[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/wLK02wG.png[/img][/center]
[hr][hr][center][color=yellow]Location: Medical Station, and Coliseum[/color][/center][hr][hr]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/MOjmrm2.jpeg[/img][hr][hr]

The scent of sunlight and smoke hung thick over New Rome.

By the time the final duels began, the Solstice Festival had reached its golden peak, laughter spilling from the Forum, strings and flutes winding together into a melody that carried all the way to the Coliseum’s open gates. Lucius Cassius Crassus stood just beyond them, sleeves rolled to his forearms, hands already stained faintly with the shimmer of divine gold. The battlefield he might be retired from, but the work, the quiet, unending work of mending others, never left him.

[color=BBC922]“Hold still,”[/color] he murmured, voice low and even as his fingers brushed across a legionnaire’s bruised shoulder. A warm pulse of light followed his touch, flowing from palm to skin like liquid dawn. The soldier exhaled, the kind of breath that trembled with relief. Lucius caught a glimpse and held back a wince, a newer Legionnaire, just a child, with the insignia of the second cohort on his armor. [color=BBC922]“Better?”[/color] Lucius asked, and the 'boy' nodded, wonder and gratitude flickering in his eyes.

“Thank you, sir.”

[color=BBC922]“Don’t thank me,”[/color] Lucius replied, wiping his hand on a cloth as the glow faded. [color=BBC922]“Thank your training. You held your stance even when your arm gave out, that saved you more than I did.”[/color]

He said it with a faint smile, the kind that hinted at warmth beneath restraint. His tone was clipped but kind, steady as the hum of the earth beneath the city’s marble bones. Around him, the medics’ alcove buzzed with soft chaos, healers moving briskly between cots, pitchers of nectar clinking, the smell of crushed herbs and burnt ozone from spent ambrosia wafers.

Lucius moved through it all like a conductor among strings, efficient, deliberate, carrying the calm of someone who’d seen far too much of war and had learned to master his pulse against it.

It should have been easy, this, healing, tending, advising. The life of a retired soldier turned physician. Chandler Sumpter’s hospital had given him peace, purpose. The steady rhythm of the ward, the bright laughter of his younger half-siblings echoing through the courtyard, the absence of blood-soaked sand under his boots.

And yet...

His gaze drifted toward the arena’s bright mouth, where cheers erupted in a fresh surge. The air was electric, the kind of energy that made the hairs on his arms rise. The Coliseum sang with the heartbeat of battle.

He remembered that sound. The way it used to vibrate through his chest when he stood in the sand, bow drawn, eyes locked on the enemy line. The precision of it. The clarity.

Lucius tightened the strap on his bracer, an old habit, then sighed and reached for another vial of nectar. The movement was practical, but his thoughts lingered.

The Legion was trying to call him back, his men constantly asking if he'd come back and run the second with Lucius' own protégé. They would again, ceaseless in their efforts. He could already feel the whisper of it at the edge of the festival’s laughter, the sense that peace, for someone like him, was only ever borrowed.

[color=BBC922]“Lucius.”[/color]

He looked up as Camilla approached, her silhouette sharp against the torchlight, cloak gleaming violet in the dusk. Even without her armor, she carried the weight of command like a mantle carved into her very bones.

[color=BBC922]“Praetor.”[/color] His tone softened slightly, though habit still bent it toward formality. [color=BBC922]“You’re missing your celebration.”[/color]

She glanced toward the healers’ alcove, toward the row of patched-up fighters and the faint smell of burned ambrosia. [color=831EBD]“Someone has to make sure they live to see the next one.”[/color]

Lucius’s mouth curved. [color=BBC922]“And you thought I’d forgotten how to do that?”[/color]

[color=831EBD]“I thought you might need reminding,”[/color] she said simply, and there was humor in it, quiet, but familiar.

For a moment, they stood in silence, the noise of the arena a distant roar. Camilla’s gaze lingered on him, the steady hands, the worn bracers, the eyes that had seen too much to be at ease for long.

[color=831EBD]“You’re thinking about coming back,”[/color] she said finally, though it wasn’t a question.

Lucius didn’t answer right away. He poured the last of the nectar into a fresh cup and set it beside the cot of a sleeping recruit. The faint light from the liquid reflected in his eyes, gold threaded with shadow.

[color=BBC922]“I’m thinking,”[/color] he said at last, [color=BBC922]“about whether I’m still the kind of man who belongs on a battlefield.”[/color]

Camilla regarded him quietly, then inclined her head, not in command, but understanding. [color=831EBD]“The battlefield remembers you, Lucius. Whether you remember it or not. Your men loved, and continue to love you, and I can see your soul still longs for the Legion. You've simply stopped listening to your heart and are instead thinking with your head. It's something you Minerva Legacies have in common, and while it served you well in training, you have to master yourself Lucius Crassus. Consider this my permission to rejoin if you decide to re-enlist.”[/color]

Then she turned, the folds of her cloak whispering across the marble as she strode back toward the light.

Lucius watched her go, the noise of the crowd swelling as Cassian’s victory was announced, the cheer of a thousand voices calling a name that once might have been his. He knew there were other bouts left but Lucius sighed and went to look into the sky.

The sky above the city burned gold and crimson, and the first stars began to spark through.

Lucius stood there a moment longer, surrounded by the scent of ozone, herbs, and the faint metallic tang of healing, caught between the life he’d built and the one that refused to release him.