“Yeah, so basically, you’re only half my wife right now according to the procedures,” Reiner said a little regretfully although he was still struggling to hold in his laughter.
“Care to explain?” I asked, not quite sure how to feel about this.
We went through all of that last night and I’m still not his wife. How hard is it to get this guy?
“We’re around halfway done with the marriage ceremonies involved. What we did yesterday and last night was one part of it. Although on this island, it’s not required for us to get our parent’s blessing to get married, there is another part of the wedding ceremony. I can explain it to you but it’ll take time, so I’ll leave it to the expert to do that,” Reiner explained without quite explaining anything.
“Ok…” I mumbled in confusion.
While I was staring at Reiner’s face in confusion, Reiner suddenly flashed a friendly smile that was not directed at me. His reaction made me turn around and I was extremely surprised that there was a frail-looking old man standing there dressed in a white robe in a style that I have never seen before. The man’s skin was very tan like he had spent a lot of time in the sun, and he had deep lines on his face to show for his age. I could sense from the way that he was dressed that he represented some type of religion that I wasn’t familiar with. This is the guy?
“Spending the first night together in the cave until morning. Checked. I assumed you said your vows in front of the altar already…” the old man said with pleased smile on his face that only deepened the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth.
“Yeah, we did. Thank you coming on such short notice like this…” Reiner said, clearly apologetic.
“Sure thing. I’m just happy that you’re finally settling down and that you’ve returned,” the old man said while still smiling brightly.
“Kuman, this is Natalia, my…umm.. bride. Natalia, this is Kuman, the head of the local religious tribe here…” Reiner introduced us to each other.
“It is an honor to meet you, my dear. Despite what Knight says, I’m just responsible for serving the needs of the few followers that we have in various ceremonies such as your wedding for example…” the old man said humbly.
“It’s an honor to meet you and thank you for coming,” I replied, respectfully.
“Now then, let’s be on our way. Oh, right…here are your clothes,” the old man said as he handed Reiner a backpack.
“Thank you, Kuman,” he said with a smile.
“I’ll be waiting in front of the cave. I have a car with me…” Kuman said politely.
“I’ll drive,” Reiner quickly volunteered.
“That’s ok. You can sit and relax with your bride, I can drive…” Kuman said with a kind smile.
“No, I’ll drive,” Reiner insisted.
I was starting to get the sense that there must be something severely wrong with the old man’s driving skills and I had to say that I didn’t want to find out about it or experience it firsthand.
“Alright then. If you insist…” the old man said.
After smiling my way, he made his way out of the cave. I cocked my head at Reiner in confusion at the whole thing that had just unfolded. Reiner began opening the backpack before he handed me my clothes which was a simple white linen dress.
“He’s a horrible driver?” I voiced my guess.
“You don’t want to know. We might not be man and wife in this life if we let him drive…” Reiner replied as he started putting on a white linen shirt.
When we were dressed, I realized that we were dressed in matching outfit made of the same type of white linen. I had a dress that reached my ankles on while Reiner had a shirt with matching long pants on. The outfit looked good on him but then everything seemed to look good on him. As for me, I felt the dress made me look short and hid all my curves.
At Reiner’s insistence, he was the one who drove us to our next destination which seemed to be in a small town close to where we were. After a short ride filled with casual conversation between the three of us, we arrived at a small building. The building was built in a style that seemed very minimal and simple.
“This building was built a long time ago by our ancestors of this village using techniques passed down from generation to generation. The entire building is made of orange clay from around this village and the roof is made from a special type of leaf,” the old man explained proudly.
I nodded my head as I took in his explanation. Although I found everything interesting and eye-opening, what I cared most about was why we were here? Are we supposed to take part in some kind of ceremony here to complete our wedding?
Reiner did say that this old man would do the explaining but throughout the entire ride he never got around to touching that topic. The old man gestured for us to follow him inside the small building. The building resembled a small church inside although the layout was slightly different. For one, there were no benches, chairs or seats. Instead, there were square shaped mats laid out in an orderly fashion on the floor in rows, suggesting that people sat on the floor when they attended events at this place.
Similar to a church, there was a large alter up in the very front with a podium of sort where the priest would stand. In this case, I was guessing that the old man would stand there. Reiner took my hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. I probably looked quite nervous to him as we walked towards the altar with the old man right in front of us.
“Nervous? Your hand is cold,” Reiner asked.
I blushed when he lifted my hand and placed it against his warm lips before kissing it softly. The way the light shone in from the window above our heads made his red hair shine so brightly. That coupled with the way that he was looking at me made my chest felt tight as my blush deepened.
–To be continued…