How gray and hard the brown feet of the wretched of the earth.

How confidently the crippled from birth

push themselves through the streets, deep in their lives.

How seamed with lines of fate the hands

of women who sit at streetcorners

offering seeds and flowers.

How lively their conversation together.

How much of death they know.

I am tired of 'the fine art of unhappiness.'

The Wealth of the Destitute (Denise Levertov)

SIX MONTHS LATER...

It had been a full six months since Darius had entered the walls of Boram's Point, and it had been everything he had expected. From Monday to Saturday, the schedule was written in stone: morning training took place even before breakfast, composed of a myriad of exercises: at one point the regimen had been lifting entire tree trunks and jogging with it on their shoulders through valleys and deceptively shallow rivers. Breakfast was whatever was available in the mess at the time, and for such an expensive school, the food was still classically military: something that looked like meat mixed in brownish-orange thick sauce, or a rubbery substance that didn't look at all different from a block of fish food covered with yellow strips of what he had been told was 'cheese'.

Whatever it was, he learned to eat it, and he learned to keep it down through the afternoon weapons training. The lessons that Sion had seen fit to give him with regards to the bearded axe helped somewhat, but he still struggled when it came to combat practice. Everyone else seemed to know more than he did, and he was sent to the infirmary to be patched up more times than anyone else in his company.

Lessons took place on Sundays, inside the classrooms and in chairs that seemed to be older than he was. He had difficulty understanding everything that was being said at first, because he had not been to school as the more-well off candidates had. Reading became something of a chore that gave him a headache whenever the letters were too small; writing had made his hand and wrist ache. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't fully understand whatever it was his instructors had talked about, but he did his best even if everyone else in his company was already three topics ahead.

In the one hour that was given to him for personal time in the evenings after the instructors had beaten on every muscle and every bone, he spent it in the library learning to read and write, or in the Wolf's Pit figuring out how to fight properly. There never seemed to be enough time for anything; the instructors kept them on a hurried pace at all times, screaming abuse in their ears and cuffing candidates with the backs of their gauntleted hands whenever they found something unpleasant. Lagging in coursework and in the Pit, Darius wasn't exempted from their blows either- the particularly favorite insult that Chief di Castellamonte used was that he was a very tall and a very wide stack of excrement that didn't deserve to be walking around.

Thankfully, at the third month of their first year, theory gave way to application and Darius started to shine. He understood military tactics better than his peers, primarily because he could place himself in the shoes of their imaginary battalions, could account for seemingly abstract concepts like weather, exhaustion, hunger and the toll that a steep slope took on a man's back. What he knew was hard work, not politics, not history- he knew exactly how it felt to work without sleep, to perform ably without food, and already he was beginning to develop his brand of tactics, favoring one decisive strike over a long and tiring campaign.

His coursework was still not quite up to par, but he had learned how to talk properly by then, and his mistakes were not quite as apparent. He discovered that nobles had a specific manner of saying things, and that one did not just walk up to others and tell them how much of a 'fuckhead' they were. No, there was a specific way for everything and everyone, and even though Darius felt a little dishonest with himself, he acquired their mannerisms easier than he learned how to spell 'tactical reconnaissance'.

On the first day, three candidates had already been cycled out of their little company- to where, he had no idea. Six months later, it seemed as if only he, Keiran Darkwill and Seamus were constants inside Dominance company- everyone else had been cycled out at one point in time, and then replaced. He didn't know where the new people had come from; they had simply appeared after the unlucky person had been thrown out- sometimes quite literally, as Assistant Instructor Strongbow had a tendency to break windows whenever he sent a candidate flying off into the dirt.

If he had been the prying sort, Darius would have asked them where they had come from- but he was not a gossiping fishwife and he had no intention of ever being called one, so he had kept his silence and had treated every single new candidate as if they had always been there. It was easier to not think of where they had come from. In the way that military life forces one to restrict one's view of the outside world, their company seemed to live in its own little bubble.

Sometimes, they had come across other training companies on the way to the mess hall for their meals, but for the most part the instructors had kept them in their units, preventing them from interacting with the other standards. It was with surprise then, after Senior Instructor Krieg-Windsor had smashed a candidate's nose into a pulp, that Darius finally saw Lazare de Richelieu again.

