LassardLost
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2013
- Posts
- 824
The first several posts between both of us are below:
Lassardlost
Grey wondered if the “bread and circuses” line he had fed to Juvenal would stick historically. Personally he thought it was fantastically tailored for the Roman mind, and it was, after all as close to an eternal truth as humanity could get without it being handed to them on a platter. He had seen it with almost every preceding great civilization, but these guys – the Romans - they knew what they were doing.
He had happened upon the struggling poet in a bath, and having struck up a conversation, the poor fellow had poured out his dismay at being unable to capture the current political apathy he had noted among the people – in a poetic form that would really carry his meaning.
iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses.
Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses
Juvenal had thanked him profusely and rushed out of the bath, forgetting his towel on the way out, creating a bit of a stir among the ladies as he did.
Speaking of circuses, there was another show going on at the coliseum, and Grey had often toyed with the idea of going there to become a rising star. The only problem would be that as soon as would do so, a dozen people would be out to kill him, out of jealousy, or, perhaps out of fear that he would start some political opposition with his new found fame. No. This empire he would sit out. He would not get involved in the attraction of the moment. He would not bring attention to his unparalleled strength. He would not manipulate the crowd to his will just to have some fun. He didn’t care about the “being killed” part of course, as all that would happen would be that he would reappear on some other part of the planet. Right now, he just wanted to stay in Rome. He really did not feel like ending up in some artic tundra and freezing to death just to be re-appeared in the middle of the jungle to be eaten alive by some un-named beast, just so he could be re-appeared in the middle of the ocean and drown, just so he could re-appear on an unpopulated land mass, so on and so forth. No. He had had quite enough of that for a time. Today, he would just sit observe. And, since he was feeling inexplicably content for some reason (not the usual state of affairs), if he so happened to see someone in trouble, he might just do something about it. But he wasn’t going to go looking for trouble. If it so happened to land on his lap, then so be it.
Quite coincidentally, an apple suddenly shot into his lap from across the market place. It caught him by surprise, and he jumped, fumbling the thing in his hands after it bounced of his thigh and stomach. He caught it in mid air, and shot his sight out to where it had been thrown from. From the corner of his eye he saw a boy dart into the crowd. A little thief, no doubt. Then, he heard an angry voice yelling through the general bluster of the market place. He looked over and saw a burly man with a hefty beard waving a fist in the air – at Grey.
“He has it!” The main jabbed a fat, sausage-like finger in Grey’s direction. “He stole it!” I’m going to beat that man until his own mother won’t recognize his pretty face. And there was the intention. That was the other thing about Grey. He heard intentions. Most of the time.
“Well, there you have it,” Grey mumbled to himself as he stood up and prepared himself. The burly man – Grey decided he would name him Maximus, because of his girth – his face red and his bald had covered in beads of sweat, stormed through the crowd, shoving people out of his way as he did.
“Good Sir!” Grey called out as the man approached. He took a bite of the apple. “This is a fine piece of fruit, if you would allow me to expl-“ Maximus had arrived, and his fat fist was swinging in a wide arch towards Grey. Grey caught his fist with his open palm, and began to compress the man’s fist in his hand.
“Aaaghhh. ARRGH!” The man screamed in pain as his fist was crushed by Grey’s. Little cracks of joints popping and bones beginning to fracture added an unpleasant soundtrack to the man’s painful grimace.
“It’s just an apple. You should relax.” Grey let go of his hand, and the man spat at his feet and scampered away, clutching his hand.
There was a little crowd of people that had formed around the event. Perhaps they were surprised that someone of Grey’s stature was able to put “Maximus” down. It wasn’t that Grey was small. He just didn’t have the bulging muscles that the Roman gladiators had. At stood at about 5’10” in a slender, well-defined body, with short dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. Currently dressed in the simple clothes – a brown pair of pants with a simple dark blue tunic, he was dressed the part of a simple peasant. He had a handsome face though, and he hadn’t shaved in a few days which added a somewhat rough look, but nothing too intimidating. He was tired of the gawking so he “booed” the people away and walked out of the market. He finished his apple and tossed it off to the side. Perhaps he would head home for the day.
Or, maybe he would just go and have a quick look-see at what was happening at the Coliseum.
