To raise a child break it

like a wild horse —

bend the will: get up,

get dressed.

Did you mean to be this way?

Did you mean to become

something you didn't mean?

You didn' become

something you didn'

mean did you?

Mosaic (Tim Seibles)

THIRTY-TWO DAYS LATER…

Life in the military, particularly in the temporary camps when there was no fighting to be had, was not how Darius had imagined it to be. Boram's Point had readied him for the hardships involved with the weight of responsibility and command but it had not prepared him at all for how life would have been with the army once his commission had been given to him.

In the very first place, he had not expected military life to be what it was- convoluted by processes beyond him, unbearably tedious and driven by intrigue and greed in equal measure. All he knew of it before was that it was filled with battle, that his actions would define his rank and his reputation.

He was not fully prepared for immeasurable frustration during deployments, of being told to do something very quickly or to always be ready, and then to be ordered to wait for long periods of time after that. He would be told to create a defensive trench and in the next hour or so he would he told to stop digging, fill in whatever he had managed to do and then to move on. These orders were given repeatedly- because the army was always moving somewhere, and clashed regularly with the Demacians as it did so.

His unit was not a skirmishing one after all- the Black Watch were a frontline force and nothing short of an absolute and total clash would bring them face to face with their enemy. The luxury of battle belonged to smaller, lighter companies. Darius and the rest of the heavier forces were relegated to marching, digging and then, halfway to finishing whatever it was they were ordered to do beforehand, told to get up and move on.

There were other things too, other more maddening things than digging trenches only to fill them minutes later every couple of miles. There were camp followers as well- men, women and children who tailed the main body of the Noxian army as it did its slow crawl through Valoran. These people were not entirely useless- many of them were leatherworkers and armorers who kept the soldiers' equipment in working order- but some of them were.

Darius had already lost count the number of times an officer's wife would 'accidentally' walk into the officer's tent, the number of times unruly children would throw tantrums and cause an endless amount of chaos until their parents or guardians came to collect them. He had absolutely no idea why the higher ranks allowed this sort of behavior and why High Command even allowed these people to tail the army. When he asked, all he was told was to not question it at all.

When he approached Strongbow about the illogical arrangement of having the rough equivalent of a village tailing them, the man had taken one look at him and laughed.

"Welcome to the army," The archer had told him in between chuckles. "This is why I love teaching at Boram's Point, you see?"

"The followers do not annoy me as much as the children do," Darius had said to him angrily. "The children do more harm than good- why not leave them behind in Noxus, in crèches where they belong?"

"Those children," Strongbow had replied mirthfully. "are the children of prostitutes, and it costs more to keep them in crèches than it does to simply follow the army about, begging for scraps and favors from men who are weak."

Darius had stared at him blankly.

"You are not the sort to partake, as I understand it-" His former instructor had went on. "But some of these men are, and where there is a demand for such a thing, there are those who supply it- you understand that much, yes?"

It was all very disgusting and unprofessional for Darius- he was a lieutenant, not a child sitter or an errand boy. He had been trained for war, not to spend days on end digging and filling in trenches. This was a battlefield, not a settlement.

In between such domestic annoyances, all of them were kept in a maddening and heightened state of awareness thanks to their constant movements and scuffles with their Demacian foes. Darius himself at times felt quite like a tightly wound spring, ready to launch at something unknown but always being held back, always being pushed down for some purpose unknown.

There was no doubt in his mind at all that his fellow soldiers felt the same way- brawls over nothing were not at all surprising and as lieutenant he had a front row seat to each and every squabble. The men were on the edge like maltreated mongrels relentlessly being prodded with sticks- frothing and snarling at everything and everyone until those in higher ranks decided it was time to release them in the general direction of the enemy.

It was all very degrading and not at all efficient, but he was only a lieutenant, and he was hated by a very prominent House. He had absolutely no choice and no way to complain, and after upstaging de Roquefort in Zara the man had him in his sights as someone that needed to be put down and fast.

When Strongbow had told him to do what was expected of him in Zara, Darius had gone straight to General de Montolieu, passing over de Roquefort and earning the man's eternal ill-will. He had advised de Montolieu, not as a lieutenant but as a Baton of Boram's Point, to reconsider his strategy given their positioning and the men's ill-will towards each other. He was not quite certain if de Montolieu had listened to him at all, but the artillery had been moved at another place where the ground was much more solid, and scouts had been sent out to goad the Demacians into fighting them on unsteady ground.

Darius and the rest of the Black Watch had done very well for themselves despite some losses then, and his frustration and discontent had vanished the moment his axe had made contact with a man's middle, rending through the leather armor and letting loose a spray of red. He had felt alive on the field, had felt glad for all the training and hardship he had endured thus far. The clash had been short by army standards, lasting only two hours and ending with a Demacian retreat, but for Darius it might as well have lasted a whole day.

Going over de Roquefort's head did not bother him back then- after all the threat of de Croix's anger was more poignant than de Roquefort's could ever be- but now he both regretted and was proud of his decision to do so. Now his captain did all he could to make him wretched, and there were a multitude of ways to go about that- especially in such a toxic and cutthroat environment like the Noxian military.

Being abused was something he could bear, and unlike before when he and his brother were left without any sort of stable income to their name, this time Darius could find comfort in the notion that de Roquefort could not touch his capital at all. Most of his assets were in the Funds, and it was a good thing that he had been told about it early enough. Otherwise, by some ploy of his captain or de Croix or even both at the same time, he would have found himself destitute and without any means to keep his growing wealth managed properly- being on the move and digging pointless trenches as he was.

"You are an officer now," Strongbow had said to him as they were falling in line for their wages. Both of them being lieutenants, they received the same pay: a total of two hundred gold pieces a month, given in middling increments and often so as to stop them from complaining. "You were treated very well in Boram's Point, but there are some things that we do not teach you at all."

Darius had stared at him in curiosity. There was more to learn about this life?

