Falling for You

Octavian

The girl's eyebrows bounced as she frowned. "I'm not sure what I'm painting." she said, but obliged, spinning round the easel.

Octavian stared at it in confusion. It was a figure, a person, but their face was obscured, some kind of black mask covering them from nose to chin, a band covering their eyes. They were topless, but their skin was stained red and gold, tattooed with smudged and incomprehensible symbols. A sharp black sword hung in their hand, the rest of the picture a whirl of dark blues.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"I'm not sure." she said again, but this time Octavian had a feeling she was lying; her eyes were worried and trained on the painting.

"Would that centaur man know? Chiron?" Octavian asked casually.

"Maybe." the girl stuck her paintbrush behind her ear, "I think I need to ask him, actually."

She turned to look at him, and smirked. "Don't move, I'll be right back."

"You don't have to say that every time you leave!" Octavian shouted after her in frustration, but let it go.

It was time.

Slowly, he slid his uncooperative body out of the armchair, and began to drag himself across the floor, cold stone thankfully covered in an overlapping mess of fluffy rugs. Usually by the time he got to the painting of the spooky mansion, someone would walk in and hoist him back into the chair. But not this time. He had a plan with Gaia.

He groaned as he heaved himself along the floor a couple feet, aiming for the entrance of the cave, where he could see sprouts of grass trailing off towards the strawberry fields, which was overpowering and just plain stinky to his nose.

His elbows started to ache, but luckily, his arduous crawl was nearly over. He reached the edge of the cave, and sank his hands deep into the earth and mud.

"I welcome Mother Earth." he declared, the words repeating over and over in his head as they had done for weeks.

Octavian gasped.

A feeling spread up his arms, like bees going haywire in their hive, bugs crawling under and into his skin. His mouth dropped.

"Don't let go." Gaia whispered in his head, and he jumped as closed eyes protruded from the soil next to him, and he could see the eyeballs twitching and rolling behind the lids. "We're so close."

"This will give me my legs back?" he asked.

"Yes. And then you have several important things to do for me. For the fate of Rome."

Octavian nodded absently, his skinny chest puffing out, and a dark grin spread over his face as his legs began to twitch. Pins and needles filled them, and he slowly pulled himself into a crouch, hands still buried. His brows furrowed as he found himself unable to pull them out.

His wrists began to ache a little, and Octavian turned them over, watching in a flushed fascination as his sickly blue veins filled with a dark brown colour, going hard and pressing outwards on his skin, as if they were pumped with dirt. He gasped as it travelled up the rest of him, feeling thick lines shoot up the length of his neck. It felt... it felt... warmth spread over him, and Octavian forgot the stinging in his body, smiling broadly.