destiny
In Noxus year 967, Besilico
Though the Varne family mansion wasn't considered a grand estate, it was once filled with the exotic fragrance and warmth of Ionian spices. Quileta remembered the morning before her father left; he ruffled her hair vigorously, his eyes gleaming with a thirst for wealth: "Little Quileta, when you return this time, Daddy will bring you the finest Ionian silk and buy your mother the best pearls! Our Varne family is going to rise again!" Her mother stood at the door, her face filled with worry, yet she still gently reminded her husband to be careful on his journey. No one could have imagined that this would be their last farewell.
The devastating news spread like wildfire throughout the city. "The Varne family's fleet... is completely gone! They were caught in a once-in-a-century hurricane, and both the crew and the ships were wiped out!"
Creditors swarmed in like vultures, coldly inventorying every valuable item in the mansion with mortgage deeds bearing red fingerprints. Quileta's mother, the once elegant lady, withered away within days. She tried to plead, tried to argue, but the cold deeds and the even colder hearts of the creditors shattered her last hope. On a chilling night, when the last piece of furniture was gone, she hung herself from the old oak tree at the mansion's entrance—her most tragic and powerless protest against fate.
Eleven-year-old Darius, clutching his three-year-old son Draven who was still unaware of what was happening and was pouting due to the somber atmosphere, arrived at the old Vaughn family home following the address he had found. This was the scene he witnessed: the once tidy yard was now a mess; a girl knelt beside a body covered with a tattered straw mat, her shoulders heaving violently, unable to utter a loud cry—her tears had long since dried. A cold wind blew up the corner of the mat, revealing the woman's bluish-purple ankles. Darius recognized that despair—exactly the same feeling he had when he witnessed his mother's death.
Darius put his brother down, silently stepped forward, and covered the woman's ankles again. Then, he knelt down and looked at Quileta's tear-streaked face.
“Our father… was on that ship too.” Darius’s voice was low and hoarse, carrying a weight beyond his years.
Quileta looked up, bewildered, at the unfamiliar boy who was much taller than her, and at the feet of the innocent little toddler. The shared pain of their tragedy instantly shattered her last defenses, and she burst into tears. Draven was startled and also began to cry, but Darius pulled him close. The three children, who had lost their loved ones, clung tightly to each other in the chilly autumn wind, becoming each other's only support.
Homeless, they wandered to the slums in the north of the city. Darius used the few coppers he had left, plus the meager money from selling his parents' belongings, to slowly build a dilapidated shack by the river before winter arrived, barely enough to keep out the wind and rain.
Survival was the overriding priority. Before his father's death, eleven-year-old Darius was already like an adult, frequently going to the docks to look for any work that could earn him money. However, being young, he wasn't as strong as the adults, so he could only do the dirtiest, hardest, and lowest-paying jobs: carrying foul-smelling fish entrails, cleaning mud-filled ship holds, running errands for the sailors... He was taciturn, worked hard, and gradually got some regular odd jobs. He carefully divided the money he earned into three parts: the thickest part was used to buy the cheapest rye, beans, and the occasional fish scraps, which was the food for the three of them; one part was saved; and the smallest part, he would occasionally buy a small piece of candy and secretly slip it to Draven, who was longingly watching the candy stand, and to the increasingly silent Quileta.
Ten-year-old Quileta was forced to grow up almost overnight. No longer the pampered daughter of a merchant family, she began to learn from the women of the slums, seeking washing and mending jobs in the inner city. Her delicate hands quickly became red, swollen, and cracked from being soaked in alkaline water, but she gritted her teeth and endured it. Remembering that her mother had taught her some simple weaving, she went to the river to cut reeds and, relying on her memory and asking the old woman next door for help, began to weave rough baskets and mats. Although they didn't sell for much, they could still supplement her income. She was responsible for managing everything in the "house": grinding the rye Darius bought into coarse flour, mixing it with wild vegetables she had dug up, and cooking it into a porridge; mending the three's tattered clothes; and looking after the young and restless Draven when Darius was out working.
Three-year-old Draven was the only one still carrying a sliver of life in this gray area. He didn't fully understand the meaning of "death" and "loss," only knowing that his parents were gone, his brother was very busy, and his sister Quelletta always had a frown. He got hungry quickly and often wandered around the stove where Quelletta cooked.
