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May was reluctant and hugged her mother one last time before getting onto the horse. She knew as well as we did that it would be the last time she would have a chance to be reluctant about leaving her because after she was married she would become Sams and she couldn't disobey him. At least not deliberately or out in the open, at home behind closed doors she would be able to question him but even that wouldn't change the outcome because if it is what he wanted she would have to follow along and support him. It is just part of being married. It's not a fun part of being married which I think is why I've been so worried about marrying Corey.

I don't want to have someone control you, the dragons understand that women aren't tamed or controlled. Once you marry you aren't properly you are an equal and the other half of the other person. I don't want someone else to determine who I can be with and what I am going to do. That's just not me, and I know it's probably the dragon in me that doesn't want to submit to someone else. We do as we please when we are dragons, go where we want when we want, choose to protect each other and who we love and if we want something more we go after it. We can leave our husbands if we want and the other way around is also true and dragons can love as freely as the want. The skys the limit is the truth, we are completely free.

Humans aren't. Marrying someone who doesn't have the same views and same ways is scary. I've been raised human for the most part but I'm still not a human and I naturally wasn't ever going to be satisfied being someone's pet who they can do with as they please or being with someone I don't love and don't want to be with. Knowing that Corey could change and control me after we marry is a scary thought, to know I could be just as cadged as my mother once was. I know he hadn't done it yet but people can be fake and hide true intentions, I don't believe that is Corey but nobody ever truly knows anything. May hasn't ever know anything but a cadge and neither has Liz. I'm the only one who knows what it's like to be free. They might not be dragons but I don't think they like the idea of being owned and controlled. They just go along with it more than I have as they might not like it but they can settle and deal with it and still find happiness as many other human women have proved. They find joy in children and small moments and things that they are aloud to do. Personally that isn't my idea of finding happiness and wanting to marry and all I can do is pray it's not Coreys either.

May is completing her duty as daughter of a higher up and marrying Sam. I know she was upset when she got on her horse. She didn't speak at all on the ride back over to our camp. The ride was silent and awkward to say the least. May seemed to be elsewhere. She drifted in and out of her thoughts or day dreams to remember where she was and each time you could see the sadness in her eyes as if she had dreamt herself away from here. Probably some place far away, a place where she was with the people she loved and felt there warmth and love all around her. Maybe she was drifting back to her home, which I do sometimes as well. It some place safe and comfortable, she has one as well as Liz. I just don't know there and my safe place has changed since the time has passed.

Honestly I forgot my birth mother's face a long time age, same with my uncles. I used to of held onto them as tightly as I could when I was little but as time went on I wasn't able to stop them from drifting away. Even my brothers face had become blurry in my mind at one point. I had started to forget who and what I was. Then I left and now I barely remember my old life it's as if it is from a different life time. I barely remember anything of my old family and the people who I used to think of as my friends. May will hopefully be able to forget to some extent it'll make life easier the sooner she let's go of her past and embraces her future.

Once we got there we quickly got to what was needed. We showed May how to create a bow and arrows and started to work with her on shooting. We took a short lunch break, Liz went out on a small hunt while May and I went out and looked for berries and some other things to be able to make the rings she needs. While looking for things we took the horses that way May could get more used to riding them and having them around constantly. It seems weird to me know that she never had that before now. Horses died often and weren't taken care of as well as they are here and we often didn't bring horses with us very often since we never went that far away from the village, we also normally had a carriage that we could ride in. It made it so you didn't need to really know how to ride very well and could bring more items with you.

Liz caught a few bunnies and we made a stew, we showed May how to skin and prepare a rabbit to be cooked and how to cook it and how to make a stew to pull the meat apart and put it in after it had already been mainly cooked. We also cut up some wild carrots and turnips we had found and put them in it. It worked out well to teach her some small things since she always had people cooking for her. Then while waiting for it to be done we had her start the rings. The lunch break wasn't very much of break except for when the food was actually done. We ate pretty much in silence because it had already been a long day and there wasn't much to say. We had a long rest of the day planned between her needing to finish the rings, working more with a bow and eventually with a sword and working more on riding all before we make dinner and make sure she's able to make a fire on her own. She'll prove that tonight at dinner whenever Corey and his dad return.

We also still need to go back out to get more stuff for dinner that way we aren't strictly eating whatever meet they bring back. We also don't know how much they will bring back or what it will be so we need to see what we will end up cooking. We could have another type of stew. Which does make it a little more complicated to plan for dinner and know what we actually will need. She would figure it out. If it's deer we can use it for some type of steak or roast.

