Author's Note: This is pretty much blatant fanservice, I won't lie. There's some story to it, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that at its core this chapter isn't much more than a rather tawdry attempt at joviality and a bit of testosterone laden fun. I will return you all to the dark upcoming battle in the next chapter.
Until then, enjoy if so desire.
P.S. No, I'm not sorry.
P.S.S. As should be obvious at this point, the content in this story is fairly dated... although it is rather amusing that I finally get to posting this here as the Hearts of the North content reaches its conclusion. I hope you enjoy it anyway.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Why did she agree to this?
Right... because Devona gave her no choice. It was not easy to say "no" to a woman who could break you into tiny pieces if she put her mind to it. Besides, she had to admit it hadn't taken much coersion. She had always hoped to witness a royal wedding... held fanciful dreams of being the flower bearer when she was little... and here she was with the opportunity to be a maid to the bride. Oh yeah, that had been a real tough sell.
And yet... she didn't want to be here, either. It reminded her how lost she was when it came to her emotions. Devona, for example, was a woman she still admired... even if kissing the warrior hadn't exactly been pleasant for either party. Some people told her the first kiss was never all that great. Could she still be in love with another woman?
She had felt strongly for people in the past, and knew others felt strongly for her in turn. Her thoughts turned to her mother, the priest of Green Hills that used to play with her, Devona again, Captain Langmar, the Ebon Vanguard.
If some of the more gossipy members of the Vanguard were to be believed, Lieutenant Thackeray fancied her. Personally, she found him annoying more than anything else... but it had been nice for him to show her that others could and would care for her if given the chance. He was a nice fellow, she supposed... but so... damned... annoying.
Her hand dipped into the satchel hanging off a hook next to her almost involuntarily, like it usually did when she was uncertain and nervous. In there was two of her more precious possessions, a delicately pressed Red Iris Flower, and a tattered piece of a tapestry. She had given both away more than a decade ago when she was young to a pair of adventurers, a man and a woman, thinking she could have friends forever.
Then the Searing had come and taken all her dreams and innocence away... or so she had thought. When last year, roughly about this same time, her "old forever friend" had returned, or at least, the man did. He had informed her that the woman had passed on some time before, fighting against the Undead Lich on the Ring of Fire. He then claimed the gifts Gwen had given him had granted him the strength to survive though adventures that crossed the whole of the world.
The thought that someone could have kept her memory so close for so long had at first startled her, to be replaced eventually by that warm, fuzzy feeling she had back in a more innocent time, when Ascalon was green and her greatest fear was the skale along the river bed. That feeling had soon given away to something else after he put his life on the line to help her close the book on the wounds the Charr had given her, something she had never felt and couldn't explain.
Could that be the feeling Devona was having now, as she blushed and even giggled (yes, the warrior had been giggling) while the royal attendants and the other bridesmaids helped her dress in the most lavish, most exquisite, and most beautiful gown of brilliant white Gwen had ever seen.
The gown had supposedly been commissioned by King Adelbern himself almost twenty years ago, and kept pristine all this time in the hopes, no matter how faint or how distant, that the lost prince would return and the warrior princess would be waiting. And with that hope realized, the king had seized the opportunity... deciding the night before the great battle, that the long overdue wedding of Coran and Devona should take place.
King Adelbern had also had much of the planning in place as well, as within hours, the temple was ready, the guests were assembled, all dresses and regalia were ready to be worn (granted with some swift alterations depending on the person). Gwen had just received the dress she'd be wearing from the tailor in fact when she had lost herself in her thoughts.
"Hey! Get dressed!" Yue snapped from the doorway adjoining the suite. "We'd rather like to get this ceremony done before sunrise!"
Gwen nearly jumped. She had almost completely forgotten that she hadn't dressed yet, and instead was clad in her modest black undergarments (as modest as undergarments get at any rate). Regaining her composure, the young mesmer retorted, "Because as you can see, you're ready to go right now."
Yue was also in a similar state of undress, although surprisingly, the assassin's garments were of a much more racy variety, a bright red lace that contrasted remarkably with her almond skin tone.
"I've been helping Devona prepare, not sitting in here admiring myself in the mirror." Was Yue's response.
Gwen was about to respond indignantly, when she noticed that she was indeed standing in front of a full length mirror, and that the sight of herself was what prompted her moment of self-reflection, literally and figuratively. The mesmer smirked teasingly, and replied, "It's not my fault you're jealous that a barely twenty girl has a better figure than a full grown woman like yourself."
Gwen ran her hands from the sides of her breasts to her hips to accentuate the fact, and it had the desired effect; Yue turned visibly flushed, despite her darker skin tone, with embarrassment and anger. "No... you didn't..." She growled, spinning around, and taking one step before turning about again, and approaching Gwen deliberately. "That is it! You've had this coming for a while, you little brat!"
For a moment, Gwen was genuinely afraid that she had went too far, judging from the malicious stride Yue had taken. With eyes promising evil intent, the assassin picked up a pillow from the bed at the side of the room, approached Gwen like a tiger stalking her prey...
Then slapped the memser full in the face with a single swipe of the pillow.
There was silence for a second; Gwen wide-eyed in disbelief while Yue grinned triumphantly. "Oh... oh... that settles it, you old hag!"
"Old hag?" The assassin scowled indignantly, barely finishing the words before her face was filled with pillow.
Gladiators would have been in awe at the ferocity of the combatants trading blows, if scoffing at the choice of weapons. The noise of the tussle eventually drew the attention of Cynn, daintly stepping through in order not to dishevel her very revealing undergarments of ice blue; thong and teddy top. "All right, stop this! Stop this immediately!" The elementalist ordered.
