Through a fool's eyes

Lucrezia Iunia Bruta, 709 Ab Urbe Condita, Somewhere close to the Urbe, Guard of the Senate and Sworn Protectress of the Temple Mount.

Pain.

That had been what I felt when I was able to see again.

Lots of pain.

Enough to make me want to shout, despite the many blessings to make me not feel it, and healing me through it.

Unluckily for me, those same oaths weren’t enough, which hadn’t been surprising in hte least.

The last few days had shown me that, from the sheer betrayal of country, people and ancestors to me, despite having trained for one hundred and seventy years, being so easily defeated.

And then finding myself on a mountain, almost killed, or maybe killed, by a bear.

It could have been, after all, simply my personal Avernus, my ancestors having weighted my life useless, or worse, harmful for the country and people.

I had failed at the duty of the Bruti.

I had failed my duty to the state, as a citizen of the Res Pubblica.

I had, above all, failed my oaths as one of its Guardians.

Maybe dying from a beast, despite fighting it, was a fitting end.

To be forgotten and devoured, my soul unable to join my ancestors but instead being forgotten, or maybe, as I had thought before, simply being sent to the bowels of the afterlife.

Maybe that was the reason I wasn’t feeling anything anymore.

A painless, sensorless, void Avernus.

Truly a-

“AAAH!”

I opened my eyes immediately when I suddenly felt a jolt of pain, only to find myself looking at a Nana, a red head one from the furthest fringes of the Res Publica if I would add, a tall, brown haired and black eyed human, a fuzzy brown beard on his face in front of the fire’s light..

And the bear.

By the ancestors, the gods and the oaths!

“What is it doing-ah!” I was, again, feeling pain.

And it was the plainly dressed man who had done that, who spoke calmly, without any kind of respect to my station, and my colours: “I would ask you to go back down, miss. The spirits haven’t finished their work and there is an injured cub and your actions have already annoyed her mother, who is also a two hundred and a half kilos, and who can and will rip out your arms and use them as drum sticks with your skull as the drum.”

I turned slowly towards the bear, who almost seemed to smile at me, a soft and deep growl coming out of its closed maw.

I then slowly, ever so slowly, turned back towards the mad man, who was glaring at me, a scowl starting to appear.

I quickly went back down.

The man’s scowl flattened a bit, and then he went back looking…below where I was supine?

The pain was still there, but while waiting for the mad (and a small voice in my head added also scary) man to finish whatever experiment he was doing, I looked around.

Or tried, at least.

“Do not move.” The man ordered, his rudeness cutting through my thoughts, and my pain forcing me to not answer to this unconscionable behaviour.

I was a noble daughter of the Res Publica, despite my failures!

I would not let myself be insulted in such a way.

“I-” I tried to sit up again, only for his glare to freeze me, pinning me there.

“What did I just say?” He asked, his tone as cold as the Cocytus, his eyes as fiery as the Phlegetont and his tongue as sharp as the Styx.

Hence why I immediately laid back down on the cold metal surface I was on.

“Good.” He grunted, and went back at looking under this thing, a soft hum that I could now hear under the slight pain I was in.

I looked up while waiting, trying to piece together where I was.

The bear and the mountain weren’t much of a clue, after all the Urbe controlled all, with us protecting it.

But I was in the inner Urbe itself, before the explosion, so maybe we were in the Sumnium?

Or mayhaps more to the north, after the big plane that divided the provinces and the Urbe?

I hoped that the true sons and daughters of the Urbe, those who had joined me in trying to stop that, were still alive and preparing to strike.

“I will join you, that I swear.” I whispered softly, only for my words to be heard by the .

“You will not join anyone.” The man had just bent down and, with a splash of water, he had taken out something from under me.

It seemed to be a clay doll, with many cracks that gave off a pale red light.

He pointed at each one: “You have, luckily for you, no compound fractures, but on the other hand…” He started pointing at each one, and with each one I could feel my ears lowering:

“You have three broken fingers, your left femur has two cracks, while your left ulna has two visible fissures. Several hairline fractures on all four limbs, and that’s without going to the fractured ribs.”

I wanted him to stop.

He did, in fact not, and he pointed at less luminous, but wider, area, around the knees and shoulders of this doll: “Your joints are also dislocated, probably by trying to out strength a bear.” He looked up at me, and I felt like I should look away in shame in front of the far younger man, before he went back at glaring at the doll, soft words, too soft for me to hear, coming out of his mouth.

This was not normal, it felt to be back in front of my family’s teacher.

That made me angry, and so, sitting back up, not listening to my body screaming at me to lie back down, I grunted out, my words clear: “Who are you, Peregrinus, to say what I, Lucrezia Iunia Bruta, a daughter of the Urbe, can and cannot do?”

He stopped looking at the doll, and for a moment I thought I had finally made him understand who I was.

Then he spoke, his voice far calmer, and more glacial, and deeper, than before: “I am Victor Dubois, veterinarian. I am the one who is taking care of you, I had a long day and night, so I expect for you to not make ruckus, and help me help yourself, instead of sitting up before I am done. Am I clear?”

I heard two eeps in that moment.

One was from the dwarf woman.

I am not sure, nor will I ever be so sure to say, from where the other came from, but I immediately leaned back down and waited, closing my eyes all the while.

It would be a long night, for me, it would seem.