010 - Songs by Fire - Part 2 -

Alec turned to Mrs. Perry and shook his head, "Sorry but not today," he laughed and took Millie's hand and gave the beautiful girl of his heart a mischievous wink.

"All right lads, let's begin," Alec called out and immediately all the boys who were set to marry that night stepped out from the crowd wearing their best clothes they marched up to the girls who they were going to marry in a heroic fashion.

And together they all broke out into another song.

 ... 🎶

Come gather round the burning fire

And sing along to this fateful song

 ... 🎶

But their song didn't stop the angry Mrs. Perry her face was a mask of rage as she saw Alec taking her daughter's hand and the audacity of that little girl of hers to actually smile.

She only managed to take a few steps before Kai appeared in front of her with a nervous and terrified look on his face.

An odd expression for him to bear when one considered that he towered two full feet above his mother and was at least three times her size.

 ... 🎶

Celebrate this night of fate

And all that we can be

 ... 🎶

The grooms to be stomped the ground and sang with gusto.

... 🎶

We'll toast to our success

And our failures we'll forget

We'll share our hopes and dreams and fears

And all that we regret

 ... 🎶

The song went on and Alec pulled Mellie's hand up and gave her a spin, her dress blew up with the draft of wind as she happily went along with his little act.

Uriel looked at all the boys with surprise, "It would have been a nice heads up if he let me know that the plan involved more than just the three of us," he muttered seeing that their numbers were many more than he expected he suddenly wasn't as scared.

He couldn't help but find himself impressed with Alec's ability to pull this all off, it just went to show how much he wanted to marry Millie, and that all his mentions of Cassandra were just to get a reaction out of him.

Uriel looked at Kia and discovered that his mother had already made her way past him while shouting at him, something about how much trouble he was going to face.

'I guess that next up is me,' Uriel shuddered as he looked at Mrs. Perry, then he looked around and found Cassandra standing still, somehow amidst all the chaos she managed to spot him.

When he realized that all the boys and girls were already pairing up, he had an idea and grinned as he ran towards Cassandra.

 ... 🎶

We'll dance until the morning light

And laugh until we cry

We'll make the most of this night

 ... 🎶

As he caught up to Cassandra he grinned, "I guess this throws the whole night's plans out the window," he laughed nervously as he found himself unable to tear his eyes off her.

He'd already seen her in the dress, but she somehow looked even more amazing at this moment, her skin was glowing and her smile was like a piercing light.

"You look beautiful," he muttered finding it hard to find anything else to say, what else could compare.

Cassandra heaved with a red face, seemingly unable to speak as she saw how intently he was looking at her, it made her feel nervous but at the same time oddly proud.

 ... 🎶

Before we say goodbye

 ... 🎶

"C-Can I have this dance?" he stuttered and extended his hand to her like a gentleman.

 ... 🎶

For life is full of twists and turns

 ... 🎶

Cassandra smiled and took his hand with her own, "We are going to help those two aren't we?" she softly whispered into his ear.

 ... 🎶

And we don't know what lays ahead

 ... 🎶

She knew that if Alec was up to something there was no way that Uriel wasn't involved, and she had seen them walking together.

 ... 🎶

But we have each other by our side

 ... 🎶

Uriel grinned and looked her in the eye, "That's exactly what we doing now," he laughed, "Follow my lead," he gently whispered into her ear.

 ... 🎶

And that's enough, we've said

 ... 🎶

And together the two of them started to dance arm in arm, Uriel guided their movement until he reached the next couple.

"Hey Billy," Uriel muttered recognizing the groom, "Since you guys were all in on Alec's plan, I'm gonna need you to do one more thing," he whispered and explained the plan.

Then immediately afterwards he pulled Cassandra with him and they moved into Mrs. Perry's path.

 ... 🎶

So raise your glasses high, my friends

And join me in this song

We'll celebrate this festival of fates

And hope it lasts all night long

 ... 🎶

When the last part of the song was sung several people joined in raising their tankards with drinks and taking a big swing, it seemed that for all the trouble the boys had caused there was a number of people enjoying the show.

Cassandra looked Uriel in the eye as they danced they started doing some exaggerated moves as they got in the way of Mrs. Perry the entire idea of their erratic movements was to delay and interfere with Mrs. Perry and it worked.

"Don't think that I don't see what ya two are trying to do, I'll be having a word with your parents after this," she said warningly, and after several seconds of arguing she managed to push past them, but the two didn't panic instead they chuckled as they saw the next couple come and do the same thing.

And just as planned one after the other the couples intervened allowing Alec and Mellie to run around the bonfire and avoid the angry mother.

With each interruption she seemed to lose her patience and started to shout at the happily dancing couples, it wasn't until her husband Jack came down to pull her back that the commotion came to an end.

Uriel sighed softly, "We are all going to be in so much trouble tomorrow," he whispered into Cass's ear, knowing that it was inevitable.

"It's Mrs. Perry who was being unreasonable, I don't see why Mom and Dad will get mad at us," she said indignantly.

Both Alec and Mellie clearly liked each other and wanted to get married and it wasn't like they would be breaking any customs, so they didn't do anything wrong.

She knew that Alec was a troublemaker and he did manage to steal a kiss or two from some of the girls, but it wasn't like he ever went any further than that, even he wasn't daring enough to risk the anger of the entire village.

"Hopefully," Uriel muttered suddenly getting an unsettling feeling, but as he looked at the beautiful figure of Cass and felt her hand in his as they danced to the sounds of another song he shrugged it off thinking it was just a nervous jitter.

The two danced together for a long time, they went silent after a while and simply enjoyed the feeling of holding onto each other knowing that it would be a year before they could be this close again.

They danced longer than any of the other couples and only when a round of drinks came did they stop to get a much-needed refreshment.

Cassandra pulled him to the side where they fell onto a set of steps and sat arm in arm taking turns to drink out of a large tankard.

"Are ya okay?" Cassandra asked as she noticed there was something a little of about Uriel, he was happy and grinning madly just a short while ago, but now he seemed distracted somehow.

She wasn't sure what to think of it on one hand she felt like she should be offended, after all what else did have to think about when they were dancing together, but at the same time she knew that he wasn't the type to get distracted by anything if it wasn't serious.

Uriel paused as he took a sip of the thick apple juice, he didn't realise that he was being that obvious, but then Cassandra could always read him like him like a book.

He looked her in the eye but in the end he only shook his head, he just had a funny feeling, something that he couldn't quite place.

"It's nothing, just feeling tired after all that excitement," he said putting on a grin to reassure her.

"I know when you lie to me," Cassandra puffed up her cheeks and gave him an indignant look.

Uriel froze she really was like a mind reader, he wanted to know how she did it, but just then he heard a noise, it was a rumbling noise that was growing louder with each passing second.

He paused and stood up suddenly accidentally spilling some juice, as he looked down the street he noticed that he wasn't the only that heard the noise, with each passing second more and more heads turned.

In the distance he spotted a rider galloping on a horse, holding a long polearm, on the tip of the polearm was a large black banner with the emblem of a golden swan stitched into it, and behind the rider more riders were rapidly coming into sight.

"What the hell are the soldiers doing here?!" Uriel gritted his teeth in anger.