[Aranea]

Augustus did not often laze his days away. He spent them planning, training, getting a lay of the land and the canines and felines that inhabited it, gathering information. They had many neighbors, now. He had many things to think over; at the forefront of his mind, how he could gather more soldiers to drive his cause. How could he entice them to him?

His day was spent much the same way, planning and murmuring to himself, drawing lines in the sand just to slam a paw on them and erase them all over again. It was a constant, unending battle to find the perfect combination of components that would yield the best results. Now, with the stars shining bright above him, the new moon casting nothing but shadow on the land, the Emperor relaxed.

Quietly he groomed himself, mind gradually settling as a sense of calm washed over him. His sky blue-lilac eyes seemed to glow in the low lighting, his swirling whirlwind of a pelt doing little to hide his position. He wasn't particularly worried, despite being outside of Rome's walls; he was more than capable of taking care of himself, and the fact that from afar he was often mistaken for a female--something that, inexplicably, caused others to think him less a threat than he was--was only to his advantage.

Movement drew his gaze, and he let his paw drop back down to the grassy earth, tongue sneaking out to lick his lips as he saw a small form flit about. "I've seen you," He purred, amusement clear on his features. "Come out, little sparrow, I will not hurt you." It went to show what sort of state the land was in, that they would leave their children unattended.

He would remedy that with time. "What are you doing so far from home?"

[Aranea]

She was young, barely a year, wandering in places she did not know. The girl had run beyond the wall of safety, one her mother used to warn her about as she was born after the tragedy of Tauro. Yet weeks and months past, her mother gone and her father gone, they were not there to stop her. Not there to warn her, not ever THERE. So Aranea wanted to forget it all, leave it all behind and start anew. She only had her name carried with her, fur matted in places as she had sleepless nights running from invisible terrors. She was tired, exhausted.

Aranea was on the cusp of insanity.

The crunching of cartilage snapped her out of a stupor, head turning and ears pricking up to the sound she swore she heard. Brow pressed together, paws hesitating to venture forth. Someone was near, eating, the thought making her stomach churn and grumble angrily. She knew not the last time she had a meal, days probably. The girl was careful; she did not want to die now after all the work of getting this far out of Gemini. Seems the creature she stalked too knew she was there.

The lion licked his lips clean of blood, calling out to the girl as he knew she was prowling about in the brush just beyond his sight. A wolf would be wise to stray from such large predators, but not this she-wolf. She was used to Jonas around as Gemini was a harbor of oddities. Lions were just another creature she was used to having around, so she strode forward with little apprehension for what he was and more of what he could do, what he planned to do. Paranoia pricked at her mind in this moment; though eyes shifted to the fresh kill.

She was hungry.

He asked a question, one she nearly snarled at though only sat and sighed softly. “I have no home.” Because she left it behind and wanted to forget.

Forget as her mother had forgotten.

[Aranea]

She wasn't afraid of him, and he was impressed by it. She eyes his prize with eyes that were clouded with hunger, but no apprehension. Another little girl raised in a peaceful place with no concept of fear. That was a dangerous thing.

Weren't they all dangerous now?

Her lips twitched with something familiar to him--anger--and his own responded in kind, turning upwards in a charming, toothy smile. Oh, he and anger were good friends. The Gods had blessed him with a righteous fury, a thunderous, twisted, ugly thing. If his outsides matched the storm he had brewing on the inside, no one in the land would dare approach him.

Luckily that wasn't the case.

“I have no home.”

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her, just a bit, but that same smile stayed on his face. "Is that so?" He asked, voice dripping with honey. "It would seem we are the same, then. I have no home either," Augustus paused, his smile growing just a little wider. "Not yet. Soon, I will have an Empire."

He beckoned her over with a paw then gestured to the meat she so readily eyed. "You can eat with me, if you like." He wouldn't move the carcass away from himself, though, so getting to it would put her intimately close to him, if she so chose.

"Tell me, little sparrow, do you want a home?" She was a skinny little thing now, young and hungry, but he could tell she held potential, even through her dirty fur. She just needed to be polished, molded a bit, perhaps.

Augustus was more than qualified to help with that.

[Aranea]

The lion’s demeanor was more relaxed than the girl’s, and Aranea wondered if he had something up his sleeve. His voice was as smooth as silk, sweet like sugar on the lips. Green eyes stared into his, wondering what secrets he held back and if he created an illusion to draw her near. No, she was a fearless girl, someone who was not afraid of large lions such as Augustus. There were worse monsters in the world, ones who lurked beside you; ones who left holes in your heart.

