So two nights passed: the night's dismay
Saddened and stunned the coming day.
Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me
Distemper's worst calamity.
The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,
I wept as I had been a child;
The Pains of Sleep (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
FIVE WEEKS LATER…
The putrid smells of pigment bug, sweat and decaying matter filled his senses as he reached deep into the tree, ignoring the jagged edges of the dead bark as it raked his skin. He had been bothered by the nauseating odor before- but having lived and worked underground for most of his life had deadened his nose against the scent of squalor. He squinted through the stinging sweat as it ran past his eye, trying to feel his way through crevices too small for his large fingers. The bugs were not poisonous, but their bite was rather painful, and so it was with immense difficulty that he tried to find the elusive thing without running straight into its jaws- massive when held in comparison to the rest of its frame.
Pigment bugs never chirped or squeaked- their calls of alarm were high pitched, grating noises vaguely reminiscent of human screams. Their plump bodies, when not covered by smooth chitin, felt like velvet thanks to billions of tiny hairs. When his fingers came into contact with its back then, the thing let loose a haunting howl of fear as it twisted on itself- he could feel its pointy legs scraping against his flesh- and then it closed its massive jaws on his fingertip.
Pain erupted from the tip of his index finger and he bit on his lip, trying to ignore the stabbing pain, as he instinctively tried to pull his arm away. But his sleeve caught on something, and then suddenly he was trapped with his arm all the way inside a massive tree's hollow, with a howling, vicious thing at the opposite end chewing on his hand. Panic gripped him like a vice, penning his heart into a chest that suddenly seemed too small. Breathing, such a basic thing, became difficult. Even if his mind told him that pigment bugs only ate tree sap, he could feel the thing eating away at his skin and muscle eagerly, as if he was what it needed all along.
Screaming hoarsely, he beat at the tree trunk with his fist, erratically pulling at his arm. He could feel it tearing into his flesh still, and with a herculean effort that tore a three inch long gash in his arm, he finally wrenched his limb free. He could see it hanging off the remnants of his index finger, gnawing malevolently at his knuckle, its corpulent mass coming down in folds over his yellowed bones, large multifaceted eyes staring at him wickedly as its jaws shifted and pulled strand after strand of muscle from his hand.
Utterly horrified, he reached over and pulled it off, screaming his throat raw all the while as pain flooded his system and made his limbs shake. It did not let go easily, bringing with it a long strip of skin as it went. Vindictively, he closed his fist, thinking that it would burst in a cloud of satisfying red. But as his fingers wrapped about it, it did not explode like an overblown balloon- instead, it turned into a shrieking cloud of legs and eyes and mouths- a veritable ghastly swarm that flew into his face, forcing a billion needles into his eyes and nose, down his mouth and into his ears.
And then suddenly, Darius was not at an insect farm. He was not being eaten alive. He was kicking his blanket off, the sheets underneath him stained through with sweat. His head felt like someone had just stepped on it. His chest were heaving up and down as his lungs tried to suck in air, his heart tried to smash its way through his ribs and nausea began to take a hold of his stomach, pushing his dinner up to the tip of his throat.
Hoarse breath after hoarse breath escaped his lips, and his eyes anxiously searched through the dimness of the longhouse for demonic, man-eating insects. As his confused mind tried to negotiate the difference between dream and reality, he found himself pinned against the headrest of his bunk bed, as if clinging any more to it would make him melt into the frame.
I'm not there, he told himself as he slowly forced himself away from the headboard. I'm not there.
All was quiet in the longhouse. He had been screaming in his sleep but it seemed that no one had cared to get up or to tell him to shut up- everyone was too tired to do so. The candidates had spent half the day hauling one hundred pound weights on their back across five miles of inhospitable terrain with instructors dogging their heels and pelting stragglers with volcanic rocks. Before that, they had been running through drills in the Wolf's Pit, and Darius had just earned his seventh scar trying to avoid another candidate's razor-sharp flail.
Despite his fears, it seemed that training under Alexander de Croix had been no different from when he had been under Chief di Castellamonte- essentially; the two followed the same curriculum. It was when the lights were turned off in the longhouse that demons began to crawl out from under the flagstones.
His mouth filled with saliva as his meal pushed impatiently against the back of his throat. Not even bothering to pull on his sandals, he got off his bed and half-walked, half-stumbled into the bathroom. There, amongst rows and rows of communal toilets, he pulled the seat up and vomited his evening meal into the still waters.
His hand quivered as he pulled on a weight hanging on a thin chain and then blearily watched the indescribable globs of meat and rice made their inevitable journey towards the sewer. As he slumped over the bowl, he tried to make sense of what had just occurred- it was just another nightmare, the sixth one so far that involved him being trapped and then being tortured slowly- being devoured alive was a relatively new torment. Before, his dreams had involved smiling skeletons that peeled his flesh off his skin like a child would pull the wings off a fly.
Five weeks ago, Darius had tasted the second son's bitterness and hate as the man threw him about like a ragdoll. That same night, he had been pinned down and then pummeled at by his fellow candidates. What was perplexing was that when he woke up the day after, he could find no injuries. He did not even have a single bruise. He had been confused and disoriented for the rest of the day, eyeing everyone else suspiciously and falling uneasily into an exhausted sleep.
Three nights after that, Darius had been called again into de Croix's office, and yet again he had been violently tossed about and treated like a subhuman thing. Alexander did not bother with questions or other such niceties then- there was just the turn of the key on the door, and then the beating would begin in earnest. When Darius felt faint, he would be slapped back into reality or forced further into the darkness of his mind- no matter what happened, he would always wake up in his bunk, and like clockwork, his torment was constant and never-ending. Candidates would gag him and hit him, and then he would pass out again.
What ate away at Darius was that he always woke up the next day without a mark on his skin. As the subsequent beatings had taken place in the dark, he could not tell which candidate had pummeled him and so he could not directly challenge anyone. When he did snap at one point, the candidate he had accused simply stared at him as if he was the crazy one.
Three more times the thrashings happened, but it was not every night, nor was it every week. He couldn't see any pattern in the abuse nor could he discern Alexander's moods prior to one. The beatings seemed utterly random, and after the one only last night, he couldn't help but think that his nightly torments might have all been an illusion of some sort- he would not put it past someone who clearly knew magic.
But certainly reality or illusion, it was driving him mad. Darius felt like a hunted thing every time the day would end, watching the other candidates suspiciously and obsessively as they did their nighttime rituals and chattered amongst themselves. When the sun set, he found that he did not want to sleep because then he might wake up again, pinned to his bed with his blanket, feeling rough cloth shoved down his throat and preventing him from screaming as the hurt began again and again. If he managed to fall asleep, he could not keep it well- the dreams would happen, and then he would be tortured there also, and he would wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and feeling sick to his very bones.
"Are you well, candidate?"
He looked up and to the side- Senior Instructor Clausen was staring at him. The man was of average height and had a rugged weather-beaten face and tired black eyes. His black hair ran wild on the top of his head, as did his stubble. Darius had never seen him handle a weapon- not even in the Pit. His deceptively lanky build was the cause of many surprised looks when he beat candidates' faces into the ground using only his fists.
