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Fjord looked over the mound of assorted rings and coins that took up the bulk of his bed with a mote of concern. Gingerly he prodded at what looked to be a bejewelled hilt and, after some cautious jostling, pulled out a rather fine looking falchion, careful of dulling the blade’s edges as he lifted it from the pile. It was a fine piece of work for certain, he thought as he absently checked its balance, but it did nothing to explain the downright disconcerting pile of treasure lounging on his bed.
Deep in his thoughts, Fjord just managed to hear the door creak open, the lack of noise more than anything else betraying the entry of someone very small and very sneaky. Suddenly, staring at the hoard in front of him, several recent and rather confusing conversations between Jester and Caleb about Zemnian traditions made a concerning amount of sense.
He took a deep breath and prayed to his patron that he’d manage to hold onto his accent for his nerves.
“Nott, am I right in thinking this is a dowry?”
“Well,” Nott replied, her voice sharp and from a location Fjord considered uncomfortably near his kidneys. “Considering what you’ve been getting up to since we’ve been on the road, you’d better be thinking about marriage at this point, hadn’t you?”
Fjord put the blade carefully down on the far side of the bed, immediately feeling bereft of the safety of a weapon to hand, and turned to face the goblin. Traditional it might be, but this was not a conversation he’d have brandishing a blade. Although it was undoubtedly smarter to be armed, he’d always thought it would get things off on the wrong foot. Not that he’d thought about this particular situation at all, or well, when he’d had considered it in fleeting moments, it had featured other party members more prominently than the one currently glaring at up at him like an angry fishwife. An angry fishwife who’d just caught him sneaking out of her son’s bedroom window. At midnight. Without his pants on.
“No more excuses! You’ve got land! You’ve got more than enough starting capital!” Nott, seeing that she now had the half-orc’s full attention, gestured dramatically with her clawed hands, encompassing the entirety of the keep, its fields, and the pile of gold behind him. “Caleb’s finished his schooling!”
She said the last with equal parts of venom and pride, making it clear which consideration was by far the most important and Fjord fought the urge to flinch or disengage and attempt to sneak his way out of door, knowing that with Nott’s perception either would likely be fatal.
“Or is my boy not good enough for you? Hmmm? You’ve been happy sampling the milk, but you’re not interested in investing in the cow?!”
“I would – Wait. Where does the cow come into this?” Confused as he was at this new development, Fjord was unable to hold back what could only be described as a whine. He drummed a finger on his jerkin, a nervous tick he’d recently developed, almost unconsciously checking on the pair of matched rings nestled there. “T-There’s need for a cow?” He brought himself up short and took a deep breath before continuing. “I mean, a’course, tradition speaks for itself. If there needs to be a cow, by all means that’s what’s needed, but we’ve nowhere to put it and I’d hate to delay the builders on the library-”
“If you touch that library, I’ll gut you like a gnoll!” Nott snarled, a hand flying to the dagger at her hip.
Fjord didn’t half blame her, considering how Caleb had taken to walking the partially completed library of an evening; running his long fingers across the wooden shelves, a dreamy look over his face as if listening to the tomes and scrolls they would one day hold. Fjord sighed, his hand dropping in resignation, it would take a far crueler man than he was to put his own selfish desires in front of that.
“Oh? I see we’re at that part of the evening already?” Fjord snapped out of his reverie as Mollymauk gingerly opened the door fully and, with an eye to Nott’s half-drawn blade, stepped cautiously into the room.
Fjord looked over the teifling for telltale new scars, an old habit for all that the most of Molly’s afternoon plans had been to go into town with Jester. Then his eyes caught on what Molly was dangling from a clawed hand. “Is that MYTHRIL?!”
“It certainly appears to be.” Molly’s amusement was evident in his voice as he looked around the room, his red eyes alighting on the hoard. “Ooooh, what did you get?”
Fjord turned back to Nott as Molly settled gingerly on the edge of bed and started to rifle curiously through the pile. “How come he got mythril and I got a pile of-” Molly coughed pointedly and Fjord felt the teifling’s tail wrap around his ankle and squeeze as the blood-ranger cut in.
“This pile of wonderful, expensive, and, I’m certain, legally obtained treasure, which will undoubtedly go a long way to ensuring that your boy is well taken care of the remainder of his days.” Molly flicked a platinum coin over his knuckles before pausing to look pointedly up at his lover.
Nott snorted, seemingly in spite of herself, at their antics. “And you’d better make sure that he has plenty days ahead of him.”
“Now that’s not something you need to worry about; we’ll do our best by Caleb,” Fjord said, reaching out to rest a hand on one of Molly’s horns, careful as always of his jewelry. “And by each other too.”
“Seriously though,” Molly, tellingly not shrugging off Fjord as he was normally wont to do when he was sober and emotions were being discussed, instead moving to lean his head against the half-orc’s thigh. “Although we very much appreciate your contribution to our ongoing happiness, and I’m sure Caleb will look absolutely gorgeous in this shirt, you should know by now we’re in this for the long haul. There’s no need to sweeten the pot, my dear.”
Nott shook a clawed finger at them. “Gestures and traditions are important. I don’t want anyone saying that I didn’t do my part to ensure my boy’s happiness.”
Fjord opened his mouth to respond when there was a small scratch at the door, then, almost immediately, the door flew open as the wizard in question barged in.
