This is just me doing a small writing exercise on that one arrest scene from The Age of Scoripus (chapter four,) because it bothered me that the Stellarium wasn't interesting enough.
Just fyi, the Gemini and Aries officials are my OCs, not part of canon. I'm working on making Aries and Gemini the oppressors and the Scorpio the oppressed. I also didn't change a lot of the original text from the book, just some places and then adding new paragraphs.
Before we could continue gossiping, a shout stole our conversation. Avia and I whirled around. An older teenage boy burst out of a shop not too far from us. An Aries official darted out of the shop soon after in full sprint, catching up with the fleeing teen. As soon as he was at the teen's back, the Aries latched both hands on the boy’s shoulders and yanked him backwards, slamming him to the brick ground with a sickening thud.
I sensed the danger as soon as I spotted their unmistakable black and orange attire. Avia instantly moved away from me to the other side of the fountain. The two officials hadn’t looked in our direction yet, distracted by their target.
The boy had a Scorpio glyph on his red cloak. My heart fell. The Scorpio’s cloak was marked officially, given to him at his Ceremony. He retaliated against the Stellarium’s grasp, but the Aries official was tall with a broad upper body. The man trapped the boy with ease, forcing his hands behind his back while pressing down his knee against the middle of the Scorpio boy’s back.
Two more people stepped out of the shop. The first was a handcuffed Gemini boy, dawning the signature grey cloak. The second was a Gemini official, holding the Gemini boy’s elbow in a vice grip. The handcuffed Gemini called out to the struggling Scorpio but received no response.
“You’re given a warning,” The Gemini official spoke calmly, unhanding the boy to remove the steel cuffs. Once they were off, the official shoved him away from the arresting scene. “Under Gemini-Aries protection, you are given a chance to apologize, submit and obey. Don't mess that up, boy.” The official's stare was cutting and precise, soon after becoming disinterested in the youth as he turned to give all his attention to the Aries and Scorpio.
The Gemini boy urgently ran to the scene anyways, foolishly, falling to his knees at the Scorpio's side, leaning down to give him a desperate kiss. The startled Scorpio boy returned it when he realized who had grabbed his face.
“Piss off, vermes,” the Aries official spat as he grabbed the folded collar of the Gemini’s cloak. His palm lit up with fire, scorching the fabric under his fist. He paused for a second before shoving him away impulsively with a frustrated grunt. “Vincent!” He called the other official, disgruntled.
“Yes, yes,” Vincent, the Gemini official, sighed and stepped over to the Gemini boy and smacked the back of his head with an open palm, receiving a startled yelp from the teen. “You are lucky to be protected. Have you forgotten?" He forced the Gemini teen to turn and face him. Before another word was spoken, Vincent smacked the Gemini boy across the face. Vincent stayed perfectly calm despite the action. "Away, child.” He spoke with an even-toned voice, still holding that deadpanned stare as he watched the Gemini boy fearfully retreat from the arrest.
Any other official recognized they’d be in trouble if they hurt a Societalist. However, it is lawful for a Gemini official to deliver corporal punishment to a Gemini youth if they deemed it so.
“Let him go!” the shaken Gemini pleaded. “Please!”
“Spoiled brat, is what you are.” The Aries official sneered as he finished handcuffing the Scorpio. He pulled the red-cloaked teen up to his feet after, keeping his heated hand wrapped tightly on the boy's shoulder. “If only you'd give me a reason to break that nose of yours.”
“Vendril, no,” Vincent’s tone shifted to authoritative. “He is not our problem anymore. This Scorpio has broken Code. That is our priority.”
Vendril, the Aries official, smiles wickedly at Vincent. “Oh, to be the blade that beheads them. But I can only imagine what it's like through texts in a medical book.” He pulled the horrified Scorpio boy along as Vincent followed.
The Gemini buckled to the street, sobbing. He tried to reach out for his lover as the Stellarium forced him away. The Gemini’s scream gurgled with horror. Avia ran to comfort him, fallen on the street.
As the Stellarium dragged their victim past me, I kept my emotions utterly still. The boy’s face was full of despair and fury, flickering with a consuming rage that spread through every inch of his expression, a rage that reminded me of my own. The fire burning in his eyes was familiar, shared, against the Code that told him he couldn’t love, yet he had anyway. In the split second where our gazes met, his face flooded with recognition. His gaze lifted slightly as he passed me.
“Rieka,” he said as tears streamed down his face, “thank you.”
He knew my name, but I didn’t know his.
I let each of his words individually strike me, waking me up, alerting me to reality; I wasn’t alone. The familiarity of his stare followed me as he maintained eye contact, although I couldn’t remember where I recognized him from. Somehow, someway, I knew I was supposed to understand why he was familiar. Words were stuck in the back of my throat, choking me, my tongue twisting with so many things I wanted to ask him. I couldn’t push a single sentence out.
“Oh?” Vendril stopped dead in his tracks, eyes lit up with doggish glee, staring directly at me. “Is there something I'm not privy to?” He forced the Scorpio boy’s head up by yanking the back of his short hair. “Say something else to your craggy little friend again.” He quietly hissed out his demand.
“Yield.” Vincent scolded Vendril. “Pay no mind to the girl. And you,” he pointed at Rieka with his index finger, “get out of our sight if you don't want us to come back and haul you away too.”
I fell silent, fighting back every bit of fear within me to not show in my eyes, or on my face, as I swallowed back acid and gave a single, firm nod.
Vendril rolled his eyes at me with a disappointed scoff before continuing his walk with the arrested Scorpio.
The Scorpio boy smiled at me with a nod, as if forgiving my silence. He accepted his fate with a ragged exhale, turning compliant with defeat as the Stellarium led him to his demise. I wanted to process what I’d seen, but that was nearly impossible with the gazes of other signs watching me, expecting me to do something, say anything. After a few moments of my shocked stillness and blank face, they instead dispersed, uninterested in a typical sight of the Gemini-Aries Stellarium’s wrath.
I cautiously approached Avia and the Gemini. He was mumbling something to Avia, his words jumbled and coarse as he struggled to breathe through his panic.
“Rieka,” she said quietly, refusing to look up at me, “leave.”
“He’ll make it back,” the Gemini choked out. “I’ll find him.”
Avia threw her hand in my direction. “Leave, Rieka.”
I backed up, turning my back to the scene before I could fail to hide my fear. The Stellarium would have him dead before the Gemini could even begin to search, and I’d be next if they caught me with Avia again.
