Note:
Hi, I've been commenting around here as "Roadie" for awhile so I figured I'd post this thing I've been writing.
This idea came to me after stumbling across a mind-bogglingly good Rome AU WIP by pbandfluff on tumblr (I can't link it, but if you go to pbandfluff dot tumblr dot com, it's tagged "the one where they're in capua"), which you should totally read if you haven't. I borrowed the ancient Rome idea, the ludus setting, and the second-person POV from that story, but everything else is pretty drastically different.
I don't know much about ancient Rome. I'm prioritizing storytelling over historical accuracy. Also, I'm keeping the characters' original names rather than trying to Latin-ify them, just 'cause I am.
No beta.
The floor beneath your cheek, your belly, your bloody palms is cold stone. You have been lying here for hours or months and the surface of your skin is burning sunfire, your back melting like the wax of Icarus' wings. Like the cold core of you, this stone swallows your heat but never warms. You tremble. Tremble. Tremble.
Close your eyes, surrender to darkness again.
\\
You float on your back in the lake near your parents' home. Little waves curl over your shoulders, lap at your earlobes, your forehead. Sun rays broach thick clouds, painting you in light.
Long tendrils of water-plants brush your shoulderblades. You don't mind.
\\
Cold. So cold. Wet and cold at your back. Cold that kills your aches to give birth to new pain. Icicles growing from your bones, splitting through your muscles. Your cracked, swollen lips part and sound escapes from somewhere inside you.
Something moves. A face—young, dark-skinned, with kind eyes—drops into your line of sight.
"Can you hear me?" The voice is soft, rich. She speaks the language with the accent of a slave from the southern territories of the empire, across the sea.
Your mouth opens, closes, opens again, without words. Wetness trickles down the side of your nose, into the crease of your lips. It might be salty, or not.
Your tongue is hard, porous, unfeeling as limestone.
\\
Something splashes near you and you frantically kick yourself upright, away from the noise and the danger. You turn your head like a crazed person before you spot the short bit of wood floating a few feet away.
You kick your legs and turn back to the beach and your brother is there, clutching his stomach, doubled over in mirth. The breeze carries the sound of his laughter to you. You smile, start paddling back toward him. He's SO going to get it.
\\
Between fever-dreams, spoons are pressed to your lips. Liquids trickle to the back of your throat. Broth, milk. Cool water soothes the burning roof of your mouth.
You don't want any of it. But, too weak to resist, you swallow, dutifully.
\\
His eyes meet yours and his smile vanishes. Suddenly, your brother is not a boy but a man, and blood is dripping out of his eyes, his throat, his chest.
You scream his name—CHARLES!—but he has turned to dust on the shore.
\\
"It's not enough."
Your eyes, slits, make out the woman, crouched near your face. Her palm, cold against your too-hot cheek.
"If I had the herbs I needed to draw the infection out, then maybe I could help," she says. "She needs a doctor. Otherwise, she will die."
Footsteps. Another pair of sandals before your eyes. The second body crouches beside the first and it belongs to another woman. Gallic, probably. Pale skin and red hair. Younger, scarcely more than a girl.
Pressure, light, over your scalp.
"I'll ask the Domina," says the second girl. "She might be willing to help."
Your lips part, throat working, as you try to make sound. The first woman notices, drops her face close to yours, her ear to your lips.
"Can you speak?" she asks, gently. "What can you tell me?"
You force your throat to form rough words.
"Please," you whisper, in the language of the masters. "Please. Let me die."
The hand moving over your scalp pauses. The second woman, the young one, says, "I'm going to ask Domina right now."
Your eyes, lips, close again. Please, your mind begs, just let me die.
\\
You begin to swim madly for the shore, for where your brother was. But the soft tendrils of water-weeds aren't weeds at all. They're hands that grab your ankles, your wrists, pulling you back.
Frantic, you fight.
More hands wrap around your thighs, your waist, your neck, your shoulders pulling you down, down, down. Just before your eyes broach the water's surface you realize it's not water at all. It's lava, thick and orange and broiling, searing its way through your skin.
\\
Three voices, now. The first two, and a third that speaks the masters' language with the pitch and flow of aristocracy.
Your lids pull at the crust of sickness and the torch glows bright, too bright, it burns with light as your back burns with fire.
The feet near your face wear a soldier's footwear but this new voice belongs to a woman. A Roman woman, then, who plays at soldiers; a parody of what you were before you became… this.
Fingers slide under your cheek and tip your head upward. The eyes that meet yours are green, glowing in your fever-gaze.
"What did she do to merit this punishment?" The aristocrat. Her eyes are emerald spear-points grazing your body. Not judging, but deciding whether to judge.
"We don't know." The voice of the second girl.
"She came to us like this three days ago, Domina." The first woman. "I thought it might heal if we kept it clean but the sickness was too far progressed."
The Roman's fingers are warm against the back of your neck, touching the prominent vertebra. It sings to the cold within you, the cold that makes you shudder without cease against the stone.
"It would have been kinder to kill her than to whip her to this point," the aristocrat murmurs. "She must have done something terrible." She speaks like all Romans do: like you are a bitch to be punished or put down, all while she touches your face with warm fingers.
A foggy part of your brain finds its way back into place. It forces your shoulders, arms, your screaming back into action. Your palms push on the ground, your body lifts.
"Child?" The soft voice of the woman from across the sea. "My child, lie still. You'll hurt yourself further—"
You let loose a growl that sends all three women falling back. Shakily, on your hands and knees, you turn your face to the Roman, who kneels nearest your head. She wears a man's toga. A sword at her hip grazes the dirt on the floor. Green, alarmed eyes—eyes that have never known fear—lean closer to you.
