sixthiterationlogs | † tam fratri pietatem quam patriae

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† tam fratri pietatem quam patriae | OTA

WHO: Gaius Gracchus
WHERE: The Inn foyer, exploring 7I, the peach grove, and back at the Inn
WHEN: August 12
OPEN TO: Everyone
WARNINGS: None yet

morning of August 12 --> Inn foyer and outside

Gracchus had woken that morning to find another of the strange gift boxes outside his room. The last one had contained tunics, tablets, and styluses, and this time, he opens it to find an offering bowl, a small cup, incense, wine, and a stole that could be used for covering the head. Supplies for making offerings. Since he came here, he's had to rely on saving parts of his meal and leaving them with the little wooden figures he'd found. Now, he can do something properly. Not that there's a household altar here or anything like it, but there is an entrance space to the Inn that doesn't serve the same function as an atrium, but is at least in the same important location.

So before breakfast, he carefully washes and shaves, and murmurs the words of ritual cleansing, before he takes the figurines and the box he's just received down to the Inn's atrium. They're not his, not the little figures of the gods and his family kept in their lararium in his home back in Rome. But he's kept them since he found them here, because they would be enough, if he managed to get anything to make the offerings to his gods and his family that were a part of the life of every Roman head of household. He places the figurines and the offering-bowl on the edge of the desk, then places the stole over his head and shoulders. Then he holds out his hands in supplication as he begins the prayers: first to Janus, as is proper, but then to Neptune -- whatever Aristotle and the Greeks may say about the causes of earthquakes, there have been too many here, so many that a prayer and offering to Neptune seems wise -- and then on to the spirits of the household, whatsoever of them exist here. Last, he speaks to the spirits of his family: his father, his brother, and in their absence his mother, wife, and daughter. He pours wine into the cup, then into the offering-bowl, then sips it and invites the spirits to join him.

Later, after the ritual is finished, he sets the figures to one side, out of the way but still there, in the room, where they can perform their watch over the household, and takes the leftover wine in the offering bowl outside, to pour it reverentially into the ground.

later --> exploring 7I

He hadn't felt comfortable venturing out into the new area that had been uncovered by the earthquakes until now, but now that he's made a prayer and offering to Neptune, he dares the journey. Gracchus is dressed in one of his tunics, the most comfortable clothes he has here, but he's also carrying the strange pack that he'd been given when he first arrived. He has few supplies to carry with him, but he does want to bring a tablet with him in case there is anything that needs recording, since he doesn't think the whole area has been explored yet. He's heard tell of a sea that's been discovered, but he's just as interested in the land: lacking a boat, the sea isn't going to help them to escape, and he knows more about the use of the land than the sea.

It's strange finding himself in a mirror-image of the village that's been his home-in-exile in these past months, but while he's exploring, he pays attention to what he finds where, and after he's determined precisely how similar the village is, he decides to see what else is the same. There are other spots around the village he's used to that are important, and learning if they are the same or not may be significant to understanding more about this place.

It's when he gets to where he's expecting to find a spring bubbling into a deep, calm pool that he finds a major difference. Instead of the large clearing with the spring in it, there's a grove of unfamiliar trees, branching up towards the sky, some of them far beyond his head. The branches are laden with a fruit he's never seen before, round and reddish-gold, firm to the touch when he reaches up and picks one. His hand rests on the trunk of one of the trees as he looks up into its leaves, and a roughness under his palm makes him look down again. There's a symbol carved onto the trunk, one that's completely unfamiliar to him. It looks a little like a tree with a dangling branch, with a trunk and then some lines drawn across it, with another cut at an angle to the others. It's not Greek, and he wonders if it might be Egyptian, that strange language of pictures he'd heard of from some of his tutors.

Whatever it is, he carefully takes out his tablet and scratches a drawing of the sign onto the wax, before he starts picking the fruits.

evening --> back at the Inn

When Gracchus gets back to the Inn, it's with a pack full of fruits from the trees. He hasn't tried any himself, uncertain whether they're good to eat or not, but if they are, they should be a good supplement to the food stores here at the Inn, and Kate Kelly can probably use them. He heads for the main room, unsure whether or not he will have missed the evening meal. Whether it's past mealtime or not, that's usually the place where the most people can be found.

He takes one of the fruits out of his bag, and holds it out as he walks into the room.

