Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gaius Julius Octavius Caesar was my birth name, Octavian is my nickname, Gaius Julius Octavius Marius Traianus Hadrianus Marcus Remus Valens Vespasianus Publius Scipio Pompeius Aurelianus Nero Lucius Vorenus Trebonius Tullius Majorianus Cicero Romulus Flavius Claudius Honorius Titus Quintus Gracchus Arcadius Constantinus Theodosius Aurelius Caesar is my full name by the time I was 6 after taking into account various adoptions of the honorary and official sort, Caesar Traianus Julius Octavius Magnus Augustus is my titular name in the later annals, and the other things.

Where was I, ah yes, I am Gaius Julius Octavius Caesar, born of the gens Julii Caesaris. The New Rome aristocracy had persisted from the days of Numa and Titus Hostilius to the modern day, of course back then it was actually Rome not New Rome (which was actually New New Rome since Constantinople was New Rome) but the point stands, you see - I was born to this aristocracy and this story is about me: in 1998 New Rome stupidly expelled their aristocrats because the aristocrats made up the Senate and the Legion (full of not-aristocrats) and the Senate were at head with each other so much that eventually the Praetors (whose support base was the Legion, and in turn support the Senate) realised - wait a minute, we could just kick them out, their power is sourced from our support - and… so they did! The aristocracy ended up returning a few years later because it turns out their relationship was ‘money and advice’ for ‘military support’, but by that time me, the amazing hero, was long gone.

I was born to Severus Julius Caesar and Poppea Livia Cicero, then they died, a few months after I was born, so I got adopted by another aristocratic family, then they died and as a honorary thing a few other aristocratic families adopted me, and they end up dying because these aristocrats were not that good at defending themselves really - so I end up being passed around until I end up with that name you saw a paragraph or two ago but then at six seven ish years old, I got thrown away.

Not through any fault of my own, really, well kinda, the Romans are omen respecting people and when everyone who takes care of me does end up dead or sacrificing themselves or borderline insane, yeah, basically a bad omen so it is my fault, just born wrong? Maybe, probably, I might have deserved it, it was my fault for being born.

That is how the new me is made, I am an omen, a curse, those willing to get close to me have died, that is my first lesson, that is the understanding I have of my constitution. I am a legacy of many gods, far and wide, but I bring swathes of death not glory to those who get close to me- and so no-one should get close to me.

I was heir to many fortunes, yet I did not want the wealth, for none of it should belong to me, if I had not been born a curse, then I would not rolling in money and therefore I should not be rolling in money and keys to manors and grants of land and stocks and shares and all the property of those who had died because of me - all of which is held in international sections as well as New Rome, so I will never be stripped of this accursed wealth either.

And so, I was eight, and I am travelling, and I travel far, I take my time, I doesn’t fight the monsters that come for him, I just continue to travel, I do not cry or whine because I know it will get me nowhere because there is no use in crying when it will just bring more lamb to slaughter - I steal food and drink along my travels, people take pity on me and underestimate me because of my youth, but also in order to drive those who try to get close away. I often snuck into libraries and wore rags, in the libraries I spent my time on classical literature (of the classical time period and ‘classical’ literature), basic mathematics and basic sciences - I did find a particular extra interest in history though, specifically history of warfare and classical history.

I take many nicknames and names over my travels, but I do not forget my birth names and the names given to me, I have gone by James, Gary even Owen at one point - all of which I thought were weird names, but what could I do about it - the people didn’t seem to comprehend the names I actually went by so I gave up. My travels took me far, all across the US, I’d come by some people who tried so hard to get close, and yet they inevitably died like all the others.

There was one, the one who I took the name James from. James was a careful man, but compassionate, paranoid yet soft. He had been born in Canada, migrating to the United States as a child when his family came to get a job or something along those lines he had never paid attention to; it was something he’d admitted various times when asked. He had provided me with food and drink, even a long car journey towards wherever I was heading: ‘far away’, was the answer.

James had fluffy brown hair, a slight unkempt stubble on his chin that was uneven, he wasn’t exactly pretty, instead being extremely average, he had green eyes that were the opposite of the emeralds some people refer to attractive green eyes as instead being more like mold in colour - egh, whatever mold looked like, it changed didn’t it? Doesn’t matter. He had worn a black thermal shirt that was long sleeved and some skinny jeans during their time knowing each other.

James had friends and family, he was going to get married in a few weeks he said, I suppose ruined that. At first James hadn’t trusted me, I knew so from the way he looked at me and the way his jaw flexed when he spoke, and I hadn’t wanted him to. James had seen me steal some food, berries to be exact… they did taste nice, and he was obviously very clearly annoyed at me for it. However, James then noticed that I was shivering, damn this feeble body, and that was all that was needed for James’ paranoia and distrust of me to twist into compassion and forgiveness.

James liked peaches, and pizza. He had two children with his girlfriend, his car was a blue ford, an abandoned can of Pepsi sat in the car’s cup holder. He worked across the country as an in person consultant to businesses, he had previously done charity work at an orphanage and continued to sponsor one, which I realised is likely where James plans to take me. I didn't mention it though, it sucked, really, I didn’t want to go to an orphanage - I’d end up killing everyone!

James disliked pebbles and plants, finding the feeling of the latter against his skin weird. James’ favourite book was Catch-22 and at university he had minored in Literature because of it, he had majored in Classical Studies. James could speak Latin, Greek, Spanish and English (well, the first one doesn’t really count because no-one knows what Latin actually sounded like) and was the first person that pronounced ‘Octavian’ without any sense of foreignness in his tongue.

In the short car ride, I was almost able to feel more relaxed, almost forgetting my curse - Latin was my natural tongue, despite Camp Jupiter (something the aristocrats always talked about) mostly speaking English, since most of the aristocrats spoke in Latin: and so it was the language James and I spoke in. James admits that he has a bit of a sweet tooth when he offers me a humbug, I was hesitant - questioning the point of it, I had always heard ‘humbug’ in a negative way and so - ended up refusing it.

James’ brother always used to critique him on it, half-brother, he corrects himself a minute later. Apparently his half-brother wasn’t fond of him and they shared the same father, that was the only thing that bonded them really and the moment one of them could have left they got as far away from the other as possible. James’ tone lacked regret or care about it, it was clear to me that James had never liked his half-brother and that opinion won’t change yet the feeling of love clearly was there: and I wondered what love is like.

James continued to drive across the road, and a storm brewed ahead, the storm was riveting, dangerous. The storm sends thunder and lightning which strikes like Hephaestus did Achilles’ shield, repeatedly, strongly, with enough force to shake the Earth itself around the rims as the marks and chars of extreme beauty and art is pressed into the very figure of the world by the storm and so the thunder plundered the Earth and stripped it off its life in the form of flame.

James had sped up, not wanting to be caught in the storm, but it was too late, or at least I thought it was, I had closed my eyes and the lightning spiralled from the heavens and struck the car, with such a monumental force that the car expands into a ball of flame and death and yet somehow ai could see myself leave the wreckage with no sign of James’ other than an extremely charred face, covered in blood, soot and ash that had taken the brunt of the force. His skin was partially blown off his face, with some bits dangling off the sides alongside strewn bits of tissue, one of James’ eyes was broken inwards, a shard of metal having lodged itself a mm beneath the pupil the other eye was completely unharmed but with a subtle expression of terror. I could see James’ bones on his face, most of the flesh around his chin had been completely burnt off. James’ hair too had burnt off, though some of it was still ignited.

Then, I opened my eyes. Everything was fine, what? That, that, that made little sense, Roman’s couldn’t just see the future like that, so that had to be the damn present! James was looking at me with concern because I had clearly been distressed, my breathing was panicked, but James hadn’t known of the vision I had just had. James asks me if I’m alright and I nod, lying to his face without guilt, then the lightning strikes. I felt a shard of metal lodge itself between my ribs as I breathed rapidly and inconsistently, terrified, I crawled out of the wreckage of the car - one of the doors being blasted open in the fireball.

My blood flees my body slowly like a how someone moves when in the queue to an antique amphitheatre, which they hardly wanted to be at and were only there because their parents had made them come due to one of their siblings or relatives being part of the performance, trudging along through a bottleneck. And so it was almost as if I wasn’t bleeding at all, but I wanted to make it sound cool so let my slow bleeding be cool, not that I really noticed at the time, I was too high on adrenaline to do so.

I looked back to the wreckage and saw James’ mutilated face, and I cried, strange reaction I admit. Not out of the sense of closeness, I had just known the man for less than six hours - but because I had let James get too close, it was my fault. It was always my fault, they all died. Every friend I make - James was no different to them. Everyone who even smiled at me, it always seemed like they died.

The aristocrats were picked off by monsters, monsters that never harmed me, never even attempted to though they always noticed me, always looked at me - the emotion in their eyes was never hatred, never anger, never wanting to kill me, just with an odd sense of familiarity.

The others I had come across died in various ways such as anaphylactic shock when not allergic to anything, spontaneous heart attacks, slipping and falling onto a poorly placed knife, and finally James being struck by lightning. It was ridiculous.

It was always ridiculous, never something expected or natural, never avoidable.

And it was all my fault.

The memories of James’ mutilated face follow me, stalking me every time I saw the future… because I can do that now, guess that’s cool, I struggled to differentiate between the future and present at the time though. Sometimes it was great motions of war, conflicts where a funeral pyre was just another flame of many.

When I turn eleven I face my first ‘challenge’. I decided to walk through a suburban area, which resulted in me, probably by stupidity or fate, ending up with me stealing an Amazon van. Why?

Thought it’s be funny, that’s why, I had noticed that there was much more thrill in the act of stealing, and harming, than there was in the act of stealing, and harming, to push people away from my curse - it was as if the gods themselves wanted it balanced out, the curse meant people couldn’t get close to me and so it just made sense that I was to be happy when driving them away.

So, I smashed the side-window, unlocked the door - there was a girl chilling on her phone in the passenger seat so I kicked her out: with words, I doubted my ability to take her on in a fight. Then I sped off in the van, hitting a few cars along the way, well, not a few, I’m not an adult - you can’t expect me to drive well, I’m eleven for… Caesar’s sake, wait that could be referring to me, for Jupiter’s sake - better.

I might have also killed a kid…

Nah, I’m kidding, I did hit a kid though - they didn’t die, children are weirdly resistant to being lightly hit by speeding vans; you can go try it if you want, throw a sibling or someone you don’t like at a lorry. Don’t, don’t actually do that - that’d be bad… sad. So, yeah, not dead, probably broken in multiple places - I didn’t stop speeding though!

So, eventually, I thought - ooh, what about the stuff in the van? A phone here, a cutlery set here, a Celestial Bronze dagger, a map of Georgia - the country, not the state, wait wait wait - a Celestial Bronze dagger! This was strange, what was this doing being shipped by Amazon of all things - Celestial Bronze was the historical Greek Demi-god weapon according to the elderly aristocrats who still believed tales of the Greek-Roman war: I had always doubted the idea of their entire eradication as it had been put by some of the aristocrats, but this almost confirmed by the existence of a Celestial Bronze dagger - looking shiny and new.

I did however, realise other possibilities to be at play, the most obvious of which was the fucking Amazons existing… fascinating concept, warrior women - equal to men, some people like to forget that part in the myths - quite before their time in that regard. I’ve never really understood the modern presentation, I saw this kid reading a comic book about… heroes? I didn’t pay attention and it presented the Amazons as a matriarchal society where men were inferior to women - now, I don’t know social history, but us Romans or the Greeks didn’t hold such a statement to be the case - so I blame Christians… I like to do that.

I take the Celestial Bronze dagger, putting it into my pocket as I continue to look through the Amazons packages - a cd with just Eleanor Rigby on it? Not the best Beatles song but if you like it I guess that alright then. A tartan skirt and a blazer alongside a shirt - do people really buy school clothing on Amazon? And was I about to wear it?

Yes, yes I was.

Look, my rags had been getting thin and well… ragged. I had never worn a skirt before, or any proper clothing in five ish years - and while I didn’t really care about crossdressing, I was a homeless thief - why would I, it certainly was unexpected. The scenario itself, indeed, I mean, I’ve stolen an Amazon van, that is either owned by The Amazons or is delivering something to Greek demi-gods - I’m in the back of it now, getting changed into a skirt, shirt and a blazer: if I went to a place in the bible belt I’d probably be lynched, do they still do that? Eh, I can’t be bothered to remember.

Skirts, well, they were weird, it’s not a weird judgement - especially from someone who grew up wearing togas and then continued to wear faux-toga-like rags: the skirt wasn’t particularly long, which certainly would have annoyed me if I was still in the conservative mindset that those who had raised me for the first six years of my life would have been but I personally believe in the freedom of expression… even if its likely that this short skirt would be worn by a eleven ish year old male or female: now it seems slightly wrong, actually. But anyway, skirts were weird to begin with, my legs felt much more free than they had in rags weirdly despite rags being looser but yeah: it felt weird but nice.

It’s like hugging someone, it’s as if they are trying to crush you sometimes, but it does still feel nice - just sort of the inverse: maybe someone patting your back softly, it feels very free and very nice.

What do you know, mirrors exist in vans, so, I was able to see myself in a skirt, shirt and blazer and I thought ‘this is far too big for me’ it wasn’t actually, it was mostly perfect in size - everywhere except the shoulders, to fit into the blazer my shoulders were contracting and squeezing themselves inwards making it uncomfortable to even have arms nevermind using them.

Anywho, back to looking through parcels, surprisingly no more clothes, some jewellery though - no-one died for this hopefully, so, I took it: I’m certain Amazon refunds theft victims? Probably, maybe, if they don’t that is their fault and a scorn on the Caesar populares legacy. A pride flag? Are people so lazy that they don’t just make them themselves?

A Crucifix pendant? “No, thanks” I mutter as I throw the crucifix over my shoulder, flinching as it bounces and clangs around before flying out the window. A letter? About ‘Ragnarok' in particular, if I’m correct, that's something about the world ending in Norse Mythology - good, I hope it happens, ‘Romae Aeternae’ and all, only we should last forever - maybe the Hellens can live if they promise to Latinise themselves: freedom of expression is good, but some expressions are better than others: like homesexuality vs pedophilia or hebephilia, or pansexuality vs zoophilia and the normal vs non-Romans.

Another letter, now this is interesting, I won’t read it for you but it does seem interesting - it is a letter from an anonymous Amazon employee to someone called Artemis: now this does seem kinda coincidental, but then I realised, they’re using the Caesar cypher on the first letter of every sentence to spell out ‘please help’: there is also a location almost spontaneously mentioned in the letter; likely, if my inference skills are in anyway decent, the location that this Amazon - because I am jumping on that train of thought, something inside me affirms it to be correct - wants Artemis, Diana in my opinion, to go to and help them.

But hey, I’ve got a van, I’m curious to prove my theory of Amazonian existence correct - and I have a decent idea of where locations are and these Amazons vans have sat-navs! Never used one of those before, but it seems interesting and simple.

…

It was not simple, how can people use something so damn archaic! No! I do not want to go to the Mexican border, that is the wrong direction! No, No, No! That’s not even a road that’s a river! Are you kidding me, there is literally a wall between me and where you’re telling me to go!

So, annoying, Sat Navs are annoying. I end up stopping my travels half-way through because I felt sleepy: I snuck into the back of the van, turned the engine off and parked in a discreet location, I pushed the boxes around to try and correct a hidden box fort where I could sleep without being in immediate view of anyone who opened the van doors.

This is spurred on by a vision, you see, I could tell it was different because in the vision it was day outside, and I saw two armoured women breaking open the back of the van before closing the doors and opening the driver's seat and driving off somewhere - given how the vision moved and worked, I had to assume I was still in the van at the time and they hadn’t notice. Personally, I don’t want to break fate, that’s a bit of a disgusting idea to me - abusing my ability to see the future? I would be smited by Apollo, if I’m not already, I can’t tell if I really am but I seem to just lose parts of my day from my mind every now and again - which is a symptom of seizures of which Apollo cursed my ancestors with when they angered him.

I feel a bit panicked over the idea of being found by a bunch of armoured, aggressive women, who in this case I can only assume to be those ‘who are equal to men’ the Amazons - and given the history of the Amazons, I would expect to either be slaughtered or attacked - they were quite a tribal people in their original presentation: then again, who wasn’t?

I keep myself hidden as I sleep, my dreams plagued with visions of what must be the location of the Amazons - a great warehouse and administrative block in the middle of nowhere seemingly, while the vision is mostly blurred there is one thing in particular: while not physically nor is there anyone to display obvious there seems to be some kind of disruption, a multiple way conflict, from one side sits a throne, the other chains, the other swords and spears and the fourth pens and books - all vying for something, but I cannot decipher what.

In my sleep I am clutching myself tightly, this new outfit is cleaner than my last one, and I am certainly warmer inside the van than sleeping on the streets: but it is still cold and barren and I need all the warmth and comfortability I can get, even if I, in a way, overdo it.

In the visions, I attempted to interact with one of the sides in this stand-off: and then the vision ended and started again - it was clear in my mind that this was my destined path, that this was the plan the Gods above had for me, that I was to interact with this stand-off and only then would I learn more of my future.

In the morning my first vision is proven true, the back of the van doors open, I hear one woman speak to another - “He can’t have gone far, last CCTV camera had him in the vehicle” the voice was gruff, as if she was attempting to intimidate whoever she was with: it would be expected of a leader but in my vision I had only seen two women, which implies that this a partnership - perhaps one between Junior and Senior? But in that regard the Senior should not need to put their foot down - unless the Junior had not realised the nature of this relationship, in such a case the Senior should no longer attempt to dominate and instead focus on an equal bipartisan interaction since the Senior was clearly ineffective. Domineering speech is only to be used in conversation with crowds or against those you fear overcoming you.

“Does it even matter, it’s just a kid” A younger voice, more laid-back and mocking, retorts clearly being the supposed junior here: and as I had theorised based on the words and tone of the first woman, this junior was much more of a rowdy equal than a junior.

The older voice snaps back “Of course it matters, he has wronged us, and he should be punished, no, he will be punished: even if not today” I almost let out a slightly surprised and worried whimper in response, if not for the self-control I have in the fact that I am attempting to hide from these two women. It’s especially annoying because I can hear the movement of the source of the voices, they are moving around the sides, likely to get into the drivers and passengers seat to drive off - likely to the location seen in my dream vision.

As if on cue with my thoughts, the van starts, the rumbling shaking throughout it: I take out the Celestial Bronze Dagger from the enclosed pocket I had placed it in and clutch it tightly - if these words about punishing me are to be believed than a dagger would be of use, I have no interest in being executed, tortured or worse embarrassed: murder is not something directly in my experience, but how hard could it be?

I underestimated how hard it was. An Amazon, different in composure to the sources of the voices I heard earlier, came to check the boxes: she was tall, black haired, and dark green eyed, stern eyed. At least, when she saw me she was. I had lunged forward knife in hand to stab her, but she dodged to the side, the knife only slitting through part of her waist as she reached out and grabbed the hand I had held the knife in before bending it back - but before breaking it I dropped the knife into my other hand and stabbed her in the arm before pulling myself away from her, clutching the arm she had almost broken as I ran past her and out of the van into the complex.

She chased my down, clearly not phased by the stabbing, and quickly reached me, by which time I had hidden the knife under a bin when turning a corner she couldn’t see making sure it was also a camera blindspot too - I had been expecting her to search me for it when she caught me I had prepared: she held her elbow to my throat and it almost felt like I was drowning, I couldn’t speak, my voice was just shallow gasps for air as she continually pressed me against the wall.

And then she drops me as I lose consciousness, very harsh aren’t they these women - I hadn’t even done them any harm and both interactions (one-way or not) they had been very hostile towards me, can’t we be more civilised and more accepting of each other? Yes, I stabbed the second one, but that wasn’t my fault: how could it have been? she was obviously going to harm me.

I was well within my rights as both a Roman and a human being to defend myself, there is no law besides Roman law: sure my status as Roman is by birth alone, I had never stepped foot in New Rome and definitely never been to Europe, I had been running around the US for most my life, maybe straying into Canada at point since I had been mostly staying north - though I never had any real direction to it.

I wake up in the middle of a hall, a cold plastic floor beneath my knees as I am tossed to the down, a foot placed upon my back as I hold myself up with my arms by instinct - it’s a humiliating position so I force my arms to loosen and completely put me on the floor, I looked around - men of various ages and kinds in collars and chains working packages and boxes… which is kinda weird, slavery, huh?

Around me, and around the room in general stood various Amazons all armed with great weapons of Celestial Bronze and Imperial Gold alongside bows and great armours and shields… no armour was too eccentric though, an important factor - those who wore too great an armour for their standing often died despite great armour. Those focused on him stood close, weapons drawn and seemingly looking towards a woman in a throne for command.

I take a second to study the situation, to put it clearly, I am either to be enslaved as the other men seemed to have been, murdered as indicated by the drawn weapons or jailed until they figured out what to do with me. I was also able to gain an understanding of the current Amazon constitution, The Queen seemed to be the ultimate authority but given the posture of a few of the women holding weapons at me her authority was being undermined and disrespected; some of the men were sluggishly packing the boxes and lazing around, and finally in the far corners of the warehouse were some Amazons on computers: I questioned their presence internally before realising that like my vision there was a stand-off here, just silent and subtle, and those with the computers are here because they aren’t trusted to be on their own. There is a strange balance of power here, that I am definitely about to interrupt.

I feel the foot from my back life off as the Amazon Queen gestures to the soldier who was probably planting her foot on me; I stand up not waiting for commands to do so, I know it’ll be taken a disrespect, I get struck over the head for it but nothing more. The Amazon Queen speaks, “What is your name, criminal” her voice is stern and attempting to control me, I ignore it. I may be eleven but I have talents and experiences.

“How am I a criminal?” I respond, projecting my voice out, my voice is a slightly shoddy mess of child and teen; I suppose it’s the future concern of being pubescent but I don’t care about that, not right now. “I will tell you my name after you explain the charges” I declare, directly undermining the authority of this Queen; some of the soldiers move to act, some don’t - most don’t, as expected she’s having problems with loyalty.

One of the women at the computers speaks on the Queen’s behalf “You are accused of theft and attempted murder” her voice is dim, slightly cowardly and shaky - she’s the type to switch sides to who is in power, she is cowardly, pathetic but in the short term she’s useful… possibly a good puppet leader if she was to be in that position, but I doubt the Amazons would respect her; The current Queen is too hostile to me, I planned to stabilize this place but I need to control its factions first.

“Thank you, upon which name do you ask for?” Perhaps to get rid of the Queen I could get close to her, let my curse do the work? Too risky, she might not and I might not trigger the curse since we would just be attempting to use each other… I expect the Queen to be the one who commands me to speak my name, but I focus on the soldiers around me; whether they stand with one foot planted ready to strike, whether they lean back slightly faltering or their heads bow in thought. In a culture like this, it is the military who decides who rules, not too dissimilar to the Praetor election in New Rome if my ‘Constitution Of New Rome’ left to me by my father is to be believed.

The Queen seems to have noticed the disturbance in the room my challenging tone has created and she takes the easy option, demanding me to be placed in a holding cell and informed there - it’s a smart move, if just in the short term, in my opinion it shows weaknesses and a lack of willingness to face me head on.

The Amazon who informs me is an exiled Roman, how curious, this must be how the Amazons grow their numbers - recruiting exiles and veterans and adopting children of various warrior cultures. It’s smart, if not for it being something that breeds instability, Romans do have one flaw… they respect authority in every situation unless a greater authority comes or that authority is not doing a good job, perhaps my name would incline me to be a greater authority? A Caesar is not a king as much as they are power itself.

I analyse the Amazon taking me to the holding cell and later informing me of my crimes, she already seems split, not entirely putting her all into following the order of the Queen muttering about incompetence; so I speak softly, my words poisoning her mind “You doubt the Queen? So many of you do… look at you, doing her dirty work…” I taunt slightly before twisting my words again as he grip of my shoulder tightens “You could replace an idiot like her, couldn’t you” I give a small smile but I keep my head bowed down to prevent the Amazon from seeing it, it’s such a wonderful ability, the ability to make people do whatever you want.

The mere impression that someone holds power over you is enough to make 65% of the population kill someone without even being threatened into such a position. It is enough to make 70% of the population rape a poor restaurant worker simply because over the phone you pretended to be an authority - the people of this world were always on an edge of something, I realised, and I am the one with the power to just… give them a little nudge.

It’s a rather inhumane ability, the ability to charm, to control - but its not a curse, if I desired a normal life then perhaps it would be; but I do not desire a normal life, I believe a normal life to be quite out of reach and most normal lives don’t include being held in an Amazon prison cell, which was utter rank if I must say; 0 stars, or being able to see the future or being a Roman legacy. I do wish myself to live up to my name, by any means necessary, but alas the means I have access to are minimal.

I’ll figure something out. Probably.

Chapter Text

Do you want to know the fun thing about rivers? No? Well, I don’t really care, anyway, rivers flow, you can block it off with a dam, but it doesn’t stop flowing. It simply does not care, nothing will impede it, nothing will stop it, nothing can harm it and it does not purposely harm anything.

It simply pushes on and continues to carry out its purpose, that purpose being to carry minerals and resources out to the sea, to host life and sub-biomes, to build cultures upon its back. To be quite clear, without rivers, humanity would simply fail to exist, what would our villages be built upon? Our towns? Our cities? Our trade? Nothing, humanity would exist as a single blip, we would never develop beyond our status as prey for the cats and the dogs: humanity would be dirt in the ground.

Why, exactly, are rivers so important? They provide trade, yes, they provide routes to build civilisation, yes. But it isn’t that. That doesn’t make them important, a road can provide routes for civilisation and trade but they aren’t a necessity unless you live in the urban United States in which case it’s such a dystopia you can’t get around any other way but still, the reason why rivers are so important is clean water.

And water is an equally beautiful thing to what rivers are, I mean you can see your reflection in it! Humans need water to survive supposedly; I haven’t drank anything in the three days I’ve been in this cell. Too little water and you die, too much water and you also die? Kinda ridiculous, honestly, I question why the gods made it the case but ugh not my problem is it?

Water can be used to kill people in more ways than it can be used to help to be honest, you can just give someone so much water that they drown, or so much water and so little salt that their cells burst open, or keep water attached and surrounding their limbs for long enough that it gets so wrinkly that their skin falls off in chunks and they can’t move without tearing more off accidentally… kinda sucks really, but suffering from trench foot isn’t really something you can expect not to suck.

Now that gets me onto my next subject, illnesses, turns out, I suffer from seizures. Yeah, that talk about rivers was swinging somewhere, just not swinging like I’ll probably be in the future - that is either a suicide or homesexuality joke, I’m not certain which - instead it was swinging towards this new fact: I suffer from seizures, honestly, realised it myself a while back, but got it confirmed by one of the Amazons who is still not asking me for my name - are they just going to let me starve and die here? That’d be annoyingly rude of them.

Anyway back to seizures, kinda sucks, they seem to take place following an overexertion of my body or a vision: perhaps in the future I could use medicine to prevent them, but right now I don’t have access to medicine so instead I have to just wait and suffer. Waiting and suffering. Waiting and suffering. Waiting. And. Suffering. Waiting.

By Mars, this is taking its time: I was hoping to at least see someone walking past but there hasn’t been anyone here in ages. I could die here, last of the Caesars, dead in some prison cell in the fortress of a multi-cultural cess of a tribe - how my venerated ancestors would spit on me, this blood of mine stretches back to Troy and Venus: I am a child of gods and I bear the name of many-a god, yet so soon I seem fated to die, alone in a cage.

Kinda funny, even those with my name who have accomplished nothing had a more valued death, and so I deem it, that I will not die here, that I shall persist until I accomplish something worthy of my name. By any means necessary, if I’m correct, in a few hours, an Amazon should come to check up on my status - likely hoping that I’m dead, I won’t be dead, but they’ll provide the thinking space and room for me to truly live.

It is in the words of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher Augustus, upon the acceptance of one's inner god then no harm will come to thee, upon the acceptance of the divinity held within oneself then you cannot be affected by the harm provided by the world and people around you. Aurelius was certainly a stoic character, but I’d consider him wrong, he chose to believe that he was impenetrable as long as he remained content with himself and that anyone could be a god upon reaching a state of contentedness. I know that not to be the case, gods and humans, they are not the same - you can become a god, but only with a gods’ permission, most humans are destined to rot and die without any mercy from the world around us - harm always comes, no matter how content you are, you could always have something better and I want something better.

In a few hours an Amazon guard comes to check on me, I am just sitting there dormant as they unlock the cell and tell me to get up. I stand up, calmly and silently, I walk with the guard - I keep watch of everything around me.

