Frank and Marianne's Wedding
"Ma-wage," intoned former U.S. Army Ranger Alexander Freeman, "is what bwings us he-wah, too-day."

"Cut it out, Alex, or I'll end you..." the groom, Frank Costigan, stage-whispered at his best man, just this side of breaking down and laughing. His best friend and his little girls' 'Fairy' Godfather; there had been a risible suggestion that the lanky black soldier might have belonged with the bridesmaids. Alex hadn't liked that very much, although he gave as good as he got, obviously.

"Ooh, 'Firefly' to my 'Bride' reference. Did those Browncoat geeks finally win you over?"

"Nah, I just like that particular turn of phrase. 'I will end you' is dead steady and disinterested in the outcome." Neither of which could describe Frank just now.

"Nervous?"

"Just a bit. It's weird-"

"What else is new," Alex quipped.

"This wedding... Weddings are supposed to be for the bride, but I get the sense that this is more for me and the kidlet than for Marianne."

"Yeah, they do things differently in the Cee..." Alex allowed, using the catch-phrase adopted by the abducted humans of Earthbound to describe the Galactic Conservancy, their new home in the 'wider galaxy'.

A vast number of people, hundreds of thousands, had been kidnapped from Earth to fight for the losing side of an interstellar war. Some had fought and died serving alien masters, the Spinward Rim Alliance. Others had freed themselves and then doggedly fought both sides of the conflict. The crew of Earthbound had had a little luck on the way market, and then had worked it, hard. They were free agents, with allies neutral to the conflict, but far from disinterested or inactive. The Cee, the Galactic Conservancy, was just one of the groups they had befriended and confederated with on their weird and wonderful journey, which had grown ever more strange, until, months ago, old enemies had been forced to combine arms against an outside threat. These Outsiders had lately been defeated, but only just. This wedding was in part a celebration of life and of survival.

"Tell me about it!" Frank scowled, which actually straightened his twisted shrapnel scars a little. "The kidlet doesn't belong just to us, her parents; Faith's defacto 'a child of the Cee'-"

"Like her mother before her-"

Frank waved a hand. "Whatever. That's what makes her legitimate, and not a..."

"Bastard?" Alex frowned at his friend, who he now remembered was the child of divorce, and an orphan. He'd been raised by his grandparents, and had become a 'Green Beret' like his father, before him. Frank nodded, his jaw set.

"Faith's grandmother, Karen, understands, but she's an Earthling originally, like us. Kevin... doesn't, not really. He's tolerant of our 'curious customs', although, when he found out what a bastard was, he blew his top!"

"Wait a minute," Alex said, turning to Frank and smiling, his teeth very white against his dark skin. "The easy-going scout got mad? This I'd like to have seen!"

"No, you wouldn't, not aimed at you," Frank told him. "I finally understand what the Big Bad Ranger sees in him. He's Pappa Wolf to her Mama Bear- well mama wolf, or something like that; she runs with a pack of coyotes-"

"Demons, like in that poem Linda wrote about Marianne and all of us. Their minds and bodies are all shaped differently, but they all think alike. Or rather, they all- what's that phrase? 'Strive to be more themselves, useful and unique individuals within the whole, covering each other's weaknesses with each other's strengths', right? Their mission statement is 'to create and conserve life, and the potential for sapience, wisdom, in the galaxy'."

Both men looked around at the gathering, where perhaps a third of the guests were human, and maybe a quarter were Earthlings. Most of the human aliens were from an accidental colony of Brazilians and Soviets, fifty years old. A few of the others were related to the bride; one of Marianne's nieces waved at him and he smiled and waved back. The other two thirds were strange hippo-centaurs, the Markov, three-eyed fox-like Gara, three-wheeled Trikes, be-tentacled and eyestalked Oddities, giant Bluehorns; starfish and feathered bipedal aliens, even an alien who blew bubbles in the helmet its' encounter suit... it just went on and on.

"Anyway," Frank said at last, "I'm up shit creek for somehow suggesting that my little girl being born to two people who weren't actually married in any way reflects badly on the kidlet."

"Lost at Cee, in the sea of love..."

"You know, I miss home, but I really think that I can make a life here."

"Amen to that, brother."

***

There was a she-wolf who traveled with us a while;

A motley Company, lost in the woods, and far from our homes.

