It had been an hour since Ellenah left and the five were sitting with Anthieyah on the chairs they had set up, along with what seemed like the rest of the town.
Next to the immediate family, which was quite extensive, they got the next closest seats to the front where they would get the best view. Something Anthieyah said was the benefit of arriving early to set up.
Kris leaned over to whisper to Anthieyah"So when does the wedding actually start?"
Anthieyah looked around at the other seats.
"Well, most the seats are filled. We'll wait a little longer to see if anyone else shows. Then we will begin," she answered.
"Well, it better start soon, or else I may fall asleep with boredom," commented Alex.
"Don't worry it'll start soon," Anthieyah assured him.
Alex looked around. "So where is Ellenah?" he asked.
"I don't know. I suspect she will not be here. If she does decide to come, she'll stand in the back and arrive just as the ceremony starts," Anthieyah answered. "She is not one for, social gatherings."
"Why's that."
"You'd have to ask her. Though today I feel her recent injury may play a part in this. I do not think she wants to be out and about with it if she does not have t," Anthieyah whispered back.
"Right, I can see how that could do it," Alex replied and sat back. "What with you all being woman and all."
Kaitlyn shot him an irritated look and Valerie even made a point to reach over to pinch him. Anthieyah just looked at him in confusion but was quickly distracted. A man had walked up onto the stage.
This was the first time any of them had clearly seen a man since they arrived. There were a couple distinguishable in the crowd, but not near the group. They were obscured by the crowds and you wouldn't have seen them had you not been looking. It seemed the men did not get to be as tall as the women. Their roles here were reversed on so many ways with the men and women of Earth.. The groom was a rather skinny man, though he really was more of a boy. His arms hung loosely at his side as he slouched a bit. His round face had an expression of a low watt bulb. His eyes were half closed over red eyes with a bit of acne dotting his face. His most prominent feature was that his nose seemed a bit crooked. He showed no decorum you would expect of a groom, regardless of physical appeal.
"Who is that?" asked Valerie.
"That's Termbet," answered Anthieyah. "He's the one that will be joined to three woman today."
"That's the groom?" Valerie almost shouted, only managing to keep her voice down because she had nearly choked on her own words. "He looks like a, well, forget what he looks like; he can't be more than seventeen."
"Sixteen actually and I know he isn't exactly the finest man around. However it's an honor if a man finds you attractive and fancies you to the point that he's willing to take you."
"Did you say he was wedding three?" asked Kris.
"That's right."
"I new you said your men took on more than one wife, but I figured that they got married over time. Not all at once."
"Not all the time. He's likely to be up there again in a couple years," replied Anthieyah.
"You certainly have an interesting culture," Arnold commented as he watched the awkward looking man talk to a woman who was likely the Athyan's equivalent of a priest. The woman wore a long shall that draped over her arms and an extra long skirt that was decorated with embroidered gold trees, it reaching to her toes.
Arnold shook his head as he tried to get his thoughts around. he culter, with the dominant women was like the Amazonian women of legends. Yet the men were all like wealthy men from African countries who could legal wed multiple wives. The woman were fierce warriors and harems. This was a hard thing for him to swallow. It didn't feel like these two should work together, but because of the circumstances, it did. heir society couldn't survive without it.
"I could say the same of you," countered Anthieyah to his statement.
"Point taken."
"You know any of the brides personally?" asked Kaitlyn jumping in.
"I know one of them was in the hunting party that first brought you here. As for the other two, I haven't gotten to them," Anthieyah answered.
"You know if I got wedded here. That would be interesting," said Alex with amusement. "I come from a long line of large families of men. So a mostly boy family getting hitched with a mostly girl family, would definitely make our kids a coin toss. A battle of the stronger genes." He said chuckling to his own joke. Arnold shook his head for he new how the process actually worked and it had nothing to do with lineage. On earth it was a coin toss. Here, due to some genetic or environmental factor, it was more like trying to role doubles with a pair of dice.
"You come from a whole line of families that have been males?" Anthieyah asked with amazement. The shock on her face was greater than any she'd previously shown.
"That's right. It isn't exactly uncommon on my world," Alex answered. "Just like how some families only have one daughter after the next."
Anthieyah stared at him until Kris broke into her train of thought.
"Think you'll ever get a man?" he asked her.
"Oh, I've been told I'm pretty, but not nearly as fine as many other woman," answered Anthieyah. "I don't have the greatest career though. So I wouldn't be able to support more than a couple kids. It does not make me a prime choice. So I do not believe I ever will," she explained with profound sadness.
"Sorry to hear that. I think you're very beautiful and I'm sure you would make a great mother," Kris replied a little awkwardly. He attempted to put an arm on her to make her feel better. He realized as he spoke that maybe that would have been a touchy topic.
Anthieyah looked at him. "You really think so?" her tone sounding like she was about to cry.