Camera on the ceiling, guards left and right? All this for little ol’ me? Probably not, this is standard precaution, or at least it should be; it is of utmost necessity to consolidate what you have control over, only then can you look to expand further, a lack of consolidation leads to fizzling and dying like Alexander’s Macedonic Empire, that split upon his death, unlike Rome which split a billion times but never as badly as Alexander’s Empire. It is imperative to maintain control over prisoners, guards and the like - we are all pieces on a chessboard, and even our players are pieces on another board.

I am asked for my name eventually upon being brought in front of the Queen again, finally, took a while - I wait a second before speaking, analysing, it seems that my taunting of the first guard has made the tension thicker; there is far more tribalism and distrust around, it’s curious how effective words can be and I must question if I have some form of charmspeak because there is no way that an adult woman can listen to a little kids talking and start being more discontent with their liege: kinda ridiculous.

As I open my mouth to speak I can feel the heavy weight of a sword pressed against my back, likely to coerce me into doing something later, given the status of the other men - slavery. How interesting. Slavery is an innately fascinating concept, financially it ends up being more costly in the long term than it is profitable; but in the short term you could get so much done, have them kill each other in gladiatorial battle, have them build houses for you, dress you, massage you when your in a bath, that sort of thing. Anyway, back to speaking. They clarified that they wanted my first name, how annoying I had wanted to list off that horrific name I had after all my adoptions.

“Gaius” I speak, pronouncing it in Republican and Imperial Latin, Gah-yoos, if I am speaking in Monarchic Latin it’d be Kah-yoos because that language mostly borrowed from Etruscan which only had a K sound instead of a G sound. Of course, I’d use the more modernised version if asked, but I wanted a very subtle way of telling the Amazons to shove a spear up their ass, the modernised version being Guy-oos - just like how modernised Julius is Julius when its originally Iulius with a basically silent I at the start - kinda, its complex.

“Will you serve upon your duty as a male to the Amazons?” The Queen with such a tone that I’m almost surprised she didn’t use the term subhuman, this explains the sword against my back, they want my ‘consent’ to be enslaved by them, otherwise they’ll kill me. Huh, I almost snorted, it’s fascinating really that they think they can just do this to me. However, I don’t want to die yet, I have so much to live for, no I don’t but still don’t really want to die yet: would like to live to be a teenager at the bare minimum?

As said, I don’t want to die, so I nodded my head before clearly speaking “I will follow my duty” it’s a binding promise, quite annoying, I can’t really break it or whichever god is in charge of vows this week will come after me and I don’t want to deal with that: however, there is a lot of room in the promise - my duty to what? Rome? Myself? There are so many loopholes that I am almost confused by how easy it is.

Then they put me in an orange jumpsuit and put a collar around my neck; rude. Can I say that it's rude? Well, it is, I personally don’t like the feeling of a collar around my neck, it’s too tight and heavy, uncomfortable, and it’s going to do wonders for my posture which is already terrible to be quite honest - I’m no hunchback but it would feel odd to have a straight back.

The orange jumpsuit is too prisonery, I don’t like it for that reason, because are you serious? I’m a slave, not a prisoner, if you're going to pretend to give me a choice at least make it so I’m not wearing prison clothing - absolute trollop. I swear, I’m going to be happy to revolt in a few days because with how things are looking that is how long this is going to last. I mean, I’ve heard about three of the other slaves muttering their discontents and at least four of the Amazons saying things in agreement and I’ve only been a ‘slave’ for a few minutes.

Within a few months of the slavery, it's not too bad, kinda. I have been given special permissions, my weak body reducing my necessary workload instead I am stuck to meal prep and statistics assistance for the statistical workers, who as I previously assumed are discontent with the Queen’s authority. I am permitted to intake medicine, and have extra rations in order to support my fragility.

The other slaves are certainly interesting, there are hundreds of us, some here by ‘consent’ and others by consent - the want for revolution is clear in their muttertings, in the few lunch breaks we get. The ring leader of this growing movement of discontent is a man called Tyler Lincoln.

Tyler is around 27, young blood compared to some, yet that is why they have flocked behind him, he is in his prime and he’s wasting it here: and he knows it, he’s a Greek Demigod, or something like that: he doesn’t let it slip who he’s the son of, and to be quite honest, I believe that he’s lying in order to unite people behind him.

According to another slave, Tyler attempted to lead a mass strike a few weeks ago, but it was brutally put down and he was publicly embarrassed - I would almost commend his resolve if not for the fact he was clearly not having success and was slowly bleeding support due to that, it wasn’t showing yet because discontent was rising but his old supporters are losing faith.

To be quite honest, the greatest way of settling this would be war. War is the ultimate answer to all things, a final solution, war predates humanity and it will outlast us, the first titanomachy was but a war, upon humanities extinction war will continue in ants and phages and bacteria. War is the perfect trade, an absolute answer to any and all issues, all trades are a subsection of war: there is even war is peace, and such is the illusion of peace itself, you war with words, you war with weapons, you war with minds, you war with bodies.

War is Tyler’s needed solution, but he won’t see it, war awaits a perfect practitioner but he will not see it, he would not admit it, he is too soft, too accepting. He is empathetic, attempting to abandon the single rule of the human world, a rule that defines our very existence more than any god would for war is god. Not to say Mars is god or Bellona is god, but in the meaning that war is God. The gods of the pantheons are powerful, but they do not hold the meaning and cruciality that war does: I am a religious individual, I know this, I will devote myself to great Jupiter or Apollo at the cost of my own life but I recognise that even the gods themselves are not as imperative to our existence as war.

War is the needed response, Tyler’s opposition in the wings of revolution understand this, but they do not have the support nor the voice; for most that commit to war are heinous creatures, those who revel in the suffering of others, instead of seeing it as the crucial building block of the human soul that it is. Most pantheons believe that the soul endures, much the same then is it that war endures, war remains. The reason that war is attracting those who revel in the suffering of others is because war is the ultimate game too, even children can recognise the glory of war as children are built for games and therefore war must be their ultimate achievement; a game is something based upon stakes, and what is the ultimate stake but not one’s own life, one’s own country?

Such is why war is ultimate, and such is why Tyler will not understand it, he has too little, but he doesn’t have nothing, and he is too afraid to risk what little he has and so he attempts peaceful measures, measures that are not working and are not to be working. Even in failure, war is a great joy, it unites all peoples behind one cause, and what man would have it any other way? Our fear of broken morals is an invention of humanity far beneath us, for human laws are only laws when given the illusion of power.

The ultimate authority in our existence is Roman law, for there is no true law besides Roman law, and Roman law is built on the core fabric of existence that war is truth, and war is the epitome of all we need be. War is a joy, and it endures because young people love the joy and the thrill and old people love the joy it brings in the young: what is humanity without war?

Such is why Tyler should commit to using war, those who fight in war do not need a purpose, war itself is that purpose, is that uniting factor: he would unify both those who revel in war for the sake of war and those who revel in war for the sake of ideals and those who revel in war for the sake of glory, for as said, war is God and war grants us these things.

However, this is not to say war is complete, instead I think it should be asserted that war is more a tool of the soul, a tool we were born with, a tool we took from the Gods much like we took fire: war is God in the aspect that it will always be and it is the ultimate thing, but war is also therefore the ultimate tool and therefore the ultimate prison, the ultimate chain.

No matter how great a chain, gold, silver, diamond - it is still a chain, still something necessary to be escaped from: such is war, war is the human default and Tyler’s empathy and escape from war proves he is a much better person than me: I claim war is God because I see no alternative, and such shows my flaw, I am impatient; for change is also a necessity in this world, Rome was once eternal, but now it is not.

War restricts us, holds us back from achievement, and while I disagree with the ideas of Marcus Aurelius; he is right, in respect to the idea that humans will surpass God, will surpass the ideal existence of war, but such a change can only come upon the demise of cursed beings like myself. Beings who are cursed to lead everyone around them to slaughter, where war would provide an escape and a joy.

Belief in the pantheon, in Jupiter and Apollo, in Juno and Diana, they are all escapes from this: even Mars and Bellona, their idea of war is not the obsession or the cruciality instead it is the consequence: the existence of war implies the existence of peace: therefore if war is God than peace is God too and if we are stuck in war than peace is the freedom we desire truly as human beings, but war as the ultimate game, sport and trade keeps us close and prevents us from being fully enveloped in the beauty of peace.

Jupiter would save me in war, so that I may live in peace later in life, this is why the gods are gods, they have escaped the clutches of war, it may gnaw at their sides but they ignore it and such is why humanity will never be gods, for until we all become gods we will be stuck in war and it is impossible for all humanity to become gods else we are no longer humanity.

So do I agree with Tyler, no, he is too peaceful in his methods and it achieves nothing, but it only achieves nothing right now: in the long term it will wear away, but that long term will long outlast Tyler and I, and so I still see war as the ultimate answer and solution despite its flaws.

I speak with Tyler, for the first time, a week later, the conversation holds nothing of importance, he’s been here since he was my age, I think that affects his opinion of me; he sees himself in me, a folly in my opinion, he attempts to explain his ideas and goals and I understand them, he wants freedom, but he is not going to get them, I am aware and he seems to be too.

So I plant the seed in his head, a small mention of militancy, he shows opposition, but I see the cogs working in his head and I do not make a concession either, instead dodging the topic letting it linger in his mind and his heart. It will work, he will eventually resort to war anyway, I am just acting as a catalyst; for I do not trust the success, instead I plan to ride the chaos like a wave.

It turns out there is an organisation of slaves and discontent Amazons, while Tyler clearly holds a majority of influence, no steps can be made without the support of the Amazons or the other big slave leader. The other influential slave will be easy enough to deal with, he is a war favourer, the moment Tyler turns to war he’ll swallow up the support base of the other slave leader. But the Amazons? They are harder, there are a few important pieces here, Jane, Isabel and half a year later a new radicalist Hylla.

I spend many months consolidating my position within the Amazons, making sure to get the statistics workers to rely on me, if I am an easy go to they will eventually be too lazy in this task that they will make concessions to me in order for me to continue performing this task for them, until I have so much power that I can free myself. It takes a while, but soon I have a subtle influence over the statistics and technological sector, there is no importance to it beyond the slight threat I can hold above the Amazons head but it is still a crucial factor in the future.

I am not someone of physical power, I must rely on others to fight for me, that is something I recognise, and that is why I am hiding in Tyler’s and the other’s shadows, whispering in their ears, attempting to pull their strings, if I was to be in direct combat, there is no doubt that I will be dead.

Jane is easy to manipulate, she is a soldier, a women vying to secure power for herself, but it is clear that she has no capability in an administrative role, something the Queen has likely recognised too, I have no doubt that she will be a great soldier; but she is of no importance post fighting, she is an unstable ally, the moment the war is over it is likely she would turn on us: so I simply plague her head with ideas of glory and success, guaranteeing her support.

Isabel is harder, she is intelligent and cunning, she sees through my attempts to manipulate her and so I have to speak honestly with her, it is annoying, extremely annoying, but in a way the needed honesty works in my favour - I admit that my goal is freedom, and I want no part in whatever remains after a war, which Isabel is semi in favour of, like me she sees it as a necessity for the success of the movement for all sites to get what they want. Isabel doesn’t really want power for herself either, she wants stability, stability above all else, and that is a useful thing, for those who desire stability are easily pushed out the way in favour of more ambitious individuals which helps me because it means Isabel is not as crucial to keep onside as Jane, Tyler or Hylla.

Finally Hylla, she arrived on the night of my birthday, I had not expected any presents, but oh what a glorious present she was: she was the epitome of all I desired and wanted for the movement, she was intelligent, cunning, authoritative and strong - she wasn’t underhanded like me and she seemed to have all the best qualities of the other members of the movement, the only plausible concern I could have with a gift such as her was her determinant dislike of the men of this stronghold.

Speaking of her intelligence, she was the first one to truly pick up on the amount of strings I was needing to pull. You are a coward, she said, a demented conductor twisting the movement. She is also the first person to have figured out the existence of the movement. Instead of figuring this out, it firmly places her as more deductively capable than myself, which just makes her more threatening.

To speak of her cunning, even I found myself nearly attached to her strings, she spoke with me and put forward the idea of directly placing her on the Amazon throne in the revolution: I thought this to be ridiculous, and I don’t doubt that she did too, but she recommended I speak to Tyler about it, and I said that I will. I planned to speak a reduced version, that we would have Hylla be the Amazon interregnum as a consequence of the revolt. However I figured that, in such a position, she would likely have the power to declare herself Queen anyway - which is her spoken goal, so I made no actual push to Tyler over it - there is little choice I had, I either showed myself submitting to her words or directly refusing and opposing her suggestion which would put us at odds… how annoying.

She began planting the seeds of doubt and a focus in believing in her in the people from as soon as she joined the movement, it is what I would do in her position; but alas I am not in her position, and upon this she was able to quickly garner support and become a rising radical power in the movement; it would be something of great consequence, especially since she had shown disregard to idea of changing the consensual slavery to be truly consensual from the beginning. At this rate, I may have to hijack the movement myself if she goes too far, but in that case would there be any of the movement left to hijack? Her authoritative nature came into this, she knew how to put the other Amazons in their place too, allowing her to rise through the Amazon ranks quickly, unprecedentedly quickly alongside her shaping out a religiously conservative faction - something that the current Queen was not.

Her strength helped too in this regard, I have little doubt that she would not successfully kill me upon any direct confrontation between us: she is a pinnacle of mind and brawn, something truly awe inspiring and threatening. She was like a storm, barreling through the movement and picking up everything in her way, with little to care to who she tossed to the side. However, I will not deny that her success is extreme, extremely positive in the case of her support and extremely threatening in the case of her opposition.

She doesn’t seem to be using the men of the movement, but I am not sure, I believe now, that rushing Tyler to open the movement into a full rebellion is the best way to keep Hylla at bay, she is guaranteed success for the Amazon side of the movement but both my goals and Tyler’s goals are not going to be assured to succeed by Hylla and even so there may be condition that she goes against her word if we managed to procure it.

Almost mockingly, almost as soon as I forgot about it, the curse strikes again, Tyler dies randomly, poisoned is an accusation levied but there was no proof of it: and I doubt he died of a deliberate measure, such is the nature of my curse and such is the nature of my existence - I had found someone to rely on in the form of Tyler and now he is gone, and the clearest replacement for his role, despite their shadowy presence and preference for the background is me - me who has support of the slaves and the Amazons, unlike my nearest dearest competitor Hylla who just has Amazon support.

This curse has repeatedly stripped me of everything, I despise it, it took away my family, taken away my few friends, taken away even my faintest allies: all that I have now are enemies. The fact I still have enemies is comforting, it hasn’t stripped me of all social connections, hasn’t stripped me of complete friendships for in a way enemies are friends. Speaking of enemies, the three Amazons, they have formed a triumvirate (triummulierate?) under the Queen’s nose; I had not been made aware of it until recently, but it seems that they are trying to usurp the power from beneath the Queen before deposing The Queen and putting someone in their place - likely Hylla.

And so, I force their hand.

Do you remember the dagger that I left under a bin? Well, I noticed recently that it was still there - unrusted due to its enchanted nature, so I picked it up.

During the next day, I roused the slaves delivering a speech at the movement’s meeting:
“O slaves, men, boys and heroes, scythians, hear me. Hear me now, let us revel in our joys and lives and realise one great thing, the ultimate thing that we all need. Freedom! Freedom to be happy, freedom to be out of these chains! Today is Saturnalia, in Rome. It was a celebration to represent freedom: yet look at ourselves, we cannot even eat the food we make! How I would desire to eat my own handiwork, ever so soon, how I would desire to taste the heat churned from my love: but it is not that I cannot eat, it is that I lack the freedom to do so” The mention of scythians was for the purpose of riling up the crowd, The Amazonian Queen historically was supposedly an Anatolian who married the Scythian king at the time.

“We hold no authority above us, but the gods, and should we look around to see any gods! No, for if we did I fear we would be blinded, some of us have not seen the outside world for a generation, and who is it that denies them their right to be under the gods?” A small shout claiming the Amazons were responsible is shouted from the crowd, I take it as a sign to continue.

“Yes, the Amazons! How many of us want to be here” No-one stirs “None of us, ergo should we have to remain here? We are not prisoners, we are not slaves, we are men, equal in the eyes of Jupiter, in the eyes of Zeus, in the eyes of all the gods: I am Gaius Julius Octavianus Caesar, and I say, with contempt of the Amazons who hold themselves above me, that there is no more suffering to be had. There is no law that gives the Amazons a right to hold themselves above me, I did not vow to serve them: I vowed to do my duty! We all vowed to do our duty! Duty to whom? I think the answer is clear, we follow the duty to ourselves!” The crowd is completely riled up now, even the Amazons at the movement’s meetings had begun to look on a bit in concern - they were happy to fight, but the way I was positioning the men meant it looked like I was going to have the men slaughter them too.

“I declare my freedom, I am Gaius Julius Octavianus Caesar; whoever stands with me, I promise to fight alongside in this overthrow of tyranny! Anyone can stand with us, give us liberty or death for there is more glory and beauty in death than living under the foot of a fool! The Amazons, with us now, can stand with us: for they, like us, recognise the need for the freedom to choose to live! And I want to live, don’t you?” With the single sentence of the Amazons fighting with us, I manage to include the Amazons into the crowd and reduce their worry of turning the slaves against the Amazons. I then took the celestial bronze dagger and cut the collar around my neck, holding it tightly I raised it above my head.

“We are all humans, living under one condition, that we have to fight, and so we shall fight, there will be blood, there will be death and there will be mania, but it is in the honour of those who will come next! I am no Spartacus, because Spartacus failed, and I shall not!” the crowd begins to chant as I drop the chain and instead lift the dagger above my head.

“I ask of the Amazons in the back, to understand our hatred, and I ask of the men in the front, to understand our direction - there is no one at fault here but the Queen: I ask of the Amazons to call in Lady Diana, or Artemis for support, and I ask of the slaves to call upon Saturn to grant us the right to be free! Upon my blood, the blood of Augustus, the blood of Aeneas, the blood of Rome and Troy, I declare war on behalf of all men and women under the tyranny against the Queen of the Amazons!” I am becoming exasperated with all the hatred and shouting in my voice, my lungs were not built for this, they never had been, yet I had done it anyway: because it needed to be done.

Oh, how, it had to be done.

There were 70 slaves, fighting alongside 50 Amazons, fighting against 240 Amazons.

The slaves managed to dress themselves up in Amazonian armour and weapons prior to the fighting: the slave force had twenty in cavalry, 20 Amazons and 20 slaves; they made a short training exercise to determine the strongest and weakest of the organisation we could only assume to 240 Amazons were doing the same.

The 240 Amazons had a larger cavalry force of 80 Amazons, however, we snatched up the best, magical horses prior to the knowledge of the war reaching the other Amazons: giving us a more equal standing there, but even then they outnumbered us 2:1 in the standing positions and most of the men, such as myself, weren’t really trained in combat: it is a difficult thing to admit, but we were completely outmatched and the whole ordeal was looking to be hopeless.

We made a long distance agreement to fight outside, we set ourselves up between two hills, with a vast open expanse in front of us - the Amazons stood in the vast expanse, arming onagers; much to my annoyance.

Before the fighting started at the sight of a charge or shot fired, I made a plan with my co-war-leader Hylla: it was mostly me actually, but Hylla had the age to make commands where I didn’t really have the age to convince most of the Amazons of my tactical ability - the men didn’t care.

We sat twenty of us, armed with large shields in the gap between the hills making it look like we wanted to force the Amazons into a defensive bottle neck, which was heavily in their favour as long as they dealt with the cavalry: however, my actual plan was to have the cavalry drag each other away from the battle, which would definitely lead to the Amazons ‘capitalising’ on the bottle neck where they simply had more people to throw away and more experience.

However, I actually planned to have the other 80 soldiers rout around the hills and cut the Amazons down from behind - leading them to be completely slaughtered, unable to fight from both sides between the sides of the hills which we planned to drop back through as The Amazons pushed forward - turning the bottleneck and even using the more immoble onagers against them.

To start the battle, I am the one to fire an arrow over the phalanx - from the shock and outrage from the Amazons, it seems as if I hit one - likely in the throat from what is shouted. The cavalry that I sat on the hills, rushed down - taking on their first cause of action - shooting the ropes of the onagers before pulling the Amazon cavalry away.

Instead, something unexpected happens - the Amazon cavalry attempts to pivot, not being distracted away like we planned - luckily I had made a back up plan, if the Amazon cavalry didn’t get distracted by our cavalry we were to have our cavalry fire arrows from a distance, picking off the Amazons until they were forced to deal with the cavalry or die. I also prepared to have the troops march around the back of the hill, if the cavalry positioned themselves properly they could eventually force them into the hill gap anyway.

Eventually, The Amazon cavalry falls for the bait, but we continue to have our cavalry shoot at them with arrows as they chased them further and further away from the battlefield: happy with the situation, the Amazons then charged at our phalanx, in response we dropped back, the soldiers around the sides we nearly around the hill corner - in which they would be seen if we maintained this position.

The Amazons fall for the trap, taking it as if we were retreating, the soldiers reach around the back and begin to cut away at the Amazon block’s sides as they are pushed together and clamped down as the phalanx begins to move forward again - but we haven’t defeated them yet, they managed to slip out from between the sides cutting down many of the slave force on the way and we reorganise in the vast expanse - an environment that still favoured them, but the effect had worked - the numbering was no longer 2:1 in their favour, the numbering was now 1:1, the only difference between us was experience in which we are outclassed.

Just as the Amazons and the slave force stand off, cavalry begins to return over the horizon - it is our cavalry, we have won, the Amazon block shatters and splits, running for their lives as the cavalry and slave force cuts down anyone they can - but I get the greatest honour of all, I find the Queen, an arrow in her back and a broken leg and I take my Imperial Gold sword, provided by the Amazons and I take it to her throat and she kneels and begs and she reaches up to hold my chin and attempts to supplicate me begging for her life but in one swift motion my sword goes through her throat and her head falls off.

I grab it, and like hoisting a great flag, I raise it and announce that the battle is won! Well, I would have, her head actually bounces away and the fighting doesn’t stop until all the Amazons who weren’t in the slave force are dead… but if I were to write the history books, I’d do the former.

It’s strange, while I was the one to organise the tactics and decide just how far we went: I didn’t kill one person besides the Queen, and even then, I killed a Queen in the middle of supplication with a broken leg and an arrow in her back, it is pathetic really - I sent 240 Amazons to their deaths, 30 of the slaves died and 25 of the slave-supporting Amazons died; all because of me really.

And in the end, once the battle is over, there is no great celebration, the Amazons now led by Hylla just go back to the headquarters and I take my own leave, stealing a van on the way since I could - and the other men also just leave: there is no glory in the victory, but did there need to be, there was freedom.

It was a weird amount of bloodshed for a twelve year old to be responsible for, hopefully the rest of my life isn’t as bloody.

Chapter Text

I continue to travel in the van for a while, failing to recognise stop lights, using my future visions to dodge the police, making sure not to talk to or befriend anyone out of fear of their demise; I stick to a field area, trying to keep out the way of massive tumbleweed storms when I can and fleeing from any monster I see, in the van of course.

The van becomes almost like a second home to me, because my main home is the streets: not in a gangster way of course, but in a ‘I’m homeless’ way - because I am homeless, can’t really do much about that - well I could, I own lots but I don’t really like it.

After the extreme experience of slavery, I am more comfortable spending money: especially since I want clothes not born from slave labour, so I get specially made stuff which is… stupidly expensive. For a poor person, that is, but alas, I am not poor - it’s a shame really, I do not find myself deserving of the wealth I have - why would I? Would you?

If you were simply born wrong, and everyone around you died and left stuff to you because of that, would you just use it? Would you take advantage of the fact you caused people to die. Would you take advantage of deaths that were all your fault? If yes? You disgust me. If no? Then you are like me I guess.

The curse does not strip me of anymore people, because I do not let anymore get close for it to do so, not yet at least. I find solace in the fact that I am alone, and it is likely I am forever alone, but at least then I do not drive those undeserving to their graves.

At least, I don’t have to deal with the shadow of the Amazons looming over me;

Just the memories of the decapitated Queen, with broken leg and arrow wounded body, one I never even knew the name of, I just hated her as she was the women who held a leash and whip above me, one who ever so desperately tried to supplicate me to live but ended up discarded like that of Dolon, victim of Diomedes;

Just the memories of the corpses riddled with arrows, like porcupines that had been hit by a golf club vaulting over trees and the like before smashing into a thick pavement right before an unassuming school child steps on it;

Just the memory of the long-shadowed spear that cut into the neck of the fellow slave Andrew, who had been kidnapped away from his family for 23 years, piercing half an inch off his voice box and exiting on the other side of his voice box, he choked to death on his own blood with great gurgles as he tried to speak in rage attempting to take down Amazons with him as he had waved his sword around chaotically but he achieved nothing;

Just the memory of a horse slumped, an arrow in its eye, sword in its stomach and its dearest pleading winnies for someone to put it out of its misery as hot tears and blood poured from its eyes like great hot spring waterfalls, almost charring the ground beneath them in their sorrow;

Just the memory of the greatsword piercing the chest of the Roman demi-god Aegidius, named after the general of Majorian and who had a son, named after original Aegidius’ son, in New Rome, a greatsword that dripped with his immortal and mortal blood, brimming like the tears that would have left the eyes of his, still living, parents when they heard the news: his intestine spilling onto the ground like his son will do upon word of the loss of the his father;

Just the memory of Jane, the would-be war hero, perhaps even the Hector of the Amazons-Slave joint force, storming into the fleeing Amazons before being caught out in a duel with the Ajax of the Amazons Dina, a greek half-blood, who subsequently bashed her head in with a shield repeatedly until the splinters of her skull was pressed into a dust and what remained had a large chunk of bone broken off and the flesh was curving inwards the eyes exploded, half-of-one dangling to the side only retained by a nerve, the nose cartilage forced towards the lips busted open with the teeth knocked out inwards yet the vain sense of an enjoying smile remaining on the corpse’s face;

Just those sort of memories remained.

One time I’m driving along a country road, a surprising amount of missing persons posters on every telephone stump, and I looked in the side-mirror, and in the centre of the road behind me was a serpent, not more than twenty four inches long, with a bold white spot on its forehead that glimmered like divine Lucifer in the sky, commanding the great stars to shine in support of his lover divine Lady Diana; its fangs scraped across the ground leaving a thick noxious vapor that ate away and destroyed the life of all it touched, the shrubs growing in the road turned to dust and the pebbled stone shattered to sand.

Its scales were a dark, sour green like the green of a spruce tree’s leaves that swayed long above the thick boreal forests in a heavy wintery gale where the snowflakes caught on the leaves and rested before being shrugged off by Apollo’s great glow, it was this water-blessed dark green shining in the divine glorified glow that reflected the colour of the deep scales that the snake wore.

The eyes were a harsh golden, with black slits in its eyes that piercingly looked at me in my mirror as it pulled itself back and increased its verticality and opens its mouth and lets out a screeching hiss, as I turned to look at it closer out the window, I noticed that more serpents flew out of it as it hissed - a sound that caused my ears to begin to leak a minor amount of blood - and I realised the exact type of creature this was: as if the noxious venom dripping from its oversized fangs didn’t give it away.

I turn my eyes away from the rear view mirror, my eyes widen slightly, for one reason simply, my curse has led to monsters killing those I get close to but they never seemed to target me instead they stared at me with great hostility but here, here the monster was threatening me, wanted to harm me, to attack me. To kill me. Me! Of all people, what have I done to deserve this?

Hit a kid with a van when I was 11? Nah, you’re misremembering, I’ve never done that.

The actual reason I deserve to be hunted down is my accursed nature, I must assume. This nature is probably what had staved off the weaker monsters who had hunted and culled those who cared for me, they probably saw the curse and stepped away with animosity but a basilisk? That was a threat that my curse wouldn’t be able to stave off, a monster that can only be killed by the odor of a weasel or of a god's blessing. This is not going to be easy, especially since it seems to be stalking me, it doesn’t move fast but by the time I’m driving the next day it had almost caught up to me in the time I spent sleeping.

It isn’t giving up, and I’m not sure what to do about it.

I must not let it see me directly, I recall, it must have been looking at the van when I originally encountered and since then I took the precaution of only looking at it through mirrors and the sort preventing both its killing gaze and the relatitory killing in response to being gazed on; this great beast, the king of serpents: I am not equipped to deal with it.

