Date: August 9, 2001 (Aether: September 26, 3908)
Place: Praetorian Holding Cells - Eyrie - Haven
Cast: Aevarus, Gabriel
Scene: Gabriel and Aevarus first met in the Nest, years ago. And over time, their friendship has deepened -- withstanding the tests of war, distance, and diverging paths. Gabriel has been imprisoned ever since his subversive attempt to call together a meeting about Delphi with the other racial governments, without his Emperor's knowledge or consent. Aevarus comes to visit him, for what may be the last time.

The window isn't closed off today. One morning, without warning, Gabriel had woken -- not because the sun was in his face, but because it wasn't. Every night he'd gone to sleep curled up on the narrow, uncomfortable cot, knowing that with the sunrise, the first glow of weak golden light would filter through the narrow high window at the top of his cell, and touch his face. He'd slept with his head at the foot of the cot for just that reason. Light meant freedom, and he'd soak up every ray he could.

And then one morning, he woke up and it was gone. That was the beginning.

Sometimes it would be blocked off, and sometimes it wouldn't. He never knew what to expect. Prison life had grown tediously routine, and he'd gotten used to the dreary sameness of it all. And so any changes or variations in that routine were all the more noticeable.

He'd stopped getting visitors, too. Only the same faces of the guards, glimpsed briefly when they came to leave him meals. They rarely spoke -- only slid the plate through the bars and came to retrieve it later when it was empty. No more sumptuous feasts from mysterious guests. No more clothes or gifts. Either his benefactors had lost interest, or they'd been cut off -- Gabriel didn't know. But those small treats and highlights are missed. And he's been getting even antsier, locked up here in his cage.

Today, he's not pounding the walls, pacing, or plotting. Gabriel's sitting on the cot, looking haggard and weary, and he's idly twirling a feather between thumb and forefinger. One of his own. He's starting to shed, and a few greyish, dingy feathers litter the floor of his cell. His wings are in as sorry shape as he.

The slap of sandals against the stone floor, then, is something to be noted, though likely not considered very interesting all by itself. Voices, perhaps, might be.

"I said I'd see him by myself."

"We're under orders, sir..."

"...to let me see him by myself. Now, unless you've been promoted to Praefect while I was drunk, get your sorry ass out of the way and give me the bloody key!"

The clank and jingle of the heavy iron keys to the cell doors can be heard, and the sound of footsteps is again detected, mixed with the background rumble of half-voiced curses. And both of those approach the door, until the identity of the visitor is seen as well as heard. Aevarus. And he holds the key-ring in his hands.

Gabriel lifts his head from his idle contemplation of the feather, and it slips from his fingers and spirals down to the floor as he hastily rises and crosses to the bars. "'Varus," he greets -- he'd had to clear his throat before speaking, for he hasn't had the need much, lately. The relief and gratitude on his face are unabashedly stark, but he remembers, belatedly, the sham the two played out previously. With a quick glance past his friend, he schools his expression into neutrality.

The lock, heavy and aged, is slow to turn, and loud when it finally does. It's an uncomfortable sound, and an uncomfortable echo. As the brief conversation had indicated, Aevarus is indeed alone. How long that will last is not known, nor can it be. He is silent as he pulls open the door and comes inside. "Gabriel," he says, and his lips twitch. A smile, a frown, distaste... there is not enough expression to make the meaning exactly clear. "You look like hell."

He glances over his shoulder, perhaps checking to see if there is indeed anyone behind him, before extending his hand, concern echoed sharply in his eyes.

"Kronian," Gabriel whispers, "I feel like hell." He reaches out to clasp the offered hand, holding on just a little too long -- a little too tightly. In these long hours alone here in the cell, day after day, he'd begun to wonder if he was cut off from the outside world entirely. He didn't expect to see a friendly face. And he's almost shaking with relief.