He couldn't resist then, because Lazare had been removed on day one. That evening instead of reviewing a large sheaf of combat logs as he had planned to, he tapped on the underside of Lazare's bunker and was rewarded when the man leaned over and stared at him upside-down.

"What?"

"What happened to you?" Darius asked him.

Lazare cast a glance at the ever watchful Assistant Instructor Strongbow standing duty by the door of the longhouse and then shook his head, retreating back to his bunk and leaving Darius utterly consumed by his curiosity.

The next morning- it was a Sunday- proceeded as always. It was the height of summer and hardly anyone wanted to go to the field- even Instructor Strongbow looked as if he was going to kill someone when he was outdoors. The great paneled windows of their lecture hall were wide open, and Chief di Castellamonte was running over the considerations involved in an attack as she on the raised wooden platform in front of them. She was dressed in her high-collared black uniform as always- how she managed to not sweat was beyond him- and was using a riding crop to beat their knuckles raw or to give someone a bloody cheek in between tapping the board and grimacing at their answers.

"The Megling commandos of Bandle City," She gave the chalkboard behind her a solid thwack. "and certain special forces units from Piltover utilize long-range rifles in order to do their dirty work. Their technology enables them to create rifles that fire faster and farther than our bowmen. We are, of course, in the process of eliminating that weakness by augmenting Zaunite technology into our armies but even with advanced weaponry, without tactics you will be nothing."

She drew a diagram on the board-Darius recognized it immediately as a battalion movement to contact diagram. It was easy to see where the Noxian troops were- they were the little squares appropriately given infantry markings. There was a square on some mountainous terrain that she was currently tapping on. "Assume that this is a Yordle gunner regiment. What considerations are there for this assault?"

"Casualties, Chief Instructor." Darius answered her.

"Of course there are going to be casualties." Came her acidic retort. "The question is, candidate, how can you reduce these inevitable casualties? How many men will still be able to fight following the initial volley?"

The answer for the first question was right in his handbook, but it was the second question that made him furrow his brow in confusion as he checked the diagram again. She hadn't put any troop numbers- how could he give her an estimate?

"Chief Instructor," He began hesitantly. "There are no troop numbers."

She made a derisive snort. "And your point is, candidate?"

Darius would have stared at her as if she was insane, but then again she was their god and he was not allowed to show her disrespect unless he wanted to suffer horribly. "Chief Instructor," He tried again, slowly and as politely as he could manage. "How may this candidate estimate casualties without knowing how many troops this candidate has on the field?"

She got off the platform, and Darius felt fear stirring in his gut as she walked towards him. Her booted heels took her next to his desk, and his mind was going insane with fear and uncertainty. Should he look at her? Should he answer the first question instead? What was he supposed to do?

"Believe it or not, candidate, that question is asked even by the best commanders." She gave him a light touch with the riding crop, and he suppressed the urge to flinch as his knuckles screamed at him.

She spared him the effort and pushed his head up herself using the tip of the crop. "Assume that I am not here, that you are in the field of battle right at this moment. You had been told that there would be reinforcements, but the fog of war has settled and you are not entirely certain of your numbers anymore. How many casualties will you incur if you decide to assault the Megling gunners?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lazare de Richelieu eyeing him with something like expectation. Seamus was looking at him with a sort of 'better-you-than-me' sympathy in his eyes. Oddly enough, everyone else in the room- and they had been the newer ones who had been cycled in recently- were also staring at him as if they were expecting something to happen.

Her question was confusing enough that he wasn't quite certain what he was supposed to say anymore. First he had been asked how to reduce casualties on the field, and now he was supposed to give an educated guess on how many people he was inevitably going to lose to some imaginary assault. With the seconds ticking away, he panicked and tried to answer the first question instead.

"Chief Instructor," He tried to make his voice stronger than his roiling gut. "When under fire from ranged weaponry, casualties increase in direct proportion to the amount of time soldiers spend exposed, and multiplied by the intensity of the enemy fire. To reduce casualties effectively, commanders must reduce the amount of time spent under fire and weaken the intensity of the fire."

"Straight from the handbook," She said with an amused look on her face. "Do you memorize it like the Measured Tread, candidate?"

"Chief Instructor?" Darius asked her uncertainly. He honestly didn't know what that was.

