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This Used to be About Dungeons, ch 117, Wedding Bells pt. 2
🕑 Added 2022-07-06 16:25:06 +0000 UTCMinor note: I will be making an attempt at streaming writing the exclusions doc for Worth the Candle, at https://www.twitch.tv/alexanderwales. Mostly just trying this out to see how it is, and if it doesn't work, no big deal. I'm hoping that this gives me some incentive to work on that thing for at least a little bit every day. I don't think it'll be hugely entertaining, and the audience is niche, but it's there if you want to check it out. (Also will make VODs.) My plan is to go live in about an hour or so, and try it for an hour.
~~~~
Hannah was keeping her eye on the cleric of Kesbin. She’d explained the matter to him, and he’d seemed properly crushed, but if he was the sort to give a confession of love to a bride on her wedding day, then perhaps he was also the sort to make a confession even after he’d been told that it was hopeless. Kesbin was in some way the odd god out, and his clerics had always been puzzling to her. That she and her party were the only one who knew about his designs made her especially wary.
It was tempting to think of the situation in terms of Kesbin, but in that framing, it didn’t make sense. Kesbin was the God of Nothing. His clerics weren’t required to be celibate, but as a general rule, they were. They eschewed material possessions and emotional attachments. The stereotype of a Kesbin cleric was someone small, unassuming, simple, and somewhat boring. This was the opposite of that, and while she could understand forming an attraction that you’d never meant to form, Li should have been one of the people most suited to quietly dealing with it. If it had been too much for him to deal with, then he should have gone to one of his superiors or colleagues to talk with them. That he hadn’t done that spoke poorly of his character, devotion, and intelligence. Hannah was, therefore, keeping an eye on him.
Marsh had been her plus one, naturally, though there were so many people at the wedding and reception that it seemed like it might have been better to have a come-one-come-all approach. It was her first time seeing Marsh dressed up, and he did not, unfortunately, clean up all that well. He looked more like a wild animal had been stuffed into a double-pleated suit with gold buttons, and was now walking around with a sense of vague discomfort, like his collar itched and he wasn’t allowed to scratch it. Still, he had a special braid in his beard and had taken pains to tame his hair, which was something. Hannah was at that where she was finding Marsh attractive even when he wasn’t doing anything in particular.
“I overdressed,” said Marsh, looking around. He was seated at a table with the rest of the party, the only interloper among them.
“Ay,” said Hannah. “There are five hundred people, hard to enforce a dress code on that many, and we’re currently in an unused pig sty.”
“Better overdressed than underdressed,” said Alfric. He took a drink of water. “You can usually dress down, lose layers, something like that.”
“Doesn’t work for women,” said Verity.
“If they wear dresses and nothin’ else,” said Hannah. “Nothin’ to stop you from pants and a jacket, some kind of vest, a scarf, that sort of thing.”
“Propriety,” said Verity.
“Yes, well,” said Hannah. “I s’pose.” She looked over at the cleric’s table, which was close to where the bride and groom were sitting. “Might be I should try to make room over there.”
“And leave me alone?” asked Marsh.
Hannah sighed and squeezed his hand. “You know the party well enough.”
“He does,” said Alfric. He took another drink of water.
“I think it’ll be fine,” said Mizuki.
“No one has told me what this is about,” said Marsh. He was craning his neck to try to see what Hannah was looking at, and she gave him a gentle tug on his collar to pull his attention back to the table.
“Well, that’s because Alfric didn’t carve out an exception for you,” said Hannah. “So I may tell you later, once the moment has passed, but I do take keepin’ things in confidence seriously, as a cleric should.”
“When’s food?” asked Mizuki. She was also craning her neck, but in the direction of the food line.
“You’re the one who said we should come here early,” said Alfric.
“Yeah, because I was hoping for food,” she replied.
“They’re coming up the way now,” said Isra. She took a sip of wine. There was an enormous volume of wine for the reception, crates stacked up to one side of the meadow, near the pit the pigs were being pulled out of. The table’s first bottle of wine was already almost empty, which probably wasn’t a good idea on empty stomachs. “A little bird told me.”
