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sabraeal · 5 months

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The Man of Progress, Chapter 2

[Read on AO3]

Written for @infinitelystrangemachinex, who is the whole reason this fic exists in the first place, since if she had not introduced to me the potential of Mel and Viktor to begin with I never would have watched Arcane, and then if she had not made this fic her birthday wish last year, the idea for it would have definitely moldered in my Potential WIPs files, neevr to be seen. This was ALSO for her birthday, but the draft did not stop at 6K, and so I decided to take my time with it 🤣

The glacial pace of progress might exasperate those more used to the churning cogs of commerce, ever ready to break the unwary between their teeth, but this is hardly the first time Mel has patronized one of these academy engineers. Oh, they might bow and scrape and extend their gratitude on bended knee before money has changed hands, but once that investment sits heavy in their accounts, well— there is a fine line between patron and employer. These engineers might tolerate the first, but under the latter, well…there are statues around the Academy of men throwing off their chains, as much warning to potential investors as it is a celebration of their achievements.

Innovation Does Not Suffer Tyrants. Neither, it seems, do their students suffer direction.

So Mel opens her purse when Talis shuffles up to her doorstep, wearing a smile that’s sure to have opened doors for him before, if not a couple of windows. For all his fresh-faced, boyish charm, he is a skilled negotiator— or rather, a skilled beggar; a talent he must have acquired from years of being under Councilor Kiramman's well-manicured thumb. In all his blustering talk of progress, he only obliquely brushes the angles of their meeting that fateful night, flattering her broad-mindedness and forward-thinking while also thanking her for her continuing interest. A neat little way to put her in a corner, provided a promise was made.

Which it was not. She’d been careful to hedge her bets with this boy wonder, no matter how prettily he performed that impassioned plea.

But there’s little harm in letting him believe that there’s an understanding between them, that her actions in that darkened corridor confer a loyalty that transcends simple business. On the contrary, that’s the currency in which these Academy engineers set their stock. Money may move mountains, may turn a floundering lab into foundry of progress, but these academics sank or swam on the height of their reputations, rose or fell on the strength of the hands helping them up— or shoving them down. A nice bit of seed money would see her a cut of the profits, but letting Talis think that a bond was forged in Hextech’s glow, well…

She couldn’t outbid Heimerdinger— not that he’d ever be gauche enough to put his own money down; he’d call it an Academy Grant and let himself be seen as a benevolent mentor rather than vile investor— but she could at least ensure that they played on the same field. A thing that mattered now, when all the other councilors raced to put their hats— and their wallets— into the ring.

Kiramman was already of the opinion that she owned him down to his hammers, eager to play mother and master in equal measure. And Hoskel, well— for a man whose fortune was made on sail ships and long-haul voyages across the Conqueror’s Sea, from Damacia to Lokfar and beyond, he’s strangely insistent on babysitting his investments on land, arriving for an hour every other day or so to wave his hands around and be seen, as if simply standing on the site made it his. Salo must be much the same, even if she hears less about it; slinking and sneering makes so much less of an impression than Hoskel’s huffs and haws. Why, he must be half covered in hives by now, surrounded by so much grease and dirt and work.

So Mel gives them their space. They have a lab to construct and wonders to build; they hardly need councilors swanning in day in and day out, demanding to be shown how every last bit of their investment was spent, down to the last Washer. She had to stand apart, to be the one that didn’t press. A councilor who understood the process. An investor they could trust with their vision.

To the assistant, at least. Viktor. No last name. Typical of the Undercity. Talis might glad-hand and rub elbows and kiss babies, but it’s Heimerdinger’s shadow who ensures that every Silver Cog received goes where it should instead of passing through that strange field of theirs, never to return.

“Not that one,” she hums, waving away silk and lace, as cunningly draped as it is. “What on earth was that man thinking? Really.”

Elora blinks, first at her, then at the dress, confusion weighing heavily on the corners of her mouth. “The designer had been sure you would like it. He said it fit your…aesthetic sensibilities.”

She trails a finger down the back line, lower and lower until she reaches its nadir, right where her low back would have turned to something lower still. Pity. “It’s white.”

“Well, yes,” Elora allows. “That is the primary color in your wardrobe. He must have taken your preferences into consideration when he made it.”

Mel arches a brow, a corner of her mouth following suit. “Yes, but what he should have considered is why.”

Where some might knit their brow, Elora’s only lift, a question even as she answers, “Because you like it?”

“Because I want to stand out,” Mel corrects her, amused. Only two steps takes her to the window, where Piltover spills out beneath her outstretched hand. “In a city of blue and brick and beige, white shines.”

“Ah. Right, I see.” Her head bobs, officious and efficient, as Medarda expects from their domestics. “Dressing to impress.”

“No, dear.” The phantom of her reflection smiles in the glass . “I dress to awe. Especially reclusive little inventors who don’t make a habit of going to these little soirées.”

