I was somebody before the move. A well-loved bartender at a well-loved bar in the most well-loved city in the world. Before, people used to pay exorbitant cover fees for a chance to wave hello to me from across a crowded dance floor. After, at the museum, they just interrupted me to ask where the bathroom was. Bartender, tour guide, one thing I will say is that both required smiling through the bullshit. Though at only one of those jobs could a college girl flashing you in an attempt to score a free Vodka Cran be considered “bullshit.” If someone did that at the Ancient History wing, I guess I’d have had to escort them out. Because of the children and all.

            Also, Tina and I met at the bar. She’d hang around when it was slow, nurse a Modelo Negro, and we’d chat about whatever. Usually that turned into her complaining about her master’s program, and this one professor who she swore was banging a dude in her class. Her impressions of them never failed to make me laugh, and when I met them in person at her graduation I almost doubled over at how accurate she was. I was always surprised that she never got hit on at the bar, frankly it made me think that there was something she wasn’t telling me. Like, there was this beautiful, insanely hot girl there by herself, so there must’ve been a reason she wasn’t surrounded by dicks on wheels. She told people that she liked me first, but that wasn’t true—I wrote my number on a napkin and everything.

            It was a perfect relationship until she got into her dream PhD program, less than a year after we got married, and suddenly we lived in the middle of nowhere. Don’t get me wrong, I was extremely happy for her. She was my world, and I was sure I could convince her to move back to the city once she finished her thesis, but I underestimated how much I’d hate suburbia. It was the monotony that killed me: driving everywhere, making small talk with the same five people at the grocery store, and especially not being able to go anywhere when we fought. Before, if I needed space I could pop into the bar for a drink, visit a friend, or just go for a walk without the risk of getting run over by a semi-truck. After, I had nothing, and I was just another thirty-something guy in the sticks making barely over minimum wage. I was no one.

— — —

            Triacles was unknown to history for so long because he wasn’t born to Marcus Aurelius’ wife, but to a prostitute with whom the emperor had an extended affair. His mother, unnamed in the epics of Gnaeus Naevius, was abandoned by her lover and left to die on the streets of Rome the moment her pregnancy was discovered. Nonetheless she persisted, and as a revenge of sorts she raised her son with the full knowledge of his heritage. “You are the son of a king,” she’d whisper, bouncing him on her lap, and when the emperor gave speeches or rode through town or presented himself at the games she’d urge Triacles to stare at him, to make him feel weight of the lives he'd thrown away. She raised him this way, and he was said to have a certain arrogance unheard of for a child of his circumstances.

— — —

            I got my space every other Saturday, when Tina packed a suitcase and spent the night with her ailing mother a town over. We went together the first few times, right after the seventy-year-old entrepreneur fell leaving a shareholder meeting and tore her ACL, but while hanging out in her giant house was demoralizing enough, I also couldn’t stand the woman. She never smiled, for one—I think I’m pretty funny, and even when I had Tina rolling in the aisles she just sat there unimpressed. She always called me out for dumb bullshit, like when I said “residual” instead of “residential,” she never let it go, she also never let anyone stay up past nine, and she always stood, even when eating, in spite of her injury. Probably why she never smiled. Tina and I went together the first few times, and I put up with her headassery like a good husband, but one week I had a fever and stayed home, and the peace and quiet was intoxicating. For a while I made up excuses, but eventually we reached a silent agreement: as long as I got some chores done, no one said anything about my absence from the biweekly ritual.

            One Saturday I had a grocery list waiting for me in my messages, alongside a few unread texts, but before I opened my phone I grabbed the last Miller High Life from the fridge and sat down on the couch. Before the move, my taste in liquor was more inventive—I mixed sake or mezcal or fernet with whatever else was in my apartment in an attempt to spice up the bar menu. After, fancier drinks just reminded me of the past, so Miller became my go-to. If I was trying to be cute I’d pick up some Modelo Negros and Tina and I would spend a night in rewatching Fight Club, but alone I preferred the champagne of beers. They went down smoother, and especially on the soft white leather couch cushions (the one thing I gave my mother-in-law was that her gifts were generous), it tasted like heaven.

            Letting my drink condensate onto my palm, I thought about the following morning, and what led up to it. When we first moved in, Tina introduced me to her friend’s soon to be ex-husband, an adjunct professor named Duncan. I was skeptical when she first brought it up:

            “A professor? You know I don’t mesh well with your high-society people. Remember Raymond?” I crossed my arms.

