thursday is for pictures.

[1929]

THE PICTURE PROMPT MEME


How to play —

— Comment with your character and any preferences.
— Others will leave a picture (or two, or three...)
— Reply to them with a setting or text thread based on the picture.
— Link to any pictures that are NSFW, please.
— Be aware that this meme will be image-heavy.

Comments

[yokemate]

( she does not want to go back to colophon. gongyla hadn't thought beyond this trip to eresos with andromeda, it had been her immediate future and something to fill time with in between sappho's departure and whatever would come next, her family requiring her return, some other plan, divine intervention... eresos, it had been. she hadn't considered...

she looks down as he takes another drink, looks at her hands curled into the folds of her peplos, her arms thin rather than slender, weak rather than elegant. he is showing her some favour she isn't used to from men, kindness she is even less accustomed to from them.

gannicus. she wants to know where he came from, that he can now take her wherever she wishes to go. looking up, she fixes her eyes on his face. the idea comes to her spontaneously. sappho is away. andromeda is dead. she has one option left, and it is in the hands of the gods.

it appears suddenly and starkly self-evident, where she must go. )

I must go back. ( as she looks over her shoulder, her hair whips around her head, it is an abrupt, determined motion. not to colophon, she means, not there. ) To Mytilene. I must go to the temple. The Gods will have to walk with me, when you have to continue on your journey, Gannicus.

( it's to say, she doesn't expect him to stay at her side, but she appreciates that he is here, now. smiling slightly, she finally asks, )

Where are you from, that your feet can take you anywhere?

[panulus]

[A temple is probably best, he realizes, as a man who eschewed the company of gods years ago, because all gods did were let him down. But at a temple she would be safe, and this seems like a temple she is familiar with. So he nods, and does the mental calculations, and then nods again.]

I will go with you to there, and see you safe in the hands of someone friendlier than these.

[It's hard to tell if he means his own hands, or the hands of the men that brutally destroyed her life, less than an hour ago. That seems fair enough. She will be safe, he will not be haunted, and they will both be free.

He nods for her to walk, as he does. It is getting late in the day, and they should move, at least make some progress to Mytilene.]

I cannot say I know where I was born, but I am most recently of Rome.

[He considers it.]

I did not live there under my own will, so now that I am, I go where I like.

How did you get so far from your father's house?

[yokemate]

( at his indication, she nods and corrects the weight of her bag over her shoulder, following as he starts to walk. away from the mule and the cart and the dead bodies, friend and foe. she has left more familiar sights behind before, this is not any more difficult than that.

listening to him talk, she puts two and two together easily. he was taken from where he was born and rome took him, the way rome takes many things and people and now, he owes nothing to no one. least of all her. when he says friendlier hands, she knows he also means his own, but she, by contrast, does not. )

You have come far, then. Even father than I. For making such a journey, I commend you.

( respect is the highest award a man can receive, her father used to say. she looks out over the landscape as they continue onwards, thinking about his question.

she, too, has come far. and she has far to go, still. )

My family sent me to Mytilene, because a singer used to live here who was famed beyond the shores of Lesbos. I was supposed to receive training from her, so that I might serve Apollo back in Colophon, when that time came.

( she could tell him about her brother. how she is the price her father paid to have a male heir, but she doesn't. if nothing else, she was not sent against her will. her fortune was never in jeopardy until now. )

But - ( she frowns, glances sideways up at him. ) - you know the world of influential men, the same way as I. As someone who is tossed between them like a ball.

( quietly. )

Things change rapidly in this world.

[panulus]

[The mule is not helpful in this situation - someone will come and find it sooner or later, or it will go wild. Either way, the mule is unyoked and Gannicus is no good with most animals.]

Hard to imagine that girls like you and a slave like me should have the in common.

[But the way he turns his head, the way he smiles a little, it shows he's joking, that he knows that they have far more in common than that. He looks half-pleased, at the idea.

Anyway he is not a slave anymore.]

You did not want to come to Lesbos, then?

[He hums.]

That is a long way to send a daughter. Were you trouble?

[yokemate]

( they leave it all behind, the scene, the mule, the riches. either someone who deserves it more will find it, or someone who doesn't will, either way it is of little use to them where they are going now. she walks in silence for a little while, considering. was she trouble? she was the oldest, she had developed ideas of her own place more quickly than her younger sisters.

when her brother was born, she was of the right age to give away, either to marriage or to priesthood. she was the one her father could spare.

her lips tighten into a thin line for a moment. wanting to look sideways at gannicus, at the way he smiles so easily, so comfortingly, she keeps her eyes on the road, dirt, a track through the landscape. rock and dust. )

I was conveniently there. ( finally, she allows herself to look at him, her eyes hold a greater sadness than her voice. ) My father has eight children by two different women. Seven of us are girls. By the time my youngest little sister was born, he made an oath to the Gods in desperation. A daughter for a son.

( eyes back on the road. she does not say, no, i did not want to go, but neither does she not say so. there is truth, and she shan't conceal it. omit it, perhaps, but she expects he will understand. )

I am the daughter who keeps his word.

[panulus]

[He goes quiet for a long moment. Gannicus does not have children, and he does not want them. He knows Batiatus was desperate for a son, and his wife would not conceive, and it drove her to desperation that was unmatched.

He grimaces a bit.]

Are you better without his attentions?

[She was conveniently there. She is inconveniently here. It is a bitterness, in a way. Gannicus was also conveniently there, when his name was not Gannicus.

Perhaps she is better without him.]

[yokemate]

( the way he falls quiet stirs a part of her she hasn't felt much in touch with since sappho was exiled. the part of her that enjoyed playing the lyre for the sake of the lyre, who enjoyed singing for the sake of singing, who enjoyed the company of the others for their own sakes. the part that took pleasure in something for her own sake, too. because then, sappho left and she was without anyone to guard her. andromeda was always a temporary solution. her father had only reluctantly agreed. until we can send for you, he had said, and even saying no more she understood other things took priority.

and she did not.

except here, here she was and someone had come to her aid and was carving time out of his life, precious moments, days, to take her back to where she needed to be.

she thinks she is better. )

I am better when I can take myself into consideration. ( looking up at him, she smiles, carefully. ) Isn't everyone?

( aren't you, it means. she shifts the bag over her shoulder and straightens her back, there's a genuine sense of attention to her gaze now. )

You are a traveller. What took your travels here?

( to lesbos, she means. and to this road where you saved my life, it also means. )

[panulus]

[She looks so soft, for a moment. Soft like she hasn't really thought about this, like she hasn't considered if her father was doing only what was best for himself, for a while. The look of a woman who has discovered a measure of freedom.

He appreciates that.

He shrugs a little.]

My feet.

[He knows that's not particularly a good answer, as true as it is. But his smile is almost boyish, for a moment.

And then he takes another drink.]

The price of my freedom was too high for me to remain in Rome. I thought to go home, but I cannot recall it anymore. Far north, I think. So why not be warm, and enjoy the warmth as comfort?