Awakening

Chapter Two

         I was summoned to a meeting with my father, her fiancee and her father one day. It was the eve of her 16th birthday. She was due to be officially engaged soon and I was to 'hand over' my task of loking after her to her husband. My father and his father had done the same thing, but it was never truly letting go of the women. Why else would Adalinsa, her mother, insist that my father and his (then) growing family stay close to her? My mother had not raised a ruckus, but merely agreed. She liked Adalinsa too.
         It had been Adalinsa who had asked that I be the Guardian to her only child. The request was an easy one, but not any longer. Before the meeting I stole away to find Adalinsa.
         She was in her cottage, her daughter away. She was cooking dinner, as the ceremony was a small and private one. She smiled as I entered.
         "Long time no see, Mioen. What can I do for you?" she asked, smiling.
         "It's about your daughter, Adalinsa. You know what she is all about, don't you?" I asked her.
         "If you are asking me whether I know my daughter is someone who is not suited to marry someone who is so male, I know that. We need this marriage though, Mioen. Unless we can find someone else who would let their daughter be married to him," she said.
         "But no one would want to?" I stated.
         Adalinsa shook her head. "No. They all know what he is, but the girls don't and they are practically begging their fathers to let them have a go," she said.
         "If I can find someone to accept his hand?" I asked, a plan already forming in the back of my mind. "Surely there are some who are desperate enough for this to go through," I said.
         "No Mioen. I would not make any other girl suffer the fate," she said.
         "Yet you would allow your own daughter?" I asked her, incredulous.
         She smiled sweetly at me. I was immediately wary. It was nearly the same smile my little sister would give me when she was up to something. "Hell hath no fury a woman scorned," was all she said, before shooing me out of the kitchen.