"What? I... uh... Ha ha, man, I don't think those were any games." No one had been laughing, had they? Hell, those creeps never laughed. So far as he could tell, they'd never even smiled. If anyone had laughed, it'd been him. "They took all of that pretty seriously, you know? And I'm not saying everyone in, ah, in Cambodia, in 'Nam, anywhere down there doesn't seem that sort of thing all of the time, but... They've got this stockpile, see, they just sort of throw... I'm just saying it AIN'T normal at home, all right? I don't know where you're from, but that's not how we do things at home."
Not that they were right not to. They ought to be, but he couldn't be sure about that any more. One time, maybe. Before the war. Before the voice. It had gotten harder, however, to tell just what was normal anymore, and what deserved to be. And maybe while he'd been away, Americans had started cutting off their arms for fun. Ha, wouldn't THAT be a sight.
((CAMILLA. :D Friggin'-A and kickass. Annnd yar, gracias, as 'tis good to know that is not all VIOLATION. But yes. Zay!))
(( A traveling Camilla, more's the pity :( So sorry not to have gotten back to this thread sooner! And so glad to see you here. And yeah, if this hadn't been clarified already, you can have two apps per month, so there is nothing wrong with apping Roma and the Photojournalist in the same month. I do hope to see more of the Photojournalist after the sorting, if you feel so inspired, as there's so much chaos at Hogwarts, it just seems like a natural home for him. ;) ))
"At home," Octavian repeated, bemused. "It's true that in the provinces, they haven't the facilities for formal blood sport on such a grand scale. However, my uncle has told me that the Druids of Gaul perform human sacrifices, which we do not. There is ample bloodshed everywhere. But you're a modern man, aren't you." Again, the lack of a question. "How are executions performed, and war conducted, under modern conditions?" He found it so very odd that this man should be shocked and traumatized by the sight of carnage.
The Photojournalist just stared for a few moments.
Human sacrifices.
Human...
It wasn't that he hadn't heard of such practices. Hell, he'd seen what happened in the compound, and a lot of that hadn't been strictly military. A lot of that had been them, the men who hardly seemed human and would stare and stare and then suddenly move in some hideous celebration, and there would be death of a different kind, death that he allowed - he the man, the Colonel - because he knew, he must have known something, something about what... about what was needed, what they needed, or the... the symbol, the... something.
Even so, the question almost made him laugh. He did express something bordering on a smirk, more the twist of a broken grin than anything, before he frowned again, scratching at his arm. "Well, that depends on who you're asking." Now he did laugh, shortly, even as he nearly spat on the ground. "But modern condition, modern CONDITIONS, I can tell you the modern conditions I've seen, the, the... The trenches, crawling through the jungle, the mud, man, modern CONDITIONS? Ha, yeah, they've, ah, they've got modern weaponry, all right, or they do as long as it holds out, and then--and then it's back to flinging rocks and using your bare hands and crafting fucking spears, those bastards make their own spears and I tell you what, they do more with those spears than...
"Modern conditions, you want to talk... you want to talk the kids, man, the kids just soaking in their own blood and the guys shouting out to stab 'em once through and just, just finish the job. Just FINISH it. Some things don't change, some things NEVER fucking change.
"And you want to talk executions? Yeah, they... They shoot 'em, or they hang 'em up or they cut off their goddamned heads, that's what they do, that's what they do and anything else they want, and you know how many of 'em know why, man? You know how many of 'em know what they're doing, just going around and... NONE of 'em, man. Not in their war. Not in their fucking war, the way they've got it worked out, no one knows what's going on, no one..."
He had been getting louder. He didn't realize this, necessarily, but he stopped talking, fists clenched, breathing heavily.
Christ. Jesus... Jesus Christ.
((Gracias, and sorry to be 'bzuhhhh' about things; I swear, I read rules and then completely blank. It's wonderful. >.> And not gonna lie, heh, the chaos is attractive... Shiny, shiny chaos.))
Intently and with no evidence of dismay or discomfiture, Octavian listened. The escalation of volume, the growing distress of his interlocutor, the disjointed (dismembered) succession of fractured or truncated sentences ... none of these alarmed him, though they certainly did not escape his notice.
"Your people didn't prepare you for what you would see among the legions," he decided. "You have seen disgraceful things. It's a shame the soldiers were not adequately armed. Still, in the absence of proper weaponry, a man must do what he can to ensure victory and survival."
