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Rylee Kaelie Tanda always felt uncomfortable in her body for as long as she could remember. It was only right that when she discovered transgender people she would find relief and become comfortable when she no longer had to conform to her biological gender. Her absentee parents only made it easier as once she was proven to be able to take care of herself without problems she was left in an apartment with only daily checkups that would grow farther and farther apart as she grew. It was with all of this that she embraced being Horatius Azrael Tanda.
Horatius' parents hardly put up any resistance, if any at all, and gave her money to do whatever she desired except for testosterone until they gave the go-ahead. This did however lead her parents to believe they needed a backup in case he couldn't fill the position that was to be his, eventually, from birth.
The Tanda's were blessed with twin girls and while having siblings was a good thing for Horatius, as he had been lonely, his parents did not think so but the doctor forbade them from trying to conceive again as the strain would surely kill the mother and the babies.
The twins were kept in the adult Tanda's residence so Horatius, affectionately dubbed Hora by the twins, made sure to visit every day to have someone to interact with and keep them company.
The Tanda adults were often, or always, busy running the many businesses under the Tanda name. This of course meant he was required to learn everything from a young age allowing for him to be discovered as a genius, lifting a weight off his parent's shoulders as they had wondered whether they had to plan an engagement for him to teach his future spouse the various jobs they would be required to do. It was quickly proven that he quickly caught on as he learned everything and could even get things done faster than his parents. This encouraged his parents to take a few off days.
Allowing him to gain experience while getting a break had an even bigger impact than was expected. With Hora working in place of his parents his sisters, Xena and Zenni, were able to learn the business, which showed their advanced intellect and left many questioning how all three children hid it for this long. This led to many Tanda family businesses having a small but unexpected, meaningful, and suspicious growth. This led to many questions that upset many people, including a man of higher standing than the Tanda's.
In response to the man's anger, the adults of the Tanda had assigned bodyguards that while said to be some top individuals in their field were still outmatched by the skill of Horatius from his waxing and waning interest in different fighting styles in which he mastered before moving on to the next fighting style.
Despite the additional protection for all of the family members, it did nothing to deter the man from continuing his assault on the Tanda family. It eventually reached a point where everyone knew but couldn't do anything about it as the man didn't leave any evidence of his crimes. Things continued to progress until, at a public event, a sniper was able to take a shot at Tanda Senior which left him in a coma. A few weeks after the incident Tanda senior was drugged in the hospital despite the additional security. Eventually, the older female Tanda contracts a disease due to the stress of the businesses, the Tanda senior death, and the constant vigilance she has to keep for any threats and passes away.
Leaving Horatius to run the various businesses under his family's name. Due to the sibling's above-average intelligence, they get the companies back on track and have sufficiently divided the work between them to have time to spend with each other.
Ryuk Kiernan Perdita was engaged to Lisa Hape Nirocks at the age of seven and after putting up with her arrogant attitude for that long, one was hard-pressed to find a reason not to murder her. The only thing holding Ryuk back was the lack of better high-standing ladies and his parents, Meara and Ledger Perdita, threatened to arrange engagements for his twelve-year-old sister with older men.
Ryuk's only hope to not marry Lisa was a marriage contract of old, sealed with magic and blood, that once activated would bind one for the rest of one's life unless all of the conditions were fulfilled in a two-year time frame, where one would then be able to break it upon agreement from both parties involved.
To keep his parents from using his sister instead of him when the contract was activated Charlotte was sent to stay with a trusted relative, his paternal aunt Sienna. It was not a foolproof plan but it was the best one that could be thought of on such short notice of his pending wedding in one month.
It was expected that the person he was forcing to marry him, Horatius Tanda, would be upset as only reasonable but their reaction was not expected. When Ryuk looked into him his response to the situation made more sense and sparked an interest in him for Ryuk.
Horatius met Ryuk and after spending time together decided that he would rather stay single. This sparks several fights between the two over the arranged marriage. Horatius eventually tried to run away multiple times but was caught each time. This led to Horatius's temporary imprisonment by Ryuk until he was sure he would leave. While Xena and Zenni were upset with the contract they understood the magic behind it and accepted it on the condition that Ryuk never hurt Horatius. An agreement was made so that if that ever happened it would end with Ryuk's death at the hands of the two sisters.
