I've had this and several other chapters (in who knows what sensible order) as drafts for at least two years because I never thought I'd have the time to write a story. I still don't know if I do, but it's summer and I'm bored and slightly more motivated than usual. Really sorry if it feels like this first chapter drags out!
Criticism is so welcome! I don't really know what I'm doing if we're being honest. Hopefully you can't tell. Feel free to review/message—I'll read them all with an open mind.
Ezreal loved Piltover.
He loved the fluorescent streetlights that made an artificial day of the night. He loved the smell of innovation—a bit musty, a bit metallic, and a whole lot sweaty (but progress wasn't meant to be neat). He loved the endless stream of prototypes and gadgets and gizmos that constantly reminded him of why Piltover proudly wore the title of the "City of Progress." Every inch of Piltover beckoned to him, but every time he went out exploring, he never, ever, actually felt homesick until his worn boots reunited with the pristine steel pavements with that comfortably familiar clink. It was such an unnatural sound, one that he knew only from his hometown despite his interpolar familiarity of Runeterra. The glorious and glorified noise of progress; the national anthem of Piltover.
Clink was the sound of two machine parts meeting but not quite melding together because they weren't the mechanic soulless-mates that they were meticulously, but hopefully, designed to be. Clink ruefully resonated when another overrated inventor or perfectionist or self-proclaimed genius' invention was scrapped for not being as flawless as the blueprint in the creator's mind. Clink, in its most gratifying and sought-after pitch, accompanied toasts made in the honor of some technologic prodigy who spent his years perfecting something that would cling onto fame for only one, two weeks—maybe three if he was skilled enough.
But those three or less weeks were the highest achievement an inventor could achieve, and because of that, the city was always changing. The explorer admired its state of perpetual alteration, its visual display of creative warfare. Nearly impossible was it to memorize his surroundings. Something that was there one day could be replaced out of the blue by something more advanced, more efficient, and vastly more progressive the next day.
So why did he leave so often? He loved Piltover—he really did—but he couldn't say the same about the people. Ezreal thought it foolish for the majority of them to work so fervently on something that would just become insignificant history in a matter of days. What some admired as inexhaustible determination, he condemned as impractical desperation. The process of inventing itself was confining; the creation demanded attention and constant attendance, and the poor scientist, unless he was some precocious genius or had some breakthrough that others couldn't emulate, could hardly leave his lab without risking his invention becoming outdated by the time he returned from his break.
Of course, not every specimen in Piltover was some scientifically crazed genius. There were the scientists who clearly were not meant to be scientists, but hoped that if they wore the proper attire and spewed out random analytic phrases memorized from scientific books, their peers would accept them as such. Then there was the minority—outcasts whose hearts rejected the prized art of invention. Ezreal belonged in this group. However, the Piltover blood proclaimed him and the other deviants to still possess reasonable finesse in the field; the only thing really separating them from the others was a lack of inspiration. It was because of his exceptional innate proficiency that his parents were so displeased when he threw his gift away to pursue a different path.
His father was an inventor, and although he'd fall into the "crazy scientists" group with the amount of services he had contributed to Piltover, he wasn't your typical crazy scientist. When he spoke, one could immediately tell that he knew—actually knew—what he was talking about. Every word out of his mouth had a purpose—no flowery, ambiguous speech to try to make himself sound smarter than he actually was, because he didn't need it. While some memorized textbooks, Ezreal's father memorized technique, which taught faster and better than some collective sheets of paper ever could.
Communication between this particular father and son did not exactly resemble that of normal fathers and sons—they didn't speak to each other so much as they yelled. If not upholding a stubborn silence, the two would undoubtedly be disagreeing on something. There was no limit to the pettiness of their arguments; that was, until the day that the inventor found out that his long bloodline of superior scientific prowess would become forever mutated by some galavanting heretic. This concluded their continuous contention with a ceremonious goodbye between father and son, but this father stumbled on the traditional "Bye" and accidentally said "Get the fuck out of my house."
His mother was a doctor; the head surgeon of the 46th floor of the west wing of Piltover's main hospital. He knew the location to this day from his countless personal visits as a child. Cures and breakthroughs were frequent inventions in the epicenter of health, and it wouldn't be any other way in the most progressive city-state and hospital in all of Valoran (Zaun might beg to differ, but Piltovians are a prideful people). More a doctor than a mother, however, she was always busy taking care of others during her son's childhood, so Ezreal didn't really have parents so much as a parent, although he would sooner die than acknowledge his father as his.
