Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dinner time at the Melchior-Caspars’ is never a civil ordeal. 

But, honestly—Navia doesn’t really mind it. 

If anything, it makes her feel more alive, especially now that she’s practically retired (upon her own accords, of course) and needed that extra shot of youthful boost in her life. Is there any better way to get her childlike wonder back than to sit at a circular dinner table with her middle-aged wife, surrounded by their six rambunctious children? 

It’s loud even before everyone else is seated. Clorinde sighs at her side, defeated with trying to quiet down their children, and Navia merely giggles and puts her hand on top of Clorinde’s worn-down knuckles. 

She feels Clorinde melt into her touch. Navia gives her a sly smile, even when Clorinde pointedly looks away from her. She knew that would work.

“Philippe!” Clorinde barks, the command in her voice making their fifteen-year-old son freeze up next to them. “Give Marie’s sketchbook back. It’s not nice to dangle your sister’s things overhead at the dinner table.”

“Yeah, bro. What’s wrong with you?” André, Philippe’s twin brother, snickers at his side. 

“Don’t get me started on you, young man,” Clorinde barks, turning her head to André so fast that he starts to bury his head into his turtleneck. 

Navia can guess that his girlfriend had given that new sweater to him, given how easily it suits him. Boys, and even men for that matter, don’t often know how to dress the best without a sister or a girlfriend, and Navia knows for a fact that André’s sisters wouldn’t help him get dressed for dinner—and so therefore, the sweater’s culprit is his girlfriend. 

The idea must have struck Clorinde at the same time, because her nose flares and she straightens up. The topic of their son’s girlfriend is still a raw subject. Navia rubs her arm and bites back a laugh. 

“Does that mean I can dangle it over her head outside of the dinner table?” Philippe asks innocently, but he obediently lowers his arm to let Marquise snatch it back. 

“You know exactly what I meant,” Clorinde says with a tired sigh. Another commotion sounds next to them—namely, two of their younger children whining while tugging over the same piece of ham. “Marquise! Aurelie! We have plenty of ham at the table! Stop fighting.”

“Oof. Full names,” Louise comments through her teeth in feigned pity. 

“Sorry,” their two youngest daughters say in unison. 

Clementine, their eldest at the tender age of sixteen (the thought alone puts a tear in Navia’s eye all of a sudden—they grow up so fast), sighs and puts her elbow on the table as she pokes at her roasted ham.

“Clem,” Clorinde warns slowly, narrowing her eyes. 

Clementine sits up and clears her throat, effectively removing her elbow from the table. Clorinde nods her head in approval. 

Navia laughs at her side. She takes Clorinde’s forearm—still strong from decades of fencing and duties, even years after her retirement—and squeezes it soothingly. She can feel her wife slowly melt into her touch. 

“Don’t mind your mother,” she tells her children, but she most especially directs it at Clementine. “She’s just a little tired today. If you ask me, I think her irritation is because she missed having you in the house.”

She stage-whispers the last part of her declaration to Clementine, even leaning closer to her to make a point. Clorinde pouts and looks away, but she says nothing to clear her name. She knows better than to go against her wife. 

Clementine laughs. “Awww, Ma. I was only gone for a week!” she exclaims, giving Clorinde a lopsided smile. Navia can feel Clorinde melt even more against her touch. She knows how weak Clorinde gets with any of their children’s smiles—they’re practically identical to her own. 

“A week is a long time when the longest I’ve ever been separated from you in the past was when I had to use the bathroom in between diaper duty,” Clorinde says with a mild sniff. “But… I am proud of you, Clem. You know I would always support you in everything you’d like to do.”

Navia nods her head enthusiastically. She forks some ham on her plate and feeds Clorinde while she says, “Acting is wonderful! I remember when I was younger, doing all those acting gigs for commercials and TV shows.” She sighs fondly at the memory and looks at Clorinde, who’s still happily chewing on the piece of ham that Navia spoon-fed her. “Do you remember that movie that I acted in a while back, bébé? The one with the giant axes and swords?”

“You’ve acted in many movies with giant axes and swords,” Clorinde points out. 

“Well, I still enjoyed them all!” Navia exclaims. 

Clementine squirms in her seat. Navia notices that she’s barely touched her ham, so she spears some fried fish from the middle of the table and plops it onto Clementine’s plate. Clem’s favorite. 

Clementine smiles weakly at her, then asks, “Were you this nervous when you acted for the first few times, Mom?”

“Oh, I was a mess, Lemon Drop,” Navia insists. She cuts up another piece of ham and spoon-feeds Clorinde another piece. 

“Quite,” Clorinde agrees, even with part of her mouth full of food. “She threw up backstage once. I had to pat her back and show her a few goat videos on my phone to calm her down.”

Navia makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat and kicks Clorinde in the foot underneath the table. Clorinde laughs. 

“Point is,” Navia says quickly, even as their children giggle at some newfound information, “you’ll get better with the nerves over time. They never really disappear—but with a good support system and some breathing exercises, you’ll do amazing. All of you will, in whatever you like to do.”

André sighs wistfully. “I wish that were true, but even in the affairs of love, I’m ridiculed everyday by my own family,” he says mournfully and dramatically. 

Oh, boy.

Navia glances at Clorinde. She already knows what’s about to happen, and she has to stuff her mouth with some ham to keep from laughing.

Clorinde’s nose flares, and she draws her shoulders up until she’s practically glaring a whole laser beam in between André’s eyebrows. Philippe and Clementine, who had been on either side of him, move their chairs slightly to get out of Clorinde’s way. 

“André. Callas. Melchior-Caspar,” she warns. 

“It’s true!” he argues, but squeaks when Clorinde shoots him a particularly nasty look. 

“I have told each and every single one of you at this table that you are allowed to love who you want to love, as long as you are happy, healthy, and safe,” Clorinde tells them, her voice booming and commanding. Navia can see a vein popping out of her neck. “But—”

“I am happy, healthy, and safe with Geneviève!” André argues. He pulls at the collar of his sweater. “Look at this! She got this for me just because she could.”

Clorinde dryly replies, “And now you look exactly like one of her fathers, which is not a good thing in my eyes.”

“She got you a new phone for Christmas!”

“My approval cannot be bought.”

“Should she beg for forgiveness in front of you for being born in her family?” André jests. 

Everyone at the table knows that this is all in good fun—even though André is clearly a little exasperated, and Clorinde’s snippy behavior is just a tiny bit serious. 

Clorinde answers, “Geneviève Neuvillette is a wonderful young girl, but it will take me a minimum of twenty-five years to approve of her entirely.”

Louise whistles lowly. “Wow. That’s a whole life sentence.”

“How do you know what a life sentence is?” Philippe asks. 

“Uh, because I read?” Louise says. 

“Uh, because I read?” Philippe mocks. 

“You asked!” 

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Louise,” Clementine says dismissively. 

“Thank you for being the level-headed one, Lemon. I knew that you would know the importance of maturity as the oldest and the—” Clorinde starts with a sigh. 

“I don’t think Philippe knows how to read anyway,” Clementine finishes, then immediately stuffs her face with a big bite of her food. 

The table erupts into chaos once more, and neither Navia nor Clorinde say anything to stop them. They’ve played this game too many times to try and stop the inevitable. 

Defeated after realizing that they’ve yet to have a peaceful dinner, Clorinde slumps against her chair and rubs the spot between her eyebrows to rid the tension there.

To settle Clorinde down, Navia gives her another spoonful of her food. Clorinde happily bites down and nods in approval, smiling slightly at her with a twinkle in her eye. After decades of marriage, it’s easy to know just from her look that Clorinde is thanking her. 

Navia giggles and kisses her cheek. 

“Ewww!” Aurelie exclaims, pointing at Navia and Clorinde. “They’re kissing at the table again!”

“Moms!” Marquise complains. “You promised no kissing when we’re eating!”

“Oh, calm down,” Navia says with a snort. She squeezes Clorinde’s hand under the table, and Clorinde glances at her with a sly smile. “It was just a kiss on the cheek.”

“A kiss on the cheek, the lips, whatever—where would it end?” André ponders. 

“And we only said we’d stop kissing if all of you stopped being little rascals, pomme d'amour,” Clorinde reminds them, pointedly ignoring André’s question. André makes a face at his childhood nickname. “How about just one nice dinner this week, hmm? Can we try to have that?”

“Depends if Philippe can stop hogging the gravy,” Clementine says snidely. 

“I’m a growing boy!” he argues, his mouth full of food. He practically spits it everywhere. 

“Philippe,” Clorinde only says, and he groans as he pushes the gravy boat in Clementine’s direction to give her some. 

“Thank you,” Clementine replies to her brother with a smile, but maybe the way she says it or the way she smiles at him (Navia’s not really sure; after all, her kids always have some sort of way to telepathically communicate with each other, for good and for bad) had rubbed onto Philippe, because as soon as he gulps down his mouthful of food, he says—

“Clementine snuck off set, like, twice last week to see a girl.”

If Navia thought chaos had transpired ten minutes before, now was a nuclear explosion. 

Appalled, Navia looks over at Clementine and sets down her utensils. “Clem! You didn’t!”

“Clementine Aurora Caspar, you did not—!” Clorinde tries to say at the same time. 

Yikes. Two full name drops by her wife in the span of the past hour. 

Clementine looks between her brother and her mothers and her other shocked siblings with an open mouth. Everyone’s plates have been completely forgotten at that point. “I—I was just trying—it wasn’t like—” she stammers to her parents. 

Then, she looks at Philippe, points at him, and exclaims, “You promised you wouldn’t tell!”

Philippe puts his hands up. “I couldn’t just keep it to myself! I never keep secrets from Mom and Mama, you know that! I start sweating really bad, and it’s gross!”

“Gross!” Aurelie reiterates and plugs her nose. 

“What’s her name?” Marquise asks, intrigued. She pushes her chair in closer. “Was it your co-star? Oh my god, Mom, isn’t that Auntie Furina’s kid?”

“No!” Clementine says, horrified. “We’re just friends!”

“Isn’t it the Neuvillettes’ oldest, then? Weren’t you two seen in a photoshoot a while back? André, back me up,” Marquise barks. 

André, who was in the middle of a big bite of his food, coughs and pounds his chest. “Geneviève told me that her sister was working as a side character in a show with Clem for a while, but that was a long time ago,” he says in between a wheeze. 

Marquise nods considerably like she’s a seasoned detective. Leave it to Clorinde and Navia’s middle child to stir up more drama between everyone. Navia can already see her doing very well in one of Furina’s plays when she’s older. 

“Why didn’t you tell me!” Louise asks, remorseful. “I could’ve kept a better secret than Philippe. No offense.”

“Many taken!” Philippe responds, affronted. 

“It wasn’t my choice,” Clementine says with a frown. “I accidentally butt-dialed him, and he—”

“Oh, ew. I’m so sorry, bro.” Marquise pats Phillippe’s arm beside her. 

“He didn’t hear anything weird!” Clementine snaps.

“So what was it then?” André asks curiously. “A little smooch? Love declarations in bed? You know, when Geneviève and I first met, we spent sixteen hours walking around the Court of Fontaine and making dozens of wishes at the—”

“Okay, quiet!” Navia shouts. 

The table falls silent. Even Clorinde looks over at her, impressed. 

From the little quirk in the corner of her lip, Navia can guess that she’s impressed enough to show her appreciation sometime in the bedroom after dinner. But that’s obviously for later.

Navia huffs. “First of all, stop hounding your sister. All of you.” Their children hang their heads in guilt, and they mutter apologies. 

Navia turns to look at Clementine next. Clementine sinks into her chair. 

“Why didn’t you tell me or your mother?” she asks, a little hurt. “We’ve told all of you since the day you could speak that you could tell us anything—if anyone at the galas or studios were being inappropriate with you, if you wanted something new for your birthday, or if you had a new…” She makes gestures with her hands in the air. 

A few of her children giggle at her mining. Clementine just frowns. 

“I’m sorry,” she starts sadly. 

Clorinde shakes her head. “Don’t be. We aren’t angry. Just… confused. Especially if you could’ve just told us you needed help asking for time off set to—” she coughs into her fist, “—mingle.” 

Then Clorinde considers her own words, and adds, “If you prefer to have this conversation without the prying, gigantic eyes and ears of your other siblings, then—”

“Hey!” Marquise argues, but she’s laughing.

Clementine shakes her head, and the sides of her lips are beginning to come up in a smile. “It’s alright. It’s not a big deal. To me, anyway.”

