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The Masque of the Red Dress [15 Chirreb 4385]
Mirrored from Sythyry.
Beware! Upon my demand, my translator has reluctantly agreed to post various of my journal entries out of order, following logical sequences rather than strict chronology. For example, certain conversations took place by post, with a letter being sent each day; the conversations have been collected into single journal entries, which are easier to read. If you are a historian, look at the dates. We will resume normal chronology at a suitable point. — Sy.
There are approximately 787,984,785,010,262,703,252,219,143,755,903,86,866,825,548,966,288,352 forms of Orren weddings. This one was a fairly conventional one, involving a masque, in which various friends and relatives play the parts of various friends, relatives, mythological figures, traditional figures, ad-hoc figures, and miscellaneous figures. It was not rehearsed — these things never are — and the scripts were ceremonially lost not long after, so I’m reconstructing it from memory. It is incomplete, but you will get the idea. Jyondre, Tingula, and Inconnu did most of the writing, I believe.
The brides wore matching red dresses with trim of purple lace, designed to emphasize their, well, best attributes. They waited until Lithia transformed from Rassimel to Orren phase, so they’d have the longest time before her next cramps.
I won’t reconstruct the first few stanzas, because: (1) they are all puns and will never translate, (2) they are extremely bawdy, more explicit than anything I am willing to write in my diary, and/or (c) I was too busy staring at the script and fussing with my costume and trying not to miss my cue to actually remember them.
Me: “I am the wily wizard, whole-wise and rather weird.
(I need another lizard, to serve me as a beard.)
This match I do reject on this bright and sunny day
Orren ne’er shall marry Orren in the lamp where I hold sway! “
Lithia: “I am the doting daughter; this is my wedding day
(I know the wizard’s dotty, and traffy all the way)
Feather, dearest feather-mom, O do not say us nay —
Just think upon us kissing, and then see what you say!”
Me: “I am the wily wizard, true-tricky and quite traff”
[Phaniet dumps a bowl of icewater over me.]
“I shall now reprognosticate, after my mystic bath!
I foretell osculation in a very Orren way –
And so I grant permission on this Orren wedding day!”
Dorze (Mircannis): ” I am the god Mircannis, I’m really in the sky
Don’t ask just what I’m doing, for then you’d have to die.”
Nangbang: “I am the High Priest Evil, I serve the god of Doom
I often like to dirt-nap inside some grave or tomb!
This wedding I do cancel on this bright and sunny day —
No good must come to Whats-her-Eyes because she ran away!”
Treacle-Eyes: ” O father Evil High Priest, there’s nothing you can say
We’re going to get all married and we’re going to get away
If you don’t give your blessing, we’ll simply run away
We’re experts at elopement on this bright and sunny day!”
Nangbang: ” O daughter, sneaky daughter, you have a twisted heart,
Your mind is like a serpent and your breath is like a fart
You’re devious and wicked, your eyes are boiling wells
You fornicate with demons called from seventeen nice hells
You’re just like me, my daughter, so I say without delay
You might as well get married on this bright and sunny day.”
Dorze (Mircannis): ” I am the god Mircannis, I am not really here
Don’t ask what I am doing, by all that you hold dear!”
Phaniet (Flokin): ” I stomp around with fire and flame, I am the great god Flokin
If anyone gets in my way, they will get burnt and broken!
I do declare this wedding off, for reasons daft and twee —
If anyone wants it back on, they’ll have to deal with me!”
Lithia: “Great Flokin, we two must wed, the reason is quite clear —
It’s really very simple, I’ve written it right here!”
Lithia gives Phaniet a plate with the words “Answer on other side” written on both sides. Phaniet(Flokin) puzzles them out slowly, turns the plate over, puzzles the words on that side out slowly, turns the plate over, repeats a few times while wandering off-stage.
Dorze (Mircannis): ” I am the god Mircannis, I am not in this scene
Or anywhere inside this masque, ’cause that would be too mean.”
Quendry (Blue Trumgullion): ” I am not just a scullion.
I am Blue Trumgullion.
I stomp and I roar and turn everything to ash!” (Blue Trumgullion being a semi-fictional five-headed bully of a nendrai. Quendry had a nifty costume with two heads on his shoulders and two on his hands.)
Treacle-Eyes: ” Oh mighty Blue Trumgullion, only your smartest head
Can make us run and make us hide and make us not get wed!”
