Romanowski and Rosemary

21. Divine interpretation

Coretta

Surrounded by the divine fragrance of myrtle flowers, I felt a soft hand moving through my hair. My head rested on someone's lap, eyes closed in the tiredness from fighting off Nael. From near starvation and from leaving my homeland of the ancient world - Romanos, behind.

Thoughts muddled, I opened my eyes to find myself in a vast garden, the grass so soft with dew drops that it felt like... heaven. White myrtle flowers adorned the boundaries, wafting softly by the breeze that took their fragrance everywhere. Through my sleep-blurred vision, I could figure out a marble archway in the distance. With doves flying about.

"Are you awake, Althea, love?" I never knew a voice could be so soft. Blinking, I found tendrils of red hair tumbling past my forehead, resembling lustrous copper. They seemed to effulge under the warm sunlight, looking so soothing that I raised my hand to feel them. Her hair was bliss incarnate.

If her hair was such, what would she be like?

The woman laughed softly. "I see you're awake," Again the voice. It felt as if I'd landed in the world of Aphrodite. Maybe the goddess finally showed mercy to her poor priestess.

But... How was I in her realm? Did I die? But wouldn't dying mean I'd reach my world-

"Calm down, sweet," the woman giggled, as if she had perfectly read the things going on in my head. Gently, she raised me from her lap, and the moment I looked at her, I lost my voice.

The softest green eyes met me, like emeralds covered in velvet. I sat benumbed to see her beauty - shining copper red hair with gems for eyes and a face so flawless; it made me feel like an old woman in comparison.

Was it Aphrodite? Oh Lord, but... this woman looked my age. And I knew Aphrodite was much older and mature looking.

"Yes, I'm your age," she smiled, taking my hand in hers, "And I'm not Aphrodite."

I looked down, my bruised hand held in her perfect ones. I was still in my tattered slave clothes, my body aching from the exertion I'd put in the fight.

Worshipping Aphrodite all those months really made me crazy enough to have dreams like these.

"Yes, it's a dream, but it's real too," she said, looking at me wholeheartedly as I did. "Souls can travel to faraway, wonderful places while dreaming." she smiled. "And don't worry. You'll be freed of this slavery soon because you are Aphrodite's priestess itself." She assured me.

Her hand, like the pale moonlight, moved over mine and her face hung in sadness at my wounds. My heart thudded against my chest when on her contact, my bruises disappeared, but reappeared on her hand instead.

"W- What..." I could barely get a word out when she reached for my cheek, and ever so gently, swiped her fragrant palm over the cut below my eye. The soreness from the guard's hard slap on my cheek vanished, too. But my eyes blurred in tears when I found my wound reappearing on her cheek.

"Why are you doing this...?" My voice cracked, beholding her state.

"I don't want to hurt you, like I did to h- him," she hiccupped, but carefully recovered, smiling softly through the new wounds on her flawless face.

"But you never hurt me," I reasoned out, pitied at her condition. "And him... who is he?" I asked.

Holding my hand, she tenderly made me rise from the grass and walked about the garden. The silence, with the only sound of the doves, was soothing beyond measure. We walked until we reached the boundary and it looked like we were overlooking the Earth from this great height.