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When she was released, it was in a huge room. She had been caught after years of hiding. She slipped up because of some idiot man named Ryan tried to get her to reveal secrets. The man who was holding her retreated from the room as soon as the man with her trunk dropped it in the doorway and kicked it further in. With a slight smile, he closed the door and locked it from the outside. She immediately ran to the door and tried in vain to open it. The room had no window but a balcony. She walked over to the glass doors, and opened them carefully. She stepped onto the cool, marble floor, which extended into the balcony, and moved towards the edge. She found she was very high off the ground. The fall would surely kill her. She swore loudly and pounded the railing with her fists.
When she walked back in there was a woman going through her trunk, shaking her head at all the articles of clothing she took out in a disapproving manner.
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing?” Ariel furiously asked, crossing her arms just under her breasts.
“Tell me,” she asked with just as much fury in her voice as Ariel. “Were you raised with the pigs, or are you just rude?”
“I could ask you the very same thing,” she snorted. The woman looked her over, and the scrapes and dried blood on her elbows caught her attention. Her eyes lingered on her mass of curly, tangled hair, her ripped clothing, and the rough calluses on her hands, when Ariel finally dropped her arms to her sides. She shook her head again.
“Come now. We have a lot of work to do,” she said in an almost motherly voice, walking over to Ariel, and grabbing her arm roughly. She dragged her into a smaller room off of the main one, and before Ariel could protest, the woman flung her into water filled tub the size of a huge bed, clothes and all.
When she surfaced, she gasped for air, and began to swear. The woman suddenly grabbed her face and squeezed hard causing her lips to pop out.
“I’ll be damned if I have to put up with you, and that other brat Michael had brought in. Now you behave yourself, or I’ll smack you silly.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Ariel blurted as soon as she let go.
“Take off your clothes, or I will slap you.”
After protesting, Ariel finally gave in and took off her clothes. Feeling embarrassed and humiliated, she sat in the water, moping, while the woman scrubbed her scalp and hair until it was falling out, and her skin until it was pink, and raw.
When Ariel got out, she sat in a towel while the woman began applying a foul smelling paste to her cuts.
“So, who are you?” Ariel asked, calmly.
“Hannah. And you are Ariel. I know,” she said to Ariel’s shocked expression in the mirror, “because I used to watch you when you were little. You didn’t forget the arrangement, did you?” “No,” she said, stubbornly. Her face was in a scowl.
“Then you know you have no choice but to marry Michael. It’s been a done deal since you were little. You both are the ones connecting your feuding families.”
“What if I don’t want to?” she shouted, standing up suddenly from her spot on the floor. The towel wrapped around her hair fell loose and fluttered to the ground. Her curls flopped down covering most of her face.
“You must,” Hannah said, getting annoyed, “or else we will live in dark times. You’ve done a good job hiding. Your own parents didn’t know where you were. I must apologize for these cuts. General Andarie didn’t mean to harm you, but he loses his temper quickly. Try to remember that for the future.”
“He hurt me on purpose. I wasn’t going anywhere.”
“Then why did you flee? Why were you hiding in that room with the open window?”
“None of your business,” she said sulkily.
“Oh I think it is. Now sit, and let me finish with your injuries.”
Ariel obliged, and when she was covered in a thin coat of a sweet smelling paste, Hannah began attempting to tame the wild mass of hair on Ariel’s head. Hannah sat Ariel down at a vanity table and lifted a deep blue comb to the top of her head.
“Ow! Stop pulling! It hurts, it hurts!” Ariel cried out, clutching her head.
“The comb hasn’t even gone three inches and you’re crying!”
“I’m not crying, I’m complaining! My hair is fine,” she announced defiantly, getting up from the table and retreating to the other side of the room. By now, Ariel was in her underclothing, something she wasn’t used to. She began fidgeting under the straps of her bra and began to remove it when Hannah came running over and smacked her hand away.
“Wait here,” she said crossly moving to the door. She opened it and spoke softly to someone on the other side. She immediately locked it, and slid the key into her own bra.
“Your lucky Michael is so patient. Other wise you’d be in trouble. Now get dressed.” “In what?”
“That,” Hannah said pointing to a dress she hadn’t noticed before, spread out on the bed. Ariel moved towards the dress then ran her hand across the fabric. It was an ordinary cotton dress, with beads embroidered along the revealing neckline. It was in a deep purple, with long sleeves that ended at her elbows, but the undersides extended to the floor.
