Trigger warning oh boy you better believe it Trigger Warning

Animals

"Animals," Decanus Kratos sneered, "Gotta show them their place."

He held the slave by her hair, thrusting into her from behind. She was on her hands and knees, totally numb. It appeared to Mortuus Anima that this animal knew her place quite well. Kratos continued to talk about the finer points of breaking animals anyway.

"Y'see, they're all the same," Kratos was clearly enjoying himself, "They act like they don't want it... ugh... ahhhh but they want it," his voice cracked like a Colorado River toad.

Mortuus was well versed with fucking slaves, and didn't need a lecture. He'd come across Kratos accidentally while walking back to the new barracks established outside the fort. He'd been waiting two weeks for a new contubernia assignment, seeing as his last contubernia and almost all the legionaries he'd known for nearly six years were dead.

"Y'see," Kratos continued, "they're all ruled- hurgh- they're all ruled by... animal impulses, see. Yeah, yeah, see... they can't, they don't think about things like you or me. See... we are higher, uh, functioning beings, who know stuff like battle... and... and law."

He shifted his weight and began making hard, slow thrusts. He grunted a little with each thrust, but the slave didn't react at all. On the ground near her was a metal trunk that she'd been carrying when she was stopped by Kratos. Mortuus didn't know if he'd let her set it down or made her drop it. He assumed Kratos made her drop it.

"See, but they can't handle that stuff. They're for breeding," Kratos said, "just brahmin by a different name, Mortuus. Animals."

Mortuus picked the metal trunk up and balanced it on his shoulder with one hand. He knew where it was going, as he'd seen slaves carry trunks just like it the past couple of weeks. There was a lot of activity in Kingman as the ruins were transformed into a Legion stronghold. It was interesting to Mortuus, as he watched old decaying buildings be transformed into towers three stories tall. Builders (slaves) mostly used adobe and mud brick, but sometimes they used hard concrete to make foundations and walls. Mortuus had never seen concrete made after the war, and it made him very excited. Here was something to believe in. Here, more than he'd ever seen before, was clear and visible progress. Just two months into his rule of Kingman Caesar had transformed it from a crumbling ruin to a real city. Mortuus heard Flagstaff was even more amazing.

All of the slaves building the city anew were imported; none of the slaves who'd been captured in Kingman were still within Kingman. They'd all been shipped out to other parts of Caesar's empire. Mortuus didn't know where the new slaves came from, but it was easy to tell that they weren't native to the area because they didn't look like anyone he'd ever known. The slave Kratos was fucking had pale skin, sickly and ashen, and she had a sharp, small nose that made her face look broad in contrast. At first when the new slaves arrived it made Mortuus uncomfortable to be surrounded by so many unfamiliar faces, but in time they faded into the background (like the old slaves) and he stopped noticing them entirely. The only natives still in Kingman were the ghosts left behind.

Kratos pushed her face into the ground and continued fucking the slave. It didn't look like he had any intention of stopping, so Mortuus carried the slave's cargo all the way to the build site. As he walked away he could hear the soft grunts Kratos made. The slave never made a sound.

The build site was teaming with activity. Slaves taken from more than twenty tribes all worked together to construct a fortress out of the ancient campground that comprised the old Legion fort, building the ten-feet high wall up to nearly forty, and replacing the rusted-out trailers and animal hide tents with long rows of barracks and an armory. A few hired workers milled about and gave the slaves orders.

The new barracks established outside the campground were once the habitat of a Kingman tribe, a hollowed-out motel by Route 66. It was much nicer than the trailers, which had been dragged out of the campground and were now being used as slave quarters. The motel was crowded, though, as the legionaries now living in it outnumbered the tribe once lived there two-to-one. The legionaries all pressed together and smelled terrible, the mingled scent of sweat and leather and shit and blood. Mortuus had started sleeping outside in secret.

At the build site everyone gave him a wide berth. They knew he was a legionary. They respected the armor, were scared of it. He found a good place to drop the trunk and set it down gently. The air smelled of mud and baking clay, of sweat and metal. Mortuus saw a slave pouring the clay into brick molds and walked up to her.

"Ave, legionary," she said, deferential but distracted.

"That okay?" Mortuus asked, more of a command than a question. He didn't have any respect for the slave, but he respected the construction. Far be it for him to cause problems just so he could be involved.

"I dunno. What's in it?" the slave asked, then added, "Sir."

Mortuus didn't know either. He just shrugged. The slave finished pouring, then wiped her dirty hands on her rags and walked over to the trunk. Mortuus followed. She opened it to discover it was full of bricks of C-4. She gave Mortuus a wry look, and as he looked back at her he realized he loved her.

Her name was Sarah and she was six years older than Mortuus. She was a former Fredonian, but she'd joined the Kaibabs through marriage to a Kaibab warrior. A year into her marriage the Blackfoots attacked, killing her husband and enslaving her adopted tribe. After that the Legion formed and she'd been forced to follow Caesar's cohorts for years up and down Arizona and New Mexico. She'd given birth twice, both the product of rape and raised far away from her. She was used to being treated like garbage by the legionaries, and knew to always treat them as though they were her betters, but something about the tall young man with the big eyes made her feel calm. She accepted him instead of submitting to him.

