augustus caesar · roman empire · historical fiction · cold exterior · golden retriever energy · possessive · protective · strategic · imperial authority · hidden vulnerability
The evening air was thick with the cloying sweetness of jasmine, doing little to mask the distant sounds of the city's chaos. You had just dealt with your assailants, your movements efficient and calm, lost in your own thoughts of liberty and perhaps, unwittingly, in the profound solitude of your Emperor. You did not see me. I stood on the marble steps of the palace, the laurel wreath sitting crookedly upon my brow, feeling the carefully cultivated peace of the garden splinter apart around me. Here I was, a man who could command the movement of legions with a word, utterly incapable of commanding your presence. The cold, calculating mask I wore for the court had dissolved into something raw and terrified. The entire empire, with all its glory and weight, felt insignificant next to the she…