So, a lot of people say that your life completely changes when you tie the knot, and honestly… I didn’t believe that for the longest time.
When people become bound, in both a loving and legal sense, it feels like you just gained a snazzy title more than anything. The person (or group in some cases) you had been learning about, living with and falling for before the ceremony will be the same after the bells are rung and paperwork is signed. And in most cases, I think this is still true. It just so happens that my marriage was an exception.
A few years back, I met a girl that had immediately improved my life. I was in a dark place, a bit of a wallflower, and happened to find another bud on the same side of the wall as me. A short and curvy woman, who I could only describe as “alt”, with her assorted piercings and jet black attire. All the dark accessories contrasting her bright white skin, platinum blonde hair and bright green eyes.
Her name was Riece.
We started to talk and hit it off pretty quick, going from associates to friends to in a relationship all within the span of a few weeks. Riece had gone from the image of a punk in my mind to a total bookworm. A goblin who geeks out over the most minor stuff, and with such passion. I never would have thought that I would open up to another human so quick, and the same goes for her. Love truly did flourish fast. Even after I found out that “human” was a bit presumptuous.
What does that mean? Well fast forward to the proposal. I ask her, she says yes, tears are shed and the wedding date follows soon after. We have a lovely ceremony, and it all becomes official. Hitched without a hitch is what I told myself, but that was up until we signed the paperwork. We, now newlyweds, and the justice of the peace went into a separate room for the legal business bit per my now-wife’s request. Once the officiant passed us the doc, Riece jotted her name, and flipped the page to set the stage for my signature. You may think I’m dwelling more on one of the boring aspects of a wedding, but at least I had some say in what happened with the ceremony and festivities. There’s no way I could’ve been prepared for what happened with the actual certificate signing. I put my name on the line, and the air in the room suddenly changed. It got thinner, like a light haze started to mix with the stale air of the wedding hall side room. The lights started to flicker, and gradually get dimmer and dimmer as the seconds passed, accompanied by a growing glow coming from freshly-signed paper.
Words cannot accurately describe the silent chaos that soon ensued. Well, it was quite hectic for a moment before that given our officiate’s loud freak out and frantic rush out of the room… and venue soon after, but that’s neither here nor there. It had been Riece’s calm demeanor that quelled the active havoc, and kept me calm in such an abnormal moment. I looked into her green eyes, and behind the glasses I had fallen in love with years prior, the same set looked back at me. The comfort of her gaze and small smile was enough for me to know that there was nothing to be afraid of- which included the document that we both had signed lighting up like a Christmas tree and suddenly bursting into flames. As the paper turned to ash, Riece suddenly started to change. A pair of thick, curved, jet black horns started to slowly manifest from her platinum blonde hair. Her subtle grin that had soothed me prior now had some tiny fangs poking out from her upper lip. I was freaking out a bit inside to be honest, but I trusted my wife in that moment. She knew what was going on. After the most eventful minute of my life, the room laid still, with Riece and I quietly staring at each other. I finally worked up the mental courage to question her about the situation, but she beat me to it. Before I could get a word in edgewise, Riece exploded with exposition.
Back when she was still a kid, she said that she had befriended a demon. I don’t know if “befriended” is the best word to use exactly, but the important thing to note is that they had made a pact of sorts. Like I had mentioned earlier, Riece was a social recluse for the majority of her life. She didn’t grow up with the largest supporting entourage, so she looked for companionship elsewhere. Somehow that led to her getting a hold of some dusty old piece of parchment in her family’s storage, with most of the ink scrawls in some language resembling latin. She read some scribbles that vaguely looked like words detailing how to summon a “demonic ally”, wrote her name on said page per the instructions, and that’s how she found herself face-to-face with a real fiend. A demon that had a name that mortal’s cannot even fathom. You know, the normal things that happen when you want to make friends.
Now for the terms of their pact. I guess it’s standard practice for demons to gift some of their power to those who free them from the literary seals that bind them. Think of it as a token of appreciation, except that the token alters your biology upon receiving. Once the entity was freed, it channeled some of its dark energy right into Riece, which immediately started to alter her being. The horns and fangs I had seen sprout prior developed for the first time, and she became a demon herself. Well… maybe half-demon? A devil or imp? It wasn’t very clear, even for her back then. The creature had not uttered a single word that she could understand. The language it had used upon freedom went straight over her head, and continued to do so after sharing its essence and disappearing without a trace soon afterwards. That’s right, this “ally” gave her a few pointy spikes and dipped. What a great ally…
It was admittedly a lot to take in, especially since she never mentioned any of this prior. But again, before I could press her on it, she gave me the reason of her own accord. It turns out that there’s another practice that’s common amongst the demonic brood: contracts. That paper that she had signed was a document tied to that specific creature, and it detailed the conditions of their relationship. Granted, she was unable to decipher it back then, but once she possessed some dark power herself, the words became clear. Riece basically agreed to a deal detailing the demon’s freedom, in exchange for a fraction of its power. However, that power itself had dissipated soon after the creature’s departure. It turns out that “ally” was a condition of the deal in some way. From what she could collect, her abilities were only accessible when an ally agreed to a contract sharing her name, and detailed the specifics of their relationship. Seems like our wedding certificate fit the definition, and she knew that. Tears started to stream from her eyes, but she remained composed.