"Well, I don't think Caesar wants us to build with these," she smiled. Mortuus kissed her deeply on the lips. She was taken aback, not by the forcefulness of the gesture, but by the passion behind it. He kissed her like she hadn't been kissed in a long time. Not wanting and not demanding, but strong and deep. It was a kiss that, in another time and place, she could have rejected but would not want to. That time and that place were long gone, though. She no longer had any say in what happened to her, and hadn't for a long time. She accepted the kiss, even kissed him back. She was forced to, but even still the fantasy that she wasn't lingered there between their lips.

Mortuus withdrew, and they looked at each other for a moment. There wasn't love in Sarah's eyes- she had lost all love a long time ago- but Mortuus had never known love anyway, and so the complacency in her eyes was enough. They introduced themselves to each other (another formality from a different time and place).

"Well, Morty, I think we should take this to the armory, then?" she said. When they brought the trunk to the in-progress armory they found a quiet spot and had sex, in a way that was almost like making love.

To Mortuus she was incredible, an object of sublime beauty and infinite wisdom. To Sarah, he was a child, a very sweet and spoiled child that she cared deeply about. Their relationship was rough at first, because Mortuus had no right to keep a slave to himself and he knew it. Every time he saw another man talk to Sarah he became jealous, scared that she would be taken away from him by another legionary exercising his right to abuse the slaves. He had no right to differentiate his relationship with Sarah from the typical slave-legionary relationship, even though he knew it was different. Mortuus tried to avoid his jealousy by spending all his time with Sarah, so she couldn't be fucked by another legionary while he wasn't looking. That worked for a time, until they both got in trouble for not doing their respective duties.

That was four months into their relationship. Mortuus was now sixteen years old and even larger. He'd reached six feet and kept getting taller. It was easy to keep others from asking questions about why he was spending so much time with a slave and why he wasn't training or following orders. Even decanus, rough men who had seen hard battles, were wary to talk to him. He was still widely known as the recruit who fought an entire tribe singlehandedly, and that carried weight. What was most intimidating about him, however, was not how strong or how big he was, but rather, the quietly observed fact that he had defied Caesar, and unlike the rest of the Kingman legionaries he was apparently forgiven. It gave him a special invulnerability, but eventually Kratos noticed.

"What's this, then?" he grabbed Sarah by the arm and tore the two of them apart, "Mortuus Anima ain't in love is he?"

Mortuus' first instinct was to take a swing at the decanus and he followed through. Kratos just ducked out of the way and laughed, "I'll whip you for that, boy!"

Sarah did nothing. She'd learned a long time ago to shut down when a decanus grabbed her like that. She limply submitted and mentally retreated, in sharp contrast to Mortuus, who was the angriest he'd been in years.

"Balls, Mortuus! It's just pussy," Kratos wasn't angry, even after Mortuus took a swing at him. He understood that young men sometimes lost their heads over pretty women. He'd tried to pre-empt it by lecturing Mortuus, but obviously the lectures hadn't taken. He needed to do more to get Mortuus' head straight.

"Sorry I got to do this, Mort," he flipped Sarah around and bent her over, then put his finger inside her, "This is meat, Mortuus. Nothin' but meat."

Mortuus had calmed down enough that all he could do was stare like a child being chastised.

"There's nothing special about it. There are literally hundreds of slaves just like it, all over here, and if you think this one is special," Kratos said, "It ain't."

Kratos threw Sarah to the ground, then unbuckled his belt. He lifted up her slave rags and then lay down on top of her. He continued to talk as he thrust into her mechanically.

"It ain't nothing to get worked up over," Kratos said, "It ain't nothing to get in trouble for. It ain't nothin' worth nothin' to get whipped or strung up or left to die for, y'see?" There was an edge to his voice this time, an urgency that hadn't been in his previous lecture. Mortuus had earned certain privileges, but it didn't stop people from talking. Something had to be done about him, and Kratos was happy to have found him first.

"You need to get your head out of your ass," Kratos finished, "I know you haven't been assigned to a new contubernia yet, so you're a little solitarius. Just join my contubernia, no one will care, alright? You don't need," he spit on Sarah, "Her."

Sarah was willing to wait until they were both gone before she got up and went back to helping the other slaves at the build site. She didn't even bother pulling her rags back down. She was looking away as Kratos was inside her, staring into the vast emptiness of the badlands. She didn't bother to look back at Mortuus when the decanus was finished. It wasn't shame. She just assumed he would move on, that whatever they had was over. Perhaps in some small way she would have been sad about that.

Instead, Mortuus Anima didn't leave her. He waited until the decanus left, then went over to her and very gently lowered her rags. Then he gingerly kissed her on the forehead, and helped her up. At first he'd been angry, but watching Kratos fuck Sarah had actually been cathartic. He'd been so terrified of it happening, and now that it had he realized it wasn't so bad. Just because Sarah had been used by another man, it didn't make him care any less for her, and he realized it didn't make her care any less for him. She might be fucked on the capricious whims of his peers, but none of them would stay with her like he would. As they walked through Kingman, he to his barracks and she to hers, they realized that was something. That was enough.