[PRP] Everything is relative (Raskogr, Ember & Seqineq)

[Princess_Feylin]

Until now, standing here with everyone she was related to and was about to be related to watching, Seqineq had somehow managed to compartmentalize her life so that thoughts of marriage didn't unsettle her, no matter how great a change it would cause in her life. The lines were blurring now, and she had to exert a good deal of effort to keep from shaking as she stood before the priestess. Pretty much the only thing that kept her from doing so was the worry that if he noticed her shaking, Rask would find a way to interpret as something he'd done wrong.

Still, she couldn't help swallowing nervously and glancing at Rask out of the corner of her eyes. Was he at all unsettled? Becoming a lawspeaker had lent him an air of confidence in public that he had not always possessed, she remembered. He had learned to act, and put on a show of calm, or at least mild annoyance, in any given situation. Seqi had thought that she had learned a similar skill, but it seemed now that she had overestimated her chill.

When would they begin?

Tanakako

 

[Tanakako]

Today was finally the day. It was the day. That day that he had always known would happen, had always relied upon when everything else around him had been so uncertain and shaky. She was there, beside him, in all her perfect beauty. Glancing down at her he felt something, a strange little bubble of something that he didn't quote know how to catagorise. It felt... light and quivery, yet heavy as a rock and with all the solid reasurance of the mountain under his paws. He felt both light headed and yet more firmly rooted to the spot than even the day he took on the title of Lawspeaker. He felt Seqi's slight frame quivering beside him and he shifted, taking a deep breath as he did so as if he was becoming stiff from standing still for so long. But when he quieted again, his furred side brushed just a little more firmly against Seqi's, against his wife. For was that what she now was to him? He wasn't entirely clear as to the exact moment she took that title, but as far as he was cncerned, she had been his for a long time, long before this cerimony on this day.

He felt a tiny smile tug at his muzzle and startled himself, though he managed not to flinch or otherwise betray his unusual state of mind. Indeed, the warmth radiating from the lioness stood beside him was reasuring, just as her often sharp tongue and sharper mind had always done so.

On the outside, Raskogr stood silent and stern, an expression that was for him, perfectly normal. His focused gaze was fixed on the grey-furred priestess opposit them, a slight furrow of a frown set permamently in place. Glancing down as Seqi looked up he caught her gaze unexpectedly and the tiniest of smiles flicked across his features almost as if against his will. Then he returned his attention to the priestess, giving the cerimony all of his impressive focus, just as he did the cases brought before him in his role as Lawspeaker.




The priestess watched the soon-to-be wedded couple while she sorted the items laid out before her. She had known both of them for years, or rather, known of both of them. She didn't have any particular dealings with either family, but as a priestest she knew of both of them. Holmgeir was a well respected reaver of not inconsiderable skilll and experience. She half thought she remembered tales of his youth, spoken around the feasts late at night. And no one could fail to know of Seqi's brother, the giant bear of a male with a voice just as loud and an attitude to match both. No indeed... No one could avoid knowing about him. Hiding the grin she could feel building inside her she turned her gaze back to the expectant couple. This was a sombre event, this would decide on the future of both parties, their future and their happiness. And Ember wasn't ignoreant of that. So with a suitably mysterious expression, caught between a whimsical smile and stern seriousness, she nodded slightly. Her signal was caught by her assisstant, a young lioness hidden away behind her in the mouth of the cave she called her home. The female trotted out, carrying the limp body of a young buck in her mouth which was placed down before Ember on the long and low slab of rock. It bore old scars and the faint hint of old stains. It was her workplace, the cerimonial stone where she read the fates of those that came to her. The buck had been caught by the two fathers of the ones before her and given as a gift to the couple-to-be. It symbolised both their role in raising the cubs to adulthood and their wish for a prosperous future. A token of goodwill and the passing on of responcibility.

Glancing down as the offering was settled on her alter stone she placed one brightly decorated paw over it. It was rare that she wore her full outfit, but for days such as this she went all out. Rare and bright feathers and beads decorated her mane and fell in a wild cascade down her neck and across her shoulders. Most were gifts from grateful reavers or payment for services rendered over the years. Her forlegs were wreathed in bright gold, silver and copper, dull iron and the white flash of bone. Bands and bangles and cuffs all with their bright feathers and beads and bits of bone. A rich rare fur was drapped ove rher back, itself decorated with more beads, feathers and fluttering scraps of cloth. Even her tail was decorated, the featers fluttering as it moved slowly back and forth, the metalic fragments caught in it making a kind of muscical chiming in time with her movements. With a smooth motion she rolled the dead buck onto its back and with a single claw she slit it from chest to groin, watching as the insides spilled out like a rolling wave on the shore. Eyeing the organs she dipped her toes into the mass and pushed a few of them around, examining them with a critical expression.

Princess_Feylin

Let me know if Ember goes off-script at any point.

 

[Princess_Feylin]

Undoubtedly Seqi's attention was supposed to be just on the actions of the priestess, or maybe divided between the priestess's actions and her betrothed, but in fact her attention wandered a little bit as the grey lioness went about her business. It wasn't that what the priestess was doing was uninteresting. With all her formal regalia and whatnot, she looked very impressive, after all. It was more that Seqi didn't really understand what the priestess was doing, other than predicting the future she and Rask would share as a married couple. There was only so long a person could watch with rapt attention while someone ceremonially disemboweled a buck.

While her attention wandered, returning frequently to what Rask was doing and what the priestess was doing, Seqi also found herself glancing over at their families. With everyone there, given how many siblings both she and Rask had, this "small, intimate ceremony" was still fairly large, even though it had been limited to parents and siblings. She hoped that whatever the priestess ended up reading wouldn't be something she would regret her family knowing about, since she knew it would be said aloud for all to hear.

Oh, Stormlords. What if it turned out that Rask was bound to do something stupid, like stray? Or - worse - what if the reading indicated that she was going to do something like that? Obviously it would cast some clouds on the upcoming nuptials, if they even still took place. Her stomach flipped unhappily at the thought of how badly wrong things could go based on events that hadn't even taken place yet.

Tanakako

Sorry. I lost the link for this one.