WEDDING NIGHT

They're getting married! Okay so where were we? Oh right! Right here, with our family. ~ DK

…

"Aye, here with our…" His eyes widened and he smiled. "I'll be right back I have to get something." Jamos ran out of the room.

"Where is that boy off to now?" Lana asked.

Marlon laughed. "I'm sure he'll tell us soon enough. He's waited long enough for this day."

Then Shara gave a little gasp. "There's something I have to get too!" and with that she ran out of the room as well.

"Do you know what that's about?" Marlon asked his wife. He sat next to her on the bed. And kissed his son and daughter each on their foreheads.

Dalla giggled.

Lana smiled. "I have an idea and I'm sure they'll both be back soon. You'd better find the ceremony on your datapad if you're going to perform it."

"Oh, aye!" Marlon got distracted and snapped a few Holo stills of his little family before he got down to the business of looking up the form and correct words to say.

He was reading it over, trying to familiarize himself with the text, mumbling and pacing, when the bride returned.

Shara carried the net in her hands that she and Jamos had been caught up with at Maris and Ness's wedding, along with a book. She looked around the room for her groom and then frowned at Marlon. "What's he doing?" She asked Lana.

"It's his first time officiating a wedding." She smirked.

Shara grinned or rather her grin widened. She couldn't get much more excited than she already was. "He looks more nervous than I was delivering a baby for the first time." Both women laughed and Dalla giggled. The little girl couldn't possibly understand what was going on here, in her parents' room, in the middle of the night, but everyone else seemed to be happy about it so she was happy too.

"Marlon," Lana attempted to interrupt his musing.

"Hmm?" He grunted.

"Marlon, you need to open the window," she told him.

"What? Oh." He looked around the room and then frowned. "But it's freezing outside."

"Yes, but…" Lana led.

"Oh! Aye!" Marlon zipped over to the window. He pulled back the curtain and pushed open the pane just a crack. It welcomed a swirl of snowflakes along with a frigid draft and a shrill whistle of the wind. "Must have the blessing of the salt gods." He made the sign reverently toward darkness beyond.

Shara looked at Lana questioningly and the lady answered, "That window faces in the direction of the salt formation. It's only right that something so important should be performed in the light of the salt gods."

"Of course." Shara was thankful her friend had thought of it. She faced the open window, pressed her thumb to her lips and then held out her hand. With eyes closed she said a silent prayer asking a blessing on the ceremony and the marriage to follow. Then she shivered.

"Burr." Lana pulled the blanket a little higher over herself and Dalla and the baby. Thias squirmed, warm in his mother's arms. "At least Shara will be wrapped up. Speaking of which," She pointed toward the door to the walk in closet she shared with her husband. "There's a cloak in there you can use, the blue velvet, and if you could, bring me the sailor's valentine box on the top shelf. It'll be the dark wood one with the peach colored flower design on top."

"I know the one. I'll get it." Shara loved Lana's collection of the boxes that had been gifts from Marlon through the years. She set down the book and binding cloth and went to look. Once she was in the wardrobe it was easy to find the cloak that her friend had mentioned. She came back into the room with the requested items just as Jamos breezed in from the hall.

"Found it!" He grinned. "Sorry it took so long. Here I'll help you with that." He set down a small velvet box and… was that a holo projector? And went eagerly to his bride. He took the box from her hand and gave it to Lana, before he wrapped the cloak around Shara's shoulders. "I've been wanting to do that…"

"Since our first voyage?" Shara finished for him.

"Aye."

They gazed at each other.

"Well, tell us what was so all fired important for you to find before we could get this over with?" Marlon complained sarcastically.

"Oh! Aye!" Jamos considered the two items he had brought with him into the room and decided on the jewelry box. "This first. You already said aye but…" He opened the box to show Shara what was inside. "I didn't think you'd want anything really big and flashy and I definitely didn't want it to get in the way of your baking."

Shara laughed. "It's beautiful. Thank you."

He removed the pearl and rose gold ring from the box and slipped it onto her finger. Then before he could lose his nerve, it seemed, he turned and picked up the other item. It was a holoprojector. "I've had this for a long time, too. And I… well…" He looked more serious now and Shara wondered what it could possibly be. "Well, I'll just show you."

