We stand now in the place and limit of time

Where hardest knowledge is turning into dream,

And nightmares still contained in sleeping dark

Seem on the point of bringing into day

The sweating panic that starts the sleeper up.

One or another nightmare may come true,

And what to do then? What in the world to do?

Magnitude (Howard Nemerov)

ONE YEAR LATER...

A man was addressing his workers in a forest.

It would be generous to describe the area they were in as a 'forest'- a fire had raged through two days earlier. What had been a bustling insect farm had turned into an eerie, charred hell. Burnt tree limbs jutted vertically from the grey earth, buried in ash a foot deep, the metallic taste of the incoming spring rains heavy in the air. Once, there had been a billion insects alive on the trees, their bodies bulbous with the valuable pigment that would have made a very rich red. Now their bodies intermingled with the earth, too numerous to be properly distinguished from dirt and ash.

The man's workers were equally battered. Mostly teenagers whose faces and hands were streaked with dust and sweat that mixed into an unhealthy paste on their skin, their developing frames were plagued with constant hunger and exhaustion. Most of them had not slept in two days as their masters had wanted the fire quelled as soon as possible. The effort to save what remained of the farm showed in the dull light in the youths' eyes, in the grumbling of their stomachs and in the slack mouths hanging open, dry and airy with hunger and thirst.

"The fire took a quarter of the farm, resulting in a net loss of oh, fifty something gold. It's quite tragic-" The man was saying. With a rapidly receding hairline, he had evidently worked hard to save what few wisps of hair he had left. He looked to be more at home counting gold coins than addressing a drained workforce- his clothes were relatively new and neatly pressed, and his hands were more used to the toil of holding a quill pen and a ledger than they were picking through detritus and sharp wood for the rotund bodies of squirming insects. "You could've worked a bit harder to save that unlucky quarter… But ah, that's getting into places we don't need to be."

That none of them asked if they were going to be paid more for two days of dangerous work that had sapped at their energy and robbed them of sleep did not seem to bother them. Obviously, with the lack of sleep and food taking its toll, most of them were too drained to even consider what the other man had just said. The few that did understand what had just occurred made a hollow groan of complaint that seemed more appropriate for a reanimated corpse.

A grubby hand darted into the air. The man peered at the bearer and then glanced down at the little ledger in his hand. There was a hand-drawn portrait there, showing a strong-jawed young man with black hair that contained a single streak of grey, a sharp nose, prominent cheekbones and a jagged scar that crossed over his brow near his left eye. "Yes… Darius, was it?"

The youth in front of him gave a nod of assent. There was still a trace of the young man in the portrait, if one had cared to give him a good scrubbing down. A year since his parents' execution, his voice was starting to settle into the gravelly tone that everyone in Runeterra would know and fear. The growth spurt that resulted in the creation of massive giants from stunted saplings was already making him a full head taller than his peers- and he still had a good six years left to grow. He was still as stocky as ever, but when one is poor, one could not always eat what was best.

The clerk made a thoughtful noise. He had never seen the youth personally before the fire. Now, seeing Darius had cemented the stories he had already heard about him. It was a tale that defied convention, and it would grow more unbelievable as the years went by.

The story went as such; that the moment the fire had broken out, the foremen had decided to pull out all the workers and to leave the farm to the flames, relying on the aqueducts to provide a barrier and to prevent the fire from spreading to other parts of Noxus. It was a solid plan. The clerk had seen the request, had watched the glowing yellow-orange aura in the horizon spread like a second sun and had approved it without a second thought. Barely ten minutes later, a runner had come to him screaming about mutiny in the grounds: one of the workers had knocked out the foreman for his team, and had organized his ragtag band of youths into teams of four. It was a perfect time to rebel- after all; everyone's attention was on the fire.

The clerk had wondered then if he had to call in the city guard, and he had asked the messenger if he should, but then he was interrupted when another boy came into the room. This boy was covered in soot and sweat. He was plainly exhausted and winded from having run such a long way, but there was a light in his eyes that wouldn't be stamped out.

"It's not a mutiny sir!" The newest messenger had exclaimed immediately. "Darius wanted to build firebreaks sir, and the foreman didn't think he was being clever."

"Firebreaks?" The clerk had repeated, mystified.

"His father had been a woodcutter sir; he said he knew how to deal with forest fires." The boy had replied. "The foreman was being stubborn so there wasn't much he could do- he does send his regards sir."

"Firebreaks." The balding man had shaken his head. "Well, I don't know what in the world he's doing- and if he dies, it'll be his own fault… but if it would help the farm… tell him the House of de Montpelier rewards initiative, and to continue what he intended. We can't let it take the rest of the grounds."

