Fic: A Happy Occasion
Title: A Happy Occasion
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Nosy.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Watching another of their children wed is a happy but emotional occasion for Jack and Ianto.
Word Count: 1395
Written For: Prompt 199 - Altar at fandomweekly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
A/N: Set in the Nosy-Verse.
“This brings back memories,” Jack whispered, and Ianto smiled because his husband was right. Memories were flooding back, of their first wedding so long ago back in Cardiff, of their countless other weddings since then, on every planet where they’d settled long enough to raise a family, and most of all, of their firstborn daughter’s wedding.
Her name had been Meriel, and she’d been beautiful with her dark hair and button nose so like her tad’s, and her bright blue eyes, dimpled chin, and perfect teeth that were the image of her dad. Jack had joked at the time that she’d got the best bits of both of them, and he hoped that wouldn’t mean their next kid would get all the worst bits. Thankfully, the twins had turned out just as perfect a mixture of both their parents, their angelic looks belying the demonic natures of their early years.
Meriel had married a young Irishman named Sean Merriman and had insisted on both her dads walking her down the aisle. Not to give her away, which she didn’t agree with since she wasn’t property to be handed over to another man, but to make sure she didn’t trip over her dress. Jack and Ianto had both known it was really because she’d wanted to give them something important to do, otherwise, sentimental fools that they were, they both would have been sitting in the front row sobbing into their hankies.
It had been a beautiful day, the wedding held in the Bute Park Arboretum, a small altar set up beneath one of the finest oak trees in the city. Ianto could picture it as if it had happened only yesterday instead of over ten thousand years ago, but that was probably because he and Jack had watched the wedding video again the previous night. They wanted today’s wedding to go just as perfectly as that long-ago one had, because their daughter deserved nothing less, and perhaps just a little as a tribute to the woman she’d been named after.
Today, Katie Meriel Harkness-Jones would be marrying Willandareska Dar-Molondreth, of Skiiar, the principal city of South Continent, on the planet Daresque. Wileska, as she was known for short, was a willowy, blue-skinned woman with the signature lavender eyes and straight blue-black hair of her race. She was warm, caring, a brilliant physicist, with a dry sense of humour, and a penchant for playing practical jokes on her friends and family, of which she had an abundance. Jack and Ianto were looking forward to joining their two families.
By the traditions here on Daresque, the wedding was being held at Wileska’s family shrine, which was dedicated to the planet’s nature goddess. It was a grassy area surrounded by an abundance of flowering trees and bushes that filled the air with their fragrance, and a freshwater spring at one end from which flowed a small steam. The altar, if it could be described as such, was an intricately carved wooden bridge that spanned the stream a short distance from the spring.
The parents of both brides, or arynii as they were called in the Daresquan language, stood at the ends of the bridge, facing downstream, while the officiator stood in the centre, and the guests knelt around the edges of the clearing. The arynii, approaching from opposite sides of the clearing, each with a single attendant, usually a close friend or a sibling, came to stand to either side of the stream, facing the officiator, and clasped hands over the water.
There had been a rehearsal a few days earlier, so everyone knew their places and there would be no confusion or disorder marring proceedings, but now the ceremony was about to begin for real.
Jack reached for Ianto’s hand, squeezing it so tightly Ianto was sure he felt the bones grinding together, but before he could say anything to his husband, perhaps a quiet plea for mercy, the music began, soft stumming on stringed instruments backed by a rhythmic, throbbing sound from a curious instrument that looked like a cross between a set of bellows and a digeridoo. As one, the guests raised their voices in a soaring, wordless melody that seemed to capture all their hopes for the happy couple’s future together. Ianto silently thanked any and all deities who might be listening that he and Jack weren’t required to join in. There was no way either of them could have hit the high notes; they would have ruined the whole thing.
From their respective sides of the clearing, the brides appeared, dressed in long, deep purple gowns. They bowed to the guests and to each other before stepping forward, Wileska attended by her younger sister, Ariasquenon, and Katie with Nosy by her side. The Fluff was very old now, and its luxuriant fur had faded to pale green, with a scattering of white hairs, but its bright green eyes remained clear, and it slithered with pride, happy to be sharing in this momentous day. It had helped to raise Katie, just as it had her namesake so very long ago, and it was as proud of the woman she’d grown into as her parents were.
