It wasn't a good day.

Though perhaps Vi shouldn't take it so personally at this point: the number of 'not good days' were stacking up. It felt like an eternity since the sun had shined - metaphorically - on Zaun, and with that came resignation. Resignation that perhaps the newly named city was always meant to be fueled by a corrupt power. Resignation that Powder was forever lost to its darkness. Resignation that Vi was stuck in this pattern of failing day in and day out at making any semblance of a difference.

After a tip from Ekko sent her and her companion down a rabbit hole, through countless avenues, and across paths of the most unsightly people Vi had ever laid eyes on, they came up empty. Another dead end. Another day wasted. Another chance at swiping up Silco's remaining allies lost.

No, it certainly wasn't a good day.

"These things happen," Caitlyn reassured her.

It didn't help. Instead Vi burrowed deeper into herself. A permanent scowl left her brow scrunched and nose wrinkled in frustration. Her mind was scouring the last day for a clue they might have missed, a question gone unasked, a hint misinterpreted.

"I can't even tell you the number of times I've had a lead come up empty," Caitlyn tried again, her optimism ricocheting off Vi's hardened exterior. Some shot she was.

They'd come up empty. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zilch… Zilcho… Silco.

Vi's scowl deepened. More white noise spewed from Caitlyn in an effort to break through the disappointment Vi swam in. It faded out over the gears grinding in her brain and rattling the carriage of the bathysphere that lifted them from the dark shadows below.

It groaned to a halt, and it was only when the whine of the door's hinge rattled through the tiny carriage that Vi blinked in recognition of some outside stimulant. The sound did little to stop her from descending back into her internal interrogation, but at least she managed to blindly follow the other upward travellers toward the door.

Distractedly, she walked to the front of the bathysphere, mentally grumbling over Caitlyn's insistence of 'normal' travel. It was an added layer of frustration that coated her irritable mood.

The winter season cast the afternoon sky in gloomy grey, but even that was still lighter than the shady darkness of the undercity. However, that too was lost on Vi until -

Her head snapped up and eyes narrowed at the crunch under her boot. She froze and glanced down, slowly processing the layer of white that separated the sole of her shoe from the familiar cobblestone below.

"Look!" Caitlyn grinned, mystified by the fluffy tufts of flakes falling from the sky.

Vi's eyes darted upward and outward, taking in the spectacle of white that covered the city streets, roofs, and carriages flocking the streets.

"Perfect cocoa weather."

"Cocoa?" Vi asked, her own expression less of awe at the Piltovian reaching to grab a floating cluster and more of skepticism at the same wintery wonderland that reminded her of the ash and pollution of her childhood in Zaun.

"Yes, hot cocoa," Caitlyn continued, glancing animatedly back at her companion before the glow in her eyes faded at the unchanging scowl in front of her. "Do you not like it?"

'It' was open-ended, and Vi struggled to articulate how much 'it' really encompassed. So instead she settled on the simple. "I don't know. Is it a warm candy?"

And that's what sent the flake hurling from Caitlyn's palm as an enthusiastic and magnetic charge linked her hand with Vi's. Before she could process what was happening, her entire being was tugged through Piltover's crowded streets and thrust into a tiny corner cafe.

A blast of warm air greeted the duo, and in less time than it took Caitlyn to say 'Kiramman', they were scurried over to a window-side table prepared with doilies, flowers Vi couldn't name - "ooh, amaryllis!" Caitlyn glowed - and a tablecloth etched with golden ornament. The remainder of the cafe was dotted with similar looking tables, all filled with couples or friends or families indulging in the luscious warmth. It was the antithesis of Zaun.

Moments later a staff member returned with a platter containing two ceramic cups and matching saucers. Vi scowled at the unfamiliar sight placed in front of her: the finest, most decorated china she'd ever laid eyes on with walls paper thin and coated in hideous layers of flowers and colors. But that wasn't what caught her attention. It was the pile of white pebbles floating on top of the liquid.

"What are-?" Vi began, peering down at eye level to the concoction, an eyebrow raised in obvious scrutiny. Somewhere between the bathysphere and the cafe's threshold she'd lost the motivation to be moody and replaced it with begrudging curiosity. "This is a drink?"

"No, don't be ridiculous," Caitlyn responded easily, reaching to pluck one of the pebbles from her own mug and popping it in her mouth. "These are marshmallows. The drink's beneath."

