22nd July 722 BNM

Midday

Chamitaly, Romane Imperial Homeland

Romane metropolis

Colosseum, basement levels

Combatant quarters

Nearly 3 weeks since her first bout, and Mashri had quickly secured a reputation for herself as a force to be reckoned with. The crowds loved her, for she killed, spared, quickly or tauntingly slowly killed in ways that earned great praise. She knew how to play to the crowds, and she revelled in the glory.

And besides, there was nothing wrong with revelling in the same glory that was saving her life.

Despite fighting bitterly at the beginning of her turn as a Gladiator, the large Dog warrior she fought against and spared at the crowd's behest, a seasoned gladiator, took an interest in her.

The large brown dog, standing her head height when upright, had introduced himself as Caikus Arelius. They only fought in the ring once more since they first met, and again, to a draw. They put on a good enough show to please the crowds enough to have their lives spared for more entertainment down the line.

Gladiators fought bravely, even if outmatched, because such bravado in losing was worth seeing again by the crowds, and they let the referee and Emperor know that.

As some laughter rose in the Combatant mess hall, the one place where 'employed' fighters and 'enslaved' fighters could come together, Mashri took a patient sip of her cheap wine as Caikus regaled the story of the night before. He was a free gladiator, paid to fight, so he could venture outside in his off time into the city at will. This charming tale involved him and a few other gladiators enjoying one of Rome's brothels last evening.

"And there was Hamalus, up against the wall, wracking like a sail on a storm swamped ship as he was upon this small maiden, and yet beneath him she looked as if she were staring at the ceiling tiles for something more enjoyable! The shame Hamalus felt, oh how he drowned it with more goblets, it was a sight to behold!"

"I'm sure it was…" Mashri remarked, the story itself amusing, though she'd never go into a brothel herself, even if it was one of the rare double gender serving places. She had a greater degree of self-control than many others her age, gender be damned.

Looking around, Caikus stopped laughing as he saw 2 hooded figures speaking in a visitor's corridor nearby in a barred off place from the fighters. Gesturing with a nod, Caikus remarked:

"Your two Unicorn friends are back. What is your link to them anyway?"

"Just some old friends form my army days. They probably want to fill me in on what I missed."

Bidding Caikus a polite farewell, Mashri trotted from the table, shifting past a few other gladiators eating at other areas too. After a while, she reached a secluded corner close to the bars of the visitor corridor, and listened in as Starswirl and Siral lowered their hoods to speak to her.

"They've arrived in Romane, yesterday night. The family you said they'd imprisoned months ago and were bringing here as a captive."

"My brother." Mashri remarked, not emotive to this fact that Siral spoke. She'd suspected they'd be here by now, and he was. Starswirl paused for a moment, as he asked Mashri:

"They are likely to bring you to him, the Romanes. Whatever they're planning might not bode well."

"I know Romane tactics. They will test me, see where my loyalties truly lie." Mashri remarked. Starswirl arched an eyebrow at this, while Siral merely stood by intently listening as Starswirl probed her, a hoof resting on a bar near her turned back:

"And where do they lie?"

With a slight pause, Mashri remarked: "Nearly a month I've had to think that over since I was brought in. One choice I made changed everything. Looks like another might cause such change again."

"And what will you choose?" Starswirl asked, genuinely interested in her potential choice, beyond any normal interest. Keeping it to herself, being uncertain deep down anyway, Mashri retorted bluntly to the two Wizards, though Siral was sceptical:

"I'll choose what feels right to me, and no one else."

As Mashri wandered off, she failed to see Starswirl's face fall slightly, as he turned away from Siral to wander down the hallway, deep in thought.

Chamitaly, Romane Imperial Homeland

Romane metropolis

Colosseum, entrance steps

Siral found Starswirl sat by an entrance statue of the Colosseum, the unicorn too deep in thought to notice his close, also time travelling friend sit down beside him quietly.

"I know the Prophecy stated she would be a Treacherous one, but all she did was make one choice, to spare her brother."

"One choice that differs compared to a lifetime of other choices is enough to be labelled as treacherous, by definition." Siral pointed out, while Starswirl put his head in his forehooves as he lamented slightly:

"Uhh, and Mashri seems to be no closer to determing what she'd loyal to, or if she'd loyal to anypony."

"What feels right to her… That does ring as loyalty to me." Siral remarked.

"Yes, loyalty to one's own self interests. What they are can have good or bad effects on others though." Starswirl debated. Nearby, they saw the guards from the military guard marching to the combatants' quarters stairwell, clearly the guards sent to retrieve Mashri for meeting her brother and others.

Siral looked at Starswirl now, remarking in a rare bit of expressive smiling: "You must see that any and all loyalty starts with the self. If your loyal to a cause that you doubt, treachery is a given. All she needs do is rethink where any associations she had lie, which is best for her, and to settle for helping them. Helping what she feels would best benefit her is both selfless, and self-fulfilling. Loyalty is to something one truly believes in and can gain from, not only to something they can gain from at the cost of their own unhappiness."

Blinking, Starswirl gave Siral an odd expression, while Siral replied callously once more: "What of it? I may not have many friends, but I know what values are prized among them, and I understand them."

The elder wizard simply wistfully remarked, as he noticed the guards coming out, with a recognisable Mashri, bound and being escorted to where the meeting was, exit the Combatant's quarters, 4 guards around her as 2 more led her.

"We'll see what she chooses."

2 hours later

Early Afternoon

Romane Prison complex

Lower detention level, prison cell.

The basement of the city's outer garrison base housed war prisoners brought back for justice, so naturally her brother and his accomplices in the massacre and raid on the Iulian Garrison base had been brought here.

Now, with 2 guards stood nearby the doors, stoic and silent as always, she had been sat at a small wooden table opposite her brother, Kalmai.

