A second ago she was at work in the temple of Erastil in Sothis, which was actually going pretty okay, all things considered. Now she's in a grassy field with a couple fruit trees and a table and chairs and some notebooks and pens.
This is unexpected and requires a ton of power and is therefore sort of inherently terrifying. And she's alone, and defenseless, and she doesn't know where Verita is.
She mills around in steadily increasing amounts of distress until Hagan appears, just as suddenly.
"Probably.
"I'm not entirely sure how one marries a fairy. And I'm also not sure he knows - exactly what marriage is."
"They can't safely leave them until the children are old enough to be trusted not to break the rules. A father knows his child's name, so they're entangled."
"I guess I can see how a society would end up with that instead of marriage."
Nod. "And they can't safely make promises that they might fail at, and their lives are much longer than human lives, and don't end at predictable times. So - thinking about it, I can see why marriage might seem strange and dangerous to them."
"He does want to stay with me for the rest of my life. I just - need to figure out how to formalize it sensibly."
"I was kind of wondering if anyone had ideas about it. Imrainai's idea about promising intent was good, I think, but I'm not sure whether there's anything else in particular that needs to be changed."
(She's suuuper not looking at Hagan.)
"Uh, well - how are marriage ceremonies, where you're from?"
"I don't think I've been to a proper one since I was a little girl. Pagans don't have proper weddings, you know, they can divorce their wives and take as many concubines as they can feed. But - the husband is supposed to promise to love, to honor, to keep, and to comfort his wife, and to remain faithful to her until one of them dies. And the wife is supposed to promise to love, to honor, to keep, to serve, and to obey her husband, and to remain faithful to him until one of them dies. I'm sure there are other parts, but I don't remember all of them. There are rings."
"Those seem like things that could maybe be expressed as intent rather than as promises."
"I'd expect so. I'm not sure whether he can intend to remain faithful the way humans are supposed to intend it, since - he might run into a fairy that demanded a certain kind of payment for something, at some point. And he knows that."
"He could promise he meant not to take any other lovers or wives?"
She considers.
"I think - people can learn to be content about a lot of things. And if I were marrying a human - a Christian, anyway - I think a lot of men would be upset about the fact that they weren't the first person to take me to their bed, or that I had children from before that I meant to keep and take care of. So I'm not in much of a position to demand perfection. And he's already said that he's not going to sleep with anyone who doesn't insist on it.
"It's not good, that the world is one where people sometimes don't have the choice to keep themselves entirely for their spouse. But it's not a betrayal, to not always be clever or quick or strong enough to avoid it. Certainly a hardship. But if we meant to love only when there was no hardship in it, then none of us should marry at all."
"I wonder whether that's all there really is to it. I think I'm worried I'm missing something else that's very obvious to me and not at all obvious to him."
"Is he going to expect that he can take you to bed once he's married you? Are you all right with that?"
"Well, it's not super clear fairies know things about how marriage works. It's how marriage where I'm from works."
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