Joaquin

Hector reached out for the discarded pot, like a mother clasping for her dying child, and cartoonishly observed it as if he were checking to see it had been unharmed in the brief moments it had been in the other slave’s hands. Annoyance did a funny thing to a man’s head. “He’s far too kind to tell you otherwise,” he grumbled under his breath before he fell quiet and listened to Charis move about through the room, which felt far too small for the two of them. It was like squeezing two bulls into one pen. Even he (of all people on this earth) wondered: Tertius, why?

She would be gone soon. He both wanted her to leave but didn’t where it meant she would be with Tertius. On the thought of her joining his master, he shot a side glance, seeing how hastily she was going about but he said and did nothing about it just yet. She didn’t have to speak to make him want to choke on his own bile, even though she did an amazing job of it when she did. Hector’s listless ‘I don’t care’ act was gone at her very last sentence. As Charis tried to move, he quickly moved to grab her wrist to keep her from passing before he reached out and tucked hair behind her ear as if he were a stern mother. If anything, he didn’t want her looking too haphazard going into Tertius, then their master may feel the need to ask and the last thing he wanted was the other man’s displeasure. “We’re not friends,” he reminded her. “This might all be a fun little game for you, Briton, but it certainly isn’t for me.” Hector roughly released his grip, deciding to save his empty threats for next time. She could kick him and leave for all he cared now.

He needed a walk or better yet, a good fapping session to deal with his stress. At least he’d have the room to himself.
 

@Sara

The options were overwhelming, especially when Hector was normally easily contented with whatever it was that Tertius wanted. He knew not to turn his master’s kindness and attempt to give him the choice of an outing into an endless indecisive cycle. Before Charis, he might’ve suggested they stay in together but now, the idea of himself with Tertius alone and away from the rest of the home was ideal. “It’s so easy to forget how large Rome actually is, there is a lot to be seen and done, isn’t there? The gladiator games would be nice,” he mused lightly, albeit distracted as Tertius’s hand tracked down from his hair. The crowds of the arena, the smell, and the bloodbath were sure to make his stomach turn. It wasn’t even that he thought he was above any of it, simply that he was unused to the idea of what ugliness lay beneath the skin. The most he ever saw was of the food being prepared in the kitchens. “But the races would be so exciting as well. I would love to see one, see the horses.”

It took a great effort to even speak. Hector’s attention was already swaying between the conversation and the feeling of the hand on his body as it was. His mind had quickly gone to the gutter and it was clear enough in his expression as he regarded his master back. He wasn’t about to push his luck when Tertius had said earlier in the morning that he had been well satisfied the night before, but Hector did smile before he leaned in to kiss his lips.
 

@Atrice

“I could start by sprouting a pair of marvellous breasts,” he grumbled childishly, and if it hadn’t been for his genuine and overall sourness, it might’ve have been an attempt at a joke at his own expense. Hector could be undeniably unpleasant, but he didn’t have the capacity to be vicious and that might’ve been the reason for his limited imagination when it came to making things difficult for Charis so far. Since the announcements, it had been a lot of unrestrained insult tossing but he could never tell just how much of it was cutting into her, especially because she bit back like a viper. 

He had his fingers around wine cup as the other slave poured into it, keenly aware of how foreign this all was. He might’ve been a slave, but he didn’t know how to befriend one, so it was only at his insistence that Hector even drank at all. While he loved his wine as any young man might, he didn’t drink outside of his master’s company or permission. Once Helios had finished pouring, Hector drew it up to his lips for a sip, thinking about what had been said about ruining Tertius’s idea of Charis. “You mean, like sabotage?” he asked. It wouldn’t be too hard, one day something might fall into his lap that he could use against her. “You say it with such confidence. I feel like you must have experience.” He smiled.

“I suppose I could always try to frame her. I’ve always wondered what she does or where she goes when I’m with my master and no doubt she’s already doing something without creating more work for me to do,” Hector said. “If she’s not spinning lies to the likes of you anymore, she must have found someone else or something else.” But that’s what you got from a barbarian.
 

@Atrice

Hector understood Tertius’s perspective enough and superficially was on his side in the matter, even if he didn’t necessarily share the frustration. He had never been fond of Teutus, and neither did the idea of freedom ever cross his own mind, so as far as he was concerned Teutus was or should have been pleased with the news. Still, when Tertius had asked him if he thought Teutus had stopped believing him, truth be told so did Hector. Teutus’s release from slavery had always felt more like a rumour or fancy, hence even Hector’s shock when it was announced. It had always seemed that perhaps Tertius had no real intention with it or that Teutus’s manumission wasn’t that much of a priority to his father, either way it always made Hector so smug.

