Sara

If Lucius was distracted, so was Ovinia although she made a concerted effort to keep this conversation on the serious. She wasn't some young girl anymore with time to waste on daydreams. She was done with waiting for her life to start. "And what?" She quirked her eyebrow in challenge, "We meet in sordid, seedy little back rooms in some taverna when I can steal a morning away from home?" She could find the time, that wasn't an issue. Her husband was so largely disinterested in her life nowadays that he rarely cared where she went or what she did or who she saw. If she said she was going to the market three days in a row he likely wouldn't even notice the oddity. "That wasn't fair," She groaned and buried her head in his chest, she knew they didn't really have any other options. "At least make it an upmarket room?" TAG: @Chevi

Two things Titus didn't expect when he came for his shift today was to see a full blown argument between some fancily dressed, scowling noble girl and a vigiles recruit. Nor did he expect the vigiles recruit to be a fancy noble himself. Titus had to blink once, twice and again as he watched the unfolding drama with the rest of the citizens and slaves on the street. Frowning as the girl snatched back the curtains and climbed back into her litter, and the man stalked back into the smouldering insula, Titus smothered a groan with his hands. He liked to do his work, help his people, lead his peers and go home to his brother. He did not like drama, and he did not like when it was brought to his doorstep. Rolling his shoulders back, he followed Lucius' footsteps into the building, snatching up a fire stick from outside. "Can't keep yourself away?" He called out into the dim stairway that led upstairs. "What are you doing here?" TAG: @Chevi

"We have to be careful." She murmured, but it wasn't a no. She had been reckless to come here but the fire provided a cover they'd never have had otherwise. Once the city settled and she went back to her mind-numbing routine, opportunities like this would be nonexistent. "How could we see each other again?" She shifted from her back to lying on her side, facing him. Her fingers went up to brush through his hair. "It could take months, years even. And if anybody suspects an affair, it's..." Well, then her joke about exile might well come to fruition. Her family had always been sticklers for the rules. "We what? Invite each other round for dinner and smile politely?" TAG: @Chevi

She nodded mutely at his appraisal, and even managed a small chuckle at his compliment. "He's a praetor, Gaius Ovinius Camillus. And I never said I was unmarried." She glanced to him and thens shrugged. Her hair being down and a lack of a stola suggested she was, but she would be surprised if a man like Alexius knew that. Then again, maybe he was more familiar with women than her naive mind could comprehend. "Just another mindless party." she commented, bored even of talking about it. "They're all the same. Same people, same conversations." She shrugged with a sigh. "But I was hoping that would be the only entertainment in my evening, not being jumped by some..." She struggled for a polite word, "Psycho with a knife." TAG: @Atrice

Ovinia let out a breath, deep from her chest. A guard. That was good. She forgot, in that moment, her suspicions that he could be in on it and simply feeding her a lie - and instead revelled in the fact that this man was an upstanding citizen with a job to protect. "You guard things for a living." She commented with only the hint of a smile. "That's good." She nodded as he agreed to her plan, although as she relaxed into his company it seemed he was more trustworthy than her irrationality had suggested initially. "Someone like me?" She arched a brow as they walked, looking up at him, "Is it that obvious I'm out of my depth?" She was consoling herself that, that barbarian could have jumped anybody or held a knife to the waist of any young woman - pleb or patrician, free or enslaved but surely the plebs and slaves would have more sense than to walk down an unlit alley at night. She was an idiot. TAG: @Atrice

"You can fight all you like." She chuckled and ducked her head to kiss his jaw softly, "But it'll take more than fighting to convince my brother. I need time." Because she was seriously considering this, and it wasn't something to be entered into lightly. "I need to speak to him, and warm him up to the idea of divorce and then introduce the idea of you. I can't do that overnight." Much as she might like to simply abandon her old life today, here, now - age had made her practical and this needed to be thought through. TAG: @Chevi

