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Julia Drusilla Minor tried to avoid her father’s celebratory feasts any time she could, whether that be ordering Gaius Julius Callistus to call her in sick, forcing herself into stupid chores that could most definitely be postponed for it, or simply not going, and for most of the time it worked. But not tonight, though.

Tonight, the Emperor had demanded her young presence over words about ‘being seen for peasants’ or something like that. Julia never truly knew when it came to him; besides, why would she want to show up for another one of his ridiculous shows? All he does for his usual events is the same damn thing. He’ll invite the senators in to mock them, invite his new sheep of a wife, Milonia Caesonia, to show off, and even go as far as to publicly censure her chastity over her previous relationships with men (which she’ll laugh off as if it is somehow humorous how he treats her); hell, he’ll even invite his own ridiculous racehorse, Incitatus, and feed him oats and golden flakes straight from the dinner table.

It simply wasn’t her style to be in the middle of it, as she had been successfully avoiding dinner for over six months. She’d only come downstairs to the mess-filled dining room after they had all left to feast on whatever scraps were left in the kitchen.

Now, she didn’t even get that choice. Instead of being upstairs, comforted with her books and lit candles, the daughter of the ultimate Ruler of Rome was forced to sit at the long, winding dining table, dozing off to a specific marble pillar, possessed by her own boredom.

To Julia’s left, she saw as many elderly senators who seemed to want to be anywhere but here as much as she did, and she’d feel bad if she wasn’t so annoyed at their short stature in the Empire. To her right, there sat the Emperor’s surviving sisters (her aunts), the charismatic Julia Livilla, and the much colder and conniving Agrippina the Younger (Julia always preferred talking to Julia Livilla way more than the other sister, though even that lady mostly ignored her, similar to Agrippina). The two women sat there, quietly eating their food, not saying a word, just like Julia.

Across all three, a few Roman elites laughed at whatever joke had just been uttered, one man in particular in the circle whose son the Emperor had just killed for words of ‘treason’, though he, unlike the other two, wasn’t laughing at all. He was just staring downwards at his soup, an unusual glassiness and redness to his eyes that gave way to his actual feelings. When Julia turned her head, she saw, to her own surprise, her timid great-uncle, Claudius Germanicus, sitting alone in the corner across the table, eating his small pieces of venison with the usual trembling of his fingers and the painful twitch of his head to one side, of course.

But Julia couldn’t help but be pleasantly stunned that her father had invited him to the feast tonight. Usually, in another act of the Emperor’s cruelty, Claudius would be forced to sit out of dinner, instead eating in the library where he usually resided nowadays if not being taken repeatedly to court. However, she knew that her great-uncle didn’t actually mind that. After all, he loved his writing, books, and such, and if given the chance to avoid his delusional nephew’s antics, he’d take it anytime, as would she. But tonight, instead of being gone like usual, he was present at dinner, which could never mean anything good.

“He’s both mentally and physically bardum, Julia!” The newly teenage girl remembered her father telling her boisterously. “He can barely pick up his fork without shaking or greeting someone without that stupid stutter of his–” She then remembered him mocking the way her great-uncle had talked, and how he continuously repeated himself, an idiotic recount of when Claudius earlier had trouble telling him how ‘he didn’t know what he wanted from him’. This had gained the nervous laughs of the servants around him who were filling up his wine, but never from Julia. She never laughed at any of the Emperor’s callous humor.

Because what was so funny about a pathetic, limping older man who sat alone in his rooms, the court, and the library of the Palatine every single day? Sure, Rome might see the man as someone who’s ‘useless to society,’ but compared to all the stupidity she sees spoken in the courtroom, a man who spends most of his free time buried in studies of Etruscans and Carthaginians seems much more mentally competent than the whole surviving dynasty.

And he wasn’t a bore to talk with, as Julia’s aunts had sworn to death he was. In fact, in the few times they’ve had actual discussions, it’d been quite fun. Talks of useless things like which racehorse would win, or opinions on boar’s head, were a rare commodity in Rome these days, as the Emperor would make almost any talk that was semi-normal a rare commodity.

But as quickly as her opinions came and went, so did her attention span over her twitching uncle. And so she turned her head away to the front of the table to see the pronounced Emperor Caligula, sitting at the end, commanding words vociferously. In contrast, his wife, Milonia, sat next to him, cackling at whatever he was saying in the moment. He was bragging about another ship he had implemented; Julia didn’t quite know, since she wasn’t listening that closely. It was just another piece of the treasury thrown in the trash, another loud spectacle he'd up and forget in a couple of weeks. At the very least, she was just thankful that Incitatus was not brought to the table for tonight’s festivities this time.

“As I was saying, good men…” Caligula had started, settling his goblet of wine back down on the table. “My Nemi Ships must be finished by next Thursday, otherwise my previous word to the Imperial Court about them will look quite dumb.”

“Uh…Please remind me again, were these military ships, Caesar?” One of the elderly senators had asked hesitantly, with a hand slightly raised. Though once Caligula’s dark, hazy eyes rolled around to look at the specific man, suddenly the senator’s hand was immediately back down. Coward.

“They’re floating palaces, senator.” Answered the Emperor with a sly click of his tongue, “I need more entertainment in my life besides this hell of a Palatine…Wouldn’t you say so, Aelianus?”

