At The Shrine of Your Lies ❧ Ariadne & Antonin || Future
Ariadne brushed the powder over her pale cheeks with trembling fingers. In her carelessness, the tinted dust drifted through the air, clinging to the vanity but blessedly missing her painstakingly chosen attire. She sits with a curiously blank expression, transfixed by the wide, hollow look in her eyes that stare hauntingly back from the mirror. Time ticks away, marking the minutes she has until she meets her future at last. The back of her throat stings, acidic taste swelling from her nervous stomach that clenches and claws at her insides.
If he… doesn’t like me—
But it’s too late to ponder, someone calls and she obediently responds. Her few spare moments to panic are gone.
With her gaze respectfully lowered as she enters, her first impressions of her betrothed are slight. He was tall. Gods. His form towered over her, even across the room and as she drew measured steps towards their first exchange. His impressive frame is a presence that seemed to draw every eye in the room, and yet he was singed with a dark energy that sent a thrill of inexplicable fear up her spine. But through he lashes she can glean that he was handsome too. Sharp features framing dark, angry eyes. Distracted and awed as she is, she misses the hissed words of her mother in her ear. Her mother’s guiding hand presses into her waist, drawing her forward while disguising a sharp pinch to the soft flesh of her upper arm. She barely flinches at the warning, instead straightening a proud spine and slipping a polite smile on terrified features. Her mother’s voice drifts in one ear and out the other, the finalization of a business transaction that she never had any say in anyway transpires right over her head. Agreements and contracts within earshot and yet she utters no protest. Then her strings are gone, her mother drifting away and closing them in the parlor with a soft click of the cage, and they are a l o n e.
"Mister Dolohov," she sounded breathless, even to her own ears. And in the silence that followed her nervous greeting, she dipped into a shallow curtsy. "What a pleasure to meet you, at last." Words that are steady, and yet clouded with trepidation to the point that sincerity is hollow.
This was not the first time that Antonin Dolohov found himself in an unfamiliar home, awaiting a potential engagement. Gathered in the parlour, his mother and her friends examined and shared their jewellery. He could not care less. Each of the women looked almost indistinguishable to Antonin. They could have been replicas of his mother and, in his mind, they may as well have been. He kept his distance and had not moved from standing tall and solitary against the French windows. Gazing out at the fields blanketed in snow, he caught his reflection in the glass. A hollow glare stared back at him, lazily sweeping his glance to notice the rest of his face echoed in the reflection. A hand moves up, across his face, to caress his newly smooth cheeks and neck perfectly before noticing his finely tailored sleeves praised his muscular, cruel arms. Antonin sighed with restlessness. Years and years of traditions like these had made him apathetic. He was hungry for the excitement of leaving this prison, almost growling at the thought of what he could be doing had he not come here today.
Nervous rustling and shifting in the parlour preceded the sound of doors clicking open, distracting Antonin. Shifting on the spot, his cold gaze fixed now on this younger girl carefully making her entrance into the room. Prompted by her mother, the girl’s thin little body carried itself gracefully past the older women now ushering out. Her silvery hair gleamed against the soft white fields visible outside. Antonin swallowed, his throat dry. Now alone, she seemed at once nervous and yet, almost assured in herself by the way she welcomed him.
“Miss Selwyn, isn’t it?” he bows slightly as his deep timbre interrupts the silence following her introduction. “I have been looking forward to this for, well, quite some time now” he lies “I must admit, you are more beautiful than even my mother has said.” Antonin’s lips curl to form a slight smile, the longer he examines the waif-like girl before him, the more his intrigue begins to grow.
