Reckless

Chapter 12 Part 4

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Character POV: Roxanne

The treeline stops a decent distance away, giving way to rolling green hills. At this time of year, wildflowers are in bloom, bees coming and landing on them. The rolling green hills give way to the lake directly in front of us, so cold at this time of year that no one in their right mind would think to swim in it. The entry to the other world, the water acting as a gateway, but the only ones who have ever crossed into those lands are the dead or those who possessed more of a supernatural ability.

I'm leaning back, my weight resting on my toosh and my arms as I lay on the ground, head tilted back towards to sun. The somewhat warm spring rays seem to warm my soul as I sit there next to my sister as she finishes eating her meal. It has been two days since Drusilla came to us and offered us a new life, and neither one of us has brought it up since. But today, Boudicca insisted that we take a small picnic. There's this little voice in the back of my head that tells me today will be the day where we discuss the woman's offer, but I do not really care about that right now when nature it self is like a balm to my soul.

I can hear Boudicca swallow audibly, which prompts me to open an eye and look over in her direction, squinting against the brightness of the sun. "What is it?" I ask her, seeing the way she keeps fiddling with her hands. "What are you so nervous about?" Part of me does not want to know the answer for fear that it will spoil the day, the beautiful mood that being out here has brought us today.

Boudicca shifts her gaze to me, her blue eyes almost identical to mine except for the pale interior of her iris that almost makes her eyes appear like steel in the sun. She frowns momentarily before she looks away from me and back to the gentle lapping of the waves against the pebble beach. Slowly, she starts to talk, as though it is painful for her to have this conversation, "I am not going." The words jar me back to the present, away from the lulling quiet of nature, and I sit up then. She glances at me quickly before looking away as she plasters on a smile that neither one of us believes and continues, "I do not want to live that immortal life, always looking over my shoulder and being a witness to time but not a participant in life. Not to mention that I do not respect that Roman woman. In fact, I detest her." I chuckle to myself at that, and she smile brightly at my reaction.

After a couple of moments, though, that smile dies away and is replaced with a sad sort of grief. Her throat bobs as she swallows hard against the emotion building inside of her. She shrugs as if this does not bother her as bad as I can visibly see it does and whispers, "I want to live a simpler life than that. I am not marrying Prasutagas in order to survive in a man's world, I am marrying him because I love him. I want to live in peace instead of war. We just go through a period of war with the Romans. Now is the time for peace. What that Drusilla woman wants is war. She will not say it, because that would make her look bad," Boudicca growls lowly, pointing at the ground as if trying to make her words land and make an impact. I stay silent, looking down at a small beetle crawling through the grass near my leg and determining to watch it instead of looking at my sister and her swath of emotions. Boudicca sighs, dragging herself back on topic and finishes, "Prasutagas and I are going to work with the Romans. We will usher in an era of peace. We'll have a good life together, maybe a family together. And that is enough for me."

Silence grips us as I feel her attention shift towards me. I gently give the beetle a push with my finger nail, causing the little guy to move faster and disappear under another patch of grass. I slowly drag my gaze towards my sister, and I see the tears watering along the rim of her eyelid. I watch as a single tear slides free and glides down her cheek, and she does nothing to bat it away as she whispers, "But I know that that won't be enough for you."

My heart breaks inside of my chest. I want to tell my sister that being here with her and her husband, being an aunt to her children, would be enough for me. But that would be a lie. The last thing I want to do is to start lying to my sister. My own voice chokes up as I tell her, spreading my arms wide to gesture at the world around me, "I want to see the world, Boudicca. And to do that, to see the whole world, I need to live forever. I want to experience new things, try new foods, and discover who I really am outside of a life that is dominated by the looming presence of the Romans." Boudicca nods along to my words, expressing her understanding, but it does nothing to remove the sorrow from her face, the way her bottom lip trembles slightly. My own eyes feel wet, my vision blurred with tears, as I tell her, "I am going to take Livia Drusilla up on her offer. I am going to learn to control my magic, and I will be leaving this place."

Boudicca nods, shifting to look back over the lake. I watch her then, taking in the sight of my sister and knowing that I will spend almost all of my coming life without seeing her ever again. Her red hair will fade to grey, her skin will wrinkle, and her body will wither away. And all the while, I will still be here, still be me. The thought breaks my heart. But I cannot stand the thought of staying here and marrying myself off just to survive.

My sister reaches up and wipes a tear from her cheek, sniffles, and then turns back to me, shooting me a dazzling smile. She bumps her shoulder into me as she whispers conspiratorially to me, "Our time together might be short, but we are going to make the most of it. We are going to send you off with a grand feast, dancing, story telling-- you name it, we will do it. No more sadness, sister," she adds, taking my face in her hands and brushing tears from my cheeks with her thumbs as she smiles at me. "Your future awaits you. But for now, let us live in the present."

I nod along to her words, smiling at her a little, and she wraps an arm around my shoulder, giving me a tight hug. Despite the sorrow I feel at the thought of leaving here, of possibly never seeing her again, there is also this feeling of relief that loosens a knot in my chest and makes me almost sag at the loss of the weight that was resting on my shoulders. I suddenly feel like I can breathe. I feel gratitude towards my sister, who smells like sage and pine, and despite how Livia Drusilla seems bossy and like she is made out of just a bunch of hard edges, I feel grateful towards her for opening this door to my future for me. She gave me options in a world which was set on denying me agency. I owe her for that.

Thoughts of all that I could be leaving behind swirl around in my head, and for some reason the image of that Greek woman, Ariadne, pops into my head. The way she smiled like her joy consumed her, it was contagious. But she will age and die just like the rest of the village, lost to the ash heaps of history. For some reason, that makes the weight return to my shoulders, a heaviness in my heart, just like the thought of leaving my sister behind. It feels that, even though a door to new worlds has opened to me, the biggest and brightest one has be firmly shut and nailed into its frame.