Chapter Text
The rain had already soaked through him by the time Darius left the road.
It wasn’t instinct. It wasn’t sentiment. It was the same calculation that had kept him alive for decades: the land dipped wrong, the trees grew too close together, the quiet between the sounds of rain stretched just a fraction too long. Patrol routes avoided this stretch of forest. That alone was reason enough to cut through it.
He urged his horse forward, branches scraping against armor dulled by water and mud. The rain thickened, turning the ground into a sucking mire that pulled at the hooves. Visibility dropped to shadows and motion.
Then the horse balked.
Darius tightened the reins and followed its gaze.
At first, he thought it was a fallen tree. Then he saw the shape of a man.
The figure lay half-curled at the base of an old oak, clothing dulled to gray by rain and grime. A sword-- once sharp and shiny, perhaps-- was tangled beneath a fallen branch near the man, heavy with mud. One arm was flung out awkwardly, fingers twitching, as though grasping at something that wasn’t there.
Darius dismounted slowly.
He approached from the side, hand already resting on the haft of his axe. The rain plastered dark hair to the man’s forehead, streaked his face with mud and blood. The clothing was unmistakable.
Demacian. And a noble or commander of elite rank, judging by the gilded accents of his tunic.
The sharp jaw, dark hair, and chiseled cheekbones showed that it was no other than Garen Crownguard.
Darius’ brows furrowed. He crouched and pushed two fingers against the man’s neck. A pulse answered him. It was slow and uneven, but strong.
Then he saw it as he turned the man’s curled body.
An enormous black flower bloomed against his chest, its tendrils spread wide and intimate, petals clinging like a lover’s grasp. Its surface glistened wetly, pulsing faintly with every breath he took.
Black Mercy.
Darius’s jaw tightened.
Of all the ways a Demacian commander could fall, this was almost poetic. No blade. No battlefield. Just surrender disguised as peace.
He followed the line of the vine up to the man’s face.
Garen Crownguard looked… wrong.
His brow was smooth, the tension that usually carved lines into his expression utterly gone. His mouth was relaxed, almost curved into something like relief. His breathing deepened as Darius watched, and with it came a faint sound, too soft to be a word, but too deliberate to be nothing.
A name, perhaps. Or a memory.
He looked serene.
Darius had seen that look before. On soldiers who never woke up. On experimental victims who were placed under too long.
He straightened slowly.
Removing the Black Mercy first would be faster. Cleaner. But the plant didn’t just trap the body. It rewired the mind. When it came off, whatever peace it fed on vanished with it, and what remained tended to wake violent, confused, and desperate to reclaim what had been taken.
Garen was already dangerous. Garen waking like that would be worse.
Darius reached for the rope instead.
He worked quickly, efficiently, ignoring the rain as it ran down his arms. He rolled Garen onto his side, braced a knee against his back, and bound his wrists tight behind him. The Demacian stirred, muscles tensing instinctively, but did not wake. Darius bound his ankles next, looping the rope through armor and boot, testing each knot twice.
Only then did he pause.
Up close, Garen smelled like rain and blood and something else. Warm, human, and stubbornly alive. The Black Mercy’s tendrils twitched faintly under Darius’s shadow, as if aware it was no longer unobserved.
He did not touch it yet.
Instead, he studied Garen’s face one last time.
There was no fear there. No anger. None of the righteous fury Darius had come to expect whenever their paths crossed on the battlefield. Whatever world the Black Mercy had given him, Garen had gone willingly.
How unfortunate, Darius thought. It bothered Darius more than the magical plant reappearing on these lands once again.
Then, he reached down and tore the Black Mercy free. He braced himself.
The reaction was immediate.
Garen gasped as if surfacing from deep water, his body arching against the restraints. A strangled sound tore from his throat, raw and disbelieving, and his head thrashed once before Darius pinned him down with practiced force.
The flower shriveled in Darius’s grasp, its petals curling inward as it died before he discarded it onto the wet earth.
Garen went still.
Not calm, never calm, but contained. His breathing came sharp and shallow now, his brow creased, his jaw clenched as if holding something back. Whatever dream had held him was gone, and the world had returned all at once.
Darius didn’t wait for his eyes to open.
He hauled Garen up, slung him over the horse with brutal efficiency, and secured him there like cargo. Prisoner. Liability.
The rain kept falling.
By the time Garen woke fully, they were already moving. He struggled on the horse when he’d collected his bearings, but lacked the ability to break from his binds.
“Who are you?” The commander asked. “Where are you taking me?”
Darius ignored him. He pulled his hood up further before the Demacian could lift his head fully, shadowing his face.
He continued to walk by the horse’s shoulder, on the side where Garen’s feet hung, and where he was less likely to be seen and recognized no matter how hard Garen tried to get a glimpse of him from his position.
The storm broke properly an hour later.
Rain turned to sheets, the kind that flattened sound and erased distance, soaked through cloak and leather until even armor felt like dead weight. Darius abandoned the idea of reaching the outpost when the path vanished into mud and runoff, the horse blowing hard next to him.
He saw the house only because it was darker than the trees.
A squat thing at the forest’s edge, half-swallowed by ivy and time. One wall sagged, the roof bowed inward, but it stood. That was enough.
Garen stirred as they drew closer. Darius felt it through the reins–the shift of weight, the low sound pulled from a chest that was cushioning his whole body against the horse’s back.
