003 - Cassandra - Part 1 -

It took a while for Uriel to dry his tears, when he finished his mother sent him to his room.

"Don't disturb Cassandra, she doesn't want you to see her in her dress until the festival," said Casey as he walked to his room.

Uriel's eyes opened wide as he looked at the door to Cassandra's room, he'd heard Cassandra and their mom talking about the dress since the season of the earth, but they were being secretive about it the entire time.

Uriel hummed to himself as the smell of the food spread through the house he stepped across the creaking floors and reached a door that was relatively new when compared with the rest of the house and pushed the door open to enter his room.

It was a simple and small space; a simple bed of straw lay on the floor and a small cupboard that held his few sets of clothes sat in the corner and resting on top of the cupboard was a basin of water and a cloth.

He began to remove his clothes and wiped himself down before putting on his best set of clothes, it was a simple white tunic and a pair of grey pants, what set it apart from all his other clothes was that it was yet to need any patches.

In total, it didn't take him more than a quarter of an hour to finish and when he finished he sat down looking at the crooked planks on the ceiling, a bit of shoddy work from none other than himself.

Before long he felt like he would go out of his mind if he remained cooped up in here for another minute, but when he looked down at his clean clothes he knew that his mother would give him a scolding of a lifetime if he messed it out in the fields.

With the added smell of the food, his stomach began to rumble as hunger came to him much earlier than usual.

Finally, he got up and climbed out the window being extra careful to not make any noise, he had to avoid a few thorny plants that grew outside his window as he made his way back outside.

Uriel moved silently around to the back of the house, but after taking only a few steps he saw something that almost caused his heart to stop.

Uriel clutched onto his chest, in disbelief as it was all he could do to stop his heart from exploding.

Directly in his view was an open window and Cassandra was leaning against the window-cill with her head resting on her arm.

Her long blond hair was pulled into a tight braid making her look more beautiful than ever and her fair skin was spotless and as brilliant as snow, her eyes languidly glanced across the sky.

But something must have disturbed her because she suddenly turned her head and her eyes which were like green rubies landed directly on Uriel.

Cassandra jolted up as her face went through a series of emotions, with each passing second her face turned from a fair snow white to a blazing red tomato.

Her mouth bloated up as if she was about to scream but seeing that Uriel was trying to be sneaky she realized that he had snuck out, and just barely managed to stop herself from letting out a shriek.

Cassandra ducked down beneath the window and disappeared from sight.

Uriel saw everything with a look of disbelief and wonder, a dreamy smile crept onto his face, and he stood like a fool for a good minute before he rushed to the window.

"Cass," he whispered as he leaned over a rose bush and peeked into the room to find Cassandra coiled up into a ball under the window.

The sight of her momentarily took his breath away, she was wearing a dress of yellow and white that was snug but not revealing, a perfectly modest but beautiful dress, and seeing the number of frills he could tell that even the village tailor Mrs. Maisie must have put in many days to make it look so gorgeous.

Cassandra looked up with red cheeks and a pout, "You weren't supposed to see my dress until the festival," she said with teary eyes, she had planned out the entire grand reveal, she wanted to see just how breath taken he would be when he saw her dancing at the bonfire.

But now it was all ruined because for some reason Uriel was looking even more handsome than usual, and she couldn't even think or enjoy the sensation of seeing him lose himself because she could hardly think herself.

Uriel gulped down mouthfuls of saliva as he struggled to think of what to say, "You… you look really beautiful," he stuttered out his voice shaking like a lute string.

It seemed that all at once the anger and dissatisfaction in Cassandra's face melted away and was replaced by the reddest of blushes.

She looked down with a bashful expression, "Do you really think so?" she asked expectantly.

Uriel gulped down on his saliva and nodded his head vigorously as he didn't know what else to say, honestly, he was just glad that he didn't mess it up, as he usually did.

"Bedside's it's not like you could have hid your dress from me, we are going to the village on the same wagon," he said giving the matter a bit of thought.

And there it was, in what felt like a blink of an eye Cassandra's bashful expression melted away into an indignant one.

"For your information, I had that part all planned," she said and pointed to a large bed sheet lying on her bed.

"You were going to wear a bed sheet into the village?" he asked tilting his head.

"Hmph," Cassandra pouted in indignation, she didn't have much of a choice, all the other girls would have their future husbands see them in their dresses for the first time around the bonfire, and she had wanted the same.

"I just wanted to surprise you," she muttered with teary eyes.

"I… I'm sorry," Uriel reached for her hand, "I'll pretend like I never saw your dress until we get to the festival, or better yet you can put a blindfold on me when we go to the village, that way you don't need to hide your dress and I can act like it's my first time seeing you in the dress," he offered with a grin.

Cassandra's eyes widened and a beaming smile split her face, "You mean it?" she asked.

Uriel clutched his chest as he felt like he was going to have a heart attack, he didn't think it was possible for Cass to get any more beautiful, but her smile made her look as brilliant as the sun.

"Promise," he managed to say and offered her his pinkie finger.

Cassandra continued to smile as she hooked her pinkie with his.

They stayed like that for a while when Uriel suddenly recalled something, and worry crept up on his face.

"Cass, you're not going to ask someone else to marry you right?" he asked with worry in his eyes.

He knew that it was stupid of him, their marriage had been set in stone for years, Mr. Zek and Mrs. Casey had been trying to have more children for years, then four years ago they adopted him when they felt like it wasn't going to happen.

They told him from the beginning that he would marry Cassandra when he came of age, and that the farm would go to the two of them.

But he couldn't help but remember what the farmhands said to him, and it wasn't like they were the only ones, his friend Alec the miller's son had also passed a couple of remarks about how beautiful Cassandra had become.

Alec had come age this year and he was planning on asking someone to marry him, and he kept saying that Cassandra and Millie, the blacksmith's daughter, were the most beautiful girls in this year's festival.

Seeing how incredible she looked in her dress Uriel couldn't stop his worry from overflowing, after all, many of the boys who came of age or who were still waiting to marry were likely to ask for her hand.

But if she wanted to marry him then she would have to wait another year, not to mention that he was literally the smallest youth in the village and that wouldn't change when he reached adulthood.

It was only natural that Cassandra would want a bigger and stronger man that could keep her safe, not to mention that he was still an outsider, an abandoned child whose parents discarded him here, he didn't have the blood of Old Meadow men running through his veins.

Cassandra looked him in the eye, "You're still such a crybaby," she said softly in a teasing but gentle way with their pinkie fingers still interlocked.

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