how he is, you know this.”

Lux opened her mouth to respond, then closed it. She looked away from Augatha, expecting her to keep going, but she didn’t. She must have been coming up to say that.

“There was nothing you could have done differently, love, he was gone before you got back to the house.”

Lux sighed, “I want to be mad, but there’s nobody to be mad at.”

“I know, darling. I’m sorry.” Augatha kissed her on the forehead, “I’m having some brownies made, would those help?”

Lux gave a heavy, performative sigh, “I guess, but I can’t know until I try.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to continue suffering for another half-hour, but I’ll bring some up to you when they’re done.”

Augatha kissed her daughter on the forehead again, the shuffled back downstairs. Lux lingered with her back against the door for a moment longer before sliding into her room, more sullenly than she’d let on.

She sat at her desk and pushed the bag towards the wall, freeing her notebook from under it. She opened to a page full of scribbled drawings. It would be a good way to relax. When she reached for a pencil, the cup was empty. Her bag would have one in the nearside pocket, so she unbuttoned it and wrapped her fingers around something sharp. She gasped in pain and pulled her hand back, sucking off the drop of blood that appeared on one fingertip. Slowly, far more cautiously, she sunk her hand into the pocket and grabbed the culprit. She pulled it out and looked at it confusedly for a moment. It was a knife, not just any knife, a knife she recognized. The one where she’d carved “For Ezreal” into the handle a few years ago. She was flattered he’d kept it… kept it in… his bag.

It took a moment for her brain to slide the obvious blocks into place. When it did, her first thought was that this was bound to have happened eventually, and that the only unfortunate thing was that Ezreal wasn’t in the next room to fix it. Her next thought was that Ezreal had her bag. She did a quick, only slightly panicked mental checklist of what was in there. Luckily nothing incriminating, a couple of diaries with some slightly embarrassing entries and some clean-ish clothes but nothing that mentioned or gave away her magic. The worst case scenario was that either Ezreal read them and learned that she had the world’s biggest crush on him, which he already knew, or they wound up in Demacia’s lost and found and some strangers wound up reading them before returning them. Either way, it was an embarrassing yet harmless accident.

Of course, there was always the off chance that Ezreal had something way more embarrassing in his bag. Which, if that was the case, would be important insurance against what he found in hers. Sure, it was her making an excuse to poke through his things, but it could be a matter of serious danger if he’d left something behind he wound up needing. So she was going to poke around. Just a little.

The near pocket just had the knife, which she slid back and rebuttoned. She checked the other side pockets, but one just had a little hammer and chisel and the other had… what looked like a bunch of dust. She wriggled her fingers dramatically before opening the main pocket.

Aaaaaaand clothes. Boring old (probably dirty) clothes. She frowned and sat back down pushing one article aside and then another boredly. No hidden treasures peaked out. She blew a raspberry and set her cheek on her hand. So much for having something to counter-embarrass him if he wound up reading those diaries. Though she could probably clean them and then put them back. That would probably be pretty embarrassing, right? Opening your bag of dirty laundry and finding somebody has cleaned it all for you behind your back?

She leaned back in her chair and groaned, she was reaching. She just needed to accept the egg on her face and deal with it. She decided to empty out the main pocket anyway, maybe to steal something, maybe to slip something in. Either way.

And she was about halfway through doing so when a bit of purple peaked out of the top. When she reached out to touch it, the firm but springy surface of it felt like scaly skin.

It only took her a moment to excavate it and hold it up in front of her. It was the shape of an egg, about the size of an eggplant, and the surface was a seemingly shifting mass of black and purple freckled with white like stars. No sooner had she lifted it in her hand to the light than she felt a pull on her cut finger like somebody else’s mouth sucking the blood away. She almost dropped it, setting it as quickly as she could down onto a clump of dirty laundry she had pulled form the bag. She went to her bathroom and washed her hands nervously, then stepped back to her desk and pulled out a magnifying glass she kept in one of the drawers.

There was a knock on her door that made her jump, her heart suddenly rushing to her head and throat, the distinctly hot and uncomfortable rush of being caught doing something she shouldn’t washing over her.

“Just a second!” She yelped.

