#dotty mcclain

“The Mahons have arrived!” someone shouted from the hallway.

“You mean to call them the _McClains_,” one of the uncles sneered, before spitting on the ground. He quickly bowed his head as he met the mother of the bride’s eye. Like a spell ready to be cast from her disapproval of his disrespect. Once he left, the hens erupted into chaos. 

“Oh, gods.” One aunt began to pray. 

Dima panicked as she fanned herself. “Already?”

“I heard they brought gifts from Waterdeep.”

“I heard his brother insulted a Baldurian duke at dinner.”

“I heard _they_ invented a firearm that exploded through a stable wall.”

“That was allegedly.” She responded, trying to catch up with the chatter.  Dima stared quietly at her reflection while excitement swelled around her.

Desmond McClain. Dehmir Mahon. The man she was supposed to marry.

A progressive heir from a rising family of infernal industrialists. Inventors. Merchants. Engineers were forging infernal metals into machines the world had never seen before. New money wrapped in old ambition. She knew stories about him. The rumors of low-born boys rising to power after using devil machinery to bring great advancements. The opinions of their Northern greed threaten the sacred cultures of the Isles, even forgoing their natural-born names for common ones.

And the Arguments. Some admired the changes the men were making, and others called their bluff. Many claimed their riches would be short-lived as they were men trying to be gods. 

And somehow that uncertainty frightened her more than the marriage and rumors themselves.

Before anyone noticed, Dima slipped quietly from the bridal chambers and disappeared into the rear gardens. The noise of the estate faded behind her. Here, the cliffs breathed softer sounds; the crash of distant waves below, waterfalls spilling through carved stone channels, the whisper of wind through banyan branches tied with prayer ribbons from brides long dead. Lanternlight painted gold across the pathways.

Dima settled beside the shrine overlooking the sea and exhaled slowly.

“Lady Firehair,” she murmured softly to Sune, pressing her hands together, “if love is sacred, I would appreciate it if the sacredness could feel slightly less terrifying.”

A pause. She opened one eye, waiting for a sign, then sighed when nothing happened. 

“And if he is unbearable, all I ask you is to have him trip down the aisle.”

The sea crashed below.

As did a loud thud.

Dima blinked upward. Another crash followed immediately after. Startled, she stood from her kneeling prayer position and looked at the garden wall. 

“…Ow.” The distinct sound of expensive fabric catching on stone.

Another thump. Then a curse in Infernal spoken with the exhausted dignity of a man losing a battle against architecture.

Dima pressed her lips together. “You are very loud for someone attempting secrecy,” she called.

Everything went still.“…You can hear me?”

“No,” Dima replied dryly. “The wall speaks Common now.”

A startled laugh escaped him before he could stop it. “Forgive me, bride,” Desmond spoke in infernal now, bringing a warmth to Dima’s face. Her arranged husband!? Her before their wedding? She prayed that no one caught sight of him, and she quickly turned to make sure she didn’t catch sight of him either. 

Luckily, Desmond did not make it over the wall, nor did he attempt more tries. Perhaps because he remembered the tradition forbidding the bride and groom from seeing one another before the ceremony. Perhaps because the wall had already won.

Instead, he remained hidden on the opposite side beneath hanging moonflowers while the waterfall between them blurred his silhouette into shifting shadow. Dima found she preferred it that way. Not seeing him made honesty easier somehow.

“I should begin by saying this was a terrible plan,” he admitted.

“And yet you committed to it fully.”

“I was optimistic for at least the first thirty seconds.”

She smiled despite herself.

Then his tone shifted slightly.“I wanted to speak to you before the ceremony.” He spoke carefully. 

“All right.”

“I dislike arrangements like this.” Dima leaned back against the marble bench, listening quietly. Her knuckles pressed to her lips. Was he…going to back out of their arrangement? She prayed Sune would have her drop unconscious before she faced that. 

“My brother married through arrangement,” Desmond continued. “Family compatibility. Political convenience. Financial alignment.” Bitterness crept into his voice. “The poor woman looks miserable.”

Dima frowned faintly as he spoke of his brother. 