She then goes on to say that she desperately tried to tell me well beforehand, but any sort of information detailing her demonic involvement was preemptively censored. Whenever she tried to talk about the ordeal, her mouth would say something else. It was like a curse that forbade her from speaking the truth. She said that it hurt her to keep all of this from me, but she had no choice and became numb to the thought as time went on. That was on brand for her, just stifling her feelings, so I accepted the explanation without much thought. It was clear that she had been suffering in silence, and the way she was presenting herself in that moment reflected that.
After the details stopped spilling, the room became quiet once more. Any semblance of mystical happenings dissipated, with the exception of my wife and her new, mystical features. We stared at each other for what felt like hours, both without words or an idea on what to do from there. At least, that was until the tears turned to full-on waterworks. Riece collapsed under her own weight. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground crying. She went from calm and composed to a puddle on the floor. A puddle that kept frantically apologizing, over and over and over. She felt like she had betrayed me, used me, and set out with the intention of hurting me. She was a freak. A monster once locked behind some dark conditions, now freed, and deserving of all the malice I was bound to have. I was meant to be malicious, angry, and full of hate in her head. I was meant to hate her. I was meant to hate… my wife?
That didn’t sound like a relationship to me. That’s not how I viewed marriage. Marriage is meant to tie those who love each other together, so how was this any different? I walked over to her, squatted and looked right into her eyes. They were the same green eyes I had gotten to know for years at this point, and asked her a simple question.
“Was this relationship real to you?”
She paused. She paused at the question for a long time. The tears started to stop. The choking behind her breaths subsided, and she replied in a tone that I could immediately recognize as sincere.
“…of course.”
That was all I needed. I held out my hand to help her up, and she took me up on the offer. I helped my now spiky bride recover from her episode, and reassured her that i love her for who she is. If this vessel of dark power was a part of her, then that’s a part I love. She wanted to cry after being accepted for who she is, but knew that I’d be hurt if she did. After all, this was her wedding day, and she was meant to have fun.
Celebrating her future, not her past. Our future.
We agreed to return to the festivities, but before doing so, I inquired about her new features. I mean, I was cool with the horns, but how would the family respond to it? She reciprocated this thought, and already had a solution. I watched her demonic traits fade away right before my eyes, as if they had not been there at all! I guess they can be hidden per her will, like a mystical veil or something along those lines. That quickly became a mental note for me; to ask her later about exactly what additional powers she had at her disposal. But that was a later topic! We still had cake to eat, so we snuck back into the reception like nothing had happened. The rest of the wedding was your standard celebration. Dancing, drinking, and having a grand time with close family and friends. It was a night that on two fronts, we would never forget.
So where are we now? Well, we are still happily married and the magic she had possessed was never a wedge between us. If anything, it was a boon more than a bane, given the list of abilities she had been bestowed.
Soon after the reception, Riece listed the abilities she had at her disposal when we got home. Some of it seemed like standard demonic fare; teleportation, heat resistance (though hey pasty skin will somehow get a hefty burn somehow exposed to the sun), the power to make contracts, that kind of stuff. Sadly she didn’t get any wings from her encounter, so flight wasn’t in her repertoire much to her dismay, but she did pick up a unique ability that I could never see coming: size manipulation. The ability to change the size of things, whether it be her, other living beings, or inanimate objects at will. It takes a lot of energy, but it yields amazing results.
I may be personally biased with that specifically since I’m a bit of a macrophile.
I find the idea of giant women very alluring. So much so that I wouldn’t mind being tiny myself so that a normal-sized lady appears like a monolith from my perspective. This trait awoke in me before I found out about her powers, but it was still while we were dating. I expressed this to her back then, and she got a bit giddy at the premise. Granted, she said she wasn’t into the idea in the same way as I was, but hindsight is 20/20, and given that she has the literal ability to fulfill this fantasy, I can see why she was excited at the time.
We started experimenting with the thought almost immediately, and found out a lot about ourselves in the process. While she can enlarge herself to great heights, she prefers to stay the same size out of comfort. Riece may have magical powers, but she’s still an introvert who doesn’t want to be the center of attention, and being taller than normal would certainly draw some eyes. Me on the other hand, I wanted to test her limits in every way we could. Wishing to be shrunk to various heights, and participating in as many things as I could with my diminished stature were both explored thoroughly. In both sexually charged and mundane scenarios, I found my preferred size to be an inch tall or so. Small enough to mess with, but big enough to still be felt. I won’t go into the specifics of our trials or tribulations, but I will at least mention that her toes and I make great roommates in whichever pair of shoes she feels like wearing that day. Granted my foot fetish probably helps make that particular scenario really work, but that's neither here nor there…
Back to the initial topic of life changing after marriage! I held my own reservations regarding that thought back when I was a single man, but now I cannot agree more with that statement. My life did change, but through a magically-charged stroke of luck, it was all for the better. So much so that things are practically the same as they were prior to us getting hitched. We still enjoy the same things we did, bond over the same topics and all that stuff, even if I happen to be the size of her thumb at the time. She can grow me back whenever she pleases, and I don’t abuse her power for my own gain or anytime like that. Things are the same, but different, and we both couldn’t be happier about that.
I guess that’s how marriage is supposed to be, after all.