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Aurora took the bottle of healing powder and a cloth; she dampened the cloth and applied a sprinkling of the powder to it.
Titus had several wounds that would need tending to. The worst was a large open laceration on his back.
She gently applied the healing powder over his main cuts and abrasions, gently wiping at the marks on his shoulders and feeling the knots and tension of his muscles beneath her hands.
She gently applied pressure to the knotted muscles in his shoulders while she dabbed at the wounds, she felt the tension release as Titus' muscles relaxed.
"If you would please lean forward sir, so that I may attend to the gash on your back." He leaned forward for her to attend the wound and she gently dabbed at the blood that had scabbed around the edges. "I think this may need a few stitches, sir." She spoke softly.
As she left the tent, Sejanus ordered over several recruits, relegating to them the job of seeing the slaves to their pens. She had better things to do. She stormed off towards her contubernium's tent, intending to grab her helm lest anyone else mistake her for a recruit.
She was in no mood for fools, especially after dealing with one of Crassus's lackeys. Her last assignment from the Consul had been less than pleasant, seeing her spend several months acting as Legion escort and liaison to the slaver Dead-Eye Rogers. She hated that man... she had a long history with him, longer than her stay with the Legion. Worse still, he knew who... -what- she was.
Leverage like that saw him basically owning Sejanus, blackmailing her for better prices and standing with the Legion till he practically held a monopoly on incoming captures outside the Legion's own conquests. She still shuddered at the thought of dealing with slime like that.
Shaking the memories from her head, she stopped to check on her recruits. Cruel as she could be, she did feel a perverse care for her contubernium. They were like family to her, and she went out of her way to ensure their lives were never needlessly risked.
While most of the Legion saw recruits as tools to be tossed aside, she thought the best tools were those you honed, cared for, and kept working. Satisfied that no one was badly injured in the battle - not much of a surprise given the pathetic resistance put up by the outpost - she collected her helm and left to see what was taking so long with her axe.
As she passed by the male captures, she noticed a bit of a ruckus. Two recruits stood over one of the men, his bloodied form shaking at their feet. With a swift move she swung herself over to the fence and was by there sides before they could salute.
"Ave, sir!" managed the elder of the two. From the look of them, she doubted they were a day out of training. They exchanged a nervous glance as she looked at the man at there feet. "I - we know we're not to kill them without charge, but this one refused to cooperate."
"He insulted Caesar, and Centurion Titus!" piped up the younger as the other nodded.
Sejanus sighed. Motioning them to stand aside, she bent down for a better look at the prisoner. His tattered uniform read Sexton. Before she could get a word in, he was grinning up at her through several missing teeth.
"Hello handsome. Come to rescue me and whisk me away?" He managed to choke out.
Wonderful, a joker. She just -loved- dealing with this type. Well if they hadn't managed to beat that smile out of him yet, she was more than happy to oblige.
"Sexton is it?" she asked, ignoring his brash jest and dragging him up on his knees by his mop of brown hair. "You were the one who had a bounty out for our ears, weren't you? Yes, we've heard about you." She looked at the young recruits standing nervously behind her. "Boys, it looks like you're going to get to have a little fun after all. Ever crucified someone? No?" She grinned as they shook their heads. "Well that's about to change. Help me get him through the gate."
They hurried to comply, one of them stumbling to the gate, the other helping her lift the ill-fated private to his feet. The walls of the camp were already lined with crosses, hungrily waiting for their next tenant. She headed towards the nearest one, the busy thronging crowd making way for the group, knowing what was to come. Jeers and calls rang out from all sides, yelling for pain, for the slow death of this dissolute.
Crucifixion was always such a crowd-pleaser. Nails and rope waited at the foot of the cross, and a ladder made its way over through the crowd shortly. She ordered the other young recruit to take her place, holding Sexton in place as she stood up on the base of the cross, facing the gathered crowd. She hid her growing smile as best she could, trying not to let her pride at being the one to find this scum show as she addressed the throng.
"Men, Legion, this man - this lowly -creature-," she spat, raising the man's head by a handful of hair; every word dripped with the perfect amount of vehemence, rang with practiced weight and staidness, "-this- is the one who started the tally of ears. This is the one responsible for the desecration of our brothers, for the disrespect afforded to them like animals. I ask you men, does such a worm deserve a quick death?"
The crowd roared in outrage as she raised her knife to his throat.
"Does such a degraded beast deserve an end to his suffering?"
Again an uproar as she lightly traced his throat, letting a trickle of red run down.
"He rewarded his fellow dissolute for hunting us like animals, like poachers after a prize. Well I demand retaliation."
The crowd erupted in cheers, drowning out the private's scream as she grabbed one ear, sawing at the cartilage quickly and ferociously. She held up the severed part to even louder laudation, feeling the warm 'plip plip' of blood on her face as it dripped from her raised hand.
The cheering hadn't died before she continued, "I for one demand retributions!" and sawed and pulled off his other, ripping it from his head this time before the blade had finished its job.
Gouts of crimson soaked both sides of his sorry face, staining too his uniform. Sejanus motioned quietly for the two youths to begin raising him to the cross, nodding to one of her contubernium to help them with the crucifixion. Sexton's screams and the crowd were deafening, intoxicating. A hungry grin broke across her lips as she went on, raising one hand for quiet.
"I for one demand satisfaction. I demand he suffers as our brothers suffered, as our fallen suffered and then some! Let him hang here to see what becomes of his fellows, so he can have a slow death. Let him learn that cruelty begets cruelty, one last lesson." With that she turned, stepping down from the cross as the others finished securing him.
The crowd continued its clamour as she slipped through their ranks, smiling and nodding at her fellows as they saluted her. She was no stranger to working the men into a frenzy - her pre-battle rallying had helped with morale in several dire straits before. Her growing influence among Agrippa's centuria and her impeccable record were widely noted, and the whispers of her someday making Centurion weren't all too quiet. As things slowly went back to business and the mob dispersed, returning to their various tasks, she headed back towards the smith. She grabbed a rag from a passing slave, idly wiping the blood from her face before tossing it to the ground. As she passed her tent her man Horatius grinned at her, waving.
"You can never resist showing off can you?" he chuckled in his growl of a voice.
"Keep it up and you'll be the butt of my next show." she smiled, not stopping to talk. Horatius had always been her favorite - smarter than he looked and quick to follow her lead, he was invaluable. Even his quips tended to keep her honest, loathe as she was to admit him, lest she encourage him.
By the time she had reached the blacksmith, she found he'd already sent her axe with one of her men. Swearing she turned, tramping back the way she came. Her good mood wore off further as she passed the now crucified Sexton only to see him weakly joking with some slave-girl. As she approached she was angry to see it was none other than the girl she'd left Titus. Here she was again, cheering up the scum.
Sejanus snarled, shoving the girl aside. "Move on, or you'll end up next to him, woman." She barked, glaring at her. Mentally she dared her to protest, willed her to give some reason to be punished.
Instead she scampered away, stammering out a feeble "Yes, sir, I'm sorry sir." before heading back to the Centurion's tent. She chanced a glance back at the half-corpse on the cross as she went, soured Sejanus' mood further.
She hoped Titus broke the girl soon, and hoped to be rid of that stubborn smiling degenerate Sexton. All of this and she still hadn't managed to get ahold of Night Stalker or her axe.