"What have you been doing with your notes?" Strongbow had broached. "The promissory notes you've been receiving from the War Office- your wages?"

"I keep them in a safe place, sir." Darius had replied slowly. "Should I keep them somewhere else?"

"You have no idea about the Funds, don't you?" Strongbow had asked. When the young man had shrugged his shoulders helplessly, the archer had given a chuckle.

"What do they do with our money?" Darius had felt inclined to ask.

In response, Strongbow reached out and rapped his knuckles on one of Darius' metal pauldrons. The archer knew that the Wolfman's son was very proud of the set- once the man had gained enough capital he had the set made.

The entire ensemble was black and angular, trimmed with blood red. The cape on his shoulders was a faded dark red, frayed and discolored about the end. The armor plates were layered on top of each other so as to provide more protection, and the entire thing was kept on with leather straps and buckles that went over Darius' clothes. It was dented and scratched in several places and not at all handsome given that Darius was practically no one in the army, but at least he had a full set.

Other men were not as wealthy or even attentive to their own survival. Up until the creation of the League, every single Noxian soldier was responsible for their own equipment as Boram Darkwill did nothing to provide any sort of stipend for soldiers to buy materiel. Every soldier approached the matter differently. Some people saw very little point in purchasing armor. Some people saw very little point in purchasing ammunition. This lack of financial support guaranteed varying quality in Noxian soldiers and it was something that the Demacians counted on.

"I paid for this." Darius had replied, somewhat offended at the implication that High Command had somehow helped him pay for his own gear- now that was a blatant lie.

"Who do you think funds the business that made your little set?" Strongbow had retorted with a wry grin. "High Command provides financial incentive for those who supply materiel or create innovations for the War Office. Much of that money comes from people like you and me- people who have very little time or reason to manage properties or businesses, people who prefer to be afield or to dedicate themselves to greater pursuits."

If crèches existed for children whose deployed parents were unable to properly care for them, then the Funds existed for men and women who were far too involved in other matters to manage their capital. Simply put, if one purchased bonds from the Treasury Office, they received annual revenue of five percent of what they had invested.

Because these bonds had no maturity date, the income from these bonds was constant and unchanging. What they gave back was not much at all if one considered the amount by itself: supposing one invested seventy five thousand gold pieces into the Funds, yearly one would only obtain three thousand seven hundred fifty gold pieces in return.

Considering the Noxian market, however, with the price of everything from food to luxuries fluctuating from every little hiccup between Houses- an investment in the Funds was a little island of reliability that continually provided income to their creditors, however small it was.

If there was one thing in Noxus that one could place some modicum of trust in, it was the fact that the Treasury Office treated investments into the Funds very seriously- soldiers like Darius who could not manage their capital formed a very influential portion of their patronage, with investments ultimately going towards the war effort. For the Funds to be unreliable and untrustworthy was to practically cripple the Noxian war engine, and that was the last thing that anyone in High Command wished to do.

Thusly by unspoken agreement, no one but the Grand General dared to touch the Funds or to interfere with it at all, and those who managed bonds in the Treasury Office were oft said to be the most trustworthy in Noxus- at least, compared to the rest of the population. Of course, a Demacian might think otherwise.

Darius' money was untouchable, but everything else about him was fair game. As with everything in Noxus, however, there were ways to go about tormenting one's subordinates and none of them involved expressing an open threat. To do so would have given Darius reason to request a Tribunal and if he was proven to be right, he could have de Roquefort penalized, stripped of his rank or even executed.

The system was different in Boram's Point: in the Academy, the highest authority had been the Commander, and an officer-candidate could request a Tribunal from him directly. In the army, however, the highest ranking officer Darius could request a Tribunal from was General de Montolieu- but if the man found the issue to not be worth his time, de Montolieu could refer it all the way down the chain of command to Captain de Roquefort himself and there was absolutely no way that the captain would set himself up for career suicide.

The favorite tactic in officer's circles therefore was to give the subordinates they hated the dregs of humanity to command and to watch the subordinate either murder himself or his men. There had been no words between him and de Roquefort to suggest such, but in Darius' most succinct opinion, to be given yet another influx of sorry misfits to command for the third time running was not coincidence any longer and this time he had a child in the roster too.

He had been absolutely aghast when he had seen the boy. The child stood no taller than his shoulder. He had a blank face, still-healing bruises, dark circles underneath his dull eyes, unkempt hair, and telltale stinking sharp stench of one of the great unwashed. He had found himself reaching out to grip the boy's jaw like a buyer would inspect a horse's teeth at an auction.

"How old are you?" Darius had asked him as he angled the boy's face upward.

"Dunno." The boy had answered in a voice that cracked rather badly. He hadn't been able to meet his stare, which had only made the lieutenant tighten his grip on his already abused jaw.

"… You don't know." Darius had repeated as he had tried to keep his disappointment well in hand.

"Dunno." The boy had repeated.

The boy barely looks a day out of the crèche. Darius had thought to himself in disgust as he had flicked his wrist and let go. Who in their right mind…

"Why were you sent here?" The lieutenant had broached.

The boy had shrugged- shrugged his shoulders, at him, his direct superior. "Was sleepin'."

"Where?"

"In th' gutter." The boy had supplied. "… Not allowed."

And he would be going to war with this child. He didn't even have a word for the severity of this mockery.

His first posting as lieutenant and his first batch had been very pitiful to look at despite the relatively professional reputation of the Black Watch. Fifty-five men all in all, and none of them had seemed healthy or even remotely interested in fighting Demacians. Some of them had bent backs and greying hair while others were hale and short- too old and too young. Most of them had died in Jacob's Ford and at Belvoir Castle. Since then he had been given more run-down men, but those had been adults who knew how old they were and why they were there.

Now, to be given a child to send into war was a message in itself. Someone, de Roquefort, de Croix or whoever- wanted him to suffer this indignity.