The lion confessed he too did not have a home, though soon he would build an empire from the stones he collected. This interested her in a strange way, wondering what kind of home he could offer if he would at all. Aranea abandoned her home because it felt empty, always empty. No father, no mother, only siblings who sprawled across Gemini. She was lonely; home was a hollow word that made her recoil. She had no home, but could she find one?

He beckoned her then, a paw swinging in the air as he tried to pull her forward. The girl hesitated, but came forward in the end. She was slow in her movements as if paws were trying to seek solid ground, afraid they could slip into somewhere deep. Aranea took her time though, sitting down across from the man and glancing to the carcass. He offered her the meat, and it was now that she showed her courage as she bit hastily into flesh, ripping muscle from bone only to swallow quickly, nearly choking. That did not stop her though; the taste of fresh meat only encouraged her.

The lion then asked if she wanted a home, and silver teeth paused pulling cords of flesh. “I don’t know.” she said, feeling a sense of dysphoria toward the word. Yet she knew she couldn’t wander alone forever, she had never grown up like her mother or father had. “Home had been lonely.” Aranea confessed why she had no home, or at least left it behind. “I want to forget where I came from, even the people. Can… you offer that?” she asked, tail swaying in thought behind her.

What if he left her too?

[Aranea]

He watched the youth eat hungrily, eyes sparkling with interest as he wondered just where this girl had come from. "Slow down, sparrow," He cooed, "I will not take it from you." He would remember, though, how good food was as a motivator. He'd always known it to some degree of course--babies fought over teets, they cried when left alone for too long and tried to squirm their way from the safety of the den. Starving animals turned rabid quickly, using the last vestiges of their strength attempting to bring down whatever they could--even stretching as far as cannibalism.

He made a note of it and moved on.

“I don’t know. Home had been lonely.”

Lonely? A word the man knew intimately, though not until recently. He had a companion who traveled with him, but--

There was a task at hand.

“I want to forget where I came from, even the people. Can… you offer that?”

His gaze turned from assessing to sympathetic, features softening slightly. "A past is a difficult thing to erase, little one." He murmured thoughtfully, his eyes half-lidded as he looked down at her. "There are things I too wish I could forget. I will tell you a secret," He leaned in, conspiratorially. "It is better to remember. If you remember, you learn."

A sharp smile took over his features as he leaned back from her, eyes glazing slightly as he thought of his own history. "You learn to never let the same thing happen to you again."

He paused slightly to reflect, then looked to her again. "If you really want to forget, I will teach you new things. Keep your mind in the present."

[Aranea]

As soon as the lion warned her to slow down, Aranea nearly choked on a piece of meat. The girl was so hungry she nearly inhaled her food, not realizing how well fed she had been back in Gemini where prey was plenty and her father, when he came around, provided. Even mother sometimes provided when she wasn’t working and remembered to spend time with her children. Tears dripped from her muzzle, falling from the tip of her nose and Aranea had not been aware of it until she had to sniffle to keep snot from dripping into her food. Dark muzzle wrinkled as she growled lowly, hating the fact she was crying over them.

A paw wiped at her face as he explained the past was difficult at times, that even he too had a past not worth remembering. She wondered then what drove her mother and father to the lengths they did for Gemini. Did their past have anything to do with it? She didn’t care though, home had been miserable, lonely and she did not regret leaving. So she listened carefully, leaning closer as he did to share his secret. Remember he says, Remember to learn. The swallow plucks his secret from his hand and stores it in the nest for later, wanting to hold it to her chest in desperation. She would learn more throughout her life, but remembering what her home had been like, she wouldn’t make that mistake ever again.

Now the lion offers a proposition, to give her something to distract her and look forward to a better future. Bright green eyes that had been dull just moments before became sheen with light and hope. She nods slowly, swallowing her tears and hate, closing her heart and locking the chains. “I want to learn.” she says, pushing away the tears. “My name is Aranea.” The name tasted bitter in her mouth, but she knew no other name. “Or you can… call me something else. Like… Ciri.” A suggestion, for she was a swallow upon his sill.

And she would follow him like he brought spring.

[Augustus]

What a sad child, he thought. Eating as if the carcass will be taken from her at any moment. He saw pieces of himself reflected down on the young pup, a runty little boy with no mane and no chance. If not for the carrion birds circling, he would've died before he had ever really gotten the chance to live.

He wondered, sometimes, if all of this was worth it.

