"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,

"You are wasting your strength with building here;

Your journey will end with the ending day,

You never again will pass this way;

You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide,

Why build this bridge at evening tide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head;

"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,

"There followed after me to-day

A youth whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm that has been as naught to me

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!"

The Bridge Builder (Will Allen Dromgoole)

THREE WEEKS LATER...

Compared to the very first boy described in this entire dreary monologue, this next boy probably would have been a musician if the universe had been kinder: his mother loved to listen to music and encouraged it in her offspring, but their family hardly had enough money to send them to school, let alone enroll the artistic child into a conservatory. Perhaps, if he had been born in Demacia or if High Command had placed as much emphasis on the arts as it did to the military, maybe he would've become a wonderful pianist. As it was, the younger boy had to make do with what he had.

And he did not have much. Where his brother was powerfully built, like a compact bear, Draven seemed to be made of limbs. His lankier frame, while infinitely more flexible than his brother's immovable mass, was less inclined to withstand punishment. His father's blood still ran true in his unruly hair, sharp beak nose and square jaw, but the rest of him took after his mother: with her dark brown hair, smaller body and long, elegant limbs. Three years his brother's junior, his mind was still fluttering in the skies- dreaming of a day when he would be going on adventures to slay Demacian dragons or on expeditions to find fool's gold. That is to say, he smiled and laughed more often than his brother, and found joy in the smaller things. Life was that simple for him.

There was a smile on his face now; as he watched his father and older brother go over the niceties of splitting logs in the smallish space that served as their family room. He was seated on one of four chairs next to the dining table. Close by, his mother was preparing dinner in the little alcove she called her kitchen, the smoke of the cooking fire daintily creeping up the wall and into a small ventilation shaft above her head. Really, it was about as wide as she could spread her elbows, but when one made barely enough each day to feed two growing boys and a husband besides, one learned to tolerate cramped kitchens.

There was a room off to the side where the four of them shared two beds and one dresser. The walls were made of bare rock, as their residence was carved from the very earth itself, and bore no decorations except for a single massive battle-axe that was mounted over their parent's bed. It was about as wide as Darius' forearm, as long as Draven's leg and probably weighed more than the two siblings combined. At some point in time, the weapon would have been sharp enough to split hairs, but there was a great break on the axe head from where the boys' father had hacked off a Demacian's armored limbs, and time had whittled away at the rest of the cutting edge until it was not good for anything- except maybe as a reminder of times long gone.

The notched battle-axe belonged to their father Hystaspes, veteran of a Rune War and a distinguished man who fought in numerous engagements, even making the ultimate sacrifice by giving his leg to secure a Noxian victory. In some circles, he could've been considered as handsome when he was younger, but now his face was too scarred to be considered anything but hideous. His black beard, as ragged and unkempt as the hair underneath the cloth skull cap he wore, hid the worst of his disfigurement. He was broad-shouldered, tightly packed with muscle and somewhat hunched over thanks to his previous military service, and walked lopsidedly due to his wooden leg. Despite his infirmity, he gave off a certain air- that of someone who didn't care for how other people perceived him, so long as other people did not directly offend him.

Compared to the aristocratic ladies of Noxus, their mother was not physically attractive, but she was not exceedingly ugly either. Athenais had close-set eyes, a small nose and pert lips. She was not too tall, nor was she too short. Like her youngest, she had long limbs and a lithe frame- even after two children and some twenty years of marriage. There are only a few words to properly define someone like her, with such a plain face and average height and build. If one did not specifically try to find her, one would forget her. The best way to properly describe Athenais, if one asked the boys, simply was 'mother'. She was the very embodiment of the word, if that made any sense at all.

There was the question of their mother's military service, of course. Conscription was the rule in the city-state, and even women were not an exception. There was a time when Darius had worked the courage to ask her what she had done before she had met their father. Unlike Hystaspes, who regaled his firstborn with battle stories and displayed every war wound for the child's benefit, she chose instead to smile down at her eldest, and to silence his question by patting his cheek with one hand and telling him to check on his new baby brother. Even after Draven had grown up a bit- moving from cloth diapers to hand-me-down britches-she had never said much about her service to the state. When the children had gotten too insistent, their father mentioned offhandedly that she had more guts than he ever did.

