Chapter 7

That had been the first strike.

After Monarri got home and heard about the incident, she'd ushered Talon back to his room and that was where he'd stayed for the rest of the day. He decided he wouldn't come down anymore, not for anything, no matter how hungry or thirsty he got.

By nightfall, he felt drained. He glanced up at the moon through the window of the attic space, reminded of how despite his lot in life, he was once free in Noxus. Free to roam, free to just be. Before the hunters came…

He remembered chasing rats along the gutters, wanting to catch them and pet them. The daring runs one could make from local law enforcement, after stealing from the bakery. It was all so far away now, a part of his life he wondered if he'd ever see again.

This was a better life for him, Monarri had told him. But Talon had never felt so suffocated and trapped.

A creak on the floor below him startled Talon, the sound of the attic stairs being pulled down. It was tentative, clearly trying to be secretive. Talon felt himself bristling, readying himself to take on someone intruding in his space. However, when the familiar dark purple hair and amber eyes of Quinn came into view, he visibly untensed.

She was holding a bag that looked loaded with something. Placing a finger on her lips, requesting Talon's silence, she came closer, holding the bag out when she was roughly a meter away from him. He gingerly reached and took it, having a small gander within.

Food. Food and a canteen of water. He saw some fruits, a few sandwiches that had gotten a little mushed up in the bag, and a little cake of some kind. Talon looked up from the bounty, tilting his head to her. As if she read his exact thoughts, she rubbed the back of her head before speaking in a whisper.

"I felt really bad I got you in trouble… I know you just got scared. Mum said you don't know how to behave yet…"

"Behave?" Talon repeated. It was a word he wasn't familiar with. "What is 'behave'?"

Quinn nodded. "Behaving is like... knowing what's okay to do and what's not. Right and wrong, kind of."

Talon frowned. In Noxus, survival was the only rule. There were no manners or etiquette, just proving your worth and earning that right to survive. "Sounds stupid…" Talon muttered, shoving a handful of cake into his mouth. Chewing loudly as his hunger became more apparent.

"It is not!" Quinn said, her whisper becoming slightly louder from slight indignation. "I can teach you how to behave and how people live in houses properly, if you want?"

"Don't bother…" Talon mumbled as he ate. "They won't keep me here long."

Quinn shook her head sadly at him. "My mum wants to help you. Help you be happy and safe, not scared and hungry and hurting people… Can't you just give her and us a chance?"

Talon just kept the bag of food to his chest and turned away. He wouldn't eat again until he heard her finally leave his living space.

The next afternoon, Talon planned his escape. He'd saved some of the food Quinn had snuck to him, and a meal left by the attic stairs was shoved into the bag too with no regard for the mess. He observed Tarian leave the house to tend to the smithy, then took his chance. Out of the front door and bolting down the path, he laughed with glee as the house soon became a small speck in the distance.

"Noxus, here I come!" he cried joyfully as he ran eastward.

The joy was short-lived. After thirty minutes, Talon heard something approaching behind him, fast and hooved. A man on a horse was galloping towards him, wearing a ranger's uniform. Talon swallowed and began to pick up his pace and finally ran. How stupid he was being, you do not outrun a four-legged animal.

The horse cut him off, and the man on it dismounted. "Talon, is it?" the ranger said, his face a mix of exasperation and slight amusement. "Come on, I'm taking you back home, kid."

Talon backed away, his eyes darting for an escape route. "Leave me alone!"

Before Talon could bolt, though, the ranger swiftly grabbed him by the arm, lifting him onto the horse with seemingly little to no effort. "Come on, let's get you back." But Talon was not going to cooperate so easily.

When they'd finally arrived back at the farmhouse, Talon's clothes were torn, and he sported new bruises from the various struggles. Monarri was waiting at the gate, arms crossed and a brow raised as the horse approached with her expected cargo on board.

"One Noxian," the ranger joked, patting the boy on the head, presenting a glaring Talon. The boy responded with an enraged attempt to grab the ranger's arm, but he retracted it too fast. "You're not the first child I've dealt with from there," he added, smirking.

Monarri sighed, stepping forward. "Thank you, Kiran. I appreciate it."

Talon just shot him a venomous glare as he remounted the horse but said nothing. Monarri placed a firm hand on his shoulder, guiding him towards the house. "He's home!" she called, bringing him into the living room and began inspecting him for any wounds. Talon irritatedly slapped her hand away.

"We're trying to help you, running off like that is helping nobody, Talon," she told him sternly.

Talon looked away, avoiding her gaze. Shame and anger overcame the young Noxian. "Don't need your help. Fine alone."

"Were you?" Monarri asked, her eyes searching his. "You were starving. Severely underweight, covered in wounds and infections…I've never seen so many head lice on one child–"

"Shut up!" Talon snapped, before his head dropped again. Turning away as he held himself, he was shaking but he wasn't cold.

Talon was allowed to storm away to his attic space shortly after, but it wouldn't be his last bid for freedom…

After his third attempt to run away that week, Talon was once again brought back to the cottage by one of Monarri's fellow rangers. Today, as Talon had just gotten up the big hill, he'd seen the familiar horse standing on the road waiting for him. He didn't even fight as they approached and collected him.

He was taken inside without another word exchanged until the door shut behind them. Monarri sighed and folded her arms, looking down at her wayward foster case. "What am I going to do with you, Talon…?" She didn't get a response, which both parties had come to expect at this point. "You run off again, and we'll have no choice but to consider other housing options."

Talon looked up, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. "Other housing options?" he repeated, but she'd told him all other 'foster' places couldn't take him in for a long, long time. Never, it seemed.