She was brushed back and knocked off her feet by a double-team attack, right to her chest. Jumping quickly to her feet, Cynn snarled and picked up a pair of pillows that had been cast aside earlier in the melee and declared, "You two are going to get it now..." before coming back swinging in dual-wielding rage.
Moments later, Eve, leather bodice and all, joined the fray... really for no reason but to escalate the chaos as far as anyone could tell. Soon, bodies were wrestling and swatting, clambering and sliding off the bed in the desire to be the dominant female.
Then finally, the bride put her foot down. She hadn't been able to get dressed in much more than her bodice by the time the pillow fight had broken up all attention on getting her ready for the wedding. "I will not have my bridesmaids killing each other before my wedding! That is enough!"
For several seconds, it seemed like order had been restored, Devona's chest heaving and nostrils flaring in anger, until a flying pillow sailed in a graceful arc from Eve's hand, and smacked Devona flush in the face.
At that point, all hope for order collapsed, and Devona grinned menacingly like a wild Melandru's Stalker. The blushing bride picked up the projectile, and twirled it expertly in her right hand. "Alright... I think some young ladies are due for a spanking..."
Meanwhile, a long figure had finally completed his long, dangerous trek through Charr lands and domains of wild beasts, finally entering the limits of Ascalon City. Lieutenant Keiran Thackeray heaved a sigh of relief that he had made in one piece to deliver a message Captain Langmar deemed important to one of her other lieutenants.
Fortunately, it seemed that the isolationism from Ascalon had dimmed over the last handful of days, considering he was let in and that the guards were answering his questions once he identified himself and where he was from. Such assistance continued as he approached the appropriated "palace" near the center of the city.
"Pardon me, I'm looking for a Lieutenant Gwen of the Ebon Vanguard. I bear word from her superior Captain Langmar."
"She's inside, preparing Madam Devona for the wedding, the second suite on the left once you pass the meeting hall." The left guard declared. "If your message is urgent, I suppose I can let you through."
"Oh, thank you, sir!" Thackeray replied in relief and with a slight bow. "I will not overstay my welcome, I promise you."
He dashed inside, and moved as fast as proper etiquette would allow indoors towards the designated door. He tentatively knocked, and received no answer. He knocked again, slightly more forcefully, and again got no response. Now worried, he put his ear to the door, and fell back in shock when he heard Gwen's distinct voice shrieking in unintelligible protest.
Now determined to come to his friend's aid, he cast aside decency, and thrust open the door, dashing into the room, and eventually into the doorway of the adjoining suite where the sounds of Gwen's distress were originating. "Gwen! Fear not, I am here!"
The sight before him was... complex and bizarre, to say the least. Poor Gwen was stripped down to nothing but her underwear, kicking out ineffectually while bent over the knees of a slight, dark skinned girl in a state of equal undress. She was being held down by a curvy blonde and a leather clad pale skinned woman by her shoulders, and posed behind-up towards one final woman in a bodice of white lace, who had been dutifully smacking the young mesmer's backside with a pillow.
Awkward silence ruled the day as Thackeray's eyes narrowed into tiny dots. His heroic duty dissolved into a blubbering pile of confusion and dirty thoughts, corrected quickly as the women in the room turned their ire onto him.
Soon, all he felt was pain and erotic discomfort; the only sounds being his screams as the amazons descended upon him in righteous fury.
"Good gods, dear man... what happened?" Coran asked as Mhenlo, decked out in his formal gear as the priest overseeing the wedding and vows tended to the mercilessly beaten Vanguard quartermaster. Coran was fairly certain he was one giant bruise by the time he stumbled, discombobulated and disheveled, into the groomsman's suite.
From the entry, Gwen, now dressed in a lovely and elaborate cream gown stared at him angrily, her eyes promising further pain and suffering if he dared finger anyone.
"I... I... was attacked... by the Charr, your majesty."
"In the middle of Ascalon City?" Coran said disbelievingly. "The guards at the palace door claimed you looked fine when you came in."
Thackeray squeaked in horror. "It was dark. I can't imagine they were able to get a good look at me."
Coran obviously didn't believe him, but didn't want to press the issue either. Meanwhile, Gwen disappeared from the doorway, and Thackeray heaved a deep sigh of relief. Coran decided to ignore that, and instead said, "Very well. Mhenlo, I am sorry for delaying you. If you could tidy this young man up, then you can finish your preparations at the temple."
"Oh, no worries. I am ready whenever you are. As I understand the bride is already at her station." Mhenlo noted, satisfied as the dark splotches of internal damage on the young man's face vanished. "I suspect we should probably get this started."
Coran agreed with that sentiment, his groomsmen dressed and in their finery, even Aidan, awash in the bright red formal suit of an Ascalonian nobleman. The tailors had done their best for Vekk, but eventually had to surrender to time constraints, the Asuran genius settling for his finest clothes, reserved normally for scholastic krewe meetings. "I suspect you've just been invited to a wedding, Lieutenant Thackeray. Do try to be on your best behavior." Coran suggested, helping the Vanguard officer to his feet.
"I wouldn't dare be anything but." Thackeray admitted fearfully, as he took his leave out of the palace and towards the temple at the center of the city.
If only for one night, Ascalon had returned to an earlier, more innocent time, where the greatest concerns were who was going to sit where at a momentous social event and what gifts each household had gotten for the newest royal couple. If for only one night, King Adelbern felt like things were as they were before; a time of peace, prosperity, and happiness. If for only one night, the humans of Tyria forgot about the crippling odds against them, and the prospect of oblivion if they were to fail.
If they survived to see the next night, they would probably look back and admit they needed that momentary escape, no matter how fleeting.