Another Time Then [M - V]

[Atrice]

She made the strangest groaning noise when he cut her for the second time. It didn’t take long, although he wanted to make a precise cut, so he didn’t hurry either. But it was done and the blade left the skin and so did the blood. The beautiful, warm blood. The blood that gave her life and breath. She should be grateful that she had it. She trembled between him and the wall and when she tried to free her hands, he just pressed harder against her. Friction. Fuck, was he going to do it anyway?

 “Stay still!” He hissed, but a moment later, she spoke of being unable to breathe. And he felt how she almost became a puppet against his body. No! He was not going to kill her, that was not part of the plan! Fuck! But the blood…

 He inhaled a sharp breath again and stepped away from her, “I said I’d not kill if you if you were good!” He said, watching her fall down to the floor by the wall when he’d let go. He took another step back. Was she dead? Then he should have stabbed her more. It was a waste!

 He crouched down by her, put his bloody fingers in front of her nose and mouth. No, she was still breathing. Her backside was still visible to him. He looked at the wound. All ruined now, the chiton had soaked up some of the blood. He wrinkled his nose, annoyed. Well at least he got her. He did promise her he’d get her another time, and he did. And her blood had been beautiful.

 He glanced to the door. The sun was almost setting on this grey day and day would turn into night and it was Saturnalia and he had an entire night ahead of him. He picked up his bag, pushed his cloak back into place and left her as she was. She’d wake up at some point. She wasn’t dead. And she didn’t know him. She never would.

@Sara @Sharpie

Edited December 22, 2021 by Atrice

[Sharpie]

Jason had been enjoying his Saturnalia. Well, for a given level of 'enjoying' considering that when the festivities ended he'd still be stuck here in this city full of high brick buildings crammed with people.

He had spent his free time exploring and was in Regio III, named for the temple to the Egyptian gods Isis and Serapis (he didn't think that his own Api, Tabiti or Papaios would ever receive temples built here - though they were gods of the open steppe and wide skies and would hate these crowded in spaces as much as he did.

Someone in a dark cloak pushed past him then as he turned a corner and a moment later he passed a building with an open door. Something made him glance inside to the darkened room. There was someone lying on the floor and he was about to pass by when he paused. It didn't look right; the way the cloth moved in the breeze told him it was silk (he was very familiar with silk from his youth in Sarmatia and his time in the service of the Imperial family) yet nobody in this area would be able to afford silk.

He crossed to the doorway. "Is everything all right?"

 

@Sara

[Sara]

The pressure was suddenly released from her body and her vision went completely dark, the pain of the cuts easing away, the breathlessness settling into nothing. 

But there was a chill that roused her, creeping over her bare skin where her chiton had been wripped at her leg, at her hip, at her back. She made a groaning sound. She couldn't open her eyes just yet and she couldn't move her hands, still bound behind her back, wrapped in the thin braided belt she had been wearing. She felt the chill run over her again and shuddered. She tried to focus on the sounds around her, it was silent. Was he still here? She kept her eyes shut, trying to draw steadying breaths into her lungs. 

"Is everything all right?" 

Ovinia choked, eyes flying open. It wasn't his voice, but from her position on the floor she couldn't see who it was. She tried to move and groaned in pain. "H-help," She choked, trying to free her wrists, "M-my hands..." 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"H-help! M-my hands..." 

That didn't sound like someone who was drunk, which had been his initial thought. He moved into the room, trying to let his eyes adjust to the dimness. The woman - it was a woman - was lying on the floor, her clothing ripped and torn, exposing pale skin and darker areas he took for wine at first.

"All right, it's all right... I just need to work out what's going on," he said, soothing her in the same way he would a frightened horse as he knelt beside her, lightly running fingers over her to try to ascertain her position and what was going on. He found her lower arm and then her wrist with something braided wrapped around, obviously trying her hands behind her back.

It took a moment and some effort to loosen her bonds - whatever had been used was not the rope he would expect if someone had tied up a slave, for instance. "Can you sit up?" he asked, once she was free. "What happened?"

 

@Sara

 

[Sara]

She trembled under his touch, making a sound of abject fear. He didn't sound like the man, he sounded wary and conceded but not like him, but she couldn't see him and as his hands found her wrists she panicked and tried to get out of his grip, but she couldn't move led as she was. In any case he had unbound her hands before she could try and move much further away and she gasped in relief and pain. Even in the dim light of the room, as she brought them up to her face, she could see they were red raw and bleeding. 

