A.N.: A slightly shorter one this time. Someone in a PM requested Aatrox and/or more Darius some time ago and I couldn't help spawning this idea.
To my lovely reviewers: I love all of you, it's great that I'm getting feedback on this story. I welcome constructive criticism, but still it's good that most of the reviews are positive. :) I usually reply through PMs, but for those of you who have no ffnet accounts I'll have some answers after the chapter. Please enjoy!
Darius put a considerable effort into building a reputation as a muscle-brained brute. Most of the time it was worth the effort: his enemies underestimated him, both as a warrior and a general.
On the downside, it meant that he had to do his professional reading in out-of-the-way places. His room didn't count on the grounds that he shared it with Draven and every man, woman or other Draven happened to woo at the time. As the younger brother had an unfortunate tendency to sprawl all over the bed and hog all the available space, the actual date usually ended up in Darius's bed for the night, who in turn had built a strong, lasting friendship with the couch.
His usual reading sport was at the back of Zyra's garden, next to the pond of poisonous water lilies and under the equally poisonous apple trees. The garden was an infamous collecting place of deadly flora, but as long as you remembered to stay out of the water and didn't eat anything, it was perfectly safe. Thankfully this was not common knowledge, thus the garden had evaded the rebuilding going on all over the Institute.
Darius was heading there with a thick tome held securely in his hands. If someone caught him with it, he could always say he was making a delivery, but now that he finally got his hands on it, he was impatient to read it.
But Fate (not the one with the cards and the hat) has a funny way of crossing plans, thus Darius found his spot already occupied by someone else.
Without the size adjusting magic of the Rift, Aatrox looked menacingly large, even hunched over his book. His horns and wings reached the lowest branches of the apple tree and the only way he could sit on the low bench was with his long legs stretched out, knee-deep in the water. His sword, almost as tall as Darius, was leant against the trunk, emanating a shimmering red glow. Darius had a nagging feeling that the weapon looked almost… hungry.
The darkin looked up when he heard Darius approaching. He tilted his head to the side and seemed to look straight through the Noxian.
"The Complete Anatomy Of The Yordles, by Daniel Coupable. Interesting choice," Aatrox commented, though Darius had no idea how he managed to read the title from that angle. "Came to do some light reading?"
Calling the massive medical tome "light reading" was somewhat belittling, but at least it proved that the darkin had some sense of humor. Darius, along with all the Noxians, was under strict orders not to cause any trouble, so he indented to be civil with his fellow champion.
"That's one way to put it. I didn't expect to have company here." He glared pointedly at the darkin who stared back with unblinking eyes.
"You are not the only one who felt that his choice of literature would arouse unwanted questions," he rumbled. Then, much to Darius's astonishment, he moved over to the farther end of the bench, leaving a considerable empty space for the Noxian. He still invaded Aatrox's personal space when he sat down because of the broad wings, but he didn't seem touchy about it.
"What are you reading? Darius asked as he took a seat. It was the sort of personal question one simply did not ask the Darkin Blade, he knew it very well, but if Aatrox didn't want to answer he shouldn't have mentioned it. Anyway, it wasn't as if he wouldn't back off if he said that it was none of Darius's business.
"Lady Strongshield's From Soul, Hearth and Courage," Aatrox said, his eyes returning to the yellowing pages.
For a very long moment, Darius didn't know what to say. He was taken aback to say the least.
"You seem surprised," Aatrox chuckled, turning the page. "Is it so uncharacteristic for me to appreciate poetry?"
It wasn't, now that Darius thought about it. Aatrox was exactly the kind of person who would go waxing poetic about his 'art'. And Lady Strongshield was a rakkor poet renowned for her war poems, among other things.
The other thing she was known for was love poetry so sweet it gave you cavities. Darius somehow doubted that Aatrox was an overly romantic soul.
He was also looking intently at him again, so Darius tried to steer the subject to slightly different waters.
"Is this the same Strongshield who wrote Letters to a Thorny Rose?" he asked, opening his own book. The Rose was the rakkor's most famous collection, not surprising in the lights of the full title: Letters to a Thorny Rose, or Advice on How to Woe Foreign Men and Women Alike. Hidden in the flower metaphors and sugar-sweet coating was a collection of romantic conquests of different classes, cultures and nations and contained the exact methods on how to do the same.
"Indeed. I find myself surprised that you are familiar with that… book." There was a distaste here that proved Darius's theory that Aatrox favored only the war poetry and not the romantic musings.
"I share a room with Draven," the Noxian said with a shrug. A book that makes you look cultured and has solid instructions on how to pick up a date? Of course his brother knew it inside out and by proxy, so did Darius to some extent. "It's the secret of his success, or so he says. Works every time."
