*---------------------------< In Character Time >--------------------------*
Time of day: Morning
Date on Aether: Saturday, March 30, 3930
Year on Earth: 1530 A.D.
Phase of the Moon: Waning Gibbous
Season: Waning Winter
Weather: Clouds
Temperature: Chilly
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Tower - The Eyrie - Parnassus
You stand on the tower of the Empyreal Praetorian Guard's headquarters in Parnassus, the Eyrie. Three stories below lies the city, spreading out across the land. At night, torches dot the countryside while in the daytime, the roads wind and snake through the buildings like cobble-stoned serpents.Off to the north lies the rocky, dark-colored Varati city and beyond that, fields and the distant forests. Seperating the Empyrean city of Parnassus from The Varati Irha-Esh is the sparkling blue estuary with the Atlantean island in the center. To the south the rest of Parnassus spreads out across the countryside, with the most noble houses in the distance. To the west the city's coliseum can be viewed and to the east the estuary opens up to the ocean.
The tower's balcony has been constructed so that half of it is covered, while the other half remains free for incoming and outgoing flight. On the marble tarmac, painted in hues of gold and crimson is the the familiar symbol of the Praetorian Guard, a swooping hawk--defiantly marking who the tower's masters are.
Innocent should have chosen young Peleus to accompany him. 'This,' he would have said, 'this is where you will train, some day. You will carry one of these lances. You will fight one of these targets. When you die, the sons of these men will bear you back on one of these shields.' But he did not take Peleus, left the boy mercifully to his playmates. Instead he chose the girl, the useless female child. He is unable to explain for what reason.
Presently the centurion alights upon the balustrade. In his arms he holds his daughter, light as a cushion, or a doll. He will set her down when he hops from the railing.
Rufus peers about suspiciously from the girl's arms, sternly carved brows shadowing his eyes while his mistress regards the area with cautious curiousity. No protest was made to being brought here, or carried, and no protest will be made when Sophia is set on the ground. Dolls don't argue with the ones who would drag them around, even if it's by a foot or a wing, after all. She does, however, point insistantly at the mosaiced hawk on the floor, upon sighting it.
"Yes, that is our hawk, our symbol." Innocent shakes out his wings, and then folds them with an easy, somber swoosh. "We swoop out of the sky and kill our enemies, like hawks do rabbits." It does not occur to him how a young girl would take that comparison.
Sophia's little face twists up unhappily as she looks from hawk to father to Rufus. Grasping the man's hand, she tugs on his fingers and whispers, "He doesn't like birds." The he in question must be Rufus, as she's taken the precaution of tucking him headfirst under her armpit.
The centurion pauses, as if he felt the prick of a knife at his throat. "No?" he asks. His mouth starts to move; a bob of his thick adams apple brings up better words. "Why does he not like birds?" A flicker of excitement is in his face. She said something. She actually spoke. Keep her talking.
Sophia is already losing interest, the gryphon's voice effectively silenced by her arm and there being so much to see here. "They're noisy," she says in that same hoarse whisper, more breath to the tone than sound. Another tug then on his hand, and expectant eyes turn from him to the stairs. "Are we seeing the soldiers now, Pater?"
"Yes, if you wish," he tells her. "You can meet them, if you like. Do you know, there are even women here, who fight." He puts down a hand to guide her as they walk; he will pick her up for the stairs.
She smiles a little girl's smile of amusement at such a thing. Women, fighting? Noted, pondered and dismissed in an instant. Sophia wishes to see the -real- soldiers. "Yes please." On the way down, she rests her forehead against his cheek and puts her thumb in her mouth, until Rufus tells her to take it out.
Atrium - The Eyrie - Parnassus
The center for all Praetorian operations in Parnassus is found here. Constructed to be both briefing room and intelligence center, the size of this room seems to be planned to accommodate a large number of warriors.On one side, carved into the ground, are rows of seats facing a wall and a table where the Praefect or other commanding officers may brief the troops on whatever situation is at hand. Scattered about the room are various stone slab tables where maps or other scrolls can be unfurled and examined. An atmosphere of focused energy permeates the area, both exhilarating and restrained.
