Hi all,

This is part 1 of a prequel fic to Pawns, another story by Voidlink, which can be found here: archiveofourown works/ 5608474/ chapters/ 12922168 - remove the spaces. As a warning, the fic is a VaynexVladimir plot-heavy smut fic, containing strong adult sexual themes.

We're collaborating and you can expect updates to this story and the eventual sequel to Pawns: Pawns and Kings.

This fic in particular focuses on characterizing Vladimir and chronicles his life after his return from Dmitri's Temple, mastering his blood magic.

Hope you all enjoy!

Footsteps shuffled along the dry ground, feet bare and battered. What was pale was covered in dirt, brown caked deeply into the porcelain.

Around the man, people walked at paces both brisker and more sluggish, weighed down by their own individual sins, small and large. A crowded river flowed both ways in and out of the great gates of the city, beckoned and overcast by grand, black towers and battlements. Noxus was a fortress, and the upper echelons of society and the military ensured that people remembered that, for even the dankest slum was designed for the purposes of defending the city in a time of war. Everyone in Noxus carried sin, it was part of the culture, part of survival.

Though hunched over, clad in a great, filthy cloak and loose-fitting clothes, the man was steady in his gait, albeit slow. Despite his trousers and open shirt hanging like sheets off him, it was not their fault. His frame was gangly and unnaturally lean, like sticks and straw tied together with rope.

But he was not weak.

Pale, long-fingered hands clutched at the shoulders of his cloak, pulling it around him, hiding as much of his sickly body from the eyes of the streaming people around him. His ivory hair obscured his eyes and face from the public, only revealing his angular jawline – lined with sparse hair – to those who had the courage to look.

The grand majority however, did not. The collective lack of fortitude in the people around him caused the crowded river to recede, the tide pulling itself away from him. This one, singular man – garbed in garments that would make a street urchin retch and with hair like dead, white grass – was unintentionally cutting out a path for himself, allowing his shuffling steps to go unimpeded. He knew of the power he possessed, and those around him could feel it in their veins and arteries, their essences drawing themselves out of their own bodies, vessels bulging as though magnetized.

The river moved faster as it passed him.

Finally. He thought, as his mind registered the shadow of Noxus's gates on the ground beneath him, and the ground changed from dry dust to pale cobble. It's been four days since I left the Temple. Four days of trudging…but now…

He looked up, the sun eclipsed by the great, central cathedral of his city, it's shadow cast over the people below. Somewhere near him, a woman screamed and he heard her frantic footsteps in a bid to distance herself from him, and the gap that he'd caused in the river of migration grew even larger – but he barely cared. He took a single breath in, letting the stench of Noxus fill his lungs with nostalgia.

He had missed this city, missed the frantic climb up the ladder of chaos that consumed its inhabitants.

A climb that he now had the power to ascend.

He took another step forward, but stopped as his foot landed square in a murky puddle. Drawing his foot out disturbed the water, but diluted the murkiness enough for him to see his reflection.

As he looked down through half-closed eyelids and unkempt hair, he saw the face of death stare back up at him. Bloodshot, sunken crimson eyes return his gaze as he scanned his own visage. His pale skin was stretched like canvas over his features. With a fuller face, one would have called his features noble – disclosing his true – if denied – heritage. Instead, he resembled a gaunt lich, bearing flesh that had not seen the fruits of proper nutrition in far longer than should be survivable.

He scowled, stamping his foot through the slosh and continuing on his journey.

No puddle shall muddle me. Despite his trials, his sense of humour for wordplay had stuck.

Making his way out of the entrance courtyard of the city, he began to trek up one of the many sloping streets, the gentle incline feeling like hell on his weary legs. As he slowly progressed his mind shifted to the past.

I wonder how mothe-

Thick fingers suddenly dug into his bicep, followed by its twin hand and a second pair of fleshy talons around his other arm. He grunted and fell, stopped from hitting the ground thanks to the suspension of his attackers. His feet dragged against the stone as he was pulled up the hill, and he lifted his head in a wild attempt to discern what was happening.

Two of the city guard had accosted him, clad in black and red plate, heavy one-handed axes at their hips and spears with brutal heads on their backs. He looked from one to the other, not able to discern their intentions from their shadowed eyes and taut jawlines.

"W…what are you…" He slurred out, his tongue dry.

The guardsmen ignored him, unkind in their method of moving him. The pale-haired man feebly tried to reach down and claw at the cobble beneath him, attempting to get away. His fingernails barely scratched at the stone and he was immediately jerked painfully back upwards.

Why? Why were they doing this? Was it because of his appearance, if so then it was hardly fair. Many in Noxus looked as though they'd just stepped off on of the Church of Kindred's corpse carts.

