The years before grief, part 1
Year 239 A.D, in the Sanctuary of Athena;
In general, it was nothing strange about Saints returning from a mission with a few orphans in tow, picked up to become cadets in training as possible Saints or other form of defense for the Sanctuary. Or, sometimes, just to ensure a healthy population with reduced risk of inbreeding down in the village through new blood.
"That is enough for today, stop," Capricorn Darius ordered, and the two girls a bit away from him stopped any movements at his words. Like most girls aiming to become female Saints, they wore protective masks over their faces, but when those were removed, two near identical faces were revealed, mirror images of the same hazel eyes and dark purple hair.
"Yes…master Darius?" the one to the left asked, both of them gasping for breath as they watched the Gold Saint. As usual, he was watching them in silence.
"Lydia, Elena," he addressed his two students, "You have done well today. All that effort to fix your malnutrition and poorer health from the past, between myself and my servants at the Capricorn Temple, has borne fruit. You both last longer in training for each day and your respective Cosmo no longer flutters like a candle about to be blown out."
"Really?!"
Darius saw how this news brought joy to his two students, for there was an unspoken fear between the twin sisters about disappointing him to the point that he regretted bringing them here and risk being forced to leave the Sanctuary, to return to the life he saved them from just a few months earlier.
"Yes. Now go and wash off yourself before taking a rest, because training or doing anything else hard during the hottest hours of the day is asking for overheating of the body. As you already know, you have a school lesson with Leo Julia later alongside the other cadets that are most likely to become Gold Saints."
"Yes, sir!"
He watched them as they left, then began to do some movements of his own that had been a little dangerous with other people around.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Later, after the break during the hottest hours, did Darius arrive to give a report to the Grand Pope and Lady Athena herself:
"How is it going for you in training your two unexpected students, Darius? For all of that we have talked about Romulus and Remus possibly not be suitable as the Gemini Saint, we knew that finding another set of twins to become a alternative, was almost impossible due to that twins are often born early and risk dying in the cradle because they are smaller and weaker than other babies, or being abandoned to a early death because of superstition that they are a bad omen or that the parents simply can not support them for various reasons."
The Capricorn Saint knelt before responding:
"Lydia and Elena have started to grow stronger now that they have slowly come to accept that this is their new role, and I have promised them that even if they do not end up as Saints, they shall not be forced back to their old life."
Athena looked a little sad at that indirect reminder.
"Truly, what a contrast to the noble-born Romulus and Remus, if the actual Gemini twins of this era would turn out to be the two former slave girls…"
For the two girls, who had been slaves their whole lives until this very spring, being found by Darius under the lie that he was a servant seeking for new handmaidens to his female employer and brought to the Sanctuary, had indeed shaken some of the expected norms here by their mere arrival.
"Still, ensure that the girls are not running around on their own," the Pope reminded Darius, "the supporters of the Italian brothers are not happy that there is another set of twins here in the Sanctuary, and I worry that those two brothers may try to bully the sisters though those."
"That is exactly why I always leave the girls in the hands of my fellow Gold Saints or those to become part of our rank, Grand Pope. Many of those "followers" are scared of facing those in the same age with much greater power. It is why they are bending their backs over in order to please the Italian twins, because they do not want to face them in a match and instead choose to be cowards serving them."
They kept talking for some time about other things, like what happened in the Roman Empire and other places in the known world that was important to keep an eye on as possible forewarnings of the coming Holy War, before Darius was allowed to leave.
"I know that not every Saint serving Lady Athena can be a model of goodness and willingness to defend humankind against Hades, but the mere thought of those two fighting in the Holy War among us….it makes me uncomfortable," the Capricorn Saint thought for himself, "and the worst part of this problem is that they would only succeed each other, per the tradition of having the older twin wear the Gemini Cloth first and have the younger twin follow up if the older twin dies."
Despite that most of the Gold Saints did not openly admit it, they were not really looking forward to the day when the sixteen-year-old Italian twins Romulus and Remus would become the Gemini Saints of this generation. Yes, their raw talent in using Cosmo from a early age was a great skill, but ten years of the twins getting a little too much praise for every success they made and far too little criticism of their flaws, had made them had unfortunately made them arrogant and a strong refusal to humbly accept when something did not go as they expected.
"That is why we have been seeking so much in secret for an alternative set of twins to serve Lady Athena despite the odds against being successful…because we fear that Hades would be able to temper Romulus and Remus with an offer that would make them betray Athena! Lydia, Elena…you may be former slaves, but you know to not take things in life for granted like the Italian brothers!"
