Danika stared at the message a bit incredulously, and then flew in Kit's direction. They'd split up after reaching the big dwarven city that was built into a steep ravine like a series of giant stone stairs. It took her awhile to reach the level where Kit stood beside her NPC husband.

"Can you really form a party with him?" Danika demanded without any preamble.

Kit turned and gazed at her with a surprised expression. "Do you want me to leave our party and try it now? But it doesn't start until tomorrow?"

Before Danika could answer, the traveling merchant spoke, "I will be able to form a party with my wife during the Week of Hearts."

Danika turned to him and asked, "So it's restricted to the duration of the event?"

"There are occasionally specific quests where I may a.s.sist someone, but during the Week of Hearts I may a.s.sist my wife with any quest," the traveling merchant replied cheerfully.

Danika almost turned and told Kit to go look for a quest to hunt a dragon or some other impossible feat, but thought better of the idea when Kit said happily, "I already have a good quest for that, we can go rowing on the pond under the rainbows in the fairy capital city to search for a mating pair of Sonoyta Pupfish."

"Oh, that sounds fun," Danika replied instead. "Um, I only realized the other night, but the merchant is actually only two years old. Does that… I mean, he's designed to be older, but…"

The traveling merchant turned to her and teased gently, "I'm as old as the world ZipZing."

Kit gazed at them both. "Oh," she said thoughtfully. "It's weird how you're both right isn't it?" She actually giggled and Danika stared at her in amazement. "Well," she whispered, "then maybe like those stories of raising a child to be your bride, he'll be the best possible husband? Only without the guilt because he really is as old as the world."

Danika huffed a laugh and the merchant winked at her.

"What do you think you and Ais.h.i.+n will do for the event?" Kit asked curiously in a more normal tone.

"Um, I don't know, first I need to check with Shrubbery and MatchlessMinion," Danika explained.

Kit looked at her doubtfully and asked, "Won't those two go together so that you can pair up with Ais.h.i.+n?"

When Shrubbery and MatchlessMinion logged on, they were both scandalized that ZipZing hadn't already arranged to party with Ais.h.i.+n, so Danika finally replied to him.

--

All of "Living Jade Empire" had a pink tinge to it for the game's week of hearts. The heart moon was full and even in the daytime tinted the world slightly more pink. Pink, red, and white flowers seemed to be popping out of the melting snow everywhere as the first sign of winter melting into spring.

Ais.h.i.+n couldn't play until very late on the first day of the event, so Danika ironically spent more time questing alone during the beginning of the couple's holiday than she usually did. She still received double Karma for being in a party of two while he was offline though, which seemed like a bit of a cheat. She was given a lot of little quests to bring this or that flower to various NPCs with her Invigorated Bloom skill.

MatchlessMinion informed her when they crossed paths, that she had it easy. He and Shrubbery had logged on together and were apparently both playing from Shrubbery's place. His sister had wound up paired up with their friend Ranma instead of Justin as she'd expected. Apparently by the time she'd asked him, Justin had already agreed to pair up with Terri.

MatchlessMinion explained, with some amazement, "My sister didn't even complain after the first bout of pouting, but Ranma has been sending me messages about the Injustice of It All all day, and asking why I, as her brother, am not Doing Something about it. Like I would get involved even if I could?"

Shrubbery giggled and added, "Ranma is pretty cute in real life. As much as Salty claims to like Justin, I don't think she really minds."

MatchlessMinion just rolled his eyes.

When Ais.h.i.+n finally logged in, he was still on his phone, and the first thing he did was kiss her on the nose and say, "Thanks for waiting, sorry I'm late. I'll be home so I can use my console soon, but the VR system from Shrubbery was delayed by all the holiday s.h.i.+pping and is still in transit."

"It's fine," Danika replied as her wings sparkled pinkly, betraying her in her attempt to keep calm when he kissed her.

"You're so pink," he said and even in the flat tones from his phone the words sounded smug to her.