"Excuse me," he says in English to the first person he meets, "do you recognize this?"

evening prayers --> he will be repeating prayers in the evening if your character wouldn't be at the Inn in the morning

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Of all the people he could have come to ask about fruit, it's a good thing he's run into Beverly. Recognizing the voice, she turns to examine what it is he's got. A smile almost immediately crosses her face as she glances at the fruit, holding out a hand to ask if she can feel it.

"That looks like a peach," she says with enthusiasm. "They're very good to eat. Where did you find it? I didn't know we had any growing here."

He may be a stranger to the cultures of the people here, even after so long, but some gestures are the same between Rome and here, and reaching out a hand for something is one of them. After all, even children do it. Gracchus nods, and offers her the fruit, the peach as she calls it.

"A peach."

The word doesn't come out right when he says it, as used as he is to Roman and Greek pronunciation: that sound at the end, something like the Greek chi, but not quite.

"We do not have these in Roma. I found them growing south of the other town."

Beverly takes the fruit and gives it a good looking over with hands and eyes, to check its ripeness. "It looks ripe. It'll be good to eat, if you want to try one. They're very tasty."

The idea of anything like this growing in one area but not the other is fascinating. Why that one? And why peaches? Does that area get more sunlight?

She wouldn't mind having a couple of her own, but she doesn't want to ask him for them if he's planning on saving them for himself or someone else. She can always go harvest her own if she wants, and so she offers him the fruit back.

"They must be getting a lot of sunlight over there," she muses. "I wonder if we've been getting enough to try growing some here."

He shakes his head and gestures to the peach, indicating that Beverly should keep it, and slips the pack off his back to reach in and retrieve a couple more.

"As thanks for your help." In Rome, a gift or patronage in response for kindness such as hers would have been an accepted response, and until now he's had nothing to offer her. He'd picked enough to be able to share if they did turn out to be good to eat, and he's glad of that now.

"It is not so ... closed-in, over there. There might be more sun." He knows little about horticulture himself, because his own farms have always had managers rather than being run by him or his family. But to him, a slightly different climate in an area not so enclosed by canyon walls would seem to make sense.

"You know that over there is laid out the same as this side, in reverse? The trees were where the spring is, here."

Beverly's surprise registers clearly on her face, but she isn't about to turn down an offer like this. A return service for her help with his arm is not at all necessary; helping people is just part of who she is.

"Thank you," she responds. "I'll have to take a look sometime. I haven't had a chance to yet, but if it's got a decent supply of peaches, I may need to."

She'll still see if she can get one or two trees to grow here for next year, though.

"These should keep for a while, but here, let me show you how to test for ripeness." With one of the ones in her hands, she does just that, showing him the points most likely to go bad first and how to tell when it has. Also how best to cut and eat it. Some fruit can be particular about that.

"It's not raining outside."

Credence is behind him, watching curiously, a book tucked into his arms. He hugs it fiercely as he hunches over, trying not to look too curious but failing. He knows this man--he knows he's hurt him, and even though that was a long time ago in the village's eyes, it's still fresh in Credence's. Avoiding him isn't the right choice of words, but Credence was certainly not going out of his way to say hello, not wanting to remind him of what happened.

Until now. This is different, because he's kneeling around, and there's something that reminds him of church that he's burning. There are little idols and his head is covered--hence the raining remark, because why else would you?--and while Credence suspects he has an idea of what's going on, he still gets a strange thrill. It looks forbidden. It feels forbidden.

"What're you doing?"

Gracchus doesn't answer at first; he doesn't wish to interrupt his entreaties to the spirits of this place to look kindly on him. He's never been the most religious or superstitious of men, but not paying his respects to the gods and spirits has felt wrong to him. More than that, he's seen what comes of ignoring portents, and life in this place has been more than portentous enough to warrant an offering. He only wishes there were some way he could make a proper sacrifice, but he's not a priest.

So he's doing the best to make up for the lack of proper religious observance here, and he doesn't turn to face Credence until he's done.

"Making offerings for the gods," he says, as he carefully removes the stole from his head, letting his dark curls show again. "Do your people not do it?"

Wanda had finished her work for the day and was about to leave the inn when she spotted Gracchus. She paused and watched him, far enough away so that she wouldn't intrude on the privacy of his ceremony. It wasn't hard for Wanda to guess that he was performing a prayer of some kind, to some god, speaking to someone who might never hear his voice.

She didn't believe in gods, not in the traditional sense anyway; there were those with power and those who felt helpless against the tides of life. Wanda wondered if thinking that there was some higher power in control made people feel more comfortable. It gave them someone to blame and someone to look to when there was no where else to go. She honestly didn't know but it would be cruel to take that comfort from someone else.

