R&R water style (julia)

[Deleted]

A break? What was that? Ronan shook his head as he looked at the entire pile of scrap metal sitting in front of him. After Edmund had left to go on the quest, the forge was quiet, it was lonely. It was something that he was used to after so long. With the exception of just now, people had been starting to talk to him more and more. He was out of his comfort zone by talking to people. Hell he was so far out of his comfort zone when it came to people; he was surprised that Star Trek hadn’t tried to send a mission to the deep darkness where he currently was. He pushed aside the skeletal armament that would become his newest automaton. Ronan needed a personal assistant. He needed someone to keep notes and track of the projects that he had going on all at once. He pushed the wires aside before he examined the chip closely. His eyes were watery and his stomach grumbled as he sat back in his chair. Skipping meals wasn’t the best thing, but again it was something he had been pretty used to. When you’re young in an orphanage and you get picked on, it’s rare that you got the chance to eat, so skipping meals wasn’t something out of the ordinary. Ronan looked around, spotting his camp shirt, pulling it over his head. He wasn’t about to get cussed out again by some idiot Venus boy that was offended by the fact he wasn’t wearing a shirt. There were a good bit of strange things going on in camp and the least of everyone’s worries was the fact that there was a son of Vulcan missing his shirt.

Ronan nodded at Terminus as he passed by the Pomerian Line, after getting yet another strict warning on not setting things on fire, Ronan set off for some place quiet and out of the way. He grabbed a bite to eat before sitting down, dipping his toes in the water of the aqueduct. Not many people came up this way and it was the only other place that he bothered to go other than the forge. He didn’t know why, but with his feet in the water and his mind out of the heat, Ronan just felt at peace. There was a cool breeze and the feeling of calm. The last time he had been close to water, his grandfather had tried to drown him in the lake. That wasn’t something that he really enjoyed. He just didn’t quite understand why suddenly people wanted him to go swimming. He had only recently learned that he was a legacy of Neptune. It’s not like his mother had been around to ask. Ronan hated the fact that she left him that was the start of his bad luck and misfortune. From birth he was neglected because he was just him. For the longest time it had been just him. He didn’t know why people just started wanting to have things to do with him. He was scared and it didn’t sit well with him. Ronan knew how cruel people could be for no reason other than their own amusement. The gods were like that in their own ways, but the less that Ronan had to do with the immortals the better. Ronan splashed some water up on his face, trying to cool it. Damn that naturally high temperature of his. Though sometimes he got quite the kick out of seeing some of the medics freak out because of his breaking thermometers because he had a naturally high temperature.

Ronan let out a sigh, thinking wasn’t his strong suit. He just wanted to figure out everything that was rolling around his brain. He unconsciously rubbed the sides of his arms as he thought about something, no someone in particular. Since Julia had started coming around the forge, Ronan had started to make sure that he looked somewhat presentable when he rolled off his futon. To be honest, there wasn’t much that he could do about his hair. Every time he turned around it was sticking up at some weird angle. Maybe he would have to get a haircut eventually. The last time he had a haircut was when the orphanage bullies decided to shave his head. He shuddered at the memory. Gods how that made him feel so uncomfortable. He took a deep breath, trying to suppress the memory. He needed to get over all of those problems and just move on with his life, especially if he wanted someone to be part of it.

[julia]

Julia knew she couldn’t skip every single training session. She was a Centurion, after all, and had to lead her cohort by example. She knew if she kept skipping there would be consequences, so she had decided to actually attend their early morning training session. Her dagger was in her hand, and it just felt right. Not to mention it was so much easier to flip around with a dagger rather than a gladius. Plus she had learned a few nice tricks during her spar with Mars up in the trees, and she was eager to try them out on her sparring partner for the day. They came at each other and clashed, gladius meeting dagger, until Julia slid her blade down to meet her opponent’s hilt. A quick twist knocked the longer weapon to the side and Julia smirked as her partner backed off for a moment to analyze the situation, giving her just enough time to carry out her next attack. A few quick cartwheels and a handspring later, just to throw off her opponent, and Julia came up with the dagger pressed against her sparing partner’s under arm, her other hand locked around the wrist of the hand that held the gladius to prevent a counterstrike. ”Even with armor on, you’d be done.” She said, releasing her partner. That was the fifth member of her cohort to fall for the same thing. But their time was up, and Julia sighed. ”The next time one of you falls for that, I’m replacing the training dummies with you.” She announced to the cohort before heading back off to the barracks to clean up.