Navia tilts her head at Clementine. “So… who’s the lucky gal?” she jokes, but it’s somehow a little strained. 

Perhaps the thought of her little girl growing up so fast is getting to her more than she thought. 

Clementine gives her a wobbly smile. “I can show you pictures of her later,” she volunteers.

“We’d love to see,” Clorinde says sincerely. 

Clementine breathes out a small laugh and she fiddles with the food on her plate. “I never told anyone because I was scared of what you were going to think,” she admits. “I mean—both of you practically have the love story. I thought you were going to lecture me about doing better.”

“As much as I like to scold André in his personal choices—” Clorinde starts. 

“Ma!” he squeaks. 

“—I also wouldn’t stop him, because I trust him to follow his heart.” Clorinde grows quiet, and she visibly swallows. Navia squeezes her hand to assure her, and Clorinde squeezes back. “If I had followed my heart, a long time ago, perhaps my love story with your mother would have had less pain in it.”

Their children look away. 

Navia knows that they’re recalling what they’ve seen on the Internet, and what they’ve told them to prepare what they would inevitably see online anyway. Their whole lives have practically been documented from front to back, whether they like it or not. 

Except for one part. 

The thought makes Navia smile despite herself. She kinda wishes they documented it, even if it was just in writing or something similar. 

Clorinde clears her throat. “What I’m trying to say is that neither your mother nor I have room to judge you in your choices. Unless you are in danger or actively unhappy, neither of us will say a single thing against it.”

Clementine shakes her head solemnly. “It’s not that,” she says quietly. “I just wanted you to think everything I did was perfect. If you didn’t approve of her, even for a tiny little thing—” She shrinks into her seat even more. 

That’s like a stab into Navia’s heart. 

Clementine has always been their golden child. 

But Navia and Clorinde have always meant that in the sense that Clementine, as well as all of their children, are the lights in their life. Not that they had to be perfect. 

Neither Navia nor Clorinde are perfect, and yet they love each other very much. What need would they have to impose that kind of rule onto their beautiful children? 

“Oh, Lemon,” Clorinde whispers. Navia melts at the tenderness in her voice. “You never had to be perfect for us. You’re incredible just the way you are. All of you are.”

Clementine gives her a wary smile. She can see the slight sheen in Clem’s eyes, even as she tries to desperately blink it away. Even their other children seem to try not to cry. 

It almost makes Navia laugh. Ah, her and her weepy genetics. Clorinde had very solemn years trying to soothe her babies to keep them from crying, and to keep her wife from crying as well. 

There are a few times in their lives where Clorinde had been the blubbering baby. It goes hand in hand with that undocumented part of their lives. 

Perhaps this was the perfect time to tell them. 

“Besides, your mama or I never had a perfect love story,” Navia snorts. 

“We know,” Marquise says, not unkindly. She chews on a few peas. “There were, what? Guns and kidnapping and all that? I saw the movie adaptation about it at least half a dozen times by now.”

“Not just that, Kiwi,” Navia says cryptically. 

Clorinde glances at her sharply. 

They hold each other’s gazes—and Clorinde smiles. 

Navia can see the crow’s feet at the corners of Clorinde’s eyes. She can see her smile lines, and the way her beautiful blue hair is starting to gray at a few strands. 

Navia feeds Clorinde another mouthful of food. “Can you get me some of the omelet next?” Clorinde whispers to her, and Navia giggles and fills up her spoon with the request to give to Clorinde. 

Clorinde chews happily and presses a kiss to the corner of Navia’s eye, where her wrinkles lie. “You are the most wonderful, most gorgeous girl even after all these years,” she murmurs. 

Navia giggles at that, and her heart is full. 

Clorinde says that every day. She still loves it. 

“Can you stop smooching and get to the point?” Philippe complains. 

“Oh! Right,” Navia says quickly. She clears her throat and dabs at the corner of her mouth with a napkin to seem presentable. Clorinde is quiet at her side. She knows just how much Navia likes to tell this story to their closest friends—and now, their children. 

Navia smiles. 

“Your mother and I almost never got married,” Navia says, like she’s telling them about the weather. “In fact, our wedding day wasn’t at the Palais Mermonia like all the newspapers state. We got married in a back alley.”

A pause. 

Then—

“What?”

“You’re worth over a billion mora, and you choose to get married in a back alley?”

“Why?!”

“Were you pregnant with one of us and needed to get married ASAP?”

“I thought you had a royal wedding! Why would you lie to your innocent kids!”

“A back alley is so romantic when you think about it, though.”

Clorinde laughs. 

She laughs loud enough that it stops everyone dead in their tracks. Even Navia. 

Clorinde never laughs that loudly. In fact, she’s quite known to be the opposite, if the last hour at the dinner table had anything to say about it. 

Clorinde nudges Navia with her knee. “I can start from the beginning,” Clorinde suggests, then looks at the ceiling to think. “But if you prefer that we just keep eating dinner, rather than to tell you this boring story of your mothers’ wedding, then—”

The answer from six children in the room is a resounding, “No!” 

Navia snorts. She lays her head on Clorinde’s shoulder. “Tell them,” she says with a laugh. “Or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

Clorinde kisses her hairline and hovers a piece of pineapple pierced on her fork in front of her face. Navia eats it greedily, and for once, none of their children make faces or tell them to stop being so grossed. They all seem too occupied with staring at Clorinde intently. 

“Well, it was almost twenty years ago,” Clorinde says, mostly to herself. “Everything was perfect leading up to our wedding. We had the venue, we had every single vendor booked, our cake I heard was five stories tall—”

“You heard?” Clementine asks incredulously. “You didn’t see?”

Navia laughs and puts a finger up to her lips. 

Clorinde’s shoulders shake as she laughs a little, then she continues, “No, we didn’t see, but that’s a detail for later. The point is, our wedding was coined the ‘wedding of the century’ before it even began. It still is today, but no one has the details, except for a few stray rumors.”

“And tonight,” Navia says with grandiosity, smiling at her kids, “the six of you get to know the unadulterated truth.”

Clorinde can feel the sun on her face before she can even open her eyes. 

She bathes in the warmth with her eyes closed, smiling to herself while she counts down to sixty to give herself a full minute of enjoyment before facing the day ahead. 

The day, she’s sure, that she will remember for the rest of her life. 

When she hits sixty in her head, Clorinde opens her eyes and stretches her arms over her pillow. She can hear the birds singing outside of their cracked-open window, and she can feel the gentle breeze tickle over the exposed skin that pokes beneath from their fluffy duvet covers. The fancy Fontainian hotel that Navia booked for the night and morning of their important day is certainly something to behold. 

It’s a rare thing for either Clorinde or Navia to sleep with their clothes on. They’ve learned a long time ago since moving in together that putting their clothes back on from activities the night before were merely extraneous at best. 

Clorinde shimmies her shoulders underneath the covers. She glances at the clock in the corner of the room, and her smile stretches some more over her face. They still have about an hour until they need to rise. 

Perfect. That gives her ample time with the woman she loves. 

Navia is still sleeping soundlessly next to her. She’s facing her, with her hand on the pillow and her lips parted in her gentle sleep. Clorinde can tell from her relaxed brow that she’s not having nightmares tonight. She’s glad. This isn’t the kind of day that they could afford to have any sort of nightmares or anxious thoughts with. It would be bad luck. 

Clorinde drags the tips of her fingers over Navia’s curled fingers on the pillow between them. Her hand is soft to the touch, and Clorinde can’t help but smile when she finds the bare ring finger. 

She shimmies closer to Navia’s side, slotting her bare leg against Navia’s, and takes a hold of her wrist to kiss Navia’s bare ring finger. 

“Mon cœur,” she murmurs softly. “It’s time to wake up.”

It really isn’t. But can she be blamed for wanting to see Navia’s beautiful smile? 

Navia stirs gently in her sleep, her eyebrows pinching together. Adorable, Clorinde thinks. She tries again by saying, “Navia. We have to get up soon.”

A groan escapes Navia’s lips, and Clorinde has to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. 

Navia’s hand escapes from Clorinde’s grasp, and she rolls over on her back to whine and stretch. Clorinde watches her silently. This sight of Navia grumpily waking in the morning is an extremely familiar one, but not one that she can ever tire of. 

Navia’s eyes flutter open, and she rolls back onto her shoulder to face Clorinde. She smiles warmly at her, and Clorinde feels her chest ache. How lucky is she to get to wake to this sight every single morning of her life?

“Well, hello to you too,” Navia teases, her voice still thick and husky from sleep.

Clorinde chuckles, reaching with her hand to play with Navia’s fingers. She kisses Navia’s knuckle reverently, then comments, “This is the first time in a while you haven’t begged me to wake you up in another five minutes.”

Navia giggles. She presses her forehead against Clorinde’s and sighs contentedly. “How could I?” Navia asks. “I practically couldn’t sleep last night from the excitement. Makes sense that I don’t want to wait for a second longer.”

“I see,” Clorinde says in amusement. She leans over her pillow to take one side of Navia’s cheek, swipes her cheekbone even as Navia giggles, and leans down to kiss her full on the mouth. 

She feels Navia sigh against her kiss. Neither of them really care about morning breath. They don’t really care about anything right now except each other. 

Clorinde kisses her a second time, and she feels Navia melt against her touch. She props herself on her elbow and pushes herself off to climb over top of Navia, her arms on either side of the angel beneath her.

She peppers kisses from Navia’s mouth to her cheeks to her neck to her collarbone. It makes Navia laugh loudly with joy, and each squeal of laughter rejuvenates her more.

Clorinde kisses the underside of her jaw deeply. She exhales against Navia’s goosebumped skin and whispers against it, “Good morning, my beautiful wife.”

Navia’s laughter is giggly, exasperated, and happy all at once. She puts her hands on Clorinde’s waist to keep her securely on top of her. 

Navia swiftly pecks her lips. It makes Clorinde smile dopily on top of her. “I’m not your wife yet, silly!” Navia teases, but the big smile on her face tells Clorinde that she doesn’t mind the little slip of the tongue at all. 

Clorinde exhales with a laugh. She bends down to kiss Navia again, then quietly responds, “Not yet—but soon. In less than twelve hours, in fact.”

“Someone’s excited,” Navia says with a peeling laugh. 

Clorinde nibbles on her jaw for the indiscretion, and Navia bucks her hips from the shock and laughs even louder. Still, she does nothing to push Clorinde off of her, and Clorinde does nothing to do it herself. 

“Are you telling me you aren’t excited too?” Clorinde asks her, jokingly affronted. She pins down Navia’s arms at her side, and Navia struggles and laughs. “Over a year of careful planning and trying not to rush down to the courthouse to tie the knot already and suddenly you get cold feet? Is that it, Navia?”

“No!” Navia squeals, and she snorts out a laugh when Clorinde’s cold fingers find her way to her bare stomach. “I’m—I’m sorry! I’m excited too, I swear!”

Clorinde giggles and kisses her gently on the corner of the mouth. She removes her fingers from Navia’s sides, and Navia begins to breathe normally again. 

“You’re so evil,” Navia grumbles.

Clorinde laughs at that. Slowly, she descends down from on top of Navia to take hold of her chin and kiss her deeply. Sensually. 

Navia senses her intentions, and she melts into her kiss. Clorinde hears a low moan come in between their kisses when she slots her knee between Navia’s bare thighs and presses gently. She smiles into their kiss. Just the reaction she was hoping for. 

“How about we consummate this marriage now rather than later, hmm?” Clorinde murmurs in her ear. “It’ll save us the trouble.”

Navia laughs, but she trembles beneath her when Clorinde’s hand slips onto her stomach—this time, not to tickle. “Are you saying you don’t want to consummate it tonight too?” she asks with a pout. 

“Oh, I know you better than that,” Clorinde declares. She pecks Navia’s cheek. “I was merely suggesting we do it now and tonight. A pre-celebration and a post-celebration to our union, if you will.”

“You drive a hard bargain, my love,” Navia purrs. She’s looking at her through her eyelashes.

Clorinde can feel the heat pooling in her stomach already. She surges down to capture Navia’s full lips again, and Navia moans. Clorinde’s hand slips between her breasts, down to her stomach, and just over her pelvic bone, and to—

There’s a few harsh knocks at their door.

“Clorinde! Navia!” Furina’s muffled voice yells. “If you’re still in bed, you better get up soon!”

Navia laughs against her chest while Clorinde huffs. So much for a consummation. 

