Chapter Text
The morning of Ei's wedding to Miko dawns overcast. "That's too bad," Xilonen says, looking out of the window of their room in Tenshukaku. "Miko really wanted sunshine."
Mavuika just finished dressing. (Not in her formal outfit for the wedding. That will be later.) She would do this anyway for Ei's sake, but there's no point missing an opportunity to impress Xilonen.
"That can be arranged," she says, and steps outside.
She closes her eyes and spreads her arms, palms up, feels the power rise and feels her hair start streaming. Closing her fists around the flames that were hovering above her palms, she calls down the power of the sun and the clouds boil away to picturesque wisps.
Neuvillette or Ei could undo it, but neither of them is likely to try. There are ways in which it is not a good idea for the gods (and dragons) to contend with one another.
Nearly all of them, really. Drinking contests with Venti is about the limit of what's advisable, for an extremely specific definition of advisable.
Not all of them can affect the weather, but for those who can it would be a bad idea to try and fight each other over it.
Hopefully nothing makes Neuvillette too sad or Ei too angry today, Mavuika thinks.
Xilonen is standing in the doorway watching her when Mavuika turns around.
"That sh-"
"Get in here," Xilonen says. "Now."
The first time Mavuika saw that expression from Xilonen, she wondered if she was angry. She's more familiar with it now.
She's no less prompt to go inside, it's just this time she's expecting to get pushed against the wall and kissed like Xilonen needs it to keep breathing.
"I have to meet Miko in thirty minutes," Xilonen says, hands already moving to undress Mavuika again. "Absolutely outrageous for you to be that sexy when I'm on a time limit."
"I'd apologise, but I wouldn't mean it," Mavuika tells her.
~
On the bright side, Xilonen thinks, she's feeling very energised as she skates to meet Miko. They're staying in Tenshukaku, it's not at all far, which is good.
"Was the abrupt change in the weather prospects because of your wife?" is the first thing Miko says.
"Yes," Xilonen says, because it was.
"Then I shall forgive you for being late." Miko is sitting on a stool while two women Xilonen vaguely recognises style her hair. There are two more stools waiting. Xilonen takes one of them, and two more women materialise, as far as she can tell, out of thin air to start doing hers.
"Is Mizuki late? Do I -"
"No." Miko does not move her head even slightly. "She is due slightly later. Mizuki has no additional tasks today." Unlike Xilonen. "In fact," Miko adds, looking past Xilonen, "Mizuki is early."
She smiles. It's a different smile from her usual smiles, Xilonen thinks - not even Xilonen gets that smile, and Miko definitely has a special smile that's just for her. Mizuki has her own Miko smile, and she's been doubting that Miko really loves her?
Xilonen is kind of offended on her friend's behalf, but it wouldn't be helpful to say anything right now when Mizuki did at least agree to this.
"I didn't want to take the risk that something might delay me and I'd be late," Mizuki says. "I... thought it would be important not to get this wrong."
"Thank you." Miko says it like she means it. She glances at Xilonen, of all people, like Xilonen is the leading example for emotional honesty to anyone. "It is meaningful to me that you are here."
Mizuki takes the third stool. Xilonen is watching for it and still doesn't see where the new women come from to do her hair. "I don't know w-" She stops, possibly because she saw that Xilonen was glaring at her. "You wouldn't just say that, would you," she says, softer.
"When have I ever pretended to care more than I actually do?" Miko asks.
"Never." Mizuki says it like it's an admission.
"A great deal of work has gone into making this a perfect day," Miko says.
"Don't worry. I won't mess it up," Mizuki says.
"I wasn't." Miko is watching her. "I was going to say that perhaps I need not worry any further. If my dearest friends are with me as I marry Ei perfection is already assured."
Mizuki looks like she's about to cry and Miko looks like she's hit her absolute limit for sincerity, so Xilonen says, "I'm guessing I'm still on for everything I'm supposed to do today."
Miko's lips quirk. "Naturally. Why waste the opportunity to impress the world? If only for Inazuma's sake. And Natlan's, I suppose, since your involvement will hardly go unnoticed."
"That's fair."
Since they can't move, Xilonen goes through her checklist out loud so Miko knows she hasn't forgotten anything (or can remind her about it if she has). It gives Mizuki time to compose herself.
Xilonen and Mualani teamed up on the Mizuki and Miko problem, dragging answers out of their respective friends, and even Mualani admitted that most of the problem was in fact Mizuki.
