Referencing how quickly marriages happen in Fates, and because we want to get this over with.

Hinoka Hoshido had observed many cults over the years. Some were for investigation purposes as she tried to find Rowena. Others were for kicks. She'd gotten into trouble a few times, but it had all been worth it.

The Church of Skroogles was her favorite of them all, however. Its history was the simplest: Three years earlier, Azama had painted an image with his foot as a joke and Setsuna had pretended to worship it, stealing his heart and becoming the co-captain of what seemed at first to be a scam religion but in practice gathered the stupid, the lonely, and the pathetic and gave them instructions on how to survive and not be a total douche. Only a few hundred of the One Million Laws were added specifically for Azama's amusement.

Hinoka was not stupid or pathetic, and her loneliness was debatable. That was why she was rising through the ranks of the cult more quickly than the genuine worshippers. And rising through the ranks meant that she was forced to follow even more ridiculous laws.

"Do I really have to wear a bacon crown on Wednesdays?" she asked uncertainly, and Azama merely laughed.

"It's a symbol of an Enlightened," he answered, in his charming cult-leader voice. "If you wish to take part in the initiation ceremony for new members, it's best to embrace your status."

"You just want to laugh at me, don't you?"

The smile didn't budge from his face when he answered. "Obviously."

Setsuna hummed, oblivious to Hinoka's irritation. "You'll make Priestess in no time," she promised. "You know the truth behind Skroogles."

"That you guys just like to get high and think of stupid things to make your followers do?"

"That," Setsuna admitted, "and that it's just a drawing in our apartment."

"And not even a good one," Azama continued.

"Eye of the beholder."

"No," Hinoka disagreed. "I've seen it. It's definitely not good." She stood up to leave. "I'll make the stupid crown. Are we done planning yet? I have to meet Orochi for wedding planning."

They didn't comment on the boredom in her voice. After all, they understood it pretty well themselves.

Rowena looked down at the notes. Camilla had thrown herself into planning her wedding, but there was something about the outline that seemed impossible. She couldn't put her finger on it, until...

"I know it's not exactly a big fancy thing," Camilla admitted, "but it's enough for both your families to -"

"Oh, that's the problem!" Rowena turned the page back to her sister. "The whole date! You picked the same wedding date as Ryoma and Orochi!"

Camilla's face fell. "Oh. I chose it because your schedule was clear..."

"I know. I cleared it so I could be there, at my brother's wedding."

"You could have told me."

"You don't like it when I abandon you guys for my birth family. You always sulk and pout and I feel guilty."

"My emotions are my own problem," Camilla insisted. "I can't help that I'm jealous of your big almost-happy family while I'm stuck in this dysfunctional mess."

"This loving dysfunctional mess," Rowena reminded her, and Camilla smiled back.

"Yes, we do all love each other here, but you can see my point."

"It's hard not to," Rowena agreed. "Look, I would take this, but I don't want to force Revan to choose between his families. Why don't we ask Jakob to choose the date? I'm willing to go with whatever he says."

Of course, Jakob being Jakob, he responded with more sarcasm than seriousness.

"So you're telling me that if I said, 'Screw it all, let's elope next weekend,' you will accept it?"

Rowena didn't even hesitate. "It's settled, then. Camilla, you heard that, right?"

Jakob immediately backtracked. "Rowena, dear, don't you think that -"

"That we should think it through?" She shook her head in exaggerated disappointment. "When have I ever done that in my life?"

"You're doing this to spite me."

"A little," Rowena admitted. "But not entirely. I was pretty serious when I drunkenly demanded you take me to Vegas. We can totally escape for a day. We'd have to postpone the honeymoon, but it's not like we can stay out of Emblemme for long." Jakob still looked concerned. Rowena smiled innocently. "We grew up together, Jakob. I'd say we know each other pretty well."

She was right, of course. So they made that their plan - partly for spite, mostly for love.