Elora glances down at the gown, mouth furrowing at the corners. “I think Talis is already impressed.”

A snort spills out of her, quickly stifled. “No, no, not him. The other one”—her hand waves; elegant, simple, and completely dismissive— “Heimerdinger’s assistant. Former assistant now, I suppose. Of the two of them, he’s the one I need to convince into my corner.”

Too bad her own assistant hardly is. “That one? He doesn’t seem very…?”

“Personable? Sociable?” she offers, amusement dripping from every word. “Human?”

“Important,” Elora decides. “Talis is the one that has been meeting with their investors. He’s practically the face of Hextech. But his partner…”

Is no more than a blur in the papers, a face turned away when the shutters closes, a smear in the background of Talis’s singular achievement. If Jayce Talis has made himself the face of Hextech, then Viktor is the ghost that haunts it. The phantom that is churning out their prototype even now.

“All the more reason to catch his attention,” Mel hums, thumbing through the rack of gowns rolled against one wall of her office. “Talis is a known quantity. Academy engineer, scion of a minor house, has a jawline you could forge a hammer on. Handsome, clever, and sure to wave whichever way the wind blows. But the assistant…he can be managed.”

A corner of her mouth curls. “Who knows, I might even come as a relief, after being bullied around by the good professor all these years. I just have to…impress him first.”

Elora glances at the gown slung across her fingers, skepticism marring the smooth line of her brow. “And you think a dress will do it?”

“Not that one, certainly,” she snorts. “But another…that might put him off his guard. Let me insinuate myself a little more firmly into his good graces. A little novelty never hurts on that front.”

Neither does a little attraction, but, well, a woman must always leave a little mystery in reserve. Even with her most trusted assistant. “That’s quite a bit to put on a dress, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps.” Black and leather and silk slithers over Elora’s arms as she lays another across them. “But I think this one can handle it.”

On the hanger, the dress intrigued, a study of soft and hard, of supple and stiff, of structure and drape. A winner, the Revered Professor might say, so long as it was about gears and cogs, and not fashion and fabric.

But on a body— her body— the dress is less a work of art and more a marvel of modern engineering, a bulwark of leather and boning that somehow gives off the same gravitas as marble or granite, while yet still possessing the same ease of movement as water down a fall. It eddies around her legs, baring and concealing with each step, a come-hither wrapped in a stand back. Councilor Kiramman corners her not three strides across the floor, stemming the opportunity for compliments— on purpose, she’s sure— but by the palpable press of the stares on her back, it seems that it has achieved its purpose.

“Is that your plan then?” Elora murmurs at her shoulder as Kiramman holds court, words straining to bear her disbelief. “Shock and awe?”

Mel allows her head the barest tilt. “Are you worried?”

“Not so much worried as” —she hesitates, casting her eyes about the room, as if it might give some hint as to how to smooth the edge of this blow— “it’s putting quite a bit of cargo on one ship, isn’t it?”

Her mouth curls. “You’re not much of a gambler, are you?”

Elora’s brows raise, not impertinent enough to be reproach, but it was certainly a cousin. “I hadn’t thought you were either.”

“I’m not,” she hums, rolling the stem of the flute between her fingers. “But even I know that roulette can’t be won by going all-in on a single bet.”

Her mouth puckers, unease drawing heavy brows together. “Then how—?”

“There he is!” Councilor Kiramman tears herself from her sermon with a smile, arms falling wide as she calls out across the floor, “The man of the hour!”

“The trick,” Mel murmurs, only loud enough for Elora’s ears. “Is to know the man at the wheel.”

She prepares her own smile as she rolls her weight off the pillar she's attached herself to, one that’s both gracious and dazzling, designed to set the gold spattered across her cheeks shimmering and throw weary engineer eyes wide—

But when she turns, her night sky is occluded by an unexpected front of broad chest, barely contained by its waistcoat. “Mister Talis,” she hums, her dulcet tones hardly disguising the spines of her disappointment. “What a pleasure to see you here.”

“Of course it is,” Kiramman laughs, patting him right below the silken knot of his tie. “We can’t have a gala without its guest of honor.”

His grin tugs to a grimace, but with a face as fine as his, Kiramman hardly notices. He pats her hands absently, as an indulgent son might his doting mother— fitting, since the councilor has already turned her attention away, humbling boasting about his achievements, as if she were his.

But it’s Mel that his amber gaze fixes to when he rumbles, “I’m glad to hear that, Councilor.” He adjusts his tie, bashful, the way men who are certain of their welcome can afford to show. “I have to admit, it’s nice to see a friendly face here. I’m not used to fancy shindigs like this.”

That’s hardly what his suit suggests. Oh, it’s certainly a few years out of fashion, the cut not as close as the young men like to wear it now and the colors not as bold, but menswear changes by degrees, not entire angles. It’s still well within the bounds of modernity, hems and cuffs worn but well-repaired, every seam neatly tailored from the start.