She gasped when the image of her father rose from the device. "Though I may not be alive to see it," the man on the med center bed said. "I, Kason Rupingwood, give my permission and my blessing for my daughter, Shara Irena Rupingwood, to marry…" he looked to the side of the recording device. "What's your full name again young man?"

Jamos's voice mumbled an answer.

Kason continued, "Oh right. Shara girl," he looked right into the recorder. "You have my blessing to marry Jamos Emoth Blackwell."

Shara had tears in her eyes but her father wasn't finished. "And he had better be good to you or I'll come and haunt him with all the fires of Dxun on my heels!"

"Father!" Shara exclaimed.

And almost as if he could hear her, he laughed. "Love you, darlin."

Jamos noticed Shara sob and paused the Holo. "Are you alright? I didn't…" he set down the projector unit and went to her placing comforting hands on her shoulders. I didn't want to make you sad. I only thought…"

"I'm not sad, Jamos. Well, I guess I am a little, but you have given me… it's like he's really here with us. Thank you."

He wiped the tears from her cheeks and bent to kiss her to which she eagerly reciprocated.

"Hey now! Hold on!" Marlon complained. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. That bit goes at the very end. It says so in the holo."

Jamos stole one last kiss before he grinned and allowed her to go and retrieve the binding cloth. When she did so she also picked up the book she had brought into the room with her. "Oh! There's one more thing I wanted to do first."

Marlon threw up his hands in mock exasperation.

Shara smiled nervously and ignored him, her focus on her groom. "I know it's not part of the official ceremony but Lana said these extra vows were sometimes included in the northern tradition and I wanted…" She broke off speaking while she flipped to the page and then while she held the book with one hand she reached out to take Jamos's with the other.

He gladly squeezed the proffered hand and smiled encouragingly.

"I will voyage where you voyage and I will find rest in your harbor." She read the first two lines staring down at the page but then she glanced up at her grinning groom and recited the rest from memory. "Your clan will be my clan and your gods my gods."

The rest of the ceremony would be the official standard words spoken at all Onderonian weddings. Shara had repeated the words before herself but this time she felt like she had truly spoke what was in her heart and with her father's blessing, with his image still present as she promised to take Jamos as her husband and he promised to take her as his wife… it was everything she had never allowed herself to dream was possible.

"Hmm…" Marlon frowned. "Are we going to skip over the rings or…"

Lana spoke up. "We don't have to. Here." She held up the sailor's Valentine that she had asked Shara to retrieve for her earlier.

Jamos and Shara's hands were still bound in the cloth so Marlon went to fetch his wife's offering. "This isn't one of the boxes I gave to you. It's one Father made for our mother."

Jamos looked curiously and Shara said, "I had no idea that's how the tradition got started."

"I thought it was a fitting place to keep…" Lana looked a little unsure. "Well, look inside."

Marlon opened the box so that Shara and Jamos could see the contents as well. A pair of rings lay atop an old folded sheet of flimzy.

"You kept them." Marlon said softly. Of course he remembered finding the note his mother had written to her sons before she took her last walk down the sea stairs. He hadn't known she had left the rings until he had passed the note over to Lana who was with him at the time. When he did, Alon and Quaita's wedding rings, fell out of a fold in the flimzy. Lana had asked him if he wanted them and he and told her, maybe they should just throw them out to the sea but she said, "What if I just hang on to them for a while. You might wish you had them someday, or Jamos might."

Lana had never gotten the chance to approach Jamos about them because he didn't want to talk about his mother's death and she was actually planning on saving them to give to Dalla one day but she figured this was the right moment to bring them out.

Jamos scooped the rings out of the box with his free hand. "We don't have to use them. We could do without for now or we can just wear them till we can get something of our own."

Shara remembered the story Marlon had told her. It was one thing she hadn't brought up with Jamos waiting for him to feel ready to discuss it with her. But now she saw the eagerness in his expression. "I'd be honored to wear something of your mother's."

"But you know she…" He looked away, a little embarrassed.