As they reached the altar, the two arynii sank to their knees and bowed low in respect for both the goddess and the officiator before rising to their feet again and clasping hands as the guests fell silent, their song of celebration ended.
Beside Ianto, Jack was mopping away tears, and Ianto knew there was a suspicious shine in his own eyes. Their daughter and her love both looked so beautiful and so happy. He spared a surreptitious glance at Wileska’s parents and was reassured to see they looked rather emotional too. Who could blame any of them?
The ceremony itself was brief, the officiator pledging the happy couple to each other, in the name of the goddess, and both Katie and Wileska vowing to respect and love their partner for as long as their union lasted.
Then, kicking off their sandals, the two women stepped into the stream and followed it out of the clearing while the guests sang another wordless song of joy and thankfulness.
Jack mopped at his eyes again as slowly the guests, still singing, filed out of the shrine following the newlyweds, but keeping to the grass. Finally, the attendants and the two sets of parents joined the end of the line, making their way to the Dar-Molondreth family home, leaving the officiator behind to complete the ceremony by burning the woven grass sandals that Katie and Wileska had been wearing, and scattering their cooled ashes to nourish the shrine’s trees.
Nosy hummed enquiringly to its human friends as they trailed the reast of the wedding party.
“Yes, we’re happy,” Ianto assured it. “These are happy tears.”
“I hope our daughter and her new wife will have a marriage as long and happy as Meriel and Sean did,” Jack added.
Ianto smiled. “You saw the way they were looking at each other, I don’t think there’s any doubt that they will.”
With a satisfied hum, Nosy slithered along beside its friends, eager to join the other guests at the Daresquan version of a post-wedding celebration, where there would be feasting, music, and dancing, not much different from a traditional earth wedding reception. Focusing inwards, it started two new Flufflets into growth, one for the newlyweds, and one for its lifelong friends. These would probably be its final offspring, it would soon be too old to reproduce, but there was still plenty of time to raise its replacement to maturity and teach the Flufflet all it would need to know. It would make sure its human friends would never be alone.
The End
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Nosy.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Watching another of their children wed is a happy but emotional occasion for Jack and Ianto.
Word Count: 1395
Written For: Prompt 199 - Altar at fandomweekly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
A/N: Set in the Nosy-Verse.
“This brings back memories,” Jack whispered, and Ianto smiled because his husband was right. Memories were flooding back, of their first wedding so long ago back in Cardiff, of their countless other weddings since then, on every planet where they’d settled long enough to raise a family, and most of all, of their firstborn daughter’s wedding.
Her name had been Meriel, and she’d been beautiful with her dark hair and button nose so like her tad’s, and her bright blue eyes, dimpled chin, and perfect teeth that were the image of her dad. Jack had joked at the time that she’d got the best bits of both of them, and he hoped that wouldn’t mean their next kid would get all the worst bits. Thankfully, the twins had turned out just as perfect a mixture of both their parents, their angelic looks belying the demonic natures of their early years.
Meriel had married a young Irishman named Sean Merriman and had insisted on both her dads walking her down the aisle. Not to give her away, which she didn’t agree with since she wasn’t property to be handed over to another man, but to make sure she didn’t trip over her dress. Jack and Ianto had both known it was really because she’d wanted to give them something important to do, otherwise, sentimental fools that they were, they both would have been sitting in the front row sobbing into their hankies.
It had been a beautiful day, the wedding held in the Bute Park Arboretum, a small altar set up beneath one of the finest oak trees in the city. Ianto could picture it as if it had happened only yesterday instead of over ten thousand years ago, but that was probably because he and Jack had watched the wedding video again the previous night. They wanted today’s wedding to go just as perfectly as that long-ago one had, because their daughter deserved nothing less, and perhaps just a little as a tribute to the woman she’d been named after.
Today, Katie Meriel Harkness-Jones would be marrying Willandareska Dar-Molondreth, of Skiiar, the principal city of South Continent, on the planet Daresque. Wileska, as she was known for short, was a willowy, blue-skinned woman with the signature lavender eyes and straight blue-black hair of her race. She was warm, caring, a brilliant physicist, with a dry sense of humour, and a penchant for playing practical jokes on her friends and family, of which she had an abundance. Jack and Ianto were looking forward to joining their two families.
