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“One night,” Gweld coaxes, giving Serrit some really unfairly good puppy eyes. “No one will even know we’re witchers. It’ll be fun.”
“Fun,” Serrit says dubiously.
“Fun!” Gweld insists. “Drink decent booze, dance a bit, enjoy the revelry. I’ve done it before, in other towns; I promise it’s entertaining. And if you give it a try and you really don’t like it, we can take a bottle of plum wine up onto the hill and entertain ourselves.” He wiggles his eyebrows outrageously. Serrit, despite herself, snorts with amusement. Gweld grins.
“You are absurd,” she tells him. Gweld’s grin just gets wider.
“I am that,” he agrees. “So? Please?”
Serrit huffs. “I’ll give it an hour,” she allows. “And then you owe me that plum wine and at least two orgasms.”
“Darling sharp-fanged Viper, that’s not a price, that’s a reward,” Gweld purrs, and produces a pair of masks out of his belt-pouch. The one he puts over his own face has the ears and stylized muzzle of a wolf, so Serrit isn’t surprised when the one he offers her is thin leather patterned to look like scales. It’s dyed a deep and rather appealing green, and the inside is smooth and cool against her skin; she gives Gweld another very dubious look and ties it on.
Between the masks, the flickering firelight only partially illuminating the evening dimness, and the fact that they’re both leaving their swords in the room - and Serrit’s skirt - they don’t look like witchers, at least not from a distance. And Serrit is hardly planning to dance with anyone but Gweld.
They buy hand-pies for dinner from a food stall festooned with ribbons and flowers to celebrate the day, and fill tankards at one of the many kegs of beer set out for the festival-goers, provided at the town’s expense. The ale is decent, Serrit has to admit, and the hand-pies are rich and savory, with flaky pastry that melts on her tongue. It wouldn’t travel well at all, but for wandering around a festival it’s rather nice.
And the music is startlingly compelling: quick and vivid, with a strong beat that makes everyone in the crowd want to dance, swaying or quick-stepping even before they reach the main square and the great bonfire and the circle of masked dancers around it. Serrit doesn’t know the dances they’re doing, but after a few minutes standing and watching, she thinks she could manage them easily enough: they’re not hard, and she’s as agile as any Viper ought to be.
So when Gweld licks the last flakes of pastry off his fingers, sets his tankard aside, and offers her his hand, she puts her own tankard down and takes it, and lets him draw her into the dance.
It is as easy as she’d thought it would be, especially as Gweld appears to already know most of the steps, and his lead is easy to follow. And, of course, he is more than strong enough for the fancy moves, the lifts and twirls that mean Serrit’s feet aren’t on the ground at all.
She’s never going to admit aloud how much she enjoys being flung about as if she’s as light as a feather. Nor how much she likes the broad grin on Gweld’s handsome face, the sparkle of his eyes in the firelight.
The music changes, and the dance changes, and Gweld leads her into the new steps without hesitation. Serrit loops her arm around his shoulders and matches him step for step, reveling in the way her skirt swishes around her ankles, in the feeling of his broad hands on her waist as he twirls her about. She is, in fact, having fun, damn the Wolf for being right.
Another song, and another, and then Gweld draws her out of the dancing just long enough for them both to drink another tankard of ale and then she’s pulling him back into the circle, and he laughs and follows her eagerly.
Serrit…loses herself, a little, in the dancing and the music and the way Gweld’s hands feel steering her through the steps. Forgets, for just a little while, to be a Viper, sharp and vicious and mistrustful of everything. Lets herself pretend, just for an evening, that neither of them were given over to be made monsters; that she is a farmer’s harmless daughter and Gweld a farmer’s son, come to the festival to flirt and dance and laugh like any other couple.
As the night wears on, people start dropping out of the dancing, until at last there are only about a dozen pairs left in the ring around the fire. Serrit isn’t tired - she could keep going all night, and she knows Gweld could, too, and is perfectly willing to do so given the way he’s grinning at her - but mere humans do grow weary, she knows.
