Chapter Text
#Anna’s POV#
I had stopped counting the days. There came a time where it was just useless to do so so I just stopped. Sometimes it would take weeks, other times it would take much longer for my father to return from one of his conquests.
Caracalla had told me that he had gone to Numidia and then proceeded to taunt me about him not returning from there, obviously this conversation had involved him carding a cup of wine on one hand a whore on the other while his damn monkey sat on his shoulder as usual.
He loved to try and get some sort of reaction out of me, this I had already learned from my time being at the Palatine. Wherever I would go he would try to follow and to rile me up and this would often had to be stopped by Geta who seemed to almost always be at the right place at the right time.
Ever since our encounter at the pond Geta had seemed more distant, even colder if that was even a possibility. He would spend his time in his chambers or at meetings or even at their parties, the very same ones that I had stopped attending.
There was no point in partying and celebrating Rome or the emperors when all I could think about was the possibility that my father would be shaking hands with Pluto himself. And then there was Lucilla who also seemed as cold as our home without my father in it. There was no laughter, no color and no feelings surrounding that place, maybe that’s why I had been spending more time at the colosseum with the company of men who were deemed ruthless and deadly.
They seemed more alive than anyone surrounding me at the moment, and that was were I was standing at the moment, sitting in the middle of a circle of men as they ate their meals and chatted to one another.
“You gonna tell us a story girl?” Aulus asked.
He had been eating silently from his plate for a while before looking at me intently. He had almost become a confident in these last times. There seemed to be no real difference in our age, but his face almost told otherwise as it was filled with dirt and scars from his previous battles. He was a survivor as he liked to remind me whenever I seemed to be showing any type of pity.
Many times these men that I had grown fond of would stumble into their evening story time with fresh blood still on them, open wounds and a broken soul accompanying their broken bones. Aulus was no different. He had told me about how he was taken from his family many years ago, his father had died in this very same arena by hand of another gladiator and he had no word of his mother ever since. This far he had been lucky, and much like their healer, Ravi, they had earned my trust.
“Which one do you feel like hearing?” I asked, straightening my back as more eyes feel upon us.
“You know my favorite” he smiled at me, his top lip still swollen from his last fight.
“I don’t think they wants to listen to Cupid and Psyche again” I frowned. By no means was I against telling this particular story, in fact it had been my favorite for as long as I could remember breathing. But it was romance and one thing I had learned is that romance, however nice and lovely, would not bring these people the strength they needed to fight. Most that fought for love ended up dying or with a broken heart.
They needed stories of strength, courage and even about rage. They desperately needed it.
“We all know it’s your favourite as well” Ravi said as he placed a hand on my shoulder as he sat next to me “ain’t that right fellas?”
Everyone cheered around me, some laughing and others starting to chant around for me to tell the story.
“You’re all cheering now but you know once it gets all about love you’re gonna be nagging me to tell a different one!”
And with a loud sigh and a look around the room I proceeded to tell my favourite story of how cupid had fallen for a mortal girl.
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#Hanno’s POV#
The gods were ruthless. I had learned many years ago and they kept proving me right at every turn I took. My feet had already grown tired from running away and my hands calloused from all the years of work. I could already breathe at times when I remembered the ghosts of my past but then I would look at her. My wife, Arishat, had taught me without even realizing that I could breathe from time to time.
The fields were almost familiar from a ghost I once knew, the crops were finally coming in and I could hear the laughter of the people in the village. Life was good. The gods were not.
There was a moment of peace, where I was holding my wife in my arms and kissing her lips as if I had never tasted them before and then the horns came, that blasting sound only meant one thing, it was time to fight.
I had heard about the raids of nearby lands and there was only one name attached to all the massacre going around, Rome. That damned empire that no one could get away from was making its way back to me, to my home and my people. It was time to fight.
Then it all seemed to happen so fast, the blood and screams. There were boats wrecking our walls and men clad in roman armor climbing inside and killing everyone around me. I fought. I fought hard and then I remember her falling, her body going limp and then mine being engulfed by water.
It was cold. It was empty and brought me a fake sense of peace as I saw my now deceased wife standing near the water’s edge and leaving me. No trace of pain in her face as I tried to run and call out her name. She was gone and I was trying to reach her, but there was a voice. Some unfamiliar voice that called out my name and said the same thing over and over until everything went black again.
“Come find me.”