Julia followed her father’s gaze from across the room to the supposed man called ‘Aelianus’, and to her own grimness, the Emperor was referring to the grieving elite sitting across from her silently. He, of course, did not answer Caligula; instead, the man just stared blankly at his untouched feast, a look of complete emptiness in his gaze. But the younger ruler of Rome did not try to provoke him further, as he just waved it off with a chuckle and a flick of his wrist back to his cup.

“See? The elite sees it perfectly.”

The people around him agreed wearily at that, quickly going back to their previous conversations to avoid any more mention of Rome’s newest embarrassment.

The Nemi Ships were another of her father’s newest projects, two cruise ships never to be moved from Lake Nemi, in its own bubble of livelihood and fake hedonism. Another vacation spot that’d be abandoned soon after its taxes were finished and it floated above; Julia was sure of it, as the Emperor had abandoned many of his projects before.

“Well, s-speaking of entertainment, dear…You don’t happen to know where you’ve been hiding, do you, Julia?” Milonia announced with a giggle, her voice slurred to oblivion. “Gods, she’s just as drunk as he is…”

Julia avoided the woman’s gaze as quickly as she realized it wasn’t someone else asking that question. Over the years, she had done her best to avoid whatever woman Caligula was locked in rings with, and almost all of them tried their very best to avoid her as well…Well, almost every woman except Milonia, who would practically stalk her around the halls if seen just to report to the man above as if she were her tutor and not the Empress of Rome who had much better things to do (or so Julia thought at least, but apparently not).

But Julia couldn’t help but scowl at it, forking at a specific piece of fresh lobster but never putting it to her mouth. “Nothing that pertains to you–”

“Oh, hush, Milonia! Drink more of the Falernian and stop interrogating the girl; I’m not having it go to waste…” Her father blustered, lazily snapping for a slave to refill her already overflowing cup, and his wife simply giggled at it. “My little Drusilla is a dreamer, too into paper and ink to spend time with her living father, but of course, I understand…”

His words were spat like poison hidden behind a knowing smirk on his lips. It was supposed to be only a simple tease, but nothing was simple about Julia’s father, and any ‘joke’ that was to be made by him was always under suspicion that whatever he was saying was, in fact, never a joke at all.

But Julia just shrugged at his words nonetheless and went back to her plate of raw oysters, lobster, pork, and a small honey-drenched cake.

“You still want to be a philosopher, don’t you, Julia?” Caligula spoke up yet again, a slight slur in his voice as he reached for the roasted figs.

His young daughter couldn’t help but scoff ever so slightly. “I haven’t wanted to be that since I was nine, Father! I already told you that my new goal is to be a patroness…”

The previously silent Agrippina then barked out a laugh, her voice coming out as another cold rasp that made the people around the dinner table glance up at her. “Oh, please! You’d just free all the female slaves and have Rome run as but another circus, Julia; you stand for nothing…”

Julia blinked twice at her aunt, who was now going back to her plate, not taking much offense at her insult. Though she was a tiny bit surprised that she wanted to speak at dinners once more when she usually is as silent as a mouse during them.

But Caligula only scowled at Agrippina, his fingers going to flick a grape from the vine at his disloyal sister, which only landed in her lap with a silent thud. “Silence, sister.” He spat in annoyance, “Have you no respect for the gods above?”

“Not this speech again…” Julia thought in dismay. Although this whole memory took place before the Emperor had truly lost his mind, the delusions of immortality and religious worship had only just begun their overreaching terror. It first started with the ‘revelation’ of him being morally superior to all humans, that he had ‘powers above all else’, and that he would never die. It’d be one thing if the delusion was only his to keep, but sooner or later he started including the people around him in it too by telling his favorite servants that they had his ‘spiritual protection’ and that Julia was to be a ‘goddess that would wreak hell’ or something like that. She usually stops listening once he starts.

Dinner went quieter than Julia had originally planned for it to be. Incitatus was never requested; Aunt Agrippina mostly stayed silent after that little squabble, the senators never asked another question, Aelianus wasn’t bothered again, and the Emperor stayed in thought as he chewed on the cracked pine nuts silently. It was beyond awkward, yes, but from what she was hearing from the servants about the other feasts before this, she much preferred to be in this one.

And after what seemed like a long time, the theatrical dishes were then cleared off the dinner table, and everyone except Caligula, Milonia, some senator, and Julia was immediately fixing themselves to leave the dinner table, shifting their robes, grabbing their drinks, and bowing before heading away.

“Another great dinner, Caesar!” An elderly elite had said with a forced grin, attempting to leave as quickly as possible. Caligula didn’t particularly look back at him, but the shifting in his stone-cold face seemed to show that he was rather annoyed at something new.

“I thought I told you to call me ‘Jupiter’, did I not?”

Julia saw the man he was speaking to immediately freeze up before swiftly turning back to the ruler of Rome with an even greater forced grin than before. “M-My greatest apologies…Goodnight, Jupiter.”

And then the last of the three elites were gone, walking away from the dining room in a hurry.

