And the sound of trumpets

The tiger-striped male stopped, sand sliding between the wide spread of his massive paws without notice. He tilted his aquiline head with a faintly dissatisfied air as he speared the rocky beach with his gaze. So this was the land of the barbarians, then? A wild, unfettered land in comparison to the tamed and orderly pastoral countryside of his homeland, or the grand elegance of the cities. He pitied the poor barbarians doomed to live and die in their savage ways, never even knowing how much they could hope to achieve had they been citizens of his home.

Lucius breathed in deeply of the salt-laced air, letting the breath out slowly through his nose as he squared his shoulders. Well, here was his start, then. This would be his challenge, and his Triumph. A chance to bring a taste of order and civilization to these primitives, and in the doing raise himself higher than he could have hoped to have risen as an ex-slave, an ex-gladiator, who could never have hoped and would never dream of supplanting the great wolves who ruled Rome. Here he could emulate the legendary forebearer, Romulus, and found his own great empire that could perhaps one day in the lifetimes of his children's children's children rival Romulus' own creation.

That ambition, that drive that had always been salvation and damnation in one, beat in him in time with his own heart, with the crashing of the wild waves as Lucius took the first steps forward into this new world.