⠀⠀⠀⠀amara had not expected this conversation to become... this. when the woman had first appeared and had declared that she was here to protect her, to help her, amara had assumed she would be yet another person sent to observe her, to protect her from herself, to convince her that life was somehow still a gift worth accepting. another well-meaning stranger armed with optimism and rehearsed encouragement.
⠀⠀⠀⠀but instead mercy had stopped and had listened. and perhaps even more surprisingly... she had reflected before speaking.
⠀⠀⠀⠀amara's brown eyes lingered on her for several long seconds, faint uncertainty surfacing beneath the stillness she usually maintained. one thumb absentmindedly brushed across the side of another finger before her nails gradually found the back of her own hand. she scratched lightly without realizing it, again... and again... until the pale skin slowly reddened beneath the repetitive movement.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"perhaps..." she spoke carefully, "...perhaps it is not always for others to decide when someone has reached the end. there is a difference between exhaustion that passes..." a pause before she continued. "...and exhaustion that simply becomes who you are." amara suffered from exhaustion that could not be healed or recovered from. it wasn't temporary. and even if it were, she doubted she would recover from it in her (now human) lifespan.
⠀⠀⠀⠀she drew a slow breath before she added. "what surprises me most about this world..." her brows knitted faintly, "...is how many freedoms people have. they may choose where they live, who they love, what they believe, how they dress, how they spend their days. yet when someone quietly decides they have endured enough? suddenly everyone else believes that choice belongs to them instead." sometimes amara did wonder why it was that way. why people presume they know better.
⠀⠀⠀⠀then mercy asked about the elixir and amara became completely still for a moment. her eyes lowered toward her hands once more. only now did she seem to notice the faint crescent-shaped marks left by her own fingernails against reddened skin. slowly, almost absentmindedly, she smoothed trembling fingertips across them before folding both hands together again.
⠀⠀⠀⠀thinking about it pained her but it was a pain unlike the one she suffered for two thousand years. it wasn't pain because of terror or despair, it was because of love.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"you are not the first person to ask me that." her lips curved into the faintest smile but it lasted scarcely a heartbeat before disappearing again.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"yes." the answer was simple. "it truly was love." she looked somewhere far beyond the room. "and trust. i trusted silas." another silence while she recalled the moments that had came to this.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"i do not believe either of us truly understood what we were doing. there were stories..." she murmured softly. "old ones. tales of lovers who begged the gods for more time... because a single lifetime could never possibly be enough." a faint sadness settled behind her eyes.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"i think we believed ourselves to be no different. it was a romantic and idealized idea, a desire for freedom." amara doubted that even silas had doubts whether this was the right choice or not. he, too, idealized the imagination to spend forever with the person you love. of having enough time.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"it was never about power." she shook her head gently. "nor glory." not for her, at least. she didn't strive for being special or god-like. that wasn't her motivation.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"i was only a servant." her voice remained almost distant as she continued to tell. "my life belonged to my mistress, my future did not belong to me. loving silas alone could have been enough to condemn me." it was enough to have her punished, sold or perhaps even killed. amara believed that people did not understand what status silas had. he was no king or prince but he was something close to royalty. a man who has been richly gifted by the gods; who came from a prestigious family. amara, however, was just a simple handmaid, one who served his fiancé.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"i could never have chosen him openly, never have married him, never have built a life beside him. i would have never been even close to becoming an accepted or tolerated choice. and although silas circumcstances where much different, he too had no choice but to follow what was expected from him. our lives were never truly ours to decide."
⠀⠀⠀⠀"so when eternity was placed before us, it did not feel like ambition. it felt like freedom." another slow breath escaped her. "we loved each other so completely that the thought of time or place or social expectations separating us was unbearable."
⠀⠀⠀⠀"in my homeland there were those who believed the moirai measured every life. that they spun every thread long before we were born." her gaze unfocused.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"loving silas felt as though our threads had been woven together by the gods themselves. it never occurred to either of us that such a bond would not last forever." the faintest, most sorrowful smile touched her lips.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"the irony..." she swallowed carefully. "...is that we sought immortality because we feared losing one another. and instead..." her voice nearly disappeared. "...we lost everything."
⠀⠀⠀⠀for several seconds she simply breathed. "i still love him."
⠀⠀⠀⠀there was no hesitation and no embarrassment. it was the truth. she had never stopped loving him. despite what happened. despite following him blindly into immortality. she had never stopped loving him and she doubted that she could stop loving him.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"i believe i always will." another pause. "but if someone placed that elixir before me again..." this time the answer came immediately.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"i would refuse it. no person should seek immortality." her gaze finally returned to mercy. "even had we been happy ...one day eternity itself would have become another prison."
⠀⠀⠀⠀she shook her head gently. "it was never the answer and if i had the opportunity to change the past..." another long silence. "...i would never make that choice again. all of it." her voice remained steady despite the grief beneath it.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"nothing is worth what followed." she would still love silas, of course, but she wouldn't dare to rise above the place that had been given to her. she wasn't supposed to be with silas.
⠀⠀⠀⠀when mercy called her mind beautiful, genuine surprise flickered visibly across her features. it was subtle but unmistakable. her brows lifted ever so slightly. she cannot remember that anyone called her mind (or soul) beautiful expect silas.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"i cannot tell you whether that was ever true." her gaze drifted toward the light spilling through the window. "i only know that whatever remained is gone now. the colors disappeared, the light with them. everything simply became grey." her expression settled once more into quiet stillness.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"my sin was falling in love." the words were scarcely louder than a whisper. “and i learnt my lesson. i paid for my choice and for my feelings.”
⠀⠀⠀⠀"but none of that changes the fact that i do not belong here." her gaze moved slowly across the unfamiliar room surrounding them. "not in this century, not in this world. i have fulfilled my sentence. i simply wish to be allowed to leave it behind." || @dulcetbloodmercy
