Victor and I stood for a long moment on the platform of the time machine in Castle Doom, simply looking at each other.
It was I who looked away first. I said, my voice sounding dully in my own ears, "I'm going upstairs to my suite now. I'd much rather that you did not join me." Then I took my box of ornaments and the other bits and pieces I had brought from my grandmother's house, stepped down off the platform and made for the door.
Victor brought me up short with a single word, "Wife!"
I turned and looked at him. "Am I?" I asked. "If you say so.", and I continued back upstairs without further delay or interruption.
I did not sleep. I lay awake for several hours. I heard no sign of Victor on his side of the wall, but then I never had, not in this suite. After a couple of hours I got up and tried to play a mindless little computer game. It didn't help. I tried reading and found I couldn't concentrate. About five-thirty in the morning, I gave up and took a shower. When I returned, my head swathed in a towel, I noticed immediately a difference; the connecting door to Victor's suite was open, wide open. I ignored it.
It might be that this was Victor's attempt to be more open himself. It might be that this was another test, to see if I would violate his instruction. He had said at the onset that I was not to enter his rooms without his express invitation. An open door was not precisely an invitation. I would wait until, or if, he ever specifically asked me in.
I called down for breakfast, but when it arrived, I had no appetite. I drank some juice and ate a few bites of crepe. When Ulrike, my personal stylist, arrived, she was quite surprised to find me up and about so early, and even more surprised that I was so somber.
"My lady?" she asked, concerned. "Is something the matter? You seem very low spirited this morning."
"I didn't sleep well." I said, truthfully. "Also, I have an unhappy duty this morning. I have some funerals to attend."
It was true. The two guards and the driver, who Malice had murdered, when I was abducted, were being laid to rest that morning. Ulrike helped me choose a calf length black dress and a lighter gray jacket. Once I had a wide brimmed hat, I was ready.
Victor attended, of course. He and I stood next to each other, said the formalities, and no more. It was a long and difficult morning. I knew I was just going through the motions, and it showed. Boris and my mother noticed the constraint between Victor and me, which just made it worse. I was sure that if I started crying, I just wouldn't stop, nor would I be able to keep it quiet, so I listened to the services, my head bowed in silent respect.
I know I spoke to the families. I said the sorts of things that one says at funerals, colored with my sure knowledge that they had died for me, and that their families knew it. Perhaps they would rather that I was dead and their loved ones alive. I wouldn't blame them.
Having to look at an 11-year-old girl whose mother -- there was always a female guard when a woman was being guarded -- had been murdered, just ripped my heart into shreds. Perhaps they thought the promises I made them were empty promises, but I resolved in my heart that they would not be.
My mother stopped me before she left, and looking anxiously up into my face, asked, "Darling, is there something wrong?"
"Victor and I had a disagreement," I told her. "It was about trust issues."
"Do you need to talk about it?" she asked.
"Not right now, Momma." I replied, feeling as though I was talking from some distant planet. "We have to work this out on our own."
She nodded, still looking concerned.
Talking to Boris about it however, was worse. His face scrunched up as he looked at me, "Child, what's the matter? All the light has gone out of your face."
I looked around to make sure no one else was in earshot. "Last night Victor came and woke me up. He believed -- it doesn't matter what he believed, but he said some horrible things -- he threatened to kill me. I believed him. Once he understood better, once he realized that not all what he thought was true, he said he regretted it, he said he would not have killed me, but I was so frightened. Now I'm wondering how I can work my way back to trusting him again."
"Oh, he shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have." said Boris concerned. "You're his wife now, he's got to treat you right." Boris was very upset. Perhaps he had believed, as I had, that everything would be all right now with Victor, that this would be a happy ending, and that like a book with a happy ending, it could be closed when finished. The reader could go on to the next book, secure in the knowledge that the happily ever after would go on without end.
"Do you want me to speak to him?" Boris asked.
"No," I replied. "Whether we work it out or not, this has to be between Victor and me."
After funerals, there were more wedding preparations. I said 'Yes' and 'No' and, 'All right,' when people asked me questions. I approved things, always, however, feeling as though I were somewhere very far away. Lunch came. I had no more appetite for that than I had for breakfast.
Afterward, I went down to the courtyard garden, and sat on the shady bench, near where the old roses were just coming into bloom. I listened to the fountain play with my eyes closed. I wasn't sleepy, but I felt tired.