"I would never lie to someone. Especially a nice woman like you."
He heard Valerie mutter something under her breath. He was going to ask her to repeat it, but the next moment, music started playing. The groom moved to the center of the stage, straightened up (Without much success) and faced the crowd. At the same time three young woman all in a fine skirt and top came walking down, each one from a different path laid between the rows of seats. The group recognized the one closest to them as one of the white haired woman that had been with the group that first retrieved them from the ruins.
"Isn't this exciting? We're the first people ever to witness the mating rituals of another world," Kaitlyn whispered to the others unable to contain her excitement.
"Until now, no one even knew there was another world of people," Alex whispered back.
"Sort of feels like a regular wedding," said Valerie.
Her tune soon changed. The ceremony took two hours. The woman in the ceremonial shall asked each of the three women many questions about loyalty, love, devotion, then did the same with the groom, who had to be asked three times, once for every woman he was joining with. So that wasn't to different. Then after reciting a long ode about unity, the groom gave each one of his brides a long kiss, nearly a minute long each. Kris suspected it was important how long you held it, for the lady priest would count as the bride and groom held their lips together. He found it hard not to join in with the counting.
"Some things never change, no matter where you go," Kris whispered to Arnold who merely nodded a reply.
"He must really know how to hold his breath," Alex said as the groom moved on to kiss his third wife.
"He has to. He must kiss each wife for at least a whole minute in order for the joining to be official. Most men have to train in order to do it," Anthieyah answered.
"How do they practice?" asked Valerie.
"There's a lot of woman around. It probably isn't that hard," replied Alex. "I have to say, these wedding's are more exciting than the ones back home," he said getting the other four looking at him with concerned expressions as they wonder how he found the long dull speeches interesting. They had all been rather bored by it all and had to keep themselves from yawning. It was only because they had never seen it before that had kept Kris awake. Alex was well known amongst them to be the least interested in such things, so that fact he was more interested in them made them wonder if he was feeling alright.
"They would practice before the ceremony with their fiancés," Anthieyah said answering Valerie's initial question.
"Sometimes I'm not sure if this place is just weird, or awesome," Alex replied, a dreamy smile on his face.
Kaitlyn looked back at him but didn't say anything.
"Are you sure you're sane?" asked Valerie.
"If I were, I'd be a dull fellow, don't you think."
"Right, forgot that was your life rule. Everyone is nuts. Otherwise we'd all be the same," she turned her attention back to the groom who just finished with his last wife and the guests started to applaud. With shouts that resembled a monkey howling and the stomping of feet.
The five of them joined in with the applause, using their hands at first, but joining in with the stomping of feet. The groom and his three wives turned to the guests and stood there hugging each other as they smiled at the crowd. They took several bows and made a gesture that Kris could only identify as blowing a kiss. Thus ended the ceremony. With that portion of it over, the groom, his wives and the guests all joined in the celebration that followed. There were tables set up filled with food just off to the side of the seats. In this area there was a large flat circular stage where people could dance. A small band of woman played strange and elegant instruments set up next to the dance floor. Their instruments looked mostly like strange variations of harps and flutes. As for the dancing, it was nothing that the group was used to; there were no partner dances (obviously), but all those on the stage would dance in a group. For the most part it was all move how you wanted or line dances, though they were far more complicated than any they ever did. Formal training was required for the group activities. Which was a real shame, because Valerie wanted to join in, but didn't want to get in the way. When they were not dancing as a group, it reminded them of their high school years when they just jumped around in tight crowds as music boomed around them. Only this was softer, more romantic music and the dancing was slower and looked more organized. Even though it wasn't.
Kris, Arnold, Alex, Valerie, and Kaitlyn were sitting around one of many tables that had been brought out, watching the activities going on, unsure on how to join in. In Valerie's case, it was more that she was not good at joining into group events, a result of her home schooling. Not that she was ever a good dancer in any situation. While Alex, simply wasn't a fan of dancing altogether. They had intended to take this opportunity to go out and mingle with the locals. However they found it difficult as the people all got right into the activities that none of them were eager to just jump into until they had an idea of what the social standards were for such an event. So they just sat together and enjoyed the music.
"Things aren't much different from weddings back home," commented Kaitlyn sitting back and listened to the beautiful music that was loud enough to hear, but not deafening you to your surroundings. So you didn't have to shout to the person next to you to be heard much less understood. "Though it makes it feel like what we do bac home is an abridge version. You really don't rush through any of this."
"No kidding," replied Alex.
Kris turned to Anthieyah who was sitting with them.
"Care to dance?" he asked her.
"What?" she asked looking side to side to make sure he was talking to her.
"Where I come from, there are many dances one can do. Most of which require a female partner," Kris answered holding out his hand to her. "Don't worry, I'll teach you an easy one. Like the waltz," he said as Anthieyah took his hand and he pulled her up.
