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Domestic Bliss?

Started by DragonSong, April 21, 2017, 04:24:46 PM

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DragonSong

@nephero

She was going to kill Ori.

Once the world stopped spinning.

Mali. Who the hell was Mali?

Ah, right. Her husband.

With a groan, Risa sank down into a crouch, putting her head in her hands and moaning quietly. Ori sort of danced around her, apparently only just now realizing that his little joke had real consequences.

"Ris? Risa? Oh, no. Please don't faint, sis. Um, hello? Anyone have some water?" He looked around at the crowd while Risa just focused on breathing. "Risa? Risa, snap out of it!"

"Shut. Up." The world refused to stop spinning, and her brother's voice sounded abnormally loud to her. Just breathe. Breathe, Risa, breathe.

"...I think we have to find your husband."

With a shriek Risa flew to her feet and grabbed Ori's shoulders, shaking him. "Gods all damnit, I am actually going to kill you!"

But she wasn't. The world stopped spinning only to tilt sideways and she felt herself slide with it, distantly heard her brother's cry of "Risa!" As he just barely managed to catch her as she swooned.

Swooned. Actually swooned. Didn't that only happen to heroines in cheesy romance novels? Which was certainly not her life. She blinked fuzzily and mumbled, "M'fine," trying to get her feet back under her as she slowly started to realized they were causing a scene.

Well this was just perfect.

nephero

What was he going to do. What was he going to do? He couldn't back out of this, not now, not after having spent so much time cultivating a proper working relationship with the Thanati. To run off now would mean leaving several months worth of research in its infancy, not to mention openly insulting what appeared to be one of their closest (albeit a bit modernized) traditions.

Every which way, Mali was screwed.

He was never drinking again, there were simply no two ways about it.

A shriek from a few feet away broke him out of his thoughts, however, and he looked over just in time to see some poor young woman collapse. There was a younger boy near her, and initially Mali was perfectly content to just let him handle whatever was going on over there, except the kid had just yelled out what he could only assume was the woman's name.

Risa.

Otherwise known as the new Mrs. Grin.

Right.

It was with some measure of uncertainty, then, that Mali moved through the crowd, shooing onlookers back to better grant the young woman--Risa-- some air. He knelt beside her on the ground, gently moving her ankles to better elevate her legs and thusly get a little more crucial blood flow back to her head. He unclipped his satchel and used that as a sort of rudimentary pillow beneath her feet, his brows knit in concern that was not entirely reserved for the girl on the ground.

Fanning her with his research journal, he looked over at the kid, and cocked one dark eyebrow at him.

"This happen often?"


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DragonSong

Ori's eyes were wide as a stranger- a foreign stranger- was suddenly there helping with his nearly unconscious sister. "Ah- no." He seemed rather panicked. "Never, actually. She just- she heard her name and she sort of-" He waved a hand to indicate her current state.

Risa groaned and swiped her hand at him in an attempt to strike his shoulder, but there was no power behind it and her arm went wide. "This is your fault," she whimpered.

This was humiliating. Her face was caught between a blanch and a flush and she struggled to sit up- too quickly apparently, as she sagged back against Ori's shoulder with another groan.

"Ah- thank you, sir," she murmured, speaking in her heavily accented Common when it registered that the man was not a native Thanati. "Please forgive me, I- I think I had a bit of a shock."

She managed to sit up her second try, clutching at her head. Ori looked from her to the stranger, a hint of suspicion in his eyes.

"Thank you for the help. May I ask your name?"

nephero

Mali's eyes narrowed-- or rather his functioning one did, and his brows knit a little further. It wasn't that warm, certainly not enough to cause a sudden spell for someone who was used to the tropical climate. Maybe she had been imbibing past her limit as well. But her speech wasn't that slurred, just the distant sort of vein of someone who had very recently had a falling-out with consciousness.

