They had met in the loveliest of all places, a tavern. Neither had been drunk, and it was the way their eyes met across the dimly lit, loud, crowded room that drew them together. He was there with a rowdy bunch of friends; she was reluctantly tagging along with her best friend Ella, who insisted on flirting with every male in sight. Neither of them had particularly wanted to be there, but fate was funny that way.
There was nothing wrong with Sarah – she was indeed quite beautiful, with wide green eyes and long golden hair, and she had such supple curves and the sweetest pink cheeks, and her full lips, while they didn't say much, were enough to make any grown man stammer. She had never caught a man's full attention with the robustly gorgeous Ella by her side, so the redhead was excited when her shy friend had attained the notice of a very tall, handsome young man.
His name was Eric, he said, as he pulled her aside and they started to chat. Sarah replied with her name, and the whole time she could feel butterflies floating around in her stomach and her heart pounding in her ears. He had such a rich brown shade of hair, and she liked how small he made her feel. His eyes, though…they were another story. Bright and blue like the spring sky that would greet them the next morning, she found herself staring at them for most of the night, whenever she wasn't looking at her feet out of embarrassment.
While their assorted friends became drunk and forgot all about them, Eric and Sarah sat at the same table all night, alternately talking about everything under the sun and just looking at one another in shy silence. She was much more hesitant than he, but neither had had much experience with the opposite sex at all. The tavern slowly emptied of people until only they and the barmaid and the bartender were left, and they wound up walking home at two in the morning. It was a cloudy night but there was a clear patch where a handful of stars were shining brightly.
"This is me," she said softly as they stopped in front of a modest house a few minutes down the road. She didn't want to go inside and go to bed; she was afraid she would wake up and find that this was all a dream. With her luck, it would be.
Eric took Sarah's small hands in his own and kissed them, which nearly made her faint. He smiled that charming grin and sighed contentedly. "When will I see you again? Soon, I hope…and not in another tavern," he raised his eyebrows.
She blushed for the umpteenth time that night and looked at their hands clasped together, shaking her head. "You'll find me," she whispered, finally managing to look back up at him and smile. She took her hands back from him and reached behind her head, undoing one of the small braids in her hair. She pulled out a tiny white ribbon and tied it around his index finger, the dimples in her cheeks becoming more apparent as she smiled even bigger. "You're tied to me now."
They married not long after. The weeks between their fateful meeting and the blissful ceremony were filled with the excitement and passion that young lovers always feel; that rush of feelings that never stops, even when it seems they should be sick of each other. To Sarah, everything was Eric, and to him, everything was her. The funny thing was, they never tired of one another. They had married when he was twenty-one and she was almost seventeen, and their time together stretched to a beautiful five years. Neither of them ever imagined the end would come, and they certainly didn't think it would come as soon as it tragically did.
She became more confident with him by her side. Soon enough, she didn't need to be escorted to town to buy food; she could manage without him. But he tagged along anyway. He liked to make sure none of the men took a fancy to her. He had nothing to worry about, for Sarah only had eyes for him. Sarah grew from a self-conscious, hesitant girl into a young woman of strong heart and kind words. She always knew what to say and how to say it. She knew how to make Eric forget something that had upset him, how to patch up his wounds and make him feel completely better…she was an angel. And she did it all with a smile.
He grew to have more of a soft side, and Sarah loved to take advantage of it. He had one weakness and it was her. It was her infectious laugh, her bright smile, her long flaxen hair, her soft skin…It was the way she made everything bad seem very small in comparison to the blissful life they shared. His friends laughed at him for being "whipped", as you might call it, but any of them would have killed for a wife like her. Sarah, as her name implied, was a princess. She was a princess not of royal blood but of something even better; a strong heart and a compassionate soul.
When he went off to fight some time into their marriage, leaving her alone for a stretch of weeks that seemed to go on forever, she was left with nothing more than their memories together. How she missed that big, lovable oaf who would come home when the sun was nearing its final bow, who would sweep her up in his strong arms no matter what she was in the middle of doing, who would remind her that he loved her dearly and that he was the luckiest bastard on God's green earth. It felt like centuries between every sunrise and sunset, and while her loneliness took its toll, she didn't let herself fall by the wayside. She took care of herself and of their home, and she waited for him like any good steadfast wife should.
He at last came home dirty and defeated, with the stench of war all around him. It wasn't just his appearance; it was in his suddenly sour attitude and his inflamed temper, too. She knew the second he approached the front door that he had changed dramatically.
