Posted 2024-01-12; Beta'd by Eeyorefan12
The mating ceremony was simple enough, held in the same hall where Bella and Edward had announced their mating a few days before. They'd come early that morning, and their audience had been small. Still, she'd been nervous then, and she was nervous now. Mating ceremonies were public events, and the entire town was invited. Given the hostility Jasper—a man who was supposedly her brother—had shown, she feared more from the people who didn't know her.
Walking to the stage with Edward, Bella heard whispers and a few gasps, but as they mounted the final step, the officiant raised her hand, calling for and receiving silence. Bella didn't dare look at the audience, staring instead at the blue embroidery on the cuff of Edward's coat and at their joined hands.
The woman glanced at Bella's dress, smiling. "Are a white dress and veil a human custom for this occasion?"
Bella nodded, nervously exhaling.
"How lovely that you enrich our traditions."
More murmurs came from the crowd, though these appeared to reflect curiosity more than hostility.
From his coat pocket, Edward pulled out a small, twisted skein of bright blue thread, presenting it to the woman. "Matriarch Alimosis," he murmured.
She nodded, taking the thread and gesturing for Bella and Edward to face one another.
Edward gently lifted the front of Bella's short veil and draped it over her shoulders, careful not to disturb her intricately styled hair. At the matriarch's direction, they took each other's hands and stood perpendicular to the audience. The quiet murmuring continued.
"One house and a mating," a woman in the front row mumbled. In her peripheral vision, Bella could see her shaking her head.
The official spoke: "Today we are blessed to recognize a mating—and an unusual one—"
A titter ran through the crowd.
Bella's arms went stiff and cold. If the officiant was going off script . . .
"Between Mr. Edward Cullen and Miss Bella Swan Cullen, a recently made daughter of the house."
The titter became a buzz.
Bella swallowed, meeting Edward's gaze. His grip tightened, and his face was tense. Bella wondered: was it regret? Protectiveness? The matriarch's naming of Bella's changed status was taboo. She was a daughter of the house. To say otherwise was to undermine the premise of it.
"And now this bond is doubly strong. Twice-woven, twice-blessed."
The audience became instantly silent.
"Twice-woven," she repeated.
The words were ceremonially echoed in the crowd.
Edward's grip relaxed.
Not certain what had happened, but grateful that Matriarch Alimosis seemed to be trying to put everyone at ease, Bella relaxed marginally too. She didn't have to do anything at this point in the ceremony, beyond stand there with Edward.
With a nod, the matriarch pulled a thread end from the skein and dropped it over Bella and Edward's joined right hands, looping it around. "Now let Aristea be my witness and the broad heavens about, and you who are gathered in what Athena has seen fit to weave together. We recognize this mating, seeing two joined together by the weaver's threads"—she continued to loop the bright blue thread around their hands, pausing to let the children in the audience giggle—"in the tapestry whose image we do not yet see." She finished wrapping the thread, eight distinct loops ceremonially tying the two of them together.
"An abundance of humility and kindness will always serve the truth, advice I offer both to you and to those gathered." The matriarch swept her gaze over Bella and Edward and then the crowd. "Matriarch Cullen?"
Esme stood, a few rows from the front.
"Where shall we gather to celebrate?"
Keeping their bound hands clasped, Bella and Edward walked back to their seats where she was grateful not to be the audience's sole object of attention. In her nervousness, she missed Esme's reply.
"Okto," Bella heard the officiant say.
Unsure if a response was required, Bella leaned over to whisper in Edward's ear but he shook his head. "Bad luck," he mouthed. Ah yes, he had told her that. There was just so much to remember.
The reception, as she thought of it, was held in a large hall a few streets away. She and Edward walked there with their family, their hands joined by the blue threads. Once there, they stood at the entrance—still forbidden to speak—nodding and smiling at the guests as they arrived. After an hour, Bella's feet ached from standing and her face felt numbed by the continual repetition of the cheerful expression.
She estimated they had over three hundred guests, many of them children who brought skeins of string to drop into a basket now hanging heavily on her arm. No one had explained what it was for, and when she leaned over to Edward and attempted to whisper again, he quietly cleared his throat. He then smiled gently, looking apologetic.
The guests fetched food from a long buffet before sitting at round tables spread around the room.
