All's fair in love and war [M]

[Chevi]

"Gardens? A country boy, of course. Don't you find it dull out there?" 

"Dull? Never. Peaceful, though." He smiled. The villa was equal to his childhood, some of the best years of his life, in his mind. He loved the city too, but it was different. Ovinia did not seem very impressed.

"Then again, if you went you could take me with you. Nobody needs to know I'm a slave in the country." 

Lucius sighed. She was joking, but he knew she wished things could be different. She had more freedom than most slaves of the same fate. But her life would never be the same.

"Feminine arts? And what do you suppose those would be? Or do you know nothing of women?" 

"Oh, I know a few things." Lucius grinned, and left it at that. He was not as adventurous as other men of his rank, maybe, but he did visit the Venus, and then Vibia's house, whenever he had the time and the funds.

"I used to like music a lot, and seeing my friends and parties.  I hated weaving."

Well, that sounded like Ovinia.

"Yeah, I know. The others asked me not to make you do that anymore, because it is a waste of yarn." He grinned up at her. The household servants were beginnig to like her, but that did not stop the teasing. They were quiet for a bit, before Lucius spoke again, more quietly. "You know I'd free you if I could."

[Sara]

She chuckled and then gasped in pain at his slight and the ache in her side her laugh produced. It was humorous banter now though, the sharp edge of their first few conversations having worn down, blunt after months of living next to one another. "It's better than sweeping though, I grant you. And did you not like the tunica I made?" It was a hideous, baggy thing that looked about as stable and secure as an insula after an earthquake. 

A comfortable silence settled between them and Ovinia led her head down on the pillow, letting her eyes drift shut. The sun was warm and pleasant. She used to be fastidious about sitting under a shade in this sort of weather, but now she didn't seem to mind as much about the freckles and the olive undertones of her skin darkening. What did it matter? 

His words made her eyes drift open and she peered down at him curiously. She studied his face for a moment, saw the earnestness in it and sighed. "Why did you have to make this a serious conversation..." She muttered, turning her soft look into a glare for a moment before it calmed again and this time her sigh was heavier. "I know. I believe you now." He'd proven himself to her; in her domus, in the street...she trusted him. "You could speak to the Emperor," She offered, "It's been a few months now. Maybe his mood has settled?" it was naive, but she was still clinging on to the idea of a pardon. She offered him a weary smile. "Else you'll have to outlive me and try and stay out of danger at work. I'm not going to be sold to anybody else." She shook her head resolutely. 

 

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[Chevi]

"It's better than sweeping though, I grant you. And did you not like the tunica I made?" 

"It was fabulous. I'm saving it for a special occasion." Lucius chuckled. The special occasion probably being something after his own funeral.

They were silent for a while before he spoke again. For a moment he thought she'd dozed off.

"Why did you have to make this a serious conversation... I know. I believe you now."

She must have realized she was the only slave in the house for a reason. Lucius sighed. At least he had her trust, even if he could do precious little about it.

"You could speak to the Emperor. It's been a few months now. Maybe his mood has settled?... Else you'll have to outlive me and try and stay out of danger at work. I'm not going to be sold to anybody else."

"Aww. Starting to realize what a treasure I am?" Lucius grinned up at her, before the conversation got too heavy. "I will talk to him, when the time is right. Probably won't be for a while, though. The city still needs a lot of restoration." He sighed. "Until then, you just have to keep pretending you run this whole household. Gods know I gave up trying."

[Sara]

"A one of a kind treasure." She retorted right back with a smug little smile as she peered down at him, but she nodded. She knew it would take time; and probably for a few of those he cast into slavery in the mines or the brothels of Rome to die first before people could truly start to think justice had been done. 

