Snow was falling quietly around him. He shrugged against the mild cold, but really cold, 
but not really comfortable. He looked down at the old lady selling her wares. The old 
lady looked back at him. The little bazaar where the old woman had her stand was 
situated on the northeastern side of the small town. Caeles felt sorry for the old woman, 
who sat in the cold air in front of him. She was guarded against the weather by several 
layers of material. The colors had once been bright and cheery, but like the old woman, 
faded well past their prime. She muttered something unintelligible and worked the items 
around her stand with her gnarled, bone-white hands. There was worry in her eyes that 
Caeles didn't understand. Was she afraid of him? He thought that he wasn't that 
intimidating. Perhaps she had caught wind from the locals about his father. His father, the 
calm serenity that makes others fear. The quiet in the night of Rome. The real power 
behind the Emperor. Maybe that was why he had been sent to Germania. To be quietly 
gotten rid of? But, how had he angered his father? What did he do-Caeles closed his 
brown eyes.

...I shall not fear him...

Opening his eyes, he saw that the old lady had turned from him and looked out across the 
town to the hills nearby. Caeles followed her line of sight. A slight chill ran up his spine 
as he thought he heard drumbeats. Caeles adjusted the furs that he wore against the chill 
in the air of the new year. His tutor had told him that Germania grew cold quite early and 
stayed cold late. The old lady turned back to Caeles quickly and gestured to the display in 
front of him. Caeles simply shook his head. The woman probably wouldn't understand 
him anyway. Caeles shivered as a slight breeze picked up. He longed quietly for the 
warm, wet winters of his foster home in Campania.

There. In the distance. It was a drumbeat. And another. And another. A thin column of 
smoke rose across that same hill. The old woman let out a small squeak and hurriedly 
closed down her little stand. Caeles was startled as hoof beats pounded down around him 
with seemingly no warning. He turned and watched as a Centurion galloped past. The red 
and bronze of his armor shined dully in the overcast day, the plume on his helmet 
bouncing gaily as he rode along. The horse was similarly arraigned in the red of the 
Germanic legions.

"All take cover-All take cover! Barbarians at the pass-Barbarians at the pass!" he shouted 
from horseback.

Caeles watched him ride past. He went off towards the column of smoke and drove his 
horse faster as he dug his heels in.

"Barbarians?" Caeles asked to himself.

He turned to ask the old woman about it, but she was gone. Her stand little more than a 
wooden table, she had taken everything with her. All around him, the people of the small 
town in which his carriage had left him had all taken their leave of him. He wondered 
why...Caeles reached into the little leather pouch at his waist. He withdrew a scrap of 
parchment that his driver had given him before leaving. It read -Hope to see you soon, 
Mistura-. What kind of a name was that? Mistura? As he had been told, Mistura Kalendis 
was a great general in the Northern Legions, almost as great as Caesar himself. It 
sounded like a woman's name to Caeles.

Faint sounds began to drift to his ears. Sounds he'd never heard before. Caeles watched 
the far hill as several units of the Legion appeared on the crest. They were the sounds of 
blood and fire and hate. They fell before the onslaught of a mass of earthen colored men, 
all attired in browns and greens and the black mud of Germania. Caeles watched as they 
swarmed over the hill, ever faster toward the small town. They were the sounds of war.

***

The Fate of Hearts:
An Elsetimes Fanfic of Neon Genesis Evangelion

By

Joshua Trujillo

***


I - Another World / The Test


***

Caeles watched the hill as the mass of humanity, if you could call them that, spilled into 
the narrow valley. They moved so quickly; it amazed him to think that they weren't 
something more like water. The way they flowed down the hillside and around the trees, 
it was quite hypnotic. Caeles began to back away as he realized that the living mass of 
barbarians would most likely not hesitate to kill any Roman son, much less the son of the 
Imperial Proconsul. But, it would be so easy to just watch them as they rolled on. It 
would be easy to just give up.

He watched as the horde grew closer. Something in him screamed at him to run. As the 
fear began to grow in him, Caeles half turned and fell, his foot twisted in a root from a 
nearby tree. The pain that shot up through his leg was immediately worse than the 
thought of barbarians taking his life. Caeles whimpered impotently. He pulled himself to 
his feet and backed away as best he could. The barbarians were at the end of the village, 
killing those that they flushed out of their houses, lighting the rest to the torch. One 
crazed creature, hair matted yellow and brown, spotted Caeles and screamed something 
in his disgusting native tongue. When he saw that Caeles was dressed as a Roman, he ran 
towards the boy. The brute raised his crude sword high and Caeles closed his own eyes 
against the killing blow.

