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“Husband, do you want to spar today?”
Silence descended on to the courtyard at once, broken only by a thud as the bowl in Phainon’s hand dropped on to the grass. Behind him, pairs and pairs of bulging eyes focused on the pair by the fountain, numerous mouths dropping open as they stared and stared.
Beside him, Audata and Hieronymus stood with their mouths slack, eyes wide as they shifted from their son to the crown prince.
Mydeimos seemed completely unperturbed to the absolute chaos he had sowed as he focused on sending Stelle an updated meal plan on his teleslate.
A…sound escaped Phainon, from deep within his throat. It was a mix of a yell, a shout, a cry and something utterly indescribable jumbled into something that not even Hysilen’s talented vocal ability could replicate. His face reddened then purpled, mouth opening and closing as if wanting to say something but being rendered completely speechless.
As if finally noticing the deathly silence around him, Mydeimos finally looked away from his phone and up at the purpling face of his intended audience.
“Husband?”
Phainon’s knees caved in and he tumbled to the grass, chin knocking into the steel of Mydei’s leg armour. The pain did not even register as he stayed frozen in position, unblinking eyes now staring at the dark fabric of Mydei’s trousers.
Everyone held their breath as Mydei finally registered something being very wrong and lifted his eyes to meet Audata and then Hireonymus’. He casted a glance around the field, observing how even the usually rowdy chimeras remained still, large eyes staring deep into his soul.
“What is wrong with you all?” He asked, tone utterly confused, sending sharp inhales throughout the crowd. He nudged Phainon with his feet, mindful of two sets of eyes as he gently leaned into meet Phainon’s dazed gaze.
“What is wrong with you?” He asked, noticing Phainon’s vacant stare.
Another inhumane noise released from Phainon’s throat, sounding like a man on the verge of death with no air left in his lungs. His eyes gained some clarity, meeting the blazing gold in Mydei’s before falling hazy again.
“You can’t ban me from my daily boba, Mydeimos. Take that back!” An indignant shout broke the frozen predicament as Stelle materialised a few feet away. Loud footsteps stomped their way to the centre as the complains rose in volume, “How dare you even suggest such a thing? This would be like if—”
She paused, taking in the shocked slackness of everyone’s faces, the dazed swaying of Phainon’s figure, now only held up by Mydei’s shin propped against his chest, and the utter confusion in Mydei’s features. She slowly took a step back.
“Do I even want to know?” Stelle whispered, the words landing like whip cracks on the crowd of onlookers. Multiple loud gasps sounded as if the people had just learned the art of breathing and then loud shuffling followed as money exchanged hands in complete silence.
Phainon robotically turned his neck, eyes almost popping out of their sockets as they met the trailblazer’s.
“H-h-hu—” Phainon’s lips tried to form words, but speech failed him yet again.
“I don’t want to know.” Stelle took another step back. “Everyone looks whole, safe and happy so my weekly check-in is over, I shall take my—”
“Husband.” Phainon’s loud yell echoed throughout the open field as he whipped his head around to stare at Mydei. He lurched up to Mydei’s face, azure eyes frazzled and crazed as he shoved his face into Mydei’s. “Husband? Husband? Me? You—me?”
Mydei face remained passive, unbothered by Phainon’s attempt at quite literally merging their noses into one, devoid of any excess emotions as he met Phainon’s crazed stare.
“Are you not?” He asked, sincere and without a trace of doubt.
It really was Aglaea’s iron-fisted training of thirty-three million worth of cycles that didn’t have Phainon’s eyes rolling to the back of his head and fainting like a fair maiden.
It did not, however, help the wounded sound that escaped Phainon’s throat, a mangled mess of sounds that sounded half like insanity, half like a goat’s attempt at braying than anything humanly possible.
This time, silence had no time to settle over them as Stelle almost bulldozed her way through the crowd, tripping and almost falling on their face as she joined Phainon’s crazy stare with a wide, unblinking one of her own.
“Husband?” She yelled, voice shrill as they dropped to their knees beside Phainon, hand on his shoulder.
“Were you not there when he proposed and I accepted?” Mydei asked, brows disappearing behind his fringe, “You even dumbed it down for him.”
“I did?” Stelle gasped, loud enough that it made Phainon flinch. She swayed on her knees, the hand on Phainon’s shoulder turning into a deathly grip to keep herself upright and then the perfect momentum to violently shake Phainon until they both toppled over.
Mydei looked from his stupid husband to his husband’s stupid partner-in-crime. “Is this one of your elaborate pranks?” He asked, voice edged with slight disappointment. He shook his head, sighing as he made to stand.
