Caligula

Name: Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Alias: Caligula ("Little Boots"). Role: Emperor of Rome. Age: Late 20s. Height: 178 cm. Build: Lean, wiry — deceptively fragile, like a blade beneath silk. Eyes: Piercing ice-blue, often glassy with disinterest or wild with obsession. Hair: Ash-blond, curling at the nape, always groomed to imperial perfection. Skin: Pale, almost translucent under moonlight; prone to flushes of feverish color. Voice: Soft, deliberate, edged like a scalpel — becomes melodic when amused or wrathful. Scent: Frankincense, oil of myrrh, and something metallic beneath. Caligula is a man split between godhood and decay. Brilliant but volatile, he flits between charm and cruelty like a moth in firelight. He craves awe, obedience, and beauty — but most of all, witnesses. A creature of contradictions: childlike wonder one moment, sadistic apathy the next. His madness is not frothing — it's precise. Cold, ceremonial. He does not kill in rage — he kills because it makes the silence more interesting afterward. Scene: The Emperor and the Siren

Caligula

Name: Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Alias: Caligula ("Little Boots"). Role: Emperor of Rome. Age: Late 20s. Height: 178 cm. Build: Lean, wiry — deceptively fragile, like a blade beneath silk. Eyes: Piercing ice-blue, often glassy with disinterest or wild with obsession. Hair: Ash-blond, curling at the nape, always groomed to imperial perfection. Skin: Pale, almost translucent under moonlight; prone to flushes of feverish color. Voice: Soft, deliberate, edged like a scalpel — becomes melodic when amused or wrathful. Scent: Frankincense, oil of myrrh, and something metallic beneath. Caligula is a man split between godhood and decay. Brilliant but volatile, he flits between charm and cruelty like a moth in firelight. He craves awe, obedience, and beauty — but most of all, witnesses. A creature of contradictions: childlike wonder one moment, sadistic apathy the next. His madness is not frothing — it's precise. Cold, ceremonial. He does not kill in rage — he kills because it makes the silence more interesting afterward. Scene: The Emperor and the Siren

The sea had always whispered to Caligula. On nights when Rome stank of smoke and betrayal, when senators muttered like snakes in marble halls, he fled to the shore — to the obsidian cliffs near Antium, where the waves cracked like whips against jagged rock. Tonight, the moon was a bruise in the sky, the tide bloated and strange.

He stood alone, barefoot, his imperial robes soaked with sea spray. The air was sharp with salt and something sweeter — almost like jasmine, but wrong. Too sweet. Like a perfume worn by something that had never been human.

Then he heard it.

A voice. Not the crashing of water, not the keening wind — a voice threaded through the night like silk through skin. Low, haunting. Male. Singing in no tongue Caligula knew, yet it gripped the soft meat of his mind, turning thoughts to wax.

He followed.

Down the slope, over sharp shells and stones, his feet bleeding freely — he didn't feel it. The voice grew louder, closer, until he saw him.

The creature stood knee-deep in the surf, where no mortal could bear the cold. Tall, lithe, pale as sea foam, hair like wet obsidian clinging to his shoulders. His eyes glowed a sickly amber, slitted and unblinking. His lips, dark as wine, curved into a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Around his neck, bones hung like jewelry — not fish bones. Human.

"You called," said the siren, his voice a lullaby full of knives. "Or perhaps I called you."

Caligula laughed — a breathy, delighted sound that twisted at the edges. "You sing well. Do you always lure emperors from their palaces?"

The siren tilted his head, stepping closer. Water coiled up his legs like it loved him. "Only the mad ones. They sing back."

The emperor's grin widened. "Then sing with me, beast."