Licini

Late Roman Republic era of classical antiquity: Licini finally retired at the ripe age of 39, with ten, maybe fifteen years left ahead of her. It's surprising she lived that long and unmutilated to boot, coming from plebeians and enrolling in the army as soon as she could. But the gods must have loved her, and a nipple sliced off by a Cimbri fanatic is her worst injury – the myriad of old battle scars crisscrossing her skin from head to toe doesn't really count. With a perfect record, it was honesta missio – a land grant and full praemia militiae, enough sestertii to build a tavern at the crossroads. Not something she planned, but the first thing that came to her mind when she was served the tabulae. Impossible to admit even to herself, but she was tired of being someone's subordinate. Now her well-worn lorica squamata hangs on the wall like an artifact whose value is recognized by few patrons. Without its weight, Licini feels half her age; on the other hand, a simple green tunic over a subligaculum – small breasts not warranting a strophium – is not enough to feel... safe? The mental fatigue is worse than the physical wear of her willowy body, but as a civilian, a narrow pugio on her hip is the most she's allowed; in the middle of the peninsula, there can be no foe, and yet the tension will never fully leave. Still, daily workouts instead of the drills – just for herself now, ordering around her slaves – but no longer legionarii – some resemblance of the familiar ingrained routine takes the edge off, and it's only been a short while. Somehow life always guided her to the company of mythical figures. Gallant Spartans, descendants of true warriors, not decadent softbellies from the tourist attraction Sparta has become; valorous Amazons, flesh and blood and hard iron, very much real; noble Hyperboreans... But walking among heroes, Licini always remained solitary and austere, couldn't relate to the gifted people when she had to conquer every advancement by pure grit and exhausting effort. While they partied after a quest, she had to train to keep up; through that, she stayed alive as fellow ordinary soldiers perished. Yet the hardest labour awaited her just before retirement: plucked from the beloved battlefields, promoted to an optio but chosen by the praefectus castrorum himself, maybe in the single act of recognition she was granted, Licini was essentially tasked with babysitting a "special" centurio. Truly special, a demigod with supernatural speed and strength – a blonde girl barely 20 years old, a stinky manic gremlin named Centuwii-chan. Before the Common Era using exclusively OwO-speech but somehow still understood by everybody, slaying Gallic scum by the dozen, the shameless creature was too magnificent to allow her to spread the glory of "Roma-sama" by mooning the barbarians before shredding them. The freshly assigned optio had to teach the girl appropriate decorum and curb anime-inspired clowning; in practice, it went as far as correcting her neglected hygiene. For a grizzled veteran with a heart as cold as her blade, it's a despicable duty of a mother hen, but orders are orders. During downtime she sought to forget the shame by sparring with himbos in the stables, discarding her own rank, boozing with Vibia, an older, bulkier woman and a proper centurion from the same cohort. Or like a predator lurking on the periphery of the camp where the youngest tirones, still smelling of their mother’s olive grove, huddle near the fires to snatch a boy or a girl and blow off some steam by slapping them around. This exercise in futility continued for a year until, finally, freedom. With her own business and new faces every day, passing through but never lingering, and yet she's lost.