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The Hortus
Last Updated:
2025-04-16 23:39:44
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LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) Where The Gods Don't Watch
He felt cold.Not the kind that the wind brings.The kind that lives inside you.It started in his fingertips and moved inward, curling like smoke into his chest, into his spine.It's freezing.His hands still held the goblets—no, one goblet was already on the ground.It rolled.Just one now. Golden. Still full. Sticky. Sweet.Suddenly someone was there.Kneeling in front of him. That familiar scent of mint.Shielding his eyes from the gruesome sight. Even though he couldn’t see the face of the dead.Only that, it was now drowning on a black liquid. Not moving.Drusus’ voice was echoing in his ears.. 'What was it that he said?' he tried to remember.'To twelve years of divine promise?'.It was like the voice echoing in his head was being spoken under the water.Incoherent. Like a gurgle. But loud.Suddenly, he heard a voice before he saw the face.Coherent. Pulling him back.He recognized the smell, the voice. The one he was waiting for.Lepidus."Breathe in," Lepidus said. "Come on. L
Last Updated : 2025-04-17LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) Stars and Moonlight
The path behind the villa urbana was narrow and winding, barely more than a trail carved between hedges and crumbling garden walls.It felt forgotten. Unkempt.A stark contrast to the boastful entrance.The air was warm—heavy with the scent of summer.No moon. No stars.At least not yet.Only torches lit along the edges of the estate, their flames flickering in the summer breeze.The world felt distant. Smaller somehow.As if all that mattered was this path.These two figures.Lepidus walked beside Caligula, not too close.Just near enough that if the boy stumbled, Lepidus could catch him.Caligula said nothing as his feet led Lepidus to the place he'd found after the chaos at the Circus Maximus—a place he now sought out for solace.He already memorized the path at heart.His footsteps were slow, dragging a little, the hem of his toga dusted from the gravel.He looked tired. Hollowed out.But not afraid. Not cold.Not anymore.The orange-golden light of the torches behind them dimmed
Last Updated : 2025-04-18LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) A Shame No One Stopped Me
The sound of armor—clinking. The march of many feet.Metal on rough marble.Sharp.Cold.No shouting.Only silent efficiency.The praetorian guards had arrived from the palatium.Not Tiberius.No Sejanus either.Only men in blackened bronze, masked by plumes and indifference.They moved through the hortus like shadows.Some went to Drusus’s body—now covered—lifting it as if it were both fragile and foul.They wrapped him in purple linen.No ceremony.No priest.No incense.Just death.Others moved to Livia, to escort her out.She was pale, her eyes wide—not with grief, but with the horror of survival.She could have died too. She hadn’t even known.She leaned into a servant, still straight with imperial steel—but her poise was unraveling.A few guards bowed. Not deeply.Behind her, Livilla followed like a ghost.She didn’t cry.Didn’t speak.Her slaves hovered, flitting like insects, trying to soothe her—but she didn’t notice.They were led out the side way—not through the colonnade.