Which never came. There was only a strange gurgling sound. Caeles cautiously opened 
his eyes and stared in fascination at the arrow that was stuck through the massive 
barbarian. The blood that trickled slightly out of his mouth was the same color as the 
plume on the shaft of the arrow. Red. Roman Red.

The huge man fell dead at Caeles' feet. His own blood was pounding in his ears and 
Caeles didn't even hear the hoof-beats as he was picked deftly up onto a horse, and 
placed behind the rider. The riding lessons that his tutor gave him paid off as Caeles 
instinctively grabbed hold of the person commanding the horse. The horse galloped hard 
for a few minutes and Caeles held on, not knowing who his savior had been, nor where 
exactly they were going, but when he did open his eyes again, he saw the forest around 
him ablaze. Arrows of fire rained down around the galloping steed as they raced to 
wherever they were racing.

Barbarians fell to the wayside, sometimes crunching under the hooves; sometimes the 
person controlling the horse would swing a sword through his line of sight, which would 
cleave easily the head of the barbarian they were passing. Caeles wondered at that. He 
thought that he should feel nauseous or at least disgusted by the horrific sights around 
him, but he couldn't bring himself to worry about these creatures. They attacked first, did 
they not? They refused to be led under the glorious banner of Rome, so they must be the 
traitorous savages that he'd always been taught about. And, as if to satisfy his own mind, 
one of them would most definitely have killed him, had it not been for this brave fellow 
on horseback. Caeles held on tight, closed his eyes and tried not to imagine the horrors on 
the other side of his eyelids.

The bounce of the horse was enough to keep Caeles' attention, as the land seemed to 
sometimes drop out from underneath them. He tried to hang on, but the horse was wet 
with blood, or sweat or something else and while Caeles tried not to think about it, his 
grip around the waist of the warrior in the saddle remained firm. The sounds of the battle 
around him grew more and more quiet, fast fading into the background. The speed of the 
animal didn't seem to slow, but around them the quiet of the forest came back. The 
sounds of the trees whipping past them, along with the undulating horse under him 
combined to lull Caeles into a state of semi-consciousness.

Images. They were images that he knew. His foster parents, provincial governors in 
Campania, always too busy to be bothered with someone else's child. But, he reminded 
himself, they were kind in their own ways. They provided him with everything he wanted 
and he had a great time learning all about the glory of Rome and her people and her past 
and...Other things. The other children didn't understand, they were too busy pretending 
that they were Julius Caesar, while Caeles was learning about what made Caesar the man 
he was. He did have a friend though, who enjoyed learning about all the old military 
campaigns as much as Caeles. He missed him.

Caeles was jolted back to the present as the horse slowed. A female voice brought the 
horse up and he fully stopped. Caeles opened his eyes and looked around the warrior. A 
woman with kind eyes took the reigns from the warrior and smiled as she saw Caeles. 
She was quite pretty, actually. He blushed and returned a shy smile. He looked around the 
compound. Many tents of different colors held a general row of about thirty-five or so. 
Legionnaires and Centurions walked to and fro, some led horses, and some led dogs. He 
could hear the sounds of iron on an anvil in the distance somewhere. Caeles was 
impressed for the size of the camp. A tap on his wrist brought his attention back and he 
let the soldier his hands were around help him from the horse.

The soldier dismounted after and walked into a large tent before Caeles could thank him. 
He quietly supposed that the man had things he needed to report and Caeles supposed 
that his thanks to the man could wait. Caeles turned back to the woman. About the same 
height as the soldier, but with short brown hair that fell about her face, making her blue 
eyes quite round.

"If you would, please?" she said, gesturing to a nearby tent, "My name is Certus Penator. 
I am the personal adjutant to the general."

"Caeles Soter," he replied.

The pain in his foot began to grow, but Caeles tried to ignore it as he stepped through the 
folds of the brownish tent to the darkness on the other side. The center was cleared away 
and at the far end of the tent was a large table. On the table rested perhaps hundreds of 
parchments of all types and sizes. Caeles was quiet as the man standing over them 
stopped writing and looked up. He wore his gray hair flat and close to his scalp, like an 
old soldier and he had the look about him that he'd spent too many winters in Germania. 
He sighed out, his gaunt features looking older than when Caeles had entered the tent. He 
motioned Caeles to the table and pointed to the map nearest the middle of the table.

