primrosella: (Grinning)
Princess Rosella of Daventry ([personal profile] primrosella) wrote in [community profile] tampered2014-02-26 02:59 pm

Wedding Bells Are Ringing

When; February 26th, all day
Rating; G for GOOD GRIEF IT'S ABOUT TIME
Characters; Cain, Earl of Hargreaves ([personal profile] misterblackbird), HRH Princess Rosella of Daventry ([personal profile] primrosella), and their assorted invitees!
Summary; It's a wedding that surprises absolutely no one, save for in the sense of "we're surprised that it actually took this long".
Log;

The good news is, the wedding was supposed to be last Saturday, so when all the business with the Door and the return of the Deities and the ensuing war hit, it wasn't like it was altogether that difficult to just up and postpone things a bit. Where but in the City would one have to call an event on account of Quite Possibly The Armageddon, hmm?

But things have died down now, and the doors have appeared. All of a sudden, the time everyone'd thought they had left seems altogether too short, the end looming too soon and too real on a very near horizon, and there's simply no time to wait any longer. It's hardly the wedding either Cain or Rosella would've had in their respective worlds, but it's a wedding nevertheless, and in the end what really matters is that they're here and it's happening and whatever might come of things tomorrow, well, that's a little later on.

It's precisely the sort of sentiment one learns to live by, after years upon years in the City. Neil and Todd would call it carpe diem; whatever one calls it, it's good advice. Tomorrow may be uncertain, but what they have is today, and February the 26th is as fine a date as any for a wedding anniversary, anyway.

And it is, indeed, a beautiful wedding.

The East Wing of the Palace is decked out in flowers of white and pink--with surprisingly fewer roses in the clusters than one might expect of a wedding with Rosella as a part of it. Where they do appear, they're pale pink, and tucked in for accent among the scattered magnolias, orchids, and stephanotis. The rest of the decor is both tasteful and traditional: white bows, crystal, and a few pretty appearances of the standard (and appropriately, highly poisonous) lilies of the valley for good measure.

The bride, naturally, turns up in a lovely dress of what those in the business have dubbed "the whitest white to ever white", as is natural and befitting a princess; her veil is held in place by the crown she brought with her from home, and on her feet are the same glass slippers she's worn to so many other important events before. With her bouquet in hand and her knights at either side, the processional goes off without a hitch, and from that point on it's all Miss Megumi's show.

But really, it's not so much the wedding people come for, is it, as the reception?

And what a fairy-tale reception it is, with a newly-minted prince and his princess, a pair of knights, a squire, and music and dancing and food and laughter (and of course, an open bar and cake). All of which will receive more description and possibly some linked images soon enough, but these kids are running on a deadline here, so you know what, use your imagination for the time being while we get some matrimony up in this business.

A wise man once said, "The real purpose of a wedding isn't so much the ceremony; it's the big party with all your friends and loved ones afterward." And that's what we've got tonight, folks, so tonight we're gonna party like it's 1889.

Or 20 AGC.

Or February 26, 2014.

Or like it's the end of the world, which given our track record the past couple of days, it might just be.

But hey, at least there's free booze and cake!



[ OOC: EVERYBODY GET IN HERE. Mark subthreads with your place and point in time (pre-ceremony, during, at the reception, whatever), threadjack ridiculously, and tag yourselves in so we can all find this later! Backdate until the end of time, folks, it's the wedding some of us have all been waiting for. c: ]
sleepingstar: (pic#6757185)

pre-wedding

[personal profile] sleepingstar 2014-02-27 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
[Pai pokes her head into the dressing room, curious to get a glimpse of Rosella. This is the first wedding she's ever attended, much less been a part of.]
misterblackbird: (White Butterfly (considering))

First Dance

[personal profile] misterblackbird 2014-02-27 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
To have a "first dance" after the ceremony itself is not a custom with which Cain is immediately familiar (he wonders if it might be a custom in Daventry, and then wonders if it might be a borrowed custom from another world entirely--so much of what's done in the City is borrowed after all, but that adds to the interest of it). It seems rather extravagant to have dancing at a wedding, at least of this sort. But, certainly, a celebration is due.

