AN: Prompt #10 was originally "with animal ears," and I took one look and was like "nah." So I made it a wild card, because I've had pre-canon Iago and Cassio rattling around in my brain for a long while and finally decided to do something about it. This was partly written while I was at work over the summer, and finished before I came back to uni. Finding the time to actually type it up has been a bitch.

The "fort" refers to the Forte di Sant'Andrea, one of Venice's several military arsenals scattered throughout the lagoon (incidentally, another was on Poveglia, one of the notorious haunted islands; I almost set the story there before deciding the symbolism was a bit too heavy-handed).

Dialogue's a bit modern because I was lazy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Othello.

A Spaniard and an eagle should not have been so damnably difficult to find.

Michael Cassio, though a young man, was too much a learned man and a gentleman not to think himself just a bit ill-used. As a learned man, he held in high esteem his general ability to divine the answer to any pressing inquiry with alacrity; as a gentleman he was accustomed to, and expectant of, being made to wait upon no man's pleasure but his own. Besides the which, he had assumed his consultancy would afford him some modicum of status upon his arrival to the fort: that he would present himself to the cadets (little more than boys) guarding the gates and be welcomed, or (preferably) brought to the general post-haste to better conduct their business. Not asked who the devil he was, nor told rudely that conscripts should report to the roll office, which was likely unmanned, given that said conscripts were slated to have arrived three days ago, sir.

Conscript, indeed. How dare they.

When he had explained to them, more reasonably than they deserved, that he was the tactician from Castelvecchio whom General Othello had contracted to assist with the planning of the defense of Cyprus, the younger of the two guards had laughed in his face. The elder, despite being unable to fully conceal a smirk, had rapped his counterpart smartly upon the sallet with the hilt of his dirk and confessed to Cassio that the general was occupied; he'd do better to seek out ensign Iago Mendivíl, get himself "sorted proper." He'll be in the bear pit with Aquila and the grunts, he had said, foregoing forbearance and indulging his amusement with a crooked grin. Can't miss 'em.

XXX

Having neglected to ask where this so-called "bear pit" actually was, Cassio had resorted to wandering the fort with a look of officiousness, only partially feigned, whilst praying for even the smallest stroke of luck. He dared not ask either the drilling cadets or their glowering officers for assistance, he had been humiliated enough as it was. God's blood, but he was a man of means, a man of the world, not some cowering stripling! He could make his own way. Would. Make his own damned way.

After what seemed like hours of searching in the sickening midday heat, he came upon a flight of stairs, not so much carved as crudely hacked into the stone. The air flowing down the drunken spiral, marginally cooler for being sheltered from the overzealous sun, came as much a welcome relief as the thing itself, more apt to be this bear pit than aught else he had encountered afore. Someone was speaking in the space below, too low for individual words to be discerned, but the dull thump of flesh striking packed earth, the whoops and gleeful laughter that followed, were convincing enough to send Cassio tripping down towards the commotion.

A disconcertingly sizable assemblage of shirtless men turned to watch him approach, expressions ranging from bemused to amused to thoroughly unimpressed. New recruits, he assumed; most looked to be of an age with himself or a few years younger, but there was a hardness to their bodies and eyes that made him feel a veritable fop in comparison. The sensation discomfited him tremendously. Casual superiority was so much less taxing to one's sense of self.

In the center of the circular pit, a hulking beast of a man with a cruelly hooked nose heaved himself from the ground, stooped to whisper something to his short, lean companion. The latter, face hidden from Cassio's sight, nodded and clapped the colossus on the shoulder before winding his ungainly way through the ranks. He walked with a curious loping drag, as though his right knee would not bend. As he approached Cassio began to make out, and could scarce forbear from gaping at, the myriad time-whitened scars scoring his sun-browned flesh. Scattered across his arms, torso, back, and two marring the left side of his face- s'blood, but they did draw the eye. So, too, did the eye itself: the keen, cold gray of a mist-shrouded sea, starly pale against the swarthy complexion, the close dark beard, the wild thatch of nut-brown curls. He met Cassio's stare with disarming, almost confrontational frankness, sharp and strong like his blades of features, carved into a face worn beyond its years: a soldier born, bred, tried, and triumphant.

He was not quite a handsome man. But it was plain to Cassio's practiced discernment that he was a proud man- yea, and an honest one, the way the jagged sea-cliffs were honest: neither merciful nor subtle, but dependable unto death. Certainly there could be worse stranger with whom one could entrust one's fate.

