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Description
NELIUS

I let the tunic slide over my arms; the bottom edge of wool grazes my ears in a familiar way. Shrugging out of it, I looked around for something of comfort. Mother had already warned of the violence and disappointment borne of these games, of these competitors… I’d scoffed.

Oh, how I begged her to let me participate, year after year. Oh, how I begged her to let me be glorious, like father. I still wanted to have this race—my certainty had wavered, was all. This advent of athleticism was donning a face of challenge at me, and I wondered what I could do to appease it. Could I simple win? Would that soothe the fighting spirit inside of each of us? A handful of men would manage that, today. I couldn’t tell, just by gazing out into the deluge of greased up figures, which of them would go home with that precious branch.

It wasn’t all burly adults; in fact, there were few and far between full-grown men. I let loose a sigh of relief, spotting a cluster of fellow prepubescent boys not far off. I skipped lightly over to meet them, conscious of my own naked form. Shaking off the discomfort, remembering the exercises I’d been through to get over my nerves in that regard, I greeted the group,

“Salve, my name is Vel Lollius Nelius.”

I kept it concise, not wanting to wear on these rivals or earn any grudges. One nodded in my direction,

“Salve, Nelius,” he started, brushing some deep umber hair from his face, “what event are you participating in? I, Bassus, will be running the stadion on this most victorious day!” he seemed confident, and his legs backed him up. I silently thanked Jupiter and Victoria that I didn’t have the misfortune of facing this beast of a boy.

“Ah,” I said, glancing around at the other boys to gauge their reactions. They all seemed just as tense as I was: hanging on every word, hoping that someone stronger-looking wouldn’t be their opponent. I wondered what each of them had riding on this thing. All that I had was… my pride, I supposed, “I’ll run the hoplite…”

“Someone like you,” Bassus sneered, but he seemed a little bit awed, “running the hoplite? Have you got a death wish, guy?”

“My physique isn’t so terrible…” I tried not to falter and re-examine myself.

“Haha,” another boy chuckled, “I’ve got that thing in the bag, then.” He wiped a minute tear from his fair eye.

“Don’t count me out,” my confidence faltered a bit. This was exactly the behavior I’d expected from the other parties, the older boys and teens, but not what I’d anticipated from my own peers.

“Best of luck to you, Nelius,” that same boy said in a way that I did not appreciate in the least. He stalked off to join a slightly older pod. I couldn’t help but notice that his muscles were, indeed, more toned than mine. Where was he from, then? Where do they grow blonde monsters of that variety?

Bassus slapped an arm around my shoulder, a little closer than I was used to, and tried to reassure me in a show of good character, “Hey, that Esdras person was a donkey kick to the head, anyway. Don’t worry, you are pretty lithe. You have an edge over the competition, after all.”

“Being lithe is an edge in the hoplite race?”

“Well, not normally, but you know…” he trailed off. I sighed.

The four of us that remained, sans Esdras, chatted for a time. We had a wrestler and a second (morose-looking) sprinter, but the competition seemed a bit much for those of us that weren’t mystically engineered to be amazing athletes. There seemed to be more than just Bassus, when one looked to find more magnificently built people.

The whole of us stood nearby the stadium, and eventually, just when Sol was at the peak of his daily journey, we were called onto the main field. I stood behind a gangly near-man, trying not to lean forward for fear of planting my nose into his buttocks.

Both normal footraces came and went, and I was glad to see that my confidence in Bassus was well placed. He managed a straight-away lead right away, and I didn’t feel awkward cheering. The brown-haired boy came back to greet me, roughly putting his slippery hand onto my shoulder again. I tried not to shrug away.

“Good race, there,” I commented, already starting to feel the pesky butterflies battering against the walls of my heart. My race drew ever closer; my unwilling eyes sought out that cruel Esdras. He was smirking. Not only that, but he was looking at me (and I doubtlessly looked thirteen times worse than I felt) with that terrible smile on his face. A tiny Nelius on the inside glared and let out a soft whimper.

“It wasn’t easy,” Bassus reminded me, almost following my distracted gaze.

“Oh, that much is doubtless,” I mumbled.

Somewhere, somebody announced my dreaded task. Another smack to the arm from Bassus, and I was a drone. Walking toward the stacks of armor, I wondered vaguely: When did I think that I could handle this? When I heard that my father had won the same race in his youth? He was several years my senior at the time, and he’d been trained as a warrior for years. What of me? I was raised with an education in the care of a maternal figure; there was no need for physical strength.

I’d known that it wouldn’t fit, but the clanking metal didn’t protest as I slipped it over my scrawny frame. The greaves needed an extra strap of leather for support, my sinewy leg not meeting the designer’s expectations. My helmet barely matched my head, and that was the best-fitting of any of the armor I’d donned. Sol was farther to the edge of the horizon than before.

