The September Bride (Amirah)

The thoughts of Amirah Andural before her wedding yesterday. Hope you enjoy!

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The September Bride

Amirah moved a hand across her skirt, gathering some of the silver cloth in her hand. It was gossamer light, and the colour rippled like water beneath a cloudless summer sky. Undoubtedly a gown suited for a lady's marriage. Her thin mouth twisted as she pushed her shoulders back and rose from the dressing table, the silver drops in her ears swinging with an unfamiliar weight.

The gown draped from her with an elegance that bespoke the skill of the dressmaker, who had done her utmost to add grace to Amirah's straight and boyish figure. It was a figure that had much distressed her gentle mother, Amirah recalled with a hint of dryness, who had oft lamented that her daughter had developed the tall, wiry form of her father rather than the curves of her own kin. Yet though she still held her shoulders too straight and frowned like a soldier rather than smiled like a lady, Amirah knew that today, for once, she at least looked the part that she had chosen to play.

That morning one of the Dawnweaver servants had washed and combed her long, ragged hair, had scented it with oils and pinned it back with a spray of borrowed pearls, and then had stepped back and pronounced her beautiful. Amirah had merely smiled her thin, crooked smile, and had been glad that the gown covered her scars. And now it was nearly time to act; she turned toward the doorway of the chamber, the silvery cloth whispering around her, and stepped out into the golden September light.

The garden was deserted, which suited Amirah very well. As she moved out into the little courtyard, she closed her eyes and lifted her face to the evening sun, listening to the soft rush of the breeze rustling the autumn leaves. September was her favourite month, though she had rarely had occasion to mention it. In Alterac in September, the slender aspens shed their modest green and covered the hillsides in a sweeping blaze of gold; even here in Arathor, the desolate highlands took on some of the same autumnal splendour, and the sparse oaks in the garden around her were alight with a saffron fire.

In this garden, among the glory that nature provided, she was alive, as she was when she leaned over the neck of her grey and galloped across the countryside, or when she stood ready for battle with a tight knot of fear around her innards and the breath of anticipation in her throat. But today she belonged to another world, one she had chosen by agreeing to marry Lord Élegost Dawnweaver. She had chosen it for the glimmer of hope that Élegost had somehow given her, for the love of her lost Andural lands in the Dwyrel valley, and for the sweet and unexpected thought that perhaps someday her children might see the north great again.

Yet it had been so long since she had moved in this world; the soft world of the nobility, with its muted murmurs and splendid colours, wherein every word and every glance was measured by a dozen eyes, and wherein daggers to the back were as common as was blood on a battlefield. She still remembered the steps of the dance, she thought; she remembered enough of courtesy and grace. And yet she was still more steel than silk: she had been forged in the gentle fires of a manor house, but she had been tempered by war and then scarred and blackened by dishonour of her own making, even though that dishonour was not the treachery that men were wont to assign to all who bore the blood of Alterac.

She wondered what they said of her in the kitchens and stables of the Arathorian manors, and what noblemen and their ladies whispered in their chambers. When she had been a girl there had been a knight in her father's service who was the son of a grain merchant. Men had called him the Corn Knight behind his back, and had laughed at him over their mead cups. Even her brother Dorian had laughed, but she had felt a little sorry for the man because he was kind to his horses and servants and she liked his gruff smile, but still she had understood: he hadn't been a real knight the way the other men were knights, and men were proud of their blood.

And now it was she, though her blood was as ancient and as noble as the bright northern stars, about whom tongues must wag. What did they call her, then, the heretofore unknown lady who was to become Dawnweaver's bride? The beggar? The traitor? She had already heard the whispers that she stolen the Lord Élegost away from the prospect of a royal marriage by some strange art. It had been he, not she, who had made the proposal even in the face of her shock, and it had been he who had gently declined her suggestions over the past months that he might wish to change his mind, but Amirah Andural had long since ceased to expect justice from the speculations of men. Whether lords or fishwives, people believed according to their own wishes.

A rusty laugh escaped her throat as she reached up to pluck an fiery leaf from one of the boughs above her. Who was she, to care what was murmured in corridors when she passed? If it was nothing to Élegost, then she would not care. She could hold her roughened tongue and employ the arts of courtesy so as not to disgrace him; and then afterwards, there were the Dawnweaver lands to safeguard and her own lands in Alterac to which to turn their swords. She would have better things to think of than the edged smiles of nobility, for almost as much as her husband, she knew of horses and iron and war.

The withered grass felt strangely soft underneath Amirah's feet as she moved across the garden, for it had been long since she had gone so delicately shod. Ah, to trade the gossamer gown and the silver slippers for leathers and her grey-bladed sword. She chuckled quietly and let the oak leaf fall from her hand, reaching up to touch the elegant knot of her hair. Scarred and landless as she was, it was the day of her marriage – a thing she had never expected to have – to a man of her own choosing and of her own liking. And it was almost time.

Across the courtyard in the distance, Amirah could see an armoured knight emblazoned with the gold and azure of Stormwind. Straightening her shoulders and holding her head with the dignity of a queen of old, with the silver drops in her ears and the bright cloth of her gown shining beneath the warm autumn sun, she swept across the old paving-stones. And as she reached the knight, she inclined her head and summoned a smile to her lips.

'Good sir, in the names of House Andural and House Dawnweaver, I bid you welcome to Stromgarde.'

Well written, good descriptions. The part about the Corn Knight makes me wonder, what will people think of Perturbo, his family history isn't exactly spotless xD.

Also who is the "armoured knight emblazoned with the gold and azure of Stormwind".

That would be Aleric.

Thanks Perturbo! I'm really pleased you enjoyed it! And the part about the Corn Knight... I know that the way people RP in WoW, rank and birth and those things don't tend to matter too much - a barmaid might be friends with a knight and such. But I've assumed that's mainly out of convenience and so that the RP is more fun for all. But in a setting wherein nobles/ranks mattered at all, I can imagine birth mattering. Of course it's just my imagination, but I thought it made sense, so I pulled the idea into the story. (And yes the knight was Aleric Dylian, first one Amirah spoke to at the wedding. Thought it would be enjoyable to bring the story up into the point where I started RPing that day!)