With his blessing, the boys had skittered back to the distant farm, straight to the growing blaze.

The fire had raged for two days. In that span of time, the story of Darius punching the foreman in the face had been replaced with more concrete reports. Soon after sending the foreman to the hospice, he had organized the kids into teams for the fire: the youngsters he sent off for buckets of water, the oldest ones battled the blaze alongside him with shovels. After the fifth hour, he had somehow managed to rope in the rest of the working parties and had the remaining foremen taking orders from him. By nightfall, there had been a rotation- those who had worked a number of hours were cycled out to rest, while the fresher boys were sent to maintain the breaks.

In the future, when Darius was already a man with the General's mark on his shoulders, he would still hear tales of the boy who bathed in fire. It was hilarious, really, what would happen to words when they pass through too many ears.

As of now, however, the boy who would be General was currently ignoring the gnawing of his stomach and the heaviness of his eyes. Resisting the urge to simply keel over and go to sleep, he licked his cracked lips and spoke above the half-dead crowd. "Would we be getting an additional gold coin, sir? For stopping the fire?"

The clerk checked his ledger. Darius could tell from the face he made that something had gone wrong somewhere. Maybe they weren't getting paid. Maybe the House of de Montpelier had gone back on their word. He had been given assurances only a day before that their efforts wouldn't be in vain. He had chosen to work for this family purely because he had heard they acknowledged ingenuity.

"One gold piece," The clerk stated finally as he pushed his spectacles up the small bridge of his nose. "For all of you. But ah, Darius, was it? I must talk with you alone."

Ah. I'm the problem then, Darius thought to himself darkly.

As the boys shambled off to their homes after two days of firefighting, the clerk took him to one side- far away from prying eyes and straining ears. Darius respectfully allowed him a few minutes to compose his words. There was no point in telling the old man to hurry up and just tell him what had gone wrong with his salary.

Like a hunted man, the clerk looked around him. Darius followed his glance. There was nothing alive in the burned wood except for the two of them. Not even animals had decided to come back yet. There was an inquisitive crow on a jagged branch to his right, but that was probably just an animal looking for scraps or baubles to take away.

After five minutes, the clerk finally began to speak. "You've worked very well," The old man looked at him regretfully. "And I would reward you. The de Montpeliers are grateful. The gold was already set aside. You were to obtain three pieces, because of your quick thinking but ah, there was word from the House of de Croix only hours earlier…"

Darius resisted the urge to box the man on the ears. The clerk had done nothing wrong towards him- he was simply being the messenger. The trouble lay on someone else- someone who would not let the grudge rest. "… And a certain someone told the de Montpeliers that I wasn't anything but trouble?"

"Regrettably so." The clerk said.

"Thank you for telling me." Darius said, even if he didn't feel like thanking the clerk at all.

"The House of de Montpelier thanks you for your service." The clerk returned his thanks with the same hollow platitude.

Darius left the burnt farm with a heavy cloud lurking over his shoulder. The monsoon season was coming in; he needed more food and lamp oil and Draven was growing too big for his clothes, even with his older brother sewing new ones every three months. One might think it silly that Darius, the bear-like man that he was, would be adept with a sewing kit, but sometimes it was a lot cheaper to simply alter, patch up or make one's own clothing rather than to buy new garments.

Still, there was only so much he could do with a needle and thread, especially since Draven seemed hell-bent on either growing out of or ruining his clothes entirely in street scuffles that were increasingly becoming the norm. Sewing wasn't the only skill Darius had to pick up in the year since their parents' death. He knew more or less how to put together a meal now from almost anything, and picked up a few medical skills from patching his brother up.

Draven was becoming more difficult to handle. The younger brother was entering his teenage years and their parents' execution had been the event that broke his previous concept of 'safety'. It seemed that House de Croix was everywhere in Noxus- Darius was constantly moving from job to job, and Draven was constantly being singled out by his richer age mates and bullied into oblivion. In retrospect, the abuse was inevitable- Darius had killed the youngest son of an influential family. They had his parents executed, and now they were trying to stomp him and his brother off the face of the earth by making life itself intolerable.

Darius had enough of his wits left in him to tolerate the nigh universal abuse with as much grace as a patient and murderous tiger carefully plotting the eventual demise of his abusive handlers, but Draven was turning into a rabid dog. One of these days, someone was going to put him down and there was nothing Darius would be able to do to save him from the guillotine if the time came.