The first winter was especially tough. The shack was drafty, and the only tattered blanket offered little protection from the damp chill of Besilico. The three of them often huddled around the small fire by the fireplace, Darius and Quelleta sandwiching Draven between them, warming each other with their body heat. Food was scarce, often consisting of only a thin gruel a day. When Draven cried from hunger, Darius would share half of his portion with him, and Quelleta would quietly scrape the scraps of vegetables from the gruel into Draven's bowl. It was in this daily struggle and sharing that a bond of kinship, transcending blood ties, quietly blossomed.
Late autumn, Noxian calendar year 971.
Two years have passed since that disaster. Fifteen-year-old Darius and fourteen-year-old Quileta have gradually adapted to the survival rules of the slums. Life is still tough, but they can at least barely make ends meet. Seven-year-old Draven, on the other hand, has become a well-known troublemaker in the area, agile and fierce in fights.
That day, Darius took Draven to the beach, hoping to stock up on food for the winter. On their return journey, the carriage that plunged off a cliff became another turning point in their lives.
Draven pulled the silver-haired girl from the sea, excitedly holding up the gold coin he had found and shouting. Darius immediately checked on the girl; thankfully, she was still breathing, but unconscious. He placed her on a slab of the wagon and pushed her ashore. The old horse pulling the wagon, having fallen onto the rocks, was whimpering in pain from its broken bones. Darius looked at the gold coin in his brother's hand, gleaming alluringly in the setting sun, then at the dying horse and the unconscious girl. He told Draven to take some of the catch back to report, while he stayed at the scene.
“Draven, you’re not strong enough. Take these fish home first. Tell Quiretta to bring the biggest basket and that old machete and come over here quickly! I’ll guard this place!” He knew that it was extremely dangerous to leave a seven-year-old child and a comatose girl to guard so much “wealth.”
Draven darted out like a rabbit. Darius took a deep breath and walked to the struggling horse. He remembered his father teaching him that ending suffering was also a form of mercy. With the small knife he carried for self-defense and cutting fishing nets, he skillfully and swiftly ended the horse's life, minimizing its pain. Then, he untied the bucket that had been used to hold fish and carefully collected the still-warm horse blood—a valuable source of protein.
Quilleta, after hearing Draven finish his breathless explanation, immediately locked the door, grabbed everything he could carry, and rushed Draven to the beach.
Over the next few hours, the three of them moved things home in batches, like ants carrying food, racing against time and other potential discoverers on the beach.
Darius led the way, with Quelletta assisting. They tried their best to recall the butchers' work they had occasionally seen, painstakingly skinning the horse with an old machete and knife (though the skin was peeled raw and uneven), then breaking down the massive carcass into as neat chunks of meat, fat, and bone as possible. The internal organs were carefully sorted, separating the edible from the sellable.
Transportation: This was the most physically demanding part. They took turns on duty and transporting the goods. Darius carried the heaviest chunks of meat and bones; Quileta carried the relatively lighter offal and fat in a basket; even Draven made several trips back and forth, transporting horse blood and some odds and ends. Each transport was carried out with great care, avoiding busy main roads and taking as many secluded paths as possible.
When it was all over, the three of them were so sore all over that they lay on the ground and didn't want to move.
A horsehide weighing over ten pounds—because he hadn't learned the art of skinning, the incomplete horsehide didn't fetch a good price, so Darius kept it, intending to try tanning it himself.
Approximately sixty kilograms of horse meat and fat—the enormous horse carcass was cut into as regular pieces of meat and fat as possible for easy transport and sale. This horse was rather thin, with not much meat or fat, so Quileta planned to clean the horse's intestines and make sausages from the meat and some offal to store for winter.
About thirty kilograms of horse bones were collected—enough for two days' worth of bone broth, and the rest were sold to a butcher for half a silver coin.
About forty kilograms of offal—more than we could possibly eat. Some of it was cleaned and made into sausages with the meat. The brain and liver were eaten that very night. The remaining offal was also real meat, and we sold it for about 40 copper coins.
The mane and tail—because they could be made into musical instruments and handicrafts—were the most expensive. The inner-city shopkeeper bought the horse's tail for 7 silver coins.
The next morning, Quileta directed Draven to buy coarse salt. She then coated both sides of the horse meat with the coarse salt and cured it, hanging it in front of the fireplace to dry. She rendered the fat into oil and stored it in jars. She first made broth from the bones, and then dried the rest for later use. She even thoroughly cleaned the horse intestines and began stuffing them into sausages.