While Ryuk and Horatius are trying to sort out their new normal, Ledger and Meara Perdita are dealing with the backlash of a broken engagement between the Perdita family and the Nirocks family. After several hours of complaints and screaming matches, mostly because of Lisa Nirocks over losing her soulmate, it was agreed upon that they would be getting rid of Horatius, and Ryuk and Lisa would become engaged again.
With only a week until the wedding, Aunt Sienna and Charlotte make their way back to Perdita Manor. This causes Ledger and Meare to come up with a plan to kill two birds with one stone. They were going to make Charlotte kill Horatius, send her off to save face after she loses the trust of Ryuk, and close him off from anyone else so that they may use him as they wish.
They had little hope of succeeding from the beginning as the Tanda family and the rest of the Perdita family foresaw this and had made cogent plans in case they tried something like this. The plan dug its own grave and covered itself up when Xena and Zenni overheard the plan. Leading to everyone else finding out mere minutes later.
Come the day of the wedding, they were prepared to kick the Perdita seniors and Lisa out of their lives. For such a time crunch one would think they wouldn't be able to make any plans but it was the opposite. Cop and detectives were invited undercover to arrest them as well as additional security in case anything else happened. It was thought that because of all the contingencies, everything would go just fine even with a lot of hiccups. However, they were wrong.
Jack White is one of the richest men in the world but few people know that he is also Horatius, Xena, and Zenni's grandfather. The late Tanda couple went to meet him a few years back under the guise of business but it was really a meeting so White could try to convince them to let him see his grandkids. The Tanda's were so enraged they tried to kill White. The incident was kept quiet but this upset Janelle White, Jack White's wife, so she sent people to kill them in return.
Before Janelle married Jack, he had a wife named Maya. They loved each other dearly but she died of cancer when his daughter, Sarah, was six. He married Janelle so Sarah would have a mother figure around.
Janelle was jealous of the Tanda family's magic and hated Sarah because she wasn't her biological child. It was made worse by the fact that Jack would never love her the way he loved Maya. Sarah broke the camel back when she married Author Tanda and Janelle forever ruined Jack, Sarah, and Author's relationship.
The thugs and snipers that were originally hired as extras by Ledger and Meare were paid triple by Janelle to make sure they killed Horatius and injured Xena and Zenni.
People were hired by Perdita Senior to attack Horatius if he didn't start coughing up blood by the time they got to their vows. They were caught before they could get within 20 feet of Horatius. The attackers, knowing they were going to jail, ratted out Ledger and Meare. The attackers were questioned more extensively and it was revealed that they were threatened with the lives of their relatives if they didn't comply. With the reveal so of the socialite came forward and admitted they were threatened into doing their bidding a few times as well. Ledger and Meare, having been handcuffed when the attackers outed them originally, were carted off with the socialites and attackers for official questioning.
As everyone starts calming down, two shots ring out. A bullet had hit the arm of a police officer and another had planted itself in Horatius's left lung. Chaos erupted immediately. The bullet falls out of Horatius, hitting the ground with barely a sound. He puts pressure on the wound with the help of Charlotte, who had run to help him as Ryuk protected Xena, Zenni, and his aunt Sienna. Charlotte picked up the bullet, remarking that she had seen the insignia on the bullet before. After studying it, Horatius remembered that it was the insignia of a criminal organization that had tried to harm him and his siblings, as well as kill his father. He calls for the nearby officers and bodyguards to protect his sisters and orders the rest to watch over the guests.
Backup was called soon after when someone shouted upon noticing how blood-drenched his clothes were. In the ten minutes spent waiting for reinforcements to arrive, 19 guests, 16 bodyguards, and 13 police officers were killed. This excluded the many who looked on the brink of death after taking down the 25 thugs that had stormed the place after the shots started. Everyone else looked bruised and tired but were otherwise unharmed.
With the arrival of reinforcements, it took half an hour to subdue the criminals. No one else had gotten hurt but Horatius was losing blood quickly with the addition of a bullet wound in his shoulder, kidney, and thigh. Having sustained these injuries during the ten-minute wait for backup, he was rushed to the hospital.
