Chapter Text
The fire crackled in a orange hue, as it burnt the remnants of an olivewood door. The silence was deafening, though it wasn't quite silence. Nikos crawled as he could, his toga dripping blood, his face drenched in cold sweat, and half an arrow stuck to his side. He spat out a tooth, and he weakly sat down next to the chuckling form. He pulled his helmet off and leaned against a wall, his brown hair fell over his forehead.
"This is no time to jest, αγάπη μου" He said weakly, as he gripped the bloodied toga "we're to reunite with the Gods soon"
"I am aware, too" The silouette said. When it turned to face Nikos. It was a boy, in his last years of adolesence, with black hair, olive skin, and dark eyes. His face was painted crimson, maybe from the feverish sudden lose of blood, or stained with blood itself, it was hard to tell for Nikos, his vision blurry from the effort it supposed the mere act of speaking. The boy's expression, though pained, remained cheerful, attempting to ease the tension of the ineveitable death that awaited to claim them without mercy.
"Oh... what have the barbarians done to you, my dear Leonidas?" He said and lightly touched his bruised cheek, Leonidas winced when he did so. "They will pay for their crimes, I shall make sure of it"
"Spare me with the dramatics, you are no God to be promising such things" Leonidas said in a strained voice, though his tone remained soft. In his eyes shone a distinctive glimmer Nikos had grown fond of, a mix of mischief and misery. Nikos never had the courage to ask if if the sooner prevailed more than the latter, but he hoped it did. "I simply refused to speak in that foreign lenguage the conquerers do, they were not very happy about it"
Nikos smiled softly. He had always known the resistance his lover had held against the newly implemented regimen of Roma, they had tried to erase their tounge, their traditions, change their beliefs, and tear away everything that was part of their identity, and badly sew in theirs. It was natural, Leonidas had always been stubborn, and nothing would force him to break himself into bite size pieces, not even death. He would remain whole, and let those who cannot stomach him choke. He admired him deeply for it.
Before he could reply, in midst of the silence, he heard in the distance the distinctive clinking of the Legionnare's boots. The Legion usually meant bad news, after all, the fire that roared in the distance, the smoke of burnt libraries, the ruins of old homes where thousands of families once thrived, and the strange piece of fabric that read SPQR -which they denominated flag- displayed over each of the monuments Hellenic workers had built with their own hands, was their doing. The Imperium Rommanum, -As they called themselves- did more bad that it did good, and two wrongs don't make a right, neither do four, or ten, or as many crimes as these tyrants had dared to commit.
"May death not do us part, my dear" Leonidas said softly and looked at Nikos, who was close to loosing consciousness "May death not do us part"
"Will I ever see you again, if this really is how we perish?" Nikos asked weakly and took Leonidas' hand, as the footsteps grew closer. His hand shook violently, in fear of not death, but of loosing his lover.
"We'll meet again, I would rather live a hundred lonely lives than be without you" He vowed and took his hand too. The footsteps stopped and they both took a deep breath, the last one of the earth that craddled them when they fell, and held them up with pride as each step they took. "I swear on the Styx"
"You are no God to be promising such things" Nikos teased, and they both chuckled weakly, bringing the attention of the Legionnares to them, the warriors unsheathed their swords and approached closer and closer, with warning step. "But I swear on the Styx I, too, rather live a hundred lonely lives than to be whithout you"
Despite themselves, deep down, they knew that they will never see again the earth that once raised them.
"Roma wasn't built in a day," Leonidas continued, it was a phrase the Romans repeated often. It was the only string of words they seemed to know in Leonidas' and Nikos' tounge. Leonidas had an addition. A fairly deserved one "But it shall burn in one"
Farewell, dear Hellas. May Gods be with you.