Ok, so there was about five months between that day and our wedding. Lots and lots happened, and I don’t remember some of it. I mean, nitty gritty details aren’t my thing. I remember the fun stuff, and some of the other stuff. I remember the telling Celestia and Ben, though. I remember that because it was interesting.
So apparently I totally missed Tia and Ben starting to like each other, because when we told them it never occurred to me that we didn’t go to the Crossroads to tell Ben. They were eating lunch together when we came into the castle the day after I proposed. I was still walking like a normal person, but Luna bounced from one side of the room and back again before ever saying a real word to her sister.
“Wheeeeeee!!!!” was about the closest she got. “Tia, Tia, Tia!! Guess what happened, guess what happened, guess what happened!!”
Tia raised an eyebrow and answered in a snaky voice. “You were clubbed over the head by an evil witch and then cursed to bounce around rooms and repeat everything three times?”
While Celestia giggled and Ben quietly laughed, Luna treated us to her impression of a hyena on laughing gas. “Hehehehehehehehehehe no! Adam proposed!”
Celestia fell out of her chair at that point, and apparently choked on her own tongue. Once she stopped coughing, she went back to laughing. “What did you say?!”
Luna laughed a little more too before answering. “I said he proposed!”
Celestia took a hand up from Ben. Still laughing. “No, what was your answer?!”
“I said yes!!”
This is one of those parts that I tuned out. It was all shouting and squealing and giggling and stuff anyways. By the others. Not me. Very, very long story short, Luna and Celestia instantly began planning things for the wedding while Ben and I let them have their fun. We sat next to each other across the table from the giggling, excited, stereotypical girls.
“Ooh! And we should play that song that he played in the clearing! Should that be our first married dance?” Luna turned to me.
I mulled it over for all of three seconds. “I’m thinking no. One, I don’t know what it’s called, and two just shmeeeh,”
“Shmeeeh?”
“Shmeeeh.”
Ben looked at us like we were idiots. “What the hell is shmeeeh?”
I shrugged. “It’s just shmeeeh. I don’t think that that’s the song I want to slow dance for the first time to with my latest wife.”
“Latest?”
I flashed a goofy grin at her. “Just making sure you were listening. But seriously, I’m not feeling that song. What about ‘Stand By Me‘?”
“No,” she shook her head. “Too cliché.”
“Oh Canada?”
“Too situational.”
“Cheeseburger in Paradise?”
She smiled sideways at me. “It’s in the running. We’ll figure it out later. I think you really need a suit. You don’t have any perfect wedding suits to go over your wings.”
“In which body?” I thought that it was a relatively harmless and simple question. I was wrong though.
“What do you mean which body? I think you should be a human. You like being a human. I like you being a human.” I was surprised by how strongly she felt.
“Honey, there’s got to be two weddings. Or at least two ceremonies. You know, marriage license in both worlds? And my parents don’t want to come here, no offense. They still aren’t cool with the whole ‘I’m dating a pony’ thing. Especially since they haven’t met you yet.”
That’s the wrong thing to say, just so you know. Never tell your fiancé that you haven’t told your parents your getting married. Even if it’s by accidentally using the word ’dating’. Especially if she’s from another dimension. And don’t tell her that they really aren’t all that ok with who she is on the outside, partially because that makes you sound like pettiness runs in your family. “What do you mean, we need to have two ceremonies?! That takes all the mystery and meaning out of it! I only want to walk down the aisle to you once!”
There were more words, but they all sounded like those sentences. Fifteen to twenty minutes later, she stopped. A minute and a half after that, I stopped nodding and saying “Yes dear”. Once I noticed, I actually started to respond. “Oh, sorry. Now, again, I get that it’s really just this special once, but it’s part of it. We’ll have similar ceremonies in both worlds, that way the planning is a little easier. The same people can participate, just twice, and in different worlds. And on that thought, and hoping to distract you for a bit, Ben! Ben, Ben, Ben. My ace in the hole. Would you be my best man?”
He drew back in shock before laughing. “Man, all right!” He held his hand up and we high undead-bony-hand fived. “I really didn’t know you’d ask! I’ve never been to a wedding!”
While we celebrated, Luna hadn’t forgotten her topic. “Honey, that’s great, but we need to talk about this. I don’t want two weddings. I think we should decide where we’re going to live most of the time and have the wedding there.”
I nodded. “Ok, fair enough, but that still poses a problem. Do we live here or on Earth? If we live on Earth, there’s the issue of the night sky here, and pretty much all your other duties. In Equestria, all I have besides you is a gravestone. I know we can travel between worlds, but where we sleep really seems to define a lot, whether we admit it or not.”
Luna talked while a servant brought in champagne that Celestia had ordered while I was high fiving Ben. “Dear, I always kind of thought that if we got married we’d live on Earth. And it kind of sounds like you want to live there too.”
