Wednesday April 1st 2015

Cesare stopped on the threshold of Tamlin’s door, the man had worked him hard knowing if things didn’t change soon, the queen or Abraxas would make sure he wasn’t here next year. As it stood, the queen would butcher him as easily as snapping a puppies neck. They both knew he was living on borrowed time.

That all faded as he looked across the hallway at Blaez. “You know I don’t like you, right?” Cesare asked, closing the door quietly behind him.

Shrugging, the boy straightened. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to fuck you.”

Cesare’s eyebrows rose at the statement. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Looking him over, Blaez smiled slyly. “They love you man; anyone can see that. By Thor’s hairy balls, they went toe to toe with a dragon to make sure everyone knew you were off limits.”

Cesare didn’t want to talk about this with anyone, especially Blaez. But a part of him needed to get it out, and sometimes it was easier to say things to an enemy than a friend. You can only trust the honesty of an enemy, friends always lie.

“I’m a big investment for them.” Cesare carefully kept from looking at the boy stalking next to him. “You saw them defending their property, but you missed the hidden blade. By teaming up, they proved they were the dominant force in the school, anyone thinking to isolate and kill was ruined by the show. Destroying the dragon put them standing on the corpse of his reputation. I’m sure they did it partly because of how they feel about me, but they gained far more than I did.” The students confused disbelief surrounded the two they walked down the hallway. They were supposed to be mortal enemies, not friends.

“You think they did it on purpose?” Blaez asked quietly.

A tight smile cut across Cesare’s face, biting cynicism and bitterly won knowledge in equal measure. “I think they're more dedicated to their ambitions than they'll ever be to their hearts.”

Blaez watched Cesare, never faltering in that steady stalk that was the gift of the trained fighter. “Then why do this? If you’ll never be anything to them, why go through this?”

Looking away, Cesare's words were almost lost in the noise of school letting out. “When you love someone, you sacrifice for them, time, dreams, happiness. Love is butchering your heart and soul, offering the quivering flesh to the one’s you love. You do it because you love them more than you love yourself.”

Swallowing, the wolf stopped, a sickly expression on his face. “I hope I never love anyone that much.”

Wryly, Cesare looked over at the wolf. “I don’t think that'll be a problem. I’ve never known a man who loved himself more than you do.” Laughing, Blaez nodded, happy to get past the painful subject.

Blaez would never be his kind of guy, but Cesare didn’t get along with others, male or female. He’d never liked Blaez's type. High achieving, popular, good looking, with all the right moves. The werewolf owned a self-assuredness that smacked of a depth of self-love alien to Cesare.

But he didn’t need to like him, all he had to do was work with him. He could do that; he could be nice, even accommodating when he wanted. But anything further was beyond him, the women took up all his give a fucks. It was exhausting caring for other’s, and he wasn’t planning on adding anyone to the list, ever.

The guards at the threshold of the Ludus Noctis gave Cesare a respectful nod, ignoring the werewolf next to him. They'd never think of challenging the Thagirion, but they could skirt the edge of disrespect. It wasn’t enough to make Blaez call them on it, but that didn’t mean he wasn't taking notes. Cesare didn’t care, Blaez was only temporary person. After Cesare finished helping the kid, the werewolf would go back to being not his problem.

Walking into the courtyard, Cesare knew something was off. A charge in the air ran under the skin of the place, threads of violence weaving through the area. Between one step and the next, his body readied itself to take a blow or jump out of the way. Supple and fluid, muscles warmed in readiness for a fight.

Beside him, Blaez looked around in confusion, he felt the change but didn't know the meaning. He’d never been jumped, never been beaten down while laughter filled the air. No, Blaez had been the one doing the jumping.

Singly they came from their disciplines, converging on Cesare from the corners of the courtyard. They were the ones he’d seen teaching, leaders of their arts. Dangerous, lethal, and committed, as different from each other as people could be. Despite the difference in mind, body, and weapons, they were more alike than anyone they'd meet in the outside world.

