A Happy Union [M - S & V]

[Sara]

Zia had been minded to swear off men for good after Diegis' affair with that slut who she had banished. They were, in her estimation, good for absolutely nothing. Dacian, Roman, Gaul, British - didn't seem to matter, all men were fucking idiots - driven by the same base emotions of lust, greed, hunger and pride. All of the men in attendance were afflicted with it and she really shouldn't have been surprised as the first blow was struck and the room descended into absolute chaos. 

She was largely spared, another benefit of her gender, although one Roman got close before a firmly held up hand and "Don't you even think about it, cunt." Muttered in angry Dacian, held him off. He promptly proceeded to throw a pewter tankard at one of her husbands cousins heads instead. She slunk off, back to the wall, arms folded across her chest as she surveyed the damage and chaos. She would be annoyed at her husband, but later. For now she found the absolute carnage vaguely amusing and entertaining. 

And then Cothelas had to ruin it all and she snapped her head to the sound of her husband - nasally trying to explain himself. She knew her interjections would be unwelcome for now and so instead just stayed silent, shooting a glower at Densus and hoping Cothelas saw sense. Unfortunately for everybody involved, he absolutely did not. 

"Throw them in the hole!" Came the bellow from her father-in-law (ex-father-in-law?) and Zia audibly fucking groaned. He was escalating this for utterly no reason. She could have screamed - but the Romans did that for them. They were far outnumbered and their mewls of pain rang through the hole as they were cajoled at spear and sword-tip out of the room into the imaginatively named 'hole' which was indeed, just a hole dug in the mud, prone to flooding, and topped with wooden slats as pseudo-bars. 

She glanced across at Titus as the main party left - Cothelas with them, in a jubilant mood. She said nothing for a long moment, and didn't even attempt to soothe him. "I take it the Roman empire will not look kindly to us imprisoning their tax collectors?" She arched a brow and smoothed out her dress, flecked now with somebody's blood. Delightful. 

She didn't know why she offered it, but the words left her lips before she could think about it. "Do you want some flower?" She, for one, could do with some relaxation. 

 

TAG: @Liv

 

[Liv]

Playtime was over. Cultellus had apparently had been touched by Titus' little impromptu speech, or had simply had enough of the affront, and was keen on asserting his authority by having the tax-collecting posse imprisoned. Not a moment too soon, Titus silently agreed as he watched the Dacians gleefully stomp out of the hall, poking and prodding their new captives and taunting them with loud jeers. He almost wanted to order a slave to wake him up in the middle of the night just so he could go and very literally piss on the holed-up Densus and his friends; then again, getting a (mostly) uninterrupted night's rest was even more appealing given not only the aches and soreness he was beginning to notice more and more as adrenaline wore off, but also the aftermath of the brawl come the sobering light of morning.

Zia's stern tone brought him out of his petty revenge reverie, and Titus shot her an unimpressed look. He would have rolled his eyes, but feared it would aggravate the throbbing coming from his nose and so replaced it with a one-armed shrug before spitting out some more blood, oblivious to the stray droplets that found a new home in his wife's dress. "Less of a problem than you think. Send the gold directly to the propraetor along with a message about having uncovered a corruption scheme and you have bought yourself a couple of weeks to get your story straight while he investigates the claim." Gods, how he hated the way he sounded! He would have to get this nose thing looked at in the morning and get it set right if it no longer was where it was supposed to be.

Her next question had him shooting her a decidedly more impressed look. "Will it help?" Titus wasn't sure he knew what he hoped it would help with: pain relief? Drifting off to sleep? Forgetting about the chaotic evening for an undetermined amount of time? All sounded like great options from where he was standing. He assented with a woozy nod. "Sure. Lead the way." The gods knew where Zia was going to produce it from this time - but she had better be quick about it, because Titus had an inkling that the moment he leant against a steady surface and closed his eyes, it would be a few hours before he opened them again.

As they left the great room, his mind embarked on a drunken tangent. When it concluded its reasoning, Titus couldn't help but stare slack-jawed at Zia's form in front of him, wondering to himself just how... she was. How... How...? His overtired brain tried to find the right word and came up blank, and in doing so let go of its fragile control over the filter between thoughts and speech. "... Did this turn you on?" was the incredulous question that escaped his lips, accompanied by a rather befuddled, wide-eyed and clearly less than sober gaze.

@Sara

[Sara]

"Are all your Pro...Propraetors," she mangled the pronunciation, "Idiots enough to believe that and not investigate immediately?" She arched a brow at him with a tut and shook her head, flouncing out of the hall in a sweep of silk. 

But the sounds of his footsteps behind her stalled and she snapped her head around to glower at him. She wanted the flower, and she wanted sleep. She'd plot and scheme tomorrow, and right the idiotic wrongs Cothelas and this dolt in front of her had started. "Did this...Did this...what?" She stared, incredulous at his question and must have looked as slack-jawed as him. 

Zia was fairly adamant that there was nothing less sexy than a bloodied, drunken, idiotic Roman traipsing after her. She didn't know how to phrase that delicately though, and so didn't bother trying. "No. I'm about as wet as the..." Now, what metaphor would suit, "About as wet as the well in the village that has been dry for fifty years." A poor analogy, but she was tired and unused to being so crass. She made a sound of impatience and clicked her fingers at him. "Now, do you want the flower, or do you want to fuck? Because I'm not doing the latter with you in your wildest dreams," She reached forward and tapped him on the head, "So stop dreaming and hurry up." 