            “Draymond? Of course I do, we have every class together.” I rolled my eyes, she gave me a look. Draymond always stared at her like he was imagining them going apple picking on a cool autumn day, discussing Freudian philosophy or some bullshit. Tina and I were both silent for a moment, each waiting to see if the other would rehash the fight, and then she continued. “He is a bit pretentious, yes, but Duncan is different, very down to earth. Give him a chance.”

            She was right, of course. He came by the house the next day wearing a Grateful Dead hoodie and, when the conversation inevitably trended towards the move, to the city and to the bar, he knew a surprising amount about the business. I figured out pretty quickly that he was one of those double IPA snobs, but I smiled though it. He talked about his job, about how even though adjuncting paid the bills fine, he wanted something tenure-track. “Nothing’s permanent, man,” I responded, and he nodded a few times with his lips pursed, said it was “seer wisdom” which made me feel good. He continued, mentioned that he preferred working with freshmen because they don’t have it figured out yet, “even if they pretend they do,” and I realized that he was just a chill guy even if he was a bit preachy. The moment he left Tina started gloating, and I found myself laughing along with her.

            Duncan also ran a Dungeons and Dragons campaign with a few of his buddies, and the morning after that Saturday I was going to join them. He had told me about his club before, after I mentioned playing with work friends back at home, but he didn’t want to add another player until a current one had their second child. They called it his paternity leave, and I forced a chuckle. Tina and I agreed that we wouldn’t have kids, at least until she finished her degree, but I still cringed every time she rolled her eyes at a child in a stroller, or complained that baby cries were the worst sound on the planet. It was just another conversation we’d come back to.

— — —

            Triacles was arrogant indeed—he sucked up to anyone with a modicum of power, and had an incurable wild streak. An older neighbor, who hired him to tend the sheep on his land in exchange for teaching him to read and write, caught him trying to steal a shipment of wool. The farmer beat him severely, and when he returned home for the night he told his mother that he’d been punished for no reason. She yelled the gray-haired man until he revealed the truth, but after he got it out she immediately apologized and returned home to scold her son. Triacles said that they deserved the wool, that they nearly froze to death each night and that it had more of a place with the son of the emperor than it did rotting in some rich man’s cubiculum. She appealed to him that, yes, he had every right to resent his father and to demand the life he was worthy of, but that conniving and stealing was not the way to go about things. Triacles didn’t listen, he shouted unspeakable things and stormed out of the house.

            At the end of their neighborhood, an oracle lived in a lone shack halfway up a hill. Triacles had been there before, to pray for his mother’s good health during a bout of sickness, but now he flung open the door and shouted:

            “Seer! I require your guidance at once.”

            The oracle, a tiny woman wearing a cloak of deep purple, yelled back: “Close the door, boy! If you can show some respect, then I’ll listen to your tale. Here.” She handed him a cup of a warm, green liquid, and he drank with abandon. It tasted like dreams, and calmed him in seconds. He sat and told the oracle of his situation, sparing no details, and she listened silently. “So?” he asked at the end. “What can I do? How can I prove myself to my father?”

            “I see.” Her voice had a gravelly property that, to him, conveyed boundless authority. The oracle pointed out of a window, towards the greater city. “Your father, as you say he is, is a man of service and duty above all else. He will not recognize a son that does not devote himself to his family nor his country, nor one that takes from his people without giving anything in return. Enlist, boy, serve for ten years and pray to Mars and Minerva every night for guidance. At the end of your term, they will have your solution.”

            Triacles returned to his home and did not sleep for the entire night, only did as the oracle commanded and prayed implored repented. When his mother returned from work in the morning, he apologized for his actions, gave her his meager savings and left to find a recruiter. He returned only once.

— — —

            At the grocery store, I leaned over my cart and stared at two different brands of tofu, one with red packaging and one with plant designs. I was pretty sure I’d seen the red one in the house before, but was the one with the plants healthier? The nutritional labels were gibberish, I threw them both in and carted towards the back to grab some more High Lifes. There I ran into Duncan.

            My first thought was that he’d come right from teaching. He was dressed in a wrinkly white button down and khakis, with a bright-red tie hanging loosely around his neck, and was rubbing his chin with one hand while holding a shopping basket with the other. Inside was one instant mac and cheese and two frozen lasagnas—not that I was judging, considering I was clueless about half of what I was paying for. Between getting divorced, teaching classes and planning DND, cooking was probably the last thing he wanted to do.

            “Dunk, hey,” I called out, and he slowly looked up, processing for a moment before cracking a smile.

            “Markayyy. What’s up man?”

            “Just grabbing some groceries for the missus, then heading back to get some sleep before tomorrow!”