"Look at them."

Caeles started at the sudden intrusion to the quiet. The man's voice belied his apparent 
age, hiding a force that Caeles hadn't heard all that often. The only source of light was 
the flickering of an oil lamp nestled somewhere on the table. He pointed to the maps 
again and Caeles examined them. The map in the center of the table, nearest the lamp, 
showed a pair of hills situated in the midst of a small valley. Marks on the map along 
both hillsides were that of Roman legions holding earthworks. A large area of blue to the 
north of the hills seemed to mark the adversary. The lines of the valley swept up and 
while Caeles hadn't seen that very often, it normally meant that the walls of the valley 
were impassable.

"Well?" the man asked again, "What do you make of them?"

"Kopos neck."

"Hm?"

"Something I learned from the campaigns of Caesar in Gaul," Caeles replied as he 
continued to wonder about the placing of the soldiers along the hills.

"Very well," the man said, "What would you do then?"

Caeles looked up from the map. The man had folded his long arms across his chest and 
waited expectantly. Was he asking for advice? He looked like a general or some other 
higher up in the military, why would he need the advice of a schoolboy? Caeles thought 
for a minute. Something came to him...

"Assuming that the army here can keep the battlements on the hills," he began, 
unsteadily, "Take a cavalry charge down the other end of the valley and drive the enemy 
down between the hills and into the arms of the Legions below."

"The foxes to the hunters," a voice said from the darkness to Caeles' right.

The voice! It sent shivers up his spine. So smooth...Like thunder over the sea on a 
summer's night. Caeles strained in the darkness of the tent to see the owner of that voice, 
but whoever it was faded just as quickly back into the blackness. The old soldier cleared 
his throat, which brought Caeles's attention back around. Caeles gulped.

"And if we can't hold those hills?" he asked.

Caeles thought for a moment.

"Then set a line of catapults here, here," Caeles said, pointing to places on the map, "And 
here."

The old man looked at the places to which Caeles pointed and nodded slowly.

"Thank you, my young friend," he smiled, "Certus?"

She stepped out of the shadow near the entrance to the tent to stand beside Caeles. Certus 
nodded back to the entrance and ushered a confused Caeles out. The flap thudded dully as 
the tent was folded into the dark once more; only the flame from the lamp on the table 
provided any illumination. The old man stared at the entrance for another minute.

"He acts like his father," the female voice said again.

The old man turned to his right. Into the small lamplight stepped a woman. Skin smooth 
and light like milk, her arms bare and the collar of the cloak she wore flirting with the 
skin above her breasts. Her blue eyes shined brightly from under brown locks that 
seemed to be too plain for her, like she should have been born of another hair color. She 
folded one arm under the other and stared into the goblet he hadn't even noticed. More 
wine, probably. She was not one to be without it these days. The old man straightened 
and thought more on the child of Soter.

"His mind is sharp and uncluttered," he said flatly, "He'll work fine."

A bright sliver of laughter erupted from the woman.

"Will he now?" she chirped, "We'll see..."

She wandered back into the darkness of the tent and the old man snorted. He dipped a 
small, worn stylus into the ink and scribbled down a couple of his thoughts on a scrap of 
parchment. Looking around the table a moment, he picked up a small bell and gave it 
three sharp rings. Not half an instant later, the tent flap flipped up and a young man 
entered and bowed quickly.

"To General Kalendis," the old man said, handing the courier the scrap of parchment.

The man bowed again and took off running. The tent flap smacked shut again and the old 
man sat into his chair. He felt heavy, worn down. And the young man he saw today made 
him feel old. A tear fell for the boy, Caeles, for what he must endure. And the tear fell for 
his own role in it all.

"Why Effero?" he asked of the air, "Why does it have to be your own son?"

***


II - Fish


***

The air outside was crisp and clean. Caeles breathed in and looked around him. The 
sounds of battle had faded off in the distance, no longer audible from the camp. Caeles 
smiled, as he hadn't thought that it was something he should've ever heard. True, he'd 
been trained by the finest soldiers and warriors of Rome and Greece and Egypt and half a 
dozen other peoples, but that didn't mean that he liked battle.

