Tales of Runeterra: The Gray Sunset

 

Tales of Runeterra

Chapter 8:

The Gray Sunset

                Sunset was an early endeavor in Zaun. Placed below sea-level, as they were, and beneath the towering monuments of glass and steel that made up Piltovan buildings and Promenade mockeries of said buildings, the sun was an entity that disappeared far before its light had disappeared from the world. The only times that the sun could be seen in Zaun was when it was directly overhead, and when that happened it was usually nigh unbearable to be outside. The heat from the rays would heat the Gray something fierce, turning breathing from a pungent, cloying experience to something that was nearly suffocating.

                Imania loved the sun, she did, but she never got to see it. If the Gray didn’t blot it out, then the multitude of buildings did. She could feel its warmth at all parts of the day, but she could only see it for a few hours.

                She hated living in the Sumps. How her ancestors thought that it would be a good place to start their families, even in desperation, eluded her. Still, despite all logic, they settled down in the most toxic place on Runeterra to live and, generations later, she was somehow spawned. Most babies come kicking and screaming into the world. Babies in Zaun come kicking and coughing, taking their first breath of the Gray and somehow surviving.

                Imania was no different. She hacked and heaved when she was first born, or at least that was what her mother used to tell her. That experience made her strong. It made her able to weather anything that came her way. To that, Imania scoffed. All it gave her was a faint green hue whenever she stayed in the darkness too long. All sumpsnipes were like that, their physiology forever changed by the thick, heavy mist that had become so much a part of their lives that they felt weird without it.

                She had been up to the Entresol, once. One of her former bosses had business there and she was brought along to be the muscle. Imania was a twig,  but she could carry the box of drink that she was tasked. The place was bright and glittering and full of people of all kinds. Merchants peddled their wares to both Piltovan and Zaunite, and the people grudgingly got along with one another.

                The sight made Imania sick. Almost as sick as the fresh air that invaded her lungs. Without the Gray to thicken it, air was too… smooth. It glided down her abused windpipes like oil down a fresh drainpipe, and once again Imania was left wheezing as she choked on her own breath.

                Still, the air tasted far better than anything she had ever had before. It tasted better than fresh water stolen from the delivery trucks of chem-barons. It even tasted better than those pastries that Molder had managed to smuggle from a wealthy-looking Piltie merchant. Mixed with the various perfumes and the aroma of freshly cooked meals from the booths lining the streets, Imania loved the way that the air tasted. Now that it was no longer polluted by the ever-present metal of the Gray, everything just seemed so… fresh.

                It was an amazing experience, and one that cursed her forever. Now that she knew how good things could taste—how good they could look while glittering under the unfiltered sun—she could no longer go back to how she was before. Where before, she had thought that the oppressive stench of the Gray was just a part of life, she was now almost acutely aware of its presence. It was in every piece of food that she ate, no matter how sweet or spicy. It was in every beverage she drank and every smell she smelled. It clouded every single thing she saw and tickled along her skin with every breeze that passed. It permeated her clothing and her hair. It was everything. It was torture. Imania hated it.

Imania called it home.

It was where she first learned to scam out-of-towners, and where she had first been protected from a mob of angry Noxians by the sumpsnipe that would become her mentor. It was where she had her first kiss, and where she eventually robbed that same first kiss blind. It was where she had learned how to patch up a non-fatal wound, and where she had learned to stifle her cries.

It was a terrible, awful place, but it was full of some of the hardiest, most wonderful people she had ever met. They didn’t smile at her like the people on the Entresol, who Imania could tell from a glance were just trying to get her money. No, in the Sump, you either smiled at someone because you genuinely liked them, or you genuinely liked what you were about to do to them.

Her mother was right, in a way. The Sump did make its people strong, and it was with that strength that Imania found some of the most worthy people of life. Far more worthy than those idiotic Pilties and tourists who came looking for a feeling of superiority. Down in the Sumps, everyone was equal. Well, everyone besides the chem-barons, but they could be shanked as easily as anyone else given enough time and planning.

It was reasons like that why she hated the people from above her. The Entresol was okay, at night when the Gray started to encroach on even its lofty metal bridges, the Entresol sold cheaper, more questionable products to its more questionable Zaunite brethren. The Promenade, however?

Imania spit. The slightly gooey saliva rushed quickly down to the dark depths, where only who knew what dwelled.

“You okay?” Molder asked. Imania turned to him. His short face and flat, pudgy nose always made him look chubbier than he actually was, but Imania knew how lithe he was. He was almost as stick-like as she was under the grimy, baggy clothing he wore, and could keep up with her on just about any heist they pulled. He was a real pain when they first met when they were younger, but now he was as stalwart as the green tinge of their skin. “You’ve been glaring at the side of that building for the past ten minutes.”

