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You stood defeated in front of the full-length mirror, staring back at your features marred with uncertainty and a peculiarly numbing dread after another failed attempt to properly repeat your meaningless vows.
Marriage is and has always been the mandatory destination for every woman in royal history. So many adolescent girls are promised their own dutiful prince who will sweep them off their feet and into a life of augmented riches and amplified sovereignty. Their young minds are filled with false hope and detailed guarantees that would make anyone look forward to a life of ruling vast land beside their betrothed.
Prince and Princess, hand in hand and soon to be crowned King and Queen if not made so already. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it very well be?
But how unfortunate it is for you to have watched in recent days, that hopeful fantasy be dismantled with every bit of your independence stripped in anticipation for you to adorn prison shackles masked as a glimmering ring in honor of holy matrimony.
When you realized that being disregarded in the background, being put in this golden cage to never be seen as an equal, was far from the future you had been convinced to expect, it was in that same discovery that you woefully understood there would’ve never been an opportunity for you to choose otherwise.
It pains you, the prospect of what should be a memorable wedding to unite kingdoms and two unfamiliar souls, is only curated to celebrate the man and what he gains more than his bride as if the union is not just as life changing for her as it is for him. Perhaps its the changes themselves that differentiates who is bestowed the most proudest congratulations.
Where he will be given the throne, the utmost respect, and handshakes for a fine fish well caught, you are given rules, unrealistic expectations, and questions about babies that you certainly didn’t want.
It was maddening, beyond disheartening, but it was now your hapless reality and incommutable duty if you didn’t wish to be labeled as a disgraceful lost cause, shunned for a lifetime for not following the unchanging ordinances as every woman before you.
The bags beneath your eyes carries your burdens from all the sleepless nights contaminated with anxiety, doing nothing to relieve you of the weight forced upon your shoulders. You truly were trapped, and while the blame could be given to anyone, everyone, you couldn’t help but to feel like it was solely your misery to harbor.
That’s what years of an emotionally neglectful childhood and false promises did to a person. It isolated you, and still, you couldn’t even be given the grace, nothing remotely close, to a chance to search for the family you’ve always longed for.
Three knocks rapt against the wooden door of your bedroom to interrupt your fatiguing train of thought, forcing you to fix your face to the best of your abilities if you wished for the inquisitive glares to cease whenever one chose to focus on it for too long.
A mask of indifference conceals your melancholy and with a deep breath that doesn’t erase any of your rooted unease, you steady your voice to grant entry to the person on the other side.
“Good evening, Your Highness,” the familiar elderly servant calls besides the creaking hinges, her voice as gentle and careful as it was when she raised you where your parents—if you could call them that—did not. “The Queen calls for you now. All preparations for your final night of rehearsal have been set.”
You keep your eyes glued to the mahogany hardwood floors that are faintly illuminated by the glow from the crackling fireplace as you turn and face her, smoothing down the expensive material of your elegant gray gown as if it doesn’t already fall into perfect line.
A way to compensate for what you wished your brain would mimic, you suppose.
“And the Prince?” You already know the answer. Wishing alternatively was only something a fool would do.
“He and his parents do readily await your attendance as well.”
Of course they do. You’ve not known a day without any of them in the recent few since you’ve consistently failed to recite the vows that would never come from the heart. It was your inability to voice them to the Prince without mixing your words and fumbling the items that shouldn’t be difficult to hold, that forced you to deal with him more than you’d like.
Today was your one and only chance to perfect it if you weren’t to make a complete halfwit of yourself for tomorrow’s ceremony.
Your nod is sharp and as heavy as your heart when you finally give the patient woman your somber gaze in the still quiet. She smiles at you impassively, her thin and wrinkled lips pressed together in something seemingly understanding as you’re guided out of your room and down the refined halls of the castle you’d no longer reside.
Each thump of your heels along the carpet echoes in your ears; Loud, unfriendly, discouraging.
But most of all, it becomes a sickening reminder of just how far you really are from a happily ever after.
*****
Where you should be moved as your “fiancée” (he never formally proposed) finishes his vows for the fourth time because of your unintentional failures, instead you can’t seem to discern if you’re frustration resides within yourself for being so incapable, or him for having his own memorized without fault since the beginning.
There’s a discomfort blocking your throat in your restless attempt to swallow and discard the blunders that continue to fall out. By this point, you had little room to feel a semblance of embarrassment as you once did.
You just wanted out.
The eerie silence is suffocating and the eyes you can feel burning into your back from displeased royals, the side of your face from an impatient spoiled brat, and your nose bridge from the disinterested town’s holy man who surely wishes he wasn’t draped in his robes at this hour, was becoming far too overbearing.
Just get it right. No more mistakes, you chastise yourself internally.
