Chapter 18: The wedding feast

We go back to Potsdam's office via the secret stone path and I change back into my school uniform. Potsdam drives us then in a van to the parking lot next to the mall and we head towards the Glen. We sit down in a nice corner and Potsdam starts ordering for us. The first dish are salmon crepes with cream cheese, cut into small bites. They taste extremely refreshing, I wonder if it is due to magic. "I'll go to the bath room for a while, my buttercups. I have to powder my nose."
She means that literally, right? "Why do you need to powder your nose?", I ask out of curiosity. Potsdam laughs childishly. "To lessen my sense of smell.
A side-effect of my green magic. Wanna see my nose powder? But I don't recommend powdering your nose with it, it would ruin your taste after all."
She shows me a powder tin with a sparkly violet powder. So she needs to diminish her sense of smell from time to time, huh?
What is she able to smell, if she wouldn't do that?

As Potsdam heads to the bath room, Minnie shifts towards me. "Are you alright?", she inquires out of honest concern. She's such a goody-two-shoes.
I really like her, but she's way more fitted to be the heroine than me, since she completely fulfils the cliché. I ponder over her question. Am I alright?
This whole situation feels so unreal to me. It's like I haven't really realized that I'm MARRIED. To Grabiner. But it's just in name only. "I'm relatively alright. It's just in name anyway. Besides, it could be worse. And I don't mind it being Grabiner. Though it's scary to be hated by him." Right now, he's blinded by rage, and his rage is directed against me. "I don't think he hates you. I think he hates this situation.", Minnie comforts me. Ok, she's probably right. He might be angry at me, but to say that he would hate me, is an exaggeration. He just can't stand me right now. "Well, but he can't stand me right now. It is my fault after all, that he was forced into this situation.", I remark dryly. "You were just doing your job. It was because of his mistake, that you were in danger." Well, that might be what he thinks, which makes him probably hate the situation even more, since he'll blame himself, but the truth is, that this ordeal occurred due to my meddling with the game-fate-thingy and Potsdam's devious scheming. I wonder, if he would hate this more or less, if he knew the truth. But I don't plan on telling him.
"But don't remind him of that, or he probably will hate you. He's proud man." Yes, he definitely is. Maybe it's due to him being a noble?"You know him surprisingly well.", I comment honestly. "I did research. That's what I'm good at." You did research on Grabiner? Why? How? Are you a spy or something?
"He doesn't like people prying though. Don't push him." And yet he has no problem with you. You're extremely good at spying on people, aren't you?
What an unexpected side of Minnie. "Treat him with respect and be patient. Don't let him frighten you off. He'll calm down."
I wonder, if a spy like Minnie really would 'accidently' spill secret information, such as the marriage between him and me. Maybe I'm just paranoid, due to the shocking truth about Professor Potsdam though. "Hold on to yourself, alright? It will be okay.", Minnie continues comforting me.

Then Professor Potsdam returns and we the next dish also arrives. It's called giggle-salad. It got its name from its dressing, as it will make you laugh.
I wonder, if the non-magical world would declare the component responsible for our giggle fits as drugs? Whatever, I fully enjoy this magical dish.
Or at least I try to, but though I'm sniggering like a little girl, I'm unable to fully relax. There are simply too many things on my mind, such as 'who else is the opposite from what e seems to be?' and 'would I be able to make our marriage actually work, if I try?' or even 'what would have happened, if I would have behaved differently?'. "Ah, this brings back memories of my fourth marriage. We also ordered giggle-salad as an appetizer, but the chef made a mistake in reading the order and made gaggle-salad instead. Well, we married on rather short notice, so such mistakes are too be expected, I guess. However, due to this the wedding guest were babbling so much, that no one could understand a thing, but no one was able to stop talking. The salad was delicious though, so everyone just kept eating it, mostly chattering about how good it was.", Potsdam reminisces with a smile, distracting me from my thoughts.
"Your fourth marriage?", I follow up. "Yes, e was a dashing Vila. Eirs beauty was really beyond compare." What the hell is a Vila?
"Vilas are not female?", Minnie asks confused. What the hell is a Vila? "No Darling, Vilas appear to be female, but they can actually be both. Most define emself as female anyways though." What the hell is a Vila? "What are Vilas?", I finally ask. "Vilas are water spirits. Well, most of them prefer to live near the water. They often saved maidens, who wanted to kill themselves through drowning, since they have a thing for female beauty. Since they look like beautiful maidens themselves as well, they often got confused as ghosts of unwilling brides.", Potsdam explains to me. So interesting. "Why don't we learn more about magical beings at school?
It seems to be important to know about them.", I further inquire her. "Well, you will, but not as freshmen. As freshmen you should learn the basics of magic, before you do anything else." I see. I hope I get to attend such a class. I have to admit, that I miss my last life less with each passing day. Studying magic is really fun.
I wonder, if I will be able to stay in this world after the May Dance? Somehow, I really wish to continue my studies here.
Potsdam continues to tell us about how they met under a willow tree at full moon and instantly fell in love with each other. E took Potsdam to eirs underwater palace and they married the very next day. Potsdam stayed there for fifteen years (!), until she went back to her old house to get some of her old things. She wanted to return to her husband-wife (she calls em husfe), but couldn't enter the palace. E thought Potsdam would have wanted to run away and waited in front of the lake to demand a divorce from her. Potsdam was heartbroken and wanted to explain herself, but e wouldn't listen. After arguing for two days (!), Potsdam surrendered and returned to her old home. Two days later she met a Satyr and instantly got married.
"I was heartbroken, you know. I really needed someone to care for me." Two hours later, she found out, that the Satyr had married her in the hope to benefit from her magical reputation. Disappointed she divorced em, as soon as the year and one day was over.
Her stories were interesting and managed to distract me from my complicated thoughts, but they also made it clear, that Potsdam doesn't seem to take marriage very seriously. "It's a way to bond two people together, you know? Wandering live alone is so sad. Marriage is a good cure against loneliness. Right now, I'm happy with my life at Iris Academy, but if someone interesting came along, I might not say no to em. However, I gotten married so often, I don't really want to marry again.
E would have to be really special, in order to catch my heart.", Potsdam laments. I'm really starting to wonder, what kind of drugs Potsdam is growing in her backyard.