It's an effort to regain his composure; he releases Aevarus' hand and steps back, deeper into the shadows of the cell so that his desperate relief will be less plain. "What's going on out there?" he asks, as a way to divert attention.

"Never seen so many lightning bolts in my life, Gabe," mutters Aevarus under his breath. If such things are visible above the background of despair hanging over the cell, there is concern beyond that for his friend in the Centurion's eyes. Louder, he continues, "The usual. Idiots playing dice, falling asleep on their feet. You know the drill." He plants his hands on his hips and stares at Gabriel. "I'd ask you what's going on in here, but that's fairly obvious."

"Aye, so busy I barely know what to do with myself," Gabriel answers. He tries for a lighter tone, but it falls flat, and his chuckle is weak and stilted. He can't hide the dispirited slump to his shoulders. His dingy tunic hangs loosely on him -- he's lost weight in here, and his healthy, bronzed tan has faded without exposure to the sun. A week's growth of beard lines his jaw, and he scratches his fingers fretfully through it. "Any word?" he asks quietly, so as not to be overheard. "Heard anything from the juris consulo, Severus?"

"Nothing good, Gabriel," mutters Aevarus. He paces a few steps toward the window, tilting his head to look out, despite there being nothing to see. "He's dead. At least, that's the word I received. I don't know anything else about it." He glances to his old friend then, eyes narrowed. "But there is some news to be had," he says more quietly. "We're gaining. We have the Dea Acesian and Olivia Jove in our camp at the very least."

Gabriel had stopped and turned -- frozen, really -- at that initial reply. He barely heard anything else. "He... what?" he rasps out, jaw going slack. "But... when? How?"

Aevarus wrinkles his nose slightly as his attempt at shifting the conversation fails, utterly. "Difficulty eating, if one is to believe the rumors. He choked to death," says the Centurion, his droll tone expressing just what he thinks of that.

Gabriel suddenly has to sit down. He crosses numbly to his cot and sinks onto it heavily, dropping his head into an upraised hand. "No... no," he murmurs, voice muffled. "He... he was my teacher... my friend..." A shudder passes through him, radiating out to the very tips of his greying wings, and a couple of feathers loosen and slip free, to drop onto the stone floor and join the others. The Aegian seems at a loss. Even the news of Olivia's and Selene's support is small comfort. Back in the Guard, he'd sometimes spoken of his mentor, Severus -- the man who inspired in him a love of learning and a passion for history. He'd mentioned his apprenticeship to the juris consulo before he had joined the Nest, and his fondness and respect for the man had been apparent even then. Little wonder that this news is a bitter pill to swallow.

Aevarus lifts a hand to his face, covering his mouth. It remains there for some time, imperceptibly dragging down and pulling the skin of his face with it. A familiar expression, of exhaustion and worry. "I'm sorry, Gabe. I... should have found a better way to tell you," he murmurs, muffled though it is. "Damn it." Gabriel may not be beating on the walls, but that doesn't stop Aevarus from doing so, slamming the butt of his hand against the nearby stones.

Gabriel draws in a shaky breath and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes before lifting his head. "Better you than... anyone else," he manages hoarsely. "I just... need... a few minutes." His voice is thick with the emotions he's trying to suppress; the Nest teaches that such displays are unmanly. It advocates stolid neutrality -- stony composure. All the young recruits who find themselves lonely, fearful, and uncertain in those first days of training, so far from home, are ridiculed if they cry. Some are as young as twelve or thirteen, but they're expected to be men. And men don't weep.

So the former Centurion bows his head and slides his hands through his hair, fingers splayed against his scalp, teeth gritted, eyes closed, face in shadow -- so that any unmanly tears won't be seen.

It helps, perhaps, that Aevarus turns as well, to avoid seeing it. He rests the palms of both hands against the wall, head bowing. He clenches his teeth together, to keep from speaking. What would he say, in any case?