Darius' weary feet took him to Sapphire Ward- one of the few middle-income areas within Noxus. There was plenty of opportunity here, if one had cared to look hard enough. The ward was primarily a center that mirrored the inhabitants' economic bracket: butchers' stalls interspersed with jeweler's stands, a shoe shiner called for customers from his humble box next to a luxury rug merchant. Darius pushed past the churning mob of people and into a side street.

If there was a god, he or she was watching him- there was a loudly snoring man clutching a bottle passed out inside the ditch to his right. After looking over his shoulder to check if anyone else had seen him, Darius searched his pockets and relieved him of his purse: two gold coins. He stared down at it and stuffed it into his pocket- it was barely enough, but he wasn't one to curse his own luck.

After toeing past an open sewer grate where a couple of flushers were working on removing a blockage and ducking underneath vibrant colored fabrics hanging outside the dyers, the fourteen year old finally arrived at a house squeezed into a narrow corridor. Kids of all ages darted in and out of the open door. Most of them looked like they needed a bath and some new clothes. Darius craned his head to scan the sea of ruddy faces and gap-toothed smiles, frowning when he didn't see the person he had left behind in the crèche hours earlier.

There were, and still are, many accusations about Noxus: on how only the strong would prevail and where the weak perished without anyone ever looking for them. The aforementioned adage is true, but in a nation of soldiers who could be called into active duty at any minute of any given day, the demand for crèches- or places where one could leave one's children to be looked after- were second only to that of the demand for living space. In true human form, there were the crèches for the privileged and wealthy, which were properly termed as 'boarding schools' or 'institutes of learning', that cost between one and five gold a day for food, clothing, board and education. At three copper a day, a crèche like the one Darius had left Draven in provided food, if the child was on good terms with the matron, and a roof over the kids' heads.

Darius pushed past the wave of children and entered the house. It needed repair badly. The stone floor was loosely covered with threadbare rags. What part of the walls that were not covered water stained and peeling wallpaper was made of cracked stones and poorly mixed concrete. There were plenty of toys and children lying on the cold ground- rope ponies for the girls and clacking wooden dogs for the boys- that Darius had to step over before he arrived at the kitchen where the matron was mixing some thin watery gruel in a large pot.

She was the quintessential hag: there was a fat wart on her beaked nose. Her skin was pallid and covered in fine hairs. Her stringy white hair covered a rapidly balding head. Her teeth, what teeth she had left anyway, were yellow and rotten. No one knew what her name was- everyone just called her 'Matron'. Darius had found the crèche she ran after he and Draven had been caught out in a storm six months ago- they had just lost their home to Maynard de Croix's manipulations.

Finding that he couldn't manage Draven and work at the same time, he had managed to secure an agreement. The brothers lived with her now, sharing one rickety room and one cobwebbed dresser between them. Compared to their old dwelling, they had a roof over their heads, a changing sky outside and glass windows- even if Darius had to give her six copper twice a month, repair the house and make toys for the kids. Woodworking wasn't that far from logging after all.

"Matron," Darius greeted. "Have you seen my brother?"

She gave a grunt of acknowledgement and scratched at a sore on her arm. "Haven't seen the brat since you left this morning."

Darius chewed at his lip. "Ah. Alright then."

"You're three days behind on your fees." She reminded him not-too-gently. "The roof still has that hole in it and Gerard broke his toy pony."

"Money's hard. I'm sorry," Darius said in a contrite tone as he turned his back on her. Darius had never been one to apologize- in fact, he was more prone to smashing someone's face in for insulting his dead mother- but since it was only him and his brother now, he found that it was easier to say sorry and take an insult to the face than it was to stand his ground and get beaten up for it. He was not being submissive in any way- it simply was more practical. It was unfortunate that Draven was still too stubborn and headstrong to realize that his older brother's docility was only temporary.

"I'll work on the roof and the ah- toy before the rains." He added as he left.

"Keeping your brother around is hard too," Matron said nastily at his retreating back. "You probably should get him in line before someone decides to chop his head off."

I'm too tired to deal with you and your threats today, Darius thought darkly to himself as he left the crèche. He had to find his idiot little brother before the kid did something he was going to regret.

Author's Note: As much as possible, I wanted to show how much Darius changed since his parents' death. If you read into it, you'll find he's gotten far more assertive, and that he tends to think a little too much on the repercussions of things. He takes insults to the face now and he doesn't react because he knows he can't afford to be stupid. I couldn't resist throwing in his leadership skills also, and his inevitable approach towards stupid behavior: get rid of the stupidity by any means necessary, and then reorganize the unit according to how he saw fit in order to produce better results. He is going to be a General after all, and even Darius has to start somewhere.