• Technically, Delilah wasn’t dead. Everybody just thought she was. Actually, she’d knocked out a druid to get hold of his rama, the poison that stopped your heart beat without actually killing you. Only druids and higher nimphs knew of this extremely rare anomaly, and were forbidden to talk of it. Delilah was neither of these, but she had… connections (whom were williing (ahem) to talk of it, obviously). As she lay in “hibernation” with everyone and everything flapping and panicking around her, her dreams haunted her with exaggerated memories.

    “Delilah!” her father called from the gardens.
    “Yes, papa?” she replied lightly, feigning cheerfulness and freshness, as she was indeed exhausted from the night before and it’s rare occurances.
    “Come! We need to discuss some pressing issues.” Delilah sighed, and set down her obligatory daily sewing sample on a nearby monk’s bench, and shifted her long and heavy gowns so hot and bothersome in the summer heat. Passing through the deserted hallways of the northernly quarters of the Palace into it’s exquisite gardens frithing with exotic life, she feared for the worst: the king had found out about her various forbidden and illegal liasons.
    “My dearest. Come, please.” her father, King Harol gestured for her to sit beside him on the intricate center piece of the garden, the revolutionary weather-proof outdoor seating facility, the first of its kind. Making sure there was no obstruction to her sitting down, she sat, and turned her head politely to regard her father, insinuating that she was listening, and ready.
    “Delilah…” he sighed, and reached for her hands, holding them firmly and looking earnestly into her eyes.
    “Father?” she asked puzzeledly. This definately wasn’t the harsh reprimand she was expecting. But judging by the uncommon look of worry in her fathers eyes, chances were that it was far, far worse.
    “Delilah…” he said again, repeting himself. Delilah raised her eyebrows. “Your mother and I have been in conversation-- may the Lord have mercy on her vanquished soul-- and we have come to the conclusion that…” he stopped to dabb away a bead of sweat that was threatening to temporarily blind him by dripping into his eye.
    “Yes?” she asked anxiously, leaning forwards slightly with baited breath.
    “You’re to be married!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air. “There! Good God I’ve said it! It has taken me three weeks but I’ve told you! I’ve told you!” he sobered up once more and regarded her somberly. When she realised that his attention had returned, she coughed away the flegm in her throat and stood up.
    “Father you can not be serious!” she said, feigning the shock and repeating the lines she ahd been practising for so long. She clasped her hands in front of her, then desperately searched for a hankerchief. “I mean… I am only fifteen! My life is still ahead of me! So much to do! So much to arrange!” she cried, and dabbed at her eyes with precise effectiveness, as her father looked on in with the desired horror plastered across his face as his darling daughter preceeded to carry on in an extremely un-toward fashion.
    “Uh…um…” he stuttered nervously. “Unless you want to be sent to a nunnery.. The----”
    “No!” she screamed, a sickly palour over-coming her body, her hand flying to her head. “Sorry…” she apologized. “I… I need to sit down…” she sat down once more. “Who is the desired groom-to-be?”
    Her father hesitated, looking nervously at his hands. If she’d reacted this badly at the prospect of marriage…
    “Come on Father! Spit it out! Don’t choke on it!” she spat, then her hand flew to her mouth and she flushed an intense apology.
    The King sighed. “Your esteemed cousin Samuel Hester.” Delilah’s colour did then really drop to a genuine sickly snow white, and she fainted backwards into her equals in colour, the white roses, and was rushed to the enfermery as quickly as possible.