Chapter Text
Dorothea hated her name.
So high up, so Piltie that it hurted her soul. She knows her father hates it too — he's made that clear to her from the very day she was born — and of all the people she knows, it's only her mother who doesn't.
“You'll thank me one day,” she said, trying to comb her hair. “When you grow up and don't live here anymore, when you're up there, you'll thank me.”
She thinks she might vomit just thinking about living up there. Piltover, the big, shining city. The Capital of Progress. Leaving Zaun, no matter how stinking and miserable it was, would never be an option. The mere thought made her nauseous and often drove her almost screaming madly. Maybe that's why her mother didn't mention it anymore. Or maybe it was because they had barely spoken to each other for months.
It's weird, she thinks, sometimes. Living in the same house without knowing how to coexist — or survive, rather — with the other. But it's been like that for as long as she can remember, at least since Dorothea learned to live to the rhythm of Zaun.
That's why she tells everyone who knows her to call her Thea. Shorter, simpler, less Piltie.
“Thea, come here for a moment,” her father's hoarse voice echoes from the other side of the workshop.
He's the only person she never responds to with sarcasm. Not because she fears him — well, maybe a little — but because she respects him in some way. Enough not to argue with him, at least.
She poked her head out, stretching herself out in the half-rickety old chair.
“Go help your mother with the boxes. She can't do it alone.”
And so, knowing that it was no use fighting against her old man's order, she delicately dropped her latest creation on the table: a tiny metal bird that doesn't work at all, but that she likes to watch shine under the scant violet light that sometimes comes through the window.
The years working in the workshop that her father and uncle had set up have earned her some muscles, an unnatural strength in a body as malnourished as hers, but that's how it works, isn't it? She doesn't work too much there: she just fixes parts and takes care of renewing them so they work, so her uncle can sell them while her father works his ass off in the mines.
She took three boxes, balancing one on top of the other. They weighed a little more than expected, full of glass bottles with liquids that she can't recognize — because herbs were never her passion —. Her mother was already carrying another one, with the frown that she always seems to have when she looks at her.
The path to the greenhouse is narrow, a maze of passages where the thick air seems to stick to your skin. Thea's footsteps echo hollowly as her mother silently walks ahead of her. Neither of them says a word the entire walk.
The boxes were heavy and smelled of damp and earth, a reminder that the family greenhouse was barely surviving in Zaun's brutal economy. The thick air of the city was heavier than ever. A toxic smog hung between the streets, blurring the edges of rusting buildings. To her, who had breathed that stench since birth, it was a normal day, usually amused to know that enforcers were required to wear masks whenever they made their rounds.
And, as if her thoughts drew them, a group of them appeared around the corner. Their armor gleamed, impeccable, an insulting contrast against the decadence of Zaun.
”Oh, what a joy. Just what we needed,” she muttered to herself.
One of them crossed her path with the arrogance of someone who knows that no one will dare to oppose her.
“What are you carrying there?” he asked disdainfully.
“Herbs,” her mother replied in an almost servile tone, “for the greenhouse.”
The enforcer did not even try to hide his contempt. “Herbs? Do you have permission?”
And, without further ado, he snatched the box from her hands.
“Hey!” Thea exclaimed, stepping forward with a frown. Her mother's hand, in a firm grip, almost unnatural on a body as delicate as hers, stopped her.
The man didn't bother to check, just glanced at it for a mere second and then dropped it to the ground with a sneer that made his companions laugh. The sound of breaking glass filled the air.
Her reflection appeared in one of the broken shards: her blonde hair, her eyes golden like the details on their suits. A heat rising in her chest, a dark impulse rising in her mind.
She could grab a piece of glass, sharp as a blade. She could do it. She could stab him in the neck, fast, clean.
A sharp tug from her mother pulls her out of her thoughts. “Let's go,” she says in a small voice, practically dragging her towards the greenhouse.
And as soon as they arrive, she thinks she's finally entered her nightmare.
“What's wrong with you?” her mother demanded. “Do you want to be killed?”
“It wouldn't be as bad as this,” Thea spat, frowning. “Why are you silent?”
“Because talking is useless with people like them,” she replied, not even bothering to look at her. Not that it was something Dorothea cared about, either.
The silence that followed was worse than any scream. Finally, her mother sighed, defeated, and Thea left before she could force her to stay.
And she knew exactly where to go.