Finally, the feast was about over. Julia started to get up to leave quickly, but not before she suddenly felt the rough grab of her father’s grip on her arm that pulled her right back down to the wooden chair in a huff. She froze up almost immediately once she started to hear the familiar giggles from him that could only mean more theatrical terror.

“Look at this, little Drusilla…” He had whispered, revealing his crooked yellow teeth as he pointed to a specific part of the table. Julia followed the pale bony finger until she found what he was trying to show her, and to her horror, it was none other than the sleeping figure of her great-uncle Claudius.

The absolute idiot, he did it again! Not only did he doze off, but he was most likely in a complete and utter dream far, far away from the Palatine. The older man was still weirdly sitting upright, only with his chin completely tucked in, swaying now and then as he snored quietly. His plate of venison and glazed dormice was now completely abandoned on the plate, being inhabited by one or two flies as he continued to drift off.

Julia couldn’t look at the sight any longer; only the gods knew how Caligula would handle such a thing happening to his table. And by the maniacal grin and demented glint in his hazel eyes, it seemed like he was already preparing for a whole theater show of humiliation.

Her father was already cackling at the sight silently before speaking up much louder so that the about five people that stuck around could hear his newest speech.

“Look at this! I give my stammering uncle a spot at my feast, and he goes and sleeps through half of it!” Caligula announced for all the dinner guests to hear, a wave of his unbusy hand to the scene at the corner of the long table. When the few men and women glanced at where the Emperor was showing off, Julia saw their faces turn to disgust and horror. And the worst part was that the old man still didn’t wake up, as he just sat there in his deep sleep, a head full of white hair hiding his face as he snored quietly.

The nerve her uncle Claudius had to sleep through something like this, especially when Julia had heard of Romans who died eating at this very table for just annoying the Emperor on a bad day! The thought of even dozing off, let alone taking a full-on nap, was a joke in itself; the man was either really stupid to do something like this or, on the other hand…rather really brave. Julia couldn’t tell which; she just hoped for his own sake that he’d wake up soon, but he never did, and she could already hear the wheels turning in the Emperor’s head.

“Father, whatever you do–” Julia had tried to say, before Milonia had cut her off swiftly with yet another drunken cackle, her Falernian shifting dangerously in the cup.

“S-Shall we get one of the guards to beat him for this?...” Caligula didn’t particularly listen to his drunken wife's request, shushing her yet again with a wave of his bejeweled hand.

“No, my dear wife, I’m in a particularly good mood this evening. I have a better idea that’ll spare my dear uncle from something like that…” Julia then watched as the Emperor reached for a dark bowl made of marble, specifically filled with uneaten pimento-stuffed olives. The girl practically cringed at it. Great, another humiliation practice at dinner, and the new target was but the old one yet again, Claudius. “Gods, uncle, can you just wake up!”

But he never did, now seemingly snoring louder than he was before. Caligula’s eyes gleamed with excitement before taking a specific green olive from the bowl, speculating at it before looking back at Claudius’ slumbering form.

“Oh, uncle?...” The Emperor had slurred before throwing the piece of food directly at Claudius roughly,

“Wake up!”

The olive hit the co-consul’s shoulder before dropping back onto the pearly ground, though Claudius barely reacted, a tiny twitch of his head before he went right back to sleep. Caligula frowned at the action before taking but another olive from the bowl and flicking it harder to the man across from him.

Julia grimaced as the embarrassment went on and on, like a horrible accident that you can’t look away from no matter how hard you try. And when she turned her head to the side, away from her father playing target with the sleeping man, she caught the eye of the only senator left at the table, who was shaking his head deeply but never daring to say a thing.

After the sixth olive hit the square of his jaw, Claudius finally woke up with a sputter, his hands immediately going up to his robes as if he didn’t even remember where he was.

“A-Ah! The pages are rotten–!”

His stammered confusion immediately stopped once he heard the mocking, harsh laugh of his nephew from across the table. And Caligula couldn’t stop himself from cackling like a hyena alongside Milonia, his pale hands gripping the expensive tablecloth so tightly as he banged his head against the table. Meanwhile, Julia never felt so embarrassed for a man in her life, hiding her own face in her arms temporarily.

Claudius’ greyish eyes looked to the guffawing Emperor and his wife, then to the now smaller group of people around him, his jaw twitching yet again until he sank to his seat.

“Oh…S-Sorry–”

“Claudius, do you even understand how embarrassing it is to have my own relative who’s so useless he can’t even eat properly fall asleep at my own dinner table?!” Caligula suddenly snapped, the boisterous laughter disappearing so fast it was as if it never happened.

Claudius stared at him blankly, his mind registering what he was saying before nodding off, his eye twitching yet again. “Y-Yes, I know, you’ve…told me p-plenty…” He muttered under his breath. His pale fingers then left the white fabric of his robe to go back to the fork that still punctured the uneaten venison- well, at least he tried to, until Caligula suddenly shrieked.

“DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING TOUCH THAT!!!”

Claudius’ arm immediately jerked away from the metal fork, whether it was on purpose or another one of his involuntary movements. It clattered against the fine china loudly, making him yelp at his own action.

“Don’t touch my food anymore, Claudius! The feast is done!” Caligula continued in a growl that made the daughter next to him grimace, “If you can’t even care enough to stay awake, then you’re not gonna care enough to consume my food!”

