Shall we not shudder?—

Shall we not flee

Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter

Of the familiar

Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it

To sleep in the coolness

Of snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavily

Over the eyes.

Truth (Gwendolyn Brooks)

TWO HOURS LATER...

When Darius had been helping the other boys fight the fire, he had tried to lead by example. He had been at the breaks for most of the two days, and never let himself have more than a few moments of snatched rest in the form of quick ten minute naps and a couple of sips of water and a piece of bread or two.

Now his actions were betraying him. There was no other way to properly describe the bone-weary yet hallucinatory feeling that lack of sleep was giving him- his eyelids had been so heavy he nearly upset a crystal merchant's delicately balanced display when he almost walked into it. His stomach had stopped groaning an hour ago- now it was eerily silent and he strangely felt full. He probably would've salivated when he passed by a restaurant and saw a boar being roasted on a spit, but then again he hadn't been drinking much and his mouth remained as dry as the dirt underneath his feet as he trundled on.

He could have gone back to the crèche and waited for Draven there. It would've been the best option considering that he was too tired to even remember where he was going, but then his brother was the kind of idiot whose actions either made people love his antics or filled them with an intense desire to kill him- it was highly unfortunate that the latter happened more often than the former, especially with Draven spitting venom at everyone who tried to ground him under their heels. Needless to say, Darius was worried to death, even if he was so utterly fed-up with tolerating his younger brother's stupid habit of picking fights with everyone and everything.

In the distant future he would become such an imposing and frightening figure within Noxus that people would question his humanity, but a fourteen year old Darius was not totally heartless. As much as he wanted to throttle the brat sometimes, Draven was still his little brother and the only family he had left that was still relatively untouched by his faults. Leaving him alone would be to practically let Draven go off and get his head chopped off because the stupid kid thought it was a good idea to flip a finger at a politician's third cousin twice removed or some other nonsense. Darius was never going to just sit and wait at home- even if he was tired of walking around like some shambling nightmare horror and of working day in and day out in coal ditches and sewage tunnels and insect farms and dank ochre pits only to be booted out or deprived of pay by Maynard's eventual influence.

"Darius!" A voice pierced through his thoughts. The youth blinked and then looked around. A younger boy from his crew back at the insect farm was waving at him from behind a butcher's stall. Thomas was his name, and he had been picked on vigorously by the other kids because he was too big until Darius had put the other boys in their place. Evidently, he had found time to clean up, and was now wearing a bloodstained apron over his clothes.

To wit, in the world of insect farming, the best insects were the ones with bulbous abdomens filled with pigment. The only way for insects to become that grossly overweight was when the bugs managed to burrow close to the cores of trees. But of course, with size came vulnerability- with their exoskeletons stretched to the brim, the protection afforded by their chitin plates lessened. A bad blow on the trunk of a tree or a wrongly gauged pinch was going to make the expensive insects explode. If one was to have a successful insect farm then, one had to retrieve the insects without ruining them.

Most of the workers at Noxian insect farms, therefore, were small scrappers who would have become great Demacian violinists or Ionian artists because their long and flexible hands were perfect for playing complicated wooden instruments or holding calligraphy pens- even if the children themselves sometimes were not skilled enough to comprehend written orders. That lack of education was primarily why older boys like Darius were taken in, even if they were not good for insect farming at all- younger children naturally look up to older children. The more likeable or respectable the older child was, the easier it was to instruct the younger child to stop crying when they cut their hands on sharp bark.

Of course, the issue of having older children in insect farms would be over if the younger kids knew how to read and write, but education was a privilege in Noxus, not a right. Their father only knew how to read but had never felt the need to learn how to write, so it was fortunate that Darius and Draven had a mother that knew her letters. When the boys had figured it out, Athenais had pushed them into a 'school'- a rather generous word for a single room filled to the brim with children and one schoolmaster who prattled about Noxian military history. Since his parents' death, Darius had not been in a schoolroom- they did not have money for it. In the future, his unlearned status would put him at a significant disadvantage against his peers in the officer corps- but that would be much later. For now, his primary problem was finding his wayward sibling.

"Thomas," Darius managed a greeting halfway through an incoming yawn. "I thought you'd be home by now."

"Mama's been sick for a while." The other boy said sadly. "So I thought I'd work for Rurik. He's a good master- like you said."