Following Gracchus outside, Wanda paused at the door. "Do you do this every evening?" It was a waste of wine but if it belonged to Gracchus then she wouldn't say anything against it. It was his choice when it came to using the resources that he had.

Paying respects to the gods and the ancestors was as much a part of being a Roman as wearing a toga. He could not do the latter here, but he could, at least, perform some of the observances now that had been lacking since he came to this place. It had felt wrong to be unable to do so for so long here.

It was growing dark outside by the time he's done, the day hovering around the threshold of night. He'd known Wanda was there, but he hadn't wanted to interrupt what he was doing to speak, and she'd shown the same respect. So when he turned back to speak to her, it was with friendliness in his voice.

"Not every evening. Every morning, and evenings if there is a reason."

"Is there a reason today?"

She couldn't pretend to know much about his culture but she was curious and open. Wanda had seen many things to know the value in another's believes. Believes, ideas, could change the world. They were important, even if Wanda often struggled to find things to believe in.

She couldn't help but wonder if it was a good thing or something darker. She didn't know Gracchus very well but she had trouble thinking ill of him.

Belief was a part of Roman society so intertwined it was hard to think of one separated from the other. Even for a man who had tempted the omens offered by those wolves in Junonia, there was still a deep faith in the beliefs of his fathers and grandfathers, his ancestors back through the consular line, the daily rituals without which life here had been so wrong.

"The earthquakes," he told her. His words were still simpler than he wanted them to be, but they were becoming less so, and he could at least now converse capably in English most of the time. "I wanted to make gifts to Neptunus. In Rome, we would call these earthquakes a sign from the gods that they needed to be ..."

He'd found one of those moments when his thoughts ran ahead of him, habitual eloquence failing at the language barrier. Placent, he wanted to say, but didn't know the word in English, or even if there was one.

"Pleased." It wasn't the word he wanted, and a moment's distaste at having to express the sentiment unsatisfactorily made his expression tighten a little. He'd made his career from his ability with words.

Wanda watched and listened to him carefully. She didn't share his culture but she was curious about it's source. "I'm not sure if they were the gods. If they are-" She lifted her shoulders in a brief shrug. "It's good you're here to convince them to stop." She hadn't liked the earthquake but she didn't want to admit how shaken they had made her.

"Who is Neptunus?"

She knew some gods but not many and Wanda knew nothing about Roman gods. As far as she knew, they were unlike Catholic gods, Norse Gods and Greek Gods. Wanda only learned the Norse Gods thanks to Thor.

"The god of the sea. He causes earthquakes."

He smiled.

"Aristoteles had another explanation." He'd been raised on Greek culture, Greek philosophy, Greek rhetoric, all of them becoming increasingly important in a world where Carthage and Corinth had fallen in the same year, the year his brother was on campaign with Scipio in Africa and he himself was on the edge of manhood. Those teachings had done well for him as the Greek world opened more to Rome, but he still was unsure whether the philosophers or the priests had the better answer to the world's workings.

"I do not know which is correct, but I have seen ..." He paused, considering how best to explain a concept that he only had Latin words for. Monstra, prodigia, portenta: omens foretelling misfortune or the displeasure of the gods.

"Bad signs, that were ignored."

Ignored when they should not have been, ignored to the ill fortune of those that had ignored them: himself and his brother.

Wanda nodded. She was thankful for his explanation. She didn't know about Greek gods and while it wasn't her theology she wasn't going to say that they didn't exist. She's seen enough fucked up shit to know that anything was possible.

"I've met Norse gods." She spoke in an even voice. "I've never meet Greek ones. If they do hear you, I hope they are placated." She had no interest in pissing off gods. Well, she would but usually for a good reason.

"What are the signs?"

She figured she could keep a look out for them. Even if his gods aren't there, signs that something else might be coming are always helpful.

"You have met gods?"

His voice, so well-trained even when he was not yet fluent in the language, now clearly showed his surprise. He believed in the gods, even in the signs that they could show, and in the good that a prayer might do, but stories of anyone actually meeting the gods seemed a thing of poetry and legend, of bygone times when there had been heroes among the world, if ever those stories had been true.

It had been Tiberius who was the augur, not Gaius. Tiberius had been elected to the college young, a sign of what everybody expected to a promising political career instead of the tragedy it became. Gaius was older now than his brother had been when he'd been slaughtered by the Chief Priest in violation of the sanctity of the tribunate, on the same day that Tiberius had ignored an ill omen that forewarned his doom.