Vi extended her fingers toward her own mug and squeezed a powdery, sugary-coated morsel between them, in slight awe of its pillowy quality. She hesitated for a moment before raising it to her lips and letting it slip past them to settle on her tongue. It was without question the sweetest thing she'd ever tasted. Growing up on below-board meals of questionable origin, the thought of something as decadent as a marshmallow on her tastebuds was almost too much to experience.

But she persevered, rolling the squishy treat over her tongue and melting between her teeth. It was impossibly toothsome, and before she could stop herself, another one was popped onto her tongue. It was only after the fourth that a pocket of steam rose over the cup and she was reminded something warm sat below the surface.

Caitlyn was already halfway through her cup - the marshmallows gone entirely - by the time Vi tentatively lifted the delicate ceramic to her lips. What followed was an experience Vi didn't have words for. It was liquid silk flavored with a deep, bitter richness that morphed into a buttery sweetness with the tiniest hint of salt. It was beyond delicious, and she felt transported away from everything that had weighed on her mind for the last endless number of days. Instead she gaped at the steaming drink, glancing up to capture the knowing look of Caitlyn basking back at her.

"Good, huh?"

"Delicious," Vi choked, struggling again to articulate the experience.

"I take it there isn't much cocoa in Zaun."

"There isn't much of anything in Zaun. It's not exactly like here where apparently there's a cocoa shop on every corner," Vi replied, absentmindedly swirling the remaining marshmallows with her finger and staring out at the glowing, condensing windows of similar shops.

"But surely you've had sweets; at least chocolate," Caitlyn replied, unafraid of appearing naive or ignorant. It was a trait that once irked Vi, but the quality of constant curiosity grew on her. Not unlike everything else about the Piltovian.

Vi nodded, if only to end the conversation. She'd never had hot cocoa before, but the experience tugged at one of the few warm memories she could recall when Vander came home with a surprise. It was the only time she'd tasted chocolate before, and it paled in quality to the warm beverage clutched in her palms. The tiny piece of chocolate was a fraction of Vander's palm, but the excited grins could have fooled anyone. She unwrapped the marbled white and brown lump, taking care to break the chunk into equal pieces to share with Powder, Milo, and Clagger. It was a tiny treat and, at the time, they all felt like royalty for the thimble-sized piece melting on their tongues. But where sweetness hid from sight in that chocolate, it was a richness that overwhelmed Vi's palette in the cup of cocoa.

It overwhelmed her the same way guilt gripped at her for surviving what they didn't.

Two sips later she slid the remainder to Caitlyn. She tried to brush off the curious gaze, feeling a strange sentimentality over the new memory.

No, it wasn't a good day.

A library wasn't large enough to fit all the things Vi hadn't experienced: the ocean, mountains, healthy relationships, fine dining. Worse yet were the things Vi didn't know she didn't know. More embarrassing was when she could add something to both lists simultaneously. Her first memory of this was death. She'd witnessed it before she understood what it was. Many more filled a childhood that followed: the upper class, injustice, explosives, alcohol, shimmer, shivs, solitude.

Rarely did she encounter good discoveries. She could count on one hand the number of them, but now marshmallows and hot cocoa had overflowed it to a second hand.

Unlike the indulgent treat that coated her lips and left her warmed from the inside-out, she had heard about snow and its curiosities, but she had never imagined it to be as all-encompassing as the blankets that coated the city.

The first time she'd heard of the mysterious substance that straddled liquid and solid was from Vander late one night after The Last Drop had closed. He'd trudged down the steps to their quarters and found her and Powder giggling and far too restless for sleep. A sigh of exhaustion sent him collapsing onto the couch and rubbing his brow. They pleaded for a story, and after a few minutes he finally succumbed, humoring them with a tale of dancing flurries. He explained in great detail the fluffy qualities and how snow could overflow onto the roads and put life to a standstill.

Clouds brought it in the same way as rain, but unlike the drops of water that drained into the sewers feeding into the undercity, snow remained for days until it turned brown with time and eventually melted and ran off with the same fate.

He talked of how it sparkled in the daylight. So bright was it that people had to squint as though they were staring directly into the sun. There was a pureness about untouched swells of it gathering in banks against the buildings and out over the fields. It felt magical and meant for fairy tales and bedtime stories.

As a child, curled up on the tattered couch and comforted by Vander's warmth, Vi closed her eyes trying to imagine the tiny, unique flakes that made up the peaks and valleys and drifts he described. He wasn't usually poetic, favoring straight talk over the dreamy fantasy of wistful story-telling, but there was a mix of unspoken nostalgia and motivations to bring sleepy lids to her and Powder's eyes that made his words more lyrical.