Ezreal had practically exhausted every possible theory over the years about why two savants—both too absorbed by their respective trades to focus on anything else—would even propose the idea of something that demands so much attention. He had practically given up on finding an answer at this point, but a lack of answers was exactly what fueled his curiosity. It was the sharpest of double-edged swords. Maybe he was an invention himself, a creation of boredom, a last resort during a lag in technological advancement. Maybe a self-conducted experiment for his mother in order to learn how to better operate on pregnant patients. Maybe he was the last shove of imperfection they needed to break up their marriage.
Maybe things would've ended up fine if you weren't such a complete letdown.
His heart beat irregularly inside of his chest.
This always happened when he came home. There would be a loss of consciousness between his first step into the placid border of the city, and the boisterous swarms of people and loud noises that he had to claw his way out of to reach his home. He was forced out of his thoughts. Out of nowhere, people bumped into him left and right, as if he had been gone for so long that he became invisible. A nervous curse shook out of his mouth when an abrupt shove from the rush of the city sent him scrambling to save his bag from the sea of he struggled to regain his footing, an unnerving cacophony of indistinct noises flooded his ears like a terrible tinnitus made up of a language he could not decipher nor cared too much to understand. Then he could hear the air—the toxic, polluted, disgusting city air—squeezing inside of his bronchi to poison his lungs with its pungent stench.
A sudden raspy gasp escaped him, only to infect his body with more urgency. His desperate eyes darted to the sky, searching for an escape. Instead he was met with fluorescent lights, blindingly annoying and inducing of headaches. His vision wavered, the taunting faces of the people around him warping so that all he could make out were swirls of brown and yellow and pasty flesh that still managed to scrutinize every part of him and oh gods why did I come back?
He hated it. He fucking hated Piltover.
His eyes squeezed shut. He felt light-headed. His face was hot and his gauntlet was suffocating him. It was silent. Wait...
His eyes flew open in shock. To his immense relief, he wasn't met with any of the expected horrors that had tormented him just moments before. The crowds of noise were gone, the lights had dulled to a reassuring glow, and his house was right in front of him. His hand even rested on the doorknob as if every inch of his body subconsciously knew that it was home. But shit, he wasn't supposed to use magic in front of "normal" people. Not because they didn't know that magic existed, but because it scared them that there were others so much stronger than them. But it was too late to do anything about it, so his mind drifted back to the doorknob. He frantically turned it, but it didn't budge. He panicked again, then paused, cursed himself, and finally fumbled for his key, dropping it twice between his fingers before hearing that comfortable noise of fitting in.
He escaped from the buzz of the city, and his heartbeat tangibly calmed with a steady song of I'm home. Clothes were scattered across the carpet of his room, but he made his way around them with ease. Neatness wasn't much of an issue when he was only home for one or two weeks at a time. His desk was in the same corner that it always was, with piles of maps neatly arranged on one side, one unfinished map in the center with two ink pens and one lamp lying patiently behind it, and seven of his journals stacked on top of one another on the other side. It was the only lingering hope of organization in his home. With a horrific disregard for the integrity of the artifacts he had found, he haphazardly shrugged his backpack onto the ground. Then he subsequently threw himself into his comfortable sheets. If he had a mother, she would be mortified by how he somehow always forgot how dirty his clothes got during expeditions. Dirt stained his blankets immediately, but that was hardly a concern at the moment.
He was more worried about himself. He needed to not be alone with his thoughts right now. This was nothing new—every time he explored the isolated parts of Runeterra, planned or not, and went weeks only in the company of his self, there was the headache of reintegrating himself back to a place where he wasn't the sole population, of not succumbing to an uncertain solipsism. He didn't like to admit it, but he knew from past experience that he needed something, someone, a familiar voice. His fingers fumbled for the hex-phone on his bedside, which had gathered a colony of dust in his absence.
"Hello?" A voice answered.
Ezreal was silent for a moment, his mouth agape but unable to utter anything. It was the first time in months that he had heard a voice other than his own. (Yes, he talks to himself, but only on occasion…)
"Hellooo?" repeated the voice on the other end, sounding irate. The voice sighed. "Look, I'm kinda busy so if this is some prank—"
"Jayce...? Jayce," he repeated dumbly, like he didn't expect someone to actually pick up. His grip tightened around the device in his hand, threatening to crush it between his fingers as he searched for the words of a language he hadn't exchanged in months. His voice trembled with appropriate and excessive caution. "Uh, hi, Jayce."
"…Well, if it isn't the eloquent Ezreal. Welcome back, bud."
The explorer could hear the inventor's familiar grin through the phone, and suddenly, he felt a surge of relief. He opened a window and allowed the Piltover noise and smell and everything that constituted his birthplace back into his senses. The intermingled voices outside were still crazed, but the good kind of crazed that brought forth progress. The metallic, musty, sweaty stench was in fact no stench at all but a trifecta of tangible advancement. He finally made it home. A smile crept onto his lips.
"Thanks, it feels good to be back."