A girl in the world barking up the wrong tree, a creature conditioned to employ matrimony

[motherspider.livejournal.com]

*Let it never be said that Esmerelda Rosier does not know how to throw a wedding. With a month to arrange everything, she swept her schedule clean, let the business languish, and began placing orders almost as soon as Evan and his bride-to-be left the estate. Her wandwork is not quite as deft as it once was, but she refuses to see a healer, and she doesn’t need wandwork to tell the florist that the roses were to be red, true red, not this flaccid pink, and to send a Howler to the baker demanding why the red velvet cake tasted like sweetened ashes, and to harangue the seamstress why the bride had not been even scheduled for her third fitting of the white dress Esmerelda had negotiated her into, as clearly the first two fittings had failed to demonstrate to her that everything needed to be taken in at the waist. Whatever the guests of this affair might think or gossip about, they’ll get no bump in Amrita’s abdomen to prove it.

She can hear Evan pacing outside the dressing room, and has to go out to tell him--repeatedly--that he cannot see her before she walks down the aisle and he should go kill the squirrels outside or something, anything to get him out of the way so she can personally finish buttoning the thousand and one buttons that go up the back of the dress. But the last time she lectures him on this, he catches a glimpse of the bride in the mirror over her shoulder anyway and grins.

“You’re beautiful,” he says over Esmerelda’s shoulder.

“Out, it’s bad luck,” the bride orders, and then, and only then, does he obey.

When she finally takes her seat in the very front of the chapel, Esmerelda’s chin is high but she clutches Dearborn’s hand fiercely. The ceremony begins, and it’s finally all out of her hands.

The door to the chapel opens and the light is blinding even though the forecast predicted rain over the reception, and there she is, shimmering like a vision, painted with the charmed designs of her culture on her hands, wearing enough skirts and petticoats and undergarments that Esmerelda had to resist the urge to catalogue them individually in a spreadsheet. Everyone turns to watch the bride proceed but Esmerelda’s gaze sweeps the crowd and then, finally, lands where she knew it would: on Evan.

He is standing there, hands held before him, frozen in the process of being wrung. His knuckles are white. There’s a tiny bit of hair sticking up at the back of his head, the part she always charmed firmly down when he was as boy, and suddenly her vision goes blurry. She looks up and blinks once, twice, pulls out the bright red handkerchief out of her bright red handbag sitting on her bright red skirts. It is acceptable to cry, she supposes, but she doesn’t want to. Not for this, the thing he manipulated her into doing, this ruinous match. But the look on his face--

When Evan was five, she took him to the hall that holds the Rosier family tree. She pointed to herself and Dearborn on the tree, how other families intertwined, and how he, someday, would marry someone who also had a tree like this one and have children, and when he did, the tapestry would grow further up because it had been enchanted very long ago to do so. All this was his, and he belonged to it as much as it belonged to him. He gave the whole thing a wide, encompassing look, finally resting his little palm next to his own name as if to cover a hole, and then turned to her and asked, “Why isn’t she here already?”

And Esmerelda smiled, and told him that she would come along in due course, that he might meet her on his own or they might introduce her to him, but what was most important was the fact that she would become family, and that he should care for her as well as he cared for her or Dearborn. That is what made her worth putting up on the tree.

Looking at him now, watching this woman come up the aisle, there is so much of that boy in him that, for the first time in all of this, Esmerelda is willing to allow that perhaps it will not all end in calamity. Perhaps they will grow old and happy together as she and Dearborn have, and the grandchildren birthed from surrogates will still be grandchildren. Perhaps they will love each other until they both rot.

The ceremony is beautiful, and Amrita is radiant, and they don’t have eyes for anyone but each other, and when they kiss at the very end, it is a brazen, full kiss, and when he finally pulls away, his mouth is smudged with her lipstick. He ducks his head to murmur something into her ear as the audience rises to its feet, and she laughs and runs her thumb over his bottom lip to try to rub off the lipstick, and they leave the church together, arm in arm, so boldly and arrogantly in love that even Walburga can barely muster a scandalized little sigh.*

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[pricklypatils.livejournal.com]

*The Patils have dutifully dressed in their best clothes, Baldev in crisp Western-style dress robes and Aarshati in shimmering silks of unapologetic, eye-searing pink. They have Apparated to the unsufferable Chembarkars’ estate and borrowed their Cabinet to London, accepting congratulations they didn’t want and mouthing gratitude they didn’t feel. They have smiled politely through that absurd Latin-laced mockery of a ceremony. They have watched what had been their daughter beam and simper and make a spectacle of herself, and with nothing more than a few words neatly take hold of a fortune well beyond even theirs. And now they’re here, staring out over the rolling lawns and opulent surroundings and again rubbing elbows with the very best wizarding families in England--or Aarshati is, anyway, Baldev is sour and mostly silent. More than anything, the two of them are simply wishing to leave.

