Chapter Text
The sand crunches beneath the leather sandals of Octavia. She grips the handle of the gladius tightly, the wood grain in the handguard catching her eye. It is shoddily made, easily broken, and barely sharpened. The shield in her left hand is of similar quality, a leather circle with tin capping the center and rimming the edges.
“Shiny and cheap-” she hisses acidly to no one, “a perfect fit.”
And disposable.
She doesn’t voice the final adjective. Fear knots in her belly, and anger is the only thing holding her together right now. Keeping her knees from shaking and holding the tears at bay.
She sits on the wooden bench, alone in the dark cell. The iron banded door she entered has remained shut since she was thrown in an hour prior. She kicked at it furiously before, but forced herself to conserve energy. For across from her entry is her exit, and she can’t bear to look out into the distant heat haze, from where the roaring of the crowd originates.
From where she will die.
She shakes her head, standing up again. She knocks the pitcher of water with the cheap shield, and the sound of it falling to the ground startles her. She has never worn a shield before; never held a weapon in truth, and moving with it is difficult. Octavia takes position in what she imagines a legionary would. Her father had been one long ago, and she would sit with her sisters and watch their brothers pretend sticks and pot lids were the fierce weapons the men marching by their farm would carry. She would laugh then, and speak with her sisters of catching the eye of a Centurion leading his men. Marrying an exciting man of adventure, rather than the dull boys growing up in the fields that border their home.
Little did she know she would get her wish.
At 19 Octavia should be married, settled down and working on her second child. But the blight had taken her family’s field as harsh as it had the rest of the area. With no intention to take on debt, her father had come into Octavia’s room early in the morning. His stern face was hard, and she dressed quickly and without comment at his tone.
She felt lucky, as cruel as it was, that she was simply to be a house slave to a minor Decurio. Silphium was rarely given to her, as the old man had a preference for his more experienced bedslaves, and she could have been one of the exhausted women in a bathhouse in the city. She was optimistic, she counted her blessings well. Right up until an old friend of her master had visited, a rough, broad-shouldered Prefect with a cruel look in his eye. He demanded she attend him in bed, and she hadn’t been ready.
He had been rough. He had hurt her. She had panicked. And when his roars of pain brought the guards, they found Octavia with bloody nails in the corner, and the Prefect holding his eye.
And that is how she had found herself here. Dropped from an unpleasant, but stable life into the guts of the colosseum, awaiting her fate.
She spun the blade inexpertly, trying to shake the memories away with stubbornness and spite, but the weapon came clattering free when she spun too quickly. Yelping, Octavia jumped backwards from the bright iron blade. She slipped on the wet spot from the pitcher, and tumbled onto her rear.
The sound of footsteps made her heart jump, and she looked into the short tunnel where the heat and sound emanated from. A guard approached, wearing the blue linen uniform of the stadium’s sponsor.
He was short of height, and carried more pounds on him than would be allowed by the guards that stood amongst the esteemed guests in the crowd, but he looked a giant to Octavia, sprawled as she was. He had a piggish look on his face, his eyes crawling over her body.
She couldn’t take him, she knew, and fear again shot through her. She lay backwards on the ground before him, wearing a mocking recreation of gladiator armor. A light blue loincloth covered her groin, but did nothing to hide her soft thighs and plump ass, now covered in sand. She scurried to her feet, brushing the sand from herself, cursing at how little garment she wore, and blushing furiously to see one of her breasts had slipped from the similarly blue cloth binding her chest. She was smaller of chest and larger of hips, a point of pride for her she used to thank Hera for, but she was still busty enough to slip from the fabric that scratched against her aggravatingly hard nipples.
She fixed her outfit, ignoring the chuckles of the piggish man on the other side of the bars. Now up, she stood shorter still than the guard, a tan of skin, grey of eye girl, her 155 centimeters was shy of the man before her. Unlike her tin single pauldron and leather sandals, he was carrying utilitarian gear, a heavy cudgel, crop and net. Perfect gear to subdue her. Not that he would need it, if he wished he could pin her down bare handed if wrestling with her brothers had taught her anything. She excelled in flight, not fighting.
But she couldn’t run from this.
“You are up next, girl. Prepare yourself and don’t make me throw you out there when you hear the horn.” He pulls the cudgel out and thuds it against the bars to emphasize the point. His eyes roam across her once more, lingering where the fabric wanes with a hungry grin.
“Don’t bother begging or bargaining.” He meets her eyes contemptuously, “You’ll leave my cage and no amount of cocksuck will change that.”
Fury fills Octavia, flooding her limbs into action, and she slams the shield into bars with a wordless shriek of defiance and revulsion. Her fear dies in the rage, she holds it beneath the torrent and reaffirms her desire to fight unto the end.
The gaoler skips back, light on his feet for one so heavy, with a suprised laugh echoing around the cell. He turns and retreats down the tunnel to a side door, talking over his shoulder to Octavia.
“Thought for sure you’d break in here. Dance well for us, little viper. We don’t often get an exhibition this exciting!”
Heart pumping, Octavia processes his words: an exhibition match. She had never attended a gladiatorial game, but knew some. This would not be a normal match of two trained warriors, performing for the crowd. An exhibition often included beasts and uneven combat. Elaborate executions, or wild shows where hundreds do battle. Her chances drop even further, a normal match would be unlikely to end in death, but this would be as good as a death sentence.
“So be it, if I won’t live under Hera’s grace I will fall under Athena’s, if she shant have me I will spit Ares into the face of my killer.”
The speech sounds good, almost good enough to convince her she is a fearless warrior of legend, and not a girl capable of only cleaning house and serving clumsily in bed. She gathers her curly brown hair back together, binding it with a leather thong, and tries to prop up her heart as the machinery of the cage shudders into life.
The horns reverberate through the stadium, and she grips the weapons by her side as she confidently, fearlessly, walks into the brightness of midday.