Odd Prompt: Honeymooners

I don't know where this prompt is going, other than a very odd romance.  ***

Something borrowed, something blue,

Something old, something new....

The something old hanging from the waist of her wedding gown had been her granny’s sewing scissors, the little silver ones shaped like a stork. Now, the long beak-blades bloody, it lay between them on the back seat of the car. Between her groom of moments, and the blanched bride, almost pale as her dress. Between... 

“You’re a werewolf?” 

He nodded, his silver-furred ears pressed back close to his skull, one hand clutching the other arm, where she had stabbed him. Red blood had soaked his white linen shirt and it was clinging to the very human musculature. The change was incomplete. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

This came out as a wail, ending in a sob. 

“Why did you do it?” His voice sounded strange coming from the slender snout. 

“Granny...” She gulped, and tried again. “Granny told me to.” 

Her great-grandmother, bent and withered, had lovingly tied the little scissors to the gown, with a slender ribbon. They fell, hidden in the folds of her skirt, while the old woman took the maiden’s in both of hers. 

“For safekeeping, take a lock of his hair, child.” 

The bride had done so, in a quiet moment, with the little silver snips, and he’d changed before her eyes. 

“Granny.” He tipped his head back and made a strange growling groan. “I didn’t tell you to keep you safe. To keep you... if I could have told you, I would have.” 

“Why couldn’t you tell me? What... what happens now? Can we even have children?” 

That got him looking at her out of pain-clouded golden eyes, narrowing in realization.

“You don’t... you won’t leave me?” 

“I love you, stupid. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” She was starting to get color back in her cheeks. “Why are you still bleeding? Don’t werewolves heal like super fast?” 

“Not when an enchanted silver blade cuts them, no.” 

“We need to get you a doctor.” She leaned toward the divider between them and the driver.

“No!” He sat upright. “No one can know.” 

“But you’re bleeding!” She picked up the scissors. 

“Are you going to stab me again?” His ears had gone down again, wary. 

“I’m going to make a bandage out of my petticoat.” She was already pulling on her overgrown. “And you’re going to have to wear your coat the whole time.” 

He winced. “You... I love you.” 

She looked up from the strips of gauzy cotton. “I don’t know what to say right now.” 

“Then don’t say anything. Now is... we need to talk. But my family must not know you know.” 

She was pale again. The only response she gave him was a nod, as she started to wind gauze around his arm. “There’s blood everywhere.” 

“There’s seltzer in the bar.” He waited until she tied off the strip. “It’s stopped bleeding.” 

“Can you put on your coat?” She used some of her petticoat to clean blood off the leather, before pulling a bottle of seltzer, in a crystal dispenser, out of the cabinet. 

“If you help?” He was very expressive with the ears, she realized. His silvery-gray fur echoed the streaks in his dark human hair. She wondered if she was in shock, as she wasn’t reacting normally... 

“Can you.. Put your human face back on?” 

He nodded. “I need a minute. The silver is fading from my system still.” 

“We don’t have a minute.” She helped him into his coat. “We’re almost there.” 

***

This week my prompt was from 'Nother Mike, with "There was a bloody pair of scissors in the backseat of the car, along with the werewolf who got them bloody…" 

I prompted Leigh Kimmel with "He dragged himself up on the muddy bank of the river, lifted his head, and saw…" 

You can read the prompt responses, or join in on the fun, at More Odds Than Ends.