Luxurious Anarchy (Lux/Jinx)

Chapter 3: Let Me Live / Let Me Die

Her shortsword, her cuirass, vambraces, and greaves. A knapsack with a few books and trinkets that were hers and also didn't bear any sort of Crownguard markings, and a metal rod capped with a clear gemstone. A traveler's cloak, two spare outfits, and maybe enough food for a week, if she didn't mind tightening her belt. The sum total of Lux's worldly possessions, if one didn't count the horse she'd had to beg for.

She was quite glad to have a horse though. If she didn't have a horse, it would have made what was to come much harder. The horse had been something of a misdirection, after all.

Lux had left the Crownguard estate from the east gate, and kept her horse at a trot down the cobblestone road, always moving east.

Of course, as soon as she saw the carrier pigeon fly overhead, the golden Crownguard seal glinting off one leg, Lux turned her steed south, and cracked the reins.

The only way to get out of Demacia by horse was to go east and sneak through Noxus. Given that she would almost certainly be recognized as Luxanna Crownguard, Lux did not fancy her chances. Whichever set of border guards spotted her, it would end badly for her. Even managing to sneak into Noxus might have killed her, since her exile had left her a little short on things like 'money' or 'food', and Noxus was a rather inhospitable land.

A few days of hard riding later, as her horse clip-clopped its way over another scenic hill, Lux found herself hoping her other self wasn't actually in Noxus. She was sure they weren't in Demacia, but aside from that rock-hard conviction, all she had was a sense of east. And Noxus was east...

"Gods, that would be awkward. Oh hello there my destined love, it is I, Luxanna, formerly of the illustrious Crownguard line. How many friends of yours has my brother killed?"

Lux paused, felt her shoulders hunch and her head droop, golden tresses dangling in front of her eyes. "How many have I killed?" It was for king and country, for her people's safety, for ... honor. Honor that had Lux bend powers she should not have had to make herself invisible, and make threats to her homeland 'disappear'. The orders of the king and the expectations of kin that had her pry open minds with retina-searing magic, to interrogate those unfortunate enough to know something her masters wanted to know too. For the borders, and the fields, and the citizens, Lux had shed so much blood in dark corners of the world, or on the battlefield, her blood and the blood of her designated targets.

All to be cast out, because the wrong people learned she'd been born a mage. Because the people who were once her parents valued honor over blood. Maybe it was just her father, and Garren and her mother just saw the inevitable in his stance, as she had. Maybe all three would breathe easier without her there. Maybe her mother would miss her, but Lux knew her father would only think of her once she slipped his trap, and hopefully never again.

A gust of salt-laden air tickled her nose, and drove the more morose thoughts right out of Lux's head. While sneaking through Noxus was the only way to get out of Demacia by horse, one could always also ride a horse to a nearby harbor and hop on a boat.

Ten minutes and a few loud accusations of trying to cheat a poor, destitute waif out of her fairly earned coin later, Lux briskly walked away from the horse trader, and down to the docks. Tugging at her hood, she stuck to the alleyways and shadows as much as possible.

Her sapphire eyes slid past all of the Demacian naval cutters and assorted merchant vessels, the wallowing ferries that bounded up and down the coast, safe to make a tidy profit in the well-patrolled waters.

No, it was at the very end of the docks that Lux spent her attention, where foreign vessels bobbed with the waves. And reading the names painted on that motley assortment of hulls, Lux felt her heart leap into her throat. Maybe she'd get out of Demacia unscathed after all.