May picked things up decently fast but the day seemed to go by quickly. Before we knew it the sun was starting to set so we went out and started to get other vegetables. We found more carrots and turnips, we also found some small wild potatoes. That would work well with whatever we ended up with. We returned to the camp and worked on more decorations portion of the soon to come wedding. We did that until Corey road back. He had some meant from a boar. We all sat back as May made the fire so we could start dinner. We cut up some carrots and the potatoes so we could cook them with the Boar meat. Corey let us know his father would be staying with Sam tonight and would return some time tomorrow with the inspector to get that portion of it done and over with. Tomorrow is one of the last days of the ceremony and is the last official day before May and Sam are married. Although the day she gets married is still spent preparing for things and is still technically considered a fully day of the ceremony as that is when the day of fasting begins for her, it still ends with her being married and the ceremony goes over into the day after the wedding as well. Tomorrow will be an even longer day for May as it's going to be the day she has to say goodbye to her old life and everyone she used to know. It'll definitely be life changing and soon after the wedding night they are hoping for her to have a child. If she can't then she will be replaced and become a nothing more than one of the women who pleasure men when they are home from hunts or the day of a wedding and her title as Sams wife will be removed. She will be nothing more than another whore in a keep waiting for someone to buy her for a few hours so she can purchase food and other recourses. This tribe isn't as bad as other as most have taxes and in all honesty the dragon slayers have little use for money which is why they don't sell very many different types of item at market because money wasn't what gives them power. They are powerful because of there strength and training. The leadership is all about lineage so money doesn't effect that, and someone can work there way up if they are strong enough to become closer to the inner circle. Money has nothing to do with it in this tribe, all it does is work as a way of trade for those who aren't in the top tiers circle. The top tier are the ones who hold most of the money though as the little taxes that they do have are on things such as Brothel keeps or taverns which is where whores work and typically end up living and where men drink. It's only on places that aren't essential but make good money through entertainment, they also sell food for those who no longer have wives or aren't yet married to go for entertainment and a meal which is why so many of them exist even in tribes all over.

There likely isn't a single tribe that doesn't have one, but that's one of the things they make money on at the market because women from other tribes are more exotic and each tribe has different specialty foods and beverages so people often go to other tribes during breading season so they don't get bored and some go simply to try the food or drink. It's the only chance they really get to try other tribes foods and drinks since everyone distills beers and wines differently. We also have some animals that aren't the same so it can be a type of food they have never had like how we are closer to the coast so we have different types of fish that can be served along with land animals for meat. People also use different methods of cooking these things such as smoking them or different techniques of grilling them and different seasonings. It's all part of different cultures within different tribes.

Our tribe is also different as people gamble a lot on fighting in other tribes but typically Coreys tribe doesn't although they do compete which that money is taxable as well. It's 10% of the winnings were as at the keeps its 20% for entertainment taxed on the whore or the musicians earnings and 15% on food and 25% on drinks. We don't like a bunch of drunk people to be running around in case something would happen which is why beverage is the highest. Keeps and taverns typically set up extra room for people to stay the night but the tax on that is 10% because we don't want people to be discouraged on staying and instead walking through the streets drunk and causing problems. It makes it so men from other tribes typically stay at our since the pricing isn't as high as other since most other tribes tax 30% on rooms. It's all things we had taught May today because the taxes are important features to how we run our tribe. It also is part of what keeps us in power as it's not making it so those below us would want to rebel since they aren't being taxed on very much and even out of what they are being taxed it isn't very much. We use gold coins or silver coins as money, so it's all in limited amounts which also helps with keeping price inflation down. We are pretty money smart and I could see why people wouldn't want to leave and would want to marry people who would come over to them and live here. They have also had people who married and left and came back when they were back at the same place for breading season. Since money goes farther, and prices stay lower than other places since it's not taxed as heavily. Except for when we are in breading season. We stay competitive with other places but they raise the prices for people who aren't part of the tribe. Those who are in the tribe get a "discount" which is really the normal price where those who aren't pay almost double normal because even foul bing the prices it's still less then almost any other tribes places. It took May a second to understand why we do that and why we tax the way we do but she did get it eventually. She's not very talented when it comes to the economy or really in hunting but she was good at making the rings and decorating. She also caught on quickly with riding and cooking and making fires which are all things that are necessary where the others are good to be able to understand and do but aren't completely necessary to understand except for some special circumstances.

We made dinner and ate them we all went and laid down. I was happy to be laying next to Corey and I new he wouldn't be leaving us for essentially the rest of the time. He would leave tomorrow after his father was here to set up the hunting area to be a place for them to return to after they leave the wedding celebration, but then he would return. I would get him the rest of the night. I also have a feeling Mays investigation into probing she's a virgin wouldn't last very long as it's not something the tribe care that much about. Her tribe does care about it though but it means that they're I'll only do what they normally do and anything Coreys father or Sam have requested.

Corey had said something about Sam being able to come here with his father tomorrow for the test but that means Mays face would need to be covered so he won't see her face before the wedding and she won't be able to see him but it's aloud to prove to they are virgins. I don't think Sam will do that, I feel like it would be more awkward and Sam doesn't seem like someone who really cares about that. I can't help but feel bad for May. She's just made it through her easiest day. The next to will be all about sex in reality.