“I would have never known.” She can spare him this little earnest comfort; he certainly won’t be seeing much more of it tonight. “You look like you could have been born with a champagne flute in your hand.”

“Ah…” To think that a boy his age could blush so completely, red from collar to hairline. “That’s kind of you to say. I feel like everyone in this room looks at me and sees hammers.”

Perhaps, but only the ones measuring the breadth of his shoulders and comparing it to the tuck of his waist. “How is your partner doing? I suppose he must be even more left-footed among this crowd.”

Talis blinks, bashfulness breaking under a boisterous laugh. “Oh, Viktor? He isn’t here tonight.”

“He” —her gaze falls to his elbow, lingering on the empty space where a scowl is conspicuously missing— “isn’t.”

“You know how it is.” He leans in, one side of his mouth hooked into a boyish smirk. “This isn’t really Viktor’s crowd.”

Only moments ago he had claimed it wasn’t his either. “I was under the impression that a guest of honor typically attends their own party. Especially one thrown by the patrons funding their research.”

“Ah…” Talis has the grace to look sheepish now, scratching at the back of his closely clipped scalp. “Well…when you put it that way…”

Kiramman laughs, a haughty little giggle that would fit better in her daughter’s mouth than her own. “Oh, come now, Councilor Medarda, I can hardly take offense. Jayce came, after all.”

“He did,” Mel allows with a smile so gracious her teeth ache. “I simply expected that at a gala to celebrate the future of Hextech, we would be able to see both men helming the project.”

“Oh, really. It’s not as if we don’t know who came up with the idea.” Kiramman hooks her hand around Talis’s elbow, giving him a pointed jostle. “When we honor Heimerdinger, you hardly invite his whole laboratory to celebrate.”

“Ah, but you see, Councilor…” Talis clears his throat, hesitant. “Viktor’s not some technician. He’s my full partner. There wouldn’t be Hextech, if he hadn’t—”

“Of course, of course,” Kiramman soothes with a motherly pat on his sleeve. “We all have our assistants, don’t we? I don’t know where I would be without Alannah keeping me on point.”

Those healthy cheeks take an ashen cast now, his gaze darting to her as if she might spare him some quarter. But Mel simply takes a sip of her champagne, making a mental note to compliment Hoskel on the vintage. “Yes, I’m sure that’s very useful, Councilor. It’s only…Viktor—”

“’Great minds must be free for greater ventures,’” Kiramman quotes, though Mel could hardly say from where. Perhaps one of Revered Professor’s contemporaries, by the way Talis jolts at her side. “Don’t you agree, Jayce?”

He laughs, one hand tugging at his collar. “Ah…of course. Great minds.”

“Is that so?” Mel raises her brows, utterly unimpressed. “And here I was, under the impression that it was action, not ideas that saved Hextech from the incinerator.”

“Councilor!” Talis practically chokes on the word. “I—”

“Oh goodness, is that Lord Albus?” It’s Lady Kiramman that tugs on Talis’s arm now, all gracious smiles as she peels him away from the councilors jockeying to get a word in edgewise. “Clan Ferros has been quite interested in your progress. If you talk to Albus now, I’m sure he would be quite amenable to working out a generous understanding…”

“But Councilor Medarda—”

Kiramman’s smile sharpens, carving a line in the parquet between them. “I’m sure she will excuse us. Won’t you, dear?”

“Of course.” She lifts a hand, the barest shrug. “Far be it from me to keep you from Lord Albus and his generous mind.”

And wallet, she doesn’t add, but by the desperate look Talis spares her over his shoulder, she hardly needed to.

Elora might marvel at her endurance when it came to wearing heels the length of her arch, or gowns with the sort of architecture that left marks as dark as a lover’s in the morning, but it’s always been the mask that has wearied her most, the unending strain of smiling where there was not a granule of good humor left in her hourglass. An actress might don a role for three acts, but a politician lived it for every waking hour of their day— and sometimes, well into the night.

There are moments, however, where she might let her cheeks rest, where her face might fall into its natural lines instead of to the ones her act demands. She locates one well into the night; a balcony left abandoned now that night had fallen and there was no sun to set Piltover glittering. This one would have been on the wrong side of the estate anyway; there’s only the suggestion of trees when she squints into the night, a handful of the hundred that flood the landscape this far from the city proper. Nothing that would interest any of the pillars of Piltoverian progress milling about the Kiramman ballroom.

So to find Talis there, tucked away in the shadows, is a surprise as well as a disappointment. Not much of one— she had expected him to find her later; there is nothing men love to do more than explain away their foolishness, especially in front of a woman— but she must admit, she thought he might be alone when he made the attempt.

“Councilor!” He straightens from his hunch, the bulk of his body no longer blocking the slim one curled beside him. “I, er…”

“I’m sorry,” she says, annoyance leeching sincerity from her tone. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You didn’t! It’s just…” He sends one of those helpless looks to his companion, and she huffs, unfurling all her coltish limbs until only Kiramman’s daughter remains. There’s none of her mother’s elegance in her— there rarely is, in fourteen year old girls— but there is her sheen of shrewdness, and the promise of her father’s height.