"Ah, ah," he said, switching to his own accented Thanati, because honestly not having to navigate foreign language would probably do her some good right then, "you shouldn't sit up just yet. Give yourself another ten or so minutes, take it slow."

He snorted a bit at her explanation for the spell, however, and gave a knowing sort of nod. Even in his own rapidly waning non-sobriety, he knew this whole thing had been a bit of an unplanned event. But that was the luck of the draw, he supposed, which was kind of the whole point if you really looked at it. Sideways. While squinting.

"Yes, I think 'shock' is something that's been going around. Very sudden illness, that." Mali seemed to notice that the kid was staring at him, and he did his best to clear his throat and put on his polite face.

"My name's Mali... and I think I might be your husband now."


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DragonSong

Oh.

Oh gods.

Oh no.

He was a man. Well- of course he was, but... She wasn't even nineteen yet! And this Mali was...clearly a much more mature individual than her, she supposed was the polite way of putting it.

Eyes wide and more than a little scared, Risa flinched back from him slightly into her brother. Ori just blinked.

"Oh. Um...well then." He hesitated, then extended his hand in the traditional mainland greeting. Traders by profession, most everyone in Risa's family knew at least a little of foreign customs. "My name is Ori. Elder brother." The honorific was a little stilted, and Risa had to swallow another whimper.

"H-hello, sir." She repeated her greeting in Thanati, with a heavy emphasis on the servility she was trying to express. Best to start off on his good side. "I'm sorry I didn't- I mean that I- that is... I wasn't planning on entering my name. I was...very surprised."

She looked down, color draining as she smoothed her hands over the festival kimono her mother had helped her make. Pale lavender, with gold, silver, and blue embroidery, it made her suddenly paler skin stand out starkly. She reached up to smooth her hair behind her ear before she remembered it had been swept up into a knot and fastened at the nape of her neck.

nephero

Much more mature was a very polite way of putting "surprise! He's twice your age." So polite that Mali himself would have laughed out loud at the sheer absurdity of it all.

He still felt like laughing, but presently it felt more like out of gallows humor than anything else.

As the girl, and now that he had a good look at her it was horrifyingly apparent that she was barely of an age, flinched back, Mali took this as his cue to give her some space, and sat back in his booted ankles to let her recover as she would.

That was none of his business after all. Or was it? He felt the beginnings of a headache coming on, which was another surprise. Since when did he still get stress headaches?

The kid seemed to be trying to make up for the sudden awkwardness, and it was with that in mind that Mali reached out and shook Ori' s hand in mind. At being called sir, however, Mali couldn't help a desperate sort of chuckle.

"Please, it's just Mali. And I... wholeheartedly sympathize, this was not exactly what I had envisioned for my evening--" Oh, shit, that might have been rude, and it was with no small measure of horror that he felt himself backpedaling in almost perfect mimicry of another Thanati he had met some time ago, "Not! That the surprise is entirely unpleasant, I just... seem to have forgotten my notes on what this festival entails."

He watched Risa fidget, and couldn't help the compulsion of his own, pulling at the long chain around his neck and trying to figure out where to go from here without abjectly stating that he had zero intention of this union lasting longer than it had to.

"There's a bench over there. Let's get you out of the crowd, at least." He stated by way of changing the subject, holding out one hand to assist Ori in getting Risa to her feet.


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DragonSong

Risa tried for a smile and allowed her brother and...husband to pull her to her feet.

Dear gods, her father was going to kill her. And Ori. And then maybe her again, just to be thorough.

"Yes, um...thank you." They made their way over to the bench and she nearly collapsed onto it, watching the crowd swirl passed them. She looked between the two men. Well, man and boy. "Father is going to be just livid," she murmured.

Ori winced. "Um, yeah. He probably is." He rubbed at the back of his neck.

