Virgin Bride

            She lay in the green grass, sprinkled with dew that early May morning. The wind rustled the leaves of the trees above her and, if she had inhaled, she would have smelled the fresh sap on the wind. The sun had risen an hour ago, it fell on her hair and made it gold and warmed her cold skin. Her skin, pale like the moon and as soft as a feather to look at and touch, made her seem like a Snow White after being put into her glass coffin.

            Her nightgown was as white as her skin, if not whiter, and made her look like a pressed white rose from between the folds of a book. The only marks on her, that made her look tainted, were the purple petals around her neck from a her father’s fingers and the dark earth staining her feet from how far she had run.

            Fourteen years she had spent in that cottage. Fourteen years without a mother and a drunkard father. Fourteen years she had spent untainted. And fourteen years she had spent fighting back. This last day of her fourteenth year was a triumph to her kind. She had run and fought and screamed and cried. She caused such a fright in her father that he would be caught that he ran when his senses came back to him, letting him flee the scene and leave her intact.

            She was his now, that old crow’s. The one in the shadows, who prospers in another realm to guide souls from one place to another. He fell for her when she fought, he fell for her when she lived, and he was sure to have her for his own no matter the cost. So when it was time for them to fly, the crow and the dove, he told her of everything and anything she wished to know. He held nothing back and proved his love slowly, knowing that time is all it takes for a rose-bud to blossom in the light of the sun.

            And he was her sun, he knew that very well. And it seemed that she did as well, for when they reached the golden gates in the clouds she sighed a wish to the angels guarding the door and they nodded in blessing. This blessing was pure, as pure as she, and the two flew out happily to marry and just be.