Powder sat in one of the many booths that lined The Last Drop. The bar had always been a comforting presence for her in times of uncertainty, or in those moments when she simply wanted to feel a familiar presence by her side.
She enjoyed the ever present cocoon of noise, sometimes it was loud, perhaps overbearing, other times it was quiet, the life outside in the Lanes just barely filtering into the bar's space. But it was familiar and sometimes that was all she could ask for.
Powder lay her chin on folded hands, her head resting atop the wood table's weathered surface. She had lost track of how long she had been staring at her half empty glass, perhaps it had been hours or maybe just a few long minutes. She didn't care to figure it out for her mind was elsewhere.
Ekko was off with Benzo somewhere, tinkering with another invention Powder presumed. She felt a smile pull at the corners of her lips at a memory, something a little distant. Far enough away that she felt the emotions more than the happenings but she didn't care.
Powder reached out for her glass and slowly started spinning it around on its edge. She watched the liquid swash and she tried to think, she tried to remember everything that not-Ekko had said. She had been stuck on it for weeks now and she didn't know how to move past it.
If Heimerdinger was still there she'd be able to talk to him, too. And yet she didn't know where he was, or even if he was. She almost scoffed and let her forehead bang onto the table before a shadow fell across her. Powder felt the vibrations of someone side into the opposite seat. She looked up to find Vander staring down at her. His hands resting upon the table and his fingers slowly drumming over the surface.
"What's on your mind, Powder?" he asked. His tone was light, rich.
Too much was on her mind to be able to explain it all. She didn't know where to start. It wasn't even that she didn't think Vander would understand or listen to her, it's just that she didn't know anything, really.
"Do…" she paused, trailed off in thought for a moment. "Do you ever think about Vi?" she asked.
Powder saw a quick flash of surprise in Vander's eyes before it slowly tuned to a gentle sadness. His lips tightened into a small, sad smile but she saw something a little happier in his eyes, too. Something not so dark, not so heavy upon the soul.
"More than I should," he said quietly. He leant forward and she watched as his eyes seemed to study her. "What's brought this on?"
Powder thought about changing the topic or lying but the more she looked into Vander's eyes the more she thought he could be the only one who could understand what she was going through.
"During the innovators competition," Powder started only to pause and try to figure out who to say what she needed to. "Ekko, he told me about a dream he had," Powder said but she didn't think it was a dream. Not anymore.
"About Vi?" Vander asked.
"He said it was about a world where thing went another way," Powder said. She didn't realise she wasn't looking at Vander anymore. Not until she spilled a touch of the liquid in her drink she had been turning over in her hands. "He said she was the toughest person in all of Zaun," she huffed a small laugh just as she had when not-Ekko had told her this.
Vander let out a small chuckle as her words trailed off and Powder didn't fight her own smile. She could imagine it so clearly. And back then, before she had seen what she had seen it was easy to dismiss as just a dream. But she had seen that Ekko and she had seen her Ekko and she knew or she hoped in some way that Vi was out there. If there had been two Ekkos before her then that could only mean there could be a Vi out there, one that not-Ekko knew, that was still alive, that hadn't died because of her.
It was the only explanation. Or the only one she could think of that helped her put all the pieces of the puzzle back into place.
But it had been months and Powder didn't know if she could bare taking this in silence any longer.
"That sounds just like our Vi, doesn't it?" Vander's voice broke into her cascading thoughts.
Powder looked back up at him and saw his eyes looking at her steadily. She could see him thinking and could see him trying to understand where this had all come from.
Powder felt guilt, too. She felt guilt because she in some large way was responsible for Vi's death. She had never forgiven herself and if she let her memories turn back the years she could still feel Vi's lifeless, broken body in her arms, she could still feel the anguish and the tears and the uncontrollable sobs that had broken through her body.
"I still blame myself," Powder said, her voice raspy with tears. "At least a little—"
"—Hey now," Vander reached out and closed a large hand over hers. "No more of that."
As if to punctuate his words Vander squeezed her hand hard enough that it forced Powder to look up at him and focus on what he said. She saw seriousness in his eyes and his face seemed harder, more determined as he stared at her.
"None of that, Powder," he said. "A lot of people blamed themselves back then. But it's in the past now. Ok?" his eyes turned softer, kinder, his hand around hers gentled and she felt the warmth of his palm against hers. "You can't be blaming your self, not now."
"Yeah," she said quietly. "I guess so."
And maybe Vander was right. Maybe he was right that the blame, and the death, and the guilt —and Vi were all in the past.
The thing for Powder though? It just didn't feel like it was in the past. Not anymore.
Powder spent the rest of the day helping out at the bar. The conversation had helped alleviate some of her uncertainties and yet in some other ways it had only made things worse. But at least with a tea towel in hand it helped keep her mind occupied until closing time.
And so Powder found herself walking the lanes. She was humming a tune to herself that she had done a million times before and she wasn't really too focused on anything in particular. She knew the way to her laboratory like it was a piece of herself. She passed stall after stall, building and shop front after building and shop front as she descended deeper and deeper into Zaun until the setting sun began to fade from view.
