Chapter Text
When Galo imagined his wedding, it was always in the vaguest possible sense.
Most people think about it in some capacity, right? So even if he never sat down and planned the thing out, he had some ideas on how it might go. Eventually he’d meet someone really cool, decide together to get married, and then it would happen somehow. There was always an impression of a nice ceremony, with his friends razzing him affectionately, his fans cheering wildly, Kray standing there with that placid smile, and his partner by his side. Gender wasn’t really a factor, but all the movies featured someone in a fluffy white dress, so Galo figured one of them would statistically be wearing one, but that was about as far as he’d considered the whole ordeal.
He figured it might happen eventually, and, if it didn’t, no big deal. Not worth worrying about.
Except now it seems to be the only thing anyone in the city is worrying about at all.
Anyone including Aina, who pauses in front of the couch he’s lounging on at the station and puts her hands on her hips.
“Don’t you have an appointment today?”
“Do I?” Galo asks, not looking up from his book.
“For your suit?”
“Suit?”
“For your wedding?”
“Oh.” Galo squints up at the clock on the wall. “Was that today?”
Aina throws her hands in the air. “For fuck’s sake, Galo—” then she’s yanking him off the couch, shoving him out the door and toward his bike. “If you’re not going to keep track of this stuff on your own, hire a PA!”
“Why would I need to hire someone when you’re already doing all the work?” Galo grins, not resisting but not making it easy for her to push him.
She groans. “At least pretend to take this seriously!”
He laughs, swinging a leg over the motorcycle and revving the engine. “I am!”
Rolling her eyes, Aina jams his helmet onto his head and snags her own from her bike, parked nearby. “The king is going to kill you if you miss another fitting!”
“Well, I’m not missing it, am I? Wait, what—” he breaks off as Aina situates herself behind him. “You’re coming?”
“I have to make sure you actually go this time instead of getting distracted and ending up in a tree.”
“I told you, there was a cat and a squirrel and they were fighting and—”
“Yeah, I got it, now drive!” she barks in a tone that leaves no room for argument.
Sighing, Galo peels out of the parking lot and down the street.
Honestly, Aina may have a point. A little bit. It’s not that Galo has been impeding the wedding preparations, he’s just not, how do you put it, into it. It’s not like it’s something he decided for himself, after all. He’s marrying the Regent of Promare in a purely political bid to end the hostilities between Promare and Parnassus. That kind of thing might be seen as archaic by some people, but after decades of brutal, expensive, extremely deadly war between the two nations, anything that serves to stabilize the situation is welcome, and sending King Foresight’s adopted son to Promare to rule alongside their Regent would definitely stabilize things.
Or so he’s been told.
Aina sits in a fancy leather chair at the upscale tailor shop and watches while Galo is measured and pinned and posed like a mannequin.
She giggles when the tailor slaps his hand away from one of the chalk lines on the suit jacket Galo glares at her. “Having fun?”
“Yeah, I’m glad I came.” An assistant offers her a cup of tea and she accepts it with thanks, pulling her phone out. “It’s weird,” she hums, scrolling across the screen. “There’s been all this publicity since the engagement, but I haven’t seen much about your fiancé online.”
“I heard he’s pretty private.” Galo nervously watches the tailor stick a pin into the fabric of his pants. “He hasn’t been Regent very long. I don’t blame him for wanting to stay out of the press.”
Aina scoffs. “If only you could do that.”
“Can’t help that I’m popular.”
“But you can help getting yourself into ridiculous situations that might embarrass the king.”
“Can’t help that either.” Upon his official adoption, Galo was repeatedly warned that his typical antics would not be tolerated. He could continue working with Burning Rescue as long as he behaved himself. But Galo is incapable of sitting still, and if he sees someone in need of help, how could any reputation supercede that? The king endures it all gamely, often interceding with the government’s PR people on Galo’s behalf.
“I can’t deny who you are, Galo,” he said once, and Galo’s chest still grows warm at the memory.
Aina purses her lips. “Oh, here’s a story about that apartment fire.”
Galo brightens up. “Did they rehome everyone yet?”
“Says they did. Oh, and there’s a picture of you holding a baby.”