My hands jitter whenever I have noticed it, subconsciously or consciously, draw closer. My vision begins to blacken and my throat begins to squeeze itself and my lungs begin to feel as if they’ll throw up, I have felt this since the death of Richard - who had been in a similar position to James, encountering a young me, and dying in a stupid way if not for the method of Richard’s death being the plucking of his eyeball by a mugger like the Giant plucked Odysseus’ men and his sheep.

However, it seems to heighten when this foul creature hisses and shrieks and peaks round; it is small, as I have stated not more than 24 inches; it is only two feet long, yet it causes my body to shiver like the great Hiems storms once caused the men, women and children unblessed with the silk garments of the Equites and the Senate to do. These great storms that coated the lands of Italia in snow and frost, great storms that froze over the living domain of Neptune and Oceanus; oh how deplorable of this monster to manage to replicate such an effect on me.

I cannot sleep purposefully anymore, I create warm fires that even Vulcan would be proud of yet they do not help to warm or calm me; instead I gaze into the flames and I see lines of corpses, their bodies decayed in random spreads and above the crowd just stares through the fire is the basilisk - though it is not here, even my visions recognise that it is looking for me; perhaps even looking at me without my knowledge just not directly. My eyes grow bloodshot and wet, and then they go dry, having wasted their wetness in response to the lack of sleep. The bloodshotness remains.

My visions become more chaotic and less refined as the serpent gets closer every time I wake up, no matter the distance, no matter when I wake up; if I wake up later it is only slightly closer than when I would wake up earlier, no matter what it is always near when I wake up; no matter how far I drive in one day - it always catches up the next. My saliva seems to build up quicker now, but my mouth and lips feel repugnantly dry and the constant consumption of my saliva in paranoid gulps likely doesn’t help.

I don’t feel resolute, and it pulls me into a term of questioning; how am I the same person as I was a few weeks, maybe months ago? I did not physically accomplish much, but I was not afraid of the Amazons retribution they would force upon me if I had lost the gamble; so why am I fearing this monster so much?

Is it a lack of confidence? I had support then, but here I have nobody. Perhaps it is something different. Cicero once stated in a letter to Atticus that “We do not object any more to the loss of our freedom, but [instead] we fear death and exile as greater evils, when really they are lesser ones” when referencing the situation with the First Triumvirate; it seems to be that my body is telling me a clear message, Cicero is incorrect - while the fear of a loss of freedom was very real it was no greater evil than death like he believed.

There is a life after death, I recognise, but I doubt that the fields of Elysium would open themselves up to my accursed soul; even the fields of Sorrow and Asphodel wouldn’t accept me in such a state, at least I don’t think they would, the most likely destination for someone as accursed and monstrous as myself is Tartarus, prison of the divine. It does nothing to reassure my stiff yet vibrative body that twitches and flinches at the mere sound of a cricket in the great fields of maize grain, for while such a fate is noble, to be in the position and location as the King of the Golden Age Saturn is a meaningful fate; I am afraid of the pain that awaits me in the great abyss, the pain that it would cause me and I am in no way worthy of a comparison to the Great God of Freedom, Time and Abundance much unlike his disgusting Greek counterpart which is both Chronos (Time) and Cronos (Agriculture) because the Hellenisation of Latinic paganism was never going to be smooth was it?

And so I found myself, desiring warmth; Desiring food once again; Desiring water; desiring love. But it is not that I desire these things. I desire life. And it is not the lack of these things that motivates me, but it is the fear of losing the final thing any human may have the right to hold that motivates me. Humans are born to live, and despite my curse, despite my failings in regards to peaceful conclusions, despite my failings in regard to my crimes and sins, am I not still a human? I am a monster but metaphorically - do I not deserve the rights of man? Upon this, ergo, should I not maintain the last right of any human, no matter the location, the civilisation and the culture may hold - the right to be alive, the right to feel my heart beat and my blood curdle. The right to feel both fear and happiness:

I am not a worthy Roman, I do not follow Roman law nor have I stepped foot in New Rome and upheld any decree of such a glorious place; but I am Roman in blood and spirit; so despite my unearth, I hope great Child of War Romulus will grant me pity and let me hold myself in sorrow as I clutch my knees by the fire; to hold off the great fate that seems to await my every step in form of my little serpentine adversary.

My eyes cannot wet themselves no more, but blood is a useable if vicious replacement - not that I notice the difference as the slight droplets brim in the corner of my eyes before spilling out and pattering down my face and onto my clutched knees; it’s painful, I can physically recognise it, it is painful to even cry, perhaps because of the blood; perhaps because I hate the feeling of the pity I am consumed by, oh how I wish Sweet Atē would whisk away my mind and worries to let me think without the blindings of fear.

It is a confusing dilemma I feel, I have complete freedom, there is nothing that holds me back besides my fear of this small scaled beast; in that it may hold perspective to say that this freedom is holding me back, I lack the allyship and protection those around and above me would have provided in such it may be claimable that under this excessive liberty I desire servitude; the servitude to a state or individual is perhaps a necessary evil to protect me from the evil of the world, then? Or perhaps the state and ultimate individual is a good, a flawed good that protects those beneath it from the evil of both themselves and others.

Neither side holds the idea that people and the world can change to be good, does that discredit the idea of me changing from my existence as a monster who has caused little but death to those around me even if in a human spirit and body? Perhaps, but neither side has to be true or correct, wherefore I would find it that the role of the state is not to just hold and protect those within it but to educate and convert the evil stench of humanity into something well-natured and prosperous like such a belief that the great philosophers desired.

The gods are flawed too, like humans, and yet they also show capability to change; even the likes of arrogant Apollo may one day show respect to the mortals beneath him, I too hope, that one day I am able to change the divine curse that has limited me in such a way that it is either advantageous or non-existent; if a man can learn to respect the rules of a state, a state that he was not born to be under, why can't it be that a man may learn to change his own spiritual constitution to such a length?

Maybe it is easier to state that I am simply afraid of dying, maybe no matter the allies I had or the protections I was under; I would be afraid, for I do not wish to die, I do not wish to pass under the fate of the fathers and mothers I have had. It is selfish of me, as I led them to that destiny, yet I do not desire it myself, despite the arguable deserved punishment that it would be for me.

The flames spit and spurt, and I can’t help but wonder what it’d feel like, to have the warmth of a divine gift surrounding me; to go out on my own terms at least, if I am destined to die, why may I not be in control of the fate I succumb to? My hand reaches out and I feel the rising heat as my hand stays over the peak of the flame, where the heat is ripe but I retract my hand and wipe the vicious, drying blood from my youthful face.

Fate. Fate is a strange concept, they say fate is determined, that the weavers of fate decide it for you and you follow it; but this isn’t entirely correct, fate decides the big points and prophecies and King God Jupiter secures its doing. However even beyond that, fate is built upon you. You are responsible for your own fate, Achilles was destined to die young not because he was always going to under fate’s demand but because he was Achilles and he made the decisions that got him into such a position. Yet, if Achilles did not make the decisions that he did he would not be Achilles because he would not be the Great Hellenic Hero who was unbeatable to the point they had to lie and state him to be untouchable just to diminish the power he held.

Therefore, my fate is decided by my choices, no matter the events outside of my control; if Octavian, me, is to die to a basilisk then so be it; for if there was a decision that got me out of this then I would no longer be Octavian. There is a statement to be made with the notion of alternate timelines and universes that this theory does not matter but I disagree, that Octavian who perhaps is killed by an onager, like the one experienced at the Amazon camp, is not me for he would not have the memories or identity of me no matter our similarities in decision making or thought. I am Octavian because of the choices I made, and the Octavian who did not make those choices is not Octavian because they are not me and I am Octavian.

In such a question of fate then, what is the basilisk? If the law of monsters as defined by the scholar and military leader Croponius (Praetor of New Rome between 1852-1859) is correct then it is the same as at least one basilisk from myth as monsters are innately able to reform after death which also leads to them not reproducing as much even if able to and therefore they is a high probable of a monster one encounters being the same as one from the myths, but the ones from the myths were territorial most often where as this one seems to stalk me wherever I go. Maybe it has claimed this entire region as its territory?

That would be a ridiculous notion to assert, if such were the case then surely there would be more worry about deaths in the area then? Since when a snake kills something it’d usually leave some kind of mark. On the other hand, its poison was potent enough to turn rocks into sand and kill foliage immediately; then maybe it would be able to completely decay a human body… oh my Apollo. I understand it now.

That’s why there were so many posters on the way here! By the Gods, I am a deluded idiot. How had I not seen it sooner; this is the basilisk’s territory, and that is why it is hunting me! Other monsters aren’t as territorial and so recognise the seeming nature of my curse, but the basilisk’s territorial function overrides such an idea because it recognises me as an invader on its property. It wants to rid itself of an invader, then? That’s a respectable goal, even if directed at killing me.

It reassures me in a way, that despite the terrible fate that would come to me if I was to die to this creature, there is beauty in the fact that the death would arguably be a just death instead a fate of death from a monster, it is a death from a defender. However, I still do not want to die; I have much to live for and much to look forward to, are there not people I am yet to meet? Experiences I am yet to have, and so it must be that I am not to die now! The Gods do not verbally answer my subconscious prayer, but perhaps that is all the answer I need; a storm spins above rampantly as the flames of the fire thin out to nothingness in the face of the great winds that almost topple the van.

Great clouds of dust are whipped up from the overfarmed fields like the thick of a mist that wraps around the tallest mountains keeping secret even the greatest of treasures from even the greatest of being like Zeus once hid from Cronus. A mist so great that nothing divine could pierce it and the only thing to determine the nature of what went on inside was ones own actions and thoughts, and my action was to ready my Imperial Gold sword and my Celestial Bronze knife, both of which I had not gripped since the events with the Amazons.

The great storm of dust smacks against my skin and threatens to tear it off, its great masses imitating a belt sander as I am unable to see where even my hands are and the first thing I hear as I focus myself and close my eyes is a hiss. A growling hiss. A screeching hiss that threatens to bring a tidal wave of snakes to the world and consume the clouds of dust in sacrifice.

I get another perspective, Apollo has granted me with a third sight, and though it is not of the current situation, I see myself from another perspective sitting on a beach. Under such a rule then must destiny guarantee I survive, such explains the storm then - Jupiter is ensuring that I achieve my destiny and stopping me from dying here and now. I ready the dagger and on instinct I thrust it down, spearing a snake - but not the basilisk - in the head before cleaving down with my sword; this kills the basilisk because I feel the handle disintegrate just above my hand soon after.

Then the storm clears, and there is but one snake, one my dagger and there is no sword and there is no basilisk - I must have cleaved its head off then? An enchanted blade and the blessing of Jupiter’s storm must have allowed me to do so; no weasel required! Thank the gods for that, I don’t think they have weasels in this region of the US - and there aren’t any zoos nearby since I couldn’t seem to escape its territory either. Oh but this is okay now, I have survived it.

Though, it does worry me that I am not feeling safe and it does not feel nice to have the only reason I survived base itself on the gods; gods that have stayed taking a policy of non-interference in my life which implicates that they allowed me to suffer under the hands of the Amazons, etcetera. Perhaps the Amazons were needed to make me make the decisions to guarantee my fate, but it feels annoying that they found it necessary for me to be a Spartacus-esque figure - enslaved for a year of my young life just to develop me into who they want me to be.

It almost disgusts me, but I understand the nature of the divine much more than some - it is stupid to think of the Gods using us as pawns in fate and destiny when they too are victims of fate and destiny; they are living a much worse fate than we mortals, for the life of the immortal has led them to a pathetic apathy; they live forever and so they simply no longer cares what happens unless it is there job, they are sad, boring beings. They lack that which makes humans so great, our ability to die. It is horrible to feel unloved and uncared for, especially when I am related to most of the gods - Apollo is my closest divine ancestor, followed by Romulus, followed by Venus, followed by Pluto, followed by Mars and once you go far enough back you get the various God-Emperors too: yet I understand that I am a pawn to them and they are a pawn to me, the gods are pitable and vain yet powerful beings and worship works on a barter system you sacrifice and pray to them and in return they grant your desires. Therefore it is stupid to complain about being unknown or known weapons for them, since they grant much in return to you and it is only fair to repay the favour to the flawed impossible powerful immortals.

Anyway, after I have killed the basilisk, I lie down on the seats in the van, stretching myself out like a bored puppy as I just stare out at the slightly desecrated crop fields. Then I just laugh, I move my hand to my forehead and spin onto my back as I laugh and kick the van’s dashboard until my foot is bleeding and I forced the vehicle to start - in particular playing the current US number 1 single “Love the way you lie” which is ironic because y’know I’m laying down right now and I’m also a compulsive liar.

It’s, uh, funny, makes my random laugh feel validated and normal when it obviously isn’t since I’m doing it in response to seeing desecrated crop fields, which makes me seem quite horrible and so I stopped laughing. Totally. Did not laugh anymore. Mmhmm uh-huh, no more laughing, definitely not for another twenty minutes by which time I had not changed the radio station and song to something much less funny and was still laughing. Nah, y’know me, I stopped laughing.

…

Moving on. I sit up, place my hands on the steering wheel, kick my foot down onto the accelerator and lean forward as the van barrels down the country lane; hitting the brake on the turns and nearly flipping the Amazon vam when spinning around the corner which causes my chest to crease and my breath to shove out of my body in response and my eyes to widen. Only for me to return to normalcy as I slip onto a highway, speeding 130 MPH in an Amazon van, honestly it's exhilarating, I feel so free after beating the basilisk.

Look at me. A homeless yet rich posho Roman, who beat The Amazons and a basilisk at the age of twelve, the only thing you can hold against me is borderline sociopathy and the fact that everyone who befriends me dies. I’m honestly brilliant, it’s a massive confidence boost especially since unlike beating the Amazons by killing the basilisk I didn’t end up killing 120 ish compliant basic-ish innocents. Ha, it’s great… I nearly hit a deer on the highway though, which made me quite worried, for myself, and forced me to stop.

I slipped out of the van and sat down on the grass, watching the birds flying in the sky. What beautiful things the birds are as one slips down and lands on my finger as I extend it out. The bird is a crow, with a beedy two black eyes, alongside almost oily black feathers and a sharp beak that looks as if it could shatter an iron blade.

The crow looks at me cautiously before leaning towards me and gripping my finger to force my hand to turn flat, upon which it sits down, squeezing its chin into its body and puffing itself up and it doesn’t react as my other hand moves to tickle the head of the crow, the tickle turning into a stroke and then into nothingness as the crow falls asleep on my hand.

It looks so peaceful, crows are intelligent but blissfully unaware to the human ideals of morals and laws; it’s kind of beautiful, and while I’d never personally want to be, I can understand why some may prefer the idea of a completely simplistic and minimalistic lifestyle or existence similar to that of an animals. I continue to stare at it as I sit against the van’s wheel and slowly drift off to sleep, finally free from the basilisk threat.

Chapter Text

When I wake up, the crow is still there, cuddling into my hand which had drifted to my midriff in my sleep; which makes it out that I was almost trapping the crow to me, not that it seemed to mind. The crow is still asleep too, though, I notice, it's not just the individual crow with me now; instead there are many, well I say many, it's three more.

One has nested into my head, with my wiry uncared for hair being peaked through and formed into a little basket by its tough beak. Another has nested in the triangle gap formed by my crossed legs, its beady eye staring up at me despite its resting form. The final new one seems reluctant, but has slipped into the thin gap of my raggedy shoes, I wasn’t even aware there was extra space to fit into - they did feel really tight whenever I was wearing them so really it is shocking to have a crow manage to sneak into it.

I look like a proper nature-boy, all that I’m missing now is triangle ears and hooves and dirt stained hands; or else you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between me and a Satyr. I wonder what Satyr there are, they always had aligned themselves with the Hellens from my knowledge; so I’d dub it that there has to a be a few around and about, since my experience with the Amazons proved that Hellenic Demi-gods definitely still exist despite claims of extinction by the aristocracy.

I must question where they are now, the Hellens that is, if they are to have survived the Roman onslaught during the American civil war then; then they must not be in a location nearby New Rome, which is in California and has been for a long while now, I’d presume the Gods to place the Hellens in a further away location perhaps on the other side of the US? It is said that the Gods’ current domain is limited to the main 48 US States; which means that New Thebes, or New Athens, or New Pella or whatever they will call their city must be East coast?

Perhaps New York or Washington D.C? The Hellens always favoured the ocean more, so New York would be a more likely contingent; upon which would they belong to a surrounding island or the mainland - it’d be easier to hide in the bustling state if they chose an island part of the state; New Rome was, according to the aristocracy, in a valley gap and protected by the mist. I must assume that New Pella - I really do hope that is what they are calling it, the birthplace of Alexander The Great is Pella after all and it’d be only worthy to name the place after arguably the greatest Hellenic Demi-god of all time - is in New York and on a, likely, large island around it.

Now my US geography is not the best, I am a nomad without a map, but if I am correct the very big island in the New York state is Long Island - very creatively named by the puritan colonists, no? - and if my theory is correct, which it should be, anything else would be illogical, then this New Pella is on Long Island. As if to assert my correctness, one of the crows resting on me wakes up and releases a murmured bejoyed caw before flying up and away, waking up the rest of the crows in its stead causing them to fly away too.

It is almost sad really, I would had preferred the crows to have stayed with me, I am a talented augur - they would have been useful for determining the future and the positives and negatives of decision making, especially since as my visions seem to mature they seem to be wider instead of more refined; sure I can interpret them well, but the birds could help me decipher them.

Perhaps they will come back to me later? Crows are intelligent things, and they recognise those who accept them and care for them like I do, that being that they recognise that I care for them; no-one really cares for me. I do wonder though, are crows affected by my curse - will I see one of them one day struck by a bullet in a meagre hunt? What about one snatched up by a great eagle whose talons strike into it like Diomedes pierced the hand of Mars (Ares at the time).

I have little to expect, in divine belief animals aren’t even meant to be able to show much care or intelligence over people; even the horses of Achilles were meant to stay silent despite being blessed with speech by Juno (Hera at the time). So I do dearly hope my winged friends do not perish under the weight of my disgusting affliction. I am quite resolute in the idea that this will not happen, which will probably make it worse when the immortals tell me to shut it and have my curse affect the crows anyway.

Crows would make much sense to be my closest animal friend, I am a prophet of sorts - though not in the form that many Romans would desire - and the god of prophets is my divine ancestor Apollo who is equally so the god of crows, well no but they are his patron bird so close enough. Apollo to the Trojans was also the god of rat and mice catchers, so… fun fact?

I stand up from where I sit at the wheel of the van and dust my toga off slightly. I had a toga specifically commissioned for me, it is red and white and it is beautiful - but, it isn’t really built for the nomadic life, I must admit. It’s a change from rags, girl’s school clothing and prisoner/slave wear. I slip into the front seat of the van and crack my joints, specifically my fingers because for some reason they are feeling quite stiff today.

Reminder, I am twelve and a bit years old, I am not some near-arthritis suffering 60 year old, my joints should not be this stiff and kinda weird feeling; I use the joints regularly yes, and yes I don’t really eat or drink or sleep enough and yes I am clicking joints for the sake of it, without a real reason to do so, but it weird that my joints are this clicky and stiff.

I rest my hands on the steering wheel and kick my foot down; planning to drive long, planning to drive quickly and planning to drive far. The crows fly alongside me, surprisingly, I had expected them to return to a tree or something of the like. The crows smooth out up and down, floating up and down as the wind carries them to keep up with me; I’m not going particularly fast for two reasons, to stay with the crows but also because there is a car that has appeared behind me.

A car that is a yellow Subaru Impreza, with some scratches on its front and a dent into its side; its a new make, this year in fact, imagine being made in 2010 and already being scratched up - you wouldn’t even be 1 year old yet!

A car with which the two people inside it are paying too much attention and focus to me. Two women, one recognisable, the other not. However, they both look determined, look so focused on the van and on me. The car stays a sweet spot of a distance behind me, not close enough to be suspicious, but not far enough to lose track of me despite the turns and speeds I make. I keep an eye out to the side, there are some abandoned farms along this route - I plan to stop off at one and make a stand.

The car continues to remain behind me, the dashes of white paint that marked the sides of the road growing thin and uncared for under the act of increasing speed that both of us seemed to partake in. The women in the car squint slightly and lean forward, putting more determination into their stalking. The recognizable woman had curly blonde hair, green eyes and a stern experienced face whereas the unrecognizable woman had sharp, straight brown hair, blue eyes and an excited inexperienced complexion.

I look closer, squinting as I look in my rearview mirror; the car has an assortment of weapons in the back, but not particularly readied nor or are actually truly well equipped, I doubt they’d bother to use them if they were to confront me. I am going to gamble on that. The weapons are a mix of Imperial Gold and Celestial Bronze, they do look quite nice, but they are too large for my liking.

Eventually, I notice an abandoned house with a busted down door by the side of the road and turn into it; quickly slipping out of the van and moving upstairs holding the knife up my sleeve as I hear the car doors close behind me and hear footsteps encroaching up the stairs before only one of the women steps over the stairs into the upstairs room: a room which is gritty with concrete walls, no paint, glass on the floor and rotten tables and chairs strewn about.

I recognise her now, those calculating eyes “Isabel” I say, with a surprised hum, a tone of recognition and slight enjoyment at seeing someone I once knew - I’m surprised my curse didn’t kill her, I expected her to think of me of as a friend… guess that means she didn’t really care about me despite those many months we spent debating and planning.

“Caesar” - I expected her to say Gaius as that was the name I used the Amazons until the end - She says with a sense of annoyance, but it is a caring annoyance, like the one you’d have at a younger sibling when they stole something from you. I like the way she says it, the word Caesar that is - a word eponymous with power and to hear it describe me, it’s wonderful, almost euphoric. “Do you know why I’m here?” She says, her tone going a bit blunt as she clenches her fist slightly, making her much superior muscles bulge. She is seemingly stand-offish and not as methodical as she had once been with me, it's very interesting to see how she has changed.

I don’t know, it is something I have to admit, I have theorised as to why the Amazons would track me down but I don’t exactly know per say and I answer as such “No, why?”. Both of our breathing patterns are slowed, cautious as we step back and forwards kind of like a swordsmen stand-off but with no actual guise as to where we are going and we certainly aren’t going in circles as if I get to Isabel’s side I could probably flee.

“Hylla wants you captured, or dead. Recognises the danger you represent, see you as a potential enemy” Isabel somewhat admits her own disagreement here, and I can pinpoint why she had been sent to deal with me alongside a likely loyal rookie; Hylla either wants me gone or Isabel gone and best case scenario for Hylla is both of us gone, she sees Isabel as an intellectual rival and she knows me to be a threat to her as I have shown it directly.

“Let me think,” I respond, sitting down on one of the rotten, grimy, mossy, wooden tables that have a bunch of spider webs built around it. She turns around and looks out of the window paneless windows, drawing a cigarette to her lips - funny, I had never noticed that she smoked, must be a new thing. She then speaks again, going on a slight tangent.

“The kid, who came with me, an absolute loyalist to Hylla, but she was determined to come with me on this mission” Isabel scoffs, but there is a sense of care in her voice, before continuing “but she admires you, never even seen you in person but hears story of the Caesar who single-handedly tore down a Queen and can’t help but respect you” Isabel and I both know that I did not ‘single-handedly’ tear down the last Queen, it was a group effort with lots of sacrifices but alas if it is judged that way its judged that way. “She probably won’t even act against you, you’ve probably come to the same conclusion as me” The idea that this was to get rid of Isabel was the unsaid conclusion. “So it’s either you or me” Isabel mutters just loud enough for me to hear, her or me huh? “and it is sad because we were friends, weren’t we? So please, for both of our sakes, come without violence” Isabel has a slight beg in her tone, and my eyes don’t react at all, don’t even brim with tears in response to what I’m about to do.

I lunge forward, the knife slipping into my hand, she turns to face me as I fall into her, she’s much more muscular than me, and could easily beat me to death physically but her body seems to fail her as she tries to push my arms away from her as both my hands push down on the knife as it inches closer to her by the minute all the while I can hear the breathing downstairs begin to pick up and moving but ending at the bottom of the stairs.

The mouldy ceiling drips water onto the back of my head, water that rests on my hair, moving from one strand to another before building up at the end of one and brimming up before dropping down and landing on Isabel’s cheek, not that you can tell with the tears on her face. The knife inches ever closer. She was right, it was me or her, and it is going to be me. Her breath becomes tumultuous as she tries to speak through her silent sob as the knife inches closer and her attempts at pushing me away gets more frantic but weaker.

“Please” She begs, her head not even lifting up as she speaks and another bit of mould water drips onto her cheek from my head. “Please listen to me.” She doesn’t even say that I should just go peacefully as she bites back a sob and shouts out “LISTEN TO ME!” Her tears become more violent as her legs kick about beneath me and her hands grip my hands extremely tightly but as much as her arms try to push me away, the knife keeps inching closer as I put more and more of my weight on it. She is tearful and sobbing. Nothing brims at the edges of my eyes.

“Stop!” She begs, her head beginning to shake violently in her tears as the movement and banging of her legs becomes more frantic. “STOP!” She screams but the knife doesn’t reach her yet as she desperately tries to push me away, but as said her force seems to be getting weaker as her legs begin to stop banging and kicking violently and instead she just keeps her mouth agape and her muscles in her face tensed as she cries and sobs and moans and tries to push me away but the knife digs closer.

“Please! You don’t want to do this!” She manages to form the slightest coherent sentence before the knife penetrates her clothing, and her arms just lose energy and give up as the knife quickly curves down and thrusts down as my weight is on it and it just pierces into her heart. I am but inches away from her quickly lifeless face, it is soon that her body will be tarnished with maggots, flies and rot if not for a funeral to help her into the afterlife… but I won’t do that for her. I stand up, pulling the knife out of her wound with the sound of a cork popping out from its bottle. Her head tilts to the side like a red poppy in France and Belgium blooms in the fields and will, in the rain, droop to one side as it is weighted down by seeds and water, as her eyes glaze over with lifelessness and she stares to the blank, wall of cement and nothingness.

I look at her body with a sense of numbness, I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t feel anything before, during or after her death. I was happy that she saw me as a friend and sad that she no longer saw me as one, but I didn’t feel anything as I murdered her. I should care, she was, at least in the past, my friend, so why didn’t I? Why couldn’t I care, she was an ally once and someone I thought of as close to an intellectual equal. She said it herself though, it was her or me.

“It was her or me” I mutter as I walk down the stairs with a slight limp, standing at the top absently for a second as I lock eyes with the younger Amazon before walking down, not out of injury but out of confusion and being in my own little world as I walk past the younger Amazon. My blood stained toga brushing against them, tarnishing their Amazon clothing with the blood of Isabel, as they tuck in against the stairs’ wall letting me go down with heavy, irregular breaths; with thick tears growing in their eyes before rushing up the stairs after I’ve passed and growing into a loud, whining sob as they cry - probably holding Isabel’s body, rocking it back and forth as I presume I would have done with my parents if I was in this position, or I would have done with James’ or any of my adopted parents if I was in this position. I feel numb.

The whine becomes a slight moaning howl as I sit in the driver's seat of the Amazon van, I don’t turn the key yet, I don’t turn the engine on. I just listened to the loud tears of the girl who was probably cradling and crying over the body of my former friend and her mentor, her tears probably diluting the blood and the wound she had, not that Isabel would react. She was dead. Simply put, dead. I stare out of the front window of the van as I turn to get out. The cries grow and grow. It is irritating.

I walk back up the stairs quite loudly, but the girl can’t hear me over her own tears as I stand behind her. She isn’t even aware I’m there, I can’t even bring myself to apologise to her. Not that I’m apologising over Isabel. I bring the dagger down into the back of her spine, and I still feel numb as she gasps as the air is driven from her lungs and she attempts to scream as she rolls onto her back; she doesn’t get the begging death Isabel does as I raise the knife above my head again and stab her, and stab her, and stab her, and stab her, and stab her, and stab her, and stab her… and stab her… and stab her… and stab her… and stab… her… and stab… her… and… stab… her.

I take the keys to the Subaru Impreza from Isabel’s pocket and open the vehicle, staring into the rearview mirror, I stare at myself in it. My face is covered in splashes of blood that stain my cheeks and drench my slick, oily blonde hair. My eyes have nothing behind them, like they were great big black holes that swallowed up all light that attempted to escape their wrath and grief. My toga too, is covered in blood, it was originally red and white but now it looked like red and a darker red. It's almost funny, the white bit is now the darker red bit.

