Invictus
Rated: T for heavy themes, descriptions of violence, some mild language and suggestiveness
Summary: [My head is bloody but unbowed. Mako and Korra and the bonds that are built inside and outside of the arena. Makorra.]
A/N: I was certain I wanted to do a historical AU for the Makorra Winter Project, but I wasn’t sure which period I wanted the setting to be. Lo and behold, I found inspiration on tumblr, and after watching Gladiator and a little of Spartacus I had some semblance of a story. Download links for the full ebook can be found here!
Her old cell had been two paces across and four paces in length. It was a small space, but it was not meant to be anything else. There was a twisted honesty to it, the reality of her enslavement plastered onto every inch of its dank clay walls.
Now Korra stands a courtyard bathed by the Campania sun, with gusts of sweet summer wind threading through her short hair like whispers of good fortune, but she is not fooled. Prominent colonnades, reminiscent of the grand consulate in Rome where she spent countless days and nights, emphasize the sole entrance and exit to the massive three-story compound. High arching windows open to the free air only on the topmost floor, from which a fall - or more accurately, a jump - would guarantee a crippling injury. For all of the elements of open design, the ludus is very much still a prison, and its purpose is simple: to break its inhabitants - slaves, prisoners of war, criminals, men who had no other shots at glory - into the best gladiators the Republic has ever seen.