The fire burns low, and a few men come out with big rakes and shift the coals around until they form a long line about four inches tall across the width of the square. The other dancers take up a new formation: a line of pairs, male and female, dancing up to the coals and back again, up and back; Gweld and Serrit take their places at the end of the line and mimic the fancy steps, the twirls and lifts that each couple does in sequence.
And then the first couple dances up to the coals and the man lifts his partner over them, and then leaps over them himself, and everyone around the edges of the square cheers heartily as they link arms and walk out of the dancing area together.
Well, alright, this must be the last dance of the night.
Serrit watches with interest, noticing that the men all try to do some sort of fancy footwork as they follow their ladies over the coals, and each couple is given applause and cheers as they finish.
And then it’s only her and Gweld left, and Gweld winks at her as they dance up to the coals and back, up and back, and then he’s picking her up and launching her over the coals high enough that she has time to twirl entirely around three times, skirt belling out around her, before she lands neatly on the other side, and Gweld takes a quick step back and launches himself up and over in a beautiful somersault, landing perfectly balanced at her side and offering her his arm. The music dies away; the applause is deafening.
Serrit loops her arm through Gweld’s and lets him lead her out of the center of the square, and they’re greeted by people holding out tankards of ale, who clap Gweld on the shoulders and grin at Serrit. “Congratulations!” one of them says as Serrit takes a deep drink. “Three cheers for the happy couple!”
“Hip-hip-hooray!” everyone in earshot yells gleefully, as Serrit tries not to choke on the ale.
“Happy couple?” she rasps once she’s caught her breath, because that sounds suspiciously like -
Someone in a fancy gold chain that suggests he’s the alderman steps out into the center of the square and cries, “The blessings of all the gods upon our newlyweds!” and the crowd bursts into cheering again.
“What,” Serrit says flatly, glaring at Gweld.
Gweld has the grace to look sheepish. “Would you believe I didn’t realize that was a marriage ceremony?” he asks, under the noise of the crowd.
“Did you?” Serrit demands.
“I did not, my word of honor as a Wolf,” Gweld pledges, which means he’s probably telling the truth - he doesn’t lie often, and not to Serrit at all that she’s ever been able to tell. And he is stupidly honorable.
Serrit considers being furious for a long moment, and decides to her astonishment that she isn’t. She’s not sure what she is, but it’s not angry.
“Fine,” she says curtly, and takes another drink of ale.
Gweld sidles a little closer, a hopeful little smile curling at the corners of his mouth. “If you wanted me to pay for my unfortunate oversight in orgasms…” he suggests slyly.
“You’re not subtle,” Serrit informs him, takes his arm again, and hauls him through the crowd in the direction of their inn. It doesn’t take much hauling; he follows her easily, eagerly, the same way he always does.
He’s always easy for her, is her Wolf.
Her Wolf. Hers to keep, if they put any weight at all into the marriage customs of some tiny town in the middle of fuckoff nowhere. Hers by right.
Nobody will ever believe that two witchers are married, and nobody who believed it would even care, but there’s something warm and pleased beneath her breastbone at the thought that Gweld is hers, undeniably so.
They make it up to their room, and Serrit takes off her mask and drops it on the little nightstand and turns to give Gweld a hard look. Gweld looks back, wolf mask dangling from one hand, pupils wide and dark and lips still curled in that hopeful smile.
“If you ever call me your wife in public I will geld you,” Serrit says flatly.
Gweld nods. “Alright.”
Serrit glares at him for one more long moment, just because she is who she is, and then she says, “Get over here and give me a proper wedding night. Husband.”
Gweld lights up brighter than the bonfire at its peak. “Yes, wife,” he murmurs, and drops the mask, and steps forward to cup her face in his hands and kiss her like he never wants to stop. Serrit wraps her arms around him - around her husband, what the fuck - and kisses back.