“Hurry,” Hannah urged.
“I can’t. I haven’t worn a dress in such a long time,” Ariel said quietly, turning to Hannah, almost in a pleading way.
“Well, better get used to it. It’s the only thing you’re going to be wearing here.”
When the dress was on, Ariel sat obediently and let Hannah work through her hair. With each curl sprayed with a styling product and separated, she glanced into the mirror and was amazed to see it was she who was looking back at her. She looked neat and tidy, and not like a person who spent her days and nights in a bar, inhaling the toxic fumes of Krawch, the most popular smoked drug in the city. While she was staring at herself, Hannah brought her a pair of slippers in the same purple as the dress. The straps went up to her knee, and the heel gave her a good few inches more of height.
When she was ready, Hannah shoved her out the door. A guard standing next to her door immediately put a sword to her neck. Ariel froze, but Hannah barked out a command and he withdrew. Hannah led her down the hall, down a few flights of stairs and brought her to a closed door. She felt elegant in the dress, and seemed to glide rather than walk.
“Michael requested you for breakfast. Mind your manners,” she whispered as she opened the door. Ariel followed slowly and stood behind Hannah, holding her right elbow in the palm of her hand rather shyly. She avoided direct eye contact with anyone in the room. Instead she stared at the carpet on the floor. When Hannah said her name and moved to the side, she was forced to look up. Standing a few feet away from Hannah was her so called fiancé. After seven years of running and hiding from him, she was surprised to see a stranger.
She used to know him back when the arguments were almost fatal. The last time she saw him, they stood on either side of a ditch, staring at each other. His face was smudged with dirt and the only color on his drab, dusty body was his brilliant green eyes. She wasn’t so glamorous herself: wearing a torn skirt that reached her mid-thigh with a torn shirt, revealing most of her torso. They each held a weapon but as the cries and blasts sounded from all around them, they just stood and stared, the same question in their tired faces: Why are we fighting?
That was the most they’ve ever connected. She had to throw the rock in her hand at him. Her father had ordered her to. She had gotten him on the forehead, leaving him cut, and bleeding. Before she was whisked away, he mumbled his name. Michael.
As she stared at his face today, the scar was visible; his face was clean, and shaved. His green eyes were shining even more then the last time they saw each other, a few years after their first meeting alongside that ditch. But his face held a hate that scared her. She winced as he observed her. She was in for a tough day.
“I’ll leave you two to get reacquainted,” Hannah said nervously, backing out of the room and closing the door behind her. She acted as if Ariel were a cat, and he a dog, and was going to pounce at each other at any moment.
“So I finally caught you. After so many years of searching, I finally got what I was promised.” He walked over to her and circled her like a hungry vulture, looking her over before stopping in front of her. “And to think, I laughed when they told me you had been living as a man. But then again, I know what your family was capable of.”
“And what is my family capable of?” she spat angrily.
“Deceit. Hate. You’re no different from the rest of them.”
“Oh but I am. You’re just sore about me giving you that scar.“ She lightly brushed his forehead with her fingertips. “And for running.”
“I’ve gotten over that ages ago. Yes, I was sore about you running, but you finally revealed yourself. And I had men looking for you in Finela! You were right under my nose all along”
“I am not yours, and never shall. I have left my parents due to this marriage, and I don’t plan on giving in now. I don’t care if this would end the feud. They would still fight. They would fight over rights, money, and possessions, which would pay for what. This won’t stop. It’s on going and I plan on leaving and leaving for good. Even if it means walking through the desert to Kanta and dying, I’ll leave.” She narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms angrily.
He had an odd expression on his face when she finished, almost as if he had a deep secret that needed to be revealed. He appeared to be uncomfortable. His green eyes seemed to dim, but then brighten when he looked at her. His face softened when he began to speak.
“I wasn’t able to get you off of my mind while you were gone,” he said softly, putting his hands on her shoulders, surprising her with the sudden act of tenderness. This change in attitude and emotion was so sudden it frightened her slightly. “I was glad when my parents came home one evening and told us the news. I was angry at first, but I summed it all up that night while I lay in bed waiting for sleep. I was seven when my parents told me… It may not end the feud altogether, but it will stop some things, like the murders.” He paused, and his shoulders slumped as his face twisted into an expression of sadness. “While you were gone, your entire family was murdered. Not by us,” he added quickly, as her eyes flashed angrily at him and her hands twisted to hold an invisible object, but her palms turned slightly blue. He didn’t notice. “No one knows how, or why, but we suspected a raid of soldiers who were passing through the village you grew up in.”