When the bride and groom came, there was a round of applause for them, and Jo dipped Bethany down for a showy kiss. She pulled him into her, and they almost tipped, but when they came back up they were both smiling, which was a bit of a relief after everything Bethany had said in the lead up. She hadn’t had doubts, exactly, but they’d rushed into both the marriage, and it seemed like they were both aware of that.
Once the bride and groom were seated, there was more waiting. The food was being served in a buffet style, which somewhat took away from the fanciness of having courses, and their table was one of the last to be allowed to go. It was a salad, never Hannah’s favorite, but it had a nice blend of cucumbers and onions to go with the leafy greens, and a vinaigrette that was pleasantly tart and salty.
“I want pork,” said Mizuki. She was picking at her salad, and seemed to be eating it in protest, only out of sheer hunger.
“Is the food the main thing then?” asked Verity.
“For me, yes,” said Mizuki. “I mean I’m happy for them or whatever, but food and dance, that’s the big thing.” She pointed at the center of the table. “Did you see that? I’m pretty sure that’s a centerpiece that I made. Plus flowers I delivered.” The flowers were exotic, long-stemmed red ones with wide, yawning mouths.
“We’re all very impressed,” said Isra, who had guided an enormous moose into and out of the temple.
“The salad was good,” said Alfric. He looked over at Mizuki’s plate. “Are you not going to finish that?”
“Depends on how long until we get the delicious pork,” said Mizuki. “But fine, since you’re giving me those puppy dog eyes, you can have it. You promise me the pork’s not over-salted?”
“I caught it in time,” said Alfric. “Just barely. They got up early in the morning to put the pigs in, and if the witching hour had been just a bit later, there’d have been nothing I could do.”
“How do you end up with double the salt anyway?” asked Hannah.
“They were doing six pigs,” said Alfric. “The spice mix needed to be made in bulk. But apparently somewhere along the way there was a miscommunication, or maybe some unresolved disagreement, because the spice mix was supposed to have been made without salt, and the salt added later, but it was made with salt. And that meant double the salt they’d meant to put in.”
“Wow, that’s a great story,” said Mizuki. “An anecdote for the ages.” She laughed at her own joke.
“If a dungeoneer has to resort to stories about salty pork, something has gone wrong,” said Alfric. “It is interesting though, especially because it wasn’t immediately apparent what had happened. And we didn’t have that long to figure it out before the day was over, which was a big worry. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever had to work against the clock like that.”
“We’re up!” said Mizuki. She was first to rise from the table, and Hannah followed, with Marsh, as they went to the long line where people were getting food.
The pigs were the stars of the show, obviously, but there was food in ridiculous abundance, even considering that they were feeding around five hundred people. There were herby mashed potatoes with sage and thyme, roasted vegetables with a honey glaze, toasted buns studded with seeds, and a large bowl of cooked cabbage with onions, which was apparently a Sharpe family staple. Hannah tried to be circumspect in what she took, but Mizuki, who was just ahead, loaded up her plate, particularly with different portions of the pig, including an apparently-coveted ear.
When they returned to their seats, the table was momentarily silent, as people dug in. Someone had secured a second bottle of wine, and that was being passed around.
The food was delicious, which Hannah was mildly surprised by. The Pedders had roasted a pig for the town when the dungeon escape happened — coincidentally, the day of the proposal that led to this wedding had happened — and it had been delectable, but she had expected that the side dishes would be more of an afterthought. Instead, someone had taken a lot of care when making fifty gallons of mashed potatoes, and the ratios had worked out in their favor, which wasn’t always the case with food made in bulk. Of course, there was also a band which had started playing during the first course, and it was customary to heighten a sense of flavor, which might have been working for the food.
“Nostalgic,” said Mizuki after she’d taken a bite of pig’s ear.
“You’ve had this a lot?” asked Alfric.
“Sure,” said Mizuki. “This is all Nance’s stuff, her mashed potatoes, her gravy. When my parents were gone, I used to come here once a week or so, by invitation, I think because she was worried that otherwise I would starve.”
