Chapter 1
"Augggh!" Numair cried. "Why in the biosphere did I ever consent to a substantial wedding ceremony!"
Daine smiled. "You agreed to it because you love me oh so much! And, um, Numair, please quit speaking Numairish! What does 'biosphere' mean, anyway?"
"Why, dearest, it means 'world'! And I'm apologetic but I absolutely cannot refrain myself from speaking Numairish- for one, I sound intelligent, and for two, I deduct that it is simply in my circulatory system, to some degree."
"Whatever!" sighed Daine. "I suppose I'll have to either live with it or try to train you from saying your big words."
"Good luck" thought Numair, but then he laughed. "Why are we fighting, Magelet? Today is our happy day!"
"I didn't know we were fighting in the first place, Numair, I thought we were just disagreeing on how your language should change."
Numair grinned and slung his arm around his previous student and soon-to-be wife's shoulders. He had to somewhat duck down to do this, however, as he was so tall and she was so short, and he tripped. They were walking through the streets of Tortall, and even though they were cleaner than most other city's streets, it had just rained for a week.
Numair fell, facefirst, into a large, muddy puddle. And since he had just had his arm around Daine, she also started falling but she got his arm off of her and managed to stay upright. Numair just lay there for a couple minutes, with the wind knocked out of him. A couple of commoners had seen this wonderful spectacle and had started laughing hysterically.
Numair finally got up, face burning, clothes dripping muddy water.
"Let's go," he said to Daine. "Let's go to the palace and I'll change clothes and we can get ready for the wedding."
She acknowledged, "Okay," but she ruined the solemn effect by giggling. "Yes, you'd better change before the wedding."