“Clive is not cruel,” Desmond clarified quickly. “He’s just… Clive.” That somehow explained everything. “He dominates every room he enters. Every conversation. Every decision.” Desmond sighed softly. “And everyone calls it successful because she fulfills her duties and smiles in public.” The waterfall thundered softly between them.

“I hate that,” he admitted. “I hate traditions that trap people simply because someone older declared them sacred.”

Dima traced one finger along her grandmother’s embroidery on her sleeve. “You think tradition itself is the problem.”

“I think falling in love after marriage sounds absurd.” He leaned slightly against the opposite side of the wall. “How can that be love? You are marrying a stranger.”

Dima was quiet for a moment.“Anyone can become a stranger.” She said in soft defiance.  The waterfall filled the silence afterward. “Hearts change,” she continued bravely. “Minds change. People change.” Her voice gentled thoughtfully. “You can spend twenty years beside someone and wake one morning realizing you no longer fully know them.”

Desmond did not interrupt. “I think the tradition understands that better than most romances do,” Dima said wistfully, her back leaning against the wall as she stared up into the faces of several moon lilies. “It teaches that love is not something you stumble into once and possess forever.”

The lanternlight flickered across the marble pathways around her. “It is a choice.” Desmond finished her thought. 

A quieter silence now.

“You choose to know someone,” she murmured. “Then choose again when they change. And again. And again.” A small smile touched her mouth. “Love is continuing to choose someone as you continue discovering who they are.”

When Desmond finally spoke, his voice had changed. Softer, less argumentative, as though he came rehearsed to talk down his bride-to-be. 

“I think,” he admitted quietly, “that may be the first defense of arranged marriage I have ever respected.”

Dima smiled faintly. “There would be no innovation without tradition.” She held up a finger using an old infernal saying.

“That sounded painfully aged and rehearsed.”

“My grandmother says it constantly.”

“That explains everything.”

She laughed softly. “You build firearms, yes?”

“I allegedly build firearms.”

“You innovate because someone taught metallurgy first, right? The ancient devil smiths? Mathematics first. Languages.” She tilted her head toward the unseen figure beyond the wall. “Tradition is memory that survived, Desmond.”

“Your grandmother’s lectures are better than some professors I’ve met.” Desmond chuckled. 

The tension eased after that. Something warmer and more curious filled Dima’s chest now that they were talking. 

“So,” Desmond said eventually, “tell me something important about yourself.”

“Important by whose standards?”

“Yours.”

Dima considered. Then sighed dramatically. “I hate spicy food.”

He gasped softly. “Finally. A reasonable woman.” There was a pause as Desmond added, “I hate loud chewing.” 

Dima giggled in agreement. “My cousin chews like an owlbear.”

“My brother sounds like warfare.” Desmond chimed in. 

“And if someone touches my plate without asking,” she added, “I become capable of violence.”

“That feels spiritually justified.”

“And you?”

A pause.

“I’m a night owl.”

“That is not strange.”

“It becomes strange when I somehow manage to function on so little sleep.”

“How much sleep do you get in one night?”

“Perhaps…four hours at most.”

Dima blinked slowly toward the wall. “Horrifying.”

“I contain multitudes of horrifying things about me.” Their laughter faded into a softer silence afterward. Then Desmond asked quietly: “Do you want children?”

The question caught her off guard. Dima looked down at her hands. Feeling the pressure of her own apprehension. “…Maybe...No…”

The words came quieter than intended. Immediately, she regretted them. The silence afterward stretched just long enough for panic to creep into her chest. Oh gods. There it was. Dima thought to herself.  She had ruined it. Of course, she had ruined it. Every noble family wanted heirs. Continuation. Legacy. Especially families like the Mahons, clawing their way into power. Dima stared at the marble beneath her feet, already feeling embarrassment begin to burn beneath her skin.

“Do you mind if I ask why?” No disappointment in his voice, Dima could swear it was just…quiet curiosity.

Dima swallowed softly. “I used to think…” She hesitated. “I used to think I would not want children like me.” She thumbed the sari around her shoulder. “I cried constantly as a child. Nervous all the time. Emotionally over everything.” She laughed softly at herself. “I once cried because a bird with a hurt wing flew away before I could help it.” Desmond stayed silent, listening. “My mother said I apologized to furniture after bumping into it,” Dima admitted quietly. A softer silence settled between them. “She would say people that fragile will break, and no one wants a glass bride…at least that’s what she said others would think.”

