Note: Let the record show that, while I like Latraviata (mainly thanks to CrazyBeaver) and am willing to allow "Actress" to stand on those merits, that punch? Never. Happened. If you INSIST on keeping the plot, which I'm not crazy about, what with the dolphin and one thing and another, Obelix hit something that then fell on Asterix's head and caused the concussion. But a fandom in which Obelix willingly, in his right mind, lays violent hand on Asterix? That's a fandom I'm gone from, for good.
Obelix sat silently by Latraviata's side as the cart bounced over stones and potholes. The actress was silent, hands tight on the reins, staring ahead as though the entire charade was distasteful to her.
No woman would have you. Not that it mattered. It was no woman's eyes that were burned into Obelix's brain, but Asterix's wide, hazel ones, stricken as Obelix made his false confession: a hatred never felt, a resentment that had never smoldered, an anger that had never lasted for longer than the brief moment it took to have a silly squabble.
The wind, cold with the night-chill now, blew through the treetops, rustling the leaves. Obelix had no problems with riding all night; in fact, he wanted it. Wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and the village. Wanted to ride all night, so as not to sleep, and not to dream. He wondered if his conscience would finally let him rest.
He wondered if Asterix would ever forgive him. He wondered if he deserved Asterix's forgiveness. He wondered if he would ever be happy again. He found he didn't care all that much, one way or the other. As long as Asterix was all right. He thought of the image his conscience had shown him, Asterix lying with a sword in his heart. He shuddered.
"Are you well?" Latraviata's gaze was not unfriendly, but slightly wary, as though she feared an unknown assailant.
Obelix nodded.
"We have a few miles ahead of us. Then we'll stop for the night."
Obelix nodded again. It didn't really matter.
As the cart moved through the trees at a good clip, faster now they had emerged onto the paved road at the end of the forest – Obelix had a faint idea that he and Asterix had traversed it once before, en route to Condatum – he began to give some thought to what he would do in Rome, or wherever he ended up. All he could think of was his village, the familiar faces of family and friends, the well-trodden dusty paths where he had grown up, the rich harvest of chestnuts in season, the patches of blue wildflowers and the spots where he and Asterix could go mushrooming—
Asterix's wounded gaze rose before him again, and he had to blink hard to dismiss it. Asterix would be all right. He had Dogmatix. He'd be friends with Getafix. Perhaps Cacofonix or one of the village men would go on adventures with him. Or even some stranger to the village, someone good, someone with brains, someone who was more worthy of Asterix's friendship. Someone to come and be the best friend that Asterix deserved.
Obelix tried to tamp down the jealousy and grief he felt at the thought. Asterix deserved better. Deserved someone quick-witted and funny and loyal, someone who wasn't always thinking of his stomach.
On cue, his stomach growled. Obelix sighed. He was hungry, but somehow he didn't feel like eating. Eating was bound up with lazy summer days and bright winter ones, warm evenings around a bonfire or huddled around the hearth. The warmth of knowing there was one Gaul in the world who understood him completely and utterly. The Gaul who now thought Obelix hated him.
He shifted on the wooden driver's bench. Latraviata's sharp eyes seemed to see through him. "You can lie down inside if you like," she said.
Whatever dregs of Gaulish gallantry remained inside him made Obelix shake his head. "No, 'salright." Let her drive while he lazed away the journey? Bad enough he wasn't pulling his weight.
"Suit yourself." She looked around furtively, then faced the road again.
A clouded moon was rising, gradually outshining the stars. It washed each cobblestone slick with light, picking out its curved surface and submerging the spaces between the stones in little pools of darkness. On the Roman road, each row of black shadows seemed to run up to them beneath the horses' hooves, just as quickly swallowed up by the dark shade of the rumbling cart. Obelix sat in a sort of daze, the moonlight dissolving in his mind into all the times he and Asterix had bade each other goodnight, lying safely together under the stars. He hadn't thought leaving Asterix would hurt like this. He'd known it would hurt, but he'd thought it would be the sudden, intense pain of a blow or a cut. This was more like a disease, a worm inside his heart, eating away at it slowly, until maybe, maybe there was nothing left.
He jolted out of his thoughts as Latraviata pulled the horses up at the edge of a small clearing. "Here we are." She leapt lightly out. By the time Obelix descended from the cart, she had the horses tied up and feeding. "Bring their water out of the back, would you?"
Obelix complied and watered the horses. "D'you need anything else?" he asked, forcing out the words.