"The Measured Tread is the little propaganda booklet that every single Demacian is issued during their service." She reached into her coat and withdrew a bloodstained little book, about the size of a pamphlet and about as thick as one of his manuals. "They memorize it, cover-to-cover, filling their heads with lies and disgusting altruism. It also makes for an excellent trophy."

She practically threw it onto his desk with a sound so loud that everyone except the instructors themselves flinched, and then used the riding crop to direct his gaze down at the Measured Tread. It had a couple of loose pages and looked so old that the blood was practically staining it brown.

"So did you memorize our handbook, candidate?" She practically spat at him.

He couldn't lie to her. "Yes, Chief Instructor." He said somewhat shamefully. Memorizing their books had been the only way for him to catch up at one point. In the typical way of students that wanted to do their hardest but could not for various reasons, he did understand some of what he had put in his head but most of what he had read was still a giant question inside his head that had to be explained.

"And do you believe every single word in it?" Her words puzzled him. Believe? Since when did believing in anything happen in Noxus? He knew the value of the strategies in his handbook- that was why he was careful to memorize the different diagrams, that was why he could recognize an ambush from a raid.

"The words within the handbook are established military tactics, Chief Instructor." He replied carefully, not wanting to be caught out more than he already was. "This candidate feels that… believing in the text is a useless endeavor."

"Oh, do you?" Her voice was almost motherly, if it wasn't for the fact he could see that she had that gleam in her eye that screamed at him to run away now. "Let me make my accusation clearer, candidate: I'm asking you if you believe in the handbook like some weakling Demacian believes in the Measured Tread."

It was a trap, he decided, but I'm not going to admit to anything.

"The Measured Tread is a book of propaganda that has no bearing at all during combat, Chief Instructor. This candidate believes in the tactics espoused inside the handbook and not in useless values like justice or mercy."

She drew back her fist- thankfully she didn't have her gauntlet on- and then demolished his nose. He barely had time to register the pain before hands pulled him from his chair, curling underneath his arms and keeping him prisoner. As the blood blossomed all over his shirt and pain filled his senses enough that he was practically motionless from the sensory overload, he could dimly see that he was being forcibly dragged away from the lecture hall.

Dripping blood, he stared blearily at the ceiling and then watched the world tumble around him as pain began to wrack the rest of his body- whoever was holding onto him had thrown him out, and coming from the lecture hall it was a long way down ten stone steps. The slope wasn't bad enough that he broke anything on the way out, but then again he wasn't going to get up anytime soon either. He managed to sit up after an hour spent clamping his shirt over his broken nose, but that was the only thing he could do before a black bag fell over his head and then he felt a rope tie constrict around his neck.

Oh, I'm going to be hanged. He thought with the nonchalance of someone who had given himself up to whatever fate wanted to do with him, and then he suppressed the urge to laugh at the irony of everything- his parents had tried to stop him from being guillotined, but apparently a hanging would do, even if it was delayed.

But the rope never tightened enough to kill him, or even to knock him out. Instead, it served more as a way to keep the bag on his head as he was pulled to his feet and then pushed into walking. He didn't know how far he went. He only knew that he was outside at one point, and then he was pushed into something- a bed?

The bag was taken off his head, and then he found himself looking up at a stern-faced hospitalman he didn't recognize in a room that was too bright and too white to be in Noxus. As his eyes adjusted to the amount of light in the room, he could see that he was in the infirmary again, and that the walls were as grey as they always had been.

"Am I dead?" Darius felt he had to ask.

The other man erupted into a guffaw as he considered Darius' broken nose and the growing angry bruises on his skin. "Aren't you a real piece of work? No, but gods above, did that batty old woman give you a beating. I keep telling them to take it easy."

The insult to his god thrown on the table, Darius wondered what would happen if he tried to defend her from the hospitalman. Was he even expected to defend her? Unsure, and still filled with so much pain that all he wanted to do was sleep, he merely stared at the other man in utter bemusement.

"Am I going to be cut from the program then?" He asked instead, choosing to ignore the man's jab at Chief di Castellamonte.

"No, you're not going to be cut from the program. This is part of the program." Was the man's exasperated comment as he busied himself with retrieving supplies from a nearby cabinet.

