Roleplay from Catherine Chamberlain
She saw him standing in the glade before the Young Mother of Bruck. The small area of grass was one of the few within the walls of Oligarch, and in itself was a pretty diversion from the grey walls of the keep and its surrounding buildings. There were hints it had once been an orchard, gnarled now fruitless trees were a sporadic and menacing marker in the half-light, but the bows looked like they had borne no fruit for many a year.
He wore the finders greens as was tradition in the Ora'n ceremonies, looking like an impeccably dressed keeper of he arbors, beneath the soft fabric he was taught muscle, tense and unyielding. She approached in the plain white shift that had been planned originally, her hair loosely braided with the blossoms of the white trees of Bruck and a circlet of the flowers around her head where the diadem usually lay. Reaching him she placed her hand on his arm and saw the breath leave him as he felt the relief that she was finally there. It was then she knew that her heart would never leave his, and her spirit would always be at his side, even if her body was in Ashforth or Pucallpa, or any such place that all seemed so far from her right now.
This joining had been bought with the blood of her two bodyguards, the Elder Maunt and the Lady only knew what more had gone or would be to come, yet for her this moment was as it should be, where it should be. The Maunt began: "We have come together here in celebration of the joining together of Catherine and Garas. Others would ask, at this time, who gives the bride in marriage, but, I ask simply if she comes of her own will. Catherine, is it true that you come of your own free will and accord?"
Looking at Garas with the briefest of smiles she replied "Yes, it is true."
The third arc was reaching it's zenith and the Young Mother began to chant the ancient elvish that all but the Mothers of the Church had forgotten. The sing song words and phrasing seemed powerful and mythic in their srangeness. As she finished the glade was bathed in a white light that reduced all of them to ghosts, the symbolic joining of the spirits.
The Maunt, standing on a large white stone, looked down on them, smiling: "Please join hands. As your hands are joined, so your lives, Holding each other, Caressing each other, Supporting each other, Loving each other." She wrapped both of their hands in a single length of white ribbon. All traces of the youth of the girl had gone as she lapsed into the ceremonial blessings, as with all the Mothers' Catherine could see she was chosen.
Garas tuned to her taking her free hand in his own: "I, Garas, promise you, Catherine, that I will be your husband, from this day forward. To love and respect you. To support and to hold you. To make you laugh and to be there when you cry. To softly kiss you when you are hurting, and to be your companion and your friend. On this journey that we will now make together." To her suprise her eyes brimmed with tears, often she had seen the joining, but she realised she had never tuly expected it fr herself. She breathed deeply forcing back the tears.
"I, Catherine, promise you, Garas, that I will be your wife, from this day forward. To love and respect you. To support and to hold you. To make you laugh and to be there when you cry. To softly kiss you when you are hurting, and to be your companion and your friend. On this journey that we will now make together."
The Maunt untied their hands and from the folds of her robe she produced two simple bands of white gold, "Catherine and Garas, as these circles are designed without an ending, they speak of eternity. May the incorruptible substance of these rings represent a love glowing with increasing lustre through the years. Ora blesses these rings which you give to each other as the sign of your love, trust, and faithfulness."
Garas hands shook as he placed the ring on her finger: "Take this ring as a sign of my love, and as a symbol of all that we share, in token and pledge, of my constant faith and abiding love."
Catherine took his hand and slid the ring onto his finger: "Take this ring as a sign of my love, and as a symbol of all that we share, in token and pledge, of my constant faith and abiding love."
The Young Mother untied the ribbon and held it aloft for those present to see: "They are now bound together, in Ora's sight and third moon's light, let none try to break this bond."
And so it was done...
