Clearsight

In the hours before we get married, as my mother helps me drape pearls over my wings and around my body, the fragments of visions whisper through my mind.

"Loosely," I chide, wishing I could just do this myself, for the kingdoms' sake. "Please, Mother. You're strangling me."

"Okay, sweetie," she sighs, in a vaguely patronizing tone. I know in five minutes, she'll be back at it again. Three moons, you think she would trust me to get ready for my own bloody wedding. But I was too nervous to get in an argument about it.

It's been a long time since I've felt this way. Excited and hopeful and happy and scared and overwhelmed, and--

I feel like my brain is about to explode or something.

"Are you sure you're making the right choice?" Mother asks, softly.

"I'm a seer. Of course I am. You don't think I've thought about this?"

"You seem... very in love," she says carefully.

"What does that mean?" I snap, adjusting the pearls and glancing at myself in the mirror. This is the moment. This is what I'm going to wear on my wedding day.

"Well... sometimes... that can make you... less logical..."

"Mother. Please." I meet her eyes.

She sighs, glancing down at the ground resignedly. "I'll give you some space to get ready. Wedding starts in fifteen minutes. Do you want me to come get you?"

"Fine. That... that sounds fine." I let out a breath, rubbing my eyes.

***

I stare at myself in the mirror for a long time. My heart pounds in my chest, so loud it feels like I'm about to explode or something.

Shadowhunter isn't going to be a secret anymore. The whole world is going to know. Foeslayer and Mother and Father and Whiteout, and--

I take a deep breath, forcing my shoulders to relax.

Calm down. This is the right choice.

Everything is going to be okay.

You can handle this.

I curl up into a ball, not caring if it's going to mess up all the fancy jewels, cradling my head in my talons. I threw up yesterday morning--which is totally normal; just a being-with-an-egg thing. I mean, it wasn't fun or anything, but I was fine fifteen minutes later. Darkstalker still insisted on making me pancakes for breakfast and kept asking if I was okay. It's not the vomiting thing that was bugging me. It was that... this meant it was really happening.

And I'd just... forgotten how this felt. Like standing at the edge of a cliff, and feeling the wind whistle through your wings, about to fly for the first time. Bracing your legs, feeling the exhilaration sweep through your chest, but not jumping. Because you know you can do it. But... after you do, everything will be different. And for some reason, that scares you. More than anything.

***

And then it's happening. We're walking towards each other, from opposite ends of the aisle, towards the altar. I smile, just slightly, at Darkstalker. He smiles back, and honestly, just seeing him is kind of reassuring.

Don't think about everyone else. Just stay in the moment. You'll be okay.

Who came here tonight? Is Queen Vigilance watching? How will she react to finding out I'm with an egg?

Visions flicker through my head, bullets bouncing off my skull. Or something. Eventually, I give up trying to ward them away.

And then, finally, we're standing next to each other, the enchanted fireflies flickering around us. One lands on my shoulder, but when I turn around to try and trap it in my talons, it flitters away.

You look beautiful, Darkstalker mouths.

You do too, I mouth back, grinning.

The officiator--a dragon we know from work who does weddings in his spare time--steps forward, glancing at both of us. He has a little scroll in his talons, presumably with the vow we decided on written on it.

"Please take the ring and place it on the bride's ring talon," He instructs Darkstalker, holding out the rings we bought at the jewelry store that, right now, feels a thousand miles away.

I hand him my talon, and he obliges, slipping the silver ring onto my talon a little clumsily.

The officiator turns to me. "Now, Clearsight, can you please place the ring on the groom's ring talon?"

I grab the ring and gently slip it onto Darkstalker's talon. He grins at me.

"Now, I'd like you both to repeat after me."

Darkstalker nods.

"I, Darkstalker of the NightWings," he starts.

"I, Darkstalker of the NightWings," Darkstalker echoes.

"Promise to stay by your side, through war and peace; through sickness and health; through rain and sun, to be there for you unconditionally, until death do us part. Do you take me as your lawfully wedded husband?"

Darkstalker pauses for a second, making my heart do a ridiculous flip in my chest. What if--

He looks me straight in the eyes, grabbing onto one of my talons. And with a kind of ferocious, defiant passion, he says, "I, Darkstalker of the NightWings, promise to stay by your side, through war and peace, through sickness and health, through rain and sun, to be there for you unconditionally, until death do us part. Do you take me as your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do," I whisper, the seed of a smile curling across my mouth.

"Clearsight, I want you to repeat after me--"

"I know the vow," I interrupt.

"Well, now--"

I take a deep breath, meeting Darkstalker's eyes."I, Clearsight of the NightWings, promise to stay by your side, through war and peace, through sickness and health, through rain and sun, to be there for you unconditionally, until death do us part. Do you take me as your lawfully wedded wife?" My talons are shaking a little—but in a good way this time.

"I do," Darkstalker says, smiling back at me.

"Then I pronounce you lawfully wedded husband and wife."

I light up, throwing my wings around Darkstalker. He tackles me, hugging back so tight it's almost suffocating, and we're lying on the rose-petal-scattered grass, stars and fireflies flickering above us, violins and soft piano beginning to play in the background, and a whole cheering audience watching our every move, but in that moment, I don't care. Not even a little.

"I love you more than anything else," he whispers in my ear.