Needless to say, when one's parents are so keen on keeping something a secret, one should generally obey. The boys never asked again.

The two of them made an odd pair now: the woman who could have been beautiful and the man who would never be physically whole. It was oddly appropriate, considering what sort of people their two children would grow into. After time, a Rune War and two children had their way with them, somehow, Hystaspes and Athenais had managed and endured- and it was a relationship their offspring would envy to the end of their days.

His father and brother's discussion fading into unneeded noise, Draven's eyes wandered over to where the great black bearskin rug would've been on the floor if his parents had never sold it. Darius still wistfully talked about it at times, and the younger sibling had been regaled with many a tale of the times that his brother used to wrap himself in it like an Ionian spring roll. Needless to say, the rug had been his brother's favorite thing, one of many that they had to let go when he had been born.

For all its starkness now, the dwelling had been better decorated once. His father had his medals and commendations hanging on the walls, and his mother even had a painting or two of beautiful imaginary landscapes. When their mother had learned that she was pregnant again, however, she had coaxed her husband to part with his belongings. They had been breaking even with just the two of them, but a second child would put a strain on the family budget. When Draven was born on a wonderful spring morning, therefore, the luscious rug and the paintings were sold off.

One could only do so much before financial troubles began anew. When Draven was three, his father's medals were melted down and sold for scrap. The hard-earned commendations were bartered off to buy dried meat, soup base and lamp oil during a particularly nasty winter when the two siblings had a case of pneumonia. Darius had been working as an insect harvester and ochre miner since Draven's fifth birthday to augment their income, and had only recently moved to logging.

If one asked for his professional opinion, Hystaspes would say that more people in Noxus died from falling trees than from drowning in the moat. Contrary to popular belief, logging was not an easy occupation, as simple as the entire concept of cutting wood seemed. In order to become a successful woodcutter, there were countless things to remember: an escape path had to be planned out and created, lest the tree one wanted to topple fell instead on oneself; the notch that would direct the tree's fall had to be placed correctly, with thought given to the degree that the tree was leaning; bucking the tree, or cutting it up into smaller pieces, required much thought because cutting too much or too little would waste valuable wood.

"Here, you set it up like so," Hystaspes stated. He borrowed a log from where it had been stacked up with the rest of the firewood and had it stand up on the floor. The wood had been split already, and it was only a matter of imagination to pretend that the log was still whole. "If you bucked it right, you should be able to get it up on its' end like so. If it's got a knot in it, you don't split it. Sharpen your axe to make a clean break when you split. You follow?"

Darius bobbed his head. It had been three weeks since he had come into the dwelling grasping a paper bag filled with goat cheese. Draven had seen him done stranger entrances- the day his brother found a yordle skull and wore it on his fist as he entered was particularly memorable- but that day was etched in his memory, and for all the right reasons.

At the time, the boys' father had described his eldest son's face as 'looking like crow bait'. Draven had to agree- Darius' face had swollen so much that he could hardly eat anything for dinner that day, and then two days later his cuts became infected. Hystaspes ' firstborn then spent the worst part of the last two weeks in bed raving in a fever dream about how he was going to one day grow up to destroy everything and everyone with one stroke of his hand. Draven didn't believe him of course. It was simply the fever talking. After all, no one could be that powerful.

Now for the most part, the small cuts and bruises had healed to faint little lines and splotches on his flesh but there was still a bandage wrapped over Darius' eye for the scar, and there was still a faint pinkish and sweaty sheen to his cheeks- hinting to a fever that still lurked underneath his skin.

That scar, Draven thought, looks really cool now that the rest of Bro's face doesn't look like ground up meat.

"Green wood is harder to cut into, so forget it." Their father rumbled on as Darius gave nondescript nod after nod. "As for splitting- you have to throw a bit of your weight into it. Not from your arms though- you'll hurt yourself. Don't just throw yourself at it either- that's stupid. Stand with your legs apart a bit, raise the axe as far as you could go without missing, aim for the center and keep your arms straight like so. The trick is to have momentum, and if you get it right in one blow to avoid damaging the wood, good for you. If you don't get it right and you hack the poor thing to bits, it'll sell for less. You would've wasted more energy chopping away at it like a madman besides. So. Aim well, and don't hurt yourself. Pretty simple."