Clorinde gently wraps her fingers on Navia’s neck—a move that makes Navia grin up at her—and kisses her. “We’ll finish this tonight,” she gruffs unhappily. 

“I’m more than confident that you will,” Navia chirps, and Clorinde huffs out a small laugh before swinging her legs off of the bed to find some clothes. 

“We’re coming!” Clorinde calls out when Furina knocks incessantly again.

Clorinde brings Navia a fresh pair of presentable clothes from their drawers, and Navia pecks her on the lips in appreciation. They get dressed as quickly as they can, all the while Furina continues to beat down on their poor door. 

“We’re here, we’re here,” Clorinde says with a huff, opening the door while Furina has her fist raised mid-knock. 

Furina clamps her mouth shut to keep from hollering for them. She looks between Clorinde and Navia, who are arm-in-arm at the door frame. Furina gives them a quirk of the eyebrow, then says, “I know you said you didn’t want to spend the night separately like most couples in Fontaine do, but at least spend the morning apart.”

“We will,” Navia promises. Though, she clings harder to Clorinde’s side. Clorinde tries not to laugh at the face Furina makes. “But let me kiss her one more time before you take her away to get ready. Lumine isn’t even here to whisk me away yet!”

Furina waves her hand dismissively. “She’ll be here soon. Her plane landed an hour ago. I checked,” she informs her. She points a finger at Clorinde. “As for you, we have a lot of things on the agenda to get through. So, say your goodbyes to your future wife—but don’t make it so dramatic. You’ll see her this afternoon.”

Clorinde rolls her eyes, but she closes the door on Furina so that she can turn to Navia with a huff. Navia is already giggling, but she wraps her arms around Clorinde’s neck to pull her in closer.

“I was hoping that we’d get at least ten minutes in bed together before we have to go,” Clorinde grumbles. She leans her forehead against Navia’s.

Navia giggles again. “We’ll have plenty of time tonight,” she promises, tracing her fingernail over Clorinde’s collarbone. She bats her eyelashes at Clorinde, and Clorinde’s words get stuck in her throat. Navia’s subsequent, sly smile tells her that Navia knows exactly what kind of effect she has on her at all times.

“Kiss me before you have to go?” Navia asks innocently. 

Clorinde chuckles, but she obeys. 

There is no world where she wouldn’t obey to Navia Caspar’s every whim and wish.

“Are you going to wait here?” Clorinde asks her. 

Navia shakes her head. “I’ll text Lumine and the other bridesmaids to meet me at the lobby downstairs. I know how paranoid you get about me being left alone.”

Clorinde sighs. “Your protection is my number one priority, no matter what,” she tries to defend. 

Navia snorts, and she kisses Clorinde again. “I know,” she teases. Her eyes soften as she looks into Clorinde’s pouty face. She plays with Clorinde’s hair as she adds, “After everything we’ve been through, I can’t blame you. It’s not a problem to me. There’s a reason why I let you be in charge of all the security for the venue, no matter how extreme I thought it was.”

“You’re an angel, you know that?” Clorinde says with a sigh. 

“Only yours,” Navia jokes. 

Clorinde kisses her one last time. She tries to hold back her sentimentality with her kiss. She wants the memorable kiss to come with the one at the altar. 

“Be safe, darling,” Clorinde tells her softly. She gently drags her knuckles over Navia’s soft cheek. “Call me if you need me. I don’t care if it’s bad luck. If you need me, I will be there for you.”

“And for you too,” Navia reminds her with an affectionate sigh.

“Um, hello?” Furina calls from the other side of the door. “Remember what I said about making your goodbyes not too dramatic? We have lots of things to do today!”

Navia and Clorinde look at each other one last time, then giggle. 

They crack open the door, and Furina is standing there with her hands on her hips like a school teacher who had caught her students making out in the hallway. Navia whistles and Clorinde looks away guiltily. 

Furina shakes her head and takes Clorinde’s wrist, yanking her away from their hotel room. She waves at Navia and says, “We’ll see you soon!”

Clorinde is practically dragged through the hotel by Furina. She huffs, but she does nothing to reprimand Furina for her bossiness. It’s the least she can do, considering that Furina had taken it into her own hands to make sure that the wedding venue was in tip-top shape for them. 

They get into Furina’s private car, and Furina’s chauffeur nods and closes the door for them. They drive off, and Furina immediately breaks into her spiel. 

“I’ve called every single vendor an hour ago to make sure that they still remember what time to come to the venue,” she starts, listing everything off on her fingers, “the wedding photographer will come around eleven in the morning to take pictures of you both separately and with your friends, then she’ll take pictures of you together after the ceremony. I’ve stocked the reception with as much expensive wine as I can find—some CEO named Diluc from Mondstadt is giving his most expensive wines for your wedding as a gift, I was told—and the caterers are already preparing the meals.”

“You really didn’t have to do all that,” Clorinde says with pleasant surprise. 

Furina shrugs. She seems a little tense. “I merely felt like alleviating some of your burden.”

“You’re the best Maid of Honor and coordinator a bride can have,” Clorinde says with a sigh. “And have you—?” 

“Yes, yes, I made sure that the tablecloths and napkins were the right shade of cream, yellow, and purple,” Furina tells her off-handedly. “I called Chiori an hour ago, and she said she was working on the final touches for both of your wedding dresses. She’s still a little annoyed that you didn’t ask her to make the bridesmaids’, y’know.”

Clorinde chuckles and wipes the sweat onto her pants. “We’ve told you both already. The last thing Navia and I wanted was to take advantage of our friends’ kindness, and we didn’t want to overwork her. Take you, for example. You’re my Maid of Honor and my ring-bearer. I can’t thank you enough for that, and I would never put more on your shoulders after everything you’re already doing for me.”

Furina goes quiet at that. 

Before Clorinde can ask what’s wrong, Furina flippantly continues to list off the duties that she’s taken care of. 

“I called to make sure that the pyrotechnics were primed and ready, the florists are already packing up their flowers for your tables’ centerpieces, I lost the rings, the band was wondering what song you’d like them to play at the reception, and the dogs you wanted to spread the flowers are—”

“Wait.” Clorinde turns to look at Furina, alarmed. “Say that again?”

“I called to make sure the pyrotechnics were primed and ready,” Furina repeats calmly. “And the florists are—”

“You lost the rings?” Clorinde asks her incredulously. “What do you mean you lost the rings?”

Furina wrings her hands nervously. Her mask of calmness falls away, and Clorinde can see anxiety written all over her face and body language. 

“I’m so sorry!” Furina wails, and she slaps her hands over her face and melts into the seat cushions as if she was trying to soak into them like water. “I don’t know what happened! I kept them in my room for safekeeping last night, but then I woke up, and—and they weren’t there, and I spent hours trying to look for them, and—”

“Okay, calm down. It’s alright. It’s alright, Furina,” Clorinde soothes, putting a hand on Furina’s shoulder to steady her. “I’m not angry. But why didn’t you just… call me or Navia?”

“Because I figured you two were having fun in your hotel room to celebrate the night before your wedding,” Furina says solemnly. She sniffles and looks at Clorinde. “Was I wrong? The last thing I wanted was to walk in on you two doing… what couples do.” She shivers.

Clorinde stays silent. It’s the best “Yes, we were obviously doing that,” that she can give to Furina in this matter. 

She clears her throat. “So the last place you saw it was at your place?” she asks. 

“Yes,” Furina confirms with a nod. “I put it in my safe and everything. Do you think someone broke in and stole it?”

Clorinde ponders it. She looks out the window, trying to steady her fast heartbeat. It should be alright, she tries to tell herself. They still have a considerable amount of time until she has to be at the venue and marry the love of her life. And, if they can’t find the rings, that shouldn’t matter too much. She has more than enough money on her own from her fencing winnings to buy her and Navia another pair of wedding rings, even if it’s last minute. 

She takes a deep breath, then exhales evenly. “It’s possible,” she admits. “Perhaps someone still has a grudge against me and Navia. It’s not… hard to imagine.”

Furina nods solemnly. 

Clorinde asks, “Why didn’t you tell me and Navia when you came up to our door? Why only tell me?”

Furina shrugs. “Because I know you both. Navia already has enough on her plate to make sure that her side of the bridesmaids party is being dealt with, and I know for a mere fact that the last thing you’d want is to stress her out more. So, I figured that you’d want to deal with this without telling her.”

Clorinde huffs out a laugh. “Am I that predictable?”

“When it comes to Navia?” Furina declares. “Absolutely.”

Clorinde shakes her head and looks back out the window. “So, I’m assuming that you’ve already told your chauffeur to direct us back to your place?”

“Yes,” Furina says. “I’ve directed enough detective film noirs to know that you have to start at the beginning.”

Laughing, Clorinde nods. “Good,” she says simply. “And I know you already said it, but—don’t tell Navia about this. We can deal with this ourselves.”

She wants Navia to have the best day of her life, empty of any worries.

The first that Navia does when she sees Lumine come through the revolving doors of her hotel is squeal and run towards her for a hug. 

Lumine, thank goodness, has been friends with her long enough to know how to react around her. She yelps, but she puts down her coffee cup on a nearby table fast enough to catch her in her arms when Navia gives her a giant bear hug. 

“Lumine!” Navia greets loudly, reeling back to put her hands on her friend’s shoulders to take a good look at her. “I haven’t seen you in forever! How have you been? How’s your brother and the tour going? How’s Paimon? Ooh, do you miss my biscuits, little lady?”

She crouches down to coo over the little pomeranian in Lumine’s handbag, and Lumine laughs as Paimon continually yaps in Navia’s face. 

“We’ve been well,” Lumine replies easily. “Thankfully we’re in between touring right now, so we’ve just been relaxing in our little ways. I think Aether is in Liyue with a few friends today to fulfill a favor—but he does send his regards and to tell you that his wedding gift is waiting at the venue.”

Navia sighs contentedly. “I’ll write him a thank-you card the first chance I get,” she promises, then takes Lumine’s hand in hers. “How was the flight to Fontaine? Did they feed you well? If you’d like, we can stop by a restaurant!”

Lumine laughs and waves her hand. “I’ve had plenty to eat,” she tells her. “Besides—it’s your wedding day, and I will be at your service. What’s the first thing on the agenda?”

“Chiori told me that she needed to see me soon to make some last-minute alterations to my wedding dress,” Navia tells her, putting a hand on her hip to tap her chin. “But I have to pick up the bridesmaids gowns from another seamstress. Do you think—?”

“On it,” Lumine says automatically. “I’ll meet you at Chiori’s after I pick up everyone’s gowns?”

Navia beams at her. She gives her another bone-breaking hug, then says, “Oh, what would I do without someone like you?!”

Lumine laughs and taps at her back to ask to be released. “I’ll see you soon. Just text me if you need anything else while I'm out.”

“Of course!” Navia says happily. She can already feel the excited butterflies dancing around in her stomach. She can hardly contain herself from it. 

In just a few hours, she’s going to marry the love of her life and spend the rest of her days with her until they grow old and wrinkly. She wonders how many kids they’re going to have in the future. Two, at the very least. Maybe three? Four? Six would be optimal. And maybe three dogs if they can help it. And a cat to befriend old little Balthazar. And a turtle for—

“Navia,” Lumine calls in amusement. 

“Right! Right. Sorry.” Navia laughs nervously. “I’ll see you soon, Maid of Honor.” She jabs Lumine’s rib gently at her jest. 

Lumine giggles, and she waves at her while Paimon continues to bark relentlessly from her purse. 

Navia puts her hands on her hips and sighs. She really does have her work cut out for her today, but that’s one of the exciting parts of today, she supposes. 

Navia flags down her chauffeur with a wave, and she directs him to Chiori’s place. 

It doesn’t take very long to get there. Chiori is already waiting for her outside, her reading glasses perched low on her nose and a body measuring tape flung over her shoulder. She has her arms crossed, and if Navia wasn’t so close to her, she would have thought that her tight-lipped look meant that she was angry—but she knows Chiori better than that, and she knows that this is Chiori’s way of smiling at her in greeting. 

“There’s the bride to be. You’re two minutes late,” Chiori greets, but she doesn’t sound particularly upset. 

“Sorry. There was a lot of traffic on the way, and Hinterman had to avoid the busy streets so people couldn’t take a look at my face,” Navia says with a giggle. Chiori ushers her inside. “The last thing I want is for people to get a sneak peak of my face before I’m pinned up for my own wedding.”