Hannah looked to the front table, mostly to look for Nance, who she still only vaguely knew. Instead, she saw Li, the cleric of Kesbin, getting up from his seat, and she pushed her plate away to go to him, with her mouth still full of food. For a moment, as she made her way through the tables full of eating and chattering people, she thought that he was going straight up the wedding table, where Bethany and Jo were eating together, but instead he went out toward the open meadow. She followed him anyhow. She was the only one who’d talked to him about what he was feeling and what he had planned.
“How’s it going?” she asked once she’d caught up with him.
He had a glass in his hand, one for water rather than wine, though it was very clearly filled with a white wine. He didn’t seem drunk, or even tipsy, but clerics of Kesbin weren’t supposed to drink anything but water, and with as small as he was, she didn’t expect him to be anything but a lightweight. He had a shaved head and simple appearance, but there was sorrow etched on his face.
“I won’t say anything to her,” said Li. “If I didn’t do it before the wedding, then I won’t do it now.”
“Well, I just want to make sure that you’re solid,” said Hannah. “Or if you’re not solid, that you’ll get on your way there, in time.”
He was silent for a bit, his eyes on the hogs, which weren’t all that far away from where they were standing. “I don’t know that I will.”
“I hope I’m not discountin’ how you feel,” said Hannah. “But if you can fall in love over an exchange of letters, it seems to me that this likely isn’t a once in a lifetime occurrence. That there are other fish in the sea is almost certainly not what you want hear, but it might be necessary for someone to say to you.”
“We’re about the same age,” said Li. “I’m a bit older, I think. Right? I’m twenty-three.”
“Twenty,” said Hannah.
“I’ve been with the church for four years, plus all my time in the seminary. I know all the things that I would say to someone in my position,” he replied with a sigh. “And I do appreciate you talking to me, and the discretion you and your chrononaut friend have shown.”
“Can I help?” asked Hannah. It was, in her opinion, a bad question. Most people would say that they didn’t need help, even when they did, and people didn’t always know whether help was what they needed. But it was necessary, sometimes, to get someone to take stock of their own situation.
“When I heard that she was getting married, I panicked,” said Li. “Since this morning, and through the ceremony, I’ve been thinking about it, and I think that it wasn’t just about love. It wasn’t a crisis of love. It was a crisis of faith, or not faith, but purpose.”
Hannah nodded. She let him talk.
Li held up the glass. “Do you see this?” He looked at the flat bottom of it, and the rounded edges. “It’s almost perfect. A vessel meant to be filled with water, meant to be drunk from, meant to be washed. There’s no feature of it that’s without purpose. That’s what attracted me so much to Kesbin in the first place. There is an idea, prominent within the church, of winnowing things down until they’re at their most essential. You strip everything away until it’s pure purpose. And you don’t just do that to things, you do that to people too, and you don’t just do it to bodies, you do it to emotions and thoughts as well.” He looked at the glass in his hand. “It’s one thing to make a glass like this, which is built for purpose, or to say ‘if you do it, do it well’, but it’s another to say that we should diminish. Make a smaller cup, have a smaller body, temper your tastes. And then there’s the cut, inevitably. You go from eating a small dessert to eating none at all. A small glass of wine to just water.”
Hannah waited while he talked. He seemed to need to talk. When he was finally finished though, she was ready.
“We are not called to always move in step with our god,” said Hannah. “That way lies madness. Nor are we called to move in step with our church. It is enough that you feel devotion, that you understand Kesbin. Your miracles are proof enough of a good relationship with your god.”
Li let out a breath, then held up his glass. As Hannah watched, the wine within it slowly evaporated to nothing. He stared at it, puzzled, as though he hadn’t expected the miracle to work.
“Maybe what you say is true, that apostasy is permissible for a cleric,” he said. “But it’s not pure. If you say that you don’t walk in step with Garos, where does it end? What does it mean to say that you’re a devotee if you admit that the central tenets are untenable?”
“The tenets by whose measure?” asked Hannah. “I can’t say that I ever studied Kesbin too deeply, but how much of the things that trouble you are a matter of the church, and how much are a matter of your relationship with your god?”
“I — I don’t know,” he said.
“It’s a question that you can only answer yourself,” said Hannah. “And there may be things that you never see eye-to-eye with other clerics on, but as clerics, we’re not called to go past what we see as vital to our connection.” She hesitated. “At least, that wasn’t the orthodoxy that I was taught.”
