So you see, Odin was a wise god after all.
Where was he?
Oh, yea, FJ was still complaining about the twins not choosing one of their beloved grandfathers to walk them down the aisle.
“That serpent is her father, and you know, that’s who’s supposed be walking my great-grandbaby down the aisle,” Chloe pointed out, raising a hand to pat their son’s still broad shoulder. Her hair was snowy white now, as was his own. Unlike their sons and daughter who kept their hair a brilliant and lustrous red and their skin perfectly smooth thanks to nanotech anti-aging magic, Fenris and Chloe cared not if they looked their age.
“Is it?” Olafr asked his mother with the same nasty look upon his face as his brother. “We may not have such an opportunity again. There is still Adoni’s wedding next month, true. But many brides don’t bother with handoffs these days. Remember how Koko claimed it was an outdated and insulting tradition when I asked her why Mag did not give her escort down the aisle at her wedding to that serpent Amaru?”
“You two need to stop calling the dragons serpents,” Chloe chided them.
“Yes, you really do,” a dark resonant voice said in front of them.
“Yeah, Dads.”
They all looked up to find Damianos and Ola, glaring at FJ and Olafr from the row in front of them. “Grow up and get with the times, already,” Ola said, jiggling Adoni’s newborn on her hip.
In truth, Fenris thought his sons very modern. They both had biosystems and had developed the rather odd modern preference for mostly indoor living. They had accepted the strange ways of this time period where females could be males and make use of strange pronouns. And they had cheered as loud as the former King and Queen of Oklahoma at the wedding of their son Qim Wulfkonig when he’d kissed his new bride…Leo “Spidey” Nakamura, the male human cousin of Knud’s wife, Layla Rustanov-Nightwolf.
However, his sons refused to accept that so far none of their progeny had mated with beings who weren’t descended from dragons. Even Eos, the newly appointed King of Michigan had heated and married Perla Deslobo, an Arizona alpha princess who turned out to be partly dragon. Or as their plainspoken Ola had referred to her, “That desert princess who just didn’t think our family chronicles were dramatic enough.”
Most recently, Adoni, Ola’s daughter had announced her engagement to a Russian dragon no one had heard from in hundreds of winters—one whom her father had at one time tortured into madness. But somehow Adoni’s and Chudu’s love managed to heal that rift.
“After a whole, whole lot of drama, of course,” Ola had said while toasting the birth of her first granddaughter at the family’s annual winter holiday gathering. “But you know that’s just Tuesday in our family,” she’d said, aiming a wink at Chloe and Fenris. Then she’d raised her glass and said. “Here’s to that good ol’ Viking Wolf romance curse.”
Fenris and Chloe had laughed heartily and joined their family in giving great cheer. But after they lowered their glasses, Chloe chided her granddaughter, “All us she-wolves think it’s a curse until we realize what a blessing it is to find such love.”
Fenris couldn’t help but believe their brash granddaughter was in full agreement with Chloe now. Ola and Damianos presented a formidable united front, holding hands as they both glared at FJ and Olafr.
However, if either of their sons felt any remorse for their slur, it did not show upon their faces.
Olafr merely held out his arms out to say, “You promised we could hold the baby during the ceremony, Daughter.”
Ola shook her head at him. “You’re really expecting me to give you a hit of great-grandbaby crack after I caught you talking out the side of your mouth about dragons? Again?”
“Yes, we’ve only a few weeks before she becomes a toddler” FJ whined. “Also, you promised.”
“No, I didn’t! I purposefully didn’t promise that just in case you two decided to act a fool.”
Ola remained the stubborn queen still, Fenris noted, even though her daughter Adoni now oversaw North Dakota and her son, Basileios sat upon the serpent—ah, dragon throne.
But Chloe was also a former queen. And in the end, she proved herself a master of diplomacy by convincing them all to let their sons’ wife, Grandma Tee, hold the baby, just as the bride reached her groom from the Orient.
What was his name again? Oh yea, Ao Quong.
Fenris remembered how Willie had quietly confessed their story to him after Ola’s mocking toast.
“I’d had this recurring dream for as long as I could remember. I’d be walking on a bridge with my husband and my son. So when Ao Quong came to consult with me and Eos about a problem with the fating portals, I recognized him immediately. And as it turned out, he’d been having the same dream, so he recognized me! We just knew. No drama whatsoever, so I guess I’m breaking with tradition. But I can’t wait to marry him at the Lunar New Year. I’ve literally been waiting for him most of my life.”