The return from the wedding

It had been a good wedding, until the death god had shown up.

Matt had been in his element - shaking hands, taking names and details, learning what he could about everyone - but it had been a much more pleasant process than the usual social obligations and work gatherings. Normally he came away from a party with contacts. This time, he thought he might have come away with some new friends. It had been longer than he liked to admit since that had last happened.

The bachelor party had started with a group breakfast, standing in for his lunch given the apparent time difference. He’d ended up sitting with Kevin Burgmeyer, a man whose interest in tabletop RPGs had landed him in his own homebrew fantasy world with a harem of mythical creatures, and that interest had also made for some common ground for a conversation that was all the more enjoyable because it wasn’t about their situation. Then Andy Cooper, the bachelor himself, the man Matt had been reading all about, had joined them only to have a very temporally confusing vision of the moment the hotel staff had passed a message to Matt. There was clearly something very strange going on there, beyond even what Scarlet had warned him not to think about.

The same trio had been put in a team together for the Island Challenge, an obstacle course across the Harem Hotel set. Andy had a terrifying amount of raw power and knew the island well, Kevin was perceptive and intelligent, Matt had mostly contributed with encouragement, happy to go along with the flow and not push himself. He was thoroughly outclassed anyway: both their seasons were putting them on a track to have way more power over their world and their harems than Matt could fathom, but even if that part was beyond him all three of them seemed to have a mythical theme in common. He wondered if that said anything about the wider structure of Harem Hotel, or if it was just a coincidence.

The Island Challenge had culminated in a brawl that Matt had stayed well clear of. He would only have got himself injured, and it had made him uncomfortable enough to even watch two Masters who seemed to be dragon-themed (like himself) hurling boulders at each other over a petty grudge. It had appeared mostly playful, and nobody had been seriously hurt, but he didn’t much like the thought that he might be heading in that direction after a few transformations. He had one waiting in the wings to return for a vote in the next round that had promised to give him supernatural strength. Would that make him as strong as the participants in the brawl? Stronger? Strong enough to seriously hurt someone, at minimum.

The day continued with a scavenger hunt, where Matt had been paired up with the Greek god Hermes. Not someone with a themed transformation, but the actual messenger god himself. Someone who had allegedly been there when Harem Hotel began, and who knew more about the strange entity that had passed Matt that message then he ever expected to learn. Hermes had told the story of the show’s beginning to King Arthur, as one of the entries on the scavenger hunt list. It still made Matt’s head swim to think about.

Lunch had resurfaced the feelings from the brawl, as it had included a roast - which always had him anxious of someone crossing a line. Matt hadn’t been the only one who had recused himself, and a lot of the insults that had been given lacked teeth or were compliments in disguise, which had made it marginally more bearable. He’d even had a roast directed at him, unexpectedly, which had barely even bothered with a disguise for its compliment. The worst he’d suffered from it had been a swollen ego, and some minor embarrassment that apparently at least one of the other Masters was reading his sex scenes and enjoying them.

After the lunch there was a whisky tasting, where he’d taught an eighteen-year-old about scotch in exchange for some lessons in applied polyamoury. On balance, he felt like he’d gained more from the chat than Felix did. The shirtless young man came from a season that was set up opposite to the norm, where his harem had most of the power, but he was trying to make something of it and seemed to be slowly succeeding. Matt was jealous in a way. Not because of any interest in being submissive himself, but because it would have been a release from the responsibility. It might have been easier to be on the other side of things, where he could handle being hurt if he needed to rather than being the one causing the hurt.

Then things got weird. The afternoon’s entertainment had included a trip to the underworld, led by Hermes. The whispers still echoed in Matt’s ears, even if he hadn’t been able to tell exactly what any of them were saying. That memory would haunt him for a while. Hopefully not literally.

Normality had returned after that. The day had ended with a beach party, meeting up with the bachelorette group and Sarah with them. She had looked overwhelmed, but not unhappy. She also looked to have made some friends, which warmed Matt’s heart. His wife didn’t usually like parties, but maybe being surrounded by people in similar situations had helped with that. It had certainly helped Matt. Even after only spending a single challenge together, Andy felt like the closest friend he’d made since childhood. Kevin too.

In the morning, before the ceremony, Matt had taken an opportunity he never thought he'd have to ask King Arthur and Merlin for advice. Not about having a harem, though they both seemingly could have chimed in on that, but on what it meant to be the centre of a story. Art (as he preferred to be called now) had told him to trust others to carry their share, which was at once the simplest and most difficult thing he could imagine doing. Merlin (now going by Adrien) had told him that the story would carry on without him. He was less sure about that one.

The ceremony had been grand and grounded at the same time. Complex in its simplicity, with seven brides for one man. More love than any normal venue could hold, bound in words and ritual and rings. Matt wondered if he would end up in a similar position by the end of his season, but he just couldn’t picture it. He couldn't imagine anyone else loving him like Sarah did.

Matt knew what was coming in a way that only a few outside of Andy’s closest allies did, and he’d expected it to happen after the ceremony, but they’d been granted a reprieve. Enough for the reception. Enough for him to introduce Scarlet to Andy, and for her to casually give out the blessing of a second chance that the women in his own season would have to go through him to earn. Enough for him to get one last piece of advice, maybe the most important of the whole visit, from one of the dragons he’d watched throwing boulders the previous day. Even aside from her advice, Laura Black had given him hope that even if he did end up as draconic as she was then that didn’t mean he would lose his sense of morals.

It came when the reception was at its peak. A bell tolled. A being from the underworld had come to claim a debt. The wedding was over. The endgame had begun.

Their safety had been guaranteed, guests were all whisked away in groups even if a substantial chunk of them looked like they’d rather stay and help. Matt himself had vanished halfway through reaching towards Sarah, hand outstretched as he was yanked away from the danger that he knew was imminent.

And then he was tumbling back towards his season. It wasn’t the subtle disconnect of Scarlet’s doorway magic taking him elsewhere in the space of a step, but an emergency eject. Faster, almost violent, yet in an odd way it was also slower. There was a moment, no more than that, where Matt was neither here nor there. Where he had left but not arrived. Where he saw neither the island of The HH nor the throne room of the Storybook Castle. Where he saw written words instead. And somehow, amongst all of that, in an infinitesimal interval that slipped in between instants, he saw you.