Mercedes Lackey - Owlsight

“For this joining, Nightwind k’Leshya pledges to remain here, far from her birth-home, to bring her skills to k’Vala. For this joining, Snowfire k’Vala pledges to give her home, hearth, and hand, that she never feel the loss of her birth-home and all she has left behind. For this joining, the Elders of k’Vala and k’Leshya have sworn to honor these pledges in their stead, should ill luck befall either.”

He paused again for effect, then continued when virtually everyone nodded in agreement.

“The Vale is more than this place and its Heartstone; if the Heartstone were no more, if we sought another home, where we were would still be k’Vala. There is no k’Vala without the people; there is no Clan without all of us. Our strength is in our bonds to one another, and to make another bond strengthens us all. To make a bond between two so near in heart, yet so different in origin, makes both our clans stronger.”

When he was done, the rightmost Elder, Rainlance, picked up as smoothly as if they were one person and not three.

“This bond, this joining, is not meant to be a fetter. A joining is a partnership, not two people becoming one,” the second Elder said, though not as sternly as Starfall had said it the first time they took their vows. “Two minds cannot fuse, two souls cannot merge, two hearts cannot keep to the same time. If two are foolish enough to try this, one must overwhelm the other, and that is not love, nor is it compassion, nor responsibility. You are two who choose to walk the same path, to bridge the differences between you with love. You must remember and respect those differences and learn to understand them, for they are part of what made you come to love in the first place. Love is patient, love is willing to compromise - love is willing to admit it is wrong. There will be hard times; you must face them as bound warriors do, side by side, not using the weapon of your knowledge to tear at each other. There will be sadness as well as joy, and you must support one another through the grief and sorrow. There will be pain - but pain shared is pain halved, as joy shared is joy doubled, and you each must sacrifice your own comfort to share the pain of the other. And yet, you must do all this and manage to keep each other from wrong actions, for a joining means that you also pledge to help one another at all times. You must lead each other by example. Guide and be willing to be guided. Being joined does not mean that you accept what is truly wrong; being joined means that you must strive that you both remain in the light and the right. You must not pledge yourselves thinking that you can change each other. That is rankest folly, and disrespectful, for no one has the right to change another. You must not pledge yourselves thinking that there will be no strife between you. That is fantasy, for you are two and not one, and there will inevitably come conflict that it will be up to you to resolve. You must not pledge yourselves thinking that all will be well from this moment on. That is a dream, and dreamers must eventually wake. You must come to this joining fully ready, fully committed, and fully respectful of each other.”

Now the third Elder, Silverswan, took up the thread of ceremony - and a silken cord of silver and blue. Night-wind extended her right hand, and Snowfire his left, and the Elder bound them together with the cord.

“Now you will no longer fear the storm,” the Elder said, in ringing tones, “for you find shelter in each other. Now the winter cannot harm you, for you warm each other with love. Now when strength fails, you will be the wind to each other’s wings. Now the darkness holds no danger, for you will be the light to each other’s path. Now you will defy despair, for you will bring hope to each other’s heart. Now there will be no more loneliness, for there will always be a hand reaching out to aid you when all seems darkest. Where there were two paths, there is now one. May your days together be long upon the earth, and each day blessed with joy in each other.”

With their hands still bound together, Snowfire carefully took a silver hair clasp he had been holding in his right hand, one with two feathers hanging from it - one of Hweel’s and one of Huur’s - and clasped it onto the elaborate construction that was Nightwind’s hair. At the same time, she fastened a similar clasp with one of Kel’s smaller feathers into his hair with her left hand. That had been a rather clever touch; Nightwind had no bondbird, of course, but everyone agreed) that her bond with Kel certainly was of the same order : j

Then, the ceremony finally over, they turned to face the crowd and as the witnesses parted so that the audience could see them clearly, raised their bound hands above their heads.

The cheer that erupted literally shook leaves and blossoms out of the trees, showering them both with fragrant petals. More flowers flew at them from the audience and dropped onto their heads from the talons of bondbirds, who seemed to take a great deal of pleasure out of picking a target and hitting it. Flowers were everywhere, the air so thick with them that it looked like a blizzard. Nightwind and Snowfire were exempt from the pelting, but Darian had to put up a hand to fend off all the blossoms intended for his head. Beneath the storm of flowers, the pair paused long enough for a rather heated kiss - a sure sign that though they’d been bonded for two years, they hadn’t become bored with each other!

No one could have possibly enjoyed a party in those cumbersome ceremonial outfits; however, the Tayledras had long since solved that problem. The six witnesses stepped forward and removed the cord holding the pair’s hands together, cutting it into six pieces and each taking one as a physical token that the marriage had been made. Should they ever decide to dissolve the joining, the six pieces would have to be retrieved and burned in another ceremony. Once the ceremonial cord was taken off their hands, Nightwind and Snowfire simply touched hidden clasps and stepped out of their outer ceremonial robes, leaving them in the hands of the witnesses, who had been waiting to take them. They didn’t have to hold the garments for long; in a moment, previously invisible hertasi whisked them away - to be shortly displayed on stands during the celebration for the admiration of anyone who wanted to examine them. From this moment on, the robes became the heirloom works of art they truly were, and would be displayed on the walls of Snowfire’s ekele. Now looking far more comfortable wearing shirts and breeches just like Darian’s, they joined the throng of well-wishers. Meanwhile, more hertasi materialized among the crowd with trays of every kind of finger food and drink imaginable. Ayshen appeared at Darian’s elbow to take Snowfire’s weapons, the three owls flew up into the boughs so that the perch could be removed, and a group of musicians took over the ceremonial platform. Darian was amazed to see that one of the musicians was a creature that could only be a member of the tervardi, the bird-people. He’d never seen one until now, for although the tervardi were traditional allies of the Tayledras, there was no colony of them near k’Vala Vale.

Darian tried to stare without staring; he could not tell if the tervardi was male or female, but if coloration followed the same pattern as in birds, and if the feathers weren’t painted as some of the gryphons’ were, then it was probably male. Its head, covered with scarlet-and-black feathers with a hint of a crest, had a definite beak rather than lips. The arms were feathered as well - wings, but nonfunctional ones, too abbreviated to be of any use even in gliding. There was a broad, feathered tail, and it wore a type of wrapped garment that left the tail free.