A Tale of Shadows - THE OUTDATED VERSION

Chapter 2 - The Wedding

On the day of the wedding, Wendy came over to Melinda's house, indicating her presence by knocking loudly. Melinda immediately rushed to answer the door, her footsteps echoing throughout the house. Seconds later, her parents were walking down the stairs with smiles on their faces. They stood behind her in silence as she opened the door, watching the two friends hug for a while. Soon, Wendy gently pushed Melinda away so she could enter the house. 

As soon as Wendy entered the house, Melinda was able to observe the object she was holding in her hands more closely. She wasn't sure before, but now she knew that it was a long wedding dress in a wrap, complete with a veil. A broad smile formed on her face as she searched for words to say.

"Wendy, I have already had a seamstress sew me a wedding dress. You didn't have to do this."

"This dress was sewn by the royal seamstress. Please take it," Wendy explained, shoving the contents of the wrap into her hands.

Melinda pulled Wendy into a tight hug in the blink of an eye, crying tears of happiness. Wendy stood there with a gaping mouth at the moment, unable to say anything. After she stopped thinking about how surprising it was to her, she allowed herself to get engulfed in the hug and lose herself in the warmth it brought to her. 

"You ought to put that dress on as soon as you can and see how you look in it, even though I can guarantee you will not be disappointed," she told Melinda after they were done hugging each other, which lasted for an unknown amount of minutes.

Unable to remove the grin she had on her face, Melinda ran over to the nearest bathroom and slammed the door because of the amount of hurry she was in. Wendy told her to wait for her so she could help her with the dress and came in right behind her. Their running didn't take away too much energy for them, but trying to fit both of themselves into that small space, especially with Wendy attempting to hold the large wedding dress unfolded, caused them a lot of stress for a while. At one point, the parents came over to try and intervene, but Melinda just hissed at them to go away and slammed the door again. Once they managed to use their space efficiently enough for a few moments, fitting into the actual dress was pretty easy, and putting the veil on was even easier. 

Melinda smiled once again, staring unblinkingly at her reflection, incapable of averting her gaze from it because of how beautiful she looked in her dress. She tucked a strand of her long and glistening blonde hair behind her ear, gently caressing one of her cheeks immediately afterwards to see how their softness compared since the last time she did it. Her skin was, as always, gentle like porcelain, and she thought it pleasing and comfortable to her tired fingers. Her lips were light pink, which, placed next to the lace and fake flowers on her dress and veil, looked just right. Her dress was not designed to be either thin or wide, and it reached both below her knees and above her heels, which she much respected the royal seamstress for. In the reflection, one more detail that stood out to her was her eyes, the left one brown and the right one grey. She had always loved the fact she was born with that pair of eyes, for if both of them were brown, they would have been too plain and bland to her, and if both of them were grey, although they would have also been rare, they would have symbolized the mist and sprites and a hollow soul, all of which she hated with her being. She much preferred sunsets and meadows to anything even remotely creepy. 

"I believe the wedding shall start pretty soon," Wendy remarked, waking her up from her trance. She almost condemned herself for being so thoroughly captivated by her appearance, but her mind told her that she had the right to do it from time to time, especially due to her looking unusually attractive. After all, one has to dress presentably for one's own wedding, and her brain instantly leapt to wondering about what Douglas would wear, hoping that his suit would be dark blue since that colour fit him the best.