Catulus is opening his mouth to reply to Sthenae when Galla's fury pours forth.  He watches with equanimity, but concern bends his features deeper and deeper.  Creases write long sentences of sympathy on a visage of confident resolve; his mouth bows down with the weight of coming words.  He stares at Galla like at a battlefield - gaze both intense, invested, and yet aloof to the roil of mortal emotion and suffering.  It is the face of a coin: Of an absolute.<br/><br/>Everybody else in the tavern room finds an alcove to watch from.  Catulus stands firm as ever, neither tensing nor quaking with feeling.<br/><br/>When he does open his mouth to speak, it is in a deeper tone - firm and intimate; a tone that grabs the listener by the neck.  It is to the credit of his oratory and the disregard of his age that he can put that tone around the whole room.<br/><br/>"Galla, you are a slave, and fighting that is as foolish as a free person fighting the burden of the choices they have to make." Catulus looks directly at Galla as though she were a soldier in a panic.  "If you would not eat what you're given, you would starve.  As it is, you have no choice.  That burden and liberty was taken from you when you lost in combat.<br/><br/>"I know these things because I do know wars - I have had to be responsible for the lives of thousands of men.  I have cared for their wounds, for the injuries of their souls, the hard distances they had to travel from their families, the hopelessness, the enduring pain."<br/><br/>He points at her with three fingers of one hand, right at her eyes.  "I am talking about the victors and the defeated alike.  I have been on both sides of that conflict, and have cared for those on both sides - proud men, proud like you.  I know of what I speak, because what you have endured a few years of, I have seen decades of.  But you are fortunate, in that you actually are in the presence of heroes."<br/><br/>His other hand waves to Sthenae, while the first beckons toward himself.  "Sthenae and the others here have devoted themselves to sacrificing their lives in aid of others -<em>any</em>others, regardless of tribe or nation or side of the war.  Can you even understand that?  They would die for the sake of protecting anyone."<br/><br/>At last, his voice lowers.  It is still a drone, but no longer stentorian.  It is an entreaty.  "If you can think of serving anyone other than yourself, then be honored to serve them.  They are bound, slaves to a destiny that demands they serve the whole world as protectors.  You should serve them with honor, and you will learn to.  You should, if only for the reason that you and you alone can."<br/><br/>A tone of sadness seeps in.  "At the very least - and I neither think this of you or wish it on you - if you cannot be so marginally selfless as to think of others, then you will serve your own interests best by doing what as you are told rather than having it forced on you.  You are still fighting a war that you lost.  You lost.  Now the war ahead of you is to obey your new orders with grace and dignity, not like a girl so afraid of the enemy's shadow that she throws a tantrum."