She Loves You Not [Job]

It wasn't often that Anya took a job for reasons other than the reward itself. And yet, here she was. Out way in Hosenka--a place where a happy couple had decided to have a destination wedding, set up by their parents. What a wonderful thing. Yet, not everyone involved seemed all too happy about the decision. The only thing that had really made her hesitant to take this job was the person offering it: A child. She knew first hand that at a young enough age, the concept of consequences didn't really register in their minds. But all it had taken for her to change her tune was meeting with the child. From what it sounded like, the Groom's would-be bride wasn't as polite and loving as the rest of the family believed her to be.

According to the young girl who had put the job up on offer, she was never treated very well by the bride. But of course, whenever she got into an argument with the much older woman, the rest of the family tried to tell her she needed to be more 'fair' and 'nicer' to her. Nobody ever seemed to catch her in the act of doing anything wrong. It was a pattern that Anya recognized. Was it as extreme as the one she had experienced? No. But if this woman was as bad as this young girl seemed to believe, she had no doubt that it could eventually get to the point where she would wind up ostracizing this young girl from her entire family.

Was it spite that fueled her desire to stop this wedding? A sense of 'revenge' for her own experiences? Or were the intentions more..noble?  Was she really about to go through with the plan she had come up with just for the sake of this young child, to make sure she wouldn't go through the slow, torturous experience of the people she knew losing their belief in her? Truth be told, not even Anya knew the how or why of it all. But that hadn't stopped her from getting everything she needed. A pawn shop that was on the edge of town had some of what she would need. Too many poor shmucks brought their girlfriends to this place to pop the question. Some succeeded--which is probably what drove people to keep doing it--but many of them failed for one reason or another.

As a result, there were dozens, if not tens of dozens of wedding and engagement bands for Anya to pick from. Thankfully, she had a few days to prepare. While the ceremony itself was being held in Hosenka, the happy couple themselves were set up in Hargeon Town. The Groom was born and bred there, a pure native. But, the bride? That was another story altogether. According to the young girl who had set this job in motion, she never really talked about where she used to be from. She had told them the name of the place, once. Supposedly she was originally from Sakuramori, which was why they'd chosen Hosenka as the destination. It was a place where all of the guests could relax, sure. But it was also intended to be a display of openness, an acceptance of the Bride's heritage.

That had threatened to throw a wrench into things. After all, Anya hadn't been very familiar with many traditions out here in Fiore to begin with, let alone those of such an isolated area. But, she'd always been good at 'talking' her way into learning things. And wouldn't you know it, but the venue was already getting set up. It hadn't taken much of an application of her persuasive 'power' to find out exactly when the wedding was going to be held, along with what the bride would be wearing. Thankfully, she was going the standard route. A white dress. Good, that meant she wasn't going to have to go rushing to find some specialist out here. She already had a..fancy enough white dress packed in with her travelling clothes.

What was her plan? Honestly, it was a very big gamble. The bride didn't talk about her life back in her hometown. To Anya, that screamed that there was either a big secret there, or that she was running away from something. Her job was to ruin a wedding. Nothing ruined a wedding--or a partner's feelings towards another--than someone coming in on their big day to reveal they'd been left at the altar by one of the couple in the past. Add in to that already devastating reveal the fact that the person they'd left behind wasn't even of the same gender as the one they were currently about to marry?

It added a whole extra layer of intrigue to the story, and played on the sheer lack of information that had been shared. She didn't expect her being a woman to really matter in terms of changing the groom's perception of her into hatred. Out in the wider world, people like her seemed all the more common than she'd ever thought when she'd been trapped by her family. It was really just going to be a sub-layer of shock factor that she had to think about.

Thankfully, she already had a plan of escape in mind. She hadn't told the young girl much. But they had set up a meeting place. It'd be easy enough for someone to go missing in the ensuing chaos, after all.

For now though, she would have to wait for things to finish being set up. That meant she had a few days to relax, get herself into character. And if there was any better place to relax than a literal resort town, she definitely didn't know of it. Of course, that didn't mean she was going to be doing zero work in the coming days. After all, she'd already learned that just a single one of the multiple wedding planners had useful information for her. And when they were off the clock? It was amazing how loose lipped they got.

Three Days Later

By the time the wedding rolled around, she had names and detailed descriptions of both the bride and the poor bas--sorry, the groom. The groom sounded like your generic average joe in terms of his physical appearance. The bride on the other hand? From what she was told, she very well fit into the 'exotic beauty' stereotype. Something that Anya herself apparently seemed to give off, according to that same drunken planner.

Slipping into the crowd proved to be a bit more challenging than she'd expected. A destination wedding like this usually had staff rushing around all over the place, seemingly too busy to actually watch the door. Yet this wedding? They had a dedicated door man. Giving them a name wasn't a problem. She'd managed to get a peek at the guest list in her prep time. Honestly, it was amazing how easily these idiots would let someone just walk on past if they had a pretty enough face and a cheerful enough attitude.

But she knew what the bigger problem would be: A white dress had a tendency for standing out, so she'd gone with wearing a long coat to cover the majority of her outfit, and claimed that her 'skirt' wasn't actually white, but gray. Luckily, the outfit itself was just dingy enough that the poor shmuck at the door bought it. But there were clearly some people who saw the skirt for what it was. White. Distracting the more keen eyed with small talk wasn't the best option she had on hand, but it was the one she was using. It wasn't often that she found herself thanking whatever was watching over her that her mother--damn her soul--had descended from a long line of..ambitiously charismatic folk. But today was certainly an exception, given how easily these lies were coming to her in the heat of the moment. Thankfully, she only had to make the lies last until the actual ceremony began.

