Thread: The demon and his bride [JMontavale and Ashleebabe]

I looked at myself in the mirror before I turned to change for bed. The moon was full, what most people would call the twilight of the night. Most of the children were tucked in their beds after their evening meals and prayers. The elders of the households were discussing matters of business with their spouses while enjoying a night cap. The woods lay still, only the briefest noises of birds dancing from tree to tree or a howl to signal the wolves arrival to their mother moon. These noises were what I have been accustomed to all my life since infancy and here I am, staring up at the same moon in a different form. Tonight I was offered to another outside of my family and I have been weighed with such a heavy burden. My father called for me to dress in my finery and make my haste appearance to his study immediately. I was to meet my future husband and he, if he so liked me, choose a date when we should wed. I, however, pleaded with my father to reconsider such a barbaric tradition, but I was the last of his children at home and he thought it was time for to start my own home. He expected me to breed the next generation of perfect ladies and dashing gentlemen. I wanted to travel the world and read for knowledge we did not reach a compromise. I was to be married by the next moon cycle and I had no choice in the matter. I am envious of that moon. It can be seen from all over the world and yet can never have the same protocol we have. I wished I could be away from everything and not be forced into such an arrangement. But I could not let my father down. I was his only little girl. My mother died when I was only six. A tragedy that could not be foreseen, a illness that attacked our village with such ferocity that it left most of the village with one family member in the ground. We were blessed with only one death since our household was filled with three boys and a little girl. I was the only one forced upon these rules. My father told me when I was old enough to know why he never truly wanted me at home. He wished to send me off to court or marry me young because I reminded him of the wife he lost. I was thankful that I was allowed to stay. I decided to take a walk instead of undressing and going to bed. I slipped on my lace shawl and slipped into my gardens. I prided myself on my roses and tulips. It took me years to perfect such a little Eden in my home. But soon it was not be my home. I stood on the bridge that provided a walkway for the visitors to use when they did not want to step in the creek to cool their bodies. I wrapped my arms around myself until I heard something behind me. It was subtle a snap of a twig that could have been a number of creatures. There were numerous creatures that roamed the grounds and the surrounding woods at night. I must have been playing into my fears. Those fears should have been more in my mind then the matter at hand. Those fears could have saved me that night. I felt the hair on the back of my neck tingle in fright and I turned to investigate it, silly thing to do in the middle of the night. I was about to turn in when I encountered a man. He towered over me. I was about to ask about his purpose in being on my property at night when a hand came from behind me and covered my face with a cloth. I inhaled something horrid and then the world went dark around me. When I awoke again, I was being transported into a castle, the turrets loomed over us but I thought nothing much of at the time. I should have been paying attention. My captors were carrying me to another room. I screamed but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. I saw a bed next and then a lump in the middle of it. Was I the sacrifice? Am I to be offered to some sort of god? I tried to move out of his grasp but it was useless, they were stronger. They sat me on the bed next to the creature and withdrew a knife. My screams were silenced by the sight of the blade. This was it I was to die for a ritual. I took a deep breath as the man stroked the blade against my wrist. The blood splattered over the lump in the bed and soon my world was darkened again. I could vaguely hear chanting and whispers surrounding me but I think I was imagining it. I decided to let it go and drift on the cloud of unconsciousness.