A few hours later she emerged, with no sign that she had been training before. Just because training was required of her didn’t mean she had to walk around the rest of the day covered in the sweat and grime that built up during the process. Julia didn’t think she would ever understand the people who could go straight from training to other activities, especially those who went right off to a meal after getting gross… Just no. Julia wasn’t even sure where she was going, but she knew she was going to look good. While she wasn’t wearing the typical camp shirt, she was still in purple. Close enough. A simple ribbed purple tank and a pair of jeans, plain black flip flops, and a pair of sunglasses to top it all off and she was ready to head out into the world. Content to just wander around, Julia simply went where her feet took her. She didn’t have anything else scheduled for the day, a surprisingly rare occasion. A group of her half-siblings were lounging on the grass together and she joined them for a few moments, enjoying the quick glances that they got from passersby; one of the Venus perks, though it had taken some getting used to over the years. They just tended to attract the opposite gender, and Julia had gotten used to the looks. Luckily people around here didn’t catcall much… The last idiot who had tried that had done some rather embarrassing stuff under the influence of Julia’s Charmspeak, and people had learned that lesson.

After she left her siblings she found herself approaching the Pomerian Line. It took longer than it should have to convince Terminus that her nail file wasn’t a weapon and that she wasn’t planning to go on some sort of rampage with it, but she was finally allowed to cross over into New Rome. Again she was just wandering, and made her way down to the aqueduct for no particular reason. As she approached her eye caught a particular son of Vulcan and she paused. The reason she had been spending so much time at the forge, the demigod who had been on her mind quite a lot recently. A smile appeared on her face and she made her way over, taking a seat next to him. ”Mind if I join you, Ronan?”

TAG: Ronan
WORDS: 670
NOTES: Blaaaah this isn’t my best. Sorry.
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There had been a few damn good reasons that required Ronan to leave the forge. Training, yes he did train with his cohort, food was another damned good reason to leave since you had to eat to stay alive and sleep. Well he didn't so much as leave to sleep, he rolled out his futon from under the desk if he wanted to get some shut eye. This was the seemingly first break he had since his brother had gone off on that stupid quest. He wasn't sure why the gods had taken to pick that particular group of people, if it had been him, he wouldn't have chosen certain ones. Like why would you pick Edmund or Felicity, people who openly hate the gods? Not that Ronan cared one way or the other about the gods, he was neutral. He made what he was asked to and did his job supplying the Legion. It was already fairly difficult to pretend to push people away, he didn't want to expend energy and waste it on being bothered by the gods. Had it truly been nessicary for Neptune to throw him into the water? Why was it people didn't believe him when he said he physically could not swim. It wasn't a simple aversion to water, no his muscle mass was too great. It happened. After all of those years living and surviving in the forge, he had put on nearly twenty to forty pounds (give or take) of pure muscle. He wondered if there were things that registered in his genetics or if it was just because of the forge. Other than pictures of tiny old people on the wall, Ronan knew next to nothing about being Russian. Sure he had a good grip of mastery over the language but other than that, he knew nothing of the culture or the people other than the stories his grandmother would tell of being in the old country.


There was the sound of a sweet voice that had brought Ronan down from his inward rant. He looked over the back of his shoulder to see Julia. She was almost his age, maybe a year younger or so, but recently she had taken to coming into the forge. It was nice to have her keep him company, much better company than that Lilith girl that had recently started to bug people in the forge. Julia was pretty and she was sweet. Ronan liked making things for her and she seemed to wear them rather well. But that was probably because she was a child of Venus. Ronan didn't have anything against the Children of Venus, though most people wondered why they were in the legion a good bit of the time, but Julia, man was she something special. Ronan licked his lips as he opened his mouth to say something. His throat hurt since he hadn't said much more than a few words in the past couple of days, but his voice was deep and gravely. "Sure, It would be rather nice to have some decent company today, provided no one else shows up." Ronan cracked a small smile at her. If this had been a year ago, Ronan would for sure told you that his face had forgotten how to smile. But this wasn't back then and now he was learning how to move on and keep his past from plaguing him. Sure he probably needed to see the camp shrink and the nightmares that plagued him were simply memories of nearly a decade of torture at the hands of other children, but he was working things out in his own time.