She hid her reaction, and she must have done it well as he moved closer, seeming to think she was too shocked to think straight.
“Be my wife.” He almost pleaded it.
“Under one condition.” It was a strain to talk, and keep from gauging his eyes out with her nails, even though he claimed not to be the murderer. She knew he was, or a member of the family was the one responsible.
“Anything.”
“I am free to do what I like. I will not be bound to you. You won’t have any control over me and my actions.”
“As you wish,” he said softly, leaning in and kissing her.
In her mind, she was calculating the situation she had gotten herself into. If she left tonight, he would send an army to find her. If she left after they were married, he would send an army. There were no options available. She was screwed.
When he pulled away, there was a light nock on the door. They turned to face the door as Hannah came in, carrying a tray of food and a bottle wine. Ariel immediately grabbed for the wine, needing something to calm her, but Hannah pulled it away. She watched after the bottle with wide eyes, almost as if her heart had been ripped from her and was being dragged across the room, even though it was placed back on the tray, which sat upon the desk.
“No wine for you,” she scolded.
“And why not?” Ariel demanded, feeling as if she was going to cry.
“We’ll discuss this in your room. May I?” she asked Michael.
“Of course,” he said passively, with a lazy wave of his hand.
Hannah grabbed Ariel’s arm and pulled her out of the room and into the hall. She dragged her up the stairs and through the halls until they reached the room Hannah had gotten her dressed in. The door was open so nothing prevented Hannah from what she did next. She flung Ariel into the room causing Ariel to stumble and fall inches away from a table corner. She sat on her bottom breathing heavily; her eyes open wide with shock.
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted breathlessly, standing up just to be pushed back down.
“Who do you think you are? Taking what you please?” Hannah hissed.
“Michael’s bride!”
“Michael gave me the right to do whatever is needed to make you obedient.”
“So I’m a dog now? Well, could a dog destroy the whole house in one blow? Could a dog murder you?” Hannah’s expression turned from anger to fear. “You’ve seen what I’m capable of. I’m the only one in this entire city who could do that! And the only way to prevent that is that you leave me the hell alone! So if you throw me around one more time, I will kill a guard. You slap me; it’s Michael's siblings. You make me bleed; it’s the whole house. And if you manage to live through that, I’ll destroy the city just to get to you.”
Hannah just retreated from the room rapidly, closing and locking the door behind her. Ariel smiled. It had worked. Now Hannah would go complain to Michael and then he’d come up and probably beat her. Ariel stretched and took off the sandals. When she was out of her dress there came a knock on the door. She dropped the dress and put her hands on her hips. The lock clicked open and just as she thought Hannah came in with Michael standing in front of her protectively.
“Hannah tells – Oh, you’re getting dressed. I’ll come back later,” he began but stopped and blushed slightly.
“No, you’ll talk now. Leave us Hannah. You’ve done enough damage.” Hannah gave Ariel a hateful glare. When the door was closed, Ariel rounded on Michael.
“How dare you give her the right to throw me around and beat me like an animal! I may have been living alone for seven years but that doesn’t mean I’m uncivilized! The nerve you have, Michael.” She was pacing around the room, stopping every few seconds to stare at him with a scowl before she sighed angrily and commenced pacing again. “I’m much better behaved then her.”
Michael sighed. “I knew you would be difficult so I chose Hannah to watch over you. She’s stubborn and hates seeing people disobey rules or commands. She’s not so bad if you-”
“Listen, the threats I gave are valid,” Ariel interrupted, not wanting to listen to the speech Michael was about to recite. “I swear if I’m beaten around I will do as I said, and I won’t spare anyone.”
“You speak with such a black heart.”
“I do have a black heart,” she whispered. “My entire family is dead and I’m trapped here like a caged bird. You don’t trust me and I don’t question why because I don’t trust myself.” She moved over to sit on the bed.
“I haven’t seen my family for five years. And now I never will. So you got what you wanted the feud is over, and you’re parents will still hate me, despise me, and I’ll be treated like crap. And don’t tell me they won’t because they will.” Her body shook with a sob, and she covered her face with her hands. Michael strode over, and sat next to her, draping his arm around her. She transferred her face to his shoulder, needing some comfort, even if it was in the enemy, and the man who ruined her life.
“Come, now. Everything will be alright,” he whispered, kissing her neck.
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