"Which camp were you from?" Darius had inquired through teeth he hadn't known he was grinding in frustration and helplessness.

"K'somethin'." The boy had responded. "K'vino."

What a waste.

"Do you have a name?" He had tried.

The boy had seemed to think on it for a moment and Darius had been mildly worried that he would not even have a name at all when the child had brightened up and nodded at him. "Scraps."

It can't be helped, He had found himself mentally noting over and over. It can't be helped. Not everyone had parents like yours. Parents who cared, parents you squan-

He had forced himself to stop thinking then. It had been a bad train of thought. He still had to inspect the rest of the new blood and he couldn't afford to dawdle over one child who no doubt would die on the morrow… unless he personally saw to it that the boy had a fighting chance at least- but what could Scraps do instead of serving in the front and dying like a fly?

"Well then," He had said at length. "You shall be my runner. I suppose you could do that better than fight, hm?"

"Hurts t'fight." The boy had given him a lopsided smile, seemingly understanding that Darius had just saved him from a miserable death. "But runnin' is okay."

"But you will not run all the way to Noxus." He had corrected quickly, feeling foolish for giving the child such treatment. If he had given the child a better place, was he really going to interview every single one of these men to find out where he could best put them?

If he did, he would have an extremely horrible headache but at least knowing what these men did best would allow him to better place people where they could actually do some measure of good instead of serving as human-sized crow bait.

"Food here, so." The boy had shrugged again. "An' money. Is alright t'stay an' run yore stuff."

He had no right to blame the child for being so simple. He had been that way, once.

"You are aware of how orders work?" He had said at length.

"Do stuff an' get fed or die." The boy had affirmed with some measure of hope.

"… That is putting it rather lightly." Darius had commented. "But it shall do in the interim. Follow me, Scraps."

He had gone through the rest of the men with as much attention, and by the end of the day he had managed to get some measure of discipline in his little troop and felt a bit better about taking time to know the strengths and weaknesses of his latest acquisitions.

Scraps proved to be very useful as a runner. Being an urchin made him practically invisible in the eyes of the nobility and he was only one of many that trailed the army. Aside from running his correspondences, Darius had him probing about for Draven's whereabouts.

Soon enough, word reached him that his brother was in Korovino Redoubt for his conscription. Even though Darius still held some measure of ill-will for his brother given their bitter parting, he could not help but feel responsible and concerned for the younger man.

After all, he had promised his parents that he would take care of Draven. It was quite a miracle that word reached him at all about where his brother was- even if he was Baton for his class, he was not exactly in a respectable position given Maynard's grudge and de Roquefort's spite.

There was one name from all the training camps in Noxus that never failed to instill some sort of emotion in those that heard of it. Lower conscripted men, depending on which camp they were trained in, would either wince or laugh. In the ears of officers, it always elicited a collective groan as sympathetic stares and pats on the back ensued- but these sorts of men always made certain that Sion or Urgot were not within the vicinity when they did so.

Sion, Urgot and, by extension, Hystaspes were considered as exceptional products of Korovino Redoubt, a camp utterly consumed by the cause and production of numbers.

To wit, in the old days before Jericho Swain's Noxus, the conscription and training of soldiers only went about in two ways- one could either obtain an education through a sponsorship and one's own means, or one could metaphorically canter about like a horse in an auction, showing one's paces and hoping that those already in the advantage felt the horse as an asset worth investing in.

Darius had been fortunate enough to have been conscripted in the former manner: he had been seen by those in authority as a diamond in the rough and with their monetary blessing, he had obtained his education in the most prestigious and grueling school in the entire nation, graduating as his batch's best. With a word and a bit of influence, he had secured for himself a respectable position as lieutenant within a relatively decorous company. His introduction into the military, quite frankly, was the best that anyone could ever ask for.

In contrast, Draven had not the opportunity- he had been conscripted in the normal way and was largely left to the mercy of the system. The system revolved around the concept of numbers, advantage and quota, and none symbolized that more than Korovino Redoubt.

If that assignment was not de Roquefort's doing, he had the sneaking feeling that it was de Croix's, and Darius had not forgotten the grudge even after all this time. It was but a fleeting fancy to imagine that Maynard, member of the most vengeful House of Croix, had forgotten also. Darius knew full well that he had merely postponed it by going into Boram's Point and with the death of Alexander de Croix, there was no doubt in his mind that Maynard's so-called 'justice' would be all the more lasting.

He supposed if he had been of a more paranoid and skittish nature, he probably would have worried himself sick in the inevitable wait leading up to Maynard's guillotine. Perhaps he might even have considered paying off a provost marshal to ensure that his younger brother was always within his sight- after all, there was no better way to get back at him except to go through Draven.

He was not wealthy enough to have his brother watched over by a provost marshal, however, so Darius was very glad to be here now at the gates of Korovino Redoubt. His brother was here, and he was anxious to see how Draven was.

"Lo the cradle of depravity," Strongbow told him as the sharpened log walls had come into view. The fact that the archer was here next to him was not at all lost on Darius- he had the sneaking feeling that his former instructor had pulled some strings to be rotated out of the front lines with him. Strongbow seemed to be the type for that sort of sentiment. "I'm glad we're only staying here for a brief time."

The Noxian war machine was relentless, but even Boram Darkwill knew the value of rotating his forces, of exchanging spent men for fresher ones. Companies were constantly being pulled on and off the battlefield and while the Black Watch and a few other companies were at Korovino for 'liberty', their places with the main army had been quickly filled by others.

Their column- a humble five companies' worth of men- halted in the middle of the redoubt's expansive parade grounds. Darius took the time to look about, as not every camp was constructed the same way. Beyond the log walls, the barracks and longhouses were made of the same material and covered in green moss here and there. There were hundreds of them, all bunched up in neat lines. He could only imagine what sort of interior that was. If the outside was any indication; unpaved dirt floors, rickety wooden frames and canvas sheets for cots.

