Arcane:changing the world (reader x Arcane League Of Legends)

warm

Viktor was not what you would call a simple man. He was a dying one, for starters. That alone was enough to make the passages of one's mind twist and turn itself into the deep depths of mortality. Some part of him always knew. When he got the news, for some reason, it didn't surprise him. He was still filled with emotion. That anger, sadness, regret, anguish, but it still didn't surprise him. He was a nameless inventor from Zaun and making something of himself was against the laws of nature.
That didn't make it fair, or right, but they were the rules he would abide by. And they were the rules he would die by.

He couldn't spend all day dying, though. That was mind-numbingly boring, and so here he was, mindlessly wandering the halls in an awkward shuffle, supporting his weight on the iv drip on wheels that kept him standing in more ways than one. Never would the shear size of the halls he roamed ceaxe to amaze him.
It really put things in perspective, didn't it? Compared to Piltover, its citizens, he was small, but a nameless worker in the great, ever-buzzing hive. Even when the going was hard and the work was bleak, on he worked, and even when his arms gave out and his leg brace burned his skin, on he walked.

"You know, I never understood your adamance to walk these halls."

Viktor paused, turning to face the voice.

"Silent treatment, is it?"

"..."

"Oh, don't look at me like that, you stubborn fuck, I'm the only thing keeping you alive right now."

"..."

They laughed. "You're so full of yourself. So petty, so stupid. You've never been able to see it."

"...See what?"

"The truth, worker bee. The truth that you are nothing."

"The truth is subjective."

"Oh, the words we tell ourselves! Every day, you lie and you lie and you lie to yourself, all just to save your poor, fragile ego. In the grand scheme of things, you are but a cog in the great machine and you have grown dull with time. Soon, you will be discarded like so many others."

"And what do you suggest I do, hm?! Bite the hand that feeds me, claw at the collar that chokes me? That will solve nothing. All that is left for me is to die."

It laughed again. "You are nothing, Viktor, but you could be so much more."

Viktor turned to the voice and he felt sick to his stomach. Before him, stood himself, but someone entirely else at the same time. It's skin was warped and rotten, sigils carved deep into the mangled flesh. With glowing veins and dark, terrible eyes it bore into him and he was captured in its claws.

"We could be so much more."

And then it was gone,

and so was he.

*

"Will that be all for you today?"

"Yes it will, thank you." They smiled, handing the pouch of money to the old lady and gathering up their supplies into the already stuffed bag. What were they buying, one may ask? Well it was a mixture of things. Herbs, remedies, ingredients, normal things to stack in their cupboards.

Now that they had a guest, they had to be much more aware of their terrible habits, such as storing one of the deadliest poisons known to man right next to cereal.

The last thing they wanted was to scare her off. She'd only been there a night and half a day and all she'd done was sleep, the poor stray. They doubted she was from piltover, the tattoos she bore would be taboo in such high society. Probably a runner who got in over her head and was now paying the consequences for it. Nobody was found cold, shivering and caked in mud and oil unless they were running from something. Zaun was a dangerous place, but the ruins? Who knew what lived down there. They were left no choice but to take her in.