To have and to hold
Cold Feet
Ding-a-ling, dong ding-a-ling, dong
The clamorous clatter of the hugely proportioned bells seemed to enhance her senses. She gazed around, one hand fiddling absent-mindedly with the delicate shawl draped across her slender shoulders. The black, web-like structure of the veil, which sat so appealingly on her dark head, concealed her overwhelming sense of nervousness and guilty fear.
Would he come? After all the devastation he had witnessed, a large amount conceived by his own hands, would he come and share the desperate, life altering event with her?
She turned, her prominent features lit up slightly from the small smile she was giving the woman striding towards her.
A whisper, a shameful, but honest whisper escaped her lips as the woman reached her side.
"Is he here?"
As an answer, her sister smiled and embraced her briefly.
She left.
She left, leaving the bride to be, even more anxious then before.
That gesture… what did it mean? Was it joy, relief or reassurance? Was she soothing her sister's fear or strengthening it?
Was her love here? Or had he fled….. Had he… hadn't he...? So many unanswered queries, so many doubts….
At this, icy ripples of rage surged through her, she spun around.
No one.
She glanced at the wooden polished door. Simple, she tolled herself.
Just walk through the door. He will be there, waiting. For you.
Her gaze wondered across the courtyard. She could just go, flee. She could hide herself….and then. Then… she would ruin him. The only person she ever wanted ever dreamed of. Could she do that?
No. It would tear her apart too.
She turned away from the scene.
He stood, frozen, held by the enveloping sense of fear. To be like this… so formal, so binding…. It made him feel… exposed.
He loved her. Did he? Love was such a new emotion for him. It had engulfed him with passion and gentleness, like a fierce lioness, defending her cubs.
He hadn't known what to do, what to think at first, what to do. He was half exhilarated, half terrified. But people had tolled him that is what love felt like. But he had never felt love until now.
And he still didn't understand.
But he could hardly fret on this matter now.
This notion made him chuckle. Did he love her? And he was asking himself this on the day they united as one?
Maybe it was cold- feet, the absurd idea that Lucius had tolled him about, his opinion that he would be so nervous that he would doubt everything he had previously made sense of.
Him? As if…
Instantaneously, all he had were unspoken fears, queries that he had dispatched to the back of his mind before now. They grabbed him and mocked him cruelly. Taunting him. Why would she love you, they jeered, you the heartless one, the one who mocked her at first when she so desperately longed for you? Why? Why would she forgive you now, after all you subjected her too?
Why why why?
In all honesty, he didn't know and this was what frightened him most of all.