A.N.: Apologies for the delay, I had some health issues that prevented me from writing.
Slightly unrelated, but I don't have a Beta yet, so if anyone catches a grammar mistake or anything of sorts (or even feels like Beta reading and would like the nagging right that comes with it), I would be extremely grateful if you told me.
"Sona speaking through telepathy"
:: Character speaking through sign language ::
It was a really pleasant morning. The breakfast was tasty and the unusual company they had made it even better. The yordles' happy chitchatting gave a nice background noise to their conversation and Jax proved to be good company. He wasn't really interested in music which was a bit of a bummer, but he told the best jokes she heard in a while and it was entertaining to watch the impromptu arm-wrestling competition. Jax's expression when he first lost to Thresh, then to Karthus will be a very fond memory that would brighten her mood in dark moments. Undead of the Shadow Isles variety were, as a rule of thumb, ridiculously strong – they substituted muscles with sheer determination and you had to be an exceedingly stubborn person to stop being 'alive' and don't transition right away into being really 'dead'.
All in all, the day started well for Sona and she had a little treasure in her pocket that will make it even better. It didn't look like much, only a plain, ordinary recording crystal, but it was a precious gift; Hecarim's demo album. The horseman wasn't widely known for his musical talents, but music had somehow become the gimmick of the Shadow Isles. The Shadow of War was the backup guitarist of the Pentakill and the only reason he didn't make it as a permanent member was Mordekaiser's intolerance of feel-good pop and hextech tunes– Hecarim's preferred genre of music.
Sona on the other hand had enjoyed the warrior's music a great deal – she was also deeply touched by his trust as he didn't readily share his work with anyone - and prepared for an hour of rainbows, unicorns, fluffy feelings, upbeat hextech tunes and guitar solos. She was just outside of her room, fishing for her keycard in a bottomless pocket of her dress when she felt eyes on the back of her head. Someone was watching her.
She discretely looked around the corridor and spotted a pair of bright blue braids hiding behind a potted plant.
Sona faced a little dilemma; she didn't have her Etwahl on her person because it was big and clumsy and only got in the way during breakfast, but with it she lost her easiest form of communication. Hand signs were well and good with friends, but most of the champions were accustomed to her musical 'telepathy' and never bothered to learn them. How should she approach the 'sneaky' –for a given value of sneakiness which was, admittedly, not much - spy, then?
Fate (not the one with the cards and the Hat) decided to solve her dilemma when Jinx unceremoniously fell out of her hiding place, knocking the potted plant over in the process.
Sona rushed to her and helped her stand up, checking her over for injuries in the process.
"Blast it, Fishbones! You blew our cover!" exclaimed Jinx when she was finally upright, scolding her pet gun. Then she gave a sidelong glance to Sona. "But we wanted to talk to the Harp Lady anyway."
Sona mentally winced at the title of "Harp Lady". Her precious instrument was not a harp, thank you very much. Still, she made a show of pointing at Jinx, the gun and then herself, a questioning look on her face.
"Yep, to you. Do you see any other Harp Lady around here? Speaking of which," she leaned closer, narrowing her eyes. "Where is your harp? You can't be a proper Harp Lady without a harp."
Sona pointed at her room.
"In we go then. I want to talk to you about something very important." Jinx quickly looked around with a conspiratory glint in her eye and whispered: "It's top secret."
Sona very much doubted that, but decided to humour the girl. Only after setting the plotted plant upright of course. You couldn't leave the victims of Jinx's enthusiasm laying around, even when they were of the photosynthesizing variety. Besides, Zyra had a room in the same corridor and she would have gone bananas if Sona left it like that.
So she allowed Jinx into her room and as it could be expected, the energetic young woman was all over the place in seconds. She looked under the bed, in the cupboards, behind the bookshelf searched most of the drawers – as it usually happens due to the universe's love of comedy, the first she pulled out was the one full of underwear, of course – and even peered into the mouse hole , making certain that they were not spied on. She didn't find anything of significance, but she did eat the cheese Sona had put out for the mice – not poisoned, thankfully. Twitch (and consequently Zac) had made quite a stand against that sort of thing, mousetraps, poisoned food and the likes.
Meanwhile Sona collected her Etwahl and played a few simple tunes, feeling her connection to the instrument strengthen to a warm glow in her chest.
"Why do you want to speak to me?"
