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This story is licensed under the Creative Commons

Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 License

© 2008 by Noisy Bob All Rights Reserved

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NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The world this story is set in is the one of Onyx Tao's excellent story series Cold Blood (don't throw a fit, it's all open license and Tao's a great guy!) and is set into the timeline at around about chapter 3 - Green Fields - but is to be considered non-canonical, being purely a fanwork. If you enjoyed this then go check out Cold Blood, I guarantee you won't be dissapointed.

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Claudius curled up into a ball of misery and wept pitifully for want of sleep. It had just been a few hours after the return to Cassius's manor, the black minotaur he remembered as Cassius's mate, Diomedes, had dismissed him and sent him back to his work after seeing to the golden minotaur's health. It had been a nerve-wracking time, not knowing what had happened or was happening to Cassius but Diomedes had made it explicitly clear that he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances and Claudius was not about to argue with anyone or any_thing_ that looked like he could break him in half with one hand. Using only his index finger and thumb. Accidentally.

So he had returned to his work, slightly distracted by a guilty conscience, it had been him that caused whatever had happened to make Cassius so ill, he knew it. It was far too much of a coincidence for what had happened when he made contact with that pillar to not be connected somehow. Still there was nothing he could do about it without chancing the ire of Diomedes so he just tried to put it aside and waged a silent battle inside himself while he wrote as to whether he should tell Cassius about what he did or just keep it to himself and never speak of it again.

Then the headaches had started.

It was nothing at first, just a dull throb in his forehead, and easily ignored, but by the time evening fell he had to struggle to keep his eyes open because even the light from the glow-globes that lit Cassius's office were too bright and sent stabbing lances of pain through his head whenever he looked at them. He was blinking away tears before the day's work was all finished. He couldn't even bring himself to read from the library, the pain was so severe, it was as though his entire brain was expanding, pressing against the walls of his skull, trying to push its way out through the back of his eyes. So with his head splitting he reported in with Chatelaine that he had completed his assigned duties and asked permission to go sleep. She checked the notebook from which she organised the whole manor but mercifully found nothing outstanding that he would be of much use on so he was, for the time being at least, free.

And so he had retreated to the soothing darkness and relative silence of the slave barracks, and to his relatively ill-appointed pallet which would probably be unbearably cold during the winter due to it's proximity from the hearth were it not for the fact that,regardless of what cassius had to say on the matter, minotaur buildings were so relatively free of drafts. Wearily, he had set the satchel of writing tools down beside his pallet and tried to sleep. Hours later and biting back tears from the pain that had continued to grow incrementally without respite, he reconciled himself to his misery and at least tried to get as comfortable as he could as he silently prayed for sleep to come.

When the splitting agony finally began to let up, even by a little, it was a strange kind of euphorea all of its own simply to be rid of the pain. He massaged his temples with small circles as the pain gradually subsided until at last it had wane to the point where weariness was sufficient to carry him all the way into sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And dreams, too. He found himself alone in the darkness besides the shadowy circle of light that surrounded him, though no lamp cast it's light down on him, as though his body were giving off its own light. Under his feet the ground felt solid, though strangely pliant, like it were covered in the hard rubber the minotaurs knew how to make, and patterned with undulating and intertwining carvings that unsettled the eye to look upon, something between a writhing nest of snakes and the contours of a man's brain.

A glowing pinprick of light in the distance caught his attention, like a star but blinking with a lambent green fire, the sole landmark in the otherwise empty world. He ran for the strange lantern, careful to keep his footing on the uneven floor which shifted and pulsed beneath him as though it knew his presence and was focusing on him not with malevolence but a kind of intense fascination, an expectation.

As he drew nearer he could see the light for what it was, a sigil of lucent threads hanging impossibly in the air, as though reality had become nothing more than the skein of a canvas upon which to paint. It was one of the ones he had seen on and within the obelisk of black stone, the symbols of holographic language. He studied it intently, trying to capture it's dimensions in his mind, but depending on the angle he beheld it from it became something new. First a cool breeze that brushed against his face, flowing from seemingly nowhere, then a sigil again. Then a flower, not any flower he knew or could pin down as though somehow it was all flowers encapsulated in a single form, then again it returned to being just a symbol. A moment later a woman of porcelain beauty clothed in silken swathes of peacock colours stood in it's place, her eyes opened and she vanished, replaced by the sigil once again.

++Encompass/Possess/Encapsulate?++

There was that feeling again, the one he had felt when he had touched the obelisk, an emotion so specifc and so strong that it was almost a thought. What was it coming from? The sigil? The obelisk? This place? But how could such things even have wants and desires and, more importantly, what did it want from him?

"Hello?" He called out into the darkness, to the glowing rune haning inthe air, to anyone or thing that might be listening.

++Encompass/Possess/Encapsulate!?++

"Who are you?" Claudius returned, unsure as to whether he would, or even could recieve an answer he could understand.

The sigil shon brighter for a second, as if on cue, flashing with a pulse of light and letting out a low humming noise before returning to normal. The more he stared at it the more it seemed as though he could sense some kind of presence within it, like standing before a living person without a face or voice, the disconcerting sensation of suddenly realising that what was once thought of as an object in fact has a mind.