Darius made a satisfied noise in his throat. Rurik had been one of his father's acquaintances, and Darius had worked for him in the first two months since the execution. In addition to his stall in Sapphire Ward, the man owned a pig farm as well, and that was where Darius had worked when he wasn't at the market hanging the meat or delivering freshly butchered joints to the homes of wealthy patrons. The smell of blood and the feel of a squealing pig underneath his hand as he slit its' throat had taken some getting used to- the white heat of the pig's lifeblood hadn't been any different from his parents'- but he had managed in the end. He would still be working for the man, if only-

"Does Rurik still take orders from the House of Liechtenstein?" Darius probed.

"Yes. Hans von Liechtenstein was even here earlier," Thomas replied slowly. "He picked up a suckling pig for House de Croix. I overheard him talking about the de Croix family having a celebration of sorts- I didn't catch what it was for."

The fourteen year old suppressed the murderous feelings that rose in his gut, but even the strength of his will couldn't hide the way his face twisted into a sharp frown at the news. Maynard was celebrating, and there was no doubt in the young man's mind as to what the celebrations were for- if not the fact that he had successfully deprived him of another job, perhaps he had done something to Draven-

"Are you alright?" Thomas asked, staring at him in concern.

"Just fine," Darius gritted out. He tried to push his thoughts back to his priorities and not in the man who was making life impossible to live. "Have you seen Draven?"

"Your younger brother? I haven't seen him," The butcher's apprentice said with a shrug.

Maybe the idiot is dying somewhere. His mind pitched in sardonically.

"If he comes by, will you tell him that I'm looking for him?" He said instead. As an afterthought, Darius gave the apprentice a look and then frowned at him. "And clean up your apron, you're going to scare Rurik's customers away."

"Certainly," Thomas said as he removed the offending article of clothing. "Don't worry about Draven. I'm sure your brother will turn up one of these days."

Oh, he'll turn up- dead in the moat, Darius' thoughts finished for him.

"Yeah." Darius said woodenly. "Maybe when he's hungry."

"Maybe!" Thomas retorted cheerfully.

Or maybe he's just eating suckling pig from Maynard's party.

His mind, the young man decided then, was being difficult. It was the lack of sleep talking, making him imagine things.

"I'll leave you to your work then." Darius told him.

"Alright," Blissfully oblivious of the older boy's thoughts and predicament, Thomas flashed him a smile as he pulled a new apron on as he placed the old one inside a nearby wash bucket. "I'll see you back at the farm?"

"Sure." Darius lied, and left the younger boy to his work.

As he walked he thought of what he had just done. He had good rapport with those boys, and with the House of de Montpelier. Still, the House of de Croix stood higher within Noxian social hierarchy- even if the Montpeliers wanted to keep him; there wasn't much they could do about it. He never would be able to work at the farm again in the same way he would never be able to work for Rurik again. Maynard de Croix was everywhere. It was almost a constant in his life: he would find work, he would be good at that work, and then Maynard would find him- and then the man would do everything in his power to ruin him-

His half-asleep wanderings nearly had him plowing into an apple cart. As it was, his considerable size- he didn't look like a fourteen year old, much less feel like one- had sent a whole bushel of apples tumbling down on the ground. Some of them were still safe on the dry cobbled stones, but the rest had rolled into a nearby ditch filled with murky rainwater.

"Hey!" The merchant snapped irritably. "You're paying for that!"

Darius glanced at the apples, bobbing merrily in the brown sea that was the ditch, and then glanced back at the merchant. Exhausted as he was, Darius knew that to outright curse at the man for being a fussy bitch was going to have things escalating quickly, so instead of saying what he actually wanted to say, which was 'are you fucking kidding me, go boil your head in a pot', he simply opted to reply in a dismissive tone: "Just wipe them down."

"I can't sell those now!" The merchant said as he pointed at the ditch. "No one in their right mind at Sapphire Ward is going to pay for those ruined apples. You're giving me one gold piece right now or else I'll call the guard."

Darius only had two gold pieces on him- the coins that he stole from the drunken sleeper earlier that day. To give one of his hard-earned coins to a man upset at a bushel of dirty apples was like paying five hundred gold coins for a piece of coal, but he didn't have much of a choice- if the man called the guard, he would be thrown into jail and he wouldn't be able to find Draven. As much as he didn't want to part with his money, he grudgingly dug out one coin and held it out to the merchant for inspection.

After chewing vigorously on the coin to determine if it was actual gold, the merchant left him to fish the fruits up by himself. As he was sitting on the cobbled stones drying the apples with his shirt, his drained mind vaguely reminded him that Draven's stomach was fussier than a cat's- he wouldn't be able to afford the medicine if his younger brother got sick from eating the apples.

