March 28th, 1891 - Ottery St. Catchpole, morning

Being a bridesmaid was stressful, and Zelda felt as if she'd spent most of the last week trying to moderate her sister's anxiety. (She was not the most qualified candidate for this, either, because she and Xena had never really been friends and a Fisk family wedding was not likely to change that for them.) But the chuppah was set up in the back of their uncle's house, the magical officiant was there, and Xena was busy terrorizing the maid who was styling her. Zelda had been styled since dawn, and so she was sort of just — waiting for things to happen. So it was easier to slip away than it should have been, and there was so much noise going on in the house that a pop! of apparition from the back porch was unlikely to be noticed. It was relatively early morning still — nine a.m., the world hadn't fully warmed up yet — with a solid chunk of time until she'd be expected to actually do bridesmaid things some more.

She landed on the dock of the small lake easily, and had a few minutes to fidget with her gloves and the earrings (their mother's, and aquamarine to match the dress, Xena had picked them out) before she saw Alfred. She definitely wasn't supposed to be seeing Alfred today, but he wasn't invited and Zelda had been unable to resist finding a little window to tell him to meet her — the thing was, as much as she'd complained about the dress, she simply looked too good in it to resist.

"Hi," Zelda said, straightening, "I hope it wasn't too difficult to find this?" The dock was a ten or so minute walk from the floo point in town, but she hadn't wanted to meet him at the actual floo point and risk being spotted by one of their desks. Besides, she was a little fond of this lake, for all that she could have drowned in it once — she hadn't, and so instead it made her think of the adventures of childhood and their life in Ottery St. Catchpole, which she sometimes missed for all that she'd lobbied to move to Hogsmeade for years before they had.

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred was just waiting for the wedding to pass before he wrote to Brannon Fisk and asked for a time to meet with him, so he ought to have been on his best behavior in the meantime. Getting caught now would really derail things, and they were so close to being done with this. That said, it wasn't as though he could ever say no to Zelda, and it solved the problem of how to deliver his gift for her fairly handily. He'd bought a new coat recently (primarily for Brannon Fisk's sake, because he couldn't have anything that looked worn when he went to see him about Zelda and his old coat was salt-stained and battered by months of wind) and was wearing it today, in the hopes that it might help him go unrecognized if he had any close calls with miscellaneous Fisks. He'd pushed a hat down low over his curls, for the same purpose, though they were still making a show of themselves popping out just below his ears and all along his neck.

"'Course it wasn't," he greeted with a cheeky smile as he approached the dock. "I'm an explorer, remember." He stopped for a minute to take in the sight of her: her hair all done up and blue earrings framing her face, the dress which was so much fancier than anything she typically wore, the long gloves. "You look beautiful," he said sincerely, as he moved to take both of her hands in his.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda grinned back at him, a little more delighted by the mischief of this than she ought to have been. They were at the dock of the lake in Ottery St. Catchpole, and Alfred's curls were escaping from under his hat, and Xena was getting married in a few hours, and there was just an energy in the air that was exciting. Maybe — even though Mr. Bixby was closer in age to their dead mother than to Xena, even though this whole thing was Zelda's worst case scenario — it was because of the wedding.

She squeezed Alfred's hands. "I do, don't I?" Zelda said, feeling a little sheepish for thinking so — but maybe she could be allowed to be silly, just this morning. "I'm glad you came to see me."

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AMAZING set by MJ

"You do," Alfred agreed, even though they had both already said that. It bore repeating, though. This was so unexpected, her hair pinned up in this elaborate fashion and the dress bringing her silouette out in such a striking way. He had expected that she would look pretty, of course, because she always looked pretty. He had even vaguely known that she would probably look especially good today, because it was a wedding and she was in it and there would be a lot more effort going in to the way she looked today than there was on any other. Even so, the whole effect left him a little speechless. He couldn't have come up with anything more articulate than this: you look beautiful, you do, even though there was certainly more to be said.

"I'd never pass up a chance to see you," he said with a helpless sort of smile, which was how he felt: helpless. He knew this was a bad idea, knew he should have waited until he was able to get Brannon's approval to marry her, but he was so delighted just to have a moment alone with her that it seemed impossible he might not have come. And to be here, at a lake she'd told him so much about from when she was a child, holding both of her hands in his and getting to see her looking so fancy and so beautiful was even a step beyond just being able to see her. She was going to look like the most beautiful woman in the world when they finally got married, he just knew it.

"Oh," he said suddenly, as though he'd forgotten (which he sort of had for a moment, being distracted by the sight of her). "I've got something for you."

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

She grinned again, delighted to have lured him here just to see her, and never mind the risk that they were incurring. She couldn't help it; sometimes the risk was appealing, too, and with Xena rattling around she was sure she wouldn't be missed.

"Oh!" Zelda chirped, relinquishing one of his hands even though she didn't want to. "But I don't have anything for you." She was curious, of course — it wasn't like it was near her birthday or any major holidays, so she was a little caught off guard even as she was, obviously, excited about it.

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred laughed. "You don't have to have anything for me," he said easily as he reached into his coat to pull the long, thin box out of his pocket. This had been a little spontaneous — or, as spontaneous as something could be, when he had to plan it weeks in advance in order to pull it off. More spontaneous than his Christmas gift for her, at any rate. It wasn't normal for people to give gifts to bridesmaids during weddings, but it wasn't as though he'd had to buy anything for Xena (not being invited to the wedding). Besides, the idea of her having something from him during this event — this formal celebration of love, or whatever, surrounded by all of her friends and family and which he hadn't been invited to — it was appealing. Like he would be there after all, even if no one knew it but the two of them.