My hands are coated in blood as if it's a glove of some kind, a glove that stretches up to my elbows. My hands are still, unshaking, as I think back to every time I’ve seen them covered in blood; during the deaths of one of my adopted parents when I was four, during the rebellion against the Amazons and now… one of those felt different, and I’m not sure which or why. My mouth quivers into a smile as a desperate laugh fills my face and my hands clutch it, spreading the blood around it until my face is fully drenched as I continue to laugh. Why am I laughing? I don’t know. It's not funny, my mouth hurts, my throat hurts and I don’t feel like laughing.

I stop laughing and a bit later a scream fills my ears. I wonder if someone found the bodies, but I can’t care about it for some reason. My throat begins to hurt as I try to wipe the blood off my face with my blood stained hands, my mouth is agape I realise and shaking violently as the scream gets louder and closer. The windows and doors are closed but as I look out the windows of the Subaru a feverish mass of corpses, those from my hand and my mind and my curse, all dead in the various ways I’ve seen, decapitated, stabbed, shot, torn apart, ripped limb from limb banging feverishly and screaming at the doors and windows from all sides with anger and rage at the doors as the windows tint red with all the blood that begins to cover it as the sun seems to shake in rage and anger in the sky above me and becomes harsh.

Then I blink, my mouth feels dry, and as I try to close it and the screaming stops, I must have been the one screaming… I realise. I was screaming. I look around after blinking and the blood and bodies aren’t there and the sun is not shaking in the sky with the hatred that I deserve. I stop making noise at all and just sit back in the Subaru and begin to whimper as I look at my hands and open and close my mouth in a slight bite as my head lunges forward but my body back as my neck seems to tense and my stomach seems to clench painfully. How am I any different from my curse? If I take lives, just like it does?

My hands return to my face, not out of embarrassed laughter but in tears as I sob and cry and whine and moan and groan and cry. As I curl up in the seat, screaming my lungs out and crying until I can’t anymore, until I have cried as much as I did when confronted by the basilisk. I cry. My breath is raggedy and irregular as my shoulders begin to feel painful with the amount of stress put under them by the clutching of my knees as tears drip from eyes and onto the seat I’m curled up in. I take the Celestial Bronze dagger, the one I had used to stab that Amazon when I was first captured, the one I had just used to murder the two girls just now; I take it, and I hold it to my throat, and my Roman ethics and morals and honour and most of all my heart tell me to do one thing but my desperate mind tells me to do the other.

I press the knife against my throat, the pressure increasing as the tears lose their emotional factor and become replaced by the feeling of pain as blood begins to seep from my throat in a slight paper cut. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I move the knife away and drop it to the floor of the car. As I rest my face in one hand and punch the other repeatedly into the steering wheel of the car, flinching every time the horn goes off and screaming with sadness and anger as I cry.

Chapter Text

Fucking damn it. Damn it all. Damn it all the way to the grave of Tantalus. Damn the gods. Damn humanity. Damn the monsters and, most of all, damn me for letting my guard down.

I had driven to New York, slowly, carefully, but not carefully enough. I was stopped once, but I just stopped and stared at the police officer who looked at my blood soaked and blood stained body and face before stepping away, good. I continued to drive, the various weapons in the back and my hands shaking over the steering wheel unable to grip it.

I came to a stark realization over the strange amount of days and nights it took me to get there from my former location. Perhaps the satnav in the Amazon van had been a great tool because when I finally paid attention, the sign I saw was one welcoming me to Texas. Texas, that definitely isn’t New York. But what oh what am I so angry about?

I had another seizure, shocking; me having a seizure at the worst possible time, I had felt the car slowly slip out of my control and my attempts to move my foot and my hands resulted in gestures of nothingness replaced by jitters and spontaneity that was not in line with what I desired.

Then I struggled to keep my eyes straight and my head tilted up, the car was already out of my control with my foot still on the accelerator unmoving but my eyes begin to slip, but don’t blink, as my throat begins to clog up as my breathing and swallowing begins to fail me in the face of the seizure. Spit begins to curl up at my mouth, as my back goes slack and my elbows droop; droop like a loosely secured hammock under the weight of many different children who are unaware of how to actually lie on a hammock in such a way that it will inevitably drop and force the children crashing down.

Then the car goes off the side of the road, barrelling across and into another car and I lose consciousness as my body slams forward, my head bashing into the windscreen, breaking through and pushing shards of glass into my scalp letting blood drain in streamed droplets.

That isn’t what I’m fully mad about, though. What I’m mad about is a vision, a great dream I’ve had during my streak of unconsciousness; it is something so great that I am mad that I had not had it under better circumstances because if I had had it under different circumstances, no doubt could I formulate a better plan around it.

First, I am in a great field, with a small camp in the middle, in which sits a few rich tents, of various purples, reds and even golds, and people adorned in fine silks and garments accompanied by wine and Imperial Gold weapons, upon which the dream focuses into one tent. In the tent sits three people, two adults and a child.

The adults are the parents to the child, that much I recognise, the garments are that of a roman and the child is playing with a chess piece, that the mother and father are ignoring as they look into each other’s eyes lovingly. The woman is pretty, with straight chestnut brown hair, blue eyes and a thin natural scowl that is contorting into a smile, her gaze is cold and almost unloving but love feels present. The man isn’t handsome, but he is muscular, his face is stern and full of a shocking amount of freckles dotted around like carbon in the diamond cluster, his hair is a golden blonde and his gaze is full of adoration but also ignorance.

The boy looks strange, not in appearance besides his slight paleness that doesn’t match the equally mediterranean-stereotypical skin tone of his parents; instead it is the sort of confusing aura around the child, now, of course, I don’t really believe in ‘auras’ in the way weird conspiracy teenage girls who believe in star signs do but I mean… this vision has a weird cloud around the child.

In one moment the cloud is one of radiance and sunlight, the next is one of a mirror - a mirror that curves down behind the head of a boy into a hand mirror. If I am correct, the first is to symbolise Apollo, the second to symbolise Venus; and these two auras, they seem to clash, to conflict, to try and claim ownership without success in doing so. They fight like the Romans long did the parthians, persians and the sassanids and for a while the turks; without success, without loss either, they just stayed in an eternally volatile stalemate.

I don’t understand the purpose of the vision, as the boy continues to play with chess pieces, completely ignorant to the aura around him; the golden aura whips out and strikes the man in the chest. The vision then seems to fast forward the motions of the people, and I can feel my eyebrows crease as the man later clutches his chest and falls to the carpet from his chair, letting the end that is death consume him. A blackness clouding his once lively bright eyes.

Concerning the responses to this, the boy seems none the wiser, just simply aware of his father’s death as his mother sits, taking care of him, yet slightly distant; as if she sees the volatility of the conflict around him, and she tries to protect herself. The next night, a great man, bathed in radiance and light visits her; whisking her away into the clouds, her smile much more present than it ever was with the boy or the boy’s ‘father’.

The boy continues to be none the wiser, he seems to understand that his parents are dead, but he seems almost numb, unreactive, uncaring, completely and utterly unreactive - that is not to say he is not saddened or depressed by the death of his father, and to what must be to him, the death of his mother too; instead he just sits there, continuing to play with his chess set as another family seems to just lodge in and take care of him.

I have the swift realisation, that this vision echoes something in my knowledge; my father’s death, it was a physical affliction, that is what I remember, I do not remember what specifically but more importantly it aligns with my mother’s fate, I had believed her to have been killed by a monster since she went missing especially since no-one had even understood where she could have possible ended up. I must have been wrong.

My blood mother likely didn’t care for me, then, that is what the vision is telling me; she had curated me over months, tried to make me the best child possible and I wasn’t good enough. She must have hated me, or something along those lines; to have just abandoned me for some divine being, to have just left me behind, I can feel a scowl lift onto the face of my sleeping body as the world around me distorts.

The vision returns to normal with my mother in a grand, dusty field, similar to the fields outside Ilium which had been over harvested for the years of the Trojan war as the further away fields had been way too at risk, this had led to a food shortage in Troy and had caused them to not be able to support their soldiers as much as possible during their final stand; in such a way was this field completely dry and barren, especially sandy, with the patches of grass orangey and yellow.

Poppea Livia Cicero, my dear dear great betrayer of a mother, someone who left me behind at the mere glance from Apollo; abandoned me because, what? I was even the slightest bit under her expectation, I mean, for Augustus’ sake. She had no way of knowing I was cursed, she had no way of blaming me for her husband's death, not that she cared for my father as much as she seemed to care for Apollo. I mean, heh, oh my gods, it is just ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. She quite literally just left me behind for no reason, she’s my mother she should have stuck with me but no! She left me for what? To be a god’s little toy while he was slacking on his actual work, domains and responsibilities!?

Absolutely unforgivable! She stands alone in a field with a small smile on her face with Apollo’s arm around her hip as she has just abandoned her singular, lonely son; she had no clue what was to happen with me, I could have been left behind because there was no reason to keep me, and she just so happily left me with those who could abandon me? I suppose she wanted to abandon me first, to feel no responsibility? I can almost respect that idea.

Apollo steps out in front of her, his hand sliding away from her waist and pulling up to rest her hand on her cheek; he mutters some sweet nothings to her, about how it won’t hurt; what won’t hurt? Is the first question on my mind, she just nods, seemingly expecting something. Apollo asks her something about me but for some reason I can’t make it out, and she just does not care.

She just accepts whatever he’s proposing with extreme willingness and no thought to what it actually is; is she just not bright? Not intelligent enough to realise just what he’s proposing, I can’t even fucking hear what is being offered, but I can tell what it is; its some divine schmo bullshit, but that doesn’t change what it is. He’s going to remove her memories, I didn’t even know Apollo could do that? I guess that maybe he just keeps it under wraps, guy does give the ability of prophecy maybe he does strip people of their ability to peer into the past? Then again, there have been examples of other gods giving prophetic abilities so this could just be a crossover of domains.

It is very obvious that this is the plan, she leaves her child behind, essentially fakes her death, and she doesn’t want to deal with the guilt of it all; so she lets Apollo take it all away. I think if I was in Apollo’s place I would have slit her throat out of anger. That might be the fact she is my mother clouding my judgement though, or more so the fact she’s abandoned me; what would I have used to slit her throat, there were a bunch of weapons in the Impreza, perhaps I could use the curved end of that wonderful golden Kukri? It did have a particularly nice looking leathery grip, a leather wrap with built in finger pockets for you to grip, a Kukri built for my hand.

Or maybe I could use that large Celestial Bronze zweihänder, split her from the nape of her neck to her chaps and watch her fall apart just like she left me to fall apart, just like our family fell apart. Though, I don’t know how I feel about using a Germanic weapon; us Romans aren’t very fond of Germans, I guess it's in our blood. I suppose I have some respect for some Germans, I mean, Charlemagne was German, kinda, and he was Roman… in a manner of speaking.

Speaking of the Impreza, I’ve just realised, I’ll have to retrieve those weapons at some point; hopefully the mist covers them from the police or the firefighters who have had to deal with the result of the crash, if I have even been saved from the crash by the services. How annoying, how very annoying - especially if the mist hasn’t covered them, because if not then I’ll wake up in a state penitentiary.

Anyway, before I continue to lose focus, this means she is bright enough to know though; that she hasn’t just abandoned me, she also doesn’t have the honour to deal with it! I wave my hands around in rage, and I almost get distracted by the misty golden form that I seem to have taken in this dream; it looks strange and is very intriguing, but it doesn’t distract me from the noticing side-eye given to me by Apollo.

So he’s aware of my presence here? His past self aware of my peering into the past, has he been the one to grant this vision; no. He doesn’t want me to know, I can read it on his perfect features. He’s worried, worried for her. Worried about what I will do. A smile implants itself on my face as a laugh begins to erupt from the deep void in my throat, growing out and upwards before becoming vocal enough for Apollo’s worry to become much more obvious. It feels… nice. To be able to make an immortal so worried, to be able to have that effect, but I don’t plan on doing anything to my mother… Well, not right now.

How, wonderful, though; so, what, my mother has had her memory erased and I’ve found out just how exactly my curse works; but… this vision hasn’t changed anything! So, well, it can’t be over; visions have to mean something; right? The vision distorts again, before settling over a newspaper.

A newspaper, from some small news shop in Texas, announcing that local celebrity Naomi Solace has delivered a child. The relevance here? Naomi Solace looks like an exact clone of Poppea Livia Cicero, just more of a Southerner, not as much of a ‘southerner’ as a confederate, but still a southerner. That sort of stereotypical country girl look, it doesn’t fit my mother; if she is even worthy of such a title, well, I doubt she wants that title with how readily she gave me up.

How she forgot about me.

She seems to be a musician of some sort, most likely a singer since I can’t see any particular instrument associated with her; I wonder if she had been a musician when she was still my mother, but perhaps not, I can’t remember anyone mentioning any musical or lyrical prowess but it is a valid explanation for why Apollo would have taken an interest in her originally, or perhaps it could be the other way round where Apollo has inspired Poppea, no… Naomi… to take up the musical arts.

The vision expands the newspaper photo, stretching and contorting it until it surrounds me; the photo overlaying the surroundings and placing me directly in a hospital room, with a passed out Popp- Naomi lying in the singular bed. There is a midwife holding a born tan child, with blonde hair already beginning to settle on his head; I had expected lanugo to be present but this was pigmented and belonged to a small little boy.

Wait a minute, this must mean that, ohhoho. THAT is wonderful, it’s amazing. My mother may have chosen to abandon me, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t my blood, however, more importantly, that doesn’t mean this little boy isn’t my blood. I have a brother, oh mother, in your abandonment you have given me the greatest gift possible.

It is the most supreme honour to have a little sibling, for your parents are separate from you and your children will be too; so it is your siblings that you should treasure most, and I shall. He looks so similar yet so different to me, I was born sick, he was born healthy; but he isn’t perfect, he doesn’t have the guiding hand of his older brother. That’s going to harm him, he needs me, by blood right he needs me and I should be there for him. I will be there for him.

His hands are small, and like that of a crustacean’s form, curling around the air in curiosity of what its newborn eyes do not recognise. His face isn’t particularly chubby, but it isn’t skinny like mine; it’s perfect, to me at least. I think my brother is perfect. Then again, I am biased; I stare over the boy, a smile rising to my golden face’s lips, stretching a bit too wide for most people to think it was normal; but there isn’t anyone here to see it or judge it.

He’s wonderful, really he is, my little brother.

My wonderful little brother, a child of Apollo and a little Caesar. He looks almost golden and radiant, even from birth; like the great dog-star that even the lowest of animals recognised to be divine. He’s brilliant. And I’ll make sure he always is.

What if she harms him, my fists clench in response to the thought, but I know the thought is right. What if she abandons him, or harms him, she has shown a disregard for her children before; what if she doesn’t care for my new brother, a brother who is ultimately much more deserving of greatness than I will ever be; for he is not cursed, instead he is clearly a blessing.

I have to make sure he’s okay, as soon as possible, I have to find out if he’s safe; and if he isn’t I have to make sure that bitch - not Hera/Juno being called that for once - pays for it.

Just as I settle into the hospital, the vision distorts again, settling me into a room; a bedroom clearly, there is a small bed tucked into the corner; a child’s bed gives away who the room is for, though it is surprisingly plain; some spare musical instruments seem to be stored here, though they aren’t children’s instruments. There are some children’s books and toys strewn about everywhere, very messy, and there is also a wardrobe which I doubt the resident of the room actually uses.

The walls are painted white, but the ceiling has a tint of being a cathedral ceiling; not a ceiling directly from a cathedral but that sort of shape and markings… which I must say is quite interesting because that is bloody expensive, trust me, I looked; and by looked I mean that I was looking at the properties that I had ownership of but had never been too and uh, half-of-them have some sort of ceiling that doesn’t belong in them, then again, most of my homes aren’t some modernist schmo. Some of my homes aren’t even in the states!

I look over the room again and settle my eyes on a child, tan, freckled and blonde; sitting on the windowsill, extremely close to falling out of the window. That’s my brother, my breath hitches in my throat despite knowing that I likely cannot intervene in my state as someone in a vision; I just have to cope with it, if he falls, I have to watch and know that I failed as a brother because it is impossible for me to stop it. My stomach tightens, my eyes widen as I take a step forward; I know I physically cannot intervene, I have not been able to actually physically interact with anything beyond that newspaper but I have to try; I am not letting him die.

I try to get close, but he turns to me and flinches; before softly and curiously asking who I am, before getting side-tracked and asking me why I looked so golden; I decide to answer the first question but not the second question. I choose my real name, though, I know that ultimately I’ll have to choose a fake name upon first finding him in person; I doubt it’d be possible to go around with my real name given how strange most Americans find it.

“My name is Gaius Julius Octavius Caesar, you can call me Octavian though” My words are clear, with a tint of caring forced into them; I do care, really I do, but I can’t seem to get myself to express it. I sit down on the windowsill next to him, in such a way that it forces him away from the open part; thank the gods. I smile at him, and he smiles back, I can see how I look in his blue eyes; I look like a mist forced into shape, golden dust given form and viscosity with pieces of gold seemingly dripping off of me and disappearing into nothingness. There’s a small silence, “What’s your name” I prompt him, he might not be aware of how to socialise yet; he does look young, so young that I question how on Neptune’s ocean is he being left alone in a room on the second floor with a wide-open window, it’s a miracle he hasn’t fallen yet.

“Will” He smiles brightly, a smile so untainted by the pains of the world that it makes me want to preserve it forever, to drown the boy in salt and make sure the features stay in the same joyfulness forever; metaphorically of course, why would I want to kill my own sibling. That said, I am not against killing my mother, considering she’s the one who must have just left him here and that guitar looks particularly sturdy - I wonder what would break first, her skull or the guitar body? “You look angry” Will’s words take me out of my small, short trance.

“I’m just annoyed that someone would leave you up here alone, it’s not safe” I admit, it is the truth; it isn’t safe to just leave him here, if he fell he’d probably die; his bones have been solid for a few years now, but even then I doubt any five year old, demi-god or not, would survive falling from two-stories. “We should get down from the windowsill” I say, slightly nudging him to get off the sill. It’s a slight drop for him, but he should be fine; especially if he managed to climb up on his lonesome too.

As soon as we get down, the door opens, and in steps Naomi; her expressions looks confused and slightly curious, I come to the obvious conclusion before the question leaves her mouth - she must have heard Will talking to me. I must say I do not like that name, it doesn’t feel right for someone who is so obviously brilliant and is my brother to have such a… poor name. I believe something better suited to be Lucius, obviously in reference to his father’s light, then the last name of Julius Caesar as he is my sibling but also for him to have the name of Aureolus - meaning gold - due to his golden hair. So, his name, in my opinion, should be Lucius Julius - Aureolus, as the nickname rolls off the tongue better when in the middle of the last name, as seen in my own name - Caesar. Lucius Julius Aureolus Caesar. Great name.

“Who are you talking to, darlin’” Her voice is southern, country, I don’t like it, it feels uncouth for someone who was definitely a long-standing New Roman. It is wrong, she’s wrong, she’s horrible, I hate her, I hate her voice, I hate it! Will replies, looking at me, I look back at him with a smile, and when she seems confused by the fact Will is talking to the air I fake a surprised smile.

I can’t stand it all, because it makes Will question me, questions my existence, my status as someone there; I might not technically be there but it feels weird to have my own brother question my very existence. Will repeats that he’s talking to me, and she just laughs it off - it almost causes a scowl to rise to my face, but I settle it beneath my smile.

Then Will is taken away by his mother, likely to have lunch or something along those lines; I hope it's something nice, like a beef pie; full of gravy and meat and veg and such a thick yet somehow soft crust you could use it as a bowl. I can almost feel the taste on my tongue, if not for the fact I’d never actually eaten a beef pie, I just have heard of how to make one and everyone does seem to make it out to be nice.

The vision cuts, like that of a tv screen, pitch black, I am there, in a golden form in a void, an abyss. Even the domain of Nyx or Erebus is not this dark. My throat clenches but I’m not sure why. Something's off, my eyes flick around panicked but I don’t know what I had to be panicked about. I feel like I’m surrounded by water, like I’m floating, or sinking. No, I’m sinking and floating.

I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe; it’s strange, it’s a strange feeling. It’s not entirely uncomfortable, but it is distracting. The pressure makes it hard for my eyes to stay focused, focused on what is moving in the darkness. There is something there. No, I’m wrong. I’m not usually wrong but here I am. I am golden, and there is not something stalking me from the darkness, from my own shadow. There are multiple things stalking me from my shadow, from the lack of light I have left behind me.

I can’t make out the shape, my eyes can’t focus on them, my body can’t move beneath the pressure beyond the constant pushing and pulling of the darkness. The shapes are coming closer, they are circular-ish and distinct in their form despite them not being much different to the darkness. They are faces, I recognise, and they are smiling, the ones that still have mouths are smiling; the ones that have ears are listening, the ones that have noses are sniffing, the ones with eyes are glaring, and there are some with nothing.

And they are getting closer, closer, and closer still. I recognise a few of the faces, another gulp fills my throat, there is one face that gets close; too close, mere inches from me. It is burnt, charred and there is no skin on it anymore, it is just burnt. It has no eyes, and then the mere darkness in the gaps of its eyes slide up and it becomes a bloodshot green. Of all people, why his face?

The other faces get closer and surround me and then behind me I feel a bite, a nibble, a crunch - there are faces behind me then, and they are all getting closer, in front and behind and they are consuming me. Without remorse, punishment for my curse, punishment for my role in killing them. My body is shaking, I can feel it, but I can’t see it. It’s too dark to even see my golden form now. My chest tightens.

The vision ceases.

Chapter Text

My eyes open up to a hospital, bland as it is, its empty besides me seemingly; nor does it sound busy, the only company here is a fly, repeatedly landing on my face, trying to suckle my skin like it would do a pile of shit; that it would only use to spread disease to a sandwich that some child might eat.

However, as far as I’m aware I am not a pile of shit, I could be deemed a piece of shit, but not a pile of shit.

I’m wearing a hospital gown; it’s uncomfortable, oversized except around my shoulders. I assume this is because my shoulders are actually growing outwards whereas I could probably wrap my arm around my waist if it was flexible enough.

That doesn’t make me out to be very healthy, but, uh; why would I be healthy? You tell me, how could someone who hasn’t had a permanent place of residence besides a location where he was a slave manage to feed himself healthily for multiple years in a row? Not to mention the fact I didn’t eat or drink during my encounter with the basilisk which was only around a day or two ago, so, of course I’m not going to be healthy!

You think you're so smart making judgments about my health, you aren’t smart for pointing out something you are being told! You aren’t being shown this, you are being told - that’s one of the most common problems in media, you are so lucky that the only reason I am even saying this in my thoughts is because I might be delusional as shit and think that there is someone reading this; this is meant to be a mental journal of mine, so is there anyone here judging me?

Probably not, but I think there is, insanity or not, I could be right. I could be.

Anyway, back to the hospital; as said it is bland, the walls are pasty white tiles and the ceiling is a cold ceramic, the floor is a tough, dry rubber that feels disgusting beneath my bare feet. My steps are slow, yet loud, it makes me flinch every time I hear the slight pop as my feet remove themselves from the honestly tar-like floor.

I am waddling, a bit like a penguin, swaying back and forth - I end up leaning on the wall as I continue to walk down the hospital, it’s not silent, but I can’t see anyone; I can hear people, I can hear mutterings, even commands to stop, and my head turns to the source - but there is no-one there.

Well, I know there is someone there, I just can’t see them, I’m not stupid; I can differentiate reality and fiction, I know what my mind believes and what is real. I am not sure as to why I can’t see them, but I can hear them, that confirms that they are there but my eyes refuse to believe it.

It makes little sense for a hospital to be empty, so, it does have to be the case that I am pretending there is no-one there over making auditory hallucinations; the hospital is long, so long, gods, the corridor just stretches onwards and onwards into the horizon and above each split-off where it forms into a ward there is a sign - hanging above, telling me, simply, ‘exit ahead’. Exit ahead, far down the horizon.

Of course, it’s not truly the horizon, if it were I would have to outrun Neptune to reach the exit. I doubt I could do that, too weak and slow. But, by the gods, does it stretch on, and on, and on - I feel like Brutus of Troy staring over the land of Prydain that he was soon going to rule with the Trojan slaves he had freed, that being hopeful. He was hopeful for the success of Trojan settlers, I am hopeful that I will eventually reach the street outside.

I eventually reach what looks to be a half-way point, the sounds of speaking having gotten louder, and louder and louder. My body got stronger and less limp as it dragged itself against the wall, until I managed to sway back up right. I continued to edge my way with each step, my eyes staring into the far distance where I could finally make out the lines of the glass doors at the end of the hospital.

The speaking continues to get louder. I continue to walk my way down, my body eventually getting to a point of comfortability where I am no longer slouching, and then I feel something rush past me and I turn to look at it and I see a nurse rushing through with a patient on a bed. Then I look back to the exit and see dotted masses of people, walking in and out of the remaining wards, then I look behind myself and see someone shouting after me; probably to ask for payment, or for parental details.

I ignored them, I had been essentially ignoring them for most of this time, since I couldn’t see them, but now that I can, I still will ignore them; there is no point in not ignoring them besides the mere loss of money which would really just get in the way of any future endeavor.

Well, that was if there was any bottom to my pit of money; but assuming there was, I would rather not pay for healthcare. Is that an unfair view? The government should be the ones to put the money into healthcare for all, there should not be hospitals and insurance companies collaborating for ridiculous prices to squeeze the green-blood as they help you stop losing red-blood. Yes, I know, call me a socialist, or something… it’s not even socialist to think that really, left of centre, but in the modern view of socialism as this great controller… no.

I mean, from my own readings, in the library as a young kid, socialism at a democratic level is the belief of restriction of capitalism; it is not its complete eradication, that is extreme socialism; which has shown itself to be a terrible system. If I am to be socialist, as an American would claim, since I am in… Texas, damn if this monologue was out loud I would be shot, anyway, if I am to be socialist; then my belief is that utilities and infrastructure should be owned by the Government and that business should be restricted to the other sectors.

Make sense? Good, anyway, where were we… right, leaving the hospital. It gets fuller and fuller the nearer you get to the entrance, by the time I do get the entrance, I have to wait just to take a step forward towards leaving and the moment I do get out I get almost blinded by the contrast between the dim and damp hospital in comparison to the great sun that is seemingly trying to singe my eyes off.

It takes me a second to actually see anything besides the bright darkness, and I would rather have stayed blind because there is nothing worth seeing here. It looks mostly brutalist, the architecture type I mean, bland buildings, bland shops, the suburban houses look nice I suppose - but still, ugly, cheap and affordable but ugly. I much prefer classical architecture, because it does just look wonderful, and I wish we continued to build with such classical architecture.

However, that is pretty hard given economic standpoints for a majority of people. I could pay… maybe when I’m older, anyway, back to the bland, boring street outside the hospital entrance. It is less populated then the hospital, perhaps there is an outbreak of disease nearby? It’s one of the few reasons I could explain such an occurrence, though, a sickness of this level? To affect what seems to be an entire suburb, it’s something quite special.

Though, I can’t distinctly tell if that is definitely the case, it’s an assumption and I like to be right, but I might not be. I walk down along one side of the pavement, noticing that the stupid Subaru Impreza is just there; broken and bruised, definitely not in working condition, but I suppose Mercury must have taken pity on me and allowed me one last look at the vehicle I had used to come here. The back window is open and I manage to slip my hand in and take out the various weapons in their satchels, which I slip under my hospital gown and use a pin to keep it attached, since the satchels already came with pins.

Ah, the Subaru Impreza, I won’t miss you, but; I must say thank you, you have carried me a great distance and you have been a great mercy to me, a great tool for my progress, even if I and you have not known it at the time. I will not think of you, but you have my gratitude.

I am to look at myself in the side-mirror, bandages around my forehead, blood-stained, and the hospital gown being confirmed to be extremely oversized on me like it is some form of cape or cloak. As I presumed this is likely due to my very thin stature, I am actually quite tall, even for my age; I believe the average age of a twelve year old male born in California is around 150 centimeters. A conservative estimate for my own height would be 170 centimetres, which is actually above average adult females height by a single inch.

I’ve not even hit puberty yet.

That’s made my ego increase, y’know, after most of my life being spent with a constant stream of depression due to the fact that everyone I know dying because well, I’m cursed; yes, I know the source now, but it is still my curse, and it is still my fault, so… ehrm, it just sucks. The only thing actually positive about me is the fact that I am smart, and I am tall; I also have an amazing brother, having met him of course.

But, I know that he’s amazing and perfect and brilliant; so, yeah, only three good things in my life.

And money. So, yeah, only four good things in my life.

Do you know what isn’t good, the fact that I turned down an alleyway off the side of the street and have found myself being watched by a man, likely middle aged, balding and missing two teeth. With the way he is staring at me, I presume him to be a monster, but I can’t be sure, monsters usually change form before attacking so I just have to wait and see before it occurs.