She's a good psychologist, but she's apparently not as good at handling her own issues sometimes. The problem, it turns out, was Mizuki's sense of her own worth kinda sucks and it was all just painfully unfortunate.
Back when they were kids, Miko was cool, the one all the grownups were impressed by and all the other kids wanted to be like. Mizuki thought she was just the greatest, and they built their friendship on that dynamic: Mizuki thought Miko was the best and didn't quite understand why Miko kept her around.
And Miko maybe took it for granted that Mizuki thought she was awesome and didn't really pay attention to whether Mizuki knew that Miko actually liked her.
It might have been fine, but things got tough in Inazuma. Miko was drowning and it didn't occur to Mizuki that Miko could be struggling as much as she was, but even that wouldn't have been as bad as it got except that everything went really bad. Miko moved to the shrine and they didn't see each other any more and then Mizuki left Inazuma and then for a long time couldn't go back.
And now Mizuki's determined to prove that she's Miko's equal, when it never actually occurred to Miko that she wasn't.
Xilonen's trying not to let it affect the way she talks to Mizuki that she's actually, on some level, really angry about how it all played out. Inazuma isn't Natlan. It's not as obvious to Inazumans as it would be to anyone from Natlan how wrong it is, how unnatural and cruel it is that Miko had to deal with so much alone.
Inazuma was in ruins, shattered socially and physically. Ei retreated from the world, overwhelmed by grief, and Miko was left to pick up the pieces. It was Miko who rebuilt Inazuma, who maintained the Shrine and the Sakura and the balance of the Commissions, and she had no-one to stand by her through all of it.
It would have been disastrous if she'd ever shown the slightest hint of weakness or vulnerability. It's no wonder that at this point she can't.
So if Mizuki rejecting every overture of friendship hurts her, Miko will never admit it.
And if Miko won't admit she wants her friend back, Mizuki will think she doesn't.
They're not the same people they were, back then. They couldn't have the same relationship now.
But they can't have any relationship if Mizuki won't stop fighting the whole idea of being Miko's friend at all.
It was Xilonen and Mualani who delivered Miko's invitation to Mizuki to be with her at her wedding. It was kind of a team effort to get her to agree, with Mualani taking the angle of encouraging Mizuki to think of it as a positive thing that she was asked at all, and provide her amazing ball of sunshine enthusiasm about it.
Xilonen was there to say things like actually no it's really important to her and with all due respect Mizuki have you been hit in the head lately because do you really think she's going to use her own wedding as a setup to play mind games with you? I wouldn't have done that with my wedding and I actively hated every part of it outside of the thirty seconds I actually spent marrying my wife.
Mualani's what Xilonen means is contributions were pretty critical, really.
In the end they didn't actually have to go to their final resort, which was to bring Chasca in to mediate.
"All of that is just today?" Mizuki asks when Xilonen is finished.
"In theory some of it should be unnecessary," Xilonen says, and sighs. "But nobody ever listens to me or reads the manuals I spend hours writing for them, so I really need to check anything that's a safety issue. Learned that the hard way."
"Everyone who is working with something you built has the strictest orders to follow your instructions to the letter," Miko says.
"And if they've actually done that it'll be the first time I've seen it happen," Xilonen says. "I'll let you know if Inazuma beat the odds."
She's not optimistic.
Her hair is done before either of theirs, because it's quite a bit shorter and in any case, in theory Xilonen's will get checked over again before the ceremony because she has quite a few hours of running around to do before then.
"All right," she says, once it's officially done. "Miko, remember that your jewellery is crazy delicate. It will be ruined if someone picks it up wrong." The delicate, delicate layers of fine gold could be crushed by a careless fingertip.
Quite a lot of it is laid out on a table by Miko ready to be put in her hair. There'll be an entire scene in the cascade of jewels down Miko's hair, tiny little depictions of the non-sentient kitsune chasing the fall of sakura blossom as lightning dances around them.
When her own wedding was being prepared Xilonen's job was mostly to try and say no to stuff. (And usually fail.) Other people were very enthusiastically doing all the real work.
Xilonen has put a lot of hours into Miko's wedding, and at this point if the day doesn't go off without a hitch it doesn't really matter whether Miko has reached the point of being philosophical about marrying her love in the presence of her closest friends. Xilonen will test out every hypothetical vengeance she's ever considered for the possibility of Mualani one day having a crappy boyfriend on whoever is responsible and plead diplomatic immunity for the consequences.
She's pretty sure the worst that could happen to her is not getting to come back to whatever's left of Inazuma when she's done.