She turned back on her heel, hair swooshing over her shoulder and likely hitting him in the face as she strode towards her rooms. A slave was waiting outside the door, and in a low voice, Zia set about her instructions. The girl - all rosy cheeked and wide eyed stared back at her with a dumbfounded expression; "But...but it's for the priests, they keep it guarded I..." Zia made another sound of irritation and glared, "I don't care how you do it, but do it." She snapped, speaking in Dacian and chivvied the girl out of the way. 

Gesturing to the room, she kicked open the door with her heel and nodded at Titus; "Get in before you fall down. But don't you dare get blood on anything. Sit on the floor if you have to." 

 

TAG: @Liv

[Liv]

Oh, how important Zia thought herself, and how wrong she was. Titus did nothing to suppress the eye roll her stupid question elicited. As if the propraetor had nothing else to do but sit around and wait for reports on corrupt citizens. The outrage that followed his own question, on the other hand, was soothing; she was a sadist hands down, but not that far gone yet.

He pursed his lips in disdain, though the gesture only lasted a few seconds thanks to a smarting and very unpleasant sensation in the space between his nose and upper lip. "Your usual, then," Titus jeered, his mind's eye briefly occupied by a dried-up well with its walls covered in coarse sand. A rather unmanly giggle escaped him, interrupted by the sound of fingers clicking. "That would be a nightmare within a nightmare," he observed sagely with a slow nod, too sluggish to dodge or intercept the rap to his head. His belated response was a cross groan and a dirty look at Zia. "The flower, obviously." What kind of question was that? Still busy taking offence, Titus failed to notice the mass of hair flying towards him as Zia spun round and batted at it two seconds too late, after it had already struck his face and retreated. Fuck Dacians and their guerrilla tactics!

The conversation between his feisty wife and the meek slave at her door eluded him almost entirely; focusing on the words required an amount of focus he didn't possess at that time. The slave girl eventually scuttled off to do whatever her mistress had bidden her - hopefully to get the goods, unless Zia kept a secret stash under her bed. For all he knew, maybe she did.

"Get me something to wipe it off, then," Titus grumbled, obediently doing as he was told and stumbling into the room. It was blissfully quiet, and he hoped it would stay that way when he inevitably woke up in a few hours with a raging headache. A drowsy look about the space spotted something even better than a good seat, and he trudged towards it with foolish glee. "Rufus!" A big ginger cat curled up in front of the fire opened one lazy eye at the sound, then shut it again, ready to resume sleep. Unfortunately for him, Titus had other plans, and sat down next to it with clumsy movements, nearly squashing the feline. The cat eyed him again at this disturbance, and he took it as an incentive to pick it up by the underarms and dangle it from side to side. "What if I got blood on you, huh? You're already red." He looked over his shoulder at Zia and threw her a defiant smirk; just she watch him! 'Rufus' meowed his disagreement, but made no move to scramble away, seemingly indifferent to being swung like a doll.

A few seconds later Titus put the cat down, arms tired of supporting its weight, and was rewarded with a furry headbutt to his knee. "We're friends," he told Zia as he stroked the cat's orange fur, scooting in place to face her, "he's almost as good as keeping my bed warm at night as that rosy-cheeked kitchen slave." Of course, if these barbarians had proper heating, he would have no need for the cat's services... but he had, and 'Rufus' had stepped up. Besides, 'Rufus' didn't speak Dacian (though it didn't speak Latin either), which was a plus.

A knock on the door sounded before it opened quietly, and the slave girl from before poked her head in, face the very picture of fear. "I g-got what you wanted, mistress... But this was all I could find..." She took a cautious step inside, hands laden with some sort of brazier and a plate tucked between her side and her arm, making her tilt sideways. She set the brazier down with some effort and placed the plate atop it, then produced a small fabric pouch from under her clothes and set it on the plate. "Is... is that all, mistress? Or d-do you need me to light it?" It was painfully clear from looking at the girl that she was not comfortable with what Zia was up to.

@Sara

[Sara]

"Don't disturb him!" Zia snapped as Titus padded towards her precious cat but it was too late and she saw her poor boy being corralled into a hug of sorts. She tutted irritably and threw a towel at him, although her aim and strength was poor and it landed in a pile a few feet short of his own feet. 

The cat had been a gift from her father, shortly before her wedding and she adored the thing. His name in Dacian roughly translated to 'Splodge' by virtue of the sole white marking on his chest, the rest of him being a vivid orange. He'd come to her as a small kitten that fit in the palm of her hand and his moody personality was a balm for her. That he seemed to actually like her husband was an irritation, given he usually hissed at all who disturbed his peace. "He's lulling you into a false sense of security," She retorted with a glower, "As is the rosy-cheeked kitchen girl. It's amusing you think she isn't in my employ." She wasn't, and she hadn't known he had taken a lover, but always good to make it seem like she was manipulating all the game pieces on his board. 

Distracted from her musing by the girl re-entering her room, Zia gestured for her to set it all up and stifled a yawn as she did. "I can light it, I'm not an invalid." And she shook her head at the girl's question, answering in Dacian, "And no - nothing, but I swear on the Gods," She rounded on the girl and wagged her finger in her face, "If I find out the priests know about this, or Cothelas, I know exactly who to string up. Understand?" She arched a brow and the girl timidly nodded before fleeing from the room.

Now they were left alone she gestured with her head at Titus. "Well..." She said with a sardonic gaze, "You do know how to light a brazier, don't you?" Any opportunity to needle and embarrass him was a shot worth taking.

 

TAG: @Liv