Claudius flinched at his order, but complied anyway, shakily pushing the plate away from him before looking away yet again in shame. Julia couldn’t help but cringe at it all. It was beyond a simple fact that her great-uncle was prone to countless sleep attacks throughout the day; even Caligula secretly knew this, but he liked to be mad regardless and take it as a sign of ‘disrespect’ when he is beyond disrespectful himself to anyone he sees on purpose! And the worst part was that Uncle Claudius never once spoke up for himself; despite the tremor, despite the awkward pauses, never once does the man try to tell them off the same way or defend his own actions. He just…smiles at their mockery and does what they say.

Julia could never imagine doing that for as long as he’s done; she’d just lose herself in the process. Too loud spoken for such ridicule.

But Caligula’s mood had already changed yet again, the scowl on his face twisting back into that teasing smile as his grip on the tablecloth loosened once more. He then turned to the single senator, Julia, and the two servants who were now attempting to clean with a look of derision, waving a hand right back to Claudius.

“By my fellow gods, do you all now see the stupidity I have to deal with for my dear uncle who can’t functionally understand? I ask him the simple equation of two plus two, and this bardus thinks it’s a trick question!”

Caligula then starts laughing again, a humorless one that is forced, even for him. His wild eyes then go to the people around him, telling them without words that this is where they laugh with him despite the joke not even being funny, and so they do with the same laugh…well, everyone except Julia.

And Claudius just sits there, awkwardly smiling as his head repetitively twitches to the side, though his fading gaze says that he wants to be anywhere but here.

Julia hated it. She just hated all of it. The mocking jokes, the olive throwing, the sudden screams punctuated by her father when things don’t go his way. This was exactly what she wanted to avoid, why she hides in her room during dinner and doesn't leave until afterwards. And worse, she hated how her great-uncle just willingly took whatever they gave him. He just sat there with that hideous fake smile instead of refuting their claims about his illnesses and who he is!

God damnit, why did he never say anything? Why can’t he just speak up for himself?

Julia didn’t even know what she was doing; it was like her empathy for him had turned into her own anger and taken control of her mind. The next thing she knew, she was out of the hiding place in her arms, staring into the eyes of her beyond-deranged father before she started speaking straight blasphemy.

“And yet he knows more about your famous great-grandfather than you’ll ever know…”

The laughter immediately died down at that, a sudden tension filling the room as Caligula’s head perked up toward whoever had spoken. When he turned and discovered it was his very own daughter (now pretending to be interested in the scraps of food on her plate), he blinked rapidly in perplexity. The servants and senator then looked to her in fear, and when Julia glanced up quickly to the corner, she saw her great-uncle immediately freeze up at it. Even drunk Milonia, next to her husband, got it through her head what she was saying. She had cackled quietly, sipping the alcohol from her cup once again with a murmur of “here we go…”

But Caligula didn’t scream this time; he just set down the cup that was in his hand and redirected his attention back to the girl beside him.

“What was it you said, Julia?...” He softly asked.

Julia continued to shift the scraps of food on her plate with a fork, pretending to be unconcerned with it all despite her mind desperately wanting to scream and get the hell out of this place before it was too late. And yet she stood her ground; she had to, weirdly, either for her uncle, who was too much of a coward, for herself, or for both.

“Oh, nothing!” She had chirped falsely, “I just find it kind of odd that the most powerful man in the entire world spends his days focused on his uncle’s weakness as if he is any better mentally.”

A terrible tension instantly filled the room at her words. The Empress spat her drink out, the senator turned to her in utter horror, the servants stopped cleaning altogether, and Claudius…well, he simply stared at her with some deadpan look that she couldn’t translate no matter how hard she tried.

The Emperor’s smile, however, never wavered at this challenge, though the girl could see that he was trying his best to keep his composure; the twitch of his right eye and repetitive tapping of his fingers against the table proved otherwise.

After what seemed like forever, Caligula finally responded with the same fake tone of patience. “I don’t remember having to answer to you about how I treat my guests–”

Julia threw her fork down, cutting her father off swiftly before slamming her hands back on the table, her voice high and sharp for her age. “And I don’t remember when it was in the Emperor’s duty to make the people below him feel like complete and utter garbage!”

Caligula’s smile faded instantly at his daughter, instead slowly twisting into a sneer as he eyed back to the man she was suddenly defending so hard. Next thing Julia knew, the servants were gone, probably expecting the piercing order of another killing, with her being the victim this time. Claudius had still looked at her, barely blinking as if in a trance of her own idiocy. Though the moment his nephew caught his eye, he swiftly looked away before Caligula turned back to Julia with a new sense of confusion.

“Darling, he’s only an old gambler–”

“A gambler who’s the brother of your father, the nephew of the Emperor before you, and a member of this dynasty!” She shouted back, “Now what makes a man of that power any less than the rest of us? He is not the only Roman here that twitches and limps; so how do you even think that treating someone who lives here terribly is gonna help your hideous reputation?”

“You idiot! Y-You have some nerve to disrespect a living god, girl. Do you not know when to shut up?!” Milonia had unexpectedly barked from her seat. Julia only eyed her exhaustedly before responding blankly,

“Well, I suppose it takes one to know one, stepmother.”

