The Wolf House (flashback)

Tiberia huffed. The spear was so much heavier than she thought!

Come on, Lupa told her, showing her fangs.

The ten years old dug into all the strength she had in her arms and hurled it at the dummy. The weapon sunk into its solar plexus, little chips of straw falling to the ground. Smiling, she turned to the wolf goddess.

Again.

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It was night when Tiberia was finally allowed to take a break. She was sitting at a corner of the fire with Decimus, toying with the spear she had been using earlier on. It was not even a spear, more like a pike, that she herself had had to make.

"You alright?" she whispered over the crackling fire, and he just nodded. The twins didn't look that good: dirty clothes, bruises, one black eye for Decimus. Tiberia's shoulder-long curls were a mess of knots which she tied back every day without bothering to untangle them. They were both in the clothes they were wearing when the wolves found them: white tee and olive pants for Tiberia, navy shirt and denims for Decimus. They washed their garments every day, but at night they looked as if they had just gotten them out of a backstreet dumpster.

OOC: First RP with Dean. Woo!

BIC: If you want me to sum up myself at eleven years old in only three words, I'd have to go with young, quiet, and fearful. The first two are pretty much self explanatory, but the last one actually requires some explaining. Which is what I'm going to do, because why not.

So back when I was eleven, my dad - this insurance agent or something out of west Michigan - got some tickets from the company he worked for to the Rose Bowl, this college football game out in Pasadena. But this wasn't any regular Rose Bowl; my dad's alma mater, Michigan State, was going to be playing in it against USC. (Trojans vs. Spartans. How ironic.)

So, like any self respecting MSU grad, he took the tickets, packed our bags, and booked the flight out west. We got there several days before the actual game took place (January 1st, like always), so we decided to just look around the whole Pasadena area.

And that's when the talking wolves whisked me away to a life of the extraordinary.

A few months after that, I would find myself sitting around some fire, quietly fearing Lupa's wrath at anything I screwed up on. There were a few other kids at that fire, all of us dirtier than a barnyard animal. Which makes sense, since the training was being run by wild animals. Wild wolves, to be precise. Not the kind of animals you want angry at you.

So yeah, I was at this fire, all quiet and afraid. Looking around at my fellow untrained Romans, I spotted a pair of faces that I barely knew. (Then again, I barley knew anyone at the Wolf House, but hear me out, ok?) So I see these two and, wanting to at least attempt a conversion, quietly blurted out "Hey.", hoping to grab their attention. I wasn't very social those days, so it would be impressive if I could even carry on a conversation with them.

Tiberia looked at the boy. Dark hair, hazel eyes shining in the firelight.

"Hey Dean. How are your bruises?" she asked, her dark skin all covered in dirt and blotched with green. Decimus leaned forward to listen in.

Holy crap, the girl answered. "They're fine - for bruises." I awkwardly sputtered back at her. Choppy sentences? Smooth Dean, real smooth. "So, uh, how are yours?"

"Healing up," Tiberia said. They actually were hurting very badly but the young girl wasn't going to say that. Mom and Dad always told her to never show any weakness unless she was with family and only family. Her deep blue eyes scanned Dean for a moment, then she went back to practicing with her stick. She was poking it around in the flames, retrieving it very quickly so it wouldn't catch fire.

"That's good." My voice cracked on good. Oh, the blessings of puberty! Such a wonderful time that was!

So, I had already started the small talk, so why not make it go farther? You know, medium talk. "So...where are you from?"

"New Rome," Decimus said. He still had the chirping voice of a prepubescent.

"It's right next to Camp Jupiter," Tiberia explained. "Oh, I'm Tiberia by the way. This is my twin Decimus."

"Oh, that's cool. I'm from Grand Rapids. In Michigan!" Side note: I just love how back then, I was in love with that damn place. Sure, it beat sitting around a fire surrounded by wolves, but in five months I'd be wishing to never go back to that stupid mitten. I got out before most people dreamed of getting out. To California no less!

"What's it like in New Rome?"

The twins exchanged a glance. "It's prettier than San Francisco," was all Tiberia said.

_________

The next day, Lupa decided to train them in wrestling. Tiberia was disappointed to see she had been paired with Dean, not Romulus. But anyway, she was ready to fight and wanted to show Lupa exactly how much of a good Roman soldier she could be.
Readying her little fists, she glared at Dean and crouched down into a fighting stance.

"Oh...that's cool..." F***ing New Romans and their non-answers.

I'm pretty sure those wolves were watching us that night, because the next day Lupa decided to throw me in the ring with Tiberia. These days, I realize that I probably had little to fear back then; as long as the Securitas kid preformed, he'd be fit for service. It was the kids like Tiberia- legacy of freaking Neptune- who had to worry about heading back home.

Still, crouching down on one end of the dirt, stick, and rock ring, I didn't know this. And I certainly wasn't about to let some girl beat me. Besides, Lupa was watching, and she terrified me a bit.

Tiberia growled and ran at him, grabbing him by his trunk to throw him on the ground with the momentum. She may be a child but she was quite strong already for her age, and she had been at the Wolf House for two months.

Before I could even react to the fight being started, Tiberia had me by my legs, bringing me down like a linebacker or something. Of course, I'd never call her that to her face. Optio would have my a** on a plater for that, regardless of how cool she was off duty.

But I digress; Tiberia let me get up, we crouched, and I just pounced at her once I realized the second round was on. Something told me I probably wasn't going to win this fight either, but I still got in there like some wild freaking animal. Like a spider monkey or something.