“Yes, yes, the most memorable day of your life, I know,” Chiori says, pushing in between her shoulder blades to guide her in front of a mirror. She brandishes a measuring tool while she adds, “Your hair and makeup artists should be here in two hours, once I’m done with your wedding dress. Clorinde’s dress is already waiting in the back.”

Almost on reflex, Navia cranes her neck around to try and find a glimpse of Clorinde’s dress. Chiori pinches her arm, and Navia yelps. 

“Face forward,” Chiori orders. She clicks her tongue in disapproval. “You know it’s bad luck to see your bride’s dress before she walks the aisle with you, don’t you?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Navia whines. 

“You’re lucky that Charlotte is on the way here to stop you from getting into more trouble,” Chiori chides. She wraps her measuring tape around Navia’s bicep. “Stop flexing. Now, there aren't many alterations I need for your dress, fortunately. Just a few… finishing touches. Do you know what color your bouquet will be?”

“Yes,” Navia chirps happily. “It’s still purple, with a few specks of yellow—sunflowers and yellow roses, actually.” 

“Perfect,” Chiori says, nodding shortly in approval. She steps back to admire Navia’s figure, thinking to herself. “The trim that I prepared for it should look wonderful with your bouquet. Have you decided on the neckline? A sweetheart neckline would look proportional with your figure, but—”

Lumine bursts through the door. 

She has a stack of boxes in front of her face, and it almost topples over. Charlotte pops up behind her and steadies it with a yelp. 

“Thank you,” Lumine says with relief. She sets it down on a table near Chiori’s sofa. 

“Lumine! Charlotte!” Navia says happily. She doesn’t turn her body away from the mirror to face Chiori’s wrath, but she does crane her neck to look over at them. “Did you two bump into each other on the way?”

Charlotte laughs and replies, “She almost bumped into my camera, and I almost bumped into her boxes! What’s in it? Are they family heirlooms? Gifts for the attendees? Is it our gowns?”

Navia chuckles at her curiosity. “They’re your gowns. They’re color-coordinated,” she confirms, and Charlotte squeals. 

“That makes me feel slightly better about not being able to be your wedding photographer for later,” Charlotte says with an exaggerated pout. 

“And for looking over me, of all people, to tailor everyone’s gowns,” Chiori says, sounding much more serious and grumpy than Charlotte. 

“Sorry,” Navia tells them sincerely. She lifts her arm up to let Chiori take her measurements. “I didn’t want either of you getting swamped with work during my own wedding. All of you should be able to relax and drink yourselves dry at the open bar.”

“There’s a bar?” Charlotte asks, interest piqued. 

“Open bar,” Navia confirms with a grin. “I heard that some guy from Mondstadt gave us a bunch of his wine supply for free.”

“Why do you think he did that?” Charlotte asks curiously. 

Navia shrugs, while Lumine supplies, “I’ve met him before. He’s friends with a lot of gay people in Mondstadt, so he probably thought it was the nice thing to do.”

“Makes sense,” Charlotte says, like it’s the most natural conclusion. 

Navia giggles, and she puts up her other hand when Chiori taps her limb. “Has anyone heard from Sigewinne recently? She promised that she’d try to make it if she wasn’t swamped at the clinic, so I had a dress made for her too.”

“She texted me an hour ago,” Lumine answers, waving her phone in the air. Paimon barks from her purse to confirm. “She said she had one more patient to get through, but then she’ll run over here and be your on-site nurse in case anyone got too rowdy at your reception.”

“Oh, I hope not,” Navia declares with a horrified shiver. “Do you remember the Neuvillettes’ wedding a couple months ago? Clorinde still has mild back pain from trying to catch someone from flipping off the balcony on a dare. Can you believe trying to do that at a wedding?”

“You did set your dress on fire an hour after that,” Chiori points out. 

“It was a triple dog dare!” Navia defends. She deflates. “But I learned my lesson. I worried Clorinde a lot after that,” she whines. 

Lumine laughs and picks up the box at the very top while she says, “You two make the perfect couple. Both reckless, but you neutralize each other.”

“Like ice cream and fries,” Charlotte affirms with a nod. 

“Stop that,” Navia complains. “You’re making me crave sweets!”

“I can always order delivery right now,” Charlotte suggests, smiling innocently. “Imagine—all of us feasting on ice cream cookies a few hours before your wedding. Imagine all the candid shots I could take that could make it onto your wedding scrapbook that you can show to your kids!”

“If anything gets on my fabrics, you’ll be paying,” Chiori mumbles, but she doesn’t decline the offer.

Navia laughs. She does quite like the sound of that. “Well, if any of you are hungry, feel free to order it on my card,” she offers amicably. “But try not to order so much. Leave some room in your stomach, because I made sure to tell the caterers to have as much food as they can possibly—”

“Navia?” Lumine calls. There’s an odd edge to her voice. 

Navia tilts her head and cranes her head to look over at her. Even Chiori stops fiddling with her measurements. 

“What’s wrong?” Navia asks. 

“What… color did you want the dresses to be?” Lumine asks, still looking down at her opened box. 

Navia hums and looks up at the ceiling. “Well, we asked for soft pastels—y’know, like a soft yellow or a lavender. We weren’t that picky. If they came out more champagne or taupe, it shouldn’t matter all too much as long as you’re happy with it.”

“It’s not that,” Lumine says weirdly. Everyone’s attention in the room is on her. Even Paimon, who has been set down on the sofa, is looking at her silently. Lumine gulps, puts her hands into the box, and lifts the dress in the air. 

It’s white. 

Blindingly pearl white, like Navia and Clorinde’s dresses. 

Charlotte gasps like she was stabbed, Chiori rips off her glasses to stare at it in complete shock and anger, and Paimon yips over and over like she had a bunch of swears to say. 

Navia tries her best to calm everyone down. 

“It’s alright! It’s perfectly okay,” Navia says genuinely, putting her hands up. “Some modern Fontainian weddings have the bridesmaids wearing white now, right? It should be fine! In fact, it might make us look more coordinated on camera.”

“Who is your seamstress?” Chiori asks, nose flaring. “To do this on a wedding day is a horrible thing for a business to do. Say the word, and I will have them blacklisted on every single—”

“I promise that isn’t necessary,” Navia says quickly. 

“There’s no way they could have gotten your requests mixed up,” Charlotte says, mouth hanging open in shock. She fiddles with her hands nervously. “What if this was done on purpose? Like someone who hates you paid the seamstress double what you paid them to mess it up like this?”

“I don’t think they’d do that,” Navia soothes. “I’ve met the woman a couple times. She’s a lovely woman, and I’ve paid her well enough in advance that she could spend the rest of her life vacationing everyday if she wanted to. I don’t think she’d have the motivations to—”

Lumine makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat. 

She turns the dress around silently. 

The back of the dress is dotted with what seems to be globs of paint balls, all in different colors. Polka-dotted, really. 

Charlotte looks like she’s already to pass out. 

Chiori cracks her glasses in her fist. 

Navia simply says, in her best Spina di Rosula meeting voice,  “No one in this room says a word to Clorinde, you hear me?”

She wants Clorinde to have the best day of her life, empty of any worries. 

By the time Clorinde and Furina get to Furina’s abode, her phone is lighting up with a thousand messages from different friends telling her that they hope that she’s excited for their big day. 

Clorinde would always text the same thing back: of course I am :)

But in order to make sure that her excitement wouldn’t be overtaken with the anxiety that’s starting to fester in her body, Clorinde marches into Furina’s room and starts to turn her luxurious house upside down. 

Not that Furina is offended. In fact, she joins her, ushering her three giant poodles out of the way to distract them with a new toy before darting back inside to toss her sofa cushions over. 

“How are you so fast?” Furina pants, trying to catch up to Clorinde’s pace as she makes her way from the trashed living room to the kitchen. 

Clorinde knows the answer: it’s because she’s spent years and months turning over Navia’s apartment practically everyday looking for bugs when she used to be her bodyguard, and now this is all just muscle memory. 

But instead of getting into that, of all things, Clorinde simply replies, “I’m good at looking for the missing remote back at our place.”

Clorinde opens the fridge door. She doubts her wedding rings would be in there, but if there’s one thing she’s learned, it’s that to make sure she covers everything from top to bottom when looking for something important. 

The fridge door is oddly emptier than she expected. There’s still some considerable amount of food, which stops her from lecturing Furina about eating well, but all she sees are rows of cheese when she opens the bottom drawer. 

She gives Furina an odd look, and Furina just laughs nervously. 

They sweep through the kitchen in record time, then make it to the dining room. 

Then the pool. 

Then Furina’s private office. 

Then the guest room. 

Then the basement. 

Then, finally, they make it to Furina’s room. 

Clorinde checks the safe that Furina mentions first after Furina types in her code and gives her permission to look. There’s wads of cash there, as well as some jewelry and some memorabilia that must hold dear to Furina’s heart, and then a velvet pillow that Clorinde knows had held the rings before—except, of course, without the rings on top. 

“When was the last time you saw it?” Clorinde asks, turning to look at her. 

“I told you,” Furina grumbles, crossing her arms and looking away like a student at the principal’s office, “I took one last look at it last night while I was doing my skincare to make sure that everything was all and well, and I woke up early today to find that it was missing. There has been no sign of a break-in, and I don’t sleep walk, so it couldn’t possibly be me either.”

Clorinde thinks to herself. She ducks out of the safe and draws herself up, crossing her arms and rubbing her chin while she thinks hard about the places that it could be. This kind of detective work isn’t too unfamiliar to her. 

“Did someone stay here with you?” Clorinde asks.

“No,” Furina says—all too fast. 

Clorinde narrows her eyes at her. “Are you… sure?”

“Very,” Furina says with feigned enthusiasm. She might be the world’s best actress on television right now, but Clorinde knows her way too well to not notice when she’s hiding something. 

“Furina,” Clorinde starts carefully. 

“The only people in my house right now are me, you, Gentilhomme Usher, Surintendante Chevalmarin, and Mademoiselle Crabaletta,” she says, holding her chin up high. She laughs, but it comes off too high and sharp. 

“That’s not what I asked you,” Clorinde says as fairly as possible. She tilts her head. “What about last night? Did you have company over?”

“Company?” Furina asks, her voice high-pitched. She laughs again sharply. She waves her hand dismissively. “Pshhh. Of course not! I like to spend my nights alone, reading some scripts over in bed and watching some comfort movies.”

Clorinde raises an eyebrow and glances at her bed. Nothing seems to be of note, except that she should try telling Furina to fix her bed in the mornings before she gets up for the day. 

Then she spots it. 

An empty pint of ice cream. 

And two spoons. 

“Why would you need two spoons if you’re alone by yourself?” Clorinde asks her. 

“Surintendante Chevalmarin likes to beg for some ice cream too, so I thought it would be more sanitary if I got him his own spoon,” is Furina’s quick reply. 

Clorinde is a little impressed with her quick thinking, all things considered. However—“Don’t you know that dogs aren’t allowed to have human ice cream?” she asks. Navia would have had a heart attack if she saw her feeding a stray dog sugary human food like that. 

Furina works her jaw for something to say. Her face is steadily getting more pale as she tries to flounder through a new excuse. Honestly, Clorinde can’t see why. Haven’t they been friends long enough that Furina should know that she would never judge her for having… affiliations? 

A few things happen at once. 

Clorinde feels a weight on her shoulder. She looks down, and she finds long, black fingernails curled next to her neck. 

She tenses next. She turns around and puts her assailant in a chokehold. 

But her attacker is just as swift as she is. 

The perpetrator ducks out of her hold with some effort, then tries to kick her off her feet. Clorinde is fast enough to dodge it. She punches blindly in front of her. A grunt. She can hear Furina yelling at them. She hears a gasp. Silence. Then—

Clorinde lowers her fists. 

She blinks. 

Arlecchino is holding her nose. She’s glaring back at Clorinde, but there seems to be no blood dripping in between her long fingers. 

Furina sighs heavily. “I told you that if you kept sneaking up on people like that, you’re going to get punched in the face! And I was right!”

“My apologies,” Arlecchino says stiffly, her voice muffled from her clogged nose. She grimaces to herself, and Clorinde doesn’t understand it until Arlecchino steadies her hands and snaps her nose back into place. She exhales in satisfaction.

“That was entirely a fault of mine,” Arlecchino explains, nodding at Clorinde in apology. “I saw that the living space downstairs was wrecked into pieces and feared the worst.”

Clorinde mutely looks between Arlecchino and Furina. 

