Day Two-Fifty-Four, Part Two: Post-Wedding Blahs

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Heed the title! There is a part one! Go back if you missed it!)

As predicted, that was THE SHITIEST WEDDING I've ever attended. And I've only attended one other. It wasn't very good either.

Yeah. You guessed. It was my own. We held it in an apple orchard. There were, like, five people present. Libby was wearing overalls. It was STILL better.

The mercs strolled into the castle near dinnertime. Half of them were already sauced, having imbibed a ton of booze while they travelled. The rest demanded payment upfront for their services. King Jeffrey's timid officials, who looked as scared of their royal guard escorts as they were of the mercs, agreed on the spot.

The original plan, I think, had been to hold the wedding on the grounds outside the castle, overlooking the Grand Chasm. King Jeffrey must've poo-pooed that idea, though, 'cause an hour after the mercs arrived they were stealing tables and chairs from empty houses and setting them up in the main thoroughfare. Such a hodgepodge of furniture you have never seen.

Harold, our little noble buddy, came to get Libby and I 'round five in the evening. He told us that the ceremony would take place overnight, under the stars, and we needed to get dressed well in advance. I lugged Libby out of bed (lords but she's heavy) and dragged her to the keep, where, after waking her up with a splash of ale to the face, we got dressed.

Also, she punched me. Totally awake, back to normal. Party time.

We hadn't gotten the hang of dressing ourselves properly during our training, so Harold helped me get into my wedding frock while one of the maids 'assisted' (more like offered pointers at a distance to) Libby. Took me an hour to get dressed, and an hour and a half for Libby. Amazing how you can muck up such simple clothes.

We had time to kill after that, so Libby wandered off to help with the wedding prep (and stained her dress in the process) while I went looking for Eve. I hadn't seen her in weeks outside occasional glances of her eating dead animals, and though it might be bad luck for the father to see the daughter, I didn't care. I wanted to catch her before she got married.

(Yeah, maybe that's not bad luck. Might be something else. Don't care. MEH, diary, MEH.)

I found Eve on the ramparts, still in full armour, without much searching. She was watching the wedding prep underway, perhaps analyzing the combat skills of the wedding planners from afar. Most of 'em still had their blades on 'em, and looked ready for a scrap. What a dreamy wedding.

"Eve?" I said, calling from a distance so I didn't spook her. "Eve, can I talk to you?"

She glanced at me, disinterested, then looked back at the shabby crowds below. She pulled her sword from its scabbard and bent it into a boomerang shape, clearly far too interested in the slaughter of everyone in the main thoroughfare.

I took it as a 'yes'. You take what you can get with Eve.

I walked up beside her and watched the people below with her. Father and daughter, under the fading sky, only hours away from a wedding that would change both their lives.

"Eve, you don't have to do this, y'know. You can back out if you want."

"A grim, omitting tender," she replied.

"Sure, there's… there's that, but… do you understand, Eve? You don't have to get married. Really! You can… can call it off, and… just come with us!"

She rolled her eyes. Don't see that too often. "A grim, omitting tender! Trim trot a deeming gin!"

I shook my head. If she was trying to say something, it wasn't coming through properly. As usual. "Okay… well… just remember, if you… uh, change your… mind… you have the power to walk away. Boy do you have the power to walk away. Okay?"

Eve whipped her boomersword into the air. It arced high, disappearing from sight, then zipped back into her hand. Hefting it, she looked at me and said, "Huh. Visit a dab negligee, yow lot kimono."

I blinked. She spat, slid the boomersword into her belt, and jumped off the roof. I didn't see her again until the wedding procession, three hours later.

I went looking for Libby. She was knee-deep in an argument with one of the mercs over a banner. Libby's fond of structural aesthetics, being a carpenter, and she insisted that the banner (a crudely-drawn picture of Eve and Logan holding hands) be strung along the upper lip of the Matriarch's shell, as it wouldn't stretch from one side of the thoroughfare to the other. The merc was surprisingly impassioned about his point of view, possibly because he was drunk, and royal guards had to part the two.

"Meh, fuckin' lame wedding anyway," Libby grunted. "Where's the food?"

It came shortly, and with it came people. Nobles. The remaining nobles of Castle WeddingBells, surprisingly few in number. I guess a lot of them fled secretly in the night, along with many of their assistants. A couple dozen remained behind, though, and they perused long tables covered in what was left of the kitchens. Every piece of food had been THOROUGHLY butchered by the mercs, and Libby and I went without. Better an empty stomach than the runs.

We waited. For a long, long time. We attempted to mingle with the nobles out of sheer boredom, but gave up whenever they lifted their noses. Queen Daena became our sole source of entertainment, as her grand vehicle, set in the middle of the thoroughfare, would soon serve as the mount of union for Logan and Eve. She looked happy, though we could both tell Daena was absolutely miserable.

Princess Celine, hiding in her mother's tree, remained oddly non-committal. I suspect she keeps all of her opinions to herself, which may make her wiser than anyone else I know.