A few minutes inch by, filled only by the occasional ragged intake of breath from Gabriel. Eventually, he recovers his composure enough to speak, and he lifts his head from his hands after rubbing away any telltale moisture from his eyes. "You... you said the Dea Acesian was going to help?" he hazards in a low-pitched tone.

"I believe she is," says Aevarus. His response is not only soft in tone, but strangled by whatever emotion remains lodged in his throat. "I spoke to her briefly myself, though in front of one of those tattooed freaks, so I had to be extremely circumspect. I think we've come to a point where we can speak... likely in the House of Flowers. But she has gone to Civitas Dei. I do not know when she will return." His eyes turn, and they too are haunted, like his voice. "Olivia Jove has named the Dea a sympathetic ear, however, and I believe that I trust her."

"How is Olivia?" Gabriel asks. Worry infuses his tone -- he must have heard some of the rumors that followed in the wake of Magnus' death, but did not know which to believe. That he cares for his cousin and so-called 'aunt' is patently obvious from his voice and expression.

Quick to assure his friend, now that there's at least some sliver of good news, Aevarus says, "She is well, and possessed of a baby girl. Healthy, both mother and daughter. Something of a surprise arrival, I am told, but..." He shakes his head. "She, and I believe a great deal of House Jove, is retiring to Civitas Dei."

"Good," answers Gabriel, to both parts of the reply. "It should be safer there. Better that she stay out of this. I... I'm glad to hear that the baby was delivered safely." He attempts a smile, wan and worn though it may be. "That's something." Then he rises, pacing over to the bars of his cell to glance outside -- more for something to do than to really discover whether or not anyone is eavesdropping; although the latter is an added bonus. "So you've been to the House of Flowers?" he asks. "Have you seen much of its owner?"

"She is the only one I see," replies Aevarus, leaning back against the cell wall. "I am no member, so the benefits of membership are beyond me. The Lena and I have an arrangement, however, and I have eyes there." He pauses then, adding, "What do you want to know, Gabriel?"

"Whether or not I can trust her," he answers. His eyes are shadowed and bleak when he glances over at his friend -- perhaps the only man that he trusts implicitly now that Severus is dead. "She said she'd try to help me. But I don't know how much is just talk -- empty promises she'll make just in case, by some miracle, I come out of this alive and the tide turns away from Arius." He grips one of the bars, tightening his fist around it in frustration. "Gods, I have to get out of here. I can't do anything in here. He's got the Aegis cowed, and he's got the Guard behind him -- enough to matter, at least. And I'm cut off from it all. How much of the Guard is divided? If it came down to a conflict, would his Fulminaris outnumber those loyal to the old regime?"

Aevarus shakes his head. He is several moments in gathering his thoughts before he answers. And when he does, it is slow... halting, with little certainty behind his words. "The Lena is... a blank book, my friend. I can read anyone, I think we both know that, but there is nothing to read in her. I have never met anyone so closed off." And from the sharp tone that encroaches at the end of his sentence, it clearly bothers him. Irritates, like a rock between foot and sandal. "The Fulminaris rule by fear," he continues, and in this he is more certain. "One man with the lightning bolts feels like five. If it came to conflict, it would be..." He trails off, shaking his head. A sentence that needs no finishing.

Gabriel exhales a sigh through gritted teeth and leans his brow against the bars. "What we need," he mutters, "is another alternative. People follow Arius because they're afraid. Because he's got them all believing he's unstoppable. But he isn't. He's just a damned boy. He's no god."

He turns, releasing the bars and then stalking over to his friend so that the next words will be overheard by no one. Gabriel leans a hand against the wall as he pitches his voice to no more than the barest whisper. "What we need," he tells the Schola Centurion, "is no more Emperors. No more despots. No more tyrants."

He meets Aevarus' gaze steadily, and the desperation and despair he'd displayed initially are both gone. The fire's still burning there in his eyes. "What we need," Gabriel says, "is a return of the Republic."

