Die Gefühle streiten in Celegail. Einerseits liebt sie Kyre, andererseits kann sie William nicht ausstehen. Und jetzt darf sie eine große Hochzeit planen. Muss es denn unbedingt die Hochzeit der Beiden sein?
Celegail nibbles at the feather. On the desk spread a number of parchments with hasty sketches and a map around an empty letter. From time to time she reorganizes the order just to discard the sorting again. Smile and pain changes on her face frequently. ’Why sister loves that fool?’ the elfess think. ’But I must create her the best marriage ever, she’s worth it.'
Once she starts writing the letter the order of sketches slowly comes to an accepted order starting from her right side.
Dear Kyre,
I hope your evening has not been too sad yesterday. I might have a possible ceremony.
We will have 2 parts of marriage to connect to each other. An elvish and a human but the elvish shall be the first.
Since your beloved mate did not ask you as it should be for the best person in the world, I’d bring him to the ceremony a way, he pass the usual stations for an elvish bride court.
Since he will join us coming from Lor Angur, there will be a horse, decorated with the symbols of bride court waiting together with a couple of elves at the teleporter of Gynk.
Both will guide him in a cavalcade to the shrine of the five on the temple hill. We will manage that you can see the cavalcade and accept his request that way.
Here you both will enter the temple from different sides guided by a member of your family. Yours will be the east gate where the sun rises of course. I think Williams sister would love to guide him to his bride.
The bishop itself will host the ceremony of the Five.
After blessing by the Five you both will step through a twin portal straight into the harbor region hand by hand. Under a firework of casted spells by a battery of mages you will enter the ship, we will have decorated as it is usual for human marriage.
Here you will get marriage according the human ceremony by the captain.
Don’t worry, we have to disconnect the ship from the land by loosing the ropes, but just a few steps water in between the kais and the ship are required to make the marriage legal.
Once the official part has been finished, there will be a party on the ship. We will invite friends and family to come.
At midnight the guest will leave and the captain navigates the ship out of town for your bride night under the stars on the ocean.
There are so many details to organize, but would you like the concept?
Celegail
Finally she enwraps the letter and whistles for her rat. “Find Kyre!“ she orders and the rat hushes away.
In the moment her messenger disappears she starts reorganizing all the notes on her desk again.
Finishing giving a sad goodbye to her sister Celegail and brother Oxi at the harbor, Kyre stops at the Nanny's to pick up Corvus then slowly begins to pack for the long journey. Her son's excited child's voice asking about seeing Papa, belied her dark mood somewhat and when she holds her arms for him to toddle over for a hug he grabs the glove with her fake glass hand and tilts his head as if questioning her.
My hand is gone for now Corvus but will come back sometime.. wirklich.
Holding him for the longest Kyre gazes at the bags hoping nothing was forgotten in the hasty, lackluster packing yet she begins to frown eyeing the rocker Celegail gave knowing it would be sorely missed. Not worrying about the house .. it is the past and William in Lor-Angur is her future, Kyre leaves a few boxes scattered as she turns to make a portal to the harbor then stops abruptly seeing the shaking of the familiar rat. Chuckling, she raises a hand toward it menacingly yet refrains from whispering any ancient at the moment.
We have had this discussion before you know.. drop the parchment and no fire will singe you.
Kyre watches as the rat slowly drops the parchment leaving just two long teeth marks through the middle then disappears abruptly into a hole barely seen near the bottom of William's desk. Reading Celegail's recommendations for the wedding brings the first grin on her face as excitement about the wedding and seeing Will again finally replaces her sadness. Sending the parchment on to Will to see what he thinks, she adds a small note at the bottom.
Love,
How does this sound for a wedding? Corvus and I will be there on the fastest ship we can find.
Kyre
((Feel free to join but follow the following script please.
Everything happens within the time, the wedding party waits before the temple in Gynk. Flashbacks may show how it came to the current situation.
By the way, the wedding date was the day, Gobaith got destroyed by meteorites.))
Celegail runs around her friend and prepares her wedding dress again and again. She can not stand still and wait.
For the last 3 weeks she was running around to organize all the major and minor issues. Now everything must work perfect. Or at least it must look perfect for the bride. If anything happens wrong it must looks like the fault of the bridegroom.
Kyre grabs her arm. ”Celegail, calm down yourself! You drive me crazy. I’m the one who need to be excited.” ”But you know what you have to do, once William arrives?.” She looks to Kyre and her male attendant. Both nod to her.
Celegail steps forward to the edge of the platform that fills the place before the temple of the Five in Gynk. From the hill you have a wide look over the town. Even the Teleporter for long distance travels can see and that’s the location, she examines closely. Back in the middle of the party she whispers to a women. ”Noting yet.”