These thoughts coursed through his head and fogged his mind. He stumbled as the injury 
to his ankle came back to him. He swore silently and stopped, holding his shin. The 
young woman named Certus looked back and came to his side.

"You're injured?" she asked.

Caeles nodded.

"I stumbled before the Centurion picked me up," he said, "I must have turned my ankle."

Certus smiled and got under his other arm. She helped him stumble his way to another 
tent, this one adorned in the same fashion as the last tent, a small table to one side and a 
bed opposite. Atop the table, maps and similar papers were spread out in no order that 
Caeles could see. Certus led him to a stool near the bed and he sat down on it. Certus 
knelt at his feet and began to undo the leather strappings on his boot.

"Your driver was supposed to bring you right into camp," she sighed as she got his boot 
off, "An escort was supposed to be in that little town, but he had to take off once the 
battle began."

"So the driver left me?"

Certus looked into his questioning eyes and smiled.

"I don't think it was intentional or anything," she went back to examining his ankle, "I 
just think that he got scared. Possibly got wind of the battle or something."

She turned his ankle slightly and he winced from the shoot of pain. Certus clucked softly 
and hummed a little tune.

"What is that song?" Caeles asked, trying to take his mind off the pain.

"Hmm?" she asked.

"That tune you were humming. What was it?"

She smiled and held up a finger. She got up and left the tent, but returned a minute later 
with a largish leather satchel. She placed the satchel on the floor near him and opened it.

"Before I tell you about the song, I'd like to ask a question of you. How much do you 
know of the people under the General's command?" she asked, rummaging around inside 
the satchel, "I've been told that you're a very good strategist, but what do you know of the 
people?"

"Just rumors, really," he said, "Like, you've got the slaves actually guarding the 
governor's estate?"

Certus pulled a small glass bottle from the satchel and nodded her head.

"It's odd to think that they are indeed slaves, but yes, you're right about that," she said, 
"We like to think in terms of the good of the city, which means that the lines delineating 
plebian and patrician is kind of blurred. By the way, the tune was one that my daughter 
always loved..."

The little cork on the top of the bottle came off with a pop and Caeles could instantly 
smell a pungent, sweet odor that came from within. Certus placed her left hand under his 
injured foot and poured a small stream from the bottle over his foot. She set the bottle 
down and began to rub what felt like oil into his injured foot. Caeles winced from the 
pain, but then began to feel a warm sensation spread from the oil into his foot. The more 
she rubbed, the more the heat from the oil spread, relaxing his foot and making the pain 
subside. She stopped rubbing and pulled a little cloth from the satchel. She wiped her 
hands and turned her head to one side, as if he could hear something he could not. She 
looked up at him.

"Now, hold still," she said.

He nodded and she lowered her head slightly to his foot. Caeles was about to say 
something when she blew on his foot. Even as slight as her breath was, the oil, which had 
almost been hot enough to make him break into a sweat, suddenly cooled. He took a 
breath against the weirdness of the feeling. Her breath on his foot made the oil grow 
colder and colder until the feeling in his foot was fairly gone. She looked up at him again.

"Can you still feel your foot?"

He shook his head.

"Good," she said.

She picked up the same cloth from her bag and began to wrap his foot in it.

"You said you had a daughter?" Caeles asked as he tried to be friendly.

He wasn't entirely sure it would work. She looked up from her work and smiled a sad 
smile.

"Do you know the area of Gallia Cisalpina?" she asked.

"I had to ride through it on my way here. South of the Alps, north of Latium and Rome," 
he said.

He shrugged, still wondering at the lack of feeling in his foot. It had to have been 
something in the oil, but what? He had never heard of this kind of healing before. She 
didn't look like a witch. Perhaps she was a priestess...

"It's the region that I and my family are from," she said as she continued to wrap his foot, 
"There's a small trading town there, near the Adriatic Sea. I fell in love with a spy who 
had been injured and was resting there. I bore him a daughter about a year later."

"You must have loved him," Caeles guessed, not wanting to give up the brief company.

She shrugged in response.

"He was secondary to my daughter, whom I love more than anything and I think I raised 
her well," she continued, "The spy left, but that was fine as I raised her in the ancient arts 
of my family. Healing. Something I learned from my mother, who learned it from her 
mother and so forth. What plants healed, what plants did what, which plants you could 
eat safely and which ones you couldn't. The preparation of potions is another family art, 
which made me quite valuable to the Legions of Rome."

