“It’s not working anymore!”
With an effort, Mikkel suppressed an involuntary cry of surprise, and turned to greet the intruder with calm and dignity. And patience.
“Welcome to my private hiding spot, Emil.”
Emil glanced around, taking in the ornate column that had been concealing Mikkel from the rest of the party. “Oh! Were you hiding? I spotted you easily.”
“Must be all that scout training you’ve been doing.”
“Do you really think that–” Emil’s expression went from delighted to suspicious. “No. You’re easy to see, for anyone. Parts of you stick out.”
“Do they? I blame this flimsy Swedish architecture.” Not that it truly mattered, Mikkel told himself: after all, his objective was not to become invisible, but to avoid the other guests at the gala until the impulse to be sarcastic lessened. He was pretty sure that some of them were smart enough to understand even concealed mockery, and that most of that select subset would be powerful enough to affect his life in unpleasant ways.
That was the problem with being successful: the politics. He’d been naive to believe that his past career trajectory would keep him safe forever.
“Anyway.” Emil’s voice broke through Mikkel’s musings. “Your advice has stopped working.”
“My advice? I am afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”
“Right.” Emil leaned against the pillar, settling in. “Last year, you told me that I could avoid an advantageous marriage by telling my family I should wait until I was able to make an even more advantageous one. But this doesn’t work anymore, not now that I am suddenly rich and famous. They say that my current status can’t last, since opportunities like the Seed Vault mission don’t come along every day. And that I should seize my moment. Light the fuse while the match is on fire, you know.”
“Hmm. That does make sense. I take it they have started introducing you to potential partners?”
“They don’t have to! Have you seen what it’s like out there?” Emil glanced around the column.
“I have experienced it, yes.” Mikkel recalled the three proposals, one decent and two indecent, that had already come his own way. Emil’s count had to be more impressive. After all, Sigrun didn’t call him ‘Pretty Boy’ for nothing. Perhaps he should have been paying more attention: Emil’s reactions to his own proposals might have been amusing.
“So?” Emil asked. “What do I do?”
“About unwanted suitors? Myself, I like to say something confusing, then make my escape while they’re puzzling it out. Although more recently I have branched out, and sometimes mix things up by calling Sigrun over instead.”
“My relatives won’t care what Sigrun says. They’re used to it, by now. And I can’t escape them. They’re family!”
“True, true. In your case, a more radical solution is required.”
“What is it?”
“Well, logically, the best way to stop marriage talk is to…”
“Yes?” Emil’s eyes looked so hopeful that Mikkel almost felt bad.
“To get married.”
Emil huffed. “Well, I can’t do that!”
“I know, you–”
“I’m not even sure it’s technically possible. Swedish law doesn’t recognize marriage with foreign nationals, only with Swedish citizens. And the citizenship process requires an interview.”
“Does it?” asked Mikkel, as his mind struggled to fill in the gaps in what Emil was saying. He’d clearly missed some serious developments. “But surely Lalli– It is Lalli we are talking about?”
In response, Emil only glared, in a way that seemed oddly familiar. Well, couples did start to resemble each other, didn’t they? Mikkel carried on. “Surely Lalli’s Swedish is good enough for that by now?”
“Yes, definitely, but… the interviewer is bound to want to discuss Sweden.”
“Well, Lalli can certainly learn all the relevant facts, his memory- Oh. You’re not worried about facts, but about his opinions.”
“Right. I mean, the officials won’t know that when he calls something weird or stupid, he doesn’t mean it in the bad way.” Emil shook his head, as if to shake off the smile that had crept onto his face, When he continued, his expression was serious once more. “Finland is easier, since marriage there is basically whatever promise you feel like making in front of the gods, but Sweden obviously won’t consider that valid, and so neither will my family.”
“Wow, you’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?”
“I had to. Onni has described the Finnish marriage ceremony to me several times. As casually as he could, but that’s not very casual, so I know what he's up to: testing me. As usual.”
Yes, Mikkel had clearly missed much, and all through his inability to understand Finnish. He’d have to fix that oversight, sooner or later. “I do see your dilemma. But it’s not hopeless: all we need to do is put Lalli through a sequence of mock inter–”
“Those are just the technical problems. There are also…” Emil stared down at the ground. “Other problems.”
