“High Priestess!” one of them said, in a voice that could only be appropriately described as “fawning”. “We weren’t expecting you! Is there anything you need? Can I get you anything?” No one said anything to anyone else.

“My friends here need to be outfitted for a wedding.”

“Oh, lovely! We adore weddings,” said a salesperson. It might or might not have been the same one who had fawned over Kat(rielle), but no one could really tell. “Who’s the bride?”

“She’s right here!” Kat(rin) practically yelled, pushing Bryn forwards.

“What did you have in mind for your dress?” asked a salesperson, again, one who might or might not have said something before. “And what about your bridesmaids’ dresses?”

Mish groaned, a look of fear on her face.

“They’re here,” Bryn said, pointing at Mish, Kat, and Becca.

Mish backed off slightly. “Couldn’t we just… uh… well, the thing is… about this… dress… business. Is it really necessary?” She kept eyeing the door, as though looking for a quick escape route.

“Mish, you don’t have to wear a dress, but you can’t come to my wedding wearing cargo trousers,” Bryn told her.

Mish pouted.

Kat(rielle) thought maybe defusing the situation might be an idea, so she said, “Bryn, what kind of wedding dress do you want?”

A somewhat enraptured look appeared on Bryn’s face from out of, well, wherever enraptured looks come from. “I want it white! And I want lace and beading and sequins and a big puffy skirt!”

“She wants a meringue,” Kat(rin) whispered to Claire, who was along for the ride.

“Do you ever wonder why the Authors haven’t been convicted for character assassination?” Claire whispered back.

Kat(rin) wondered if Claire ever did anything but wonder.

“No,” she whispered back to Claire, simply.

Claire was about to say something when Mish spoke up. “How about brown flares, then?”

Bryn glared.

“What? They’re not cargo trousers!”

Bryn rolled her eyes, and waited in anticipation as one of the (many) fawning women rooted through the different wedding dresses and another handed her a book of designs. Her eyes widened after a time, when Fawning Woman 1 pulled out a large mass with a coathanger sticking to it.

“It’s perfect!” Bryn exclaimed.

Mish rolled her eyes.

Claire and Kat(rin) snickered.

Kat(rielle) beamed.

Becca, who had hitherto gone unnoticed, as she was reading a magazine entitled “Bridesmaids Dresses – the best, the rest, and some really hot pics of guys to liven things up a bit”, looked up and exclaimed, “Wow! That’s awf- awesome!” She changed the look of shock to a look of happiness, and then tried to hide a snigger by a smirk instead. However, it just so happened that the magazine had fallen to the floor the moment she looked up (as she had to move her hands to her mouth to hide the snigger/smirk affair) and it had fallen open.

(Cue for dramatic music, zoom in to Bryn’s face, a smile more radiant than the one already on her face re-lighting it up.)

“Sithspit,” Mish said, also looking at the pages the magazine had fallen open to.

There was a dress on the page. It had puffy sleeves and a puffy skirt. It was the colour of tangerine, or maybe mango or papaya – some sort of tropical fruit that, no matter how tasty, is of a colour that should never be translated into clothing.

“Oooooh,” Bryn said. “I want you guys to wear that dress!”

Mish let out a sound that wasn’t quite a scream, nor was it quite a whimper. “You said I wouldn’t have to wear a dress!” she accused.

“But think of how pretty you’d look in that one!” Bryn said.

Mish turned an interesting shade of green, one which contrasted nicely with the orangey colour of the dresses. She swayed slightly.

“It just so happens that we have a large quantity of those particular dresses in stock!” merrily exclaimed Fawning Woman 2, sending some of her minions off to fetch them.

“Now we have to try them all on!” Bryn clapped her hands together excitedly and swooshed into the dressing room with her white cotton wool.

Kat, Claire and Becca reluctantly followed. Mish tried, but her feet appeared to have been super glued to the plush shop floor carpet.

She looked down at her feet, and watched the ground sway. “I’m allergic to weddings?” she mused.

Kat zipped out of the changing rooms, stepped behind her, and pushed her in the direction of the changing rooms. Mish fell face-down on the carpet.

“Owww,” a voice came from the floor.

Kat grabbed Mish’s collar and dragged her across the floor, into the changing rooms.

* * *

When they finally left the shop, everyone was clutching a large bag. Bryn looked ecstatic. Everyone else looked… not glum, but like they were trying not to look glum, which was somehow worse. Everyone else except Katrielle, that was, who inexplicably looked serene. Though perhaps the explanation was that her bag did not contain tropical-fruit-coloured taffeta.

“How about we all go for a drink then?” Mish said. “A LARGE drink.” Her emphasis on the word large entailed that if she did not have at least three units of alcohol in her in the next five minutes, she might turn into a psychotic mass murderer and start picking off victims, especially ones who carried the largest shopping bag of them all, containing a white dress…

“It’s where Gavin told us to come for tuxes!” Danny piped up, clearly not understanding that the question wasn’t directed at him.

“I don’t see any tuxes,” Darillian commented.

“Did you get sidetracked?” Phanan asked curiously.

“Uhm… no. This is the place.” Danny handed Darillian the piece of paper upon which the directions to the shop where they now stood in were written.

“Dress for Success,” Darillian read aloud. “But what type of success, I’m wondering. Is it going to be a particularly… informal… wedding?”