Despite his roiling gut and quivering frame, Darius nodded his head mutely. In retrospect, it was quite stupid to deny that he was sick because illness was one of many things that could not be left unchecked and ignored, but at this point in time he was only fourteen and he was trying his hardest to both overlook the trauma that de Croix inflicted on him and to shoulder on with his studies.
"So you were not screaming your head off earlier as you slept?" The man asked him dryly.
The fourteen year old shook his head.
"You do realize that I will not look down on you, if you choose to admit that you are ill?" The Senior Instructor tilted his head.
Darius nodded as he tried to ignore the taste of bile in his mouth, the pounding pain at the back of his head and the prickling digestive acid at the back of his nose that made his eyes water.
"And still you insist on stating that you are not?"
"Yes sir." He rasped out poorly.
The man did not seem convinced, and Darius knew it was pathetic to insist that he was not, because really, with his pallid skin and his hollowed eyes, no one would be convinced that he was not feeling worse than the vomit he had just flushed down the toilet. Still, he could not bring himself to admit that he was about as strong as a fly at the moment.
"… Report to the infirmary in the morning." Clausen said with a disappointed turn of his lip and a disdainful look in his eye.
"Yes sir." Darius would have replied grudgingly, but as it was all he could manage was a wretched acknowledgement.
"You're one of di Castellamonte's get, aren't you?"
"Yes sir, this candidate was from Dominance Company." He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and spat out a stray grain of rice that had not joined the rest.
"Then you should know that admitting illness is not a weakness, candidate." The Senior Instructor frowned at him. "She taught you better."
"Yes sir." He gritted out pathetically. She had also treated him better, was what he wanted to say, but he couldn't unload his frustrations and insane speculation on this man. Was he too proud to admit that he was being ridden to the earth? Not quite. Did he suspect that Clausen was in league with de Croix? Somewhat. He didn't know who to believe at this moment, and so he felt it was best to shut up.
"Get cleaned up and go back to bed then. Frankly speaking, you look like shit." The man with an over-the-regulation haircut and an unevenly trimmed five-o-clock shadow told him.
"Yes sir." Darius repeated, and the irony of the situation bit at him as he pulled himself up off the floor and walked to the sink to wash his face.
When Darius returned to his bunk- Clausen insisted on it- he found that no matter what he did, he could not bring himself to go back to sleep again. Even with the anxious feeling flapping about in his stomach, he closed his eyes and tried to ignore it. In the way of people who did their best to be brave at all times, he tried to convince himself that he was not afraid, that he was not traumatized- but some part of him, deep down, knew that he was.
He didn't know how long he lay in his bunk with his eyes closed and his heart and quivering frame dead set on keeping him awake, but when dawn's first light began to filter through the windows, he heard the doors of the longhouse open, Clausen and Mohren's voices reverberating off the stone walls.
In the way of Chief Instructors- today was a Sunday- Alexander de Croix was nowhere to be found. No doubt he would be waiting at the lecture hall. Where Chief di Castellamonte had the riding crop, Alexander had a more painful device called a martinet- a short whip with a multitude of leather lashes at the end, and Darius had been lashed more often than he would have under Chief di Castellamonte.
"Get up, you lazy bags of meat!" Clausen shouted as he pulled the blankets off every single bed that he could see and touch. "Fix your beds, get into your uniforms and pick up your packs- we're going jogging." Darius opened his eyes and tried to get up with the rest of the candidates, but Mohren held out a hand of warning.
"You're to report to the infirmary, candidate." The Assistant Instructor told him, eyes filled with nothing but brutal awareness. He knew why, he had been the one taking him there after all.
For a split second, Darius contemplated asking Mohren if he was going insane, but even if the older man didn't like what was happening, it was not as if he could do anything about it- Nikett could not speak against his superior, and there was the fact that the House of Croix stood higher than the House of Mohren.
Darius realized then that he was well and truly trapped- if not in an elaborate illusion, in a ruthless and malicious reality. His only option was to endure. If he managed to survive, if he held on to whatever sanity he had left- he would eventually be transferred out, cycled back into Dominance with a Chief Instructor he actually respected.
"Good morning sir." Darius said stubbornly.
"I mean it, candidate." Mohren said harshly.
"Yes sir." Darius gritted out.
And so while the rest of the company was punished for being too slow to rise, forced to take a shower together in one straight line- 'nuts to butts', he had heard one of the veterans back in Dominance Company say vulgarly once, when Chief di Castellamonte had them do the same thing- Darius did not envy them.
He waited until the last candidate was out of the door before he decided to take his shower, and then halfheartedly buttoned up his clothing and combed his hair before he walked out the longhouse and made the required pilgrimage to the Infirmary. He had never before been so excluded since he had entered the gates of the Academy.
After seven months of breathing in the smells of his fellow candidates and getting splattered with their spit and sweat, it was an oddly refreshing experience to have been let loose in relative freedom. The moment he arrived in the infirmary, however, Conrad took one look at him and made a disappointed noise in his throat.
"What in nine hells happened to you?" The hospitalman asked him incredulously.
"Bad dream." Darius said simply as he sat down on the examination chair- it was a good try to lie to Clausen, but Conrad actually knew what he was doing, and so there was no point in trying to lie because the man would probably cuff him on the head for being an idiot and compound his already worsening headache.
"What, did you get chased by a dog or something?" The hospitalman pulled a strange contraption onto his head- a harness with a little runestone on the center that emitted a bright light- and looked down his throat. Darius tried to ignore the pain he felt when he exposed the abused flesh to the air and closed his mouth when the man put the head harness away.
"I was being eaten alive by a pigment bug." He admitted.
The hospitalman gave an impressed whistle. "Nasty dream, that. No wonder your throat went to hell."
"What do you think I should do?" Darius asked him somewhat desperately, trying not to think of how weak he sounded.
"You're not that over the edge yet." The man tapped on his chin as he stared at Darius up and down, taking in his general condition: the ashen skin, beads of sweat on his brow from having walked under the sun, inflamed throat and bags under his eyes. "No broken bones, no bleeding wounds- a health potion, a bit of good food and sleep would set you to rights."
"That's it?"
"That's it." Conrad affirmed. "We don't even have to use a healing spell."
"In what cases is a healing spell necessary?" Even if he was tired, he couldn't help but ask.
"Oh, if you lost a tooth and broke your cheekbone like Keiran did- that warrants a healing spell. Basically anything broken that can't be fixed with ointments, serums or that sort of thing- or if you want to heal up really fast and still look handsome." The hospitalman shrugged his shoulders. "As much as possible, I don't like resorting to spells, though- too expensive and a bit too risky for my taste- we don't know the aftereffects, if any."
"Expensive?" He echoed.
"Hell yes, because it's not going to be me that's going to do the mending. I'm not a mage. I can patch you up just fine if it's something like a cut or a gash- but anything beyond that and you're looking at a hefty fee and a temperamental healer." The hospitalman admitted with a rolling shrug of his shoulders. "Thankfully, you don't seem to have wrecked yourself beyond what I can fix."
Darius would have grumbled a bit more, but his throat hurt and he was starting to feel feverish. "So what are we going to do?"
