Despite the battle of intimidation having been settled with fearsome scale, the queen objected as if it were still a civil debate. “But this can’t be right. You were present for the past four near-disasters! Now that you have not wed them, we remain vulnerable! If another Aquadragon, or war party, or steam geyser, or something unforetold threatened us, we would certainly not be so lucky this time!”

Someone who was seemingly far more affected by the insane displays was Blassandra, standing before her parents and unable to speak. Her arms hung from her shoulders, yet were stiff and straight. Her eyes stared defeatedly at the ground, just the same as she did outside of Café Koalmin.

“...”

Noticing this quickly, Avgi wrapped an arm around her shoulder. It seemed casual, but when the princess looked up, she could tell his light-hearted smirk was sincere in its own way. “Blassandra, don’t hold back for our sake. As for yours… There isn’t much to worry about.”

“...”

After a few moments of contemplation, the shadows over her eyes lit up, as did the rest of her body. When the head of the reserved princess tilted up, her parents met the sight of determination fueled by rage. It was a similar rage to the absolute madness that her father had shown earlier, yet was more subdued nonetheless. “Do you two seriously have to do this every time? Get set on one thing, and never for a moment allow the slightest glint of doubt? Does the castle have to go cold for you to even consider, at all, that roping me and our hero into this arrangement won’t actually do anything useful nor productive?”

Her father furrowed his eyebrows, finally muttering after having been simmered down by force. “Blas-”

“SHUT! IT!” Lunging one stomp forwards, Blassandra’s entire body briefly burst into a ball of detonated sparks, physically blasting everyone around her with a gust of hot wind. Avgi steadily shielded his face with one arm, the Officiator stood still as his robes blew, and her parents used both their arms to protect their faces.

As fast as the packed-up rage came, so too did it extinguish, the princess returning to stability in a jarring flash. “Now then. If anything, Avgi would be worse at his job if he wasn’t free to enjoy his time with others. In what world do you see him willingly following us to the ends of Immemoria if we don’t have any attachment beyond obligation?”

It took a moment for Avgi to chime in, pleasantly surprised by just how violently she stood up for herself. “Err… Right… I was gonna say this a bit sooner, but then you all got screamy. Look, the concerns you’ve got are just as real as you think they are. Does that mean I’ve gotta be shackled to your lovely daughter, in order for your kingdom to be under my protection?”

“Of course not! If a big catastrophe ever occurs anywhere, anytime, I’ve made it my mission to take it down. That’s what it means to be a hero. Next time this place is threatened, it won’t make a difference. I’ll be there. You could be at war; I’ll be there to stop the bloodshed.”

To the somewhat-relieving, somewhat-patronizing words of the new generation, the king and queen only averted their gazes. They had nothing to say, only shame to show.

An elder hand pointed to the stairs. “Avgi, Blassandra, please head to the reception. We will meet you there.”

Looking to each other and solemnly nodding, the two young adults stepped down the aisle, walking past the disarranged chairs, and smiling with excited relief once their faces couldn’t be seen. After Avgi pulled his blade from the rack and strapped it to his belt once more, slowly did their feet descend the stairs, Blassandra needing to lift the sides of her dress to prevent tripping. They slowly stepped down until their heads disappeared from sight, before the princess’ high heels engulfed in flame and turned to ash, becoming a pair of sneakers. Then they ran down the mountain stairs. Their footsteps resonated throughout the air, and distantly reached the ears of the trio that remained.

The Officiator sighed out, filled with nostalgia. “I remember the day I wed you two. It was fun.”

Twenty years before that day, the Officiator stood between two people who would one day become the Volking and Cinderqueen, with not a hint of facial hair nor wrinkles. Instead, the Officiator wore the same jagged crown of the modern Volking, and his body was by no means elder. Despite wearing the same light ash grey vestments, his figure was wider, and imposing, Rather than coal black, his hair was bright orange, as well as his bushy royal mustache.

He looked to his left. His prince was clothed in a dark obsidian-thread tuxedo with a bow as scarlet as his excited hair, which pointed at the sky.

As for the princess, she was hardly any different. Past her hair tie and attempted ponytail, the tail was raised. Her coal-black bridal dress complimented her golden skin, with hands reached out to grab hold of her prince’s.

The old Volking’s voice was still gentle, yet still had a gruff aftertone back then. “Cole Blazer, you have found the one person of whom you can now fail to imagine living without. To say the very least, the way you look at her is the passion that sparks your soul more than anything else.”

