A Magical Bond | 18

The next day got off to another grumblingly early start, as Cassie was determined to pack an exhaustive walking tour of Windenburg's quaint Olde Platz district and its winding cobblestone streets into a single morning. Sione was barely able to steal one refreshing sip from his Styrofoam cup of lemonade before she had him off and running, determined to make him fall in love with quiet small town life before their trip ended.

Though he wasn't entirely convinced yet that Windenberg was the place for him (despite his exhaustion, it'd been difficult to even fall asleep without the sounds of the whooshing subway filling his ears with white noise), Sione could see the appeal of the place. It offered the best of both worlds: in one direction, vast swathes of unoccupied wilderness to retreat to whenever the demands of modern life became too much; in the other, a neat, cozy little town to provide all the amenities and socialization one needed to keep from going totally rogue. Unbeknownst to Cassie, to show her that he was at least willing to consider the idea of compromise, he'd looked up a handful of semi-affordably-priced real estate listings online back in San Myshuno. Now, sneakily, he redirected their tour in the direction of the nearest property, hastily double-checking the directions on his phone whenever Cassie turned her back.

"Hey, wait a minute!" she exclaimed when they reached a dead end culminating in a small but sturdy half-timbered house with a for sale sign posted out front. "Did I make a wrong turn somewhere?" She looked toward Sione nervously. He managed to stay quiet long enough to keep her guessing but couldn't entirely ward off the mischievous smile creeping onto his face. "This isn't... How did we..." Her words trailed off as realization slowly dawned.

She shook her head at him, feigning annoyance. "This isn't on the itinerary!" she shouted. "We'll never make it through everything on my list if we stop for every little piece of architecture that catches your eye!"

"Oh, so we're only allowed to go off-course when it's your idea?" he asked, raising his eyebrow to silently remind her how spontaneous she'd been feeling last night. "I mean, we can turn around if you want, but I just thought it'd be nice to check out a couple of houses while we're here. If you're still serious about wanting to settle down somewhere outside the city, that is. If not, we can go look at another statue that looks exactly like all the rest."

A series of complicated emotions played out across Cassie's face as she spent half of his speech coming up with a quippy comeback and half of it being overcome with emotion at his thoughtfulness. "Well, I guess we can go inside for a few minutes," she said guardedly, playing down how suddenly giddy she felt inside.

When they stepped back outside, opinions were flying out of her so quickly that he barely had time to process one before she was onto the next. "You know, it was nice overall," she concluded breathlessly. "Like, it's definitely a step up from the apartment and totally within the realm of possibility budget-wise. But it also just feels... kind of safe? It's almost too civilized for me. I want to wake up to the smell of pines or the sound of waves lapping every morning! I want to feel like every day is ripe for an adventure!"

Sione had anticipated she might feel that way. He scrolled to the bottom of his saved listings and selected the most expensive one. He'd known when he'd first laid eyes on it that Cassie would instantly fall in love. The question of whether they could ever realistically own it would have to come later. "If you're willing to trek a bit further out, I might have the place for you," he told her.

They took a ferry to the Crumbling Isle (which was hopefully a more dependable place to live than its name implied). Just as he'd anticipated, her eyes went comically wide the second the house was within their sights. It was a three-story marvel squarely in the middle of nowhere that had been built around the restored structure of an out-of-service lighthouse. "Oh my God, this is beautiful," she whispered reverentially, too awestruck to even consider raising her voice. Carefully, they broached its threshold, stepping onto the brick porch, which was flanked by pillars of solid stone. "This must cost a couple million Simoleons!"

As she peered through the windows, he glanced back down at the listing. "Not quite," he told her. "It's expensive, obviously, but the real estate prices out here are already so much lower than in San Myshuno. You could get maybe a third of a penthouse apartment back there for the same price."

She turned to him with a huge grin on her face. "So are you telling me it's not entirely out of reach?"

He bit his lower lip nervously. "Well, we'd be in debt up to our eyeballs and would probably have to live out of cardboard boxes for the first couple years." He paused, gauging her reaction, but her smile was still just as wide, as if all that sounded fine to her. "So, no," he concluded slowly, "I guess it's not entirely out of reach."

"Whoa!" she exclaimed, abruptly catching sight of the small beach just a few yards removed from the house's expansive backyard. "The view is amazing!" She broke out into a jog, and he had no choice but to follow behind, though his calves already ached from spending so much time on his feet.

