Greetings once again, one and all...



I set this chapter apart, not for what's in it, but essentially for what's
not...That being, the next chapter...



You'll see...



Disclaimer:

Evangelion doesn't belong to me or anyone else on this list. Live with it.

I've borrowed the characters with situations to make a grand story of love

and betrayal and men in skirts...Er...Togas...Live with it.



C&C, as always, is wanted and welcomed;

gargoyle@glasscity.net

gargoyle9@hotmail.com

or

gargoyle4@hotmail.com

Flames will be sacrificed in the name of Caesar!



Many thanks to me prereaders...Adrian Forest and Dave Menard...Thanks! ^_^



So...Sit back and enjoy!

Salud!



***



Caeles looked down the hill and wondered if they had come across

some portal to the underworld. It was the port city of Fragosus, on

the North Sea, their final destination after three weeks of almost

constant march. Caeles looked down upon the city and shivered.

He could see how the barbarians had marched through the city by

the path the fire made. In the chill evening light, his goal against

these beasts was apparent. Mistura had been told by her scouts and

her advance troops that nothing remained of the mayor's villa. The

bodies had been there, blackened and charred, of the mayor, his

family, his slaves...They had even reported that the pets had been

killed.



It sickened Caeles to think of the horrid peoples who would scorch

and burn what he thought would have been quite a lovely little

seaside town. He could tell that there were still some fires in the

distant parts of the city. But then, Mistura had said that there were

parts of the city in which disease had sprang up. An epidemic of

some sort that had to be controlled. Some of the buildings had to

be burned...Along with the people in them.



***



The Fate of Hearts

By

Joshua Trujillo



Part VII - Tools of the Trade



***



Caeles shifted on his horse again, easing it down the hill toward

the main gates of the city, or rather, what was left of them.

Fragosus had been, until recently, under siege. When Mistura's

advance legionnaires were able to break the siege, some of the

barbarians snuck in and burned parts of the city. The legionnaires

helped the town put out the fires, but were caught unawares when

the barbarians attacked again. Many Romans were killed by the

sneak attack and it was something that spurred the rest of Mistura's

forces to march faster. Mistura was hard on herself for not sending

more troops than she had. Caeles had tried to comfort her by

saying that she couldn't have known, but Mistura wouldn't listen.

She replied that command was a lonely thing. That was a week

ago.



As Caeles passed under the crumbling gates, a sense of deja vu

swept over him. A little over a month ago, he was doing the same

thing at Urba Tertius. The bend of the metal in the gates, as well as

the scorch marks on the wood suggested that whoever was on the

other side of the gates had kept someone, the barbarians

presumably, from getting in for a long time. Then, when the fire

spread, it was a barrier out. A single torch now rested in its holder

on the inside of the gate, a source of light in the growing darkness.



The first sensation that hit Caeles was the smell. Waves of sooty,

burned...Things wafted to his nose. He rubbed his nose in response

to the acrid stench, but couldn't relieve himself of it. It was a sight

though, that made him forget about the smell.



As his group passed through the streets, Caeles looked into the

eyes of Germania around him. A small girl looked up at him with

her light, blue eyes. Her blonde hair marred by the soot from the

streets and buildings around her, she watched as Caeles passed. He

saw in her face trepidation and fear...Fear from the invaders, no

doubt. Anger welled up in him at the sight of this orphan of war.

This dirty little angel, her dress as blackened as her face, he had

looked upon and found another purpose.



Everywhere he went as they rode through town, the cries of the

sick and the dying. All he saw was hunger. And fear. Sometimes in

equal measure, sometimes outweighed by the gratitude of the

peoples in receiving them. Sometimes outweighed by what Caeles

could only think to be hatred. He hated the people that did this too,

he could understand. Mistura's troops set up camp on a nearby

hillside, close enough to defend the city, but defensible themselves.

The command group, which included Caeles, was to set up in an

abandoned hotel about a block from the mayor's residence.



"How do you feel?"



Caeles looked up from his thoughts. It was Certus that had asked

the question. He smiled slightly and waved a hand about him.



"Sick."



She nodded.



"I know it's hard Caeles and for that, I'm sorry," Mistura said from

her horse, "But I need you ready. We'll get you set up in a room

and you get some sleep, okay?"



Caeles sighed heavily and nodded his assent.



