May 30, 2026, 11:46 PMLucinda Marisol wasn’t sure if she should be happy, or nervous, or angry. She didn’t have a lot of feelings about the matter at all. A message in the form of a song delivered by a bear had arrived announcing to her relatives great and stunned joy that she was engaged.
They asked her what she knew of the matter and she sincerely told them she hadn’t known anything at all. Which of course only convinced them further that she did know and was being extremely discrete because the details were salacious.
Her entire family upended their lives to prepare her for the trip. The village did, everyone did. No one from this far down had ever even seen an official of heaven much less been engaged to one. The bear had turned into a helpful 1737 page document on the necessary steps to manage the journey and describing the route to be taken.
Lucinda had been required to sign so many steps marking them complete, that she thought she might be beginning to hate her name. That stage had lasted about two weeks.
Since then there had been hundreds of fittings of new dresses, new shoes, new jewelry. She’d even gotten a new sword. During fittings/meals and throughout the entire day local monks would grill her on facts and knowledge and who is who in the ranks of heaven.
No one had gotten around to telling her the name of her new groom. The bear had said his name was too holy to be spoken this far from the court. She supposed that fit with the fact that she knew nothing else about him either. She took to telling herself in her mind that she was marrying the Nothing Lord Nothing of Nothing and Nowhere out of a fit of childish rebellion against this.
But outside of that one defiance she truly poured herself into fitting this new mold. She learned every scrap the monks could provide. She pieced together a trader’s grasp of heaven’s vocabulary. She learned the 23 poses of the 29 angels. She taught herself to walk like mist floating below a dragon. She only drank dew drops and only ate sunbeams, this last bit helped a little with the dress fittings.
Her hair was braided like the Duchess of the Cranes of Wind. Her jewelry took stylings from the stars of the Dragonfly and the Puma. Every single detail of her outfit, dress, habits, speech, and body language was carefully cultivated to ensure she would be pleasing to any heavenly noble who might be engaged to her.
Her calligraphy was perfection itself. Her manner; that of a demure dove.
She carefully studied the impeccable art of fencing without breaking a sweat or gasping unduly.
Lucinda had checked and double checked every step of the document she’d been given. Not an idle minute was wasted. She was a dutiful daughter and a representative of her village and would make sure she didn’t bring shame to their name by accepting this high honor that was so far above them it wasn’t believable that it had actually happened.
She consulted the stars to determine the arrival of the guide sent by heaven. She spent her evenings in prayer at every shrine in her village and the surrounding villages. She began keeping a detailed account of her preparations to better prepare the next girl that such an auspiciously inconvenient blessing might happen to.
The months stretched into a year and then into a second year.
She had begun training local young people in the many things she’d learned. They even set up a small but functional monastery for her to use during her training of others.
Students came from miles around, eager to learn how they might better improve not only their lives but their family’s fortunes.
By the time her escort arrived, Lucinda had almost turned herself into someone that someone could believe would have gotten a surprise engagement from Heaven’s Court.
She was standing, on the steps of her monastery, looking out into the swamp at the hour of her guide’s arrival. Her face was as radiant as the moon is on snow. She was calm as a still water pond wreathed in gold and marble. She did not appear overly eager nor bored and unhappy.
She was, frankly, as close to perfect as any being not of Heaven proper could be.
Her eyes fell upon the guide that came out of the swamp, covered in mud and muck, trudging a trudge of a servant mucking out their seventh stable. Even in the twilight, even with the muck, the seal of Heaven burning brightly on the guide’s brow.
And in that moment, Lucinda, for the first time in her life said:
“Fuck.”