Thanks all, and sorry I didn't answer right away! I was enjoying a nice trip down to Florida to see my mother and sister. I had a great time, and I was delightfully surprised to return and find this award. I've regretted my recent lapse in writing and hopefully VJ is right in that I'll be back in the saddle real soon to keep this tale going. It's still very dear to me, a world I'm getting increasingly wrapped up in.
Something interesting about characters struck me after reading the comments following my last, painfully short update. Stuyvesant had commented that I should switch the Gallic Campaign picture since so much of the story was focused in Sicily and didn't quite fit that theme. And I found it interesting since it reflects just how the story's evolved. When I conceived the second part, it was supposed to be this long, protracted gritty conflict in Gaul, with Remus at its center, in true Dark Ages fashion, nothing pretty about it. I had pictured twenty to thirty years of incessant warfare to take the region before moving into Britain for the climax.
I had never pictured Selenus as a main character in his own right. He was to be a sidekick, yet I seemed to have poured a lot in to him, and cthulhu picked up on it right away, since I identified with him a lot. Selenus is a lot like how I would picture myself in that world, studious, timid, torn between manipulated and true loyalties. In doing so, I've become as drawn to him as Remus himself, though Remus will always be the centerpiece for welding the Western Empire back together in its crude form.
So I appreciate all the compliments on how much Remus and Selenus are enjoyed. And now I can catch up on some AAR reading and see how other authors are fleshing out their works. Thanks again!