She scowled. "This is your fault, don't give me that look." Her eyes flicked to Mali, lingered for a moment on his scarred eye, then tried to focus on his good one. "My brother seems to think I need to get out of the house, because he is the one who entered my name," she explained.

nephero

At the explanation of the events that had transpired to place them in holy matrimony, Mali turned his eye onto Ori, raising a dark eyebrow in bemusement. At the very least, Mali had only himself to blame for his predicament; it was a far different thing to have this whole debacle thrust upon you against your will.

"Pretty funny prank there, Little Brother." he said, his tone dry enough to where it was difficult to tell if he genuinely thought it was funny or he was chiding. Mali sat back on the bench with a sigh of his own, rubbing at his chin as he considered the whole matter.

With a clearer understanding, and a much clearer head, it was far easier to think all of this mess through. It wasn't as if he could just walk away right here and now, not without putting his studies in danger. But, and here was the crucial bit: he was a foreigner, and not exactly the marriage material that this poor girl might have hoped for even if this had been her choice. Or her family might have hoped for, for that matter.

Which might make this whole thing easier. Clearly, no parties present would want this union to continue after the alloted time period. All he had to do was sit tight and play nice for a year, which, if he was honest, he had been intending on doing anyway, only his prior plans had been sans wife. After that, he would disappear into the wind, Risa could go about her life, and neither of them would have to speak of this to anyone ever again.

Like, ever, ever again.

Mali cleared his throat, then, and seemed to choose his words carefully.

"I am... admittedly, none too clear on the details of this particular custom, but I think it is entirely safe to assume that we've gotten a bit of a bad lot this round. I do, however, have extensive studies to complete. So here's my proposal: you two help me understand what I need to complete my research, and I will do my damnedest not to leave so much as a footprint on my way out."

He looked over at Risa, then, who looked so terribly shaken that if Mali had been a better person he might have felt sorry for her.

"Deal?" He held out his hand to her then, in the custom of such things.


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DragonSong

Ori winced a bit and rubbed the back of his neck again, glancing between his sister and Mali. "Well, ah..." He trailed off, apparently unable to come up with anything to say, other than a mumbled, "Our parents had been talking about Risa getting married..."

Risa glowered at him, but didn't argue the point. That had been a recent discussion, but she highly doubted her parents would be at all pleased with this outcome.

Her head snapped around when Mali spoke again and she listened with rather wide eyes. Well...at least he seemed to view this with as much enthusiasm as she did.

...Should she be offended by that?

Slowly, she nodded, eyeing his hand. "Yes. Deal." She slid her hand into his, noting absently how much smaller it was. She'd never thought of herself as particularly small before, but comparatively...well.

Alright, so the gods were supposed to have chosen this, they were supposed to fall in love. But gods could make mistakes, right? That, or they had a much dryer sense of humor than she would have expected.

"See, sis, studies. Research!" Ori seemed to force a smile and stroked a stray lock of hair off her face. "I'm sure you two will get along fine."

Risa smacked his hand away and hesitantly stood from the bench. "We, um...we have to tell Mother and Father," she murmured. She glanced back at Mali. "If- if you'll follow me, then?"

nephero

Mali pressed his mouth into a thin, quick sort of smile, if only to maintain that he was trying to keep them both on relatively friendly terms. For a married pair. Who had never met before that day. And his wife was infinitely younger than him.

Yes, about as friendly as he could possibly hope to be, all things considered. And they hadn't even broken the news to her parents, yet. He could only imagine how well that was going to go. With how both siblings were looking uncomfortable with the thought, Mali guessed "not well" was probably the answer.

Still, his train of thought vis-a-vis 'how NOT to get stabbed by an angry father' derailed at the mention of research and studies, and looked rather curiously between Ori and Risa even as they rose to leave.

"Lead the way. You... have studies of your own? What's the word in Thanati, their scholars?" That would explain the softness of her hands; free of callouses typical of hard labor or weapons handling. He had pegged her simply as a city girl, but a scholar would make even more sense.

And maybe this wouldn't be nearly as bad as he had previously thought.


