I couldn't tell which one was the Crown Prince, and which were his guards, for they were all wearing the same thing, a rough-woven woolen one-piece garment that was pulled over their heads, with armholes on each side and pulled together at the waist with a belt or rope, and hung down to about mid-thigh. This showed their hairy legs and knobby knees as well as their powerful muscles. The only other common garment was a leather sandal that was composed of a solid piece for the sole, and above that was leather straps sewed to the sole that bound the sole to their feet and then wrapped up their legs in multiple "X'es" to their calves. Beyond that, it was a matter of personal choice, the men wore swords or knives or bows-and-arrows or crossbows-and-bolts or maces or staves. A very motley appearance, though I didn't relish the thought of tackling any one of these men in one-on-one personal combat. They seemed to each carry the weapon they were best at! They had capes or bedrolls attached to their horses or bundles or saddlebags or sacks or...well, you get the idea. These men were alike, too, in their appearance, they were all massive, muscled, powerful men. Handsome, too, the men tended to square-jawed, steely-eyed, strong-browed men with wavy manes of hair usually cut to mid-ear length or tied back in small ponytails or held back with headbands. If I didn't envy my sister the life she'd live during the day, I did envy her the nights she'd have with such a husband as one of these men!

I was having an erection and surreptitiously shifted my tights to let it ease the pressure. I was glad my own tunic was stiff and long enough to cover my groin entirely for otherwise, I might disgrace the royal line!

My sister was watching the procession with dismay. "Mother!" she gasped when the men arrived, though she kept her voice low. "I can't marry a man like this!"

"Now, dear, this is probably just the advance guard. The royal carriage will be along in a little while, no doubt."

But the second part of the procession turned out to be only pack horses, and only a bare half-dozen of those. And among the men of the initial party, they were arraying themselves around their largest and most powerfully muscled member! For he was the Crown Prince!

"I greet you, King Dorman of Opperhess!" he called out. "I am Prince Gar and I come to greet you and my new bride to be!"

"And we greet you in all peace and hospitality." My father said as he reviewed them. And to my mother, in a sotto voce, "Oh, I shall have to ask his father to send a contingent to join my army when we invade the Empire."

My mother and father waved and as the soldiers escorted the Grattekon through the palace gates, we went downstairs to greet them in person.

Their visit took on many of the aspects of an invasion. These twenty men (for there were twenty of them) seemed to be everywhere at once. They were eating our food in the main hall, pinching the cleaning maidens and my mother's ladies-in-waiting in the hallways, drinking our wine in every room of the palace. My mother handled it well enough until she went out the next morning into the garden and found that they had both fed her prized blossoms to their horses and were using our palace's famous "Mist Fountain" as their personal bathing and horse waterhole!

She stormed into the palace calling the Grattekon all the foul names she could lay her tongue on and even my father's soft words and ways could not waylay her. The Grattekon heard her but none of them seemed to care, they just laughed, including the Crown Prince. My father was cheered by this, but my mother went up to my sister's room and spent the entire day with her up there, only the ladies-in-waiting were permitted within.

For myself, I wasn't having too bad a time. I found the company of the Grattekon most congenial, if raucous. A prince learns to hunt and I told him how to hunt the creatures of our land and they in turn regaled me with stories of their own mountain treks and safaris. We sparred with swords for sport and laughed and I drank a bit more than I should have that first night. The second day, my mother was already upstairs and I heard the story about her finding four naked men in the Mist Fountain second-hand and from their viewpoint. "Ran off like a scared virgin looking at her first hard man-bone!" one roared the punchline on the whole affair. "Not that any of us had anything like one in that cold water!"

The second night was like the first for me, too much wine and the men fell asleep where they had drunk too much, my mother had made the alcohol plentiful and available. It was all a part of her plot, it turned out.

The next morning, when was to be the day of the wedding of Prince Gar and my sister, neither my sister nor my mother were anywhere to be found. While the Grattekon had slept, my mother and sister had slipped out with a small guard and were now in parts unknown. My father was in a panic and we were all ordered to simply pretend that Princess Primrose was getting ready for her wedding. I guess my father had some sort of plan on how to handle things by the time of the wedding which was, by oldest royal tradition, to be held after sundown, perhaps he had sent out guards to try to find them. Whatever his plan was, it didn't work, and when the royal wedding got started, there was nothing to do but step up to the Crown Prince, now waiting at the altar, and admit that the Princess was nowhere to be found.

The royal tailors had stepped in and hastily prepared formal attire for him and he looked both majestic and regal in the royal blues of my older brother's own wedding clothing. My older brother was a big man and they'd had to only adjust it slightly to fit this big Crown Prince. I feasted my eyes upon this handsome specimen of manhood as he listened to my father's halting and abject apology for the missing princess, and then his eyes landed upon me.

I was wearing a more well-prepared set of wedding attire and at my sister's wishes, had been dressed in a tunic and tights of white with gold trim. She had wanted me to follow her in the procession and as an unmarried male, I was to wear white for my tunic, she merely insisted that it be all white rather than merely mostly white as was more common. But I guess that the white clothing I wore is what gave him the idea.

"Well, you wanted my family to join with yours by a wedding, did you not?" Prince Gar said to my father.

"Yes, yes, and I still do!" My father insisted. "My daughter has simply had a case of the jitters and I'm sure that if you'll just wait...."

"But there's no need for that." the Crown Prince insisted. "If we don't start back in the next few days, the mountain passes will be closed by snows and we won't be able to make it back to my home before next spring!"

"Oh, well, we can't have that!" My father went on, not seeing. "I guess we can exchange a promise to have the marriage later next year and simply sign an agreement...."

"I didn't mean that." the Crown Prince interrupted my father again. "We shall have the wedding today, here and now."

"But if my daughter isn't here."

"Then I shall simply marry another member of the royal family instead."

"But...there is no younger daughter, Princess Primrose is my only daughter!"

"I didn't mean another daughter, I meant him!"

"Prince Shann?" My father gasped, and I gasped as well.

"And why not?" Prince Gar went on. "My people allow marriage to whoever we wish, male or female. We'll have the marriage today, the alliance will be established and we can make it back to my home before the first snowfalls start. And they will start soon, the mountains usually have first snow before the autumnal equinox."

"But...my son married to another man. I don't know." My father said.

Prince Gar smiled at me and I found myself warming and my mouth opened and I found myself saying, "I wouldn't mind marrying Prince Gar, Father."

"You wouldn't?"

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