***



The accommodations were nice enough. Someone among the

group had even swept the rooms and hallways of soot, which

seemed to be everywhere. Caeles just couldn't sleep anymore. He

pulled his cloak closer to ward off the morning cold. A cold, which

seemed to pervade as much as the soot. Caeles shifted around and

looked up to the little table across the room. The candle had gone

out long ago, taking what little heat and light it brought with it. He

looked over to one side of the room, where he'd placed his small

pack. He hadn't brought his tools with him and that was because

Mistura had wanted to travel light. She had said something about a

possible running fight, which didn't set too well with him.



He just hadn't wanted to leave his tools and his work at Urba

Tertius. It was too precious to him to leave unprotected. For the

sake of the Gods, what would any of them think if they found it?

He tried not to think of that possibility and rolled over again. A

grumbling lit from across the room and Caeles sighed. That was

the other reason he couldn't sleep. Vivo snored. Heavily. Caeles

had been able to get a little sleep early on, but then the snoring

really got worse.



Caeles sighed. It was close to dawn anyway.



He got up and shuffled to the single window. He opened one of the

soot covered, wooden-slatted panes and looked out across the

town. He couldn't actually see much of the town itself, as the hotel

was near the outskirts, but he could see out across a couple of the

hills that surrounded the city. Torches moved in and around the

makeshift graveyards that the hillsides had become. Caeles

shivered, more from the thought of the dead at the doorstep than

from the cold.



He presumed that the torches were from the legionnaires still

working to bury the dead. But...Caeles thought for a minute. The

dead should have all been buried hours ago, for they were well into

doing that when the command group rode into town. Just how

many dead WERE-



He stopped himself. Even between the townsfolk and the

legionnaires that were killed in the siege, fire and sneak attack, the

graves were still too numerous. Which only meant that the

legionnaires working through the night out there were

burying...barbarian dead...



But, Caeles asked himself, Why?



He couldn't imagine why, in the name of the emperor, they would

bother burying the enemy dead? True, they would begin to smell

after a while, but that's why you BURN them. Burial is something

done out of respect and admiration for the dead, not simply

hygiene. And there was plenty of wood in the surrounding forests

that could be used to make a nice funeral pyre.



Caeles shook his head. They're barbarians...



They wouldn't do the same for us...



Would they?



Caeles looked back as Vivo grumbled something. Probably

complaining about the window. Caeles smirked and closed the

window against the growing light outside. He began to get himself

dressed.



It was close to dawn.



***



Lagena sneezed. The cold of the night was starting to wear on her,

but then, she could tell by the amount of light filtering through the

central courtyard that it was nearing dawn. And therefore the end

of her shift.



Currently, she was making the final round in the living quarters.

Many of the doors either had markings on them, distinguishing

them or the names of the people. Lagena passed her own door and

smiled at the big, yellow sun on the door. She hoped that Certus

was okay all the way up north, she had to look after the boy Caeles

as well as General Kalendis, and that could be a chore. Certus was

the one that had painted her sun yellow and she always liked that

about her. Certus always treated everyone with an equal part of

respect and kindness, no matter what she might have heard.



As Lagena moved on, she passed Lycisca's room. Lycisca had

been one of the ones that had asked General Kalendis not to make

her a captain in the Guard. Flustra had been cold to her, though

that was no biggie. Even the Governor didn't like the idea of a

slave with so much power. The General then told them it was

either that, or she'd want Lagena freed. Honestly, Lagena didn't

mind, so long as she kept her position. It was just as good as being

free, without the annoyance of actually having to pay for anything,

but people still hadn't liked her.



She didn't WANT to be a slave forever, but she realized the

pragmatism of it. And then Certus came along. And she became a

kind of glue that held everyone together. She became friends with

Lycisca; she did work for the Governor concerning the town. She

became General Kalendis' personal assistant and she honestly liked

Lagena for, at least she said, her honesty. She was one of the only

ones to freely admit she liked Lagena. To be a friend.



As Lagena passed the room assigned to Soter, she paused. The

door was ajar. She looked up and placed the torch she had been

carrying in a holder on the wall. It clinked slightly and she looked

to the door again. Silence. Lagena crept up to the door and silently

drew her sword. No one would get the drop on her. And no one

would be stealing while the General was gone. After all, she had

had left HER in charge. Lagena pushed open the door and frowned

at the person seated at Caeles's table. The little candle on the table

flickered as a slight gust blew around Lagena's ankles. The flame

whispered its light against the bright, pale skin and was swamped

in the blackness of her eye patch.



