Chapter: 487 – Wedding

Tala felt tingles all throughout her body, and it wasn’t from the paint that was slowly being applied across her bare skin.

One of many paintbrushes floated around her, occasionally dipping into a small cup of sapphire blue paint.

It moved not at her behest—nor by her will—but at Terry’s.

Apparently, many of the times over the last year that he’d been ‘hunting,’ he had, instead, been practicing controlling items within Kit in order to help her with this day.

Alat had hidden that fact from her, and Tala couldn’t have been more fine with that deception.

The terror bird, for his part, flickered around her in a blur, looking at every angle as he applied her paint according to his desired pattern.

Tala had asked if she had any say, and he had flatly rejected her attempts at swaying what he was doing.

Instead of going for a faux spellform look, he had decided to lean into a different part of her nature, one that they shared.

He was creating claw marks in sets of three rends. The effect of which was to make her look as if she had sapphire under her skin, which had been torn open in places to reveal her true, gem nature.

She could only really see how it looked because of her own threefold perception.

-Terry’s doing an excellent job, isn’t he?-

Oh, absolutely. Tala looked around to try and catch Terry’s eye, but he was simply flickering about too much. So, she simply spoke, knowing he’d hear her. “Thank you, Terry. This is already amazing.”

He trilled in happy reply, the start of the trill coming from near her left ankle and the end trailing off from beside her right hip.

He was using a variety of brushes—one at a time—to give variety to the size of the resulting strokes. He likely could have done the variation with a singular brush, but he seemed to have spent his time perfecting the results, rather than seeking expertise in the process.

Though, I would think one would lead into the other.

-Well, everyone approaches things differently.-

That’s fair. Tala’s thoughts hesitated a moment. Do you have anything you’re doing in preparation?

-Oh, this and that. Enar and I didn’t want any guests on our behalf, besides, we’re you. Those celebrating you are celebrating us in turn.-

That’s true. She smiled, both internally and externally.

Overall, Terry only took about an hour to do every bit of her skin, save the bits that were covered by a tightly woven loin cloth and bust wrap.

Her back and stomach were essentially entirely exposed… as was almost everything else.

It reminded her of her Academy days, when they were getting the students accustomed to ‘traditional’ casting garb and methods.

Tala still marveled at the Mages who were able to turn their every movement into a specific casting of magic, like Mistress Kaeti. The result was a dance of power that was both more subtle and more powerful than what any other sort of mage could achieve with the same output of power. Such was incredibly hard to learn, and while it started more limited in scope, when the Mage reached Mistress Kaeti’s level of mastery, she could respond more easily and more powerfully than a Mage like Tala to a variety of situations.

Still, Tala liked her own path. She had a limited set of tools—all things considered—but she used them well.

But she was distracting herself. It was odd what inanity filled her mind before such a momentous happening.

It was time.

She exited her bedroom, coming out into the large courtyard. The attendees were seated on—and some around—the slightly raised dais which made up the bulk of her courtyard at the heart of her sanctum within Kit.

A central aisle had been left between the two halves of the seating for their approach leading to the control chair, a secondary stone chair situated beside it, near identical in appearance, save that it was larger due to the stature of the intended occupant. It also didn’t have the magics woven through it to control the sanctum, but those were essentially never used regardless.

-They are thrones, Tala. Let’s call a spade a spade.-

Hush, you.

But her focus wasn’t really on the guests, or the dais. It wasn’t on the musicians waiting to one side, nor on the decorations and other little details that had been perfected to strike the right ambience. It wasn’t even really on the thrones.

No, her focus was on the man exiting the entry to the guest rooms barely twenty feet from her.

Rane strode forth, clad only in a similarly sparse loincloth, blood-red paint decorating the firm plains and curves of his body.

They had been done in the style of cracks in stone, similar to Tala’s rends but also utterly different. Where he looked like a stone man who was cracking open to reveal the blood within, she looked to be a flesh and blood woman who had been savaged by wild animals, only to have it revealed that she was made up of a precious gem within.

Honestly, the effect was so fantastic she would have known that the paint was magical even if she couldn’t sense it with her magesight and her pervasive knowledge of what was within Kit.

The effect was just too good.

All told, it was incredibly clear that Terry, and Rane’s parents, had somehow coordinated the looks.

It took a long moment for Tala to notice that Rane was staring at her just as intensely as she was regarding him.

Thank you for policing my perception. It would have been… lesser, to miss this moment, to have known what I would see beforehand.

-Of course. Sometimes seeing something too soon makes everything worse. I’m happy to have been able to help.-

Only after an additional long moment, did Tala remember the guests standing in front of their seats and Master Nadro standing between the two thrones at the end of the aisle.

It was also then that Rane’s parents came into focus behind him.

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A voice called from near the front, on Rane’s side of the guests, “The quicker you get on with it, the quicker you can get on with it.”

A ripple of chuckles went through the gathered people. Tala colored, and Rane sent a mock glare toward his older sister.

Still, Chloe was right. They should be getting on with it.

Tala stepped forward, and Rane moved to meet her in the middle of the space before they turned and walked, side by side—but out of reach—up toward Master Nadro, only stopping when they reached the back row of seated guests.

At that point, Rane and his parents strode ahead, and Tala waited, Terry behind her, sized to be just a bit taller than she was, and wearing a closely tailored, formal outfit made from their elk-leathers.

The three Mages finally stopped before Master Nadro and bowed.

The ancient man smiled. “Who comes before me, and to what purpose?”

Rane spoke in response, his words as scripted as Master Nadro’s, “I come, seeking to be bound to the one whom I love.”

“Who stands behind you in this request?”

His parents spoke in unison, “We, bound in our love, stand behind our son in this request. Our bond, unbroken, is an imperfect example of what he seeks.”

Master Nadro nodded, giving a show of examining Rane. “I testify that this one is not bound to another.”

His eyes then turned to Tala, the audience reorienting on her almost as one. Once they were looking her way, she strode forward, bolstered by the terror bird at her back.

Each row of the audience turned as she passed them, symbolizing that it was her actions, her will, that solidified this process. She was the capstone.