Fairy Tale Wedding (Book One: The Road to Ever After)

Chapter Twenty-Two

The warthog minister's snout flared as he inhaled another deep breath before continuing the next portion of the ceremony. His blind eyes rolled chaotically around in his head, cloudy with a cotton-like layer of disease. His long face was a chocolate brown and looked like leather sprouting warts. His random sprigs of scraggly hair waved back and forth as he talked.

Princess Adeline wished she had a pair of gloves on. She hated for Jarryd to feel her sweaty palms against his cool, smooth fingers. Perspiration did not befit a lady, especially on her wedding day. It was not the empty chapel's temperature making Princess Adeline melt. Her outward display of soggy discomfort came from deep inside.

The warthog turned and talked in what he sensed was Jarryd's direction, "Do you, Prince Jarryd, take Princess Adeline to be your wedded wife," he asked, recording all the caveats of good and bad times. Adeline felt dizzy as the warthog's words ricocheted like clanging gongs around her brain. She was really being married off to Jarryd. It was happening right then and there. The old, familiar promises were being made, promises to one another that would last a lifetime. Princess Adeline only had one life and it was being sealed and signed over to a stranger.

"I do," she heard Jarryd say from beside her. The words seemed to travel through a foggy canyon gap, sounding far off and yet echoing all the way to where she stood. She could also hear her own breathing banging in her ears, gasps in and out that were louder than thunder in the worst temper.

Princess Adeline balanced her gaze to see Jarryd. Her vision was moving up and down in waves. She finally anchored onto his face. The strict-lines of his sculpted jawline and cheekbones were perfectly proportioned. His dashing, black hair and deep eyes were those of a demigod. He was so icily handsome, she wished with all her heart she could feel some romantic stirrings for those gorgeous features. She wished she could love him for his looks, if nothing else.

But she did not love Jarryd in that way. There was no attraction between them that was skin deep or otherwise. She had the greatest compassion for his lonely life, but it was not enough to give rise to real love. Princess Adeline wanted to help Jarryd, to lift him out of his dismal solitude, but she did not love him as a wife should honour and treasure her husband.

Yet Princess Adeline was marrying this man. There was nothing she could do to stop the inevitable. Soon the ceremony would be over and she would be a married lady. Princess Adeline of Once-upon-a Time would be united to Jarryd of Distress for eternity, bound to one another by a bond which no man or beast could break. She would belong to him and he would belong to her, until death at last drew a curtain across their connection.

The warthog hacked and wheezed for air. Adeline ruthlessly thought how lovely it would be if the ancient critter just passed out, blue in the face in front of them. But his lapse passed quicker than expected for his age. The wrinkled beast beat his chest with a nicked and worn hoof and set his lungs aright. He turned towards the princess, nearly bashing his nose into her face, and continued.

"And do you, Princess Adeline, take Prince Jarryd to be your wedded husband?"

As the warthog repeated the conditions of her promise, Adeline felt her heart opening and closing against her sternum at an explosive rate. The minister's gruff words sent a dozen images shooting before her imagination.

What would life be like with Jarryd as her husband?

She saw herself feeding him broth during a time of sickness, her body weary from long hours spent nursing him at his bedside. She saw them together in the castle, locked alone one with the other while Lady Jacqueline brought darkness to the outside world. She saw them sitting on their separate thrones, silently listening to commoners' complaints without the power to help them. She saw herself sitting beside Jarryd as he held their first baby, both quiet and amazed, but missing the radiance of true rejoicing. She saw them in their old age, grey and hazy as they decayed into death without a peaceful submission.