YOU POOR SUCKER.

a soft hum, disappointed yet no less amused, seemed to echo throughout the now - empty room — save for margot and sevika; the latter having fallen heavily into the seat at the tables head, features set with her irritation at the remaining chembarons and their infuriating inability to come together for the good of zaun. from her position slouched languidly in her own seat, margot can see the way her jaw shifts with the harsh grinding of teeth and it only proves to feed her mirth.

another meeting, the same outcome. snide jabs, petty squabbling, loathing words and goading remarks spit from each attendee, all intent on having the last jab. work together, sevika insisted. they don't know how we fight, she'd claimed. we can win, she'd resolved: but none of them wanted to win. not for zaun itself: but their own gain. unless they were perched upon the throne of the city of iron and glass, it could burn — lest their assistance mistakenly aid in another taking what was rightfully margot's theirs. it was laughable, really: how she believed her words had the potential to sway them into an alliance of any degree. as long as that spot remained open they'd sooner chew off their own limbs than work together.

" it won't work. " margot's voice cuts through the silence after the scuffling of boots grew silent, her girls sent out to ensure the other nosy fools left. raising from her seat, the light pad of her boots cuts through the quiet as she strides over to sevika. her grin is a twisted mix of mischievous and sultry, and once she's stood in front of her, dismissive of her clearly irked state, a gloved hand extends to push firmly against a broad shoulder. she leaves no time for complaint before she's invading personal space and sliding into her lap once her back hits solid wood.

" the last thing they'll ever do — " margot breathes out, settling heavily onto strong thighs now situated between her own. she speaks as though she isn't one of them — as though she isn't vying for the very same seat they were. she doesn't see herself as one of them because she regards herself as better. above them. despite how she stoops to identical lows.

margot bodily slides her weight into her lap. sevika tenses, mouth drawn into a hard frown. she doesn’t know why she lets her do this: touch her like she has no real control over whether or not she does. she’s pulling in a sharp breath (the way she had when smeech had gotten in just as close, for a less pleasant purpose) as margot draws her head back and kisses at the line of her throat. she expects a searing pain, afterwards — something to hurt. there’s always the aftershock, with margot. it doesn’t come.

her hand flexes. ❛ i don’t want to hear it. ❜ she doesn’t get any joy out of lectures like these. for the most part she’s still in shock, she thinks, and has been for hours — days — weeks. silco, dead. all of them, fucked. and the council… she knows why the barons don’t look up at what is going to inevitably follow. zaun will suffer. it’s happened before, on the bridge, and it will happen again. and why should they care — when they let silco deal them their hand and only came away with profit?

she is filled with self-loathing, more than profound, as she reaches up — wraps a hand around margot’s wrist. for all her other faults, she’s also a physical woman, and she hasn’t blown off steam on the rapture walk or any other pleasure house in days; the mild buzz she’s had going (from the drinking, or the shimmer) doesn’t make her nerves any less responsive, to her disappointment.

try not to let anything show on your face when she decides to sit right next to you, of all places, unintentionally pressing some pathetic and accidental display of camaraderie into your cold bones. all short on loved ones. ❛ got your panties in a knot for nothing. wouldn't talk to you about her unless i was already too drunk to see straight. ❜ ironic, all things considered, when some nights you argue a point or bring up a topic and find yourself met with you sound like sevika or that's what sevika said, all with varying levels of exasperation. ( i sound like zaun, you countered once. and caitlyn has all the strategies and treaties and negotiations in the world, but she couldn't find a rebuttal. )

she lets out a long sigh. what cue did she give, at some point or another, that if vi needed something, she could come here, to sevika? she runs through the limited interactions she has memory of in her head. not the killing, or the begrudging alliance of zaun-and-piltover, but what came after, the stilted politicking, seeing vi at parties with caitlyn at her arm... or lingering in the back, a look on her face sevika has seen on her own in the mirror (when she can stand to look) more than once. she doesn't think she can name it, or pinpoint the exact time. she scoffs. ❛ you're a lightweight. didn't take much. ❜ but it's not said with any real venom. she's thinking about other things.

she's trying to remember all the times jinx spoke about her sister, when she was especially fragile, more powder than inevitable-fuck-up. when she was little, really little, she used to talk about vi like her sister might one day come back for her, turn it around, but never around silco. eventually, one day, it just stopped. the memory is a leaden weight in her stomach. what good does that do her? what good does it do any of them? what good does it do vi, to sit here, wallowing? she doesn't have a good answer. but she knows the near-pleasure that comes from wallowing, sinking into sorrow.