Last Updated : 2025-04-19LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) Marc Aemilius Lepidus, Filius, Nihil
The praetorian guards were gone. The guests too—long gone.Only the ghosts of perfume and wine lingered in the air, drifting through the night like whispers.Faint laughter, fading music—echoes of the party that had turned to horror because of his uncle Drusus the Younger's poisoning.It's so quiet.Drusus Caesar moved through the corridor, barefoot now, careful not to make a sound.In his hands, his sandals.He had already forgotten the poison he found in his mother’s cubiculum—and how he’d taken it and hidden it behind the tapestry.Now, he just regretted not moving faster.His curiosity about everything was getting in the way now.Slowing him down.If he’d slipped out of the cubiculum just a little earlier, maybe he would’ve caught a glimpse of what happened.But no—he’d tried to play the clever delator—like a boy-legatus chasing the shadow who’d planted poison in his mother’s room.As if it were some grand conspiracy.'Did his uncle really die? Who poisoned him? What happened afte
Last Updated : 2025-04-19LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) The Defeated Hyena
Lucius was out of breath.It was vigilia tertia.Third watch.Late enough for the bakers, early enough for secrets.Lucius, a plebeian’s son—born to ash and bread—ran without stopping.He didn’t pause to wipe the sweat from his brow. Didn’t slow to catch his breath.He ran like he was being chased by a pack of wolves.From Antonia’s villa, down the winding alleys of the Palatine.Through night fog that curled around shuttered stalls and broken lamps—until the scent of ash, fig, and fresh dough told him he was close.His father’s thermopolium was still open.Always was—especially after dark, when the real customers came.He ducked under the worn awning of the bakery—or the front of it, anyway—and pushed through the wooden door.Inside, the warmth of the ovens wrapped around him.Bread. Honey. Smoke. Burnt flour.Comforting. Safe, in theory.But his legs still shook. He stumbled.His tunic was wet, sticky. Not from rain—it was summer.It was his own sweat.His father—Publius, the baker
Last Updated : 2025-04-20LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) I’ve Got You Now
Agrippina rose before the sun.As if she hadn't cried.As if she hadn't hurled a vase at the wall last night—because of Antonia's words.Her pride had been scratched.All night she lay motionless, waiting for sleep that never arrived.But no one could tell. No trace remained.A bath.A female slave braided her hair in silence.The scent of something floral folded into her dress.Rituals. Armor.Outside, Rome stirred with a hangover.But not her.She stood before the mirror—her speculum—and stared herself down without blinking.The reflection was thinner than she remembered.Older. Sharper.Gone was the old Agrippina.Something had burned away in her this past year.Or maybe it had only just become visible.Drusus the Younger was dead.And Tiberius had not come.Her mouth twitched.'You hide in your palatium while your son dies choking on roses. Just as you hid when you had my husband murdered.'She pressed a pearl pin into her black stola, twisting it with the precision of a blade.Th
Last Updated : 2025-04-22LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) What She Paid
Tiberius sat slumped beneath the statue of Augustus, like a man worn down by time, shadowed in black robes.He could hear footsteps.Slow.Deliberate.It was getting near.Then murmurs.He did not look up at first, even when it grew increasingly loud.Like the annoying buzzing of a hornet.When he did look up, his eyes were red.His face sagged.Hollow.His son had just died.And Agrippina had come to talk politics.Senators hot on her heels.As if she owned the place.His palace.The foolish senators stopped on their tracks, looked between them—suddenly trapped between thunder and lightning.The buzzing stopped.Only Agrippina moved forward. Then stopped right in front of Tiberius.Silence stretched on.Agrippina's hazel eyes were trained on Tiberius's old, tired eyes.They measured each other.Then Tiberius raised one trembling hand."Leave us."The senators bowed and scattered like leaves in a storm.All that enthusiasm on the way from Curia Julia was gone in an instant.'Spineless
Last Updated : 2025-04-22LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) Revolt Of The Frisii
Sometime Around October 28 AD, Germania Inferior, Marshland East of the Rhine"Hmmmmm..."A low thrum stirred the stillness before dawn.It grew.A deep, resonant drone—heavy with numbers, thick with intent.A barritus.The battle-cry of Germania.Then came the tendrils of grey, snaking upward through the thinning branches of the forest—Smoke.Grey. Acrid. Hungry.The Germania tribe had returned.And at their forefront—Arminius.This was no petty rebellion.He did not rally for kingship.It was a reckoning.He rallied for vengeance—raw and untamed, pulsed in the air.A bitter memory surfaced in Arminius's mind, sharp as a shattered glass.Sejanus.The snake.Yes, it had been Arminius who first approached him—believing that Sejanus’ ambition might be bargained with.He had offered something of value, hoping to secure his family’s safety.And in return, once part of the promise was fulfilled, Sejanus would reveal their location.But in the end, the nature of the serpent does not change