"All due care will be taken, Xilonen," Miko says serenely.
"All right. Have fun." Xilonen gives them both a wave and kicks her skates out. She has a lot to do and only a few hours to do it in.
~
Mavuika has a pleasant breakfast with Ei, Neuvillette, Ningguang, Jean and Alhaitham. She is curious to note that Snezhnaya doesn't appear even to have an ambassador in Inazuma.
She doesn't ask.
~
"Hello, lady," the tiniest, sleepiest ninja imaginable says. "This is for you."
"Check every bolt," Xilonen snaps, and then looks at the ninja. "For me?"
The ninja has a box. "It is breakfast. For the lady. The lady will have breakfast after I deliver it." The ninja yawns. "Please take the breakfast, lady."
Xilonen takes the box. "Thanks, I guess?"
"I did my job and I'm going to have a nap now," the tiny ninja says.
"I feel you, kid," Xilonen says, and looks back at the group who have laughably been designated technicians here.
"Oh for -" A young woman in a face mask arrives on the scene. "What did I tell you? You have to check every bolt. You haven't even secured the grounding straps!"
That was actually the next thing Xilonen was about to yell at them for. "Hi. Who are you?" she asks the young woman.
"Kuki Shinobu," the woman says.
"Huh. I know that name." Xilonen thinks. "You signed up for the technical certification." She sent her apprentices to teach the classes for how to work the systems she was installing, she didn't have time, but she looked over the written work. "You were top of the class."
"Yes ma'am. If you have other work to do I've got this covered." She looks back at the others. "You are not about to try and ground that on the viewing stands," she almost snarls. "There is a manual. There are diagrams. If it doesn't match the diagrams you're doing it wrong. Get it right. I am going to check."
"You know what?" Xilonen offers her a fistbump, which is returned. "You I'll trust. Thanks. I've got to get to my next stop."
~
Navia has been to Inazuma before. She likes Inazuman food.
She does not like the indignity of vomiting behind a bush in Inazuma City.
"Did Wriothesley bring Miss Sigewinne?" Clorinde asks, rubbing her back. "This isn't just being a little sick. I'm worried."
"He didn't. I wish we had," Furina says.
Navia vetoed the idea. She thought it was excessive. She'll probably feel stupid later.
If she survives. She's not sure how much that thought is the general anxiety she's been feeling all along and how much it's something she should genuinely be worried about.
Another painful cramp, dry with nothing left in her stomach, it hurts until another soothing pulse from the Singer of Many Waters Furina summoned.
"Hey, I'm sorry to intrude," says a new voice. "I couldn't help but see your friend is sick. I have some ginger candies in case that might help and my ladies are looking for a healer. And, well."
"It's Navia," says a voice she knows. "The candy will work."
"Are you sure?" Curiously metallic fingers are holding something to Navia's lips.
"Mmhm! Because I say so." There's a little giggle.
Navia lets the unknown woman put the candy in her mouth. It burns her raw throat, but she doesn't vomit again.
It's quite unclear how much that is because of the ginger candy and how much it is because of the soft green light that washes over the scene for a moment, but Navia will take it either way.
She straightens. "Thank you, your Excellency," she manages. "And thank you..."
The unfamiliar woman has dark hair and cat-like pale blue eyes. "I'm Dehya," she says, with a smile like the sins of a thousand women less happily married than Navia.
"You should just call me Nahida," the Archon says. "I wanted to be among the crowds today."
"Miss Navia, was it?" Dehya asks, as Furina and Clorinde help her stand.
"Mrs," she corrects, "but just Navia is fine. These are my wives, Furina and Clorinde."
"Wives?" Dehya's smile gets even sharper. "I only have one of those, but she's back in Sumeru. Maybe you should stick with Nahida and my girlfriends and me today, just in case." Her glance takes in the swell of Navia's belly. It has become distinctly noticeable.
It's rare that they meet someone with a more unconventional relationship situation than their own, Navia thinks.
"That might be best," Clorinde says before she can.
Clorinde isn't usually one to trust strangers readily, but Dehya is with Nahida and realistically if the Dendro Archon means them harm they have bigger problems and so does everyone else in the vicinity.
~
Xilonen pinches the bridge of her nose. "You have to be kidding me."
"I'm sorry," Yoimiya says. "This has never happened before."
"Who has a motive to sabotage the wedding? Don't answer that, we don't have time for investigations, only solutions." She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. "Mavuika can usually dry anything out, but she's at a diplomatic function and anyway, we can't use fire to dry out fireworks. Neuvillette is also out because of the diplomatic function."
