Themerlinhawk & Grin
Day 0, Evening
Shard poked his head into Raven’s cabin. “Hey we need to talk, it’s probably time to do prep for the wedding. The Knights are all back and it looks like the world isn’t going to end anytime soon. That and Ris keeps asking me what color dress she should wear. I don’t have an answer.” Christian stood in the doorway with his head cocked to the side and a glass tablet in his left hand. His eyes slowly wandered Raven’s cabin as it was the first time he’d ever been inside the room on board Blackwing. “Senechal also seems to think it will take him more than a day to do any sort of set up. That and I sort of told the Masters and Mistresses that we’d be having it in a couple days.” Christian’s gaze continued to wander until it stopped on Raven. “So do you have a minute?”
The golden haired beauty lay perched in her seat, viewing an older map of Galendar. It had several marks in pen scribbled on it. Words of renamed locations, added towns, et cetera. As Shard eyed the cabin he took in the fact that nothing had changed about Raven’s quarters.
The moonlight gleamed inside the windows, shining over the table which was lit by dim lighting. Raven wore a dark blue night gown that dripped down to the floor at her feet. She didn’t look up to meet shards eyes, her eyebrows still furrowed in concentration at her mini project.
“mm?” A gentle smile played with her lips at the sound of her beloved’s voice.
Shard twitched the glass table over in his left hand and ran his fingers over it. It projected a series of images onto the wall of her cabin. “We need to decide on seating arrangements for the actual wedding ceremony, and reception. We need to decide where we plan on doing it and how we want to do the setup, additionally you’ll need to pick out bridesmaids if you want them. Oh and we need to decide on food. Among other things.” Settling down next to her he tug a chair over to hers and sat with her.
Raven’s red eye was glazed with distant sleep before she rubbed it, her other one covered by askew pieces of her blonde hair. She glanced up at Shard and smiled. “I want Akime to be one of the bridesmaids, she’s been a sweetheart. Perhaps Ralrisk as well. It would be amusing to see that girl in a dress.” She stared down at her old map and gently chuckled, her finger twirling around a strand of her hair. “As for the seating…” She tapped the pen on her lips. “..I’ll leave you in charge of that. I’ll probably be having my entire crew around us, but you should have specific seats for the people of your choice. As for location, we can program some teleportation devices to our select seaters, everyone else can take blackwing to the location for some festivities. She smiled warmly. “So, I have a special present for you. It took a whole ton of work, but I think you’d appreciate it.”
Shard leaned over. “Oh what is that?” His arms snaked around her waist. “Where did you want to have the wedding by the way? I mean we can always use the roof of the Tower but if you had some place in mind we can certainly do that. And It might be fun to use the deck of Blackwing for the reception.” Christian nibbled into Raven’s neck a little, taking in the scent of her perfume before peering down at her desk. “I’m sure Akime and Ris would love to be bridesmaids, I should probably ask Megelis and Lazarus to be attend me then as well. I don’t think Urthar will do it so I’ll have to find other Knights as well, but that can be something I do.”
Raven leaned into his nibbling as she tapped a few invisible buttons on her mechanical arm. “Let’s have it in our flower hills.” she said abruptly. “At least, the actual ceremony, then all of our private people we invited can teleport back to Blackwing afterwards.” She continued to twirl her finger around her hair. “And, as for the present…” She grinned and snapped her fingers on her mechanical hand, causing a holographic image to appear above the table in blue gold light. It was fabric of some sort, attached to some roughed up supports and inner contraptions to hold it up in a curved shape. It was the top of a wagon. She grinned proudly. “I searched for this thing for two years, centuries ago, until I finally found it and stitched most of it back together..” She stared deeply in Shard’s eyes for a reaction.
Christian tilted his head. “How is that still a piece of fabric? It's over two thousand years old?” His eyes flicked back and forth over the fabric she had painstakingly reconstructed. “Wow, never thought I’d see that again.” Pensively he leaned into her still staring at it. “We could put it up in our room and it would be like old times again. Just add a creepy necromancer and a war going on around us and I’ll be having flashbacks to going up and down the coast with you.” He smiled into her as pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I’m so glad you found that. I have dreams every once in awhile about it, funny I know but it happens.”
She snapped her fingers and the image evaporated into strands of code that faded in the night. “I had to weave in a ton of nanofiber into the matter as it was turning to mush. It was quite difficult to tell the truth, took another six months of sitting in this cabin as my crew went around making improvements to Blackwing, stitching the thing together strand by strand. The supports were turning mushy as well so I had to melt titanium into the pieces with a really high temperatures. That left some marks.” Raven smiled sheepishly. The captain leaned herself against Shard, inhaling slowly. “Our life is finally going to settle, Christian.” A hearty laugh coughed out of her.
“Imagine that. So many years of strife and making a mark on this world and now we get to settle down. That's something I never thought I’d get to do.” As he sat contemplating the ceiling he mused allowed. “I wonder if you and I could have a child.” It was a bit of a subject change but it was largely Shard speaking his mind aloud as he often did to his close confidents regardless of what the thought actually was. “Alright so Flowers, Blackwing, Seating arrangements will be done. Just have to ask Akime and Ris and then we can go from there.” Shard shifted Raven into his lap and stroked her hair. “I never thought we’d get to this point to be honest. It always seemed like there was another battle to be fought or another task to be done.”
She turned in his lap and gave him a long kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck. She pulled back, the taste of midnight on her lips. “That can wait for tomorrow.” Raven cocked an eyebrow mischievously. “What was that about having a kid?”
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