“So, you’re actually going to marry Kuta?” Kayel asked as he twirled a little ice dagger around his fingers. “Like, properly, with the weird blood ritual and everything?”
Ret nodded as he sipped his drink.
“And the jumping into the water? And both of you wearing the same armour?”
Ret nodded some more. “Yes, we will be having as close to a traditional Rethan wedding as possible.”
“Which of you will be the bride?” Nyssi asked. “I assume you, but I’ve not been to a Rethan wedding before.”
“To be fair, most of us haven’t!” Kayel smirked. “I heard they were quite serious. Apart from the jumping into a bunch of water.”
“I will be honest, I have not actually been to a Rethan wedding myself…” Ret muttered. “But we do not have-”
“Wait, you’ve never been to a Rethan wedding?” Tanos exclaimed.
“Of course not. I was an exile for most of my life and had no real Rethan friends. Why would any normal Rethan invite me to a wedding?” Ret tutted.
“Has Kuta been to a Rethan wedding though?” Tanos had more questions. “Also do you have bridesmaids or anything?”
“Uh… I do not know…” Ret muttered. “Maybe, maybe not. Kuta was never really the sort to go to weddings, what with their different… career paths…”
Nyssi shrugged. “Makes sense, who willingly invites an assassin to a wedding?”
“Other assassins!” Kayel tutted. “Admittedly those were last minute super speed weddings because I WAS an assassin and so were the happy couple, but still. I’m sure that former assassins would also invite people to weddings, right, Ret?”
Ret nodded some more. “I am going to have Kuta invite you all. What with them being a former assassin.”
“But still!” Nyssi exclaimed. “Which of you is going to be the bride or groom? I kinda guess you’d be the groom because you’re bigger and totally more masculine.”
Ret grunted. “We do not have a bride or groom. We are poten-partners. Partners-to-be in the ceremonial texts. We are coming together to be true partners. Promised partners.”
“So… you’ll both be wearing dresses?” Nyssi playfully asked.
“Uh… no… We will be wearing matching armour.”
“What sort of armour?”
Retvik grunted. “Traditionally, you wear armour in the colour of your combined plating, unless that combined colour is a brown. As Kuta has white plating and I have red plating, we would wear pink armour.”
“That’s an interesting choice!” Kayel smiled. “In Skyan weddings we all wear pink too. Well, black and pink.”
Nyssi turned to Kayel. “How comes?”
“Uh, pink is the colour of love? And we just… wear black most of the time anyway. We were the shadow folk, we were the adopted children of the god of shadows and death, but he openly said that marriage was something we should decide on ourselves, and Skyan weddings just ended up being the signing of two marriage certificates and then getting utterly plastered. Different classes had different traditions but it was all mostly an excuse to get drunk and high.”
“Huh…” Nyssi thought for a moment. “So, like, Arkay didn’t give you guys any marriage traditions or anything? Sini gave the Temthans and the Vrekans unique ways to be bonded. Pretty sure the other gods did too.”
“Yeah but like, Arkay was mostly against religion. He didn’t even like the Phantasma cult but only allowed that to exist because it looked after anyone who was shadowtouched like me. He only allowed the Ksithan religious stuff because it was mostly harmless traditions, and shaped the Banikan religions to be focused on being kind, selfless and always trying to look after others.”
“Did Epani affect your religious stuff, Retvik?” Nyssi asked.
Ret pondered the question for a little too long. “Uh… I do not think so. We were all always aware that Epani was a distant deity. We had the occasional building set aside for quiet worship, which we called churches out of convenience, but Epani never did anything to make us want to actively worship her the same way you worshipped Sini. I guess we just used Skyan traditions until we came up with our own ones.”
“Your lucky coin though, that has the symbol of the Panelix on it though!” Tanos pointed out.
“It does, but I have my lucky charm because Relkir made it for me. When we were teenagers, we did all mutter the odd prayer and stuff but I stopped as soon as I was exiled, Relkir stopped at the same time, then slowly offered prayers to Arkay in secret, and Rethais just did what everyone else did until they disowned all religion entirely when Epani called those earthquakes in Phos…” Ret grunted. “That was a needless loss of life. Kuta told me they lost their entire home. And pretty much everyone stopped worshipping Epani.”
“Oh… I forgot about that earthquake…” Nyssi muttered. “But, like will this be an official marriage or something?”
Ret nodded. “It will be legally binding, yes. Teekay and Kyr Elkay are a legally bound couple now, and Kuta and I have decided we want the same.”
“Does that include the thing where you give each other a dagger, use the daggers to cut your fingers and then do some kind of blood oath?” Tanos asked. “And then you jump into some water?”
“Oh definitely!” Ret grinned. “Kyr Litvir said he will help us bind the Decay Lord marriage stuff with the traditional Rethan marriage stuff, so it will feel as natural as possible. And, hopefully, it will be fun too!”
“Are you going to have a massive drunken party and a lot of sex and stuff afterwards?” Kayel cautiously asked.
“Uh… what do you mean?” Ret asked back.
“I was chatting with Teekay and, at their wedding, they had a punch bowl full of, as Teekay called it, horny juice. There was a lot of sex, apparently.”
Ret stared blankly at Kayel for a few seconds, then blinked and tutted. “That is weird. No, we will just make a massive barbecue or something, and we will eat and drink and be merry. And we will swim in the lake.”
“And you’ll consummate the marriage later on?” Nyssi’s question caught Ret off guard.
Ret blinked again. “I… do not know what that word means.”
“You’ll rush off and go and have sex with Kuta and permanently seal the deal on your marriage, right?”
Ret still didn’t get it. “Is that a thing in the marriages of other races? Because we are permanently bound the moment we jump into the water.”
“Huh… guess you don’t need to consummate the marriage in Rethan weddings…”
“They have sex together already!” Kayel shrugged. “Don’t need to have some sort of ritualistic wedding sex to seal the deal when they’ve already done their promise and blood oath.”
“I guess…” Nyssi drifted off for a moment, then changed her tune. “So, Retty, how can we help you with the wedding planning?”
“Hm…” Ret remained silent for a moment. “Well… I have some ideas… And you three can help me with them… Let me have a think…”