No one who had ever seen Octavian and Octavia together could have mistaken them for anything but siblings. They both had pale hair of the same shade, short, straight noses, and large blue eyes. When Octavian looked straight at his sister, he felt as though he was looking at a more perfect version of himself.
For Octavia was perfect. There was no denying that, not to anyone who had met her. She was beautiful, and modest, and obedient. She kept her eyes lowered when she spoke to strange men and had the most wonderful little smile he had ever seen on a woman.
And to think, he had wasted such a jewel on Antony! On Antony who had spent his nights with that Egyptian whore who was anything but modest and obedient, looked everyone she met in the eye, and had a smile that was far too wide for Octavian's comfort, reminding him of serpents. For Antony's allegiance he had lost Octavia, and it had not even completely secured that allegiance.
At first he had thought that she wasn't even truly lost, that she could call herself Antony's wife and be faithful only to her brother still. Like a spy, he could send her into Antony's household, and she could return to his brotherly embrace undamaged.
Except that her virginity would be gone. Which, it turned out, was enough to make her loyal to her husband. For surely, there could have been nothing, nothing else that would make her take his side against Octavian! Either she was carrying his child…or that far too experienced husband of hers had caused her to become a slave to physical pleasure.
Octavian hated people like that, who defined themselves by who they fucked and followed that person for fear of missing a single night in their arms. Antony was one. He didn't want Octavia to become another.
But, if she had to be, he wished that he were the one she defined herself by.
It was then that the thought first came to him, no earlier. Certainly, he had noticed his sister's beauty before, appreciatively, but it was only then that he realized: he wanted her to be his wife.
It was quite a logical decision, really. Octavia was the perfect wife, whether or not Antony appreciated it. She would never disgrace her husband in public the way some wives did. She could cook well and was willing to do a great deal of work around the house so that very few servants and slaves were necessary. She didn't beg for gifts of expensive jewelry. And, of course, she was beautiful.
Once this realization came to him, it slowly became an obsession. Yet, somehow, he managed to contain it, though his face burned with shame and lust every time he glanced at Octavia. Then eventually he went off to fight Antony and Cleopatra, and then it was as though the whole war was for Octavia's sake, to avenge the shame of her husband's betrayal. During that time, he didn't have to forget about it. He entertained himself with fantasies of his sister thanking him for the death of her husband, and begging him to find her a better one, but saying quietly, "Though, I would it could be you instead…"
The reality of their next meeting, of course, was not like that at all.
She was wearing vestes pullae. That fact angered him immediately, for why should she mourn for a man Octavian had killed himself? But he remained calm and said, politely, "Greetings, dear sister."
Her eyes were lowered. He was a stranger, why did she have to look down? "And to you, my beloved brother."
He couldn't stand her lowered eyes any longer, for they seemed an affront to all his love for her. He lifted her chin gently (always gently), and she, of course, didn't resist. Then he saw why she had kept her eyes lowered.
She was crying.
Octavia was crying for Antony.
This made him so angry that his first instinct was to do something awful, like hit her. But no, he could never harm Octavia, even if she had committed an unforgivable crime.
So instead, he decided to comfort her. For, if she was crying at the loss of a husband, what could comfort her more than a new husband?
And so he kissed her.
She didn't pull away from him, but neither did she kiss him back. She waited until he pulled away and then said, her voice calm and filled with restrained emotion, "I cannot do this. I am in mourning –"
"For your faithless husband!" His voice was angry then, despite the fact that he didn't want to be angry with Octavia, no, never. "For your faithless husband who I killed, as surely as if I held the knife myself!"
Octavia pulled her veil down lower over her face and began walking away from him for the first time. "When I no longer wear mourning, I shall be glad to be yours completely. Until then, I am merely your devoted sister." He had hardly a moment to absorb that statement before she was gone.
He waited two years, and in those two years his conversations with his wife were almost unbearably stilted. Luckily, though, those two years were also some of the busiest in his life, and so he was often distracted and could avoid thinking about how it had felt to kiss Octavia most of the time.
On that, two years after he had defeated Antony and Cleopatra, they were in the courtyard of Octavia's home, which was full to the brim with royal children, though somehow the courtyard was empty at that moment.
Octavia lifted her head for his kiss then, but didn't kiss him herself; it wasn't like a lady to do that herself. The same went for the rest of the encounter, as she let him remove her clothing, but did not do it herself.
When she was naked beneath him, he spent several minutes just relishing the sight of her body, being able to feast his eyes on every part of her. Then he looked into those eyes that were exactly like his own and leaned down to kiss her again.
Or, he would have, if he had not heard soft footsteps in the courtyard. He looked up, hastily pulling his clothing around his body, and saw twelve-year-old Cleopatra Selene, Antony and Cleopatra's daughter, looking at them.
In many ways, the girl looked like her mother, but her eyes – those were Antony's. Glancing at Octavia, Octavian saw his sister's own eyes widen and she too wrapped her clothing around herself and ran from the courtyard, mouthing to her brother, I loved him.
And Octavian resolved to take out his anger at Antony on his children. He should never have let them live in the first place.