Azelma could feel the tears prickling her eyes. It was only seconds after she had met him, and already her "fiancée" had wounded her beyond measure.
"Anyway," he had said, joyfully, "All that time as a street beggar has done wonders for your figure!"
She uttered her best curse under her breath, a Christian thing –weak- in the way of "zut alors."
A frightening, unfamiliar emotion was welling up inside her, red hot with intensity.
Oh! It was anger! Anger was not a luxury herformer life had allowed her.
Her life as the least favorite daughter had been a persistent pattern of hear and obey, hear and obey. It did not matter if an order made her unhappy; her place in the home was a tentative one and one minor misstep would find her in Gavroche's elephant.
So she had learned to shut her anger off. And here it was again! The feeling scared her.
The tears ran down her cheeks, like rivulets; Azelma could not have stopped them if she had used all the magic of the world. She wiped at them, tried to think of happy things, but it was all in vain. She knew no happy things.
The rivulets became a flood, and the girl was so racked with pitiful sobs that she felt the need to sit down.
A peal of laughter echoed from the doorway.
The man was laughing at her!
He was laughing!
Laughing!
Her anger boiled over, then, and Azelma, mild as she was, could hold it in no longer.
"You, m'siuer," she said with an edge intended to be cold but merely sounded plaintive. "Are being …being… unpleasant this afternoon."
And with that, Azelma attempted to glide coolly out of the room. One misplaced foot later, she had tripped over her oversized skirt. Azelma flew through the air with a speed so startling, her confusion of a "fiancée" stepped out of the way so he did not block her path directly into the wall.
She hit the wall and bounced onto the floor, her feet tumbling over her head.
Two little twigs, flaying about madly in the air, skirts pooled below them on the floor.
Oh! It was a comical sight, one that sent the man laughing again.
Embarrassed beyond measure, Azelma picked herself up and marched straight to her suitor.
"Unpleasant, to be sure!"
A high, mal-formed cackle harmonized with the fiancée's guffaw. It was the Ogress.
Of course! She had not left.
"Ah," she said smirking. "Such a fine foot for the newlyweds to start upon."
Newlyweds.
"But what if I shan't?" Azelma asked, nearly defiantly.
"Oh," the suitor replied, giving her a grin that looked decidedly reptilian. "You shall."
"And don't you dare think of running off again, not before your happy, happy day!" The Ogress spit out this remark with such a tainted, hideous glee that Azelma shivered.
"I-I'm off to get a cup of tea…to…calm me nerves." Azelma muttered shakily. "Pleased to meetcha, m'sieur."
Azelma stepped past "the Reptile" (as he would be known to her henceforth) and shuffled meekly downstairs to wait for her father in the front room. She had seen him five times in the week she had been there- perhaps he'd be there today.
"Oh, Papa," she breathed, as the floorboard creaked beneath her. "I love you Papa, comehelp me!"