Once we all had drinks, it was my turn to talk. ‘Yeah, but you have so much here. At home, my home, I have weird parents and you have… me. Here, you have Tia, prestige, friends, etcetera, etcetera. I have friends, you, a totally kickass part time job, and a single, grave shaped etcetera.”
“Yes dear, but you also have school to finish. And your ‘totally kickass part time job’ was a one time fluke that probably won’t ever happen again.”
“Yeah, but here I can’t use any schooling that I’d get on earth, except maybe a vet’s degree.”
“But you like being an aspiring nurse. And you got killed here.”
“Yep, hence my etcetera.”
“Dear, this boils down to one thing.”
I didn’t know what it was, but I should have. Instead I guessed, “Who wins our next Pokemon battle?”
She pointed a very serious hoof at me. “One, I will. I don’t care that you used the Action Replay to teach Swampert flamethrower. I. Will. Win. And two, the woman chooses where about the couple lives. Earth. In somewhere besides your itty bitty apartment with the strange man in the next room.”
I hung my head in defeat. This was the first step in my learning that she wins nine and a half times out of ten. “All right.” I smiled and raised my head and my glass for her. “Honey, you choose the world we live and get married. I’ll help after that.”
She nodded and raised her glass too, smiling. “Earth, both times.”
All of us raised our glasses and drank, and the rest of the day was left to celebration and joy, leaving the unanswered and unplanned alone.
…
We slept at the castle that night, so the next morning we were still in the castle. There was a different air about the place though. Cheesy as it is, the air was sweeter and the sky was bluer. Turns out Celestia had the pegasi make the sky extra clear and some servants push a bit of perfume or something under the door. So it wasn’t just me. However, the rest of the day was all about planning the upcoming wedding.
“Dear, when are you going to go to Rarity’s and get a new suit?”
“Some other day, maybe?”
“Try again.”
“Today?”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Good boy.”
“Don’t push it.” Ok, so a lot of the planning was up to Luna that day. And I went to get a new suit. What I didn’t know was that Rarity didn’t know. Apparently neither Luna or Celestia had told anyone but the servants, so when I walked into Carousel Boutique asking for a wedding suit, I was very nearly attacked.
“What?! You and Princess Luna are what?!?” Before I knew it I was backed against a wall, trying desperately to fight off a barrage of questions. “When is the wedding?!”
“I-”
“Where is it going to be?!”
“I-”
“Who’s going to be there?!”
“Rarity, I don’t know!” I finally broke through. “I only proposed two days ago! We’re just figuring it out! I just need to get a suit, and maybe keep it here so that I don’t accidentally loose or damage it.”
“Of course, and of course you will receive it at no cost! First because this is a wonderful, royal occasion, and second because you are one of my dear friends!” Another short whirlwind later, I found myself standing on her ‘measuring platform’, or whatever she calls it. She was whipping her tape measurer everywhere, telling me to stand still, and continuing to ask questions, though at a much less fevered rate.
“Ok darling, tell me, what did you do to propose?”
Thinking about it, I realized that my wording wasn’t very romantic. “I took her to her favorite clearing on her favorite hiking trail, after her favorite dinner, got on one knee, and called her a cheese steak.”
Rarity stopped so fast that smoke rose from her hooves. “You called her a cheese steak? Why?”
I couldn’t help myself. “Because the cheese steak had meat, and later-”
“STOP!!” I am sure that the ensuing shriek caused any birds nearby to attack each other. “Forget the why. At least that part.”
I laughed a while, then answered for real. “I started by talking about things I loved. I cleared up a topic of note from earlier that night, and told her that even though I love cheese steak and burgers, I couldn’t eat both. And I couldn’t enjoy my singles life while being with her, so I offered her a ring I made for her. It was a wooden ring that was decorated with little leaves that I carved with Ben.”
She grimaced while she measured my arm. “You made an engagement ring with that dead man with the awfully tacky and dirty robe?”
I sighed. “Rarity, I don’t base anything on clothes. I would be ok with getting married wearing a Hawaiian shirt and that shark tooth necklace I like. Pants optional.”
“Darling, I really wish that you would drop the innuendo.”
“Gotcha. But no promises. But seriously, he’s also my best man. And she loved the proposal. And the dinner.”
She smiled a little bit and looked at me nicely. “Adam, darling, I’m sure she did. You’re a very sweet man. You will look amazing in this tux, I promise you. I’ve gotten very good at making human clothes.”
“Yes, you certainly have,” I admitted. “Especially with wing availability. You really are a master. And very intelligent. And very emotionally aware.”
“Darling, what’s wrong? Why are you scared?”
I scoffed. “Pssht. Scared. Whatever. I don’t scare anymore. I got killed and came back for her. I don’t scare anymore. I was afraid of heights. I grew wings. I was afraid of death and those I love dying. The right half of my chest got blown off and I was shown there was nothing to be afraid of. I’m not allowed to be scared anymore. Especially if I’m getting married.”
“Adam, stop lying. Tell me the truth.”
I sighed and stepped off the platform. “I’m bucking terrified.”