Furina and Arlecchino. 

The two spoons. 

In bed. 

Furina must realize what she’s thinking just half a second after Clorinde’s thoughts click into place, because Furina steps in front of them and waves her hand in a panic as she squeaks, “Wait! Wait! It’s not what you think—!”

Clorinde puffs her chest out, drawing herself up to as tall as she can, her fists at her side. She is not one to lose her temper so easily, but when it comes to Navia and her friends, well—

“You have no right to be here,” Clorinde bites. Her teeth are almost bared.

Arlecchino makes no move to match her aggression. She just puts her hands up, arching her eyebrows at Clorinde—not sarcastically, but more so in surprise. “Whatever you’re thinking, it won’t be the truth,” she says calmly. 

“What I think matters little when it’s clear what the facts are,” Clorinde snaps. “How long have you been with her? What are you even doing in Fontaine?”

“For your wedding, actually,” Arlecchino replies. 

Clorinde’s flame blows out just like that. Instead, confusion settles in her chest. She looks over at Furina for answers, and Furina sighs irritably and massages the bridge of her nose. 

“She’s my plus one,” Furina explains. “Arlecchino is a friend from the industry. We met when her band attended my gala for publicity,” she says with a sigh. “We got off the wrong foot, and she came to apologize. Now, we’re friends. Ta da.”

Clorinde tries to reach for something to say. So she tries to ask the biggest question on her mind first. “Why didn’t you just tell me that instead of covering it up?” she asks, flabbergasted. 

“Because I knew you would make a bigger deal out of it, especially without Navia here to keep you in check!” Furina exclaims. She sighs. “Actually, perhaps Navia would have just fueled you even more. But regardless—we all know how protective you can get. I pray for your future childrens’ souls and their eventual significant others.”

Clorinde chuckles. She shakes her head to get rid of the disbelief in her head. She turns to regard Arlecchino next. She swallows, both visibly and to get rid of her pride, and nods her head. 

“I owe you an apology as well, Arlecchino,” she starts carefully. “Furina has had a… turbulent history when it comes to her luck, both in the industry and out.”

“Hey!” Furina whines.

“Even back when we were in college, Furina appointed me her unofficial bodyguard. Then, her official bodyguard, once she made enough,” Clorinde explains. “My instincts got a hold of me. I’m sorry. I’m thrilled to hear that she has more friends.”

Arlecchino chuckles. “Apology accepted,” she says succinctly. “Like I’ve said, I’m not guiltless in this matter. But we’re all adults here. Could either of you tell me why the house looks as if it’s been…?” She waves her hand in the air to look for the word. 

“Oh! Yes,” Furina says quickly. “Well, I ran out early this morning because I couldn’t find the rings.”

“The… wedding rings?” Arlecchino asks incredulously. 

Furina huffs and replies, “Well, don’t act so shocked! I didn’t think we’d be in this mess either!”

“If we can’t find it in the next hour, I don’t mind heading down to a jeweler’s to get a new pair,” Clorinde informs them. “This is no problem to me. I just don’t want Navia to catch wind of this and drive herself into the ground with worry on our wedding day.”

Arlecchino nods her head in understanding. “I see,” she says. “And your wedding rings—they’re gold?”

“Aren’t most wedding rings?” Furina grumbles.

“Yes,” Clorinde replies, ignoring Furina’s huffiness. “We have each other’s handwriting on the inside, which I suppose will make it difficult to have a jeweler copy it in less than a couple hours, but I can always have it done after the wedding.”

“Does it say, ‘je t’aime, mon etoile’ and the date today on one of them?” Arlecchino asks. 

Clorinde nods. “Yes. That would be Navia’s ring. Mine says—” 

She pauses. 

Furina’s eyes grow wide, and she looks over at Arlecchino too. 

“How would you know that?” Clorinde asks in disbelief. 

Arlecchino laughs shortly, then puts her hands into her coat pocket. 

She pulls out two shiny, golden rings. 

“Furina fell asleep while we were watching Citizen Fontaine last night,” Arlecchino begins to explain, handing the rings over to a shell-shocked Clorinde. “She was mumbling in her sleep, but I could make out that she asked me to keep the rings safe for her until tomorrow. She ran out while I was half asleep this morning, so I didn’t have the chance to tell her that I kept it on my person.”

“This whole time, you—!” Furina’s eyes are wide, and she shakes her head and whines. She knocks her forehead with her fist. “Wait, I talk in my sleep?!”

Clorinde barks out a laugh. Furina gives her a nasty look for it. 

“Well, at least now you know that while you don’t sleep walk, you have a penchant to speak,” Clorinde says jokingly. 

It makes Arlecchino laugh too, and Furina looks as if she wants to knock them both on the heads. 

Instead, Furina huffs, smooths down her shirt, and says, “Well, at least we got rid of a potentially big disaster on your big day, Clorinde. We should start heading to the venue so you can get your hair and makeup done in time for—”

“Oh,” Arlecchino starts, as if she had remembered something in the back of her mind. “That reminds me. You left your phone on your bedside. I tucked it into the drawer in case one of your poodles wanted to play fetch with it.”

Furina sighs. “Thank you.”

She walks over to her bed to pull her bedside drawer to fish out her phone. She has a relieved smile on her face as she scrolls through her notifications. Clorinde lets her catch up. 

Then, just like that, Furina’s smile drops. 

“Um, Clorinde?” she calls out. 

“What is it?” Clorinde asks, immediately suspicious. She tucks the rings into her pocket for safe-keeping. 

“You know all those vendors I told you that I was calling?” Furina asks nervously. 

“Yes? What about it?”

“Half of them just texted me to tell me that they’ve dropped their things off.”

“That’s great,” Clorinde says. She waits for Furina to respond, but it doesn’t come. She looks at Furina, confused, then asks, “That should be great, no?”

“It should be, yes,” Furina says, half-enthused. “Except for the fact that they’ve dropped it off at the wrong venue.”

A cold silence, akin to a breeze, passes through the room. 

Then, Arlecchino asks, “I take it that you don’t want Navia to know about this?”

“Ah, you see?” Furina jests. “She already knows the rules.”

By the time that Navia, Chiori, Charlotte, and Lumine finish making over half a dozen new gowns (well, more like Chiori made them while she barked orders at everyone else), it’s already close to high noon. Thankfully, Lumine already made a quick call to Navia’s hair and makeup team to come just a little bit later.

And so, with only being twenty minutes behind schedule, Navia is positioned in a private room at the venue to have every part of her hair styled, her eyelashes touched on, and her nails looked at. Her friends and her Spina di Rosula team are running around, asking to hand them things and to do this and that. She’s sure that everyone’s already starting to feel the pressure of the wedding happening in a few hours. 

But, thankfully, with the help of everyone’s cooperation, Navia sports flawless makeup and pinned up hair before most of the guests at the venue have even arrived. 

She breathes a sigh of relief for the first time in three hours. 

“I really don’t know how to thank you. All of you,” Navia says, turning to her bridal party. “Especially you, Chiori.”

“What would you ever do without me?” Chiori drawls, but her smile seems more so on the genuine side. 

“We’re just glad that everything seems okay now,” Charlotte says with a quick nod of her head. 

She takes Navia’s hands and squeezes them, squealing to herself. Her squeals are infectious. The rest of her friends begin to squeal as well.

“I’m so glad that Lumine and I convinced you to take your ex-girlfriend as your bodyguard all those years ago,” she says with a fond sigh. “Seeing your love story play out was the most stressful thing my little body has ever endured, but I’m grateful to see it.”

Lumine nods her agreement, so do the rest of their friends, and Navia laughs both in amusement and pity. “Thank you for sticking around,” she says softly, eyeing all of her friends. She starts to feel a little sentimental. Misty-eyed, even. Her wedding hadn’t even started! “Clorinde and I have been through so much, and to have all of you here with us today just… wow. It feels like a dream that I don’t want to wake up from.”

Lumine gently punches her shoulder. “Save the tears for your vows and everyone’s speeches,” she jokes lightly. 

“You’re right, you’re right,” Navia says quickly. She grabs at the front of her gown and takes a few quick breaths in, ruffling them so that they sit just right. 

“Where are you two going for your honeymoon, anyway?” Charlotte asks, a devilish smile on her face. “Anywhere fun where you two can do what newlyweds do?”

“Speaking of which—” Chiori pipes up, waving her hand in the air. “Sigewinne told me to tell you to use protection. Many vacation spots are hot spots for diseases, or so she says.”

Navia barks out a laugh. “We’ll be safe,” she promises. “As for the honeymoon destination—honestly, we didn’t really care! I told her that we could just throw a dart at the map of Teyvat on our wedding night and head down there to explore it together. I don’t care where I go as long as I’m with Clorinde.”

The room fills with aww’s, punctuated with Chiori’s singular ew.

“Ah, the privilege of falling in love with an international pop star and an undefeated athletic champion,” Charlotte says with a wistful sigh. “You two really do have it all, huh?”

Navia giggles, glowing under the compliment. “I have it all as long as I’m with Clorinde.”

“If you keep this up before the wedding even starts, my teeth are going to fall out from all the sugar,” Chiori deadpans. Lumine pats her back sympathetically. 

“Say,” Charlotte speaks up, looking around. “Where’s Furina and the others?”

“Shouldn’t she be with Clorinde on the other side of the venue?” Lumine asks. “I think it would be a good thing that we don’t see them anyway. It’s bad luck to have the brides see each other before the wedding.”

“Where does that saying even come from?” Navia muses, almost to herself. “Everyone’s been saying that to me ever since we started planning this last year. If anything, I think seeing Clorinde before I see her up on the altar would calm my nerves.”

Lumine shrugs. “I don’t get it either. I thought with you being Fontainian and all, you’d know better than I do.”

“Okay, hold on,” Charlotte interrupts. Her brow is pulled tight. “I know that Furina is supposed to be the one helping Clorinde set up, but didn’t she say she wanted to come in here to see Navia too before it starts?”

“Maybe she changed her mind?” Lumine guesses. “Maybe Clorinde had a wardrobe malfunction.”

Navia perks up at that. She starts to head for the door. “Do you think I should go over and make sure they’re alright? Oh, I should probably check,” she asks quickly, already opening the knob before anyone could reply. 

“No!”

Her bridal party clamors to stop her, with half of them pulling her back into the room in a panic and the other half closing the door shut. It makes Navia huff.

“They’re probably fine,” Lumine says soothingly. “If anything went wrong, they would’ve texted more of us—or you.”

“I guess you’re right,” Navia grumbles. She sits down on the chair made especially for her to keep the creases to a minimum with her dress. 

“It is a little weird that the florist hasn’t knocked on the door to give you the bouquet,” Charlotte thinks out loud. She tilts her head to think. “And you would think that the venue would smell like food too with all the catering that you asked for.”

“Or the vents are doing its job,” Chiori says with a shrug. “This is the Palais Mermonia we’re talking about. People all over Teyvat have tied the knot here before, all with glowing reviews.”

Still, that raises Navia’s heartrate. She stands up. “Do you think I should call the catering company and the florist just in case they—?”

Her friends push her back down to her seat. 

“It should be fine,” Lumine insists. 

“Yeah!” Charlotte nods enthusiastically. “Things like this happen at weddings all the time. It’s not like a zoo nearby is going to trample your wedding venue,” Charlotte jokes. 

The door bursts open. 

Lyney and Lynette are in their suit and gown, looking wonderful for the day ahead—except they look frazzled, with their eyes wide with panic. 

“The peacocks are loose!” Lyney yells. 

“The—?” Chiori looks understandably baffled as she looks between the twins, who seem completely serious. “Why do we have peacocks even near the venue?!”

“Um…” Navia laughs nervously, capturing the attention of her friends. She scratches at an itchy part of her neck. “I might have asked the wedding planner to squeeze some animals in there. Mostly petting zoos for the kids in attendance.”

Chiori gives her a withering look. 

Navia shrinks back and argues, “Most of them are adoptable!”

Lynette nods solemnly. “We were trying to practice a magic trick with them, but their cages opened,” she says. “We can’t find the animal trainer either. We took a peek outside, and the other cages are empty too.”

“What—” Chiori massages a spot on her forehead and sighs. “What animals do we have to look for?”

“Uh…” Lyney looks up at the ceiling while he counts it off on his fingers. “We had the peacocks, the doves, the mice, the dogs, the horses, and butterflies, and falcons, and llamas, and—”

Charlotte sits down and fans her face with some newspaper. Lumine pats her knee in sympathy, then awkwardly hands a frustrated Chiori a glass of water. 