            “The old ball and chain, eh?” He playfully hit me on the shoulder. “Listen, about tomorrow, it’s cool if you want your character to be a surprise and all that, but do you think you could grab your own mini? Or if you could you want to tell me what class you’re playing I can see what I have and let you know.” Minis, or minifigures, were little action figures that represented your DND character in combat, like a fancier, more expensive chess piece. I’d ignored his text about it while combing through the bar’s social media.

            “Shit, sorry about that,” I said.

            “No worries, we all have stuff going on. How’s the museum?”

            “All right. You should come see the new collection, make it extra credit or something.” We both laughed.

            “Maybe I will.”

            A few seconds passed in silence.

            “I was actually going to grab a mini from the Guild right after this.” I was now, at least. Duncan yawned, covering his mouth with his hand. “Cool.” His raised hand became a wave as he turned around to leave, but I called him back. “By the way, Dunk, what type of campaign is it?”

            “What?”

            “Like what should I expect, is it intense?”

            His response was quick. “Not really. This is everyone’s first campaign, so don’t worry about having stuff memorized. I’ll cover your bases.” We said goodbyes, and he walked off towards the registers, stopped to grab a case of PBRs.

            That reassured me, not having to worry about forgetting some random bullshit and humiliating myself. I wanted something sophisticated for them, though, and my mind went to the new collection we had at Ancient History, Roman Folk Legends. I decided to base my character on the story of Triacles, this invincible warrior who thought he needed his father’s approval to be strong. Classic heavy-handed true-strength-comes-from-within stuff, the kind that parents of toddlers can’t get enough of.

            A few moments later my phone buzzed—Tina asked me to pick up a few more things, she must have checked my location and saw that I was at the store. The good husband I am, I replied with a thumbs-up emoji and immediately craned my head around in search of the produce aisle.

— — —

            The only moments that Triacles remembered from his first decade in the army, amidst the brutal training, the bloodshed, and the fervor with which he prayed each night, were the times he saw his father. Each morning there was to be a battle, the emperor emerged from his chariot and, standing on a dais, flanked by muscled guards, he would speak to the droves of soldiers. He spoke of comradery, loyalty, sacrifice, but Triacles never listened. Instead, he watched his body language, and tried to spot a semblance of a similarity that would prove the good faith of his quest. The way Marcus Aurelius took a step forward when his voice peaked, did he do that? Was his resting face set in an indifferent frown? Did his hands twitch when the crowd roared in approval? A decade passed with these questions unanswered, and over time the determination that had been driving him towards his goal became flecked with despair, and anger.

            On the night marking the end of Triacles’ tenth year of service, he dreamed that he was back at the oracle’s hut, standing before a wolf and an owl. In its mouth, the wolf carried a gladius, identical to the ones the army used except for a gold stripe running across the hilt. The owl cooed and the sword fell from the wolf’s mouth—the clang of it hitting the ground woke him with a start. It was before dawn, but he felt rested. He reached for his scabbard and found that his weapon had been replaced by the one with the gold stripe. When he held it in his hand, he felt braver, more assured, even physically stronger, but the absence of those feelings after he put it away caused a slight twinge in his neck. He shrugged it off, knowing that his destiny was upon him.

— — —

            Duncan’s friends were all very similar to him, smart but not obnoxious about it. They had equally fancy jobs—one was a lawyer, one built his own app, one was in finance—but they all were still interested in the museum. The techie had even been there a few times as a kid, and we talked about the wings that had come and gone, which ones were sitting in storage, and which ones had been permanently dismantled. I hadn’t thought about it before, but even in the short time I was there, everything had changed.

            They also loved my DND character. When I went to the local gaming store, the only melee character they had minifigures for were barbarians, so I flavored a Wolf Totem build as being guided by the spirit of a wolf and an owl. I kept the background simple, I’m looking for my dad, he’s out there somewhere, and remained purposefully vague when anyone asked me about him. They were equally corny: the lawyer played a sleazy bard trying to win back a lost love, the techie was an edgy rogue avenging the death of their five siblings (“Five is a lot” the bard said, and he shrugged, “It’s a lot of revenge”), and the finance guy was a righteous paladin spreading the word about a lesser deity. As expected, Duncan was a great DM. He must’ve spent a quarter of the three-hour game answering questions, especially since the finance guy could not for his life comprehend spell slots, but he just smiled through the bullshit. Time flew by, and we made plans to go drinking together the next weekend—Duncan told them I was some kind of mixologist, so I was in charge of the pregame.

