Disclaimer: I do not own any part of The Corpse Bride. This fanfiction is for entertainment purposes only.
Chapter Two: Meet Your Bride
The day finally came when his parents arranged his wedding.
It was to the daughter of a Lord and Lady and he had never met her.
Today he was going to meet her for the first time. It seemed his parents were feeling generous, letting him see his bride before their wedding day. It was only for the wedding rehearsal, but it was still sort of nice to get to meet the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with before he married her.
His brother had decided to stay at their home, saying he had no part in the rehearsal and he didn't want to fluster his brother by having too many people watching him at one time.
Victor was like that. He had always been on the shyer side, more reserved and introverted. He would happily spend hours studying the different designs on moth wings rather than go out for horse-riding. He disliked being in the spot-light.
Vincent seemed the opposite. He was a born leader, having that innate charisma that drew people to him and held their trust immediately. He thoroughly enjoyed the occasional fox hunt, which he had decided years ago there were far too few of.
He was a thoughtful young man and Victor appreciated his brother for not coming to the rehearsal. Another set of judging eyes on him just might have been enough to have made him faint.
The carriage ride over to his bride's house went as he had predicted. His father musing about some secret concern and his mother fussing over him the entire time.
For all of the two minutes it took to circle around the town square statue.
He'd asked why they couldn't have just walked, but his mother had admonished him about arriving properly in befitting style.
The mansion door opened to reveal a snooty butler looking down his nose at all three of them, but his mother too busy to notice as she was currently fussing over the way he was standing.
The Lord and Lady Everglot were standing on the stairway, looking remarkably like mutated gargoyles from the way they seemed to loom, glancing at each other furtively as if in silent communication before addressing their visitors.
His mother walked forward commenting about the exquisite room and decoration while his father said some often-used compliment about Lady Everglot's appearance.
Victor didn't really pay much attention, too preoccupied with readying himself for meeting his bride, but finding it particularly difficult as when he noticed the piano – which appeared to be the only furniture in the room – he wanted only to play some music to help loosen his nerves.
The piano was one of the only things he excelled at over his brother, who was truly atrocious on any instrument as yet created by mankind.
As his parents and the Everglots retired to the west drawing room for tea, he hung back slightly to play a small music piece on the piano to help settle his nervous tension.
He started by playing a simple scale to test the tuning of the instrument.
Finding it satisfactory, he sat down and started playing a tune that he felt more than remembered.
As involved as he was with the music he didn't notice the young lady that walked delicately down the stairs and halted several steps away, slightly behind his right elbow, listening to his playing.
Until he looked to the side and very nearly had a heart attack.
She was standing there, hands clasped demurely behind her back. Not quite looming, but there was a sense that she was judging him against something, which only served to startle him all the more severely, causing him to jump abruptly to a standing position, cutting off in the middle of a note, knocking over the piano bench and tipping over the tiny vase on top of the piano and the equally tiny sprig of flowers contained within.
He jumped forward and caught the vase and flowers before they fell off the piano.
"Oh, oh do forgive me," he said in that delicate, slightly frightened voice that he seemed to always speak in, replacing the vase and flowers in its proper place.
She gave an odd little half shrug of her shoulders, saying, "You play beautifully," her voice equally delicate, but more refined, displaying her higher birth status.
"I-- I-- I do apologize, Miss Everglot. How rude of me to… well," he stuttered slightly, nervous of her gaze and suddenly feeling quite anxious. His eye fell on the overturned bench and he bent to right it, murmuring a polite "Excuse me," as he tugged it up and back into its correct position, using the action to help cover his anxiety.
"Mother won't let me near the piano. Music is improper for a young lady," she sighed, "Too passionate, she says."
Victor straightened himself, straightening as well his slightly crooked tie with one hand.
"If I may ask, Miss Everglot…wh-where is your ch-chaperone?" he asked.
"Perhaps, in – in view of the circumstances… you could call me… Victoria," she said properly, walking a little closer to him.
"Yes, of course," he replied, scratching his neck and straightening his tie again. "Well… Victoria…"
"Yes Victor?" she responded, taking another step forward.
Victor started wringing his tie with both hands, his apprehension going to a new level at her closer proximity and the subject of their discussion.
"Tomorrow, we are to be m--… mmm--…."
"Married," Victoria provided, bringing her hands out from behind her back and clasping them now in front of her.
"Yes. M--M--Married," Victor agreed.
"Since I was a child, I've-- I've dreamt of my wedding day," she said, running a hand over the piano top and sitting down on the bench. "I always hoped to find someone I was deeply in love with," she murmured sadly.
"And you've… found… that someone?" he asked, suddenly realizing that her controlled and proper behavior was probably a cover for disappointment.
She looked up at him quickly, shocked.
"Yes," she replied, looking back down at the keys demurely, "but, I can't marry him. Father says he's an unacceptable marriage candidate."