"My daughter was very intelligent and she learned the craft as quickly as I could teach 
her. She soaked up the information just like a sponge! I was amazed and pleased that the 
family arts would continue in good hands. And then, one day after her tenth birthday, a 
Roman messenger came through town saying that two legions of barbarians were coming 
from Germania and that our town was next in the path."

"I was frightened beyond belief, but I got our little family together with as much as we 
could carry and we journeyed to the hills. Unfortunately, we weren't able to hide long 
enough and the makeshift camp we had was overrun. I was injured, but not enough that I 
didn't see one of the brutes take my daughter away, screaming."

"Stolen...My Gods..." Caeles breathed.

The enormity of the situation took his breath away. No wonder his father wanted him 
here! If these savages were taking children from Roman towns IN Roman provinces, then 
they HAD to be stopped, at all costs.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

Caeles shook his head to clear it and smiled at her.

"Well, that happened about five years ago," she said.

She picked up his boot and helped him scoot it back onto his injured foot, cloth covering 
and all. She began to fit the strappings back into place, securing the boot.

"I joined the Legions as an adjutant to one of the governors in Germania in hopes of one 
day finding my daughter, even if it's just to mark the place where she died," she sighed, 
"The governor died a few weeks later and I was brought under the command of the 
General as her personal adjutant. It also helps that I can use my family arts to help the 
General. It makes me feel a little better, at least."

"My ankle feels much better, thank you," he said.

"Well, it's pretty twisted," she said as she put the bottle back in the satchel, "You'll need 
to take it easy for the next week."

"Will he be able to ride?"

Both of them turned at the voice from the entrance of the tent. Caeles smiled. It was the 
Centurion that had saved him! Now, at least, he could thank the man. The man coughed 
and wiped a glob of mud from somewhere on his face. He untied the strap on his helmet 
and lifted it from his head. Long black hair flowed out as she wiped...

She?!

"I'll prepare your wash, ma'am," Certus said as she took her satchel and exited.

"Yes, that's fine," she hacked violently again, "Feels like I ate a sheep whole."

Caeles made an incoherent noise and pointed to the female soldier. She smiled an odd 
smile at him as she unbuckled the sword from her waist.

"Shocked? Most men are," she said, sounding more female, "It's natural. Caeles Soter, it's 
my pleasure to meet you. I am Mistura Kalendis."

She began to hack again as Certus returned with a large bucket of steaming water. It 
looked like she was having difficulty getting it in the tent, so Caeles hopped up from the 
stool and picked up one side of the bucket. Certus looked down at his foot and back up to 
him. He smiled in return and nodded to the table. The water sloshed happily in the large 
wooden tub as they set it on the table, covering several parchments with a layer of warm 
water. Certus disappeared out the tent again and returned quickly as Mistura finished 
hacking again.

"Ma'am, you haven't been taking the elixir, have you?" Certus asked as politely as she 
could.

"Can you make one that doesn't taste like the insides of a ten-day old goat?" Mistura said 
sourly.

Mistura splashed some water on her face and Certus handed her a washcloth.

"Now, Caeles, your father has sent word that I am to accommodate your needs as far as 
living is concerned," she said, washing the dirt and blood from her arms.

"He did?"

"Yes," she replied, "But it was that you're to have one of the spare buildings...Alone."

A short silence ensued.

"Alone," she tried again, "To live by yourself."

"If that's all right?" he asked.

He had hoped that his father wouldn't take away his solitude. It was so nice not having to 
bother anyone and he wanted to keep it that-

"No, it's not all right," she said, interrupting his thought, "There's enough room at the 
governor's estate to house an army, you'll stay there."

He was crestfallen.

"Yes, ma'am."

Mistura was satisfied with the answer, but not the tone. It was almost as if the boy wanted 
to be alone. Well, that would have to be something that she would have to work on in the 
future. No man was an island and no boy could grow up like that. But for now, she would 
leave it as it was. Mistura pulled at the buckles on the sides of her breastplate and sighed 
briefly as the tightness subsided on her chest. One of these days, she'd have to get one 
more suited to the female form.

She stopped short as she realized that the tunic she wore under her armor was, while 
comfortable, also rather see-through. She turned to Certus, who was standing with 
another cloth ready. Mistura nodded to the boy and Certus got the hint, blushing at the 
thought.

"Just go," she said as she finished with her buckles, "Go ahead and show him to his tent."

"Yes ma'am," Certus chuckled lightly.