Darius couldn't help but stare at him in confusion again- part of the program?

"Welcome to Boram's Point." The hospitalman replied sardonically to his questioning stare as he dabbed away at Darius' nose with a cloth. "Where we beat the life out of you and then-"

"Don't tell him anything," Strongbow's voice came from the right. Shying away from the hospitalman's cloth-wielding hands, Darius turned his head and watched as the Assistant Instructor placed a footlocker down on the floor- his footlocker?

They work fast, he thought blearily.

"Good morning, Assistant Instructor." The greeting automatically came from Darius' mouth- even if Strongbow probably was the one to throw him out; he still knew that the man had to be addressed politely. He didn't want to make his grave any deeper.

"If you don't tell them anything, you get idiots like this thinking that they're already dead when it's their turn to be cycled." The hospitalman replied wryly as he cocked his head at Darius' direction.

Strongbow looked like he was suppressing the urge to laugh himself.

"A bit dramatic, aren't you, candidate?" Was Strongbow's reply.

"No sir." Darius replied immediately.

"One mark of disobedience merits one cycle spent in punishment." Strongbow said to him as he gestured to his footlocker. "Immediately after you are discharged from this medical wing, you are henceforth reassigned to Adamant Company, under the 39th Training Standard."

He was being reassigned? There were other standards? He didn't quite know what to say, and even if he did want to talk, the hospitalman was still busy with his nose. Instead he merely gave the instructor a nod and then tried not to think about how he was the person being cycled out this time.

"It's only you and Seamus left. We managed Keiran yesterday." Strongbow saw fit to tell him. "You're a hard one to catch, candidate."

Yesterday- he remembered that Keiran had said one wrong word during cadence as they had marched across the barren plains. By the time Krieg-Windsor had stopped pummeling him, Keiran had been holding onto his shattered cheekbone and was in the process of grimly spitting out one bloody tooth. He had been cycled out after that field exercise, and the new man who replaced him still had a bandage over a cut on his forehead.

As it was, Darius took Strongbow's compliment like anyone who had just been thrown out of a lecture hall and then praised for being so hard to throw out in the first place would- he gave a somewhat goofy bloody smile that made him look more frightening rather than grateful as the blood flowed liberally down his face. "Thank you, sir."

"You won't be thanking me later." Strongbow replied frankly, with the look of someone who was used to having people screaming in his face that he had lied to them. "You will have medical rest for one day before I formally take you to the 39th's billet, candidate. Use it well."

"May this candidate spend that day practicing in the Pit, sir?" He asked the hospitalman almost childishly. The man stared at him as if he had just asked to consume his first born child.

"You just got thrashed." The hospitalman said slowly and skeptically. "And you want to go to the Pit to fight?"

"To practice, sir." Darius corrected him.

The hospitalman threw a glance at Strongbow as if he had wanted to say that Darius was out of his mind. For his part, the archer took one look at Darius, at the way the candidate was shifting in his bed and staring out the window wistfully, and then shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, can he?" Strongbow tilted his head at the medic.

"You just threw him down some stairs and had that insane spinster smash his nose-" The hospitalman replied acidly. "And now you're asking me if he can fight? Why don't you just send him off to the Maw and let him die? I wouldn't have to waste supplies on him."

Strongbow gave him a veiled smile.

The hospitalman made a frustrated noise and stared at the ceiling in askance. "What is the point of patching him up then?"

"To annoy you." Strongbow retorted.

"Very funny, Strongbow." The hospitalman snapped back. "I'm laughing so hard I'm going to spit my lungs in your face."

Strongbow clapped Darius on the shoulder, which hurt because he had landed on that side badly, but the show of support felt good. "The candidate knows his limits and he wants to break them, don't you, candidate?"

"Yes sir." Darius replied like a wind-up doll.

The hospitalman shook his head and growled under his breath as he turned to treating Darius' nose again. "Whatever, it's not like I'm the one that's going to die. I'll sign his clearance, you sadomasochist bastards, and then I'll see you in hell."

"Thank you, sir." Darius repeated, even as he was wondering how in nine hells was the man managing to get away with such disrespect. He probably had some sort of immunity because he was a hospitalman and was part of the staff.

