Thread: Wish Upon Orion*s Star [Raphael & Confrazzled]

From the sultry night air of the verandah, chilled but lingering warm even in Capreae??s November, Tanaquil pressed her face against the smooth, carved marble pillar, and gazed out at the shadowed garden. She rarely bothered to visit this section of the her father??s residence, its triclinium, or feasting chamber, for all that she spent so much time in the adjoining study. But today, she was not hunched straining her eyes over dusty scrolls nor languishing at the myriad of household tasks set for the lady of the house. Today, she had little to do but to eat the roast game, the sweet dates, the lush pomegranate, and smile prettily, offering the occasional conversational tidbit. But with the largely-intoxicated guest of her father, an aged governor of some remote province??Dacia? Somehow the detail had slipped her notice??Tanaquil could not but feel out of place. Nor could she help darting out, after several hours of feasting, music, and merriment, for a few moments?? snatched breath on the verandah. Gazing at the exquisite view. The stars certainly blazed bright tonight, for all that it was early November. The rainy weather of the last few days seemed to dry up at last, and do so with a brilliant burst of starlight. Diana??s crescent moon, veiling her face, did not even detract from their overwhelming display. And at near the horizon, three stars stood in a line. Iha knew a legend for those, or half-knew. Greek scholars had record in a volume she had read many years ago, detailing the legend in entirety. Precisely the sort of thing her absent-minded but cultured father would present to her, in order to learn. Orion. Or Orion??s belt. A happy laugh erupted from one of the female slaves in the feasthall, while the lute??s string??s stilled. The governor??s grumbling laugh erupted, as he related in his gruff voice yet another anecdote about his youngest daughter, soon to be married off to a high-ranking magistrate in Caligula??s service. A pang seized Iha??s heart though her father had forgotten his daughter??s hand these past eighteen years as such a prime trading chit for political favour, she feared perhaps this unhappy marriage would respark his interest. Not that he concerned much for the likes of that, worrying more for his estate and dusty tomes, forgetting her entirely half of the time . . . ??Your own daughter, she is pretty enough, uh Cassius?? cajoled the governor, and she heard reverberations of his hearty slap of her father??s back over the resuming music. ??Plenty of eligible men for her in the capital, even if she is getting a bit ripe . . .? Tanaquil blanched cool as the marble pillar, as the mosaic beneath her sandaled feet. She had known this day would be arrive, eventually, for it was the way of Rome, an unwritten rule and open secret transcribed between the lines of much of the literature she so painstakingly studied. But she did lament it, nonetheless. Yoked to some fop of a magistrate, or a distant soldier??s captain, or . . . another noble, spirited away to an unfamiliar country estate. The span of these options frightened her, startled words from her mouth. ??Oh, if only I could find . . . a husband as brave and true as one of yore. As Diana??s Orion. Then . . . I should certainly have nothing to fear.? She looked away now could not stand to peer past the few loose tendrils of her cascading chestnut hair to the stars blazing so brightly. To impossible hopes. Instead she set her dainty, sandaled feet to walk back into the lavish feasthall, and rejoin the laughter. Later, when Tanaquil donned her linen sleeping shift, and stretched her slender, five-man??s foot and four-thumbwidths out on the lightly-padded bronze bed for her night??s rest, curtains at the windows billowing out with the sea-sticky breeze, she had entirely forgotten her rash wish. Her mind swirling with dance steps, with reverberating lyre strings, the taste of well-brewed wine, and the shrill voices of flutes, her large garnet eyes closed, bringing a sense of peace to her heart-shaped face, and she swiftly slept.