“I noticed the same,” Hector admitted, trying his best not to smile because he disliked both Charis and Teutus greatly at the moment. His mind didn’t go to lovers, mostly because he had missed a lot of their gripping at each other, and instead wondered if they were in plots together: Teutus would get his manumission and Charis would get whatever she was after. Hector still couldn’t quite place what it was that she wanted. “I was vaguely aware the two were friendly but by how much or how far, I couldn’t say. Certainly, they show more interest in each other than compared to the other slaves.” He wasn’t about to outright lie to Tertius, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t fan the fire just a little. “Should I keep eyes on them?” he innocently asked.

@Atrice @Sara @Sharpie

‘I appreciate you’ from Tertius to Hector was like honey for the bear. If rollercoasters had existed at this time, Hector would’ve just been on one. Despite all the new emotions and thoughts that he needed to process, he nodded with a genuine smile. It was hard to say how he would feel tomorrow, he was more of an ‘in the moment’ person, but he still wanted to see his master happy. He did not want to bar Tertius from what he wanted, nor could he, but he still felt territorial and wondered if it was a sensible feeling to begin with or not. At the present, he felt justified, but Hector would always justify himself, partly out of pride and vanity.

Still, ‘I appreciate you very much’ had put a slight saunter to Hector’s step as he rounded from retrieving his master’s drink as well as his own, now that he had been invited to sit. He settled down by his master’s side, settling back with a flirty smile while he handed him his cup, easily forgetting about Charis for a short moment. “I would, I would like that very much,” he admitted pleasantly at the suggestion, looking at his master with an air of admiration. “Thank you.” He was thanking Tertius a lot and often did, but a master who had time set apart from the rest of their day to spend with their slave appeared more than generous in Hector’s eyes, it was a thought that wasn’t usually spared. He was still a slave, but he was also human, and he felt that.

“Would it be to follow you around in your normal external affairs, you mean, or for…” his voice drifted, where he began to wonder if it would be the same as whatever he did with Charis, if it was simply a matter of being treated. Truthfully, it didn’t matter to him where he was, inside or outside, in the domus or in Rome, or what he was doing, the treat was that it was him and Tertius, and it gave him something to look forward to. “For something else you have in mind?” Despite being in Rome for quite some time, he had a rather limited scope or exposure of what there was to do in the city. At most, he knew the markets but because he enjoyed the battlefield that was shopping and acquiring his lotions, oils, and the like through wagging a silver tongue.

@Atrice

Titus’s joke did delight Valeria who snickered with the energy of a mischievous sixteen-year-old boy in answer before she placed a hand on her upper chest and sighed in feigned seduction, her other hand still clung to Pustula. She watched him as he joined her on the recliner with her side grin, though seemingly amused, she was genuinely welcoming of the company. She remained perfectly comfortable at first before shuffling just ever so slightly to grant Titus more sitting space and then flexing her legs.

Even if Titus said it with an air of humour, just the same as Valeria might have, she did feel her worries over her father’s decline in health alleviated. It wasn’t fully removed; it wouldn’t be until he regained his wellbeing again but hearing confirmation from a trusted voice that he appreciated her being there was very close. She smiled in appreciation then turned her head as she considered Titus’s suggestion. It seemed very Titus-like to make it. “I should show up with one next time,” she answered. She briefly wondered if her father might be resistant to the change. Even while sick, he still had as much pride as before. Her mother, on the other hand, might be more welcoming, especially since as a layperson, it often felt as if men of the medical profession were difficult to get through to, they operated on entirely separate and strange wavelength, responding to inanities and seemingly ignoring what felt urgent by the family. “Clever man,” Valeria teased, tickling him with her foot impishly, but she was truly thanking him – in her way.   

Valeria gave a loud and unrestrained laugh with the idea that Pustula was her own doing. She honestly wished it was, given that it was a case of ‘it’s so bad, it’s good’. She had to admit, it was difficult to put down and partly she wondered if Pustula put as much thought into the absurdity as she did with Landicus or if it was genuinely one of those bizarre phenomena of human creativity, which left you wondering how the brain managed to conjure such a thing. “Oh, I couldn’t have written this.” But it was a good try, sometimes Valeria felt that Titus made comments that provided inspiration or that made her wonder if he could’ve been a writer himself. “Some of the phrases and adjectives are far too repetitive. There’s also an over-use of flowery language where there doesn’t need to be.” The critical writer was shining through her words. “The daughter keeps getting stolen, just like our Nymphias,” she added with a brief gasp as if she had made the connection. “But that girl isn’t ever lost. She probably has a beau hiding somewhere under her tunica. Trust me.” And now Landicus was shining through her smile and playful half-shrug. Drawing the scroll up again, she said, “I could read you some if you would like.”