Slut_in_white
Oh, what luck! What beautiful, delicious, perfect luck!
The woman watched, a small smirk curling her full lips, as the man with the apple crushed the fruit-seller's hand. She had been tracking him for nearly a year. He'd been quite insistently maintaining a low profile, and she had been finding it shockingly difficult to keep track of him.
And now, right in front of her, he seemed perfectly content to confirm that he was the one she was looking for. The one her master wanted dead.
Unlike Grey, she had no name. Oh certainly, she introduced herself using whatever collection of syllables she happened to be using at the time, but they were not names. A name implies identification, and she did not identify with any of the names she used. In fact, she didn't identify with much of anything at all. She had no identity, because she had no need of one. She was a weapon. What need would a sword have of an identity?
Her master called her Seven, sometimes. She didn't know if that meant there were six others out there, or if she were the seventh attempt at his plan to escape the ether and rejoin the world of the material. Perhaps it was something else entirely. She did not presume to guess at his plans.
She moved through the crowd like water, the people parting before her but refusing to notice her. It was good - she could be quite noticeable, when she wanted to be. Long hair the color of jet, flawlessly pale skin, and petite in build, she was quite beautiful. She drew eyes whenever she entered a room. Unless, of course, she didn't want them to, in which case the eyes slid right over her as if she wasn't there at all.
She followed the man with her smile, curious about where he was going. She hoped he would go home. The faster he went somewhere private, the faster she could finish this mission and return to the temple. It wasn't that she couldn't kill him in public. It was simply that doing so would create a mess. She could afford to be patient.
Lassardlost
As Grey walked along the dirt road that wound towards his home his memories went to all the times he had seen a people rise, shine, become negligent in some way, and then fall. Often the same thing would be happening on the planet in several places at once - though each people thought that they were the only ones in such great ascendancy at their time.
The patterns of human activity had become boring to him. The only thing that remained that excited him - sometimes - was the particulars. What did the Romans do differently than the Chinese? What did the Chinese do differently than the Mesopotamians? Those kinds of observations were, generally speaking, marginally more interesting to watch.
As for the day to day, Grey had already done all that. He had had his fights, his ascensions to positions of power, his time as semi-supernatural hero, his time as semi-supernatural criminal. Of course love was a non-starter for the obvious reason that people died, and Grey didn't.
The sun was about to set, and so Grey decided against the Coliseum. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow he would make himself known. Or maybe not. It just depended on how he felt.
Grey entered his home, a modest single story place with a few rooms. These days he didn't feel like a big place. For a moment he paused - had he seen something move in his bedroom? He poked his head in there quickly just to make sure he was imagining things - he was - and went to the main room where he kept a few vegetables and fruit to snack on. He sat down on his couch - an expensive acquisition as far as Roman living was concerned - ate, and then lay down and plopped his arm over his eyes. Yeah. Maybe the coliseum tomorrow. Grey wasn't sure how long he would be able to take the boredom.
Slut_in_white
Seven watched him walk into his house. She climbed in through the window and sat on his bed. She was patient, as always. He stepped into his room, looking for him, before he made dinner. She smiled at him, and his gaze passed over her easily. As she expected.
His cooking smelled good, but everything seemed muted. She couldn't bring herself to care about it. She cared about nothing but her master's desire.
The man flopped down on the couch. She was watching him from the doorway of his bedroom. He seemed exhausted. Something about him... He seemed to have an age-old tiredness about him. Odd, for a man who looked so young. But very much not her problem.
She crossed the room in silence while his arm was thrown over his eyes. In the same moment, she took a seat next to him and pressed her hand gently over his mouth. She saw him twitch, and his eyes became visible. He seemed confused. She smiled.
"Good night." And she cut his throat.
Lassardlost
"Shit." Grey found himself falling through the air towards an ocean, clutching his throat.
He didn't have time to process exactly what had happened. In fact, there wasn't much to process. Some terribly attractive bitch just showed up in his house and slit his throat. Now, he was re-appearing.
He slammed into the water, the jolt radiating pain throughout his body, as he did. After swimming up from the depth of his plunge he was relieved to see some land in the distance, and began swimming. Though the shore had probably been half a kilometer away, he covered the distance within a few minutes easily. That was one advantage of being... whatever the hell he was. He got to the shore, and stood up right, his hair clinging to his forehead, his body completely nude.