"You are going drink something and then you're going to sleep. I have to fill out a requisition for the potion and then I have to check if Solberg is awake-" The man reached over, intent on herding him to a bed- but the moment his fingertips touched his skin, Darius reached out like coiled lightning, catching the hospitalman's hand in a vise-like grip. His other hand would have collided with Conrad's jaw, but the hospitalman ducked his head just in time.
"What the fuck?" Conrad practically spat at him as he yanked his hand out of Darius' grip. "What the hell is your problem?"
It took a few seconds for Darius to realize what had just happened. He had felt the man's hand on his shoulder, and he had instinctively lashed out against him. He tried to calm down now, to regulate breathing that had suddenly become erratic, to lower hands that were now shaking enough to make the limbs seem detached from the rest of his body.
"Sorry." Darius said woodenly as he tried to stop himself from shivering.
"You're just a bag of rabid bats, aren't you?" The hospitalman retorted nastily.
"Sorry." He repeated, and he watched the hospitalman shake his head in frustration.
"You have some serious problems, kid." Conrad said as he walked away. "Serious problems."
I suppose so, Darius thought. "Can't fix that either?" He chuckled weakly.
"What am I? A shrink?" Conrad's voice came from around the corner. Moments later, a small red bottle sailed through the air- Darius caught it by the neck as the hospitalman continued on. "Hell no, I'm a killer that gives out bandages to rich kids for a living. I don't explore people's heads- you can pay me to do it, but I probably won't be much help at all."
He looked down at the bottle in his hands and read the label. "It says 'overdose can cause potentially fatal kidney, brain and liver damage'." He stared at the hospitalman in askance.
"It's really nice that you know how to read." Conrad resumed his seat next to him. "No, seriously, just drink it and you'll be fine."
Darius stared at him suspiciously, even if he didn't mean it at all. He had read about the organs of the human body after that day when Conrad taught him about the most vulnerable blood vessels- and so he knew that damaging the kidneys, liver and brain would result in a most horrible and slow death.
Of course in his readings he had also stumbled across diagrams of the female human body, but he had stared at the images and had felt nothing in particular- sex was still an abstract idea even if he was fourteen. He didn't have time to wonder about it, as silly as it might seem- when his parents were still alive, he had work and the defense of his family name in mind. When they died, he had to find work that would keep him out of public eye and had to learn how to take care of his stupid baby brother. Now there was his education, de Croix's 'vengeance' and the constant, disquieting thought that he was going to go home to a corpse or to a burnt down house because mail was not allowed in the Academy and he didn't know if Draven was still alive. Of course his inexperience would tell very much later in his life, but that would be years into the future.
"What, did people beat you while you were asleep?" Conrad's tone of voice was obviously sarcastic, but the moment he saw Darius flinch as if he had just cuffed him on the jaw, a knowing look settled over his eye and he gave an exasperated sigh.
"That's another thing," The hospitalman began. "I don't like about you people."
"What is?" Darius tore his focus away from keeping himself still to the man across him.
"People did beat the shit out of you, didn't they?" Conrad tilted his head. "No need to hide it from me, I treat everyone and I've been here long enough that it doesn't surprise me anymore."
Hesitantly, Darius gave a nod. Yet again, he contemplated telling this person what de Croix was doing, but he couldn't bring himself to trust the hospitalman, no matter how asinine it might be for him to distrust the only person thus far who had shown a blatant interest in helping him.
"Look, don't worry your little masochistic head over it- I'm under oath to keep my mouth shut." The hospitalman shrugged. "And that's the way it is here. Ask anyone in your company- they've been beaten to hell like you have. It's so you can be 'strong'-" And he waggled his fingers mockingly. "Honestly, all I see are walking psychopaths."
Darius merely stared at him- the concept of not being strong was alien to him. As good as the Noxian system was in producing great warriors and scheming tacticians and spies, it did not make for excellent scholars, artists or great minds of literature. That is to say, there were some people who were brilliant thinkers and philosophers in Noxus- it just so happened that they were either strong enough physically or well-connected politically to avoid dying or being subjected to an endless amount of abuse that culminated in a murder-suicide.
"Ah, hells. What am I doing preaching to a wall that doesn't know any better?" The former Piltoverian frowned at him. "Just remember, when you finally travel- and I mean travel for fun and not for profiteering and conquering and whatever it is that your people do- you'll see what I mean."
"Right." Darius said slowly and uncertainly- in the way that nonbelievers look and talk to people who claimed to have seen god.
"As for your little issue- my best advice is to just keep yourself busy and don't wrap your head around it too much." The hospitalman assured him. "Now drink your damn potion before I stuff it down your throat."
Darius ignored the sudden, murderous urge to slam the hospitalman's head violently on the floor. Instead, he took out his frustrations on pulling out the cork stopper and then, with a look of reservation on his face, drained the whole bottle. He had never been seriously ill until Adrian de Croix gave him the jagged scar, and had been unconscious or raving mad for the duration of the fever.
So he did not have the good fortune to be sick and to have medicine at the same time- what he knew of medicine, its effects and taste was what he primarily heard from other people. Instead of the bitter taste that he had often been told about, he could detect nothing but a sort of smooth and warm flow, the sweet taste probably came from something he probably was too poor to have ever eaten.
"What is that?" He asked as he handed the empty bottle to the hospitalman. Already he could feel the effects of the draught- his throat felt better, like it was being massaged, but the drawback was that he could feel himself getting sleepy and he didn't want to close his eyes just yet.
"Licorice." The man said smugly. "Good, isn't it? They make brandy in that flavor."
"Yes, it's good." Darius nodded as he licked his lips, slightly disappointed that drinking more of the concoction would give him multi-organ failure. He told himself to look for that thing- brandy, Conrad called it? "All potions are like that?"
"No, you moron. I just like to experiment with flavors." The hospitalman chuckled as he put the empty bottle on a nearby desk. "At worst, you'll get chewables that taste like boiled potatoes and at the very best you'll get stuff laced with spiced rum- those are always the best ones. Don't let someone with a cranberry-flavored health potion scam you."
Darius had absolutely no idea what a cranberry was, so he simply gave a dumb nod and tried not to look sheepish when the hospitalman read him like a book and practically gaped at him for not knowing.
"What about grapes? Papayas?" Conrad asked despairingly. "Cherries? Redcurrants? Blueberries?'
Darius gave him a blank look- he had never heard of those things before. A cursory glance at the market before he had left informed him that the only luxury foods he could afford on a semi-regular basis with his given stipend were apples and an assortment of nuts. Like any good elder brother, he had told Draven about that, but he didn't know if his younger brother was following his instructions in the first place.
"Elderberries? Peaches? Blackberries? Persimmons? Ligonberries?"
The mystified teen shook his head. If he had been wealthier, he probably would have known all of that. As it was, he had been born into poverty and he didn't see the point in wasting his hard-earned money on things that would not ward away hunger for very long.
Conrad seemed to be thinking of food that seemed more likely for someone of Darius' social class to eat on a regular basis, and he snapped his fingers when he remembered the exact name. "Bearberries?" The man tried.
That name was familiar- Darius gave him a nod. His father had once told him it would suffice if he was really hungry, but he shouldn't eat too much because it would make him sick. He once had, in a fit of desperation, fed bearberries to his brother, but Draven had complained about the rough flavor and vomited it back up anyway.
