The Golden Apprentice - Tales of Death and Victory. Vol I

Year of the Apprentice - Chapter VII

I

Giara avoids him all day, and he gets busy helping out with the preparations of the wedding ceremony. It is customary in Soren that the man takes part in the preparation, while the bride rests and prays for a good married life. The prince thinks it's a weird tradition, considering that in Mirha both parties are active, and discuss with each other about how they want the ceremony to happen. Soren is a very old nation, the people in this kingdom used to occupy the entirety of the continent before the Cold Death, only losing a bit of territory when the groups in the region of Scilian decided to break apart into one kingdom. So, culturally speaking, many traditions from Soren are ancient, kept alive even after the many wars that resulted in the fragmentation of the continent into five kingdoms. 

Mirha is a lot younger, with only 13 centuries of History, it is a nation born from war just like many of its citizens. People born from war have no differences, they are equal, all soldiers, you can do whatever you desire as long as you can fight or make more people to fight for the kingdom. Men, women, those in between, are all equal in the battlefield.

“Soren’s traditions confuse me… Why can't a woman plan her own wedding? Why can't a man marry another one?” he comments to Merwen and huffs. “The original marriage was between a goddess and a god, and the god took care of it, fine! But that shouldn't settle how things are for mortals, should it?”

“They still allow men to partner with each other in specific circumstances, which confuses me too, to be honest” Merwen laughs as he reads into the book of marriage traditions of Soren. “I think we are used to marriage not meaning that much in regards to religion because our goddesses only really care about war. Their gods are all about fertility and creation, the one who creates life, the woman, must be protected in their view.”

“And since men can't have children they can't marry before the gods? We made it work” the prince frowns.

“Why are you so upset? You're marrying a woman” the knight smiles.

“It just makes no sense, now I understand why Brila hates it here so much,” Danë sighs and looks at the list of all the things he has to do for his own wedding. “Don’t ever fall in love with a sorien man, Merwen, I want to organize a nice wedding for you, not a lawful union or whatever this is.”

The older man laughs fondly at his friend and shakes his head, “Luckily we don't have to worry about my love life right now, my prince.”

“You're right… I won't have time to worry about our mission, so I'll leave it to you” he points out.

The knight nods, they haven't received any news from the others yet and might not be able to communicate with them for a few days until things are set into motion. So they must execute the mission while the others care for their external problems. In the end, their goal is the same, protect the necromancer at all costs.

“I've heard king Veres has an advisor who lives in the Port of Silver down South, he's the one who takes care of the problems such as the lightning storm,” Merwen says. “I couldn't find much about him, but I will do my best to gather more information”.

The prince nods and massages his shoulders, he's tired. “Find out what you can and send a message to our master. It would be better if she could go to the Port and investigate rather than stay in Mirha,” he proposes.

“Yes, your highness,” the knight bows and leaves to do his work.

The night comes slowly as he works and waits for any news about Mirha, but if anything happened he wasn't informed of it. His father is gleefully ignorant too, happily working on the preparations for his son's marriage but the tension catches up with the prince. He barely sleeps in the night before his wedding and wakes up with his body sore. During breakfast in the morning of the 23rd, Giara isn't present and he gets nervous with her absence. He wants to see and try to talk to her to make sure she isn't angry anymore.