"If you were married so often, then do you have children?", I blurt out. I mean, she should have tons of children, right? But why don't we know about any?
Suddenly Potsdam's expression grows really dark for a short moment. I guess, that was the wrong topic. "Let's change the topic away from my private life. What about your parents, Elise? How did they meet?" "Uh, my father had married his girlfriend, after finding a job. He thought, that he would have impregnated her, but then found out four months after the baby was born, that the real father was a friend of his. My mother was his divorce lawyer; he was her first case."
Potsdam sighs dreamily. "How romantic." What about it is romantic?! I remember being disappointed as a child after hearing the story, because it wasn't romantic at all. "Your mother helped your father in getting revenge, while also healing the wounds of his heart." Well, that is also a way to look at it, I guess.
But a story about revenge still can't be considered romantic, can it?
The next dish arrives, this time it's thin slices of meat with a dark-red sauce and some kind of green turnips. "It's snow forest boar. It is supposed to increase strength. Well, it's not a magic cure or something like that, but it's good for nurturing people back to health.", Potsdam cheerfully chirps. I thank her, since I still feel a bit weak due to the Manus' attack. The meat is really tender and the sauce complements the taste well. Potsdam entertains us with small magic tricks, while we eat, to keep distracting me from over-thinking things. I'm thankful for that, to be honest. As magic tricks, she lets small paper-birds and paper-butterflies fly, or makes other paper animals dance, shapes the flame of our candle into a flower, or lets water drops in our glasses dance to the background music of the restaurant.
Though I'm thankful for the distraction, I get the feeling, that she treats me like a baby, trying to comfort it by dangling a keychain in front of it.

As last dish before the dessert, they serve us small pastries, made out of Otherworld-vegetables. They don't have any special effects, but they taste a bit unusual.
In a yummy way, though. Potsdam keeps entertaining us, by telling us about the time she wanted to start a magical plants farm. She made the mistake of growing the mandrake to close to each other, and they started to attack each other. Apparently, mandrake possess the intelligence of chickens and are able to communicate dissatisfaction via screaming and satisfaction via purring. Only their mood is mostly either dissatisfied with something or neutral.
They're very picky about their soil and hate being planted near other mandrakes or being pulled out of their soil, but apart from that they don't care much about what happens, even cutting them up is fine with them.
The mandrake-riot caused a lot of trouble for Potsdam, but the reason she gave up on her farm were the flesh-eating ivy and the giant Venus flytrap,
as they would sometimes try to eat visitors. Especially the flesh-eating ivy was problematic, since it's very agile. Potsdam often had to use fire to save the visitors, forcing her to regrow the flesh-eating ivy time and time again. I made a mental note to myself to never visit a magical farm. Or at least none with flesh-eating plants. To my question, as to why she kept growing the flesh-eating plants, if she could have just grown other magical plants, who won't try to eat visitors, Potsdam just chuckled. "But Darling, where is the fun in operating a farm, if you can't grow the plants you REALLY want to grow? These plants are extremely useful, you know?"

Then the complimentary dessert arrives, I'm so full, I nearly want to skip them. But this strawberry candy is just so delicious! Besides, not eating it would probably be rude. Professor Potsdam pays the bill, and we head back to the academy. As soon as I reach my dorm room, I throw myself onto my bed. "You ok?", Ellen asks.
I just show her thumbs up and mumble "All good." Virginia also looks at me. "There were you the whole day?" I raise myself up from my pillow.
"I was with Minnie. You?" "At the mall with Ellen. We wanted to take you with us, but couldn't find you." "Yeah, Minnie and I had to do work due to my treasurer duties…" Marrying Grabiner was quite the piece of work and my treasurer duties were the reason for ending up in this marriage in the first place.
With this excuse I stopped Ellen and Virginia inquiring further into how my day went, since there aren't many things more boring than my treasurer duties.