If he was more in tune with emotions perhaps he could've felt the raw misery emanating from such a place.

"Ya th' ones rotatin' in fer some liberty? Gather 'round," A grizzled man said to them all. From the improvised armor plating on his shoulder, Darius could see that the man had painted on his rank- one oak leaf meant captain. Obviously given his sorry state, he was not a very wealthy one. "We gots rules 'ere in Korovino. Ya need t'learn 'em all."

"Rules?" Darius murmured- making sure to keep his voice low and discreet. "… Why the need for rules?"

"Olrug," Strongbow's tone followed his. "is not the welcoming sort."

"That's putting it mildly." Darius replied.

"Firs' off-" The captain growled out. "Ya don't talk t'th' recruits."

Fuck.

"Olrug likes t'keep 'em on th' program, so no talkin'. If ya talk t' 'em ya disqualify 'em." The captain held up a finger. "So no talkin'-tha' be rule number one fer ya."

"This complicates matters for you, I'm sure." Strongbow said to him unhelpfully.

"When was my life ever easy?" Darius retorted under his breath.

"Rule number two- ya can bet on 'em when th' fights start. Olrug 'as 'em on a schedule. Ya can see it on th' training board behind me." The captain gestured to a large wooden board behind him. "'Course we take a small cut if ya win. Profits go t'th' maintenance o' the camp and fer th' glory o'our Lord Darkwill o'course."

"Of course." Strongbow added dryly in sotto voce. "We wouldn't want to disappoint the Eternal General."

"We're a professional army." Darius muttered bitterly.

"Rule number three-" The captain raised four fingers. Darius could only sigh. "Ya don' fuck with Olrug's women. Ya can fuck with th' ones in th' village o'er down th' road. Tha' all."

"A Demacian king in his little castle." Darius remarked softly.

"He is allowed to run the camp as he wishes- it is his right as training master, and while he enjoys Darkwill's favor, there is nothing to be done about it." Strongbow replied as the companies began to disperse.

Some people were stumbling towards the fighting pit. Others went their way to the barracks. A fair few were making a longer walk to the nearby village- no doubt to seek some sort of companionship in a bottle or in someone's arms.

"How does he even obtain it?" Darius gestured around them in askance. Somewhere off to his right, a man stepped in horse excrement that had been left on the parade grounds. The person in question didn't seem to mind it at all. He could not get any dirtier- caked as he was in clay and gods above knew what else.

"The quota," Strongbow replied swiftly and lowly. "That is all. There are other camps- cleaner ones with better training masters and more intelligent training staff, but in ten days, they do not give as many recruits as Korovino does, and so they lose favor."

Darius suppressed the urge to grimace. The quota was a damnable concept, but there was no denying that it was an effective way to create soldiers for the Noxian war effort- even if these soldiers were not very good at all.

There were a number of conscripts that all the Lord Wardens had to fulfill with every request made by the Grand General, a number of soldiers that all the camps had to somehow deliver to the fields of battle. The quota was absolute as Boram Darkwill did not expect any less, punishing those who failed to fulfill it with liberal use of the guillotine.

There was a number to make, and all had to achieve it. Inevitably, this approach led to a lack of quality in the men. Within the parameters and goals that Darkwill set, there was no time to fully ascertain the value of the men, and so non-commissioned conscripts like Draven were funneled into camps much like a herd of cows into a slaughterhouse.

And it was quite like a slaughterhouse- conscripts were given very little by way of training. They were merely told who to obey and how to obey their orders, given some measure of weapons training by fighting each other for hours on end and kept on perhaps three hours of sleep and two meals every day. It was a source of great amusement and income for officers and interested parties to watch the conscripts fight each other- the sheer amount of money that changed hands in every batch of conscripts almost rivaled the Fleshing as those in advantage gambled on the survival and the abilities of those underneath them like one would do to dogs in an animal fighting ring.

At the end of ten days, the lucky ones who caught the eyes of potential sponsors and commanders alike were set aside for more training while the rest were shuffled along the line to be fought over by recruitment officers like lions over a corpse. Within the next six months, depending on how promising these supposedly 'better' conscripts were, they would be drilled on basic formation and maneuvers. At the end of it, these cows would emerge with a higher rank than the rest of the herd, but they were all treated the same way when it came to troop assignments.

Troop assignments for non-commissioned conscripts were handled much like a man would carve up a single piece of meat for a starving family of twenty.

Provost Marshals of the Corps would secure the number of bodies that they would need to maintain optimal troop strength within their respective corps, and it was not unheard of at all for someone in the lower ranks to bribe a provost marshal into making sure that a certain name or two would be part of the roster.

Given the number of bodies that their provost marshal had managed to secure, the officers within those corps would bicker and manipulate each other for the choice of men they wished to induct into their commands.

In this manner, the conscripts were shuffled along the chain of command like show horses in a fair as officers more or less fought and snapped at each other for the soldiers they wanted to have. Lieutenants like Darius had absolutely no say in the men they were given, as the lowest rung of the ladder were the captains and the quality of the men were extremely dependent on how good their superiors had been in the game that was troop assignments. In the end, lieutenants either had the dregs or the foam at the top of the tankard.

And Darius had the taste of these bitter dregs in his mouth for a while now. He could only hope that whoever wished him miserable would have kept his brother alive.

"My brother is here." Darius said at length. He tried not to let his worry show. "You have sharper eyes, I think. Do you see him on the board?"

Strongbow stared at the board filled with names for a moment, and then nodded his head when he saw what he was looking for.

"I've been told that Olrug likes him." Darius added.

Perhaps not wanting to be caught in the middle of the camp talking about the training master, Strongbow nudged him with his elbow and Darius followed him to a longhouse- it looked to be the officer's mess, or what passed for one. The ground under their feet was interspersed with sunken, half-rotted planks of wood- a pathetic attempt at flooring, in Darius' opinion.

