LIWDF chapter 4

Disclaimer: Oooooooooh, ye cruel gods and demons, hearken now on the misery thou hast brought with thy declaration that Corpse Bride is owned not by my person! Had it come to my deserving hands thou knowest the conclusion would have been more to the liking of those not plagued by empty skulls! (Translation: a V/E ending.)

Yes, well, it's fun to do that once in a while, besides, I just finished reading "The Odyssey" and I'm now reading "The Iliad." (I know it's backward, but I knew both stories already, and I like "The Odyssey" better.)

So, here is chapter 4. This story will probably be finished after a few more chapters, as I have most of it planned out, and it shouldn't take too long.

Any misspelled words during Bonejangle's speeches are purposeful. They are me trying to communicate the way he talks. ;)

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"There is one thing I'm uneasy about," Victor said. His voice indicated this was difficult for him to say, especially so soon after his marriage. Still, he knew he wouldn't feel quite satisfied until he had gotten this off his chest, and he wanted to feel that he could tell his new bride everything that was on his mind. Even this? A voice in his head speculated, and Victor's arm which was draped round his beloveds shoulders tightened unconsciously. He didn't want to hurt her, but he also didn't want to keep secrete what he felt.

"What is it, darling," Emily asked. She turned slightly in his hold so she could look at him, tall and dark and wonderful against the night. The crisp air stirred his strands of hair and carried the sent of growing things and rich black soil.

The two of them had been walking peacefully together back toward the church. It was time to head back for the celebration in the underworld, but though they didn't have to be anywhere special for the magic to work, the two instinctively gravitated toward the place where they had truly been joined, both in the eyes of others and in their hearts.

Now Victor stopped walking. Some of his former shyness was returning, and he was mentally kicking himself for bringing this up. What if she thinks you're insulting her? What if she thinks you lied about loving her the way you lied to her about wanting to see your parents? He winced and stammered a bit, but knew it would be worse to leave this inside than talking about it could ever be. Emily stroked his arm encouragingly, the lace of her glove rubbing across his jacket sleeve was loud in the stillness.

"Well, I-I don't know quite how to say this," he began, aware of Emily's dark starry eyes watching him. "The-the fact of the matter is, I don't really know anything about how things work downstairs and, well..." he trailed off and looked at Emily helplessly with the attitude of a lost puppy.

"Yes?" she asked patiently. She knew above all she must not startle him, as the shyness he had started to overcome still had a bit of a hold on him.

"Am I going to rot?" Victor blurted out all of a sudden, then looked terribly mortified as Emily laughed.

"And here I thought this was something serious and dreadful," she exclaimed. Victor promptly ducked his head, his feathery bangs hiding his face like black cobwebs. "I'm sorry, Victor." Emily wrapped her mismatched arms around him and lifted his chin with a delicate blue finger. Silly, she chided herself. He's been dead for all of twenty minutes. Of course he doesn't know how things work. Remember how you felt.

"But anyway," she continued. "I wasn't laughing at you, I was laughing because that was what I was worried about once I had finally stopped feeling miserable all the time and started caring about how I looked. Only I didn't tell anyone and just sat there worrying.

"And to answer your question, no, I don't thing you'll decay at all. Basically the rule downstairs is that your mind keeps your body together. Usually when someone dies they are depressed, sometimes horribly guilty, or angry. Then their bodies start decaying because their minds are so dismal. When they come to terms with their feelings they stop decomposing. That's just the way it is."

"But then you..." Victor started.

"Oh, yes," the corpse bride continued. "I was miserable at first. Remember, I had been betrayed by the one I loved – thought I loved." With a small smile. "Miss Plum and Bonejangles helped me a lot," she remembered. "BJ had been through a great deal of pain himself. But when he recovered he decided to keep rotting, just to see what it was like." Victor chuckled softly. Having met the groovy bonedaddy himself he could easily imagine that happening.

"And when I recovered," Emily said. "I looked like this."