Victor sat down beside her on the bench, feeling a little more at ease with her now that he knew she felt similar to him.
"It doesn't seem right to not be able to marry the person you love the most," he said softly, thinking of the girl in his dreams.
Victoria glanced back up at him, catching on his face the same wistful and lightly desolate expression she had seen on herself in mirrors.
"You love someone else as well," she guessed.
Victor jumped slightly, startled out of his thoughts by her declaration.
Thinking over her words for a moment he replied, "I'm… not sure."
"We may not be able to love each other in our marriage," Victoria mused aloud, "but perhaps we can be friends."
Victor reviewed her words in his head, finding no flaw in her logic.
He stood from the bench, walked to her other side and offered her his hand.
"Friends?" he asked, shyly.
She smiled and took his hand, allowing him to help her rise.
"Friends," she repeated.
Lady Everglot chose that moment to walk into the room.
"What impropriety is this?" she demanded in her commanding voice that managed to intimidate and frighten them both at the same time. "You shouldn't be alone together! Here it is one minute before five and you're not at the rehearsal," she said, shaking her finger at them like they were errant children and not two people about to be married. "Master Galswells is waiting. Come at once!" she commanded, waving her hand imperiously at them to follow her as she turned and lead the way, giving them little choice but to follow her.
THREE AND A HALF HOURS LATER
After a disastrous wedding rehearsal in which he had managed to actually set Lady Everglot's dress on fire, Victor stood alone on the bridge that led to the forest outside of town, slumped forward slightly and resting on one elbow on the stone railing as he looked at the simple shining gold ring in his palm.
He let out his breath in a quick sigh.
"This day couldn't get any worse," he said miserably to himself.
As if fate decided to prove him wrong, at that very moment he heard the town crier ringing his bell and bellowing for the entire town to hear, "Hear ye, hear ye! Rehearsal in ruins as Van Dort boy causes chaos! Fishy fiancée could be canned! Everglots all fired up as Van Dort disaster ruins rehearsal!"
Victor slumped a little further down as he sighed again.
Figures.
Straightening, he walked towards the darkness of the woods.
Most people did anything to avoid going into these woods. Somehow it had gotten the reputation of being haunted at some point in the obscure past, and the superstitious people of the village were still frightened of these woods.
Victor however had never found it frightening. Even as a child he would disappear into these trees for hours to get away from his obsessively bickering and 'proper' parents.
He was always thoroughly punished if they ever found out however.
When he had grown older, his trips had turned into collection excursions to gather different types of insects that he wished to study.
His parents of course thoroughly disapproved, but he had somehow managed to have two of his books on the anatomy of beetles bought for a substantial amount of money by a man named Charles something. He had also been contracted to do another reference book on the differing moth wing and body designs that were found in his area. With the amount of money these books had fetched, his parents couldn't forbid him from continuing.
He had in fact finished the last drawing of that book this very morning before he had left to meet Victoria.
Most people found insects to be disgusting, but Victor just found them fascinating.
He walked slowly past the tall trees, thinking about how badly he had mangled his vows at the rehearsal.
"It really shouldn't be all that difficult," he mused to himself. "It's just a few simple vows."
He walked further into the darkness of the forest.
"With this hand," he said, raising one hand in unison with the vow, "I will take your wine." He paused for a moment. "No," he sighed.
He walked in silence for little while, reviewing his vows before trying again.
"With this hand," he tried again, "I will cup your – OH goodness no!"
He rubbed his eyes tiredly in exasperation at what he had almost said.
"With this… with this…" he began, rubbing his chin in thought. "With this candle, I will… I will," an image of Lady Everglot's dress aflame filled his mind, "I will set your mother on fire," he groaned, still not quite believing he had managed to do that, smacking himself on the forehead as he sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree.
"It's no use," he sighed, taking the wedding ring out from his coat pocket and looking at it shining golden in his gloved hand in the moonlight.
He imagined Victoria in a traditional wedding dress coming down the isle of the church.
As much as he liked her, the idea filled him with dread.
Victoria was nice. He could easily see them becoming good friends – something many married people couldn't manage – but he just couldn't see himself taking her hand and declaring himself her husband, even though he knew he had promised to his parents he would.
There was only one person he wanted to marry, and he didn't even know what she looked like.
Still, if she were in a wedding dress with a veil, he wouldn't have to imagine what she looked like.
Maybe he could pretend – just for the ceremony – that Victoria was the girl from his dreams.
He pictured a tall girl, somewhat taller than Victoria and only slightly shorter than him, wearing a beautiful white gown walking down the church aisle to meet him at the alter. He couldn't see her face, but he knew she must be smiling.
He opened his eyes and - keeping that vision firmly in his head - he stood up with determination and tried again.