"What do you want?"

++Encompass/Possess/Encapsulate?++

"I don't understand what you mean, what do you want me to do?" Claudius said to faceless entity that was at once the sigil itself and hidden within it.

++Choice/Option/Decision.++

"Make a choice? That's all?"

++Affirmation/Correctness/Accuracy. Encompass/Possess/Encapsulate?++

Well that explained something at least, but what exactly did it want him to choose? It was as though he was missing something, some kind of key that would let him translate the empathic language of the sigils into something he could readily understand. He'd understood it before, while communing with whatever it was the obelisk held, but only for the briefest time before it was all lost, taking all the knowledge he had seen inside with it. And then he had heard Cassius cry out in pain and knew that he had been the cause, something had happened to Cassius that had nearly killed him. He nearly murdered Cassius by toying with this strangeness, accidentally perhaps but it had happened nonetheless. The thought of doing anything that could cause his master such pain made his gall rise even in this phantasmagoric world, before Cassius he'd been beaten down, despairing, a dreg of a man wandering through the world like a shade, at least that's how it felt to look back on his life. He'd never been so free as he was as Cassius's slave, free to just be, to be whole and complete without the burdens that a lifetime of degredation and weakness had heaped upon his shoulders, to actually have worth. All that and he repaid such gifts by nearly slaying the golden minotaur through sheer carelessness, the very thought of it was... well, it was intollerable.

On cue, a second circle of light appeared in the blackness, at it's core was a cluster of flickering sigils that were replaced a moment later by a simulacrum of Cassius, nude and perfect in every detail, golden pelt shining with it's own inner light... and prostrate on the ground, baying noiselessly, frozen into a posture of perfect agony, one hand raised as though pleading with some invisible attacker.

"Enough! No, whatever it is I don't want it, leave me alone!" He cried to the presence of the sigil, as sure of what he said as he had ever been.

He didn't know what he expected the sigil's response was going to be. In some childish way he suspected in the back of his mind that his denial would be met with sadness or anger from it, but that was perhaps to anthropomorphise too much. The reaction he recieved was rather more serene.

++Rejection/Denial/Cancellation. Acceptance/Confirmation/Approval++

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Claudius's eyes snapped open and he awoke, the slave barracks was still dark but the greyish twilight of early morning insinuted its way through the cracks in the shutters over the windows. Quiet sounds of sleep from the other humans surrounded him along with slightly more distant noises of the various domestic chores that kept the manor and it's estate running; the inermittent thunk of axe-blade hitting wood, the gentle clatter of dishes and dull chiming of metal pots, the crackle of and snap of hearth-fire, brisk conversation in human voices.

He sat up jerkily and went to rub the rheum from his eyes, he jerked his hand back when he felt something tickle his face. Blinking rapidly to clear his vision he looked at his hand to see what it was and found that his quill-pen was nestled inexplicably between his forefinger and thumb on his writing hand. Furthermore, he saw that one of the phials of ink from the writing set Cassius had equipped him with was standing open on the floor beside his pallet. And it didn't end there.

Scrawled all over his arms, inside and out, were glyphic symbols, sigils resembling the one in his dream but taking a multitude of forms. With morbid fascination he turned his arms over and over, studying every inch of his skin, reading the runes as they traced up his shoulders. Lifting the hem of his tunic he found that the symbols were scrawled over his belly and chest as well, all laid out in an orderly interlocking grid with some of the symbols at key junctures being more defined, with thicker lines that made them stand out from the rest.

"Oh dear, I doubt this bodes well..." He whispered to himself in a breaking and slightly-hysterical voice.

Hastily, he snatched up the phial and it's stopper and sealed it tight before stuffing it back in his satchel along with the quill, careful to wipe off the nip on the bit of ink-rag first. Nevermind for now working out just how this had happened, right now he just had to get rid of any sign that it had. Fortunately, it seemed like everyone in the barracks besides him was one of the night-workers, and all were showing no signs of rousing any time soon. A large washroom adjoined the slave barracks, it had been a marvel to him at first that this place which would have been fit for a small public bath back in the Empire was reserved just for the use of the manor's slaves. Well it was a blessing now, especially given that it possessed a full-length mirror in which he could survey the full extent of the damage.

"How in the world did I manage to sleep through this?" He said, touching a hand to a particularly dark sigil marked on his cheek and moving to another on his brow, even his face was marked with a gridwork of the alien characters, each no larger than a thumbnail but intricately detailed with spidery lines.

The sense of overarching dread that waking up to such a sigh engendered didn't leave him even after he'd stripped off his livery and lowered himself into the tepid pool to scrub the markings from his body and face with washcloth and soap-paste, staining the water with swirling clouds of ink for a while until the current dispersed them. What did it mean? How had his sleeping form done this? More to the point, why had he done this? Would it happen again now that he had rejected the sigil's offer, or was that merely a dream, utterly unrelated. A thousand and one questions hammered at the doors of his mind, but he had answers for none of them. Yet, at least.