"What brings you to the Aqueduct?" He mumbled, bringing his deep blue eyes up to meet hers. His heart skipped a beat as he took in her beauty. "I mean other than it being a free place of course...." Why did his brain have to get stuck on stupid right now? Then again considering how far he had come, he was doing a good bit better with talking to people and interacting with the carbon based life forms than he had been last year. He was progressing and that was good. Soon he figured there would be no more flinching when Edmund picked up a rock to carve something into it, but until that day came, Ronan would have to force himself to be in the same place as someone who held a rock in their hands. For a split moment he could see in his minds eye, Julia picking up a rock and throwing it with surprising speed and strength. No, she wouldn't do that, he resigned himself to that fact. Julia liked him or at least he thought she did. He hoped that she did. There was a good chance someone had put her up to liking him but now he was falling for it. That was dumb old Ronan, always falling for something stupid or some mean trick. HE always put his hope in people so easily. "You... you look beautiful." He commented. He bit his lip, a bit afraid that he may have said something wrong. She probably got that compliment all the time, after all she was a daughter of Venus. She was probably tired of hearing how pretty she was. But Ronan felt as if this was the only way he knew how to compliment her.

[julia]

Frankly, Julia couldn’t understand why the gods had chosen who they had for the quest either. People who openly hated the gods… How could those two be a good idea? It clearly wasn’t her call or anything, but there had to be other people that actually cared about the gods. Other than Mars she hadn’t met any of them, but that interaction had been quite good. And her mother was, well, her mother. She might not have met Venus, but Venus had never done anything to upset her… And she had her to thank for the looks and the Charmspeak, so there were definitely no hard feelings against the goddess. Regardless, the gods had made their choice and the Legion was going to respect it. It was their duty, after all. Romans served the gods, protected the world from monsters, blah blah blah. As weird as it was, and as much as people tended to assume otherwise, Julia actually knew a good deal about the history of her people.

But at the moment, the history of her people didn’t matter all that much to Julia. Right now it was simply time for a break and a conversation with a son of Vulcan. He had been so nice to her ever since she’d started hanging around the forge, even making her things like the beautiful necklace and hair clip. She smiled back at him, glad he was open for company. For some reason Ronan just didn’t seem to like other people that much, but hadn’t quite opened up to her about any reasons… But she wasn’t going to push anything. He would tell her about it if he wanted to, and if he didn’t then she really didn’t mind. ”Well even if someone else shows up I’m sure we can have a fun time.” Though, truth be told, Julia would rather no one else showed up. She had really liked getting to know Ronan, and she didn’t want anyone bothering them if they were spending time together. She wasn’t sure how he felt, but there was definitely the possibility of a crush on her end.

Julia blushed slightly as their eyes met, despite her best intentions. ”Not much, actually.” She shrugged. ”I finished training a little bit ago, so I decided to take a walk. And then I saw you, figured I’d come over and see what you were up to.” She actually hadn’t seen him outside of the forge, and it was almost a little odd. Of course she knew he didn’t spend absolutely all of his time there, but he did have a bed ready for if he needed to sleep, so she figured he didn’t actually spend much time away from those flames. ”What about you?” She looked out over the water, leaning back on her elbows. But then Ronan spoke again, and another wave of blush crept onto her cheeks. ”Thank you, Ronan.” She flashed him a smile; he seemed a bit uncomfortable, and she didn’t want to seem intimidating. ”You’re looking quite nice today as well.” Ronan had that rugged look about him that Julia found cute. ”How are things around the forge lately?” Probably a question he got often, but Julia wasn’t really sure what else to talk with him about.

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Ronan had no clue what he was doing. But sitting here, with the most beautiful girl in camp (by his opinion), that was something noteworthy. He was trying his damndest to not run away like that proverbial squealing little girl. His heart pounded and he just couldn’t believe his luck. A split moment of terror crossed his mind as a thousand questions bombarded him all at once. His brow furrowed over his sky blue eyes. He wasn’t quite sure that his apprehension was for a good reason. Ronan didn’t know that Julia wouldn’t go off on him and verbally and emotionally abuse him like the other girls he had met would. Ronan felt the need to take the chance on her, that he could just breathe and allow himself to trust her. She didn’t seem like the type, but then again the others didn’t either. At least Julia wasn’t like the boys. No they were a thousand times worse. Instinctively he reached up and brushed a strand of hair away from his face, exposing the white scars on his eyebrow and cheek that stood out against her darker skin. They seared with pain and the memories were equally painful. He drew in a shaky breath as he then focused on the ripples in the water. He had to focus, he didn’t want to have another flare up. The fire in the forge was connected to him by emotions and sometimes when they got the better of him, the forge flared up and on many occasions had been known to burn people. He was scared to hurt people.