“So!” Navia claps her hands together. “Let’s not tell Clorinde about this, shall we?”

“If there isn’t a mouse sitting on her head right now, that is,” Chiori jokes dryly. 

After several hours gunning the gas pedal in Furina’s car and making Furina nearly throw up twice from whipping them around the neighborhoods in Fontaine, Clorinde finally, finally manages to wrangle all of the vendors on their list and direct them back to the right venue. 

She collapses in her private room at the Palais Mermonia, where she can hear the band that they had brought back playing some gentle classical music to welcome the early guests coming in. 

Clorinde pushes a fist into her temple to rid her head of an oncoming headache. She hasn’t even done her hair and makeup yet—not that she can call her team right now to get that done. 

Her team has already gone home for the day after they thought she got cold feet when she wasn’t in her room at the venue. 

“No worries!” Furina insists, pulling out a makeup kit onto a nearby table. “After all the stage shows I’ve done in my life, I’m more than prepped and ready to be a one-man team for your hair and makeup.”

“Are you sure you won’t be giving her god-awful stage makeup?” Arlecchino asks. “There are cameras everywhere outside this venue. If they catch a glimpse of her pallid face, she might be splashed across the front pages for unsavory reasons once again.”

“She shouldn’t look so sick!” Sigewinne insists.

Clorinde groans. “And that would be the last thing I or Navia would want.” 

“Don’t worry about that,” Furina says dismissively. She takes hold of Clorinde’s face and squishes her cheeks to make strokes on her eyebrows with a brush. “If you just hold still, we’ll have this done in no time. Has Chiori delivered her wedding dress to the room yet?”

Arlecchino takes a look inside the nearby closet. She turns back to them and shakes her head. 

Clorinde frowns. “That’s quite unlike Chiori to forget to bring a dress like that. Do you think I should go over and make sure they’re alright?” She’s already trying to stand from her chair before the others could answer. 

Her friends push her back down. 

“You need to do some breathing exercises with me so you aren’t panicking at the altar,” Sigewinne orders, her hands on Clorinde’s shoulders. “Follow me. Breathe in deep. Hold it. Breathe out. Breathe in deep. Hold it—”

“Excuse me, but I do still need to work some magic on her face,” Furina says by her side. 

Sigewinne lets go of Clorinde so that Furina can squeeze by in front of her to continue flattening down her eyebrows.

“I can run down and check on Chiori to ask about the dress,” Sigewinne suggests. “I’m sure it’s no problem! Maybe she only left it in her car!”

“Yes, please do. Thank you,” Clorinde says with a sigh. “It’s no fault of Chiori’s. Everyone is on their toes today. Something about big weddings like this are just so… what’s the word?”

“Distressing?” Arlecchino guesses.

“Not the word I would use,” Furina grumbles. She picks up a brush to dust it over Clorinde’s cheeks next. “Maybe… toilsome?”

“I suppose,” Clorinde relents. She relaxes back into her chair and sighs through her nose. “But what is done, is done. No matter how disastrous this wedding may become, I won’t care. I only care if I get to marry my soulmate at the end of the night or not.”

Furina coos. “This is why half of your love story already has a movie adaptation, you know that? So romantic,” she says with a wistful sigh. 

“I hear that there’s a TV show in the works,” Arlecchino comments, perhaps to make small talk or get Clorinde to relax. Either way, Clorinde is grateful. 

“Yes,” Clorinde confirms, the corner of her mouth twitching. “I’ve met the actresses meant to portray me and Navia. They’re lovely women. The one acting as Navia nearly has her laugh, though it’s not perfect.”

“Yes, yes, keep telling us about your wife-to-be,” Furina insists. “It’ll get you to stop squirming in this chair and make my life easier.”

“What else is there to tell?” Clorinde asks. Her voice is faraway. “Navia Caspar is the love of my life, though I’m sure most of the world already knows that. I am the luckiest woman alive to be able to sit here, preparing to kiss her at the altar and declare her as my wife and partner forever—even if it took many trials and tribulations to get here.”

“You two are so cute!” Sigewinne coos, holding her hands out in front of her. 

Clorinde breathes out a relaxed laugh. “I meant what I said before,” she says firmly. “I don’t care where I marry or how I marry Navia tonight. It’s just a sure fact that I will. Our marriage license has already been filled out. We just have to get the officiant to fill it out tonight, and I will officially be Clorinde Melchior-Caspar, and Navia—”

The door bursts open. 

“Sorry I’m late!” Wriothesley pants, closing the door behind him with just as much force as he closed it. He has a wrinkled piece of paper in his hand. “I was—”

“Wriothesley, that better not be my marriage license in your hand,” Clorinde spits, her voice full of venom. She narrows her eyes at Wriothesley. “I can revoke your best man status at any given time. If you have this little respect for my—”

“Yes, yes, it’s your marriage license,” Wriothesley says quickly, loosening his tie. “But I was just trying to fix it.”

The room goes silent. 

“What?” Clorinde manages to get out. 

“It’s invalid,” Wriothesley confirms. 

That’s one of the few things that Clorinde likes about him. He’s quite succinct with his words. Even if said words were quite horrifying.

“What do you mean, ‘invalid’?” Furina asks, both awed and appalled. “Wasn’t that filled out days ago?!”

Wriothesley grimaces. “Yeah, but I think the person filling out your papers was either really hungover or he did it out of spite, because—” He tries to smooth out the piece of paper on his thick thigh (Clorinde winces), and then shows it to everyone in the room. 

There’s a notary stamp on the corner of the paper. It seems official, with only a few missing signatures; namely, their officiant and witnesses’ spots are left blank. That isn’t really a problem.

Except, Clorinde immediately finds out what is a problem.

The names written in bold font in the middle say: Nadia Casper and Corrine Balthazar

“That’s my cat’s name!” Clorinde exclaims, horrified. “How could someone put down my cat’s name, but not mine?”

“Maybe they had it out for you,” Arlecchino says, rubbing her chin and bending down to take a closer look at the paper. “Or, like this man said—the office worker had too much to drink and remembers your cat’s name from your social media posts, and not your actual surname.”

Furina sits down on the couch and dabs her forehead with a handkerchief. “Oh, goodness,” she moans.

Wriothesley clears his throat. Clorinde can tell from the uncomfortable shuffle of his loafers and the way he’s avoiding eye contact that he hasn’t said everything. 

“Wriothesley, spit it out,” Clorinde grits out. 

“Well, the license thing isn’t the only thing I tried to fix on the way here,” he says with a grimace. He jabs his thumb over his shoulder. “Your cake was left out near the back.”

Clorinde cocks her head to the side. “Yes, well, most of the food is back there, isn’t it? It’s where we’re holding the reception,” she muses, slightly confused. 

“Well, yeah,” Wriothesley says, his voice growing more high-pitched by the second. “But I don’t think the baker meant to leave it out in direct sunlight and leave it unattended, because it completely melted and is seeping through the cracks.”

The room pauses.

“There’s ants all over it too, the last I checked,” he says quickly. “Before you, uh—were thinking of trying to save it.”

The room is still silent.

“And I think a gazelle was munching down on it? And two peacocks?” he says like it’s a question. He scratches the back of his head. “Not sure what’s happening there.”

“Are you inebriated this early into the ceremony?” Sigewinne immediately asks, hopping down from her seat to pull him down to check his temperature and nag him. 

“Of all days for the rainy Fontainian weather to disappear to give way to a bright, sunny day,” Furina says with a sigh, “it had to be this one.”

Clorinde stands from her chair and rolls her shoulder. “Sigewinne, can you go and ask Chiori for the dress?” she asks. “Just don’t tell her where the rest of us are going. I don’t want Navia to find out.”

Sigewinne salutes her. 

Clorinde collapses against her chair with a groan. 

“On your six! On your six!” Navia shouts over the sounds of horses and peacocks and other animals striking the ground right outside of the venue. 

Charlotte dodges just in time before she can be squashed down into a pancake. 

Lumine is desperately trying to capture some doves in the air by flailing her hands to grab for them. 

Chiori is trying to corner the mice into a makeshift box. 

Lynette and Lyney are trying to calm a horse down. 

“Where the hell is the animal trainer?!” Chiori calls over the disorderly noise. She ducks right before a dove could try and take her hat away. 

“I don’t know!” Charlotte yells back. “But they’re all running away, so that’s—that’s good, right?”

Navia realizes that she’s right. The sounds are getting fainter, and she can only hear faint stomping. 

She sighs, putting her hands on her knees to gulp down greedy breaths of air. “I really thought one of us was going to end up becoming smashed cake!” she jokes. 

The silence is sobering. 

The silence is too sobering. 

Then, everyone realizes it all at once. 

Lynette voices it out for them, and she points to where the animals had gone. Her voice is a little quiet, but everyone can hear it loud and clear, and it echoes off the walls. 

“They’re going into the venue.”

They make it back to the venue in only fifteen minutes after obtaining a new marriage license.

It’s a good thing that the Palais Mermonia serves as the government office, as well as providing several ballrooms and rooms downstairs for rent for events like weddings. 

It's an unfortunate thing that the person who had to officiate her license papers was Neuvillette—her boss, and unfortunately, Wriothesley’s dearly beloved husband. 

It was an odd thing to have Monsieur Neuvillette peer at her over her glasses after greeting his husband, then have him say, “Wriothesley told me that your officiant hasn’t shown up at the venue yet, and your wedding is to begin in less than an hour. Would you like me to officiate?”

Clorinde struggles to find something to say for a little while, until she eventually says, “That’s quite alright. You don’t have to.”

“Are you sure?” Neuvillette asks. He taps his papers into a neat stack in front of him at his desk. “I was ordained a while ago. If it’s my qualifications that make you hesitate, don’t be afraid. I am fully capable of officiating your wedding to Miss Caspar—or, Mrs. soon, I should say.” He chuckles at his own joke. 

To tell the truth, Clorinde wasn’t thinking of his qualifications at all. It’s just that she finds this situation a little awkward. 

But he’s right. 

They’re to be married in an hour, and the officiant that they had hired hasn’t spoken to them since last night. Furina guessed that he might have gotten cold feet trying to wed the biggest couple in Fontaine—which is a little ironic.

“It would be an incredible honor to have you officiate at my wedding,” Clorinde says, bowing her head in respect. Wriothesley snickers, but he turns it into a cough when Clorinde shoots him a look. “Thank you for offering, Monsieur Neuvillette.”

Neuvillette waves his hand dismissively. “I will see you downstairs soon. You should start getting ready before you’re late for your big day, Miss Melchior. Or, should I say—”

“Yes, yes, of course. We’ll get her ready just in time,” Furina says, already pushing Clorinde out the door. “Thank you, Neuvillette!”

They all rush downstairs to make it back into the venue and into Clorinde’s private room. Sigewinne is there waiting for them. 

“I couldn’t find Chiori,” she says quickly. “I tried calling and texting, and I tried doing the same for the others, but no one answered!”

“Oh no, oh dear,” Furina mumbles, biting down on her fingernail anxiously. “What do we do? What do we do?”

“Don’t panic,” Clorinde tells her, but she’s already freaking out herself. 

This isn’t something that she can replace either. A wedding dress is the staple at a wedding. It would be like a wedding without a wedding cake to slice. Which she also doesn’t have. 

The panic is starting to settle in her heart. 

But before she can start having a heart attack right then and there, she can hear a commotion outside of the door. 

Arlecchino cracks open the door to let them look. 

There is a stampede of animals running down the hall. 

The guests are screaming. 

The band is still playing. 

Without thinking, Clorinde runs out to try and direct the crowd to safety, despite her friends yelling at her to get back inside. 

A horse shoves right into her side. She grunts. 

Like it’s in slow motion, she watches as her golden rings fall out of her pocket and hit the ground. 

It rolls away. 

Navia can see two golden rings rolling amidst the stampede. 

She gasps first, before her body reacts and she’s propelling forward to grab it. 

She can feel animals and people alike stepping on her dress. She can feel it ripping, but she can hardly find it in herself to really care.

The rings lead her outside the venue, where the sun beats down on her and she can smell cake all around them, for whatever reason—and she can see someone else from her peripheral vision trying to grab for the rings as well. 

Clorinde dives for the rings. 

It slips from her grasp. 

Then falls into a pile of mud. 

She tries to fish for it, but someone else beats her to it. 

Navia stands up proudly and holds up the two muddied rings into the sunlight.