"Where the hell am I now..." he let out as he surveyed the beach. Grey was filling somewhat pissed off. He was looking forward to going to the Coliseum tomorrow. Instead, he now had to figure out where on the planet he was, and determine if it was livable. If it didn't seem livable, he quite frankly didn't want to waste time, and might as well throw himself off the nearest cliff to find another place to live. Though, it wasn't the best of options - even though re-appearing didn't "hurt" per se, it wasn't exactly a pleasant experience. The closest he had ever come to describing it - to himself - was thinking of it as being born through a vagina, but remembering every second of it. He had also decided at that moment that it was generally a lot more fun going in to a vagina than having to find one's way out of one.
He walked up the beach a bit more and eventually found a road. And there was a road, that meant he was still within the confines of the Roman Empire. Fantastic. Now, of course, for all he knew he could be on the farthest tip of the Iberian peninsula (it so happened that he was). But at least he was within reach of a civilization.
As Grey went about the day, scaring some people off with his nudity, causing others to giggle, finding some clothes, finding a ride, etc., he wondered what on earth that pretty thing had against him? He had been entirely anonymous so far during this stint. Unless, perhaps, Maximus from the marketplace had a sister? Or a wife? Nah. Couldn't have been his wife. She'd never stick around with an oaf like him. She'd get lost in one of his folds with seconds. Though, to be fair, he had seen his share of unfathomable matches of the centuries. Yeah. Maybe it was his wife. Whatever the case was, Grey made a determination to find that whore again and teach her a lesson. Maybe she needed a haunting from her recent murder. Or maybe she didn't kill him well enough, and he got out of the grave after a while. Grey had found that he only re-appeared once the body had been hidden from sight for at least a day. Though he didn't experience that time himself, this is what he had picked up over many times of dying and re-appearing, and following up "as a ghost" with those who had been around him when he had died.
But how long it would take him to find her, who knew. At least he could get his way back to Rome, and back to his old house. It might take several months, but, hell, it gave him something to do.
Grey set off to solve his own murder mystery.
Lassardlost
Grey wondered if the “bread and circuses” line he had fed to Juvenal would stick historically. Personally he thought it was fantastically tailored for the Roman mind, and it was, after all as close to an eternal truth as humanity could get without it being handed to them on a platter. He had seen it with almost every preceding great civilization, but these guys – the Romans - they knew what they were doing.
He had happened upon the struggling poet in a bath, and having struck up a conversation, the poor fellow had poured out his dismay at being unable to capture the current political apathy he had noted among the people – in a poetic form that would really carry his meaning.
iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses.
Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses
Juvenal had thanked him profusely and rushed out of the bath, forgetting his towel on the way out, creating a bit of a stir among the ladies as he did.
Speaking of circuses, there was another show going on at the coliseum, and Grey had often toyed with the idea of going there to become a rising star. The only problem would be that as soon as would do so, a dozen people would be out to kill him, out of jealousy, or, perhaps out of fear that he would start some political opposition with his new found fame. No. This empire he would sit out. He would not get involved in the attraction of the moment. He would not bring attention to his unparalleled strength. He would not manipulate the crowd to his will just to have some fun. He didn’t care about the “being killed” part of course, as all that would happen would be that he would reappear on some other part of the planet. Right now, he just wanted to stay in Rome. He really did not feel like ending up in some artic tundra and freezing to death just to be re-appeared in the middle of the jungle to be eaten alive by some un-named beast, just so he could be re-appeared in the middle of the ocean and drown, just so he could re-appear on an unpopulated land mass, so on and so forth. No. He had had quite enough of that for a time. Today, he would just sit observe. And, since he was feeling inexplicably content for some reason (not the usual state of affairs), if he so happened to see someone in trouble, he might just do something about it. But he wasn’t going to go looking for trouble. If it so happened to land on his lap, then so be it.
Quite coincidentally, an apple suddenly shot into his lap from across the market place. It caught him by surprise, and he jumped, fumbling the thing in his hands after it bounced of his thigh and stomach. He caught it in mid air, and shot his sight out to where it had been thrown from. From the corner of his eye he saw a boy dart into the crowd. A little thief, no doubt. Then, he heard an angry voice yelling through the general bluster of the market place. He looked over and saw a burly man with a hefty beard waving a fist in the air – at Grey.
