Being a General of a powerful but also small and ceremonial Legion meant that Gath could often take time off whenever they liked, doubly so since they had been ill and delegating duties to their captains already. For Relkir though, things were a bit trickier. It turned out the Legion of Advisors really needed more staff, and while Relkir had managed to hire a few people, they were still lacking. And that had made it difficult to plan this trip to Thresisa, to the area of Glimmerling, to start making concrete plans for their wedding.
But thankfully, Gath had contacts, and Relkir had too much unspent holiday time. Yes, they were busy, but they were legally obliged to use their holiday time. Most Rethans enjoyed working and would forget to take time off, so laws were in place to make sure that all Rethans, regardless of jobs, took some holiday time every year. On top of that, Gath’s contacts meant the trip to Thresisa was also rather cheap, even cheaper than normal. Doubly so because they were staying with Gath’s parents again.
Today though, they were going to Glimmerling properly for the first time, to look at the wedding venue Gath wanted to hire. The term “venue” was a bit loose here, since Rethan weddings were mostly done outside and tents were erected in bad weather, but the area was set up with a place to do the ceremony and had a nice stream of water to jump into, the water being one of the most important parts of the venue.
Unfortunately, public transport on Thresisa, outside of Rethan territories, wasn’t as good as it was inside Rethan territories, so while a bus took Gath and Relkir most of the way to Glimmerling, their final destination did require getting a taxi, which was rather uncomfortable for Gath. Relkir had already started working out costs to hire several buses to get people to and from the venue while they were in the taxi, which didn’t turn out to be too expensive.
As Relkir stepped out of the vehicle though and looked around, they were absolutely amazed. The trees were silver birch trees with almost golden leaves, and the water was crystal clear. But what astounded Relkir the most was that the shore of the small lake they were standing at was made of golden yellow crystals, quartz, Relkir guessed. A beach made out of golden glass, which had been smoothed out and sanded down from years of water erosion.
“This is… perfect…” Relkir was already astounded, and they hadn’t met the wedding planner yet.
The wedding planner, a genuinely elderly Rethan closer to 200 than 150, wearing light white and blue leather armour, plodded over, carrying a clipboard, having spotted the taxi arriving.
“Hello, Generals, how are we today?”
Gath immediately approached the wedding planner and shook their hand. Relkir was too distracted by the view.
“Ah, Hajik, hello! I believe we are well, thank you for meeting with us on short notice.”
Hajik smiled. “It is not a problem, General Gath, I am just glad you chose to come back and use my services!”
Gath paused. “Um… yes… it has been… a very long time… But this is all good now. And, admittedly, a… a bit of a rush…”
“How comes?” Hajik also paused a little. “Oh. Is it because you are both busy Generals?”
“… Somewhat… Relkir, my dear, are you coming?”
Relkir snapped back to reality, then made their way back to Gath’s side. “Sorry. This place is very pretty, I did not know such places existed!”
Hajik nodded and bowed slightly. “Glimmerling is a popular wedding spot for Rethans and Torr. Gath has come to our company for several events, as have their parents, and it is nice to see you again.”
Relkir glanced at Hajik, then at Gath, then at Hajik again. They realised that Hajik had probably planned Gath’s original wedding to their old partner Vikal when they were young. They were definitely old enough to have also planned Kazim and Lesii’s wedding.
“Indeed! And we have a wedding to plan! One we would like to get on with sooner rather than later.”
“Oh, how comes?” Hajik asked, turning their attention to Relkir. “Are you in a rush, General?”
Relkir hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, somewhat. Between Gath’s recent health scare and the fact that two powerful Generals wish to marry each other, the more we linger on things, the more… things tend to happen.”
“I see, I see. So you want a quiet wedding? Small, private, no more than 50 vok?”
“Really, 50 seems too many…” Relkir muttered. “But yes, basically, that is what we want. Quiet, simple and clean and tidy. And potentially with one or two godly guests.”
Gath glanced at Relkir. “We are inviting more than just Litvir?”
“I would like to invite the former All-Ksa, since I know them personally, and we may have to invite Kohra, as I wish to invite his brother Levik. I think we can get away with not inviting Aesop though.”
“Fair enough…” Gath shrugged. “Assuming they accept the invitations… I mean, of course Litvir is coming, Litvir will be our blade bearer. But I am unsure about the… other, uh… older deities… But yes, the list will be rather small, because we will also be inviting the High General, and fancy arrangements will need to be made for the Master of Generals to be brought in to actually do the ceremony.”
“Oh…” Hajik suddenly realised that this job was going to be way more difficult than their normal marriage planning services. “Uh… So… um… will we need a lot of security for this wedding?”
“No, of course not! It is tradition that the Legion of the person doing the ceremony acts as security, yes? That means the 100th Legion will be doing the security. They will most likely insist anyway, as General Vaksavar will want them by their side. We will also have some security for the High General, but the 47th Legion will deal with that, as will the 9th or 10th Legions, I believe. But we will not have many people present.”
“Do you have a list?”
Gath fished around in their satchel then pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper. Relkir rolled their eyes, smiled and pulled out a much neater list from their satchel. Relkir also pulled out a separate folder and handed everything to Hajik.
“They are identical. We made the list together. I also have made a lot of other notes about what we want to do.”
Hajik flicked through the notes, and was pretty surprised. “You have thought of a lot of this already.”
“I have, yes. But right now, I want to know one single thing. When is the earliest we can have this wedding?”
“Hm…” Hajik glanced at the guest list, then grabbed their mini computer and started scrolling through available dates. “I think… the most feasible date, to get everything ready and get everyone here, is the 1st of the 12th, this year.”
Relkir and Gath looked at each other, then grinned some more.
“Wonderful. Shall we get started then?”
“Indeed.”