"Well, son, if you want advice, mine would be not to worry about any other women at your wedding. None at all. Not even if Iomedae is bleeding out in front of you."

"Well, it's actually impossible to worry about anything with Iomedae right in front of you, so I think I can manage that."

"I would like that envelope I gave you and its copies returned within a month. And there's no further related need to surveil me more than you usually do, which you can confirm with Arazni or Iomedae if you please."

"You've told me that you'd like the envelope and its copies returned within a month," he says.

"...While I'm here, do you have the latest out of Renchurch yet?

The sun does not set on the day of an imperial festival; an enormous white lion emerges from the horizon and holds the sun in its teeth for a day and a night. The river runs gold - not the color, the metal. You can step on it, though it turns back to water if you try to chisel it out and take some home. Throughout the city the golden statues of the saints and heroes of legend come to life and sing the praises of the Emperor, and the fish beach themselves upon the docks, that all may eat without labor.

For an imperial wedding there’d be more than that, of course. This is not an imperial wedding but it is the next best thing, as Basil Tzimisces, the firstborn son of Loukas Tzimisces, Domestic of the Schools (which is to say, the commander of the imperial mages), marries the Zoste Marcellina Comnena, daughter of the General Logothete, lady in waiting to Her Imperial Highness Antonina Angela. Neither family found themselves inclined to spare any expense. 

“Among their outlays to mark this occasion,” says Basil, before they all head over, “is an astonishingly generous gift to the Crusade of men and magic items, which my father makes without conditions out of his noble spirit and determination to leave his children a more civilized world, but which I find myself tempted to declare is conditional on no one complaining about the solid gold chariot drawn by pegasi.”

“I hadn’t even considered it.” 

“I had considered it at great length,” says Iomedae, “but only because it would be a mistake, to aspire to a world without Oppara’s festivals, and a kind of mistake I find interesting - not if your father is giving us money, then it’d be a much more straightforward mistake of ingratitude and requires much less contemplation.”

“Should’ve told your father that the Knight Commander accepts pay in moral dilemmas, which she loves as much as gold.”

“Loves as much, but serves the Empire less effectively with,” says Iomedae with slight urgency. 

“If I ever take any advice from anyone present about what to tell my father, know that I’ve been killed and replaced by an impersonator.”

“I think you’d rate a higher quality impersonator.”

“I suppose, for the sake of the crusade, I won't complain if the Pegasi don’t,” says Alfirin, somewhat absentmindedly.

“I will remember with gratitude the sacrifices you and the pegasi make,” says Basil. 

And then they all snap to attention, because Arazni arrives, wings spectacularly shimmering, dressed for the occasion though she has not expressed any intent to attend it. “At ease,” she says, warmly. “I just wanted to give Basil something before you all head out.” It’s a necklace, with an enchantment about it complex enough no one immediately clocks the spell.

Basil dips his head gracefully.

“It may also be, depending on the actions of our enemies, that Aroden’s herald will attend the festivities with a great many appropriate gifts for the bride and the groom and the dozen other people who it’d be most convenient to have receive them,” she says, with a wry smile that somehow still glitters, “but whether or not that happens I wanted to get you something.”

Basil has never missed a beat in his life but that takes him two.

 “Holy Goddess. Weddings are always an occasion to reflect on whether our greater debts are those to our ancestors or to our descendants. But rarely does a man have the honor of serving the legendary heroes who will for ever define civilization in the minds of both his fathers and his sons. Know that whatever humble gratitude a man may know, is mine, for what you have given Taldor; and if you insist on showing me a generosity beyond that I hope you do so knowing that my admiration for you can no more grow than can Elysium.”

Elysium can grow, though it is infinite. She does not explain this; to share the mysteries of the universe costs more than crafting a bit of spellwork tuned to his sorcery. “Be good to your lady, and stay out of trouble.”

“When I find myself yearning for it I will come back here for my orders.”

In the eighth hour of the celebration the guests retreat into the sky; the ground rises gradually enough to alert them to end their conversations and go get aboard, and there are uniformed ushers assisting drunken guests onto the floating dance floor once it’s a few feet up and takes  jump. Iomedae misses its departure, locked in conversation with some Oppara priest, and so sprouts wings to join them when it’s higher up in the sky. 

There’s music and dancing among the decorative clouds brought in to give the guests some evening shade from the mid-day sun. A colorful mass of dignitaries and their wives and sons and daughters, stepping and twirling in practiced synchrony, sprinkled through with less exalted persons making up for their lack of practice with magically enhanced footwork.

Alfirin somehow did not find the prospect of dancing with a series of unremarkable Taldane counts and generals and vestarchs enticing enough to enhance her dancing skills for the occasion. Instead, she hovers outside the edge of the crowd with a barely-touched goblet of wine, trying to reinvent Marit’s trick for being forgettable.

She must not be succeeding because Iomedae - who has been dancing - wanders her way, after a while. Casts a second Telepathic bond (they already have one up, but four other people are on it). 

 How are you?