Married. What a strange thought. What a strange thought to find crossing his mind as he stands with Rosella's--his bride, his wife--hand in his.

They have danced this way before, so many times. And he thinks of other ballrooms in other cities in other worlds.

There was a certain pleasure--call it a perversion if one likes, of course--he could find in moments such as those, in crowds, in the ivory-and-gilt ballrooms of one household aspiring or another in trembling decline. It didn't matter: they were all painted in the same colours, only one would bear more gilt than the other and everyone who really knew already knew who was aspiring and who was declining. Their daughters made it clear if nothing else.

So that enjoyment, as that's another word, that came in such times and places as those, surrounded by a crowd or kept to himself at the side but knowing full well that he was watched, there was an enjoyment in seeing what was unseen or in knowing more than he might say. That was the game.

Cain Hargreaves, they'd say, the young Earl Hargreaves. And then there was a choice of rumour to follow the name. His eccentric collection, the tragedy of his lost fiancee, his youth, his wealth, his peculiar eyes, his family's whispered past. It all depended on the lady (or gentleman, one might as well be honest) and her taste. Those bright flowers and the girls dressed in white, they might whisper in one tone of wealth or horrors. And those ladies who wore more black than was seemly, they might whisper in a very different way of those same horrors.

And he would smile when they glanced his way--he knew what they were saying even if they were too far across the room for him to hear. And that, of course, would set them to whispering again.

Those other times--how strange to stand in the midst of a ballroom, then, with an open window to his back and the night beyond, and think of the war with his father. And all before him, the young unmarried and hopefuls of the London Season turned and swirled, with ladies spinning about their partners like bright flowers tied to dark stakes. And they had no notion that the spate of fires, the wild purchases of the burned land by the Barabas Company, the shape of those holdings, the disaster so recently in the Precious Garden (well, he'd been on stage there, not that anyone could have recognized him under that wig and cape--really, do pay more attention)--they saw these things in the papers and thought nothing of them beyond what they seemed at the surface. How could they know? How could they bear to know and to go on, twirling in gilt ballrooms, knowing that these fires, these murders, these strange occurances that from time to time shook even the drawing rooms of Society were all orchestrated by his father's hand? That would shatter this fragile illusion they had of Empire and Society.

These things were worlds away. These things were worlds away and yet the doorway to that world stood open even at this very moment as he stood, hand in hand, preparing to take a first step, with his new bride.

All those blushing hopefuls of the Season would be crushed if they knew. But they paled in comparison in all ways.

Here, then, was his lady love, crowned in gems and dressed in white, standing at his side, unharmed, well, whole, alive. Every aspect of her, every element of her was a defiance to the darkness that surrounded him. Her very heart to him seemed radiant with a kind of certainty, a kind of defiance.

She was, here, at the first and last, the cure, the antidote to his poison.

He took her hand. He smiled at her. And he stepped to the floor, wearing the crown she had asked him to wear as he would be Prince of Daventry now as she was Princess (he'd hesitated there, at first, but this was hers to give and he bowed his head to the crown she gave him--no crown of thorns here, not as Merry had promised to ease the pain from, but a crown of golden leaves).

Soon he would go away to war. For how long, he could not say. But he held fast to his certainty. She was his antidote. She stood against all the ruin that he brought with him. Even in his shadow, she would shine. And he loved her. He would go away to war and return to her, victorious.

He had made his promises to her now, too. And he would keep them.

He took her hand and they danced.
sleepingstar: (pic#6757186)

[personal profile] sleepingstar 2014-02-27 01:21 am (UTC)(link)
[Pai slides in, instinctively cautious and moving with eerily silent footsteps. She's new to all of this, and new things are potential threats. A part of her is ready to attack at any moment.