He gets closer and closer, walking much faster than me, but he doesn’t transform yet; I am merely glancing at his shadow too, I can’t linger my eyes too long or else the monster might think I’m onto it. So I continue to walk forward, and as he gets much closer I realise a horrifying truth. He is not a monster, which means that my Imperial Gold and Celestial Bronze weapons will not be able to harm him, so I have to take a different approach.

“What are you doing alone, you look like you need shelter” The words are softly spoken but with a tinge of joy, he can’t stop himself from being a bit too confident and luckily for him, I have no real way out of this here; so I play into it.

“I am, sir” I add the sir because these sort of people have a fetish for the ideas of power, I don’t blame him for that, I also quite like the idea of being in power and being above people; it feels wonderful to have others submit to you. However, it is the meek who will inherit the Earth, and it is in my advantage to be the meek here.

He smiles, as I expected, and gets closer, his onion breath brushing past my neck and almost making my nose scrunch up in disgust if not for my forcing the act of being a scared little boy who would be so easy to take advantage of. His hand grazes over my thigh and my breath hitches, right here of all places? Wow, this guy, he’s certainly a ballsy nonce. “You should come with me, I can help” He says with feigned sweetness that I’m pretty sure even the most innocent of children wouldn’t fall for. However it is still optimal to not fight back, annoyingly.

He guides me through the alleyway, his hand remaining over my thigh, pushing against the gown to hold my hip and even stroke a finger across my glutes… for goodness sake, I swear to the fucking gods! If you are going to be a fucking nonce, at least be good at it! We are in an alleyway, fucking Tartarus, he is so stupid; but I suppose with the plague about, there is no chance of him really being caught in the abandoned streets.

How annoying of that to work against me here. He continues to nudge me along until we get into a van.

HA! How stereotypical, I nearly actually scoff, when I am shown to it; this guy is a raw stereotype, how is he even able to exist, basically any police officer would just look at him and arrest him, surely. No evidence needed, just look at him. I sit in the passenger seat of the car and I am told to look happy, I do, I am a good actor; my eyes look over his van’s surface; in the gap between the radio and the top of the surface he has a picture. A picture of someone I recognise instantly.

My brother.

The creep notices me looking at the picture and chuckles, “Beautiful isn’t he,” I can hear his disgusting smirk. “I’ve had my eye on him for a while, but never got to him.” My motivation now changes. Originally, I just wanted to take advantage of the fact this disgusting creature was attempting to take advantage of me, but now I have a different goal, I’ll still take advantage of this creature but I also have a greater goal.

His hand stays over my thigh as he drives, pulling up into a suburb and driving into the garage before getting out and like some faux-gentleman walking around, opening the door for me and offering his hand to help me down. This disgusting creature, utterly, disgusting. As most do when confronted by a monster, I make a plan to get rid of the problem.

He almost drags me up the steps of the garage and through the kitchen, which noticeably has a pile of unwashed dishes that are being used as a breeding zone by flies. There is also an open microwave, which I can already tell has only been used for ready meals, and maybe some overly syrup-filled porridge, there is mold on the windowsill and grime on the kitchen’s island.

He then drags me into a living room, which is dusty and has a random tv show on, alongside a coffee table covered in beer cans and cigarettes and, worst of all, Hershey’s chocolates. Also, the curtains are closed and from the way that they looked, they might as well have been closed for weeks, with the, actually quite interesting, tapestry of mould forming.

He then pulls me up the further stairs to the second floor and with a disgusting smirk shoves me into his room where I fall, thanks to stepping on the oversized gown, and smack my head into the wooden footboard at the end of his - very messy, food-covered and likely infested with cockroaches bed and a radio in the corner next to the bed.

My next few moments are spent with little sense of consciousness, just faint recognitions.

I recognise the sudden disappearance of my gown and it being thrown to the side, my body covered by thin boxers as he looks at me greedily and forces his hands against me. And I drift out of it, then I recognise my face being shoved into a pillow as something seemingly attempts to snap my legs from behind.

Then I recognise my eyes and nose being attacked by curled, almost rotten hairs that stink like something worse than hydrogen sulfide and I can’t bloody see anything either, nor can I taste anything besides a weird salt.

When I properly return to consciousness, the disgusting creature is asleep in bed next to me, and there are handcuffs around my wrists; not attached at anything though. He put more thought into this than I expected him too, I shouldn’t have taken the risk, god-damnit. But what option did I have? I had no way of defending myself anyway.

I slip out of the bed as quietly as I can, and go over to my hospital wear, I get that kukri I had talked about earlier, and I use it to cut through the handcuffs; a divine material will always beat some random metal no matter what.

I haven't picked up the gown yet, instead, I leave the room, and go into a side-room, looking for anything; either a phone to call the police, or because I trust it more, a tool. The side room is confusing, he’s a fat, lonely disgusting creature: so why does he have so much sports stuff, is it memorabilia? Most of it probably is, however, the golf clubs? In a bag in the corner? They aren’t memorabilia.

I looked over the golf clubs, they are quite a good size for me already, but… perhaps, this one would be best? Three iron, basically vertical, heavy ended, thick build really; easy to hold and swing. Perfect! I hold it calmly, ignoring the strange dripping of something down my leg as I lean over to pull it out. I hold it in my hands, lifting it up and down, getting a feel for it; I’m not going to hold it like I’m playing gold anyway.

I walk back into the bedroom, where the disgusting creep sleeps and…

I would like to intercede here, with Isabel and that Amazon, I didn’t feel guilty in the moment but I felt guilty eventually; here, I don’t think you could ever make me feel guilty no matter how hard you tried.

So I slammed the iron into his ribs, and then I pulled it back, and then I did it again. He woke up, but the damage was done, so I was able to do it again. He reached over to try and stop me but ended up just hitting the radio which must have been playing from a CD since it was playing a song not even from this year.

“Whistle for the boys, don’t be shy” I sing along the best I can, out of tune and not keeping up with the foreign song as I strike him in the ribs with the 3 iron. I miss out a few of the words, since it picks up a bit, but settle back in slightly as it gets to “Give the boys a flash and they'll love you so, give the girl some cash because your mother told you so”.

I manage to break through the skin with the club now, letting part of one his already broken jump out like a hare leaping away from an eagle swooping down to tear it up. I suppose the club is the eagle and the rib is the hare, heh haha; it is funny. I miss some of the words again but catch up “Oh naughty girl you know you tickle me red, you look so dumb and sound so twee”.

I slam the iron into his ribs again, which results in an interesting pop as the iron comes out blood soaked and blood had actually spurted out onto the bed and onto me when it went in; how disgusting to get this creature's blood on me. There is an interesting irony here, I am the naughty girl who is tickling him red, because I am causing his own blood to spurt onto him as I beat his organs to oblivion with a golf club. And too, I suppose he thought me to be dumb since he tried to take advantage of me and he thought me to be so twee, which means pretty, to actually decide I was worth it. What a pathetic disgusting blight on society.

“Well that’s what you get, oh, don’t get upset” I direct the words directly at him as I move where I am striking the club upon literally pulling up part of his lungs and flicking them behind me and moving the club towards his throat and then striking him in the throat, crushing said throat, he’s already dead, but.. It’s not fun!

“Ridiculous you” I shout the lyric as I slam the club again into his skull, obliterating the nasal cartilage and carving his face in, but I’m not done yet as I pick up the club and do it again! “You could have been the best that I have ever seen” He really couldn’t have, but perhaps it was aimed at me, I could have been the best victim possible but alas, he was wrong. This is hilarious, and I know why I’m laughing unlike last time.

By the time I am finished with the body, his chest is caved in and his heart and lungs have popped like strawberries under a pestle and mortar for that science experiment where you analyse the dna of strawberries; never done it, but I have heard of it. His brains too are splattered everywhere, with a particular Japan shaped pattern on the wall closest to the bed. It looks quite nice really, I suppose there is a beauty in blood and guts and… head-guts. Is that just guts? I… well that ruined it, just kidding I’m still having so much fun here after killing this monster.

He was hardly human, he didn’t deserve to live; and he did deserve to die, it is surprisingly liberating to kill a child rapist. I laugh, I do, it is funny. I have only known this man for an estimated 20 conscious minutes and yet the joy I am feeling upon killing him, oh, I wonder if this is what ecstasy feels like, I have heard it is. I can feel the grin on my face, that is how wide it is, as I continue to strike and mutilate the body with the golf club before throwing it to the side and letting it break through the wall.

The music has changed now to another song, this one I also don’t recognise, but I can dance to it, twirling and jumping, and bowing and jumping through the disgusting house after I increased the sound of the radio, covered in the blood and guts of the disgusting man; a disgusting man who is now more like a paste of flesh and bone, a bit like a pink and red brownie covered in white chunks of nuts. That’s the best description I can think of. It is hilarious!

I chassé around the house, taking bows to the windows and spots, where if this were a tv show, would make good places for cameras; all while grinning and laughing hideously. If every encounter I had with someone I disliked was like this, I don’t think I could ever die. I think there would also be more joy and pleasure to get out of killing disgusting creatures like this.

Of course, I didn’t do this for myself, I did this for him. Not the creature. For him. My brother, my sweet sweet brother; he probably didn’t even know that this creature wanted to take interest in him, but I have done my job as an older brother. That being to protect him. Such is the role of an older sibling, even if I have never truly met him, I will do my job for him.

I need to keep him safe, it is my sole soul purpose at this point; I have no meaning besides this now, and by destroying this waste of space I have done so. I have saved him, preemptively. Now that he is safe, from this creature at least, I can actually go and search for him; especially since I know what his school looks like, and there is a computer in this house.

A computer that I stop dancing to use, searching up the schools nearby - which has a purple search tab. By Hector's windpipe, this is ridiculous, how stupid was this guy; I know I had an ulterior motive, but I’m almost disappointed in myself for letting him take advantage of me; I am already disgusted in myself but now I’m disappointed too.

I had just got my ego back up after realising I was really tall, now that's been destroyed because I purposefully let an absolute idiot take advantage of me; my ego is still strong though because I did it to protect my brother, oh my sweet brother, no matter what, as long as you're okay this is fine. I mean, I’ve never met him, I’m just assuming he’s sweet but… still, it works.

I note the name of the school and where it is before looking up the notes on the computer, credit and debit card pins, passwords; he left his computer unlocked and he just has his notes blatantly on it? Oh, wow, he was stupid. And he still was allowed to take advantage of me, ridiculous.

Then I leave the computer, and enter into the bedroom, with the battered, bloodied, pasteurized corpse still lying on the bed as I pick up the hospital gown and slip it back onto me. Then I walk down the stairs, past the disgusting tv, and then the disgusting unwashed dishes and the open microwave and then reach the garage where I open the garage door before using some tape from inside the garage to tape down the button for the garage door and slip out beneath it as it recloses.

My smile softens as I feel the cold wind flow against my face, leaning back to turn my head up to the sky as it flows against me; the coldness comforting my blood-covered, not my blood, and bruised body as I then walk down the long suburb street, night settles in before, I fully leave and I pass by one house in particular.

The Solace house, my brother and mother eating dinner, a beef pie; ironically, just what I was thinking about in my vision, and they look as if they have some to spare, or at least, I presume they do; you don’t make a pie without making extras, if you make a perfect portion size I have to question how you are even classifiable as human. I can almost smell, or I can imagine what it smells like.

My brother has a smile on his face, I don’t care about the traitorous mother’s expression, but my brother is enjoying himself and that brings a calm, genuine smile to my face. I must remember that he likes beef pie, for when I finally meet him, I feel as if I’ve always known him but in truth I have never had; but it is my right to know him.

I hide behind a tree as I stare at my wonderful brother, Will Solace; Lucius Julius Aureolus Caesar; he is golden in features, almost as much as I was in the vision, a true child of Apollo in comparison to my Venus-Apollo hybridised self without either claiming me. His hair is blonde and curly and his skin a pale Mediterranean in these cold months. He certainly looks healthier than me, and I hope he always will look healthier than me in my current state; for I would hate to have failed him to such a degree that he could even suffer in that scenario.

He looks so joyous, and I hope that I make him happier once I finally connect with him; for it is both his and my birthright to know each other as we are one blood.

Chapter Text

It is the next day that I arrive at the school; the suburb is only small and there was no trouble in letting me join, no uniform is needed, though I still have to buy clothes beforehand - using one of the spare cards of mine, only a few million in debit on it, but it’s enough to buy most things in a small suburb.

Particularly, I buy light grey jogging bottoms; they are a bit oversized but I was able to tie them hard enough to keep them at my waist, I buy a plain red shirt and a dark grey jumper with a skateboard on it; it is just a design, I have no interest in skateboarding. I’d probably fall and give myself such a terrible road rash that one half of my body would disappear.

I am standing in an almost empty room when I first enter the school, it is wide and tall, my eyes are good but I can’t really make out the edges; I suppose spending most my life without a healthy amount of sleep maybe has put more strain on my eyes than I realised, I certainly hope that won’t ever end up ruining anything I do in the future. I mean, it might just be my lack of sleep from last night. I got to a hotel on the outskirts of the suburb a bit late and then I had to go through with a bunch of stupid paperwork. Back to the room, there is no-one else here, no sound besides the AC and distant chattering I can hear through the wall, or is that rats? Whatever it is, it isn't loud enough to stop my ears from ringing.

The ringing is quite loud, until it drowns out all else; I blink and then I realise that someone is standing in front of me looking expectantly, they definitely were not there before. “Pardon?” I say in reaction to the facial expression, the way there eyes are looking with a sense of care but also of expectation, the way their body is slightly leaned in and a weathered smile seemingly had begun to shrink from their face until I spoke; there were wearing what was some slight mask of a suit, a blazer; or is that a small overcoat? And a jumper, how this teacher, who I presume to be a man - though I can’t tell, quite androgynous but with a slightly more stereotypically masculine build and haircut - is coping with the Texan heat I have no clue. Anyway, they are also wearing jeans, quite skinny jeans so I presume they are an early millennial; 83 or 82 perhaps (that is the year he was born, not age).

“I was just asking if you were alright, you looked worried?” The man says, his voice clear, a slight stumbling in his voice that flows quite well into overall manner of speaking, but there is almost a stutter but its too perfect to be really like a stutter - I’ve never heard a stutter like it, so I have to assume its different to a stammer.

I nod, in response, and the patient smile returns to his face; he then rattles off some things about the school, he probably expects me to have been signed up by my parents but, I know this stuff already, multiple rooms and teachers but combined classes and age groups; though they will usually separate teaching the grades into groups. It is a small school despite the amount of buildings that are around, some of them are probably used for storage and the like.

He then walks me to a building, apparently I will have to move around to get to some different lessons but most will be in the same room - I think I might actually prefer the library to this, at least then I could sit down and read on one subjects for hours on end - I have no clue how this is going to work really: as I said I did some basic reading, but not too in depth; just enough to have a basic grasp, or so I thought. The lessons aren’t exactly curricular either, the place isn’t state or federal funded; it's raised from local donations and while it does co-operate with exam boards even then it's mostly just done on their own.

I am brought to a small room, only fourteen or so students inside, various ages, including Lucius or Will, I’ll have to call him Will won’t I. I am nudged inside, metaphorically of course, I don’t think a teacher would be allowed to physically push me somewhere as the risk of losing their job would be far too much, and I haven’t even done anything remotely annoying yet.

Of the fourteen students in the room, there was a range; no-one seemed explicitly gender neutral, but such a concept wasn’t foreign to me, so I split the class in half in my mind - six girls and eight boys, nine including myself. Of the boys, there was of course Will - who looks to be the youngest of us, wearing khaki shorts and a checkered shirt with his top button undone; like a brit ugh; and the rest were, as I quickly understood from the commotion of their speaking and subsequent telling off, named as such Micheal, Jeremiah, Alexander, Devon, Thomas, Ronald and Charlie.

Micheal was brown haired, pale skinned - much like myself but slightly less so, wearing jeans and a branded shirt; I don’t recognise the name, but from the style it looks to be from a theme park of some kind, something called Nemesis? Doesn’t seem very disneyland.

Jeremiah, is tanned, black haired and wearing some long grey shorts alongside a bland grey top - just sort of bland overall, except he had a very Byzantine (or what should be known as Eastern Roman) inspired golden Eagle painted onto his shirt, however, I don’t really think he’s aware of that; instead he wears it because he thinks it looks good, he’s not wrong.

Alexander is the oldest of the boys, slightly older than me - I can just tell, he had nearly shoulder-length curly blonde-ish yet slightly hair and shining blue eyes, he was muscular, I could see his biceps even without him flexing and the way his blue shirt sat against him made him look even more muscular, and a similar height to myself, slightly shorter actually, his hands looked soft and uncalloused and he just looked nice.

Devon looked basic, a stereotype, a plump overweight American; probably slightly younger than myself, but already planning his neckbeard. He was chattering about if I was foreign couldn’t really tell who to since everyone else ignored him, I can already tell I won’t like him.

Thomas was the opposite of Devon; he wasn’t tall, shorter than me and shorter than Alexander but he was quite lean, not as much as me but he was getting there. He had gelled brown hair and an almost cocky smile on his face, it’s very clearly forced, however; he must have confidence issues, he is the only boy other than Will to not talk when I entered; though he still gets told off.

Ronald, well, he was sitting back in his chair, looking out the window nattering away to Charlie, who could not care less; Ronald had his feet on his table and the teacher looked to already be in the process of having an aneurysm over that before I had been nudged in. His shoes were some cheap Nikes, clearly his confidence was sourced from somewhere else besides money, perhaps he was just an asshole.

Charlie, he was probably the person the teacher expected to keep a leash on Ronald; clearly so, since Ronald was unequally splitting his attention between whatever was outside and Charlie. He had soft brown hair, grey jogging bottoms on and a black shirt; he was leaning forward in his seat paying attention to the teacher while brushing off whatever Ronald was saying. His skin was smooth and quite supple, he just looked like that.

It takes me longer to find out the girls' names, but given the listing of the boys it is only fair to retroactively place their names here too; Olivia, Camila, Isabella, Sophia, Sofia (that won’t get confusing… not at all) and Victoria. A lot of ‘A’s at the end, it must be quite a common naming scheme in Texas; or at least I presume it is, I have little interest in getting to know why they are called what they are - I doubt people think about what they name their children too much. I find the girls boring and easy to be ignorant of to be honest.

Olivia is brown haired, green eyed, wearing a blue blouse and a checkered skirt. She is tan and writing something into a notebook when I enter.

Camila is also brown haired but a slightly darker brown, also green eyed, darker skin, she has her own notebook and most of the writing is in Spanish; she’s wearing a hoodie and some shorts.

Isabella is blonde haired, grey eyed, wearing jeans and a shirt; she is just sitting back and staring at the ceiling without any measure of attention to be given to the teacher.

Sophia, and Sofia, are very similar; I could think of them as twins, if not for the fact that if they were twins their parents would have to be crueller than the gods to name them as such, with their only difference in name being small and hardly noticeable in most accents and pronunciations. They were both plain skinned, black haired, even wearing the same clothes, whispering to each other and were probably best friends.

Victoria, was the oldest of the girls, not the tallest of them, that was Isabella; but she was the oldest, she had her phone out under the desk, likely an Iphone 3gs, came out a while ago now, a year or so ago in 2009. The teacher couldn’t care less though, the loud boys making sure that he couldn’t tell Victoria off - successful opportunism I suppose.

Now comes the actually annoying part, I have to introduce myself; don’t I? I stand at the front of the class, in front of the white board; being stared at expectantly by everyone, even Will though he is noticeably reluctant to look at me directly… I wonder why? Perhaps he is anxious about new people. The only person to have a pleasant stare is Alexander, but I feel that for some reason I am slightly biased.

Upon some slight urging from the teacher, of ‘give your name and then three facts about yourself’. “My name is Julius”, That is the name I had given to the school and it’d be much better to remain consistent with that idea, “I like to read, speak and play golf”. I don’t really like these things, I feel neutral towards them at best; the golf thing is a straight up lie, I’ve never played golf, but my only experience with a golf club did feel wonderful; the blood splashing onto my body the wide painful smile on my face and the enjoyment that made my eyes glow so much a shadow of death clouded my expression… but of course, I showed no such emotion here. As for reading and speaking, I can see their uses; and I am good at them, but I see no real happiness in either of them. I see happiness in achieving my goals and these are just tools for such, but I do need to ground myself among the children.

The class murmurs amongst themselves slightly, most of which is actually just calling me boring; fair enough, I don’t want to seem exceptionally strange, so to be a casual normie is quite alright with me. I take my seat in one of the remaining spare seats, middle of the line, between Lucius, no sorry, Will and Victoria - the class seems almost segregated by gender, which is of course quite normal for children that are twelve and younger.

The first lesson I am here for is mathematics, I am not interested in maths, but it is something that I am being taught so I might as well feign interest; basic division, multiplication, addition and subtraction really. Simple stuff, 82 divided by 6.3 is 13 something, the thirteen times table is 13, 26, 39, 52, 65, 78, 91, 104, 117, 130, 143, 156, 169 etcetera.

Really boring, especially because it’s so simple, give me something more; like (162 - 42/3) * 73 = that’s something simple but more difficult, which would be (256 - 14) * 343, then 242 * 343, which would result in 60,000 + 12,000 + 8,000 + 1,600 + 600 + 600 + 120 + 80 + 6 which equals to 83,006. I made that up and came to the conclusion on the spot. I can only imagine how boring this mathematics is to those here who are actually learned in mathematics, unlike myself who has never been to school before today.

The lesson after that is history, American history - of course. This means I can’t flex my knowledge about Rome really, which is sad, Rome is of course a much greater institute than America ever will be; I know it is so and that it shall always be so. I mean, America is just a shameful echo of Roman supremacy - they only had one major civil war, we’d had a hundred or so.

American revolution, boring - the gross exaggeration of the actual victory and value of the colonies to Britain confuses me, war of 1812, boring - the fact we don’t learn about it at all makes it interesting really, but it is so short and to Americans it is a visage of their ability to defend themselves and to the Canadians it is a sign of pride for them to defend their borders against a US incursion and for the British… I don’t think they think about it, American Civil War? Also boring, slavery is of course an important issue but the Civil War didn’t remove slavery, it just changed the nature of slavery in the States - it wasn’t until the Equal Pay Act of 1963 that minority groups and women even had the equal pay, and within such the various states adopted different variations that differed in effectivity.

Even the removal of the trans-Atlantic slave trade was not down to the US, instead it was the abolishment of it by its greatest trader in the form of the British Empire and then their subsequent condoning of raids on slave-selling ships that arguably led to its greater deficit. Yet, this did not remove slavery as a whole; slavery is old, older than even the oldest name in my mortal bloodline. The very first record of recorded writing we have, is that of a record of slaves owned by an individual, this very concept predates writing itself. It predates the fundamental basis for modern civilisation, that being writing and its subsequent conversions into informational transference. There is a precedent for slavery in the blood over humankind and humankind’s achievements, and that is a taint impossible to remove or ignore unless in the dark of its existence.

I am a boy that believes in precedent, this is not to say that I support slavery; I do not, slavery is a disgusting concept based on its ease, from both an economic and social perspective it is a considerable failure. However, I do believe in precedent, the precedent that humanity, is not inherently evil nor greedy but, is inherently lazy and opportunist; and so comes about mass slavery, so comes out mass industrialisation, so comes about massive wealth disparity - for one has the resources to indulge in laziness and the other is told that they can indulge in laziness as long as they aren’t lazy now - and eventually, if the films, books and televisions, are to be believed so will come about AI.

All these things are from the laziness of others, like the laziness of Ronald who is still looking out of the window and not paying attention to anything which gets him shouted at by the teacher. I myself, despite not being too interested, have taken notes on the various musings; the actual focus here isn’t clear, it seems a bit jumpy but that is probably due to the fact that this history is only being taught to those 12 and under, if I were fifteen or so I would expect much greater deal. However, some of us couldn’t care less for that, like Ronald who falls off his chair when he gets shouted at a lot by the girls and Charlie’s giggles. It is in response to these giggles that Ronald smiles, and I can’t help but feel jealous of how quick the truthful, genuine smile comes to his face after falling. In fact I believe that I scowl.

The lesson ends soon after that and we are let out outside for a break, I have not been provided a time table - but I presume I will be with the same class of people for the rest of the day, or perhaps academic year. Some of the children run around, playing soccer (football to anyone who is not Statesian) and that sort of stuff; Lucius, sorry not Lucius, Will sits on the side looking almost jealous but also distant. I go and sit down next to him.

”Will, right?” I ask, looking over to him and he almost shrinks away, not physically of course but his expression does - as if he’s trying to hide any and all detail about himself from me, how rude of you brother. You weren’t this afraid of me in that dream state, but perhaps that is slightly different.

I hear a small murmured yes in response, and I smile, Will doesn’t but I have quickly come to expect that from him. “Not interested in playing soccer?” I ask, before adding on “You look like you’d be good at it, better than me at least” I jest slightly, but I’m not lying, Will is very likely to be much better than me at any sport - even now he looks as if he could beat me in a fight despite the three year age gap and my massive reach in height over him.

I look back to the small soccer game, just as Alexander rushes on to the small pitch, dribbles past a few guys and shoots the ball into the top corner and scores after it just about misses the palm of - his quads and tendons thighs all rippling in the raw tension of his muscles, he almost shines with the sweat glistening off him. The temperature must be warmer outside than inside I believe, that would make sense given the lack of AC outside.

“Maybe” Will mutters in response, slightly clearer; I realise from the way it's stated that I didn’t hear him the first time round as I was too busy watching… the game. I nod, and respond with a clear ‘definitely’ - I need to get his confidence up, since it is clear he lacks any and to be honest, that isn’t okay, my brother does not deserve to go through the issues that this would likely bring him.

He stays pretty silent in response, I can just hear his small, nasal breathing underneath the noise of the shouting and speaking from the game and surrounding it; however, beneath that, I can, through the glance of my side-eye, see that his face twitches to curl up slightly. He’s smiling, even if slightly, even if he’s trying to hide it; and such a thought brings a more sincere smile to my own face; he’s shy, clearly, oh little brother.

I sit there silently with him, staring at the game for a few seconds before patting him on the back - to which he flinches, but doesn’t overally react; I might have made him uncomfortable, but alas it is necessary. “Go and play then” I say, slightly taunting really but overall still for the purpose of being kind and getting him to socialise, even if he doesn’t want to; he is reluctant but he does it, good, he should.

“What about you?” He mumbles, and I just shake my head and motion to look at me; I am after all a thin, lanky, pale, more bone than flesh weakling… I can hardly play any sport, nevermind a competitive sport. Meanwhile, Will, he can play a competitive sport; he’s not the best, but he slots in pretty well, though some of the girls and boys taunt him on the fact he’s actually playing with them. They simply weren’t expecting the change and in response to such, they are being confused which leads to aggression; it’ll waver over time, I just hope Will doesn’t take it to heart. Again, he doesn’t deserve to suffer the problems that shyness and introvertedness may bring. I do not want my brother to suffer the consequences of loneliness.

Sadly, I can not watch the game much longer as one of the teachers comes and talks to me; asking about how I am settling down, since it is just my first day and all that bother. I respond with clean, it’s good, it’s fine, it’s alright, I am having fun, I understand what is going on, I have made friends… No, I can’t name them. Etcetera. The sort of bland middle of the line answering that you’d expect from a middle of the line corrupt politician in Serbia or something, those Yugoslav countries really suck - no offence, I’ve heard they are beautiful; but the politicians ain't.

The next thing that happens is that I am to return inside with the rest of the class, and then to study… English. Then I study some other nonsense called ‘science’ what a boring subject, and then I study some basic Greek Mythology - which is boring, in the face of the vastly superior Roman mythology, pah even the Etruscan Mythology is better than the Greek. However, Alexander and Will seem to be good at Greek mythology and it warms my heart… because my blood brother is doing well in a school subject and actually speaking. He hasn’t spoken much throughout the entire day except some random spurts of speaking about Greek myth, since it gets him speaking I might as well show more favour towards Greek Myth.

It is just a few minutes later after that lesson that the day ends, I leave the school premises, repeatedly looking over my shoulder, glancing to the side and reading the faces of everyone who is nearby. You just can’t trust them, none of them, I believe in forgiveness of all, but I also believe in natural opportunism. I know that the moment I let my guard down something stupid will happen, and I do not want to let anything get in my way again.

