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[indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][justify][color=808080]The grease sizzled off Agamen’s forehead as he rested his head on the bars. Heavy eyes gazed across the pit, where some act of violence was obscured by heat warping the air. For weeks he had been paraded through the Empire a pariah, now he was here, locked up and isolated from civilisation with the rest of the unseemly. It felt so inevitable, the solid ground of his cell came as a relief. Here, he would finally rest. Here, he would repent, until the final inevitability befell him. [i]Sky Father, in your glory, I will burn the sullied clean.[/i][/color]

“You'll have better luck bartering with your cellmate than making any bargains up there,” [color=808080]a clear voice, too thick and melodic for the dry air, interrupted his prayers. Agamen’s head jerked just enough to catch honey-brown eyes glinting in the shadowed corner. The companion in his cell lounged on a cot,  rags draping down from his shoulders with the dignity of formal regalia. His beard was remarkably well groomed for a desolate. Probably had something to do with the shiv he was using to pick under his fingernails.[/color] “Well, have you got anything on you?” [color=808080]Pure death carried on Agamen’s glare. An easy grin was returned.[/color] “First time, huh? You’re supposed to bring the goods to barter, [i]and[/i] the bribe for the guards to ignore it. Most first timers forget the second one, but, ah… you’re not looking to make friends here without either.”

[color=#424d8c]"For what end?"[/color] [color=808080]Agamen's voice was coated in dust. He didn't look at the thug anymore.[/color] [color=#424d8c]"We're here to die."[/color]

"You might be," [color=808080]the man said with a certain theatrical diction.[/color] "Seven months in, myself." [color=808080]A glance, an unspoken, [i]how could that be?[/i] The man shifted up, and Agamen tensed as he felt his approach.[/color] “If you’re smart and make their life easy while you’re here, sure, they’ll eventually kill you. Kick and writhe and curse your fate, they’ll get fifty lashes in before they kill you. Rise too high, piss off the wrong senator before you even make it through the gate? They’ll still whip ya. But they won’t kill ya.”

[color=808080]Solid, limber musculature joined Agamen’s hunched form against the bars. The man had weight to him, but leaned delicately. He gestured up and towards the pit.[/color]

“You see the shadow?” [color=808080]He asked. Agamen could not.[/color] “He’d be pretty far up. Near the top, where the vultures nest.” [color=808080]Agamen’s imagination raced before the man could lean in and utter,[/color] “They chain you up, ankle and wrist, and spread you buck naked. Hang you right in the eye facing The Sky Father’s judgement. He decides whether it’ll be the heat, the exhaustion, or the birds that will drag you to hell.”

[color=808080]The traitor’s neck and hands were slippery. He saw the sun, heard the roar of it as he was thrust before its mercy, naked and bloodstained as he’d been born. He had seen horror before, felt it done unto him, but it had never made him braver. He was as mortal as any other. Yet…[/color] [color=#424d8c]“Maybe that’s what we all dese-”[/color]

“Anyway, if you see a corpse strung over your head out there, that’s Pollux, my last cellmate. Spare him a prayer. Only thing you brought with you,” [color=808080]the man finished glibly, and produced a small leather pouch from seemingly thin air. It sloshed, betraying the fluid inside. His hand was open in offering. Driven purely by mammal instinct, Agamen snatched and swigged it. He choked on the burn of pure ethanol and doubled over. The man yelped and swooped in to save it.[/color] “Whoa- whoa, man! What did you think it was, water?” [color=808080]A laugh.[/color] “That’s moonshine Cyclops made from the mushrooms growing out of the shit buckets. Do you [i]know[/i] what I traded for this much?” [color=808080]He took a sip with little more than a slight wince and ‘ah’.[/color]

[color=#424d8c]“That’s fucking foul,”[/color] [color=808080]Agamen growled, banging his chest.[/color]

“Mm. Well, you either live long enough to stomach it, or,” [color=808080]he whistled and pointed up. He slipped the pouch back somewhere in his rags and stepped back. Then something happened that made Agamen straighten, head lifting with memory of an old pride. This roguish peacock adjusted his posture and bowed, arm crossing his chest in a gesture that came naturally.[/color] “The name's Marcellus Starr, you must be aching to know. At your service.”

[color=#424d8c]“You’re a soldier,”[/color] [color=808080]the former general said. He wasn’t aware of how much his flipping opinion of the man was in his eyes, in the way they locked onto him. Marcellus slouched back into a stance of ease.[/color]

“Once,” [color=808080]he said.[/color] “I’m not legion anymore. Mercenary. It was a path I took willingly, unlike… you, I presume. What were you? Not fodder… Centurion? Prefect? What the hell did you do to end up here?” [color=808080]Agamen shriveled back. An appreciative grin spread across Marcellus’s face.[/color] “Good, keeping your sin to yourself. At least you’re not that green. But, y’know, before you hear anything - I didn’t do it.”

[color=808080]He put his hands up as he paced backwards to his cot and flopped down, resuming his grooming with the shiv.[/color]

“Keep your prayers in your head and we’ll get along just fine, captain.”

[color=808080]Agamen looked back out at the pit. The sands blurred and silhouettes of patrolling guards wobbled like shades. He thought of the man strung twenty stories above, being scorched and torn apart in the eye of The Sky Father. He shut his own storm blue eyes and prayed.

[i]Sky Father, in your glory, I will burn the sullied clean. Sky Father, in your glory, I will burn the sullied clean.[/i][/color][/justify][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]

[hider=NPCs mentioned][center][table][row][cell][color=2e2c2c]_____________[/color][/cell][cell][justify][center][h3][sup][b][color=bf8c50]M A R C E L L U S[/color][/b][/sup][/h3][img]https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/9fd65145d33e.jpg[/img][/center][hr][hider=Story][center][h3][sup][sub]human | 31 | warfare | charisma | lore[/sub][/sup][/h3][/center][color=808080]A charming mercenary with a soldier's upbringing that finds himself on death's row for a murder he uncharacteristically didn't do... or was it didn't get paid for? He's popular with the ladies and disarms most conflicts with a smile - but his eyes hold the dull, superficial glint of the coin his sword-arm swears fealty to.

[i]penned by CabbageAngel[/i][/color][/hider][/justify][/cell][cell][color=2e2c2c]_____________[/color][/cell][/row][/table][/center][/hider]

[hr][right][i][color=808080]collabs - none | pc interacts - none[/color][/i][/right]