Salve, Sempronii of all origins and stripes!
My host is too kind, always referring to me as 'that nice young drill sergeant'. Mehercule, I've done my twenty--reupped for ten more--and they finally got me to retire some other way besides in a casket! And 'nice'?? --Not unless you're in the habit of befriending thunderstorms. I'm like that; I go where I will, unimpeded by borders, mostly minding my own business...but when it's your turn to be rained on, I'll make sure you won't forget it! A delirious man, reeling from only a mild Marian reproof, once compared the experience to being hit by...by a...I give up; quod significat "pregnant bomber-jet"? Anyhoo, the rains benefit the real things while washing pretensions away. That's Marius. Surviving a long acquaintance with a force of nature like him is one of the better ways of demonstrating one's fitness to breed.
But it's been too long; you're a little hazy on the details of my career. For one, I never served in the Ninth; never even knew anyone from the Ninth; my turn on the Wall came when my Legion, the VI Victrix Pia Fidelis, was shipped over to Britannia to take their place. And a 'turn on the Wall' it was; the first ever--or did you know that the Victrix helped build the damn thing? --Ita; re vera, or I've not got callouses on my feet: We built the whole eastern third of it. Best, worst job I ever had.
The Victrix had all my love and all my efforts for as long as I had any to give. After my bones began to creak a little, they put me in the Cavalry, and issued me the finest mount there ever was to carry my gear: my buckskinned Peregrinus. Aye, smartest and sturdiest horse in the Western Empire, and I'm counting that little bit in Africa with its much-vaunted Moorish ponies. And the best thing was--he refused to stay stolen! The Picts, you know, are outrageous horse-thieves; but as many times as they thought they had Pere', he'd let them get good and comfortable with the idea...and then come walking back home on his own, with tales to tell. Vae, I miss him--!
Ita, that's a tear. There'll be more of them. I am passionate equally in my joys, my angers, and my griefs. That's my Celtiberian side showing through, and I am not ashamed of it. Roma taught me discipline; Hispania Baetica taught me love of life and how to tell a story. Both peoples pursue life with vigor and intensity, and I have found that, in most things, the distance between a Roman and a Celt is not too far to walk.
Heh...I sound so certain of things. Things were anything but certain after I left the Legions. I'd been a signifer for a time; there were men who thought I might actually be the numen of the Victrix; but, in piety, I didn't let them believe it for long. After the Legions, though...well, think about it: from the time I reported to the recruiting-station until only several years ago I'd never known any other life. I believe the sudden idleness, the lack of purpose, the not having anything to devote myself to utterly...I do believe I lost myself for a time. Anyone who spoke to me, the few times I ventured into town, would have taken me for one of the quieter sort of madman... For three years, give or take, I mostly wandered about in the woods searching for the shards of my being. I think I've gathered up all that might have survived the period; but I'm not what I was. And in that time I was convinced that, should I ever go to Rome, She would reject me utterly.
So I dwelt among the Belgae. I fell in with a small circle of Roman Gauls who liked the same sorts of things I did; in particular, we discussed, long into the night, why Rome called to us, and what it meant to be a Roman. These talks, whether our little Society knew it or not, did more than anything to bring me back to some semblance of myself. I searched like everybody else there; and found that, while I was no longer of the Legions, I was still a Roman and rather happy with that.
I'm still allergic to the big-wigs of the City. Don't let the tunic-stripe fool you; I earned that in the Cavalry--no nobleman at all, just a jumped-up Spaniard who became an eques in the original sense, and who still doesn't know how to behave in company!
Now: if those birds don't taste as good as they smell from here, I'm an armadillo, and you'll just have to roast me in my shell! (Yes, I'll tell you what an armadillo is later; it's quite a tale.)