Once he was sure all the marks had been scrubbed from his body he rose from the pool and towelled off. There were ink-marks on his livery, enoguh to leave smears on his still-damp body if he put them on now, so he decided it would be better to get a fresh set, none of the washers had ever thought it suspicious that his clothes had ink on them before. Clean sets of livery were lain out in square alocoves in a chamber next to the washroom, each little cubicle holding a tunic, undergarments and pair of sandals, all identical besides for the divide of colour, Cassius's grey-blue and Diomedes's dried-blood red.

He pulled a set of clothes from it's cubby-space and nearly dropped them with a yelp of surprise when he turned around to find himself face-to-face with a man, one he recognised immediately, Redmaw, the serpentine cast to the fighter's face and the ever-present predatory grin were hard to forget. He hadn't even heard so much as a whisper of motion.

"Well, hello there, little sparrow, and how are you today?" said Redmaw in his playful sing-song tone that somehow managed to make even the most innocuous turn of phrase seem like a death threat. His voice was like a silk cloak covering an assassins dagger.

"What do you want?" Claudius said, defensively, clutching the folded livery to his naked chest like a shield.

"What's this? Not so much as a 'hello'? And here I was thinking you were such a polite fellow," Redmaw said with a stangely childish laugh, edging a little closer and making Claudius back into the wall behind him. With that, Redmaw reached out, the sinuous, boneless way he moved making even that slow, innocuous gesture unexpected enough to make claudius flinch. But Redmaw didn't lay so much as a finger on him, but reached into the alcove beside his head and withdre a set of red livery.

"Just here to get a change of clothes, little sparrow, nothing to ruffle your feathers over."

"O-oh, right. Yes, sorry..." Claudius mumbled, more than a little relieved.

He tried to sidle past but a moment later he gasped in shock and dropped the bundle of clothes as Redmaw suddenly lunged forward without telegraphing his movements in the slightest and pinned him back against the wall, two long-fingured and calloused hands locked firmly enough around his shoulders to bruise and a knee placed between his bare legs longing him still.

"Unless, of course, you want me to ruffle your feathers," Redmaw said, the serpentine fighter's voice becoming a stage more tinged with dark promise.

Uncertainty froze Claudius's voice in his throat as he kept his eyes locked to Redmaw's, watching for any sign of imminent attack. Redmaw was insane, he knew that much, a 'fury', the title given to dangerously unstable fighter-slaves unfit for anything but a life of bloody violence. Bloodmist said that he was one of the few furies who was at least sane enough to not be kept locked up and restrained but right now that seemed like little comfort, especially when his lips parted in a sardonic smile, revealing the teeth with which he earned his name by tearing out the throats of those he fought.

"What's the matter, sparrow? Haven't you got a song for me?" Redmaw whispered drawing his face closer to Claudius' and releasing the vise-like grip on one shoulder to slide it slowly down his naked side to finally rest on his hip. The touch was made with such perverse gentleness and fake intimacy that it made Claudius's gorge rise to be subjected to it, and it came with the terrifying realisation that if he didn't do something soon it would lead to far more, as unpredictable as Redmaw's movements might usually be, now his intentions were far too transparent. After a moment the pressure from his other shoulder was removed too, Redmaw's fingers moving in feathery strokes up his neck, the muscles there tense and straining, to cup the side of his face, a thumb resting on his lower lip, gently parting them.

"Perhaps a cat has got your tongue, I'd best check," Said Redmaw is a sickeningly sultry voice, drawing close enough for Claudius to feel his breath. Breath that was moist and cool, like it had come from the mouth of a reptile and not a warm-blooded creature, he could almost smell the coppery tang of blood on it, real or imagined, as Redmaw drew in to kiss him.

"I... I have to go, I have morning duties, important ones." Claudius protested, shakily, finding his voice again as he daringly placed a restraining hand in the center of Redmaw's chest.

The fighter froze, his face bare inches from Claudius's own, and one gold-flecked green eye flicked open to bore into his, much in the way a cat stares down a mouse. Claudius could hear his heart pumping in his ears as he felt Redmaw's conciousness study him like they were in a fighting-ring, watching his reactions, reading him, taking in and examining hidden facets of his mind and body. The releif he felt when Redmaw at last released him and backed off was almost palpable.

Redmaw let out an expansive sigh and giggled a little under his breath.

"Ah, such a dilligent little bird, he keeps his cage so tidy." He said, running a hand through the quills of his hair. "Well, flit away then, you mustn't keep your master waiting, that wouldn't do at all."

"Er, right, yes... thank you..." Claudius stuttered, gathering up the fallen livery.

"Oh no, that wouldn't do at all, terrible things can happen if you do that, little sparrow," Redmaw continued in his languid drawl, taking a seat on one of the low wooden benches that lined the center of the room. "Why, they might break your delicate little wings, or take away your pretty song, terrible things... remind me to tell you about them some time, it's a fascinating topic of conversation!"

"Oh... uh, alright..." Claudius mumbled, his already rickety composure disturbed by the rising madness in Redmaw's voice.

