Good Evening! So this is a test to see how well the story is received. This first chapter is slow-going to the way the rest is plotted, I promise. I also want to apologize for the way it may sound, even when I go back and reread, it is a little odd with the language I write with. But I'm hoping you guys will like it.
Reviews are much appreciated!
-V
Supper Final Meal
I cried out as Sasha pulled upon the snarls in my hair. It wrung in brown curls to my waist, twisting and turning in elegant spirals, grasping at my exposed corset strings. "Belay! do not pull such so!" I said to my lains maid.
"Farsuch, I am sorry but your Me`um shan't have a daughter as bride with knotted hair. She spoke quietly, unwilling to face my temper.
"Lord to them, my mother will not be in control of my own wed party to that blasted fool from Thiblund. For own to me, if I am to suffer for the next of my life, the wife of an ignorant, conceited old man as he…Well my Me`um should have courtesy at least as to let me suffer in private." I stood, angry at my mother for trying to control even the most miserable part of my youth, and angry at myself for igniting that part of my mind to flames, once again in Sasha's presence. I enjoyed her company, and I felt it my duty to contain my feelings inside until I was alone.
"Apologies, my lain. Shall I be to finish your dressing?" The wedding to the King of Thiblund was not for an essential two more days, and a few hours before to this time now, Sasha and I had been preparing my outfit and the wear of the ringlets atop my head.
"Yes, yes, Sasha. Go and do such, before I fly into a fury that ruins the palace." I sat again in front of her and she began to comb my hair once again. She smiled as she talked to me. "My lain, for the daughter of the king of such a land as Entrin, you indeed deserve better than such a man as him. If it is not too rash of me to say so."
"So you feel sympathy for me? Is it a deep thought for me? Sasha, you are too kind as my maid. My Me`um could not 'ave chosen wiser."
"I have sympathy for the fact that you are to become the legal wife of a three-generation lived ruler such as him. You being only in your eighteenth year of youth, and to be forced upon the wedding of someone as thoughtless and old as him…My Lady lain, he is in his fifty-second year of elder age."
"I know, Sash dear. I know."
She moved on from untangling my hair to preparing and parting it for the time when it would be twisted and wound into an elegant bun that would hang strands flowing and coursing down to my shoulders. "Sasha?...when is your day of start?"
"In two days, on your wedding day my lain."
"Stayhap! on my day of wed? Sasha, what year shall thee come into?" "It tis' to be the day of fourteen for my passing."
"So I be in my eighteenth…Sasha, I knew not that you had four years inferior to me. You are in such an age of youth, goodness!" I then felt a tug on my royal scalp, and heard the slip of the clasp that held my feet of hair. I stood and, facing her, let the Pendant of my Admittance be placed around my neck so as to allow the Head of Church to marry me off.
"I thank Above that this is not quite needed yet." I fingered the green and gold edged jewel as I said this, walking to the looking glass and admiring my reflection.
I looked at my pale skin and red lips; I looked at my hair and lean hands and tight waist; and I looked at my broad chest, pushed into place along with my slim waist by the lace-fringed corset that squeezed me now. And I thought that, in all consideration, everything fit together perfectly, and I was beautiful. Very beautiful. Of course, being a royal of my people and the tribes, it was so important to be beautiful that it was almost considered to be a requirement. Luckily for me, everyone in my immediate family held beauty and handsomeness. Thirteen year-times ago, my mother won the title of being so beautiful that people considered her to be a Goddess. I hoped to fill that role now.
Sasha came and stood behind me, draping a scarlet-colored shawl to cover my exposed skin. It was cold in the room here in the castle. Entrin and Thiblund were two of the four Cities of Cite in the whole of our land. And the King of Thiblund was the one I was to marry to secure my holding on the throne of our people. My mother enforced this rule strongly, and my poor father could not refuse her wishes.
I shivered slightly just as I heard the door open quickly. My Me`um was doing everything quickly in years of these. And upon the action of opening doors, it was always without a knock or a call of entering.
Every time.
Sasha stood back from the chair I sat in immediately, so as not to present as being more than a mere maid. "Daughter." My Me`um spoke with reverence in a bold tone. I nodded an inclining to her presence. She stepped over to me and pulled me from the chair, yanking my hair from the tied-ends that help it up. The clasp fell to the floor and Sasha bent to retrieve it into her hold. But my mother swished at Sasha her hand, dismissing her from the bleak happening. The girl curtseyed as she should, and then smiled at me from behind my mother's back before leaving. "Daughter. It is in the sixth hour of the late, and Supper meal is set out." She began to loosen my overdress, meant for the wed day, and I did not say a word.
