A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Thirty-Two - Wedding

"I don't care."

"You can't be serious."

"I am serious. Very serious. Yes I want to wear a pretty dress but I really don't care what color the decorations are. It's not as if there'll be flowers."

Fraeg lifted her head from the book of color chips and fabric switches and pressed blossoms and raised a finger. "You'd be surprised. No one ever said they had to be fresh."

I made a face at her. "I don't want dead flowers at my wedding!"

"Dead does not mean ugly," Freda said through the pins in her mouth. I stood before her on a short stool as she pressed ribbons against various gathers and seams in the gown she was composing for me. My arms stuck out straight, as they had been for the last half hour (I'd have to ice them later), I didn't make a very firm debater, but I still made the attempt.

"What does it mean then? How can you have dead pretty summer flowers at a winter wedding?"

"Sugar them," said Fraeg when her mother indicated that she should answer, Freda apparently not being in the mood to impale her tongue on the many sharp objects obstructing her tongue and teeth. "It's quite easy actually, though it's more difficult to do the fancier work for a wedding, and the work that lasts that long without discoloring."

"Hmm," I said, still not convinced. Fraeg didn't care if I was convinced or not; she just smiled down at the book she was paging through, taking notes. I was supposed to be the one perusing the 'wedding manual', but it hadn't taken more than a skip and a sneeze for everyone to realize I wasn't interested. I did not like organizing events. Christmas didn't count-telling people to bring food and bring a gift to pass required only a little chatter among friends. The decorating I did for myself.

But I was not about to derail the next five months of my life to plan a single day, not even for the life of love. I enjoyed what I already did with my free time far too much. Besides-if I did the bear's share of the planning it would not reflect well on my family or friends, who must have been fools to permit me to take so much rein in this conspicuous endeavor.

Someone knocked heartily on the door. "No!" shouted both of the women, while I hollered behind them, "Yes! Whoever the devil you are, come in!"

"Lass?"

"GIMLI SAVE ME." The ladies refreshed their bellows that Gimli was by no means and under no conditions permitted in this room. They had the same opinions about men seeing their betrothed in their wedding gowns before the event that the people I'd run from had. "GIMLI SHE HAS RIBBON."

"IS SHE THROTTLING YOU WITH IT."

"Not at the moment, no."

We all heard him chuckling. "I've got to recommend you find a way to suffer through it then."

"AW, COME ON."

"YOU'RE TOUGH."

I heaved a massive sigh. "Why can't we just run off together like they did back when giant reptiles were still allowed to call on each other for tea?"

Freda shook her head. "Some of the things that drop off your lips."

I winced. "You make it sound like I've got my mouth and my rear confused. Don't do that again, I beg of you."

Sometimes they still did.

After the dreaded miserable bum-snorting dress fitting and many other things besides, I was vastly grateful and thoroughly sparkled to find that Gimli had waited for his mother and sister to finish with me, and stumbled dramatically until I toppled into his lap to the sound of his great amusement.