This was written for Asherian, for a one-word meme - the word she gave me was "butterflies."
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
-Ezra Pound, "The River-Merchant's Wife"
It was outside the healer's tent, in the time between afternoon and evening when the sun colored the earth warmly, where Priscilla finally gained the courage to ask.
The coarse canvas of the tent was at her back, crisp sun-baked grass rested under her hands where they lay aimlessly on the ground, and Lucius was sitting at her side. Their passive talk of mundane things such as the need for more cloth bandages had withered in the sunset, but his own fine-boned hands folded in his lap in a comfortable silence, filled only by the hums of dragonflies and cicadas buzzing through the fields that surrounded them. And although a particular question needled her thoughts, she found herself reluctant to break it.
She wondered if the answer she sought would change anything. She wondered if she would feel as strange and avaricious in his presence as she did after their first few meetings. Before Lucius began spending time in the healer's tent, ever-gracious and willing to help, before Serra taught him how to hold a staff so that he might be of greater assistance, because even though his technique was clumsy, in the ever-building disquiet of war the injured could not afford to be choosy. Before she slowly began returning his pleasant inquiries about the course of her day with ones of her own, if only to make their working environment more agreeable, she told herself.
It was only in recent weeks that she admitted, as she lay awake in her tent before sleeping, that she sought out his company more than strictly necessary, that even though she still felt twinges of ugly feelings she wished she could suppress, she didn't mind as much when they found themselves alone in the healer's quarters any longer. That she liked having someone to speak with, someone to fill her many silent moments.
And most of all, that she liked, even though at the same time the very thought of it made her ashamed of herself, how every word exchanged with Lucius brought her vicariously closer to a childhood memory that had refused to become part of her present.
She wondered. The sun was low in the sky now, blazing brightly at their faces. She knew that if she said nothing, twilight would soon slowly unfurl over the sprawling campsite behind them, and Lucius would stand to leave with a few polite words of parting, leaving her wondering for another night. And so she decided to ask.
What will you do, Lucius, she began, pausing briefly as she waited for him to turn his gaze from the orange-lit horizon and upon her once more, when this is all over? When we're finally done here?
He hesitated, meeting her eyes and then not, tucking loose hair behind an ear. She had spent enough time with him by then to know it was a nervous habit of his, and she felt her insides twist, for she already suspected why he did not answer immediately.
When he finally spoke, he talked of jointly-made plans in vague terms, of travels to nonspecific places. She suspected that he perhaps hoped to spare her feelings by leaving out the details. But it was not the details that concerned her.
He returned her question in turn with a small, cordial smile, and she could not help but feel, with more than a touch of asperity stinging her thoughts, that she was made of glass – that he could see right through her.
I'll return to Etruria, she explained. To House Caerleon.
Alone, she added to herself.
He nodded in understanding, and silence claimed their conversation yet again as the sky blended the colors of sunset with the colors of early evening, glowing pinks with light purples.A pair of butterflies, yellowed by the late summer heat, flitted out from the fields. The image of a boy with the same red hair as her own chasing one with the white wings of springtime, laughing, promising to capture it in his hands for her and her alone, suddenly played in her mind. It made her feel weary, like all of the springs that had passed since then, and even her sixteen years, amounted to far more than the sum of their parts.
And then the pair flew off, back into the taller grass of the plain, out into the world. Away from her.