Marrying the Prince with broad shoulders, a debatable face, and a fascination for war was rightfully bothersome. It only made it worse that he recited his vows with such boredom and nonchalance, the words discretely decorated with a harsh and unspoken truth.
It was clear to you if not anyone else: To him, you were inferior. To him, this was pointless, he already owned you. To him, you have only made it easier to have complete control over this arrangement.
What a fool you truly were, indeed.
With his ring on your finger, officially your parents and their dwindling riches that they’ve worked tirelessly to keep a secret out of fear of judgment and council, will reach a peak it’s never been. As their only child, this was your purpose that you should apparently feel honored to have.
You’d been manipulated enough with your mother’s airy tone of arrogant threats and your father’s long-winded speeches that held no weight, to know better than to think otherwise. Decades of reckless spending and lackluster investments put them in this predicament of a failing economy and for you to have barely reaped the benefits over the course of your upbringing, apparently it was still up to you to be their saving grace.
How poetic.
“Will you get it right this time, Your Highness? Or are we simply here to waste more?” the old man testily questions. Not even he seems to be capable of showing you respect, but you don’t have the energy to fight for it. Not anymore.
“It is not my intention,” you mumble. “I am prepared to—”
“Speak up,” your mother demands roughly, her voice echoing along the tall ceilings and lined benches of the cathedral just outside your family’s grounds. It’s hard to tell if the chill that runs down your spine is because of the frigid winter temperature that seeps through the stone walls or her booming authority.
Preceding your unspoken irritation with a measured sigh, you continue, voice elevated as directed.
“I am p-prepared to do what I must. My nerves have simply gotten the best of me.”
“No more excuses!” the man of God waves off dismissively, slamming his staff that keeps his hunched over figure upright to the ground twice. “Face the Prince again and begin once more from the top. If you cannot collect yourself, there will be no such thing as a wedding. And for that, you will have only yourself to blame.”
Jaw clenched and migraine underway, you hold your tongue and do as your told. At least you try to.
“With these hands, I will lift you in your darkest moments—”
“Times,” the Pastor interrupts.
“Times,” you correct, clearing your throat. “Your s-soul will never be lonely, for ours are to be forever tethered.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” the Prince sarcastically comments, pulling a chuckle from his instigator of a father who thought it was appropriate to come draped in an obnoxious quantity of fine jewels that clink with every not-so-subtle shift.
There’s a hum of acceptance from the rest and for the first time in days, you take a fresh breath of relief.
So close. So, so close.
“With this dagger,” you start, carefully attempting to retrieve the weapon that rests atop the surface beside you and your husband-to-be. Successfully grasping the hilt firmly with the intention to hold it close to your chest in declaration, every bit of that falls flat as it slips from your hold, making you wince as the metal clashes obnoxiously loud to the floor.
“Apologies,” you rush, swooping down to retrieve it.
But with the kind of luck you’ve seemed to be born with, of course this is where you would bump your head against the underside of the table on your way back up. Not only has your headache officially plagued you, but your finger gets nicked from mindlessly reaching for the blade in your blurry daze. To top it all off, the back of your skull collides with something far too reactionary to be lifeless because of the pained grunt that accompanies the intensified throbbing.
“My son!” the Prince’s mother’s shrilly pompous voice wails.
You’re barely able to focus as you’re shoved and surrounded by both sets of people who should’ve never had children. None of the chatter and judgmental narratives thrown your way is comprehensible in your attempt to shake the away the dizzying ache.
It’s just as your vision clears that you’re capable of making sense of the copious amounts of tasteless dialogue.
“Look at what you’ve done!” the Prince’s father scolds.
“Stop touching it, you imbecile!” his mother seethes.
“It was an accident! Forgive her witlessness! It shall not happen again!” yours yelps.
“Enough!” The sound of your father’s thunderous order stills the entire room.
“She is simply not ready.”
Everyone’s eyes gravitate toward you at the pastor’s observation that breaks the silence.
“This ceremony will never happen if she is not prepared,” he continues, silver bushy eyebrows and aged drooping lids zeroing in on you intimidatingly.
“Young lady…” A wrinkled and gnarly finger is shakily aimed at you. “Learn. Your. Vows.”
Your heart beats in a way that makes your body vibrate with a brewing sickness in your gut.
Out. Out, out, get out.
And that’s exactly what you do, ignoring the hateful stares and rejective leering. Holding your dress up to keep yourself from tripping over it and embarrassing yourself further, you scurry out of the cathedral and into the bone chilling night of the woods that covers the land, aimlessly fleeing with no solution in mind and zero intentions to find one.
And you don’t stop. Your legs and pure motivation is what keeps you moving until your lungs burn and the unfamiliar grounds you’ve never treaded are one of the only things that surround you.