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!-”

“Oh, quiet, Milonia! Jupiter does not need the Empress to defend himself!” Caligula had hushed, holding his wife’s arm tightly before letting go with a simple smirk.

“Besides, my child has a point.”

“She does?” The senator had asked, utterly surprised.

“I do?” Julia added as well.

“Yes!” Caligula confirmed with a pale finger pointed upwards, “Even divine deities such as myself can make mistakes. My dear uncle is still related to me, and despite his own fallacies, is still, as little Drusilla had put it so ‘nicely’, an intricate part of the dynasty, and now seeing that clearly…”

His head then turned to Claudius, a sweet smile on his lips as he neatly folded his hands in his lap.

“I apologize deeply for my previous actions, Claudius. I see now that I was being unnecessarily rude to you. You can eat the rest of your dinner now.”

Claudius’ arm twitched yet again, but he never made a move for the plate. Instead, he just eyed his nephew strangely. “T-Thank you, Gaius, but I…Er…I’m not hungry a-anymore…”

“No, please! I insist, uncle!” Caligula persisted with a big grin on his face, “Eat more of your leftover venison! Don’t let my previous anger stop your appetite, now; you’ve barely eaten anything!”

Julia watched as Claudius hesitated before picking up the fork yet again and piercing the fly-ridden piece of venison. That seemed to be quite enough for Caligula as he had already turned away from the sight with a shrug.

“Now who says I’m not benevolent?” The Emperor jested before swiftly getting up from the table. As he did that, he grabbed Milonia’s hand simultaneously, pulling her up and away from dinner as well with a “Come, wife!” to his name.

She stumbled but ultimately followed him, the goblet that was overflowing with Falernian instantly slipping through her fingers and falling down to the marble ground with a semi-loud clatter, making a servant sigh promptly at the new mess that was made.

At long last, the horrid feast had officially run its course, and Julia couldn’t help but smirk at what she had done and how she stood up to the ‘fiercest leader in all of Rome’. How pathetic of him to change his mind the second he was actually challenged; it was almost laughable!

When she turned to the side to see the old senator again, she saw that he still had the same pleasantly surprised look on his face that he did when she started the fight, now packing up and leaving to the nearest exit.

“I hope dinner wasn’t too boring for you, sir.” She called out sarcastically from behind her chair. The senator didn’t stop his stride, though now she began to hear the man start to chortle now that Caligula was no longer listening.

“It takes one to know one!” He instantly repeated with a loud cackle that echoed among the palace walls before he, too, disappeared, sure as hell not helping the already rising state of Julia Drusilla Minor’s ego.

When she looked back to the chair that was across from her with the half-eaten plate, it was empty, but from the corner of her eye she saw the slow-moving figure of Uncle Claudius, already leaving just like the single senator. She swiftly turned to face him, catching his eye.

The teenager had expected him to look pleased. Thankful of her gratitude. Instead, he just stared right back at her with the same conflicted expression, shaking his head at her knowing smile before limping away and out into the hall.

Julia’s smile disappeared swiftly at that, her eyebrows now furrowing in confusion before she too got up from her chair and left the table.

As quickly as night came, so did it pass to reveal the bright and early morning. But instead of it being another one of those mornings where the daughter of the Emperor slept till noon and hid in her spacious bedroom, she instead had gotten up early, rubbed her teeth with the dentifricium, brushed her dark curls, and got into a quick light blue stola before heading out the door for the upcoming day.

Julia didn’t care that the sun was still barely hiding from the clouds above; she had a mission to do and someone to see. In the rough pitter-patter of her feet hitting the mosaic patterns below, she headed down the long, winding stairs and made a turn to the public hall, passing the atrium shine, the few private apartments, and the closed-for-maintenance imperial bath until she finally reached her destination:

The imperial library.

Julia smirked at it before opening the long wooden doors and stepping inside.

The library was a vast and huge place, surrounded by tall bookshelves, wax-dripped candles, and most likely very important papers scattered messily around the wooden floor beneath, which was never cleaned up or properly organized. Dust filled the air as she explored, the sounds of her own creaking steps filling the vast room.

Julia’s father never used the imperial library. He had no use for it, and so he stopped the servants from cleaning it altogether despite it being an ancient part of the Palatine, though he would force them at the same time to clean simple storage closets spotless.

The place was quiet and spacious; Julia could perfectly understand why someone would have a reason to use a room like this to get away from all the nonsense from outside.

And after what seemed like forever, with her trying to find a way out of this maze of a private library, she finally found the man she was looking for.

There, obscured in all the yellowish papers and abandoned scrolls, sat her great-uncle skimming over a particular long sheet of crinkled paper scratched with messy handwriting. “So the rumors are true that he really just hides here all morning…” Julia had thought absentmindedly before stepping over all the mess and walking toward him.

Claudius never looked up, even when Julia was right behind him on the olden floor, too interested in whatever kind of reading he was surveying. When she looked over his crooked shoulder, she could only catch a few words on the page that were legible enough. Something about a place called ‘Tarquina’ and land, though more than half of the page after that was in Greek, Julia was sure of it.

He still didn’t notice the girl right behind him, and it took Julia everything she could to not giggle at it. Instead, she decided to take the better route instead of scaring him, tapping the same crooked shoulder gently.

