Dayel's Discomfort, Part 6

I'm currently not here, but Danyel and Dayel are continuing the monster post, inspired by P.T. Wyant's festival prompt at ptwyant.com.

“Marriage is a commitment to unite two houses, those houses’s combined family lines.” Juno clasped her hands together. “Marriage unites a man and a woman’s fortunes and hearts, making them as one.” She raised her hands to her lips. “Husband and wife vow to pass these things down to their children, the ones they raise together.” 

She unknotted her hands, which trembled. 

“That is what marriage is or what it should be.” She waved in dismissive scorn at her daughter, rings flashing. “Anything else is a pale imitation of that!”

Juno cast a withering glance in the direction of Leiwell’s booth. 

No, not Leiwell. Map. 

Map had turned away from the fire. A smile tugged at her wrinkled face as she greeted the booth’s visitor. 

It was Ashleigh. Leiwell, Danyel, and Dayel’s other mother, who’d stopped by in making her rounds of the festival. She’d been one of the villagers who organized it. 

A cap with a feather in it perched on her golden head at a jaunty angle, Ashleigh leaned against the booth, smiling at Map. The two women looked into each other’s eyes. 

Juno’s lower lip trembled at bit. She looked away, down at the jewelry in front of her. 

It wasn’t the first time she’d given the boys’s mothers such angry looks. For the first time, Dayel understood why. 

Map lived with Ashleigh, the boys’s other mother. She’d rasied Leiwell, Dayel, and Danyel by herself without the help of this marriage. 

In many ways, Map and Ashleigh practiced marriage exactly as Juno described. They shared everything, although they were hardly one. 

They were two women, not a man and a woman, though. 

Ridiculous. Juno had no right to judge. She was hardly living her own ideal. She and Jupitre failed to live as one as spectacularly as Ashleigh and Juno did. 

There was only one way to become one that Dayel knew of. Get devoured by a shadow. 

Perhaps the arachnocratic brides were closer to being one with their bridegrooms than a husband and wife ever could be. 

Dayel tried not to shudder. He really didn’t want to hear anything more about marriage feasts. 

Alas, there was no stopping Danyel, once his curiousity was roused. 

To be continued on Wednesday, September 6, 2017...