***

Caeles looked around the tent to which Certus had lead him. It seemed to be a smaller 
version of the General's quarters. Bed, small table, oil lamp hanging from in the center of 
the room. It looked cozy.

"This will be your quarters until we return to Urba Tertius," Certus said, "Which should 
be in about two days time. If there's anything you need, I'll be the one you need to talk 
to, as the General will be indisposed."

"Two days..." Caeles wondered, "Will that be all that's necessary?"

"You're the military mind," she smirked, "You tell me. For now, get your rest."

Certus raised the flap on his tent and left. Caeles looked about him. He wondered if the 
city would have similar arrangements, or if it was a true Roman city? He didn't know. He 
hadn't ever heard of Urba Tertius before, but then, he supposed there were some border 
towns that had never heard of his hometown either.

His hometown was not far north of the marvelous, steaming peaks of Vesuvius. On 
clearer days, he could see down into the port city of Pompeii. Caeles sat down on the bed 
and stretched out, feeling the softness of the blankets beneath him. It felt so comforting 
after so many days of traveling. Ten days by horseback through Campania (Southern 
Italia) and Latium (Middle Italia), then transferred to a carriage for the rest of the journey 
through Gallia Cisalpina (Northern Italia) and to the other side of the Alps to Germania 
(Thank you geography tutor!). Caeles laughed slightly. Geography was one of his strong 
points. Geometry was not. Ah well, such was the way of things. He should have stopped 
in Rome while he was near there, but he never really liked the city and its stink of 
corruption. There was too much politics in the way of daily life there. Too much in the 
way of simply living. He felt good just lying there, for the first time in a while...And the 
pillow at his head was soft too.

Caeles closed his eyes, focusing on the noises outside the heavy fabric of the tent. It was 
an exercise in concentration in which one of his numerous tutors had educated him. The 
odd looking one from Egypt, most likely. The ability to discern your surroundings by the 
way they sounded. Very important in nighttime combat. The way the sound will bounce 
sideways in a forest, or the round sounds that come off a dry riverbed, or Roman roadway 
and when fighting in the mountains with the wind howling in your ears, it's important to 
be able to locate the edge of the cliff.

Not many noises came to his ears this time. The camp may have been in the middle of a 
huge forest, but the human noises drowned all the normal forest noises out. But, even for 
a military camp, it was still fairly quiet. A raucous burst of laughter came to him on the 
outside of his hearing. It was punctuated by a hacking cough. The General. She was nice 
enough, if a little pushy. But that seemed to be an overriding trait that many in the 
military possessed. It didn't grate on him, but it had reminded him of where he was and 
with whom he was talking.

But...There was another sound. Closer. Much closer than the General's tent. It was the 
sound of breathing. Quiet, warm breath. He could hear the person shuffle something and 
Caeles darted to a sitting position as he heard the tent flap open. He looked around, only 
to see the flap stirring. He got up from the bed and stuck his head outside. Several 
soldiers were talking nearby and there was another soldier a few tents down who was 
grooming his horse.

He ducked back inside the tent, before any of the soldiers noticed him and secured the 
little flap on the tent. Caeles turned and something caught his attention. A glint of silver 
in the lamplight. He looked to one side of the bed and saw a plate of food and a full 
goblet. He knelt and sniffed the food on the plate. Fish? Where do you get fish in the 
middle of a forest?

There were some vegetable-looking things on the plate as well, he picked one up and 
took a bite. It was kind of sweet, with that vegetable taste that he'd come to recognize. 
Fairly good. He picked up a piece of the fish and popped it in his mouth. It was good too, 
fried to perfection with some kind of seasoning. It wasn't anything he recognized though. 
Egyptian? Where do you get foreign spices in the middle of a forest?

He set the plate down and picked up the wine goblet. The wine tasted pretty strong as it 
splashed down his throat. Caeles wrinkled his nose as he wondered at what a wasteful 
person it was that had mixed the wine. It certainly was stronger than he normally drank it, 
but not bad. It tasted like a Sicilian wine. Where do you get a Sicilian wine in the middle 
of a forest in Germania?

This was getting ridiculous. Obviously, Certus brought them in for him and he had just 
fallen asleep on the bed and not really heard her come or go. Caeles finished the fish and 
vegetables, and found the fullness of the meal satisfying. He sat back on the stool against 
his bed, the wine warming him through.

Maybe...Just a little sleep...