“Uncle–”

“AAAHHHH!!!!”

Claudius screamed, scrambling away from the girl until he got back up on his feet. Julia practically jumped out of her skin at the loud screech, taking a few steps away from him out of her own fear. The paper he held was already being hidden from view, tucked messily under his arm even as it unrolled and kept sliding from his grip.

“B-By the gods, girl, have you…have you lost your mind?!” Claudius stammered, his hands twitching yet again to protect such a paper.

Julia stared at him curiously before laughing it all away nervously, “I apologize, uncle! I didn’t think you’d react like that to a simple tap on the shoulder…”

The older man had groaned, shaking his head at her once the sudden disturbance had passed through his system. “I just wasn’t suspecting…guests this morning…” He muttered under his breath before walking away. Julia followed him swiftly in order for him not to get away from her sight.

“I was bored today, wanted to explore the palace more…” She explained flatly. It was a lie, of course; she had seen everything about the Palatine over ten times during her four-year stay there, and she had already suspected he knew why she'd come to the library.

Claudius didn’t respond much, only giving her a tired “uh huh…” as he went deeper into the drowsy library. As he did that, Julia eyed the yellow sheet under his arm yet again, contemplating what to ask.

“What’s the paper for? Is it your writing?”

Her uncle glanced at her exhaustedly yet again before sighing with a shrug, “U-Unfortunately, yes, it’s an old research paper of mine.”

Julia smiled. “Ah. Another old one about the Etruscans and Carthaginians, I’m guessing?”

Claudius took a glance at her as he walked, shifting the paper scroll closer to him as he nodded absentmindedly. “I guess you can say that.” He muttered, though his words did not hold the usual satisfaction he had when he talked about such niche subjects, quietly leading Julia to believe that the writing was about something else entirely. Still, she did not pry into it further.

Instead, she matched his slow stride, nodding along. “That’s interesting…Is the sudden Greek a part of the storytelling?”

Her great-uncle eyed her yet again, but he did not answer this time, turning away yet again until he finally found what he needed: an old wooden table with a thin layer of dust covering it. Claudius swiped his overly thin hands over it, pushing aside all the random papers and trinkets alongside the dust until there was enough room for both the rotten candle and the paper he was hiding to lie.

She watched him sit hunched up as he uncurled the scroll yet again, holding his arm in the way so that anyone but him couldn’t catch the sight. Julia eyed his quietness before shifting in the crooked stool across from him, waiting until he realized that she wasn’t trying to leave that easily.

After a few moments had passed, when his light eyes finally rolled back up to see his great-niece still waiting excitedly with her hands folded intricately in her lap, Claudius groaned and yanked back an extra quill from the small windowsill. “M-Move along, Julia…Don’t you…Don’t you have better things to do than bother an old man in his free time?”

She snorted, “Like what?...”

“W-Well, I don’t know…Like…makeup?”

Julia couldn’t help but cackle at her great-uncle’s ignorance, despite the fact that she was in a private library where loud noises echoed repeatedly. “‘Makeup’, really?” She repeated in lighthearted disbelief, “Is that what you truly think is the main goal for girls my age?”

Claudius just shrugged, a blank look on his face as he scratched at the paper roughly. “S-Seems so. I had a sister once…”

The conversation never really turned into anything after that, a blissful silence filling the room as Claudius purposefully ignored the thirteen-year-old across from him. And after a while, Julia began to frown at his actions.

“Are you still upset over what happened last night, uncle?”

The older man scoffed harshly at her words, shrugging his shoulders yet again like an annoyed child vaguely does. “No…What? Are you?”

“Not at all!” Julia answered proudly, “I only ask because you look bothered that I’m here. Did I do something wrong?”

“I-I get bothered when anyone’s here…” Claudius deflected, dipping the quill in the ink before writing another quick note of Greek into the paper. Julia’s eyebrows furrowed once more at his comments.

“I know that, but I, you know…” She trailed off, her words quickly losing meaning before she finished with a small, embarrassing mutter. “...I just thought that perhaps you’d be a little more grateful from father’s latest dinner.”

The quill stopped etching into the paper almost immediately at that, his head lifting slightly as he stared at her with the same perplexed expression he had given Caligula when he gave him ‘mercy’. Then his eyes narrowed as his hand twitched yet again as he sneered. “You expect me to thank you for that?...”

Julia blinked twice at the question before answering,

“Well, yes, but–”

Next thing the girl knew, Claudius started bursting out laughing, the familiar guffaw that would make men cringe now echoing through the library’s tall walls as he held the table to keep himself from falling. Julia, meanwhile, looked completely and utterly lost at his sudden mirthfulness.

After a while, his laughter finally died down, but his now wide eyes never went back to normal as he just stared at his great-niece, astounded at her own audacity. “Thank you?!” He repeated yet again, “Why would I thank you for attempted suicide?!”

“Why would you thank me? I don’t know, maybe because I saved you from another scene of public humiliation, sir!” The irritated words of her own conscience rang, though Julia never dared repeat them, preferring to be semi-respectful to at least Claudius. “Well, maybe because what I did was dangerously brave–”

“Ha! ‘Da-Dangerously brave’? M-More like dang–...dangerously s-stupid…”

The frown that Julia already had on her face deepened clearly at his mocking, and yet he continued to keep writing, chuckling nervously at his own refute.

