22nd of Spring, 521
The morning of Madeira and Chiona’s wedding started with prayers.
On her knees in the back room of the Koten Temple, beside her wife-to-be and surrounded by the family she would today call hers, Madeira wondered who she was supposed to pray to. Of her personal pantheon, it seemed almost blasphemous to ask Dira and Sagallius for their blessings on a marriage, and Ionu had never felt so far away. She supposed she could pray to the Lhavitian sky gods, Syna, Leth, and their fallen Zintia, for good fortune in their city. But even as the thought was formed the words wouldn't come. She had lived under their presence for three years and they still felt like foreign gods.
She snuck a glance at Chiona from under her lashes. The Dusk heir had never looked more beautiful. Still and quiet with her head lowered over her clasped hands, her loose auburn hair tumbling over her shoulders, woven through with white and red flowers. The dress pooled around her was as crisp and white as new fallen snow, and about as lifeless.
Madeira hated the pristine white dresses they both wore almost as much as she hated the quiet prayer. Perhaps that was the Avalad in her that demanded her gods be worshiped out loud, that insisted devotion was something that required more than meditation and placid thought. She longed to celebrate this occasion in the wild costumes her people loved, and to run into this momentous change joyously, with all of reality twisting around her as if to make way for her new life. But she was not an Avalad anymore, she had to remember. She belonged to Lhavit now.
It was only when Chiona opened her eyes and covertly smiled that Madeira realized she had been staring.
Beautiful, her fiancé mouthed silently. Madeira smiled back, knowing it was true. The bright colors and harsh lines the Spiritist usually styled herself in had been brushed out and softened by the talented workers of the Starglow Spa. Her lips and cheeks were flushed a delicate pink, the purple rings around her eyes smoothed into a creamy white. Her lank blonde locks were sleek and shining beneath the tall, delicate silver crown that was her only adornment. The endless glass beads and silver thread in her dress refracted every drop of light to touch it, throwing it back around the room in great arcs of shattered light.
Sneak out?, Madeira mouthed back mischievously, her gloved fingers walking over her skirt and her eyes rolling to the door, miming a mad dash out of the temple and away. Runaway brides.
Chiona's lips thinned out in an attempt to stifle her giggle in the oppressive, meditative silence.
They smiled at each other from under their bowed heads, but there was something in Chiona that was suddenly sober. Madeira knew the woman had been unsure of this decision the moment she made it. It was not that they didn't care for each other, but theirs was not the kind of love that made life partners. It was Madeira who had convinced her that their union was what was best for everyone, that a political marriage was not only right, but necessary. Yet she knew the woman's heart still burned for someone else.
Madeira knew this because she was the one that had destroyed the relationship between Chiona Dusk and Lhelie Dawn, in order to swoop in and pluck the heartbroken Chiona from the ashes.
Taking a quick glance around the room, Madeira sneakily leaned in and kissed her fiancé tenderly. There was not a drop of guilt in the Spiritist. She wanted the Dusk's name and its heir, and now she had both. True love was for children and poetry.
On her knees in the back room of the Koten Temple, beside her wife-to-be and surrounded by the family she would today call hers, Madeira wondered who she was supposed to pray to. Of her personal pantheon, it seemed almost blasphemous to ask Dira and Sagallius for their blessings on a marriage, and Ionu had never felt so far away. She supposed she could pray to the Lhavitian sky gods, Syna, Leth, and their fallen Zintia, for good fortune in their city. But even as the thought was formed the words wouldn't come. She had lived under their presence for three years and they still felt like foreign gods.
She snuck a glance at Chiona from under her lashes. The Dusk heir had never looked more beautiful. Still and quiet with her head lowered over her clasped hands, her loose auburn hair tumbling over her shoulders, woven through with white and red flowers. The dress pooled around her was as crisp and white as new fallen snow, and about as lifeless.
Madeira hated the pristine white dresses they both wore almost as much as she hated the quiet prayer. Perhaps that was the Avalad in her that demanded her gods be worshiped out loud, that insisted devotion was something that required more than meditation and placid thought. She longed to celebrate this occasion in the wild costumes her people loved, and to run into this momentous change joyously, with all of reality twisting around her as if to make way for her new life. But she was not an Avalad anymore, she had to remember. She belonged to Lhavit now.
It was only when Chiona opened her eyes and covertly smiled that Madeira realized she had been staring.
Beautiful, her fiancé mouthed silently. Madeira smiled back, knowing it was true. The bright colors and harsh lines the Spiritist usually styled herself in had been brushed out and softened by the talented workers of the Starglow Spa. Her lips and cheeks were flushed a delicate pink, the purple rings around her eyes smoothed into a creamy white. Her lank blonde locks were sleek and shining beneath the tall, delicate silver crown that was her only adornment. The endless glass beads and silver thread in her dress refracted every drop of light to touch it, throwing it back around the room in great arcs of shattered light.
Sneak out?, Madeira mouthed back mischievously, her gloved fingers walking over her skirt and her eyes rolling to the door, miming a mad dash out of the temple and away. Runaway brides.
Chiona's lips thinned out in an attempt to stifle her giggle in the oppressive, meditative silence.
They smiled at each other from under their bowed heads, but there was something in Chiona that was suddenly sober. Madeira knew the woman had been unsure of this decision the moment she made it. It was not that they didn't care for each other, but theirs was not the kind of love that made life partners. It was Madeira who had convinced her that their union was what was best for everyone, that a political marriage was not only right, but necessary. Yet she knew the woman's heart still burned for someone else.
Madeira knew this because she was the one that had destroyed the relationship between Chiona Dusk and Lhelie Dawn, in order to swoop in and pluck the heartbroken Chiona from the ashes.
Taking a quick glance around the room, Madeira sneakily leaned in and kissed her fiancé tenderly. There was not a drop of guilt in the Spiritist. She wanted the Dusk's name and its heir, and now she had both. True love was for children and poetry.
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