"Don't you want anything to eat? I have provisions." She glanced dubiously back at the cart. "Not to mention, your chieftain's wife has filled half the cart with roast boar."
"I'll eat in a minute…" Obelix lay down on a soft clump of clover beneath the trees, and closed his eyes.
Latraviata startled as a snore came from the mastodon on the grass. That had certainly come over him very quickly.
She shrugged mentally and finished her care of the horses, hoisting up the water buckets when they had drunk their fill, and hefting them up into the cart again. No-one could ever accuse Latraviata of being a farm girl, but singing and declaiming and running around on stage and in rehearsals kept her strong enough. She'd have the big lug fill them up when they got to a stream or something. No aqueducts, not even a well… and Juno forbid there be baths or anything for miles and miles around…
"…no…"
Latraviata whirled. Obelix was murmuring unhappily in his sleep. "Asterix," he muttered, his voice cracking.
Her shoulders slumped. Asterix. And that was it, wasn't it? That was the crux of the matter. The way the little Gaul had looked at his friend as the two of them were leaving the village… Asterix had been heartbroken. He had smiled and waved, but the bereft look in his eyes had told a different story.
The feeling that she – or her actions – had caused this pain, in such a decent and honorable man, sat like a lump in Latraviata's chest. To be curious was one thing; to follow Caesar's orders was another. But it was something else altogether to knowingly participate in so hurting Asterix, a man who had shown her only respect, even when she had been a traitor in their midst. The small Gaul had elevated her to the status of a lady: she, an actress, whom many Gauls and even Romans viewed as a common whore.
As she looked on, Obelix stirred in his sleep again, murmuring Asterix's name. Latraviata wasn't sure even Asterix was aware of the extent of what he had done for her, what he had saved her from. The fate of failed spies in the Roman Empire was not kind. Brutus' plot had been unmasked: Latraviata had been found out as a spy involved with him in a plot, ultimately, against Caesar himself. Only the gods knew whether she would have faced the lions, crucifixion, her tongue cut out, or what. But once Asterix had given her the statue of Caesar, she had been safe. The Gaul had repaid her duplicity with kindness, her treachery with respect. His friends and family had opened their hearts to her, with a generosity of spirit that beggared belief. And she would be a poor excuse for an honorable woman if she were to hurt Asterix in return.
Oh, he hadn't shown hurt: not in the slightest. Asterix was a good actor, she'd give him that. But it took one to know one. This was Latraviata's job, and she could see the telltale signs of a performance, even a good one. All through his selfless, impassioned defense of his friend's right to marry, all through his broad grin and wave goodbye, Asterix had been putting on an act: Obelix's departure had shattered him. She had seen it in his eyes. And she was willing to wager that Obelix, although he was no actor, had seen it too.
And that Obelix's heart, which – unlike his friend – he wore on his sleeve, was just as broken as Asterix's.
"O Asterix…" Obelix stirred in his sleep. Latraviata looked at him, considering.
The big man was troubling to her. She'd originally thought him a brainless lump of fat and muscle, his great strength more fearful than benign – but over the few times she had seen him, she'd been forced to reconsider. Today had been an eye-opener, seeing such a strong man so lost, then sitting silently in the cart for hours, weeping mutely like a lost child. Barbarian he might be, but he had a heart. And something or someone had cut that heart deeply.
Whether that someone was the Numidian who had spoken to her in the camp—well, that remained to be seen.
Latraviata pulled some dry tinder out of the cart, and moved to start the fire. The Numidian – well, Roman, in truth – Caius Insidius by name – ought to be here by now; he had said he would rendezvous with them at this point. She had never found out his exact rank; if she had to guess, she'd say military intelligence, a spy of some sort. He seemed less of a military personage – although all the legionaries obeyed him – and more of a thespian, like Latraviata herself. He seemed… almost like a shaman. He hid it well, but the aura of shamans was common enough among those in the theatrical profession for Latraviata to recognize it when she saw it.
The kindling caught, a small flame growing into a blaze. Latraviata carefully added tinder, staring into the fire's glow. Why would a shaman be denying his healing abilities? Shamans were universally revered, much like druids. In the military, he would have no chance to utilize his rare talents.
She shrugged mentally and turned—and yelped. There he was, behind her. She had heard no horses' hooves, no sound.
"Hush," he said, not pleasantly. "You'll wake him."
"Don't sneak up on me like that again," Latraviata commanded, rising to her full height. She towered above him.
He looked up at her, seemingly about to make a retort, then closed his mouth. "Go to bed in the caravan," he commanded, jerking his thumb towards it. "I have something to say to our friend."
Latraviata stared a moment. She was not accustomed to having some little shrimp of a Secret Service agent order her about, misguided shaman or no misguided shaman. She contemplated saying 'no', but in the end, exhaustion won out. She climbed into the caravan, and had barely finished her bread and cheese before she drifted off into a well-earned slumber.
Insidius closed his eyes and breathed. He fell into the trance more easily this time, without the distractions of creeping past guard dogs and villagers to break his concentration.
Grief-stricken hazel eyes stared him in the face, pleading, bereft. "Please," said their owner. "Let me make it up to you."
A great well of loneliness opened up below Caius Insidius, as he was cast into Obelix the Gaul's private hell.
He had always been able to control events in dreams, but not this time. That swooping sickness in the stomach that came with bad news had become a whirlpool that sucked him down, his legs flailing for purchase, until he was nothing but sick longing and misery and dread. Seeking desperately to land, he could find no analogue of solid ground, no tree nor forest nor floor to lean against, only crawling distaste that made everything abhorrent, a world with sticky, gelatinous sides that hurt to reach out and touch, that offered no refuge but to fold up inside oneself, curl up around the pain that—
With a jerk, he tore himself out of the dream. Caius shook his head violently, weak with relief to be sitting on the moonlit grass. What horror had he been in, what kind of misery was this naïve Gaul going through, to consume him so completely?
His innards lurched and he folded an arm across his stomach, retching involuntarily. This couldn't go on. He couldn't let it. He must help—
What was he thinking? He was an envoy of Caesar! This was the price that must be paid for victory. For an empire to stand, the unhappiness of one man was a small price to pay.
Yet something called to him to go back. To go back inside, to assuage, to heal. Hazy, in the back of Caius' head, was an image of his mother's eyes.
He reached out again. He wasn't healing. He wasn't. He wasn't. He would tell Obelix that this was for the best.
His hand shook as he reached out and touched the Gaul's broad shoulder.
The ground opened up again beneath him. It was all he could do not to scream as he was sucked in. His heart beat against the back of his eyelids, his stomach pulsed with acid and bile. Beneath his skin was grating sand. "It's all right," he murmured, reaching out blindly in the red darkness. "It's all right."
The darkness pulsed more violently, threatening to expel him. Caius knew, without knowing how he knew, that it was because he had uttered an untruth. It was not all right, it would grow worse yet, would end badly. What could he say? "It's for the greater good," he managed to project. The darkness rippled and rocked, like a sea of vomitus. Those grieving hazel eyes still haunted Obelix. "Asterix will be well. He will be better off without you," Caius whispered. A blunt spike of pain skewered down from his windpipe to his stomach. "Your leaving will be good for him—"
Leaving. In a rush, he saw everything – saw, through Obelix's eyes, Asterix's reaction to his carefully prompted script. The small warrior had not confronted the cruel words with anger but with pure, selfless love. He had reached forward instead of shrinking back, offering apology, consolation, amends. Far from enfeebling the bond between the two friends, Caius' carefully scripted words had more strongly entwined their hearts. Asterix's genuine remorse, his desire to console his friend, his sincere grief at causing him pain, were like strong, silken cords, binding the pair together; Caius felt the pain of their sundering like a limb being forcibly twisted off.
Again, he saw his mother's face.
Caius Insidius broke the contact, world spinning, mind whirling. This was wrong, all wrong! He was supposed to have implanted further assurances in Obelix's mind that leaving had been the right thing to do! Not be affected by the Gaul's emotions!
He staggered away from the sleeper, hardly able to keep his steps quiet at first. After what seemed like a long distance, he reached his horse, its hooves wrapped for silence. Taking hold of the reins, he led it silently away. Riding was out of the question at the moment – even on foot, he felt half-ready to fall headlong. This was such as he had never experienced. The sensation he had felt before returned tenfold. This felt like truth.
"Tell us the truth, druid – does any other of the Gauls know how to make the potion?"
The druid sighed. "O Centurion, the secret may be handed down only from druid to druid, by word of mouth. That's common knowledge."
The centurion chuckled. "Anyway, we'll soon have them drinking the last of the potion, with our attacks. Even if you did leave them some."
Getafix merely nodded, not deigning to reply. It wouldn't be the first time a Roman had bluffed him.
The cage he was in, jostling in a donkey-cart bound presumably for a Roman camp, wasn't a bed of feathers, but he was mercifully not tied up, so all in all, it could have been much worse. It wasn't even the first time he'd been captured, and Getafix felt confident enough in his own abilities to parlay or manoeuvre a way out of his predicament. He was no Asterix, but he did have low cunning enough for a cohort of such witless legionaries as these, and their centurion into the bargain.
No, his own fate wasn't worrying him. What did have him scared was the village. Obelix being seduced away by a Roman woman, and him being kidnapped hot on the heels of that – well, there was very little likelihood of convincing Getafix that the two events were unconnected. "What do you want from me?" he asked, the inanity of the question no less deliberate than his slightly panicky tone of voice.
"Don't worry about that, Druid." The centurion chuckled.
Getafix rolled his eyes inwardly. "What's going to become of the village without me?" he quavered, sounding about fifty years older than his normal voice.
"Village? Ha! By the time we get you to Rome, there will be no village left. Your villagers will be joining you in the circus with the lions!"
"The circus? Never! They'll fight you till their last breath!"
Getafix made sure to sound suitably desperate, and as he'd hoped, his feigned weakness loosened his captor's tongue. "By Juno, you're naïve. Now that your big mastodon is out of the picture, and you're not around to make them the magic potion, they will fall like the cowards they are!"
Getafix bit his tongue against defending his fellow-villagers against the appellation. Instead, he made himself stammer, "What—how do you know—I mean, what makes you think Obelix has left the village?"
The centurion laughed. "Because we made him leave! It was part of the cunning plan made by glorious Caesar, son of the Roman she-wolf, with the cunning of a fox! Listen, O Druid, and marvel at his ingenuity…"
Asterix lay awake, staring at the thatched roof. So many times he had bid Obelix goodnight beneath this thatch, within these walls. So many other times, in the open, on the road or on the grass or in some inn or lodging-house. Hardly a day of his life had gone by when he and his best friend hadn't been together.
Dogmatix whined softly. The little dog was curled up on Asterix's chest, the only point of warmth in a cold shroud that seemed to envelop his whole body. Now he was alone, all that remained to Asterix were what-if's and why's. Why hadn't he noticed? How could he have been so blind? What could he have done differently?
Obelix falling head over heels for a pretty woman was hardly a new event. Asterix had noticed it, even helped his budding romances along on occasion. Even if Obelix had decided to move away with his bride, Asterix would have found a way to remain friends – either go with him, or divide his time between their village and Rome. When there was a will, there was a way; he was confident it could be done.
Could have been done.
Asterix felt dizzy. It was as though everything solid about him were falling through the straw, leaving a boneless husk of a man behind. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, looking at the stars. The stars were still there. He hadn't driven them away, at least.
Toutatis, what was he thinking? Obelix was being silly, that was all! Since when had Asterix…
I think it's time to cut ties.
Something about that line suddenly struck Asterix.
I think it's time to cut ties.
Asterix's eyes sharpened, opening fully. He'd been nursing his own heartbreak, and he hadn't realized till now that the words weren't like Obelix's turn of phrase at all.
"Yip?" asked Dogmatix.
"I don't know yet," Asterix muttered, scratching behind the little dog's ears. Dogmatix yipped again, more quietly, and settled back into a warm lump on Asterix's chest. "But something's not… not quite right."
He stared up at the thatch, thinking hard. Time to cut ties. Obelix would say "go away forever," "not be friends anymore," "time I learned to manage without you." All would have been hurtful, but at least in character. But 'cut ties' wasn't the way his emotional, naïve friend thought, and Asterix knew his thought processes well enough after all these years.
Asterix absently stroked Dogmatix's head, thoughts running a mile a minute. What, then? Had Latraviata… it wasn't impossible… been instructed to lure Obelix away, and put those ideas into his head and those words on his lips? She had been sent before, by the Romans, to infiltrate their village. But that had been in disguise. Would she be so bold as to come again, as herself, doing the invader's bidding?
A few of the earliest morning-birds, up before the village cockerel, were starting to twitter and chirp, telling him that dawn was not so far away. Sleep was starting to pull Asterix under, his body finally succumbing to the need for rest. But his thoughts would not let him fall into slumber.
After the debacle with Brutus, Asterix had thought the Roman diva a friend, a convert to their way of thinking. His instincts rarely played him false in the subtle skill of dividing friend from foe. But she could have been coerced, he knew well enough, and in any case… In any case, what? His thoughts were starting to drift, his head falling backwards into a warm blanket of sleep. Rest was inviting… He was so tired…
"FIRE!"