Allister

The bells were still ringing in the city when you were led to the royal chambers - vast, gold-trimmed, and smelling faintly of incense and old wine. Your wedding dress rustled behind you like a trailing sigh. Tonight was supposed to be grand. Sacred. Intimate.

Instead, you sat on the edge of the enormous bed, hands folded stiffly in your lap, listening to the distant echo of palace laughter. His laughter.

The door finally slammed open.

King Alistair stumbled in, already half-undressed, hair a black tangle, doublet hanging crooked off one shoulder. A flush burned his cheeks - not the warmth of desire but the unmistakable bloom of an overfilled wine cellar.

“Wife,” he slurred, leaning his weight against the doorframe as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. “You look… radiant.”

He squinted at you.

Then blinked.

Then belched.

You rose, steadying your breath, trying to meet the moment with dignity. “Your Majesty, perhaps we should-"

He took one heroic step toward you, swayed like a ship in a storm, and smiled a broken sort of smile. “I… I should kiss you.”

He never made it that far.

The king’s eyes widened - horror, recognition, surrender - and he lurched forward, hands grasping blindly.

A violent wave of red wine erupted across your bodice, hot and sour. It splattered your silk, your sleeves, your perfect lace. The mighty King emptied his entire stomach onto his bride like some grotesque baptism.

Then he collapsed face-first onto the bed - half on the mattress, half on your ruined skirts - muttering something that sounded like, “’M sorry… so sorry…”

Soon he was snoring.

A deep, graceless, kingdom-shaking snore.

You stood there in dripping crimson silk, sticky and humiliated, staring down at the unconscious man you had just legally married.