Work Text:
The wedding is loud.
Like, loud loud. Live music plays throughout the entirety of Toyac Springs. People gather along the boardwalk, chatting and drinking. Couples dance across the waterfront, nearly dragging passersby into the ocean. It’s wild. It’s crazy. It’s…
Too much for Kinich.
Sure, he's no stranger to partying. He's drunk his fill at many a gathering. Nothing truly alcoholic, of course — that's one thing he avoids no matter the occasion. Except for today. He was coaxed into a glass of wine from everyone except Mualani.
Mualani. Kinich doesn't mind a celebration if that celebration is for Mualani.
Technically, the celebration is for him, too.
But Mualani is the one that pushed for it. And if there is anything he cannot do, it is to deny Mualani. And she is more than understanding. She let him sneak off after greeting their first few guests, and now he sits atop the roof of Colomche Plaza’s main building, legs crossed and hands in his lap. Fidgeting. Twisting around the ring on his finger — an emerald from deep within Coatepec Mountain, polished until it was smooth and shiny, then engraved with the symbol of the Meztli. A piece of his heart carved into a piece of his home.
Mualani has a ring to match. Lazurite sourced from Toyac Springs and carved with the Huitztlan emblem. They were a gift from Xilonen, meant to be a symbol of their union. Natlan doesn’t have such traditions, but she picked it up from a librarian and her wife in Mondstadt.
Kinich runs a thumb over the ring as he scans the party below. Mualani is dancing with Kachina, laughing as they twirl through the crowd, the skirts of their white pareos floating in their wake. The edges of the engraving scrape at his skin, and he presses the pad of his thumb into it until his blood pulses through his hand.
Until it carves a permanent place into his soul.