"I do run this whole household," She gave him a satisfied little smirk and stretched herself out on her nest, wincing as she did. Everything still ached and she couldn't remember a time that it didn't, "Didn't you notice before...this, how you had fresh flowers in all your rooms every day? And that the food had started to get better?" She quirked a brow and tapped on the side of her head, "Not just a pretty face. My mother was unwell for some time so I..." She shrugged, "Ran my fathers domus for the most part. I..." She sighed, "Wonder what it would feel like to be free but be a poor freedwoman." She cast a glance round the gardens, "I like managing this sort of house but a room in an insula?" She wrinkled her nose, "No thank you."

 

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[Chevi]

"I do run this whole household. Didn't you notice before...this, how you had fresh flowers in all your rooms every day? And that the food had started to get better?"

Lucius smiled. The servants probably did not let her boss them around that much, but at least now she took pride in the small things she could contribute. And honestly, the domus did miss a woman's touch. "And here I was thinking Marius was being a romantic."

"Not just a pretty face. My mother was unwell for some time so I... Ran my fathers domus for the most part. I..." 

That made sense. Ovinia had been raised to one day become a matron in a domus just like this. Or rather, even bigger and much more fancy. No wonder she felt out of place, running errands instead of ordering them.

"Wonder what it would feel like to be free but be a poor freedwoman. I like managing this sort of house but a room in an insula? No thank you."

"You'd run the whole insula." Lucius chuckled, closing his eyes. Lying in the sun was getting to him too, making him sleepy. "You could still live here if you were freed... all the others do." He added with a yawn.

 

[Sara]

She watched him with a soft smile as he clearly tried to fight sleep. "And run your errands for you?" she scoffed, shaking her head. "No thank you. I'd need to start some sort of business to earn money." She moved back to lay on her back, staring up at the clouds as they drifted past aimlessly in the sky. 

"Or find somebody rich to marry. Then I'd wait until one of my previous friends was having a party, or maybe one of the awful men that came to yours," She cast him a sidelong glance, "And I'd walk in there - dressed so exquisitely and arrayed in so much gold that everybody would stop and look and I'd clap my hands and all of the slaves and entertainers would walk out because I'd paid them off the day before to do just that." she smiled to herself, "And everybody would look like a fool and come begging to me for loans and help." 

She'd thought about it intensely.

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

Lucius laughed at the detailed fantasy. Everyone was allowed to dream, or daydream, of better times. He could picture her, all regal, decked out in jewels. The look suited her. The smile did too.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side." He mutterd, closing his eyes.

[Sara]

Three months later

Her dreams were better now and the decorations she'd sprung for in her little box room helped. She was not much of an artist, but the crude wall paintings she'd done of flowers helped to cheer up the space. The rug that she'd sourced from a another domus' rubbish pile as she walked home with Marius from the market, barely fit in the room but it was beautiful and ornate and reminded her of the one she'd had in her childhood bedroom. The small bed was arrayed in proper sheets she'd badgered Lucius for as well as the cushions scrounged from the spare rooms of the pace (on the proviso she'd return them if he had guests). It felt like home. She felt safe. 

Until she didn't. She didn't know what time it was when the banging and shouting woke her, but she peeled back the curtain that separated her little home from Lucius' room and blinked up at the window. It was a hazy dark blue oustide - a few hours before dawn, maybe, but something was going on. She screwed up her features, trying to ignore it and go back to sleep but the banging and crying only grew louder and more frenzied. 

She pushed herself up to stand in the little square that was left between her bed, the small box next to it and the curtain, just as Lucius was carried into the room on a stretcher fashioned from what appeared to be a door, by a group of men she could only assume were vigiles. She choked and glanced at Marius, panic in both of their faces. "Wh-What happened?" She swallowed, feeling her blood run cold. He looked much the same, breathing erratic as he came to join her at the edge of the room - the men and the medicus that was with them, setting to work. "A fire, he went in," Ovinia choked and he laid a hand on her arm, "Part of the roof came in on him - on his head." She choked again and Marius squeezed her arm tightly. They'd brought him home to die. 

No no no no no.