Everyone had assigned tasks. Rowena was supposedly joining her sisters for a girls' night out, while Xander and Leo had the job of distracting Garon so he didn't stumble into the wedding blackout drunk and tell the story of Leo's birth...which would have been quite a feat, considering he famously wasn't there for it.

This distraction led them to a lake for a father-son fishing trip. Like any fishing trip with the Nohr family, things got awkward in the first half-hour.

"You see, boys," said Garon, ignoring that they had this conversation every time they went fishing, "you have to treat a boat like you treat a woman."

"Do you know how to treat a woman?" Leo asked, in a daring attempt to take the conversation in a new direction.

Garon chuckled. "Sexually, yes," he answered, and Xander thumped his brother on the shoulder for dragging their father's romantic history into it. "You kids are proof. But as for anything else, most of them didn't last long enough to find out."

"We haven't even reached the water yet," Xander complained. "Can we at least wait until we're actually fishing, if we have to talk about women at all?"

"Fine," Garon agreed. "Let's shut up and set sail."

Leo looked at the boat they'd rented for the afternoon. "This is a rowboat," he said bluntly.

"A dinghy," Xander specified.

"A little dinghy," said the man in charge of the boat rentals. The stick-on name tag told them his name was Keaton. "I've seen you here before. You've got three hours."

"Only three hours?" Garon complained, as the brothers shared a look and a single thought between them.

Three whole hours?

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Jakob asked, looking over at Rowena cautiously. "You could have had a big, fancy wedding, with the dress and the cake. I wouldn't have objected, if you wanted it."

"I know," Rowena reassured him. "I considered. But I didn't want to deal with wedding planning stress on top of the living with the Nohrs stress. And law student stress. And potential trial trial stress. And my family barely gets along stress."

"And Jakob stress," Gunter added from the driver's seat, ignoring his adopted son's glare.

The plan was simple: Gunter would drop them off and make an excuse for their absence when Garon returned. Rowena's sisters - all four of them - were coming along as witnesses, and Revan was included as a bonus, "just in case Camilla and Hinoka were too drunk to drive." Takumi and Oboro were covering for the 'honeymoon,' or what could pass for it, and Yukimura had given Rowena photographs of Mikoto and Sumeragi so they could be there in spirit.

Things were thought out as well as they could be for a spur-of-the-moment decision. She wondered how long keeping it all a secret would last, and knew that this was what was truly bugging Jakob.

In an attempt to reassure him, once Gunter had dropped them off, she put on a smile he knew was unsure. "You know, Jakob...the sooner the whole wedding mess is over, the sooner the honeymoon can begin."

"I thought we were postponing it until summer, when your school let you take a vacation."

"Not all of it," Rowena half-sang, her smile turning to teasing. "From what I hear, we're keeping the best part."

Much like his tea, Jakob started steaming.

As Garon was dealing with his sons (or, more accurately, Garon's sons were dealing with him) the entire Eisner clan were fishing together on a bigger, sturdier boat. Seteth had mentioned it in passing as something he and his first wife had done, and Jeralt had taken the opportunity to grill the man about all of his life choices - "and minimize the risk of you and Jo repeating a certain incident," he'd added with a pointed look at Flayn.

Joanna had objected that they were engaged, living together, and that her students had pieced both of those facts together. Obviously, that did nothing to help Seteth's humiliation.

Petra had taken the opportunity to enjoy her day off with her in-laws and was wondering why fiction portrayed them as nasty people. She and her husband were deliberately staying out of the conversation, instead choosing to do what Eisners do best - sit in comfortable silence, fish, and drink. She liked the same beer Jonah did - one of the first things they discovered they had in common.

Flayn just wanted to see the fish, and was leaning out of the boat excitedly.

"Stay back, Flayn," Seteth warned, to Flayn's irritated grumbling. "You don't want to fall out of the boat and join them in death."

"We won't kill them, necessarily," Jeralt objected. "We're just here to have a nice family outing..."