The exertion requires you to take several moments to gather yourself before you begin to wander and as you do, you berate yourself for being so… so… imprisoned.
“With these hands…” You stare down at your chilly palms, freshly fallen snow satisfyingly crunching beneath your feet with every languid step. “I will lift you in dark—god, no.”
The winds whips across your face and whistles between dry branches as you’re consumed by your thoughts. You find yourself absentmindedly thanking the moon for offering you some sort of light in this lonely and secluded darkness—literally and metaphorically. You’re grateful to have at least one less thing to worry about, at least something on your side.
“With this dagger, I can shield—no, will shield, not can.” Groaning with disappointment, you try and find solace in the cawing crows, icy dirt, and frozen-over ponds. Your lacey sleeves offer zero protection, but despite the parts of you that burn from the punishing cold, somehow this is the securest you’ve felt in a very long time.
There was a lot of negatives that came with being alone. But one thing that was certain within in? Control. Here, you had the power.
You didn’t want to go back home, if you could call it that. You didn’t want to go back in there. You didn’t want to get married to that. You simply didn’t want any of it, but having a choice weren’t necessarily your prerogative according to your life’s plan that you never had a say in.
Sure, you could run, but where to? What would you do for money? How far could you get with your lack of skills and experience? What’s to say that you won’t be kidnapped and returned by someone greedy enough even if you were successful?
“It shouldn’t be this difficult.” Placing yourself on a large rock, the cool huff of your breath goes as quickly as it came as you pick at the skin on your fingers and do what you seem to do best: sulk.
It feels like hours past whilst you observe the scarce wildlife that had no need for hibernation and wilting plants waiting for the conditions that will give them that opportunity to bloom. Was it pathetic to have such similarities?
You meddle with your bare finger, rubbing against the numbing skin in wonderment about what it would be like to… dream. What it would be like to truly yearn for something in the way it’s supposed to be felt. What it would be like to feel confident in it.
“With these hands, I will lift you in your darkest times. Your… your soul will never be lonely, for ours are to be forever tethered.” Slowly do you rise to your feet, a surge of determination flowing through your bloodstream and replacing the frost you didn’t yet want to abandon with burning preservation.
You stride deeper into the towering trees and past brittle shrubs, plucking off a piece of a weakened branch to seal your words into the misty atmosphere as if the vows you shout are being relayed to the true love of your life.
The frail wood feels right against your chest, undoubtedly true to your heart with every word that spills ever so boldly.
“With this dagger, I will shield your heart and your back from any and every threat to our union.”
A true goner you were, giggling to yourself and frolicking past looming boughs and dripping icicles. There’s a childlike amusement bubbling inside you when you find the oddest shaped collection of branches growing from the dirt, a part of it coincidently shaped to mimic the circular coil of a ring.
Sitting on your knees, your dress protecting them from the biting snow, you inch your ring finger closer before carefully slipping it inside to finalize your valueless decree with a promising whisper.
“With this ring, I happily vow to be eternally yours.”
Suddenly, your playful demeanor shifts to something bizarrely unsettling. The once gentle breeze unexpectedly howls viciously in warning, one that you intend to heed well. But the part of Earth wrapped around your finger refuses it, tightening until it’s snug and contorts to the circumference of your digit perfectly.
There’s an undeniable change in the atmosphere now. Even the crows have suddenly fallen silent, completely abandoning you to face this steadily approaching threat by your lonesome.
You can’t move, your fear and your captive makes it so, and all you can do is watch in horror as the dirt begins to rise and fall as if it’s taken its first breath.
“W-What… How can…” you stammer shakily, tugging harder and harder, but it’s to no avail. You’re forced to observe the ground split apart before you without logical explanation, roots snapped and destroyed with little to no struggle.
And what emerges, perhaps you should say who, paralyzes your entire being.
The light you praised continues to serve you, revealing the mystery that stares you down. Nature’s debris rolls down the tall expanse of the emerging individual’s tall and scarily broad body, his violet eyes twinkle like magic when clashed with the moon’s luminescence, and his… smile. It’s miraculously full of wonder, excitement, and unequivocal warmth.
He’s by far, without a shadow of a doubt, the most captivating man you’ve ever seen.
Have you died? That must be the case.
Has the cold frozen you to death? Maybe you’ve gone completely delirious in your emotional state, cultivated your own groom from the selfish delves of your mind.
But no, this is reality. You’ve been lied to about a lot of things, but never has your mind taken it upon itself to trick you.
Gently, your arm is pulled in his wordless request for you to stand with him. Indubitably, you do, and in awe you gape at how the branch that once held you hostage has miraculously been replaced with the simplest golden band.
“With this ring,” the warming voice surprisingly speaks, the wispy strands of his fringe dancing across his reassuring eyes. “you are mine.”