"Yes indeed, I could talk about it for days," Redmaw said, hunching over forward and hiding his face behind one hand as he shook with suppressed laughter. "Days and days and days, weeks even, months if you'd like all the details."

Claudius wasted no time in scooping up the fallen livery and making a dash from the room, wanting to put a little distance between himself and Redmaw before he dressed, the less time he spent in the mad fighter's disturbing presence the better off he'd feel.

"One last thing before you go; you have a little ink on your left earlobe, might want to wash it off, otherwise people will think you're lax in hygene, can't have that," Redmaw said to his retreating back, sounding more lucid than normal.

"Oh, thanks." Claudius replied with a nervous smile, his hand moving to his ear distractedly, before leaving.

"Interesting pattern, looked so familliar, seen it before somewhere," Redmaw said, whispering the words to the empty room long after Claudius was near enough to hear them. After a minute he sighed and chuckled sardonically, pounding his own head with his knuckles. "Too many cracks, little things keep on slipping through. Not a tidy cage, not tidy at all... too many cobwebs, too many spiders."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The usual stack of mail waited on Cassius's desk for Caludius to process. He didn't think he'd ever looked at anything more beautiful that the blessed island of normalcy and repetiton that the little bundle of folded papers represented, their creamy yellow parchment was as fine as gold and their shining wax seals in a half-dozen colours as valuable as jewels.

He calmed down to a great degree as he worked, largely because it insulated him from thinking about the things he had witnessed. He didn't have to think about weird dreams, weirder awakenings or narrowly-avoided rape when there were comfortingly banal and tedious letters to sort through, categorise into 'important' and 'annoyance' then write the suitable comiseratatory letters in Cassius's style in reply to those in the latter pile.

Strongly-worded letters of complaint over mind-numbingly trivial matters, applications of apprenticeship by junior diplomats (these Cassius always turned away, arguing that Manticore was too far removed from Lycaili to be suitable experience of the work), and invitation after invitation to soiree's, banquets and pit-fights. The last category had multiplied in size enrmously of late, a run up to the fast-approaching Kurganalia celebrations, and he had to actually be careful to check the identity of the sender before dimissing it, knowing that the Manticore viewed such events as appropriate venues for serious politicing.

The morning wore on like that for hours, and though the mail was substancial it had gotten tot he point wherehe could write a good heartfelt and apologetic reply-letter practically without thinking about it. Some times he thought he ought to just write up a pile of spare letters beforehand, ommiting the names, and then fill in the blanks later to improve productivity.

But by midmorning, and Cassius had not arrived to take the processed mail or review his work, he started to worry nonetheless, even if he could now forget the strangeness, or at least bury in the hope that there would be no repetition of it. There was plenty of work to be done, however, so he was at least well-occupied. The girl who was Cassius's maid brought him breakfast so he could continue to work without interruption, as usual, and arrived again later to pick up his plate but appart from that the library-office was eerily quiet.

Oppressively, suffocatingly quiet.

By the time the evening had arrived and the last epistle was finished he had worked up the nerve to at least make a polite inquiry after Cassius. There wasn't much choice, even though he had been entrusted with the key to the sealed cabinets that contained Cassius's official seals it was no good when the letters couldn't be sent without the Ambassador's signature. That was good enough justification, wasn't it? Even under orders not to disturb him, surely an exception would be made in this case.

And even if he was tempting fate (or at the very least, Diomedes) he was willing to take the risk. With each passing hour his longing to see Cassius again, to hear a single word spoken in his deep, musical voice, became ever stronger. It might have just started as a guilt-ridden desire to know that the minotaur was alive and well, but it was swiftly becoming consuming.

Again, he realised that Cassius hadn't been telling him the entire truth when he told him about the minotaur's influence. This obsession, this need, a need comparable to that of the opium-fiend, was something beyond what he knew of the effects of the minotaur's presence. Something stronger and deeper and insidious. At the time Cassius had said that humans weren't usually ever made aware of it, but that an exception was made in his case. That did beg the question; what other things were deemed not suitable for him to know?

It was a troubling thought, and one which he could see no easy way of answering, but right now it was of secondary importance to the cocktail of guilt and longing that made his chest ache for want to be rid of it.

Gathering up a bundle of the more relevant documents he crossed the threshold to the double-doors that linked the main bedchamber with the library, pausing for a moment to go over his story so as not to stutter overmuch should he be faced with the paralyzing stare of Cassius's mate before rapping a tentative knock on the panelled doors.

He waited, but there was no answer. Another knock, no response.

Finally, he was about to open the door but before his hand was on the lever it opened on its own. Or rather, it opened because Cassius opened it. The golden-furred bull towered above him, a blue silk dressing gown draped over his shoulders.

"Ah, Scribe. How fortuitous, I had intended to send for you." Cassius said. "I had wondered why you had not come to bring me my mail."

