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It was, and I was. You made some interesting points, I liked your style. [ And he'd had a bit more firsthand knowledge of the subject--early antiquity, what else?--than anyone had guessed. He could play the curious but off-base college student as well as anyone, and the ruse had come in handy often for a long while. He's not sure how much of his condition Marius has guessed given Ganymede is still standing, looking the same as he ever did, and isn't old and decrepit or dead by now.

Then again, neither is Marius. They likely both have explanations to give. ]

No, no--or I doubt it, anyway. But he's...he's everything I could want.

Savonarola's bonfire of the vanities was a sad time. I loved Botticelli's mythological works. Though he did paint afterward, there was a darkness to his Christian work after that. And I never could copy the man's genius to my own satisfaction.

[He's well aware that neither of them has changed at all since that long ago time. And yet, all of Marius's senses insist that the other man is simply human. Obviously not. It's an enigma that the mind gift for now can't help him solve. And asking about it gives way to the obvious question: how is Marius still alive?]

I'm glad you're happy, though now you're only making me curious who he is. It's an interesting man who can hold the attention of someone as old as either of us.

Oh, it was more than Girolamo's doing. He was just the loudest about it--ironic for a man that enjoyed getting head as much as he did. [ Does Ganymede particularly care that he's telling on the man about breaking his vows as a friar? No, not at all. And anyone who knew the man in more than passing had been aware of his....shall we say unique dualities. But he chuckles as Marius asks more about his husband. ]

His name is Ash. He understands a great deal about me that not many do.

Now, how old do you think I am?

[Marius laughs softly at G's description of the Dominican friar.] I wouldn't know about Savonarola's private life, I've always found the religious yearning for suffering intolerable, but I do know there was more to Botticelli's change in tone than just one loud priest. The moralistic crusade in Florence took its toll on Sandro. He was feeling it even when I visited him, when he was still working on his piece about the birth of Venus.

[A nod and an appraising look at G.] I wouldn't begin to guess. I could probably read your mind and find out. I know I had that reputation even back in Venice. But...that would be rude. I thought you were mortal, but you obviously aren't. [And neither is Marius.]

It wasn't all that private. And you're not wrong--as much as people pushed back the church those years, it came late and weak to Florence. Monotheism and its chokehold on life were hard to ignore for an awful lot of them.

[ He snorts out a soft gush of air at the demurral of his question, and Ganymede shakes his head. His next words might well give Marius a clue, though. ] Aphrodite hates that painting. She finds the pose listless and thought Botticelli chickened out of doing her justice with the nudity.

[A long stare at G, and then Marius laughs. So. He's much older than Marius suspected. And yet, he still looked and felt mortal. Marius could still smell his blood, and it smelled good.] It was the style of the painting. Botticelli's style still held quite a bit of the older Medieval style of painting. I found it intriguing but it did also distort the image somewhat. I imagine she might have appreciated a few of my paintings of her from that time, they were somewhat more lifelike. You may have seen them from time to time if you ever visited my house when I hosted parties. It's too bad I don't have them, still.

I can't claim to know any gods or goddesses personally. [Not anymore, he adds silently.] But I do remember the reign of Augustus Caesar.

Oh, that I know--he was a man of his time, no fault to him for the style he liked. But she's the picky sort when it comes to personal portraits. No one's gotten it quite right yet for most of us.

[ As are most of them, save Hades and Persephone. They're so rarely painted that they appreciate any art of them; Ganymede wishes he could feel that same appreciation, but he hates every single one of the paintings and drawings and sculptures that tells his story. None of them have ever come close to grasping what it was really like. ] To be honest, I might have, but some things are difficult to recall after long enough.

I remember...many things. Before and after Rome and its empire.

There are times I wish I couldn't remember the specifics of what has happened over the last two thousand years. What happened to my home and my apprentices at the end of my stay in Venice, for instance. You probably heard about the fire? [Marius looks pained. He can still remember how Amadeo and his apprentices screamed for his help. Help he couldn't give.] If I recall, the rumor later was that my home caught fire. My apprentices, Amadeo, my servants, and I all died in the fire.

I do still go by Marius, by the way.

I did hear about the fire, yes. And...I confess I thought you were dead as well. It seemed believable enough at the time for someone I thought was mortal.