It was quieter this deep. Once it had seemed scary, it had been scary. But things were different. Now the depths seemed kinder, more serene. Those she passed seemed to linger in the cool and the quiet as if they too searched for a reprieve from the bustle of the upper levels or of topside. She didn't blame them. How could she when she did the same?
Powder turned the last few corners before pushing through to her lab. It took her eyes a few moments to adjust to the changed light before she started walking over the catwalks and bridges. The familiar whistle of wind in the distance and the echo of her footsteps greeted her as she came to a pause and looked upon the maze of wires and conduits and machine parts that she had hardly touched.
Of course she had tried to organise the chaos, tried to make things just a little neater lest she trip or fall over avoidable hazard. Even Ekko had helped try to order some of the mess in all his confused acceptance. Powder had tried to explain as much as she could to him but she knew it still confused him more than he wanted to admit.
Part of her wondered if Ekko was even avoiding her and spending more time with Benzo, perhaps because he felt an awkwardness between them now. Maybe he was trying to give her the time to readjust to whatever it was that had happened.
Or perhaps Powder was just overthinking things, making it more complicated than it needed to be.
She didn't realise she had come to Vi's shrine until she found herself sitting on one of the cushions. Powder took a moment to relight one of the candles that had gone out before she found herself looking at the drawing of Vi.
"Hey, Sis," Powder said quietly.
She didn't say anything for a long while then. She let the silence settle around her and it gave her time to think and to consider. She brought her knees up to her chest, she folded her arms atop her knees and she leant her chin on her forearms. She didn't know why she did it. Perhaps to give herself some kind of comfort in the quiet. Perhaps to help try to soothe the worries she felt building.
Whatever the reason it seemed to help. But Powder wished she didn't need to do that. She wished she could go back, she wished she could turn back time to before things changed. And it was ironic, even. Part of her wondered that if not-Ekko had still been there would they have been able to master that contraption, would they have been able to harness the arcane and send either one of them back as far as they wanted?
She had hardly let herself think back that far, she had hardly let herself even dream of thinking back that far but in that very moment Powder wondered what she would do if she could turn back time.
She had never wondered that before. Not in any tangible way. Her life was good, her life was fulfilling. She hardly had a need for anything that couldn't be had. Mylo, Claggor, Ekko. Vander, and Benzo and so many other people were in her life and she didn't know what would happen if she changed the past.
But perhaps it was only human to wonder. At least for a little while.
"I find it hard to remember your voice," Powder said into the quiet. Her gaze focused on the portrait of Vi and her eyes. "Each day, the further away I get from you," she swallowed the lump in her throat and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I was better," Powder said. "I learnt how to move on and be happy with who I became."
Powder reached for the blue crystals she had been keeping in her pocket recently, she held them in the palm of her hand and she watched as the sparkled, as they danced in the firelight and she wondered about so many things that she couldn't quite discern in that very moment.
"It's so silly," Powder said. "I told Ekko," she winced slightly. "I told not Ekko that I was happy. That I didn't want to change, that I didn't want to change who I was just to chase some wild dream," she shook her head. "It was all true. I wasn't lying," she sighed and looked off at the contraption, at the platform she had seen not-Ekko suspended within the ball of arcane energy. "But ever since that night…"
Powder didn't know how or if she wanted to finish that sentence. She was afraid, afraid of what it could mean, afraid of what it could do or create.
"I just…" she looked back at her sister's portrait, to the face she had memorised and looked upon for guidance for as long as she could remember. "I just wish you were here, Vi."
Though it had been months Vi still felt a little uncomfortable walking over the bridge to Zaun. Part of her felt guilty that she had been an enforcer. That was a lie though, it was more than just a part of her that felt guilty. Almost her entire being felt guilt. But she had been torn between needing to stop her sister and siding with those that had ripped her family apart.
She'd almost laugh at the memory of something Jinx had said to her in their arguments after they had seemingly reconciled. But only almost laugh for it still hurt a little too much for her to see the light.
Vi sidestepped a cart being wheeled past her, she paused and she felt Caitlyn's hand squeeze hers as if to tell her to pause. Vi looked up at the pressure to find another few carts wheeling past. She hadn't even noticed, her mind too elsewhere, her eyes too lowly focused on the ground to really notice anything in particular.
But Caitlyn's presence beside her and the warmth of her hand against hers, however brief, was enough for Vi to look up, to look out and to see.
She stared out at the people that moved across the bridge and she smiled a little thing as she watched people move in both directions. There were still battle scars, signs of damage that were in various states of repair. She wondered how long the cities would take to fully heal, but perhaps what she saw, what she felt and experienced was sign enough that things were mending, that they would take time, but they would come together as one.
She hoped so. For all their sakes.
"It looks better, don't you think, Vi?" Caitlyn asked.
Vi followed her gaze back towards the Hexgate tower. Most of the damage had been repaired though there were those that still harboured some not unfounded worries about its use.
"Yeah," Vi said with a small smile. "It does."
