Today was the big day for everyone in part of the Bellwether and Hopps family. Today was the day that Gideon and Dawn got married.
Fifth button.. sixth button.. top but-
Out of buttonholes. How the hey?
Gideon Grey looked down at his stomach and tried to count every button he'd just buttoned up. Sure enough he'd skipped a hole at button three and now had to button his shirt up yet again. He often had trouble with formal wear, but this morning was unusually difficult. It was probably because he was getting married in just a few hours, although the massive and alcohol fueled 'stag night' he'd been dragged to certainly hadn't helped matters. While bunnies couldn't hold the sheer volume of liquor he could, there had been a lot of them and they'd worn him down as the night went on. Honestly it was amazing he was even standing upright, between the drinks and the lack of sleep. But sheer panic had hotwired his brain and jolted him into a sort of hyper-awareness.
But the strain was showing, and not just on his tuxedo, which struggled to contain all of the fox it had been tasked with formalizing. (Honestly, he should have known that XXL size was from a rabbit perspective. If he'd got it from the city it probably would have fit better.) A part of him wanted to run, to flee for the hills. For a predator this was a strange feeling indeed. He'd been through a lot in his short life, and certainly things that were far, far more harrowing than a simple wedding, yet this seemed the most daunting of all.
And yet... it wasn't that he regretted where he was, nor did the idea of marriage repel him. It had been a goal for a long time now; a marker, an achievement. This day, the day he was living right at that moment, would mark a profound change in his life. It was when he'd cease being all of one and start become half of two. It would be a glorious, wonderful development that set the stage for years upon years of married life with his love, the most important person in his world.
And that was terrifying.
The twin weights of responsibility and doubt pressed down on him like a thousand pounds of lead, a crushing force that seemed to drive the breath from his lungs even more palpably than the tight waistband of his pants. People laughed, 'What could possibly go wrong?' they asked all the time. Gideon knew; he'd spent many a sleepless night thinking it over. He'd seen others fail, and what happened when Life stepped in and said 'No.'. Oh yes, a thousand things could go wrong in so many, many horrible ways. Most importantly there were the myriad ways he could mess things up. There could surely be nothing worse than a man destroying what he'd dreamed of having through his own shortcomings.
"Everything going fine? The girls say they're about ready on their end. T minus fifteen minutes and counting."
Fifteen minutes? Gideon's eyes shot open in shock as he scrambled to find some sort of timepiece to confirm if it was really a quarter to noon. How could the day have passed so quickly? It'd been ten o'clock just five minutes ago! But that would be right, the interruption was from Stu Hopps, and he was as punctual as... as a very punctual person. Through some sort of unspoken agreement he'd been selected as the fox's guide to the strange world of nuptial arrangements. Heaven knew he'd had enough family members go through the motions to be an expert at it by now, but it was strangely aggravating how relaxed he was about the whole thing. It was as if Gideon were going for his driver's license or something rather than changing the whole course of his life.
It wasn't that he hated, or even disliked the rabbit clan. If anything he envied them. They had a... certainty about them that he'd never managed to acquire in his own life. It was as if they'd been born knowing what they'd be, how every facet of their futures would unfold. If you were an unobservant person this might seem to be nothing more than boneheaded tradition, farmers raising farmers to farm as they in turn had been raised, doing nothing more than what they'd always done. But when you got to know them better you found out that everybun was like that, most notably Judy Hopps, whose iron-clad knowledge that policing lay in her future had led her to great heights. But even those who simply stayed at home and farmed carrots seemed to do so with an easygoing assurance that everything was already worked out. For someone who'd faced his share of dark unknowns in his life, it was mildly infuriating.
"Dang, is that the time? Already? And how'd you talk to them girls anyway? Through a hole in th' wall?"
"The prohibition's only on you Gideon, and it was under a door actually."
That too, of course, was tradition. And the Hopps clan was big on tradition. A groom could never see a bride's face on their wedding day until the moment her veil was lifted. Or talk to her, or send her notes. In fact contact with anyone of the opposite sex was considered bad luck or an omen of some sort. It seemed as if the entire town had divided itself along gender lines for the day, probably more out of fun than anything, but it had been quite a shock when he'd accidentally opened the wrong door on a bunch of does organizing biscuits for later and they'd screamed and slammed it shut in his face as if he'd walked in on them nude.
"Amazin' how th' time flies."
"Isn't it? Especially with pre-wedding jitters."
"That's a thing huh?"
"Definitely, and it doesn't stop at the ceremony either. When I married my Bonbon I was terrified for MONTHS. I was sure I'd give myself a heart attack or something just running around in circles."
Gideon paused for thought. This was new information.
"Uh, tricky was it?"
"Boy howdy yes. One day you're in school learning about mitochondria, the next you're a family man with his own farm to run and mortgage to pay off. You never stop second-guessing yourself, asking if you're doing the right thing for your family's future. And that was nothing compared to the beets"
"Beets?"
"Beets. You see the Hopps family, I mean the wider Hopps family, has always been big on beets. You'll see if you ever venture up to Northburrows. Heck, over in Deer County we're the lead suppliers of fodder beets, though most family out that way are known as the Underburrows because of a union that-"
"Uh..."
"Oh, right. Well long story short, I'm from a beet family and Bonnie's from carrots. Now this place is good for growing carrots, that's why they're so big round these parts. But I knew beets, and only beets. Raised on 'em. If I wanted to do carrots I'd have to start from scratch, ask for quite a lot of help, and I could mess up pretty bad. One missed harvest and the entire farm could be foreclosed on, could lose everything. And of course be an utter embarrassment to your family and hers and a burden on the whole town. In th' end I went with carrots, but it wasn't easy, let me tell you."
Gideon blinked. He'd never heard the choice between two root vegetables be stated in such dire terms before. Truly the fate of the world hung in the balance. Still, if a man who held a grudge against a guy for 18 years due to the cast-iron conviction that he'd cheated at cards once could feel that kind of doubt, perhaps his own situation wasn't so dire.
"So... carrots or turnips huh?"
"Beets. It was a very big decision at the time. And we should get going, they'll be expecting us."
* * *
And all of a sudden, there he was. At the altar, face-to-face with his bride-to-be. How long it'd taken to get there he couldn't honestly say; it was unreal in a sense, like a dream. Part of him wondered if Dawn felt the same way, beneath her sheepish expression. She'd declined the traditional veil and headdress, with her wool it just wasn't practical. Indeed her outfit was quite understated, a simple white dress and a bow in her hair. She was done up in makeup of course but the entire setup was quite subtle, probably something to do with the Hopps again; they didn't go in for showy, overdone things. All their efforts probably went to the catering, not that he'd be complaining.
Oh, and someone was speaking words. A bear? The priest. Probably. His mind skipped over the specifics, he already knew their meaning. He'd practiced this moment a thousand times in his head after all. An arm drifted up to tug at an ill-fitting sleeve and he smiled as he looked across the aisle at his betrothed, their gazes meeting and locked together. Somehow everything seemed to fade away in the moment, as if they were the only two in all the world.
"...tile death do you part?"
A pause.
"I do."
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zfqfmib
#link Posted: 5 months ago
#link Posted: 5 months ago
#link Posted: 5 months ago