The hospitalman gave a heavy sigh and covered his face with both of his hands. "Of all the fruits you could have eaten, it had to be the one poisonous in large amounts. Heathens," Conrad lamented loudly, wringing his hands in frustration. "I'm surrounded by heathens!"
"I've eaten apples before." Darius supplied unhappily. In all actuality, it was only one apple, because he had given the rest of the half-dozen to Draven, and the apples that had fallen into the ditch all those months ago had been given to Talon as a bribe.
"That's like… let me try and keep it simple- saying that you drink only one wine and that it's fine." Conrad huffed. "But it's not, moron."
"It's not?" Darius asked him bemusedly. Over the days of dealing with the man, he had learned to ignore his vulgar and insulting manner of speech. "There's more than one kind of 'wine'?"
"Why the hell am I arguing with you anyway?" Conrad snapped irritably like a fish sick and tired of a taunting lure. "Don't you have a formation to get to?"
"I was told to report to the Infirmary." Darius replied with a shrug. "I didn't receive any other order."
"Great, that means I have to babysit you for the rest of the day until one of your nannies pick you up." Conrad massaged his temples. "Don't you want to sleep or something?"
Darius certainly felt sleepy, but the prospect of spending a full day in bed seemed wasteful. Besides, he still felt as if he couldn't let his guard down in bed. Like any person ignoring exhaustion, he shook his head and stifled a yawn.
"There you go again- how many hours did you sleep last night?" The hospitalman inquired.
"Enough." Darius replied laconically.
"Very funny. Are you sure you don't want to get some rest?"
Darius shook his head.
Knowing full well that there was no way he could possibly change the kid's mind, the hospitalman stood up and went to a nearby drawer, pulling out a blue vial this time. He pressed it into Darius' hands and shrugged when the younger man gave him a curious look. "It'll keep you awake, you stubborn piece of shit. How's your axe-work?"
"I've gotten better. But sometimes I can't remember where to hit exactly-" Darius admitted as he pulled the stopper off and emptied the vial- this time the tart flavor made him cough as it stung his throat. "Hgrk- what was that?"
"Grapefruit." The hospitalman said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Why do you even bother asking anyway? It's not like you'll be eating grapefruits or relaxing in a hammock under the sun."
Darius shrugged. "I'm… curious?"
"Too curious." Conrad replied nastily as he picked up a nearby medical bag and slung it over his shoulder; it had been pre-packed for emergencies from the way it bulged in all directions. "Well, come on then. It's not like we're going to be productive just sitting indoors and talking about the nice things in life you'll probably never have. Let's go do your favorite caveman pastime and cut the shit out of training dummies so you can bleed your peers like cattle."
"When you put it that way, it doesn't sound at all complex." Darius mused as he followed the man out.
"You're a fucking moron." Was the man's caustic reply. "You're Noxian; you're not supposed to be complex."
"Well," And Darius struggled to find an insult because he didn't know much about other cultures as of yet, but there was no way in hell that he was going to let Conrad off the hook. "You're Piltoverian- you're supposed to be a 'twinkle-toed weakling'."
"Nice insult- did you borrow that from the crazy spinster?"
The two of them spent the rest of the day as they had always done whenever Darius had spare time- he practiced striking the dummy in strategic places, cutting away until he was quite certain he could cripple someone in his sleep, and then Conrad would drill him on the places that he had just sliced at- questioning him on how long his quarry would last, on how much blood the target would have lost by the end of it, checking to see if Darius actually did hit his marks where he thought they were.
Darius was inspecting his handiwork as Conrad rested in the shadow of a nearby shed when they saw a figure trekking across the heated landscape. Both watched as the newcomer walked around the corner of the granite grandstand- it was Assistant Instructor Strongbow.
"Good afternoon, Assistant Instructor." Darius sprang up as soon as he realized who it was, his hand going towards his chest in the Noxian salute as he stood at attention.
"Have you been here all day?" Strongbow asked breathlessly as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
"Yeah." Conrad barked from the ground- he didn't even bother standing up.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Strongbow asked the hospitalman with a raised eyebrow.
"No one else was going to babysit him." Conrad shrugged. "Why, did someone bump their toe? Did you throw someone out a window again?"
"Oh shut up." Apparently, this was not normal behavior- Strongbow's response made Conrad sit up and stare at him bemusedly. "I need to talk to the candidate."
"I'm not here." The hospitalman grumbled loudly as he lay back down on the ground and put his arm over his face.
Strongbow took a hold of Darius' arm, and it took everything he had to stop himself from punching the man in the face. The Assistant Instructor led him off to the other side of the shed and looked around before he finally spoke.
"The House of Swain was dissolved this morning. Thorvald Swain was executed in Ivory Ward for alleged sedition." Strongbow informed him gravely, and then the man stared at him as if he expected him to react. Darius was confused, and it must have showed, because then the Assistant Instructor rolled his eyes and spoke with an extremely patient look on his face.
"Thorvald Swain was the one who sponsored your entry into this Academy," The Instructor stated. "With the House of Swain dissolved- stripped of their name and by extension, their nobility- and Thorvald dead, your sponsorship is now held in question."
Darius found himself worrying for Draven. It would be so easy to ignore the question, to carry on without thinking about his brother's reliance on him for funding- but the fact remained that the stipend was one of the reasons why he came to this place, and if the stipend was gone, he knew he would worry for Draven until he saw the boy personally again.
It is quite easy to mistake Darius' worry as an act of love, but the fact of the matter was that, at this point in time, Darius did not love his brother. He was fond of the boy, in the same way that a man is fond of a beloved dog that keeps tearing his belongings into pieces. Eventually this dislike would turn into genuine respect and brotherly admiration, but as of now, Darius thought of Draven more as a burden or a leech rather than an actual brother.
It is natural to beg the question, then: why was Draven still under his care? Why did Darius feel obligated towards someone that gave him more grief than happiness?
It is important to note that there was one quality that marked Darius out from other Noxians: he was responsible. In a society where emphasis on personal advancement was a pillar of culture, to be responsible was to either admit weakness or to saddle oneself with an unnecessary burden. Responsibility was not precisely frowned on, because it was a good quality in soldiers, but it was a bad quality to have in the very best spies and the most self-serving politicians.
Given the same situation, any other Noxian would have left Draven to die in a heartbeat- the boy was nothing more than a pathetic leech and in Noxus, those sorts of people were best left by the wayside to be picked at by crows- but Darius' parents, his mother in particular, had quite literally loved Draven to death.
The last thing they had asked of him before they were executed for his mistake was to take care of his brother, and he had promised them that he would. And so, because he was responsible, he never reneged on his promises. Even if he didn't like the kid, he would always look out for him. If the kid died, he would feel disappointed with himself instead of feeling depressed.
"Does that mean that… this candidate would not be receiving stipends in the future, sir?" Darius asked him.
"I'm not quite certain." Strongbow admitted. "Don't you have contact with your sponsor?"
"No sir." Darius said rather unhappily. Grimly, he thought of how many days would pass until Strongbow would come to him again and tell him that his brother was dead. "This candidate does not."
"Ah, damn." Strongbow made a disappointed noise. "The former House of Swain is not… poor, but whoever replaces Thorvald might think you to be a waste of funds and renege on their commitment. Your stipend depends on your sponsor, I am sorry to say."
