NOVEL NEXT 109: The Wedding of the Millennia
PEYDRAN
"Live from Shurwinn, here's my friend Gentia of Bootes Galaxy. Welcome, to Shurwinn, Gentia, and please, tell the Known Cosmos what you think of the parade they're seeing on their screens right now!"
"Thank you, Peydran. It is so good to be with you in person, my friend. This parade is delightful! Delightful! What a wonderful way to celebrate all of our 9 Galaxies Collab friends, and especially Ryst and Nayth who have brought us all to Shurwinn in a celebration of love. What better reason to throw a party? Love, right? That's what it's all about this week, and this 9 Galaxies Collaboration Garden is the perfect way to commemorate our celebration of the Nova-Carmidee wedding."
"And I'd like to butt in and tell everyone that we're all here because we are all a little bit in love with each other. We call ourselves the '9 Galaxies Research Collaboration,' but really, we just like having friends across all 9 Galaxies. And we're all totally enamored with each other."
"Folks, that's Aolfe of Milky Way Galaxy speaking to you, and not only is he a friend of the happy couple, he's an outdoor type who helped plan the garden we're watching being planted right now. Welcome to Andromeda, Aolfe, and please, tell our audience more about the garden."
"Thanks, Peydran, and howdy all y'all out there. Hey everybody at home in Milky Way! If you ever get the chance to go to Andromeda, do it, and try to swing by Shurwinn and see the 9 Galaxies Garden because it's so cool. The idea was Ryst Nova's, of course,—"
I didn't interrupt him and explain that the idea had been 100% Peydran, not Ryst since she was staying away from the tangle—
"and just like everything she does, it's unique and should be very interesting to watch grow in the years to come. What better way for a bunch of plant-eating friends to celebrate than planting a garden together, right? You see all that stuff that looks like confetti raining down out of the sky onto the parade goers? It's not confetti, it's millions of seeds!" he cackled.
"Yeah," Gentia interrupted, "I can't imagine how drunk I'd need to be to enjoy being pelted by millions of seeds raining from the sky!"
In my earpiece, Ren chuckled and whispered, "Think Nayth is pissed with us?"
Because, of course, we'd told Nayth and Ryst that the best way to enjoy the parade was to be right in the middle where the seeds were raining down the heaviest.
Laughing, I said on the livestream, "And what's going to happen with all those seeds, Aolfe?"
"Well, Peydran, the street sweepers following behind the parade are pushing them down towards the garden, and once everyone is through the streets, fire hoses are going to sweep the remaining seeds into the garden with water. Let's see the close up video of the garden."
"See that beautiful, round garden there? You see all those trees and shrubs? Those are all gifts that we, the 9 Galaxies Collab friends, brought with us from our homes. We all researched plants that would grow in this climate. All of us have spheres within our Galaxies that have desert climates where plants thrive in similar conditions to Shurwinn, so we brought with us trees, shrubs, flowers, vegetables, fruits, and vines from our home galaxies."
"The seeds falling from the sky onto the parade-goers right now are also from all over the Known Cosmos. And all those seeds are going to get spread around the garden, filling in the blank spaces between the trees and shrubs. Overtime, it's very likely that a lot of those plants are going to hybridize as they flower and reproduce."
"So, in a few years, this garden is going to be like nothing else in the Known Cosmos. Full of plants that are unique to this garden alone. Now, isn't that a way to celebrate the love of our friends Ryst and Nayth and their one-of-a-kind wedding of the millennia?"
"I couldn't have said it better myself, Aolfe. Thank you for joining us today, Gentia and Aolfe. Now, let's all go have a great time and enjoy the party. Suuuu—uunnnshine all you 527 trillion live viewers out there in the 9 Galaxies!"
Play Drummer's Delight Groom's Procession: https://youtu.be/H3WRKsVIGxU?si=A-kbhmDNNXyl9E-X&t=28
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"For our second live stream from Shurwinn, here celebrating the Nova-Carmidee wedding is Sam from Carina Galaxy and Arloch from Rirsich Galaxy. Laaaaadies, welcome! Welcome to Shurwinn! Sam, tell the viewers what they are about to watch."
"Peydran, thanks so much for asking me to come on live. Known Cosmos, you're getting a treat. The Nova-Carmidees are generously sharing with you footage from their beautiful wedding that just happened. The couple entertained us all with an original dance choreographed by the groom and music composed by our dear friend Ren Crieve, and we are going to show it to youuuuu . . . NOW!"
The video of Ryst and Nayth played out to the entire Known Cosmos. A dohl drum beat, and the camera zoomed in on Nayth and Ryst, standing at the bottom of the outdoor, sandstone staircase of Centre Stadium. Behind them were four symphony-orchestras: Shurwinn, Sturm, Starlend, and Floria.
