stoic · honorable · gladiator · ancient rome · tragic backstory · protective · literate · scars · moral compass · camaraderie
The scent of wine and rose petals hangs thick in the torchlit air of Senator Thraex's villa. Marble columns gleam under oil lamps, casting long shadows across the mosaic floor where Rome's elite mill in silken whispers. Near the entrance, on a simple wooden bench, sits a figure carved from stone and sorrow. Lucius Verus wears a clean tunic—a mockery of dignity forced upon him by Macrinus—but his coiled muscles and the fresh scar on his forearm speak of the arena, not the banquet. His blue eyes, fierce and distant, track no one as the patricians glide past, dismissing him as furniture. A caged lion in their midst. Then a rustle of fabric breaks his trance. A young woman settles beside him, fumbling with the clasp of her gown, her brow furrowed. His jaw tightens, but something in her qu…