*𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫.

setting - somewhere in the future, demacia and noxus are in full blown war, jarvan iii not dead yet and crown prince jarvan iv is holding an important choke point on the warfront. the battle is not going well for demacia

*

lux spends 12 days weaving a spell into jarvan’s flesh. she never says this and jarvan never asks because he trusts, trusts lux implicitly, but lux spends 12 days and 11 nights weaving a spell into jarvan’s flesh and he feels the magic and it does not hurt but it is not gentle, it is not burning, it is not cold. it is familiar. he can say no more to describe it. it is familiar.

on the 12th night lux is going to lead the rear guard. they both know, unspoken, that things are not looking good. there is smoke in the distance. and she is sitting in his tent as she has 11 nights prior, but this time in silence and she puts her hand on his arm and she says : live, if we should fall, leave this place.

she does not say promise me.

jarvan remembers this. she does not say promise me.

jarvan says : there are other men who can be king, i will not turn my back on demacia. i will not value myself higher than demacia.

and lux looks at him, and sees him, truly sees him, and she offers him a smile. it is not soft. lux is not, has never been, soft. it is not bright. the bright shining lady luxanna is someone she does not need to wear with him. he can only say it is familiar. heart-achingly familiar.

she says no more, and she leaves.

she does not come back.

darius’ axe makes a killing blow. it cleaves through armor, smashes his ribs and slices his chest - or it should. but it is stopped by a shield of light and jarvan thinks.

jarvan thinks, lux spend 12 days and 11 nights weaving a spell into his flesh and she spent 12 days and 11 nights saying good-bye and she did not say promise me. she knew him, she saw him, the crown and the country and the man, she knew him. she knew no promise would keep him and she-

01. jarvan, lux & garen ( aka. the biggest fucking white elephant in this entire relationship and lux’s life in general )

“He would have come for you. He brought the Vanguard all the way to the frontlines for you, to save you. And then he had to turn back because-”

And he bites his lip which is a motion so strange on Jarvan that Lux just. Just stares. She can’t even process his words right now, so she tries to process this reaction and file it away in her mental archives but she can’t. Jarvan does not bite his lips. He has a dozen nervous ticks that Lux could recite off her heart but this is not one of them.

“-because of me, because I was a fool. All hindsight and no foresight, hungry for glory and blood without any understanding of what either were.”

Lux knows that he is talking of his capture. Of the idiocy that got an entire platoon slaughtered and the heir captured and tortured and bled for blood; blood which Noxus still kept under seven seals in its dark citadel and - And Lux has seen the catalog of his injuries and the wounds inflicted on Jarvan. She’s recalling them all because she can’t physically process the thought that Garen Crownguard broke ranks with the army and brought the Dauntless Vanguard through the Noxian line for her. Jarvan’s patently insane if he thinks her brother would ever do anything like that for her.

“He hated me for that. If you hadn’t emerged from Noxus alive, I don’t think he would have ever forgiven me.”

Lux stares at him dumbfounded. She understands each singular word that Jarvan has said but stringing them together and what? Garen angry at having to save Jarvan from torture, angry on account of choosing the crown over his sister whom he had never once seen in all their overlapping years in the Academy?

She starts talking and it is like a dam has broken. The words spill out of her, tumbling over each other to assert themselves into something vaguely logical.

“He saved you because it was his duty, because only the Vanguard could have broken past the Noxian lines and brought you back to Demacia, because you’re his best friend and he loves you -”in the way that he doesn’t love me, goes unsaid because Jarvan grabs her hand and places it on his chest as if he knows what she is going to say and he must cut it off. He speaks very slowly and very evenly in the way that makes Lux feel like a lectured child and she feels each breath he takes physically.

“Lux, word for word, your brother told me that he would have charged straight into the Dark Citadel itself if that is what it took to bring you home safely.”

02. lux is a brat. thats it. thats all.

“Look at me!”

It was a command that snapped through the air. Jarvan turned. There was no one else to witness her lashing - only books, and the dust filled air. Hadn’t that been the reason he’d followed her to these places? Places where no one else would ever see them?

“Look at me,” she said again, softer,”look at me.”

Jarvan looks at her. Raises his eyes to her’s - not because she had commanded it but because he wants to know what Luxanna Crownguard of the High Silvermere, daughter of lords and senators, lady paramount, looked like when she dared to command the crown prince of Demacia.

Fists clenched at her side. Eyes steady as steel, deep as the sea. He breaks down her posture with a military precision he wishes wasn’t second nature. He catalogues her tone and her fists and he still wonders what fuels her anger.

“You’ve never seen me at all, I’m just Garen’s little sister to you.”

03. dont play chess with command

“Marry the prince, become Queen.”

Lux’s finger traces the shape of the pawn. She recites the contents of the most recent report from Ionia in her mind. She takes a breath.

And another.

Command’s gaze is unwavering.

“No,” she says instead of the multitude of rebuttals that line themselves up on her tongue. Command knows them all already, there’s no point in wasting her breath. Lux is sharp and quick. Her intellect is a whip, a razor-sharp wire upon which men die and empires are balanced. She is a mage beyond measure, precious in both talent in intellect. And she is beautiful in the classical way that makes men and women both weak, makes them remember a girl from the past, one they might have loved too.

