!I sat with Ery and the girls at the kitchen table, staring out over a large, empty scroll. Beside it were a fair number of missives sent from all over the place. Their styles were hugely varied, the handwritings were all different, even the sizes of the ssages themselves were disparate.
But they each invariably ca with one of two ssages. They either would or wouldn't be attending our wedding ceremony. And perhaps a little extra information of who was coming or a number. I glared at one particular ssage for a mont before turning my attention back to everything else going on.
We had taken so long picking a venue that word had spread - through - to Lyn about our trouble deciding. Apparently the Elders of the city like to gossip more than I would have expected, because not two days later Vyne approached us to offer his gardens as a potential venue. And after one visit, we were both totally sold. They were breathtaking.
And now Ery and Cierra were drawing on the large scroll on the table, trying to map out the layout of those gardens. Vyne had told us that while we would be able to make use of the gardens as a whole, the actual usable space for the ceremony and dinner afterward would be around two hundred square ters. This would encompass the large open courtyard in the middle of the gardens which was surrounded by a lovely hedge maze.
"We're planning on a hundred guests max. There should be plenty of space." Ery said as she was sketching out the asurents and trying to get an idea of the layout we could use.
"I see no reason we couldn't set things up for the ceremony with rows of seating and bring out the tables for food afterward." I said, looking over the scrawled map. "There's plenty of space, and I'm sure Vyne would be fine with letting us store so simple wooden tables among the hedges until the ceremony is over. Then we don't need to worry about a separate space."
Ery nodded, scratching her chin in thought while looking over her map. I tried not to smile, seeing her spread a patch of ink over her face. "That makes sense. I wonder if Vyne would be willing to craft tables on the spot with his Qi, like he did with the trees here…"
"Can he shape wood like that? At the sa ti it's growing?" I wondered aloud. The look Ery gave in response made it pretty clear that I was silly for wondering.
"If he can't do it, I'll cook all the dinners for a month."
"You're on. But rather than that, I just want, let's say, fifteen days where I can just make you cook instead." I said. "That way if I feel like cooking, I still can."
"Sure, that's fair." Ery said, answering my smile with her own. "But I don't think it'll co to that."
"I suppose that ans if he just says 'no', I don't win?"
"Only if he says he couldn't do it if he tried." Ery said. "But I've seen so of what he can do. There's no way he can't."
I just shrugged. "You're probably right. But we need to get back on track." I said, and pointed to the scroll.
Ery focused back on it as well. "Okay, so let's work under the impression that we can use the whole space for tables. We'll set so space aside to leave up the wedding arch…" She trailed off as she drew it in on one end of the space. "...And we need to set aside a set of tables to serve the food on."
"Lyn said that they can serve everything buffet style, so long tables." I reminded Ery.
She nodded and drew in a section of long tables in a line along one side of the clearing. "That leaves us with the rest of the space for tables?"
"Sure. Don't pack everything too close together though, just in case."
"Got it." Ery said and began drawing out round tables in the empty space. She placed them in a staggered pattern that was pleasing to look at in the image, then stood up straight from leaning over the scroll.
"So let's say…eight to each table, which leaves us with around thirteen tables?"
"One hundred and four seats total." I said, doing the quick math. "Sure, that should work. I'm still not convinced we'll even make it to a hundred, so let's see."
We both stared at the pile of missives beside the scroll and took a deep breath.
"I really don't want to go through all of these." I said, wry laughter in my voice.
" either. Big social events are definitely not my thing." Ery said, eyeing the pile. She sat back down in her chair comfortably before reaching over to gather so of the ssages. Stena hopped up into her lap once she was settled, and Ery patted her head. "Hey, sweetie."
"Can we help?" Cierra asked, having been quietly watching until now from her own seat.
"I don't think so, this ti." I said, leaning on the table and propping up my chin in a hand. "We need to organize seating to make sure everything goes okay on the day of the wedding."
"Okay…" Cierra said sadly.
"Why don't you practice those writing drills that Mom gave you?" I suggested. "That way you can still sit with us, and you'll get so of your own work done."
Cierra pouted. "I guess. But I did a whole bunch of those yesterday."
"The sooner you get them all done, the sooner you're free." I said in a teasing, sing-song voice. "You're also welco to go play, if you'd like. But your mother and I need to get this done."
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She sighed and hung her head dramatically. "Fine. I'll go get my worksheets…" Cierra slipped from her chair and toward her room to go retrieve the work. As she did so, Stena climbed down from Ery's lap and followed closely behind.
Ery and I both chuckled, watching the younger girl trail after her older sister like a baby duckling.
"I bet it's only a matter of ti before either Cierra gets tired of Stena following her everywhere or Stena decides she doesn't like Cierra anymore." I said quietly, "But for now those two are adorable and I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts."
Ery snorted and said, "I give it two years, absolute max." But she still smiled while watching them walk down the hallway. Then with a deep breath, turned back to the problem before us.