Shara sought his eye contact once again before she assured him. "She loved your father very much. She couldn't live without him."

If the expression on his face didn't tell her everything she needed to know, the fact that he chose that moment to once again tip her chin up and kiss her spoke volumes.

"Again with the taking the ceremony all out of order!" Marlon pushed them apart. "Rings now. Kissing later."

The binding net was undraped just a bit so that Shara could slide Alon Blackwell's ring onto Jamos's finger and then they had a bit of confusion while they considered what the exact position Quaita Blackwell's ring should occupy on Shara's. Lana informed them that the wedding ring should be worn closer to the heart than the engagement ring. Once they got it all figured out Shara stared in wonder at the way the two rings looked on her finger. They looked as if they were meant to be worn together.

"I swear I didn't know that we were going to use Momma and Dad's rings. I didn't even know that Lana had them." Jamos professed.

"Well, let's finish this up. We're in the home stretch now and we've already bored Dalla to sleep." Marlon grinned at them. "You two know what to say."

Jamos and Shara recited together, "I am his(hers) and s(he) is mine."

"Now you can kiss!" Marlon pushed them back together but the didn't really need any coaxing.

Jamos bent slightly and gathered his wife up in his arms. "Your room or mine." He practically purred in her ear.

Shara giggled. "Portia's in my room and she's a terrible bed hog."

"Settles that." He grinned. "I'm not sharing a bed with anyone but you tonight." He looked from his brother to his sister-in-law and nodded his thanks to both of them. "You don't mind if we handle the bedding on our own?"

"Get out of here, Chirn head." Marlon shoved them towards the door. "No wait." He lifted the data pad he was holding and snapped a holostill of the newlyweds. "We'll need a pic to go out with the formal announcement."

"Aye! Tell the whole planet I have the most beautiful wife in the galaxy!" Jamos swung her around, out the door, and down the hall to his bedroom.

They had waited for, dreamed of, this night for so long. It wasn't a surprize that they approached each other with a mixture of passionate impatience and hesitant shyness. Jamos for his part was determined to be gentle with his new wife and sensitive to her every need. "You're trembling. Are you cold. Should I go find some more blankets?"

She knew she could be, should be, honest with him. Still it was not easy for her. "No, that's not it. It's… it's been such a long time. I'm… afraid I won't be able to… please you."

"Shara." He pulled her close and then looked her in the eye again. "No." He told her kindly but firmly. "Not a long time. Tonight is your first time. Tonight you are a virgin and nothing that happened before matters. I am your husband and you are my wife and becoming one with you… nothing and no one could please me more."

It was exactly what she needed to hear. She had been so afraid, putting him off for so long, because she was sure he would see her as damaged goods.

Instead, he worshiped the ground she walked on and tonight he would begin to show her physically what he had been trying to tell her for months.

…

Some time later Marlon and Lana were woken by a cry. "Salt Gods, Jamos!"

"What was that?" Lana asked her husband, checking to make sure that her daughter and newborn son were still sleeping peacefully.

Malon laughed. "I think our little southern beast rider finally found religion."

"I think we're going to have to invest in soundproofed, locking doors for this place." She settled back with a smile.

…

"Don't tell me you're tired." Shara snuggled next to her husband. More happy than she could ever remember being in her life.

Jamos chuckled and kissed the top of her head. "Me, tired? We're supposed to stay up all night to greet the new year dawn, right?"

She propped herself up on an elbow and gazed at him. "You know, a dalgo stud can cover a whole herd of mares in one night."

"I don't want to cover a whole herd." He answered, completely serious. "Up here in the north, when brylks find the right partner, they mate for life."

…

Awww… of course a wedding doesn't mean happily ever after like in the fairytales and you've seen from LS's chapters a little of the drama that is still in store for our happy couple. They still have more adventures to face together and difficulties to weather. It's a good thing that they like to kiss and make up. And that also means that i'm not done writing about them! As long as LS still has her story to tell you will also be able to look forward to the further adventures of gen 1!

Thank you so much for the reviews and and encouragement! And check out the Forum! LS just added a list of the models we've used as the visuals and voices of each of our characters.