“He has it!” The main jabbed a fat, sausage-like finger in Grey’s direction. “He stole it!” I’m going to beat that man until his own mother won’t recognize his pretty face. And there was the intention. That was the other thing about Grey. He heard intentions. Most of the time.
“Well, there you have it,” Grey mumbled to himself as he stood up and prepared himself. The burly man – Grey decided he would name him Maximus, because of his girth – his face red and his bald had covered in beads of sweat, stormed through the crowd, shoving people out of his way as he did.
“Good Sir!” Grey called out as the man approached. He took a bite of the apple. “This is a fine piece of fruit, if you would allow me to expl-“ Maximus had arrived, and his fat fist was swinging in a wide arch towards Grey. Grey caught his fist with his open palm, and began to compress the man’s fist in his hand.
“Aaaghhh. ARRGH!” The man screamed in pain as his fist was crushed by Grey’s. Little cracks of joints popping and bones beginning to fracture added an unpleasant soundtrack to the man’s painful grimace.
“It’s just an apple. You should relax.” Grey let go of his hand, and the man spat at his feet and scampered away, clutching his hand.
There was a little crowd of people that had formed around the event. Perhaps they were surprised that someone of Grey’s stature was able to put “Maximus” down. It wasn’t that Grey was small. He just didn’t have the bulging muscles that the Roman gladiators had. At stood at about 5’10” in a slender, well-defined body, with short dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. Currently dressed in the simple clothes – a brown pair of pants with a simple dark blue tunic, he was dressed the part of a simple peasant. He had a handsome face though, and he hadn’t shaved in a few days which added a somewhat rough look, but nothing too intimidating. He was tired of the gawking so he “booed” the people away and walked out of the market. He finished his apple and tossed it off to the side. Perhaps he would head home for the day.
Or, maybe he would just go and have a quick look-see at what was happening at the Coliseum.
Slut_in_white
Oh, what luck! What beautiful, delicious, perfect luck!
The woman watched, a small smirk curling her full lips, as the man with the apple crushed the fruit-seller's hand. She had been tracking him for nearly a year. He'd been quite insistently maintaining a low profile, and she had been finding it shockingly difficult to keep track of him.
And now, right in front of her, he seemed perfectly content to confirm that he was the one she was looking for. The one her master wanted dead.
Unlike Grey, she had no name. Oh certainly, she introduced herself using whatever collection of syllables she happened to be using at the time, but they were not names. A name implies identification, and she did not identify with any of the names she used. In fact, she didn't identify with much of anything at all. She had no identity, because she had no need of one. She was a weapon. What need would a sword have of an identity?
Her master called her Seven, sometimes. She didn't know if that meant there were six others out there, or if she were the seventh attempt at his plan to escape the ether and rejoin the world of the material. Perhaps it was something else entirely. She did not presume to guess at his plans.
She moved through the crowd like water, the people parting before her but refusing to notice her. It was good - she could be quite noticeable, when she wanted to be. Long hair the color of jet, flawlessly pale skin, and petite in build, she was quite beautiful. She drew eyes whenever she entered a room. Unless, of course, she didn't want them to, in which case the eyes slid right over her as if she wasn't there at all.
She followed the man with her smile, curious about where he was going. She hoped he would go home. The faster he went somewhere private, the faster she could finish this mission and return to the temple. It wasn't that she couldn't kill him in public. It was simply that doing so would create a mess. She could afford to be patient.
Lassardlost
As Grey walked along the dirt road that wound towards his home his memories went to all the times he had seen a people rise, shine, become negligent in some way, and then fall. Often the same thing would be happening on the planet in several places at once - though each people thought that they were the only ones in such great ascendancy at their time.
The patterns of human activity had become boring to him. The only thing that remained that excited him - sometimes - was the particulars. What did the Romans do differently than the Chinese? What did the Chinese do differently than the Mesopotamians? Those kinds of observations were, generally speaking, marginally more interesting to watch.