 

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[Chevi]

"Give us space to work." The medicus ordered, with no time to be courteous. "Careful!" 

They lifed Lucius from the stretcher to the bed. He looked all red and grey and black, covered in ash, soot, and drying blood. The medicus gave orders for water, clean cloth, and bandages, and more lights; the servants ran to fulfill them, while the vigiles stepped back, looking worn and worried. They were covered in dirt too, and at a loss of what to do, until Marius ushered them out of the room.

[Sara]

Ovinia felt like her legs might give way and she pressed her back up against the wall as everybody else hurried around. Marius hadn't given her any tasks - from the look he gave her, he seemed to know she would be of absolutely no help to anybody. The medicus worked quickly to cut off his clothes, checking for injuries. Ovinia couldn't bare it. The safety and security she'd felt just minutes ago was being snatched away so viciously it was tearing her heart. 

She flew from the room to where the vigiles were standing in the gardens, looking gormless, exhausted and in shock. She didn't care; she shoved one - a blonde man she'd seen around the domus before as hard as she could. He stumbled back in shock. "How could you let him go in?!" She screamed at him, surprised at her own anger and panic. "How could you?!" She shoved again until she felt her arms be held back by an anxious looking Marius, his own breathing ragged and cheeks tear streaked. 

The vigile took her in, his own shoulders slumping as he choked; "There wasn't anything we could do. He wouldn't have stayed outside if we had-" 

But Ovinia didn't wish to listen to excuses and was pushing back past Marius into the room with Lucius - now sheathed under a sheet - the Medicus lightly wiping away the grime and the blood from his face. He looked like a ghost. Or a dead body. "Hold this lamp girl." He snapped and she did as she was told, too afraid to do anything else but follow instruction. She stared down at him and felt her breath quicken. "Please don't die." She choked.

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

It was late in the morning by the time the medicus announced that there was nothing else to do. "If the gods are kind, he will wake up. If they are not..." he left the rest unsaid. Lucius had an array of injuries from the collapse, but the bad one was the blow to the head. The medicus had cleaned the would and made sure there were no shards of bone left in it, but the rest was up to the healing deities.

"Keep him comfortable." He suggested on his way out. "I will come back in the evening."

[Sara]

Things seemed to move in a dream after that. Lucius didn't wake up the first day after, or the second, or the third. Murmurs rippled throughout the house but Marius - good old faithful Marius had taken charge, preparing things in the background. He'd fetched Lucius' will from the Temple of Vesta and spoken to his family. He'd organised the freedmen and closed up most of the rooms in the domus. He'd received guests and well-wishers and quietly made arrangements for a funeral. He'd also spoken to Ovinia - his look solemn and even she could see guilt eating away at him. 

"I had to write to the Emperor's office." He looked aggrieved in a way she'd never seen him, "It was a condition of you being gifted to him; that you should be returned for resale if he...passes." It didn't matter to her. She could see it coming; it was why, she reasoned, she had acted so violently that first night he had been brought in ashen and bloodied. He laid a hand on hers as she sat at Lucius' bed, as she had done since that day. His sigh was soft and his hand wam; "We can keep it quiet for a day if he goes, to give you some time." it was the kindest Marius had ever been to her and she nodded dumbly. 

She spent most of the rest of the night awake, watching over him, looking for any change in the slow movements of his breath between snatched minutes of sleep. She must have drifted off at some point because the birds woke her, perched outside his window as she sat curled up in the chair, body contorted to fit into it. 

 

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[Chevi]

Lucius remembered fire and nothing else. He was aware that he was drifting in darkness, surrounded by muffled sounds, outside of time. He didn't know where he was, or where he was going, and his thoughts slipped through the cracks without taking shape. He was reaching for a surface but didn't find one for a long time. When finally things began to get louder, and painful, and more confusing, he had no idea where he was.