She nodded minutely and pushed herself up, backing herself into a corner of the room, trying desperately to cover herself in the ripped chiton that was ruined beyond repair, stained with her still flowing blood and torn over her hip and leg and back. "A man, h-he attacked me, he cut me." She choked out, starting to cry. She wound her arms around her legs, bringing them to her chest. She realised she'd lost one of her sandals in the struggle. 

"Please," She breathed almost a whisper, "Help me..." 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"All right, all right, I'm not going to hurt you."

She backed away from him and he let her - she had obviously been through something terrible. There was blood everywhere, and her clothing was in ruins, though she tried to clasp it around herself to shield herself.

"Here." He fumbled at the fibula of his cloak, holding it out to her from his position which was now an arm's length from her. "My name's Jason." (It wasn't, he was Tiranês really, in his head and to those who mattered - but he didn't think she would appreciate a Sarmatian name).

He shifted back from her a little to give her room and found what seemed to be her palla or something. It was beyond hope as a garment now, but could maybe be used for bandages - he thought she was still bleeding.

"You're hurt," he said - she knew that! "I'm going to tear this up, we need to stop the bleeding."

 

@Sara

Edited December 22, 2021 by Sharpie

[Sara]

"Jason." She committed the name to memory and reached out to snatch his cloak up, throwing it over herself as best as she could. She couldn't stop shaking. She thought she'd die. Maybe she had and this pain was the afterlife. Maybe this was just the Gods playing one last trick on her. 

She watched him as he picked up her palla which had been unceremoniously ripped off of her by him. She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat and nodded hurriedly. She wanted to go home. The thought made the tears all the stronger. She thought she was a strong woman, witty and charming and clever and resilient. Right now, however, she felt like a girl, like an infant even - and so, so stupid. 

She nodded mutely and sank lower down against  the wall, shivering under his cloak, eyes wide and darting between him and the door behind him. "He might come back." She choked, "H-he might be waiting." For another person to molest, kill. "I don't remember him leaving, I don't..." She swallowed, "My back..." She shifted. It was aching and burning and she could still feel the blood drip down her spine. The wound at her hip could wait, she hoped. 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"I'm here," Jason said. "I'm not going to leave you alone, so if he does come back, he'll think twice." Someone who attacked a poor helpless defenceless woman was unlikely to try it against someone like Jason. "Do you know who it was?"

He busied himself with tearing the palla into strips as he spoke. "And where are you hurt - I'm not going to do anything, only try to help. I promise."

Romans probably didn't understand the value of a promise, but it might make her a little easier to know he'd given her his word, even though he was a slave and Romans thought as little of their slaves as they did their sandals, for the most part.

 

@Sara

[Sara]

She shook her head violently. "N-no, I saw his face though, I heard him speak I...don't know him though b-but he tried it before, months ago I..." She was rambling but her brow knitted together in a frown, "Maybe he followed me." The thought made a hollowness fill her chest. Had he been watching her? Biding his time? Waiting for her alone? 

She watched him tear up her palla - it was expensive but she couldn't think of that now. She nodded slowly. In any other circumstance she wouldn't trust his promise one iota but she couldn't think straight, she could barely keep her teeth from chattering and her fingers from trembling and she needed help. And he was the only one here. "My back." She breathed in a whisper "And my h-hip. He cut me," She swallowed breathlessly, "He stabbed me." She winced as she moved, groaning through her teeth as she dropped the cloak a little. "Don't touch me." She whispered, "Unless I say." Anything to get some control back. Anything.

She shifted again and slowly lowered the cloak to reveal the cut on her back, three or so inches long down the side of her right scapula and deep enough that the blood still ran freely from the wound. She sniffed, tears spilling over her cheeks, feeling lightheaded again.

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"All right, I won't - but that needs bandaging and I don't know if you're going to manage to do it without me touching you," he told her. "But I promise I won't do anything that isn't going to help. So we're going to get you bandaged up and then we're going to get you home."

Somehow.

This was all starting to sound very familiar, somehow. He'd been summoned to the stables of the White racing faction because his cousin had been hurt by a man with a knife, who'd come back to where he'd killed a girl.

"Can you describe the man who did it - anything about him at all?" he asked, holding out a strip or two of cloth in case she preferred to try bandaging herself rather than let him do it.

 

@Sara

[Sara]

She ground down on her teeth and then made a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh, a strangled noise of pain in any case. She nodded and with shaking fingers, pulled her hair over one of her shoulders so he could see the wound clearly. 