The sky was a lovely orange, a deep indigo seeped into the landscape. The metals of our armor sparkled. An organizer decided, then, that we should line up. I heaved the enormous shield from the clay beside me. It wasn’t as heavy as the ones I’d trained with at home, but I didn’t allow for relief. It wasn’t as cumbersome, either, but I couldn’t allow for relief. Come to think of it, the pieces of my suit were lighter than I’d practiced with, but I wouldn’t allow for relief!

We were lined up by height, but I could still see Esdras three boys down. Why was he smiling like that at me? His greaves fit him just fine, couldn’t he just ignore me?

I felt especially empathetic toward the one youth that was my junior in size and age. He could barely lift his shield at all, and his helm completely swallowed his vision. The parts of his face that I could see were all grimaces and excitement. Somebody had trained this boy to be a winner. If not now, he would definitely have a fighting chance during the next games. He would have an advantage of experience on his shoulders. He would be well-prepared.

It was about that time that I decided my policy on future games.

This whole venture was silly, I realized, and I wasn’t going to get anything out of it if I lost. I was just too rational, thanks to my Etruscan mother. I didn’t see the point, if I wasn’t going to win, in trying a second time. I allowed my eyes to narrow: it was this time, or no time at all. I was going to win, or I was going to go home with my tail between my legs.

The next bit was a blur, but I tried to pay attention to my surroundings.

The boy directly beside me, the taller one rather than the shorter, threw down his shield in front of the boy beside him. This was a decent tactic, I noted quickly, save that the second boy’s fall tripped up the mischievous one. They both fell into the sandy clay with a resounding, fleshy clank!

I held tight to my shield, glancing to the smaller boy. He was a few yards behind me, but still plodding along. To my other side, I noted that Esdras was now directly beside me. He must have knocked over my remaining meat shield.

My options were not good, in retrospect. I could have either knocked Esdras down myself, tried to sprint ahead, fall back to throw him off, or just ignore the danger and keep running consistently.

Free hand clenching, I made to run ahead. We were only a hundred yards or so from the finish now. I jumped over a particularly hazardous pitfall in the dirt, landing square on the other side. I almost turned to see if Esdras had also made it, but decided that it didn’t matter.

The boys to Esdras’s side were lagging behind, though I couldn’t understand why. They were bigger; the load couldn’t be as heavy to someone like that. Maybe smaller people have more willpower? The gods favor children? It had to be something like that, because my soul just couldn’t take this kind of illogic.

About the time I was noticing these things, I snapped back to look at Esdras. He wasn’t where my mind’s eye expected him to be. I looked sharply ahead of me, only twenty yards left, and he wasn’t there, either. I chanced a look behind me, and let out a little gasp. It was a gasp not only of exertion, but of surprise. Esdras was falling behind like the other boys. I let a little grin capture my face. Maybe I wasn’t going to lose this thing at all.

Ten yards left, the fatigue is setting in. My grip on the shield loosened a bit, but I remembered my resolve and didn’t let my sweaty hand release it. I remembered that there was another form of competition left.

I looked to the younger boy. He couldn’t have been that much smaller. The look on his face was just as dogged at mine, and twice as resolute. I had a split second to waver.

Did I—this half-wit who’d barely managed to get to the races, much less put in the effort to train—deserve that sacred wreath of victory? I shook my head infinitesimally. No, no, I must remember: this time or no time. I would not do this again. I had a chance to win. I should let myself have this win, not toss it to the other boy.

He would have his turn to shine.

I ran into a shoddy obelisk. The galea mashed into my forehead uncomfortably. I dropped my shield at last, rubbing the helmet off and massaging my sore face. Turning slowly, the only type of boys that I saw behind me were dejected. Not one was ecstatic.

Calmly, I walked up to the smaller boy plopped onto the sand, “Hey… did I win…?”

“Well I didn’t win,” he squeaked, “and you got through before I did.”

“So I won?”

“I think so,” he agreed, pulling his overlarge helmet from his head, “You’ve got a pretty bad mark on your head, by the way. Why did you run into the decorations?”

“I… just… I…” I fell down beside him. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I noticed Bassus dashing toward me, gesticulating wildly. In another part, I saw frustrated Esdras kick sand into another boy’s eyes. I ignored these.

In front of me stood a vision of someone I’d not seen in years. He smiled simply at me. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I think that that was some of Esdras’s disregarded dirt. My father shook his head. I leapt to my knees, but he was gone. I blinked.

Bassus tackled me. I laughed, not finding the enthuse or energy to knock him off.