The place was lit by three gas lanterns suspended from the ceiling. There were a smattering of tables and chairs and the sad equivalent of a commissary at the end of the open hall. It was not empty at all. In fact, there was a fair bunch of people who made an awful lot of noise and so when the two of them took a seat somewhere relatively discreet, their voices were barely audible amidst the rabble.

"He is up for fighting tomorrow." Strongbow began.

"If his name is on the board, he is alive- certainly?" Darius tried.

"We do not know that yet, even if his name is on the board. Your brother will be left to his own devices when he is not in training, and here the staff do not make it a habit to intervene unless the training master allows them to do so." Strongbow said very quickly, squashing his former student's meager hope. His voice was filled with barely withheld distaste and Darius felt strange at seeing the usually affable archer be so venomous about something- it felt quite like watching the Chief laugh. "These men do not care if the recruits kill each other outside of the pit, so the only way to be sure is if you see him yourself."

The last missive Scraps had brought him from his contact in the village close by had been very vague, mentioning only that Draven had the training master's attention.

Darius chewed at his lip in thought. If his brother was on the board, he was alive when they had posted his name. He tried to take comfort in that while Strongbow looked to be suppressing himself from doing something- perhaps he was deciding between laughing bitterly and crying.

There was plenty of reason to cry, and Darius probably would have if he was the crying sort.

"What is it?" Darius finally queried with a sigh.

"All that you see here, this is part of a greater, grander game." Strongbow said as he drummed on the surface of the wooden table. "Not for us, of course, but for them."

He had not been in the military long, and he was not the smartest person when it came to political intricacies, but Darius certainly knew what the archer meant when he had said 'them'- the higher echelons of Noxian society, the upper class.

Merit was considered as being greater than that of birth or circumstance in Noxus, so compared to Demacia, there were no barriers at all to societal advancement save for the limits of one's ability and strength. At the same time however, what construed as 'ability' and 'strength' was largely left to interpretation and in the days of the Eternal General, it had been the concept of advantage rather than martial prowess, though the latter was still relevant given how Darkwill wished his army to be- largely made of dumb muscle and yes men who were too busy bickering amongst themselves to challenge his immortal rule. Of course, all that would change with the ascension of Swain to Grand General, but that would not be for a long time yet.

The concept of advantage, simply put, was that 'money is power'. Throughout Noxian society in Boram's time, gold was seen as the height of power and respectability- with enough gold, one could secure a future for oneself, and the only sure way to obtain gold was to serve as a soldier. Skill on the fields was recognized with prize money, pivotal victories saw a rain of gold onto the shoulders of those responsible, with the highest reward possible the endowment of a House name and the chance to be remembered in Noxus' glorious military history.

"He's not dead, I think." Strongbow tried helpfully as the grim knowledge reminded Darius of how stupid and how utterly unfair everything was. "Not yet, anyway."

"… Good to know." Darius responded candidly.

"Do you plan to find and talk to him? Tonight?" Strongbow gave him a sideways glance. "You know the rules."

"I have to." Darius said. Rules be damned.

Strongbow hesitated for a moment. He looked to be searching for something to say.

"What is it?"

"They do not make soldiers here." Strongbow said after a minute of silence- his eyes no longer gleaming with the hidden humor that was familiar to Darius as the back of his hand was. "Whatever your brother will have become when you see him, if you see him at all- that is Olrug's work."

Darius opened his mouth to reply but Strongbow raised his hand to stop him.

"Your father was at this camp and he survived with his mind relatively intact, I think- but we cannot say the same for Sion and Urgot." Strongbow told him slowly. "You do not fully understand what Korovino does to you, what training masters like Olrug do to fulfill the quota."

"He has them fighting each other like dogs, or so the word is." Darius replied with reluctance. "But surely that is no different from what you made us do in Boram's Point?"

"He treats them worse." Strongbow answered with uncharacteristic seriousness. "And I will tell you, compared to what he does here; we were very kind to you and your fellow candidates."

Darius could do nothing but stare, the realization closing in on him slowly and painfully. Of course- why should he have thought any different? After all, for desperate, poor and starving men, the army or the navy was the only way to earn a living. To these people, these individuals picked up off the streets to die in a war they never asked for, service in the military was not about being nationalistic and of wanting to prove one's worth in the eyes of society- it was about the money, and the advantage that it would bring to them. Serving Noxus never would once cross their mind, though all were fed such propaganda.

"You know more than I do," Darius probed tentatively.

"I know only what other training masters have told us, when they visited Boram's Point." Strongbow chewed on the corner of his lip. "We cannot interfere with each other, of course, but we could talk of training methods and programs. Right now, the Commander of the Academy creates the curriculum, and a basic outline is given to all the training masters every year. They are only guidelines of course, as every camp's needs are different, so how they go about it-"

"Is up to them." Darius finished for him grimly.

"… Implementation differs, yes." Strongbow nodded his head. "And certain camps have certain… cultures about them given that training masters select their successors from their respective training staff."

"And Korovino's culture?" Darius felt he had to know.

"I would say… especially unscrupulous, but the quota is in the training master's favor." Strongbow said after some time- he clearly was trying to find a way to word his sentences properly. "Korovino drives more than its fair share of men mad or into the grave- one way or the other."

Darius found himself gritting his teeth as he pushed himself out of his chair. He had to find his brother, and quickly.

"You know the rules." Strongbow reminded him as he reached out and clapped him on his armored shoulder.

"I'm going to the village," Darius pointed out, and he was quite certain that Strongbow understood what he ultimately meant: if I should happen to find my brother along the way, then that hardly would be my fault. "What will you do? Are you going to drown your sorrows while you're on liberty?"

Strongbow gave him a glance- if you get caught, that hardly would be my fault also.

"I'll let you know if the liquor here is made of piss," came the archer's wry reply. "After all, I think you'll be the one to do that before this night is done."