What am I going to do with a bushel of questionable apples that no one is probably going to eat? He wondered. Images of pummeling Draven to death with them looking better by the second, he slapped at his cheeks a few times to clear his head of fratricidal thoughts, sighed and then willed himself to look at what he had, and at what he knew.

Obviously, wandering around and hoping that he tripped into Draven was not helping in any way. In fact, if he kept it up he probably would smash his head into the crystal merchant's display and then he would have to spend the rest of his life in a jail cell because he didn't have enough gold on him to pay for anything. He had a bushel of apples that had recently fallen into a dirty ditch. Draven was still missing. He was tired, hungry and he wanted nothing more than to collapse in his creaky wooden bed and pull his straw pillow over his face with the hope that being deprived of oxygen was going to give him a sleep deep enough to ignore Matron's snores.

He needed help, and an idea came to him as he finished drying the last apple. He wasn't sure the person would even help him, but it wouldn't hurt to try. Pushing himself up from the ground, he gathered the apples into his shirt and walked on. He left the Ward quickly, nigh running through alleyways and squeezing past fences and gated corridors to one of the many entrances to the Underground.

Noxus had been founded on a granite mountain, but over the years the inhabitants had quickly discovered the caverns underneath. It did not take long for the quickly developing city to seize the miles of naturally formed tunnels for its own and eventually, a new society formed underneath the aristocratic surface: the Underground.

It was a world of darkness, artificial light, cutthroats and thieves, and it was a world where Darius and Draven had been born into. As bad as it was, as ruthless their world was around them, the Underground had been their home- before Maynard de Croix bought their residence from underneath them and forced them out into the streets above six months ago.

There had been many things to learn in the month that his parents remained alive. One of them had been about property, and about law. Darius had tried his best, but he could not remember everything, and one day a lawyer had come to their door and had informed them they had been breaking a property code or some such- he had not been certain enough to call the man false. Now they were living with a crone and an impossible number of children- but at least there was a sky outside that changed colors, a sun that gave off a real and warm light, a changing wind, and moon and stars that dotted the sky above.

In the Underground, there was no such thing. There were only the cold tunnel walls, the weak lamplight in the distance, the supporting wooden frames that helped shoulder the burden of the city above his head and the sickeningly sweet fungal smell of prolonged human habitation in a small, small place. There were ventilation shafts but hardly any fresh air ever reached the lowest levels.

It was fortunate that he would not have to go too far to get to the place where he had to be. Before Maynard's inevitable influence had removed him from his post, Darius had worked as a flusher in charge of cleaning out blockages. It was good work despite the smell and the environment he operated in, because people often lost the silliest and most valuable things to storm drains and sewer gratings. He had found more than the odd gold piece in the murk. A few months into the job, he had been sent to a particular place to see what was causing a decrease in the flow of the sewage pipes- and instead of finding a clump of vegetation, cloth and human excrement as he had expected, he had found a little settlement next to a blocked pipe, and a bone-thin boy with eyes too big for his small face clutching a stone-shard knife in his skinny hands. The kid had lashed out without warning, and had given him a fierce gash on his hand, but in the end Darius had won the scuffle by capturing both the boy's pencil-thin wrists in one hand.

He would have hauled the child off to the guardsmen because settling next to pipes and blocking them off was illegal- but then again there was something about the child that reminded him of his little brother. Maybe it was the hungry stare, the little lick of the lips whenever he saw something nice that he wanted to have. Maybe it was the hair, or the self-indulgent screaming and pitiful threats- Darius didn't know. He had let him off by boxing him on the ears instead. Over the course of his work through the Underground, he had come to know the child's name, and where the little knife-holding shadow tended to mark his 'territory'. He also knew that the kid was partial to apples- several of the workers who had also worked for an apple farm had been mugged often enough for the incidents to not be a coincidence.

He hoped that the boy was still where he had found him the last time he had seen him over a month ago- at a place in the tunnels that had a ladder leading up to a sewer cover on one side, a locked iron door leading to the rest of the Noxian sewer system and a ramp leading down to the overpopulated Bronze Ward- the Underground's equivalent of the aboveground Ivory Ward. It was the prime location for a mugger and a thief- there were plenty of escape routes and a constant source of income nearby.

Darius took one apple from the bunch and put the rest behind a nearby support beam. He then positioned himself next to a hatch on the floor about as big as a small man-it was one of many that led to a small room with a sewage pipe that could be opened to check the flow of sewage out of the city. This particular one was grimy and seemingly overwhelmed by rust- the complete opposite of a well-used and regularly inspected sewer node. Dirtied apple in hand, Darius reached down and tapped on the corroded surface with his knuckles.