“You might be right,” said Li. The sun poked out from behind the clouds, just enough for shafts of light to hit the meadow. That one of those shafts of light fell on the bride and groom couldn’t possibly have been a coincidence. Isra seemed to have a bad sense of timing though. “It hurts.”
“The loss of love, or the loss of faith?” asked Hannah.
“Both,” he said. “More the loss of faith, if I’m being honest. Knowing that my life up to this point might have been wasted, purposeless. That I might not actually be cut out to be a cleric at all.”
“Ay,” said Hannah. “Did you know that I’m not a proper cleric at the Pucklechurch temple?”
“Clerics talk,” he said with a wan smile.
“I had disagreements with the church about what it means to be a cleric, what parts of the book should be emphasized, what the essential connection is about, all that,” said Hannah. “I’m sure they’ve said, my leavin’ couldn’t have gone undiscussed.”
“No,” he replied.
“Well, I don’t think that’s quite what you’re goin’ through, but you’re a cleric of Kesbin, and if there’s somethin’ that you’ve been trained in, it’s lettin’ go of what you don’t need,” said Hannah. She gently took the glass from him and held it up to the light. “You think your purpose is to be a cleric, ay, and that may well be true, but you’re the one who decides what parts of bein’ a cleric hold purpose, and what parts can be cast aside.”
“You turned your back on the church,” he said. “I don’t know that I can do that.”
“Well, ay,” said Hannah. “The church will be somethin’ you need to keep in mind. Might be that they would get on your case about havin’ a husband or a wife, might be that they don’t like a glass of wine at night, or a whoop of excitement when a friend wins a race, or all sorts of other things. But the worst they can do is try to stick you in some forgotten corner of their church, and if that’s not what you like, then you can leave.”
She didn’t mention how painful that might be, to leave the church, or be cast aside. The pain was still there, with her, a rejection by the like-minded, but with time, she hoped that it would fade away to nothing. If she hadn’t been trying to give him counsel, it was the sort of thing she might have talked about a visiting cleric of Kesbin about.
Li regarded her. “I’ll have to consider it.”
“Oh, ay,” said Hannah. “No one figures important things out in a day, not the vital stuff. Now, there’s to be some dancin’, once the dessert is done, if we haven’t missed it already. I happen to know some girls who’d love to help you have a good time here tonight.”
~~~~
Alfric kept away from the wine. He wanted to be on high alert, just in case the Other Pedders came down the road, looking to get their comeuppance again. Fighting while drunk or even tipsy put you at an enormous disadvantage, save perhaps for the issue of courage. Isra was also on the lookout, with far superior senses, but she didn’t seem to feel the same sense of duty or urgency.
Dessert was a custard cake, done in layers, with a frosting and fruits on top. It was sweeter than Alfric normally preferred, but was apparently traditional in this part of the world. Overall, he’d been a bit shocked by how similar a Pucklechurch wedding was to Dondrian wedding, but Hannah, once she returned from talking to the Kesbin cleric, had the answer.
“It dates back to when the churches stopped their wars,” said Hannah. “The modern ceremony, now centuries old, was a bit of a compromise, a way of integratin’ the faiths together. For a lot of people, early on, the only time they’d see a cleric that wasn’t one of their ‘home’ clerics was at a weddin’, unless there was some need for healin’, which at those times meant you’d get a sermon.”
“That’s kind of how it is now though,” said Mizuki. “Getting a sermon for healing?”
“Well, ay, if you mean that clerics want to talk about clerical things while they do their work,” said Hannah. “Not the same, but I see what you mean, and that’s right enough. But in those days, when everyone was doin’ this big push for integration, it was a lot different. It took real, solid work to get people to stop hatin’ each other. Havin’ clerics up there to bless a weddin’ helped. Took some mystification out of things. But as I understand it, back then if you were a cleric of Garos in Xuphin country, you’d be livin’ in their church, under their protection, more a vassal than an equal.”
“I guess I’m glad we’re not in those days anymore,” said Alfric. “Don’t the other clerics get jealous when they’re not chosen for a wedding?”