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DragonSong

"Oh, well..." Risa flushed and ducked her head as Ori started off and she followed a few steps behind. He seemed to be giving them a bit of space, but kept glancing back worriedly. "Not- not really," she murmured. "I'd...like to be. I enjoy books, but I'm no...scholar." She used his word, slipping Common into her speech as she couldn't think of a proper translation for what she'd wanted to be.

She shook her head. "I work in the shop, with Father. My family are jewelers," she explained quietly.

Their shop really wasn't far from where the bulk of the festival activities had taken place, but the streets were much clearer today than normal- of course, everyone was at the celebration. Ori stopped in front of the little shop her family lived above, a collection of stones from the mundane to the precious to the magical displayed in the window, along with an assortment of jewelry they could be set it.

Risa swallowed nervously and the blood drained from her face. She and Ori made eye contact and her brother shrugged. Any animosity she'd held toward him dissolved; his joke had been poorly thought out, but they'd lived their lives as a united force to withstand their parents, and even in this situation she knew he only meant to be on her side.

A small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. She took a breath. "H-here we are..."

nephero

Ah, so a would-be scholar. Still, that was intriguing; the curious minds were always the best to pick, and Mali had never been one to shy away from imparting knowledge. Not that that always worked out in the end, but it was... important.

"Ah, well. We all start learning somewhere." He said, trying to impart some level of kindness in the sentiment. Because it was true. He tried to remember what he had been like at that age, and had to snort. Nothing like now, that was the exact answer. Life led to many places, he supposed. "Most of us never stop."

His eyes flicked over the stones on display, stopping and staring at the more magically-imbued ones, feeling the subtle ebb and flow of the arcane but not quite able to read the purpose to the ripple. Not that he had much time to investigate, because suddenly the air between the two siblings had changed drastically.

Mali was not what he would describe as a "people person". Which kind of was a mark for how easily he noted the change in demeanour between Ori and Risa, and so it was with polite curiousity that he turned away from the stones to better regard this latest human drama.

Risa, in particular, was looking even paler than she had when she had fainted. Mali took this as a sign of things to come, and, taking the omen for what it was, drew in a deep breath to brace himself for what was going to be an inevitable shitstorm.


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DragonSong

Father had seen them.

"Fuck me," Risa whispered under her breath, then immediately clapped a hand over her mouth and shot a glance at her...husband. Ori looked equal parts delighted and horrified, and honestly she was a little surprised at herself.

She was just having a hard day.

Kenta Serrin appeared in the doorway to his ship, looking between his children and the man they'd brought with them with no small amount of suspicion. "Good day." He bowed politely to Mali, but his eyes were hard. "You are...coming inside with the children?" His Common was even more heavily accented than his daughter's, but passable.

Risa swallowed and took a small step forward. "Ah, yes, Father. We... I think we need to...talk. Is Mother upstairs?"

Since she'd spoken in Thanati, he responded in kind. "She is. Ori, fetch her." The boy nodded and quickly darted around to the side door that lead directly to their home above the shop.

Kenta stood to the side. Ever a businessman, his manner was just polite enough, but still distinctly untrusting. "Please come in."

nephero

Mali's eyebrow shot upwards at the whispered obscenity, and he had to fight back another amused snort. Instead, he leaned down ever so slightly, and whispered back:

"Absolutely not."

Still, it would seem this delicate little fainting goat, with all her politeness and stammering, had a bit of a bite to her. Life was just full of little surprises today.

He didn't press the matter further, however, and straightened up just as who he could only assume was Risa's father appeared. He could almost feel the waves of mistrust pouring off of the other man, and honestly? Mali didn't blame him one single bit.

He shifted as Risa's father bowed, and returned it in kind, dipping just a little lower than the first had been. It just seemed appropriate, a little extra deference, considering the circumstances.

Two seconds in and Mali wasn't facing down pitchforks. So far, so good.

...Were there pitchforks in Thanatos?

Now that was a question.