"They haven't said a word since we got on the boat," Seteth pointed out, gesturing over at Jonah and Petra.

Jonah looked up from where he was pulling a beer from the cooler. "Hi," he said simply, and his wife echoed the statement as she chose her rod.

"They came here to fish," Jeralt explained, not that he needed to.

"And so did I," Joanna said, reaching for her pole with a blank face. "So let's shut up and fish."

She didn't want to bring it up to Seteth. It hadn't been his idea, and she respected the memory of his first wife enough to feel a bit awkward intruding on their thing. He'd agreed to come, and so had Flayn, but she wasn't sure if her father had dragged her into overstepping her boundaries.

Luckily for her, it appeared she didn't.

"Do you actually catch fish with no bait, Seteth?"

He gave her an awkward smile as he pulled the line back in. "Not often. I never knew how to put the bait on the line." Her mouth twitched as she fought a smile of her own. His own expression turned irritated once again. "I could have learned, of course, but she seemed to enjoy doing it for me, so I let her. Then, after...the incident...I didn't go fishing, so there was no need."

She took his hook in one hand and a worm in the other. With her voice full of the love and admiration that her face rarely showed, she gave him a quick lesson: "Just stab the damn thing."

And that was when Seteth, who never seemed to be anything other than annoyed, laughed. The sound echoed, dragging a true smile from Joanna.

"And all this time I was trying to tie them to the hook."

None of the Nohr men had caught anything. Each of them had retreated from the boring lack of fishing to their own inner thoughts.

Xander thought of Selena. Specifically, how she had been the "winner" of their Dungeons and Dragons campaign by being the first to make the DM throw an entire bag of chips at her. He'd never been more in love with her than the moment she'd thrown the chips back and insisted that biting should give damage to the evil elf that had her fighter character restrained, and had offered to demonstrate. (Peri had agreed to it, was bitten, and had needed stitches. She let the fighter damage the elf.)

Leo thought of the fish he'd expected to catch. Mozu had demonstrated how good she was in the kitchen, but it would be a challenge for her to cook a fish that Leo didn't recognize. It wouldn't have been hard to find - these father-son fishing trips were always awkward at best, he didn't want to research things that brought up uncomfortable memories.

It was probably best not to determine what Garon was thinking of.

"This sucks," Leo said after another ten minutes. "We've got a three-hour timer and the fish aren't biting. I guess they're just too smart for us."

"Too smart, eh?" Garon laughed. "Well, then. Time to make these fish dumber."

And, before Xander and Leo could process what he was doing, he poured his beer into the lake.

"We're going to get arrested," Xander said when the moment of dumbstruck silence had passed.

"No we're not," Garon objected. "It's not Ohio."

"I was thinking more along the lines of poisoning the lake."

Garon stopped in his tracks. "You saw nothing," he hissed, and the brothers agreed.

Rowena wore a white dress to her wedding. It was a sundress with pink spots, not made with a bride in mind. She carried a batch of fabric flowers as her wedding bouquet.

In Jakob's eyes, she was equal parts beautiful and ridiculous. A thought she seemed to share, as neither of them could quite keep a straight face. And yet, despite the situation originating from what was more or less a dare, Camilla still cried, and the couple meant every word they managed to get out.

Years later, Rowena would admit it was a bit of a blur. She would only recall the emotions, the happiness of the event and the excitement of keeping it hidden from her father as payback for the abduction.

In the present, she broke down in giggles and fell into her husband's arms. "I can't believe we did this," she choked out. "It feels almost forbidden."

"A butler and his employer would be frowned upon in most societies," Jakob agreed.

"You haven't been my butler since we got engaged," Rowena reminded him. "So, like, weeks. We're safe."

"True," Jakob agreed. "And perhaps that's for the best. After all..." he lowered his voice to a point where only she would hear. "No one would like to hear stories of a beautiful young woman and her butler, how did you put it? Oh yes. Keeping the best part of the honeymoon."