“It’s fine.” The girl’s chin tilts proudly, the familiar curl of her lip breeding true. “I don’t mind. I was done talking anyway.”

She wasn’t, and she does— at least, so the pouty pitch of her voice implies— but she’d die rather than admit it. Especially in front of her. Better just to pretend it was and sulk in private.

Mel’s mouth twitches. That girl would make a good councilor herself, in time. Or at least a very convincing cat.

“Caitlyn…” Talis may call out, but he doesn’t do much else to stop her, watching her walk out with little more than a wince. “Ah, sorry about all that. She’s just a kid.”

He shrugs, as if that should mean something to her. Perhaps it would, if she were used to children. Maybe more, if she had ever been a child herself. “I think my forgiveness is the last of your concerns tonight.”

Mel settles a hip against the balustrade, for once looking down on Piltover’s most popular lantern jaw. It brings her close enough to see the flex of his cheek, nerve jumping right beneath the skin. “Ah, don’t worry. Caitlyn’s a good kid. She’ll just be glad I didn’t talk over her head like everyone else.”

Her eyebrows arch. “I wasn’t talking about her.”

His head snaps up, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, reminding her of nothing more than one of Kiramman’s hounds caught stalking tonight’s entrée. “Ah…?”

“You let Cassandra Kiramman call him your assistant.” She snorts, one arm folding over her waist. “You better hope it doesn’t reach your business partner’s ears. At least before you can explain yourself.”

“Ah.” His teeth clack down in a grimace. “Yeah, Viktor won’t take that very well.”

“Great minds rarely do.” She hums around the rim of her glass, obscuring her smirk. “I hope you have a good excuse ready. I’d hate for your project to fall behind due to some…creative differences.”

“That won’t happen.”

He snaps upright, and she expects that stiff spine to radiate with earnesty, for those honeyed eyes of his to gleam with academic fervor, but instead there’s a sort of desperate calculation in them, the flywheels of his mind running an entirely different set of numbers.

“Listen…” Talis scratches at the back of his head, the line of his shoulders tense. “I know this party, well…it wasn’t really your idea.”

To put it mildly. A fund-raising gala might have been in her plans eventually, but was supposed to come after a working prototype, something she could arrange to show to its best advantage after a few drinks and canapés. But Kiramman had needed to flex her talons, showing just how deep she could sink them in Talis, if she had the interest.

“I’d like to make it up to you.” Talis favors her with his most charming smile, the kind that opened wallets as easily as hearts. “You were our first investor after all.”

She lifts a brow. “And how exactly do you plan to do that?”

“A personal tour. Tomorrow. All access.” She’s half tempted to shield her eyes from the way he beams, eager to please. “It’s the least we can do, considering how much you’ve helped us out.”

That’s certainly one way to refer to the small, personal fortune she’s put in their accounts. But she’s hardly going to quibble over verbiage when he’s offering what she’d been planning to charm out of him. “And you’ll be there? Both of you?”

“Sure.” His mouth tightens around the word. “Why not?”

For men who have walked the hallowed halls of the Academy, who are used to the great vault of its atria, filigreed columns stretching their ribbed arms toward the heavens, the warehouse is just as starkly humble as the day they bought it. At least it isn’t just as empty. When Talis comes to meet her, he emerges from one of the newly erected partitions, hurrying across the floor to clasp her hand.

“Councilor!” His greeting echoes from all directions, all-encompassing, with a smile just as overwhelming. “You made it.”

“How could I not when you promised to show me around personally?” She lets her mouth slant, teasing. “After all, everyone notices when the guest of honor doesn’t arrive to their own party, don’t they?”

“Right. Of course.” Talis’s smile wavers, just for a moment. “I’m just glad to see you were serious about this.”

“I’m not in the habit of making light of my investments, Mr Talis,” she assures him. Unlike some of my colleagues, she doesn’t say, but by the way his eyes tighten, she doesn’t have to.

“Ah, of course, councilor.” He claps his hands together, dispelling the awkward air that’s settled between them. “Well, I hope you’re ready for your tour! Everything’s still in development, but I think there’s some real exciting things I can show you if—”

“Just you?”

Talis blinks down at her, confusion knotting the space between his heavy brows. She peers pointedly at the empty space beside him.

“Ha, ah, yes, well, Viktor’s busy.” His tongue trips over the polite lies trying to rush off it. “We’re still trying to stabilize the spheres, you know, or well— their output at least. See what we can actually do with Hextech, once we can get it up and running on demand. I know that’s probably too technical for an excuse, but, er— lots of places we can improve. Lots of places we have to improve, to make our deadlines. You know how it is.”

Mel stares up at that simpering smile and bites back a sigh. “Well, then,” she manages, perfectly cordial as she winds her fingers around his elbow. “I’m glad that you could be spared, then.”

