Book 4 – Chapter 9 – Harper-Alexander – Wedding Cake
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-Harper-Alexander-

Walking down the aisle, I felt the tug of the enchanted silk and Homeostasis Silk dress on my wings and sides, its small iogems glistening with mana. To think that I would be given the chance to marry Alexander. To think that for the past month that I would be protected by delvers instead of having to fend them off. Even for monsters like me, feeling like this love of mine were supposed to be fleeting, worn away by countless reincarnations, but I still loved Alexander, even before he became a legendary entity. 

Looking at all the wedding guests, a mixture of sweet tooths, entities both local and from Ignae Automata, Glyirians, and even a handful of delvers, including those from Blazehopper’s stream, I could help but smile. To go from meeting Alexander five months ago to marrying him, I could understand why some people thought we were moving too fast, but time moved differently here and we weren’t magi-sentients like them, we were sentients tied to a blackzone: our priorities and views were different. With each step toward the altar, I could feel my worries and priorities change: no longer would death be a constant in my life like the way it was before, no longer would I have to defend Historie Pastoria Sweets without another to lean on.

Focusing on the altar, I watched as Alexander smiled back at me in his tuxedo made of enchanted silk and Homeostasis Silk with threads of silver and gold embroidered into it. Behind him stood the Glyirian priest that would officiate our wedding along with the secondary core we would use to enhance our ascension and Laglyire, eyeing the whole wedding with an interesting look on her face. I could see how much delight she was taking in being not only the de-facto bridesmaid but also the host of the venue as we were using her newly made lair near the top of Capita Sweets.

“Do you, Harper the Full Course Sugar Harpy, take Alexander the Apotherical Resort Super-Manager, as your loving other half, binding not only your mind, body, and souls, but your entire being with his, bound by magic both seen and unseen?” asked the priest as Alexander wrapped his hands around the tips of my lower two wings.

“I do…” I replied, feeling the magic of the ascension events woven into our wedding stir.

“And do you, Alexander the Apotherical Resort Super-Manager, pledge your entire being to Harper the Full Course Sugar Harpy under not only the eyes of all the saintesses but the gods of the Flasaporium hub, blackzone and otherwise?” continued the priest, looking over to my fiance. 

“I do, with all my heart,” he replied with a smile, tightening his grip as he felt the magic start to circulate between the two of us. 

“And do both of us promise to serve as the sword and shield of Historie Pastoria Sweets, as its hands and feets, eyes and ears. Willing to be both its shepherd and its flock, guider and guided?”

“We do,” the two of us answered as the ascension ritual flared to life: the shadowy translucent sheen of the secondary core swirling with pecks of colours.

“Then by the power and magic invested in me, I pronounce you not only one, Mr. and Mrs. Pastoria, but blackzone managers and steward under the aid of Robert Fayn and Historie Pastoria Sweets,” concluded the priest, stepping back and motioning to us to touch the dungeon core. Pressing my upper left wing to the dungeon core, I felt its protocols intertwining with the ascension event: race advancing us to become blackzone managers and sweet tooths as the ascension event race advanced us to fuse us together. As the Homeostasis Silk within our wedding attire glowed with vibrant energy and mana, I felt my existence fall into Alexander’s as his did the same: nearly half of our pieces of a being becoming mutant piece-addition facsimiles to technically house themselves and accommodate each other while our Lesser Trascendations and Sea of Phenomena melded with their counterparts.  

As we became two in one and one in two, we started to become aware of our new partial-magi-sentient nature, gaining access to newly born mandalas, fresh for inscribing as we were now quadra race advanced: two different forms of contracted existence, underling blackzone managers, and sweet tooths. And as our tier solidified itself as 6.1, we traced our currently fully shared attention across our seventeen facsimiles with the extra duplicate pieces of a being they provided. Feeling euphoric from not only the mana-drunkenness but the knowledge that I was now one with my lover, I began to feel where I became and he ended, the lines between us both distinct and blurred.

I think this is where we kiss,” telepathically commented my newfound other me, Alexander, as the crowd grew hush with excitement.

I think so too,” I returned before leaning down to kiss him and causing the crowd to start to applaud us. It felt funny to kiss Alexander, because in a sense I was now kissing myself, but it still felt good to me.

“What a marvelous ascension,” quipped Laglyire with a smile on her snout, being the first to congratulate us and breaking the metaphorical floodgate for the others to follow suit. Smiling and taking in the congratulations, we slowly transitioned to our wedding reception, moving up to Ras’s penthouse and the adjacent core room: naming the newfound blackzone system assistant in the back of our mind, Festiva, in the process.

“So how does it feel to be the highest tier person amongst your Enigma’s blackzone managers?” asked Robby, Robert’s alt-rhi, as we lounged at the head table with the other blackzone managers, Daphne and Lucilla included. 

“It is… interesting. We don’t care that much about our tier but I understand its importance…” I replied with a nod, taking the time to reflect on the fact we were actually the highest tier individual amongst us now, even when you included Daphne being tier 5.5 and Lucilla being tier 5.8. I heard they both had great jumps in tiers due to the peculiar nature of Flasaporium Hub’s Sour, Sweet, & Savory and how it was inscribed.

“We’re still getting used to having a tier that isn’t influenced by the Enigma. For us tiers were relatively fluid metrics in application, like how you’re only tier 4.3 but you can easily beat Robert,” pointed out my other half as he took a smile bite out of Glyirian wedding cake.

