Return of Titus Pullo and Arya Stark (AKA Vegas and a cheap buttery alternative to therapy. Open!)

[runaway_stark]

She was safe, she was warm, and the whole situation was very much like being asleep. And then with an abrupt pop!, Arya Stark was salty and buttery and very much wide awake

Comments

[fiercefluffy]

((yay!))

Though togged out in modern-day casualwear, Octavian still carried himself with the bearing of a togate patrician. At eighteen he was definitely too old to act the fluffy bunny child, and even when he was a child he had been remarkably reserved. All of which was to say he could not, strictly speaking, run up to Pullo for a gigantic hug.

But his face lit up, a genuine smile softening the regal Julius features, and that from Octavian was just about equivalent to a bear hug.

"Ave, Pullo!"

[pullo_xiii]

((Yay for a lack of cloning projects this week!))

Pullo's face lit up to see Octavian, and while he was indeed the bear hugging type, he couldn't just embrace Octavian Caesar. "Sir!" He reached out one arm. Manly arm-clasping was all right, wasn't it? "Titus Pullo, reporting back from Las Vegas," he said, still smiling. "How've you been, then, eh?"

[fiercefluffy]

Manly arm-clasping was entirely proper. Octavian's arm-clasping would in fact have been much less impressive were it not for the tutelage of Pullo. It was a very good thing that Atia had realized her ability to inculcate masculine virtues began and ended with prescribing the occasional dish of fresh goat testicles.

The arm-clasp having been executed in what Octavian felt was the correct manner (though he'd never have Pullo's strength, he could at least stand firm), the young Caesar couldn't quit grinning. "I've been well. I want to hear about Las Vegas. Did you find any Spice Girls, Pullo?"

[pullo_xiii]

"I did, actually. Did you know, they aren't really prostitutes at all? They're singers. Arguably. I found a lot of prostitutes, though, real ones. Do you know what they're doing with themselves?" Oh, here went Pullo, off on a rant several months in the making. "Lots of them do something to their breasts now, and it's like unripe fruit in there. They're not doing that here yet, are they?" he asked, almost fearfully. Almost, because Titus Pullo was almost never afraid.

[fiercefluffy]

"I think I've seen what you're talking about," murmured Octavian thoughtfully. Those had been some fairly revealing outfits the girls wore in that club where Maia'd taken him ... "I don't think the wizarding women do that, if that's what you mean -- witches, that is to say." Female wizards. Best to be very precise about these things. "To be completely frank I believed it was a practice favored by saltatrices tonsae."

Barbered dancing-girls. The classical Roman term for drag queens.

Because why would a natural woman desire to do such a thing, when her mammary glands were plainly meant for the nourishment of the next generation?

[pullo_xiii]

Pullo nodded. "Good. They just don't feel right, you know. And most of them are so skinny, not like the good old days."

He brightened up again as he changed the subject. "But the big thing in Las Vegas, apart from the whores, is the gambling. So many ways to lose money, like you've never seen! Dice, cards, these things called slot machines, all over the place. And some place called the Luxor, didn't look a thing like Egypt at all."

[fiercefluffy]

(( I've just gotten to the last of the Masters of Rome books, Antony and Cleopatra, and this is making the thread crack me up all the more. Pullo in Vegas!Luxor ... *diiies* ))

Like many politicians, Octavian held double standards. Unlike many politicians, he hadn't conceived of those double standards to allow himself more latitude. Rather, he felt that gambling and whoring were perfectly all right for good ol' legionaries like Pullo; the ones who should deny themselves such vices were the patricians, including Octavian himself -- and especially the patrician women, most notably Octavian's mother and sister. A happy, well-entertained legionary was a good legionary, and a happy Pullo was a Pullo as Pullo should be, in Octavian's eyes.

"Luxor? In the United States? That is a surprise!" Oh, Octavian, just wait until you hear about the other casinos.

[pullo_xiii]

((Apologies for the wait, work got crazy busy! Also, I need to polish off my to-read pile and get hold of those since Audible doesn't seem to have them.))

"And that's not all," he added, warming up quite happily to the subject. "Got one called 'Excalibur', supposed to be British. Doesn't look like any Britain I've ever seen, not even this new modern one without the hairy bastards everywhere. Oh, they've got a place called 'Caesars Palace,' too! Got a statue of your uncle--father, sorry--and everything. Even working on a tower named after you."