“There’s no rush, darling, it’s simply the temperature of your brownies at stake.”

Lux tried to make her brain jump into overdrive, looking at her desk and the clumps of laundry on it. The strange object sitting among the clumps, sticking out like a pimple. Should she hide the bag? Would she be able to do so without acting suspicious? If she told her mother about it, would she come in and inspect it? What would she do if she found the object?

Lux tucked the egg behind the bag, under a dirty shirt, then went to the door. She opened it and her mother instantly looked at her with what looked like judgment, but that she might have been imagining.

“You’re awfully flushed, darling, is this a bad time?”

“What? No, it’s not that. I think Thomas got Ezreal and my bag mixed up.”

She gestured at the desk, her mother glanced over briefly.

“So he’s sent Ezreal off with your things?”

“It looks like it.”

Augatha sighed, “I warned you this would happen when you bought identical bags.”

“Yeah, I’m actually surprised it took as long as it did.”

“Did you have anything important in your bag?”

“Mostly art and lesson supplies, a couple of embarrassing diaries, but nothing serious. His is just dirty laundry, so I don’t think it’s an emergency.”

Augatha glanced at her side-eyed, “And I see you’re going through it, are you certain this isn’t a bad time-”

Lux grabbed the plate and cleared her throat, “Thank you, mother. That’s enough.”

Augatha chuckled, then glanced past Lux at the desk again, “Once you’re done rummaging, pack all of that back up and send it down with Thomas to be washed. We’ll return it better than we found it.”

“Oh, so Ezreal gets his clothes cleaned for him, but I have to do it myself?” Lux joked.

“Darling, dearest, precious child, I would rather burst into flames right here than have this argument with you.”

“It was a joke, mom.”

“And whatever stains that boy has collected likely aren’t, get it done sooner rather than later. And eat those before they get cold.”

Lux picked up a brownie and took a bite. Augatha waited for her daughter to smile and give a thumbs up before she turned to leave. Lux closed the door with her foot and waited until the footsteps had left down the hall, then set the brownies on the desk and pushed the bag and the clothes aside, leaving the object.

She picked the magnifying glass up and looked at it, but quickly found it to look exactly the same magnified as it did in general. She leaned back to listen for footsteps again before quietly muttering under her breath and pointing one of her fingers at the object. A small but brilliant cone of light shone from her fingertip, but even under light the object was mostly just a misty darker-than-dark black. She lifted it in one hand and tried to shine the light through it at her, but it couldn’t penetrate.

Only when she’d stopped her own magic light did she notice that one of the freckles of white had grown bigger and brighter. She watched in fascination as it moved along the surface from one side to the other, mirroring her movements. She brought her light back and traced a spiral with her finger. When her light was off again, the spot followed her motion.

There were objects that mirrored and stored magic, she had a few of them. Most of them gems that Ezreal had found in his travels and given to her as a good luck present. To anybody without magic, they just looked like stones. But, if you exposed them to magic, or immersed them inside somebody’s mana stream, they could gain the essence of it. Of course, immersing a gemstone in somebody’s manasteam was usually messy, for one reason or another. She made a mental note to get the object appraised, in secret of course, as was always the case with these things.

Somebody knocked on her door again and she jumped again. She really shouldn’t have been as shocked the second time, but the feeling that she was doing something she didn’t want to get caught doing hadn’t gone away, it had actually gotten worse. She shoved the object into one of her drawers and cleared her throat, trying not to squeak. Of course today of all days would be when everybody in the house wanted to talk to her.

“Yes?”

“Ms. Luxanna,” Torus, the sweet older butler, a voice she usually wanted to hear, “Would you like your evening tea tonight?”

She flicked a glance out the window, it had been overcast and getting late when she’d come in, but it was dark now. She hadn’t noticed.

“Yes, please and thank you, Torus.”

“As you will, madam.”

She took that as a sign. She left the object in the drawer and picked up all of the loose clothes, packing them back in the bag. She left the main pocket unbuttoned and hoisted it over her shoulder, then made sure that everything looked normal and then stepped out of her room.