Blinking away the memories, Augustus' brows rose in surprise to find the girl crying before him. Her lip curled in distaste at the tears, and a small light of fondness for her grew within him. He had always hated crying, too. Eventually, she would find, there were no more tears left to shed. She would learn.

He would teach her.

"Ciri," He rumbled, grinning not unlike the cat who caught the canary, "A fine name, and one of your own choosing." He approved. Augustus was all for one reinventing themselves.

He beckoned her closer, "Come here, Ciri, let me clean you up." Appearances didn't matter much, honestly, not this early in the game, but grooming fostered stronger bonds. More flies with honey, more starlings with seed. "Tell me what you know, so I can teach you what you do not."

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[Aranea]

The lion repeated the name she chose for herself, liking the ring upon his tongue. She was still unsure if her name would change or if she would keep her birthname as a reminder from where she came from and why she left. Perhaps only those she really trusted could call her this name, and Augustus was the first. Satisfied, she nodded slightly and curled her tail around herself, wanting to inch closer to him but refrained. His smile was enough, one she nearly smiled back to.

When he beckoned her closer though, she obliged, keeping her tail tucked close as a comfort. Now that she was so close, Aranea realized just how large this cat was. She felt small again, like she had felt before with her mother standing so tall and proud. She had grown a little before her father came back, and he wasn’t as large as mother. In fact, she nearly dwarfed her mate in comparison, but the girl shook those thoughts aside and sat beside him, somewhat uneasy with the grooming as he cleaned the bits of flesh and blood from her muzzle. She felt something twist inside — it hurt — but she would not let this conquer her.

Ciri had to move on.

Swallowing the knot in her throat, the girl proceeded to answer him. “All I know is abandonment. She loved her job more than us, so we were always alone. My sister is always sad, my brother… he got hurt and doesn’t remember anything after. Always in a loop it seems. My other siblings, I have not seen them. Father left us for months, came back, but now Mother left. She always leaves. I’m tired.” If allowed, Aranea goes to plant her forehead upon his leg, rubbing skin together as she shakes her head. She is so tired, so angry and hurt. She just wants it to stop, to move on. “There was no one there to teach us anything.”

No one there to love.

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[Augustus]

Augustus hadn't ever particularly been the fathering type. The chance to have something like that had been taken from him early, and he hadn't had the desire to try again since. Still, he knew all the things needed to be a good parent. All he had to do was think of his own and do the opposite. Which, of course, started with affection offered freely. This little girl was not his own, but she was his now, and that was all that mattered. He draped a paw across her back when she came close enough for him to start cleaning her up, gentle but possessive. She was so little. He'd been this small, once. For a long time.

He listened quietly as he groomed her, uncovering the diamond under the gristle. She was a cute girl underneath all the weight of the world she rested on her own shoulders. "You come from a large family." He observed, impassive. His own had been large at one time. Smaller then, one by one. He gazes down at her as she rests her head on his leg, gaze not altogether soft but somewhere close. "It must have been very lonely." More than she had said earlier, even.

"Do you know how to hunt? Track? Fight?" He wondered. "It is important to be able to do these things on your own, even if you have others there to help you." Because people changed and people left. People were taken. Because the only person you could ever really depend on in this life was yourself. "What would you like to learn?"

Choice was a beautiful thing. It was also telling; if he gave her options, he found out about her based on what she picked. It was, as everything he did, yet another strategy.

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[Aranea]

The girl looked up at him, a new sense of wonder filling her blood as she yearned to start anew. This large lion had started to give her something no one else could, not even her own family. She listened, but shook her head toward his observation. “No, but I suppose it could have been. The whole pack took care of each other. It changed when… the King died.” The chaos of it all sent her father away, possibly sent her mother away and maybe even her sister. Aranea didn’t know, Ciri didn’t want to. “I was, but no more.”

Because being alone was the one thing she hated more than her family.

The girl listened to his questions as she had before, this time her mind ticking with thoughts she never considered before. What did she know? “My mother and father were both Rangers. Ones who watched the border. I don’t want that.” she said, not wanting to follow in their footsteps. It was dumb and too cliché, she wanted something different, wanted something that would contradict what they would’ve wanted for their children.

Anger burned through her blood, a curse that could arise from nothing, and Aranea knew she had to control this emotion. Her past life could not get in the way of her future, she knew that. “I want to learn how to fight.” She wanted to be independent, wanted to know how to channel her anger and hate. Maybe eventually her teeth would sink into those she once knew as family, but until then, she had much to learn.

And she would fly.

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