Sham of the Sea

Chapter 24

Y/N felt oddly at peace in Rosé's company. The woman was a calm one, often out of the house to wander the forests and leaving Y/N alone while she was preparing to go home. In general, they had not spent much time together in the two days Y/N had stayed with her. Rosé was out collecting herbs to do her magic stuff with and Y/N was staying back and thinking about what going home meant for her.

Y/N was endlessly happy and even more glad that she was finally able to leave. Rosé had promised her to make sure she woke up at home the next time she fell asleep, so Y/N was torn between staying awake still some time or going to sleep early to go home soon. She had trusted Rosé to stay awake some hours and think about how she felt, sort herself out and then go to sleep.

Normally, Y/N would have been suspicious of Rosé, warlocks and such did not have a much-liked place in their society, but for now, everything was supposed to stay as it was. After meeting those doubles of themselves, nearly everybody seemed to be a nice person. And Rosé might have been mysterious, and a lonely person but Y/N trusted Jennie's choice of friends.

Y/N spent most of her days sitting at the seashore, looking out over the vast ocean with its beautiful deep blue and glinting surface. The sun was still shining warmly down at them, but autumn was nearing, the first animals preparing their rest already. Y/N would miss it somehow, going to the sea. Maybe one day she would return to it and become a sailor. Or even just travel.

She might get into accounting, become more of a travelling merchant if her mother ever died while she still lived. Without her mother, nothing kept Y/N at home, she did not know where she would go afterwards.

Y/N was mindlessly drawing in the sand beneath her naked feet, letting the rough grains slip through her fingers in a reminder of all the time that had passed. She kept wondering how her mother was, whether her mother had been able to survive these past weeks without her. Her mother was not that old of a lady yet, but her back had been acting up for a few years now. Y/N felt bad for not constantly being there, for making her mother have to go to the town every Friday by herself and do her best at selling.

Y/N sighed heavily, laying her head down on her knees but immediately picking it up again when Rosé suddenly sat down on her side, looking out over the ocean too. The woman had some basket with herbs with her, setting it down neatly next to her body on the sand and wrapping her arms around her knees.

"You are distressed. Do you fear for the future?" The deep rumble of Rosé's voice resembled thunder on a hot summer day, the nearing of long-awaited rain to come. It was easy to get lost in it, Y/N being glad that this woman was such a diplomatic one.

Y/N shrugged. "I am happy to be able to return home. But within those weeks, so much happened, so many things that shaped my life. Lasting scars..." she carefully touched her mouth, healing unnaturally fast with the help of the warlock.

The other woman hummed thoughtfully. "It's not bad memories only, isn't it?"

Y/N was looking down at the sand again, idly wiping away Jennie's name written down there with her foot. Rosé's eyes calmly followed the movement. "It's not. There are still more bad ones than good ones. But I now understand how life works. That everybody lives differently, and not everyone the guards call a criminal is truly a bad person."

"What if, f one of them happened to revisit your town.." Rosé trailed off.

Jennie's face suddenly flashed in front of Y/N's eyes.

Rosé's lips curled far too knowingly without Y/N noticing. "If they ever did and they got captured. Let's say they were going to be hanged the next day-"

Dancing with Jack Ketch. Y/N remembered.

"What would you do? If it were your town, your friends and family. Would you act upon it?" Rosé quietly asked, taking up some seashell to play with.