Goriel and Beyond, Part 5

[Alberich]

Tim thought he should probably be joining in the merriment, but it didn't feel quite right. They hadn't been married a week and they knew this already? He was a little dim on the details but it seemed a little soon...as if...kind of what Argus had hinted at and he was already pretty sure anyway...secrets like that didn't keep well in a group this size...well, it was easy to think these Reformists weren't that serious even about chastity. Probably too unsophisticated for their amazing scholarly minds.

Well, there were good points. At least they'd gone ahead and made it honest, and since they'd married in Veracia, one assumed they'd done so in the Church. So maybe their child would get brought up in the faith instead of that heathen elf stuff? He just hoped that a human/half-elf pairing would get a child that favored the human side, and had human instincts, and a soul - like Eli. Not a creature like Desiree. And if it was going to have a step-grandmother, would it also have godparents, to ensure it was brought up in the faith? Well, he couldn't ask that directly just now, but there was one thing he could.

With deceptive casualness, Tim directed his question to Argus. "When you and Rose get married," he asked, "what kind of ceremony are you planning to have?"

Meantime, a little further away, Udo was speaking softly to Tamina. "...so, anyway, the way I see it, our best hope for finding Jamie is to find the bad man she's looking for. If these guys can help us do that, great! Maybe she'll be nearby. And if they can help us find the Ralkin, even better. Kill 'em all! Fuckin' shallirs." He was a little impatient with the big family revelation scene that was happing over there. It was like something out of True Romance comics that teenage girly-girls would read and moon over - not the sophisticated, true-to-life, illustrated thaumo-fiction that mature adults like himself favored.

[Drannin]

Argus deflected Tim's question offhand. "Something to contemplate whenthis current mess is dealt with. Between Blaise and these Ralkin, we have our hands full.

To Rose, mentally: <"Relax, I was joking. Or at least I didn't mean it in a negative light. I think her reaction will be humorous more than anything else.">

Of course, what Argus considered humorous might differ from others, but this never occurred to him.

[Alberich]

When Argus' head turned away, Tim's eyebrows went up for just a moment. No, he thought. That's something you sort out when you promise to get married...and before you start conjugal relations, and hanging on each other like husband and wife already. So what happened if they got into an argument over that? What if they hadn't agreed even to raise their children in the Faith? And broke off because of it? And what if Rose herself was pregnant then?

It was sad enough when a young girl got led into a fool's paradise by some smooth talker or a nameless soldier passing through town. Then you tried to get them to mend the skaith if you could find the young goat and he wasn't married already, and if not you did what you could for her.

But for a scandal like that to happen to a woman of Rose's years? And not just a silly woman with a life of folly behind her, but a nun and an officer? Even setting herself up for it was simply dreadful (and confirmed Tim's concerns). And if it bore out that way -- pray the Good Lord it did not -- well, it was too horrifying to contemplate. Blaise and the Ralkin were indeed safer subjects.

[Jack Rothwell]

"...so, anyway, the way I see it, our best hope for finding Jamie is to find the bad man she's looking for. If these guys can help us do that, great! Maybe she'll be nearby. And if they can help us find the Ralkin, even better. Kill 'em all! Fuckin' shallirs."

"Yeah-yeah." Tamina replied, who'd more or less hung back from current event of the last several minutes. Although she had smiled and waved at Lilith and Brad celebrating their parenthood: it was often the same reaction with her people, and that gave her a pang of homesickness.

"Oh. Umm... papers we found at the mine." She added. "Maybe... help them, and they help us?"

[Alberich]

"Yeah, good point!" said Udo. He picked up his backpack where those papers were and pulled them out in a bundle. Jamie, being Jamie, had let Udo play "pack mule." Figuring they were still out of earshot, he added, "Maybe that old fart or one of the elves can make head or tail of 'em."

It wouldn't've been fair to ask Tamina to decipher all this "yoo-man" writing. Jamie hadn't had the patience for more than a few lines. Neither had Udo himself. Someone who knew him well might've thought that strange. If he was playing Farms of Suroka, he could stay up all night tracking imaginary shipments of wheat, ore, and weapons on ships that never were, obsessed and fascinated with every detail. But give him records from a real business and he'd be asleep in minutes. Well, he was a man of action! (Typically, jaw action.)

He nodded to Tamina. "Yeah, you're right, they might make good cannon f...ah, allies. Let's go talk to 'em." He trundled over that way.

[OOC: "Cannon fallies?" No worse than "burrahobbits," I say.]

[Drusia]

"Santuariel?" she guessed, "No, no, we can talk about it here," she protested. "We're far enough north here that the elves don't come this way. Well, other elves." She nodded to where Drusia was standing "I can already read between the lines that she's not a problem, so we can be open with each other."
"My people trade with Santuariel all the time. We do it very carefully, so that neither city exposes too many secrets at once, and the two cities are too far apart for the volume to be high, but it is done." A look of puzzlement passed her face. "I'm surprised you didn't know that."