He smiled innocently as Rowena took her turn at steaming like tea. Elise, who had not heard but had somehow gotten her hands on confetti, threw it at them.

"Get a room," she complained. Not that she really minded - her siblings' happiness was something she always cherished.

Rowena responded like any older sister would. "Jealous, much?" she teased, and was rewarded with confetti to the face.

"Dad! You need first aid!"

"No I don't," Garon lied. He'd somehow gotten a fish hook stuck in his thumb. "It's happened before."

"No I don't, it's happened before," Leo repeated, mockingly. "Have you seen your hand? I've never seen that happen before."

Xander, who had found Garon's first aid kit, looked up at his father, concerned. "As worried as I am about what kind of diseases you're picking up," he began, "I'm also worried about the fact that your first aid kit is a can of beer and a single Spongebob band-aid in my first-grade lunch box." He flipped the lid closed after removing the bandage, showing the slightly rusted Power Rangers logo. "I suppose I'll just have to rip it out."

"Not without the anesthetic." Garon held out his uninjured hand for the beer.

Xander opened it and handed it over, saying only three words: "Power of attorney."

"Told you," Leo said quietly, as Xander pulled out his own (proper) first aid kit.

Things were going well for the Eisners. Seteth had calmed some, Flayn had actually caught a fish (and had it stolen by a bird, which she insisted was the coolest thing to ever happen to her) and Jonah and Petra had joined the conversation.

Then Joanna's phone rang, with 'Bernie' flashing on the screen. She answered immediately.

"Joanna!" Bernadetta's voice squeaked out. "I was making a cake with Yuri at his place, and he broke a hand bone on the counter, and we had to call an ambulance and Jeritza's busy and I can't leave -"

"I can't come and get you." Joanna didn't sound too apologetic. "No, Jonah can't, either...Well, for one thing, we're having an Eisner family gathering. Everyone but Flayn's been drinking." Her eyes grew slightly larger in surprise as Bernadetta said something else. Joanna handed the phone to her future stepdaughter. "She wants to talk to you."

Flayn, uncertain, took the phone. "Hello?" A pause. "I can't. My father refuses to let me drive without him." Another pause. "I barely even know who Yuri is." This time, after Bernadetta spoke, Flayn sighed. "Mrs. von Hrym...please stop crying..."

Seteth stepped in at that moment. "I'll go and get her. I haven't been drinking much, and I have a nearly inhuman tolerance for alcohol as it is. Joanna, you're friends with Yuri. Give me his address and I'll collect Bernadetta."

He liked Bernadetta, after all. He wasn't a fan of some of his fiancée's friends - mainly Edelgard, Hubert, and Jeritza - but Bernadetta had always reminded him of Indech. Joanna knew this, so she did as told and watched him leave, before returning the boat to the fishing zone

For a while, things continued on. Flayn, half-joking, asked if she could drink something other than the bottled water that had been packed specifically for her.

"I don't know," Joanna said, to Flayn's continued amusement. "That sounds like something a responsible parent wouldn't want you doing."

Jonah smiled slightly and poured a few mouthfuls from his freshly opened can into Flayn's empty bottle. "Good thing you've got an uncle on board, then."

"Jonah!" Joanna complained, but Jeralt laughed.

"Hey, it's all right if it's a single sip with adult supervision. I gave you two your first taste for your fifteenth birthday. Besides, it's a grandparent's duty to spoil the grandchildren, let me prepare for the inevitable."

"But we're also her teachers!"

Jeralt shrugged it off. "I'm not. Go on, Flayn."

After only a moment of consideration, Flayn decided to get it over with before Seteth returned. As soon as the beer touched her tongue, however, the boat lurched, splashed by waves caused by a middle-aged man in a little dinghy dropping a cherry bomb into the lake.

Joanna held on to Flayn, wrapping one arm around her from behind and grabbing the wall of the boat with the other. "I need your father to still talk to me," was her excuse.