She smiles back. ”Celegail, It’s about a minute since noon and if he said noon, it will be maybe 10 minutes later. Be sure I know my brother.” She giggles.
The elfess is dressed in a long dark blue dress which hem reached the floor. Now she repeats the stations of the wedding ceremony for herself. For a moment she doesn’t move around.
Celegails thoughts are in the tailoring now. ’The first part of the story was Kyre’s wedding dress.
Kyre loves black but she should be a bride not a widow at least not during her wedding.
Kyre and Willbrat have been married for a year and a day yet according to a witches procedure. Both have Corvus.
Kyre should looks like an independent women, much more important then the men, who hopefully never marriage her.
Kyre’s missing hand should be hided.
Finally we could arrange a breathtaking white dream. About a hundred blackstones are worked into the seams accentuating the favor figure of her slim figure. Wide sleeves allow her to hide her hands. A stole made of raven feathers is the other black application. And a special designed hat makes her larger then her bridegroom. For me it looks like a mage hat.
And I’m sure nobody will see the truth. Her wedding dress contains more black parts then whites, even if you count the thread. It has been a very hard discussion with the tailor to use black thread to fix all the blackstones.’
Her face shows a sneaking smile once she thinks about Williams dress. ’Willibrat will looks like the opposite. Just like an inconsiderable attachment to a bright star. Pure black suit and a white dress with a few blackstones only. The blackstones at the button border repeating the muster at Kyre’s dress but doesn’t show any signs of mage.
And it has been as easy to persuade him as difficult is has been to get Kyre satisfied.’
No bridegroom around. William did not arrive until now.
The elvish cavalcade that should guide William to temple waits next to the teleporter. It takes Celegail a long and hard arguing to get these 5 elvish horsemen. Especially the horse decoration did not comply with any tradition.
Like herself the horse master could not understand, why the bridegroom did not sent the traditional Levrenni branch to his bride. Celegail did never before talks so much in favors for William. She argued, begged and even lied to make him shining in the brightest light.
She feels very bad if she think back to that evening but finally she got what she wanted. Fife elvish knights on snow white horses with the signs of the old Gods as head decoration will guide the bridegroom to the temple. Levrenni garlands decorate the side of the animals.
A little bit peace with herself she can find looking to the horse, she could get for William. It’s a perfect black stallion. Everybody who loves horses would write immediately a song about. His sides show the same decoration as his escort.
And it is told, he might have the most short-tempered character of all Gynk horses. But this is not seen immediately, it is not even known by too much people. The rental stable understandably keeps it secret.
To help a little bit she used some coins to a minor criminal placing two or three heated mares along the way.
Williams sister will guide him into the temple from the west side, Oxiana should guide Kyre from the east side.
At this point Celegails planning got frazzled. Oxiana agreed and Celegail would love to see Williams face if the man he most likely does not want to see at his marriage plays a main role in the ceremony. But something bad happened on Gobaith. The day before yesterday Oxiana sent a dove he will stay with Irania. Alternatively she asks Robert Ross who has been guest and took over the position. She annoys Robert and the tailor yesterday all day long. But finally she had to resign. Robert wouldn’t like upstaging Williams great day and her time playing tricks runs out.
But once the new married pair will leave the temple another challenge will wait. She told William he should have ready enough money, one or two silver should be enough. She didn’t say it is for the beggars and hopes he has really silver coins. In that case he would not be able to give every waiting beggar a coin. And at least some of the wedding party could translate this into: ‘This man is not able to finance a family!’
And for be sure the beggars know about the wedding. She includes often enough the date and time with a hint to a rich bridegroom to her usual market talk. The only thing she had to take care was making sure there are more ears listen then the merchant.
From the foot of the hill the couple will pass a twin portal to the harbor. Celegail liked the idea if Williams portal leads to anywhere else. Since such obviously failure would fall back to herself she paid a group of minor mages which offered magic gimmicks for weddings. They will create the magic firework at the harbor as well. Even if the probability of a wrong targeted portal is close to zero she allows herself a little bit hope.
Three quarters of an hour left and the wedding party starts fluttering. More and more the guests look to the Teleporter. But the only thing you can see is the waiting cavalcade. Every time the Teleporter activated all guests looks with visible impatience to the place. If then an ordinary traveler steps out you can feel like the atmosphere got cooler.
Celegail looks around and can see the masts in the harbor far away. The human part of the wedding ceremony will do later on a ship over there. Or at least it should do.
Renting the ship has been the most expensive part. The captain agreed to run a ceremony according human tradition. Decorating the ship as nice as she want takes her the last day. Even thin morning she nearly get disrupted in between Kyre’s dress and the decoration of the ship. She couldn’t count how often she jumps around to make everything as bright as possible. The portal she creates in between the tailor street and the harbor seems to glow that day.