"If we could stop the water seeping we'd probably only lose the top layer," Yoimiya sighs. "And that would just cut into the extras we made in case something went wrong. It would probably be fine. But if we disturb them now it'll only spread worse."
"Is that so." Xilonen nods. "Keep doing what you can to stop it getting worse, I'll be back in five."
She finds him buying something called dango milk from a street vendor. "Morning, Xil-" he starts to say.
"You. Come. Now," she cuts him off.
He blinks. "You look stressed. Do I need to find someone to take Serena?"
"You can bring her."
"All right then."
He follows her back, and takes in the scene with the air of a man accustomed to assessing a crisis. "I see your problem. Am I just -"
"Yes."
He punches the air a few times like he's shadow-boxing, but ice surges out in every direction he swings and freezes all the water solid instantly.
And then he even punches the sheet of ice in a few places around the edges so it can be lifted off whole.
More stacked fireworks than Xilonen expected are still dry underneath.
"Thanks," she tells Wriothesley with great sincerity. "You're a lifesaver. I owe you one."
He grins. "I still owe you for that air pump issue. Don't worry about it."
~
Mavuika and the other national leaders are watching a performance of traditional music by a group of Inazuman schoolchildren. They've been joined by a number of notable Inazumans from the Commissions and Watatsumi Island.
It's adorable.
~
Xilonen folds her arms. "Explain."
"The Almighty Shogun is finally marrying her Kitsune Guuji," the young man says joyfully. "We thought -"
"I doubt that." Xilonen wants to run her hands through her hair, but she can't mess it up. "Fix this. Remove all evidence."
"But -"
Xilonen holds up a hand and he stops. "Let me make sure I understand this correctly. You think Pretty Please Kitsune Guuji is an accurate depiction of Guuji Yae, as in the real person who is getting married today, and she will appreciate you painting an entire row of houses with giant murals of the cover."
"Yes!" He beams. No fewer than eleven people behind him look just as dopily happy.
A few of them say yay!
"Would I be right in thinking that you also believe that since Guuji Yae is such a totally sweet person, even if this isn't what she wanted for her wedding she'll forgive you because you meant well."
"Of course. She'll think it's so funny!"
Xilonen nods. "Okay. I don't have time to argue with you about that, so I want you to look at me very carefully and see if you can guess exactly how much of a sense of humour I'm having about this right now."
"Um." The man looks at his friends. "Not a lot, ma'am, but -"
"Stop talking." Xilonen rolls her shoulders and moves like so and -
The entire group takes a step back simultaneously as the Nightsoul's Blessing lights up her skin.
"I don't normally do this," Xilonen says, "but I'm going to be really clear with you here. Yae Miko is my friend but that isn't even the point. This wedding is a project I am seeing to completion and I take that seriously. If you do not do as I say right now it doesn't matter what Guuji Yae thinks of your work because you will have to face me first."
"She's marrying the Archon," comes a voice from the back.
"I already married an Archon," Xilonen snarls. "If my Archon tells her Archon you died of natural causes there won't be a single followup question, and if you argue with me one more time then killing every single one of you is going to feel pretty freaking natural, so help me -"
"As a legal theory that's kind of a stretch, but we're definitely happy to help you," says a new voice.
"Yanfei?" Xilonen blinks. "Long time. It's great to see you but I could really use a lack of witnesses right now."
"What you could use is backup and an alibi." Yanfei smiles prettily. "Why don't you let us handle this? This looks like defaced property to me at minimum, as well as obstruction of a public festival and I think maybe sacrilege? I'll have to check Inazuman law for that one. Still, I'm sure these people will be happy to clean all of that off immediately and there'll be no sign at all by the time the wedding party might see it. That would be a reasonable solution, wouldn't it?"
"Sure, but if they don't -"
"If a reasonable solution isn't feasible we can go with an unreasonable alternative," Yanfei says cheerfully. "Shenhe has been finding the crowds very stressful and could really use an outlet."
"I do not need an 'outlet'. I need to beat something until the violence in my soul is containable again," Shenhe says from behind her.
Yanfei turns her smile on the idiots.
"We'll, uh. Clean it."
"There's a training post for the Shogunate's armies nearby," someone else says, and Xilonen looks around and sees, of all people, Kujou Sara. "There are training dummies. If it would help you, I can show you there."
"Thank you," Shenhe says. "If these people do not obey Yanfei I can still return to put them in their place."