Darius was still aching all over, but Strongbow had effectively just given him one day to himself- and he planned on taking advantage of it. As soon as the hospitalman had signed his clearance, he was accompanied by Strongbow outside. His heading was a newer looking but no less austere longhouse on the other side of the grounds to leave his things in before he was released.

As Darius hauled his own footlocker under the fierce heat of the sun, the Assistant Instructor told him what awaited him.

"As our esteemed hospitalman informed you, moving candidates such as yourself through the companies is a part of the program- it's a lesson on how to adapt in a new unit." The archer batted away a gnat that was annoying him. "And it helps to keep the companies varied- we can't have too many nobles in a single place. They'd kill each other in their sleep."

Panting like a dog in the heat, Darius gave a nod as he moved the large crate's center mass from one arm to the other. "May this candidate inquire why it must be Adamant Company?"

"You may. Adamant Company was a problem company. We had to separate two of the unholy terrors because one of them tried to kill the other with a knife." Strongbow replied.

"But it is acceptable for them to die on the grounds, sir." Darius suggested to him as he wiped sweat off his brow and adjusted his grip on his things. "It was in the recruitment papers."

Strongbow chuckled. "During training, it is perfectly acceptable. In fact, I'd rather have an unfortunate accident. I wouldn't be wasting so much time and effort in preventing them from having paltry squabbles."

If you'd rather have an accident, then why would you cycle me into their unit? Darius mentally asked him. As it was, he merely gave the instructor a quizzical look, and Strongbow practically rolled his eyes as if he was talking about something even a child would know. A child born into nobility probably would have, but not a child born in poverty.

"You must remember, candidate, that these unpleasant children are usually the direct heirs of House heads." Strongbow stated with a patient look on his face. "If one of them decides to kill another candidate, and if that candidate also happens to be an heir or someone very dear to an influential person, the feud will spread to their Houses and then Noxus will have a very large problem in its hands. To prevent a slow fall of the city-state, you're going to replace the troublemaker, and then it will be Chief di Castellamonte's solemn duty- for the lack of a better word- to beat the arrogance out of him. It's as simple as that."

Oh, politics again, Darius thought disgustedly as he walked on, grey dust kicked up from his booted feet. I hate politics.

"I keep forgetting that you don't have the blood in you." Strongbow mused out loud after they had walked for some time. "You've improved your accent and your grammar, it's really quite amazing."

"Thank you, sir." Darius repeated. The compliment had been a backhanded one, but he still felt good about it.

"Their petty rivalries won't be a bother for you." The instructor gave him a sideways glance. "I know you've been sponsored by the House of Swain. They're all from the lesser Houses and they know better than to irk Thorvald's favorite."

"Is it really that important, sir? The House of Swain?" Darius asked him. For all the prominence that the House of Swain had, any of his attempts at finding out exactly what the House did to deserve the honor of being named had failed miserably.

"What hole did you crawl out of?" The nobleman asked him with an incredulous look on his face before it occurred to him that yes, Darius did indeed crawl out of a hole- out of Sublevel 12 to be more precise. "Ah- damn it all. What the House of Swain stands for is nothing you should worry your peasant head about."

"Sir." Darius responded purely because he didn't know what else he could say. "This candidate would be under another Chief Instructor?"

"Indeed. Your new Chief Instructor will be Alexander, of the House of Croix. The Senior Instructor is Iohann, of the House of Clausen, and the Assistant Instructor is Nikett, of the House of Mohren." The House name made the young man stop in his tracks. Puzzled, Strongbow stared at him in askance.

"Is there a problem, candidate?" Strongbow tilted his head.

"This candidate must inform the Assistant Instructor that this candidate has a feud with the House of Croix, sir." There wasn't any point in hiding it- if he did, then who knew what Alexander de Croix would be able to do with him.

His instructor looked at him skeptically. "A commoner like you? What did you do? Did you climb into his house and steal a vase?"

"This candidate killed his younger brother, sir." Darius gritted out.

Strongbow frowned at him when he remembered which brother it was. "Adrian." He said simply, and Darius gave him a nod.

"Ah, damn." The instructor muttered under his breath as he stopped and crossed his arms over his chest, his brow furrowed in thought. "Well, that complicates matters. We were hoping that you were just some irrelevant chaff that Thorvald saw some promise in- so you're that Darius."

