(A/N: Somehow they became my OTP. I don't know. One day it just randomly clicked. I guess they're both human?

At any rate, this story will be a two-shot. Hope you enjoy.)

LET'S PLAY EXPLORERS

i. past

"Let's play explorers. I'll be Ezreal the Awesome, going to lands no man has gone before, and you shall be my fated arch-nemesis, Luxanna the Lunatic!"

"But I don't wanna. We always play explorers. Why can't we be—um—magicians! You can be Ezreal the... uh... Enlightened?"

"Hmm... And you'll still be my fated arch-nemesis, Luxanna the Lunatic!"

"No! I'll be your master, Luxanna the Lovely!"

"Ewww, you sound gross."

The two lively children, perched precariously on one of Piltover's energy pillars, were nearly invisible to the public. The City of Progress was far too concerned with its upcoming inventions to take any heed of two youngsters frolicking about.

A pity. They would miss quite the show.

"Well then," Luxanna said, quite huffily, "how would you like always being the bad guy that everyone hates, and you don't even get to do anything interesting!"

"You get to do a lot of interesting things!" Ez said, starting to count on his fingers. "You get to be tossed by my Energy Bolt of Extravagance; you get to be mortally wounded by my Plasma of Perfection; you get to be slain by my Lighting of Lamination—"

"Luminosity, Ezreal the Effeminate!" Lux puffed. "Lamination is what they do for paper!"

Ez shrugged. "Luminosity, Lamination, whatever. Don't you see how much you get to do?"

"It isn't fair!" Lux pouted. "It's not fun! If we're really friends, Ez, I should be doing fun things too!"

Ez's shoulder slumped unexpectedly. "Fine," he mumbled. "We'll play magicians."

Lux didn't seem to notice his sudden change in mood. She only grinned from ear to ear, eyes sparkling with more than sunlight, and leapt to her feet, energy renewed.

"Alright, Ezreal the Enlightened," she said, chest swelling with the joy of taking command for the first time. "We have three ancient spells that no one has been able to cast, ever!"

Ez's head lifted, eyes bright with interest. Lux shot him a devilish grin.

"Let's cast them," she said.

::-::

Lux returned to the Piltover Cloudfront Hotel feeling quite satisfied with herself. In her opinion, she had been a wonderful leader. The story had been very interesting, Ez was able to do fun things even as an apprentice—she'd even included an exploration segment just for him. Why, I should be leader more often, she congratulated, heading to their family's room.

Garen Crownguard was the only one there. Neither of their parents had returned from their respective businesses, so he was currently sprawled upon their bed, mindlessly swishing his limbs up and down and if attempting to create a snow angel.

"What are you doing, Garen?" Lux said, quite imperiously, as she was still in the mindset of Luxanna the Lovely.

Garen bolted upwards and raced to her, face wrought with worry. "Who was that boy you were playing with?" he said. "Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?"

"I'm fine," Lux said, feigning annoyance, but secretly feeling touched at her brother's concern. "How did you know where we were?"

"I was just looking around," Garen said evasively. "Who was that boy?"

"Ez? Ez wouldn't hurt me."

Garen's thick eyebrows bore into a dour glare. "Ez?"

"Ezreal," Lux said. "Don't you remember? He was at the party a few days ago. He's nice."

"That's a weird name," Garen grumbled. "Who would call their kid something like that?"

"I think it's quite fine," Lux said, rather hypocritically, as that was the very first thing she had said to Ezreal herself.

Garen narrowed his eyes. "As long as you don't play with him too much," he decided. "He's a boy. And we'll be going back to Demacia soon. But mainly he's a boy."

Lux stuck her tongue out at him and flopped down on the other bed, her mind already focused on tomorrow's potential. Now that she and Ez had already defeated the Dark Wizard (from Noxus, obviously; they'd instantly agreed on that), perhaps she should reveal that there was actually a whole order of them, headed up by the Head Archwizard...

::-::

"You can't possibly say that when you're talking to a Head Archwizard!"

"Why not?!"

"Because he's important!"

"He's the bad guy."

"Still, you have to treat a Head Archwizard with respect!"

"Luxanna."

"Ezreal."

To say the least, things were not going as Lux had planned. Ez had embraced her proposed plot twist wholeheartedly, to the point where he was taking complete control of her idea. The Head Archwizard, who was supposed to be nothing but a lonely, misunderstood yordle, had morphed into a brutal, vicious Noxian supervillain. The Order, which was to fizzle out once the Head Archwizard gave the command, had instead captured her and Ez, interrogating them under threat of Tickle Torture. And finally, Luxanna the Lovely, who was supposed to extract them from sticky situations with her typical diplomatic grace, was being completely outshone by her apprentice.

"So a yordle walks into a bar," Ezreal the Enlightened began, the Order sitting in rapt attention at his feet. "He's too short to reach the counter, so—hey! It's not even the punch line yet!"

"Ezreal," Lux snapped, glaring at her traitorous baton, which was currently substituting for the dark wizard Nerag.

Ez wrinkled his nose. "Aww, live a little, Luxanna!" he said cheerily, throwing his arm about a stack of scrap tech—fat dark wizard Aicamed.

"Get me out of these chains at once, apprentice!" Lux growled, struggling against her (invisible) binds.

Ez gave a long-suffering sigh. "One moment, gentlemen," he called. "The Lady of Lamination—"

"—Luminosity!—"

"—requires assistance." Ez easily untied her, rolling his eyes at the Order's applause for his chivalrous actions. Once Lux's (invisible) ropes were in a useless pile on the ground, she threw her Wizard's Cap (Garen's straw crown) at Ez, speechless with fury.

Ez's amused expression wiped cleanly into shock. "Lux?"

"You're ruining my story!" Lux barked.

"What?" Ez mumbled, face blank with confusion.

"In case you haven't noticed, Ezreal the Enlightened, I've been tied up for hours while you've been telling jokes!" (In Ez's defence, it had only been fifteen minutes, but time always gets dreadfully warped when one is a child.) "You've been rude to the Head Archwizard, ruined the Order, and haven't let me do anything fun since we started playing!"

Ez's face reddened. "Why is that my fault?" he protested.

"Because—because—" Because this was her idea and he was ruining it! "Ugh, you're such a boy!"

"Well this is why I hate playing with girls!" Ez yelled. "They don't make any sense!"

Lux stomped her foot. "We don't make any sense?"

"No! You're weird!"

"Well you're stupid!"

"I hate you!"

"I hate you too!"

"I'm not playing with you ever again!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

With that, both children stormed away, little hearts filled with bitterness and anger. Perhaps if they knew that Lux would have to leave that very night, they would have behaved differently; yet as it was, when Lux returned to the hotel, her father hurriedly rushed the family out, leaving Piltover with nary a sign.

And Ez and Lux would not see each other for many, many years.

tbc