Flustra looked up from the table and back down again, not

explaining her presence, her patch eye towards Lagena.



"What are you doing in here? This is HIS room, you know?"

Lagena said, trying to keep quiet.



"It's early in the morning too," Flustra returned quietly.



Lagena snuffed and slid her sword back into its scabbard.



"I'm SUPPOSED to be up this early in the morning," she said as

she put her hands on her hips, "So, why are you in his room?"



"I was wondering what he was thinking."



Lagena wrinkled her forehead in thought and shook her head.



"What?"



"I learned long ago that you can tell a person's thoughts from the

possessions they keep," Flustra said, "Come see what I found."



"You were looking through his personal things?" Lagena asked.



"Yes," Flustra said as she turned her good eye to the redhead.



"Why?"



"Haven't you wondered what he's been writing on his tablet?"



"The one he carries everywhere?" Lagena asked.



Flustra nodded.



"I asked him about it a few days before they left and he just

blushed and tried to avoid the subject," Flustra said, "And since

coming in here during the day would cause too much of an issue-"



"You came in at night," Lagena finished.



Lagena sighed and shifted her helmet back as she scratched her

forehead.



"Come see what I've found."



Lagena looked down the hall both ways and entered the room. She

closed the door behind her and prayed a quick prayer that she

wouldn't be discovered.



***



Caeles yawned as he came out of the hotel. He stretched and

wrapped his cloak around his shoulders. He looked around and

tried to get his bearing before he headed down one street. Most of

the city's inhabitants had gone to sleep a long time ago and would

most likely not wake up for a while. He looked absently at the sky

ahead of him. His timing wasn't perfect, but the fog of the morning

seemed thicker than it was in Pompeii. When he came down from

his room into the lobby of the hotel, he had asked the legionnaire

on duty which way he had to walk to the docks.



It caused a kind of panic because they wanted him guarded. Caeles

asked him if there were pockets of bandits or barbarians hiding in

the city. When the negative answer came, he explained that, in the

silence of the morning, he'd be within shouting distance.



Caeles sniffed the air. Aside from the ever-present smoky smell, a

new smell came. That of fresh bread. He smiled. Someone had

gotten the bakery up and running again. That was good. Something

to bring more life into the town, something to get it back to

normalcy.



The docks were a few blocks to the north. All and all, not a very

big town, but it had been built on the eastward side of a natural

bay, which would be useful as a port. Perhaps it had more of a

strategic property to it than Caeles had thought. It certainly wasn't

a big city, not even really as big as his hometown.



As his boots knocked against the cobblestones, his thoughts drifted

back to his hometown. His last hometown, the one in which he

spent most of his life, Herculaneum. It had all the necessities of

any Roman town, but its proximity to Pompeii made it almost like

a vacation town for many of Rome's elite. It was rather easy to see

why his father chose it. The foster parents were cruel and it was

easy to get tutors of enormous stature.



Caeles missed his pedagogue from Egypt, though. Living in

Alexandria had been an experience and his pedagogue had been a

good man. Quick witted and sharp tongued; he was also extremely

kind and taught Caeles how to get a girlfriend when he wanted. He

always admired that in his pedagogue. The ways of life would

always be ready for Caeles. All he had to do was ask. He had a

son, but Caeles couldn't remember his name. It had been too many

years. He did remember that he enjoyed being around the son as

much as being around the father. They were kind people.



The remainder of the piers jutted into the water like skeletal

fingers, which were, like much of the town, covered in soot. Two

of the four piers had been destroyed and only their supporting

posts stuck out of the water. Caeles stopped, as there was a person

at the end of one of the docks. He approached as quietly as he

could, but couldn't help making noises on the dock. It was a

woman. With long black, curly hair. Black almost to a shade of

purple.



"Mistura?"



She turned a lazy eye to him.



"Hmm? Caeles?" she asked, "What're you doing up-oh, that's right,

you're normally up now."



She turned back to a pole that was in her right hand, a line leading

slightly forward into the waters below. Caeles wiped off a place at

the end of the pier and sat down. He could see a bucket nearby that

held two nice-sized fish.



"I normally watched the sunrise from the docks back when I lived

in Pompeii," Caeles said as he looked out to the east.



