The Elf King - Rathilion

Chapter 2

-Valindra-

“But I don’t want to go!” I said harshly, crossing my arms over my chest.

“I am your father, and you will do as I say!” my father said, not caring that I had ruined this dinner anymore, and was fully committed to this argument.

“I told you I don’t want to! Why do I have to?!” I yelled.

“Because I told you to! We are all going!”

“But why me? You have other daughters!”

“But you are the beautiful one of them,” he said, as if the rest weren’t here to hear him.

I had been told this before, and not just by him or my mother, others said it too. The other lords and ladies of the West had always judged me by my looks, making me want to crawl into a hole. It was not like my other sisters, one older and one younger was any less beautiful, at least not in my eyes. I was just the only one who had inherited my mother’s golden hair and purple eyes, which had in her day made her the most wanted woman around at those parties, and she had secured herself a good match, getting herself a duke. Congrats to her, but I wasn’t interested in getting married! Ever! My sisters wanted to marry, so they could go marry for all I cared, but I wasn’t at all interested and I never would be. Marriage to me looked like a trap! My parents were the perfect example, but when the eligible elf king suddenly was looking for a queen, how could my father not parade me in front of him? But I didn’t want to be queen.

If I could, all I wanted to do was sit in a quiet library, just reading books until I had read everything out there, and then I would read everything again, just so I could get a taste of what truly happened out there away from the protective woods where we lived. I just wanted a little taste, because I knew I would never be allowed to go out there and see what it was really like. I would never know what it truly meant to feel joy nor what it truly meant getting hurt.

I was protected. Very protected. I had been my whole life.

“I don’t want to.”

“You don’t have a choice. I will drag you!” my father told me.

“You have two other daughters, just as beautiful!” I said. “They are even interesting! I am a bore. We all know it. I have looks, that is it, and the rest no one wanted to get near. They can get the king’s attention. Therefore, you don’t need me!”

I got up from my seat around the table, and heard the chair scrap against the floor, making an awful sound, which made me flinch. I didn’t really like such loud sounds, my ears almost rung from it. Therefore, me in a quiet library was the perfect solution. I would be protected from such sounds.

“I won’t take any chances!” my father said.

“You make it sound like this is about life and death. All it is, is marriage!” I said.

“A marriage to the king!” he gave back.

“Yes, so an awful one.”

My mother gasped and I turned to her, rolling my eyes. So dramatic. That was just her way, and I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand this table! I couldn’t stand this family! My sisters were looking at me like I was an obstacle, they had to go through, my father looked at me like I was the way to a bright future, and my mother looked at me like a child that needed to be scolded and put in her place.

“I won’t go,” I told him cold and hard.

I usually did not say much, but when it came to MY future and MY hand in marriage, I had something to say, which was probably why my father had not been able to keep his cool, so surprised I had actually said something.

“You will!”

“Then I guess you will have to drag me! Because my feet won’t move on their own!”

“I will, Valindra!”

“Go ahead!” I screamed at him, before turning around and pretty much running out of there, not able to be in that horrible room for one more second.

I stormed outside the big house into the forest that stood behind it, not even thinking it through, I just wanted to escape. I wasn’t sure if I was running away or just running. I had not yet decided. I just ran and ran until my legs started to hurt, and shake and my lungs burned, and then I finally slowed down. My dress wasn’t really made for running, and I had lost a shoe somewhere in this escape.

I stood there, breathing heavily, halfway bent over, and resting my hands on my thighs. This was horrible! Why couldn’t my father understand?! My sisters were enough. They didn’t need me! I just wanted to get out of here. I just wanted to go somewhere! Somewhere I could escape all of this, but where?! My father would reach me in the end. How could he not? He had the men to look for me. He would look under every stone and in every tree and house for me.

There was nowhere I could run where he couldn’t find me …

I knew I had to go back, even though my heart told me to continue to run, but I knew there was no escaping him. I sighed and turned away, just as I heard something rustle in the nearby bush. It was hard to see what it was, because it was dark, and I was far from the mansion we lived in. But it didn’t matter if I saw what it was that jumped out of the bushes, because a loud roar echoed in the dark night, and I was not fast enough to react before I was knocked to the ground, and then I felt the sharpness of claws digging into my skin.

At least if I died … I could never marry.

-Rathilion-

“Your mind is troubled.”

My mother came to stand beside me on the balcony, overlooking the lively forest that shone in so many colors in the night. It was even more active than it was in the day.

“When isn’t it anymore?” I asked and took a sip of the wine that swirled in the silver cup in my hand.

“You are trying to mend the rift between you two,” she said, and put a hand on one of my arms that rested on the railing.

“I don’t want this, but I don’t know what to do for him anymore.”

“And you think this marriage will make him happy?” she asked.

“At least I would have done something right in his eyes,” I said, my tone a bit harsher than I wanted it to be.

My mother wasn’t my enemy, but it was hard to control my frustration. This marriage, everything about it was to please him, to give him a little, because I had taken so much. I had invited all those he thought right for me, and even though I was free to choose, I knew none of them would make me happy.

“You stood for what you believed in,” she said in that calm voice, I had no idea where she got from. “There is never anything wrong with that.”

“I don’t think he agrees.”

“Or maybe your frustration comes from something else? Maybe there is a woman who has claimed your heart?” she asked.

I looked at her, seeing the small smile on her lips and the way her eyes sparkled, she always saw right through me.

“I see Sarya a lot in the hallways,” she said. “Sneaking in and out of your room.”

I looked away. Sarya didn’t have my heart, I thought as I drank the last of my wine.

“Or maybe it is a fierce queen you still think about?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“She is already taken,” I said.

“Then look ahead,” she told me. “Not back.”

“I know I have to look forward. I know what I have to do. That is why I do this.”

“You make it sound like you are going to war,” she said.

“In a way I am. I never liked these sorts of parties. I know how to fight, but this, I am not good at it. And marriage, I believe I might be even worse at. But the throne needs someone after me, and maybe … maybe it might just mend something between father and I.”

“So, you sacrifice your own happiness for him?” she asked.

“What do you want me to do, mother?” I asked. “I can’t have the woman I want.”

“And Sarya isn’t a woman you could want?” she asked.

“It isn’t like that between us. And besides, that wouldn’t really please father.”

“No, but she does make you happy?”

“Yes,” I said.

“All I want, my son,” she said and walked closer to me, placing her hands on my cheeks. She was only a little smaller than me. She was a very tall and beautiful woman with white hair like me and pale skin and covered by a long white dress. She looked like a goddess, which many others had said as well. “Is your happiness.”

“And father?”

“I will always stay loyal to him too. He is my husband, but I don’t want to see you unhappy. That will hurt me more,” she told me.

“He won’t forgive me. Maybe this will make him talk to me, and … and I do need an heir.”

“Your happiness,” she repeated and slowly let go of me. “All I want.”

She then slowly turned away and walked out of there, and I watched her until she disappeared, before turning to look at the forest, feeling so conflicted. Tonight, my mother had not made my choice any easier, but she did make my heart feel a little less suffocated in my chest. Hearing that all she wanted was my happiness, made me worry less, but I was still troubled, not knowing what to do about my father. He would never really forgive me, and I just wanted to do something. I had taken the crown from him, and I felt like I owed him at least a little.