We're interupted by the glee from Brad. I smile. That isn't a destiny I want at the moment, but... perhaps someday. I was surprised when they came back to journey with us, but it was nice to see them. Now, I wonder if they'll be leaving again.

As we watch the celebrations, I absently say "I'm not from Santuariel - that's Lillith's home town. I've never been there, but my mother -" I nod to Drusia - "has. Although, if you've been to Santuariel, you understand why Anfisa might not be comfortable where I'm from."

"Oh," I add after a brief pause, "And you might not want to mention Santuariel in front of Lillith. She's as protective of her town as you and I are of ours. When I told her that my mother was familiar with Santuariel, and had in fact visited there before, she got rather upset - it hurt our friendship for a time." That was awkward.

-- Desiree

[Jack Rothwell]

"Yeah, you're right, they might make good cannon f...ah, allies. Let's go talk to 'em."

"Hey Rose!" Tamina called. "Forgot to mention before. Picked up some papers from the mine. Should look-see."

The kobold, of course, had no idea what was on the liberated documents. Although she could get-by at speaking the human tongue, reading their language was an exercise in slow-paced frustration.

[Graybeard]

Truthfully, Sister Rose was just as interested in Argus' response to that question as Tim himself was. "When you and Rose get married, what kind of ceremony are you planning to have?" I wish I knew.

In keeping with its general de-emphasis on ritual in favor of living the Luminosita-guided life, the Reformed Church downplayed the details of weddings, not to mention their formality. There was a credible report, Rose knew, of a Reformed wedding somewhere over on the east coast that had gone something like this:
Celebrant: "You want to marry him?"
Bride: "Yes."
Celebrant: "You want to marry her?"
Groom: "Yes."
Celebrant: "Okay. You're married."
Of course, the fact that the whole "ceremony" coincided with the onset of a volcanic eruption lent a little -- urgency to the whole thing, and to the notion of getting out of there and on with the honeymoon. But who was she to throw stones?

Still, Tim had homed in on a subject that she and Argus were going to have to face head-on some time, and she hoped it would be soon. (Lillith's news had once again alerted Rose to the ticking of her own biological clock.) Yet Argus had given the only possible answer for right now; priorities had to be set. She nodded. "There'll be a time, soon enough, for that. For now, I think we'll have to just live with the notion of Gorielian 'blessing' of our, ahem, 'marriage' and get on with it." She rolled her eyes, trying to indicate she wasn't serious about that. (At least not totally.) However, before she could dismiss the idea as "just kidding," Tamina burst in ...

"Hey Rose! Forgot to mention before. Picked up some papers from the mine. Should look-see."

Rose's eyes got big. "Well, bless you, Tamina! Yes, let's look-see. These could be important." She hastened over to where the kobold held the papers, the wedding subject (mercifully) sidelined for the moment.

------------

"I've never been to Santuariel myself," Therese answered Desiree, "but from what I understand, yes, I would agree with you that that is probably not the best place for Anfisa to call home. You've aroused my curiosity, though. Your mother has been there? I understand that she is -- tolerant, but how can an elf possibly have business in such a place?" And have that place remain standing, and not depopulated of half elves?

This conversation, too, was briefly sidelined by Tamina's revelation, and Therese excused herself to go examine these "papers" ... but her interest in Desiree was growing by the minute.

[Alberich]

[OOC: These Reformists sound suspiciously like Orthodox Las Veganists!]

Tim's views on wedding ceremonies differed markedly from Rose's -- to an Orthodox priest, the length of the ceremony, the formal exchange of vows, the prayers, the social events around it, all served the vital purpose: to emphasize and reemphasize the importance of the sacrament, and the divine nature of the bond between a married man and woman. Had he been thinking about the Reformist view towards ritual, he would've linked it with the light view he suspected Brad and Rose were giving to chastity. He wasn't so he didn't. Rose's joke about Goriel's blessing being "good enough" simply made him wince.

It was Udo who had the papers, not Tamina, but he was in a mood to share them thanks to Tamina's suggestion. He handed them over in a great big bundle he'd been keeping in his pack.

[OOC: I have to pause now for time's sake; many of them are financial in nature; would be glad to know which PC's are best able to decipher that kind of thing. My own guess is Argus. Anyway, I'll post more later.]

[Graybeard]

OOC:

[OOC: I have to pause now for time's sake; many of them are financial in nature; would be glad to know which PC's are best able to decipher that kind of thing. My own guess is Argus. Anyway, I'll post more later.]

Perhaps surprisingly, this is something that Brad could probably help with. Small-town priests are not exempted from the job of taking care of the church's money just because the amount of money isn't very large, and Brad used to be one of those. Brad would also want to impress Argus with his financial acumen. probably. Rose would know something about the topic from her military days, but not as much.