Ovinia caught on a thread of something and whipped her face up to look at him; "What work do you do?" The logical part of her mind said it didn't matter what he said; he could lie and she could be dead if he was in league with whomever accosted her, but in her mind she was clinging onto the stories in her mothers library about the brilliant young noble who sought clues and such, to fend off attackers. If she knew who he was, then she could go to the vigiles if this all turned south. She blinked at his redirection and then glanced left and right. At least there people up ahead. "I want to go to the thermopolia." she insisted, as if that would help. TAG: @Atrice

Titus grimaced, and not just because of the burning sensation in his chest or the bruises blossoming over his upper arms. He only vaguely knew what a patrician was, and certainly didn't know what any of the other posts mentioned were. Besides Consul, he'd heard that in passing. And they had a Tribune in the vigiles although the man was as an ineffectual as he was rich. "It sounds pointless." He commented mildly with a shrug, "Pointless games for pointless rich people." He glanced sideways at Lucius; "No offence of course." There was a small, subtle smile on his lips and he chuckled. But enough talking. With a grunt of effort, he pushed himself to his feet - wobbling slightly as he did. The heat of the fire always made him dizzy after; or maybe it was the lack of air in the buildings. "You should get outta here before the Centurion sees you." He jerked his head at the man still standing with his back to the pair, "I'm already in for a bollocking, you don't need to be." TAG: @Chevi

Charis listened with concentration on her face, trying very hard not to show her amusement. Imagine that! Her great, powerful dominus the ancestors of the men that nearly broke Rome. She wondered, idly, if he'd ever be the cause of such a farce but decided not; he was far too careful, far too controlled for something like that. Besides, he seemed settled enough in his life in Rome not to bother with going to some far off, distant land in search of glory. Mores the pity - had he left, she could have had some space to breathe. Nodding at his instruction, she couldn't hide the disappointment on her face. She'd yet to take Peregrinus out properly, and not alone. He lived a sheltered life, far moreso than the newborns and the infants of her village in Britannia who would be strapped to their mothers backs and in the fields or animal pens before they could walk. "Yes, domine. I understand." Still - she had licence to go and look for Wulfric now. She'd start with Teutus and see if he had any ideas, and then onto her slave friends if not - and perhaps Alexius. Her cheeks coloured a touch at the thought. "Thank you." She added quietly and flicked that guarded blue gaze up to meet his eyes for a brief second. Because she was grateful. She didn't now where she stood with Tertius - their relationship ebbed and moved and changed with the tides it seemed, but for now she was grateful she wasn't the only one concerned. Cautiously, she laid a hand on his forearm to reinforce her point. "I appreciate you listening to my concerns." He liked to be flattered, she knew that - so flattery was what she'd give him. TAG: @Atrice

For a woman whose primary role in life was in the obscene, she thought she scrubbed up pretty well all things considered. Gone were the gauzy, overtly revealing outfits she often wore at these sorts of events or at the Venus and instead the lovely Vibia was clad in a pretty draped tunica that hit just the right place on her waist and the curves of her chest, but without being overtly provocative. Her hair was half up and half down, belying her status as neither an unmarried, naive young maiden (down) or a prim, proper married woman (up). She floated in the nether-zone between the two realms, and enjoyed it. She kept her face light of make-up, only a little rouge on her lips and cheeks. She thought she looked decent but judging by the way a few eyes lingered on her, perhaps she didn't. Then again, she supposed she was sort of an in-joke. Even dressed up like a modest woman, a few men here would recognise her from her true profession, but the ladies would be none the wiser. As far as they were concerned, she was just a hired musician. The sweet, naive flowers, she smirked to herself. Her stretched out her fingers and propped her cithara against her shin, readying herself to play. She'd accompany the theatre troupe but also had prepared a few pieces for solo songs should they be required. Her eyes caught Marcus' over the din of the party and the finely dressed nobility that milled around. She tipped her head in getting and then with an arched brow and nothing more, invited him and his little gaggle of friends to join her. TAG: [All!]