Now when Darius had first entered Boram's Point, he had been given a speech by Commander de Montfort on what Noxus was. Later on, Chief Instructor di Castellamonte had given him a rousing, if but vindictive speech on how everyone was worthless until they proved otherwise and basically informed them all that she was going to systematically murder those she found as weak or disrespectful. Those that survived the regimen, she would destroy and rebuild, all to make the ideal Noxian officer.

Olrug was not as eloquent, nor was he very inspiring. When Draven had seen him he had suppressed the urge to laugh as the man cut a very short figure, barely reaching Draven's elbow. Every inch of him was covered in scars however, and his eyes glinted in the way that a starving creature's would when it was being given food that it especially liked.

"I only have one rule, shitbirds: If you haven't killed someone during your ten days, I will shit in your face." Olrug had said to them all on that first day- and it was a wonder that his voice reached Draven where he was as there were over two thousand of them and they practically were bumping elbows with each other. "This is Korovino- fuck everything you know and throw that useless shit out the window unless it helps you fight- the better you fight, the better treatment you'll have!"

"Day one, motherfuckers!" Olrug sneered at them all. "Whoever doesn't have a bed in the longhouse is fucking guaranteed to die."

Draven had not hesitated at all. He knew the man's tone. He understood. He was one of a few hundred to make the first mad dash towards a longhouse. He was almost at the door when he heard the telltale whumf of cannons firing. After that came the screams.

Olrug, it seems, already had cannons ready and pointed at them all. Now, if the projectiles actually hit anyone, Draven didn't stop to figure out. He had made a mad scramble for a bed, a word too generous for what it actually was: a wooden frame and a canvas spread over it.

Draven spent the rest of the day kicking desperate people away from his cot and flaying people when they got too close. When night fell, the longhouse suddenly was filled with dogs and the creatures mauled and dragged away the unlucky ones who weren't on a cot themselves.

"You bitches are the lucky ones today." The instructor said to them all when all was said and done. Draven could hardly hear him- his heart was beating loudly in his ears. "Goodnight, shitbirds."

After that horrifying first day, everything operated according to schedule: breakfast was some sort of thin gruel that barely filled their stomachs at all, and after a halfhearted attempt by instructors at teaching them about discipline, they were turned out into the pit to fight each other until the sun set. Dinner was some sort of grey meat that never sat well, and then at night the dogs were let loose on the grounds to feast on the foolish.

But for all his cruelty, Olrug was true to his word. The first time someone from Draven's longhouse killed a man, that person was given a blanket and dinner that actually looked like something edible. Given proof that a reward would be given if they killed someone, the entire longhouse soon dissolved into barely withheld anarchy. Groups were formed very quickly, and given his previous experience in a gang, all this was hardly new to Draven. He rose to the peak of his longhouse's hierarchy very quickly.

For the first three days he managed well enough, garnering himself at least one kill a day- enough to keep himself alive and warm until the morrow- but soon he was not satisfied with just having edible-looking food, with just having one blanket.

He wanted more. He killed more, and Olrug gave him more-an actual bed with soft pillows, expensive sweets, nice and filling food… even an evening with a whore from the village. With every pat on the head, Draven grew to like killing. He grew to like snuffing out other people's lives, to torturing them before they died. It was either him or them and the flashier and more drawn out the death was, the better he was treated.

At the start of the eighth day that was when they found him- the men and women who knew of him in the Fleshing Arena, who had seen him perform before. They caught him alone one moment, and without hesitation he flayed them alive and killed all but one.

Draven had intended for the man to be an example.

The moment he had caught wind of what Draven had done, Olrug had him pulled from the ranks that same day while the person Draven had left alive was carried off, babbling about his mother and sobbing pitifully.

Needless to say, Draven was then promptly beaten to the point that he thought he would die- but Olrug knew his work and had left him conscious, albeit in agonizing pain.

"If you're fucking going to kill someone," Olrug had hissed at him as he had kicked at Draven's ribs with his steel-toed boot. "You get the fucking job done, do you understand?"

"I fucking left him alive," Draven had spat back as he curled about his middle, what remained of his lunchtime reward threatening to spill out of his mouth. "What the fuck is your problem?"

"That's exactly the fucking problem, you piece of defective shit." Olrug had given him a savage kick again as the abuse made it harder to breathe. "You kill him, you don't leave him alive! If people piss you off, you murder them! You should be fucking thankful you killed the rest of that group- if you didn't, you'd be fucking dead!"

Draven had performed in the Fleshing Arena during intermissions, had seen shows there that turned blood into ice or twisted weak stomachs. He had never enjoyed killing, and had never found joy in torturing others until he came here.

By the end of the ninth day he was one of the best and cruelest and out of two thousand men and women, the number had whittled down to two hundred.

Olrug had allowed him solitary quarters at long last, and he lay in his bed staring at the ceiling and smiling. Tomorrow was the tenth day, and the end of his 'training period'. Tomorrow would see him in his last fight at Korovino's pit, and Draven was already imagining how it would be like to be an officer in the Noxian military. Surely the marshals would see that he had great potential, and when they made him into an officer, everyone would know that he was better than Darius.

Maybe then his brother would accept him.

His musings were interrupted when he heard one of the dogs outside growling. Assuming it was a fool out to kill himself on the night before the final day, Draven had ignored it- until he heard a sharp crack and a low whine that soon dropped into nothing.

Draven pushed himself off the bed and stared through his window- a luxury given how the longhouses were built. He could see it- the mutt was dead, its skull split in half, pink brains and bright red blood dribbling down its shattered face.

He didn't know why the sight didn't disturb him. He pulled one of his blades close anyway- it wouldn't do to be killed before he was to fight on the morrow.

He heard footsteps next- very soft ones, the sort one would make if one was barefoot- and when he looked out his window again, he saw a boy staring at him. He threw the knife and hit the kid right in the middle of his skull, and considered it a job well done when the child didn't rise up from the ground where he was lying next to the dog.