The two of them walked up onto the circular stage. Leading her up, He remembered how tall she was. He rarely was right next to her and because they spent so much time in the ruins, he often forgot how tall everyone was. Being amongst so many of the woman he actually felt like he was a middle school kid being taken to an event with lots of adults. Standing at only five, ten, Anthyyah had a good three inches on him.
"Now, you put your hands here, and I put mine here," he instructed Anthieyah moving her hands, finding their height difference, it felt a little awkward. "I will lead, so you just need to follow my movements. So try and match your steps up with mine and try not to step on my feet. It kind of goes like this," Kris said as he and Anthieyah started of slowly. Anthieyah started of a little clumsily. She stumbled with every other step and stepped on Kris's foot a couple times, but quickly caught on. "Sorry," She would apologize after every clumsy move. Kris felt like she was a natural Canadian. Actually thinking about it, Athyan's put Canadian's to shame in regard to manners.
"Now you're getting it," Kris said as the pair of them began to waltz, if still a little blocky.
"This is, rather fun."
"I know. It'd be even better if the music went with it better. Just wait till we can go faster," replied Kris. "Don't you have anything that requires partners?" He asked.
"Not really."
"That would explain why people are watching us." He realized it made a bit of sense. Even if back home, girls were far more likely to just dance together than men.
"That and you in particular are dancing with me," replied Anthieyah.
"How so?"
"I'm a single woman and you are a man. Something there is few of," she reminded him.
"Oh, right. Forgot about that," replied Kris getting her drift. "Well let them stare, I'm perfectly fine with dancing here with you."
"You mean that?"
"Of course I do. And if all the girls here asked me to dance with them, I'd pick you first."
Anthieyah started to blush. Her face went red making her golden eyes pop.
"You really know how to make a girl feel appreciated."
"Well, back in high school, I was the first pick of all the girls there. Though I never did have a girlfriend after I turned nineteen," replied Kris. "I never could figure that one out."
"High school? What is that?"
"It's what we call the place where we are educated at a certain age on my world," Kris answered. "Though many would say it was a childhood prison."
"What sort of things were you taught? Was dancing one of them?"
"You could, but dancing I learned from my adopted parents. We learned things like math, which is learning how to calculate and use numbers. Then there is science, which is everything from the human anatomy to nature and how it works," Kris explained trying to use words that Anthieyah would understand.
"Really. If I ever can go to your world, could I go to this high school?"
"Afraid not. You're a bit old for that. Besides I really don't think you'd want to, if you knew what it was like?" answered Kris.
"Oh."
"Well, if you were eighteen I'm sure I could get you in to see what it's like," replied Kris. "You aren't eighteen, right?"
"Correct."
"Just checking, you look like you could still be a teenaged girl. Provided you dressed right."
Anthieyah looked away as she blushed even more.
"Should I stop? You look like you may be burning up," Kris asked smiling broadly.
"No, you can keep going. It's just no one has ever said such things to me before," Anthieyah answered. "Your people have such weird ways to converse."
"I guess I should remember that few men means that lines like that don't come by often," Kris said to himself.
The two of them continued on dancing for a long time. For the rest of the evening, Kris didn't dance with a single other woman through the entire night. Though not long after his stepping up with Anthieyah, Alex too soon came up and got right into the swing of things, letting all the woman swarm around him. Though he didn't do any partner dancing like Kris was doing. He saw Kaitlyn join in for a short time, though Valerie and Arnold remained to the side all the while, not that many young women didn't go down and try to get Arnold up.
After the party started to die down, Kris and Anthieyah left the area and went for a walk around the town. With lots of the people at the party, there were not many lights on to light the streets. With the clear skies and the stars glistened in the night, it lit the world well enough. Kris looked up at the two moons in the night sky. The planet they were on, they had discovered had three moons. Two were always visible at night, and the third, only sometimes during the day. They were all smaller than that of earths, which would most likely make the tidal forces greater than that of Earths, but not to the point of dangerous tsunamis, likely just higher and less predictable tides. Not that it made much of a difference, since they weren't anywhere near an ocean.
"This has always been my favorite sight," Anthieyah said as she gazed up at the sky and all the small glowing specks.
"It is a beautiful one, but not as beautiful as you," Kris replied turning his head to look at her.
Anthieyah looked back at him.
"You aren't just saying that?" she asked.
"No, why would I. You are the most beautiful woman I ever met and unlike the women back home, you are a truly carrying person." He actually sighed. "We have lots of pretty woman, but with good looks comes the greater chance of crazy. Something that is refreshingly lacking here."
Even in the dim light, he knew that Anthieyah was going red again.
"If we can't get back home, I would want to spend my days here with you," Kris continued.
Anthieyah smiled sheepishly as Kris put his arm around her waist.
The two of them looked at each other, gazing into the other's eyes and slowly they moved closer together till their lips were pressing against one another's.