“New Canaan is destroyed, its former inhabitants scattered to the winds in the aftermath of the White Legs’ attack.”
It was recited coldly, any emotion in the words gone as he lets the Legate handle this explanation, a resentment lingering in his mind as he looks to the woman before him. She was born free, perhaps, but she was as much a slave as anyone else who lived within the reach of the Legion, grasping the propaganda his erstwhile partner spouted for naught but vanity’s sake.
“You see, I am a New Canaanite…and, when I burned for my failures, I went to the only place I knew I could go. I went home.”
Pistol cocks as he finishes examining its mechanism, laying it aside on the tabletop.
“Caesar’s desire for revenge shifted from merely focusing on me and onto my tribe. New Canaan has never been overtly hostile with any forces without provocation, freely traded with the people of the wasteland, and educated them in ways both medical and spiritual.”
They were innocent. Even to the Legion, New Canaan had never posed a threat, they’d never have tried to interfere with their efforts in Utah until they stood at their doorstep, but that didn’t matter to Caesar…to Edward. He had always been petty, even as Joshua admitted there was parts of the man under the guise of godhood that he respected and loved.
“But they sheltered me, so Caesar decided to use the White Legs’ desire to join the Legion as a means of retribution against me.”
It was a promise that would never be kept. The White Legs were weak beyond explanation without teaching of tactics and weapons from outside, they’d never survive incorporation into the Legion. Even Salt-Upon-Wounds, the foremost of them, was no match for a well-trained Legionary.
“Happy Trails has been a friend of my people for years, the White Legs learned from the frumentarius-come-courier to divide and conquer. And so they died…while you walked with them, naught but a target in the eyes of the White Legs.”
“Hence you standing before me, in the midst of ‘enemies’, faced with certain death at the hands of the White Legs or an alliance with a man you view as a traitor to the Legion, despite my only crime being stronger than the punishment Caesar gave.”
“... You’re... Canaanite...” and immediately everything clicked together. Of course. This... was Caesar’s wrath. Noble and pure.
She was, however, caught in the center of it.
It wasn’t normal for Araceli to be so quiet. Caesar always absorbed tribes into the Legion, it was custom: of course not every settlement and town was absorbed forcefully. Absorbed, but not by the sword- and those who did were citizens. Like her. The ‘free’ men and women of Caesar’s mighty empire. This was... uncharacteristic from the Caesar she idealized so much. If anything, she saw use in this town: their knowledge as healers...
... No, there was use in this town... was.
No. They could have harbored him: that was more than enough justification for Caesar to have the town exterminated. Joshua Graham was famous for his brutality, once. Who was to say this wasn’t just a plot to get her to turn against the Legion?
Dammitdammitdammitdammitdammit.
On one hand, she could have at least tried to take Joshua’s life... and probably die pathetically in the attempt. What she would have liked to do was ally with the White Legs, work with them to try to crush Caesar’s enemies. But these savages would never let her get close enough to them to ally with them.
And she refused to die here.
“... Let’s say... I do not tell Caesar bout this.”
“I am not here on official Legion business. I’m a businesswoman. I didn’t expect to stumble upon all this, and Caesar does not need to know. What would you ask of me, then?”
dededos
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