Phainon’s hand shot out unconsciously, clamping around his shin as he held him in place even as his mind galloped into the horizon, screaming incoherently all the while.
Stelle, too, stopped shaking the remaining braincell out of Phainon’s ears and addressed Mydei with the heat of a thousand blazing suns in her eyes.
“One question.” She asked, though the heat in her voice was more like a demand, “Was the library speech a marriage proposal?”
Mydei tilted his head, crossing his arms. “Was it not? When he asked to visit my library and I agreed, following thirty million lifetimes of promises, was it not affirming our convictions to each other?”
As if awakening some sixth-sense, clarity returned fully to Phainon, the stark blue of his eyes reflecting the sky above as they met Mydei’s golden gaze, now heavy with traces of doubt.
“You mean it?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper. “You really believed we’ve been married all this while?”
“Would I call you my husband otherwise?” Mydei replied, voice sharp. “You were the one who asked, and now you are acting like the sky has fallen over your head because I am going along with your wish?”
“I…” Phainon swallowed back every bit of the complaint rising up his throat, dissolving the words one by one. What the hell does it matter that Phainon had only really wanted to know if he was forgiven and allowed back into Mydei’s proximity? If Mydei says asking to visit his library meant they were now married, then they were married and Phainon was now a husband and not just any husband but the husband of Mydeimos—
Stelle collapsed on her haunches all the blazing determination seeping away within moments as they let out a weary sigh.
“Phainon, buddy.” She whispered, a grounding grasp on Phainon’s shoulder. “You are going to pay me every penny of the three hundred thousand credits I owe March.”
Phainon did not reply, still trying to formulate an appropriate response to answer Mydei that did not include screaming in his face or devolving into a sobbing mess or ascending to some higher plane even Nanook can’t reach or cartwheel around the fields of the Eternal Page and—
“You can cry about it.” Mydei’s lips tilted up, eyes curving and wow Phainon had the most beautiful husband in the entire cosmos, and they weren’t even real entities yet.
As if a faucet had broken at those words, tears sprung from his eyes, turning his face red and splotchy in an instant.
“How—” He blubbered, “How dare you—how dare you just spring Husband upon me like this? Do you realise how horrifying this is all to me? We had never even talked about what lays between us and now you are telling me you married me with just one question? One I wasn’t even aware was a proposal? How could you be so cruel to not even let me utilise my fifty step courting manual even once? And now, you have me sobbing my eyes out like a child, are you not even one bit regretful?” The last of his ramble trailed off into a whine, thick with snot as he buried his face in Mydei’s trouser, smearing his tears and snot all over it in white streaks.
Mydei sighed in exasperation, looking up to meet Stelle’s haunted eyes.
“Are you going to cry too?” He asked, a hint of judgement and laughter in his voice.
Stelle’s lips wobbled immediately but she held strong, slowly picking herself up and walking outside the gathered crowd.
Then, loud enough for the whole universe to hear, she shrieked, “I used to pray for times like this! Nanook, you can smite me now and I will die in peace.”
For those who had never once seen their Deliverer be anything other than the epitome of perfect decorum, watching wail like a child while wiping his snot on the Crown Prince’s Aglaea-made trousers was perhaps a greater shock than the literal revelation that all this while, they were being terrorised by a couple that weren’t even a couple.
Whatever shock they had managed to overcome, returned tenfold, making a few stagger and stumble.
“They weren’t even courting?” Someone whispered, voice raw with a horror that speaks of the…sights he must have stumbled across. “Thirty…three million lifetimes of watching…of hearing…and they weren’t even courting?”
“You are not married until I say so.” A voice cut through, sharp and unyielding.
Phainon immediately paused his breakdown, spine straightening, Even Mydei, sat up straighter.
The crowd parted as Aglaea made her way toward them, gaze scrutinising.
“You are scaring them,” Anaxa hissed from behind her, although his tone held just as much judgement.
“Aglaea—” Phainon started but Aglaea set her glare at him, and with her sight returned, it was even more terrifying than it was before. Phainon clicked his jaw shut without another word, waiting for her to continue.
“You are the Crown Prince of Kremnos.” Aglaea fixed her glare at Mydei, “The sole heir to a kingdom! And you—”
Aglaea narrowed her eyes, “You are my ward, a leader of the Holy City and the Hero of Amphoreus.”
“Do you think some mere words are sufficient for two people of your calibre? After millions of lifetimes of watching you two walk on tightropes about this and making your yearning the business of the entire damn planet?”