"With this hand, I will lift your sorrows," he said presenting the ring in one hand and slightly raising his other in demonstration with the words. "You cup will never empty, for I will be your wine," he continued, confidence building as he kept her hidden happy face in his mind, flipping the ring in renewed assurance and catching it easily with the same hand. "With this candle," he proceeded, snapping off a twig and pretending to light the tip of another in place of the aforementioned candle, "I will light your way in darkness."
"With this ring," he said, excited he had reached the last vow without fumbling, and, seeing a gnarled branch extruding from the snow at the base of an uprooted old oak tree, knelt gently in front of it. "I ask you to be mine," he finished with a flourish, softly placing the ring on one of the slim slightly curved twigs.
He blinked, looking curiously at the branch which on closer inspection actually quite closely resembled a hand.
A crow cawed, drawing his attention away from the branch. He looked up to see a flock of crows surrounding the small clearing he was in, watching him.
The next thing he knew, he felt his arm grabbed and he was being pulled down.
He felt as his arm was pulled into the ground all the way up to his shoulder, making him knock his head soundly against the dirt floor of the woods, but he immediately started pulling away from whatever had hold of him, managing to eventually get his entire arm back out of the earth, and with a final desperate jolt of strength, pulled free and fell away to land harshly on his back.
He had kept his eyes closed during the entire strange tug-of-war so when he raised his curiously-too-heavy arm, he was suitably horrified to see a skeleton hand wearing his ring clutching his arm in a tight grip.
He shook his arm violently, managing to get it to fly off and land a small ways away from him.
A deep thumping sound drew his attention back to where the something had tried to pull him into the earth, seeing the ground being pushed up by something underneath the soil, pounding like the beat of a pulse, until finally the ground opened and an arm came up from the hole caused by the pushed aside soil, raising high, then coming forward and back down to dig into the soil like claws. After this, a whole person started coming out of the ground like it – she – it was wearing of all things a wedding dress and veil – was levitating up like an ascending bat, roots crisscrossed over her and snapping away as she rose out of the ground, until she stood level.
Slowly she raised her discolored right arm and moved aside her tattered veil to reveal a lovely but obviously dead face.
"I do," she whispered, her eyes focused solely on him.
She extended her hand down to him in a smooth motion.
It was like a signal for him to run.
He flinched away from the proffered hand and, stumbling to his feet, started to run away from the horribly beautiful bride.
He quickly passed the skeletal arm and somehow knew she was following. He looked back to make certain and tripped as he stumbled down a small hill, impacting his head against a gravestone.
Despite the instant pain, this only reminded him of what he was running from, and with a gasp, he looked up in time to see the corpse bride reach the peak of the hill and start down towards him in even strides.
He scrambled upright, using the gravestone for balance and continued running, glancing over his shoulder in panic and –
Impacting with a tree.
He stumbled back, holding a hand over his one eye, slightly dazed. He shook his head to clear his vision and saw the bride still coming ever-closer to him, arms held out in something between supplication and anticipation.
He turned to run again, and again hit the tree. He recovered quicker this time and dodged around it to keep fleeing from her.
He ran down the next small hill easily enough, but was stuck on the frozen over stream at the bottom of it. He was moving too fast to be moving at all, his feet sliding over the ice without taking him anywhere.
He looked over his shoulder and the bride was only a few yards away, looking hopeful.
He managed his way off the ice before she caught him and sped up as he saw the edge of the trees, but he had not taken the path and the small branches caught like hooks into his clothes and halted all forward motion, holding him fast like undead hands.
He fought his way through them, hearing little rips as he tore his clothes to get free, running past the outskirts of the trees and ducking as a flock of crows bombarded him at the apex of the bridge, causing him to flinch and duck to escape their beaks and small but painful claws.
He whipped around to see the forest and saw…
Nothing.
No undead corpse bride coming towards him or any other ghostly business.
Just the trees.
He panted harshly, eyes flicking from one section of the woods to the next, searching for any sign of supernatural happenings.
He turned, seeing only the other end of the bridge and the church in which he was to be married tomorrow.
Calming slightly, he backed away slowly to make his way back to the village.
He turned and came face to face with the bride.
He jumped backwards, feeling the stone of the bridge cut into his spine as he pressed himself as far away from her as he could, sandwiched between her and the railings of the bridge.
She came forward slowly, gracefully, holding her arms out and placing them on his shoulders, her dress and veil flowing beautifully behind her in the breeze.
Perhaps the most horrible thing about her was that Victor could not find her ugly, could only think of her as beautiful, despite having one arm and one leg completely devoid of flesh and the skin of one cheek missing to show the teeth of her jaw through the opening.
"You may kiss the bride," she whispered as she leaned slowly towards him, softly closing her eyes.
Her cool lips touched his and Victor's world faded as he fainted not from fear of her, but from the feeling of rightness he felt from kissing her.