The only thing he heard in the tunnels was his own breathing. Darius laid the apple down near the hatch and moved away. An eternity seemed to pass before the hatch screeched open slowly. A head emerged- messy black hair, eyes too bright for his grubby mud-covered face. His clothes were still the same- ripped, somewhat mended together awkwardly and stained with dark spots that could either have been human blood or excrement. He didn't look any better than he did the first time Darius had seen him. He was still so thin, and it seemed as if he had managed to get himself into more trouble- the kid had several new scars on him, made painfully obvious by the fact that the injured spots looked cleaner than the rest of him.

As soon as he realized what was in front of him, the child grasped the offered fruit with white-knuckled tenacity and lizard speed, clutching it close to his chest and staring at the older boy suspiciously. Darius noted the 'blades' hanging on the rope harness that went over Talon's small frame - some were made of broken glass shards wrapped with cloth handles, while there were at least two other blades that looked to have been pilfered from wealthier thieves. The boy had changed, it seemed.

Still watching Darius with keen eyes, the child dug his teeth into the fruit with a satisfied crunch, chewing thoughtfully, a hand always close to his blade-laden rope harness. For his part, Darius waited patiently. He watched the younger boy tear into the fruit and hoped that the kid wouldn't realize the thing he was eating had just taken a dive in a ditch- but then again, the kid probably lived in what was worse than a ditch.

"'S good," The boy said, as he pushed apple pieces into one of his cheeks like a starved hamster.

"Swallow your food before you talk, Talon." Darius said automatically.

"I do wha' I wanna do." The grubby child swallowed and licked his lips, his eyes still watching the older boy carefully. "Whatsit for?"

"Have you seen an annoying little kid about as tall as my chest with a head bigger than yours and a mouth that won't just stay shut?" Darius asked.

"You talkin' bout a lot of people." The child noted.

"The person I'm looking for is too noisy and too annoying to be 'a lot of people'." Darius retorted.

"Mightno' have seen 'im at all." Talon said with a careless shrug of his bony shoulders.

"I know you tend to keep an eye out." Darius told him. "You're too good a thief to not look behind you."

There was a pregnant pause as the boy thought on his words. Smiling bashfully at Darius' words, he adopted a sort of professional tone- at least, what passed for a professional tone given that he spoke with a strange accent- obviously he had been forced to learn how to talk on his own. "Never seen anybody like tha'."

"Liar." Darius snapped, and he reached out to cuff the boy on the head. Talon managed to dodge the massive paw and glared at him balefully.

"Could kill you," The child said, his little chest puffing out with particular pride as he fingered the cloth-wrapped hilt of one of his blades. "For calling me a liar. An' tryin' to hit me. An' being mean."

"If you'd like, we can continue our little fight. I can finally choke the life out of you with my bare hands." Darius replied tartly. "I'm not here to waste time. Have you seen a mouthy idiot or not?"

"Got a short temper today." Talon mumbled as he backed into the sewer node, letting the darkness obscure the rest of his features and his limbs.

"What's that I hear? You want to die today?" Darius reached down and pulled him back up by the neck of his patched-together shirt. He was held a good foot off the sewer hatch, but still Talon did not cry or quiver in fear.

"Someone pee in your face?" The kid commented slyly.

"Fine, be difficult." Darius snarled as he let the child go. Talon tumbled back into the darkness of his own home- the sound of body hitting stone echoing loudly in the tunnels, and then there was silence. Evidently, this wasn't the first time he had been thrown down a ladder.

"I'm not giving you another apple. I would have if you helped me." Darius told the hole.

There were scrambling sounds from the bottom of the ladder, and then Talon's head peeked out of the open hatch; his hair was in complete disarray and a new bruise was developing on his cheek. The seemingly abusive nature with which Darius had dealt with him didn't seem to faze the boy at all, but the thought of not being given his favorite food had irked him. "… Ya wouldn'."

Darius raised an eyebrow and gave a smug smirk. "I would."

"Wouldn'." Talon snapped back as he stared at the older boy resentfully.

"Would."

"Wouldn'."

"Would."

"You lyin'!" Talon yelled sorely. "I took a looksy into your pockets- you don't have any more apples on you!"

Darius crossed his arms, confident enough that the younger boy hadn't found the stash. "Or am I?"

Talon was practically squirming inside his hatch. "…How many more apples do you have?"

