Chapter 69 - [Bonus ] Memories(1) (1/2)

A/N: These are memories playing in Merri's head like a movie! Just like flashbacks Don't get confused^^

Jonas, was what everybody called him. He was a tall, olive skinned man, made up of taut muscles and locks of golden hair. He rode his horse in the evenings, throwing his head back to feel the wind rushing through it, in the same manner the handmaids' threw themselves at him.

He was loved, so loved by his mother that she had planned out his life like a sacred map. She drew the outlines, the hills, waves, and crests. Each rise and lilt, each tribulation and grievance. It is safe to say that she never quite let him out of her sight.

Even now that he was a grown man and was capable of making his own decision, his mother, Meredith still dictate his life. She never gave him the opportunity to do what he likes.

When Jonas was at a marriageable age, she had planned out who he was even going to marry.

On the day she told him, it had been terrible. They bickered, back and forth, and Jonas closed the door on her for the first time.

Meredith was sitting on a chair in the tea house across her house. She was drinking tea and overlooking the streets.

She loved to come here in the afternoon, to map out her plans, and watch young girls making up stories of Viking, spinning folklores of witches, werewolves, vampires, and fairies.

She loved the way they touched everything with their innocence, their hair trailing behind them. They usually walked in groups.

It was this particular tea house that enabled her watch over Jonas' wife to be.

Her name was Gwen, and she was born around the same time as Jonas.

Meredith had had her eyes on the girl, and she secretly planned for them to be betrothed.

There was something about her that she craved so desperately. Maybe it was the emerald green of her eyes that sparkled as though something magical lurked beneath it. Or perhaps it was her hair? The fiery red of it, the way it stubbornly tumbled down her back.

Finally, Jonas and Gwen were both adults, of marriageable age, and Meredith wanted Gwen's blood in the family line for reasons only known to her.

Meredith went back home and saw her son, Jonas waiting for her.

”Mother?” came a baritone voice from behind her. Meredith turned her slender neck to regard him. He was covered in sweat, locks of his hair was slicked on his forehead. He breathed heavily.

”You went horse riding?” she asked, her eyes glinting with dissatisfaction.

”Yes.” Jonas replied with a dismissive wave. ”You summoned me here, why?”

Meredith sat down to regard him. Her young son had grown into a handsome man. She looked at the strength in his jawline, his eye cheekbones, his set and determined intense blue eyes.