I felt even more tired when I heard the voice of the Submariner say, "I cannot bear that you should look so tragic. It is clear you will be unhappy in this match -- unhappy with him. Come with me now. The ancient mechanism my people used to adapt themselves to life under the water still exists. But consent to be mine, and I shall protect you from everything."
I was cross enough to do something I had privately sworn never to do. "Her name is Marrina." I said. "Marrina Smallwood."
"Whose name?" Namor said, confused.
"The one you're looking for -- once you're done flirting, and you're ready to get serious, which is to say, get married. I believe she's with the Canadian hero team, Alpha Flight. She's very gentle, and a bit shy, especially around men. She hasn't any suitors. And she will be your wife -- when you're ready, that is."
"How do you know this?" Namor asked.
"That I can't tell you. But it's true." I knew it from the comic books, of course.
"Marrina," he said, as though tasting the name. "What does she look like? Is she dark and pale as winter, as you are, or golden as summer, as Susan Richards is?"
"Neither. Her beauty is not of the surface world. She has green hair, like sunlight reaching down to the blue waters warm them. Her eyes are enormous, shimmery and dark. They always look moist and somehow sad. Her people evolved eyes like that to catch the faintest hint of light in the vast ocean depths."
Namor was fascinated. I continued to expound on Marrina's beauty. "Her eyes may seem oversized to surface dwellers, but her beauty should not be judged by our standards. Her skin is a pale, pale yellow, because in order to see each other in the deeps, the people of her world make their own light. It's bioluminescence. Their skin is naturally luminous, like a firefly's signal."
"She brings light with her whereever she goes --." Namor mused. She was taking hold on his imagination. That was good. That meant his imagination was letting go of me. He looked at me. "The people of her world, you say? She is not of Earth?"
"She was born here," -- hatched actually, "and adopted by the Smallwoods. People are the Plodex. They have fantastically adaptive DNA and they're shape shifters. She's amphibious, just like you. This is most important -- she needs your help, because the Plodex only send out breeding pairs. Her intended mate, by some accident, is a monster. He must never be allowed to touch her."
"He will not." swore Namor, who sprang up as if to dash off right now to defend Marrina.
"There's more." Here was where I departed from the comic books. In other words, I was going to make it up. Who was to say it wouldn't turn out to be true?
"You need her. Not just as your partner in life and your wife, but because her DNA will save the Atlantiseans from extinction. Your birthrates have been dropping because of toxins in the water, from pollution, and the children born to you are prone to health and reproductive problems. The Plodex home-world's waters are naturally toxic by our standards, so Marrina is exceptionally resistant to toxins of all kinds. Her DNA, which is, as I said, extremely adaptive, means that she will not only be cross-fertile, but that she will pass on her resistance through her children to your entire race. In a few thousand years, all of Atlantis will remember her as the second Eve."
Namor's eyes were blazing. "I will go to her."
He turned as if to leave, but I asked, "Now? I think Victor would be offended. "
"After the wedding, then." Namor conceded.
"A word of advice? Don't tell her about the Eve of Atlantis angle -- not for some time. You wouldn't want her to think that's the only reason you're wooing her. She would feel used." -- And that was part of why Victor had been so angry and hurt. There was something I needed to say, which was that loving him, and marrying him, had nothing to do with my plans.
However, it seemed to me that it should wait until I was more certain there was going to be a future for us.
"Thank you," said Namor, heartily. "I will go and look up Alpha Flight online, immediately. Do you think golden pearls would suit her?" The best pearls were all trade goods from Atlantis. My necklace was a prime example of that.
"I think black pearls would suit her better -- they would match her eyes." I offered.
"Black pearls it shall be then – a crown of black pearls, for my queen."
Namor left, and I watched him go. There was more to it than that, of course. I had left out everything that applied to the Law of Female Disempowerment and the Law of Angst, which was that Marrina would go berserk, shape-shift into a Kraken, and wreak havoc, until Namor would have to kill her. I had every hope that the laws would cease to apply long before then. I felt a little better after that. It didn't last.
I did get through the rest of the afternoon somehow or other. Bisitra delivered the two dresses, and Ulrike steamed every wrinkle out of them. The actors arrived, the pastry chef asked me to come and have a look at the wedding cake, and I did, but it was not until the later afternoon, when I got a phone call from Robert Angevin, that I came alive once more.
A/N: I have been remiss in not telling you that you should go by the X-Men subcategory of Comics and check out Rosy The Cat's Don't Kid a Kidder. It is a fic set in the Minion universe, about the adventures of Margaret Kidder, budding telepath and reluctant student at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.