@Liv

Hector took her answer to mean that she was like some of the stories he had heard about through the grapevine of women who fought bare-breasted. In answer, he gave a scoff, though he didn’t even entertain disbelieving her. With her, he was prepared to believe anything concerning her barbarism if it made him feel all the more superior and in control of the situation that he ultimately had little control over. 

Charis had successfully gotten a reaction out of him. As he heard her fingers prying at his chest, he rose from the bed as if he had been revived back to the living. “Don’t touch that,” he snapped immediately, making Charis’s achievement all the clearer. Even if with his proneness for jealousy and Tertius’s new arrangement, it was never going to be hard. Once he took one look at the pot, he sighed as if he were tired and held out a hand. “That’s to remove hair,” he said, referring more to unwanted hair. He removed enough hair on his body just to scrape the line of emasculation. He could just about identify what something was by smell or texture alone but that spoke more to his obsession with appearances. “What do you back where you came from, leave it all amess?”  

@Sara
 

While Dacia had been a far and foreign frontier that inspired feelings of adventure and then home, Valeria had quickly welcomed back Rome, especially where it offered her the ability to further her career as a writer. Away, Landicus disappeared for a time and her own writing accumulated in notes and piles of poetry that many did not see or hear save perhaps Titus. Feeling a performative itch, Valeria had set up a reading of her poetry where she could spoil her inner theatre kid, full of different voices, dramatic speech, and wide gestures. Compared to the hypothetical numbers that she estimated for Landicus, the gathering for Valeria Flacca’s poetry was humble and predominately, if not all, women. She never felt competition between her two selves but in the light of putting more effort and thought towards her Valeria Flacca poems, she was still perceptive enough to feel that true art went underappreciated for anything sensational and provocative.

For her reading, she had arranged a meeting which had been announced and set it at the park, situating out in the greenery and under a small and stony pavilion with supportive pillars. For the occasion, Valeria had chosen a colourful wig and equally eccentric makeup. After the crowd gathered, Valeria had dived in and after the recital had come to its conclusion, the gatherers dispersed, leaving a few lingerers whom Valeria shared a little small talk with. “Seems as if there are many poets here today. Do you write as well?” she said, turning to one a beautiful young girl, who seemed not much older than her eldest.  
 

@Chevi

Quietness had come after a bustling and busy morning for the household and finally, Valeria had tucked herself away from the distractions of a husband and children to focus on her writing. Comfortably beneath the streak of light reaching through the window, Valeria curled her legs under her sprawling gown and rested against her thighs was a wax tablet. She had turned the corner into her imagination space in an effort to find colourful ways of boasting about massaging one’s member while peering in at unsuspecting (and equally busy) couples from the perspective of a frail, lecherous old man. All the while, she presumed, her four-year old was in the next room. Stylus in hand, she jotted ideas, scratched them out a second or third time, paused to re-assess the meter or verse, before returning back to the drawing board.

Her concentration wavered every now and again from a to-and-fro pitter-patter in the backdrop and immediately, her suspicions were that her four-year old was loose, free to run as wild as her little heart desired. Valeria peered her head outside the doorway of chamber to find one of the household’s newest acquisitions: Nymphias. She had made her face and name familiar to her after Titus had made her mind Valeriana. Despite their closeness in age and despite Titus’s ability to get responsibilities across, it was one thing when Sulpicia had her eye on her sister but the new slave, the conveniently lost one with the thick, bright locks was something else.

“Did you ever think of putting a leash on her?” she asked, purposely gesturing out a long rope-like shape to have her words understood.

@Beauty

Inside, the halls had been filled with laughter and chatter. Valeria had seemed to navigate the party company with ease from the beginning, happily moving from one familiar to another with her wide smile and excited hand gestures, sharing familial updates to those who asked and wild stories wherever she could squeeze them. But despite her comfort, she was still a homebody and preferred the time alone with her pen than in the company of others but like a sponge, she sucked in inspirations whenever someone sighed while wilfully imparting gossip or it appeared in an acquaintance’s tick or appearance that morphed them into a character of interest for Landicus.

Deeper into the night, the empty space around the seating arrangement above decorative meal-courses with feathers, flowers, and ornaments saw the ebb and flow of musicians, dancers, acrobats, and prancing comedian actors and Valeria, in her deep red wig and heavy kohl, gave a loud cackle at almost every single joke without fail. Aside from the music, the sprinkled innuendos at the otherwise tame party seemed to be one of the few moments where she hadn’t gone inattentive while glazing past the different faces, who seemed more focused on making a presentation of themselves rather than genuinely enjoying their time, in the chamber.