If she looks back, she can’t believe that she could arrange during all this chaos another invisible preparation. She connects the ship to the kais with a very long rope by herself. Some large slopes of rope lay in the mud of the port basin and should avoid that the ship get disconnected from the mainland. The reason is clear. The human wedding ceremony on a ship requires that the ship is on see. I can’t be on see as long as it is connected to land. So if later her friend kicks William to the curb there should be no human law giving William any right.
And the last time Celegail left the ship she gave the caption with a smile a bottle of very good rum. ”Take a little sip, it will calm you. I know you will do well. William and Kyre want the best and you will give it.” she said. She’s absolutely sure, the bottle is empty now with the usual results.
No bridegroom arrived. One and a half hour after noon the horse master submits a message for Celegails Attention. He will send the cavalcade back. He’s not willing to wait for a bridegroom, who did not want to follow elven traditions. In reality he used more expressive words.
At least 3 times Celegail manages the wedding party to wait another quarter of an hour but then even Kyre needs to understand. The man who obfuscates her mind left her alone at the most important day of a girl. ”It’s not so bad.” Celegail whispers to her friend. ”You know; he betrays you before.”
Kyre sniffs: ”But I love him!”
Celegail nods. ”I know. Everything will be fine.”
Walking back to the house of Williams sister a huge amount of speculation arise. But Celegail has more then a hint. During the days she has been in Lor Angur with William to prepare the wedding, she gave Nargun another little chance.
Long distance travel books needs a lot of experience and are not cheap. Therefore she listens around for possible sellers and could identify one, who sends more people to the wrong targets then other. This one she offers William together with the best and most expensive alternative. The fool selects the cheaper any bought his travel book over there. And Celegail talk to William with sweet tongues he should take the more then three times more expensive alternative. But once the merchant told William he haven’t had any warranty claim the last months, Celegail could be sure her strategy has been the right.
Hearing those words, Kyre simply shakes her head. She loved Will and knew he loved her...if he wasn't at their wedding there was a good reason for it! She knew what Celegail thought.. even Oxi sometimes but also knew they were wrong. Will would never purposefully hurt her...he never had. Their relationship was something others didn't always understand. Even though Celegail was as close as a sister, she didn't always believe Kyre with respect to William...neither did Oxi. Perhaps she was not good at finding the right words? One day she hoped her family...sister and brother along with husband would just get along.
Having laid her beautiful dress neatly across the chair in her room, Kyre watches her son play with worry on her face before getting out parchment and pen. Hopefully William will receive this soon. Sending one to Oxi as usual brought a smile to her face as she allowed her son to draw pictures on both before the dove came.
Celegail is confused late in the evening. She should be satisfied. She could organize a wedding for her friend what looks like a great happy event. Nobody could imagine all the lies and stumbling blocks for the bridegroom behind. That her personal nightmare William just fails at the earliest possible position makes her comfortable. She can’t see that she harms him in any way. So her oat ‘I will protect you (Kyre) and all your family’ has not been broken yet. It couldn’t be her fault that the brat bought a portal to anywhere. She warned him even.
From her point of view the very best situation happens: Kyre and William are not married yet. She is sure that this is better for Kyre. And there will be a time, her friend will thanks her for. Even if she currently do not want to see the truth. But at the moment Celegail is playing the innocent unhappy girl worked hard for a nice wedding and the bad bad bridegroom let her poor friend alone.
All the evening she managed to solace Kyre. Additionally she seeds some very little dissatisfaction that could grow into real hate with time.
But the situation becomes worse that evening. Celegail cuts her finger slightly that day and sends a healing spell like a reflex. As nothing happens she tried again without success. Later at a hidden location she tries more spells but all her mage seems to be gone. Within a very fast prepared question to Nargun she asks if the Gods take her mana due to her behavior and if she’ll get it back. She got two 5 and must find out that being panicked is very bad for even a simple question like that. She remembers that there is no way to ask the same even if it has been adapted a little bit. And panicked as she was, she didn’t express the question with the recommended care. Much too much questions stay open for her. ’Did the Gods disagree with her personal or her as a part of a party? Did her wedding planning upset the Gods or did they even believe she breaks an oat? Was it the wedding or anything else? How long will her absence take? What she must do to get her magic capabilities back?’
Upsetting the Gods a second time might not be the best idea. So there is another oat to fulfill. William will be back and she has to present the head of the person, who was responsible to jail her and set Corvus into danger. This time she will do everything for God’s satisfaction.
Before she leave, she try to hedge herself at Kyre, that she will organize the wedding, once William come. That might gives her a little bit time.
