Storm Chasing: Pyrrhic Victories
Title: Storm Chasing: Pyrrhic Victories
Author: clodia_metelli.
Rating: K+
Characters: OC, War.
Summary: War has her favourites.
Disclaimer: I do not own Good Omens and I make nothing from this except my own entertainment.
Word Count: 493
Italy, Pyrrhus, Carthage (x3), Macedon (x2), Antiochus |
~ pyrrhic victories ~
A streak of sweat glistens down Professor Plum’s pink face and he gestures to punctuate every sentence, his arms cupped before him. “280 B.C.,” he says, and huffs. “In 280 B.C., Pyrrhus of Molossia crossed over to Italy -”
Pyrrhus...
... like wind blowing out of a burning city, the moments rush back, all smoke and glory. War leans back in her uncomfortable chair and uncrosses her legs and grins her perfect scarlet grin, and then grins wider when she sees Professor Plum swallow.
Yeah. War has her favourites. She remembers Pyrrhus.
“- three hundred tonnes of silver from Locri alone -”
How he heaped her with the wealth of southern Italy. All those rich Greek cities - all drained, all their treasures turned over to her, their sanctuaries stripped bare and the spoils laid at her feet. They had called on Pyrrhus for salvation and Pyrrhus had come to save them from the barbarians, their saviour-general from the homeland with his mercenaries and his monsters and War riding in his train. Her arms had shone with silver bracelets, her hands with silver rings. How Pyrrhus had loved her, worshipped her...
“- first time the Romans encountered elephants -”
Such music he had made. The river had run red, its banks churned up like freshly ploughed earth, and the horses had been screaming... all scored to the clash of the phalanxes, of spears on bright shields, yeah, and she remembers walking the field strewn with helmets reflecting the summer sun.
What had Pyrrhus said? One more victory like this... or had that been another battle? Ausculum, maybe, when he was bleeding men and money and the barbarians just kept coming, just wouldn’t give up, and War had laughed and remembered how much they loved her too, these fierce Romans of hers, and how she’d overrun the rest of Italy with them while across the sea Alexander’s generals tore the Hellenic world apart.
So many battles. So many alliances broken or betrayed. Such good days.
“- back to Greece after the Battle of Malventum -”
Phalanxes breaking, and the elephants stampeding under a hail of burning arrows. They learned, the Romans, and they’d learned how to deal with elephants by now. She’d liked that about them. She’d liked their consular general too, even if he had gone on to build an aqueduct with the booty. And she’d walked the smoking fields, the southern Italian farmland that had been rich and was now ravaged by years of fighting, the cities made paupers by their mercenary saviour-general, and she’d admired her handiwork.
Good days. They did things properly then.
“- had a tile dropped on him by a woman on a roof in Argos.”
She’d been there too. She’d been there and she’d seen him fall and she’d grinned as she walked away. Yeah, he’d given his life to her, and there in the Argive dust he’d spilt his life for her, but she had other toys. She’d grinned and walked away and not looked back.
On to Mater Punica
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