"There were orders that you were not to be disturbed, master." Claudius replied, presenting the bundle of papers, silently overjoyed at the sight of the Cassius, especially as he looked so recovered! What a difference a night and a day's rest could do, the minotaur had gone from being so weak that he practically needed to be carried into bed to looking as strong and virile as ever. But then were such recuperative abilities all that exceptional for a minotaur? It had been strange seeing Cassius compared to Diomedes, he had always marvelled at how massively and powerfully built Cassius was but by comparison to the black bull he was waiflike and slim. It was an odd thought to think that among minotaurs Cassius migh be regarded as under-developed.

"Hmmm, was there now?" Cassius said levely, seemingly half to himself, taking the letters from Claudius's hand. "And you saw fit to overrule these orders?"

"Ah... yes, master. There were so many things that needed your signature at the very least, I-"

"Yes, I see that. As your intentions and reasoning seem good, not to mention that I was not informed of this order, for if I were I would have made some provisions for you in it, I will overlook the breach this time. I take it it was given by my mate?" Cassius said, tersely, flicking through the assorted papers and parchments as he returned deeper inside the bed chamber.

"Yes, master." Replied Claudius, following the minotaur inside. The room was lit by the still-bright but orange-tinted light, streaming in through the large windows which overlooked the gardens. It was warm from the small but merrily-burning hearth fire and theairwastinged with that slight piney minotaur musk.

"I see. Well your duty is to obey me, first and foremost, and seeing as how your duties as my scribe thusly overrule any other order given by anyone who is not me, my mate included, I suppose your decision could even be considered proper," Cassius said, taking an inkpot and quill from the room's small (by minotaur standeards, at least) writing bureu and sitting on the edge of the massive bed. A second later and he gave a small but well-humoured laugh. "Actually its probably a grey area, best ignored."

"A... grey area, master?"

"Terrible things!" Cassius exclaimed. "We minotaurs despise grey areas, the borders between right and wrong where cognitive dissonance lies in wait with fangs of hypocrisy and claws of unreason, they allow fuzzy thinking to creep in. And after that; chaos, anarchy, the end of civilisation, general disarray. No good ever came of grey areas, my Scribe." He continued, his tone humourous.

"I see, master." Claudius lied, a tad bemused but glad that Cassius seemed to be in such fine spirits.

"I doubt it, but it hardly matters, I do and that is enough." Cassius said offhandedly, dipping the quill into the inkpot he placed on the side table and signing his name with a smooth, practiced hand.

Claudius dutifully sidled up and took each signed letter, shielding them from smudging against eachother by placing them each beween a finger before ferrying them back to the bureu to sprinkle them with fine blotting sand.

"There are other, weightier missives that bear your direct consideration, as well as certain invitations to Kurganalia celebrations-" He began.

"Let them wait a day, I expect I shall have to make a choice as to which invitaions I shall entertain, in any case." Cassius replied, passing him the last of the letters. "I should cease being so charming, perhaps then the clamour for my presence would diminish." The golden minotaur added, reclining back agains the profligate embroidered cushions that lay at the head of the bed.

Glancing sideways at Cassius as his great black eyes fluttered closed while the minotaur rested his eyes, Claudius finally decided that now was as good a time as any to set his conscience at ease, or at least deduce a little more of what had gone on.

"Um, master, if it would not be too forward, might I ask what... what happened yesterday?" He said, politely.

Cassius's eyes snapped open again and he stared thoughtfully at the ceiling with bucollic focus. Whatever emotions were there in his face were inscrutable, it was hard enough to tell what the strange bovine features of a minotaur revealed at the best of times, but, even though he had though that he was making some headway in discovering how to read the expressions and ody-language of the bull-men, at that moment Cassius was impenetrable. Perhaps it was simply thoughtfullness, but for a moment it seemed like there was something else there, like perhaps a brief flicker of something like epiphany passed over the minotaur's features.

"That... is unascertained at the time being, Lord Chant is currently undergoing an investigation," He said at last, his voice soudling weirdly controlled for such a minor admission. "Some manner of magical fluctuation or disturbance, perhaps a rogue gate, this region isknown for a profusion of randomly shifting water gates, on occasion they can make Tempus dangerous."

"In any case, my Scribe, it is not something you need concern yourself with. I am quite recovered now and there is no way I can see that you were in any way responsible for what occured yesterday." He added, sitting up a little in bed.

"Uh, yes, of course not, master. I simply wished to-" Claudisu spluttered. There was just something about the way Cassius phrased that particular sentence. Not 'you were not responsible' but 'there is no way I can see you were responsible', perhaps it was simply a more verbose turn of phrase, a roundabout manner of speech wasn't uncommon among diplomats, after all, but it could just as soon have been a temporary withholding of judgement.

"You were concerned for my wellbeing, quite understandable, and commendable." Cassius said, cutting him off. He beconed Claudius closer with a languid gesture. "To my side, Scribe."

Claudius needed no encouragement, indeed his body was moving before he'd even thought about it, impelled by something below the level of the mind. That same mental force that made seperation from Cassius, his master, increasingly stressful? Perhaps, but for now he was content to leave the question unexplored. He stood at Cassius's side, head bowed slightly. A moment later and a large, strong hand came to rest on his head fondly.