He brings your hand to his lips that startle you from their soft yet deathly chill. With his mouth pressed to the ring and a thousand questions in your mind unanswered, you’re surrounded by a colorless fog until your vision is completely taken.
*****
The last thing you expected to see when you opened your eyes was a… town? The cobblestone paths and narrow lamp-lit alleyways are littered with the kinds of things you would read about in the folklore story books that you swiped from the castle’s library.
Your mother hated when you read those. “Not fit for a lady,” she’d say.
You gawked wondrously at these beings..? People? Somehow, some move with missing limbs, others have gaping holes in their bodies and faces, a few unfazed by their exposed skeletal structure, and nearly all sport skin paler than the snow you found reprieve in.
What is this? Who was that man? Where are you? How are you? What can you—
“The Land of the Dead.” You know that voice. It’s the same one that declared you his. The same one to kiss your ring and the last you heard before being snatched from reality and into this densely fogged universe of a strangely comforting gray and blue.
Slowly, you turn your head to the left to see your anonymous kidnapper standing only a few steps behind you as if you give you space to let your surroundings sink in.
“Dead?” you squeak. “I truly am dead!?”
He shakes his head and huffs out a laugh as he closes the distance. “You’re not. Buuut, you stand in the land of the ones who are. Including myself.”
“You? But you’re so… young. How is this even possible?” You cover your eyes with your palms. “I must be dreaming. I have to be…”
“Unfortunate, isn’t it?” Removing your hands from your perplexed face, he gathers them into his and runs his thumb along your knuckles. “Death doesn’t have a preference, pipsqueak.”
Pipsqueak? Strange.
“I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten? Well, I suppose it makes sense if you did. Shifting between realms can be a lot for the living.”
“What are you possibly going on about?!”
“Relaaax, honey. Wouldn’t want us having our first fight already.” His arms are raised now, adjusting something on top of your head that certainly wasn’t there before your sudden arrival. “Especially on our wedding night. Tis’ bad luck, you know?”
“Wedding night?”
You look down at your attire, bewitched by the silky ivory gown that floods at your feet and the veil you now notice tickling the exposed skin of your upper back. Long gone is the outfit you fled in.
Another enigma.
And this man, he compliments you in his somewhat dingy suit with sparkly purple and black swirled in eye-catching patterns.
He watches you attentively as you reach for the dried up floral pinned to his lapel, admiring your lack of fear that he readily anticipated.
“You spoke your vows so perfectly. Whether you knew it or not, you called to me. You slid your pretty little finger into the ring that must’ve always been destined for you before I could ever understand such a testament. What kind of husband would I be to ignore something so precious?”
“But this is wrong…” you mutter. His face drops, worry and confusion now taking ownership. “You’re not… I didn’t—”
“You did,” he interrupts. “Don’t try shuttin’ me out just yet. Pips, you don’t understand how long I’ve waited for this. For someone like you.”
“But you don’t know me… I don’t even know your name…” you counter weakly, your brain and body utterly exhausted from the influx of information that barely clicks.
“We have time. Eternity, in fact. And askin’ for it was certainly an option,” he shrugs nonchalantly.
You’re completely unamused, but he finds the serious furrow of your eyebrows to be one his favorite features.
“Caleb Xia.” He folds his body in half, bowing to you with a respect you thought you’d never get to see.“The pleasure is all mine, and no need to worry about sharing. I already know yours.”
Naturally, you’d like to know how. You’d like to know what other things about you that he was knowledgeable about compared to the lack of information you had on him. You’d like to know everything.
Before you’re granted the chance to interrogate, he interlocks your hands together and begins to guide you through the foreign territory.
“Where are you taking me?”
The clicks of his dress shoes rhythmically fuse with your own. “You trust me?”
You tilt your head and purse your lips. “Is that a trick question?”
He grins, keeping his gaze forward. “Fair enough. Then I guess I’m asking you to.”
Well… what other choice do you really have in this instance?
It’s surprising for the air so smell so fresh and clean in a land of walking corpses. Almost herbal and something cinnamon. It’s even more stupefying for this Caleb to be so well-known by many of the peculiar figures that you pass.
“Congratulations on the marriage, kid. Told ya it’d be worth the patience,” a man in a soldier’s uniform with a sword lodged through his belly speaks. Ouch.
“A living one? Quite a find, young man,” a wobbly elderly lady with a missing leg comments, waving her skinless finger.
“Caleb! Caleb! Can I hold her hand next?!” a skipping child asks, tripping over his detached arm. That makes him giggle before picking it up and using it to wave goodbye the further you disappear out of sight.
The question teetering on the back of your mind is insistent, absolutely begging to be asked. Once you deem an appropriate amount of distance has been placed in between you and what you’ve left behind, you look up at the groom as you hold your dress in the midst of climbing the steps he’s brought you to ascend alongside him.
