The Unwanted Wedding

Chapter 1-- Bad News and the Worst

Two days ride later, Beilarosa Manor, Galician forest.

Reyna

I stood in shock, overwhelming disbelief over threw me. This cannot be happening, no not now. Please, God, let this be some tasteless jest my Mother had laid upon me.  My vision blurred and closed in, I felt weak. No, it wasn't true, it was a lie. Please, let it be a lie. I gripped onto the chairs arm. Raising a hand to my chest, I struggled to catch my breath. Perhaps my corset was overly tight? My constricted, blood red dress, felt so much tighter. My hair hung freely in copper waves around my face and reached my waist. I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself so I don't faint on the hard wooden floor of my home.

"Oh Dearie, are you well? Have you taken your senses?" My mother said worriedly. "Oh, Antoine! Do something! She looks as pale as a ghost!"

"Oh, Alvara, She's probably just in shock, the girl never thought of getting marred" My father complained. I didn't think my father would be able to catch me if I did fall. He was too towering and scrawny. An odd match for mother. Lady Alvara Beilarosa was plumpish woman, but made up for it with looks. Her extensive black coiled locks were most envied by the aristocracy at court. Along with her flawless pale skin and striking pale buttery eyes.  She always dresses elegantly, and adored purple shades. And cats too. She has three of them, all furry, pudgy black felines. 

My father on the other hand was quiet the opposite. His skin was tanned and damaged by age, and looked like a tree.  His straight carrot hair always sleeked back, and his pastel blue eyes seemed to glow from his face. And he dressed as he pleased not as it was called for by engagement.  I took after both of my parents; I had my mother's looks, apparently, and my father's eyes and hair colour. But I was much skinnier than my mother, but had her...womanly assets. But personality wise my father took over. My younger sister, Flor was an exact replica of my mother.

"I'm fine." I mumbled softly. My father gave a gruff of agreement and satisfaction that he was right. Which, I'm sure, mother would surely disagree. She was trying to locate where the strawberry stain on her cheek was. She whipped it off in a hurry when she found it. "Who am I marrying? Is it someone we know?"

My mother beamed at the question, my father on the other hand didn't seem to be that interested. "Some boy" he waved the question absent with his had as if he were brandishing a fly away.

My mother swatted him with her fan, "Not some boy!" She snapped at him, then turned to me and said gently, "A young boy who lives further east. Vincent Silvan, well, Sir Vincent Silvan, now. You two used to play with each other as children, remember? Oh, such a lovely boy." Her face became serious, "Plus, Reyna, you must marry. Your turning twenty-one, that's far too old!"

"That doesn't seem that old, My dear" He picked at his fingernails absentmindedly.  

"Of course it's old, twenty-one is ancient for a unwed girl."  She turned those golden eyes at me.  "I was sixteen when I married your father, you have to breed the cow while it still has the time for it." And that was that. My mother refused to further the conversation.

I sat in the corner silently, thinking and re-thinking the thoughts in my mind. My parents played chess in the corner, of course, my mother was predictably winning.  Vincent Silvan? But he was so...bizarre. And had quite the mouth on him, only if his mother knew of the filth that comes out of it! Even as a child his...vocabulary was relatively vast in titanic proportions. He jested and decided to domesticate the supreme abnormal selection of animals. Foxes, snakes, frogs and most defiantly wolves! He even kept one as a pet!

I think he feels more comfortable, with the animals I mean. Serves him right, he's not so different from a beast.  The way he isolates himself from the rest of humanity, and always prefers to be alone, stalking around like a lone wolf. He dressed and stayed un-kept like an animal. He dressed carelessly and never stayed in fashion. His pale hair was far too long for modern society's standers.  

My thoughts flowed to my Crisanto. His hair was long and untamable too, but at lest he was well kept and was highly appreciated by the highest of society.  I should be marrying him, not someone I have no feelings for but makes up for it by how big his bank is. I will refuse as best I could against this vile pairing between Vincent and I. Really any one with eye could see we are not even two sides of the same coin, more rather, I was the coin he was taker of it. It was not fair!

Surely, even my mother couldn't prepare a whole wedding in...in...when the hell was I getting married? "Umm, Madre? Padre? When exactly will the marriage be taken place?"

 My mother looked up, and thought about it for a moment. My heart raced, not every day you get to know the date of your doom. She answered at the same time at she moved into a checkmate, "A fortnight. At the most three weeks"

A fortnight? Three weeks at most? So soon? I was going to be forced to marry some man I hadn't seen in twelve years in a fortnight! Or three weeks! Panic soared though me like a river breaking though a dam. No, this was just some prank that I truly wished would be over. I sighed, who was I trying to fool my parents or me?

"We'll be meeting him and his mother tomorrow." Mother called out.

This time I did faint.