"Hello?" Vi called out hesitantly into the dark room that was only dimly lit by a single flickering light bulb suspended from the ceiling by a thin cable.

The store looked completely deserted but there were small signs of life here and there that indicated that someone had been there recently. A coffee machine hissed fiercely as steam rushed out of its valve, while hot water squeezed through freshly ground coffee powder and dripped into the two cups porcelain cups placed underneath it, mixing with the generous heap of cocoa powder ladled into each cup.

The aroma of strawberry syrup and burnt caramel wafted into Vi's nostrils from the batch of cupcakes being baked in the oven, immediately causing her to salivate in anticipation.

With the owner nowhere in sight, Vi took the opportunity to look around the grey walls of the sparsely decorated store. She plodded over to glance through the posters of previous weekly specials pasted on one of the walls, each pastry being given tasteful names in keeping with the overall theme of the store, such as "Blood Lust" for a blood orange flavoured cupcake and "Werewolf Wrath" for a wolfberry cookie.

Another wall featured a few picture frames that contained childish watercolour paintings that had obviously been painted by a child, as seen from its simple brush strokes and stickman figures. Vi was particularly drawn to a painting with two small stick figures holding hands on a green grass patch outside what looked like a small hut. The figure on the right was drawn with grey skin and purple hair, but what made it particularly distinct was the pair of wings on its back. The figures on the left was considerably smaller than the other figure, such that it had to raise its little arm to hold the other's hand. This figure was coloured beige with short violet hair.

Vi took a quick glance at the rest of the paintings. None of the other paintings were of particular interest, with the rest being painted in the same simplistic style. She stepped away from the paintings and moved towards the wall that was closest to the counter. This wall was blank except for a large and dusty oval mirror. Vi looked closely at her reflection in the mirror. All of a sudden, a winged figure appeared behind her reflection, causing her to jump in surprise.

"Welcome to Sinful Succulence. I'm Morg… Morgause, owner and head chef," greeted the stranger.

Vi turned to face Morgause, who was dressed in chef's attire, complete with the tall chef hat. Half of her face was hidden by her long dark purple hair, leaving only her right eye visible. Vi's gaze drifted to the large pair of wings attached to Morgause's back. They had the colour of nightshade and were frayed and tattered towards the ends. Had they not been completely motionless, Vi would have thought they were real. She almost wanted to feel them with her fingers because of how lifelike they were, but held back, knowing how rude it would be.

Morgause noticed the source of her guest's attention and smiled knowingly.

"These wings made from a combination of cloth, plastic, and papier mache. Do you like them? I made them myself."

"They're very realistic," Vi commented as she seated herself on one of the barstools positioned in front of the counter. "You're a good crafter."

"I appreciate the compliments. I don't get many customers anymore ever since the area was evacuated due to the war, but these wings were the talk of the town back in my shop's heyday. I'd normally let you touch them, but I stopped allowing that when a customer got a little rough and nearly damaged them."

Morgause lifted both cups of mocha from the coffee machine and placed them on matching saucers. She slid one cup in front of Vi before lifting the other up to her lips and taking a small sip.

"Feel free to order anything you want. It's on me today since you're the first customer here in ages."

Vi read the menu on the counter and selected a "Death Note", described as a dark chocolate muffin sprinkled with Dead Sea Salt and had the customer's name written on top with white chocolate icing.

The pastry arrived in a rectangular shape. The dark chocolate layering was almost black, with the word "Vi" written in white chocolate. This last detail surprised Vi, since she had not actually given Morgause her name, but her apprehension was dispelled when Morgause pointed at the scar under Vi's left eye, where her name was clearly marked.

Morgause stepped around the counter and sat facing Vi on the barstool next to her.

"So what brings you here today? No one else lives in this area anymore. Judging from your expression, I take it that you got into an argument with someone important to you?"

Vi widened her eyes at Morgause's incisive question. Her hand, which had been idly stirring her cup of mocha, froze completely with a vice-like grip on the small teaspoon.

"How did you know?" Vi whispered while keeping her eyes trained on her cup, not looking at Morgause.

"I know many things," Morgause replied cryptically. "You remind me of my daughter."

Vi's gaze snapped towards Morgause at the latest revelation.

"You're a mother? But you look younger than me!" Vi exclaimed.

"I get that a lot. I haven't seen my daughter in ages though."

The baker brushed some of her errant hair behind her ear, making eye contact with both of her purple eyes.

"Sorry about that. What's the deal with your daughter?"

"It's a long story. Let's make a deal. You tell me your story and I'll tell you mine."

Vi took a sip from her cup, feeling the thick mixture of caffeine and cocoa running soothingly down her throat. She lowered her gaze again as her story spilled out of her lips.

She talked about her childhood, of growing up without parents as a delinquent in the outskirts of Piltover, going into detail regarding the many instances of robbing and stealing that she could remember, with many others having been forgotten. She talked about Jinx and her old gang, as well as the turning point when she decided to save the miners in a collapsing mine instead of escaping with her gang.