Draven slept very well that night.

As he had said, Darius had gone to the village. He had spent the night there conversing with a man who had agreed to talk to him and listening to the instructors in the pub as they drunkenly recounted the ten days of their latest batch of morons. Whenever they mentioned his brother and the number of bodies the younger man had managed to make in just two weeks, Darius found himself becoming increasingly perturbed.

Strongbow had said that Korovino changed people, and if Draven had changed into such a blatant and unapologetic murderer there was very little he could do to correct that behavior now. He took comfort in the fact that his brother was alive.

He had paid for a room and had gone to his borrowed bed trying to ignore an ill-feeling in his gut all night, and when he returned to Korovino Redoubt in the morning, he saw that Scraps was dead.

The boy's body had been thrown out of the camp, knife buried up to the hilt in his little skull, body half-eaten by animals and giving off the beginnings of an ugly stench. There was a dog next to him in the same pitiful condition, its skull shattered and empty.

When he had come across him on the way to the village yesterday, Darius had asked Scraps to prowl about Korovino and find Draven. Having spared the child from a needless death on the battlefield, the older brother felt rather guilty when he saw the boy's gnawed corpse. What could he have done? He could have not asked the boy to find Draven at all, but it was too late now. The boy was useful while he lasted and he fixated on that idea with resentment that he didn't know he was capable of having.

Today was the tenth day, and he had to make his way to the fighting pit to see what his brother had become.

Strongbow was there already, and the archer offered him a seat next to him as the camp went about its business. The pit was not at all different from the one at Boram's Point- the sand was nigh black with old blood and the seats surrounding it were made of ancient dried wood. People were slowly filing in, holding stubs or some sort of refreshment as if they were simply going to watch a play.

"Beer?" The archer said in a damnably cheerful voice as he offered a foaming tankard.

"It's nine in the morning." Darius replied as he took the seat next to the man.

"We're on liberty." Strongbow said with a nasal whine that was highly unlike him. Perhaps that was his third or fourth. "We're allowed to drink and fuck around. You're being yourself again, that's not fun at all."

"You, sir," Darius said simply. "are drunk."

"On piss." Strongbow said with a half-burp. "I'll have you know I have ten gold riding on your brother's victory."

"He's quite the murderer." Darius said simply.

"So I've heard." Strongbow replied gamely. "What do you make of it?"

"Korovino changes people." He could not say anything more.

"That it does." The archer affirmed. "… Soooo, do you wish to bet on or against your brother?"

"… Why," Darius turned and looked at him as he said very patiently. "would I bet at all?"

"Don't you believe in your own brother?" The archer raised an eyebrow at him, a dazed smile playing in his eyes.

"I believe in his skill," Darius retorted. "Not in his mind. Who is he against?"

"Some bloke named Yardley." Strongbow informed him. "Strong contender who uses a chain mace and is not at all inclined for mercy either. They'd make a good pair."

"Yardley will play him, and you will lose your money." Darius said at once, if only to keep the conversation going. The men and women of Korovino were being marched out of their longhouses now, and Darius saw Draven at once.

His brother looked very raw, unpolished. There were the beginnings of some facial hair on his face but it seemed as if his brother hadn't decided yet on what style he should keep his whiskers in. It was unkempt and raggedy, not at all different from the scruff his father had before. Other than that, the younger man seemed to have fared better than everyone else- no doubt because of the better treatment he got as a reward. The moment Draven saw him, his little brother waved his hand, puffed his chest and offered him a smug look.

Darius took it to be his brother's usual posturing- watch me, I'm going to be better than you.

He didn't see any point in it.

"You guys seriously have problems." Strongbow piped up when he noted the way the two siblings stared at each other.

"With all due respect, sir, shut up and drink your piss."

"You can bet on Yardley," Strongbow chuckled, oblivious to Darius' retort.

"Gambling," Darius shot back as Olrug spoke about his bloodthirsty recruits. Darius filtered out the expletive-filled babble as he observed the rest of the people who were with them in the stands. He spotted the provost marshals well enough- they were carrying notebooks and pens. "Is hardly a fitting avenue to utilize my wage. I'd much rather put it in the Funds."

"I think," Strongbow said around his beer mug as he blinked at the fighting pit. "I think I shall keep my money on your brother."

"You'll lose it- and more." Darius grumbled darkly. "What are his odds against Yardley?"

"Fifteen to one but that hardly matters- I think he could do with a little bit of faith from you." Strongbow commented sagely. "I have a brother. I know."

"I might take you up on that drink." Darius snapped to change the topic before his former instructor decided to lecture him on how to treat Draven.

"Knew you'd come 'round." Strongbow clapped him on the shoulder merrily as he shoved his half-empty tankard in his former student's face.

"You're drinking from that one." Darius said without preamble.

"Oh dear," The archer mumbled. "Afraid of spit?"

"I'm not throttling you out of respect- sir."

"Wow, you got a pole in your ass." Strongbow remarked loudly. Those within earshot stared at the two of them in amusement- some drunker than others.

Darius decided there and then that he hated liberty as the archer changed hands and passed him a full tankard, albeit awkwardly.

The fights passed in a blur for Darius- he did not care for any of it at all and half-heartedly sipped at his tankard only to be polite, grimacing at the taste of the beer and wondering why he was sitting here and waiting for his brother to play a crowd to the tune of murder. On the other hand, Strongbow seemed to genuinely enjoy himself, shouting and stamping his feet every time something happened down in the pit.

When it was finally Draven's turn, Darius leaned forward and nudged Strongbow to do the same.

"There's Yardley." Strongbow burbled with a wiggling index finger as a large and imposing man walked into the blood-soaked sands of the pit. He was better armored than Draven, who was practically naked from the waist up, and carried a frightening looking chain mace laden with spikes in one massive hand.