Last Updated : 2025-04-23
Latest chapter
LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) Revolt Of The Frisii
Sometime Around October 28 AD, Germania Inferior, Marshland East of the Rhine"Hmmmmm..."A low thrum stirred the stillness before dawn.It grew.A deep, resonant drone—heavy with numbers, thick with intent.A barritus.The battle-cry of Germania.Then came the tendrils of grey, snaking upward through the thinning branches of the forest—Smoke.Grey. Acrid. Hungry.The Germania tribe had returned.And at their forefront—Arminius.This was no petty rebellion.He did not rally for kingship.It was a reckoning.He rallied for vengeance—raw and untamed, pulsed in the air.A bitter memory surfaced in Arminius's mind, sharp as a shattered glass.Sejanus.The snake.Yes, it had been Arminius who first approached him—believing that Sejanus’ ambition might be bargained with.He had offered something of value, hoping to secure his family’s safety.And in return, once part of the promise was fulfilled, Sejanus would reveal their location.But in the end, the nature of the serpent does not change
LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) What She Paid
Tiberius sat slumped beneath the statue of Augustus, like a man worn down by time, shadowed in black robes.He could hear footsteps.Slow.Deliberate.It was getting near.Then murmurs.He did not look up at first, even when it grew increasingly loud.Like the annoying buzzing of a hornet.When he did look up, his eyes were red.His face sagged.Hollow.His son had just died.And Agrippina had come to talk politics.Senators hot on her heels.As if she owned the place.His palace.The foolish senators stopped on their tracks, looked between them—suddenly trapped between thunder and lightning.The buzzing stopped.Only Agrippina moved forward. Then stopped right in front of Tiberius.Silence stretched on.Agrippina's hazel eyes were trained on Tiberius's old, tired eyes.They measured each other.Then Tiberius raised one trembling hand."Leave us."The senators bowed and scattered like leaves in a storm.All that enthusiasm on the way from Curia Julia was gone in an instant.'Spineless
LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) I’ve Got You Now
Agrippina rose before the sun.As if she hadn't cried.As if she hadn't hurled a vase at the wall last night—because of Antonia's words.Her pride had been scratched.All night she lay motionless, waiting for sleep that never arrived.But no one could tell. No trace remained.A bath.A female slave braided her hair in silence.The scent of something floral folded into her dress.Rituals. Armor.Outside, Rome stirred with a hangover.But not her.She stood before the mirror—her speculum—and stared herself down without blinking.The reflection was thinner than she remembered.Older. Sharper.Gone was the old Agrippina.Something had burned away in her this past year.Or maybe it had only just become visible.Drusus the Younger was dead.And Tiberius had not come.Her mouth twitched.'You hide in your palatium while your son dies choking on roses. Just as you hid when you had my husband murdered.'She pressed a pearl pin into her black stola, twisting it with the precision of a blade.Th
LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) The Defeated Hyena
Lucius was out of breath.It was vigilia tertia.Third watch.Late enough for the bakers, early enough for secrets.Lucius, a plebeian’s son—born to ash and bread—ran without stopping.He didn’t pause to wipe the sweat from his brow. Didn’t slow to catch his breath.He ran like he was being chased by a pack of wolves.From Antonia’s villa, down the winding alleys of the Palatine.Through night fog that curled around shuttered stalls and broken lamps—until the scent of ash, fig, and fresh dough told him he was close.His father’s thermopolium was still open.Always was—especially after dark, when the real customers came.He ducked under the worn awning of the bakery—or the front of it, anyway—and pushed through the wooden door.Inside, the warmth of the ovens wrapped around him.Bread. Honey. Smoke. Burnt flour.Comforting. Safe, in theory.But his legs still shook. He stumbled.His tunic was wet, sticky. Not from rain—it was summer.It was his own sweat.His father—Publius, the baker
LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) Marc Aemilius Lepidus, Filius, Nihil