That winter, thanks to this windfall, for the first time they didn't have to worry about hunger or cold. Smoked horse meat provided valuable energy; horse fat added moisture to the food; and the sturdy horsehide, after rough tanning, though stiff, was indeed much warmer when laid on hay. Darius used the gold coin to buy the property rights to the shack, purchased some wood and bricks, and Draven collected scraps and scraps from all over. With their combined efforts, the dilapidated shack was repaired to a presentable state.
Alice, who awoke from her coma, became an unexpected gift to this "family." With silver hair and red eyes, she resembled a little elf, yet remained oblivious, her intelligence seemingly stuck at a younger age, and she suffered from a strange condition called "fainting." She only knew her name and age; when asked where she came from, who her parents were, or what had happened, she would only shake her head or say "I don't know." Looking into her pure eyes, and considering the relatively better winter they had gained because of her, the three people reached a consensus almost without hesitation: to adopt her.
Alice's arrival subtly altered the atmosphere of the home. Draven gained someone to boast about and "protect," deriving immense satisfaction from Alice's unconditional adoration and flattery. Quiretta's maternal instincts were awakened, alleviating her grief over her tragic past. Darius, on the other hand, felt an added weight of responsibility on his shoulders.
Four children with tragic fates found solace in the dirtiest corner of Besilico, becoming each other's light in their darkest years.
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In June of Noxus 973, north of Besilico, along the winding inner river of the city.
Draven, with a rope around his shoulder, and the skinny dog Lark, struggled to pull the makeshift wooden cart along the muddy riverbank path. The riverbank was densely packed with all sorts of crooked shacks—some nailed together from rotten wood, some made from broken boat planks, and some even plastered with mud and straw—layered upon layer, some stacked two or three times to save space, making one worry that a gust of wind might blow them over.
Their "home" was deep within this shantytown, a low shack right next to the river. The shack was slightly more decent than the others; it had two stories, the walls pieced together from various salvaged planks and stones, the gaps carefully stuffed with rags and hay to block the wind, and the outside plastered with yellow mud mixed with hay and sand for insulation. Pushing open the door, the space was cramped, less than ten square meters, but the light wasn't dim. On the wall closest to the river, there was a small, roughly constructed fireplace made of stones, flames flickering in the firebox, on which sat a chipped black iron pot, bubbling with some indistinct, pasty food, emitting a mixture of fishy, wild vegetable, and smoky smells—the typical smell of a Besilico pauper's dinner.
Darius and Quiretta were already seated at the only small table in the room, made of old wooden crates and planks. Seventeen-year-old Darius was already quite large, and although somewhat thin due to malnutrition, his muscles still looked strong in the dim light. He was bent over, his thick fingers deftly mending a tattered fishing net, a job he'd taken from the dockworker, earning a few coppers for each repair. Sixteen-year-old Quiretta sat opposite him, mending a tattered Draven garment by the dim light from the fireplace; her fingers were also skillful, her stitches fine and even. Quiretta lived in another shack next to the brothers', the two families sharing a low, stooped doorway in the connecting wall for mutual support. During the harshest winter months, to conserve firewood, the two families would squeeze into one shack, sharing a single stove for warmth.
"We're back!" Draven shouted as he entered the room, untying the ropes from his shoulders and plopping down on the floor, grimacing as he rubbed the bruises on his body.
Alice sat in her little cart, happily holding up the dusty rye bread. Although she didn't quite understand what had happened, being home and having food was enough to make her happy. "Sister Que! Da De! We brought back bread!"
Quileta put down her needlework and frowned immediately when she saw Draven's bruised face and disheveled appearance. "You got into another fight?" She put down her needlework and got up to help Alice out of the cart, carefully placing her on the "bed" covered with hay and old cloth—which was actually just a wooden plank raised in the corner. Alice's feet couldn't touch the ground, or she would quickly become dizzy and vomit.
Darius also raised his head, looking calmly at his younger brother without saying a word, but the questioning in his eyes was obvious.
Draven shrugged nonchalantly, pulled out the half-eaten, flattened loaf of bread from his pocket, and handed it to Quiretta: "Hmph, that bastard Scarface tried to steal my bread! And those two idiots from the bakery chased me! But I chased them both away!" He automatically omitted the part about how badly he got beaten up and how Lark came to his rescue, only recounting his heroic deeds, "Scarface tried to steal it from me? I bit him and he screamed! He tried to hit me? I grabbed him and he rolled on the ground! Impressive, right?" He raised his chin, looking at Alice, expecting her approval.