On par for a wedding, Bella thought, though she wished she and Edward could sit and eat, but she knew that wasn't the custom here. She shifted back and forth on her feet. When Edward eyed her with some concern, she smiled and shook her head. He had already been so attentive all day, she didn't want to worry him.
After the line trickled down to one guest every few minutes, Esme took the basket from Bella, smiling a little mischievously at her. When she winked conspiratorially at Edward, Bella knew they'd intentionally kept back some sort of surprise. Ah well, she'd just have to go with it. She could hardly begrudge her family and her . . . husband a little fun at her expense. They were doing so much for her.
"Children, are you ready?" Esme called out to the room.
There was a set of excited squeaks and giggles.
Beside her, Edward chuckled. He tilted his head towards the stage. Bella started to follow but quickly realized her own propulsion was unnecessary.
A band of children gathered around them, pushing and nudging them forward to a small settee on the stage. Once Bella and Edward sat upon it, the children began tying them together with the threads from Bella's basket.
As each child stepped up and chose a skein of thread, they pulled a tiny square of cake from their pockets, unwrapping it and pressing it to either Edward's or Bella's lips.
"Thank you," Bella murmured to a blonde girl with pronounced canines. The gratitude was real. She was hungry. And the cake was delicious.
"Shh! You're not supposed to talk. Just eat," another girl said. "You should have told her that," she said to Edward.
Bella watched the girl. She was maybe ten or eleven years old, her frizzy hair threatening to escape the confines of the two thick braids that ran down her back. She was frowning as she worked her piece of string around them.
"Your dress really should be a bright blue," she told Bella. "White is for mourning, funerals, and tributes. My mother said it was white because neither of you really wanted to be mated." She eyed Bella shrewdly, clearly looking for a reaction.
Bella felt rather than saw Edward whip his head up. He stared at the girl, who tensed but continued winding.
"But my father said she was wrong." She eyed Edward now. "He said the committee was just fighting the inevitable and you were wise, giving to. He thinks you didn't have to bother making it official, though."
Edward stared stonily at the girl. She left the thread untied and scurried away.
Was this what the future held for both of them? Were there so many more Sabellians who held Jasper's views? Bella turned to face Edward and lifted an eyebrow in question. He gave a tiny shake of his head.
Another thing to talk about later, then.
The children ranged from age four to about twelve, and most were very giggly and pleasantly chatty. It was both strange and comforting to be in their presence, relaxing even. Their informality was refreshing, and her anxiety eased a little as the children continued to wind thread around her and Edward.
Most of the children were unfamiliar, barring one. Unlike his companions, he was silent. When he caught her eye, she smiled at him, earning a grin and a quickly signed greeting. He wove a loose, slow loop around them with a rough brown thread the same color as his hair.
Bella wished she could sign with him. Perhaps they'd have a chance later.
As she watched him work, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration, she studied his features, wondering for the first time what her and Edward's child would look like. Would it have Edward's slate blue eyes or her brown ones, his curly dark hair or her wavy chocolate? The brown-haired boy—Agrias, she recalled—had clear Sabellian features, little canines protruding over his lower lip, short claws curled over the tips of his fingers. She realized she barely noticed these traits in the rest of her new family anymore and found them endearing in these children but . . . how would their child be viewed by other humans?
When the threads were all used up, the children fed Edward and Bella the last of their crumbs and then left the stage.
"Now we can talk," Edward said. "Be careful not to break any of the threads."
"Do I get to ask why we're all tied up here?" Bella asked him, resisting the urge to squirm. "And don't think I didn't notice that you and your mother were in on this."
Edward's chuckle made her body vibrate. "Can you guess what it means?"
"Getting tied up by children? Kids being kids?"
"No," he said, finding a thread end that was too tight around her arm and loosening it. "Though they are. They are also all our children, and their mischief and mistakes belong to all of us. We are all tied up in it, as it were."
A tangled web. She thought of her father's oft-repeated idiom about webs of lies.
"And the cake pieces?" She found a thread too, pulling at it gently.
Edward nodded in encouragement.
"It is our children who feed us, in love, in purpose, and ultimately, in nourishment. The mutuality of care."
Bella looked for the end of the string—unsuccessfully.
Rose stepped up on the stage, carrying a glass. "I seem to recall you left me much longer than this, brother."
"I may have." Edward grinned at her.
