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fandomweekly2023-11-03 03:06 pm
badly_knitted) wrote in fandomweekly2023-11-03 03:06 pm
Entry tags:
[#199] A Happy Occasion (Torchwood)
Theme Prompt: #199 – Altar
Title: A Happy Occasion
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Watching another of their children wed is a happy but emotional occasion for Jack and Ianto.
A/N: Set in the Nosy-Verse.
“This brings back memories,” Jack whispered, and Ianto smiled because his husband was right. Memories were flooding back, of their first wedding so long ago back in Cardiff, of their countless other weddings since then, on every planet where they’d settled long enough to raise a family, and most of all, of their firstborn daughter’s wedding.
Her name had been Meriel, and she’d been beautiful with her dark hair and button nose so like her tad’s, and her bright blue eyes, dimpled chin, and perfect teeth that were the image of her dad. Jack had joked at the time that she’d got the best bits of both of them, and he hoped it wouldn’t mean their next kid would get all the worst bits. Thankfully the twins had turned out just as perfect, their angelic looks belying the demonic natures of their early years.
Meriel had married a young Irishman named Sean Merriman and had insisted on both her dads walking her down the aisle. Not to give her away, which she didn’t agree with since she wasn’t property to be handed over to another man, but to make sure she didn’t trip over her dress. Jack and Ianto had both known it was really because she’d wanted to give them something important to do, otherwise, sentimental fools that they were, they both would have been sitting in the front row sobbing into their hankies.
It had been a beautiful day, the wedding held in the Bute Park Arboretum, a small altar set up beneath one of the finest oak trees in the city. Ianto could picture it as if it had happened only yesterday instead of over ten thousand years ago, but that was probably because he and Jack had watched the wedding video again the previous night. They wanted today’s wedding to go just as perfectly as that long-ago one had, because their daughter deserved nothing less, and perhaps just a little as a tribute to the woman she’d been named after.
Today, Katie Meriel Harkness-Jones would be marrying Willandareska Dar-Molondreth, of Skiiar, the principal city of South Continent, on the planet Daresque. Wileska, as she was known for short, was a willowy, blue-skinned woman with the signature lavender eyes and straight blue-black hair of her race. She was warm, caring, a brilliant physicist, with a dry sense of humour, and a penchant for playing practical jokes on her friends and family, of which she had an abundance. Jack and Ianto were looking forward to joining their two families.
By the traditions here on Daresque, the wedding was being held at Wileska’s family shrine, which was dedicated to the planet’s nature goddess. It was a grassy area surrounded by flowering trees and bushes, with a freshwater spring at one end from which flowed a small steam. The altar, if it could be described as such, was an intricately carved wooden bridge that spanned the stream a short distance from the spring.
The parents of both brides, or arynii as they were called in the Daresquan language, stood at the ends of the bridge, facing downstream, while the officiator stood in the centre, and the guests knelt around the edges of the clearing. The arynii, approaching from opposite sides of the clearing, each with a single attendant, usually a close friend or a sibling, came to stand to either side of the stream, facing the officiator, and clasped hands over the water.
There had been a rehearsal a few days earlier, so everyone knew their places and there would be no confusion or disorder marring proceedings, but now the ceremony was about to begin for real.
Jack squeezed Ianto’s hand so tightly Ianto was sure he felt the bones grinding together, but before he could say anything to his husband the music began, soft stumming on stringed instruments backed by a rhythmic, throbbing sound. As one, the guests raised their voices in a soaring, wordless melody that seemed to capture all their hopes for the happy couple’s future together. Ianto silently thanked any and all deities that he and Jack weren’t required to join in. There was no way either of them could have hit the high notes; they would have ruined the whole thing.
From their respective sides of the clearing, the brides appeared, dressed in long, deep purple gowns. They bowed to the guests and to each other before stepping forward, Wileska attended by her younger sister, Ariasquenon, and Katie with Nosy by her side. The Fluff was very old now, and its luxuriant fur had faded to pale green, with a scattering of white hairs, but its bright green eyes remained clear, and it slithered with pride, happy to share in this momentous day.
As they reached the altar, the two arynii sank to their knees and bowed low in respect for both the goddess and the officiator before rising to their feet again and clasping hands as the guests fell silent, their song ended.
Beside Ianto, Jack was mopping away tears, and Ianto knew there was a suspicious shine in his own eyes. Their daughter and her love both looked so beautiful and so happy. He spared a surreptitious glance at Wileska’s parents and thought they looked rather emotional too. Who could blame any of them?
The ceremony itself was brief, the officiator pledging the happy couple to each other, and both Katie and Wileska vowing to respect and love their partner for as long as their union lasted.
Then, kicking off their sandals, the two women stepped into the stream and followed it out of the clearing while the guests sang another wordless song.
Jack dried his eyes again as slowly the guests, still singing, filed out of the shrine following the newlyweds, but keeping to the grass. Finally, the attendants and the two sets of parents joined the end of the line, making their way to the Dar-Molondreth family home.
Nosy hummed enquiringly.
“Yes, we’re happy,” Ianto assured it. “These are happy tears.”
The End
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