Meanwhile in the Leo Temple:
"Are the letters giving you headaches in having to memorize them, Elena?" the female Leo Saint asked at noticing one of the children frowning in a strange manner.
"No!" the younger sister responded a little too hasty, out of habit from when she and Lydia had still been slaves, fearing some form of punishment for "laziness" or something else that made them work slower than expected. That sort of behavior was something they had yet to stop with, because a few short months was not going to undo habits and behaviors that had been necessary to survive so far in their lives.
"I am not going to be angry at you for having difficulty in those lessons to teach reading and writing, because that is a skill you were not expected to have before."
Given that Darius had mentioned to her that he had found the girls on a slave-run farm focusing on producing wool fabrice for sale, Julia tried her best to not sound like Elena was in trouble. After all, it said a lot about that they had been raised to do basic domestic skills of a female slave, without any special skills to raise their value if they were to be sold to a new owner in the future, and seeing education as something for the sons of freedmen and wealthy people who could pay for tutors.
"Yes…lady Julia…"
Next to her sister, Lydia did actually lean towards the future Cancer Saint, twelve-year-old Agi, to whisper a question for his help, while fourteen-year-old Utu, who was expected to become the Pisces Saint within the coming years, carefully paid attention to the three younger classmates of his, because he felt that as the oldest student, it would be rude of him to show off that he was quite a bit ahead of them due to being a few years older.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
After finishing the lessons for the afternoon, the four youngsters took the chance to do something their respective teachers had told them to do:
Watching how Romulus and Remus behaved during their own training. And of course, how they would be surrounded by flatters and other people seeking their favor.
"As someone who has spent quite a part of my training around them, I am really happy that Sir Darius was able to find you, Lydia, Elena," Utu whispered with no hiding that he did not get along at all with the Italian twins.
"Yeah, the very idea of those two as Gold Saints….no thanks, if anyone would ask me," Agi added in, turning his back on the scene below as a sign of ignoring the crowd altogether.
"Oh dear, they better not be trying to flirt with Tiamat again…!" Utu gasped at noticing a new person, and found himself right when the female Aquarius Saint sent off the crowd with a Diamond Dust after that Remus seemed to have said something that she did not agree with.
"Let's give her some time to cool off if she is annoyed…"
Despite being in her mid twenties, whatever she was free from her duties as a Gold Saint or from a mission, Tiamat spent a lot of time with Lydia and Elena on the request of Darius who sometimes was clueless about what to do with students that was girls, doing her best to help them adjust to the new life that they now faced here in the Sanctuary.
"There is nothing wrong with being late bloomers in having your Cosmo awaken fully. Darius himself is a good example, as he was nineteen when he became the Capricorn Saint, and I was just two years younger when I succeeded my master."
By old habit, Lydia and Elena did not talk much themselves, instead listening to her as all three of them were spinning wool into thread. Even here in the Sanctuary, fabric had to be made for clothing and other textiles, and despite that this was mostly done by servants and the farmer wives down in the village, the female Saints sometimes helped out when the sheep had their wool cut off.
"Tiamat, how come that you all seem to be really against the idea of Romulus and Remus becoming the Gemini Saint despite all their talent? I mean, we have not even talked to them face to face yet, so we do not really understand why…"
Stopping her drop spindle for a moment so she could add more wool to her thread, Tiamat tried to explain in a neutral manner:
"Raw talent and long training to gain skills does not always make up for unpleasant personalities. And if we can not get along in peaceful times, what does that promise for the Holy War against Hades?"
Lydia and Elena may have been unaware of the Sanctuary and the Saints of Athena until a few months ago, but this did not mean that they were slow in learning.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Author note: Capricorn Darius is meant to be named after Darius the Great, a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE.
As mentioned in my other SS fanfics, it is rather unlikely that the Saints have always been male, so the Leo Saint for the Holy War in 246 AD is a woman named Julia, as well the Aquarius Saint, who is a Iragi woman named Tiamat
In ancient Rome, owners of slave-run farms and sheep-flocks were advised that whenever the opportunity arose, female slaves should be fully occupied in the production of homespun woolen cloth; this is what Lydia and Elena was raised to do during their first ten years of life before Darius found them, because as female slaves with no noticable skills, they was expected to do household tasks for the mistress of whatever household they would belong in
Agi is a male Ancient Germanic name meaning "edge of the sword", while Utu is the name of the god of the sun in Sumerian mythology. In Babylonian myth Tiamat was the personification of the sea, appearing in the form of a huge dragon.