He still missed his brother, still wished he could have been there, could have made things go differently, but he hadn't been. He'd been in Numantia with his brother-in-law, campaigning in the same lands Tiberius once fought in, where he'd signed the treaty that marked the start of their family's political woes.

Gaius wasn't an augur, but he still knew many of the signs. All Romans did.

"There are many signs. A snake, where it should not be. A wolf interfering with a task. When lightning appears suddenly. To fall, stumble in a doorway. That happened to my brother the day he was killed. People said later it was a warning.

"Stumbling is a warning?" Her eyebrow raised curiously. It seemed odd though she wasn't planning to argue with him about it.

Wanda tried to think of the best way to describe the God's in her world. "Thor is a god based on Norse mythology. It's said that their race came to Earth and the people at the time believed them to be gods. I don't think all gods are this way but he controls lightening. He was here. Once."

He wasn't anymore.

"It can be. If it happens when you are leaving the house, it is a moment of change, the start of the day's work. If you were to stumble, it could be a warning that the day would go badly."

It had been the sort of superstition he himself would pay little attention to, until what happened to his brother. Until his own dreams of facing the same fate. It had been hard to ignore the signs, when they'd been so clear.

What she said about the gods, though, was of great interest. Stories told of the gods sometimes walking among mortals, but this sounded more like someone had come from somewhere else and had been treated as a god because of what he could do. Control of lightning, which fell to Jupiter of the Lightning in the Romans' eyes.

There was softness in Gaius' expression as Wanda's explanation fell away. She hadn't said as much, but the way she'd said once sounded like she missed him.

"I understand," he said softly. "My people would call him a hero."

Wanda wouldn't think much of tripping out the doorway. Perhaps if it was her brother who tripped, it'd be more of an oddity for him.

She might be more mindful now that Gaius has mentioned it.

Her expression softened at his words. "He is a hero." She didn't want to talk about him in past tense, she didn't think that Thor was dead, but she missed him.

"Perhaps not the same kind of god as yours."

The time of transition was an important one to the Romans: January, as one year passed to the next; the the home's threshold as private crossed to public; the moments as day turned to night and back again, all of these were important. It had been setting out from his home on the day of an election that made Tiberius' stumble seem a calamitous omen, that and the hindsight of knowing what had happened next.

He was aware, of course, that people of different cultures had different beliefs, but this Norse -- a people he was unfamiliar with -- god Thor was, as she'd said, not the same sort of god as his. There was a sort of respect in his voice as he spoke.

"Perhaps not. But we would not expect to meet a hero, either. Did you meet him here, or is he from your home?"

"He is from my home but not my world." She didn't want to confuse him but she wanted to make sure that Gracchus understood how big her home really was. It wasn't the first time she had seen something from another world and thanks to the stone that had given her her powers, Wanda knew even more was out there.

Her fingers twisted together before her arms crossed over her chest.

It was difficult thinking of home. "He is a comrade of mine. A member of the Avengers and a dear friend. He's helped save a world that isn't even his many times." Wanda didn't know Thor very well but she considered him someone that she could count on and trust.

"He was only here for a short while." At least that Wanda knew.

Jean-Luc is, to be perfectly honest, a little bit more of archeologist than a historian. He does, admittedly, recognize some of the figurines (or rather, thinks he does - he's not going to risk interfering in the ritual by getting close enough to look) but the ceremony itself isn't something that he can say he's ever had the privilege of seeing before. So it is that he simply watches, taking note of the deliberateness with which everything is done, even if he can't say that he knows exactly what it's all for.

Still, he figures he can ask about that later, and it's not until Gracchus carefully puts everything away and has come back in after pouring out the wine that he speaks up.

"Is it alright if I have a look at these?"

The figurines, he means, and he gestures to where they're currently resting by way of further explanation.

He's noticed that he's being watched, but to a Roman, that's normal. Many parts of his life back in Rome had been undertaken under the public eye, particularly after he'd moved to live near the forum, closer to his supporters. People are more private here, in general, but he's silently welcomed the company, and the man's quiet respect for what he's observing. The man doesn't speak until Gracchus has finished, removed the stole, and placed the things away.

He asks about the little figurines, his substitute lares, and Gracchus nods his permission.

"It is," he says, and setting the little cup aside to let it dry a little while they speak. "You are interested in religion?" He's long grown used to the idea that nobody in this place except the now-gone Rory are Roman -- and Rory had only been Roman by a strange sort of adoption of the culture -- so a curiosity about what he's watching seems the natural explanation for the man's interest.