Horatia sighed and traced soft patterns on the side of his face, across his jaw and then sweeping up to his forehead. "You shouldn't delay on my account. If they urgently need you somewhere," Then Empire over family and that was the way it was - even for a man as steadfast and loyal to his familia as Aulus was, "But we have time to see and you have time to speak to Caesar, gauge what he may do with you next." The hand that played across his face dropped to her stomach, not yet showing any hint of pregnancy but if history with Calpurnia or Titus had taught her anything, it wouldn't be long before a bump appeared. She tried to keep the smile on her face, even as she sighed. She had rattled through the positives of this; if it went well (which to her - was a big, enormous if), then she'd have ius trium liberorum and would no longer be under the hand of her father. But that was a weak positive for her; she didn't mind the protection being under his hand afforded her, and had no ambitions otherwise. She cleared her mind of such thoughts, lest they show on her face. "Are you hoping for a son or a daughter this time around?" They had one of each, after all. TAG: @Sharpie

"You shall have to be my errand boy, when I start to get too big to move and have all the unreasonable demands I had with the first two." She vividly remembered when she was pregnant with Titus, requesting all sorts of peculiar food combinations in the middle of the night, or freezing cold baths in the height of winter. She swallowed and shrugged her shoulders - straight back to practicalities and planning, as rehearsed: "I'll still be with child, Juno willing, when your term ends." If she was three or so months now, then the child would be due in February or thereabouts. "I suppose we shall see what plans the new Caesar has for you and your Governorship about whether it is sensible for me to join you somewhere, if he intends to send you off immediately." That would make it easier, she thought to herself, if he wasn't here at the birth. She had endured the horrors of what had happened with Calpurnia alone and only informed her parents-in-law afterwards some watered down truth. It would be easier for her to manage; if she knew he wasn't waiting outside the door, if the worst should happen again. TAG: @Sharpie

She chuckled and jabbed him in the chest with her elbow; "You'll need to get a bigger bath then, than that pitiful excuse for what you have in there." She wondered about his friends; probably plebs or equites or even freedmen. She wrinkled her nose, but then sighed. She was nobody to judge - her friends were all high-born nobility, but she no longer enjoyed their company. It was the same mind-numbing conversations with the same mind-numbing people. "I want that future so badly." She swallowed and then shut her eyes - trying to cling onto it as something more than just the dream she knew it was. It didn't have to be, but to risk it all for it. She'd be utterly mad. "But what if we did it and you hated me? We argue..." They always had - even in their youth and their sporadic friendship, "What if it doesn't work and I throw away everything I have for it?" TAG: @Chevi

Horatia wordlessly took the cup of wine and downed a gulp of it as Aulus manoeuvred himself to hug her. This was as expected; she knew he delighted in being a father, he'd doted on Titus after his birth and those long years of absence had been difficult for him to reconcile when he'd returned home, she knew that. She let out a forced laugh of faux-surprise and laid a hand on the back of his neck, nodding and repeating his words; "I'm pregnant." and utterly, utterly terrified. "I know it's been thirteen years since Calpurnia," Although that hadn't been her last pregnancy - there had been the loss in Raetia which she had never admitted to him but suspected he knew of anyway, "But I don't know why I didn't think this could be the cause. I remember being exhausted at first, with her and Titus." The cravings, she was sure, would start in earnest as well soon. Fortunately figs and honey weren't difficult to come by. Gently prising his arms off of her waist, she ran her fingers over his face, looking at him deeply; "You're happy?" I wish I was. TAG: @Sharpie

She sank into his touch as it skirted her waist and made a small sound of contentment. "I don't know if there's much room for orchard's in the city," She murmured an interjection, amusing herself as she picked holes in his plan. "And you'd come home smelling of smoke and I'd tell you that you'd have to sleep outside with the dogs. Or you'd be late and miss the parties I planned for all our nonexistent friends who cut you off, and then cut me off in turn when I married you?" She smiled into his arm. "But," she stifled a yawn, "I'll do my best to get to get to know your new friends without too much judgement. And I'd visit you at the barracks and make all your men jealous. And in the evenings I'd write songs to sing just to you." TAG: @Chevi

