For King and Country

A Proposal

Chapter 3

The next day passed quickly without a sign of Micah or the impending war that the soldier said was coming. If the threat became imminent, I knew we would move behind the town walls, where we would make our stand and hope that our armies and the foreign one that untied against the invaders would defend us. I knew what war did to peasants, the unexpected casualties. It made me see kings for what they were, nothing more than powerful men with lots of other men willing to die for them in the name of king and country, but they would never think twice about the civilian casualties that they caused. The people they starved when they destroyed crops, the livelihoods they ruined when they disrupted trade, or the people slain outright, in the name of a weak-hearted man who called himself king. But for now, Father said we were safe, and the Solstice festival would continue as planned.

I slept fitfully those two nights, with visions of fire flaming around my home, my sisters screaming as my mother and father lay, their bellies slit open. Morris asking me why I didn't save him, as his body lay trampled and broken at my feet. But Micah stumbling around in a soldier's uniform with a sword protruding from his chest, was the worst. He collapsed in my arms over and over, his blood warm on my skin as he asked me through bloodied, cracked lips why I wouldn't marry him. It was an endless cycle of hellish scenes of people I love dying. Then at the end, right before I woke was Sir Elijah Thomas, sitting o a black stallion of death before looking at me with an arrow stuck through his chest, "You failed them."

I woke with a jerk, panting as I looked over the edge of my loft. My mother was already awake and I spotted Mary and Mable playing with their dolls. I hurriedly rolled out of bed and pulled on a day dress, climbing down the ladder.

"Why didn't you wake me?" I asked, hurriedly tucking my hair into a bun.
"Because you slept so fitfully the past two nights, are you alright dear?" I nodded. "Micah sent word ahead with Morris, he'll be here in an hour I'd guess."

"I did tell him to come today if he still wanted to talk."

"He will always want to talk to you." Mother said making me smile slightly. "I bet he asks to accompany to the festival." I rolled my eyes, he always accompanied me.

"I'll entertain the girls until he gets here." I told her, heading to where my sisters played. Before I walked outside, I decided to slip Micah's pendant over my head, just so he knew that I forgave him.

I let them play outside for a while, watching from the shade as they laughed. They were still so young and carefree. They knew nothing of the war, the knew nothing of love other than that Ma and Da and Morris and I loved them and they loved us back. So I just watched them, giggling and playing tag, wishing that I could be like that again.

In a few years, everyone would expect me to have a few of these little ones. That was all the future held for me, marriage to someone and bearing children. I would have no grand adventure like the girls in my stories. The girls who dressed up like men to sail away on ships or the ones who had grand romances where they where everything ended up better than they had ever imagined. I would be a simple girl and a simple woman, and that should be enough. It would have to be, because it was all that I was destined for.

I spotted Micah coming up the hill long before he spotted me sitting in the shade. I immediately pretended to be reading my book until I heard the screams of the little girls.

"Mikey!" Mabel yelled, at the same time Mary yelled back to me, "Corry!" I looked up, pretending to be surprised.

"Hello little ones." They giggled as Micah spoke to them, "May I see your sister?"

"Well, she's right there," Mabel said unhappily, pouting because he'd picked up Mary and not her. She was too big to be picked up.

I stood up, dusting off my earth green dress. Mother said it brought out the green in my eyes. Micah's eyes locked with mine, his worry showing through his smile. I smiled slightly back at him. He saw his pendant, and his worry melted away.

"Girls, why don't you go inside?" I said, smiling at them. They nodded but headed inside. Micah walked over to me and offered me his arm. I took it and let him lead me to the gate, out of view from my mother's kitchen window. He turned to me, but didn't smile.

"I'm so sorry for the other day." He said, "I'm so sorry. You're not mine. I shouldn't have done what I did..."

"It's alright. I over reacted. Sometimes I'm just not ready for it all, to be a wife, to be mother." I said truthfully. The light in his eye dimmed. "I think I could do it now, I've been thinking about it quite a lot, and I think it's time for me."

His face went from confused to overjoyed in a matter of seconds.

"Do you mean that?" He whispered, a hand coming to the side of my face. I nodded slightly and his hand gripped the back of my neck, pulling my lips to his. This kiss was short and sweet, and the hand that wasn't gently cupping the back of my neck grabbed my hand. He pulled away and knelt down in front of me.

"Cora Elizabeth Ferguson, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?" Before I gave him a chance to go on a rant about how much he loved me, and how I was the other half to his soul, I cut him off. 

"Not so fast." I laughed. "I get a grand gesture in front of the town at the festival tomorrow night, just like everyone else." He stood, a wild grin on his face.

"Of course. The grandest gesture of them all. I'll propose in the middle of a dance then take you in my arms and kiss you till we're both blushing." I rolled my eyes, but laughed.

"I don't blush." I laughed. "Would you like to come inside." He nodded and we walked into the simple house, into our simple life together.

Hello Everyone, I hope you're enjoying this so far. So Cora's decided to marry Micah. Who knows if she'll actually go through with it though.

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