milliways_bar | (no subject)

With a roll of his eyes, "My friends and family keep using it when they know it will irritate me most."

The original Legion on Carna was one of Varus' lost three--and it's been about two millennia since then. In some ways, Tavi is a modern boy. Just a Roman one.

He smiles a little, wryly. "I think somehow our history beat some of the flowery tendencies out of us--though not entirely. We have Houses of the Valiant and Faithful, for those who have performed above and beyond the call of duty in service to the Realm. My step-father's been called Valerian since he was a young man. But for the most part..." He shrugs and smiles. "Life was too brutal on Carna to waste time on it for a while."

"I believe the Romans insist on making time for these things," she says, laughing. "There's nothing like the rituals and self-important tendencies they have..."

Though, she's got plenty of her own. She just doesn't see them as empty, of course.

"They mock us for having animal headed gods...while they, for the most part, have empty heads."

She looks around briefly for Antony...who may not like to hear her speak that way.

Tavi's eyebrows go up a little, looking faintly amused.

"My own people consider my wife's to be animal-worshiping barbarians--but then Kitai tells me, repeatedly, that Alerans are all utterly mad."

And then, more wryly, and with a kind of chagrin,

"I sometimes think she's right."

"And what people are your wife's? Egyptian, perhaps?"

She finds this an interesting thought.

Tavi laughs.

"No--as far as I can tell they're not even from the Earth the Romans came from. They're stronger than humans naturally, pale, higher body temperature, white hair and canted eyes."

There's a slight head tilt as she looks over at him.

"Interesting. A different race of people..."

She doesn't really know what to think of that.

Tavi nods, spreading his hands a little in a gesture of-- not quite uncertainty, more simply a careless acceptance that this is a fact he likely can't learn.

"It's not entirely clear how different they are from us. Most Alerans still don't consider them 'human' the same way as we are."

He looks a little irritated and saddened by the fact--but there's resolve, underneath that, to change it. And anyone who stands in his way really ought to take to the hills.

She knows that resolve. It's something she's had inside her for many years.

"'Human' is a very relative term. In my lands, it is better to be above the status of 'human'. Perhaps her people are gods."

Which would serve the naysayers right.

At that Tavi laughs richly, head tilted back, eyes dancing in sardonic amusement.

"Kitai would love that," he chuckles. "And would never let it go, either. We don't have gods per se," not counting the pantheism of the Marat, of course, "but it would be infinitely amusing."

His smile is subtly wry, despite a kind of untarnished, almost boyish delight.

"Everywhere has gods," she says frankly. "Just not everyone chooses to acknowledge them. The worse for them."

Gods can be brutal. She is a living example of this.

"But it is good that she would get enjoyment out of it if it were true."

"Oh, she'd be amused even more if people thought it without it being true."

Though she'd just laugh and call Alerans mad--she does that anyway.

He rolls a shoulder in a shrug. "The closest we seem to have are the Great Furies--self-aware personalities in the land, though not quite sentient. They've been known to get... very irritated with Alerans."

She nods, "If your people are much like the Romans I know, they are very much, 'kill first, ask questions later' kind of people. They do not take care of their lands as they should."

Which is part of the reason they're dependent on Egypt for so much.

Tavi grimaces a little. "Yes, we did inherit that to an extent," he says a little bleakly.

His eyes are a little tight, lost in a memory and old, partially healed grief.

"I'm doing what I can to change that, though." He'll ram peace down their throats whether or not they like it.

His words make her blink a little, and frown. In a way he reminds her of several people at once.

The most dangerous of which is Octavian.

"In moderation. Pushing things too far too fast does not go over well."

Coming from someone that knows.

That should stand to reason, all things considered.

Tavi smiles a little, faintly and very sadly.

"If you're trying to change the foundations of a civilization which still stands--stagnation or not--perhaps that is true."

He shakes his head. "But two whole civilizations, possibly even three, were left in near-ruin by the warring of my youth. I'm having to rebuild from first principles--and those principles will have something more resembling justice."

The tavar of the Canean continent is a small, wolverine-like creature which can kill a warrior-wolf many times its own weight, and is brilliant, mad, and suicidally brave.

There are reasons why, upon meeting him, the Canim named him Tavar.

She watches him very, very carefully.