Words echo in your mind: May the gods rain fire on all Roman filth.
You make another noise deep in your throat and you spit. It lands on her cheek, to the right of her nose.
The voices of the two slaves sound immediately:
"Domina, forgive her, she has the fever—"
"Lady Myka, she doesn't know what she does—"
You stare at the green-eyed woman. She brings a hand to her cheek, wipes away your spittle, and then wipes her fingers against the dirty stone wall.
"I will get you your herbs," she says, eyes inscrutable. "And I will see if the healer from the Ludus can see her today."
Relieved, infuriated, you fall back to the welcoming grasp of the stone floor.
\\
The hands that grip you grow out of the fiery darkness.
Bodies emerge, attached to them. Men's bodies, first in Roman soldiers' armor, then in the togas of Roman citizenry. Men of all sizes, shapes, ages, and the occasional women, their hands scrabbling out for you. Coarse fingers insinuate themselves between your thighs, aiming for your sex but your body finds strength to revolt. Rough fingers force their way into your mouth and hook themselves behind your teeth, digging in.
You bite down, hard, and an echo of laughter pushes its way into your ears, through the fire.
Your skin wants to melt off your body.
\\
The fire-wrought adzes of a million tiny carvers gouge channels through the ruined flesh of your back and you rear up, howls wrenching themselves from deep in your chest. Pressure on your wrists, your ankles, pushes you down and you fight, fight, fight, because surely what little skin remains on your back is being ripped away by a Roman determined to leave nothing left of you this time.
Your eyes, heavy-lidded, drift open and through the blur of your tears you can see a woman's feet wearing men's sandals, planted between your outstretched arms. Beside them, firm hands press your wrists into the dirt.
Damned Romans and their endless lust for blood and pain.
A moment's respite, and you breathe, harshly, through the lingering sting. The grip on your left wrist loosens and you feel a hand move up, down, up your forearm, in a gesture that might feel comforting were it not attached to those blasted Roman sandals.
"Again." A voice far above her. Not Roman. Gallic, but not the girl from before. "Hold her."
The grip tightens on your wrists again. Something touches your back and you scream.
\\
You wrestle the hands but there are too many of them, reaching for, claiming, covering every inch of you. One hand—long, thin fingers—reaches toward you through the mass. A body follows it. A woman's body, grey-haired, old enough to be your mother.
You know that woman.
Her five fingers come to touch the center of your chest and press. They push through the skin, in between your lungs, wrap themselves around your heart, and pull. She holds the organ up before your eyes and you watch it beat. Then, slowly, she brings it to her mouth, sinks her teeth into its pointed base.
"I always did love a good beef heart," she says. "Such a delicacy." You watch as she consumes the whole thing.
Then the hands are gone, the lava is gone, the woman is gone, and you are adrift in space. Your chest is a hollow cavern, perfectly, exquisitely numb.
\\
Your mind wraps itself around the sound of dripping water, echoing from far away across the stone walls, pinging like a snapped bowstring. You listen to it, focus on it, allow your lucidity to find its home there.
You blink. Blink. Blink.
The first thing you see is your fingertips resting on the ground near your face. Your nail beds are grey with dirt but the back of your hand looks clean.
Beneath your hand is a rough linen cloth. You feel its weave under your cheek. You are lying on your stomach on the floor of a small, bare room. Your shoulders are rotated a little so your right arm crosses under you, both hands before your face, which rests on its right side.
You come aware of a light weight on your back. Then, you come aware of the pain – dull, distant, no longer burning—in your back. You shift, a little, so the fingers of your right hand can walk carefully over your left shoulder, reaching to feel—
"Don't touch it."
You freeze, gaze twitching to the doorway near your feet. You recognize the woman there as the one from across the sea. She carries a waterskin and a handful of rags.
You open your mouth and your jaw, tongue, try and fail to make words. Your lips are so, so dry.
The woman kneels near your face and sets the cloths on the floor beside her.
"Here," she says. She uncorks the water-skin and brings the opening to your lips, carefully adjusting the angle to control the flow. Your thirsty body welcomes the offering and it thanks you by pulling your consciousness fully into place. When you have drunk your fill, the woman re-corks the water-skin and sets it on the ground beside her.
"Better?" she asks. She has the kindest eyes you've seen in years.
You lick your lips. "Yes," you say quietly. "Thank you."
A thin blanket covers you, and she lifts it away.
"It's a poultice," she offers. "On your back. Willow, to draw out the sickness and help it heal."
Your eyes close again. Of course, they have healed you. You were too ill to force them not to.
"It's important not to disturb it," the woman continues. "Tomorrow, the doctor will return to apply a fresh one. Your wounds are healing well."
"Hmm," you say, because you can't thank her for something you know you can't escape despite how little you want it. She is kind, and you are only almost too broken to turn your back on kindness from a fellow prisoner.
She wets one of the rags with water from the water-skin and begins to wipe your face, and then your arms.
You force your jaw to work again. "What is your name?" you ask.
"Leena," she says, with a soft smile. "And yours?"
"Helena," you murmur.
"Helena," she repeats. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
She moves to run the cloth over your lower legs. "In another seven days, you should be healed enough to visit the bath. We have been doing our best to keep you clean this way."
"Thank you," you say, softly.
"Everyone deserves a little dignity." She wets her rag again. "Even a beaten slave."
She's making small talk, you know. Empty words to fill the space while she works. But her words burn nonetheless.
"Tell that to the man who had me beaten," you reply.
Her movements hitch and she finishes her work in silence.
"I'm glad to see you awake," she says, as she packs up her items. "I'll see if I can get some beeswax for your lips. Rest, now, Helena."
After the door closes, you close your eyes. Your sleep, this time, is dreamless.