Once he caught up to her, though, he forgot all about his throbbing muscles and sweat-drenched t-shirt. The view really was remarkable, the water seeming to stretch on for miles, only occasionally interrupted by the jagged castoffs of the craggy cliffs lining its shores. It was a sight that literally took his breath away, something he couldn't say had happened many times in his life up until now. For the first time since they'd arrived, he felt a twinge of desire somewhere deep inside that was begging him to stay. Looking out upon a landscape like this, he couldn't say he missed much about San Myshuno at all.

He'd been carrying a ring around in his pocket all day, patiently waiting for the perfect moment to present itself, and it seemed that it finally had. While Cassie was still caught up in admiring the view, he shook himself back into reality, pulled out the ring, and fell down onto one knee. The sudden movement broke her concentration. She glanced distractedly down at him and then gasped as she took in what he was doing, her eyes immediately filling up with tears. "No matter where we end up, whether it's here or a cramped apartment in San Myshuno or a tiny seaside shack in Sulani, the only thing that matters to me is that we're in it together. I can be happy anywhere as long as I have you by my side. We've wasted so much time running away from each other, but now we've been given the opportunity to spend the rest of our lives making up for it. Cassiopeia Bautista, will you marry me?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" she exclaimed. "Are you kidding? Of course I will!" She reached out a trembling hand, and he tenderly slid the ring onto her finger. They exchanged a private kiss on the isolated beach before turning back, hand in hand, to gaze wistfully at their dream house. "Now that we've got a wedding to plan," Cassie said, turning suddenly sober, "it's probably too much of a risk. That little house in town could be okay for now, or maybe we should keep looking. It wouldn't be responsible to rush into anything."

"No," Sione agreed, "but let's not count it out just yet. I've been responsible my whole life. Maybe it's time I take a page out of your book and learn to be a little bit more rash."

It seemed that embracing the unexpected would become an important theme in this new chapter of their lives. When they arrived back in San Myshuno, Inkblot was nowhere to be found. It took Cassie several minutes of searching before she found her under the bed, crouching protectively like she was guarding some precious treasure. "What is it, girl?" Cassie asked, getting down on her hands and knees to coax her familiar out. "What's wrong? You aren't still upset we left you behind, are you? It was only a couple of days, and I put out plenty of food!"

Giving up, Cassie finally collapsed into an armchair, deciding she would let Inkblot emerge in her own due time. She had no idea the cat would be so lonely without her! After all, Inkblot frequently disappeared on her own long foraging trips, even in the city, returning days later with gifts of feathers and herbs clenched between her teeth to rub up against Cassie's legs like she'd never been gone at all. "Oh, shit," Cassie muttered to herself, the thought of Inkblot's solo journeys triggering a sudden hunch in her brain. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Inkblot cautiously crept out from her hiding place, followed by a tiny, wobbling kitten that looked exactly like her. Cassie let out a disbelieving laugh at the sight. "So this is what you've been up to all this time! I suppose it's what I get for procrastinating on getting you fixed for so long, huh?"

As much of a surprise as the arrival of a new pet was to her, Cassie had already decided by the time Sione was back with the rest of their luggage that she was hopelessly and irrevocably in love with Inkblot's little mini me. "What is that thing?" Sione grumbled, so jetlagged he refused to let any obstacle stand in the way of his cracking open a cold beer, sinking down into the sofa, and immediately losing himself to the mindless world of video games.

"Inkblot became a mother while we were gone!" Cassie exclaimed proudly, nuzzling her cheek against the kitten's soft fur. Gingerly, she flipped it onto its stomach to see if she could determine its sex. "Oh, I think it's a boy! What should we name him?"

"That hardly matters, considering we barely have room here for one cat, let alone two!"

"Oh, I know," she said, seeming not to hear him. "Ember!"

Sione rolled his eyes, but he could already feel his desire to give Cassie everything she wanted overpowering his annoyance at the thought of having another slinky black body to stumble over in the middle of the night. "I'm taking Cosmo for a jog," he muttered, leaving her to coo and babble at the kitten alone.

"Don't worry, little guy," he reassured Cosmo once it was just the two of them, free from the constant mewing of those pesky cats. "You'll always be my favorite, no matter how many brothers or sisters you have."