"I want you to teach me those cool secret signals!" Beamed Jinx, enthusiasm radiating from every fiber of her being. "You know, the hand signs." She went on, gesturing wildly. "It would be totally cool! I could talk to Fishbones in secret and nobody would understand. We would be totally like spies!" A thought had occurred to her and her face fell a bit. "He can learn too, can he? There's not much point to a secret language if your partner can't understand it." She made begging puppy eyes at the Maiden and hugged her gun close.
Sona thought about the idea for a minute. She had a fleeting impulse to tell Jinx that at least a third of the champions knew some sign language, so the secret language wouldn't be so secret at all, but banished the thought. Teaching Jinx would keep the chaotic girl occupied for a time and hopefully keep her out of harm's way. Honestly, what was the worst she could do? Signal rude things at people in the hopes that they wouldn't understand. Most of those who would understand them will either shrug it off or have a laugh out of it and those who wouldn't, well they would get offended anyway because Jinx was just… Jinx. There was no real downside to the deal.
She was about to tell her yes when someone knocked on her door. Well, it sounded more like someone was trying to break her door down with a mace, but she knew the sound well enough to tell that there was no destructive intent behind it.
A visitor she would have loved to have, if it weren't for the horrible timing.
"Maven of Strings? Are you here?" thundered Mordekaiser's voice from the other side of the door. The man just couldn't do subtle, not that he ever tried.
On a hunch Sona caught Jinx and covered the girl's mouth before she could call out that 'she's not here'. She looked strictly at the trigger-happy girl until she made certain Jinx would stay quiet, then quickly opened an armoire and hastily pushed her inside.
"I will teach both of you, but only if you do exactly what I say. Stay in here and stay very quiet, understood?"
Jinx gave her a thumbs up and a wink. "We are not even here," she whispered.
Sona had her doubts, but beggars can't be choosers, as they say. With Jinx hopefully out of the way, she floated to the door and let the Master of Metal in.
"Is someone else here? I believe I heard your etwahl," Mordekaiser asked, maneuvering his massive form through the doorway.
:: I was talking to the mice. The white one is getting quite friendly. :: She smiled as he put his mace down by the door.
"Why are you still feeding those pests? They are unhygienic."
:: They are cute. And they don't get up to any trouble with Twitch in the vicinity; he drilled every rat and mouse in the institute into behaving. ::
"That's hardly a reassurance. He's the single most unhygienic person I ever had the misfortune knowing," he huffed and very carefully sat on her bed, the only piece of furniture that stood a chance of holding up all that metal. It creaked horribly, but didn't break.
Sona smiled at him with a very special, warm smile that said, louder than any words could: I like you a lot, so I'll just take your word on that.
:: Did you come to ask me about my mice? ::
"Heh, no. You know the big, fancy ball the Lightshields are throwing every year?" Sona nodded. She had hopes of going, either as a guest, but more likely a musician, but so far she didn't receive an invitation.
"Well, they dedicate it to us, Champion of the League this year. Just announced. Everyone's invited. Preferably in pairs, for all the dancing business. You know I can't stand ballroom music and you don't dance, so I thought that we could go together. Only if you want to. I'm a great date if there's no dancing involved. I even made a list why, if you want to hear it."
Sona silently laughed, her smile lighting up the whole room. The proposition wasn't exactly a surprise as Hecarim spoiled it earlier in the morning when he muttered about kicking Mordekaiser in the head if he didn't make up his courage to ask Sona out, but it didn't made it any less welcome.
:: No need. I'd love to go with you to the ball. :: Good thing he made up his mind about approaching her, because it saved her the trouble of asking him out. It's always a bit embarrassing when the lady has to do the asking. Despite his dreadful reputation, Sona had grew to like the leader of the Shadow Isles during their time as members of Pentakill. He denied it fiercely, but Mordekaiser was a gentleman under all the pointy bits of metal and booming, blood-chilling voice.
The best proof for this was the small, delicate metal rose the Master of Metal produced from a hidden compartment of his armor.
"I believe it is customary to give flowers when asking out a beautiful lady." Sona blushed to a fierce red as she took he flower, marveling at the intricate details of the petals and the tiny phial of enchanted rose oil hidden in the stalk, giving the flower the everlasting scent of fresh roses. Live flowers didn't last long in Mordekaiser's presence as his aura withered them long before he could deliver them, but by gods he knew how to make up for it. One could argue that the enchanted rose was even better than the real deal, if only for the care he had put into creating it.