She hadn't expected him to stand and blinked as he crossed to her. She nodded, and slipped beside him - leaving a soft squeeze on his forearm and moved to sit in one of the chairs usually reserved for his guests, opposite from the big stone, imposing desk. "Where are Titus and Calpurnia?" She was stalling, even though she'd rehearsed this conversation in her head on the journey back and knew exactly what to say and how she would plaster lovely, fake grin on her face and feign happiness. Her children - her current children, she corrected herself - would have to be told as well, but that could wait. Aulus could not. She was supposed to be happy at this news - she remembered finding out about her first pregnancy - how she'd practically sprinted through their little rented house in Greece, skidding to a stop in his office and bumbling out the words before he'd even had a chance to greet her - grin stretching from ear to ear and voice breathless with joy. But then she'd found out about Calpurnia alone in the villa in Baiae - terrified she'd get word any day that her husband had been killed and her left a widow. She'd written a letter to him, telling him the news and remembered that she hadn't known where to address it. She'd prayed it would find him. So in the scheme of things, this admission wasn't the worst but it certainly wasn't the best. Still, she needed to pretend it was. She cleared her throat and plastered on a small smile for now; "Everything is fine, you can stop your worrying." She knew he had been tense, even if he wouldn't admit it out loud, "I..." She hesitated although it wasn't part of her rehearsed lines, she found admitting it now, out loud, so much harder - it would be real if she said it. "I'm pregnant. The medicus called in a midwife to confirm it. She thinks three or so months." She let out a breathless, soft laugh and smiled so hard her cheeks ached. TAG: @Sharpie

She flinched as he snapped back; not out of fear, but because very few people who faced her wrath, actually ever retorted. It hurt as well. It's not my fault you don't get to do what she liked, translated in her mind to 'I don't care that you don't'. He didn't care about anybody but himself, from where she was standing; not his family or their name, not the people he could have helped in the legions, and certainly not her. Not that she really knew why he should care about her. But it stung that he didn't, which was...confusing. It was only confirmed when he verbally said it. I'll take that over your opinion, Ovinia Camilla. "None taken." She replied in an even tone - taking on the cold, detached manner she'd seen a hundred matrons wear. She was done being angry. He'd made his position patently clear. Like a child who had been told off; frustration melted to sadness. "I was beginning to like you, Lucius." She said with a shrug and then flicked her eyes up to his face. "That was my mistake." She gave him the ghost of a real, sad smile before she wiped it from her face and turned to her waiting slave - standing awkwardly by the litter. She let out a breath; "Take me home. I'm finished here." TAG: @Chevi

"You're not just joining the equites," She snapped, "You're disowning your family because you think you can't do it - when you're wrong, might I add, and because you want to play a hero." she shook her head. "If you wanted to keep the city safe you would have joined the campaigns against the Britons, or whomever else we're supposed to be fighting." She was getting frustrated and irate and she exhaled sharply through her nose, shooting him a dangerous glare; "Do you want a pat on the back and a 'well done Lucius' for taking the job some actual equite has been working to do? Or would you rather we just brush over that? Like we brush over the fact that you act as if we patricians are so dull and dreary and beneath you when we're not the ones living in a daydream. People...don't get to do whatever the hell they want. Well," she chuckled, "That's not true. You do, don't you?" She was making a scene but she didn't care. She was angry and jealous and embarrassed and filled with sorrow. She didn't know why she felt any of it, but she did. She was nineteen and much as she tried to act older; the mature young woman, she was just a teenager - entitled and spoiled and...scared underneath it. TAG: @Chevi