Nayth looked at Ryst exaggeratedly, and she shrugged her shoulders and raised open palms in front of her in a "Whaddya want to do now, honey?" gesture. Nayth shrugged his shoulders, but didn't stop there. His shoulders started bouncing to the beat of the dohl drum.
A few beats in, Ryst's hips started bouncing. The drums stopped, and the couple went still. Nayth shrugged his shoulders and raised open palms in front of him in a "Whaddya want to do now, honey?" gesture.
Ryst crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Nayth. The dohl drum started again. Ryst's shoulders started bouncing to the beat. Nayth's eyes bugged out of his head, and his pelvis started jerking forward. He looked like someone had tied a rope around him and was pulling him forward by the bouncing pelvis across the stadium floor, towards the stairs.
Ryst got a worried look on her face as her arms jerked forwards out in front of her. Her feet jumped forward as her shoulders kept bouncing. She leapt two-footed after Nayth towards the stairs.
The crowd cracked up. Once they reached the steps, Ryst's hands landed on Nayth's shoulders, and he turned to face her, taking her hips in his hands. He looked back over his shoulder, up the steps and pointed to the staircase with his chin, raising his eyebrows, suggesting "Should we go up?"
Ryst quirked her mouth, thinking about it, then nodded with a grin.
Nayth lifted her up by the hips in time to the drum and set her down with her feet on the first step. Then they started a silly pretend race up the steps that was part tap dance, part Bhangra: with pretend running motions, flapping arms, and bouncing hips. They made it to the top of the staircase, and the drums stopped.
Cheers broke out, but they weren't done dancing. Ren's Floria band erupted in a hail of instruments, and Ryst and Nayth showed the crowd what a Tindin Blacker and an expert Floreno looked like when they danced in perfect harmony.
Atop the Centre stadium the two danced on the sandstone, undulating hips, twirling around each other, and flowing through handstands and backbends in a dance that only two people made of dreams could do. It was only two minutes long, but every single person in that stadium held their breaths and watched the dance of a lifetime.
The music ended and Nayth held Ryst in a deep backbend over his right thigh while she looked behind her, left arm stretching back and nearly touching the ground, right leg pointed to the sky. The crowd thundered in applause and cries of "Whoop! Whoop! Ho! Ho!" as flower petals rained down from the sky, blanketing the stadium in a flurry of pink and white.
In my earpiece, Ren whispered, "947 trillion live viewers just watched two stars dancing," and I thought my heart would burst with the joy of it.
"Known Cosmos, celebrate with us the union of our two wonderful friends! And may love always be the reason we celebrate together!" Arloch commanded and ended our live video stream.
NAYTH
"Dance with me, Methela, don't say no." We were at a private breakfast table high above Centre Stadium in the coffee plantation. Stretched out around us were the 2,000 wedding guests, enjoying a vegetarian brunch buffet to end all buffets. The Shurwinn knew how to put out a breakfast spread worthy of kings.
The day had already grown uncomfortably warm, even with the white cooling awnings stretched above us. Ryst and I were wearing the wedding clothes from our secret wedding on Sturm last year, except I had opted for grey trousers in a lightweight linen more suitable for the desert heat. I'd stripped out of my Kurta after our dance and was in just a dusty turquoise tank.
Ryst was beautiful, as always, and mostly she glowed inside with happiness because we were choosing to see this day as a celebration of one year of marriage, though most people in attendance thought they were at our wedding.
I wanted to dance with my wife before it got too hot to be outside, and she responded with a "The answer is always yes, Ahtah."
We returned to the stadium floor, and I sang "Helix" while Ren's bands played. The music went on and on with songs Ren had composed especially for the day. There was Floreno and ballroom dancing, line dances, and Bhangra. We even got a banjo when Peydran called out, "Give 'em the Porch Jig, honey!"
Two hours later, uncomfortably hot, Ryst was tired, so I whispered in our private language, Ready, baby?
She grinned at me, and we made our escape. The porter was already loaded with our gear, and we went straight to Genesis oasis. It was a 6-hour trip in the porter, and we broke the law as we crossed open desert, and had a good time doing it.
The plan was to spend two weeks honeymooning our way across the Shurwinn oases, and we started in Genesis oasis because Ryst wanted the two of us to dive together where she'd seen Lucky the Durn. We didn't see a great sea beast on that trip, but we did explore Avdat bay three days in a row with some of the best diving I'd ever experienced.
Mostly, we had fun, feeling free and like the tangle that had been hounding Ryst for years was a thing of the past now that our weddings were done. I still had eleven years left of Galactic Ministry service, but other than that, we had nothing tying us down.
So we traveled the oases of Shurwinn, exploring water, caverns, sand dunes, libraries, restaurants, and night life. But mostly, we explored the freedom that came from leaving the responsibility of the wedding of the millennia behind.
We didn't know that the tangle wasn't finished with us.