Darius stared at him despondently. He honestly had no idea how Draven was going to take care of himself without the money he sent, even if he did lecture his younger brother for two months before he left. If Draven died, that was a failure on his part, because he didn't teach the kid well enough.
A question suddenly came into mind. If the House of Swain was gone and if the one who sponsored him had died, then- "… Will this candidate be ejected from the program due to financial difficulties, sir? Or a lack of sponsorship…?" Darius ventured uncertainly. Of course, he had to think about himself also.
"No, you are paid for until the end. That was… one of the reasons why your sponsorship was odd, you see." Strongbow said hesitantly. "But what worries… me is, now that the House of Swain has been erased, the others in Adamant Company would capitalize upon it- you do not have your sponsor's protection now."
It's not as if they're afraid of me, Darius thought spitefully. They beat me every other night.
As if he had read his candidate's mind, Strongbow looked at him, swallowed nervously and then asked a question that seemed to have always been in his mind since he had taken him to Adamant Company's longhouse. "Have you been beaten…?"
Darius found himself staring at the instructor with wariness. Of course, his pride dictated that he reject any admission of weakness, because he didn't want a person he respected to think he was being beaten. His pragmatism told him that he needed to say something, because that was not how instructors treated candidates- instructors lashed out only in punishment, not in personal revenge.
Eventually pragmatism won over pride in the end and he relented by acknowledging his weakness- it would win several more times in his life, with increasingly bitter results.
"…Yes sir." He said softly.
"How badly?" Strongbow asked him with a thoughtful frown on his face. He did not look to be disappointed with him- that made Darius feel slightly better about telling him.
"T-this candidate is not quite certain, sir." He admitted slowly.
"Why not?" The man's tone was clipped and terse.
How does one explain to a person in authority that one was being beaten to an inch of one's life, and then the next day there would be no evidence of the beating? He already felt like a lunatic- he didn't want Strongbow, a person he trusted, to think that he was insane.
"Out with it, candidate." Strongbow growled as two minutes passed by in silence.
Darius found himself fidgeting nervously.
"How badly?" Strongbow repeated.
"It is… difficult to say, sir." He said, and he began to speak faster after Strongbow looked to interrupt him. He tried to keep himself talking, even if he saw the man's expression turn from thoughtful to incredulous. "This candidate is… lifted into the air and tossed about by the Chief Instructor until he is unconscious, and then… and then later on, this candidate is… held down with a blanket and then hit repeatedly by other candidates until he passes out, sir… but there are no marks the day after."
"The Chief Instructor?" Strongbow repeated, staring at him in disbelief.
"Y-yes, sir." Darius tried, willing himself to stay calm, to not lash out at this man for being puzzled.
"And there are no marks?" Strongbow asked.
"None at all, sir." Darius supplied shamefully. "And… this candidate does not feel sore or exhausted the day after."
Strongbow furrowed his brow in thought. Darius watched him pace. For the candidate, every single step, every single turn and every single grumbled word were absolutely unbearable. Why was this man even thinking? He had told him everything he needed to know, had tried his best to be accurate but succinct. Why wasn't he doing something?
"Sir?" He ventured hesitantly, when he felt he could not wait any longer.
"That… that is a heavy allegation, candidate." Strongbow admitted. "You are… accusing a Chief Instructor of interference."
Anger and bitter frustration bubbled to the surface, and he found himself wanting to snap the man's neck. He tried to keep calm, but it was still present in his words.
"You know that I have a feud with Alexander de Croix." Darius growled impatiently. At any other point in time, he would have remained respectful, but the man did not believe in him, did not even take him seriously. Thankfully, Strongbow seemed willing to forgive him his rudeness.
"I know." The man replied, absolutely unfazed by his harsh tone. "But there are… certain steps for this- you cannot simply run about and accuse a Chief Instructor."
"Sir." Darius clawed at the dim hope he had of being able to make his oppressor suffer like he did every other night- holding onto the thought of righteous revenge like a buoy in a storm-swept ocean in one of the rare times in his life that he would lose sight of everything but a single thought. "Tell me how to press a charge."
"Well, you have to bring the matter to Commander de Montfort's attention," Strongbow sounded as if he was reading from a book. "A tribunal will be formed, and then you must issue a summons. If de Croix does not appear before the tribunal, then he is automatically held as guilty and will be punished accordingly. If de Croix answers, but provides proof of his innocence that Commander de Montfort judges as sufficient, then you will be held accountable for wasting the tribunal's time and you will be summarily punished."
"Then I will sir." Darius said with righteous fury. "I will bring the matter before Commander de Montfort."
"You? Press charges against Chief Instructor de Croix?" The man seemed to find the concept laughable.
"Yes sir." Darius felt insulted at his amusement. "Yes, I will."
"You are a commoner, candidate. What would you know of this world?" Strongbow jabbed at his origins with barely withheld disdain.
"Not enough," Darius admitted in a rare moment of furor. "But I will not stand for this any longer."
"You don't have anything." Strongbow pointed out coldly. "You said it yourself: there are no marks."
The man's last sentence seemed to trigger something in him. As the possibility of revenge ran from his fingers like sand, he felt the familiar feelings of helplessness and rage bubble to the surface. His entire frame began to shake.
"I'm not going to just… lie down and let him do as he wants!" Darius shouted at him with long-withheld frustration, the resentment absolutely palpable in his voice and in his desperate eyes. "I can't take… I can't take another night. I'm going mad just… thinking about what he plans to do, about the next time everyone is going to take a hit at me!"
"But you have to." Strongbow stated lazily, as if he was disciplining a puppy butting its head against a wall. "Because there is no evidence, there is no reliable witness, and you just lost your sponsorship. You're… stressed, I understand, but there is absolutely no way that your word will stand against de Croix's in a tribunal. You will lose, and then you will be flogged sixty times before the entire training standard. There is no point in carrying through with your accusation."
The candidate made a frustrated noise as he shook his head. "Then what's the point of me staying in Adamant Company?" He croaked weakly. "Why can't you transfer me out?"
"One misdemeanor results in one cycle of punishment." Strongbow informed him, but his voice and bearing was not without sympathy. "That is the law, candidate, and… Chief Instructor di Castellamonte will not make any exceptions. You must serve your time in another unit, as your fellow candidates have before you."
Darius held his head in his hands, quaking all the while. He felt absolutely lost, vulnerable and very disappointed in a system that he had believed in. He wanted, more than anything, to just throttle the life out of the man in front of him, but he couldn't bring himself to. Perhaps, on some level, he understood the man's words and knew that lashing out on a person that had done nothing but help was a bad idea.
"I… I will admit that… I am worried for you now that I know what is happening," Strongbow seemed to pick up on his conflicted emotions. He had sympathy aplenty in his voice, and he even seemed to understand. "But I cannot interfere in the affairs of other companies, and I certainly cannot go against Chief Instructor de Croix. You must endure."
"But I can't!" Darius spoke despairingly, his hands curling into fists. "I can't. I can't think, I can't sleep, I can't- I just want it to stop. You gave me a way, but you won't let me? What kind of fucking, sadistic bitch are you to hold that in my face and just take it away?"
"The very best kind," Strongbow stated- yet again he ignored the rough words and tolerated his behavior. "Do you trust me, candidate?"
