Circa 300 CE, Provincia Britannia

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The sky is a pure, brilliant, unbroken blue, scalded dry by the sun, and it is empty. Empty of insects, of birds, of clouds, and yet the air crackles as though there's a storm gathering.

Magic.

It throbs in Caledonia's bones, and pulses through the ground like a heartbeat; like footsteps, pounding out the rhythm: They come, they come, they come.

One of Caledonia's own kind is approaching, and the earth itself trembles before them, leaching power from the soil which swirls and eddies around their feet. The pattern of their tread is not one he recognises. It is a stranger who draws near to the wall Roma built to keep Caledonia and his people caged like the wild animals he names them.

Intrigued, Caledonia sets out to meet them.

His fae flock to him, then, calling out wordless warnings in their raptor's voices, and pulling at his braids and the hem of his brat, urging him to stop. Caledonia ignores them. Though the stranger's steps are heavy, there is a caution to them, a slight hesitation that bespeaks unease. They are no invader, come to cross swords and try to wrest Caledonia's lands from him as Roma did.

The way is long and gruelling, and by the time Caledonia reaches the wall, the sun has begun to dip below the horizon and the sky is purpling like a bruise. He pulls himself up and over the rough stones with more speed than finesse, skinning both his knees and the heels of his palms, and then crouches behind the battlements at the wall's apex, so he can see without being seen.

There are two figures below, and one of them is achingly familiar: Caledonia's brother, Britannia.

It has been a decade or more since Caledonia last saw him, and even longer since they last spoke. Since Britannia hurled invectives at him, cursed his name, and blamed him once more for Roma's conquest, as though Caledonia ever had any choice but to retreat northwards, protect his people, and leave Britannia to tend to his own.

The intervening years have little changed Britannia. He still looks as blade-thin, pale, and sullen as he ever did, and is evidentially just as cunning. Caledonia never sensed so much as a whispered hint of his advance.

Britannia's companion is a stranger. Is the stranger. She is at least a head taller than Britannia, lithe and elegant in a striped tunic and toga which flutters around her calves as she twirls and prances around the scowling Britannia. Magic sparks whenever her bare feet kiss the grass, and the last light of the dying day burnishes her fair curling hair to molten gold.

Caledonia thinks she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.