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The Son of Rome

The Eos was a ship built for speed. Her hull was sleek and her scarlet sails caught the wind like eagle wings, driving her through the waves at speeds that belied all common sense. It was a beautiful day for her to sail.

It was my first time on an open sea. The taste of salt on the air was all too familiar, but the cresting blue waves, the vast empty horizons, and the steady rolling of the deck beneath my feet were all entirely new experiences. I’d had my doubts when Griffon had suggested sailing, and in particular sailing this ship, but most of my concerns had quickly been put to rest. It was an exhilarating experience.

Still, there were complications to consider.

“They’re going to be furious,” I said, leaning on the rail at the bow. The Ionian Sea stretched out endlessly ahead, clear blue and shimmering in the sun.

“Will they?” Griffon asked behind me, and I could hear the roll of his eyes. “I hadn’t realized. What other profundities does the son of Rome have to offer?”

He’d stacked every single rowing bench on the ship into a bizarre approximation of a throne, and now lounged in it while the ship’s oars and favorable winds steadily propelled us forward. I’d allowed the absurd display, as he was doing the hard sailing. His pneuma intent had grown alongside the rest of his cultivation when he’d ascended, and where there had been ten arms before there were now twenty. Each arm of pure intent heaved on the oars of the Eos.

“More than they would have been if we hadn’t stolen their ship,” I clarified, turning to him and leaning back against the ship’s rail. “Why did you feel the need to slap every face you possibly could on your way out the door?”

The faint cries of sea birds and the rolling slaps of waves against the Eos’ hull hung between us while the former Young Aristocrat of the Rosy Dawn considered his answer. His right cheek rested on his fist, scarlet eyes glittering with the satisfaction of a lion that had just eaten its fill. He’d slipped his scarlet and white robes off his shoulders early on into the voyage so that they hung down around his belt, leaving his torso bare. He looked utterly content.

For now.

“Tell me something, Sol,” he said. “Are you familiar with the hero’s journey?”

“Vaguely.” Faint memories of an old man in weathered Alikon cloth, afternoons spent in the vineyards discussing everything under the sun.

“There are an infinite number of paths to the peak of Olympus Mons, but it’s a fact of life that some are more often tread than others,” he explained. “Every man likes to think he’s unique, but all too often we’re just echoes of those that came before us. We all labor within the divine framework. As such, there are certain constants that any man can expect to run up against in the race to divinity.”

Griffon lazily raised his free hand, lifting fingers one by one. “Bottlenecks. Deviations. Trials.”

“Tribulations,” I said. Lightning falling from clear blue skies. Griffon inclined his head.

“It’s the nature of the Fates to decide our lives for us from the moment we’re born. As we draw our first breath, they know. Which among us will be tyrants, and which will be slaves. It’s why they hate men like you and me.” He smiled, something vicious in the quirk of his lips. “They know that their only choice is to kill us in the cradle, because we will never, ever submit.

“To cast off destiny’s threads a man must first live an utterly audacious life. No one is born a Tyrant and there are no shortcuts to the peak of the mountain. How is it, then, that men ascend at all? The Fates know us fully at the moment of birth. Intuitively, there are only two possibilities – that the Fates can be defied. Or that ascension is a lie, and we’re all just dancing to our graves while heaven beats its drums.”

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Griffon shrugged. “I choose to believe the former. And because I believe it, it is so. Until the moment I die my life is my own, and so I’ll always be reviled by the Fates. Tribulations are inevitable. Why cringe away from them?”

“So instead,” I said incredulously, “You welcome them with open arms.”

“They’re the best part of the journey, after all.”

My heart and soul for a companion with sense.

“If that’s the case, Olympia is where we part,” I decided. He laid a palm on his bare chest, eyes closing in mock hurt. I snorted. “I have enough madness ahead of me without throwing you onto the pile.”

“Oh? What sort of madness? Is it the kind that howls?”

For some reason that I still wasn’t quite sure of, I’d told him the story of my time in the legions as we ran through the fields of the Rosy Dawn towards the docks. I’d told him as we rigged his cousin’s ship and cut it loose, and as the sun fully rose to light up the Ionian Sea, I’d seen in vivid clarity the hunger in his eyes as he listened.