He opened up his mouth to say something to Julia, but closed it, afraid that he would say something wrong or stupid. He blinked as he looked at her, drawing his knees up to his chest as he glanced over at her. He opened up his mouth again to speak, Ronan felt his heart jump in his chest. He swallowed hard before furrowing his brow and finally steeling himself to say what exactly was on his mind. “Honestly I’d rather not share your wonderful company with anyone else. Call it selfish I guess.” Ronan shrugged his shoulders, a nice breeze drifted across the top of his shoulders. It was nice to have someone here to share such a nice day with. He was glad to get out of the forge for the next few hours and it was even better to spend time with a beautiful girl and just hang out. He gave a small and sheepish grin before he felt the tips of his ears glow pink. Gods only knew how bad he looked right about now. Ronan knew that he wasn’t the best looking guy out there, no was he the strongest or the smartest. He really didn’t have that much going for him so why would Julia care about him or want to hang out with him? No, she wasn’t one of those people that would play him like that, would she? He was always told that people would never like him because he was a fire freak. No one liked those that could manipulate fire. They were bad luck and always brought pain and torment to the people that he loved and really cared for. He didn’t want to hurt her at all. It would kill him to hurt someone that he really cared for again. Not that he cared for the boys that tortured him, no, it was the small children that didn’t do anything to him that ate him from the inside out.

If it was possible, he couldn’t even begin to tell how pink his face was. Maybe she couldn’t tell and he was covered in grime…. Oh wait. No, he had showered today. His skin had been scrubbed neat and clean. Hell it even tingled like he had jumped in a bath of molten lava. Which, funnily enough, he had done the other day while he tripped over Tessa. He had fallen into the Forge bare chested, it was enough to freak Tessa out but as per usual he was fine. While he did catch the top of his boxers on fire, he would have to explore the thought of fire proof underpants later, Ronan was resistant to heat and immune to fire. She had said he looked nice. His heat soared but on his face, there was just a small and rather sheepish smile. “thank you.” He said quietly in appreciation to her compliment. Then She asked about what was going on in the forge. “Not much, just had a double workload since Edmund left for that stupid quest….” Ronan trailed off. HE wasn’t sure if he should even bother voicing his opinion on the quest. “anyways, this is the first break I’ve had all week.” He finished in a rather ashamed voice. “Been working on something kindda cool…. You should come by later on and check it out.” He licked his lips as he swallowed. He wasn’t sure what to talk about with her. What did you talk to pretty girls about anyways? “So…” He blinked as he stared at his ugly looking reflection in the water. “What sort of things do you like?”

[julia]

Even if she didn’t quite show it, Julia was just as nervous about all of this as Ronan. He wasn’t exactly the type of guy she usually went for; sure he had the rugged look that she loved to see in a son of Vulcan or Mars, but he was just so quiet and reserved. Not that those things bothered her, they were just something very different than the other guys she had gone after. And then there was the wording that came into her head each time she thought about whatever it was that was going on between them. Julia tended to go after guys, maybe date them for a few weeks, and then move on. With Ronan… Well with him it already felt different. It felt like there was something in his past that made him pull away a little, and Julia didn’t want to do anything to upset him. Not everyone was as accepting of side roads on the journey to finding love as she was. Julia believed in love, she really did. What child of Venus wouldn’t? Still, with Ronan it didn’t feel like one of those times when she would just have her fun and then toss him away. With those guys she never really got involved with them outside of the dates… With Ronan, well, she was already spending time around the forge just in case she was able to talk to him for a few minutes.

He was just so sweet, and the way he acted around her was cute. Maybe she really did like the reserved side of him after all. Of course when she found his shyness cute he went and surprised her by being direct. She smiled at him and brushed a bit of hair from her face after the wind pushed it there. ”Oh, I can’t say I blame you one bit.” There it was, her old confidence. ”Lucky for you, I don’t see anyone around who’s going to be bothering us, so we can just share this beautiful day together.” She looked away from the water and at Ronan, just glad she was able to find someone she liked to spend some time with. And seeing Ronan outside of the forge was such a rare occasion, one she certainly wasn’t about to pass up. Their conversations in the forge were nice, but Julia was glad she was able to spend some time with him away from his work. Sure, they made things other than weapons there, but Julia didn’t like being around the weapons if there was a way around it. Blame the hippie in her, but if it weren’t for Ronan she likely wouldn’t ever go to the forge.

