Refugees of the Slave Rebellion

[iamnomartyr]

They had been running for weeks now when they finally noticed the forest changed and the Romans no longer pursued them. There had been hundreds when they started but due to slaughter and breaking off to keep the Romans divided there were less than 100 that staked up camp in the park just on the edge of the plaza. The small band setting up goat skin tents and small fires to cook the game that they had caught along the way. Most among the ones who followed the Mad Celt were women and children, families and just enough warriors to keep them safe on the journey. It was a last command from Spartacus that he see the woman find life and freedom his wife Sura never found.

Gannicus took his wine and climbed one to the odd structures around the plaza above the camp. The layout of this town made sense to him but the buildings were of an odd design. He sat down on the edge, feet dangling over the side and drinking. He's keeping watch for the morning until the others have rest. He's dressed in leathers and furs but the two gladius hilts still stick over his shoulder. For a long time he stared at the terrifying apparition speaking out in the courtyard before it disappeared. He understood very little of what it said and remembered only one thing, that this place was safe from violence.


"What is that you wear?" He points down at the person he sees walking below, laughing and obviously drunk. What strange clothing these people have.



(OOC will almost certainly be spoilers for the Spartacus Stars TV series since Gannicus is post end of the series)

Comments

[eumenis]

She doesn't particularly like being laughed at, but she's already getting the impression he doesn't mean it in an offensive way. Just...an intoxicated way. Sliding off the snowmobile, she hits the kill switches to keep it from being absconded with and lopes a little closer, metal hand on her hip. She walks like a fighter, back straight, head high (and think murder), with a subtle swagger.

"It's an engine. A machine. You don't have them where you're from yet, I take it?"

Shrug. "The gods can find earplugs if they need 'em."

[iamnomartyr]

Gannicus laughs a lot at things, sometimes terrible things like death. It's his way and something ingrained into him by his early Roman masters.

"I've seen ski sledges before but never ones that made noise. Is that to scare away your enemies or drive them mad with sound?"

"They might but I do not." He tells her once the racket has stopped.

[eumenis]

Furiosa's known people like that before. She's more the grim, silent, imperturbable type, herself, but whatever makes it possible for a person to survive is a reasonable coping mechanism.

Her lips quirk into a faint smirk at the question. "No, we have a bigger vehicle and a couple dozen musicians for that."

"The noise is a side-effect in this case. If it bothers you that much, you're gonna want to find a different camp in the long run. There's a lot of activity here at night." She nods at the tents. "You all set for now, though? Warm enough here?"

[iamnomartyr]

"Using music to scare the enemy like the sirens on the sea?" He has no idea what a vehicle is but can imagine it carries people some how or groups them together.

"The people are too tired to go on." Gannicus looked down at the people he'd been leading. There was no choice to run them ragged. Women and children weren't meant to be dragged around this way but the alternatives were death. "We've just come down from the mountains. This place is a warm relief to the snows in those passes."

He's still staring down at the woman's arm. He can't help it because he's never seen someone who wasn't all flesh. "Pray the Roman shits lost our trail when the mountain hid our footsteps."

[eumenis]

"Scare the enemy and rally our side. It's effective. Also very loud." If he finds the decibel level of a snowmobile unpleasant, he'd best keep a safe distance from the Doof Wagon.

She nods her understanding. Mountain passes are chilly and treacherous in the Wasteland, too, though it seems unlikely his group has to deal with gangs on dirt bikes. "It snows here too, sometimes, but you should be safe from that for a week or so yet."

"If anyone tries to attack you here, they're likely to fail. There's a kind of magic that makes violence more difficult. It doesn't always hold, but it's usually effective." Noting his gaze, she flashes a sharp grin and stretches out her arm again.

"I lost this back home. Don't worry, I got it back and then some."

Softening again, she says, "You've got children here. I heard a few of them crying. My people have a waystation set up; if you need water, fuel, food, or blankets, especially for the young, we can lend or give them."

[iamnomartyr]

"We chant in battles but nothing like the arena." He both did and didn't miss the Arena. He was learning to do something else with his life.

"Snow when there is camp will be easier." He waits a moment and then starts climbing down to get on the ground with her. "Once our warriors have rested we can hold our own."