The Parnassus military is specialized to deal with fire, and during active conflict, Burning Rescue is mobilized as a guerilla anti-Burnish unit, but during peacetime, it serves as a regular fire department, leaving the border dispute stuff to Freeze Force and the rest of the military. Galo’s team in particular sees plenty of action, being inner-city, but after his adoption and official coronation as Prince of Parnassus, Galo scored them an additional gig as his private security detail. It’s not like he needs protecting, but boring diplomatic dinners are a lot more bearable when he gets to bother Remi the whole time.
Galo puffs up at the mention of the baby picture. It was taken right after he’d emerged from the crumbling remains of the building, cradling the sooty and wailing infant he’d pulled from a half-crushed crib on the third floor. The baby had screamed the entire time, leading Galo right to her. He’d never been so relieved to hear a baby cry.
“Prince Galo, please stay still,” the tailor orders, snapping her measuring tape threateningly.
“Sorry,” Galo squeaks.
“So how do you feel about all this, Galo?” Aina asks, sipping her tea. “You’re basically gonna be king, right?”
“I guess?”
“And?”
“How should I feel, Aina?” Galo extends his arms as the tailor directs and tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling. “To be stupidly honest, I kind of wish I was here getting this monkey suit stitched onto me of my own free will, but I’m not upset. I just want to do what’s best for the country. And the king.”
“Right.” Aina clicks her tongue. “Everyone’s so excited about the wedding, no one really remembers it’s a business contract.”
“Basically. Don’t shoot me and I won’t shoot you.” In Galo’s mind, the whole thing more closely resembles a hostage situation, only he isn’t entirely sure which one of them is the hostage. Regardless, he’s not gonna let himself be bitter about it. That won’t help anyone.
The wedding is in a month. After some debate, Promare consented to holding the ceremony in Promepolis, given the fact that Galo will spend most of his time in Promare afterwards, and the whole city is in uproar. His fiancé, Regent Lio Fotia, arrives in two weeks, and the government is determined to put their best foot forward. Peace talks only started progressing once Regent Fotia took over, so Galo, at least, feels like they owe him a lot.
Aina bites her lip, staring blankly in Galo direction. She acts bubbly and unbothered by the whole thing, but Galo can tell she’s not a fan of the situation. No one on the team is, but he also knows they’re trying to stay upbeat for his sake.
He’s really gonna miss them while he’s off being king of a foreign country.
“Alright, Miss PA,” he chirps, earning an exasperated look from the tailor and a startled jump from Aina, “what’s after this?”
Her eyes narrow. “Shouldn’t you know that?”
“Probably!”
She sighs. “You’re lucky Biar texted me your schedule. Kray definitely knew you’d be like this. Anyway, there’s nothing else today, but tomorrow—”
“Then let’s get ice cream after this!”
“Hey, listen when I’m trying to—”
“Can’t hear you, thinking about ice cream!”
“You—” she shakes her head, but she’s smiling again. “Fine, you big toddler.”
He shoots her a wink.
To be completely honest, Lio never thought about his own wedding.
He thought about the concept of weddings in general, knew people who got married, even attended a wedding with Thyma once when she insisted she couldn’t stand to go alone, but none of that ever made him consider his own. It simply wasn’t important. From a young age, Lio knew his destiny was to devote himself to Promare and the Burnish, and romantic relationships never factored into that. He didn’t anticipate this turn of events, that his destiny to lead the Burnish would railroad him straight into a wedding of all things.
“So you’re just letting them plan everything?” Gueira demands incredulously.
“It’s only fair,” Lio responds calmly, accepting a clipboard from the lead technician and glancing over it. “It’s their city.”
“Yeah, but, boss, this is your wedding we’re talking about—”
“We’ll have our own ceremony once we return to Fennel.”
“It’s not the same—”
“Stop whining,” Meis cuts in irritatedly. “He’s already made his decision.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t expect you to understand—”
While his lieutenants bicker quietly in the background, Lio nods at the technician and passes the clipboard back. “It’s a good idea. Keep me informed of your progress.”
She salutes. “Yes, Regent.”