Each of them was born into the Sanguinem Nativitate. Before easy memory, their parents had pushed them into fighting. Wooden weapons instead of toys, training programs in place of friends, forced into a mold that carved them into freakish things of slaughter. They'd long ago deformed their bodies through constant training. Crafting minds into encyclopedic machines of attacks, defense, strategy, and tactics, until knowledge was stitched into the meat of their bodies. They existed as living weapons of flesh and bone.

Stepping away from her class, a girl separated from the knife fighters. Short dark hair on a small face, her leather armor fit her lithe body, showcasing dense muscles perfect for quick, deft movements. Stepping lightly, she barely brushed across the ground. A long knife was strapped along one thigh. The handle of a second knife poked from her side; blade sheathed horizontally across her lower back. Quick, sharp eyes darted over Cesare and Blaez.

Across from her, a boy split from his group, tall and black, he held himself with the tightness of the condemned. Dan had fallen into the darkness that existed outside of Cesare’s concerns. Lean and dangerous, the black man kept his eyes away from Cesare, there was too much history between them, too many memories that ended with Dan screaming.

Cesare watched the boy for a second before cutting him out of his threat assessment. The boy was strong, mean, and a hell of a fighter if he had a trident in his hands. Even without his weapon, Dan was still a dangerous man, willing to do whatever it took to win. But at this moment none of that mattered because Cesare had broken him, inside his mind Cesare was an avatar of failure and pain. If pushed, he’d tangle with Cesare but he’d look for the exit, not the win.

Sampson came out of his group of fighters, body already coated in a layer of sweat. He looked natural in a way he never did in the school uniform. Sampson always looked out of place in school clothes, awkward, uneasy, and out of depth. It didn’t help that he was a caricature of a boy, deformed through years of shaping his body. His overly muscled shoulders, massive chest, and thighs like tree trunks were a nightmare to fit into clothes.

Meeting his eyes, Sampson gave Cesare a small nod. If this went south, Sampson would have his back, no matter the blood or cost. The boy had too much to lose to let it slide away for anything this side of death.

Atalanta was in a one-sided conversation with the small girl who seemed to be running the Scythiansnow. With rounded shoulders, Atalanta nodded along with the smaller girl’s words. No matter what happened, Atalanta would tow the line the Scythians demanded. Turning away from the smaller girl, she made her way toward Cesare.

She’d done away with the cane, but her pained steps said more than words how much it cost her to walk across the even ground. Twin lines of black stitches ran down her face, scars where the doctors had cut her face open to reconstruct her jaw. Her face was lost in the past, defined now by scars and hard choices.

Breaking from her two companions, the murmillo gladiatrix made her own way to the forming group. She had a swaying walk that conjured thoughts of hot nights of sweaty sin. She’d never be beautiful or even pretty, but she was the kind of woman men lusted after. Arrogant, sensual, and dangerous, she commanded her sexuality.

She wasn’t even a low rent version of Anastasia, and maybe that was what put the vicious edge to her eyes. The akatharton commanded others attention with a combination of supernatural sexuality and her own awareness. Men found it almost impossible not to look at her, she bound people to her through compulsions that hooked into base natures. Gorgeous, smart, with a power few could dream of, Anastasia was in a league of her own. And the murmillo knew it.

Watching the coming gladiators, Cesare flexed his toes, feet scrapping across the hard ground as he centered himself. Sampson could be counted on to have his back, their interests too intertwined for the big man to break. Atalanta should be on Cesare’s side given the blood he’d paid the Scythians. Dan wouldn’t fight him, but that didn’t mean he was on Cesare’s side. The gladiatrix wasn’t on his side while the knife wielder was a wild card.

A deep rumble of anger ran through the air, a base so low Cesare’s bones resonated with it. “Cattle should know better than to bother the wolf.” There was a nasty turn to the man’s words, an edge jagged with the arrogance of the strong.

Focusing on the threat coming at them, Cesare didn't bother answering. The others formed up around the gladiatrix, allowing her the pride of place, the center spot that faced off with Cesare.

“Why are you here?” The gladiatrix asked, staring a challenge at Cesare, fingers tapping along the hilt of her gladius. “You need the credits; we know how your failing your classes. But why bring the werewolf?”