"Yes," Monarri affirmed. "You can't keep running away like this. It's dangerous, and it's not fair to any of us. If guards pick you up, you'd be sent somewhere far, not even Noxus."

"Where?"

"I don't know, but we'd not see you again. Nor would you see the light of day most likley."

Talon's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Monarri took a step closer, her expression softening just a tad. "We want to help you, Talon. But you need to meet us halfway." She saw his expression change from stubborn to unsure, fearful. "...Come have some dinner later, you'll feel better. I bet you're hungry from being on the run for twenty five whole minutes."

xxx

Two days passed. At the top of that same hill Kiran waited on his steed, expecting any second now to spy the little scrappy mite making his next break for it. As he did at the same time, every other day. No sign of the feral amber eyes and scruffy birds nest hair this time however. Shrugging, he began to move on, hoping by now Monarri had gotten the Noxian under control.

Talon sat in the front room of the cottage home. Making annoyed little growls as Quinn was fixing the medical wraps around his eye. "It's looking better now!" She told him with a smile. "Still looks red and sore, but it's opened up and all the gross crusty stuff is gone!"

It had stopped itching and bothering him lately. Talon could actually sleep without the urge to scratch and rub his eye. Monarri had been diligently cleaning and applying medical salve to it every morning and night, unbothered if Talon was going to tolerate her doing it or not.

"Light hurts…" Talon mumbled, letting her readjust his bandages to cover the sore eye again. "But I'm not blind…That's good."

"Yeah! And you look better, you don't look as sickly and skinny since we first met, you know!"

"When I tried to kill you?"

She laughed a bit nervously. "You weren't going to kill me! You were just scared!... Right?" Talon said nothing in response, feeling no answer at all was the best answer to that. Quinn's laugh trailed off, and she cleared her throat, reaching for a book from a small stack beside her.

As Quinn began showing Talon some of her books, Caleb passed by and stopped. He reversed, seeing his sister now trying to engage with Talon. His eyes widened in alarm.

"Quinn, get away from him!" he cried. "Dad's outside, he can't stop him if he goes mental again!"

Quinn shot her brother with a sharp look. "Caleb, stop it! He's not going to hurt anyone! Look at him!"

Her brother didn't look convinced, giving Quinn the same tut many guards had given Talon when he'd insisted he hadn't stolen anything when apprehended randomly. "Ignore him, he's just being a massive jerk."

"He doesn't like me," Talon stated.

"He'll come around. Don't worry about it…"

"I'm not afraid of him. I could kill him easily."

"Talon! No more talk about killing!" Quinn scolded him, eyes sternly narrowing. "We don't like that here, okay? Maybe in Nox-us, it's okay to go around killing people but here we don't!"

He went quiet, his gaze going down onto the book and the pictures within it. "Sometimes killing isn't okay, but the powerful people get to decide all the time." Talon traced the pictures in the book with his finger, his thoughts distant. "In Noxus, it's needed. If you're not strong, you're nothing."

"Do you think you're strong? Or are you 'nothing'?"

Talon thought. He wasn't physically strong enough most days. Some winters he'd almost died from hunger and the bitter cold. "One day I'd be strong enough…Enough to leave the wastes and live like the rich do."

His stash had probably been stolen by now without him there to protect it. Years of collecting, gone to waste. Talon sighed inwardly. "But the rich didn't want me, they hate us."

"Who is 'us'?" Quinn asked, tilting her head. "You had family?"

"...No. No family," Talon looked on wistfully. Family was something he'd never had, but he found himself some days watching with a sense of longing. He remembered sitting by the docks out of sight, seeing a small Noxian family board a vessel. The way a young boy held onto his mother's hand. The father carrying their bags with a proud smile.

He'd asked one of the adults in the tavern what he could do to find grown ups. Grown ups who'd take care of him like they did to the boy on the docks. They'd all laughed, snorting he's too far past a 'sell by date' to be expecting that now. A family became something he had never allowed himself to hope for after that.

Quinn saw the way he looked down, his shoulders slumping slightly. Gently placing a hand on his. "Well…I know you don't like us much right now, but we can be your family."

His throat tightened, and he swallowed hard, unsure of how to respond to such a kind gesture.

Two weeks passed without further incident. Talon began to be reintroduced to eating at the table with the rest of them. Given a bit of extra space to feel less threatened about his food.

He watched the way they all ate with the cutlery provided, glancing to the untouched fork by the side of his plate. Reaching for it and grasping it in a curious, untrained grip. Then mimicking how they used it, he stabbed it into the sausage on his plate. Monarri gave the smallest smile watching him chew on the food at the end of his fork.

One evening, Monarri gently removed his eye bandage, revealing a healthy-looking amber eye staring back at her. Free from the infection that had plagued it for weeks, he could blink again without irritation. Talon blinked a few times, adjusting to the light and the sensation of having both eyes clear. Less sores and infections slowly improved Talon's mood. He felt less cranky and snappy around Quinn and her family.

Monarri gave Talon his first haircut in a long time. He squirmed and put up a small fight, which was to be expected. But once she tidied up his hair, getting it to a more manageable length, he stared at the mirror in slight amazement at the transformation.

During meals, Talon gradually became more comfortable using cutlery, his dexterity matching his age as he used his knife and fork with confidence. He no longer guarded his food so fiercely, beginning to trust that there would always be enough for him.

Quinn invited him to her room more, teaching him a few games. He mostly just silently watched, preferring to observe rather than engage. But Quinn was happy to have him as silent company as she showed off her card collection. Talon smiled, for the first time in so long.

He was starting to understand this was what it would be like to be the children playing in the garden, or be the boy at the docks.

Maybe this was family.

A/N: Sorry for the delay cross posting.