promise me

[hextechhead]

WHO: Jayce Talis and close CR
WHAT: Jayce coping with the decline of Viktor's life and general feelings
WHERE: Cadens, Nocwich, Horizon
WHEN: January
WARNING: Will be TW for loved one with medical condition that could mean death and feelings surrounding that.





Starters Below

Fanart from here. If you want a specific starter message waftingcurtains on plurk or go wildcard!

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[blackeyedprince]

Kell looks away. There's not much more he can say other than ... eh...

"It's always risky, Jayce."

Kell looks at the mirage of the city. Its tall spires, the silhouette of the other one in the distance.

"But we do it anyway."

In his encounter with death, Kell didn't have time to plan, to prepare, to think about risks. He didn't have to. He knew his chance of succeeding were slim.

"I'm a shitty healer. Back home, some say healing is the hardest magic to master. And I can't. It requires something I don't have. A measure of calm, a balance."

There are blood commands for healing. But none that he knows to bring people back from the dead.

"What I did to Rhy was not supposed to work. I used power that was not mine, power that was so dangerous we lost a world over it hundreds of years before. And it even didn't work all that well. It had some pretty nasty side effects. But I'd take Rhy being mad at me for the rest of my life over being dead. And I'd do it again. I'd do it a thousand times, even if it were to kill me. There's not a person in any of the worlds that exist that I love, or could love, more than Rhy."

He looks back at Jayce. Determination etched into every line of his face.

"That's why I think you will take that risk, and you will succeed. Because we're not that different."

[hextechhead]

Jayce took to healing naturally; it could be because the Horizon gave him strong healing right away, or he spent so much time and dedicated all of his attention to it magically, but either way, it flows through him so easily. It reminds him of how easily the ideas of Hextech came to him, or connected he was to his greatest invention. He might not have a balance, but his calm is very real when healing. To have it succeed for so long but then fail for him, it's difficult. They always knew it was likely, but it still feels like he was cheated.

He sighs and looks out into the fake image of his city. He does miss it. Cadens is not so bad and he has come to like the city for what it is. But it will never be Piltover. It's where he has accepted the rest of his life to be. Maybe some day he will come to love it the same amount. It's not even been a year.

"Back home, in that timeline, I found Viktor looking like he was days away from death. It was a drastic change from the last time I saw him. He was still fading but ... we had time. I thought." All of it happened over the course of a few days, that's the craziest part. The worst week of their life but it couldn't be slowed down or stopped. "Something happened. He made the Hexcore and whatever it did, it didn't cure him, it made him worse. He made me promise to destroy it, because he wasn't able to. He never explained."

So it meant that when he and this Viktor relived that memory, neither of them could understand what happened that would lead there. It had to have been worse than bad. "It was his only chance at survival, but he was choosing to die, and making me destroy it and therefore accept he couldn't be saved." It was selfish, in a way, to put Jayce in that position, but it is because they trusted one another. He needed him, and they both always stepped up for one another. It haunted Jayce for a long time when he got here, that memory. Viktor won't live back home. He can't.

"All I can do here is hope that the Hexcore he made here, with all of our help, is different from the one he made alone. Because ... I think it was evil, Kell. It's a strange magic-technology artificial intelligence, it did something to him." Jayce couldn't understand because he wasn't there. He was doing other things. But he's clearly concerned about it, despite the fact they are going to use it anyway. As of right now, the Hexcore hasn't given any indication of menace. But maybe it didn't back home either until it was used.

"I'm going to destroy it as soon as he's out of the woods, just as I promised. We're going to take the risk." There's no question about that! "But if it doesn't work, it's over. He'll die on the table in front of me."

wrap here?

[blackeyedprince]

But he will die for sure if you don't try. Isn't it the reason you're going for all this risk?

It's true, but Kell has no heart to say such cruel words to Jayce. Not now. Not ever.

"That's the thing with magic. It's inhuman. It can feel greedy and selfish, even evil, but it's because it's pure potential, a force that craves. It has all the power to realize its wants, but it can be swayed to human ends. Humans can shape this potential into what they want. But it can also sway humans to feed it, to be no more than fuel for it. It depends on what they put into it. If they feed it fear and desperation, it will amplify that, and it will destroy them. That's why it's better to have more people if you plan something big. It's not only power that is needed. It's balance. If the group works well together, they will balance each other out. And you have that. You have enough people helping."

There is a very real possibility all that effort can just in the end be not enough. But Kell's usual solution to such problems - not thinking about it - is not something he'd like or even want to propose. He has no idea what he would do if Rhy died.

"What I'm trying to say is I hope it will work out fine. I'm not trying to sound smart or pretend I have all the answers. All I know is magic of my own world. Just... whatever happens, I wanted you to know I'm here for you."

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[hextechhead]