Birds. Was he outside? Was he dead?... what kind of bird sang in a burning building? He smelled smoke, that was not right, the building was coming down... he twitched, taking a deep gasp for air, but his body didn't move the way he wanted to, to shield him from the roof falling in. Everything hurt, even breathing hurt, but he did it again, trying ro blink his eyes open. The light hurt too.

[Sara]

She blinked from the window to the man on the bed as he gasped. He gasped. She choked, immediately unravelling herself from the ball she'd folded her limbs into to reach out a hand to his. "Lucius?" She squeezed his hand and wanted to reach up to turn his head to hers but didn't dare - he was still wrapped in thin strips of linen bandages, soaked in blood. 

"L-Lucius?" She swallowed, squeezing his hand harder. "Can you hear me?" There was another scenario the medicus had warned them about - as likely as it was that he would die, was that he would wake up but not be himself; either rendered incapable of living unsupported, a shadow of himself, or perhaps without memories. He didn't know. Ovinia squeezed his hand again. "Do you know who I am?" Her voice was insistent, desperate even.

 

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[Chevi]

"Lucius?"

Someone was there. Lucius blinked again. He wasn't alone. Someone was moving, and calling his name, and the voice was clearer than the muffled sounds before.

"Can you hear me?"

He turned his head, although it felt like it had been filled with lead. Walls... light. He was in his room. How did he get to his room?... Sense of time and space was still muddled, but he finally saw who was talking to him. And holding his hand.

"Do you know who I am?" 

"Ovinia?" It was mostly a whisper; his mouth felt so dry he could barely form the sounds. She was here. He was here. He was alive. Somehow. There was fire... "How... am I alive?"

@Sara

[Sara]

She wanted to cry out of relief but settled instead for a sort of screeched noise of delight and a movement to hug him although she stopped herself just as her own arm hit his already maimed one. She pulled back, her closeness almost smothering his words and she grinned, a face splitting grin that stretched from ear to ear. 

"I have no idea but you're alive!" she choked, "And you're you!" Fortuna had smiled on him. On both of them. She could unpack her little sack of her belongings, sitting forlornly on her bed. She should tell Marius, but the temptation to stay and make sure he really was awake and it wasn't just her hallucinating through tiredness was too much. Marius could wait. 

That didn't stop her swiping at his un-injured shoulder though, "And you're a fool for going into that fucking building." 

 

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[Chevi]

A bright smile lit up Ovinia's face, and for a moment it made Lucius think his grasp on reality was slipping again. She moved over him and he groaned, but she stopped before she would have leaned on his body too much.

"I have no idea but you're alive! And you're you!"

"I'm... me?" he squinted. What was she talking about?... He was alive. That made sense, because everything fucking hurt. Being dead was not supposed to hurt. And also people were not supposed to swipe at you.

"And you're a fool for going into that fucking building." 

"Wha..." Building. He remembered fire... things falling. It was a blank slate after that. And now he was here. A building had fallen on him. Again. Oh, shit. "Tell me... I didn't... break my other arm." Or lose it. He tried to look, but moving was still a very painful idea.

@Sara

[Sara]

The look on his face was priceless but she was too incensed to care. She glared at him, the pure elation of before completely wiped from her face for this moment in time. 

"Yes." She glared at him and let it linger for a moment before scoffing and throwing her hands up, "No, but you should have done for your idiocy." She was pacing and slowed to a stop with a sigh and a look in his direction, her features softening. He still looked broken. He still could have died. She gulped down that horrible, awful feeling she'd had in her chest. She'd lost so many people in her life already, watched them die. She couldn't lose another. Not him. 

"Your head." She gestured at it as she retook her seat and retook his hand unprompted, as if holding it was the most natural thing in the world. It was, in fairness, for her. She'd been holding it for four days; feeling the thrum of blood and his pulse in his wrist, feeling the warmth and willing it to cling on. "You were so close to..." She swallowed, "Marius even went to get your will and told your family," and the emperor, but that was a selfish thought and not one for now. She would be fine, it could be undone. 

