thecapitol | We are all strangers in a strange land [Open]

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We are all strangers in a strange land [Open]

WHO| Nasir and others
WHAT| Nasir decides the best way to cope with being brought to Panem is to ~~try and hit people a lot~~ spar.
WHEN| The same day as Nasir's arrival, lasting for most of the day.
WHERE| Training Center
WARNINGS| Violence, probably some cursing

Nasir knew he should get his bearings and explore the new city he found himself in but it was overwhelming. There was simply too much to process. Everything was unfamiliar from the clothes to the people to his own room. While it was more comfortable than the tent he’d lived in for months, he missed the tent all the same. As he missed many things, not the least of which his friends and lover. Even if he returned he didn’t know if he would find them: if Laeta and Sibyl had convinced Agron to move on beyond the grasp of Rome without Nasir or if he stubbornly remained waiting for him, at risk of his life.

Nasir's anger at being torn away-- enslaved again-- brought him to the training center. The journey there had been interesting to say the least and he did not care for that elevator room. But as soon as his hand grasped a spear he felt more at ease. Now if only he had something other than a target, someone who could give him a proper challenge.

Looking around, he spotted a figure and quickly approached them.

“I would spar with you, if you are of desire.” Nasir himself did not appear to be impressive. Short and lithe, he went shirtless and wore a necklace of what, on closer inspection, were three phalluses. But he had a determination in his eyes and he handled his spear with surety.

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Maximus' eyebrows raised. A man who remembered the Republic. Not only remembered it, but didn't know anything else...

His face fell, at the mention of survival, and he let out a long breath and shook his head.

"... No. The Rome I knew has been dust, for over a thousand years. The Rome you knew - the Republic, the true Rome, that was over before I was born." He shifted, uncomfortably. "There was a man, I knew, who hoped to make it a republic, again. But that wish, I fear, died with him."

A thousand years?

Nasir's grip on his spear was almost painful and anger burned in his eyes.

"I would see it crumble until there is nothing left but dust." Nasir spoke vehemently. He had suffered and lost too much to want otherwise and their final defeat was still fresh in his mind. "After a thousand years, do slaves still speak the name of Spartacus?"

That would be his one comfort. If he was forgotten then their fight was, in the end, meaningless. All the battles and victories were nothing. His friends had died for nothing.

No, they had died free.

Spartacus. Maximus' eyebrows raised. Surely that wasn't the man he faced now? Crassus' defeat of Spartacus was well known, his victory still taught as a great roman triumph.

Having been a slave himself, having planned to overthrow the emperor... His feelings were incredibly mixed. His face turned stoney, his muscles taut.

"His name was still known, in my time," he said stiffly. "As was his defeat. If they still know his name now, I cannot say."

"I know of his defeat. I was there but days ago. It lifts heart to hear they still speak of him." He was under no illusions of how the Romans must treat his memory but his name yet lived and one day he would be remembered as he should be.

"I followed him into battle, as I have untold times. My name is Nasir and I was a slave before I became a warrior."

He watched Maximus's reaction carefully. As a former body slave, he was well versed in reading people, and should Maximus's response prove unfavorable, Nasir would be prepared to respond in kind.

"And I a soldier before a slave," He said, relaxing slightly. He didn't know Nasir's name, but suddenly the vehemence against Rome made a good deal of sense. If he fought with Spartacus, the chance that he was a gladitor was very high - especially if the capitol had brought him here for the games.

He could forgive a man's hatred of Rome, if he only viewed it from the sand of the Colosseum.

God knew it'd done nothing for his own feelings toward the city.

"Now, however, you will find you must be both."

Some of the tension in Nasir's muscles eased. Maximus had bled for Rome but he had lost all to it, just as Nasir had lost most of his life to it. They had more in common than he originally thought.

The hostility in his voice dropped although sympathy was withheld. "I swore I would never be enslaved again but they have stripped choice from me. The gods do not look favorably upon us that we have lost freedom twice. How did you come to lose it the first time?"

Desertion, Nasir suspected. It had been as such for some of the slaves that joined Spartacus's cause.

Maximus glanced away, his expression stern. It was a story that he had recalled to very few people, and never in detail, but then - no one else had shared that particular experience.

He might not know the man, but he knew he would understand.

"My emperor was killed, and my death was meant to go along with his. I survived, but my family did not. The slavers found me under their burnt bodies." The words were hard, blunt, and far away - as if he was recounting the story of someone else, not himself. He'd managed to move on, after a long time and with Wyatt's help, but that didn't stop the sudden hard kick to his heart when forced to remember.

"Apologies. I should not have asked."

Maximus might have been a Roman and he might have respected his ruler, but he had suffered just as the same. Spartacus too, had once fought alongside Rome, but he had all taken from him as well. It was odd to see the similarities in these two men, one Thracian and one Roman.

If the other man had opened himself up, it was only fair that Nasir do the same.

"I do not know what became of my family." Like Maximus, his voice was detached.

Nasir did not even remember his parents. Much of his life before he became a slave was blank, save for brief flashes and a strange voice that once was as familiar as his own.