“What for?” She asked simply. Claudius stopped writing once more, his cloudy eyes staring back at her brown ones as if just entertaining her was tiring enough. He then suddenly got up once again, swiftly taking the scroll with him while leaving the quill on the table and beginning to limp away. Julia instantly got up from her seat and began to follow him with a more frustrated stride than she had originally begun with.

“H-Hey, now what is that supposed to mean?!” The girl badgered, tripping over her own stola as she followed her great-uncle.

Claudius shrugged, ignorant once more. “It means exactly what it’s supposed to mean. B-Bravery isn’t a trait I’d give you, Julia…You’re more like…Uh…” He physically pondered for a moment before cackling as he twitched, “Pertinacious! Y-Yeah, that’s…that’s what I’d give you. P-Pertinacious–”

“Now you have got to be kidding me! I quite literally saved you from my father and a potential beating by the guards, and you want to call me ‘pertinakus’…‘pertina’…WHATEVER THAT WORD MEANS! Who would have done what I did for you last night, huh? You?”

Claudius shook his head no, though the amused curl of his lips never seemed to hide away, and it did well to anger Julia more.

“E-Exactly! Father listened, and now you’re safe!” She loosely proclaimed, “So if you could perhaps give me some sort of a ‘thank you,’ or at least not make me seem like some sort of alien, then that would be quite–”

“S-Safe?!”

The words came out fleeting and nervous as Claudius stopped in his tracks once again, facing her with the same look of disbelief. “Y-You genuinely believe I’m ‘safe’ now because of your…Er– idiotic stand?!?

Julia stopped as well, her mind short-circuiting as she tried to remember what he was referencing, though in all truth, she had no idea how to respond to that. It was as if what she thought would be a foolproof plan was being cracked right down the middle by the very same man she had underestimated in a few short words.

Claudius sighed at her confusion, shaking his head at it as he limped to one of the nearby bookshelves. “You…You really have no idea w-what I’m talking about, do you?...”

When Julia didn’t respond, he just hummed a simple “Mhm…” before turning to some bookshelf, his hand twitching to a specific column for searching. After a bit of time, he finally pulled out a book with a title she could not see as he spoke up hopelessly.

“Y-You see, Julia, that the Emperor never actually ‘listened’ to what you had to say… and I am certainly not gonna be s-safe, whether it happens today or tomorrow!”

“Whether what happens?...” She questioned quietly, though by the shake of her uncle’s head, she already had quite a good idea of what he meant.

“Court.” He shrugged before finally opening the dust-covered book. “W-Well, not exactly court, but… once the clock hits noon, your father will ma…most certainly find me wherever I am and take me somewhere to pay another massive amount of c-coins as punishment for last night...”

“Coins?!” Julia repeated loudly, completely ignorant of how her high-pitched call echoed through the walls of the imperial library above. “You mean you actually pay the Emperor?!”

“Of course–”

“For what?”

“Humiliation,” Claudius answered honestly. He sighed before slipping the book back into the shelf and stepping away. “Either because he needs the money hi…himself for his games or just to put me into more debt than I already am…And with m-my embarrassment to him from last dinner, he’ll be sure to make me pay for it all once you’re not there to prevent him.”

Julia stood where she was for the moment, taking it all in. She had heard of her father’s unnecessary spending, of course. It was one of the rumors of his erraticness that he would defame random rich men and force them to give him everything that they had; another one being that the treasury Tiberius had tried so hard to keep was all empty because of this, but she had completely no idea until now that Claudius was one of those victims himself.

“B-But you’re a Julio-Claudian!” The girl sputtered, “Surely you could pay it easily–”

“Julia, I’m broke!” Claudius admitted without warning. He then waved a hand dismissively to her, but not in order to deflect. Not this time.

“I-I was ignored by the Imperial Court, denied public office for so many years by my own f-family!... So m-much inheritance in this dynasty, but it was never for me to have! Of course not, I…”

Julia watched as her great-uncle trailed off, his voice swirling in his own emotions before it lowered to the usual gravelly rasp. “F-Forgive me, my financial troubles are not something a young girl like you should…Uh…be worrying about.”

“Don’t apologize to me, uncle. I didn’t know Father was doing that to you...” Julia discounted, though she still followed him deeper into the library when he left once more, now even more conflicted with the information that was just bestowed upon her. “I mean– I understand the financial part, but what about the public humiliation?” She inquired, “Why do you let them mock you and make such preposterous lies about you?”

“That’s quite simple. I don’t have a choice…”

“Yes, you do! Rome is a free Empire; everyone has a choice!”

Claudius chuckled bitterly again, his smile widening, though it wasn’t friendly at all, just sort of sad as he turned left. “Julia, R-Rome hasn’t been truly free since Augustus became the emperor. And what I mean by ‘I don’t have a choice in the matter’ is much more metaphorical than li…literal.”

Julia’s eyebrows furrowed when they passed by a particular spiderweb before continuing on with the interrogation of her great-uncle. “What do you mean?”