Darius stared at him from hollowed eyes. Suddenly, he felt too tired to even care, too tired to even try and speak any longer. His head hurt, he wanted to cry but he couldn't, and he just wanted to scream a bit more but his throat was starting to hurt him again.
"Do you trust me?" Strongbow repeated.
Do I? He asked himself. He tried to shoulder through his headache, tried to think. It was a testament of Strongbow's personal strength that the man was taking his disrespect and emotional frustration in the face without batting an eyelash and judging him for it.
"Yes." He rasped miserably.
"Then you will endure." Strongbow said. "You have to- you've survived this long, haven't you?"
"Sir," Darius responded unhappily. "I have."
"I won't tell you that… you'll be fine. Obviously, you won't." Strongbow gave a heavy sigh. "But you must endure, candidate. You have four more weeks left. Hold on and then you'll be gone from here."
Four weeks, and then it would be over. He clung to that hope instead, that if he managed to tolerate everything he had gone through for four more weeks, then he would be returned to his company, to an Assistant Instructor that seemed to care, to a Chief Instructor that dealt with him fairly.
"Yes sir." He tried to put more life into his voice.
"I will inform Chief Instructor di Castellamonte, and Commander de Montfort of your… difficulties."
He resisted the urge to snap and ignored the passing speck of hope. Whatever plan Strongbow seemed to have, he tried to place his trust in it. "Yes sir."
Strongbow stared at him before he gave a nod. "Alright then, I will… return to my company and-" He stopped midsentence, staring at something over Darius' shoulder.
Darius looked behind him- Assistant Instructor Mohren was shifting uneasily from foot to foot, a guilty look in his eye.
It took every single strand of willpower within him to not suddenly scream at Strongbow that Mohren was guilty as well. Darius held his tongue, watching the two instructors sizing each other up like competitive duelists stared at their opponents.
Dominance Company's Assistant Instructor stared at his counterpart, and the wheels seemed to turn in his own head.
"Sir Strongbow." Mohren's greeting sounded rather wooden.
"Mohren." Strongbow greeted coolly.
"Chief Instructor de Croix requires the… candidate's presence at once." Mohren's voice was half-confident and half-hesitant.
"Ah," Strongbow replied innocently, as if he had never heard Darius break down in front of him. "For what?"
"… I have… not been informed of his motives." Mohren's eyes shifted downward as he avoided the other man's gaze and spoke in halting tones.
"Of course." Strongbow remarked flatly- he looked to be suppressing a grin.
"… Of course." Mohren returned with an awkward cough. "That being said…"
"Have you consulted Senior Hospitalman Conrad?" Strongbow asked him nonchalantly. "Candidate Darius was released into his direct supervision."
"I have-" Mohren would have said more, but the aforementioned man cut him off.
"Nope! Not all all!" Conrad said loudly from his hiding place around the corner of the shed. "I haven't seen your face in a while, Nikett!"
"Ah well," Strongbow gave a careless shrug as he turned his head and watched the hospitalman inch off. "He did what is expected of him, of course, to take care of a candidate. You know how he is, aside from being a rather rude and obsessive eavesdropper, of course."
"Of course." Mohren looked to be holding back a difficult emotion. "I will… request for him to clear the candidate then."
"Of course." Strongbow repeated with a veiled smile.
Darius watched then as Mohren shook his head, grumbling something under his breath as he shouldered past the two of them. He bumped into Strongbow and sent the man back a step on his way out. It wasn't until Nikett was across the grandstand- Conrad had chosen this particular moment to run as far from the Pit as he could- that Strongbow finally spoke.
"Sir?" Darius queried him- he couldn't quite hear what the man said.
"Unprofessional." Strongbow said louder for his benefit, staring at other nobleman's silhouette with contempt. "That man is absolutely unprofessional, I regret recommending him for the post. I should have known he wouldn't be able to hold against de Croix."
"Sir?"
"That," Strongbow gave him a lopsided smirk. "Is how you fight in this world, candidate."
"It's… something." Darius said, for the lack of a better word. He didn't quite understand what went on- he did know that Mohren was lying about his medical clearance, but the rest of the conversation had been lost on him.
"You'll learn," Strongbow said somewhat helpfully as he gestured for Darius to follow him. "We all do."
Realization came very slowly as he accompanied Strongbow back to the infirmary but the moment he figured out the entire conversation, he practically gaped at Strongbow for having been so devious.
Mohren had greeted Strongbow with a 'sir'- and Strongbow did not use the same appellation as he addressed him. Later after their conversation, Strongbow mentioned that he had been the one to recommend Mohren into the post. That meant that Strongbow had been in the Academy for longer. He was the senior. So he could not just be coerced into letting Darius go- it was an offense for a junior to go against his senior.
When Mohren had stated his purpose, he was slow and awkward in doing so. In addition, stating that he did not know precisely what de Croix wanted Darius for and not looking at the other instructor in the eye was a clear indication of his guilt and consensus with de Croix. When Mohren tried to get him released back into Adamant Company's responsibility, Strongbow casually brought up the fact that a candidate needed to be cleared by the hospitalman-in-charge, and Conrad had picked up on the subtle hint by denying Mohren's lie and running away from the Pit- a cowardly action, but effective.
"Keep quiet." Strongbow said to him with a smile as Darius opened his mouth to ask him how one learned to be so manipulative. "I am well-aware of having been born into my House, but as others will tell you, it is a fairly recent one, and the… pain is still rather familiar."
"Sir." Darius said instead. "Will you teach me?"
"You simply have to be quicker with your mind, candidate. You have potential."
The two of them halted in the middle of the hallway. Mohren was walking towards them, a paper in one hand and a cross expression on his face. Distantly, they could hear Conrad cackling like a madman in the infirmary.
"Strongbow, sir." Mohren gritted out. "I have the clearance for the candidate."
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Strongbow replied lazily.
"Sir-" Mohren looked a bit lost before he realized that the candidate in question was staring at him expectantly. "Ah, yes sir."
"Do enjoy yourself," Strongbow replied, and Mohren ducked his head as he pulled on Darius' arm.
"Come on." Mohren growled under his breath.
"Yes sir." Darius grumbled back, stopping himself from beating the life out of the man who was again leading him to his abuser.
Once more, Darius found himself alone in the familiar set of rooms, watching Alexander de Croix's gauntleted fingers flex expectantly, eyeing him hungrily like a spider who had been starving for a long while. He braced himself for the inevitable beating, but it seemed that de Croix was in a talking mood that night.
"Tell me, little savage, who deserves your respect the most?" de Croix asked him lazily.
Darius stared at him, debating if he should even answer the madman in front of him, and what the man would do to him if he answered. Eventually he decided that there was no real point in conversing with de Croix when he was hungry for blood, but maybe he could delay his beating. He didn't feel comfortable with postponing his inevitable punishment, because it seemed cowardly and useless to do so, but he was willing to try anything at this point.
"Is it di Castellamonte, the deluded whore? Or perhaps Strongbow the half-blood? Or even that degenerate tarnished tool named Krieg-Windsor?" de Croix watched him eagerly, like a birdwatcher would to a rare avian or like a mantis would to an ignorant fly.
