AN: I might not continue this...but it's worth putting it up anyway. So I will try to stay on track!
INVICTUS
Harlequin Sequins.
-Commodus/OC-
After conquering a small tribe in the region of Epirius, the son of the Emperor, Commodus, inherits a new concubine as a result of an ultimatum - a young, uneducated daughter of a fisherman.
Disclaimer - I don't own Commodus. Only my original character.
PROLOGUE
"Why must you be so…weak? If you did not belong to me, I would have you executed. For treason."
He pondered his thoughts aloud, his voice as sinfully soft and surreptitiously cruel as ever.
His hands were fastened behind his back, imprinting shadows into the virginal white tunic. It summoned the image of a silver-tongued demon, draped in the misleading skins of an angel he'd murdered to come across as beautiful, as pure. But beneath that heavenly guise, behind the polished sea-glass eyes, there was only calculated malevolence. It was only a matter of time before the barriers broke.
His downy voice withdrew, like silk curtains caught in a midsummer breeze. "Why can you not be like her?"
I could never dream of doubting Commodus' ease when it came to murder, if he ever found it was necessary. In the Coliseum, he was the god of war. Ares incarnate. He observed the beauty of battle and slaughter from his sheltered world, above the realm of the capricious mob. He was their last string of fate, frayed and uncertain as it was. Commodus was their last chance for survival, when Death stood over them, the shadow unfurling from its cold, dreary haven. He decided. It was mostly never in their favor.
Justification was a more selfish creature in the eyes of the young man; he was no more reasonable than the mob of Rome. Fickle and subservient to its own violent whims.
A slave to carnage.
"Lucilla is not here, your highness. She has gone," I replied, impassive. My jaw clenched, spasms of anger flitting through the strained muscles.
He sighed, one that communicated an unspoken agreement that I was dreary to him, that I was proving to be more of a bother than ever. "You are an inferior mimic, you know. A resonation." His head slowly turned, so that his eyes drifted over his shoulder, settling their honeyed malevolence on me.
"Nothing more than a lovely ghost to haunt my magnificent halls."
He returned his melancholy silence to the window, where it was exhumed from its secrecy and was allowed to drift into the open waters of the midsummer air.
Nothing more than a ghost…simply forgotten.
It was in the time of the great darkness of our homeland, a small, yet thriving young nation still fighting for survival after a tempestuous birth. Our king was not young and strong as he once had been, his wife long since departed for Elysium and his health failing as a result of his despair. Most years were barren, the people living off the meager harvests that the land was able to supply. There was no line of defense; our people were scattered, untrained and unwilling to fight against encroaching forces as they endured the hollow ache of malnutrition during the dry seasons. We had been ripe for invasion, the last to fall of our region; the young Emperor's son, Commodus, saw this.
To him, our land was merely a wonderful prospect. An opportunity, which I would later learn, that had presented the idea of impressing his distant father, who was at the battlefront for another place of interest, some ill-fated territory forsaken by the gods and delivered into the black hands of Rome.
By the end of the winter, all hope for freedom was lost as our underfed, overworked warriors were vanquished on the plains of Paleros, many of the bodies simply thrown into the blue-gold sea once Commodus' most vicious centurion, Aelianus, had quelled the pangs of bloodthirsty conquest.
Commodus was received into our small place of dwelling to negotiate an armistice before the season's conclusion, during which time I was confronted by my father.
He sighed, defeated. "I am to understand you have witnessed the arrival of our unwanted guest?"
"Yes," I replied. "I have seen the brute."
"And all thoughts of his brutality aside, what is your view of him?"
I recalled the memory of his advent with vivid detail, evoking the images of a pale gold sky and the aggressive thrum of the swells as they played on the bloodstained shores. The morning was hot, livid as the shame of defeat surged through the veins of the land like wildfire. Like some god of war, his every footstep was a manifestation of power, every last inch of him steeped in arrogance. He carried himself as if the world was his and no one, not one man, could take it from him.
"That he is a selfish man. He takes everything because he thinks it his own, no matter how far it is from his reach, no matter how unlikely his victory. Commodus is frightening…I hope that our true Emperor-" I delivered the word with some venom, tasting the bitterness of slavery and swallowing it back quickly. "Will be safer. There is darkness in the man's heart…I fear him greatly."
"It is unfortunate then that you must accompany him back, with your low opinion of him." The man was quiet as he spoke, his eyes downcast. "Our conqueror has agreed to take his soldiers with him on his departure on one condition: you must go with him."
For a moment, I could not speak. What could one say to refute the realization of being sold into slavery? I cleared my throat. "As his wife?"
"Companion of sorts."
"A concubine then?"
I received no answer, but even in his lack of response my father spoke volumes of distress, shouted pleas for forgiveness. It was the terrible silence of a man torn between duty and love – to sacrifice the livelihood and safety of his people or deliver the livelihood of his only daughter into the hands of a war-mongering monster?
The hut was bathed in a swift-moving strain. I rose quickly from the meager mound of threadbare rugs as the threat of tears became too insistent and began to fall; it was unwise to cry in front of a man, even if he was your father. Weakness, in such a place, was not tolerated.
"I have been assured you will be treated well…provided with everything you should ever need."
"And the price is slavery." I replied.
I heard him rise behind me, his footsteps careful, as if I'd shatter if he moved too close. Warmth spread through my bare shoulder, blossoming like a young flower as his hand hovered over the precipice of decision. To comfort or not…the callused palm descended over my arm like a great shadow.
"If it must be slavery, then let it be to Rome. The motherland is a place of glory and beauty and greatness. Bloodshed and sickness and corruption as well, but there is hope for your enlightenment, for better food and home where you can grow fully. Not this stunted growth that you have here…here, you are only to exist. To wait for Elysium and bide your time."
Our tribe was large, but was blind to the intellectual ways of the world. Life consisted of farming and raising children; there was simply no room in our mapped out lives to shape the learned men and the progression of Rome. Life was ordinary here, unassuming and sensible….
I would miss it greatly.
"I promise you…someday, I will purchase you back." He let go of my shoulder; I closed my eyes. "Before the ending of your twenty-fifth year, you will be free."