“So you want to get married?”
Itaviir was clearly confused. He had been sitting in the canteen, beer in one hand, chunk of meat on a bone in the other, eating the standard Beh’en meal of meat and potatoes, when Vikalos had come along, sat down next to him and, oddly, not said anything.
“I… I do, yes.”
“Like…” Itaviir glanced around. Vikalos knew who he was looking for. But clearly, the two married couples of the Thantir weren’t present. Apparently, all four of them were busy and three of them were in the same room. Vikalos didn’t know why. “Like… Elkay and Teekay?”
“Yes. Just like that.”
“Are… are we not already married?”
Vikalos grunted. “We are bound. Bound by duty, bound by battle, bound by blood. And, occasionally, bound by each other’s bodies, when we are not cold.”
“You are not cold, Vikalos. You are always warm. Our coldness has always been my problem, my burden, which I have laid constantly on both you and Galyn.”
Another grunt. “That is not true at all. When you and I went to Deathven? Yes, you froze over nearly completely, while Galyn had the little ones to warm him up, and I settled down with my new duties looking after troubled Decaylings. But in the later years of the old Thantir? I was just as cold, if not colder than you both. We were bound by duty and only by duty. We worked ourselves to near death, we hardly spoke to each other about anything aside from work and you barely even saw Galyn, even when he wasn’t out on his secret missions. If anything, I am more to blame for our relationship falling apart, because I am not of a race that goes cold over time because of Life Goddess meddling.”
Itaviir tutted. “Vikalos, you cannot blame yourself for everything.”
“In this case, I think I can. I should have known better. I should have kept things together. And I should have insisted that you and Galyn spend more time together in the later days of the old Thantir. Because you two never saw each other. I saw all of this happening but didn’t do enough to stop it.”
Itaviir thought for a moment, then sighed. “You are speaking in terms of hindsight. You can see now that you did things wrong, but we also did things wrong. Galyn pushed himself away, and I should have been more forgiving with Galyn, not to mention more understanding when he said he wanted to stay with Retvik, Litvir and Arkay. We are all equally to blame for what happened between us. But either way, it is in the past now.”
Vikalos nodded in agreement. “You are right there, the bad stuff is in the past now, and I guess we were all to blame for what happened. But we are together again, properly. Like when we first properly got together. Before we founded a sect. And… I want to celebrate that.”
“We can celebrate that whenever though?”
“We can, but… well… that is why I want to get married. Because we are bound in so any ways, but we are not really officially partners or anything.”
“Well, we… we are. We are also bound by our Trio status. We’re officially recognised as a Named Trio by Deathven Himself. We did a Decay Lord Retrial together to prove our Trio status.”
“That isn’t quite what I am thinking of though. We are a Named Trio, but anyone can become a Named Trio… Well, they used to, until Deathven started changing the laws… I’m getting distrated though. We are bound, but we are not formally bound by love.”
“We…” Itaviir hesitated. “We are bound by love though. Maybe not as much as the other ways we are bound, but there is love between us.”
“We are bound by love, yes, but not… officially. When Elkay and Teekay got married, they made promises to each other, to love each other forever. When Kuta and Ret got married, they also made promises to each other, and I’m pretty sure Ret threatened to move the entire multiverse in order to stay by Kuta’s side. They demanded eternity together and bound themselves in love via promises and blood. We never did anything like that. I have never put my desires and my love into words, and I’ve never promised my love to you. I would like to do something like that.”
“Oh…” Itaviir fell silent, and went back to his food, chewing off pieces of meat while he tried to work out how to respond to Vikalos’s statements. “Well…”
Vikalos decided to leave Itaviir to his thoughts. He opened up a hammer space and pulled out a cold can of lemonade, content to sit and wait and see what other people were doing. But after a couple of minutes, Vikalos spotted Itaviir briefly typing on his communicator, and, after a few more minutes, a familiar face plodded over.
“Is this about that whole marriage thing Vikalos wants to do?” Galyn asked as he sat himself down.
“It is, yes. You were married when you were mortal, right, Galyn?” Itaviir asked back.
“I was, yes. To a Beh’ena.”
“What was that like?”
Galyn shrugged. “It… it was nice. I liked it. Made me happy, in a universe where life was generally rather brief and depressing.”
“And what was the wedding like?”
“Oh…” Galyn smiled slightly. “That… that was fun. And very… sexy… Lots of drinking and sex. Made Teekay’s little wedding look like a military march.”
“Would you… like to do it again?” Itaviir queried. “A wedding and a marriage made you happier. Might make us happier too. And it might also be fun, I guess?”
“Might be fun, yes.”
Vikalos blinked at both Itaviir and Galyn. “You are serious?”
Galyn and Itaviir both shrugged.
“I guess. Would be… at the very least, rather amusing to finally be officially married, after having been together for so long…” Galyn mused. “Plus, it’s an excuse to have another drunken party and orgy.”
“Well… alright…” Vikalos muttered as he hesitantly got up. “Let me… work on a few things, and then we can start discussing things proper…”
Once Vikalos was out of sight, Galyn turned to Itaviir.
“Is he alright?”
“I don’t know.”
“Should one of us speak to him?”
Itaviir grunted. “We both should, but give Vikalos a moment to clear his head. There is a lot sloshing around his mind right now…”