#they're not people not bc they weren't born people but bc the empire killed everything that would make them people

[deathdxnces]

"To stop the spread that Noxian disease, you have to exterminate them at the root... Allowing any of those vermin to survive will only result in more and more of them, whether through blood or spreading of their beliefs," The vastayan sneered, tossing her a small bracelet whose beads were stained with blood - it was too large for any adult. "Those rats will invade all they can, burrowing into the children you swear to protect and taint their minds. Kayn is one exception, perhaps his blood was purified by the Spirit, but the rest of them? Their only use being placed upon our soil is to be ground into fertilizer, to let any of them escape is a mockery of the thousands of Ionians who have perished. Each Ionian is worth at least 3 of those pests."

— @witchcraftandburialdirt

Another might recoil at the contempt that drips from every word, that an entire people would be described as a disease. Irelia does not. She listens, silent while the vastaya speaks, catches the small bracelet he throws her way. Blue eyes study the bloodstained beads, fingers running over each of them; this time, the impassiveness is more disguise than reflection, an odd sense of uneasiness settling on her stomach. He needed not to finish his speech for the dancer to know the lesson he tried to impart to her, and still, the dancer does not cut him off.

Her gaze returns to Haruko at the mention of Kayn. Was that truly what he believed? That the assassin alone had been chosen by the Spirit itself, and the taint of being Noxian was thus cleansed? Irelia knows better than to be as skeptical now as she was as a child, doubtful of the many ways people affirmed the Spirit to manifest, and yet that seems a farfetched notion. Zed was likely more responsible for ridding Kayn of Noxian influence than spiritual intervention.

True enough that, whatever he had been born, Kayn was Ionian now; but was he the sole exception? Couldn't there be others in whom the Noxian taint had not taken root, its poison not yet killing anything human in them?

Could she kill a child desperately trying to survive, abandoned by that nation of monsters, when that was exactly what had been done to him?

And yet she listens, not entirely dismissive of what the vastaya says. A mockery of the lives taken by Noxians, Haruko affirms, and indeed, what mercy had been shown to their people, slaughtered in their homes, most of them incapable of fighting back? What mercy had they offered to Ionian children even outside the battlefield?

Irelia thinks of Ruu, then, and the thought alone is a cold stab in an old wound, unhealed and festering. She had never seen her younger brother dead, had seen none of the bodies, only her family's graves, one of them so small she wouldn't have fit in it even at eleven. It wasn't always like that in her nightmares; those often painted bloodier pictures, a mix of truth and illusion based on the carnage she knew their enemies to be capable of. Unlike to be far from the truth. She hadn't seen what they did to Ruu, but she had seen plenty of other children slaughtered.

Her brother was among some of the youngest victims the empire had made in her homeland, nevertheless. Ruu had been barely four. They slaughtered him all the same, as if a four-year-old boy could be a threat to several armed soldiers. It was never about how much of a threat they were, though. It was about the only language the monsters understood: power, and exerting it through intimidation, strength and violence.

Irelia thinks of Ruu, and Haru's words do not sound as harsh as initially perceived. Her grip on the bracelet, tightened without noticing, relaxes then. "There is no comparison to be made between Ionian lives and theirs," Agreement comes easy; the Noxians have no worth to her, as she knows they do not have to the Spirit. The First Lands themselves fought them back, often cruelly. Honor and respect are for the beings who deserve it; the only thing the tyrants would have from her is contempt, venom tinging her every word. "Each person, creature and plant, each spirit and living being that inhabits our land is worth infinitely more than all the invaders combined."

And yet.

While the idea of harming children always made her recoil, those serving the empire as its soldiers and spies and saboteurs would not have been met with mercy, should she come across them. Not before, at least. The line seems blurrier now, knowing at some point Kayn had been one of their child soldiers, knowing what he was now. Irelia is uncertain she would ever be capable of extending kindness to any Noxian, but she hesitates to sentence all of them to death without second thought, the very weakness the vastaya warns her against.

"Blood and birth are not what makes them monsters, though. There are plenty among their ranks not Noxian born, some of the worst, even — the Hand of Noxus is from one of their annexed territories, and there's arguably no better example of Noxian brutality." Darius was almost as infamous as Swain himself, and both were part of the Trifarix that ruled the empire and exemplified their beliefs. Loathing colors her tone, the mere thought one would embrace their barbaric ideals after having their own land taken by the tyrants stomach-turning. They are no more deserving of mercy than those born Noxian. They are worse, in a way; at some point, they actively chose to leave behind what they were and embrace the empire and what it means, to bow their heads and serve the invaders.

"Everywhere Noxus takes root is tainted, and its disease kills anything that might have made their soldiers people, once. Children are not immune to it by virtue of being children, some of them serving in their armies most willingly, dreaming of being like those responsible for the slaughter," This she concedes, having witnessed the wickedness even their young were capable of firsthand. They're not all innocent; Noxian brutality isn't reserved for their enemies alone, and what the empire does not destroy, it corrupts. "Not all of them, though. Not all of them are irrevocably infected." Kayn wasn't. "Just like a Noxian needs not to have been born that to be one of them, birth alone doesn't make them Noxian."

"Don't get me wrong — anyone who threatens our land and our people will be swiftly cut down, regardless of age," A cold statement to some, perhaps, but one she means entirely. Ionia and Her people mattered more than any notion of mercy toward Noxians (And if it seemed unfair to turn her blades against those who could not fight her back on equal grounds, what of it? Noxian cruelty had honed her edges, Noxian violence demanded her to learn to fight on uneven grounds. How many of her people never had a chance against their attackers?). "But some of them could have that blight stripped away before it destroys what humanity they have left."

"Unlike most seem to have by now, I have not forgotten what Noxus did — what it still tries to do. Nor have I forgotten the cost of peace, or the blood debt they could never hope to repay," No number of dead Noxians would make up for the Ionian lives lost. Sparing Noxian children would never be an option if the choice was between them and her people. "I simply think rooting out the active threats first seems a more dire priority than hunting down children for what they might eventually become."