Alice was indeed very accommodating. Although she didn't fully understand, seeing Draven's smug look, she immediately clapped her hands and said sincerely, "Draven is the best! He won!"
Draven immediately beamed with joy, and his injuries seemed to lessen in pain.
Quileta took the two poorly presented loaves of bread, sighed, and went to the fireplace. She broke the relatively intact rye bread into pieces and threw them into the bubbling pot to cook with the fish and wild vegetables. She examined the one Draven had bitten into carefully, removed the parts covered in too much mud, and put the rest into the pot as well. She knew it must have been difficult for Draven to get this much food.
"Be careful next time. Scarface is so much bigger than you guys. If he really goes all out, you'll suffer," Quileta warned as she stirred the paste in the pot with a wooden spoon.
Draven snorted, not replying, clearly not listening. He moved closer to Darius, watching his brother mend the net: "Bro, any work at the docks today? How much did you make?"
Darius didn't look up, his voice low: "Unloaded two ships of cargo, earned fifteen coppers. Repairing this net, I can earn another five." He paused, then added, "The tide will be good tomorrow morning, I plan to go out to sea early and see if I can get lucky and catch some fish."
“I’m going too!” Draven said immediately.
“You stay put,” Darius glanced at him. “Keep an eye on Alice, don’t let her go out and cause trouble again. Remember how you stole old Hack’s salted fish yesterday and almost got caught by his dog?”
Draven shrugged and muttered, "That fish was almost rotten... I only took the small one..."
By this time, the porridge in the pot was almost cooked, and Quelleta served each person a bowl. The bowls were rough earthenware bowls with chipped rims. The porridge was very thin, mostly soup, with scattered pieces of fish, wild vegetables, and chunks of rye bread floating in it. This was their dinner; although simple, in this slum, being able to eat hot food every day was already considered good.
The four sat around a small table, eating in silence. Draven ate quickly, wolfing down his food as if someone were trying to take it from him. Alice ate slowly, and Quileta would occasionally blow on it to cool it down or put the bitter vegetables she disliked into her own bowl. Darius ate the most; he needed the energy to work.
After dinner, it was completely dark. There were no lights in the shack, only the faint glow of the embers in the fireplace. A damp, chilly wind blew in from the river, seeping in through the cracks in the walls.
Quileta finished washing the dishes and said to Darius, "I'm going to bed. I have to get up early tomorrow to do some handicrafts." She went through the small door and back to her hut.
Darius continued mending the fishing nets by the firelight, preparing for tomorrow's voyage. Draven, however, couldn't stay still. In the cramped space, he mimicked the fighting moves he'd made earlier that day, muttering, "Hey! Ha! Watch me! Scarface, you piece of trash!"
Alice sat on her "bed," looking at Draven with sparkling eyes, occasionally giggling at his exaggerated movements.
“Draven, tell me a story,” Alice asked. She loved listening to Draven’s stories, even though they were always about how he bravely defeated various imaginary monsters or people who had bullied him, with repetitive plots and many loopholes, Alice always listened with great interest.
Draven, who was just looking for someone to admire his "heroic feat," immediately sat down next to Alice and began to boast, spitting as he spoke: "Today, I'm not bragging! There were over a dozen big men surrounding me, each one taller and stronger than Scarface! They were carrying knives this long!" He gestured with his hand to indicate an exaggerated length, "But I, Draven, wasn't afraid at all! I punched them with my left hand and kicked them with my right, swish swish swish! I knocked them all down! The last one, the leader, knelt on the ground begging for mercy, saying, 'Draven, have mercy! We'll never do it again!'..."
Darius listened silently, his lips twitching almost imperceptibly, as if he wanted to laugh but held it back. He knew his brother loved to boast and craved attention, especially from Alice, his unconditional "number one fan." As long as he didn't cause any serious trouble, Darius usually let him be.
Night fell, and the fire in the fireplace gradually died down. Darius laid out a makeshift bed—actually, a thick layer of hay on the floor, covered with a tattered blanket. Draven and Alice slept on the wooden plank bed in the corner.
The shack fell silent, with only the sound of the river flowing outside the window and the faint noises and barking of dogs coming from the slums in the distance.
Alice whispered in the darkness, "Little De, are we going to look for bread again tomorrow?"
Draven mumbled, "I'll find it! I'll definitely find it! I'll make sure you have a good meal!"
Alice snuggled closer to him and drifted off to sleep.
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