There were many problems with having no House name to call one's own, and the worst of them was that names were simply not as unique as one would think- unless one was called Heimerdinger, which is a very unique name in itself. Unfortunately, 'Darius' was a very common name in Noxus, and while his deeds had made him notorious amongst the Noxian nobility even as a young man, not many people actually knew what he looked like.

His reputation preceding him, Darius stood in the heat cradling his footlocker as the instructor tapped at his lip and mumbled things under his breath. Watching him think, it occurred to the fourteen year old that he had never seen Strongbow look so human.

Strongbow had always been an omnipotent, frightening figure with a heavy hand and extraordinary hearing to Darius. Now he was a person who seemed to have an acidic sense of humor, who knew the intricacies of inter-House politics as easy as a fish would take to water- seeing as Strongbow belonged to a House, the latter wasn't that surprising at all.

"Sir?" Darius ventured, after what seemed like the fifth time that Strongbow had shaken his head.

"Damn it all, it's always too complicated… Just remember that this arrangement is temporary." Strongbow said finally as he gave him a nudge, urging him to walk faster. "That's all I can tell you, candidate. I'll inform Chief di Castellamonte and Commander de Montfort of your predicament."

"Yes sir."

The rest of their walk proceeded in a sort of forced silence, and when he had settled his footlocker in front of his new bunk bed, Strongbow informed him that he was free to do whatever he pleased.

"You'll be fine." Strongbow had said, but the hollow reassurance seemed more for the archer's own benefit. It seemed that even the other Houses knew just how vengeful the House of Croix was. "He can't exactly kill you."

"Yes sir." Darius had tried not to think of how his life was going to become more miserable, had tried not to think of the many ways that Alexander could beat his face into the dirt and get away with it.

"Don't fall on a sword when you're in the Pit." Even Darius could tell what he was implying: don't give Alexander any chance to kill you and make your death look like an accident.

"This candidate uses an axe." He had replied.

"Don't fall on an axe then." Strongbow had said before he left.

As Darius had stated, he spent the rest of his free day sweating in the Wolf's Pit, mastering the bearded axe. It was different from his father's battle-axe in that one side was longer than the other, enabling him to hold it on the haft right behind the cutting edge.

In the future, he would become so skilled so as to be able to use it like a surgeon would use his scalpel, but this was a good ten years before, and he was still getting used to the weight and the feel of the weapon in his hands. Indeed, his palms and fingers showed signs of abuse- the axe handle was rough, and the large thing kept slipping up and down his palms. He would learn to wear leather gloves in order to negotiate the slip, but as of now he tolerated the burning feeling on his skin and tried not to think of the rawness of his flesh.

There were many reasons why he took the bearded axe: it was cheaper to have a bearded axe forged, and he liked the fact that he could use the longer edge to pull objects out of people's hands- eventually, this mastery would spread to pulling entire bodies. The chief reason, however, was that he felt that his father's double-headed axe was too unwieldy. He could have been the spitting image of his father if he had eaten well, but hardship and a good five years of passing most of his food to Draven had made him smaller and thinner compared to his sire. The bearded axe, then, was a way for him to salute the man's memory but at the same time give himself a way to forge his own path.

As he pushed yet another mauled practice dummy into the shade of a nearby shed, he spied movement out of the corner of his eye and blinked in surprise when he saw that it was the hospitalman. There was a large canvas bag by the man's side and he was watching him from one of the many seats on the granite grandstand. Now that they were outside, Darius could see that the man had short, cropped blonde hair and blue eyes. He was broad shouldered, with a lean and wiry build that spoke more of being quick rather than being strong. Unlike everyone else in the academy that wore high-collared black dress coats, he was wearing a simple white collared shirt, the sleeves rolled up against the heat, and a pair of black pants and black standard issue military boots.

"Good afternoon sir." Darius greeted automatically. The hospitalman frowned, pushed himself off his seat, and marched up to him, his boots crunching on the black volcanic sand.

"Sir?" Darius tried.

"You're an idiot, candidate." Was the man's acerbic reply as he held out his hands.

"Sir." Darius repeated, not wanting to insult him unless he wanted to have more trouble.

"Your hands, you moron." The hospitalman responded. "Give me your hands."

