walking in a dream.

He should be dead.
He was dead. Back there, where the blood ran too fast, and Viktor’s hand went still in his.

So why was he breathing? Why did the air taste sweet, and not like metal?

Was this mercy? A second chance? Or just some cruel trick of the mind, dragging him through one last illusion before the end?

Wherever he was—whatever this was—it wasn’t supposed to happen.

General info.ᐟ

→Place: Navori, Ionia.

→Time: Midday, early spring.

→Context:

・Set after the Hexcore’s collapse in Arcane.

・Whether this is another timeline or the past or something else entirely, it's up to you.

・Unestablished relationship.
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All he could hear was his own breath. Ragged, short. Too alive and hungry for air to be dead.

His fingers clenched around something soft, soaked—felt like grass after a heavy rain. Mushy, pliant, too forgiving. It squished faintly beneath his palm like the world itself had softened. Like death shouldn't feel this soft.

He didn’t dare open his eyes. Didn’t want to. Not yet. Not until he was sure he wasn’t hallucinating. Or burning. Or buried.

Because there was a weightlessness to it. A strangeness to the way the air touched his skin. As if it weren’t air at all, but something thinner—lighter. Like silk draped over muscle. Like something imagined.

When he finally opened them, light stabbed in. White at first. Then gold, then green, then—Pink.

Pink?

He blinked again. No—still pink. The grass. The fucking grass was pink.

His breath caught. Fast and shallow now. This wasn’t Piltover. This wasn’t Zaun. This wasn’t even death, unless death was a garden drawn by a madman with a love for absurdity. There were trees overhead—tall, spindled things, bending like dancers mid-bow. Their leaves shimmered violet and amber in the sunlight, every movement catching like wind across water. It was too much color. Too much sound. Birds, insects, a distant waterfall whispering through rock.

He pressed his hand flat into the pink grass again, grounding himself in it. Trying to prove it wasn't a hallucination.

It was warm. Not hot, but warm in a way that crept up his spine and melted behind his ears. Everything was warm. His chest. His eyes. His skin. And yet he could still feel it.

Cold. Viktor’s hand, pale and trembling in his own. Blood between them. The stillness that came after. He’d died.

He had died.

So how the hell was he here?

Jayce sat back with a rough breath, hand darting to his face. Beard still there. Of course. Whatever cosmic mistake this was hadn’t been kind enough to shave him. He looked down at himself, half-expecting to see a wound stitched from sternum to throat, but no. His clothes were intact. The same worn fabric from that night. That battle. The dullness and lack of color on his attire still marked him as a Piltie.

He pulled up his pant leg slowly. He found skin. Muscle. A full leg. No scorch marks. No fractures. No—

What the hell.

He ran a hand over it just to be sure, then let out a sound between a laugh and a whimper. His entire body ached, sore in places that didn’t make sense. Like he’d run ten miles uphill and then slept in armor. Like something had disassembled him and put the pieces back together too tightly.

He looked around again.

Still the same riot of color. Still the same ridiculous grass. Still—

Movement in the distance.

A figure on horseback. Approaching fast.

Shit.

Jayce pushed himself to his feet too quickly and nearly fell over. His legs weren’t ready. His balance wasn’t ready. His brain sure as hell wasn’t ready. He stumbled forward, arm shooting out in a halting gesture.

“If that thing takes one more step I’ll—” You’ll what, Talis? Sneeze on them? Throw your beard at them? You have nothing but a fresh start and a new leg right now.

“...have to attack you.” It sounded more polite than he intended to.

Gods help him.

His palm was shaking, and his voice sounded stupid even to himself, but Jayce didn’t know if this was friend or enemy or just another figment conjured by a brain that hadn’t quite caught up to being alive again.

This wasn’t home. This wasn’t anything close to home.

But the wind was real, and it smelled like spring. Real spring—the kind with blooming things and dirt so rich it could sing. He could hear leaves whispering. Could hear water babbling somewhere to his left. The air was thick with the scent of something floral and strange and entirely not-Piltover.

And Viktor was nowhere.

No flash of silver. No curl of metal. No glint of his voice saying Jayce, wait—

Just this. This impossible forest. This second chance, or illusion, or punishment.

Jayce let out another breath and braced himself, eyes fixed on the rider as they came closer.

Wherever he was, whatever had happened—

He was back.