Haunted Wood to fear death is a choice

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The gladiator moves through the darkest parts of the forest, blending easily with the shadows that the twisted, gnarled oak trees provide, using the thick, dense fog as camouflage. He knows the morning sun should be up by now but the thick canopy blocks out it’s light, giving the impress of permanent night. This does not bother him. He was kept in dark, dank caverns with the other Gladiators, taking to the grotto of the Edge to spar, to prepare. When they were brought into the light of day to fight the light was blinding. The tough, the warmth of the sun was a treat …and one that he had become more familiar with the more fights he won. The higher up the hierarchy he climbed, the more he was given. Breeding rights that he had turned down. Not because he did not want them but because Saturnina was off limits — even to the Edge’s reigning Champion. Daughter of the Dominuss, a Domina in training was not supposed to procreate with her Gladiators. As the Dominus had told him when he had inquired: her womb is for a King’s seed, not a Slave’s. Thrax was meant to breed with the female gladiators who had won the right, to create more fodder for their entertainment but of course, like any masochist, he wants what is not meant for him.

Thrax does not expect Saturnina to follow him. Though his love for her has gone no where, if only increased in his absence of her, his forbidden lover was duty bound and the gladiator does not blame her. He did not ask her to give up her entitlement. She is a queen in the making and his princess does not need to choose her pauper… her champion over what she has been raised for. Thrax seeks to put her out of his mind, to detach himself from the memory of her. He has too much time to think, wandering lone like this. He has no purpose. A gladiator’s purpose is the fight, the victory. Thrax is not lost, his direction is …tentative at best. He has known no other life but he thinks that his skills might be beneficial to someone. He keeps going, focusing on making his way through the fog, ears alert atop his skull, his shoulders steeled and his eyes scanning what little he could see as if he expects danger.

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edit. @Saturnina , maybe? we can play with the timelines a bit to make this after his thread with aria. :p