Late August, 76AD Summer was drifting to a close and Horatia was grateful. There was a breeze through the domus that she sorely needed as she hesitated for a moment in the gardens, letting it blow the edge of her palla and the hem of her stola. She'd been out that morning and hadn't bothered to undress again into something more informal now she was back home. She fluttered her eyes shut and took an inhale deep in through her nose, filling out her lungs until she couldn't take in another gasp and then she exhaled, trying to straighten her thoughts, trying to make this work. She had always been a woman of great composure, and even now she found that she couldn't cry - she attributed that to the shock more than anything else. She did another long, languid breath to try and draw in some of the serenity from the gardens and then when it did nothing to help the beating of her heart against her ribs, she turned on her heel and strode through to the open side of Aulus' tablinum. She lingered on the edge, choosing to lean against one of the pillars. "Do you have a moment?" It was rare he was in at this time of day - usually he was at the senate, or seeing clients or otherwise engaged with their new Caesar at the consilium. She chose to see that as a fortuitous sign from the Gods, rather than the coincidence it was. She had been unwell for weeks. It had started with a tiredness that she couldn't shake; she'd wake up in the mornings and be so exhausted she had to return to her bed by noon. It was unlike her, but she'd convinced herself and her family that it was just some ague going around that she doubtless picked up from some of the women she saw at her book club, or the new charitable endeavour she was researching with one of Tiberius' clients - a man who ran a slew of boarding houses (which Horatia had a mind to turn into something solely for women). Then, of course, the nausea had started. Foods she had used to enjoy turned her stomach but again - she had pushed aside concerns from her slaves and instead insisted that it was a consequence of the tiredness. It was only when she fainted because she'd not eaten anything until cena, that Aulus had insisted she see a medicus. The news had torn through her like an arrow to the gut. 'And your menses? Regular?' 'No,' She'd replied - because the silphium she religiously took made them erratic. 'When was the last time you bled?' 'Two...perhaps three months ago.' 'And nothing since then?' Nothing. Usually there was...something, but for close to three months there had been nothing. And the kindly old man with his gentle smile had tapped her on her hand and chuckled. Exhaustion, nausea, tenderness of the abdomen, no bleeding. She was pregnant. She was thirty-three years old, with a Consul for a husband, two teenage children, a lifetime supply of silphium stashed in her bedroom and she was pregnant. She had thrown up in the middle of his office. He'd merely laughed. She felt like she would wretch forever. Despite the precautions she'd taken, and every single fibre of her being being filled with dread at the prospect of another birth, it was happening. There was nothing for her to do. Besides tell her husband. She offered a wan smile and spoke again; "I can come back, if you're in the middle of something." TAG: @Sharpie

"Being a good man has nothing to do with it." She huffed, exasperated. "Although evidently he's as foolish as he is good if he's let you do this to yourself." She shot him a glare which could have been filled with daggers. "It's not up to me anyway." She shrugged, folding her arms over her chest, puffing it out as if to try and assert some authority - completely counter to what she was actually saying, "My father's view matters more and I wonder if he'll be quite as delighted to offer me up to a man whose brother voluntarily demoted himself. I suspect not." that was cruel. She doubted her father would care that much but Ovinia cared, and Ovinia had been on the fence anyway. She liked Gaius, she did, but there was something...missing. TAG: @Chevi

"Have you ever been to Tiber Island?" She chuckled, "The roof is the least of your worries if you're given that region." She was trying to make a joke, but was sure it fell flat. She usually had no issues conversing or gently flirting or navigating the awkward world of potential matches, but Gaius was different. Maybe it was because he was a little older than a lot of the men she met, or because he had lived a full life and had ambition and the way he asked his questions...as if he wanted more from a wife than somebody to mind his home and bear his children. That was what she had been bred for; anything outside of that was unfamiliar territory for her. She listened intently, humming 'mhmms' at appropriate spots. She knew the Consul - or rather, knew his wife. She'd attended her book club once or twice but found the woman and the gathering dry and dull and hadn't returned in months. Maybe she should. "And you have such an aim?" He had beaten around the bush, but it was clear in the way he spoke that he wasn't going to be a man that rested on his laurels at a rank when he thought he could achieve more. "You can tell me," She chuckled, "I'm not going to go brandishing it all over the city that Gaius Vipsanius Roscius wants to be a Consul or a Governor. I can be discrete." TAG: @Sharpie