As she hurries off, Lio looks out over the facility stretching beneath the viewing platform he’s standing on. Techs and scientists bustle about below, conferring with each other and attending to the boxy, complex machinery. Even here, above ground level, Lio can feel the hum of the Promare Core vibrating up through his feet. There are multiple facilities like this one throughout Promare, but this is the largest and most central to the Core, dedicated to harvesting and studying the energy it emits. In the past, these efforts were focused solely on military advancements and defense, but now that the conflict with Parnassus is over, Lio is determined to refocus them in the interest of scientific research and the betterment of society.
His people will no longer have to call upon the Core for violence. He’s going to make sure of that.
And if that involves letting their former enemy plan his wedding, then so be it.
“That’s enough,” he says, turning to his retainers, who immediately snap to attention. “If it alarms you so much, Gueira, you can be in charge of planning the second ceremony.”
That actually makes him straighten up a little, eyes shining. “Really, Boss?”
“You two can work together on it.”
“Heh—” Gueira throws an arm over Meis’s shoulders, squabble forgotten. “That might be kind of fun.”
Meis smiles crookedly. “We’ll make sure it’s one hell of a party.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Lio gestures for both of them to follow him and heads off down the hall. “I have a meeting with the head architect of the new research center, and then an interview later tonight. Meis, do you have—”
“The budget proposal, yup, here it is.” Meis passes over a folder and Lio accepts, flipping through it without breaking stride. “When do you leave, Boss?”
“Next week,” Lio murmurs. “Of course, I’ll need you two to stay and keep things in order.”
“Sucks that we’ll miss the fireworks,” Gueira laments, lacing his fingers behind his neck. “But those old dudes would never do anything if we weren’t here to bully ‘em.”
Lio can’t help but agree. Under the past Regents, the Council, primarily old Burnish men with little to no scope, was content to pass whatever law was needed to escalate tensions with Parnassus. They are less than thrilled with Lio’s more democratic style of governance.
“I’ll be gone for quite a while, but I won’t be out of contact,” Lio continues. “After the wedding, we’ll be on a tour of sorts around Parnassus. Then we’ll stop several places in Promare, before going back to Promepolis.”
“A victory tour,” Meis mutters bitterly.
“Yes,” Lio glances at him, eyes narrowed, “celebrating our mutual victory over the war our forefathers recklessly started.”
“Yeah, but we’re the only ones who have to let a stranger storm in and run things.”
Lio sighs. “From what I’ve heard, Prince Galo is more interested in storming in and less interested in running things. You don’t have to like him, but remember we’re all making sacrifices.”
“Have you seen him?” Meis asks.
“We haven’t met, you know that.”
“Yeah, but have you seen him?”
Lio sighs. “Yes, I’ve seen pictures.”
“I haven’t,” Gueira pipes up. “I’ve got mentions of him blocked.”
“How are you gonna keep up if you do that? Idiot.” Meis shakes his head and slides his phone out of his pocket. “Look at this.”
Lio pulls a few steps ahead while they lean over Meis’s phone.
“Wow, what the—”
“Yeah, talk about bias—”
“And he’s holding a baby, what the hell—”
Oh, the baby picture. Lio clenches his jaw and speeds up. Of course, he’s seen the baby picture, it’s been all over the internet. Predictably, given that Prince Galo is the adopted son and heir to the king of one of the most prosperous nations on earth. The fact that he apparently continues working as a firefighter is gossip-worthy enough, but when you add a highly-publicized recent story about him saving an infant from a burning building, complete with a photograph that perfectly highlights his physique—well, Lio’s been hard-pressed not to block mentions of the prince himself.
“He seems very—” Lio casts about for the right word. “Dedicated.”
“He seems like a piece of work,” Meis mutters, catching up to Lio with a few strides of his longer legs. “Every other day, it’s something like that—or he’s getting in to trouble—”
“And you would know all about getting into trouble, wouldn’t you, Meis?” Lio shoots back pointedly
“That’s different!” Gueira insists, catching up as well. “We haven’t done any of that stuff since you became Regent! This guy’s a prince and apparently he still acts like—”
“He’s still young.”
“You’re still young! We’re all still young!”
Setting aside the fact that Lio hasn’t acted his age in nearly a decade, if he ever did, the point remains that Prince Galo’s behavior doesn’t matter. In fact, the more juvenile he is, the less likely he’ll be interested in actually governing Promare.
“Didn’t you want to marry for, I don’t know—” Guiera continues, waving his hands around vaguely, “—love?”
