Chapter 23 – The Royal Wedding (1)
The sun had not yet risen above the lointain ridges when the princess awoke for the day of her marriage. Yaoyorozu had set up a complicated metallic contraption to count the time before they needed to waken and, subsequently, to waken them, and the girls cursed that it had worked so effectively. It filled their ears with a shrill metallic ringing that buzzed in their ears and their heads, an unhappy marker of the day to come. Ashido was the first to stumble out of her covers, and she immediately wrenched away the metal plate whose vibrations shrieked through the air.
"Blimey," she yawned "that was a brutal awakening. Morning, ladies."
Uraraka stretched and staggered out of bed, slipping on her clogs without even looking at her feet.
"I suspect we are in for an even more brutal day yet." She said. After realising the bitterness of her words, she shot a faint smile at Yaoyorozu, who looked deeply distressed by them. "Though it will all be worth it in the end!"
"I dearly hope that you're right."
They dressed in silence by orange lantern light. Ashido pulled on her skirts whilst crouching on her futon, Yaoyorozu combed her hair before her little square lacquer mirror, and Uraraka tied her ribbons behind the bed where the shadows lay darkest. She did not want to see her reflection. She knew already what she would see: the chlorine green of the bruise upon her cheek and the pools of purple under her dry eyes. If only she could forget the stories that she had been told when she was young, of blushing brides and delicate lace. She only wished that her own would be forgotten, pass quietly through the halls of human memory.
"Are we ready to go? Shall we?" said Yaoyorozu, sleek and polite as usual. She smiled as though she were trying her best.
"Yes!" cried Ashido, and she hurried to the door "Although, haven't you still got to put on your robes and crown?" she added as an afterthought to Uraraka.
"Yes, but they're down in the treasury, and I think I ought to eat something first." The princess replied.
They rushed down the curling spiral stairs of the tower, Yaoyorozu first, holding the lantern, then Ashido, who kept close behind her to keep enough light to watch her feet, and finally Uraraka, who saw only the dim afterglow of the lantern as it twisted below her, but knew the way well enough not to have to see it.
A thick silence hung around them, a strange sort of anticipation that heightened with every footstep's fall. They knew that they should laugh at, make light of, or at least acknowledge the climax of the coming day, but the weight of it now sat heavy on their tongues. None of them knew what the day might bring, and none of them were hopeful for it, and the quiet came about them so naturally that they could hardly think to fight it.
They emerged from the stairway to cross the plains of woven carpet, making their way to the kitchen, and Uraraka fell back in line with the other girls. Still they did not talk. They were only forced to speak when they found the boys scattered about in the kitchen, as bleary-eyed as they were. Kirishima put down his spoon to greet them as they greeted him, as did Iida and Midoriya at the fireside, and Bakugou, as usual, offered nothing more than a grunt.
Yaoyorozu and Ashido went to serve themselves porridge, but the princess split off to see what the fuss about the fire was. It was currently unlit, and her friends were struggling to relight it. She settled herself beside Iida, watching him wrestle with the flints, offering encouragement when sparks flew, half-heartedly waiting for its gentle heat. No fire came of it. After a time she placed her hand gently on his arm, and he stilled.
"Thank you for trying." She smiled. He smiled back at her.
"Do you want to try instead?"
He handed her the flints. She felt them rest in her palms, cool and light, but made no move to use them. The two knights watched her expectantly.
"Well, what reason have we to light this fire?" she explained, looking back at them "Apart from habit, I mean? We're not likely to be in here until tomorrow, and we ought to save the wood for the banquet hall."
They placed their hands on their chins in thought, an amusing display of synchronicity, and nodded. She stifled a giggle and remembered that they were only doing their best to support her, and that their sincerity could not be questioned.
"Satou will be here to fix the food soon," ruminated Midoriya, already turning back to his duties "so you should probably focus on getting dressed whilst we handle that. We should prioritise the ceremony itself, of course, but that relies on Tsuyu getting here, and then, of course, there's the parade…"
Iida patted him on the back, breaking him from his spiral of mumbling, and they stood to go back to the table. Ashido handed her a bowl of gruel, which she accepted even though she was not hungry.