"Great," Xilonen says. "I'll leave that with you, then."
~
Mualani can't stop smiling. She's having a wonderful time in Inazuma City.
The wedding isn't for hours but the people here are already celebrating. It's like a festival in the streets, filled with joy and laughter and a sense of romance.
And a surprising number of people holding copies of Pretty Please, Kitsune Guuji. As someone who has actually spent time around both Yae Miko and Raiden Ei, Mualani can't take that book seriously at all.
"Here," Benny says. "They're almost out. I was really lucky and got almost the last two they had." He hands her a skewer. "It's called tri-coloured dango."
Mualani takes a bite. It's really tasty. "Thank you." She smiles at him, and they join hands to keep walking.
"Was there anything good at the book seller?" he asks.
"No, they're nearly sold out too. I think the Archon or Xilonen might still be ordering anything new that gets published, anyway, even the latest titles are already in our library." She takes another bite.
"I was wondering," he says, not looking at her. Someone they're walking past drops a bowl of... something, and the splash just misses being under where he puts his foot. Mualani tugs him away, to be on the safe side. "Do you, you know. Ever think about if you might want to get married?"
Mualani smiles. "I always thought I would. If I ever met the right guy."
"Yeah?" He gives her the cutest little sideways glance. "He'd have to be someone pretty lucky, to meet you and have you think he could be the right guy."
"You think so?" She squeezes his hand.
"Yeah. Maybe he'd even have had to have a whole lot of bad luck before he met you, just to balance out that kind of good luck, you know? I mean. For you to even consider it. Not that he'd, like, necessarily think he should be asking you to marry him yet. Maybe he'd just be thinking about it and want to know if that was a possibility." Bennett coughs. "Because he didn't want to get his hopes up if you weren't, you know... open to that idea? In the future? Because meeting you was the day his whole life turned around and he couldn't believe he'd met someone so great."
Mualani pulls him to the side of the street, out of the flow of traffic so they can stop and she can face him without worrying someone will walk right into him.
He hasn't been that unlucky since they met, but she's heard all the stories from his dads.
His dads are hugely popular at the Springs and it makes Benny really happy. They only tell the stories about Benny to Mualani and his other new friends, but they have so many fantastic stories to tell about their past adventures. There's always people eager to hear them tell them, and they all say the hot springs really help with the aches of old injuries.
"I think you're great too," she tells him sincerely. "I'm not ready to marry you yet but I definitely think I might like to one day." Maybe sooner than she might otherwise, if he didn't already have Mavuika's approval.
"Really?" He lights up.
"Really." She kisses him, and he's so gentle and so sweet. Mualani adores him.
"Oh, my," says an unfamiliar voice. "Bennett? Is that you?"
They jerk apart. Not that they were doing anything wrong, but Mualani is startled and she thinks he is too. She turns and sees an unfamiliar woman dressed in purple, wearing a tall pointy hat.
"Lisa?" Benny hasn't let go of Mualani's hand. "Hi! I didn't know you would be here."
"Oh, you know how it is." She smiles. "Who's the cutie?"
"This is Mualani," Benny says. "She's from Natlan. Mualani, this is Lisa. Lisa Minci. She's from Mondstadt."
"Astonishing. I didn't know Natlan was home to such beautiful women."
Mualani looks her over. The outfit matches the overtly flirtatious tone and the frankly appraising look she's giving Mualani. Benny is too sweet to be upset about it, she thinks, but it is not escaping Mualani's notice that Lisa is flirting with her, right in front of Benny, even though she definitely saw them kissing.
She's sure she's just teasing, but it's not the kind of teasing Mualani likes.
So.
"Really?" she asks. "You don't think Mavuika and Xilonen are beautiful? I can't think of many other women from Natlan you'd have met." She smiles brightly. "Xilonen told us about how they met you and Jean. All about it."
Lisa looks momentarily horrified, then reassembles a smile. "I see. I like this one, Bennett." She bows her head slightly to Mualani. "Take care of him. He's a good boy at heart."
"I know," Mualani says, still smiling.
"Bye, Lisa," Benny says, seeming slightly bemused as Lisa walks away.
~
If Xilonen finds a third problem like this she's starting an investigation.
And possibly a war.
"They got into a fight."
"Yes. And. Um. Most of the staff. Um. Quit and won't come back if the chefs are still here."
Xilonen nods slowly.