Darius deigned to keep his face and voice expressionless. "The Commander." He said instead.
"The Commander," de Croix snorted humorously. "Really? Him? Do you know what he's done, candidate."
"Yes." The lie emerged roughly, and he wondered if de Croix would take the bait or laugh at him for being pathetic.
"What do you know?" de Croix challenged him.
"Enough." Darius replied laconically.
De Croix looked to hit him, and he mentally braced himself for the psychic force to beat his face into the ground again, but it seemed that he had made the nobleman think, and every second the spider spent in thought was a second the fly spent in relative safety.
"Enough, you say." Alexander de Croix moved close to him, enough to make alarm bells ring in Darius' head. "Define… enough."
"He has served Noxus." Darius lied again. "Admirably."
"Yes, yes." De Croix said impatiently. "Yes, we all know that. He served alongside Boram Darkwill at the Battle of Baden and did all the heroics expected from a moronic, unimportant blade-wielder with hopes of being given a pat on the head by his father and a recommendation for a better post."
"It is," Darius decided to return the man's words, feeling oddly giddy despite the dangerous proximity the spider had to him. "He had nothing but a small hope to ascend, and he succeeded in doing so through valiant battle- that is admirable, and true to the Noxian way, in itself."
"It is nothing to admire." De Croix snapped like an injured thing. "Nothing!"
"He went to battle," Darius built his own momentum from de Croix's slip of the tongue. "Even if nothing was expected of him, even if he had nothing to look forward to."
"He ran straight into the enemy like a crapulous fool because he has nothing." De Croix sneered.
"Without fear." Darius countered. "Without hesitation- and his gamble resulted in an elevation of his post."
De Croix hissed like a displeased cat. "Bah! It doesn't matter."
"It does," Darius said smoothly. "Because you asked."
"The little savage thinks he's so clever." De Croix sneered as he held out his hand. The crushing force settled on Darius' throat, and he felt the familiar feeling of helplessness settle over him. As much as he wanted to struggle, he stopped himself from doing so- and his action surprised de Croix so much that the man dropped him.
Darius gave a hacking cough as he fought to breathe, staring up at the nobleman with eyes that were being stung with sweat.
"Struggle, little savage." De Croix sounded desperate, his rage hollow.
"Why should I?" Darius taunted him.
"Struggle," de Croix ordered as he shifted his hand, sending Darius flying into one of the bookcases. The noise of the blow echoed in the little office and sent several thick volumes crashing into Darius' back and onto the floor with loud thumps.
Despite having heavy books falling into him, it was absolutely nothing compared to the choking he had suffered before. Certainly, he was still being beaten, but it was a familiar, physical pain rather than being choked by something he could never fight against- he felt relieved, to say the least.
"Struggle!" de Croix snarled at him as he lifted him into the air. Yet again, Darius held still, counting the seconds until de Croix judged him to be useless and sent him flying into a marble bust. Landing heavily on his arm, he exhaled sharply as it snapped underneath his weight. Breathing heavily as a ragged and throbbing pain blossomed from his elbow, he tried to move it but his nerves would not obey him, driving him over the edge with a stinging pain that seemed to spread to the rest of his body to join his dull hurts instead.
He tried to curl about wounded side, lowering his head as de Croix approached him slowly, cocking his head to one side like a sadistic parrot staring at a cracked open nut. Breathing became increasingly difficult- every single twitch of his body seemed to send more of the flaring agony through his frame.
"Ah, I seem to have broken my little toy." De Croix said with a twisted pout.
"You seem to-" Darius croaked out as he stifled the urge to scream. "Have snapped something."
"It is rather… unfortunate that you haven't collapsed into your silly little nap." Alexander sniffed.
"Losing your touch, I think." Darius wheezed.
"I did not." De Croix snorted with professional disdain.
"I'm not… exactly…" Darius pushed himself off the floor with his other hand even as another crippling wave of pure torture ran through his body. He screwed his eyes shut, panting heavily as he chewed the word out. "Unconscious."
"Are you implying," de Croix's face was suddenly next to his- the aristocrat was bent over on the floor and inspecting his work. "That I have become weaker, little savage?"
"Just saying," Darius sat up, nearly blacking out in doing so. As it was, he pulled himself back just in time by smacking his head against the wall and stared at de Croix blearily. "I'm not… out yet."
"It is a shame you've found… some strange way to stay awake." De Croix reared back and tapped on his chin curiously.
"Strange indeed." Darius mumbled weakly.
"Perhaps it's time to move on," de Croix laid his fingers on his ensorcelled gauntlet, the red runes disappeared and were replaced by pale white runes that seemed to float in and out of existence. "To better avenues."
"Like what?" Darius asked him softly.
De Croix reached out and wrapped his armored fingers around Darius' broken arm. Unspeakable pain echoed through every single nerve, and Darius instinctively and futilely tried to quail away from the man as his grip tightened on his broken arm. He couldn't resist screaming now, and his hollow cry echoed through the entire room as de Croix twisted his unwilling arm into something unrecognizable as a limb.
But then something happened- a warm feeling began to flood from the crippled limb. His arm rearranged itself with disturbingly loud snaps. He felt strangely at peace as he stared down at his healed arm, and then there was no pain throughout his body- none at all.
"You're a healer," Darius said in disbelief. "That's why… that's why nothing shows, that's-"
"I am," He stroked his gauntlet, and the runes glowed an unholy red. "What I am."
And then there was an impossibly loud snap that took Darius to the brink of existence yet again as an invisible force snapped his arm and crushed it as if a large rock had just fallen onto his side. He screamed himself raw as he tried to back away. There was no escape- he was in a corner and de Croix was blocking the way.
Strange white light- and the same warm sensation. With fear, he realized what de Croix was doing- wounding him in an unspeakable way, and then healing him, and then-
Another snap, another injury to the bones of his right arm that made the bone pierce his flesh. Horrified, he stared at the exposed thing, at the marrow of his radial. He didn't even know that he was screaming.
White light filled his eyes and taunted him with its warmth. Quivering now, even though he did not have any wounds, he stared at de Croix with unadulterated fear in his eyes- and the spider reveled in it.
Angry red and yet another snapping of his bones- this time it was not restricted to his right arm. His left blossomed with unspeakable pain as well, and when he looked, the bones of his left arm were staring right back at him. He threw his head back, screaming and kicking his feet at the nobleman in front of him, but Alexander would not be denied.
White light. His wounds healed.
Red light. His legs now, snapping back on joints that were never meant to bend in a certain direction.
White light, spiteful light-
Red light, and his guts roiled in his frame as his arm broke again.
He didn't know that hours had already passed since Mohren had first taken him to de Croix's office, didn't know that de Croix prolonged each and every break as much as he could to savor his suffering. All Darius knew was that he was breaking slowly, and that he wanted nothing more than to pass out.
But every time he was at the brink, the white light was there, keeping him from going cold, from fading into the kinder abyss that was oblivion. He could not stop screaming, because the light healed his throat, healed his hurts, everything was only in his mind, his mind-
He felt quite like his brother then- all inhaling and no exhaling, choking on his own spit and his tongue as he tried to breathe and hold air in his lungs. "S-stop," He found himself saying. "Stop it."