"Do you know about any noisy idiots who passed by here?" Darius shot back.

"… There was one guy." Talon finally mumbled out. Darius struggled to hold in the first shreds of hope.

"Speak up or else I'm going to hit you again." He said gruffly, raising his hand for good effect.

"One kid!" Talon quailed back. "Bit taller tha' me. Weird hair an' a nose like yours. Mutterin' somethin' about wooing a crowd in Onyx Ward."

Onyx Ward- one of the higher class Wards- was a good ten minutes away. If he left the Underground and used the surface roads, he'd arrive in the central square past sundown. If he used the tunnels- and he still remembered some handy shortcuts- he would get there in ten minutes or so. There was no other option- if he wanted to make sure Draven wasn't sticking his nose into somewhere troublesome, he had to leave now and use the tunnels.

"There's a whole bushel behind the pillar there-" Darius yelled over his shoulder as he ran.

By the time Darius entered Onyx Ward's city square, he had explained himself past four city guards, snuck past three long patrols and literally climbed over one security checkpoint- the aristocrats of Noxus didn't take any chances with the various entrances that led to the criminal underworld. The sun was already sinking underneath the horizon. He could tell from the tense crowd in front of him that the guardsmen were in an uproar about something. Overtaken with worry, he stepped up his pace. He squeezed past the gathered crowd and, upon seeing what they were staring at, resisted the urge to take his face in his own hands and curse his brother for being so stupid.

The scene in front of him was straight out of one of his nightmares: one teenager was bawling his eyes out, a trail of blood, tears and snot trickling down his broken nose. Eleven year old Draven was standing over the youth, his thinner frame laden with rapidly darkening bruises and slowly oozing scrapes.

Darius shoved people aside and made his way to his brother's side.

"What in the world are you doing?" Darius hissed out as he savagely pulled his brother back.

"I'll kill him," Draven snarled out as he struggled against his brother's grasp, the cut on his lip bleeding profusely. "Talking bad about dad, and calling mom a whore- I'll kill him with my ba-"

The younger boy never finished, as Darius cuffed his brother sharply on the head enough to make his brain jump about in his skull.

"You're made of a thousand fucking idiots." Darius growled. Draven flinched- his temples were already sore from the previous fight, and his brother had just given him another headache.

"All the fucking time," Darius muttered under his breath as he pulled Draven away. "I have to drag you out of your stupid fucking decisions."

"You said we shouldn't-" Draven tried to argue, but his older brother cut him off with a little jerk of his hand and a deathly glare.

"Not here." Darius snapped impatiently. They looked almost comic: Darius had a hand around a good chunk of Draven's shirt, and was using that leverage to literally pull his younger brother away despite the fact that the latter was digging in his heels. For his age, Darius was absurdly strong- especially if one considered the fact that he looked like he could use a hot meal, a bath and new clothes after fighting a forest fire for two days and crawling through the Underground for hours.

Draven tried to complain repeatedly as Darius pulled him down a side-alley, but the older brother having none of it. Darius punched him on the shoulder and shook him like a ragdoll every time he heard a noise- until Draven decided the better course of action was to shut up.

The silence didn't last very long. Once Darius had stopped in the shadow of a granite wall and stared at Draven, the younger couldn't stay quiet any longer.

"You hit me!" Draven whined as he nursed his hurting head.

"What did I tell you before, huh?" Darius resisted the urge to scream at him because his voice was still changing and he'd only sound ridiculous instead of threatening. He forced himself to remain calm, even if all he wanted to do was to shake Draven silly- or beat his brother's face in. "You can whine and bitch all you want, but you shouldn't pick a fight!"

"I was only trying to be more like you." Draven said almost pitifully.

Darius stared at him, taken aback by his brother's words. "Why in the world would you ever want to be like me?" He asked him in disbelief.

"Back then, when mom and dad were still alive, you never let anyone insult them." Draven pointed out. "And when I got bullied, you never let them off."

Look where that led us. The older boy almost said the thought out loud, but he had caught himself just in time. He shook his head instead. "That's not a good idea."

"Why not?" Draven asked, the first sparks of defiance alight in his eyes.

"Because we can't." At that point in time, Darius was too tired to explain.

"You're not making any sense." Draven retorted.

"Just stop picking fights like a fucking idiot and keep your stupid overinflated head down!" Darius kept his hands clenched. He didn't want to hit his brother again- but the brat was asking for it. "That was a stupid thing you did back there! You're fucking lucky I even found you!"