I am about fourteen metres down the pavement when I see Will walk up alongside me, we don’t talk and we don’t seem to plan on talking but he seems to be wanting to walk with me. I am surprised that he is walking alone, doesn’t seem safe, doesn’t seem safe for me to be walking along later; but I don’t have excuses; he does, in the form of a mother that abandoned me and stayed for him. I can only question how much she changed, or how much she thinks Lucius is better than me if she hasn’t betrayed him yet!

Lucius’ face slowly distorts as I glance at it, so I look away, it’s just a hallucination; he probably doesn’t have an eye in his mouth and a nose for eyes and mouth for his left ear. That simply wouldn’t make sense, neither does the fact his skin looks like it's dripping off and melting; nor does the fact that the sun has turned red, and everyone around us has started staring at me, yet they lack eyes and… lack skin? The melting form of Lucius turns around and glances to the side; even the messed up features of Lucius gives away the way he’s looking, he looks panicked, I can’t tell why, what’s going on?

Then a hand catches me around my chest, I look to the distorted Lucius and then look to the hand, it’s sourced from a tone arm, that I slowly glance my eyes up until I end up looking at the face of Alexander; he looks pretty under the red sunlight. Then I drop unconscious, and I would drop to the floor but Alexander definitely catches me; my eyes remain on his face as I slip from consciousness.

There is no vision this time around, just a slow stable freeze frame of the world as I am unconscious; eventually the sun returns to its golden yellow, Will’s features return to normal and no-one is staring up at me. The only one who remained the same was Alexander, but Alexander never changed to begin with; he always looked like that. Though, I must say, I don’t like curly hair; and I think glasses would suit him better.

I wake up what must be a few hours later, and I am in a foreign bed; my eyes open and I see someone sitting at my side. A woman, mother? I even let the word slip out of my mouth and then I disagree with myself, and she giggles slightly but also disagrees - then I realise something, I am technically not wrong. This woman, she is my mother; heh, haha, oh my oh my. She simply doesn’t know, doesn’t know that she turned her back on me, that she betrayed me; instead, she is turning her back on turning her back on me!

So, this is who you are Naomi Solace?

Chapter Text

I stare up at her, having laughed subconsciously for a few minutes, but for a few more minutes I just stare up at her, my mouth wanting to be agape if not for my stoic expression that was built up over the many years alone. The many years that she left me alone, curse or not, I’d rather she was actually dead.

I’d rather Poppea Livia Cicero, Livia Cicero is a separate dynasty claiming relation to Empress Livia whom upon Decimus Livia marrying Julia Tullia Cicero, of the actual Tullia Cicerones, created the cadet house of Livia Cicero, was dead. However, Naomi Solace; she isn’t Poppea Livia Cicero, she is facially, physically, technically even her psyche is the same; and that is by Greek definition, not modern, but she isn’t.

I want Poppea dead, I don’t care for Naomi, Naomi killed Poppea in a way, replaced her in a way, is her… in a way. I want Poppea dead for leaving me to rot with a curse that even if she didn’t know about it, she had a method of protection from it in the form of a loving son of Leto; I don’t want Naomi dead, and Naomi Solace is not Poppea Livia Cicero.

Eventually she leaves the room, to make a drink for me, and I lie there and contemplate; physically she is Poppea Livia Cicero, physically I want my revenge, I want to take a knife and slit her throat, and I want her to bleed and I want her blood on me from the mother to the son. But I don’t want to kill Naomi, I don’t want to kill Lucius’, Will’s, whatever you want to call my sweet brother’s only parent; but I want to kill her body, her mind and personality are not Poppea, but her blood is.

“You don’t want to kill her, not really” A voice, disembodied at first but soon settling says; it’s James’ voice, I think, it belongs to James physically, but he is not here, but I can see him. His skin was still tan, his eyes still a moldy green, his hair still a fluffy brown; there was something missing but I couldn’t put a finger on it, sure it could be the fact his face isn’t charred off but it was something more discreet.

What if I do? I ask myself, but he responds, continuing his own monologue “Why would you? Revenge? You aren’t that petty, you are a boy, simply longing for his mother, and angry, so angry, but angry at the fact she was not there for you for the twelve years you’ve been alive; but she is here now.” James says, the same soft, calming, caring, understanding, unique smile still looking at me the same way it had in that one car ride.

He’s wrong, I think, because I believe he is, or at least I think I believe he is; I want to kill Poppea Livia Cicero, and Naomi Solace is Poppea Livia Cicero; she doesn’t get to escape justice for her crimes. “If a boat’s crew is full of cruel pirates but then is replaced with wonderful police who forced those pirates away, is it the same boat?” James interrupts my thoughts and I glare at him, but then, I soften, just as he already was. I can’t be angry at him, I can’t bring it into myself to be angry at James.

I answer his question in my head, and he can tell what I am thinking; Simply, in my own opinion, if the crew changes than the boat has changed for it is no-longer being used for piratery and instead used for safety; the people of the sea would go from fearing the boat to seeing the boat as a savior, as something better for them; so no, the boat is not the same, for they would never be perceived the same.

”So why don’t you apply the same logic to her?” I was about to question it myself, perhaps I did, but the answer is clear, there is clarity in it; and it is both the simplest and, in my opinion, the most logical conclusion; Naomi Solace is not Poppea Livia Cicero, and the anger I have towards Poppea Livia Cicero is not fair to direct at her. Her crimes as Poppea are not hers as Naomi, for people can change; like the boat, even if not in as drastic a way as Naomi did and so she and others deserve forgiveness for such.

She is my mother by blood, she is Lucius’ mother by blood, and she is Will’s mother by caring. I am Lucius’ brother by blood and I too hope to be his brother by caring, for whatever he would rather be called Will or Lucius.

James is a better person than me, I admit to myself, but it didn’t need admitting, of course it didn’t - James, who gave money to orphanages and saw a criminal child and thought to give them a better life was a better person than the oligarchical murderer of three. I look back up to where James’ had been sitting in the room, but he isn’t there anymore.

Then the door opens, and Poppea… No, Naomi, comes in with a glass of orange juice for me to have and a coke for herself. Not healthy for her teeth, but who am I to judge, I only have enamel for the fact I have not eaten much in my entire life; if I were in her position, that of freedom and comfort, I would definitely be much more of a glutton.

She sits back down, letting me hold the juice; guiding into my hand caringly, I hate it; to be sincere, I despise it, she is pitying me. An honourable thing, but I don’t need pity, and I don’t even need to drink anything; I don’t need all this she is trying to give me. I am sick, I get it, I am ill, I understand but I hate it, it isn’t needed, and it is stupid and it makes me feel pathetic.

“I am not stupid” She begins, and I’m not exactly certain where she is about to go with it; that’s the thing with reinvented people, you could predict their actions in the past; but you know nothing of them in the future. However, there is nothing ominous about what she says next; certainly nothing I could worry about. “No-one came looking for you, no phone calls, all of it; you don’t have parents, do you?”

I shake my head, hold back a sigh and gaze away; I need to make her more sympathetic, though she already is, despite my recent train of thought; l believe she would make a good tool for precautionary purposes, a lover to Apollo? Someone who has had a child with him twice? That is not an opportunity I can pass up, though the whispers of Venus tries to make it overwise, I can feel such be pushed away by the Bard’s influence.

I get slightly ill, from the fact that she looks to me and then to me my drink and I feel everso pressured to drink; but I am cautious, I didn’t think it’d show but I believe she can tell; I take the glass of orange juice to my lips and proceed to drink. It’s strong, not that I have any issue with flavour; it’s less healthy, sure, but I can hardly taste anything anyway, so I’ll take what I get.

“You can stay here,” She offers and pauses, before adding not hastily but thoughtfully “If you have nowhere else” seemingly recognising my ‘independence’ implied by the overall situation; she messes with her fingers a bit, clicking them and moving them over each other, just trying to focus by the seams of it. However, she isn’t doing a good job, not at all; so I end her suffering.

”I’ll stay” I reply, and I can see the smile grow onto her face. She stands up and takes a small sip of her coke before she says that dinner is at 6 and I should get ready since 6 was in about five minutes and it turns out she started cooking dinner when she left to get a drink and she was betting on me accepting her offer, and I can’t help but appreciate, or perhaps admire, the balls on this woman.

As she leaves, I almost laugh, but I don’t feel like laughing; I don’t think I like laughing, it is too chaotic and unpredictable. When it is in predictable intervals it sounds odd and inhuman, I’d rather seem human than not; for if I were to not be human, then I’d be something far more disagreeable, so I must try to pretend to be agreeable. What an odd string of thoughts…

I remove myself from the bed, my body swaying back and forth as I get used to standing; my body almost stumbling over itself as I reach to place my hand on the door handle, pulling it down and then towards myself with almost buckling knees before walking down the stairs and through the nearest door to enter the dining room of the house. The thing with suburban houses is that they lack character, even one of the tents I stole and slept in on my travels through… basically any state but Hawaii and Alaska had more character than a suburban house. Sure you could decorate the house with paintings, televisions, books and painted walls but once you knew the layout of one suburban home, you knew the layout of every suburban home. They are, and so is this one, boring and uniform, I just don’t like them.

I look over the room as I enter, Will is sitting down at the table; very hastily eating the chicken meal placed in front of him, much to Naomi’s displeasure because it shows a lack of manners. Then he puts the food down and looks to me and smiles, giving me a joyful hello; I would have called it pleasant if not for the fact that he hadn’t still got a mouthful of food. It’s just a bit uncouth, but I know he means well.

What is perhaps most surprising is the presence of Alexander, he does not live here, I’d presume that he had a family elsewhere, a mother and father to care for him; but from the way he is looking at me, with those blue eyes that would put the ocean Columbus saw to shame, those eyes could probably cut diamonds with how sharp they look. Those eyes, they look at me with a silent joy; an extreme care that is very quick, an immediate attachment, a wonderful little manipulatable flaw.

You can read so much about a person from their eyes, it’s almost disgusting; you can tell if people are faking a smile just by looking at their eyes, if they are faking an entire personality; even maskers of the greatest depressions, because all they are doing is wearing a mask; and most of those still have eyes. Some can feign it, I can, but even then; even with the best fake smile imaginable, I can look in my own eyes and I can feel… something.

Anyway, I sat down at the table; where the final yet to be sat chair was. I sit down next to Alexander and opposite Naomi, diagonally across from Lucius. My brother, he seems to eat fast, as if he’s trying to shovel food down in an attempt to immediately move on to what happens next; or, given the slight way he leans over his plate and doesn’t really give himself ample time to breathe; he isn’t rushing because he wants to do something else, he’s rushing because he doesn’t want to eat around everyone else. I already recognised that he was a bit of an introvert, a social outcast even; but it seems to be to an extreme degree.

I still can’t decide what to name him, Will or Lucius; until I make a roman out of him, perhaps Will will work fine. That’s a stupid phrase, purely for the phrasing of ‘Will will’; I might just call him Lucius everywhere except outloud - but, but, it is not his real name, so… how annoying. I can’t make my damn mind up, but hey, at least this chicken tastes nice; it’s quite spicy, perhaps too spicy for my tastes but still.

Naomi copes with the spice fine, I can tell from the fact she keeps putting more spice on after every bite; I think it’s beginning to singe my eyeballs from mere association. I go to stab my fork into a bit of chicken but I flinch as Alexander’s foot brushes against mine, it’s just a slight nudge, doesn’t feel particularly aggressive but it doesn’t seem accidental either. I stab the chicken on the second go around as I give a confused glance to Alexander but he just responds with a cocky smirk; if he wasn’t handsome I would have put the knife in his eye.

However, thinking of Alexander; I can’t help but question why he isn’t with his own family, as I assume he had one. So I bring it up, just a small side whisper and I phrase it differently “Why’d you stay for me?”, to be quite honest the purpose is to establish a level of connection between us, an emotional intimacy. He’s a shining hero, that much is obvious; I have little doubt that he’s doing this out of a sense of protectionism or possessiveness: catching me while I was hallucinating? Nudging my foot while we are eating and following it up with a cocky smirk? Just seeming way too interested in me than most would… It is just odd.

“Can’t I help a-“ He’s about to flirt, honestly; he has a chance to be emotionally open and he disguises it by flirting, doesn’t matter, I’ve already read him. I cut him off with a look that says ‘time and place’ and he just gives a soft smile and a small nod. He’s certainly fascinating, I’m not sure if I understand his emotions; not to say I don’t feel love, I do. I think. It’s just that 1. He’s known me for a few hours, 2. I don’t understand what love is meant to feel like.

I continue to eat the chicken, chips and the side-salad. As I just sit there and think, my foot pressing against Alexander’s in response to his repeated pressing against mine. Will has already finished eating, mainly because he had the smallest portion and was cramming food down his throat in order to be allowed to go as quickly as possible, given how he was pestering our, no, his mother for the permission to slip away from the table. I must internally comment that this is one of the most stupid things I’ve seen happen, mainly for the wording, you aren’t slipping away if you are pestering someone for the permission to leave so loudly that everyone else hears it.

It’s not annoying, I think it’s quite human of him; and I don’t exactly blame him for it, but it feels disappointing. I held a conversation with him earlier, he seemed fine with that, so why isn’t he fine around me now? It could just be dinner in general, but I don’t know, it feels strange; I suppose we all are to someone though.

Once dinner is over, Alexander leaves; probably to run off to his family and have dinner there, he just seems the type. I just sorta get told, the room I woke up in is the room I’m staying in and then we all stay downstairs and watch tv; well, Will is playing Pokemon platinum - I presume it to be Platinum, I don’t actually know any games, but that's the most recent release I believe?

I sit on the floor in front of the sofa, the tv is a bit low, so it’s just easier for me to sit on the floor so I don’t have to crane my neck downwards or move my eyes uncomfortably. We are watching some reality show, I really don’t understand or care enough about it to state a name or a premise; not that there is a premise with these things, they all blend into one thing eventually with just slightly different words. It’s just such a waste, I’d much prefer to watch something that at least pretends to be thought provoking; a play like Antigone where everyone is a pretty shit person, or Octavia which highlights the inherent issues of passion and fervour: of course, stories based in reality are much more poignant than stories that set themselves in reality but do nothing with it.

There is a distinct line between fiction and reality, there is a distinct horror of the real world that fiction will never and can never contain; when you read a book, you can see graphic descriptions of the culling of an entire alien species in a gritty sci-fi book, but you know it isn’t real, you don’t know any aliens and sure you can empathise with the horror of the idea, but you are disconnected. Real life? Differently, if I were to attempt to destroy this Greek camp I keep thinking about so much and to destroy anyone in it, it would be a terror, to watch children my age, flayed across the ground, perhaps with an eye on a stone and their face all the way over there on a tree. Real life is always more horrible than fiction, but equally so it can be so much nicer; not really paradoxical, neither is mutually exclusive.

I suppose I can’t talk about the horror of death, I have taken life, with and without mercy; it is inherently monstrous, and I suppose that is what I am then, a monster; and yet - people don’t look at me the same way they look at monsters, if someone saw a minotaur - they would scream, when they look at me, they would only scream when it is too late. Such is the thing with monsters, sometimes, the monster is on the inside.

What a weird tangent to go on after just thinking about the waste of time that is television, I stand up, and just say that I’m going to bed; I take myself up the stairs, looking behind me as I walk up and seeing the light of the tv bounce off the walls through the open door from the corridor to the living room. Will is the first one to say goodbye, and he says it pleasantly; it's a surprise considering he hasn’t talked to me since I suffered that seizure, I told him I’d talk to him tomorrow.

I take myself up to the bed and drop into it, twisting as I grab the peaks of the duvet cover in order to coil it around myself as I lie. I sleep easily, probably because this is the first time in a while I’ve truly slept in something that is meant to be slept on and in; from the Amazon cesspit of a prison, to the wastelands of the rural US, I haven’t slept in a proper bed since I was very young; perhaps ever actually… How sad, I am actually quite pathetic, it is funny.

As sweet Somnus pulls me into sleep, I stir in my dreams, I stand there; in a forum, grey tiles marking the floors, and in front of me is a long line of pillars perpendicular to me and a building behind that: there were 16 pillars, and the building behind them was connected to them by a hangover roof. To the left side of the pillars was a triangled roof on the building, taking up one third of the space on the roof, to the right side was a much larger domed roof its diameter stretching from the edge of the building where the dome even bulged out and forced the building to do the same and it ended halfway from the first pillar to the 8th pillar.

The building was made of marble, and it had stained glass windows and etched in sculptures of a few figures, I could recognise one to be of Romulus - the deified founder of Rome, on his right was Marcus Junius Brutus, the heroic founder of the Republic not to be confused with the Marcus Junius Brutus who killed Gaius Julius Caesar and on Romulus’ right was Augustus in all his glory, Romulus and Augustus stood out from Brutus where Brutus was a Roman sculpture that made the sculpted person seem wise and old, Augustus and Romulus were young and attractive.

One of the stained glass windows was of… Justinian? Strange, while I truly do believe in the right for the Eastern Romans to have called themselves Roman; I didn’t expect to see a stained glass window in general, never mind a stained glass window of an obviously turn of the millennia Senate house to hold the image of an empire in late antiquity. This implies that this vision is of somewhere different; neither Rome or Constantinople, and I know where. This must be New Rome. A vision of New Rome, fascinating.

To me right and left are buildings, villas, even guilds by the looks of them; I wasn’t aware of traders being in New Rome; I know New Rome has veterans who are able to stay and work, but guilds? I didn’t expect them to have the population to have such a complex system to have such a level of capitalism in a very very small city-state.

Then the vision forces me, not into the Senate house but into one of the villas and I see just a person really; a random nobody by the looks of it, except for two things, they aren’t alone, and they are also not any random nobodies. One of them is a Hylla look alike - how interesting - ; and the other a look alike of… well, no-one really, they seem new; not to the position, he is clearly the elder here. There is a clock behind the man, detailing it to be 7 PM.

They are wearing praetor uniforms, or at least how they had been described to me, the long red cape, the imperial gold breastplate and shoulder guards; they must be the two praetors of New Rome, perhaps concurrent or perhaps in the future or past - I must get an understanding of this, really. They seem to be arguing about something, it’s muffled besides one word; Octavian, live and die. This must be the future then, for them to know of my existence; for if it was the past it should be a definitive fact that I am dead even if that fact is not true.

Given the anger on the man’s face, his beard - which places him at an eighteen or older really, grazing against his chin as he tries to put forward a point; feels to me as if he is the one who wants me dead? That is my interpretation at least, but I am not letting that happen; I will not die. It simply isn’t something desirable yet.

Then the girl storms out, and I am left face to face with the person who wants me dead - they can’t see me at first, and then their eyes squint and then widen out of shock. Can he actually see me? I am curious to see so I wave, and he sticks out his hand and then an arrow, imperial gold tipped and noticeably poisoned shoots through me and hits him under his collarbone, piercing the flesh and letting the blood drip onto his shirt.

He drops to the floor, paralysed by the poison likely Curare (an extremely large dose though), and then someone walks out through me - even waving to me, and I mean to me, there is no-one else who could see him from the direction he was waving - I even looked behind me to check. And that someone is me, I am not carrying a bow and arrow or a crossbow, so I can’t have been the one to shoot him - plus the clock has changed, it is an hour after he was shot and so it likely isn’t me and I was just aware of it.

I crouch down in front of the man, using the back of my hand to push the arrow in further, laughing at him for a few seconds before I lick my hands and wet my face and then run out of the room with a fake shocked and scared expression.

What is the purpose of this vision, I have to ask, because I don’t know; I watched someone, in New Rome want me dead and then I watched them die and me make fun of them - at least I know two things, I make it to New Rome and I am seemingly getting rid of anyone who wants me dead. Y’know, normal political actions in Rome. Considering he is the praetor, it is likely political as well as self-defence.

Spoilers are all fun, but, spoilers usually require a detail that is actually notable? Not this nonsense? Then the vision ends!

And I just sleep till I wake up the next day, ridiculous.

Chapter Text

It’s a very similar day repeatedly, go to school, learn from Mr Shain - the one who I have a majority of the time - and from Mr Ostra; Mr Ostra is the one who met me when I first came to the school, the androgynous jean wearing man, Mr Shain is the much more bland person - he is what person you think of when you think ‘cisgender white male’ - that sort of person, that appearance, even the personality. It is fair to say that Mr Ostra has much more charm to him than Mr Shain, and perhaps that is for the better.

In my opinion, Mr Shain’s most distinctive characteristic is that he seems to stop working far too late and start working far too early; inhumanely early, there is just something off about him, mannerism that is just strange, glances at the students in ways that are both paranoid and curious. A smile that doesn’t seem pleased. A face that wouldn’t be out of place in the background of a billboard advert, just a random face; a face that is too human perhaps.

I sit with Alexander for most of the break times and lunch times, I spend most of my time out of school with Lucius so that’s going well, he’s arrogant at points, I can’t exactly blame him; he’s sporty, intelligent, attractive, suave. We share some physical qualities, blonde hair - though his is golden and mine a dreary pale, a sort of olive tan skin, though I still look more lightened sickly and he certainly is not. The most damning difference physically is that he is handsome. By all measures compared to me, he looks like a statue from the early classical period. A great god took form, all for me to see. He is in all accounts a perfect person, he makes a small journey to McDonalds as important as if we were crossing the Alps with 36 elephants and only having one survive.

When we sit together, he sits like a king, who being assured of victory in conquest against his enemies has retreated to his camp’s tent and so sure of himself does he just lay back into a chair and stare out into the gap of the tent revealing the masses of land that is soon to belong to him. I meanwhile just sit, I am not a king, nor a conqueror, nor am I some great figure; I am not worthy of sitting in any dignified way shape or form, I simply sit, as one does; I sit with appreciation for the figure that Alexander is. Silent appreciation.

He is not as silent as I am, no, he’s quite loud; or at least, he’s not silent, which seems loud when no-one else is talking. Or perhaps it is loud because of how much focus my mind gives it, I do not understand exactly why I care about him; he is beautiful and kind, yes, but that is nothing special, there are likely other beautiful and kind people out there - so why do I care about this one?

“You’re confused” he says, looking towards me with those sweet eyes, breaking his rambling about his own life and aspirations. I, then, tried to hide my confusion, I don’t like looking confused, I feel too intelligent for that - it would be abnormal for me to be confused. He continues to speak, noticing my attempt, or success, at hiding my confusion while remaining aware of the face I had held before. “There is nothing wrong with it!” he says, somewhat panicked by my response clearly before charmingly adding “I guess I have just looked at you so much that I can read your slightest emotion; what’s up though?”.

He waits for me to respond, and I realise I will have to speak, to get his worry away from me. “I am just confused at how it is possible for someone to be as pretty as you”, it is of course, not what I was confused about; but it manages to change the subject well enough, making Alexander smile in response to such praise. People like praise, Alexander is no different; I probably like praise too.

We look at each other in silent praise, Alexander staying shut up for once, and we just lean towards each other over time; one waiting for the other to break the silence, or the stare, or perhaps waiting for something more. At this point we are nearly headbutting but Alexander doesn’t seem deterred, I am though. So I snap out of the little trance and pull away.

I just feel slightly uncomfortable about it, it isn’t something I ever had planned and it feels rushed; unnatural, human. I don’t particularly find such a feeling desirable. The feeling of being someone I’m not, the feeling that someone loves me, truly. It is simply too human for someone like me, but Alexander doesn’t see it that way, I don’t understand how; it’s obvious that I make a terrible person, more monster than person, a product of a curse more than a gods’ child, yet all he does is smile at me.

A true smile too, one I don’t think I could ever replicate; the humanity of it.

When we are in class, he doesn’t settle his attitude to be more contained; he is happy, open - even to the particular annoyance of others, he inspires confidence, exudes it to an extreme. Makes him all the more handsome I suppose, probably. Though, there has been a conflict resulting from me and Alexander being close; Lucius, Will, my brother, I have to put up with him rolling his eyes every time I have a conversation with or on the subject of Alexander - which isn’t too often, not often enough in my opinion.

That isn’t too much of an issue though, I presume it to be a natural reaction; and Will is much more naturally acting than I. So it’s probably the right reaction; the human reaction.

On this particular school day, it has had little subject to it; a fun day by all means, we had just done termly tests, but they hadn’t been of particular challenge so I didn’t expect us to have such a break after them. However, despite it being a ‘fun’ day and a break after tests - the first activity of the day was Chess… of all things.

It’s actually Mr Shain who plays me, which allows me to keep an eye on him; since he has just been suspicious lately, and I just know there is a monster around here somewhere - I can sense it. It is an interesting game, I move first, Queen’s pawn, two places ahead; he plays his King’s knight and I respond with Queen’s Bishop’s Pawn, and we continue along that line until we end up with a Queen’s gambit declined, we continue along reasonable moves.

Then Mr Shain makes a mistake, he plays his Queen’s knight to A5 and I capitalise by taking it with my Queen’s Bishop; his eye twitches, he’s cracking, he mumbles some vengeful annoyance, how suspicious. I don’t press my advantage, pawns move forward, his pieces go backwards, a few trades here and there and in the end.

Checkmate, without any manner of escape plausible, his hands shaking in anticipation or his loss and in his hope that I make a mistake; perhaps he hopes that I don’t figure him out completely, know him for the monster he could be. I know there is a chance that he is not a monster, but the twitches of his eyes, the grumblings of anger and the long plain stares… he simply hides, but the best hider is not good enough because it is impossible to hide forever.

Eventually, the class moves onto a quiz game; and it’s so easy I won’t bore myself with remembering the details, but I will bore myself with remembering Mr Shain’s attitude; dreadful mumbles about being hungry, and then, the most incriminating slip-up possible - a mumbling of Greek, Homeric Greek, something Mr Shain should not know. And yet, he does. It’s not a guarantee, but it is a heavy point against Mr Shain. Still, I need to know that he’s a monster in some regard; I feel that he is, but I can’t confirm it, I don’t trust myself in the conclusion.

We have a break after that, a complete availability to the outdoors - not on the same schedule as the other years though, I’ve never interacted with them, and I never did. There are areas of the school I didn’t even know about, despite having been there for months by this point; in particular this pond.

It had a stone bench on the edge of it, which I sat down on and I was able to just watch the pond, the fish dashing left to right, the ripples of the water as some ducks from nearby settled into it for what must be a family day out for them. The waters, besides those few ripples, are mostly calm. Everything is calm, the very chirping of the birds too; the chirps and tweets act to amplify the silence, instead of interrupting it.

It feels ever so serene, yet I don’t like it. It’s a strange feeling, the calmness, the silence, even in my sleep I have never felt that there was nothing. In some beliefs, there is nothing after death; is this what death feels like to them? Soft, silent, calm, perhaps beautiful? I hate it, there is nothing going on; no threat around me, nothing to flinch at, I feel stuck in it.

I’ve been here for months now, and not until now have I felt so vulnerable yet so safe. There is nothing here that could harm me, it horrifies me that such an environment could exist. That something could be so blissful, so pure, so brilliant. Yet I have not ever felt it till now, I have not felt true silence until now, and I’m not sure I could ever leave.

The silence does not free me from the knowledge that I will not be at peace forever, that this silence will end eventually. I have things to look forward to too, outside the silence, Naomi, Lucius, Alexander. Perhaps that is why this cannot be permanent, I can’t just abandon the others for some sense of peace, can I?

I would want to be a virtuous friend, perhaps even a virtuous person, if that may ever happen. It’s stupid. This peace has messed with my head, my eyes are itchy; usually that only happens in Summer, not the current Winter. They feel strangely wet when I rub them, but I don’t give it any thought. I look down at one of the ducks, it is just young, young and ignorant, stupid, unknowledgeable. It doesn’t know anything, it’s hardly ever suffered, it knows nothing of the real world, it is purely ignorant of life in its youth and I sneer at it for its state.

“Most people don’t sneer at ducklings, Julius” Mr Ostra’s voice breaks the silence, a small chuckle in his voice, he walks over, rubbing some red sauce from the outside of his lip; he must have had something spicy for lunch, I ask and he nods and says it was indeed quite spicy. “What’s wrong?” He asks, and the question feels so strange, it’s a warm question, Mr Ostra is a warm person; yet equally so, it’s odd.

“I don’t get how they can be so stupid, so ignorant of everything; why don’t the ducklings understand how horrible the world is?” The question sounds stupid itself now that I’m saying it out loud, how could I push such judgement onto some random animals? Yet, Mr Ostra doesn’t call it stupid; he calls me out on it before I had even realised the truth of the question.

“Are you jealous, Julius?” I don’t even need to nod to say yes for him to know, how could he just read me like that? I feel exposed, open, it’s like peace, like friendship, like humanity, it’s strange, foreign and I don’t like it. The ducks, the birds, even the crickets pause as I listen to his words, “They are innocent, at peace, without knowledge of danger; they are children, they shouldn’t be troubled with the issues of life. Yet you were, is that why you sneered? Many creatures’ lives aren’t perfect, and you simply wish you were a real child, instead of a small adult?”