"What's gotten into you?" she asked with a frown as she put a hand to his cheek. When she stroked his skin with her thumb, a thick patch of dirt came off. "You didn't lose yourself out there, now, did you? No, you didn't. You're right here." She patted his chest and sighed when he mumbled something under his breath. "Come here. You're home now…you're here, and whatever you faced is out there. It's gone. I don't want it in my house, do you understand me?"
They stared at each other for a few moments before she spoke again.
"You're stronger than whatever demons you've got cooped up in there. You're my husband, first and foremost…and I want you back! I don't want this dark and dreary…this…whatever it is, it isn't you!" she cried, and so intense was her passion that she had tears welling in her pale green eyes. "Eric…"
Needless to say, she saved him. He always went back to that night he had returned from the final battle, the one that had led through the Dark Forest. Words could never fully explain the terrors he experienced in those woods, but she convinced him it was worth a try. From then on, there was never anything between them. She was his savior; she pulled him to safety before things got ugly. He owed her immensely for that. He could be as intimidating and as tough as he liked, but he would never be as strong of heart as his beloved Sarah. It was always apparent to him who was the braver one, who was the real warrior, who would be the one to comfort who.
One time he accompanied her to town to pick up some necessities. She was perusing the selection of spices at an old woman's small shop when an old friend had distracted him. After the two men had caught up for no more than two minutes, he turned around to head back to his wife. She was gone.
He never saw her smile again.
Sarah had been whisked away by a rather unsightly man with white hair and sickly pale skin. She wasn't naïve or stupid by any means; he had only convinced her it was best to come along when he pointed to the archer in a nearby castle tower. The man's bow was pointed toward the street, and within seconds, his arrow could be buried deep within Eric's heart. All she had to do to prevent that was come to the castle with him.
She knew that whatever he had planned for her wasn't going to be pleasant, but even she had no idea it would end so terribly. When he pulled her into a bedchamber and had two guards stand outside the door, she felt her heart jump to her throat.
Eric would have wanted her to be strong. Spit in his face, knee him in the groin, fight back – so she did. She cursed at him and clawed his face with her fingernails, she wriggled out of his grasp a few times, she even gave him a good blow to the stomach region with her knee, but she couldn't manage to fight him off completely. He was too fierce, too malicious, and she was only a small young woman. She had no weapons, nothing but that lion's heart that burned inside of her.
After an impressive amount of struggling, he had her on her back, on the ratty old mattress. She refused to give him the satisfaction of a scream, and whenever he tried to put that filthy mouth on her skin, she swiftly slapped him away. But he had done this before, he had forced a good number of girls into submission, and he liked a challenge.
She only screamed when he was inside of her. He made her bleed. She writhed underneath him and screamed bloody murder, yelling her husband's name over and over at the top of her lungs. Surely someone below could hear her, surely someone had seen her be dragged inside and knew something was wrong…Surely Eric would come running up the stairs and kill this sick bastard with one swift blow of his axe, but her wish never came true. She was never rescued.
He didn't take long, but it was the most excruciatingly painful few moments of her life. Never had she felt so degraded, so filthy, so defeated. She lay trembling on the mattress after he had finished and she weakly pulled the remains of her dress over her bare body. The only thoughts that ran through her head were of Eric.
I'm sorry. I should have been stronger. I should have run off. I should have taken my chances. I should have stayed home...
"Now you cry," the devil smirked as he watched her curl up into a ball. He sighed, obviously annoyed by her wailing. "Shut up! Shut up, you whore!"
She sniffled a few more times and looked up at him with tearful eyes. "I'm…I'm not your whore," she whispered, but there was still that hint of fight in her voice. "I'm no one's whore!"
She was bleeding to death a matter of minutes later. He had stabbed her just below her heart; too low for an instant death, but still high enough to be fatal. As the color drained from her face and the sparkle left her eyes, she began to have hallucinations. She could see Eric standing there before her, stroking her cheek, holding her hand, kissing her lips softly…and with her dying breath, she said his name, and it was over.
He learned of her death when her body was dropped off in front of the house in a most unceremonious fashion, wrapped in a scratchy brown blanket stained with her blood. He had been worried sick, to put it lightly, ever since losing sight of her that afternoon, and a few hours later there she was. He opened the blanket and held her limp body in his arms, struck speechless by the suddenness of it all. He stroked her pale cheek, he ran his fingers through her soft hair, as if one of the sweet gestures he had performed many a time before would bring her back to life. None of them worked, and he cradled her in his arms well into the morning.
When it came time to part, he gave her the gentlest of kisses on her pale lips. He held the kiss for a few moments, briefly imagining that she had come back to life, but it was too good to be true. So he kissed his princess goodbye and handed her over to heaven, and she was no longer there to fight off his demons for him. And he was never the same.