Danny shrugged. “I’ve left all that up to Bryn.”

“I’ll have you know that I don’t need a shop to help me get that kind of success,” Ton stated. “Erm… but don’t tell Kat I said that.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Darillian asked.

Ton raised his eyebrow and gave his best I’m-A-Superior-Intellect-And-I-Know-Things-About-You-That-You-Don’t-Want-Your-Girlfriend-To-Find-Out-So-Be-Nice-To-Me look.

Once the Darillian!balloon had deflated, the three men continued, undaunted, into the shop. Well, perhaps a little daunted, especially by the leather G-string that Ton walked straight into, since it was hanging from the ceiling at head-height.

“Good afternoon,” purred a Twi’lek from the other side of the shop counter who, coincidentally, was wearing practically nothing at all.

Darillian blinked in an I-Can’t-Quite-Believe-I’m-Looking-At-This way.

Ton blinked in an I-Can’t-Believe-I’m-Thinking-About-Kat-At-A-Time-Like-This way.

Danny blinked in an I-Hope-This-Is-The-Right-Shop-And-Gavin-Wasn’t-Pulling-A-Trick-On-Me way.

“Can I help you?” asked the Twi’lek, still, incidentally, purring. Also still wearing practically nothing.

Phanan and Darillian both had the same bright idea, and pushed Danny forward to answer the question.

“I… erm… well...” The archaeologist slowly but surely turned a shade of red that was indescribable, although “virulent” came close. “We’re, um, looking for…” He trailed off.

The Twi’lek’s lekku twitched in an Oh-So-Is-That-The-Way-Of-It way.

“We’re looking for tuxes!” Ton and Darillian both shouted.

The Twi'lek slid around the side of the counter, still wearing practically nothing.

Darillian stopped his mouth from touching the floor by looking over the Twi'lek's shoulder and staring intently at a leather-and-metal object... until he realised exactly what it was, and then looked back at the Twi'lek, who had completely disappeared (still wearing practically nothing), with Danny and Ton.

"Uhm... guys?" Darillian asked, hoping to not get attacked suddenly by things that vibrated, buzzed, tickled, or were cold or hot.

Danny's head and shoulders (incidentally, not wearing anything at all) appeared around the corner of a wall, so that it looked like he was wearing the corset which was hung at an angle to the wall. Darillian pffft'd, and the thought 'I knew it' passed through his mind, followed by 'why is he wearing nothing on his upper body?' "We're in here." Danny said.

"With the Twi'lek?" Darillian asked.

"Yes of course."

Darillian's mind boggled at the possibilities.

"Come ON." Danny looked annoyed. His face reddened with frustration at Zurel. The red of Danny's face worked quite nicely with the blood red of the corset he wasn't wearing. Darillian decided not to tell him this and walked into the one, oversized, dressing room.

A gasp could be heard from outside the dressing room was heard, it was followed by Darillian's voice, which voiced thus: "Hobbie!blue? Are you completely insane?!!?!!!??!"

* * *

The men got out of the "tux" shop with less than an hour to go before the wedding. When they got out, Ton was smirking, Darillian was glowering, and Danny looked
dazed.

Darillian muttered, "I can't believe that Twi'lek -"

"Yes, but it's over," Ton cut in. "You can't do anything about it now, Zurel, old chap."

Darillian stopped in his tracks and blinked. "'Old chap'?"

"What?"

"'Old chap'?"

Danny looked at his chronometer nervously. "Um, guys? Can we get going? You don't want to know what Bryn will do to me if I'm late."

"Yes we do!" Ton spoke up.

"No, we don't." Darillian glared at Ton. "Let's get going, shall we?"

* * *

Somehow, someone (everyone suspected Bryn) had found orange-tangerine-mango coloured flowers to decorate the temple with. The flowers were all over the
place. The bridesmaids were all attempting to hide behind them, but were failing miserably.

"I wanna go home," Mish was complaining to Kat.

"After this."

"Didn't we have some kind of purpose before we tangented over to do this wedding thing?"

Claire looked over from behind another orange-esque flower and glared at the two intrepid, although decidedly tangerine-coloured, heroines.

Kat shrugged. She was sure something would remind her why they were here sooner or later.

“Dearly beloved,” intoned Katrielle, white-clad behind the altar.

“No, really, weren’t we doing something non-wedding-related?” Mish whispered.

“… We are gathered here today…”

“Weren’t we on a mission?” said Mish.

“Shh!” said Claire.

“… To join this woman and this man…”

“But –“

“Shut up, Mish!” hissed Kat. “You’ll get us in trouble!”

“… In holy matri – do the bridesmaids have something they’d like to share with the rest of us?”

"I need to use the bathroom," Becca whispered.

Claire giggled.

Mish opened her mouth to say more, but found that in doing so a You're-Going-To-Get-The-End-Of-My-Blaster-Up-Your-Backside-If-You're-Not-Careful Look from Kat when she did so, and promptly closed it.

"In that case I shall continue." Katrielle said continuing.

The rest of the ceremony was, for Mish at least, roughly two hours of "blah blah blah blah blah..." during which she snerked at the image of the lads in their Hobbie!blue...uhm... whatever you would call those particular outfits.

The snerking stopped just before she screamed and was knocked unconscious, which, incidentally, was just before the end of the 'if anyone has anything to say against this wedding let them speak now or forever hold their pieces' bit.