Praetorian

Primum

He ran. His feet were moving so fast, never touching the cobbled ground, he was flying.

Almost.

The cold dagger he held had escaped from his grasp, clattering onto the ground. Bloody scratches now stained the marble flooring from the impact, reminding him to maintain his balance.

He shivered as the warm blood seeped through his clothing, staining the precious white cotton. He felt disgusting. This was not his blood. This was the blood of the dead.

Hearing shouts from somewhere to the left, he took a sharp turn, and zipped into the busy marketplace. He heard workers shouting in angst, and slaves giving way to him out of fear.

Fear of the Praetorian chasing the man.

The thundering sound of marching was audible to his ears once again, and he made a decision to find a place to hide.

His pace quickened, as did the beating of his heart. He dove deeper into the marketplace, dodging persistent traders promising him the quality of their merchandise.

His eyes fell upon a small container; a wine barrel larger than most, probably from the north of the empire, and as quickly as he could, he folded himself inside, staying as small as he could.

The inside was quite dark, as if there was no intention of letting much, if any, sunlight in, or letting the components out. The epitome of a perfect wine barrel was his residence for the moment.

Chuckling, he realized this was the marketplace, owned and modified by the merchant. There had to be intentional flaws in the design somewhere to ensure a buyer returned for replacements eventually.

He moved his hands frantically, searching for something and then- then he found it. There was a small crack in the wood, and a stream of light shone through, piercing the barrel.

It was just high enough. He adjusted himself, leaning towards the streak of light and resting his right eye, his dominant eye, on to it. He looked through, his grey eyes eating up the light, his pupils re-adjusting to the brightness.

He looked through it, taking in the bustling market scene.

There were the usual traders, the ones selling cloth, crops, and a recent Roman invention; cement.

Then there were the foreign traders - oh the foreign traders.

They very well knew that some Romans did not know the exact value of their merchandise, so they sold it for more. Spices worth one piece of gold was sold for five. 'Exotic' iron, wood, and other building material was exchanged for more than triple its worth.

Merchants. Vile, evil, and degraded. He thought, but laughed darkly a second later, realizing the irony in the fact that he did, once, belong with them. This man wasn't one to forget his roots. He was the son of a trader, brought to the Roman capital from Greece when he was just a child.

He was Greek. Grecian.

||

Sweat dripping from every crevice on his body, disgusted; worn out-but strong, always strong - Julius took his first steps into the bustling city of Rome.

The heavy weight of the crate he carried burdened him down, forcing him down against the gravity of the floor. Stumbling onto the excuse of a port the Romans had conjured up, his eyes scanned for the purchasers of the merchandise.

It made his little heart laugh.

Julius was the master of the sea at the age of six, able to learn to command and steer a ship himself. The fear of the sea, of Poseidon-No, no, Neptune ruled here - that the Romans so greatly had seemed preposterous to this son of the sea.

Placing his burden down carefully on the floor, the shadow of a man looming over his petite body, Julius kept his head down, the whip in the master's hand a device he was much too familiar with.

Crack.

The whip slashed against the skin of his back, drawing blood from the barely healed gashes already there.

"Useless, good-for-nothing, lazy, nothus[1]. Late! Again!"

Crack.

"I told you to be here before the solstice, but here you are, two days late! The merchants don't wait, fatuus[2]." The man spoke, raising the whip above his head once again.

"B-But... b-but the seas-the winds-th-they-" Julius began, just to be hit once again to shut him up.

"No excuses, Julius. The only one at fault is you. If only you had died and not your mother..."

Crack.

Julius felt anger rush to his veins, hot tears spilling from his eyes. In his anger he did the only thing he had always wanted to do.

He ran away from his father.

||

He resisted spitting at his thoughts. The past, is the past, no matter how bitter. None of that matters now. Nothing. I am not Greek. No. I am Roman. I am not part of the civilization that failed; I am part of the civilization that will last. I am the next-

His thoughts were interrupted as a man - a quite feminine-looking man - walked towards the barrel.

Admiring the man from the peeking hole, he resisted the urge to laugh. The man was carrying a long, sturdy spear and a shield only second to Perseus's in giving out fear, had a sword made of Imperial gold hanging around his torso, but the way he carried himself it was almost feminine.

A pretty boy.

The expression set upon the face was...almost lethal in itself. It was like an angry woman yet...it was more. The expression was too manly, too ruthless to be a female's.

It was the face of a true warrior. And he could appreciate that.

What am I thinking? He shrugged any doubt that the person walking towards his barrel was a female. They had assorted weapons too heavy, too complicated, and too forbidden for a woman to touch.

He felt the barrel being tipped over, the gravity working against him to make him fall on the ground, spilling out of the barrel like the contents that would be in it. Futuo[3]. He swore in his mind. So busy thinking about the girly-man that I forgot to think of an escape plan.

His toga was lifted up from his neck along with him as he was forcefully removed from the ground. Woah, this definitely isn't a woman.

"Stultior[4]! Find a better hiding place! They will find you!" the feminine-featured man warned, putting him down. His voice too, sounded gruff, yet, somehow had this feminine poise in it. "Go, go run!"

He froze, looking over at the attire of the man. "But, you're with them. Why are you helping me?"

"Because..."the man answered but the escapee looked around, hearing the synchronized beating of the ground. They were headed this way. Not waiting for an answer, he ran.

His savior smirked putting on the helm that was strung next to the sword, continuing with the answer even though there was no one there listening to him.

"Because I know who you are, Julius Tiberius Kaeso, and I know what you want. I will snatch the only thing you want from your hands, right in front of you. Next week, you will know. I will not kill off my competition like a coward, but I shall defeat you, and you will die a cowardly death in your own hands."

~

[1]Nothus (n.) Latin mongrel; insult

[2]Fatuus (n.) Latin fool, idiot; insult

[3]Futuo (n.) Latin impolite word.

[4]Stultior (n.) Latin stupid; idiot