The ceremony began half an hour before midnight. The mercs erected huge, blazing logs to light the path to the Matriarch, and the… three… bards who'd stuck around (yes, including poor Edmund) began to play the wedding march the king had specially ordered for the occasion.

It was, of course, his fucking theme song. He'd altered a few of the lyrics to be LOGAN'S name instead of his own, but you could tell. You could bloody well tell.

Logan, pale-faced and arm-in-arm with his father, came wandering down the aisle first. Both were dressed in regal purples and whites, not too different from their usual finery, but different enough. Jeffrey was holding his son up, forcing Logan to walk. Father looked thoroughly annoyed; son was about to pass out. Not sure if he knew where he was.

Eve came next, STILL in her armour. No dress for my daughter. She was arm-in-arm with… that… bloody… penguin. Kierkegaard. FUCK. I mean, I know I'd NEVER been offered the opportunity to walk Eve down the aisle, and I respected that, but the JESTER?! WHY HIM?! THE LITTLE FUCK EVEN STOPPED TO STICK HIS TONGUE OUT AT ME

Sorry. Sorry. Overly-dramatic, I know. I'll live.

Everybody gathered atop the Matriarch. They were joined by a Weekendist, an ordained monk, who asked for everybody in the audience to be seated (no one had stood up in the first place) and began the ceremony.

"All ye gathered here today," he droned into the bullhorn set up on the grassy mound, "we have come to witness the joyous union of this man -"

- he pointed at Logan, whose head was wobbling about -

" - and this, er, woman."

- he pointed at Eve, who glared back as though she might bite off his arm.

The monk continued. "The gods above us, whomever they might be and wherever they may dwell, look down upon this union… we assume… with great love and respect. We think. And though we know not the nature of the gods of the weekend, nor how we might honour them properly, nor even how to contact them that we might ask these important questions, a union of this calibre must, by all the unknown tomes of our great overseers, be held in high regard."

Everybody let out a faint 'Huzzah!'. I swear, the five people at MY wedding were louder.

The monk turned to Logan. "Do you, Logan, prince of this… great… realm… take this Eve to be your lawfully wedded wife? To hold her, and honour her, in the sight of the gods whom we cannot see nor hear nor feel nor comprehend, so long as you both dwell upon this grand celestial orb?"

Jeffrey, who was still supporting his son at the crest of the mound, tilted Logan's head forward into a nod. He tried to keep it secret, but we all saw.

"That… will do." The monk turned to Eve, who was still arm-in-arm with Kierkegaard. "Do you, Eve, Lord Knight of this… STUPENDOUS… realm, take this Logan to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"Dump 'im, baby, 'n take me!" one of the drunken mercs hooted from the sidelines. "He ain't man 'nough!"

King Jeffrey mimed a slicing motion to his royal guards. Two of them dragged the merc away. We never saw him again. Then Jeffrey motioned impatiently for the monk to continue.

"To… er, to hold him, and honour him, in the… sight of… the gods whom we cannot see nor hear nor feel nor comprehend, so long as you both dwell upon this… grand… celestial… orb?"

I hoped, diary. I hoped and prayed and dreamed that Eve would not utter those three letters, that she would instead say something horrific, about the apocalypse or the coming doom or blood from the skies, or maybe some long-winded, garbled shit that NOBODY would understand, not even the best code-crackers in the world. I hoped, prayed, DREAMED that Eve would, at this critical juncture, be herself.

"Yes."

The crowd jumped. Libby jumped. I jumped. Nobody in their right minds had EVER suspected my little girl would respond to a question in a straightforward, understandable manner.

But she did. And that sealed the deal.

"Then I now pronounce you man and wife!" the monk proclaimed, throwing his hands to the skies. "You may kiss the bride, Prince Logan."

I blacked out at that part. I have since been assured by Libby that, yes, they actually kissed.

I woke up a few hours and a few TERRIBLE dreams later in some super-swanky apartment in the nobles' wing. Libby was there, chatting with Harold (I guess they're getting on alright now), and when they saw me rousing they filled in the blanks.

The wedding's over. Eve and Logan are married. They've disappeared into the castle, SOMEWHERE into the castle, to… legitimize their marriage. I'm… I'm not quite sure what that means, but it frightens me, diary, it frightens me something fierce.

The reception was cut short. Indeed, it never happened. Once the ceremony ended, the nobles in attendance fled into the keep. A few royal guards remained outside with Queen Daena and Princess Celine, to watch over 'em in case the mercs felt like engaging in shenanigans, but most disappeared with the king and the newlyweds.

We've been invited to remain in this room for the night. Tomorrow we'll be escorted to an impromptu reception, INSIDE the castle, where we've been promised a glimpse of the bride and groom.

And after that… I guess… we're… leaving. Forever.

That was my daughter's wedding. Didn't need a single lesson to get through it without raising a fuss. Woo for me.

Woo… woo for me.

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Semi-But-Not-Really-Royal