Only a few days passed before Sione and Cassie both found themselves missing the sprawling foliage and serene isolation of Windenburg's countryside. For now, they would have to settle for the next best thing: a thickly-camouflaged outdoor bar nestled in the heart of Myshuno Meadows where only the city's most devoted inhabitants knew where to find it. A guitarist strummed gentle melodies on her instrument while the two of them took slow, luxurious sips from their drinks, basking in the sunshine and fresh air.

As much as the city would always feel like home to Sione, he couldn't deny that it had also worn him down. He would surely live to regret it if he spent the rest of his days breathing in polluted air, waiting on perpetually delayed subway trains, and hunching over a computer in a high-rise office building, the view from his desk the side of another identical building across the street. Cassie was right. The time was ripe for the two of them to escape to more peaceful pastures. "I think we should put in an offer on that house," he found himself blurting abruptly.

"Really?" Cassie asked him. "Can we even afford it?"

He shrugged her concern off. "If we get a loan, I don't see why not. Sure, we might be paying it off for the rest of our lives, but it'd be a worthwhile investment. Besides, we'd never forgive ourselves if we let the opportunity pass us by."

"You're right," she agreed easily. "I've dreamed about living there every night since we got back."

As the weeks passed, they plunged headfirst into wedding planning - or Cassie did, at least. Sione was lost when it came to things like settling on a color scheme or picking out flowers, but Cassie had decided they would save money if they took on as much as they could themselves. After all, now that they'd been approved for a loan by the bank and put up an offer for the converted lighthouse in Windenburg, it was important to cut costs elsewhere whenever possible. A wedding planner was simply an extravagance they couldn't justify. Instead, Cassie spent hours chatting online with her mother, with whom she was constantly swapping links to wedding dress sales and cake recipes and decor ideas. Meanwhile, as the days leading up to their planned wedding date quickly evaporated, Sione mostly stress-ate to distract himself from how little he felt like he was helping.

It was easy to scarf down his anxieties when it seemed like Cassie was trying out a new cake recipe every other day, determined to pinpoint a flavor that would surely please every single one of their guests. It seemed like every time he came home from work, there was an irresistibly appetizing aroma in the air and a still warm cake in the center of the table ready for him to dig into, Cassie pacing the kitchen nervously as she awaited his verdict. His reviews were almost always positive, which didn't particularly help in terms of narrowing things down.

Meanwhile, Sione started working on his wedding day contribution: a serenade written especially for Cassie on his acoustic guitar, which he'd largely abandoned in recent months. Although it took a day or two for him to warm back up to the instrument, the inspiration was soon flowing. The problem was keeping Cassie from overhearing his composition before he unveiled it after the ceremony. There wasn't much space for secrets in the apartment.

Before they knew it, only a few days remained until the day would arrive. Cassie's parents flew in early from Sulani so that they'd all have a chance to gather for a low-key family dinner before everyone inevitably got swept up in the enormity of the actual ceremony.

"That's what you've chosen to wear to dinner?" Malia spat at Javier, wagging her finger judgmentally at his loose, faded t-shirt, which Cassie was sure she recognized as one he'd worn often in her youth. Her father had never been one for keeping up with the latest fashions. "You may have been able to pull off that schlubby surfer boy style when you were younger, but I'm not sure it's befitting of that newly-gray beard you're sporting."

Javier grimaced, taken aback by her aggressive tone. "Give me a break, woman!" he exclaimed. "At this point, we've been separated longer than we were ever married. Haven't you forfeited your right to harp on every little aspect of my existence by now?"

"How can you guys even stand to live on the same island?" Cassie wondered aloud. "It hardly seems big enough for both of you. In fact, I'm surprised Mua Pel'am hasn't erupted by now under all that pressure!"

"Oh, your mom and I buried the hatchet years ago," Javier replied, waving a dismissive hand in the air. "This is just how we show our love for one another these days, isn't it, sweetheart?"

Malia rolled her eyes at the sarcastic term of endearment. "Something like that," she muttered as she glanced over the restaurant's menu, fully committed to the bit.

The two families spent the next couple hours catching up on the latest goings-on in everyone's lives, although both Cassie and Sione's parents were more interested in hearing about the soon-to-be-newlyweds' future plans, no matter how nebulous, than regaling them with tales of their retirement. They ate until they were stuffed and drank until they were red-faced.

"How are we feeling about dessert, everyone?" Nani asked as they neared the end of their meals.

"You know," Sione replied, "our refrigerator is already full of dessert! Cassie's been working on pinpointing the perfect wedding cake recipe for weeks now."