After the food, people began to cordon off and disperse into their small social groups peppered around the domus. Outside, a few voices belonged to some of the partiers standing in the white pillars which circled the gardens and alternated between shadow and moonlight. “You’re one of the musicians, aren’t you,” Valeria said with a kind smile and a glass of wine in hand. The girl with young with a pretty little face. With artists of any kind, Valeria often felt warmed up to them, perhaps a bias by the possibility of a similar spirit. Of course, there was always the difference between playing for payment and playing in one’s own home. “You did a marvellous job tonight. I hope they’re paying you handsomely.” 

@Sara
 

“He’s happy,” Hector stated with inexplicable enthusiasm once Teutus and Charis were clean of the door. He felt that perhaps Tertius wanted to hear that, being almost like a parrot on his master’s shoulder repeating everything that was desired, but genuinely, he assumed Teutus would feel happiness. It also didn’t help that ‘Hector, stay a little longer’ had revived him well enough from his self-pitying and gave him a sense of value. He paraded towards the doors and closed them, feeling more secure now that the suffocating discomfort had passed. He had been watching the other two as they left with a studious expression, only because he had recognised their trading of whispers back and forth as they entered and wondered if it would continue now that they were dismissed. The most he had caught from his angle was Charis’s gesture and that was the end of it. Now the doors were closed and he was back at his master’s side, fingers clasped, and eager to ‘stay a little longer’. 

@Atrice @Sara @Sharpie

“Neither do I,” Hector said of Britannia and fell silent as the other slave arrived and departed in one quick swoop. He considered Charis’s people to be barbarous and uncivilised because it was what was said by the Romans, but it also made him feel superior to her where he was made to feel inferior by the circumstances. His eyes rolled again as Helios recounted Charis’s tongue-waggling once again before throwing in a quick “she can hardly control her vile Latin” as the engaged listener but the detailing of what the girl had said only made his blood bubble all over. 

Hector grimaced at the mention of Tertius enjoying the company of women. On its own, it never bothered him but currently, it was still a sore spot when his master had said that there were things that he could not give him. He understood as far as he was able to, but it didn’t cease to feel like a wound each time it came to the forefront of his mind. “Life was better, much simpler before she came,” Hector confirmed. “And I would certainly prefer for her not to be in the house at all, you’re correct there, but she does make Tertius...” He stopped himself, it pained him to say it. 

As for jeopardizing his position, he didn’t know how much he wanted to admit that to Helios. His displeasure with the arrangements especially where Charis was concerned were fairly clear, but he was a little too proud to admit everything he was thinking or feeling entirely. 
 

@Atrice

Even despite the shock and mixed emotions, Hector couldn’t quite wipe the creeping shit-eating smile that began to make its way onto his face. It never escaped him just how fortunate he was to be granted his own bedroom as a simple slave, especially when he crossed paths with so many others in the street and they looked worse for wear and even when he began to mentally compare himself to the others in the household, he felt elevated, as if he were step above them. Their annoyance didn’t concern him at all. So far, for as much as he was aware, neither Charis, nor Teutus were granted the same. 

Hector didn’t forget his business with his master’s feet and proceeded with his massage. “Oh, thank you, thank you,” he repeated at his master’s suggestion, even going on to place very brief, but appreciative kisses at the closet part of his master as part of his thankful gesture. Not even a god would have received the same response from him. “I am beyond words. Any room I choose?” Genuinely, his thoughts were bouncing up and down like a puppy. He saw it as a chamber all to himself, the ever-wonderful Hector. “I would like that very much. It would be far better than the dormitory. It could never compare to your bed, of course,” he added quickly, referring to that fact that it would lack Tertius. “But it is very appreciated. Again, thank you.” He gave Tertius a smile before ceasing the massage, washing his hands in the water, not under the belief that his master’s feet were unclean but because he intended to give him the drink he had requested. 

@Atrice

There were a familiar set of footfalls at her back gave Titus away immediately, likely having returned from his swim. As she felt Titus’s peck, she smiled before her expressed scrunched and her eyes tightened with it. “Wet, Titus,” she announced, presumably gathering small strays of water from the Tiber, before giving an entertained laugh as she roused slightly from her position. Valeria had originally believed that Publius had gone along with his father, normally he would have been padding in his wake, but on her return, she learned that Publius the younger was as good as bedridden as Publius the elder. It certainly made her feel like mother of the year, but she certainly made it up with spoiling him with a promise of sorbet accompanied by a teasing “don’t tell your father” and a wink.