"Fight, you worms!" Olrug shouted to start the match, and Darius saw Draven strike a pose. The crowd held their collective breath.

"You fucking idiot." Darius growled at once as Yardley capitalized on his brother's hubris, whipping the deadly flail at him. Draven rolled out of the way- if anything, being half naked allowed him to move faster than the man across him- and posed again.

"Come on!" Draven said with a merry howl as he pulled his blades from his back- the things were still the same ones Darius had seen all those months ago when his brother had done nothing with them but juggle. "You gotta work harder than that to hit the magnificent Draaaaaaaaaaaaven!"

Darius suppressed the urge to hold his head in his hands.

"You talk a lot." Yardley retorted as he advanced, whirling the flail in his hands into a deadly circular storm. The longer he spun it on the chain, the harder it became to see the actual spiked end.

"You're a fucking moron." Darius muttered under his breath as Draven replied to Yardley's insult with the same sentence.

"You two are so adorable." Strongbow piped in unhelpfully. Darius shoved the man's tankard into his face and the archer made an annoyed yelp- his lips bruised on the rim.

"Rude." The archer grumbled.

"Shut up." Darius hissed around the side of his mouth as Draven began to juggle his blades. If all Yardley had to do was spin his flail, his brother had the more complicated task of keeping two blades in the air. Draven began to throw his blades at Yardley, but the man deflected the thrown weapons each and every time. For his part, Draven made it a game to catch the deflected blades by their hilts, and soon the fight looked more like a circus act rather than a duel of life and death as Draven juggled and cajoled the crowd into a frenzy with each successful catch, their voices rising and falling with every arc the blades flew.

"Let's make it three!" Draven hollered gamely as he threw an extra blade into his act, throwing and watching Yardley deflect it back at him. "Three's a charm!"

Not for the first time in his life, Darius found himself despairing at the fact his brother was such a showman. This display was entertaining everyone but him- if he had been the one in the pit, Yardley would have been dead within the first ten seconds, but his brother was making this a game, prolonging the fight and playing with everything and everyone. Certainly, his roots as a performer were showing and he was making a good impression of himself as someone who made a spectacle of death, as someone who made this sort of thing worth watching- but was he officer material?

Darius glanced at the nearest provost marshal, noted the way the man did not seem impressed. He scanned the crowd for more marshals, and saw that most of them were shaking their heads and murmuring among themselves- Draven was doing too much and taking too long, and the marshals were keen to move on.

For all the disapproval he was building with those in authority, Draven had the crowd on his side and he knew it- practically laughing and dancing on his feet, feeding off the reactions of the assembled men and women who chose this day to watch Korovino's pit fights. He treated Yardley like a complacent assistant, but the man knew what he was doing. It didn't take long for Darius to notice it- with each throw and catch his brother was doing, Yardley would move forward a little bit, and he would swipe at his brother. Draven dodged the tries easily by rolling to the side, but ultimately, he did not move away from Yardley and he was backing himself into a corner he probably did not notice. Soon Yardley would be in range to pummel Draven to the ground, and his brother would not expect that at all, given how drunk he was with the crowd's excitement and his own amusement.

Darius could watch his sibling die, or he could tell the idiot that he was making a mistake.

He could hardly bear the thought of failing his parents again.

"Draven you fucking moron!" The man who would become the Hand of Noxus stood up and shouted at his brother, his voice carrying farther than he thought it would as cold panic took him and overwhelmed him. "He's going to fucking kill you! LOOK HOW FUCKING CLOSE HE IS!"

Draven halted, distracted as he stared at his brother in askance. Yardley saw that was his chance and swung his arm-

Suddenly, Strongbow reached over and pulled him down savagely. His ass hit the chair hard enough to clip his tailbone. As Darius stiffened up in involuntary pain, Draven leapt out of the way of Yardley's swipe, throwing all three blades at him.

"Fucking gods, rule number one!" Strongbow rambled as he took Darius by the collar and shook him, tankard of beer forgotten in his panic. "RULE NUMBER ONE!"

"Get off me!" Darius hissed as he pushed back at the archer as the rest of the crowd collapsed into shocked silence. "What about Draven, huh?"

"You don't fucking understand-" Strongbow wailed in his face. "You broke rule number one! He's going to be disqualified, you imbecile!"

Shit.

"What!?" Darius howled back as the sound of a body falling onto the sands filled the air. He craned his head over to look and found Draven standing over Yardley's corpse.

His brother had won, but-

"He was doing really well and you went and ruined it!" Strongbow babbled hysterically at him.

"If you weren't piss drunk, maybe you could've told me that earlier, huh?" Darius snarled back as he shoved Strongbow away from him.

"I thought you fucking knew it already!" The archer lamented as he stared at him in unrestrained anguish. "Rule number one- don't talk to the recruits! how dense do you have to fucking be!? I'm not going to be around to explain shit to you forever!"

"Shut up!" Darius snapped irritably, his anger hiding a panic he hadn't felt in months. "Did he win or not?"

"Of course he didn't win, you dumb shit- he's disqualified and you disqualified him!" The archer wailed again. "He'd be lucky if Olrug lets a marshal pick him now- you dense motherfucker! Look!" Strongbow took his face in one quaking hand and jerked it towards Olrug's direction- the training master's mouth was in a thin line, his disapproval palpable across the distance.

Draven was staring at Olrug too, and his smile was rapidly fading from his face.

Author's Notes: hi i'm still alive.

Nothing much to say here other than the fact it escalated very quickly. Might go back to this when I revise to correct the flow.

Anyway, other than that, a lot of stuff happened in the interim between updates but yeah! Still working on this, doing the thing, crying a lot ahahhuhu.

Anyway, don't be afraid to throw questions or ask for clarifications ooooor to tell me how much of a horrible person I am to leave you at a cliffhanger.

Also Shadow is officially one year old- joy of joys.