His gaze at her arm is a curious sort of stare. "I have seen many lose an arm on the sands but never a replacement. My brother, Oenomaus, stood in his last battles with a single eye."

"Yes." He looks at the camp. "Agron and Nasir took most of the warriors to draw the army so we could get them to safety."

He considers her offer and sighs. "We have no coin but we do have hunters, especially among the women, to offer trade. We need a medicus and soon a midwife more than supplies."

[eumenis]

She makes a soft, low noise, somewhere between a grumble and a hum of understanding. "One of our neighboring cities has an arena. I don't think much of forcing people to fight, but if they want to I suppose it's as good a place as any."

She watches him climb down, and when he reaches the ground she gives him a second, closer look-over. That is a very familiar face, indeed, but that happens in the Nexus and she opts not to make his introduction to the place weirder than it has to be by commenting on it.

"It's a tool, or a weapon, like any other," she says of her arm, and tilts it so he can see the buckles that hold the prosthesis on better. "Could show you how it's made sometime, but not in the dark."

She snorts softly. "Mind you, an eye is a lot harder to replace. Gotta respect someone who can work around missing one."

She shakes her head. "We don't use coin in my world anyway. We barter. And I would be willing to make a gift of what I can, but I don't want to hurt your pride, either. Bone and skins from your kills would be useful, though. We work with leather, in my city, but the supply is scarce since we're in a desert."

"But we have physicians--we call them red-thumbs--and midwives. Either or both would be happy to come to you."

[iamnomartyr]

"We were slaves trained for entertainment." Gannicus tells her quite plainly. It was his life from the time he was a teenager and in many ways a far more normal feeling situation than freedom.

He nods and then frowns. "We have none who need them. On the sands a man who loses a limb will fall to his enemy or when he is returned to the sands in the future."

There are no old among the gladiators. Being in his 30s made Gannicus older than almost all the others. Teens and twenties were more common ages but he says no more on it. He's not overly fond of thinking about all the people he's seen die or sent to the afterlife himself.

He visibly seems to sober as they talk. It isn't that he can force sobriety, more that he can work through it and focus when he has to. "Do you seek finished hides?"

They do have people that can work the hides if needed but her people may just want the barren, fresh hides too. He nods to her offer. "We will need a midwife soon. Running and fighting brings the babies early."

He isn't well versed in medicine but he has listened to the women and their talk during the years they have been fighting for freedom and on the run.

[eumenis]

She gives him a grim nod. "That's wrong, then. I hope you took a few of your captors down on your way out."

"I'm the only person who ever ranked up to Imperator after losing a limb, so far as I know," she says. "And the only woman. It can be done on the battlefield, but maybe not in the arena; the Road really is the great equalizer. These things never come without a cost, either way."

She gives a little shake of her head then. They can compare notes another time; medical care is more urgent. "Fresh hides are fine; we can work with them ourselves. And I can bring a midwife to you as soon as tomorrow."

[iamnomartyr]

"Not enough that is why we come here." That was the truth. The Roman army just seemed to get bigger all the time like some great hydra that kept sprouting heads.

"It is a fool of a man who thinks a woman weak. They can be just as treacherous when given reason to take up sword or poison." He'd seen that happen among the Roman women. They poisoned abusive men or a husband who tarnished their honor. Even slave girls could get a knife and take out a man who proved an animal when things were dire.

"We will have trade tomorrow. Our hunters will be out at dawn." He smiles at her. "You will like them. Many women are among our hunters. Trained to use the bow by Lucius Caelius."

[eumenis]

A faint smile crosses her face. "Hmm. I wasn't sure when you first spoke to me, but now I'm starting to think you and I might be friends."

"Then I'll bring Gale and Prim by, before noon," she says. "But you don't have to have trade for us by then; you strike me as a man of pride, and that makes me think your people will undertake a trade with honor. We can wait."

"My city," she adds, "is in the midst of a harsh world. We've gotten some help and a lot of advantages by trading here. When I see a displaced people who have faced some of the same things we do, it makes sense to seek an alliance, to strengthen both sides. Don't hesitate to come to us with questions or requests."