“Is he ever in the mood for visitors?” she returned in light amusement. Sometimes it was difficult to imagine that her father ever felt the mood for anything with how seriously he carried himself, even in sickness. “My father was sleeping, I had to hold my ear close to make sure that he was definitely sleeping.” Despite her father’s stern nature, the idea of losing him did create a tense feeling in her gut. Outside of Gaius, she had never experienced but in her brother’s case, it was much different. She had never had the chance for the full experience of seeing death and having the residual shell left behind. “And my mother felt that she needed less hands getting in the way of things. Not what she said the other night.” She shrugged her shoulders.

Remembering her scroll, she held it out. “Pustula,” Valeria said with emphasis on the name as if it were intentionally as disgusting as it sounded. “Doesn’t it not inspire such vibrant imagery? But wait, it follows a greying soldier who re-emerges from retirement several times to find his stolen daughter. So far, this is attempt three.”
 

@Liv

He scoffed at her little roast. While she began to change, his head tilted lightly to the side with the intention of having a brief peak at what she looked like underneath her clothes, but found himself staring a little longer than he had expected, as if trying to study what was there and discover something about it that would explain what Tertius was after. After all, he felt that he needed a woman, where Hector couldn’t give him that. Perplexed, he quickly shifted his head away, pretending as if it was angled in the direction it was the entire time, perhaps just in time to evade being caught as the other slave spun around. Casually, he brushed strands of hair from his forehead as if that had been occupying him.

“Violent woman,” Hector said like a scolding mother, even if he felt that he should have expected as much from her, before he emitted yet another one of his annoyed tuts. “I have a lot of important items in there.” Predominately oils to moisturise his skin, mud to mask his face. He stretched and dug his head back comfortably into the bedding. If anything, he was gratified that he was succeeding in his mission of making company with misery. “Besides, the room is fine the way it is. You’ve had your fun with the flowers, just relax, it’s not going to look like a stable in here. I’m not a barbarian, it’s not how we are in Rome.” 

@Sara
 

As Helios rolled his eyes, Hector did just the same, an empathetic mirroring. The other man was right. He did not know the extent of what Charis had said to Helios about his master, his understanding of the entire story was in bits and pieces, from every different source, but as far as he gathered of it, what Helios had done was almost like a favour in disguise, even when at the end of the day, he was out for his money. Speaking of it, he extracted payment to the interrupting slave that approached their table, Hector’s eyes followed his movement as he went to his purse and a finger of Hector’s rapped its surface in deliberation, but he didn’t say what was sitting at the tip of his tongue. Perhaps, later, he thought.

In response to Helios’s query after his master, he immediately assumed that whatever it was that Charis said about Tertius, which was unflattering. It both confused the initial thoughts he had entertained about her, that she enjoyed being with his master. Tertius wanted her, but what did she want? His face wrinkled. “What did Charis say of him?” he asked back, though he didn’t need an answer. He felt at this point that it was clear that she was difficult. “She doesn’t know my master at all, not like I know him. I’ve been in his service for some time and he has been nothing but charitable to me. He has always shown concern for my wellbeing, where my last master didn’t even demonstrate that. He has never once struck me, never been rough in handling, or even cruel in his words either. Whatever she’s said about him is a lie. She deserved every inch of her punishment.” In his mind, she had gotten away lightly.

“They couldn’t run their mouths in Britannia as she does, could they?” Hector didn’t have much of a worldliness. Geography seemed to stop at the edge of the city and whatever surrounding Italia he was familiar with, everything beyond all that was like an abstract concept with a cluster of names of like Britannia, Greece, and so on.
 

@Atrice

Certainly, Charis could take care of whatever his master needed in the night, but could she do it well, he wondered. If it was a woman that Tertius had wanted, he understood that as a man, he had his limitations, it was as Tertius had said, there were things that he couldn’t give him. For anyone else that might have been a sufficient explanation, or it would have at least softened the experience, biology couldn’t be argued against. But for Hector, it added a layer of frustration. Especially that it was to be a frequent arrangement from now on and with another slave in the household no less. He had never been with a woman and outside of producing offspring, he rarely found the appeal these days. As a result, he couldn’t empathise with his master’s desire at all, even more when it was for a woman like Charis. He didn’t dare ask either in case it inspired more jealousy.

When Tertius touched him, he instinctively leaned in. “It doesn’t quite compare, it was far too difficult,” he confessed. “The rustling, the snoring, the smell. Some of them are like owls. Imagine, only two hours of sleep.” His inner primadonna came out in small ways. It had been some time since he had shared space with other slaves or slept in a bed fit for one. “But I would sleep anywhere you told me to sleep, even if it were the floor or on my feet.” 