Pink tingles the highest arc of his cheeks. “Well, councilor, you’re a top priority to us.”

“Some people in this warehouse have a strange way of showing it.” She hums, letting her smile widen.

There it is, that grimace. That barest flash of apology in his eyes before he looks away. “Ah…I’m sure…er…”

“Don’t worry, Mr Talis.” She pats his arm, radiating confidence. “This will hardly be my only visit. I’ll have plenty of time to get to know your partner.”

“Right.” The word see-saws in his mouth, uncertain. “Next time, maybe.”

“Next time,” she agrees. “Definitely.”

Councilor Hoskel is the sort of man who prefers to attend parties, rather than host them; despite the decadent vintages he imports, he would rather sell them rather than serve them, mainly at exorbitant prices that make even the highest lords hesitate. And yet, he cannot squirm out of the duty entirely, not without earning himself a reputation as an unrepentant miser, a skinflint whose clan others should be wary of associating with.

And so when he must unbend, it is to this: not some gleaming gala or intellectually stimulating social, but gambling.

“Did you know that in Demacia, they race actual horses?” Hoskel’s laugh wheezes across his lap, spindly fingers sketching out the thinnest suggestion of a thoroughbred. “Barbaric, really. All down to the animal at that point. Nothing at all to do with the skill of the jockey.”

It’s a smaller track than the ones she’d chased Kino around as a child, his gold-banded coils whipping against the gleaming scale of his armor, smile made all the broader by memory. A place like this couldn’t fit the mounts they rode, prancing and proud, roan coats gleaming under a Noxian sun. Or Demacian, for one summer. Shuriman, for two years, as Mother painstakingly carved a red river between the dunes. It hadn’t mattered, just so long as there was space enough— and time enough, without Mother breathing down their necks— to have hooves wear down a track.

Mel’s read poets from Lokfar to the Shadowed Isles— required reading for the daughter of Noxus’s premier warlord— but there has never been a one who could do justice to the way the wind felt as it whipped at her cheeks, sand churning beneath her mare’s hooves, the taste of freedom clenched between her teeth. And so there is no hope for her, not here in this city that does not expand out but up, an endless stretch of stone and metal and miracles of engineering, ever reaching toward the sky.

Especially not to a man like Hoskel, whose eyes gleam not at the sight of a fine bit of horseflesh but at the delicate gearworks that replace it. Already it spins and sparks, a poor substitute for the prancing of a high-spirited mare, but its jockey gives its slender steel neck a pat anyway, form preserved if not function. There’s a team of engineers behind him— students, she understands, responsible for the maintenance of the track’s mounts for credit— running through the last few checks, but there is no shield science can provide these men, not when wheels might miss tracks, or sparks may catch cloth. Even if these horses have no legs, there’s still a half dozen ways to be trampled.

That’s part of the appeal, she knows. Not that any of the councilors here will admit it. But Mel has eyes enough to see how they lean forward, breaths caught as they wait for the starting shot. Oh, they might scoff at the Noxian compulsion for conquest, call them warmongers and barbarians and worse, but there’s hunger in there, a desire for blood beneath the thin veneer of civility.

But it would be rude to speak of it, beyond the pale for the squeamish Piltoverians. So instead Mel smirks, adopting a casual lean against the curved arm of her seat. “And not a poor way to pick out talent from the Academy’s pool either, I suppose. A pity I paid so little attention to it last year.”

Hoskel might find challenge in a children’s toy, but he divines her meaning easily enough. “Ah, yes, I’m sure Talis must have made a good go of it more than once. Can’t remember it, of course, but— must have been a winner, whichever one it was. Really shown these boys how to put one of these fillies through their paces!”

A cackle wheezes out from that too-wide mouth, punctuated by a chummy slap of his thigh. “He’s a good chap, that one. Took me around the whole lab just last week! Showed me all the new fangled doodads they’ve been cooking up in there. All highly secret, of course,” he confesses humbly. “But if there’s anyone who can keep his mouth shut, why—”

“The whole lab?” Mel asks, alarm sharpening her question to a point. “Even the workshop?”

Hoskel scoffs, wrist swiveling dismissively. “As if I’d go in there! There’s smoke and grease and who knows what else in a place like that! Do you know how much these trousers cost?”

She’s quite tempted to ask if he does, but instead she simply smiles, enjoying the way he squirms underneath it. “A small price to pay to be at the forefront of progress.”

“Ha! Progress, you say?” That narrow neck shakes. “It’s work that’s done in those laboratories, my dear! Grimy, filthy work, done by bodies made for the business! If you’re looking for progress, well, that’s what comes afterward, when the men with great minds decide what to do with it!”

Her brow twitches. “Is that so?”

“I even told Talis to get a few more people manning the place.” He huffs, arms crossing over his chest. “Boy like him shouldn’t be getting his hands dirty.”

“Really.” It’s a struggle to keep her mouth from curling. “I thought his family made hammers?”