“There you are!” Caleb yelled, rushing forward to fall to his knees and grab Nott in an enthusiastic, if still unpracticed, hug. “I don’t know where you found them, but- Oh! This will be so good for us! So good for everyone! Oh meine schatten, what a happy, happy, day!”
Nott seemed to reflexively pat Caleb’s hair as the human all but hid his face in her chest, a small smile playing across the goblin’s unmasked face. After a moment, Fjord gave a small cough, not wanting to interrupt the tableau, but knowing that Caleb might not take kindly to being seen in such an unguarded moment.
Caleb’s gaze immediately swung toward the bed and he released Nott, although he didn’t move up off of the floor. “Oh, Fjord and Molly. T-this is ou- your room, isn’t it?” Fjord’s perception picked up the blush that ran across Caleb’s face as the wizard realised that his slip made it rather obvious that he’d not been in his room except to dress since they’d purchased the keep. “Oh scheisse,” Caleb continued, looking behind them at the bed itself. “That is a LOT of money.”
Fjord felt rather than heard Molly’s huff of laughter as the teifling smothered a laugh against Fjord’s hip and he cleared his throat to cover his own mirth.
“It seems that Nott” “And Jester” “Feel that we’ve been remiss in our responsibilities. Caleb what we mean to say is, would you-”
Nott slapped her hands over Caleb’s ears. “NOPE! You’re doing it wrong!”
Fjord blinked stupidly, shocked at the interruption, and Molly gave up attempting to hold back his laughter, the teifling ending up sprawled across the pile of gems and coin.
Nott hissed at them both, showing rows of sharp teeth. “You have to ask my permission first.”
“I- I-” Fjord stumbled, staring first at Nott and Caleb, the human still kneeling in front of the goblin, and then down at the chortling teifling. Molly looked at how lost Fjord seemed and took pity on him, propping himself up onto his elbows so he could respond.
“Lovely, kind, and terrifying Nott. Will you do us the greatest honour of allowing us to marry your dear Caleb and make him deliriously happy for the rest of all our lives?” Molly asked, the twinkle in his eye doing nothing to belay his seriousness.
Nott waited a beat and then glared up at Fjord. “Wellll? What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I- I would also humbly ask your permission to propose marriage to Caleb.” Fjord said solemnly.
“No weird orc bitey stuff, or blood rituals,” Nott cautioned, looking like she wanted nothing more in life than to wrap herself around the human as a small green shield.
Her hands were still covering Caleb’s ears, and therefore blocking a full view, but Fjord caught the flash of a brilliantly bright red face. “Never anything that Caleb doesn’t want.” He agreed easily, enjoying the slight twitch his comment garnered from Caleb and Molly’s snort of laughter.
Caleb gently pulled Nott’s hands away from his ears and held them in his hands, although he made no move to stand up.
“You do not need to do this-”
“Hush.” Nott said, a bit wistfully. “I’m trusting them to make an honest man out of you; I certainly didn’t.”
“No,” Fjord said. “But you made him into a good man.”
“Here, here!” Molly crowed, standing up and reaching out.
Nott sniffled and carefully held Caleb’s hands out to them. “Alright; you have my permission. But if you fuckers hurt him…”
“We won’t.” Molly said, taking one of Caleb’s hands as Fjord fumbled for the two rings he’d had prepared to match the one on his finger.
“Caleb,” Fjord took Caleb’s other hand from the small goblin woman and looked into the human’s wide blue eyes. “Would you do us the honour-”
“No! Stop! Object! There are so many objections here!”
“Seriously, Jester?” Fjord nearly shouted as Caleb dropped their hands so he could hide his face in his hands. Molly swore in infernal, the air crackling with arcane energies that the teifling cleric cheerfully ignored.
“I object very hard! You have Nott’s permission, yes? But now, you need ours!” Jester barrelled her way through the open door, followed closely by Beau, Yasha, and a mewing, disgruntled, Frumpkin.
“Yeah!” Beau said, cracking her knuckles. “We gotta do right by our boys, which means there needs to be a fight… I’m not sure whose side I’m supposed to be on, but, I mean, I could fight you all?”
Yasha stepped up beside the monk, her body relaxing slightly as Molly gave her a brief, albeit exasperated, thumbs up. “Traditionally, I think I should stand in for Molly.”
“I guess I could stand in for Fjord,” Beau mused. “Nott, you wanna step up for your boy? One last go at protecting his ‘virtue’?”
“Oh me! Me!!” Jester jumped up and down, waving her hands excitedly before Nott could respond, or, more likely, pull a knife on the monk. “We’ll make it a tickle fight!! First one to smile loooooses and then you have to get married next!”
Beau’s sudden blush ran all the way from the collar of her shirt to the roots of her hair and she abruptly turned to hurry from the room. “No way! I know you’ve still got that wand hidden on you.”
“You could try to find it?” Jester singsonged, waggling her eyebrows suggestively as she grabbed onto Nott and Yasha, making a great effort of pulling them from the room as she followed Beau out. “Oh! Before I forget. You have to propose tonight! We will make a bigggg cake - it will be very traditional!”
Fjord looked at his two equally confused partners and asked, loudly enough to be heard clear down the hall. “Just whose traditions are we following here?”
Fjord considered that Jester’s response was, all told, the least surprising part of the day.
“Ours!”