@Atrice
 

With Publius ill, Valeria often visited her father’s in the mornings, giving him the company of his only living child and helping out her mother around the domus to alleviate the stress. His sickness, which was described by the physician as a ‘pneumonia’, seemed vile with a heavy phlegmatic cough and given his age, there was always a buried fear inside Valeria that one breath would be his last. When they had first arrived in Rome, Valeria had herded the children along with her but as time went on, it seemed better that only she went for a multitude of reasons, even if their presence did seem to brighten their grandfather’s days. 

After one such morning, Valeria returned home, seeking out a particular reclining seat accompanied with cushions that was brought out by the slaves into the gardens. Despite the fact the days had been growing colder, the Italian sun was warm against the skin. She was rather proud of ‘her’ garden, as she liked to call it, despite it being considered an ‘indulgence’ by some, in the summers, it would be lush and bursting with vivid flowering plants, including saffron and hyacinths, but now, the greenery had begun to fade into autumn. 

With a scroll that she had obtained the night prior at the launch of a novel by a writer who had gained a celebrity status, she settled down comfortably with a wine glass that was refilled frequently at her request. She had never heard of him, Pustula they called him apparently, but so far, it seemed so bad that it was good, which might have been the unintentional appeal. Intermittently through all the shuffling of the parchment, there were loud but short laughs. 

@Liv

@Sara I love both of those ideas, they're great!  I'll be hitting you up on Discord late tonight! 

Despite the eager nod at ‘get along’, if it hadn’t been for Tertius being in close proximity, Hector would have made gargling sounds of pain, but instead kept silent, patient and attentive.

Of course, she had to speak. It must’ve been a part of her act, ignore that slaves never had anything to add, play coy, redirect Tertius’s attentions back to her, and reap the rewards.  

And for all he wanted to condescendingly say “yes” simply to make Charis feel dense, truthfully, he didn’t know what Tertius wanted out the arrangement with Antonia except perhaps to have Charis even closer to him which was how he interpreted it. He was so displeased with everything that he took every decision as slight after slight against him. Admittedly, he’d have thought Teutus would have demonstrated more… energy given the announcements. At least, if he had been in his place, he would have been sauntering and bouncing with his steps.

@Atrice @Sharpie @Sara

“Flowers,” Hector answered Helios’s question simply, but the word rung out in his ears, making himself feel very young in the process. When the day was done and all was quiet, would he reflect back and regret almost everything he said? Probably. There was still something in him to feel self-consciousness to some degree. It was simply very rare that he assaulted the eardrums of other slaves about anything, especially at the domus.

His eyes squinted as they passed the end of the alleyway and the landscape changed, opening up to a tavern, which caught his attention easily. Helios seemed to have knowledge of the place, but Hector rarely sought out such places. There was nothing inherently wrong with them, he just seldom sought company that was ‘beneath’ him and as he followed Helios into the tavern, he was reminded of why: the personalities that congregated to where there was wine, especially by day, were questionable to put it generously. He uncertainly settled himself down, glancing uncomfortably about and almost gave a picky girlfriend’s ‘why’d you pick here?’ but kept silent, if only because he was genuinely trying his best to be friendly. “I don’t think she knows what the mines even are,” Hector told the other. He didn’t want to give Charis’s intelligence enough credit. Any positive attribute of hers was lost on him. He truly could not see what Tertius saw beyond an exotic gloryhole but insecurity and jealousy masked judgement well. “She seems to think she’s still wherever she’s from. It won’t be long before someone runs her through with the amount of tongue-wagging she does.” He paused, thinking of his own mouthing off. “What were these lies that she intended to threaten you with?” he asked, if only because he wanted to be prepared for his turn. 
 

@Atrice

Updated to include Valeria Flacca.

He stared down at the petal, twisting his face and pressing his lips together in irritation. With her in the room, he felt suffocated and being asked to leave was almost an invitation, though he would never take it if only because she was the one to give it. Otherwise, he would have been more than happy to be anywhere else. He felt the bed move very lightly under her small frame, but he didn’t move in response.  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said simply with a strong sense of conviction to keep his ass planted firmly where it was and to make himself as painful as she was to him. “If you haven’t forgotten, I live here now because of you.” As he watched the hair fall down from her head, he felt jealousy and could hardly spare the thought of her alone with Tertius with her hair like that or even the idea that he would be where he was, staring up at the ceiling in the dark, while she was wrapped up in Tertius’s warmth. 

“And you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before or even care to see,” he added nonchalantly, slinking back into a rested position, elbows digging into the mattress. He turned his gaze to an idle spot away from Charis to give off the impression that he was disinterested in her, clothed or otherwise. If it had been any other woman and any other man, he might’ve felt some interest, perhaps even giving into his curiosity for long female hair and playing with it until he could set it into a presentational style. 

But this was Charis, he didn’t want to touch her, and he wanted her to look like the wood mouse that she was.
 