“They hire people to make the hammers.” Hoskel’s bulging eyes roll. “Clan Talis simply decides what to do with them. I understand he’s an engineer” —how quickly a vaunted profession can sound like a disease caught from Midtown whores in his mouth— “but really, there’s no reason for him to bother with all that labor. Beneath him, really.”

“Of course.” Mel hums, too amused. “Not like Viktor.”

Hoskel squints at her over his glass. “Who?”

The first time is excusable; there are deadlines to make, more than a few she’s had a hand in setting herself. An abbreviated tour is only to be expected, to be later expounded upon in reports. If she is not allowed access to the workshop, it is a small price to pay for steady progress. One she’s happy to pay, since it seems few of their other investors make it past the showroom floor.

But when it becomes a second, a third, a fourth— well, let it never be said a Medarda can’t pick up a hint.

However, that doesn’t mean she’ll take it. Not quietly, at least.

“Councilor.” Talis is at his most ingratiating this morning, anxiety palpable as her mouth settles into something just short of a scowl. “You’re here! Perfect timing. We just just put a little something in the showroom that might interest—”

“Ah.” Mel cocks a hip, impatient. “So you’ve been sent to get rid of me, I see.”

His smile stutters to a stop, just like his steps. “Ha ha, get—get rid of you? No, no, of course not. It’s just…”

She knows what ‘it’s just’ all too well, but she only folds her arm, waiting. If he’s been sent out here to be bait, then he can squirm on the hook like one too.

“Well, you know how Viktor is.” His arms spread, half apology, half shrug. A gesture that’s so familiar fatigue rolls over her in anticipation. “Doesn’t like distractions.”

“It’s impossible for me to know how Viktor is,” she informs him with no little venom, “because he won’t ever speak with me.”

“Ah, ha ha.” Talis rubs a broad hand over the back of his even broader head. “Now, that’s a good—”

“I am not being funny, Mr Talis.” If only he were smaller, more engineer and less blacksmith, he might find out just how far past humor Mel has traveled. Even still she has to clasp her hands to her elbows just to keep from shouldering past to get her glimpse behind the curtain.

With a steadying breath, she forces her fingers to relax, to let the line of her shoulders ease to a sultrier slope.

“Jayce,” she sighs, letting one of those fingers raise to her cheek. “I am one of the main investors in this little venture of yours. If you are going to insist that this is a joint project, one in which this…Viktor is an equal partner…”

“He is.” His jaw sets with all the implacability for which his clan is known. “There wouldn’t be Hextech without Viktor.”

She allows her face to soften, to imply that she’s dropped her guard, just for him. “Then I would like to meet him one day.”

“Ah…” Guilt hikes his shoulders, but the gaze he gives her is soft— no, fond. Perhaps more than she would like. But she’d have to be a fool not to be grateful for the advantage. “Understood, Councilor. I’ll, ah, try to talk to him about it. Maybe for today we could—?”

“I’ll call ahead next time,” she promises, turning her back on him. “Then maybe Viktor can pencil me in properly.”

“Right.” He deflates. “Of course. Have a, er, nice day, Councilor.”

It’s at another one of Kiramman’s interminable teas where the woman corners her, smile all edges, and says, “It seems like those boys are coming along now, aren’t they?”

It’s a surprise, an ambush, and for once Mel is happy she’s been caught with her mouth full, if only to give her a moment to push past the shock to a smirk.

“They are, aren’t they?” Mel tilts her head, the very picture of graciousness. “Jayce was just giving me a tour the other week to show me what they’ve been working on. Those little— what does he call them? Beads. They’re quite impressive, aren’t they?”

“Jayce?” Kiramman’s mouth purses sourly, gaze scouring her from head to toe. Mel only smiles. Let the woman think what she likes. Talis would certainly love for her worst imaginings to be a reality. “I believe he calls them…spheres.”

“Ah, yes, spheres.” Though with all those rough edges, they hardly resemble one. “Clever little things, even if they are still wickedly dangerous. Hate to see what one of them might do to the neighborhood now, if they got out.”

“I must admit, I haven’t gotten to see their latest prototype. Jayce told me that they weren’t quite ready to take out of a lead lined box.” The councilor may throw her head back, may laugh like a little lark, but her eyes narrow above it, skeptical. “I suppose you must have been in the workshop…?”

If only. Then Kiramman’s guests could have seen some real entertainment.

“Hardly. Jayce brought out the case from the lab so I could see it in better light.” For your eyes only, he’d said with a wink, but she knew better to trust a face as handsome as his. And one so well-connected. “But you, surely…?”

It’s a gamble— for all that Viktor has seemed to have forbidden her from the lab without so much as a word, Mel cannot assume he could manage the same stolidness with Cassandra Kiramman. She’s Talis’s long-term patron for one, with far more cause— and inclination— to bustle her way in, so long as Talis didn’t put up a fuss.