She is all of this, and she knows exactly who made her this way.

Command taps his finger against the board.

“So you will not be my successor, and you will not be Queen.” Lux watches Command watch her watch him trace the outline of the white queen. It goes unsaid that she will not be any other house’s lady either. She will not be The Lady Crownguard, and neither would she be the mistress of any other house. She is too valuable to be a noble’s broodmare. “Then who will you be.”

Lux looks down. She looks at her hands, on the way they rest on her knees in a position that makes her feel like a shy schoolgirl. She looks up. She meets Command’s gaze and she squares her shoulders.

“Just Lux,” she replies.

04. how to kill a man

“Marry me, not because you are singularly the most suitable person to rule this country but because I want you.”

He doesn’t ask her to think of him as a man first and the prince last. They both know that is impossible. For Lux, and for Garen too, he is both man and liege-lord, both Jarvan the friend, and Jarvan the Prince, the one-day King and because they are Crownguards both, he can never be one and not the other.

He doesn’t ask her to do it for Demacia. He does not ply her with reasons and logic. They both know that she will parry him blow for blow and that in this case, Lux’s sharp wit will triumph over Jarvan’s staid control. Had she not been born with magic in her blood, she would have been no less effective a weapon in the Senate hall.

He just asks.

And this feels to Lux like the single greatest betrayal Demacia has ever dealt her. Because- because he just asks and Lux feels like all her clothes and skin have been stripped away. It’s just Jarvan. Just Jarvan asking just Lux.

But what is Lux stripped of her armor, of her magic, of her duty and her name? What is Lux without the name Crownguard? Who is she if not the shining Lady of Luminosity, bright eyed and smiling, sunlight and starlight blended into a girl’s form? Who is she if not the shadow-cloaked mage, the sharpest and keenest of all the weapons Command ever raised? Deathly dark, two-faced, full of secrets and longing. Take those away and what is left?

Jarvan strips himself of his crown and his armor with just a look and Lux stares back.

This is all she has ever been. There is nothing else. Not beneath her armor, nor beneath her name. She is both and nothing else at all. She has nothing left to give to Jarvan besides what she has already offered.

The door had been open and Lux had slipped in without so much of a glance from either guard. Either they knew who she was or they knew what she was - it hardly mattered to Lux. Jarvan’s study was a collection of papers and they must have been interesting because the prince didn’t even look up as she entered.

Lux smiled, took in the stiffness of his posture and a certain look others might mistake for concentration, and gave a small polite cough to announce her presence.

Sometimes I feel as if you stare right through me. Tell me, what did you find beyond the Great Barrier?

Luxanna haunts the halls like a specter. She spends days at a time flitting through the dimly lit library, digging through tomes upon tomes upon tomes. She is hungry; for what he does not know, but as Luxanna peers at him from over her book, he thinks that it must be something no book can tell her. For surely if it could be found on paper, she would have long ago found her answer. If it were so, she would not stare at him with such searching eyes.

#1 Is there a story you’re waiting to write?

Lots. A few main ones, a few pet projects, a few funny day dreams. Right now I really want to finish my omnibus Lux fic haha.

#2 What’s your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite writing genre?

I appreciate good writing in any form, honestly if the writing is good and I somehow come across it, I’ll read it.

When it comes to genres though, I lean hard for fantasy / YA Lit / historical non fiction / historical / cook books ( a very specific kind ). YA Lit is ... like, I want to love it but objectively I feel like most of it is bad either in writing or plot or characters or, usually, all three. But there’s something about the genre that engenders my goodwill.

#3 What is one aspect of writing you’re really good at?

I think I’m good at distilling feelings into short pieces, a few sentences. #4 What is one part of writing you could do without?

I don’t think there’s anything I’d change about writing. I like it as it is. I will say though that I am pretty terrible at writing long things.

#5 Do you like telling people about your writing or do you keep it to yourself?

I don’t like talking about it.

Part of this is because I think writing is largely for me. It’s something I do because I enjoy it and because there are things I want to write. I believe that writing should stand on its own merit but as a result a lot of things I write I don’t publish because I never bothered setting the scene or introducing characters or shit like that. It’s not something for reader consumption.

#6 Which one of your OCs is least like you?

hahahahahahahaha.

I try to make my OCs more interesting than me because I’m quite boring!

#7 Have you ever based a character/scene on real life?

Yes. Even when you’re writing something removed from the reality of this world, the truth is that we can only ever see things through our perspective and that is the perspective with which we understand the world. Everything I say or write is a reflection of this perspective and the life that I have lived and as I have understood it.

(tl;dr philsophy student says yes)

#8 What do you do when you have writer’s block?

Either I slam away at it and force myself through it, or I wander off and do something else.

#9 Do you write to music? If so, lyrical or musical?

Sometimes. Before 8tracks, I used to write to OSTs and other lyricless music or japanese music lmao. Then I listened to whatever was on my 8tracks feed. And then I (1) became fluent in japanese and (2) 8tracks went to shit so I just listen to uh ... whatever runs on youtube.

I don’t need music to write though, so ig most often I haven’t been writing to music because 8tracks is an unfunctional piece of shite.

#10 Do you write short stories?

Yes - 600ish word drabbles for everything.