The ceiling stretches high, with a grand stairway leading upwards toward the Eyrie's sloped tower, though most Praetorians prefer to just fly. Other archways lead off to the Praetorian dormitories for those that have no homes within the city or no desire to live outside of the Eyrie. Archways also lead off to the offices of the higher ranking offices in the Guard, including the Praefect.
Innocent foregoes the stairs; an easy glide brings them down and down, the fluted columns and pristine white marble walls spiralling up around them. He lands on a floor polished by beeswax to a mirror. "Here is where we gather for our meetings," he explains. "The office of the praefect is that way. And there, that way, there is where we put the bad men that we catch."
Sophia goes boneless and heavy in his arms until her feet find the ground again, downy wings twitching to right themselves on her back after being crumpled as she slides. Bad men. The child drifts to the cells first, studying each iron door in a sweeping look from floor to ceiling. Skinny knuckles rap against the nearest but are too soft to conjure up a note. Rufus' domehead is more successful.
*CLANG*
Innocent simply looks on, a moment. His disciplined world cannot cope with her. Unused to this, he draws briskly up to her, to pick her up again. "Don't do that!"
She is interrupted midswing, the gryphon winding up again for another assault on the cold iron. Being snatched from the ground so rudely prompts a stiffening of her spine, wings smacking out and little bird's mouth opened to emit a piercing shriek of protest. After all of her silences, the scream is almost too large for her throat.
Innocent's face turns away with the baby-wing spread in it, feathers getting in his mouth, his eye. "Sophia," he says, urgently, alarmed; what should he do? When men scream like this he slashes their throats. "Sophia, now stop--" Oh, but she is so -loud-. He tries to fold the wings back in, and make her manageable, aware of how big and clumsy his hands are, how small and delicate she is, that she is a little girl, and he is a big man, with no idea what to do.
Rufus falls to the ground with a clatter while Sophia continues to struggle. He spins away across the slick floor, whirling and twirling until he comes to rest with accusing eyes fixed on Pater Areides. She is not so polite in her protests. The shriek continues until her lungs are empty and then she makes little grunting whines, like a piglet rooting for a teat.
"Sh, sh, sh-- shush, stop that, you will make everyone think something is wrong!" Innocent manages to fold her wings in, while he looks up and away; a brace of sentries have materialized, and he glares them away, needing that glare.
And just like that, she stops. Bony little arms go choking tight around his neck and her face buries itself into the padded part of his shoulder while she sniffles. Was she just frightened, then? Girl children are so strange...
Rufus glowers his wooden glower, looking on from across the room.
"Now, don't cry. And don't scream." He hates crying. He hates screaming. Aware of how hard that came out, even in a whisper, he adds, trying: "Here, we will go get Rufus. You shouldn't throw him, you might hurt him." With wrong words yet, he hugs her, and carries her over as he leans for the griffin.
She tries. He'll learn that with children, the harder they try to keep from crying, the more they twitch and spasm with hitching breaths, fresh tears prickling their eyes. But Sophia tries, turning her head and watching the gryphon rescue. "No, Rufus." She stiffens again and looks away, over her father's shoulder, at the Praefect's door. "Soldiers, Pater?" she keens, a desperate note to it. "Need to see the soldiers."
Innocent is pressing the griffin into her chubby baby hands. "Here, take him-- he looks fine to me." He sighs, and his eyes make a scan of the atrium; he feels an unusual warmth in his face. His ears too. "Yes, we will, I suppose-- yes, we'll go see the soldiers now."
The toy is only reluctantly taken, looped around behind him so that she may pinch Rufus' beak with her fingers and give him a very stern look where she thinks that Innocent can't see. "Thank you, Pater." And just like that, Sophia is normal again. No longer crying or struggling or even sniffling. If there weren't slimy tracks drying on her cheeks where her tears fell, one might not even realize that had happened.