Utterly bored with the conversation, Draven idly swung his legs up and down, kicking at the nearest table leg in a fit of boredom. Thump, thump, thump- the noises went relatively unnoticed. He repeated the pattern six more times before Darius leveled a glare at him.

From the amount of annoyance in his good eye, Draven surmised that his older brother was peeved but not too annoyed. That was fine with him. Ever the jester who enjoyed being the center of attention, Draven conspiratorially reached forward and tapped on the thin wood desk that served as their study and dining table, a smile on his lips and a joke ready on his tongue if they wanted to talk to him.

As before, nobody noticed him except for his brother. Darius was giving him the Look now- the glower that usually accompanied a cuff to the head when his older brother was done with whatever it was he was doing. The death glare would've been super effective, if Dar's eye wasn't covered and if his hair had not been sticking in every single direction thanks to the bandage wrapped around his eye. Knocking out a nonsensical beat, it took maybe three minutes before their mother reached over and rapped Draven smartly over the knuckles with a ladle.

Sheepishly, the youngest son flashed his mother a gap-toothed smile and an innocent look. She exhaled softly and watched him with something like exasperation, a finger on her lips as she gestured to Darius and Hystaspes. Draven rolled his shoulders in a juvenile display of defiance, and then almost laughed when his mother stuck her tongue out at him.

The rare scene of idyllic life in Noxus was broken the moment someone rapped on their door. Interrupted from their in-depth logging talk, Hystaspes eyed the door as if his gaze would set it on fire. It was nine in the evening, and who would bother knocking on their door this late- even if they did live in Sub-Level 12? "Who is it?" He boomed.

"Maynard de Croix," a crisp voice said from the other side. Heavily accented, the words carried a threat that only Darius could perceive as of the moment. Not surprisingly, the eldest son stood up in alarm, sending the practice log flying to the side. He shook his head vehemently at his father, pleading with him silently to not answer the door, but Hystaspes was a man who was not easily swayed, and his firstborn's reaction had made him curious.

So the war veteran pushed himself off the floor with effort and walked to the doorway, his wooden leg rapping every odd step on the cold stone floor while Darius shook like a lamb that was being led to the slaughter. He was still staring at his father's back when his mother gave him a calming pat on the head and whispered out a request to move Draven to the bedroom for now.

Still terrified, but now reminded of his duty and unspoken pledge to never appear weak in front of his kid brother, Darius clamped down on his fear, bit his lip and scurried off to do his mother's bidding.

"Come on," Darius said as he pulled the nine year old from the chair. The lie did not pass easily from his tongue, but somehow, he managed. "Dad's got visitors."

"If it's his visitor, why are you acting weird?" Draven remarked flatly, in the typically shameless way of baby brothers to point out the uncomfortably obvious.

"Because, reasons!" Darius snapped back. He didn't want to tell Draven about the entire episode with Adrian de Croix. He much preferred to let the younger one keep the modified lie he had fed him three weeks earlier- that he had found a yordle spy in Emerald Ward and had beaten it up in a fair fight.

Draven remained totally unconvinced, but this was a side of his brother he had never seen before. His brother, if one asked Draven's very expert opinion, was panicking about something. But if this truly was a panicking Darius, something was going to happen that hadn't happened before.

In the future, when all was said and done, Draven would later do something rather drastic because his brother lied to him, but this Draven was still so young, curious and utterly trusting in the one person who loomed bigger in his life than both his parents combined. He let himself be herded in the bedroom, and then obediently sat on the bed with a promise on his mind to not go outside and to stay quiet, like a good little boy.

Darius rushed back into the living room. Maynard de Croix looked much like his son- lanky build, blonde hair, blue eyes, hawksbill nose and wide mouth. He was equally pampered- his nails were clean and polished, his hair was brushed and tied back with a red ribbon. His cravat, held together with a gold-framed ruby pendant, was absolutely flawless. He wore knee-high black boots over white linen trousers and a red waistcoat over a white silk shirt. Over the entire ensemble, he wore a black coat festooned with gold braid and polished brass buttons. In his gloved hands he held a gold-handled cane made of ebony. In comparison, Darius, his father and his mother were all wearing simple homespun clothes in varying shades of brown and grey.

