Darius

Chapter Nine

As they traveled through the forest, thick branches slapped their faces and left blood trickling down their cheeks. Hand in hand, though, they advanced determined to make it back. When they heard the music of a dance playing and the lights from the manor penetrated through the trees, Darius let a single tear escape his eye. The single tear housed all the stress Darius had felt since he became the sole owner of his property.

     Darius proudly walked Isabelle up the grand staircase to his not-so-humble abode. Snickers of party guests, many jealous women, flew off their backs as they paraded towards the back of the building's great hall. In the back sat the second most important figure of the town, Darius' kind mother. Her small, pointed noses stretched to the heavens as the frail, tattered Isabelle slumped up to them, reddening whenever she made eye contact.

     "Mother, this is Isabelle. She is the love of my life, and I'd like to marry her," Darius began.

     Isabelle stood frozen in horror as the young man whom she'd just met professed his love to her before the most powerful couplet she'd yet to meet. She willed herself to run but knew very well that Darius' words now spoken must be taken into effect.

     Darius' mother stood strictly, resolutely, the glimmer of sweetness in her eyes was replaced with one of treason and anger. She pulled the young couple behind the safe curtain of another room adjacent the hall and began to demean the poor girl. She cried motherly woes of irresolution and irresponsibility on the side of the young girl. She should know her place in the world or she would be told. Isabelle deigned to protect her virtue, her fears terrified her mind into silence. Only Darius could affront the raptures of his mother. Darius's sister was no where to be seen, and the family seemed torn apart.

     Finally the young couple, Darius' mother in tow, left the room all with quite affected looks upon their faces.

     Isabelle's feet told her to run, escape, be free. Her heart begged and pleaded for the summer sun and gooey mud squishing again in her hair and toes. And Darius wanted the same experience. He reproached his mother's elegant and bubbly upbringing and declined to acquiesce to his own. He needed to outrun horses, roll around in grass, and let his short hair flow as well as it may.

     Finally, Isabelle spoke. "There are a great many things in this world that we wish for above all else. My favorite fancy is my freedom. Freedom to you is a whim. If it is freedom you want, there are other ways to gain it- marriage may not be the only answer." She took a breathe before continuing-standing taller. "But if marriage to me is your favorite solution, I must give you an ultimatum. I will not, can not love and live in a place I can not respect. You live with me in my home, or with me naught."

     Darius' mother looked at the shy girl with a renewed sense of approbation. She scowled. But then she softened, smiled- or more grinned- an evil sort of look prevailed upon her face. Then, again it changed, softened more- and hardened. Her eyebrows raised and she averted her eyes; she fumbled her hands together in front of her.

     Darius looked into the young woman's eyes. She was serious; he knew she was. They all knew she was. Could he give up his place? His life and comfort for freedom, for a love he'd never felt- did not even know if love it were?