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.*

Comments

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

You know nothing-

[dapperdeath.livejournal.com]

*Evan appears almost exactly fifteen seconds after that expression of disbelief and horror crosses his new wife's face. He's been watching, and that distress is the only signal he needs to swoop in and scoop her up, out of her brother's clutches. But he's close enough to hear Rajiv's last and when he arrives, instead of the cool smirk he has delivered to the entire Patil family, he's stonefaced and angry. He puts a single comforting hand on his wife's back but the rest of his body is pointed at Rajiv like a knife.*

If you disapproved of our marriage so much, you should have said so before it took place.

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*The brawny stereotype of Gryffindors suddenly wells up inside Rajiv; he could actually punch Rosier.*

I did not know you were in the habit of attacking your elders before it took place.

[dapperdeath.livejournal.com]

*Evan doesn't want to make a scene, but he does want his fury to be heard clearly. He takes a step closer and speaks low, blocking Amrita out of range of both his voice and Rajiv's gaze with his body.*

Do you even know what they said of her, or do you just assume me some kind of monster because it's simpler than admitting that I can protect her better than you ever could? Did she even tell you about the arrest, and what came after?

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*Rajiv's jaw drops. His mind, which had been focussing on how using a knife does not change that they have always been terrible people, reels.*

Arrest? Chhodti, who arrested you?

[dapperdeath.livejournal.com]

*Evan grabs Rajiv's shoulder to focus his attention down on himself rather than his sister. Amrita may be functional now, but Evan lives in fear of that paralyzed muteness returning, and he's not willing to take chances, not today, not for this pathetic excuse for a brother.*

You know what they can do to her. What they did. Who do you think got her out, took care of her, wiped the records clean so we can live freely? It certainly wasn't you.

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*Rajiv smacks Rosier's hand away.*

Who did it, Chhodti?

*Obviously it's the Ministry, but who? He knows he doesn't hold much sway, and for all he knows, she did something that warranted it, but that doesn't mean he won't fight back anyway he can. No notifying the family...is that even legal?*

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*And now they are arguing and it is a scene practically, if a small and hushed one, and they're putting their hands on one another and Evan is bringing up things and more than anything Amrita wishes they would just stop--but the pet name twice-repeated jerks her out of her paralysis like cold water.

She stares at Rajiv and on the concern written on his face, but the gulf between them has only widened, and it's visible in her expression: a great and whistling emptiness. Her words are polite, but there's a terrible finality to them. Her hand tightens around Evan's arm, a warning.*

Thank you for coming.

[dapperdeath.livejournal.com]

*And Evan's attention is on Amrita at once, focused, responsive, turning them both to lead her away.*

Please enjoy the rest of the wedding.

*His tone makes it clear that he means the rest--leaving the two of them out of it. And just like that they are gone, Evan whisking her neatly off into the crowd.*

[bhaiji.livejournal.com]

*Rajiv stares as the bastard leads his sister away. The anger feels like it's compacting inside him, but still somehow growing out of control. Clutching his chest, all Rajiv can think of is his sister shutting down. Shutting down like she did the night he left home.

There is no rationality in this moment for him, as he blames all of it on Evan fucking Rosier. None of this stupid, horrible business would have happened if it wasn't for him. Maybe one day he will look back and see his own part in it, but for now, there is only Rosier.

He looks around the party, wanting to discuss this further with his parents. But instead he finds Jyoti, who is wearing a face he only sees when someone has called her a paki.

That is it.*