A New Road Begins

by GentlemanJ

Chapter 5

A reasonable period that was far too long later:

Graves reached a finger into his collar once more and gave it yet another irritable yank.

“I really hate these things,” he muttered. “I really, really hate them.”

“You know, you could’ve gone with your officer’s coat,” Shining Armor smiled, trying his best to not enjoy the marshal’s suffering and failing miserably. Graves just scoffed.

“You kidding? Those things are white, and you know what Rarity would’ve done if I wore white today.”

“Yeah, I still don’t get that,” Spike shrugged before pausing to straighten up his jacket. “Why’s it so important that you don’t wear white?”

“Don’t even ask,” Graves sighed, hand dropping as he gave up on the collar as well. “Trying to understand women is just a headache waiting to happen.”

“And people say I don’t make sense,” Discord mumbled as he did a fair job of looking just as, if not more uncomfortable than the marshal. “She picks out what you wear today like the fate of the world depends on it, yet she lets you keep that garish thing on your face?”

“Let me?” Graves snorted. “D, she made me.”

Needless to say, Discord was not the only one surprised to hear that Rarity liked blemishes, especially when looking at the one in question. Though the eye had healed just fine, Graves still retained a rather distinctive scar from his days in the Savage Lands, one that ran from just above his brow across his right gunmetal grey and halfway down his cheek. ‘The perfect wicked embellishment to bring out your handsome features,’ she’d said with absolutely fondness, ‘and a good reminder of what I’ll do to you if you ever leave me like that again.’

“So, are all relationships this, um… terrifying?” Spike asked as he looked up at the marshal once more with a shiver of recollection.

“Only the good ones,” Shining Armor laughed, to which Big Macintosh added a good and hearty,

“Ee-yup.”

Just then, whatever manly bantering the men had in mind was cut off as Octavia and Vinyl Scratch began playing. Straightening up his tuxedo, Graves attempted to ignore the aggravating sensation of being strangled by Breezies as he cast his eyes out over the town hall, now packed to the rafters and beyond. Idly, he nodded to General Ironside where he sat beside Princess Celestia, then to the bickering, fidgeting Ghost Legacy squad that sat behind them, then Cadance, Red, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, Granny Smith, Hemmingmane, Cheese Sandwich, Chrysalis, Avis, Gilda, and countless other faces he'd come to know so well. But surveying the crowd was merely to distract himself from his nerves. Never in all his days, not even when going toe to toe with the End itself, had Graves ever felt such a potent mix of fear and heart-pounding excitement as he did at that precise moment.

Then far doors opened, the procession began, and the sensation multiplied twofold.

Rainbow Dash led the way, striding forth for all the world like she was about to launch into one of her now famous aerial shows. Applejack followed behind at a much more reasonable, if still very enthusiastic walk, one that a usually demure Fluttershy almost matched pep for pep. Pinkie Pie was, as usual, Pinkie Pie, but today, she managed to contain her energy just enough to match the stately procession of her friends. Then Twilight Sparkle, with regality fit for a princess and twinkling eyes fit for a child on Hearth’s warming day, rounded out the rear.

Music continued to stream forth, melodious and sweet as Sweetie Belle followed soon after. Flown back just days before from her vocal training in Farma, the once goofy little girl now strode down the aisle as a graceful young woman. Yet no amount of grace could contain the positively bubbling energy that threatened to burst forth with every approaching step.

As she finally took her place on stage with a giggling, excited wave to Graves on the other end - one which he returned with a much smaller, if still very warm smile - in darted Afterburner. Nearly dropping the pillow he held in hand during his dynamic entry, he skidded to a halt and rapidly darting back to help his little sister along. Though she wobbled a bit on still unsteady legs, Prism Lights dutifully scattered as many petals from her basket as her tiny hands could manage. With a cheerful wink from their father on stage and a silent cheer from their mother in the stands, the pair ascended the stairs and took their place, just like they'd practiced the night before.

All the while, through the music and the procession, Graves steadily felt his heart beating faster and harder with every passing moment till it seemed fit to explode right inside his chest. Then the door opened once more and all of that stopped as gunmetal grey eyes went very wide indeed.

