† mihi aqua et igni interdirectur

[ad_dicendum]

WHO: Gaius Gracchus
WHERE: Main east-west path in 6I
WHEN: March 15
OPEN TO: ALL
WARNINGS: none

---

Gaius still misses Rome every day. Not just the city itself, though of course he misses that, but the life of the city, the excitement of the courts, the thrill of the people's assembly, the sounds and sights of the forum, going about the morning's business under the gaze of the Capitoline temples and the Palatine houses, the feeling of being in the heart of the most important city in the world. Rome hadn't just been his life, it had been his reason for being, its service his purpose in life from his earliest days. He'd been away from Rome before, of course, on trips to his family's estate, but even much of the time he'd spent away from the city had been in its service: visiting his clients or supporters, serving in the provinces with the army or on the governor's staff, traveling to oversee road building or the foundation of a colony.

It's a stark contrast to this place, where there are dozens of people, not hundreds of thousands, where there is no government and much resistance to establishing one, where his name and his family mean nothing. There is a reason it is one of the Roman state's greatest punishments to banish a man from the city, and though Gaius has had to accept being here instead of home, acceptance is all that it is. The fine toga Kate Kelly had made for him is no cover for that reality.

He tries not to miss the crowd of people that used to surround him when he left his home on business, and he's come to accept the solitude that he can usually find on a walk here as a daily occurence instead of an exception. The walk along the village's main road is pleasant enough, and the river at least is clearer and cleaner than the Tiber.

Gaius has crossed back over the river and is on his way back to the Inn, until he's not.

In front of him rises a colonnaded building, eight grand columns reaching up towards a carved frieze: the temple of the goddess Diana, oldest and grandest of the temples on the Aventine hill. He stares, dumbstruck in a way he very rarely is, at the magnificent edifice and takes a step forward. Behind him, someone screams, and voices shout, and he turns to look behind him, but he's stopped by a hand on his arm and a voice.

"We must go!"

"Licinius?"

But his friend and relation isn't there when he looks back, nor is the temple.

Nor are the screams.

Gaius turns on the spot, around and again, grasping for the vanished man, the temple, the moment. He'd been there, in Rome, and the sounds he'd heard and the urgency in his kinsman's voice had spoken of that last terrible day.

He's left standing there in the middle of the path, wide-eyed, his breath suddenly racing to match his heartbeat as Licinius' fear grips him and only slowly subsides.