While it could be as light as air and go flying like dust with a gust of breath, it could also sit heavy, wet, and cold - soaking through every layer of clothing. It felt like a contradiction that her mind couldn't grapple with.

Until she saw it herself.

A handful of absent minutes later and the duo left the cafe and injected themselves back into the winter wonderland. The flakes were falling bigger and faster, accumulating on shoulders and in their hair. It made Vi feel like a deviant.

Snow was a privilege meant for the toppers. Vi grew up with the thermal neutrality of cavernous mines exhausting a constant temperature from the cavities below the world's crust. It was never too hot and never too cold. It meant seasonal change was an outlier: living things couldn't thrive in an unchanging world, and so everything Vi knew of was man made. That made snow a fiction meant for bedtime stories.

Seeing the natural anomaly now made her feel the burden of being an outsider. A warm, sugary drink sat happily in her belly, and now, standing outside that same cafe, she stared out at the sky breaking open to cast more flakes onto the city. It was all so new and so strange.

She wasn't meant to be on the surface. Years had been lost below it, and more yet lost to the confines of stone and steel walls. This wasn't her world, and this wasn't the lifestyle she knew. She belonged under the surface in a world where a scrap of chocolate was the greatest privilege. Not here where indulgence was commonplace.

A bell jingled from the door opening behind her, and she glanced left to find the familiar profile standing next to her. Caitlyn's eyes glowed in the fading light, her experience of the snow sprinkling across the city contrasting sharply with Vi's. A breeze cut through the small alleyway, and yet it was the first time all day Vi felt truly warm.

She watched Caitlyn sigh, soft and content, gazing out at the living snow globe. A small smile graced her lips, and Vi recognized a tinge of familiarity in it: nostalgia.

"Ready?" Caitlyn asked, shaking herself of whatever memory she'd wandered into, stepped out of the cafe's warm orange light, and faded into the growing blue of dusk.

Vi only nodded, falling into step beside her. Neither spoke; it may have been a record. Caitlyn had a knack for narrating her thoughts, and its absence made the warmth from moments earlier fade.

Vi chanced a glance, and saw Caitlyn's expression riddled with contemplation. Or concern. Or confusion.

No. It wasn't any of that. It was sadness.

In their few short weeks together, Vi had studied Caitlyn closely. Stoic in many ways, she was incredibly expressive in others, and Vi found herself enjoying the read. Caitlyn was more than a cover, and she slowly became Vi's favorite book.

The only real problem with it was that Vi wasn't a skilled talker. She didn't know how to ask Caitlyn what was wrong. Somewhere between her brain and heart, her throat tightened and words failed. So instead she remained quiet, stewing on this knowledge and not knowing how to broach it.

It wasn't the first card she'd kept close to her chest when it came to Caitlyn.

"Do you think Jayce has made any progress?" she asked instead.

"Doubtful. He doesn't exactly have the trust of the Council at the moment."

"Hm."

The question distracted them both from the moment and reoriented their goal: they'd resurfaced to check in with Jayce; to log what they'd found about Silco's remaining allies; to learn whether whispers of Powder - Jinx - had made it back to any enforcers.

The obligations quickly cast Vi's mindset back on target: get as many leads as possible, then dive back into Zaun for another attempt at tracking down names.

"When do you think we'll…?" Vi turned, realizing she was alone. "Cupca-?"

The word faded against the rush of cold that struck her cheek. Her vision was clouded by the splattering of flakes that rippled across her skin and into her hair and across her jacket. She blinked into a defensive posture, one hand wiping the shock of cold and flurries from her face and the other raised in search of the attacker.

A giggle to her right identified the culprit.

"Told you I was an excellent shot."

The words barely registered before her periphery caught sight of a second snowball flying in with a velocity that Vi couldn't dodge. It landed in an explosive puff against her shoulder and left her gaping in disbelief.

She glanced down and around, an arsenal at her disposal. It was on pure instinct that her hands reached toward a ledge and cupped a handful of snow between her palms. The snow creaked as it packed together into a sphere, and her left hand lifted to reveal the delicate flakes taking on a new form. Vi stared mesmerised for only a moment, instinctively dodging Caitlyn's third attempt before hurling her own snowball back at the Kiramman girl.