"Undress and come unto the seating before your Lord Father worries."
Without another, she walked back from the room, leaving me to the task of preparing for the food eat. I slipped out of my garments and pulled on my dining gown, brushing my hair through before pulling it back into a hinge. It slept soundly upon my back now, for a time, and I was glad that Meal would be a long one. Before long, in just two days more, I would never return to this solemn bedroom. For I would be imprisoned in Thiblund, ruling my people.
But as duty calls, shall responsibility answer.
"To which must I part?" I asked to myself as I descended the stairs outside the room. I heard chattering of my father's guests as I neared the bottom. Walking into the room, the glittering of firelights hit my eyes like that of a sunrise after long-dark does, and I remembered to cherish this meal. This was because tomorrow I would be Incalling in the Ser Room, and would not eat. And the next night, and all those after, I would be in Thiblund.
My father, at the head of the tree-table, rose and came to me with his eyes holding a smile. Most guests continued talking, as did the violinist, the night's music-keeper, kept playing in a shushed tone.
"Here, my little bride finally arrives."
"I am not yet, dear Lath. Not for days of two more."
He guided me and settled me to my place beside my sister Alasin. "Of course, my daughter Syin."
I sat back, and took up my glass of wine. The table was tempting, as the roasting and shilled food was in front exactly of my plate, emanating the smells of heaven. I saw that there was as well tetle, mixed upan, and beginnings all consisting of every vegetable, sweet fruit, and lined vine that was harvested from crop forests in the villages.
I was glad that Me`um had at least made my final dinner enjoyable.
Alasin next to me, being only at her fifteenth year, did not have but a cup of lile water instead of wine. So, when I placed mine back upon the table after a drink, I was not surprised that she stole a quick sip from my glass.
I looked around the room familiar to me, able to easily distinguish all the guests that sat. The Lords from the other two Cities of Cite were here, along with my given to Lord of Thiblund. He sat quietly next closest to the seat of my Lord Father, slightly staining his white-aged beard with the red of the wine and his round stomach protruding from his robes. I grimaced inside my head as a horrid thought came to me. I turned to my young sister.
"Alasin." I whispered as she leaned closer. "Does Thiblund Lord expect me to bear his own? He does proceed on now with at least a dozen from his mistresses, correct? Oh! hope I do that I must not be weighed upon his manner in the bed!"
She glanced at his chewing mouth and scraggly, long hair than back at me. "I shan't be to know, but for you I hope so too. You are so in youth, and in two days' time I worry that the joys of the flesh will forever be denied to you, sister Syin."
I picked at my full plate with the silver fork in my hand. "What pity of me, for I have only ever even kissed a single lath, and it twas that wretched Hesam Prince. Why, Alasin, you must 'ave kissed a dozen more so, and me being older than you. Oh, such a loss for me."
My dear sister squeezed my hand under the table. "I have such a sympathy for you now that I don't even feel like eating meal."
"Either me." I said with disdain. My stomach was coming wrenched inside of me at the idea of bearing children to a man an entire generation older than my own father.
Incalling Of Me
It was at hour ten of early next day when Sasha came into my bedchamber and aroused me. I was to enter Incalling for the entirety of the later hours.
The purpose of Incalling was to get rid of one mind and move to a fresh, empty one a day before the marriage.
Later that evening, when the next meal for my family was being prepared, I crouched on dark carpet, alone, in the Ser room. This final part of Incalling was indeed the most dreadful part. With me in the bare room was singly a bowl and a sharpened knife. There twas but one window in the wall, purposely with a cloth drawn at the present moment until my giving was complete. So, as done by all those before me, I spent the next two hours thinking and remembering and dreaming of all which had been my past life. I remembered start days and death days, tears, smiles; I recalled moons and suns, knowledge and laughs' I let go of pain and every other memory that had been, but twas no longer, mine. And as the final memory drifted away from existence to me, I took up the knife and cut from my palm a shallow wound, and as blood seeped into the clay bowl at my knees a small flash of white light erupted from the line of red. Then it was over.
Before I placed a cloth over my hand I let myself remember only three things: first being my family and who they were and my royal status and rank that I was born into; second was myself. My person. My personality. My thoughts. My pictured face and my education in my mind. And the third was as I stood and walked to the window, with the edge of my ceremonial clothes wrapped around my healing hand. And to signify the world I only remembered the picture outside as I threw back the cloth from the glass and stared straight ahead.
The picture I would always hold was just the sky. The pale sky, with the few tops of dark green trees touching the edge. The beautiful, glorious, free sky that never ended. The world of white and washed blue that could own both dark and light, both moon and sun, and always stars. The sky, which was not much different from another particular day of sky, except that this sky that I looked at had a high soaring, black as night, rather large bird, flying in circles above Entrin.