Cassie groaned dramatically. "And I'm nowhere even close to finding it! I'm starting to think maybe we shouldn't have any cake at all."

"Nonsense!" Javier exclaimed, slamming his palm down on the table with enough drunken force to rattle their plates. "It sounds to me like this is a situation that calls for a scientifically-conducted taste test. And you just so happen to have five willing participants sitting right in front of you. What are we waiting for? Let's get to it already!"

Not long later, they regrouped at the apartment, where Cassie had nervously set out her latest creations to be judged. Although they were classic flavors, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, she'd tested half a dozen different recipes, each time taking the most successful components to combine into one cake that was destined to be a hit for all.

In the end, all three cakes received high praise, but strawberry seemed to be the one that had everybody coming back for seconds, despite the fact that they were still miserably full from dinner. "I'm going to regret this in the morning," Sione muttered, shoveling another forkful into his mouth, "but it's so good, I just can't resist!"

"He's right! This strawberry cake is a real winner," Javier told her through an overstuffed mouth. Abruptly, the corners of his eyes glimmered with tears, which he played off with a laugh. "Look how much my little girl has grown up! Baking cakes, casting spells, getting married. I know I've never been around as much as I should've been, but you've made your silly old dad so proud."

"We can do this, can't we, girl?" Cassie said aloud on the morning of their wedding, more to herself than to Inkblot, as she mixed her ingredients in the fully-stocked industrial kitchen of the venue they'd rented out. She took half a dozen deep breaths in and out. "We only have to bake the most delicious cake everyone we know has ever tasted. No sweat, right?" She attacked the bowl with renewed vigor, and a cloud of flour immediately migrated onto her dress. "Goddamn it," she muttered. "Why didn't I wait until after I was finished baking to change?" The truth was she'd been so excited/anxious about getting married that she'd started getting ready almost as soon as she was out of bed.

Meanwhile, Sione had been forbidden from laying eyes on her again until she walked down the aisle. He'd been relegated instead to the responsibility of greeting guests as they arrived. "Oh my God, that has to be the cutest thing I've ever seen," his work friend, Asia, exclaimed upon catching sight of the tiny crown of roses affixed to Cosmo's head.

Sione laughed and gave Cosmo's belly a good rub. "He does look pretty adorable, doesn't he?" It had been Cassie's idea to include their pets in the ceremony, and when she suggested dressing them up, too, he'd been immediately dubious. Whenever he saw some poor dog that had been wrestled into an annoyingly twee little outfit by its owner, he cringed internally at how miserable they seemed. But the flower crown was subtle enough and Cosmo didn't seem to mind wearing it, so he supposed it was fine for one day. After all, it was a special occasion for all of them.

"Oh, thank God!" Noelani exclaimed upon eyeing the full-to-the-brim wine glass in Malia's hand. "The alcohol has finally arrived! Working all day on those damn decorations has really put my age into perspective. You have no idea how much energy it takes to scatter 10,000 rose petals until you're the one tasked with doing it."

Malia raised her glass in a gesture of commiseration. "Tell me about it! I think I must've scorched my fingertips off lighting all those candles. Now, where has that daughter of mine gotten off to?"

"The last I saw of her, she seemed to be having a mild nervous breakdown in the kitchen."

"Oh, dear." Malia took a generous gulp of wine. "I'd better go check in."

Malia swung open the kitchen door to find a frazzled and frantic Cassie on the other side. She immediately rushed into her mother's arms. "Mom, I am freaking the fuck out! I forgot how long the cake's supposed to stay in the oven. It's probably burnt to a crisp already! Not that it matters considering I'm pretty sure I left out an ingredient or maybe put in too much of an ingredient. Ugh, the entire day is ruined! Is it too late to call the whole thing off?"

"Oh, sweetheart, calm down," Malia replied, her voice like a soothing balm to Cassie's ears. She rubbed her daughter's back in slow concentric circles. "It smells heavenly in here, so I doubt the cake is burning, and I'm sure you followed the recipe to a T. Let's just take a peek and see how it's looking, okay?"

Outside, Sione was also finding comfort in the reassuring presence of a parent. "I'm not sure I even believe in this whole marriage thing anyway," he rambled semi-coherently as Noelani listened patiently. "What if we're only doing it to fulfill the expectations of, quote-unquote, normal society? That's so painfully conformist I can hardly stand it! Are we just allowing ourselves to become cogs in the monogamy machine? Our relationship's great already! What if marriage actually ruins it? What if these stupid vows only mark the beginning of the end?"