"You have come far in such a short time, despite everything else going on around me I must say I am impressed with how swiftly you have adapted." Cassius said, running his hand across Claudius's hair to absently stroke the nape of his neck. He continued on talking, heedless of the slight tremulous shivver that his touch sent through Claudius's body.

"Some time soon I may ask you to relinquish your name to me, are you ready for that, Claudius?" Cassius said, his tone becoming serious and welling with what might have been concern, even kindness.

Claudius flinched slightly at the question and tentatively raised his gaze a fraction to look into the minotaur's eyes. He needen't have been so nervous, if his name was being used then that meant Cassius considered this conversation intimate.

"You mean... permanently?" He said in a hushed voice.

Cassius nodded gravely. "Yes, Claudius, it is a big step but it is necessary for your proper integration. Even I, posessed of a somewhat unorthodox-" Cassius frowned at that, seeming to taste the word experimentally on his tongue "Recognise that it is important for you to fully come to terms with your current position."

"As a slave?"

"Yes, I believe my decision to postpone asking this of you was the right course of action," He paused a moment and stared off into space, a second later he barked a short laugh. "Of course, ordinarily it would not be asked, it would simply be taken, only other minotaurs are given the choice to surrender their names willingly. Needlessly traumatic for all involved, in my opinion, and with you I may yet justify that thesis empirically."

"So... what would I have to do? Just stop using my... my name... forever?"

"There is, shall I say, other factors involved." Cassius said with a sigh. "When the time comes I will personally help you to forget the name you carry, I think you have earned that much consideration at least."

He could guess what that meant, there was some kind of training involved then, of the type he had read in such lurid detail between the covers of 'O Katalilos Paidea apo Anthropinos', perhaps? Maybe... though he couldn't imagine that Cassius would be capable of the stomach-twisting sadism he had found there. But, even if he was, would it be so bad? Somehow he knew he could endure anything as long as it was done by Cassius's hand. Even if the very worst excesses contained in that tome were part of it, he would at least know that it was under the eye of the one being in the world he had ever truely trusted.

"Yes, I think that I am ready, when you choose to ask for my name... I will give it." He said, and instantly felt better, as though just in vocalising his committment he had removed a great burden from his shoulders.

Cassius smiled a muzzle-twisting minotaur smile. "Good, I would rather that you accept it first of your own will. And do not think that I am not honoured by your faith in me."

"I hardly think I have any honour worth holding up to yours-" Claudius began.

"Nonsense, you have been the picture of honourable action up till now, and with many reasons to be otherwise. The honour of a slave is different from that of a master but it is no less worthy for it." Cassius replied, dismissing Claudius's words with a wave of his hand.

There was that strange phrasing again, 'up till now'. Was anything meant by that or was it just a cooincidence? Truely, it was hardly honourable for him to be keeping secrets from his master. Cassius was no mage, he couldn't, to Claudius's knowledge, read minds, but nevertheless he felt his guilt all the more acutely in the minotaur's presence. Maybe he should just tell Cassius that he had been the one responsible for what had happened, surely that was the right thing to do, wasn't it? If he really trusted Cassius the way he professed to then he wouldn't keep secrets from him. But it wasn't really Cassius he distrusted, it was others, like Lord Chant the witch hunter. And who's to say that it really was his fault anyway? He was no mage, he couldn't make stone speak of its own volition, much less strike down minotaurs, there was a good chance that he was overreacting, that it was merely a freak occurence that he had nothing to do with at all. In fact, the more he thought about it now, by the clear light of day, the more absurd it seemed that he could have had anything to do with it. Even cassius had said as much.

"Thank you, master. And thank you for giving me the time, I think it helped." He said after a moment lost in thought.

"I am glad." Said Cassius, and patted the edge of the bed. "Come, lie with me awhile, I desire company." He added.

"Oh? So I am not enough, eh?" Came a deep, rumbling voice from the hall door, its tone wavering somewhere between annoyance and amusement. There stood the Warlord Diomedes, wearing a short housecoat of red-piped black linen and red trousers held up by the belt with the snarling lions-head buckle. Claudius hadn't heard so much as a whisper of him moving, or the door opening for that matter. Was it Tempus, perhaps?

"Ah, Dio love, of course you are," Cassius replied, smoothly, muzzle twisting and eyes half-lidded to form a wry grin. "But surely ou would not reproach me enjoying the presence of my human when you have done the same today?"

Diomedes laughed heartily. "But in my case, it's work, not sport! Just a few more days to the Kurganalia, Cassius, I have much to do. They even have a live manticore this year!" He said, closing the door behind him before clapping his hands together and rubbing them vigourously.

"I know, Scribe here was very nearly slain by it, remind me to tell you about it some time." Cassius said offhandedly in a casual drawl that made Claudius have to supress a snort of laughter.

For his part, Warlord Diomedes looked simultaneously aghast and perplexed. "Cassius, surely you jest, you can't possibly mean that..."

"That I was there when the manticore escaped its handlers? Indeed I was, and were I not then Clan Manticore would be minus one mage lord." Cassius replied.