To a casual observer then, Maynard was a god amongst heathens, and he treated them all as such. He was currently locked in an argument with Hystaspes, and Darius caught the last segment of conversation as he reentered the room.

"-My son is dead from an infected cut given to him by your spawn, and you expect me to let him live?" The aristocrat gestured at Darius with his cane. "Why are you so surprised? Are you that stupid of a man to not ask where your tramp of a son spends his time?"

Darius felt mildly offended at the words. It was not his fault that Adrian the weakling couldn't handle the fever that came with the cuts to his face, but- and he realized this very late, it was his fault that the cuts were there in the first place. So, in the three weeks since he had scuffled with the other boy, he had killed Adrian de Croix, even if it was through some bizarre accident of nature. Up until that point, he had never killed anyone before. He hadn't even gotten close to maiming anyone prior to that scuffle with Adrian de Croix. The first stirrings of fear came when he realized that Maynard de Croix was crying for his blood.

Compared to his eldest son, who had stiffened like a corpse inflicted with rigor mortis, Hystaspes was still hale and shaking his head calmly. The man had been a legend on the battlefield in his time for being eerily calm under pressure. Now, faced with evidence that his firstborn had accidentally killed another child, he let no expression escape his features other than that of composed attention.

"I didn't mean to imply that," The woodcutter said. "We cannot pay the wergild. Blood is the only thing we have left, and and I want you to take mine."

Almost Freljordish in its barbarity, blood debts were an archaic option in a city-state that prided itself on having rule of law- but compensation in the form of death had been the Noxian way for centuries. The practice of demanding monetary compensation, or wergild, had only emerged recently.

The aforementioned boy looked wildly at his father, wholesale panic flashing in his eyes. What was happening? Why was he volunteering himself? What about his mother? What about Draven? What about him? And then when he realized what his father was aiming to do, Darius' blood ran cold. He wanted to do something, anything at all to stop his parents from sealing their fate, but if his parents were so set on it, nothing in the world was going to bend to the desires of a remorseful twelve year old boy.

"Would you take me instead?" His father asked again, seemingly oblivious to his son's reactions.

"I volunteer as well," Athenais piped up. Darius' shocked stare transferred to his mother. Like his father, she was nothing but calm. Her face showed no distress, her eyes gave off no fear. Her body was eerily still. She took her place next to her husband, and even had the gall to smile at Maynard de Croix's furious face.

"How dare you, you ground-dwelling peasants? To give me a choice between a cripple and a cheap whore?" Maynard de Croix said with a sneer. "If blood is the only thing you can offer me- very well! Give me both your lives, or I will take one of your sons. I will not settle for less."

"Fine." Hystaspes retorted without hesitation. "When?" The war veteran continued, eyebrow cocked up and his voice still as dominant as it had ever been.

"Wha-" Maynard's mouth snapped open as his eyes widened. Evidently he hadn't expected such a candid response.

The whole conversation had shifted pace now: Hystaspes had taken Maynard on his own ground, daring the cocky bastard across him to say the words that would change Darius for the rest of his life.

An older Darius looked back at this moment as his father's crowning achievement and greatest gift: Hystaspes had sacrificed his leg for Noxus, and now he was sacrificing himself and his wife to see to it that the life he had helped to create would live on. In any universe, in any world, in any plane that obeyed the laws of space and time- there is no greater act a father could ever do for his own son. By that same token, there is also no greater point in his life that Darius vehemently wished things had gone differently.

As for the younger Darius, the Darius of now, there were no words to describe how he felt at the moment. If a picture could have been used instead to depict his mental turmoil, it would've been of black and red in streaks across blank canvas like blood from an arterial cut. He couldn't help but feel disgusted that Maynard had assumed Hystaspes would beg for mercy. He was proud that his father had not bent his head, but now he was deathly afraid for his parents, for his brother and for himself.