The rest of her smoothes her dress almost nervously.]


Your dress looks lovely.
sleepingstar: (pic#6757185)

[personal profile] sleepingstar 2014-02-27 01:38 am (UTC)(link)
It's not very practical. [Pai shrugs.] But it's your wedding. [Your life, your choice, no skin off her nose, etc.]
had_not_lived: (☞ To strive; to seek; to find)

whenever, wherever, forever.

[personal profile] had_not_lived 2014-02-27 02:31 am (UTC)(link)
[It's probably for the best that this wedding isn't any fancier, because Neil's head is spinning as it is. He can't quite bring himself to say it's the best wedding he's been to-- that feels a little too disloyal to a certain Christmas morning-- but it's incredible, unquestionably so.

Five years in the City have been good for Neil; he'd have looked like a kid play-acting, when he arrived, kitted out in knight's regalia and carrying a sword. As it is, he pulls it off surprisingly well-- though perhaps he's a bit too cheerful to be properly intimidating. Not surly in the least. He's mingling like any other guest, though he doesn't stray too far from the bride, on principle. A knight's duty, after all, is not suspended during a party.

He's eating and drinking and he's merry, for yesterday he died. (Metaphorically, but only on the yesterday count. Who's doing the math on that, anyway.)

It's a beautiful day, and there's nowhere he'd rather be.]
sleepingstar: (pic#6890507)

[personal profile] sleepingstar 2014-02-27 02:31 am (UTC)(link)
As long as more fighting doesn't break out.

[She perches bird-like on a stool.]

Why did you ask me to be flower girl? [The better question would be, why did Pai agree, but Rosella wouldn't have the answer to that.]
misterblackbird: (Fairer Than the Snow)

[personal profile] misterblackbird 2014-02-27 02:54 am (UTC)(link)
[Wither goest the bride, so goest the bridegroom, of course. And Cain is nowhere if not near to Rosella's side, wearing his crown of golden leaves as best he can, speaking to everyone, but mostly tossing adoring glances in Rosella's direction.

He is, though, both pleased and amused to see that his lady wife has her own small force of armed knights to protect her. Chivalrous knights. Of the most romantic sense--these knights even wrote poetry, and if that didn't adhere to the customs of Courtly Love, scarce else could be said to.

Neil (Sir Neil? Sir Perry?) passes nearby. Cain can't help but speak to him as well, though he has been more than present this whole day.]


Neil!

[A pause. It seems ridiculous to keep saying the same things, but...]

Thank you--for coming, for all you've done. Most of all for standing with Rosella.
had_not_lived: (☞ I wanted to live deep)

[personal profile] had_not_lived 2014-02-27 03:11 am (UTC)(link)
You couldn't have kept me away, [he says earnestly, warmly, his hands clasped around a glass, his own plain wedding band gleaming on his finger.] And congratulations! I'm not sure if I said it yet.

[It's been such a busy day, he honestly can't recall.]
sleepingstar: (pic#6890506)

[personal profile] sleepingstar 2014-02-27 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
[Pai takes the hairpin, but doesn't put it in yet. (Honestly, she's not quite sure how. While she may currently favor silly, girlish, frilly clothing, she's never had any idea what to do with her hair beyond utilitarian ponytails.]

Why would he suggest it? [He always seemed rather disturbed by her.]
had_not_lived: (☞ And he will make the face of heaven)

[personal profile] had_not_lived 2014-02-27 03:36 am (UTC)(link)
I can't hold a candle to you and your husband, My Lady.

[And this, here, is the most incredible and wonderful bit of all; for all the pomp and circumstance there really isn't much formality at all. Neil's grin is almost as bright as hers (almost, because it's a physical impossibility to out-joy a bride at her wedding,) and he wraps his arms around her in a hug that is totally lacking in the appropriate gravitas for a knight. Fortunately, it makes up for it in devotion.