Imania turned back to where she was apparently glaring. It was the warehouse of a Chem-Baron so-and-so. It wasn’t a target that they could hit in their lifetimes, and the chem-baron in charge of it knew it as well as they did. The area around it, however, was about as fresh as air could be in the Sumps, so she and Molder had developed the habit of hanging around it after a successful heist. Doubly so if their heist was unsuccessful.

They wouldn’t dare do anything. They were two sump rats against over a dozen Chemtech augmented dudes with rifles. It was why Baron So-and-So didn’t do anything when they found out about their little hangout spot. There were dozens of old buildings overlooking the old warehouse. He wouldn’t mind them occupying the roof of just one.

“No, I… ugh…” Imania grunted. She pulled at her matted red hair before all but sagging in on herself. Her little explosion out of the way, she turned a face half hidden by her long hair back towards her friend. “I’m not glaring at the damn warehouse. I’m just… thinking. Angrily.”

“You do everything angrily,” Molder responded, though it was not without a chuckle. He reached into his old jacket and pulled out a flask. There was nothing in there that could put them on their ass, but there was almost zero chance that it wasn’t toxic.

There was almost zero chance that anything in Zaun wasn’t toxic.

“I think I plan pretty happily enough. I steal happily too.”

Molder’s deadpan stare told Imania everything she needed to know of what he was thinking. She sighed, then reached for his flask. He stared at her hand, then took a long pull from it. He handed what was left to her, and she took a pull without ceremony. She wasn’t entirely sure what was in there, but it was mostly bland with just a hint of what she could assume was, at some point, some fruit. It wasn’t the best thing she had ever tasted, but it wasn’t the worst. A part of her was curious of what it was, but another part was too afraid to ask.

“I was just thinking,” she finally said. “Doesn’t it kind of suck what’s happening in Zaun?”

Molder chuckled, then reached for his flask. He frowned at how empty it was, then drained it anyway. “What? Would you rather live up with the Pilties, drinking bird blood or whatever the hell it is that they do up there?”

Imania shoved him for his joke, an action that hadn’t dimmed his excitement in the slightest. A breeze fluttered across their little hangout, and Imania could just taste the slight tang of machinery.

“No. I mean, like, isn’t it so damn sad that we have to live in this… ghetto? That we have to be subjected to the toxic product of the Pilties’ exuberance?”

Molder looked at her for a few long seconds before rolling his eyes. His flask was replaced to wherever the hell it was that he kept it. “Pretty expensive words you’re spouting. You been reading some stuff?”

“It’s the truth.”

“Of course it’s the truth. Everyone knows it’s the truth. It’s been the truth since the Flood, and its gonna be the truth long after we’re dead.” Molder kicked his dangling legs. “Is that all that’s been scrunching your undies?”

This time, Imania hadn’t bothered to shove him. She just glared at him, an action that was somehow more effective.

“Geez,” he said. “Fine. We’re getting the short end of it. But it’s not all bad. Piltover depends on us too. They need our resources and our industry.”

“And they use it to poison us some more,” Imania responded, almost far too quickly. “You’d think that with all those resources, all that fresh air, that they would be able to invent something to filter their damn factory runoff.” Imania then gestured out to the deepest parts of Zaun. The Gray—a thick, opaque cloud of noxious gas—was slowly creeping up from the depths. “Instead, look at this. That’s a freaking monster, Molder. You’re not supposed to be able to see the air you’re breathing.”

Molder shrugged. “They have their own priorities. We have ours. And it’s not like our lives are even that bad.”

“Molder, neither of us have parents.”

“Parents die in every part of the world. I bet that half of the soldiers in those Noxus warbands that tear through here don’t have parents.”

“They have fresh air.”

“And they also have more blood on their hands than I do on my clothing.” Molder then shuffled in his place on the roof. They were both sitting on the edge, so he didn’t have to do much to turn to her. “Listen, Ime, what’s wrong? You’ve been in a funk since we came back from near the Entresol.”

Imania opened her mouth to respond, but found herself closing it. The words that were festering in her head for so long just seemed to vanish as she was about to say them, and it took her a while to realize that they were never there at all. All these years, all those rants that never quite came to be were never words at all, but almost-form given to her emotions. Now that she had the stage to say them, however, she was at a loss. How could she say the shadowy blobs of almost words that haunted her every waking moment? How could she pronounce the anger and the jealousy that rose up from her gut every time she looked at holo-cams of happy Piltovans enjoying their gilded, sun-bleached lives?

She couldn’t, and she was even more frustrated at the realization. So, instead of saying anything, she screamed. She was sure that even the chem-baron could hear her anguished cry. When she ran out of breath, she simply took another breath and screamed again, her yells a futile defiance to the ones above who could never truly hear her.

Throughout it all, Molder hadn’t said a thing. He hadn’t jumped, or tried to corral her in. He just sat there, his eyes hidden behind his thick, bottle-rimmed glasses, and waited. When she was done, and heaving so heavily that her entire body shook, he finally placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”