Storm Chasing: Filia Punica (3)
Title: Storm Chasing: Filia Punica (3)
Author: clodia_metelli.
Rating: K+
Characters: OC, War.
Summary: Knotting up loose ends from the Second Punic War: the Scipiones, cavalry, the rewards of victory and the importance of pronouns. War really liked that one.
Disclaimer: I do not own Good Omens and I make nothing from this except my own entertainment.
Word Count: 612
Italy, Pyrrhus, Carthage (x3), Macedon (x2), Antiochus | Pyrrhic Victories | Mater Punica | Catch Up Over Coffee | Filia Punica (1) | Filia Punica (2) |
~ filia punica (3) ~
The Second Punic War (3) says the handout. Well, there’s a thing, thinks War, and settles back contentedly. Might as well make the most of it while it lasts. She can see Scipio all over the page, attached to various praenomina, and the faces are coming back to her now as well. Gnaeus and Publius, the Roman mice who’d chewed up Spain while the Carthaginian cat was off in Italy, and Publius’s son, who would be the elder Africanus. Now there’d been a family to watch.
And she’d watched them. Yeah.
“- time-tabling error with the third seminar group, because term ends a week on Wednesday,” says Professor Plum, who’s currently wasting time, her time, time that could be spent talking about her, on housekeeping details. He’s looking rather puffy today and he’s shorter of breath than ever. “Now this won’t be a problem for all of you, but I know there are some of you who like to leave town at the first moment possible, so that you can go home and -” he huffs ominously “- brush your ponies...”
An obliging titter from the crowd - that small part of it that doesn’t obviously spend all its free time in some stable somewhere, anyway. War rolls her eyes. Ponies! She remembers the glory of Carthaginian cavalry charges, thundering across Spain with Massiva and Massinissa his uncle and Syphax too, leaving the Scipiones to lust after the Numidians and the power of their horses. Hooves pounding like drums and her hair a red smear in the air, blazing the way.
How they’d slammed into the Roman infantry, hammer on anvil. Classic. Such a beautiful move.
They’d gone over to the younger Publius, in the end. She’d been glad. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the Carthaginians, but she liked Romans better. She’d walked through Gnaeus’s blood on the battlefield and remembered him deciding with his brother to split forces and take on all three Carthaginian armies at once, and she’d had to love them then. What a family. What a people.
“- too many grammatical mistakes and not enough proofreading,” says Professor Plum, who’s still talking about the essays the students are getting back in their seminars. “O tempora, O mores, as Cicero would say. Do not split the infinitive, for it is sacred, and be careful with the poor apostrophe.” He doesn’t sound as though he thinks anything he’s saying will bear fruit. “Be nice to me and you shall get your reward.”
Cavalry: the Roman reward for winning in Spain, and then in Africa as well. Making new friends had paid off for the Numidian chieftain Massinissa, once the war was done and Carthage beaten, Hannibal’s eighty elephants slaughtered in the dust. He’d got his kingdom, and several other people’s too, and Publius Scipio had got horsemen and the name Africanus.
War liked that. Win big enough and you won your enemy’s name.
“Please,” Professor Plum is saying, “please, please don’t refer to Rome, Carthage or any other state with a feminine pronoun!”
War liked that as well. Rome called up her armies, they used to say, and, she strove with Carthage, or, Carthage relied on mercenaries, her wealth coming from her merchants... as if war was a wrestling match between women monstrous in mural crowns, beautiful giants with idealised faces stepping out from behind their walls to trade punches. As though they hid armies in their sleeves and fleets in their foam-flecked skirts. Brave Roma calling her children to arms against Carthage and her ships, her elephants, her corrupting wealth.
That sort of idea really got a man’s blood moving. And then he found himself alone and bloody on the field with War.
On to Show and Tell
~ a good day's work ~
Crowley was having a good day.
A very good day, in fact. It was getting embarrassing.
The effort he’d put into buying up grit and road-salt in the summer had gone to waste, because after last winter no one expected their local councils to handle snow competently anyway. He couldn’t claim credit for Heathrow; it was generally accepted that if anything in the human sphere was genuinely ineffable, the reaction of British public transport to adverse weather was top of the list. His sterling efforts on behalf of London’s more aggressive charity muggers had resulted in a truly remarkable number of standing orders being set up for causes of at least minimal moral value, together with an annoying wave of seasonal goodwill as people went about their Christmas shopping with a pleasant sense of having Done Their Bit. In desperation, he’d stood in the middle of a crowded bridge at rush hour and butchered a broken tune on a rusty accordion, until people had given him money. One old lady had hobbled up with a cup of coffee and a hellishly [1] expensive muffin from the nearest Starbucks, and pressed both items on him with an insufferably sweet smile. He’d almost turned into something maggoty on the spot.
Worst of all, he knew for a fact that Aziraphale was in Exeter for a talk on Tironian shorthand. No one was thwarting his wiles or delivering anyone from temptation. People were being good out of their own free will.
He tossed the accordion into the Thames, where it sank in a swirl of sad bubbles, and slunk off. At least he could still jostle passersby in the street. Anyone humming carols deserved it.
Especially the ones who then insisted on wishing him merry Christmas.
[1] He’d drawn up the price-list himself.
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