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(Arcane Season 1 Episode 9 Finale)
"You're my daughter. I'll never forsake you," Silco rasps. Powder looks at him like he hung the stars and the moon.
From where Vi is bound, forced to watch and not intervene, she acknowledges the sincerity in his words even as the rest of her rebels against what she's hearing. She can't believe Silco has the capacity to say such tender things.
She wishes she could cut through her ties and reach across the table to strangle him so he would stop speaking, stop saying things that were obviously getting to Powder.
Powder… She hates how Powder looks now: older, more bitter, more twisted. She hates how violent she is now.
She can't understand the changes and she hasn't had a chance to speak with Powder so she can do that; every encounter they've had has been violent. Every single one…
Only–
That's not yet the case for this one, is it? This interaction hasn't been punctuated with violence yet. There hasn't been limb-rending explosions yet or gunshots released rapid-fire from machine guns.
They're at a dinner table, their guns put away (or confiscated) and fists immobilised–it's a time for civil talk.
Which is trouble for Vi who has never been good with words and, if she does say something, it's sans a brain-mouth filter. But now, more than ever, she needs to say something; she needs to think before she speaks.
While Silco takes a deep breath and Powder seems to cling onto the echo of his words that unfurl in the air, so too does Vi breathe. She hasn't managed a belly-deep one until now because she has been watching things with bated breath. Words are not easy to say without breath and the realisation makes her greedy for more air, taking deep inhales to rejuvenate her paralysed mind and ease the twitchiness of her limbs.
There is a rustle of rope. A thump as it falls heavily to the ground. The clank of machinery being picked up–
"Don't move or I'll shoot." Caitlyn–Cupcake, no–breaks the silence.
Powder's head whips around. The soft look she had with Silco is gone. Is there–was there–frustration in the tightness of her mouth? Was Vi imagining it?
The guns… The guns prickle Vi's newfound calm, once more making her breathing, and mind, stutter.
Her priorities oscillate. She's worried for Caitlyn and she's worried for Powder. But, a second ago, she had been worried the most for Powder. She needs to commit. Who is she trying to get through to?
No wonder Powder–sensitive, hyper-aware Powder–is confused by her, so much so that she needed to arrange a sit-me-down with her whole family to talk about priorities.
Priorities... Who's your priority, Violet?
She clenches her fists, pounds them once, impotently, against the arms of her chair. The pain doesn't match the one in her heart, torn in two directions, or the one in her head from the mental pressure of having to think in ways she has never done before. She closes her eyes from the pain and roars into the blissful, sightless abyss.
"Dammit, Caitlyn. Put the gun down. We're talking!!"
She's angry as hell at herself. She can't believe that she has almost let her chance to talk with her sister slip away.
Nothing answers her scream, but no gunshots follow too, so she opens her eyes.
Powder's shoes are the first thing Vi sees—she didn't even hear her come that close—, then Vi's eyes rove up the purple of her pants. Past Powder, she can glimpse Silco's slitted eyes staring at her with venom; however, that's a negligible detail when her attention is on cataloguing how Powder has taken Vi's words. Powder's clenched fist, resting against her thigh, is like that of a statue–it's so still. Vi finally gets to Powder's eyes and they are the exact shape as the ones she sees in her mind's eye when she sleeps at night—wide-eyed and shocked.
They're just pink-hued instead of blue. It's a dissonance that Vi has been struggling with and, at the sight of them, grief and turmoil comes over her anew.
"But... Vi–" Caitlyn's strangled voice steals her attention away from her sister.
Vi spares a second to look at her; Caitlyn looks stunned and betrayed. Her grip on the three-barrelled gun still holds true. Vi can feel her will falter for a second—out of fear of that gun firing, and regret she has to hurt Caitlyn.
She pushes the conflicted feelings back with a vengeance.
"No," she says forcefully—the word half for herself and half for Cait. "No guns. We're. Fucking. Talking. Put it down."
"But–"
"Be quiet. Please."
Vi doesn't have the time to check if Cait follows her words because she's rushing to get back to the one who needs her the most.
"Powder..." she finally starts. It's the word she has the most confidence saying because it's been her prayer many a night.