Cesare felt Blaez shift next to him, anger spilling off the boy. That the gladiators dared to challenged him, stoked the werewolf's fury. In the Umbrae Lunae world, the strong took from the weak, and no matter how far he’d fallen, Blaez was still one of the strong.

“To train,” Cesare said, the two words quiet and dangerous. In this place, you couldn’t let a challenge go by without answering. He couldn’t let the jackals get any bolder or they’d swarm and tear him down.

The gladiators shifted uncomfortably under his words, exchanging long looks. Dan stepped back before catching himself, already looking for an out. Sampson frowned at the way the talk was going, face clouding with concern. Atalanta looked at the gladiatrix and back to Cesare, caught between backing her or keeping the Scythians promise of loyalty. The knife cutters face stayed neutral, hand drifting to the knife sheathed on her thigh.

The gladiatrix held Cesare’s eyes without a flinch. “Everyone knows the Furies have their own place to train, why don’t you take the werewolf there?”

With a low growl, Blaez stepped forward, commanding the instant attention of every gladiator. Notoriously hot tempered, prone to a level of brutality feared as much as it was anticipated, the boy wouldn’t ever be anything less than a mortal threat. Blaez’s lips peeled back in a snarl, the wolf glaring out of yellow eyeshine as the beast surged forward, rattling the man’s soul in its rage filled rush to gorge itself on the gladiators. “That’s none of your fucking business …” Blaez growled, strings of ropy flesh writhing across his face as the wolf fought the man for control.

Cesare cut the wolf off with a quiet word. “Enough.” It was an eclipse of heat, a void that stretched dead tendrils into the soul with violating force.

The growl cut off as wolf and man calmed under Cesare's order, stepping back, the boy settled into Cesare's shadow. The simple command changed the landscape of the conversation as the gladiators flinched away from the incomprehensible. It was one thing to challenge Cesare, and another to challenge Cesare when he had the backing of a werewolf on the edge of carnage. That Cesare could command the werewolf even as its inner wolf was biting to savage them spoke of a level of control that was terrifying.

Clearing his throat, Sampson quietly entered the pregnant silence. “We’re not trying to start a fight,” the big man said with an pointed glance at the flushing gladiatrix. “We’re the Primus Palus of our disciplines, we won that right through dozens of fights. Before the Thagirion ever set foot on grass, me and mine have already been cut, stabbed, beaten, and maimed out there. We know the crowds come to see you, and that we’re just the jesters bled for their amusement. But this place has always been ours. The elite have never come here, never cared about us. So, we’re asking, why you're bringing the wolf here?”

Cesare juggled probabilities. He could walk through them, no matter that this was their area, they didn’t have the power to stop him, let alone Blaez. With Sampson on his side, Dan looking for a way out, and Atalanta wavering, there wasn’t a lot they could do to hold him. But is that what he wanted? They had the right, just because they didn’t have the power to force him to acknowledge it, didn’t mean their claim wasn’t valid.

The gladiators trained here, watered the earth with blood and tears. This land birthed their dreams or buried them in its hardened flesh. Small and dirty, this was the womb of their dreams. For him to take that from them, to callously shunt them aside, wasn’t just an insult to them, it was an insult to every gladiator that called this place home. Which didn’t mean he'd bare his throat in submission.

“The place I train the Furies is only for the Furies. The place Miss Raven gave me, is for all my students,” Cesare said even as he moved through the crescent shaped block of people.

They shied aside at his sudden movement, hands dropping to weapons. But as one they got out of the way. They knew instinctively that they'd pushed as far as he'd allow. If they wanted more, they'd need to bleed for it.

But they'd gotten what they wanted, a declaration of intent. He’d invested a lot into the Cherries, and he wouldn't see that thrown away. Cesare wanted to give them the chance to be strong, not cast off onto the corpses of the weak because no one cared to teach them.

There was a greater reason than the students or the credits. Miss Raven had cut this place away from the Ludus Noctisfor him. She’d stood for him, taken the land from Jerold’s territory and given it to Cesare. She’d created a jewel the gladiators could only marvel at. For that reason alone, he wouldn’t abandon it.