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As with most things of this sort, it could all be traced back to Jester. Jester, who finished reading another of the romance novels Caleb lent her, who returned it with added chocolate fingerprints and tearstains, and a tirade on how she never would have left the hero to die at the end. Jester, who, during that tirade happened to mention she knew a little magic that could give added protection to lovers.
Caleb’s head snapped to attention. “Protection? Do you mean, like armor?”
She shrugged carelessly “A little! The Traveler told me all about it. It’s a marriage ceremony, and you have to be within like thirty feet of your lover for it to work. It’s suuuuuper romantic.”
“What does it involve?”
And she’d made the mistake of telling him.
I. Nott the Brave
And that was how Caleb ended up in Nott’s room scarcely half an hour later, gesticulating wildly with two silver candlesticks that technically weren’t stolen because the house and everything in it belonged to them now, right? Right.
“Caleb, I know you can be a little clueless sometimes, but, I’m already married.”
“I know, of course I would not forget, but Yeza does not accompany us into battle—”
“I should hope not!”
“—and you and I, we tend to hang towards the back of things, ja? It’s just a bit of magic, entirely pragmatic, there’s nothing deeper—”
“It’s a wedding ceremony, Caleb! I’m—I’m not that kind of woman! And you’re—no!”
He scrambled out of the room when she started brandishing her vial of acid at him. He didn’t want to risk damaging the candlesticks.
II. Caduceus Clay
“You and I, we tend to hang towards the back of things, ja?” Caleb wasn’t sure whether using the same argument twice was a good idea, but Caduceus at least seemed to be giving it some thought.
“You know, I’m not against the idea of marrying you—”
Caleb’s heart soared—
“But Mr. Caleb, I don’t think you’re treating this ceremony with the seriousness it deserves. If you’re going to get married, I think it should be with a person you intend to make a lifelong commitment with, not for a kind of, outside benefit.”
—and then plunged back into despair.
“So, that’s a no, then,” Caleb said.
Caduceus shook his head in confirmation. “Please take some time to consider what you’re doing,” he said.
III. Yasha
“I know what you’ve been up to, and if you ask her I will roundhouse kick you into the afterlife and back, you hear me?” Beau said, blocking off the hallway.
Caleb clapped his hands together, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “All right, but consider this. Both of us, we have the least armor in this group. And neither of us are so nimble as you—”
“Caleb. What part of wedding ceremony don’t you understand? Do you really want to go in there, say those words—”
Caleb hung his head. “It’s only a name attached to a ceremony,” he mumbled. “It’s arbitrary. We could call it a friendship ritual, and we would never have to say anything like that to her.”
“Yeah, no. I’m pretty sure for it to work you need willing to be bound in matrimony, not willing to exchange friendship bracelets. Frankly, I’m surprised with you.”
His shoulders slumped further. “Ja, you’re right, of course.”
Then he seemed to brighten, and Beau’s eyes widened in horror.
IV. Beau
“Then, what if you and I—oof.” He wondered if his kidney actually ruptured, with that punch. She was getting far too good at this. He blinked up at Beau looming over him, trying to clear his blurring vision.
“You finish that sentence, I’ll put you in a place no one will ever be able to bring you back from. Understand?”
“Verstand—eeeuughh.” He vomited next to her shoes.
V. Jester
While Jester healed him, Caleb explained his idea from start to finish. It was the most anyone had allowed him to speak so far—he listed all the pros, of which there were many, and the cons, of which there were—maybe a few, but nothing to worry too much over. It looked mostly like Jester just wanted to laugh at him while he was doing it, though. That put a damper on things.“Perhaps it is hopeless, asking,” he finished lamely.
Jester nodded, a pitying look on her face that fractured into another fit of giggles. She took Caleb’s hands. “Caleb, that is the least romantic thing anyone has ever said to me. It is completely hopeless. Also—” she wrinkled her nose “I’m your last choice? How could you?”
“Ah, but if I asked you first, I would have had a chance?”
She swatted him, a little too hard. “Oops,” she said, unrepentant. “I forgot to mention, Cay-leb. I think the protection only lasts for, a week or something. Then you can’t do it again until one of you dies.”
“Oh. That’s what we are trying to avoid,” Caleb said. He sounded dejected.