It missed, but only because Caitlyn had ducked behind a fruit cart. It was strategic and entirely unfair: Vi was caught out in the open, the steep incline of the path behind her, and no accessible barrier in front. She helplessly dodged as three more snowballs were hurled at her, unrestrained laughter echoing between each throw.

But Vi was a quick learner, and she kept moving, sweeping up a handful of snow as she went before launching a defensive attack.

Half a dozen throws later she was getting the hang of the motion, edging toward the side of the cart that Caitlyn was barricaded behind. Just when she thought she'd gained the upper hand, she felt an unexpected splash of cold strike the back of her head. She spun on heel and saw a mischievous smirk dodge around a corner.

"What the-"

"Come here," Caitlyn laughed, yanking at Vi's wrist and quickly redrawing teams. They both cowered behind the cart, watching four snowballs fly overhead. Vi's hands were quickly filled with two snowballs. "Here, you throw, I'll make them."

Vi could barely comprehend what was happening: were they really going to throw snowballs at a bunch of kids?

"Hurry!" Caitlyn scoffed. It triggered the fighter in Vi, and without a second thought she popped her head over the cart and began countering the feeble snowballs coming from the flock of school children.

They held their own for a few moments, but quantity had a way of crushing quality, and the duo were quickly overwhelmed.

"Go, go, go," Caitlyn laughed, pushing Vi around the cart and into the open. Snowballs pelted them, completely overtaken by the swarm of kids. Shouts of victory came as the duo fled toward their original path, shielding themselves from the endless onslaught.

And that's where things went awry.

Vi was many things: athletic, vigilant, and a skilled fighter. What she wasn't was knowledgeable of the other aspects of snow. Like how it was remarkably capable of taking different shapes, or how it could work as an insulator, or how it was impossibly slippery in certain conditions.

This slipperiness was her downfall.

And Caitlyn's.

Literally.

Uncontrolled speed and the particularly precarious slope sent Vi's feet sliding out from under her. A yelp of surprise squealed from her lungs, but not before her hands reached out for a steady hold. In this case, that steady hold was Caitlyn. Unfortunately Caitlyn was not steady enough, and the two were sent sprawling and tumbling down the hill into an unchristened snow drift. The plummet sent them both sinking, and as luck would have it, the fall sent Caitlyn directly on top of Vi.

Luck. Vi inhaled heavily, trying to recover from the crush that sent the wind from them moments earlier. She lost it again when she glanced up at the deep blue eyes glowing back at her. The last traces of fear had morphed into glee, and a smile curled across her delicately thin lips. A cloud of frosty breath plumed from her mouth, and Vi let the distraction of it let her eyes linger for a moment on her mouth. It made her heart flutter then skip then soar out of her chest.

Luck. It was luck that her boots hadn't gripped the slick pavement. It was luck that sent her arms clutching at Caitlyn's waist for support. It was luck that sent them both off balance and hurling down the hill. It was luck that now had Caitlyn near her; over her; on her.

Bad luck.

It was all bad luck. Bad because Vi's hesitation and doubts would always win when staring down the Kiramman girl. Bad because an undercity dweller wasn't who Piltovers chose. Bad because the feelings that lurked and tightened and ached in Vi's chest lacked the courage to be rejected.

"Sorry," Vi muttered apologetically.

"It's ok," Caitlyn whispered back, her breath a sharp contrast against the cold radiating off the snow. Yet still, she made no effort to leave the grip Vi had around her. "First time?"

Her face was far too close, and Vi felt every fiber of her being keep from closing the gap; from indulging in the one fantasy she'd let occupy her thoughts; from falling into the one distraction that knocked her of her game.

"I… uh- f-first time?" she asked, throat dry and tongue parched.

"With snow."

With snow.

"Oh, y-yea. I've never. It's… Vander told me once about it but…"

"But didn't share all the nuances of it being unbearably frictionless?"

Vi understood only half the words but nodded nonetheless. There was an eagerness to climb out of their snowy hole and stretch as much space as possible between her and the Piltovian, but there was a matching eagerness to keep her fingers curled against the navy jacket molded to the body above her.

"You'll likely be soaked if you stay like this much longer."

Vi gaped, jaw slack and brain broken. "Wh-what?"

"That jacket is not meant for this weather," Caitlyn continued, shifting her weight and rolling up and onto the snowy surface above. It was only then that Vi felt the cold chill of melted snow wetting her lone-line of fabric. "Come on," came Caitlyn's voice from above her snowy grace. "We'll get you into something warmer."