"You mean beautiful?" Victor asked, his mouth curved in a gentle smile. Emily giggled and rested her veiled head on his shoulder. The sweet smell of dried flowers hung around her and Victor held her closer to him, running his fingers through her long hair.

At that moment the peaceful scene was shattered by a shout from the direction of the forest. Turning, the couple saw the figure of Bonejangles, bony feet clacking on the cobbles as he dashed over the bridge and up to them. He wasn't out of breath, one of the advantages of being dead, but his eye rolled wildly in its socket, and Victor moved away from Emily slightly to support his shaking shoulder bones.

"What's the matter," Emily asked worriedly. She had never seen him so upset before, as he was usually so full of life, so to speak.

"There's been a kidnapping," the skeleton said. In spite of his lack of lungs he still managed to sound out of breath. He clutched Victor's shoulder tight with his bony fingers and his eye rolled uneasily to the other socket.

"A kidnapping?" Victor asked. He couldn't imagine something like that happening in this dead town.

"That's right," Bonejangles said, and his eye rolled back again with a sound like billiard balls clicking together. "I was taken' a little walk in the woods afore headin' downstairs again, and I heard a voice. A real hard voice it was, to. Cold 'n cruel. I poked ma' head through the trees and there they was: A real proper lookin' guy with a nasty snarling face, and young gal all decked out in a wedding dress. He 'ad a gun to her back 'n was pushin' her along. I didn't want to show myself fer fear he'd kill her!

"She was real beautiful," he added, in quite a different tone from his previous one. He turned to the newlyweds to see their reactions and found Victor tense with stiffened limbs. The dead flesh of his cheeks had become a pale, icy blue and he was capable of forming only one word with his frozen lips.

"Victoria..."

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Ten minutes later the moon shone on quite a different scene. A crowd of corpses crouched by the side of the church, lousy with fleshless limbs and other grotesqueries.

Once he had recovered from his shock, Victor had told Emily and Bonejangles about Victoria, as Emily had previously known very little about her, and Bonejangles nothing at all. It was only sense that it was she who was in trouble, as she had been getting married today and so would be wearing a wedding dress. They had sensed there wasn't much time, so Bonejangles went back to the underworld and got some help.

Now fifteen corpses gathered in a rag-tag huddle by the moon's ghostly light. Victor's dog Scraps yelped, and was quickly hushed.

Abruptly, Victor rose from where he had been crouched on the dirt in the circle's center, and brushed of his pant legs with a fastidiousness born of long habit. In one hand he clutched a short stick which he had been using to draw diagrams in the soft earth.

He smudged these out with his slender foot as he stood there. They were no longer necessary.

"All right, everyone," he said softly, looking at the expectant faces before him. "I think we have a plan." Emily smiled proudly from her place at his side. She had somehow always known he could be strong and resourceful. The plan was sound, and he had come up with it entirely on his own. The others knew it too, and respect and admiration for their newest arrival glittered in many pairs of eyes.

"One more thing," Victor added, as the gathering began breaking up, preparatory to putting the plan in action. The group turned back to him and found the tall, skinny corpse grinning in an almost wicked fashion.

"Play nice," he said. And the party moved out.

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Woow! Some action at last for those of you who don't live by fluff alone. Not that Victoria's ish in the last few chapters wasn't action, just that 'the plan' will be more so.

Speaking of which, 'the plan' will be taken from another movie, (which I will credit in the next chapter, by the way,) only it will be much darker and more creepy than it was in the original source.

If you guess what the plan is and where it's taken from I will tell you who I will be paring Victoria with.

Hint about the plan: Victor's last line in this chapter.

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And Now, a scene from after the movie:

(Victor is fixing the roof of his and Victoria's house on a windy, rainy day. He stands up and walks to another spot on the roof. As he is walking Victoria comes out of the house and sees him.)

Victoria: Victor! Get down from there! Are you trying to kill yourself!

Victor: (Thinking) Dang it! She's on to me.

See you soon!