“Is there a reason why you’re not… like them?”
“Like them?” he muses with a playful hum. “What exactly is it about them that makes me different to you?”
You pout. “Are you really going to make me say it?”
“If you’d like me to answer you, pips, then I really, really need you to.”
As you reach the top of the steep flight, you’re in awe of the remote bench and singular curved lamppost that grants a generous spotlight above it. It’s remarkably peaceful, this secluded section encased by a waist-high black metal gate that Caleb brings you to so that you both could look across the terrain below covered by tall and compacted swaying grass.
“Caleb,” you begin carefully. “How long have you been… dead?”
“Over twenty years,” he replies simply. “Likely more. Time does get blurry the longer you’re here.”
Your eyes widen. “What happened to you?”
His hair dances in the delicate breeze, rivaling the stark raptness in his violet irises.
“I… loved someone who didn’t love me back,” he finally speaks after his fleeting moment of inaction, jaw clenched with tension. You wait patiently for him to continue. “And it killed me. I killed me.”
That alone makes your chest ache. Love being your demise.
So many would see such an end as a worthwhile one, but it’s nothing but a travesty when it’s unrequited.
“I’d known her my entire life. Everything I did, I did it for her. For her happiness, for her gaze, for her attention, for her love. And she made me believe that one day, that she’d choose me. That she’d see how devoted I was and… I-I was living and breathing for someone whose heart beat for somebody else. I was dictated by every little thing she’d ever said, motivated by every curve of her lip. I was her puppet and was too blind to see that there were never any strings because she was never attached.”
“I am so sorry…” you offer sincerely. “I may not know you well, but you don’t seem like a man who deserved such a pain.”
His lips upturn in a sad smile, looking down at your hand that adorns his ring resting on the iron barrier.
“You asked why I’m not like the people you saw and I played coy. I know what you meant; You wanna know why I’m still in one piece, why I’m not battered, bruised, and disfigured on the outside?”
You hang your head low in regret. “I recognize that it was inconsiderate of me to ask in such a manner. At all, even. I didn’t intend to offend you. Truly.”
“I know, and you didn’t. It’s alright,” he eases. “I finally got the courage to ask her to marry one night, only to find her tangled up with the town’s beloved surgeon. A way to crush a man, isn’t it? And the look of love I thought I knew? It wasn’t what she was giving him. No, see I had been given the scraps.”
You find yourself wanting to comfort him, placing your smaller hand on his larger one that releases tension he didn’t recognize he held with your touch.
“A façade,” you conclude.
“A complete one,” he agrees. “I was a mess, utterly devastated. That’s how I found myself in the same woods that you watched me rise out of. All the money I had, I’d spent it on every bottle of alcohol I could get my hands on before I left town. I didn’t want to feel… Drank to numb the pain for days alone, only to end it all from taking it too far. And when you die, you come as you went. What you see is how I looked when I departed from the living.. It’s pathetic, isn’t it? I’m sure you pity me.”
“I can promise you that you’re absolutely wrong.” He faces you head on, careful to cup your face with a reverence you’ve never experienced. Is it odd for you to nuzzle into his touch? Even more so that you didn’t want him to take it away?
It was, but you didn’t care. Not at all.
You hold onto his forearm as his thumb brushes your cheekbone. “And the ring? It went with you.”
“It did. Weighed down my pocket like pure iron and all I hoped for with every burning swig was that one day, I’d find my person. That she would tell me her vows and wear my ring with pride because she wanted me as much as I wanted her. That she’d choose me. I thought I’d lost that chance forever.”
“Before me,” you sigh.
He nods once. “Before you.”
“Caleb…”
“I have a present for you,” he interjects.
Your brows pinch cutely. Add that to his list of newfound favorites.
“You do?”
“I do. A wedding gift. Sit for me?” he asks, bringing you to the lone seat. And you listen, closing your eyes with an unrestrained smile until something unfamiliar is placed in your lap.
“Can I open them now?”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
That makes you laugh, lifting your lids before peering down at the bright royal blue collar settled in your lap. You look at it with shock, then at a proud Caleb who has his arms sneakily held behind his back. As he brings them around to his front, revealing your surprise, you gasp sharply and immediately feel tears brim in your eyes.
“AppleJack?!” you exclaim, reaching for the fluffy off-white cat that you’d regularly feed cut up apple chunks to in the garden when you bumped into him on your daily walks. He was always so vocal about his adamant need for the sweet fruit. You missed the pitched meows terribly when they and he suddenly vanished without a trace.
The trilling feline jumps into your lap, surprisingly still as heavy as ever as he nudges your hand that strokes the top of his slightly matted fur.
