THE GOLDEN AGE, sejanus plinth

020. making a difference

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CHAPTER TWENTY
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
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THE WAY TO the Plinth family's apartment had been spent in silence. Aurora had been replaying Sol dying in her mind, she hadn't even thought about Jessup, Lysistrata's tribute who'd caught rabies.

Sejanus had also been lost in thoughts. Mrs. Plinth had detected the grim mood and had sent them off to the boy's room with some food.

And now here they were, on Sejanus's bed with their food getting cold on his desk. Both of them stared at the void in front of them. Aurora made herself more comfortable and cozied up on his pillows and held her non casted hand out to him.

He turned around to her, took her hand, and drew little circles with his thumb on her skin.

"I couldn't just leave him there, you know," he said, feeling that it was finally time to talk about his trip to the arena.

Aurora nodded softly, waiting for him to continue.

"Especially without sending him off properly."

"Your ma told us about that tradition, it's beautiful," she agreed. They didn't have anything similar to that here in the Capitol.

Their funerals were simple: a trip to the family mausoleum with only the closest family members actually entering the mausoleum. The rest of the mourning crowd was to wait outside while the family viewed the deceased's body for the last time. One person of the closest, it didn't really matter who, spoke a few words about the life of the deceased person and after that, they went back to the crowd, accepting condolences, and walked back home.

This seemed almost soulless in comparison. The people in the Capitol didn't believe in anything after death. It just told them that life was over, there was no journey to anywhere. There was nothing.

A small smile appeared on his lips and he turned around fully, now taking her hand into both of his.

"I wanted to make a difference. If the people here saw me in the arena, maybe they would rethink it all. But Coryo told me that Dr. Gaul messed with the images so that nobody would see me," he told her while looking at their hands.

"Coryo...," Aurora mumbled, it was the first time hearing him call the blonde by his nickname.
"He saved your life, right?"

Sejanus nodded.
"He killed that poor boy, he attacked us, cut my calf open, so Coryo didn't have a choice."

"Horrible," she replied. How truly horrible it had to be to have blood on your hands, to have taken a life. She didn't want to imagine the guilt that her friend had to feel right now.

"I don't even know if I wanna be cremated or not," Sejanus mumbled, "that's all I could think about when I was in there."

She sat up straighter again, a stern expression on her face. It probably wasn't unusual to think about death, considering their upbringing, but hearing it so clearly from him...

"You don't have to know it yet, you don't even have to think about it. You have your whole life ahead of you." She nodded at her words.

He looked up at her again, a questioning look on his face.

"Sejanus," she began with a sigh, "I was so scared yesterday. Thinking that I had lost you... look, I don't know what I'd do without you. You're the only decent person here."