"Your brother is grossly exaggerating as always," Aatrox commented offhandedly, eyes returning to his read.
Darius on the other hand had completely forgotten about his own. He didn't like everything Draven did – more like most of the things Draven did – but as the older brother he still felt the urge to protect his sibling.
"Do you call Draven a liar?" he asked sharply.
"Did your brother ever managed to bed a rakkor with Strongshield's manual?" Aatrox retaliated and, when his question was met with long, fuming silence, said "I thought so."
"You know something I don't."
"Yes. I used to know Strongshield." He flipped to the first page of his book and showed it to Darius. The dedication read: to that bastard darkin, who leads my sword in battle.
"Charming."
"It was, by her standards. These are her best works, real masterpieces of war poetry. She felt she owed me this much after she used me as a – what was the expression? – date magnet."
"I call bullshit," Darius said instantly, struggling to imagine Aatrox involved in anything to do with seduction.
"I spent a few decades in rakkor territory in the days they had regular campaigns. Some believed me a god even." He huffed a laugh. "Strongshield's mastery of words was enough reason for me to put up with her from time to time and to a warrior, "the god of war tolerates me better than most" was a fairly appealing pick-up line in that period. A successful enough method that she never bothered to try other among her own people"
"Hmph."
"I would expect less skepticism from a warrior reading advanced medical notes."
"I would not be half as bloody good a warrior if I didn't. My trademark strikes take years of practice and thorough anatomical knowledge to land."
"You possess the brute strength to chop a man's head off with one strike. One could argue that you need not rely on precision to kill," Aatrox pointed out. There was an unasked question there- Unvoiced to give him a chance to evade It if he wished, but after the darkin so readily admitted being sort of friends with a poet and seductress, Darius decided to answer it anyway.
"I wanted to be a doctor when I was young. The interest still lingers."
Darius remembered when he finally gave up on his goal to pursue medicine. He was already a big, strong kid when their parents died. Draven was young, too young to work, so he needed a way to make a living before they could end up on the streets. There was no room left for pointless dreams or funding to waste. Enlisting to the army was the reasonable thing to do – he had regular pay to put food on the table and a roof over Draven's head and he was good at fighting. Never understood the bloodlust some of the others felt, but he was good enough in his cold, methodical way to get into the Noxian Military Academy and earn the patronage of a wealthy family. The rest was history.
Thankfully, Aatrox didn't press the issue.
"Your talents would have been wasted as a medic," was all he said before he returned to his book.
Darius waited a few more moments for further comments. None came, but the darkin suddenly went rigid beside him. A look of annoyance crossed Aatrox's face and he lifted one of his legs from the water, now trapped by an intricate weaving of spiky roots up to his knee, bleeding slightly.
It appeared that the water lilies gnawed on his tough skin long enough to pierce it.
"Are these weeds poisonous?" he asked, tearing away the clingy flora.
To Darius's knowledge they were meant to cause instantaneous paralysis, hence the rule 'stay out of the water'.
"Not really. If they bother you, there's a bigger bench away from the water just by the venomous laburnum," Darius suggested, hoping to have his hideaway all to himself again.
"Venomous?" Aatrox asked, narrowing his eyes. Darius waved a hand in the air.
"It doesn't bite unless you try to pick its flowers."
"That's reassuring." Despite his clear doubts, Aatrox heeded the advice and with a parting nod left to find a reading spot more suited for his impressive stature. Darius watched him disappear behind a wild hedge, slightly favoring his right leg.
With a shake of his head the Noxian picked up his book, intent on enjoying a calm afternoon of reading.
Finally alone.
Thank you for reading! Please consider leaving a review or just throw ideas at me about who you would like to see. Inspiration is a chaotic thing, but at least some of them ought to stick. ;)
SageEmpress: I'm glad you liked the chapter. I'm waiting for inspiration to strike for a pentakill-centered chapter, so (hopefully) there will be more Sona-Morde interaction in the future.
For the very enthusiastic Altus597: It was great reading your comments. Really, they made my day. :D Sadly, I play on EUNE so we can't play together, but I will try to deliver the other requests. ;)
To the lovely Guest who asked for more world building: It was a joy to read your words and I hope that you will enjoy the rest of the story as well. Urgot is definitely an underappreciated champion, so I definitely plan to include him at one point or another.
I have a silly amount of notes laying around where I try to flesh out the world I'm making here, in an attempt to have consistency through the chapters. I have a habit to get caught up in this and turn a story into a huge, boring mess of world building and not much of a story, so I try to concentrate on the characters for the time being, but I will definitely put more and more into the chapters when I get comfortable with the story.