His visits were so consistent that you went out of your way to sew him a collar with the name you’d given him embroidered into it. It wasn’t too long after that though, that he stopped appearing and since the time you saw him last, you’d always wondered what could’ve possibly happened. Seeing him here… it sadly explains everything.
“I knew you’d be happy to see him.” Caleb sits beside you, chuckling when the cat’s tail shakes happily when you bump your nose with his.
“Do you know how he passed?” you ask softly, taking the dingy blue identifier and clipping it around AppleJack’s neck.
“Seeing as he’s still in one piece? He likely ate something poisonous. Especially since he was a stray, it’s the most probable.”
“I always fed him when I could, but my mother didn’t want me feeding him, or any animal for that matter. When she caught me… I begged her and my father to let me take him in, but they didn’t approve. They rarely do when it comes to anything that makes me happy.”
“Do you… think they would’ve approved of me? Of us?” Caleb shyly inquired.
“In truth? Unless you are a prince with more money than the one they’re trying to marry me off to, then unfortunately, no.”
He freezes, looking from AppleJack pawing at your thighs to your clueless side profile. “Prince? Trying to marry—? You’re a princess? A royal?”
“You sound shocked. Were you genuinely unaware?”
“I didn’t have a clue…”
“Does my status change something for you?”
Why do you sound offended? Should you be? Certainly not. Right..?
“No, no! It’s just…” That boyish charm and carefree exterior seems to disappear, exchanged for unforeseen dubiety. “No. But it does make sense.“
“How so?”
“From your inner and outer beauty to your grandeur, I’d say it’s far more shocking that I didn’t even consider that a possibly… I just never thought I’d get so—”
“Lucky?” you jest, nudging his arm with your elbow.
“Took the words right out of my mouth,” he half grins before standing and holding out a hand for you to take.
If your eyes surely weren’t playing tricks, you could’ve sworn to see a flicker of skepticism in his changed demeanor. He’s speaking again before you’re able to call attention to the sudden shift. “I have someone that I’d like you to meet.”
“Oh? Is this another wedding gift, per chance?” You slide your palm against his, watching AppleJack jump down and walk around your legs as you stand.
“Not… necessarily. I’m taking you to Elder Xavier.”
“Elder Xavier? What business do we have with him?”
Caleb simply blinks. “You’ll see when we get there.”
*****
The towers of books and fetching view of a high cupola ceiling that’s unfortunately impaired due to a few shattered windows of stained glass, is nothing short of captivating as you reach the final step with Caleb and an investigative AppleJack wandering at your feet before he ventures off on his own accord, tail excitedly swishing side to side.
Oh, how you’ve missed him, and you had your groom to thank for your one-in-a-million chance to see him again. You want to repay him for it, for a few things in fact, if possible. Unfortunately, you have no clue as to how you would achieve such a thing.
He’s easy to talk to, though. Perhaps you could find the time to ask.
“Elder Xavier?” Caleb calls, surveying the dimly lit room in search of the ostensibly absent man.
The weathered wooden floor creaks beneath your feet as you follow behind him, hand in hand as if the act has easily become second nature in your short time together.
“Are you certain he’s here?” you whisper.
“He rarely leaves this place. I can only assume that he’s probably sleeping. Again.”
You press your lips together to suppress a smile. “Sleeping? Since when do the dead need to rest?”
Caleb cranes his head to look back at you, a small smirk on his lips. “Was that supposed to be a joke in mockery?”
“What? I didn’t make—” The irony of your words dawn on you. “Oh, you know what I meant!”
“I’m just messin’ with you Your Highness. He’s just a… special case, I suppose.”
“I beg of you to not start with the formalities. We’re infinitely past that, don’t you think?”
He hums. “Agreed.”
His attention is redirected to the task at hand, a muted offer of surrender just before he gets ready to call for this Elder Xavier once more. The loud and obnoxious yet familiar meows of an out of sight AppleJack captures your attention to the back of the wide and cluttered space, though. You tug on Caleb’s sleeve, tilting your head in the direction of a—you guessed it—resting dead man.
“You weren’t lying,” you note, carefully approaching the handsome individual with silver hair and natural pouty lips. Quite young to be labeled an elder. You readily anticipated someone decrepit and as old as dust, admittedly.
“Told ya.” Caleb taps the edge of Elder Xavier’s admittedly comfortable looking bed with his foot, hoping the rattle of the battered frame would work where his words had not.
“Are you certain he’s not resting… eternally?” You two lean into each other as you converse timidly, arms pressed together as you hold his hand tighter.
“It typically takes a moment, but you would think AppleJack’s weight on his chest would’ve been enough to speed things up.”
“Must you speak so loudly?” a soft and sleepy voice remarks pointedly.