@Sara

Hector hadn’t quite anticipated where this was headed, he had been concentratedly kneading the muscles and joints in his master’s feet, but when it finally came, perhaps for a split second his hand movements faltered, and he might have seemed confused. He wasn’t sure how to process the news. Strangely, there was a small piece of relief because it confirmed his earlier apprehension and it was better to live with the dread of knowing than in the unknowing. He preferred knowing about Tertius and Charis rather than being in the dark, wondering whether or not it was true or if he was simply territorial. But the more each different part of Tertius’s news began to sink in, the more he began to think different thoughts all at once and feel different emotions in response. Hector fought to keep his feelings to himself and shield his master from them. 

He then nodded his head to signify that he understood Tertius, but he truthfully wanted to ask him, why? What did he do? “Of course,” he said, working to keep his voice straight and pleasant, and then giving one of the fakest small smiles in all antiquity. Inwardly, he was cursing Charis for arriving in the domus. “I understand, master. My promise still stands, I am here to serve and that couldn’t change.” This was not what he wanted but ultimately, he had very little say in what or even who Tertius did. “And I suppose, on those nights, I would staying in the dormitory as I had that other night. What would happen if you needed something in the night, Charis would take care of it?” He couldn’t imagine handing off the baton, it felt unusual. He also didn’t trust her with him. 
 

@Atrice

VALERIA FLACCA.

36 | 05 April 39 CE | Senatorial | Matron and Published Poet (including pseudonym ‘Landicus’) | Heterosexual | Canon | Chloe Pirrie

Personality.

Valeria is an unexpected result of a far more serious father. She always proudly considered herself ordinary but shined through her natural theatricality. She had been a ‘giggle bug’ as a child and her constant air of humour and love for any opportunity for laughter was never lost when she grew into an adult. Though she can be responsible when called to be, she is still prone to dropping the odd cheeky comment or subtle quip even in serious company that makes her father roll his eyes or when she’s the only person laughing.

If life and circumstances had been different, she might’ve completely immersed herself, unfiltered, in the arts but currently does so in acceptable venues for a senator’s daughter and soldier’s wife, at least on the surface. Through Landicus (an ode to ‘landica’), the Batman to her Bruce Wayne, she pushes the envelope with her bawdy or off-colour poetry in attempt to shock, provoke, and entertain Roman readers and feels a great deal of satisfaction in the ignorance and mystery surrounding Landicus, especially in the irony of the writer being a woman like herself. In a way, it’s entertainment where Rome proves to be stifling. While her writing may be predominately ribald and considered ‘distasteful’ by some when compared to the established literary canon, Valeria is cultured with a clear bias for anything written. She actually enjoys even the dullest of dissections of texts, though it is difficult to find similarly passionate company. This is more evident in the writing that she does share under her own name and in the music that she composes. 

Adulthood, children, and family duty has tampered down her impishness by a bit. While it likely contributed to her need for humour, Valeria is educated and was exposed to her father’s ‘boring’ political world since her youth and despite all her puckishness, she is still capable of managing well in its stuffy circles and in staying grounded and realistic especially when it comes to Roman society. 

Appearance

Valeria is a ‘theatre kid’ of ancient Rome. She opts for comfort but still finds ways to make use of makeup, wigs, curling irons, vivid fabrics, and unusual designs. While she isn’t a bombshell in a stola, a woman who might turn heads or capture the attention of most men with a certain type of voluptuous or conventional beauty, Valeria seems very comfortable in her skin, especially with her increasing age where she carries herself with a manner of reassurance and ease and naturally speaks as she is in an amphitheatre. Her long face is lined with wrinkles of happiness around the corners of her eyes and the sides of her lips and her general expression usually carries a smile or a grin as if there’s always a joke hiding somewhere. Brown-haired, brown-eyed, Valeria is willowy, bony and tall. Though after three pregnancies, she has her “battle scars” and her body hasn’t been exactly the same, something which she likes to jokingly remind her children whenever they make her move from a comfortable position.

Family

Father: Publius Valerius Flaccus (b. 1 AD)

Mother: Romilia Marcella (b. 21 AD)

Siblings: Gaius Valerius Flaccus/Porcus (b. 27)

Spouse: Titus Sulpicius Rufus.

