OOC Note: This thread will not be continued until Brock writes an app for Ryan and posts with Bram, who's been sorely neglected. However, I needed to write it to warm up (ahhh my break was too long, I forgot the English language) and decided I might as well post it.
----------------------
All these years preparing for a husband, making herself into the perfect trophy wife for any Seirbhe, desperately hoping her parents would tell her they had arranged a marriage between her and Cornelius… It was all in vain. For nothing. An entire life’s purpose, suddenly meaningless. Ella was caught completely off guard, something rare for the usually unflappable girl. She worried momentarily that she was going into shock. Her breathing was slowing down, her heartbeat was pounding in her ears, her vision started to blur, everything was dark, and then she was in her mother’s arms, another feeling almost unknown to her.
It was odd to wake up there, and Ella and her mother both felt it. She had been raised by house elves, and while her mother hugged her awkwardly every time she left anywhere, that was about the extent of their physical contact. As soon as she felt capable, Ella shifted away to relieve that tension, but it only helped a little. The entire room was still on edge. Her parents were still just looking at her as if they didn’t know why she fainted. As if they didn’t know what was wrong. And Ella just stared back, wondering why her parents were suddenly being so hateful. How could they do this to her? Wasn’t she their favorite daughter? She did everything they asked, she was perfect in every way, and they had condemned her to a fate worse than death.
She was to marry Ryan McKenna.
The first thought Ella had that morning was that the day was going to be utterly miserable. Then she remembered that every day recently had been utterly miserable. She had taken to complete and total silence, something she was a skilled professional at, but which she had never before used against her parents. Having spent months at school ignoring everyone she came across, silence was one thing Ella had control over in her life at the moment, as everything else seemed to be turned around. Unfortunately, that silence wouldn’t last much longer; the only person who had ever been able to make her speak against her wishes was Ryan McKenna. Not that he was at all worth talking to! Oh no, he was the bane of her existence. He was the only one she loathed enough to actually snap at.
Soon everything would change. His incessant nagging would no longer be kept to a few random encounters at Dissendium or social events a couple times a year. Rather, she’d have to deal with him every day. Every. Single. Day.
As she contemplated different ways she might commit suicide before that was actually a possibility, she prepared herself for the worst experience of her life so far. The families were coming together for dinner. They would begin discussions of wedding arrangements and the dinner would be the first opportunity for Ella and Ryan to ‘mingle’ since they had been engaged. She was dreading it with her whole heart, but there was a small part of her (small) brain that wondered if Ryan had come up with a plan to get them out of this. Maybe he would slip her a note at dinner with an elaborate escape plan? Maybe they would arrive at dinner, and he would just never show up. He’d disappear off the face of the earth, just as Ella had wished for so many times. It was hard to say, but the possibilities were enough to encourage Ella to allow the elves to help her get ready and go downstairs.