Arcane fanfic: Worlds and Worlds and Unexpected Joy

[kaffy_r]

Title: Worlds and Worlds and Unexpected Joy
Fandom: Arcane: League of Legends (Netflix animated series)
Characters: Ekko, AU Ekko (S02E07), AU Powder (S02E07), Isha, Vander, Warwick, Viktor, Jayce
Words: 1,268 per AO3
Spoiler warning: Spoilers for the entirety of Arcane Season 2.
Summary: There are worlds and worlds and worlds out there. Remember that. Walking between them is no mean feat, not with The Anomaly. Which isn't an anomaly. Listen ....
Author's notes: I adore Arcane. In the first season, I loved it even when it tore my heart out. In the second season? More of the same, and oh, so much respect for the people who brought it to life, even as they tore my heart out again. After the first season, I wrote what I considered a fixit, saving Powder's family. It turned into a series called "Changing Lanes." This story, however, is a standalone focusing on the second season, the Hexcore and its possibilities. I'm not sure who the speaker is. Heimerdinger?  Perhaps. Ultimately, though, it's a hope that the Hexcore can be a tool to save people I loved, even if saving isn't what we might consider saving
One final note: Isha the wordless is, some people have hypothesized, hearing impaired. That may be the case and, in this story, I think it might be true.
Edited by: my beloved dr_whuh
Disclaimer: All characters are the properties of Riot Games, Fortiche Productions, Alex Yee and Christian Linke. I intend no copyright infringement and take no coin. I just love the world, and all its denizens.

***   ***   ***

There are worlds and worlds and worlds out there. Remember that. 

Many of them are mirror images of each other, easily spotted because they differ predictably, just as your own mirror reverses your face. Those are the easy ones; once noticed, you can find the road back to where you belong.

Other worlds differ in very slight ways. Those are dangerous to walk in, because you might not realize you aren’t where you should be before it’s too late, and your true world and the one you’re in are too far apart for you to ever get home. 

Some worlds differ so horribly that it can bend the mind to consider them. If you are in one of those worlds, I have no advice to give you except to say hunt for an exit faster than you can be hunted; if you run fast enough, you might find the door, and live.

Still others differ so much, and so beautifully, that you might yearn to stay in them even as they turn you to stardust. Mind you, turning to stardust might be a good way to leave this plane of existence, but that’s not what we’re talking about right now. 

Walking between worlds is no mean feat. Nor is it easy. I’ve heard of travels made possible with magic. I stay far away from magic, but if you’re born with that ability, perhaps you might want to study how to open doors in such a fashion. I wouldn’t advise it, but who am I to offer advice?

You can also use hextech to open those doors. There are hextech masters — the ones who laugh when people call them mages — who can use the tools of that particular discipline. Unlike true mages, hextech masters are very cautious. At least most of them are these days; the lessons learned from masters who weren’t cautious are … lasting. 

Well, what about The Anomaly, I hear you ask. Isn’t that a way to travel through realities?

Somewhere, an ambitious young scientist, his body slowly eroding from the gases in the slums where he was raised, discovers the pulsing heart of what will eventually change him, sending him to a glorious evolution and eventual downfall. At the very end, his dearest friend assures him he won’t be alone, and he takes a measure of comfort from that. Where they go is known only to that which governs the door that opens for them. 

There is no such thing as The Anomaly. 

No, I shouldn’t say that. I’m tired of explaining (not to you, I assure you, but to some others), and I lashed out. 

There is a thing with that name. But The Anomaly is not what people in our world, or in any given world I imagine, might think of as an anomaly. 

A true anomaly is something unusual, something that should not exist, or at least something that should not exist where it’s found. 

But — and I cannot say this enough — that’s not the case with the capital A Anomaly. It’s natural, and it is absolutely imperative that it exist, for reasons even I’m unsure about, but in which I believe. It didn’t come into being because someone did something right or wrong. It has always been.

People became confused about it because in the past, those who used it to travel to other worlds often used it incorrectly. Badly. Spectacularly so. If I had to say why (and recall that I’m not an expert), those who didn’t correctly use The Anomaly — really, there should be a more accurate name for it —  or who didn’t take precautions, were generally shredded into multiple realities. Sometimes they disappeared, never to be seen again, not by those in our world or any other. Sometimes they returned, but with their minds still split into multitudinous realities. On very rare occasions they escaped the worst effects of being shredded, and came back with one mind, but were never free of their experience, not for the rest of their lives. 

Despite that, despite the casualties among careless humans, The Anomaly isn’t evil. It’s simply dangerous. And despite being dangerous, it belongs in every world; that’s the best way to say it. And for people who approach and embrace it with care and respect … well, whether they are mages or hextech masters or just gifted amateur world-walkers, for them, The Anomaly is something positive. 

Oh, you obdurate — it is a positive thing. I see I have to repeat this, because it bears repeating, at least if I stand a chance of teaching you.

So listen to this explanation (as much of one as I can manage. Look to the mages and hextech masters for more accurate, and thus more confusing, explanations.)

Think of The Anomaly as both key and keyhole. It is what opens a way; what opens many ways. I’m happy to say that all the ways point in one general direction, towards what is true and real. What is true and real will eventually point further; toward truth, with a capital T. And while truth can often be hard, sometimes even brutal, as a concept it is always right, and good. 

Somewhere, a man in wolf’s glass and metal clothing, a thing of murderous intent and stubborn love, falls into a lake that douses the fire that had threatened to consume him. He breaks the surface, confused but calm. He looks around him for his daughters and, when he doesn’t see them, wades from the lake and starts on a journey. He is still calm, and he will find daughters, if not the ones he first misses. 

Is truth a god? That’s a question I’ve pondered over the years. I don’t have an answer and, once again, it is probably not important to have one. 

Although, to be completely honest, I like to think that there are kind little gods out there who partake of some aspects of truth. They are the gods who try to protect children when they can; who try to protect those who are sick, or who try to offer escape to those caught in a prison of rage, or those who are so frightened by their own existence that they consider ending it. 

I understand that those kind little gods can’t help everyone. But with the help of The Anomaly, I like to think that perhaps sometimes they can send those in need to kinder worlds. Perhaps they can even ensure that those who need to escape their birth world aren’t destroyed by their journey; can ensure that the children and the forgotten and the misused can safely stay in their new, more gentle worlds.

Somewhere, a tin-hatted urchin tumbles onto a bright cobblestone street. She feels a gentle hand steady her and opens the eyes she’d closed in expectation of death. She sees two faces; one dark, his huge eyes kind, and the other — she gasps and reaches for the blue-haired girl, hugging her with fierce delight. The blue-haired girl isn’t her blue-haired girl, the little one somehow knows. But she understands, in a way that is beyond her understanding, that it doesn’t matter. The two who raise her to her feet look at each other and the little one sees their lips move. She parses at least two of the words they say. Anomaly. And home. 

They take her there.

The Anomaly … key, keyhole, truth, journeys, kind little gods … I believe in these things. And so when I go to bed, I dream of them, and when I wake up, I choose to believe that my dream is true. 

-30-