Rose shook her head, suppressing a smile before finding a string and unwinding it, giving Bella a drink of water and then Edward.
"Thank you, sister," Edward said. Gently, he nudged Bella.
"Thank you, sister," Bella murmured.
"You are both most welcome." Rose nodded as she left the stage.
In turn, other adults appeared, taking a string and tying it up in a neat bundle, returning it to the basket by their feet. When Jasper mounted the stage with a carefully neutral expression, Bella tensed. She'd been successful in avoiding him over the last few days.
"Brother," Edward said. "don't forget, you're meant to untie them, not make more knots."
The men locked gazes, and Bella could have sworn Jasper's lip curled up slightly before he bent over to slowly untie and remove a long string from around them. "I've not forgotten my role, brother." He looked at Bella briefly, before turning back to Edward, "Nor my promise to speak truths even when others don't wish to hear them."
Bella's stomach twisted. She'd avoided thinking of Jasper's accusations, and now his reminder threatened her carefully constructed fantasy of familial harmony for today.
She dipped her head, in her periphery watching Edward frown. "An oath I also keep," he said.
Jasper stood, methodically winding the string into a small skein. "See that you do." He threw the skein into the basket. "Truth serves us all."
Jasper was half-turned when Edward called out to him.
"I serve it with kindness and generosity, brother. I ask that you do the same." Edward glanced pointedly at Bella.
Jasper's face tightened briefly before he lifted an eyebrow in acknowledgement and walked off the stage.
Bella recognized a few members of the committee for reparations who appeared, Mr. Othonos included. He seemed particularly gregarious, if not tipsy.
"While there are many things I've envied of my mated friends, being subject to this mischief is not one of them." He chuckled, plucking a thread end from Edward's shoulder. "After all my years here, this tradition still strikes me as odd, but things were much more pragmatic where I was born."
"You're not from here?" Bella asked.
"Not originally, no. I was a Kaethe orphan. A lucky one at that, taken in by a family here." He gave a wan smile.
An interesting distinction. Taken in by a family. Not part of a family. That he was sharing this bit of background was unusual. Sabellians were close-lipped about family matters.
"I know what it's like to be an outsider." He pulled the string fully off of Edward, winding it into a neat skein. "Both here and off-world. You're fortunate to have a mate who understands the Prerje, Mr. Cullen. At least, to know the kind that we never shake."
Edward looked at him sharply.
Mr. Othonos smiled at Bella. "But you've been welcomed here. I hope you find as warm a reception as I've had, if not better. Well, okto. Blessings."
A few more adult guests came to remove threads, including a familiar and petite brunette woman, who smiled warmly at Bella and then at Edward—intensely so. Instead of picking at any thread, she searched first with her eyes, finally settling on a bright yellow thread starting at Bella's hip. "Just the color of the water lilies that grow on the banks of the river." Her tone was strange, and Bella struggled to name it. Sabellian inflection was complex.
"So it is," Edward said.
"Those were difficult times for me, Mr. Cullen. And your counsel was a great comfort to me then."
As Bella followed her gaze to Edward's, she was startled to find a carefully neutral expression where so recently there'd been a smile.
If Miss Sarris was expecting something else, it didn't show on her face. She unwound and rewound the thread slowly. "I hope you and your mate will find the same. You are no stranger to duty, Mr. Cullen. You are . . . fortunate, Mrs. Cullen."
Duty.
"As am I," Edward said carefully.
"May your match be . . . fulsome, then. In all regards." She stared intently at Edward.
Desire. That's what she'd heard in Miss Sarris' tone. And if she was reading things correctly, that's what Edward was keeping from his.
Bella studied the floor for a moment, reminding herself that Edward had made this choice as much as she had. His history was his own, and she doubted if their roles were reversed that he'd hold her past against her.
With a polite smile, Miss Sarris departed, and Esme mounted the stage. "I think you two have waited long enough." She undid the last of the strings, winding and dropping the skeins into the basket. She helped them stand, clapping and bringing the rest of the hall to its feet to do so as well.
She wrapped both Bella and Edward in discreet embraces, saying to Bella. "What a rare joy it is to welcome someone twice to one's family. Welcome, Bella, as my daughter-in-law. You are now as tangled up in us as you can be."
She chuckled, and Bella politely did too, wondering how easily these tangles could be undone when the time came to return home.