Written for A Little Piece of Heaven's challenge. The prompt was regret. Exactly one-thousand words. It ties into Stories in the Garden, and could be considered a sequel. Enjoy~
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Odette doesn't regret marrying Tulio. She doesn't regret leaving her life of comfort for a hard life on the streets. Every day is different. Every day is fun. Every day is an adventure.
No one tells her she is being unladylike. No one tells her to eat slower or to sit up straight or dress properly. Tulio and Miguel aren't particularly strict with how she acts or dresses, just insisting she cut her long hair. And to Odette, the hunger and lack of comfort is a fair price to pay for her freedom.
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Odette doesn't regret giving up the baby.
She and Tulio had no business consummating the marriage in her eyes. But that was what a good wife was supposed to do, and she loved him.
The birth is horrible, and when all is said and done, Odette can tell that Tulio wants to keep the little girl in his arms. But she makes him get rid of it as soon as she can, because they can't raise a baby the way they live.
Much later, they learn of the orphanage they left her in burning to the ground. They're unsure if their nameless little girl has survived.
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Odette doesn't regret running from her father.
Two years into her secret marriage, he finds her. Still weak from birth, she can barely run. He catches her, looks into her eyes, and begs her to come home. He's heartbroken, he says. He misses her. Derek misses her.
At Derek's name she snaps. She tugs herself from her father's grip and runs, ignoring the pain. She ignores his shouts and the stares of the people around her. She finds Tulio and Miguel, tells them about her father, and they flee when the king spots them.
She never sees him again.
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Odette doesn't regret not marrying Derek.
They're in his country for a short while (they can't stay in one place too long, lest they be caught by the police). In a local pub she hears two women gossiping about the prince's new wife. They talk about how sorry they feel for the girl, for the prince has never gotten over Odette. How he avoids his wife at all costs.
And yet, Odette does not feel for this young woman. Had she not run, she would be just as unhappy as her.
She chose to run. Chose her own happiness.
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Odette doesn't regret her winters in Spain.
Sometimes, she thinks that she could've fallen in love with Derek if she hadn't met Tulio. Could've opened her heart to the mop-headed boy. They could've had children together. They could've had a life together. That if she hadn't already given her heart to the son of a gardener she could've given it to Derek, or even her cousin. She would never have to worry about money.
Then Tulio throws an apple at her back and smiles, and Odette knows that she could never be anywhere else but right there with him.
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Odette doesn't regret gambling for the map, facing the bull, or jumping into those barrels of water. She doesn't even regret getting pregnant a second time.
But she hates that she spends the pregnancy on Cortez's ship. Hates that she spends it locked away, without the sun. Hates that she, along with her husband and his best friend, has lost her freedom. She hates the lack of attachment to the child growing within her.
But she loves it when Tulio puts his head near her belly and sings a Spanish lullaby in between making plans to escape the prison.
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Odette doesn't regret going through the jungle to look for El Dorado.
Her child will be born soon, and she'll need a safe place to give birth. If there's any hope that a rich, thriving city exists here in the jungle, she wants to find it.
She loves the journey, because it feels so much like their old adventures. They lounge in hot springs and chase monkeys. They pull leeches off her husband and cook carnivorous fish.
In the jungle, they just live. They go at a slower pace than the rest of the world.
And she loves it.
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Odette doesn't regret losing the baby.
The jaguar controlled by Tzekel-Kan had knocked her into a wall face-first, slamming her swollen belly into the wall. She had bled for days after Tulio and Miguel had defeated the priest, the medicine man giving her mixtures of herbs to dull the pain.
But she feels no sadness or regret, because her child (their child) doesn't belong in the world. She never could've taken care of it on the road, or even in El Dorado. The child would have chained her down, killing her freedom.
She won't let anything, anyone, do that.
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Odette doesn't regret leaving El Dorado. She leaves less than three days after losing her child, the medicine man warning her she could not survive. But he gives her the medicine she will need and tells her to be careful. They're left with nothing but a former war-horse, a bag of herbs, and each other.
Odette is ready for their next adventure as the three of them (and only the three of them, as Odette had chased off Chel as soon as the girl had started showing interest toward her husband) head for their next adventure, heads held high.
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Odette does not regret falling in love with the gardener's boy.
She does not regret the small wedding in the church, with only Miguel, Miguel's mother, and Tulio's mother to witness it. She doesn't regret losing two children, or giving birth to a third, healthy child that they give to Tulio's mother. She doesn't regret that fateful winter afternoon, when she hopped out of the lap of luxury and into poverty.
She doesn't regret anything. Because of those events, she truly lived life. She tasted freedom.
She doesn't regret loving Tulio, because it made her life into an adventure.