“It’s all the same to me.”
“What, really?”
“Yes, anyway, after we spend some time in Promepolis, we’ll return to Fennel—”
“Hang on, hang on—” Meis puts a hand to his temple. “You really don’t care about signing your life away like this?”
Lio rounds a corner, emerging into a wide reception area. “I signed my life away when I became Regent.”
“This is different—”
“This is just another duty.”
Guiera hurries ahead to open the door for Lio and the group exits into the parking lot. Dry, arid heat blows Lio’s hair back for a second.
“We have a lot to get done, so I’d appreciate it if we could keep this kind of chatter to a minimum,” Lio says, striding across the sun-baked cement toward the car.
Meis visibly grits his teeth and Guiera scratches the back of his head.
“Good. Now, who’s driving?”
“I am!” they both say at once.
“Wrong.” Lio pulls the keys out of his own pocket and dangles them from his fingers, already rounding the car to the driver’s side. “I am.”
Gueira blanches and pats his pockets. “How did you—”
“Get in or I’ll leave you.”
“Boss!”
Galo’s fiancé is tiny.
When Regent Lio Fotia steps smoothly out of the special train car that carried him symbolically across the first completed trans-Promare-Parnassus railroad, Galo’s first impression is that a solid breeze could knock him over. His second impression brings green hair cut in a bob, some sort of elaborate leather outfit, and a face so youthful Galo finds himself reviewing his knowledge of Promare’s Regent with a non-zero amount of panic. He’s not actually fourteen or something, is he?
Their first meeting is, of course, a huge press event, and the cameras start clicking as soon as Lio appears, the chatter of the crowd growing hushed before swelling almost unbearably. Lio ignores all of it, walking purposefully across the platform to where Kray and Galo are waiting. His retinue follows a few steps behind, eyeing the gathered people warily.
When Lio is within feet of them, he stops and dips his head respectfully. “King Foresight,” he greets in a voice that’s deeper than Galo expected and quiet in that unhurried way that suggests Lio never has to speak loudly to be listened to.
“Regent Fotia,” Kray returns, smiling. “This marks the first time a Burnish has stepped foot lawfully in the capital of Parnassus in over fifty years, so allow me to be the first to say it: welcome to Promepolis.”
“Thank you. It is an honor to be here.” Lio’s inflection is so smooth and precise, it’s almost impossible for Galo to tell if he’s being serious. Lio’s expression is similarly blank.
“This union represents our hope for the future,” Kray continues, raising his voice a little for the cameras. “So it is my pleasure to introduce you to my son, Galo Thymos.”
At Kray’s gesture, Galo steps forward, sweating in his suit. In his periphery, he can see Varys nodding encouragingly, look preposterous in his security detail uniform. Now, he’s close enough that Lio has to tilt his head up to make eye contact, but as soon as their gazes lock, all impressions of smallness fly out of Galo’s head.
Lio radiates a gravity so intense Galo is shocked he didn’t feel it as soon as Lio stepped off the train. He’s shocked the reporters crowding the door weren’t blown back from the sheer pressure. Galo is more than a head taller and twice as wide, but when Lio looks up at him, he is leveled.
“Prince Galo,” Lio says, extending a gloved hand.
Galo starts. “Uh, just Galo, please.” Carefully, he grasps Lio’s hand. His grip completely eclipses Lio’s and he’s suddenly very aware of how damp his palms are.
Lio gives him a small nod. “In that case, you can call me Lio.”
That makes Galo smile, relieved to have gotten the title thing out of the way quickly. “It’s nice to meet you, Lio.”
Lio’s hand twitches in his and he blinks. “Yes, it’s nice to meet you as well.”
Then the press surges forward, cameras flashing, reporters shouting questions, testing the security barriers, and Kray herds both Galo and Lio in front of him, toward the waiting limousine, smiling diplomatically for the photos. Galo, recovering quickly, beams and waves, blowing kisses as usual. The minimal press attention he received as a popular firefighter skyrocketed after his adoption, but he’s more or less used to it by now.
Lio barely spares the reporters a glance, sliding primly into the limo, accompanied by one of his retinue members, a short woman with bushy brown hair.
