Chapter 6 – Jokingly Her Husband
(Eirian's Point of View)
There were many things I expected to do in life.
Polish silver. File taxes. Get glared at for breathing too close to her pastries.
But none of that—not even all the paperwork and migraines—prepared me for the day I was drunkenly proposed to with a doodled marriage request, a stolen pen, and a threat involving mole wine and emotional blackmail.
It began innocently.
Well, as innocent as any evening could begin when Yvaine Isolde was half-asleep on a wine barrel while mumbling about the existential crisis of fruit fermentation.
We had just returned from the distillery. She insisted on "tasting" the new Soju variant we'd developed, which turned out to be code for "drinking five samples and dancing with the apricot crates."
I had to drag her back to the manor, dodging lamp posts and questions from suspicious guards who had absolutely seen this before.
Inside, she collapsed dramatically into her chair.
"Eirian," she slurred, eyes half-lidded, "what if we just… got married."
I blinked. "You're drunk."
"I'm serious." She insisted as she leaned towards the bookshelf beside her still with hiccups.
"You've said that before about marrying the ledgers," I stated remembering the moment she randomly said that she better marry ledgers and money.
"And I would have if they showed commitment." With a pout and like a whining child who didn't receive her cotton candy.
She found a parchment. Slapped it down on the table.
"Write our names, my love," she declared, pointing at the page like it owed her money. "Make it real. Symbolic. But mostly hilarious."
I hesitated. She called me that again, My Love…
How am I supposed to say no and function? She always disarms me in different ways.
Then, sighing, I scribbled:
Yvaine Isolde
Eirian Elkaelus
Her name. Mine. The name I hadn't spoken aloud in years after my adoptive father revealed everything to me. Not since the wreck. Not since the coastline stole my past and I became someone else.
I still can't recall everything, but I have a lot of things in hand named 'Yvaine Isolde', with just that name you know it's equivalent to the word 'chaos' and that keeps me busy and forget about whether I should chase the truth or enjoy the present.
She leaned in like a predator sniffing something juicy. "Wait. I saw that. What was that? Elkaelus?"
I folded the parchment quickly.
"You're imagining things."
Her eyes narrowed. "Sounds like a cereal brand from our neighborhood kinda Empire. Hmm..."
"…You're very drunk."
She beamed. "Good. I prefer my assistant crunchy with a side of mystery."
Fast forward two blocks later.
We arrived at the Office of Civil Registration, which was closed for the day but mysteriously opened when she banged on the door and shouted,
"I HAVE FOUND MY MATCH, AND MY PATIENCE IS GONE."
Three terrified clerks opened the door and immediately regretted it.
She plopped the parchment on the counter with a grand flourish. "Register us!"
One clerk trembled. "M-Marriage?"
"YES. What do you think?! Umbilical cord binding? Just register us!"
Umbi-what? Here comes the gibbers again. I still can't get used to it up to this day and the clerks, they didn't even read the document.
Because one—her last name was Isolde.
Two—her brother was the Mad Dog of the last war's battlefield, the man who once disarmed an enemy battalion with a spoon, well it's just an exaggeration.
And three—she was currently offering them bribes in the form of novelty liquor bottles hidden inside her cloak.
"Don't follow my example," she whispered to them, "unless you're hot and overqualified for jail. Be drunk moderately and not frequently, alrighty?"
The clerks nodded in synchronized trauma.
Then she did something even worse.
She turned to me, blinking dreamily. "Eirian Caelan… Elk-whatever-it-is… Assistant Extraordinaire. Promise me something?"
I swallowed and felt anxious about what could it be that she'd requested me to do again. "Anything."
"If I forget this tomorrow, don't tell me." Giggling in her drunken state, she looked at me straight, not into my eyes, but into my soul.
"W-What?" I asked out of disbelief knowing that she'd surely not recall everything after she got drunk.
"I want to remember it slowly. Like unwrapping a prank gift that's actually gold." She crosses her arms and starts to look around the office, making the clerks who are about to close the Registry Office still stiff where they're standing.
My heart did something terrible in my chest. It flinched.
I nodded.
"I won't say a word."
She grinned. "You're the best."
Then she reached for my hand and slapped a liquor token into it. "For being my emotional support spreadsheet."
I asked her to wait for a bit since I had something to tell the clerks. She sat at the entrance which has at least three-step stairs.
"Before you send the Marriage Notice to her and the Palace, send it the following year around Winter Solstice. Better not to tell anyone what happened here today. I'll handle her accordingly."
I said and they just nodded without a single word. I went where she sat and helped her to stand slowly since she was already walking wobbly earlier.
I escorted her out as she waved at the clerks and shouted every goodbye she knew. "Ciao! Adios! Saranghae! Sayonara! May the alcohol be with you!"
