Prologue to Marriage

Dubhghlas squinted at the stalls lining both sides of the road. His goggles protected his eyes from the brunt of the sunlight, but the warped colors and extra light strained his eyes regardless. Sighing slightly he stepped out from his spot between two stalls and started down the street, trying to find the stall he wanted without walking too slowly. 

After a while he spotted what he was look for, a stall with small colorful pieces of fabric attached to it, waving gently in the breeze. Shifting his bag strap with both hands, Dubhghlas walked towards it.

The stall was a ribbon and fabric store, manned by a single, very bored looking dragon who ignored Dubhghlas as he inched towards the piles of ribbons pushed to one side. 

Dubhghlas nervously poked through the pile for a while, brow furrowing as his frustrations with the tiny pieces of fabric grew. None of these were long enough, or the right color, or even just right. 

He startled when the dragon behind the counter cleared their throat. “Do you need some help.”

Dubhghlas felt his face redden and realized he’d been very aggressively shifting through ribbons in silence. “No, I’m just... looking.”

The dragon sighed, “Are you looking for something in particular?” 

Dubhghlas paused, one hand still in the nearest bin, “You um, don’t have anything orange... Do you?” He pulled his hand out completely and brought both of them up to chest level, held about a foot and a half apart. “About this long?”

He was met with another sigh and a slight eye roll this time. “I have rolls of lots of things. What kind of orange? Any designs? Any other colors?” The clerk removed their chin from its perch on their hand and started to pull up a box filled with spools of ribbons. “What’s this for?”

Dubhghlas moved slowly towards the counter, shoulders tense, clearly uncomfortable. “It’s like... orange...” He gave a small huff, “Look I’d know it if I saw it.” 

The clerk pointed at his face, “I doubt you can see much of anything through those.”

Dubhghlas flushed again. He pulled his goggles away from his eyes and onto his forehead, squinting at how bright everything seemed. “I can see fine,” he mumbled.

The other dragon started rummaging through the box of orange ribbon on spools, choosing to ignore the comment. “You didn’t answer what it’s for.”

“It’s for someone special. It’s... kind of important.” Dubhghlas sniffed, “Actually, it’s really important.”

The rummaging stopped and the dragon behind the counter raised an eyebrow. “How important?”

“It’s, um, for a proposal.”

His comment earned him his first smile from the clerk, who began pulling out different shades of orange ribbons. “That is important. We’d better get it just right then.” They stopped and put the box off to the side. “Okay. You said you’d know the color if you saw it. I’ve got a range here, so take a look at these and tell me which is closest. We can go from there.”

Dubhghlas rubbed at the back of his neck nervously, looking between the spools on the counter. Finally he pointed to one slightly right of the middle. “That’s closest.”

He got another smile from the clerk, “Then you’d better start telling me all about this proposal business while I grab the closest colors.” They pushed aside the discarded colors, “We’ll find you the right one yet.” 

Dubhghlas couldn’t help but smile a little at that. Maybe it wasn’t a wasted trip after all.