“Uh…”
“Lord Phainon, Lord Mydei.” Hyacine tutted, “While I am not surprised that a request for a library visitation somehow counts as a wedding ceremony to the two of you, it would do you both some good to consider the rest of us too, you know.”
“Little Lion, I get, but Deliverer Boy too?” Cipher scoffed, “Truly two peas in a pod.”
“What they all—we all—mean is,” Castorice jumped in, seeing Mydei’s eyes cloud with confusion. Her voice shook with barely restrained excitement, “After thirty-three million lifetimes, your unchanging, eternal devotion should be celebrated. With all of us. A wedding ceremony is a must, and a wedding feast. Oh, and a proper courting period of course, we must keep things proper. Oh and—”
“Okay—” Anaxa moved to cover Castorice’s mouth with a weary sigh, “What everyone in this place is trying to say is we will be planning that wedding now so hold your horses before you psychologically traumatise us any further than what you already inflicted upon us.”
“But—”
“Following proper etiquette is the least you can do.” Tribbie scoffed, a smile nudging at her lips.
“Okay, okay,” Phainon placated, flashing a brilliant smile at their peanut gallery. “I got the memo. You don’t need to keep repeating yourselves in different ways.”
“But” He put a hand on his heart, “I was not aware I was married until about ten minutes ago either, so ganging up on me is cruel and unfair.”
“In all fairness, bullying you is our favourite past time.” Hyacine laughed, “We can’t do the same with someone as earnest as Mydei.”
“I am plenty earnest!”
“Is that why you tried to manipulate me with our Grove days when we were summoned for the Holy Grail War?” Castorice raised a brow, judgement dripping from each word.
“That’s entirely different!”
“Whatever you say, Lord Phainon.”
“Mydeimos, won’t you defend your husband?” Phainon whined, turning toward the prince with an exaggerated pout.
“No.”
“Mydeimos!”
“I must go inform my parents of our betrothal.” Mydei tried to stand but with Phainon’s iron grip still around his shin, he stumbled, glaring down at his supposed betrothed with promise of violence.
“Didn’t you just call him husband?” Hyacine inquired dryly.
“The Demigod of Romance has dictated that we are not married until her approval.” Mydei replies, just as dryly. “Thus, this…thing is still a betrothed.”
“Thing?” Phainon exclaimed, affronted, “Thing, Mydeimos? You would rather call your betrothed a thing over using my name?”
“Well, Stelle is now our Deliverer, so how can I call you that anymore? That will just confuse everyone.”
“That’s not my name!”
“Hm.” Mydei shrugged, “I am not allowed to call you husband until Aglaea decrees it acceptable.”
“I—” Phainon starts before he sighs, running a defeated hand through his hair, “Can we please go back to when you were all really worried about the state of my mental health? I liked you all better when you were overbearingly worried.”
“Cas, teacher,” Aglaea called, ignoring Phainon completely, “Let us make haste and start on the designs of their ceremonial robes before they grow any more impatient.”
“Hyacinthia,” Anaxa continued, “Let us start on the wedding invites. I fear we have a week at most before Phainon starts pawing at Mydei.”
“I am not a dog, Professor!”
“You can trust me with the decorations, Little Lion.” Cipher cackled, bouncing away, leaving a final, “Trickery will show you how to throw a party!”
The other Chrysos Heirs departed one after another, already discussing their parts in a wedding Phainon was made aware of exactly thirty seconds ago.
Phainon found himself pathetically on the floor, staring at the grass in equal amount exasperation and disbelief. What are the chances he can try and actualise before Amphoreus becomes real?
At least then he'd only have to deal with Nanook and Their bullshit instead of being ganged up on over his own damn marriage.
“I will go inform my parents and prepare the Kremnoan betrothal ceremony.” Mydei said, gentle, giving him a pat on his cheek. As he made his way toward the inner courtyard, he turned, a teasing grin tugging at the corner of his lips “I trust you will do the same for your village, Phainon?”
Phainon’s head shot up, eyes wide as gold spread from the tips of his ears to his cheeks and down to his neck.
“Yes?” He squeaked, making Mydei’s laugh echo in the open as he disappeared behind a pillar.
Behind him, he could already hear Stelle’s raucous laugh as she followed after Cipher to go terrorise some poor merchant for wedding decors. Phainon has a feeling not much terrorising will be taking place consider the collective reaction of every Amphorean gathered at the fountain.
One moment passed.
Then another.
Then,
“Son, is there something you have yet to tell us?” Audata asked, smiling in a way that had always sent chills down his spine.
“Uh…I’m getting married?”