iBrevity
Alacris
[al]-[ah]-[criss]
"alacris" is a Latin word meaning: cheerful, spirited, quick
for the previous four years Alacris has gone by Deimos, a name he earned in the gladiator ring
Deimos is a minor Greek god of terror who often accompanied Ares into warfare
male
demiromantic pansexual
[slight preference to males]
For four years Alacris has been nothing more than a bloody gladiator.
He was captured by humans when he was still a viscling, brought to a city that was wreathed with the heavy stench of smog and taught to fight. Those early days are all but forgotten to him now; vaguely Alacris remembers the innate fear of never having enough food, enough shelter, enough comfort, of having to face other viscets in the ring who cared little for his meager size or age. He eventually found his footing in the arena and became so well known that his opponents took to calling him what his owner did; Deimos, god of terror, of mindless panic.
Alacris frequently fights three times a week, although this number changes depending on the greed of his master or the viscets who had been shipped in to stand against him. He finds no particular joy in fighting or the violence of his life; rather he satisfies himself with the quiet moments in between, the sliver of sky he can see through a crack in his cell, the quiet patter of rain to soothe his aches and pain with gentle fingertips.
Lately Alacris has laid upon the stone floor of his cell and dreamt of leaving. Dreamt of the woods he remembered from his childhood, of the sound of birds, of the smell of dirt and morning dew. He thinks often of escaping and has just begun to gather what he needs to leave, beneath the noses of the humans who monitor and control them.
Before The Eyes of Storytelling Girls by Anaïs Mitchell
[YouTube link here]
Mama, mama, be with me
With the music in your breast
In your glittering evening dress
And the white flag in your fist trembling
solemn || maverick || headstrong || rigid
Alacris struggles to remember who he was a child. He has been shaped by his exertions in the ring; he is far more quiet than he remembers, more solemn. He does not speak up often and when he does it is frequently condescending and dismissive. Alacris makes no attempts towards cultivating friendships with the other viscets because he knows eventually either they will lose or be sold to a competing ring and he will never see them again. Still, sometimes the other viscets attach themselves to him, no doubt in an effort to find some semblance of normality in their lives or perhaps even in an attempt to discover some safety. Alacris is respected by those viscets who are homed with him and left alone; those that used to antagonize him learned a long time ago that Alacris would not tolerate such things. He does as he wants and can only be provoked into doing what he is told to via punishment; and despite repeated exposure to such punishment the humans have not managed to wear his headstrong persona down that all much. He stills fights them on things, four years after his arrival.
He does not like change and divides himself from any viscet who attempts to change something about the system of their lives, for he understands its danger and the stupidity of talking loudly of their plans. Still, that does not mean Alacris does not think of escape himself; he thinks of it often in fact, in small wistful moments, in the breaths between one fight and the next while the blood on his fur dries and before the hungry cries of the people in the stands begin anew. Alacris is restless when he's out of the ring or left without a match for too long; although he generally dislikes what he must do to other viscets the fights allow him an outlet for his manic energy that is built up from his long captivity indoors. The cell he lives in is so narrow that he can scarcely pace to one end and the next and what he does that until he feels almost crazy with it some nights, wearing a soft groove into the cement floor that his feet slot into without a hitch. In battle Alacris is exceedingly merciful; he will put extend a fight for the pleasure of the humans nor extend another viscet's agony. He is something of a bleeding heart though he would never admit it.
➣ none of the viscets that he is imprisoned with know his real name; he is called Deimos by friends and
enemies alike
➣ in fact he hears the name "Alacris" so infrequently that sometimes he will say it aloud to himself in
his cell after a battle simply to remember the sound of the word
➣ has some physical trauma from his life, namely a number of scars on his forelegs and neck
➣ sustained some blindness in his left eye from a concussive hit that ruined some nerves behind his
eye; he can still see via his left eye but his vision is very unfocused and weak
➣ when he was long his short tail often unbalanced him and made walking on his hind legs veritably
impossible; as an adult he understands that the short tail and subsequent lighter weight lends him a
speed on all fours that his peers cannot hope to match
➣ he can see the color red most clearly, but his favorite color is blue
➣ the quote at the top of his form is a Latin phrase that means "even in paradise I am there" referring
to death being a consistent presence that no one can escape
➣ the quote at the bottom of his form is also a Latin phrase and means "we who are about to die
salute you". it is usually considered to be the line gladiators would say to the emperor before entering
the arena
➣ Alacris can speak and read Latin, one of the few things his parents succeeded in teaching him before
he was taken
➣ prefers walking on all four legs rather than his hind legs, as his balance is not exact and without a tail
never will be. walking on all fours for so long has substantially strengthened his shoulders and front legs
➣ Alacris' mother gave him the necklace he so loyally wears when he was but a viscling
It's snowing. Alacris knows that it has not snowed for a long time but he cannot explain exactly how he knows this, only that he knows. Wisps of the cold wriggle its way into his cell, snowflakes blown down to thin through slender cracks in the stone wall, each flake touching his fur with a quiet kiss of departure. He does not mind the cold so much anymore; the hall grows quiet in the winter and it is early enough today that the only viscet he can clearly hear is the male across the hall from him who sings as loud as they possibly can.
