Dean's World

Arretium, circa 128 BCE

Death, when it comes, rarely arrives by knocking at the door and waiting politely while you prepare yourself. This is a lesson I had learned long before, yet still the following events struck me with a force beyond any I had experienced in many centuries.

Two days before it came, Salia was playing in the library while I read. Her childish musings were no distraction to me; indeed, they were almost calming. Sometimes this place was simply too quiet for my liking—a thought that would have seemed passing strange not so long before. In a way her presence there was also an act of defiance, for Marieko had forbidden her to speak to me. This naturally rendered me irresistible to her, but I respected her grandfather’s wishes as best I could, feeling that I outraged the old man sufficiently as it was.

I was reading Euripides that morning, finishing up what Rufus had of his writings with Troiades. It struck me that Euripides seemed certain the gods were much like mortals, so petty and childish. It made little sense to me. In my domain I had most certainly punished those who slighted me, but mortals with the good sense to run away seldom had much to fear. Indeed, the more I read of the doings of the gods of the Greeks and Romans, the less kinship I felt with them, extending even to my counterpart, Diana.

It was while ruminating upon these things that a phrase caught my attention, something Salia whispered as she toyed with a rag doll on the floor near my feet.

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