A/N: This was the fic I wrote for TDD's Christmas Exchange. I'm posting it here because I'm an attention whore sometimes. Also, because it's what I did with the last two. :p

Disclaimer: They're not mine. I don't want them. You don't want me to want them, I promise.

White

"I don't expect you to fall in love with him," said her father. Her mother was sitting quietly to his left, white-lipped. "But you have seen him, and I expect you have become accustomed to the situation."

"He means," said her mother bitterly, "that he's not going to take you back if you don't like it."

"I mean that I can't," he answered tightly.

"Indeed," said his wife. "Indeed."

"Well, mother," she said, "in all fairness, I don't think he can."

They both looked a little shocked then, but then they both smiled. "You will be a very good queen," said Thayet the Peerless.

"Goddess bless," said Jonathan of Conté.

Kalasin, future Empress of Carthak, curtsied to both her parents and kissed them softly on the cheek. "I will miss both of you very much," she said.

"We wish you all the happiness in the world," said Thayet. (And mostly she meant it.)

The heat hit Kalasin the moment she stepped off the ramp. Her first visit had been, it seemed, inadequate preparation for Carthak's brutal weather. The veil she'd put on didn't help much, either.

But there were benefits to being a Princess of Tortall and future Empress of Carthak – and Kally had made sure that all the women accompanying her had to wear one too. Petty? Yes, a little.

At least Carthaki propriety did not dictate gloves.

"Your Highness," said a tall man in a blindingly white kilt and enough gold jewelry to eliminate any remaining eyesight his kilt hadn't already destroyed. "I am Zuberi Osei, Duke of…" Kally wondered if perhaps the Carthaki women consented to the veil because it enabled them to ignore the long list of titles every Carthaki noble seemed to possess. And revel in repeating.

"…and I am to escort you to the palace," he finished eventually.

She smiled, though he couldn't see it, and took the offered arm. "It is an honor, Your Grace," she said quietly. "Your presence is much appreciated."

The wedding approached faster than she had anticipated, but then the terms of the betrothal were really what took so long to hammer out and those had been laid down ages ago. Still, she was more than a little surprised to discover that she was dressed in a long cream dress, with so many pearls around her neck she couldn't actually move her neck or, she soon found out, her wrists. Could it have been a month already?

"I don't suppose we might tame the jewelry, just a little?" she asked plaintively. "I…" she trailed off at the shocked looks her ladies directed her way. But – she would be Empress of Carthak in about two hours. "Take them off."

And that must have worked, because (grudgingly) enough jewelry is moved that Kally could feel her neck and wrists again. They wrapped the sheer Carthaki bridal veil around her head and placed the delicate tiara her mother had sent atop it and then she was ready.

The feast was boring, but boring social functions at least she knew how to deal with. These feasts were, ostensibly, for the bride and groom to become better acquainted with one another before they retired for the night. But this was a royal wedding feast, and Kally was lucky to get in three spontaneous words with her husband. Conversations were, of course, right out.

She was watching the setting sun for her cue to leave, both Carthaki and Tortallan tradition decreed that the bride was to leave for the bridal chamber while the groom gathered what he could of his nerves. After the amount of time it had taken to get dressed, Kally thought she knew why.

It must have taken half an hour to remove her dress and jewelry, and at least that to take down her hair. But then she was alone in the bridal chamber with a warm autumn breeze at her back and a door way that would soon be filled in front of her. It would have been awkward, that night, but for that Kaddar gave her a white, white smile when he came into the room and kept that smile as he crossed to her. And she smiled back and found that her parents' wishes for all the happiness in the world had come true.

And it was a bright, white night.