Thalia Dias: Woad Tattoos

Thalia Dias and her woad tattoos.

The excerpt is from an Eagle of the Ninth and Assassin's Creed crossover I'm working on, set in Roman Britain. The point of view is that of Marcus Flavius Aquila, a Roman Centurion.

Full story to be posted at a later date.

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Marcus looked at her, pondering. The woman was covered in dirt and blood; her hair was matted and dark, and she was filthy enough that he could not tell what color her skin was. All he could really tell was that her eyes were bright, blue, and flashed at him with every emotion in her heart. Shaking his head, Marcus grabbed a towel, bucket, and washing cloth that he had laid out before going into town. He approached her with them in hand, and ducked his head slightly to look her in the eye.

“Come with me to the creek,” he told her. “I’ll keep watch while you wash. Bring that spare tunic with you; you’ll use that until you can wash your dress.”

She silently did as he bade, and he saw her swallow slightly as she grabbed his spare tunic from where it was sitting on top of his chest of belongings. He stood aside for her as she grabbed the rope he often used to belt his tunic, and then walked out past him. It was as the hem of her filthy garment brushed against his shin that he realized that she was barefoot. Her feet were small, would have been delicate had they not been heavily callused, and were cut in places. The dress she was wearing hung loose on her frame, belted with a tattered strip of fabric around a slim waist. An iron collar, the local mark of a slave, adorned her slender, strangely graceful throat as did a thin strip of leather that disappeared under the neck of her dress between her breasts. She cut a rather pitiful figure overall.

The slave followed him in silence as Marcus led the way down to the creek and then upstream a ways. She was uncomplaining even as she stepped over the sharp stones of the shore and the sticks that bit into the soles of Marcus’s feet even through his leather sandals. He was not sure he could have borne to walk if his feet were as abused as hers were.

“How can you walk like that?” he questioned as they neared a secluded part of the creek. She looked at him with mild disinterest before she cast her eyes to the ground again.

“I don’t feel it, anymore, dominus,” she told him. “After long enough walking without proper shoes, I just… lost the feeling in my feet. Never got it back, not really.” She shrugged, stepping deftly over a particularly sharp rock. “It helps to watch where I walk, though.”

Marcus was silent, pondering that information. Then he shook his head. The next thing he did would be to get her some form of foot protection, whether it was animal skins or just a bunch of old rags. It would not do for her to get an infection in those cuts, and he knew that those wounds would fester if not properly treated and protected. He would speak to the surgeon about it when they got to Isca Dumnoniorum, if nothing else.

“Here,” he said at length, stopping beside a log on the bank of the creek. The area they were in was surrounded by trees, out of sight of the camp and of anyone who may come along. Marcus gestured to the log beside him. “Set the tunic here and go wash off that dirt.”

The slave stared at him for a long moment, but then she looked away, setting down the tunic and belt before she undid the fastenings on her own dress and allowed it to fall to her feet. Marcus’s eyes widened at what he saw for the split second before he looked away, swallowing. Turning his back to her, he allowed her privacy to wash while he turned what he had seen over in his mind.

Beneath her dress, the woman was thin, enough so that he could tell that there was barely an ounce of fat anywhere on her. Her limbs were slender but well-muscled; her ribs, just visible beneath her skin, were adorned with deep bruises beneath the dirt that covered her from head to toe. Her hips were wide, Marcus had noticed, perfect for childbearing. Her thighs and calves were well-formed, far more beautiful than her scarred feet. He had been unable to keep from noticing, too, that her breasts, though small, were near-perfect of form. A little more weight on her bones, and she would be beautiful.

The sound of water splashing behind him announced that she was washing herself in the creek. He chanced a glance behind himself at her, finding her back facing him. It was then that he realized that, beneath all the bruising and dirt, she had tattoos curling across her skin; they were becoming more and more visible as each streak of water washed away filth from her. The tattoos swirled with graceful blue chaos across the olive skin of her back and upper arms, dark and strikingly beautiful in their disorganization. They were all similar, but for something written in small symbols recognizable as Latin letters in the small of her back. Marcus could not help but stare. Then she glanced around at him, and that selfsame stare was drawn to her face.

Now mostly free of dirt and blood, he could see that she was fair of face: her features were well-balanced; with large, bright blue eyes, their dark limbal rings starkly visible; dark brows; a straight, thin nose; small mouth with full lips; high cheekbones. She was very pretty, especially with her hair, revealed to be raven in color, curling from her bath. She looked incredibly Roman, though he knew that such could not be true. The attractiveness of her features was also apparent, enough that Marcus found he had to turn back around before he started having distracting thoughts about her.

Still, he had to wonder about the tattoos.

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Time: 1.5 hours.
Materials: Adobe Photoshop CS3, Wacom Bamboo digital tablet.

Thalia Dias (c) me 2012-2013.
Marcus Flavius Aquila (c) Rosemary Sutcliff.