It wasn't necessary. If anything Vi was grateful for the shock of cold to her system, but that didn't stop her from climbing to her feet and following Caitlyn who'd veered off course toward a very familiar residence.

Soft flannel pants bunched at Vi's ankles while a t-shirt struggled at the seams. It wasn't ideal, but it was far warmer than the soaking garments that had somehow penetrated Vi's marrow and chilled her from the inside out.

They'd returned less than twenty minutes earlier with Caitlyn stubbornly dismissing Vi's insistence that her clothes were fine. Instead she was shooed away with a stack of warm attire and directives to dispose of the rest in a hamper down the hall.

It was a familiar enough routine that Vi didn't catch the absent way Caitlyn gave her mismatched clothes. Any other day it would have been sacrilegious to don deep red with pink, but it wasn't until Vi caught her reflection in the mirror that she even noticed the oddity.

Equipped with nothing but the comfiest fabric Piltover had to offer, she navigated the now familiar halls in search of the young Kiramman before finding her in the smallest of three gathering rooms. A roaring fire basked Caitlyn's cheeks in an orange glow not unlike the cafe's lighting from earlier.

She was decked out in similar flannel garb -also unmatching - and was curled in a ball in front of the fire: knees were pulled up, and arms squeezed tightly around them. The fire stretched her shadow across the rug. It contrasted the shrunken form of the typically strong-willed woman who scoured the streets of Zaun with her. For as mighty as her shadow was, her limbs were curled inward, rocking backward and forward. This woman looked different; softer; vulnerable.

Words failed Vi again. Her mouth opened to speak from the threshold, but instead she chose to approach quietly, settling in next to Caitlyn.

Soft crackles and hisses filled the space. Unfamiliar silence had returned, and seconds stretched into minutes like this: the wood creaked under its own failure; silence engulfed the mansion; two contrasts sat side-by-side.

The silence was suffocating. It was suffocating, and Vi remained speechless. Her periphery made out the empty expression on Caitlyn's face, and Vi wanted so badly to reach out and pull her into her arms.

But there was every reason not to.

And that made it worse. It made it so that Caitlyn was alone with Vi sitting beside her. It made it so that what Vi knew couldn't happen kept her from being a companion; a friend; a confidante. It made it so that Vi understood a second more of silence was unacceptable.

"Did you, um…" Vi began uneasily, "when you were a kid, did you like winter?"

She glanced hesitantly from the fire and watched a tear trail a path down Caitlyn's cheek. A silent nod followed, cheeks flushing a deeper red as she fought to contain a sob.

Whatever defenses Vi had built up crumbled, and instinct brought her arms around Caitlyn, cradling her to her.

"I-I'm sorry, I-"

Vi shhh-ed Caitlyn into silence. "Your mom?" she whispered, and a nod against her shoulder confirmed it all.

Caitlyn had been unusually strong when news of Cassandra Kiramman's death broke. Her father was shambles, seeking out the countryside to mourn. It left Caitlyn with an empty mansion and the echoes of memories to follow her around - haunting her.

"She'd have liked today. She'd have… these were her favorite."

Caitlyn didn't expand, but for once words weren't needed. Vi understood implicitly, because she'd felt the same: deep beneath the unfamiliar and feelings of trespassing was the boundless, unfiltered joy that came with the flakes that dusted the city. It was a contagious bliss.

The bliss translated into a tightened grip. Silence returned, but the weight was different. The two basked in the warmth of the fire, occasional tears and sobs escaping Caitlyn as she finally began to mourn her mother.

"Thank you," Caitlyn whispered as the fire receded, the light faded, and embers brought the unspoken hour to a close. "Thank you for being here."

It was an unspoken hour of soothing calm; of fingers tracing circles on Caitlyn's back; of lips pressed tightly to her temple; of a thumb wiping away errant tears.

I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. The thought flashed through Vi's mind before she swallowed it down and instead settled on, "of course."

Perfectly platonic, perfectly middle-of-the-road, and perfectly ensuring a safe distance between her heart and heartbreak.

But that didn't make the moment mean anything less than what it was.

"Today was a good day," Caitlyn whispered into the crook of Vi's neck.

For a moment Vi fought the small smile that crept across her lips. But then she felt the tug of new memories: of hot cocoa, of the crunch of snow in her palms, of an unbridled giggle, of an evening holding her most precious relationship tightly to her.

And so she smiled. Because after all, it was a good day.


a/n: Well this flew right off the rails. It was supposed to be a 1k word snowball fight.

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