Rosewater Oasis Ώρα μηδέν

She does not respond in words. Perhaps this would have angered him if he were a worse man — but, he supposed, when your world has just collapsed around you, small talk does not come so easily.
He keeps his place at her side. She seeks the two other Greeks; the boys. He thought it odd how they hadn't been at their side to begin with.
His jaw clenches as his gaze searches her figure. What is our plan in these lands, femina? his brow arches; searching. You're thinking of something, are you not? scanning, begging for the turn of an evergreen gaze toward him.
Round and round the thoughts flutter through his head like a swarm of vultures — Gaius. Crispinus. Florentia. He wanted to go home. He longed to escape from this sea of sand, to return to his mountains and bittersalt seaside; the Roman woman he had his eye on with the sun-dappled freckles and the dazzling brown eyes. His mead, his warm meat, his bed; his rightful place in the white marble kingdom his father had built.
But was home even still there? Had it fallen just as the Greek-place had?
His chest tight; his eyes blown wide. I am not my brother.