Mikkel opened his mouth to make a guess at Emil’s meaning–there were so many potentially-amusing options–but then decided to be kind rather than hilarious. “What problems?”
“I can’t marry Lalli! I mean,” Emil waved his hands in front of his body, grasping at the air, “I can’t imagine what being married to him would be like. It seems so weird.”
“Weirder than, well, whatever it is that is going on between you two now?”
“Yes! It would have to change everything! Because… Well, I have never been married, of course, but my parents were.”
“Were they? I had been wondering.”
Intriguingly, Emil continued as if he had not heard him. “And I saw how they were around each other. They had this whole thing where they would ignore or insult each other in private and then, whenever people came over, or whenever I got in trouble, suddenly they were a unit. But then they would go back to their, I suppose, original and eternal disagreement. I didn’t understand it as a kid, but I assumed that it would make sense once I was older. But now I am an adult, and I still don’t understand.”
“I do,” said Mikkel. “I mean, I have encountered married couples who act like that. But there are other types, too. For example, some couples seem to spend all their time sitting together in resentful silence. If you two could build up some resentment, then maybe–:”
“It’s not just my parents! All the married couples I know have something I don’t understand going on.”
“All of them, hmm? So, your parents… and your aunt and uncle?”
“Yes. They have some weird secrets, I am pretty sure.” Emil started to tug at his hair in distress. “And then there are Reynir’s parents. They are Icelandic, so I understand them even less.”
“Three examples is definitely a significant sample, but the world contains many others. What about… Sigrun and myself?”
Emil’s hands froze in his hair. “You two are married?”
“You know, I am not quite sure. The thing is… By Norwegian law, Sigrun, being a captain, has the right to marry people. Or divorce them. I know that she keeps track of our current status on a piece of paper, but it’s been a while since I looked at it.”
“Okay, that’s actually not helpful at all.” Emil sighed. “It just proves that all married couples have their own rituals, but Lalli and I are just… together, without any of that stuff.”
“Wait. Doesn’t he run off into the forest at regular–”
“Also, we can’t run a married household. Neither one of us knows how to cook, or anything.”
“Thank you for the compliment,” said Mikkel. “Sigrun claims neither of us can cook either, can you believe it? Anyway, your unexpected faith in my cooking skills does suggest a solution.”
“It does?”
“Yes. Clearly, you should marry me. While there is a chance that I am not currently single, well, I can arrange to be at a moment’s notice, and I have no problem lying to the Swedish authorities about how much I admire their country. Finally, most importantly, our marriage will have the quality you are looking for: it will be incomprehensible to outside parties.”
Emil opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then he opened it again, but only to say a single word, “No.”
“Why not? Are you worried that your relatives won’t accept me? They should. After all, I am just as rich and famous as you are. I know I am a little old for you, but… No, wait, Emil.” Mikkel grinned. “You are going about this all wrong.”
Emil’s expression was woundingly suspicious, again. “By talking to you, I mean?”
“By even considering appeasing your relatives. What you should be doing is outraging them: presenting them with arrangements that will make them welcome your actual plans with relief and gratitude. You might need to keep this up for a while, of course, but that will have the advantage of giving you time to figure out your actual plans. I suggest that you start by working through the psychological issues you have acquired as a result of your parents’ terrible marriage.”
“What? I don’t have any issues–”
“So, how do we begin? Something involving a foreigner, obviously. Multiple foreigners are an option best left for later, and of course our endgame should be grosslings–or maybe spirits? That might be believable, actually, if we can get hold of Tuuri again. So, a foreigner… How about that seagull mage? He was definitely single, and yet completely unsuitable by Swedish standards.”
“I am not going to… Ugh!” Emil clutched at his head. “I don’t even know how to describe this. Outrage my family with a sequence of increasingly complex and humiliating lies about my romantic interests, just to avoid telling them that I don’t like their plans for me and intend to live my own life.”
Mikkel didn’t reply at once. He thought it was best to let that last phrase sit in the silence, for a while. When he spoke, it was to say, “Well, yes, that would be the other option. Not as fun for me, of course, but as you said–it’s your own life.”