The trappings are irrelevant; their friendship is as easy as ever. Though he has to watch that he doesn't knock anything over with the sword.]


I'm so happy, I can't even tell you.
oceanmist: (if we consider this)

Mingle time (get in here you all)

[personal profile] oceanmist 2014-02-27 11:58 am (UTC)(link)
[ ... Becoming a minister wasn't something that was in her to-do list, to be entirely honest.

But hey, the city has done crazier things. She's been a mermaid, a pokemon, a ghost.... And she's been married a few times in the faint memories she does recall. (Perhaps to the groom or his father, it's happened) - but right now, there's no confusion. She does recall how she felt initially, when it all began. It's a vague memory, when her feelings had more fire to them. But now there's a peacefulness to them- there's more at stake for her, more to look after. Those feelings from then are now a transformed set of emotions where she can put those thoughts where they belong.

In her prettiest memories. None that have to do with whatever is going on in her life right now-

But this... Well. As she watches them, she can't believe it's been this long for this place. A pity, really- she wouldn't mind the deities giving those magic-haters back home a good whopping, but at the same time... What will be will be. Much like the couple before her who at one point may have raised her own worry- and perhaps a sense of dread. She held back, he'd held back with her- the city isn't forever, and they could return and forget.

He didn't feel this for her though and there's a feeling of satisfaction there as she wants to remind him of all the times he told her that he didn't deserve that happiness. Eating his words now, isn't he? In the best way, of course- much like she is, well. Once the jokes about his heartbreaking and how Rosella's got a jewel in her hands she's got to hold onto, how Cain's got the princess most guys just dream of- and by the power she has to conduct this wedding (wow, words she never thought she'd say) they're man and wife. Now have a kiss that's going to put everything to shame.

All of that seems to be like a dream, much like the fact that the city has pulled a fast one on them. To give them ways home- ways back to Julien and the others... Whoever they are, whoever she needs to remember. But for now, she can enjoy this, as much as one can enjoy things in this place- she'd managed to rob a store- well. Put together something presentable to wear herself, her favorite colors- blue, violet, the brief bursts of pink sparkle as a reminder of the very, very first time this city took her with a life and world completely different from all others- in a sweetheart neck cut blouse with straps, and flowing skirt to follow. Her hair is done simply and she would pose a picture of elegance-

But she's currently plotting on eating every sandwich in sight (nicely!) and looking for the desserts. Because what the heck is a wedding without food, right? She looks happy, if just a little worried. Where do they go from here...

Oh well, that comes later. Wedding first. And food...

And perhaps a little trying to figure out which people at this party prefer the same gender and what stories she can weave around them... Heh heh. ]
sleepingstar: (pic#6890508)

[personal profile] sleepingstar 2014-02-27 11:59 pm (UTC)(link)
I wouldn't have agreed if it wasn't.
had_not_lived: (☞ A bringer of new things)

[personal profile] had_not_lived 2014-02-28 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
[At least it's less strange for Rosella, as she's a wife. Neil has never been able to call Todd anything but Todd; but he understands that strange thrill at the thought of it.

He smiles in a way that crumples his face dangerously, and touches her cheek lightly.]


Don't cry, or I'll cry, and then you'll have to un-knight me.
had_not_lived: (☞ To put to rout all that was not life)

[personal profile] had_not_lived 2014-02-28 02:23 am (UTC)(link)
[If Neil's your litmus for modernity, darling, you'll be behind the times forever. But he's pleased, in a way nothing could have pleased him outside the City. Neil wanted to act because he wanted to borrow lives; to take a few hours now and then and see through someone else's eyes. He's a knight, now; he's a man who's ridden a dragon and sailed a pirate ship and laughed with Death and here is a dear friend, a princess and a bride, and even if they never see one another again they've lived those lives, these past years. Lives that have been theirs, not even borrowed.]

It's a deal, though I think someone will have to hold my sword.

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