"I love you too."

I'll remember that moment for the rest of my life. I swear. I will.

***

There are a lot of strange NightWing wedding traditions. For example, for some reason, you can only get married under at least one full moon--so there are only a couple days per month when dragons get married. We chose to do it under only one full moon, which Mother is still dead-set will bring the whole world to an end or something.

It's traditional for the bride to wear gemstones, like pearls or sapphires, and for the groom to wear metals--hence why Darkstalker picked out four fancy gold cuffs for his arms and legs that glint like little suns in the candlelight. After the couple is married, it's also traditional for them to toss some of their jewels at the well-wishers, and if you manage to catch them, it's considered good luck.

And rather than giving the couple presents in person, most dragons just leave their gifts in a heap by the altar. So after the ceremony, the couple will go through the gifts, reading aloud the notes, trying to guess who they came from.

There are more of them--those are just the most common ones.

So afterward, we do all of those things. And it's great. It really is. That doesn't mean that in the back of my mind, I'm not still anxious. Because after all of that--after we've cut into the cake and gone through all the gifts, guessing a couple of them (no one but Whiteout would give us a painting of snow falling on a mountainside, and Darkstalker recognized the painting style immediately) and been congratulated by Foeslayer and Whiteout and even my parents, who looked sort of teary, and for once weren't horrible about my relationship, it means we have to do the dance.

The dance.

I want to throw up. Darkstalker squeezes my talon, nuzzling my neck with his snout.

"You ready?" He whispers, breath warm against my ear.

"Not really."

"It'll be all right. You can do this. I believe in you."

There's a moment of silence.

Now or never.

I step forward to the centre of the clearing, taking a deep breath. "We--we'd like to make an announcement," I say, in my clearest, most confident voice, squaring my shoulders.

I can do this.

The onlooking dragons take a moment to go quiet. The ocean breeze sweeps through my wings, and for a second, I think about flying away. Just taking off with Darkstalker, and finding an island somewhere in the middle, raising our children away from--

No.

"We... we um, we'd just like to say that... Darkstalker and I recently found out we're expecting a dragonet. A little girl."

Gasps ripple around the clearing, a grassy area near a beach that we used to go to on dates, when we were younger. We still do go there, actually. Sometimes. I take another deep breath, trying my best to clear my mind. "And... we're going to name her Shadowhunter."

Darkstalker grins at me, affectionately tapping his snout against mine. He pulls me into his talons, spinning me around, somehow instantly managing to clear an area for us to dance.

My heart pounds in my chest.

"You'll be an amazing mom," he whispers. "I know you will."

"Thank you. You... you're a great dad, too. I can see it." I smile back at him.

And after that, we just dance, gradually slipping into the crowd. I just want to forget, for a while. Forget everything.

***

"A dragonet--" Foeslayer starts, looking me up and down, with a sort of vaguely motherly pride. "This is really--"

"It's true. I promise." Darkstalker grins at her. "We wanted to wait until the wedding to tell everyone."

"I'm going to be a grandma. Darkstalker, you'll be someone's dad--I can't believe--"

"It's real." I touch my stomach by instinct. "I promise. I've seen it. In the futures. And we really are going to call her Shadowhunter. She has--she has blue eyes."

Foeslayer's jaw drops. "Like--"

You see, NightWing eyes aren't blue. They're silver. Occasionally green, but I've only ever met one NightWing with eyes that colour before. Only... only IceWing eyes are blue.

"Like Arctic's," I finish, softly. It's the first time I've used his name in ages.

"You didn't tell me that?" Darkstalker quirks his eyebrow at me.

"She does." I smile, a little.

"I--I--just--be happy. Both of you." Foeslayer meets both of our eyes. "Oh--" she throws her wings around Darkstalker, whispering something I can't make out. "You've grown up so much. I remember when--"

"Mother--"

"You would give me paintings you and Whiteout would make--"

"MOM--" Darkstalker protests, laughing.

"You used to... paint?" I quirk an eyebrow, grinning.

"I was little!" Darkstalker protests, laughing. "I was--"

"It was adorable, Clearsight," Foeslayer winks. "I'll show you someday."

She pauses, taking a deep breath. And for a second, her expression shows everything--pride and hope and grief and emptiness and the kind of devastation I'm not sure anything could fix.

But then she's smiling again, her guard pulled right back up.

***

My parents are the next to approach me. I brace for the worst.

"You're..." Mother starts, in that voice. That voice. The one that says how could you not say anything? Don't you trust me?

"We wanted to wait until the wedding to tell anyone about it," Darkstalker says smoothly. "We've only known for a month, and we wanted to be sure. Before we told anyone."

"She isn't an animus, right?" Mother shoots a lot at Darkstalker.

A lump rises in my throat. How can I lie to my parents about this?

Darkstalker squeezes my talon. "I'm not sure yet. It's... possible. But we're not sure," I say softly.

"You're going to be a mom," Mother whispers, tearing up.

I nod.

"I--"

She throws her wings around me.

I can't bring myself to reject them.

***

I miss Listener. And Fathom. In another alternate future, Listener was my bridesmaid. Fathom was our dragon of honour. He's coming over, tomorrow, to our place, to celebrate, which is when we're going to tell him about the dragonet. But... it's not the same.

And Listener...

I wonder what her wedding was like.