Gratuitous Epilogue : Touchstone Extras by Andrea Höst

involved in
trying to paint our waterfall pool that she wasn't finished when
they were due to leave, so Siame's ended up staying with us to
explore her art rather than be a Kalrani. I don't think Kaoren's
mother's fooled by Arden's machinations in the slightest, but so
long as Siame's painting she's happy.
    They haven't decided if
they'll actually move to Muina themselves, and I don't know how I
feel about the idea. It'll be months and months before I can even
tell my own Mum that it might be possible for her to come here.
[Now I'm picturing Teor trying to organise my Mum, which would so
not work. Mum goes her own way.]
    The fortnight the
Ruuels were here was so filled with things happening that we
avoided anything more than the occasional frowning match. Lohn and
Mara's relatives arrived the same day as the Ruuels, and we'd
offered our two spare guest rooms (Kaoren's family were using the
"future kids" rooms) to handle some of their overflow. We ended up
with Lohn's sister Elha and her husband and three kids, just until
the temporary wedding guests went home. Two twin girls Sen's age
and a boy a year older, which was a most wonderful development in
Sen's view. And Mara's brother had two sons around Rye's age, and
Ketzaren had a much younger brother of around fifteen, and Jeh's
sister had three girls ranging from nine to fourteen. And then
there was Zee's brother's kids, and Maze's extended family
(including Helese's relatives), and Alay's younger brother, and
Kisikar, who had retired from First, and Grif's nephews and it was
just so amazingly many people, all eagerly setting up house and
then wanting to be taken on tour and have meet and greets and
pre-wedding events.
    Everybody (including me
and Kaoren) had taken leave so we could play tour guide, and we
mostly travelled with Kaoren and Maze's families, and Kisikar, and
every day a different place – Pandora highlights and Kalasa and
Mesiath, and then the two newly seeded towns – Zurenath (the place
with all the whiteberry bushes in the southern hemisphere, which
they think will be very good for farming) and Liriath in the
northern hemisphere, which I think would match Spain in terms of
proximity to the equator. The trees there are low and dark, and
there were black hills looming at the edges of the huge flat valley
centred around the platform town.
    Lohn and Mara's wedding
was super-traditional, apparently. Kaoren had brought back formal
clothes for all of us (girls dress pretty much like the boys when
they're ultra-traditional, in layered robes of neutral shades).
There are rituals for the two days beforehand – little formal
exchanges of gifts and items. Mara made this huge flat cake and her
father delivered it to Lohn's family's (brand-spanking new) house
where they practically pickled it in alcohol in readiness for the
wedding. Then the next day Lohn delivered Mara's wedding robes to
Mara's family's house (after spending weeks trying to get some kind
of symbolic piece of stitching on the back just right). Then on the
wedding day all the bride and groom's close friends showed up at
their respective houses and stole them off to do a preparation
ceremony. I'm not sure if the guys did exactly the same to Lohn,
but we pretty much gave Mara a bath – dressing her in this thin
shift and pouring warm scented water over her and drying her and
then painting all these purplish decorations all over her face and
throat and arms – curling tendrils. Everyone there does a tiny
piece of the decoration, and you're supposed to luck-wish the
marriage while you're doing it. Then (after blotting her dry) we
dressed her in the robes Lohn had brought and took turns combing
her hair and putting pieces of jewellery on her and then we
blindfolded her and delivered her up to the little whitestone
pavilion in their park for the ceremony.
    Lohn was there, also
covered in decorations and dressed in robes and reeking of the
scented water, standing in a row with Maze and Grif and Nils and
her