"Yeah, I've already been away longer than ideal and I'm very useful in snow season, we're staying. If you cannot use it to get out of throwing a silly Opparan party what is even the point of Crusading to save the world, right."

"Oh hey, I didn't know you were back." 

"Hello! Technically I am currently a Visiting Diplomatic Guest and not per se Back. I have an appointment for a marriage contract consult though." This is the most self-satisfied nonWizard(tm). 

"Are you really. That sure does sound like a contract problems situation, wow. Con...grats and have fun being Rowan Enrichment?" Normally obviously this would be an insane thing to have be Rowan's job but they did finally convince her to stop trying to indulge her lawyering hobby in any way involving listening to Asmodeans say more than three words in a row so, like, as uses of archmage time go, it turns out it sure could be worse.

Snicker. "I shall!" 

It transpires that the winning move involves Avaryne and Marshall both technically resigning from the Crusade, getting married, and then Marshall re-signing in his capacity as head of household so that his contract covers both of them. This causes the chain of command to pass correctly through him without causing her to be technically answerable to anyone other than him, which suits her just fine. If she was some random person this could be a problem but Crusade wizards at 5th and up get a lot of autonomy anyway.

This does admittedly cause the contract to end up written in a way that lightly implies that Marshall himself will cast 5th circle spells if and only if you ask nicely. 

...This is acceptable. 

(this is hilarious.) 

(that too <3) 

Avaryne does a circuit of Patricks relatives and political allies and clears out a bunch of their 'it'd be way more expensive than the one spell slot is worth to hire an entire wizard to come out here but...' magic problems. Marshall's sister, tagging along on this trip for the networking opportunity and also to make fashion decisions for both of them because Avaryne is absolutely not qualified to do that, takes advantage of the resulting spirit of gratefulness to talk a number of them into diamond dust as wedding gifts, and is immediately her new favorite relative. 

Hey command we're in the queue for a telepathic bond in like next year's budget, right. Can we get the spell slots allocated now if we pay materials? 

Telepathic bonds!!! Her favorite ever since that time Rod prevented a major diplomatic incident while half-conscious in the hospital because she was about to say something really stupid. Love to attach Wizards(tm) more firmly to their associated Reasonable Sensible People. Heck yeah they can. 

Excellent. 

Fighting a war still sucks, but it sucks less, together. 

A little while later, though, Avaryne ends up having to take just shy of a year mostly-off, on account of it is unacceptable to be in a combat zone for any significant duration while pregnant; if she got murdered a Raise can and does land on her fine (they've unfortunately had to test this and apparently, whatever gets the ice witches probably gets them on arrival in the Abyss or wherever, not out of the River) but not on the baby. Thanks to easy telepathic coordination she teleports in regularly to drop a stack of buffs and then immediately leave again, but, you know, mostly off. 

She cheerfully declines spousal handholding for the birth of their son; Marshall is doing two people's worth of work while she's out of commission and really can't be spared even though command would definitely let him if he asked, and so he shouldn't. After all she is in no danger whatsoever due to being extremely magic. 

He sighs at her, fondly, but does not argue. (You don't, or at least you shouldn't, marry someone like Avaryne on purpose without being emotionally prepared to need to ignore some of the things your father told you when you were twelve about What Women Want(TM).)  

For normal people this is more of an ordeal. Avaryne puts on a Delay Pain and then experiences, painlessly, a medical event of similar dangerousness to being stabbed with one (1) mundane sword, i.e. one which kills normal people on a fairly regular basis and which she is competent to not only walk off but not even drop spell concentration over. Her sister-in-law is, to her immense credit, very polite about her searing envy. 

She allocates several hours and several more spell slots afterward to doing nothing except admiring the baby-- his name is Filmore and he is a tiny perfect creature with a tiny perfect round little face-- and transmitting mental pictures of him northward. 

Then she hands him off to the wet nurse, drops a couple Cures on herself for good measure, drinks enough painkilling sedatives to kill a non-paladin horse, sleeps straight through the lagged pain, and is back at the Crusade two hours after waking up. 

(They visit for a day every month, though. You gotta be sure a kid knows his parents even if there is an entire Tar-Baphon. It's only once a month, though, due to, see again, entire Tar-Baphon. It's a problem.) 

"You really need a better horse." 

This is unfortunately fair. The damn things might as well be made of paper with the scale of problems they currently have but he's much more effective with one than without. Arnisant's horse is somehow nearly as sturdy as a paladin horse even though he is absolutely not a paladin, but try as he might Marshall has never been able to perform the right mental trick or whatever it is to do that. He has been regularly attempting to meditate with Rowan and Arazni on the virtues of druids and so on--

which in her defense has totally worked before!! her favorite druid has a friend who can cast exactly zero spells and also has an whole and entire lion! 

--which, well, he's great at identifying obscure Tien flowers now but this has thus far in no way enchanted any of his horses, the most recent of which is now dead of being stabbed and not even very hard. 

"I know," he sighs, "I am trying, do you have any advice on caring about the flowers at the right angle? I have tried thinking very hard about the, you know, that thing Arazni says about how a city is only as strong as its fields and as enduring as its forests, and all that, but..."

He doesn't make a face but only from long, long practice. "Well. I'm not an archmage and I don't think like them, thank Aroden. I know you and I are not in all respects alike--" Arnisant is not per se judging when it's very convenient for him that Marshall is an insane person but he personally would never in one million years marry a wizard, his tolerance for their shit is simply not high enough-- "but if you want my advice... I'd say, stop thinking about the flowers at all. Start thinking about a particular horse. Helps to name it."