The village is the same as he remembers, the same as he has seen in his dreams every night since the Romans came. Of course it's not the same, not really, because in those dreams Aenor is screaming and the woods are burning and he is grabbing to keep hold of Gisila's fingers as they slip from grasp before a punch meets his guts and he is thrown to line and chained alongside Duro.
(He's long-since taught himself to wake in silence, putting aside the howls upon his lips before they leave them.)
Ma is outside the farmhouse, grinding wheat into fine silt upon the stone steps as is her way, black hair flying loose in the cold wind like an evening vesper, and Agron stops in his tracks. Nasir takes his hand, smiles, then looks to where Linza of the Chamavi tends her keep. A sudden glowing burst of warmth fills him, and the truth dawns. Home. Home. He's come through chains and fire and battle and loss, from Neapolis to Capua to Vesuvius to the very steps of Rome to the Via Appia, and finally, finally he's come home.
Agron drops Nasir's hand and all at once he is a boy of five again, running to his mother's arms. Ma's eyes snap upward at the approach of thundering footfalls, her blue eyes barely given time to widen before Agron wraps his arms around her frozen form and pulls her upward into cosmic embrace. Tall woman though she is, he lifts her clear off her feet.
There are half-sobs and unfinished spurts of laughter when he finally lets her go, though she keeps her hands upon him, running them through his hair – so much shorter than when he last saw her – and over his shoulders, drinking in the sight of him as though positive he can't possibly be real and in front of her and there. Agron's cheeks dimple as tears flow from his eyes, his mother's the same, and words fly swift and furious between them.
Questions half-asked go unanswered, but neither mother nor son notice. Agron is too preoccupied drinking in every detail of her. In the passing of years he has forgotten her face, and now he wonders how he could have ever let such a thing slip from his memory. He cups her wet cheek in his hand and smashes his lips upon her forehead in what was meant to be a kiss, then she pulls him into her arms once again.
"I had not thought to find you here," he admits, and she lets out another wet laugh at that. "Nor I you," she says, then notices the small, dark figure that has materialized at Agron's side.
Agron's family knows Latin – at least, his mother and sister do, and Nasir is too polite to correct his father's attempts. Between their grasp of the language and what German Agron has taught him, he thinks he can make this work.
They thought he was dead, Nasir realizes with a shock, and his stomach churns unpleasantly when Ishild mentions they will have to dig up Agron's burial plate when spring comes and the ground softens.
"Did they not know you were taken captive?" he asks him quietly when they have a moment alone.
Agron doesn't answer, and for a moment Nasir thinks he isn't going to, but then he concedes with a stiff shake of the head. "My parents had taken Ishild west of the Rhine to see if our tribes could be bound. By the time they returned… Most who fought died anyway, it was not unreasonable assumption."
"And Duro?" Nasir asks, and places a hand on his wrist. Where once he would have been cautious mentioning Agron's brother, he knows better by now. He knows that if he doesn't, no one will, and the isolation will drive the man mad. "Do they assume the same of him?"
This time, Agron really doesn't answer.
They answer question after question about their time in Rome, about the rebellion and the war and the events that have led them back to his parents' doorstep.
"Come, let us break meal and hear tale of your adventures," says Da, and Agron opens him mouth to correct him but isn't sure exactly what he's correcting.
They – Ma, Da, Ishild, Reiner – gasp in horror when he talks about the forced march and the slave ship, the journey from Neapolis to Capua, and he wants to tell them about the stench and the names of those who fell on the way. They hiss their pique when he talks about the arena and he wants to tell them about the thrill. They laugh and whoop and clap him on the back when he talks about escape from the ludus and he wants to tell them about the bloodwrath and anguish. He doesn't want to talk about Duro. He already sees his face painted on the back of his own eyes – he doesn't know if he can bear to see it reflected in those of his family, doesn't know if he can handle them knowing that he yet lives, having failed to save his little brother.
Nasir takes over for a little while when questions turn towards the war. He tells them in faltering German and a smattering of Latin about Oenomaus, Crixus, Gannicus, their deeds of bravery and honor, and how they fell. He tells them about Mira, Naevia, and Saxa, their fearlessness, and of their fates. He tells them about Spartacus, his passion and cause, and how he fought to the very last breath. He does not tell them about the laughter they once shared, of the sisters and brothers now lost to him, of how Spartacus taught him to reclaim his life.
Agron's nails dig into Nasir's palm, but Nasir never once lets go.
Ishild wants to stay the night but Reiner insists it's best for them to go home to their children.