“I don’t know, Caleb, you could have, just, a string of people you marry, you could pick up someone in town and then if we went someplace with more monsters or demons or things they would probably be killed, and you could do it all over again, technically, over and over again and oh, if you’re married you’d probably inherit some of their money after they died and you could use that to buy more silver!”
“That seems like a lot of effort.” But Caleb had a considering look on his face. “What if it was the same person, dying over and over again?”
“I’m not going to use a diamond on—”
“No. What about this.” And he snapped his fingers.
——————————————————————————————
“Okay, but why didn’t he ask me—”
“Shut up, Fjord, I’m trying to listen,” Beau said, elbowing him.
“We are all gathered here today to witness the joining of Caleb Widogast and—” Jester muffled a laugh behind her hand.
“Frumpkin,” Caleb prompted.
“F-frumpkin,” Jester gasped, before bursting into hysterics again. “He’s not even humanoid, Caleb, I don’t think—”
Caleb smirked. “I have a solution for that.” He pulled something small and twisted from his coat pocket—a cocoon—and set it ablaze. The orangish Bengal before them morphed, twisted, then seemed to balloon in size, fur sloughing off and limbs lengthening and bending until—a little goblin girl in a wedding dress stood before them. “Caleb and Frumpkin,” it said, with a curtsy.
“He can talk?!” Beau shouted.
“Why did you make him look like me?!” Nott screeched.
“This feels wrong,” Caduceus said, quietly but emphatically. “This feels so wrong.”
Yasha patted Caduceus on the back. “I think it’s a good plan,” she said. “It should work.”
“I still want to know why he didn’t—”
“Shut up, Fjord!” Nott said.
“—ning of Caleb Widogast, and Frumpkin the Sometimes-Cat, in matrimony.” Jester clapped her hands, and a Nicodranas wedding tune started playing.
“Is this illegal? It feels like it should be illegal,” Beau stage whispered.
“Well, we’re in the Dynasty now, we don’t know any of the laws here,” Nott replied.
“I can’t look,” Caduceus moaned.
Caleb and Frumpkin-the-Goblin danced down the aisle to the music, surprisingly well for a couple with such a height difference. Eventually they made it to the dais where Jester was, and after two or three tries she managed to get through a speech, all the way up to their vows and “I dos.”
“I do,” said Caleb.
“I do,” said Frumpkin. Nott shuddered in her seat.
Caleb had chosen a wine ceremony over a ring exchange, though the wine was not so much wine as it was whiskey pilfered from Nott’s flask in the night. When Caleb and Frumpkin drank, there was a flash of bright green light, that seemed to settle on and then enter both of their chests.
“Thank you, Traveler,” Jester wheezed. “Now, you may kiss the bride.”
Caleb looked at Jester questioningly, then at Frumpkin. He leaned in a fraction, then in a puff of smoke Frumpkin was a cat again, the polymorph ended.
“Oh. Well, the ceremony was done, I just wanted to see it,” Jester said mournfully.
“What do you mean? I kiss Frumpkin every day.” As if to prove his point Caleb scooped up the cat, plopped a kiss on his nose before letting him down.
Yasha started clapping.
“Do you think Jester’s spell would still work, now that Frumpkin is a cat again?” Fjord murmured to Nott, as they began filing out of the room.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” Nott made a couple of finger guns and pointed them at the cat, currently unattended as Caleb seemed in the midst of trying to explain something to a deeply frowning Caduceus.
“You don’t mean—”
“Aaaaletritch bleeeeeehst,” she whispered. “Think about it. If you miss, you’ll know it works. Of course, knowing you you’d probably miss anyway.”
“Hey. Not true.”
“And if you hit, Caleb might actually ask you this time. Unless you like being the odd one out.”
“Look, that’s not what I meant—”
“Eeldritch blaeeest,” she said.
Fjord looked down at his hands. He looked very nervous about something.
“Oiltritch bleeeeeeeest.”
Fjord extended one of his hands. “Eldritch blast,” he whispered.
A globule of greenish energy shot from his pointing fingers. Frumpkin, busy grooming himself, didn’t see it coming. He caught it square in the face, and vanished in a puff of smoke. There was another green flash of light, like the one at the close of the wedding ceremony, and suddenly Caleb’s eyes were on the both of them.
“He did it,” Nott said, and took off running.
“Oh. Oh shit.” Fjord took off running as well.