The crowd rose. In walked the only man who had ever truly terrified the marshal, yet it wasn’t to him that the marshal looked. Instead, that honor went to the one who came in on his arm, the most beautiful woman that Graves ever had and ever would see.

Rarity.

He tried to think of some way to describe her. He really did. But no matter how he tried, whenever he looked at her, from the crown of violet curls atop her head to her elegant dress of pristine, shimmering white, he could think of nothing that really fit. He looked to her sparkling sapphire eyes and saw her as wonderful. He saw her serenely floating stride and found her beautiful. He took her in whole and remembered everything they had been through, all the good times they’d shared and the bad as well. He remembered her laughter, her tears, her fits, and her triumphs. He remembered every single thing she’d done with him and for him to bring them both to this day, and knew her as amazing.

The only way he could describe Rarity was perfect. Absolutely, completely, and unequivocally perfect.

But when she looked up to him and smiled, even that wasn’t enough.

Step by beautiful step, Rarity walked on stage, leaving the arm of her father so she could join her beloved marshal. Graves stepped forward too, wooden-footed and looking like a fool, but he didn’t even notice. He couldn’t possibly care.

“Friends, family, dearly beloved,” Princess Luna announced to the crowds with a radiant smile. "We are gathered here today to join this man and this woman together in holy matrimony.

“Marriage is a solemn commitment, a sacred promise to be honored by all. It is the cornerstone upon which our homes our built, the foundation upon which family is formed and our very lives spring forth. It is a vow of devotion to be shared by two who love and cherish one another above all else. It is a bond that binds two together and joins them into one.”

As she looked from crowds to Rarity and Graves, her smile somehow became even warmer.

“I can think of no two who know this better than you. And so, I ask you. Graves. Do you take Rarity to be your wedded wife? Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health, remaining faithful to her as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” Graves said. And as he spoke the words he’d never been surer of, the silver-eyed marshal took up a ring, a thin band with patterns of silver and gold that swirled about as freely as the clouds in the sky, one of a now matching pair, and slipped it onto his beloved’s finger.

“Rarity. Do you take Graves to be your wedded husband? Do you promise to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him in sickness and in health, remaining faithful to him as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” she smiled as she took up her ring’s matching partner and slipped it onto her dear marshal’s finger. And then, adding on in tones so soft that only he could hear, she said, “Till death do us part and beyond. Now and forever more.”

“Then by the power vested in me,” Princess Luna beamed, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

The two drew closer, so close that Graves could feel the heat of her breath tickling his chin, and then...

Just a moment. A brief moment of warmth, a faint touch of wetness as they met.

But that moment?

Even beyond bliss.

The world erupted. The crowd roared as music thundered and cannons exploded forth with bursts of shimmering, sparkling light. The girls laughed and cried and hugged and cried, then laughed and hugged and cried some more. Even biggest and toughest, from burly Big Mac to the ever stalwart Ironside found themselves averting eyes as manly tears were shed.

Yet even with all this noise and commotion, for two people, it all went completely unnoticed. United as they were, from sparkling sapphire to shining silver, in that moment, nobody existed but the two of them.

“Well then, this is it,” Rarity beamed, flushed and breathless and utterly, breathtakingly beautiful. “This is really the end.”

“End? Of what?”

“Why, of your journey of course,” she laughed. “After running about and fighting and struggling for so very, very long, you’re finally done. You are officially settling down and starting a new life with a newly wedded wife, one who I don’t mind saying, simply couldn’t be happier.”

“I see,” he said, this time with scarred eyebrow arched in question and amusement. “And you call that an ending?”

“But of course,” Rarity laughed once me. “Why, what would you say it was, my new, darling husband?”

And then, grinning one of those sort of goofy, cocky and cock-sure, full-of-confidence smirks men his age seemed to specialize in, with silver eyes sparkling with more love, joy, and happiness than he had ever felt in his life, Graves said,

“Me? I’d say we're just getting started.”