Though he knew only too well that life was incredibly unfair.

Almost an hour of ascending the increasing slope of the city led the two guards and their prey to the mouth of the central tower. The trio entered and turned right, making their way through a series of corridors before ending in a long, high-ceilinged room lined with guardsmen. The end of the room opened into a wide, railed balcony, and before that was a large, rounded table, dressed in blueprints and plans of war. The table was surrounded by men and women alike, though none of them held nearly as much of a presence as the man at their head.

The pale-haired man could only see the leader from the back, but he could still discern his demeanour.

Noxian armour was bulky by design, meant to intimidate and guard – but this was above and beyond that entirely. The shoulders were gigantic, and if the man's posture was anything to go by they were not overcompensating for size. A short cape hung from them, indicative of high rank without impeding his movements in a battle. Across the cape he wore an axe, strapped to his back – though this weapon could hardly be called a mere axe. The blade was as wide as a guillotine, and glimmered with the mark of being well-used and primed.

"General Darius, sir!" The bedraggled one heard his captor to the right address his superior.

Darius…that name. I know it from somewhere… It was a half-forgotten memory. The kind you have, but know neither why nor where it came from.

The man; Darius, turned. He somehow was even bigger from the front, accentuated by his huge, exposed upper arms between the plated steel of his shoulders and forearms.

"Who's this?" The general asked, his voice like a gravel bass.

"The man you've been searching for; his name was…" The guard paused, evidently not remembering.

Darius grunted and interrupted the guardsman. "Hold his head up." He ordered, the disdain evident in his words.

As the man's face was revealed, Darius stared into it. His eyes scanned over the agape jaw that didn't have the energy to close, the ragged breathing, the gaunt features and the almost deathly bones pushing out. However, it was only when Darius saw the man's blood-shot, blood-red eyes that recognition clicked.

"Vladimir." He cursed lowly, spitting his words out.

The pale one; Vladimir, responded by taking a deep breath of alertment, the air rushing through his throat as though it was a sandpaper flute. His breath remained raspy as he looked Darius in the eye, searching for some semblance of familiarity. He didn't know this man from anywhere.

"You killed two boys many years ago, do you remember?" Something flickered in the red eyes of his prisoner. One of the boys had been the general's nephew, one of many unclaimed by his brother's…escapades, regardless, family was important to Darius.

Darius reached down to his waist and extracted a knife; heavy and large like the man himself. He held it up to Vlad's throat, forcing the man to painfully hold his head up.

"What drove you to do it, what sick, twisted mind lies in that skull?" The general's scowl deepened and he pushed the blade ever so slightly further against Vladimir's neck. A feeble attempt at a response was made from the man at his mercy; but the words died as they passed his tongue. "I should kill you." Darius growled. At his words, Vladimir's eyes opened wide, which the larger man interpreted as a plea for mercy.

"Why should I spare you?"

The only response he got was the look of a madman from behind the crimson iris's, like a beast that had just tasted blood.

Suddenly, the guard to Darius's left let out a choked gurgle, as if something was caught in his throat. The general shot an annoyed look, but his disposition changed to shock when he saw what had happened to his subordinate.

Blood oozed in thick rivulets from every orifice in his face. It poured out of his mouth and coagulated in a thick puddle at his feet, streaming from his nose and eyes like tears. His sockets almost burst with bulging, and then the guard fell to his knees, releasing Vlad's arm as he clutched his throat. A heavy, retching noise filled the room, nauseating almost everyone else in earshot. As he threw up what might have constituted a small bucket, one of his bulging eyeballs fell out, landing sickeningly on the floor. Limb by limb, the man got closer and closer to the floor until what must have been all of his blood pooled around him. His body like rotten fruit, held together solely by his armament.

A quiet yelp of fear was heard from Vladimir's other captor, followed by a scream of pure panic as he released his prisoner, turned, and ran.

Vlad counted two steps before he heard the wet sound of liquid hitting the floor and the sound of the man's tibia and fibula shattering under the weight of the rest of his body. Followed by the gasps of horror let out by the men behind Darius in unison.

To the rest of the room who had been watching, the guard had managed two strides before his left leg had suddenly burst into blood. With nothing to support it, his bones snapped and he fell and skidded along the floor. His screams fell harshest on the ears of the guards down the rooms length, who had raised their spears but showed no signs of going near their fallen comrades.

Through the pain, the soldier screamed and attempted to rise to his feet, but the flesh around his other leg's knee exploded in a similar fashion, resulting in him falling and cracking the patella against the hard stone floor.

His scream muffled the sounds of people vomiting over the railing, but didn't deafen them.

