Mortuus Anima loved the Legion with all his heart. It would have been easy for him to simply enjoy what being a member of the Legion allowed him to do, would have been easy for him to just think like the animal he behaved like. He knew the Legion gave him the opportunity to fight, to test himself, to endlessly wage battle. Conflict defined him. The Legion gave purpose to his life. It gave him a reason to fight. It gave him direction, something to fight against, a greater good to fight for. Although on a certain level Mortuus was a simple beast, he was wise enough to know it was by the grace of Caesar that allowed him to act a simple beast. Every blow he delivered was empowered by the authority of Caesar's Legion. He was a weapon for the Legion, and he loved every minute of it.
He never questioned slaveholding. Every contubernia had at least one slave for every two legionaries, sometimes two slaves for every legionary. The slaves maintained weapons, carried supplies, cooked, established camps, and occasionally acted as distractions or cannon fodder in battle. A legionary's life was nothing but battle, the slaves handled everything else. It was perfect for Mortuus, and not unlike his life even before the Legion, which was a time so removed from his Legion life that he couldn't even remember the name of the tribe he had once belonged to. He never questioned the Legion's policy of slavery, because he felt he was a slave himself. He was a slave to life, to living. He was a slave to the needs of his body, a slave to the endless work of staying alive. A slave to his impulses, the demands of a living body and a living mind.
The Legion freed him from all that. He no longer had to be a person, someone who needed to provide food for himself, who needed to think about others, who needed to think at all. The Legion had freed him from the slavery of choice. He couldn't understand why anyone else would feel differently, why anyone else wouldn't consider their slavery freedom from a greater, all-consuming tyranny. He rounded up people to be chained and abused for this twisted notion of freedom he held, this concept that had been born in him from his ignorance both willing and unwitting.
He strode past the cage where they kept their slaves in triumph. He paraded like a hero for the men and women and children they kept chained with collars around their necks, kept corralled in a rusty chain-link fence. He was proud of his accomplishments in beating down these people, breaking them with his brutality. Beating them with his fists and his body- the only things he gave any credence to- beating them within an inch of their lives backed by the implicit endorsement of Caesar and the Legion. He ground the slaves down into the dirt and he did it with pride and satisfaction, knowing, absolutely knowing in his heart of hearts that he was right, that it was right, right right right.
He smiled happily but not warmly at the slaves. He lunged forward and rattled their cage, watching with satisfaction as they recoiled in horror. Suddenly and fiercely he slammed his head into the fence and snarled at the slaves. A woman began to cry, quietly. Mortuus chuckled dark and low, then quickly grew bored and wandered away.
He watched Reave run up to him. "Sir, someone's asking for the decanus," Reave reported, "A woman came up to the camp and asked to see you."
Mortuus couldn't conceive of a reason any woman would be brave and foolish enough to wander into a Legion camp unattended, but he saw no reason to not meet with her. He followed Reave and was stunned. He was taken aback by the woman standing amongst his men with slight apprehension but fierce determination.
She had changed. He hadn't expected that. All this time he had been searching for a girl, a little girl with tribal dreads and childish cares. She was taller, even though the coat she wore dwarfed her. Her hair was shorter, no longer dreaded and adorned with beads but trimmed to look like a man's hair. Her eyes, though, her eyes were unmistakeable. The eyes that were his own. He gasped with his deep, soft voice, "Arama."
"Hello, Heart," Julia greeted her estranged older brother. She hugged her coat tighter as he embraced her with filial warmth.