It's not often that Aevarus becomes expressionless. The heat of battle, the calm of lazing about in the sun, no matter the situation, he's got something on his face. When it comes time to weigh the whole of Gabriel's life's accomplishments, at least he will be able to say that he achieved this. Striking one Aevarus Crispus Acharaton blank.

"You've gone mad in here."

Aevarus stares. Stares at his oldest friend's eyes, the change in manner, the set of his jaw. "No... you're not mad. You truly mean this. Kronian..."

"I've never been more serious in my life, 'Varus," Gabriel replies. "You remember that play that Apollonius Thucydides put on in the Palladium a year back? It only played once, and was nearly as big a failure as his 'Adonais' play that ruined his career. It was called 'The Republicans,' and that's no accident, 'Varus." He jabs a thumb toward his chest. "I funded that play. And before Arius was elected, I did my best to plant the idea of a Republic in the Aegis' mind. It failed, then... but now..."

His shoulders lift in a mild shrug that sets his wings to rustling. "Now maybe the idea will have a little more merit. The last Republic started because of a mad Emperor then, too. People are willing to put their faith in anything if their lives are at stake. All we have to do is plant the idea, and let it grow. Let it flourish. And we can make the Empyre stronger than ever."

Aevarus shakes his head sharply. "They're willing to put their faith in a person. Why do you think the Emperor is so powerful now? The Aegis is a concept. Was a concept," he adds sourly. "They follow the Emperor not just because he has them by the throat... but because he has done something."

He puts his hands to his temples, fingers gripping hair and scalp. "Just talking about a Republic is a scholar's fantasy, Gabriel. There needs to be someone to stand behind, a figurehead for the movement." His hands fall, and one finger jabs into Gabriel's chest. Not gently, but neither is it a blow. "And that man is behind bars." He breathes in, affecting a pause, and suddenly the breath is released in a rush. "By Khalid Atar's shriveled balls, Gabriel, what the hell are you doing in here? I can't do this any more! You're the leader, damn it all. I'm the brains behind the scene, not the smiling face on the stage."

Gabriel reaches up to grip his friend's shoulder, and his voice is low and intent as he speaks. "I need you now, 'Varus. Aye, I'm stuck behind bars. I can't be out there for anyone to follow. But that doesn't mean our hands are tied. You think they need a leader, fine. Offer me up. I'm not in this to be some 'savior' -- all I want is to keep the Empyre free from tyrants. But it's easier to follow a person than an ideal. Either I'll die in here and you can make me a martyr, or I'll survive and they'll lose their illusions later on. But either way, you've got to plant that seed in their minds."

He casts a quick look around his cell, which is bleak and empty save for the few necessities. "Can you smuggle me anything? Parchment, something to write with? I can work in here -- write a treatise, and then you can see that it's distributed. Arius might have me locked up, but that doesn't mean I have to stay silent."

A long sigh is drawn out of the Centurion, which turns, in the end, into a dry chuckle. "You know, you've never seen it, have you? All these years, you've never understood. Gabriel, that is exactly why you are a savior. Because you don't want to be one." He shakes his head. "I don't know if I'll be able to visit again... you've seen what's happening. Their goal is to wear you down, to make you give up. It was all I could do arrange this."

Aevarus raises his eyes to the ceiling. "I might have one man left here. You'd better have your treatise written in your head and use your blood for ink, because you'll have maybe one night to get it down and get it out."

Grimly, Gabriel replies, "Then aye, I'll write it in blood, and use the walls as my parchment if I have to. Just so long as it's read. And you have to make sure that this whisper of a Republic rises to a cry, then a shout, then a roar, until it drowns out this sound and fury that Arius has begun. He wants a storm? Aye, we'll give him one."

Aevarus shakes his head slowly. "Aye. We will at that. The heavens themselves will shake." He chuckles suddenly, carrying the faint edge of impending hysteria. "A republic. What the hell am I going to do for a job with no Emperor?"