"You mean Arafal-" Started the great black bull before stopping and shaking his massive head in beusement. "No, nevermind, I don't want to know, you can tell me all about it another time." He said, walking up beside the bed and sitting down. "For now I merely wish to spend some time with you. You are looking much recovered."

"In no small part due to that tonic of yours, I'd wager. Tasted vile, though." Cassius replied.

"Hah! Well it tastes better to humans, apparently, it was one of the restoratives I use on my fighters."

Cassius rolled his eyes. "So you test human medicine on me, how thoughtful." he said in a droll tone.

Diomedes looked slightly defensive at that. "It was perfectly safe, I take it myself on occasion, I've found it to be quite the aid to stamina."

"Oh?"

"Yes indeed, you should know. Last night may have been the first time you've drunk it but it was hardly the first time you've benefited from its effects, if you understand me..." The Warlord said in a wry tone of his own.

"Really? And have you been sampling your own medicines recently?" Cassius said, impishly. It was hard to think of the serious and dignified minotaur doing anything 'impish' but that was the best analogue Claudius could come up with. Diomedes just smiled, a gleam rising on the shiny blackness of his eyes. Claudius stood seemingly ignored besides for the continued presence of Cassius's hand on his neck as the Black bull leaned in and kissed Cassius with a tenderness that belied his massive size, at which claudius averted his eyes.

"I see you are more recovered than I had hoped," The black bull said, studying Cassius's eyes with what was unmistakeably lust.

Claudius tried to back off, reasoning that now would be a prudent time to leave, but Cassius's hand resisted him as he did. "I gave no order to leave," Cassius said to him, amusedly.

"So you wish to include your new pet, my love? Very well, I suppose I can indulge you." Chuckled Diomedes, rising to his hooves and shucking the ornate housecoat. He wore nothing beneath it and fully revealed his treetrunk arms and massive expanse of rippling torso were just as impressive as Claudius had remembered, besides for a small scar in the center of the minotaur's chest that looked new.

He had little time to contemplate it though, because a moment later he let out a small yelp of surprise when Cassius's arm slid lower to wrap around his waist and hoisted him bodily onto the bed. Even in a diminished condition the minotaur still seemed to be able to do that with little visible effort.

"How very generous of you," Cassius said with a ring of sarcastic humour, depositing Claudius gently onto his lap and removing the blue-silk robe, tossing it over the back of a nearby chair. Nude and illuminated by the orange-yellow light of the early evening, Cassius was a being of molten gold, reclining back and raised on one arm like one of the great marble statues in Dioclepia, though none of those sculptures had even approached his perfection.

"Damn right it is! Sometime soon, love, I shall have you all to myself" The black bull bellowed heartily, the booming timbre of his voice making Claudius's diaphragm shake, coincidentally breaking him out of his spell.

"Um, mas-" He began.

Cassius cut him off by placing a finger to his lips, it lingered there a moment before gently parting them and sliding between without any resistance on Claudius's part. Without thinking, he began suckling on the invading digit. Cassius's intentions being so clear seemed to work a new kind of spell on him, almost at once he started feeling a slight sense of detachment, that bizarre sense of walking around in a waking dream but being totally lucid and aware that overtook him whenever Cassius was close.

"Good, you're starting to feel it." Cassius said, encouragingly, removing the finger and moving his hand to the slim belt which sinched Claudius's tunic and easily tugged open the loose knot. "Such a curious creature you are, my Scribe." He added, barely above a whisper.

At Cassius's unspoken command he removed his tunic and the loincloth beneath it, no sooner had he shed the offending garments than Cassius kissed him, devouring his mouth as only a minotaur could. Claudius sighed happily against the heat of Cassius's mouth. The longing within him was immediately replaced by a saisfaction that spread through his body with an inner warmth. Plagueing worries evaporated, burned up like cloying mist before the glory of the sun.

Cassius broke the kiss to whisper in his ear. "Show me your commitment, my Scribe. Demonstrate how much you want to be mine." He said, the ring of hunger in his voice making the hair on the back of Claudius's neck rise.

The bed shook a little as Diomedes too joined them, his hide shining like jet and covering a body just as hard as that same stone. But Claudius's primary attention was on Cassius as he slid down over the gold-furred torso to his loins where the salt-pine musk that he craved so much was strongest. He nuzzled at the weighty sac, the smell of salt and pine-resin so strong there that he could practically drink it, and ran his tongue along the underside of the swelling shaft and feeling the flesh twitch beneath the surface. It was such an instinctual response that he needed no coaxing, in a way there was nothing more natural than wanting to please Cassius with his body and beneath the thin and tremulous veneer of civility he could almost sense the barely-contained primalness at the core of his being. A searing pulse of elemental masculinity that was so easy to surrender to. Cassius's hand came to rest on his head but did no more than just reassure him of the minoaur's attention, not directing or even so much as guiding. It was apparently all up to him to decide. He smiled internally, that was fine by him, as long as he could stay there and worship his master with his mouth he was content. He took the head of the minotaur's length into his mouth and was rewarded by soft whispered praise as he worked with his tongue and lips.

