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Violet lives for the blood in her teeth and the sting on her knuckles.
Growing up the way she did, it’s no wonder. There’s a path to follow in the undercity, if you’re smart. You learn to throw and take punches or you die in toxic dust, forgotten in some nameless crack in filthy caverns. Kill or be killed, take both eyes before it’s one of your own- survivors never have a choice. Violence means freedom. Pain means victory. Mercy could stab you in the back.
Violet managed to find victory buried under steel and torture in a prison off the coast. She tasted metal and grew bones to match. She knew cruelty like she knew the scars in the shape of her bite on other inmates' skin and listened to the heavy clang of the warden’s cane with a smirk on split lips.
She was punished more than most. The warden kept his eye on her. Merely scowling at another inmate was enough to add that sharp, calculating gleam to his gaze, and what else could she do but meet it head on? She’d stare back with a will like iron, the searing fire in her tattered soul and just enough hate to catch his attention and the heel of his boot between her ribs.
He could ‘chat’ with her as many times as he’d like- she’d always come back swinging. Too much has happened for her to give up now. She has someone to get home to. Someone to avenge.
Her skin bears the marks of softer times and a young tinkerer’s dreams. The inmate with a needle and ink made of cigar ash colors her skin like she would break his hand for breathing wrong and, well. Some days, she’d done worse for less. But she likes the look of the ink on her body. The shadow of gears, smoke and a metal frame across her shoulders. Something Powder would have liked. Something Vander would be proud of.
And then comes a torture worse than beatings. Worse than days without food or falling asleep to the soulless weeping of those weaker than she. An Enforcer with eyes like silk and a voice so sweet Violet could cry. Her first taste of real freedom in years and the push and pull of spiteful fate.
She should have known things wouldn’t turn out how she wanted them to. That would be too easy. This girl dragged her all the way to the top, from broken cobble to smooth, spotless marble and shimmering spotlights, only for her to crash all the way back down with nothing to show for it but empty arms and a missing sister.
Things have changed. The city’s gone to shit, Powder’s gone and Violet- the oil to Caitlyn’s water -doesn’t belong here.
Silco will die. His entire organization will suffer and she’ll start with that traitor Sevica.
After that? Well. She doesn’t rightly know. But after all is said and done, she can’t stop thinking about that dumb Enforcer. The marksman with guts of steel and a mind to match, with warm hands and a warmer heart. Violet can’t forget the sound of her voice. Cupcake is an apt nickname, she thinks. Because even just the memory tastes too much like a delicacy for a street thug like herself to have.
Because if Caitlyn took her to the top, she did the opposite. Violet showed Caitlyn the worst the undercity has to offer and despite it all- the ugly, the dangerous -she stayed. The warmth never left her eyes. Caitlyn is everything Violet never was and that’s exactly why she has to leave.
Powder- Jinx - is too much of a wildcard for Violet to know what to do with. There’s too much going on for Violet to think about what could have been but somewhere beneath the anger and the panic, she mourns the only softness she’s ever known. First with Vander, then with the girl who saved her in more ways than one.
Perhaps, one day, when she finally has a moment to breathe, she can look out over Piltover’s golden towers and dream of mending broken chances. But until then, she has more than her fair share of family members to take responsibility for.
And it’ll take more than the blood in her teeth and the sting on her knuckles to get to the end of this road.