"I'll bring them to meet their uncle when morning arrives," she tells Agron, and he pulls her into his arms, feeling the weight of her, his last remaining sibling, pressed against his chest, and she runs a hand over the back of his neck. She's a mother now, a wife. This is what's happened since he's been gone, these are the years Rome stole from him. While his world has been bloodshed and vengeance and the desperate reprieve of soothing dark arms, hers has been mourning and marriage and moving on to brighter things.
They fall to bed in an exhausted heap of limbs, minds fuzzy from travelling all day and talking late into the night, but Nasir disentangles himself quickly, shifting beneath the heavy quilt to lay his head within the crook of Agron's neck, cool palm pressed firmly against his jawline, one leg slung casually across his.
Agron rolls over to bring their bodies together. He ghosts kisses along Nasir's nose, places one on each closed eyelid. He begins to trace his hand lightly down his spine before he realizing the meaning behind the man's light breathing.
It's been a long day. It'll get easier.
Agron closes his eyes, praying Duro will leave him in peace just this once, knowing he doesn't deserve even that.
(When he awakes in the middle of the night, screams upon his lips that never make it past, Nasir is there, kissing away the nightmares, but he still sees glassy crimson leaking from Aenor's throat.)
There are no children left.
When the Romans came, they killed or enslaved nearly all the young men of marrying age who took up arms against them. Those that were children then – those that escaped with their mothers into the forest to rebuild when the smoke had cleared – are not children now.
It's a small kindness that the village was always considered strong, that new couples of neighboring communities chose to settle there. There are young families like Ishild's and Reiner's. There are babies. But there are no children left.
It takes Nasir some time to notice this, only because he's so unused to the presence of children anyway. The rebel army was no place for young people, and Aia was still a babe in Naevia's arms when Potitus had helped spirit them away to Gallia in the wake of Crixus' death.
He's not sure why this bothers him, because his dominus didn't have children either so it's not like he's missing out on something he once knew. Maybe it's because this is how he always pictured the village Agron spoke so fondly of, filled with the shouts and laughter of youth. Maybe it's because adults already know who they are, and among them Nasir is finding it hard to establish a sense of where he comes from. Maybe it's because children are still finding out.
The worst part, Agron thinks, is when Ma bats him away and laughs when he tries to help her string up beef for drying. Then again, it could be when she tells him the tavern has been without him for too long. Or when Reiner and Raban make room for him and Nasir, clap their shoulders and shout for more ale. But it's probably when Adelais lands two mugs in front of them and he has to look her in the eye.
"Duro?" she asks.
"Dead," he says. "I let him die."
But from the merriment in her smile, Agron thinks that they probably didn't exchange words at all. He thinks maybe that's even worse.
"So, my dark brother," Raban is saying, one arm slung jovially around Nasir's shoulders. "I hope for your sake our Agron has improved since I made him a man."
Forcing himself to forget Duro and Adelais, he laughs and punches Raban square in the jaw. This is the Agron he once was, after all. He can be him again. The rebellion turned him into a top class actor.
"We should seek out Naevia," he says, wrapped in a thick cloak.
Agron looks at him but says nothing.
"Gallia lies not so far to the west, and when winter ends we can return and begin to build our home," he says in a rush, knowing he is grasping at plans that will never materialize. "Perhaps she and Aia might return with us."
Perhaps he just misses his friend.
Perhaps he just wants someone to speak Latin with who knows it well enough as a first language to understand its subtleties.
(Educated though Agron is, there's something to be said about growing up immersed in latin volgare.)
Perhaps he just wants the company of another who understands what it's like to drift from identity to identity, to have your life torn from you time and time again.
He was too young to understand the first time, but Agron was there when the villa was taken and Dominus killed, and Agron was there when they scraped themselves off the battlefield after being left for dead. Agron is here now while he tries to build a life out of a shaky grasp on a foreign language and vague memories of what it is to live free of both slavery and the title fugitivus.
"And you blame me for this?" Agron snaps when Nasir voices these thoughts out loud. No, his mind shouts, but his voice says nothing. He walks away.
He takes him hard against the floor later, one hand wound tight within his still-short hair and the other scraping deep lacerations in the hardened earth. Nasir's lips are bloody instead of just swollen tonight, and Agron's body shakes as his lover marks his body, leaving a trail of light nips and blood in the wake of his mouth.
Agron flips him over so that he is pinned beneath, tells him to hush even as he sucks on that sensitive patch of skin just beneath his collarbone. Nasir hisses at Agron's hand around his cock, but is silenced with a kiss, deep and bruising, that leaves him empty in its absence.