The youthful weary man rises slowly, ruffling his bouncy hair in his ascent and letting out what you’re sure is far from an exaggerated yawn according to his supposed hibernating tendencies.
“Apologies,” Caleb nods.
“Is there… something urgent I can help you with? Seeing as you’ve taken the trip to disturb my rest.” Xavier trudges out of his bed, bare feet miraculously never failing him as he drags them and bypasses you two with weary eyes. He slowly makes his way to the few steps that lead up to an aged podium stacked with more books and countless scrolls, worn sky blue nightwear hanging loosely on his lean form.
“There is.”
There is? You look up at Caleb with confusion. Where were you when this urgency was raised?
“I’ve brought my wife, and—”
“Wife?” Blue eyes look down at you two from where he stands as if he has spectacles that aren’t fulfilling their duties in helping him see clearly, but it’s not the inquisitive stare that makes your heart flutter in your chest.
Just moments ago the idea of being a wife petrified you. Now? It doesn’t seem to be all that bad.
“Interesting.” Xavier shoos the invasive crows, their flapping wings sending a few of his loose paper flying. “You’ve gotten everything you’ve ever wanted since you joined us, Mr. Xia. What more could you possibly want?”
Silence. Heavy and packed.
“I want to send her back to The Land of the Living. Immediately.”
“What?! Why?!” you yelp, snapping your head in his direction. “Caleb! N-Now, you have no right to—”
“She is a royal,” he ignores you blatantly. “She’s someone important and it is selfish of me to keep her here when she has a life of luxury and more than I could ever offer her, to live. To experience. It is not her time.”
“This isn’t something temporary, but I’m sure you are well aware of our rules,” Xavier warns, flicking through a book with apparent disinterest that he plucked from the floor. “If she returns as you wish, that is where she will stay until Death returns her.”
“But my vows!” you protest, looking between them both for an answer. “I’m bound to him, am I not?”
“Words are not enough to bind the living and the dead, starlight. Even this union is something temporary. With all due respect, a mockery, if you will. It is not a real marriage. Those vows simply brought him to you, granting him the opportunity to accept the words he’s been searching for and take you from your realm and into ours.”
Your chest rises and fall with bated breath and you snatch your hand away from your liar of a husband. He clenches his teeth at your action, tightening his fists with the inability to look at you.
He should feel ashamed, you think.
“So how would we have…” Your words trail off.
“You should be happy.”
“You don’t tell me how to feel. How would we have lasted?!” you commanded.
“I…” he sighs with defeat. “I intended to convince you to die for me. So that you could stay. But you have so much to live for, pipsqueak. So, so much… Ending your life for a broken hearted dead man? I could never do that to you, royal or not.”
Your throat burns with emotion. Your body vibrates with a sense of… anger? Yes. Yes, you’re angry.
But shouldn’t you be relieved? That you aren’t dead? That you have the option to return? That you’ll see your “family” again? So why do you feel so betrayed? Tossed to the side once more?
Disregarded.
“That is not your decision to make.” Your head hangs low.
“It’s the right one, and you know it. You deserve to grow old, to love, to live, to dream—”
“But it is not mine, and none of this is for you to decide!”
He’s grows content in your touch when you rest your hands on both sides of his ticking jaw, a stray tear that you didn’t feel forming, cooling your flushed cheek on its way down.
“The both of us know what it’s like to be deceived, to be sold a farce for the sake of someone else’s benefit and happiness. And somehow with all those odds stacked against us, we seemed to have been destined to find each other in ways that are far beyond anything conventional or logical. That is not coincidence, that is not luck. That is fate. That is a dream come true.”
He shakes his head in a faulty attempt to dismiss.“There’s no need to convince yourself to stay for my sake.”
“It’s ironically selfish for you to think such a thing.”
Disregarding his attempt to dissuade you, you continue. “For the first time in my life, I’m given a choice. For the first time, I-I had a sense of what community is like, I had respect, I had care, I have a chance to know what true unity is, and it’s all because of you. Because of you, I may know what love is.”
“Pips…” his effusive stare begs yours for a definitive answer. “What are you sayin’? Before my mind reaches places I never dared to let it traverse again.”
“I’m saying that I’m tired of people making decisions for me. This is mine to make, Caleb. And even if you try to detach yourself from me, I want to stay. I will. But I want to do it with you. With AppleJack, with all these people who have stories I’d love to hear and in a realm that’s given me more hope in my few hours in it than in all the years I had elsewhere from where I’ll never be able to escape… I am choosing you.”
His eyes widen with disbelief before shakily ensuring that you understand the magnitude of what you speak.
“If you mean what you say, if you choose to stay with us… your family, your people, they’ll never see you again. Ever. There is no going back, no changing your mind. No opportunity for regrets.”