Darius held his hands out obediently, and the hospitalman made a tch'ing noise as he looked over the raw and slowly bleeding flesh.

"It's idiots like you," He said as he reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of ointment. "That make my life harder."

"This candidate doesn't quite understand what you mean, sir." Darius replied. He ignored the sting of the medicine on his palms as the hospitalman bound the treated flesh in bandages.

"Oh enough with that 'this candidate' nonsense, you sound like a schizophrenic. What I mean to say is that I hate this." The hospitalman gestured around him. "All this masochistic, 'I'm strong enough to do this', sort of crap. I thought I saw enough of that in the capital but this academy is just full of it."

"Strength above all, sir." Darius echoed the adage like a schoolboy holding onto a cardinal rule.

"Oh ha-ha, channeling the insane spinster, that's nice." The man muttered under his breath. "Look, candidate, the reason why people like me exist on this earth is because there are idiots like you that think they can shrug off a fall and a couple of broken bones in an hour. If you were a Rakkor, sure, I'd let you- but you're not. You're Noxian and that means I have to stop you from being an idiot."

Darius blinked and tilted his head. It was true that he had thought about that- and he did still feel like he wanted to sleep, but he had an entire day to himself and he wanted to better his fighting skills. "But I feel fine, sir."

"No you're not, you're panting like a dog and you're going to fall over from heat exhaustion if you don't hydrate." The man pulled out a flask from his bag and held it out. "And you know I'm right. You're a worker, like I am."

Gratefully, he took the flask and drank deeply. The summer heat had taken its toll on him, but he was so close to mastering a new technique with his axe that he didn't think about anything else. Now that he was drinking water, he found that his throat had become so dry that drinking something hurt him.

"I've seen a minotaur drink like that." The hospitalman said with a chuckle when Darius passed the flask back with a murmured and polite 'thank you'. "What do you think you're doing here, huh?"

"I was trying to see how I could better utilize the axe, sir." Darius admitted as he gestured to the practice dummy in the shade. The thing's straw limbs had been slashed at so many times there were only tufts left. "I felt that with enough practice, I could try and disable the opponent."

"Stop thinking like you're holding a sword then." The hospitalman replied candidly as he regarded Darius' work. "Going away at it like that- you might as well just pick up a claymore or a couple of little knives."

"Sir." Darius said respectfully. "What do you suggest?"

"If you intend on disabling your opponent, you might want to target their tendons and their arteries instead." The man replied wryly. "It'll make your life easier."

"Tendons and arteries, sir?" Darius echoed in confusion.

"Ah, right. I keep forgetting that you Noxians have a problem with education, which is sort of alright given that you're going to be an infantry commander with no brains like the rest of them- a stack of meat with an axe." The man said disgustedly. "Not like Piltover- now that's a place with medical training aplenty. Pull out a dummy, candidate, I'll teach you how the average human body works."

"You've been to Piltover, sir?" The concept of an outside world was still alien to him. He ignored the insult and did as he was told.

"I was born in Piltover." The hospitalman admitted as Darius pulled a dummy out for him to inspect. "I've been to Ionia and Bilgewater. I haven't been to Demacia since I changed my citizenship. There's something about Noxians that they don't like."

"You came to Noxus?" Darius asked him, finding the concept of someone actually trading in their citizenship to become a Noxian puzzling.

"I came to Zaun. Piltover revoked my license after I killed someone." The man corrected him. "And when I treated one of your own, eventually they just pulled me in. I know you're a land of warriors, but it would be nice to not be the only intelligent life form capable of treating wounds within miles, hm?"

When the dummy was laid out on the ground, the hospitalman gestured to the various places where veins and muscles could be disabled. "Morons like you; you go straight for the chest or for the arms. It's fine if you just want to kill them by clawing them to death but if you really, really want to kill someone, you take your time with what you know, candidate."

He prodded the sides of the dummy's neck. "Carotid, jugular. Cut deep enough and they'll exsanguinate in two minutes but duck your head because it'll squirt in your eyes if you cut in. Femoral," And the man prodded at the inside of the dummy's legs. "Ligaments on the knees, that helps you walk so you can cut into that and watch them flop on the floor while they bleed out."