Embarrassingly, after that, she loses steam on what else she should say. Words come to mind, but they don't sound totally right. Does Vi say this? Does she say that? Goddamit, she doesn't know. She'll just say what she feels even though it makes her cringe–how clumsy she sounds–and even though she has a cold sweat at the thought of her choosing the wrong words.
"I'm sorry you had to tie me to a chair to get me to talk better and to stop leaving. I've not been a good sister to you."
"Jinx–Jinx! She's trying to manipulate you. Don't fall for–" Silco tries to cut in, but his voice is choked off by a napkin that has found its way into his mouth.
"The children are talking, daddy," her sister sings with false levity. She is somehow now in reach of Silco despite having been right beside Vi.
Regardless, no matter where Powder stands in the room, her pink eyes are fixed on Vi. Vi takes that as her cue to continue.
"All this talk about justice and revenge, Piltover and Zaun… I couldn't care less about them if the two of us aren't alright. I know you think that I have to choose between Powder and Jinx. I'm not gonna lie—" She hesitates; her next few words are tricky in terms of how they may be received. Also, her throat is becoming stoppered by a ball of emotions. "—I wanted to have Powder back."
Two sharp inhales. One from Powder, whose eyes have become murderous and hurt in the confirmation's wake. One from the shadows to her left. Caitlyn.
"—because," Vi says forcefully to dispel the shock caused by her words, "Powder is all I've ever known. Thinking about finding her was just about the only thing that got me through Stillwater."
Frustratingly, her eyes water without her permission. Vi closes them quickly, cursing herself that she can't hold it together during this crucial moment that Powder needs her. She's still bound so she can't swipe at the tears that eke rebelliously through her lashes. They leave cool trails where they stream.
She is shocked and startles when a small, cold hand touches her cheek. Vi squeezes her eyes tighter for just a second, letting herself believe that this was the past and that this could simply be Powder comforting Vi like she used to.
Vi opens her eyes to pink ones that have complicated emotions swimming in their depths.
"You've changed, Powder," she whispers. She watches Powder flinch, affected, no matter how gently the words have been said. "But… being Jinx helped you survive and I'm… grateful to her for that." Her words strike a chord in herself and she can feel, in her bones, that what she's saying is the truth of the matter.
Powder… Jinx…
Who cares. She was her sister, in all.
Powder stares unerringly into her face, looking for a lie that is not there. The focus on Vi is a little intimidating. However, a slice of humour cuts through the emotional mess in Vi's gut; she thinks, There's the old Powder in the cautious set of this person's lips and the way she tilts her head consideringly.
But heavy braids rest against the sides of Vi's legs, reminding her of the passage of time. That is, if the pink that meets her dead-on is not enough of a reminder.
"You are Powder and you are Jinx," Vi says—a simple conclusion for an understanding that was hard-fought; it feels right.
"Choose for yourself where you want to sit, sis." She smiles tightly, feeling bittersweet at the long-unused word. "I promise I'll want you either way."
Words spent, she leans back in her seat, now grateful for the restraints that prop her up. She takes quiet breaths in and out in the silence that follows. She feels exhausted—worse than if she had been in a brawl. Her head is aching.
Silco has actually been fighting against his restraints, throwing unsounded words against his muffle. His eyes are bright with hate for Vi and fear of losing Powder. Caitlyn occupies a suspicious absence in the room and Vi appreciates how she has made herself scarce.
Powder-Jinx-Her sister is actually so close, towering over Vi for once. From Vi's vantage point, looking up at Powder, Powder looks stretched thin and tense everywhere, face older than it had been even a day ago.
Her hand, which has been cradling Vi's cheek, suddenly stops applying pressure and drops away like a dead weight. In fact, everything slackens and falls away. Powder's posture relaxes like a marionette cut from her strings. For a second, she slumps closer to Vi before she whirls around and stomps away. Her braids smack Vi heavily on the side of the head. Vi flinches, but keeps her mouth shut.
She spots Powder's hands trembling at the same time Powder herself does. Vi watches her frown at them, flexing them experimentally.
Powder clenches both, tucks one around herself like a clamp and brings the other up to the side of her head where she starts tapping herself rhythmically.
"Powder?" Vi shakes herself and tests out hesitantly, "Jinx?"
It's surprisingly doable to use this name, but Vi's mind still skitters to 'Powder'; it will be a while yet before she can use 'Jinx' without reminding herself of her failures of sisterhood.