“Seriously? You’re comparing me with Robby?” complained Robert from the other side of us, managing to eat some of the cake despite his spirit form having a mask for a face, his real body positioned further back with his two cat familiars, Sugar and Spice, on his lap. I wonder if we should get some feline familiars of our own, I mused to myself and Alexander, unable to not think about how soft the coats of Robert’s cream tabby and tortoiseshell were.

“Yeah seriously, just because we’re alt-rhis doesn’t mean we’re comparable,” followed up Robby with a scowl, getting a laugh out of the others but understanding nods from myself and my other half: a lot could change in little over a year and despite their portfolio of mandalas having similar specialties, their compositions were greatly different.

“Finally someone who understands… well some two.” 

“So, Robert and Robby’s bickering aside, why did the two of choose the surname Pastoria? And to add each other’s name at the end of your own?” inquired Louella, watching as both Robert and his other self excused themselves to go to the bar to get themselves around round of cocktails.

“The surname was just a formality, like how Sous and Umi borrow Robert’s surname for when it is needed. As for conjoining our names, it felt like the natural decision if we were to become one being. Alexander-Harper and Harper-Alexander,” explained my other half, his smile quickly spreading to my own face: Alexander was always better with words and name than me, likely cause his duties required him to be quick with his mind and tongue while mine required quick wings and quicker spells. 

“I see, two sides of the same coin.”

I told you others would understand.

I didn’t doubt you at all,” I teasingly replied over our shared psyche as my eyes wandered to where the secondary core used to be: Mita had worked fast to move it to the central tower of Black Market Imports so that it could be turned into a protective Subdungeon. At the back of my mind, I could feel my secondary consciousness inspecting the changes being done to the central tower as it controlled the Enigma’s new spawned Full Course Sugar Harpy: our connection to it and the Apotherical Resort Super-Manager hold strong through mandala-empowered racial magic. 

Mita has said he has finished the core adjustments and would like your okay for naming it ‘Trophaeum of Desireful Honeymoons,’” chimed Festiva from the back of our minds as Alexander continued to talk to the others on my behalf. 

Yes that is fine,” we replied with unison, both of us finding the name humorous but fitting, the two of us were a married couple now despite being one being. Eyeing the crowd, I saw the reception was still in full swing with the various groups that came intermingling with each other; not that I mind how festive the party was given we would have to wait a bit longer before we could move into our new penthouse. Taking in the sight and feeling my mana-drunkenness finally start to abate, I realized just how long I had been indoors. Getting up from the table, I told the others,

“I’m going to get a… breath of fresh air…” With no one stopping me, I glided my way out onto the balcony and instantly breathed out a sigh of relief: I had no idea how my other half was able to handle the indoors for such long periods of time, even now that I was one with him. Feeling the wind ruffling through my feathers, I almost removed my wedding dress but paused and stopped myself: just because it was now one of my racial features, Dress of Harmonious Union: Jeweled Harpy, didn’t mean I could disrobe it so casually. Not to mention I was still at my wedding reception, it wouldn’t make sure for me to go back to my normal dress right now. I will have to get used to cleaning and changing clothes now, at least I can borrow knowledge of cleaning magics from Alexander, I noted to myself as I saw the VoxView streamer, Blazehopper, and his brother, Pendramug, walking up to me out of the corner of my eye.

“I don’t think we had a chance to see so, but congratulations on your marriage! Chat loved every minute of it,” proclaimed the streamer with a wide grin. That did explain the few camera-balls that were flitting around the back of the wedding ceremony, I had figured they were from Ignae Automata, not Blazehopper and Pendramug. 

“It was a nice wedding ceremony. I was surprised my stream pulled in so many view from it, but then again Harvey has been helping me out a bunch after the whole Vraglix fiasco,” followed up Pendramug as his own set of camera-balls flitted around, causing me to fill a bit of excitement from my other half: Alexander always had a thing for VoxView. 

“Thank, I’m glad that both of you are doing… so well,” I replied with a smile. To think these two were actually the reason why I was able to marry Alexander and to think both of them were able to benefit so much from allowing so: Percy was finally working toward his first Grand Magus-grade mandala and was likely going to end up with one being made from a sponsorship with CharmBall Co. while Harvey himself was working on making his second Grand Key using all the attunements he collected over the past few months. Listening to the two of them walk so fervently about mandala formulas, I could barely manage to keep up: all of this was still new to me, still new to Alexander. “This is… so complex… how do you two manage?”

“Years of practice and a lot of online guides,” answered Harvey as he patted one of my wings softly. “We can help you and Alexander-Harper out if you want-” The sound of sudden rumbling and crackling cut the streamer off and drew all our attention upward: giant cracks in realities were forming in the sky. “What the heck? It’s not Aligning Day.”

“No… it isn’t,” I replied as a shiver went down my spine. I heard about cracks in reality forming during Aligning Days, mimicking what happened during the Aligning when the metaverse opened itself up and made magic commonplace: this was not that, but it was similar in a way that somewhere deep down I knew was very wrong. Something had just happened to the metaverse and magic itself and was rippling outward. 

Get everyone inside,” commented my other half over our shared psyche, his voice fraught with concern and mirroring my own feelings.

I will.

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