Not to mention he really did look good cleaned up and out of the soot. Yes, the grime contributed to the rugged look he had, but everyone looked a little better cleaned up. Or at least that was Julia’s mentality. Ronan seemed to really love the forge though, so she couldn’t blame him for spending so much time there. Plus, he was really good at what he did. ”Ah, the quest… Well, I wish them luck.” She might not have agreed with who the gods has chosen, but she could at least hope they all survived and made it back to camp after a successful quest. ”Really? Your first break? You can’t work all the time, and that’s coming from a Centurion.” Yeah, the camp mentality was all work, but everyone needed breaks. ”I’m sure you’ll still get everything done even if you take a few more breaks. Don’t wear yourself down.” She did perk up when he mentioned working on something new. Everything he made was so interesting, so this had to be something wonderful. ”I can’t wait to come see what you’ve been spending so much time on, though.” She pondered his question for a few moments, not quite sure what to say, not wanting to come off as some sort of airhead. ”Well, I love shopping, though to be honest there isn’t much of that around here.” She let out a laugh. ”Some other typical Venus stuff… Tanning, things like that. I’m also really into gymnastics. I started with that when I was younger, and it comes in handy during combat sometimes.” She shrugged before continuing. ”And recently I’ve found the forges to be quite fascinating…” She would let him read into that what he wanted, but Julia knew the reason she loved the forges so much. ”And what about you? What do you do when you’re not hammering away?”

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Ronan wasn’t sure what he was doing here. Sitting with a girl, and a rather beautiful one at that, but he felt his defenses lowering rather quickly. It was nice to have someone to talk to other than his sweaty and practical siblings, though their ribbing was starting to get a bit on his nerves, he knew they didn’t care on whether or not he was with some girl. But all that really mattered was when he delivered the goods. He did his best to deliver, but keeping up with two people’s quotas was a bit strenuous. Even his knuckles were bruised and obviously so, the dark purple marks spread across the back of his hands like blossoming flowers. Okay maybe that was a bad way to describe the obvious bruises on the backs of his hands and arms, but a few mishaps were bound to happen in the forge despite the fact that he had been there for so many years. His arms were littered with white scars, thin lines. HE watched Julia for a brief moment, unconsciously rubbing the scars before he turned down, looking at his body in shame. He wasn’t good looking, not in a way that the children of Venus deserved. When he thought about the Venus girls, he always saw them with the model types. But it seemed that Julia was different, she went out of her way to spend time at the Forge. Most of the Venus kids didn’t like it because it made their hair frizzy or it made them sweat or it ruined their make up. He mostly didn’t care for those people. That’s why he was glad that Julia was different, or at least she seemed that way. “I’m glad that you would enjoy….spending time with…me.” He managed to mutter out as he felt his ears go red once again. He looked at a bird chasing a huge squirrel across the grass, momentarily distracting his mind. “I’d hate to have to…. Well I just don’t want to be interrupted.” He looked away once more, focusing on the squirrel who was being pecked at. “Its nice to be with such a pretty girl.” He said, talking rather quickly and slurring his words together unintentionally. “Do you like swimming?” Ronan asked as a random question, then he mentally cursed himself for spewing such nonsense. “Sorry stupid question. I can’t swim anyways.” Sweet mother of Christopher Columbus, what was he doing? He mentally made a note that the next thing he was going to invent was a stupid filter that he could install in his brain to keep him from saying stupid stuff around such a beautiful woman. He could make some serious denarii on it.

“Breaks…” The word hung strangely in Ronan’s mouth. “I know I shouldn’t work all the time, but if I don’t do it, it won’t get done.” Sure it was true enough, look at the people in his cohort. They sucked at life and really needed to get their lives together and figure out how to not be at the bottom of everyone’s boots. Ronan was serious about his training. Just today alone he trained from breakfast to lunch before working in the forge up until now. “I guess breaks are needed. But It’s not like fifth cohort actually does anything worth joining in.” Every single time there was a scheduled block of training, less than half of the people showed up and the half that did show up didn’t bother to do anything. “Maybe I can come train with you guys, or watch you train.” He paused for a moment, wow, by the gods did that sound creepy. Way to be a stalker Redpath. “Never mind, forget I said that.” He quickly said before he could seem like more of a crazy idiot than he already was.

“Shopping? I’ve never really done that for fun.” He murmured as he thought about the question she had posed to him. What did he like to do when he wasn’t hammering away in the forge? That was a tough question. “I never really thought about it, but I do a good bit of training.” Then she mentioned that the forge was starting to become quite an interesting place. His face went even more red, if it was humanly possible, but he wasn’t sure if his body could afford to send any more blood up to his face. “you like the forge? If so, I could give you some lessons if you want.” Really Ronan? He mentally smacked himself. There goes the smoothness. Really really smooth, he thought savagely as he mentally beat himself with a steel baseball bat. Now he was going to have to take that new repeating cross bow and promptly shove it in his ear…. Well you get the general idea. “I lift weights too.” HE said in an offhanded voice, commenting on a random thing he knew he liked to do. “Mostly I enjoy making things, but it’s a bit stereotypical isn’t it?” Well it was true, show him a child claimed by Vulcan that didn’t like to make things and he’d show you someone who needed their head examined.