"I hear voices in my head," Powder says abruptly as an indirect reply. Her voice is jagged, no longer sing-song and slick. Her tapping becomes a hard knock. "I hear Mylo. Claggor." Knock, KNOCK. "They tell me that I'm not good enough and that nobody loves me. They never shut up..." Powder ends with a whispered tone and her arm, which is wrapped around her waist, hugs tighter.
Vi wishes she were the one comforting her instead. Powder seems to sense the caring slant to Vi's thoughts because her eyes meet Vi's and, in them, there is offence, hate and hurt interacting like explosives.
"You're there too," she accuses, "and, most of the time, you join them."
"What do I—What do I say?" Vi's voice is small. She has a sinking feeling she knows what she says, but she hopes Powder remembers her better than that, recalls her at her best and not just her worst.
"What do you think!? That I can't do anything right, that I'm a jinx, that you don't want me around, that Mylo was right—!" Even caught up in her anger, Powder's voice holds grief and stutters in places with the suggestion of tears being held back.
No, Powder... Vi thinks wretchedly, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry... Her sister's tears call up her own—No, don't, she tells herself. (Not yet, she consoles herself.)
"Is that all you remember!?" Vi's voice cracks but she manages to make it a shout, loud enough to punctuate Powder's frenzy and stun her into silence. "How about…" Vi grasps at memories that have become slick in her horror at Powder's words.
Mercifully, one memory is there for her. It's a familiar one that has accompanied Vi through many nights. She wills Powder to remember it too, remember how it was then when it was two sisters and the world before them…
"You remember the times we spent on the rooftop? We would talk, sit, look at the Lanes. After a while, you would fiddle with a project of yours and become completely absorbed. I think you thought I was watching the streets, or the skies, but actually—" A sad laugh leaves Vi's lips. "—I was watching you, smiling and feeling that I loved you. So much."
She continues, with words that should have been said long ago, "When you failed at something, I didn't feel ashamed that you were my sister. I felt proud that you had tried even though you weren't good at it. I just... didn't say those things out loud."
Her disappointment in herself almost stops her from going on, but she manages to, because Powder still needed her to.
"I love you," Vi says seriously, into the shimmer-pink of Powder's eyes, "I'm proud of you. You do good—Fuck what Mylo says or what I've said. You're not a jinx—I was wrong! But... I understand that Jinx is a part of you now. I—I want to learn to love her too."
...
"The Vi in my head never interrupted her own words before," Powder says slowly. "Once she gets started—" She scoffs, the sound only thinly masking her hurt. "—there's no stopping her."
Her eyes rake over Vi assessingly, gaze unreadable. "Do you mean what you say?"
Vi takes a deep, anchoring breath. She opens her mouth and, at the same time, it comes to her that she is toeing an invisible line, beyond which was the unknown. All that she knows is that Powder is across that line and she will do anything for her.
"Yes," she replies. (Her boot crosses the line then her whole body.)
Immediately after, the magnitude of her task impresses itself upon her: She has to try to get to know Jinx. She can't stop telling Powder what she loved about her so that she could overpower the Vi in her head. She can't leave Powder again.
She feels breathless from the weight of what she needs to do to keep that "Yes".
It's lucky that her panicky thoughts are interrupted by a sharp spurt of giggles and then an amused snort.
"Gee, sis. Sappy much?"
Vi's head snaps up so fast that she almost gives herself a whiplash.
But a whiplash would've been worth it—any pain would have been worth it—because what meets her eyes is a tentative, uncertain smile that makes slight crow's feet appear at the corners of pink eyes.
Vi can't help how her eyes have become wide and are filling up with cautious hope. She returns, "Yeah, didn't expect it from me, huh, Pow?"
Powder flexes her fists but doesn't snap at Vi at the use of her old name. Vi can see Powder struggling with herself; she doesn't dare take a breath for fear of interrupting her. You can do it, she thinks, Damn it, you can do it. She sees Powder swallow minutely then she bravely responds, voice strained, "I guess I should've expected something about you to change since it's been a while. Didn't expect this, though."
They are both aiming for nonchalant, trying not to rupture the fragile moment by reacting to how massive this is. Sisters on unfamiliar ground, they are effectively blind in this new territory, but trying their best to feel out a way back together.
"Well," Vi clears her throat, "I like to keep some surprises up my sleeve."