He pauses, turns his face to the water and away from me and smiles, taking out a bag of bran, though I’m not sure what type, from his pocket and throwing the bran out to the fish which eat it eagerly. “You aren’t irregular, I went through a similar process to you. I was a disappointment to my mother, she had wanted another daughter, she had believed that I would be; I was a failed creation in her eyes, and I was tossed out, to suffer, to grow on my own, to find my own food. It was hard, but I’ve settled down now; I’m comfortable with food and my life, and I don’t see mine ending soon.”

Morbid, I thought, but I understood what he meant; he was no longer at the risk he had once been, neither was I; we were similar in that way, I guess. But Mr Ostra was nice, understanding, human, and I was not; but I hope to be like him in the future, and I say as such. “I want to be like you” He quirks an eyebrow and chuckles slightly, handing me some fish feed, “Not a teacher, but comfortable and not in worry of death.” He pauses his laughter, but he doesn’t really sober himself as I throw the fish feed terribly, a bunch of the bran landing on the side of the pond.

I open up more than I expected myself too, “My parents are dead, I’ve lived alone all my life really” it’s a simple sentence but it goes quite far, Mr Ostra looks at me very closely, and I feel like a prized exhibit at a museum, though I only wish I could be as adored as such, why would someone stare at me like that? Unless it was Alexander, but he was just a strange person.

“How have you managed to survive?” Mr Ostra asks breathily, he sounds worried, his breaths are hard and his mouth quivers slightly. I say that I must have been just like him, since he survived fine, and he shakes his head “We aren’t the same, Julius” - what is that meant to mean! He just said we were similar, though I guess we aren’t, maybe he has read me yet again, realised my lacking humanity. It disturbs me to feel so exposed.

“Mr Ostra, can I ask you a question about Mr Shain?” Mr Shain pauses for a second but nods, open to the question as he throws more bran to the fish. I didn’t actually think of a question to secure my suspicions, but I made an easy one up, “Does he ever leave school? I’ve been here quite early and late and I’ve never seen him” It’s a stupid question really, I’ve never seen Mr Ostra leave either but I need something to confirm that Mr Shain hangs around school too much.

Mr Ostra laughs, “What are you planning on giving him as a gift? And not me, rude, I thought I was your favourite teacher!”, I roll my eyes and he then gives me an actual fair and square answer - “I’m not sure if he ever does to be honest, he definitely comes way too early and stays way too late, and he’s always worried about you guys and what you are doing, he cares too much I think, you guys are children, you should be somewhat free.” Mr Ostra has just confirmed everything I need to know about Mr Shain, he’s controlling, stays in school way too much for a normal person, it’s essentially proof in my mind. Now I just need him alone.

I get broken out of my thoughts by Mr Ostra, “Anyway, I need my quiet space back; you can mess with some of the other kids, can’t you? Get out of my hair for a bit” He smiles and I nod, he taps on the back and says that there’s nothing to worry about being worried; it’s only natural with everything I’ve been through. I can’t understand how he says it, how he can just be so reassuring and seemingly able to read me when he shouldn’t know anything, and yet he does and it makes me feel better despite how horrible being open feels.

I walk away, taking a second to remember the actual direction back towards the main school area, where I find Alexander. He's sitting alone on the field, not a usual occurrence for him; then again, he’s been hanging out with me more and more lately. Maybe he had wanted to have been with me this whole time instead, but that turns out to be wishful thinking because after I ask him he just responds. “No, it’s just everyone else is trying their hand at playfighting; I was told to stop fighting after no-one could land a hit on me”, he smiles, seeming quite proud of himself, “I didn’t even get a rest break, they even tried to jump at me from behind, and they still failed” - I’ll admit, it is something to be proud of, to be such a good fighter at such a young age; for such ability he’d have to be a demi-god, to have even outclassed Will? Though, I’ve suspected much for a while anyway, how else could he have such a brilliant physique? I have an alright physique, despite being extremely sickly and starved all my life and Alexander dwarfs that in every way.

“Really, could you beat me in a fight?” I say slightly teasingly, but I’m curious to see his response though, he most likely could; but I’ve been in many more important and serious fights than him, I don’t think any of Alexander’s fights have resulted in a loss of life unlike mine. He hasn’t been such a curse to those around him, and isn’t cursed to have all die around him anywho.

Alexander smirks and stands up from where he was sitting, he raises his fists, and I do the same; “I’m not going to go easy out of affection” he smirks as we take a few steps around, orbiting a non-existent marker in the middle of the grass. Then he suddenly jumps forward, and I had to react fast, faster than I expected. I saw adult demi-gods fight when I was with the Amazons yet Alexander is probably the fastest I’ve seen.

I take a step to the side, his fist just about nipping my cheek, his eyes locked on me but a wide smile on his face; “Blushing already?” He teases as he tries to sweep my legs out from under me, and by the time I dodge he’s half-way behind me and I have to go with a gut feeling to dodge a knee to the back. It’s enjoyable, though I have no real manner of keeping up; I doubt he’s actually trying.

“Wow, you’re good” I say, in such a tone he can tell I’m begging for it to stop to which he smiles and responds with a clean I know, before dragging me down to sit down with him. I said I had a good physique, but I don’t have good energy, and needing to react so fast has taken it all out of me. I basically ignore the fact that I’m resting my head on his shoulder.

Then a new curiosity sparks my mind, “Alexander, how come I’ve never been to your house?” it was just something that crossed my mind, I’d never thought about why I’d never seen his domestic life despite the fact that he’s seen mine. His face doesn’t sour but his nose twitches, the sort of reaction someone makes when they are going to force themselves to talk about something they don’t want to talk about.

“I live in an orphanage, I don’t have a house in any sense. No dwelling, no last name. It's a sombre moment really, and I genuinely feel bad for him, at least I had an idea of my identity; he clearly doesn’t care though as he attempts to flirt, “Though Alexander Solace has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

And now it’s my turn to have a nose twitch and a forced explanation, “Solace isn’t my last name; that’s just Will and Naomi, I’m a distant relative really.” He regards me with a curious glance and also a glance of, you are hiding something there but I won’t bug you on it. “My last name, preferred, is Julius Octavius Caesar”.

Alexander gives a long whistle before asking, “I thought Julius was your first name?” I pause for a second as I realise, oh I did just reveal far more than I meant to, but Alexander quickly brushes on; “Alexander Julius Octavius Caesar then? Pretty good, we can guarantee it in two years" Oh, yeah because Texas allows people to get married when they are fourteen. Kinda fucked up really. Then Alexander jumps back, metaphorically, “What is your first name though?”

“Don’t laugh” I say preemptively, Alexander gives a look of ‘oh this is going to be good and promises not to’, and then I say “Gaius”, with a nice C sound at the start like a proper Roman and to my surprise he doesn’t laugh. “But, to be honest, I prefer Octavian” I add on hastily to reduce anything confusing, maybe he’ll even call me Octavian next time around.

At first, after a second he laughs, but I’m pretty sure it's forced; he had expected something genuinely terrible, I’m sure, but he doesn’t get that, so he forces a laugh anyway. Which is fair enough really, though most people would find Gaius genuinely hilarious because ‘haha English speakers pronounce it Gayus” how horrible humans are, no?

Then the bell goes for next lessons to start, and Alexander stands up, offering me a hand, though I don’t take it; I can get up on my own, and he’s the type of person to retract his hand jokingly and then get worried when I fall over; and I don’t want him worried, he looks much better when not worried. He also doesn’t look worried when I say that there is something up with Mr Shain, which I hope doesn’t come to bite me or him, I hope that of anyone, more than even Will, that Alexander is not afflicted by my curse.

The next class is headed by Mr Ostra, who claps his hands, and sits down on his desk and just admits “I’m all out of ideas to be honest”; he throws his hands up in the air and just puts on the film Troy, made just five years ago.

Gods is it boring. I fall asleep, before the first ten minutes are over, well, really it's more like I’m passed out. As I can feel Alexander poking me in the cheek trying to check if I’m actually asleep before he gives up and shrugs. I wake up before the film is even over, something about the time when Paris asks Aeneas if Aeneas can fight?

Aeneas? Unable to fight, what imbecile made this film, ridiculous inaccuracy. I fall back to sleep again afterwards, probably to try and escape the horror that is Troy. Will did look to enjoy it though, so I guess it’s not too bad; though he also is the type to throw the truth out of the window when it comes to enjoyment. A supporter of white lies, was he.

When I wake up for the second time, school had just ended, and Will and Alexander had just been waiting for me to wake back up, Mr Ostra tells Alexander he wants him to stay behind so they can talk. Alexander brushes it off and says that he’ll catch up with me after he probably gets loads of praise for his tests.

He doesn’t catch up, he never did, never does, never will. I just know it, yet I can’t turn around, I can’t stop it, I can’t stop what I know Mr Shain will do. He’ll jump on Alexander being alone, a demi-god alone is perfect for a monster like him; yet I can’t turn back, Lucius wouldn’t understand. I’d be putting him in harm's way, and what would Naomi do, if I got her son killed? She doesn’t recognise me as her own, she won’t be biased into forgiving me, forgiveness for killing her dear Will.

So I can’t go back, I can’t make sure that he’s okay, because I can’t risk one life for another, because one death has much more consequences. I don’t want to lose my mother again, she hasn’t been there my whole life, can I finally have her now? To do so, I have to abandon Alexander. At least, for now.

He never left school.

I never said anything to Naomi once me and Will got home. She could tell something was off, I know it, and yet she respected my boundaries; when it was wrong to, when I didn’t need her to be respectful. I cried myself to sleep that night, consciously; I rarely cry, I can force it, but I never truly cry; yet today, I couldn’t control it, torn between Lucius and Alexander, ripped apart and that's how my brain was reacting. As if I had actually been torn apart, I have to convince myself that Alexander forgot, but I know he doesn’t forget, it's Alexander. He wouldn’t, but if he did forget, I’d cry too.

I couldn't pay attention to anything the next day, I smuggled in an imperial gold dagger and gladius that I had stolen from the Amazons way back when, but I couldn’t think. Where was he, was he already dead? Had he managed to run away, and if he did, why didn’t he come back to me? Was he trapped somewhere, that’d be stupid, monsters don’t trap people, they don’t do sadism, they just need to feed, there would be no point playing such games.

School ends, and I can’t remember anything about it, besides glaring daggers at a sweating and seemingly panicky Mr Shain. After school I told Will to walk home alone and confronted Mr Shain on it, “What did you do to Alexander!” I shout, like an idiot, only idiots shout; speaking loudly and forcibly often achieves nothing, but I was emotional, and that clouded my judgement I admit.

“I did nothing to him” Mr Shain responds, trying to block me from grabbing his throat, again, I was being too emotional; I could have just tried to cut him with the dagger, but I needed a confession damn it, I wanted it confirmed first, I needed that gratification in words. And those words of his, to him? So he’s harmed someone else, but then what happened to Alexander.

Before I can ask, Mr Ostra of all peoples rushes up behind me and pulls me away, dragging me out of the room - “Julius, what are you doing! You can just attack a teacher, what is wrong with you!” He speaks with anger more than anything, I think it's the first time I’ve ever seen him negatively emotioned and it shocks me that he’s defending Mr Shain. Then again, he doesn’t know, and so I try to explain.

“He harmed Alexander, or he killed him, can’t you see that” I cry out, my eyes searching Mr Ostra for any any sense of recognition or doubt about his coworkers innocence, but it isn’t there, his gaze straightens and he calls that a very serious and very incorrect accusation. He started dragging me down some steps, and I didn’t even know the school had a basement; well, at least I learnt something today. Then I learnt something much worse.

“Julius, I harmed Alexander, like I’m about to hurt you” Mr Ostra sighs, and I can feel my face freeze, was I wrong? No, no, no! I can’t be wrong, I had everything right; Mr Shain is a monster, he had to be! So why would Mr Ostra do anything, he’d been nothing but nice and understanding since I met him.

Mr Ostra’s nail sharpens, and he drags it across my wrist, bleed trickling out like water from a close faucet, just shaking its drops, he chose a safe place to cut; his nail scoops the blood up and he ingests it. I can see his muscles grow, a tiny tiny amount, but they grow from my blood.

I got desperate, I slipped free of the grip, pulled my dagger out and attempted to slice his throat but he just moved his neck back and chuckled; “Nice try, Julius, but you aren’t in a position to fight back” He smiles as he continues to drag me across a floor that was getting grimier and murkier as he made a mirroring incision on my other wrist as he grabbed my free wrist but didn’t force me to drop the knife. He’d regret that, I promised him, but he just kept smiling as he made more incisions and sucked up more of my blood and got stronger each time.

I’m not done yet though, I twist the dagger in my hand, and I successfully slice open his hand causing him to drop me in pain. “You’ll regret that boy,” he drops the formalities of naming out of annoyance I guess and he drops the hiding of his true self too, “you know, my, pure siblings, can’t ingest blood through their fingers, they are more like vampires using rotten teeth.” He scoffs, clearly angry at his siblings, he must have been telling the truth at the pond then? To have such a dislike of his siblings.

His true self is strange, a human torso and head, with blazing red fire, a donkey’s right leg and a bronze left leg. “That’s why your mother wanted you to be a girl, you’re an empousa… a mutated one, of some sort?” I don’t feel paralyzed, glad he doesn’t have that supposed ability of empousa. He sneers, but doesn’t reject the idea or try to disagree; seems like I hit a nerve with how he tries to strike me immediately after.

However, there is one thing that Empousa can do that will make this fight incredibly difficult and Mr Ostra does it, almost mockingly; “Julius, you don’t want to fight” just as I thought of it, he used it, charmspeak. Despite Julius not being my name, I can’t resist it, I crumple in response to it. “In fact, Julius, you want to enter the cell to my left and sit there while I lock you up” He smiles as I do exactly as told, unable to even get a glare past the spell; feeling locked in a body that isn’t even my own.

Charmspeak is not exactly a whisper, or it didn’t feel like it, instead it was like convincing a body of its urges without the mind's intervention; you just had to throw a bit of magic behind the voice, but whisper or not, magic or not. It was a difficult ability to face, as proven by the fact that Mr Ostra can just lock me up and walk away. He taunts me on it once I’m in though, saying that I should have minded my own business but how could I?

“You’ll rot away here for the rest of your life, in which, your blood will help me get stronger; but hey, you're lucky, I don’t need to break your bones, because of how weak you are” I roll my eyes and spit at him, but he just laughs at me and walks away, what a change in character, to just flip on a dime, he had me fooled though I hate to admit it. He’s probably going to check on Mr Shain, but since he doesn’t even try to change his form, Mr Shain has to be a monster too; else Mr Shain would see nothing, as the mist hides monsters' true forms from mortals, yet doesn't bother with fake forms… wonderfully.

I clutch my knees, my forehead resting against my kneecap as I just laugh at how pathetic I am, to have fallen into this trap, to have tried too hard and to have gotten myself killed. It was all my fault, just like how I could have stopped Alexander too. “Having fun?” Speaking of the devil, I look up and Alexander is there with a smile, incisions made across basically every inch of his body, a bone of his right arm, his strong arm, sticking out where his elbow should be, and such an arm is limp accordingly. One of his legs was half-crushed, the other twisted beyond belief, his left arm was shivering out of just how many cuts and incisions had been made into it compared to the rest, and he had bits of skin ripped off his chest where flesh met air.

He’s in the cell opposite me, “How can you say that?” I say as I stand up, and and try to use my gladius to break the lock to my cell, my tone is urgent, because I am, I need to save us both, we need to escape. I toss Alexander my dagger, and he catches it, with his left arm, his reaction still as swift as an adult demi-god’s despite his state.

“Because I feel fine, Octavian, they didn’t even allow me to fight back, had me under that weird spell the entire time” I tell him about charmspeak and he shrugs muttering that it is the ‘same difference’. “So, I wasn’t really allowed to feel the pain they dealt, so I’m basically fine” he’s lying, he’s trying to look strong for me, gods this is all my fault and he’s still trying to look strong in front of me. Why? What’s the point?

I soon realise the point as Mr Ostra returns, Alexander returning to how he was before, completely skipping Mr Ostra’s awareness; he charmspeaks me into giving him the gladius, annoyingly, and as he opens my cell to rip it from my hands. I manage to wrestle it with him a bit, as his command was merely to get me to hand it to him so as soon as I did I attempted to fight him.

However, I underestimated the power of the mutated empousa. How he could just grab me by the throat with his spare hand and then just carry me along and throw me to the side, standing over me as he walked forward in anger for the audacity I had for attempting to fight back. He was about to talk down to me, to mock me most likely, as Alexander cut the lock to his cell with the dagger I gave him.

The metal falls to the ground, and Mr Ostra turns to face Alexander; he opens his mouth, he attempts to say Alexander’s name with charmspeak but Alexander interrupts with a smack to the throat from Alexander’s broken hand cutting him off, “No cheating for you to day, fight me properly”.

Mr Ostra swipes at Alexander, and despite Alexander’s heavily damaged legs, Alexander dodges it, giving a smirk “Poor” he comments as punches Mr Ostra in the stomach with his left hand, landing it with a clean smack that reverberates through the air and has Mr Ostra lurching over in surprise.

Alexander and I take the opportunity to run away, but we don’t get far, only to the far more open space of the main hall as another empousa, a smaller, weaker empousa tries to get in our way but I manage to throw Alexander’s, well my, dagger into its face to shut it up temporarily as it tried to use charmspeak. The other empousa is Mr Shain, at least I was somewhat right about him being a monster… though having two monsters is much worse than one.

I manage to lock the door to the mainhall, it isn’t a permanent solution though, as I put all my effort into healing Alexander; I’m a child of Apollo, I should be good at this, but despite everything, all I do is slightly fix his bones and make it so he’s in intolerable pain when doing anything instead of being incapable. But, it’s enough, I hope.

The floor is dry as I drop to it, the entire place looks dusty, probably because it isn’t ever used, only really here for show instead of anything special. Shouldn’t make it a risky environment to have a fight in, which is good. We can hear the footsteps of Mr Ostra as he walks up, his true form much greater than the kind form of his human self - he easily breaks down the door to the main hall, and I’m already in no condition to fight as I keep attempting to heal Alexander.

Alexander stands up, places on foot behind the other, shoulder length apart, and he speaks “He’s just gonna watch, and I want to impress him; and you can help with that, by making me look better as I beat you” cocky bastard, he doesn’t even need to do this to impress me. The idiot, but I can’t do much about it.

Mr Ostra attempts to respond but Alexander doesn’t take any chances, he thinks charmspeak is cheating, and isn’t allowing it, he lands a mean left hook before Mr Ostra can even react, even I notice the actual movements after they have happened his right hand squares Mr Ostra in the ribs immediately after. Then a kick to the donkey leg, a headbutt to the nose. “Try harder!” Alexander taunts, “Too slow” he laughs as Mr Ostra attempts to strike him.

Alexander grabs Mr Ostra’s right hand’s wrist as he attempts to punch him, “Can I show off?” Alexander smirks as he throws Mr Ostra over the top of himself, then Mr Shain attempts to join the fight too; Alexander weaves a series of punches from Mr Shain before shattering the smaller empousa’s nose in a single punch that sends the empousa tumbling back. Just in time for Alexander to curve his back around an attempted kick from Mr Ostra’s metal leg.

“Wow, you guys have it out for me! Sad it isn’t going to work” Stop being cocky, I only wish I could tell him, but he’s far too engrossed in this fight. At least he’s having fun, he lands a left jab, then a right kick, then a heavy and hard hook to Mr Ostra - who is far more durable than Mr Shain who is mostly staying on the outskirts, though still focused on Alexander instead of me.

Then Mr Shain does go for me, and Alexander moves quickly, he stops smiling too fully tackling Mr Shain out of the way before standing up and just staring over at Mr Ostra - moving faster than he had before, he seems to have stopped trying to have fun now that I was in harm's way. He stays silent as he lands punch after punch, kick after kick, Mr Ostra not even able to graze him; if he did, Alexander would probably be heavily wounded, he was a glass cannon in this fight.

Mr Ostra continues to tank hit after hit, until he jumps back, creating some distance between him and Alexander who is still in pursuit; Mr Shain jumps between them as Mr Ostra attempts to use charmspeak, but Alexander tears through the smaller, younger empousa; ripping through the ribs of Mr Shain and diving through, jumping forward again and breaking Mr Ostra’s jaw with a hard punch.

Mr Ostra moves away again, dedicating most of his time to blocking strikes, not even attempting to try and fight back; tears prickling the empousa’s eyes as Alexander continues to strike him, like a great plague scorching kingdoms to the ground. Mr Ostra’s blocking fails him as Alexander grabs his right arm and yanks it from its socket, throwing it to the side as Mr Ostra continues to try and block and dodge, in a mirror to how Alexander himself looked, Alexander crushed Mr Ostra’s donkey leg and then twisted the celestial bronze leg 180 degrees.

Mr Ostra was panicking, he was crying now, and he tries to kick himself away, move away from Alexander as Alexander stared him down in the most rage I think I could ever see from a person. The floor was still dry as Alexander walked towards Mr Ostra, out of breath now, Mr Ostra being broken had led to Alexander letting up slightly and letting his tiredness slip in.

Speaking of slipping. Alexander slips, he hits his head on the ground as he falls over almost cartoonishly, on a flaw that isn’t even wet, shouldn’t even be slippy, it’s stupid, random, should be impossible. My curse at fault, my curse’s fault, my fault. Mr Ostra lunges forward as Alexander falls, not having predicted it but capitalising on it and he crushes Alexander’s throat as he lands, Mr Ostra may have done the blow, but I killed him, didn’t I?

I stare up at Mr Ostra as Mr Ostra walks towards me, limping, his body falling over and nearly falling apart as drags himself towards me and I stand up, taking the dagger that Mr Shain hadn’t bothered fishing out of his face after I threw it at him. “You were a good teacher, but I hate you” I admit as I lunge forward with the dagger, attempting to slice him open like a tender fish.

Mr Ostra doesn’t even respond to me, he’s too tired for it, he’s too tired to keep fighting too. His movements are sluggish, he can’t even use charmspeak anymore as his jaw is dislocated thanks to Alexander. I attempt to stab him but he dodges to the side, and then I get an idea, the most beautiful of ideas coming at the most horrible of times. Both Apollo and Venus had access to charm speak, Venus being much more associated with it.

So can I use it? I can’t really think of how to use it, but I try, “Stop” I command, my voice is not charming, but it doesn’t feel like my own, it feels manipulative and cold - one mutated, and horrible, befitting a cursed being like myself. It works though. Mr Ostra does stop, affected by whatever my words had been, and his body screams, not allowed to even move as I plunge the dagger into his skull as his body disintegrates into nothing. Mr Shain was dead too, all that was left was Alexander.

But he was not left, he was just there, on the floor, neck crushed, obliterated even, blood splattered across the surface, his eyes dull and staring into the ceiling without any of the warmth he had once looked at me with. He looked like an alien, his eyes had nothing behind them, there was nothing there, he looked like a complete stranger to me, and it was my fault. He had done it all, he had deserved to live, and yet I! The one at fault, lived in his place.

How am I even going to explain this to Naomi or Will? I killed Alexander, oh gods.

Chapter Text

There was no funeral.

Of course not, no-one found Alexander’s body.

I will admit to feeling some guilt over it, but I had no desire to be on the receiving end of suspicion and potentially ruin the way my brother and his mother looked at me for my involvement. Logically speaking Alexander had been missing from the day before, and I was undeniably not with him when he went missing.

As far as everyone was aware, if he was dead, I had no way of being involved; however, if people found me, with splatters of blood on me and then found Alexander’s body at school? I would with no doubt take the fall, it would be too risky to try and blame Mr Ostra and Mr Shain, so I was in a hard place.

I did emotionally connect with Alexander, at points, he made me forget my complete cursed inhumanity, only for it to come back to be at the worst time. It was a reminder of my failure to be like Will or anyone else, that I was not like anyone else, I had cared for Alexander, but consciously, he was gone now and I cared little.

It made me feel sick, not out of guilt, or grief, I just knew, knew that I should probably feel something and yet I felt so little, not even numb, not even angry at myself for my failings anymore.

I had killed him, I saw it as it truly was; it was my fault for his death, and it was even more so my responsibility to cover it up. I had killed him, like I had killed all my various families, like I had killed those who helped me on my journey across the states, like I had probably killed Tyler Lincoln and the Amazons condemned to death in the revolt; I can only hope that Lucius’ immunity to my curse continues, what else do I even have to live for?

My life provides no value, not compared to those like Alexander. If the scales of fate were fair, then others would be far after me in the order of death; but life, I suppose, isn’t fair, the gods don’t act without bias and neither do the fates. Some are simply destined for more, even without deserving it.

Luckily, the school was empty, which just shows how much the gods must like me, because that’s really stupid, not even a cleaner or receptionist left? At least the school didn’t overwork their employees, but anyway, very lucky for me in this situation.

I had to use a plastic binbag to gather the body parts, and then used a copious amount of toilet paper to wipe up the blood - which hadn’t yet soaked into the plastic coated wooden floors. Then I placed the paper into the bags with everything else, it was weird to put body parts somewhere. However, it was simply the most logical possible way of moving the body.

It turns out the human body is way heavier than I expected. I took the bags on multiple trips towards the pond where I had been first reminded of there being a peace outside of the chaos of the world. The peace of death, the peace that Alexander was probably now experiencing; how lucky, but, I am not in a position to be in a similar place yet.

No, my place right now is… looking into the groundskeeper’s shed; looking for a shovel, I had hoped the tools would be kept outside; but something had to be difficult, of course it did, even with the greatest of luck, life still has to be a struggle. Alexander is free of that struggle at least, or am I just saying that because it's my fault? Who knows, I need to focus on the present anyway.

The shed is locked, luckily, it isn’t locked using an internal mechanism, just a padlock around a metal band that is bolted in. It would have been much harder had the lock been internal because as it stood I could break the joints on the external lock, lockpicking is much more fine than the ease that is brute force. Anyway, I cut through the lock with the dagger - despite how weak normal gold is, turns out Imperial Gold can break steel despite its handler’s physical weakness.

The inside of the shed is musty, cramped, most of the tools are rusted, and the bits that aren’t rusted are quite sharp. It keeps me on my toes at least as slowly pull out equipment piece by piece, trying to avoid the pieces that fall down in the process - yet despite pulling out about three trowels, two pitchforks and four extremely rusted and unreplaced pairs of shears plus one polished and cared for pair of shears. Still no shovel - there is a plastic beach spade. For some reason. Yet no shovel.

I can hear the ticking of a broken clock in the shed as I step in and out retrieving and dodging the falling tools that had been shoved and cramped into this wooden shed that has probably shrunk, like most things do with age. One tick per second is my guess, two ticks, four, eight, thirty-two. It admittedly stops me from flinching as randomly when it comes to the tools smashing and denting the wooden floor, helps distract me.

Seven hundred and eighty ticks later, and I am at the back of the shed, and positioned like a rewarding treasure, there sits the shovel, a bit rusty, not very clean, and a bit heavy for my liking but it’ll do. I really can’t believe I’m doing this, a few weeks ago, I had begun to put this behind me; well, being surrounded by the death part, it is kinda surprising that I am, for the first time, burying someone.

You’d think I’d be more experienced doing this, using logic, but of course, I never buried the bodies of my many parents and carers, nor the dead soldiers, nor Isabel, or that nameless girl, didn’t bury the pedophile either - I had actually found out, through the local news, there was an investigation into his death, but after they looked through the contents of his computer internal conflicts forced the police to drop the investigation. Alexander was special in life, and he got special treatment in death too - how lucky, of course true luck would be in not being affected by my curse and dying a really stupid death.

How pathetic of me, he hasn’t even been dead for an hour yet and I’m mocking him. Disgusting. If there is one thing that I should aspire to do, besides not being responsible for the fact that everyone around me dies, is probably to care for the dead. Yet I don’t, I don’t really care about much admittedly, I’m not sure if I am capable. I’m not capable of many things, a failure waiting to happen.

However, I am capable of digging a grave as it turns out. I hope I never have to use this capability to dig my own grave, but, right now, I’m digging Alexanders - and I can’t jump in with him else leave Lucius alone with no brother, not that they are actually aware of my connection besides adoption - its quite funny actually, I could laugh. But it would be rude to laugh at Alexander’s grave and I did just say I wouldn’t mock him.