The couple’s blush at such a sobering callout made them glow.

Before he could break his plausible professional demeanor and snicker, the Volking continued. “Burnandra Wrath, there have been few citizens as deserving of the mantle of princess as you. For what it is worth, you maintain a calm spirit, in spite of a fervent passion for our kingdom.”

He turned to the crowd. "Now then, if anyone wishes to speak of any reason that these two should not be lawfully wed… Speak now, or forevermore extinguish your doubts."

After ten long seconds, Cole began to tap his foot. Burnandra joined in the protest not very long after.

One inhale from his hairy nose, and the Volking concluded. “Then I shall now pronounce you-”

They couldn’t hold back any longer, Cole diving towards his newfound wife and planting a kiss on her lips, shocking her eyes wide before she leaned strongly into the gesture. Her arms rechead around his torso, as his arms tightened around her shoulders. The sound of their making out wasn’t unlike flint being smashed together, making half the crowd clap, another half reel, and mixed in between those actions was murmuring laughter.

The Volking scoffed at the vulgarity, yet did no more than conclude for certain. “Hmph. Husband and wife. Prince and princess. I see that it was difficult to wait for three more words.”

After their memory ended, the Volking and Cinderqueen almost choked up as the gravity of their situation finally settled in. She was the one to speak for them both. “And we almost stole that joy from her. She deserves to find someone like we did.”

In response, the Officiator’s elder hand stretched out, issuing one more command to his son and daughter-in-law. “Indeed. You must go to the reception posthaste, and apologize.”

They both stood up straighter, nodding once with the drive to do better. “Yes, Father!”

What awaited Avgi and Blassandra, at the foot of Mount Ashe, was a reception that already seemed to be going smoothly. The 50 or so attendees of the wedding that stayed were occupied with drinking, dancing, or both. By the foot of the stairs were four guards, clad in fully-obscuring volcanic armor from scalp to toe, motionless.

To their right, a bar was formed from the ground, and did not have any further ceiling or roof beyond itself. Next to the bar, four of the attendees, all with long and spiky hair, were strumming away at a sharp rock guitar, beating down on molten drums, slamming the keys of a volcanic piano, and singing Blassandra’s favorite type of music; the kind that gargles emotion like a vile toothpaste and spits it out for everyone to hear, whether or not they like it.

In fact, it was due to this that some of the attendees had already left for home, five old ones in particular. To Avgi and Blassandra, it could have been due to the battle of outbursts from earlier, but they didn’t mind either way. In fact, their attention was gripped by the music, and it brought them both quick responses.

Blassandra couldn’t have been any happier to bear witness to its splendor.

Meanwhile, Avgi only seemed pleasantly surprised. “This is what you’re into?”

“Yeah! What did you expect?”

“Something less heated, I guess?”

Suddenly, she darted off. “Come on!”

While running to the rest of the dancing crowd, which headbanged along and poorly synchronized to the lyrics, Blassandra’s bell dress warped until the cumbersome lower half became a wide two-layer shin length skirt, unable to trip on. Once she joined the mosh pit of oil bottles being splashed around, whiplash-inducing dance moves, and random blurts of lyrics, she seemed to fit right in.

Avgi stood a little awkwardly, not entirely initiated into such a custom. “How’d this all come about?”

She turned her head, pausing her off-sync shouting. “Unlike my parents, I’ve been looking far and wide for a better way to vent the “heat” we all build up! You know. The crazy rage.”

He slightly nodded, only then reaching a proper balance between raising his voice and the surroundings. “That sounds good! Like, actually!”

In between grabbing a bottle of oil out of a random hand, and splashing her hair and igniting away the splash, she continued. “Tell me about it! What I did back there was a worst-case scenario. I shouldn’t be getting like that! I’m trying to be a ruler who doesn’t just blow up!”

“Besides, the real emotion you’re supposed to be usin’ for Blazer Magic is pas-”

He was interrupted by Blassandra’s hand tugging his wrist in the bar’s direction. “Speaking of! Why don’t you shift already so we can enjoy some oil? All the screaming got me thirsty!”

Avgi shrugged, his hair turning red and rising, and eyes warping orange with heat. Despite a transformation that should hold presence, his demeanor was still more overwhelmed and subdued than anything. “You’re like an entirely different person, I swear…”