She was not hungry. She reminded herself to be grateful for it. She was not starving as she had been on that terrible winter's eve, she had not had to hold the knife in her own hands to feed herself. She was alive. What did she have to complain of?
But still a nagging voice called at the back of her mind that she was not so different to that girl of the past. That though she told herself this was her choice, she had no others, that she was backed into a corner and only acting on what fate had left her. That this time, just as the last, she pulled her friends in the wake of her actions and they would never be the same afterwards.
"Oh, it's not hot, you don't have to wait for it to cool down."
Ashido's well-meaning voice snapped her from her thoughts. She blinked as reality fell back into place, suddenly uncomfortable with the way that it fit at the corners.
But she was wary of the eyes that would fall upon her if she said so, so she instead thanked her and supped at her porridge. She did not eat particularly slowly, and yet the time seemed to stretch. She had noticed Bakugou staring at her, the only one in the room to do so, and her skin prickled uncomfortably at it. What did he see? What did he want?
He hovered about her as she washed her bowl, and followed her close as they walked alone to the treasury. His eyes slipped back to hers too many times to be coincidence.
Was this her doing? Had she pushed too far yesterday? Had she made him uncomfortable?
Even now she wished to hold his hand again, and feel the comfort of another's warmth. Anyone's warmth, anyone's love that she could forget about in the morning.
Anyone would do. Anyone. Anyone who could make her feel whole and loved again without needing to give anything back. Anyone to make her forget the state of the world and the future that lay ahead. Anyone to whom she owed nothing and shared no connection.
Anyone, except her friends, and her past love, and the baker boy, and the temple priest, and the boys at the market who knew her face and her preference for greens, and the citizens of the city, who would soon know her as queen…
Anyone – no-one, no-one except Katsuki Bakugou.
She had let him be her solace in the night because she had thought that he would be dead by sunrise, because she had thought that it would not leave traces to remind her of her regrets, but he still stubbornly lingered on, and, despite herself, she still stubbornly longed for his touch and his harsh words of consolation. There was something between them, something largely unwholesome and begrudging, that kept them far enough apart to be close.
She almost didn't think of him as real. He was only a means to an end. They twisted each other this way and that to get what they wanted; there was nothing under the surface.
He was distant and strange and wanted nothing to do with her… yet, paradoxically, he let her rely on him. He often acted as though their current conversation was their first, but each time he was a slightly different version of himself, someone new to learn from or confront. She supposed that she, too, was a different version of herself each time they spoke. Unlike with her friends, with him she felt no need to hold up a façade. She evolved (devolved, sometimes, let her cowardice and selfishness show) naturally through their conversations. They met each other anew again and again and again.
They had no past together; it washed away every sunset with the waves of the orange Lasandu sunset and the billow of the sea thousands of leagues away in his home. She might almost look forward to their fugacious futures beginning every morning.
Might, of course. In the end she knew that it was all one-sided. She was still relying on him whilst giving nothing back, still using him as a case to hold her secrets and insecurities without holding anything of his inside her.
A selfish part of her told her that she had nothing to be ashamed of. The part of her that resented Bakugou for his standoffishness, for choosing to play for her hand in marriage and then neglecting it when it was won, whispered furthermore that he owed it to her. She deserved to have a hand to hold and a pair of arms to collapse into. She deserved it from him because he had tried to kill her.
At that thought, and the sight of his knife glinting at his side, she shivered. Bakugou twisted his lip in scorn, and she retreated back into herself.
Of course he didn't owe her anything. Neither of them was at fault for the misunderstandings under which they had met. He was trying his best to become a hero, and do good, and she ought to be trying too. She ought to try to turn her mind away from tenderness and warmth. It was her wedding day, after all.
They arrived at the deep red doors of the treasury. The princess heaved them open, allowing Bakugou to step past her before she entered herself, and pushed them closed behind her. She had an inkling that he would need more time than her to get ready, and was very shortly proven right.
Uraraka, needless to say, knew her way about the royal robes. She put on each layer swiftly but delicately, tying each decorative knot almost by second nature. When she at last came to her richly-woven ceremonial coat, it took her no time at all to have all of the folds aligning neatly and the ribbons tied in their places. When she looked up, ready to get her veil and crown, she saw that Bakugou was still toiling away with his lining layers.
