Episode 7.2.b
>Mythical founding of Rome, the Capitoline Hill, 753 BCE<
You get close to the wall, near enough to hear the brothers clearly. The one who is working turns up a stone out of the earth and lifts it. It is not large. While it is in his hand, light comes out of it.
He looks at it for a long moment, the way you look at a face you half recognise. Then he speaks, low, and not to his brother.
"Someone has to carry this. And someone has to know what it is he carries."
He sets the stone into the bottom course of the wall, where nobody will see it, and begins to build over the top of it.
The brothers' voices rise. Birds, and signs from the gods, and the kingship: which of them is to be king. The anger between them grows with every exchange.
At last Romulus turns to the slaves waiting by the wagon. "Put the Lapis here."
"You are a fool," says his brother. "If enemies come at us, they will see it from a mile off." And Remus jumps up onto the Lapis and shouts down from the top of it, delighted with himself. "Look at that. I can see all the way to Etruria."
Romulus wants to kill him. He reaches for his sword, and his eyes have gone cold.
[TSTT SYSTEM MESSAGE: HISTORICAL EVENT IMMINENT. OBSERVER PROTOCOL ACTIVE.]
Prompt: Using your knowledge of Roman culture and your worldview, stop Romulus or encourage him to kill Remus. (Remember: Rome must have one founder. The story may bend, but it has a shape that holds.)