The bloody fireworks display went on for far longer than anyone watching would have wanted. One by one, the man's arms and legs erupted into fountains of blood with the bones beneath cracking and shattering as they fell, unsupported, to the floor. His body blood-soaked and half-limbed, his face a screaming mess of tear-streaked lines.

The rest of the room could only look on in unadulterated terror. Only two individuals were the exception.

One was Darius, the ever-professional general and embodiment of the Noxian spirit. His soul was displeased that his men had failed, even moreso that one of them had tried to run – but that all took a backseat as he watched the scene unfold before him. What unsettled him the most about the entire spectacle is what the other exception had been doing during the second guard's death. He hadn't turned to watch like everyone else in the room, no.

Vlad had placed his hands on the ground and leaned down. He dipped a pair of fingers into the still-deepening pool of blood and lifted the ichor, bringing it up to his face and licking the substance off.

Darius's disgust was immediately replaced by a seething, unrelenting rage.

He reached back, his eyes twitching in his skull with fury. The tranquil anger of the battlefield flooded his senses, the wrath that allowed Darius to be such a monstrous force. All he was was a single man, his axe guided by a hand that wielded strength and precision in equal and terrible measure.

His metal-clad fingers gripped the haft of his axe, his arm tensed. The beast before him wouldn't see it, wouldn't even have time to feel it.

Darius swung. A single, perfect strike that would cleave the monster in his eyes cleanly in two. No survival.

And yet when his hand-held guillotine came down, he did not feel his blade effortlessly slice flesh and bone, but instead felt his arm tremble as he hit the stone floor with an echoing *clang*.

His eyes cleared of rage, and he saw a thick, man-shaped red mist float in the air before him. No Vladimir.

"What."

The mist retreated, moving backward to the pooling corpse of the second guard. It condensed, reforming into the pale man Darius had intended to strike down.

Vladimir breathed loudly, clearer and fuller than earlier. He stood tall and with his shoulders back, his pale upper torso exposed as his ragged top slid down. He was still skinny, but his form was fuller.

The blood vessels in Vladimir's forearms rippled as he lifted his arm, aiming his open hand towards Darius.

Vlad's fingers splayed and Darius suddenly felt his body seize up from within. The general's stance wavered, shaking from the knees up. Nevertheless, the Hand of Noxus would not fall, and through strength of will he retained his position, even beginning to move forward with slow, powerful steps.

The Haemomancer frowned. He knew he should only have limited control over Darius – he hadn't had skin contact like he had with the guardsmen, but still. He pushed his arm forward again, willing the blood in Darius's body to betray their host – but suddenly felt a powerful wave of exhaustion. The sustenance he'd gained from the blood of the guard had given him a small burst of power, but it was waning. He released the general's internals from his grip, planning to conserve what little power he had left into escaping.

As Darius's charge gained speed, Vladimir prepared to de-solidify once more – but a voice from the back of the room halted both of their plans.

"Darius, stop!"

The armoured man halted with poise, his axe low against the ground. Turning viciously to see who had the audacity to get in the way of his revenge, he saw that standing – if a little shaken from the blood mage's display – was the representative of Noxus's magic circle at the table.

"No! He-"

"He killed four Noxians, if I've been listening correctly." A woman said, garbed in green and black robes with metallic trimmings. Her hair was a stark white – though from natural age rather than Vladimir's reason – and her features were kindly, if sharp. "That's a tragic count, but imagine if that power was directed towards our enemies?" The implications hung in the air. It wasn't really a question, and Darius knew it.

She stepped away from the table, making her way towards Vladimir with purposeful strides. Strides that could only come from surviving Noxian politics as long as her age implied. "Come, child. I won't hurt you. Lower your arm."

Vladimir was soothed by her voice, though it wasn't particularly soothing to begin with. He reluctantly did so, pulling his tattered clothing back around him to hide himself.

"Your name is Vladimir, correct?" The woman asked, walking past a stunned Darius as she closed the distance.

"…Y…" Vlad cleared his throat, finding the ability to speak properly for the first time since he'd entered the chamber. "Yes."

"A surname?"

"No…Just Vladimir."

The mage pursed her lips. "I see, no matter." She took him by the arm, guiding him to the doorway. "You're under our protection now, you needn't fear him." Vlad let himself get pulled along, his feet falling into an awkward stumble until he regained his balance and walked a half-step behind her. "We'll take care of everything. Don't worry at all – all you need to do is promise your loyalty."

…Loyalty? To Noxus? The concept occupied Vlad's thoughts for the time being, filling his mind.

As he and the woman left the room, she paused to turn and regard Darius; the general shaking with anger again.

"Darius dear, do clean up before I get back, will you?"

Thanks for reading, do leave a review as you see fit.