Jonah, meanwhile, threw himself on the cooler. "I am my father's son!" he announced dramatically, to Petra's laughter.

Jeralt looked from one of his children to the other. Both of them had inherited his own instincts. "I'm so proud," he said to himself, and that pride only increased when his favorite daughter-in-law asked if she could throw things in the lake next.

Flayn decided she didn't like alcohol. She also felt very sorry for any future brothers or sisters or step-cousins she might have.

"Well," said Leo, "I can't say that this is a surprise, exactly. And you did kill us some fish."

"You're welcome," Garon said, despite the fact that his son hadn't exactly thanked him.

"You also blew a hole at the top of our boat," Xander added.

"What's important is that I did not break the hull."

"By sheer luck!" Xander facepalmed as the lake police approached, led by Keaton. "I don't know why you keep doing things like that, Dad."

"Because I'm a rich and powerful alcoholic who thinks he's above the law, no matter how much evidence is thrown at me that says otherwise." Garon shook his head sadly. "I don't know how you keep forgetting that."

"How long until you can take power of attorney?" Leo asked, and Xander took a deep breath to calm himself.

"Too long," he admitted.

So the brothers sat in silence and watched as the lake police gave their father the most recent evidence that he was not above the law, giving the truthful answer that they had no idea about the cherry bomb until he'd dropped it.

Elise was looking through her YouTube comments for suggestions for her next video, swiping through them with a bored look on her face.

"Mystery box unboxing, boring. Thrift store makeover, not compatible with homework. Let's Play..." she paused. "Maybe. Violin cover of the original Pokémon theme song, can't learn it in a week..."

She stopped at a comment from a regular viewer. Maybe you can look into an urban legend.

That, she decided, was a wonderful idea. Making a note of the viewer's username, she called Lysithea.

"Do you have a book on urban legends?" she asked as soon as her friend picked up.

"What, you think I have a book on everything?"

"Do you?"

Lysithea sighed. "Yeah, hold on. Which urban legends?"

"Preferably one here in town."

"There aren't many that are Emblemme-specific," Lysithea warned. "You can do a general one, or maybe investigate the Death Knight..."

"Death Knight?" Elise squeaked, and then covered her mouth, remembering that she was supposed to be at a wedding reception - even if it was in a grocery store parking lot, eating the cake Rowena had bought from that very building. "What's a Death Knight? I thought it was just something from Dungeons and Dragons."

"It is, but this is something unrelated. Or maybe it took the name from the game enemy. Either way, when I was...um, borrowing my dad's car, one of the streets I tried to lose the cops on was Taguel Avenue. I only saw him for a second, but it was enough."

"That sounds awesome," Elise decided. "Unfortunately, I can't drive, my mom can't drive, my dad would refuse to drive..."

"So hire somebody." She said it like it was obvious. "Just give them a camera."

So Elise approached Revan, smiling innocently. Revan sighed.

"Before you ask to borrow money, just know that I've been cut off."

"Nothing like that," Elise promised. "I just want to offer a job. Remember when my dad offered you $1,000 to keep cookies away from me?" Revan nodded. "Well, I'm offering you everything I have in my wallet to drive Taguel Avenue after dark."

He got it at once. "The Death Knight? You want me to face the Death Knight?"

"Not face," Elise promised. "Just film."

Revan looked to his twin, who was trying (and not quite succeeding) to convince Jakob to let her smash cake in his face, claiming a wedding tradition. He thought of the years they'd spent separated, and wondered if she'd miss him more than a little if the Death Knight removed his head from his body.

But he was curious, too. And maybe - though he sincerely doubted it at this point - there would be a connection to the Silent Dragons.

"How much is in your wallet?"

Elise did a quick count. "53 dollars and 67 cents. Give or take a nickel."

"I'll do it."

There were easier ways to make $50, but none that could provide a lead.