"I shouldn't quiz you on such matters when you have only just arrived. You must be thirsty from the talking. Do you take your wine watered or unwatered?"
What in Jesus? The Photojournalist couldn't figure what to make of this guy, the way he just watched and spoke calmly like he did, the things he was saying... Oh, he'd've gotten along well the spooks at the compound, all right. Or maybe not, but there was something similar going on. Maybe just the way he stared.
He swallowed. "That's all their war was, man. Just a bunch of... disgraceful things." He had intended to speak further, say something about the rest of it, but he was caught somewhere. Something... 'a man must do what he can to'... Must. Must, ah, must act...
And, what... Legions? What WAS this guy, anyway?
At the offer, the Photojournalist laughed uneasily. "Do I take my...? Ah, I'm fine. I mean, that's real... gracious of you, but I'm just great. Never better." Not that wine didn't sound appealing, but he wasn't at all certain that accepting a drink in this instance would be a particularly good plan. Not the way this guy made him uneasy. "I've got, ah..." he shook out another cigarette, held it up with a faltering grin, "I've got cigarettes. Nothing better than that."
"Really? You don't look at all well." Octavian snapped his fingers to summon a house-elf. "Water? It's quite pure, no need for boiling. The plumbing is nothing short of admirable. There are no communal bath-houses, however. I'd like to have a tour of the castle's drainage and sewage system, some time. No one sufficiently knowledgeable ever seems to be at hand."
An ugly green creature answered the young master's summons.
"Water for us both, and fresh fruit and bread," directed Octavian, as impersonally as if he'd been speaking to a piece of furniture. No, less so; a piece of furniture would be strange to address verbally, whereas addressing a house-elf seemed quite mundane (by now). It was a slave, like human slaves only less prone to troublesome revolt. "If you don't wish to eat immediately," he said to the Photojournalist as the elf disappeared, "you may yet experience hunger before the Sorting ends. You await the Hat's pleasure."
He's seen some pretty fucking strange things in the jungle, but this one was new to him. The Photojournalist crouched as he watched the green thing, trying to get a better look at it. If he hadn't harbored some concern that it might prompt the creature into attacking, he'd have taken a picture; as it was, he didn't care for the idea of some knobby-looking creature biting into his face. Monkeys were bad enough.
The creature disappeared - all the more suspect - and the Photojournalist rose again, watching the man who might've almost looked like a kid if he hadn't been so damned... Stoic. Or maybe unmoving. He'd gotten more or less used to expressions like that, out there, but here... This guy was different somehow, the place was different, and the Photojournalist hadn't been expecting this. The guy seemed like he was being polite enough, maybe, or maybe just, ah... By the book courteous? The Photojournalist didn't know what it was, but he was wary of it.
Still. It wasn't as if he had to eat (man, that was strange, too, the thought of food... and food brought by strange creatures; again, maybe not a pleasant thought). The guy hadn't attacked, and at least he was speaking. The spooks out there had mostly ignored him. He'd just moved among them, done the talking himself, and sometimes they'd listen but usually he could just as well have been a ghost.
"The hat's pleasure? Man, I don't mind telling you, I do NOT like the sound of that. What are you... What's that mean?"
"What am I?" Octavian sifted the incomplete question from the man's verbal stops-and-starts, thereby missing the actual point. "I am Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, heir to Julius Caesar. It is not disrespectful to address me as 'Octavian'. The Sorting Hat is a creature who rules this place as my uncle ruled Rome, though less wisely and with considerably less popularity. And you are?"
The elf chose this moment to appear with fresh fruit ... in the shape of a Carmen Miranda hat. The asked-for water it had brought in goblets, and the bread was thick crusty slices of a hearty wheat loaf.
"No grapes?" Octavian demanded of the elf. It left its erstwhile freight on a convenient side table, and disappeared once more.
And the guy. It was like talking to some sort of... He didn't even know. Wasn't like talking to the spooks, because they just didn't talk. This guy was distant, sure, but it was like... Like talking to some fucking Roman statue, or something. Almost like being back out there, but this was a different sort of statue and so far as he could tell a different sort of time. If all of this shit about people from different times was true and if this guy wasn't just fucking nuts or something, what he was saying was still pretty fucking unbelievable. Not knowing how to take the news, the Photojournalist went ahead and started speaking.