 

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[Chevi]

"Yes."

Lucius groaned closing his eyes. Shit.

"No, but you should have done for your idiocy."

His eyes opened again, staring at her bewildered. She was angry again, rather than happy. Well, that did not take long... "That... was mean." At least his other arm was fine. Ovinia sat down, taking his hand in hers. Her hand felt warm and soft. He held on to it.

"Your head. You were so close to... Marius even went to get your will and told your family," 

Well, she must have been telling the truth because his head still hurt. A lot. They thought... 

Shit.

"How long...?"

[Sara]

"Four days." She swallowed and exhaled through her nose to try and get rid of the feeling creeping back up on her again as it had smothered her for the past four days; the feeling of utter, utter dread and fear. "But you're alright," She breathed, trying to summon her senses again, trying to feel better and give him a reassuring smile which came out a bit mangled, "You're alright." She exhaled again. The feeling wouldn't leave her.

"I tried to get you to drink but you weren't conscious so..." She winced, it had not gone well, "You must be dying of thirst." Awkwardly twisting her body, unable and unwilling to release his hand, she fetched the beaker of water on the table next to his bed and held it out. "Can you sit up?" 

 

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[Chevi]

"Four days. But you're alright. You're alright." 

She looked... upset. Exhausted. Four days... it must have been a lifetime for the household, waiting on his fate. They all depended on him. Ovinia most of all. Lucius felt a pang of guilt. Maybe he deserved to be yelled at.

"I tried to get you to drink but you weren't conscious so... You must be dying of thirst."

"Yes." he said, realizing he was. He felt dryer than a piece of parchment, and he could feel his lips were cracked.

"Can you sit up?" 

He inhaled, slowly moving his arms and legs. Everything moved. Good sign. He tried to lift his head, but it still felt heavy. He made a good effort before giving up. "I... need help. You can... call Marius?"

[Sara]

"He's sleeping." She offered with a little shrug and a sigh as she watched him flop back down heavily and she cast a nervous glance back over her shoulder to the door. She really should wake him - tell him the news - but the man had needed rest as much as her, and she'd wake him soon. 

"Here," She stood and bent at her waist until she was hovering over him, "Put your arm around my shoulder. Your good arm, I'll help." She was not particularly strong so this might go horribly wrong, but she didn't want him to wake up only to drown as he tried to take a sip of water. The familiarity of the position didn't even cross her mind as she finally released his hand.

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

He stared up at her for a moment. Since when did Ovinia care if Marius was asleep? It had not bothered her before. And she had never been very keen on touching him before, even whe helping with the exercises. But he was in no position to argue. He reached up, using his left arm to hold on to her shoulders. She helped lift him into a sitting position, and he did his best not to be dead weight. Her hair fell in his face, and this time she did not seem to make a fuss about it. She must have been really scared.

"I'm sorry."

[Sara]

The effort of lifting him up was more than her capabilities really and she ground her teeth to keep from making an embarrassing noise at the effort. When he was safely arrayed against the cushions and in a seated position, she retook her own chair, breathless from the exertion. 

"You should be." She scolded but there was no heat in her words and she looked at him, his expression softening her already. She gulped down some air and reached for his hand again. "I was so scared." She said it in the faintest of whispers, as if saying it any louder would make it real, or make all of this go away. Again. 

 

TAG: @Chevi

[Chevi]

Ovinia managed to prop him up with some pillows, so he was sitting up. His head still felt heavy, and moving took an effort, but he could see better, and breathed a little easier. She still looked... upset, and worn. She reached for his hand again.

"You should be. I was so scared."

"I'm sorry" he muttered. The past four days had to have been hard on her, waiting for her fate to be decided, without her having any say in it. "I know... I'm sorry. It must have been... awful, waiting... to be sent somewhere else." Returned to the emperor, or sold again.

@Sara