He stepped past his... newfound father in law, and through the door with a short expression of thanks, and... immediately felt at a loss for how to continue. He glanced to the side at Risa as if that would somehow help him, before finally biting the bullet and attempting the age old tactic of small talk.

"Your shop is lovely. The... magicked stones," he said, slowly, finding the vocabulary bit by bit, "do you imbue them yourself?"

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DragonSong

Risa actually squeaked, her face going scarlet at Mali's words. The color didn't fade as her father appeared and ushered them into the shop, and she had to pray no one would question it.

Thankfully Kenta didn't seem to notice- that, or it wasn't his first concern about the situation, which she couldn't blame him for. She kept sneaking glances at Mali, a large part of her wishing he hadn't heard her. What must he think about her?

A smaller part... Well, even if he'd said it in jest, if he didn't hold interest in her like that. A tiny spark of relief flickered in her chest, but she tried to tamp it down. She shouldn't jump to conclusion, she had to be prepared to accept...whatever happened.

She tuned back into the conversation in time to hear her father answer Mali's question. "Not most of them, no. We trade for them, or Risa uses her skills to find which stones would best serve a mage."

Her blush darkened a bit and she ducked her eyes. No one had ever taught her to properly control her magic, so sensing the inherent magic in stones, which would respond best to enchantment or work as part of spellcraft and ritual, was about the extent of her powers. She wished she could do more.

nephero

Not for the first time, Mali's eyebrows curved upwards in pleasant surprise. So this little fainting goat was an elementalist? That was rare for this corner of the world, he hadn't expected to find someone who would "dare" work against the natural order, even if that meant something as simple as finding stones that would resonate with arcane stylings.

Honestly speaking, his first impressions of his... wife hadn't been the best. Between the fainting, the demureness, the stammering; it had all left him with a very sincere level of dread for the year to come. He hadn't been sure just how much of that quiet, inoffensive politeness he would have been able to deal with. Even if he had been actively looking to get married, that would not have been his first choice in traits.

But a budding mage who was apparently not nearly as prim as he had first suspected? That might be interesting, from a purely academic standpoint.

"That's quite the talent you have," he said, finally, aiming the comment at Risa herself. And for the most part that was true; Risa had talent, but that could be refined, pushed, driven further, given the right direction--

Which was getting a bit ahead of himself, he realized, considering Kenta as of yet had no idea why exactly they were here. He supposed, while they waited for Ori to return with Risa's mother, that he could at least introduce himself a bit more properly.

"Ah, I'm Mali, Mali Roue Grin. 'Wandering scholar and mage', as it were."


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DragonSong

Risa glanced up at Mali, surprised that he'd called it a "talent". Sure, Kunata was a bit more progressive when it came to elemental magic, but even so she was under no illusions about how most people reacted to the knowledge of her power. It was the main reason she was largely untrained.

Perhaps spending time with this foreigner could be...interesting.

As the thought crossed her mind she blushed and dropped her eyes again.

"Kenta Serrin," her father introduced himself with a polite nod. "A scholar, you say?" He glanced to Risa and she winced. "Did my daughter attempt to bring you to meet me under some guise of apprenticeship? I appreciate the interest, but-"

"Kenta?" Yui and Ori appeared in the doorway that led into the back room of the shop, which normally served as Risa's workroom and led up to their home. "Oh. Hello." The small woman bowed to Mali. "Ori said we had a guest, something about needing to talk...?" She looked between the three of them.

Well. May as well get it over with then.

"Mali's my husband."

Her family's eyes snapped to her and Risa shrank back. "I- I entered the matchmaking," she lied quietly.

Yui's eyes widened and a hand flew to her mouth, and Kenta's face turned stony. "I...see." He turned his eyes back to Mali, hands clenched at his side.

nephero

Mali almost laughed as Kenta immediately assumed he had been here for academic reasons. Well, that was what Mali was hoping to turn this situation into, but it was certainly not the impetus for their meeting. The utter irony of it all. Though, considering Kenta's reaction to even something akin to apprenticeship, Mali wasn't so sure if that was going to be nearly as feasible as he had previously considered.