"Well, that's quite a name you've got that. Octavian?" He suddenly reached out a hand, offering a hand-shake. It was only after he'd offered the gesture that the Photojournalist realized that this might not have been the best of plans. In trying to get over the case of nerves this guy was giving him, he'd neglected to consider the fact that guys with names like that probably didn't shake hands. Almost certainly didn't.
Aw, hell. Pulling his hand back quickly, he scratched at his head with far more vigor than was necessary. "Ahh, pleased to meet you, anyway. I'm a Photojournalist. American civilian, I've been covering the war. Or I was. Ah... ha. Um. Ha. Ah... Julius Caesar. That's... That's something."
As it happened, Octavian did know what a handshake was, and eyed with curiosity the Photojournalist's hastily withdrawn hand. "It's quite all right," he said in his forthright (and did we mention flat?) way. "I'm familiar with modern manners. I've been to a nightclub once." Parenthetically he added: "The music was like the howling of lackwitted maenads."
The elf materialized with the requested grapes and draped them across the Carmen Miranda pile o' fruit. "Next time you'll remember them," directed Octavian. The elf left before further chastisement could ensue. "The house elves aren't the brightest of slaves, I'm afraid. Maia -- my friend -- finds fault with them regularly. Nonetheless it's better than no help at all. Now, you say you were 'covering' a war, Photojournalist? Which of the American wars was it? I find their Civil War interesting. The Encyclopaedia Britannica taught me of these things, you see."
"Oh, well, hey, ah," he offered his hand again, the grin now sheepish, "I just didn't want to offend you. You know how often I mean guys with names like that? Pretty much never. Ha! I mean, I've met a lot of people with some pretty far out names, but I haven't really spent time around Rome or anything so it's all, ah, it's all different."
All right, okay. If the guy had been to a nightclub... No, no, that wasn't necessarily saying much of anything. Just made him more confusing to look at, because the thought of this guy in any sort of club or bar or any place normal didn't fly. But if he said he did, it was something. Maybe.
The green thing (the fact that it was apparently called a house elf didn't do much of a damned thing to explain it) had appeared and departed again, and this time he couldn't ignore it. Not the way it looked and what it did and the way the Caesar spook addressed it. The Photojournalist blinked; this didn't seem like the place to be supporting slaves, not with the kind of crowd he'd seen so far. "Hey, you've gotta be kidding around, though. I mean, that thing - whatever it is, I don't know, an elf? - that's not really some sort of, ah, fucked up... I mean, you called it a slave but, eh-hah, I guess you were joking around, right?" Never mind the fact that this guy didn't look like the type to joke around a whole lot. It was, well, it was always possible, wasn't it?
He'd been distracted from the war question for the moment. It had registered somewhere, but for the moment it was set aside. Only waiting, and just now the Photojournalist had forgotten that the question had even been asked.
Octavian didn't quite understand the Photojournalist's concern. "Of course they're slaves. Don't worry about offending anyone; they don't belong to any specific master here. They are school property, as far as I'm aware." The Photojournalist really did seem exceptionally disoriented, didn't he? Octavian offered what passed for a reassurance, coming from him: "Once you've refreshed yourself with food and drink, you'll feel more yourself, I expect."
The Photojournalist was pretty damned sure he'd never heard of schools employing a bunch of slaves like that, but then he'd never come across a school like this before. It seemed more than a little bit messed up to him, but he'd have to find out more about it before he said anything. Had to know what he was getting into, what was going on here.
And maybe only this guy called the green creatures slaves. The Photojournalist didn't necessarily think so, this guy didn't necessarily look psychotic or anything, but there wasn't a good way of being sure. Either way, starting some kind of debate over the green things didn't sound like a good plan. And some cultures just said okay to slaves. Who knew?
"Nah, man, I'm fine." He tapped his forehead and grinned. "I'm as much myself as I ever am, you know? Never better. I mean, ha, this is all pretty far fuckin' out, but I'm still what I am. Just what I am."
Not that they were right not to. They ought to be, but he couldn't be sure about that any more. One time, maybe. Before the war. Before the voice. It had gotten harder, however, to tell just what was normal anymore, and what deserved to be. And maybe while he'd been away, Americans had started cutting off their arms for fun. Ha, wouldn't THAT be a sight.
((CAMILLA. :D Friggin'-A and kickass. Annnd yar, gracias, as 'tis good to know that is not all VIOLATION. But yes. Zay!))