Noelani patted Sione's shoulder firmly, hoping to snap him out of his spiral. "There, there, son. I think you're getting worked up about all the wrong things. You and Cassie love each other enough to want to publicly express your eternal commitment. Remember, that's all that matters. None of this is for society. It's only for the two of you."

"Oh, Inky," Cassie murmured, burying her face deep in the cat's velvety fur as she enjoyed her final moment of peace and quiet before the ceremony. "Even if it all goes horribly wrong, at least we'll both look stunning." She pressed her mouth against Inkblot's ear and whispered conspiratorially, "If worst comes to worst, meet me around back. We'll escape on my broomstick and start a whole new life somewhere far, far away where nobody knows who we are!"

Finally, the bride and groom, along with their feline maid of honor and canine best man, took their places beneath the wedding arch. "Are you ready to do this?" Sione asked, taking Cassie's hand in his own.

"Of course!" she replied as enthusiastically as she could manage. "We're only about to profess our undying love for one another in front of everyone we've ever known. It's a walk in the park. I'm feeling totally chill. And you?"

Sione laughed nervously. "I'm the chillest guy who's ever chilled, truly."

"We should have just eloped," Cassie muttered as she watched their guests begin to gather. She felt like every eye in the room was pointed directly at her, and she'd never really liked being the center of attention.

Sione leaned in to gently kiss the tops of her hands. "Just close your eyes and pretend I'm the only one here. It'll be over in a flash, and then we're free to part-ay the night away."

"Never say party like that again," she commanded.

"You've got it," he replied immediately.

Sione was right. This was really no big deal. All they had to do was say a few words, exchange rings, and kiss. As long as they checked off those boxes, everyone in the room would be satisfied. As for the two of them, they both already knew how they felt. They hardly needed to pull off the most flawless wedding ceremony the world had ever seen to prove their love to one another. Simply the presence of the other there beside them was proof enough.

Once the ceremony was over, the stress almost immediately lifted like a heavy weight from their shoulders. The rest of the evening passed in a lovely, carefree blur of cake-tasting (of course, for all her fretting over it, Cassie's cake had turned out beautifully in the end)...

...slow-dancing (luckily, by that point, most of their guests were too drunk to care or even notice the half a dozen or so times they managed to stumble over each other's feet)...

...and, of course, guitar-serenading. Sione knew he would never be able to call himself a musician in the proper sense of the word, but at least he'd inherited enough of Noelani's talent to be able to carry a tune and pull off a decent melody when he wanted to. Of course, the lyrics were impossibly cheesy, but wasn't that what love songs were all about? At any rate, Cassie didn't cringe her way through the performance, so he considered it a success.

The night ended with a modest fireworks display, which had been Sione's idea, of course, his eyes instantly going wide as saucers as he anticipated the opportunity to make things explode. Cassie had indulged him without a fight, even though she feared he might blast off an arm in the process. Luckily, the light show went off without a hitch, and they stood back arm in arm with their necks craned toward the sky, both remembering a night in San Myshuno spent observing a similar show from the roof of the observatory.

Somehow, that night felt simultaneously near and far at once. In some ways, their romance over the last several months had been a whirlwind, but, in others, it was something they'd been moving toward their entire lives. It may have taken longer than expected for them to reach their inevitable destination, but they were both happier than words could describe to finally arrive there together.

*

I had planned to get through this story a lot sooner, but, in typical fashion, I lost interest partway through, ran out of my cushion of queued posts, and subsequently left the resolution hanging for months. But I was determined to conclude it before the year ended (barely limping across the finish line, naturally). I feel like these last couple posts have probably come across as forced and are definitely overwritten, but... embarrassingly enough, it has now been three freaking years since I played through all of this, so the fact that I could write it at all is a minor miracle.

Regardless of the delay, I'm still very excited for the next story, in which Sione and Cassie play pivotal roles but there will also be plenty of new faces. It involves more magic, a touch of the paranormal, and maybe even a heavy dose of tragedy. It's told from a first-person perspective because that somehow seemed to suit the story best. I've had a little over half of it written for, like, more than a year, lol, and I hope I can manage to pull the rest of it together well enough to do it justice. It's called Escape from Windenburg, and I'll probably start posting it in a few weeks tomorrow! What's the point in waiting? I'm the only one who cares, lol.