Green...It never meant jealousy or envy to me...it always symbolized the forests that I'd spend all of my days in during the spring and summer...I could never live in a desert or the plains or anywhere where there wasn't a forest of green trees. I traveled through the Czech Republic and Slovakia this summer. Driving through Slovakia was like driving through a fantastical dream of mine come true...I can't quite describe it better than that...
But maybe Dmitri can for you.
Green
The hills of eastern Czechoslovakia pulled Dmitri away from reality. Their long journey through Poland took them out of winter and into spring, melting the snow and turning the world into a lush green, the grass blanketing every space that wasn't already taken over by lively pine trees. Breezes drifted across the hills they traveled across, caressing their hair and weary cheeks. It had been a day since Anya had agreed to accept their lessons to become the Grand Duchess, and was fairly content enough to not seethe at him anymore, as she had been doing ever since he tried to weasel his way into keeping her with them despite the revelation of their plans.
But that didn't matter to him at the moment.
They were in between villages, hopeful to find a friendly automobile that would be willing to drive them all the way to Prague. That was a far stretch of course since they had just crossed the country borders, but with the way they were living before they had learned that everything was possible.
Resting in a valley, Vlad and Anya began to cook a quick lunch over a small fire. Dmitri had wandered up to the top of the nearest hill and had laid down in the cushion of the grass, staring up at the white clouds running across the blue skies.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the fresh air. Something about here was different than where he was from. There was a breeze that calmed rather than tensed, a fresh scent that cleaned rather than clogged, an atmosphere that welcomed him rather than rejected him. He felt himself sink deeper into the emerald blades of grass, breathing in and out and feeling every inch of him swell with life as his chest rose and fell. There was something so different about here, so green and full of life, so free from the steel cages in the Soviet Union. He had never even set foot outside of St. Petersburg before, never even dreamed that he would actually escape his beloved Russia that he loathed so much. Even more a minute, even for a second, he never believed that air from another country, a free country, would be seeping deep into his lungs.
For the first time in a long time, Dmitri dreamed. He reached out into the intangible world just beyond reality, just lying there underneath the loving sun.
"Are you dead, Dmitri? Lunch is ready!" Anya called. He opened his eyes. Yes, he heard her. And it wasn't that he didn't care, and it wasn't that it was because Anya had said it, but he didn't move. Not responding, replying, or giving them any possible acknowledgment of his existence, he simply continued to lay there, gazing sadly at the clouds. Vlad was murmuring lowly to Anya at the base of the hill, deterring her from retrieving him, he figured.
Vlad knew. He must have known, because he knew everything about Dmitri—even more than Dmitri knew about himself. Dmitri breathed again, sinking down into the grass's arms and falling into a metaphorical sleep underneath their green protection.
How could he ever love anything more than this freedom he so embraced at this moment?