But she only huffs, waving a hand. “Only a peek,” she admits, annoyed. “But that’s fine enough for me. I’ve never been much interested in that sort of thing— machinery. Dreadfully dirty. I much prefer to see what’s been polished.”

“Of course,” Mel hums, suppressing a smile. “And Jayce is so good at showing it off to its best angle.”

“Isn’t he though?” She puffs up, like a proud mother hen. “I’ve always thought he was quite charming, just the way a peer should be. And so obliging…”

That, Mel thinks, is exactly the problem.

It’s not Talis who meets her when she sweeps into the laboratory. No, it’s some gawky girl, half-hidden behind a set of squared-off spectacles, shrinking smaller behind her clipboard by the second.

“Councilor Medarda,” she gasps, knuckles white around the hardboard. “We, uh, didn’t know you would be coming by today.”

Mel stares down at her, mouth pursed. Talis had mentioned they would be taking on new staff, but she hadn’t heard of any new hires. “And just who are you?”

“Ah…I’m the n-new assistant, councilor. Sky,” the girl murmurs, feet shuffling beneath the white of her coat. “I-I’m afraid Mr Talis isn’t here at the moment, but if you’d like—?”

“I’m not here for Mr Talis.” He’s charming, of course, handsome. A clansman in his own right, however small the line— and entirely too eager to please. Enough that even the likes of Salo or— heaven forbid— Hoskel has sniffed it out. However finely chiseled that jaw is, and however easy— or pleasurable— it would be to turn it, Mel knows: a pawn liable to switch sides makes for a poor playing piece.

Let all the other councilors waste their time wooing the boy wonder, hoping to catch an edge over their peers. She, however, has options.

Or at least she will, if she can get past this girl.

She’s a shivering little thing, quailing beneath her bite. A thing Mel might feel bad about, if Talis hadn’t hired her for the sheer purpose of having an assistant to put her off, instead of doing it himself. “I-if you need any help, I-I’d be glad to, um, help you. The showroom has several of our—”

“No, thank you.” Mel is in no mood to be managed. Not by Talis, and certainly not by this child. “Is Viktor here?”

The girl blinks, eyes giant behind her frames. “Well, yes. He’s in the workshop—”

Her smile hones to a point. “Perfect.”

It’s nothing to sidestep the girl, striding with the purpose to where the workshop door looms, a heavy, leaden thing only Talis could possibly open with ease. When her hand clenches around the handle, she’s half-convinced it won’t budge, preemptively locked against unwanted distraction. But it opens easily beneath her touch, swinging wide on well-oiled hinges as Talis’s new assistant stammers after her.

It’s cavernous, walls stretching high above them, catching echoes in its vaults. There’s windows too, placed so high only the sparest light illuminates the dusty floors, but where they do sits a strange stand of arches, almost organic in the way they fold together— and the bent man working on them.

Viktor isn’t dressed for company, that’s to be sure. Jacket and tie have long ago been discarded, decorating a chair half-tipped against the wall, leaving only shirtsleeves and vest. Which are hardly more modest when he’s got the first buttons of his collar popped, sleeves rolled nigh up to his elbows.

“I see we’ve relaxed the uniform,” Mel observes, heels echoing in the empty space.

To his credit he doesn’t even stiffen, doesn’t even pause when he tells her, “Progress doesn’t have a dress code. Only results.”

Mel smothers her smile to a smirk as he stands, wearily submitting himself to her attention. She's won their little contest of wills, after all, and an audience with him her prize. With a sinuous movement, she slips between man and machine and takes it. “The results could be wearing their shirt properly.”

He hesitates now, mouth pursed, sparing her only the sourest of glares. “I wasn’t aware we’d be having a garden party amidst the gears and soot.”

But even still, a palm runs down his front, subtly adjusting the set of his shirt, fixing the skew of his vest. Mel’s lips twitch. Not so shameless as he would like to pretend, then. “Hardly.”

He flinches when her hand lifts, but it’s not him her fingers wrap around— she’s pushed far enough on that front for a first meeting— but the arch of his strange machine. If anything, his discomfort deepens, the smooth space between those heavy brows furrowing more profoundly with every minute she weaves through his portals, strolling casually as if it were just another turn about the room.

“But your investor has come calling,” she reminds him, peering at him through one of them. “You might try to look presentable.”

He frowns, pulling his already gaunt face tighter still. “I have more important things to worry about.”

“Like this?” She runs a finger down the arch, biting back a grin at his twitch. “What is this anyway?”

He heaves a sigh, setting aside his spanner, or, well, whatever it is he’s been working with. Mel knows quite a few things, but tools are hardly one of them. “An attempt to stabilize the hex field.”

She arches a brow, and with an even more aggrieved huff, he explains, “I’m trying to remove the boom.”

“Ah, yes.” Her finger flits away on reflex. “I have noticed there aren’t many windows here.”

One spiny shoulder lifts. “They’d be a pain to replace.”