She catches how one side of Powder's lips tugs up in reluctant amusement.
"Well, I've got some surprises up my sleeve too," she hums. There's an undercurrent of something in her voice, the flickering return of something more dangerous.
Vi, feeling a dart of dismay that they may be returning to how they have been, keeps her cool.
She ticks her left eyebrow up, imbuing it with as much mischief as she can. It's a teasing look inspired by the ghost of a younger Vi who would give her sister the same thing to start a play-fight. "Would this surprise happen to be you cutting me out of these ropes?" She wiggles her fingers as much as she can.
Powder doesn't respond exactly the way she did: she tilts her head slightly—same way as she did in the past. But her voice is much more distrustful when it comes. "Why?" Powder scoffs, eyes seeming to spark pink with suspicion, "So that you can save your girlfriend and stab me in the back?"
Trust in us, Vi thinks to herself, feeling so much anticipation that it makes her fingertips numb.
"No," she says, words remaining soft in response to Powder's prickliness, "I want to give you a hug."
This clearly throws Powder for a loop; her breathing quickens and her eyes zealously dart across Vi's face, searching for deceit, almost wishing for it because it would be easier.
"I—," she stutters before she recollects herself. Her look becomes hard and challenging, pink eyes alight, "Do you mean Powder or Jinx?"
Vi meets her head-on. "Both." She tilts her chin up in response.
Powder, fallen silent and staring, takes one step forward then two, three, until she's in front of Vi.
She takes something out from somewhere on her person. It shines in the meagre light; Vi sees that. She loses sight of it the next second because it is tucked beneath her chin. Vi doesn't need vision to know it's a knife—it's now an all-too-sharp awareness that she has of it. The knife's point is kissing her neck, in contact with it.
Vi doesn't change her breathing pattern and she keeps her eyes on her sister's unreadable expression.
The sharpness lightly glides down Vi's throat, across her heart, down her upper arm, dips into the softer nook at the front of her elbow then finally down her forearms. This is when Vi stops feeling the shape of the knife's edge because it's when the blade reaches the thick ropes that bind her to the chair.
There's silence as Powder cuts through her handiwork. She's silent and seems absorbed in what she's doing; Vi has no doubt that her reflexes are excellent and she could just as easily bring the knife back up to Vi's face if it struck her fancy.
Shh… Snick.
The bindings around Vi's arms, wrists and legs are released.
Powder stands up slowly, nothing in her movements revealing her inner thoughts. She twirls her small knife as she watches Vi.
Vi shakes out her wrists, feeling blood returning to her limbs.
"Can I—" she says; they are the first words that have been spoken for a while. Powder stills in her handling of the knife. "—hug you?" she ends awkwardly.
The answer Powder gives her is complicated: an aborted nod, a measured exhale, a sketch of a one-shouldered shrug.
Vi doesn't need any more from Powder. She's been itching to—
She surges to her feet.
She doesn't have to move forward very far because Powder hasn't taken more than one step back after she freed Vi.
The tips of her boots make contact with Powder's metal-cuffed ones.
She's taller than Powder once again. Good, it made it easier to— Her arms go around a thin frame and her head seeks out the cushion of blue hair like a homing device —to wrap her arms around her.
Just like the hug a day ago (a few days ago? God, she can't remember. Too long anyway), it's like coming home, but it can't be dismissed that home is slightly different from what she remembered. That's okay; she'll learn the differences and come to love this home as much as the previous one.
With her cheek pressed against the hair at the back of Powder's crown, Vi's open eyes take in the blue expanse that usually existed only in her dreams. She stares, fascinated by the way Powder's hair collects in the beginnings of a braid or how individual blue wisps have escaped the braid's hold. Never would she have guessed Powder's hair getting as long as this; the observation delightfully holds her attention for a long while.
As the seconds tick by, Vi allows the urgent, clamp-like hold she had around Powder's shoulders to loosen and drop to a more relaxed position—one remains around Powder's shoulders while the other drops to her waist.
A brief pressure appears on the toe of Vi's boot before whatever-it-is bounces away and clatters on the floor, but it's only Powder dropping her knife. Powder goes from standing stock-still to giving Vi her body weight, leaning into Vi like she trusts her not to let them fall. Her head presses more securely into Vi's collarbone. Vi feels a rapidly growing cool patch there, a safe harbour for tears to collect.