"Everyone else just ran to save themselves. They didn't care about the miners and they didn't care about me. I probably should have run too, but I just couldn't. Something in me insisted that I needed to do the right thing for once; that I had to save the miners, so I did."

Morgause never interrupted throughout Vi's narration of the story, choosing instead to nod along at appropriate intervals to encourage Vi to continue. Vi knew that Caitlyn would have strongly rebuked her for revealing so many aspects of her past to a stranger, and indeed, she had never gone into such detail about her background with anyone except Caitlyn. Morgause was a good listener, however, and something about the cup of mocha seemed to put her in the mood to talk.

Vi's eyes lit up when she started talking about her first encounter with Caitlyn, in which the sheriff invited her to join the police force as her deputy. She spoke glowingly about the sharpshooter's mental and physical toughness in withstanding a brutal beating at Vi's own hands, narrating vividly about the massive force behind every single punch that she smashed into Caitlyn's body, with every single one failing to keep the sheriff down for good, eventually earning her admiration and respect, as well as convincing her to join the force.

"She said that she knew how painful my past was, that she never went through what I did, but that she could help me, she could turn my life around if I just let her. I didn't believe her of course so we kind of made a deal. She would allow me to give her a beating and if she endured it all then I would join her. So that's what I did, I beat her up, I really did. Pulled no punches, hit as hard as I could, aimed for the same spot every single time. I damn well rearranged her internal organs countless times with all those punches to her belly button, but she somehow pulled it off. I was completely exhausted but she was still standing. I don't know how but she did it. I kept my promise and became her deputy."

She spoke with remorse about her first arrest. While she would have preferred to let another officer arrest Jinx, she understood that few others were up to the task. It might have been true that she was duty-bound to capture a criminal like Jinx, but she still felt guilty about the fact that part of her motivation for accepting the task was not completely altruistic. Caitlyn had taken a lot of flak for appointing Vi as deputy, so part of her sought acceptance by the department, which was eventually granted after word got around that she had arrested a member of her own former gang.

"Arresting Jinx was painful. She was like the little sister I never had. She's not a bad kid, she's just a little… unstable. She started doing some crazy things after I joined the police force because she no longer had me to keep her grounded. We cornered her and when she saw me with Caitlyn, she didn't realise that I was there as a police officer and not as her fellow gang member. She immediately resisted arrest and started attacking Caitlyn while shouted at me to escape while she bought time for me to avoid being arrested. In the end, I was forced to inject her with a tranquilizer and I was the one who put the cuffs around her wrists. I didn't do it for Piltover. I did it so I could fit in. I betrayed Jinx."

With Morgause completely rapt in her story, Vi proceeded to talk about how her relationship with Caitlyn developed. And she talked some more. About how Caitlyn had invited Vi to stay at her home permanently without a single bit of doubt concerning her integrity. About the immense faith that her partner had in her, relying almost solely on her for protection. About how their relationship slowly grew closer, and about the day that Vi finally realised that she had fallen in love with her partner after Jayce had confided with her about his feelings for the sheriff, which strangely aroused a deep-seated resentment in her.

"Hammerhead came to me to ask for help in setting him up with her. I agreed at first, but I found myself regretting it. I really wanted Cupcake to reject him. And when I thought deeper about it, I realised that I just wanted her all to myself. I wanted her to spend the rest of her life with me and no one else."

Her voice started breaking as she talked about the fight with Caitlyn that led to her current predicament.

"What hurt me most was that she knew about how I felt all this while. She didn't care about losing me. She only cared about losing her deputy. So I shouted at her. I wanted her to appreciate me for once. If she's going to get married to that idiot then let him protect her instead. So I ran. I left her to carry out her mission on her own. I can't remain by her side anymore…"

Still sitting on her barstool, Morgause reached out and pulled Vi closer to her in a loose hug, pressing Vi's head to her shoulder.

"Morgause… please let me go," Vi whispered, but the baker only pulled her even closer. A single tear rolled down Vi's cheek. "Please let me go… if you don't, I'm going to… I'm going to cr-"

Vi never got to finish. The words remained stuck in her throat and were instead replaced by quiet sobs as she wept into Morgause's shoulder.

"She used to hold me just like this. She gave me her shoulder to cry on. She wanted me to get over my past and embrace my future. But how can I do that when she IS my future?"

She wept for Jinx. She wept for Caitlyn. And she wept for her unrequited love that would never be reciprocated.

Morgause, for her part, did not interrupt and simply allowed Vi to let her emotions run freely while she patted Vi's hair and whispered comforting words into her ear.

When Vi finally stopped crying, Morgause grabbed a serviette from the counter and handed it Vi for her to dry her tears.

"Thank you for listening. I really embarrassed myself there," Vi sniffed.

"My pleasure. You've lived a very colourful life. I'm afraid my story is pretty boring compared to yours. How about I tell you a legend instead? This was the legend that inspired the design of my wings."

"I'm all ears," Vi replied.


A/N: Chapter ran longer than I expected. There'll be a third and final chapter.