Their carriage, while initially harried by traffic, beca more and more free as it got closer to the palace until it was moving in a neat single file line behind the other pure white carriages on the way to the wedding. The palace remained too bright to properly see, but its grounds beca much more clear as they approached. There were gardens filled with flowers of dazzling colors unlike anything on earth, statues that moved in slow motion depicting scenes throughout the kingdom's history, and finally they reached the main courtyard where their carriage ca to a stop and their driver opened their door.
“Please feel free to mingle about the courtyard a bit. There are drinks and food available. Everyone will be called into the castle once the ceremony is getting underway.”
“Thank you,” said John with a smile as he and Andressa stepped out of the carriage. While the people they’d seen on the road had been relatively homogenous, the wedding party was a very diverse group. He saw dragonfolk, harpies, elves, orcs, and even a few demons. John and Andressa grabbed a glass of what appeared to be champagne and took a sip as they scoped things out.
John felt a large presence approach and turned around to see Krush, the orcish forr betrothed of Zak. She seed to have had her baby and was back to her powerfully muscular self. She wore a formal armor of dragonbone and her face was painted a savage blood red, as was traditional for weddings. She pulled it off well.
“Krush, good to see you.”
“Brain-nder. It has been so ti,” she looked at Andressa. “I see you were successful in finding a mate.” She looked her up and down and nodded as if satisfied. “She is strong. She will bear you many powerful children.”
“Thank you,” said Andressa with a smile. “Though I of course will need him to pass many tests of strength and valor before I take his seed.”
Krush nodded at her understanding while John sighed loudly.
“Are you excited for the ceremony?” he asked.
“No. Grailians don’t have a bloodletting or a ceremonial battle. They simply exchange vows under the eyes of their ancestors. An important step, but the dullest one.”
John nodded. “Yes, Orcish ceremonies certainly tend to be a bit more lively.”
Krush grabbed a tray from an unfortunate waiter that was passing by and poured the entire thing into her mouth before tossing it to the side.
“The food is excellent however.”
John and Andressa chuckled. There were a few people looking at Krush as if she was an alien, but there were just as many who seed in awe of her. She’d been part of the party that had saved their kingdom after all.
Aside from Krush, John also recognized Sereniteya who was standing along with a number of elves. Krush went over to greet her and she surprised him by actually returning the powerful bear hug the orc gave to her. She’d been another mber of their party and one of Zak’s incidental paramours before he’d helped them. She seed much happier with her independence restored, as did Krush. He took so satisfaction from that.
He and Andressa mingled for a bit, but mostly spent their ti talking to one another as they grabbed the occasional hors d'oeuvre. He was smiling and they were having a nice ti, when he felt a gentle tap on his back.
“John?” asked a voice he hadn’t heard for months and he practically jumped when he heard it. He turned around to see Katrina. She was wearing a blue dress with lace sleeves that made her cobalt eyes pop and her hair was braided in a kind of elaborate hoop down her back, her slightly pointed ears unhidden. Standing with her arm in arm was a square jawed man with a ceremonial sword peace-knotted at his side and long blonde hair falling down his back. They looked beautiful together, and John felt so nauseous he thought he might vomit.
“Katrina,” he managed, forcing a natural seeming smile. “Whatever are you doing here?” he asked.
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“I was travelling through Lendaria and happened to et Valentius here,” she gestured to the handso man on her arm that smiled brightly and nodded at him. “Who invited to join him for the wedding. It seed exciting so here I am. What are you doing here?”
“I’m a…friend of the soon to be husband and wives.”
“A friend eh? Ones you may have t at my old job?”
“You know I can’t say for sure.”
Katrina held up her hands as if letting it go and smiled. “Well, it’s good to see you.”
“You too,” he lied, smiling.
They clasped hands for a mont and then she and her companion walked away. He let out a breath he’d been holding, trying to force so tensions from himself. He had not expected to see her, and the surprise of it hit him like a train.
“Well that was rude,” said Andressa next to him. “You didn’t even introduce us.”
John turned to her and saw that she was about thirty shades redder than she’d been a mont ago. Her eyes were like burning coals and she was giving off so much heat that the air around her was shimring like a mirage. He’d ssed up. She’d absorbed as much ambient anxiety from him in that mont as he’d ever seen.
“I’m sorry. I was surprised.”
“That was Katrina, huh? She almost looks too pretty to have had such a good filing system.”
“You have a good filing system.”
“Well I didn’t expect there to be two beautiful exceptions. Besides, how would you know? I do all of your filing. I even grab your notes for your daily appointnts and set them on your desk.”
“True.”
“So, you two used to-”
A horn sounded, saving John from whatever Andressa was about to say, and a man yelled out to the crowd, his voice magically enhanced.
“If everyone could please proceed into the palace ballroom, the ceremony will comnce shortly.”
John nodded, and held out a hand for Andressa. She reached out, and he withdrew his hand quickly when hers burnt him a bit, still overheating from her al of his anxiety.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s fine,” he responded, smiling at her. “My fault anyway.”
They fell into the crowd which he was grateful was so large and mixed that he didn’t see Katrina or her new beau again and they all walked toward the entrance. The palace had multiple of course, but John presud this one was ant for dignitaries, foreign kings, and dragons who couldn’t squeeze through any other doors. It was a door of pure white wood that extended easily fifty feet upward with filigree and hinges of gold. Flanking it on either side were statues of Lions wrought in gold, and perfectly uniform white flowers had been planted all around it, all blooming beautifully and seeming to sparkle with dew though the ti for natural morning dew had long since passed.
There was a wide hall into the ballroom that John didn’t get a good look at because of the press of the crowd, but luckily the heat Andressa was giving off ant that they weren't pressed too closely. Once it opened into the ballroom John was again amazed. It seed impossibly large with a dod ceiling that had frescos depicting battles, angels, gods, and all manner of things he wasn’t able to properly take in as he continued to shuffle forward. There were well cushioned chairs arrayed in perfect circles all around a raised platform at the center. In the air all around them were floating spherical lights of magic. They were blue, green, and red and all seed to dance with one another in perfect sync as they drifted through the air.
John felt himself magically drawn forward and realized it was so kind of glamored seating. He imagined for a mont how much people would kill for that kind of feature for weddings on Earth. He and Andressa drifted all the way to the second row, which surprised him, especially when just ahead of him and to the right he saw a number of people wearing crowns of various shapes and sizes.
He watched as people slowly filtered in and took their seats. Many were in just as much awe of their surroundings as he was, but for others they seed to be taking in the most commonplace things in the world. In front of him next to the group in crowns he saw a number of people that looked very out of place. Their clothes fit, but they moved stiffly in them, as if they were uncomfortable. Their backs were hunched as if they’d worked hard labor for most of their lives and they seed to be doing their best to shrink themselves as much as possible while also being absolutely flabbergasted by everything they were seeing. John surmised that he was looking at Carol and Zak’s families from their ho village.
Before he could give them a friendly wave, there was the sounding of another horn. The ceremony was about to begin.
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