Spotlight
"MARRIED'S A JOB FOR EVERYBODY. LOVE'S THE LUXURY." The last time Rajel had seen the her husband and mari was nearly three decades ago, when they were married as young children to secure their titles and their mutual future. An adventurer doesn't have much time to think about family, or love, but when a close call puts things in perspective, Rajel calls her spouses to her to begin their married life. Boragette's grown up as a sweet cosi who only wants to do the things a co-lover should: cook, sew, and please everyone. Casamint's become an arrogant scholar-bug with no respect for the rustic life, nor for brawny women wielding three-handed swords. And Rajel's a hard-bitten adventurer, more comfortable with her wild Sleeth companion than with her spouses or country home. They don't get along terribly well, even though they want to and need to. So, when an enchanter offers Rajel a nice safe job as a bodyguard in his aeronautical mansion for a few months, Boragette and Casamint come along too. Though with a beautiful agent provocateur on board and a village full of monsters outside, it's not quite the simple romantic idyll they were hoping for.
Excerpt
The wedding was held in Dorly, on a gently-sloping hillside, on which horses and guntries had been forbidden to graze for several weeks for entirely practical reasons. The new triad was to be named "Tawlown", the next on the list of two hundred or so traditional Herethroy triad names in use in the area. The hillside commanded an excellent view of the goddess Virid in her manifestation as a spray of silvery leaves in the higher sky, if one looked up, and of the neighboring world-branch Dentheia and all its twigs, if one looked out and down. The sky was clear and the day was warm, which pleased the guests. But the sun was dim that day, and it dripped huge teardrops of blazing solar fuel off one side. A celebration that should have been bright was darkened with flickering shadows.
Most of the guests were Herethroy, from the villages being joined or their neighbors. Three hundred people strolled or sat, nibbled a dozen varieties of stuffed vegetables, or conversed in the fashion of farmers everywhere about weather and crops and spells for storing vegetables or evicting pests. Their chitin shone like matte emeralds and sapphires in the dismal sunlight, and those that could afford it showed off inlay-work of copper or yulexion or gold. Everyone wore their best, for they were wealthy by farmers' standards: tight-fitting silk embraced arms, legs, and the middle limbs that can serve as either. The co-lovers and some males wore confectionary painted leather hats rising between their many-jointed antennae, or short capes of painted lace, or tied glittering ribbons between each pair of knobs on their tails. The women dressed less flamboyantly but no less elegantly.
A wedding of the lower nobility must be conservative, so the trio getting married wore nothing but ribbons. Boragette Norrow's parents were glad of the custom; zie had recently developed the habit of stripping off whatever clothing they managed to get zir into, and clambering around on furniture or people, as naked as the day zie was hatched. Ribbons, at least, could be tied tightly enough that zie could not get them off. They pleased zir, rather to zir parents' surprise, and zie stayed quiet for most of the morning admiring zirself in a glass, and coercing everyone who came nearby to admire zir too. By the time of the actual event, though zie was overwhelmed by the crowd and the pomp, and stayed quietly by her father or sather. Despite being told many times, zie was too young to understand zie was one of the three people the occasion was ultimately about.
Casamint Imbarr found the ribbons entirely too much fun. He spent most of the morning trotting around waving his four arms and yelling, "I'm a Zi Ri! I'm a Zi Ri! I'm flying! I'm flying!". Several collisions with guests and one with a huge square wooden bowl of honey-wine earned him a collection of parental scowls which he did not notice. His sather, the Baron Teamary, gave up and levitated him around, which did nothing to calm him down but at least limited the damage he could cause.
Marjoram Rowns was old enough to understand, barely, that she was getting married. She had gotten the impression that her husband and mari would be her only playmates for the rest of her life. Since they were younger and of the weaker and thus less interesting sexes, she had found this displeasing enough to be worth an extended tantrum the day before. Her father Amberstripe disapproved of tantrums, and lectured her at length that this was her only chance to get married, and that she was lucky to have a chance at all. Her mother pointed out that the heirs of Great Barons rarely go unmarried, girls or not, but that it was her only chance. In the end, she was quieted down by the gift of a strength-spell, and stayed up late the night before the wedding grafting it onto herself so she could cast it. She was quiet and full of yawning on her wedding day, which displeased Amberstripe less than tantrums.
The ceremony proper was to take place at noon. After a frantic search for misplaced scripts, it started at nearly one. By this time, the guests and celebrants were practicing patience. The guests, being farmers, were quite good at it. The bethrothed, being children, were not so good. The count strode with all available dignity to the triangle of candles, their light greatly amplified by a local pyromancer for a daytime ceremony. Casamint's flailing tail hit Boragette in the face. Boragette immediately started crying. Marjoram, with a very responsible expression on her face, cast her strength spell and whacked Casamint's shoulder with a candlestick hard enough to be heard in the back row of guests. Casamint burst into tears and ran out of the triangle to hide behind Teamary. Boragette scolded zir fiancée-cum-defender soundly, if incoherently, for behaving badly. Marjoram grunted and stomped off. Casamint tugged a storybook out of his sather's bag, and insisted on being read to. Count Fressis stood alone in the triangle, doing his very best to look in command of the situation.
After another third of an hour and a great deal of effort by parents, the affianced were all calm enough at the same time to have some hope of remembering their parts, and the ceremony could proceed. It still wasn't entirely peaceful or proper -- while they walked around the triangle on the trail of grain, Marjoram squeezed Casamint's hand hard enough for him to yelp and flee for his storybook again -- but with some effort and some generosity of interpretation, all the parts were performed and the wedding was made proper and perpetual in the sight of the laws of Pennypell, the customs of all of Araldy, and the opinions of relatives and neighbors.
The children themselves knew nothing about the matter.
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