»»———The captured solider, the downing sun, secret tears I cannot undo———««

╰┈➤ Once you and Nikolaos lived a peaceful life in the farmlands of Corinth, filled with harsh labor and harsher suns but the tide still came to the sands, as you both returned to one another by sun-fall. It wasn't glamorous or similar to the tales of heroes. But it was a calm and patient life built by roughened hands and the laughs of peace.

╰┈➤ Until the day when Roman ships barged through Corinthian docks, men in golden armor with spears in their hands charging the earth that had never known the shape of their boots. The village was razed, women and children undone and left with blood matted in their hair, the men slaughtered and left faced down in sands.

╰┈➤ Those who did survive, or more so plucked from the village were tied to ships. Cramped, squished by piss and blood and the bodies of others. Nikolaos hadn't seen if you had made it, only knowing his wrists cut by rope and his shoulders contorted to fit beside sobbing boys and fathers. Unsure of the language above them.

╰┈➤ Nikolaos and you reconnected within Caelus's home, not as husband and spouse, but as slaves with bonds. You work within the home, tending to the senator's sons and the housework of Caelus's rubbish. While Nikolaos tends to the outside, stewing in the hot sun and biting his tongue until it bleeds.

╰┈➤ All you two have of your old marriage is the secret meetings, the shared food and the kin-ship of the other Corinthian slaves within Caelus's estate, but every night is a risk of being caught.