Thomas was in the washroom when she got there. He was the youngest one on the staff, in that he wasn’t older than her parents. From what she understood, he’d grown up in the Undercity near Piltover at first, which is why he scowled all the time and had a cough that never went away. Still, he was good at all of the things they asked him to do. Good enough that he got away with a lack of manners. Lux liked him, probably for the same reason her mother didn’t.

“That’s Ezreal’s bag?” He asked her, gesturing in the lowest-effort way humanly possible.

“Yup! Did my mom already tell you about it?”

“She did, she also said not to be surprised if you forgot to get it to me tonight.”

Lux’s eyebrow twitched, but she didn’t acknowledge it.

“So it’s just the clothes, I don’t think you’re supposed to wash the bag.”

He glanced at the bag, “That seems like where the stains live.”

“Right, but most of the other pockets just have tools in them. Except one has…” She trailed off trying to describe it and just showed him.

“Is that… sand?”

“I’m sure if it is, it’s really important sand!”

“RIght,” He took the bag and held it like it might suddenly explode in his hands.

She caught Torus on the way back to her room. Torus was from the opposite end of the continent, more or less. Despite being somewhere in his early… hundreds… he still had the same trunky, sturdy build that growing up in the Freljord had given him. His white beard and bald head, mixed with his naturally flat and goofy accent made him seem like a kindly winter spirit. The fact that he looked basically the same now that he had when she was learning how to walk also just made him comforting to have around.

Torus raised one of his fluffy eyebrows at her, “Are we going somewhere this evening?”

She glanced down at her dress, then back up, “No, it’s just… what I picked out to wear.”

“Perhaps it is just the color, but the young lady looks quite pale tonight.”

“Do I?” Lux asked, taking the tea from him. “I don’t feel any different.”

“Make sure to get your rest tonight, remember not to start drinking until you’re lying in bed, sleeping at your desk doesn’t count as sleeping.”

“Thank you, Torus.” She gave a little bow which he answered by clapping his hand to his chest with a **** that stood stark contrast to everything else he did.

She slipped to her room without further interruption and set the tea on her night stand. She slipped out of her dress and into a pair of fluffy pajamas, then before getting into bed she remembered the object.

For whatever reason, she’d slept poorly for as long as she could remember. Maybe because of it, maybe just alongside it, she’d always imagined things moving in her room while she slept. She wanted a lock on her door, but her parents had always been opposed to it. So she had locks on a couple of other things. After a moment of consideration, she took the object out of the desk drawer and opened her night stand drawer. She pulled the key out from under her pillow and opened the small drawer within a drawer, then slipped the object in. Before she closed it and locked it up, she looked at it for a moment in the low light of her lamp. It looked back at her, unassumingly. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but it almost seemed every now and then to throb or pulse. When she put her hand on it, it didn’t do anything. A trick of the light then.

She put the key back under her pillow when everything was locked up, then slipped into bed. She lay staring at nothing for a short while, then reached over and sipped her tea. The thick, almost viscous taste of it as well as the heat made it feel like it was sliding slowly down her throat into her stomach. She didn’t manage to finish it before her eyes closed, hand clasped around the key under her pillow.

Like usual, she woke after what felt like no time at all without remembering any of her dreams. Unlike usual, when she looked outside, it was still the middle of the night. Why was she awake? Her problems were usually falling asleep, not staying asleep. She didn’t need to use the bathroom, nothing hurt, nobody was in her room.

One of her dreams started coming back to her. She’d been dreaming that something was in the room with her making noise. It was a weird sort of semi-lucid, semi-paralyzed feeling. Something was in there with her, and it was making scratching noises. They’d been coming from her night stand.

She cursed herself under her breath. This was one of those things that, tea or no tea, she wouldn’t be able to get out of her mind until she opened the drawer and looked. She drained the last of the now-cold tea from the cup and shuddered, the fished the key out from a tangle of blankets and covers and opened the drawer, then the drawer within. She made a point of light with her finger.

Under the bright, flickering light of her magic, she made out the broken pieces of the object laying in the drawer. There was a clear hole at the thin top end, the broken pieces around it covered on the inside with some thick clear fluid that still oozed softly out of the interior.

And the thing that had been inside flinched under the light.