"You'll have the Aegis to defend," Gabriel replies, and his mouth quirks in a wry smile. "Back and stronger than ever." Then, with a quick glance at the bars, he steps closer, hooking an arm around Aevarus' neck and bowing his head for the duration of that fleeting embrace.

"I love you like a brother," he says, voice rough with emotion -- a kind he'd rarely ever shown. The bond between the two was an unspoken thing, built on years of trust and camaraderie. They never needed to define it aloud. It had weathered bloodshed, fraying hopes, and dying dreams, and it had lasted.

But now Gabriel's not sure whether or not this exchange might be their last. "Just remember that," he whispers, before letting go and stepping back.

"Eh. I've got plenty of brothers, but it never hurts to have one more," says Aevarus, a quick grin flashing over his face. "Besides, the rest of the lot is a bunch of malingerers and layabouts." Which is patently untrue, given that the large majority of his family is made up of career Praetorians. He grips Gabriel's shoulder tightly. "We've seen worse, you know. We'll find our way out. We may have to dig our way through eight leagues of shit to do it, but we'll do it."

The sound of footsteps approaching breaks through, and a sneer settles over his face. A mask. And one he wears far too easily. He has said nothing of what he does outside the walls, after all. With nothing more said, he walks to the door and steps outside the cell.

"The fool," he says, to whoever is approaching down the hall. "You'd think someone as smart as he is would catch on eventually." Aevarus glances back at Gabriel one more time, a stern focus in his eyes before he turns and departs.

Gabriel has no reply to make. His silence could be construed as sullen, or defeated, to help divert suspicion. So he doesn't do anything other than watch Aevarus walk out of his cell, and then he gives one dark look toward the guard who'd approached before turning away.

And then he waits until the cell door clangs shut, and the sound of footsteps dies away again, before he stoops to retrieve one of his fallen feathers, and he splits the end with his thumbnail, fashioning it into a crude quill tip.

It will be a long night. And he has a lot of writing to do.

Torn scraps of sheet serve as parchment. The ink is a rusty, brown-red hue, and its scent is faintly metallic. The handwriting is crooked, blotched in places, and often difficult to read. But its message remains.

Republica

Let that be our cry. Let it be our call to arms. Our inspiration, and our dream. Republica. It fell from the lips of a dying man, but like a seed, it can take root and grow. We must be the wind, and the rain, and the sun, so that the dream may flourish.

Centuries ago, a despot took control of the Empyre, and murdered nine Aegians before his tyranny was ended. Thus began the Aegian Republic, but its beginnings were in bloodshed and conflict, and it was built on the ashes of our defeat at the hands of the Varati. The Republic endured during the Reign of Fire, but we were weakened, and corruption spread like a poison in our hearts. The Republic was a flawed execution, but it is not a flawed dream.

If history must repeat itself, and we find ourselves again at the mercy of a madman, then let us learn from its pages. Let us be strengthened by its teachings, so we can forge the path our ancestors began. Let us renew the Republic, and forever end the threat of despots and dictators destroying the integrity and sullying the grandeur of our Empyre. We can break free from these chains that bind us. All it takes is the will.

The means is in your hands. Separate, you are prey to the Emperor and his lightning guards. But united, you can be unstoppable. You must set aside your differences and conflicts, for now you have a common enemy. Patrician, Praetor, or plebeian -- you are all prey to this tyrant while he remains in power. Will you let a spoiled boy with delusions of godhood reign with an iron fist? If he can strike at the Princeps, then no one is safe. Not you, not your children, your siblings, your parents, cousins, or friends. You must come together if you wish to protect your loved ones, and yourselves. Allies are out there. You must only find them. And let "Republica" be your rallying cry.

I have not given up hope. Chains and shackles cannot bind a liberated spirit. Freedom is within our grasp. Reach for it, my friends.

Consultum de Republica Defendenda.

The message is signed, boldly: Gabriel Hesperos Augustin

FIN  

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