lie to me → s.d.

.24 | beautiful and tragic

Libertalia was a sprawling, crumbling foundation of houses and small, compact buildings the looked as though they had been destroyed by an explosion of vines and brush. Dust kicked up at their feet as the trio shuffled their way to the heart of the once-bustling community, eyes wide and mouths agape with awe. They seemed so out place here, so modern in this world of eras before their time.

          "Can you..." Nathan's breath hitched in his throat and he croaked out a choked laugh, lips blossoming into a grin. "Can you believe it? We finally found it. This is it."

          Theodora bent down to pick up a piece of rubble laying by her boot, something from what used to be a mosaic. Dirty glass glinted back up at her, winking in the sunlight. "I thought we would have been dead weeks ago," she mused and tossed it back where it came from.

          "Really?"

          "Have I ever lied?" she said.

          Sam chuckled and hopped himself over a low stone fence, motioning for them to follow. "Hurry up," he laughed. "Where should we start?"

They seemed to be in a marketplace of some kind, because the buildings they explored were those of blacksmiths and trading posts, knackers and wood shops. Old glass overcome with moss and cracks glinted in the light near their shoes as they all entered a haphazard-looking building near the center of the square. Torn, damp pictures hung from the wall, their depictions too long gone to even be faintly recognized. Mugs and bottles littered the floors and rotting cupboards, tables were overturned, and emptied, hollow shells of kegs begged to be put out of their misery from dusty corners. They shared a silent understanding that they had found what used to be the town pub.

Sam took a seat at one of the only tables left standing to stretch his legs for a moment; his brother and Theodora sat on either side of him. A trio of discarded mugs sat on the wood before them; at once, they all took one and touched the rims together.

"Do you guys," said Nathan, and seemed to be choosing his words carefully as they fell from his lips, "do you see yourselves doing this your entire lives? Job after job?"

Theodora and Sam exchanged a glance, and their answers were the same. "Well, yeah," he said and raised a shoulder up and down. He propped a foot up on the table and leaned back like he himself were some kind of ruffian from this long forgotten century they were at the heart of, kicking back and drinking his troubles away. "What's the alternative? Rottin' away in prison? Or, or... the regular life? Annual Thanksgiving get togethers and goin' to work and doing the same thing every day with the same people?"

Nathan's brow quirked upwards in a small, tiny micro-expression of something hopeful. He gave a little nod of confirmation, twisting the golden band around his finger.

"Nah," said his brother. "Not for us." Sam raised his mug again and Theodora joined him in their miniature toast, the maiden to his old-timey ruffian with her heart on her sleeve and a trick or two, as well. He gave her a smile similar to Nathan's; small and hopeful, but for something completely different. "I like the hand we've been dealt."

          Theodora stared into the bottom of the old, rotting mug in her grip before placing it upside-down and following the boys back outside. She'd had a taste of the ordinary life, taken a good, long look at it inside and out, and thought the words had been snatched right from her mouth. It simply wasn't for her. Not the coming home to empty apartments, not the nine-to-five shifts and putting up with old ladies who lived on the same floor. No. This was just how she liked it, lost in the unknown with no net below and barely anything to hold on to, searching for what called her name at night. This was the life she was meant for.