Quendry’s five head go snapping and fighting at each other … well, the two on the shoulders were just paper-mache, and didn’t move, but his real head and his two hand-puppet heads made quite a battle. This is based on many childrens’ stories of Blue Trumgullion, where the brave little prime child gets the heads to argue with each other to the death over something like that.
Quendry (Blue Trumgullion): ” I do not have a smartest head
They are all dumb. They are all dead.” [Dies, thrashes around, somehow squirms off-stage due to thrashing.]
Brides: [unison, to each other] ” We’ve beaten up our parents, we’ve beaten up some gods,
We’ve beaten up some monsters, we’ve beaten all the odds
Now all we need’s a notary, just any one will do
To notarize the wedding that I want to make with you!”
Dorze (Mircannis): ” I am the god Mircannis, I’m nowhere to be found
There’s not a single Rassimel upon this hallowed ground.”
(Sythyry’s note: the fight of the baker and the joiner — cabinet-maker — is a common part of mummer’s plays.)
Treacle-Eyes: “I found one, dearest Lithia! Our wedding to perform.”
Inconnu (Baker Notary): ” I am the Baker Notary — I swear upon my bread
That I am here to tie the knot and make these two get wed!
Nobody likes my baguette, nobody likes my buns
If I don’t get the wedding-fee, I’ll die for lack of funds!”
[Yes, you can guess the gestures and implements that go with the third line.]
Lithia: “I found one, dearest Treacle-Eyes, who’s really in good form!”
Este (Joiner Notary): ” I am the Joinery Notary — I swear upon my wood
That I am here to tie the knot and make this wedding good!
My cabinet gets no visits, though the door it hangs agape
The fee from this here wedding’ll make my purse in better shape!”
[Este was dressed in the most feminine clothing we could find for him, and you can pretty much guess what he was doing on the 'cabinet' and 'purse' lines.]
Inconnu and Este (Notaries): ” I claim this here wedding — the brides have chosen me!
Or sod them if they haven’t, I really need the fee!”
The two notaries fight, using their attributes as weapons. It looks more like simulated intercourse than actual combat, of course. After a few, um, passes at arms, both notaries fall to the ground, moaning and gasping, and either roll over and go to sleep or play dead.
Brides: “Our notaries have given out, that really is too bad
The baker and the joiner were the only ones we had!”
Dorze (Mircannis): ” I am the god Mircannis, there’s nothing more to say,
Because I am not here to talk this bright and sunny day.”
Windigar (Pararenenzu): ” I’m Para-Whatsis — Orren god — and feeling mighty fine
To see such pretty Orren (who are really mine (all mine!))
Try to tie the knot, conjoin, get hitched, get wed
But who around can do it? The notaries are dead! “
Vae: “I am the Nuptial Nendrai, I’m here to look around
And see if any couples needing wedding can be found
I’d love to make a marriage on this bright and sunny day
And please won’t someone tell me why all people run away?”
Lithia: “We are bold adventurers, all brave and clever too
And we’d like to get us married while the morning still has dew.”
Treacle-Eyes: “We’re not afraid of nendrai, we’ve little left to lose
Besides these bright red dresses and uncomfortable shoes.”
Brides, in unison: ” I love that girl so muchly I want to have her stay,
So nendrai, won’t you marry us, this bright and sunny day?”
Vae: ” I am the Nuptial Nendrai, but ne’er yet have I wed
Such brave and pretty Orren girls who are so good in bed
(Together — I didn’t try them — it wouldn’t be polite
To keep these two apart for even a single night.)
So now I make a mating with my Mutoc Mutaroo
This wedding will be sticking like a grand and grander glue!”
Vae tapped the girls with her tail. Sparks and fireworks abounded. Dozens of tiny purple porpoises materialized and swam around them. The girls stretched out extremely long and thing, and spiralled around each other in ways that some might find erotic, and some might find hideous. This was all illusion, or so I think.
After a moment, they returned to normal… mostly. Treacle-Eyes’ eyes were full of swirling leaves.
Brides: “We are married now!”
Audience: “Yay!” This goes on for about three minutes.
Treacle-Eyes: “But something is strange!”
Lithia: “What, strange?”
Treacle-Eyes: “The nendrai! She has betwisted me in mysterious magical ways! She has wrought a spell and spelled a wrought, and Things Are No Longer As They Were!”
