The Flower Crown Princess

Part 2

     I was woken before dawn. Opening my eyes the tiniest bit, I pull the covers around my shoulders. "Get up," Mortweni says gently, shaking her graying caramel curls back into her headscarf."I know it's not even light, but the first day of the wedding festival starts at dawn." She pulls my blankets back, and I groggily grope for them again. Then, I pause. Wedding? Whose? Not mine, I hope- I was supposed to marry at sixteen, and I'm still a half a year away. Have those months passed in one night? I sit bolt upright, and seeing me confused and panicked, Mortweni laughs heartily. "Finen's wedding, and the tradition is for the sister of the groom to help get the bride ready- do her hair and such. Didn't you know, love? The ceremony is at dawn, in one hour, and you still have yet to be dressed." 

Going to my closet, she pulls out my best dress, a purple one, and comes over to me. Quickly, she dresses me, and then brushes my hair roughly. I wince- Mortweni's always been a gentle one except when it came to hair. She pins it into a simple knot on my head, and then goes for the closet again for my head covering. Instead of a plain one, she pulls out the royal one- a golden crown with white fabric trailing from it. I gasp- I've never worn it before. It was my mother's, and my father can't bear any recollection of her. They make him angry. Gingerly, as though it's made of frozen cobwebs, she places it on my head, leaving the front of my hair showing, and steps back. After a long moment, she takes me by the arm. "You look almost exactly like your mother," she whispers."You've got to fulfill tradition in an hour's time," she added, almost as an afterthought.

     We leave my room, and walk to Maridi's. Mortweni knocks on Maridi's door, and a small voice with an accent answers. "Come in,"it says wearily. Mortweni opens the door and I step in, walking towards the red-haired girl. I see that Maridi has dressed herself, in a green dress with a different style than ours. It's shorter, only to the middle of her calves, and the sleeves are short. It is loose around the waist. The dresses that the Hill-People's women wear are ankle-long, with tight waists and long sleeves. She looks at my dress. "Oh," she sighs. "I should have figured that I wouldn't be able to wear my dress."

     "You can," I state. "For today."

     She smiles a tiny smile, but it fades quickly. "Not tomorrow?" Her accent makes the o in her words sound more like oo.  I shake my head.

     "No," I tell her quietly. "A royal wedding lasts two days, and on the first day, today, the bride remembers her old country and then gives up everything from it."

     "Everything?"A note of panic starts in her voice.

     "You keep a few things- a picture, a dress maybe." I pause, wondering why she's panicked. "You don't burn anything-just give it away or put it in a chest. Forget them. " Really, why is she upset? I don't need to worry anymore, as the panic has left her eyes, but I can't help but wonder why she seems so attached to her old things. "And sometimes, if your husband travels there, you can go too, to remember." It'd be incredibly rude to ask her why, but I want to. Why, Princess? Are the hills not enough? Is a future not enough?Is my brother not enough? I shake it off though, and reach for the hairbrush on the armoire. I quietly comb out the tangles and twist her long hair into a simple bun, but before I can finish it, she stops me.

     "No," she says. "I want to look like I am from the rivers today." She removes the pins from her hair quickly and ties it up differently, taking pieces of hair from the front and braiding them back so that most of her bright waves fall almost to her waist. It's lovely, but I've never seen the likes of it. As Maridi looks in the mirror on the wall, her brown eyes mist over. She shakes her head the tiniest bit, drags her hand across her eyes, and sets her shoulders back. Gray light begins to filter through the space between the heavy curtains on her window, and a knock sounds on the door. I open it to Mortweni.

     "Go down to the courtyard now," she says shortly. "It's nearly dawn." She hurries off.

     "Well," Maridi whispers, "this is it." She whispered so quietly that it surely wasn't meant for me to hear, but I had. Ignoring her comment, I start to walk out the door, but look back. Maridi's composure has slipped. Her shoulders sag as she folds her arms around her chest and a tear traces a watery path down her cheek and off her chin. She sees me staring, and her cheeks blush red as she wipes her eyes with her hand. I pull my handkerchief from the pocket in my dress and offer it to her. She wipes her eyes with it, resets her poise, and, before I can say a word, she thrusts the handkerchief into my hand and strides out the door. Stunned by the sudden change, I gape after her a moment, then walk after her.

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     The ceremony in a royal wedding is the hand-fasting. Each kingdom has its colors, and ribbons are used in the couple's colors to tie their hands together. When Maridi and I arrive in the courtyard , she slows down as she sees Finen. She keeps on walking, though, and I sit on a chair just in front of them that has been set up. An old man with long white hair and a grey beard -the wise man- stands by Finen on a raised wooden stage in the center of the yard that wasn't there last night. I don't have to wait long for the townspeople arrive, for just as the sun becomes visible over the hills, they do, in their finest (which is decidedly not very fine in my eyes) and chattering. As the sun is finally up, the wise man starts to garble. It must be a different language, one I never learned. That, or he's going mad. He pulls a thick gray-green ribbon from a pocket in the long white robes he wears and ties it loosely to Finen's wrist. He asks Finen something in the strange garbling tongue, and Finen answers in the same odd manner. Then the ribbon is tied in the same way to Maridi. I see her hand tense as the old man grabs it, as though she would very much like to pull it away, but she doesn't. She is asked a question in the garble, and she answers sadly. As the wise man ties a grey-blue ribbon to their wrists, he asks different questions- I think. They both answer, and I'm very glad that the ceremony is short. I'm rather bored. A garbled cry is given from the wise man to the heavens, then he cries out in our language. "The gods approve!" A great cheer comes up from the crowd, and the ribbons are slipped from the wrists as the crowd heads toward the great hall, where celebrations will go until midnight. I walk there, too, and for a few hours, I dance just like everybody else, but soon I see Maridi going out into the corridor. She's running.

     Overcome by an odd curiosity, I follow her.

Picture at the top is how I imagine the head coverings worn by the women in Amrach- and royalty would have the crown as shown. Common folk would not (obviously.)