As for the day to day, Grey had already done all that. He had had his fights, his ascensions to positions of power, his time as semi-supernatural hero, his time as semi-supernatural criminal. Of course love was a non-starter for the obvious reason that people died, and Grey didn't.
The sun was about to set, and so Grey decided against the Coliseum. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow he would make himself known. Or maybe not. It just depended on how he felt.
Grey entered his home, a modest single story place with a few rooms. These days he didn't feel like a big place. For a moment he paused - had he seen something move in his bedroom? He poked his head in there quickly just to make sure he was imagining things - he was - and went to the main room where he kept a few vegetables and fruit to snack on. He sat down on his couch - an expensive acquisition as far as Roman living was concerned - ate, and then lay down and plopped his arm over his eyes. Yeah. Maybe the coliseum tomorrow. Grey wasn't sure how long he would be able to take the boredom.
Slut_in_white
Seven watched him walk into his house. She climbed in through the window and sat on his bed. She was patient, as always. He stepped into his room, looking for him, before he made dinner. She smiled at him, and his gaze passed over her easily. As she expected.
His cooking smelled good, but everything seemed muted. She couldn't bring herself to care about it. She cared about nothing but her master's desire.
The man flopped down on the couch. She was watching him from the doorway of his bedroom. He seemed exhausted. Something about him... He seemed to have an age-old tiredness about him. Odd, for a man who looked so young. But very much not her problem.
She crossed the room in silence while his arm was thrown over his eyes. In the same moment, she took a seat next to him and pressed her hand gently over his mouth. She saw him twitch, and his eyes became visible. He seemed confused. She smiled.
"Good night." And she cut his throat.
Lassardlost
"Shit." Grey found himself falling through the air towards an ocean, clutching his throat.
He didn't have time to process exactly what had happened. In fact, there wasn't much to process. Some terribly attractive bitch just showed up in his house and slit his throat. Now, he was re-appearing.
He slammed into the water, the jolt radiating pain throughout his body, as he did. After swimming up from the depth of his plunge he was relieved to see some land in the distance, and began swimming. Though the shore had probably been half a kilometer away, he covered the distance within a few minutes easily. That was one advantage of being... whatever the hell he was. He got to the shore, and stood up right, his hair clinging to his forehead, his body completely nude.
"Where the hell am I now..." he let out as he surveyed the beach. Grey was filling somewhat pissed off. He was looking forward to going to the Coliseum tomorrow. Instead, he now had to figure out where on the planet he was, and determine if it was livable. If it didn't seem livable, he quite frankly didn't want to waste time, and might as well throw himself off the nearest cliff to find another place to live. Though, it wasn't the best of options - even though re-appearing didn't "hurt" per se, it wasn't exactly a pleasant experience. The closest he had ever come to describing it - to himself - was thinking of it as being born through a vagina, but remembering every second of it. He had also decided at that moment that it was generally a lot more fun going in to a vagina than having to find one's way out of one.
He walked up the beach a bit more and eventually found a road. And there was a road, that meant he was still within the confines of the Roman Empire. Fantastic. Now, of course, for all he knew he could be on the farthest tip of the Iberian peninsula (it so happened that he was). But at least he was within reach of a civilization.
As Grey went about the day, scaring some people off with his nudity, causing others to giggle, finding some clothes, finding a ride, etc., he wondered what on earth that pretty thing had against him? He had been entirely anonymous so far during this stint. Unless, perhaps, Maximus from the marketplace had a sister? Or a wife? Nah. Couldn't have been his wife. She'd never stick around with an oaf like him. She'd get lost in one of his folds with seconds. Though, to be fair, he had seen his share of unfathomable matches of the centuries. Yeah. Maybe it was his wife. Whatever the case was, Grey made a determination to find that whore again and teach her a lesson. Maybe she needed a haunting from her recent murder. Or maybe she didn't kill him well enough, and he got out of the grave after a while. Grey had found that he only re-appeared once the body had been hidden from sight for at least a day. Though he didn't experience that time himself, this is what he had picked up over many times of dying and re-appearing, and following up "as a ghost" with those who had been around him when he had died.
But how long it would take him to find her, who knew. At least he could get his way back to Rome, and back to his old house. It might take several months, but, hell, it gave him something to do.
Grey set off to solve his own murder mystery.