Due to the severe blood loss, he was put into a three-week healing coma. It was during that time that Jack divorced Janelle. The criminals admitted she was the one in charge of the organization and ordered a hit on Horatius as well as killed the late Tandas. She was given a life sentence along with Ledger and Meare. Hope snuck into the hospital to kill Horatius but was stopped by Ryuk, who was visiting, who then broke a few of her bones. She is receiving medical attention before she is shipped off to jail.
When Horatius woke up, he was out of it because of the drugs but it didn't last that long as he was soon taken off of them. He was visited by Sienna and Charlotte first. Charlotte was especially worried about him because she was next to him as he bled out. They filled him in on what happened during his brief coma. Ryuk, Xena, and Zenni had been organizing and hosting funerals for those who had lost family members in the accident as well as helping those who had been left without guardians. The attackers were sentenced very quickly as they all had no qualms about admitting what the others had done, even going as far as to tell them how they could find the evidence. Out of the three attackers that said they had been threatened, only one was lying so their sentences were dramatically reduced and less harmful.
Xena and Zenni were next to rush in as Sienna and Charlotte were leaving. They were quick to give their goodbyes, giving the siblings privacy. They give him the rundown of their parents' relationship with their grandfather. It was a shock to Hora when they told him Janelle had killed them and not Jack as he had thought. The girls invited White into the room from where he was waiting outside with security. He was honest about his relationships with their parents and his ex-wife but wanted to be a part of their life if he would let them they agreed of course but they left as by then Ryuk was back from the last funeral planned that day.
As soon as the three were out the door, Ryuk was at his bedside hugging him like his life depended on it. He fussed over Hora for the next fifteen minutes worried he was in any type of pain. It was then offered by Ryuk to exterminate the engagement contract as he no longer needed it. Ryuk was calm as he said it but it showed in his eyes that he didn't want to break the contract but wanted Horatius to know he had options.
Somewhere in the last few months, Horatius had fallen in love with Ryuk who, despite his rough exterior, was a sweet person. Getting to know Ryuk for who he is and Ryuk loving him just for being himself made him happy. As such, Ryuk and Horatius didn't end up breaking the contract but instead kissed each other whale trying to communicate every bit of love they felt for each other through that kiss.
A few months later Horatius and Ryuk had a proper marriage ceremony. It was private with the Priest, Jack, Sienna, Charlotte, Xena, and Zenni being the only other people in attendance. The vows given by Ryuk were some of the most beautiful and heartwarming the quest had ever heard causing the priest and the females, except for Charlotte who looked close but wouldn't let them fall, to cry tears of happiness and awe. The scene that made everyone cry was when Hoartius spoke his vows.
Horatius said, "When I first met you, I thought you would just be another source of amusement for me that I would throw away when I got the chance. I was proven wrong when you made me hate you cause you refused to let me go. My views about you changed tho when you started to open up to me. I was shown a side of you I had never seen before. It was surreal to me and at the beginning, once I got used to it, I didn't care for it. Over time however, I found myself craving one of the smiles you would have when you recounted something funny that happened when you were with Sienna and Charlotte or the way you try to sleep in every day knowing you have to get up but try to stay in bed for as long as possible or even the look you give to anyone you're fond off but you can't show it because you have an image to uphold. I crave the way you look at me when you're tired, how you always look so busy yet make sure you have time for your family, how you study every crack and crevice of a room before you have a full cup of coffee to wake you up or every the smirk you give when you shut down a person so thoroughly theirs no way they will ever try to talk to you on their own free will. Every time you're not in my presence I'm reminded of that. All those threats against my life meant nothing in the face of the fact that it was a part of my journey that led me to this altar with you. I would go through it all over again if it meant we would end up here again. I wish to love you, protect you, care for you, and anything and everything in between until the end of time itself."
The priest after taking a minute to calm down then said "You may now kiss". Wasting no time they did just that. It was cut short by the sound of Zenni saying "Ew", in the background causing Horatius to break away from the kiss laughing. Ryuk looked a bit annoyed but just huffed. Everyone started to walk over to them to congratulate them.
Looking over at them, Horatius was happy with how far they had come. They had some bad things happen in the past but they overcame them. Scarred as they were they had each other to lean on. No matter what. They just had to take things one day at a time.