William wanted everything to be perfect for the wedding. It had to be. Sure, if something went wrong Lorelei would probably find it funny, but others would care more about it being perfect. It was a sad fact that the wedding wasn’t primarily to suit to bride and groom.

The garden… William would have loved another few dozen years to cultivate it. Instead it was just a setting that existed because not everyone would fit in the grand hall of the castle. People would be more comfortable outside anyway, since there wouldn’t be the threat of unknown magical formations looming over them.

What else was there? Food. That was a tough one, but fortunately it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The nutritional requirements for humans and gevai were similar enough they could consume the same food. That wasn’t good enough, however, because tastes varied wildly. There were several common cuisine styles among the gevai, and at least one per human country. His chefs could learn enough recipes and cooking styles to suit everyone- even Eclea wasn’t worried about cooking recipes changing hands.

There was just the slightest problem of ingredients. Many of them weren’t available in Cruoria, the newly reformed gevai nation. Even if they were, fresh ingredients might be months old by the time they arrived. Of course, William had a solution to that already- coolers. It was entirely possible to make them a mobile, as a carriage. That wasn’t the issue, but rather bringing them into other countries. William didn’t mind technology spreading, but he still had to consider the consequences. Though they might not learn exactly how to build them, the idea would still be there. Food preservation meant more food, and more food was better for the populace and growth- but it also allowed armies to function better. Eventually he decided he had to accept those possible consequences- and he’d heard Eclea was already working on something of the sort. He wondered if it was an independent idea or if their agents had gotten something from the gevai.

William had no doubt that there were some agents of various sorts among his population. After all, there were humans in Eclea who had leaked the general blueprints for the train even before there was any official declared peace. It was impossible to completely hide what was happening in a country, and William didn’t necessarily want to. At the current time, his most nefarious plans involved a long period of peace- and hopefully more peace after that. His only concern was the possibility of looking weak for wanting peace. That was why he was glad the reserve of troops he had were only getting better with age and not worse. Granted, their improvements would be very slow but they would stay young and healthy for a long time. Some of them would even stay young and healthy forever, barring a war or an outbreak of some sort of terrible plague.

William did worry about the spread of diseases between humans and gevai… but fortunately there hadn’t been any terrible outbreaks yet. Perhaps the smugglers and wars had been enough to nicely spread around everything over the years, so that nobody’s systems were completely unprepared. William knew their bodies were compatible enough to share most diseases, so it had been a nagging concern. Humans were more likely to get the short end of the stick in that department since their bodies were generally weaker than gevai. It wasn’t quite so significant in the area of immune systems, but William made sure some ideas of how to treat wyvern pox spread to the humans just in case.

He shook his head. He really couldn’t control everything, no matter how much he might want to. If everything worked out on its own, William would prefer that even more. What else could he reasonably control though?

The wedding needed proper seating arrangements. That would be a nightmare. He wanted to have humans and gevai sitting together… but the number of people who could actually communicate in that situation was small. In the last few years the numbers of people who spoke a human language and gevai had skyrocketed… and was now in the many dozens instead of probably less than two dozen counting himself, Lorelei, and Lila. Still, he could place a few gevai who spoke each human language among them to act as translators. He wasn’t sure how much conversation there really would be anyway.

There was one thing that William had little control over. The weather. He could choose the time of year, and he would have pavilions set up to cover the guests… but it would still be seen as an inauspicious sign if there was foul weather on the day of his wedding and the first large gathering of human and gevai. Actually, William considered that he probably could control the weather. It had been done. Unfortunately, Ustil was the result. While the area around Jeim was rather pleasant, he didn’t want a large desert. William knew he probably wouldn’t be able to accomplish something like that on his own, and he wouldn’t be trying to make a permanent change… but messing with weather patterns could have consequences. William didn’t want to have to wonder if a tornado was his fault or not.

All that was left to do was send out the invitations… then wait over a year. Gathering the final ingredients would happen slightly later, but he had already arranged for their purchase and transport. The invitations would take months to get to their destination, then people would need time to get ready… and then months of travel was required to arrive. He’d already done what he could to improve the roads. They could have been better, but at least they would be safe enough even if rather uncomfortable in spots. He would have liked to have more time, but he could just see himself delaying for dozens of years and missing a great diplomatic opportunity.