Iris

Chapter one

       The cold wind ruffled his hair, he was perfect in every way, but he hadn't the slightest clue. She had no right to him, or so they said. As he moved, his long ebony trench coat fanned out around him and his toes crunched in the blanket of frost covering the ground. She threw herself against the wall, the nearer he came the tenser she became, she wanted so desperately to slink farther back into the shadow. But alas, that would give her away to the set of eyes. The perfect pale green orbs, carefully scanning the frigid terrain. The trees were coated with a heavy dusting of fresh snow. And the entire world appeared to desire to draw her attention to him.

       In the contrast of his attire to the outside world, in the sound, his footsteps made as he trudged through the snow and in her unwavering, unrequited attraction to him. But alas, this was no fairytale and men like that didn't take women like her. It just wasn't the way things were to be done. No, if this was a fairytale, she thought in disappointed resignation, I would be the village fool.

       Unlike her thoughts may suggest, however, Iris was no fool. Yes, a bit hard headed and dangerously impulsive, but never a fool. Brilliant, though her mind was, she could not stop her thoughts from wandering back to him. From the grace with which with, he held himself, to the air of sophisticated entitlement that trailed along with him like the apparition of a most loyal dog.

       He pledged her dreams in the night, this man with whom she so was immensely enthralled, this man to whom she had never as much spoken, this man that despite all this she ultimately and unequivocally loved.

       "Oliver," it was the voice of his betrothed. "Oliver," the second beckoning sent chills down her very spine. His fiance' was stunning in every aspect of life, that is every aspect in which diplomacy held little importance.