— — —

            The strength with which the sword imbued Triacles quickly became gossip that spread through the army, as the indigent legionary began to outperform even the wealthiest and most experienced of soldiers. Golden gladius in hand, he instinctively knew what move his enemies were about to make, how best to counter, and where to strike for maximum damage. Moreover, he could discern a force’s movements as a whole, and felt the flow of the battle as if it were blood coursing through his veins. He became measured, tactful, and wary of those who might see his ascension as a threat, especially after he heard his name in talks about the appointment of a new tribunus laticlavius, after the former second-in-command died in the war with the Germanic tribes. The thought that the officer got selected and sworn in by the emperor, by his father, consumed his mind.

            But as Triacles relied the gladius more and more, he began to understand its true nature. The sword improved his brain and his brawn a hundredfold, but the second he let go of the hilt he became weak. His neck, his back and his legs bore the brunt of the extra weight they had been carrying and collapsed into a heap. His mind, filled with information it could no longer comprehend, fizzled out, preventing him from answering the simplest of questions without a struggle. He began to sleep with the sword in his hand, but that just intensified the moments where he couldn’t hold on. However, he had no choice as the selection drew near. Once he met his father, everything would be fixed. He would understand his struggle, appeal to the gods to save him, and things would be right once more.

— — —

            When I got back home after the session, Tina was waiting for me on the couch. We hugged, and I started to tell her about the game, about Duncan’s friends, but she didn’t seem interested. Her blue eyes were clouded, and she sat with her hands cupped in her lap like a guilty toddler. I paused my explanation of saving throws.

            “Something wrong, babe? You seem out of it.”

            “My mom’s not doing well.” Fuck. I may not have cared one bit for that woman, but if she got seriously hurt Tina would be devastated. I think that her mother was so generally invincible that the second the illusion of her as the picture of health broke, Tina did too. The good husband, I saddled up next to her and put one hand on her leg.

            “Is she,” I measured my words. “Is she alright?”

            Tina pushed her head into my shoulder. “She’s okay, it’s just her leg. She refuses to do anything the doctor says and now it hurts even more than before.” Anyone could’ve told her that, but I held my tongue and just squeezed her knee.

            “You know she’ll be okay,” I said.

            “But even she’s scared now! Like, she won’t tell me, but I know she is. She wants me to come back next week.”

            “That’s good that she’s relying on you.”

            “Quit the bullshit, I know you don’t like her. I just—she’s important to me, and you’re important to me, and you don’t even try with each other.”

            I could see where this was going. But she wasn’t crying, this wasn’t the end of the world. I wanted Duncan’s friends to like me, I wanted more DND sessions, I wanted to have a place to go when we fought. I needed to fight for my peace and quiet.

            “Oh, yeah.” Oh, yeah—it sounded way dumber than it did in my head. “I was going to tell you, Duncan’s friends invited me to hang out with them again next weekend. We’re going to go to the bar down the road. I was going to ask if you wanted to come with us, so I could introduce you and all that.” I took my hand off her leg to scratch the back of my neck. “I think they really like me.”

            I leaned in to kiss her cheek, and her skin felt cold against my lips. She must’ve known that this was important to me. She must’ve remembered all those days when I came back from work miserable, getting pissy with her when she didn’t deserve it because the only thing that could fix me was halfway across the state. She mumbled, “I’ll be alright, honey. I have to go to the bathroom,” and got up. Obviously, I felt bad, but she would’ve felt bad all the same if I went. Nothing would’ve happened, her mother and I would’ve yelled at each other as usual and she would’ve been even more unhappy than before. I did her a favor.

— — —

            Triacles walked down the path to the Curia, minutes from his appointment to the rank of tribunus laticlavius by his father. He heard the slap of his sandals against the ground, but could not feel his legs, only the beating of his heart in his chest and the smoothness of the hilt of his gladius in its scabbard. In recognition of his promotion, he’d been given the day off, and he’d spent it laying in bed, staring at himself in the reflection of his weapon. He had his own room now, a tent to himself when he traveled to his various conquests, and a servant boy who managed his affairs. The boy, a senator’s nephew, was the only person that truly knew about his curse. He’d saved his life multiple times, finding him passed out in a cold sweat trying to do something as simple as make his bed. At first he worried about what people would say, but the urgency of that feeling faded each time he lost his strength. Let the rumors circulate, he thought, let the world collapse into a ball of fire the moment I leave Marcus Aurelius’ side.

            The Curia was a domed, concrete building surrounded by a low brick wall, with a single archway leading inside. The waiting room was dark and empty, and had no features except a small dedication to Julius Caesar hung above a large set of double doors. Triacles lingered here, gripping his sword ever tighter, before mustering the courage to knock. “Enter.” A deep voice boomed from within. With one hand, he pushed.

