A Legendary Love

Chapter Twelve

Well, what did that mean? Is the wedding still on? Jen wasn't sure. The argument kept floating around her brain, and she wasn't quite sure if they had actually agreed to anything by the time he had left the room.

As a matter of fact, she wasn't even quite sure how she got back to her chambers, however that was where Isabelle found her when the ladies maid entered Jen's rooms that evening in order to prepare her mistress for dinner, which again, Jen walked through as if in a daze. She was surprised that Isabelle didn't call her out on her lack of engagement as Jen was really giving Isabelle nothing.

However, apparently there was some big gossip that had been spread about the Castle that afternoon, so even if Jen had been more receptive to conversation that evening, she wasn't necessarily sure if Isabelle would have stopped talking for long enough for Jen to get a word in edgeways anyway. Not that Jen was paying enough attention to what Isabelle was actually saying to discern if she was actually interested in the gossip or not.

The same could be said of Lady Helen who bustled in, all of a tither, just as Isabelle was sitting a dazed Jen at her dressing table in order to start working on her hair (which Isabelle had elected to go for a less formal and more relaxed half-up hair style with her natural waves falling down her back and around her face.

Dinner that evening was potentially the strangest experience of Jen's life - and this was coming from the woman who had travelled through time into what she thought was a fictional story of knights and magic and chivalry!

She was concerned about how Arthur would react with her - he wasn't very consistent when it came to how he behaved around her. Well, he had been consistently hot, then cold, therefore the expectation was on the floor. However, did the kiss change anything for him?

Did it change anything for her?

For all she had been in a daze, she hadn't actually been thinking of much, so as she sat at the feasting table before Arthur entered the room, she took a moment to recalibrate. What did that kiss mean to her? The pair hadn't had a lot of interaction recently after the whole 'missed date' thing, and especially after the nightmare of Lancelot becoming a Knight of Camelot. But prior to that, she had thought that they had been getting on quite well, and she had also suspected that she was starting to fall in love with the man.

But how could she possibly love someone who was so... so impossibly inconsistent with her? It was almost toxic in that he felt he could swoop in, charm her, then drop her like a sack of shit. The behaviour couldn't continue.

But could it? Every day, Jen found that she was consistently having to reassess her beliefs and values - she still thought as someone who had been raised in a society that was (for the most part) challenging sexist and misogyny, and striving for equal rights for all. That world was not this one, and she had to recognise that trying to apply the people in this world to align with her beliefs was like rolling a boulder up an icy hill whilst wearing shoes with no grip - it wasn't going to happen.

So, she would pick her battles carefully. She would have to assess every situation she found herself in and decide what she could change, what she couldn't, and what she could live with, and adjust accordingly.

Back to Arthur and his treatment of her - could she change it? Should she have to change a person? A life partner?

Didn't everyone change when they entered a committed relationship? Wasn't there always a bit of give and take?

Jen reflected on her past experiences - namely, her ex, Jonathan. He had not wanted to bend, or change, or adapt. In fact, Jen looked back on that relationship with a fair amount of distance (approximately 1,500 years worth of distance) and could recognise that, actually, Jen had done most of the changing in that relationship. She had altered almost her whole personality to suit a man who also treated her like she was sunshine one moment, and dirt the next. And she became so dependent on the days that he treated her like the sun, that when he dropped her for good, she felt like she had been pushed out of an aeroplane without a parachute. There was no adrenaline or anticipation - there was only fear, and death.