The co-consul let out another sigh of breath before stopping with a shrug. He looked at her tiredly, probably exhausted by this impudent conversation, and yet he never left and continued to answer the questions truthfully.

“You know your late grandfather…yes?”

Julia stared blankly at him. She knew exactly who Claudius was referencing, of course. A ghost story that she would hear every once in a while, then never spoken again for several months: the man who was both Caligula’s late father and Claudius’ late brother.

As a young child stuck on the cliffs of Capri, she could still vaguely remember before her father had the fever, when he would lie on her bed next to her and tell her countless stories of his father, the great, famous general who was once the golden boy of Rome, as the man who now stood right in front of her was entirely sidelined for his ‘own good’. It would be ‘pity stories’ of whatever Caligula could remember, as even he had trouble with the specifics of his father. Back then he could still admit to her that he only knew her grandfather for a very short period of his life, but now when he tells the same stories, he completely makes up the details as he goes, if he even mentions him. But the name still rang true, the name of–

“Germanicus Caesar?” Julia blurted out with a finger to her chin.

Claudius nodded tiredly at the name.

“Oh…” She muttered as she looked down at the wooden floorboards beneath her, “Wasn’t he the one who got the fever and–”

“Died.” Claudius finished for her suddenly. “Allegedly murdered, w-well, at least he believed it to be. And our sister, Livilla, killed herself for being caught ha– helping with the murder of her own husband…”

Julia stared at him, her stance going rigid at such hard explanations coming out of the mouth of someone who seemed so used to it. “And yet you’re still here.” She finished.

“Yes,” He agreed solemnly. One of his hands drummed against his robes, an awkward silence filling the room before he shrugged yet again. “And why do you think that is?”

“Be…Because you didn’t involve yourself in conspiracies?”

“Partly!” Claudius grunted, reaching for a creaky step-ladder hidden near the side of one of the bookshelves. “I…I am also the only surviving offspring of my f-father before me because I pretend to be dumb. A f-fool!”

Julia watched as Claudius took to the steps of the ladder, growing taller than he once was as he began switching out the scroll from under his arm for something else.

“You…You’ll see, Lady Julia, that to live as long as I have in a family like this without b-being poisoned or smothered or stabbed is to simply be whatever they want you to be that’ll k-keep you living.” His head then turned to Julia as he continued to explain, a dark gleam in his cloudy eyes being semi-visible that wasn’t there before when he was alone. “My m-mother so long ago had thought that by calling me a ‘monster’, she was disparaging me from the imperial dyna…dynasty. Which I believed myself, but now that I am old and she is buried, I see now that she had a-accidentally given me the greatest privilege there ever was!”

Julia realized it quickly enough. The admission was blasphemy in and of itself and yet somehow interesting enough to catch her full attention.

“To be a complete and utter fool with no sense of actual danger.” She had concluded.

“E-Exactly!”

With a quick slide of the new paper under his free arm, he stepped off the ladder and continued with a new purpose. Julia followed after just as quickly.

“So you’re trying to say you enjoy the scolding and ridicule our family gives you?”

Claudius sneered at the girl, waving her off with a quick ‘flick’ of his wrist. “Gods, no! I h-hate it more than anything, but it’s either sa…severe mockery or the tomb, and I’d much rather prefer making it to sixty before that…”

Julia’s dark eyebrows furrowed at that, the hem of her stola carrying the dust it caught from the ancient air as she followed hurriedly. “But I argue with Father almost every time I see him, and nothing happens to me!”

The co-consul stopped in his tracks once more, turning to the Emperor’s daughter with a much more tired look. “You are his daughter,” He simply stated. “You could tell him that you wished that he ha…hung himself, and he would simply forgive himself on your behalf.” He then pointed to himself, “B-But if I had said even half of what you tell my nephew on a d-daily basis. Julia, I’d be dead!”

“Well, he treats his own sisters like garbage, so why should that matter?” Julia questioned seriously.

Claudius shrugged softly before carrying on out of the corner. “Because he cares for you, that’s the…difference.”

“And he does not care for you?”

The older man stifled a laugh before stepping over the same papers that Julia had to escape from in the entryway. “H-He cares for me as much as my mother did.”

“Which is?”

“Very little.”

“Oh.” Julia stopped for a moment, taking in the complete thought process told to her before shaking her head at it all. “So, to my understanding, you pretend to be dumb in front of Father and others because you believe it saves you from death?”

“P-Precisely.”

“Huh…Okay.”

Claudius limped to the front doors of the imperial library, his bony hands on the doorknobs. But before he dared open them, he suddenly froze in place before turning his head back around to face Julia once more.

“U-Uhm…You’re not going to tell anyone about this c-conversation, are you?” He stuttered.

Julia quickly shook her head, and that seemed to be enough for the man to swing open the doors and step away, off to another mission of fake stupidity, she was now guessing.
And yet, before he could go too far away, the girl still called out for him jokingly.

“So I reckon you don’t want me to do you any more of those ‘favors’ after last night?!”

Claudius turned back to her, smirking, before shouting back with the hand holding the scroll up in the usual stammer: “N-No more favors!”

Julia giggled at it before she too exited the imperial library, hurrying away with an entirely different point of view on her father’s crumbling empire…

[CURTAIN CLOSE]
[The End…for Now.]