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🎨 June 3rd
🎨 June 5th
❕️As a tribune and aide to General Maximus, Acacius is swamped with duties and busy sorting through paperwork. His comrade Darius often stops by Acacius's tent during break time or bedtime to see his cat, but on a day like today, Acacius finds Darius's presence bothersome and feels it disrupts his focus.
🎨 August 13th
A comic about Acacius's reaction when he showed the twin emperors a cat.
Additional Tags: Historical Fantasy, historical fiction - Freeform, Historical, Medieval Fantasy, Ancient Rome, Gladiators, Marcus Acacius Lives, War and Conquest, Battle, Graphic Description, Graphic Violence, Blood and Violence, dark themes, Roman invasion, Explicit Language
This story is also available on AO3
Gif credit: @buckypascal
Conquest
The castle walls rose over the rocks, where the waves broke with fury.
The wind blew strongly, announcing an omen.
The custodians watched the waters from the highest point of the walls, with their weapons ready for any eventuality. In total, there were fifty men who worked as guards to protect the kingdom.
In the houses surrounded by the walls lived a few thousand citizens. That kingdom was not large, but it possessed enough riches to satisfy the needs of its people.
In the castle lived the lord together with his wife, the lady, and their three daughters.
Without prior warning, the custodians spotted in the distance, on the horizon under the stormy morning sky, a line of ships approaching. More and more ships appeared: there were thousands.
The men began to blow a trumpet to alert the others; it was the alarm for the women and children to head to the shelter, while the men prepared for combat at the front line.
Just at that moment, they were having breakfast in the castle when a guard entered to deliver the news.
"My lord, unidentified ships are approaching."
The lord stood up with a serious expression and ordered his wife and daughters to go hide in the shelter along with their servants, personal ladies.
The lord went to the front where the men were preparing to fight, to defend their land. From there he spotted the fleet of ships approaching.
"They outnumber us, my lord."
He realized they were Romans by the symbols on the sides of their ships.
"Someone watch the shelter door," ordered the lord.
He knew the atrocities the Romans committed against women and children in war.
"This way, ladies," said one of the servants guiding them.
Meanwhile, at sea, the general in command of the fleet, named Justus Acacius, was positioned alongside his second-in-command, Darius Sextus. The general looked ahead while drinking from his cup of wine and eating a piece of bread. The wind blew strongly, carrying them quickly to the coast. Acacius lifted his gaze to the stormy sky.
"The wind is too strong. Furl sail and strike water."
The second-in-command repeated his words for the others. From there, the walls of the kingdom with lit torches could be seen.
The ships drew ever closer, like predators waiting to hunt their prey.
In the kingdom, they were already prepared to face the worst.
The ships arrived and lowered the bridge. When the Roman soldiers set foot on land, everything turned bloodthirsty. Blood gushed everywhere, staining the earth.
General Acacius, in his late forties, wielded the sword with a steady rhythm and unmatched skill. He was an experienced man, a man of war.
When they had already defeated almost the majority of the townspeople, the general, with his sword in hand whose sharp metallic blade dripped the blood of the fallen, gave an order to his men:
"Enter the castle."
They went under the general’s order, while others took as slaves those who had not died by the sword.
When the Romans entered the castle, the lord who was there with his custodians surrendered to them. He knew he had already been defeated and there was no other ending, so he knelt before them and the general appeared.
"You already know what to do with him and with his family."
It was a quick but painful death for the knight. The blade entered through his clavicle, piercing his neck downward. For the Romans, this method of execution was considered a dignified death.
After executing him and displaying his washed head on a stake at the castle entrance, the soldiers took the custodians as slaves and went to the shelter where the three daughters and the wife of the lord, accompanied by servants and a midwife, lay unaware of the situation but considering the thousands of possibilities.
They knocked down the shelter door and entered, followed by the general. The daughters were sitting there along with their mother, a midwife, and the servants. Upon seeing them enter, their faces turned to dread, but they kept their composure as the ladies they were. Since they were young, they had been taught to behave correctly in public.
The Romans were left perplexed, admiring the beauty of the ladies, and took them as wives. The servants were taken as slaves, and the midwife was beheaded with the same method that had been performed on the lord. Her head was impaled alongside that of the knight and left displayed at the castle entrance.
I liked the detail in Gladiator 2 where all the men on screen had dirty fingernails and how the camera would zoom in to show off their filthy STI fingers. It was so gross, but hot at the same time.
Darius Sextus, the praetorian guards' leader, and the rest of Rome's armed forces in that face-off are so underrated. If they hadn't exercised prudence and calm, things would have ended badly.
Acacius's second-in-command. Wouldn't it be funny if I recast this character who had absolutely no real scenes or lines of dialogue with Pedro's IRL bestie Oscar Isaac because Oscar is hot and I want a visual excuse to use Oscar and build on another character Ridley refused to utilize, so killing many birds with one stone maybe???
Just three more chapters to draw, and it's complete! 😋
❕ Cats were kept in Roman military camps for pest control. To prevent food damage and diseases caused by rodents like rats, cats played an important role. Additionally, even stray cats would sometimes stay in the camps, drawn by the food given by soldiers.
❕️The three people gossiping about Acacius are all centurions, lower in rank than Acacius but older and more experienced in battle. Acacius, of noble birth, holds the rank of a junior officer (tribune).