She withheld the derisive comments that instinctively came upon her tongue to watch him for a moment. His movements were slow and deliberate, seemingly correct, and yet he struggled to form the basic shape of the knot. She wondered what he was doing wrong. Suddenly his gaze snapped to her, and she realised that she had been staring at him quite unashamedly.
"Did Lasandunians never invent the button or something? What the fuck is all this?" he growled.
"We did-" she rolled her eyes "but we only use them on clothing for babies or the impaired."
He bared his teeth in an ugly snarl. After her initial indignance had worn off, she sighed at him.
"Do you want some help, then?"
He huffed and let his hands fall to his side, and she took it (as she was learning to do) as a yes. She made her way over to him, a little more slowly and a little more gracefully than usual, for she was hindered by her many layers of clothing, and gently took the ribbons in her hands. She decided upon a simpler form of ornamental bow for the layer, so that he could later remove it without her help, and motioned to him to put on his woven coat once she was done, not looking up. She kept her eyes steady on the ribbons at his chest, not daring to acknowledge his closeness to her. She could once again feel the heat from his neck, and the slight ruffle of his breath. His shadow engulfed her.
"There," she said, stepping back just a little too quickly "done."
She marched off to fetch her crown and veil and carefully set them upon her head, shifting them about until she felt their weight sit where it ought to at the back of her head. It was harder to do without a mirror than she had thought it would be. When she had decided that there was no more adjusting to do (more on instinct than on rationale), she swept the veil away and went back to Bakugou. He watched her keenly.
"What?" she asked, suddenly afraid that she looked a fool "Have I not put it on right?"
She twisted to face the mirror, but before she could catch a glimpse of her reflection he had grabbed her by the shoulder, commanding her attention back to him.
"No, it's fine. It looks fine. Don't worry about it." He said, and his voice was strangely soft. There was something not entirely comfortable about the atmosphere between them.
"Don't give me strange looks, then. Come on, let's go."
She made to move but he did not. She raised her eyebrows.
"Aren't you ready?"
"I dunno. Don't I get a crown?"
She could not help but grin. It was a question that was very much like him, she thought, though she did not know him that well at all.
"No, you don't." she replied.
"Why not?"
"Because you were not born into the royal Uraraka bloodline. This would be all the more disturbing if you were."
"Do I get a veil?"
"No, only women get veils."
"So I just get the coat?"
Her mouth almost fell open in annoyance.
"Just the coat? Do you not remember how much of my blood and sweat has gone into that coat of yours?"
"Firstly, round cheeks, I never said it was a bad coat. It's a nice fucking coat. Secondly, that was the grossest possible way you could have said you worked on it, and thirdly, I only bloody meant that it's weird you went to all those lengths so we could have matching coats if you're not going to bother with the accessories."
It was quite amusing to hear him, with his unruly hair and sullen hunch, use the word 'accessories'. But then again, she mused, he did wear quite a lot of them of his own accord. He wore earrings and necklaces and bore a black tattoo, whilst she had only dreamed of having a silk ribbon with which to tie her hair for two years now. Oh well, she thought, to each their own.
"That's simply the way things are in Lasandu." She said. "You can have a crown when you're king, and, more importantly, when we can afford one. We're holding our wedding on credit, you know."
"Sure, fine, I know. Are there any other weird Lasandu-isms I should be made aware of before you get walked down the aisle?"
She stared blankly at him. Was this an attempt at humour?
"Before I am walked down the aisle? You mean, before you are walked down the aisle, surely?"
"Uh, no? It's not important when I walk down the aisle because all I'll be bloody doing is waiting for you."
"Waiting for me? What, do you plan on joining the altar first?"
"Yeah, fucking obviously."
She put two fingers on her knitted brow to think.
"You have everything backwards," she said "since I am a royal, and you are, I'm afraid, a simple peasant, it is you who will have to walk down the aisle to me, and not the other way around."
Bakugou, who looked to be horribly offended by his designation as a peasant, sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
"Right, it's the opposite in Abrassa, but fucking alright then. You wait at the altar, I get- I guess I get Mina or Eiji to walk me down to you, we say the vows, frog girl blesses us, parade, feast, done?"
"Yes. It's really not all that complicated. Is it really so different to weddings in Abrassa?"
