Wine for Celebrants (Suitor Post-Scrutiny Part One)

"A belated toast!"

Lady Alter is already giggling from too much wine as her son raises his second (or is this the third?) glass with a newfound reverie. Lord Alter isn't ashamed to show his emotions here in the privacy of his home and laughs along with his wife, one hand on his gold and crystal glass and the other holding hers. Denelia, their daughter, sits across their inlaid feasting table. Like her mother she's long past her first glass of wine, and past her first cigarette as well. The smoke is fading from the air even as the smell gets stronger, but nobody seems to mind. She smiles for her brother as she raises her half-empty glass.

"To my family!" Zandros says, returning the red-cheeked smile he's getting from the rest of them. "Including the Durants, of course!" The others laugh and raise their cups a little higher. "Isidor, wherever and whoever you are, I hope you're as gorgeous as your mother!" His own mother hiccups in surprise and her children laugh a little louder. Lord Alter squeezes her hand and winks.

"To the future!" Zandros calls across the dining hall. A servant girl relights the fading candles on one wall and suddenly the room -- and Zandros' expression -- is so much brighter. "To Earth, Azeroth, and the merging of our worlds. May all good things come from this new union!"

"Hear, hear!" His father says, his eyes twinkling with pride (and a touch of alcohol.)

Feeling bolder now Zandros steps onto his chair and his sister laughs anew. With his arm and glass raised high as he can muster Zandros calls, "And to the Light!" His father nods once, vehemently. "For granting me the strength to prove my worth and smite that co--woah!" He wobbles on his chair and quickly hops down to avoid a nasty fall. Wine rocks from his cup and spills onto the polished marble floor, work for the servants and a hearty laugh for the Alters.

Zandros takes his seat, his whole face flushed from laughter and drink, and presses his palms onto the table to steady himself. "I can still feel the Archon's hand shaking mine!"

His sister hastens the drag on her smoke to ask, "And how is your hand?"

"Fine, of course. The Light saw to that," Zandros says with a wine-touched smile. "Better than my throat, anyway."

"And yet you're still climbing on chairs to shout toasts," his father says with a grin and a tip of his cup.

Lady Alter gestures around the table. "We'd worry you weren't yourself if you didn't!"

Zandros absolutely beams. Good wine, good family, good fortune, and, soon, a good wife. There's no doubt about it in any Alter's mind: Zandros will become the next Durant. Now he has only to finally meet the woman...

Thoughts for a Mage (Suitor Post-Scrutiny Part Two)

The apartment Basil has known most of his life feels suddenly so claustrophobic. But how could it not? How could he not compare it to a grand mansion? How could he not compare the confines of his familiar city to the possibilities of another world? It's been a day since he returned to Azeroth and he simply cannot get the Durants out of his overactive mind.

"Stop fussing, Basil." The absently distant voice of his mother stops him in his tracks and only then does he realize the energy with which he had been striding around the living room. He cracks a nervous smile and she closes her book around her thumb to focus on him.

"I can't help it, Mother," he quietly admits. "Such possibilities! A whole new world."

"It won't do to get your hopes up, Basil. Detach yourself from it until you're sure you're the one they're choosing. Anything less and you're setting yourself up for disappointment."

"Mother," he strains, hands on his hips, "Allow me some emotion, wouldn't you? Just today? There's so much on my mind and it refuses to be pushed away."

"It refuses, or you refuse?"

"I refuse. So much went right! I could see the amazement in their faces when I simply conjured a cake! The magic we know must be incredibly exotic to them, which means I've got something they want. And you heard what their son said at the end, that the family is looking to build connections to the Kirin Tor. That's going to be me!"

"But not necessarily through marriage." The Archmage sets her book aside on a nearby table and sits straight with her hands folded in her lap and her dark eyes on her son's face. "I can't believe you suggested that you might give them what they want despite them not giving you what you want. What was going through your head when you said you might be their ambassador to the Kirin Tor without first securing your own marriage?"

Her son's dark skin goes paler at her words. He had worried over that, in truth. That he might have been making a mistake. "But," he tries, ready to convince himself as much as his mother, "The Archon was impressed that I planned for the future, and that I had more in mind than his daughter. I don't think they'd allow me to bridge the gap between our two worlds without reimbursing me in some way. I'm sure they reimburse the death knight, after all."

"What would one reimburse a death knight with, exactly, Basil?"

Basil blinks, thinks. His gaze drifts to his clockwork rabbit and it, sensing eyes upon it, springs upward in a giddy little leap. What would one reimburse a death knight with?

"I don't imagine it's a pleasant payment," the Archmage says coolly. "And, if I might be honest, I'm not sure they're entirely pleasant people themselves. The way their son behaved..."

"Viatorus?" Basil interrupts, already defensive. "He was perfectly genuine and sweet as punch."

"He was..." his mother agrees, "And yet he was terribly afraid of his own curiosity. He's been raised in an environment which stifles imagination and enthusiasm. I could tell it by the way his mother felt the need to correct him and his father felt the need to fix him with those stares of his. They harbor a certain level of contempt and disrespect for their own son, and I question whether or not it would be an inviting environment for my son to raise his children."

Basil hesitates. What his mother is saying... Yes, he had noticed. He had commented on it himself, in his own way. Suddenly he feels it would be best to take a seat and so he lowers himself into a chair at the dining table.

"But they would be my children," he says.

"Yours and your future wife's."

"Of course. And we could choose to raise them in any environment we saw fit. We wouldn't be obligated to raise them by the standards of her parents."

His mother doesn't reply, but only stares at her son until his expression wobbles. When he cracks under the pressure she interrupts his embarrassment with an explanation.

"I imagine their family is incredibly strict about tradition, and, if I might speculate, I assume she is as well. She's agreeing to an arranged marriage to a stranger from another world, Basil. I suspect radical notions of respect for others' eccentricities -- even autonomy -- come far, far from mainstream."

"So, you... Didn't like them."

"Not at all." And then she sees the way her son's eyes betray his hurt. She presses her lips together and takes a breath before she continues, her tone lighter now. "But, Basil? I'm not the one marrying them. You are. I can tell you're excited at the prospect --"

"I was."

"You will be again," she stresses. "Anxiety and doubt are powerful things when we are first confronted with them, but if you find in the end that your excitement persists, you'll know you ought to at least meet the woman."

"It might have been nice to meet her," Basil admits quietly. His mother nods. "But," he continues, "She's a fire mage, so I have an idea of her character. They all have particular... Tendencies."

His mother cracks a smile, and both of them begin to laugh. When each of them are quiet again she delicately assures her son, "Your magic astounded them. I see no reason why they wouldn't choose you."

The thought of it keeps his smile alive. His mother is right. He showed an old and lineaged family of casters magic that they'd never seen before. He, a well-studies, technically lineaged mage himself astounded them with illusions and conjurations unknown on their world. Of course they will choose him! It's only the logical decision, and the Archon seemed a very logical man. And what an adventure it will be! To be married to a lady from another world... He simply cannot wait to meet her.