Ch 4

Two Weeks Later

Getting to know and understand over one thousand years of progress was a daunting task. This didn't deter Corvus in anyway, though. He soaked up every detail -after all, he needed to learn everything he could to integrate into this new world.

As soon as all the examinations, tests and secrecy were over he intended to take this new world by storm. He'd been a Senator before and swaying people to his side was an easy task for someone as charismatic as he. Political power was what he lived for and he could do it again. Especially now that he understood what a 'news source' was! Everyone in this vast world will know who he is and that would insure his triumph!

Having Cassia with him would have been a great asset in that old time before 'the voyage' -as she called it- but Corvus had come to realize he didn't need her now. The fame he would receive would more than expedite his transition into a new governmental power structure. And marraige was not necessarily a coveted status symbol like it had been then. His sudden dismissal of her in his plans did nothing to quell the desire for revenge against the slave boy, however. Somehow Corvus would eliminate him for those past transgressions. What did it matter that they happened a millenia ago? For him it had been only fifteen days.

If only those people could figure out how he got here, then he could find his place in this world! It infuriated him that they were so wrapped up in the science rather than just accepting that the gods wanted him saved from death by molten fire. It was the only possible conclusion.

It made him even angrier that they just expected him to stay. Granted, he had signed on at first when he thought they would be able to tell him something he didn't know -truly, for such advanced people, they really were complete imbeciles- but after being so long trapped indoors, only seeing photographs of what the world is like now...

Sighing heavily, Corvus sat in the cushiony chair his room provided, settled his new clothes around himself and revised his old plans to create something entirely new.

If only these tests would soon end.

Corvus pushed the fear racing through his chest away. He refused to look to closely at his feelings of coming so far from all the things and places he knew. He would take it all in stride and he would conquer.

When Corvus awoke in the middle of the night, cramped in the chair he'd fallen asleep in, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was coming. That maybe it already had come. He stood and, after looking to the night sky, he walked slowly to his bed. He stretched and lay down across it, trying to find sleep again.

He'd learned enough of their new Italian language to hold a very simple conversation and therefore resolved to speak to Maria and Declan in the morning about leaving this place. After all, they'd still have Cassia and whatever he'd leave of the slave to run their tests on once he was gone.

He had only just fallen back into sleep when he heard a voice calling out to him.

AN: So, it's been a while... I'm so sorry! I have zero excuses. All I know is that it was suddenly two months later than it was supposed to be. I've written and rewritten this chapter over and over again trying to get it perfect but I could never get it right. Trying to place the fear, confusion and other extreme emotions that would come with an unprecedented time jump into the future was not only something that I just could not seem to get on paper but was also something that I really just couldn't fathom. I wrote myself into a corner on that bit that I just couldn't push through. Finally I opted to push it farther into the story.

I chose two weeks later because it would still be a time of fear and anxiety but with the strength of their characters I felt this would have given them ample time to at least begin to accept that this was their lives now.

Acceptance was the hardest thing to write. How do you go from waking up, realizing you're in a new place with strange languages, customs...all that you've ever known is lost and everyone you've known is long gone from the planet? Maybe what I did was cheating but after so long I think I made the right move in pushing past that barrier.

AN2: Also, I'll be much better at updating now. I have a few other chapters written (just need editing) so they won't be long in coming! Huzzah!