But the reception is in full swing and far from over, and appearances demand they grin through it to the bitter end. After a more-or-less innocuous conversation with a Black woman, something-or-other-Zabini, they walk together, though not quite arm-in-arm, debating between them whether or not it’s time to scrape together some congratulations for the happy couple. Just precisely when it seems as if things can’t get any more galling, or any more frustrating, they spot a woman who can only be--well, her. And the children. Their grandchildren. It’s a short silence--Baldev is stony-faced, his wife surprised, almost slapped-looking--and then they sweep by without another word, intentionally failing to even acknowledge Jyoti or the twins. This can’t be put off long, but it can at least be put off until their son shows his face.*

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*Despite knowing full well that the twins would be coming, the Rosiers have made no effort to provide them appropriate food. Rajiv is stopping every caterer he can find, looking for some strained carrots or even some juice. But most of them look him and his kurta up and down and move away after stiffly telling him to find the seemingly Vanished head caterer.

This wedding is everything Rajiv hates, and he's doing his best to hide it. Stony to begin with, his face has become almost completely impassive. That is, until he sees the Patils.

He's behind them, able to see exactly where their eyes are directed. Jyoti and his girls are talking to some gora, but the Patils don't appear to want to engage either of them. Last night Jyoti had all but begged to for Rajiv to introduce her to them, and if it were not for that, Rajiv would never approach them. But for her, he moves up behind them.

There's an awkward moment as he follows them where Rajiv cannot decide what to call them...sahib and memsahib? Mister and Missus? After a moment's contemplation, Rajiv clears his throat.*

[pricklypatils.livejournal.com]

Rajiv.

Hello.

*It comes out stiff and clipped and formal; and after he speaks the two of them turn they stand there just as stiffly, wearing identical expressions of careful, miserable neutrality. It is a long and grudging moment.*

It's been a long time.

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*Nothing feels appropriate for this high gentry occasion. Especially given Baldev's words - it's been six years precisely. Almost down to the date, now Rajiv thinks on it.*

It has.

*Out of formality and not interest, he asks his next question.*

I trust you are well?

[pricklypatils.livejournal.com]

*Aarshati makes a noncommittal noise of assent.*

And you and--yours.

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*Much as Rajiv would love to say he and his have been spectacular without them, it would not suit his purpose of introducing Jyoti to them.*

We've been well. I've become full librarian and my wife Jyoti is head of the Oriental Division in the Bodleian.

And we've been blessed with two girls - Padma and Parvati.

[pricklypatils.livejournal.com]

How. . . nice.

And that's them over there, I see--

*But over Rajiv's shoulder she sees their daughter too, and her groom, and something odd passes over her face. For his part, Baldev is impassive, white-knuckled.*

Yes.

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*Of all the moments Rajiv has been dreading today, this is the worst. When Jyoti first asked, Rajiv had said no, full stop. But when she pressed him for a reason, other than her own protection, Rajiv could not admit to it. Quite simply, he has no idea how to actually ask these people to meet his dalit wife without being snide or defiant. Part of his attraction to Jyoti was initially that she was everything his parents would hate - a career girl, an older and unmarried woman, a harijan...Inevitably his love for her outgrew this, but there is still that edge in him that wants to childishly flaunt her as a totem of their worst prejudices.

He has carefully planned this statement and delivers it duly.*

My wife and children are eager to meet you.

[pricklypatils.livejournal.com]

*Baldev snaps, fear and anger fighting for control of his face.*

We're not getting within ten feet of that rakshasa again. Either of them. Bring her here if she's so eager to meet us.

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*Until the word "again" registers, Rajiv is certain Baldev is talking about his wife. He had started to shoulder toward him, but suddenly stops.*

Who?

[pricklypatils.livejournal.com]

The Ingraj, they're two of a kind, did he pull a knife on you too-

*But his wife talks over him quickly, catching hold of his arm.*

--it was nothing, don't be ridiculous--

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*But Rajiv isn't listening to her.*

He pulled a knife on you?

[pricklypatils.livejournal.com]

They're well suited.

*He spits it, but it seems that's all it seems he's willing to say, at least here with so many milling around and who knew how many from the Prophet lurking, ready to describe in glowing terms the ladies' robes and pointedly avoid commenting on the haste of the thing. And they'll have no scandal from his quarter. He'd promised Aarshati that much, and to at least try to behave. But his stony silence is eloquent enough.*

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*Rajiv could care less about who is who and what they represent, because as he turns to find Jyoti, he sees one daughter in the arms of a werewolf and one in the arms of a raging knife-wielder.

Without any words he starts pushing through the crowd to get to them.*

[camphorflame.livejournal.com]

*Jyoti can see Rajiv muscling through the crowd, his face no longer a stony mask. Making a very fast excuse, she moves to meet him before he reaches their circle.*

Rajiv?

*He starts to push past her, but she grabs him by his kurta.*

Rajiv! She is your sister, she should -

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*At first he could barely register her talking to him, but the strain of his neck as he tried to move away makes him face her.*

He's a goonda. He pulled a knife on my parents. I won't have him -

*He looks over at Rosier to see him holding his daughter and he can't finish his sentence. He has to get to Padma.*