"I...I don't want to-to remember him." Her face crumpled and she wrapped her arms firmly around herself, fingers digging into the skin of her arms. "J-just do it." She nodded at the bandage, giving him permission to do the bandaging himself. "I don't want to think-think about him," She shook her head resolutely. She pictured his face, the feeling of his body pressed against hers, the glint in his eyes, the smile and she choked, burying her face on her knees, her shoulders shaking. "This can't have happened to me..." She whispered, not necessarily to him, "T-this doesn't happen to people like me..." 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"I know, I know," Jason said. "Look, I'm just going to go around your shoulder and under your arm, here, twice, like this, and then let's tie it off, nice and easy, there. Just like that."

Once it was done, he sat back again. "Where else did he cut you - and I know you don't want to remember him at all, but the sort of person who did this is going to do it again unless he's stopped."

Azarion's description of the man - Jason was almost positive it was the same one - had been lacking because he couldn't speak to describe how tall or short or fat or thin he was.

"I don't even know your name," he added. "Though you don't have to tell me if you don't want. But this is important, and you don't have to remember it afterwards."

And if he had his way, he'd let Azarion fill the man full of arrows in repayment, and bleed out in the hot Italian sun.

"Would it make it easier if I told you I know someone else who was hurt by him?"

 

@Sara

[Sara]

She bit down hard on her lip to keep from whimpering as he tied off the bandage and secured it. she could feel the blood blooming against the fine, gauzy material of her palla but it would do for now until she could get home. Home. 

"M-my hip." She stuttered out. It wasn't a cut, or not a long one like the one on her back anyway, it was only an inch or two but deeper from where he'd replanted the knife back in. She felt herself choke and suck in a breath at the memory. She shifted, wincing in pain to let him have a look. The man had torn a hole in her chiton over her hipbone and stomach to look at it. She remembered the blood on her thigh where he'd smudged it almost reverently. She hurriedly licked her fingers, hiking up the chiton as he had done to try and get it of, desperately rubbing at the skin to wipe it away, frantically almost. When the dried blood had gone, she sniffed and slumped back against the wall, letting him see the wound on her hip. She blinked and looked away, turning her face to the side, looking anywhere else.

"He's done it before?" She swallowed, still staring at the wall where minutes...an hour (how long had she been out for?) she had been pressed up against. She didn't want to talk about it. Didn't want to remember. She didn't owe this man anything, she just wanted to go home. "Ovinia." She choked out. "My name." 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"Ovinia," Jason repeated. "That's a pretty name."

Hip.. hip... How was he going to manage anything there? He carefully wadded up another strip of cloth and gave it to her. "Press this there, it'll help," he said, and nodded, though she probably couldn't see.

O Tabiti, give me wisdom, he implored silently. There was no reply.

"Yes," he said in answer to her question. "My cousin - he's a charioteer for the Whites. He was attacked by a man but managed to get away, though he was cut in the arm." He hoped Azarion would forgive him for telling her about it. "He can't talk, though, so he couldn't really describe him."

It wouldn't help her, it really wouldn't, to hear that her attacker had killed someone.

"You're being very brave, Ovinia," he told her, soothingly. "Please help me catch the man who did this to you."

 

@Sara

[Sara]

She looked at the wad of what was once her palla, held in front of her face and took it dumbly. She tentatively moved it to the wound and groaned in deep pain as she held it to stem off the last of the bleeding, grinding her teeth so hard she thought they might splinter. 

She vaguely heard him talk, almost as if the words were filtering passed her ears, being spoken to somebody else. His cousin. Cut in the arm. He survived. She inhaled sharply through her nose and drew her knees back up, winding her arms around them. "D-do you work for the vigiles? Or you are a guard?" She looked up at him then, hope deep in her eyes. If he was in the watch then he could catch him. He would have the resources. She ducked her chin back down to her knees and sniffed, shoulders trembling. "H-e was tall. Blue eyes." That had traced over her body, "H-he had a bag with knives in, that's what he used." She swallowed, tears spilling down over her cheeks. Her fingers scrambled and clung onto the chiton over her knees. "He-he didn't want money, he j-just said he wanted to hurt me. It's all he wanted...was for me in pain." She was shaking violently now, she felt breathless as if she couldn't claw enough air into her lungs. "He enjoyed it." She whispered, disgusted.

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"No," Jason admitted. "I work in the Palace - I think I've seen you there, at a party."

Probably a lifetime ago, for her.

"But I know people. People who can make things happen." His master would be furious that a friend of his had been attacked and would use all the resource he had to stop it, and Azarion had said there were other people looking for this man. His cousin would not be happy that he'd struck again, but would be very happy to know Jason knew a bit more about what the bastard looked like.