Vander's terrace was one of the few places she could breathe — metaphorically speaking, of course, because the air in Zaun always reeked of smoke and chemicals. There he was, his imposing figure bent over a pile of rusty tools, while Felicia, as always, organized something in her bag.
“You're late,” Silco said from a corner, writing in that old notebook of his.
“Sorry, I got distracted considering murder.”
“And why didn't you?”
“My mother caught me first.”
“Too bad,” he muttered, though Thea could see a slight curve at the corner of his lips.
She slumped down into a rickety chair, letting out a long sigh. “We should do something, you know. Something big.”
“Like what?” Felicia asked, her eyes filled with a mix of curiosity and concern.
“I don't know. Something that will make them listen to us.”
“Do you think they'll listen to us?” Vander chimed in, his voice low and calm.
Thea looked at him, her eyes shining with defiance. “If we scream loud enough, they'll have to.”
Zaun was a rotten place, but if there was one thing Dorothea knew, it was that rot could be explosive when the right spark was lit. And she was ready to find it.
“Someday I’d like to burn it all down,” she muttered, her own flame dying once more, looking to the side.
“Zaun?” Silco asked gropingly, looking up.
She’d always liked his pale eyes. They had a stupid turquoise tone that she’d only been able to see the times she’d snuck into Piltover to steal. And they were so nice to look at that she couldn’t help but return his gaze in silence for a couple of seconds.
“Piltover,” she corrected, still quietly.
Silco raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything at first. He had this damn habit of letting silence do the work for him. Dorothea hated and loved that in equal parts, because it meant he knew there was more.
There was always more.
“And then what?” he asked at last.
“What do you mean, then what?”
“If you burn Piltover, what happens next?”
Thea narrowed her eyes, not sure if he was challenging her or just enjoying watching her get lost in the chaos of her own thoughts. “”After that, nothing. There would be nothing. And that would be enough.“”
“”It seems impractical,“” Silco replied in his usual tone of someone who always has a better argument in his pocket.
“And since when do you care about practicality? Weren't you the one who wanted to blow up the bridges?”
“That's different.”
“Of course it is.” Thea slumped back, her hands flat on the dusty floor of the terrace. She felt the rough particles against her palms and thought that even Zaun had more soul than Piltover.
Even if it stank, even if it hurt, Zaun was real.
Silco didn't insist. He didn't look away, either.
“What's up with you and Piltover?” he asked after a while.
“What's up with me and Piltover?” she sneered. “Do you want a list? Should I draw you a sketch?”
“No, really,” Silco insisted, and there was that intensity of his again. That way he stared right through her as if he knew exactly where she hurt.
Dorothea sighed, playing with a small rusty nut she'd found lying nearby. “It's everything. How they look at us, how they manipulate us, how they think we're trash while they suck the blood out of us with their perfect suits and pretty lights. It makes me sick.”
“Is that what you meant before?” Felicia chimed in, coming up behind her with the stealth of someone accustomed to not being seen or heard.
Thea turned her head toward her friend, but didn't respond immediately. Felicia always had that way of silencing her anger, of making her think twice.
“I suppose,” she said at last.
“Burning things won't solve anything, Thea,” Felicia replied softly. “You know it won't.”
“And what will?” she replied, her tone sharper than she intended. “Pray? Ask the Piltover council for permission to let us breathe their clean air and eat their leftovers?”
Felicia didn't respond immediately. Instead, she leaned over to sit beside her, letting the silence speak first.
“We have to be smart,” she said finally. “Not just angry.”
“That's what I said,” Silco added from his spot, with a small smile that Thea wished to wipe away with a slap.
“How generous of you,” she murmured, turning away to avoid having to look at that smile any longer. “Say it louder. I don't think Vander heard you.”
As if summoned, Vander emerged carrying a couple of cans full of screws and scrap metal. “What didn't I hear?”
“Nothing,” the three said in unison.
“Well,” Vander said, dropping the cans with a clang; Thea looked through them, ready to take one or two. “If we're going to change anything, we might as well start moving. Sitting around planning isn't going to save anyone.”
“So what do you suggest?” Silco asked.
Vander looked at him with his usual calm before pointing at the scraps he'd brought. “I suggest we build something that makes more noise than our screams.”
For the first time all day, Thea smiled. A spark. An idea. Something bigger than her rage, something with potential.
Zaun needed a spark. And she was willing to be the fire.