He handed her the box, letting go of her other hand so that she could open it. He bit his lower lip and watched her expression, expecting her to be a little confused at first. They were just gloves, exactly the same as the ones she was wearing. He'd borrowed a bridesmaid's glove last week so that he could take it to the store and make sure they would be exactly identical, in every way except one.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda took the box and removed the lid with a turn of her wrist. She found herself confused by the contents; especially since she currently had the gloves on, it was abundantly easy for her to tell that the pair in the box was exactly the same.

"Are they — the same?" she asked, raising her eyebrows at him in her confusion, still smiling despite this — she was too pleased to have him here on the dock with her to let confusion take over her whole face.

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AMAZING set by MJ

"Almost," he said, unable to contain the smile on his face at her question. He was pleased with himself for having managed this, and her confusion was pleasing too, in a way. It meant that she was going to be surprised by this next bit, which was what he'd been hoping for. Apparently Julian hadn't let anything slip about the gloves then (or Leonid, from the awkward run-in outside the shop), and she didn't know what to expect. (Courting her was so much nicer for the past few weeks, now that he had a few of her siblings won over to his side — if they'd gone about this properly and the Fisks had all started off at least neutral to him, he might have been really enjoying it).

"Here," he said, picking up the right glove between both hands and rolling the bottom of it up, so that the interior was visible where it would hug her forearm and wrist. There were marks in the stitching there, invisible from the outside of the glove but with enough of a texture that she'd be able to feel them when she was wearing it. Hopefully she recognized them, without him having to explain; they were all of the marks he'd drawn on her arm as they'd sat alone in the dark in his room two weeks ago.

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   Rowan Yaxley

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

It took her a second, once he rolled the bottom of the gloves up so she could see the interior. She leaned closer to see the stitching, and then looked up at him; if she hadn't already been grinning she would have now, but the corners of her eyes were crinkling up. "Like the tattoos," she said, less for confirmation and more because she was pleased — with him, with the gift, with the day, with him. She was so in love with him.

Zelda leaned up to kiss him, still holding the box carefully balanced in her hands.

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred's smile broke from something he was trying to contain while he waited for her reaction to a wide grin, though it didn't last long. She was leaning up to kiss him, and he returned it hungrily, not caring at the moment whether they were too much out in the open for this sort of kiss. He reached up to cup her face as he kissed her, and when he finally stopped he didn't move either his hands or his head, but instead leaned his forehead against hers.

"When you're at the wedding today," he said softly, "You can think about what it'll be like when we get married."

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   Rowan Yaxley, Zelda Darrow

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

The kiss felt like the sort that ought to be followed by several more kisses, and even with their only-dubiously-isolated circumstances Zelda was a little tempted to demand more. There was a little excited jolt in her stomach at when we get married — and she knew, she knew her family wasn't sold, but the longer this went on the more likely it felt that Brannon would agree. "I will," she said softly, their foreheads still pressed together, "As long as you do, too, today."

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred scoffed at that, but followed it immediately with a half-smile. "As if I'm not already doing that every day," he said, reaching up to brush his thumbs against the sides of her face just outside her eyes. And maybe that was a slight exaggeration, to say every day, but he'd had plenty of cause to be thinking about it lately. There were so many little reminders of it, that Zelda had no idea about. Packing up his London flat, taking turns around the Sanditon with Herbert Fudge, making arrangements with the harbormaster on the Thames for longer-term storage for the Voyager through the summer months, getting the house on the terrace arranged in a way that felt less like a vacation rental and more like a home. Soon.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

The feeling of his thumbs near her eyes was almost as intimate as the kissing had been, and Zelda changed the angle of her face just to press another kiss to Alfred's mouth. "I'll just have to think about everything I'd change for our wedding," she said, "Or something." She was less concerned about the wedding and more concerned about getting to the actual marriage, really — for all that she was used to Fisk family chaos, she'd never loved big parties like this, and weddings themselves sometimes felt more to be for the spectators than for the couple. (Well — not in this case. In this case, the wedding might be Xena's consolation for not marrying someone she loved.)

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AMAZING set by MJ

"You can do whatever you please for our wedding," Alfred said indulgently, smiling at the lingering taste of her kiss on his lips. He certainly didn't have any opinions whatsoever about weddings (at least he didn't think so; perhaps he'd discover some when it came to actually planning one), so he was happy to go along with anything that she wanted. Of course, weddings weren't really about the bride and groom in most cases — Alfred came from a big family, too, so he knew about that sort of thing, though his family was bigger in the realm of cousins, aunts, and uncles than it was in siblings.

"And if your family try to insist on anything you don't want, I'll fight them for you," he teased lightly.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

"Oh, perfect," Zelda said, with a mischievous smile, "I'll keep that in mind if anyone is trying to convince me to do something silly." As fun as being so fancy today was, it was also a little exhausting — Zelda was hoping for something that was a little less high-maintenance on her end, when they got married. And it was a when, no matter what Ros had said about blossoms dying on the branch, or whatever.

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   J. Alfred Darrow

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AMAZING set by MJ

"I'm going to be as good at fighting with them as you are," he teased lightly. Not that this was the sort of skill he ought to be proud of, but it was sort of a skill, trying to keep up with the lot of them, and he did think that he'd gotten considerably better at it over the course of their courtship. Some of them even liked him now, but he hadn't told Zelda about any of that yet. "It'll just take one more of Roslyn's dinner parties to get me there, I think."

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER