The memories, when they come back, are not fully formed at all. They come flashing through her head like pictures saved from a fire, pages ripped from a much thicker novel – but what she can see is enough. More than enough.
People are dressed differently and it is hot. Buildings made of white marble tower over her and she is just a child. Taken from somewhere, made to stand in front of people who stare and point. They call her a savage. They laugh.
But she doesn't understand them anyway, not yet.
There is always sand beneath her feet. It is her one playmate, where she learns how to read and write. Her name is a number, nothing more. She writes it in the sand until she has learnt it by heart. A slave is not given the luxury of anything else.
A man with hard, black eyes comes by her cell one day. He has watched her interact with the other children. Has isolated her from the others – because she looks different, acts different. Wants to see how far he can take it, if he can mold her.
Exotic things are always a novelty, he says.
Female gladiators are far and few in-between, for many reasons. But her trainer believes that she is meant for this, and this alone.
It makes no difference to her.
They beat her regularly to make sure that she stays obedient. It does not matter how many promises she makes, talking just makes everything worse. So she stops doing that altogether. Not even to the comrades she has – might have to kill them soon in the arena anyway. Blood makes her happier, satisfies her in ways that nothing else will.
Fighting and killing is difficult, at first.
But over time, she just focuses on the pattern the blood makes as it falls and the people cheering. Her own breathing like an inferno that rises above everything else, surviving is what she has been taught to do. Nobody asked her if she ever wanted to.
Nobody has ever laughed in the face of the emperor before. Never a gladiator, let alone a female one.
But she does, a mad, cackling sound that escapes her dry lips after he has accidentally tripped over his own mantel.
He is young, this emperor. She remembers the other one before him, who was nothing more than skin and bones. This one has a reputation already – for dancing and singing while the city burns.
When he approaches her in the arena, under the bright hot sunlight, every bit as haughty and royal as an emperor should be and yet not -his dark eyes wild and anxious, she almost forgets to lower her gaze to the ground.
She hears him swallow, hears him breathing.
"There shall be a punishment for this. But since you seem to be a favorite amongst the audience, your life will be spared. But you will know pain before the day is through."
She looks up too soon and he is still there, looking directly at her. But instead of looking angry, like she expects he looks...captivated.
She is whipped as a punishment, worse than she has been in years. Cannot enter the arena for several weeks, at most.
Afterwards, she is allowed to tend to the swelling wounds at her back. She is given a basin filled with clean water and some soap, which burns her back. Her naked skin is covered with freckles.
And suddenly, she is not alone in her cell anymore.
The emperor is standing in the doorway, watching her bathe. It is not uncommon for the more wealthy and rich to come here and have their pick of the women – and even the men. It is what they do. She is not surprised to see him, but he seems uncomfortable.
When he takes the sponge from her hands and gently squeezes it against the broken skin, she closes her eyes and shudder.
After that he comes to see her. Every day.
But he does not come to seek pleasure from her body. He stays five feet away at all times, and lowers his gaze on more than one occasion, as if he is the slave. It is most unusual. He is not at all what she expected. He is shy and weak, and there is always dark smudges under his eyes – as if he never sleeps properly.
What he does do is talk. A lot.
"Have you ever heard that song? I know that many prefer it over Accolytes work, but not I. Perhaps you haven't been able to."
Still, she refuses to speak to anyone. But this has not deterred him at all. Instead he waits each time, as if she might – the silence speaking for itself.
"I hope one day that everyone will be able to listen to music when they want. The arts are so important, don't you agree?"
In liue of a verbal answer, she nods at him slowly while wondering, thinking – why speak to me at all? Do you not have any other friends? But the answer is already there in his eyes – the way they jump at every passing shadow. Emperors usually grow paranoid after awhile. Sometimes he laughs awkwardly at the things he says, one hand tugging at his dark brown curls on his head bashfully.
In spite of herself, a strange fondness grows for this man.
Then one day, everything changes.
"Would you like to come and visit me, sometime?"
She stops drawing swirls in the sand and looks up at him with a startled look. Worry and fear gnawing at her stomach. He fails to notice it, mistaking her look for excitement. He seizes on it like a starving animal – but starving for what, she cannot understand.
"There is so much there that I'd like to show you! Yes, please say you want to come!"
With some hesitation, she nods.