"Nobody told me I would have to hold a speech when I agreed to this!", Iris lamented, cowering on her bed with her back tucked to the wall, a safe bastion of pillows around her.
"But Iris, dear. It didn't seem to be a problem at all when you stood up there on the pulpit!", Larentia tried to comfort her troubled child.
"But they were far away, and I didn't need to do anything, and...", Iris stammered. "And I feel stupid for not having considered those kinds of duties before", she finally admitted.
"So you are saying you wouldn't have agreed to marrying him had you realized earlier?", Larentia asked her in a hardly convinced tone.
"O-of course not, it's just...Oh, this is all happening so quickly!", she moaned and dug her face back into her arms. Larentia remembered the times when Iris had done that believing she would actually disappear. Chuckling to herself she walked across the room with a few fresh blankets.
"What are a few words spoken in front of a few thousand people to my brave Iris who does not even fear our king?!", she asked, intending to brighten the mood.
"A few thousand?!",Iris exclaimed instead.
"Well...the place is rather...big."
"Oh, heavens!", came Iris'muffled voice from somewhere behind her interwoven arms and legs. "He worries about me all the time, but he hardly lost any words about that matter... As if it were nothing!"
"Isn't that because he has confidence in you?"
"Mh...."
"Stop moping now! Don't you have an appointment with Master Aren soon?", Larentia encouraged. She had heard all about the Master from Iris the day before, when overseeing her meals as she was now required to.
Iris sprung up immediately.
"You're right! I almost forgot!"
"What would you do without me", Larentia smiled and received a rushed goodbye-kiss on the cheek. "Cloak!"
"Ah!", Iris went and hurried back from the door. "Thank you!"
"And don't forget to convey my gratitude for his guidance!"
Iris threw the heavy hood over her head. "I won't."
"She's not quite herself today", Larentia grinned to herself after her foster child had disappeared though the door. "There is always a price to pay, it seems."
"I do not quite understand why that would worry you so much, darling", laughed the Master sitting on his chair amongst the ticking hands and chiming vials.
"Why is everybody saying that?", Iris sighed into the palms of her hands.
"Well, on the pulpit--", the Master began, only to find himself interrupted by another heavy sigh. "I do not mean that, listen", he laughed. That girl really showed him a new side of hers every time he met her.
"From your reaction I am inclined to deduce that you have not yet realized just what you were doing inside the cathedral as well as on the pulpit, child."
Iris looked up, merely shaking her head. Other than just standing there, she did not recall anything special.
"Hmm, let me begin my explanation from a broader perspective, I think you will catch my drift", Master Aren hummed. He put one of the glass vials down whose contents he had been examining with squinted eyes, holding it against the flame of a crooked candle. He took his time before sitting down again, pondering where to start.
YOU ARE READING
Without Words, Without Sight
Fantasy"And in the distance between these eyes that did not see, and this voice that did not resound, he put the flowers and fruit he had picked to describe the scent she had to him. As he put them all into her arms, she understood with a graceful smile. P...