"Not really, no." he shuffled his coat, smoothing a crease that had formed by his earlier gesture and looking away. She thought he might be repeating the idiosyncratic action of hiding his face with his cloak, but without his usual mane his uncertain expression was laid bare. "But at home the bride and groom tend to kiss once they're married."
She couldn't help the pink that came to her cheeks.
"Well," she said, as matter-of-factly as she could manage (and, regrettably, this was not very much) "they do tend to kiss after the vows here in Lasandu too."
He stepped closer to her. Suddenly she could not escape the reds of his eyes.
"Then why don't we?" he said.
Why didn't they? She stared at him, the hard contours of his face in the soft of the morning light, his eyes, hard and shiny and apple-red like the sweet candy she was given on festival days as a child, and his wide, thin lips. He was almost smiling, and his confidence put her on her guard.
Did he want to kiss her? Why would he possibly want such a thing?
What did she want, anyway? Did she want to kiss him? A kiss was different to holding hands. The former was quite a lot more than the latter. It held a lot more weight. She had kissed Shindo because he had at least said he loved her; Bakugou made no pretentions to such things.
Then again, she knew him to be more than Shindo ever was. She knew the warmth that could be found in his arms, knew that he had nothing to gain from false feelings and pretty words. Perhaps, if she were to kiss anyone, it might be alright to kiss him.
It wasn't that simple, of course. To kiss him in that lofty, empty room, all on their own with his hand in her hair would be one thing, but to kiss him in the hall of stars in front of Midoriya and Yaoyorozu would be quite another. Yaoyorozu was already concerned enough for her welfare and Midoriya- well, Midoriya…
"I thought you were trying to get some distance from him." Said Bakugou with a click of his tongue.
Had her face slipped? Had she really been so obvious?
"I am!"
"So don't fucking factor him into everything like some sort of obsessive freak!"
She bit her lip and gave him a dirty look.
At this, his frown of mild irritation slowly morphed into a smirk. His pointed yellow incisors glinted wetly, and as he looked down on her he was as a lion beholding its prey. What was this game that they played? Though it was in the nature of the lion to fall upon the lamb, they seemed uncertain of who was who. Yesterday she had been the lion, today the lamb. She had known then what she wanted from him, and now she did not know what he wanted from her. He narrowed his eyes.
"Well, moon face?"
But what did she want now? She had wanted to be beautiful, and she had wanted Midoriya, but all of that seemed laughable now. She did not think she wanted him anymore, though she still sometimes wished for his eyes to fall upon her without pity. She knew that there was no hope between them, and that to get over him she needed to hold him away for a while. But he would be there to watch her be married, be there in the crowd to see-
"We should kiss." She declared, standing straight and keen.
His scheming was now clear to her. They were playing the same game after all. Each of their subtle, parallel cogitations and choreographies on the subject of the kiss had led them to the same goal.
It would be a point of no return. No hope to go back to their old love's side, no hope even of inspiring jealousy. A public declaration to move on and to dedicate their efforts on their marriage and nothing else. A friendly kiss, a conspiratorial kiss, a kiss with chilling practicality. Perhaps they did not think so differently.
They looked smugly at each other.
"Well, that's settled then." She said. "I'm sure that whilst we dallied here Tsuyu has arrived, so you'd better go and find your Kirishima."
"How'd you know that it'll be Eiji?"
"You're not as opaque as you think you are."
She had expected him to scowl at this, but instead he gave her that strange look that she had come to know so well, with his lips pressed thin and his brows halfway frowning. It made her stomach tense.
He began to stalk off to the door.
"Oh, wait for me." She called out as she hurried after him. He stopped only to quip back at her.
"Why, want me to hold your hand again?"
She gave it some thought as she clicked over to his side (evidently not a move that he had been anticipating), and blinked at him innocently.
"Yes, actually."
XXX
His hand was still in hers when they eventually found Tsuyu and Kirishima, and, since neither of them questioned this state of affairs, also when they met with Midoriya and Iida. Though they let go as soon as the latter were seen, it gave her a kind of rush to know that they had perceived it. She thought perhaps that it could be the thrill of power, of knowing that her smile (firm, but polite) held back any of their questions, that she had something they were not privy to know the details of.
