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“Oh, well, thank you,” Jaya said. “But I plan to live in my ship while I’m here.”

“Your ship?” I asked, my brows climbing. “Way out in the mountains where it landed? Alone?”

“Well, sure,” Jaya said, the sides of her mouth tipping down. “Why not? It’s where I’ve lived for more than two decades. I haven’t slept anywhere besides my ship since… I can’t even remember, to be honest.”

“Lots of genka in the mountains,” Warden Tenn grunted.

“And worse,” I muttered, my insides churning with worry.

“Even more reason for me to be with my ship,” Jaya countered. “I need to keep an eye on things. I’ll close up the doors, of course.”

“Well, you two can sort this all out later,” Warden Tenn said. “But for now, we should be getting the wedding underway.”

Wedding.Mywedding.

Where I would marry mywife.

My body forgot that this was all fake. Heat rushed through my veins. My head felt like it might float right off of my neck. My skin hummed with nervous energy, and my tail squeezed its belt hook with bruising enthusiasm.

“Where do you want to do it?” Tasha was asking Jaya.

“Yes, where?” I asked, staring intently at her. Even if this was the ceremony to mark what would only be a temporary marriage, I still wanted Jaya to be happy with it.

“Oh, anywhere is fine.” She moved her slender brown shoulders up and down. “Outside, I guess.”

Outside. Outside was good. Outside was perfect.

“Do you want anything to wear?” Magnolia asked. “I don’t really have a wedding dress anymore, but I could try to see if there’s something…”

“Oh, no. That won’t be necessary,” Jaya answered quickly.

She would not have a proper wedding outfit. There would not be time to make her one. But perhaps I could fetch something else.

“Hold on!” I said, taking off at a run. Warden Tenn tried to call me back, but I was already gone, careening to the edge of my property, my foot on fire. I thought I’d seen some here before…

There!

There was only one in bloom. A bright, frilly yellow flower with petals as soft as a newborn bracku’s coat. I crouched down carefully beside it, then sliced the flower’s stem with my claws, severing the thing. Carefully, I carried it back to the group.

“Where the blazes did you just run off to?” Warden Tenn asked.

“Sorry,” I wheezed. My lungs, which had been so weak in early childhood, had improved markedly since my arrival on Zabria Prinar One, but they still acted up a bit every once in a while. It didn’t help that my heart was currently slamming itself against my ribs with wild abandon at the prospect of marrying Jaya in just a few moments’ time. “I went… Went to get this.”

I held up the yellow flower. Jaya’s eyes widened.

“Oh, that’s lovely, Oaken,” Magnolia cooed.

“I know… know it is not enough,” I gasped. “It should be a… a bucket. A wedding bucket. But I didn’t want to put this little flower… in a bucket.”

“A bouquet,” Tasha quietly corrected. “A wedding bouquet is a bunch of flowers, all bound together for a bride to carry down the aisle.”

“Oh. I… Sorry,” I said again, only realizing now how woefully inadequate a single flower was. “I suppose I… I did not understand that part of the book.”

“Book?” Jaya asked.

“It’s a sort of collection of essays,” Tasha explained to Jaya. “Information about human history, biology, culture, and various wedding rituals. I wrote it to help the Zabrians prepare for the arrival of their future brides.” Tasha sent me a kind smile. “I’ll look at reworking the section on wedding bouquets. So it’s more clear.”

“And don’t worry,” Magnolia said with a smile of her own. “Tasha is working on a version for the human ladies. It’ll be all about the Zabrian guys.”