"So you're saying I should just let them walk all over me? Is that it? Whatever happened to being strong?" He spat out, his voice cracking on the last syllable. "And standing up for yourself? You keep telling me that this is Noxus, and I shouldn't let other people bully me, that I shouldn't look weak!"

Darius was about to tell him 'yes', that he had to keep his head down because they were practically being hounded off the face of the earth. His mouth was already forming the words when Draven interrupted him with a thunderous shout.

"Well fuck you! I'm not weak like you!" The younger boy screamed. "Just because mom and dad's dead doesn't mean that we should act any different! I'm not going to change for anything!"

Why am I the one getting the sermon now? Darius thought to himself despairingly. Willing himself to not throttle his baby brother to death, he shrugged off the insult and tried to remember what exactly it was they were arguing about. Draven apparently had been thinking that his older brother had turned into a coward. "So you think I'm weak?"

"You are!" Draven screeched. "You are weak! You let everyone walk all over you like a fucking rug!"

Darius pulled his fist back and slammed the limb against his brother's jaw. It sent a shock up his arm, made his teeth grind on the edge and hurt like nothing else he'd ever done before, but he honestly felt, with every tired bone in his body, that the younger boy had deserved it. The force of the blow knocked the smaller and lighter Draven off his feet.

Darius towered over him. Mentally reminding himself that he shouldn't kill Draven, he stared down at his baby brother and spoke through gritted teeth. "You still think I'm weak?"

"Go ahead! It's easy to beat me up," Draven managed to snarl back, even though he was somewhat unintelligible now that his jaw was hurting more than ever. "What's a few more hits?"

"It's way too easy to beat the shit out of you," Darius commented bitingly. "What makes you think I'm weak, Draven?"

"You're not-" Draven began, but this time Darius was the one to cut him off. He had enough.

"The question is: what am I not doing?" Darius asked him. His eyes were narrowed to slits, his clenched fists shaking from barely withheld rage. "I go to work so we'd have money, I go to the market and buy you the good food, which I then cook because your stomach is so fucking finicky, I tolerate your noise and your nightmares and your weeping, I sew your fucking clothes and I patch you up when you get yourself into trouble. What else am I not doing?"

"You used to-" Draven tried again, but his older brother stopped him.

"Defending you from bullies? Is that what I'm not doing? Here's a thought: why don't you just fucking grow a pair, Draven?" Darius roared at him, and there was nothing else in his voice except for a year of pent-up bitterness at their situation and utter loathing for the person in front of him. His future self would rue this moment, as it was the trigger for more troubles to come, and it was the one moment in his life that he had ever been painfully honest with his brother. "You're old enough to fucking take care of yourself! Why don't you just start doing it?"

Tears were gathering at the corners of Draven's eyes as he stared at him in frightened silence. If he had been calmer, Darius would've realized what emotion lurked behind his brother's eyes at that moment: fear. It took a few painful seconds for him to realize that his younger brother was afraid- and when he did, the thought sent a sick feeling through his gut and sent the guilt rushing into his chest. Of all the people in the world, he had made his brother afraid of him. Maybe Draven thought that he was going to be left behind; maybe he had actually feared for his own life, maybe-

"… Get up." Brushing the depressing thoughts away, Darius hoarsely called to his brother. "Let's just… go home."

Draven didn't budge. He kept his head down, though Darius could see his shoulder starting to shake. His brother was going to cry again- it was always like that. Feeling nastier by the second, Darius swallowed nervously and then held out a hand to help the younger boy up.

"Come on, Draven." Darius tried, but his voice came out broken and wretched. "We're going ho-"

His brother abruptly slapped his proffered hand away and struggled to his feet by himself.

"Okay." Draven said, but his words were wooden and his eyes were dry. The kid didn't look at him, preferring to keep his head down as he practically half-limped and half-walked towards the general direction of the crèche they called home.

Darius watched his retreating form in shock.

What have I done? He thought miserably.

Author's Note: Well there it is. Eventually everyone has to snap, and Darius is no exception. He's worked really hard and he's kept everything bottled in, but then again- Draven does what he wants. I tried to rationalize Draven's errant behavior in the best way possible, and to bring him to maturity in a realistic manner. Of course, his ego is only going to get bigger from here.

As for Talon, Riot has said that Talon didn't have anyone as he grew up. I figured that no one would teach him how to talk properly too- at least, until General du Couteau gets a hand on him. He also is easily swayed by treats (making him partial to apples was just a random choice really)- because he's still a child and he hardly ever leaves the Underground.