"Tell the staff that if they aren't back within ten minutes I will declare a blood feud on behalf of my entire tribe." Pacal will look at her weirdly, but he'll roll with it, she's sure. "Tell the chefs they're fired and if they come anywhere near the banquet I'm going to give them to the Great Dragonlord K'ujul Ajaw." He'd yell at them for a while and then get bored, but no-one in Inazuma knows that. "I assume you have recipes to follow."
"Yes, but without the chefs -"
"I will bring you a chef."
The one she's looking for would have been hard to spot if not for the cheering crowd and the bursts of flame and ice.
"And done!" Escoffier exclaims as Xilonen makes it through the crowd.
She's pretty sure turning into an ocelot to slide through the crowd won't ruin her hair and she does not have the time to push through at full size.
"It looks great," Xilonen says flatly, rising to two feet in front of her. "I need you."
"Huh?" Escoffier lowers the dish she was holding out flamboyantly. "I'm in a cookoff."
"And I'm in a really bad mood," Xilonen says. "The chefs for the wedding banquet got in a fistfight and I need someone to run the kitchen."
"I'd rather not do that alone," Escoffier says, and Xilonen is about to scream until she realises Escoffier is looking past her and hasn't finished. "Coming?"
"I'd love to!" Someone else says.
Xilonen turns.
Ah.
"Thanks, Xiangling. Love to have you too."
~
Mavuika and the other national leaders are watching a succession of representatives from various Inazuman towns and organisations present their official wedding gifts.
She's almost completely certain Alhaitham is secretly listening to music. Ningguang is watching attentively, probably analysing what this says about economic indicators in Inazuma, and Neuvillette seems to be fascinated, as he often is by cultural events. Since this is a work event for Jean Gunnhildr Mavuika assumes she wouldn't admit she was bored - if she is - under torture.
Xilonen said she was helping Miko make sure everything was ready today. Mavuika wonders if her morning is also dull.
~
The banquet hall is -
- looking great, actually?
Xilonen wonders if she's carrying some kind of curse as she watches two workers start to set a gorgeous centrepiece on one of the tables and drop it. It shatters, sending water, flowers, and broken glass everywhere.
"Lift the corners, don't let the mess spread, move," Thoma says, sweeping in from she doesn't see where.
He takes one end of the tablecloth himself, and the mess is gathered in and lifted away. The thick fabric isn't even dripping before it's out of the pavilion, and then he's coming back with more workers and a fresh tablecloth.
"Tell Hiyori to iron some more, we're running low on spares that are ready to be placed," he's telling someone. "And check our stock of prepared table decorations. Everything has to be perfect."
Xilonen figures he's got this. She won't disturb them.
~
Natlan doesn't really have much of a tradition of formalwear. They're warriors.
But in other places you have to dress differently to show you're taking something seriously, so they had a choice of wearing Inazuman formal dress or coming up with something that looks like they were making an effort.
Mualani decided to arrange for a more formal-looking version of Natlan style, because the Inazuman outfits looked...
... complicated.
So. After her morning walk through the celebrations with Benny it's time to get ready. Hair brushed, braids wound through obsidian rings, and some jewelled hair clips Xilonen made her instead of her headband.
Her outfit is in two pieces. The top, in very pale blue, leaves her arms and shoulders bare, held up by a kind of choker, with laces from her throat to just below her breasts. The back drapes past her butt but the front is cut away to keep her stomach bare. Her skirt is ankle-length and dyed in a gradient, pale blue at the top and darker at the bottom. There's a slit on one side up to her hip so her leg will be visible at least some of the time.
It was kind of hard to balance the apparent expectation that formal clothes need to be super long with the feeling that she can't show up to something as important as a wedding with her tattoos completely covered. She might as well just stand up in the middle of the ceremony and scream I don't even want to be here.
It takes her a while to do her hair. When she's finally ready and steps out of her room Benny is already waiting outside.
He looks gorgeous. He's fixed his hair and he's wearing a very fancy-looking suit. When Mualani opened the door he was leaning on the rail watching the street, and she gets a brief moment to observe how fantastic those pants make his butt look before he turns around.
"Whoa," he says, eyes wide. "You look different. And amazing! Just." He swallows. "Are you sure you really want to be my girlfriend?"
Mualani tugs him closer by his belt because she doesn't want to rumple his jacket. "I really am." His kiss is as sweet as ever, and she doesn't miss how carefully he places his hands on her waist on skin, avoiding any risk to her dress. "It kind of comes with having you as my boyfriend, and I definitely want that." She kisses him again. "You look beautiful. Now is not the time to ask me if I have doubts."
She loves his smile so much.