By the traditions here on Daresque, the wedding was being held at Wileska’s family shrine, which was dedicated to the planet’s nature goddess. It was a grassy area surrounded by an abundance of flowering trees and bushes that filled the air with their fragrance, and a freshwater spring at one end from which flowed a small steam. The altar, if it could be described as such, was an intricately carved wooden bridge that spanned the stream a short distance from the spring.
The parents of both brides, or arynii as they were called in the Daresquan language, stood at the ends of the bridge, facing downstream, while the officiator stood in the centre, and the guests knelt around the edges of the clearing. The arynii, approaching from opposite sides of the clearing, each with a single attendant, usually a close friend or a sibling, came to stand to either side of the stream, facing the officiator, and clasped hands over the water.
There had been a rehearsal a few days earlier, so everyone knew their places and there would be no confusion or disorder marring proceedings, but now the ceremony was about to begin for real.
Jack reached for Ianto’s hand, squeezing it so tightly Ianto was sure he felt the bones grinding together, but before he could say anything to his husband, perhaps a quiet plea for mercy, the music began, soft stumming on stringed instruments backed by a rhythmic, throbbing sound from a curious instrument that looked like a cross between a set of bellows and a digeridoo. As one, the guests raised their voices in a soaring, wordless melody that seemed to capture all their hopes for the happy couple’s future together. Ianto silently thanked any and all deities who might be listening that he and Jack weren’t required to join in. There was no way either of them could have hit the high notes; they would have ruined the whole thing.
From their respective sides of the clearing, the brides appeared, dressed in long, deep purple gowns. They bowed to the guests and to each other before stepping forward, Wileska attended by her younger sister, Ariasquenon, and Katie with Nosy by her side. The Fluff was very old now, and its luxuriant fur had faded to pale green, with a scattering of white hairs, but its bright green eyes remained clear, and it slithered with pride, happy to be sharing in this momentous day. It had helped to raise Katie, just as it had her namesake so very long ago, and it was as proud of the woman she’d grown into as her parents were.
As they reached the altar, the two arynii sank to their knees and bowed low in respect for both the goddess and the officiator before rising to their feet again and clasping hands as the guests fell silent, their song of celebration ended.
Beside Ianto, Jack was mopping away tears, and Ianto knew there was a suspicious shine in his own eyes. Their daughter and her love both looked so beautiful and so happy. He spared a surreptitious glance at Wileska’s parents and was reassured to see they looked rather emotional too. Who could blame any of them?
The ceremony itself was brief, the officiator pledging the happy couple to each other, in the name of the goddess, and both Katie and Wileska vowing to respect and love their partner for as long as their union lasted.
Then, kicking off their sandals, the two women stepped into the stream and followed it out of the clearing while the guests sang another wordless song of joy and thankfulness.
Jack mopped at his eyes again as slowly the guests, still singing, filed out of the shrine following the newlyweds, but keeping to the grass. Finally, the attendants and the two sets of parents joined the end of the line, making their way to the Dar-Molondreth family home, leaving the officiator behind to complete the ceremony by burning the woven grass sandals that Katie and Wileska had been wearing, and scattering their cooled ashes to nourish the shrine’s trees.
Nosy hummed enquiringly to its human friends as they trailed the reast of the wedding party.
“Yes, we’re happy,” Ianto assured it. “These are happy tears.”
“I hope our daughter and her new wife will have a marriage as long and happy as Meriel and Sean did,” Jack added.
Ianto smiled. “You saw the way they were looking at each other, I don’t think there’s any doubt that they will.”
With a satisfied hum, Nosy slithered along beside its friends, eager to join the other guests at the Daresquan version of a post-wedding celebration, where there would be feasting, music, and dancing, not much different from a traditional earth wedding reception. Focusing inwards, it started two new Flufflets into growth, one for the newlyweds, and one for its lifelong friends. These would probably be its final offspring, it would soon be too old to reproduce, but there was still plenty of time to raise its replacement to maturity and teach the Flufflet all it would need to know. It would make sure its human friends would never be alone.
The End