On Thin Ice (Prequel to Guild)

Chapter Twenty-Two: Kobyla

        A week of celebration was enough for Yuina, but she could hardly imagine two.

It wasn't like she didn't cherish the smiles on the faces of people she'd loved since she'd been a little girl. It wasn't like she wished to silence the singing bells, untie the bright and colourful streamers waving at them from every surface, woven through her hair. She didn't want to stop the dancing or the singing or put out the fires of the nomadic clans that camped outside.

No.

She didn't want to tell her parents to pack it all away.

Yuina Mongonai just wasn't sure her promised would survive another week- and she was not prepared to become a widow on her wedding day.

Hand in hand, they navigated the chaos. Pushed through fields of merry people and a labyrinth of ger tents. Through the scent of cooking meat and dumplings and stew. Air. They both needed air. And space. And-

"Some Khurgany khöl, Yuaa?"

She stopped. Turned at the waist and tried to refuse the smiling Kavak man and his warm, delicious-smelling meat, but her body just wouldn't do it. Couldn't do it. She reached for the leg, mouth already watering.

But just as she opened her mouth to take a bite, Dai glared.

Glared powerfully enough to make her drop the lamb's leg on the bodice of her pure white parka.

A foul, Shirub curse escaped her lips. It made the Kavak man recoil. And Dai, at this point.

The glare returned soon after.

"Please excuse us, sorry," she tried, taking her soon-to-be husband's arm and leading him away, out of the crowds and away from the music of laughter and bells.

"It's seven thirty in the morning."

"Breakfast."

"A bit early for red meat."

Yuina just laughed as she swerved out of the path of an old woman using a decorated white reindeer to transport her laundry. "And three in the morning is a bit early to wake up and start punching things, miizhair."

"I run at three. I punch things at four."

"Wow. Huge difference."

         And they were out. Out in the open air and the sunshine, smelling snow instead of fire and food and the animals brought for eating or transporting things or as gifts for the new imperial couple of the shogunate.

Yuina winced as she guided her promised towards the palace doors.

She'd have to ask her parents to keep those on their behalf, lest Lady Kimsura have them used for target practice or-

Her boots stopped clicking against the faded stone. Someone had shoveled the snow off for the occasion, painted individual rocks in the swirling pattern of the Mongonai flower and framed it with brightly-coloured versions of the Ryuu. She stopped. Looked at nothing. "Gods and spirits. I'm Lady Kimsura now, aren't I? By the time we're back in Hikarishi-"

"Technically, your coronation is the second wedding with mine but..." He smiled. "I'm glad you're excited."

"But Raia can't forbid me from adopting a reindeer if I want to at this point, right?"

Dai just raised both brows, staring at her with an open mouth and confusion in his dark eyes. "No...?"

"Excellent."

He blinked.

She smiled and told him she was joking... sort of. "But to tell you the truth," she said, pinching her parka above the sash, frowning at the stain from the mutton, "a reindeer's tongue would be very helpful right now."