She meant it. She really did, despite the pain that tower made her feel, despite—
Caitlyn seemed to sense her darkening thoughts for she squeezed her hand and pulled her back the way they had been walking. Vi let herself be directed and she was thankful for Caitlyn in so many ways. She knew she would have been more than happy to stand still and let those thoughts linger and settle around her if she was given the opportunity.
"I spoke to Sevika earlier today," Caitlyn continued. "She said a lot of progress is already being made on the new extensions," she pointed out towards the far side of the body of water that separated both cities. "The docks will be able to accommodate the increased demand," Caitlyn said.
Vi followed Caitlyn's outstretched arm to find herself staring at scaffolding already being erected on the far shore. She felt a smile tug at her lips and this time she let it spread more freely. There'd been too much talk of this, too much talk of that and the docks had been a victim of indecision for too long.
"Sevika didn't need to get violent, did she?" Vi said, perhaps in an attempt to ease her own mood.
In response Caitlyn scoffed Vi's name, the sound just slightly scandalous upon Caitlyn's lips. It wasn't lost on her that Caitlyn didn't answer her question but Vi didn't mind.
And so both women's attention turned to other matters, to things that needed to be rebuilt, to things that were well underway and to things that would have to wait until resources could be directed their way.
It was late afternoon by the time they made it to the Lanes. People still moved about, shops still remained open and bustling. There were even the occasional Topsiders and even enforcers dotted amongst the throngs of Zaunites. But this time they were there to help, and were present at the invitation of the citizens.
Vi would never have imagined in a hundred years Zaun would have welcomed Topsiders in with such open arms. Of course there had been, and there still were, moments of friction, but most of them had been solved, settled, eased into something close to peace.
She wished Vander could have seen it. She knew he would have loved and have been so proud of what they were doing. Vi just wished it hadn't required the deaths of so many and the suffering that Ambessa and Viktor almost inflicted upon them all.
But perhaps, she thought, beauty needed to be seen after the darker times.
Vi didn't realise it at first but they had both come to a stop out front a food vendor and as she looked up she found herself letting out a small chuckle.
Jericho flashed her a toothy grin, his eyes even darted towards Caitlyn as if he was enticing her to try some of his wares. Vi watched as Caitlyn's eye widened a fraction before she politely shook her head.
"One day," Vi said. "I'll get you to eat at Jericho's."
"In your dreams, Vi," Caitlyn answered.
"You know," Vi pulled Caitlyn closer to her, she moved up against her left side as they started walking. "With trade being a bit easier now? Jericho's is probably above board. At least more than it used to be, cupcake."
Caitlyn let out a quick laugh and Vi tried to hold onto that sound as much as I she could as they continued to walk.
It was nice, Vi thought, walking through her older memories. At least she could share it with Caitlyn in some kind of way. But even despite that, the more they walked and saw and interacted with and the deeper they ventured, the more Vi realised she felt something missing.
It took her too long for her liking but eventually she found herself feeling that telltale ache of missing friends, missing companions and those she had once shared a laugh with what seemed like lifetimes ago.
She didn't think it was the same alleyway, she didn't think it was the same dark and dingy street corner, but as she passed one after the other she found old memories coming back of her, her sister, Mylo and Claggor scrambling through the undercity, through the Lanes, up and down and over and under any and all things only to have to face Vander at the end of it all.
They were happy memories, ones that made her feel a bittersweet ache in the centre of her heart and she didn't know if she wanted to embrace them, hold onto them as tightly as she could or if she wanted to turn her back on those memories that had in some way become too painful for her to embrace.
And she felt that way for they were all dead.
Her family. Loris. Even Jayce was gone and Vi assumed his body had been vaporised in the explosion that had somehow stopped Viktor. That act had done nothing but leave her without any closure, without any kind of way to say goodbye to those she called friend or to those who had been allies in times of struggle.
"Vi?" Caitlyn's voice broke into her thoughts and Vi felt a handle on her cheek pulling her gaze up from the ground she stood upon.
Caitlyn stood close to her, her hand forced Vi to look her in the eye and she saw such worry, such intense want to understand what she was going through that Vi suddenly felt guilty about something she couldn't even describe.
Vi reached up and took hold of Caitlyn's hand, she squeezed it and held it close to her neck as if she could make Caitlyn's body one with the very strumming of her pulse.
"I'm sorry," Vi whispered. "I'm—" she worried her lip for the briefest of moments. "Just missing old friends, that's all. I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Caitlyn answered her.
She had been so understanding since Jinx's death. She had been so understanding since Ekko's sacrifice. Caitlyn had been there every time Vi had felt like breaking down and she had worried she'd push her away, she had worried Caitlyn would grow sick and tired and exhausted. But she had been there.
Perhaps that was what Caitlyn had meant when she had asked her if she was still in that fight. Perhaps Caitlyn knew it would be a long road ahead, for Piltover. For Zaun. For her and for them.
And Vi's answer had meant more, too. She had meant it more than anything. She wasn't going to leave. She had turned her back on Caitlyn more than she ever wanted to again.
So it had been a promise. A promise that she'd stay by Caitlyn's side as much as Caitlyn had promised to fight for them each and every day.
And so Vi pressed her lips to Caitlyn's hand before beckoning her away from long gone memories.