He doesn’t actually get a grave, not really, so I’m not even laughing at his grave, just an area of soil that’s been dug up and repacked over with a bunch of bin bags under it - next to a lovely pond, that is wonderfully calm, and peaceful. A suitable place to be buried, I hope when I die, my body's resting place is just as good. Probably not though - I don’t really deserve that.

Alexander’s grave is about four feet deep, and wide enough for the two bags, it’s nothing special, and once filled in there is a bit of a mound of dirt; I doubt anyone will come looking all this way though, it’s fairly remote and now that its buried no-one would connect me to it, my finger prints aren’t on any records, so I don’t have to care about that either.

The next thing I do is place the tools back into the shed, in as cramped and messy a form as I found it in, mostly - I doubt anyone could tell the difference. Or that anyone would bother to check, it’s just a shed that no-one uses. Then, after that, I leave the school site. Cleanly, smoothly and hopefully looking completely normal and unassuming.

The door of the house is unlocked. When I return home, Lucius is sitting down in the living room watching some random tv show. Naomi, meanwhile, is looking at me with suspicion - because of course she is, however, it is impossible to know what she actually suspects, and I hope that I can completely manage to avoid any further and more complex suspicion.

“Julius” such a fake name once felt natural, now after admitting the truth to Alexander it feels so wrong, then again, this whole situation right now is coming off the back of something going wrong, so perhaps the feeling is still natural - it is just that ‘natural’ itself has changed. “Talk to me outside, would you?” Her tone is soft but worrying, and all my own worry leaves me - she doesn’t know a thing, thank the gods.

I nod, and we leave the room, Will looks over curiously as we do so, but doesn’t make any opposition as Naomi closes the door. She brings me to the opposite side of the corridor, not that it would change anything if Will did decide to eavesdrop, but I don’t believe Lucius has any reason to; and most people act on reason. “Where were you! You didn’t tell Will where you were going, I was worried sick. What if you’d have gotten kidnapped!” she fusses over it, and if I had gotten kidnapped, the kidnapper probably would have died too - isn’t that fun, everyone I know seems to die, lovely.

I contemplate responding with the truth, I would tell her all about the empousa, about Alexander, about me covering it up; and I would tell her about the past, and all the stuff I’ve done and been through, Amazonian slavery, homelessness, murder, repeated orphanings - without any orphanage, probably wouldn’t mention James and him wanting to take me to an orphanage, in no world is a home that isn’t New Rome my priority. She would react in sadness and sorrow on my behalf, hug me dearly, she wouldn’t even care about all the negative stuff..

She would completely ignore the curse, she would probably be disappointed in herself to find out that she was technically my mother, who abandoned me, despite it not actually truly being her. She would treat me like a person, induct me into the family proper, I could truly be brothers with Lucius then, and be happy. She wouldn’t even care about the murders, which is kinda shocking, and probably wishful thinking; but I am not a very wishful person, so let's pretend it is just logical. All if I tell her the truth.

“Well, I’m fine, aren’t I?” I don’t tell her, I don’t have it in me to. Why would I, I am very much the coward. Fit to lead others to their deaths, yet not fit to face death myself, a pathetic child who cannot even trust those they love most. I just flash a confident smile, it doesn’t look confident, I can see my own reflection in her eyes - but it is an attempt at looking confident, and she seems to go along with it.

“Julius” there it is again, the slightly disturbed worried look; she cares about me an immense amount, or at least, she cares about ‘Julius’ an immense amount, but she’d probably care for Octavian by such an amount too. So what even is the purpose of hiding, why am I scared to be honest; to admit that she is placing her love in the wrong place, she deserves to love a person, instead of an accursed monster. She doesn’t press further though, despite her worry, “Just, tell me if there is something wrong. You can talk to me.”

I really can’t though, not because of her by any means, I just can’t. I nod, and then we both returned to the living room; Lucius having quickly forgotten about any curiosity he may have had, and he had returned to his game, Pokemon Platinum again - I think a newer game came out recently though, maybe I should buy it for him. A small little gift of appreciation to my only true family member, and the purest of people I have ever met.

In the fates’ own twisted way, he is perhaps as inhuman as I am, or more so that he is so human that it turns on itself. He is kind, soft-spoken, mostly quiet - an overall pure and lovely being. And in the face of that I am nothing, I can only hope to cling to his light else I will never have a chance of forgetting my own darkness. Or some metaphor, I’m not a philosopher.

The local news is on, state news as a matter of fact, and I on one hand feel quite proud to be related to something on state news, and on the other hand have to very much act and pretend to be extremely worried and unknowledgeable about what the news is covering. As the news is covering, ‘shock disappearance of an orphan and his two teachers in a new missing person’s case’, I’m not going to judge your intelligence, but I feel like it's obvious what that is about.

The actual matter ends up meaning little, to me, I already know everything about it and far more than the news does, or the police even do. Anywho, the actual importance of such a broadcast and a statement is that; well, schools off for a bit. They can’t really handle a student going missing that well, or the teachers going missing either; of course, in actual case, none of them are missing, they will probably find Alexander’s body eventually and the teachers were monsters so who cares about them.

No, what matters is that this opens up free time for Naomi, Lucius and me - to go to New York, and I had almost forgotten that that had been my entire goal for a while now, well, it was in late 2010 when I came here and it still is now in 2011. I do wonder what is going on there, and I certainly hope that it won’t take a while to actually go there; due to random complications forced in place by the fates, I certainly don’t want to miss anything special like Zeus’ (or whatever Jupiter’s inferior Hellene equivalent is) lightning bolt being stolen and returned before I even arrive.

Well shit. Nothing interesting happens for the rest of the year, we don’t even go to New York despite my many many hints at wanting to go to New York. Instead we go on holiday to… Berkeley Hills, California. We go there for my thirteenth birthday, it’s very ironic, I’m aware. Of course, I’m lying when I say nothing interesting happened; I met someone, another thirteen ish year old in a cafe.

Someone eager to find a place in life, the son of an Hawaiian immigrant, nothing really important. However, I do find him interesting; he’s attractive, strong looking - he’s a bit like Alexander really, though not blonde, white or radiating some extreme divinity, but there is divinity there. A much more controllable kind. He’s similar to me in some aspects, though shorter and much prettier.

He looks somewhat worried and confused, his dad must have gone somewhere and he wasn’t aware where, or something along those lines. So, being the opportunistic samaritan I am, I sit down with him and talk with him; kind words like “Are you alright, you look lost?”.

He looks at me with wide, dark, sort of deer about to be hit by a car, eyes - he even speaks shocked and panicky. “Yes, I’m fine”, he says, he’s lying, and despite the beautiful face, he’s not good at hiding it. I don’t call him out on it though, instead I have a guess, he’s presumably a demi-god or a legacy; I don’t know what type, though I narrowed it to Roman - he just gives off that feel, but if my memory from reading books as a child is correct. That old training hut, Wolf House or something, is something where in.

“Sonoma Valley, you might find you aren’t as lost there” I drop the ball, but it is interesting to meet another Roman in the wild, at the Amazon’s fortress they were rarer than Greek ones, perhaps because Romans are simply superior - or something, I don’t particularly know. “But, could I at least know your name?” I ask, curiosity killed the cat, hopefully won’t kill me - not only do I have stuff to live for, but I don’t really deserve such peace.

“Michael Kahale” He smiles at the pleasantry of simply asking someone of their name, the worried, shocked and confused look having left his face. I responded with my own name “Octavian, I hope to see you again soon, Michael”.

And with that, I leave, back to Naomi and Will and pretending that I am Julius. I mean, I am, but Octavian is much more of an honest name than Julius; more true to life. I had a hot chocolate, and I instantly burned my tongue, and I decided that I would never like to have a hot drink ever again because, wow, that was painful. I really don’t want to risk doing that again.

As I am here, I buy a bunch of DS games as a gift to Will, I am aware that it is my birthday but I don’t know. He seems more deserving of gifts than some wealthy, murderous monster. I mean, I looked into my own stocks recently, turns out, I hold shares in weapons manufacturers which is not shocking at all really but still, I’m profiting off the many wars around the world - that makes me even more of a monster. I probably made money from Iraq, thank you President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

It’s a nice place actually in California, I can see why the Romans settled here - though I am certain that Italy or Greece is much nicer than… most places in the US, to be quite honest, the US isn’t where I would choose to be, if I had a choice, pretty sure us legacies aren’t safe outside of the US or something like that. Still, 7 times the murder rate of Greece doesn’t make me feel safe - not that I helped with my own actions.

Eventually, after some sight seeing, beach going, hill walking, restaurant dining and the whole shebang. We return to Texas, and there again, is nothing worth remembering. Will finds out he’s a homosexual, or I find out he’s a homosexual, something along those lines. He’s certainly not metrosexual, but labels hardly matter. I don’t care, at the end of the day he’s my little brother and I care about him quite a bit.

Then in June, of 2013, by which time I am fifteen by the way, very annoying timing - I had been wanting to for many years now, we finally went to New York - apparently Will had been there when he was nine. And, Lucius is now twelve which is kinda terrifying you know, I am getting old sure, but he’s now the age I was when I first met him. Time flies when you are desperate to go somewhere and bored of everything else, besides Lucius and Naomi of course - I do still quite like living with them.

I especially like Naomi’s cooking, but I am willing to see what this Hellenic camp has. The Hellenes were the first westerners to discover civilisation, their camp must be in the slightest a smaller mirror of the glory of Rome, right? I hope so, or else I’m not sure what I would do, I would certainly be annoyed though.

Of course, nothing goes easily. Will, Naomi and I, are walking through Washington Square Park. There’s a surprising amount of pigeons, beautiful creatures though they are, the rats of the sky there are called. Shame really, humans domesticated pigeons and yet abandoned them. However, clearly something is wrong with the pigeons, because while they are intelligent, they are not intelligent enough to be easily stalking us. Which they are, they aren’t the best at it, but who would bother suspecting pigeons?

Of course, why else would pigeons be stalking us, if they were not pigeons at all. I became aware of such an idea as soon as I realised they were stalking us, but I had no evidence, so it wasn’t too surprising when the horde started flying and pecking towards us, and it also wasn’t surprising that these were the birds of Herculean fame. Literally. These are Stymphalian Birds, and there is way too many of them.

I’ve been in a fight before, usually, I am not surrounded on all sides by vicious creatures, nor am I worried about someone else. This wasn’t going well in my opinion, simply because of how vicious these dirty birds are; and it goes worse, because I take a nasty beak strike to the head, right above my ear and it fucks with my brain a bit and I fall unconscious as a self-defence mechanism.

When I come to we are in our hotel room; which I am paying for. I just switched out one of my cards with Naomi’s main and slipped her the details required. I am quite happy to spend money. Though they are clearly in discussion about something, with a new figure, from the ears to the hooves, it is obvious that he is a Satyr. He seems to have told Will of his status as a demi-god, though the fact they did not wait for me to awaken makes me think that I am currently not being recognised as one either.

Then he directs Will to go to Long Island, for a safe place for demi-gods. I had already guessed - educated guess - that this was where New Pella was, so I am happy to have been indirectly told of my correctness and my wondrous intelligence. Maron even takes Will by the hand to take him to this Camp Halfblood, interesting name - why is it that the Roman camp is named after a god but the Hellenic camp is named after demigods as a concept that’s stupid. Also, what about legacies? This is looking worse by the minute in my opinion, and I do also interject.

“I’m coming too” my voice is sharp, sudden, it kinda breaks the kind and formal discussion that everyone else seems to have had. I get told I can’t go, that I wouldn’t be able to help and deal with it. I feel very offended to be quite honest, I am very much a demi-god and I am very much able to see through the mist, and I am very much above some tiny little insignificant brat of a satyr. Wow, I really let that get to my head for a second, I actually stand shocked out of the pure abrasiveness of the way it is said for a second and I bite my tongue as I think of an answer.

I need a way to prove it really, and there is only really one good way of proving that I am a demi-god, or even capable of going to Camp Halfblood. So, as Will and Maron pull out of the door, Will is not really being happy to leave me behind, I think he’s crying. I speak, mimicking the disgusting, cold, writhing and controlling tone I spoke in the fight with the Empousa. “Stop” The word is simple, the word works, Will, Naomi, and Maron all freeze in place; I let out a small chortle, I hate the way it sounds but I love the effect - it’s kinda sick of me, to have so much power over people just from words? I find it quite beautiful, it is draining to my throat though.

“Now, can I come with you?” My voice is petty and teasing actually, it feels nice to get some small retribution over being so easily dismissed, and Maron to their credit, nods and allows me to join in the trip. Though he certainly keeps me far from themselves, they look quite disturbed. I find it funny, and hey, Maron allows me to hold and guide the hand of my little brother instead of holding it themselves now. So all’s well that ends well.

We soon reached Long Island, it’s not actually that big of a walk from the hotel room, I was able to convince Naomi of where to buy one after all - I had somewhat planned to try and find the camp while we were here. Then, we went to the end, up to something that was clearly being contained, obscured even, Maron walks through without any resistance, Lucius the same, no resistance for them. I face some resistance from this invisible barrier, but I make it through none-the-less.

Finally, I have arrived at… New Pella?

Chapter Text

What in Saturn’s grace, in great memory of the Great God, who once shone his grace over all humanity in the age of great abundance and prosperity incomparable until the reign of Augustus, and unmatchable until Apollo’s prophesied ascension.

In such an ascension which would finally return nature and the world to its most beautiful and brilliant state, in flexible hum with humanity was Saturn’s age; this place is untouched by Saturn at all. There is no trace of the Great God in the very flesh of this beating heart of these trunks of Olympus.

It is filthy, those who live here live in squalor, unrivaled and hopefully never rivaled for I condemn even the slightest inhumanity at the uncivilised disgusting crime that is this sight.

There is no society here, there is hardly even a commune, it is a camp, and that is their whole civilization. It shakes me to my core, the horror, the disgust, the lack of roads mainly.
There are no true houses, nor manors, nor galleries, nor baths, nor pools, nor is there a true amphitheatre - Roman word by the way, yet they use it here; a welcome betrayal of their own heritage - nor is there a true school.

It is a place that fills me with pure disappointment and perhaps rage.

We entered from the Farm Road, from which there are plains, a seemingly important pine tree - why a pine tree of all things does not matter, what matters is that it feels hostile - to the left on top of the simplistically and boringly named Half-Blood hill. Directly in front of us, us and the satyr who I am wondering if I should get rid of for the slight of bringing us to this plain of scum, is a lake of canoes and beyond that cabins and what could be showers though I wouldn’t put a lack of such technology beneath what looks to be these animals.

Strange, you could almost confuse them for humans, but if the snarl of thoughts, or the twitching of my anger as I hear them patter along simplistically does not give it away, I do not consider these creatures humans in the slightest. They are a completely different measure of disgusting, there are places that live in squalor due to a lack of access, this place lives in squalor in spite of society at its doorstep.

They are similar to me in some aspects then, though, they probably still lie and think themselves human for if it was not for their choice of squalor they probably would be. Whereas, I will never be. I can only wonder why they make this choice for a disgusting uncivilised mess, but I cannot stress the question too much.

I have already made counter-arguements in my head, ‘but they have freedom here’, freedom for what? The state and society is there to protect one's freedom from being damaged by another’s freedom - The Harm Principle, the state is an evil to protect those from the whims of each other, while I do not find myself often agreeing with Mill and other Liberal thinkers; this rejection of state to this tribal form is anarchism, less so potentially, it is disgusting whatever it is.

It is clear that this place is in need of order, it is solemn here; like the very heart beat of this place has been shaken. As if those here struggle to, or simply cannot, trust one another anymore. A rational fear, perhaps, in the most irrational of places for a mortal.

The only place of some recognisable structure is that of the ‘big house’, named so by Maron. It is, admittedly, a decently sized home. Not a particularly large one, in my opinion but still. It looks about four stories tall from the outside; but given the layering of windows, which don’t match up with the usual for a four story home, I would consider it more likely to be a five story building. The outside has been painted a skyblue colour, I don’t really like it, but Will does.

He seems to like this entire place, I can’t understand why. It never seemed his sort of thing; yet here he is, finding it quite lovely. I should be happy for him, he is my brother and I do care for him; but equally, I find it in myself to want to distance myself from him. Despite the blood we share, despite the heritage we share, despite being siblings; I simply struggle to cope with my dislike of this place.

I sincerely doubt that it will truly tear us apart, if the years apart could not separate us, I doubt a single camp could stretch us so thin that our relationship snapped. Though I have been wrong about many things before, I saw a genuine life before me once, or twice, or thrice and so on - yet such never came to fruition.

Inside the ugly house is a rather rancid looking man, one, who, like a rodent, desires such hedonistic pleasures of drink and women over the much more reasonable joys of poetry and other men. Such a man is unfit to run a camp, so is my first thought, and such a man must only be here in the notion that he must learn to sober himself from his flaws in order to run this camp, is my second thought, my third and final thought is. Holy shit this is Bacchus.

The man is divine, it is more sketched into his skin and flesh than my curse is into mine; how hopeful that is, that I may be capable of tearing away my curse, whereas this divinity is perpetual. It is obvious who this is from the start, the look of the constant hangover, the posture of a constant hangover, literally everything points to a man in a permanent state of hangover and alcohol withdrawal. What I can only assume is that this is a consequence of a past action, one that is to teach the God of his own flaws. Of course, I doubt such a thing could happen to Bacchus - the Romans aren’t anywhere near as flawed as Iacchus is. Iacchus being an alternate name for Dionysus.

As if to ring such true, the man is identified as Mr. D. A stupid name, mainly because, the Mr is not obscuring a first name, as the D is the first name. Instead it is a title for title’s sake, there is no meaning or importance behind the Mr. It would be more impressive for him to just be called D, but I feel that he would be ridiculed by teenagers if that was just his name. As seriously, D could be a pain in someone's arse.

That’s just an example of a joke; not that I am telling one myself, I am far from comedic.

He’s a very dismissive character, one disinterested in the people, or at least he shows disinterest to Will. I would try to ignore the fact my hand was starting to hurt from how tense it was getting, but the comfort of my brother is much more important. Will is told to go to the ‘Hermes’ cabin.

I presume this is much more of a waiting list location for unassigned children, I remember once, as a child, but 4 years old. That on the 16th birthday of a demi-god in Rome, they would be claimed by their godly parent, and finally get the gift of fully understanding themselves. Though I was always told that any child in Rome was treated as part of Rome, no matter the parent, no matter the heritage, and even without being claimed, they would always be welcome.

I can only assume there is a different system here, for else there would be no reason to have specific cabins based on specific gods. I could also question why it is that there is not a cabin for actual people in need of a home, no, it is a cabin for wanderers. For those welcome enough to stay, but only temporarily. It is, in my opinion, a flawed system even without the full picture. It promotes separatism and an us vs them attitude. What if a child does not get claimed by their god - as I can only assume is the reason for them being placed in the Hermes cabin - is it in that situation that a child is abandoned to the wastes outside? I doubt many could manage, not all had the luck I did and even I, with my visions of the future, with my fate to die elsewhere, found myself close to death at multiple points.

I find it to be a failure of the anarchy here, the lack of order, these children, lacking in adult figures of leadership, find themselves capable of commune, but within that commune there is division. There is conflict, I do not agree with Hobbes, Burke or Oakeshott in the idea that humans are inherently flawed creatures, however it is clear that this place is not a stable society; one where they unclaimed go unsupported. It is yet another flaw of this ugly society, if one could call it that - though I lack any other word.

Will is taken away by a member of the Hermes cabin, one ‘trustworthy’ - according to Dionysus whose tone is much more of an Aristophanesian sarcasm than anything truthful - who has brown hair, blue eyes and is quite tall, he looks to be a similar age to myself and the way he carries himself implies himself to be that of a younger sibling, a bit like Will, though closer in age to their sibling. I didn’t pay enough attention to catch his name. The situation becomes us two, alone, me and the God; I am somewhat concerned as to why I am not going with my brother, but a god is a god, it is my duty to accept their demands, implied and otherwise.

“So, what are you meant to be?” The god almost scoffs, and I almost scowl. What a ridiculous question, what else am I supposed to be; a frog? Good play by the way, I should really buy Will a copy, though perhaps he’s a bit too young for some of the humour… anywho, the god and his question. I don’t really answer it, mainly because I am not sure what it is I am meant to say.

“Isn’t the question usually, who are you meant to be?” I ask, not just dodging the question for the sake of it, but still trying to determine his angle. Who knew the god of plays and drink would be so confusing, and I still don’t get why this is Zeus’ choice of punishment again. “Or does the Olympian God, Dionysus not know what he is meant to ask?” It's a bit snide, and absolutely should get me smited, but I think it was worth it, simply for being asked a stupid question.

“Wow, you figured that out quick kid” How infantalising of a statement, it was glaringly obvious who he was, how could anyone not realise, even if one had not analysed the way he acted and looked, just the name alone should have given it away. “Look, kid, I don’t know who you are; I usually have some of the faintest clue, but you don’t even seem like that much of a half-blood to me.” Hellenic douchebag.

Of course, then comes the realisation, he is acting like a douche on purpose. He’s being an asshole to try and get me to slip, to reveal something that he doesn’t know, or that he suspects. “My name is Julius” I lie, but it is a small truth and the lie I have been telling for so long it may well be the truth, “I came here with my brother Will. I am aware of who his godly parent is, and am pretty certain mine is the same” I answer formally, I clarify what is needed and I skip the small talk, I will not tolerate being treated as some stranger and confusing individual by some Hellenic backwards god. “May I go to the Hermes cabin now, with that… whoever it was”. I somewhat feel bad, I should have at least listened to the name of who was walking away with my brother.

“I can’t remember the name, Jeremy, it's something beginning with T. Or maybe C, I can’t bother to tell them apart”. I am so amused by his stupidity that I 1. Forget that the man is a god for a second, and 2. Somewhat feel less angered by the fact he got my, literally fake, name wrong. If this man were not a god I would like to see his intestines threaded through two sides of a fence and used a clothes line for his lungs. That’s a weird idea, why’d you think that, Octavian. Shut up.

I brush off any asking if I need a guide myself, I can show myself around, a guide is not particularly beneath me, but I also don’t want to be anywhere near these things. The place seems pretty solitary, but envious of the past, nostalgic maybe. A recent change, obviously. The Cabins are placed parallel to each other, with much space to build an actual living space, instead of these small, contained cabins.

I doubt living in them is comfortable, in fact, as I find myself entering the Hermes cabin. I found that assertion quite true, I think I might have preferred being homeless to this. The Cabin is cramped and full, extra sleeping mats placed onto the floor just so there is enough room for people to sleep. It is disturbing. Like a Victorian workhouse, maybe slightly worse actually, and I must consider myself Ramsay Macdonald if I were to be the one to deal with such a thing. Alas, and thankfully, I am not; instead I am just another poor child in the workhouse… which is much worse actually, but still I have to deal with it.

I find Will in the corner, trying his best not to be in conversation with the others. He still likes his silence, but the one who took him to the cabin… no, different posture… the older sibling of the one who took him to the cabin is trying to talk to him, they seem to be joking around and to be unserious. Energetic fellows, no doubt.

I sit down next to Will, just about managing to find space between where he has parked himself and the wall, I find that the immense thinness of my body to be quite helpful with that. Furthering such thought is that Will seems much more comfortable with me next to him, I think he was probably a bit unassured by the fact I hadn’t originally come with him. He doesn’t ask, but I tell him it was nothing anyway. I can’t let him be concerned about me.

He’s probably going to open up here eventually, being a shut off person can only get you so far a distance in a place like this. A place that lacks a society, a place where individual connection makes or breaks a person and their life. I could help him do so, but I think it’d be better if he comes out of his shell himself, I already pushed him out once, I don’t want to put the energy into doing it again.

I spend most of my time in the cabin listening to the gossip and mutterings of others… half-bloods. It is interesting just how much information people hide directly, and yet, tell you indirectly. Who even is Luke Castellan, no clue, but he seems to be the dominant topic that leaks from under the Stoll twins' breaths every time they get a chance to talk alone. Alone as in, with each other, you can only hope no-one else is listening to your words in a cramped cabin like this.

I learn a few other things, about a Percy Jackson and an Annabeth Chase who are currently on a quest - I don’t ask questions, but both names feel significant. Their names are stressed in the same way Luke’s is. The two boys don’t seem to know, or have the common sense not to mention it at all, what the quest is about, but they do mention Percy’s past quest to retrieve Zeus' lightning bolt.

Are you kidding me; that is… exactly what I said would be too ridiculous to happen. Down to the very object being taken; how ridiculous, utterly nonsensical.

The next day is essentially induction, me and Lucius meet some people; I still have yet to ever call him Lucius, maybe one day, when we are free from the vines and ropes of this uncivilised camp and we go to the much superior land of Camp Jupiter and New Rome will I call him by his truer name; a name worthy of his heritage.

On this induction day, I find out, for the first time, that Will is a natural with a bow, singing and most of all healing. Perhaps it was Dionysus godly’ intuition or pure luck but the attitude taken by the Apollo campers seems guided into inducting Will into their ranks, and as such, he gets claimed. Seemingly based on chance.

I, however, am not. My only presumption is that my curse, caused by the question of Apollo or Venus as my source, is preventing me from being claimed at the same time. I do not feel jealous, instead I am happy for Will; without me, it is almost certain he will begin to leave his shell which while like a snail may protect him from threats, equally it prevents him from being able to fully feel and understand the world around him.

The only other reason is because I am Roman and he is Hellenic, but such an idea is ridiculous; how could I not be in the same breed as my own sibling. How could he, my amazing and loving, and loveable, brother be a part of this crude inferior race. No offence to the Hellenes of course, but they have not held a good showing of themselves so far.

“They’re still humans, you can deny it all you want, but they are people, they deserve all benefits of life” A voice rings through my ears, spoken just over my shoulder; yet the source stands in front of me as I move to sit down on the beach at the edge of the camp, the same beach that sheltered me from death against the Basilisk, now that I am here I am no longer safe from death, well, I know that I live to see New Rome, but this is one aspect of security disappeared.

“James” I recognise the voice, the face, the figure, but it’s different; tanner, greener eyes, hair is the same but still, he’s different. Every time he’s shown up he’s changed a bit, I can’t remember what he originally looked like; but I do know that this is different to the original, yet I cannot doubt that it is still James. “You misunderstand why I dislike them”.

I’m lying, I just know it, and yet I cannot think as to what the truth may be, yet James seems to know. “Inferiors should be respected, loved, and elevated into being protected and happy.” How philosophical, I couldn’t have summarised Sybil better myself; perhaps because I am really the one saying it.

“Why do you come to me as him?” I ask myself, and I look at him, he does not look like me nor him, he looks like an admirable hero, a kind person, not a happy person, but a kind one none-the-less. Far different from the monster I am myself, far different from the scrawny lanky freak who towers in the darkness, far different from the broken child.

“You believe him better than yourself” James says, he has sat down next to me, and he is just skipping stones onto the waters, my own hands smell salty now. Though I cannot see that I am the one throwing the stones - I know so.

“Why break character; even if I have figured you out, realised that I know you far better than I previously thought. Why not try and remain convincing in the lie?” I ask, if he is me, why would he not continue? I would, I would continue the lie, even after being caught - I would have remained steadfast in the act. I could not break such a status, my lies are equal in identity to my truths; perhaps more so, to an extent I have yet to realise.

“James was simply what you hope to be, a kind, honourable man; something far better than yourself” How cruel I can be to myself, I know I am not good, I know I am a horrid person who hath killed all around me by mere nature of myself yet to hear myself say it. No, to hear myself say it in James’ voice. It does hurt. Exceptionally, it hurts; why does it hurt? The basic truth, a simple truth, something I have known for a long time. “A kind honourable man who would treat these Hellenes as people; because they are. No matter how inferior you may deem them.”

“But they are inferior” I agree, nitpicking a statement, ignoring the rest, I don’t think I can particularly take the rest in; I already know it all of course, it is my own thoughts, no matter how separate their voice may be. “Even if Will is happy here, even if they are people. They still disgust me, all their flaws are simply disgusting”.

“So you believe they should die? That is your most internal idea about it” I just nod, I hadn’t really come to terms about it, but I don’t believe these Hellenes should live much longer - it would be to put them out of their misery, and the longer I stay here, the more likely I would be to succumb to this idea. An idea I do know, equally in my heart, to be wrong. “You will never be a good person” James answers after I finish thinking.

“I’m hardly a person” I reply and he just shakes his head, calling me an idiot under his breath and disappears the next time I look away and back to him.

I am then distracted, by sudden celebrations in the distance; one I can only presume is the consequence of the return of those certain quest-goers mentioned previously. It will be most intriguing to meet the heroes of these uncivilised folk.