I updated this work for Braedafina/Serafaeden Week. The prompts I used were Post Series, Class, and Stargazing (although the last one’s the weakest).
The eighteen year-old girl watched her reflection in the looking glass with a weary gaze. Could she pass for a boy? It was critical that she could, but Serafina worried that she couldn’t.
Even dressed the way she was (long-sleeved shirt, long trousers, concealing coat), with her features softened and scars erased by Rowena’s magic, and her mane of black hair — brushed and braided for once — tucked up under a hat, Serafina worried she couldn’t.
And she had to. She simply had to.
Everything hinged on it. Everything.
“Miss?” Essie’s voice penetrated Sarafina’s wooden door, the Lady’s Maid right on the other side. “Are you getting along all right in there? You don’t need any help?”
Serafina wrenched herself away from the mirror and padded over to the door, unaccustomed to the heavy boots currently swallowing her feet.
As Essie Walker buzzed into the room, Serafina was surprised to see that her friend had let her dark, curly hair down for once and wore a sunshine-yellow dress.
“Essie, you’re comin’ with me? Jess—“
“The baby.” Essie said in answer, running her hands down the dress’ skirt, fingers trailing across tiny daisy embroidered in the fabric. The baby was not Jess and Essie’s child, but simply the newest orphan child that the two had a voluntary hand in raising.
A second knock on the door, the sound as gentle and kind as the man who made it.
Braeden’s clothing was as inconspicuous as Serafina and Essie’s were, bland, basic, boring and forgettable. The best feature of his disguise, however, was the lack of Gidean. It was distressing for Serafina to see her lover without his trusted dog, the Doberman was one of the only reasons that she ever let Braeden out of her sight with any regularity. She trusted her friends and family — no one else, of course — but the black dog was the only one she trusted with Braeden’s life completely besides herself.
So to see Braeden without Gidean, while knowing that she hadn’t been with her best friend on the short walk from his room to hers, set Serafina’s nerves on edge. (Paranoia. That what the doctors said. Foolish, Serafina thought, because it wasn’t paranoia if everything was actually out to get you.)
Despite her thoughts scuttling about like drunken mice, she sculpted her face into a smile as Braeden walked over to her and pressed his lips to her temple, and then, a moment later, under his soft touch and his softer reassurances, her smile was genuine. (Or as genuine as any of her smiles ever were. Which was to say half-sincere, half-threat.)
“Are you ready, my love?”
“The two of you make me want puke.”
“Come on now, Ess,” Serafina teased, “It can’t be any worse than the time you walked in on us—“
Brown eyes widening, Braeden slapped a hand over Serafina’s mouth. “We talked about this! It — it never happened!” He sputtered, his cheeks flaming.
Essie simply raised an eyebrow (Serafina had always wanted to be able to do that) and pursued her lips. “If you say so, Braeden.”
She turned and practically bounced to the doorway, stopping only to call over her shoulder, “If you don’t hurry up, love-bugs, this wedding’s going to happen without you.”
Well-worn boots with mud in their treads made their way down cut bricks, weak winter sunlight shining through glass panes, the air dense and thick, wet and heavy, wrapping around the young man like a doused wool coat.
He found his aunt sitting at a small, circular table near the middle of the greenhouse, soft hands delicately folded around a cup of steaming tea, nails slightly pointed and painted a gentle sea-shell pink. She wore a plum-colored dress and a shawl around her shoulders made of gray wolf fur.
Braeden took the seat opposite her, his leg-brace creaking, and took a swig of his own drink, letting the sugary and syrupy liquid settle on his tongue, letting the chill radiate into his aching hands. He swallowed, then spoke. “You called for me?”
“I did. I felt that we needed to discuss some . . . upcoming events.” She was perfectly poised, still as a marble statue.
“You mean my proposal to Serafina.” Braeden said flatly, the sweet-tea suddenly bitter and cloying in his mouth.
“Yes.” Edith responded, crossing her ankles. “That is what I would like to discuss.”
“And what part of it exactly would you like to discuss?”
“Its entirety. The fact of the matter is that you simply cannot marry her.”
“And why is that?” Braeden clutched the glass so hard his knuckles went white. He took several shallow breaths and then set the glass down gently. Edith watched his repressed anger hungrily, her dark gaze stabbing through him like a needle through an insect.
“Now, darling, don’t be upset. I simply want what’s best for you, what’s best for the whole family, and I’m not certain that Serafina is . . . right for you.”
“I love her. I will always love her.” Braeden responded, wondering not for the first time in his life if it was normal to want to claw your aunt’s face off.
“Will you? You’re at a difficult age, Braeden, one where, if not properly guided, you’ll make decisions you’ll later regret.” For a second her face was a paper-mask, her smile drawn on by a crooked hand, her eyes flat and dull, and then he blinked, and she wasn’t, back to a flesh-and-blood woman whose only signs of aging were the threads of silver woven into her dark hair and the faint lines at the edge of her dark eyes and pitiless mouth. “And that’s to say nothing of how it would . . . look. While I don’t believe it, people do talk and, well, they say the most . . . dreadful things about your Serafina. About what she actually wants out of your relationship.”
A ugly flush spread across Braeden’s face, the idea that anyone would ever think that of Serafina disturbed him.
Edith calmly took a sip of her tea, as if she hadn’t just ripped his world to shreds with her soft voice and perfectly manicured nails. Her movements were precise and controlled, calculated, and Braeden suddenly felt that his aunt wasn’t human at all, but something mechanical, made of gears and wires, completely and utterly unable to be pursued by matters of the heart simply because she did not have one.
“I do.” His voice was steady.
“Than I now pronounce you husband and wife, you may now kiss—“
The rest of the officiant‘s words were cut off by Serafina’s lips and the feeling of her fingers entwining in his hair.
Somewhere behind them Essie and Waysa cheered, while Rowena was almost certainly being the source for the polite clapping.
“Braeden, darling, you really do have to consider the consequences of your actions.”
“I don’t care what you want.” He interjected, standing abruptly. “I care that she’ll be happy, that is my main priority and it will always be my main priority, and if you can’t understand that,” he looked away for a moment, took a deep breath, and then continued, “I will marry her. With or without your permission.”
“You really missed something,” Essie nuzzled her head in the crook of Jess neck, “I almost cried.”
“Waysa did cry.” Rowena said, leaning against the unlit fireplace.
“So?” Waysa (who was sitting on the couch with Jess and Essie) countered, “I cry when I’m happy.”
“I must make you cry often then.”
Wrapped in each other’s arms, Braeden and Serafina sat on the windowsill, unaware of their friends teasing.
Braeden whispered to her, his mouth gently brushing against her ear, “I used to sit on this windowsill every night and wish on all the stars that I’d have someone who would love me one day.”
“You sound as if you still don’t believe it.” Serafina whispered back, smiling.
“Of course I don’t,” Braeden admitted, “what man could possibly look upon a goddess such as yourself and believe that you choose him?”