:: It's lovely. I will treasure it forever.:: She said it with a warm smile and on an impulse of gratitude, moved in for a hug. It was an awkward deal because of the cumbersome, pointy armor and Mordekaiser's evident bafflement about being hugged, but he clumsily hugged her back, barely touching her as if she would break if he wasn't careful.
Sona couldn't see his face, hidden by the enchanted darkness of his helmet, but she heard him gasp in surprise and felt his warm breath – if she wanted, she could almost pretend that he was a living man in the traditional sense of the word. He felt deceptively alive for one of the oldest undead, but the bitter smell of smoke and the shimmering presence of dark magic under the heavy plates broke the illusion.
The magic of the moment passed when he cleared his throat.
"I am very glad that you like it, but I should be going."
Sona reluctantly let go of him, clutching the rose in her hand even as she saw him out. When she returned from the door, she had found Jinx already sitting on the same spot Mordekaiser occupied not so long ago, practically bouncing in her seat.
"Sona and Mordekaiser sitting in a tree~," she singed, grinning like a maniac.
"Oh, stop it!" Sona scolded, an embarrassed blush spreading on her cheek.
"He loves you! You hugged him and he loves you!" Jinx insisted, getting louder by the minute.
"He was just polite, that's all. And I hug everybody. " It was more or less true. She had a reputation of being an impulsive hugger. This led her to discover that hugging Kog'Maw caused stains that not even magic could get out, Ryze blushed to a vivid lilac, Rengar couldn't help purring when you pet his ear or that Karthus felt and smelt very much like the warm, dry parchment of his ancient tomes.
"Nah. When he doesn't threaten to bash your head in, he's being polite. When he's giving flowers he's either in love or gone completely bonkers."
"He can be quite the gentleman when he chooses to."Not that he does it often, but it wasn't technically a lie. "But please don't tell anyone. He's got a reputation to uphold."
"Pft, do you think I'm crazy? Who would believe me if I said that Spikes was actually a big, soppy romantic?"
It would be bit of a stretch – Is 'sado-masochist with a romantic streak' even a thing? Sona wondered – but it wouldn't be that outrageously unbelievable. Some people would definitely take note and not the kind of people Sona wanted to know much of her friendship with the Master of Metal.
"Besides," Jinx went on, oblivious to her thoughts. "He would murder me in my sleep if he caught me yapping. And not in a fun, creative way either. I'm too young and pretty to die."
Sona just shook her head at that. Well, better to distract Jinx before she changes her mind.
"Would you like to start the first lesson now?" That made the girl's face light up with excitement.
"Yes! Right away! What do we start with? Can we start with 'let me blast you to the moon' please? Or wait, no, with 'come closer I will blow off your face'?"
Sona sighed.
"Let's start with the basics." Jinx face fell and oh no, not the puppy eyes again. "If you are good, I will show you those at the end of today's lesson."
"Yeah! That's more like it, Harp Lady."
Sona suppressed the urge to grimace and forced a patient smile on her face. This will be harder than she thought.
In the end, she didn't show her how to signal 'let me blast you to the moon'. 'Come closer I will blow off your face' neither. She did, however, thought her how to signal 'I've got a big ass rocket and not afraid to use it', much to the girls glee.
A.N.: Bit of a headcanon (not as if I had anything actually canon here) about the Shadow Isles undead. They are the more 'natural' undead, not brought back by outside sources of magic, but initially they turned to undead because they stubbornly held onto life. Sometimes unconsciously (like in Yorick's case, who's still not sure why he couldn't die properly) sometimes easier to pinpoint (Thresh did not want to die at the hands of his prisoners and refused to stay dead; Karthus, when he finally got to experience unlife wanted to enjoy it dammit) and in the case of the older ones, it's completely forgotten. After a while, the body and soul gets accustomed to its new state of being and doesn't require an effort to stay undead anymore, but they still remain exceptionally strong willed people.
I know extremely little about sign languages, but Jinx signaling stupid nicknames and cheesy taunts at people will make a few cameos in the future. Ideas for what exactly she should signal are most welcome. Also, if someone can help make it a little more realistic, I'm open to criticism.
I have ideas for the next few chapters, but I can always use more. Throw ideas at me if you feel like it: who do you want to see.