Valeria Sylvia was sitting on a stone in the garden of her home. A fountain burbled in the middle, with lily pads growing on the water, flowers cradled on them. The stones were set around the water, and Sylvia often went here to read the scrolls they'd been given by their tutor. The girl loved reading, unlike her siblings. She was the most clever of them all, they all infatuated with sports, politics, or themselves to some degree or another. She was quiet and small for her eighteen years, yet beautiful. She'd been unusually sheltered, as per the contract her father had made, long ago, with her betrothed.
Times had been hard, as of late. Father was often busy, stressed, as money flowed out. A ship carrying a huge investment was lost at sea, and now the family was struggling. There'd been talk of what to do, but most of that between father and his friends. He'd calmed in the last few days, often giving her, and other members of the family, odd looks, as if he'd come to a decision and not told them. It gave Sylvia a prickly feeling on the back of her neck to think of it, and she wondered when she'd find out what had happened.
There was no sun, the evening having come. The sky wasn't filled with stars, though, not in the middle of the city. A man stood in the doorway from the living area, tall and with noble bearing. He wore no tunic, as was the modern custom of wear, but only a toga, certainly naked beneath. Though she'd never seen such a thing, she'd heard of it, knew it was the way the very old or old fashioned tended to dress. His eyes were piercing blue, much like her own. The girl, as was proper at the entrance of a senator, stood to give a graceful curtsy, and then she went back to sitting once more. The man continued to watch her, though, and seemed not to be going away.. just leaning there, a handsome smile on his pale face.
She might have spoken to ask him what it was he smiled at, if he'd been a friend of her father's, or someone in her family. As it was, her curiosity was sharp, but she didn't betray it, simply waited. It was hard waiting, and she crossed her ankles, and recrossed them, and fidgeted with a stray wisp of hair that'd come out of its confining braid.
The man smiled at her in that way that often made her sister Maior (the younger of the two Valeria Marinas in the family) shiver and flirt, desirous of some boy's attention, yet would make Sylvia just roll her eyes. She didn't roll her eyes now. Her eyes flicked down to the words, and then butterflies tickled her insides as the man leaned off the door frame and stepped over to her, then crouched beside her. "What are you reading?"
"Poetry," she said, her voice almost too soft to hear. He hadn't been introduced to her yet, and her father hadn't introduced her, but he was so close. And he seemed nice. He smelled rather good too, she noticed, which heightened the pink flush in her cheeks.
"Poetry?" A tilt of his head, "That's quite a coincidence, don't you think?" His dark brow rose.
Puzzled, she tried to figure out if it was something she should know, and finally decided it wasn't. Trying hard not to smile or laugh, which she sometimes did at inappropriate times when she was nervous, Sylvia asked, "why is that?"
"Because," he said as he touched the side of her chin that faced away from him to tilt her face toward his, and then he tapped her chin, "To look at you is to see poetry in form."
Sylvia bit her lip, and then laughed, stopping herself by covering her mouth. Blushing hotly, she looked away again. No one had ever said anything like that to her, and she was being as silly as Maior! Her hand lowered, and her eyes slid back to his. She was smiling, she couldn't help that. "Thank you, sir." She wondered suddenly if this was the man she was betrothed to. She'd never met him, but it would explain why father had been giving her such odd looks recently.
"Mm," he sounded, still that charming smile, just looking over the girl's features as she gazed back nervously. He could see her mind was working, trying to determine why a man such as himself would ever spend time speaking to her. What interest could he possibly have? Indeed. "What's your name, Poetry?"
"Valeria Sylvia," she answered readily, if quietly. It was almost more than she could bear, not to ask a question, but she restrained herself with great effort. Sylvia was beginning to think, though, that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to be betrothed to someone this handsome, and this nice.
"Go ahead," he said. It was obvious to him that she was bursting with a need to say, to ask, to speak, "Speak to me freely, for now."