While she was burly and brown maned and furred, Kalmai was taller, but lankier, and had a tar black mane on top of a sandy yellow fur coat.

And in contrast to her piercing red eyes, his own were a meeker green/yellow colour.

Quietly, Kalmai remarked as he'd heard what she'd been through in the Colusseum as part of her punishment for aiding his escape.

"You see now the barbaric nature of this Empire sister? Just like I told you."

With a slight snort, Mashri remarked: "Actually, the reason they're punishing me isn't because of me simply aiding your escape. It was because in allowing your escape and then you coming back and leading a sneak attack with your knowledge of the base that I gave you, I was responsible for dozens of garrison soldiers dead."

"And what of the dozens they kill of us every month?" Kalmai reasoned, as he began to stress to his recently found sister. They still seemed somewhat like strangers.

"They're simply trying to maintain order, if you all stopped attacking patrols and Romane empire assets, they wouldn't attack."

"They are on our land, they have no right to it!" Kalmai nearly shouted, thrashing a hoof on the table between them. As her brother stressed this, Mashri then asked the obvious:

"So you kept it up despite me asking you to leave the territory and find someplace further from Romane territory? You used what knowledge I gave YOU, to betray my trust."

"I was doing it for us, our people, my family, YOUR family and kin." Kalmai seemed to plead, though he was losing his cool. Nearby, the two Chamois guards shared a few unreadable looks as they heard the exchange between their guarded prisoners in the room.

"The family that abandoned me as a toddler?" Mashri asked.

Kalmai was dumbfounded, as he near exploded: "The ROMANES attacked our village, like so many others, and we lost you in the panic! We thought you dead, just as I told you in the Iulian base! They're savages that dominate as they please, for no reason other than their own glory and desire to rule!"

"I heard in my studies that the villages were attacked many times as a response to many raids on transport routes through the deserts by bandits coming from them." Mashri retorted. Kalmai snorted, as he pointed out to his sister yet again:

"You believe anything they say? We raided them because them coming to our land put trouble on us. They started this fight by expanding beyond their own lands! We just decide to not bend over and take it, like you seemed to have when I met you."

"I risked my life and standing to free you, the family I never knew, in hopes you'd live peacefully. You instead conducted the raid, and I had to take the fall for it!"

"And you see how the Romanes operate. They are using you as a scapegoat, because you are my sister, and not a 'borne citizen', but an adopted one."

"A fact they didn't find out until I pleaded to have you released, before I ever aided you with knowledge of how to break out. Before that, I was among them as any other citizen would be by their rules." Mashri replied coolly.

Staring at his sister, the golden and black maned stallion put a hoof to his head, remarking with a great strain of lament: "They've indoctrinated you, my sister. They turn kin against kin, serving the greater 'ideals' they tout. Family is the core of why I launched the attack, you were stationed there, and I waited until you were gone to ensure nothing could hold me and my men stallions back."

"So you attacking that base was supposed to be an act of brotherly compassion?" Doubtfully, Mashri pressed Kalmai for an answer.

With some sadness, Kalmai admitted to Mashri over the table: "I just want my sister back, I want you with our people, away from these, demons and their empire. You were born part of my family, part of my kin. Please, come home Mashri. You'll end up betrayed by them all in the end, once you're no longer useful."

"I grew up 28 years without you Kalmai, don't preach to know much about me." Mashri warned, though she thought on this matter herself.

Kalmai's last words rang in her head even after she left him, superimposed over anything else he said afterwards:

"That's what the Romanes robbed me and my kin of, along with our land. You."

Later that night.

Chamitaly, Romane Imperial Homeland

Romane metropolis

Colosseum, basement levels

Combatant quarters

The faint whispers and smell of smoke, but her first vivid memory was of somepony different from her. A few soldiers found her and brought her to their leader, where the Romane Chamois Centurion found her endearing enough to take her in. Children were considered innocent, and worth remoulding for the Empire's benefit, assimilating cultures from the youngest ages possible.

Her 'father', a single Chamois Centurion, later a Tribunes before his untimely death in the Germaneighic barbarian uprisings 7 years ago, had been patient, kind but stern, and taught her many skills and crafts, military and cultural.

As she grew, she saw how Romane held a wide variety of races, cultures and ideas, brought and pooled together for exposure of the best ones. Of course the Chamois were the 'elite', being the origins, but it worked.

-One day of sword practice as a teen, Mashri stumbled and nearly sprained her ankle, and her father took a few hours from his garrison station posting then to make sure she would be properly attended to. In the Romane hospital, she saw a wide variety of races being tended to medically.

-As a storm raged when she was a little filly, the servant woman her Centurion father employed hugged her tight, as Mashri braved her first storm.

-The polite salutes to her as she was accepted into the army ranks, being of that rare female soldier that also out-muscled many others in the army.

-She saw blood and death on the battlefields and skirmishes, as the ambush came out of nowhere. The Haygyptian bandits had traveled far, wishing to pillage the productive town she helped guard now.

-Wincing slightly, Mashri ignored the sounds of the whips against the backs of the prisoners and slaves taken with the capturing of another barbarian encampment.

-Screams of those the Empire needed to be rid of as it expanded, and yet the cheers of those successfully assimilated into the empire.

"That's what the Romanes robbed me and my kin of, along with our land. You."

Snapping awake in her small stony bed, Mashri rubbed her forehead, the Saddle Arabian horse shaken by the dream. Her loyalties to the Empire and her family, she was facing turmoil she'd never faces.

Letting some stress out, Mashri stifled her whimpers as she slightly wept to relieve some tension and stinging in her eyes, as any and every aspect of her life, her childhood and life cast into doubt.

Her choice she faced would determine her path in life from there on.

Author's Notes:

Shades of grey on both sides.