"Or what, little savage?" de Croix had a wide smile on his face as the red light of his gauntlet reflected off his face and his merciless green eyes.
There was a very loud explosion at the other side of the room, about the same time as de Croix broke his arms for seemingly the nth time. Darius stared at him blearily as the white light restored his limbs and soothed his throat. Debris clouds billowed in their direction.
"Chief Instructor de Croix," An impossibly deep voice sounded. "I had thought you better."
Oh, it's god. Darius found himself thinking, and he wondered why he was laughing like a lunatic even as he marveled at the throng of people across the room. It's god, going to take me away to my parents.
If he had been lucid at this point, Darius would have realized that Alexander de Croix had essentially woken up the entire Cathedral with his howls of agony, and that the training staff had broken down the door using an explosive runestone because it had been locked.
Even with stone walls, the multiple times the nobleman had broken his bones and had sent him howling to the cliffs of his awareness would have woken up the dead. As it was, Darius was almost at the very edge of his sanity, and thought he was imagining things when he saw the familiar faces.
"Chief," He called to di Castellamonte with more cheer than a drunken man. "Look, no hands," And he held up his arms- they were whole and unharmed for now, but his mind still imagined them broken.
Alexander de Croix halted in his torture, the sickly white runes on his gauntlet quickly faded into nothing. He stood up casually, edging away from the chortling thing on the floor that was Darius. Conrad, a bag of medical supplies by his side, watched the candidate laughing on the floor from behind de Montfort with apprehension.
"Better, yes, of course, I deserve better." De Croix was not exactly sane at this point himself- driven drunk by the sheer helplessness and agony that Darius was radiating. "I deserve better than this post."
"You," de Montfort said as his hand went to the sword strapped to his side. "Are insane."
He would have drawn the beautiful blade if it wasn't for the fact that Chief di Castellamonte had held out her hand in objection.
"Sir," Suzanne di Castellamonte cocked her head towards the other Chief Instructor. There was an indescribable fury in her eyes. Her hand was absolutely quivering in rage. "I request permission to put down de Croix."
"Granted." De Montfort grunted out as he shifted to one side.
"Suzanne, Suzanne." Alexander de Croix spread his hands wide, smiling toothily at the training staff by the door. "Why don't you just forgive me?"
"I will not." Chief di Castellamonte pulled out her twin daggers.
There was a fight, which Conrad would delightfully tell him in great detail when he would come to in the infirmary. Chief di Castellamonte was a master of blades, and she had gained renown for being able to move so fast that she seemed to vanish and reappear somewhere else. De Croix had sent a massive force to bear against her, but the Chief Instructor seemed to have flickered out of existence by then. The force plowed into the wall behind her instead, leaving behind a sizable crack in the solid rock. Alexander de Croix had looked around then, obviously straining his ears to hear her footsteps. It only took a blink of an eye, and then she was behind him, burying both daggers into his throat. Blood flew everywhere as she twisted her blades and sent his head flying. But since he was delirious from the trauma, Darius missed all of that. His mind had just caught up to his latest state, and he stared down at his hands as if he had just obtained the limbs for the first time in his life, marveling at the concept of having arms to use.
With de Croix disposed of, the training staff crowded around him before they realized he would need air. De Montfort watching the scene impassively as Conrad sat by Darius' side and inspected him from head to toe.
"Gods above, you're just a delightful little mindfucked thing, aren't you?" Conrad said to him as he practically threw down his bag of supplies next to him.
"I have arms." Darius told him.
"Of course you do." Conrad said soothingly, and then he eyed him worriedly. "I… I have no idea what to do for you. He healed you up, so there's nothing wrong with you really, but you're just-"
"I have arms." Darius repeated.
"Fuck, tell me he didn't drive you insane. That's just what we need: more nutjobs in this entire academy."
Conrad slapped him with the back of his fist.
Yet another burst of pain, and Darius braced himself for the eventual scornful and soothing white glow, but there was no light. He blinked in bemusement, like a child scammed out of a toy, and then stared at Conrad with something like a frown on his face that didn't feel quite right.
"Where's the light?" He asked dazedly.
"Commander, I have no idea how to fix him." Conrad said over his shoulder. "I think he's fucking gone, no thanks to your mad-as-fuck sadist over there."
"Where's the light?" Darius repeated.
De Montfort stared down at the babbling candidate before he cocked his head towards Chief di Castellamonte. The woman bowed her head and then moved forward to see if she could help her candidate.
"There is no light." Chief di Castellamonte was next to try her luck this time, squatting next to him. Her hands were covered with blood and the familiar scent wound its way through Darius' nose and into his mind. He automatically looked down at his arms, blinking in surprise when he saw that no bones were jutting out this time to greet him.
"I'm fine?" He asked bemusedly.
"Yes, you are, candidate." Castellamonte said slowly.
"I… I wasn't fine before." Darius stared up at her, realizing who it was and reminding himself dimly that he should stand up and offer his respects. He tried to move, but his mind would not cooperate with him, and when he did manage to get on his knees he collapsed into a little puddle on the floor.
He felt like a broken mirror- all jagged pieces of trauma-induced memory loss and broken reflections of torture and questionable pain- but he was still whole. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea that he felt fine, but he knew he was not fine. It was a puzzling argument to be sure, and he fought with the idea that he was actually dreaming and he had not just suffered through the most horrible torture imaginable- having his bones broken and then healed up, and then broken again and then healed up…
"But you're fine now." Castellamonte said. Unlike Conrad, her voice was not at all soothing. It was strong and calm, and he latched onto that strength with desperation he didn't know he had.
"I'm fine now." He said to her.
"Yes, you're fine now." She said patiently.
"And I'm… not fine." He tried to stand up again and failed, banging his jaw against the floor that sent reverberations through his skull. She did not help him, even holding a hand back to stop Conrad from moving forward.
"I'm not fine." He repeated bemusedly.
"You're fine." She pressed on.
"I am?" He stared up at her.
"You are." She confirmed.
"…I wasn't fine." He looked at his hand, and then at his elbow. "But now I'm fine."
"Isn't it about time," Chief di Castellamonte looked down at him crossly. "For you to stand up properly, candidate?"
"Oh yes," Darius mumbled out as he tried to push himself off the floor again. "Yes, I should. Yes, ma'm."
She watched him stand up haltingly, and then when he did manage to stay on the balls of his feet, he quivered with the consistency of gelatin and weaved from side to side like a drunken man- but at least he was standing up.
"Well done, candidate." She said to him approvingly.
"Yes ma'm." Darius said groggily. "Thank you ma'm."
"I can't tell you how to fix him." Chief di Castellamonte told Conrad. "Except to give him time to recover, but at least he can stand up."
"Of course, that's all we need- a candidate that could stand up but not say anything else other than 'I'm fine', or 'Look, I have arms'." The hospitalman retorted nastily.
"I am fine." Darius said sullenly.
"Yes you are," Chief di Castellamonte told him. "And it's something, Conrad. We might as well celebrate the small things."
"I'm not small." Darius protested childishly.
"You know what's small? Your peni-" Conrad was about to finish, but the Chief di Castellamonte cuffed him on the back of the head.
Author's Note: It is rather harsh, what I did. But I have been told that it's entirely reasonable given the feud. We'll see if Darius gets better, won't we?