It was at that moment that Ori returned with another woman, who Mali could only assume was their mother. He barely had time to get out a reciprocal bow of his own before Risa got right to the heart of the matter.

He was a little taken aback at how Risa assumed all of the blame for this series of events, though. That... was another little surprise. He had been expecting a round of shifting blame, the typical fare of siblings in trouble, but here Risa was taking the whole of the responsibility when there was absolutely zero reason to do so. Wouldn't the truth might be a little more... easily handled? But then again, these weren't his own parents, and he couldn't hope to really know what made them tick.

Though Mali was rapidly learning they were not taking the news of their daughter's surprise wedding well.

Not well at all, for how Risa was shrinking away from her parent's gazes.

It was probably time to intercede here, just a bit.

"It's been... a bit of a shock for everyone today. I had participated without fully understanding the ramifications, and I'm afraid your daughter, ah, Risa, was saddled with me as a result. I'm truly sorry for the trouble."

Saddled with a foreign vagrant mage twice her age. And that wasn't even nearly the half of it. Why on this green earth had he stuck his name in that jar? He could have been just as content watching the goings on-- sure, full immersion into a culture was the best way to learn, but now here he was, bowing again to better display how apologetic he was for his past drunken stupid-ass self.

He was sincerely never going to touch a drop of the stuff again in his entire life, this or the next.


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DragonSong

Ori's eyes were wide as Risa shouldered the blame for the incident, but he didn't seem to have the courage to speak up, fading back against the wall instead as Kenta and Yui looked between his sister and Mali.

Risa was exerting a great effort not to tremble like a leaf in a gale under their combined gaze. "I- I just- I wanted to- Y-you've been saying you wanted to take me to a proper matchmaker, I thought..." She tried desperately to come up with some excuse that might lessen their ire and failed, floundering.

Kenta's eyes snapped back to Mali but his words were obviously for Risa as he growled, "Foolish girl. I should have sold you to the mainland as a child."

Risa winced and bit her lip, eyes on her feet. Her mother touched Kenta's arm and murmured something quietly and he took a sharp breath, but didn't say anything else.

"Master Mali," Yui said slowly. "Will you care for our daughter?" Her eyes were just as hard as her husband's, but her voice was softer.

Risa supposed she had their pride to thank for the fact that they weren't shouting and throwing things. They wouldn't want to behave in such an uncivilized manner in front of a stranger, a foreigner at that.

nephero

Something twisted, hard, in Mali's chest as Kenta spoke.

I should have sold you to the mainland, he had said. To his own daughter. Over what had been essentially a poorly chosen prank by her younger brother. Over something that was, as Mali and Risa had previously agreed, entirely temporary. To his own daughter.

He admitted ignorance to a lot of things. He never stopped learning. So he couldn't possibly hope to fully understand the context of what this marriage might do to their family pride, or personal pride, or social standing or whatever it was.

At that present moment, and probably for the first time in any point in his life, he didn't care to know.

To his own daughter. He tried to imagine what that was even like, what that even took, what it would feel like to look down in his own flesh and blood's face and openly regret keeping them. The thought was so entirely unpleasant that he had to retreat back into the present before he did something entirely drastic.

Mali looked at Yui, then, with his one good eye, and it took every ounce of willpower he had in him at that exact moment not to spit out a venomous 'more than either of you' in response. The twisting thing in his chest was boiling over, he could feel himself getting hotter, and it was with a very sincere level of exertion that he finally calmed down enough to nod.

"Of course," he said, simply. He didn't trust himself to say much more than that. He forced his hands open from where they had clenched into fists, and felt the subtle sting of crescent shaped wounds in his palms.

He constructed a swift, stony smile, one that did not reach his eyes even in the slightest, and inclined himself in another, tinier bow.


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