“Och, no,” said Hannah. “No one believes that opinions on the clerics are neutral. People have their favorites, and groups have their favorites too. Some of the clerics get more use than others, for a start, and some of them are more human in their appeal. No, what clerics care about, generally, is makin’ sure that things are equitable, and that’s a more difficult and fraught thing.”
“Verity, Alfric, can I get your opinion on this dessert?” asked Mizuki.
“Why us?” asked Verity.
“I don’t know, I assume you do something different in Dondrian,” said Mizuki. “You’d never find this kind of thing in Kiromo, I don’t think.”
“It’s good,” said Verity. She’d already eaten most of hers, which was unusual, given she was normally a slow eater. “A bit sweet, I guess, and I keep expecting some spice that never really comes.”
“There’d be cinnamon or vanilla or … something,” Alfric agreed. “Cardamom, anise, something like that.”
Mizuki turned to Alfric. “We’re still good to go to Dondrian for this upcoming concert?”
“So far as I know, yes,” said Alfric. “We need to return Emperor one way or the other.”
“I’ll probably be staying with you,” said Verity. “Given what happened between me and my mother. I haven’t gotten a letter from her yet, but I imagine it’s coming.” She took a swallow of wine and shivered. “I’m ready to dance.”
“We’ve got some time yet,” said Alfric. “At least, if chrononaut weddings are anything to go by. I’ve been to quite a few of those.”
“Oooo,” said Mizuki. “Do tell.”
“Not much to tell, really,” said Alfric. “They’re smaller and more expensive, usually with a bit more magic to them, some catering, but still the same clerics and a service that’s more or less the same. There’s some reference to the pact, if it’s a pacted couple, which it almost always is.”
“Boo,” said Mizuki. “I was hoping that you had weird things. Like time things.”
“No,” said Alfric. “I mean, there are almost always people at the celebration that have been through it before, so there are never kinks that need to be ironed out, but that’s not all that weird. And there’s some disclosure too, I guess, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
“What’s a Tarbin wedding like?” asked Isra.
“If you’re asking me, I don’t know,” said Alfric. “Your father never said?”
“No,” said Isra. The word hung over the table for a moment. “Nevermind, I’ll try to find out later.”
“Come,” said Verity. She placed her hand on Isra’s. “I can see they’re getting ready to dance, and I want to be first on the floor.”
They made their way over to where parquet wood had spread out over the grass, almost certainly a result of magic. The bride and groom were getting ready, that much was true, and the band was wrapping up their song. All the plates were being cleared from the tables by helpers, and Alfric resisted the urge to join in helping, because he had, after all, done enough already.
“You said we danced together?” Mizuki asked Alfric. He nodded. “Would doing that again be a bother?” There was something about the way she was looking at him, a soft vulnerability, as though she was worried that he’d turn her down.
“I’d be delighted,” said Alfric. Once they were up, he took her hand and led her to the dance floor.
The first dance was reserved for the bride and groom, with everyone looking on, but for the second dance, everyone was invited. Alfric had, for some reason, expected to see some traditional dancing, but there was nothing of the sort, only a sort of disorganized mash of people moving about of their own accord. Later in the night there would be line dancing, which Mizuki had taught him the basics of a week before, and which he was relatively proficient at following the undone day.
They swayed to the rhythm, with Mizuki’s hands around the back of his neck, and his on her waist. It was barely dancing, really, at least not by the standards that Alfric was used to, and there was no expectation of form or style to it. He’d found it a bit awkward the first time around, but he had some confidence now, and she pressed herself against him, eventually resting her head against his chest as they swayed, like they were having an extended hug.
The undone days with Mizuki were becoming a bit fraught. Their innocent flirting had been fun, and it was still fun, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness to it, and there had been a few times when it had seemed like something might happen between them. He had been diligent in reporting what happened in undone days, but it wasn’t always clear whether or not he should tell her about things that hadn’t happened.
“We were looking at each other while I was trying to glue something in place. You were holding the plank for me, and I moved close to you, and our faces were briefly aligned. I felt like you were going to kiss me, or I was going to kiss you, and then it didn’t happen.” That was the sort of thing that he could have reported but almost never did, in part because it was so insubstantial. The one time he’d tried to talk to her about it, she had laughed and teased him, and he worried that it would only make her more bold and shatter the fragile balance between them.