A rough, callused hand on his backside startled him slightly but he relaxed almost instantly, it was the hand of his master's mate. The hand of a warrior, unlike Cassius's which were soft and unworn, a hand more used to holding a blade than a quill. He paid it no more heed, it was neither danger nor Cassius, and returned to his ministrations, suckling at the hot length of flesh in his mouth and feeling the achingly male scent and taste fill his senses.

"Hmmm, I think I may be having missgivings about this, Cas, I don't want to accidentally break your toys," The black bull chortled. Claudius barely heard it, his world had shrunken to encompass only he and Cassius, anything else could only momentarily intude into it. Cassius's reply, and the gentle, languid laughter that preceded it, were clear as day, however.

"Perhaps you are right, It's been too long for me to expect you to be restrained, my love." Cassius said, and for a moment Claudius was hit by a pang of loss, worrying that he was going to be tossed aside now. Well, maybe it was right that he should, while he had thought that Cassius had some degree of affection for him he couldn't be so arrogant as to think that he could even begin to compare to the lover in who's absence that his master had worried and pined for.

Cassius had other intentions however. He gently detached Claudius from his member, smiling at the little plaintive noise that the human's throat made unbidden, and lifted him up onto his lap. Claudius's heart lept to know that he wasn't going to be cast aside and moaned wantonly when he felt Cassius's shaft, slick with his own saliva, push past his entrance. He felt the heat of the other minotaur's body radiating at his back, he looked over his shoulder to see the black figure like a silhouette come to life and the fur of its arms tickled his sides as those large, rough warrors hands came to rest on Cassius's hips. He was sandwiched between the bodies of the two massive creatures, the scent of minotaur was all around. Cassius pushed up into him, bucking slightly, making him groan from the delicious pleasure of feeling his master inside him.

He felt the hard, muscled body of Diomedes slide against his back, even as it pinned him against Cassius's chest, and the golden minotaur beneath him tilted back his great horned head and drew in a breath over his teeth, releasing it in a pleasured sigh. Addled and intoxicated as he was, it took Claudius a moment to realise that just as he was speared upon Cassius's shaft, so to had the black bull penetrated the golden. He had thought that the notion would be disturbing to him, that it would rob his master of the unimpeachable masculinity that he had associated him with in his mind, after all, it didn't matter if Cassius fucked him, he was a weakling, never laying any real claim on male strength, but Cassius was so strong! But as he looked up into the rapt face of the golden bull he felt no unease, and no diminshing of his admiration, just arousal at seeing another side of his master.

The bucking beneath him became faster with each passing moment. It was like riding a boat in storm-tossed waters, he had to keep himself pressed to Cassius's chest and hold on to keep his balance as the force of Diomedes's thrusts transmitted and amplified through Cassius's body into his, plowing powerfully into him and shaking his whole form with a spine-jarring jolt each time. The sounds of the two minotaur's were almost as enrancing as their scent, the primal animal growls of pleasure loud and thunderous in his ears. Diomedes even let out a bullish snort of satisfaction on one particularly powerful thrust, hitting the back of Claudius's neckwith a burst of hot breath. Cassius's hands tightened almost to the point of pain on his hips as the golden bull gasped with unrestrained pleasure as his mate thrust into him with almost violent force. Claudius gained a new respect for how resrained Cassius had been with him when they had coupled together, the force and wild abandon with which minotaurs made love with eachother could well ahve been too much for him to survive, never mind handle.

To his amazement, Cassius's face twisted into a lustful grin and cast a sidelong gaze up into Diomedes's eyes. "Come now, you can do better than that," He laughed.

"Well, I wouldn't want to overwhelm you, but if you insist." The black bull replied beween pants, his voice equally lust-crazed.

The force of the minotaur's coupling took Claudius's breath away, it was wild passion so powerful that no human with a body of more fallible flesh could replicate it, and he got to share in a part of it, riding atop his master's shaft. Even as Claudius held on tightly with his hands and thighs, unable to do anything but groan with pleasure as Cassius fucked him, Cassius himself was visibly wordless with pleasure, releasing one hand from Claudius's hip to grip the headboard of the bed for support while Diomedes pounded into him. The intensity took all sense of time from him, every sense was assaulted with the bestial wildness all around him, from the bestial grunts and snarls of pleasure at deafening levels to the earthy scents of minotaur and sweat and the jolts of ecstasy growing harder and harder that ran up his whole body as the two minotaurs mated.

He came with enough intensity to take his vision from him for a second and make his head swim, and he had came twice again before Cassius threw his great horned head back and arched his spine rapturously and lowed, a deep, reverberating moan that shook the world, seemingly, at the same time wrapping his legs around behind Diomedes and pulling the great black bull in, who too added his own guttural snarl of release.

"Creation! Somebody re-string my bones!" Cassius laughed, unexpectedly, suddenly relaxing back as they all three collaped.

Claudius was half-crushed between the bodies of the two minotaurs when Diomede's kissed Cassius's laughing mouth and lingered there for a long moment.

"Now, will you take my damn advice and get some rest?" The black bull said in a tone of mock-chastisement.

"Now, love, I think I might have to." Cassius replied.