"Tall, with blue eyes... Knives in a bag under a dark green knee-length cloak." He gently took her hand, rubbing it, holding it lightly enough that she could pull away. "You're being very very brave, Ovinia. Thank you." He looked around at their surroundings.

She did not belong in this place; she'd been a guest of his master's at the Palace, which meant she was an equite at the very least. Her family would be frantic! "We need to get you out of here, I think. Where do you live?"

 

@Sara

[Sara]

At the palace...the thought didn't click for her at first. She didn't really understand his meaning and instead kept her eyes down, nodding and following his description. Tall, blue eyes, knives, green cloak. She felt his fingers on her hand and snatched it away almost instantly. Shaking. She couldn't be touched. She shifted to try and put further distance between herself and the man but it made her wound ache and burn. 

"I live..." Something clicked into place like one of the puzzles she had loved as a girl. "No!" She choked and looked at him, eyes wide, frantic. "You cannot tell anybody." She had been so stupid, so, so stupid. She felt her breath quicken even further, her heart pounding as if it was going to jump from her chest. "You're a slave, you're a slave at the Palace. Y-you can't tell anybody I was attacked," If he told an imperial, if he told anybody her reputation would be in shreds. Nobody would understand. Nobody would let it go. She was a maiden; she was supposedly untouched and now she had been violated by a man - if not by his member then certainly by his knife. Nobody would understand. She reached for his hand and snatched it, trying to grasp his fingers as hard as she could. "P-promise me you won't tell anybody...o-or don't use my name. Promise me." He was a slave. He wouldn't understand what this meant for her. 

"T-the Esquiline." She shook, grabbing at her cloak, "Y-you can come and see me if you need...b-but promise me..." She added, quietly, "Please."

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"I promise, I won't say your name, but don't make me promise not to tell at all, because... because he has to be stopped before he hurts someone else, the way he's hurt you... and others, too." Azarion had mentioned other women, as well as his friend who'd been actually killed. "I know there are people looking, what you've said will help them. Is there anything else you can tell me that will help?"

He wanted to hug her, she was shaking so badly, but knew that would scare her even more, and she was already absolutely terrified.

"We're on the Esquiline already, do you know where your home is from here?" he asked. If he could get directions before she attempted to stand, it would be helpful - he didn't want to think how much blood she had lost, and if she passed out and he didn't know where her home was, it was going to be extremely awkward.

It was already that, of course.

 

@Sara

[Sara]

Ovinia sobbed. She'd messed this up so badly. How had she let this happen? How had she been so fucking stupid? "Just not my name..." She breathed on an exhale, "Not my name...please." She didn't know if she could live with the shame if everybody knew; she'd never suffer a conversation without a piteous glance again. 

"I...I can't think, I can't think straight. I d-don't think so." She swallowed and shook her head. What else was there? Beyond that he seemed to relish every moment of the pain, of the terror? "H-e just liked the blood. That's all he wanted." She wretched now, doubling over but fortunately for both of them nothing came back up. 

They were on the Esquiline? She blinked. She didn't even remember how she had gotten here. It was only a few moments ago but everything seemed so alien. "B-by the baker, Lucius P-Pescennius. South of the G-Gardens of Maecenas." She sniffed and without prompting, pushed herself to stand but she stumbled and clung onto the wall for purchase, legs trembling. "Domus of Gaius Ovinius Camillus." She swallowed, weaving as she stood. How on earth was she going to walk home in this state without everybody and their mother staring at her? Her eyes, blurred through tears though they were, scanned Jason and then the ground. "C-can we hail a litter? My purse." She indicated at the gold still sat in the bag on the floor. She stumbled again at the memory.

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"Well, you're not walking home," Jason said, offering his arm to help her stay upright. "You're in no state to try that." He bent for her purse, holding it out for her to take - she hadn't even been robbed. What kind of a man would do what he'd done to someone like Ovinia, who seemed about Azarion's age?

(Probably the same kind of man who'd done what the Romans had done to Azarion - except Ovinia was one of their own people!)

"He didn't try anything else, did he?" Had he forced himself on her?

And it was Saturnalia. Litters and carrying chairs were bound to be in short supply at this time of year, at this time of day. He swore under his breath in his own language. The only other thing would be to walk her home, as if she was drunk - but there was no way at all that she'd accept that as a solution. He would have to pray he could find a carrying chair somewhere, somehow.

 

@Sara

[Sara]

Tentatively, and with a skittish glance, she accepted his arm and leaned heavily on it, squeezing her eyes shut as pain rolled over her back at the motion of movement in her arm. It could have been worse, she told herself, but that was a small comfort.