It was a story he knew too well - most of the gladiators he had known had similar stories. And of course they did - men taken from their homes, or taken by war, what way was there to hear from their families, to reunite with them.

"They wait for us," Maximus said firmly. A mantra that had kept him going for a long time now, even now that he'd found a new life. "We will meet them again."

"I would not recognize them if I did. I was a boy when I was enslaved." Again, Nasir did not seem to be outwardly bothered by the fact although the truth was the conversation brought up troubled memories.

Nasir had tried to keep his thoughts of his family in the past. It had been harder after being freed, but there was little left to dwell on. Now he found himself confronted by those unsettling, nagging thoughts.

"Perhaps they will know me."

"They will know," Maximus assured him, as if assuring that the sun would rise in the morning. "They will know, and they will wait."

The idea of Nasir being taken as a child, however, caused him to frown. He'd known slaves all his life, of course, though the ones on his own lands had lived there as long as he had, born and raised to the earth. The ones he'd known as Gladiators had all been acquired as men. That children were taken was something he had known on a vague level, but had never thought about. Now, however, he imagined Nasir as a boy of eight, and he imagined him looking like his son.

The thought unsettled him deeply.

"My son was eight. When he was slain," He said suddenly, his voice almost cracking. "He waits, also."

Nasir sympathized with this man. He bore a Roman name but so had Nasir once. He could not know Maximus's scars. He had no child. He could not recall his parents. But he heard how Maximus's voice nearly broken. And one thing he could remember.

Though Nasir's own lover was alive there had been a time when he believed otherwise. He would not easily forget that hurt.

"There is no wound more painful than to lose those who hold your heart yet we live. We live and we honor them."

"Yes." Maximus agreed easily, the word firm and strong as a mountain. It was a truth he needed to believe, to keep living, and thus the foundation of everything. "We live, and we will see them again."

He shifted his weight, regarding Nasir with a curious, if heavy, gaze.

"It is different here," He warned him heavily. "Whatever you felt towards Rome, Panem is a different beast. Rome was dangerous even for the greatest of men, but Panem has magics far beyond anything that we ever wielded."

Nasir had been told that the strange workings here were not magic but technology however there seemed to be little distinction between the two. Whatever they wished to call it, he did not understand it.

"I have seen. Rome proved too powerful to defeat without these-- magics. I fear by ourselves we are without hope." He did not relish serving the whims of their new masters but neither did he wish to die so long as there was the possibility of returning. He was not ready yet.

Maximus' lips thinned, though he longed to speak to Nasir on the subject, it was extremely dangerous. He would not put Wyatt in harms way for a conversation.

"They have machines. In the walls, above us... They can see and hear nearly everything that we say and do. If you keep hope, my friend, then you must keep it here." He reached forward and touched a single finger to the man's chest, just above his heart.

Nasir was constantly being watched though there was no one save Maximus and any passing tributes to see him? He would have thought it impossible but he'd thought that of so much that he'd seen here. It was either the truth or a poor attempt at avoiding a subject Maximus did not want to speak of and there was no reason not to be forthright about the latter. Nasir would have to err on the side of caution.

And one day he would take the lives of his new masters.

Nasir almost flinched back when Maximus reached for him but he stilled, allowing the touch without protest.

"Do you hold hope as well?" He asked.

His hand fell almost immediately after the touch - he didn't let it linger.

"Of course," He says, as if talking about the weather, but there is a fire in his eyes that belies the calm.

"A man needs hope, if he is to survive."

Nasir was not so sure that was the case. He had seen those without hope, still living, still clinging to vengeance.

"You can survive without hope yet I would not have it so for either of us. May our hopes bear fruit for both of us."

That was as much as he could say now about his own desires.

He'd lived on vengeance, once. And he knew well that it had only been a shadow of a life, a mere whisper. Without more to live for than death, death was all everything became.

"I live only to see it so," He assured him heavily.

"As do I." Nasir did not have many hopes but the ones he did have were so large he did not see how they could come to pass but he had little choice. He had to return to Agron and if he did not he would find a way to make this whole city fall.

"Maximus." He nodded. "Gratitude. You have lifted spirit." And, most importantly, reminded him why he could only allow himself to give into his anger so much.

He gave a short nod of his head.

"I am glad to hear it. Do you still require a sparring partner? I promise I am better with my sword than with my words."

"You are a gladiator. I do not doubt you." Nasir raised his spear slightly. "Should I match you sword for sword or will you fight me as I am?"

Nasir fully expected to lose but that didn't mean he was going to back down from the challenge.

He grabbed a sword that was closest to a gladius that he could manage, and tested the weight of it in his palm.

"Fight as you are," He decided, "Or how you think you will stand against me best. Then we can see what you are truly made of."

Nasir stepped back as he settled into a more grounded position. He lifted his spear.

"May you not find me lacking." Nasir grinned in anticipation.

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We are all strangers in a strange land [Open]

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totally didn't mean this to be a double entendre but

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