The answer came immediately. “I don’t.” Something tightened painfully in her chest. “The world has enough people proud of their cruelty,” Desmond said quietly. “I think softness is harder.”

Desmond stared at the wall, as though he could see her back to him, turn, as Dima began to face the wall, standing with her side towards him. “I think,” he continued carefully, “that if we ever had children, I would be very lucky if they turned out like you.”

Warmth flooded her so suddenly it nearly frightened her. And suddenly Dima found herself desperately wishing she could see his face.

Voices echoed through the garden before she could answer.

“Dima!”

Her aunties approached through the lantern-lit pathways in a dazzling storm of silk and jewelry.

The second Dima heard them getting closer, her eyes widened. “You should run.”

“What?”

“My aunties will smell unmarried wealth from across the estate.”

Desmond snorted softly.

“I can handle aunties.”

“You cannot.”

The voices grew louder.

“Oh gods,” Dima whispered urgently. “If they discover you have money, they will start discussing cousins.”

A horrified pause.

“…I do have plenty of money.”

“RUN.”

Desmond laughed outright then, warm and startled and bright enough that it pulled helpless laughter from her too. The sound of retreating footsteps disappeared behind the wall just as her relatives swept into the garden.

“There you are!”

“We have been looking everywhere.”

“Your mother is threatening people again.”

“That means she is emotional.”

“She threatened a florist.”

“He deserved it.”

Dima pressed her lips together, trying not to smile too obviously.

Her mother appeared behind them moments later, already exhausted. The aunties and cousins parted like curtains, clearing a path between Dima and her mother. 

“It is time.” She nodded at Dima, who, for once, did not have a nervous tear in her eye. 

The music from the ceremony swelled louder beyond the gardens now. Dima stood slowly, pulse hammering against her ribs. Before leaving, she glanced once toward the empty wall.

“You still hate tradition?” she asked softly, hoping she was right. Hoping Desmond did not run like he was told, and he was still nearby. 

A pause. Then his voice answered faintly from somewhere farther down the garden path: “…I think I may hate it less than I did an hour ago.”

Warmth bloomed painfully in her chest. The aisle stretched across the cliffside like something pulled from myth. “See you soon,” She whispered, taking her first steps out of the garden and into the ceremony.  Marble pathways suspended above reflecting pools filled with floating crimson petals. Lanterns drifting into the darkening sky. Priests beneath silver archways recited ancient infernal blessings while waterfalls thundered behind the altar into the sea below.

Hundreds of guests rose as Dima appeared. Her heartbeat climbed higher with every step. The ocean wind tugged gently at her veil. The music softened.

And there at the end of the aisle…stood Desmond.

For one suspended moment, Dima forgot how to breathe.

He stood beneath the waterfall altar, wrapped in ceremonial black and silver, infernal embroidery gleaming against blue skin, while sea mist curled around him like smoke. White hair stirred softly in the ocean wind. Rings glinted against nervous hands clasped tightly behind his back.

He looked…Gods. Dima felt her face warm up, and suddenly she was moving faster down the aisle than the tempo allowed. Desmond didn’t look powerful or obscenely wealthy or the heir to a rising dynasty. He looked overwhelmed, like someone standing at the edge of something enormous and hoping with his entire heart not to ruin it.

Then his eyes lifted. He met her gaze. The crowd disappeared into silence. The drums became distant thunder. Even the crashing sea below the cliffs seemed to fade beneath the sudden, impossible awareness of him. Because Desmond looked at her as if seeing her had struck him breathless. Wonder broke openly across his face.

Raw. Almost disbelieving.

And Dima saw it happen in real time, the exact moment he forgot every argument he had ever made against tradition. His shoulders loosened. The kind of relief like someone was coming home, unguarded and grounded. Dima’s breath caught painfully in her chest.

Because suddenly she understood why poets wrote about destiny despite themselves. Not because fate forced love into existence. But because sometimes, against every philosophy you built your life upon, you met someone and your soul recognized them faster than your mind could.