Chapter Fourteen: The Hours Before The Wedding
The day of the wedding arrived. Patti awoke with a flutter in her heart. For a moment, she knew not why she was so apprehensive. Then it all came back. She was to be married today.
~~O-o-o M-i-i-i-y goodne-s-s-s~~ She thought, looking at her clock, which read five o'clock.
Queen Jen peeked in from her adjacent chambers. She was rather awed by this girl who was to marry a boy even younger than Jen. ((Shamal was born in May.)) A boy who Jen had gone to school with.
"Queen Patti?" Jen said in respectful tones, for Patti had been a Queen longer than she. Plus, she was four years older.
"Yes? Please, call me Patti," the older one requested.
"How do you get rid of someone who you don't like, but likes you?" Jen-Jen said this all very fast.
"Ignore Senator Brinxin. And request that his request for seating next to you be denied. It was awful, the way he shared a cup with you at dinner. I almost puked," said the ever-wise Patti.
"How . . ." started Jen.
"It was obvious, dear. He's hung on you. Now, help me get dressed. I'm afraid I have lost a playmate in the Empress since Zach came. He likes hunting," here, the older Queen smiled, joking. She looked at Jen, who had clearly been up for some time, for she was dressed impeccably in her baby-blue dress, with her hat seated jauntily across her left ear. Her hair was swept up in a short "grown-up" style that became her. "Your shoes are flats!" Patti exclaimed. "Why?"
"Because," explained Jen, getting out Patti own platformed shoes, "I have weak ankles when I am nervous. Now, where is your dress?"
The greater part of the next two hours was taken in preparations for Patti's toiletries. In that time, Karen entered the room, which had been crowded with two and twenty, bringing her twenty lasses. So they had three and forty in the two rooms. In that time, Patti was ready for her eight-thirty wedding an hour early.
"Karen, you look so lovely!" Jenny exclaimed.
Karen was as black as night. Her hair was blackened and braided in two long braids. They were wrapped, in the easiest words and the best, in the Princess Leia style, from the movie Star Wars: A New Hope. She wore a huge headdress that was like a half-circle the rose from her shoulders to above her head. Her face was black, except for her lips. They were a bright white. Her dress started at her chin. It had a lace upper part that ended at the beginning of her shoulders on her chest. Her arms were all laced with the black. It had feathers around the dress 'til the waist. It was very tight until the waist. Then suddenly, it ballooned out and came to a huge circle that ended at the floor. So only the very tips of Karen's high platforms could be seen.
"I appreciate the complement," Karen smiled.
"Why," she asked Karen, "is my wedding so early in the day? What about ten o'clock? That's plenty early."
"Because it's bad luck for a royal to be married after nine o'clock, and you know it!" exclaimed Karen, who had answered this question by the tired and nervous Patti about twenty times already.
"I think she should eat," came a soft voice. Karen turned, and saw Queen Brittany standing by the door. She was dressed identically to Jenny, as were all the female royals. "You won't want to pass out before the ceremony! Here I brought you some flat cakes," "flat cakes" is the Ruokian dialect for pancakes. Rachel handed a plate of steaming flat cakes covered with Je-antas and melting j'ho. In our dialect that is a fruit and butter. Mora, one of Patti's lasses, came and fetched a huge white apron the covered the whole of Patti's dress, down to her cuffs.
I am afraid I have forgotten to describe the wonder of Patti's outfit. Imagine the sky at it's bluest. Then imagine it taken from the sky, and woven into a fine silk. Imagine that silk being taken and sown into a fine dress, as soft as the wind and as blue as the sky. The dress was sleeveless. It was very low and started so that you could see the nape of Patti neck. It started then, and then sort of fell from her form. Patti complained that it gave her no figure at all. Beside the blue you could see slight shocks of white. Like clouds. It fell to the floor, and trailed after in a five-foot train. Her face was natural, but very white from face powder and nervousness. She wore elbow gloves, white ones. Her shoes were platforms, not as big as Karen's, but tall enough anyway. Karen thought, secretly, that it would not be nice on her, as her whole beauty was focused on her trim figure and mystery looks, but it worked on Patti. Patti was down to Nadidian. (Down to earth)
The others ordered meals similar to Patti's and then donned on aprons identical to Patti's. Karen again did not have any Je-antas.
Zach came bounding in at eight o'clock, dressed in a blue niww-eu (“ne-woo” It is sort of like a tux) He had a white shirt on. This was the attire that the male royals and invitees wore.
"Patti, ladies, you had better come and get seated. In one half hour you will be married, and be Queen of the first adjoining kingdom since your parents . . . And that, m'lady, is an honor. An honor you well deserve," A smile played across Zach's lips. He hadn't really known Patti's parents, for he was only eleven at the end of the war, and eight when it started. He hoped that this war, less than two years later, would be swift.
Patti blushed. And then, a frown almost flickered where her smile had been. Her father. Her mother. They were gone. She wished they would see this day. The day her father had teased her about had come. And they weren't here.
Patti smiled at Zach, and then stepped into the hall. Walking down toward the door that she would enter as a single girl and leave as a married woman. She took a deep breath.