“How was the flower delivery?” asked Alfric. The top of her head didn’t quite come up to his chin, and she was comfortably resting against him.
“Shhh,” said Mizuki. “No talk, only dance.”
So they danced there together, mostly silent, while the wordless music played on. It did feel good, and Alfric tried to let himself feel good, washing away all the other thoughts. That was easier when he’d had a glass of wine, but he was stone cold sober, and it was hard to stop those thoughts from washing in.
Alfric’s only experience with women, at least in a romantic capacity, had been with Lola. They had thought that they would be married someday, only ‘someday’ wasn’t a dreamy far-off future, it was a concrete anchor point in the future, a certainty. It would have been easy to frame it as something he’d never actually wanted, as something that had been placed on his shoulders by his parents … but he had liked the idea of a pact, before it had all gone wrong. He had been in love with Lola, and saw her as his future wife. Being at the wedding was dredging up some old feelings of connection, now frayed and tattered in the wind.
The song was over too soon, and Mizuki pulled away from him, leaving him feeling cold in the absence of her warmth.
The dancing wasn’t over though, it was just moving to something different, and Alfric found himself getting into line with the rest of the people on the dance floor. He had done this on the undone day as well, and while line dancing wasn’t something that he unexpectedly loved, he could understand the appeal. There were rote patterns and complex choreography, done in time with other people, and it reminded him of morning calisthenics or the drills that he’d run when learning to use a spear or sword. He enjoyed everyone moving as one, and the dance was better the second time through, now that he didn't have to think so hard about what he was doing. He let himself move with the crowd, and this dance, too, went by in a hurry.
There was still no sign of the Other Pedders, and Alfric went back to their table to have a drink. The table had, as often happened at these things, been colonized by interlopers, in this case Xy, who was in a close conversation with both Isra and Verity.
“How’d the moose return go?” asked Alfric.
“Great!” said Xy. “The food alone was probably worth it. Actually, the confused look on the moose’s face was probably worth it. I kept imagining how it must have been from his perspective. If it happened to a person, it would be like being hypnotized into coming over, finding yourself in an alien world, being given a bath — which you’d never had before —, some healing for an injury you’ve had since forever, then dressed up and paraded in front of these strange creatures, and then finally dumped back home like nothing had happened.” She leaned back in her chair — formerly Mizuki’s chair — and stretched out.
“They don’t really think like that,” said Isra. “They don’t have the capacity to be intrigued, not any more than they can be intrigued by a strange-looking stick.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” said Xy. “I still like to think about it, and imagine how I would handle being plucked up and put into a new world.”
“And of course nothing like that will ever happen to that moose again,” said Verity. “If he could conceive of it, he’d spend the rest of his life thinking that it might happen again, and of course it won’t.”
“Well, I’m glad it worked out,” said Alfric.
“The trick was to get him to poop outside the temple first,” said Isra. “I should have done that with the bear.”
“I’m not sure that’s the right lesson,” said Alfric. He filled his glass of wine and drank from it. He wasn’t planning to have too much, but a glass and a half tended to put him in a more relaxed mood. Unless the Other Pedders showed up late, there was nothing for him to do with the rest of his day, aside from having a good time at the wedding.
Hours were spent alternating dancing and sitting back down at the table to talk to someone. Mizuki was a frequent dance partner, but he danced with Verity a few times, mostly because she knew the same formal dances as he did, and they could move around the dance floor together with a flair and style that reminded them both of Dondrian, in a good way, he hoped. Once they’d done that, Aflric’s proverbial dance card was full, and he took a number of women out to waltz, or sometimes to just teach them the steps.
When the sun began to go down, small lights were brought to each of the tables and placed within the vases that served as centerpieces, which were then wrapped with paper to make the light diffuse. It was a beautiful night, made better by the pleasant weather and the lack of insects, both of which they owed to Isra. The dance floor had magical lighting that was only revealed once the sun had set; skin glowed under the influence of unseen magic, meaning that the dancers produced light of their own. They looked a bit like ghosts to Alfric as they twirled around, ethereal in the chill night.