"Pair up, lads!" he shouted, smirking a little conspiratorially when the youths scrambled to obey the barked command. Stopping before Cassio with booted feet planted in a fistfighter's wide stance, he raised both brows appraisingly and proffered and square, sword-worn hand. "You look lost."

"Just a bit." He knew full well his answering smile more closely resembled a grimace. How far within his control that was, he couldn't have said. "I arrived some time ago and have been shunted off to find an ensign. Iago…." Of course the man's name escaped him. Blast it all, as he hadn't made enough of an ass of himself this day, Man of the Devil, some such blasted foreign thing with the-

"Mendivíl?"

"Aye."

The man's smirk widened into a crooked grin, and he spread his hands with a bluff sort of congeniality that almost instantly set Cassio at ease. "You're in luck, 's it happens, need look no further." The husky baritone suited him, though Cassio would have been harder pressed than he'd prefer to place his accent. Spanish, no doubt, the name gave him away, but it had been overlaid by traces of other tongues he'd evidently adopted long enough to bear their marks. As though he were more mercenary than a homeland's proud defender. "Though I think I've not been granted the same courtesy's you have, mate, an' told who it is comes seeking me. 'Specially not one so grand 's you. So." Taking Cassio by the shoulder, he gestured sharply with his free hand, an invitation that brooked no argument. "No secrets."

"Michael Cassio." After his native Florentine custom he bowed, kissed the three large fingers of his right hand, touched them briefly to Iago's wrist. "You may have heard the general talk of me of late if you are near to him in counsel." Though there was no reason to suppose a mere ensign would be.

"Ay, ay," Iago said, thick brows drawing close in contemplation. "From Castelvecchio, ay, the...student- nay." He shook his head briskly, huffing out what might have been a laugh or a sigh, or neither, or both. "Something more than that, I'm sure."

"I'm a recent graduate, 'tis no slight to think me a student still," Cassio explained ruefully, wanting (somewhat uncharacteristically) to ease the sudden tension. Embarrassment became the older man ill, but he regained his vigor with admirable alacrity, dipping his head to his chest with a hearty chuckle.

"You're but a boy yet, Master Cassio, and I mean you no slight." Iago jerked his chin back toward the training ground as he motioned for Cassio to follow him up the steps. "So you've a few years on these pups: a few courses, graces. You stand beside them with your rapier or rifle, half the enemy camp no older than you, and any difference you see between yourselves becomes obsolete. Don't matter how much you think you know, how much you've read, or how skilled you think you are. You'll march behind Othello an' myself with his flag same's any other." As he spoke, quiet passion carrying the words despite the noise of the general camp, he led Cassio up hills, steps, battlements, to the watchtower at the mouth of the lagoon, where the lion of Venice flapped feebly in the indolent breeze. From so high a vantage point Sant'Andrea unfolded below them like a child's toy model of war: armored guards pacing the walls, infantrymen with swords and bucklers locked in the endless dance of thrust and parry, men at the embankment repairing ships, men upon the ships loading cannons, artillery ranks drilling aim, fire, retreat, a constantly advancing cycle. The destructive order of it all was humbling, silenced any and all protests his pride could have mustered. Iago set a hand upon the back of his neck, directing his gaze to the banner with a gentleness that seemed fraught, strained, with the strength of that iron grasp, that taut predator's frame. "In the field that flag is your scripture, Master Cassio," he murmured, simple words uttered with the reverence of a prayer. "We are all equals under the eyes of God."

Weird...ending?

Two points of clarification. Firstly, Sant'Andrea was far from Venice's only fort in the lagoon, but it was pivotal for its location: right at the mouth of the lagoon. Though it wasn't an active battle fort, it was the first line of defense against unwanted naval intruders, and the first thing potential allies would see sailing in. This meant the seaward side was extraordinarily well fortified, and the other side was basically left to f**k it and flounder. It also acted as a military base, hence its function in the story, although it was more a garrison than an official training ground (those didn't exist at the time). Secondly, if Iago seems less villainous than he should, it's partly because this is pre-canon, but mostly because it's told from Cassio's POV. Cassio who, as we know, was taken in completely by the "honest Iago" persona until the last damn scene in the play, where he (and everyone except Emilia, who was still willing to give her husband the benefit of the doubt for a while) had to have said Iago's deceptions spelled out to him. So...there goes your diabolical plotting.

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