Finally, a sob gets through Powder's pinched lips and Vi absorbs the impact of it with her body. Feels it like a slam against her heart.
When Powder's arms disengage from their stiff posture and wrap around Vi's shoulders like snaking vines is when Vi finally gives into her own tears.
"I'm sorry," she says because of how her tears are dripping onto Powder's bare shoulder and into her hair. 'I'm sorry' for how she had lashed out at Powder so many years ago. 'I'm sorry' for having been gone for so long.
"I—I love you." It's not a common phrase for her and she stutters over the words but, when Powder grips tighter, Vi understands the need for it. "I love you, Powder," she whispers into blue hair, "and I love you... Jinx."
Powder chuckles wetly into Vi's shoulder. "That's gross," Powder complains, voice affected by how her nose is stuffed.
Vi shrugs unsurely. There's not much space to do that so the movement jostles Powder's head up then down. "Should I stop saying it—?" she asks.
Some silence then an almost shy, "No. Keep doing it."
Powder adds something even softer and near-inaudible. It would have been if Vi's ears weren't such a short distance away from her lips. "You chase my monsters away," Vi manages to hear Powder whisper.
Vi remembers their monster game. "I'm glad," Vi says simply, in lieu of all the complicated emotions of shame-nostalgia-grief-relief and hugs her tighter.
...
The room they are in somehow now has fewer sounds. Maybe it's because Powder and Vi are breathing with the same rhythm.
Candles burn in their wicks. They illuminate an empty room.
No Silco, no Caitlyn.
Vi's eyes widen. She forces herself not to tense further, but it's too late; Powder has felt the change in Vi's body language and she pulls away.
"Vi?" she asks. Vi feels crushing relief at hearing Powder's voice say her name in an echo of the way she did before.
"Silco and Caitlyn," she admits. She stifles her anxiety at the renewed tightness that floods Powder's frame.
"I'll kill her!" she snarls, looking wild and fearful, "If she hurts—"
"Wait."
It's only the memory of the hug that gives Vi the courage to touch Powder's hands which have gotten ahold of a pistol and knife from out of nowhere. Murderous pink eyes shoot to her and dare her to offer a defence.
"No blood," Vi prompts Powder to realise, "Whatever happened, it wasn't something messy like a stabbing or slashing. And we would've heard if there had been gun shots."
Powder snaps back, "Do you know how easy it is to strangle someone to death, even for someone as shrimpy as your girlfriend!?"
"Not my girlfriend," she shoots sharply, though it is ultimately a stalling move; she really doesn't want to say what she is about to say.
But Powder looks so distraught and frenzied that she grudgingly offers, "I'll help you find him."
The words taste like ash on her tongue and, worse still, a betrayal of Vander. I'm sorry, she extends to the ghost of him that lives in her mind. Would you be furious? Disappointed? Vi briefly wonders, guilt in her chest.
Unfortunately, the dead are no longer around, and there are living people to make it up to.
Powder stares at her in disbelief. She copies Vi's move and ticks up her left eyebrow.
"You?" Powder imbues the word with as much dubiousness and amused derision as she can.
Vi remembers how it is to be an older sister just then—how one holds exasperated affection for a sibling who still has the audacity to goad when being granted a favour.
"You want to look for Silco?" Powder chortles.
On reflex, Vi rolls her eyes at the reaction. Then, remembering herself, she gives a motion that can't be misunderstood as anything other than a slow nod. "Yeah," she responds. "It's just for your sake—don't get me wrong."
While of course she hates Silco, she's willing to hold off on pursuing that particular matter... For Powder.
"Aw, sis," Powder drawls—but her voice has dropped its sneering edge—, "Be still my heart." She turns away from Vi. Regardless, the movement is not fast enough to hide the tail-end of a pleased, shy smile that has been surprised out of Powder.
As it always does, the seriousness of the matter returns and they fall into silence.
Powder starts leading the way out, sleek and dangerous. Vi steps carefully after her, guarding the rear.
She has an inkling that this may be the beat of the drum for a while—Powder leading with Vi following. That's fine. Anyway, Vi said she wanted to get to know Powder as she is now. What better way than to learn how she experienced and interacted with the world now?