He pulled the dummy's torso up so Darius could see where he laid his fingers on. "Cephalic vein on the arm, easily seen, easily severed and not a lot of people wear chainmail that far- only the really rich ones do. Basilic vein here on the shoulder, if the poor fuck isn't wearing any armor; it's pretty easy to get to. One jab, maybe two. Don't waste your time making yourself feel better with a lot of tiny scratches, candidate. You get to the point and then you watch them bleed out."

They went over the specifics of how to murder someone very slowly for the rest of the afternoon. Darius had initially struggled over the concept of 'veins' and 'arteries' and the differences between them before the hospitalman called him an idiot and told him to look it up in the library. When the theory-crafting was done, the hospitalman had him pull a dummy out and then practically beat the names of the blood vessels and nerve pathways into his head until Darius was quite certain he could say the words and point out the places in his sleep. Of course, improvement did not happen overnight, but the hospitalman had given him a foundation to work with, and that was the most important part of any new lesson.

"Sir," Darius said at the end of the day as they both analyzed a practice dummy. He couldn't help but ask. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because you're a moron." The hospitalman replied immediately.

Unsure if he was supposed to take the answer as it was, Darius merely stared until the hospitalman gave a sigh.

"Look," The man said very slowly, as if he was lecturing a child. "You've got the guts to be a moron out in the sun today. And I know from hearing Strongbow's stories that you've also got a good head on your shoulders. You just need a push in the right direction and I'm giving it to you."

"You've helped me more than Assistant Instructor Strongbow has, sir." Darius admitted.

"You're still a moron." The hospitalman retorted. "Just think- what did Strongbow teach you?"

Darius shrugged. "I'm not quite sure what you mean, sir."

"Look at you addressing me as 'sir' even if I'm not part of the actual training staff." The hospitalman pointed out. "Look, candidate, I'm just here to put bandages on spoiled brats but you're giving me respect and that feels sort of nice, even if it is from a pile of shit like you. What does your crazy spinster say about respect in general?"

"Disrespect given is disrespect returned." Darius echoed Chief di Castellamonte's words.

"Right, so the opposite would be: respect given is respect returned," The hospitalman pointed out. "And besides, if you died out here from heat exhaustion, they're going to kill me for it because I let Strongbow pull my arm and signed your clearance like the moron I was. If you stay out of shit, I stay out of shit. We both get to live another day."

Darius smiled slightly and nodded. "I see."

"Well, you'd better." The hospitalman said gruffly. "You did good work today, candidate."

"Thank you, sir." It occurred to him then that he didn't know the man's name. Darius was about to open his mouth to inquire when the hospitalman extended his hand.

"Conrad." He said simply.

"No House names in Piltover, sir?" Darius couldn't resist asking as he shook the other man's hand- wincing slightly as the bandages rubbed against the raw skin. His incessant need to ask questions about the outside world would persist until adulthood- upon becoming a League champion; he would be the only Noxian curious enough to ask Sejuani about life on the tundra.

"No. There's something about Piltoveran culture about being genius enough to wipe out every other person with the name. 'Conrad' is dirt common and if I miraculously become famous, I'll just get a little tagline at the end, so fuck them." The hospitalman replied wryly. "You're due to be reassigned today, so I'd suggest you get to your new bunk before lights out."

He tried to ignore the fear stirring in his gut at the prospect of reporting in Adamant Company and forced out a good-natured smile. "Yes sir."

He didn't want to go, but he had to. He couldn't run away. It would be cowardice of the highest caliber.

As he would find out over the coming weeks, he would find that, yes, he should have run away.

Author's Note: Well, his passive had to come from somewhere- and given that we've established only the privileged ones get quality education in Noxus, it has to be someone from the outside. Who better to teach him how to cripple and make other people bleed out than an actual doctor (or hospitalman, seeing as it is the military)?

We see another side of the instructors here- yes, they deal out punishments but I tried to emphasize what what they're supposed to do in the first place- which is to impart knowledge and to facilitate learning. Granted, they're also (mostly) aristocrats and they see things differently than Darius and the rest of his sponsored ilk. Instructors are human too, and we can see that Strongbow's afraid of de Croix as much as Darius is.

There's a lot of text here (7k words holy hells) but it's nice to expound on dialogue and not write a lot of third person stuff for once.