53 Results in the "The Lion & The Owl" category
-
Chapter
The Hurting
Welletrix is no stranger to living well. His ribs press to the couch, reminding him of the triclinium in his boyhood home. He grieves its loss to tribal ambition, and Villa Servi, with its many patrician comforts, proves a hurtful reminder of the easy life his grandfather’s wealth had provided. With a spindly frame and long white beard, his grandfather personified wisdom. His lavish roundhouse, perched high on a lofty foundation, had been little Welle’s sanctuary. Unlike the village boys fighting for…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
Chapter
The Gathering
Bloody waters run deep where the Stour meets the Lug. Two hefty rafts cut a path within pink foaming shallows, where intestines wobble as hungry fish peck at their undersides. The well-adorned passengers bring tightly woven rags to their noses, anything to quell the stench. Slimy crimson sand sucks at Aedan’s feet, but what awaits him beyond the trees makes the discomfort worth it. Flies gather like black rain over a dining table made of human bones. Half-skulls sit upon its gruesome ribcage,…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
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
-
-
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
-
-
Snow white clouds grace the fresco’s blue sky, where tiny birds flock, each a delicate paint stroke that gives no detail to their name. Three walls hold up this seaside sky, with blackened sands and rocky shores that host women frolicking about in their athletic unmentionables. The gynaeceum at Villa Servi lacks a fourth wall, but with its bushy head, the stone pine growing in the peristyle below affords some much-needed privacy. Under her tunica, a skilled tongue performs feats she thought only…
-
120.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
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
-
-
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
-
-
Chapter
The Colloquies: Kitchen Ears
Two enormous clamshells sit atop the grill rack, each with golden brown upon their banded domes. Their crusty skin is cool enough to touch, and Niko gently detaches each layer, popping the edges before pulling them free. The thicker, unattractive mold will make a good bottom—this is the story of his life—and that makes him smile. He tosses a handful of semolina into its hallow, spreading and rubbing the grains around before laying down raw cabbage leaves. These large verdant blankets will stop the…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
Chapter
The Colloquies: First Arrivals
Dust gathers on the road as four black steeds trample into view. Their burden is a wooden carpentum with four iron-ringed wheels and the cross-swords of Mars painted upon both its window shutters. A nod from the Servian Lord brings out the day’s groomsmen, a chatty pair of teenagers wearing their warmest best. The young men corral the panting beasts, promising them fresh water, plentiful lucerne, and a soothing brush—they deserve all of it and more after such a laborious journey from…-
120.4 K • Ongoing
-
-
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,…
-
120.4 K • Ongoing
-
- Previous 1 … 3 4 5 6 Next
