Leata and Artemisia

II. The Weight of Rebirth

It had been many seasons since the gods had tugged her back from death’s edge—long before the age of discord known as the Spite of Ages. Leata had learned to inhabit this restored youth, a body of renewed flesh and fortified bones. On Earth, sixty summers would have bent her spine and silvered her hair; most women of her era succumbed to the perils of childbirth or disease before their thirtieth year.

But here, her silver-streaked hair was a crown of honor. She felt the years stretching ahead; in another decade, she would stand proud at eighty once more. Her reconstructed form, with sinew coiling beneath skin like tempered steel, bore the promise of decades of hard-earned wisdom.

III. The Scars of the Past

Her eyes drifted to a jagged gouge in the pale stone floor, crudely patched with rough, gray cement that never quite matched the surrounding rock. That monstrous notch had been carved by Artemisia’s blade in one of their earliest, most turbulent matches. Leata remembered the sparks dancing off steel as the girl’s sorrow finally spilled over into trembling sobs.

Leata herself had pressed the cement into the wound, binding the broken stone just as she vowed to bind the shards of the girl’s shattered soul. Artemisia had been a teenager hardened by horrors no human should know—monstrous beings wearing human skins, whose cruelty was so vile the girl prayed each dawn for divine vengeance to wipe them from existence.

IV. The War of the Plains

Everyone carried wounds, Leata knew, but some ran so deep they bled forever. During the desperate years of strife that erupted two decades past, Leata had been a shield. When war swept the plains like a ravenous beast, she escorted farmers from burning fields and shielded orphaned children from both human marauders and grotesque, Squall-like beasts.

The conflict had ignited when a Roman bureaucrat-turned-general, now the brutal governor of Internium, set his ravenous gaze on these fertile lands. Corrupt voices within the Squall leadership had embraced his vision of conquest, an alliance of greed and steel that made Leata’s blood run cold. Her sanctuary’s gates had swung open for any who sought refuge, its walls thick with the scent of fresh bread and hope.

V. Recognition and the Brand

When the fires of that war finally died, Artemisia had staggered into Leata’s life—anger and grief tangled like thorns around her heart. Slavery’s lash had not softened in centuries. Leata, who had fought in the Third Servile Rebellion on Earth, recognized the girl's despair instantly. Rome’s cruelty remained an indelible brand on the soul, whether stamped in white-hot iron or forced onto a placard of shame.

One evening, under a sky bruised with twilight, Leata rolled back her sleeve to bare her own left shoulder. There lay a pale, puckered scar—a faded brand from her own time in chains. At that silent confession, Artemisia’s savage fury stilled, replaced by a haunting recognition. It was a moment without words—a bond forged in shared suffering.

VI. The Craft of Healing

The Squall healers were masters of the physical; they could reconstruct bone and sinew to divine perfection. But they had no craft for healing minds, leaving fractured spirits to wander in pristine bodies. Leata took up the task they could not finish.

Seasons passed as she guided Artemisia’s wrath into discipline. Each sparring bout beneath a rose-tinted dawn drew pain into purpose. Gradually, the clamor of arms gave way to the quiet scratch of a stylus on parchment. Tablets and quills replaced shields and blades. Under Leata’s patient care—equal parts stern drill sergeant and gentle mother—Artemisia learned to read, to write, and to dream.

VII. Strength and Civility

In that crucible of care, both teacher and pupil forged themselves anew. They honed their forms into Amazonian strength, their limbs lithe and powerful. Artemisia’s dark, curly hair swirled around her sun-bronzed shoulders as she grew. She favored rough-spun barbarian garments that allowed for freedom of movement, yet her gaze still hardened at any mention of Rome.

The girl’s composure was tested during a council meeting when a visiting Squall dignitary called the slave-seals "mere record-keeping." Artemisia’s hand had tightened on her spear, nearly loosing it across the hall. Only the iron weight of the weapon—and the depth of Leata’s steady, unyielding stare—held her back.

Afterward, the girl had stormed into the avenue of laurel trees, tearing branch after branch in a silent ballet of rage. Every spring since, Leata caught the bruised, bitter scent of crushed leaves on the breeze and remembered that afternoon with a shiver.

VIII. A Daughter of Choice

Leata often wondered if, in a world built for someone else’s ambition, any of them could ever truly forget their origins. Yet, in Artemisia’s quiet moments—punching the silver curl of wavelets on the shore to channel the last of her anguish—Leata saw a transformation. The ocean’s rhythm tugged the lingering anger from the girl's bones, leaving space for peace to grow.

It had taken years, but the broken girl was piecing herself together. Civility bloomed within her like a stubborn spring flower. Though Leata had not borne her in flesh, Artemisia was her daughter of choice—one of many lost souls she had gathered into her hearth. In their laughter and steady hearts lay the proof that even the most grievous wounds could, in time, learn to glow with a different kind of light.