Tiberia punched and kicked like her life depended on it -- well, it kind of did. She didn't want to become Lupa's next meal. Smashing her fists and knees everywhere she could, she growled and punched Dean over and over despite him being taller and older than her.

Was I strong back then? No. Was I a skilled fighter back then? No. Was I sane enough to not want to become a treat to the talking wolves? Yes.

The first round was over quick, but the second...that one probably caught Tiberia off guard a bit, as I too was delivering kicks and punches and all that combative jazz. See, kid, we don't need to live in antiquity to know how to fight; just how to fight well. You know, with grace and flow and all that Bruce Lee s***. My response wasn't pretty, but for the time, I thought it was working.

Tiberia got her fair share of knuckles and elbows in the face. That kick he landed in her stomach almost made her throw up her breakfast. Driving her nails across his face, she aimed for the eyes. She was thinking only one thing: impress Lupa.

(Side note: Only fight Tiberia with weapons, never hand-to-hand.)

I think that was the moment, the one where she driver her nail across my cheeks, that I realized she probably had a lot more to loose here than I did. Which meant I had a lot more to gain from beating her. (OOC: that's a no to her getting his eyes, but a consolation prize of drawing blood! Yay!)

I staggered back, touching and smothering the crimson lifeblood all over that cheek, combing back at her with a right hook soon after. After everything that had gone on this fight, I was pretty sure this was more MMA than wrestling.

OOC: I wasn't actually going to make her get the eyes.

BIC: Tiberia was ready to punch his teeth out. She was giving him her best wolven glare, which all soldiers of Rome learned sooner or later.

That's enough, Lupa said, and Tiberia dropped her hands. Immediately, one of the wolves threw itself at her and flattened her on the ground, fangs an inch from her throat.

I said it was enough, I never said you could let your guard down. She flicked her tail and the wolf hopped off her, growling. Tiberia rolled onto her stomach and stood back up, feeling humiliated and angry.

I can't really tell you what I thought when I saw the wolf pounce on Tiberia, but it was probably a mix of Oh, that sucks, Ok, don't let my guard down - ever, and OH CRAP SHE IS TOTALLY GOING TO DIE WHY AM I HERE WHY AM I HERE?!?!

On the outside, I just kinda watched what was happening, not breaking my position and glancing between Tiberia, Lupa, and the few of her wolves that were around us.

The wolves turned away, which made Tiberia feel even worse. Glaring at Dean as if he was the cause of all that, she tried to ignore the snickers of other Romans. Legacy of Neptune. Get out of here. How did you even survive this far. Just go back to the ocean.
Tiberia clenched her jaw. Serve Rome. That was her one goal, that had always been her goal. It was why she had trained so hard with her parents, who had insisted she and her brothers take sparring lessons from a very young age. But the problem was -- she wasn't the only one in that case. New Rome was full of other children who got the same training as her and knew how to fight her.

She glanced at Decimus, who had stood up and was looking at her. His eyes said, Do you want me to do something? Shaking her head, she pushed past him and went to one of the dummies, and started hitting and hitting and hitting as hard as she could. The bruises on her knuckles split back open. Splatters of blood started staining the straw. She kicked and punched and elbowed and ripped at everything she could, trying to let out her anger whilst swallowing her shame.

OOC: I'm just gonna timeskip here; he wouldn't be confrontational or anything, just kinda slip away and everything.

BIC: That night, all of us were back around the fire. I'd noticed some new kids came - one of them looked like they were 14, a change from the nine, ten, and eleven year olds who usually populated the Wolf House. Or at least populated the grounds around the burnt mansion.

I looked around, noticing Tiberia and that brother of hers. She still looked pretty beat up over that whole confrontation with the minion-wolf. At the time, I didn't get the whole "Legacy of Neptune" thing she had going for her. To me, Neptune, Jupiter, and Pluto had all been the names of planets. Legacy of Neptune? Pretty cool being the legacy of a gas giant, I guess.

I wasn't the wisest in those days either, and I was really feeling the blizzard of her cold shoulder. Because of that, I made the foolish move and decided to - innocently, mind you - strike up a conversation with her. "Hey, Tiberia." I asked. There wasn't a hint of mockery or anything in my voice. Not even a single percent.

She turned her blue eyes towards the voice, realized who it was, then stared back at the wall. She really didn't feel like talking to Dean after what happened the previous day.

She didn't respond. Well, if she didn't want to talk, I wasn't going to force her to. I decided to sit by the fire in silence, listening only to the cracking of wood and the contents of my thoughts.

Until the ADHD kicked in. "How is it possible to be a "legacy" of Neptune? It thought Neptune was a planet, and planets can't have kids, right?"

Tiberia glared at him but decided not to let her anger get the best of her. "No, planets can't have kids. Neptune is the god of the sea, you Samnite." (Well, she tried.)

I just looked back, still confused. I mean, the "god of the sea" part was kinda making sense, though my younger mind was still mulling over the fact that there were talking wolves.

I didn't get this Roman thing at the moment.

"What's a Samnite?"

She looked at him as if he had just grown a second nose on his chin. "Do you know anything about Roman history?" she asked, then sighed. "The Samnites had like three wars with the Romans. They got absolutely destroyed at Sentinum, along with other tribes -- Gauls, Etruscans, Umbrians. Trust me, you don't wanna be a Samnite."