“That’s okay,” you whisper, your tears falling freely this time. “They never saw me in the first place. But I myself have never been able to see so clearly.”
“I presume a choice has been made?” Xavier suddenly asks through a yawn, snuggled up with AppleJack in his hands. Somehow, they’ve become generously acquainted and evidently, the elder is ready to return to his rumpled sheets and collection of quilted pillows. In fact, he’s on the verge of using the willing fluff ball as one.
Caleb answers him with a quick nod and presses his forehead to yours. “We’ll always be together, pipsqueak. That, and by your decree, is my promise.”
You smile lovingly. “I believe you.”
Xavier releases Applejack, humming to himself while flipping through the thick and dusty pages of a dark brown leather bound hardcover with contents unknown to you. Caleb kisses your knuckles through your intertwined fingers as you both wait and listen to the stained flapping parchment, ready to seal your decided fate.
“Here it is,” Xavier confirms. He reads the words on the pages to himself, grabbing an iron chalice before throwing a gold and ruby hued liquid into it, then a sprinkle of a sparkling silver atop it all. Grasping the stem, Elder Xavier swishes the unknown elixir around to blend the concoction, and fulfillment settles in your gut.
“And you’re sure? Truly?” your husband asks once more.
Turning him toward you, you eliminate every centimeter of distance in hopes to do the same with his doubts and raise your lips to his, pressing them together with a sureness and no warning. Caleb freezes, but quickly does he succumb to your unexpected affection, his eyes fluttering shut like the lovesick newlywed he technically was and never imagined he’d be.
Your differences in temperature is the last thing to grace your psyche when his lips lovingly embrace yours. You can’t help but to giggle into the way he deepens the exchange, his hand secure behind your head to keep you close as the familiar tickle of AppleJack’s fur grazes your ankles as if to give his blessing.
To see a dead man breathless was never something you thought you’d live to see, but it’s a sight to behold when Caleb holds you like you’re far too good to be true.
The hum of contentment as you brush the tip of your nose against his is interrupted by a throat being cleared. Not of impatience, simply of acknowledgment. Both of you chuckle at how you’ve seem to have lost yourselves in each other before returning your attention once more to the man whose guidance you readily await.
Elder Xavier raises the cup, the moonlight hitting its edge to make the silver metal gleam.
Was this a poison? Would this end your life?
You’re ready to retrieve what he’s seemingly offering until he… drinks it? Oh.
You and Caleb sport a similar frown at the sudden burp that follows the quick consumption.
“Excuse me,” Xavier smiles sleepily, patting his chest. “Little bit of a pick-me-up.”
Tilting his head ever so slightly, Xavier beckons you forth, never making it a point to acknowledge either of your shared confusion. That’s of ill importance to Caleb though he trails right behind you like a clingy puppy incapable of tolerating something so ridiculous as separation.
You’ve grown quite fond of that.
A beam of light emits from Elder Xavier’s palm the moment you stand face-to-face, its brightness covering more than any candle you’ve ever held in your lifetime. Naturally, you gawk wondrously at the sight before you, more and more questions added onto your never-ending list.
“This will take your life, starlight.” He makes a show of bouncing the ivory glow through his fingertips skillfully. “The color from your skin will drain and the breath in your lungs will cease. Your soul will then be bound to The Land of the Dead, and you will forever be Mrs. Xia."
Mrs. Xia...
You try to search for the doubt in your mind from the warnings he’s once again bestowed, for that voice in the back of your mind that’s urging you to reconsider.
The mental silence was gratifying.
You nod with conviction. “I am ready.”
“Very well,” he confirms.
Xavier’s takes deep breath and slowly shuts his eyes in focus just when his palm is firmly pressed to where your beating heart lies beneath, the warmth of the beam and pressure he applies tilting you backwards until the uncontrollable rapid thumping suddenly begins to pound in your ears. There’s a buzz in your toes that quickly reaches your scalp as you welcome the disconnect from the living.
“I’m right here, pips,” Caleb promises earnestly when your nails dig into his hand that grasps yours with an urgency to protect. “I’m gonna be right here when you open your pretty eyes again. I’ll be the first one you see.”
You’re grateful for that lack of pain, feeling your consciousness slip the more you’re taken and the inevitable limpness of your body. You’re grateful for him and his unwavering devotion.
But you don’t believe that there was anything, absolutely anything, to ever compare to the way he holds you in his arms when your chest rises in your final moments or even his unintelligible oaths that grow as blurry as your vision.
You’re a lucky woman indeed to have all of eternity with your betrothed to challenge that belief. And when your eyes fall shut, not a glimpse or memory of the past is what comforts you. No, in fact, it never even attempts to bid you a proper farewell.
Instead, it’s the undead life to come and who you’ll be sharing it with that does.