His hand felt the cool metal of the doorknob. He heard it click as it was turned as if the silence of the arena wasn't already enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He wasn't nervous, no. As he gently pulled on the cloth-silenced door, he merely wondered what fate the princess chose for him. A swift death at the claws of an angry tiger, of a life of misery with a woman (as far as he knew) he did not know, and did not love.
He didn't want to die, but then again, who truly did? But to live his life without the one he loved, his Soul-mate, be worse? He did not know, and likely never would, but he would accept whatever was behind the right door; the door she chose. Just because, and for no other reason than, it was the door the princess pointed to open. And so he did.
The door creaked on its hinges as it swung open. The growls of the tiger were heard, echoing throughout the arena.
The paid mourners and merrymakers, the court scribes and jesters, the Kingdom and its King, all gasped as the tiger's claws ripped into youths flesh. Screams of horror were heard as blood soaked the ground.
The King, looking almost giddy and joyful at the proceedings, failed to notice the single tear rolling down the cheek of his beloved daughter; the sorrow filled eyes betraying everything and nothing all at once.
"Good bye, my love,"the princess murmured to herself, her eyes downcast, not willing to look upon her lover's lifeless corpse.
She knew in her heart that she made the right choice, yet, couldn't help but weep, forever silenced, at the loss of her lover. She would move on, as she had to, as duty to he Kingdom, but that day would forever haunt her, as she wondered at what could have been, and what would have happened, had she chose