"Mont of truth, I suppose." She said, taking four separate ssages and piled them before her. She slid a different fifth one over to .
I just stared at the envelope. "I genuinely don't know what I want them to have said." I muttered.
As Ery steeled herself and picked up one of her own envelopes, she asked, "I thought you were on good terms with your family? You certainly didn't seem to want to avoid sending them a letter before?"
"I am on good terms with them." I said, picking up the envelope. It was thicker than I would expect for a simple reply. "But they're a bit of a pain to deal with sotis." I eyed the letter in my hand warily. "And I'm worried they're going to try to bring a large portion of the family even though I didn't invite everyone."
Ery chuckled. "Well, we didn't send out that many invitations in this batch for that very reason."
"Maybe you did, but I sent invites to all the family mbers I wanted here. The rest of my guests were going to be friends I had in the Frozen Mountain. Or in the City, here."
"Well, open it up and let's see." Ery said, as she opened her own first ssage. She brightened up rather quickly after reading the first couple lines. "Holy crap. Kota can actually make it?" She glanced up at with a smile on her face. "I won't lie, I expected all of my siblings except Talya to say no."
"Surely they can't always be that busy?" I asked as I popped open my own letter.
"They can be, trust ." Ery said, "I didn't even know where to send Ieji's invitation to. I have no idea how they managed to respond."
I didn't respond to her as I looked over my parent's invite reply.
"Hello Avuri,
Even though you told us this was likely coming, we're still happy to hear about the wedding! Of course your father and I will attend. He also sends his congratulations.
I've talked to your aunts and uncles as well. A few of them will be coming with us. Uncle Mitrik and his family, Aunt Severa and her family, and Arlin and his family will be coming with us. I hope it wouldn't be too much trouble to let us all stay with you? I know you said previously that where you're living now has a lot of space.
I still can't believe you left the Frozen Mountain Sect after spending so long trying to get into it, just like that. I'm really interested to see what managed to pull you away from there.
In any case, I've put a second page in here with the list of nas of the family mbers coming with us, just in case you've forgotten who's who. We'll see you soon?
-Your mother "
I felt a growl of annoyance try to escape my throat, and I tossed the paper down onto the table. "I knew they'd do this." I growled. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."
Ery raised her eyebrow at as she set her third letter on the table. "Ieji and Demi are both able to make it too." She said in explanation for her smile. "Surely your parents' letter couldn't be that bad."
I handed the letter over to her to read as Cierra ca back into the room, howork in hand, with Stena hot on her heels. This ti, when Cierra took her seat to get to work, Stena walked to and clambered onto my lap. I resettled her in a comfortable position and hugged her.
"This doesn't sound so bad…" Ery said.
"It's not that bad, I suppose. It could certainly be worse." I sighed, resting my chin on top of Stena's head. "They're just annoying. Bringing twelve extra people without them being expressly invited. Insinuating that they can all just stay here and it shouldn't be a problem. The snipe about leaving the Frozen Mountain. Then the follow up about not rembering who my family mbers are."
"You really think it was all that malicious?"
"Probably." I muttered. "That's what my family - especially my mother - does. They snipe, take potshots, and are just generally very backhanded. They say stuff that sounds genuine and positive but an it as an insult. It's a whole art form." I said, disgusted. "And my mother is fantastic at it."
Ery let out a hum as she reread the letter again. "I suppose knowing that, I can see how you'd read it all that way." She said then offered the letter again. I took it to reread it once more, while Ery opened the last letter from her siblings.
"...They can all make it?" She said, stunned, looking over Rylie's ssage.She let the letter fall to the table, her eyes focused on sothing in the distance. "I don't think we've all been in the sa place since Kota originally left Vale's house."
"It's been that long since you've all seen each other?" I asked.
"All at once? Yeah. Close to eight years." Ery said, still sowhat in awe. "That'll be really interesting."
"So your siblings won't be constantly at a silent war with one another like my family?"
"I don't think so. Unless they've gotten into trouble amongst themselves since." Ery said with a chuckle. "Between talking about silent wars and backhanded complints and the like, you make it sound like your family is so kind of royalty fighting for regency or so nonsense."
I snorted, but when I didn't respond Ery looked at concerned.
"Avuri, I swear to all that is holy, if I'm about to marry a princess and you didn't tell , I'm going to throttle you."
"I'm not a princess." I said wryly. "But my family is pretty wealthy."
Ery gave an unimpressed look. "And how wealthy is pretty wealthy?"
I sighed, and remained quiet for a mont before finally saying, "Very."
When Ery's eyes continued to stare daggers at I finally relented. "They own half of Bouquet."
"Bouquet?" Ery said, confused. "Bouquet? Like the central trade city of the Floral Hills, Bouquet?"
"...Yeah. I co from a family of very rich rchants."
"...Well shit." Ery said, looking at the ceiling.
Cierra and I both retorted, "Language."
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