After Kray and Galo are inside, Lio introduces the woman as Thyma, his personal assistant, and then spends the whole ride in deep discussion with Kray, about negotiations, about logistics, about the wedding arrangements. Nothing about him betrays any sort of emotion regarding any of it.
Not that Galo is watching too closely. He spends the whole ride deliberately keeping his eyes away from Lio’s elegantly crossed legs, his perfect posture, the sway of his hair.
He stares at the passing scenery and absolutely not at his fiancé sitting across from him.
Lio’s fiancé is loud.
That is to say, he looks loud. Heavily-styled, bright blue hair and tanned skin shone like a beacon on the arrival platform, loud in a visual way. He was perfectly put together but seemed distinctly unsuited for his formal clothing, his volume poorly contained by a bespoke suit. And the way he moved, like sound waves hitting the interior of his body and bouncing back, all jumbled together.
He didn’t need to speak to make Lio’s ears ring, he only needed to smile, gripping his hand warmly.
There’s an official dinner scheduled for that evening, and non-stop events leading up to the wedding. Lio watches Galo sag in his seat as King Foresight lists them.
In his hotel room before the dinner, Thyma fixes him with a meaningful look.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Don’t be dumb on purpose, Lio.” She takes the shirt he’s holding out of his hands and passes him one with fewer decorative straps because she has no sense of taste. “What do you think of your fiancé? The man you’re about to marry?”
“I’ve barely spoken to him,” Lio mutters, begrudgingly shrugging the shirt over his narrow shoulders.
She crosses her arms, unconvinced.
Lio sighs. “He’s very...loud.”
“Loud?”
“He looks like noise. Happy?”
“No, what does that mean?”
“It means—” Lio focuses on doing up his buttons so he doesn’t have to see Thyma’s scrutinizing stare, “—that we’re getting married no matter what either of us think about the other so there’s no use dwelling on it. He seems perfectly nice, if a little childish.”
She hums. “You two make quite a picture.”
“I’m sure.”
“No, really, look—” she pulls her phone out and scrolls through it. “All of Parnassus has been in a frenzy online since this afternoon. A lot of people seem more on-board with the whole thing now that they’ve seen you. Where is it—oh, here—” she turns the screen to face him and Lio peers at it, adjusting his collar. “This picture is everywhere.”
It’s a static shot, surprisingly in focus, given how much the press pool was jostling, that captured the few seconds Galo clasped his hand back on the platform. In profile, the size difference between them is striking, Lio’s head tilted up and Galo’s tilted down to keep each other in sight. Galo is beaming, eyes crinkling at the corners, while Lio stares back, eyes wide, lips parted.
Lio’s eyebrow twitches. He slipped up once, overcome for just a split-second by Prince Galo’s bright smile, and of course someone got it on camera.
The comments under the photo range from racist invective to long strings of heart emojis. He looks away pointedly. “I doubt a nice photo will sway public opinion too far in my favor, Thyma.”
“You’d be surprised.” She slides her phone back into her pocket and takes him by the shoulders, positioning in front of the closet’s floor-length mirror. “You’re cute. That’ll be enough to win over a lot of people.”
Lio wrinkles his nose, watching her reflection analyze and adjust his outfit. “I’m not cute.”
“Sure, Boss.” She produces a comb and runs it through his hair, working it through the knots that tend to form at the base of his neck. “I’m just saying, if you were anyone else, none of those comments would be hearts.”
“It’s going to take more than a pretty face to make the people of Parnassus accept us.” Lio’s brows twitch together as he reminds himself how much more work there is to do.
“Of course, but a pretty face doesn’t hurt.”
The memory of Galo’s wide grin floats across his mind. “I...I suppose not.”
“Anyway, you’ve got a busy two weeks ahead of you—” Thyma continues primping him, explaining all the events he’s expected to appear at leading up to his wedding, as though he hasn’t had this schedule drilled into his head already.
It’s soothing for both of them, he thinks, to review the concrete plans ahead of them. It’s a momentary distraction from the huge, consuming uncertainty laying before them. Promare and Parnassus are at peace, in theory. Border disputes are still ongoing, but dying down more and more with each day, and Lio has Kray’s word that their military will retreat from the disputed areas as soon as possible. All it cost was a few compromises and Lio’s love life, but it’s a small price to pay for his country’s safety.
Lio wonders if Prince Galo feels the same.