The way Powder moves through the wreckage of the warehouse is breathtaking to watch; she stalks forward, composure and confidence in every line of her body, as though she found herself while Vi was away and knows now what she has the strength to do.
They move with quiet force, keeping pace with each other; they exchange glances to give cues to go this way or that, coordinating who gets the next grip or who takes which path.
Where Powder makes a well-practised jump for a jutting metal pipe and seizes it with her left arm, Vi does the same with her right for a similarly overhanging piece of metal close-by.
Powder, hanging by one arm, swings gently to grab the next handhold with her right arm then continues riding the momentum to arc herself neatly onto a stable platform above. She lands with a clean metallic clank.
Vi's path is slightly different because she chose somewhere else to start. She scans the face of the rickety structure and spots a potential handhold that is half her body length above her. She extends her free hand—left—upwards in preparation.
She chuffs out a quick exhale and coordinates her sharp inhale with a levering motion that uses the strength of her right arm. Muscles flex. She bursts upwards with enough energy to only have to gently grip the overhang she'd been aiming for; it's merely to steady herself and with no intention to hang there. Her left foot pushes off a divot in the wall to give her the last of what she needs to scale the remaining height.
Her hands curl around the railing of the metal platform. She swings her legs over the edge, and—that's done, Vi thinks.
Powder is impatiently waiting for her. She is raring to go towards a jagged hole in the building that's a short sprint away.
In it, clouds that are awash with red from the lights of Zaun swirl.
Vi knows that's their stop. Suddenly, it feels like her heart is in her throat.
That, right there, was the real world. There, they will no longer simply be two sisters mending their relationship and learning how to forgive each other. There, the world will try its best to make them only fighters saturated in violence. Possibly even enemies on different sides.
Vi catches hold of one of Powder's hands before they can take another step; she is thankfully not backhanded and taken down for her lack of warning.
When Powder looks over her shoulder and meets Vi's eyes with an arched brow and vague annoyance at the delay, Vi confesses, "I'm scared."
Powder inhales sharply at the admission, caught off-balance. Her next step is not one towards the light, but to shift her weight to face Vi more fully.
"What scares you, sis?" she humours Vi enough to ask, though her eyes are darting across Vi's face, trying to process this reality of her being afraid.
Vi gestures, with a tilt of her head, to the unassuming hole in the wall, but—really? She means Zaun, Piltover and the world beyond.
"It's going to be really confusing up there," she says haltingly, "and I'm worried that we'll…forget all the things that happened down here. The good things, I mean."
A side of Powder's lips pulls up in commiseration as she understands what Vi is saying.
"It's burned in my memory," Powder starts humorously before she pauses. She's quiet for a moment. In that time, her eyes scan Vi, searching for… something. Vi doesn't know what it is and just holds still, Powder's action somehow making her breath catch.
Powder's eyes shift to the red light spilling out of the hole in the wall. It is then that she speaks, while her eyes are averted from Vi's. "How can I forget?" she hums, slightly sadly, "When I didn't think you could love me again and I've just found out that you do?"
Vi's breathing stutters. She tugs on the hand that she is holding to bring Powder back to her and away from their painful past.
"Do you believe I love you?" she asks. Her blood is ice in her veins. It doesn't matter what and how much Vi says if Powder doesn't believe her words.
For a moment, Powder's eyes flash with insecurity before she visibly fortifies herself and, almost defiantly, says, "Yes."
Vi's shoulders drop from their tense position. "Good… Don't ever believe otherwise, squirt," she says. She gathers Powder in a headlock. All the while, she makes sure the hold is one that Powder can easily break if she wanted to. She doesn't and so Vi tousles her blue hair with a fist. They break apart with a laugh, water prickling both their eyes.
Vi's hands raise to give a gentle, loving touch to Powder's cheeks and wipe away the pink tears that now fall openly. "You can be whoever you want to be—Jinx or Powder," Vi says softly, "You choose. You decide. Whoever you want to be, I will love you."
"Promise?"
Vi tips Powder's head forward and brushes her bangs to the side. She presses her lips to Powder's forehead, pulls back. "Promise."
--
Thank you for reading :3 Let me know your thoughts in a review!
And so the fic I started writing in 2021 is concluded. In the spirit of Arcane, here is a song to accompany the end of this fic:
Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel
Hope you have a lovely day!