Caeles sat and enjoyed the nice little silence that they shared. He

stared across the foggy waters.



"Umm," he began, "How do you get all that hair up under a cap

like you do?"



Mistura smiled.



"Isn't easy," she said, "It's just a formality now. I have to keep up

appearances while I'm on campaign because you never know when

you'll run in to other legionnaires."



The silence descended once again as the waves of the North Sea

lapped gently against the pillars of the pier. The fog was lifting and

Caeles smiled as his close friend came to him once again. The

clouds rolled back across a storm that was far out at sea. Big,

beautiful clouds that puffed up as high as the heavens, reflecting

the early morning light into a thousand myriad shades of reds and

golds and purples. The reflection of the empire, high as the

heavens and reflecting the people in its' reds and golds and purples.



Caeles breathed out, very glad to be Roman. Something clicked

that had struck him from earlier.



"I didn't know you liked to fish," he said.



Mistura smiled as she shifted position.



"Something that living in Urba Tertius has spoiled me for, I

s'pose," she said, "Fresh fish. My father taught me to fish when I

was very young. He always wanted a son and I suppose that, in the

end, he got one."



Caeles turned his attention to the dawn once more as the sun itself

peaked over the luminescent painting of the clouds below it.

Mistura glanced back at him. He seemed so full of wonder at

everything. The dawn, Urba Tertius. Even Flustra, though she

could do that to anyone. Neocorus had said that the boy was the

key in delivering all of Germania and much of the lands north of

the Alps to Effero Soter.



She didn't believe it. He may even be a military genius. Neocorus

obviously thought highly of him, but to just give all those lands

over to his father? She doubted it. There was something that had

gone on in the last couple weeks to change his attitude about the

elder Soter. Something that he hadn't told anyone. When he

arrived, it was just cold indifference. Now there seemed to be an

almost active hatred. Mistura set that thought aside, she wasn't

going to find the answers here, so the question could wait.



Mistura had her own ideas about the boy, though. To her, it was

quite clear what happened. He was a kid who'd been pushed into

something he never wanted. He never knew anything different, any

other way of doing things, so he accepted it. He wasn't ignorant,

really, but she would certainly say he was naive. If her own

suspicions were right about this town, then he wouldn't stay that

way for long. All for one man's grab at power...



Mistura felt a wave of anger and pain in her heart. She closed her

eyes at the sensation, hateful of what it made her remember.



***



"Get up!"



It's not a voice that resonates in her head like the voices of the

other fathers. It is a bleating voice, a pleading voice, a voice she

hates. A voice she loves. Mistura opens her eyes and wipes the

tears as they come more freely. When did she begin to cry?



"It hurt..." she said softly through her tears.



It hadn't, but there had to be some reaction, lest he have another

reason to...



"Yes, it hurts!" he yelled at her in that voice of his, "That's because

you're alive and not dead. Now get up!"



More tears came. She looked up at her father, but couldn't see his

face. The sun blocked that out far overhead. She didn't need to see

it to know what it looked like. She didn't need to see the sheep-like

snarl. The man she hated. The man she loved. Why did she have to

love him so?



"Those boys can't bully you!" he bleated again, "Teach them a

lesson!"



Mistura looked across the plaza, to where the little ruffians were

still milling about, playing with one another. They were young

boys, no more, no less.



"But Daddy..." she started.



"Mistura!"



She began to cry again.



"Mistura!"



***



"Mistura?"



Mistura opened her eyes. She found herself staring into the water

below. She wasn't in the plaza near her insula in Rome. It was

many years later and she was one of the most respected generals in

the empire. She continued to stare at the face in the water below.



"Mistura?" Caeles repeated, "Are you okay?"



She smiled slightly.



"Yeah," she said softly, "I was just thinking of my father."



"Oh..." Caeles nodded, "I understand completely."



Mistura looked to Caeles and smiled. Perhaps he did understand at

that. She set her pole aside and stood up. She brushed herself off

and looked out across the water. It was cool and it would get cold.

It would get dark and she had a feeling it would get nasty. But for

today, it was golden red.



Mistura turned to Caeles and helped him to his feet.



"Come," she smiled at him, "Walk with me."



***



Joshua "Gargoyle" Trujillo

"Stone Cold Protector of the Righteous"

"Owner of The Anime Bar & Grille - Mm, mm good!"



Come visit The Anime Bar & Grille!

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and

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