Sword and Snow

!I sat with Emery 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 messages themselves were disparate.

But they each invariably came with one of two messages. 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 message for a moment before turning my attention back to everything else going on.

We had taken so long picking a venue that word had spread - through me - 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 Emery 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 meters. 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.” Emery said as she was sketching out the measurements 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 some simple wooden tables among the hedges until the ceremony is over. Then we don’t need to worry about a separate space.”

Emery 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 same time it’s growing?” I wondered aloud. The look Emery gave me 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.” Emery said, answering my smile with her own. “But I don’t think it’ll come to that.”

“I suppose that means if he just says ‘no’, I don’t win?”

“Only if he says he couldn’t do it if he tried.” Emery said. “But I’ve seen some 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.

Emery 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 some 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 Emery.

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.” Emery 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.

“Me either. Big social events are definitely not my thing.” Emery said, eyeing the pile. She sat back down in her chair comfortably before reaching over to gather some of the messages. Stena hopped up into her lap once she was settled, and Emery 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 time.” 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 some 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 welcome to go play, if you’d like. But your mother and I need to get this done.”

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 Emery’s lap and followed closely behind.

Emery 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 time 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.”

Emery 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.

“Moment of truth, I suppose.” She said, taking four separate messages and piled them before her. She slid a different fifth one over to me.

I just stared at the envelope. “I genuinely don’t know what I want them to have said.” I muttered.

As Emery 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 sometimes.” 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.”

Emery 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 members 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.” Emery said, as she opened her own first message. She brightened up rather quickly after reading the first couple lines. “Holy crap. Kota can actually make it?” She glanced up at me 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 me.” Emery 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 names of the family members 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.”

Emery raised her eyebrow at me 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 came back into the room, homework in hand, with Stena hot on her heels. This time, when Cierra took her seat to get to work, Stena walked to me and clambered onto my lap. I resettled her in a comfortable position and hugged her.

“This doesn’t sound so bad…” Emery 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 me not remembering who my family members 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 mean it as an insult. It’s a whole art form.” I said, disgusted. “And my mother is fantastic at it.”

Emery 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 me the letter again. I took it to reread it once more, while Emery opened the last letter from her siblings.

“...They can all make it?” She said, stunned, looking over Rylie’s message.She let the letter fall to the table, her eyes focused on something in the distance. “I don’t think we’ve all been in the same 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.” Emery said, still somewhat 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.” Emery said with a chuckle. “Between talking about silent wars and backhanded compliments and the like, you make it sound like your family is some kind of royalty fighting for regency or some nonsense.”

I snorted, but when I didn’t respond Emery looked at me concerned.

“Avuri, I swear to all that is holy, if I’m about to marry a princess and you didn’t tell me, I’m going to throttle you.”

“I’m not a princess.” I said wryly. “But my family is pretty wealthy.”

Emery gave me an unimpressed look. “And how wealthy is pretty wealthy?”

I sighed, and remained quiet for a moment before finally saying, “Very.”

When Emery’s eyes continued to stare daggers at me I finally relented. “They own half of Bouquet.”

“Bouquet?” Emery said, confused. “Bouquet? Like the central trade city of the Floral Hills, Bouquet?”

“...Yeah. I come from a family of very rich merchants.”

“...Well shit.” Emery said, looking at the ceiling.

Cierra and I both retorted, “Language.”