The guests were seated in the hall of stars, and Tsuyu was put at the altar, and finally it was time for the princess to walk to her place. She stood outside the doors, where Kirishima and Bakugou waited, hesitating as a thousand anxious thoughts suddenly flooded her head.
It occurred to her that this was reality, that she was to be married to a boy who was at best a single-minded braggart and at worst a pugnacious criminal. This was the price that she had chosen to pay: she had to marry Bakugou to have the kingdom in her hands. She would be able to sink her fingers into all the ancient annals, to send messages with royal eagles and call Lasandu hers, but only if she agreed to give a hundred little freedoms away, give them all to him.
No more kissing others, no more hiding behind a veil. No more easy trips to the market and no more casual meals under Yaoyorozu's thatched roof. No more watching the snow go soft under her slow footsteps, no more leaning on Midoriya as they went. No more, no more – more pieces of the past to leave behind her.
She didn't want to let go. Not yet, not yet, not when she had only recently allowed herself to admit the past at all. If she let go now surely other things would begin to slip by without her wanting, and she did not want to forget her parents, or her first love, or her memories of the Lasandu of old. She did not want to lose control.
She realised that she was biting her lip too hard. It hurt. She did not remember starting the nervous action. She was losing control.
"Shhhhh."
Bakugou's voice was hushed and gentle. She had not noticed him come so near, but already his hand came up to cup the side of her head, just below the lip of her crown, and she could feel his thick fingers tangle in the hair behind her ears. His thumb rubbed back and forth, placating.
The princess didn't flinch like she thought she would. Instead, her eyebrows twisted upwards and she stared helplessly into his carmine eyes.
"It's alright." He said.
She understood then her selfishness. They were just the same, after all.
For every liberty that she gave up, so too did he. So too he left behind his parents in a foreign land, and his hopes of a successful first love, and his penchant for travelling. He could kiss others no more than she could, nor could he walk anonymously through the streets or lean on Kirishima as he went. He gave things to put in her hands too.
Wasn't that why they had agreed to kiss?
Hadn't they both known that life would not be the same, but that they would do their best with it? If they both tried their hardest, could they not make something worthy of Lasandu once more? Could they not reincarnate this mountain that she loved so much?
She stared at him. A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.
How could she not have seen it before? They were not strangers to each other. Their past, though unstable, was slowly but surely built by every word and silent glance they exchanged, and they were slightly different every time they spoke because that was simply the way of man. They grew from the seeds of their past conversations, remembering them, watering them with each new one.
This was not one-sided. He gave her secrets to keep as well (and at this thought she tried her best to avoid the red silhouette of Kirishima at the edges of her peripheral vision), and he surely cared for hers, or else he would not ask for them so often. He had noticed her apprehension and stepped in to calm it.
Her smile deepened. At this, Bakugou's unflattering grimace returned, tinged a dusty pink by annoyance, she thought, or perhaps distaste, and his hand slipped from her temporal bone.
"We doin' this then or fucking what?"
"Yes." She could feel her grin spill into her pronunciation.
Her leg bounced in anticipation as she turned away from him, to the wide blue doors of the hall of stars. There was a spring in her step as she pulled them open and stepped onto the aisle, bathing in the new hush as the audience's chatter died down and their eyes turned to her. Though she knew they could not see her through her veil, she smiled at them as she passed. From above a hundred stars of myriad hues and magnitudes glimmered down, giving her golden crown the blue-green shine of the sea somewhere far away, and her robes fluttered like seaweed fronds in the tide as she passed each concentric ring of pillows.
Finally, she stood at the altar, across the stone from Tsuyu, and looked back down the aisle.
She took a deep breath. She was a princess, soon to be a queen, and today was her wedding day. Across the carpet, a fur lined boot made its first step towards her.
A/N: "WhY CouLd hE PoSsibLy WaNt To kIsS HeR?" - this chapter frustrated me, dear reader, as much as I hope it did you. Please do let me know how you feel about Ochaco's horribly broken logic; is it denial about something else, or simple misunderstanding?
Anyway, I do hope you've missed me. The wedding grew to be such a beast that I had to split it into two. The best is yet to come, as is the blood that Momo predicted. Any guesses?