The praetorian guards were gone. The guests too—long gone.Only the ghosts of perfume and wine lingered in the air, drifting through the night like whispers.Faint laughter, fading music—echoes of the party that had turned to horror because of his uncle Drusus the Younger's poisoning.It's so quiet.Drusus Caesar moved through the corridor, barefoot now, careful not to make a sound.In his hands, his sandals.He had already forgotten the poison he found in his mother’s cubiculum—and how he’d taken it and hidden it behind the tapestry.Now, he just regretted not moving faster.His curiosity about everything was getting in the way now.Slowing him down.If he’d slipped out of the cubiculum just a little earlier, maybe he would’ve caught a glimpse of what happened.But no—he’d tried to play the clever delator—like a boy-legatus chasing the shadow who’d planted poison in his mother’s room.As if it were some grand conspiracy.'Did his uncle really die? Who poisoned him? What happened afte
LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) A Shame No One Stopped Me
The sound of armor—clinking. The march of many feet.Metal on rough marble.Sharp.Cold.No shouting.Only silent efficiency.The praetorian guards had arrived from the palatium.Not Tiberius.No Sejanus either.Only men in blackened bronze, masked by plumes and indifference.They moved through the hortus like shadows.Some went to Drusus’s body—now covered—lifting it as if it were both fragile and foul.They wrapped him in purple linen.No ceremony.No priest.No incense.Just death.Others moved to Livia, to escort her out.She was pale, her eyes wide—not with grief, but with the horror of survival.She could have died too. She hadn’t even known.She leaned into a servant, still straight with imperial steel—but her poise was unraveling.A few guards bowed. Not deeply.Behind her, Livilla followed like a ghost.She didn’t cry.Didn’t speak.Her slaves hovered, flitting like insects, trying to soothe her—but she didn’t notice.They were led out the side way—not through the colonnade.
LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) Stars and Moonlight
The path behind the villa urbana was narrow and winding, barely more than a trail carved between hedges and crumbling garden walls.It felt forgotten. Unkempt.A stark contrast to the boastful entrance.The air was warm—heavy with the scent of summer.No moon. No stars.At least not yet.Only torches lit along the edges of the estate, their flames flickering in the summer breeze.The world felt distant. Smaller somehow.As if all that mattered was this path.These two figures.Lepidus walked beside Caligula, not too close.Just near enough that if the boy stumbled, Lepidus could catch him.Caligula said nothing as his feet led Lepidus to the place he'd found after the chaos at the Circus Maximus—a place he now sought out for solace.He already memorized the path at heart.His footsteps were slow, dragging a little, the hem of his toga dusted from the gravel.He looked tired. Hollowed out.But not afraid. Not cold.Not anymore.The orange-golden light of the torches behind them dimmed
LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) Where The Gods Don't Watch
He felt cold.Not the kind that the wind brings.The kind that lives inside you.It started in his fingertips and moved inward, curling like smoke into his chest, into his spine.It's freezing.His hands still held the goblets—no, one goblet was already on the ground.It rolled.Just one now. Golden. Still full. Sticky. Sweet.Suddenly someone was there.Kneeling in front of him. That familiar scent of mint.Shielding his eyes from the gruesome sight. Even though he couldn’t see the face of the dead.Only that, it was now drowning on a black liquid. Not moving.Drusus’ voice was echoing in his ears.. 'What was it that he said?' he tried to remember.'To twelve years of divine promise?'.It was like the voice echoing in his head was being spoken under the water.Incoherent. Like a gurgle. But loud.Suddenly, he heard a voice before he saw the face.Coherent. Pulling him back.He recognized the smell, the voice. The one he was waiting for.Lepidus."Breathe in," Lepidus said. "Come on. L
LOVE AND HONOR: The Mad Emperor (BL) The Hortus
The sun had gone down.But Lepidus’s eyes, trained to see in the dark, still picked out the rocky path without a torch.He already memorized this road, a dozen, no, a hundred times.He jogged uphill toward the gates of Antonia’s villa urbana, his worn saccus bouncing against his back with every step.Scrolls rustled inside. Ink, charcoal. His drawing materials.Although there is one scroll that was already finished, mixed among them.More important than the rest.A portrait.His best yet. Of him. His goddess.The handprint on his cheek had almost faded completely, save for a small patch of a bruise too faint to see easily.Only if one looked closely. His body, too, was almost healed.He tugged at the frayed strap of the saccus, grimacing.He should’ve left the other scrolls behind, carried only that one drawing—the one he’d poured his time, his breath, his heart into.His gift.But he thought, ‘What if Caligula didn't like it? And asked him to draw another?’The patched leather dug int
