Day Two of the Wedding

Trees are very important in my village, in my culture. I'm sure that's true of many places in Flauraan, but I know our traditions best. It's both a practical notion - a forest borders our village and is important in crop rotation and the health of our ecosystem - and a religious thing, trees representing health and life and death. Tree plantings accompany all our major occasions; wedding ceremonies, funerals, the birth of children, various educational and vocational milestones. The council nursery is a dedicated space for cuttings and saplings to be prepared for the planting seasons, in the relevant varieties. Sophie agreed with me that it made sense to plan the date of our wedding around the tree planting date, rather than have separate ceremonies as occasionally happens. 

The marriage plantings are communal occasions, with all of the legal partnerships arranged with the council attending the ceremony in the chosen location for the season - rotating based on what the land needs. It's a science, it's beautiful. Often the whole town turns out for the event, although sometimes it's only the loved ones of those getting married. This means that sometimes the plantings are attended by hundreds of people and sometimes very few. Our planting is one of the biggest I've ever seen. There's nowhere near as many guests as we are expecting to arrive tomorrow, but there's us and three other marriages so the whole town is there plus Lexie, Jayken, Mickey, Zara and the girls, Steve, Beth, Robyn, Kris, Graycien, Podric, Esai, Rachel, Adrian, Nyles, Mari, their kids, our grandparents and even Reeina has returned for the event.

We make quite the spectacle, with all the non-staaroid aliens in attendance. After all these years I still haven't figured out how to feel about it - standing out the way I do. It's been there since I was a child and I was weird with my powers, not shunned per se but not easily included in things either, and then that only enhanced after the Weraynian Scare, the increase of my powers and my relationship with Sophie. After our trip to Halapatov I was hyperaware of my connection to two huge events that were being talked about systemwide. Some people tried to talk to me about them but mostly I noticed the muttering about me when they thought I couldn't perceive it, felt the distance between me and my peers increasing exponentially. The Weraynian War blew all of those experiences out of the water. Now I was one of the few paladanians who'd spent significant time in friendly Weraynian company, I had been heavily involved in major turning points of the war, I had a plethora of alien friends, and I returned to my home planet with the heavy task of trying to counter the anti-Weraynian sentiment that everyone I had grown up with held to various degrees. Mostly I'm unbothered by it, but sometimes it hits me like a crashing wave, that feeling of being an outsider, a freak, to never be able to exist without eyes on me. I made a conscious effort to fight that feeling in planning this wedding, to embrace the queerness and insanity my life has become. As the feeling threatens to overcome me now, I force myself to look around at each individual here, and think of what they mean to me, and how happy I am, and how wrong it would feel to be celebrating without them, and the wave recedes.

The area for the planting has been prepared ahead of time, and the smell of fresh soil and morning dew is lovely as we approach the expanse of newly dug shallows in the ground. Each partnership has exchanged the traditional recitation with the chosen council leaders and has been presented with the sapling of a fruiting tree. Mine and Sophie's has velvety leaves that she is stroking with fascination. I look over her again, smile at the layers of finery that it is so strange to see her wearing. Today we are matching, the deep blue of her sarong so similar to that of my tunic. She wore her headdress for the more formal part of the event but for the planting we are both dressed more practically, to easier get our hands dirty. I glance behind me at where trees, shrubs and groundcover plants are being distributed to those in the crowd.

The ceremony moves forward, we are each called to approach our designated spot and crouch before the upturned earth. One by one, a leader speaks words over each planting, and those in each marriage respond. Sophie and I are third and we smile at each other as we are prompted to break ground, moving in sync to insert our sapling into the earth, patting down the dirt to make a shallow disc with our plant at the centre. After the last couple does the same, the onlookers are invited to join in and we watch, overflowing with joy, as our friends and family surround us, begin their own plantings. We help the younger ones and direct them to where the water crystals are kept, and hold onto each other as we watch Mickey's kids and my nieces and nephews scatter them with delight.

Two days down, I think, as the event finishes and we make our way back to town. Halfway through the wedding, in some sense already married, and it really hasn't been that stressful. Of course, I fear, the worst is still to come.