Children:

• Sulpicia Flacca (b. 61)
• Publius Sulpicius Rufus (b. 65)
• Sulpicia Valeriana (b. 70)

Extended family:

• Sulpicia Rufia, sister-in-law
• Quintus Sulpicius Rufus, brother-in-law
• Cornelia Scipiones, brother-in-law’s wife
• Quintus Sulpicius Rufus Minor (b. 60), nephew
• Appius Sulpicius Rufus (b. 62), nephew
• Sulpicia Rufiana (b. 64), niece
• Sulpicia Annthea (b. 68), niece
• Other Sulpicii-Rufi 
   

Other:

• Household slaves (including Nymphias, Diegis, Zia, and Tarbus)

History

Valeria was born into the family of a stern, cautious senator and his second wife. With a shit stain of a human like Gaius Valerius Flaccus for a brother, Valeria had a great deal of laughter and was a happy child by comparison, and it wasn’t hard for her parents, her father especially, to settle for the lesser of two weevils. In her earliest years, Valeria showed promise first as a musician, perhaps even before she set her fingers onto an instrument, where she seemed to have an ear and memory for sound, which later played out well when she did learn the harp by conventional instruction, then hungrily requested to move onto the lyre and flute. Her father indulged most of his only daughter’s interests under the presupposition that she would at least become an ‘entertaining wife’ in the future, but he was careful to make her “not too educated” because allegedly that inspires pretentiousness and boring attributes in a woman. 

Despite this, when her interests expanded into literature and theatre, Valeria became a wider reader and frequent theatregoer, immersing herself in both and thinking critically of both in a manner that was almost self-study. In her adolescence, Valeria had even purchased and snuck poetry lacking in Publius’s seal of approval on occasion into her chambers to pander to her growing curiosity in areas outside her exposure. Embarrassingly, her mother had managed to find this out (something which Valeria has realised in retrospect was due to the fact she wasn’t good at what she was trying to do) and her punishment was to receive ‘the talk’ or rather, several, depending on the poem. Valeria had her cheeky moments throughout her youth but apart from typical secrecy of a young woman growing up and good-natured dramatics that were made to make even her stony father crack a chuckle, she was largely well-behaved on the surface and pretended to be ‘normal’ in front of Publius’s associates. 

She published her first true Landicus poem in her late adolescence under a different pseudonym Cūlus Maximus to test the waters as a writer. It had been her first dip into unfiltered self-expression and while the poem about wonderfully tight soldier asses might have disappeared with time, she felt very smug about the experience. Not much later, in her early twenties, she picked up the outlet once again, this time as Landicus, who became a character she could play at being in the same way that an actor took on a role. Landicus, the perverted old Roman man, here before Geoffrey Rush’s horny Marquis de Sade ever was. His writing was raunchy, lewd, and indecent, able to say things Valeria wish she could if only to see the looks on people’s faces, the character and his poems stuck. She derived far more joy in hearing her father tut at this wretched Landicus fellow, what a representation of how decadent Rome’s become.

Growing up, Valeria had a hot-and-cold relationship with her brother, who was older by twelve years. On one hand, he shared the same love for mischief as she did but on the other hand, the downside was that he shared her same love for mischief, perhaps to a much larger degree. In a way, they both understand each other very well in this regard. Where Valeria often toed the line with jokes, Gaius was perhaps a bit more of a man about it and always went for the extreme. However, when he presumably died in war, Valeria had composed a heartfelt ode to him by song before publishing a poem under Landicus about the death of the man’s favourite pig. Strangely, Landicus’s audiences interpreted it to describe to a possible lover, sometimes referred to as “Porcus”.

In 60 CE, Valeria had been married to Titus Sulpicius Rufus. When her father had announced his intentions to see her married, she used the opportunity to play her father and mother a song after dinner about how her greatest aspiration and contribution to the Valerii-Flacci was to grow into a shrivelled spinster, although she obliged and went with the marriage without much complaint. People assumed Landicus might have kicked the bucket as he was put on hiatus where, once married, Valeria concentrated on three things: her new husband, her own writing and of course, the arrival of her first child Sulpicia Flacca. 

Once life settled and her relationship with Titus became more comfortable, Valeria returned to Landicus who brought outrageous tales about his new marriage to an imaginary woman a quarter of his age and began releasing poetry, some of which were inspired by her new marital life, including one where he claimed to take the virginity of a horse (a reference to herself). She became a ‘military wife’, adapting to the idea of having a husband who was often here and then there, away in Gaul or Britannia then back in Rome. She either remained in Rome or such as when Titus was in the East, stayed with Quintus Sulpicious Rufus and Cornelia Scipionis in the country. With the latter, at the time, she had amassed collections of poetry by Landicus, parodying Roman life and her proudest poems yet of Landicus elating his sister-in-law’s marvellous breasts, all of which she published after the civil war. 

When Titus was in Dacia, she decided to join him, waiting after the birth of their third child Valeriana, upon which she wrote a poem entitled ‘At least I won’t die a virgin’ and circulated under Landicus when back in Rome. She enjoyed and almost preferred life away from Rome and returned with Titus, in time to be at her father’s side in his current health condition.
 

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