Laurita

hmm well

girl who has changed irrevocably. who isn't who she used to be, or maybe finally is what she really always was, and can't go back to the person they remember. who has done things and become things her friends and family can't recognize and can't accept, and they reject her and hurt her because of it even as she lashes out and hurts them too. She grew up with nothing but her sister's hand in hers, and now all she feels when her eyes are closed are the knuckles of that same hand against her cheek. Girl who just wanted to help, girl who just wanted to be strong, girl who just wanted to be worthy, to be known. Girl who just wanted not to be the only one left behind. Girl who lives with gigantic, overwhelming guilt, grief and abandonment, and desperately wants someone to see all of her and love her anyway. even if she's broken, and can't be fixed. even if she doesn't deserve it. even if she's hurt people, killed people, shattered everything around her for everyone else around her, for no reason at all. she's hurt herself more than she's hurt everyone else. she doesn't know how to stop. she doesn't know how to be someone anyone would love.

girl who has a secret. girl who wears a mask. girl who must be shining and perfect always. girl who must smile, and smile, and smile. girl who is loved and cherished and protected and uplifted, privileged, exemplar, adored, but only while she smiles and smiles. girl whose deepest, most painful secret isn't dark or cruel or ugly, it's beautiful, it's radiant, it's raw, it's intimate, it's powerful, it can create or destroy, by her will or against it, but she's spent so long burying it, she doesn't know how to control it, it's overwhelming her, she has to let it out, holding it in is like holding her breath, it's killing her, inch by inch, smile by smile. But if she lets it out, if she shows everyone who she truly is, they'll turn on her, everyone in her life, her friends, her family, her country, even the ones who already knew it and hid it for her protection and their own won't save her. she sees them take the others, the others like her, who don't have wealth and privilege and the Family Name to protect them, and put them in dark places and do terrible things to them. she knows she can't save them. if she tries, she'll just join them, her privilege will only protect her so far. so she hides in it. she's so angry and so scared and so full of overwhelming, gigantic shame. that she isn't strong enough to shed the lie. that she isn't weak enough to strangle her truth. her secret is something beautiful, but it makes her a monster to them. she keeps smiling.

Doors slide, time ticks, ships pass, they are so far away, their stories run parallel but in different lands, far across a turbulent world. they never met. they can't meet. they won't meet. they have nothing to do with each other. they're not 'canon'.

until they are.

until girl meets girl.

maybe it's under a summer sky in blue and white, with the thrum of an airship's engine beneath their feet and the distant gulls softening the grief of cut ties and a life left behind.

maybe it's under the dappled trees of a Demacian forest, or the tall alleys of babbling Piltover, or tumbling from a shattered crate in the steaming guts of Zaun. Maybe it's somewhere else entirely.

but the girl who can't be known meets the girl who can't be seen.

And she is seen, for all her colors and her brilliance and her shame and her anger and her hurt. for all her power. she doesn't have to hide it anymore. she doesn't have to smile anymore; she can thrash and rage and unleash if she wants. her rage is beautiful. her power is beautiful. her freedom is beautiful. but there's a new smile on her face, too; the smile she finds she can't stop is the true smile she has never smiled before.the girl is the light and the light is the girl; and she is the most beautiful thing Jinx has ever seen.

And she is known, for her pain and for her power, for her wicked grin and her brilliant brain and her wounded soul. not for who she was, for who she might be, but for who she is right now. she doesn't have to be anyone else for Lux. she can wear whichever name she wants. and her name can stand for anything she wants. it can stand for her whole self, at last.

they hold each other in the night and whisper secrets. forbidden, scandalous, impossible. everyone will hate them for what's happening between them. a murderous madwoman crawled from the belly of Zaun; a heretical mage born to the blood of the right hand of kings.

the world won't let them go for this. they will be hated and hunted wherever they go. family and country, friends and foes alike will pursue them. bonds will be tested, frayed, broken and reforged. nations will burn for their love.

but they will love, and be loved, and in each other's arms, each other's eyes, each other's hearts, finally found

if the world wants to burn for it, let it.