I had never seen a prettier creature.
It was so big; it almost didn't look like a bird. I wondered why I couldn't recognize what it was.
And with that, the creature and the sky were gone as I let the cloth fall back into place and walked out of the room with the bowl of my blood in hand.
As was custom in Entrin and Thiblund and Hesam and the other City of Cite, I took the bowl and slowly poured the blood into the burning fireplace in the hall right outside the door. The red color sizzled before scorching upon the wood, and with its ashes came the smell of charred life. With it came my renewal.
I looked around me now, breath being, though short, of soft hearing, and it then fully came to me that in the first hour of the next afternoon day, I would be a wife to a king.
I walked up the staircase stiffly, and into my room I walked stiffly. I closed the door and undressed and redressed without feeling, and I crawled under my cloth-warming in my bedchamber and closed my eyes with no emotion.
And my dreams were empty too, for I had nothing but the great black bird to think of.
Wed Day
Early morning; hour ten: I washed and brushed and dressed in the under part of my outfit, excluding the corset until Sasha came to help me. When she did arrive as she pulled my corset strings against the bed frame, I applied to thy face the cream paint for tone, pink for color, and onto my eyelids I put blue to bring out my blue eyes. Black dry-paint went on my lashes. After my face make-up was complete, Sasha began to curl my hair on a hot-stick.
"My Lain, your hair is already so curled in natural state I ask why thee shaln't curl with a manmade employer. Your hair is already and has been pretty; would Me`um be frightfully upset if I updone it and did not curl?"
I answered her smiling. "Sasha, you may keep a secret; my Me`um would be dreadfully ruffled in her fake peacock feathers if you did such, so go ahead and skip the curling and move on to next step."
It was not a goal of mine to upset my mother on a regular basis, but this my wedding be, so there I would have perfect my own look of figure in strategic movements.
Late morn; hour twelve and half: we dressed my slim body into the cashmere and silk-lined white dress for my marriage, and I wore slippers upon my feet of velvet. Sasha placed on me the pendant, and she had just finished my long hair when my mother burst, again with no knock, into my room.
"Daughter. It be half more into hour twelve, and in half more added you will be wed. As farewell, before you ascend to the courts, I have made by them a gift for your ears." She ushered Sasha out of the room and the maid went to wait in the courts.
Me`um walked over closer to me, and in one of the gentlest gestures I could remember her taking she pulled out a pair of earrings from her carry pouch. They were Sapphires, as blue as the near Long Ocean, and they were a good measure size. My mother slipped them gracefully into my ears.
"I will miss you, O Daughter." I saw that there was a single tear rolling down her cheek. She leaned in to me and placed a soft kiss upon my brow. Then, she said, "Tis the Time."
Mother stayed behind me as we strode towards the courts in the upper level. I walked proud and strong into the Wed Chamber, and only looked straight ahead as my father led me to the altar. Then both my parents took their seats.
Tall windows in all the walls let in the light from the sun, and to me came the presence of that which can never be relinquished. My responsibility held stillfast.
As the tedious ceremony began, I looked out upon the audience. I saw all the royalty I had ever met, along with those I hadn't. All were family, but almost none were familiar or friends. In the front were my mother and father and Alasin. Sasha stood on the outside of their row. In front of me was the King of Thiblund, with this beard in a long braid and a white and blue robe on. His hands were crossed behind his back, and the entire time that the Head of Church was speaking he was only staring at me, smiling.
I could only imagine what was going through his head at the moment.
I tried not to make eye contact with anyone, and eventually I was able to last to the end of the vows. The Head of Church began inclosing the wed.
"Syin Daughter, of Entrin Lord, now forever and becomes of Thiblund Lord Cormell. All to have and keep, until to death they leap."
And so, the old king before me leaned in to place our first kiss of Lath and wife that would make the binding official, when utter disaster awoke as I heard a window behind me break.
Was I saved?
I turned part and found that the nearest to us window was shattered into pieces upon the floor, and beheld on the edge of the window sill stood He who held the fear of all of the Cities of Cite. He and His kind that haunted us year after year. It twas a Vampyre of near, and I knew that face. In scrolls in our library it could be found: as a creature of death He would come unto the land of Entrin, snatching our people for His drink.
Who was He here for? Who that would die tonight, surely?
And then I knew. For upon His back I saw how He came to break the window: wings of black, wings of night with feathers as sharp as His teeth, and they spanned out in a pose of pure evil. His sinister smile and black hair even gave me the feeling, that I was right.
He had come to take me.