Inside, the registry clerks collapsed.
"I didn't breathe the whole time," one whispered.
"I think I saw my life flash," said another.
"I wet myself," confessed the third.
Meanwhile, I carried her on our way back home.
On the way, she lifted her ring finger and blinked at the faint mole-shaped imprint I had placed with magic.
"Huh," she whispered. "That's new."
"It's fashionable," I replied.
She giggled. "Looks like a heart."
And just before she dozed off on my shoulder, she murmured, "My assistant's my husband now, huh… Jokingly."
Yes, Yvaine.
Jokingly.
Until the world caught up.
Except she wasn't done.
We were supposed to walk straight home. That was the plan. That was the dream.
But no.
The moment we passed by the Moonveil Plaza, where children were dancing the traditional "Pre-Summer Cool Down" (a hopeful weather plea to the skies), she perked up like a gremlin sniffing festival sugar.
"Dancing!" she shouted, wriggling out of my grip. "They're dancing! That's my cue!"
"What cue?" I asked, holding onto her cloak.
"The cue where I declare I'm married and do interpretative hops."
"Yvaine—no." With strong objections considering that she's too drunk to just let her roam around.
"Yvaine—YES!" She bolted into the crowd with the speed of a half-sober squirrel.
People cheered. The music picked up. And there she was—spinning, clapping, dabbling in salsa for some reason while yelling-slash-laughing over the music:
"I GOT MARRIED! I AM NOW AN OFFICIAL WIFE! HAHAHAHA!" Laughing like she was not from a noble household. She doesn't care about decorum and etiquette as long as she's happy. I'll just stay by her side.
The reactions from the crowd took a turn.
Children froze.
Elders gasped.
Vendors stared.
Then the crowd roared with laughter because it was Yvaine Isolde, and she always said outrageous things. Everyone just assumed it was one of her "booze-induced metaphors."
"Hey! My assistant is now my husband!" she declared. "We're registered. Stamped. Legally bound in the eyes of the drunken!"
Someone shouted, "So, when's the wedding feast?! Will the Beer Time boozes free?!"
She spun with her arms out. "You're looking at it! You've got my joy. That's the appetizer! All booze will be on me!"
I, meanwhile, stood at the edge of the crowd like an overworked groom left at the altar of common sense.
Still—I couldn't stop smiling.
There she was. Wild, brilliant, untamed Yvaine. The woman who had turned a drunken whim into a registered reality.
And no one believed her.
Except me.
And the clerks who were probably still shaking under their desks.
She ran back, breathless, cheeks flushed, eyes twinkling like she just conquered the Empire through interpretive dance.
"Ready to go home, husband?" Saying that like teasing me but sweetly. I really couldn't get used to her cheekiness and smiled at how she called me her Husband.
"…You're going to forget all of this, aren't you?"
"Probably," she said proudly, latching onto my arm. "So let's make the walk memorable."
She leaned on me like I was her anchor.
And just for that night, I let the world laugh.
Because I knew the truth.
And one day, so would she.
Bonus Scene: Registry Office, 43 Minutes After the Incident
Three clerks. One bottle. Infinite trauma.
The air in the room was still thick with the scent of Yvaine's cloak—lavender, fermented fruit, and pure unfiltered audacity.
"…Did that just happen?" one clerk whispered, clutching his quill like a weapon.
"She doodled hearts," another muttered. "Hearts. On the legal request form. And a frog."
"I didn't breathe for eight minutes," the third added shakily. "My vision went white when she winked at me."
They sat in stunned silence around the main desk, staring at the stamped document—official, irreversible, dangerously romantic.
"I still don't know the man's real name," said the youngest, wiping sweat from his upper lip. "It was folded. And glowing. Is that magic ink?"
"She said it was crunchy cereal," someone whimpered.
They stared at the bottle she left behind. A tiny flask. No label. No explanation. Just a sticker on the cap that said:
"To: The Brave Bureaucrats Who Made Love Legal"
They didn't dare drink it.
Not yet.
Not until they were sure the Mad Dog's little sister wasn't coming back to un-stamp their souls.
"Swear on the registry oath," the eldest whispered, raising his quill. "We never tell her what happened. Never. Ever."
They nodded.
And chanted in unison:
"She was never here."
"We never saw the form."
"She stamped it herself."
One of them wept softly.
The youngest took the tiny flask and placed it reverently in a drawer labeled "DO NOT TOUCH – MAY CONTAIN GODDESS ENERGY."
And that, dear reader, is why the clerks of the Isolde District Registry Office still take lunch in dead silence—every single day.
Just in case she comes back.
With another frog.
End of Chapter 6…