assistives | inbox @ salt.

hiya princess
or is it madame dictator now
i forget

[Ice floods her body, a jolt to her system so powerful it is at first dizzying — disorienting, vision spotty where she stands and stares down at the little screen. The words say everything that username doesn't, though the current of responsive anger brings no relief to the cold that has gripped her.

This can't be real. But if it is, what is she going to do?]

[KILL BILL SIRENS]

Where are you

[ a fresh bouquet of pink and violet carnations — symbolising curiosity and captivation, if one knows the language of flowers — and a fresh notebook are delivered to cait’s new room by the lovely manor staff. ]

For your thoughts, though I admit I should like to hear them first.

Alicent

wooooow
u wanna meet me in the sex dungeon that bad 😱

[the WHAT]

I know you don't intend to make it easy for me to find you, but don't play tricks here. Is there anyone else?

[Is it only them? Or could—she... (Too good to be true.)]

[The delivery is thoughtful and unbearably kind in a way that carries Caitlyn to the edge of her bed and down onto it. She rests the notebook in her lap, prim hands folded neatly over it like white birds, slender fingers caressing the edges — reading the name Alicent a few times over. The handwriting is so perfect she can tell it is done by a well-educated hand, refined style befitting a woman of high station.

Then she opens it up and lets the blank pages flutter against her palm, enjoying the ticklish sensation.

There's a message sent to Alicent later on the devices (it's taking her time to get a hang of it herself) —]

Thank you, Queen Alicent. Your gifts are too kind. [In her head she thinks of saying my lady, but it's just a private thought. As was said: she has a council, not a queen. But if she wouldn't mind it the other way around?] The flowers are beautiful. Where did you get them?

i’m not hiding

[ she pauses, though, at the question — knowing who caitlyn means. ]

huh
i thought u guys broke up

she’s not here anyway
but silco is
don’t ask me how princess
this place is just like that

[ unsaid: so you might get your loved ones back, too ]

[No response to that first — and very targeted — barb, because it does hurt and she's not willing to give Jinx any more ground.]

Don't call me that.

[It would sound poisonous, if only it carried in her actual voice.]

You're lying. Why would I ever believe you?

believe what u want caitycakes

[ and, seeing as vander disappeared, silco’s fucking around, and nobody else she loves is here — ]

u know where i’ll be 😈

[ > insert the custom-named location pin SEX DUNGEON, right in the heart of the otherworld. ]

[Well, thanks, she hates this.

But the truth is — what is she going to do, now that she knows where Jinx is located? She has wanted this so badly, it feels as if someone has put the loaded gun in her hands and shown her the target, dead ahead. She could make it this time, she knows — she could kill her.

Except she has no gun, and this place she has woken up in changes everything, because there is no Piltover and there is no Zaun. There is no one here for her, no one to protect or defend, no one to fight for, and also no one to stand in her way. It's such a stupid, pointless, confusing situation — yet doesn't she have to try? Perhaps it will let her sleep at night, reprieve from an endless reel of nightmares behind closed eyelids.

Caitlyn gets to her feet and heads first for the kitchens, slipping in to steal a steak knife off the counter, which she tucks into the laced ankle of a boot. Then she follows the pin Jinx kindly left her, wary of its name, even more wary as she's forced to descend into the basement of the house. The Otherworld, the door says. At least they let her in — and they don't even check her for weapons, which is clearly an oversight of security.

Jinx knows she is coming. This must be a trap.]

[ Jinx is, admittedly, a couple fruity cocktails deep by the time she invites Caitlyn to face her in the Otherworld. Intent on trying to kill her, sure, at least in an abstract way, ‘cause what else would they do, in each other’s company. Piltover’s princess versus Zaun’s finest. Some things don’t need to change. The lights flash, tinting the world blue and pink and brilliant violent. Jinx dances through the crowds, unbothered even as the shuddering beat counts down to a confrontation.

(For the love of the game, Jinx sheds her coat, decorated in her signature symbols, and drapes it around a girl about her size with a parting kiss. It’d be funny, see, if Caitlyn whacked some innocent before she got to her.)

Whether or not she falls for it, Jinx will greet her at the far end of the dance floor, the only tell of her presence the swish of a nearby curtain (hiding a sex room, naturally). ]

What? No foreplay?

[ Her gun nudges Caitlyn at the small of her back while her free hand flutters to brush the nape of her neck. ]

Geez, at least choke a girl first.

[ Jinx thinks of the poison air now flooding the lungs of every undercity resident. The gas bombs that forced her from the Lanes, pink tears streaming down her face. You won’t even let us breathe, and you think I should let you live? Topsiders feel entitled to everything, don’t they. ]

You’re very welcome, Commander Kiramman.

[ flirting via titles. ]

Why, I picked them myself. The gardens here are not quite so grand as the famed acres in the Reach, where I played as a girl, but they’re an improvement on the sparse grounds I knew in the capitol. You and I might take the air there, sometime.

[She is somewhere down the second hall when she acknowledges that SEX DUNGEON is an apt name, absolutely not a poor metaphor, and she is like some sitting duck within it, extremely overdressed beside the sheer amount of nudity on display around her. Only her first experience within Zaun's boundaries keeps her steady — as well as all of what now lies in her wake since that enlightening time, a child's faraway memory.

It does not escape the very real fact that she's out of her element. She doesn't know the Otherworld's layout, and every turn puts her in a new corner of sexual gratification the likes of which she's never seen. She knows she is vulnerable — a large part of that in the emptiness at her side, vacancy where once Vi stood watching her back.

Caitlyn spots that slender silhouette, and though she doesn't fall for the trick (because Jinx is far too smart to put herself out in the open, why would she fall for that again?), the seconds spared in that decision allow her to be snuck up on.

There's a hard breath as her body goes still. The barrel of the gun is cool against her back; she doesn't need to turn to see it. The hand is worse, but she refuses to flinch.]

How cowardly of you, as usual. [She thinks of the knife in her shoe, but she won't have time to get to it, unless she wants to take a bullet first. Maybe it would even be worth it.] Won't bother to face me? No, you'd rather use civilians as your shield, to save yourself. I should have expected as much.

[kicks feet and giggles]

I would like that very much.

Despite the circumstances, I must say I'm grateful you crossed my path the other night. This place would be far more unbearable without your acquaintance.

[ Jinx hopes that she moves, adrenaline alighting her veins, every previous act of destruction playing out in the corner of her eye. In her fantasy, Caitlyn jerks hard to the left, and the answering shot rings out on instinct, simple as breathing. She whirls and bites and claws because no one’s given her an outlet for her grief or anger since she got here. They won’t even admit what she is, trying to make her into something happier, softer, kinder.

But Jinx has seen Caitlyn fight. She won’t go easy.

Her finger flicks the barrel. ]

Think your civilian body count’s higher than mine now.

[ ‘Cause Jinx doesn’t count enforcers or the council as innocents. How can the complicit expect mercy from her? Silco would never have gifted it to them. Even Viktor — once from the Undercity — hardly seems like a person, anymore. More of a philosophy in human form. Jinx tsks. She lifts her hand away, but the gun stays where it is, nudging along Caitlyn’s spine. ]

Feel free to turn around, if you wanna see my pretty face so bad.

[ A shot to the back of the head or the face kills just the same. ]

You know, I’ve been here for what feels like an age now, but it’s been some time since someone… understood, as you have.

[ her first, stammering question about duty and purpose cemented as much. alicent still struggles with both. duty to the many, not the few. the realm and her house. split loyalties, oft conflicting. ]

I’m glad I could provide some comfort to you. Truly. You certainly have for me.

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