Page 15 of Monster Married
“Sorry.” I wiped my face and willed my tears to stop already. The stage fright was real though. I was getting married. Married. I would be married to my husband, who had horns. No one had ever given me happier news, but the nerves were something else. Was there a special bagu ceremony? Did I have to say anything in LaGuardia?
Two bagua who had been sitting around the fountain came over and spoke to Nokim. I was probably a human buzzkill of the festival feeling, and they were complaining about my sniffle noises or something.
But that wasn’t it at all. Nokim turned to me. “They want to make sure you’re all right.” He cocked his head. “You are, aren’t you?”
I glanced up at Nokim and the two bagua. “Happy tears.” A ridiculously wide grin settled on my face. “I’m really, really happy.”
Vergis made a gurgling sound. “You look fucking creepy grinning like that. Also, this is just bureaucracy. You’re not going to be walking on flower petals or some silly shit like that.”
“You can be my maid of honor,” I said, because darn it, I knew Vergis was an ass, but he wasn’t mean for no good reason. Sometimes. Once or twice since I’d known him. More importantly, he hadn’t left me to become monster fodder when I knew he wanted to be where I was now. On my way to get properly monster married to Inkiri. I flinched when I realized that he might take it the wrong way, seeing as how he’d had a thing for Inkiri, but damn my mouth. “Or hangu of honor. That’s a thing, right?” I asked, trying to soften it.
Lissir grinned at me. “That honor maid title is for someone very close, isn’t it?” He turned to Vergis, who looked sort of…pissed off, but in a good way? “See, Vergis? Even Rory knows you’re family. I’ve told you.” He added something to the two bagua Nokim was still talking to. “Now, can we go inside?”
I nodded. “Can I keep this?” I waved his handkerchief. “Might need it again.” Then I grinned. “Something borrowed.”
Vergis rolled his eyes and mumbled something I didn’t catch.
Lissir tilted his head. “Of course it’s borrowed, but you can keep it. Do you want to keep it?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s a wedding tradition. You have to have something borrowed, something blue, and something old. It brings luck.”
At least I thought that was the reason for the tradition. Honestly, I wasn’t so sure. I’d thought about marriage—what theater kid growing up in the end stages of capitalism hadn’t?—but I’d never thought it would really happen for me. I’d never made any definitive plans for what my very gay wedding should look like.
Vergis crossed his arms. “A wedding superstition, more like. Besides, you got it wrong. You need something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. And a silver sixpence in your shoe. The bride’s supposed to have all of the above for a happy marriage.”
Lissir narrowed his eyes. “Now you’re telling me this, Vergis? Tell me again, what do we need to satisfy this human custom?”
I reached for Lissir’s shoulder. “No, you don’t have to?—”
Lissir patted the back of my hand. “You focus on not crying, Rory. You are far from home, and we all have learned that marriage is considered a significant step for humans, so we’ll make sure you get these things. Vergis?”
Vergis sighed. “Something old, something new?—”
I pulled on my shirt. “New clothes, that works.”
Nokim clicked. “Give him one of your knives, Vergis. They are old, aren’t they?”
Vergis glared. “I will do no such thing. There’s also something borrowed, and something blue, but he’s marrying something blue, so that just leaves the silver coin.”
“Oh! That I have!” Nokim pulled a coin from his pants pocket. “Do I put it in his shoe? His feet are so delicate, and this might hurt him.”
“Just give it to me,” I said, and Nokim placed the coin in my palm. It was a Euro, an Irish one, with the harp on one side. I just knew that was a good omen right there.
The two bagua who had walked up to make sure I was okay were talking again, and Lissir and Nokim were chatting back. From how Nokim was counting things off on his fingers, he was explaining what we were doing.
One of the bagua rocked back and forth on his feet excitedly, a lot like Nokim always did, then he turned and beckoned for me to follow.
“He says he has an idea.” Lissir walked with them to the fountain. There was some back-and-forth and gesturing.
Next to me, Vergis groaned. “I can’t believe this. What a fucking production.”
“What? Tell me what’s happening, oh hangu of honor.”
He really could produce a withering glare at the drop of a hat. I wondered whether he’d practiced that in front of a mirror. “Call me that again, and we’ll have ourselves a problem. That protector says it’s customary to toss those stones the river carries to shore here into the fountain, but only if they have a hole in them. Like adder stones, I guess.”
I looked at the rippling surface of the water. “Like what?”
“It’s what we call them on Earth, which you should know, seeing as how you’re from there,” Vergis said.