At his question she shook her head vehemently, catching his meaning immediately. "No." She choked out, the one firm word she'd uttered since he'd set foot in this room. "He," She swallowed, bile rising in her throat again. "I...I thought he w-wanted to," She felt something and from her limited education she'd deduced what it was, "B-but he didn't." She was emphatic on that point, she had to be. "I was in front of him, and he...I..." She swallowed and shuddered deeply, cheeks wet with tears, "I fainted before he could...I think...I don't know." She remembered scrambling, desperately for breath, faced pressed into the wooden wall, the feeling of him behind her, the burning of her back, of her hip, of her wrists and then...darkness. 

"I want to go home," She sobbed and made wobbling steps towards the door, hissing in pain at the wound on her hip as she did. She clutched his arm tighter as she got to the doorframe, leaning on it for a moment, trying to cover herself as best as she could with his cloak and catching her breath. "W-who do you work for? At the Palace?" She'd need to send her thanks to him, a vague thought came to her.

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"Good. Good, I'm glad." He found himself fantasising about ways to kill the bastard who'd done this - top of the list being to tie him up and fill him full of arrows, but none aimed anywhere vital so that he could bleed out the way he'd left Ovinia to.

"I know." He took a breath. "I don't think I'm going to be able to find a litter at this time of night, and you're not going to like this idea, but I think it would be easiest for me to carry you." She could hide her face that way, and just be anonymous as another Saturnalia reveller.

He bit his lip. She knew his master; she would hate for him to learn about this, any of this. "My master is Tiberius Claudius Sabucius," he told her, trying to steady her without putting his hands anywhere painful or intimate or - anywhere on her at all, really.

 

@Sara

[Sara]

She wobbled at the suggestion. She was already shamed and now she'd be carried through the streets, bloodied and bared for all and sundry to see? But as she glanced out of the shack and the crowds that circled, she knew he was right. It didn't make the idea any more tolerable though and she found herself leaning heavily against the doorframe, trying to find purchase. I just want to go home. 

The name though, broke her out of her reverie and she glanced at him, anguish etched onto her youthful features. She leaned up to grip the neck of his tunic, scrunching the rough fabric in between her fingers. "He cannot know what has happened to me." She liked Tiberius, they'd even shared the walk through the streets of Rome together only a couple of months prior. He couldn't know what had happened to her. He couldn't. "You tell him you helped a random woman if y-you must, but you do not tell him it was me. Do you understand?" She waited for confirmation and then dropped her grip on his tunic with a sob. Everything hurt. Everything ached and she just wanted to sleep. 

With a shaky breath she moved to drape her arm - the opposing one to the wound at her scapula - around his neck. She fiddled with the other, pulling his cloak up and about her face and letting her hair down over it. People were likely already drunk, hopefully nobody would see her, recognise her. "Take me home." She sniffed, and waited to be picked up. 

 

TAG: @Sharpie

[Sharpie]

"I promised," Jason told her as she grasped the neck of his tunic in a death grip, scratching him by accident as she did so. "I know... I know you Romans don't think much of your slaves, and that you can't trust us, but I promised. I'll swear it, if you want." He carefully put his arm around her, ready in case she shied away or otherwise resisted, and then bent to get his other arm behind her knees. She was heavier than she looked, but he was strong enough for this.

"You can rest your head on my shoulder if you need," he said, acutely conscious that he should not let her sleep, not yet, not if she were to make it out of here - she'd lost so much blood it surely wouldn't take much for her to slip away even now. He had seen that happen before, once, and the possibility of it happening to Azarion had haunted his dreams for years until he'd seen his cousin recently very much alive.

"Talk to me... What do you like best about Rome?"

 

@Sara

[Sara]

"I trust you." She said simply, blindly. She had no choice, but the sincerity in his voice and the way he tried to hold her was comforting. 

As he picked her up she made a mewling sound of pain, and dutifully buried her face into his shoulder so she couldn't be seen by passers-by. To them, she probably looked like a drunken fool being taken home by a lover or a husband. That suited her fine, as long as nobody saw the truth. She fluttered her eyes shut and pressed her face into his tunic all the harder, wanting to block out the noise and the commotion. She felt the blood drip down her spine as he walked. 

"Mhmm." She made a sound of protest. She didn't want to talk. She wanted to forget. But she understood what he was doing. The two wounds would not kill her but she had already fainted once and the bleeding hadn't stopped. She blinked open her watery eyes. "T-the people." How hollow that sounded now. "I liked the people; my friends, e-events. Parties." She sniffed and shook her head. "Y-you're not from Italia." she guessed, trying to keep awake, body trembling ion his arms. 

 

TAG: @Sharpie