By the time they reached the door, Garen was testing his movement and binds again..
“–gh–” Garen sucked in a breath, sharp and disoriented. “Where–”
Darius didn’t answer. He hauled him down from the horse with little ceremony, boots slipping in the mud, and shoved him forward. The door gave with a crack and a protest of rotting wood. Darius forced Garen inside, shouldering him hard enough that he stumbled and caught himself on the floor with a muffled curse. Darius tied his horse down with a quick knot by the door.
Then, door slammed shut behind them.
For a moment, there was only darkness, faint light from the dark afternoon sky, and the roar of rain on the roof.
Then Darius crossed the room and knelt at the hearth. He struck flint once. Twice. On the third spark, dry kindling caught, the flame licking upward and throwing light across the walls.
Across Garen.
The Demacian had twisted around as far as the ropes allowed, shoulders squared despite the position, blue eyes already sharp with returning awareness. Mud streaked his face. His hair clung damply to his forehead. The calm Darius had seen under the Black Mercy was gone without a trace.
Recognition hit him like a blade.
“You,” Garen said.
The word wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
Darius stood slowly, firelight catching on wet armor and the edge of his axe. He pulled back his rain-soaked hood. “Me.”
Garen’s jaw tightened. His gaze hardened, then flicked to the door, the window, the fire. He catalogued the space in a heartbeat. Trained. Focused. His hands tested the ropes.
“Untie me,” Garen said finally.
“No.”
“Coward,” Garen spat. “Had to bind me while I was–” He cut himself off, breath hitching once. “While I wasn’t myself.”
Darius stepped closer, boots heavy against the floorboards. “You were very much yourself,” he said flatly. “That was the problem.”
Garen laughed, short and incredulous. “Whatever helps you sleep at night. It doesn’t change the fact that you tied me up while I was out of it.”
“You were incapacitated in hostile territory,” Darius replied evenly. “I secured you.”
“Secured,” Garen repeated, eyes flashing. “You call this securing, coward?”
“I call it restraint. You can call it survival,” Darius crouched in front of him. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
Garen held his gaze, fury burning hot and clean. “You should have killed me.”
The words landed harder than Darius expected.
“And you call me the coward?” He asked evenly. He rose abruptly and turned away, adding another piece of wood to the fire with more force than necessary. “That would have been inefficient, Commander Crownguard.”
“Inefficient,” Garen echoed after a beat. “Is that what this is, then? Some Noxian calculation?”
“Yes.”
Silence stretched, filled by the crackle of the fire and the drum of rain. Garen shifted, testing the ropes. They held.
“If your plan was to interrogate me, you’re doing a poor job,” Garen said with a frown.
Darius didn’t turn. “You’re not here to be questioned.”
That gave Garen pause.
“…Then why am I here?”
Darius finally faced him again. His expression was as it always was: hard, unreadable, carved from command.
“Because the storm decided you would be,” he said. “And because you are more dangerous awake than dead.”
Darius watched as the realization hit Garen. They weren’t where they needed to be. Not yet. If not for the storm, they would still be on the road. Darius watched as those blue eyes focused and looked again at the house that protected them from the elements.
Then Garen studied him, something wary threading through his anger now. “And you?”
Darius’s eyes narrowed. “What about me?”
“If I’m dangerous,” Garen said, “What does that make you, staying in a shack with me?”
The question hung there.
Darius answered it the only way he could.
“Alert,” he said. “And very patient.”
Garen leaned back as far as the ropes allowed, breath steadying, gaze never leaving Darius’s face. “Then we’re going to have a long night.”
Darius did not disagree.
He took position between Garen and the door, back to the wall, axe within reach, eyes on the Demacian as the fire burned lower and the storm raged on outside, trapping captor and captive together, with no illusion left about who the other was.
After a long stretch of fire and rain and breathing, Garen moved closer to the wall, closer to the hearth. He leaned against the wall and stared at the interior of the shack.
Darius watched as the seconds ticked by, till the minutes became an hour. He refused to sleep now, knowing better than to underestimate Garen Crownguard, even when he’s bound at the wrists and tied to a post.
“Demacia teaches a story to its recruits,” Garen said after an hour of listening to the rain pour and the wind howl.
Darius didn’t respond.
Garen continued anyway. “Two soldiers on opposite sides meet. One believes in order. The other believes in strength.”
A pause. The fire cracked. Darius added another piece from the quickly depleting pile of dry wood.
“They fight for years. Never speaking. Never understanding one another. They rise in ranks,” Garen continued. “Eventually, one captures the other while in neutral territory.”
Darius continued to stare at the dancing shadows and firelight at the wall across from them, watching his long-time adversary from the corner of his eye.
“The story says the captive begs. Or the captor kills him.” Bound hands tested the ropes again, shifting as he did. Finally, he leaned his head back against the stone wall.
He tilted his head, looking at Darius through the firelight. “No one ever talks about what happens when neither of those things occurs.”
Darius wanted to shake his head. No combat tactic or strategy had prepared him for this kind of scenario. He never thought he’d even find himself in this situation in all his years as a Noxian general. So if Garen had any moment to be right, it was with that last part.
Instead of showing his agreement, Darius added another piece of wood to their fire. “Stories are for people who expect clean endings,” was all that he said.
But his posture shifted. His fists tightened. His watch grew sharper.
Garen didn’t try to escape. He tried to understand the shape of the cage. And that made him infinitely more dangerous.