She was a strange wolf who walked on two legs,

And her People were likewise strange,

For they seemed as demons to us.

Some went on three legs, or four, more even,

And some rolled along on three wheels.

Their minds had strange shapes,

And they thought strange thoughts.

But they loved her, and she, them,

Even if she was nearly alone among her People.

A wolf or demon, who walked like us,

But thought like them, and fought like them.

It was not her task to put us on the homeward path,

But she was our path-finder, even so.

And when our Company was set to leave the Wilderness,

She turned aside, alone until I followed her.

***

The bride was beautiful; they always are, each in their own way, on this, their day. Or so Scout Kevin Boyle had been told. He was perhaps biased in thinking that his daughter, in her splendid dress of many colors, was the most beautiful of all the brides in the wider galaxy...

"Dad!" Marianne said again, exasperated.

"Hmm?" Kevin said distractedly.

"I asked you, how do I look?"

Kevin smiled, and Marianne sighed dramatically, so he told her, "Gorgeous, my heart; simply gorgeous."

"I still wish she had gone with white, my love," her mother, Ranger and Teacher Karen Boyle added critically to her husband of over thirty years.

"That looked so boring!"

"Traditions can be boring, zah; they simply are, because they are. But this is not a Ranger thing, where we live and breath the sayings and doings of three thousand years. This is yours! Now you, you go make some new traditions..." Karen turned away a little too quickly and preceded them at speed.

"Was she crying?"

***

The Wedding March started up, switched briefly to the Imperial Death March, and then back again. Frank glanced at Alex, but made no comment; Marianne was approaching on her father's arm. She was coming on like a blue-green butterfly, with under-hints of other colors, or some elfin man-o-war, the alien silks rising and falling, repelling and attracting, blowing in the slight breeze of this open-air ceremony. Alex, Grand Admiral Penelope Cartwright and Marianne's mother Karen had all pulled some strings, twisting tentacles and other appendages to get this spot at midsummer in the Valley of the Vault of Ages. The sun would linger above the horizon all day long, dipping to only a little at what passed for dusk and dawn.

They arrived an endless time later, and Kevin released her like a hunting bird, to soar and stoop in victory. She came lightly to rest before Frank and they stood holding each other's hands and facing each other, the crowd of to his left, ignored, and the presiding dignitaries off to his right, also ignored for the moment. There was a spray of white flowers in her hair, done up in an asymmetric train that showed off her pretty eyes and somehow drew his own to her neck. Frank's scars twisted as he thought about getting her out of that get-up...

The crowd murmur died away, and the Commandant of the Galactic Rangers led the affirmation.

"The Circle is made whole!"

"That which was broken, is Reformed!"

"That which was barren and dead, is Reborn!"

"The Work gives us meaning."

"The Work gives us hope."

"The Work goes ever on."

Frank Costigan wasn't a church-going man, but he had been to so many funerals, and he murmured quietly, "Surely mercy and goodness will follow me all of my days, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord, forever." Marianne squeezed his hands in hers.

"This is for endings, as well as beginnings, and it is a new beginning we are gathered here to witness. The beginning of a new life together; the human custom is that these two individuals are to become one flesh, which, I must say, strikes me as rather interesting..." The Trike paused and Frank thought for a split second that it was going to ask to bear witness to the 'one flesh' bit. But the Trike's skin flashed in a colorful display that was answered by the Brides' own face; Marianne had had an interesting later childhood. The crowd laughed, each individual according to it's own kind, so that more than one Trike rasped it's brakes, and there was a lot of chuffing and hooting and other loud sounds. They did things so differently, in the Cee...

"I could go on at length, but I think it is time to step aside in favor of Captain Warshawski, who will be talking these two humans through the rest of the ceremony. There is, I believe, very little thinking involved; just nod or say yes, and you'll do just fine-"

"I know what to do!" Frank hissed, and the crowd murmured.

"The Commandant was talking to Marianne, buddy," Alex stage whispered.

"Oh, I mean, yeah, okay..."

The laughter was a little be louder this time, and the bride and groom both colored just a bit as Captain Sarah Warshawski stepped up to rescue them from further comedic embarrassment. She had done this thing quite a bit in recent months, and took things firmly in hand. Presently she told them, "You may now kiss the bride, Costigan!"

Which he did, enthusiastically and repeatedly.