To an extent, being watched isn't entirely out of the ordinary for Picard either. Or rather, being somewhere that could be considered to be the public eye, anyway, even if being the captain of a starship - or any ship - is likely a far cry from anything that Gracchus might be used to. But all the same, he sees no reason to not at least be patient, and it's only after it's been mentioned that there's no harm in his having a closer look at the little figurines that he draws closer to do exactly that.

He's gentle with them too, handling them with the same sort of care that he would a rare archeological find. (The fact that they are, sort of, by his perspective doesn't hurt.)

"Among other things, yes. Although it's somewhat less about the religion itself and more about how it's reflected in its culture of origin."

Plus even despite the Prime Directive, being able to speak to someone who has actual first person insight into Roman rituals and religion is something that he wouldn't dream of passing up.

Archaeology and anthropology were unknown in his time, and even history was a comparatively new development still very much in the early stage of its development, but Gracchus still feels he can understand that desire to learn about another culture by understanding its religion, or literature, philosophy, art... just as Scipio and his friends had done.

He doesn't know this man, but he can see the respect he shows to the makeshift lares as he picks them up, examines them with a seemingly genuine interest.

"You are interested in Roman culture?"

He's met people here who've heard of the Romans, even some who speak Latin, though they were few, but to most his people have seemed, if anything, a far-off legend, when to him they'd ruled the best of the world. Few have shown much interest, especially not this sort of quietly focused curiosity. To a man for whom being Roman had been everything, the stranger's interest was an affirmation of that central place of Rome in his world.

There are any of a number of things that can be learned by what a culture leaves behind. The traces of its religion, whatever artworks and writings survive... all of them are doors into the past, and for all that those glimpses can be tantalizingly few at best, it's still an idea as to what the culture considered important. Admittedly, it usually depends on someone being able to actually translate the language of that particular culture, especially in the case of writings left behind, but to be fair, this sort of situation isn't exactly one that he'd call common. Welcome, yes. But not usually one that would be possible without time travel being involved.

"I am, yes."

Which isn't to say that Rome isn't still a far-off legend; a remnant of Earth's past. But it's a legend that he can't help but be intrigued by - there's been no shortage of archeologists, both amateur and otherwise, before him who have made their marks when it comes to exploring the culture of Rome itself. But the artifacts, those are rare indeed in his day. Records of them still exist, yes. But far too many of them have been casualties in the wars that had torn across the world in the early 21st century, ground to dust in the constant bombing or stolen from the museums that had housed them, never to be seen again.

The sounds of objects falling, that's what catches Kate's attention. Little thuds, then a roll, all where they shouldn't be. The foyer, where she keeps most things in drawers so a certain feline someone doesn't bat them around during her nighttime patrols. But no, the cat's knocked something off, so Kate puts down the wet rag she'd been using to scrub the floor in the main room and bustles in to see.

Miss Hoppity pauses as Kate comes in, and then with a look of supreme innocence, she jumps down off the desk and saunters out the open front door. She would never do anything like knock over... what?

Little figurines?

Frowning, Kate crouches down to pick them up, putting them back on the desk with the others. She's never seen anything like them, what on Earth are they?

Following her cat, she catches sight of Mr Gracchus. Mr Gracchus with Miss Hoppity rubbing her chin against his shin, Mr Gracchus...

Pouring...

"What are you doing?"

He hears the sounds behind him, but he doesn't turn, doesn't stop what he's doing until he feels the cat at his leg, nuzzling in that way the creatures have. That's unexpected, enough to make him startle, briefly, until he realizes it's just the Inn cat, Miss Hoppity, who belongs to the mistress of the house, Kate Kelly. (He can't help still thinking of her as his hostess, though he knows she's only such in an unofficial way, here.)

A moment later, he hears Kate herself speak, and he looks up from the cat to her mistress. It's early, though he's not surprised that she's already up and at work. He's used to rising to be ready for dawn, and while not everyone else here is, he thinks she must be as well. She'd managed a farm before she came here, so it seems to make absolute sense to him that she'd be used to that pattern of life that moves on the natural rhythms of the world.

"I did not intend to disturb you," he says, lowering the cup to his side. "I was disposing wine that had been given to the gods."

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† tam fratri pietatem quam patriae | OTA

evening - inn

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morning prayers;

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Evening - Inn - Paryers

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morning prayers

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Morning - Inn

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