Unfortunately, one of the few things she hadn't managed to learn was how long the wait for the actual ceremony was going to be. This meant that she spent far more time than she'd been expecting lying to the nosier, old relatives. God, she hated this type of thing. The only thing that was going to make it worth it was watching this happy couple implode in on itself when she finally got to take the metaphorical stage and rend their worlds a-fucking-sunder.

That being said, the location wasn't half bad for keeping herself hidden in the crowd. They'd managed to get themselves a nice, open air spot in one of the outdoor areas of one of the more expensive hotels in town. The place was set up nice and fancy, sharing elements of both your standard wedding as well as some aspects she hadn't quite recognized. For now, it was a waiting game. She moved from place to place, taking in the sights--and all of the feasible escape routes--she could use to not give herself away as a dark wizard. She'd even had to take time to apply a frankly absurd amount of makeup onto her leg to hide her Abyssal Fleet tattoo. After all, if it was obvious that she was from a Dark Guild, the plan would unravel and the marriage would go through anyway. It was why this particular course of action was the riskiest move. But it was also the one most likely to work.

She wound up waiting nearly a full hour before the ceremony began. She made sure to take a seat well in the back rows, sitting opposite the aisle so that she would be hidden behind two taller members of the families. It meant that she could all but appear out of nowhere, adding to the surprise of it all. In a way, this job was the ultimate method of spiting the world around her. She'd never gotten a chance to be happy like this. She'd spent many of her formative years serving as a quite literal servant that was magically bound to her own home. She'd only been twenty two when her home had been raided, and she finally managed to escape. The next three years had been when she'd finally started to come into her own in terms of displaying capacity for magic, along with learning the one that her former master had known.

She was almost certain the poor bastard would have heart palpitations seeing her now, having effectively abandoned what he had taught her. In a way, that was the truest she could ever have been to what she believed herself to be, though. She'd been following the paths of others up until now. Now, with the quite literal monster that hid in her shadow, along with the power she had gained when returning to the ruins of that once proud mansion? Now she was following her own path.

Eventually, the music began. Everyone was seated, it was time for things to really get started. First came the young nieces, laying down the path of flowers. Poor kids were unknowingly about to experience some real emotional trauma today. Next came the groom. Average looking guy, at best. Shame that he was choosing to marry someone who cared so little about his sibling like that. She wasn't really going to feel guilty about what was about to happen to a group of people that so easily overlooked a member of their own family. She'd already been on the other side of that particular experience, after all.

Finally, the bride began to make her way down. The target of the day. Supposedly, her name was Mari. The people working this gig weren't wrong, either. She was fairly attractive, physically speaking. But if she really was even half as bad as that poor girl had been claiming? That was a kind of ugliness she couldn't allow herself to overlook. She slipped both hands into the pockets of her jacket. Good, the wedding band she'd grabbed from the pawn shop was still there. That meant that what she was about to pull was actually going to work.

She waited until the priest asked if anyone objected to this union. At that moment, Anya stood up, her pre-unbuttoned coat falling off of her to reveal the plain white dress she'd been wearing.

"Actually, I object." She called out, one hand clenched, a look of righteous fury seeping into her eyes as she strode into the main aisle of the wedding.

"So, this is where you disappeared to, Mari. All of those days we spent in the forests outside of the village, all of those promises you made. I guess they really were just bluster, huh? Was it my mother? Did she convince you that you were too young to be settling down, that you could do better?" She started to sound more and more angry as she strode up the aisle, brimming with fury so righteous that even the people in the crowd began to whisper. The bride, on the other hand? Stunned to silence. Anya could see the gears turning in her head as she tossed the ring at the pair, the thing landing right at the groom's feet. It was one of the more elaborate rings that she'd been able to find, a piece that was from a couple from Sakuramori.

"Take it, then. Just know this, friend." She said, turning to the groom with venom in her voice and a fire in her eyes. "She left her fiancé at the altar. What's to say she won't leave you just the same? So yeah. I object to this wedding. Because this poor bastard--just like any other person--deserves better than some scum who has it in them to abandon their entire life at the drop of a hat." And with that, she stormed out of the building. The chaos was all but immediate, the two sides of the family that had attended turning on each other in the chaos. As for the sister? She had been away from the ceremony the whole time. She'd been able to slip away unnoticed at the start of things. After all, they were going to be too busy today to care.

She didn't explain what she had done, but confirmed that her brother most certainly wouldn't be getting married, let alone remain with the girl who had been torturing her so. The trade of jewel was short and swift. Honestly, it should have concerned her. But really, she was still riding the adrenaline high of pulling this crazy stunt off! There was no way she should have been able to lie like that! And the sounds that had come out of that church after she left? Oh man.

And yet..deep down. She felt it. A twinge of something. It lasted only a moment before it was drowned out by the remaining emotional high as she and the daughter went their separate ways. Anya slipped into her hotel room, and did a quick count. Good, good. She was definitely going to have enough to at least get out to where she'd been told the Fleet had some small, one man vessels stashed away. The fact that she got motion sickness in cars was annoying. But, she had yet to have that happen while she was flying..and she'd definitely gotten her sea legs over the course of her short time in the Fleet. That wouldn't be taken away because of some Lacrima...

Right?

Word Count: 2,573
Total Word Count: 2,573
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