Chapter Text
Fate had granted them a second chance; they were determined not to waste it.
Shirayuki had assembled a list of everything required to effect a legal marriage ceremony in Clarines, and she doggedly pursued its completion with all her customary tenacity.
Obi was ready to jump through whichever and however many hoops as he was bid.
After the gift shopping expedition, Shirayuki acquainted him with their next task: finding a companion to attend each of them during the ceremony.
“Traditionally, it’s a role given to his brother and her sister,” Shirayuki quoted to him solemnly, “or to next of kin.”
Obi rubbed his chin. That didn’t seem practical in their case, and there was no one to offend by not asking.
So perhaps they could skip it altogether?
No, no, Shirayuki assured him, the companions performed important roles for the ceremony, even if they weren’t blood relatives.
Flattening his face in forbearance of this unlucky verdict, Obi asked what those roles might be?
Perhaps they could choose based on skill set. According to her research, the man’s companion stood on guard in case of disturbances. He carried the only weapon permitted at the--
“Whoa, whoa!” Obi broke in, waving his hands palm out. “This man has a weapon? Where does he stand?”
“He - next to… you,” Shirayuki faltered, eyes round with surprise at his vehemence.
Obi suppressed a growl. “What does your companion do?” he asked grimly.
“Oh, well, she stands by me, and, um…” Shirayuki was blushing, “I suppose she helps beforehand with...dresses...and linens...and...things.
“That’s why it’s better if she’s a sister,” Shirayuki added with a sigh, “because it could end up being quite an expensive gift--”
Obi snapped his fingers. He had been thinking furiously, and now he had it: the one man he could trust at his back with a sword.
It wasn’t easy to approach Ryuu about the wedding, because Ryuu was doing his utmost to avoid all talk of the wedding whatsoever.
When Obi cornered him in the dispensary, Ryuu was an arm’s length away from the royal apprentices and a pharmacist visiting from Port Town. They were all buzzing with questions and rumours, but Ryuu was deaf to it.
He carried on grinding pastes and salves without any change of expression while the whispers rose and fell like waves around him.
It was not that Ryuu disapproved of Shirayuki’s marrying Obi, or Obi’s marrying Shirayuki.
It was simply too much.
Wistal hadn’t felt the same since the war - perhaps would never feel the same again, since they had lost Prince Zen.
Away in Port Town, overloaded with work, Ryuu had successfully avoided thinking of all these things. Now it was staring him in the face, and he still wasn’t ready.
The only thought that comforted him was the half-hidden wish that if he ignored everything to do with the wedding thoroughly enough, it would all fade away.
When Obi clapped him on the shoulder, Ryuu jumped, upsetting his jars.
“Ah, sorry, little Ryuu…” Obi worked a vanishing trick with a rag. He seemed as oblivious to the silence greeting his appearance as Ryuu had been to the hubbub preceding it.
Exuding unconcern, even as his fingers crept up to his shoulder, Obi leaned towards Ryuu. “It sure is stuffy in here. Fancy a walk?”
The friendship of Obi and Ryuu was like that of a hound and a fox, in that neither understood the nature of the other.
Obi passed in and out of Ryuu’s life like acts of nature: impossible to ignore or explain, often cataclysmic.
Meanwhile Obi regarded him with the wondering curiosity one might direct at a woodland animal that lived in the garden: inscrutable, evidently brilliant at the mysterious work with which it busied itself, and yet often helpless in the face of obstacles that Obi would have found trivial.
In moments like those, Obi would approach with cautious affection, not wishing to spook the little fellow, yet drawn irrepressibly to mend his troubles.
In this they were alike: Neither spoke freely of his inner life.
Even if Obi had not vanished without a word then returned to find Ryuu absent, they would not have found the occasion to unburden their hearts to each other.
Neither did they now, sheltered by the relative privacy of the open castle grounds, consider that the moment of confidence might have arrived.
They strolled side by side, passing between the shimmering mounds of garden beds that receded from them like the gentle roll of an ocean swell.
Each preferred to think of anything but the present moment.
Ryuu’s thoughts tended backwards, returning to the project he had left behind him, while Obi’s bounded ahead to that fateful day that hovered so tantalizingly close.
Being declared fit to marry a princess didn’t make Obi feel any more in his element than he had while trailing her around her royal duties. He had little experience to guide him in an affair of this magnitude. Nor could he trust his usual instincts in such a delicate matter.
He had only this: a bone-deep desire to serve her.
Knowing what would please her, or at least lay her anxieties to rest, emboldened him to leap where even a most inferior sort of angel, such as his former self, would never have dared to tread.
She had asked him, so he would ask Ryuu; there was no other way forward.
To cover his uncertainty, Obi blustered.
He spoke volubly of nothing at all, remarking on what-not and entreating Ryuu’s opinion on hows-it.
His words washed over Ryuu, unintelligible as the wind in the branches. The young pharmacist was just beginning to feel himself safe, just starting to hope that he might have escaped the looming danger of confronting the future face-to-face.
Then Obi asked, “How about it, little Ryuu? Will you stand up for us at the wedding?”
The words, the gardens, and above all, the sense of calm receded from Ryuu rapidly.
Everything began to blur as, trapped by the very thing he had tried his hardest to avoid, he frantically sought to escape from his own senses.
Oblivious, Obi carried on, “It shouldn’t be too much trouble for you, if it’s here at the castle. Think the chief will let you get away for a bit?”
Ryuu’s eyes had widened until they reflected the clouds.
He said nothing.
“It’s all for the miss, you know.” Obi leaned over Ryuu conspiratorially.
He remembered mostly to address Shirayuki by name to her face but slipped into his old habits when referring to her.
For Obi, names were precious; he didn’t bandy them around lightly, not even among friends.
Ryuu looked thin and pale.
His eyes seemed to swallow his face as he wished himself away, far from here, into nothingness if necessary.
He wet his lips, but no words came to him.
“There’s only...ah, right! You could wear that pharmacist uniform,” Obi went on, as if in agreement with Ryuu’s silence. “It’s a royal thing, isn’t it…
“Then there’s just one extra - a little thing - you wouldn’t mind carrying a sword, would you, Ryuu?” Here Obi paused to smile winningly at his companion.
Ryuu’s eyes, pupils dilated, hung somewhere over Obi’s left ear.
He had stopped dead.
“Perfect!” Obi slung an arm around his shoulders. “That’s exactly why I chose you. Just...remember that we don’t want anyone cut with it, hmmm?”