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"At home," Octavian repeated, bemused. "It's true that in the provinces, they haven't the facilities for formal blood sport on such a grand scale. However, my uncle has told me that the Druids of Gaul perform human sacrifices, which we do not. There is ample bloodshed everywhere. But you're a modern man, aren't you." Again, the lack of a question. "How are executions performed, and war conducted, under modern conditions?" He found it so very odd that this man should be shocked and traumatized by the sight of carnage.
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Human sacrifices.
Human...
It wasn't that he hadn't heard of such practices. Hell, he'd seen what happened in the compound, and a lot of that hadn't been strictly military. A lot of that had been them, the men who hardly seemed human and would stare and stare and then suddenly move in some hideous celebration, and there would be death of a different kind, death that he allowed - he the man, the Colonel - because he knew, he must have known something, something about what... about what was needed, what they needed, or the... the symbol, the... something.
Even so, the question almost made him laugh. He did express something bordering on a smirk, more the twist of a broken grin than anything, before he frowned again, scratching at his arm. "Well, that depends on who you're asking." Now he did laugh, shortly, even as he nearly spat on the ground. "But modern condition, modern CONDITIONS, I can tell you the modern conditions I've seen, the, the... The trenches, crawling through the jungle, the mud, man, modern CONDITIONS? Ha, yeah, they've, ah, they've got modern weaponry, all right, or they do as long as it holds out, and then--and then it's back to flinging rocks and using your bare hands and crafting fucking spears, those bastards make their own spears and I tell you what, they do more with those spears than...
"Modern conditions, you want to talk... you want to talk the kids, man, the kids just soaking in their own blood and the guys shouting out to stab 'em once through and just, just finish the job. Just FINISH it. Some things don't change, some things NEVER fucking change.
"And you want to talk executions? Yeah, they... They shoot 'em, or they hang 'em up or they cut off their goddamned heads, that's what they do, that's what they do and anything else they want, and you know how many of 'em know why, man? You know how many of 'em know what they're doing, just going around and... NONE of 'em, man. Not in their war. Not in their fucking war, the way they've got it worked out, no one knows what's going on, no one..."
He had been getting louder. He didn't realize this, necessarily, but he stopped talking, fists clenched, breathing heavily.
Christ. Jesus... Jesus Christ.
((Gracias, and sorry to be 'bzuhhhh' about things; I swear, I read rules and then completely blank. It's wonderful. >.> And not gonna lie, heh, the chaos is attractive... Shiny, shiny chaos.))
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"Your people didn't prepare you for what you would see among the legions," he decided. "You have seen disgraceful things. It's a shame the soldiers were not adequately armed. Still, in the absence of proper weaponry, a man must do what he can to ensure victory and survival."
This from the young man who, as a boy, had bludgeoned one of his former captors to death with a stick. While the man was wounded and struggling to his feet. Talk about kicking them while they're down ...
"I shouldn't quiz you on such matters when you have only just arrived. You must be thirsty from the talking. Do you take your wine watered or unwatered?"
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He swallowed. "That's all their war was, man. Just a bunch of... disgraceful things." He had intended to speak further, say something about the rest of it, but he was caught somewhere. Something... 'a man must do what he can to'... Must. Must, ah, must act...
And, what... Legions? What WAS this guy, anyway?
At the offer, the Photojournalist laughed uneasily. "Do I take my...? Ah, I'm fine. I mean, that's real... gracious of you, but I'm just great. Never better." Not that wine didn't sound appealing, but he wasn't at all certain that accepting a drink in this instance would be a particularly good plan. Not the way this guy made him uneasy. "I've got, ah..." he shook out another cigarette, held it up with a faltering grin, "I've got cigarettes. Nothing better than that."
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An ugly green creature answered the young master's summons.
"Water for us both, and fresh fruit and bread," directed Octavian, as impersonally as if he'd been speaking to a piece of furniture. No, less so; a piece of furniture would be strange to address verbally, whereas addressing a house-elf seemed quite mundane (by now). It was a slave, like human slaves only less prone to troublesome revolt. "If you don't wish to eat immediately," he said to the Photojournalist as the elf disappeared, "you may yet experience hunger before the Sorting ends. You await the Hat's pleasure."
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He's seen some pretty fucking strange things in the jungle, but this one was new to him. The Photojournalist crouched as he watched the green thing, trying to get a better look at it. If he hadn't harbored some concern that it might prompt the creature into attacking, he'd have taken a picture; as it was, he didn't care for the idea of some knobby-looking creature biting into his face. Monkeys were bad enough.
