⟢ Lavinia is lucky.
Lucky to serve Vesta, lucky to escape marriage to a foul old man she does not love, lucky to be free of the constant scheming of the capital, lucky to be surrounded by a sacred sisterhood.
At least that's what she tells herself...
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Despite being only seven at the time, Lavinia remembered her sister's wedding vividly. Lavinia the elder was a proud girl, with a slender neck and clever fingers, who always took great pleasure in reminding Lavinia that she lacked all of those things. Though it would seem those traits were, in the end, unnecessary to her marriage.
Latinus Drusillus Priscus had no shortage of patrician connections, from his high seat in the senate, and had taken it upon himself to match his firstborn daughter with a relative of the emperor. When Lavinia the elder had heard of this, she'd swanned about the villa, almost immodestly—despite the protests of their mother—beaming at her younger sister and declaring that she had so surpassed her sisters in grace and wit, and would triumph at the right hand of the emperor. Lavinia had done her best not to stab her elder sister with a wooden spindle, forced instead to glower at her from across the room.
But Lavinia the elder's boasting would only last until the announcement of her betrothed—so-and-so Brucetus, an elderly statesman of fifty, looking for his second wife. Related to the emperor, certainly (albeit distantly,) flush with political power, without a doubt. But not the strapping prince of Lavinia the elder's dreams. And thus, the boasting was effectively silenced in the final months leading to the ceremony. Altogether, Lavinia thought she handled it with grace and did not press further upon her sister's festering disappointment. Besides, just because the bridegroom was not to be celebrated, didn't mean the union would not.
When the wedding finally happened, on an auspicious day in Juniius, the air hot and sticky and smelling of perfumed honeysuckle. If Lavinia were to make this comparison—and she was wise enough not to—her sister appeared as a goddess, draped in cream colored linen and veiled in cloth-of-gold. Rubies and pearls glittered at her throat, as she stood before her new husband, who in comparison appeared overwhelmingly plain. Surely he had been handsome enough at one point, the remains of a strong bone structure remained under his sagging skin, but he made no effort to dress splendidly and gazed upon his bride with the eerie expression of a dead fish.
Lavinia had found herself watching the proceedings with a curled lip, as her fair and lovely sister pledged herself to such a pitiful man. There was some doubt as to rather her new husband could even lift his bride for the Hymenaeus. She felt an unbridled surge of pity clench in her stomach as family and friends crowded around the new couple, congratulating Lavinia the elder. Telling her she had done well. That this was as grand a match as anyone could hope for. If that was the best they could truly hope for, Lavinia had thought bitterly, they could not hope for much.
It was only many years later that she learned how right she was.
"Oh it's not so bad," Lavinia Brucetus said, resting her hand on her swollen stomach as she walked beside Lavinia. A few months into her marriage, and Lavinia Brucetus was already heavily pregnant. Lavinia wondered if that was why her sister had arranged the visit, so that she might further boast that she was carrying the senator's child.
