Chapter Six: An Act of Desperation

A/N: I'm sorry this took so long! I worked hard on this; I'm hoping I didn't over work it. I wrote things, took them out, re-wrote them, put the original's back in, took them out. It was obnoxious. So this it what I ended up with…blech…Thankyou to my reviewers! I'm sorry there haven't been personal ones, I wanted to get this out to you asap.

She felt pounded. Never before in her life had she gone through so many beauty treatments in rapid succession, not like this had been. First it had been the baths, not usually a big deal. Usually she was allowed to do it herself. Usually she was allowed to enjoy herself. Usually she wasn't hurried in, and then followed in by large women with scrub brushes. Usually she wasn't suffocated with perfumes. Usually she wasn't taken out after five minutes of painful washing and shoved into a chair. Usually her hair was combed and then left down to dry. Not today, today her poor hair had been brushed, and then twisted into a painful knot on the top of her head. Usually she went without make up. Again, not today. Today she was painted like a canvass. Her unusually pale skin was made to look even paler, her usually pink lips were painted pinker, her usually rosy cheeks became rosier. Her eyes were lined with the obnoxious brown kohl she had so successfully avoided for the past few days.

That was not the end however. She was then asked to put on a lacy white gown. The pain started with the corset, which was bound much to tightly in her opinion. Her mothers lady's maid pulled the laces until the edges touched, Morgan gasping and trying to yell at them the entire time. Then there was a satin white under dress. Morgan hated white, she firmly believed that it made her look washed out, especially with all of the white face paint her mother had ordered put onto her. And then the most lacy, puffy, obnoxious sized dress she had ever seen. It went over her head, and was tightly cinched onto her body.

Tears gathered in her eyes. She knew that this was no ordinary day. This was her wedding day, and she knew that she would not be marrying someone she loved. I should have expected this. Felicine has been to nice these past few days, quite to cordial. That little talk I had with her did nothing but encourage her. Why can't I just do as I'm told? Why couldn't I just have kept my mouth shut? None of this would have happened. I could still be happily lying to myself.

Morgan bit her lip. I will find a way out of this. I will find my way back to Thom, someday. "Get out." She said to the women who were flitting about her room. "Get out."

"But Milady-" One of the women dared protest.

"The bride is traditionally given a few minutes to herself is she not? I will have mine. Now get out before I throw yank your hair out." She said, raising her voice. Apparently she looked thoroughly pissed enough to cause them all to scurry out of her room. Her knees were shaking; she sat on the end of her bed before she hit the floor. She hadn't slept in this bed in weeks. Every time she had gone back to this room with the intention of sleeping in it she had gotten into a row with Felicine.

She pulled a piece of paper out of a drawer and quickly wrote a note to Thom.

I'm to be wed today, I don't know to whom. But I will get out of here, I don't know where I'll go, but I will go. When I'm get wherever I'm going I'll write to you. Know that I love you. And know that I understand if you don't want me anymore, I'm sure by the time I escape I'll have been used. And you don't deserve someone else's leavings. I love you.-Morgan

She wrapped it into a tiny cylinder and slipped it into her bodice, she would find a servant and have them deliver it when she could. For now, it was time to face her doom. She passed by a mirror on her way out of her room, she didn't bother to look at the pretty picture she made. The world seems to think that I am only a pretty thing, just another doll. She was done indulging that thought.

The wedding was quick, and she wasn't asked to speak, the priest talked fast and looked panicky. His eyes swiveled from place to place, never landing on the angry young woman in front of him, telling him to go die away from her. She had decided that fighting and outright refusing would only make matters worse. So she was sociable, pleasant even, most in the room thought that she was only mildly put out by being married to a man she had never met. When asked about Thom she smiled, laughed and changed the subject, she prayed that he didn't catch wind of her dismissing him as only another plaything in a long line of them.

The banquet afterwards was nothing more than three courses, hastily moved from kitchen to table and back again. The entire time Morgan studied her husband. He was an evil looking man. He was old, but not that old, she would place him at about forty, and he was what most women would call tall, dark and handsome. Morgan thought that he was tall, dark, and dangerous and she would have liked nothing less than to shove a dagger through his heart. She knew that surviving the night intact would be a trick and a half. She might just have to let him touch her. She managed to sip her note to a servant who looked hesitant but swore he would comply after she also handed him a gold noble.

She followed Rasputin to his rooms in a docile fashion. The less fuss she put up now, the less he would be expecting it, or so she thought…he didn't seem to care if he hurt her. He didn't seem to care that he had ripped her fine clothes. He didn't seem to care at all. He just, came at her in an animal like fashion and took his pleasure at her expense, and when he was done he left.

She felt broken, split in two, something was wrong, but at the moment she was in too much pain to think. Strange memories were floating through her head. Women telling her thing, giving advice, some telling her were to find the best pregnancy charms, some telling her how to buy shoes that fit properly, how to find the best seamstress, and one that told her if she ever needed protection, to go to the Temple of the Goddess. She fell back into sleep…

Her reflection in the mirror was nothing like it had been a week ago, she was battered. She was a battered, bruised woman. Something she had oftentimes thought was a weakness. Women who were battered weren't good enough, they were weak. They allowed themselves to be broken, they allowed it. They chose not to fight back. Chose. That had been the keyword. Chose.

"When did I choose to become a battered woman? When did I stop fighting?" She asked herself, and the answer was obvious. The first time he laid a hand on me. I quit fighting, because it became to hard, a loosing and degrading battle. It was easier, the easier choice of the hardest choice ever made. But I never chose to be a battered woman, I never chose a husband who doesn't care. I didn't make that choice. But it stops now. She got up, and walked out of her bedroom. She stopped in front of her dressing room and threw her plainest dresses in a cloth bag. She then pulled on a plain brown dress, black leather slide on shoes and a large black cape to cover her face. As an afterthought she dumped her bow of jewels in after them, and a sturdy pair of boots. Then, she jumped out of the window.

Morgan landed with a thump on a tiled roof six feet below her bedroom window. She grinned for the first time in weeks as she jumped and softly landed from on roof to the next until she landed on the ground. The living quarters of the palace had expanded quite a bit as the palace population grew. And in doing so the homes of the nobles had spread out down the side of the hill, their height declining, the whole thing was very convenient for runaway wives.

She landed in the dirt with a whump. She looked around to see if anyone had watched her descent. Then she fled to the Temple of the Goddess. She knew that they would shelter her, and perhaps she could become a priestess if Thom wouldn't have her, that way Rasputin would never have her. Every shadow in an alley reminded her of him. Every man that bumped into her reminded her of his touch. She felt tears falling down her face as she hurried to the temple district, and then felt ashamed of her weakness.

The entire city shook when a cry of pure rage emanated from the place. Morgan fell to her feet an uttered a cry of terror. He's coming for me. She lay in the street; frozen with terror, save for the sobs that wracked her body. Get up you twit. FIGHT HIM. The still small voice inside of her emerged, louder than it had ever been before. Louder than when she had confronted her mother, angrier than when she had argued with Thom's mother. She stood up, pulled her cape straight, grabbed her bag, and ran to the temple. Some might have said she fled to the temple. But the word fled makes it seem frantic, desperate and unplanned, random. This act was desperate, but it was an organized sense of desperation.