⌞Vestālēs⌝

᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ I V ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃

There was a thing about life changing events that Lavinia was rapidly learning—when they have gone on for a certain amount of time they begin to become routine. Life at the temple quickly took on a steady pace, to the point that Lavinia nearly forgot about the axe hanging over her head.

She had watched the boy in messenger's livery scamper away, her lips feeling numb as she pressed them together. She didn't know how long she stood there in silent reverie, but it was Cornelia's voice that brought her back to herself. It seemed Clodia's promise of distracting her did not last as long as Lavinia had hoped.

"What are you doing?" The other girl asked. She had descended the palatine hill, and stood in front of Lavinia with her arms crossed. She didn't look angry, her head was cocked in an expression of misty confusion. "I sent Clodia to get you ages ago."

"I...yes. You did," Lavinia said distantly, her eyes still trained on the receding figure of the messenger and the sprawling streets of Rome. Cornelia followed her gaze, squinting against the sun, but saying nothing. The two girls stood like that for a while, Lavinia tracing the webbing pathways, like veins on the underside of a wrist. She turned to Cornelia to see the other girl's gaze just as focused, an expression drawn across her tense brows that was hard to name.

"We'd better finish your initiation," Cornelia said finally. She turned to Lavinia, a silent question in her eyes.

"Yes," Lavinia said. "We should."

And that was how Lavinia came into her new life.

Early mornings were for breakfast, she and Clodia were awoken by the rising sun, and would leave their small room, gathering with the other vestals in the atrium where bustling slaves and servants would bring them food for ientaculum. Then, Cornelia and Festinia would vanish to some unknown place, leaving Codia, Lavinia, and the young girl who Lavinia learned was called Julia, in Vesnia's care.

It seemed the Vestalis Maximus had taken on the main role of instruct the new  priestesses, sharing with them the rites and rituals of the sisterhood, most of which were highly similar to the way that Lavinia was used to worshipping her household lares. It was all rather underwhelming actually, with most of what Lavinia spent her day doing was simply housekeeping.

Then, cena, followed by a tutoring in the history of the priestesses, something Lavinia suspected was entirely mythologized, and finally they would eat vesperna, then Lavinia would return to her cot and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep, exhausted, and expecting to do it all again the following day.

᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ • ⚘᠂ ⚘ ᠃

"You get used to it," Clodia had said with a friendly quirk of her lips, one of the days when they were busily sweeping Vesta's shrine. Citizen's milled about, some kneeling at the base of the statua to pray, others gathering in small groups to talk. No one dared to speak to the Vestals, and even fewer dared to look directly on them, which was the strangest adjustment for Lavinia. It was, in some ways a relief. The back of her neck prickled every time she left the atrium, just waiting for a praetorian guard to snatch her away and bring her before the emperor. This way at least, she should be able to see them coming. "It's out of respect," Clodia continued. "But it's still strange."