Wedding of Lady Fallawen and Sir Ryff

The wedding of Lady Fallawen — daughter of Lord Aeratas of Anthatiel in her humani-shaped Tera Alon form — to Sir Ryff of Hosendor was the first Alka Alon-to-humani marriage of the modern era. The match was sworn after Ryff, then a young knight in Sevendori service, distinguished himself at the Battle of Red Ice by saving Lord Aeratas's life. Aeratas pledged his daughter's hand in gratitude. Fallawen, who had been doing field-work with the Magical Corps and had her own romantic entanglements, did not consider the match a closed question.

Two years later it was still pending. Minalan, who needed the wedding for political reasons, finally forced the issue.

Why the wedding mattered politically

The match was not just about Ryff and Fallawen. Aeratas had been quietly recruiting Alka Alon volunteers across the surviving refuges to undergo the transgenic enchantment that turned an Alka Alon body into a six-foot human-like Tera Alon warrior. The Tera Alon enclave at the new Sevendor refuge of Hosendor was already filling with hundreds of converts, with hundreds more expected.

The Tera Alon program was politically fragile. Conservative Alka Alon (Lord Letharan especially) regarded the transgenic enchantment as perversion; even sympathetic kindreds were uneasy about Alka Alon adopting humani forms. A high-profile, carefully-arranged Alka Alon-humani marriage — performed by the symbol of Aeratas's own house with the symbol of Sevendor's rising chivalry, in front of every kindred at once — was the strongest possible signal that Tera Alon were respected by both communities. Minalan needed the marriage to consummate that political signal.

Sir Ryff, for his part, had grown progressively more anxious as Fallawen continued to defer. The marriage was already publicly pledged; the longer Fallawen took, the more humiliating it became for him personally and the more political damage it did to Minalan's recruitment effort.

The conversation in the council chamber

Minalan, Lilastien, and Lord Aeratas confronted Fallawen at Arth Noafa, the Tower of Refuge. Aeratas was diplomatic; Minalan was political; Lilastien was unsparing. Lilastien identified the issue plainly:

My point is that this is nothing more but a failure of your own ego. You advocate an alliance with the humani, and openly admire their race. Your fascination with them is well-known, even to me in my prison. You volunteered to be among the first to undertake the transgenic enchantment to give you your Tera Alon form. You've adopted humani fashions and behaviors with stylish abandon. But now you have to face your fascination. You have come face to face with the reflection of yourself not as an Alkan maiden, but as a Tera Alon about to cross the frontier of interspecies relations in the most intimate of all possible ways. You have to . . . to evolve.

— Lilastien, to Fallawen

Fallawen capitulated. The wedding was set for Briga's Day at Sevendor, with Prince Tavard and Princess Armandra in attendance.

The Maiden's Vigil

Fallawen's one condition was the Maiden's Vigil: the traditional Kasari (and pre-Conquest humani) custom of a bride spending the seven days before the wedding in seclusion in a far place, attended only by her closest female friends. Minalan agreed; the seclusion was conducted in an Alka Alon refuge inaccessible to Tavard's spies, which had political utility of its own. The Vigil also let Fallawen confront the marriage on her own terms.

The ceremony

The wedding was held in the inner bailey of Sevendor Castle on Briga's Day. The Sevendori had constructed a temporary chapel of mage-wrought wood on a base of snowstone twenty feet wide, open to the sky — both because Sevendor lacked a proper temple and because an open-air ceremony allowed both Alka Alon and humani to observe. The priestess of Trygg presided; Father Amus of Huin attended in support; the senior magelords of the Arcane Orders ringed the chapel.

The wedding party itself broke every Briga's Day record on Sevendor for spectacle:

• Hundreds of Tera Alon (Aeratas's recruits) attended in their humani forms, half in Alka-cut robes and half in human-style armour and finery.
• The Karshak stonemasons attended as builders of the chapel.
• Prince Tavard and Princess Armandra attended on the political ticket; Armandra brought her infant son.
• Almost the entirety of the Sevendori court — Sir Cei, Tyndal, Pentandra, Sandy, the senior Arcane Orders staff — were present.

The arrival of the gods

The ceremony was already running unusually long, with elaborate Alka Alon hymns interleaved with humani temple-rites, when the wedding was joined by an entirely unexpected delegation. Brother Hotfoot — Briga's priest-emissary — led the Seven Gods physically into the canopy.

The crowd was at first confused. Then Princess Armandra recognised Trygg the All-Mother, who came directly to her where she sat with her infant son in his nurse's arms.

Trygg blessed the child personally, in front of the entire wedding, against childhood illness until he came of age. The blessing was witnessed by every Tera Alon in attendance, every magelord, every Karshak stonemason, the Castali royal family, and the household clergy of three temples. It was, by some margin, the most public divine intervention in living memory.

Daughter, I cannot assure that he will be king -- ask Luin, if you ever chance to meet my son. My sphere can only tell you that unless fate intervenes he will be well and whole, and that he has my blessing and protection against illness until he becomes a man. There is no higher aspiration for a mother to hold.

— Trygg, to Princess Armandra at the wedding

Armandra was transformed by the visitation. Her devotion to Trygg, already strong, became the central feature of her court life thereafter.

The other divine business

The Seven were not there only for Armandra. They had political business with Sevendor, with the Tera Alon project, and with Minalan personally. The Snowstone Event had been Briga's first direct intervention; Fallawen's wedding was apparently the occasion for the rest of the pantheon to formally recognise the new political arrangement. The day became known popularly as The Day Seven Gods Came to Sevendor.

Tavard, who would later style himself the most pious prince of his generation, ordered the construction of a chapel, shrine, or temple in commemoration. The promise was honoured at Sevendor's expense.

The marriage itself

Sir Ryff and Lady Fallawen completed the rites under Trygg's benediction. By all accounts the marriage was warm. Fallawen settled at Hosendor, which had been built specifically for her as part of the marriage contract. The estate became the central recruiting and training ground for Aeratas's Tera Alon, with Fallawen as their de facto chatelaine. Ryff had a Tera Alon wife, an Alka Alon father-in-law, a Sevendor estate, and the political backing of Lord Aeratas's entire kindred.

Downstream

The wedding produced three durable consequences:

• The Tera Alon programme expanded dramatically. By the Olum Seheri operation a year later, Aeratas was fielding hundreds of trained Tera Alon warriors at the gate.
• The Castali crown's relationship with Sevendor was politically warmed by the divine visitation; Tavard's public commitment to fund a Sevendor temple gave the Spellmonger formal Castali legitimacy.
• Fallawen became the first generation of Tera Alon politically integrated into humani noble society — a precedent that would shape the Tera Alon culture's eventual divergence from the parent Alka Alon (the cultural fork that became permanent at the Vanador Snowstone Event years later).