53 Results in the "The Lion & The Owl" category
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Chapter
The Colloquies: Low Perceptions
The Colloquies: Low Perceptions The majestic peak casts a shadow over the villa, a protective mother whose smothering proximity is a trick to the eyes. Memories of her many visits to this plantation unravel like a fallen scroll. Her mother and Uncle came from lands so far east of Parthia that no Roman name existed. Mother, a wealthy man’s battle bride, settled into an opulent domus in Mediolanum that soon became lonely in Roman bigotry’s shadow. Uncle, with eyes as narrow and face just as…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Colloquies: Minds Meeting
Moonlight guides him five hundred steps from the kitchen to the barn. Unease quickens his heart as the worst thoughts plague him. Shadows dancing beneath the cowshed doors prove his hunch correct. Loose hay strands litter the drive bay, where pungent tack and fresh lucerne begin clogging his nose. Warm air overhead brings his attention to the loft. There, the rangy druid sits under the tresses as coals smoldering in the floor pit cast an orange glow behind him. The serpent, Delphine, often spends cold…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Last Leaf Falls
A line of gray rises from the woods, but smokeless chimneys draw him to the village. No guard walks the wall. The smithy forge has gone cold, and courtyard braziers full of wood stand without flame. Pigs slumber in their pen, tightly packed mounds unmoved by his investigation. Knocking on doors yields no one, so he sets off for home under the fading day. Along the main road, he spots the villagers filing down the ridge. Two-wheel carts break up their procession, pulled by young men and full of…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Drunken Bath
Crimson rivulets swirl into the grate, drinking the ritual’s bloody remains. Aedan empties another bucket of water over his head, then upends it atop his basted rags, a lopsided pile of pale red. Cardamon oil forms prismatic clouds upon the water’s skin, its heady scent filling the humid air. Of all the luxuries imposed while living among these wolves, he most enjoys their aromatic baths. The steamy pool lures him into its satiating embrace. Ears full of warmth, he surfaces so the chill can bite his…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Complicated Helvetican
First light in the peristyle finds a child raking at pale sand, freeing cat shit and whatever else the feline gremlins bury for safekeeping. The grand fountain churns softly, the villa’s groundsmen removing a sizable portion of its water after the first frost. Soon, they will drain it ahead of the first snow and fix an angled tarp over the open roof. Each accumulation, the groundsmen will cut the tarp’s sewn navel and drop snow into the fountain’s pool. Villa Servii contains two hemispheres,…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
The Road Trip
The Servii road winds through pastureland, two worn lines carved by years of plaustrum wheels hauling goods to the Ceresio. At the lake’s north point, the path turns to crushed granite. Most of the year, this route serves only farm-to-market traffic. But between harvest and first snow, esseda replace plaustra as patricians journey south for winter. Unlike their wealthy parents, the Servii siblings decide to winter at their villa, celebrating the solstice and Saturnalia with their villagers. This new…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
VIII – The Graticule
Fish and mud taint the wind, but there’s no sign of a river. Charcoal in hand, Vitus Servius focuses on his sketch. The leather strap around his neck fastens to a flat board wedged beneath his belly, and upon it are many sheets of crisp vellum. Cletus, his steed, swats at flies with his tail and moves slow enough that Vitus’s skilled hand never strays. Skipio, his son, snores upright on a horse whose name he never learns; he thinks only of his stolen mare, Luna. Soon, they trade the hilly…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Lucius Vitus Servius once said that rivalry within ranks festers like flesh rot, and if a general ignores it, he’ll lose a man as quickly as a leg. Gaius recalls his old friend’s observation as he watches the murdered man’s son glower at Kombius, a prince of the continental Atrebates. The more concerning bit of flesh rot, however, is Titus Labienus, who listens with jowls tight in resentment as the noble speaks of his time as an Ancalite prisoner. Before their first campaign on the island,…
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120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
I
His name is Scipio Servius Lucius, or Skipio to those who call him a friend. He stands taller than most, with a powerful build, a sharply carved face, and a compelling mouth that no man resists. His shorn head gleams like ripe wheat, while his dark, moss-green eyes run deep. Vitus Servius, Skipio’s father, is bald like his son. A burly patrician, he owns a profitable apple and pear orchard and a thriving walnut grove near the Alps. His only son eagerly trades farm life for the sword, and Vitus allows…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
II
His life is defined by how much pain he brings his mother. Twenty-two years ago, she left her princely father’s house for a different life with a coastal Ancalite named Fintan. Despite his druidic prowess, Fintan never suspected she was already caught. Her pains began on the autumnal, and her unborn babe insisted on coming out ass first. The old druidess cut her belly—a trauma that Ciniod’s mother mentions whenever she must force a fart. Aedan the Ancalite is bony, with alabaster skin and a…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
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