The creature disappeared - all the more suspect - and the Photojournalist rose again, watching the man who might've almost looked like a kid if he hadn't been so damned... Stoic. Or maybe unmoving. He'd gotten more or less used to expressions like that, out there, but here... This guy was different somehow, the place was different, and the Photojournalist hadn't been expecting this. The guy seemed like he was being polite enough, maybe, or maybe just, ah... By the book courteous? The Photojournalist didn't know what it was, but he was wary of it.
Still. It wasn't as if he had to eat (man, that was strange, too, the thought of food... and food brought by strange creatures; again, maybe not a pleasant thought). The guy hadn't attacked, and at least he was speaking. The spooks out there had mostly ignored him. He'd just moved among them, done the talking himself, and sometimes they'd listen but usually he could just as well have been a ghost.
"The hat's pleasure? Man, I don't mind telling you, I do NOT like the sound of that. What are you... What's that mean?"
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The elf chose this moment to appear with fresh fruit ... in the shape of a Carmen Miranda hat. The asked-for water it had brought in goblets, and the bread was thick crusty slices of a hearty wheat loaf.
"No grapes?" Octavian demanded of the elf. It left its erstwhile freight on a convenient side table, and disappeared once more.
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And the guy. It was like talking to some sort of... He didn't even know. Wasn't like talking to the spooks, because they just didn't talk. This guy was distant, sure, but it was like... Like talking to some fucking Roman statue, or something. Almost like being back out there, but this was a different sort of statue and so far as he could tell a different sort of time. If all of this shit about people from different times was true and if this guy wasn't just fucking nuts or something, what he was saying was still pretty fucking unbelievable. Not knowing how to take the news, the Photojournalist went ahead and started speaking.
"Well, that's quite a name you've got that. Octavian?" He suddenly reached out a hand, offering a hand-shake. It was only after he'd offered the gesture that the Photojournalist realized that this might not have been the best of plans. In trying to get over the case of nerves this guy was giving him, he'd neglected to consider the fact that guys with names like that probably didn't shake hands. Almost certainly didn't.
Aw, hell. Pulling his hand back quickly, he scratched at his head with far more vigor than was necessary. "Ahh, pleased to meet you, anyway. I'm a Photojournalist. American civilian, I've been covering the war. Or I was. Ah... ha. Um. Ha. Ah... Julius Caesar. That's... That's something."
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The elf materialized with the requested grapes and draped them across the Carmen Miranda pile o' fruit. "Next time you'll remember them," directed Octavian. The elf left before further chastisement could ensue. "The house elves aren't the brightest of slaves, I'm afraid. Maia -- my friend -- finds fault with them regularly. Nonetheless it's better than no help at all. Now, you say you were 'covering' a war, Photojournalist? Which of the American wars was it? I find their Civil War interesting. The Encyclopaedia Britannica taught me of these things, you see."
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All right, okay. If the guy had been to a nightclub... No, no, that wasn't necessarily saying much of anything. Just made him more confusing to look at, because the thought of this guy in any sort of club or bar or any place normal didn't fly. But if he said he did, it was something. Maybe.
The green thing (the fact that it was apparently called a house elf didn't do much of a damned thing to explain it) had appeared and departed again, and this time he couldn't ignore it. Not the way it looked and what it did and the way the Caesar spook addressed it. The Photojournalist blinked; this didn't seem like the place to be supporting slaves, not with the kind of crowd he'd seen so far. "Hey, you've gotta be kidding around, though. I mean, that thing - whatever it is, I don't know, an elf? - that's not really some sort of, ah, fucked up... I mean, you called it a slave but, eh-hah, I guess you were joking around, right?" Never mind the fact that this guy didn't look like the type to joke around a whole lot. It was, well, it was always possible, wasn't it?
He'd been distracted from the war question for the moment. It had registered somewhere, but for the moment it was set aside. Only waiting, and just now the Photojournalist had forgotten that the question had even been asked.
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And maybe only this guy called the green creatures slaves. The Photojournalist didn't necessarily think so, this guy didn't necessarily look psychotic or anything, but there wasn't a good way of being sure. Either way, starting some kind of debate over the green things didn't sound like a good plan. And some cultures just said okay to slaves. Who knew?
"Nah, man, I'm fine." He tapped his forehead and grinned. "I'm as much myself as I ever am, you know? Never better. I mean, ha, this is all pretty far fuckin' out, but I'm still what I am. Just what I am."
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