To Marry a Dragon

Epilogue

Lukrezia shifted from foot to foot. The stool she stood on to see out of the window in the human house wobbled precariously. As much as they had rearranged the place to suit their needs, one could only do so much in so short a time. In addition to the uncomfortable perch, she was rubbing years of unswept dust, grime and peeling paint on the front of her doublet from the sill and shutters, and she didn't care. Well, she'd dust it off later.

"Lukka..." he called from the table piled with scrolls. The nickname still gave her shivers, but she was willing to admit that her full name was a mouthful.

"Shhhh... they are about to come out. The singing has stopped."

"You said that five minutes ago," he complained. Then she heard the screeching sound of the chair on hardwood. Now, I've done it.

"If you wanted to see the wedding so much, we should have just gone," he pointed out, snuggling next to her on the stool. The flimsy thing tittered precariously, so his arm wrapped around her waist for balance... just for balance.

"We have too much work to do and—Oh, look, look! The doors are opening!"

The doors of the cathedral of the Light Lifegiving opened up indeed, releasing the pageant of the royal wedding.

Elvira's grey and white dress pooled around her feet, making her look like she glided on air. Sun caught the fire opal and the sparkling gems in her tiara. The Prince-Consort—the title they had arrived to after three nights of intense negotiations with the Barons who would not agree to Ferrante being titled as their King—kept the solemn black of a paladin with the white slashes on the puffy velvet sleeves.

His coronet was a slim band with a wing opening up in the middle, shining against his jet-black curls like gold... it was gold, after all.

The bridal party flanked the royal couple: the new Earl of Nerim, a blond man with an obvious love for red color; a stouter knight who blushed brighter than his hair and the Earl's outfit; and a man who kept a richly embroidered hood up to shield his face. On Elvira's side came two young women so similar in appearance to the groom that they could have only been his sisters, and an older lady who dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief.

"You would have made a perfect bridesmaid," he observed. "You shouldn't have refused the honor..."

"We have too much work," she argued. "The Civil Codex! Just look at it... their laws are a mess and most of it is hopelessly outdated."

The tables indeed were piled with the manuscripts, ink and quills. But that's not why she had made profuse apologies to Her Majesty.

It was that she didn't want to go without her colleague, and the groom would not want that, because... well, the relationships between them were tense. Also, Ferrante had his hands full. No need to trouble him over whom she hired to help her with the work. She had promised to get the best man for the job, and she did. That's all.

So, that's how they ended here, on the same stool, watching the procession flow through the streets to the cheers of the populace.

"We... we must get back to work," she said. "The big items that Elvira wanted will require work to be accepted by the Barons. The marriage contracts will be prohibited prior to the age of majority and revoked at the say-so of the betrothed... the marriages by declaration in front of witnesses... the marriages of any two persons who are of age and who are willing to enter a union will be made possible... I would link the last one with the land reform and the divisibility of an estate between the heirs to make the advantages obvious."

"Yes," he said absently, "yes, the land reform in particular is important."

Then he shook his head and whirled her away from the window. The stool wobbled but withstood the momentum of the move.

"Lukka, I want you to know that my accepting your offer means that I would be dismissed from my position in the Guild of One True Enigma.

"In addition, before I left, I had a falling out with my father. The words, 'consider yourself disowned' was the last thing I had heard before going through the portal. They are etched in my memory.

"So, when you weigh my proposition (or before you reject it, because you have all the reasons to reject it) consider that I am a man with no prospects, unemployed and potentially unemployable after this contract.  A man of some small academic merit—"

"Oh, stop fishing for a compliment! Your academic merit is respectable... more than respectable! As for the rest, those are debatable as drawbacks and undesirable things in a man of a meritocratic society seeking gainful employment. The ways of the Rotdaam are changing, and I think that—" Her cheeks grew hot as she argued. She opened her mouth to continue, then something he had said, one particular thesis jumped up at her. "Wait? What proposition?"

"Let me begin at the beginning, so that I might correct some of the misconceptions you might have about my behavior. And there is indeed no way you could have thought of me otherwise.

"Lukka, you had captured my imagination immediately when you entered the University. Everything about you fascinated me. Your sharp wit, your drive, your eyes...

"My friends found it necessary to tease me about this developing issue. I foresaw that should I have expressed my admiration more openly and forcefully, the burnt of their scorn would not have fallen on me, but on you. If that was carried back to my family, the repercussions could have been worse. So, I had... changed my tactics. In retrospect, it was cowardly.

"I, however, enjoyed nothing more in my life than the debates and the competition with you over those years. Everything since was dull, and everyone. Until it was back into my life, when you used Ferrante as your mouthpiece—do not bother to deny it, I would know your style anywhere!"

"Tybalt," Lukrezia said, "Tybalt, there comes the time when a man has to shut up—"

"That's debatable," Tybalt replied. "But if you wish me to jump to conclusions, there is only one that I could draw from this case study."

The sun turned just right to turn dust flecks into gold between them. No, it was more. She was breathing sunshine. She wasn't insane back then, she hadn't imagined for all these years that the impossible Tybalt Sonorous, the man who made her regularly throw objects into the walls, returned her unjustifiable, idiotic and unpragmatic feelings.

"That I can't imagine my life without you in it," Tybalt said. And the stool had finally given up under their feet.  

The End

Calgary, Alberta, July 10, 2020

Last edited: January 06, 2024