The children and their parents eventually left, and then it was just adults, with more dancing and partying. The dancing lines became less synchronized, more raucous, until eventually there was no point in dancing anymore, not in the sense of something that was structured. Instead, people moved their bodies to the beat of the music, chaotic and out of tune.
The sun had fully set when Verity produced her lute as if from nowhere and went to sit with the band. This wasn’t something that had happened on the undone day, and Alfric watched with interest. The band began to play, and Verity along with them, producing so much sound that she had to push her voice to be heard over it. So far as Alfric knew, this was Verity’s first time playing one of her own songs before a large crowd, more than just the patrons of the Fig and Gristle. It was quite ribald, enough to send up titters from the crowd, and by the end, both the bride and groom had a blush on their face. Alfric was halfway convinced that the entire reason Verity had decided to do a song was to rhyme ‘Pedder’ with ‘bed her’.
It was late at night when they all agreed to go home. Alfric hadn’t gotten more than a bit buzzed, but Mizuki was sloshed, and he helped support her on the long walk home. It was extremely late, well after midnight if he was reading the moons right, so late that he doubted he’d be able to get up in time for the witching hour. Still, the day had been a complete success, and Alfric felt no small amount of pride in that.
He helped Mizuki up to her room, where she immediately collapsed onto her bed. Emperor climbed up there with her, and she gave him some lazy pets.
“I’m never getting married,” she said. The walk and the cold air had sobered her somewhat. The slur in her speech was still there, but much fainter than it had been.
“No?” asked Alfric. “When did you decide this?”
“On the walk home,” said Mizuki. “Seems like a lot of work, marriage.”
“Don’t invite five hundred people?” asked Alfric.
“Nah,” said Mizuki. “The other stuff. The whole forever thing.”
“Ah,” said Alfric. He felt mildly uncomfortable being in her room like this when she seemed like she was minutes away from falling asleep. It felt like he was intruding in a private place. She came into his room often, especially on undone days, but he hardly ever stepped foot in the house’s master bedroom.
“I screw things up,” said Mizuki. She lifted her head and looked at him. “I don’t know if you knew that?”
“I don’t think that’s true,” said Alfric.
“Well,” said Mizuki. She flopped her head back down. “It’s true. Did you see that Fern talked to me again, same as yesterday?”
“The undone day,” Alfric corrected. The night had grown chilly, and he was awkwardly standing at the door. He wondered whether he should move in and sit in the chair beside the bed, or on the bed with her, but stayed where he was. “You didn’t tell me what he was talking about.”
“Oh, just saying that he wished it had been different,” said Mizuki. “I don’t know why I’d have hid that from you.”
“It wasn’t that you hid it, it’s that I didn’t feel like it was my place to ask,” said Alfric.
“It was the way he said it,” said Mizuki. “Like I was his first love and he was still heartbroken about it. Like he was never going to get over his first love, but he’d tried to make peace with it? And I had done was kiss him under the apple tree, and it felt like such a small thing at the time, I guess, like I was being fun and cute and whatever. I didn’t know I was his first love until they started fighting.” It was her third time repeating the phrase ‘first love’, which Alfric attributed to drunkenness. “That’s me. Just doing things, because whatever.”
She was still for a long moment, and Alfric couldn’t see whether her eyes were open or not.
“You’re a good friend,” said Mizuki. “Good night.”
“Good night,” said Alfric.
“Help get me out of this dress?” she asked.
Alfric hesitated.
Mizuki let out a laugh. “I’m kidding.” She let out a breath. She was nearly face down on the bed. “See, this is why I love you, you’re so easy to tease.”
“Goodnight, Zuki,” said Alfric.
“Night Alf,” said Mizuki. She laughed to herself, then just lay there, unmoving.
Alfric was left wondering whether, if he hadn’t hesitated, she would have pushed him further, if he’d have helped her undress and then she’d have laid there in her underthings, asking him for more help. That seemed to be her way. To his mind, it was all fun and innocent flirting, until the point when it wasn’t.
He held for a moment at the door, then turned away and went to bed.
Comments
fbt
TFTC! Also...just imho, and all that, but there's been a noticeable improvement in the writing (in a lot of ways; flows more smoothly, *lots* better interpersonal interactions, chars are a lot more developed, etc) since the start; GJ!!