Neither of them speak. They have not spoken in two days.
Still reeling from the blow to his gut, Agron barely registers the cool clink of metal that snaps around his wrists. All he knows is that Gisila's fingers don't meet his anymore and the screaming is over and then Duro is at his side, blood trickling from the wound at his temple, fire still burning in his eyes.
When he regains himself, he sees the chains that bind together his hands connect him to Duro on one side, Fulco on the other. He sees through the fading smoke the same Roman fuck that dealt him the blow with his hands still on Gisila. Another has Aenor. The only two women who stood to fight.
How could he have let them?
"Aenor!" Agron shouts before the wind is knocked out of him once again.
"Still your fucking tongue," the Roman shouts. "Ah," he says, catching sight of Aenor. "Is this what you want? A rare beauty… for a savage."
He traces a finger along her cheek and Aenor shudders. Both Agron and Duro fight against their bonds and Gisila, arms pinned behind her back, lets out a low growl of fury. Before any can do more, Aenor tears herself away, sharp gleam of a knife in hand. The Roman soldiers laugh, and Gisila shouts, "No, you can't!" but Agron knows better.
I shall fall before being made the servant of dogs.
Her words echo in his mind as her eyes meet his, and he can feel his heart break with the decision he finds there. "Goodbye sister," he says, though this isn't how it happened. "Wait for Duro." And with an unwavering finality the knife glides across her throat, leaving a sheen of red in its wake. Aenor's body falls to the ground.
Her lovely face, bereft of color and life, does not stay her own for long, though. Suddenly it is Gisila's, eyes full of fire and a snarl upon her lips as she is dragged from the ship's hold. Then it is Duro's, uttering the words, "I save you this time, brother." Mira's, then, and Oenomaus', Crixus and Gannicus and Saxa and Spartacus and all those who fell in battle and to the cross on the Via Appia.
Agron wakes up screaming, and this time the howls find their way from his lips, but Nasir is not there to kiss them away.
He finds him outside, shivering, wrapped in the thick cloak Da gave him. He knows Nasir isn't used to the cold east of the Rhine – even without recollection of Syria, he's spent most of his life in Italia's oppressively hot southern climes. Truth be told, the chill winds are something Agron himself failed to recall in the passing years, one of many things he's now trying to remember.
"It is not getting any easier," he says, finally breaking the two days' silence between them.
"No," Nasir agrees. "It is not."
"Do you want to leave?" Agron asks, the thought of life without his heart a dead weight in his gut. It won't happen. Even if this isn't where Nasir wants to be, Agron will follow him, to Gallia or wherever the stars take them. Even if they never settle down, even if they are destined to wander the roads of the known world for the rest of their days, they'll do so together.
"No," he sighs at last. "But I need you to be here with me."
"I am here – "
"You are not." Nasir turns his head to face him, his expression darkening. "You are keeping the truth from them, and it is killing you little by little with each passing day."
Agron clenches his jaw. He does not want this to be the answer. "What would you have me do?"
"That is a question whose answer you already know," snaps Nasir.
With a touch far more gentle than his words, he takes Agron's hand in his, and leads it upwards to rest upon the old scar he bears upon his abdomen. With his other hand, he pulls Agron's neck foreward to rest forehead against forehead so that barely an inch exists between them, the clouds of their breath in the cold night air intermingling in the negative space.
"I am tired," he says, closing his eyes. "I am tired of running, and tired of not knowing. I am tired of waiting for you to stop blaming yourself for Duro's choices. He was a free man, and acted as one. I need you with me. I need you to keep living so I can know how."
"Duro's dead," he tells Ishild the next day when he finds her collecting eggs in her henhouse. "He was a gladiator, and he's dead. He died saving my life."
His sister looks at him for a moment, an unreadable expression on her face. Then she sighs and says, "I know."
It doesn't get any easier, not exactly, but at least now Agron can stop pretending there's some sort of going back. He and Nasir and some men from the village begin to build a house at the midway point between his parents' and Ishild's. They wrap themselves in quilts and furs and kiss each other's eyelids in the middle of the night, even now that the nightmares don't come anymore.
He starts going to the tavern, starts teaching Nasir the names Wodan and Freyja and important curse words to know, starts talking to Adelais. Starts laughing, even.
And when the spring comes and the hard earth thaws, Nasir takes him by the hand and together they walk to where the burial plates were lain to rest on the hill. Gisila, Duro, Aenor. Of the three, only Aenor's is interred with a body beneath. One by one Agron places wildflowers upon their graves and says his goodbyes, Nasir's knowing hand braced upon his shoulder.