She frowns to herself. 

It should be easy to clean these off, shouldn’t they be? It’s just mud. 

A dove flies up above her head, and a glob of its white poop lands on the rings in her hand. 

Clorinde watches as Navia holds out their rings proudly, until her facial features morph into horror when a dove up above takes a shit on it. 

She watches as Navia’s bottom lip trembles. 

She already knows how Navia feels. 

She must feel the weight of their situation finally crashing down on them, watching as their dream  wedding crumbled into a mess like this. 

And what’s worse is that Clorinde already knows how the press is going to react once the photos get published. She’ll know that people will begin to demonize them again, telling Fontainians and beyond that she and Navia don’t have the love story that everyone thinks that they do, and that their ruined wedding is merely an omen that they should have never gotten together in the first place. 

It puts a lump in Clorinde’s throat. 

She’s not one to listen to these kinds of claims, but—

What if there was some semblance of truth to it?

What if someone up above, like Callas, or Melus and Silver, sent all of these misfortunes to prevent them from making a mistake and marrying one another? 

Does she not have their approval? Does Callas not want to give away his little girl to entrust her to Clorinde?

Clorinde doesn’t know what to think of it, but she knows from the look on Navia’s face that she’s miserable, and she can’t have that. 

Clorinde takes off her battered jacket to place it over Navia’s shoulders. 

She hears Navia whimper, and Clorinde pulls her in close for a hug. 

They melt down onto the steps, where they were meant to run down from after their ceremony, hand in hand, while their friends cheer and toss flowers and rice at them to carry on their fruitful marriage. 

Clorinde holds her bride close against her chest. She can’t feel Navia sobbing, but she can feel Navia breathing her in as if she had missed being in her arms after all this time. Clorinde just holds her closer for it. 

She kisses the top of Navia’s head and rubs her arm. “It’s okay, baby,” she murmurs against her hair. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

She starts to feel Navia’s shoulders shake. It makes her heart squeeze. 

Clorinde coos and kisses the top of her head again. “Oh, honey, don’t cry. Don’t cry, please. It’s alright. I know it didn’t go the way that we wanted, but you’re here with me, and that’s all that I care about. We can leave right now, elope, and sign our marriage papers and eat some ice cream in bed. We can always try to have our wedding again on an anniversary, or—or try and—”

But then she hears it. 

She feels Navia’s shoulders shake again, and then she hears Navia laugh.

Navia pokes her head out from her chest to look at her. She smiles up at Clorinde, and her smile reaches her eyes. She can already see faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes when she smiles that wide. Clorinde thinks she looks absolutely breathtaking. 

“We just had a bunch of animals stomp through our wedding,” Navia says in between her laughter. “Animals! At our wedding!”

Clorinde looks at her incredulously. 

Then, slowly, she begins to laugh too.

“I think I saw a baby goat while I was running after the ring,” Clorinde muses. “And a big one. Or maybe it was just a giant baby?”

Navia giggles at that. “So many animals,” she wheezes to herself. “And polka dots! On the bridesmaids’ dresses! What kind of person would think that polka dots were in?”

“Maybe it’s a new fashion trend,” Clorinde suggests. “Remember when you had that mustard stain on your dress after one of our dates and neither of us saw it while the paparazzi were snapping pictures of you? I saw at least six teenagers in line at the grocery store with mustard stains on their shirts the next day.”

Navia giggles some more, and she leans her head back into Clorinde’s chest. 

They continue to giggle some more. They’re holding hands, intertwined and unwilling to let each other go. Clorinde feels like they’re back in Navia’s cramped room in Fontaine when they were fourteen, watching the stars streak ahead in front of them while they talk about their possible future together. 

Never, in a thousand years, would Clorinde have guessed that they would be here now, holding hands on the day of their wedding, watching as animals run ahead into Fontainian traffic. She’s sure that Neuvillette is ahead of it already to have animal control take them.

These kinds of things are not her problem right now. She’s done more than enough to give her life for the betterment of Fontaine. She has the weight of the sun holding her hand right now, tethering her right where she is.

Clorinde squeezes her hand. “You know,” she whispers, looking deeply in Navia’s eyes, “I truly don’t care how torn up our venue must look right. I don’t care if the world ends tomorrow and the oceans rise and consume us whole. I will marry you today, at a fancy venue hall or not. I will marry at a fast food chain, surrounded by horse dung, behind a dumpster, anywhere.”

“Clorinde,” Navia whispers shakingly, and she blinks to get rid of the sheen of tears in her eyes. 

Clorinde clears her throat. “In fact, I will marry you right here. Right now.”

Navia’s breath catches. 

“That is, if—if you’d have me,” Clorinde says quickly. She turns her body to face Navia. “If that’s not what you want, and you’d rather that we have a proper wedding, then I don’t mind it either. I would do anything for you, Navia. Whatever to make you happy. I just wanted to—”

“You’re such an idiot,” Navia cuts off with a laugh. “Of course I want to marry you. I want to marry you right now,” she demands and pleads, all at the same time. 

She takes Clorinde’s face in her hands, admires her for a moment, then kisses her like she can’t be apart from her any longer. 

Clorinde melts into her kiss. She feels how gently Navia kisses her, with just enough pressure to feel urgent and compelling. A promise. 

A vow. 

They separate, and Clorinde immediately tries to chase after her lips again. She has just enough restraint to stop herself right before they fall back into a desperate kiss.

“I love you,” Clorinde whispers. “I love you, and I want you to always remember that.”

“Is that all your vows had?” Navia asks with a laugh.

“No,” Clorinde says with a sheepish smile. “But being this close to you makes me nervous and forget things, and I left my speech in the changing room. Could you blame me?”

“Not at all,” Navia murmurs. She looks back down at Clorinde’s lips and smiles. “I don’t need your vows. I just want you.”

Clorinde takes her hand, the one that holds their muddied, dirty rings, and tries to wipe their rings on her thigh. She almost drops it, and Navia giggles along with her. 

Clorinde takes her hand. 

She puts the ring up, lines it up with her ring finger—

“Objection! Objection to the highest degree!”

Startled, they turn around to find Furina rushing over to them. Navia laughs out loud from the sheer ridiculousness of it all, and Clorinde huffs, just like she did that morning.

“That’s not how objecting at a wedding works, Furina,” Clorinde points out. 

“Yeah,” Navia agrees. “That only works in your movies.”

“I wasn’t trying to object like that,” Furina insists. “I was just trying to get your attention. Clearly, it worked. Don’t put those dirty rings on each other just yet.”

“Why not?” Clorinde asks, puzzled. 

“Because for one—I have clean handkerchiefs in my car.” Furina rolls her eyes like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Secondly—I have a surprise for you both. Come, come.”

She hurries them up on their feet, and Clorinde and Navia stumble into each other. They giggle, and Clorinde presses a kiss to Navia’s cheek. She wraps her arm around Navia’s shoulder to keep her close, and Furina leads them away from the venue. 

“Where are you taking us?” Clorinde asks curiously. 

“So many questions, so little time,” Furina says frivolously. She waves her hand in the air. “The venue inside the Palais Mermonia is too… how do you say? Wrecked. There’s nothing we can salvage there, unfortunately. Thankfully for you both, you have friends that can’t quit. We built you a makeshift venue just down the street. Ah! Right here, actually.”

She points to the bend in the road nearby. 

“The… back alley?” Navia asks, not judgmentally. Mostly just in confusion. 

“Why, yes,” Furina says proudly. She eyes them both mischievously. “After all, didn’t you say you would marry each other behind a dumpster if you had to?”

Clorinde coughs into her fist. “Of course I did. I still would,” she clarifies quickly. 

“Good, good,” Furina says with a quick nod. “Well, take a look and tell me what you think. Don’t be too harsh, though. We made this all in the half hour you two were giggling up a storm on the steps.”

“We were gone for that long?” Clorinde asks in disbelief. 

“Well, time flies when I’m with you, so,” Navia purrs, looking up at her through batted eyelashes. Clorinde chuckles and squeezes her shoulders lovingly. 

They pass the bend in the road to peer into the back alley. 

There, in front of them, is truly a spectacle to behold. 

There are rows and rows of chairs, as well as some makeshift banners and tables for refreshments with the catering that they could save. There is no cake as a centerpiece, but there are cupcakes and cookies that Clorinde recognizes as food from the bakery down the street. To be quite fair, they’re pretty good. 

“Charlotte will be your photographer today—and she’s so good with photo manipulation that no one at the Steambird will be able to tell the difference if you want her to publish a few photos to get people off your trail. Wriothesley has already called up some buddies to clean up the streets before the animals could hurt anyone,” Furina informs them. “I looked into the seamstress, the caterers and vendors, and your old little officiant. They all seem to be coincidental bad luck. No one is out to get you, thankfully.”

Clorinde is surprised to hear that. She hadn’t even thought of that since that morning. The thought of people trying to ambush her and Navia’s life has become so commonplace that she practically didn’t care—because she already triumphed above them by having Navia in her life.

Half of their friends are already sitting down, waiting for it to begin, and the other half are still putting up decorations and blowing up balloons. Neuvillette is already at the altar, reading something to pass the time.

The sight makes Clorinde sniff.

Before she knows it, a few tears have slipped out of her eyes. 

“Don’t do that!” Furina chides. “You’re gonna make me cry too!” As if to prove a point, she looks away to sniff and wipe at her eyes.”

“I’m sorry, I was—” Clorinde continues to look at the back alley in awe. Navia is quiet at her side, but Navia takes her hand to squeeze it hard. “I… I really don’t know what to say to you all except… thank you. Really.”

“Don’t thank us just yet,” Furina says with a sigh. “No one dares to breathe until you two kiss and tie the knot up there. So, try not to jinx it again.”

Navia laughs, but it sounds a little wet with tears. She wipes at her eyes and sniffs. “We won’t,” she says quietly. 

She pulls Furina into a hug before Furina knows what’s happening. Furina melts into her touch anyway, closing her eyes and holding Navia close. Clorinde smiles at the sight. 

Chiori comes running up to them before they know it. She has two jacket covers slung over her hovered arm. They’re translucent, so Clorinde can’t see what’s inside. 

Chiori doesn’t keep them guessing for two long. She hands Furina one of the jacket covers so she can zip down the other.

It reveals a beautiful white wedding dress. 

“This is for you,” Chiori says with a nod at Clorinde. “I had it kept in the car because I had a feeling it was going to turn out this way. I kept my car at a crisp temperature so that it wouldn't wrinkle. There’s a suit alternative you can change into for the reception so you can be free to move around. I know that’s something you’re quite insistent on. And yes, you’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” Clorinde says anyway. 

“You were right about it turning out like a disaster,” Navia says mournfully at her side. She looks down at her battered wedding dress. “I ruined the dress you worked hard on, Chiori. I’m so so so sorry.”

Chiori looks down at her ruined dress as if it’s the first time she noticed Navia wearing it. She arches an eyebrow in surprise, but she doesn't seem at all upset. 

“Oh, Navia dear, that’s not your wedding outfit,” Chiori says simply. “That was Plan A—and everyone knows that the first iteration is never the final.”

“Then…?” Navia looks completely confused. “What is, then?”

Chiori trades jacket covers with Furina, then unzips the next one. 

It’s a beautiful white wedding suit, intricate with details. 

Navia gasps. 

“I saw pictures of your parents’ wedding and studied it for a month straight,” Chiori says simply, like she’s speaking of her favorite flavor of tea. “When you first showed it to me, your eyes kept wandering to your father’s suit. You sounded wistful when you spoke of how you could never replicate the intricacy of its design. So—I did my best to make it so.”

“Are you kidding?” Navia declares. “You made it even better!”

She goes to hug Chiori, but Chiori makes a strangled noise and puts her hand up. Navia stops, dejected like a dog. 

“You almost wrinkled your suit,” Chiori says with a sigh. She gives it to Clorinde to hold. “There.”

Navia goes to tackle her for a second time. They connect this time. Chiori smiles into the hug. 

“Now both of you, go,” Chiori orders. “There are washrooms nearby to change into. I’ll check on you both to make sure you’re not suffocating to death trying to put them on.”

“But, before you go,” Furina interrupts as she hands the jacket cover to Clorinde and Clorinde hands Navia her own, “Don’t feel pressured to look presentable when you come out. There are no cameras here except Charlotte’s.”

That takes a while for it to compute in Clorinde’s mind. 

“What do you mean?” she asks, confused. 