Fear paralyzes when left to fester. Darius couldn't speak, let alone move a finger. The fear of being alone in the world, of being left to fend for himself and his brother without the bulwark of safety his parents had forged with their sacrifices, of being swallowed by the world and spat out- all of it was more than his twelve-year old mind could bear. If he had been any more unstable, he would have burst out in hysterical laughter.

Maynard had been caught off guard by the veteran's frank response, but when he realized what he had within his reach, a smile had slid over his hawkish features. He looked quite like the predatory bird with the way he was staring at the three of them. Metaphorically readying his talons to snare his seemingly ignorant prey, the aristocrat's next query was disturbingly mundane, considering that he had just orphaned two boys with one statement: "How long would it take to get your affairs in order?"

"A month." Again, there was no hesitation in his father's words. In fact, if Darius had been paying more attention, if he had not been mentally screaming and holding back a tide of panic and guilt, it was almost as if his father was enjoying his mortifying tirade with the younger noble. There was a cocky light in his eyes and a little tone in his voice that hinted he relished what he was doing as of the moment. "There isn't a lot."

"Agreed. I will have the papers sent tomorrow morning, and I will see you at the block in a month." Maynard said with a smirk. For him, he had achieved victory. In a month's time, his youngest son's ghost would see justice done, and then all would be right in the world.

For Darius, he had just watched his father sacrifice himself and their mother for his sake. In a month's time, the state of Noxus, and by extension, that of Runeterra would be decided.

Something else was going to happen in a month as well, but it was taking its time to hit him fully. Darius had been deadened by fear. His thoughts plodded as slowly as a glacier crawled down the side of a mountain. The eventual realization of what was going to happen in a month hit him in the same way: a grinding, inexorable wave that washed over his body and left him frighteningly cold.

I'm going to be an orphan on my birth day, Darius thought distantly.

He became vaguely aware of the fact that Maynard had left, and that his father had somehow been replaced by a man whose craggy features could've borrowed from a statue in the past second. Gone was the cocky confidence, the bulwark of tranquility he had adopted in the face of an outsider. His mother was eyeing him with concern, her brow furrowed with worry. The edge of his vision were too faint for him to properly focus on his brother- who was sneaking a look at the rest of the room and was wondering why everyone was so pale and wretched.

Haggard sobs emerged from his chest. His jaw locked tight, his teeth ground against each other. He screwed his eyes shut in a last-ditch attempt to stop himself, and commanded his body not to shake, because men did not cry.

But then again, he wasn't a man. Not yet.

He was just twelve, and he had just watched his father and mother volunteer to kill themselves in order to ensure his survival. It was all because of something that he had done in a fit of childish spite. His parents only had a month to live, to impart what knowledge and property there was left to give. There was no other person to blame in this entire incident except for himself. Everything could've been avoided if he had simply turned his head. His mother and father would still be alive. The scar would not be on his face. His brother would still be happy. If only he had not lashed out at the other boy. If only he had not been so impulsive, if only-

His thoughts overwhelmed him. As much as he tried, twin trails of heat spilled from the corners of his eyes, rolled over his cheeks and coalesced down his neck.

Author's Note: It was a little strange writing about a crying Darius, but then again he's just twelve here. I also did my best to emphasize class disparity, and to show that there wasn't much one can do in the face of law backed with gold.

I tried to put across the idea that even if Noxus is a nation of strength, family is still important. I feel that Hystaspes and Athenais are your stereotypical Noxian parents: they both served in the military, but their work inevitably left them scarred- his father was handicapped and his mother undoubtedly saw and did some horrible things. Despite all of that, they try their hardest to be good parents to their children- not in the 'huggy, I love you' Demacian context.

Noxus is a nation that believes in strength and personal achievement after all: so I think that what is considered as good parenting in Noxus is to be a strong role model and to do your best to support or steer your child to greatness. Essentially then, what Hystaspes and Athenais are doing here is taking the flak for what Darius did- and that's fine for them because there's just no way to avoid the repercussion of Adrian de Croix's death. If they denied the charge, then it would show to Darius and Draven that they were being cowardly for not tackling the problem in the face- that would be bad parenting.