Lord and Lady
By Izzy
Part 1:Arrivals
The Lady Wade Welles had never ridden through an old pre-kingdom city before. Now she wondered why anyone would want to set up fortress in this place. The ruins didn't offer too much protection, if anything, they gave attackers places to hide. And they weren't a sight she was looking forward to seeing daily.
Normally the Lady Welles enjoyed riding. It was the most exciting thing she was allowed to do. But now she was riding to an unwanted marriage to a lord whom she had never even met.
It could have been worse, her personal attendant, Rembrant, who was riding beside her now, had reminded her. Her bethrothed did not have a bad reputation, and it wasn't like she had a lover or anything. She just didn't want to get married right now, especially under these circumstances.
The castle was in sight now. Wade wondered why the various families, her own included, insisted on building castles, when with modern technology, they provided more liabilities then protection. Something about tradition.
"My Lady must not be gloomy," said Rembrant softly.
"Don't call me that," Wade grumbled. "You've known me ever since I was a baby. Call me by my name."
"Very well, Lady Welles." He said the name as if testing it out.
"Wade." said Wade impatiently. "And don't think of calling me Lady Wade either. You're the only friend I'm going to have now, and I want to be on a first name basis."
Rembrant looked stunned at this, and Wade knew it was enough of an honor for a slave to be allowed to address a master, especially a upper-class lady such as herself, by even their last name, let alone thier first. But Wade didn't care what was an honor and what wasn't. It was also considered an honor to be given a husband, and she certainly wasn't pleased by that.
Rembrant was continuing, "But surely, Wade" he paused and glanced around to see if anyone had heard him, "your husband-"
"Don't talk to be about my husband!" Wade cut him off angrily, not even noticing in her anger how badly he cringed. "All he's going to do is shut me up in his castle and only pay attention to me when he's feeling lusty. Maybe not even then, if there's an attrative woman closer to where he is at the point!"
"How can you know this-m-er-Wade, you haven't even met him yet!"
"I don't have to! These Lords are all the same." Afraid of speaking up further, Rembrant did not respond. They rode in silence for several moments.
"What did they call this city again?" asked Wade. "Sanfran Cizzo?"
"I think so. It's rather interesting, I think."
"I don't." Silence again.
Seconds later Wade snapped. "I'm not doing this! I'm not marrying some great Lord against my will!" And she turned her horse and spurred it back the way they had come.
"My Lady, you can't do this!" Rembrant called desperatly after her.
"Leave me alone!" She spurred the horse further to a gallop.
She noticed a bright flash of light. She spurred her horse towards it, hoping to lose Rembrant in it.
She closed her eyes against the light, and ignored the four thumps she heard, and the shouting, she just rode-
Wade Welles landed with a loud thump in the middle of what looked like ruins. She had barely stood up when she was swept up and carried off. "I am sorry, Wade." said someone who sounded suspiciously like Remmy. "But you're being foolish. You could not survive long-" Then he screamed and she fell off the horse. "What happened to you??"
She looked up and saw it was indeed Remmy, but he was dressed differently, and he obviously was a different Remmy. She glanced about for her companions, but the horse had carried her out of thier sight.
"Um, I'm not who you think-" she started.
"Wade, stop it."
"Wade, well, your Wade anyway, is somewhere out there-" she pointed in the direction they had come from. The direction which Quinn, Arturo, and Remmy were hurrying up. "Wade! What happened?"
This alternate Remmy, of course, could not miss his parallel self. So Wade continued, "See? There's an alternate version of yourself, and I'm an alternate version of your Wade. Why was she running away, anyway?"
"She is about to married, and she does not want to be."
"Don't blame her." commented Quinn.
"I don't either," agreed the alternate Remmy. "But she cannot survive on her own in the ruins, and though her bethrothed is much better then many, there is no telling what he will do if she doesn't arrive on time. We have to find her." That Evening
When the horse grew tired, Wade stopped. Now she had to worry about survival.
There was a bit of food in her saddlebag, which she ate, leaning against a tree. She supposed she'd have to hide from her would-be husband as well.
Suddenly she heard the sound of someone coming. She hurriedly remounted the horse, but then saw that whoever it was, he was on foot. Which meant it wasn't Rembrant, and it certainly wasn't someone from the castle. She'd heard there were people who lived in these woods. Would they help her or hurt her?
When she saw the figure clearly, she nearly fell off the horse. It was a girl, dressed strangely, who, aside from her hair being much shorter, looked exactly like herself.
"Good," said the girl, "I found you. I'm you from a parallel world, and I need to talk to you."
"Who sent you?" demanded Wade suspiciously.
"Rembrant sent us all out looking for you."
"I won't talk to you!" Wade started to spur the horse out.
"Please!" There was an earnestness in her voice that convinced Wade to turn back.
"How much food do you have?" this strange Wade started.
"None now," answered Wade.
"Then you'll starve. Or be killed. Or worse!"
Her words struck a point. "I'll survive." Wade said. She wasn't convincing anyone. She certainly wasn't convincing herself.
"Wade," said the other Wade gently, "I know you don't want to marry someone you don't love-"
"I don't! Especially not one of those pig-headed Lords!"
"So as Lords are pig-heads?"
"Of course they are!"
"How do you know that?"
Wade considered. She'd met many Lords in her youth, who had been all sorts of people, young and old, nice and mean, crazy or completely sane. When had she had any opinion of them? Then she remembered. She had been told of her impending marriage. She had protested, saying she didn't want to go marry a Lord. Her father had silenced her, and told her her husband would not be denied his bride. Angry at being used, she had formed the opinion she held now. "Well this one is," she said, "if he's forcing me to marry him."
"Who says he is?" pointed out Wade. "How old is he?" she was grasping at straws now, but-
"I don't know," Wade shrugged. "I think his father's still alive-"
So grasping at straws could indeed snare one. "If his father's still alive, I'd say it's likely he's arranged this. His son may very well be as upset as you are."
This was a convincing arguement. Provided, of course, it was true. "I don't know..." Wade replied.
"Come along," said Wade, taking hold of the horses bridle.
Wade yanked it out of her hands. "I won't be led!" And she proudly began leading the horse back the way they had come. Wade followed on foot.
They had been moving in a direction that led back to the ruined city for some time when the Lady Wade asked, "Are you married?"
"No," said Wade.
"Do you have any plans to be married?"
Wade shook her head. "I never stay in one world for more then three weeks at most. So my choices are limited to my three companions. One of them's too old for me, one, well..."
"What about the third?"
"Quinn? Well..." She drifted off. It would take more then she could say to explain why she and Quinn weren't long married now.
The other Wade was no fool. "You want to be married to him, do you not?"
"I do." admitted Wade. After all, who could you confess to, if you couldn't confess to your alternate self? "But Quinn Mallory, he doesn't want love. Well, it's more like he does, but..." She drifted off again. Then she suddenly realized that the horse behind her had stopped. She turned around. "What is it?"
"Pardon me," said the other Wade, "but did you say Quinn *Mallory*?"
