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“Hey Slick!”
“My Goodness.” Mendax did not think that he had been addressed in such a familiar fashion by anyone he was not related to in, well…ever.
He turned in order to see from whence this verbal assault had come to witness a woman waving at him frantically from the door of a smithy, her other hand holding a nurse’s cap down on her blonde hair.
“Oh Good!” The blonde woman, realizing he had heard her, rushed forward and grabbed his arm. “I need your help.” She began to drag him in.
“Well, I’m hardly one to refuse a lady in distress…” Mendax was brought up short by what he found inside the blacksmith’s forge.
The smith was working away, hammering a nail into a circle on his anvil. Another young woman stood in the forge, in the same nurse’s cap and apron as his kidnapper. She was fussing with it, using magic to pull blood and muck out of the fabric. She had clearly just come off shift, black hair hung in a limp tail of curls down her back. Something about the whole scene tickled his memory but he couldn’t place it yet.
She looked up, a lover’s soft smile immediately touching her features. “You found someone. Well done love.” She turned to Mendax, “We really do appreciate it.”
“Appreciate what? As far as I can tell I’ve just been absconded into a smithy?” Mendax wasn’t actually angry, more amused by the farce of the whole thing.
The dark haired woman huffed. “Lorna!” The dark haired speaker pulled her partner over and began dusting and straightening the woman’s uniform. “Being a witness for our wedding.” She clearly couldn’t help the little wiggle of joy. “We decided to get married but we both have clinic duties so… This is easier.” Lorna flashed a smile at him as well, clearly too joyful to be ashamed at her actions.
There it was.
To get married upon the anvil was an old tradition, still legal across Arcadia but so scandalous for members of the Gentry it had fallen out of favor with the peasant classes. With the recent Aetherphage outbreak however he doubted the two nurses had more than an hour or two to themselves at a time, never mind for the elaborate celebrations of a union. That these two women had chosen such an ancient, rough-spun method to solemnize their union spoke to Mendax, urging him to participate in their joy.
“I’m Arana-my friends call me Spider, this is Lorna.” The dark haired woman had continued talking. “Jay here,” She nodded at the smith, “Is kindly making our rings.” There was a soft lilt in her accent he couldn’t place.
“We’re nurses.” Lorna explained as he if couldn’t tell from the red and blue uniforms.
“We’re good friends to have.” Arana insisted, “being nurses. We’d owe you a favor, we could even witness your wedding someday.” The smile she offered Lorna blazed.
“Rings are finished.” Jay offered the simple metal circles out.
Mendax used a shadow to reach out to snatch them and the rest of the wedding party startled. “Mendax Vale, if I’m to do this I intend to do it properly.” He examined the rings. They were, as expected, simple nails that had been hammered into rings with the heads of the nails as the center pieces. A brush of shadow magic etched the date on the inside of the bands. “That seems in order.”
He handed them back to the two women, one to each.
They accepted the rings, a little wide eyed.
They both ducked their heads, wrapping the rings in their own magic. The one in Lorna’s hand began to glow softly and little iron shavings fell through Arana’s fingers as she etched a design into the one she was holding.
Lorna started first, “I love you you know. I began to suspect when I saw you across the ward wrestle that man back into his bed.” She caught Arana’s hands, smiling at the memory “But I know I love you now, every morning when I wake up you are the first one I reach for.” She slipped the glowing iron on Arana’s hand. “I looked in the heart of creation, and I saw your face, and knew you were the other half of me. I promise I will love you with every breath, every moment, every day. From now until forever.”
Mendax would not, he told himself, tear up. He turned his head, whispering to one of his shadows. “Go find them something nice.” The manifestation disappeared to do his bidding.
Arana was next, “When I was little I dreamed of a love like this, to be chosen first, to have someone to share my days and thoughts with. You are the culmination of a hope, the promise of a guiding star. ” She slipped the etched iron on Lorna’s hand. “I promise to hold you in my heart,and to love you every day, to keep you warm, until the sun drowns in the sea.”
The odd salt tinged oath, combined with her accent made Mendax wonder if Arana’s family were refugees of the Protectorate.
Promises made and witnessed, the lord joined the black smith in signing the marriage certificate, attesting what he had seen.
He slipped the smith a few gold coins. “Now ladies, this happy occasion calls for a small celebration. Lunch?”
In sync the two wives looked at the little nurses’ watches they had pinned to their uniforms. “I have about an hour till I’m on shift. Maybe a little more?” Lorna offered.
“Hour and a half.” Spider gave precisely.
Mendax’s shadow re-materialized behind him carrying a bottle of sparkling wine and a few small nibbles. “An hour and a half sounds perfect for a small repast. Shall we?”