Description
NELIUS

I let the tunic slide over my arms; the bottom edge of wool grazes my ears in a familiar way. Shrugging out of it, I looked around for something of comfort. Mother had already warned of the violence and disappointment borne of these games, of these competitors… I’d scoffed.

Oh, how I begged her to let me participate, year after year. Oh, how I begged her to let me be glorious, like father. I still wanted to have this race—my certainty had wavered, was all. This advent of athleticism was donning a face of challenge at me, and I wondered what I could do to appease it. Could I simple win? Would that soothe the fighting spirit inside of each of us? A handful of men would manage that, today. I couldn’t tell, just by gazing out into the deluge of greased up figures, which of them would go home with that precious branch.

It wasn’t all burly adults; in fact, there were few and far between full-grown men. I let loose a sigh of relief, spotting a cluster of fellow prepubescent boys not far off. I skipped lightly over to meet them, conscious of my own naked form. Shaking off the discomfort, remembering the exercises I’d been through to get over my nerves in that regard, I greeted the group,

“Salve, my name is Vel Lollius Nelius.”

I kept it concise, not wanting to wear on these rivals or earn any grudges. One nodded in my direction,

“Salve, Nelius,” he started, brushing some deep umber hair from his face, “what event are you participating in? I, Bassus, will be running the stadion on this most victorious day!” he seemed confident, and his legs backed him up. I silently thanked Jupiter and Victoria that I didn’t have the misfortune of facing this beast of a boy.

“Ah,” I said, glancing around at the other boys to gauge their reactions. They all seemed just as tense as I was: hanging on every word, hoping that someone stronger-looking wouldn’t be their opponent. I wondered what each of them had riding on this thing. All that I had was… my pride, I supposed, “I’ll run the hoplite…”

“Someone like you,” Bassus sneered, but he seemed a little bit awed, “running the hoplite? Have you got a death wish, guy?”

“My physique isn’t so terrible…” I tried not to falter and re-examine myself.

“Haha,” another boy chuckled, “I’ve got that thing in the bag, then.” He wiped a minute tear from his fair eye.

“Don’t count me out,” my confidence faltered a bit. This was exactly the behavior I’d expected from the other parties, the older boys and teens, but not what I’d anticipated from my own peers.

“Best of luck to you, Nelius,” that same boy said in a way that I did not appreciate in the least. He stalked off to join a slightly older pod. I couldn’t help but notice that his muscles were, indeed, more toned than mine. Where was he from, then? Where do they grow blonde monsters of that variety?

Bassus slapped an arm around my shoulder, a little closer than I was used to, and tried to reassure me in a show of good character, “Hey, that Esdras person was a donkey kick to the head, anyway. Don’t worry, you are pretty lithe. You have an edge over the competition, after all.”

“Being lithe is an edge in the hoplite race?”

“Well, not normally, but you know…” he trailed off. I sighed.

The four of us that remained, sans Esdras, chatted for a time. We had a wrestler and a second (morose-looking) sprinter, but the competition seemed a bit much for those of us that weren’t mystically engineered to be amazing athletes. There seemed to be more than just Bassus, when one looked to find more magnificently built people.

The whole of us stood nearby the stadium, and eventually, just when Sol was at the peak of his daily journey, we were called onto the main field. I stood behind a gangly near-man, trying not to lean forward for fear of planting my nose into his buttocks.

Both normal footraces came and went, and I was glad to see that my confidence in Bassus was well placed. He managed a straight-away lead right away, and I didn’t feel awkward cheering. The brown-haired boy came back to greet me, roughly putting his slippery hand onto my shoulder again. I tried not to shrug away.

“Good race, there,” I commented, already starting to feel the pesky butterflies battering against the walls of my heart. My race drew ever closer; my unwilling eyes sought out that cruel Esdras. He was smirking. Not only that, but he was looking at me (and I doubtlessly looked thirteen times worse than I felt) with that terrible smile on his face. A tiny Nelius on the inside glared and let out a soft whimper.

“It wasn’t easy,” Bassus reminded me, almost following my distracted gaze.

“Oh, that much is doubtless,” I mumbled.

Somewhere, somebody announced my dreaded task. Another smack to the arm from Bassus, and I was a drone. Walking toward the stacks of armor, I wondered vaguely: When did I think that I could handle this? When I heard that my father had won the same race in his youth? He was several years my senior at the time, and he’d been trained as a warrior for years. What of me? I was raised with an education in the care of a maternal figure; there was no need for physical strength.

I’d known that it wouldn’t fit, but the clanking metal didn’t protest as I slipped it over my scrawny frame. The greaves needed an extra strap of leather for support, my sinewy leg not meeting the designer’s expectations. My helmet barely matched my head, and that was the best-fitting of any of the armor I’d donned. Sol was farther to the edge of the horizon than before.