“And expensive,” she huffs, thinking of the bill the council had dickered over for the ones in the library.

Viktor grunts. “That was included in the aforementioned pain.”

She steps out from the frame, taking a wider look at the wrought metal monstrosity before her. It’s familiar, in a way; she’d hardly had time to look closely at their initial prototype, not when security had herded all of them out from the glass and shrapnel made by it, but if she tilts her head, letting the vague film of memory fall over her…

“So.” Her heels clack as she paces, coming to stand behind where he’s crouched, already back at work. “You went…bigger?”

“Scale matters,” he explains, impatience underpinning his words. “Smaller is easier to power, but bigger makes more visible mistakes.”

She leans down over his shoulder. “Or makes a bigger boom.”

This time, he does flinch, rubbing at his neck as he mutters, “I don’t make things go…boom.”

“More’s the pity,” she says, stepping away. “But the question stands. You think that increasing scale will solve issues, rather than create more dangerous ones?”

“Small requires attention to detail. It requires fussing.” He sits back on his heels, scratching behind his ear. “We are still dealing with functional issues. It’s better to see them writ large than to miss them in the fine print. Missing the forest for the trees, as they say.”

Not here. It would probably be something about…cogs and gears, if she were to take her guess. “Then why was Jayce’s prototype so small?”

A breath hisses through his nose. “Because no one wants a tool the size of a room.”

“Oh.” She frowns, remembering the glass that had littered the library floor. She’d had to throw out that dress; it cut her every time she wore it after. “Are we putting these in houses?”

That shoulder lifts again, wearier this time. “To the man who makes hammers, everything fits inside a toolbox.”

Mel steps into the barest edge of his vision; he turns, just slightly, to keep her in his periphery. “And what about the man who makes progress?”

Silence stretched between them, too long. “That’s yet to be seen.”

She takes the arches in again, slowly pacing around their perimeter, thinking of hammers and boxes. Of what might not fit in them, and whether they should. Of whether there was profit to be had in moving things from room to room.

"I have to admit, I can't quite see the purpose of it." His hands suddenly still over his tools, as if so long as he didn't move, she couldn't take their funding away. "What I saw...that doesn't seem like something that will want to fit in a box."

"That was proof of concept," Viktor assures her, flitting back to fuss with a set of cogs. Clever as those hands of his are, he can't quite get them to mesh. "What happened that night-- that's not all Hextech can do. Floating and explosions and pretty lights."

"And things moving from one place to another." Mel can no longer remember which hand reached out to the coin, but she knows at one moment it was there, and with a shiver, it was somewhere else.

He snorts, shaking his head. "Teleportation is not an avenue we're moving forward with."

She blinks. "Why not?"

"Hextech is supposed to put power in the hands of the everyman, whether they're born it the highest penthouse in Piltover, or the dirtiest gutter of the Lanes." His mouth hooks into a rueful smirk. "Now imagine every one of them with the ability to be anywhere they want, whenever they want."

It's a struggle not to let her mouth thin, to let the grimace grit behind her lips show. "But surely there's useful applications of that power. Ones that might better more lives than simply...lifting boxes."

There's a twitch at the corner of his jaw; subtle, lost in the angles of his chin and cheeks, but there. A purse to his lips, a faint furrow to his brow-- the marks of an argument long lost, but not forgotten. Or perhaps, she thinks, watching how his face smooths to glass, never had.

"That may be," he allows, the tone all but removed from his voice. "But Jayce would prefer to focus on something that would be useful at a personal level. Handy. We aren't trying to cause chaos, after all."

"No," she agrees, letting her mouth linger around the word. "Just a revolution."

That gets him to look at her now, lips slightly parted. Surprised, maybe. Seduced. Looks like she didn't need the dress after all.

“Pity your partner is so limited in scope,” she muses, once more tracing the edge of an arch. “I wonder how far this could go if you weren’t limited to a box.”

For all the girl's protestations that Mr Talis was unavailable, he's waiting for her when she steps out of the workshop, hands wrung so tight they've gone white in his grip.

"Councilor Medarda," he gasps, falling breathlessly into step beside her. "How was...? Did Viktor...?"

He puts a hand on the door to open it for her, the sounds of the street rushing in. His throat clears, and his mind must as well, since he manages, "I hope you're happy with our progress."

“Me?” Mel turns he head, obscuring her smile. “Yes, I think my investment is coming along quite nicely.”

#melvik #arcane #the man of progress #my fic #god FINALLY this is finished. I wanted this to be out in june originally #and then everything got shunted last second so i was like #andi will ask for it for her birthday! it's fine! AND SHE DID AND IT WAS GREAT #but this thing was supposed to be 6K on the outside. it's like 7.5 now #was editing down to the wire on this one too because the last scene needed some clarification #ending up adding a WHOLE NEW SCENE #anyway deeply sorry to my melvik fans for having to remove what was originally her fixing his shirt #but since she touches his machine i figured that would be just as good 🤣

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