"You look like I used to, when I played make believe." She fired back with an irritated huff and a derisive glance up and down his frame. She should have been pleased for him; that he'd settled on a path but she couldn't help but feel aggrieved; like he was throwing something away that he should be so grateful to have in the first place. There was a sense of personal loss as well, but she didn't understand and couldn't think on that. "I was going home. Am going home." She rolled her eyes, "And don't." She shot him a little glare, "Marriage is nothing to make fun of - nor is your brother, not that I suspect you to understand that since you've just put any chances of a match for yourself up in smoke with that insula." She gestured to the smouldering building behind him. "And nothing is confirmed." She mumbled to herself, tossing her hair over her shoulder, "With Gaius. So in which case, I suspect this is the last time you'll have the pleasure of my company." There was that feeling of loss again, and she grimaced. TAG: @Chevi

Ovinia chuckled. It felt like a lifetime ago; probably because it was. "I was a decent patrician girl." She even had the classic first time, disappointing wedding night sex to prove it. "Even with your corrupting influence. I just...he was nice to me, kind - used to take an interest." She shrugged, "As it turned out - I realised a few years after my father had turned down his suit - he was only trying gauge information on one of my fathers other clients. Saw his naive, hopelessly romantic daughter as a good way in. It worked," She chuckled, "I gave him so much information that if my father had found out I'm sure I'd have been banished to Pandataria like the Augustus' daughter." Stretching into a yawn she curled a little bit closer, smiling softly. "Let's not talk about practicalities," Because there was no hope of them figuring them out - she was convinced, "What would our lives be like, if we were married? Paint me a picture, Lucius." TAG: @Chevi

"Family should be more important than career." She glared at him. "And helping how?" She scoffed, folding her her arms across her waist defensively. "All the vigiles do is sit and gawk as buildings burn, or better yet, they start them on fire themselves. Not to mention they're all in the pay of the Collegia." She shook her head. Her father had always warned her about going to them for help if she ever needed; their reputation was infamous. What was it that he said? That 'if the thief doesn't take your money or your modesty, then the vigiles would do the honours after'. She wrinkled her nose at the thought of Lucius in league with them. Self-consciously realising she had perhaps been a bit more overzealous than anticipated in her reaction (she was surprised and...she never dealt well with surprises) she cleared her throat. "Well." She gave him a smug, self-satisfied little smile. "I'd better let you get back to your important work, Lucius. I would say I'd see you around but...I suppose not anymore." Not at parties or events or anywhere she was likely to be nowadays. Equites were often invited, but not those that chose to voluntarily demote themselves. Did he have no shame? TAG: @Chevi

"His family?" She seethed with eyes flaming, "You mean your family?" She didn't know - not at that moment - why she was so irrationally angry but she couldn't calm herself down and his stupid, lazy grin wasn't helping her feel more relaxed. "A family you've chosen to abandon so you can what? Play dress up?" She indicated at his uniform. "How could you do this to him?" She liked Gaius. She'd seen him a handful of times now and things were progressing to a stage where a decision would need to be made one way or the other about an engagement. Ovinia wasn't sure which way she leant on the matter. Another young man piped up, swearing and Ovinia shot him a glare. He trailed off but she still added, for good measure; "We're having a conversation." in a tone that suggested Lucius wasn't going to be free anytime soon. There were plenty of onlookers here, but most seemed focused on the smouldering building rather than this little argument, which she'd be grateful for later. "I can't believe..." She let out a melodic little laugh, "I can't believe you." She shook her head, "So selfish." she added the latter quieter, meant just for her. TAG: @Chevi