[ Clearly he'd been mistaken in that thought, though Marius didn't seem to hold any grudges over it. Most likely, Ganymede assumed they'd been in much the same situation and hadn't wanted anyone to know their true nature. Being immortal caused far more problems than it solved for them both, it appeared. He does look sad about the man's house being destroyed, and shakes his head gently for all he can't feel terrible about it, given Marius is still standing in front of him. ]

I'm Benjamin now. Ben Cromwell--used to be Prince, but I took my husband's surname. [ He hadn't had one, not properly, when he'd been born, and the fake names he wasn't overly attached to. Not that he went much by his birth name outside of when he was with Ashley, anyway. ] I think I was...god, what was my name? Elio, maybe? I can't remember.

Edited 2024-04-18 16:47 (UTC)

Something like that, I think. My...protégé, Amadeo, survived the fire, as well. He goes by Armand now. The fire...well it took a long time for both of us to heal from that.

It is good to see you. So few people I've enjoyed talking with still live.

It's good to see you as well, Marius. It's been a long time since I met someone from any of my former lives that I actually want to talk to. Sometime you should come by the bar--I own a new one now, 4713 out in Chelsea.

I have to ask, though. I know why I have lived this long, but how have you? You're not like me, not that I know of.

[Marius thought about how to respond to that for a long moment before answering.] We're probably more alike than you realize. My own gods didn't take notice of me, but there was one up in the north, a god of a group of druids, who took a liking to me. He needed me to help solve a great mystery that he was not free to investigate himself. Ah, that was a long time ago.

Oh, one took a liking to me too. Unfortunately, they were my own.

[ Were is the operative word in that. Ganymede really doesn't believe in them a such anymore; he reveres very few things. Most of them are just...something like passing acquaintances now. If you'd lived with passing acquaintances for a millennium as a slave. ] I'm told the immortality was intended as a gift. It just wasn't a gift for me.

That is too often the way of it. It is often an immortal being so far removed from humanity they don't even know the anguish they cause when they rip you from your life. Or they don't care. And you were so young.

[ Ganymede cocks his head curiously at that. He hadn't yet mentioned his real name--much less his age. And while he will always look young, he doesn't often look like today's teenagers. He was a young man when he was nineteen, but a man nonetheless. The nebulous age between childhood and adulthood was much smaller when he was young, and for the children of royalty it tended to pass very quickly indeed. ]

And how old do you think I was? Or am now?

[Marius gives him an assessing look, sharp eyes noting his features.]

You were around Amadeo's age when you stopped aging. No more than twenty. You have a man's height, but had you been allowed to age further, you'd have put on more muscle to match.

Now? Who knows. Older. But I know how immortality so young affected Amadeo.

[ He makes a soft sound of consideration as he watches Marius, not yet feeling the urge to run, but definitely feeling more exposed than he's usually comfortable with. ]

...I was nineteen. but it's been quite a number of years since then. I'd like to think I can pass for an adult with what muscles I managed, anyway.

[Marius smiles reassuringly.] You can, but you still look young. I was a man of forty when I was brought to the druids' grove.

Perhaps I have an unfair advantage, though. I was very used to judging potential apprentices when I lived in Venice.

I think...well, no, I know I am too old to be anyone's apprentice at this point, Marius. Same certainty that tells me I likely wouldn't have lived to forty had events happened differently.

My brothers would never likely have had me killed. [ He shrugs. ] Such was the way of claims to the throne.

Perhaps you wouldn't have. Would you call it good fortune? You knew gods and goddesses personally. And you obviously never returned to fight for your throne. Was that because you didn't want to, or for some other reason?

No, I didn't. By the time I was returned to my home, my city was gone.

War had not been kind to my people. Ten years of seige will do that.

I apologize. I do know what that is like. When Rome fell, I think it took a piece of my heart with it.

Troy...had everyone I might ever have known in my entire life in it. Every face I'd ever seen. I watched it burn and could do nothing.

I was with the gods for almost a thousand years. There was no point in fighting for a crown to a place no one knew anymore.

If any of my family survived the fall of Rome, it would have been in Constantinople. I don't know their final fate, but so much of Rome burned. I curse myself sometimes because I destroyed my records of my descendents, so I don't actually know. But it seemed so logical at the time. How would I explain that, two hundred years after I went missing, I returned, looking much the same as when I left? No. I could only listen from the garden to make sure they were well. And then the barbarians came.

You'd had children before you became immortal, then? Or since?