She's really seeing similarities.

"It is not meant for one man to change the world," she responds quietly. "Especially in a fortnight."

Tavi grimaces. "I'm still losing sleep over it, and it's been ten years since I started--twenty if you count the first, accidental alliance," he adds with a wry smile.

So he convinced age-old enemies of his people, involved in the battle which killed his father, to make friends with him personally--and bonded to and married their de-facto princess.

Oops.

"It isn't something that will be finished in my lifetime, or my son's, or his. If the Alliance I've built survives the one and a half to two centuries before our civilizations are threatened again, I will have had some small measure of success in my life."

Perfection is, by definition, impossible for people to really achieve--but that doesn't mean the House of Gaius will ever stop trying. And in Tavi's case, he tends to take a view of things far longer than most can manage.

His eyes turn to the window, almost involuntarily, the lights in them reflecting in his eyes. "But our work--that of my House and those who stand with us--won't ever be finished, if it's done correctly. Not in a hundred lifetimes and more. So I sow what seeds I can, hoping one day they'll bloom in more colors than even I can imagine."

Does he normally tell people this? No, not really. More frequently in the Bar, certainly--there are more people his equal here.

But he can sense that caution, and answers the silent communication he's picking up in words.

She's seen what too much ambition has done to Rome, both for the betterment and leading it down the road to ruin.

"What, exactly, is your position amongst your people? Are you the Dictator? The Emperor?"

There will always be caution in Cleopatra. There always was; even while she was addicted to opium, she was careful to watch all those around her, and made sure to always know the latest news of anyone important and relevant.

She knows what blind drive can do. It will either work, and you will get the changes you need, or it will break everything.

"Peace and prosperity are always of the utmost importance, but one must temper decisions with a cool head."

Rashness, and worrying to the point that you can't sleep will not help you.

He doesn't lose sleep from worrying, though--he loses sleep from making sure the people he's delegated to have what they need to get the job done, and being in five different places at once when they don't. Those days are far less common than they were, a decade later--

But they crop up.

Tavi's mouth twists up into an odd, almost pained smile. "That... is unlikely to be a problem for my family," he says in a mildly strained tone. "It's been said we bleed pragmatism--except, perhaps, my father."

Even being the highly idealistic firebrand that he is, Tavi shares that quality in some ways.

His smile softens just a little. "And my wife always keeps clear judgment when I am in danger of losing my own."

He chews his lip thoughtfully. "The position is called the First Lord. The Senate may have somewhat more influence than it did in your Rome, and there are other High Lords with quite nearly as much... magical and military strength as the Crown. But they swear loyalty to the House of Gaius."

She sits serenely while she listens, taking a few bites of cheese and a drink or two of wine.

"It is good to be a clear judge of decisions; changing things, as you are trying to do, takes a lot of responsibility and someone that is fair-minded and objective enough to realize when their own idea isn't going to work."

She's had to re-evaluate her own game plan, occasionally.

"You are in a position where you could do either great good or great harm. Train your children to make as wise decisions, so it does not fall apart after you have moved on from your world into the next."

Tavi glances to her and smiles a little, faintly.

"I hope to," he says quietly. "There have been enough mistakes made in the past--I'm doing what I can to learn from them."

His expression turns a little grave, a little sad, before he shakes it off.

"And to make sure they learn from them, as well. My species--and all the others, for that matter--can't really afford to have us following our previous patterns."

She nods, "I met a man that felt one could dismiss the past; that the monuments of civilization was not important. Without it...all would be lost. It takes stone to survive; not clay and straw."

She smiles a little bit more. "My son surprises me every day; he will make a good ruler."

Tavi makes a face. "We have to learn from the past--but also remember not to cling to it. Doing so nearly destroyed my people. May I ask who it was?"

His face reveals nothing of what he knows of her future, and he only smiles the proud smile of a father. "Children have a way of doing that, I've noticed."

"His name was...Phillip? He was from the future. I do not pay too much attention to most around here."

She bores easily.

"I have three now; the twins are still young enough that I do not know their natures yet..."

Tavi shake his head. "I don't know how you can do that--not pay attention. The people, the worlds and histories, technology..."

His eyes turn again to the Window.

"There's so much to learn from, to use, to build on."