The sky was a lovely orange, a deep indigo seeped into the landscape. The metals of our armor sparkled. An organizer decided, then, that we should line up. I heaved the enormous shield from the clay beside me. It wasn’t as heavy as the ones I’d trained with at home, but I didn’t allow for relief. It wasn’t as cumbersome, either, but I couldn’t allow for relief. Come to think of it, the pieces of my suit were lighter than I’d practiced with, but I wouldn’t allow for relief!

We were lined up by height, but I could still see Esdras three boys down. Why was he smiling like that at me? His greaves fit him just fine, couldn’t he just ignore me?

I felt especially empathetic toward the one youth that was my junior in size and age. He could barely lift his shield at all, and his helm completely swallowed his vision. The parts of his face that I could see were all grimaces and excitement. Somebody had trained this boy to be a winner. If not now, he would definitely have a fighting chance during the next games. He would have an advantage of experience on his shoulders. He would be well-prepared.

It was about that time that I decided my policy on future games.

This whole venture was silly, I realized, and I wasn’t going to get anything out of it if I lost. I was just too rational, thanks to my Etruscan mother. I didn’t see the point, if I wasn’t going to win, in trying a second time. I allowed my eyes to narrow: it was this time, or no time at all. I was going to win, or I was going to go home with my tail between my legs.

The next bit was a blur, but I tried to pay attention to my surroundings.

The boy directly beside me, the taller one rather than the shorter, threw down his shield in front of the boy beside him. This was a decent tactic, I noted quickly, save that the second boy’s fall tripped up the mischievous one. They both fell into the sandy clay with a resounding, fleshy clank!

I held tight to my shield, glancing to the smaller boy. He was a few yards behind me, but still plodding along. To my other side, I noted that Esdras was now directly beside me. He must have knocked over my remaining meat shield.

My options were not good, in retrospect. I could have either knocked Esdras down myself, tried to sprint ahead, fall back to throw him off, or just ignore the danger and keep running consistently.

Free hand clenching, I made to run ahead. We were only a hundred yards or so from the finish now. I jumped over a particularly hazardous pitfall in the dirt, landing square on the other side. I almost turned to see if Esdras had also made it, but decided that it didn’t matter.

The boys to Esdras’s side were lagging behind, though I couldn’t understand why. They were bigger; the load couldn’t be as heavy to someone like that. Maybe smaller people have more willpower? The gods favor children? It had to be something like that, because my soul just couldn’t take this kind of illogic.

About the time I was noticing these things, I snapped back to look at Esdras. He wasn’t where my mind’s eye expected him to be. I looked sharply ahead of me, only twenty yards left, and he wasn’t there, either. I chanced a look behind me, and let out a little gasp. It was a gasp not only of exertion, but of surprise. Esdras was falling behind like the other boys. I let a little grin capture my face. Maybe I wasn’t going to lose this thing at all.

Ten yards left, the fatigue is setting in. My grip on the shield loosened a bit, but I remembered my resolve and didn’t let my sweaty hand release it. I remembered that there was another form of competition left.

I looked to the younger boy. He couldn’t have been that much smaller. The look on his face was just as dogged at mine, and twice as resolute. I had a split second to waver.

Did I—this half-wit who’d barely managed to get to the races, much less put in the effort to train—deserve that sacred wreath of victory? I shook my head infinitesimally. No, no, I must remember: this time or no time. I would not do this again. I had a chance to win. I should let myself have this win, not toss it to the other boy.

He would have his turn to shine.

I ran into a shoddy obelisk. The galea mashed into my forehead uncomfortably. I dropped my shield at last, rubbing the helmet off and massaging my sore face. Turning slowly, the only type of boys that I saw behind me were dejected. Not one was ecstatic.

Calmly, I walked up to the smaller boy plopped onto the sand, “Hey… did I win…?”

“Well I didn’t win,” he squeaked, “and you got through before I did.”

“So I won?”

“I think so,” he agreed, pulling his overlarge helmet from his head, “You’ve got a pretty bad mark on your head, by the way. Why did you run into the decorations?”

“I… just… I…” I fell down beside him. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I noticed Bassus dashing toward me, gesticulating wildly. In another part, I saw frustrated Esdras kick sand into another boy’s eyes. I ignored these.

In front of me stood a vision of someone I’d not seen in years. He smiled simply at me. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I think that that was some of Esdras’s disregarded dirt. My father shook his head. I leapt to my knees, but he was gone. I blinked.

Bassus tackled me. I laughed, not finding the enthuse or energy to knock him off.