“Meaning, that I called off the reporters and cameramen in the Palais Mermonia an hour before the animal stampede,” Furina says with her chin held up proudly. “I had a feeling that something was going to happen the moment we saw the butchered marriage license—so I told them that the wedding had become a private event, and they had ten minutes to evacuate before they would be sued.”

So that’s why the venue didn’t feel as full as she thought it would be. 

“You both are so incredible, you know that?” Clorinde says in awe. “All of you are, for setting this up for us.”

“Where would you be without us?” Chiori asks. She gently pushes them away. “Now go, before our charity runs out or the animals come back.”

Navia laughs happily, even as they make their ways to separate bathrooms. 

Then, Clorinde changes her mind. 

She goes to get dressed with Navia instead. 

“Not a stickler for tradition anymore?” Navia teases when Clorinde closes the door behind them. 

“When it comes to you? No,” Clorinde admits. She puts her arms around Navia’s waist to kiss her fully. She already feels like the luckiest woman alive without having to do anything. 

Navia squeals, pinches her cheeks, then says, “I would love to make out with you while we’re running late to our own wedding, but unfortunately—we are running late to our own wedding.” She sighs wistfully. 

Clorinde grins, then pecks her cheeks. “We have plenty of time to make up for lost moments later tonight anyway,” she husks, and Navia bats her arm playfully. 

They get ready together, helping each other things up and tighten some buttons. Sigewinne knocks on the door to give them a bundle of wild flowers that she gathered at a nearby park, and Navia hugs her. Chiori chides them for putting their wedding outfits on so sloppily, and she helps them straighten things out. 

Then, they walk down the aisle. 

Both Clorinde and Navia get teary-eyed when they see the front row: pictures of Navia’s parents, Petronilla, and Melus and Silver greet them there.

They meet each other at the altar. 

“Now, repeat after me,” Neuvillette says to Clorinde first. “Moi, Clorinde, je te prend, Navia, pour être mon épouse.”

Clorinde takes a deep, shaky breath in. She says, “Moi, Clorinde, je te prend, Navia, pour être mon épouse.”

Clorinde recites the rest, even as her voice cracks: “Pour avoir et tenir de ce jour vers l'avant, pour meilleur ou pour le pire, pour la prospérité et la pauvreté, dans la maladie et dans la santé, pour aimer et chérir; jusqu'à la mort nous sépare.”

Navia recites the same. 

They say their vows next.

It’s nothing too special on Clorinde’s end. It’s nothing that she has never said before. She just reminds Navia that she will be there for her for everything, that she’s the sun to her sky, the beautiful, warm morning to her chilly nights—and she reminds her that she’d know her through every lifetime from the stardust that she lives behind. 

Navia’s vows make her cry. “You’re my best friend,” Navia says softly at the end of her story about their youth. “I’m yours like the way the sea belongs to the moon, and the way the moon belongs to the sky. I may be the star in everyone’s eyes, but you are the sea that guides me home.”

Clorinde wipes at her eyes before the second tear can fall, but her friends are already cooing and giggling at what they’ve seen. 

They exchange rings next. 

Thankfully, Furina had the mercy not only to clean them off, but to disinfect them and make them shine even brighter than they had that morning. Clorinde nearly drops the ring while trying to slip it on Navia’s finger, out of sheer nervousness, and Navia only giggles and whispers her encouragement. It allows her to slip it fully on.

Navia does the same, and she feels her heart skip a beat.

"By the power vested in me by Fontainian custom,” Neuvillette declares, his voice booming over the venue. “I now pronounce you wife and wife.”

He nods at them. Clorinde swears she sees a small smile appear on his face. 

“You may now kiss the bride.”

Navia’s already surging forward to kiss her before Neuvillette even finishes saying the last word. 

Clorinde wraps her arm around Navia’s waist. She feels Navia giggle in between their first and second kiss as new wives, even as the cheering around them ruptures her eardrums—and Clorinde is happy. 

She’s Navia’s wife now. 

She’s Navia’s to have, until the end of time.

“Awwwww,” their kids coo. 

Clorinde rolls her eyes. Navia can tell from the subtle flush of warmth on Clorinde’s cheeks that she hadn’t meant to sound so cheesy at the end. Perhaps she’d unfortunately sucked herself into her own story and almost forgotten that she was in a room with her kids. 

Navia could definitely tell that she was too preoccupied with staring into Navia’s eyes to look at their kids for most of the retelling—which makes her laugh, because it’s definitely not helping her case.

“Who knew Mama could be so corny?” Clementine teases. 

“A whole corn on the cob,” Louise agrees, giggling with her sister.

“A corn on the cob that’s been stripped down to be canned,” André adds with a nod of his head. 

“Man, what does that even mean?” Philippe asks with a wrinkled nose. 

“Okay, enough, enough,” Navia interrupts the compelling conversation with a laugh. She takes Clorinde’s hand on the table and squeezes it, and Clorinde sighs in relief at her intervention. “Don’t forget that she’s still your mother. You can’t make fun of her, or else she’s taking away your electronics.”

Everyone at the table groans. 

“I just got my tablet back for drawing yesterday!” Marquise complains. 

“Well, you should have thought of that before you started calling your mother a corn on the cob,” Navia chides. 

“You agree, don’t you?”

“Of course I do—n’t.” Navia smiles at Clorinde when her wife gives her a withering side glance. “I do not, ma myrtille. I disagree wholeheartedly.”

Clorinde gruffs, nodding in approval. 

Clementine snickers behind her hand. As the eldest, she knows exactly how to read her mothers. “So, what happened after that?” she asks.

Clorinde clears her throat and straightens her back to start scraping up her plate and Navia’s. “What happens next is something you all are already painfully aware of. We went on a wonderful, incredible month-long honeymoon—”

Louise coughs into her fist and coughs out, “Corny.”

It makes Aurelie giggle in her chair. 

Clorinde gives Louise a look, but she mercifully spares her this time around. “We went on a wonderful honeymoon, went back to work, and then eventually had you all one by one. Or, in the case of you two pears—twice at once. You two were by far the biggest at birth, I’ll tell you that much.” She points her fork at their only two boys, and they laugh merrily at her. 

“Do you regret any of it?” Clementine asks once more. 

“Of course not,” is Navia’s genuine, immediate response. Clorinde looks over at her and gives her a subtle yet sincere smile. “Never in a thousand years would we regret being where we are.”

“Even that time we had a food fight at the table last year?” Marquise asks. 

That makes Clorinde bark out a laugh. “Yes. Even when you had a food fight last year,” she assures them. “And speaking of food—all of you need to finish up so you can finish studying. It’s a school night.”

The table groans once more. 

“But the ham’s cold!” Philippe complains. 

“And who’s fault is that?” Clorinde shoots back playfully. “You should have done what your sisters did and ate while you listened.”

Philippe grumbles under his breath, stabbing at his cold piece of ham with a fork and a pout. 

His pout looks incredibly similar to Clorinde’s when Navia would tell her to finish eating before heading out for something. It makes Navia giggle, and she reaches over to press a kiss on Clorinde’s cheek even as she continues to pile up their plates for them. 

“Aurelie,” Navia scolds gently, scraping her chair closer to her youngest daughter’s side. “You can’t just pile up your broccoli on one corner of your plate instead of eating it!” 

Aurelie whines, but she spears her vegetables and shoves it into her mouth unhappily but obediently. 

The rest of their kids help with cleaning the table. They form a familiar train with soaking the dishes and drying them up, and a few others clean off the crumbs from the table with a rag.

Clorinde tugs on Navia’s elbow when she passes her with Aurelie in her arms. They kiss briefly, and Clorinde murmurs, “I’ll join you in a minute. Just let me make sure our little rascals promise to get their homework done.”

Navia giggles. “Good luck,” she says sincerely. 

Clorinde sighs. “I’ll need it.”

Navia presses one more kiss to Clorinde’s forehead, and Aurelie reaches for Clorinde to give her a kiss on the cheek as well. 

Navia brings Aurelie upstairs to help her change into her pajamas and give her a few minutes of downtime to play with her blocks before bed. She can hear Clorinde patiently guiding one of their kids through a math problem in the other room, and she briefly shouts for Louise and Clementine to stop fighting about who stole whose jackets and share instead.

Aurelie gets sleepy almost right on the dot. Clorinde joins her just in time to tuck her in and to turn on her nightlight before closing the door. 

They check on each of their kids. The younger ones are pestered about making sure they have everything for their gym class tomorrow and their science projects ready, and the older ones get brief knocks at their door to ask if they need anything before they head to bed. 

They give advice to the ones needing help with homework, and they back each other up when their older children try to be snarky with them. They’re a team, in that regard. They’ve always been a team; a lesson they learned after keeping things from each other, even on their wedding day.

The house gets quieter by the minute. One by one, each room in their long hallway goes from loud shouting at teammates on their video games and blasting music to “concentrate” while studying, to having their lights and doors soundlessly shut. 

At the very end of the hallway is Clorinde and Navia’s room. They’re the last to turn off their lights and head to bed. 

Partly because Navia’s skincare and nighttime routine was a whole ritual to get through, and partly because they love basking in the chaos of their household. 

Navia tucks herself under their silk covers and shimmies closer against Clorinde until their legs tangle. She giggles despite herself. 

“What are you laughing about?” Clorinde asks her, confused but a little amused. 

Navia drags her fingertips over Clorinde’s strong arm, still giggling as she says, “I can’t believe you left out the part where we got kicked out of our first resort on our honeymoon because you flipped the manager over thinking he was pulling a gun on me.”

Clorinde clears her throat as Navia cackles out loud. 

“Our children don’t need to know such frivolous details about our lives,” Clorinde insists, but her words come out too quickly. “Even telling them a little bit about our wedding was more than enough, I would say.”

“If you say so,” Navia says in a sing-song tone. 

Clorinde gently pinches her side. Navia squeaks, writhing in bed. It gives Clorinde the upperhand to continue tickling her. 

Even after six kids, decades together, and a turbulent wedding, neither of them seem to want to slow down when it comes to being in love. 

“What do you think about a seventh?” Navia asks when they fall into comfortable silence in the darkness of their bedroom. 

She can see Clorinde’s face scrunch up in confusion. “A seventh? A seventh what?” she asks out loud. Navia doesn’t respond. She lets it hang in the air, until Clorinde’s eyebrows jump up and she squeaks, “Oh!”

“Well?” Navia giggles. 

Clorinde exhales with a laugh. She puts her forearm under her pillow and looks at Navia with the same kind of puppy eyes she gave to her when they were teenagers. It’s always made Navia feel so young and in love, even now. 

“I feel like another is going to make my hair fall out completely,” she admits. “But if it’s something you want…”

“I’m just teasing, Clorinde,” Navia says with a laugh. She knees Clorinde gently in the thigh. Her laughter fades gently away. “I’m happy where we are.”

“Really?” Clorinde asks. There’s a touch of vulnerability to it. 

Navia leans over to plant a loving, gentle kiss to her wife’s lips. 

“I’m really, really happy,” Navia promises. “I just hope you are too.”

“With you by my side?” Clorinde asks, in awe. “Of course I am.”

Navia’s exhale is both from amusement and relief. She pecks Clorinde’s lips one more time, and she can feel Clorinde caressing the strip of skin on her side the way she always does to lull them to sleep. She can even feel her eyes begin to get heavy. 

She looks at the clock on the wall. It turned midnight just two minutes ago. She giggles under her breath.

Pressing closer against Clorinde’s face until their foreheads barely touch, Navia gives her a whisper of a kiss to the lips. 

“I love you,” Navia whispers to her. “Happy anniversary.”

She couldn’t exactly give that little fact away to her kids today. They often remember, but maybe they’re preparing a surprise for them in the morning, or maybe they were just too enamored with their storytelling at dinner time. Perhaps she’ll tell them in the morning to see how far their eyes pop in shock and watch them scramble to make them an anniversary breakfast like they do every single year. 

Either way, Navia is glad to have made it this far with Clorinde by her side, surrounded by a family who loves them and friends that surround them. She knows for a fact, deep in her heart, that they will continue making it through this life together. What a privilege it was to see that as mere fact. 

Clorinde smiles. Even in the darkness, Navia can make out the curves of her lips and the way her dark eyes glow with happiness and content in the dark. “I love you too,” she says softly. “Happy anniversary, my darling Navia.”

They fall asleep, seconds apart from one another.

Another day will come to them soon, all with the chaos and domesticity that comes with being married to her best friend.