"Everything is pink!" she complained.

Ais.h.i.+n laughed at Danika's disgust with all the pinkness. He even added a long pink scarf, that an NPC gave him as a reward after their first event quest, to his usual dark outfit. Danika couldn't even argue against it, because the scarf made NPCs more likely to offer more coin in their rewards for the duration of the event.

During the event the two of them abandoned their usual focus on finding more animals so that she could learn the druidic Weaving Moonlight skill faster, and took every small festival related quest that they happened across instead.

Every city, town, and village held a festival of some kind, although the type of celebration varied from place to place. In the south where it was warmer there were cherry blossom festivals, and in the north where winter still held sway there were ice sculpting compet.i.tions. Other places venerated everything from mead to dancing. There was even one suddenly famous village where an outbreak of kissing bugs spread a vampire curse among a number of NPCs and players.

--

On Valentine's Day itself, Ais.h.i.+n had the morning off, but Danika still had to work. He didn't adventure alone like she had though, instead he had her let him carry her on his shoulder while she stayed logged in through the mobile version even when she was too busy to pay attention to "Living Jade Empire."

Danika thought that it really looked more like ZipZing was his familiar instead of the other way around.

At one point Ais.h.i.+n got into a battle with an angry lovelorn unicorn who had tried to prevent the wedding of the NPC girl that had used to feed it apples in the woods. Danika had looked over just in time to see Ais.h.i.+n impaled and dropped everything to use a restore prayer, only to discover that it was completely unnecessary. His health only dropped a little and he sliced through its horn that was supposed to be as hard as diamond with his katana.

Danika stared at her phone's screen and asked, "How did that not hurt you more and how did you cut it?"

Ais.h.i.+n's chibified avatar grinned, which looked incredibly bloodthirsty as he hamstrung the unicorn without hesitation, and he replied, "I'm your familiar, and this sword is named Durandal. It can cut anything and it's indestructible."

"Isn't that a European legend? Why is it a katana?" Danika objected. "And how do you have a legendary sword?"

"I don't know, and it was stolen from a dragon along with 11 other legendary weapons in the last big quest before the game opened to the public. I lucked out and caught one of the 12 NPC thieves, who dropped it when he died. All of the items are 'cursed' and can't be stolen or transferred from the characters who obtained them," Ais.h.i.+n explained as he finished off the poor unicorn.

Danika felt a bit sad. She wondered if there hadn't been a more peaceful solution, but the NPC couple rejoiced and rewarded Ais.h.i.+n and ZipZing lavishly. After a moment she returned to her work screen while asking, "Why does being my familiar make such a big difference?"

"Between the doubled health and energy I am going to be really hard to kill with ordinary damage anymore. I used the Blood of Ice skill," he told her cheerfully as he ate a piece of the candy the couple had offered in addition to the more valuable rewards. His health began to rise faster and was completely restored a moment later.

On her lunch break he said, "I wish I had the evening off too so that we could go out tonight. Are you sure we can't meet up before you leave tomorrow?"

"I'm sorry," she replied unhappily. She was still on the mobile version, but she was using voice, so he could hear her unhappy tone.

"I could see you off at the airport," he suggested uncertainly.

"Ais.h.i.+n…" Danika wasn't sure what to say. She knew from traveling with her parents when she was younger and from her aunt Hati's frequent complaints that she was going to have enough trouble just getting through all the checkpoints and she didn't want to add more complications. "Is waiting two more weeks really a problem?" she asked finally.

He replied ruefully, "When you put it that way, the obvious answer is, of course not."

"But is that your answer?" she asked hesitantly.

His little chibified avatar raised its fist as he declared, "I'll wait for you for as long as you want me to!" It grinned slyly as he added, "Impatiently, and I'll unfairly complain every time I'm free, even though you've never complained when I've been busy. But I'll wait, so don't worry."

Danika laughed and he blew her a kiss.