Lithia: “What, a curse upon Treacle-Eyes my love?”
Treacle-Eyes: “Treacle-Eyes your love no longer!”
Lithia: “Oh, this is wicked and infamous! I shall slay the nendrai for it!”
Vae: “I didn’t mean to! Really!”
Treacle-Eyes: “No! Do not do so! She has changed … oh, I dread to say it.”
Audience: “Say it!”
Treacle-Eyes: “She has enchanted my name, and it has become different! Henceforth I shall be known as Sapling-Eyes!” (Incidentally, magic cannot, in any reasonable way, change your name. Names are neither real enough nor false enough to change.)
Nangbang: “For at least a week or two!”
Lithia: “That’s all”
Sapling-Eyes: “That’s all!”
Lithia: “Then — Sapling-Eyes my love!”
Sapling-Eyes: “That’s not quite right either.”
Lithia: “OK, OK, already. Sapling-Eyes my wife!”
Sapling-Eyes: “Lithia my wife! … unless the nendrai got to your name too?”
Lithia: “I should check, shouldn’t I?” She hoists her red dress and and looks somewhere surprising. “Nope, still Lithia. But now — Lithia your wife!”
Brides: “Yay, new wife! Let’s go off and wife wife wife wife together!”
Audience: “But first a feast and a party!”
And it was a pretty good one, too.
Presents
As predicted, I gave Lithia an IOU for the escape-and-healing device, which I shall work on next week. Sapling-Eyes got Dorze’s indenture, which rather floored her. It is not traditional for a bride’s parents to get the other bride such an implement of transaffectionate cuckoldry, especially when the parent clearly does not much approve of the other bride: but I am trying to be a good in-law, perplexingly enough.
The planned gift of a watch never happened, due to Too Much Doom. Vae gave the couple a few bottles of liqueurs from the far reaches of the World Tree. Quendry gave a hand-painted wooden box.
Nangbang, whose shopping opportunites were rather limited, gave a substantial gift of cash. I daresay that will be appreciated quite well.
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I'm glad Nangbang was willing to stay for the wedding and even gave the couple a present. The ceremony was a lot more fun than any wedding I've been to!
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I must say, more fun is not the first "more" that came to mind as I read the recounting. Certainly one of them, but the first is closer to much more lewd. I daresay most of the guests who would attend my wedding (if and when) would be exhausted by embarrassment, slain by shame, and interred by immodesty if confronted with this ceremony. The rest would be in such fits of giggles that the formers might just be exhumed by elation. After all, my grandmother has a specific laugh reserved for risque jokes, though I didn't find that out until recently.
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(Though my favourite bit of the whole thing was probably the line "I do declare this wedding off, for reasons daft and twee". Heh.)
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Not officially, anyway. There are individual people who don't care about that restriction, and some of them presumably have their own private rituals - but the larger social structure does not recognize those unions.
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As to my relatives and weddings and such, it's a bit of both. While I'd likely elope (tiny wedding, big reception), the wedding traditional in my family is very, very formal (as Shurhaian mentioned), and rather anti-bawdy; in brief, the couple stand together, listen to a priest speak for a bit, exchange vows, which are along the lines of "we're married, we agree, I love you, and I'll be loyal", then exchange rings, usually of gold (yup; Durador is common enough here nearly every wedded pair wears gold). While my relatives are not overly easy embarrassed, they have a very...specific view toward weddings; risque ideas are avoided. My aforementioned grandmother would gasp and blush but likely start laughing upon hearing the above ritual.
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Your weddings sound pretty boring but then most non-Orren weddings do so I'm not surprised!
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Hubby and I married on October 30th, and set up the reception as a masquerade ball. Many people wore costumes to the ceremony also .... all except my family. Who were notable, and noticeable, for wearing normal mundane clothing, and not even a domino-mask (as I had made for party favors).
Some people are boring.
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... Okay, I've read this three times, and I *still* don't understand why this is there. Was there a baker? A Cabinet Maker? I missed them!
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And this is a wedding? With the parents attending?
Whoof!
(Why does part of me think that Inconnu, after being recently kissed by an Orren, was only too happy to engage in that umduel? *shifty-eyes* )
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Mircannis was my favourite part.
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Haha no, sorry. I was not in character for that post nor this one, and should have said so. I was talking to Bard. I enjoy the writing just oodles and bunches. Sorry if I made RPG faux pas.
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