Stop the block: writing contest

Challenge #7 (part 2)

In your azure eyes

Based on the play Coriolanus by William Shakespeare

Word count: 3, 343

Caius's rage burned a scorching trail through his veins, making him see red. How dare they do this to him! He had fought in the war, had selflessly laid down his own life for those people and this is how they repaid him? By making him feel like a pariah in his own city. A city that, a few months ago, he had been ready to die for.

All because he wasn't good at politics?

Caius Martius was proud to say that he was an honest man. He didn't lie. Always calling things as he saw them, even if he saw them wrong. So of course he wasn't going to be the best politician in the world, because that would involve lying through his teeth to people who wanted the truth.

Caius gritted his teeth as he walked down one of the many corridors of the old jail. People always claim that they want the truth but that is a lie. They want a version of the truth, a part of the truth that they liked and nothing else. They don't want to know about the bad things even though they pretend to everyone, including themselves, that they do.

Caius would show them, he would make them pay.

The two guards led him into a private room. The room itself was small, with white walls, a long metal table with a plastic grey chair on either side. There, chained to the table, was a very bored looking Aufidius.

General Benjamin Aufidius was a tall man, lean, and packed with muscle. His face was made up of sharp angles and tanned features, his hair was a dark, mousy, brown, and fell in waves around his face, while his eyes shone a blazing golden brown. There was no denying that he was a good looking man, but his whole body seemed to radiate a vibe that screamed danger.

They stared at each other in silence, daring the other to make their move first. Caius wasn't in the mood for these games so he made his move first.

"Leave us." Caius said to the two guards.

They nodded and left without a word. Caius was extremely grateful in that moment to have such powerful connections, mostly thanks to Lucas. It had been thanks to those connections that he had been able to get into that jail in the first place, to meet General Benjamin Aufidius. It was also thanks to their influence that, on record, the conversation that was about to take place had never happened. No reports, or witnesses, and any CCTV footage would have been wiped clean from the system before the sun set.

"Well well, if it isn't the great General Caius Martius." Aufidius drawled as he looked Caius dead in the eye. "What brings you here?"

Caius sat down on the one plastic chair on his side of the table. He places his forearms flat down on the table, fingers interlocked.

"I need a favour." Caius said in a causal manor, as if he hadn't just ask a prisoner of war for a favour.

Aufidius let out a laugh at his words but as Caius continued to stare at him, unblinking, Aufidius's smile slowly started to disappear.

"Even if we forget the fact that I'm stuck in here until the treaty between our countries is signed," he spat on the ground as if the words had left a vile taste in his mouth, "Why in the world would I help you?"

"I'm not one to ask for something for nothing Aufidius," Caius said in a low tone, a smirk on his face, "tonight at exactly quarter to twelve, there will be a 'power cut' in sector 3A of this prison," Benjamin Aufidius raised an eyebrow at Caius's words, "How unfortunate that it happens to be the sector you're being held in."