Victor

It was safe to say that throughout his life, Victor hadn't given much thought to marriage. To him the topic was rather grim—he'd seen his parent's marriage was like—the constant argumentative tragic comedy featuring an overbearing wife a dawdling, chuckling father. If marriage was like that then he really wanted little part in it. Plus the idea of achieving something as distant and complicated as marriage was a downright terrifying concept to Victor. When Victor talked to anyone he was always flushed and stuttering and if he wasn't tripping over his tongue he was tripping over his feet. He'd always been a klutz and when talking to member of the opposite sex (the few times in his twenty years that he actually had) blood was always guaranteed to be shed; the way he nearly convulsed with nerves when (trying) to speak to one.

So Victor had always tried to admire girl's from a safe distance, but of course even he could find a way to hurt himself even then—the most memorable incident being in his fathers fish market. It was eight years ago, he'd been thirteen and some unwise imbecile had given the young lad a cleaver to monotonously hack the heads off of dead fish slapped onto a cutting board. He'd been doing quite well until a gaggle of giggling schoolgirls sauntered by, hair gleaming in the pale winter sun, tiny waists twisting delicately as they pranced past, skirts swishing playfully on the cobblestones leaving a tiny entryway to the tantalizing mysteries that lay beneath. Victor had been so memorized by the sight that he nearly let the cleaver pass cleanly through his finger. Had Mayhew not been lingering nearby to quickly dodge in and snatch the knife out of the boy's grasp, Victor would be walking around without a thumb on his right hand.

Looking back at these incidents, Victor could safely conclude that marriage was simply something he couldn't' participate in. Even if he wasn't a danger to anyone what woman in her right mind would want to stand at the Alter with him: the bumbling son of a fish merchant?

Victor received the answer to that question when his parents announced his marriage was to be arranged. He should have expected it to be like that—a woman would have to be forced to marry him. Not only was the idea terrifying, it was downright humiliating. Over the course of the next month since he'd received the news, Victors mind twisted into horrible scenarios of his wife hating him or his wife being some hideous creature…or being exactly like his mother. Now that was a thought that could earn a man a lifetime in the madhouse.

But the thought that ailed Victor the most (and that was saying quite a bit considering the aforementioned problem) was the fact that he would never learn what love was like. But then again, what even was love? Was it the ability to talk to someone without tripping over one's words—something Victor was only able to do to Mayhew and, once a upon a time, his dog, Scraps. Was love based of beauty or dowry? Gangly and awkward, Victor didn't think love could land on a soul a misfortunate as his. He did have money, however...at least his parents did. What was love anyway? Was it learned or was it internal? With his marriage was arranged he felt that he was somehow cheated of learning the answer. He'd never get the chance to find out.

All of this, of course was before he met her. Before he met Victoria.

The day of their rehearsal he'd met her for the first time and everything about her swirled his emotions and sent them in a tailspin of chaos.

The paleness of her skin, her soft smile, the heart shape of her face, the tenderness in her voice as she spoke about her dreams, her childhood.

It was then that Victor, for once in his life, felt rewarded, that the woman standing in front of him was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Victor didn't think about marriage often and he didn't know what love was supposed to be.

He felt it.