            Marcus Aurelius stood at the far end of the room, alone. He wore a toga of deep burgundy, with a gold stripe running down the side. He held his hands clasped behind his back and stared out a window, taking no note of Triacles’ entrance. The soldier walked forward, then stopped in the center of the room.

            “Imperator,” he said.

            The emperor turned around, his lips pursed in a stoic frown. He glanced at Triacles’ hip. “I see what is said about you is true.” He took a step forward. “Don’t you know, boy? They say that when you fuck it is the sword that enters, not you.”

            “Sir, I—”

            He smiled. “It is no matter. One who wishes to defy their circumstances must have a strength that a thousand men do not possess. One that is not limited to physical prowess alone.”

            “Thank you, sir.” Triacles’ hands were sweating.

            “You are here because I do not believe in wasting that strength. Because I see more for you.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Do you see that for yourself?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “No more sir. If I wanted sir, I would have parrots running my army. What say you of being tribunus?”

            Triacles looked into his eyes, expecting some understanding that this was much more than a promotion for him. There was no way around it, then—he cleared his throat.

            “I accept the position, Imperator, thank you, but I have something else to say.” Marcus Aurelius remained silent as Triacles took his sword out of its sheath and placed it gently on the ground. Bent over, he recited a prayer in his head, semper salve valque, Jane Clusive, before letting go and rising. Me absente te precor uti sis domum, a searing pain pulsed through his body, starting at his right hand and bounding across his arm, his chest and back, his neck, and finally his legs. Meam vigilans, it took every effort not to pass out, even more so to speak. Et ab injuria protegens, he coughed, and tasted blood. “If you have heard the rumors, then you know what this means,” he said.

            The emperor nodded, amused. “Go on.”

            Ita est! “I am your son. You are my father, you—you abandoned my mother even before I was born, I’m here—” he paused for a moment as a spike of agony shot through his skull. “To make that known to you, I suppose.” His vision began to blur.

            “You think I don’t know who you are?” Triacles’ eyes grew wide, his legs were buckling beneath him. Marcus Aurelius took a step forward, then another, until they were face to face. They were the same height, but Triacles slouched in his infinite pain and the emperor looked down at him. “You think I don’t know you’re the son of that whore, she who goes around Rome telling all who will listen that she sires my heirs?”

            “How dare you—” Another cough. More blood. “How dare you speak of her like that. I am your son.”

            “Pick up your sword.”

            It was an arm’s length away. So, so close. “No.”

            “Pick it up. At once. You don’t know what it means, to be my son.”

            Don’t know what it means? He knew what it meant every time his mother whispered in his ear, every time he saw the emperor from afar, every time he touched his weapon and felt the surge of existence. More pain—Elysium called out to him, an owl’s howl, a wolf’s coo, but he resisted.

            “Please!” A shout, a whisper. The emperor swept back his robes and scoffed.

            “You aren’t even your mother’s son. If you were, you’d know she was dying.”

            Those words seemed to him to come from somewhere far away, but they reached him nonetheless. Marcus Aurelius kicked the sword towards his hand. Triacles picked it up. He breathed once more, ragged, greedy inhales, but could not rise. His muscles felt atrophied still, his joints like fire. The emperor stepped over him, leaving the Curia and swallowing Triacles in darkness. He accepted it, let it wash over him as he gathered his strength. Then he rose, half-running out the door, sword in hand, paying no attention to the looks of fear he got on the streets.

— — —

            One year later. To celebrate my moving back to the city, Duncan and the rest of the gang drove down with me, and we held our final DND session in my new apartment. It was cheaper than my old one—I lost a lot when Tina and I separated—but I got my old job back! I’d upgrade in no time. She was still in the middle of nowhere, having accepted a professorship in the same university where she got her PhD. I wondered if she ever went to the museum, or if she saw that Raymond guy. Her mom was still kicking, probably rubbing it in her daughter’s face that she married an idiot. I don’t know—I still think that place was bad for me.

            Duncan said something at the end of the session that stuck with me. Right after the game, after goodbyes and tossing trash and making sure everyone was okay to drive, he lingered in the doorway.

            “I envisioned something different for your character,” he said. Confused, I didn’t respond.

            “The tragedy of Triacles? I looked into it after you mentioned it,” he continued. “It would’ve been cool if you sacrificed yourself in that final battle. I was setting you up for it, actually.”

— — —

            His childhood home looked the same as it did the day he left, plain and unremarkable. When he saw his mother, gray as dusk in her bed, alone, he dropped the gladius on the floor and held her in his arms as he wept.

— — —

            “But I wanted to live, just like he did, on my own terms. Sacrifice wouldn’t have been fun.”

            “It wouldn’t have been.”