Alacris readjusts himself on the floor and watches the snow come in with somber eyes. It is only after monitoring the procession of winter that an idea comes very suddenly to him and he leaps to all fours to scramble across the short lunge of floor, balancing precariously on his hind legs to press his eye to the hole in the wall. He's right; the crack has worsened since he investigated it last in a considerate hope that he could widen it enough to pass through himself. Perhaps it is the cold, or perhaps the wall sustained a hit of some kind from a scuffle in the dining hall; whatever has occurred the opening is now large enough for Alacris to pass his entire leg through, and that is all he needs.
The entirety of the morning he digs. He digs past the burn of exhaustion in his muscles, past the heaving breaths and the stinging eyes. He uses clever twists of his leg to pull rock in towards him, to force the hole wider, wider still. The wind sweeps in on his face and chest with bellows of snow but he forgets the cold as well and thinks only of what he can see past the snow, if he squints his eyes and turns his snout towards the sun; the narrowest sliver of blue sky, fragmented by clouds pregnant with snow and a weak sun, but that piece is enough. Alacris has dreamed of the sky for four years, and it is as sweet a sight as he remembered it.
He must stop when it comes time for breakfast to feed at his door, where the humans slot meals in so as to keep their fingers. He finishes quickly, waits impatiently for the humans to leave, and then returns to the crack. It is wide enough now that Alacris can slide his shoulder into it, nearly the barrel of his chest; he digs frantically now, understanding that if he were to be caught at this point it would mean death. When footsteps pass his door he stops completely, breathing heavily through his mouth, his paws gone senseless with cold. The moment the man leaves Alacris resumes digging.
In its entirety it takes him three hours to widen the hole enough to just barely squeeze through. The rock scrapes his shoulders as he heaves, pushing stubbornly with his back legs, ignoring the pain of the cuts on his back from the rough-hewn stone and focusing instead on the sky, a glimpse of it just right there, cast in an ivory light from the snow. He thinks, I can withstand anything only to stand below that one more time.
When finally he spilled onto the dirt on the far side he had to forcibly stop himself from laughing. The snow was cleaner out here somehow, crisper, whisked around Alacris' feet with teasing bursts from the wind. The smells seemed sharper, his eyes seemed more focused; when he lurched to his feet the sensation of loose soil beneath his paws was enough to make him shake. Alacris had never been able to plan this far ahead because he had never seen this part of the compound first hand and so he abandoned all relics of his plan and simply began to run.
It was not precisely the graceful escape he had imagined but it was something and--there was a rope around his back ankle suddenly, a chafing rub and then a jerk that tore him to his paws but Alacris twisted onto his back and kicked his foot free in the same movement, snarling. He had gotten quick in the arena, more clever than he had once been and in between one blink and the next he was already back up on his feet. The human reached for his rope again and Alacris ran to the left, dodging the second throw only barely, kicking his feet up higher when he realized he was moving faster than the man could hope to catch.
Alacris wasted nearly ten minutes scouring the far concrete wall in search of a door and finally found one, a small hole created by the removal of a half dozen bricks, perhaps some gesture to build something new or lost during bringing a new viscet in. This hole needed far less work than the first and in a breath he was outside. For a moment his freedom was so surreal that he stopped, breathing hard, a fierce smile turning up the corners of his mouth. This was what he remembered, the colors, the trees, the sharp scent of winter.
Behind him a siren began, a puerile wailing that became louder and more focused. Alacris cast a look behind his shoulder, grinned, and ran for the treeline with a singing emotion welling up in his chest. Alacris had been quiet for four years, grave and silent and yet now, twining his shadow among the long shadows of the trees he threw back his head and screamed. It felt good. It felt powerful. And with his head tipped back he could see the sky and that felt good too. The sirens rose in pitch and Alacris screamed louder, thrilling at the noise, at the vibration in his throat.
As he turned to run farther into the woods he said aloud, "I am Alacris, and I am free."
